Hillary Clinton is not my favorite candidate for president in 2008. With three viable, very different yet highly qualified (as I see it) candidates still standing, Barack Obama, to my mind, might or might not be the strongest insofar as the upcoming general election is concerned, but he is perhaps the all-around best. Sure, Hillary Clinton is most likely the best top-down organizer of the three, and her intellect is not in question. Similarly, John McCain's road to his party's nomination is a compelling personal story of fortitude and wherewithal, both military and political in manner.
Yet Senator Obama is just as intelligent as Senator Clinton, and his personal character (which takes into account his personal and career trajectories, abused to rather unfair levels of late by some for comments made not by him but by one of his friends) holds up well, in very unique ways, even when placed alongside that of Senator McCain. Though he lacks the national legislative experience that Senators Clinton and McCain have, he wins decisively the battle of the "intangibles," which in him is a cross-pollination of strong rhetorical skills (to say the least), an uncanny ability to read the cultural mindset of younger voters (say, mid-thirties and younger), and a fascinating, almost-detached sort of inner strength and energy (it's as though he's already assumed the collected singular viewpoint of an avuncular sitting president).
In an election year in which anything can happen--and, yes, any one of these three remaining candidates could win the presidency, or, if the Democratic convention turns into a brokered brawl in Denver, someone else could "accidentally" win it all--one or more of these intangibles might intrigue enough people for him to sneak by with a victory in another tight general election.
But I'm rapidly tiring of hearing Democrats demanding that Senator Clinton should "get out of the race" in order to salvage the party's chances in November, which I increasingly consider a product of Political Attention Deficit Disorder brought on by a very modern disease--the need to be overstimulated nearly all the time, and the accompanying lack of any semblance of patience by the vast majority of people. (Let's face it, in our own ways, nearly all of us are guilty of this type of mindset.)
The race for the Democratic presidential nomination ought not fall victim to these types of mass proclivities, particularly when the party's two remaining candidates are as strong as these two are, and so is the man waiting to face one of them. Let's face it, setting all of the far-right-wing complaining about the Republican nominee presumptive to the side for a moment, Senator McCain is a strong candidate, particularly for 2008, since Republicans are still in many ways radioactive at present. (This suggests that the far-right complaining might very well be a good sign for Senator McCain.) He is a conservative, but he's also very much a maverick; he's long-since kissed and made up with President Bush--and he's a fan of the president's current Iraq strategy--but that hasn't stopped him from standing against a number of Bush-led initiatives over the past several years, and it doesn't seem to diminish his personal charm with independent voters on the campaign trail. Who else but Senator McCain gets a big, warm smile from the person he just called "that guy back there, the one in the dorky hat," which happened while he was addressing independent-minded New Hampshire-ites in December and has continued to occur in numerous ways since then? If Democrats are not careful, Senator McCain could very well win the general election in November, even though presidential election history suggests otherwise.
Yet now many would have us believe that "being careful" means that Senator Clinton should suspend her presidential campaign in order to immediately let Democrats coalesce around Senator Obama. Why? What earthly reason would suggest that this is a good move, other than a concern that the Democratic party is weaker at the national level than we initially thought, and therefore needs to cut its losses now and go ahead and make a deal that would allow Senator Obama to be the nominee a month or two or three before he might otherwise win the nomination in his own right (a deal that would probably include making Senator Clinton the Senate Majority Leader sometime after November's elections, which could happen in any case)? This kind of thinking smacks of desperate deal making; it might actually divide supporters of the two candidates--and therefore splinter the party in a more subtle and damaging manner than if we came to the end of the primary/caucus process (in early June), analyzed where we are, and go from there (which at that point might include a deal)--due to a solid percentage of Clinton supporters openly wondering what "might have happened" if the process would have played-out more fully.
There are two other reasons why Senator Clinton ought not give in to the increasingly popular sentiment to concede just yet. The first is that she is actually helping to strengthen Senator Obama's campaigning and debating skills. A half year ago, Senator Obama came across as a bit academically nebulous and emotionally obtuse in Democratic debates, which might have played just fine with the highly educated crowd, but was far from a hit with the more blue collar Democratic crowd. Now he's firing on more (if not yet all) cylinders; he's more specific in his points and he's communicating a more natural connection to "Average Joe and Josephine" voters. Still, he continues to struggle with closing out his arguments in a stirring manner (something he certainly does not struggle with when giving stump speeches), and he sometimes puts too fine a point on the minutae of policy (which I often like, but many others do not) at the expense of the overall picture. If he stays focused on fighting the type of precise policy debate sprinkled with subtle emotional hooks favored by Senator Clinton, he will continue to sharpen his debating skills, but if she leaves the race now the temptation in the Obama camp for such skills to go a bit flabby might set in without anyone really realizing it in the transition to the more sweeping early stages of general election campaigning.
The other reason for Senator Clinton to stay in the race is because she is likely to win some of the upcoming primary contests. Even though Senator Obama will most likely win in North Carolina, Oregon, Montana, and South Dakota, she is favored to win (according to recent national polls of various organizations) in Kentucky, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania (though polls are tightening in that latter state). She also stands a solid chance of winning in Indiana. Pennsylvania (April 22), Indiana (May 6), and West Virginia (May 13) all vote in the next month or so, and if she decides to concede after, say, the West Virginia contest, she can do so from a position of relative strength, having split recent contests with Senator Obama while still trailing in the delegate count. If she stays through May 20, she will most likely pick up another state, Kentucky, which is intriguing in that it is red-leaning in general elections but not necessarily a Republican lock. And recent polls suggest that she is leading in Puerto Rico (though it's early), which votes on June 1; if she stays in for that, she might as well stay in through the final contests in Montana and South Dakota, which take place just two days later.
Then there are the Michigan and Florida contests to get sorted out....
The point is that if Senator Clinton stays in for a while, the calls might get louder and louder for her to leave the race--which might create more initial anger inside of the party--but if she leaves in May or stays to the end of initial voting in early June and still trails Senator Obama in the delegate count, she can graciously concede the election, throw her support behind him, and things would turn around for the party in a hurry, just in time for the summer months. He may be a bit more "bloodied" at that point, but Senator Obama's campaign skills (which are great when it comes to large crowds, but a bit wobbly and inconsistent when it comes to small groups) will have sharpened. He'll be that much more ready for whatever trouble the McCain camp will want to send his way.
Of course, if she does unexpectedly well through early June, this could go to the convention, at which point the whole thing could turn into a disaster. Or one of the two candidates could say or do something ridiculous in the coming weeks, which could turn the nomination process topsy-turvy. But those are the risks that come with running for the presidency in this "crazy" election season (though I sincerely doubt that not knowing who one's candidate is going to be just yet would have given folks in past eras the levels of discomfort that the modern, media-drenched rapid-fire campaign process we're presently subject to would have, seeing as nomination contests used to go to the conventions, or at least further down the line towards them, more regularly).
One way or the other, though to many it might seem like a strategically sound idea now, I'm not convinced that it would help down the line for Senator Clinton to concede just yet. This race is so tightly-contested in major battleground states that it might be a good idea to see things through to June 3, and then have the two camps come together to decide who has "won"--which by many measures will probably be Senator Obama--given that we will still be nearly three months from the Democratic convention. If that's the case, people may be surprised how gracious Hillary can be, particularly if her political future is at stake.
Patience, people.
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