Why Hillary and Bill Should Not "Go Away"

It's the swing voters in the battleground states, stupid!", to modify James Carville's famous phrase, coined during the 1992 presidential campaign, so that it applies to the current one. I have been supporting Barack Obama, but I am now as certain as one can be that he cannot defeat John McCain if nominated. His association with the Reverend Jeremiah iWright, and the fact that he has attended Wright's church for the past twenty years, has hopelessly compromised him in the eyes of many white voters in battleground states. They will not vote for someone whom they feel has too many "entitlement chips" on his shoulder.

Barack says he wants to move past that, and I believe him, but one wonders if his wife Michelle will make that move as well, and, like it or not, what she thinks is a factor. Actions have a tendency to speak louder than words. I wish things were otherwise, but Obama brought this on himself and, even in all his eloquence, he cannot escape it. I should add that the Reverend Wright is not just some, at times, angry pastor, he is also a pastor who has bought into "liberation theology".

Given the above, all this talk about national polls, favorability ratings, who's endorsing whom, etc., is beside the point. The president is not elected by popular vote. For all but two states, it's "winner take all" for the electors. The reality is that the people who will actually decide this election cannot be won over to Obama. Saying this does not make me a racist, merely a realist. Hillary Clinton has got to be nominated unless we want to have President McCain come next January. Take your pick. I admire Barack Obama, but he was foolish to think he could finesse his connection with his pastor, and now he must suffer the consequences, and so must his supporters.

Turning to quite recent events, Hillary now seems to be doing herself in with all her "strong-arm" tactics, such as the letter some of her financial donors sent to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and her bringing up the fact that even pledged delegates are not legally bound to vote for their nominee. As for her fabrication about dodging bullets in Bosnia, big deal! Ronald Reagan imagined a lot of things, and George W. Bush imagined having conversations with God. So let's keep our sense of perspective.

As for Barack Obama, he said in an interview that aired Friday, March 28, on ABC's "The View" that he would have left his church if his pastor had not retired and had not acknowledged making comments that "deeply offended people."

To which I can only respond: Give me a break! Isn't this about 20 years too late? What kind of "learning curve" is this? It proves that Obama would have left the church for purely "cosmetic" reasons, and not because of any deep-seated concerns about his pastor's often-heated rhetoric. It also reinforces my belief that he is a dilettante, and that he will be an impossible "sell" to the white voters in the swing states who will determine the results of the election.

It's too bad we can't "deflate" the Al Gore of today, who seems to be suffering from "hyper-inflation" due to "Global Warming Syndrome." As things stand now, the Al Gore of the early nineties would look pretty good to me as the Democratic standard-bearer.

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