While John Edwards is speaking and fighting for the middle class and those mired in poverty and Barack Obama is calling for a United America, Bill and Hillary Clinton are employing a divide and conquer strategy that we most often associate with Republican politicking and the opposite of what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched for and preached against.
Surrogate after surrogate from the Clinton campaign has been sent out to nip away at Sen. Obama and to tweak voter’s fears and insecurities. The opportunity that Dr. King and many others provided us with, to have both a woman and a black man running serious campaigns to become president, have been damaged by the Clinton’s in their quest for presidency at all and any cost.
It is true that the Clinton’s have been strong advocates for the black community. However this does not give them the right to exploit it and us. It does not give them wiggle room as they or their folks chisel away at Barack’s name, his youth and even his blackness. It does not afford them the allowance to play and pray on our differences and on our weaknesses.
Senator Obama hopes to unite us for the collective good. Senator Clinton appears to want to divide us for our own good or perhaps for hers.
Former President Clinton needs to stand down. With South Carolina so very important I fear we will not get through this week without a character bomb being dropped by the Clinton campaign, most likely on Friday. The repetition of these “accidents” is no accident. The strategy is smear by surrogate. Its not that the campaign can’t control former President Bill Clinton, it is that he is running the campaign.
If this does not stop it will damage our party. It will damage our country. And maybe most importantly to Bill Clinton is that it will damage Hillary Clinton in the general election, should she win. If Senator Clinton cannot control President Clinton in the campaign, how will President Clinton control the former President Clinton. If both Clintons are running for president, who will be the one running the country. If Sen. Clinton wins the presidency and makes official policy will Bill act as he has in the campaign and offer and unofficial (and unaccountable) variation?
I do not think the Clinton campaign is being true to Dr. King’s dreams. I do not believe Hillary Clinton is the leader most likely to lead us toward change. A president's administration usually looks a lot like her/his campaign. I don’t like the way this one looks.