Team of giants

In what may be one of the most brilliant political moves ever, President-elect Barack Obama has just nominated Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State in his administration.

It might not surprise those who've been here before that I’ve been a long time coming to this conclusion, given the givens, as we say. But bear with me, here.

In the beginning — that is to say, when the possibility first was raised — the idea seemed absolutely daft. After all, Hillary (her campaign name of choice) had fought fiercely (an understatement, actually) to capture the nomination for President, and once the others had dropped out she and her husband strove with every Clinton fiber to defeat Obama as a rival.

It wasn’t pretty.

Around the time of South Carolina I came to wish for the end of the Clintons, politically, with every fiber of my own being.

And when Obama won the nomination I still worried that the Clintons might have some ace-in-the-hole to play to wrest it away from him. When that didn’t happen, I joined the celebration — but still wondered what they might be up to. After all, when you’re talking about the Clintons, you just can’t help wondering.

There was a bit of cat-and-mouse with Bill during the general campaign but, by golly, in the end they said and did all the right things and Barack Obama was elected President of the United States.

So now we have Hillary Clinton with us again. Secretary of State? You’ve got to be kidding! In the immortal words of more than one pundit reacting to the news, “She just never goes away, does she?”

The arguments against such insanity are legion: She voted for the Iraq war resolution whereas Obama opposed it; she called him “naïve” for proposing to talk to our enemies; she is calculating; she hopes to see him fail so she can run for President; she would build up a parallel power structure that would undercut him; she brings Bill.

For all of these reasons, plus just plain fury, I have been opposed to the very idea of bringing Hillary into the administration, especially at such a high level.

But then, like a good citizen, I began listening to other voices, and here’s what I heard: Remaining in the Senate, Hillary would truly have a power base that could challenge Obama’s agenda, whereas as a member of the Cabinet she would be completely disarmed; the President sets the policy, and his appointees carry it out — and serve at his pleasure; you want to keep your friends close and your enemies closer; love ‘em or hate ‘em, the Clintons have great credibility and admiration around the rest of the world and that will be an asset. And here’s one I particularly like: No way Hillary will be anywhere near health care reform!

Beyond the obvious positives, Barack Obama has shown, with this bold appointment, that he is not daunted by his foes and that he intends to be in charge, a good beginning for a President. He has made a selection that will quell any remaining resistance by the Hillary holdouts while comforting some of the hawks about the Iraq war, though I think this latter issue will soon become moot.

Interestingly, the rollout of Obama’s first national security appointments made it clear that it’s a team of giants, with Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense, Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, General James L. Jones as National Security Adviser, Eric Holder as Attorney General, Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations, and Janet Napolitano as head of Homeland Security. Hillary Clinton is just one of the team.

In the final analysis it comes down to this: Barack Obama will be the President of the United States, a fact that has already got the world abuzz. Around the globe, the chatter is in amaze mode: America has elected an African-American to be its President! They really mean what they say!

(The most visible spokesman for Al-Qaeda, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, didn’t know what to make of it, trying weakly to foment trouble by suggesting that Obama is only a “house negro,”which shows how clueless he is.)

A Saudi journalist, Samir Saadi, summed it up: “Given Obama’s name, his background, the doubts about his religion, Americans still voted for him and this proved that America is a democracy. . . . People here are starting to believe in the U.S. again.”

Saadi’s conclusion? “The U.S. has won the war on terror.”

Feeling her pain

There’s plenty of good reason to encourage a thoroughbred racehorse, winner or not, to “gallop out” after passing the finish wire. It helps the horse cool down and is said to aid in preventing post-race soreness. Some handicappers watch gallop-outs carefully, believing they’ll find clues as to health, strength, attitude and future performance of a given horse and jockey combination.

Some horses, it seems, "gallop out" past the wire for several furlongs on their own accord while others, sensing that the race is over, will slow themselves down and happily head for the paddock.

That's how we should think about the Democratic primary race these days.

Allowing a candidate who has run so hard for such a long race to have a decent amount of time to wind down with dignity would hurt no one and would likely help the Party.

