The Long and Winding Road

Last week was the third time that many hopes and expectations for an early Barack Obama triumph in the Democratic presidential primaries were dashed. It was possible to imagine (and I did) that he would roll on from Iowa to victory in New Hampshire and become unstoppable. Many thought he would prevail on Super Tuesday, or that he would win Texas and force Hillary Clinton to withdraw. Well, hand it to Hillary Clinton. If she is nasty and negative when it's on the line, she is also shrewd and relentless, a dogged fighter. And she can deliver a great opening line on Saturday Night Live.

The unpredictable and intensely competitive twists and turns of the campaign have forced Barack Obama to become a better candidate, and have drawn millions of voters, workers, and contributors into the Democratic race. To a point, this has all been good for democracy and the Democratic Party. But you have to wonder if that point wasn't passed around the time when former Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro suggested (yesterday) that Senator Obama wouldn't be in this thing if he weren't black, and that the media wouldn't have crawled all over her for this outrageous remark if she weren't white. (So, she would have been the party's vice-presidential nominee in 1984 if she had not been a woman?). Maybe it would have better come to an end earlier, when the Clintons first started playing the race card in South Carolina. Or maybe in the last week, when the Clinton campaign could not figure out just when Obama would be ready to be president: After Hillary Clinton had served her eight years? After she had won the nomination and decided he was experienced enough to be her running mate, because she realized it was the only way she was going to be able to heal the bleeding wounds in the party that her campaign had largely inflicted by its calculatedly divisive tactics? After Samantha Power had lost it herself and called the New York Senator a "monster", then tried to take it back from the record?

As a student of democracy, I am left feeling torn between exhaustion with this periodically pathetic spectacle and exhilaration with the inspiration, engagement, and outpouring of participation it has brought forth in state after state. Democrats have the benefit of unbelievable passion and attention, and tens of millions of dollars pouring into these two campaigns every month. They also have the anxiety of watching their two best candidates bloody one another in a demolition derby with no end in sight, while John McCain calmly goes about (until he blows his temper again) telling the party right wingers whatever they want to hear, building the organization, and raising the money he will need to compete and win.

By all accounts, this should be a Democratic year. We are coming off one of the most disastrously incompetent, negligent, and damaging presidencies in modern American history. We are mired in two wars. One is deteriorating needlessly; the other is going better for now but continues draining the military and the treasury, while posing a vexing challenge of how to extricate ourselves any time soon without calamity. The economy is entering recession and the governing Republicans will not be able to turn it around before the election. Deficits yawn into the horizon. Gas prices soar through the roof. Global warming gallops forward, threatening our very civilization in a longer run that few politicians want to risk political capital to address. And George W. Bush stands there in front of the White House, doing a little two-step while he waits for his 71-year-old presumptive successor to show up and be anointed. If ever there looked like a losing year for Republicans....

It may be hard to imagine if you are watching the nightly news or Saturday Night Live, but the Republicans could well still lose. The Democratic path to the nomination, not to mention the presidency, is going to be long and winding and utterly draining. It is fair to wonder whether the nomination will be worth having if it is not finally determined until the floor of the convention, shortly before Labor Day, by a punch of politicians deciding at the last moment who can best save their leaking ship. But there is another plausible and slightly more cheering scenario.

At some point -- probably in early June, after Michigan and Florida will have voted for the first serious time in some kind of do-over primary, funded by the Democrats -- the voting and caucusing is going to end, more than two months in advance of the convention. If Senator Clinton has rolled up large enough victories in the remaining contests -- Pennsylvania, Indiana, North Carolina, Kentucky, Oregon, and then presumably Michigan and Florida -- to surge ahead in the popular vote and close the gap in pledged delegates or even go ahead, it will be hard for Barack Obama to deny her the nomination just because he has won more states (like Iowa, South Carolina, Vermont and Wyoming). But if Obama comes out of this long and winding process with more popular votes, more pledged delegates, and -- despite the withering assaults of the Clinton campaign -- a better prospect of beating John McCain in most of the polls, then there is no way he can be denied the nomination without the Democratic Party committing suicide in November. (And it will be very hard, under that scenario, to imagine Obama legitimating what his supporters would almost universally regard as a theft of his rightful nomination by agreeing to be Hillary Clinton's running mate). The Super Delegates are not going to jump off that cliff just so the Clintons can lead the Democratic Party again.

