Slumming In South Carolina

If nothing else, Obama’s 2:1 wallop of Hillary Clinton in South Carolina today has proven that people don’t like it when you dump your trash in their front yard.

Like Rove and the Bushies before them, Hill & Bill, thirsting to prolong their dynasty at any cost, tried to McCain Barack in the Palmetto State this week, rolling out some of the nastiest campaigning (beyond good old hardball) they’ve shown all season.

South Caolinians (black and white alike) made it clear that it wouldn’t work in their state, and I’m proud of them for that. I still believe that people know when they’re being treated like morons and tend to stand up for themselves.

[MSNBC just now is mentioning that 6 out of every 10 voters said Bill Clinton’s campaigning affected their vote, and more of those voters went for Barack than Hillary].

The question that remains is whether the Clinton strategy has had/will have its desired effect for the rest of the country – meaning, will the ribbing bruise Obama outside of South Carolina?

Pat Buchanan has been pounding this point for the last few days, even moreso after Hillary’s defeat tonight, and it isn’t without merit.

Did the Clinton camp long ago realize that South Carolina was lost and decide simply use it as an excuse to get in a few jabs at Obama below the belt – by trying to peg him as a “black” candidate (read: worthy as a politician but too liberal to be a Contender) or twist his words about the 1980 election and hope no one would double check what he actually said?

As one often says about the Clintons, I wouldn’t put it past them.

Assuming, a la Buchanan, that this is the case, are we now just seeing the end of the first phase – in which South Caolina is sacrificed in order to tarnish the dream candidate’s glimmer as he heads into Super Tuesday states? Did those Carolinians come out not so much for Obama as against Bad Cop Bill?

(I should say that I don’t mean to suggest that Barack didn’t earn his victory tonight – more on his candidacy to follow – just that Hillary’s margin of defeat is too big for her husband’s running his mouth not to have had something to do with it.)

The next ten days will answer that question. My hope is that what happens in South Carolina doesn’t stay there (and, thanks to the kind of Web-based news media we have these days, that isn’t so delusional a wish) and that the rest of the country is just as repulsed by the Clintons’ dirty tricks as voters were today.

Thoughts on Barack Obama & his candidacy are coming soon, but I want to say now that if you haven’t see his speech from tonight you need to watch it now. He is the greatest (i.e., most viable) liberal hope this country has had since John Kennedy, and I’m with the man’s daughter in saying so.

1/26/08

###