The Obama and Hillary War

I've never seen such a mess as the Democrat Party this year. I'm too young to remember 1968, so maybe that was similarly screwed up, but even to someone like me, who wants Obama to lose, it's just a sad, sad thing to watch, this implosion of the Democratic Party.

There are arguments that can be made that no amount of placating would have satisfied either the Clintons or their supporters. I think there's some truth to that. This is the power couple who rode to victory in 1992 saying we were getting two for one. They tried governing that way for the first two years of Bill Clinton's presidency, and it led directly to the Republican Revolution which gave the GOP control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Way back in the primaries, I argued that Barack Obama would be a more difficult candidate to beat than Hillary Clinton because every criticism of Obama would be called racism. I was right that everything is called racism (who knew that "tall" was a "dog whistle" for "he's black"?), but in our close-to-post-racial society, voters seem tired of this charge. You can't run as a post-racial candidate who then periodically reminds us that you're black. That doesn't work.

So now, I look at Hillary Clinton and see that it would have been much harder for John McCain to beat her, since they are both relatively centrist candidates (and please don't try to argue that Obama is; he's the farthest left candidate the Dems have dared to run in three decades). Unfortunately for the Dems, Obama chose to be disrespectful of Clinton in the V.P. vetting contest but caved on the convention, so he has won the battle but lost the war.

Going with a candidate about whom little was known--outside of his narcissistic books--provided the Dems the "fresh face" they wanted, but it will cost them as voters begin to realize that his history isn't the Camelot they are being fed at the DNC convention. His voting record is very liberal. His executive experience, such as it is, is spotty and questionable. And community activist? Puh-lease. That phrase is now the biggest joke of the election.

It's hard to believe that the man who was supposedly unbeatable back in the primaries is now faced with a convention that is more fractured than united. But then, that is the hope and change of Barack Obama.