Divided Democrats Revisited
Donald King
Posted: 04.22.2008 / 11:30 AM EDT
Finally, after several intense weeks of campaigning and a rather unenlightening debate between Clinton and Obama hosted by an overexposed ABC tag team that seemed more interested in starting a fight than addressing issues, it is primary day in Pennsylvania. It seems like eons ago that we started this political season here in Iowa, and most of my friends and neighbors have lost interest a long time ago, as we prepare for getting in the crops, planning vacations, and organizing graduation parties.
In this heavily Republican community, politics is currently about preparing for the state GOP primaries in June where we choose candidates for the Congress and state legislature. I hear occasional comments about John McCain and the persistent question about whether the Democrats will ever get their act together and unite around a single candidate.
It reminds me of all those times in the past when the Democratic Party was sharply divided, and ended up in a fight at the convention to see who could broker the best deal to garner the most delegates. I’ll admit that those days were more exciting, than the early nominations of recent standard bearers like Kerry, Gore, and Clinton, that left little to anticipate at the quadrennial convention. But this is not the year to have the two leading candidates digging into each other’s soiled laundry and pummeling each other while their real adversary—who offers a distinctive alternative, has months to refine and polish in order to persuade citizens that he is the best choice.
I can hardly believe that in a year when it should be a walk in the park for the Dems to elect a President, they are shooting themselves in the foot and risk self-destruction before we even get to the conventions.
I want to yell to the participants in the remaining states and the superdelegates to WAKE UP and unify behind a single candidate! The last thing Hillary and Barack should be doing is picking each other apart. Debates have become like a slow-working poison that weakens them both and leaves citizens wondering what it is they really offer in the first place.
Clinton seems more focused on winning the nomination, even if it means losing the election and Obama struggles to get the media to shift attention to the real issues like the war that continues to drag on, the deteriorating economy, health care, poverty, and a host of much more serious concerns to Americans.
My greatest fear after today is that there still will be no clear victor, the sniping between them will continue and weeks, maybe even months will pass without a resolution. McCain stands to gain the most, and meanwhile the unpopular administration gets a free ride to the end of its term.
If I were Howard Dean, I’d be pulling my hair out and looking for any way to bring this divided party together to rally around a popular, experienced leader who appeals to all Democrats and can unite the Democratic Party.
This sounds crazy coming from a political scientist I know, but I am convinced Americans deep down want change and a new direction in both domestic and foreign policy, but cannot find the one person who has the stature and confidence of a majority to provide the leadership they seek. This is the most serious underlying issue that has emerged over the course of the last year and we find ourselves way too far into the selection process to seriously consider an alternative candidate. But if there ever was a time for a dark horse to emerge offering unity and a bold new agenda, it is NOW! Do we really want four more years of the status quo? I really don’t think that is the case.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
One of the problems in the traditional view of a campaign is its focus on the future. Who will win in November? Will the Democrats be united in the fall? The reality is that the campaign happens in the present. No one knows how it will be in the future. We do know what has happened in the past and most of us want to change some of that! So how do we get from here to there?
If you watch the campaigns closely, you will see the changes as they are occurring. Reporting on and understanding the positive changes as they occur should be the focus of the media. Look at the changes Barack Obama has already made in the way we campaign. In this campaign, he is not taking contributions from lobbyists. I’m sure people doubted that he get enough money that way. But it has worked, not only to raise abundant funds, but to empower so many people. That is news! That is the way change happens. I won’t list the other changes he has made, but people are responding to them too. That is why his campaign feels more like a movement; many people are changing their beliefs in the process. Hillary Clinton shows Americans that women are intelligent and strong and can fight if necessary. Who would have thought she could do what she has done? John McCain has apologized to black people. Who ever thought a Republican would do that?
We must be patient so each one of us has the opportunity to take a new look at one another and change our obsolete beliefs, to become the new citizens of a changing country. That’s how our nation works of, by and for the people. Changing a nation takes all the time it takes.
