Problama

Hillary Clinton is a fucking diabolical genius, you know that? Some guy on the radio yesterday (CBS news, not that shitty NPR shit) said she might stay in the race until the convention in order to negotiate some debt relief or some shit. Wrong! That's like saying Hillary Clinton would rip the heads off of babies just to show her support for birth control. Step back and take in the picture, dumbass. Clinton stayed in right up to the fucking last-second primaries in worthless, useless, meaningless states (sorry, residents of those states, whose names I cannot even remember because they, and you, are a waste of time and resources) in order to drive home the point, as nothing else could, that Brarack Obama cannot win the general election without Hillary Clinton. Obama may be considering picking some weak-ass running mate from a pool of mediocre possibilities, but if he wants to win Ohio and Pennsylvania and Florida, he must choose Clinton.

Clinton actually did win those states. Obama didn't. Obama (vs. cuddly Republican) will lose at least one of them--and let's not forget the voter fraud issues in all three, even if some Obama supporters apparently believe their guy's magical charisma can overcome a Diebold rig-job. Nope, you have to get record numbers of people to the polls, and Obama can't do it by himself, or in tandem with any of his supposedly likely VP choices.

Also, Obama is a very boring speaker. Collect yourself, take a breath. Now think about this: when he has to answer a question that is even a smidge outside his knowledge base, does he set the world (or your loins) on fire? Not mine. Pay attention to him the next time this happens (hell, his stump speeches haven't shown any improvement in months, for that matter). He repeats meaningless words--not even catchphrases, just single words--he stutters, he trails off, he gets all seriousy-gravel-voiced-very-grownup and...says nothing. Someday, somebody is going to point out that this isn't good enough. It could be McCain. It could be on national television.

I guess my point is that when it comes to giving a policy-based answer to a question, there are all other politicians in the world, and then there's Obama. This may be what draws that certain rabid follower but to me it sounds like everyone else puts real information into their rhetoric and Obama just goes "hope, change, my father, change, my father, hope" and thinks it's a good day's work.

There are two other things working against Obama and in favor of Clinton. One is already known: Americans hate to be told things "for their own good." The Obama campaign, like the Gore campaign and the Kerry campaign, is being fronted by exactly the kind of people who might be quite sincere but who come off in print and in person as smug, smarmy, and yet somehow totally naive. The effect is alarming: Clintonites and other large swaths of the electorate don't want to hold hands with Obama's supporters. I believe many of them would be content to let him take his chances with the hardcore support he has and will stay home in November unless their girl is on the ticket.

Which brings us to Clinton's secret genius. She has to be the VP, because otherwise it will be Obama, not she, who ignored the divided party, weakened his own campaign, and lost the mandate that could have belonged to a Democratic administration. He might yet win the general election (I don't think so) but he would limp into office just ahead of a changing tide moving in favor of the Republicans, who do nothing at all well but attack "weak" Democrats. If Obama somehow fails to realize this simple fact, then shame on him. His disillusioned followers will wander back into the "reality-based" community in 4 years and start over again. Maybe it'll be too late. It certainly can be avoided.