No kidding.
Hillary Clinton's Sleaze ParadeJanuary 18, 2008
Paul Loeb
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-loeb/hillary-clintons-sleaze-_b_82183.htmlPolitics can be a rough game. Candidates need to hold their competitors accountable and challenge distortions and lies. And God knows, we need a Democratic nominee who's willing to fight. But Hillary Clinton's campaign has included far too many cheap shots, sleazy manipulations, and unsavory players.
New questionable actions emerge daily. You're probably familiar with many. But it's the broader pattern that disturbs me--how much the Clinton campaign seems to nurture questionable actions from her operatives, supporters, and surrogates. And how
the campaign's actions go beyond drawing legitimate political lines to an all-too-Rovian instinct to do whatever's deemed necessary to take down those blocking Clinton's potential victory. Here's a representative list of actions that, taken together, offer a troubling portent for her candidacy and presidency.
Start with the hiring of chief campaign strategist,
Mark Penn....
Then there are Clinton's campaign donors. Any major candidate has some dubious supporters, but Clinton's gotten money from particularly noxious sources. Start with her donation from
Rupert Murdoch, who's given to no other Democrat. Add in
massive amounts of money from Washington lobbyists and from industries like defense, banking, health care, and oil and energy providers (though Obama's also gotten a lot from some of these industries). Then there's
Norman Hsu, who brought in over $850,000 to Hillary's campaign after returning to the US following his flight to evade a fraud conviction (Hsu was subsequently rearrested, sentenced to three years, and is facing further federal charges, and the campaign eventually returned the money he'd raised). There's the Nebraska data processing company InfoUSA, whose CEO,
Vin Gupta, used private corporate jets to fly the Clintons on business, personal, and campaign trips, gave Bill Clinton a $3.3 million consulting contract, and is now being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly diverting company money to his own personal uses. Mississippi attorney
Dickie Scruggs recently canceled a major December 15 Hillary fundraiser (with Bill Clinton headlining) after being indicted for trying to bribe a judge. Major international sweatshop owners,
the Saipan-based Tan family, have given Clinton $26,000, complementing their previous massive support for Jack Abramoff and Tom Delay. That doesn't even count dubious supporters from the past, like
Peter Paul, the convicted con-artist turned event producer who coordinated a massive Hollywood Clinton fundraiser during the 2,000 election. Taken together, it's a pretty tainted constellation of backers.
***
We can find further distortions in a mailing sent out before the Iowa caucuses by the independent expenditure committee of a key Clinton ally, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The AFSCME mailing attacked Obama on his health care plan by using a John Edwards quote...
Other
surrogates have attacked Obama's character. Twice they've tried to raise Obama's early drug use as a campaign issue--despite his having addressed it directly and frankly in his book Dreams From My Father....
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The campaign has also attempted more directly to discourage participation by voters who might support Clinton's opponents. A judge just shut down
the lawsuit filed by the pro-Clinton leadership of the Nevada teacher's union...
New Hampshire saw parallel voter suppression tactics, as the campaign encouraged the New Hampshire Democratic Party to evict Obama get-out-the-vote observers from the polls.
In Iowa, the Clinton Campaign tried to discourage out-of-state students from returning to their campuses to participate in the caucuses.
In the Michigan primary, Clinton kept her name on the ballot after the state violated Democratic National Committee rules by moving its primary ahead of the Feb 5 "Super Tuesday" vote, while Edwards and Obama took theirs off.
Campaigns can have either closed or open information styles.
Clinton's comes far too close to the Bush-Cheney model, as when the Clintons successfully killed a major story in the national men's magazine GQ about Clinton campaign infighting....
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Taken together, these examples echo the Bush's administration's tendency to attack anyone who challenges them. They echo Clinton's refusal to apologize for her Iraq war vote or for an Iran vote so reckless that Jim Webb called it "Dick Cheney's fondest pipe dream." They hardly bode well for reversing the massive erosions of transparency of the past seven years.
The list could go on, but it's the pattern that's important. It's true that one person's cheap shot artist is another's fierce competitor....
I look at the actions of her campaign, and see an ugly example, a ruthlessness not remotely equaled by either Obama or Edwards. I'll vote for the last Democrat standing, because the Republicans will continue the current administration's disastrous priorities. But Hillary's scorched-earth approach threatens to fracture the party if she does get the nomination, and to leave a trail of bitterness even if she wins.
We can do better for the Democratic nominee. 
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