While all the polls had eggs on their faces after this real head-scratcher on Tuesday -- Zogby, for example, seemed to be giving it to Obama by a nose in Texas and Clinton by a nose in Ohio, or it may have been vice versa, so many conflicting predictions filled the airwaves -- I was the only pundit who managed to escape without a drop of the yellow stuff.
My scenario said it didn't matter whether Hillary won or lost in Ohio and Texas by a nose or an ear. She would emerge victorious when those hack politicians would go into a phone booth in Denver and have a miraculous transformation. Faster than a speeding bandwagon, stronger than a steamroller -- no, it's Superdelegateperson!
Whatever position superdelegates were taking, as they faced the wonderful third-degree spotlight questioning by the media about where they stood or lay down on Obi and Hill, the old dropping-the-file-on-the- desk trick would determine their eventual vote. Harold Ickes and his crack team of fact-finders had been gathering raw material on the politicians' anointed superdelgate-ship. When push came to shove, they would be shoved to give Clinton the nomination, if not by acclamation. There are those who say this scenario is poppycock. "The Clintonistas will not able to use the no-holds-barred tactics," explained R. B. Bernstein, Adjunct Professor of Law at New York Law School. "The Old Guard will step in and disarm them and turn reluctantly to the rising young kid. They are so fixated on the goal of getting Bush out of the White House they will use it as a lodestar to guide their behavior."
Okay, so you also don't like my scenario. Here is another one.
The premise of scenario number two is the Democratic Party has the misfortune to be facing its own worse nightmare in the gang of 10 Republicans who began the race. Pastor Huckleberry, the strict constitutional scholar; Il Duce Rudy, the family values man who had more wives than Mitt the Mormon Romney and the other wannabees, all withered away.
They are left to duke it out with John McCain, a tough old bird.
McCain just ran a race where he thought he was facing his old Vietnamese jailers. "Here they come," he would say to himself every morning. "Okay, they will beat the shit out of me. If I'm still alive tomorrow, I'll be fine."
"I have no money," his mantra went. "Have no staff. No friends. Have no support in the media. My own party hates me. I'm fine."
He has taken the abuse from the right wing loony talk radio prison campers who said he wasn't conservative enough. They would rather lose with a Robert Taft-type candidate than win with an Ike Eisenhower who appealed to independents, the way Republicans ended their long losing streak in 1952.
Old John McCain is a tough grizzled fighter pilot, a little intemperate at times, a character defect that might be valuable in the world today. For example, he is a little nuts when he suggests we have to stay the course in Iraq for 100 years. As I was explaining in my first scenario, the Democrats will be tearing each other apart until they get to Denver. It's a party that is Balkanized, a party where everybody seems to hate each other. Young people hate old people; black people hate white people; women hate men; women hate other women. This election the Democrats reap what they seem to sow. Absolute hatred by one group for every other group.
Obama people are so angry with Hillary people now, you would think she was a Republican. The worse thing is should Obi lose in Denver, as I am predicting, his supporters will not be rallying behind the flag bearer. They will not be saying, "Okay, Hillary goes first. We're ready to carry the flag eight years from now." That's the way it's usually done in traditional American politics.
Instead the Democrats are about to the drink the grapes of wrath, a Hemlock 2008 vintage, unless they do something to heal the wounds or wound the heels, depending on which side of the trench you're in.
In my scenario number two, the Democrats situation is further complicated by doubts about both the remaining candidates. So many Americans either overtly or covertly still hate the Clintons. In the privacy of the voting booth, will Americans actually vote for a black man for President? I may be paranoid, but I think it's a lose-lose situation.
The party, I further predict, will eventually come to its senses enough to put principles aside. It's time for a compromise third candidate.
It's hard to remember anymore, given our being historically-impaired as a people, but there have been conventions in which a third candidate emerged, a dark horse, if you'll pardon the expression.
They can slug it out this summer with delegates engaged in wheeling and dealing horse trading votes, until they finally realize the law of diminishing returns is in play.
The Democrats, you've probably forgotten, went to 103 ballots in1924 before turning to an obscure former West Virginia congressman, John W. Davis, to face Calvin Coolidge. This was the state of confusion and disarray that led to Will Rogers' truism, "I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Silent Cal still won 382 to 136 electoral votes by keeping his mouth shut
The Old Guard will finally realize they need a compromise candidate, a man who has real experience in high office, not somebody who deals with hypotheticals about what they would do when the phone rings at 3 a.m.
A man who is a proven winner. A man who has actually won a national election in 2000.
A man who can call our attention to what's really wrong in the country. He knows, since he helped cause some of it as a vice president.
A man who can split the Republican Party into those who accept the inconvenient truth and those who think global warming is a left wing loony hoax, and won't believe otherwise even when the Missouri River turns to sand.
A man who is not worn out from the increasingly ridiculous primary and caucus system. A man who has not been hit by any of the arrows or epithets or mud being thrown.
A man who can energize the party.
A man who has won both the Nobel and an Oscar.
I'm talking about the all-new, improved, slimmed down animated version, the Inconvenient Truth man himself, Al Gore.
He can walk on water now.
Saint Al is the man who can save the Democratic Party from itself, and the country.
In conclusion, I want to assure you that I have not been promised an ambassadorship or judgeship for calling for the return of Al Gore.
And if I am wrong about any of this, I will be joining the ranks of the pundits and pollsters who this week are finding new ways to say, "I told you so!" no matter what happens.