Who’s Playbook Is It?

Under pressure in a feisty debate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accused her closest rivals Thursday night of slinging mud "right out of the Republican playbook" and leveled her sharpest criticism of the campaign at their records. –Beth Fouthy

I keep hearing of the Republican playbook or sometimes referred to as Karl Rove’s playbook or George Bush’s playbook. Yet when I hear of it, it is undoubtedly always referred to by Democrats.

It’s like the Conservative vast right-wing conspiracy or the sniper fire over Bosnia both of these things were inventions of the Democrat mind in order to foil the Republicans and/ or to enhance Democrat standing in the eyes of fellow partisans.

Likewise the Republican playbook is an invention. an old wife’s tale told to scare naïve little Democrats into voting against the great big Republican bogyman.

Also, the term, the Republican playbook is used by Democrats to justify the ruthless dirt that Democrats do while blaming Republicans for Democrat foibles and Democrat viciousness à la recent examples of Democrats accusing one another of using the Republican playbook against one another on television debates and on the campaign stump.

As I write this Sen. Obama has won North Carolina and Sen. Clinton is giving a victory speech in Indiana even though CNN says that it is too close to call right now.

It is quite clear to me that Sen. Obama could have run the table in every primary in every state and Sen. Clinton would have remained in the race as she undoubtedly will do whether she wins Indiana tonight or not.

Sen. Clinton likes to refer to herself as a fighter and yes she does fancy herself as a sniper fire dodging derringdo but what is also frightening is the Clinton ability to suspend reality for scenarios that they concoct themselves out of whole cloth. In other words the Clintons make up their own reality regardless of what the facts are on the ground.

Case in point this Democratic campaign was supposed to be a historic campaign one that women and minorities could be proud of because the Democrat Party was putting forth both a woman and a minority man to be the first woman or Black person to win the Democrat nomination to be President.

Race again played a pivotal role in Tuesday's Democratic presidential clashes, as whites in Indiana and North Carolina leaned solidly toward Hillary Rodham Clinton and blacks voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, exit polls showed.

Almost half said they were influenced by the focus on Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.-- ALAN FRAM

But through a series of strategic strikes along the lines of Race the Clintons have turned the historical into the racially horrific.

In Richard Kim’s “How does Hillary Clinton feel about the White Racist vote” he says ;

So, in the name of another personal quality--honesty--I'd like Hillary Clinton to make the following statement: "Though my opponent has run a terrific campaign, in primary after primary, I have proven that I am the more electable candidate.

I am more electable because I am white.

Barack Obama--Wow!--he's certainly inspired a lot of hope, but as voters in Indiana and North Carolina make up their minds, as the superdelegates make up their minds, they should remember that Barack Obama is black.

They should also remember that a whole lot of white working-class Americans are racists. White racists are an important part of the Democratic Party, and time and time again, they've supported me because I am white.

I am ready on day one to govern as your white American president."—Richard Kim, the Nation

Is Mr. Kim calling Sen. Clinton and White people who vote for her because she’s not that Black man racist? Therefore linking such an attitude to Republicans or to the infamous Republican playbook?

My question is if there were such a sacred relic as a Republican play book how did it fall into the hands of the Democrats and how do Democrats seem to know so much about it.

Sen. Clinton seems to always be on the lookout for the slightest indication that someone Democrat or Republican is running a play from that book and when she perceives a violation she immediately whistles and tosses up a yellow flag as she points out that her opponent is guilty of using the dreaded Republican play book.

As I see it that book is not all that it’s cracked up to be. If it were and if there were any good plays in that book certainly the Republicans would have used them in the 2006 mid-term elections instead of dismally losing both houses of Congress.

Surely in the least it could have been protected better and kept out of the hands of Democrats.

And one would think if the Republican playbook was, “all of that” Sen. John McCain would not have been able to do an end-around Conservative Republicans to get the presumptive Republican nomination to be President.

Its instances like that, which make me, believe that Republicans need superdelegates too!

My thought is this, if you know a certain playbook and you are able to identify each and every play from that playbook that playbook is not your opponent’s playbook that playbook is yours.

Yet what is most troubling--and what has the most serious implications for the feminist movement--is that the Clinton campaign has used her rival's race against him. In the name of demonstrating her superior "electability," she and her surrogates have invoked the racist and sexist playbook of the right—Besty Reed, The Nation

As Besty Reed sees it the Clintons used the racist and the sexist playbook to get where they are today. Only I disagree with her on one small point, and that is, the playbook which she is referring to is of the left not the right!

If Barack Obama is where he is because he is Black, Hillary Clinton is where she is because she is a White woman. In other words no matter how Democrats accuse each other of using Republican tactics or the Republican playbook what we are really witnessing is Democrats using tactics against one another that they would normally use against Republicans.

The only thing is, after Democrats use these sexist and racist attacks against one another they then have the temerity to blame Republicans for Democrat's own tactics because after all Democrats aren’t racist and sexist only Republicans are.

Finally, the much touted playbook is a playbook but it isn’t a Republican playbook! No Democrats need to take responsibility for their own racist and sexist attacks. When they attempt to use these same playbook attacks in the general election against John McCain American’s collective memory should not be so short as to forget that the attacks that Howard Dean and the Democratic machine will use against Sen. McCain are the same ones that they’ve used on one another just a few short weeks ago.

No, instead we should all remember that Democrats play dirty, sexist, racist, divisive politics among themselves so it shouldn’t be too hard for anyone to understand that they would use these same tactics against Republicans any Republican.

Just look at the eight straight years of virulent Democrat attacks against one George W. Bush… There my point is made!