Obama is getting closer by the day. And yet the Democratic Party is split. Many Hillary supporters will turn to McCain in the fall if Obama’s the nominee–just as many Obama supporters will vote for McCain if Hillary manages to pull it off. It’s Lamont-Lieberman all over again, Connecticut, ’06. And when Lamont, the insurgent, knocked off the establishment candidate, Lieberman ran as an Independent and beat Lamont in the general.
Maybe Hillary should do the same thing. This may be her last chance to be president, and she has broad appeal, who needs political parties? As her former pollster Mark Penn has shown, it’s all about marketing and microtrends. She’s got name recognition and money and many different strands of support, from hawkish Jews to truckdrivers.
She could keep running Obama’s numbers down all spring summer and fall, and battle McCain for the neocon vote and the racists. She’d clean McCain’s clock in a debate.
As an Obama man, I’m not really for this, but I don’t know that it’s a recipe for disaster. You could argue that she would split the white vote with McCain as much as you could argue she’d split the Democratic vote with Obama. Maybe this is the realignment some of us have been long predicting. It might be good for the country. Right now there are three distinct constituencies in the body politics:
Right. McCain. Neocons and the remains of the fiscal/NRA Republican base, plus homeless religious righters.
Center. Hillary. Neoliberals and some neocons. Hawks, meritocrats. Older Jews, blue collar voters, the remains of the Democratic base.
Left. Obama. Elites, blacks, youth, paleocons, homeless Ron Paul voters.
Right now it looks like a lot of people are going to be left out in the rain by the Democratic party process. Why not have democracy all the way to November?
