With every passing week it becomes more likely that Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic Party nominee for president. This thought, alone, should provide the strongest possible motivation to the Bush administration and the Washington Republicans to get their acts together so that the eventual Republican nominee for president doesn't start the general election campaign in too deep a hole.

The polls that show half the country saying they won't vote for Hillary should be discounted. At the election, the choice will not be Hillary or not Hillary -- it will be Hillary or someone else. And that is what the campaign is about.

I admit it is very early days in the nomination process, but Sen. Obama's and former Sen. Edward's campaigns are beginning to look just strong enough to induce the Hillary campaign to continually sharpen its skills (rather than succumb to the instinct to coast or sit on a lead). On the other hand, the candidacies of both Obama and Edwards may have fairly low ceilings, while the Hillary campaign has a solidity that should be able to grind on remorselessly to nomination.

Obama's campaign, at least to my eyes, seems more froth than substance. It was born of a ludicrously enthusiastic media launch. Without spending a penny, his candidacy was given -- by the media -- a plausible credibility that defied political reality. Lacking not only any relevant governmental experience, he also lacked any other professional experience (e.g. military, business) that the public has invariably looked to as alternative preparation for the presidency. At least since the Civil War, Obama would be the least experienced man elected to the presidency.

All he has are his personal attributes -- which are of mixed political value. Obviously he is attractive, intelligent, eloquent and charismatic. But America has yet to elect as president a black man, or a person who, in his youth was probably Muslim (according to the Los Angeles Times) -- which, unfair as it might be, will weigh on the minds of Americans given the unfolding world events of our time.

Nor is Obama champion for any deeply considered and held great issue of the day. His anti-Iraq war position is essentially perfunctory and -- in the fullness of time -- will be publicly indistinguishable from Hillary's.

The extraordinary excitement in, and size of, his campaign crowds are over-represented by young people -- who invariably are under-represented in the voting booths of both parties. He is a crowd-attracting curiosity -- and a delightful one. But losing presidential campaigns throughout our history have often been marked by large, enthusiastic crowds.

His media-driven launch immediately captured much of the substantial anti-Hillary sentiment in the Democratic Party. But as the months have unfolded, he has not followed up his launch with continuing dramatic rises in his poll numbers or in equivalent fund-raising performance -- being badly beaten by Hillary's fund raising in Hollywood, New York and generally.

And, as we are still almost a year from the first primary votes being cast, his freshness and uniqueness will have long faded by then. He might have been formidable in a lightning campaign of three or four months, but in a long ground war of attrition -- bet on Hillary's massive institutional strengths. Just one recent example is her purchase of former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack's support for the crucial Iowa Caucuses. In one swoop, she has not only bought his endorsement, but the use of his formidable state machine -- which is vital in the hand-to-hand combat of a caucus state. Continued...