Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Who Needs the Drama?   [Jonah Goldberg]

As I argue in today's column and today's episode of What's Your Problem (up soon), I'm less and less worried about Hillary getting the nomination. It's still the Democrats' election to lose, of course. But I used to think that Hillary would be the best candidate for the Democrats. I don't anymore.

The argument boils down to this. Hillary Clinton is the closest thing to an incumbent in either party. Not literally of course, but emotionally. She's the least credible "change" candidate for the voters who matter — swing voters, independents and other chin-strokers who hate "polarization" and "rancor" in Washington. This is the first election in nearly nine decades where the White House doesn't have a designated heir in the race. None of the frontrunner Republicans will be easily tarred as merely a third Bush term. McCain? He opposed Bush on the war — from the right — for years. Rudy, Romney, Huckabee and Thompson can all distance themselves from the Administration by virtue of the fact that they weren't even in Washington during the Bush years. Indeed, the desire for a change election isn't merely anti-Bush. For example, the Democratic Congress is more unpopular than Bush, and unlike the Democratic Congress, Bush is leaving no matter what. The desire for change out there is anti-Washington more than it is anti-Bush — and that will become even more the case if Iraq continues to improve.

The Republicans can claim to be turning a real page on the partisanship of the past. So could all of the Democrats — except for Hillary. She may seem to some like she's moved beyond and above that sort of stuff, but her own positioning doesn't matter as much you might think. The mere fact(s) that Republicans get so fired-up about her and that an irreducible core of Americans can't stand her, don't trust her (or her husband) and will not "move on" may well send a signal to the swing voters that partisan bile will accompany Hillary for the next four or eat years. And keep in mind the pro-Hillary Democratic apparatus is capable of heights of obnoxiousness and sanctimony that are not nearly as attractive as David Brock thinks he is. Swing voters may think the Republicans are fools or cranks for their Hillary-hating ways, but so what? That alone won't stop a lot of people from saying, who needs the drama? "Move on," worked very well as a slogan for Democrats in the 1990s. It may work just as effectively for Republicans in 2008.

Maybe.

10/24 09:26 AMShare