The math has been clear on this for weeks. Hillary cannot win the Democratic nomination. The incessant chatter over the possibility that she will win is nothing more than content for TV and political blogs. Anybody not totally sick of all the prognosticating, analyzing, number crunching, speculating, and yammering by now is just a hopeless political junkie in the most pathetic Man with a Golden Arm sort of way. If you’re speedballing on Hardball, folks, it’s time to call in Kim Novak to hide the cheese grater and go cold turkey.
When the monkey’s finally off your back, Obama will be your nominee. McCain will be their Robert Dole. And Hillary? She will be poised to become the most powerful woman in the land as majority leader of the US Senate. She will take this position from Harry Reed with the ease of Sheriff Taylor taking away Barney Fife’s gun. And you will be glad she did, no matter how Rovian you think her campaign has been—especially if you think it has been Rovian. Her ascension to this position right now is the most inevitable thing in American politics. The guile and cunning she has shown during this primary season sets her up to be the most effective Democratic majority leader since LBJ. In eight years, when Obama is leaving office, she will just be on the cusp of her second decade as majority leader. Her most fervent followers will be wondering what were they thinking when they see her putting her brand on more legislation, more judges, and more policies than any Democrat since Roosevelt.
It’s a good thing Obama has gotten in all this practice sparring with her because once he’s dispatched her from the presidential race, the fun, as she likes to say, will really begin. As majority leader, she will either be his biggest ally or his biggest obstacle over the next eight years. Any which way, she will be there playing a bigger role than either her friends or her enemies are contemplating for her right now.