Winning Ugly

Although Hillary Clinton won in Nevada (though she ended up with fewer delegates), many of the left-of-center columnists are bemoaning the ugly way the campaign has gone on the Dem side:

Hillary Clinton has won the Nevada caucus, which means a few things about the Democratic race are now coming into focus. For example, mark on your calendar Jan. 25 for an outburst by Bill Clinton somewhere in South Carolina. He has launched a tirade the day before each of his wife's victories in Nevada and New Hampshire, claiming the process was unfairly stacked against her. If this keeps up, he's going to require a stretcher by the last primary in Oregon come May.

Bill Clinton was so angry because it got ugly at the end in Nevada. Democrats may have cooled down their flash war over race and gender earlier this week, but by the time the vote took place Saturday, each of the two top campaigns was flinging some very ugly charges about the other. Bill Clinton accused the powerful Nevada culinary union of suppressing voters, claiming he'd witnessed it first hand. Obama's campaign manager in turn threw out some very charged coded language about efforts by the Clinton campaign to suppress the vote. "It is a sad day when Democrats start trying to suppress the vote of other Democrats," he said of push polls, robo-calls, and what he called "old-style say anything or do anything to win" Clinton politics.

Commence the hand-wringing. How do you put a party back together when Obama claims that Clinton wins only by winning ugly? Historically, political parties find ways to put themselves back together, but Clinton risks looking like a hope killer if Obama's charges that she's succeeded unfairly start to stick. In addition to charges by Obama aides, the candidate himself was accusing Clinton of distorting his record and saying anything to get elected in the final hours of campaigning. Clinton's negatives are already high enough. This prospect of Clinton commanding a party stitched together like Frankenstein may at some point cause people to resist supporting her even if their doubts about Obama increase.

The racial components may have calmed down a bit, there's still plenty of anger between these two camps and the longer it goes, the more vitriolic it's likely to get. I heard on Fox that the Clinton campaign has making robocalls in Nevada using Obama's full name: Barack Hussein Obama.

The Clinton's will do anything to win, and Obama is learning that.

Another article of note suggests that older Americans won't vote for Obama, and the writer thinks it has more to do with race than Obama's age and experience. You can read it here.