Pick your end game…………….
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination has finally reached what may be its last week, or not. The consensus among party insiders is that New York Sen. Hilary Clinton’s fate depends on next Tuesday’s primaries in Ohio and Texas.
Were she to win both, she could make the case that her candidacy still has legs and draw out the contest with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama at least until the next big delegate contest in Pennsylvania on April 22nd. Win that one, and her camp will be able to argue that she has enough delegate support to drag the battle for the nomination all the way to the late summer Democratic convention in Denver.
Lose Texas or Ohio, and the race becomes not only a math problem (since she would find herself well behind Obama’s delegate count) but also a much bigger image problem, the assumption being that Democrats will see her as the sore loser who’s standing in Obama’s way.
But the crux of that argument demands that there be someone of the proper stature in the national Democratic Party to be in a position to tell the New York senator that it was indeed time to step aside. And there is no such person on the scene today. Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean is no Bob Strauss (the party’s last such well-respected fixer). Furthermore, the days of a Bob Strauss being in a position to influence party affairs are largely over. More than ever, today’s U.S. Senate is a group of free agents, answerable only to their constituents and themselves. (Remember, Idaho’s GOP Sen. Larry Craig is still very much on the job today.)
Despite all the grand oratory from Washington’s chattering classes about what the candidates “have to do” in the various end-game scenarios being bandied about, no one “has” to do anything. After all, if Clinton and Obama divvy up next week’s delegates and end the night fairly even again in terms of their total delegate count, the contest is right back where it started.
In fact, the probability is that neither Obama nor Clinton will run the table through the remaining Democratic delegate contests in March, April and May. That means that the eventual nominee will need the majority support of the party’s 796 super delegates in order to reach the total of 2,205 delegates necessary to secure the nomination.
And then the argument turns to the classic Washington question that is as old as the Congress itself: Should an elected official (in this case, a super delegate) vote according to the wishes of his or her constituents, or according to his or her conscience? Not surprising, Sen. Obama himself has argued for the former while the Clinton folks are all for the latter. And in the absence of any super delegate rush to judgment, there are more and more reasons to think this race is headed to Denver.
If that is the case, it’s worth noting that in the face of any “frontrunner” with momentum, time is the opponent’s best friend. The nightmare for any campaign is to “peak” too soon. Remember, Massachusetts Gov. Mike Dukakis was killing Vice President George H.W. Bush in all the national summer polls in 1988.
But this sure isn’t 1988 anymore. Today’s political culture more and more mirrors our popular culture. And if there’s one truism about a culture that loves to eat its young, it’s that what’s new is old again very soon.
2008 Senate contests still leaning toward Democratic pick-up
A review of the latest non-partisan rankings of this year’s U.S. Senate contests finds that Democrats are still positioned to pick up anywhere from two to three or even five Republican seats.
Those most vulnerable to a takeover are the open GOP seats in Virginia and New Mexico, followed by the open seat in Colorado. Also at risk are the seats of Sens. Norm Coleman in Minnesota and John Sununu in New Hampshire.
Adding to the suspense is the news that Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, himself a target of a federal investigation, has announced that he will seek reelection. Stevens is a political powerhouse but his current situation is giving Democrats (and Republicans) pause.
The only Democratic seat “at risk” so far this year remains that of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu.
Political Observations of the Week:
“I think nowadays that any presidential candidate has to pick somebody who is a plausible president. I think you can’t put a bozo or a mediocrity on the ticket just because he is the most popular official n a state with 20-plus electoral votes.”
Joel Goldstein, Vice Presidential scholar, St. Louis University
“He can do it, but it’s that shot from half-court.”
John Bruce, political scientist, University of Mississippi, arguing that despite the fact that his state has the highest share of black residents than any other state, an Obama victory there in November would still be an uphill climb.
“It’s easy to be critical, but had she won Iowa, none of this would have mattered.”
Hank Sheinkopf, political consultant, on the uproar over the Clinton campaign’s spending.
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John J. Kohut is an independent political analyst in Washington, D.C. He has been writing about national politics for more than a decade, including stints as an editor at the Cook Political Report and as senior editor at the Rothenberg Political Report.
