Hillary-Barack or ?

Slouching Toward Denver by Noam Scheiber
With little chance that either candidate this time around can clinch the nomination at the polls, it's not inconceivable that Democrats will re-enact this spectacle ( CarterVs Kennedy) in Denver this August. (One direct link: Clinton operative Harold Ickes oversaw Kennedy's convention effort in 1980 and would likely oversee Hillary's.) The sequel could be even more damaging. It's true that the ideological gulf separating Kennedy and Carter doesn't divide Obama and Clinton. But, precisely because the substantive differences are so small, the temptation to court delegates along racial and gender lines would be even greater. And the sense of alienation among the losers would be overwhelming. Says former Al Gore campaign manager (and undecided superdelegate) Donna Brazile: "I don't have the 1980 experience, but that was two white men. This is a woman and a black. What's different about this fight is that, when they attack each other, supporters feel like they're attacking them personally." Remember the recent firestorm over Geraldine Ferraro's comment that, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position"? Well, imagine that flap playing out continuously over four days among hundreds of people with no other news to displace it, and you begin to see the problem.
The good news is that an ugly convention fight is highly preventable. The one advantage of a scenario that's both completely hair-raising and utterly foreseeable is that everyone has an incentive to stop it. The bad news is what's not preventable: a contest that rolls into June. Even without a messy convention, the current trajectory of the primary campaign could easily destroy the party's White House prospects.
Democrats have never been known for Spock-like rationality, but even they see the logic of avoiding a convention fiasco. "It's in nobody's interest in the Democratic Party for that to happen," says Mike Feldman, another former Gore aide. "There is a mechanism in place--built into the process--to avoid that." That mechanism, such as it is, involves an en masse movement of uncommitted superdelegates to the perceived winner of the primaries. Almost everything you hear from such people suggests this will happen in time. "I think once we have the elected delegate count, things will move fairly quickly, " says Representative Chris Van Hollen, who oversees the party's House campaign committee. Increasingly, there is even agreement on the metric by which a winner would be named. Just about every superdelegate and party operative I spoke with endorsed Nancy Pelosi's recent suggestion that pledged delegates should matter most.
Assuming Feldman and Van Hollen are right, that means Democrats won't wait much past June 3--currently the last day on the primary calendar--before crowning a nominee. At the same time, it means there's very little chance of ending the contest sooner. Undecided superdelegates on Capitol Hill, along with party elders like Pelosi, Gore, and Harry Reid, "don't want to be seen as elites coming in and overturning the will of the people," says one senior House aide. A Senate staffer says his boss "thinks this give and take is natural, it will be helpful in the end." "That's a view held by a majority of these guys who have been through the cut and thrust of politics," he adds. Which means early June it is.

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Mark Tomasik: Don’t discount Gore-led ticket
By Mark Tomasik (Contact)Monday, March 24, 2008

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney

U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, whose district includes much of Martin and St. Lucie counties, is hoping he won’t have to attend the Democratic Party national convention in Denver in August.
If he does go, that will mean the Democrats still haven’t decided a nominee for the presidential election. And if neither Sen. Hillary Clinton nor Sen. Barack Obama has clinched the nomination by August, Mahoney says we may see a brokered convention, meaning the nominee could emerge from a negotiated settlement.
“If it (the nomination process) goes into the convention, don’t be surprised if someone different is at the top of the ticket,” Mahoney said.
A compromise candidate could be someone such as former vice president Al Gore, Mahoney said last week during a meeting with this news organization’s editorial board.
If either Clinton or Obama suggested to a deadlocked convention a ticket of Gore-Clinton or Gore-Obama, the Democratic Party would accept it, Mahoney said.
Mahoney, who is one of the superdelegates who gets to cast a vote at the convention, hasn’t endorsed a candidate. He said he doesn’t intend to endorse anyone because “I don’t see it as my job as a district representative” to endorse a nominee for the presidential race.
If neither Clinton nor Obama has enough delegates to secure the nomination by the time the convention starts Aug. 25, Mahoney will have to cast a superdelegate vote for someone. Superdelegates make up about one-fifth of the total number of delegates to the convention and are free to support any candidate for nomination. Most superdelegates are current or former elected officeholders or party officials.
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Inventive Dems on verge of discovering of new way to lose presidential election to McCain

The infighting between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is benefiting John McCain. A new Franklin & Marshall College poll states that 1 in 5 Democrats would vote for McCain if their candidate does not get the nomination. Explained University of Illinois political science professor Doris Graber: "A vote for McCain wouldn't be that difficult. He does appeal to the middle.
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Political Sheet
* AP: “Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton called on President Bush on Monday to appoint ‘an emergency working group on foreclosures’ to recommend new ways to confront the nation’s housing finance troubles. The New York senator said the panel should be led by financial experts such as Robert Rubin, who was treasury secretary in her husband’s administration, and former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker.” (Don’t most Democrats believe Greenspan helped create the current mess?)
* This might be my favorite online DNC project ever: the McCain Debates. Jonathan Martin explained, “While meant to contrast McCain statements at different times about the conflict, the cartoon also is as much about tying the candidate to President Bush. Hence the upside-down ‘W’ insignia turned around to read ‘M 2008′ on one of the podiums, the appearance of a smiling and thumbs-upping Bush after every answer and the message at the end: ‘No Matter Which McCain You Listen To, He Only Offers A Third Bush Term On Iraq.’”
* McCain’s lobbyist problems continues: “Republican presidential candidate John McCain has condemned the influence of ’special interest lobbyists,’ yet dozens of lobbyists have political and financial ties to his presidential campaign — particularly from telecommunications companies, an industry he helps oversee in the Senate. Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.”
* Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will inevitably endorse John McCain’s presidential campaign, right? Well, maybe not. Hagel told George Stephanopoulos he’s waiting: “I want to understand a little more about foreign policy, where he’d want to go.”
* Rasmussen polled Nevada, expected to be a key battleground state, on the general election. Clinton leads McCain by one (44%-43%), and Obama leads McCain by four (45%-41%).