Narrative Shift and Putting Hillary on Notice

RenaRF has a great diary this morning that lays out the many sins of the sinister Clinton campaign.

Additionally, within the last 24 hours, we've seen a breakthrough in the all-powerful media narrative, as reporters have fallen in love with the framing of Hillary "pulling a Tonya Harding" as her prime strategy going forward.

This idea that self-interest by the Clinton campaign will result in a never-ceasing effort to diminish Barack Obama, even if it means major damage to the Democratic Party, is something that has moved from beyond the blogosphere and is gaining traction as a political action item.

I suspect there are a lot of Democratic leaders who want to see this circus come to an end, but they can't figure out a way to short-circuit this process prior to the Pennsylvania primary without appearing that they are the ones who are doing the knee-capping, while also giving off the appearance to detractors that the party is afraid of the internal divisiveness that would come from having a conversation on the issue of race.

My suggestion to Pelosi, Reid, Gore, Carter, et al, then is: If you can't end the process, at least recognize you have the means to control it.

Party leadership needs to line up and privately approach the Clinton campaign. Ground rules for not damaging the party need to be affirmed. Anyone with a brain recognizes what a cheap shot and incredibly petty ploy Hillary's sudden broaching of the Wright subject was yesterday, as she tried to wriggle free of the Bosnia blowback. The party leaders need to let the campaign know they view that as Strike One. They have now been warned.

One more occasion that clearly and so deviously attempts to use negative tactics to unfairly damage Obama's image will result in a very public call-out by leadership to the campaign. That would be the equivalent of Strike Two and put them in an 0-2 count with only a cracked bat in their hands. A Strike Three incident would result in leadership demanding an end to the campaign.

I'm sure there would be much long-term bitterness from Camp Clinton over such an imposition of authority, but there's going to be long-term bitterness in a lot of places regardless of how this campaign plays out. The least the party can do is demand an end to tactics out of the Republican playbook that are damaging the party at-large.

This would be playing hardball, and few people appreciate a game of hardball anymore than the Clintons.