On my way home from rehearsal the other night, I was listening to Rachel Maddow’s radio show. She was making an impassioned case that Hillary Clinton, contrary to the prevailing wisdom of the mainstream media’s talking heads, was not planning to go quietly into the night. Not even close:
After the primary calendar has ended, Clinton’s campaign can only justify or explain her staying in the race if she makes the case that the Democratic Party still has not chosen a nominee conclusively. Clinton needs an argument that the game should go into extra innings. Overtime. Bonus round. Detention. Whatever. Clinton has now found that argument — she says she will not stop campaigning until the issue of the Florida and Michigan delegates is settled to her satisfaction.
The Florida/Michigan issue get settled, of course, by the Democrats’ Rules and Bylaws Committee… unless of course that committee’s decision gets appealed to the Credentials Committee… unless of course that decision, too, gets appealed… to the floor of the convention.
Do you see where this is going? If there is an open, unresolved procedural issue involving the Florida and Michigan delegations, Senator Clinton will be able to cite that as her justification for staying in the race until the convention even though she is not ahead in the nomination contest at the end of the primary calendar.
If she can ensure that the Florida and Michigan issue stays unresolved until the convention (and by appealing it every step of the way, I don’t see how that can be avoided), then Clinton stays in the race until the convention. Staying in until the convention buys her three more months of campaign time, three more months to make her case to the party and the country, three more months for some potential political unfortunateness to befall Senator Obama.
(Maddow has written up her thoughts for a piece at Huffington Post.)
Maddow’s concern boils down to this: If the nomination fight lasts until the convention in August, she doesn’t believe that the Democratic nominee for president can beat John McCain in November. Despite this, Clinton wants to be President. Clinton obviously knows that if she concedes the nomination to Obama, she has no chance to become President. On the other hand, if she takes it to the convention she has a chance to become the nominee. And if she becomes the nominee she has a slim chance of beating McCain in November.
And “if what you really want is to be President of the United States — a slim chance of becoming President (a fight at the convention) is better than no chance of becoming President (because you dropped out).”
I don’t necessarily agree with Maddow’s contention that a convention fight spells certain doom for the Democrats in November — although the historical precedents of 1968, 1972, and 1980 hardly bode well. But it’s certainly not an optimal situation. I’ve long felt that Hillary Clinton’s vision of Democratic strategy has been profoundly wrong in comparison to Howard Dean’s 50 State Strategy (it’s one of the reasons I don’t support her), and now she seems willing to risk immolating her entire party if the concession prize is a slim chance that she gets to be President.
Fortunately, Rachel Maddow also proposes a solution:
If the Democrats are to avoid a divided convention, the Florida and Michigan dispute will have to be taken off the table — settled in a way that avoids the risk of a rules dispute that stretches the nominating contest out through the convention. I can think of only one way to do that, but there may be others.
Here’s my way: based on my read of NBC’s delegate math, I think if the Clinton campaign won 100% of what they wanted on the Florida and Michigan dispute, Obama could still clinch the nomination — even according to the most pro-Clinton math — if 90 of the remaining 210-or-so undeclared superdelegates declared for Obama.
To sum this up:
(1) Barack Obama has reached one finish line by winning a majority of the pledged delegates.
(2) But if Barack Obama is going to wrap up this nomination race cleanly, then he needs to get 90 of the remaining 210 undeclared superdelegates to declare for him by May 31st.
So what can you do to help?
Well, most of you reading this have already cast your vote in the primaries. You’ve exercised your most primal form of political power, and you’ve helped Barack Obama cross that first finish line. (And if your state hasn’t held its primary, yet, you should make sure that you do vote. And get as many of your friends to vote as possible.)
And, of course, if you haven’t already donated to Obama’s campaign, then you should donate today. Money is another one of those primal forms of political power, and even the price of a cup of coffee can make a difference.
But, more immediately, it’s time to help Obama cross that second finish line by exercising your most important right in a democracy: Speech.
You can find a list of currently undeclared superdelegates at Democratic Convention Watch. I urge you to take a look at that list. If there’s a representative, senator, governor, or DNC party member on that list from your state, then you can make a difference by sending them a letter or writing an e-mail or making a phone call. Tell them that you support the winner of the primaries and the leader in pledged delegates, Barack Obama. Stress to them the importance of bringing an undisputed conclusion to this primary fight as soon as possible, so that the entire party can turn its focus to the general election in November. Ask them to publicly endorse.
To make it even easier, I’ve compiled contact information and organized it by state. (However, I probably won’t be able to keep this list updated in a timely fashion, so remember to check the page at Democratic Convention Watch.)
