A House Divided

Nominee Who Survives Brutal Primary Could End Up Injured for November

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) (Angela Radulescu)

When Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was asked Tuesday afternoon if he thought the presidential primary contest between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama had become too nasty, he said, “Not yet.”

That was before Tuesday’s votes were tallied, when Dean and other party leaders had reason to hope the nomination would somehow be wrapped up without a bloody battle among Democrats, allowing the party to turn its attention to defeating Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in November.

No such luck. A string of victories Tuesday by Obama (D-Ill.) would have put the nomination within easy mathematical reach for him and prompted a flurry of calls for Clinton (D-N.Y) to withdraw from the race. Instead, her wins in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island – due, at least in part, to an aggressive, negative tone her campaign set in recent days – have revived her presidential hopes.

Clinton's pledge to go “all the way” to the White House is fueling Democrats’ fears that a protracted, punch-filled primary could hurt the party. Already, voters who had seemed happy to embrace the eventual nominee, no matter who it was, are showing signs that they might not be in such a charitable mood if their candidate does not make it to the top of the ticket.

As Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist who is not aligned with either campaign, told the Associated Press, “In order to clinch the nomination, [Obama] must anticipate the worst attacks ever."

“If these attacks are contrasts based on policy differences, there is no need to stop the race or halt the debate," Brazile said. "But, if this is more division, more diversion from the issues and more of the same politics of personal destruction, chairman Dean and others should be on standby.”

Republicans are also divided this year, as McCain has struggled to rally the many strands of conservatism -- those passionate about economic issues, social issues and national security -- to his side. But those ideological divisions may be easier to overcome than the increasingly intense personal rift that separates Clinton and Obama, who are only narrowly divided ideologically.

Paul Herrnson, director of the Center for American Politics at the University of Maryland, said that in high-profile elections like a presidential race, a divisive primary can turn off party activists who supported the losing candidate. “They won’t volunteer, they might not vote,” Herrnson said. “Very few of them will switch parties.”

Exit polls conducted Tuesday showed cause for concern among Democrats. In Ohio, 26 percent of Democratic primary voters said they would not be satisfied if Clinton won the nomination and 32 percent said they would not be satisfied if Obama won it. The findings were similar in Texas.

Such rough contests distract the party from the hard work of persuading swing voters, while at the same time giving the opposing party ammunition for the general election. That appears to be a real risk this year, with any Democrat-on-Democrat attacks about a candidate’s fitfulness to deal with national security issues sure to be used by Republicans.

The Clinton campaign insisted Wednesday it was not out to wound Obama. "This is not a question of trying to damage somebody," Harold Ickes, a senior campaign adviser, told reporters in a conference call. "This is a question of trying to fully understand all of the particular aspects of each candidate." As a campaign memo warned, "The vetting of Obama has just begun."

The apparent effectiveness of Clinton’s recent attacks is testing the very premise of Obama’s campaign, that he can govern in a new, less confrontational way.

“We knew that the closer we got to the change we seek, the more we'd see of the politics we're trying to end -- the attacks and distortions that try to distract us from the issues that matter to people's lives, the stunts and the tactics that ask us to fear instead of hope,” Obama said in an e-mail to supporters in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

But there were clear signs the Obama camp was reconsidering its approach. “It is tempting” to go on the attack,” Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) an Obama supporter, told MSNBC on Wednesday. “There is plenty of information on both sides.”

Showing a new aggressiveness, the Obama campaign released a memo entitled, “TAX RETURNS: What does Clinton have to hide?”

David Axelrod, Obama’s top campaign strategist, told MSNBC late Tuesday that Clinton’s “kitchen-sink campaigning” is the kind of politics “that catches up with you.”

“That’s the kind of campaigning that could damage the party, damage our chances in the fall,” Axelrod said. “We’re going to be tough in response.”

It all makes for the kind of scenario that Democratic leaders have recently warned against.

“We have to have a positive campaign after Tuesday,” Gov. Bill Richardson, D-N.M., who has not endorsed a candidate since dropping out of the race, said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “Whoever has the most delegates after Tuesday, a clear lead, should be, in my judgment, the nominee."

In his Tuesday appearance on CNN, Dean said he wanted voters to decide the nomination. But he made clear that the question should be settled well before the party’s national convention, which will be held in Denver in late August. “Divided conventions…take time to heal,” Dean said.

Dean met last week with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Harry Reid (D-Nev.), the Senate majority leader, about how to keep the party together if it faces a grueling nominating process that continues through the last primary, in early June, or perhaps later. “We didn’t have any obvious answers,” Dean said, “Except let’s see what the voters do.”

For Democrats, the possibility of divided convention is all too real. The party’s 1972 meeting was soured by a fight over seating delegates, which helped push George S. McGovern’s nominating speech out of prime time. In 1980, the convention was marked by bitterness between Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jimmy Carter, the Georgia governor who became the nominee.
“The Democratic Party is famous for its squabbles,” said Herrnson. “The Republican Party is famous for patching over its squabbles.”

But, he said, there is a potential up-side to the Democrats’ current fight. “So long as they don’t carve each other up too badly, they’re still in the limelight for free,” Herrnson said. “The other candidate is paying for the attention or getting ignored.”

Brazile, too, saw a bright side. “This level of debate is healthy for a party that must also define itself,” she told me in an e-mail. “As long as candidates stick to the issues and don’t create the type of artificial divisions that can and will cause long term damage to the party, I believe the nominee will be stronger than coffee with chicory.”

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