"What Clinton Wishes She Could Say" - My Response

This commentary was fraught with misconceptions from the get-go. I'll try and keep this an concise as possible.

[Hillary] and Bill Clinton both devoutly believe that Obama’s likely victory is a disaster-in-waiting. Naive Democrats just don’t see it. And a timid, pro-Obama press corps, in their view, won’t tell the story.

Great start - labeling all Obama supporters as "naive Democrats" - does that really seem likely? We're naive - not the candidate running against Obama's all-but-insurmountable lead in delegates (as well as the popular vote, mind you)?

Republicans will also ruthlessly exploit openings that Clinton — in the genteel confines of an intraparty contest — never could. Top targets: Obama’s radioactive personal associations, his liberal ideology, his exotic life story, his coolly academic and elitist style.

Ha! I mean, seriously? Hillary hasn't targeted them? She's hit them all (and more!) and Americans (American Democrats plus Independents and even some Republicans, if we're to believe exit polls) have made it clear that THEY DON'T CARE. These are hardly policy-altering traits and when one weighs Obama's pros (a.k.a. his policies, ideas, composure, intellect, unwillingness to engage in political nastiness, sound judgment in the past, etc. etc. etc.) against "his coolly academic and elitist style" - well, let's just say I'm starting to have more faith in the reasoning skills of the American people again (following Bush's eight-year-long vacuum of intelligence - how did that ever happen!?).

But there is reason to question whether he would be able to perform at average levels with other main pillars of the traditional Democratic coalition: blue-collar whites, Jews and Hispanics. He has run decently among these groups in some places, but in general he’s run well behind her.

Finally, a fair assumption - he has had trouble with those demographic groups. So I decided to look up voting statistics by race from 2004 and see how it all pans out. Here's what I found (since the author is dealing in extremes, I decided to as well) - let's assume McCain gets the entire Hispanic vote and Obama gets the entire black vote. Wanting to make this a safe assumption, I decided to give McCain 51% of the white vote and split the Asians evenly (though from my own personal experience, they seem to support Barack Obama above Hillary Clinton and certainly above a Republican). But this is basically a sensitivity analysis, so I wanted to underestimate my team's chances of winning. Based on the total # voting in 2004 - here's what happened:

That would mean Barack would win 51.6% to 48.4%. Now you can say that my assumptions are out-of-whack (I did just pull them out of my behind) - but I think that if anything, I gave McCain too much. As I'm sure you all know, the Democrats have a HUGE advantage this year and McCain hasn't really done much to show he'll be a strong candidate. I mean, check out this research from the Pew Center. Plus, the author was right - Obama will likely inspire record turn-outs in black and youth voters. I don't see McCain doing the same. Nor Hillary for that matter. But yes, I'm completely and utterly biased.

The article continues with a number of arguments over what the Republican party can and/or will bring up about Obama (all speculation, of course). But the evidence thus far shows that Americans don't care about that petty little stuff anymore. And that Obama is TOUGH (do you think anyone else could have turned the Wright controversy into a political bonus?), tougher than everyone thinks. We have a nation striving to get away from the policies of the past eight years - and it begins with the election. Bush made it quite clear how he used religion and fear to win the election (well, possibly win...). America doesn't want to get fooled again. But here's the bottom line:

That is why some friends describe Clinton as seeing herself on a mission to save Democrats from themselves. Her candidacy may be a long shot, but no one should expect she will end it unless or until every last door has been shut.

Once again, I'm forced to bring up the fact that Hillary ambitiously believes she can "save" the Democratic Party (while simultaneously attempting to destroy their most likely nominee), but she can't even run a campaign that was known from the beginning as "inevitable." I just don't buy it.