In Defense of President Clinton - Politics Ain't Beanbag

Clinton campaigns in Winnetka, Fall 1996. Copyright - Flying Debris

One may reasonably ask, has the EL Rider lost it? Okay here is my problem with the Obama campaign and their surrogates in the press whining about Bill Clinton, what President Clinton said was true. Jesse Jackson won South Carolina twice, although at the time South Carolina held caucuses and the two campaigns are dissimilar, especially in potential. I do not see a problem with what President Clinton said about about the state or the results. He did not, as far as I heard say anything more. Do the Obama supporters even understand politics here in the United States? Whether it was said by late 19th and early 20th century Chicago writer Finley Peter Dunne or twentieth century Chicago 43rd Ward Alderman Paddy Bauler, it bears repeating, "Chicago politics ain't beanbag." Before Barack Obama came along the Clintons were the national purveyors of Chicago style politics, Hillary may have learned it from Saul Alinsky. Right now we are seeing two Chicagoans (ok Park Ridge) go at it and interestingly Obama is getting the better of the victim card. Kind of sad and it makes one wonder who his people would whine to under real pressure.

During his US Senate campaign of 2004 Obama's people, excuse me, the Chicago press decried the fact that Obama's opponent Jack Ryan had his campaign tape Obama's speeches. There was some talk that Obama was tailoring his speeches to his audiences, certainly not a sin or even particularly out of the ordinary but due to the press uproar the taping stopped. Once that happened it seemed that the Ryan campaign didn't have the street sense to make it their own issue, something along the lines of, "if he wants secrecy now, what would he be like after being elected to a six year United States Senate term?" They needed to recognize that Obama would play that hardball, Chicago style of politics and that the press would carry his water.

Obama got another break during that 2004 campaign when former Goldman Sachs partner and part-time inner city teacher Ryan was forced to drop his candidacy after the Tribune Corp. successfully sued in Los Angeles to have his sealed divorce files opened to the public. The Tribune of Chicago and ABC of Los Angeles had access to those private, sealed records against the wishes of all of the other parties involved including Ryan's ex, actress Jeri Ryan. Jack Ryan is a Republican so his situation was not "just about sex", despite the fact that it actually was exclusively about sex. So instead of running against a guy who got his MBA and JD from Harvard before he went to one of the most demanding firms in the world, Barack ran against Alan Keyes.

Here we go again, Barack Obama is feeling some heat for the first time after getting progressively stronger throughout his now year long campaign and the press rides to the rescue. Sure they are being joined by the Sharptons of the world but they all know their roles. I thought that Bill Clinton was talking about the poor press coverage when he inarticulately used the word fairytale and I found it to be an apt description of Obama's press coverage.