There’s some kind of asinine debate going on over whether or not the dirty campaigning, record distortion, and general guttersniping of the Clinton campaign is a point in the Clintons’ favor.
Let me just say that the people making this argument are no friends of mine. You see that frog up in the left corner that has handcuffs on? I want all corrupt politicians frog-marched out of the White House and the Capitol, not marched-in. I can’t really be anymore clear about it than that. Don’t try to give me some argument about how I have to support the eventual nominee because the opponents are worse. I don’t, and I won’t. I watched the debate tonight and I didn’t see any Michael Dukakises or John Kerrys up there. I saw three fighters. We don’t have a thing to worry about in terms of our candidates fighting back. We do have to worry about our candidate being dishonest and guilty of the same types of things that we so hate the Republicans for embodying.
Too many people are afraid to speak out because they don’t want to alienate the Clintons. Or, they want a job with the Clintons. Or, they want access to the Clintons. A lot of people are watching right now, and we can see who has backbone and principles, and who is hedging their bets.
I don’t care if you particularly like either of the other candidates, or not. I’m not greatly enthusiastic about them myself. But it’s time for people to stand up and be counted.
We have two candidates running positive campaigns, and then we have the Clintons and their skulduggery. It’s time for people to drop their neutrality and put their cards on the table. If it was wrong when Lee Atwater and Karl Rove did it, it is wrong when the Clintons do it.
This idea that we have to sit silent in fear of hurting the eventual nominee is bullshit. The point is to make sure they aren’t the nominee(s). They’ve earned the strident opposition of every progressive. And the other candidates have done nothing even remotely comparable.