"Tanya Harding kneecapping" has Democratic Party's (Harry Reid) leadership responded?

I stated a couple of weeks ago that how Obama responded to the Wright controversy would determine the party's nomination and ultimately the election. Obama did and Gov. Bill Richardson responded (as did the recovery in the daily Gallup tracking poll where on March 16th Obama fell below Clinton for 6 days until March 22nd and has maintained his lead since. Yet since the "kitchen sink" strategy that was publicly pronounced since the end of February all that has resulted is a continuing escalation of personal political assaults on Obama by the Clinton camp reminding all of us of the "scorched earth" political climate of the Clinton Presidential Era, except this time the Clinton's are the learned initiators. This is the natural consequence of a campaign that has fully vented the political policy matters through 20 debates and over 40 state contests where now it has befallen upon a personal popularity game where in the words of Clinton's has been reduced to nothing more than a "mean-spirited cat fight". Is that sexist or apropos? But I think this coming to an end far more quickly than the press are expecting.

Let me review a few things: Jake Tapper of ABC News on his blog Political Punch reported yesterday that a Democratic Official described Clinton was pursuing a "Tanya Harding Option". If you don't recall that sad chapter, Tonya Harding was a figure skating aspirant who had a 'band of henchmen'--- her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly, Derrick Smith, Shawn Eckardt and Shane Stant, where they clubbed figure skating rival Nancy Kerrigan on the knee to remove her from the Olympic qualifying competition. Ironically, I have a niece who is also a current Olympic hopeful and where I am told the politics under the surface are extremely vile, but again that is for another subject. Tapper reports:

I just spoke with a Democratic Party official, who asked for anonymity so as to speak candidly, who said we in the media are all missing the point of this Democratic fight.

The delegate math is difficult for Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, the official said. But it's not a question of CAN she achieve it. Of course she can, the official said.

The question is -- what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?

What will she have to do to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in order to eke out her improbable victory?

She will have to "break his back," the official said. She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.

"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

The Tanya Harding Option---the first time I've heard it put that way.

It implies that Clinton is so set on ensuring that Obama doesn't get the nomination, not only is she willing to take extra-ruthless steps, but in the end neither she nor Obama win the gold.

(In this metaphor, presumably, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., would be Oksana Baiul. Does that make former President Bill Clinton Jeff Gillooly?)

This leads to the ultimate conclusion is what Chris Matthews' Hardball posed to his panel of pundits on Monday March 24th:

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL...

I want you all to pay close attention to this, and to the extent your ability allows you, decide what you think, based upon your reporting, would be the favorite option and the least favorite option and the ones in the middle for Senator Clinton at this point.

• Number one, Senator Clinton wins the nomination of the Democratic party and then goes on to win the general election. Is that the best scenario for Senator Clinton? Probably.
• Number two, Obama wins the nomination, but McCain wins the general election.
• Three, Clinton wins the nomination and McCain wins the general election.
• Or four, Hillary Clinton—Obama wins the nomination and the election. Keep that board up there while we each go through it. Please hold that up there.
  

Gene Robinson, for Hillary Clinton, what‘s the worst-case scenario for her? Is it number four, that Barack Obama becomes the greatest Democratic president in modern times, and everybody forgets her husband and forgets she ever ran?

EUGENE ROBINSON, “THE WASHINGTON POST”: It‘s the worst case for her chances of ever being president. If he she wants to be president, that‘s the worst thing for her. If she wants to be remembered as a great Democrat and a great figure in the party, then, you know, an option in which a Democrat wins is that.

MATTHEWS: You threaded the needle here. I want to go—before I get to Norah, I want to go to Chuck. ...Obviously, Hillary Clinton would like to win the whole shebang at this point, even, when it‘s really a long shot at this point. I think we would all agree. But would she be happier having a McCain win the presidency ultimately or the man she‘s fighting hardest right now, because she keeps saying McCain is qualified to be commander-in-chief. He‘s another lover of the country, another patriot, seemingly to the exclusion of the other guy, Barack.

Does she really prefer Barack over John McCain to be the next president?

CHUCK TODD, NBC NEWS POLITICAL DIRECTOR: She is in a fight for the nomination, a heated fight. We have gotten to the point where the two sides now hate each other more than they hate the eventually enemy. And right now she is in an alliance, whether they have formed it officially or not—McCain and Clinton are in alliance because McCain knows how to run against Clinton, has been preparing to run against Clinton in a general election...

