Classic Politics

As an Obama fan I am annoyed if not surprised by Hillary's cosmetic victory in yesterday's primaries. I don't like the way things are going even one little bit. It's not that I don't think Obama is holding up well. I do think he is. But Hillary and her directors are turning the Democrat side of these primaries into something so distasteful as to challenge even some of her strongest supporters. She is using all of the known dirty tricks that politicians in dire straits use to win elections and in so doing she is doing severe damage to the progress that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is trying to achieve.
The result of Hillary's campaigning may or may not win her the eventual nomination and it may or may not win her victory in November against her virtual twin John McCain who no doubt will match Hillary's negativism tit for tat. But more important, Hillary is destroying the distinction that Obama is trying to make between Democrats and Republicans. Obama is trying to send the message to America that the Democratic Party is the party of progress and of ideas and of solutions and of cooperation in trying to achieve these goals. Hillary is using the same old divide and conquer approach that won George W. Bush his victories in 2000 and 2004 and the Republicans Party their victories beginning in 1994.
There's every reason to think that negative divide-and-conquer politics wins votes from our fear-centered reactionary electorate. There is no reason to believe and every reason not to believe that our country is better off when we rely on negative politics to select our leaders.
If this feels like sour grapes, fine. So be it. Hillary won a clear cosmetic victory yesterday and I don't like the way she went about it. Obama did as well as I was expecting him to do so it isn't a disappointment to me that the day worked out the way it did. Obama is still clearly in the lead in terms of convention delegates. That isn't what has me upset this morning.
What has me upset is that what is at stake here is not the image of the Democratic Party but its heart and soul. In the same way that Tom DeLay, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney, and yes George W. Bush hijacked the Republican Party and destroyed its soul, Hillary and her advisors, hungry for victory and power, are doing the same thing to the Democratic Party. I for one don't want to see that happen. I want to see progress for the progressive movement within the party. If Republicans had a progressive movement, a movement based on reason and logic and ethics rather than on reactionary fear mongering and Machiavellian power grabbing, I would support that too. That's where American politics needs to go. We need to get out of this gutter. Here's hoping that McCain's paternal supremacy and Hillary's maternal supremacy don't again win out in America over progressive politics.
I do realize that what Hillary is doing to Obama is no different from what McCain will do to him. There is no doubt that Obama has an opportunity here to distinguish himself. But Hillary is destroying all claim to the notion that dirty politics is a Republican thing and she's doing it right out in the open where everyone can see it. She may or may not be damaging the chances that a Democrat will become president next year. What she is doing, though, is damaging the chance that such a victory would spell a difference in America. She is ripping the heart out of the Democratic Party. It's no wonder that she doesn't have the overwhelming support of the party!