The fun and games are over.

A lot of people, including too many Democratic party leaders, sat back and watched Hillary and Bill plot and carry out their plans to destroy Obama. The pundits and a lot of Democratic strategists oohed and aahed at how aggressive the Clinton campaign had become. We've all been warned not to underestimate them as the Clinton team contocted new rules and new negative ads. The Clintons have an enemies list. The Clintons hold a grudge. Oh, and the latest is the Bill himself is the campaign's "strategist-in-chief" and he's pushing the negative attacks, just like his predecessor, Mark Penn. It seems it's Bill that has a real Hard-On (pardon the pun) to get back in the White House.

This whole drama -- and it is always, always drama with the Clintons -- has played out as if we're in some kind of Clinton vacuum. It's as if there were no political consequences beyond those relating to Bill and Hillary.

There are.

This week, the Clintons and the Democratic party learned that there will be serious political consequences for the Clintons' bad behavior.

Rep. James Clyburn laid out very clearly what is at stake. The interviews Clyburn has done with several major news outlet should be sending shock waves through the Democratic hierarchy:

 Quote:
"If this party is perceived by people as having gone into a back room somewhere and brokered a nominee, that would not be good for our party," House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (S.C.), the highest ranking African American in Congress, warned yesterday. "I'm telling you, if this continues on its current course, [the damage] is going to be irreparable."

That fear, plus a more general sense that Clinton's only route to victory would be through tearing down her opponent, has led even some black Democrats who are officially neutral in the race, such as Clyburn, to speak out.


Clyburn isn't bluffing.

Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-NC) backed up Clyburn's warning according to the Huffington Post:

 Quote:
"Jim Clyburn is my very best friend in the U.S. Congress and he and I talk on and off the record every day of the week," said Butterfield, who predicted that the race in North Carolina would ultimately be decided by single-digits. "That said, I had not read his comments... But politics by its very nature is a competitive process and there have been times when Sen. Clinton has walked up to the line and there has been a time or two when she has stepped over the line in terms of her comments... Whether there is an irreparable breach, I don't think we are at the point right now where we are at an irreparable breach, but it is foreseeable and that is why I encourage civility."


The likes of Mark Halperin and Chris Matthews and VandeHei/Harris and CNN's hapless political crew have been trying to tell us what these election results mean, but it's not really for them to say. The punditry was in a frenzy after the PA primary, but as Taegan Goddard noted "the chances of a Clinton victory are actually lower than ever."

And, in typical fashion, the pundits have ignored -- or more accurately missed -- what's really going on. If Clinton steals this election or decides to destroy Obama, she and her husband and her campaign are laying the groundwork for the destruction of the Democratic party.

Eric Schmeltzer ran some numbers for Ohio in a diary at DailyKos. It's worth a read, but here's Eric' conclusion:

 Quote:
So any way you slice it, winning over enough of the white-male-working-class vote that Kerry could not get, to just squeak by in Ohio in 2008 is a pretty tall order. Doable, but tough. Add into that even a slight African American problem, and Hillary Clinton pretty much loses Ohio in 2008.

Conversely, assuming Barack Obama does just as "poorly" with white men as Kerry in 2004, as the Clinton team seems to be saying, he actually has an EASIER time winning Ohio, on account of the fact that he has no African American problem.

Why no one has examined this is beyond me.


As we've been learning this week, Hillary has more than a "slight" African American problem. She is precipitating a crisis that cannot be ignored.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has become delusional and destructive. For me, the moment she jumped the shark was her NPR interview claiming Michigan was a fair election.



Yeah, it might have been in the Soviet Union or Iran, but in America, an election in violation of the rules with only one name should never count.

The pundits can continue to game out the different ways Hillary can steal the nomination. That's all fun and games for them. For the rest of us, this is too serious. The Democratic Party needs an intervention before Bill and Hillary march us off a cliff.