Ghost of a flea

You send one of his to the morgue

I was asked recently who I thought would take the Democratic nomination and who would become the next President. My answers were and remain Clinton and McCain. This would before the recent Jeremiah Wright unpleasantness, mind you. My reasoning was and is as follows:

George McGovern.

If we may rely on Senator Clinton to act in naked self-interest and to cling on to the life-boat until the last of her fingers are chopped off by a party leadership desperate to avoid being swamped in the general - and we can - then this fight will be decided at the convention by the so-called superdelegates. Her recent momentum helps, of course, but I would ask Flea-readers to consider the reason - the only reason - the superdelegates were created in the first place. The disastrous nomination of George McGovern by the party's left-wing was never to be repeated and the superdelegate system intended to ensure wiser, centrist heads would prevail should the need arise.

That convention is decades gone and now the Democrats are faced with another contest that looks set to go to the floor. The superdelegates were created with one purpose only: To stop Senator Obama from taking the nomination. Not that this means they will do they jobs out of a sense of duty, mind you. Now all we need to ask is how many of those senior delegates have got the bottle to their more ideologically enthusiastic party faithful vs. how much dirt the Clintons have managed to accrue on each and every one of them over the years.

Senator Edwards still has delegates to throw to somebody, btw. This is going to be close. The general? That is going to be a blowout. The only likely Democratic path to victory is if Obama decides his brand is too damaged this time round to take the Presidency and some reason is contrived - the "best interests of the party and the country" come to mind - to stand as the vice presidential candidate. If Clinton loses it will be seen as her loss and Obama has four years to distance himself from the black nationalists and the Chicago political machine which got him this far. And if the ticket wins he is very well positioned to become the second black president at the close of the second Clinton administration.

Related: Karl Rove on "How to Win in a Knife Fight" (via AOSHQ).

Posted by Ghost of a flea at March 31, 2008 04:37 AM