I tried to believe we would have a candidate by now. We've been hearing a lot today, after the ambiguous Super Tuesday results, about Democrats deciding their nominee at convention.
Besides being a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly (on the level of the Giants winning the Super Bowl), deciding at convention would be horrible for the party and horrible for our ultimate nominee. At this point I would take an Obama candidacy in a heartbeat over a third, fourth, or fifth-ballot nominating vote in July. Hillary supporters should not be crossing their fingers for a chaotic convention-floor battle. It's a good thing this is still unlikely.
But in a campaign season where the more unlikely an event is, the likelier it seems, it's worth asking "what if." If it's July and we still have no idea who our nominee is, what will we do? How will we behave? Will we finally get around to the intra-party dialogue we've been avoiding? Will we finally be forced to admit that the Democratic Party is less united than any year since 1968? Democrats spent two years preparing for 2008 without a specific vision for what a good chief executive would be. And our party is cleaved in two because of it.
The Clinton campaign has spent its time discussing only Hillary's abilities as a government leader, only her "presidential" qualities and never her ability to captivate the collective American imagination and move us forward. Hillary has trained her supporters to be cynical about Obama's vision, and it's too bad. If she loses, that will be the reason.
The Obama camp, in turn, has avoided discussion of in-office leadership abilities and experience, preferring to impress people with their stunning vision for a new political order. In the process Obama has turned experience into something suspect (experience = willingness to navigate the bureaucracy = status quo candidate = sell-out) (No nasty responses, Anonymous, I'm skewering both nominees here.)
If we assume that the point of nominating presidential candidates is to select the best potential President, both campaigns have been profoundly foolish. Each has sung the praises of specific presidential qualities, while flat-out denying the relevance of the qualities they lack. And each candidate's supporters (I too am guilty here) have gone along with this.
Primaries and caucuses should be about insisting on candidates who don't undermine or scoff at entire subsets of necessary leadership skills. A lot of people see the Clinton/Obama contest as great for the Democratic Party. I think it shows our complete lack of internal organization and creative discussion.
We want to be America's party again, right? We are not acting like it.
Besides being a once-in-a-lifetime anomaly (on the level of the Giants winning the Super Bowl), deciding at convention would be horrible for the party and horrible for our ultimate nominee. At this point I would take an Obama candidacy in a heartbeat over a third, fourth, or fifth-ballot nominating vote in July. Hillary supporters should not be crossing their fingers for a chaotic convention-floor battle. It's a good thing this is still unlikely.
But in a campaign season where the more unlikely an event is, the likelier it seems, it's worth asking "what if." If it's July and we still have no idea who our nominee is, what will we do? How will we behave? Will we finally get around to the intra-party dialogue we've been avoiding? Will we finally be forced to admit that the Democratic Party is less united than any year since 1968? Democrats spent two years preparing for 2008 without a specific vision for what a good chief executive would be. And our party is cleaved in two because of it.
The Clinton campaign has spent its time discussing only Hillary's abilities as a government leader, only her "presidential" qualities and never her ability to captivate the collective American imagination and move us forward. Hillary has trained her supporters to be cynical about Obama's vision, and it's too bad. If she loses, that will be the reason.
The Obama camp, in turn, has avoided discussion of in-office leadership abilities and experience, preferring to impress people with their stunning vision for a new political order. In the process Obama has turned experience into something suspect (experience = willingness to navigate the bureaucracy = status quo candidate = sell-out) (No nasty responses, Anonymous, I'm skewering both nominees here.)
If we assume that the point of nominating presidential candidates is to select the best potential President, both campaigns have been profoundly foolish. Each has sung the praises of specific presidential qualities, while flat-out denying the relevance of the qualities they lack. And each candidate's supporters (I too am guilty here) have gone along with this.
Primaries and caucuses should be about insisting on candidates who don't undermine or scoff at entire subsets of necessary leadership skills. A lot of people see the Clinton/Obama contest as great for the Democratic Party. I think it shows our complete lack of internal organization and creative discussion.
We want to be America's party again, right? We are not acting like it.
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