Dems, GOP Poised to Bash Clinton

It’s the unofficial end of summer, the end of Campaign 2008’s very early beginning and the end of the no-fly zone over the frontrunner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her two main rivals for the nomination, former Sen. John Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama, have now run out of time to play nice and have repositioned their candidacies to take aim at Clinton as yesterday’s entrenched, narrow-minded, corporation-and-lobbyist-hugging establishment pol. And if they needed any help, others including Karl Rove and Mitt Romney have decided to step in and pour it on as well.

Clinton has remained above the fray, and she can. She leads in all polls, significant and insignificant. She has the best operation, the most seasoned experts, and arguably the most experience. Above all she is the most disciplined candidate anywhere. And she has Bill Clinton, the strategist every politician, including Republicans, wish they had on board.

But the easy ride she has enjoyed since January is over. Rove called her “fatally flawed,” with the highest negatives polls can register, and Edwards even dared to throw in a reference to the Lincoln Bedroom in his rant against the politics of the past that was aimed directly at Clinton. When Sen. Larry Craig’s bombshell dropped last week Romney too saw a golden moment not only to disavow Craig but, in one description of all this “disgusting” behavior, to equate the actions of former Rep. Mark Foley with those of Bill Clinton. It was stunning, but clearly just the type of red meat Romney needs to serve the GOP activists who decide the primary and who were probably having a bad day.

The embattled GOP has decided Clinton’s likely nomination could be its best hope of uniting, and conquering the Democrats once again because they believe their voters dislike her so intensely. Edwards and Obama are also hoping that by making Clinton the target they will unite their party behind their own candidacies.

I hope Clinton enjoyed her vacation.

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