Denver's perfect storm

During the tense weeks following the 2000 election, every new development seemed to fall neatly into a pattern that would inexorably place the final determination before the Florida legislature or the U.S. House of Representatives. If the result in Bush v. Gore had been different, that "perfect storm" might've been realized. [1]

And so it seems once again, seven years later, as the cumbersome nominating machinery grinds toward a possible contested Democratic convention in Denver starting on August 25th.

The Democratic primaries have failed to produce an early winner even though the whole electoral system was redesigned to avert a long, internecine conflict that might produce a divided party on Labor Day. With two compelling candidates and an electorate that seems evenly split in many states, the delegate selection process could easily produce a nightmare scenario in Denver that may yet deliver the presidency to John McCain. The irony of that result, after two terms of the worst administration in U.S. history, would be overwhelming.

The doomsday scenario for Democrats seems more plausible today than it did on Monday. Hillary Clinton emerged from Tuesday's four primaries with a net gain of only 12 delegates, leaving her behind in the current count by 111 (according to CBS). Yet she has clearly blunted the impressive momentum that Obama has built up after twelve straight wins during the last month. She has exploited vulnerabilities in Obama's resume and, incredibly, argued that only she and John McCain are qualified to serve as commander-in-chief. [2] Obama remains in a very strong but weakened position.

So imagine the following sequence:

1. Clinton wins Pennsylvania on April 22, but not solidly enough to capture the lead in delegates.
2. The candidates split the remaining primaries, but due to proportional voting neither one emerges with anything approaching the 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination.
3. The superdelegates who haven't yet committed to either candidate agree to withhold judgment until all the primaries are over.
   
4. A nasty fight develops over seating the Michigan and Florida delegates, who would support Clinton and possibly even put her over the top. But neither the party nor the courts are likely to seat delegates elected in primaries that weren't supposed to count. That result would be grossly unfair to Obama and all the other candidates who didn't campaign (or even get on the ballot) in those two states. [Variation on nightmare scenario: a lawsuit captioned Obama v. Clinton that's resolved 4-3 by the U.S. Supreme Court.]
   
5. Florida and Michigan vote again in July but neither candidate wins decisively.
   
6. Obama goes into the convention with slightly more popular votes in all the primaries combined, but the total difference is less than 1%. [Until yesterday, he led Clinton by about a million votes nationally.]
   
7. Obama wins the most states (27 so far), but Clinton has carried the most populous states (including California, New York and Texas) along with several swing states (like Ohio) that Democrats need to carry in November.
8. Neither candidate—understandably, in such a close competition—is willing to withdraw for the sake of party unity
   
9. All the while, both candidates attack each other relentlessly and raise each other's negatives, turning off many voters and demoralizing party activists.
   

Now imagine that you're one of the 794 superdelegates in Denver (and, technically speaking, none of the superdelegates is legally bound to any candidate). Here are your options if this perfect storm scenario exists:

• You could choose whom you'll support based on the total popular vote, but our assumption is that it's very evenly split. (It would be equally complicated if Clinton increases her percentage of the popular vote, or even emerges with a majority).
  
• You could choose based on the number of states carried by the candidate, which would favor Obama but ignore many of the larger states.
  
• You could go with your instincts and vote for the candidate you deem most likely to win in November. Or,
  
• The party leaders could negotiate a deal that results in the withdrawal of one candidate with the understanding that he or she would be the vice-presidential candidate (or perhaps majority leader of the Senate or secretary of an important cabinet post).

Any one of these choices will be denounced as "undemocratic" by loyalists to the losing candidate and a large segment of the voting public, and the mainstream media will have a feeding frenzy over the inevitable smoke-filled-room metaphor.

If there's an upside to all this, it pales in comparison with the dangers. But a few points are worth mentioning:

• McCain and the Republicans won't be able to focus their attack on either candidate (but see item #9 above).
  
• Participation in the primaries could remain very high, with unprecedented numbers of people taking part as voters and campaign workers (item #9 again).
• The candidates will have extended opportunities for free media as public interest in the campaigns remains high.
• Both candidates will be tested to the limit and forced to refine their messages for the fall campaign.
  

With the focus off McCain, he gets something like a free ride (with a few exceptions) while the Democrats spend money attacking each other. And McCain may have relatively little money to spend, thanks to his current dispute with the FEC. Though he wouldn't get as much free media as the Democrats, an adoring press is unlikely to ignore him.

As in 2000, a lot of contingencies have to fall into place in order to produce a perfect storm in Denver. But so far events seem to show an uncanny ability to do just that.

NOTES

[1] As I interpreted the situation back then, the constitutional process would've still produced a Bush victory, and it would've been even more protracted and controversial.

