I updated the following due to objections of my ascribing a genocidal desire to Hillary Clinton. But she does intend to obliterate the population of Iran if Israel or any nation in the Middle East is attacked by Iran. That is a true statement.
No, she is not insane because of her intention to obliterate the entire population of Iran. And no, she is not insane because of her idiotic nuclear umbrella idea. And no, she is not insane because of her universally-rejected-by-all-economists-everywhere gas tax holiday pander. And no, she is not insane because her continued use of Republican and Rovian tactics and language ("with us or against us").
She is a Republican because of all of those things, but she is not insane.
She is probably evil because of one or more of those things, but she is not insane.
She probably lacks the judgment and intelligence to be President because of some of those things, but she is not insane.
No, she is insane because she is doing the same thing over and over again, but this time she expects to win, when before, we have lost.
What am I talking about?
I am talking about the Clintonian Politics of Doing Just Enough to WinTM and the Politics of No Contrast. The latter plan, dreamed up by the ironically named Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), was to establish no contrast between the Democratic Party and Republican Party on issues that some mistakenly believed the Democrats were weaker on (i.e. national security, Iraq, crime, death penalty, taxes). This way, the voters would be confused, and some will of them will be confused enough to vote Democratic. The Politics of No Contrast was employed along with the Clintonian Politics of Doing Just Enough to WinTM, which consisted of the pursuit of high popular vote margins in urban areas while only competing for votes in certain predetermined "swing states." Under this plan, the remainder of the country wondered if there was actually elections in 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. Indeed, under this plan, some wondered if the Democratic Party existed.
This combined strategy worked in 1992. And maybe at one point it was necessary. Bill Clinton said in his autobiography that on the eve of the 1992 election, even though all the polls pointed to a decisive victory for him, that he was still nervous about the outcome. And the reason he was nervous was because many Americans were not used to Democratic Presidents. At the time, that was true. For someone voting for the first time in 1992, there was no real memory of a Democratic President. The Republicans had possessed the White House for all but four of the last twenty four years. So maybe by making the Democratic Party in general, and Bill Clinton in particular, more palpatable to relunctant voters in 1992 by offering less contrast made sense. And maybe targeting certain swing states only against an incumbent President in 1992 made sense, especially when you consider the Ross Perot factor.
In 2000, the Politics of No Contrast lead to a very close election that should have never been close. In a time of unrivaled peace and prosperity, the Vice President who helped make all that peace and prosperity happen was defeated for the Presidency. Some of the more liberal and radical among us declared there to be no difference between Bush and Gore, and thus decided to vote for a consumer safety advocate whose ego knows no regulation. To be fair, the Bush campaign was also practicing the Politics of No Contrast in their attempts to make the drunk Governor appear more compassionate. And maybe that year, the Politics of No Contrast worked for them. But it certainly failed us.
As Markos notes on the frontpage, the Politics of No Contrast failed us again in 2004, when we ran John Kerry, someone who voted for the war and really still supported the war all throughout the campaign, against the President who started the war in the first place. To voters who could have been convinced, even in 2004, that the Iraq War was wrong and a horrible mistake, we offered them no real alternative. And thus, Bush was reelected.
And now in 2008, Hillary Clinton has consistently and fervently tried to blurr any contrast between herself and McCain. She never misses any opportunity to laud his heroic war record or his national and foreign policy credentials. She insists that this election by fought on the national security battlefield while only using Republican frames. She has tried to appear even more disturbingly intemperate and reckless than McCain.
All the while employing the Politics of No Contrast, Hillary seeks to continue the Clintonian Politics of Doing Just Enough to Win.TM She won't campaign in all fifty states. She deems certain states lost to Democratic candidates forever. She will only do just enough to win her the Presidency for herself, without any longterm concern for the Democratic Party. She seeks not to grow the party in areas new and old, but to only use it as it presently exists for her own purposes.
The Politics of No Contrast yielded disappointing results in the last two Presidential elections.
The Clintonian Politics of Doing Just Enough to WinTM lost us the Congress and a majority of the Governorships in 1994, and it never regained those majorities. Only Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy in 2006 did that.
Yet Hillary wants to pursue both failed strategies again.
And she expects to win in the fall.
Thus, she must now be considered insane.