By Steven O'Hern, Reader Advisory Panel 2008

Those who cheer on Rush Limbaugh's Operation Chaos and others who wish for John McCain to face Hillary Clinton in the general election should be careful what they wish for.

Thinking that Senator Clinton would be an easier opponent in the fall may be wishful thinking. Here are three reasons why Clinton would be a harder opponent for McCain than Barack Obama:

1. Clinton will say anything to be elected - with a straight face. In this regard she shares her husband's do anything to win approach to gaining power.

2. Obama is just a politician who needs seasoning. The primary election has revealed Obama for what he is - an ambitious politician with two years of service in the U.S. Senate whose life experiences have given him a liberal, some say elitist, view of life. The people who don't care about Obama's political positions and inexperience are his core supporters - fellow liberals and young voters who don't fully appreciate the benefit of experience.

3. Clinton has an advantage over Obama when facing John McCain on national security issues and the Iraq War. The 3:00 a.m. telephone call ads were effective against Obama. The success of the surge and the likelihood that 130,000 U.S. troops will be stationed in Iraq on inauguration day next January has resulted in Obama softening his previously stated position of immediately pulling troops out of Iraq. The contrast in Obama's and McCain's positions on how and when to extract troops from Iraq is not as sharp as it was a year ago.