The Allahpundit asks the question of the day:

Am I the only one feeling a teensy bit sentimental during these final days of the Glacier's candidacy? 95% of you will say yes, but for the other five percent, what is it that's getting to you? The Shakespearean tragic overtones? The sudden awareness that we won't have Hillary to kick around for very much longer? The alarming extent to which she was able to humanize herself over the past month or two? The fact that she's as nutty as a PayDay bar and it’s always sad to see the insane suffer? What is it?

I think I have the answer. The Clintons are a known quantity. Yes, a dreadful known quantity, but a known one nonetheless. And the Republic did after all survive eight years of them running amuck in the White House, doing things like trying to get innocent Travel Office guys thrown in jail and introducing a unique form of mentoring to the intern program.

Obama, on the other hand, is brand new. He promises a new type of politics and he certainly is a new type of presidential politician inasmuch that he's incredibly inexperienced and unaccomplished for the office that he seeks. On a still more substantive level, the Clintons demonstrated an extreme aptitude for hardball during their time in power, a skill that would come in handy during a time of war. Obama has shown no such aptitude, and what's more doesn't really seem to understand that even if we don't want to be at war, there are people who want to be at war with us.

Fearing Obama is fearing the new. Sometimes such fears are a manifestation of human weakness. In this case, given the awesome powers that a modern president holds, they are completely rational. Obama supporters do their hero no favors when they deny the validity of such concerns and blithely point to Obama's “entire career” as indisputable evidence that he's up to the job.

One could reasonably say that Clinton, by dint of her steely character and utter ruthlessness, would be up to the job of being president. Saying the same of Obama requires a leap of faith, a leap of faith that conservatives especially are unwilling to take.