Thursday, April 17, 2008

60+4=64

M.S. Bellows over at HuffPo offers this illuminating scenario for Clinton's strategy of playing the Republican foil against Obama in this primary:

Here's the real math behind Clinton's continued campaign: 60 plus 4 = 64. Clinton's 60 years old. She knows she won't get the nomination, or the Presidency, eight years from now when she's 68 (only 3 years younger than McCain is now). But she can get it in 2012, when she's only 64 - unless Obama's already in the White House, in which case he'll almost certainly be renominated. If Obama wins this election, Clinton will never be President. If he loses, Clinton gets another shot. So Clinton strings this thing out - and does everything she can to pull Obama down - while Republican strategists cheer her on, not because she realistically believes she can win in '08, but to preserve her shot at '12.

If this really is her strategy, it's about as horrendously stupid as can be. Should she succeed in damaging Obama enough to lose against McCain, she can kiss her political career goodbye. She will have disenfranchised so many democrats in the process, so much so that there will be no second chance four years from now. She wouldn't survive another senate run in New York, let alone mount another presidential bid. And who is to say that Obama wouldn't attempt another run?

I don't see McCain winning against Obama in any scenario. White Republiscums® will vote for McCain no matter what, short of his being exposed as a pedophile or having had sex with a man. Anyone on the fence will be feeling the financial crunch so badly come November, after having spent the summer paying over $4 per gallon of gas and massively high electric bills from running the AC to survive record high temperatures. Then as fall sets in a winter creeps forward, they'll find they are barely able to afford home heating bills, and the prospect of doing much Christmas shopping will seem remote as they find they are having a harder time paying off debt as the credit crisis expands. The economy is only one reason in a long list of why McCain does not have a chance against Obama. Current polls be damned, as the economy dive bombs and Iraq descends into further chaos, come November the rest of the country will discover what I already know: John "W. Jr." McCain is the worst thing that could happen to this country.

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