Bill Clinton's former adviser was a guest on the Situation Room this afternoon on CNN. Talk turned to the strategy Republicans should adopt in upcoming special elections.
WOLF BLITZER: How much of a lightning rod -- you're an expert on this subject -- will Hillary Clinton be for Republicans out there, cause they're already, in some of these special elections that are coming up, they're already pointed to her to try to help Republican candidates?
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PAUL BEGALA: They're going to do that against any Democrat, and Democrats are going to do that against --
BLITZER: Yeah, but they're already in some of these states [pointing to a screen in the studio displaying a GOP ad].
BEGALA: There are special elections in Ohio and Virginia where Republicans are doing that. I have another suggestion. How bout they use George W. Bush? How about the Republican says "I'm a Bush Republican. I like everything Bush is doing, I want to stay the course and keep moving." Because at least Hillary and Barack and all the Democrats represent change. But this is where the Democrats have something back, right?
BLITZER: But if you're a Republican that's not necessarily going to get you a lot of votes. But going after Hillary Clinton might.
BEGALA: It could. Hillary Clinton in some Republican areas is unpopular. George W. Bush across America, he would poll behind several different forms of venereal disease in most of this country. I mean, they hate Bush!
Blitzer didn't bat an eye, blandly asking the other guest, Dem strategist Jamal Simmons, what he thought. Simmons similarly declined to utter a disapproving word about Begala's grotesquery.
Let's play WIARHSI: what if a Republican had said it of a leading Dem?
In any case, is this the kind of dialogue -- and guest -- CNN deems fit?