There is much talk lately about the corner the Democratic party has painted itself into. Neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton can gather enough delegates to arrive at their convention in July with the presidential nomination secured. Any possibility of Hillary dropping out beforehand - a slight-to-non-existent possibility to begin with - went by the boards on Tuesday when she won the Texas and Ohio primaries. So there will be a fight to garner as many of the super-delegates as possible, enough to put one of them over the top. Early on, Hillary had the lead here; after Obama's surge it appeared the supers were all switching his way; now they are up in the air, and the battle is on. Since there is little to separate these dull, orthodox liberals policy-wise, that battle is sure to, in fact already has, descend into gutter politics and personal attacks. Both of them will arrive at the convention bloodied, possibly beyond repair.
Here is the nightmare for the Dems: Obama will almost certainly head into the convention with a slight lead in delegates. Furthermore, when the vote from all the primaries and caucuses is combined, he also will have a slight lead there. If Hillary somehow outmaneuvers Obama at the convention and gets the nomination, the party will be severely split. African-American voters, who overwhelmingly support Obama, will feel the nomination was stolen, ala Bush v. Gore. So too the young, latte liberals who've been so much a part of the Obama campaign. If these two constituencies revolt and stay home in November, Hillary cannot win and John McCain will be our next president. The damage will be somewhat less if Obama can survive the Clinton
attack machine and get the nomination, but there will be damage nonetheless.
The problem with Obama getting the nomination now is that the bloom is off the rose, and the party leaders know it. As recently as two weeks ago, he appeared inevitable. His supporters swooned at his every word, and claimed he had the power to heal all our wounds. The messiah had arrived and his name was Barack. Now, after the questions regarding his relationship with Rezko, his demagoguery in Ohio on NAFTA, his damaging press conference, and the losses in Tuesday's primaries, the halo has come off. Late in the week he responded to Clinton's personal attacks with some of his own; he's descended down into the gutter with them, right where they want him. Now he's just another politician, an inexperienced, hard-left socialist politician to boot. Saint Obama could win the presidency, but that guy is gone. Can this new guy win the presidency?
So the Democrats face the possibility of a drawn-out battle and no good solution. Either way, the candidate they choose comes out non-electable. This in a year where it was thought they could hardly lose.
Some are suggesting the way out of this is to combine the two on the same ticket, one as the presidential nominee, the other as the vice-president; all that needs to be decided is who's on top. This is a pipe dream. If Hillary wins she'll certainly feel compelled to make the offer and she may even hope he accepts. But Obama will almost certainly refuse; the Clintons, having won the presidency, would bury him so deep within the administration he'd never be heard from again, and Obama knows this. He'd find out quickly what John Nance Garner meant when he famously declared the vice-presidency wasn't worth a bucket of warm piss. He'd be better off staying in the Senate and building his reputation there.
As for Hillary agreeing to the bottom of the ticket, well, anyone who thinks she'd lower herself to that level has not been paying attention for the past sixteen years. According to the Clinton mind-set, the presidency is hers by divine right. She deserves it. In fact, it is demeaning and degrading to even have to campaign against this wet-behind-the-ears upstart. To actually serve beneath him is simply unimaginable.
What Hillary has to do to win the nomination with as little damage as possible is to start questioning the role of the super-delegates. So far the talk about the supers is that they should validate what has occurred previously; some saying they should vote for the person who has the most conventional delegates; others saying they should go the way of the person with the most popular votes; still others say they should go the way of the congressional district which they represent. By all these measures, Obama wins. The Clintons need to start saying this is historically incorrect. The super-delegates were not created in order to validate what the public has already decided. On the contrary, the super-delegates were created for the exact opposite reason, to save the party from nominating someone who was unelectable; to ensure that a McGovern-like debacle never happens again. Hillary needs to make this claim - which is a truly accurate claim - and to make the case that Obama is too inexperienced for the presidency and cannot win in November. She should state that based on the recent voting results that the public itself is coming to this realization. She should say that Obama's early wins were due to the public not really knowing anything about him. They need to get this argument out into the public domain and absorbed into the public mind before the Pennsylvania primary. People might scoff at first but after a convincing win in Pennsylvania, the idea that Obama is not ready for prime-time might make some headway within the party. Then Hillary can appeal to the super-delegates to save the party and nominate her. There would be damage still, but it might be ameliorated somewhat by this strategy.
There is another way out of this grand dilemma and already a soft rumbling can be heard if you keep your ear close enough to the ground. With the prospect of leaving the convention with an unelectable candidate staring them in the face, might the Democrats turn elsewhere? Possibly. But who could they turn to? Who among them could make a claim to be presidential; who among them could start from scratch and unite the party; who among them exudes that saintly aura that makes liberals swoon; who among them can ride in on a white horse, save them from disaster, and lead them to victory?
Why, this guy, of course.
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