Will the Swamp Swallow the Democrats?

Attention Democratic campaigns:  You're not fooling anyone!  

This means the Edwards Campaign and the Obama campaign as well as all you Clinton Media gophers. You're not fooling anyone. Everyone knows when you send your surrogates out to send smears against your opponents.  We all get the emails, read the blogs, hear the same spin from a dozen pundits.  

See the video to the right to see just how easy it is to spot your moronic handiwork.

It took a lot of courage for all camps to call a truce for the Nevada debate, but you've got to know that you'll be held accountable for these smears if they surface in the future.

David Bender's recent Huffington Post piece How Hillary can Lose by Winning really drives the issue home:

Launched in the frozen fields of Iowa, then escalated in the slush and snow of New Hampshire, the cold war between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is now turning hot. The danger for Hillary is that African-American voters will long note and long remember what was said here. Campaign rhetoric that turns a hope-monger into a dope-monger might well be effective in the short term, but at what price? Scorching the political landscape could be a winning strategy for the nomination, but relentlessly tearing down Barack Obama is an absolute disaster for governing the country.

I remember well how the 1968 campaign bitterness between Robert Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy split the anti-war movement and, after Bobby's death, the nomination of Hubert Humphrey failed to unite the party until it was far too late. Thus, Nixon was the One. Many in my generation were left embittered and disaffected by the harsh realities of a system that in Barack's words "boils all the hope out of you."

We're not just talking about "Kilgoring" yourselves, although that's certainly possible.  We're talking about a mandate from people who care about this country for a new way of doing business.  Your smears aren't welcome here!
This isn't all on the Clinton machine.  While they have the best and most durable surrogates, the best war-room and the most experience "catapulting the propaganda", Edwards and Obama have become very savvy managing spin.  But all camps underestimate the blogosphere, devoted Democrats and Super Tuesday primary voters at their peril.  

More from Bender:

Hillary should well remember that the first Clinton presidency was destabilized almost immediately by what she then accurately dubbed a "vast right-wing conspiracy." She now laughs when asked about it, saying that she hasn't "paid much attention to it for about 10 years." (Note to HRC: It's still there). Should she go on to win the presidency, Senator Clinton will need all the friends she can get to unite the country. What she does over the next three weeks will determine whether she'll have them and, more to the point, whether her victory -- should it come -- would prove grandly historic or tragically pyrrhic.

There is a clear mandate for change in this country and part of the change voters want is for American politics to emerge from the swamp of Rovian politics and unite into a governing majority to address real problems.  America is overwhelmingly looking for Democrats to fasten this change and make a new way for America.  In order to harness that will, Democrats need to embody not only change in terms of promises, issues, and policies, but more importantly in terms of fundamental values and vision for the country.

From the Democracy Corps October Memo (Download full PDF REALLY WORTH THE READ!):

Voters are determined to vote for change and they want leaders who will work for the
middle class, putting the interests of the public and country first, after the Bush years when
leaders did not see the average person, when greed of executives and the self-interest of
politicians determined our unfortunate course. That is the framework for Democrats to articulate
their critique and progressive vision. The country wants to vote for change.

Business as usual politics won't win the kind of majorities that it will take for the next President to govern effectively, and woe to the Candidates who forget how very angry is the current American electorate.

Comments