Obama ’16!

Yglesias is right. The 22nd Amendment is terrible and is preventing Democrats from nominating the only clear candidate for the presidency in 2016, President Barack Obama. Although I have my criticisms of the president, especially around education and trade, he is very, very, very good at his job. Easily the best president of my lifetime, Obama has learned, through hard lessons in the first three years of his presidency, just what the Republican Party is and how to fight them. He is very good at foreign policy, has learned that appointing the right people to key positions is the best way to make change in the country right now, and knows the limitations of his power.

On the other hand, Hillary Clinton is a Martha Coakley-level campaigner with a once-brilliant campaigner for a husband. My hesitation to get behind the Sanders campaign with as much fervor as pretty much every other socialist in the United States rests on two basic assumptions. The first is his competence to run the government. I still worry about that, but who can tell. The second is his ability to get elected instead of a right-wing extremist, which covers any of the Republican candidates. But I no longer see this as an issue because Hillary Clinton is utterly horrible at her job. The last two days have seen her amazingly stupid statement about the Reagans and AIDS, which is not only historically incorrect and offensive, but good lord, many gay men absolutely love Hillary! How could she get this wrong? And then you have her statement about the protests last night, which Shakezula eviscerated. I mean, how on earth does one run for the Democratic nomination in 2016, a nomination where your most important constituency are African-Americans, who in fact have come out for you in huge numbers, and this is your response?

The number of ways that Hillary Clinton is better than Barack Obama is zero. That includes on policy, messaging, and campaigning. How she is this incompetent floors me. I still have worries about Bernie Sanders, but he is simply a better campaigner than she is and better at messaging as well. I mean, this is some first-class Grade A trolling right here.

I want to thank Rahm Emanuel for not endorsing me. I don’t want the endorsement of a mayor shutting down schools and firing teachers.

— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) March 12, 2016

And while we are not electing a Hilarious Troll in Chief, this sort of thing motivates supporters and places complex issues in stark terms for voters. Hillary is not capable of any of this. That’s becoming blindingly obvious. And while I don’t think she would lose to Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, I think Bernie Sanders’ odds are just as good at this point. We can worry about what happens with the governance in November. Barack Obama is still the best candidate imaginable, but since that’s not possible, Bernie Sanders is the best choice we have.