Ugly Coverage

The media narrative for this next phase of the Democratic campaign is now set, as firmly as if the top players had secretly hammered out a memo over drinks at the Palm.

Hint: It's not, what a great race! Nor is it, what a remarkable comeback for Hillary Clinton! Or even, I always wanted to cover a Puerto Rico primary!

No, the plot line is that Hillary went "negative," thereby extending the race, screwing up our vacation plans, boring America to death and--this is the important part--sending the Democratic Party to the very gates of hell.

Check it out. The Hillary/Obama contest is "increasingly brutal" (Boston Globe); in danger of "tearing the party apart" (L.A. Times); a "political party trying to destroy itself" (New York Post); the "most cutthroat political campaign in years" (Boston Herald); "depressing and distressing" (Time), and facing a "nightmarish scenario" (Baltimore Sun) that "will heighten racial, ethnic, gender, and class divisions" (Politico).

Wow--is it sending the stock market plunging, too? Jeopardizing national security? Ruining the basketball season?

I'm sorry, but this is over the top. I've covered a lot of campaigns, and this isn't even close to the kind of nastiness that has erupted in the past. It's not in the same league as a typical congressional race where the rivals hurl personal charges, call each other liars and run ads morphing the opponent into Osama bin Laden. It's a healthy political debate that's being fought out mainly on substantive issues, along with the usual distractions about tax returns, indicted fundraisers and the like.

Even the red-phone ad doesn't so much as mention Barack Obama's name.

Now there is certainly the possibility that the race could turn ugly, disrupt the convention and leave one side or the other angry that their candidate was robbed through superdelegate chicanery. But we're not there yet, except in the eyes of some journalists who love the idea of a smackdown almost as much as they love the idea of Barack and Hillary making up and running together.

Michelle Cottle has the good sense to agree with my argument in this New Republic piece:

"Enough with all the whining. Also enough with all the smack talk about how there must be something seriously wrong with Hillary/Obama as a candidate or s/he would have been able to close the deal by now. Horsefeathers. This isn't a primary in which Democratic voters are having a hard time making up their minds because both candidates are so disappointing. That's what's happening with the other team. Democrats' problem is that they have two candidates who are firing up the electorate, as seen in the consistently high turnout at the polls and the jaw-dropping fund-raising figures. ($30 million and $50 million in just one month? John McCain would kill for that kind of trouble.)

"And when did we all get so damn delicate about campaign ads and critical fliers? I swear, all those hyperventilating pundits comparing Hillary's 3 a.m. ad to LBJ's 'Daisy' ad make me long for the days of forced institutionalization. Seriously. Time to adjust your meds, guys. LBJ cut from a little girl plucking daisy petals to images of a giant mushroom cloud and a direct warning from Johnson, in that god-awful Texas twang of his, that 'the stakes are too high' not to vote for him. Hillary's ad doesn't even have scary music. Maybe it reminds certain political insiders of (gasp!) past Republican ads, but boo-freakin'-hoo.

"Barack's a big boy, and even if you don't agree with the obsessive debate about his 'experience,' there's no question that we should take an interest in how the man takes a punch. Similarly, all those mailers trashing Hillary's health care mandate that Obama took such grief for: fair game. She's had more than a decade to come up with a satisfactory response to Harry and Louise. Now is the time to show she's learned how to deflect/defuse such criticisms.