[2] The red phone ad may be counterproductive for Democrats. If the question is "who would you rather have answer the phone at 3:00 a.m.?" a lot of voters might respond "John McCain."

Hillary Clinton in Texas debate

As promised a few weeks ago, here's an eloquent statement by Hillary Clinton at the most recent Democratic debate in Texas. As a lifelong Democrat, I have to say that I'm proud of both these candidates and look forward to voting for one of them. And that one, almost certainly, will be Barack Obama.

Although they've exchanged a few harsh words in debates, Hillary Clinton's many talents will probably not be overlooked if Obama wins in the fall. She deserves a prominent place in the new cabinet, or as the new majority leader in the Senate. Maybe she can overcome her regrettable tendency towards a kind of "bipartisanship" that often requires caving in to the opposition's agenda.

Watching the parade

For a couple weeks now this site has gone into hibernation or, to be more accurate, an attempted sabbatical from politics after months of cerebral overload. The timing, right before super Tuesday, was dismal.

The result on the 5th, for Democrats, seemed to be a draw. But today's three caucuses, swept by Barack Obama, suggest that Hillary Clinton may have only temporarily blunted, rather than stopped, the impressive momentum that he has developed. He now has a small lead in the delegate count (not counting the superdelegates), with primaries in some major states (Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania) rapidly approaching.

My friends (who have mostly joined the Obama parade) have been taking pains to assure me that their candidate is a deeply closeted progressive who has to pass himself off as a moderate in order to get elected. More likely, given the dearth of convincing evidence either way, he's a blank screen on which people can project their own expectations (or wishful thinking) about his politics. His proposal on health care either reveals a deep conservative and corporate streak, or (as I prefer to think) it's an aberration.

For years, Hillary Clinton has been depicted in some circles as yet another closeted progressive (have you read her Wellesley commencement speech?). Even more than Bill. Like so many others in her party, the argument goes, she's had to conceal her true opinions due to the conservative marinade that this country has been steeped in for nearly 30 years.

With her longer public record, we can predict with greater confidence what Hillary is likely to do in the White House. But that's precisely her problem: we know what to expect, and many voters don't necessarily like it. On top of all that, she's been trashed so relentlessly and for so long by the political opposition and the MSM that she she can now be written off as too "divisive."

The brain reels from an overload of irony. The only truly gratifying result so far is the complete voter rejection of movement conservatives like Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.

So voters demand "change," possibly even for its own sake. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the Continuum of Change now reads something like this:

• John McCain: the illusion of change, or change for the worse (100 more years in Iraq);
  
• Hillary Clinton: incremental change, assuming she has 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters;
• Barack Obama: fundamental change of some kind of other, assuming he has the support of his party and 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters

But the numbers, for now, can't be very reassuring for the Democrats despite two shining candidates who should easily trounce the nominee of a failed party. McCain, not exactly an unknown himself, is highly competitive in the current polling despite his close association with the disasters of the last seven years. The latest national poll for TIME:

Obama 48, McCain 41
Clinton 46, McCain 46

For now, McCain can have it both ways (despite some invective from Limbaugh and Hannity): he's still perceived as a maverick despite years of bellicose rhetoric and his shameless identification with Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy. While Obama has been annointed by the MSM, McCain enjoys a daily miracle of redemption.

The more profound question is whether Clinton or Obama can overcome the deep reservoir of sexism and racism that has percolated through U.S. politics for some four centuries. How many white voters, when faced with that blank ballot, will be unable to bring themselves to vote for a woman or an African American? How will the Republicans craft their campaign to exploit this reluctance? Will the Democrats retaliate by offering innuendo about McCain's age?

Sadly, the arch-reactionary poet e.e. cummings was wrong about most things, including this:

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.

Too bad that's not an option—at least until November 4th.

NOTES

Full disclosure: This blogger is undecided, and my final decision probably won't mean a damned thing by the time Oregon votes in three month. Lest I sound resentful, extensive reform of the whole ludicrous system of primary elections is long overdue, preferably along the lines recently proposed by the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State.

[A shorter version was cross-posted on Hullabaloo.]

Call us when you're ready

We admit to small faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.
--Maximes, Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)

And so it is with Chris Matthews' lame apology for his outrageously sexist comments concerning Hillary Clinton and other women involved in politics. Since I'm not a regular viewer of his program (which I've briefly endured only once or twice), I've left it to others to establish that his toxic emissions were not an isolated incident or two. In a letter to Steve Capus, President of NBC News, for example, activist Gloria Steinem and Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization of Women, described the following:

During an appearance on the January 9 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews said of Senator Hillary Clinton, “the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around” and that “[s]he didn't win there [New York] on her merits.” Matthews has referred to Clinton as a “she devil,” compared her to a “strip-teaser” and called her “witchy.” He has referred to men who support her as “castratos in the eunuch chorus.” He has suggested Clinton is not “a convincing mom” and said “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys.”

