Yet Another Thing that Makes Obama Unique

Our last post, about attitudes of conservatives in the Republican Party toward John McCain, noted how conservatives are viscerally repelled by Hillary Clinton, while they respect and even like Barack Obama, although he won't get their votes.

That leads us to a further observation.   The attitude toward Mrs. Bill Clinton by dyed-in-the-wool conservatives is so profound that most of them want Obama to win the Democratic nomination even though they think Republicans could more easily defeat Hillary.   That's how much they want the prospect of Hillary in the White House eliminated even as a possibility.

Conservatives see her as the political equivalent of Hannibal Lecter.

What this means is that if Barack Obama wins the Democratic nomination, he will be in the curious position of having a reservoir of goodwill toward him personally even from a group -- Republican conservatives -- who are not going to vote for him.   For being "the guy who saved us from Hillary," Obama will be the beneficiary of a sense of "we owe him one" from conservatives.  

Again -- that's not going to translate into votes on election day.   But it means that, if actually elected President, Obama could begin with a breadth and depth of goodwill across the political field, including even his opponents on many policy matters, that no president has had during the lifetime of any American living today.

And though it won't mean votes at the ballot box, it would help a President Obama, somehow.   At very least it might actually take us past the era of personalizing politics, and being able to have policy debates -- even battles, when necessary -- over the merits of the policies themselves.