The Democratic Crack-Up
Never before have two major parties gotten into such a competitive self-destruction competition. What Bush has done to the Republican party, with poodle-like levels of assistance from Congressional Republicans, is plain enough. But reading this New York Times dispatch on the John Edwards endorsement? Sloganeering’s been lowered to a whole ‘nother level. And the grassroots are being driven insane.
1. “I’ll just point out the obvious,” Mr. Edwards told one audience when he was campaigning in Iowa last year. “In the last — can I do the math, 45, 50 years — what is it, the last two Democrats who actually got elected president? Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton. Both of them talk like I do.”
2. Mr. Edwards spent several minutes praising Mrs. Clinton, which was met by loud boos by the largely white crowd who had filled the arena with no knowledge of the endorsement to come.
3. Mrs. Clinton’s campaign played down the endorsement with a terse statement from its chairman, Terry McAuliffe: “We respect John Edwards,” it read. “But as the voters of West Virginia showed last night, this thing is far from over.”
4. Mr. Obama, who accepted Mr. Edwards’s endorsement with praise for the speech and the man, also praised Mrs. Edwards and her commitment to health care. Asked if she would endorse him, he said, “I would not speak for Elizabeth.”
5. In response to a question from Wolf Blitzer of CNN, Mrs. Clinton also said that it was “probably right” that she made a foolish comment when she claimed that more “white Americans” were supporting her than Mr. Obama. She was responding to a remark by Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, that her original “white Americans” comment was “the dumbest thing” she could have said.
What a nightmare. Democrats need a fake hick accent to win the White House? Elizabeth Edwards is hellbent on demonstrating her female independence by locking herself in the Fuhrer’s bunker? The Clinton campaign, through that walking, talking gila monster Terry McAuliffe, has reduced running for President of the United States to ‘this thing’ — and expects Largely White Crowds to cling bitterly to race? The voters of West Virginia showed that, in Hillary’s absence, West Virginia would have delivered its delegates to the heretofore unknown insurgent candidate Whitey the Clown. When Obama wins Idaho he’s out of touch with mainstream Democrats, but when Hillary wins a state that makes Idaho look like a Seattle suburb, she’s Queen of Middle America?
If Charlie Rangel’s looking for dumbest things this year, he’s going to be the hardest-working man in Congress.