The Divisive Democratic Competitions

When Jesse Jackson made his memorable run for the presidential nomination in 1988, the year that Michael Dukakis was nominated, there was considerable excitement and respect for the Jackson candidacy, and the party managed to run united in the fall, in an election that unfortunately, Dukakis lost (with G.H.W. Bush winning 40 States).

Other than that one presidential election, when Jackson captured 6.9 million primary votes and won 11 states, including 7 primaries (Alabama, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Puerto Rico and Virginia), and 4 caucuses (Delaware, Michigan, South Carolina and Vermont), the Democratic party has been used to seeing a white, Christian male at the top of the ticket. Fights over which white man could be bitter, and when focused on issues, such as the Vietnam War, they could divide the party, but they rarely touched the aspirations of the constituency of Democrats as deeply as this year.

It is both a blessing and a curse that the Democratic party is determined to put someone other than a white man at the top of the ticket. It is blessing, because it will finally end some shameful era of exclusion. But is a curse because there is only one place at the top of the ticket, and assuming there is not a new leader for a brokered convention, either Hillary or Obama will lose, and watch the other candidate lead the party.

Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama are both excellent candidates for the Democratic party, and many persons will welcome either as the nominee. Others are going to be deeply disappointed, in a way that could be extremely damaging to the Democratic party efforts in the fall, not only for the presidential election, but also for the Congress and states and local elections.

So far, this election is very close, with perceptions of who is leading changing daily if not hourly. The candidates and even more so, their closest supporters, have engaged in increasingly raw and bitter exchanges. The candidates are both competitors who like to win, so this is almost inevitable, and it is not particularly constructive at this point to argue over who is being the most negative about their opponents. Let's just stipulate that the trajectory is not promising, if you want a candidate in the fall that anyone, including Democratic voters, will admire.

The Democratic party rank-and-file, however, could do more to bring the rancor down a notch. People can start by not putting the candidates on pedestals. Neither Hillary nor Obama are perfect. Both are highly political and ambitious people (who else gets this far?), and both will make plenty of mistakes in the campaigns, or as president, if they get that far. They are human, like everyone else who runs for this job.

Find a way to recognize and respect some qualities in the candidate you don't support, and acknowledge some of the flaws in the one you do, and you will be better prepared to support the eventual nominee.

One should not assume the Republican party will simply hand the election to the nominee. Democrats will, in all likelihood, nominate a woman or a black man at the top of the ticket, and ask the country to end centuries of exclusion. This will be hard enough for a party that is united, but much harder if core constituencies feel both disappointed and disrespected.

Comments

[BoJaker]

Here's the problem. Hillary supporters generally are Party Loyalists. Independents couldn't care less about her, she doesn't have the charisma or inspirational message to attract first-time voters, and Republicans, or even Republican leaners, hate her guts. The people who support her are the same people that vote in every primary and every election and will vote for a Democrat every time.

What that equation equals is a candidate that can easily win a primary, since their base is so dependable, but is an easy target during a general election since their base is so fixed and their image is so divisive. For example, that 50% in NV is gauranteed to vote in the general election for whatever Democrat is on the ballot. That 45% for Obama will, for the most part, only vote if Obama is on the ticket. Same with the idependents and first time voters in NH and IA. They don't show up unless a candidate really charges them up. Hillary is incapable of doing this because her spoken idealogical message is eclipsed by her obvious unspoken message which has always been "I want and deserve the power of the Presidency"

P.S.
To Kucinich Supporters: While I agree with Kucinich on just about 100% of the issues, I'm realistic enough to realize that anyone that can't acknowledge the futility of their candidacy has an ego problem. President Kucinich will never happen unless some massive plague kills every single Republican, Libertarian, and semi-conservative person in the U.S. His congressional seat is the highest level of elected office possible for him. Your best hope is that he is appointed to some position by whomever the president ends up being.

[independentrepublicrat]

I feel sorry for the Clintons. This blantant race baiting by the Clintons themselves as well as their campaign, advisors, and supporters---such as the infamous media whore Bob Johnson---is beyond offensive and pathetic. I hope that the black community brings about a reckoning if she is successful in her electronic vote tampering and injection of racial division to steal the democratic nomination. I say it here and I will say it everywhere there is a black pair of ears to hear me. If she gets the nomination in such an unscrupulous and Bushian manner, blacks should vote with all the might and power of their constituency for either Huckabee or Bloomberg. If they can't hold their noses long enough to vote republican, then stay at home on election day in November and don't vote for Hillary at all. MLK and supporters eventually took a stand and stopped riding the bus when forced to sit in the back and black people should not stay on the racist, electronic vote tampering Hillary train in the general election. The Clintons are expecting that no matter what racist, divisive tactics they use against Obama, blacks will have no other choice but to vote democrat; however, there is another choice and it is to not vote for Hillary or at all in a general election. Now is the current generation's time to make a stand against this kind of racism and oppression that the Clintons are harkening us back to. Make a stand against supporting her ilk in November if she steals her way to the nomination with the most deplorable racial tactics.

[AxelDC]

The divisiveness of the contest has nothing to do with either candidates race or gender, but everything to do with Hillary and Bill Clinton's natural instinct of cleavage politics. Hillary would rather marginalize Obama as a "black candidate", even at the risk of alienating black voters (see Michigan), so long as she wins.

