Dear Hillary...

...we need to talk. I'm worried about this campaign you're running.

Let's start with the basics: I've voted for you three times. The first time, in 2000, with absolute enthusiasm. The second and third times, in 2006, because you were so far superior to your primary and general election opponents that it really wasn't a contest. Sure, I was somewhat disappointed over your lack of desire to really speak out against the Bush administration, but hey, the Senate is a more collegial body than the House. Sure, your war vote was troubling, too, but I figured you'd come around sooner or later.

Now, however, you're doing things that fill me and many others with astonished dismay. Your chief strategist, Mark Penn, is talking about states that don't matter. Now, if there's one thing we've learned in the last seven years - and in the 2006 elections - it's that all states matter in a political contest you're trying to win. That's why we now have Democratic Senators in places like Montana and Virginia. This Fifty State Strategy stuff? It really works.

Then, when I look at your campaign and how it's handling money, I want to tear my hair out. You've already blown through $120,000,000. That's one hundred and twenty million dollars. Of those, you spent half a million on parking fees. For all that, you're being trounced, and why? Because, according to your own campaign finance chair, you didn't put any resources into smaller states. All that money, and you didn't see fit to spend some of it in North Dakota? How do you expect to win a general election like this?

Then, there are the various and sundry remarks made by you, your husband, and various campaign allies and surrogates. Let me be honest: I hated the "electing a woman is a historic change" thing. Why? Because that's insulting and demeaning, of you, of women, and of voters. It also, more crucially, isn't going to work when your opponent's candidacy is equally historic. Speaking of which, when you're touting your own credentials as a member of an under-represented group, it doesn't help when you then turn around and find racially tinged remarks emanating from your own campaign. I also can't help but notice that no comparable remarks have come from Obama's campaign.

Lastly, about those super-delegates that everyone is talking about. You have got to be kidding. Now, to be sure, we've never really had a contest, since the smoke-filled rooms were replaced by primaries, that is so close. But if you think that winning the nomination with unelected super-delegates if you don't prevail among elected pledged delegates is going to fly, in a party still seething with resentment of Bush vs. Gore, you have a wake-up call coming. First of all, it's highly unlikely that, if you lose - and that is a loss, especially considering your starting point, as much of a sure thing as there ever has been in politics - that the super-delegates would catapult you to victory against the will of the voters. This because this would be a slap in the face of the voters, and again, too reminiscent of how George Bush got in in the first place. Then, they would be made to pay a price in the form of being primaried themselves.

But most importantly, if you win that way - or, for that matter, if Obama wins that way, as opposed to being the choice of the voters - then forget about the White House. The Democratic Party would be so riven by dissent that, frankly, its ability to deliver the White House would be in question. And if that happens, you, Hillary, will replace Ralph Nader as Public Enemy # 1 for Democrats - the vain and ambitious politician who placed ego and self-indulgence over the larger cause, taking back the country from the republicks.

Whatever you do, Senator, don't do that. I'll vote for you enthusiastically if you win a majority of delegates at the polls. If not, respect the choice of the party and step aside.

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