Hill in the Mi’l.

The smartest thing Hillary Clinton has done for herself is nothing—nothing but just being there when Barack Obama got into the race.

A year ago, sentences that contained her name also tended to contain the word “polarizing.” Moderates (who are probably most of the electorate) were troubled by inklings that underneath her centrist’s clothing beat a radical heart. Whether she had enough experience for the job was iffy. And some still weren’t “ready” for a woman president.

All that has changed, purely by virtue of Obama’s entry into the race. Obama’s unapologetic leftiness has put Hillary, relatively, smack dab in the sweet-spot middle. His inexperience makes her resumé look like that of John Foster Dulles.

And with everyone excited about the possibility of the first black president, no one’s even noticing any more that Hillary’s a woman. Obama did this for her: changed her from a polarizing political figure to a boring one.

Boring centrists get nominated. She couldn’t have engineered it better–and she didn’t. I expect to vote for Obama in my state’s primary. But I think Hillary’s going to get the nom.

Click to read about the song that put Carol Burnett on the map in 1957: “I Made a Fool of Myself over John Foster Dulles.”