When the Democratic Primaries and Caucuses are finally over, Barack Obama will be the one making the last speech in Denver, accepting the nomination.
Kossacks will rejoice and prepare for the imepnding Obama administration with glee. Clinton supporters stomp their feet, pout, and vow to stay home for vote McCain. Kossacks tell them where they can shove it.
Then come the polls...why is Obama underperforming in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania? Why is he losing swing states like Ohio, Florida? What's going on? He's winning Independents, so why is he not running away with it?Wait...is that 23% of the Democratic vote picking McCain? That many Democrats are staying home. W.T.F. is wrong with them?!?!?!
The real problem with the Democratic Party is we don't know how to act as a coalition. It has happened before that a divisive primary cost the Democrats an election, or at least cost them a good shot at it. It had little to do with the positions candidate they nominated and a lot to do with his failure to unite the party.
Perhaps it's because liberals are independent thinkers and don't follow fearless leader like the Republicans do, maybe we're selfish, I don't know, but for whatever reasons, Democrats have been known to let primary fights destroy their chances of winning in the past.
Ask Hubert Humphrey
Ask Jimmy Carter
Ask George McGovern
In 1968, only 13 states has primaries. The eventual nominee, Hubert Humphrey, did not win any of them. He finished with only 2% of the popular vote.
Eugene McCarthy
Illinois
Massachusetts
New Jersey
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Robert Kennedy
California
Indiana
Nebraska
South Dakota
Lyndon B. Johnson
New Hampshire
Stephen M. Young
Ohio
George Smathers
Florida
The other 37 states decided their delegates in an undemocratic process. Those delegates went to Hubert Humphrey, securing him the nomination despite the fact that none of the 13 primary states democratically selected him. Despite the buzz for Kennedy and McCarthy, party leaders had pretty much already decided on Humphrey. Kennedy's only chance at the nomination was to prove the delegates from the non-primary states that he was who the Democratic voters would choose if they could. There was a slim chance at that happening upon his death in Los Angeles, but after Kennedy's assasination, the nomination was securly in Humphrey's hands.
Had 1968 been like 2008, it is likelu Humphrey never would've won the nomination, while it could've gone to Kennedy or McCarthy, but it didn't. Humphrey won and the anti-war wing of the Democratic Party were unhappy with him. In the end, despite a close popular vote total, Nixon won by a pretty large margin in the electoral college, winning close states Humphrey needed to win like Illinois (a state McCarthy won in the primaries), Missouri, New Jersey and Ohio. The anti-war McCarthy/Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party, who sunk Johnson in New Hampshire earlier that year, sunk Humphrey in the general.
Take 1980. An unpopular Democratic President led Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy to run a strong primary challenge against Carter. Kennedy originally was a huge underdog, but during the primary campaign, Carter's approval ratings plummeted and this fortunes faded. Kennedy won New York, Connecticut, California, Arizona, Alaska, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Pennsylvania, New Jersey Rhode Island and his home state of Massachusetts to keep the delegate count close. Almost all of Kennedy's win came later in the primary season, after many Carter supporters called on him to drop out as he would never have a chance to take over the delegate lead. He never did, even as he badly defeated the incumbent President in later primaries. Kennedy to the race to the convention where he lost, but demanded a more liberal party platform to counter Reagan's rising poll numbers. Although Kennedy did endorse Carter, enough of the Democratic Party peeled away to John Anderson, the liberal Republican Congressman from Illinois (whose running made was the former liberal Governor of Wisconsin, Patrick Lucey) who ran as an Independent angry at the rightward drift his party was taking under Reagan. Carter was defeated in a massive landslide, only winning Minnesota, West Virginia, Maryland, DC, Hawaii and Carter's home state of Georgia.
Perhaps the best example of party disarray came in 1972. A map of 1972 Democratic Primaries is quite colorful if you ever see one. Alabama Governor George Wallace, who stole votes four years earlier, ran strong in the south, winning Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida (where he won EVERY county), Maryland and Michigan. Unsuccesfull 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey returned, but only won his home state of Minnesota and the Rust Belt states of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, the first woman and African-American to win a primary, won in New Jersey. Anti-Communist "Lieberman of Vietnam" Henry "Scoop" Jackson won his home state of Washington, Wyoming, South Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri and Oklahoma. Establishment candidate Ed Muskie won his home state of Maine, the important New Hampshire primary, Illinois, Iowa, and Arizona. With grassroots support (the kossacks of the day) South Dakota Senator George McGovern won the nomination, the first decided by 50 state primaries. McGovern, himself, had been front in center in the years after 1968 looking to reform the primary system to how it is today. Thanks to those reformations, McGovern was able to win big states like California, Texas and New York and secure the nomination. It didn't help him.
McGovern's tactics alienated many powerful Democrats and many supporters of the other nominees. McGovern was unable to unite the party. An electro-shock scandal with his first running made, Missouri Senator Tom Eagleton hurt him, and supporters of DINO Scoop Jackson, Southerner George Wallace, and Humphrey's former running mate Ed Muskie stayed home or supported Nixon. McGovern and his supporters had erroneously believed Democrats would back whoever their candidate was...they didn't, and despite McGovern's grassroots support, he was defeated in the largest popular vote landslide in modern history, winning only Massachusetts.
Whatever happens, this year's Democratic primary will end divided. For whatever reason, a sizable minority of the party voted for Hillary Clinton and thought she would make the better President. Most of them will come around and vote for Obama, if not the moment she drops out/endorses, at some point before the election, but not all of them. For plenty of her supporters, Obama is unacceptable. He is going to need to win them over. He is going to have to unite the party, as John Kennedy and Bill Clinton did after their tough primary battles.
He can do it and he can win in November, but he cannot, as many here have suggested, just sit back and expect Democrats to be Democrats. Learn from the supporters of Bobby Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy, Scoop Jackson, Ed Muskie and Ted Kennedy, the supporters of Hillary Clinton are not going to just come around. They're going to have to be convinced Obama is the best candidate. Our opponent is not a right-wing hack. We're not facing Rich Romney, Crazy Christian Huckabee or Benito Giuliani, we're facing the Republican most liked by Democrats. Many on our side, who feel violated by this whole primary experience, may find him an acceptable choice, whether we like it or not.
We cannot repeat the sins of the past. We need to go into November a united party. It's detrimental to our victory.
Just ask George McGovern.