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Dem warns party to avert disaster
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen
March 27, 2008 04:52 AM EST
Democrats are increasingly nervous about their party's protracted
nomination fight, and some prominent figures are publicly warning that the
party needs to act fast to avoid disaster.
Chief among these voices is Phil Bredesen, the two-term governor of
Tennessee who is uncommitted to either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
In an interview this week with Politico, Bredesen said flatly that if
the contentious slog continues until the Democrats' late-August convention
in Denver, the party would have a vastly diminished chance of recapturing
the White House.
"They have a much steeper, rockier hill to climb if it goes to the
convention," the governor said over a dinner of rockfish and red wine. "You're
going to spend this whole summer - and lots of money and time and effort -
trying to convince people that whoever isn't eventually nominated, isn't
electable.
"That's a heck of a hole to climb out of come the first of September,"
he added. "What's been going on for the last 90 days just gets worse and
worse as the summer goes on."
Bredesen also joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in warning
that superdelegates should not overturn the outcome from primaries and
caucuses.
If Obama were denied the nomination by Democratic insiders after
winning the party's popular vote, Bredesen said, "There would be hell to pay
in the party for a long time to come."
Bredesen is doing something about his concerns. He was in Washington
this week to promote his idea for holding a "superdelegate primary" in June,
in which the 795 party bigwigs would gather to hear one last time from
Clinton and Obama before casting a final vote.
Rather than allow the horse-trading and bloodletting go on all summer,
he'd get it over with during a two-day business meeting in a neutral, easily
reached city like Dallas.
"Invite the candidates to come and talk if they want, and then
literally call the roll," he explained. "We should not go through the summer
and have a divided and exhausted Democratic Party. The inescapable
conclusion is: OK, you've got to find some way to bookend and bring it to
closure earlier. How do you do that? Do it in June rather than August."
The governor said he decided to push the plan because of what he
called a "sea change" in opinion among Democratic elites. What once appeared
to be a once-in-a-generation blessing - having two strong candidates with
significant appeal among Democrats - seems more like a burden now, as the
race drags on toward April and May contests that are unlikely to offer any
more clarity than the muddled results of the past three months.
"Ninety days ago, everybody was talking in warm terms about both the
candidates: 'Isn't it wonderful? Whoever's president is going to be great,'"
the governor said. "It has gotten vastly more polarized now, and that really
concerns me."
To Bredesen, an even-keeled political pragmatist, superdelegates are
certain to ultimately decide the nominee, so it makes no sense for them to
do it later rather than sooner.
"The bottom line here is that we have a problem, and I think we need
to take it off autopilot and try to find some way of resolving it," he said.
"I don't know any way that is not going to generate some hard feeling and
some divisions in the party. But if we do it early, we've got a chance to
patch them up."
Practicing his sales pitch, Bredesen added: "I think it's an
opportunity to show the public that we're a modern party and when confronted
with a problem, we don't just have to glide along and hope for some seismic
event to solve it all for us."
The governor said he has spoken to Clinton about his plan, which he
unveiled last week in an op-ed in The New York Times, and that she did not
reject it out of hand. He said he had traded messages with Obama.
Bredesen gave a technocrat's answer to why he made the proposal,
calling himself "a problem solver" and saying it's "common sense." He came
to Washington to meet with Democrats about the idea and has lobbied several
fellow well-regarded Democratic governors - including Ed Rendell of
Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Janet Napolitano of Arizona and
Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas - about it over the phone.
The notion has found more favor among party activists outside
Washington, he said, suggesting that Beltway Democrats and particularly
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean were not moving quick
enough to recognize a growing problem.
"He certainly was not warm to it," Bredesen said. "He was afraid that
such a convocation . would present negative publicity for the party: the
graybeards gathering in a back room to do it - smoke-filled room, all this
kind of stuff. My retort to that is: You're going to have that anyway. The
superdelegates are going to decide the thing. Better to happen in June."
Then the governor jabbed: "Howard Dean's not the whole party. They
call it a committee for a reason."
