Have some of "The Rights" complaints about the Clintons been validated by her campaign tactics?
Maybe "The Right" had a point.
I've been watching Hillary Clinton with some surprise for at least two months. Having been the presumptive nominee just six months ago or less, it's been fascinating to watch her slide in to irrelevancy. Given both the name recognition she posses and the money machine she commanded (not to mention a tireless cheerleader in her husband, President Bill Clinton,) it's been somewhat startling to watch her fail.
The most interesting thing to me, though, has been the polarization of Democrats. It seems that many of us have incredibly strong feelings about which candidate wins our parties nomination. The ironic thing is that most Democrats I talked to back in January really could have voted for any of the candidates that were running, sans Mike "now I'm a libertarian" Gravel. Our field was littered with qualified candidates who could run effectively against any of the flawed candidates put forth by the GOP. A month later, after Super Tuesday, that all started to change.
I think there are many reasons why this polarization has happened, but primarily it has to do with two things. First, I think psychologically, us dems have held onto the Clintons with all our might ever since Bill Clinton was first elected president. The Clinton's have been our only oasis of success in what has been almost forty years of GOP domination in the Whitehouse. Yes, we had Jimmy Carter, and I think he was not nearly as bad a president as he is made out to be, but he has clearly had a better post presidential career than presidential career.
Clinging to and defending the Clintons has been somewhat of a necessity in refuting the GOP claim that we are, as a nation, more like them. We point to the economy under Clinton, the relative peace, the running of our federal government by qualified professionals as opposed to almost entirely by cronies, and our stature in the world as proof that a democrat can govern effectively. We championed their tenacity during the multiple witch hunts that were launched against them, and defend the Monica Lewinsky incident by saying things like "When Clinton lied, nobody died." We have had no choice in who to root for in quite some time.
Few Democrats rose to national prominence in Clintons shadow, and he has never seemed inclined to share the spot light until it was with his wife. Even though the election was stolen in 2000, the truth is that Al had a lot of trouble escaping Bill Clinton's shadow, and that kept the race closer than it should have been against a complete moron like George W. Bush.
So, we have clung to the Clintons for all it was worth. It has been a necessity. Without them, what claim would we have on our ability to govern over the last forty years? I think there is a very real and grounded belief in the Democratic Party that we need a Clinton as our nominee. Voting for or backing Barack Obama just seems destined to fail given the history we know.
Secondly, I think there is a pride issue at play with many dems. As noted above, we have all taken turns defending the Clintons against the vast right wing conspiracy. It has taken loyalty that is not, and should not, be easily abandoned. I think many of us worry that if we turn away from Clinton, we are in a sense validating what the right has said about them for years.
The truth is, and I say this with a heavy heart, on a personal level I do feel that "some" of the rights complaints about the Clintons have truly been validated by Hillary’s campaign tactics. As the nomination has slipped away from her, she has changed her message sometimes weekly depending on the latest poles. She has been embraced by many of the members of the right that slandered her and Bill, and she has accepted that embrace, making it seem like the Clintons will actually do whatever it takes to win.
And yes, there has been the insertion of race by a Democrat into a primary by two people who founded their political lives in the civil rights era. I do agree that Clinton has been a victim of sexism, which is no lesser an evil than racism, but I don't believe that has originated in the Obama campaign. That has been an issue more with the main stream media. Hillary, Bill, and her campaign staff have directly brought up race in ways that only republicans have done to Democrats in recent history. This, above all other missteps in the Clinton campaign, has made many of us abandon our loyalty to the family that has been our only standard bearer since JFK.
Living in the ultra red state of Idaho I can tell you, the GOP is enjoying a few "I told you so's." After watching Clinton for the last few months, it's hard to say, those "I told you so's" seem deserved.
UPDATE
Just for the record, I wasn't one of the many who thought that Hillary was being malicious in mentioning the RFK assasination. It was, without a doubt, a poor choice of an example, but when I heard it I immediately thought she was referencing a time frame, and not the event that took place in it.