Hillary Clinton > Tom Brady
As succinct a case as has ever been made ...
Beware of the sweet murmurings about Barack Obama being shopped about by conservative pundits, warns David Seaton. They are up to no good. It is a spider's web being spun, a deceitful, deceptive snare worthy of Les Liaisons Dangereuses. He quotes overripe opinion-column testimonials to Obama's idealism and protean appeal by David Brooks, George Will, and Peggy Noonan, and asks:
Why do they "like" Obama so much?
Because they are terrified of Hillary Clinton, that's why...It is this simple: in recent decades the Clintons are the only Democrats that win elections against Republicans... They don't want to ever face them again, no more complicated than that.
I share Seaton's suspicions and conclusion. I've never bought the national polls showing Obama would be a stronger adversary for McCain than Clinton--I think those polls are as squeaky as the ones that showed Giuliani as the frontrunner all those months. I think Obama would probably beat McCain, but I know Hillary would because the Clintons have been through the thresher before and reflexively know how to judo flip Republican tactics and media attacks, not simply be reactive after taking a shot to the chin the way Gore and Kerry too often did. For better or worse for our democracy, the Clintons "get" the gestalt, know how to read a blitz.
It pains me to make that comparison, but there ya go. If there's any crueler lesson than Barry's Kids have to look forward to, it's watching the result of an actual, honest-to-goodness negative barrage that gets unloaded on Obama if he wins the nomination. I like the guy and rather easily see myself supporting him if he is ... but the willingness on the part of those who believe he's made of teflon is nothing short of delusional.
On the plus side, the likely oppoent in the General Election will be an old man who just spent the last four years disavowing everything he believed in during the previous decade-plus - further attaching a once-solid reformer message with the tired-tested-and-failed approach of today's Republican party. Great brand to attach yourself to! I can't wait to see those Phil Gramm endorsement ads on my TV.
Oh, yeah. Guilliani was THE MAN, espite his marital infidelity and his association with that policeman the Bush Administration couldn't name head of Homeland Security.
Guilliani, a Mayor, to capture the Republican nomination. It was ridiculous on the face of it.
Worse than Lindsay's campaign of '72, or at least as bad. Guilliani didn't know that dust was bad for people.
His center to deal with anti-terrorist activity was based in the World Trade Center and why, because it was a shorter walk from the Mayor's office.
He was going to beat, and the polls told us it was true, the Senators and Governors running for the nomination.
Hey, why not Kucinich?