It looks like the Democrats may need to broker the presidential candidacy before the convention due to the closeness of the Obama-Clinton primary competition.
Of course the Dems are asking, "Which one will bring the most voters and be sure to win?" It's a touchy question because it involves the African-American voters and the Latino-American voters and the best way to meet their expectations. We know Obama has inspired a...
large youth turn-out, possibly independents and cross-overs, and black voter turn-outs. We consider Clinton has been called a winner in California. We consider the states backing Obama are not likely to favor Clinton, but Obama might be able to carry the states Hillary dominates. We know the Dems will have too struggle to wrest the Latino vote away from McCain. So what is the way to do that?
If the Dems are looking for a winning ticket, at this point it could be PresidentObama/VicePresidentRichardson ticket to do what Hillary can't do.
If Clinton were the brokered Dem choice for the presidential candidacy, she would again pick up the black voters who had been enthused by Obama, but she still couldn't wrest away those youth voters (and who knows about the mysterious cross-overs and independents); she definitely would not be able to wrest away the Latino voters from McCain on her own.
From this perspective, it looks like Richardson could be a deciding factor here, and who puts him on the ticket for V.P. first, Hillary or Barack. And if this happens, it might be the way to get the brokering done by March or April so the Dem Convention is free of the contention of a big fight.
Now I put my skeptic's hat on.
But is it likely Richardson would go with Obama? Is Richardson part of the DLC camp? Is Richardson part of the Kissinger school of foreign policy or does he hold a different philosophy? It all needs a good overview. (Was Richardson really part of the negotiations for the pre-Iraq Invasion Afghan pipeline that Cheney was so devoted to? I read he was on a blog, but haven't been able to track the source.)
Are any of our interpretations of the primary voter turn-out going to transfer over to the general election? How many new voters were only Republican or church-inspired cross-vers with a purpose to oppose Hillary or confuse the Dem strategy? Most puzzling. What about this primary is concrete and applicable to the general election?
As an aside: An old-timer tells me the analysis of this primary is being dominated by people too young to identify what they are seeing. He tells me that the states where Obama is creating his "magic" -- red states like Kansas -- will NEVER vote for a Democratic president. He also says the caucus states are going for Obama -- an emotional primary style responding to an inspirational speech style --and that the caucus method represent too small a sample of state voters and too emotional a method of choosing to replicate in a general election; he says the open designation voting also throws off the sincerity quotient. He maintains that when voters are alone with a ballot in the privacy of the voting booth, the emotional zeal and pressure experienced in a caucus will be gone and they will revert to their historic voting preferences.