Primary fight harms Dems? One guy says maybe not so much

[thatcrazycajun]

As we watch the ongoing clusterfuck that is the Democratic Party's Presidential nomination process, many of us out here in rank-and-file-Democrat land have feared that Little Miss Entitlement's Senator Hillary Clinton's refusal to concede her ever-more-obvious defeat is practically handing the White House back to the Repugnants this fall.

Comes now one Rob Richie, exec-director of the (allegedly) nonpartisan voters' watchdog group FairVote, to say he doesn't see the drawn-out debacle being so deadly to the Dems' chances of winning back the Presidency. My local paper published his opinion column on the subject today, but they won't put it on their website (possibly due to not having online rights for it), so you have to read it here instead.

Is he right or just whistling past that old proverbial graveyard? I'd like to think he's got something, of course...but I am well aware that my party has only won five of the past dozen Presidential contests. And knowing that slimy bastard Karl Rove is still around and advising John McCain's campaign, on top of the discord on our side, doesn't do wonders for my ability to sleep at night in the meantime.

Comments

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

I've been hearing more and more commentators coming around to Richie's view in the last week or 2. Pat Buchanan and other Repug shills give terrific Chicken Little imitations as they warn of impending Democratic electoral doom, but everyone else more or less asks what they're smoking.

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

1. FairVote has a solid reputation in my neck of the woods.

2. We don't know. Reality is an extremely complicated thing, and trying to prognosticate based on the current pig entrails and pigeon flights is tough -- especially when we are a long, long way from November.

3. It is clear the Rs are in bad shape, and are heading for the kind of historic defeat we have not seen since 1974. But that doesn't necessary help a Presidential candidate. There are times when people split their vote, and times when they don't.

4. Which brings me to my last point. I think the Karl Rove playbook has run its course, and we are seeing the backlash. It's why we are seeing people abandon the Republican Party. The Rove playbook is based on a theory that manipulation of emotion at just the critical time is all that is necessary to achieve power. Since 2002, I have been saying that this cannot go on indefinitely because eventually you have to actually accomplish stuff. "No no!" Everyone told me, especially those stupid #@!$s in the DLC. "We need to learn how to do stuff like Karl Rove and the Rs." "You'll be idjits if you do," I said. Happily, Dean is cut from other cloth, and learned from his own experience how to craft a campaign that works.