It's Hard Out There for a Politician

Senator Barack Obama of Illinois won this week's Democratic presidential primary in Mississippi by an overwhelming margin over Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, stretching his lead in the delegate count. Okay, we knew that was going to happen. What we didn't anticipate were a couple of faux pas by a couple of Democrats past and present who should have known better.

• Elliot Spitzer became Governor of New York in 2007 after gaining notice as as risk-taking prosecutor and Attorney General who took on the corporate crooks, and usually won. Now Spitzer has been forced to resign, effective on Monday, because of a New York Times report linking him to an alleged prostitution ring, for which he has apologized profusely to not only his constituents, but to his wife and three teenage daughters as well. We've all seen this movie before, where the powerful politician who promises to clean up the mess in Washington or the state capitol somehow forgets to apply it to his own life. The new governor, David Paterson, is African-American and visually impaired. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but the mainstream media will make sure you know about it.
• Geraldine Ferraro made history during the 1984 presidential campaign when she became the first (and so far only) female Vice Presidential candidate alongside Democratic nominee Walter Mondale. Now, at a moment when Hillary Clinton is making her own kind of history, Ferraro (who is a supporter) may be in a position to sabotage it because she thinks Barack Obama has been getting a free ride to the White House as an African-American. She told the Daily Breeze of Torrence, California: "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept." Both candidates regarded the comment as absurd, but calls for Clinton to drop Ferraro from the campaign have gone unheeded. Ferraro later told the same newspaper she was being attacked for her previous comments because she was white. No, Ms. Ferraro, you're being attacked because you suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.

Meanwhile, John McCain must be licking his chops watching the Democrats implode, as if watching his own party crumble wasn't enough.