Friday, March 07, 2008

Sympathy for the Devil: The Case for Hillary

Like most of my gender and class, I don't care for Hillary Rodham Clinton. I consider myself immune to his rhetorical charms, but Obama can write, and even after 8 years will be quite young, so I can imagine reading his memoirs a decade from now will wile away a lot of time. More importantly, since we cannot really know how politicians will behave in office, elections are most useful to shape their incentives. If Obama wins, it will suggest that supporting imperial adventures is not always good for your career, and that will mean fewer such adventures in the future (whether or not Obama himself will be inclined towards them). Plus, the Clintons are evil.

I hope and trust that the Superdelegates* will be impressed by the above logic, and do the right thing. But I have to admit that financial portfolio theory counts against me. BHO's sigmas are higher. He could do way better than HRC could, but he could also do worse. If a portfolio manager is given the choice between two assets with the same expected value, but with differing variance, and chooses the one with the greater variance, he/she/it is guilty of breach of fiduciary duty. So the Superdelegates should, if the polls continue to show what they do today, pick the castrating she-devel over the Muslim nationalist Manchurian candidates.

Admittedly, if they do, and she wins the general election, I will have to suffer at least twelve years of being profoundly irritated by the American head of state, causing me to avoid television and spend more time with my family. So give generously.

*I am a bit baffled by the word "superdelegates." This is the USA. Surely, all delegates are super!

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