Presidential Hopefuls Need A Thick Skin

Cycle Of Insults Takes Hold In Campaign Between Clinton, Obama

(AP)  If the presidential campaign were kindergarten, rude people could be sent for a time-out or made to write “hope and change” on the blackboard until they are nice.

In kindergarten, you're not allowed to call anyone a monster or make fun of someone's middle name.

But this is politics, in a land where freedom of speech is carved into the rock of the republic, and these are grown-ups with thick skins stretched over awesome amounts of self-esteem.

It's a land that has known and survived the scorched earth politics of the late Republican Lee Atwater, the shark grin of Democratic strategist James Carville, the “rhymes with witch” and “Ozone man” wisecracks of recent years, and the ghosts of distant ages who knew what nasty campaigning was really about.

It's America. You got a problem with that?

A cycle of insult and puffy indignation has taken hold in the contest between Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, with supporters of Republican Sen. John McCain gleefully pitching in.

It's been a time to denounce, dissociate, distance and regret, to nurse tender sensitivities, and to see the occasional offender cut from a campaign. Geraldine Ferraro, who resigned a Clinton post Wednesday, was the latest to go.

Obama is generally sanguine about fur flying around him and claws coming at him. But he pays people to get angry on his behalf.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, for one, was outraged when Ferraro declared that Obama has only come this far because he's black. Now Ferraro is outraged at Axelrod's outrage.

She stepped down as an unpaid Clinton fundraiser after a second day of sniping between the two camps over her remarks.

Samantha Power is a feisty Pulitzer Prize-winning author who calls herself “genocide chick” because of her area of study and passion. The unpaid Obama foreign policy adviser told a Scottish newspaper she thought Clinton was a monster.

She was gone before the Clinton campaign's indignation machine could get fully into motion, although it was not to be stopped. Clinton's aides quickly turned the insult into a money-raising opportunity, campaign cash salving their wounds.

The sensitive tripwire of race has been set off repeatedly, with religion and ethnicity not far behind.

Obama was moved this week to defend a stark ad from Clinton, the one about the 3 a.m. crisis phone call. He assured everyone he did not consider it racist.

The ad merely implied he was incompetent.

Clinton had the temerity to pronounce with insufficient zeal that her rival is Christian, as if a firmer word from her would have stilled the false rumors that he's Islamic.

Clinton has been a Republican fundraising magnet for years and taken everything the GOP could throw at her. She repackages attacks against her and puts them to her use.

But Wednesday night, she struck a different tone with several unusual mea culpas.

She fully disowned Ferraro's remarks, expressed regret they were spoken and apologized to those who were offended when her husband seemed to belittle Obama by comparing his achievements to those of Jesse Jackson.

McCain chuckled when a South Carolina voter called Clinton a bad name at a public event in the fall, recovering a few minutes later to speak of his respect for the New York senator. Since then, he's had to bat down several other coarse comments from supporters.

McCain apologized after a conservative radio host warming up a campaign crowd repeatedly invoked Obama's middle name, Hussein, and called him “the great prophet from Chicago” who wants to sing Kumbaya with “world leaders who want to kill us.'

The talk show host was outraged at McCain's apology.

Now McCain has rebuked Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa for saying Obama is viewed by terrorists as their savior. King couldn't resist using Obama's middle name, too. McCain said through a spokesman that King degraded civil discourse.

As for insulting McCain himself, opponents might as well forget it. By now, he's heard it all and said it all.

This includes the innuendo spread in 2000 suggesting his adopted daughter from Bangladesh was his illegitimate child - an echo of the 1884 whisper campaign against Grover Cleveland.

A man who calls himself “older than dirt” cannot be easily put out when someone else raises questions about his age. A snippy display with a reporter revealed a temper he's known to have. He rode out reports that he had inappropriate links with a lobbyist.

As far as is known, his aides are not outraged at anything at this time.

McCain survived torture in Vietnam. In this campaign, sticks and stones are not likely to break his bones.

[craigh9]

This is actually very simple to see what will happen here.

Obama gets the nomination because he receives the most pledged delegates - you get a chance for the party to come together and mount a reasonable challenge in November.

Hillary gets the nomination without the majority of pledged delegates resulting in many democrats feeling cheated by back room politics and the party will be fractured with zero chance of reaching its goal of the White House in 2008.

You make the call DNC - but everyday you allow your 2 candidates to snipe at each other is a day lost of working towards the REAL goal.

