Democrat strategy; I get it now

Something has always seemed weird to me about the candidates the Democrats elect for their Presidential candidates. They never seem to pick a candidate that Democrats should be picking. It finally hit me while I was reading this post from Ace of Spades and this one from Dan Riehl based on this post from the Washington Post;

Billy Shaheen, the co-chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in New Hampshire, raised the issue of Sen. Barack Obama’s past admissions of drug use in discussing the relative electability of the Democrats seeking the presidential nomination today.

In an interview, Shaheen said, he remains perplexed about why, at this fraught point in history, voters and the media are not giving more attention to experienced Democratic candidates such as Sens. Chris Dodd and Joe Biden and are instead elevating into the first tier alongside Clinton a pair of candidates with less experience in Washington, Barack Obama and John Edwards. Shaheen also expressed his personal misgivings about whether Obama or Edwards would be electable if they became the party’s nominee.

Among his concerns about Obama as the nominee, he said in an interview here today, is that his background is so relatively unknown and that the Republicans would do their best to unearth negative aspects of it, or concoct mistruths about it. Shaheen, a lawyer and influential state power broker, mentioned as an example Obama’s use of cocaine and marijuana as a young man, which Obama has been open about in his memoir and on the trail.

Now, I asked myself “Why would the drug-steeped party of potheads care about drug abuse?” Well, they still get exercised about their unreasonable perception of the President as a former coke addict and drunk – but only in relation to what they think is Republican hypocrisy. Does this mean they actually have principles when it comes to drug abuse? Nope – not a chance.

The only reason they’re concerned about Obama’s drug use is because they pick candidates for whom they think Republicans would vote. That explains the bumbling and clumsy candidacy of John Kerry – whom they chose over their ideal candidate Howie Dean.

Democrats are so intellectually shallow that they think they have Republicans figured out psychologically. They chose Kerry because they thought he was some sort of untouchable war hero for whom no Republican could resist pulling the lever – despite the fact that he was an incompetent boob and was hardly the ideal Democrat representative. 

Now the Clinton campaign thinks they can tank the Obama campaign by telling Democrats that even though Obama fits their ideal, Republicans won’t vote for him because of drug abuse – Lord knows Democrats don’t care about drug abuse in their candidates. (Kennedy family, anyone?)

Actually, it’s just more dishonesty – more of the “How can we fool America today?” mentality that permeates Democrat politics.

Riehl and Ace both think this tanks the Clinton campaign, but I don’t quite believe it. Given Democrats’ history, I think this will give individual Democrats pause to reconsider their votes in the primary for Obama since they’re obsessed with getting the White House back – and since Republicans are so easy for them to second-guess, it may just clinch the nomination for Clinton.

I just noticed Chris Muir figured it out in his “Day By Day” cartoon today, too. Hot Air and SeeDubya wonder why no one’s asked Hillary about her drug use yet.

Category: Politics