Since the 2006 Congressional elections, Democrats have been eagerly pointing to the 2008 Presidential election as a seemingly can't miss opportunity to retake the White House. Now, Party leaders are becoming worried that the continuation of a primary campaign in which neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton will emerge as a clear winner will so damage the eventual candidate as to create problems for the Democrats in the general election.
Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who was twice appointed by Bill Clinton to cabinet posts, referred to these concerns in defending his recent endorsement of Obama.
In a Washington Post article published April 1, Richardson said, "As I have pointed out many times, and most pointedly when I endorsed Sen. Obama, the campaign has been too negative, and we Democrats need to calm the rhetoric and personal attacks so we can come together as a party to defeat the Republicans."
'Dream Ticket'
These concerns are not new. Since at least January some Democrats have urged that Clinton and Obama take a "unity pledge," according to which each would promise to choose the other as vice-president should he or she win the nomination.
Proponents have believed such a pledge would encourage each candidate to focus on the issues and avoid personal attacks on a potential running mate.
Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama is often referred to as a "dream ticket," Obama has been gaining overwhelming black support—80 percent in the South Carolina primary for instance. He also polls extremely well among the Millenials—voters under 30 prefer him by more than two-thirds. And Obama seems to be exciting many new young people to vote for the first time, bringing them into the Democratic Party.
Clinton, on the other hand, does almost as well among the Boomer generation as Obama does among the Millenial generation. She also outpolls Obama among women, Hispanics and working-class whites
Together, Clinton and Obama would complement each other, and would make a formidable pair in the general election.
Second Choice: McCain
Such a ticket might also forestall a tendency picked up by pollsters recently. Voters for both Obama and Clinton threaten to desert the Democratic Party for Republican nominee John McCain if their candidate does not win the nomination.
A Gallup poll taken March 7-22 shows 28 percent of Clinton voters and 19 percent of Obama voters claiming they would vote for McCain if their candidate is not the nominee.
A more recent Rasmussen poll taken in Pennsylvania has even more worrisome numbers for the Democrats. In that poll, only 56 percent of Clinton voters say they will support Obama in the general election. Obama voters have slightly stronger identification with the Democrats, as 67 percent say they would support Clinton if she got the nomination.
Behind these numbers lies undeniable tension in the Democratic Party, as each candidate's supporters resent attacks from the opposing candidate. But these numbers perhaps also reveal the limitations of candidacies based on personality rather than issues.
Personality
From the beginning the candidacies of both Obama and Clinton have excited intense devotion in part not because of what they believe but because of who they are: the presumptive first black or first woman president.
Obama has sought to have the benefits of identity-based politics while presenting himself as a new kind of candidate that transcends such politics. His personal life story was said to be one that made him uniquely suited to help America get past the divides of race and class. He was the candidate who embodied the hope for a "change you can believe in."
A string of surprising victories over the seemingly "inevitable" Clinton was a triumph of personality, a triumph that Obama had counted on.
As Ron Fournier of the Associate Press reported, "The freshman senator told reporters in July that he would overcome Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead in the polls because 'to know me is to love me.'"
The series of young women who swooned at Obama rallies in February and March perhaps marked the peak of the phenomenon his campaign was becoming.
While Clinton has sought to contrast herself with Obama, their policy positions are so close as to force her onto ground that is seemingly favorable to him given his likability—questions of character.
Thus, Clinton has tried to portray herself as being the better choice because more "experienced," a theme she has hammered at in debates.
In the Ohio and Texas primaries that she won in early March, she seemed to gain traction among voters with an ad that asked the question of who voters would feel safe with answering a phone call at 3 a.m. in the morning in the White House. In those states, "experience" trumped "hope."
Negatives
The personality-driven narratives of Clinton and Obama have each been recently given rude checks.
Clinton's claim to have braved sniper fire on deplaning in Tuzla during the Bosnian war was refuted the next day by TV news broadcasting video of her being greeted on the tarmac by children bearing flowers.
This lie has lead commentators to rehearse a series of lies Clinton has told over the years in an effort apparently to pad her résumé or connect with voters. Suddenly, Clinton's claims to "experience" were replaced by commentary on her lack of experience and her lack of credibility.
The broadcast in early March of videos of the sermons in which Obama's pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, called upon God to "damn America" and referred to the U.S. as "KKK Amerika," made Obama seem to be anything but the uniter he claimed to be.
In a speech in Philadelphia Obama tried to distance himself from the man he had once described as his "mentor" and "spiritual advisor," while shifting attention away from the beliefs of the church he had attended for over twenty years to the larger subject of race in America.
The media on the whole loved the speech, often giving it front-page treatment, but voters seemed not to be convinced, as Obama's poll numbers did not rebound.
Stopping the Bleeding?
With bad news about both candidates now center stage, a continuing campaign threatens to become ugly.
Clinton can only win the nomination by convincing the Party leaders who will likely decide this race—the Superdelegates—that Obama is unelectable. Her only path forward is to continue emphasizing his negatives.
Obama, faced with attacks on his personality, can be counted to answer Clinton in turn.
Whoever emerges from such a campaign will be so weakened as to open the door for what just a few months ago would have seemed very unlikely: a Republican victory.
With this scenario before them some of the Superdelegates are working behind the scenes to bring an early end to the Democratic Party campaign. For instance, Governor Phil Bredesen has urged a convention of superdelegates in June, two months before the Party's convention in August.
Clinton, meanwhile, vows to stay in the race all the way to the convention and insists, in a reprise of the Democrat's 2000 trauma, that "every vote should count."
With hard feelings on both sides, a "dream ticket" seems right now to be just that.
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