by Frank James
The New York Times editorial headlined "The Low Road to Victory" is getting a lot of attention today because the editorial writer mostly blames Sen. Hillary Clinton for the increasing nastiness of the Democratic presidential nomination.
The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.
Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.
The Times goes on to sound like it's regretting its endorsement of Clinton in the New York primary:
By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don't like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.
It seems a case of the candidates being damned if they do and damned if they don't.
Both Clinton and Obama Democrats are trying to prove they're tough enough to take on what is expected to be a very harsh Republican campaign against whoever eventually wins the Democratic nomination.
This is especially the case after the 2004 general election during which Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential nominee, was seen as not battling back when he was swift-boated on his Vietnam War experience.
How do you prove you're mean enough for the general if you don't engage during the primaries?
Ever since she lost her inevitability mantle, Clinton has also been fighting an insurgent's campaign. In politics or sports, when you're trying to overtake your opponent, you have to be aggressive. It's not patty-cake. Or as one time Chicago Tribune-man Finley Peter Dunne once famously observed, "Politics ain't beanbag."
In politics, being aggressive, in part, means going negative, pointing out the deficiencies in your opponent. How else do you drive down your opponent's support? It's what you have to do.
As virtually every student of American politics will tell you, voters always say they don't like negative campaigns, then frequently vote for the candidates who best execute it. They did it again yesterday in Pennsylvania according to the exit polls. Go figure.
In any event, it's unlikely the Democratic candidates will forego the meanness and hew to the high road to satisfy the Times editorial board. That's just not the way to win presidential races in the U.S. It really never has been. Anyone in any doubt need just look at the presidential race of 1800. The current race is like a Sunday school picnic compared to that one.
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Comments
"How do you prove you're mean enough for the general if you don't engage during the primaries?"
I have a big problem with this. Negativity isn't bad when an opponent is targeted on their policy, but in this race, we're down to a debate on whether Obama was really scratching his face or flipping Clinton off. How trivial can you get? Meanwhile, voters are becoming more and more frustrated because the important issues have been completely neglected.
Yet again, the dems are poised to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. By tearing each other apart, they are also dividing the party.
Posted by: incognita | April 23, 2008 11:57 AM
As the NY Times editorial points out, it is mostly the fault of Senator Clinton and her camp that the negativity is at it's present level. It also points out that Senator Obama is not blameless. In defense of Senator Obama, he had no choice in the matter, he had to respond to the false charges being leveled against him, from the sound bytes of Minister Wright to the innuendoes of the Rezko trial. Opponents of his will insist that the political charges have validity, only if you are blinded by partisanship!! I hope that the electorate will see that here is a young American, of African and other heritages, that is an honorable man, who has the best interests of our nation, at heart. He is not flawless, but he is as capable, if not more so, than the present occupier of our White House!
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE. NOW.
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald, Chicago | April 23, 2008 11:59 AM
The biggest problem here should be plain to anybody who has seen the Obama campaign at work: Positive (or at least constructive)campaigning can help a campaign gain victories where otherwise it might be difficult to beat the odds.
Such victories can lay the groundwork for future political progress, instead of hemming in the campaign on all sides with groups they alienate.
But really, this fact should be pretty basic: the person who wins the election is the person who comes to the election with the most supporters. What's wrong with a style of campaigning that increases those numbers?
Posted by: Stephen Daugherty | April 23, 2008 12:17 PM
At least Obama has Huffington Post in his corner - HuffPO - Hollywood Squares Without Boarders.
No wonder he's tanking.
http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2008/04/john-mccain-tom-hayden-of-lefty-vets.html
Posted by: Pat Hickey | April 23, 2008 12:18 PM
I don't think it's true that voters vote for the person who best executes a negative campaign. I used to love the Clintons. Now the Clintons and their tactics make my stomach turn.
As a woman, I would have been very excited to have a female president. A female should bring a new perspective, a new subjectivity to the presidency. But I don't see any difference between Hillary and men who have held the office. She voted for the war, hasn't properly apologized for it, and will do anything to win.
It's Obama for me.
Posted by: AmyT | April 23, 2008 12:43 PM
Hillary likes to brag that Obama spent all this money and still lost Pennsylvania. What she forgot to say is that she squandered all her money due to an ineffecient and disorganized campaign. Now she has to resort to negativity and poke and hide. Now we have a big dark cloud that won't blow over.
http://politicalgraffiti.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/hillary_gloom_color3.jpg
Posted by: David Donar | April 23, 2008 1:09 PM
I don't get how the Times can say Hillary 'went negative'--when anything negative she had to say was in response to a QUESTION raised decades late about Sen. Obama.
Looks like the Times just needs more political ad revenue and one way to keep it coming is to prolong the inevitable--Barack as v.p. now and prez in 2016.
Posted by: GrayLadyLovesBarry | April 23, 2008 3:03 PM
What was inconclusive about a near 10% win? Were they expecting unanimity?
Posted by: whatnow | April 23, 2008 4:31 PM
Those pesky CLINTON endorsements.
Will The Times never learn?
I remember...
Pinch Sulzberger scurrying to the C-SPAN confessional even as the fires raged under the mammoth heap of ash and twisted steel that was once the Twin Towers and 2801 human beings. He had to make certain no one would blame The New York Times.
The Times' 1996 endorsement of bill clinton was the problem. The endorsement, you may recall, was contingent on clinton getting a brain transplant--specifically of the character lobe. How could The Times square that shameful, irresponsible endorsement with this monstrous failure?
Sulzberger quickly explained that The Times was able to endorse clinton by separating clinton's "policies" from "the man." (Did he actually buy into the clintons' 'compartmentalization' con? Or was this apparent credulousness simply another cynical expedient for The New York Times?)
Probing questions by the host, Brian Lamb, followed, eliciting this damning historical parallel from Sulzberger: "The Times dropped ball during Holocaust by failing to connect the dots."
It appears that The New York Times doesn't learn from its mistakes. Will it take The Times another 50 years to understand/admit that by having endorsed for reelection a "documentably dysfunctional" president with "delusions" -- its own words -- it must bear sizeable blame for the 9/11 horror and its aftermath?
Sulzberger's carefully worded rationalization of the clinton endorsements points to clinton "policies," not achievements; is this tacit acknowledgement that clinton "achievements" -- when legal -- were more illusory than real -- that The Times' Faustian bargain was not such a good deal after all?
If we assume that the clintons are the proximate cause of 9/11 --- a proposition not difficult to demonstrate (see 'Virtual Kill' (YouTube)) --- it follows that The New York Times is culpable, too.
Elie Wiesel makes a distinction between "information" and "knowledge." Information is data; it is devoid of an ethical component; it is neutral. Knowledge is a higher form of information. Knowledge is information that had been internalized and given a moral dimension.
At a minimum, The Times' failure -- whether concerning clinton endorsements, or classified leaks or the Holocaust -- is a failure to make this distinction. More likely though, it is a failure not nearly so benign.
P.S.
That missus clinton has been vetted is perhaps the biggest 'fairy tale' of this race.
BAGGAGE + BOMBS: vetting hillary (YouTube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1SovbQR0jE
#8 - Top Favorites (Today) - News + Politics
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ALSO on YouTube:
more baggage: hillary's terrorist ties
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNFuQEIpgfk
yet more hillary baggage: abuse of power and the Barrett report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzbfxCjZ69w
Posted by: Mia T | April 25, 2008 6:29 AM