Would Hillary Win?

So Obama got through the second debate pretty unscathed; latest polls have demonstrated precious little progress for McCain. And Obama has handled himself OK, he didn't - and probably won't - reach the heights of the debating art that Bill Clinton managed but McCain just isn't cutting it.

 

But I'd be intrigued to see where we'd be now if Hillary Clinton had managed to get the candidacy. Firstly, of course, we'd need to know who the VP would have been - which is impossible - because it would have certainly had a effect, not least on who McCain picked - would we have ever heard of Palin?

 

Let's assume all would be the same, would Clinton have been more or less effective than Obama? It's true that McCain has been anything but assured in how he's handled the period since Obama's becoming the Dem pick. His negative campaigning has largely revolved around provably false information and his claims to be this or that have respectively recent incidents that prove the lie too. His truly terrible non-suspension that he still claims was a campaign suspension was pretty symptomatic of how poorly he's played the last couple of months. But the question remains, has Obama brought this out of him or would have messed up this much with Hillary?

 

Hillary's campaigning outfit was pretty impressive but was quite heavily negative in the same way McCain's is. Hers failed against Obama and it seems McCain's is too (not really surprising). But if they both were in a face off would it be a "negative-off" or would Clinton have gone the more aspirational route?

 

I'm afraid I'm not a journalist and don't have the time to dig into her senate voting record to establish which votes surrounding the current economic situation could have been used to beat her with.

 

One thing is for sure, her Iraq/war on terror attacks would have been blunted by her voting for the war whereas Obama has no such contradiction. Would she have seemed a more fitting Commander in Chief that McCain during a time of so much military activity? That would be a key thing for the voters to chew over.

 

Given that I've been unable to answer a lot of these questions I would nevertheless instinctively feel that, although Clinton may have sneaked over the line, I think this election would have resolved by a waifer thin majority whilst Obama, I believe, is going to knock McCain out of the park when compared to recent elections. But with Clinton, the possibility would still have been quite clear that McCain could also have pipped the New York Senator and the country would be potentially more divided than ever (especially with Palin as VP).

 

Your opinions?