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Welcome to the 2008 presidential primary, Jillyvn. Obama has been going after McCain’s positions, changes in positions, and rhetoric. Perhaps you missed his speech in Indiana, the night of the PA primary wherein he mentioned John McCain a number of times. You’ve probably missed many of his town hall meetings wherein he goes into some depth on the differences between him and John McCain. The bottom line is Obama is doing exactly what you wish the candidates would do.
The problem is the MSM is only interested in and so only shows the conflicts and verbal barbs going back and forth between Hillary and Barack. However, if you examine these long distance repartee’s you’ll notice that in the majority of cases it’s Hillary who initiates the attacks, many of which, in my opinion, should not be considered germane to determining who should be the nominee as they are not substantive. The result is Barack is forced into making a choice between responding quickly and forcefully and possibly being deemed as engaging in pettiness that benefits no one, or not responding (or delaying a response), and possibly being considered weak. Lately he’s been choosing to respond. I’m not sure if it’s helping, but I do agree, as I’m sure he does, that it’s a distraction, and one he wishes he could forego.
Whereas McCain is Obama’s rival, Hillary has become Obama’s nemesis, seeking to rain destruction down on his head any way she can as retribution for the effrontery of his designs on a presidency she feels is rightfully her due. It’s a challenge for Obama to concentrate efforts on his rival when his nemesis keeps nip, nip, nipping at his leg like an annoying chihuahua that not only keeps yapping and won’t shut the Hell up, but with teeth that probably won’t do enough damage to kill him, but can definitely, with enough bites, hobble and main him, possibly taking him out of commission, and is absolutely drunk with glee at the prospect.
I think the DNC is going to do something, but they know they have to be careful. Alienating Hillary’s supporters would spell disaster for the party. I’m hopeful they’ll wait until the saga of the remaining contests plays out, if it goes that far. The writing should be on the wall large enough for even Hillary to see after NC, so everyone should probably cool it and wait at least until then. There will probably come a time where calls for Hillary to drop out will make sense, but we’re not there yet.
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I know that Barack Obama has been going after McCain, so perhaps I should have noted that in my original question. Since I’m a canuck, I’m slightly distanced from the American media coverage, but I take your point. The in-fighting between the candidates is much more salacious and I suppose it is a bit chihuahua-ish. Still, I would like to see the candidates *completely * stop picking at one another now… it’s getting ridiculous and they are only feeding the machine. Instead,everytime they hit the media and campaign trail, they should relentlessly hammer on McCain. I’m seriously worried, from my safe seat in the North, that the infighting is going to give McCain a leg up. If the DNC can’t/shouldn’t stop the candidates from running to the primary, I can’t see this being a good thing for the party.
