A Triangulated Battle

So what exactly are these dire consequences to the Democratic party if Clinton and Obama drag their horse race out five more months? I don't think it is that the two are "destroying each other." I don't think it is lasting bitterness on behalf of the eventual loser's supporters. I don't think it is that the superdelegates are going to crash and burn modern democracy if they don't follow the popular vote. All of this bickering and hostility and mud slinging will be instantly forgotten once the nomination is awarded.

Calls for either Clinton or Obama to drop out have been soundly booed, even by party leadership. Even though the media is focusing on Howard Dean's call for delegates to endorse, he specifically identified his time line as after the primary season. This week, big money Clinton supporters threw down the gauntlet to Nancy Pelosi and basically said if she openly endorses Obama before the Convention, they won't open their wallets to House Democrats. MoveOn.org went wild over this and issued a rebuke. Pelosi seems to have rejected this threat, but also flexed her claws over threats to House Democrats, which tells me she takes it seriously. No matter what happens, I believe the message is loud and clear: no one is dropping out yet.

What the party leaders are afraid of is triangulation. I have long felt that voters are evaluating all three presidential candidates on a continuum from left to right, independent of party affiliation. Both the Democrats and the GOP are experiencing disturbing trends of defection. The Democratic party considers GOP defectors a success and view the Dems who are showing sympathies to McCain a sign that the internal race is harming the cause. I find it to be an exciting phenomenon, and a clear indicator that American voters are engaged in the political process. I believe this phenomenon is benefiting the Democratic party, but only because they are the only potent national venue where change is endorsed.

I also believe a sub-textual fear is that if Clinton gets the nomination, resentful voices will say Republicans tipped the balance. If that is true, it also calls into question the motives of GOP defectors, which Rush Limbaugh has already paved the road for. "Triangulation" is a dirty word to most Democrats, and it was a major bone of contention between the party and Bill Clinton. Regardless, I believe it cannot be ignored that Obama, Clinton and McCain represent a liberal-moderate-conservative scale, in that order. All scandals aside, all analysis of race, gender, and age (again, in that order) aside, what we see right now are three very viable, intelligent, and prepared candidates, all of whom have a very distinct Presidency mapped out.

Reality is finally intruding on the '08 election cycle. The economy is swiftly emerging as the big election issue. All three candidates have begun platforming economic plans, solutions to the mortgage crisis, and dovetailing their personal campaign slants in. Obama is subtly inserting his Change theme into his economic position. Clinton is doing the same with Health Care, arguably her strongest position, smartly using it as her launching pad for the rest of her economic plans. And, McCain is splashing foreign relations broadly across his whole strategy, and doing some very impressive image spinning. Both Democrats have started to focus on McCain instead of each other, which tells me, the General Election has begun.

Increasingly, I see Clinton and Obama drawing the knife edge closer instead of further apart. Currently, in head-to-heads, Obama has regained his visible lead over McCain, according to RealClearPolitics.com. However, less than one point separates all of them, and both Democrats come in at exactly 45.0%, showing they both perform the same in a head-to-head. The undecided percentages, and the margin or error erases any determining call. Pennsylvania and North Carolina have re-polarized after a few days flux toward Clinton, and are now mirrors of each other again, with the split hovering around 50-30, favoring Clinton in Penn and Obama in NC. Clinton is standing to gain more in Pennsylvania, but she has a harder climb than Obama, so the delegate-smaller state of NC is still a considerable win for Obama, too. Once more, an eye for an eye. Again, according to RCP, factoring in Florida, Michigan and estimates from states that do not report exact totals, the popular vote total is split almost exact down the middle, separated by less than 1 percent, around 200,000 votes. Depending on any number of factors from visceral things like money to the completely spontaneous, Clinton could easily make up that difference. Jay Cost has made a very compelling and thorough analysis of how the popular vote count could vary dramatically. Both have suffered very nasty blows to their image and are both still standing. Both have spouses who have been unpalatable to their campaigns. Both have had inverted victories, hedging into each other's bases equally. I believe even the Democratic voting pattern shows equal-opposite strengths. Clinton performs well with big working class states, and Obama performs well in caucuses and broadly with white men. Both inspire so much loyalty that their supporters are willing at least to threaten defection. Both represent a contradiction to the Democratic party. Clinton's sense of entitlement to the presidency is fairly consistent with the party sentiment, but find the attitude distasteful coming from Clinton. Obama represents change and coalition, but the risks involved in backing him are considerable. The true significance of the Wright scandal is that race had to come up eventually, and it will again.

Every high profile Democrat has reinforced the push for unity behind whoever wins the nomination. I believe the reason Howard Dean has said July 1st will be his personal deadline for all delegates to make up their minds is because he fears not the Convention, but a brokered convention, which is when the really ugly fighting would start. The "Al Gore Shadow Candidate" rumor is popping up again, and I still don't believe it. But, I do believe people are doing the math and realizing that even the superdelegate vote could split in such a way that neither candidate got the 2025 magic number. It could happen.

Everyone already knew this, but now that it is happening, they are realizing that instead of preventing it, they should be planning for it. Preventive strategies have failed, instead fueling the debates. Democratic leadership now has to lean toward preparing for the superdelegates to take center stage, exercise their best judgment, select a nominee, and do all of this in the most politic possible way. Doing so by July 1st gives six weeks to test the waters for the presumed nominee. Someone has to concede eventually, and if buyers remorse is going to set in, better it be while there is still an option: before the Convention. Clinton is poised for a big win in Pennsylvania, one that will net her momentum for coming wins, a delegate gain, and a major proof in her "more electable" argument. Rightly, she could at this point throw Obama's words back at him in answer to his campaign calls for her to drop out, "Why would I drop out? I'm winning." Both know the pitfalls and advantages of the frontrunner - underdog symbiosis, and both are exercising them daily. Clinton is suffering very bad right now as the underdog, but this plays directly into her comeback phenomenon. The worse it looks for her, the greater even a small victory looks. Conversely, Obama is riding the wave of his near to insurmountable lead, returning to his grand oratory style, and writing speeches that are already headed for the history books. But, he has also found out that being in the lead, even in the presumed winner's slot, does not shield him from major blows to his image or questions of his integrity, in fact it intensifies the desire for scrutiny of both. Coming out of the recent round of battle bruised but still swinging is good for him, but he should be careful to think it's over. He may have won the battle, but the war is still very much on.

McCain has realized he can't stay out of the fray. Clinton and Obama if nothing else, are giving each other excellent practice rounds. As I have said in a previous article, Clinton and Obama represent very different challenges to McCain. His answer to this is to begin positioning himself as the President people expect. Now that he has gotten the Bush endorsement, he has also begun to distance himself from Bush politics, which both Democrats have harshly criticized. McCain knows his weaknesses, and he is sidestepping them rather well. He has come across as calm, confident, and eloquent, and that is the real danger. Both Democrats have begun, by necessity to respond to McCain's forays against them, and this has drawn attention to all three as serious options. Like it or not, the presidential race is currently three-way. It is incumbent on Democrats to narrow the field to two, but all three are campaigning for President, and all three are drawing their own unique following. I believe this is what accounts for the seemingly strange movements in party affiliation and in cross-over voting. Allow me to reiterate that I find this exciting and interesting, and I see it as a sign that Americans overall are more interested in who is President, not in what party wins.