Letter to Rachel Maddow

Dear Rachel,

I thoroughly enjoy your show. I find you one of the smartest, insightful and well-informed of the liberal commentators on the radio. Having said that, I, an average schlep with two jobs have the audacity to give you some advice:

Calm down.

Who the hell do I think I am? As I said, an average guy, but with an interest in civics. I want you to calm down on your call for immediate marriage between the Hillary and Obama campaigns. I am especially shocked by your claim that a unity ticket would be better than any further campaigning. I’m not sure of that, but I am sure that the only unity ticket available would feature Hillary as the headliner.

Hillary as the nominee is the lifeboat scenario for me – the last desperate move before the whole ship goes down. I think we have time before the party sinks.

As if it was not already obvious, I am an Obama partisan. Not by choice, but by default. Neither he nor Clinton have fought the good fight, the way that Feingold, or Waxman have, or, among candidates, Kucinich or Dodd. But for progressives, a Hillary nomination is worth fighting against a little longer. Even if it increases the risk of a McCain presidency.

A Hillary nomination tells me the Democratic Party is broken beyond repair. It tells me that the party, in a year of opportunity unseen since Nixon’s resignation, will settle for a candidate that is legislatively a moderate Republican. With the exception of health care and choice issues, Hillary votes about with Spectre. Republican Hagel of Nebraska has shown more courage on the war than her.

I’m also not so sure that we could count on a President Clinton II to protect the judiciary. Hillary will triangulate, as she already has in her campaign. One of my biggest fears of a Clinton II presidency is that she will not appoint and fight for liberal justices, to replace the liberals that will be retiring. She will start by appointing “moderates,” and work her way right. The result will not be that much different than a McCain presidency. The liberal voice will be gone either way. You can kiss the restoration of the Constitution goodbye.

Clinton can only win by, well, cheating. She will have to get Michigan and Florida delegates seated. She has said “no further elections or caucuses.” This goes against agreements that she made, and that Obama stuck to. Even if she gets these, she will have to twist arms of super delegates to vote against the people – which if happens will tear the party in half in a year when they should be cleaning up. This is the only strategy she has left, and she is going for it. How terribly self-serving and expectant of her dynastic right of ascension. I have no interest in a dynastic presidency inherited in a “smoke filled room,” even if the new monarch wears the label of my party.

Since two years before my son, who will graduate from high school this year, was born, two families have controlled the Executive branch of government. This is roughly a generation of power held by these two families. The long-term health of American politics will be better served by anyone, even a Republican, who is not a Clinton or a Bush taking office.

The final reason that I don’t want to resolve the stalemate in any way that ends up with Hillary as our nominee, is that I don’t think she can win. She has already praised McCain, and trashed Obama. She has pilloried the progressive, the black, and the young. She has guaranteed a suppressed turnout in the general election, and will always inspire the Conservatives who have an irrational hatred of the name Clinton. She will lose to John McCain.

Obama, on the other hand, can inspire, raise money from across the spectrum, and will turn out the non-white vote. The white women over 50, and white men over 40 who support Hillary may split between McCain and Obama. But Obama will carry the young, African Americans, and I believe the Hispanic vote as well. He will pull in moderates and independents. He will eat McCain’s lunch on the campaign trail, and in any debate that Grandpa John is foolish enough to engage in with Obama. Finally, the voter excitement of an Obama run will have tremendous payoffs for the party downstream, in Congressional and state elections. This payoff is worth fighting for.

Even if it means fighting the Clintons. And, this is what the party should do at this point, fight them. Pressure should be brought to bear on Hillary from all quarters of the party – telling her to drop out. Super delegates should let her know in no uncertain terms that she will not be coronated, and that she cannot win. Explain to her, over and over again, how she could become the matron saint of the Democratic Party, and be owed favors for life, if she were to drop out gracefully now, and with praise for Obama and a call for action for the greater good. That would truly be a storybook moment in an amazing political year – one that may appeal to her ego.

So, calm down.

There are ways the ship can be righted before the convention. And if the party tears itself apart, then maybe that is for the greater good. This is a party that can’t fight against the worst president in our history. Today’s Democrats are only enjoying electoral victories because Republicans are so transparently corrupt, our Vice President soo evil, and our President soooo incredibly stupid. If this is the death knell of the Democratic Party, then it will be because it was time. And at least my son’s generation will have a chance at the type of reforms we need and deserve, with an upstart Green party, or a reformed Democratic party.

Thank you for taking the time to read this far (if indeed you have!). Again, I love the show, and keep fighting the good fight.