In discussing the Wisconsin primary results, OpenLeft’s Chris Bowers makes a general observation that raises an interesting possibility:
Closest Democratic Nomination in at least 48 years: Just to keep things in perspective even during an Obama victory, Clinton will actually pass a milestone tonight that will make this the closest Democratic nomination campaign since at least 1960. Today, even without Michigan and Florida, she hit 1219 delegates when one counts supers, moving her 1 delegate ahead of Jessee Jackson’s 1988 total of 1218. Jackson’s 1988 performance was the highest number of delegates ever won by a Democrat who did not win the nomination.
Sen. Hillary Clinton is not often compared to the Rev. Jesse Jackson. The novelty of that comparison sparks some speculation on my part, presented in a spirit of pure contrarianism for your entertainment… so do not expect to hold me to any of what follows.
The current campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination is not over, but Clinton’s window of opportunity for victory is closing. Sen. Barack Obama is now generally considered to be the front-runner.
The past few weeks have spawned speculation that neither candidate may reach a clear majority of pledged delegates, that the nomination could be decided by superdelegates, or possibly involve the disputed delegations from Florida and Michigan. People have wondered whether nominating Clinton over Obama with superdelegates or disputed delegates would so alienate the Democratic black vote that the party’s prospects in the general election would be doomed.
Now Obama seems to be the more likely nominee, and may secure enough pledged delegates to win outright or a lead sufficient to make him the obvious choice for superdelegates (esp. should Clinton underperform in states like OH and PA). The current trend suggests that Obama may reach that position by virtue of a gender gap in his favor.
What if the 2008 Democratic National Convention features Hillary Clinton in the role of Jesse Jackson at the 1988 convention, exchanging his racial grievances for those of gender?
After all, it is not completely beyond the realm of imagination that Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill might act in a manner some would call narcissistic. It is possible that the Clintons might be sore losers.
Having been the establishment candidate, Hillary probably would not be able to credibly claim (as Jackson did) that the nomination process is ”distorted by rules that favor insider politics.” She could, however, press a version of the case her campaign has been making, i.e., that Obama won the nomination in a manner similar to George McGovern’s 1972 campaign, which led to disaster in the general election. She could press for procedural reforms against caucuses. She could champion the causes of Florida and Michigan and seek reform of the rules for timing contests and the sanctions imposed upon those who break them. She could demand various concessions for women in the general campaign and at the DNC, ostensibly on the ground of assuaging the injured feelings of women that their glass ceiling will be unshattered this year. She could demand money and perks like luxury jets for the Clintons’ use in GOTV operations in the general election.
If the Democrats can avoid the worst scenarios involving superdelegates or the disputed delegations, the history of contentious conventions — more recently including 1968, 1972, 1980 and 1988 — may nevertheless portend ill tidings for the party in a general election. It is unclear whether the effect of contentious conventions is one of perception or reality. Does the electorate punish a party that seems divided? Do genuine rifts in a party result in division that hurts a general election campaign? Or do such rifts signal that a party could not assemble a winning coalition from the outset?
Political science does not, afaik, have any clear answers to such questions, but that makes them no less important. If the close contest between Clinton and Obama is a reflection of a party divided beneath its facade, accommodations made between the candidates themselves may be an insufficient solution to their problem. If the close contest between Clinton and Obama is not due to their equal strengths, but their equal weaknesses, putting on happy faces at the convention may be an insufficient solution to their problem.
The schisms that would arise if Clinton won — particularly with respect to black voters and the anti-war Left — would likely be a worse scenario for the Democrats. Nominating Obama, however, may have a depressing effect on Democratic women (and leaners), empower radical elements of the Democratic coalition and leave the Clintons as loose cannons in a general election. There has been much discussion of the first scenario, but almost none of the second, which currently seems the more likely one.
The novelty of that comparison sparks some speculation on my part, presented in a spirit of pure contrarianism for your entertainment… so do not expect to hold me to any of what follows.
O’K, Karl..good morning
Yeah, but Jesse Jackson won South Carolina.
The beauteous, shimmering irony of superdelegates: they are supposed to prevent ascension of a lightweight, populist, kneejerk candidate to the nomination since that resulted in the horrific McGovern loss; they are instead aggravating traditional Democrat racial and victim-identity special-interest politics into open and embarassing conflict. I got no sleep for three nights in 1968 and this year looks even more interesting. Is there a Mayor Daly equivalent in Denver?
A Clinton loss is, for me, unimaginable. Not that I don’t see the (very real) possibility that one is coming. It’s just such a novel idea. The Clintons ALWAYS come out ahead. My powers of creative thought just aren’t that strong.
Some of us are forgetting that, unlike McGovern, who was a one issue candidate, Obama is the no issue candidate.
That positioning may get him elected president. By a wide margin.