Matthews’ sexism is hardly limited to his comments about Clinton; such rhetoric is just the latest in a string of sexist attacks he has made against prominent female political figures.

[...]

In November 2006, shortly after the Democrats took the majority in Congress, Matthews asked a guest if then-presumptive Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “going to castrate Steny Hoyer” if Hoyer (D-MD) were elected House Majority Leader.

During coverage of a presidential debate last spring, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) wife, Michelle, is a Harvard-educated lawyer after he focused obsessively on her physical appearance.

Repetition of epithets like "she devil" and "witchy" tend to have an overwhelming cumulative effect, creating the perception that the "devisive" Clinton is "unelectable" due to the extreme hostility and high negatives that she generates in certain quarters. There's a self-fulfilling quality to these attacks, and deliberately so. Clinton ends of battling against a presumption that at least some of the hysterical response she generates is grounded in real character and political flaws. She is truly the velcro candidate, which makes it all the more improbable that she's in such a strong position after the first round of primaries.

The tricky question is: if Clinton gets an early lock on the nomination, will the Democrats face the same dilemma as they did in 2004? Namely, a problematic candidate who's acceptable to the mainstream of the party but too deeply flawed to win a national election.

Those who claim that Clinton is doomed as a nominee point to her high negatives, including the alleged 40% of voters who say they would never, ever, categorically and under any circumstances, vote for her. But the practical question is always: what's the alternative? Hillary does well in matchups with all GOP candidates, with McCain presenting the greatest threat to her and Obama:

A Jan. 10 national poll by CNN shows Barack Obama has a 55 percent favorability rating, John McCain 54 percent, Hillary Clinton 53 percent, Rudy Giuliani 46 percent, Mike Huckabee 38 percent and Mitt Romney 31 percent...

Somewhat surprisingly, Clinton and Obama would not only win if the election were held today but would win handily against Giuliani, Huckabee or Romney. This same trend is seen when respondents were asked whom they definitely would not vote for in November. While 38 percent gave thumbs down to Obama and 43 percent to Clinton, 52 percent outright rejected Huckabee, 55 percent Giuliani and 62 percent Romney. The one person who wouldn't be overrun by Obama and Clinton is McCain. McCain's "no" votes [sic] the same as Clinton's, and in hypothetical national matchups, he's in a statistical dead heat with both of them.

Voter perceptions of Hillary Clinton are not engraved in bronze, and a serious of dismissive articles and vicious attacks in the mainstream media have had the paradoxical effect of generating sympathy and raising her public stature. And, maybe, producing a narrow victory in New Hampshire.

The folks at Pollster.com, an excellent resource for current polling, have launched their own online survey that, among many other things, asks: "Do you think that America is ready for a female president?" They also ask whether "America is ready for an African American president."

What, exactly, does it mean to be "ready?" It's quite absurd, really, that such questions have to even be asked. The other day, someone asked me whether voters are willing to cast their ballots for a woman or an African American—making it clear that she was quite prepared to do so, but doubted that the majority of her fellow voters could stomach the thought.

On one level, it's a legitimate question: are U.S. voters capable of overcoming their presumed sexist and racist legacies, or will it be another generation or so before the country is mature enough to elect a woman or minority president? Also, do polls accurately reflect voter opinion on such matters? After all, polls suggested that the 2006 Tennessee senate race—in which African American Harold Ford, Jr., was the Democratic candidate—would be a lot closer than it turned out to be. Polls can't adjust for those who are too embarrassed to admit their racist or sexist motivations.

The fundamental problem for Democrats might be their candidate's gender, or race, and not the specific flaws of Clinton or Obama (both of whom are too reflexively centrist for my taste). The Republican attack machine could, and certainly will, make every effort next fall to transform the favorable ratings that Clinton or Obama currently enjoy. We can expect an absolutely vicious assault based on the kind of racial and sexist slurs and innuendo that have only been hinted at so far in national campaigns. Attacks on Clinton will suffer from the law of diminishing returns, since she is already such a known commodity, but we can only imagine what would be inflicted on Obama.

John Edwards is vulnerable on other grounds, of course, including his long career as a trial lawyer and the media's caricature of his compelling grassroots populism. Unfortunately, he seems to have dropped off the radar screen of viable candidates [1], as determined by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post and all the other usual suspects. Call it another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Are we "ready" for a president who's not a white male? There's every reason to fear the answer to that question.

