A Not So Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Elections, like sports, can be incredibly entertaining, especially when the outcome is in doubt. Both, however, require the proverbial “level playing field” which is why attempts to gain an unfair advantage or improperly influence the outcome of either are so infuriating.

Whether it’s the use of steroids by overpaid athletes or misdeeds by overly-enthusiastic campaign supporters, it’s dishonest and it ain’t right.

So when I heard a few conservative voters say that they had held their noses and voted for Hillary Clinton since she would be the easier candidate for the Republicans to defeat in November, I was troubled.

Yesterday morning, I heard several callers to the morning talk show on WTMJ-AM say that they had voted for Clinton to undermine the Democratic primary and urged others, including host Charlie Sykes, to do the same.

One recommended that Sykes should buy a bar of soap on the way to the polls so that he could take a shower after voting for Clinton since the very idea of doing so was so distasteful.

Later, I noticed that Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Crocker Stephenson reported on the paper’s election blog that a Republican voter had told him that he had voted for Clinton to improve his party’s chances in the fall.

Suddenly I began to suspect some curious right wing conspiracy was afloat to, of all things, benefit Hillary Clinton. An especially ironic development given that she once said such a conspiracy was responsible for the many investigations of her husband’s administration.

Surely there weren’t too many voters who were engaging in this nefarious enterprise but if the election turned out to be as close as some suspected then, who knows, maybe these cranky Republicans would ultimately influence the selection of the Democratic candidate for president!

We now know that I didn’t need to worry.

Yesterday’s Wisconsin primary represented a stunning victory for Barack Obama. He won the state 58% to 41%. Not so shabby. He won by similar margins in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay, all three of the major Democratic strongholds in the state. He won or held his own across demographic categories only ceding older women to Clinton.

The last 36 hours of the campaign were not pretty. The Clinton side escalated its charges against Obama by attacking him for plagiarizing part of the speech he delivered to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin’s dinner on Saturday from Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, an Obama friend and supporter.

Most acknowledge this incident is largely a tempest in a teapot but it recalls the ill-fated presidential campaign of Sen. Joe Biden in 1988 that collapsed following the disclosure that he had extensively borrowed language from a British politician.

Obama’s wife Michelle didn’t do her husband much good when she said in Milwaukee on Monday that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” You can imagine the fun the Republicans will have with that. Likely Republican nominee John McCain was quick to have his wife tell the press that she has always been proud of her country. Jeesh, are they kidding me?

The delegate race is still close and Obama’s nomination is still not certain. But watching Clinton’s campaign struggle with its message while Obama’s continues to inspire seems to hint at where this is heading. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd puts her unique spin on Hillary Clinton’s flaws at this juncture.

Dowd’s column concludes with a punchline that nicely sums up how this race appears to be drifting away from Clinton. “Given the way the Clintons unfairly turn the tables, we’re only moments away from Hillary asking Obama: ‘Can’t you control your spouse?’”

Touché, Mo!