Clinton campaign believes Obama is illegitimate and shouldn't be here in the first place [View All]

This article notwithstanding, I have heard the same sentiment from many a Clinton supporter here on DU. Also, note that Ickes worried that the Lewinsky scandal would damage the Democratic party.

Michael Crowley, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2008


"The Clintons aren't just reprising the political strategy that helped them survive impeachment; they're also re-enacting certain critiques of their opponents. They believe that Barack Obama, like the '90s-era House Republicans, has abused the system. They fume that he ran up his delegate lead in low- population red-state caucuses like Nebraska, Idaho, and Kansas with the help of activists who don't represent average Democratic voters. After losing Iowa, Hillary complained that its caucuses weren't accessible to night-shift workers and military personnel. At one February fund-raiser, Hillary said the pro-Obama group MoveOn.org had "flooded" caucus sites and to "intimidate people who actually show up to support me." (It's not clear whether Hillary recalls that MoveOn.org was founded a decade ago to defeat impeachment.) Obama wants to "disenfranchise" Michigan and Florida voters, the Clintonites say, by not seating those states' contested delegates. Though the Clinton campaign doesn't often invoke Ken Starr or Newt Gingrich these days, in at least one case Hillary's people have played the impeachment card. After the Obama camp hammered Hillary for delaying the release of her tax returns, Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson exclaimed, "I for one do not believe that imitating Ken Starr is the way to win a Democratic primary election."

"As they did during the late '90s, the Clintons also rage at the perceived hypocrisy of their opponents. Back then, it was the sexual infidelities of some of their top Republican persecutors, including Henry Hyde. Now Obama is the hypocrite. He attacks Hillary for running a negative campaign even as he trashes her ethics and honesty. His allies accuse Bill of playing the race card even as, Bill is convinced, they are playing the race card on him.

"Beyond those particulars, however, one gets the overall impression that the Clintons feel Obama shouldn't be here in the first place--that this "young man's" very claim to power is itself questionable. In this sense, the Clintons may be victims of their own sense of victimhood. The vileness of the Clintons' past enemies seems to have convinced them that their enemies always are, by definition, in the wrong. And that Obama's candidacy is almost like another illegitimate attempt to steal a White House that, in some sense, belongs to them.

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"But not everyone in Clintonland felt that way. One such person was Clinton loyalist Harold Ickes, a top Hillary adviser. As Congress was readying for impeachment, Baker writes, Ickes "considered the current scandal a dire threat to the Democratic hold on the presidency." He told senior Democrats that they needed to push Clinton out of power for the sake of the party--a now familiar line of argument. Needless to say, Ickes's advances went nowhere, and, as he'd feared, Al Gore lost. We'll see in November if the Clintons' refusal to quit has the same effect again."


http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=7aa100ee-a34d-4fa9-b041-154139207075


:wow: