NOTE: I anticipate changing the name of this blog soon, but the URL will remain the same, and all links will therefore still work. I hope my subscribers (thank you, folks!) will continue to stop by for my iconoclastic ramblings on life in the 21st century.
Anyway, I had the following thoughts while watching election coverage on Super Tuesday. It seems that the pundits are jumping onto the following ideas faster than WWF wrestlers onto a buffed-up comrade. Perhaps my true calling is punditry, which is a word I’d love to write after “Occupation” on official forms.
Here’s the scenario: Obama and Clinton will continue to split delegates so that the super-delegates will decide the nominee at a brokered convention. Translation? The same old back-room politics will choose the nominee with wheeling and dealing and schmoozing since the super-delegates are politicians and party big wigs. And if we’re talking party “machine politics,” we’re probably talking Hillary as the nominee.
But if the Democratic National Convention is indeed “brokered” in the back room in favor of Hillary, African American voters are going to feel neglected. The result might well be that they stay home next November in the general election, angry that their votes and participation didn’t count. Paradoxically, the poll numbers indicate that the reverse is not true for Hillary supporters. Obama is more likely to get votes from whites and women (the raw data shows that he can indeed form this coalition) than Hillary is likely to get votes from disenchanted blacks.
It’s speculation, of course (and this is a nonpartisan post), but Obama himself has hinted that the above events could play out in November, not because he will discourage anyone from voting, but because he knows the mindset of the party base in general.
A brokered convention splits the party, but even worse, it amounts to voter nullification regardless of who gets the nod. Millions of people will have stood in long lines in bitterly cold weather to choose the nominee, to be a part of the process. And many are first-time voters. So what will the lesson be? That they don’t count. It’s the super-delegates in the back room who are the king—or queen—makers.
Anyway, I had the following thoughts while watching election coverage on Super Tuesday. It seems that the pundits are jumping onto the following ideas faster than WWF wrestlers onto a buffed-up comrade. Perhaps my true calling is punditry, which is a word I’d love to write after “Occupation” on official forms.
Here’s the scenario: Obama and Clinton will continue to split delegates so that the super-delegates will decide the nominee at a brokered convention. Translation? The same old back-room politics will choose the nominee with wheeling and dealing and schmoozing since the super-delegates are politicians and party big wigs. And if we’re talking party “machine politics,” we’re probably talking Hillary as the nominee.
But if the Democratic National Convention is indeed “brokered” in the back room in favor of Hillary, African American voters are going to feel neglected. The result might well be that they stay home next November in the general election, angry that their votes and participation didn’t count. Paradoxically, the poll numbers indicate that the reverse is not true for Hillary supporters. Obama is more likely to get votes from whites and women (the raw data shows that he can indeed form this coalition) than Hillary is likely to get votes from disenchanted blacks.
It’s speculation, of course (and this is a nonpartisan post), but Obama himself has hinted that the above events could play out in November, not because he will discourage anyone from voting, but because he knows the mindset of the party base in general.
A brokered convention splits the party, but even worse, it amounts to voter nullification regardless of who gets the nod. Millions of people will have stood in long lines in bitterly cold weather to choose the nominee, to be a part of the process. And many are first-time voters. So what will the lesson be? That they don’t count. It’s the super-delegates in the back room who are the king—or queen—makers.
There are only two questions the Democrats should ask themselves if their choice comes down to the convention: Who is electable based on demographics, and do they really want to alienate the very people they are attempting to help: the poor, the unemployed, single mothers, the uninsured, vets, and the like? Given W’s record, this could well be the year of the Democrats … if they can stand behind their own ideals of fairness.
Picture: Public Domain
Picture: Public Domain
2 comments:
There is little doubt that we'll see an Obama Hillary ticket, the only thing uncertain is the order.
There is little doubt that the Dems will trash the Repubs in the general election this season as well.
What we'll end up with is a similar Washington to the one we have now, only the President will be able to string a sentence together.
What this will mean is that we will continue to march toward economic madness until the bottom falls out from under us.
When that happens, the Democrats will lose the ability to take care of the poor and the vets and the disenfranchised and all the good intentions will turn out to be well-intended cultural masochism...
I feel like I am watching a tornado form...
Scott, I share your sense of dread. Economic madness is already starting to form--the vortex of that tornado you mention. I only wonder how large it is going to get. As I said in an earlier post on this blog, I wonder if humans will be here to ring in the year 2100.
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