The former first lady's allies say the longer Edwards stays in the race, the more problems his candidacy will cause the party down the road.
One senior adviser to the Clinton campaign said Edwards was "angry" because the primary race isn't turning out the way he had hoped. Now, Edwards just wants to make life miserable for everyone else.
Some think Edwards is playing the role of a spoiler, prolonging the day of reckoning between Clinton and U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the Democratic front-runners. They fear the longer the Clinton-Obama battle goes on, the harder it will be to heal the inevitable wounds in the Democratic Party. It's time for Edwards to drop out of the race, they say.
link: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_8052139
Okay, so let's break this down a little. The Hillary Clinton campaign doesn't want John Edwards to say in the race because it "prolongs the day of reckoning between Clinton and Obama". And the "longer the Clinton-Obama battle goes on, the harder it will be to heal the inevitable wounds in the Democratic Party."
Heh.
Let's cut through the butter here. Hillary Clinton desperately wants this to be a two-way race. We saw it in the last debate. By tossing out the word "Rezko", and getting Obama to go down in the mud she's trying to take away his biggest asset. She's trying to change Obama's persona from the "transcendent figure of hope and change" to one of "just your average Chicago pol". Not squeaky clean. Gets just as dirty as everyone else.
And once she has Obama on that level, now she can talk about the choice between one politician or the other one. Now the talk of "experience" and "being vetted" becomes suddenly more relevant. If the choice is between two politicians acting like politicians...well, wouldn't you want to choose the politician who's better playing that game?
And she would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that pesky John Edwards:
And, what's worse? Check out this notable quotable:
At Monday night’s debate, Democratic front-runners Sens. Barack Obama (Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) repeatedly engaged each other in their sharpest, most contentious debate exchanges yet.
“I’m thinking, ‘I’m John Edwards, and I represent the grown-up wing of the Democratic Party,’ ” Edwards said. “At times like these we need a grown-up.”
link: http://thehill.com/campaign-2008/edwards-on-clinton-obama-we-need-a-grown-up-2008-01-22.html
Edwards has just boxed Hillary in on her knock-down-and-take-Obama-out strategy. The more she insists on flinging the mud and encouraging Obama to respond in kind, the more Pappa John can call back from the metaphorical driver's seat, "Do I have to pull this car over?" Edwards has put Hillary in the position of making him look better - more adult - every time she engages in the poo fight, and even running third that's something that the Clintons (given Bill's own history of only winning his first primary in Georgia) are pretty loathe to do.
No wonder Camp Hill feels like John is "making life miserable for everyone else." I'm sure to them he probably is.
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