At the Crossroads

Tonight, where do we go from here
The road through Ruby Falls has reached the end...

Replace "through Ruby Falls" with "to a non-brokered convention", and Guster's lyrics perfectly sum up the feelings of Democratic Party leaders right now. The two candidates split the small states (as predicted), Hillary took Ohio by some 10-percentage points (also as predicted), and the Texas primary was pretty much a tie (I'll spare you a third time). The Texas caucus results aren't in yet, which is expected, since the state was incredibly unprepared to handle the turnout. At any rate, despite the news media throwing around a score of 3-1 Hillary for the night, the delegate count remains pretty much unchanged. With the next major race not being until Pennsylvania in late April, we could be in for a long and costly fight.

But before we go deeper into that, let's discuss the irony of Hillary's victories. Her supporters call her a "Comeback Kid" who suddenly has all of the mystic and elusive "momentum." Really? Because I wouldn't call blowing 3o-point leads in about a month's time a comeback; it's more like she just barely hung on. Also, I don't know how anyone can claim momentum after losing 11-straight contests and then picking up two (and again, barely at that). Ms. Clinton sure is afforded some special privileges. Were the tables turned, Obama would have been gone awhile ago.

So now we return to this long, hard fight for the Democrats. The Republicans have their act together. Hell, Huckabee dropped out before McCain officially reached the magic number in delegates. McCain's speech last night eluded a number of times to the fact that he's ready for the general election. To me, "The contest begins tonight" was a jab at the other party; he's ready to start campaigning on the national scale while the opposition doesn't have a clue who its throwing out to face him. The ball is certainly in McCain's court at the moment.

That's not the only negative in this situation. The current stalemate between Clinton and Obama is ripping the party apart. Supporters of both candidates are seriously dedicated to their causes and are getting more and more vicious. Attack ads from the Clinton camp (including the now infamous "Red Phone" commercial) are only increasing the animosity between the two sides. Soon we may even see attacks on personal issues; don't those usually only come out for the general election? The longer this plays out, the worse everything will be at the end of it all.

And what is the end of it all? It either ends before convention or it goes all the way.

• BEFORE CONVENTION (1) - The DNC, seeing the damage this is causing to the November effort, forces the candidates to strike a deal. Either they both agree to run on the same ticket, or one is offered the position of Senate Majority Leader in exchange for dropping out (for example).
  Feasibility - National party intervention seems to be the best option here. Unfortunately, even if it means saving the party, I don't see Harry Reid giving up his post easily.
  
  
• BEFORE CONVENTION (2) - One of the candidates drops out on his/her own.
  Feasibility - Not likely. Neither has a reason to go at this point. Obama has the delegate lead while Hillary apparently has momentum.
  
  
• AT CONVENTION (general) - If this goes until August, chaos will already have taken place. The Democratic party will be polarized, attack ads will be the norm, and nothing will ever heal the rift between the two sides. Not to mention, the nominee will have just over two months to campaign; compare this to McCain's seven. With that said...
  
  
• AT CONVENTION (1) - The superdelegates side with the public, and Obama gets the nomination.
  Feasibility - The public is more or less split on this issue. So, assuming that the supers divide up equally, Obama will most likely hold on to win it, given he retains his pledged delegate lead.
  
  
• AT CONVENTION (2) - The superdelegates end up siding with Hillary and give her the nomination.
  Feasibility - If the pledged delegate difference remains comparable to how it is today, it would be very hard for the Democratic leadership to justify this one. I'm pretty sure they don't want this to happen; it would certainly split the party.
  
  
• AT CONVENTION (3) - The dreaded brokered convention! The first round of voting doesn't produce a winner, which means every delegate is free of his or her obligations and the madness begins.
  Feasibility - If this is allowed to happen, the Democrats don't deserve the White House. This absolute worst-case scenario would surely send the party to its doom.

None of the possibilities are pretty. I really hope that the DNC leaders can step in and mitigate this in a way I can't imagine. All I know is that the efforts of both Hillary and Barack will be in vain if they hold out until late August.

Some closing notes:

1) The Democrats needed a qualified candidate to compete with the GOP. The good news is that they got that. The bad news is that they got two. What the Democrats needed the most may come back to haunt them. How's that for irony?

2) When asked about the possibility of a Clinton-Obama ticket on CBS this morning, Hillary responded:

"That may be where this is headed, but of course we have to decide who is on the top of the ticket. I think the people of Ohio very clearly said that it should be me."

Because Ohio represents the entire country?

3) Do you remember what happened with Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson? Teddy split the Republican Party for the election of 1912, fracturing Taft's coalition and handing the presidency to Woodrow Wilson. Although I doubt that something of that magnitude would happen nowadays, it does make you wonder how the supporters of the non-nominated candidate are going to respond.