Moreover, it is clearly silly, and disrespectful, for opinion purveyors in the media to continue to wonder aloud why Hillary Clinton is still running. They claim bewilderment that she has not done the math, seen the writing on the wall, and torn her campaign into little pieces. After all, in their opinion, Obama clearly can’t be beaten and there are only a handful of primaries left.

Even so, there are only a handful of primaries left, so why not indulge the voters in those states by allowing them to be part of the process? After all, Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy is obviously going to be in play this time around, and with this primary season drawing folks in every state out to vote, many for the first time, this fall’s election promises to be transformative.

Of course, it would be well if during this period there is an effort to cool down without destroying. In the home stretch of the campaign, it would hurt neither herself nor the Party should Sen. Clinton choose to turn her withering remarks to the Republican in the race.

Which brings me to today’s point: Though I have been highly critical of her for a good long while, I have considerable empathy for Mrs. Clinton; I do not have sympathy for her.

Like most of us, I have lost a battle or two in my life, some more important than others, and I can tell you that losing can be a little tough, or it can be really hard; it can be frustrating, and even infuriating; it can be excruciatingly painful.

Mrs. Clinton’s has not been a race that can be easy to concede. On the one hand I blame her advisers, who clearly encouraged her to believe in her inevitability from the very beginning, ignoring one of the simplest rules of politics, that nothing is certain and anything can happen.

On the other hand, she chose those advisers and chose to believe them — even, to the detriment of her campaign, exuding a sense of entitlement well beyond the point where she should have known better.

Her path, overall, is littered with mistakes, some of which have proved more damaging than others, but most of which might have been avoided had she simply opted from the beginning to run a plain-spoken and principled campaign — after all, see how Sen. McCain’s “straight-talk” reputation seems to have protected him from all manner of unpopular and even bizarre positions.

But it’s too late for Hillary Clinton.

Like the protagonist in a Shakespearean tragedy, she has been brought down by her own flaws.

As a flawed person, I can certainly empathize, but I don’t feel sorry for her at all.

Don't be fooled

Depending on how things work out over the next couple of months, Americans could find themselves faced with a daunting choice: To vote for someone with a record of pandering and not always being honest but you hope she’s telling the truth this time, or to vote for someone with a record of pandering and a reputation for straight talk and telling the truth but you hope to goodness this time he isn’t.

The recent hullabaloo over gas prices has been enough to set a political junkie’s teeth on edge, not to mention make grown economists weep and newspaper editorial writers run out of words.

Consider this: You might have to choose between John McCain, a Republican, who says he’d like to give America a “gas tax holiday” and Hillary Clinton, a Democrat who wishes to run against him, says that’s a swell idea, and proposes that it can be paid for by sticking it to the oil companies with a “windfall profits” tax — a tricky prospect, considering it would require both houses of Congress acting to pass that legislation between now and when school lets out. Congress. The House and the Senate. One month.

If you don’t see a problem there, then ask yourself: Will George W. Bush ever sign a bill imposing a new tax on anyone, let alone the oil companies?

Barack Obama, who opposes the idea, is catching all kinds of flak from the Clintons, who claim that he is “out of touch” because he thinks saving a family $0.30 a day, or $25-30 for the whole summer, is not worth the 300,000 jobs it would cost, let alone removing $9 billion from the highway funds that are used to fix everything from potholes on I-35 to bridges over rivers and canyons.

Well, Hillary did respond to that last week. She decided to say, instead, that it would “save the American people $8 billion.” Sounds more impressive, that’s for sure. Who among us wouldn’t love to have a share of $8 billion dollars?

But, you know what? Your share of that, given the millions of Americans who pump gas and drive, would be — ta-da! About $0.30 a day.

Not so fast, some would argue: What about truck drivers, taxi drivers, long-distance commuters, and farmers? They need a lot more gasoline and thus are hurt more by skyrocketing prices. True, but the reasonable point has been made by reasonable experts that we should and could help those folks with tax credits, something that would come directly from federal funds without abandoning needed highway repairs. And wouldn’t have to be accomplished in just a month.

