Hillary Clinton R.I.P.

It has been my most adamant political hope for some time now that Hillary Clinton not become President. This has little, if anything, to do with Hillary, and everything to do with putting an end to the Bush-Clinton period of American politics. I do not consider it a sign of good health of our political system when 20 years -- potentially 28 years -- of Presidents come out of two families. We're not supposed to be a country based on inherited power, and Hillary Clinton wouldn't be under consideration for the Presidency if her husband hadn't served first.

Hillary's entirely fair and entirely necessary criticism of Obama is that he lacks experience and specificity, and that's true. It's also exactly why Hillary isn't going to be President. For the last few elections the Democratic Party's vision of how-to-run-for-President has been to have a position on and policy for every conceivable issue. John Kerry's campaign turned out white papers the way Bayer turns out aspirin, with something for every headache. That's how Hillary has prepared, putting in the long, lonely hours of roadwork and earning her place in history.

But in the last couple of weeks, what's exploded onto the political landscape is that this is not an election that's going to turn on experience and technocratic competence. It's not about anyone's resume. It is, instead, about the ability to inspire, to lead, to set and hold steady a new course through dark and stormy waters. Really, that's what the Presidency is all about.  The nostalgia Republicans exhibit for Ronald Reagan is not just ideological. We're a nation that is hungry for leadership that will make us believe in ourselves and our future. Reagan was lazy and distracted and kind of a big doofus, and people like Hillary Clinton -- and me -- scorned him for that. But he spoke to the nation and inspired it to move forward, to take the next step, and his underlying beliefs and principles seldom wavered.

Watching Hillary Clinton's campaign collapse, I'm actually feeling a little sorry for her. There's nothing she can do. She's Mike Dukakis, in a lot of ways. She has a briefcase full of position papers and an impressive resume and her best pantsuit on, and she's not going to get the job. This is not an election that's about position papers and experience in the levers of government. The job description has changed and she didn't get the memo.

There are good reasons why this election has become what it is. Right now, we're a country drifted from its moorings, scarred still from 9/11 and growing in our regret over what we've allowed to happen since. Was that really us arguing in favor of unlimited executive power to detain, to torture, to create a national security state that sees and knows all? Was that really us questioning the patriotism and morality of our neighbors over a bill pending in Congress? Do we really want to be the kind of country we're becoming?

The answer is, I think, no, and I see evidence of it in both the Republican and Democratic Presidential race. We are an optimistic nation too long wallowing in darkness, held there by a variety of factors, one of which is the politicians who want to keep us scared and dependent.

That, it seems to me, is the wave that Hillary Clinton is drowning in right now. The wave is about all of us being ready to go on to the next thing, to resume our optimistic slouching toward the future not by abandoning our principles but by finding new ways to apply them to the post-9/11 world. She's paddling furiously, losing to someone she deems unworthy, cursing cable news and God and everyone else for robbing her of what she feels is rightfully hers.

She's going to get creamed in New Hampshire today. Barring some horrible gaffe by Obama, she's going to get creamed next week in South Carolina. She's going to watch friends who've sworn loyalty to her for years abandon her. She's going to watch the money dry-up and the rallies shrink and, in a couple of weeks, she's going to have to stand in front of a house packed with smug media hyenas and withdraw from the race. In what will doubtless be the worst moment of them all, she will rise to give her prime-time speech to her party convention, stand there with dignity for a five minute standing ovation, and throw her support to someone she will likely loathe, because he kept her from making history.

Whether Obama amounts to anything or not remains to be seen. I'm optimistic -- hopeful, in fact. But Democrats in general and me in particular have a way of falling in love with fizzle-yield candidates, and Obama certainly has that potential. But he also has the potential to lead us somewhere different from where we are now, someplace where the goodness and rightness of America are seen as assets rather than liabilities. He has the potential to lead us back, in fact, to Reagan's Shining City on a Hill.

We'll see. But right now, there's the heavy work of crushing Hillary Clinton's dream waiting before us. It's something that has to be done. Let's get on with it.

Comments

[Frank]

She's sinking fast, but there is no way she'll go down without a fight. She's already sacrificed several staffers, using them to make the dirty comments about Obama and then going out herself or sending out her campaign spokesman to condemn them. Before it's over, I look for her to get down right nasty with Obama.

She did it again in New Hampshire when the person introducing her, a former Edwards supporter, had this to say, "“Some people compare one of the other candidates to John F. Kennedy. But he was assassinated. And Lyndon Baines Johnson was the one who actually” passed the civil rights legislation."

My personal opinion is that after she gets creamed today the gloves will really come off because she will have to do well in South Carolina or she's done.

[fish]

Watching Hillary Clinton's campaign collapse, I'm actually feeling a little sorry for her.....

STOP....just stop right there! This is not what I have come to expect from FA, where's the venom, the magnificent cynicism that draws me back day after day! As someone who figured that she was a solid lock (and that America deserved everything it was likely to get) this is the only satisfaction that I'm getting this political season!

The cherry on the sundae for me involves Hillary, an empty hotel room and a pistol!

[fish]

We'll see. But right now, there's the heavy work of crushing Hillary Clinton's dream waiting before us. It's something that has to be done. Let's get on with it.

Crap, I really should read the whole post first. Sorry!

[Andy]

The cherry on the sundae for me involves Hillary, an empty hotel room and a pistol!

Really, fish? You wish suicide on her? I mean, maybe I'm just being a stick in the mud, but that's really not funny, even if it is a joke.

I hate and detest Bush, his policies, everything about him, but I never wish death on him, even in jest. That's really going a little too far, dude.

[fish]

Says who (other than you)? I make no threat.....but shes a waste of air! Take heart friend she's still too into Hillary to ever make that fantasy come true!

[Squidley]

Obama is a standard-issue liberal who would be only slightly less determined (but probably more successful) than Hillary to lead us down the socialist path of EU-style rule by unaccountable bureaucrats. While he seems reasonable, his wife harbors seething anti-white resentment that has come out in all her recent TV appearances. Also, he attends an Afrocentric, anti-white church whose pastor preaches that the Hebrews of the Bible looked like Jimmy Walker and Whoopi Goldberg.

And you think he's going to lead us to Reagan's "Shining City on a Hill"? Reagan, whom you maligned as "lazy and distracted and kind of a big doofus"? Read Reagan's farewell address and see if you still feel the same way. Incidentally, Reagan had a vision of America that I don't see in any of the current crop of candidates, of any political persuasion.

As for your slurs: distracted, maybe; I think he was more of a big-picture guy than a detail-oriented policy wonk like Clinton, and big-picture guys often seem distracted to the detail-oriented. Big doofus--only if you think it's doofus-like to wear a cowboy hat & boots while riding a horse fitted with Western tack. Lazy? Uh, guess again, bucko.

[Pursuit]

Ya, I'm not sure the Democrats don't wake up from this ridiculous fantasy before it's too late. I'm no fan of Hill, but Obama ain't what you all are making him out to be. I posted on this today at my blog.

[Pursuit]

As I was sayin'.....