It seems that Hillary Clinton’s best current argument for why voters should vote in favor of her is that she can win in the “big” states.  Frankly, this is (at best) just plain silly.  Right now, the voters are voting for the Democratic presidential nominee.  Her only *real* opponent is Barack Obama.  If we are to listen to her and elect her as the nominee, we will be placing her in a fight against John McCain, who has also won in the “big” states.  So, if they have both shown that they can win in the “big” states, they should both win and we will end up having a double presidency.  Which we all know is impossible.

Here is how I see things.  Currently, the Democratic nomination is still up for grabs.  The Republican nomination has been decided, so that frees up a bunch of Republicans to vote in the Democratic primaries.  And they’re doing just that.  In our primary in WI, many Republicans voted for either Clinton or Obama because they knew McCain had it in the bag.  There are two reasons that a Republican might have for casting a vote in the Democratic primary.  The one that seems to make the most sense for the good of the country is to help select a Democratic nominee that would be acceptable to Republicans in the even the Republican nominee loses the general election.  The other reason that may seem a little underhanded would be to help elect the person *least* likely to win against the Republican nominee in the general election to ensure the continued occupation of the White House by a Republican.  Which are they doing?  The ones I have spoken with have told me they are trying to elect with good intentions – not trying to pick the inherent loser to make sure we are talking about President McCain in a year.

The key question here is this.  How many of the Republicans that voted/will vote in the Democratic primary will vote Democrat in November?  That is the question that’s not being answered – or even asked.  It’s my opinion that many of the Republicans who are helping to pick the Democratic nominee will vote for McCain in November when it matters.  I have also spoken to a number of Republicans that are very disappointed in the selection of McCain as the nominee.  Some of them are saying that they won’t vote for him in November.  But does that mean that vote is automatically going to go to the Democratic nominee or that these voters will just stay home?  And what impact will that have?

The bottom line is that just because Hillary can win the big states when facing Barack doesn’t mean she can pull it off against a Republican.  Especially a Republican like McCain, who may even attract some more moderate Democrats due to his history of “reaching across the aisle” to work with Democrats to create cooperative solutions (ex: the McCain – Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act).  It will definitely be interesting to see how this process plays out, but Hillary’s current best argument isn’t even an argument.  It doesn’t make a smidgen of sense.