It’s easy to sit here and predict all the spectacular ways Hillary Clinton could mess up if she managed to weasel the nomination away, right now. You can almost hear the scurry of little Hillbot feet as they desperately try to game the system. The constant floating of running-mate bait, the incredibly skewed perspective on how a 3-10 streak is actually a "winning" streak, the Michigan/Florida debacle, super delegates, cashing in two decades worth of favors to MSM talking heads (and, apparently, the entire writing staff of SNL), it’s utterly obvious at this point that Hillary the "fighter" is ready to take this all the way. But I really don’t think she’s gonna like where "all the way" puts her.
Let’s leave aside the potential damage of an actual Hillary Administration for a moment (if her campaign is any preview of how she will govern the nation, cue collective shudder . . . now.). Let’s look at the permanent damage she is likely to inflict on the Democratic Party. She might be the first Woman president, but she may well end up being the last Democratic president. She loses even if she wins, and the resulting damage to the political system in America will last a generation.
Despite all of the name-calling fun the Hillbots have been having at the expense of the Obama "cult", they play with fire. Because the movement that has sprung up around Obama isn’t merely a cult of personality, or a wacky political sideshow like Ron Paul’s or Mike Huckabee’s campaigns. It isn’t even a "political" movement in the traditional sense. Sure, Obama has his fair share of adherents who are traditional rank-and-file Democrats – but the "cultish" elements of his campaign that have so many older Democrats flinching are not play-by-the-Party-rules kinds of people.
They are fired up about the candidate and the movement, not the Party. Their loyalty is not to the organization, or even the principals espoused by the Party. It is to the revolution. That’s what is energizing these Obama people. This movement has sprung up in direct rebellion to the status quo – not just the Republican administrations we’ve endured, but the scandal-plagued Clinton Era, as well. The hard-core Obama people are not going to be any happier with a second Clinton Administration than they would be with a McCain Administration. Take away their candidate, and you take away their revolution. And they won’t be happy.
I can hear the collective grown from a thousand disapproving Hillbots who hypocritically think that we’re whining about the process. We’re not. We’ve done everything by the book and according to the rules, and watched the devious machinations of the most cynical political organization in American history continuously game the rules at every opportunity.
The "chorus of cynics" is alive and well in Hillary "Don’t Get Your Hopes Up" Clinton’s campaign – because they think that the stakes are no higher than who gets to secede George W. Bush and get to pass a healthcare plan. If Obama isn’t the nominee, they reason, the tremendous support that has been demonstrated to the Party will make Hillary’s eventual triumph in the General Election a cakewalk. Obama can try again in 2012 – and Hillary might even token him up as a running mate.
That dog won’t hunt – not with the die-hard Obama supporter. We came for a revolution. If Hillary deprives us of that, then giving her any real support would be a capitulation to the forces of cynicism and skepticism. Our innate idealism – the very idealism that packs stadiums and fills voter registration drives and gets a million Americans to donate to a political campaign for the first time – it won’t take such a capitulation. We can’t stand it. We came for a revolution, and we’re not going to be happy with anything less.
The practical consequences for a Hillary "victory" are easy to predict. The largest single voting bloc in the Party, African-Americans, are going to feel betrayed by Hillary and the Party for denying them their historic moment, and the rich white ladies and tough middle-class working moms she’s depended upon for victory in New Hampshire and Ohio are not going to be able to take up the slack.
A Hillary victory means a Black vote severely depressed, perhaps by as much as half, in the General election and a long, painful period of reconciliation. That would be a painful burden for the party, and likely a fatal one in the short term. Hillary cannot beat McCain without the Black vote. Period. Depending upon Party loyalty for voter turnout when she has abused those very voters is just silly. And while Hillbots might view her victory in the nomination process as enough of a vindication to keep local pro-Hillary Black party officials in power, that's a pipe dream. Those leaders are answerable to their own constituencies, and they will NOT be pleased.
But that’s just the beginning. The "youth" vote that has buoyed the Obama campaign points up the generational difference between the campaigns. Dash their hopes for a real revolution after eight years of Bush, and they’ll not be back. In one fell swoop, Hillary will have made Independents the dominant political force in this country for the next two decades. Hell hath no fury like a disillusioned idealist. Take away their shot, and they’ll go back to Worlds of Warcraft, Second Life, YouTube and maybe watching the Daily Show. No revolution? Then why bother to vote? It didn’t do any good when it mattered – why the hell should they care?
Should Hillary prevail in the nomination, she might inherent the Obama campaign infrastructure, but she’ll be inheriting plenty of poison pills, too. Obama’s 1 million strong political campaign list? Forget about it. I know few Obama people who would even consider donating to the campaign of the woman who stole the nomination. Canvass? Phone bank? Organize? Good God, why? If she kills the revolution, why reward that kind of behavior . . . even with a vote? It would be a perpetuation of the cycle of cynicism and divisiveness – exactly what we’re sick of. We’ll sacrifice for a real revolution and bring our full creative power to bear – but Hillary is no revolutionary, and we’re not about to overlook that.
And it goes deeper. Some of these Obama people haven’t felt like part of the process in their entire lives. Take that away from them and try to substitute a sawdust-filled pant suit and you will not only have soured them on the process for the rest of their lives, you invite a pervasive bitterness that could have . . . unexpected consequences.
Consider the 1968 riots at the Democratic Convention. Now consider what would have happened if the rioters had been well-trained, organized by website and text message, and prepared for the police response with gas masks and such. While I would never advocate such nastiness, I would point out that American politics has always had its share of political violence lurking behind the civil tones, and after the G-8 protests, there is a hard core of political violence veterans who wouldn’t mind mixing it up in the Mountain State.
Actual violence is unlikely, though. What is much more likely are the 21st century attacks that disaffected Obama people are likely to launch on Hillary, under the pretext that she stole the nomination. As I’ve noted elsewhere, Obama’s camp certainly seems to have the edge when it comes to tech-savvyness. I know several hackers and similar techies who support him. Is the Clinton Campaign really ready to invest millions of valuable campaign donations in internet security?
Maybe such a thing would have been an annoyance in 2004, or 2000, when the web was still an emergent force. But today, when the majority of campaign donations come through the website, how many days could Hillary go without a working site? How could her campaign withstand a constant onslaught of attacks from enterprising, bitter young hackers? How could they spin successfully the revelation of the campaigns most secret, private, intimate files? Critical emails? Bill’s mash notes to pretty state-level campaign volunteers? Scandals the campaign wants buried? All of these would be fair game for some future Obama Underground – and the supporters would no longer feel restrained by the Obama campaign. Why the hell not torch Hillary's chances? the rationalization would go. She did the same to us.
So Hillary would lose – the election, the Party, and her political relevancy. The Party would loose its best shot at re-establishing its dominance in the 21st century, and the hearts and minds of an entire generation of voters.
And even if she wins . . . perhaps she conquers, but can she rule? Not with half of her base bitter and angry about her "win" and unwilling to cooperate in fundraising, or advancing policy – and pre-prepared to believe the first of the inevitable stream of scandals that will follow. One of my Obama Dad’s, K., put it best: Hillary is the first candidate that should have a Special Prosecutor appointed on Day One, because it will be the only way to keep track of the shadiness.
Am I just whining, here, making idle threats? Not at all – I’m making a political observation. The Obama Movement is tough, highly organized, highly organic, and pathologically motivated. They want a revolution. They aren’t just going to go away. Piss them off, and – I prophesy – the consequences for Clinton and the Party will be dire. While she is busy building a bridge back to the 20th Century, she’s going to back into the buzzsaw of the emergent 21st Century politics. And it ain’t gonna be pretty.