So it’s 1992, and in this alternate timeline Jack Ryan bumps into his terminally ill old parish priest before leaving on a trip. Chastened by the encounter, he permanently shelves plans to ask his wife Jeri to accompany him to sex clubs and perform sexually in public with him, contenting himself with a demand for her to bring home one of her Voyager costumes for fun and games. The Ryans never divorce.
Flash forward to the 2004 Illinois Senate race. Ryan, much calmer and gentler, never hires a stooge to follow Barack Obama around and videotape his every move. In fact, Ryan wins the election in a squeaker.
Now flash forward to… well… now.
Is Senator Clinton comfortably in the lead? Or does the vacuum created by no-such-candidate-as-Obama get filled somehow? Does Edwards make a stronger showing?
Most interesting to me, though, is this question: right now, many strong supporters of the Democratic party are saying how terrible Hillary Clinton is. That’s an amazing switch from a year ago, when that was a refrain only of the far-right. If this had happened as I’m picturing, would you all in this category be ardent Hillary fans, or would you still have discovered her true colors – if, in fact, this current perception of her can be fairly characterized as “true colors?”
Hillary’s actions made me feel the way I do about her. I do not hate the woman, but I do not want her running this nation either. I wish she had acted differently, I really do, but she didn’t and in reality she is doing this to herself.
If Obama was not in the picture? I’d pour my support to someone else. Again I do not hate HRC, I just do not believe I can support her and her antics. I’m saddened with Bill too, if my spouse cheated on me I would have left them. Plain and simple. It’s disrespectful and BS!
First of all, Hillary has gotten a lot of heat from “the left” over the last few years wrt to her vote on the Iraq AUMF, and that had nothing to do with Obama. Secondly, a lot of the heat she is getting now from “the left” has specifically to do with some slimy campaign practices she and her husband have engaged in directed at Obama.
So, I would say that to the extent Ryan offered “change” and “hope” and a disengagement from establishment politics, and to the extent that the Clintons engaged in similar slimy campaign tacts while Ryan remained largely above the fray, then I would say things would be pretty similar. But I don’t know much about Ryan and what kind of campaign he would’ve run. Still, I suspect that Hill and Bill would’ve done some similar things in the campaign and turned at last some of their supporters off, as they have done recently. It’s not like they suddenly woke up one day during this campaign and found out that they were power-hungry politicians willing to do whatever it took to claw their way to the top.
There was definitely a market for a candidate who wasn’t Hillary, but I don’t think Edwards would have ever lit a fire under enough people to beat her. As a result, she’d probably have it locked up by now. While a lot of people always had ambivalent feelings about her, you probably wouldn’t see too many of them aired here, since people would be resigned to the fact that she was the best option.
OK, I misunderstood that part about the hypothetical. I think if it was just Clinton against Edwards (assuming the other candidates would never have risen past where they did), then Clinton would’ve had an easier time, and would not have had to go after Edwards as ruthlessly. Maybe I’m biased on this, as I really dislike Edwards, but he just didn’t seem to have the throngs of impassioned supporters that Obama has.
Upon reflection, you’re probably right. Obama has had to struggle to overcome Hillary’s insider advantage, and to do it he brought a ton of new voters to the primaries. I don’t imagine Edwards could have generated as much enthusiasm. He would have probably won most of the same primaries Obama has won, but not by the same wide margins, and would not have earned enough delegates to get him past Hillary’s count.
The party would have been stuck with a Hillary candidacy and (IMHO) doomed in the general election.
I think HRC would have the same support that McCain is having on the Republican side. Support, but not rabid support. Even if she somehow pulls this one out, her support will be lukewarm, but party faithfuls will support her against McCain. Just as I expect the right wing to support McCain even if they are not in love with him. He isn’t Obama and he isn’t Clinton, so they will support him. And Democrats would have lined up behind HRC, but not with passion.