For the Democrats, one of those is the hopeful scenario: Hillary Clinton wins nearly everything remaining, and decisively enough to establish leads in everything that matters, or Obama wins enough to retain his leads, clinch his claim to the nomination, unify the party, energize the base like no time in recent memory, and win in November. The latter is much more likely, since, as analysts like Chuck Todd have shown, Hillary Clinton would have to win consistently and by massive margins in the remaining states in order to take the lead in pledged delegates. However well she does in Pennsylvania and the like, there is enough diversity left among the remaining states, and sufficient money, energy, resilience, and appeal in the Obama campaign, to make a Hillary landslide almost impossible.

This leaves open two further possibilities. One is genuine deadlock, with neither side yielding, the super delegates splitting, and the fantasy of political media junkies finally materializing: a brokered convention. The other is that, after Democratic voters in so many states at critical moments have voted to keep the race going, those in key states down the line will realize that uniting the party for victory in 2008 will mean uniting it pretty soon behind Barack Obama.

Comments

[AC500]

A dogged fighter I can get behind ... a lying, cheating, dishonest below-the-belt fighter with no integrity, I find despicable.

[Independent voter]

1) My ex-wife is nasty and negative, shrewd and relentless, a dogged fighter. BFD.

2) check your sources. Ferraro's was made in an interview 2 weeks ago

[kanyingi]

The race is over.

The warlord John McCain will be the next POTUS. Its unbelievable!!!

The democratic party is split down the middle. Just look at the popular vote so far.

The supporters of either Obama or Cinton are so passionate and emotional that many of them will not vote for the other candidate if their candidate does not win the democratic nomination.
It will be as though someone or something has stolen the love of there life from them.

Just look at how many people have actually given their hard earned money to these two POLITITIANS.

[Jonny38103]

Not true at all - I support Sen Clinton first but will proudly vote for Sen Obama over Sen McCain in a heartbeat.

[1dogs2]

I'm afraid the road was always going to lead to the final act of the public part of the psychodrama starring Bill and Hillary Clinton and a denouement featuring the destruction of the Democratic party as a consequence of the unremediated co-dependency of these two world-class narcissists. Bill said fairly early on that he didn't care what damage his support of Hillary might do to his own reputation and legacy. That's good because polls are showing that a majority of Democrats now have a negative view of him. What Hillary touts as her qualities as a "fighter" more and more Democrats are coming to see as those of an obsessively driven woman who is unable to step back and see the consequences of her behavior.

Advice for the Clintons: GET HELP!!! Please do it privately rather than on the front pages of every newspaper in America, and do it before you condemn us to another disastrous Republican administration.

[AnninCA]

I don't think any of us can stack the deck one way or the other. The super delegates also have their own constituents to consider. While they are independent, it's hard to imagine how they are going to answer to their own voters if there is not a compelling argument to be made.

[dutchess2]

Its just this simple:

Barack Obama has won.

Hillary cannot possibly exceed his popular vote, his delegates, or his states now.

She needs to go home before she and Bill rip the democrat party and this Nation in two.

You can hear it any time you stop to listen. There is no way superdelegates are gonna rip the POTUS from Obama's hands and give it to Hillary.

If Hillary wins, the only way she can will be dirty....NONE of Obama's supporters will vote for her,
NONE of the white progressive hopeful voters will vote for her..

We'll write in Obama, or Paul, or vote for McCain, or stay at home..

Hillary has lost...

She needs to go home.

[ctom]

The long and winding road will soon get ice and there'll be no salts to spray.

Republicans finally figured it out. They don't have to win based on issues and they don't have to steal either. All they have to do is to keep Hillary viable just long enough for her to do their job, which is to keep large numbers of democratic voters at home this November.

The solution is easy enough.

Let Hillary win by small margins like in Texas. It's enough to keep Hillary going but not enough to overcome the delegate and popular vote lead held by Obama. So long as Hillary has an excuse, she'll stay in. Camp Hillary and the Clintons themselves know enough of the Republican playbook to do the job that no self-serving Republican will do HIMSELF against Obama. All it takes is for 1 out of 10 Republicans to register as a Democrat and vote for Hillary as Rush has suggested. The impact was pronouced in Texas but not so fruitful in MS. However in N.C., Indiana, and other places where the race is close, this is enough. So long as Obama has the votes and the delegates but Hillary has enough moral victories (i.e. winning by 5%) in key states, there will be a civil war, no doubt.

