Our View: Democratic presidential campaign a mess

Modern politics is ugly business, especially in the Democratic Party, where we've just seen (we hope) the end of the worst name calling and allegation throwing that many say they've seen in a long time.

Of course, most recent memories tend to be the freshest. There was plenty of mud to go around just four years ago, when the Democratic race was more of a free-for-all.

This year, however, the liberal party narrowed rather quickly to two candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but the race turned out to be more of a marathon than any in recent history. Certainly the stakes were higher this year, with both candidates poised to make history. Clinton would have been the first woman at the top of a major party ticket, and Obama the first African American.

Obama sprang to a strong lead in early primaries, but was never able to lock down enough pledged delegates until the very last primaries were held on Tuesday.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. If anything, it made a mockery of the leap-frogging in which many states engaged, moving their primaries up in order to exert more influence on the process. In the end, the later primaries gained increasing importance, and received more attention than many of those that had moved up their primary dates. It also raised controversy when two states, Michigan and Florida, defied party threats that their votes wouldn't be counted if they held early primaries; both states then cried foul when the party carried out its threat, leading to a last-minute compromise that gave each state only partial influence in the nomination process.

Many complain that Clinton unnecessarily prolonged the campaign and deepened rifts in the party by refusing to concede to Obama's inevitable victory. She still hasn't conceded, even after all primaries have ended.

If anything, however, Clinton took care of one of her main complaints regarding Obama — that he hadn't been sufficiently vetted, or subjected to deep background checks of his history, character and contacts. Her constant and increasingly vicious attacks by the Clinton slime machine probably leaves Obama better prepared for anything the Republicans will throw at him between now and the November general election.

The campaign has been amusing, to be sure. And despite the hyperbole and angst coming out of the various camps in the past few months, the process might well remind many voters that the people who are fighting for the privilege to be this country's next president are just as human and fallible — in some cases even more so — than anybody else.

And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, this nation's founders, in their brilliance, designed a government of the people, by the people, with no one able to establish a true monarchy or dictatorship. We chose from our own, warts and all, and either validate or reject their performance every four years.

That's the beauty of the American political system, even if it does arise from the muck and mire of personal attacks and vitriol.