Clinton wins PA, Democrats sink more into quicksand

If the trend to this point continues, Hillary Clinton will win Pennsylvania by an 8 to 10 percent margin over Barack Obama. By winning the state, she does get to chalk up another “big” state win, but will probably fail to put any significant dent into Obama’s pledged delegate lead, and will probably only cut 200,000 out of his 700,000 or so popular vote lead.

While keeping her nomination race alive, it continues to complicate the problems with the Democrat party going into the general election in November whether she or Obama wins the nomination. The super delegates have not completely jumped into the fray and are likely to still end up holding the final trump cards on who gets the nomination in the end.

But the continued split personality of the Democratic party, should be causing some concern for the DNC as it starts thinking of some of the bigger issues that are going to be critical for it in the general election. Many people tend to focus only on the issues of the presidential election, but it is really only a single spoke in what the DNC has to focus on if it wants to break the traditional log jam in congress going forward and get the “super majority” that Pelosi and Reid want to take into the next congress.

If Obama wins, will the stalwart blue collar workers, and over age 65 Democrats of Clinton’s coalition close ranks and support an Obama run. If Clinton wins, will the large African-American, more educated, and youth coalition that he has forged close ranks and support a Clinton run. Neither of these questions can objectively be answered while the nomination race is still continuing.

Outside of the presidential race, the DNC wants to focus on a number of even more important strategies, and a cohesive Democratic party will be absolutely critical to achieve their goals.

If the DNC wants to get a “super majority” in congress they need a presidential candidate that can keep both of these very diverse coalitions together and pull in congressional races on the coat tail, and use the significant increase of registered Democrats to win state victories for the next level down Senate and House races.

In 2010 there will be a national round of reapportioned. To attempt to re-establish a solid Democrat party base across the US instead of the famous Red and Blue state division, they will need both coalitions to help take control of a majority of the State houses and Senates, which will be making the decisions on how districts are reapportioned.

In the next 8 years there is a possibility of 2 Supreme court justices needing to be appointed by the next president. If the DNC hopes to have a Democrat in the White House they will need the entire Democratic party working and driving together to ensure a victory over John McCain in November.

There is a more imperative need for the Democrats than the Republicans to vastly change the political landscape from the state houses, to the congress, and the white house if they are going to be able to overturn what has been a fairly consistent Republican control of congress and the state houses.

The longer this nomination race continues, and particularly if both candidates continue the last two weeks slide into the negative personalized attacks against each other to the point that party can not heal itself without losing half of the total coalition, the Republicans will take not only the White House, but the congress, and the state houses.

This is in my opinion a “do or die” election for the Democrats, and from my view from outside, they are playing with their own future under the sword of Damocles. It is a fine line they are now walking, and given the penchant for political parties to fail to see reality, they are more likely to blow the perfect opportunity than they are to seize it.

How ever it turns out… I’ll still be on the couch with the popcorn and beer, watching it all unfold in November.