Clinton campaign becomes nothing but pathetic and destructive

I'm sorry.

I've tried very hard to be fair. The press has been effectively cowed and muzzled by the constant whining and complaining from the Clinton camp, so they continue with this bizarre otherworldly pretense that Clinton somehow has a legitimate claim, even as they change by the hour and become ever more ludicrous and convoluted.

Remember when the started saying that this prolonged race would hopelessly divide the Democrats into factions which would never reconcile? I thought that was ludicrous. I myself would never be so extreme that I'd not be able to gladly support either Hillary or Obama, however it came out.

Guess what? I was wrong. I wouldn't vote for Hillary Clinton for dogcatcher, and will have a very hard time ever respecting her again.

I loved Hillary. I defended her and was outraged at the way the right mounted a campaign to demonize both she and her husband using tactics not seen since the 1800's, so insane and over-the-top as to defy belief that they actually had the sheer nerve and lack of character to do it.

When the campaign began shaping up, I argued with friends that felt Hillary would be disaster for the party that I thought she'd be a good nominee, and I believed it.

When it came to Obama vs. Clinton, I was firmly on the fence for quite some time. It was only a while after Iowa that I began to feel that Obama was going to be the nominee for a variety of reasons, and wrote a post here saying so unequivocally. And this was far before the other Dem candidates began dropping out or that Obama had anything resembling a lead.

I didn't have a problem with Clinton continuing her campaign, and though I winced at some of the tactics she used against Obama, I kept trying to be fair-minded and believe that was just politics and that of course, she had every right to contest the race as hard as she could.

But there came a moment when things entered the twilight zone.

Have any of you had that moment with the Clinton campaign? When was it for you?

For me it happened in two (or maybe three) steps.

The first was when she started just getting creepy in her tactics against Obama. There wasn't just one instance which put me off her, but several. The one example that particularly turned me against her was her responding, "As far as I know." to being asked whether Obama was a Christian. Right about there was the first time I found out that I couldn't maintain my neutrality about this contest.

She was simply confirming, strongly, the rap against her and her husband that they'd do literally anything to get elected. She and her campaign took a decided turn to the slimy and dishonest, and of course, Bill was out there making even more odious comments. It wasn't that she was saying negative things against Obama, it was HOW she and Bill were doing it that I couldn't stomach.

Then came the la-la land phase where it became all but dead-certain that she simply could not win the nomination by any means commonly accepted here on this planet.

Then the ugliness and truly disturbing air of desperation and aura of tragic desperation set in.

Some pundits began noting the facts and began to (correctly) speak as if Clinton was all but doomed to loose to Obama. This of course spawned a massive campaign by Clinton and her surrogates to play the victim and suggest that the media en masse were unfairly "counting her out". This marked the resurgence of Clinton playing the victim card as she has so often in the past (with a large degree of truth, and success, I might add.)

But it's past time to state what the pundits and press are too afraid to say, and that is that the Clinton campaign, in addition to being long ago incapable of winning, is, in the service of NOTHING other than their egos and belief they are entitled to the presidency, doing grave damage to both the Democratic party and Barack Obama's prospects in November.

But now all the howls of unfairness and victim-ness were ringing hollow. It was transparently obvious that she was now plunging into a zone where reality would no longer do. The truth was telling her and everyone else that she'd blown it.

Through fatal blunders early on in her campaign, notably having assumed she was the anointed one and relying on the fatal assumption that she'd be crowned the nominee on Super Tuesday, thus having no strategy for a campaign beyond that, infighting between campaign principles, reckless squandering of campaign funds, and other blunders and mistakes that will no doubt be endlessly dissected in the years ahead.

But blunder she did, and for the last month or so as it's become clear that she can not win, her campaign seems to be actually trying the argument, as spokesman Howard Wolfson did recently, that she's won the campaign.... if you don't count the first month or two of it. Well, sorry you stumbled out of the gate Hillary, but there aren't any do-overs in this game.

