How Not to Unify the Party
Sun Mar 02, 2008 at 04:22:42 PM PDT
If a nominee emerges on Wednesday morning, he or she will have the daunting task of unifying the Democratic after a long, expensive primary battle. Although the conventional wisdom is that Democrats will quickly rally around whoever wins the nomination, there is the potential for the supporters of the losing candidate to be so deeply offended by the actions of the winner (or his or her supporters) that they stay home in November.
And if that happens, we all lose.
Sens. Dick Durbin and John Kerry appear to counting their chickens before they hatch, urging Hillary Clinton to withdraw from the race if she does not have clear victories on Sunday.
Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, the unsuccessful Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, said Mrs. Clinton would need more than narrow victories to remain a viable candidate.
"Hillary Clinton has to win a big victory in both Ohio and Texas," he said on the CNN program "Late Edition."
"It’s not just winning a little bit," he said. "In order to close the gap on pledged delegates, she’s got to win a very significant victory."
And Mr. Durbin, Mr. Obama’s fellow Democratic senator from Illinois, said the mathematics of the electoral calendar would make it very difficult for Mrs. Clinton to win the nomination even if she broke even with Mr. Obama in the delegates allotted Tuesday.
"If, in fact, there is no measurable change on Tuesday," he said on Fox, Mrs. Clinton would need "extraordinary percentages" in the remaining contests — averaging 62 percent of the delegates yet to be decided, by his calculation, to go on to victory.
"I hope ultimately she makes an honest appraisal of her chances," Mr. Durbin said. "I hope after Tuesday her decision is made on the basis of the unity of the party."
When Hillary Clinton wakes up on Wednesday morning, she will look at the results and make an honest appraisal of her chances at victory. She is not going to be Mike Huckabee, running a campaign that appeals to only one faction of the base with no money and no victories, nor will she be Ted Kennedy, whose insurgent primary campaign in 1980 divided the party and handed the White House to Ronald Reagan.
Hillary Clinton is a dedicated, loyal Democrat whose goal is to see a Democrat elected to the White House in the fall. She has worked very hard for Democrats her entire adult life, from the failed McGovern campaign in 1972 to raising funds for Democratic candidates such as then-State Senator Barack Obama in 2004. She is not going to pull the temple down on our heads.
Why is this so important? She has a very loyal base of supporters. We are just as passionate and just as committed to Hillary as Obama supporters are to him. We have also turned out in record numbers and helped to shatter fundraising numbers. We also get angry when our candidate is treated with disrespect, and premature calls by Sens. Durbin and Kerry to withdraw before the votes have been cast, are disrespectful.
Last month, Senator Obama indicated that her supporters would flock to his campaign, but that his supporters would not.
"I am confident I will get her votes if I'm the nominee," Obama stressed. "It's not clear she would get the votes I got if she were the nominee."
To a point, Barack Obama is correct. Among registered Democrats, Hillary has won the most votes so far, and the overwhelming majority of these voters are certain to vote for the Democratic nominee. That said, her voters are not sheep. We won’t blindly flock to Obama. Many of us will be bitterly disappointed if Hillary is defeated and treating her with disrespect will give some an excuse for some of us to stay on home in November. And calls from these two senators to withdraw before the votes have even been cast is an enormous slap in the face.
She is not going to run a hopeless campaign like Mike Huckabee and she is not going destroy the Democratic party like Ted Kennedy did in 1980. But if she scores even narrow victories on Tuesday, the voters will have sent a message. That message is that this is an election, and the coronation of Barack Obama by Ted Kennedy needs to be delayed. That message is that voters have serious concerns about Barack Obama and that those concerns need to be addressed before he becomes the nominee.
If Barack Obama is the nominee, I pledge to vote for him and do everything I can to rally my fellow Clintonistas behind him. But premature calls for her withdrawal are insulting to Senator Clinton and her supporters. These discussions need to remain private, preserving the dignity of Senator Clinton and the enthusiasm of her supporters. Even if you care little for the former, the latter is crucial to a Democratic victory in November.
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