Around The Campaign 2008 Sphere

NOTE: Our famous link-fest giving you links to Campaign 2008 posts from weblogs of differing viewpoints, and our pithy comments about many of them. Links and quotes do not necessarily represent the viewpoint of TMV or its co-writers.

The Case For Hillary Clinton And Against Barack Obama is laid out in a MUST READ post by The Democratic Daily’s JoAnne Tybinka Blasko. Pointed? Yes. But it avoids the screaming, adjective-hurling demonization that you now see on many weblogs that have started to endorse candidates and become open soldiers in the political wars. She provides much material for thoughtful — and heated — debate. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED to all.

Hillary Clinton Is Busy Today: There are charges that she is running away from the Wisconsin primary to Texas which might not be a bad idea when you look at it.

Weblogs And Commenters Are Becoming Sensitive as election year draws closer. Earlier in the year we got endless emails from Ron Paul supporters if we dared run a post that was critical (we were then called “corrupt” or pitching a candidate, just as we were called “fair” and “really objective” when we had a post that was in the slightest way complimentary). The past two months this has come from Hillary Clinton supporters as we have covered the controversy over Bill Clinton’s role in the campaign and the ex-Prez’s controversial comments. One week we got 6 scolding emails.

In emails and in comments some people STILL insist the the race card was never raised by the Clinton campaign against Senator Barack Obama. So to underscore that we didn’t make it up (and we will continue reporting this and other campaign developments and trends, even though some say they will never return to TMV again if we do) here are two links 4 U:

1. San Diego Union Tribune columnist Ruben Navarrette is the latest to address the issue HERE. He begins:

Defeat has a way of unmasking Hillary Clinton. It’s when she suffers setbacks that the real Hillary comes out.

And it’s not a kinder and gentler version of the original. There are those political observers and pundits who insist that after Clinton lost Iowa, she demonstrated a personal vulnerability that helped her triumph in New Hampshire.

That is — to borrow a phrase — a fairy tale. When Hillary loses, she gets angry and condescending and terribly unappealing.

The same goes for her supporters. Former President Bill Clinton’s “bubba eruptions” came after Hillary Clinton had lost key contests. It was after Hillary’s loss in Iowa that her husband Bill ripped into the media for allegedly going soft on Obama. And it was after Hillary lost South Carolina that Bill tried to cut Obama down to size by comparing him to Jesse Jackson.

Further down:

Then there is the resurgence of the race card. Bill Clinton was criticized for insinuating that black voters in South Carolina would vote for Obama just because he’s black.

Well, in trying to explain why Obama won the Louisiana primary, Hillary did pretty much the same thing by crediting “a very strong and very proud African-American electorate.” They never learn.

And then it got worse. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Clinton supporter, recently told the editorial board of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that some white people in his state “are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate.” Later, in an interview on MSNBC, the Democrat tried to defend his comments by saying that Hillary Clinton had “the same handicap” since there were men who didn’t want to see a woman serve as commander in chief.

And they say all the cavemen are Republicans.

All of this has been discussed ad nauseum in weblogs, on TV and the radio so those in emails and in comments who insist the issue never came up are….a bit “uninformed.”

2. Andrew Walden, Editor of the Hawai`i Free Press in Hilo, HI, writing in Pajamas Media, looks at the use of the race card in the Clinton campaign. Here’s the beginning:

Nearly two weeks after a crime had been committed in South Carolina, the prime suspect, Bill Clinton, was finally “tracked down at a local diner” in Maine February 8. Wagging his familiar finger, Clinton informed a reporter from Maine TV station WCSH that he “learned a very valuable lesson. … I have to let her defend herself.” And just in case the old familiar wagging finger was not enough, Bill added the biggest whopper of all: “I don’t want to be the story.”

But if the polls are to be believed, hiding Bill up in Maine was too little, too late. Democrats are abandoning Bill Clinton — and Hillary — like rats from a sinking ship. The Clinton-Obama near-tie on Super Tuesday was the line of Obama’s ascent crossing that of Hillary Clinton’s demise. Barack Obama has proceeded to defeat Hillary in every state since. Bill Clinton’s power is no longer “crackling through his jeans.” The sudden loss is the Clintons’ Ceausescu moment.

