The political assassination of another kind

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Ghanadot.com

May 28, 2008

The Clintons didn’t event this style of assassination. They are just following the script written by Al Gore in 2000 when he lost the presidential election. 

I will, therefore, name the style the “Gore Doctrine,” an approach in which after you lose an election you create enough havoc to damage your opponent’s potential for becoming a successful president.

So, all this Hillary's talk about Robert Kennedy’s assassination, as referenced in her musing on her nomination loss in the Democrat’s nomination process last Friday, was just an aspect of the "Gore's Doctrine."

She knew before the end who was going to win the nomination.  The reference to Robert Kennedy was the "Hail-Mary" hope, that could takeout Obama from the contest.  It may have been a slip of the tongue, but worthy to be looked at as an ultimate possibility in the electoral process. 

It had happened to Robert Kennedy.  But heaven forbid, it could happen to Obama.  Even if didn't happen within the current electoral process, it might happen during Obama's first term. 

An unfinished presidency or failed presidency in the near term would all go to increase Hillary's chances of becoming the president or running for the office in 2012.

After the Florida 2000 fiasco, Al Gore made it a mission to effectively destroy the near-term presidency of George W. Bush by making sure that Bush got off with a rocky start, with numerous recounts and court battles.

Gore had hoped to set the stage ready to oppose Bush in 2004; except September 11 happened. And it transformed Bush into a wartime president, thus he became hard to defeat in a rematch in 2004. 

And that ended the hoped-for and comeback dream for Gore.  But it didn’t end his wish to upstage Bush whichever way he could.

Suddenly, Gore found "Global Warming" as a mission and a platform on which to counter Bush.  Witness his HBO docu-drama, An Inconvenient Truth, and the support he got from his liberal friends and in Hollywood advocacy. 

The film “Recount,” produced by Adam McKay in 2008, that depicted favorably Gore as the protagonist of the 2000 Florida vote recount also got the same liberal support from the media. 

The antagonist in the film was conveniently a Bush supporter who couldn’t even tell believably why he was a Republican and a perfect example of why Bush should have lost Florida.

Hillary’s antics now, following Gore’s example of a stone thrown through a glass window, was presumed to make it much easier to damage Obama. 

 As the “Gore Doctrine” of Florida 2000 showed, friction was a necessary tool in the box of political tricks. Hillary's would cause friction in Democrat constituencies now.  But she is hoping it would spread to the national scene as well.

In the end, she hopes, Obama would be left with a nation too fractured and ill-suited for successful governance.

The window then would open for her in 2012. She has already claimed the popular vote for 2008 like Gore did in 2000. 

In the meantime, the same popular vote claim will bring into question the legitimacy of Obama's victory as the nominee; a ploy that if successful would haunt Obama's new regime like Gore's did to Bush. 

Time was when politicians, regardless of what you thought about them, had more class.  They would concede in tight races; when not doing so would do damage to the prestige of the entire nation. 

Richard Nixon, who was ranked by the American media as the most conniving and devious politician in American history, had the dignity to concede to J, F. Kennedy in a tight race in 1960, for the good of the nation as he later explained.

Nixon’s act has become a piece of political history that is hardly mentioned by the media these days.  However, Nixon's graceful act must be known by Hillary, as she did with her reference to the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

The macabre reference to Robert Kennedy has left some ill-feeling among many. 

In a nation that has suffered more than its share of political assassinations, the mere reminder of one such elimination, in a tight political contest between two foes like Obama and Hillary, is bound to cause unease.

But not to Hillary.  Her political ambition is legendary and boundless. 

She so much wants to be the next president, but the only thing blocking her chances now is Obama.  To such an ambitious mind as Hillary's, Obama's political presence is bound to be more than a mere nuisance.

So, to leverage some advantage over Obama, no matter how preposterous an idea was, she has already thrown it at Obama, including some of her staff raising the ugly possibility that Obama may not even have been born in America; thus questioning his citizenship and qualification to run in a presidential race.

With Gore, the strategic task of political victory was a simple case of managing Blue versus Red constituencies in Democrat or Republican states. 

For Hillary, it has become something else; a multi-faceted, and complex political operation that includes the entire fault-lines in American politics - race, gender, class, and everything else.

And she is serious and out to destroy everything in her path to become the first female president of the United States of America.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, May 28, 2008. 

Permission to publish:  Please feel free to publish or reproduce, with credits, unedited.