This is a highly partisan piece arguing why Clinton, not Obama, has the best shot of beating McCain this November. Although it overstates its case quite a bit, I agree with its ultimate conclusion, and I think it's right on the main points. What it comes down to is that Clinton's already taken everything the GOP can throw at her for over a decade and a half, and yet remains popular enough to win in November. Obama may be even more popular at the moment, but he has not even begun to absorb the impact of a full-fledged smear campaign.

We've seen what one of those campaigns does to previously popular politicians like Gore and Kerry. How will Obama fair? Once that smear job is "priced in" to his numbers, will he still even be competive? There's also the risk that Obama has skeletons in his closet that we don't know about yet. Clinton, by comparison, has endured the more meticulous drag net in history, under Kenneth Starr, so it's pretty unlikely some new skeleton's going to pop up in October.

If McCain makes the campaign about having an experienced realist in the White House, in this dangerous age, Obama could be made to look like a lightweight much more easily than Clinton. Four years ago he was a state representative, and now he's running a campaign that tends to glide past any issues, in favor of soaring rhetoric. Maybe that will play against McCain, but it seems to have a bigger risk of backfiring.

FInally, if the campaign is won where most campaigns are, in the center, Clinton is better positioned to fight for that ground than Obama is, after he swung hard to the left to beat her.

Anyway, here's the piece:

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"During this campaign, one of the key arguments for Hillary's candidacy is that she's tested, vetted and ready to lead on day one. How does this factor into voters' decisions now that it appears John McCain will be the Republican nominee? Let's envision how a general election between the Democratic nominee and John McCain will unfold, based on recent elections:

"The GOP Attack Machine Will Redefine the Democratic Candidate; Hillary Has Withstood That Process. As soon as the Democratic nominee is selected, the entire force of the GOP attack machine will bear down on that nominee. This attack machine has been built and honed over decades; it is formidable, and employs all forms of media, from talk radio to major newspaper columns to television, email, blogs, websites, direct mail, and extensive ground networks. It was able to skew public perceptions of two well-respected Democrats, Al Gore and John Kerry, creating impressions about them that were wildly out of step with reality. Hillary Clinton has withstood the full brunt of that machine and actually emerged stronger.

"Sen. McCain Will Run on National Security; Hillary Wins That Argument. When it came to national security, "strong and wrong" won out over "right and weak" in the 2002 and 2004 elections. With Hillary, that is not and will not be an issue: Based on what they know of her and her experience, voters believe Hillary is fully ready to be commander in chief. She will be strong and right. Voters know she has the right policies -- ending the war in Iraq, re-establishing our relations with our allies -- and they know she has the strength of leadership that America's next president will need in a world that can turn dangerous in an instant. As such, the Republicans will not be able to play the national security card against Hillary Clinton, like they are now doing against Senator Obama, and that makes her a fundamentally stronger candidate against John McCain. Case in point is what George Bush said on Sunday morning about Sen. Obama, 'I certainly don't know what he believes in. The only foreign policy thing I remember he said was he's going to attack Pakistan and embrace Ahmadinejad.' With Hillary, the Republicans' national security argument blunted and the election debate will shift to healthcare and the economy -- areas of decisive strength for Hillary.

"Sen. Obama's Negatives Will Rise; Hillary's Are Already Factored In. Sen. Obama himself has been saying that even after a year, voters in places like Texas and Florida don't really know him that well. So how much do independent voters know about Barack Obama, his voting record and his past positions? Even less than Democrats know. For example, he recently told voters in Idaho that he favors the Second Amendment -- but he didn't mention that, in the past, he supported a complete ban on all handguns. If he were the nominee, the Republican attack machine would have immediately rolled out his full record -- and his independent Idaho support would have evaporated. So far, the Republicans have been laying low. Sen. Obama has never faced a credible Republican opponent or the Republican attack machine, so voters are taking a chance that his current poll numbers will hold up after the Republicans get going. With Hillary, the GOP has already tried just about every attack and has failed. Those attacks are already factored in her ratings, where she remains competitive against Sen. McCain. But when it comes to Sen. Obama this is a big unknown, and the likelihood is that his negatives will rise.

"The Resiliency of Sen. Obama's Coalition Will Be Tested; Hillary's Coalition Is Stronger. The grind of a general election will erase the freshness and excitement of the primary season and the success that Sen. Obama has earned in states he has little chance of winning in November will erode. It may even crumble. Sen. Obama will have to fall back on core Democratic voters to stay competitive with McCain. But this is where Hillary has already built a powerful base, with overwhelming support among women, Latino voters, and other stalwarts of the Democratic Party. Hillary's coalition, which has carried her to victory across the country, is a winning coalition against Sen. McCain since it draws from the voters Sen. McCain will need to win. Look no further than Super Tuesday for proof: Hillary won by double digits in the big states that any Democrat must win to defeat John McCain. And in Missouri, Hillary won all the swing areas, getting 110 of 115 counties.

