If Hillary gets the nomination this way . . .

She'll lose the general election. That seems an awfully high price to pay just to be the first female presidential candidate of a major political party. And that she would also be the first former First Lady presidential candidate will only diminish the value an already hollow and pyric prize.

Many in the Democratic Party establishment are becoming concerned about the way that Bill and Hillary Clinton are engaging in distortions, dirty tricks, and race and gender politics in their struggle to win the nomination for Hillary.

There is fear within the party that if Obama becomes the nominee, he might emerge from this fracas personally battered and politically compromised. Hillary and Bill then would have done much of the Republicans' job for them. Moreover, if Hillary is the nominee, the Clintons' tactics could alienate blacks from the party or at least its presidential ticket.

And make no mistake about it, Hillary and Bill have resorted to the most cutthroat kind of politics. The Clintons are airing a radio ad in South Carolina attacking Senator Obama's comments about Ronald Reagan made in a Reno, Nevada interview. They are continuing this attack despite the fact that every analyst that has compared the charges advanced by Bill and Hillary with Obama's actual words has concluded that this is deceptive campaigning.

In other words, it is, as Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of the Democratic Party in South Carolina, called it: the "politics of deception."

Here's the truth. Here is the interview, with Obama's actual words:




As you will note, nowhere in here does he say anything about supporting Reaganite ideas of the type listed, scornfully, by Hillary:

"I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don't think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt."

Yet that is precisely what the Clintons' attack ad suggests of Obama.

Incidentally, Senators Obama and Clinton both voted last year to name February 6, 2007 “Ronald Reagan Day.”