Tuesday, April 01, 2008

We Democrats need an intervention...

What is wrong with our leadership? What is wrong with Hillary and Barack? Don't they see that they are giving McCain a priceless gift? I am beginning to think that the party is not important to either Hillary or Barack. I am beginning to think that they care little that they are ripping the heart out of the party and that they could very well be giving Mr. McCain the keys to the White House.

It is one thing to have a sitting President as your known opponent. A sitting President presents a continuing target. A candidate like McCain, however, only has to go around making "meet 'n greet" appearances while he quietly, in the background, builds his campaign machine. So, the fact that Bill Clinton didn't clinch the nomination until July was not all that bad. After all, he had George the First tanking the economy and otherwise being fairly unpopular. This year's candidate(s) don't have that luxury. Sure, they have George the Second, who is a true disaster, but George the Second isn't running again. The American people can throw all the bric-a-brac they want at George, but he's gone anyhow.

What our two erstwhile candidates need to do is retire to a room somewhere and not come out until they have decided between themselves who is going to carry the standard. I don't care how they do it: play poker, Indian wrestle, dueling pistols at thirty paces...whatever. Just stop this internal bloodletting and start focusing on the true opposition. As an aside, this was one of the good points about having kingmakers like Richard Daley and others of the "smoke filled room" era: they knew who the opposition really were, and they made sure that the party didn't waste too much time and effort on internecine warfare.

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