'Can't Win'

From ABC News:

Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and former President Bill Clinton are making very direct arguments to Democratic superdelegates, starkly insisting Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., cannot win a general election against presumptive Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

Sources with direct knowledge of the conversation between Sen. Clinton and Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., prior o the Governor's endorsement of Obama say she told him flatly, "He cannot win, Bill. He cannot win."

Color me, D-Fl., surprised. While this is the lead story for a variety of news outlets this morning, and described as a "Clinton Bombshell" by Matt Drudge, I'm scratching my head and thinking, what's the big deal?

The My-Opponent-Can't-Win-In-The-General-Election line is not exactly new to American politics. Nor is it new to our current campaign. In fact, for a good many people who pay attention to such trifling matters as who our next president will be, it is the first question they ask when assessing a candidate: Can he or she win?In fact, when the Democratic contest began, that was my greatest worry about Hillary Clinton. Survey after survey, dating back to her exit from the White House, showed her to be a deeply polarizing figure to the American electorate. She might easily win a Senate seat in New York (where I once voted for her), but in the rest of the country her power to unite people seemed limited to vengeful Republicans. I concluded that the hatred of all things Clinton would not be overturned any time soon. In short, I decided "she can't win."

Of course, the "can't win" argument is not really based on hard evidence. It's a hunch. We won't know whether or not Clinton or Obama has the stuff to take down John McCain in the general election until that contest plays out. So our speculation, willful at times, should not be read as some sort of inevitable conclusion based upon indisputable facts. The Clinton's know that, I know that.

Even Bill Richardson, it appears, knows that. Political Machine contributor and Time Magazine gumshoe Mark Halperin has his own bombshell this morning:

New Mexico Governor, in talks with both Clintons about his endorsement, is said to have been the one to argue that Obama did not have the experience necessary to beat McCain.

Guess Richardson changed his mind. Who knows. Today, he denies ever promising Bill Clinton a thing. Squabble, squabble. The point is, we all have our intuitions about these candidates. We have formed an opinion as to whether or not he or she can win the general election. I will say this, John McCain certainly can win a Republican primary, and a whole lot of people said he couldn't. For that matter, declaring that the person who is currently beating you is not capable of beating the next guy, thereby implying that you can, is a bit of a stretch. True, sometimes it's all about match-ups. But that's not the way we play this thing. Just as in the NCAA basketball tournament, it's win or go home. You concentrate on the contest at hand, not on whether or not your opponent will win his next game.

One thing is certain from these revelations: If Obama's rallying cry, "Yes, we can!" seemed to be getting a tad stale, the Clintons private/public nay-saying has ensured that we'll be hearing it quite a whole lot more over the coming weeks.