Without going into policy details (available on demand), McCain will be president opposite a united, entrenched opposition Congress. He doesn't get along with most Republicans and will hopefully have a hard time doing anything egregious of the conservative stripe. I think he's already done all of his damage on campaign finance, so his biggest policy downside is his vast, vast hawkishness. That's the part that Congress will have the least brake on, but it's better than:

Hillary, who will have a united friendly Congress. She's good at breaking heads and will be an extremely effective president, so if there's anything about her platform that you don't like, you can be sure that it'll go through.

Besides, it would be weird having Bill Clinton in the white house again. Not because of the blow-job thing, because of the South Carolina thing. He's not going to be happy working on literacy and temperance--he's going to have his hands in frickin' everything!

Related to above, there's a legitimate dynasty question. It was bad enough having a father-son combo, but if we space that out with husbands and wives, it's way too much like a bunch of countries that we aren't.

That's the perspective from the vaguely libertarian side of things--neither of them are good choices, but Hillary will be better at getting her bad stuff passed.


It's interesting that you emphasize those three VP choices in your terrors, because the three all pose very different problems. If you're super-concerned about those three, it probably just means that you're concerned about Republicans in general.

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Thank you for that thoughtful response; that actually makes a lot of sense, although I think you give the Congressional Democrats too much credit. I honestly don't think that they could be cowed into obedience so easily. The dynastic issue bothers me too; I think it just doesn't scare me so much that I'd reject a candidate who, on the face of it, has positions similar to my own on lots of human rights and economic issues.
And, to be fair, I do have reasons for fearing those dudes. I guess Gingrich is, objectively, the least scary, if the most hackish. Huckabee would be (mostly) powerless to mess things up as veep, but if he managed to turn it into a presidency he could really wreak havoc with policy initiatives. I don't for a moment foresee that he would succeed at amending the Constitution as his pastor sees fit, but the fact that he thinks it's appropriate worries me to no end. As for Lieberman, I worry about having an Israel hawk as veep to a general Middle-East hawk; I don't know what good he brings to the table, aside from the ability to draw off hawkish Democratic voters.
Just out of curiosity, how would you feel about an Obama vice presidency? Would that change your mind?

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I agree that if you're liberal, Hillary is the easy choice over McCain...moderates and independents are concerned that she'll be too effective at being liberal.

Obama as Vice President for McCain or Hillary? If Obama were VP for McCain, I'd be pretty happy with it.

Obama as VP wouldn't change my mind about Hillary...though I guess it would be fun to watch. After the acrimony during South Carolina, I don't think that would be a happy Whitehouse.

Do you think it's unlikely for Obama to win the nomination? From what I'm hearing it's anyone's game. And Obama has a much better chance against McCain than Hillary does.

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I agree that if you're liberal, Hillary is the easy choice over McCain...moderates and independents are concerned that she'll be too effective at being liberal.

Huh. Some people disagree strongly with that last statement.

As for Obama vs Clinton, everyone I know planning to caucus on Saturday who's announced their candidate is planning to stand up for Obama. (Including me.) I think it's a bit early to call this contest.

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Two points:

1. Holy crap! I don't really watch political talk-shows. Do they always talk over each other like that? It's maddening.

2. Is it possible that Coulter is trying to help Obama beat Hillary? Because what? The idea that Hillary is as pro-war as McCain is the biggest fairy-tale I ever heard! No, I guess it's the second biggest fairy-tale I ever heard. In fact, I don't think that there is a single issue where McCain is as or more liberal than Hillary, unless you think mandatory national service is a liberal issue (which is arguable).

But yeah, when I mentioned moderates and independents, I forgot to factor Ann Coulter into my thinking.

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Heh, well. Mostly I wanted Urs to see that video and I was planning to reply to the original post with it, but then I read your comment asserting pretty much the opposite of what she said, and I just had to put it there instead.

McCain is terrifying by himself. The tortured POW who wrote up the bill endorsing our torture of "enemy combatants." Wow. I just can't begin to describe how much moral corruption that represents to me.

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http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/15/torture.bill/index.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10480690
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/29/100012.shtml
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/etn/mccain/index.asp
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/29/romney_mccain_spar_on_waterboarding_and
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/tort-d17.shtml
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2002691568_mccain19.html

It looks like everyone (except for the World Socialist Website) agrees that McCain is actually anti-torture, except in the "million-to-one situation" where it could stop a terrorist attack. He's against mock-executions, waterboarding, anything that is cruel, inhumane or degrading, or anything that shocks the conscience. And he's fought with Bush and Cheney about it, and won.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2006/10/16/2006-10-16_mccain_team_mocks_hil_torture_loophole.html

It appears that his major difference with Hillary on this issue is that in the "ticking time-bomb" scenario he'd rather have the President break the law and take responsibility for his actions and she'd rather have an exception written into the law that allows torture in that case. Both are reasonable approaches that have their own problems, but neither smacks of moral corruption...

Is there something I'm missing?

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except in the "million-to-one situation" where it could stop a terrorist attack.

Fucking Jack Bauer. What's it going to take for them to understand that that situation does not exist? Even the pragmatist should be against torture, ignoring all moral arguments, because it does not yield reliable testimony.

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But note that Hillary and McCain agree that torture should be used in that situation.

Is there any support for the position that John McCain isn't about as good as Hillary and Obama on torture? I don't get the distaste? Not only is he anti-torture, but he's leading the fight against it in the Senate.

