- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Once again for the millionth time I am asking anyone, anyone on this board to point to a state or collection of states that you reasonably think Hillary can take away from the GOP in 2008. Look at the electoral college map folks!
Remember how confident you were in 2004? Hey, there's no way GW could win right? With the war and the economy and his stupid tax cuts and the fact that John Kerry was a freakin war hero that served his country while GW served himself another line?
Um, except that GW did win didn't he?
Look, we live in a center-right country where in 1976 even after the republican president and vice-president resigned in disgrace, the dems STILL barely beat them and even then it was only for one term.
Bill Clinton was an anomaly who basically got lucky the first time because of Ross Perot and the second time because of well, Bob Dole. Sure, he was a great president but his popularity just never rubbed off on the democratic party.
So check your map. Assuming that the dems cede the South (AGAIN) they will end up in a fight over Ohio (AGAIN) and at the end of the day Obama has a slightly better chance than Hillary to pick up the republicans and independents that you are going to need to win that state AND to keep the GOP base turnout low.
Hillary would do the exact opposite (turn off independents and republicans and ensure that the base GOP base turns out in droves to loudly reject someone they clearly loathe)
And even with all that if the GOP is smart enough to nominate McCain (just to win basically) I am not sure either Obama or Clinton (but definitely not Clinton) will be able to beat him.
Oh and if you are thinking about 2006 and the fact that the dems took the congress, well yes they basically used up their one 'we are fed up with the republican's and we want someone else' chit and they have done absolutely NOTHING with it except for maybe setting themselves up to share the blame (fairly or unfairly) for our current economic situation.
The cold hard truth is that we are 3 for 10 since 1968 and that includes a GOP president who almost got impeached, a GOP president who wasn't even elected and a GOP president who basically lied to get us into a war and then gave all of our money to his rich friends.
I am not saying it's impossible but it is damn near unlikely. Our best hope is that we nominate Obama and an uber-conservative like Gary Bauer runs independently.
