a brief political comment

Whether Clinton pulls it out or Obama finishes what now seems like an inevitable trajectory, I am confident we will have a strong candidate. McCain seems like a default candidate, and I do not truly believe that he can defeat anyone the Democrats put forth. That said, it's pretty clear that if Clinton fails it will be because of two things:

• The same old hands (and rivals) within the party machine joined the campaign because of its inevitability, but they never counted on having to work.
  
• Obama has managed to skirt his lack of experience (his greatest liability, in my opinion) with a message of hope that the country is craving after almost eight years of abject fear and idiocy.

This is not to say that I want Clinton to fail. She has been a capable senator — though I still quibble with her support for the war — and is an intelligent and experienced individual. She could be an excellent president. She is, however, a "Clinton" which will create an instant liability for her from the beginning of her presidency. Why? Because there are significant chunks of the electorate who will never support her because they view her as an opportunist who is married to a philanderer. Sadly, there are also segments of the electorate who would never support Obama because he is black, but that's another subject for another time.