[jack3213]

JUST A FEW REMINDERS OF THE CLINTONS DISGRACE AND HOW WE SHOULD NOT CONSIDER HER: As they departed the White House, the Clintons left with furniture, lamps, prints and other items totaling $28,000. After an enormous public outcry, the former first grifters returned this truckload of public property swiped from the Executive Mansion. For his part, William Jefferson Clinton successfully perjured himself in the Paula Jones sexual-harassment lawsuit.Long-subpoenaed billing records from Hillary Clinton''''s days at Little Rock''''s Rose Law Firm magically materialized at the White House in January 1996 -- just four days after a statute of limitations expired, thus sparing her from potential civil liability for advising Madison Guaranty, a failed bank whose collapse cost taxpayers $60 million.

[fleura-2009]

Until the democrats realize that their best candidate is being attacked left and right, until then remember what happened with John Kerry just 4 years ago. Would you sit and just watch it all happen?

Wake up you Democrats and Brainy Americans out there!!
Look how the Republicans are lining up behind McCain and supporting him for the battle later this year. When and what are the Democrats doing...come on you people, come on and get to work.

The Florida and whatever other state should be left behind for the goodness of the party. You all did a big booboo and don''t drag thingd to the last day of the nomination, just to try and SATISFY A LOOSING CANDIDATE, she will have her chance in 4 years. The true "opponent" is preparing and geering up for the battle, that the Clintons are not ready to face.

Why in the hell would democrats want to go back to Florida and further damage what''s been a heartbreaking candidacy? Give the guy the support for once...you democrats and not wait to the last minute to patch things up!!!

I would love to see John Kerry and Barack Obama...as a team...god help us all. We need their brains and resilience. And get us away from this Clinton nightmare!!!!

[fleura-2009]

THE REAL BATTLE IS DEMOCRATS/REPUBLICANS!!!!

[fleura-2009]

She is not of His caliber and if negative campaigning is her best effort, why should she get any...to satisfy....what??? She is dummed to loose to McCain...wake up Democrats!!!

The republicans are feeding your brains with smoke to damage the party & most of the hatred here on these sites is driven by republicans wanting the WEAKER of the TWO candidates to be nominated.

Obama will be sustained and bring us True Democrats back to the White House. He drives such energy and enthusiasm into the whole election process. It''''s not about McCain/Clinton/Obama, this season is all about ---- Barack Obama!!!! He is the shining star of this whole election & bringing young, old, all walks of life and all the energy back into Washington, DC.

We want our boys and girls out of that miserable war. Barack Obama is that -silent voice- for everyone who has lost a child & been touched by a Bush/Clinton war in Iraq and Afgha...their silent tears and the words gone - USPOKEN
Only one --- Barack Obama is that voice!!!!

[croft777]

This is a stupid article, he we go again...Poop poor Obama, everybody is picking on him..lol oh please. I don''t think I''m the only American who has questioned his religion and his life. People wake up! The remarks Rev. Wright has made about the white Americans, and Farrakhan get a high Honors award in Obamas church. You see how Wright speaks in front of his congegation (the church members), and that Obamas mentor is Wright. Do you not think that Rev. Wrights speeches he give in front of the church members including Obama does not affect him in how he feels about whites in any way. I''m sure it does. He wrote about this racial thing, and so did his wife. Obamas got more evil people around him them there are flys on sh*it. I don''t trust him even with a 50 foot pole.

[blkpresident]

Hillary''s a woman; OLD man McCain is too old. So, the only real choice is Obama. Obama 2008!

[samthetvcat]

"McCain survived torture in Vietnam. In this campaign, sticks and stones are not likely to break his bones."

Obama supporters don''t play like that so McCain supporters ought to worry more about how he''s going to defend his policies rather than worry that he''s going to be attacked on irrelevancies like his age or his skin cancer . . .

The Republidumbos are the biggest whiners when around when it comes to pointing out stuff like the fact that the Surge is dependent on Iraqi''s choosing to abide by ceasefires, or that refusal to anti-trust bust Boeing and force it to compete against itself while simultaneously advocating free trade without regard to the role government subsidies play in artificially lowering contract bids is costing Americans thousands of jobs, is ratcheting up our trade deficit, and lowering our dollar . . .

[karela33]

We''ve had a belly full of ugly politics. I''m glad they''re being called on to behave more like civilized human beings and I''m glad that they''re responding. I am not a McCain fan, but I deplore the fact that he was chased out of the last election on the basis of having helped a child who desperately needed help. Maybe you haven''t noticed, but there''s a huge contingent of Americans who want to see it cleaned up. Freedom is what we love. But freedom is not a right we have if our freedom impinges on someone elses. If political lies keep the good guys out of politics, all you have left are the liars and the crooks---that''s how we got in this mess. Slander is still a civil violation of law. Except during dirty political races. A lot of us want something and someone better to lead our country.