All Democrats and progressives, please pay attention to what I’m about to say: If the race between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders continues down the line it took yesterday, or escalates, you might as well start humming “Hail to the Chief” every time you see Cruz or Trump on the screen.
Yesterday, during a campaign rally in Philadelphia, Sanders remarked:
“Secretary Clinton appears to be getting a little bit nervous. And she has been saying lately that she thinks that I am ‘not qualified’ to be president. Well, let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don’t believe that she is qualified, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds. I don’t think that you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC.”
In response, the Clinton campaign had this to say on Twitter:
“Hillary Clinton did not say Bernie Sanders was ‘not qualified.’ But he has now – absurdly – said it about her. This is a new low.”
OK, time out! I’m about to say something that will very likely piss off supporters of both candidates: This crap has got to stop, and it’s got to stop now.
Some Sanders supporters are now saying that Clinton started this line of attack when she was asked if the Vermont Senator was “ready to be President.” She said:
“I think he hadn’t done his homework and he’d been talking for more than a year about doing things that he obviously hadn’t really studied or understood, and that does raise a lot of questions. Really what that goes to is for voters to ask themselves can he deliver what he’s talking about.”
Please note that she did NOT say he was unqualified to be President. Please also note that none of this is the least bit helpful as the process moves towards the last stretch of primaries in states such as New York and California. Neither side is totally innocent in this whole conflagration, but if this keeps the Democrats from being able to unify after the convention, we are dead in the water and will lose come November.
Bottom line: Benjamin Franklin said it best when he noted:
“We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.”
The attacks have to end, or we will all be at the end of the same rope, watching as a Republican takes the oath of office and we hide our heads in shame.
This article was originally published by the same author at LiberalAmerica.org.