When was the last time that so many voters were so pissed off at all of the political leadership for so many disparate reasons? Obama messiah is the perfect candidate for a significant portion of those disaffected masses. Promise change, be inspiring and, like St. Patrick, they’ll follow him over the cliff of progressive-socialism. How many of those that do will be shocked if, after the Obamatron wins a landslide general election over the angry white guy shunned by significant numbers of pissed off conservatives, by all of the new imperatives for nanny statism, racial preferences, higher taxes and the GWOT downgraded to criminal status? There will be wailing for many moderates, smug satisfaction and growing panic for conservatives and a whole lot of “we have overcome” from the moveon crowd.
If that isn’t enough to cause one to crawl into the world’s biggest Scotch bottle and marinate for four years, well….
I’m with Carin on that. I just said that out loud yesterday knowing full well it’s gonna be remembered as a dumb prognostication. But still. I guess really that they don’t get that Obama is notClinton in the sense that they are rejecting Bill’s legacy. If Obama loses the general, that legacy is not going to be invocable really no more. It would just be silly. I guess this is as it should be. It’s just startling.
I predicted Obama’s landslide win in the general a long time ago. I must resist the urge to start drinking heavily.
McCain will blow Obama away I think. It’s gonna be stark.
I’ll be very surprised if there’s a disputed convention. It’s clear enough to Dems in TX, OH, and PA that Hillary’s not going to be able take the lead unless Obama manages to implode in some spectacular fashion. I’d be willing to bet the undecideds and less-committed Clinton supporters will break big for Obama to make sure things run smoothly.
Texas Dems still remember getting burned by their ridiculously patronizing foray into racial dreamteamyness though. They ran on the dreamy, not on the issues, and they went down hard. Ok I remember anyway.
Ric would have a better sense of this.
I also think happyfeet’s got it backward. Dems will be excited either way, Independents like Obama at least as much as McCain, and the GOP won’t have an anti-Clinton motivation and most of them can’t even stand their own candidate. McCain’s going to get thumped in the general.
The MSM will not let Hillary lose the primary. They see the huge dollars associated with Bill pulling a knife on someone during the general.
Underestimating McCain is what makes him invincible I think. He’ll ride conservative dissatisfaction all the way to that funny little office with the curvy walls. Or not I guess.
What worries me is that Jesus will tell Hick to start a third party.
The gender split in Dem turnout for WI was 58/42 F/M. That’s as large as it has been for the entire primary season. Previously I’ve seen the split as indicative of “feminist” support for the Red Witch but what if it’s actually indicative of “there’s no one running that I’ll ever vote for” on the part of men? Overall Dem turnout has been excellent, so I don’t know if the hypothesis will withstand scrutiny but 58/42 with BHO winning strong indicates that either the “feminists” are a feather in the wind or there’s something else going on.
What worries me is that one of Fuckabee’s skin folds will get a voice, and then we will start seeing people find imagines of Hick Skin Folks on their French Toast and selling it on E-bay.
Bariatric Surgery Survivors For Huck!
Stomach Staplers Against Satan!
Speaking of huge skin folds glazed with ancient smegma: when we’re on national health care and we are in essence paying for our neighbor’s doctor bills, will it be legal to tackle the fat ass in the corner before he gets his third Big Montana into his gob?
Nope. In a few years, the state will simply start denying them treatment, as they currently are in Britain. Health Care for All means Health Care for the Politically Approved Healthy. It’s going to be fuggin’ hilarious.
Karl:
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see Hillary scrambling for concessions to women at the convention. I say this because I haven’t really seen her beating the feminist drum thus far in her campaign. Perhaps I haven’t been paying enough attention, but she seems to have spread herself evenly over the traditional identity groups. Am I wrong?
Presented for entertainment purposes only. No relationship between these two comments is express or implied. Past performance does not predict future results.
“After all, it is not completely beyond the realm of imagination that Hillary Clinton and her husband Bill might act in a manner some would call narcissistic. It is possible that the Clintons might be sore losers.”
They’ll burn down the Democratic party before they admit defeat. As I wrote about on my blog, the Clintons will stop at nothing to win.
Cowboy,
I don’t see her demanding concessions for women out of any great commitment to feminism, anymore than Jackson did as a champion of the oppressed. I could see her doing it as the rationalization for trouble-making instead of being seen solely as a sore loser.
Sean H,
For the purpose of this speculation, there does not have to be a brokered convention of some sort. To the contrary, in 1988 Dukakis had the nomination sewn up. In 1980, Kennedy did not have much of a shot at Carter in the convenntion.
