It’s also true that Hillary was an outstanding student at Yale Law School. But so was everyone else — that’s what Yale Law School attracts. (Okay, I’m bragging; I went there, too.) As with almost everyone else who went to Yale Law, she’s smart and quick on her feet, which is why she does well in debates. Again, that’s not a qualification for the presidency (or if it is, I have about 5000 classmates and alumni I’d like to recommend ahead of her).
Since then, Hillary has been one of Bill’s closest advisers. But if that, too, were a presidential qualification, we could elect Dick Morris or James Carville (no thanks).
Granted, she got elected to the Senate in 2000. But if her name were Hillary Rodham, with no connection to a certain “Bill,” how viable would that campaign have been?
The truth is that whenever Hillary has tried to do something important on her own — and it hasn’t been very often — she’s botched it rather spectacularly. The health-care “debacle” she managed during her husband’s first term was rightly named. And, not only did she get it wrong initially on Iraq — her most important vote in a fairly undistinguished Senate career to date — she refuses, to this day, to apologize for it, thereby confirming the suspicion that she is unpleasantly imperious.
Barack Obama doesn’t exactly have a lengthy résumé, either. But he differs from Hillary in two key ways. First, if you’ve read his book, you know he’s genuinely interesting, with a set of thoughtful and original political ideas, forged in a rather unconventional background. It’s fun to read his autobiography — though it remains to be seen if this intriguing persona translates into presidential material.
Second, he’s self-made and paid his dues as a community organizer and state legislator — which provided an education in itself. He didn’t get his Senate seat by being the husband of Michelle Obama (and then pretending that somehow his spouse had nothing to do with his rise to prominence).
At the least, Hillary’s presidential campaign has two things going for it. The first, of course, is Bill. Without his fundraising network and his name behind her, she’d be nowhere. The second is her gender, which gives America a chance to elect its first female president (though I can think of scores of other accomplished women who’d make a better president).
But the cost will be high. The founders rejected royalism, in part because they had many justified reservations about dynastic politics. They knew that the fruit could fall far from the tree — and often does. We’ve already elected one incompetent to the nation’s highest office largely because he shared a recent president’s last name. Indeed, as with Hillary, it would be impossible to write a decent biography of Bush 43 because there’s no there there — and never will be. So, the Democrats are going to try the same thing eight years later? Haven’t they learned anything?
REPUBLICANS
RUDY GIULIANI Odds: 3-2
FRED THOMPSON Odds: 3-1
MITT ROMNEY Odds: 7-2
JOHN MCCAIN Odds: 7-1
MIKE HUCKABEE Odds: 200-1
SAM BROWNBACK Odds: 1000-1
TOMMY THOMPSON Odds: 20,000-1
DUNCAN HUNTER Odds: 20,000-1
JAMES GILMORE Odds: 40,000-1
TOM TANCREDO Odds: 75,000-1
RON PAUL Odds: 500,000-1
DEMOCRATS
BARACK OBAMA Odds: 4-3
HILLARY CLINTON Odds: 3-2
JOHN EDWARDS Odds: 7-1
BILL RICHARDSON Odds: 40-1
JOE BIDEN Odds: 65-1
CHRIS DODD Odds: 150-1
DENNIS KUCINICH Odds: 25,000-1
MIKE GRAVEL Odds: 1 million to 1
On the Web
The Presidential Tote Board blog: http://www.thephoenix.com/toteboard
