We are just about 19 weeks into one of the wildest nomination seasons in several generations and things just keep getting wilder. Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, who has all of the advantages of the inevitability bandwagon in his favor and a much bigger bankroll for his campaign than his opponent loses the West Virginia primary contest to Senator Hillary Clinton. Wild enough that he lost a big primary this late in the game. Worse yet, he was trounced.
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An aggressive campaign fought against either a woman or a black opponent is filled with minefields. It is a virtual certainty that the race or gender cards will be played as a defense against any part of the campaign that uncomfortably challenges Obama or Clinton. While Republicans must be careful to avoid any suggestion that their appeals are remotely about race or gender, they must be even more careful not to be cowed into backing off of an aggressive campaign.
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The president’s middle name is commonly used: JFK, LBJ, FDR, W, William Jefferson Clinton, etc. At the very least, it is going to be oddly awkward to avoid using Obama's middle name. It certainly won’t help to bring the country together and will be a constant irritant. I have a potential solution to this name problem. Howard Dean and the DNC should organize a contest to give Senator Obama a new middle name.
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McCain made a big mistake on Tuesday when he repudiated and apologized for Bill Cunningham's (the Cincinnati conservative talk show host) anti-Obama remarks in a warm-up to a McCain appearance. From what I heard, Cunningham's remarks were tough but were not over the line and certainly well short of the outrageous things that many liberals say about President Bush all the time.
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The peculiar idea that there is no difference between McCain and either Clinton or Obama is also just not supported by the record. As John Adams said, and as Ronald Reagan reiterated, “facts are stubborn things.” McCain’s critics need to reacquaint themselves with the facts and regain some perspective. In far less academic terms, they need to wise up and stop acting like spoiled brats.
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So why do the conservative talk show crowd take Romney seriously? Why are they more forgiving than Mother Teresa when it comes to Mitt Romney and less forgiving than the Ayatollah when it comes to John McCain? Is it overvaluing just what the candidates are saying now? Or are they reading something into these candidates that some of the rest of us somehow don’t see?
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Adding to the normal questions raised by this abnormal nomination season is the odd occurrence of the arrest of Sidney Blumenthal, a senior unpaid advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign. Blumenthal was arrested for DWI in New Hampshire on the Monday before the New Hampshire primary...
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