Day of the Undead

Like a large number of Democrats, Senator Obama's vote on the FISA bill outraged and disappointed me. Despite his early promise that he would not vote for a bill that included amnesty for those who broke the law, he did.

The betrayal was two-fold. He betrayed those of us who supported him precisely for his supposed unequivocal no-amnesty stance, and he betrayed his own principles. And this was not over a minor policy issue- this was about whether Senator Obama supported the Fourth Amendment. His vote showed he did not respect the Constitution.

His betrayal of his supporters and of the Constitution leave those of us who supported him and/or are lifelong Democrats in a very uncomfortable position. We're not about to support McCain. Nader's out after what he did in 2000. The Libertarian Party.... maybe, but it would take a lot to support Barr, given his past record. Ron Paul- definitely a weird choice.

But tonight, in talking to my mom, who's a warrior from way back and the one responsible for my interest in politics, she said "why not Hillary?" and that as soon as she heard about Obama's vote, this was the first thing that popped into her head.

I will admit that Marm's suggestion blindsided me. I hadn't even thought about Hillary. But once she brought it up, we got to talking about it and the more we did, the less crazy it sounded.

Obama's in major trouble. He alienated at least 30% of his base, and even if 15% return, he's going to need that other 15%. But honestly, unless McCain does something ridiculously stupid and we swallow our pride and vote for a man who can no longer be trusted to do the right thing, he has no chance to win the election.

So what about Hillary?

We all know how the primaries turned out. Senator Clinton lost by 357.5 delegates.

There are a total of 724.5 superdelegates free to support whomever they choose at the convention. All it will take is 179 of Obama's 478 superdelegates to change their support over to Senator Clinton to make her the nominee.

Why would they do that? Because there are many people, myself included, who feel that Obama's vote is a fatal error to his campaign. This should have been a no-brainer, but, well, we're Democrats and are capable of screwing up anything. There's no way any legislation proposed by President Bush should come anywhere near passing. The man only has a 25% approval rate. He proposes a bill that is so laughably criminal and unconstitutional that lawyers have been chomping at the bit to appeal it. Yet our leadership can't muster the cajones to send it back. Instead, they whimpered and cowered like little children afraid of Daddy. And Obama- the man who is- or was- the presumed head of the party- rolled over and showed his belly.

Shameful.

Clinton voted against the bill. There's still a large number of people out there who felt she got shafted by the system and while they support Obama, they would flock back to Hillary in a heartbeat.

Now, we'd be back to square 1 with her in that there's a solid core of Hillary haters out there. But not many of them would support Obama either.

Hillary as candidate would bring all of the Left back into the fold and re-energize the party, which right now is walking around dazed, like a child who just walked in on their dad drunk and sodomizing the family pooch.

There's a certain harsh realpolitik to this that has a very kinky appeal.

And I know- it would entail me eating a healthy plate of crow. I wrote her off, and in very harsh terms. But I should have known better. She wasn't done. The Clintons are the Walking Undead of politics. You cannot kill them. Back in '92, I was working on another campaign in NH and when word of the various Clinton women came out, we figured he was finished. "Bimbo eruptions", they were called, and there were, what, 2 or 3 confirmed, and several others rumored. Former Arkansas State Troopers were anonymously commenting about running women in and out of the Governor's mansion.

This scandal would have destroyed every other campaign. Yet Bill Clinton survived, his campaign got stronger because of the scandal, and he ended up president, celebrating with a fat young intern who was quite willing to get her 'presidential knee pads'.

Now we have Hillary. Her campaign was written off as dead and she went down like a screeching harpy that set the women's movement back several years and caused us to cringe in embarrassment for her and her frenzied supporters.

Yet here we are now. Obama fucked up in an unbelievably heinous way and by doing so, has allowed Hillary a chance to arise from the grave. I mean, goddamn, she was dead! We all saw the body. There was no way she was coming back around in '08 or possibly ever again.

Wouldn't this be one for history?

Will she?

How hard is it to change 179 minds? How deep does (the rabbit hole) the outrage over Obama's vote go?

I think Hillary's power-mad, numbers-savvy, and ambitious enough to do so, especially if her aides and Bill convince her that unless she does so, McCain is a lock to win against Obama. Let's see what happens over the next few weeks. I would say right now, the odds are maybe 45 yes 55 no that she will get back in the race. But one more minor slip-up by Obama.... And that slip-up might be when July's fundraising numbers come back- odds are they will be in the toilet since his vote pissed so many supporters off, and this may well be the other tiny opening Hillary needs.

Is this crazy talk? Maybe. But if someone told me Obama would sell our 4th Amendment protections down the river and not even give us a reach-around for our troubles, I would have said that was crazy talk.

Further Refinement of the Dubya Resignation Scenario

There's one small bit I didn't cover in my resignation scenario. Let's go over the whole thing again.

As the heat increases and it looks like impeachment proceedings are going to begin, Cheney is going to resign, citing "health reasons". But rather that heading to the hospital, a black unmarked helicopter belonging to Halliburton will whisk him away to an airfield with a private jet that will fly him to the new Halliburton complex over in Dubai. He will be protected by a private security force and by every possible layer of government that will be paid handsomely from a chunk of the $500 million that "disappeared" from the Iraq treasury. Cheney will spend the rest of his days never worried that an extradition request will be honored and he will die much like Hunter Thompson believed Nixon would die- in a bunker wearing jackboots.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

Nixon...... whoops, Freudian slip...... Bush will appoint Santorum for the reasons I outlined in my previous post. McCain will also be brought into the fold and told the Secret Plan, with the warning that if he even breathes a word of it to anyone, he will be shipped back to Vietnam to spend the rest of his days in a "tiger cage" being poked with bamboo sticks.

On a viciously hot and sticky Sunday morning, while Congress is in recess, Dubya will down the rest of the bottle of a fine 18 year old Scotch that he started working on the night before and snort another line of Peruvian Marching Powder before calling an impromptu press conference to announce his resignation, effective immediately.

At a location across town, it would "just so happen" that Santorum would be having brunch with his old friends, John McCain and Chief Justice John Roberts. Santorum would get a call on his cellphone from Rove, just to chat him up a bit and to mention that he's having breakfast with Bob Woodward. The threat is clear.

They have the hostess turn on Fox News in time to see the president, his eyes wild and crazy and hair sticking up at weird angles, announcing his resignation. As soon as he utters the word "effective immediately", Roberts whips out a Bible and with the hostess as witness, swears in Santorum, who then appoints McCain to be the vice president. McCain is then also sworn in. Brutally aware of the deal and knowing if he fucks up, Rove would hand Woodward his file, Santorum pulls out the envelope sealed with wax and stamped "For Vice President Santorum's Eyes Only". He opens it up. It contains papers pardoning Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Libby already filled out and stamped with the Presidential Seal. Borrowing the hostess's pen, Santorum signs all the pardons and hands them to Roberts.

Roberts' cellphone rings. "Yeah, Karl. Good morning. How was your breakfast? Good. Yes, everything's been taken care off. Enjoy your retirement."

The deed will be done. Those folks who came to Washington claiming they wanted to "clean up" the town will flee like rats from their self-created shitstorm far uglier than the one that hit when Nixon left town.

The Democrats will howl like castrated minks, angry that once again a Republican president pulled a Houdini on them, but also knowing that they just won the 2008 election. This will be a Pyrrhic victory, as the Treasury will be bankrupt, we'll still be mired in Iraq, and the economy will be heading straight into the toilet. It will be impossible to fix any of it in one term and they know the voters in 2012 will cast them aside in favor of the other Bush scion, Jeb.