John_Schwada's Blog

Hillary Clinton won't give up and the Democratic Party is now in a bit of a pickle. Texas and Ohio have created the dilemma. If she'd lost those states, it was over. But now after winning, Clinton's says she's just getting warmed up for her down-to-the-wire pitched battle with Barack Obama.

The problem for Democrats is that there is so little policy-substance light between the two candidates. The only real things that distinguish them - besides style, personality and the depth of their resumes - is dirt.

And Clinton's victory Tuesday proves that dishing dirt pays.

For example, in recent days, Clinton nailed Obama for being two-faced on NAFTA . Here, his top economic adviser reportedly told Canadian government officials not to take Obama's NAFTA bashing too seriously. Obama denied those reports as he tried to assure Ohio Democrats that he was aware of their concerns that manufacturing job losses in their state were tied to NAFTA. But then it emerged that there was pretty solid evidence his adviser had said the things he was accused of saying; all that put Obama in the position of trying to distance himself from his aide's statements.....

Also Clinton has raised the specter of Tony Rezko, the controversial Chicago developer who bought a property next to one purchased almost simultaneously by Obama; the seller in both cases was the same. The uncharitable way of looking at this transaction, in which Rezko reportedly "over-paid" for his property, was that Rezko essentially was subsidizing Obama's purchase price.

Rezko is an especially hot potato now because he's standing trial on bribery charges. "We have a sick political culture," Jay Stewart, the executive director of the Chicago Better Government Association, recently said. "And that's the environment that Barack Obama came from." That's not very reassuring.

What's got the Democratic party elders - including the super-delegates - worried, and in a quandary, is that if this "politics of destruction" starts to dominate the race whoever wins the party's nomination will emerge as damaged goods when they go to battle against John McCain.

But the lesson Clinton hopes to leave with the party elders is different: as she dishes more dirt, count on her saying, over and over again, that she's been tested on the political battlefield, and that if Obama's got a glass jaw and can't handle tough, below-the-belt attacks then he's not the best candidate to face the Republicans in November.