Bredesen said superdelegates should be independent agents and noted
his own case to underscore the point that superdelegates should not
necessarily be guided only by who has the lead in total delegates (Obama's
case) or who has won more big states (Clinton's argument).
"In my case, Obama has a majority nationally and Hillary Clinton won
Tennessee," he said. "So who's the majority for me?"
The governor did, though, say that if the winner of both the popular
vote and leader in pledged delegates was denied the nomination it could
prove disastrous for the party's chances.
"This is really divisive," he said. "If Obama were to have a clear
majority of the popular vote and the superdelegates for some reason turned
it around the other way, I think there would be hell to pay in the party for
a long time to come. You've got to try to come out of this with some sense
of fairness about it, to have any chance of putting the party together.
"If Obama has more delegates and has a clear majority of the popular
vote and the superdelegates come together and pick Clinton, I think it's a
problem that going to take some time to work out," he continued. "There's
going to be a lot of hard feelings."
Bredesen, who was reelected with nearly 70 percent of the vote in
2006, is prevented by term limits from running again in two years. He said
his effort to broker a solution to his party's nomination fracas isn't
connected to making a play for vice president.
"I don't think so," he said. "A couple of years ago, I gave some
thought to, do you want to try to be a player in that stuff - Southern
governor and all that kind of stuff. What I really decided is: If you do
that, you're going to get nothing done in your second term as governor."
Bloggers, liberal-leaning journalists and Democratic strategists have
all warned in recent days that their party, yet again, risks snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory.
"How Obama vs. Clinton Is Killing The Democrats" is the subheadline on
the cover of the latest edition of The New Republic, just below "We Have To
Choose One" and an arresting composite image of the two Democrats.
"All of which is to say that it's about time for the Democratic Party
to panic," the editors write at the end of an editorial titled "Bush's Last
Laugh."
"If it wants to win this election, it needs this race to end as soon
as possible. Every day spent on the primaries represents an opportunity cost
and diminishes the chances for ultimate victory."
By: Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen
March 27, 2008 04:52 AM EST
Democrats are increasingly nervous about their party's protracted
nomination fight, and some prominent figures are publicly warning that the
party needs to act fast to avoid disaster.
Chief among these voices is Phil Bredesen, the two-term governor of
Tennessee who is uncommitted to either Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.)
or Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
In an interview this week with Politico, Bredesen said flatly that if
the contentious slog continues until the Democrats' late-August convention
in Denver, the party would have a vastly diminished chance of recapturing
the White House.
"They have a much steeper, rockier hill to climb if it goes to the
convention," the governor said over a dinner of rockfish and red wine. "You're
going to spend this whole summer - and lots of money and time and effort -
trying to convince people that whoever isn't eventually nominated, isn't
electable.
"That's a heck of a hole to climb out of come the first of September,"
he added. "What's been going on for the last 90 days just gets worse and
worse as the summer goes on."
Bredesen also joined House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in warning
that superdelegates should not overturn the outcome from primaries and
caucuses.
If Obama were denied the nomination by Democratic insiders after
winning the party's popular vote, Bredesen said, "There would be hell to pay
in the party for a long time to come."
Bredesen is doing something about his concerns. He was in Washington
this week to promote his idea for holding a "superdelegate primary" in June,
in which the 795 party bigwigs would gather to hear one last time from
Clinton and Obama before casting a final vote.
Rather than allow the horse-trading and bloodletting go on all summer,
he'd get it over with during a two-day business meeting in a neutral, easily
reached city like Dallas.
"Invite the candidates to come and talk if they want, and then
literally call the roll," he explained. "We should not go through the summer
and have a divided and exhausted Democratic Party. The inescapable
conclusion is: OK, you've got to find some way to bookend and bring it to
closure earlier. How do you do that? Do it in June rather than August."
The governor said he decided to push the plan because of what he
called a "sea change" in opinion among Democratic elites. What once appeared
to be a once-in-a-generation blessing - having two strong candidates with
significant appeal among Democrats - seems more like a burden now, as the
race drags on toward April and May contests that are unlikely to offer any
more clarity than the muddled results of the past three months.
