Monday, June 2, 2008

Hillary Plays the Long Game

I've been staying out of the fray that is the looming presidential campaign lately from a blogging standpoint, as it proceeds to get less than pretty out there.

I've watched women screaming out about how unfair it is the Hillary is being treated the way she is. The fact that she can no longer mathematically catch her opponent, her continuing gaffes are turning her into a political liability, and her long "dubious" political track record would destroy her in a general election have no bearing. I have seen an aboriginal racism develop in a number of people that I think has even surprised themselves.

Why is Hillary still running?

The reasonings that everybody's vote counts and that sometimes the campaigns run long are transparent fabrications along the lines reality shaping of the current administration. The popular vote is moot, Gore won it in 2000 and see where it got him. The delegates are what counts, and Hillary's argument that every vote should count only makes sense when her supporters add up the numbers. Her questionable count that includes Michigan will again be contentious after June 3, especially if Obama hits the "magic number". But then Hillary is playing her own game now, and the endgame comes in 2012.

The fact is the Democrats will need to time to heal the internal divisions created by this fracas. By staying in the race longer, by pretending to not own up the actual reality Hillary and her campaign are creating fault lines for the Republicans to force open this fall. I'm certain that by the end of June or sooner she'll capitulate after a quiet conversation in a smoky room with a old and wise conversationalist, but by then it will be too late.

Her actions will have created enough of a rift for McCain to win in November.

Her followers, angry and much like the woman screaming outside the Reporters outside the Committee meeting on Saturday about how she'd vote for McCain before she'd vote for Obama (indicating a racism so perverse it would throw away the chance for change just to keep a black man out of office) are indicative of the response you thought you might only get in a parody on Saturday Night Live. But it's a reality. Had this ended in April or early May the idea of a black leader would have had time to marinate in the minds of Democrats. It would have become palatable. Doable.

Instead, if Hillary keeps her threat alive and keeps going to the convention the idea of the black candidate will be broken out of the gate. The Dems need to sell him not only to the undecideds but to Hillary's supporters as well as someone who shares a great deal of the same concepts. Even now Hillary knows she wouldn't win if she somehow steals the nomination at this hour, as the African American base will be disenfranchised. She's threatened until August but what she just needs to do is keep the game going long enough for McCain to eke out a victory.

In four years with the current policies, the dollar will be in the toilet, the military in shambles, our world reputation a joke and our debts eating away at our current paychecks and not those of our children. Into this world Hillary will appear as an American Joan of Arc. We'll carry her into office.

In March, someone hypothesized that Obama although leading the venerable senator from New York who just wouldn't go away after the Super Tuesday showings and losing eleven states should have for the good of the party stepped down and let Hillary have a go at it. The turn of statesmanship would tear the party, doom Hillary's chances and hand Obama the office in 2012.

I think somebody else just found that article and changed the name slots.

Barkeep. What do you drink when you figure out about the shenanigans?


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It won't take 4 years to collapse this country; I would say less than one more year of Chimpy's disastrous policies ought to do the trick. It is clear that Hill is willing to take that chance, for a prize that likely will no longer be available in 2012 if the embalmed zombie wins the Presidency.

Pretty damned sad, that is.