Is racism the unforgivable crime finally ending Democrats’ 16-year love affair with Bill Clinton? No, it’s worse: from New Hampshire to South Carolina, Clinton’s carefully calculated and racially tinged attacks on Obama risked setting black America free from the Democrat Party.

He details how JFK won black voters in 1960, cementing them to the Democratic coalition. Then he writes:

Bill Clinton’s campaign strategy comes right out of Hillary’s infamous and long-hidden 1969 senior thesis on radical organizer Saul Alinsky. Alinsky’s 13th Rule for Radicals is: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” For three weeks in January, the Clintons and their backers did their best to polarize non-black Democrat voters against Obama, bringing up Obama’s admitted past drug use and firing off one-liners like “Lyndon Johnson,” “fairy-tale,” “shuck and jive,” and “spade work” to increasing choruses of anger from liberals and conservatives alike. But it backfired.

Read it all.

So it HAS BEEN an issue.

And Clinton supporters who write to weblogs or email writers lambasting them for mentioning it and pretending the issue has not come up are not doing their candidate any good, or enhancing their own credibility. It’s a reason why the Clinton campaign is losing African-American support and now faces a problem: if the Clintons win the nomination, they have generated bitterness that will be difficult to erase since the tactics have been so controversial. And there is lots of documentation that it has been an issue.

A Moderate Black Blogger Has Had Enough Of BOTH SIDES in the Democratic Party. Booker Rising points to this post by Terrance, a Clinton supporter, who is disgusted by both sides, particularly the Superdelegate battle and says adios to the Demmies:

What has pushed me over the edge, has been this contentious battle for the Democratic nominee. Although I have been engaged in this recent primary season only for a short time, all of the back-biting, two-faced and racist behavior exhibited by Democrats on all sides has turned me off. I’ve found myself physically sick and angry over recent weeks. The battle over ’super delegates’ and the de-delegated states – Florida and Michigan – and how (or if) they should be reinstated/instrumental in this primary season is demonstrating Democratic politics at its worst. The liberal media – such as CNN, MSNBC and NBC – have made Senator Barack Obama, ‘the media darling’ and Senator Hillary Clinton ‘the polarizer’. I have been incensed and amazed by Duplicitous Democrats such as David Wilhelm, Bill Clinton’s ex-campaign manager, swift-boated John Kerry, and dinosaur Ted Kennedy. Likewise I have raised an eyebrow at Hillary’s expeditious appointment of a black campaign manager, Oprah’s atypical political endorsement, Rep. John Lewis’ alleged flip-flopping, and BET founder Bob Johnson’s flippant drug jab. These are just a few additional reasons as to why I have decided to stop riding the jackass. It all makes me nauseous.

Who Will John McCain Pick As His Veep? McCain (you know, he’s the guy who’s smiling as he watches Clinton and Obama cut each other to shreds) is being closely watched now by conservatives who want to make sure he doesn’t pick “another RINO” as his Vice Presidential candidate. But now there are fears that he is planning to do just that.

The Church Of Latter Day Obama? That’s what Publius Pundit sees — and he sees a double standard.

But What About Hillary Clinton’s Strategy? Is it the Giuliani strategy?

But Clinton Is Battling More Than A Politician according to O!pinion here.

Meanwhile, John McCain Battles The McCain Mutiny writes Muth’s Truths:

About the only consolation Republicans can take from the presidential race right about now is that the Democrats are even more screwed up than they are. Some consolation. But that might be the only glint of optimism for Republicans, as the mutiny by conservatives against the party’s all-but-crowned presidential nominee is far wider and far deeper than many would care to admit.

Let’s face it, John McCain has gone out of his way to poke conservatives in the eyes for years, and conservative leaders who are now in open revolt command an awful lot of influence over millions of grassroots conservatives on issues ranging from taxes to guns; from immigration to free speech. And I’m not just talking about conservative talk-radio hosts here. I’m talking about the heads of established, highly-respected, well-funded conservative organizations which have been around a lot longer than John McCain has been in Congress.

So what does John McCain have to do to herd these right-pawed cats into his corner?

Read it all to find out…