It's Time To Listen To The Boos

So, Sen. Obama claims to be the Great Unifier. Much of his campaign is premised on drawing people together, working for shared prosperity and shared goals. This is code for, "I will encourage and employ bipartisan policy in my Presidency." Ignoring the fact that, in our current political climate, this means huge disagreements, massively organized power struggles and endless bickering about balance and representation... I find it curious that Sen. Clinton is getting slammed for using "Republican" tactics in her Democratic campaign. Further, I find it curious that she is getting slammed for already being closer to the center than Obama. I wonder exactly what the Most Liberal Senator In America's plan is for drawing the GOP into his loving embrace?

Everyone has been waiting for the Obama Grand Slam and it has not come. He's had every chance to knock Clinton out of the race, and he can't do it. He's won more states, spend more money by 300%, and racked up a formidable delegate lead. He's clearly the more liberal, and clearly attracts a more educated crowd. This presumption however may be the problem: the very condescending implication that just because people with PhD's like him better, he'd be a better president. His lack of ability to close the deal with working class white voters is a very serious weakness, and one that is getting underscored a little heavier with each passing contest.

I don't think it says he would lose in November. I do believe that Democrats are going to vote Democrat in November, and the GOP is at a huge disadvantage. However, I do think that Clinton represents a known quantity, and stands a much better chance of avoiding "buyer's remorse" as President. She has not promised to salvage American souls. She has not promised to bring everyone together like a Coke commercial. She has taken a good deal of flak for negative campaigning (ignoring, again, that Obama has done exactly the same) but in reality, her campaign promises have stayed rooted in reality. She has said, "I will fix NAFTA, I will get health care for every American, and I will dovetail economic fixes with environmental fixes." Honestly, I think both of them are offering rhetoric on Iraq and not much else. They both say they are committed to ending the Iraq problem, and I honestly don't think it matters who did or didn't vote for it. It only matters what they will do, and they will do just about the same thing in that area. Obama's "change and hope" chant is starting to sound hollow, particularly after his clumsy handling of the "gods and guns" situation. He truly exposed an elitist and condescending view of the working class, the way only someone who started there and rose above it can.

Since the Pennsylvania primary, it has become abundantly clear to me that the Democratic race is no longer about the primaries. It is about convincing the superdelegates who to support. Likely, this has been true since Super Tuesday, but there were some fairly large states still to vote at that point, so we could tell ourselves it was about "the people." Now, we can spend the next 6 weeks micro-analyzing primary results, exit polls, and beating to death horses that we've already been riding for a year. There are no new arguments. There are no new news stories. The Al Gore rumors are cropping up again. The "will Dems destroy themselves" arguments are flying again. The Florida and Michigan arguments are getting the scabs picked off again.

I think the only safe and logical place for the Democratic battle to go is towards McCain and towards the issues. We've had a very big departure, as both Democratic candidates waded into a mud slinging fest between March 4th and April 22nd, the full spectrum of Silly Season. We all knew it was coming, both Dems and the GOP all warned about it, and yet we have the audacity to act surprised when it did. Come on. At this point, we have seen both Obama and Clinton multiple times get booed when they started ripping into each other, or even hinting that they might. Everyone's sick of it. The real damage to the Democratic campaign in November is not what either one of the current Democratic candidates may say and do to each other, but what they are doing to the image of the campaign itself. If they allow themselves to completely dissolve into further bickering and cherry picking of he-said/she-said, the image of Democrats in general is going to get hurt, maybe critically hurt. It's time to listen to the boos and refocus.

Eventually, either Clinton or Obama is going to be the Democratic nominee.

Let that one sink in for a second. At this point, I think there is no surety for either of them. And, what we've known since at least March 4th is that the superdelegates are going to make the call. Let that one sink in too. This amorphous "the people" have also had every chance to break for one or the other, and they haven't been able to do it, either. That is precisely why superdelegates exist. It is why the electoral model exists. I believe there is no ignoring the fact at this point that the Democratic battle is going to be settled on the Convention floor, even if the "real" decision is made by July 1st, like Howard Dean wants. I believe both Obama and Clinton have no choice but to start directly campaigning for superdelegate backing. The way they frame the remaining nominating contests will be about how the superdelegates view the results, not about the actual results. Clinton may well be able to close the popular vote gap between now and the first week of June. Obama very likely will maintain his delegate lead. Then, they have to face off over which is more important: accrued delegates or accrued votes. The reality post-Pennsylvania is that not much changed on the broadest strokes of the math. However, underneath that, we do see a dramatic divide, and Clinton is not wrong that the tide may in fact be turning. She says this to imply that she is winning now, which may or may not be true. What is actually turning her way is her argument that she is more electable. Again, this does not automatically imply that Obama is unelectable. Going into the upcoming primaries, we'll see what it really means. The case is not as open and shut as either campaign wants us to think.