A Summation of My Feelings About the Clinton Campaign

By someone who's a much better thinker and writer than I:

The dying days of the Hillary Clinton campaign have brought the breathtaking spectacle of a candidate lashing out at every element of public life that has nourished her career. The über-wonk has disparaged economists and expertise. The staunch ally of black America has attacked her opponent for lacking support of "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans." People who thought they knew Hillary Clinton have gazed in astonishment: What has she become? The answer is, a conservative populist.

I'm not a fan of liberal populism, probably because it's so emotionally appealing to wrap up the complexities of our country's economic and social dynamics in a little pink bow. But I do understand the need for populism as a tool of politics, and I suspect we'll see a lot of it from both parties in the fall.

What really burns me up is the calculus inside the Clinton camp that said, "In the primaries, Obama has appealed to better educated people, while our candidate has appealed to less educated people. How can we use that against Obama? Oh, I've got it! Let's steal the rhetoric of the modern Republican party! Let's appear on Bill O'Reilly's show!"

Madness.