The Young Turks

The cats "play" certainly does no harm to the cat and other than appearing to be terribly cruel , there is a purpose to the cats behavior in the big scheme of things. They do this, animal behaviorists tell us to sharpen the hunting and capture instincts and skills.

One thing for certain,the cat will be a better hunter and  the prey will be consumed. Not so in politics.

After the Iowa Obama victory, Hillary was rocked back on her heels. The cakewalk to the convention she and her advisors expected would now become, in the words of Jon Stewart, "a Bataan death march to the nomination."

As the primary season rolled on a bit further it became obvious that Hillary was developing a winning strategy to use against Obama. Clinton beat Obama during the primary campaigns where she strongly attacked  his leadership and security experience (The silly, but effective 3 a.m. call to the White House). Then...inexplicably...she stopped and moved on to other diversions like lattes and elitistism. 

Why? Internal divisions in her campaign and her desire not to soil Obamas national credentials and preserve him as a running mate...a myriad of other reasons including race were speculated by the pundits. In short the measured response strategy, beat him but not hurt him...failed. By the time she resumed the attacks later in the campaign..she simply ran out of time.

Big deal you may think to yourself. Actually it is a very big deal , Hillary's vacillations may cost the Democrats the Whitehouse this year and in the long run deprived the party of a great candidate for the future.

Why Democrats do this is a mystery to me.  I boxed in high school and periodically in inter-service competition...If you have your opponent on the ropes after you have exploited a weakness...finish him...hard and fast. Its better for both you and your opponent...the bout is over and there is less chance of lasting injury to either fighter.

 Now McCain has the playbook..

"The McCain campaign believes that some of Hillary Clinton's tactics, especially questioning whether Obama is ready to lead, can be a real winner."