As Hillary Clinton tours all of television insisting she will stay in the race until the Democratic National Convention in late August, growing numbers of party elite are calling for an absolution that seems unimaginable. The contest has dominated public consciousness for so long it’s hard to imagine TV news without it. In the lull between Ohio and Pennsylvania, the press wonders what damage the bitter contest might do to the Democratic Party and its hopes for recapturing the presidency. As usual, the typical media narrative has missed the point.
Analysts often cite the 1968 presidential convention as the best case study for the Democrats’ presidential hopes if they face a brokered convention. The party was split between anti-war candidate Eugene McCarthy and pro-war (although he changed his mind a few times) Hubert Humphrey, the sitting vice president who, despite not participating in any primaries, gained enough delegates to win the nomination.
But the difference here is that the 1968 convention split the party over a single issue — the Vietnam War. The people were fiercely against the Democratic president’s policy and went for McCarthy. Party bosses, on the other hand, were more calculating about their political futures. Chicago Mayor Richard Daly actually threatened to withdraw his support for Humphrey if the convention left Chicago over concerns about protests and a telephone operators strike. (Politics didn’t just get interesting recently, you know.)
In 2008, with no major issues dividing the party besides hair-splitting on universal health care, Democrats face a referendum over personalities. So the historical comparison doesn’t fly — charismatic newcomer versus tested political warrior pales in comparison to a stark choice between war and peace. If Hillary Clinton were to give an impassioned speech about why, despite their personal objections, her supporters must vote for Mr. Obama, all those polls suggesting her supporters will defect to McCain can go out the window. Once the electorate is properly polarized between right and left, the country will be split 47-47, with 6 percent of voters in play.
Even the Republican candidates this year didn’t really fight much over policy. Instead they fought to meld their immigration, Iraq and economic stances to an amorphous blob to appease the more finicky portions of the party’s base. Save Ron Paul, of course.
In this election cycle, all of the major candidates were forced to acknowledge and address the country’s dual distaste and embrace of 51 versus 49 politics. In today’s political reality, most every debate devolves into an exercise in demonizing the other side enough to make 1 extra percent hold their nose and vote for you. It’s no coincidence the two candidates who represent the best chance to break the stalemate have won. (As Chris Bowers from Openleft.com notes, when a candidate leads by 6 percent with 83 percent of the vote counted, any self-respecting news agency would call the race.)
Despite the impending fractionalization of the American populace, the Democratic Party still has plenty to worry about. While John McCain travels the country recounting a proud military upbringing, Ms. Clinton accuses Mr. Obama of trying to stop people from voting, and Mr. Obama’s campaign details her “history of distortion.”
The question Democrats must ask and develop a strategy around is whether the media will take a race that has been about everything but the issues, and pivot it into a contrast between the policy proposals of Messrs. McCain and Obama. Casting off juicy ratings grabbers in favor of often boring policy debates would be a tremendous and unlikely accomplishment for the American media. After all, this election has been about religion (Romney and Rev. Wright), gender (marathon analysis of Hillary’s tears while Romney’s campaign was apparently sponsored by your local waterworks), race (Joe Biden calling Obama “clean”) and even hair (John Edwards paid a hefty price for that motion-deficient anchor style). But it was only about the issues during debates that were followed by analysis that meekly asked how the candidates’ responses might play with our stereotypes of _____ voters.
If stories of pissed-off Clinton supporters and “what-if” lamentations break into the news cycle, in which undecided voters seriously tune into the process, Democrats will be immeasurably hurt by having the issues they believe are winners obscured by TV-friendly bickering. So if this thing is decided on the convention floor, where the candidates are expected to host a grandiose pep-rally to promote a platform before a deliriously happy crowd, it’ll be bad for Democrats, to say the least. Especially considering that John McCain’s coming out party is just a week later.
It’s hard not to look back and chuckle at Gov. Jim Doyle’s proclamation that Wisconsin was the pivotal voice in deciding the Democratic nominee. But then again, if the Democrats are still bickering when undecided voters finally pick up the remote and stumble on a news channel, the nomination won’t mean much anyway. Besides becoming part of Table 7.2 in your political science textbook, that is.
Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and journalism.