I think this all happened when Rush saw SNL's "vote for the Bitch" segment and history will recall that as his eurika moment. Conversatives never liked McCain and most felt he will lose without their votes, which sounded like the lesser evil of two really bad options. Now they have a way out. They can vote for Hillary in a Democrat primary and a Republican will still win the general withou them ever voting for McCain. Talk about a way out.

If you think me wrong, just wait and watch. There is no way in hell that Hillary goes down quietly. She will either take the nomination by any means necessary or be pull out kicking and screaming at the convention. Either way, the job will be done. Large segments of real DNC supporters will stay at home this November.....and then we'll see what happens.

[anywho]

After South Carolina Hillary's campaign essentially lost the black vote....therefore she she is now free to play the racists card in the desperate hope of marginalizing OBAMAS white support.......At this point she is after the popular vote in PA, period. It is all she has left. She will not get Florida & Michigan reinstated the way she would like (thank God for the ethics of Dean, I am so grateful that we have this man where he is.....as luck would have it...finally) and she knows she cannot "win" the delegate math thus she is left with the popular vote as a last hope. It is a last stand, an all out battle....it is civil war within the Democratic Party....brother against brother.

Hillary seems willing to do anything, and I emphasise ANYTHING, including inflicting deep and long term damage to her and her husbands reputation because she is under so such pressure to get the nomination...but all she is doing is putting a band aid on a crack in a dam. In her mind she doesn't see the real world only the battlefield. She has her Generals (surrogates) distributed throughout the media, the Governorships and she practically owns the DLC. They have not come to see the reality yet either....one more battle......one more spin cycle.

Unfortunately, like Spitzer, Hillary is on a suicide run....it is over for her and going on will only damage her more. The more dirt she trows at OBAMA the worse she looks.

[Kordo]

Solution:

I have an idea for how to resolve this mess, one that will utilize both candidate's strengths, and give them both a job they can really sink their teeth into. Bear with me for a moment:

The President, despite his billing as "the Leader of the Free World", dosen't really make domestic policy. He/She can say yes or no to bills, can issue executive orders to federal agencies, and has clout when it comes to supreme court nominees. Oh, yeah, he/she can order the military to kill pretty much whomever, though that's not really a domestic matter (we hope). Her/His job, as I see it, is to make speeches, glad-hand/smack-down foreign leaders, and use the bully pulpit to motivate the nation. This requires you to have, if not the love of your political opponents, at least their faith that you won't automatically dismiss their concerns. Even the most disagreeable folks will give a little on positions, if they feel they're getting a fair hearing.

The Senate Majority Leader has a whole different portfolio. His/Her job is to master the details of policy, guide legistlation thru congress, and force a roomful of greedy egomaniacs to at least appear to behave like adults. When it comes to actually getting things done domestically, this is where it's at. The SML must have some tact, but not so much that people feel they can buck you without getting bucked right back.

With this as my premise, and feel free to call me on it if I've missed some nuance, here's my idea:

Barack Obama was born to be President. Even-tempered, thoughtful, polite, but willing to stick to his guns on matters of principle. An inclusive, peaceful worldveiw tempered by intelligent, clear-eyed assessment of the very real (as opposed to Bush-exacerbated) threats we face. A profound, bone-deep knowledge of where our Country has failed, as well as where we have excelled. Intimate personal expierience with just how difficult it will be to get people from different cultures to see each other as more than enemies/competitors, and some damn good ideas on how to accomplish that Herculean task. And the guy can give one hell of a speech :)

Hillary Clinton was born to be Senate Majority Leader. Absolute master of policy detail, tough as a nail, impossible to intimidate, and deeply committed to making life better for the average guy/gal. Tina Fey was right: we need a hard-core Bitch in that job after "Ol' Toothless" Harry Reid, someone to go in there and whip those prima-donnas into shape. Think about it; you are a minority Republican who wants to ram some bit of pet legistlation thru Congress. With Obama, no disrespect to the man, but he's young and polite, and that gives a hard-edged Pol some wiggle room. With Hillary, you'd better have yer ducks in a row, and yer shit together. Step to that Lady with anything less than a closely-reasoned, voter-supported, and realistically effective argument, and she's gonna hand you your guts in a bucket. Raise your hand if you think Bush would have been able to pull half the crap he has if Hillary had been SML, with a majority Dem senate, and no Presidential campaign to worry about? She'd have had that chimp roasting over a slow fire! (I hereby forego my right to hound her about the Iraq vote; considering the political enviroment at the time, I can't say I'd have done different. )

Hillary is bad at speeches, she hates glad-handing, and she's not shy about letting people know she's the smartest person in the room. She's utterly committed to fighting for her principles, and she's about the last person you'd want to cross on a substantive policy issue. Is there a better job description you think she'd fit? Did I mention she's impossible to intimidate?

