Why Democrats Have Turned Against Hillary

An interesting bet between Victor Davis Hanson and Peter Robinson:

Over a cup of coffee this afternoon, Victor Davis Hanson and yours truly made a bet.

My position: After spending the last eight years convinced that Al Gore, not George W. Bush, was rightfully elected president, the Democrats will have no choice but to award their presidential nomination to the candidate who wins the popular vote. If Barack Obama garners more primary votes, in other words, he’ll be the Democratic candidate, no matter what sort of delegate count he has going into the convention.

Victor’s counterpostion: No way. The Clintons will do anything—anything—to win the nomination for Hillary, the popular vote be blasted. The filing of lawsuits, the dangling before the noses of superdelegates of various irresistible blandishments—whatever it takes, the Clintons will do. Without compunction. Even with a certain glee. Regardless of the popular vote going into the convention, therefore, Hillary Clinton, and not Barack Obama, will emerge with the nomination.

There is at least one other possibility, which I'll go with just to cover the remaining base:  The Clintons will try to use every trick and tactic in the book to grab the nomination from the superdelegates, but the Democratic Party will shut Hillary down not for reasons of honoring the popular vote but because Democrats have turned against Hillary Clinton in order to avoid re-examining their entire belief system.

Many Democrats currently support Obama over Hillary Clinton for one reason:  she previously supported the Iraq war and Obama did not.  The fact that the surge is currently working in Iraq is irrelevant; many Democrats take it as a matter of dogma that the Iraq war is, was, and forever will be wrong.  It is one of the points of agreement in the party.  It is wrong because all wars are wrong; it is wrong because America is wrong by definition; it is wrong because it was begun by George W. Bush and Bush is wrong; it is wrong because Saddam Hussein did not bomb America first (though he did atttempt to kill our president, train terrorists, and pay suicide bomers to kill Israelis); it is wrong because it looked as of the war might be lost for a while, before the surge began to work. 

If Democrats were to support Hillary at this point, they would have to re-evaluate their current assumption that the Iraq war is, was, and always will be wrong.  They might have to give Hillary's earlier support, and the war itself, at least some benefit of the doubt.  But supporting Barack Obama requires no such re-examination.  Democrats are almost compelled to shut the Clintons down and give Obama the nomination to avoid the discomfort of re-thinking the Iraq war.

It isn 't that Democrats have a problem with Hillary Clinton's character, despite story after story being published now in the print media spelling out with crystal clarity just how wide and deep are the Clinton's character problems.  Suddenly the Clintons are "selfish," the AP reports, yet the evidence offered for that proposition dates back 15 years or more.  Where were these critics for the last two decades?  It isn't that Democrats have suddenly discovered a character problem in the Clintons -- it's just that now they are finding it expedient to admit that there has been a problem all along, because it helps them rationalize their otherwise wafter-thin support for the ill-defined Obama.  But If Hillary Clinton was the only viable Democrat in the race, these same Democrats would willingly support her all the way to another four or eight years of Clintons in the White House.

Hence, every move Hillary makes -- the same kinds of moves Democrats have supported her in, year after year -- from refusing to admit any defeat to attacking her opponent through surrogates like Bill Clinton -- is now met with harsh, even occasionally unfair criticism from the left.

It is the sort of vitriolic treatment Democrats usually reserve for Republicans.  It must come as quite a shock to Hillary Clinton.

Ah -- but Obama!  It's his honeymoon now.  His positions are so vague and hopeful that he demands nothing at all.  Obama's combination of vagueness and charisma is, to die-hard Democrats like Chris Matthews, downright thrilling.

Comments

[benning]

This is one of the most worthless primary seasons for the Dems I can remember. Both candidates are useless. The flaying of Hillary is a long time coming, but what's their alternative? An empty suit of platitudes.

Yeesh!

[Keith]

Spot on analysis. And let's not forget those poor disenfranchised voters in Florida and Michigan. Tough to blame the Republicans this time. So what do you think will happen here? Will HRC push for those votes to be counted, forcing Obama to take a stand against allowing votes to count? Are the Dems going to place rules over the right to vote?

[Margaret]

The democratic leadership is protecting their own behinds. This is a turf war and Obama is their puppet. Hillary in power is a threat to them as she will put her own people in power. Hillary is a middle of the road, old fashioned and old school democrat. Too many people fault her for having ambition and the people running the party are elistists who are out of touch with the people they claim to represent. They pity people and patronize. Hillary does not do this. The party should go with the winner but they did not. She had all the swing states in her pocket - Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. That's what it boils down to - no popularity contest just give me the states that I need. They had to run their man - now it's over and we get 4 more years of pain for the poeple they should have taken care of by winning the election. This should have been easy - I give up on this party.

[Richard Johnson]

"I give up on this Party" (Democartic party.)
Best decision you've ever made, Margaret..
Congratulations.

America1st. (aka RJ)

"We must not look to government to solve our problems...government IS the problem" Ronald Reagan