The Long Campaign Continues

It's been nearly a month since I last wrote, and at the end, nothing has changed.

Yes, we've had the revelation that Sen. Obama's spiritual guide, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright apparently asks God to damn America.

And yes, we've had Sen. Clinton's Bosnia fairytale (as Times columnist Frank Rich dubs it)—you know the one where she swears she (and Sinbad and Sheryl Crow) was under sniper-fire while visiting troops in Bosnia during her tenure as first lady. While this had been debunked months ago, the former first lady and former presumptive Democratic nominee for the presidency continued to spew such fibs. It took the CBS Evening News to go back to the pool video and show that Sen. Clinton indeed had a safe landing. She arrived in Bosnia with Chelsea. That CBS Evening News clip was promulgated by Drudge linking to the YouTube video of it. It got more views than Wright's fiery sermons.

It fit the narrative: Clinton's a liar. And isn't that a narrative that fits so well with that family that we're all too familiar with? It's her "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." It harkens back to the narrative that the Bush campaign pinged on Vice-President Gore back in 2000: Al Gore swore he invented the internet.

And everyone's talking about Bosnia and the Clinton campaign is saying that she misspoke and that it's all due to sleep deprivation…this coming from the candidate who said that she's the most prepared to answer that red phone at, yes, 3 in the morning.

And everyone's forgotten about Wright and about the watershed speech that Obama delivered concerning race. That speech, one of the greatest political speeches in a generation, will be only remembered by simple sound bites: "I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas" and "I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe."

That's what happens when you schedule an important and long overdue speech on race in America, in the morning. Rookie mistake.

March wasn't a good month for either Democratic Candidate or the Democratic Party itself. It was full of gaffes and indecision.

***

But where do we go from here?

Clinton has said that she's not going to pull-out. Obviously. She's said that she was going to wait until the people have spoken. Yes, how noble of her. She was going to wait for Pennsylvania…and Puerto Rico to vote. June 3^rd is the last election. DNC Chairman Howard Dean wants this rapped up by July 1^st. But…Clinton spoke to the Washington Post today and said that she wasn't going to rest until Michigan and Florida are counted (where was she when the DNC disenfranchised millions of voters last fall?) and that if it had to come to it, well, that's what the Credentials Committee at the Convention is for. The Credentials Committee! She's going to see this through the very end and take the Democratic National Convention in Denver hostage. She will not give up. She will not surrender. Even if they count Florida and Michigan and even if she wins Pennsylvania, which she's likely to do, it doesn't add up. The delegate count just doesn't add up. It's not going to put her over the top. It's not going to change anything. She'll make the argument that she wins the big states and that she's won more recently—this even though today's revelation that because of the Texas "prima-caucus," Obama actually won there.

And that's the big problem. Bill Maher on Friday's show asked what the big deal was for Clinton to stay in and to allow the process to naturally unfold—to let the voters decide, to make every vote count. The process never unfolds naturally. No one likes a split convention. A couple of years ago I wrote an essay in which I compared the 1968 presidential election to every presidential we've had since. This paragraph is pertinent as to why the Democrats need a nominee by Convention time:

In the battle between perception and reality, it is also important to note the changes and evolutions in nominating conventions. Where 1952 was seen as the first televised convention, 1968 was the first dramatic one. Image-makers not only had to deal with a candidate's image, but also, with the image of the convention itself. Whereas in 1968 at Miami Beach, the Republicans presented a convention of unity and order, the convention at Chicago was anything but. Theodore White stated that "At Chicago, for the first time, the most delicate process of American politics was ruptured by violence, the selection of Presidents stained with blood." Americans were appalled at what was occurring on the streets in Chicago, and what was occurring inside the convention hall. Those watching Walter Cronkite's coverage on the CBS Television Network saw a young Dan Rather being punched on the floor of the Convention Hall and taken down by Convention security, "Cronkite then delivered one of those sound bites that get aired again and again for years to come: 'I think we've got a bunch of thugs in there, Dan'." Then and there, the Democrats' hope for a victory in 1968 ended. The Convention was in such a state of chaos that President Johnson—officially leader of the Democratic Party—did not attend the convention. In 1980, coupled with the important and salient background events which were occurring, there was discontent inside Madison Square Garden where the Democratic National Convention was held, after the sitting President, Jimmy Carter, was challenged by Sen. Edward Kennedy for the presidency, and at the end, we saw the famous image captured by television cameras which displayed the delicate waltz which took place by which Carter and Kennedy never shook hands on the convention stage. This event was seized by the pundits on television and re-played over-and-over again as a sign of disunity in the party. In 1992, it was the Republican's turn to seem extreme and not united. At the Astrodome in Houston, Texas, what was supposed to be a rousing night for Ronald Reagan's last speech at the Convention was split, with Reagan's speech being pushed to 11:00 p.m. and Pat Buchanan taking the 10:00 p.m. primetime hour. This push to a 10:00 p.m. slot made by the networks, especially NBC, cost Bush and his convention the image that they wanted to portray. NBC's executive producer, Bill Wheatley recalls that, "On two separate instances we saw them hold the convention waiting for us to come on the air…We were still in our opening when they introduced [Quayle]. There was this tremendous roar, and Tom [Brokaw] just picked it up." The one that really hurt Bush was Buchanan's speech which "after its opening applause lines for the nominee, went on to summon not only Buchanan's own following but the entire Republican Party to a 'religious war' against gays, inner-city toughs and the likes of Hillary Clinton." That same year at Madison Square Garden, the 1992 Democratic National Convention was perfectly orchestrated, went off without any serious gaffes, and was up-lifting and optimistic. The Republicans came back in 2000 and at Philadelphia, gave key-note speech slots to the likes of Colin Powell, John McCain, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr., and Condoleezza Rice. This created the image of a new, moderate Republican Party going along the theme of "Compassionate Conservatism" which Bush wanted to create. On the other hand, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, there were undercurrents which pointed towards disunity in the party, when Bill Clinton was pushed to a Monday night speech, and then ignored for the rest of the convention. This went in line with the Gore Campaign wanting to distance themselves from Clinton for the General Election, and which many consider might have hurt Gore in his quest for the presidency.

