I have been thinking about the upcoming election, and even doing some reading (at the expense of what I should be doing). I have come to the conclusion that Obama will win the primary.
There is no possible way this is a surprise to anyone who has A) watched the news, B) listened to the radio, or C) has a pulse.
But the question since super Tuesday last has really been less about who is going to win the Democratic primary, but *how* they’re going to win. So far it has been cordial; both Hillary and Barack have both been pretty respectful of the other’s space, and they have not really been all that negative. Even that stupid mailer that Hillary turned into a press conference yesterday didn’t really make this campaign all that vicious. But the issues aren’t what is going to spell disaster come the general election.
Looking back to the election of 2000 without placing blame (was it Al Gore’s fault, Ralph Nader, or a corrupt system? The answer is none and all, by the way), there was an extremely divided electorate. Historically, dating all the way back to the John Birch Society, this division had been decades in the making, and (again, without turning this into a blame game) it was engineered by Republicans. With politicians like Cheney, Rumsfeldt, and a few others I don’t care to google running the backchannels of political imagineering, what we see now is Republicans extracting the spoils of (the Cold) War. An executive with unlimited, and often unchecked power. One that laughs in the face of a challenge to that power (as evidenced by the whole Attorneys General thing), and feels that they are the sole executors (pardon the term) of what it means to be America. It has been like that for the past eight years, really, and no one has sought to do much about it besides make noise and whine. But I really do digress.
The point is, starting some 35 years ago, politicians and the people around them in the conservative wing decided that if they made a stark contrast between themselves and democrats, in the end they would have the numbers and prevail in the general elections. But now the field looks different– or does it?
Despite the fact that Obama is winning with a message of “change”, this is really going to be the same politics as always come the general election. The bottom line is that despite the fact that John McCain is about as conservative as it gets,* the fact that he can stand up for what he believes in (no matter how screwed up) is an attribute that will score him more than a few independent votes– the same votes that Obama is drawing from to win primaries in red states that have open primaries.
if the fighting in the Democratic primary gets ugly, then watchout. The general election will be just as it was in 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, and even 2004– the battle for the independent vote. And it will be close (though not as close as 2000. But it will probably take more than a couple of days, I bet, to even declare a winner). Because winning isn’t all that matters in American politics; winning pretty gives you longevity.** My only hope is that by November, Obama’s 15 minutes aren’t up.
*the only reason people say he is not conservative enough is because the Christian Right has mobilized their grassroots machine and indoctrinated everyone into thinking that being conservative means cowtowing (sp?) their politico-religious demands. Ironically, in the general election, overcoming this streak of integrity McCain has will be Obama’s biggest obstacle in November.
**Barring, of course, unforeseen terrorist attacks on National Monuments in the middle of the most populated cities in the country. Then, for the short and long term, all bets are off)
