I can’t stress enough the importance for Democrats to resolve the presidential race soon, before the convention, before June and preferably before Memorial Day.
I write from the Iron Range, a place that gets little attention in political coverage ironically because of its reliably important role in Minnesota’s electoral makeup. The Range delivers 40 point margins for statewide and presidential Democrats every election. Except when it doesn’t, which is when statewide or presidential Democrats lose.
Around the dinner table at a recent family function, I was surprised by the discussion on national politics. First off, my family is not overtly political, and tends to eschew extremism of either liberal or conservative variety. This group of white males I was talking to (you know, the hot new 2008 demographic) wasn’t really charged up by the racial tones of the election, but more so by the Democrats inability to settle the nomination. The tit for tat arguing and endless news cycle was the most troubling factor for my family members and for most blue collar, working folks I talk to around here (the ones who pundits worry will defect to John McCain). If this continues, I get the impression that Obama’s margins on the Range in November will suffer. This puts Minnesota in jeopardy for the Democrats, and victory requires Minnesota in the blue coalition.
That’s the problem with this year’s campaign. If Barack Obama had put Hillary Clinton away a month ago, as McCain did his opponents, we’d be settling in for the long haul of the November campaign. And yes, all the same issues that are now being discussed (Obama’s experience, the preacher controversy, etc.) would still come up, but would be part of the larger campaign. Obama’s ability to answer these charges (wisdom is more important than years in Washington, we should open the conversation about race to include all parties and their legitimate grievances) would be winning him points against McCain, instead of a primary opponent.
So while Clinton continues to hold on to an outside chance to win the nomination, her ability to win requires at least three more months of this same campaign dynamic. Obama will win states, delegates and probably popular votes at this point. For this reason alone, the Democrats’ best hope requires Clinton to cut a deal with Obama now. Supreme Court? Vice President? Senate Majority Leader? She should take a deal and we should move on.
I recognize this is unlikely. Clinton is starting to use the preacher controversy in her speeches and interviews now, which means they’ve focus group tested it and determined that it works with all the right demos. (You can tell the politicians that do this testing when they wait three or four days before talking about important news stories). But I hope that fellow Democrats recognize the damage we cause by allowing this to continue much longer.
Speak Your Mind