The Democratic primary began as a spirited, substantive contest between capable candidates. Now, after the conclusion of the Pennsylvania primary, the prolonged process has degenerated into an increasingly bitter, trivial and damaging confrontation between Senators Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Both candidates are to blame for the current sad state of the nomination process. However, Clinton's campaign has engaged in or tacitly encouraged the most underhanded political attacks and it is her persistence in the face of long odds that is doing the most damage to the Democrats' chance of winning the general election in the fall.
It is time for Clinton to leave the race.
If she continues, the Democratic Party will have to endure more sniping, more media-manufactured controversy, more deliberately misconstrued remarks and more irrelevant personal attacks, all for the sake of Clinton's now quixotic obsession with becoming the nominee.
The build up to the Pennsylvania primary has given us: "bittergate," "snipergate" and the Jeremiah Wright controversy - distracting and trivial stories that have little to do with actual issues. The silliness and political gamesmanship culminated in last Wednesday's insultingly petty Philadelphia debate that was criticized by voters from across the political spectrum and ended with the audience booing the moderators.
In that debate, Clinton said it was "absolutely imperative that our entire party close ranks, that we become unified" after the nomination process ends. However, this is becoming more unlikely thanks to the increasingly divisive campaign she has decided to run.
Even with a win in Pennsylvania and in Indiana after that, the odds of Senator Clinton winning the nomination are, mathematically, extremely slim. By continuing on until the convention, she is doing the Republicans' work for them, effectively running their campaign while allowing Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) to remain above the fray and unsullied by smear tactics. The fact that his approval ratings and advantage in head-to-head polls with either democratic candidate continue to rise is testament to that fact.
Her willingness to go negative earlier in the contest was, arguably, good for the Democratic Party - it insured that the nominee would be able to withstand the inevitable Republican onslaught. However her devotion to negative campaign tactics has crossed the line from a beneficial "toughening up" to cynical and dangerous misrepresentations of her party's likely nominee. Encouraging questions about Obama's patriotism, religion and friendships (all of which, when looked at from an objective, factual angle are politically irreproachable), insults voters' intelligence and does her and her party a disservice.
Clinton's claims that the ongoing campaign is ultimately good for the party are false and self-serving.
Nearly one fifth of Clinton and Obama supporters now say they would not vote for the other candidate in the general election, a statistic that is at least partially a result of Clinton's protracted negative campaigning.
The more she goes negative, the more her negativity ratings go up, decreasing her own electability in the general election - in the unlikely event she gets that far.
Clinton's only real chance at securing the nomination is by continuing on until the convention and having the party's superdelegates overturn Obama's likely lead in both pledged delegates and popular vote. If that were to happen, it would irreparably damage the Democratic Party's unity and would doubtlessly leave the party with a jaded, divided base going into the general election.
Clinton has repeatedly claimed to have her party's, and not her own, interests at heart. If that is true, she should withdraw now and demonstrate the political intelligence she is capable of rather than the smear tactics she has recently favored.
