On the road today. Long stretches of Texas road, rainstorms rising in the distance, and FM radio fading in and out, flipping between Public Radio's analysis of the Pennsylvania primary and Rush's assurances that his chaos campaign is working, notably in Pennsylvania. It's hard not to agree with the New York Times editors who, having once endorsed Senator Clinton (albeit unenthusiastically), are turned off. Time for Hillary to bug out.
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.
Obama appears to be tired, losing patience. Can't blame him. But down that road lie intemperate statements and a certain loss of respect, in spite of his efforts to keep the campaign on the high road.
The progressive movement is looking better and better. You don't have to love everyone in your political party, but you do have to respect them and believe they deserve respect. Part of it has to do with honoring and admiring the company you find yourself in. That's making it harder and harder to to be a Democrat. The party machinery and many of its more conservative, corporatist, and less admirable leaders, no longer command respect. The progressive movement seems to be located well outside of Washington, far from the old polluting machinery of 1990's power politics. It has a healthy combination of independence and deep respect for grass roots democracy, plus an ounce or two of libertarianism (which keeps cropping up, and which many Democrats feel threatened by).
The Clintons are holding on tight. At one point "anything less that a double-digit win" was to be the end point for their campaign. The Pennsylvania Secretary of State puts the margin of Clinton's win at single digits -- close but no cigar. So the goal posts have been moved overnight. Limbaugh is in seventh heaven. He wants the bitchiness -- and the chaos it promises -- to continue. He could spare himself the effort. The Clinton campaign and the media are doing it for him and depriving us of a chance to hear anything but more tiresome bickering.
After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.
It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.
And that's from the New York Times, the paper that, notably, endorsed her. Her "home" town paper. In a state that appears to be moving towards her opponent, according to some reports today.
