A great deal of blogging and chattering and opining in recent days whether Obama in particular and the Democrats in general have the constitution or genetic makeup to play hardball in the same big leagues as the Republicans. Here in TPM Josh Marshall wonders whether the inability among center-left parties worldwide to land the first punch or even counterpunch effectively has something to do with an underlying aversion to tactics with authoritarian, right-wing overtones in an election campaign.
    
That’s an interesting point to ponder in a broader intellectual context. But between now and November it’s irrelevant. Another TPM blogger pointed out that politics is visceral, not cerebral. Which is absurdly self-evident. And here’s the coda to that truism: the point is to win. This is not the Grantland Rice poem where the Great Scorer will judge you on how you played the game not whether you won or lost. Uh-uh. Just the opposite: no one will remember how you played the game, only if you won or lost. If you don’t win, you don’t govern. Period.
    
Karl Rove understands. So did Lee Atwater. Dukakis, Kerry: two Massachusetts liberals, the former a successful governor/technocrat with an encyclopedic grasp of the issues; the latter a Vietnam war hero with a long tenure in the Senate, better qualified in every respect than the moronic redneck incumbent. Then came Willie Horton and Swift Boats and windsurfing video. We know the rest. They played fair and lost. And no one admires or remembers them for it.
    
As much as I despise Hillary Clinton and her clan I’m beginning to wonder if she’s right about the steel in Obama’s spine and whether the lack of it may cost him the election. During the primary Obama was in a quandary: the excuse his campaign used was that if he kneecapped Hillary too hard it would alienate the post-menopausal set. Which led to the James Carville observation that Hillary had more than enough testicular fortitude for both of them.
    
What about now? If Obama knees McCain in the groin will that alienate the legions of idealistic college kids and twenty-somethings? Will the Chardonnay elite on both coasts recoil with horror if the Obama campaign drags McCain’s name back through the Keating Five swamp?
    
I doubt it, but there’s probably no way of knowing. One thing is for certain, however: if Obama plays fair, he’ll lose. And for the effete and cerebral among Obama supporters who are horrified at the notion of winning at any cost, just imagine a 7 – 2 conservative majority on the Supreme Court.