(derekbaker)

And Where Both Campaigns Should Be Focused

Every minute of television or speech time that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton spend comparing themselves to their rival for the nomination is another minute where John McCain gets a free pass.

Yes, as a Democrat, an Obama supporter and someone who can add up numbers, I think Hillary Clinton should drop out now. But whether she does or doesn't, she and Obama need to be focused on beating John McCain in the Electoral College. Anything else is a media, fundraising, or political distraction from that goal. And you don't have a very strong spoke in for your party's nomination if your own ambitions trump its goals — which would have to also include freeing up some of the donation cash to House and Senate races, not to mention all the local state office Democrats running who can't get a word in edgewise while these two fight it out.

The arguments have been made, and made again, and then made again, each time lowering the level of discourse to decide this nomination. Most recently: "Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening... ." Before that: "And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them... ."

At this point, negatively characterizing your opponent in the primary race is not going to gain you any new superdelegates — in fact, hers are starting to publicly switch to him; I'm not aware yet of any of his that have switched to her. More important, negatively characterizing either candidates supporters (or lack thereof among some demographics) isn't going to unify the party between now and November.



I think this article sums it up best: if Hillary is going to stay in the race to the end, she needs to do it for the sake of her party and its unity, not for her own nomination. If Obama is going to stay in the race to the end (as he obviously is, since he's winning more states, more popular votes, and now has more pledged delegates), he gains nothing by saying a single negative thing about Clinton, and could gain volumes in praising her. Nobody who is currently an Obama supporter is going to switch to supporting Clinton because he was magnanimous. No one who is on the fence is going to hear his graciousness as an argument for Clinton's candidacy. And it could only help to pave the way for her supporters to return to the Democratic fold by the convention. They've assumed all along that they are the core of the Democratic Party; he can at least make it easy for them to continue to feel that they still belong.

If Clinton could be seen as a vital asset for the Democratic party in its fight against McCain and the Republicans, then an argument could even be made that the debt her campaign is in (with the Clintons themselves and advisers like Mark Penn as the creditors) could be assumed in part or whole by the eventual presidential campaign — essentially paying her campaign off for the good she could do between now and November, like one would for any consultant or (high-dollar) campaign official. But if she puts her interests above the party's — and equating those interests is the same thing; it's called hubris — then she makes the best argument herself for why superdelegates shouldn't support her, why Democratic primary voters shouldn't support her, and why her debt should be her own going forward.

Labels: politics

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