"Current Poll Numbers Don't Tell the Story of What Will Happen: Sen. Obama Routinely Underperforms While Hillary Overperforms. After winning the Democratic nomination in 2004, John Kerry vaulted to a 17 point lead over George Bush. Even on Election Day, virtually every pollster said John Kerry would win. It did not happen. Today, commentators are touting a Time poll that shows Sen. Obama faring slightly better than Hillary Clinton against John McCain. Last week, the pundits were using a handful of polls to argue that Hillary Clinton would lose NJ, CA and MA. None of that happened. Instead, Hillary Clinton has repeatedly confounded pollsters and the chattering class by doing better on Election Day than the polls suggested she would -- in NH, MA, NY, NJ, CA, and AZ. Her 2000 election was no different -- exit polls suggested she might lose a close race but she ended up winning a landslide victory when the actual votes were counted.

"Hillary is the best candidate to take on Sen. McCain and defeat him. She has outperformed at the ballot box throughout her career. She will neutralize the argument on national security so the election will turn on her ability to manage our economy and reform healthcare. The GOP will not be able to increase her negatives in a way they can with an untested candidate. And Hillary's core voters -- working class, women, Latinos, Catholics -- are exactly the voters that comprise the key swing voters the party has needed in the past to win. This is an observation I made in the Washington Post after the 2004 election, 'Middle-aged women and Hispanic voters were key voting blocs that made the difference, swinging the vote from Kerry to Bush. In fact, in 2004 women made up 54 percent of the U.S. electorate, the highest percentage in history. Their interest in and impact on politics has been increasing.'"

Thanks for posting this Arkady, I am in agreement. I can definitely use an "upper" right now, although I caucused hard for Hillary, Obama beat us by 46 votes.

Dave

46 votes? In just your caucus Dave?Only 39,000 caucused in the whole state.

I am also reading Republicans are crossing over and voting for Obama.They think he will be easy to beat.

I'll proudly support either of them, but I'm a lot more eager to argue the point in Clinton's favor than Obama's. When a McCain supporter comes after Obama as being under-experienced, how can I dispute that? He would, in fact, be one of the least experienced presidents in American history. When someone attacks Obama for being the beneficiary of kid-gloves treatment by the media, or when they accuse him of riding a wave of crass hype and building a dangerous cult of personality, what do I say? Those are fair criticisms, and Obama's been actively working the personality angle. If he decides to duck debates with McCain the way he's doing with Clinton, and he tries to continue campaigning on nothing but empty inspirational rhetoric, how do I counter accusations that he's an empty suit? I'm not looking forward to that.

If Obama wins, I'm basically going to have to advocate his election on an anti-McCain basis, whereas I could advocate Clinton on both an anti-McCain and pro-Clinton basis.

when they are put before the American people.

How is it that elders of nursing home age vote for Billary?

The smear the Clintons used was that the Republican Congrsess was cutting Medicare. The fact was the Republican Congress actually increased Medicare spending by six percent.

The Clinton Budget asked for an 11 percent increase in Medicare spending and frightened elders completely dependent on Medicare into voting for them.

A six percent increase in spending is not a cut in spending.

And when the Clinton lie is exposed, the Clintons, the DNC and the Arkady parrots scream SMEAR

And never stop smearing our sitting president while they are at it.

The Democrat Big Lie Technique at work. How bogus.

... your elders are talking.

you certainly are shoveling horse manure all over the right-of-way.

There were 38481 delegates, not voters, in Nebraska. I don't know what the ratio between voters and delegates was, but in my precinct we had 5 delegates representing about 100 voters.

If Obama wins, I'm basically going to have to advocate his election on an anti-McCain basis, whereas I could advocate Clinton on both an anti-McCain and pro-Clinton basis.

Shouldn't be too hard to do this, as their positions are basically the same. Obama was right about the war and Clinton was wrong. Electing Clinton perpetuates the Bush/Clinton dynasties, and presents the danger of a Hatfield/McCoy feud on a national scale. Obama, to his supporters, offers some healing, some reconciliation. I'm not saying I buy this, but there's something to be said for electing a non-Washington D.C. insider. True, Obama might end up like Jimmy Carter, but he might be charismatic to bring a lot of disaffected into the political fold--even more than Hillary--who despite being a woman has made plenty of mistakes, particularly on the war and Iran. The case of Nancy Pelosi, indeed, shows that having a woman in high office doesn't guarantee much. So I'm leaning Obama at this point.