"Ninety days ago, everybody was talking in warm terms about both the
candidates: 'Isn't it wonderful? Whoever's president is going to be great,'"
the governor said. "It has gotten vastly more polarized now, and that really
concerns me."
To Bredesen, an even-keeled political pragmatist, superdelegates are
certain to ultimately decide the nominee, so it makes no sense for them to
do it later rather than sooner.
"The bottom line here is that we have a problem, and I think we need
to take it off autopilot and try to find some way of resolving it," he said.
"I don't know any way that is not going to generate some hard feeling and
some divisions in the party. But if we do it early, we've got a chance to
patch them up."
Practicing his sales pitch, Bredesen added: "I think it's an
opportunity to show the public that we're a modern party and when confronted
with a problem, we don't just have to glide along and hope for some seismic
event to solve it all for us."
The governor said he has spoken to Clinton about his plan, which he
unveiled last week in an op-ed in The New York Times, and that she did not
reject it out of hand. He said he had traded messages with Obama.
Bredesen gave a technocrat's answer to why he made the proposal,
calling himself "a problem solver" and saying it's "common sense." He came
to Washington to meet with Democrats about the idea and has lobbied several
fellow well-regarded Democratic governors - including Ed Rendell of
Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Janet Napolitano of Arizona and
Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas - about it over the phone.
The notion has found more favor among party activists outside
Washington, he said, suggesting that Beltway Democrats and particularly
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean were not moving quick
enough to recognize a growing problem.
"He certainly was not warm to it," Bredesen said. "He was afraid that
such a convocation . would present negative publicity for the party: the
graybeards gathering in a back room to do it - smoke-filled room, all this
kind of stuff. My retort to that is: You're going to have that anyway. The
superdelegates are going to decide the thing. Better to happen in June."
Then the governor jabbed: "Howard Dean's not the whole party. They
call it a committee for a reason."
Bredesen said superdelegates should be independent agents and noted
his own case to underscore the point that superdelegates should not
necessarily be guided only by who has the lead in total delegates (Obama's
case) or who has won more big states (Clinton's argument).
"In my case, Obama has a majority nationally and Hillary Clinton won
Tennessee," he said. "So who's the majority for me?"
The governor did, though, say that if the winner of both the popular
vote and leader in pledged delegates was denied the nomination it could
prove disastrous for the party's chances.
"This is really divisive," he said. "If Obama were to have a clear
majority of the popular vote and the superdelegates for some reason turned
it around the other way, I think there would be hell to pay in the party for
a long time to come. You've got to try to come out of this with some sense
of fairness about it, to have any chance of putting the party together.
"If Obama has more delegates and has a clear majority of the popular
vote and the superdelegates come together and pick Clinton, I think it's a
problem that going to take some time to work out," he continued. "There's
going to be a lot of hard feelings."
Bredesen, who was reelected with nearly 70 percent of the vote in
2006, is prevented by term limits from running again in two years. He said
his effort to broker a solution to his party's nomination fracas isn't
connected to making a play for vice president.
"I don't think so," he said. "A couple of years ago, I gave some
thought to, do you want to try to be a player in that stuff - Southern
governor and all that kind of stuff. What I really decided is: If you do
that, you're going to get nothing done in your second term as governor."
Bloggers, liberal-leaning journalists and Democratic strategists have
all warned in recent days that their party, yet again, risks snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory.
"How Obama vs. Clinton Is Killing The Democrats" is the subheadline on
the cover of the latest edition of The New Republic, just below "We Have To
Choose One" and an arresting composite image of the two Democrats.
"All of which is to say that it's about time for the Democratic Party
to panic," the editors write at the end of an editorial titled "Bush's Last
Laugh."
"If it wants to win this election, it needs this race to end as soon
as possible. Every day spent on the primaries represents an opportunity cost
and diminishes the chances for ultimate victory."