Imagining the Walker/Clinton presidential debate
Generally, we eschew fantasies imagining what various people would say in favor of analysis of what they actually have said. But Jennifer Rubin’s Washington Post column laying out a scenario for a presidential debate between Scott Walker and Hillary Clinton is just too much fun to ignore. Read the whole thing, but here is an opening excerpt:
Out walks Clinton and Walker. They shake hands and Walker offers his arm as they walk over to the podiums. The image of a boy scout walking a senior citizen across the street comes to mind. Throughout the debate, she calls him Scott; he calls her Mrs. Clinton. She really is old enough to be his mother. Whenever she talks about the 1990s, his team shoots out e-mails to the media reminding the press that in the 1990s, he was younger than Chelsea is now, but he didn’t get a six-figure deal from a TV network for doing nothing. It’s the opposite of 2008, when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) looked grandfatherly and harried in comparison to then-junior Sen. Barack Obama.
He talks about having to earn everything he’s gotten. Nope, he doesn’t have a famous name or rich friends or Ivy League degrees. He’s much like people all around America. He can’t believe the nerve of some politicians who act like the government belongs to them instead of the people. Three times he’s gone to the voters in four years and been honest and forthright about who he is, what he’s done and what he intends to do. He’s run a state successfully, effectively and transparently. There is no stench of corruption.
She is condescending (“Well, I’ve been all over the world. . . I know from my talks with the prime minister. . . Scott, you just don’t know what it’s like to. . .” ). He is cheery but tough. (“Well, it’s not the miles or the connections but the judgment and the credibility. . . I’m sorry, Mrs. Clinton, but it’s you who doesn’t understand real America. When was the last time you drove to the market or shopped for discounts at Kohl’s?”)
Oh please, let it happen….