22 April 2008

Today may settle our country's future

Today Pennsylvania holds its primary.

If Obama wins (unlikely) or gets to within 10 percentage points of Clinton (very possible -- the polls have been all over the map), then he will have almost certainly clinched the Democratic nomination. And if he is the nominee, as I've discussed here and here, then McCain will almost certainly be our next President. Think about what that would mean.

It would mean Roe vs. Wade swept away, and the Supreme Court dominated by reactionaries for decades. It would mean four to eight more years of "signing statements", scientific illiteracy backed by government power, and erosion of the separation of church and state. It would mean no action on national health care for at least as long. It would mean a foreign policy that would make Bush look like a non-interventionist. It would mean a man whose belligerent temper seriously worries a number of his fellow Senators being in charge of 10,000 nuclear weapons. It would mean a hands-off approach to the outsourcing of jobs overseas, and perhaps a revival of last year's illegal-alien amnesty (which McCain sponsored), to complete the destruction of the American working class's standard of living.

That's the future we face if Obama does well in Pennsylvania today.

If Clinton wins solidly, then the contest will go on, at least until Indiana and North Carolina vote two weeks from now. Clinton may reach the convention with a slight majority of the popular vote, or at least draw close enough to make her case to the superdelegates compelling.

Every major political factor is aligned this year for a Democrat to win the Presidency. All we need is the right nominee. We have one candidate who might well win in November, and another who cannot. Everything hinges on the choice between the two. Today, Pennsylvania may settle that choice -- for us all.

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