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I'm with you on this one; McCain has been fairly brave on this issue, although I wish that we could eliminate the 'ticking time-bomb' scenario from public discourse entirely, since it hasn't occurred in the history of the U.S.

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Holy crap! I don't really watch political talk-shows. Do they always talk over each other like that? It's maddening.
All the time. They are not gentlemanly.

But yeah, when I mentioned moderates and independents, I forgot to factor Ann Coulter into my thinking.
HAH! God bless you, young Jon.

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moderates and independents are concerned that she'll be too effective at being liberal. I honestly hadn't heard that viewpoint before. Where has it been getting play?

Do you think it's unlikely for Obama to win the nomination? From what I'm hearing it's anyone's game.
Nooot true. From what I've read, Clinton's been doing well and is on track to win a significantly higher number of superdelegates. And that's from someone who really, honestly, would take Clinton or Obama.

And Obama has a much better chance against McCain than Hillary does. That much does seem to be true, if you look at the last Post/ABC poll. Of course, two weeks ago the same poll said they'd both lose to McCain, so what it'll look like in October is anyone's guess.

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Nooot true. From what I've read, Clinton's been doing well and is on track to win a significantly higher number of superdelegates.

According to Salon.com, Clinton won 641 delegates yesterday to Obama's 633, but before that she had 48 to his 63, so his total number of delegates is still higher. (Clinton: 689. Obama: 696. Still incredibly close. edited to add: I ought to read the entire page before linking to it. I see what you're saying about superdelegates. Still, I don't think an 80-delegate split is enough to call it this soon.)

I won't vote against Clinton if she gets the nomination, but Obama is certainly my preferred candidate.

Edited at 2008-02-06 09:09 pm (UTC)

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Well, I worry about Clinton being too effective, and it seems like a reasonable concern. Don't you routinely worry about the effectiveness of your adversaries? It's much better to have an ineffective opponent than an effective one. Maybe nobody's thinking that but me, it's just so obvious that I assumed everyone who disagrees with Hillary/Obama policies were on the same page.

Hmm...my reading (I've been following a lot of the major papers/newsmagazines/etc through realclearpolitics.com) is that Clinton still has an edge but that those superdelegates of hers can evaporate as she stops being the "frontrunner". The candidates are near even in the normal delegate count and Clinton hasn't managed to crush Obama yet. He's set to win most of the small states that dominate the next two weeks. And if it gets all the way to the convention, who knows how those superdelegates are going to vote. Obama's been getting a lot of endorsements.

The reason that Obama will do better against McCain than Hillary will, in all likelihood, is that moderates and independents tend to dislike Hillary and tend to like Obama. I do. And McCain needs those moderates and independents to win, especially if the disgruntled conservatives don't come out so much.

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Personally, my idea of the republican candidates is "bad" and "worse," but one of my friends is of the opinion that Clinton is more conservative than McCain, and doesn't really like her as a person. I'm not really on board with that.

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Tell your friend that they agree with Ann Coulter. That should set them straight. ;)

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I forgot to mention, said friend also thinks the reason Clinton is doing so well is due to republican conspiracy.

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Yeah, what is that about?!?!?! (Yes, that is worth 3 interrobangs.) I actually had a conversation with an acquaintance last night about it because I had heard other people say the same thing. She really couldn't give me a straight answer, other than "I just don't like her." She did say that Clinton was too liberal for her, but when I mentioned that Obama has more liberal views than Clinton, and she voted for Obama, then why would that matter? She couldn't say. I think it's a load of crap, myself. I am not a big Hillary supporter but I am rather shocked by the amount of people who are anti-Hillary and would be willing to vote in yet another conservative president just because they "don't like her."

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Hating Hillary wouldn't be enough to make me vote for McCain. I'd sooner eat a shotgun sandwich than vote for either of them.

That aside, I feel more of a pull toward Obama over Clinton. I think his health care proposal, as I understand it, is more realistic, in that it suggests lowered health insurance costs across the board for everyone as opposed to Hillary's proposal for government-mandated healthcare. I'm for the idea of paying less for my own health insurance. I'm not for the idea of paying the government for my health insurance or health care (and everyone else's). Tax-funded social security is already circling the drain. I don't like the idea of paying taxes for medical care if the end result is a sharp decline in health care quality due to thinly spread funding.

Also, and while this has nothing to do with policy of any sort, I am really, honestly sick of having either a Bush or Clinton in the presidency. Those two families have held the position since I first became politically cognizant during the Persian Gulf War. Can we try someone from a different bloodline for four years? Someone without already close ties to the Oval Office? Please?

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I dont think the people reading your blog are the same people who will vote for McCain.

But if I were channeling a republican, Id say something like: "McCain will cut taxes, make government less invasive, and be a stronger military leader. Hell also balance the budget."

You know, the things republicans talk about when they arent busy eating orphan children for snacks.

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HAH.

But seriously. We have a wide ideological spectrum here at law school, and I meet a fuckton of people who just Can't Stand Hillary Clinton. And most of them, all they can say is, they just hate her.

I'm lucky that my commentariat is a little more well-reasoned.

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Conservatives despise Hilary Clinton with a passion, this is known. The Pundits who are saying they'll support her over McCain are not in any way being serious, they are merely using her as a lens to express their supposed hatred of McCain. It's sort of like saying "I'll support Hitler over another term of GW Bush."

I'm not comparing Hilary to Hitler of course, but let us not forget that to those extremists on the insane side of the spectrum, she has long been known as Hitlary. That's how rediculous they are.

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