Each week the blogs, cable-fests and Sunday shows overanalyze a new mime... and post-Pennsylvania, it's the angst that Democrats will splinter and hand the election to McCain. Among other topics, this one came up on this week's 7 Days in America, with Headliner (and Clinton surrogate) Bob Kerrey arguing that his favorite was not being unusually negative for a trailing candidate and Arianna Huffington contending that she was a divisive fearmonger.
My view: worry of a self-immolating schism is apt if the general election were to be held May 4, not November 4. Let's stop exaggerating differences and universalizing this moment since it's nearly inevitable that the two Democratic contenders and their supporters will eventually unite given the stakes of a Bush III.
True, there's never been a contest quite this close and contested -- and fraught with issues of race and gender. But it's instructive to remember how two other camps reconciled in 1960 and 1984.
Richard Nixon and Nelson Rockefeller represented two different wings of that Republican Party. With Rockefeller itching to run, he and Nixon met at 810 Fifth Avenue to iron out differences -- the result being "the Compact of Fifth Ave" with Nixon putting some civil rights planks in the party's platform and Rocky stepping aside.
Twenty-four years later and three blocks away, at Arthur and Mathilde's four story townhouse in the East 60s, Walter Mondale and Gary Hart met in June after Mondale had pulled away to a prohibitive lead (because of superdelegates!). As a Hart aide, I was downstairs with other staff while the two contenders met alone in an upstairs study. Here was the report by William Doerner from Time magazine that week:
Once the two adversaries had sequestered themselves in the study, shirtsleeves rolled up and notes at their sides, the mutual accusations began, each man coldly recalling stinging statements made by the other during the campaign. But after two touchy minutes, the ice was broken: both admitted that much of the rhetoric had been ill advised and, while offering no direct apologies, agreed that they were sorry that things had got out of hand. They then put the final touches on an accord that removed the threat of a Hart challenge to the credentials of Mondale delegates...
strong>EXCERPTS FROM 7 DAYS, APRIL26, w/ BOB KERREY, ARIANNA HUFFINGTON, MARK GREEN & JOAN WALSH
KERREY: Q: Is Hillary right that "the tide turning" in her favor after her Pennsylvania win? "I'd say yes. Whether it turns fast enough is the question. It's a very big win. She lost Philadelphia by 150,000 votes and won the state by 200,000 votes. That's a huge win for her. In two weeks, the question is can she win Indiana?"
KERREY: Q: Is Clinton going too negative in her attacks on Barack Obama and is that hurting the party? "I worry a little. It's a concern, but I do want a nominee who can not only take a punch but deliver a punch. Whatever's been said in her advertisements about Senator Obama will pale in comparison to what he'll see in the general election. I don't think there has been anything she's said or done that has been outside of the range of what I consider to be reasonable in a campaign."
KERREY: Q: Is John McCain as hot-tempered as the press is telling us? "If you start off by saying that 'John McCain can get angry,' that's undeniably true. But, there's no instability there. It's not that he gets road rage or anything like that. It's connected to something he is trying to get done. But it is real anger. When you see it it can take your breathe away. I don't think it comes anywhere close to making him unqualified to be the President of the United States. If we are going to win in November, we have to find something more than John McCain's temper."
KERREY: Q: Are you worried that McCain will succeed in seeing the entire election through the lens of Islamo-terrorism? "I think that's the big question of this campaign. The Democrats have to come and respectfully say, 'We don't regard terrorism as something that's small. It is an existential strategy. We regard it seriously and we will use lethal force if necessary to protect the people of the United States. We are not gonna blame society for these problems.' I think there is also an opportunity for us to say to the nation the great challenge is trying to figure out how to make globalization work. Terrorism is a piece of that problem. What the Republicans have done is they have magnified it beyond reality and as a consequence distorted both our foreign policy and our domestic policy."
WALSH: Q: How can Clinton persuade 200 of 300 remaining superdelegates to support her, since that's what she needs to be the nominee? "I think that it's pretty implausible. I think that it would be a revolutionary and possibly damaging thing for the party if it was the superdelegates who gave her the nomination. It just looks so anti-democratic and Obama has been an amazing phenomenon. If there was a terrible Obama stumble, then the superdelegates would have to ask themselves why."
HUFFINGTON: Q: Is it more democratic to include or exclude the millions of Democrats who voted in Florida -- not seat delegates because of the vote but at least count in reports of the popular vote those who did vote between the two? " HUFFINGTON: "This is an amazing question. They all agreed, the candidates included not just the DNC, that Florida and Michigan would not count. They did not say they would count in votes, but not in delegates."
