Air America's "7 Days": Like it or Not, the Road to November Goes Through Denver

Listen to Arianna, Mark Green, Katrina vanden Heuvel and Headliner Ron Brownstein think ahead to what'll happen over the next months before and at the Denver Convention between Obama and Clinton. As two great coalitions battle to a tie, here come the Super Delegates! And bonus - here's a fresh post & excerpts from co-host Mark Green:

Her levees withstood his surge.

Looking back, Obama had an incredible week building up to Super Tuesday - Ted & Caroline Kennedy, MoveOn, SEIU, Maria Shriver, Oprah. Wow - would he win NJ, California, and Massachusetts?

No...as undecideds broke in Clinton's direction decisively on Election Day. So instead of a presumptive nominee in March, we instead have a Long March to November that runs through Denver. We now have - and will continue to have - a near-tie (see excerpts below and listen here). Given proportional delegate allocations in each state and two evenly matched contestants - think of those Godzilla vs. King Kong epics - the winner will invariably be decided by the margin of Super-Delegates...unless there's a fatigue-induced gaffe or Obama outspends Clinton 3-1 or better.

Since he has a bigger grassroots movement and she has more clout over the years with party officials, how long until the Obama camp starts this mime against Super-Delegates: will we let party bosses pick our nominee behind closed doors? The rules say yes. And questioning whether governors, senators, etc. should/shouldn't play a pivotal role seems about as useful as Al Gore questioning whether electors rather than voters should choose a president. (We know the answer to that one.)

To work through this and other questions, Air America's Seven Days brought together author Ron Brownstein, now of The National Journal, and then a panel of both Arianna Huffington and Nation editor/publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel.

(See Brownstein's very incisive pieces on the coalitions behind each contender here and here).

BROWNSTEIN, HUFFINGTON, VANDEN HEUVEL, & GREEN ANALYZE SUPER TUESDAY

BROWNSTEIN: "What we're seeing is two coalitions that are distinct and durable. The basic divide is the upscale/downscale divide we've seen before, but with these new gender and racial twists. Barack Obama is winning up to 80% in every Super Tuesday state, except for New York, in the black vote. That's something that the 'upscale wine track' candidate has never had before. Hillary Clinton is a woman, of course, which gives her more strength with upscale female voters than the 'beer track' candidates had before. The third new variable is the growing strength of Latinos. She won them by 40 points in California. The central divide in this race is interests and values. Obama's vote is very much of the values based vote and her vote are people who think that she is going to deliver tangible things that they need in their lives."

GREEN: "I made a back-of-the-envelope guesstimate of the delegate count once we get to Denver Democratic convention. If you add the current delegate count (according to NBC) to how Clinton and Obama will do in the next series of primaries and caucuses, based on how they did in similar states previously, you end up in August with her at 1844 delegates and him at 1804, with 2025 winning the nomination. So, it's nearly inevitable, isn't it, that it will be up to the Super Delegates to provide the margin of victory?"

HUFFINGTON: "On Tuesday I was with with people who are completely undecided up until they left to go to the polls. The majority came back and said they voted for Hillary. One young woman said to me, 'You know, I realized this was my last chance to vote for her, but I could vote for him later.'"

GREEN: "Howard Dean, who is a party leader and not a marriage counselor, said that, we can't go into a Convention this divided, so I may have to sit down in the late spring with both candidates and see if we can come to an arrangement. Like in On The Waterfront, when Karl Malden told boxer Marlon Brando, 'Hey kid, it's not your year.'"

HUFFINGTON: Can Republicans net votes this fall debating the Iraq War? "I have this sad sinking feeling of back after Abu Ghraib, after there were no WMDs, all of us saying, 'Well, that's it for George W. Bush. He can not be reelected.' And that's why it all depends on how Democrats take them [the Republicans] on the central issue. I don't feel that they are ready to do that. I feel that they very quickly think about the economy, which trust me is a huge issue but it's not a substitute."

VANDEN HEUVEL: "But Arianna, I think what the Democrats have to do is link the war to the economy."

Comments

[not one of the sheep]

Thanks for the notification. I didn't think Air America was broadcasting anymore or at least no one was listening.

[OtayPanky]

What I find myself mulling over are the potential repercussions of a brokered convention, without Gore as a solution, and with either Hillary or Barack defeated by superdelegates, or seating the FL and MI delegates, or some back room dealings.

The first question is: would either one consent to be the VP of the other one?

I don't see Barack consenting - because it would defeat his own branding to have "the hope boiled out of him" for the next eight years while he waits his turn.

And Hillary hasn't got the emotional constitution that would let her lay down her dream of POTUS for the sake of the greater good.

Which means - to me at least - that one of them will be kicked to the curb...and there will be no dream ticket at the end.

In THAT likely scenario, we need to envision the consequences. Which segments of the electorate will be affected - or rather disaffected - to the point where McCain becomes the likely next POTUS?

[OtayPanky]

If Barack is rejected in favor of Hillary, here's the potential collateral damage:

1. Independent voters will almost ALL break for McCain.

2. A lot of black voters will feel they're getting Katrinad, again. Expect this most reliable of dem demographics to become dispirited, and stay home in record numbers. Don't be surprised if black activist leaders like Al Sharpton lead a boycott movement.

3. Young voters, otherwise self-involved and apathetic, will continue to be apathetic.

4. The repub base, now listless and unenthusiastic, will find its backbone and roll out in big numbers to defeat Hillary.

OTOH, if Hillary is rejected in favor of Barack, here's my projection of collateral damage:

NONE.

