Pondering a Political Outcome
Let’s assume that Senator Barack Obama wins a narrow but clear majority of Democratic primary votes and delegates but Senator Hillary Clinton nevertheless captures the nomination by prying away just enough insider superdelegates through a series of 
shady, oleaginous, backroom deals.
Do African-Americans and twentysomething white liberals rebel? Do Democrats close ranks through gritted teeth ? Does Obama accept the Veep slot? Do Democratic-leaning independents go for McCain? What ?
February 12th, 2008 at 4:33 am
Seeing as the vast majority (>80%) of Democratic voters would be satisfied with either candidate, my guess is they would politely request Obama to be nominated as VP. No gritting of teeth necessary.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:59 am
Yes this will be fun to watch. As far as blacks and self hating whites "taking it to the streets," I really doubt it. The call will go out for "unity" to beat the GOP and everyone will get in line. The blacks will do their regular "the man holding us down" screech but this should be expected. I’m not sure if Obama will get the VP? Many of the whites voting for Hilary voted for her because she wasn’t black. Putting Obama on the ticket will defeat the purpose of voting for Hilary in the first place. The Dem’s know this and won’t chance it. Instead, Hill will pick a "safe" white male for VP. McCain will end up winning, but not by much. As President, McCain will do whatever he can to stay popular with the elites. He’ll take care of illegal Mestizo’s (they just want to be Americans after all), he’ll raise taxes, pass Internet and speech censorship laws, push the US into the North American Community, and put liberal judges on the bench. This will result in the so called "Conservative" bowel movement to finally collapse. In 15 years, the Republican party will have gone the way of the Whigs. What replaces it is quite inconsequential at this point.
February 12th, 2008 at 6:50 am
Wow. I’m not sure I agree with either of the first two commenters, although I’m closer to Adrian. Instead of "politely" requesting Obama be made VP, there would be an outcry — Obama’s supporters would for the most part support the ticket (especially if he used his oratory mojo to bring them aboard) but there would be lots of gritting of teeth. If she failed to put him on the ticket, the party would split, and I imagine many of the most ardent (though not all) of Obama’s supporters would either vote for McCain in the general election or decline to vote altogether.
Much would depend on McCain’s choice for a VP. This is where it gets tricky, because in the scenario you gave, many of Obama’s supporters would turn away from the possibility of voting for McCain if he chose Huckabee as his running mate; yet, many of the evangelicals might turn from McCain (and simply not vote) if he doesn’t.
I doubt Obama would split from the party and decide to run as an independent, given your scenario, although the thought’s occurred to me. My guess is that he would be pragmatic and congratulate Hillary unless she thoroughly snubbed him, which she is likely to do if she wins the nomination.
I know that for my part, as an Obama supporter and as someone who has never voted for a Republican in a national election, there is NO WAY I’d ever vote for Hillary — unless, through gritted teeth, Obama were on the ticket. Although I think McCain is a bit too old and probably too inflexible to lead the nation into the future (he listens to his own drumbeat a little too closely), I like the man and I’d vote for him if he chose a sensible running mate. I even like Huckabee’s personality/persona, but I don’t want him on the national ticket.
I, like some others, are curious to see how far the Clintons will go to destroy their own party, as if: "Well, if WE can’t control it, we’ll destroy it so no one else can!"
February 12th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I disagree. The hate between Hillary and Obama is such that neither could be the veep of the other.
I forsee a large number of protest votes should Hillary win the nod. Which will cost her the election, much as the votes for Nader in 2000 drew off enough votes for Gore that the supreme court was the deciding vote in 2000. The motivation will be along the lines of "you need us, and by nominating her, you betrayed us." It is what I plan to do, and several of the others at the office claim that they will do. I expect a similar motivation among the GOP, which would vanish should HRC get the D nomination.
