Dem. Nomination Process

Interesting hypothesis by Dick Morris on how the Democratic process could go. [Warning: Recall the Mickey Kaus hypothesis on all Dick Morris articles, sound very brilliant and often tend to be wrong.....]

First off, for the first time Obama has beat Hillary in a new poll. Hillary's inevitability, if not already tarnished by the amazing fundraising of Obama, is certainly now smashed.

Morris (along with co-author Eileen McGann) writes:

The sense of Hillary's inevitability as the Democratic nominee is clearly
vanishing. Why is Clinton losing steam? Because we are discovering that we
don't like her. Gallup has her favorability rating dropping from 58 percent in
February to only 45 percent in April. The decrease in her popularity spans all
demographic groups. Gallup has her dropping sharply even among her core
constituencies: Democrats, liberals and single women.

Then a somewhat convulted I think argument about how the race could echo the 1980 Democratic Nomination Process with the seesaw between Carter and Ted Kennedy. Clinton up one week, then Obama the next as voters flip flop over not liking Hillary versus worry about Obama's perceived inexperience.

But more importantly, the ending:

The wild card is ex-Sen. John Edwards. If Obama and Clinton both vote to fund
the war in Iraq, accepting the mealy mouthed compromise House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid are likely to negotiate with
President Bush, Edwards - who will demand a timetable for withdrawal in any such
bill - will have the Democrats' left wing to himself. If Edwards gets the left -
forcing Obama to share the anti-Clinton vote - the Illinois senator could drop
to third. With Hillary no longer the inevitable nominee, though, it's
anybody's guess how the process will unfold.

This has been my worry all along with Obama and particularly with Edwards hanging around and going hard left. I said earlier Obama should not have let himself got sucked into the whole timetable thing and I'm afraid it may backfire. Not in some conservative talking point way, but cause him to not have a voting position between the Pelosi/Reid camp and the Clinton compromise bill that will I imagine eventually be the only thing to pass.

Namely benchmarks will be in minus the dates. The House Democrats will lose their hard core left wing elements and will need moderate Republicans (who are thinking about keeping their seats) for it to pass.

And this will leave us exactly where I said we should have gone with all this months ago--namely the Baker-Hamilton Commission. Benchmarks yes, timetables no.

I am undecided on whether I would vote for Hillary in a general. If the party goes hard left and nominates Edwards, then I can not support him for president.