I really can't wrap my head around it anymore.
Watching Hillary Clinton these past few weeks, you have to wonder whether or not she's mistaken the Onion for a real newspaper. For someone who has a reputation as calculating, brilliant, and unbeatable, she has, to take a stab at understatement, made a lot of obvious missteps. But worse, and unlike Obama, these were not mere gaffes, they were errors in strategy. Pre-conceived, possibly debated, and in retrospect gob-smackingly short-sighted. You don't need me to reprint the reel here.
But what I am interested in, is precisely why all of this seems so absurd and what the long term effect will be. Basically, the caricacture she is trying to paint of Obama (Head in the clouds, disdainful of American values, effete and out of touch) is not in and of itself ineffective, as evidenced by 20 years of Republicans who continue to flog the very same carcass and the way it plays so well in the media. What does her in is not the content of the argument, but the source - herself. She is the embodiment of the very cartoon she is putting out. Before there was Barack the uppity muslim who thinks all white people who don't vote for him are crazy religious racists, there was Hillary the psycho femi-nazi who was out to castrate all men. You remember those bumper stickers? "Impeach the President - and her husband too." Simply put, she is the right wing boogeyman, er woman. Arguments against Obama that might work if they came from John Mccain, fall flat when they come from her.
So I started thinking (never a good sign).. Is this really such a bad thing? Could it be that Hillary Clinton is, even if inadverdantly, subverting the right wing noise machine? By staying in the race she is doing more than offering a preview of the Republican campaign against Obama, she is running it. By the time the general roles around, all of these things should be dead issues. They will have played out in the media so often that people will be sick of them. And the first picture that comes to mind when they hear someone from the Mccain campaign (remember, McMaverick himself must never be soiled by engaging in insults personally) throw the elitist label at Obama will be Hillary in the Annie Oakley costume. You couldn't ask for better subliminal messaging, come the general. And while her own career is certainly taking some hits, if she ends up single handedly defusing the 527s, the Democratic party and the country as a whole will owe her a big thank you.
So have at it Hillary. This Obama supporter hopes you stay in the race. It's not only great entertainment, it could be the key to victory.