David Michael Miller
The Democrats are set to nominate Hillary Clinton the way a death row inmate marks the days before his execution. The death warrant has been signed, the appeals have been all but exhausted, the chaplain is waiting in the hall. W.C. Fields’ headstone reads, “Better here than in Philadelphia.” The Democrats will nominate Clinton at their convention in the City of Brotherly Love. Maybe they’d rather be someplace else.
But there’s a razor-thin — and exceedingly unlikely — chance for a last-minute stay.
Clinton is the Walter Mondale of 2016. The next person in line. The one who has “earned it” and “deserves it.” Never mind that she’s spectacularly unpopular, with a disapproval rating that rivals Donald Trump’s own bad numbers.
Let that settle in. Hillary Clinton is disliked in almost the same proportion as a man who has said that prisoners of war are essentially losers.
And still the party marches on toward what would be its doom if the other guys weren’t nominating somebody even worse. It doesn’t have to be this way. In fact, the whole idea behind super delegates is that they’re supposed to be a mobile smoked-filled room, a group of cold-eyed political professionals who will do what’s best for the party. Instead, the super delegates are mostly a bunch of Clinton pals who embrace the view that she’s earned it, not that she’s the best the party has to offer.
Now, she still may well win in November. Even though current numbers show her in a dead heat with Trump (amazing in itself), that’s because the GOP is rallying around their man, while Bernie Sanders continues his campaign for a while. Once Clinton is the official nominee and Sanders drops out, we can expect that Clinton will pop back up into a significant lead.
But what if she doesn’t? Why risk it? With so much at stake this time and the country that close to being governed by an egomaniac fool at best and a megalomaniac fascist at worst, why wouldn’t the party reconsider and put its best foot forward?
In my view those best feet would belong to Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren. Biden has establishment credentials to match Clinton’s, but he doesn’t come off that way. He’s got the folksy, avuncular manner and genuine nature that is alien to Clinton, who comes off as, well, an alien. And Warren would make Bernie Sanders supporters forget they were “robbed” of his nomination (which, by the way, they weren’t).
The Democrats should be doubly concerned about Clinton’s email problems, which just won’t go away. The latest report is that she and her staff refused to accept clear direction from the State Department to get on the agency’s secure server. The narrative that she is arrogant and dishonest just won’t stop being fed.
Look, Hillary Clinton is no doubt qualified to be president, but she is the worst possible candidate for the moment. In a year when a sizable part of the country is fed up with politics as usual, Clinton is as usual as they come. She bleeds establishment, and she cannot change. In fact, her every attempt to be somebody she’s not just underscores her image as a calculating politician.
Democrats should care about their country more than their party, and they should care not at all about who’s next in line. Dumping a weak nominee who has earned it in favor of someone who didn’t even run but who has a surer chance of winning would be the right thing to do for the party and for the nation.