Why Hillary Will Win

A reader writes:

Despite the poll numbers you link, I think your analysis of her viability in the general is all wrong.  My sense is her tougher race is actually in the primary (as an Obama fan, I hope so).  But if she makes it out of super-dooper Tuesday, she’ll be the 44th President of the United States.

Look at her first Senate race in New York.  Her negatives were fresh as can be, and she was labeled everything from a carpet-bagger to a carpet-muncher.  Yet she kicked @ss.  Why?  She worked her @ss off, knew her sh!t better than anyone else, and as a result, she eventually endeared herself to enough of the electorate to win handily.  The woman does her homework and surrounds herself with incredibly bright people.  One simply cannot discount her cunning and smarts, especially when today’s polling merely captures the masses’ knee-jerk reactions to her name.  It’ll be an entirely different story once it’s the right time and she has enough money to sprinkle more Clinton dust over everyone.

Finally, Hillary, more than any of the other Democratic contenders, can communicate what her administration would deliver versus what another Republican administration would impose.  She outclasses all of the Republican candidates by leaps and bounds.  Once the campaign truly gets underway and her operation is clicking on all cylinders, there will be no stopping her.

What Do We Owe Iraq?

Baghdadjoeraedlegetty

Andy Bacevich asks the question and answers: nothing. Money quote:

The war’s opponents must align their moral concerns, which are complex, with their seemingly straightforward policy prescription. That alignment becomes possible if we recognize that America’s obligation is not to Iraq but to Iraqis. As a nation-state, Iraq – awash with sectarian violence and lacking legitimate institutions – can hardly be said to exist. We owe Iraq nothing.

In contrast, we owe the Iraqis whose lives we have blighted quite a lot. We should repay that debt much as we (partially at least) repaid our debt to the people of South Vietnam after 1975: by offering them sanctuary.

(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty.)

Face of the Day

Purplebrendansmialowskigetty

Adrea Castillo stands with her father Army SGT Guillermo Castillo during the singing of the Army Song during a Purple Heart ceremony June 29, 2007 in Washington, DC. SGT Castillo was wounded by an IED blast in Iraq. Twenty members of the US armed forces were awarded the Purple Heart for being wounded while serving in the war on terror. By Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images.

Open Source Media and Politics

An interesting point:

There’s this weird paradox, in that the more transparent you become, the less spontaneous you can be. For example, you had these stories of people like JFK and LBJ on a campaign airplane, shooting the bull off the record with reporters and saying all kinds of stuff that they would never say now. But there’s no such thing as off the record anymore. You can’t do that. And the result has been, so far, that candidates have gotten stiffer and more scripted. The question is whether at some point that turns around. At some point, the fact that everything is constantly covered means that no particular news is really that big, and people will be able to be more spontaneous again. I don’t think that will happen this election cycle, but I’d love to be wrong.

CATO On Romney-Care

In today’s climate, it may be the best conservatives can hope for. But that isn’t stopping CATO from criticizing:

Although the legislation, as Stuart Altman put it, "is not a typical Massachusetts–Taxachusetts, oh–just–crazy–liberal plan," there is enough "bad" and "ugly" in the mix to raise serious concerns, particularly when the desire to overregulate the health insurance market appears to be hard–wired into Massachusetts policymakers’ DNA.

If we want to make health insurance more affordable and avoid the "bad" and the "ugly" of the Massachusetts plan, Congress — or, barring that, individual states — should consider a "regulatory federalism" approach.