Douglas Schoen and Patrick Caddell, who pretend to be Democrats even though they do not support Democratic politicians or causes or policy platforms, have a column up in the Wall Street Journal advising President Barack Obama to quit now and not run for re-election, even though the only GOP candidate that seems to pose a consistent challenge to him in the polls is Mitt Romney, and the Obama re-elect team has sort of started raising money to run for re-election and everything. Democrats should never follow the advice of Schoen and Caddell, because they always seem insincere. But what's truly pitiful here -- and I mean, so pitiful that I am quite literally embarrassed for everyone involved in the writing and publication of this piece -- is that this is an op-ed they've already written for the Washington Post. So, screw it, here's what I said about this back then, since my argument still stands.
The only thing that's "new" in this most recent regurgitation is that Schoen and Caddell suggest that Hillary Clinton run because "she has the ability to step above partisan politics, reach out to Republicans, change the dialogue, and break the gridlock in Washington." To Schoen and Caddell's mind, if you turn back the clock to the era of President Bill Clinton, you get "a break in gridlock." But this is not how politics works -- this isn't the Republican party of the 1990s. If it were, when President Obama offered to cut $4 trillion in spending, add $1 trillion in revenue, and adjust the Medicare eligibility age as a part of his "grand bargain," there would have been immense support for Obama's proposal. The GOP of 2011 wanted to hold the country hostage over the debt ceiling, and threaten default.
This notion that Hillary Clinton would somehow be able to penetrate the gridlock of today is magical thinking. Let's remember, first and foremost, that the GOP truly hates the Clintons -- and as of this moment, the GOP base is flirting with taking the Clintons' nemesis, Newt Gingrich, to the White House. And let's have some real talk -- the only way she'd fare better in the current state of gridlock is the same way Obama would fare better: she could wholly abandon all of the Democratic party policy positions. Which is really what Schoen and Caddell advise all the time. They just usually have to work a lot harder at disguising the fact that they just rewrite the same thing.
PREVIOUSLY, on The Huffington Post:
Pretend Democrats Advise Obama Not To Run For Re-Election
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