Barack is a natural consensus-builder, he has gut-level understanding of the damage entrenched attitudes can do to a Polity, and he has shown by his actions that he will see to it that every political faction will have a voice in our government, without allowing any particular group to ride roughshod over the other. Add to that his personal expierience as a poly-ethnic American, his deep understanding of the global culture beyond our borders, and his stated willingness to put the smack-hand down on our so-called friends-who-aren't-really-friendly in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. Plus, he can give a frakkin speech! imagine a President who doesn't make you cringe when he opens his mouth?

I realize that this solution puts the onus of compromise on Hillary, and I know that she and many of her supporters will find it lacking because of that. But I do think that if we, as Democrats, will take the longer veiw, we'll realize that it gives us the best shot at putting a progressive stamp on US policy for the next generation. Health care, supreme court appointees, global military policy, all of these issues....

Keith Olbermann was right. We can't afford to destroy ourselves, and I regret some (most) of my rash and impolite statements on this site. I'm not gonna vote for McCain no matter who gets the Dem nod. I think we have a bigger fight on our hands. I'd really like to hear some comments on this, as I think it's a good, or at least workable, Idea.

Kordo

[S1m0n]

"...and she's not shy about letting people know she's the smartest person in the room."

The problem is that she isn't the smartest in a great many of the rooms she's been in. Judged on the record, Hillary's smarts are exactly as substantial as her "experience". Both are things she claims, and (it seems) must talk about obsessively and at length, but which aren't at all obvious to the observer.

[dutchess2]

Senate Majority leader is an earned position....

Why would whomever has earned it give it to Hillary?

Why is Hillary owed anything?

Look what she did with the trust she had from all of us for all those years....first chance she got
to go negative, she proved everything the vast right wing majority ever said about her is true, or
certainly could be.

It hadda matter to her too...and it didn't.

[Rotobabe]

Yeah, I agree...let's let Harry Reid continue to be the wet noodle at the top of the Senate. I love that thought.

[Plowboy]

Since there are so many running around telling us now that HER nasty negative and downright dirty tactics are great, I hope that some one of them will soon explain to us why that is. When other people act hatefully, selfishly, and frankly crookedly, they are undesirable. But when Hillary, who cannot win honestly to save her soul, rolls her own dice with the spots removed and calls the result from remembering where the spots formerly were, we must stand up and rock the boat with our cheers?

I don't get it.

[nomobull]

maybe a little less praise by the media for her dirty politics would put an end to this and bring it back to issues

[Myrrhis]

What a legacy Hillary will leave to this country, after this campaign and election are over.

She managed to out do the Republicans in her attacks on a fellow Democrat, and it seems, Mr. Diamond, that not only will she try win by means that she has, in the past, decried, but that you admire her for that.

You can level with us, you never wanted to be Democrat, did you . . .

[RichLiberal]

Umm, I don't think HIllary has to win the most "pledged delegates". The whole reason for the "super-delegates" (which is why they are called "super"-delegates) is to correct the situation if the number of "pledged delegates" allocated to the candidates turns out to be a mistake.

The fact that Obama has a lead in pledged delegates based on un-representative and unconstitutional from a voting perspective caucuses, while Hillary could well end up with a majority of the popular vote is a good example of the kind of "mistake" the Super-Delegates might very well correct.

[Kordo]

"Obama has a lead in pledged delegates based on un-representative and unconstitutional from a voting perspective caucuses"
Whew, glad Hillary is here to catch this blatant disrespect of the intentions of the Founders, huh? A group of commited and engaged voters gets together and hashes out who they like best, in free, open, and often raucous discussion! My Gods, how did this come to pass?? A much better way would be to have a bunch of party poo-bahs keep us from such a "mistake".

Odd, though, how this Constitutional Warrior never had any problem with the democratic process until it started to work against her. Don't worry, RichLiberal (apt name, btw), i'm sure Hillary will somehow manage to triangulate her way to the convention, at least. Unless these superdels you're so proud of decide their personal political futures are more important to them than Clinton's naked ambition. And aren't we all supposed to work for the good of the Party? As opposed to those dumb shmuck voters....

