Rube Goldberg (D-US)

Rube Goldberg, misguided Democrat. At least the Democratic nominating process certainly appears to reflect his handiwork: a big clunky apparatus which ensures a convoluted and tortuous path to what should be a pretty straightforward end. On the one hand, the assigning of delegates based on proportional representation would seem to assure that all votes count, unlike the Republican nominating and Electoral College processes, in which the winner takes all delegates in a state. On the other hand, the super delegates and even the caucuses make the proportional representation meaningless and permit the process to drag on for no reason. Or at least this is the case in very close races.

Last night confirmed that Clinton and Obama will likely be in a tight race for some time. Despite Clinton winning California and New York, Obama’s crack strategy of taking most of the delegates from the caucus states, states with a high percentage of black votes, and gouging into Clinton’s leads in places in blue states by nabbing generally, wealthy suburban liberals is keeping him in this race. For at least the next month or so Obama and Clinton will be trading victories—Obama likely winning Maryland and the District of Columbia, and the caucus states of Nebraska and Louisiana over the next two weeks, and Clinton probably winning Ohio and Texas in early March. It is very possible, then, that the superdelegates will ultimately decide this race, making a mockery of the notion of proportional representation and that every vote counts.

As undemocratic as the scenario may be, Democrats may want the super delegates to save them from themselves. The voting last night was as close as can be as are the current delegate totals, but there are some very troubling signs for Democrats should Obama make it through the primaries and become the party’s nominee. Troubling, because his support was primarily from liberals, blacks and younger whites, constituencies that cannot alone put him over the top in November.

Obama won all of the caucus states yesterday, where only the most motivated and generally liberal of the Democratic party turn out, and states like Georgia and Alabama which have high percentage of black voters. In other conservative states that do not have a high percentage of black voters, such as Arkansas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Tennessee, Clinton won handily. In Tennessee, for example, Clinton won 71 percent of white voters age 45 and older (44 percent of all voters and well over 50 percent of the same age group in Oklahoma). This is an important distinction because whoever the eventual Democrat nominee is, he or she is going to have to have at least some appeal to these kinds of white voters—more conservative, less educated, and making less money otherwise Obama will do no better than McGovern or Dukakis, other liberal Democrats that won the party’s nomination only to be trounced by the Republican nominees. Except for Utah, where the name “Clinton” is synonymous with “plague” there was little indication last night that Obama appealed to the party’s more moderate Democrats in any of the other primaries.

And that is why Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas will be so important. If Obama can expand his appeal and win one or more of these states, which have more conservative or lunch bucket Democrats and fewer blacks, or least do very well against Clinton, he might have a shot of winning in November. As has been the case in the last couple of elections, it will almost certainly be necessary for the Democratic nominee to take Ohio or Florida in November and/or get some combination of Pennsylvania, New Mexico, and Colorado, other tossup states in past which Democrats (and Republicans) are sure to target.

Obama is fond of saying that if he is the nominee, he will end up getting Clinton’s votes while she would be less likely to get his. Although Clinton might not get some of the young voters that Obama is currently attracting, she would almost certainly end up with most of the other constituencies voting for Obama. Does anyone really think that blacks, or suburban liberals will either not vote in significant numbers or vote for McCain instead of Clinton, simply because Obama is no longer in the race? While it is pretty clear that Clinton will, in fact, get most of Obama’s voters, what isn’t clear is whether Obama will get the moderate white voters, the kind of voters that will turn the tide in the crucial states mentioned previously, or even the Latino or women’s vote (older women, especially, are voting for Clinton over Obama). If he does not get such voters, but does win the nomination, Obama will be just another sacrificial lamb for the Republican slaughter and all those that voted for him can contemplate this for at least four long years.

Maybe Rube Goldberg wasn’t a Democrat after all.