Clinton vs. Obama

It’s funny. The only real news angle at the carefully staged Democratic Convention is the extent of the rift between the Clintonistas and the Obamaniacs. The pundits, whether on Fox or The News Hour or MSNBC, all agree that the rift has nothing to do with policy. Barack and Hillary are essentially in agreement on policy. The primaries were decided on personality, Clinton fatigue, the young fresh image of Obama, blah, blah, blah.

This just amazes me. It is such utter nonsense. Hillary Clinton lost the nomination of the Democratic Party for two reasons. Number one, she refused to apologize for her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq. And number two, the Black, Democratic primary voters, heretofore the Clintons’ most loyal supporters, voted 95% for Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton was rejected by the Democratic Party for being too supportive of the war in Iraq, and for being White. There were also some shenanigans in the caucuses by Obama people, to be expected of a politician who cut his teeth in Chicago politics, but that’s Hillary’s own fault for not paying attention. Why won’t any one state these obvious truths?

Of course these weaknesses on Hillary’s part would have been strengths in the general election, and vice versa for Obama. His primary strengths are now general election weaknesses. He was, and is, wrong about Iraq, and Black people always vote for the Democrat anyway. Hillary’s attacks on Obama as being too inexperienced had no resonance in the primaries, but they do now.

If the Democrats don’t have buyer’s remorse, then they are even more out of touch with reality than, well, I was going to say than I imagined, but actually they are as out of touch with reality as it is quite easy to imagine.

If Obama had picked Clinton as his V.P., McCain would be toast. Now, John McCain may very well win in a landslide.