FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2011
by JASmius
Political Pistachio
John Fund posits an intriguing, if inevitable, hypothetical given the rocket-propelled plunge of Barack Obama's poll numbers of late: Since his chances of being the twenty-first century FDR are pretty much kaput, could he be talked by his party into becoming the twenty-first century LBJ instead?
But you know what? There are worse things than King Putt making a last stand next year. Like You Know Who getting the vindicatory coronational processional she was denied in 2008:
The most popular national political figure in America today is one who was rejected by her own party three years ago: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.True, it's easy for anybody in Hillary's position to look good by contrast to the Stuttering Clusterbleep of A Miserable Failure. And true, it's hard to see how her presidency would have differed much, or at all, from his, at least policy-wise. The most likely outcome had America elected its first female president rather than its first oreo is that a rising tide of voters would now be lamenting their failure to bow down to Lucifer instead.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans hold a favorable view of her and one-third are suffering a form of buyer's remorse, saying the U.S. would be better off now if she had become president in 2008 instead of Barack Obama....
"Looking back, I wonder if she would have been a stronger leader, knowing the games and the politics and all that goes on," said Susan Dunlop, 50, a homemaker in New Port Richey, Florida. "I don't think she would have bent as much."
But they did, and they're regretting it, and she's the inevitable beneficiary. She insists she'll never run again, which means she won't launch another primary challenge, but if O announced his retirement? Wild klongats couldn't keep her on the sidelines.
A highly unlikely scenario, which is too bad for the Dems, because if the party brought in Hillary from the bullpen, a '12 election that's shaping up to be a cataclysmic wipeout from the top of the ballot to bottom would be [heh] "transformed" overnight into, at worst, a neck and neck battle to the finish, and perhaps a clear Donk victory. Certainly it would re-unify and energize the Democrat base, especially what used to be called the "Reagan Democrats" who are flocking to the GOP banner in usually reliably "blue" midwest states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. And it could also sway gullible "independents" who could easily be conned by the nostaglic lookback at "Clinton prosperity" that was actually the product of the Dole-Gingrich Republican Congress.About the only demographic that might object would be African-Americans, outrageously outraged at the party that has brainwashed them for generations how wonderfully it has benefacted them "betraying" "their" president. But would they really stay home en masse, or bolt and/or split the party over it? I doubt it. After all, where else are they going to go? The GOP? After half a century of race-baiting conservative-demonizating indoctrination? Their enthusiasm might be doused, but they'd still vote as their plantation masters told them.
All a moot point, anyway. But how will black voters react to "their" president getting eradicated at the polls a year from now? The bigger the landslide, the more difficult the "See, America IS racist" argument will be to make, and the more marginalized that demographic will become for making it.Kind of like their president.
[cross-posted @ Hard Starboard]
