Tuesday, January 29, 2008

One man's nightmare is another man's Dream

Well not exactly dream per se, but in US politics I root for gridlock, and given the likely continuation of Democratic party majorities in the Congress, that means I need a Republican party candidate to win the White House. My wallet fears an all Democratic government and I have gotten a good whiff of the stink produced by our recent all Republican government. Bad ideas abound on both sides, so give me the status quo please!!

Now, Frank Rich of the NYTimes outlines how just such an appalling (to him) scenario could occurr: Hillary vs. McCain, or as Frank so charmingly puts it "Billary" vs. McCain.

The Republicans need to nominate a candidate that non-core Republicans might also vote for. McCain is that guy I think. Plus, any blah feelings about him from the base would be more than overcome by its rabid Clinton hatred. The risk would be some sort of third party run by Huckabee or Paul that would be the right's equivalent of Ralph Nadar's electoral adventures.

I'm not sure which part of this nightmare/dream scenario is less likely, each leg seems about 50/50 to me at this point. Hillary still leads in a lot of Supertuesday states (though pollsters have not been kicking butt so far this cycle) but the Clintons are getting eviscerated in the press (See Chris Hitchens' eloquent piece here, E.J. Dionne's here) and Obama got Teddy now!

If I can't have Kucinich - Paul, give me Billary - McCain and please universe, let McCain win!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not sure why McCain is considred more "electable" than Romney, who has a proven ability to win elections in one of the "bluest" states there is. I think his relative lead in early polliing is mostly name recognition.

Romney's less likely to provoke a third party run; he doesn't provoke the strong feelings both positive & negative McCain does.

Nathanael D Snow said...

I've been told gridlock among the branches of the government is not nearly as effective at gridlock within the legislature. Get a split House, a split Senate, or split the two, and much, much less gets done.

Angus said...

Juris: I'll take whatever gridlock I can get. If there were three parties, I'd wish one stronghold for each.

Ralph: Well McCain has just won Florida, which is huge for him and Romney in my opinion at least will never have any legs with "independents" I agree that he's less likely to provoke a third party runner, but to me that's his only advantage.