David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

February 12, 2008

The Conservative Quandary: Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama?
 

What was once thought utterly inevitable is now looking as shaky as it ever has: Sen. Barack Obama appears to be leading Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. He was closer than expected on Super Tuesday, and won caucuses in Nebraska, Washington and Maine this weekend. And it appears that he will sweep the Chesapeake primaries (Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C.) today, giving him the lead in actual delegate count for the first time.

While bigger states such as Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania are yet to come, and Hillary has put all her effort into them, we've already seen with Rudy Giuliani what can happen when a candidate sits it out for too long and willingly concedes too much. Others get all the headlines and momentum, and pretty soon they're rolling downhill, unable to be stopped. And the bulwark thought represented by those later, larger states suddenly winds up being the proverbial butter right through which the hot knife plunges.

Being a conservative, in one sense it doesn't really matter to me who wins this battle, as both are far more liberal than I can stand. Obviously, my only real interest in this is to see as long, drawn-out and bloody a battle as possible, with a maximum of hard feelings and resentment left burning when all is said and done. Perhaps with luck, we can have two candidates who are both disliked by a large portion of their own party's base.

That said, should there be any preference between Hillary and Obama? There is a case to be made either way.

Hillary would most likely be a very flawed candidate, bringing along all the Clinton baggage, plus whatever anger the Obama crowd might have for the manipulation of delegates that could well be needed to assure her the  nomination. That includes influencing super-delegates and suing to get Michigan and Florida delegates, which broke heavily for her, reinstated.)  Not to mention the highest negatives and strongest dislike in the history of political polling.

On the other hand, if there is a legitimate chance to finish off the Clintons once and for all, why on Earth would anyone take the chance of letting them get back up off the mat to fight a little more?

Obama would look like an inexperienced neophyte next to Sen. John McCain, and lose the all-important “who looks more like a Commander-in-Chief” contest by a landslide. He has yet to say anything of any substance, and could well get rings run around him in a non-primary debate where simply sounding like Martin Luther King Jr. and saying the word “change” as many times as possible simply isn't going to cut it anymore.

On the other hand, Obama could look young and vibrant next to McCain, who'd be the oldest president ever to take office. It could be Kennedy versus Nixon all over again, only worse, given how much style and likeability trump substance these days. And any conservative point McCain brings up to demonstrate Obama's extreme liberalism can easily be countered by calling it a flip-flop or pandering, thanks to McCain's own liberal track record.

This is a difficult choice. Using the facts on the ground, the best scenario would seem to be for Hillary to wrest the nomination away from Obama using a maximum of shenanigans that would anger the Obama followers and cause the black vote to stay home. That, combined with existing baggage and negatives, would result in a fatally crippled victor. (Hillary would then almost certainly both bribe and threaten Obama to get him on the ticket as vice president, in hopes that most if not all of what she had just done to him would be forgotten. Hopefully, Obama will see that Hillary will need him far more than he needs her and stay away from it.)

Finally, and perhaps most ironically, we conservatives can actually help to directly determine the outcome. With McCain having the GOP nomination all but wrapped up, and open primaries in Texas and Ohio, the Democratic primaries can now be hijacked in reverse. Independents and conservatives can cross over just as independents and liberals did in early Republican contests. It seems only right, fair and just that they get a taste of their own medicine. To be sure, with the turnout so much higher on the Democratic side, the effect will be less, but in a neck-and-neck race, even the smallest swing vote could have power well beyond their actual numbers.

So the question remains – whom shall our preference be? As tempting as it is to try and force a crippled Hillary with an angered black electorate to face a crippled McCain with an angered conservative electorate, I cannot go that way for two reasons. First, because Hillary might find a way to get Obama on the ticket even in spite of all she'll do to him to deny him the nomination, and then she'll not be nearly so crippled. And a Hillary/Obama ticket is likely the only way the two will combine, which is the worst-case scenario of all. 

But more than that, she is so evil that she and Bill must be stopped once and for all at the very first opportunity. Better to have a far-left bungling neophyte than an evil communist dictator wannabe. Better Jimmy Carter, as bad as he was, than Josephine Stalin.

As for Obama, if the Republican Party and Sen. McCain can't find a way to defeat a far-left first-term senator with the built-in resumé advantage McCain brings to the table, age and appearance disadvantage notwithstanding, they don't deserve to win. And if the voters are stupid and shallow enough to elevate Obama's empty style over McCain's substance, they deserve to have a Carter reprise.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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