1. The militant feminist wing (like NY-NOW president Marcia Pappas) will vote for any dem - including Obama - because of their concerns about the Supreme Court being packed with conservatives, thus rolling back Roe V Wade.

2. Latinos, who appear to be in Hillary's camp, will not appreciably stay home just because Obama is chosen by the powers.

3. Older women - a Hillary staple - will turn out for Barack, especially when Bill and Hillary tell them they should.

4. Less educated dems - another Hillary demographic - will turn out for Barack as well.

So...taking a TOTALLY practical, TOTALLY tactical approach here, I'd say that if the dem powers that be have to make that kind of choice Hillary is high risk, and Barack is low risk.

Ok...tell me where you think my reasoning is flawed (or correct), particularly you THOUGHTFUL Hillary supporters here.

[Querent]

I don't think this is reasoning. I think it is a fantasy about what might happen. If you can successfully predict the future, you should be able to use that fact to get rich on the stock market. If you can't do that, your predictions are just a theory. Not something to base behavior on.

[Lalo]

Of course it's wrong, here's why: despite the "polarizing" comments, she will a stronger competitor to McVain against his own strengths

- Whoever wins, McVain will get many independents
- Black voters will vote for Hillary Clinton, they always vote for a democrat, she already has Democracts, women, Latinos, Asians. Thats the Dem block that ALWAYS worked

[lovethesinner]

What's with the sign-up links?

The first Brownstein link requires a password, and the second one is a dead link.

And the audio link is Air-America "Premium" not Air America "free"!

Bait and Switch? (I'm just bummed because last weeks "7 Days" was really good... no... exceptional!) Fix these links, Arriana, please.

As long as I'm here...

Obama in '08

[Lalo]

So you chose a guy who would go to bed with Iran and who voted to buy plane tickets, boots, food and equipment to keep the troops get killed in Iraq?

[cblcar]

Hillary is a practical centrist. The Repubs are already branding Obama as the most liberal in the Senate. Hillary will be able to get things done in Washington because she knows how the game is played and where the bodies are buried. Like it or not, that's how things work. Obama, on the other hand, is going to find out that holding hands and singing "Kumbaya" just ain't gonna get the job done.

[sky2evan]

cblcar:

Ms. Clinton is a practical centrist who has 50% negative ratings, meaning she is DIVISIVE, just like her husband. She will NOT get things done in Washington, because she will cause the Dem party to lose both houses of Congress in either 2008 or 2010. Her husband did the same thing in '94, 2 years after he was elected... and he never helped gain a majority back during his 8 years in office. Like it or not, that's how things were, and that's how things will most likely turn out if Clinton is elected. Keep "hoping".

[alkamm]

Obama has the power to redefine the word liberal in terms that will be assailable only to the lunatic fringe in the Republican party.
Rather than fear the word as we've had to do with the justifiably fearful old line liberal bosses, we can see clearly that it takes someone like Obama to surpass the tired old politics of what you might praise as a "practical centrist," but what is precisely wrong with liberal politicians who have plenty to fear and no understanding of how fearlessness works.

[Querent]

If I were sure that Obama is the most liberal, I would certainly vote for him. You need to keep in mind the fact that the Repig leadership in Congress has changed in the last two years, so knowing where the bodies are buried may not be so profitable anymore.

Also, large numbers of Repig incumbants are retiring, and finally, there is going to be a
Democratic landslide, meaning whoever the new president is, he or she will likely have super-majorities, or near super-majorities in each house of Congress. It shouldn't be much of a trick to get the job done in those circumstances.

[sky2evan]

Querent:

Of course Mr. Obama is the more 'liberal' of the 2 remaining Dem candidates. Go look at their Senate voting record. Although they voted the same on over 90% of the votes... and by the way, that includes nearly all the NV votes, or "present" votes (which includes the pro-choice ones)... on the votes they differed, there are some major differences.

Ms. Clinton voted for Kyle-Lieberman, for Real ID funding, for the Gulf of Mexico Energy Security Act, and against the Cluster Munitions Amendment.

She is also the only candidate, in addition to McCain, to refuse to sign to pledge constitutional rights.

http://www.reuters.com/article/blogBurst/politics?type=politicsNews&w1=B7ovpm21IaDoL40ZFnNfGe&w2=B7tmRCRJt2YFzDsa7MJ1CblL&src=blogBurst_politicsNews&bbPostId=Cz1VeFnrO5fmhCz7sNEgkr6eaqCz3hWJURc5eE5Cz8bp0emPnej3&bbParentWidgetId=B7tmRCRJt2YFzDsa7MJ1CblL

For voting records, go to vote-smart.org.
Or for a synoptic article of voting differences:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/31/AR2006123101004.html

And stop calling Republicans "repigs"!!! It's cowardly, because I bet you wouldn't dare say that to the face of any Republican. If you're going to call them names, then use arguments to back up the name-calling. Call them "fascists" if they support the Patriot Act (but then again, a lot of Democrats do as well). Call them warmongers because they want permanent bases in Iraq and are willing to bomb Iran (like Ms. Clinton) even though Iran has 0 nukes and the US has 10,000.

[disabledOIFvet]

If we (the democrats) can contrast heavily, we can win the election in Nov. Trying to play the experience arguement or "commander-in-chief" arguement against McCain will be a joke. "35 years" ago he was a POW. She has been more conservative than he has on some issues. She voted for IRAQ, to sabber-rattle in IRAN, and for the bankruptcy bill. That's why I voted for Obama. OBAMA 08!!!