Legal Commentary

Pundits Bloviate, Voters Decide

By Big Tent Democrat

By Big Tent Democrat

Chris Bowers writes:

Basically, after fourteen months of hashing out the differences between the candidates on virtually every other metric, with four weeks until the Pennsylvania primary, with no revotes in Florida and Michigan, and with less than 20% of the voting actually remaining, it seems that all we have left is a long argument about electability. That is a problem because, let's face it, long arguments about electability are really boring because they are ultimately unprovable and go nowhere.

I would go further. Whether Obama is the inevitable nominee is also unprovable now. We must wait for the voters (be they the voters in the upcoming primaries or the delegates) to decide. All we can do is bloviate about it. Thus, while I agree with Chris that:

Obama will slowly slog toward clinching the nomination sometime between May 20th and June 21st.

I also know that the fact that Chris, myself, Politico and NBC think it is meaningless. The voters have to decide. It is ridiculous that some insist that Clinton must accept our arguments on this.

What is funny about it all is that on the issues there is not a dime's worth of difference between Clinton and Obama. The demonizing of Hillary Clinton by much of the Left blogosphere is simply absurd. As Atrios writes:

The distance between the two candidates on most issues isn't very large, so ultimately it comes down to making a decision based on very subjective judgments about largely unknowable things. I appreciate that many people have made their personal determinations and latched on strongly to a candidate. Personally I don't really feel like the knowns push me strongly to either candidate. The unknowns push me a bit towards Obama, but the unknowns are unknown and I don't believe I have some grand insight into them that others lack.

I agree with Atrios on these points. I ahve written on my concerns about Obama and for years on my concerns about Clinton. Neither candidate is all that in my view. I believe Obama will be the better candidate electorally but that is an opinion, not a fact. An unknowable as Atrios states.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 24, 2008 (boomark / email).