What I've been wondering about all this at times is whether some or all of the other candidates (wouldn't want to give anyone undue credit) are not hitting back not out of fear of the Fords but out of concern for what further damage that could do to our political discourse and our valuing of political institutions. I dunno, I don't see it as excessively high-minded or prim to want to reject the "race to the bottom" that the Ford brothers do everything they can to encourage. If I were a politician I could see myself wrestling with this as a deep and personal moral issue. You get down in the muck, everything and everyone gets dirty, and sooner or later you're just a part of the cheap and obnoxious world they want to live in.
Maybe I'm overthinking it but I don't see it as a simple question, and I don't envy any of the candidates trying to decide how to handle them. As we've seen, they have a talent for dragging any legit strike against them down into the muck where they're most comfortable and most likely to win.
