The Obama campaign is treating this new expose about Barack’s early career campaign tactics like it is bad news. But for millions of Democrats who are disheartened that the party is sending a chess club president into a shank fight with Beelzebub for the third time in a row, it may be the first glimmer of hope since the Clinton attack machine began to implode.
“Politics ain’t beanbag, as they say in Chicago. You play with your elbows up, and you’re pretty tough and ruthless when you have to be.”
It turns out that at the start of his political career, Obama was not afraid to inflict sharp elbows and bloody noses — on fellow liberal Democrats:

In his first race for office, seeking a state Senate seat on Chicago’s gritty South Side in 1996, Obama effectively used election rules to eliminate his Democratic competition.

As a community organizer, he had helped register thousands of voters. But when it came time to run for office, he employed Chicago rules to invalidate the voting petition signatures of three of his challengers.

The move denied each of them, including incumbent Alice Palmer, a longtime Chicago activist, a place on the ballot. It cleared the way for Obama to run unopposed on the Democratic ticket in a heavily Democrat district.

“That was Chicago politics,” said John Kass, a veteran Chicago Tribune columnist. “Knock out your opposition, challenge their petitions, destroy your enemy, right? It is how Barack Obama destroyed his enemies back in 1996 that conflicts with his message today. He may have gotten his start registering thousands of voters. But in that first race, he made sure voters had just one choice.”

Obama’s challenge was perfectly legal, said Jay Stewart of the Chicago’s Better Government Association… “Politics ain’t beanbag, as they say in Chicago. You play with your elbows up, and you’re pretty tough and ruthless when you have to be. Sen. Obama felt that’s what was necessary at the time, that’s what he did. Does it fit in with the rhetoric now? Perhaps not.”

The Obama campaign called this report “a hit job.”

So far, it appears that Obama plans to run his campaign with the same Marquis of Queensbury, “above the fray” rules of engagement waged by the Gore and Kerry campaigns. Let’s hope not. For one thing, that ain’t “change” — for another, it doesn’t work.

It’s good to know Obama played by Chicago street-fighting rules when he had to. That — and John McCain’s gaffe-a-day campaign — are the best signs lately that the Democrats could pull out a win in November, even though the race remains the Republicans’ to lose.