Those weeping economists, by the way, are almost unanimous in saying that it’s most likely any tax reduction would just be consumed by the oil companies anyway, keeping prices just where they are. Because they can.

So, under the McCain/Clinton plan, instead of taking from the oil companies to give a break to the consumer, we’d be taking from the consumer to give to the oil companies. Great plan.

I’ll tell you what’s going wrong in America. It is not that we have a “red state, blue state” divide. No, the division in this country, when it comes right down to it, is between those who are content to believe anything they are told, without regard to source, and those who just don’t understand how they can fall for it.

I’m going to join that happy crowd that blames “the media” for a lot of what’s going on in this election season. In this case, I blame the TV media for hyping, ad nauseam, whatever story gets the most viewers even when it offers no enlightenment; the blogging media that perpetuates outrageous rumors without one scintilla of documentation, whether out of carelessness or out of bigotry or just hate for the “other”; and those of the print media that don’t find important issues important enough to spend the space.

The Founders felt so strongly about having a free press that they amended the Constitution to provide protection for it. After all, without a free press (think Thomas Paine), America might never have come into being.

Americans have always understood the role of the free press to be to watch and report on what their government is doing, and that the free press is essential to the survival of our democracy. When that freedom is abused by the media, in whatever form, we are being disserved and we should object.

Service is honesty; disservice is perpetuation of rumor or retelling of unexamined events.

And yet too much of our information is just that.

If the reporting we read and hear includes all the information that is relevant, and not just sound bites and what the reporters think people may think about them, then we will be better able to decide on an issue, or a President.

The great journalist Ambrose Bierce once declared that the vote, our most sacred right, is “The instrument and symbol of a free man's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."

Let us not be fools.

Alice in Wonderland

I have the urge to scream when I hear commentators and political experts, who should know better, assert that Clinton and Obama “need to stop bickering,” that “they” are hurting the party. Comments like these don’t square with the reality as I’ve come to know it.

The Clintons are the ones doing the damage here. They have been very successful at framing the race, which isn’t hard to do if you just keep on the attack. Last week they absurdly accused Obama of “playing the race card” after Clinton supporter Geraldine Ferraro’s remarks about his race.

It’s Alice in Wonderland time.

The only thing Obama has done to Clinton is to aggravate the heck out of her by (a) not engaging at her street-fight level, and (b) winning more states, more delegates, and more votes.

But Hillary Clinton claims that she has proven she is the most likely winner against John McCain because she won “all the big states” in the Democratic primaries.

It’s faulty reasoning; to accept this you have to believe that California, New York, Ohio and the rest of the big blue states (Obama won Illinois) would automatically fall to the Republicans in an Obama-McCain match-up. Hard argument to make.

If Obama would only cede to Clinton the race he is winning — one in which she cannot now legitimately overtake him — all would be peaceful. Like a spoiled child, she seems determined to nag, browbeat, whine and stubbornly hold on until everyone else is exhausted and just gives in.

Some of those same misguided pundits and politicians suggest that the perfect solution is to put these two on the same ticket. I don’t think so.

Clinton has run a mean, dishonest, cynical campaign. The idea of both running together is idealistic to a fault, in my opinion. And not a good idea politically.

Nonetheless, the Clintons would have you believe they would offer Obama the vice-presidential spot, but if you trust a word they are saying you aren’t learning from history. The lying and cheating they’ve engaged in has completely alienated me, of all people.

But just for the sake of argument, imagine a Clinton/Obama ticket: That would present a near certainty that Mrs. Clinton’s high negatives throughout the country would (a) draw out more Republican voters and (b) cause not just a few Obama folks to just stay home — precisely because of the negative campaign she has run against him.

For that matter, can you imagine her choosing as VP someone who would outshine her? Or, for that matter, someone to whom she owes no favor?

Now imagine Obama/Clinton: If Hillary were the VP candidate, because of those high negatives, she would drag down the vote in the states Obama could win without her. The result would be losing many down-ballot races, so that even were Obama/Clinton to win it might well cost the Democrats important congressional seats.

