Letters to the Editor

• It Takes Two To Tango

  [Read the article: Why conservatives love Barack Obama]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Republicans have a visceral dislike for the Clintons. The Clintons have a visceral dislike for Republicans. It seems to have started in Arkansas and spilled over onto the national scene.

  I am a moderate republican. Comes from having a grandfather active in Republican politics whom I revered. The man lost a congressional race by 300 votes in 1948 he blamed on a severe thunderstorm in his home town where he had been mayor for 10 years.

  His opponent has also smeared him for allowing drug stores in his community to sell condoms. Being a heavily catholic enclave, it likely hurt as well. A local druggist came to him to tell him the candidate in question had bought condoms from him, and my grandfather refused to run with it, saying what he had done was true, and what that man had done was a personal matter.

  So I also do not like vicious campaigns.

  I have read with interest the regard Mrs. Clinton has earned from Republicans in the senate for her work efforts. I have been doing this in an effort to keep an open mind assuming a democrat was going to be the next president, and it was likely her. Republicans deserve to be relegated to minority status after the past eight years, so I have been working to gear myself up to accept her and want to find reasons why she is credible rather than look for ways to dislike her.

  But the attack tactics that have surfaced of late just remind me, and likely many others, of the poisonous atmosphere of the Clinton administration. People are sick and tired of it.

  I also find it interesting that Joe is complaining of favorable Obama pieces from the right. There's been rumors bubbling up about Clinton operatives trying to feed right leaning columnists mud to throw at Obama and then getting piqued when their efforts were made public.

  But that is the new conventional wisdom that has come out of the Clinton whine machine. Those evil, mean republicans have attacked her for 16 years and know everything about her. If democrats put up a fresh face, they will just destroy them the way they tried to destroy me and my husband. They are working to beat me know and then beat up the fresh face.

  This scenario, of course, assumes the criticisms are all manufactured and that none of her actions, or her husband's, have anything to do with what took place. It's victimhood and taking no responsibility for any of it whatsoever.

  That's a pretty big rationalization of events. The Clintons are hardly blameless for the cesspool that was Washington discourse during their administration. Carville took Atwater tactics and turned them into an art form. He is excellent at what he does, I just do not like that part of our political process at all, and wish its importance would recede a little this time around.

  Mrs. Clinton is the frontrunner with a long history of being right in the middle of some of the more divisive and nasty elements of our politcal discourse. I am still incredulous that Matt Lauer and NBC did not ax handle her several months later after her infamous Vast Right Wing Conspiracy comment. He asked about the Monica allegations in that first question after which she went on her infamous tirade defense. The follow up question was simply, "But Mrs. Clinton, what if those allegations were truen?"

  "Then they would be very serious, indeed."

  Well we never asked her about that, yet the big bad press is out to get the women. At that time we had gender sympathy for a woman duped by her man. She got away with inserting into the press one of the now infamous lines in attack politics when what she was defending was later proven true. Interesting double standard there.

  She might be a very competent and able politician, but I simply do not want another four to eight years of a siege mentality in the White House committed to Carville's "Rapid Response" tactic of destroying anyone who crosses their path.

  I agree there's animous in my party against her. I disagree with the notion it is not reciprocated, or that it has all been unfounded. I do not want another dirty campaign. I would prefer more uplifting and optimistic utterances from our pols.

  Hell, *I* like Obama's demeanor. I would love to hear more about what he thinks as the process progresses. I may not vote for him anymore than I intend to support Huckabee, but I so far can respect him.

  I have actively sought reasons to respect Mrs. Clinton as the loyal opposition and was digging around her sentorial record to get the substantion for this desire.

  But then the campaign broke out, the usual complaints about being attacked because she's a woman (rather than the frontrunner for chrissakes, who is ALWAYS attacked in a primary debate), the clandestine efforts to plant damaging information on her opponents about unrelated and ridiculous matters, and the rabid desire to see personal matters of other candidates discussed while still trying to carry the cross for having had that done to her ended all hopes I could find that respect.

  If that makes me a member of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, then I guess I will have to wear the label with pride. Considering her negative ratings are in the low 40s right now, which is box office poison as any political operative knows, I guess I am not alone in having to wear that label.

  Can we please have a campaign of optimism and hope rather than one of mudslinging and feigned offense and persecution.

  Pretty please?

  Permalink Friday, December 21, 2007 07:16 PM