As the Democratic
party barrels closer and closer to a
brokered convention, conventional wisdom says it''s a bad thing. Various superdelegates and party heavyweights without a horse in the race are probably strategizing and fantasizing how they can save the day and prevent just such an occurrence. Of course that just amounts to doing the brokering before the convention but they''ll try to do it just the same. But what if a brokered convention is actually a good thing for the democrats?
The longer the democrats take to pick a nominee the less time John McCain and the Republicans have to campaign against them. Instead they''ll have to go to battle against two opponents. Of course those two will be at war with each other, jostling for the nomination, the exact
reason a brokered convention is so feared. But the battles at that point are
internal, they are party politics, fought behind closed doors and viewed by the
public as they leak to blogs and get warped by the tv and print news joints. In public both Hillary and Obama will be out trying to win votes. The elections for the nomination will be over, at that point in the process there are no more voters left to convince the other democrat is bad. In public both will be out trying to convince the world they are better than old man McCain. That''s two candidates for the price of one, all the way up to the end of August.
Perhaps of course the bitterness of the internal battle will send them both down in flames. But is there any reason it should? Both will have the backing of a massive number of voters, the turnouts of these primaries have been well beyond the norms. What they are
going to selling to the superdelegates more than anything is how well they can take on John McCain. And the old man? He''s going to be fighting two fierce opponents the whole way along. He''s got a lot of energy for his age no doubt, but he''s going to have a hard enough time keeping up with just one...
More abstracts about the Brokered Advantage?