Speculation:
Hillary is tri-angulating for the White House, no matter the outcome of the dem primaries and convention.
This diary is only useful to those who are interested in exploring unconventional ways of thinking about things. If you're looking for standard-style journalism there's nothing to see here. Move along, folks.
Frankly, I hope I'm completely delusional here, because if my gut is right on this one.... I dunno quite how to think about that, yet. As they say, just because you're paranoid, that doesn't exclude the possibility that you really are being persecuted.
Moving directly into the realm of non-verifiable input, I've been having one of those 'tickles' in my head the past couple of weeks that personal experience has shown me, once things are said and done, that I'm noticing things that are relevant, but don't easily fit into logical process. I don't consider the ideas I'm assembling to be inevitable; rather they are worth taking into consideration and may come true in some form given the right set of circumstances.
So. Here's my conspiracy theory: I have a feeling that Hillary and McCain might team up if Obama wins the dem nomination. I think they'd play up the idea that they have a bipartisan ticket, great experience between the two of them, both willing to demonstrate through action how the two parties can work together to achieve common goals.
Many republican voters could be led this way because the party line has moved in a direction that doesn't reflect traditional republican concerns. McCain is running on his reputation as maverick while backtracking on his 'maverick' stances to court the extreme right wing of the party.
Hillary continues to hold a strong showing amongst dems who value Washington experience over the successful application of nontraditional strategies to achieve goals.
I think the reason they may unite is that Washington is scared to death that Obama might actually win the GE and be able to make changes in the way politics has been done. I'm reluctantly willing to imagine that there is a fundamental, core perversion within Washington which has determined governance should be for the benefit of special interests, rather than for the welfare of its disempowered constituents.
I think Washington is starting to recognize that the Obama Nation (I really like that phrase) is not just passive support, but the awakening of millions of folks who are willing to get out there and do things towards the common goal. Many of these activated people aren't going to be content to go back to watching reality tv once the GE is over, and the panacea of shopping for immediate gratification is no longer an easy option for others. They've had a taste of being an active part of something bigger than themselves, and they like the way it feels. Hell, I bet some of us will 'cling' to that feeling of empowerment we're getting from participating in political activism. :-)
I think that's an integral aspect of Obama's strategy. After all, that's where his experience comes from, back in Chicago. He already knows how to get people involved in standing up to make their lives better. I can't imagine a guy of his capacity will waste the opportunity to continue to lead the populace in doing things to fix the problems. He's got a tremendous organization already in place for the next step, and we've already accepted him as our Commander In Chief.
Now, back to The Conspiracy Theory. I've been reading Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine and...what if there's something in that? Here, in the USA today? What if starting and mismanaging an unwinnable war (with all the tangential outcomes we've seen) wasn't just a collossal judgement error, but part of a plan to keep us mired in something guaranteed to make us less safe, more fearful and feared, generationally indebted, with a broken military and internally polarized as we try to make sense of a no-win war with a must-win culture? I know. That's unthinkable evil, isn't it? But it's possible.
What if the lack of effective response to Katrina's devastation really was another prong to throw our country into shock and a sense of hopelesnes? I don't think it's an accident that many of us wondered what country we were living in, that such a catastrophe was allowed to escalate long after the hurricane blew itself out. Good job, Brownie? Well, maybe it was, depending on the outcome desired.
What if lack of regulation on the banking industry was deliberately paired with a big Bush push to get more and more proud homeowners indebted out of their means and 'owning' homes that have less value than the outstanding mortgages was something more sinister than a massive whoopsie! who'da-thunk-it-could-blow-up-like-this? moment we've come to expect from this administration? It's much easier to imagine that Bush is just stupid than to imagine that he was actively creating a situation where an unprecedented number of middle class folks would find themselves facing forclosure and unable to pay attention to the actions the administration have taken to strengthen the Executive branch of government at the cost of the constitution.
What if the resultant bleeding of decent jobs from this country was more than just an unpredictable occurrence as Big Business outsourced to other countries while making ever-increasing profits? Surely nobody benefits when underemployment runs rampant, because trickle-down economics tells us that having a few super rich folks is the best way to generate a strong, vital economy for us all. Right? We see that, don't we?
~sigh~ This is just too depressing to continue, you get the idea. Our country is under seige. We know that. What we don't know is whether it's the result of the perfect storm of ineptness or whether it's been coreographed. As the 'coincidences' stack up, I find it more and more difficult to believe that even Bush is so spectacularly unlucky that he always seems to go the wrong way when presented with big choices. I find it hard to conceive of someone who makes that many genuine mistakes but can never admit to, or apologize for, or correct course on any of them. That's how people act when they're achieving their ultimate goal and consider the resultant chaos to be acceptable collateral damage, but admitting it would be an obstacle.
The 'tickles' I'm getting with Hillary stem from these things:
*She has stated that she and McCain pass the Commander in Chief threshhold. It's taken an awful lot of sustained pressure for her to give the "yes yes yes" answer regarding Obama's electability, but that's not quite the same thing, is it? I don't think she's ever backtracked from her original position, even when bludgeoned with the fact that statements of that nature will play into the hands of the republicans to damage the dems if Obama wins the nomination.
*She continues to use the scorched earth tactics to damage Obama, even when they consistently prove to do as much damage to her own electability amongst dems. This could be seen as an asset if she were to swap sides.
*She's very experienced in mouthing the words to get a vote, and then doing whatever suits her current, short term agenda. She's also experienced in bold-faced denial of facts.
*She clings to strategies that don't work, people that don't get results, the idea that a broken system can be fixed by continuing to empower it. That's very republican of her, ya know. Conservatives are by their nature leery of change, just because it's different to what they're accustomed to.
*The one that bothers me the most, though, was her Umbrella of Retaliation statement during the debate the other night. That came out of... something different, a fundamental shift in HillaryPlan. I got the same chill that happened when Bush made his 911 statement that those who aren't with us are against us. That was when I felt sure he was concocting a war in Iraq, and I wasn't happy when I turned out to be right. I really hope my internal radar was malfunctioning, here, because if not those two are settled on a path of global war that won't end until there's nothing left worth winning.
So now, for the two persistent readers who've followed me all the way through this rambling diary, thanks. :-) Tell me why I'm so paranoid I need to get professional help, please.