A reader asks a sincere question:
BooMan:
I don’t have the answers to your questions, but I do have a sincere question for you. You are concerned about the possibility that Clinton getting the nomination might alienate “blacks, the youth vote, Obama’s supporters, progressive activists” etc. Are you also concerned about the converse? Because… I am hearing a lot from the other side about alienated and angry white women, seniors, centrist democrats, etc.
My question is sincere – I don’t want an argument. I wonder whether you see any problems with severely alienating these democratic groups as well. Do you care about those groups? I personally don’t want to see any of them alienated and I’m disheartened at the level of animosity between groups. But I don’t think that some groups are more deserving of concern than others either.
Thank you.
Here’s a sincere answer.
First, let’s make sure we are clear on what I am asking the Clinton campaign to do. I want them to suspend their campaign and acknowledge that she cannot win the nomination without going nuclear on Barack Obama. (Explaining why that is the case is not the focus of this essay). Technically, I would be okay with Clinton continuing her campaign in the same tenor that Mike Huckebee extended his campaign…basically positive, and without an effort to destroy McCain’s general election electability. But, let’s be realistic…Clinton has not and will not campaign that way. And, if she did, it would not work.
Once we’re clear that I am asking Clinton to suspend her campaign, it becomes clear why her supporters would not be as alienated as Obama’s supporters would be by a brokered convention that went their opponent’s way.
But let’s take it slow. Clinton has committed supporters, just as Obama has committed supporters. Those supporters come in all genders, races, religions, and generations. But, in their post, the reader asked about ‘white women, seniors, [and] centrist democrats’. I’ll set seniors aside, as they have no obvious ideological, racial, or gender commitment to either candidate. Many women, or white women if we want to narrow it, will be greatly disappointed if Hillary Clinton is not the nominee. But, truth be told, they should already be disappointed by the failure of her campaign. I’ve noticed some rather serious strains of sexism in the media coverage of Clinton’s campaign, but very little is coming out of the Obama campaign. Yes, the perceptive eye may identify some slights here and there, but there is no meta-narrative in which Obama only won by running down women, or saying women are unfit for the presidency. With exceptions for some of Hillary’s most committed female supporters, I just don’t see much lingering resentment towards Obama about how Clinton’s gender was treated in the campaign.
As for so-called moderate or centrist Democrats, I see very little relevance outside of the actual corridors of power, where an Obama victory is a defeat for the Democratic Leadership Council, the Third Way, and the New Democrats. Obama has so successfully blurred the ideological distinctions in this race that his bigger problem has been convincing progressives that he isn’t just another DLC-style Democrat. We can argue about the truth of the matter but, again, that is not the focus of this essay. In reality, Obama has succeeded by appealing to the left-wing (Kennedy, Dodd, Feingold, Leahy) and the right-wing (Dorgan, Conrad, Tim Johnson, Ben Nelson, Claire McCaskill), while Clinton has picked up the broad center of the party. Obama shows tremendous strengths in the purple to red states as shown by both the primary/caucus results and the SurveyUSA 50-state matchup polls. Moderate to centrist Democrats have shown a lot of support for Obama. Consider the case of Nevada, where he won the delegate count (while losing the popular vote) by carrying the Republican areas of the state. My point? I see no evidence that there is a bloc of centrist Democrats that will be alienated by Obama winning the nomination.
We need to remember that Clinton cannot win without going all the way to the convention and then convincing the vast majority of superdelegates to reject Obama. No one in their right mind thinks Obama will, or should, drop out and endorse Clinton. This is not an equal argument, where we consider the merits of each candidate conceding. This is a question of whether Clinton will decide to launch a campaign designed to destroy Obama’s electability in the eyes of the superdelegates or not. The question then becomes: if Clinton wins, what kind of party will she have left to support her? On the other hand, if she her were to decide that such a victory is not worth having (and that the odds of success are so poor as to not merit it, in any case), she could concede and endorse. Doing so in a gracious manner would eliminate much of the resentment and disappointment in her supporters.
Let’s say Clinton were to do this after losing the Mississippi primary on Monday. She could come out and say that the odds are too long to justify a seven-week campaign for Pennsylvania, where even a victory would do little to help her prospects at the convention. She could congratulate Obama on a smart and well-fought campaign and say that his campaign is the best proof of his fitness for office.
Eight months from now, when people vote for the new president, I don’t think there will be much lingering resentment and alienation from Clinton’s supporters. If Obama were to nominate a woman like Governor Kathleen Sebelius to be his running mate, I imagine there would be almost no resentment at all.
But, if Clinton insists on waging an all-out war on Barack Obama and convinces the superdelegates that she has so damaged Obama that he can no longer be elected president, and then wins a brokered convention in late August? Well…there is simply no way that she can put the party back together again in September and October.
That’s my sincere answer to the question. Personally, I don’t want to have any Democrats feeling alienated. But there is no equivalency between the kind of alienation that Obama supporters would feel and Clinton supporters.
One way leads to unity…the other to catastrophe.