Anyway, why would the guy who is in first place accept second place? Especially knowing that he would end up being part of a threesome, outnumbered by Clintons?

Finally, have you thought through what another four or eight years of Clintons in the White House would be like for the country?

I think she figures that she will by God be the nominee and devil take the hindmost; if that gives the election to McCain — who is better qualified anyway, according to her — then, so what? He likely would serve only one term and then she’ll be baa-ack!

People in the know have almost to a person acknowledged that in fact the candidates’ positions are so close on matters of substance, with differences primarily in how they would implement this or that idea, that it really has come down to which style of leader we want.

My own personal take on the choice is this:

Do we want someone who will tell us what to do, or someone who will persuade us to do it? Do we want secrecy, or transparency? Do we want calculation and triangulation, or is it time to play it straight?

And, finally, do we want another four or more years of drama with all the same old players, or do we want a fresh start?

Is a sore loser inevitable?

It was only a couple of months ago that I suggested in this space that the primary season would soon be upon us, but I never imagined that it might be Texas that would determine the winners!

On the Democratic side, the race is so far too close to call and our primary on March 4th will be significant — when’s the last time you had a chance to vote in a Presidential primary knowing that your vote would actually matter?

I wrote then:

We haven’t seen a lot of the candidates here in Texas, of course, because Texas doesn’t get to vote in a primary until next March, by which time it may be all over.

Wrong!

And then:

What I’d give for the old days of “brokered” conventions!

Maybe wrong again: I should have remembered that old admonition, to be careful what you wish for! It certainly looks like that’s where we are headed, and it’s not pretty.

On the one hand, events have — I believe happily — proven the pundits’ assessment of Clinton “inevitability” to be dead wrong!

On the other, there could be a destructive battle to decide who will seek the presidency on behalf of the Democratic party.

There is already anger and bitterness in the air, mostly, it seems to me, flowing from the Clinton campaign and certain of its supporters demanding, each time they perceive a setback, that some rule or other be changed to their benefit.

The anger is on display when Bill shakes his finger at his audience, when his wife attacks the press for treating her unfairly, and most recently in the form of a screed written by Robin Morgan, a prominent feminist, blaming “sociopathic woman-hating” for what’s going on.

These activities are disturbing because of what they tell us about the candidate. And whether you believe it or not, as tempting as it is to have a candidate who will do anything, change every rule, to defeat the Republican candidate in the fall, it is already settled in the minds of many Democrats that they really, truly, want an end to this kind of politicking.

Clinton’s decision to portray herself as inevitable from the get-go did not work, though it seemed at first it might. It didn’t work for two reasons: The voters turned out not to appreciate the arrogance and sense of entitlement that seemed to underlie it; and Barack Obama turned out to be, as even Bill Clinton acknowledged the other day, the more exciting candidate.

But, she argues, Obama hasn’t been truly “vetted” so no one knows what his opponents might dredge up to throw at him, whereas everyone already knows everything there is to know about her.

Well not quite: There is still the unresolved request for her White House records and tax returns to be disclosed, and the influence of Bill’s rather eclectic business dealings.

In any event, as Barack Obama himself somewhat amusedly pointed out, there is no doubt that whatever can be dug up against him would most likely have been uncovered by the Clintons by now.

Mrs. Clinton’s claim that she will be “ready from Day One in the Oval Office” has always struck me as somewhat peculiar, given that the first day in the Oval Office doesn’t arrive until almost three months after the election — a space in time designed by our better-angel forbears to allow for the smooth transfer of power and plenty of preparation, Cabinet building and the like.

And then there’s Bill. What can I say?

Now, there were some fine accomplishments during the Bill Clinton presidency, most notably a healthy economy, but there were also more some not-so-wonderful events — most notably the failed health care plan and the passage of NAFTA — and more problems than you could shake a stick at, problems no one wants to take on again, not to mention a level of inter-party rancor that does not appear to have faded.

