BernieHund: The Political Watchdog

“Play pretty” time is about over.  Tuesday is almost here and that brings in the Pennsylvania primary.  I wonder if the people of Pennsylvania are as eager to have it over and done with as the rest of the country.  Every one likes to be important, and Pennsylvanians have waited for some time to be in the spotlight.  But, as a friend so often says, ”Enough is enough, even if it’s chocolate candy.”  Well, enough already!

According to AP, it’s getting down and dirty now. 

Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama swapped some of the most negative attacks of the campaign two days before the Pennsylvania primary, each unleashing television ads on Sunday that accused the other of maintaining ties to special interests they both claim to reject.

And Barack Obama confirmed

“Either Democrat would be better than John McCain,” he told an audience in Reading. “And all three of us would be better than George Bush.”

Let’s hear an “Amen” on that one.

Of course, John McCain is looking like the runt in the pack of dogs on attack.  He doesn’t seem to have too much hit with at this time, although I am well aware that the Republicans are holding back until the general election.  Unable to resist a little temptation, McCain attacked both Democratic candidates on tax issues….

But he seemed more eager to criticize the front-runner, Obama, more than the former first lady. Obama’s relationship with former 1960s radical William Ayers is “an open question,” McCain said on ABC’s “This Week.” Without being asked, he said Obama had become friends with Ayers and “spent time with him while the guy was unrepentant over his activities as a member of a terrorist organization.”

Maybe because I came of age in the 1960s when radicalism was peaking, I don’t see the Obama-Ayers relationship as a “kill the campaign” concept.  I’m not about to say that I am or was an Ayers sympathizer, but let’s get real here.  Ayers is a well respected member of society who teaches college courses at the University of Chicago, a highly rated university.  While I am fully aware that there will always be some who hold the past against Ayers, while not excusing his past actions, I do believe there are some of us who won’t condemn Obama for knowing him or having had some contact with him.

To be honest, I don’t do a background check on everyone with whom I come in contact.  And, perhaps, I try to judge my friends and associates… and yes, passing acquaintances on how they treat me, not on past performance with others.  I would probably be totally without friends if I held them all to the standard of sainthood.  And, they wouldn’t be all that interesting, either.  It just seems to me that if the community at large has not ostracized Mr. Ayers, if he can be an accepted and respected professor, and is trusted to instruct the young people at the university, perhaps his is no longer a threat to society. 

Back to the ad to ad battle between the Democrats

“In the last 10 years Barack Obama has taken almost $2 million from lobbyists, corporations and PACs. The head of his New Hampshire campaign is a drug company lobbyist, in Indiana an energy lobbyist, a casino lobbyist in Nevada,” said a new Clinton commercial airing in the campaign’s final days.

If anything, Obama upped the ante with his rebuttal. His ad said he “doesn’t take money from special interest PACs or Washington lobbyists — not one dime.” Clinton does, it added, and accused her of “eleventh-hour smears paid for by lobbyist money ….”

Only two more days, dear Pennsylvanians…. only two more days… and then on to North Carolina and Indiana.