Even If Obama Wins, Democrats Are Still Stupid!

Democrats have been thinking that after eight long years under a hugely unpopular Republican president, voters would swiftly say, "eight is enough" on November 4, and elect a Democrat in a landslide. But on the contrary, this election is playing out in the exact way as the last two Presidential elections. Apart from a couple of tossup-state swaps, this election is a rerun of 2000 and 2004 elections and promises to be a similar edge of the seat thriller. Even though Obama seems to be having the edge now, his slight surge in polls is chiefly due to the economic crisis and is bound to come down once that settles down. I

Interestingly, even with the worst economic crisis in recent memory lending him support, Obama still has not knocked out McCain. Obama is trying hard but one cannot but help think what would have been the status now if Hillary had been the nominee. Hillary would have solidified women and blue collar voters. Believe me; we would not be talking about Iowa, NM, MI and PA as tossup states. Add Arkansas to that. Florida and Ohio would have been much more tighter than they are now. Unless until McCain had pulled of a miracle, it would have been a landslide and the Republican Party would have received a crushing blow from which it would have taken many years for it to recover.

Republicans had such an opportunity to crush Democrats in 1980 and they made full use of it. Democrats returned to power only after 12 years. Landslide margins have that effect on the losing side. But now even if Obama wrestles through to a tight win, the Republican Party would definitely not feel crushed and such an opportunity to crush may not arise again for the Democrats in the next 30 years. The last time it came for the Democrats was way back in 1976 and even then the Democrats did not make much make of it. Carter just about managed to win and as a result Republicans came back to power in just 4 years.

By not electing Hillary, Democrats have thrown that chance away once again. Many Democrats already are regretting not electing her. They should. Contrast this with the electoral smartness of the Republicans. Everyone knew that if any Republican had any chance of being competitive this time, it was John McCain. And Bingo! He is their nominee even though the conservative base has some reservations regarding him. Democrats need to learn a lesson or two from that. The so called value-voters of the Republican Party actually select their nominees more sensibly than the so called intellectual brain-voters of Democratic Party. Personalities aside, there is little difference between the policies of Hillary Clinton and Obama. Then shouldn't they have nominated the one who had the best chances to win it in November?