The Consequences If Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Stuff a Sock in It

Posted by Trish , Pensito Review at 11:27 AM on March 25, 2008.

The New Republic’s Norm Scheiber sums up the current state of the election.

The problem is that each day Clinton and Obama spend consumed with the other is a day that moves John McCain closer to the White House. McCain’s biggest asset is his political brand, which evokes a straight-talking, party-bucking reformer. Among his biggest liabilities is the suspicion he inspires among conservatives thanks to these same attributes. McCain apparently plans to spend the next few months making nice with his base. But anything he accomplishes on this front clearly diminishes his swing-voter appeal and, therefore, his chances in November.

Ideally, the Democrats would be exploiting this tension like mad…

Instead, something close to the opposite is happening. McCain’s courtship of the lunatic right and his ties to K Street have largely been hidden from view, while the Democrats’ dirty laundry has been aired for swing voters.

…On March 12, Ferraro and the racially polarized Mississippi primary were A-1 news in The Washington Post. It wasn’t until page A-6 that you stumbled across a story about McCain’s ties to the parent company of Airbus, the Boeing rival to whom the Pentagon recently handed a lucrative contract. The second story could have muddied McCain’s reformist credentials, but it barely caused a ripple on cable or the blogosphere.

Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.

If McCain winds up facing Obama, he’ll enjoy yet another advantage: a nominee weakened by attacks from a fellow Democrat…

Hillary’s only path to the nomination, barring a meltdown by Obama, is to destroy his electability. But harsh attacks on Obama will inevitably discourage African Americans from voting in the fall, and Hillary can’t beat McCain without strong black turnout in places like Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Conversely, any attack on Hillary that alienated moderate Republican women could cripple Obama’s chances.

The chances of Hillary Clinton doing the right thing and stepping aside are about equal to the chance that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will someday put impeachment on the table. That they aren’t going to happen doesn’t change the fact that both decisions would be good for America.

Trish is a regular blogger for the Pensito Review.