First, I only partially agree with what Howard Dean said on Fox today. It is not on here until this evening, but I read this at The Hill. Dean is right. But he leaves out that our own Democrats are doing it, too.
Dean: GOP uses ‘hate’ and ‘race baiting’ to winDemocratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean said Sunday that Republicans are using “hate and divisiveness” to win elections. Dean argued that the use of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) former pastor Jeremiah Wright in GOP ads in local races is “race baiting.”
“When you start bringing up things that have nothing to do with the candidate and nothing to do with the issues, that’s race baiting,” Dean said on Fox News Sunday in response to a question whether the Wright issue and his ties to Obama hurt Democrats down ticket.
“There’s a lot of difference between the Republicans and the Democrats on issues, but the biggest issue of all is we don’t use this kind of stuff. We never have used this kind of stuff, and we’re not going to start now,” said the DNC chairman. “America is more important than the Republican Party, and that’s the lesson that the voters are about to teach the Republicans.”
I think he is of necessity being very tactful. I am quite sure he knows that others have played the race-baiting game as well.
The words of Clinton's campaign leaders saying they will continue to use Wright as a issue.The words are there of McAuliffe, Wasserman Schultz, and Harold Ickes...in their own words.
As to James Carville....I could not believe what he said to Newsweek and Eleanor Clift. Well, yes, I believe it...but it is tasteless.
Showing His MettleReminded that Obama continues to narrow the lead that Hillary once enjoyed among superdelegates, Carville quips, "A superdelegate commitment and four bucks will get you a cup of coffee at the Ritz-Carlton." Perhaps he had in mind Joe Andrew, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, appointed by Bill Clinton, who endorsed Hillary on the day she announced for president, and Thursday switched his endorsement to Obama, saying he thinks it's time for the party to come together. Carville takes the view that the longer Obama is out there under scrutiny, the more the voters see his vulnerabilities. "Everything that's happened to him is not because of her. She hasn't laid much of a glove on him other than just being there," Carville says.
Obama didn't have much choice in deciding to take on Wright. It was a fight he did all he could to avoid, acting only when it threatened to destroy his candidacy. "The Republicans will eat him alive" is what the Clinton campaign is telling the superdelegates. Hillary is the tougher of the two, the candidate you want on your side in a knife fight, a gender reversal that prompts Carville to indulge in some ribald humor: "If she gave him one of her cojones, they'd both have two."
That is the kind of smart ass answer I would expect from him.
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