There seems to be a bit of a fight going on in the Texas political blogosphere regarding whether or not a Hillary nomination would harm down-ballot candidates. While I’m not really too interested in getting into the debate, I personally hope Hillary is not the Democratic candidate for president in 2008. I’m sick of dynasties — Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton again?

But to add to the discussion, I wanted to point out that Alabama’s liberal blogosphere is discussing the same thing. Left in Alabama, shoring up the argument that Edwards can win that state, says,

But, yes, I am very serious that Alabama’s electoral votes could be cast in December 2008 for the Democratic candidate — provided (and this is a big if) the stars all line up correctly and the Democratic nominee is someone other than Hillary Clinton.

Here is how it would work:

1. The Republican nominee is a Northeastern social liberal — either Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney.

2. The Democratic nominee is either John Edwards or Barack Obama. I have nothing against Hillary, but she is despised here.

3. The nomination of Giuliani/Romney opens a rift in the GOP and a third-party/independent candidate with name recognition emerges to carry the banner of social conservatives.

Number 3 is the most important. Without a split in the Republican Party, there would be no chance to take Alabama.

Sounds reasonable enough to me. The analysis goes much further. ‘Course, maybe all of us in the South (Texas included) are just delusional — Lord knows we’ve been wandering in the political desert for far too long.

It’s interesting to see what’s happening in other Southern states and how their battles may be of instructional value to us — and ours to them.

(The idea never occurred to me that I might, one day, add an “Alabama politics” tag to this blog.)