Hurting the Democratic Party?

One thing I have been hearing a lot these days and seeing a lot of articles, is how the prolonged race between Sentors Obama and Clinton for the party nomination is “hurting” the Democratic Party. OK, so maybe I’m the kindergarten scissors in a drawer full of power saws, but say what?

Shouldn’t Democrats be fully informed about the people who want to lead the nation under their banner? Shouldn’t the rules in place be followed for selecting their nominee?

But there, of course, is the rub. The Donks wanted to have their guy/girl/whatever in the spotlight early on, so they could build up their position. The favorite myth of the Left, that later means worse, is still big with these guys, proving once again that they learned pretty much zilch from 2004. If I were making the case for someone hurting the party. I’d say the people selling the theory that lessons from past elections should be ignored, that image is better than substance, that regular people should be lied to rather than listened to, those are the people who hurt whatever group they touch.

The Democrats used to be a potent force for political effectiveness and moral leadership. Not that I agreed with every decision they made, but men like John Kennedy and Harry Truman were good for the nation, and their character showed up in hard decisions and clear initiatives. Not that there are not good Democrats now, but they are much fewer than before, and they are not leading the party (is anyone?) This has happened before, of course, and in both major parties. The Democrats had Grover Cleveland at a high point, then fell back a bit through Woodrow Wilson and his era, and rallied back a bit under Truman and Kennedy, before falling into the mud for a long time after that. The problem the Democrats are starting to recognize now was a long time coming, but it was not caused by either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. Those two people are merely the sad consequence of a generation of shallow, manipulative scheming by so many politicians before them. And so the problem will not be resolved by one of the two dropping out of the race, but the Democrats having a hard look in the mirror and – finally – deciding to stand for something more than grabbing power by preaching envy and hate.