a back-room deal?
by Jeremy P. Jacobs
Published: April 4, 2008
As always, this year’s presidential race is full of speculation of back-room deals and conspiracy theories. I have done my best not to further unsubstantiated claims by not writing about them as I think this sort of speculation brings the level of debate way down.
But I just can’t help myself anymore. Two stories Thursday struck me as strange when put together. The first is Katherine Seelye’s story in the New York Times Thursday about how, in spite of calls from members of her own party to withdrawal, Clinton appears surprisingly carefree on the campaign trail. Here’s the money quote:
“But at moments she seems almost carefree, which is a jarring image for someone who has been called upon by members of her party to give up her quest for the Democratic presidential nomination. Her rival, Senator Barack Obama, has more delegates and more total popular votes. The longer Mrs. Clinton persists, her critics say, the more damage to the Democrats in the fall. So why does she appear so easygoing?”
Seelye then goes on to discuss that perhaps Clinton is easygoing because she is used to being in this position. She usually gets a bump when she is down, Seelye notes, only to rebound like in New Hampshire. Clinton has also developed an effective argument against dropping out (at least in voters’ minds) by arguing against disenfranchisement. But then Seelye lays this on the reader when discussing how Clinton and Obama seemed to have stopped attacking each other: “Is this mutual disarmament? Is it possible that some kind of rapprochement is going on behind the scenes?”
I think (and here comes the speculation) that there has been some sort of deal cut by the two camps and it is going to help the Democratic Party in the general election. As Steven Stark notes in the Boston Phoenix Thursday, the calls for Clinton to get out of the race are largely unprecedented in presidential politics. Moreover, he also notes several reasons why Clinton is actually helping prepare Obama for the general election by staying in the race. Most importantly, Stark writes, airing Obama’s liabilities (see: Wright, Rev. Jeremiah) now is better for him than waiting for the general election for them to arise. I would add that if/when Obama wins the nomination, he will be able to say he’s fought and won a tough campaign, something he has yet to do in his political career. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Democrats have numbers right now. With both camps now lobbing bombs at McCain, it has become two-against-one as McCain is forced to respond to both camps.
Lastly, history doesn’t really support the article’s assertion that a nomination fight all the way to the convention dooms the party in the general election. In the years usually cited in this argument, the party that lost was probably going to lose anyway. In 1976, Reagan’s run against Ford was criticized but Ford was probably doomed since the Nixon pardon (and that whole Nixon impeachment thing didn’t bode well for the GOP). In 1980, Ted Kennedy faced calls to drop his challenge to Carter before the convention, but Carter was already a particularly weak candidate (hello, Iran Hostage Crisis) and Reagan came off the 1976 race in a strong position. Reagan was even more popular in 1984 when Walter Mondale and Gary Hart duked it out all the way to the convention. I’ll grant that in 1968 and 1972 the contentious primary season hurt the Democrats in general, but the Democratic Party is nowhere near as divided now as it was then and the candidates in those races were far more ideologically diverse than Clinton and Obama.
So, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if there is some sort of back-room deal between the Clinton and Obama camps to keep it clean through to the convention. I don’t think Clinton will turn into Huckabee (she hasn’t got the wit), but I would look for an increasingly civil debate between Obama and Clinton and an increase in Clinton and Obama attacks on McCain. It would, it seems, be for the good of the party.
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