Gutter-Sniping Toward Oblivion: Part Deux --
SuperDelegates, Please Make it Stop

Last night Obama magnanimously congratulated Clinton even as she once again mocked Obama and his supporters. Time and again, Obama has been gracious in those contests he's lost (he's still got the most delegates and the most states). And usually this has been met with a failure on Clinton's part to congratulate Obama when he has won. Occasionally, there is a grudging statement the next day. Entitlement knows no graciousness. But that's not even the half of it.

While claiming Obama (who still leads in the delegate count) "failed to close" the deal, and conveniently omitting that the reason for that is Clinton's own malicious Democratic Party-destroying ads, speeches, and interviews, Clinton's "success" bar continues to be a moving target. By any measure, Hillary has persuaded a number of her supporters never to vote for Obama under any circumstances. This scorched earth strategy will doom Democrats. Obama has never done such a thing. And one recent poll shows Obama voters are far more open. The solution is not to cater to this manipulative disloyalty. Rather, it is to stand up to it.

However, we should not be taken for granted. This writer has had it with the disgusting tactics of the Clinton campaign. And my loyalties are not transferable. I have often said that if she succeeds is snatching the nomination by underhanded means (i.e., under the table, even as Obama leads in delegates), my vote wasn't in question, but my labor will be. Now it (my labor) most definitely will not convey. There is no chance whatsoever that I could lend my effort to an individual who will win at all cost. There ought to be an honorable line she does not cross. No such luck. And the more she goes on like this, the more voters she will discourage from voting in Novmeber.

Ironically, though, Hillary is the one who's failed to close. Obama even won the most Texas delegates. But most voters don't even know that. At this point, she is a trainwreck. Her mouth is out of control. Her condescension and snottiness escalates by the day. Her campaign is in chaos. She can't fund raise. And her overnight numbers notwithstanding, she has an significantly inferior fundraising effort to Obama's. She can't manage her money. She cannot win without a local party machine assuring she does (80 precincts in and near Harlem, NY registered NO votes for Obama. Hmmm). And her expansionist and belligerent vision for America's role in the Middle East(suggested by her in last week's "debate") is, in short, more imperialist and dangerous than McCain's. Monday's Clinton threat of obliterating a country is making us less safe. Yet she has the temerity to use the fear of OBL to manipulate voters.

Hillary Clinton's poison has injured and will injure the party into the next decade. For how long is unclear. But one thing has become clear: Hillary Rodham Clinton has morphed Karl Rove and has engaged in the most vicious, dirty campaigning of any Democrat, except those who used the same tactics against Howard Dean and Max Cleland. There seems to be a pattern. The politics of destruction are unleashed against anyone breathing fresh air into the stench of machine politics, into the entitlement politics, into the win-at-all-cost politics.

Clinton's closing ad conjured up Osama Bin Laden (OBL) as a reason to vote for her. She has continued the Willie Horton-ing the campaign with false linkages of Obama to Farrakhan (whom Obama has had nothing to do with and has even repudiated) to scare off white middle class voters. This reprehensible display must be repudiated.

Superdelegates, where are you? Hillary Clinton is ruining the party and ruining America's future by imperiling any chance Democrats can turn our country around. Please, please stop this vicious, destructive course. Tell Hillary that if she does not stop the race-baiting, fear-mongering and war-mongering, you will not convey any of your votes to her. Tell her to stop lying about Barack Obama. Tell her to stop saying John McCain is better prepared to be president. She does this despite McCain's rubber stamping a failed agenda, making light by song about bombing another country, and having a temper too hot for steady leadership, and more.) Tell her the destructo-tactics must end. It's almost as if she's trying to extort this nomination. It's as if she is suggesting that if she can't have the presidency, no Democrat can. This above all shows her unworthy of any Superdelegate support.