Friday, March 28, 2008

Still The Only Sane Man in the Democratic Party

Hugh Hewitt has an interview with Gov. Phil Bredensen of Tennessee. Hewitt highlighted this quote which I think deserves attention:
HH: If Senator Obama maintains his delegate lead and his popular vote lead, and we don’t get revotes in Michigan and Florida, it seems increasingly unlikely, do you see the party denying its first African-American nominee the laurels under those circumstances?

PB: Well, I guess, you know, it’s hard to talk about the party, because what all the party is, you know, is 4,000 or plus or minus delegates. I think that he would have an enormous moral claim on it. But this thing is getting so divided now, and of course, there’s still a lot of water to go over the dam on these things. We’ve seen some significant issues come up in the last couple of weeks, and so on. So I don’t know quite what will happen after these primaries are over. But I think that if he really is well ahead, and nothing has changed, and a bunch of people get in the back room and deny him the nomination, I think we would have a real problem that would take a long time to fix. I have to agree with that.
The Democratic Party is at a critical juncture in their existence. Yes, which ever candidate is finally nominated will be of historical note, but if Obama is carrying the majority of delegates going into the convention and he comes out the loser, you can bet that a major voting realignment is possible. There are a fair number of black voters in this country who are seeing the true colors of their party and are not happy with it.

On the other hand, if Obama is nominated, there are going to be a fair number of Clintonites who are not going to be happy.

The challenge for Howard Dean and the DNC is how to keep their coalition together. With both Obama and Clinton leading John McCain head to head match-ups, it would be particularly damaging to the Democratic party if they couldn't win in November.

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