This is another case of politicians pursuing victory at all cost, even at the destruction of their own party and their own nation. The US cannot afford another 8 year struggle between the Bush-Clinton dynasties that have ripped this country apart.

[TommyMcCarthy]

I think the Dems have fine candidates this cycle, and could support any one for president.
Mr. Love makes an excellent point, and worries aloud about party unity in November "if core constituencies feel both disappointed and disrespected."

I think this is more prevalent now because so many more people are getting thier information from blogs where...to say the least.... objectivity is not required.

SMACKDOWN IN MINNEAPOLIS!
SMITH SAYS JONES NOT WHITE ENOUGH!
VIDEO OF JONES DISSING LEFT-HANDED PEOPLE!

Don't get me wrong, I love the blogs, this one in particular, and wouldn't have it any other way.
But I can recall a number of instances in THIS caampaign where a remark or event has been blown WAY, WAY out of proportion and folks have hyped themselves into a state of towering false outrage over very little.

Before you know it people are mad as hell over a reponse, to a respose, to a comment, about a comment...(you get the idea)

Jim Love has good advice here....we could all stand to chill out a tad and remember who our real friends (and real enimies) are!

Democrats '08..............................tm

[Jane22]

Would ya wake me up a couple weeks before the Election. I'll Cram for this one. Uncle Sam is lookin' down 2 roads til November. One sign: This Way to the Insane Asylum. The other says: This Way to the Mental Insitution. Uncle Sam is wearing a ball and chain that says: 10 months campaign rhetoric. (2004 Editorial Cartoon from Devericks-Seattle Times) Wake me up when it's time to vote for whoever is left standing. I plan to have a dream to wake up for: Dennis Kucinich for President. We are choosing Change-not a ticket to Hell with the minions implementing the next SHOCK for us to endure. Look at economic plan 1st, 1st, 1st. Peace, J22

[mkjohn1]

It kills a part of me to say this, but if HRC gets the nomination, I'll not be voting Dem. for the first time in my life. I can't validate, with my vote, the type of politics she represents. It's become far far too dirty.

[altohone]

Pretending like there isn't an ideological split in the party and saying "both would make good dem candidates" is ignoring reality.

Half the party has been voting with Bush on critical measures.

The rank and file wants to reclaim the party from the DLC, and Hillary is the DLC candidate.

Your appeal to look for the good in Hillary makes no sense to those of us who will not support anybody that voted for the war.

There are shelters for women fleeing abuse.

Here we have another plea for us to go back to the abuser, see, he says she really loves us and promises not to hurt us again. She even said so on the campaign trail...

Where is our shelter if both parties nominate Iraq war supporters?

BTW, isn't it really those who have strayed from our principles who should be seen as the divisive ones? Trying to spread the "blame" and calling for unity suggests that those of us that stuck to principles helped create the division when we did not.

[DoninJoisey]

If you're suggesting that I back Hillary is she gets the nomination - sorry, can't do it.
This isn't democrat/republican to me, I think there's good and bad in both parties.
McCain, while I don't agree with him at all about Iraq, isn't a straight party man.
Hillary is for Hillary first, a democrat second, and an American third.
Romney, Giuliani - republican party hacks.
Obama, Edwards, Kucinich, Paul - not for politics as usual.

[tompoe]

Well, actually, the choice is, do we elect a woman, or a black man, both of whom represent pathetic solutions to our healthcare, Iraq occupation, and the list goes on? Or, do we elect a white man who represents a solution to healthcare with a platform touting single payer healthcare for all, ending the middleman insurance industry, and genuinely believes we should return to 2003, get the troops out, and coordinate governmental institutional creation oversight of Iraq by the United Nations? And the choice, is . . .

[texanna]

I reject your basic premise, i.e., "...that the Democratic party is determined to put someone other than a white man at the top of the ticket.". I think the DLC is determined to put someone other than a white man at the top of the ticket and I think the DLC and the other Republican-lites that took over the part in the '90's are responsible for the part leaving its progressive base. The DLC thought that we could be distracted from the REAL issues of this election by a beauty contest between a non-white or a non-male candidate. The non-white and the non-male candidates that keep getting put front and center really are no better than any of the white males that have failed us so miserably over the last 2 decades. The candidates that were/are discussing the issues of wresting control of our country and government from the corporatists that currently own it and run it, getting universal health care, and so many other populist/progressive concerns have been subtly and often not so subtly pushed aside and finally out. Keep asking WHY? Why does the corporatist media have a blackout of Edwards? Why did they have one for Biden and Dodd and Richardson. Why does the corporatist media make fun of and therefore completely denigrate Kucinich? Could it be that these candidates said and are still saying things that are threatening to them and their corporatist cronies?

[clr2]

Jackson wasn't a credible candidate - he had zero experience. Obama is quite different. If Hillary is the best woman the dems have to offer - it isn't saying much for the party. What has she done other than use her husband and his name to win a spot? She wouldn't be in this race if it wasn't for him.

[Dap]

Agreed, Excellent post. I'll suport any of the fine Democratic candidates. Yet, until then...

John Edwards for President!