Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Partisan, political message

I'm going all liberal for a moment. International and conservative readers and those of you who have already voted or caucused should just move along.

In the general election, I will doubtlessly be supporting Dolores, but for the primary, I seem to be following demographic expectations and supporting Obama.

I like Senator Clinton; I always have. But I fear that she is unelectable as a Presidential candidate. Conservatives of all varieties loathe her. I never understood this Clinton-hating until I experienced similar feelings for our current President.

Think about that: much of the country hates Hillary Clinton as much as you hate George W. Bush. They will put aside their differences and unite behind any candidate that is not her, leaving us another Republican President to make Supreme Court appointments.

What's weird to me is, if I know this, why doesn't she? She's smarter than I am.

Look, policy-wise, there's very little discernible difference between Clinton and Obama.* Therefore, we need to nominate the candidate who can win. And speaking from my blue household in a red precinct of a blue city in a red state, I'm telling you that winner is not Clinton.

* In truth, I score highest with Clinton on Candidate Match.

3 comments:

Rosemary said...

Wow, I got matched up with a candidate I've never even heard of--Mike Gravel (probably only because Dennis Kucinich is no longer an option).

I'm inclined to agree with you, Don; as Tom has pointed out, do we as Democrats really want to encourage political dynasties on our side, too? After all, that's how we ended up with our current disaster. The fact that many of the Clinton administration's own former advisors have gone to work for Obama suggests that they don't want to go back to the future either.

Anonymous said...

You make a good point. But that is also the kind of thinking that got UK Labour party members Tony Blair. And yes he was electable. Several times. But his policies were maybe not what those folks really wanted from a Labour government.

Not that this is what will happen in your place. Just that one needs to keep an eye on what makes folks electable and what they might have to do to appease those "swing" voters.

Anonymous said...

You are so right. I am surprised that Hillary has lasted this long.

She has tons of problems for me, but the biggest is this------

Bush-Clinton-Bush-The Clintons. God help us!