Why are they smearing Clinton and Obama?

Why are the right wingers trying so hard to smear the Democrats? Why are they claiming that Hillary Clinton will try to smear the other candidates and then offering as proof smears that they themselves have just created and blaming it, without a shred of evidence, on her campaign?

In an article in today’s New York Times (requires a subscription) Paul Krugman explains that this is what happens when the economy becomes polarized and the gap between rich and poor widens as it has been for the last 20 years. As during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt the Republican Party, protecting the interests of the economic elite, has a great deal of money and the organization that money can buy but a domestic and economic agenda that does not serve the interests of the majority of the voters. In such a situation they use their money, organization and the media to attack and smear.

Paul Krugman points out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not amend his agenda to try to create bipartisanship. He accepted the hatred of his opponents and pressed on with the people’s business. For the Democrats to try to find common ground with their opponents in such a situation is a fool’s errand. Just as Franklin Delano Roosevelt did the Democrats of today need to press on in the face of hatred and smears and do the people’s business.

The people’s business is to stop throwing away the lives of our young people in the military in Iraq and work, instead on a diplomatic solution. The people’s business is universal health care. The people’s business is a change to our immigration policy to one based on basic human dignity and respect rather than hypocrisy and an unspoken acceptance of a permanent underclass of immigrant workers without rights.