Time to quit being surprised by this contest
CLINTON VS. OBAMA | Its far from first political battle marked by dirty little digs and Swiftboat saboteurs
Time to take a timeout. Time to quit being surprised about anything when it comes to the Clinton-Obama fight for the presidency, including Hillary Clinton's victory last night in Pennsylvania.
Gosh, listening to the cable chatterers, you'd think that until this pitched battle for the White House, American politics was marked by high-minded messages, not dirty little digs and Swift Boat saboteurs. That so much oxygen has been sucked up marveling about Clinton being negative and Barack Obama being forced to be negative back is baloney.
This is a battle of two warriors for the highest stakes possible and the notion that nice was ever going to be part of either of their equations is nuts.
Tell me, when exactly did the former president worry about appearances? When he hooked up with Gennifer Flowers? When he jogged through the streets of Washington in those preposterous, non-presidential running shorts? When he was getting more than pizza from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office?
Enough of the Democratic finger-wagging that Clinton is ruining his legacy with red-faced rants about the race card and other unseemly utterances. The Comeback Kid couldn't care less. He plays to win and he plays it his way.
Obama is nothing short of a supernova when it comes to raising hundreds of millions of dollars. Clinton has done well, but as an emergency $5 million loan to her campaign demonstrated, he has outshone her.
So far, he has spent a staggering $189 million but still has $40 million on hand. She has spent $163 million and is running in the red.
And yet, Obama's ability to out-raise and outspend Clinton in New Hampshire, Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania did not buy him victory in those big states. That doesn't mean Clinton can win without money. And Indiana will be the cash crucible for her campaign. But she seems willing to run on empty.
Remember Al Gore? Remember the rift between him and the Clintons when he ran in 2000 but didn't want Bill out there stumping for him? That was one of about a thousand rifts in the party before this currently evolving one.
And is the Republican Party currently rift-free just because John McCain, bane of the Bush conservatives, is the presumptive nominee?
We can poll until we're purple. And often do.
But voters, far from being sick of this election, far from being put off by all its twists and turns or its increasingly negative nature, are going to the polls in droves.
And delivering surprises that should no longer surprise us.
It won't be the candidates, it won't be the pundits, it will be the American people who will tell us when this thing is over.
And what they've said -- at least so far -- is that it isn't.
