Nader and Clinton - the Obama foils

So, Ralph Nader is running for office. For some reason (well, assuming that Obama is the nominee), this doesn't really worry me that much. Seriously, how egotistical can one man be? I would support a Ron Paul or Bloomberg candidacy WAY more than Nader. For one reason, his time has passed him by, and second, Barack Obama is able to dis a person with so much more class than I can:

"You know, he had called me and I think reached out to my campaign — my sense is is that Mr. Nader is somebody who, if you don’t listen and adopt all of his policies, thinks you’re not substantive. He seems to have a pretty high opinion of his own work. Now — and by the way, I have to say that, historically, he is a singular figure in American politics and has done as much as just about anybody on behalf of consumers. So in many ways he is a heroic figure and I don’t mean to diminish him. But I do think there is a sense now that if somebody is not hewing to the Ralph Nader agenda, then you must be lacking in some way."

Touche!

On the Clinton front, she has managed to piss me off, feel for her (just a little), a bit of schadenfreude, and a bit of a "Dead Woman Walking". I don't for a minute think that Hillary is out of the race by any means or couldn't be a good president. I just don't think at the end of the day she is in the race for the right reason (to that end, I think McCain falls into the same trap as well).

To further the point, here is a quote from a NYT article:

In interviews with 15 aides and advisers to Mrs. Clinton, not a single one expressed any regrets that they were not working for Mr. Obama. Indeed, some aides said they were baffled that a candidate who had been in the United States Senate for only three years and was a state lawmaker in Illinois before that was now outpacing a seasoned figure like Mrs. Clinton. And to a person, these aides and advisers praised Mrs. Clinton and said that she had been a better candidate than her campaign strategy and operation reflected.

If they don't get it (and are baffled) at why Obama is surging, then that just proves that there were too many yes-men in the Clinton campaign that couldn't get out of the way of their own aura of invincibility and had convinced themselves of facts not in evidence.

Any sadness I might have had for Hillary evaporates in a cloud of incompetence. If she can't run a winning campaign or a health care initiative, she now has two strikes in my book.