Hillary is so widely hated across all demographics that if she were the nominee, then even McCain could win as the R candidate. In prior years, Hillary for President was a R campaign to raise money and scare "the faithful" into voting. They’ve been conditioned, just like Pavlov’s dogs, to panic at the idea of her as President. As far as I’m concerned, she’s so far to the right that she’s indisinguishable from a Republican. She’s never met a wargasm funding bill that she didn’t vote for.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It would be very imprudent of nominee Hillary Clinton to pick Barack Obama as her running mate. Key rule of thumb: don’t have a Veep who overshadows the top of the ticket.
What will happen is that Hillary Clinton won’t excite Democrats as much as Barack Obama is but will unite Republicans in opposition to her. She might even succeed in alienating African American voters. Get used to saying (and writing) “President McCain”.
February 12th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
When we look back at American history the extreme scenarios described above are rare. The last national convention for either party to go to a second ballot was in 1956; there are deep structural reasons why this is so. This suggests two likely scenarios:
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1. Hillary shows increased strength in the remaining primaries. The superdelegates vote for her. The Democratic Party unites behind her for the general election (as the Republicans appear to be doing with McCain).
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2. (my guess). Momentum rules, as it usually does in the modern primary process (note McCain’s rise). Obama does sequentially better in each round. Hillary’s supporters fold. Democrats unite enthusiastically behind Obama.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
I’m a political moron, so this opinion is worth nothing. I’ve observed Clinton and McCain are both moderates, meaning they don’t mind burning the party base to get it their way.
If she wins, and I still believe she will, the ‘progressive’ wing of the left and the ‘conservative’ wing of the right will find themselves in the same position, with a candidate that doesn’t meet their definition of political perfection.
As partisanship is based on the application of a perfect politic based on core idealogy, it will be an interesting development. I find the election of 1800 as a good case study for evolving events, except I haven’t figured out who of today’s class of characters is playing the role of Alexander Hamilton or Aaron Burr, ready to duel to the death in 2012.
February 12th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
What hasn’t been mentioned here so far is Obama’s ability to attract independents and other non-traditional Democratic demographics, like the young. But you can bet that the superdelegates will be looking at factors like this, including how the top of the ticket will affect races in their states.
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The primaries to come will affect these calculations, as will any stumbles or brilliant moves on the part of the Republicans. It’s really too soon to say.
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Plus I agree with Fabius Maximus. It’s fun to imagine major fights, and they have occasionally occurred, but politicians usually try to avoid them.
February 13th, 2008 at 3:07 am
Adding Galrahn to the blogroll…now that Eddie has decommissioned himself to acquire some real book-learnin, the Navy needs some additional heft around here.
A wide spectrum of opinion represented here – progressive Left to paleocon-Right.
The Obama-Clinton match-up reminds of 1968 with Obama as Robert Kennedy, except Hillary is less Hubert Humphrey than she is Richard Nixon, if Nixon had been a Democrat. Tortured analogy, I realize but that’s the feel I get from the dynamic.
February 15th, 2008 at 2:41 am
I think most blacks and young voters would abandon the Democrats en masse. I base the first assumption on the behavior of both Clintons even after SC, where they’ve done their best to taint Obama’s victories in the South with the specter of "he won b/c blacks came out for him, how could we ever hope to compete when they’re the racists?". Many blacks expressed serious disdain over how Hillary did next to nothing while Bill compared Obama’s SC victory to Jesse Jackson. That was the real deal-breaker for a lot of people, including a lot of white liberals who realized then their worst fears about the Clintons were true, that they would stoop to nothing to win (as they have done even more so by attempting to illegally steal the Florida & Michigan delegates).
Young people will not by and large vote for the destroyer of their candidate (HRC). They’ll sit it out or vote for McCain by and large. HRC panders to them worse than Romney ever did, and McCain’s message of national service and responsibility actually would sell well to many of them if he would make more use of it as he has in the past.
Mathematically, its improbable she will win barring some unforeseen meltdown by Obama. The superdelegates are not in any way close to a monolithic support base for the Clintons, many of them have serious issues with them that would make them doubtful to support her unless she was somehow to destroy Obama’s candidacy. Even an Edwards endorsement of her would not do the trick.