Here's Richardson's response.
And here's Carville's response to Richardson's response. In it, Carville says:
I believe that loyalty is a cardinal virtue. Nowhere in the world is loyalty so little revered and tittle-tattle so greatly venerated as in Washington. I was a little-known political consultant until Bill Clinton made me. When he came upon hard times, I felt it my duty -- whatever my personal misgivings -- to stick by him. At the very least, I would have stayed silent. And maybe that's my problem with what Bill Richardson did. Silence on his part would have spoken loudly enough.
What Carville is essentially saying here is that Richardson -- and by implication other functionares of the Democratic party -- should not support the person they think is the best candidate, but rather, they should support the candidate they "owe." In a system like this, any group will eventually put forward not the best leaders, but the most corrupt. They will become dominated by the individuals who are best able to control their party -- and then their country -- with the carrot and the stick. Think LBJ or Nixon. It may work once or twice, but it cannot last, especially when people try to maintain that power within a family, like the Kennedys, Bushes, or Clintons. And when it's working, is this really how you want to be governed? Obey and get your carrot. Disobey and get a beating. That's not a democracy, that's an authoritarian, totalitarian government where everyone's behavior and beliefs are dictated to them. Where any dissension (disloyalty) is punished, crushed, and exterminated. In otherwords, exactly what we were getting rid of by declaring our independence from King George in 1776.
If Hillary is the better candidate, she should be capable of winning the nomination without any support at all from her husband and his minions. We're not even into the real election yet. If Hillary can't even handle a relatively-mild newcomer from her own party, how's she going to do against an opponent who's really out to destroy her and her party?
In this context, it comes as little surprise that only two Democrats have held the Presidency in the last 40 years. (And despite the respect and admiration i have for Jimmy Carter, he obviously had a bit of an easy time running against Ford in 1976 after Nixon was forced to resign in 1974.)
A healthy poltical party would be able to select the best candidate without threatening to rip itself apart, and it would not be supporting family members of former leaders. The ignorant Clinton supporters like Carville have already helped McCain so much that at this rate, McCain will hardly even need to campaign after the nominations are complete. (Carville would do better to focus on dealing with the existing, extremely effective political apparatus that Rove built, and that won the last two elections for W.) Has Carville somehow forgotten that the Democrats are at this very moment already competing against McCain for the popular vote that's only 6 months away? The Republicans should stand no chance at all of winning this coming Presidential election, but the Democrats are giving it to them.
This mindless, attack-dog enforcement of obedience ("personal loyalty") may work for a short time while one has most of the power, like LBJ did in 1964. But it doesn't work when you don't have that power, or when you have no carrot. The Clintons and their minions like Carville seem unaware that they are appealing for popular support by saying, "The public beatings of the Democratic Party will continue until they all agree with us." Why would anyone want to support them?
Now would probably be a good time to start thinking about what we will replace the Democratic party with, because if it doesn't win what should have been a cake walk this November, we will need to replace it with one that is viable. The U.S. desperately needs a well-organized, functional, progressive political party through which we can continue to resist the socially and religiously conservative war mongers who are running this country into the ground. And the Democratic party is not it.