I would rather be Barack Obama right now than Hillary Clinton. That’s not to say that this thing is even close to being over, but still. The delegate count is close, Hillary has big states remaining where she's favored, she has a world-class operation and she is, after all, still Hillary Clinton. But it just feels like everything is moving in Barack’s direction. Including me. I am a supporter of Hillary Clinton. I get her. I accept her for her faults. I feel a strange, inexplicable loyalty to both her and Bill. And I just plain like her. I think she’s the most qualified candidate in the race and I think she deserves it. That is just my opinion. So please, I’m begging you, no existential debates about entitlement. It’s just my opinion. My possible conversion to Barack, however, is based on the glaring evidence that seems to indicate that he will be a decidedly stronger General Election candidate.
The right-wing cesspool that masquerades as their intelligencia is making a grave mistake beating up on McCain the way they are. The Limbaugh/Coulter/Hannity/Ingraham coagulate is also making the concurrent mistake of painting Hillary as the country’s worst nightmare.
Now while Hillary may be a nightmare for Republicans, she’s the “You’re back in high school and have a final exam in a class that you haven’t been to all semester and can’t find your locker” kind of nightmare. Barack’s the “Freddy Kreuger” kind.
By shitting on McCain and vilifying Hillary, the conservatives may be digging themselves a hole that will take 50 years to dig out from. The conventional wisdom seems to suggest that Hillary is the candidate that the Republicans want to run against, and for good reason. They will be offering up the least inspiring nominee that the party has produced in my lifetime. And I can’t even think of a close second. The thinking is that if Hillary is the nominee, Republicans who might not be inspired enough to turn out on election day and vote for McCain, might just show up to vote against Clinton. And it’s probably true. As these conservative misanthropes cough, sputter and expectorate this bile all over themselves and anyone else who will listen, they are concurrently enervating the Republican electorate and pushing Democratic support away from Clinton and towards Obama.
Don’t ask for whom the bell tolls.
Now I think either Hillary or Barack, would beat McCain in a general election match-up. He has appeared almost doddering in the last couple debates.
And the fact that his handlers have managed to turn the former “Mr. Straight Talk” into a trained, aquarium seal barking out the tried and true conservative homilies about abortion, strict constructionism, etc., has become truly sad and a little pathetic.
Especially because you can tell that even he doesn’t believe what he’s saying anymore. Standing opposite him on a debate stage, Hillary or Barack would present as young, vital, razor-sharp super-computers and ole John would look like a hand-cranked adding machine.
The difference between the two, as the party’s nominee, would be turn-out. If Obama were the nominee, more Democrats and less Republicans will show up on Election Day. Period. Barack Obama is a hard guy not to like. And what’s even harder would be imagining that someone who’s not that motivated to vote, would get up, get in their car, drive to a polling place, park and wait in line for a ballot just to vote against him. I don’t see it. I think that, not only will Obama run over McCain like a freight train, I think he could bring an extra twenty House and Senate seats with him. Not twenty total. Twenty more than Hillary. That’s to say nothing of the Gubernatorial races, State Legislative races, left-leaning ballot initiatives, etc. It would be especially devastating for the Republicans because, as fate would have it, there are an extraordinary number of Republican-held Senate seats in contention this election cycle (I think more than 20) and many will be non-incumbent races because of all the retirements. Some distinguished – like John Warner. Some not so distinguished – like the guy from Idaho. WHO’S NOT GAY! By the way, The Virginia Republicans can’t even find a viable candidate to run against the former Virginia governor and popular Democrat Mark Warner for Sen. Warner’s seat. Chalk one up!
This could be a truly historic opportunity for the Dems. A 50-60 seat majority in the House. A filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. State legislatures redrawing congressional maps all over the country. America could end up looking like a polygamist colony founded by the Blue-Man Group for the next half-century. And the Conservatives are egging it on.
Now I must admit that I didn’t envision that Obama would have become this formidable of a candidate this quickly. Especially running against Hillary. I failed to foresee what the consequences of this freakishly early campaign cycle would be. Usually a field of candidates gets whittled down and weeded out by primaries, not by pollsters. But because this race started so unbelievably early we were already down to two candidates after five state contests. And because, to a great extent, there was an overall “pro-Hillary/anti-Hillary” theme to this primary, the fact that this new, sped-up process wouldn’t even allow for a quality candidate like John Edwards to make it to Super Tuesday, allowed all the anti-Hillary votes (and delegates) to settle in one place. So much for Team Clinton’s favorite past time of triangulation.
Now this is not to say that it’s over for Hillary. But she’s now been reduced to relying on the “Giuliani Strategy.” (Remember him?) You suffer through several small, un-winnable contests until you can get to the big states where you have your big leads and hope the big leads are still waiting for you when you get there. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Barack Obama is a better General Election candidate than Hillary for another reason. He’s rubber and they’re glue. And they don’t have a clue as to how to run against him.
Whereas Hillary is a tailor-made opponent for the type of political warfare and despicable attack strategies they have honed over the last 40 years, the Republicans wouldn’t even know where to start against Barack. They can’t attack him on his record because, first of all, he doesn’t have much of one and, secondly, he’s not running on it. They can try to talk about his lack of experience but he will counter with a dazzling rhetorical flourish about how he does have experience, but that it’s simply a different kind of experience and he will explain why it’s exactly the kind of experience we need now. He will make the case that the current administration with men like Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell brought an almost unprecedented level of the traditional experience that he lacks to Washington and then allow his supporters and detractors to draw the same inescapable conclusion regarding the value of that type of experience. And personal attacks? Good luck. In this hypersensitive, politically correct environment, every word will be run through a micro-filter to detect the slightest hint of a racial overtone. Even imagined slights will be turned into three day news stories peppered with clarifications, retractions and staff dismissals. They will try to attack his message but will have trouble because it’s rhetorical, not polemical. Then they’ll try to attack his message because it’s rhetorical and they’ll end up sounding like a bunch of bitter old men chanting, “No, we can’t!” while being drowned out by legions of Obama supporters chanting, “Yes, we can!” I can hardly imagine a worse visual.
So with all that being said, I am now in the previously unimaginable position of having my whimsical right-brain saying “Hillary” and my rational left-brain saying “Barack.” Imagine that. I can hardly think of a bigger paradox. Barack Obama has now become the unbeatable foe and the prohibitive favorite. He's the pragmatic choice. And the Republicans are about to find out what it’s like to step into the ring against a ghost.
Neo from “The Matrix” will be coming to Obama for self-defense tips.
And then in a few years they’ll both be able to sit around and swap stories about what it was like to smash the machines.