Reading Jerome's post this afternoon, I must respectfully, though strongly, disagree with the sentiment he passes along from Big Tent Democrat that Obama supporters' "hatred of Bill and Hillary Clinton has become more important to them than Obama's chances of winning in November."
Listening to part of last night's debate and catching some of the highlights (or lowlights, depending on your point of view), I wouldn't use the words of a Daily Kos commenter Markos points to, namely that the commenter no longer considers Hillary Clinton a Democrat as a result of her use of right wing driven attacks against Barack Obama.
What I would say, however, is this: Clinton is not beyond reproach. She isn't above criticism. The Clintons no doubt did a lot of good for the party, helping capitalize on voters' sentiments to secure a victory in the 1992 presidential election -- the Democrats' first general election win in 16 years. And although the party lost its 40-year majority in the House, its 34-of-40-year majority in the Senate, and much more lower down the ticket on their watch -- in short, in many ways the party shrunk and atrophied during this period -- the party was nearly able to retake the Congress and hold on to the White House when they left office at the end of the millennium. What's more, the Clinton campaign apparatus, once out of power this decade, helped build and fund major chunks of what is now the progressive establishment that was so long missing (with, for instance, Bill Clinton chief of staff John Podesta founding the Center for American Progress).
However, even as the Clinton's earned a deal of goodwill, they did not earn so much that they could subsequently do things that could detrimentally affect the party down the line. For instance, a few weeks ago I noted that key Clinton supporters -- many of the bundlers funding her campaign -- began threatening to cut of funding for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. In response, grassroots supporters and big dollar contributers of Barack Obama pledged to step up on behalf of the committee tasked with ensuring that there is a Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives during the 111th Congress. Indeed, the DCCC pulled in more than $10 million in March, a significant portion of which came from the fact that the committee more than tripled its grassroots fundraising from the first quarter of 2007 to the first quarter of 2008.
But it goes beyond that as well. No one faults Clinton for running a strenuous campaign for the nomination. However, there are lines in politics. And when a race gets to the point where one candidate is much more likely to secure the nomination than the other (I'm talking greater than 3:1), the candidate less likely to win the nomination must begin to seriously think about the type of campaign that he or she is willing to wage and, moreover, if that campaign will hurt the party in the long run.
There is no question that if Obama is the nominee, the Republicans will throw everything, including the kitchen sink at him -- just as they would not hesitate to mercilessly attack Clinton. Having some of these attacks played out during the primary campaign may limit their subsequent impact, particularly if the candidate being attacked is able to successfully push back.
Nevertheless, as I said before, there is a line. That line is crossed when the attacks are no longer simply mentions of the very real fact that the Democratic nominee is going to be hit by the Republicans, but go beyond that to validations of the Republican attacks. For instance, when Bill Clinton goes out and concedes the issue of national security to John McCain and tacitly attacks Obama on the same issue -- in a way that could be subsequently used in a general election, regardless of whether Obama or Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee -- that's not building up the party, it's tearing it down. When Hillary Clinton runs an overwhelmingly negative campaign against Obama in a way that hurts her standing with the American people at least as much as it does his (her favorable/unfavorable spread is now 44 percent/54 percent, according to Washington Post/ABC News polling, down from 58 percent/40 percent just three months ago), that doesn't build up the party, it tears it down. And when Clinton goes down in the gutter for the first 45 minutes of what was likely the final Democratic debate, that doesn't build up the party, it tears it down.
So I would not question whether or not Hillary Clinton is a Democrat. But at the same time, I wouldn't by any means agree with the proposition that Obama supporters care more about their hatred of the Clintons than they do about electing Obama in November. Hoping for a unified party, one in which the part of the party leadership does not try to cut down another part of the party leadership to the detriment of the party as a whole, is not an ignoble goal.
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