Now I'm not saying that the Democratic Convention in Denver in 2008 will be just like the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1968. I don't expect violence but I do expect political blood being spilt if Hillary Rodham Clinton takes this to the Credentials Committee and more so, if the Super-Delegates go contrary to whom the pledged Delegates chose. It would be a nomination stolen. If the Super-Delegates indeed overturn the voice of the people, if they overturn the people's choice, then what we will have will be the disenfranchisement anew of Democrats and a party uncontrollable. They'll be yelling bloody murder in the streets of Denver. They denied the first viable Black man the nomination for president of the United States. Obama's leading in the delegate count, most states won, and most votes cast. The Super-Delegates will have no choice but to re-affirm the pledged delegates, which then calls into question the reasoning for the Super-Delegates: if it's just to rubber-stamp and to be redundant…what's the point of their existence?

If Democrat's can't run their own convention, can't control their own people, what gives the American people the confidence that they can run a country?

And I echo David Brooks' belief (another Times columnist) who says that the reason that Hillary Clinton needs to get out is not because she's weak, but because she's strong. And yes, it's a little nonsequitor. Put aside the fact that in today's Gallup tracking poll Obama's lead over Clinton is now at 10-points, with her winning Pennsylvania and a handful of others, she'll continue to make the case that there's momentum for her now, that people want her in it, and that she'll be there for the people. There won't be any stopping her. She'll think that she's it, that she can turn this ship around, that she can salvage this ship who hit the iceberg long ago. It's delusional. She'll take this to the Convention and the whole world will watch what a split convention is. Can you just picture it? There might be walk-outs! Supporters of the losing candidate leaving the hall and the image replayed ad-nauseum on TV for everyone to see. Juxtapose that with McCain's convention. It'll be neat. It'll be orderly. It'll be just like the 2000 Republican love-fest in Philadelphia.

 

This was supposed to be the year of the Democratic Restoration. The economy is going south, the war has hit the 4,000^th American casualty, and the sitting Republican president remains unpopular. This was supposed to be the year of the Democratic Restoration.

It's amazing but the Democrats found a way to blow it again.

Super Tuesday Results 4

At the end of the day, it's about the delegates. The widget that I have on the right side-bar denotes the official delegate count as assigned by official election results, according to the NBC News Politics Desk.

Obama and McCain are still awaiting the results coming out of California, which might take awhile to come in. More than a million voters voted with absentee ballots and they need to be counted and can indeed sway the campaign. We may not have substantial numbers until early tomorrow morning.

That being said, McCain is pulling far ahead of Romney in delegate count, and Huckabee might even have more delegates than Romney when all is said and done. If this happens, Huckabee, who until tonight was a one-hit wonder (Iowa) might indeed become viable again and be the "Conservative" alternative to McCain. Depending on what happens in California, McCain may not have this completely locked. Again, it's all California. As of right now (11:33ET), with 6% of precincts reporting, McCain leads Romney by 100,000 votes in California. Romney might indeed not pursue this to the end, positioning himself for another presidential run. He's not that popular within the establishment and he doesn't want to ruin his chances to become the standard-bearer of the party in the future. We might have a Republican nominee by the end of the week, even as early as tomorrow.

The Obama campaign says that their internal Delegate number shows Obama leading 606-534. Conventional wisdom holds than neither candidate on the Democratic side pulls away from a with a substantial delegate margin after tonight, therefore the nominee may indeed take some time to decide, with a small possibility that we'll once again witness an honest-to-God Convention floor fight when the Democrats meet in Denver come late August.

Update (11:45ET): Obama: "Our Time Has Come..."