OK as I noted in the last post a new Iowa poll and some people starting to ask questions are raising the question if this whole Clinton vs. Obama thing is any good for Democrats. Here is my brief summary/thoughts.

1) I have continually mentioned the very massive flaw of Barack Obama’s campaign. Namely putting the candidate up on a moral pedestal with all this “hope” and “change” and “I am not a bad person who will go around attacking people, taking money or working inside the system” maneuvering. The problem is not one person can actually live that way.

I read an article the other day about Obama running his campaign like Ronald Reagan. He isn’t, he is running it like George W. Bush. Obama is the “uniter not the divider/compassionate conservative/outsider who doesn’t have all that WARSHington experience” candidate. Yet he is raising obscene amounts of money, hiring bundlers, misrepresenting his record and attacking people. That’s Washington.

It is a matter of physics. The higher up you shoot the further down you fall. So when he is out attacking Clinton or anyone else he suddenly tarnishes the image and threatens the support of the people who want someone “different”. What those people really want is a dream that never existed and never will and promising them you can make that dream a reality is dangerous.

2) Clinton on the other hand carries with her the stink of the Clinton administration. Everyone in the Democratic Party loves her when she attacks Republicans. What everyone remembers about Clinton is that he gave Republicans a good flogging. For Democrats the idea of her coming in and obliterating Republicans is a nice prospect.

The problem is when she attacks Democrats it reminds the party of a problem Clinton had. No not Monica, the fact that he did very little for the Democratic Party. The House & Senate were Republican controlled under Clinton, he didn’t necessarily get that Supreme Court working the way people wanted, he was a real moderate who brought the party the 1996 Telecommunications Deregulation Act, Welfare Reform, no openly gay members of the military and so on.

So Clinton attacking Democrats reminds Democrats that they aren’t going to get a liberal friend in the White House, just someone who can win and govern.

The last thing Democrats want right now is a repeat of 2004 when the candidates ripped each other apart during the primaries giving their opposition ammunition in the general election. This isn’t an election where Democrats should be running against each other but against the opposition. It makes for difficult politics when each wants to win the nod but in the end it will be better for them all not to seem like the dysfunctional bickering road show family they tend to be.