A Word About A Would-Be Queen

Returning from a trip to Texas with dreams of independent candidates shaking up the two-party cartel dancing in my head, New Hampshire voters are offering their own independent minded statement by making Hillary the second coming of the Comeback Kid. While disappointing to me and most of normal thinking Americans, it should make a serious independent bid for the presidency much more likely. And I think that’s a good thing.

Instinct should have dictated that the polls, the pols and news creatures are not to be believed as they were busy working the engine room of the Obama Express; especially when it’s about a Clinton because it’s always about them, and they should have learned that by now. As a result, the prediction of 12-point margins of victory by the man from Jakarta (at least not from Hope) looks more and more like a set-up for a bad actor to steal the show.

Perhaps New Hampshire voters took Clinton’s tears over Obama’s “O” factor. In a world of feelings over thought, it wouldn’t surprise me. But in an electorate that seems to be demanding change – at least I think we are – how did a tantrum and a sad face trump change? If one were to check Lexus Nexus I suspect we would find slightly more than 1 billion uses of the word “change” over the last several months. Nobody is quite sure what it means, naturally, so it’s a great campaigning tool and allows the candidates to put fluff over substance. No need to connect change to a particular policy or have to define the term to the least intellectually curious news media since the Hair-Spray Pavilion was invented.

The message is mixed from New Hampshire as Granite Staters proved hard-headed and stubborn yet again by rejecting one outsider (Obama) for an insider (Hillary) and then accepting a decidedly independent John McCain by larger margins than ever imagined. In the real world, New Hampshire means very little – just three measly Electoral Votes – but in the world of spin it knocks Obama out of the spotlight, costs him donors and loses the momentum that seemed so solid only a week ago. If one can get by the smirk on Hillary’s face, we’ll have to admit she may well be back in the driver’s seat. And I am sure this is a bad thing.

Hillary is the only candidate running on the mantra of change who believes we must find that change in our past. Nobody should expect the slogan “It was morning in America” to resonate, but it seemed to have done just that in New Hampshire (leaving Dixville Notch out of it because they had the good sense to give her no votes).

For those old enough to remember, the Clinton years that Hillary loves to take situational credit for, i.e. taking the good, ignoring the bad, were not exactly the best in American history. She never misses the opportunity to talk about her eight years in the White House and how it gives her the experience to be president. As Dick Morris said, she did spend eight years in the White House, but “so did the pastry chef” and that doesn’t make him capable of running the country.

By any measure Bill was a political savant; intelligent, a quick read on a wide variety of issues and exceptionally charismatic. He was also a highly flawed man with governance ADD and no core and no soul. His chief political strategies James Carville once took a piece of paper and drew a square and pointing in the box remarked, “Where is the hallowed ground?” Hillary appears to be lacking the same slice of hallowed ground due in large part that she got very little of her husband’s attributes and all of his flaws including, indelicately I admit, the part about being a flawed man.

But because we may find ourselves living under a another Clinton administration, we should at least examine what that would look like. It’s not difficult to see who would be joining her administration when you see who’s standing behind her on stage: a veritable who’s who of Bill Clinton has-beens. People like Richard Holbrooke, Madeline Albright and Sandy Berger were in over their heads 16 years ago and there is nothing that has occurred since to demonstrate they have learned anything. While candidates love to run on it’s the economy, stupid (and the economy’s looking pretty stupid at the moment), they end up be being defined and judged on foreign events. Or as Hillary recently noted and by means of demonstrating both her ability to predict and her penchant for stealing good lines, this one from Mario Cuomo, “You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose.” I suspect she will be ambushed by the prose of knowing nothing about foreign policy.

This is the part that scares me: Holbrooke gave us the war in Serbia, Albright inflamed an already burning situation in Somalia by backing a criminally stupid Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali (why would anyone trust a man with two first names, anyway?) in his personal vendetta against Aidid, leading to an America looking so weak it produced Rwanda and bin Laden’s view that America was a paper tiger, and, finally, Berger who gave men new ideas on how to impress women with things stuffed in their briefs – say, is that a national security document in your pants or are you just glad to see me?

The Clinton gang, particularly in the area of foreign policy, was not ready to lead from Day One and, based on Hillary’s insistance that she is, only makes a stronger case that if she is elected, we will be turning our government over to those who did not learn from earlier on-the-job training. And I am very certain that is a bad thing, particularly in this very dangerous world.

Obviously the primary battle is not over between Obama and Hillary and it is even possible Edwards will have something to say about who becomes the democratic nominee since their primaries don’t engage in winner–take-all voting as is the case with republicans. But I suspect Hillary can taste the power of winning the White House and two things are certain about that fact: anyone who gets in the way of Hillary and her manic lust for power better watch their back (Obama: "Hillary, what are you doing with a shovel and duct tape in your trunk?"); and the more progress she makes toward wrapping up the nomination the more certain a third party candidate will emerge. Mr. Mayor, we could use another hero. Hope you’re listening.

P.S. I know I owe a New Year's resolution post, but one of my resolutions is to go on vacation and write more on my blog. Tonight I wrote this for the blog and tomorrow I go on vacation. That's two down!