Political Akido is one thing, and Hill is good at it; but when your arguments get so far around the bend they start eating their own tails, you know your candidate is desperate....

[vanessa04]

"A group of commited and engaged voters gets together and hashes out who they like best, in free, open, and often raucous discussion! "

Unlike those uncommitted and disengaged voters who voted in the primaries. Who the hell cares about them. In fact, who cares about HALF THE DEMOCRATIC VOTERS?

It seems very likely that the DNC will capitulate to mob rule. Frankly, I don't care if they do it tomorrow, or August. At the beginning of this race, I said I would vote for whoever the Dem nominee was. No more.

I will NOT vote for Obama. I refuse to "unite" in name only behind a man who is a charlatan and a hypocrite. I refuse to be bullied by a bunch of mawkish, hypocritical, condescending whiners who are nothing more than the liberal version of Bushies.

Which is appropriate. Because Obama is as much a uniter as George W. Bush was.

[jsinclair]

FYI caucuses are neither unconstitutional or unrepresentative.

Quite the contrary. The are CHOSEN BY STATES (not candidates!) because people like the idea of direct, particatory democracy.

It's a myth, btw, that Obama only does well in caucuses. Look at his primary count. And his popular vote. And his delegate count. And the superdelegate trend.

He's a great candidate. Hillary? She's doing a great job, too---as the fifth column for McCain.

[dutchess2]

Now who has decided that unrepresentative and unconstitutional caucuses carry no weight?

Who had decided they are unrepresenttive and unconstitutional?

let me guess...................................................hillary?

figures.

So you want all the long-time democrats that have achieved super delegate status to jerk the prize Obama has won fairly from him and hand it to Hillary after she's turned negative Rovian Republican to get it?

Ain't happenin

[Silpat]

Bill, Hillary, and Ferraro's reputations are in the toilet; Obama winning the nomination will result in the "Royal Flush", after which the three of them will become as obsolete as ____.

[DavidK08]

At last! someone is making sense of the role of the supers.

The only reason this blood bath is going on still, is because the supers are too stupid to just get behind the lead dog and start fighting McCain instead of each other. If 50 supers got behind Obama, or 50 told HRC that it isn't looking so good, even she would have to drop out. Failing to do that, at that point would cause the flow of supers to the one with the superior judgement, Obama.

[billis3811]

After this weeks' Ferraro Scandal, I think those supedelgates might be close to backing a candidate.

[Plowboy]

Too many of those supers are the rather despicable things Molly Ivins said they were.

http://www.cnn.com/2006//POLITICS/01/20/ivins.hillary/

Note: the Empress has no clothes.

America needs new leadership and it won't come from those who kept selling out to the Bush-Cheney gang. Purge the damned DLC. We have a fine DNC and and those Saboteurs should change parties if they want to continue with the Bush program.

[jade7243]

If Barack Obama was a white man, at this point in the race, HILLARY CLINTON would be gone and the party would have united behind him. He won Super Tuesday taking 13 of 22 states. He won 11 straight contests including the Potomac Primary. He won more delegates out of states she claims to have won (Nevada and Texas). What's next? arm-wrestling?

If Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton's name was not Clinton, if her husband was not Bill, former President, she wouldn't be here. She is the lucky one. To have transformed an unofficial, ceremonial position (First Lady -- a position she held solely by virtue of being married to the President) and a paper thin resume. into a Senate seat from a so-called "big" state is chutzpah to the max. Frankly she should take a lesson from Eliot Spitzer and quit while she is ahead. She has a safe Senate seat today. But continuing to alienate Democratic voters may cost her that seat in the next election.

It's time to play "Deal or No Deal," Hillary. The "deal" is voters have given you a bright future as US Senator from NY. Yours until you choose to retire. Or you can let greed and unfettered ambition have you to throw it all away. You can lose everything -- even when you think you have won exactly what you thought you wanted. And when you lose it all, Hillary, we WILL BE dancing on your political grave. (See again, Eliot Spitzer. How else do you explain a 400+ gain on the stock when his "situation" was revealed. Schadenfreude, for real.)

deal or no deal?

[Kordo]

Amen. The superdels need to crap, or get off the pot. Hillary can't seem to quit shooting herself in the foot, and Obama seems to handle everything thrown at him with the same calm good grace. 100-150 odd supers getting off the fence ought to do it.