Exit, stage right

It is to be fervently hoped that Hillary Clinton will withdraw from the Democratic presidential primary race after she loses in Wisconsin and Hawaii next week. Though her disheveled campaign hypes the chance of a rebound in Texas and Ohio in March, the so-called “firewall” that she has built in those states is already as irrelevant as her message of experience. Bill’s coattails just weren’t long enough to get her to the finish line.

Yes, I know Hillary has experience living in the White House, but marital rights have never extended into resumes in most professions. That credential would qualify the Bush daughters for higher office too. Oh, joy.

Yes Hillary has some experience meddling in national affairs, but not with any great success. Her early stab at health care reform was dead in the water before the medical industrial complex ran its scare-laden ad campaign.

And yes, Hillary has been a Senator for a spell. But everyone knows she moved to New York to run for the Senate in order to run for the presidency. Arkansas wouldn’t have accorded her a Senate seat after those eight tumultuous years of Bill, whereas New Yorkers are endlessly forgiving. They happily voted for the repeat-philanderer Rudi Giuliani. Besides, the Senate seat was up for grabs at the time and Hillary needed a launching pad.

The Republicans are drooling over the chance to go up against Hillary and not only because she has the highest negatives of any major contender for the presidency in the history of opinion polling. She is carrying the weight of Bill’s burdens: NAFTA, welfare “reform,” Bosnia, failure to address global warming, corporate favoritism and, always, Monica.

Weird, but Hillary didn’t even do very well in public opinion concerning Monicagate. Standing by her man seemed more self-serving than selflessly forgiving, since everyone knew she was running for president—as far back as 1992. Mustn’t let a little sleaze get in the way. Eyes on the prize and all that.

And Hillary’s ties to Wal-Mart, perhaps the chief beneficiary of Bill’s trade policies, make her the enemy of unions, underpaid workers, environmentalists and fair trade activists. Why she is popular with Latino/Hispanic voters is another weird mystery. NAFTA has impoverished Mexicans and Mexican-Americans even as it has beaten down North American workers. Talk about a lose-lose.

If Hillary manages to pick up enough delegate votes in Texas and Ohio to pull even with Obama and then twists enough superdelegate arms to claim victory at the Dem convention, vast numbers of progressive Democrats will bolt the party and she will lose to John McCain.

Many progressives voted for Gore only to be cheated by Florida subterfuge and the Supreme Court—tangentially coupled with votes drawn off to Ralph Nader. Then we sighed heavily and voted for John Kerry based on the argument that he was “electable.” Maybe so. But his win was narrow enough that vote fraud in Ohio, Florida and New Mexico stole it all away. We can’t afford another candidate that requires sighing voters to acquiesce. We need a landslide to beat both the Republican party and the fraud machine that has been widely installed in place of voting machines in many states.

Obama might deliver a landslide. Hillary, if nominated, will triangulate and lose.

If Hillary were a committed Democrat she would concede now, throw her support to Obama and spare us the agony of her demolition this spring or next November.

But that she is not. Perhaps, like her good friend Sen. Joe Lieberman, she is really working for McCain, with whom she shares many policy positions. Still, one can hope.

~ by bothwellsblog on February 14, 2008.