Maybe Nice Guys do Finish Last

The Democratic Party and all of its major candidates seems to have agreed to a basic platform:
-Repeal of Bush tax cuts
-Middle class tax cuts
-Universal Health Care
-Out of Iraq with all deliberate speed
- More Environmental Regulation
- Programs to move towards clean energies
- A pledge to keep an eye on corporate greed
- Appointment of judges who will maintain the separation of church and state

This is the same program that Gore had in 2000 and Kerry had in 2004. In some ways, it's also the program Clinton had in 1992. The Democrats, unlike the Republicans, believe that their platform can win and that the only reason they didn't was because of the unliked personalities of their former presidential candidates and their inability to fight an aggressive campaign. That's why this nomination battle has been all about personality.

As such, I leaned towards Obama. Obama ran a campaign that we would all like to see more of: he stayed away from personal attacks, he raised campaign money (and there was a lot of it) from small donors, he dealt firmly and fairly with complex issues, he made his appeal to a wide range of voters, and he made inspiring speeches at the most appropriate times. Clinton, on the other hand, ran the type of campaign that we all hate: after Iowa, she began attacks that were personal and highly distorted, she raised most of her money from corporate and large donors, she used scare tactics to confuse issues and simplify them, and she had clearly changed positions to increase her likelihood of being elected.

But if Machiavelli has taught us anything, and honestly he hasn't taught us much, is that while political decisions may be moral, actual political maneuvering is always amoral. In other words, in politics, the ends (if righteous) will justify the means. I should have kept that in mind before I predicted that Obama would be the next president.

What the Clintons understand, and understood, is that you can't beat Republican sludge with sanitized feel-goodedness. Unless you are a masterful politician, you can't win the political battles unless you're willing to get a little bit dirty. In reality, Clinton's attacks have not been that effective (what has been much more effective are the anonymous campaign materials that have convinced a large percentage of the population that Obama is Muslim), but they have shown Democratic voters that Obama won't be able to handle the heat. What the Clintons are throwing at Obama now is nothing compared to what he will get when he runs against a Republican. Now, I think that McCain, the likely Republican nominee, has ran remarkably clean campaigns so I don't think he'll do much mud throwing, but the Republican machine (Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reily, Fox News, etc.) will do more than enough to make up for this shortcoming. And what Clinton has shown is that Obama cannot even handle her attacks. In this light, Democrats are moving towards a candidate that they know can put up a fight.