I've thought about this analogy today while I was waiting for delayed flight, and I want to share. In my mind, this primary election season is like a game of Monopoly. Barack Obama owns a good deal of the medium and smaller value properties, Hillary Clinton owns a much smaller number of the larger value properties. There is a third player, The Superdelegates who have a significant number of key properties. This player wants to get out of the game, but would like to decide who to cash out to in a way that will tip the balance of power, and avoid a long protracted (say 10 hour) game. If the properties are sold to the right player (Obama), the game will end quickly. Otherwise it's unclear who will win, but the game will go on for a long time, given that the other player (Clinton) has a lot of cash and small number of important properties. If Clinton wins this game due to the Superdelegates selling to her given her weaker position, it will hurt our chances in the all important next game.
Continued below...
After this game is over, the winner of Monopoly will play the winner of the Are you smarter than a 5th grader board game (McCain) in one final game of Risk (one of the best board games ever) to determine the real winner. Since McCain was the only Republican candidate that is actually smarter than a 5th grader, he has already won and has time to buff up on Risk strategy and learn the best way to cheat his way to a win, as is the tradition amongst recent winners of the "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" republican primaries (in fact, Bush must have also cheated on the "Are you smarter than a fifth grader" portion of previous contests, because he is clearly not).
But the General Election Risk game is outside of this diary, for this I'll focus on Democratic Primary Monopoly.
Game setup
We join the game when we've already been playing for a long time -- many deals have happened, and many good and noble players have gotten out of the game already because they were trying to do the best thing for the game once they realized they couldn't win in an honorable way.
Note: It may be helpful to refer to the below image to follow this post:
Obama's position
Barack Obama has monopolies on most of the small and medium properties (dark purple [baltic, etc], light blue [vermont ave, etc], light purple [virgina ave, etc]), and red [illnois, indiana, kentucky ave]. He has one of the three green properties (North Carolina Ave). He has hotels on all of the above (except NC Ave), and $24,000 in cash on hand.
Clinton's position
Hillary Clinton has the Orange monopoly (New York & Tennessee Ave, and St. James place), she also has the dark blue monopoly, Boardwalk and Park Place and all monopolies have hotels. She also has two of the three yellow properties (Atlantic Ave, and Ventnor Ave). She also owns all of the Railroads. She has $27,000 in cash on hand.
Superdelegates position
The Superdelegates have already sold some interesting properties to date, such as Virginia Ave to Obama, and Park Place to Clinton. However, they still hold the keys to shifting the balance of power in the game and avoiding a prolonged fight for the victory, and thus the right to play risk against the man who is smarter than a fifth grader. They hold: the Utilities(no big deal there), Marvin Gardens, and Pacific Ave. They have $10,000 in cash on hand. Since this is supposed to be a friendly game, the Superdelegates want to sell to the team that will end the game as quickly as possible so that the monopoly players as a group will have the best chance possible to win the all important game of Risk.
As a bonus, the person who wins the superdelegate's support also gets the green property Pensylvania avenue (the property, located at address 1600 is currently occupied by baboons, but the superdelegaes have the power to relocate them to a endangered animal park somewhere in Texas), a huge deal which would cinch the game for Obama, but leave us in an unclear state if it were to go to Clinton.
Analysis
If the superdelegates were to sell to Obama, the game would be over very quickly, he would have a cash advantage, and would have the green, red, light purple, light blue, and dark purple monopolies, and Clinton would have no shot at getting the Yellow monopoly. At this point, the wise thing to do would be for her to forfeit the game, though if she wanted to she could last several rounds, with her cash and support slowly dwindling. This would be a very sad show to watch.
However, if the superdelegates were to sell to Clinton, it's not clear who would win the game, and the game could possibly go on for a very long time. Obama would have a clear cash deficit ($24,000 to $37,000) but would still have the red, light purple, light blue, and dark purple monopolies, but no hope of getting the green monopoly. Clinton would now have the orange, yellow, and dark blue monopolies, and a cash advantage, but no hope of getting the green monopoly. It's not clear how the game ends at this point, but for sure the game goes on for a very long time, and we have much less time to ponder our General Election Risk strategy.
Message To Superdelegates
As DMX would say "You think it's a game? You think it's a fuckin game?". Well, as you know, it's not a game; this is serious stuff. We, the Democratic Party have a unique opportunity -- no, rather responsibility to build a real democratic majority in this country. Please don't let this go on forever with no clear resolution in sight! We have a candidate in Barack Obama with an insurmountable pledged delegate lead. You have the opportunity right now to end this "game", and give us the best possible shot at winning the real deal in November. Do we want there to be a long drawn out battle where we only hurt our chances at winning the real game in November? No we don't! Can you end this thing right now, and help Democrats sail to not only a democratic president in Barack Obama, but a real and lasting democratic majority in our legislature, and perhaps even our judiciary? Yes you can, and moreover Yes you should!