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Walter Shapiro's column today mentions that previous "presidential dreamers" were not demonized for taking their election fight all the way to their respective conventions, the way Clinton has. While I agree that Clinton has engendered more vitriol than she probably deserves (although not entirely undeserved), those dreamers' quixotic efforts should be a lesson: each one ended up weakening their party's general election campaign and resulted in sweeping defeat in the fall (Reagan's undermining of Pres. Ford suppressed conservative support against Carter's "I'm not Nixon" campaign; Kennedy's attack on the weak Carter presidency suppressed liberals support against Reagan's "Morning in America" pablum; Hart's campaign, while probably the longest shot of the three mentioned, probably had the least destructive effect, given the general incompentcy of the Mondale campaign). It also should be noted that each of the "insurgents" represented a distinct and important part of their party that felt underserved by the presumptive nominee (Reagan with the Far Right, Kennedy with the Far Left, and Hart with "young people"). With one exception, Hillary Clinton basically speaks for and to the same voters as Obama: people who want to be rid of the Bush Administration's incompetence with and indifference to foreign policy, the domestic economy, healthcare, education, science and the environment (the exception being that she appears to have courted and won over the uneducated, ignorant, and racist element of the Democratic Party; even if they are a sizable minority of the party base, I don't think it benefits America to promote their positions). Sen. Clinton's continued defiance of reality can only be seen as self-serving and the longer she allows the story to be about her efforts, the more damage she inflicts upon the Democratic Party's efforts.