As mad as it is, she truly seems to be trying to make that case. She's won the contest (if you don't count the first half), and so, believing that proves that she's actually the more popular candidate and the best able to win in November, she's set about trying to throw every rule out the window along with reality.

Yes, we're all sorry you were caught asleep at the switch. Yes, it seems plausible that had your campaign not relied on a grossly overpaid, sweaty, obese Washington insider to begin with, AND your opponent Obama hadn't run such a superior campaign and, (this next bit is critical, but never part of any discussion) if Obama wasn't preferred as a candidate by at least as many voters as support you, yeah, you may have been the nominee.

But it doesn't work like that. And the simple fact that Clinton refuses to acknowledge that is why she has crossed over from the dubious to the very ugly.

And while the press, intimidated into pretending Clinton is acting in any way sane, continues to treat her Quixotic campaign as if it makes sense (Clinton simply can NOT win this, but she continues to campaign, not that there's anything wrong with that. And this, as the Clinton campaign tells us, shows....er... what a great scrappy fighter she is......)

But today's meeting of the Democratic Rules & Bylaws Committee and in particular the statement from Clinton's hit man Harold Ickes when Hillary didn't get ALL of the Michigan delegates (in a race where Obama's name wasn't even on the ballot), and how he menacing announced that he'd been authorized by Hillary to challenge their ruling all the way to the convention, did what I never would have believed was possible; made me see the Clinton's and the Clinton campaign as every bit as venal, selfish, craven, and ugly as their critics have always maintained.

The motion which passed, thankfully, gave Clinton 69 delegates to 59 for Obama, with each delegates vote counting a 1/2 vote.

Note: Watch the historic and truly dramatic vote process on C-Span here. The section regarding apportioning Michigans delegates including Ickes preposterous statement begins just past the 32 minute mark of the clip.

After the statement of Tom Hynes, a member from Illinois, another committee member, Everett Ward from North Carolina, gives perhaps the best statement of the day in responding to Ickes divisive statement a few minutes later at around the 43 minute mark. (complete with Hillary supporters continually interupting. When someone finally tells them to shut up, one of them yelled back, "YOU shut up!", exemplifying the level of dignity they brought to the process. The fact that the Clinton campaign actually bussed in these absolutely ridiculous and disruptive goons is only another reason to believe they're lost grip with reality.)

C-Span will also rebroadcast the highlights of the meeting later tonight, and I highly recommend making the effort to watch.


It made me not have even a shred of sympathy for Clinton or her campaign, but it made me, let's say, passionately dislike them both.

These power-mad freaks are literally willing to tear the party apart, turning it to warring camps who will never unite, and in doing so is actively and consciously doing substantial harm to the prospect of electing a Democratic president.

This is not only ugly and disgusting when viewed from a personal perspective, showing as it does just how literally insane she must be in refusing to accept reality, even as it continues to do grave damage to the party which has supported her for decades, but it's past the time to call this what it is.... insane.

We are witnessing a woman and her campaign and a portion of her supporters literally losing their marbles before our very eyes.

And through all of this, the unanswered question remains, WHY??!! What does Hillary want from all this strife and division? What is it that she feels is worth literally blowing up the party?

I think the answer to that will prove to be so ugly that Hillary Clinton will have through her choices in this election, utterly destroyed both her image and her legacy in history.

She's blown it. Clinton is now like a Kamikaze pilot in WWII, like some pathetic person who can't come to grips with the fact they've lost and it's over, but worse. She not only won't deal with it, she insists that everyone else pretend along with her. And perhaps worst of all, it now seems apparent that she JUST DOESN'T CARE what the consequences are.

For Hillary Clinton, NOTHING is more important than her getting what she wants, which is her hands on power. She realizes she could have had it if she hadn't blown it in the beginning, she thinks she's owed it, this totally destroys her carefully plotted path to the White House, and she's gone stark, raving, mad.

Whatever Hillary Clinton gets out of this mad campaign, it can't possibly be worth the damage she's done and what it will leave behind in its wake.