HUFFINGTON: Q: Why is Clinton beating Obama with crucial swing blue collar white voters in Ohio and Pennsylvania while Obama is significantly out-spending her? "In the end, fear trumps everything. She is appealing to the voters lizard brain. People are not rational. She has convinced them that she is the one that will keep them safe. If you close your eyes and pretend that what she is saying is being said by John McCain then you will have the general campaign againt Obama." WALSH: "I think that gives Clinton more credit than she deserves for dominating the debate and dominating the race. It's true that a lot of her voters are people who are fearful. They're fearful for a good reason. I don't think they are fearful of Osama Bin Laden under the bed, but rather they're fearful of losing their jobs, their homes, their healthcare. Those are genuine things to be concerned about in this Bush economy and it seems that it is Hillary who is proactively reassuring people about valid rational fears. For whatever reason, Obama is having a hard time breaking through and reassuring them that he has solutions for them."
You can throw the nomination, but unless the party has control of ALL of the machines--and not just those in Ohio, and NYC--you can't throw the election. People WILL stay home, or write in their candidate of choice if that person is not the nominee. Or vote McCain. The last century won't serve as a model for how we're going to behave. The internet has empowered people in a way barely conceived of when Hart/Mondale were playing footsie. We're accustomed to having a say, to engaging with one another. We've gotten used to mattering. These times they really are a'changin'.
BTW, "mime" is what those silent people with white-painted faces wearing striped jerseys do in Central Park to annoy people. It's "meme" you want. Or don't.
Instead it's the Democrats, the Republicans and the Clintons.
Don't give us the 'let's all get along' after just ever so gently has swiftboated Barack Obama, the most visionary leader in a generation.
And what will we get in return. Eight years of bickering. No t hanks.
I will not vote for Hillary.
I will write in Obama's name.
They'll say if the superdelegates hand Hillary Clinton the nomination in Denver, despite her not winning the popular vote or pledged delegates it will disenfranchise the party. And that would be a bad thing.
Even though the system was set into place by the DNC for this very purpose, so an unelectable phenom like Barack Obama would not make it to a national election for fear that his charms were merely fringe party based.
So by the rules, she has every right to swing them her way, despite the absurdly undemocratic nature of this system.
But these same people who would decry such a coup, say Florida and Michigan voters shouldn't count, their delegates shouldn't be seated because they broke party rules.
Which is it, are the rules important or not. Is the spirit of democracy the most important value here, or is winning by numbers?
Barack has no problem playing by the rules in Florida, but at the convention will he decry the rules being adhered to if in fact Hillary can convince the supers his ship has sailed.
Superdelegates were put in place for this scenario. If they're useless when the most opportune time to employ them, and they're made to vote with their states wishes, why have them.
That is not a contradiction.
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I remember well how they campaigned all out for Kerry in '04...an indication (as you say) of their adult personalities.
A good gauge of both Clintons' political personality is their decision to engage in a "kitchen sink" campaign - or as she famously called it "the fun part".
Though I'm no republican, Reagan did have an adult personality. That's the reason for his famous eleventh commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of thy fellow republican".
Here's the bottom line: The Clintons won't campaign "all out" for anyone but themselves. To think otherwise is to ignore their history, and be willfully naive.
She's not a team player.
For some time, this has been worth considering with regards to the string of questions raised about the candidates as the Long Quibble has dragged on. As common sense would have it, it's not all bad to get this stuff out of the way this far in advance.
Other memes with time to wear out: working class delusion that Sen Clinton is their pal: related idea that excellence is the same as elitist, with absurd resulting conclusion that America does not deserve/want an excellent president. Jeesh!
It is continually irritating to the point of madness that we hear that this fight has to go on and not have someone explain how Hillary plans on getting the nomination away from Obama- which obviously will require a convention fight of enormous dimensions- then goes on to beat McCain.
Why isn't anyone simply accepting the fact that the general election is on! This mindless talk about trying to bring the party together ignores the perception that this nominating process gives to America. I mean would you want to entrust your country to a party who will obviously control the house, the senate and the White House, but can't even apply it's own rules or force candidates to follow their own pledges.
The harm that is now happening is that the Democrats look like a disorganized bunch of idiots not capable of even running a national campaign without screwing it up.