That in mind, Hillary Clinton argues that she is the best qualified to withstand attacks from Republicans because of all that she has endured; what folks need to consider is that those attacks were leveled at the Clintons!

Which means one thing does seem inevitable: If Hillary Clinton is the nominee, and if she were to win the White House — certainly not a certainty — we’d be right back where we left off in 2000, rancor and all.

I don’t see what I believe America needs, and I do see what I believe America most assuredly does not need.

Beginning with early voting on February 19th, Texas now has the rare and remarkable opportunity to change the course of American politics for a good long while. The calculation even by folks in her own campaign is that if Hillary Clinton does not win Texas — and win it big — the race will be over and Barack Obama will secure the nomination.

You can talk all day long about “superdelegates” but the consensus continues to be that Texas can decide the outcome and maybe even help to save the world!

The Clintons constantly deride Barack Obama’s rhetoric as “poetry” contrasted with the “prose” she offers. So a little spin here is irresistible:

“Prose” is the root of “prosaic,” and if Obama is the opposite of prosaic, then, according to the thesaurus, he is extraordinary, imaginative, inspired and inspiring — just what we need in a leader!

Political Spin

Let’s just talk about political spin for a moment. And why I hate it.

To “spin” a comment or event is to, literally, twirl it about to make it sound the way you want, so you can use it to win the argument, the day, the election. In some cases, it is a way to turn truth into a convenient lie.

Barack Obama said, last week, in an in-depth interview with the Reno Journal-Gazette editorial board, that the coming election was similar to 1980, when President Ronald Reagan “changed the trajectory” of the country. He explained that in 1980 the voters:

. . . felt like with all the excesses of the 60s and the 70s and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think [Reagan] tapped into what people were already feeling. Which is we want clarity, we want optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing.

I think most folks would agree with that simple observation.

Obama went on to say that he thought that, for “large chunks of time” over the last 10-15 years, the Republican Party had actually been more a party of ideas than the Democrats, “in that they were challenging conventional wisdom.” He included in this observation that he did not necessarily agree with those ideas.

SPIN TIME: The Clinton campaign immediately trotted out the notion that Barack Obama had spoken “very favorably” of Ronald Reagan, and that Obama had said the Republicans had better ideas. Hillary went on to suggest that Obama must therefore be in favor of privatizing social security, eliminating the minimum wage, cutting healthcare benefits and giving goodies to the pharmaceutical companies. Bill Clinton made it clear he was not happy.

Anyone see a problem with this?

If you agree with the Clinton spin, then I had better not tell you that Mussolini made the trains run on time, or you would think I was a fan of his. And, of course, it I told you that Hugo Chavez has brought radical changes to Venezuela it has to mean I just LOVE what he’s doing to his people.

One of the difficulties in running for office is divining just how your most thoughtful remark might be understood — or misunderstood.

Now, sometimes a little spin is warranted, can be done without lying, and doesn’t really offend anyone.

Take the results of the Nevada caucuses this past weekend.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney did such a walkaway there was nothing left to spin, unless you cared to say it was just because of a huge Mormon turnout, which would not necessarily be the case as he moves along.

And on the Democratic side:

It was a great victory for the Clintons, for whom 51% of the voters declared.

It was a great victory for Barack Obama, who came from behind to win 13 delegates to Hillary’s 12!

All true. Quite spinnable. No harm, no foul. No lies.

And no clear winner, apparently, since the State party chairman has pointed out that everything could change at their county and state conventions!

Golly, those people get to have all the fun!

Nothing wrong with the polls!

I am perfectly satisfied with the analysis offered on Keith Olbermann's Countdown a couple of days after the election. He and Craig Crawford, of Congressional Quarterly, went through the numbers, and if I recall them more or less correctly, it came out that the percentage of the vote predicted for Obama (between 34 and 38) was just about right — he landed at 36%.

The number that was wrong, that had been forecast for Clinton, was 28%, obviously low. But then the number of UNDECIDED or MIGHT CHANGE votes was over 40% or so.

