WurfWhile

While Mark Schmitt writes this in the context of whether or not there should be a “unity ticket” of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it’s actually a great response to questions about how united Democrats will be with Barack Obama in the upcoming presidential election:

“[As opposed to “structural and ideological” fights,] there are fights that really have much more to do with the personal qualities and appeals of the candidates. Such a fight can seem similar to a real breach, because the candidates do divide the electorate sharply along lines of class, race, ethnic background, education, gender, and age. But that doesn’t mean that the Democratic electorate is inherently divided along those lines, or divided by other issues. If the candidates disappeared, so would the divisions. These have been two strong, appealing candidates, each of them attracting votes rather than repelling them (the staggering turnouts in the Democratic primaries, often approaching or even surpassing the total votes received by John Kerry in 2004, are proof), and who happen to have a natural appeal to different demographic groups. As they split the electorate almost evenly, passions rose higher, and accusations of racial insensitivity, sexism, elitism, and pandering grew louder. Major figures in the Democratic establishment could see their careers ending, while others would emerge to replace them. All this makes for ugliness.

But in two months, I suspect that these things will all be the equivalent of political trivia questions: What did former BET President Bob Johnson accuse Barack Obama of? Which informal Obama advisor referred to Clinton as ‘a monster,’ and in what newspaper? Those of us who know the answer will be shocked to recall how deeply immersed we were in them.

And that’s why the ‘unity ticket,’ while not necessarily a bad idea, is fundamentally unnecessary. The Obama-Clinton divide will heal naturally; it does not require radical surgery. Clinton should be considered as one might consider any other candidate for the vice presidency: in terms of what she brings to the ticket and to the eventual presidency.”

In other words, as much as Roy would like to suggest a lack of unity among Democrats in the upcoming presidential race, on the issues that matter like less people having health care, the disastrous occupation in Iraq, the housing collapse, the energy crisis, the economy tanking, etc, Barack Obama will have no problem rallying the vast majority of Democrats, Independents and a significant slice of Republican voters against John McCain, who promises to continue many of President George W. Bush’s failed policies and who can’t even rally more than 80% of GOP primary voters when he’s already won the nomination and doesn’t face active competition. There’s a reason why Democrats have won three out of three congressional special election seats in formerly GOP areas (Bill Foster IL-14, Don Cazayoux in LA-06, and tonight Travis Childers in MS-01). There’s a reason why groups like “The Next Right” are forming “to build a new Republican Party and conservative movement.” There’s a reason why we have record Democratic primary turnout that dwarfs GOP turnout throughout the country. So, honestly, I’m not really worried about Democrats uniting and winning in 2008 - I’m more worried about what we get out of the win. That’s the real issue in this campaign and into the future.