It makes no sense to me to argue that electing Clinton "perpetuates the Bush/Clinton dynasties." That's rhetoric masquerading as an argument. Electing Clinton does nothing at all to perpetuate a Bush dynasty. Bush's name was just thrown in that phrase for propaganda value, since most thinking people are united in our contempt for the man.

As for speaking of a "Clinton dynasty," that's premature. With the Bushies, they had a senator, a governor, and two presidents in their dynasty, spread over three generations. That's in addition to titans of industry in the previous generations (Samuel Bush was a steel company president and one of the major industrialists of his generation, while George Herber Walker was a president of a major bank, and his father was the president of a significant retailer). That's a dynasty of economic and political power spanning at least five generations of dynastic privilege.

Thus far, the Clinton "dynasty" consists of just a president and a senator -- a series of two doesn't a dynasty make. Moreover, dynasties are typically multigenerational, whereas with the Clintons we're talking about two self-made people of the same generation, neither of whom came from a family line steeped in political power, or even major economic power. They simply don't fit the typical definition of a dynasty. Even if they did, electing Hillary Clinton to the presidency wouldn't "perpetuate" the Clinton dynasty, it would start it, since the bare minimum we'd need to fit the definition is two rulers of the same family.

Now, as far as Obama being right on Iraq, we're comparing apples to oranges. He wasn't in the Senate when that vote happened, so we can't know for sure how he would have voted on it. I refuse to let his inexperience be treated as a virtue, and that's what happens when he's congratulated for not making a vote he didn't have the power to make.

This is yet another reason to insist on him getting a few more years of seasoning before we make him president. I want to see him making major decisions and learning the ropes as a Senator. He basically had two years of real Senate experience before turning the lion's share of his attention to winning the presidency. That doesn't inspire much confidence in me. For that matter, I haven't even seen him ever campaign against a serious Republican opponent, which is the first task at hand if he wins the nomination. Clinton took on Giuliani, at least.

"Obama, to his supporters, offers some healing, some reconciliation."

How so? Other than hearing him insisting that he can bring people together, what evidence do we have in favor of this? Who has he ever brought together? What great reconciliation has he ever accomplished? What healing has he been responsible for? What I've seen from his side is cheap accusations of race-baiting against the Clintons, and that doesn't even bring Democrats together, much less the nation.

"I'm not saying I buy this, but there's something to be said for electing a non-Washington D.C. insider."

He's a Senator. We're not talking about a governor, general, civil rights activist, religious leader, business man, or someone else who is being sold to the nation on the basis of outside-the-beltway credentials. The only serious experience Obama has is as a D.C. insider. It's kind of bizarre that the guy has the reputation of being an outsider, for no better reason than that people like him and don't like Washington insiders. Strange.

Granted, your fine legal distinctions are more accurate, but the American people would perceive the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton sequence as a succession of dynasties.

As for my terming Obama an outsider, he only is if you consider that he's colored ( I prefer this term to Black, which doesn't describe him when he's half white), his Negro inheritance is African, not indigenous, he's lived in many places, including Indonesia, he was a community organizer before becoming an Illinois legislator and later U.S.senator, his father was Muslim. Plenty of things which set him apart from the majority that is white, hasn't resided abroad, especially in places like Indonesia, and weren't community organizers. But if Obama hadn't made it to the senate, he wouldn't be a serious candidate.

I believe Obama has been more outspoken against the Iraq involvement than Hillary, except possibly for her recent statements.

You ignored my point that he may bring many disaffected into the Democratic fold--which would be a good thing IMO.

His most damaging liability is his inexperience, but Bill Clinton himself had no Washington experience, and turned out to be an above average president. Hillary's most damaging liability is that she didn't read the intelligence report before writing Bush a blank check in 2002, and that she voted for Lieberman/Kyl just last year (Obama wasn't present). Another damaging liability is her consoeur in Congress, Nancy Pelosi, who's done squat about reining in this out of control presidency.

As for the race-baiting, I haven't been following the horse race closely enough to comment, but I'd be surprised if something like that didn't come out in a campaign such as this.

Hillary owes it to our country to run as an Independent if she does not win the nomination.

I disagree. Running as an independent is problematic in the best of times, since it typically means throwing the election to the mainstream candidate you'd consider the greater of the two evils. But it's downright ethical if you have first pursued the nomination of a party and lost. In those cases, it's a betrayal of the party. If Obama wins the nomination, I fully expect Clinton to endorse him and campaign for him, and if she doesn't, I'll hold that very much against her. I'd say the same for Obama if Clinton wins.