Rather, this speculation is premised on the scenario where there is a clear loser, but one who amassed a lot of delegates on the way to losing. It is a way of looking at the flip side of the standard dialogue about the campaign. We tend to marvel at the fall of the once-inevitable Hillary, and now tend to see Obama not merely as an inspirational speaker, but as a world-beater. But what does it say that Obama — even if he wins on delegates by the end — will enter his convention as weak or weaker on delegates than Michael Dukakis did in 1988? Maybe nothing, insofar as Obama has looked like a stronger candidate than Dukakis thus far. But maybe it does mean something.
Rick,
Primary turnout does not have a high corelation with general election turnout or outcome in presidential years. Doesn’t mean it won’t translate this year (the first to have completely open races in recent history), just that it’s far from a sure thing.
As for the other comments, I will add:
1. HRC is still not completely out of it — this post really is speculation.
2. Plenty of good points raised, some of which require in-depth treatment in future posts.
Never mind that — wait until the people screaming over the possibility of phone taps realize that socialized medicine means government access to their health records! Makes Hillary’s access to FBI files pale in comparison!
Karl:
I don’t see her demanding concessions for women out of any great commitment to feminism, anymore than Jackson did as a champion of the oppressed. I could see her doing it as the rationalization for trouble-making instead of being seen solely as a sore loser.
I see what you mean, Karl–and I certainly don’t underestimate her desire to yank the spotlight from Obama. It just seems to me that by choosing any one particular identity group to champion, after sucking up to so many for so long, would make her look even more disingenous than she already does.
Although, I could be guilty of overestimating her ability to be embarrassed by disingenuity…
[…] this morning’s speculation, I suggested that Sen. Hillary Clinton might make trouble for the Democratic convention in a number […]
I prefer Obama to the rest of the field, so I may be biased, but I don’t think it says anything. It’ll be a narrow win, but narrowly beating Clinton in 2008 seems a lot more impressive to me than narrowly beating Jackson in 1988. Just six months ago nobody was giving the guy a shot because of the Clinton machine and the fact that her name’s basically been out there for this election since 2000.
Obama came out of nowhere to (probably) barely beat a nominee almost everyone expected to win for the previous few years. Dukakis came out of nowhere to barely beat a lame also-ran and the only reason Dukakis and Jackson got anywhere in the race was that the nominee almost everyone had expected then to win for the previous few years got hounded out of the race for screwing Donna Rice.
Karl,
I suppose I wasn’t clear. I understand that R/D primary turnout results are useless. I’m referring only to the gender difference within the Dem turnout. In ’04 in WI the Dem gender split was 52/48 versus 58/42 in ’08. 75% of the increase in Dem turnout is attributable to women while only 25% is attributable to men. In ’04 the general split between gender for Democrats was 53/46 which tied very closely to the primary split.
A 10% shift in the gender demographic isn’t negligible and the fact taht it appears to be transferable to BHO is a bit troublesome.
Ask Jesse Jackson about superdelegates and winning but having the nomination go to someone else some time.
Rick,
I see your point, but I think the question of whether the primary turnout carries over to the general is still in doubt.
Sean H,
If you don’t like the 1988 analogy, how ’bout the 1980 analogy: Carter and Kennedy were perhaps the top two Democrats in the country, but Kennedy’s strong showing against Carter may have said something about the state of the party, even during a period when Gallup had Carter up big over Reagan.
Or the 1972 analogy: The general environment is that the country is on the wrong track, and people want change. As a consequence, the Dems — after some minor delegate skirmishes — feel safe nominating a far-Left antiwar candidate over a (relatively) more moderate alternative.
None of these is perfect, of course. It just seems unwise to assume that Obama will look as strong eight months from now as he does today. But that is a topic that likely requires at least an additional post to fully explore.
Karl,
I think I’d buy into the 1972 analogy more than the 1988. I see your point and I’m sure not trying to claim there’s any inevitibility to Obama. For all we know something will change next week, Hillary will crush him in TX and OH, and the whole thing will be moot. All I was getting at is I don’t think a narrow Obama win really tells us much except that he out-campaigned her because it’s no surprise a dark horse upsetting the favorite would have a fairly narrow margin of victory.
[…] Most will see these comments as another attempt to denigrate Barack Obama as a “black candidate” rather than a candidate who happens to be black (or half-black). But Ickes also may be laying the foundation to position Hillary Clinton as this year’s Jesse Jackson. […]
[…] OpenLeft’s Chris Bowers explains, though one of his commenters suggests that Hillary may be the Blue candidate. It is coincidence that Bowers already inspired me to call her as the next Jesse Jackson. […]
[…] has more delegates than any second-place candidate ever. Jesse Jackson was not forced out in 1988 — and the […]
[…] Three months ago, noting that Clinton was poied to surpass Jesse Jackson’s 1988 performance was the highest number of delegates ever won by a Democrat who did not win the nomination, I asked: What if the 2008 Democratic National Convention features Hillary Clinton in the role of Jesse Jackson at the 1988 convention, exchanging his racial grievances for those of gender? […]