Looks like the majority of those broke for Clinton, maybe because of tears, maybe because of sympathy, etc., or maybe just because a lot of Clinton voters held back until the last minute. And it's reported that lots of those were women over 45 who (anecdotally) felt HRC had been mistreated.

Some independents who voted for McCain did so, they said, to stop Romney, but only after they were assured by the polls that Obama had it nailed. That would explain McCain's unexpectedly high numbers.

In the end, the POLLS weren’t to blame — the interpreters were.

Authenticity 2, Money 0

Indeed, the events in Iowa last week must bring joy to the heart of every American who has despaired at the increasing influence of money and power in our politics, lamented the prevalence of sound-bite speechifying, all but succumbed to the feeling that too many seeking office see us, the voters, as dopes.

Whatever else the pundits may make of the outcome of the Iowa caucuses, it is abundantly clear that Americans really want change, but even more, we want authenticity.

Barack Obama, the only Democratic candidate who is not old news, has captivated his audiences (which have been huge and continue to grow) with his Kennedyesque ideas, coolly intelligent speaking style and wit, talking to his listeners as “you” instead of talking about “I.” He handily won the Iowa caucuses, thrilling supporters and cynics alike.

Obama, a youngish “skinny man with a funny name” with roots in Africa, won the first vote of the 2008 election for president of the United States! Can you imagine how that will play around the world?

Hillary Clinton, much to everyone’s surprise (most notably hers and her advisers’) came in third, 9 points behind Obama. Writing in this space a few weeks ago, I suggested that her claim to “strength and experience” was mostly myth and manufacture, and I do think that is part of what hurt her in Iowa; also hurting her was the omnipresence of her husband, which had the effect of reminding people that he was her only real qualification for the job.

For reasons probably having to do with what I call the “re-run factor,” John Edwards, notwithstanding a popular populist message, managed to eke out only slightly more support than Clinton. But that’s not the story here.

Now, some folks claim there is very little difference in what the two leading Democratic candidates offer; I disagree with that, but that’s another discussion. The difference is in how they offer it: One candidate appears completely comfortable speaking without a script, the other seems to need one; the former seems to speak from the heart, the other from calculation.

Over on the Republican side, Mike Huckabee, despite a slightly oddball outlook on some matters and absolutely no national or international experience, routed Mitt Romney, described by many in the media as the “perfect” presidential candidate.
Interestingly, the difference was almost exactly the same 9% as Obama’s lead over Clinton.

Huckabee exudes a genuine, unpretentious affability with a down-home flavor; you could call him the real McCoy. He, too, despite a wariness of his strong evangelical support, has charmed the media — though not, apparently, much of the Republican establishment.

Republican stalwarts from the Club for Growth and the Weekly Standard to Rush Limbaugh have attacked him on issues from taxes to immigration (“We shouldn’t punish the children of illegal immigrants for their parents’ acts,” he once said.) It’s panic in the streets as the Republican Party tears itself apart to keep a true compassionate conservative from winning.

Huckabee is unfailingly described as sincere and “authentic,” whereas Romney, described by wags as the “Stepford” candidate, has won rare-if-ever anti-endorsements from two conservative New Hampshire newspapers.

According to the Concord Monitor, “If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it. Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.

And the Union Leader, which had endorsed McCain, chimed in: “Romney has all the advantages: money, organization, geographic proximity, statesman-like hair, etc. But he lacks something John McCain has in spades: conviction….He has spoken his lines well, but the people can sense that the words are memorized, not heartfelt.”

According to the folks who like arithmetic, the legendary amounts of his own money that Romney, a multimillionaire, invested in the Iowa campaign amounted to more than half his total; his overall expenditure in Iowa worked out to about $250 per vote when the final count was in, contrasted with Huckabee’s $35 or so.

Does this mean you can’t buy an election? Time will tell, but for now we know with certainty that you can’t buy Iowa.

Now, unless the New Hampshire primaries blow away my theory, we’re on a roll. It looks like America may finally be on the verge of something big, something positive, something authentic, and above all, something new.

