Monday, January 22, 2007

As If Millions of Voices Suddenly Cried Out in Apathy

The least surprising and least anticipated entries into the democratic presidential '08 field were made this weekend by Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson, respectively.

I was going to write about how unenthused I am about Hillary's decision to run, but that's been done to death. Seems about a third of people hate her, a third of people don't care, and a third of people like her but don't want her to run for prez. I don't see a winning calculus here.

Bill Richardson also announced the formation of an exploratory committee, surprising some but putting to sleep most everyone else. I do have a couple ideas for his exploratory committee, however. First, they should explore why this guy thinks he can win an election when he can't even get a front-page headline when he announces his committee. Second, they should explore the most memorable incident of Richardson's tenure as a member of Clinton's cabinet, when he gets 40 lashes from John Warner and Robert Byrd for massive incompetence. They can even watch it here. (For Byrd junkies, he keeps it really real in the last couple minutes.)

Richardson is competing with Vilsack for irrelevancy right off the bat. Who are they going to take votes from, Kucinich?

5 comments:

Otto Man said...

Richardson has probably the most perfect resume of any of the candidates, but he's got the Energy issues and, worse, a lot of rumors that he's, uh, Clintonian in his private life.

Not gonna happen. But he'd be a solid VP, and I imagine this is the upshot.

Edwards-Richardson could work well....

Otto Man said...

Yeah, I'm stunned too. I think she could get the party's nomination -- that 1/3 of haters aren't going to be voting there -- but I'm doubtful she could win.

Yes, yes, I've seen the polls that have her leading McCain and Guiliani by narrow margins, but I'm not buying it.

Plus, I'd like to end the Bush-Clinton-Bush sequence right there without setting up a scenario that involves Jeb! in 2016.

Thrillhous said...

Good call on the sequence. Let's go a few elections w/out a Bush, Clinton, or Dole.

The only thing I'm looking forward to from the Clinton run is the reaction of the 1/3 that hate her. I just mention her name to a nearby Fox News republican and their head practically explodes with all the things they want to say about her.

Anonymous said...

One of my biggest reservations about Hillary Clinton is how obviously a good many Republicans seem to want to have her to run against.

Another reservation, one Richardson shares, is being too DLC. Bill Clinton was Mr. DLC.

We have the DLC to thank for NAFTA, CAFTA, WTC, globalization, disappearing jobs and industries, wide-open "sharing" of our technology and R&D with China and other countries, and for much of the relentless reaming the U.S. middle and working classes have gotten the past quarter century or so.

I don't see Hillary going against what her hubby wrought, no matter how important doing so is for the country's future.

Mrs_Thrillhous said...

FYI....T-hous's nearby Fox News GOPer is not me....

The 2000 election bored me because it was so deeply partisan. I heard that their vote totals were more even than might be expected if a coin were to be tossed ~105 million times.

If the 2008 election is that partisan, I just might have to start calculating some expected values and confidence intervals. Please don't make me do that. Please let there be a candidate that attracts a crossover vote. (I no longer think that McCain or Giuliani could do that.)