The Democrats are not a divided party anymore than America is a divided nation. Our most important job as Americans is to find a way to unite as human beings. That is what is happening now. It has happened over and over in American history, renewing us again and again. It is the way a free nation makes peace.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:38 pm
I have been shocked and disheartened to see the way Hillary has been treated by the party she has served at enormous personal sacrifice. No one here has taken notice of Obama’s cagey use of DINU–deeply immersive narrative universe. He has, truly, sucked people into his patter. Think the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Right now, he is a very hot FAD. People have turned over their brains to him, which is why they are able to forgive him the most reprehensible things (and why they come out of his rallies euphoric but unable to relate anything about his speeches other than they were “uplifting.”
Meanwhile, both the right and the left of the media and alt.media are pounding away at Hillary. I would have folded up and died from the backstabbing she has taken. I have got to hand it to her for sheer courage and determination. And that is what I would like in a president. Someone with grit.
I don’t think Obama can keep the hypnotism going through the November elections, and I will be glad about that because I don’t think he really likes America. I am certain he doesn’t like the majority of us. I don’t even think he feels like an American himself because he is so busy being a “citizen of the world.” Nope. I want a strong person who will always stand up for THIS country. When you hire a lawyer, do you want one who is not sure whose side he’s on? No, you do not.
As for unifying this country, well, how about Pearl Harbor? That did it, and we stayed on course till we finished. Sadly, that generation of Americans is gone. Nowadays, we don’t even know when we’ve been attacked because the weapons nowadays are more like tainted imported food and financial shenanigans. We know there’s a problem, but we aren’t smart enough to locate the real source. Pity.
April 29th, 2008 at 10:50 am
I smell race. And I certainly don’t see what sacrifices Hillary has made. Cripes the woman is self centered.
She loves Bill because as President and former President he gives her stature and access. She failed in her original Health Care initiative and she knew if she didn’t have it 110% perfect it would fail and she left it at about 75-80%.
Also Clintons seem to have the shortest coattails electing few but themselves and suffering a do little leaders but being able to pass the buck onto an opposition Congress.
Clinton didn’t create the successful economy, he rode it and was wise enough to leave it alone when that was the best course. For History shows when government micro manages a bit, it soon finds out any tinkering begets more.
America first, America first! Don’t you realize that even without the chant America first is how we behaved for the past WWII age. And economically unopposed (excpet Japan), we’ve become competitively fat and lazy.
Don’t you remember when American salesmen scours the World for needs and filled backed by the greatest research, engineering and Mfg collection ever assembled.
We turned the arsenal of Democracy into the Consumer Products show of the World. Today, we languish as jobs fly overseas in a bit of **** called GlobaLIZATION.
The World has turned the game on the US and We, the Milton Bradley of gamers, have suddenly forgotten how to play.
So follow Clinton, maybe even Obama and if they don’t forge change today prepare to be the Third World power we seem to want to be not a true Leader.
May 11th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
It’s a little surprising to read this consternation over Obama and Clinton and not see how and why it happened, especially for a political scientist. How can a party win a national election of a diverse and plural nation when it builds an electoral coalition on identity politics?
Since 1968 the Democratic party has adopted a fragile coalition strategy of groups based on ethnicity, race, gender and sexual preference. Under this strategy voters became important constituents because they were minorities, or feminists, or gays - all based on differences of identity rather than commonalities. The only commonality has been “the enemy of my enemy (those evil Republicans) is my friend.” How can they not expect this to constantly blow up in their faces, as it has done election cycle after election cycle?
It would be nice if Obama and McCain could transcend this divisiveness in the general election but since racial and ethnic identities have become so ingrained in our national psyche, I have my doubts.
May 12th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
I would like to flag Sherry Blair’s comments as Most Appropriate, not just on this page but as guidance for media coverage going forward. The real story is about the unifying and uplifting changes taking place in society and politics. Who’s going to win in November is only a sidebar.