Meanwhile, in the parallel universe where Hillary got nominated...

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I've been wondering about this lately. Is Obama doing as well as Hillary would have had she been the nominee? Better, even? It seems to me:

1) If Hillary had been nominated, McCain wouldn't have bothered with Palin, sparing himself serious negative press about his judgment. He probably would have picked Pawlenty, and Minnesota would be in play.

2) Hillary wouldn't have run Obama's 50-state strategy, for both ideological and financial reasons, and instead run hard at the swing states (there's a good bet she would have tapped Ted Strickland for veep). So Ohio and maybe Florida would have been secure early on, but Colorado might not have turned blue (to say nothing of Virginia). (It's also a fair bet that Obama's 50-state strategy will mean that he has longer coattails than Hillary would have.)

3) Hillary would not have energized youth or brought in new voters the way Obama has (although we won't know if he truly did that until election day).

All in all, as it has turned out, I don't see a lot of room to argue that Hilary still would have been a better nominee (though she would also have won). Anyone see it differently?

[Imran Siddiqui]

1) If Hillary had been nominated, McCain wouldn't have bothered with Palin, sparing himself serious negative press about his judgment. He probably would have picked Pawlenty, and Minnesota would be in play.

And the right wing wouldn't have been all that energized in a McCain campaign. For all that talk about they really wanted to keep Hillary out, you don't think a black man who speaks of massive government spending would have been considered worse to them?

Also, of course, the economy would have fallen similarly and who better to remind people to remind voters how much better things were back in the 90s?

Furthermore, no worrying about the Bradley effect.

[Kidlicious]

Clinton was a big part of bank deregulation though.

[Ramo]

I don't see much of a difference. They really are both strong candidates. You might have a weaker ground operation and that would've freed up McCain to make a more moderate Veep pick, but Clinton's a lot more fluent on economic issues. She would've been a lot more aggressive on health care and social security. I'm still wondering whether Obama's holding off on these issues until the financial system started to buckle was ridiculously bad strategy or brilliant foresight.

The more interesting hypothetical, IMO, is if Romney were the GOP nominee.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm still wondering whether Obama's holding off on these issues until the financial system started to buckle was ridiculously bad strategy or brilliant foresight.

Well, I think "brilliant foresight" may be a bit strong considering that the buckling of the financial system may have easily have waited a couple months instead of happening when it did.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Ramo
The more interesting hypothetical, IMO, is if Romney were the GOP nominee.

He'd be down 15, at least.

[Kidlicious]

What would Hillary be saying about the economy? Bill is telling the press that the deregulation of 1999 didn't cause the economic crisis. That's Obama's big claim, and probably what's giving him the boost. Hillary wouldn't be able to make the same claim with out McCain attacking her on it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

That's Obama's big claim, and probably what's giving him the boost.

You can't actually believe that, can you?

Besides, Obama has been claiming deregulation by the Bush Administration for the reason. He's said nothing about what happened under the Clinton Administration.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

That's Obama's big claim, and probably what's giving him the boost.

You can't actually believe that, can you?

Besides, Obama has been claiming deregulation by the Bush Administration for the reason. He's said nothing about what happened under the Clinton Administration.

What Bush deregulation? How could you blame deregulation and not be talking about the repeal of GS Act.

[DinoDoc]

Because that would mean blaming Democrats as well which would undercut his attacks on McCain.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
What Bush deregulation? How could you blame deregulation and not be talking about the repeal of GS Act.

Exactly the question a lot of Republicans are asking.

Of course the repeal of the GS act really had little to do with this and made the fall a LOT less worse than it could have been (imagine if commerical banks couldn't buy investment banks that were failing and vice versa).

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Exactly the question a lot of Republicans are asking.

Of course the repeal of the GS act really had little to do with this and made the fall a LOT less worse than it could have been (imagine if commerical banks couldn't buy investment banks that were failing and vice versa).

It allowed commercial banks to own derivatives. That's what it did. There has been an explosion of derivatives. That is the real problem here. It doesn't matter if it's easier for financial institutions to take each other over. That won't solve the problem. You will still have all these derivatives in the economy.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Because that would mean blaming Democrats as well which would undercut his attacks on McCain.

It hurts McCain much more because Phil Graham designed the bill.

[Ming]

I think Hillary would be down at this point if she had been the candidate. Obama hasn't lost many Hillary supporters, and I don't think Hillary would be getting all the Obama supporters. He has energized the youth and black voters to actually vote (or so we think at this point)

The bigots are as unlikely to vote for a woman or black candidate, so there is little change there.

Obama is making up some ground on the religious vote (not the hard cores, but the more moderate), something I don't think Hillary could have done.

Hard core republicans and democrats would vote their party with any candidate.

When it comes to the middle of the pack voters, Obama seems to be doing well, and I really don't think Hillary could be doing any better.

So overall, I think Obama was the better choice.
The only problem might be the hidden anti black vote... people could be telling pollsters one thing, but may not actually vote for him in the privacy of the ballot booth.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It allowed commercial banks to own derivatives. That's what it did. There has been an explosion of derivatives. That is the real problem here. It doesn't matter if it's easier for financial institutions to take each other over. That won't solve the problem. You will still have all these derivatives in the economy.

That was already being done. Gramm-Leach-Bliley allowed commerical banks to engage in insurance underwriting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramm-Leach-Bliley_Act

Prior to the Act, most financial services companies were already offering both saving and investment opportunities to their customers. On the retail/consumer side, a bank called Norwest which would later merge with Wells Fargo Bank led the charge in offering all types of financial services products in 1986. American Express attempted to own almost every field of financial business (although there was little synergy among them). Things culminated in 1998 when Travelers, a financial services company with everything but a retail/commercial bank, bought out Citibank, creating the largest and the most profitable company in the world. The move was technically illegal and provided impetus for the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

Also prior to the passage of the Act, there were many relaxations to the Glass-Steagall Act. For example, a few years earlier, commercial Banks were allowed to get into investment banking, and before that banks were also allowed to get into stock and insurance brokerage. Insurance underwriting was the only main operation they weren't allowed to do, something rarely done by banks even after the passage of the Act.

Furthermore, even if it allowed commerical banks to own derivatives, do you not believe that investment banks would have owned a ton of derivatives anyway? Meaning that when the housing bubble collapsed, the investment banks would have completely tanked and wouldn't be able to be saved by commerical banks buying them out.

Furthermore:

"I don't see that signing that bill had anything to do with the current crisis. Indeed, one of the things that has helped stabilize the current situation as much as it has is the purchase of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, which was much smoother than it would have been if I hadn't signed that bill. On the Glass-Steagall thing, like I said, if you could demonstrate to me that it was a mistake, I'd be glad to look at the evidence."

- President Bill Clinton