Hillary has had a lock on Nov. 2008 for ages. She’s the sure thing.
But sure things are bad, bad, bad for the pundit business. Bloggers and op-ed writers need something to talk about about. The horse race is our bread and butter. No horse race means more Friday Cat Blogging.
There have been some attempts to make things interesting by measuring Fred Thompson’s manly quotient and taking bets on when Rudy is going to self destruct. But nobody really took those digressions seriously, because Hillary’s win was already written in stone. However, Hillary’s lead isn’t looking so huge in the past few weeks. Obama’s catching up in the polls and unknown candidates like Huckabee have been getting attention.
Might we actually end up with a real nail biting, counting chads sort of election?
Brooks writes that people aren’t worried about terrorism any more and that victory is imminent in Iraq (really?). He predicts that people are going to look past the tough candidates, ie Hillary and Rudy, and seek out a postwar president.
Brooks misreads the zeitgeist and underestimates the Hillary the Pitbull.
People may be less worried about a bomb in the Lincoln Tunnel than a year ago, but they are still pissed off about this war. They want vengeance against Bush and the Republicans who made this mess. There’s no sweeping this war under the rug.
Hillary has her own ax to grind. She wants the presidency. She believes that she deserves it, after working in the sidelines and putting up with Bill’s crap for years. She believes that she’s smarter than the other candidates. If the zeitgeist swerves, so will she.
This election is about vengeance. It isn’t about "the end of partisanship" or "national unity" or any other cutesy phrase dreamed up by speech writers and focus groups.
UPDATE:
Eli at Firedoglake writes, "Courtesy of Peter Beinart, Tim Russert, and David Brooks, it looks
like we have a new concern troll meme for 2008: Don’t Mention The War;
It’s old news, you see – people are tired of talking about it, and
besides The Surge is totally working! Brooks even claims that America is now in a "postwar" mindset despite, well, the pesky little fact that WE’RE STILL AT WAR."
Apt. 11d 
1) Nowhere in the article does Brooks say that victory is imminent. His point is that things are quieting down in a way that will result in it being less of an election issue next year. I don’t really agree with that point either, but it is a very different point than the premature triumphalism that conservative commentators have been dishing at various points over the last several years.
2) I think your view of Hillary is consistent with John Ellis’.
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Brooks writes, “In Iraq, the surge and tribal revolts produce increasing stability.” Elsewhere in the article, he says that the surge has been successful. He says we’re moving from needing a war president to a postwar president. Brooks certainly seems to be implying that the war in Iraq is going to go away soon. Yeah, it’s different from the premature triumphantalism of the conservative community (I wasn’t really thinking of that when I wrote this post), but I think there’s still some premature sweeping-under-the-rug here.
I liked Ellis’ column.
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I think Hillary is unpleasant and widely known to be unpleasant. All of the stuff about futures and billing records will come out again, and people will expect more of the same in a Hillary administration.
My guess is she will cost the Dems 5 or 10% less than the vote that a ‘generic’, or baggageless Dem candidate would get. I think they can probably afford it – it looks like a very bad election for the Reeps – and win with her anyway. Obama is the least objectionable candidate the Dems have (Edwards has his own problems, tin ear, trial lawyer, trying to milk his wife’s illness for political gain) and if nominated would be a better likelihood to win. But I think Hillary has a good likelihood to win if nominated, and her view is, why the Hell should she stand aside now? For this parvenu?!
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Eli’s got that backwards–you actually see a lot more of conservatives complaining that there isn’t more Iraq coverage in the news. See for instance ace.mu.nu’s Dec. 10 post: “The Vanishing War: As War News Turns Positive, MSM Becomes Suddenly Disinterested.”
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“Nowhere in the article does Brooks say that victory is imminent. ”
Ah, we see discussions of the word ‘imminent’. Last time I saw that was in discussions of Bush’s veracity in describing the threat of Saddam’s vast stockpile of WMD’s.
And for the same reasons.
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Laura, is it your feeling that the country simply isn’t ready for an ambitious woman? That seeing Hillary really fight for any office is too much of a turn-off?
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Actually, dave.s., what I heard when I was in DC (and close enough to things to have gotten a White House visit that included the press room and the situation room), was that Hillary’s staff would walk through fire for her. That she was terrific to her people and an unusually good boss to work for.
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Actually, Barry, the point was about the non-use of the term “victory,” and how the Brooks column is an example of how far even the dead-end war supporters have moved away from what that term represents. Few of even the most fervent war supporters would use the term “victory” to describe the current best-case scenario, even if it results in an electorate less heated about the war (which I doubt in any case).
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Oh, no. I think that Hillary’s going to win, despite her high negatives. I think her ambition does turn people off, but not enough to vote for another guy. Check out her polling numbers at the pollster.com. Iowa and NH aside, she’s polling very well. Even trouncing Gore, if he should enter the race.
I’m fascinated by Hillary’s determination and edginess that leaks out when her guard is down. I like her edginess and anger and determination, but I’m not sure that other people do.
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My information coheres with Doug. Most people who know Hillary Clinton seem to really like her. I hear this over and over again: that she’s smart, open, and warm in her private personae. Her staff adore her, in a way not typical of Senate staffers.
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I’ve also heard that her staff loves her, but don’t they also say that she’s very hard to get to know. Very few people say that they really know her. That’s what the Times said about her on Sunday.
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Does that surprise anyone? Every woman I know of Hillary’s age who’s risen to any level of prominence is pretty closed-off. I think of necessity — it’s been a tough row for that generation of women leaders.
I have never been a big fan of Hillary, because of her vote for the war. But I have to say, this stuff attacking her for being “too aggressive”, that sets off my feminist bells. I can feel myself closing ranks, taking a harder edge in conversations, wondering more openly if anyone would ever criticize a man for her ambitions. Pretty ironic!
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Here’s a possibility–maybe HRC is an introvert. Maybe she is most comfortable one on one, and starts icing up in larger contexts, out of sheer discomfort. If so, I heartily sympathize.
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Are you sure Hillary’s a sure thing? I’m not a fan of any politician, but I think many voters will opt for sunny non-specificity, i.e. Obama.
The vote of an Oprah voter has the same weight as the vote of a political junkie, and there are a lot more Oprah fans than political junkies.
The thought of electing someone who has no executive experience, and a short political career gives me the heebie-jeebies, but the electorate could turn that way.
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One of my friends was close-ish to Gore, peripheral to (Bill) Clinton – said Gore is wonderful close up, looks like a stiff prig in the TV lights, Bill Clinton absolutely the opposite. The closer you get, the less you feel like you have anything. If those are the alternatives, Hillary Clinton is a lot like Gore.
Wodehouse fan Alex Massie, at http://debatableland.typepad.com/the_debatable_land/2007/12/wodehouse-prima.html
compared Hillary to Honoria Glossop: ” It is unhealthy for a Presidential candidate to remind one of Honoria Glossop or Florence Craye so. Miss Glossop, you will remember, always wanted to mold a chap,
“I think” she said “I shall be able to make something of you, Bertie. It is true yours has been a wasted life up to the present, but you are still young, and there is a lot of good in you…It simply wants bringing out.”
And it seems that Mrs Clinton is of similar mind. As she said in a speech in Austin in 1993:
“Let us be willing to remold society by redefining what it means to be a human being.”
A Gawd-help-us moment if ever there was one.”
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