NYT editorial page rips Clinton's NH campaign

Unite, Not Divide, Really This Time

The New Hampshire primary has done Americans a service by leaving both parties’ nominating contests open and giving a truly broad range of voters a chance to participate in these vitally important choices. The coming contests will be colored in large part by how the contenders and their backers answer a basic question: Just how far are they willing to go to win?

If the Republican fringe plays to type and decides to savage John McCain, the party’s winner in New Hampshire, once again, and if the Clinton camp continues to allow its baser instincts to rule, they will do more harm than good to themselves, to their parties and to the political process. The danger signs are there on both sides, but are glaringly evident among the Democrats.

Senator Barack Obama did not refrain from dropping cutting comments about Senator Hillary Clinton into his speeches. “I’m not running because I think it’s my turn, that it’s somehow owed to me,” he would say. But he generally pitched his speeches on notes of inspiration and hope.

Mrs. Clinton ran an angry campaign in New Hampshire, and polls showed that voters noticed. She won narrowly, but came perilously close to injecting racial tension into what should have been — and still should be — an uplifting contest between the first major woman candidate and the first major African-American candidate.

In the days before the voting, Mrs. Clinton and her team were so intent on talking about how big a change a woman president would be — and it surely would — that some of her surrogates even suggested that it would be a more valuable change than an African-American president. Mrs. Clinton managed to energize the women’s vote in New Hampshire to win the contest, but the Democratic Party should be celebrating its full diversity, a refreshing and notable difference from the field of Republican contenders.

In Mrs. Clinton’s zeal to make the case that experience (hers) is more important than inspirational leadership (Mr. Obama’s), she made some peculiar comments about the relative importance of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson to the civil rights cause. She complimented Dr. King’s soaring rhetoric, but said: “Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. ... It took a president to get it done. ”

Why Mrs. Clinton would compare herself to Mr. Johnson, who escalated the war in Vietnam into a generational disaster, was baffling enough. It was hard to escape the distasteful implication that a black man needed the help of a white man to effect change. She pulled herself back from the brink by later talking about the mistreatment and danger Dr. King faced. Former President Bill Clinton, who seems to forget he is not the one running, hurled himself over the edge on Monday with a bizarre and rambling attack on Mr. Obama.

Mr. Clinton has generally been a statesman as ex-president, and keeping up this sort of behavior will undermine his credibility and ability to do more good.

We understand, and usually admire, Mrs. Clinton’s determination. Allowing her team’s wearyingly familiar strong-arm instincts to take over would be damaging for the Democrats in the fall, no matter who gets the nomination. Polls in Iowa and New Hampshire show that Democratic voters liked all of their candidates — they simply chose one. It would be a mistake for a politician whose unfavorable ratings across the nation have long been stuck in the 40 percent range to erase that good feeling about her party...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/opinion/09wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=login

Oh, yeah, it was.

Touche on that!

:spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank::spank:

though I don't necessarily agree with your characterization of the article. Democrats would be wise to celebraelte their similarities and shared mission. I agree that the HRC camp felt desperate (particularly bill Clinton). On the other hand, I think that the bomb thrower is one of the other candidates.

Double post - sry

No speechwriter (let alone candidate) is going to be perfect, but the editorial has a point-- she was making the rather ugly implication that Obama would have been akin to a merely inspirational civil rights leader rather than an executive who got things done. Exactly the type of stereotyping and mislabeling that MLK worked so hard to combat.

I think both, were they here today, would acknowledge that - there were very different roles each was destined to fulfill.

My guess is most of you were born far later than the times both men went through.

than other politicos? Like Obama and Edwards didn't attack her for being untruthful, a double talker, Bush-Lite, etc. Fuck it, this is politics, and her comments about MLK and Johnson were clearly directed at Obamas lack of experience in DC versus hers and how his tremendous oratory alone was not enough to do it. Its fair comment and true comment and considering the positive coverage Obama gets comparing him to other leaders who gave great speeches its completely in bounds.

This editorial seems to be stirring the pot (potty, in this case), and I think it was a bit over the top.

I guess the NYT knows better than the voters who should be our nominee.

not.

but I don't care. Every time the Clintons get attacked, they come out stronger.

Her demographic is the New York News readers...

Hillary Clinton=Working Class Heroine...

And Hillary's base is working class voters...

the NYT's editorial writers used to be quite supportive of Hillary, but became very disillusioned with her, with the Clintons and with the DLC following the Iraq debacle, among other things. Also, they genuinely dislike the Clintons' tactics, such as the invocations of 9/11 against Obama and especially the swipes against MLK, the sorts of things that damage our democracy and which the NYT attacks whether a Republican or a Democrat is doing the idiotic campaigning.

and he owns the publication for all practical purposes, which is why he's been able to shill for more Iraq warmongering even as the place falls apart.

They may not be the post- yet. But they're trying awfully hard.

it's going to be REAL hard to take anything the NYT editorial page says seriously, since they hired Bill. They had some credibility problems before, but now it's a lost cause.