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Alternate Universes
In the upcoming edition of The New Yorker, Henrik Hertzberg hypothesizes that Hillary Clinton would have been more assured of a victory this year had she moved to Illinois and run in 2004 for the Senate.
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/05/19/080519taco_talk_hertzberg
Not an unreasonable theory, but just to be contrarian.... Obama surprised everyone in the Illinois primary by blowing away what was thought to be a pretty strong field of other Democrats. As long as we're positing alternate universes, I'm going to say it's not unreasonable that he might have beaten her under those circumstances, too.
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Comments (8)
The other alternate universe Hertzberg postulated seems a lot more plausible -- the one where Hillary made the right call on Iraq and voted against it. That was all any average voter knew about Obama at the beginning to differentiate the two.
Thanks for pointing this article out, though. A fun read.
May 12, 2008 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think if she were the Senator from Illinois, she'd have had more credibility because she had roots there. When she moved to New York, a lot of people knew she was doing it because it was the politically expedient thing to do and it just made negative ratings go up.
May 12, 2008 6:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama would have had a difficult contest against Clinton in Illinois, because she was way more familiar a name to the state as a whole.
May 12, 2008 6:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if the Democrats ran things like Republicans she'd be President by now. All she has are alternate universes.
May 12, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Did anyone else hear this? - maybe I dreamed it, but I think it was on a news show from a usually soft-spoken Obama spokesman who was pushed just a bit too far by the endless if this and if that of a Clinton spokesperson: something like "Yeah, and if my uncle didn't have a penis he'd be my aunt!"
May 12, 2008 8:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or as I tell DairyStateKids when they ask "what if" questions... "What if your grandmother had a beard and was your grandfather?"
May 12, 2008 10:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ergoquid:
Yeah, I heard that one. I think he said it more like "if my aunt had a male appendage she'd be my uncle," IIRC. I think I saw it on Veracifier, come to think of it.
May 13, 2008 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, thank you! that was it. I couldn't remember the exact language, and what I came up with didn't sound plausible for network news.
May 13, 2008 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
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