…In time for the Democrats to go through a primary and pick a different nominee. <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that Clinton will be hurt at all by the email scandal. (Vox summary here<\/a>, for anyone who needs the scandal explained in a nutshell.)<\/p>\n I don’t like Hillary Clinton; she’s a hawk, and in the conflict within the Democratic party between the banks and the rest of us, there’s no question what side Clinton is on. As for the email scandal, while she may not have technically broken any laws, she has certainly gone out of her way to thumb her nose at the very idea of transparency (( Although there’s an argument that Clinton’s real problem is that she didn’t follow the conventions of what Ezra Klein calls Transparency Theater<\/a>. But “she’s no more corrupt than any other high official in her position” isn’t a stirring argument in her favor, really. )) and public oversight – and she did so in the midst of an ongoing scandal<\/a> about the Bush administration hiding their emails from the public. It’s hard to believe that Democrats can’t field someone better.<\/p>\n In fact, Clinton is so awful that the only way to get me to vote for her is to have her run against a Republican. Because as bad as Clinton is, anyone the Republican party would nominate would be much worse (for instance, it would be the end of US funding for UNFPA, leading to thousands of preventable deaths<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Furthermore, the last time she ran for office – in the 2008 primary – Clinton was lousy at running a campaign, losing despite starting the primary with enormous advantages. Which is a problem, because the number one thing any Democratic nominee needs to be able to do is run a good campaign and beat the Republican. If they can’t do that, then any other advantages they have – good policy positions, good governance skills – become irrelevant.<\/p>\n Contested, hard-fought primaries are the best way we have of testing for that skill. When we have a contested primary election, we can at least be assured that we’ll wind up with a candidate with a proven ability to run and win a nationwide campaign. With Clinton, we won’t have that. Nor will we have the democracy that – imperfect as it is – having a seriously contested primary provides.<\/p>\n Bah, I say. Bah!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …In time for the Democrats to go through a primary and pick a different nominee. Unfortunately, it’s very unlikely that Clinton will be hurt at all by the email scandal. (Vox summary here, for anyone who needs the scandal explained … Continue reading