Diane Francis, Financial Post Published: Tuesday, April 01, 2008Hillary Clinton has no strategy to win the Democratic nomination except to just hang in there in the hopes that Obama missteps. But her drive-by bullets have yet to hit the mark and by staying in longer, she's the one who has been misstepping.
All of which means it is business as usual in the United States, which is not good news for Canada and others.
She is like a political hangover or friend who doesn't get the hint. Her numbers fall, his rise, and the economy suffers as both indulge in the usual, boring war-bashing, big pharma-bashing, Wall Street-bashing, trade-bashing and calls to bail out the non-Wall Streeters, too.
The alternative is not jolly for business, either. John McCain pays lip service to the scorched-earth school of economics and claims he wouldn't bail out anybody, safe in the knowledge that Wall Street and its Republicans are already pretty safe for a while and, besides, that bailouts will never be his call even if he occupies the White House. It's Ben Bernanke's business. Praise the Lord.
For those of us perched north of the border, the whole election is fascinating but worrisome and, unfortunately, reminiscent of our own third-raters in public life. Mastery and wisdom in matters dealing with markets, economics, business and the financial system are not trump cards in the hands the Final Three hold, McCain, Hillary and Barack Obama. Nor is it, needless to say, the case in Canada where socialist-capitalist is not an oxymoron.
The ageing McBush, or rather Mc-Cain, is not interested in business. He married into a gigantic business and is a third-generation warrior from a long line of testosterone-laced machos. He, like the hapless President George W. Bush, may appear manly and determined to protect the citizenry, but both failed to identify the real weapon of mass destruction threatening America: its lurking toxic time bombs in its warfare, plus financial, credit, currency and mortgage markets.
Add to the mix Dead Woman Talking (Hillary), whose comments about Obama's preacher failed to change the subject of her apparent and self-described fabricated Kosovo "heroism." She has relegated this to "misspeaking," rather than delusion, and has blamed it on "sleep deprivation."
(I can now see all those American ambulance chasers, who support the Democrats, seizing on sleep dep as the new defence for anything by anyone.)
By so doing, Clinton has not revealed sleep challenge, but a character flaw. Unaddressed and unrecanted, she instead changed the subject to guilt by association and Obama's loopy preacher's sermons. Of all people in public life to impose guilt by association ("I never had sex with that woman"), she has merely shown herself to be vicious and vacuous.
Fortunately this past week, it became apparent she will be toasted eventually, and I believe her memory and statements will be thrown out with yesterday's newspaper. If you disagree, name me the original candidates in both parties if you can. I can't.
So the Clintons must leave, sooner rather than later, so Obama can take advantage of McCain's worrisome senior's moments. Please.
Nobody really liked the Clintons after what Billy did, and her inappropriate candidacy, but were too polite to say anything and too busy trying to find an alternative. They did, led by Oprah, and it's Obama.
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