Perhaps the best-case scenario for the Convention
Tue Feb 19, 2008 at 09:24:12 AM PDT
It is now virtually beyond the point where we can hope for a clear and non-controversial nomination for the Democratic candidate for President. It's almost mathematically impossible for either Obama or Clinton to win enough pledged delegates for a pure majority before Denver, and unless Obama truly wipes the floor with Hillary in Texas, Ohio, and/or Pennsylvania, the delegate counts will remain close, and below the magic number of 2025, all the way to the convention. We will see more and more stories like today's dust-up over campaigns trying to "steal" each other's delegates, increasingly intense fights over the superdelegates, and a nuclear war over the status of Michigan and Florida.
It's still only February: can you believe that?! In past campaign years, the primaries were barely getting off the ground in February! With the scenario in front of us, we are likely to face another 5+ months of increasingly bitter and vicious infighting, while McCain and the Repubs have all that time to kiss and make up, and train their guns on our side, with immense help from the Democratic candidates and their most vocal supporters.
What scenario remains, realistically, to minimize this damage and emerge from the convention with the strongest possible candidate?
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Many fervent supporters of either Obama or Clinton probably still cling to the hope that the next few weeks, March 4 in particular, will produce an irreversible tide that will carry their candidate to a clear and indisputable majority of pledged delegates prior to the convention. If that could occur, it would certainly give us a chance to achieve unity sooner, and to start to work on confronting the Republicans together. But I honestly don't see that happening any more. The two sides are too entrenched, the delegate counts are too close, there is too much suspicion and intrigue already.
If, on the other hand, the Convention arrives with one candidate holding only a slim lead in pledged delegates, but perhaps the media calculating a winning majority by counting anticipated superdelegate totals, this will not be a recipe for graceful exit by the other side's campaign. Not at all, no way, no how. That will clearly still produce a fight to the wire, and very ugly scenes inside and outside the Convention, to the delight of the Republicans. Frankly, I think that outcome is now virtually inevitable.
What we may need to consider, therefore, is not how the Party can prevent internecine warfare at the Convention, or even minimize it, but how we can recover from it, once it occurs. The scenario I've started to imagine is one in which the fight, the showdown actually continues longer. That is, I'm now thinking that we will ultimately be better off if there is not a first ballot victor for the Democratic nomination. Nor even a second ballot. If the vote is absurdly close, then the small number of delegates still technically pledged to John Edwards, combined with some key number of neutral superdelegates, could vote for neither Hillary nor Barack, preserving a stalemate.
Now at this point, one fantasy scenario is that Al Gore steps forward to be anointed by both sides as the compromise candidate, and everybody's happy. I like that idea in theory, but I think there's slim chance of it ever happening in the real world. But there is a second scenario. After a couple of deadlocked ballots and waves of ugly fighting, some blocks of delegates for one or the other candidate might finally start to consider switching sides.
The dynamics of a crowded political convention, with hundreds of ongoing, behind-the-scenes conversations, rumors, mini-movements, and other developments happening at lightening speed can sometimes produce remarkably sudden shifts in group attitudes. It has happened in the distant past at party conventions, and in numerous other political and non-political contexts. It is at least possible that we might see, on a third or fourth or fifth ballot, an unexpected large shift toward one of the candidates, delivering a nomination majority that is far outside of the narrow margins that had emerged from the primaries.
If this happens, of course the hard-core supporters of the losing candidate will still be pissed (and no, I doubt that the runner-up will accept a VP slot as consolation). But it will be much more difficult for anyone to claim that the nomination was "stolen" or didn't express the will of the Democratic Party. Ultimately, one side or the other is going to have to accept defeat in this race. It will, I think, be more palatable if it occurs after an all-out showdown, all the way to several Convention ballots, followed by this kind of mass movement toward the ultimate victor.
Regardless of the outcome, it's starting to look like the political theater of this season, and this Convention, could surpass anything we've seen in decades.
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