Hillary Clinton and the broken record

America Wants to Know had two glasses of wine at Thanksgiving and bet a cousin a hundred bucks that the Democratic party will lose fifty states next November if its nominee for president is Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The effect of the wine has long since worn off, and we still think so.

Seriously.

The Republicans would have to nominate Pat Robertson to lose to her.

Losing is one thing, you might think, but fifty states? How do you figure?

The Democrats have come close to it a couple of times. George McGovern lost 49 states to Richard Nixon in 1972 and Walter Mondale lost 49 states to Ronald Reagan in 1984.

And you may remember that in the two most-recent presidential elections, Al Gore and John Kerry were advised by their pollsters to distance themselves from Bill Clinton. For whatever reason that advice was given, and given twice consecutively, Hillary Clinton has a serious problem with key constituencies in key states.

That's if voter turnout is about the same as it was in 2000 and 2004.

Voter turnout is generally pretty low in U.S. elections, unless people are really upset.

Polls say something like half the country would never, ever, under any circumstances vote for Hillary Clinton.

That's another way of saying that a lot of people would be really upset at the thought that she might become president.

It's another way of saying that if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee, people will be coming out of their graves to vote against her.

People will be dragging their neighbors out of their houses and bringing them to the polls to vote Republican.

They will be standing in line at daybreak to vote Republican.

They will be rolling up on gurneys from the hospitals to vote Republican.

Meanwhile, Democratic voters will be driving in circles, looking for their polling place, on Wednesday.

Fifty states.

Bet on it.


Copyright 2007

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