An Exhausting 7-Week Marathon
By Denis Campbell • Apr 22nd, 2008 • Category: Politics
Fitting that the day after the Boston Marathon, 20 grueling miles to the top of Heartbreak Hill and then 6 long downhill miles, the Democratic candidates are near the line for the latest head-to-head battle in Pennsylvania. Many including me, want the bloodletting to end yet we’re riveted as if watching a car crash as the focus shifts from Pennsylvania to Indiana and North Carolina with no end in sight. Or,as some are begining to suggest, are the Clintons involved in a larger endgame?
Depending on which conspiracy theorist trying to invent the “real” story you listen to, and forgetting the right wing nut cases saying Obama is a Muslim or not patriotic…. there are two interesting theories gaining traction.
The first has Senator Clinton fighting to the finish as an audition for 2012 and ‘16. She knows she cannot defeat Barack Obama and so the Clinton camp will urge their followers to stay home in November so he loses to John McCain. She goes down swinging to come back as the (again) presumptive favourite once John McCain (would he realisticaly run again at age 75?) tanks the economy and prolongs the war in Iraq. The Clintons save face and like the monster in the horror film rise again from the swamp much in the same way that Obama has not been able to deliver the knockout punch in now four tries.
The second is she is the only logical winning choice as Obama’s running mate and wants the VP slot very badly. It would keep Bill at arms length and put him back on the speaking circuit while she earnes her bona fides for ‘16 in the number two slot. Some even ghoulishly suggest that she could be elevated as a result of tragedy at some point. The Internet is a sick place.
I agree it is a funny way to show your desire to hold a position and it would make sense in the down is up world of politics played inside the beltway. One thing though is certain, unless Hillary loses Pennsylvania, the show will go on and on and on.
The political prediction for the coming week: If Obama loses by less than 10 points, Al Gore and Jimmy Carter step forward to unite the party and get the madness to stop. It would be tough for the party’s true elder and leader Bill Clinton to act as peacemaker and a genuine arbiter.
We are keeping tuned in.
Denis Campbell is a journalist, author and businessman.
From a farmhouse in South Wales overlooking the Irish Sea, he and his wife run Target Point Ltd, an EU-wide strategy firm working with global businesses across a dozen industries on clarifying and executing strategy and changing their culture and focus. As a businessman living in the EU for 10-years, writing was a passionate hobby. He began blogging in 2006 with a number of pieces examining the corrupt climate of deception in the billion dollar spiritual self-help industry and re-published collected business, political and lifestyle features published across the EU since 2001. It has since grown into The Vadimus Post, from the Latin Quo Vadimus – where are we headed? (…and do we know why?), a daily e-magazine for those wanting to dig deeper, learn more together and dialogue on the key issues of the day.
Thanks for visiting and feel free to let me know your thoughts and opinions.
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