Did Belinda Cost Hillary the Presidency?

I doubt that I'm the first person to ask this question, but it is a legitimate question to ask. We know that Hillary Clinton's campaign vetted the possibility that Bill was engaged in a romantic relationship with Belinda Stronach. Vanity Fair wrote an article about the alleged relationship, an article which seems to have magically vanished from the Internets. There is no concrete evidence that they were anything more than friends, unlike in the case of Monica Lewinsky's dress. All that is known for certain is that they met several times in public for dinners and events, and that many who saw them together noted that they appeared to be affectionate. All I know is that if you are Bill Clinton and your infidelity has been proven in the past, you may not want to frequently meet the hot younger blonde for intimate meals when your wife is preparing to run for leader of the free world; especially when your initial encounters led to speculation of “these two seem to really like each other”.

I did an extensive Google search, and most of the grumblings back then on this issue were coming from Liberals and Democrats. There was the belief among some pundits that if the allegations were true, then it should be released before the Primaries. Thus they dispatched their own investigators to determine if they were true and they were not able to conclusively confirm that an extra marital affair had indeed taken place. At least one of them reported a likely possibility, if not an absolute certainty. This then begs the question, did Hillary lose any significant supporters from within the Democratic Party prior to the Primary process on the fear that there was some probability of a second Monica Lewinsky scuttling the entire party during a Presidential race? That even if no affair had taken place, a number of influential Democratic insiders may have defected to the Obama camp before Iowa over this particular concern.

At the start of the Primary process, I was quietly rooting for Obama on the Democrat side because it seemed like the cool thing to do. All my friends were doing it. But after he all but locked it down on Super Tuesday, I began listening to what he was saying and I took a moment to forecast Obama's vision of a brave new world; and suddenly magically I was yearning for Hillary. I was never confident in McCain, and I would take any Republican over Hillary; but any candidate for any party increases their probability of winning power by winning the right to be on the ballot. You might want an Obama to win the Primaries if you think it gives Conservatives a better chance of winning, but then you're stuck with him if McCain blows the campaign.

I remember a conversation that I had with a fellow Tory back in the days when the Liberal Party of Canada actually elected their leadership, before the dark times of bloodless coups. My friend asked me who I wanted to win, Rae or Ignatieff? I said Iggy. He said he thought Bob Rae gave the Tories a better chance of winning. I quickly responded "yes, but if something catastrophic happens during the campaign, then you'd be stuck with Bob Rae, and then you'd experience the sum of all fears." If indeed the allegations of a relationship, true or not, between Bill and Belinda cost Hilary the Democratic ticket that would actually be kind of sad; because I watched that State of the Union Address this week, and my "spider sense" rocked me like hurricane...

If you knew McCain was doomed to fail, whom would you rather have? Obama or Hillary?