The subject at hand is the realm in which politicians act, with greater or lesser effectiveness, as tribunes of deeply-felt desires. Arguments over issues and specifics belong somewhere else.

I predict that whatever she does, it will be designed with the intention of maximizing the probability that Barack will be our next President. Or, actually, doing whatever the Obama campaign thinks would best serve that purpose, even if it conflicts with her own political judgement. At this point I trust the Obama campaign not to make the same mistake the Gore campaign did with Hillary's husband in 2000, so that lessens still further the chance that she'll just live quietly from now on.

Now that that's squared away, we can triangl-ance over the topic at hand. We have to get the cor-rectangle on these matters, after all, before we get an a-polygon-set of puns.

Damn, too late.

But seriously. In some ways, not becoming president is a gift, too. As president, you get four, maybe eight years of serious power, but then what*? She could easily play the elder stateswoman long game for decades.

Would she be a good nominee for the Supreme Court? Or would she prefer the legislative branch?

-----
* unless you're Jimmy Carter, of course

(Time flies like an arrow... sorry, I'll go away now, it's the drugs.)

I think she'd be a lot more useful - and a lot happier there - than as the Secretary of HHS. The battle for health care reform will be fought in the legislature; the Cabinet department's role will be more advisory than anything else when the policy is being created. (As I understand it, anyway.)

I hope that Scalzi's prediction ends up accurate. I nodded energetically to Obama's speech when he accepted the nomination, that whatever happens, Hillary Clinton will have been responsible for many of the solutions we end up with when we solve crises like healthcare--and that she should absolutely get the credit for it.

Oh, what she could do there to restore some real balance.

I agree with you.

However, No More Batshit Fanatic Rightwing Misogynists on the Supreme Court (and may the universe move to excise Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts from the bench, and send at least Scalia into a jail cell for perjury/lying under oath, and Thomas, too, and likely also Alito and Roberts....)

Now MOCK me, damn you all, MOCK MEEEeeeeeeee!

It's a form of attention, after all...

I like the idea of Clinton on the Court simply because I like the idea of every right-wing brain in the country exploding with a single zit-like pop, from sea to shining sea. The thought might even be enough to get me past my reservations about her views on the proper balance between executive and legislative power.

I think the extended primary season will make a difference in this. In recent history, we've tended to have the runner-ups drop out of the primaries early. This leaves them in a comparatively weak position, as they can't say, as she can, that they collected many primary votes in all of the states. By staying in the primary, and collecting so many votes, Hillary has made herself more formidable politically than if she'd dropped out early.

She has approximately half the popular votes for the Democratic nomination, give or take depending on the way you count. She must be treated with respect, because a failure to respect her is a failure to respect all of the people who supported her - people who are essential for a Democratic win in November.

| Conservative pundits heads exploding, oh! Four- or five-hundred
| commentators, ten stories into into the sky and it—it's a terrific
| explosion, ladies and gentlemen. It's smoke, and it's flames now, and
| the Weekly Standard offices are crashing to the ground, not quite to
| the parking garage. Oh, the humanity, and all the research assistants
| streaming out here. I told you you; it—I can't even talk to people.
| Their friends are in there. I—I can't talk, ladies and
| gentlemen. Honest: it's just laying there, a mass of headless pundits
| and gore and smoking ruin. Ah! And everybody can hardly breathe and
| talk and...lady, I—I—I'm sorry. Honest: I—I can hardly breathe. I—
| I'm going to step inside, where I cannot see it...I can't. Listen,
| folks; I—I'm gonna have to stop for a minute because I've lost my
| voice. This is the worst thing I've ever witnessed.

Oh, the humanity.

That was quite a broadcast there. The pictures on my /r/a/d/i/o/ brain-monitor were really good.

(Did I guess right?)

Clinton strikes me as a politician very willing to compromise her personal beliefs for the sake of politics.* Given that the narrative she was indoctrinated in was "Democrats suck, centrism is their only hope," I'm guessing that her personal views are considerably to the left of what she represents in public. Once on the Court, I think she might feel less constrained to play the centrist. Maybe, like Gore, she would benefit from getting out of electoral politics.

*In other words, an effective one.

#33, heresiarch: I don't think Hillary Clinton's politics are quite as simple as you claim. She's definitely to her husband's (and Obama's) left on domestic issues--and, on foreign policy, distinctly to Obama's (and perhaps Bill's) right. What my political spider sense tells me is that there are possible American futures in which this is a combination of supreme electoral effectiveness. I'd like to opt for "other futures," please, and a vowel.

In my own opinion this year was not just her last, best chance of becoming president but also her last, best chance of staying relevant. She represents the triangulating, 1990s wing of the Democratic Party and with Obama's victory in the primaries the party has finally moved on from there. Only in the unlikely case that Obama loses the general election will she have another chance.

I was riffing on the Hindenberg crash radio transcript. Though the "Turkeys could fly" WKRP episode would be a fun one to do.

Patrick #34:

I didn't manage to cause willing suspension of disbelief?

I visualize the Weekly Standard fact checkers being quite busy, honestly.

Fact Checker: Hello, is this the PR department of Exxon-Mobil? I'm waiting for your comments on our story about drilling in Alaska. Can you get back to us pretty soon? We've already gotten approval from Bechtel and BP, and we're just waiting on you and Haliburton so we can run the story. Thanks!

I'm not sure I'm happy about it, but hey...

It's not hard to see Senator Clinton back in this arena, with potentially more success on making changes.

Oh, the humanity!