NOTES

[1] Full disclosure: As an Oregon resident, I won't be able to vote in a primary until May 20th, when the nominations will probably be locked up. More than forty states vote before then. As a registered Democrat, I would be happy to vote in the general election for any of the declared candidates—including Obama, Edwards and Clinton (and not necessarily in that order). If I had to vote in a primary tomorrow, it would be a very tough choice indeed.

The new dynastic politics

Following allegations of fraud during the last two national elections, deeper questions have been raised about whether the U.S. can still pretend to be a functioning "democracy." Some conservatives have long insisted that the U.S. is a "republic, not a democracy." Now there are reasons to question whether the U.S. can even claim to be a "republic."

If Hillary Clinton is elected president next year and serves two full terms, someone named Clinton or Bush will have held national office (as POTUS or VPOTUS) for 37 consecutive years. Conveniently enough, Chelsea Clinton will turn 35 and become eligible in 2015, two years before her mother would leave office.

This isn't unprecedented in U.S. history. Twice before, two members of the same family have assumed the presidency: John Adams (father) and John Quincy Adams (son), Teddy Roosevelt and (fifth cousin) Franklin Roosevelt.

Politics in the U.S. has been dominated by a de facto landed and propertied aristocracy that has been in place since its founding, though membership in that group has tended to be fluid and not necessarily fixed by ancestry. But the two competing dynasties of the last fifteen years are caught in an electoral dynamic that's unique in U.S. history.

After eight years of contrived "scandals" involving Bill Clinton, Dubya became the nostalgic choice of a significant percentage of voters who yearned for qualities that his father, at least in their fantasies, represented: the integrity, stability and moral righteousness of the Reagan/Bush years. Dubya's appeal was undoubtedly enhanced by his fraudulent claim that he was a "compassionate conservative," implying that he would supply a needed corrective to the harsh economic and social policies of the 80's.

After the devastating rejection of the elder Bush in the 1992 election, it's hard to imagine that anyone would be "nostalgic" enough to vote for a proven mediocrity from the same family—the first president in U.S. history who has ever been convicted of a crime. Dubya's appeal based on his ancestry was more subliminal than overt, but it may have had an effect by keeping him close enough in the vote count that he could steal the election in Florida.

After six and a half disastrous years, are we now witnessing the opposite dynamic—a kind of "Clinton nostalgia" that could help to propel Hillary into the White House? After all, she seems to offer the best of the Clinton legacy without the personal, ah, foibles that Bill brought to the office.

To many voters, at least by contrast with the Bush debacle, the Clinton era was a time of peace, prosperity, optimism and stability. The U.S. had emerged from the Cold War triumphant, at least in the popular imagination, and unchallenged. For all his obvious personal failings, Clinton was perceived as brilliant, competent and in control of his administration. As an added bonus, he speaks in complete and coherent sentences, a quality that radically distinguishes him from both his predecessor and successor. Hillary may be a less compelling speaker and presence, but she shares most of Bill's strengths and few of his vulnerabilities. A few political weaknesses are unique to her, primarily the high negatives that come from years of vicious personal attacks by the "vast right-wing conspiracy" that she has accurately described.

So are voters, after a catastrophic attempt to return to the perceived golden years of the Reagan/Bush administration, yearning to somehow replicate the 90's? Clearly we could, and did, do a lot worse.

The Bush brand has become so devalued, of course, that no one with that name is ever likely to get elected again. If daughter Jenna Bush thinks she can promote a political career by simply rebranding herself with her new husband's last name, I suspect she's sadly mistaken. And she, like her sister, also shares her father's reputation as a party animal.

If Seymour Hirsh is correct about the Bush/Cheney plan to launch a limited war against Iran, Republicans could be faced with an electoral fiasco in 2008 that could rival 1964. The end of the Bush dynasty could be the beginning of another.

NOTES:

George Bush has as strong a claim to membership in the hereditary U.S. elite as any president. The Bush family has been described as "the most successful political dynasty in American history" [a claim which, if true, suggests that dynasties haven't served us very well]. In fact, Dubya is a distant relative of Queen Elizabeth II. By contrast, Bill Clinton's background seems downright lumpen. Hillary's father worked as a coal miner in Pennsylvania before he moved to Illinois and began a successful career in the textile supply industry. The Clintons' claims to membership in the national aristocracy are founded on their educations (Yale and Wellesley) and political success rather than an accident of birth.

Now isn't the time to attempt an analysis of whether the U.S. can best be described as a democracy, republic, oligarchy, plutocracy or kleptocracy.

PHOTO: Samuel Prescott Bush, patriarch of the family and great-grandfather of George W. Bush. (Wikimedia)