What You See . . .

This may come as a shock to a reader or two, but the season is upon us and beginning in just two months voters will participate in what may be the most important decision Americans have had to make in a lifetime: Who can best lead our country out of this mess?

The next President of the United States will be presented with what I liken to a pile of pick-up-sticks, each with its own label:

Iraq. Iran. Israel. Pakistan. The economy. Mortgage crisis. Health care. Medicare. SCHIP. Foreign policy. Education. Taxes. Drugs. Crime. Trade. Energy. Immigration. Environment. Social Security.

And those are just the ones we can see from here.

Where to begin? Which one to try to extract first from the stack — ever so carefully, so as not to collapse the whole?

Democratic and Republican candidates for President have been on the road for what seems years (well, in one or two cases I guess that is true) in search of support among various constituencies north, south, east and west, and interest groups however miniscule, and the question “Did you watch the debate?” is most often answered, “Which one?”

We haven’t seen a lot of the candidates here in Texas, of course, because Texas doesn’t get to vote in a primary until next March, by which time it may be all over. Or so the pundits tell us. Personally, I dearly hope not.

What I’d give for the old days of “brokered” conventions! Where the party faithful noisily got together in some welcoming city and listened for several days as an array of Presidential hopefuls and their supporters sought their votes; back when they engaged in debate, argument, negotiations and sometimes even arm-twisting to arrive at a chosen candidate for President!

Well, we have what we have, and we have to deal with it.

And first of all we have to ignore the pundits, who do a public disservice in declaring the “inevitability” of one candidate or another. I can’t quarrel with publishing the results of legitimate polling — that’s just news (and may in fact serve as a call to work harder for some candidates!). But the folks who tell us the numbers need to stop there and let us decide what to make of them.

We have a responsibility, with so little time left (at least a good chunk of which will be pretty much consumed by the holidays), to pay as close attention from now on to what the candidates are saying and doing as if our lives depended on the outcome, which may be the case.

For starters, take the Democratic “front-runner” — please!

Now I suppose if I weren’t worried about this I’d love the idea of inevitability, but I do have some concerns and I am worried (though this may be surprising to some): I don’t see what I believe America needs, and I do see what I believe America most assuredly does not need.

America needs a leader who is strong, yes, but you could say that anyone who can endure the slings and arrows and the grueling trek of an almost two-year presidential campaign just about qualifies.

And a lot of candidates talk about the importance of having one kind of “experience” or another, but the truth is there is no experience that in itself can prepare you for the singular position of world leader. It’s the people around the President to whom we should pay attention, for there you see what you are likely to get. As we ought to know by now.

Anyway, Hillary Clinton’s so-called “strength and experience” is mostly a myth. The former consists of committee appointments she sought out when she came to the Senate, some legislative moves cynically calculated to make her look tough and war-like, and an occasional war-like statement on the stump.

Her “experience” includes voting in the Senate (following President Bush) to ban flag burning and in favor of bankruptcy legislation the credit companies loved, not to mention in favor of allowing Bush to take us to war in Iraq and for legislation that might allow him to take us to war in Iran, and oh yes, before that living in the White House when her husband was President.

And of course there was the disastrous health care plan, put together in secret meetings with unidentified advisers (remind you of anyone?), that she couldn’t get through Congress despite having the full force of the White House at her disposal. So we take all we learn from listening and watching and then try to envision the kind of presidency we’d have. And here’s my problem:

I don't see a single decision being made without calculation as to reelection, and I don't see the political climate getting any better. Most troubling, I see a continuation of the kind of outright secrecy and dissembling that we've lived with throughout the current administration's tenure.

Now I don’t offer this as a comprehensive evaluation of this candidate; I just wanted to show the reader why it may be useful to pay really, really close attention to what is being said and done by those who want us to trust them with our country and our world.

I know that a lot of women, regardless of party, are supporting Hillary because they understandably are thrilled at the prospect of a woman president (as I would be, were it the right one). The perfect irony is that if she weren’t the wife of Bill Clinton she would be practically unknown.