Rorschach test
I don't disagree with Yglesias here. But that may just be betraying my (and his) biases. I know plenty of Hillary supporters who believe, in their heart of hearts, that Hillary's hawkishness is a ploy for legitimacy; a sad political reality for a woman who wants to be successful in politics. Likewise, I know plenty of environmentalists who, though happy with Obama's move in the right direction on the environment, are nonetheless concerned that his commitment to it is superficial. If Hillary gets the nomination, I think it's perfectly possible that she'll appear a bit more dovish than she does now, if only because she'll have to respond to whatever hogwash comes out of McCain's or Romney's mouth with something that sounds rational. By contrast, I can imagine Obama waffling when confronted by his opponent's hideous distortion of his energy plan. How either would govern is a different question altogether--my suspicions are as I stated them. But the tone of the general campaign could easily alter the answer.
Comments
It seems pretty revealing of your bias that the two cases you compare are McCain spouts nonsense and Clinton counters by responding more dovishly vs McCain smears Obama so Obama backs off his position. Why not McCain smears Clinton and Clinton counters by becoming more hawkish vs McCain spouts enviro-nonsense and Obama uses this to reinforce his position.
Reality of the scenarios aside, unless the comparison is apples-to-apples, it says more about your preference than about the candidates.
And here I thought I was an Obama fan.
All this 'what if'-kind talk is just talk. We can't know the future, or even guess at its outlines based on the info we have in hand either now or in the probable future. It seems like an attempt to 'read' personalities when the mechanisms of the campaigns are designed to hide the 'real' people. So we have gut reactions and we have their policy statements, and we have their previous record. Policy and record don't seem to be helpful, and gut reactions may be (probably are!) accompanied with lots of gas.
All this rationalizing....
I didn't ever like Dick Nixon, and that was in my gut. I never liked Reagan either and hated him on some issues (tax cuts, missle defense, HIV policy). And I'm a general-purpose hater on Bush. I'm just waiting to transfer my disdain for GOP Presidents to whomever the GOP pushes to the fore. And I'm happy with my visceral reactions, so leave me alone (lol).
I'm with you. The purpose of this post was to point out that there's nothing we know right now that really tells us much about how Clinton/Obama really will act in the realm of foreign policy/environment.
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