Conservatives Should Be Glad

Two years ago (more or less) the primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was going on (Super Tuesday was in early February, 2008.)

Now, of course, Republicans didn't want either of those two to win the general election. I think, given the state of the US voting public, though, a Democrat was going to be elected President. The GOP put up the most electable option they had (IMHO) and were still handily beaten.

Sure, there's no guarantee the polarizing Hillary would certainly have won, but for the moment, give me that supposition.

Hillary is a far more experienced politician than Barack Obama. She had a large network of people who would have been able to step in and start advancing her agenda from Day One. Yes, she represented "Same Old Washington" - but it turns out that Washington doesn't stop working in its Same Old Way just because the populace thinks they'd like it to change.

The reason I supported Clinton in the primary was precisely that: I figured she (and her administration) would be more easily able to advance the policies I feel we need. [She was the "well-trained pitcher" in the bullpen, if you read my post from 2008.] She had taken on Health Care Reform once before, and if the Democrats wanted to finally make a big change, she and her team would not have tried to encourage a cross-party coalition for a year, essentially wasting the supermajority power they held.

President Obama, like Organizer Obama before him, has a hopeful view of how people should operate. He wants people to work for compromise. He wants to get everyone to truly believe that working together is better for the public. And, of course, he thinks his views of how to accomplish the greater good can win out in an honest debate. So he asked people in Washington to play nice. It didn't work. The people who voted for him, once he was the nominee, hoped it would work. We hoped that the leadership and vision we were electing would cause a change in Washington. It might still happen (yes, there is still a glimmer of hope in my heart) but it hasn't happened yet, as far as I can tell.

And so, to the title of this little piece: Conservatives should be glad Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination. His hope (and inexperience? and naivete?) gave them the opportunity to stall his agenda (with which they honestly disagree) and then attack him for ineffectiveness. Had they been faced with Clinton Part Deux, the supermajority would have made drastic -- I daresay radical -- changes in the first year.

[Before any special election in Massachusetts could have had the country believing that, somehow, governing was no longer possible unless you have 60 Senators on your side. Which, by the way, is something the Main Stream Media have managed to convince us is true, so the Conservatives should not always bad-mouth the MSM. But that's a topic for another day.]

Has President Obama given up his ideal of working together? Well, on Health Care, it seems he's ready to do so. But he is still trying to make the debt commission bipartisan. Will it work? Or will this be another case where honest (and obstructionist) disagreements will lead to gridlock and be blamed only on the person who tried to get people to work together?

Shall we take bets?

The sure thing: It ain't the way Hillary would have done it.