In this great piece about Obama, Gary Kamiya (one of Salon’s best writers) captures much of what I’m feeling.
Those who support Obama argue that he will be able to work more effectively with Republicans and independents than his rivals. Those who support Clinton or Edwards argue that Obama is a political naif who will go down singing “Kumbaya” while being eaten alive by the right wing. His critics also claim that Obama is too inexperienced to be entrusted with the nation’s highest office, but that argument smacks of bogus “war-on-terror” fear-mongering — Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who helped bring us the Iraq war, had decades of experience. It’s a false argument in any case: Character and brains count more than decades of cutting deals and shoveling pork through Congress.
The truth is, it’s impossible to know whether Obama would be a more effective president than his opponents. The question of whether bipartisan gentleness is more effective than tough confrontation is meaningless, both because there’s no single answer to it and because we have no way of knowing how any of the Democrats will actually govern — for all we know, Obama may turn out to be a harder-edged negotiatior than Edwards. So it’s really about intangibles. In the end, it may come down to how one feels about the great divide that was so painfully revealed in the 2004 elections.
Yes and no. I know the Repulicans will demonize whomever the nominee/president is, but Hillary would come into it having been deeply despised by more than half the country for nearly two decades, and she’d bring back with her trunks of ammunition: Whitewater, travelgate, Monica, Hillarycare, the Vince Foster “murder” — all that stuff is going to come roaring back and then some. With Obama, we at least get the advantage of a clean start. Hillary’s presidency would probably result in us having another Bush brother as president in 2012. Plus, if she wants to ride on her husband’s policy coattails — hello, the totally ceremonial post of “First Lady” that she got simply by marrying some guy counts as “experience”? not in my book, thanks — then the gay community needs for her also to take a ride on DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. If she wants to take credit for Clinton’s economic successes, then she gets credit for his failures, too. The “Clinton Restoration” can’t just run on a feel-good myth about the 90s. Clinton screwed up a lot. Let’s remember that. Her campaign is the biggest fairy tale ever told.