Jake Tapper at ABC [1] is reporting:ABC News has learned that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.It’s the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of of launching serious criticisms on a rival.
Now look, I am reluctant to turn this site into all Hillary all the time, and I know it’s coming damn near to that… just within the last week.
[2]Thing is, it’s kind of hard to avoid given the unending stream of nastiness coming out of the Clinton campaign. To say the woman’s endlessly ruthless, is to understate the matter on an order of scale. That’s not exactly an enviable position for somebody who is running a campaign ostensibly on their likability. That’s part of what’s so damn funny about all this. I know of very few people who consider her even remotely likable, even her own people are starting to admit that her negatives are sky high. Keep in mind, these are fellow Democrats she’s going over. Can you imagine what it’s going to be about toward October and November if she gets the nomination?
Democrats Against Hillary… over on Blogspot [3] is saying exactly this.. and they give the reason:
Hillary Clinton called Barack Obama a crack dealer for a reason: to prove to Democratic primary voters that she’ll fight dirty against the Republicans and to show that she’s willing to do anything, no matter how disgusting, to become president.
She already has a reputation as an untamable shrew, so none of this should be any surprise to any regular reader of any of the right side blogs, particularly this one. But you gotta figure at some point that the woman is just going to be too hot for the voters to handle. Then again, given those two I was discussing about four o’clock this morning [4], perhaps there is no limit to the amount of this nonsense the Democrats will put up with. Maybe. The first couple of primaries, I think will tell the tale. All the positive polling data in the world didn’t help Howard Dean. He was in the lead at this point, remember?
[5]The interesting thing about all of this is the amount of money that the Democrats are spending to beat each other up. Most certainly this is money that is not going to be spent going after Republicans. Granted, that under election finance law… laws she and her erstwhile husband have a questionable past on…these are separate books, the primary expenditures and the general election expenditures. And the Clinton machine has lots of money to spend. Does anyone really think the Chinese connection dried up when Norman Hsu got caught?
Yet, consider the average donor to some Democrat other than Hillary. He’s already been fairly generous in trying to fight the well funded… and quite probably illegally funded, Hillary Clinton smear machine. Assuming, despite all that money spent, Hillary Clinton doesn’t win the nomination, (which seems to be the way things are going at the moment) that leaves whoever the eventual nominee is with a donor base that’s fairly well tapped out. That has got to affect the general election outcome.
If I’m a Republican candidate for president, I’m watching this battle on the Democrat side, with some degree of relief. The Republicans are bound to benefit from Hillary Clinton’s scorched earth policy. They could hardly do else, at the end of the cycle.
Addendum: (David L)
All Mrs. Clinton all the time? I object to the omission of my efforts to include both B.J. and Mrs. Clinton is my bashing err blogging. The Clintons are a political tag team, one can not exist without the other.
The Clinton tag team allows one Clinton make outragous lies without the other Clinton having to bother to defend the lie. Witness the B.J.’s yarn about sending Forty-One as an envoy [6]and his claim that his wife was a genius [7]. If Mrs. Clinton made either of these statements, she’d be obligated t defend them, but could not. So while B.J makes them, Mrs. Clinton gets a free pass.
Addendum II: (Bit)
Your objection is noted, and stipulated to.
Matter of fact, I heard a story the other day, and I don’t remember exactly… where the story involved Bill Clinton showing up with Hillary Clinton to some kind of presser. Hillary Clinton was busy speaking outside of a shopping plaza, and Bubba decided he was getting bored and went into the grocery store, and, well, most of the crowd that was outside followed him inside, and the situation yet well out of control. Hillary’s left standing on the stage outside wondering where the hell her crowd went, meantime Bill’s inside signing autographs. The fact is that he’s more popular than she ever was, which is a twist in her pantyhose that she’s still having trouble negotiating.
I suspect this disparity is going to be a factor in her losing the nomination, but we’ll see.
Of the two, I suspected he gets away with the grander lies, based solely on that popularity.