Reading this weekend that Caroline Kennedy and Ted Kennedy were endorsing Barack Obama, I got to thinking about what might have been.

What could JFK Jr. have become if he had lived?

Would he have continued coasting along as a socialite, perhaps founding another magazine or dabbling in philanthropy? Or would he eventually have entered politics, perhaps running for the U.S. Senate from New York and eventually for the presidency?

Today, JFK Jr. would be the same age as Barack Obama. The two men were born only about 8 months apart. Instead of someone who reminds people of John F. Kennedy, could we have had the real deal?

JFK Jr. never showed much academic achievement. He didn’t have a great academic record and it took him three tries to pass the New York bar exam. If he’d entered politics, he might have been a Democratic George W. Bush, a scion of a rich family who wouldn’t have amounted to much without his connections and didn’t want to work very hard (but without W’s scary messianic certainty and faux-hokiness).

But perhaps not.

We’ll never know.

After Obama’s unexpectedly large victory over Hillary Clinton in South Carolina yesterday, I’m leaning toward voting for him again.

Bill Clinton’s been pissing me off lately. My opinions of him have changed over the years. When he first started running in 1991 and into 1992, I thought he was a big slimeball. This northern Jew would never vote for a slick Southern small-state governor. And then somehow things changed; was it when he picked Al Gore as his running mate? Was it when Ross Perot dramatically dropped out of the race mere hours before Clinton gave his stirring acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, allowing him to make a fresh appeal to dissatisfied voters and catapulting him into the lead with the greatest post-convention poll bounce in 50 years? (This article sums up that crazy week in which Bill’s fortunes changed.)

At any rate, I fell in political love with Bill Clinton. He was incredibly smart. He knew everything about everything and could talk about all of it. On top of that, he loved the New York Times crossword.

I winced at all his missteps in early 1993. I felt personally hurt when the Republicans took back Congress in 1994. I supported him for re-election in 1996, even if I cringed at his bland, substanceless “build that bridge to the 21st century” claptrap. I supported him wholeheartedly during the impeachment crisis, even though I was disappointed at what he’d done to cause it.

I was sad when he left office. I missed him whenever I watched George W. Bush give an Oval Office speech or a State of the Union address. I was impressed with the Clinton Global Initiative. Bill Clinton seemed to have turned into a real statesman.

But in the last few weeks he’s gone down into the gutter. I don’t like it, and I don’t like how Hillary is letting Bill do her dirty work for her. It just seems — well, unfair. Not only that — it also gives the Republicans great ammunition for the fall if Hillary gets the nomination.

I like it when Bill attacks Republicans. I don’t like it when he attacks Democrats. He won’t be attacking any more Democrats if Hillary gets elected, but if she does, is she always going to have to pull him out of her pocket when the chips are down?

This is sort of odd, because I’m making a judgment based on what I think other people are going to be thinking about. If it turns out that the majority doesn’t mind Bill having a high-profile role in a Hillary presidency, then, good. But if the majority does mind, then, that’s not good. The problem is, I don’t know what the majority thinks. If perceptions are going to create reality, and we don’t know what the perceptions are, then things are murky.

But if I had to vote today, I might very well vote for Obama.

Well, that sure was an uncomfortable debate to watch last night. You think maybe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don’t like each other these days?

I think last night’s debate was more of a meta-debate. It was less about the candidates’ positions on the issues and more about how the candidates handle conflict and challenge. And Obama disappointed me there.

This piece explains it: Big Speech Obama is not the same as Debate Obama. Clinton played loose and unfairly with the facts at times, — for instance, harping on Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois legislature. Obama tried to explain those votes, but I don’t totally understand his explanation, even with the help of this. Then she attacked him for what he’d said about Reagan, totally distorting his words. It was dirty.

But unfortunately, the meta-debate is what mattered last night. And Obama is just not good at arguing with Clinton. He’s not good at arguing with anyone — not good at the rough-and-tumble, while Clinton excels at it. She is tough. I think she’s going to get the nomination and she’ll be a much better candidate than Gore or Kerry was. I was thinking last night that I can’t wait to see her in a debate with the Republican nominee next fall.

Obama has had the misfortune in these primaries to go up against her, because she seems to be the best debater out of all the candidates in either party this year. But honestly, if you’re not good at the rough-and-tumble, you won’t make a very good president. Obama defenders, feel free to disagree with me, but that’s where I see things.

I think Clinton’s going to get the nomination. And it’ll be nice to have the person who plays tough and dirty be on our side for once. We don’t need another milquetoast Democrat running against the Republicans.