Hillary Clinton and McCain Match-up: What If?

TW: I put up a poll asking where you think Hillary Clinton would be relative to McCain at this point. Conventional wisdom was that Hillary would have won the Presidency with more ease than Obama. Clinton was the "safer" pick given the Clintonian reputation for moderation and the perception that she was a known quantity for better or worse. In addition she would have blazed new trails as the first female POTUS nominee which would have created tremendous excitement.

However, upon reflection I now believe Obama is doing better than she would have done. There have been two fundamental inflection points in this general election race- the selection of Palin as McCain's VP nominee and the implosion of our financial markets. Both inflection points would have evolved much differently with Clinton as the nominee.

Palin was selected as VP nominee in an effort to solidify the Republican base but also to take a stab at disaffected Clinton voters. There is no way Palin would have been nominated if Clinton had been the Dem nominee, Palin is over her head but a head to head comp with Clinton would have seemed utterly ridiculous. McCain would have picked someone else. He apparently wanted Lieberman but that would have been tantamount to declaring war on his own base. Mitt Romney or if he had been lucky Rob Portman would have been other likely picks.

So imagine we then move ahead to mid-September, the economy tanks. But instead of a neophyte who adds no value to addressing the economic crisis, McCain has a wing man (Portman or Romney) with real economic credentials flying cover. Moreover, instead of the Republicans taking almost full blame for the crisis, Clinton would have been drawn into a tussle over who screwed up worse, Bush and the Republicans of the past 8 years or her husband's Administration in the late '90's.

Net net, the McCain bump coming out of his convention might have been lower but the McCain dump in the polls starting in mid-Sept might not have happened or at least not nearly as severely. I still believe Clinton would have beaten McCain but not in the way that Obama sitting a week before the election may be able to pull off. Obama in late October appears (knock on wood) on the verge of a transformational candidacy. Clinton while herself an inherently transformational candidate, might have been in a much closer battle and one that might not have had as strong a chance to pull in many new Democratic congressional seats.