ANOTHER DEMOCRAT DONS THE "KICK ME" SIGN

On the op-ed page of today's New York Times, Francis Wilkinson, the blog editor (UPDATE: actually former blog editor) of the Huffington Post (the Times IDs him as "a former Democratic consultant"), makes note of an apparent lull in partisan sniping on the part of Republican candidates. Mistaking this for a cease-fire, Wilkinson proposes unilateral disarmament:

Fighting to Lose

...On the trail, Mrs. Clinton has assured voters that she is the only Democratic candidate who has been "vetted" and shown capable of withstanding the right-wing attack machine. But that machine has grown curiously quiet of late.

In the Republican races in Iowa and New Hampshire, the harsh partisan noise of the past two decades grew faint.

... on Tuesday, John McCain seized victory in the Republican primary in New Hampshire after a campaign essentially devoid of attacks on Democrats....

Could Hillary Clinton retool her image and campaign to prevail against a Republican who attacks with love bombs instead of wedge issues? ...

Maybe Wilkinson has a point about the closing days of the New Hampshire contest, but let's go back to distant, long-forgotten days -- i.e., this past fall.

Remember the Florida GOP debate in October -- the one that led to the AP headline "GOP Hopefuls Pile on Clinton"? Giuliani attacked her. Romney attacked her. Even that nice Mike Huckabee (nicely) attacked her.

And John McCain, he of the "love bombs," specifically attacked her for supporting funding for a Woodstock museum. He got an ovation for that -- so he brought it up again in an ad. And then another ad.

Oh, and this was around the same time a voter at a McCain event asked, "How do we beat the bitch?" Before making a pro forma statement of respect for Clinton, McCain laughed and said this was "an excellent question." He never chastised the voter.

If the Republicans mellowed out in the days before the voting took place in New Hampshire, it was for two reasons only: (1) New Hampshire is an increasingly moderate-to-liberal state that allows crossover voting and (2) Republicans weren't sure which Democrat they should treat as an Antichrist.

Meanwhile, the hit of the first post-New Hampshire debate this week in the new, mellow, love-bombing GOP was Fred Thompson, who lashed out at liberalism on the part of all sorts of people, particularly fellow Republican Mike Huckabee.

Mr. Wilkinson, the GOP is not becoming mellow, and this will not be a nice race, no matter who the Democratic candidate is. The only place modern Republicans bury hatchets is in Democrats' (or insufficiently doctrinaire Republicans') backs.

(Cross-posted at the Carpetbagger Report.)