Mrs. Clinton has never gone after a fellow Democrat quite the way she's going after Mr. Obama, and it's an indication of how threatened she is not only by his candidacy but, one suspects, his freshness. He makes her look like yesterday. He makes her look like the old slash-and-burn. I doubted he could do her serious damage. Now I wonder.
[snip]
At the Democratic forum in Carson City, Nev., on Tuesday, ABC's George Stephanopoulos asked Mrs. Clinton if Mr. Obama should renounce Mr. Geffen's remarks. She answered, "I want to run a positive campaign" and referred to "the politics of personal destruction." Every time she gets in a spot, she pulls that one out. And for good reason: It has always worked. It works because it confuses people. Is this the boys beating up the girl? Are they sticking her pigtails in the ink well? Is Geffen mean? If Obama is nice, shouldn't he make sure everyone is nice?
It's not so much a diversion as a non sequitur. Mrs. Clinton is like the little girl who steals the boy next door's candy and hits him on the head with a hammer. He runs, "Mommy, she stole my Snickers and hit me on the head!" She turns to the mother, hammer in hand, and gestures at the boy. "This . . . is the politics of personal destruction."
As I say, it's always worked in the past. The question is, will it work in the future?
Personally, I've never had the slightest regard for the Clintons, but I've never shared the Clinton-hating passion on the right. It's just not that interesting to me. I was talking with some friends over lunch yesterday, though, telling them how I thought that the surest way for the Democrats to lose the presidency in 2008 is for them to nominate Hillary Clinton. The friends, who are foreigners, seemed surprised by this, and I told them that Hillary projected a cold, unlikable, calculating personality. Of course she has her fan base, but I think most people, if they feel positive towards her, it's because she has made what they consider the right enemies.
Obama, on the other hand, is a very hard guy not to like. Conservatives who criticize him call him shallow and a phony. Notice that they're saying the nice-guy persona masks major flaws -- which may well be true, but the point is that everybody seems to grasp that he's a guy you really want to like. He's the most naturally charismatic national politician I've seen since Reagan (not even Clinton was this good; I could see his geniality, but it was the geniality of the huckster who was chatting you up to make a sale). In that way, he strikes me as Hillary's polar opposite. If people like Hillary, they do so for ideological reasons. If they like Obama, it comes naturally.
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No chance for either of them. Hillary IS too polarizing, and many hate her outright. Obama talks Christianity, while he's okay with abortion and gay marriage; he's a Democrat! C'mon folks. So, the Dems don't stand a chance, as far as I can see. McCain is the all around best candidate, and Guilianni is well liked(skeletons or not) Obama won't get in just because people want to pretend to be multicultural and PC. He talks to the right, but he's standing clearly on the left. And he's a bit too young and inexperienced besides. The next POTUS will be a Republican.
My guess: Clinton/Obama ticket. Clinton WILL not recuse herself from the Presidency, but Obama may settle for the Vice-Presidency. VP Obama can always still run in 4 or 8 years, but this is it for Sen. Clinton. She is not viable in 8 years.
The difference between Clinton/Obama and McCain/Guiliani is very little. Both groups are moderate-to-centrist, both disdain the Religious Right (although McCain will play to them until election time), both support abortion, embryonic stem cells, gay marriage/union, etc. Both will generally do the same thing, McCain may focus more on the military and Clinton slightly more on environmental concerns. Both are pretty much the same except for the label. The next election will be Donkey vs. Donkephant.
I would suggest you actually listen to what Sen. Obama has to say rather than what the talking heads at Fox Noise are telling you. Don't you "progressives" ever get tired of this half-wit line? Perhaps it tests well among focus groups drawn from the Air America demographic, but the rest of us are a bit bored by now. For the record, I don't have cable tv, so I have no idea what the "talking heads" anywhere are telling me. Neither do I listen to Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity. Or read Ann Coulter, etc. Any other straw men you'd like to attack?
In pointing out that Emperor Obama has no clothes, I wasn't suggesting that any of the Republican candidates are powerhouses. As a traditional conservative, I'd much prefer that the GOP lose in 2008 rather than saddle the party and country to Guiliani, McCain or Romney (the "Stepford Candidate"). Each of them is either wrong or patently disingenous on every one of the most important issues facing the country today -- the war (and international military entanglements generally), judges, and border security. None of them will have my vote. That said, Obama sounds like a candidate for student body president rather than President of the United States. You can't just prattle on in favor of "hope," "community" and "our generation" and expect people to put you in the White House. People are more intelligent than the media gives them credit for, and at some point every candidate needs to put forth concrete plans and address controversial issues frankly. But the junior Senator from Illinois appears to be a charter member of the Platitude of the Month Club. He's not going to be President of the United States. I don't have any special animus against him (as I do against, say, Mrs. Clinton), but my experience observing politics over the years tells me he's all hype and no substance, and ultimately going nowhere.
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