3 thoughts on “Fire Is Hot, Water Is Wet…

  1. I wonder…

    If the internal Demacratic showdown is going to be between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, the Democrats are going to lose out either way. It is going to be portrayed as what the Democrats consider to be more powerful in terms of voter attraction: the chance to send the first African American into Presidency or the chance to send the first woman into Presidency. In other words, if things come down to a Clinton vs Obama fight, the Democrats can take their pick whether to alienate women voters or black voters.

    If, on the other hand, the Republican party wanted to join a nice little socio-political experiment, how about sending in, say, a Latina to run for President?

    But jokes aside, what is your take? Is this gender vs race thing even gonna be made an issue? Or is it one already?

    J.

  2. But jokes aside, what is your take? Is this gender vs race thing even gonna be made an issue? Or is it one already?

    I’d bet it will be. The Clintons aren’t known for playing nice with their opponents, so my guess is that Obama’s name will be dragged through the mud over the next year. If it gets down to a fight between the two of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Democrats end up going with neither. Which is great news if you’re John Edwards, I suppose…

  3. Obama has no idea what he’s going up against challenging the Clinton machine. His unfavorables will soar once Hillary’s surrogates get done smearing him….and given that he has yet to face any serious opposition in any of his previous runs for elected office, it’s unlikely he’ll know how to effectively respond when his back’s up against the wall. Obama is definitely a factor in this race, but Hillary is still the frontrunner, much as it pains me to say it.

    John Edwards has some built-in advantages, but I suspect the immigration issue will be his achille’s heel. Edwards will be walking a tightrope right away as he tries to simultaneously court favor from the industrial unions that dominate Iowa’s caucuses and the service unions that dominate Nevada’s caucuses. The latter demographic wants lawless immigration policy…the former does not. And even if Edwards threads that needle, he has a broader immigration problem in that his likely support for “comprehensive immigration reform” directly conflicts with his primary campaign theme of reducing domestic poverty. If “comprehensive immigration reform” becomes a reality, poverty in America will increase….and increase substantially. Edwards will have a big problem trying to talk his way out of that double-edged sword.

    While there is tremendous (and legitimate) worry among Democratic voters that Hillary is unelectable nationally, her well-oiled machinery is likely to be as ruthless as George Bush’s was in 2000, all but guaranteeing her the nomination and crushing any obstacle that stands in her way. I’m already convinced that Obama will be on the receiving end of the same hit job that John McCain was in 2000, only at the hands of Hillary. However, the bloodthirsty spectacle that BushRove got away with in 2000 will not be as successful for Hillary, further staining her hands.

    But barring a Giuliani nomination on the Republican side that would ensure a third-party challenge from the right and put every Southern state on the table, Hillary and Obama would both be defeated in November 2008. If the Republican nominee is Romney, McCain, or any number of second or third-tier GOP contenders, I can’t see a single red state from 2004 turning blue. Iowa or Colorado could conceivably tip blue for Obama (though it wouldn’t be enough for him to win), but neither of them would tip for Hillary. Both candidates would likely lose a couple of blue states to either McCain or Romney.

    As for the GOP field, I think their safest bet, based on my limited knowledge of his political profile, is former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. With George Allen and Bill Frist out of the way, he’s the only Republican in the race who seems capable of averting the GOP civil war, bridging the chasm between the values voters and the robber barons. Gingrich and Brownback would be too scary to the Greenwich, Connecticut, crowd and the party’s campaign coffers would suffer for it. If I was a Republican activist, I’d be looking pretty seriously at Huckabee right now.

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