The Endgame

Other Lisa, in a comment on this post, cites her (and many other women she knows) continuing discomfort with Obama (and the “sweetie” comment didn’t help) and her belief that he can’t win in the fall.

I think we’ll just end up disagreeing on Obama. I agree that the “sweetie” comment was dumb, but at least he called and apologized instantly. If you believe that is revelatory of some anti-feminist bias in Obama (and I don’t), then consider what some of John McCain’s terms for his own wife (“trollop”,”c—“) might mean. Also, I think you need to give a bit of wiggle room for in-the-moment gaffes, as opposed to scripted inanity (George Bush at the Knesset, for example).

My problem with a lot of Hillary folks is they assume she should have won, so because she didn’t, Obama somehow stole it from her. I think that’s dumb. Hillary made three big mistakes as applies to this primary season. First, she voted for the Iraq AUMF in 2002. Second, and more importantly, she never repudiated that vote, as, for example, John Edwards did. And third, she got into a bunker with people who just did her wrong. Mark Penn, anybody? I won’t deny that she’s had a tough road, by virtue of the Andrew Sullivan-level derangement towards all things Clinton that many hold, but many of her decisions wound up feeding that derangement, and not isolating it and making it look silly.

Still, I can’t get myself into that anti-Clinton craziness. As I have said, I think she’d be a very good President. A friend in Iowa who saw both Clinton and Obama really liked both of them, and, in hindsight, with good reason. That said, I think some of her attacks on Obama have been unseemly – on Reverend Wright, for example, or on the notion that he’s not getting hard working white people to vote for him – and ultimately hurt her.

Furthermore, there’s no denying the misogyny that has floated around coverage of her campaign. I don’t think you can lay that at Obama’s feet, just as you can’t lay the unwillingness of some white voters to vote for a black man at hers.

But the bottom line is this. The Democratic Primary is set up a certain way. Obama figured out his best way to compete under that structure, and the Clinton campaign, for whatever reason, didn’t. (I think she thought she’d crush Obama with cash, and the irony, of course, is that the opposite has happened.) And now, by the narrowest of margins, she has come up short. So saying that she would have won if it was the Republican system just sounds craven, just as doing a 180 with a twist on Michigan does. (Or opposing a Michigan compromise that was a mere 4 delegates short of what she wanted.) All due respect to Talkleft, but positing reasons Hillary ought to be the nominee doesn’t make it so, because the nominee is the candidate who gets a majority of delegates.

In recent days, Hillary’s started to focus her attention on McCain, which is good, and I think she’ll have an opportunity, in an Obama administration, to be a powerhouse member of the Senate. [I still dream of him nominating her to the Supreme Court, not only because the politician-Justice has such a rich history in this country (Earl Warren, anyone?) but to watch heads explode in the Republican Party.]

I think Obama will win this fall – it will be close, but I think he’ll get it done. The underlying dynamics of the election strongly favor him, he’ll have money, and he’s learned, thanks to Hillary, how to fight back. And I think he’ll be a good president. Different from Hillary in style, and in some policy areas, but good.

That said, I’m not in the Obama as messiah camp. What I think is that he’s a uniquely gifted politician, and he’s gotten better as this campaign has progressed. It is sad for Hillary that in what should have been her year, she ran into a once-in-a-generation talent.

If you’re not sold, I don’t know what to say. Perhaps consider the alternative?