Hillary Clinton finds herself in deeper trouble as two more primaries loom on the horizon prior to her firewall states of Texas and Ohio. The latest polls from Texas show that Obama has now taken a lead there and only trails Hillary by 2% among Hispanic voters. That vote was Hillary’s ace in the hole and if she does not have a larger lead in the demographic the fat lady will be warming up her vocal chords.
The saving grace for Hillary is that a large number of Super Delegates are from the old Democratic establishment. They are a bunch of old white guys who have a lot of sway within the party and many of them are not elected to an office so they will not have to worry about the wrath of the electorate, at least not as far as they are personally concerned.
Hillary is basically toast as far as the primaries go. She cannot catch Obama and neither of them will earn enough delegates to win the nomination outright. Hillary stands to gain the lion’s share of delegates from Florida and Michigan should the DNC relent and allow those delegates to be seated. This is seen as unlikely since the events were not properly contested and if anyone wants to talk about disenfranchising a black guy, this would be the ultimate event to do so.
A more likely event is that the uncommitted Super Delegates will go against the will of the people and cast their vote for Hillary thus giving her the nomination over the person who received the most votes from the electorate. There are some SDs who are switching their committed vote from Hillary to Obama but there will not be enough of them to offset the old establishment should they decide that Hillary should get the nod. For all their claims of diversity the overwhelming number of SDs are old white men and they just might not like the idea of running a black guy for the top spot.
Either event is likely to throw the Democratic Party into a state of turmoil. If Hillary is selected the black voter will finally understand the betrayal that has been the Democratic Party. Blacks have been taken for granted for years but every election cycle the Democrats promise them the world only to forget about them until the next election. Trillions of dollars have been spent on the war on poverty and many are no better off than they were four decades ago when the war began. If ever there was an indication that we should pull out of a war, that would be it. The black voters finally see one of their own reach the pinnacle with a chance to make history by being elected the first black president in the history of this country. If they get screwed they might stay home or cast protest votes for the Republican nominee. In any event, maybe they will finally understand what has been happening all those years they ignored the signs that they were being used.
On the other hand, if Obama is selected the women voters, Hillary’s largest demographic, might feel betrayed by the old white men and take out their frustrations in a similar fashion. Hillary was supposed to win, it was her turn. There were a lot of women who got excited when she entered the race and they are still strongly supporting her so much so that Oprah Winfrey, one of the most successful women in the world, received a great deal of grief and talk of betrayal because she chose to back Obama. These are two very determined groups and they make up a huge portion of the electorate. Ticking them off will not be good for the Democratic Party.
Howard Dean is losing sleep at night thinking about the possibility of a brokered convention. He might be a whack job but he is not stupid. He realizes all too well that these scenarios could play out just as I described and tear his party apart. If it happens it will only lend credence to the saying that the Democrats always find ways to lose. The best he can hope for is for one of them to drop out but that does not appear likely. He can hope that one will wrap up the nomination but that appears just as unlikely so it will be down to the convention and the nightmare of negotiations. Even if they persuade Clinton and Obama to take a deal, say where she is the nominee and he is the VP (or vice versa), they run the risk of alienating the supporters of the one who gets to play second fiddle. I can hear it now “why does the black man have to be second to a white woman” or “why does she have to be second to a man, isn’t a woman good enough to be first?”
These things are all possible and no one can guarantee that either would accept the terms. Would you want to be Obama and be third in line behind Hillary and Bill? The Democrats have a long hard road ahead of them and this is not going to be easy. In addition to risking losing voters they need to worry about losing control of Congress. If they tick off enough of their base those voters might stay away or vote for Republicans for Congress. If the DNC is not careful it could lose it all.
That, of course, is a worse case scenario but it is not out of the realm of possibility. The Democrats have a way of mucking things up and they seem to have done so this time. The SDs were supposed to be helpful but now it appears as if the whole idea might have been a bad one.
Regardless of what happens this will be fun to watch. I personally hope this goes to a brokered convention. I might actually watch it just to see the comedy unfold. My party is pretty uneventful so I might as well enjoy the antics on the other side…
Others with interesting posts:
Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, third world county, 123beta, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Shadowscope, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Celebrity Smack, Cao’s Blog, Dumb Ox Daily News, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.