Plus, Edwards had the mild stink of one-time loser already (Thank You, John Kerry!). The Hillary backers would’ve enthusiastically anticipated the Second Clinton coming, and I can’t think of anyone who would’ve adequately been able to stand up to her and the machine (and presumed inheritance) she had in place. I think she would’ve taken the nomination in a walk, much to the glee of the GOP.
I rather doubt any of the other candidates could have lasted against the Clintons. Perhaps Edwards could have made a run but Super Tuesday wouldn’t have been a good night for him and that would have been it. The others had no chance whatever. I don’t believe anyone but Obama could have generated the interest and the money that it took to topple Hillary.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but a year ago I told my boss that Hillary was going to have to watch out for Barack Obama, because he had her beat on every issue across the board, including his ability to inspire. He brushed me off, exactly the same way he brushed me off when we were watching Colin Powell making his case for war to the United Nations and I said it was nothing but satellite images of buildings in the desert, with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back up the contention that they had anything to do with weapons of mass destruction. I was right back then, and I was right a year ago. Maybe some day he’ll start listening to me.
As to the point of the OP, I don’t think Edwards has a strong enough personality to overtake Clinton. Without Obama, I think we would be backing another loser right now, much like we did with Kerry.
John Kerry was an outstanding candidate who failed miserably to direct his campaign to his accomplishments (taking down the BCCI, Exposing Iran-Contra, normalizing relations with Viet Nam), and never fully deflecting Karl Rove’s brilliant smear campaign.
If Hillary were our nominee, they’d do to her exactly what they did to him. And they’d be successful at it, too. Not only would they not hesitate to bring up what she considers already vetted “old news” and make it all shiny and new again, they’d find even more recent shit to destroy her with. The party faithful would come out for her, as would the rabid feminists. But it still wouldn’t be enough to beat the Republican machine and the admiration people have for John McCain. Especially those who think he got screwed out of the Presidency by Bush’s lies about him back in 2000.
Without Obama, we’d be looking at another 4-8 years of Republican rule, which I’m sure would make you happy, but in my opinion would be an absolute disaster.
I am suddenly hearing the line “Resistance Is Futile” with an entirely different inflection…
I think that Edwards makes a somewhat stronger showing, and Kucinich is somewhat less of a laughingstock (but still in also-ran territory) as they receive the protest vote against Hillary’s early support for the Iraq war. However, it doesn’t keep Hillary from locking up the nomination on Super Tuesday.
Even beyond his personality - his populism did appeal to some people, and he was very strong on some issues - it was going to take an outstanding organization to beat the one Hillary already had set up. Obama and his people knew what to do with people’s enthusiasm for his candidacy.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one - looking back, he was the best of a weak field, didn’t make his case for himself well, couldn’t connect with anyone in his speeches, and ran an awful campaign.
I’m a Democratic-leaning independent, and I’ve never been crazy about Clinton. “Coldly ambitious carpet-bagger” could best sum up my feelings for her. I would have voted for her in the general election, but marveled at the Democrats’ perpetual inability to find their ass with both hands and run a candidate that folks actually want to vote for.
Obama has a strong appeal to independents and socially liberal Republicans.
Kerry was a poor speaker, on the Liberal side of the Senate and only did as well as he did because of the anti-Bush vote. He would have been trounced in 2000 and he would be trounced if he was running against a better Republican candidate than Bush.
I don’t see how Kerry was an outstanding candidate. An outstanding candidate is one that like Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan can make a strong appeal to the independents and across party lines. Being able to marshal your own party like Kerry is not enough. Edwards would be the same way; he has no cross party appeal and limited appeal to the independents.
To the Op’s question, I think Clinton would have had smooth sailing to the nomination and a real struggle to beat McCain. She would have been better off running against someone that the Theo-cons liked better and the independents liked a lot less.
Too many voters dislike Hillary to vote for her if the Republican is at all acceptable, probably enough to give someone like McCain the victory. Obama has an even stronger draw on independents than McCain and should win the election.
Jim (Damn, Marley23, you beat me to all my points.)
