As someone who has supported Howard Dean from Day One, as a candidate and as the DNC Chairman, it's hard for me to find a way to put this delicately, so I'm just going to rip off the band-aid.
Howard Dean is WRONG to call for an "arrangement" to determine our nominee.
Yesterday, Chairman Dean made a case for a "deal" to the media.
"The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race in the next eight weeks, I think, is not a good scenario..."
"I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don't, then we're going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement..."
"Because I don't think we can afford to have a brokered convention -- that would not be good news for either party..."
Over the past eight years, we have run two supremely qualified candidates against a supremely unqualified imbecile and have been very narrowly defeated.
This year, we are running against a 72-year-old man who has alientated factions within a party that, for the last half-century, has put forth and coronated extreme conservatives as their commanders-in-chief. Adding Huckabee as his veep might make voting on Election Day slightly less painful for Evangelical conservatives who hate McCain, or it might not. Regardless of who McCain taps as his right hand man (please not Lieberman, please not Lieberman), there are Republicans who will not vote for a pro-choice, pro-immigration, anti-tax break candidate.
This is our race to lose. No matter which of our candidates gets the nomination, and no matter who they select from their respective highly-esteemed short list of colleagues poised to add a last name to the party bumper sticker, we are drawing more voters to the polls in virtually every state, and gaining favor in states that Democrats traditionally don't win.
Take the state of South Carolina, for instance. 442,918 Republicans cast their votes for seven GOP candidates (including Ron Paul and Mike Gravel) in the Jan. 19, 2008 open primary, and 530,322 Democrats cast their votes for four candidates (including Kucinich). (view source)
In the 2004 South Carolina Democratic primaries, 291,175 Democrats cast their votes for seven candidates. (view source)
In the 2000 South Carolina Republican primaries, 565,704 Republicans cast their votes for six candidates. (view source.)
John McCain received 237,888 votes in 2000, coming in second to Bush.
In 2008, he received 147,283 votes, winning the primary with neary 100,000 votes less than he had earned in the 2000 primary.
South Carolina went Republican in the General Election in 2000 and 2004.
This is just one of the many states where, not only have Democrats GAINED SIGNIFICANT presence over the past eight years, but where Republican support (and the support of conservative-leaning Republicans) has dwindled.
Back to the topic at hand.
If Howard Dean and the DNC sit down with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to make an "arrangement" pre-convention, it will result in one of three outcomes.
A Clinton-Obama ticket, an Obama-Clinton ticket, or one candidate so insulted by being asked to step aside that he/she leaves the exits the world of presidential politics and goes off on an Al Gore-type crusade to better the world through non-partisan channels.
True, those three options are worlds better than any combination the GOP can throw together. However, there could be dire consequences.
If Hillary is the nominee, and Michael Bloomberg throws his hat into the race after her name is on the ticket, he will pull votes away from both Hillary and McCain (pulling fiscal conservatives and moderates away from McCain, and scoring support from the gun control and abortion rights lobbys, both of which he has staunchly supported as a social liberal). He has raised teachers' salaries and has worked to make NYC greener, but he also supports the PATRIOT ACT and refuses to consider time table witdrawals for Iraq. He will reshuffle the deck, and we'll have three candidates that will confuse the hell out of Independents and moderate Republicans and Democrats. Bloomberg is as socially liberal as Clinton, more fiscally experienced than Clinton or McCain, and just as tough on terror as McCain.
Barack Obama, while similar in social policy to the afore mentioned three candidates, is the only candidate who can claim an anti-war stance from day one, which has appeal to Democrats and Independents, and proposes a health care plan that is attractive to a mix of Democrats, Independents, and Republicans (not ridiculously expensive, but doesn't leave too many people out).
If the arrangement means asking whoever has a few dozen less delegates by April to step down, we set ourselves up for a fall. What if the "arrangement" means putting Obama second behind Clinton or a ticket without Obama all together? Even with Bloomberg in the race, Obama would retain the youth and African American votes he has received thus far. Would independent women voters be swayed into Bloomberg's camp is Hillary is off the Democratic ticket?
There can only be one solution: Let every state have its say before any deal is "arranged".
This is a scenario true blue Democrats have prayed for: two candidates who have garnered so much support from a diverse pool of voters across the country. Why not let every voter have their say in this, the most pivotal election of our lifetime?
Are some primaries too late? MOVE THEM UP. If you can go outside the constraints of the Democratic process to broker deals in back rooms, you can mobilize enough force to move primaries up a few weeks.
Or, if money and time are chief concerns, move the convention up.
We have got to let the people decide. Too long has Washington been dominated by negotiations that bring power players to the table and leave the people locked outside. It's time for a change, not just in presidents, but in the way we shape our country's political future.