When I wrote my November 9, 2006 article http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_061109_election_2006__96_afte.htm that deconstructed the results of the election that featured the Democratic takeover of congress, I had this to say about how the Republicans behaved in the run-up to that election:
When you see likely defeat coming around the corner in politics, you can go one of three ways, you can give up, which I don't recommend, you can fight harder using the best of what you have, or you can fight harder using the worst you have to offer. With the impending blue tsunami that was election 2006, too many Republicans chose to fight with the worst they had to offer.
Race baiting, general bigotry, attacking spouses, lying about opponents records, robo-calling, denigrating someone with a debilitating illness all of these and much more was employed by one or more Republicans in an all out effort to eke out a victory. If your party was going to surrender control after 11 years in the majority, is this the last thing you would want people to remember about your party's days in power?
When you talk about character, one of the things that stand out about a person's character is how they behave when things are not going their way. Anyone can be a great guy when success is around every corner. But when you are facing defeat right in the eye, that is the test of character. In Election 2006, Republicans failed this test badly.
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Hillary and her campaign seem to be taking their cues directly from the GOP's failed attempts to hold onto the congress in 2006. They are hurling so much mud at Barack Obama; I don't see how anyone in Hillary's campaign has the time to do anything else. This was one of my main fears about Hillary from the beginning and one of several reasons why I chose to endorse Barack Obama. As I said in my endorsement article, http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_080202_obama_endorsement__96_.htm :
----------------------------------------------------------Hillary's negative ratings by voters have consistently been so high that it would be an uphill battle from day one to try to get her elected. In order for her to have a chance at getting elected, she and her husband would have to wage the most negative campaign in history to try to raise the negative ratings of her opponent. I don't want to be a part of that kind of campaign.
When I wrote that, I was thinking that she would wage the most negative campaign in history if and when she was matched against the Republican nominee. It never occurred to me that she would also do this against opponents for the Democratic nomination but she has surprised me by doing just that. It is not a nice surprise.
The problem for Hillary is that this is not the 90's when Bill ran for President. The internet has matured into a resource where any statement by a candidate can be researched and vetted within seconds of the last syllable leaving their lips. The many accusations levied by Hillary and her campaign against Obama have to a word all been debunked and shown to be if not distortions or exaggerations then outright fabrications.
Take the home purchase by Obama. The Clinton campaign accused Obama of obtaining a sweetheart deal for the home through the intervention of now disgraced and indicted real estate mogul Antonin Rezko. Bloomberg (the news agency, not the mayor of New York), researched the accusations and found them to be complete fabrications. See this article in Bloomberg
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a_9sOMpy91Js&refer=us to wit:
The couple who sold Barack Obama his Chicago home said the Illinois senator's $1.65 million bid ''was the best offer'' and they didn't cut their asking price because a campaign donor bought their adjacent land
Factcheck.org is all over the recent mailers put out by Hillary's campaign essentially calling every statement and accusation made in them distortions of Obama's record. See http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/youve_got_mailers.html
Washington Post fact-checkers have now debunked the entire Exelon nuclear issue; see click here awarding Hillary and her campaign two "Pinocchio's" for the story. Hillary's accusations vis-à-vis Exelon have backfired so badly, two sitting Democratic senators, Barbara Boxer (CA), and Richard Durbin (IL), are both on record as "scoffing" at Hillary's accusations according to the Washington Post. Even worse, the Post shows that Hillary Clinton herself hailed the bill when it was introduced and issued a press release to that effect http://www.senate.gov/~clinton/news/statements/record.cfm?id=262953 . So we have a press release of Hillary's debunking her own accusations.
This is all so much worse for Hillary that she is doing this now that she is losing. I remember John Edwards' words in the New Hampshire debate. "Hillary wasn't saying any of this when she was winning". It makes these actions look like tactics born of desperation and a scorched earth policy.
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