All I try to ask from people is original thought. By that, I simply mean that people ought to think for themselves instead of spouting the opinions of other people. If someone spouts Hillary Clinton's opinions but is unable to defend them, then I tend to lose respect for that person. A mere recital of political ideology is not, to my mind, original thought. It does not persuade me when someone tells me that he agrees with someone else, if, when I ask why, he then quotes the thoughts of the person with whom he agrees. (Example: "I am a Marxist because I agree with Marx that the people should own the means of production!")

Such circular reasoning is not much different than spouting religious text as a substitute for original thought, then claiming that someone else said God said it. If it is not rational and logical, then it does not matter who said who said what. Claiming that the earth is a few thousand years old because someone said words in a book were uttered by God is about as persuasive as saying that socialism is good because some learned economist said so.

What has me worried right now is that "God" might put Hillary Clinton in the White House!

As crazy as that sounds, I'll try to explain. I think that if Hillary is elected president, it will be because of the efforts of conservative religious fundamentalists. She will run (in their minds) "against God," there will be a showdown between Marxism and Fundamentalism, and Marxism will win.

As McClintock demonstrated in California, the hard right is inherently much weaker than the hard left. Hillary hails from the hard left, even though she does her best to hide it. However, there is a perceived abrasiveness in her tone and personality which has a way of bringing the worst of the right wing into the open. Yet the worst of the right wing cannot win a national election. The more Hillary tries to moderate herself, the angrier her enemies will become.

Glenn Reynolds has warned the Democrats about the pitfalls of not being nice.

...[T]he deep appeal of niceness to modern American culture underscores most of the successes of the Democratic party, along with the more general phenomenon of political correctness -- people would rather go along even with dumb policies than seem, well, mean.

But if Democrats give up the niceness, then what do they have left? Republicans who went overboard hating Clinton could still be considered tough and smart: they were just being nasty, as the stereotype said they would be. Unappealing, perhaps, but not a fundamental shift. But when Democrats are nasty, you're left with a party that's seen as muddleheaded, and weak on national security and crime, but mean.

Call me crazy, but I don't see that attracting very many voters.

I think Hillary understands this, and she is determined to be nice. At the rate things are going, she is well on her way to being the voice of reason on the left.

By not even pretending to buy it, the hard right will fall into a carefully laid trap. Fundamentalists will become the loudest voice in the Republican Party, and Hillary will capitalize on it by characterizing the Republicans as extremists.

The Democrats will keep their mantle of niceness.

But there won't be anything nice about it.