For weeks now Hillary has been slinging mud at Barack Obama (which normally would be unconcionable to do with a fellow government) using the argument that she's "vetting" Obama the way the Republicans would. Well now that this has gone on for awhile (really since before Ohio & Texas at least) let's examine that argument a little bit. Ironically, this diary was inspired by something Pat Buchanan said - Go figure.
I had Hardball or Countdown on (probably Hardball bc I don't think Buchanan's on Countdown as much) when Pat Buchanan said something a little eye opening for me. I don't remember the exact words, but the gist of the statement was "The Republicans better try something else because this doesn't seem to be working" (about some Hillary attack - can't remember which one).
That's when it occurred to me that rather than "vetting" Obama, Hillary is actually doing Republican market research for them and at the end of this they will pretty much have a blueprint for success. Hillary may not actually be "dirt digging" on Obama and doing preliminary research by actively trying to dig up things she might be able to use against him (although, I would be surprised if she isn't). The real value she brings to the GOP is her market testing. I'm sure they're watching the reaction in the polls of every argument she uses against him, every piece of mud she slings, etc. As the voter audience reacts, you can bet Republicans are jotting down notes about what "mud" has the most effect where. This isn't "vetting" a candidate, it's providing information on which attacks are most effective, when, and to what audience so the Republicans can concentrate on the stuff that works and leave out the stuff that doesn't. It's also giving the Republicans plenty of time to prepare the materials for their "highly-targeted" attack campaign.
The more time we let them have for planning, the better their planning will be. Whoever our nominee is (and I fervently hope it's Obama) they need to be engaged with the Republican nominee now. The longer this campaign goes on the more negative the Clinton team and their surrogates seem to be going. In the end, John McCain may not need to say anything negative himself at all - it'd probably be quite effective for the GOP attack machine to just run a bunch of clips of Clinton saying all the things she's said (both negative about Obama, and positive about McCain)... At that point how is Hillary going to "do everything she can" to get our democratic nominee elected? What is she going to say? "I was lying before when I said all that stuff, really I think he's the best candidate for the job?" Truthfully, the campaign she's run thus far has killed most of her usefullness if Obama is chosen as the nominee (and again, this is my most fervent hope!!!) because when she endorses him for president, nobody is going to actually believe her.
Furthermore, Hillary is not qualified to "vet" Obama because she cannot know what the Republican attack machine is going to put up against him. At best, she can argue that she's airing out some of his dirty laundry ahead of time... but we've seen from previous GOP attack campaigns that the Republicans hardly need truthful information to attack (brochures about Kerry banning the bible in WV come to anyone else's mind?). So most likely what's happening is that her campaign's behavior will have provided lots of valuable research the GOP can use - and then, of course, they'll have their own crazy stuff that will have nothing to do with anything that's been said so far. And every day this primary continues, is one less day the Democrats have to plan, focus, strategize, research for their own presidential nominee.