Is the right aiding and abetting a Hillary win in 2012?

By Daniel Bein

Yesterday on Counterpunch, Jeffrey St. Clair outlined what he believes is Hillary Clinton's strategy for taking the white house... in 2012. In his article St. Clair suggests that Clinton's motivation for staying in the race and continuing her attacks on Obama (despite indicators that Barack will be the nominee given his superior numbers in delegates and popular votes) is to critically hobble his campaign in the general election, allowing McCain to take the White house. St. Clair suggests that McCain would be a one termer in the mold of Jimmy Carter and could be easily defeated by Clinton in 2012. He draws parallels between Reagan's campaign against Gerald Ford in 1976, which weakened Ford and allowed Carter to take the white house, thus inheriting a dismal political and economic situation that allowed Regan to easily defeat him in 1980.

St. Clair may be correct, and if he is, the tragedy is that the right is aiding and abetting Hillary in her scheme. If Clinton is continuing her campaign just to weaken Obama, with sharp attacks aimed at discrediting him, then conservatives are playing right into her hands by jumping on the anti-Obama bandwagon. And for what? To get a Republican into office, despite the fact that John McCain is not a conservative and represents none of the values for which conservatives stand. This sad devotion to the Republican party, coupled with the fear of having a liberal black man in the white house, does nothing for the conservative movement.

In this months issue of The American Conservative, Andrew J. Bacevich makes a strong case that Barack Obama would be a better choice for conservatives than John McCain, if only because he is far more likely to end the disastrous Iraq war, which would not only save billions of dollars and many lives, but also allow Americans to view the event in hindsight, which may produce a more honest and sober analysis of American foreign policy as a whole. Says Bacevich of an Obama victory:

"...if Obama does become the nation’s 44th president, his election will constitute something approaching a definitive judgment of the Iraq War. As such, his ascent to the presidency will implicitly call into question the habits and expectations that propelled the United States into that war in the first place."

Bacevich is right. It does the right no good to support McCain over Obama who is, on one of the most important issues facing America, far more conservative than McCain. St. Clair is also right that a McCain victory in '08 could allow Hillary Clinton an opportunity to take the presidency in 2012. Despite the many reasons not support for Obama over McCain, these are two very important reasons for conservatives to consider it, and there is not one reason to consider supporting McCain.