Some random thoughts on Barack Obama finally wrapping up the Democratic nomination for President and the news that Hillary Clinton plans to concede to Obama on Friday.

1. Eight months ago, the idea of headlines like these would have been virtually unthinkable. While people were doing their Christmas shopping, Hillary Clinton was not just the presumptive nominee for the Democratic nomination, she was the inevitable presumptive nominee – i.e., no other candidate need apply. Hell, you can bet she already had a team working on measuring the drapes for the White House and planning her coronation. And what a coronation it was gonna be! After all, the way she had it figured out, her election wasn’t going to be just vindication for her, but vindication for the Feminist Movement of the ’60s and the agenda-driven politics of privileged women everywhere who attended uber-liberal colleges like Smith, Simmons, and Amherst who bought into the whole radical feminist worldview. And now to have lost the nomination after running such a crummy campaign, there is a bitter pill to be swallowed by feminists everywhere.

2. In that regard, I don’t think you can disregard the anger and resentment many feminists will ultimately reserve for Hillary because of the way she ran her campaign. How is it, they will ask, that such a strong and confident woman figure chose not to run as one? Were The Great White Shank her campaign manager, that’s what I would have done, exploiting the strengths of her feminist agenda to enable her run to the left domestically and to the center internationally as a way to truly distinguish herself from her other political opponents. To me it would have been a no-brainer, not only would her campaign be an inspiration to women in this country, but around the world where – especially in Islamic countries – women are treated as second-class citizens. What a powerful and hopeful message she could have pushed! But what did she do? At the first sign of trouble she hides behind the same cheating scumbug who treated her like crap while he was in the White House, then she sheds tears and complains about the boys beating up on her as a way to show her – ahem – vulnerability and feminine side to voters. Then she gets caught lying about coming under fire during a trip as First Lady to Bosnia – reminding voters everywhere the problems the Clintons always seemed to have with the truth – and it was she was toast. The strong, confident feminist revealed herself to be a shell of her husband as a politician.

3. I think Rich Lowry of NRO’s Corner blog is right – Obama’s camp has every right to give themselves a big pat on the back fo rwhat they’ve been able to accomplish:

…this is a historic moment. That an African-American has a better than even chance to be the next president of the United States is an amazing thing—and heartening about this country’s capacity for progress. Also, on a more mundane level, Obama out-campaigned, out-fundraised, out-strategized, out-classed, and—yes—out-spun the Clintons. What a campaign. He and his team should be very proud.

I would also add that Obama’s camp out-hustled the Clinton campaign at every stop in the process, knocking her off-stride by their Iowa victory and keeping her and her campaign off-stride from that moment, to the point where Hillary was increasingly painted as yesterday’s news – not an easy task when you consider “yesterday’s news” spent two terms in the White House as part of the Democrats last “golden era”.

4. Where does Obama go from here? Personally, I think he’s going to have a difficult time – just as Hillary would have – for, as Mitt Romney’s failed campaign showed, this country still has a long way to go to overcome its inherent racism, sexism, and religious bigotries. Maybe I’ll be proven wrong, but I just think there will be large sections of the population that will not – at least for now – vote for an African-American. And I think you’ll see that in states with large blue-collar voting blocs like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, where so-called “Reagan Democrats” will vote for John McCain. In that regard, Democrats may, in fact, be selecting the only nominee who could lose in November and Republicans the only candidate who could win. And that would be a very strange thing indeed.

5. If Obama is smart, there’s no way he picks Hillary to be his VP. Not only would she and the Clinton mafia work behind the scenes to destroy him at every chance they could, it would also hurt Obama’s reformist message. After all, how can someone be a true agent for change if both you and your running mate are the epitome of Washington insiders? Choosing Hillary would also paint Obama as a politician who can be pushed around by the Democratic establishment and the special interests. Finally, it would open the door for McCain to choose a running mate who isn’t a Washington insider (Mitt Romney?) and could blast away at Obama’s seeming hypocrisy as an agent of change.