The Democratic Fondue Pot Melt Down

I have recently began reading the comments section below some of the news stories on the web and have noticed the visceral angst among the Democratic voters about the Clinton/Obama race. To believe the Democratic Party can come together between the September convention and the November election unless they resolve their candidacy issue before the convention might be wishful thinking. The blog commenters are inflamed and displaying a lot of vitriol. It has gotten down to a lot of "yo momma" types of comments. The two sides are building a lot of genuine animosity against the other.

To try to look at the options somewhat rationally, let's look at the likely general election tactics:

Obama versus McCain is a large contrast (young vs old, ultra liberal record vs moderate/conservative record, black vs white, etc.); Clinton vs McCain not quite as much (woman vs man, mostly liberal vs moderate/conservative) and keep in mind that Clinton/McCain have voted the same way many times. The problem Clinton has against McCain in the general election is that all the arguments she uses in the primaries against Obama don't work about McCain. Therefore, she will have to do a 180 and run with Obama's arguments of change. Her arguments of: experience (McCain has a lot more), legislative accomplishments (McCain has a lot more), working on bipartisan bills (McCain again), ability to be Commander in Chief (She isn't in the same zip code) will not sell when looked at closely. Therefore, she shouldn't distance herself from Obama too much because she will have to use his platform of unity/change in the general election. However, by using Obama's platform, she will become another "flip-flopper" in the eyes of the public. Obama would have it easier because he will run on his current platform of unity/change. Obama will have a problem there. His record shows that he always votes with the liberal block and has a record of not supporting bipartisan bills. That makes his "unity/bipartisan" theme a tough sell to make. Additionally, he has been knocked off his pedestal (ironically by the Democrats, not the Republicans) and now appears to be a regular politician. When evaluated as a regular politician, he has almost no accomplishments and negligible experience, when examined closely.

Add to those problems a really bad case of timing. The Democrats have been trying to sing in chorus that the Republicans have a "corruption" theme. However, all the latest scandals (NY governor, Detroit mayor, etc.) have been Democrats. Additionally, their own primary system process is beginning to look corrupt. If you really look at Obama/Clinton, there is much more similarity in their positions than differences. The Democratic Party is destroying itself over little details, egos and personalities. Someone needs to do a sanity check. Howard Dean is really falling down on his job. They are at risk of giving this thing away from within.