ABC News' Political Unit came out with the first Invisible Primary\ ratings for the 2008 election last month. To no one's surprise, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., topped the list for the Democrats, and by no small margin. With a score of 1.0 equaling the nomination, Clinton scored a 1.74.
Nevermind the fact that only two sitting senators have ever been elected President (neither of whom, incidentally, left office alive). Pundits on the left and the right are both looking at Clinton as an unstoppable fundraising and name-recognition force and a sure thing to get the Democratic nomination. But if the Democrats want any chance to regain the White House, Clinton must not be their nominee.
Clinton is the worst of all worlds. To the right, she is a galvanizing figure who even the most uninformed of conservative voters sees as an extreme-liberal icon; to the left, she is an exasperatingly centrist consummate politician who has continually supported the Iraq War, has called abortion a ""sad, even tragic choice"" and sat on Wal-Mart's board for seven years. And to all, she is a regional-identification nightmare who abandoned the South and endured (very well justified) accusations of carpetbagging in her run to represent New York, including some relating to her rather embarrassing profession of love for the Yankees.
The Democratic Party has been aggressively trying to prove to rural Midwestern and Southern voters what has been true all along, that their economic policies are simply more beneficial for low-income Americans than those of the Republicans. Coupled with a reassurance that liberal values are not really as out of step with Middle America as conservatives try to paint them, the Democrats will have an excellent shot at winning the White House. But if the Democrats were to nominate the patrician, ultimate-Washington-insider Clinton, the immediate gut response she invokes would likely override much of the progress the Democrats have made when swing voters step into the booth. A pertinent question to ask is, where would she win that John Kerry could not?
There is also a larger issue at work in the trouble of a prospective Clinton presidency, which is the increasingly dynastic nature of presidential politics. Focusing on each election as an individual event, it is easy to forget that if Clinton does indeed receive the Democratic nomination in 2008, a presidential election not featuring a Clinton or a Bush on a ticket will not have happened for 32 years.
The power of money and name recognition has become so profound in the United States that those belonging to political families have an apparently insurmountable advantage. Barring a miraculous rise in Dick Cheney's popularity and/or his interest in job, the 2008 election will be the first since 1928 in which neither the sitting president nor vice president will seek a nomination.
2008 has the potential to be one of the most refreshing presidential races in generations, and it would be a shame if Clinton were given a chance to continue the reign of safe familiarity.
Dan Wohl is a sophomore majoring in political science.
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