Political Blogging - Clinton's New Role as Lady Macbeth

The problem is you can't trust Clinton. Hillary Clinton. She wants it too bad, and you wonder what she's willing to do to get it. Meghan Daum's opinion article out of the Los Angeles Times argues just this. Like a Lady Macbeth wanting the throne for herself, you wonder the lengths she might go... and if she needs to divide the democratic party in the primaries, and more deeply entrench the two parties in the general to win election so be it.

This isn't personal anecdotally commentary. Just turn to Nevada to see what I'm talking about.

An article in today's Las Vegas Sun written by J. Patrick Coolican, David McGrath Schwartz, Michael Mishak reports that a lawsuit has been filed that would close 'at large' caucus sites located on the Strip. These at large sites were added to allow shift workers the opportunity to still participate in the January 19th caucus.

Certainly if the suit is upheld by the courts it would disenfranchise workers, and disproportionately culinary union workers who only days ago threw their support behind Barack Obama (as I wrote in Unions or Bust?).

So who would file such a suit? Clinton associates, no surprise. As the article reports:

The plaintiffs have ties, albeit indirect, to the Clinton campaign. Dan Hart, chief political consultant to the state teachers union, has run Reid’s campaigns in the past and is currently an unpaid adviser to him. Some of the activists were active backers of state Sen. Dina Titus’ failed 2006 bid for governor. Titus, a Democratic national committeewoman, has endorsed Clinton. She did not return a call seeking comment.

As The New York Times reported Saturday, the teachers union’s deputy executive director, Debbie Cahill, was a founding member of Clinton’s Nevada Women’s Leadership Council.

Clinton's campaign impishly responded, "[The suit] is not for us to decide. We just want the process to be fair."

Obama admonished the legal suit.

Yet, what make this all the worse. Is that Clinton herself admonished the Iowa caucus because it excluded some from participating in the process. After spending months and millions in Iowa, she left the state in third place. The next day she started spinning her loss, and what a cyclone it was.

David Yepsen, chief political writer for the Des Moines Register wrote:

Clinton's professed love for Iowa proved short-lived. By Friday, she and her staff were dissing Iowa's caucuses.
She told reporters in New Hampshire that "this is a new day. This is a new state. This is a primary election. You're not disenfranchised if you work at night. You're not disenfranchised if you're not in the state."

The at-large caucus sites on the Las Vegas Strip were added to help mitigate caucus disenfranchisement, which the Clinton campaign castigated Iowa for. Now, that Obama has the culinary workers endorsement the Clinton camp doesn’t seem to care if there is caucus disenfranchisement. When she began her presidential campaign she said, “I am in it to win it.” She forgot to add, “…whatever the cost.”

The day after Iowa Clinton made a statement that she was "the most innocent." Trust me, at night she washing her hands, stammering, "Out! Damn'd spot. Out!"

Update (Sunday, 3:51pm)
Clinton is now claiming that the racial concerns shared by numerous black leaders across the country were engineered by Barack Obama's campaign. The response came when Hillary stated (quoted from Poltico.com):

“Dr. King's dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, when he was able to get through Congress something that President Kennedy was hopeful to do, the president before had not even tried, but it took a president to get it done.”

Mr. Clinton stated around the same time that Senator Obama's campaign, "Is the biggest fairytale I've ever seen."

The next seeming gaffe came when State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said that Obama would have to do more than just 'shuck and jive' at news conferences.

Clinton went on Meet the Press (see video) with Tim Russert and made this comment:

"Clearly, we know from media reports that the Obama campaign is deliberately distorting this,” she said. "It is such an unfair and unwarranted attempt to, you know, misinterpret and mischaracterize what I’ve said."

Obama responded, as reported by Fox News:

"I didn’t make the statement. I haven’t remarked on it and she, I think, offended some folks who felt that somehow diminished King’s role in bringing about the Civil Rights Act. She is free to explain that, but the notion that somehow this is our doing is ludicrous. I have to point out that instead of telling the American people about her positive vision for America, Senator Clinton spent an hour talking about me and my record in a way that was flat-out wrong,” Obama said.

There is sure to be political fallout over this development. It must be noted that I could not find a comment by Obama on the aforementioned statements by the Clinton or Cuomo.