Friday, February 01, 2008

REACT: Handicapping the candidates

Oh my God! I woke up this morning with the thought that the General Election could be a race between Hillary Clinton and John McCain. For any conservative, this is a Hobson’s Choice.

If this is the case, the Democrats will have nominated the stronger of their two leading candidates, if not the most personable. The Republicans will again have blown a Presidential Election with a Dole-like nomination – a man too old, too accommodating (read that liberal) and too much a Beltway insider. I can almost see McCain in plaid bermudas, brown socks and tennis shoes trying to look “kewl.”. I just cannot see the bedrock conservatives wasting gas money to get to the poles to choose between Clinton and McCain.

Or course, it is still possible the Democrats, with their inordinately liberal (and minority) voting base, will bubble Barack Obama to the top as the most left wing of the candidtates. It is what they mostly have often done since the radical left took over the nominating process with the 1972 reforms. They barely beat Jerry “I beg your pardon” Ford for one term for Jimmy “empty suit” Carter, the peanut farmer from Plains; and they knocked off the incumbent squishy middle roader George Bush with a relatively moderate Bill Clinton.

The Dems do better when they nominate to the right of there ideological epicenter, while the Republicans flounder when the move to the left of what is right. So, the most competitive race would be Romney-Clinton – where conservatives have more of a champion and the donkey party has a salable candidate.

McCain-Clinton would likely doom any GOP surge in 2008. McCain-Obama gives the GOP a chance, but nothing for conservatives to celebrate – maybe a big stay-at-home, none-of-the-above vote. A Romney-Obama campaign is a slam dunk for the GOP, and Romney-Clinton would be the Massachusetts former governor’s to lose.

Now, I know a lot of folks think the GOP is facing further humiliation this year. Only if they ignore the American middle-class, good politics, core values and common sense. Not hard to imagine, unfortunately.

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