The Nightmare
If the Democratic Party establishment hasn't got the wherewithal to pull the plug on Clinton's campaign well before the convention, then the Democrats deserve to lose the election. And lose they will. Taking the fight to seat Florida and Michigan and the fight over superdelegates into August will do two things: it deprives Obama of rest, recuperation, and an opportunity to plan the general campaign that he needs (and deserves), and it ensures bitter, lasting division between the demographic groups that have broken consistently along sharp lines between the candidates. Given the arcane challenges of the electoral college map, putting a winning coalition back together would become almost impossible. Our political system would be well and truly broken, obviously so, for everybody to see. In a non-trivial sense that would be the historic failure of the Democrats: shirking their responsibility to try to make the system work.
For several weeks the conventional wisdom has been "let Clinton run until the end of the primary season and give her a chance to bow out gracefully on her own terms." For Obama, yes, that makes sense. For Democratic Party elders, no, that is a fearful cop-out. Most recently the thundering pundits have noted how conciliatory Clinton has become, how she's directed her venom mostly at Republicans, and how civil relations between the campaigns are being restored. Yah — we could interpret that differently. Clinton is being "nice" now in order to push the process to the end of the primary season on June 3 (Montana and South Dakota), and the meeting of the DNC rules and bylaws committee which will consider what to do with Florida and Michigan, on May 31. But nothing may be really "resolved" at that point because so many superdelegates remain undeclared. Clinton's acting "nice" makes it much easier to nudge the process still further along, playing for time every step of the way to the convention, at which point the gloves would come off. It's not only possible, listening to Clinton's current rhetoric it seems the most likely scenario.
If the Democratic Party is going to anger poor, older, less educated white women anyway, why not get it over with long before November? And the fault here isn't some amorphous swirling mist, it has a name: Nancy Pelosi. Whenever she declares for Obama and tells other undeclared superdelegates (mostly members of the House) why they should do the same, they would. But can the Speaker of the House put her responsibility to party and country ahead of her fear of the Clintons? Don't count on it.
Posted by George Kenney on May 21, 2008 6:49 AM 
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Comments
This is indeed a very troubling situation. I find only two plausible explanations for this.
Either Hillary Clinton is a stupid woman so vain that she will spend millions of her own money in a Quixotic quest for the nomination, or there are powerful and wealthy forces within the Democratic Party that are using her candidacy to deny the nomination to Obama or sink the party's chances in the fall.
I find it hard to believe that Senator Clinton is that stupid, and if the second explanation is true, it can only mean that the DLC crowd doesn't trust Obama to continue their conservative, pro-corporate policies. If that is the case, it is all the more reason for us to work hard to get Obama elected.
The elephant in the room, however, is Iran. If Bush orders an attack on Iran, what will be the effect on the election? Will we still have an election? These are scary times.
Posted by: Democracy Lover
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May 21, 2008 7:36 AM
Although I share your progressive distrust of Big Business, I think it is pro-Israel hawks who are trying to sabotage Obama. Anyone who has followed Hillary knows she is totally on their side, including her threat to 'obliterate' Iran with nukes in retaliation for an attack on Israel.(Presumably even a conventional one? Iran has no nukes and there is no good evidence they are about to.) Then there are stories like this one in the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/19/superdelegates-turned-dow_n_102450.html
where a wealthy Jewish donor allegedly tried to buy off some delegates with a million dollars. It is generally considered taboo to discuss such matters, but various stories that slip through the cracks of the mainstream press do indicate that Hillary receives a lot of support from a few wealthy pro-Israel hawks, who want to bomb Iran, etc. But let us remember that reliable polls indicate that most Jews are more liberal on the Iraq War than the average American. It seems to be a few wealthy hawks who fund neocon think tanks and exert undue influence on both parties. As a general rule, I would expect rich people to be aggressive, since you don't get to the top by being nice. Also, remember that much of the press is rather hawkish, especially if they are corporate and establishment-kissing types like Tom Friedman. If you look at RealClearPolitics, for instance, you will see that hardly all of the establishment media is enamored of Obama.
Posted by: benjamin777
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May 22, 2008 12:27 PM
I never cared much for her social/cultural conservatism, foreign policy or corporatism (although to be fair, Obama has connections on that front that seem to run almost as deep), but I'm shocked at how poor a candidate she turned out to be.
After today's gaffe it's hard to believe that Senator Clinton's campaign can continue beyond the June primaries, even if the major media outlets continue their favoritism.
In the end, it'll be the money that ends the Clinton campaign; there can't be many people willing to give (even more – I doubt there's been a significant number of new donors for a while) financial support after this latest weirdness.
On a slightly unrelated note, I'd be really interested in learning about the people who are backing the candidates: which backroom operators are involved, who's crafted which elements of policy, cabinet speculation, and so on. This either gets far too little attention, or it's far too difficult to dig up for those who don't know where to look. Which probably amounts to the same thing in the end.
Posted by: Slothrop | May 23, 2008 9:11 PM