After last night's results -- a decisive victory in North Carolina, and a close loss in Indiana -- there can be no doubt now that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee. I've not been one of those people who thought Hillary Clinton should have stood down weeks ago for the good of her party. After all, she still had substantial strength, and Obama was shown to have serious weaknesses, chiefly with the Rev. Wright thing, but also Bittergate. I thought she had a good, if long-shot, rationale for going on.
But I no longer think that. Obama has been bloodied by the last seven weeks, but he's still standing pretty strong. She won't knock him off now. Had she done significantly better in Indiana, that'd be different. But she didn't, and now, if I were a superdelegate, I'd go all in with Obama.
We can now see the fall campaign shaping up: the old war hero versus the young liberal the radical background. But if that's all the GOP has to throw at Obama, they'll lose, and will deserve to lose. I'm thinking that the last seven weeks, with their focus on Obama's roots in the cultural hard left, did a lot to disillusion people like me with the idea of Obama as a transformational candidate. But then again, people like me were fed up with the Republicans anyway, and are going to be very hard pressed to vote McCain, even as we're not planning to vote Obama. Honestly, I don't know if I'd be more depressed to wake up the day after Election Day to find out the next president is going to be a Republican or a Democrat.
Seven months out, I see the best reason to vote McCain is to serve as a brake on the strongly Democratic Congress we're going to have after November; a McCain presidency would be a moderating influence on them. But that's about it: McCain would not be a strong Republican president, simply because the power will have shifted strongly to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. The best conservatives can hope for, then, is not that we'll get conservative legislation, but that a President McCain will keep the worst excesses of liberalism from passing.
Do any of you have any doubt that Hillary will keep going, though? She's broke, the math has never been stacked so high against her, and even though it's technically true that Obama can't win this thing outright in delegates, I think all but the most deranged Clintonistas must recognize that the only way she can pull this out is by either a) fiddling with the rules to seat Florida and Michigan, thereby winning very ugly, or b) if Obama is found in bed with a live boy or a dead girl.
Aside from sheer ego, why would she continue after this? It's a manifestation of will to power that's actually turning creepy.
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I am completely dumbfounded how people who support Clinton or Obama, and say they will vote for McCain if their preferred candidate is not the nominee. There is very little policy difference between the two Democrats, but a gulf between them and McCain. Instead of worrying about lapel pins, perceived slights to the US Flag (ever been to a ball game? most people are talking during the national anthem), and overstated ties to radicals, what about real issues? Or are cosmetic things more important to you?
And whoever said that Obama has not made any substantive speeches on issues, should either look at his website or stop watching FOX news.
"I'm thinking that the last seven weeks, with their focus on Obama's roots in the cultural hard left..."
Um, guess just WHO did the 'focusing'? And it seems to me it wasn't focused on Obama so much as on a man named Wright who isn't even running for the Presidency.
Funny that.
jeff sullivn,
"Advice from Canada on universal health care: think twice before you buy in."
I am from Canada and I sure as heck am glad we 'bought in' so many decades ago. My husband slipped and fell on the ice 1 week before our wedding and was in the operating room within 3 hours of his admission to the hospital (of his own choice, btw) and at no charge. Why on earth would any sane, thinking person not want a system like that?
mdavid,
"Democrats are crazy; they could have won this election in a cakewalk by picking a booring, liberal governor. A moderate guy could get universal health care, pull us out of Iraq, and raise anti-business laws all in the first year. Democrats could own the office for 12 years in a row if they had just taken it slow.
Now, Obama will probably win. He of course will travel so far to the left it will kill Democrats for years afterwards."
Ya mean like W took the Repubs so far to the right that he has probably killed the party for years to come???
U 2 funnee.
Merenda and Alicia, it's difference of opinion that makes a horserace. My opinion is that the lady in question is a shameless and profound liar, is a preening narcissist, (much like the piece of work she married) and has no qualifications at all, save relentless and flaming raw ambition, for the job she wants. Her default position is to obfuscate, specially plead or lie. (Pick one.) She is caught in a web of delusion. She has no real core. I believe that she, unlike the piece of work she married, secretly despises America and Americans. She is the smartest person in the room, and she will make damn sure that you know it.
Aside from that, there's nothing wrong with her. I changed my registration for the specific purpose of making as sure as I could that the closest Hillary ever again gets to the Oval Office is a photo-op on the White House lawn, in a supporting role as Senator from New York.
Many of my closest friends would agree with your assessment of Hillary's character, Scott. Obviously, I disagree. I would just note that many of her political enemies in the U.S. Senate have come to respect Hillary Clinton a great deal since she was elected Senator.
McCain reportedly likes and respects her, and feels that Obama's word can't be trusted (my source for that is David Brooks).
Personally, the Clintons remind me of what one character in "Breakfast at Tiffanys" says of Holly Golightly - that they are phonies, but they are "real phonies" (oxymoron intended) meaning that they are self made people (or B.S. artists, if you like) who have come to believe their own lines, to a certain extent, but who also have a core of decency that makes them essentially human and trustworthy. Just my opinion.
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