...Clinton, of course, wants to prove that Obama can‘t beat McCain, so needs to make McCain a stronger and stronger nominee. It is her path to nomination. I think we can‘t read her mind and sit there and say, gee, she certainly hopes Obama doesn‘t get—does she want to be president?

MATTHEWS: If he wins, she‘ll never be president. He‘ll get the nomination four years ago.


MATTHEWS: ...Norah: when you look at this, do you go with Gene‘s theory that Hillary Clinton would like to be president someday, if she can‘t win it this time, she‘s still hopeful, and therefore, would really, deep down, prefer that the door be kept open by the election of John McCain who will only serve, perhaps, four years and certainly will be vulnerable to an attack from the Democrats four years later.

NORAH O‘DONNELL, MSNBC CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the answer to your test, Chris, is choice number two, which is that she would rather have Obama win the nomination and have McCain win the general election, so that in 2012 she can come back and run against McCain. That clearly would be the second-best-case scenario other than her winning the whole thing.

MATTHEWS: That also fits into the strategy. By the way, this is not idle discussion, because I have been looking at the performance of the Clinton campaign, and I completely understand why they‘re doing it, if this is her ambition. They‘re very tough an Obama. They‘re not cutting him much slack. I detected a little cutting of slack today, but they‘re really going after him this week, saying he‘s the one running the dirty campaign. He‘s the one trying to destroy her character. When they‘re out there really being tough with Obama.

This is not idle chatter yesterday Matthews also brought forward an interesting twist on Carville's "Judas" metaphor regarding Richardson's endorsement offering that disloyalty right now will have severe consequences as the presumption is that the Clinton's will rise again if not in 2008 then presumably in 2012. REALLY, will the Democratic Party allow that to happen? I think not for Harry Reid responded to the entire "kneecapping" with this interview in his home state newspaper, the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday.
While Democrats across the country are anguished about the bitter fight for their presidential nomination, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid doesn't appear to be losing any sleep over it.

Asked about it last week, Reid said he remains convinced the nominee will be decided well before the August national convention. He wore a serene and mysterious smile.

But Reid isn't one for lengthy explanations. The conversation went like this:

Question: Do you still think the Democratic race can be resolved before the convention?

Reid: Easy.

Q: How is that?

Reid: It will be done.

Q: It just will?

Reid: Yep.

Q: Magically?

Reid: No, it will be done. I had a conversation with Governor Dean (Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean) today. Things are being done.

That's all the Nevada Democrat would say about it.

How do you interpret this? I interpret it as that the party leaders who are the superdelegates are not going to destroy the ticket for Clinton's personal ambition and very soon are going to come down in a large way and endorse Obama making certain he has the delegates to win the nomination in the first ballot. Symbolically and through leadership they can pull in many of the leadership and even have some superdelegates committed to Clinton switch and take away any of that 5% chance. In essence they will state to any Clinton fund raising effort that the matter is over and no more money for you to kneecap the party and the party's standard bearer.

More evidence is that the Op-Ed pages the most striking being NYTimes David Brooks

Hillary Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.

First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah Wright affair
without serious damage to his nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, just as he did before this whole affair blew up.

Second, Obama’s lawyers successfully prevented re-votes in Florida and Michigan. That means it would be virtually impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either elected delegates or total primary votes.
Third, as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic has reported, most superdelegates have accepted Nancy Pelosi’s judgment that the winner of the elected delegates should get the nomination. Instead of lining up behind Clinton, they’re drifting away.

In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential prospects continue to dim. The door is closing. Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.
Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down to a 5 percent chance.

Five percent...

...For three more months, Clinton is likely to hurt Obama even more against McCain, without hurting him against herself. And all this is happening so she can preserve that 5 percent chance.
When you step back and think about it, she is amazing. She possesses the audacity of hopelessness.

Let us now see how much guts do the leadership have? Watch if the Democrats start coming out in a daily parade, Pelosi, Reid, Gore, Hoyer, Emmanuel followed by many of the other undeclared 200 or so superdelegates which are DNC members---which goes to Howard Dean's reference.