Democrats Fear a Party Meltdown

It's interesting to watch the liberal media's reaction to Hillary Clinton's latest win in Nevada. Thanks to RealClearPolitics I quickly found two articles by liberal members of the press who are both worried that instead of a huge victory in November the party could be in for a meltdown.

It's clear that many Democrats are worried about the rancor currently infecting the Dem race between Obama and Clinton. First from the Washington Post:

But the major reason I see trouble ahead for the Democrats is that voting patterns so far, as well as rumbling tensions over race and gender, suggest serious vulnerabilities in both of the Democratic front-runners that McCain (or another rival) could exploit. Most pundits assume it's the Republicans who have the weak field, but the leading Democrats -- both attractive and impressive people -- carry dangerous downsides of their own.

Sen. Barack Obama appeals strongly to affluent whites and minorities -- the old John Lindsay coalition -- but he seems to lose working-class whites. Moreover, if the pollsters turn out to have been wrong in predicting the outcome in New Hampshire in part because of the "Bradley effect" -- that is, the polling tendency to overestimate the number of votes a black candidate will win because some bigoted whites refuse to speak to pollsters or claim to be undecided -- then Democrats may also be deceiving themselves about the Illinois senator's chances in the general election. National surveys that show Obama beating various Republicans may be overstating his potential share of the vote.

For her part, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has done better at appealing to lower- and middle-income whites, especially women. But her loss to Obama among male voters in New Hampshire suggests that just as race may block Obama's path to the presidency, so gender may obstruct hers. That's hardly a surprise, of course. But Democrats have been so excited about the prospect of a historical breakthrough that many of them seem to forget that plenty of voters are still swayed by old prejudices.

The very qualities in Obama that progressive Democrats and independents find thrilling -- the sheer power of his oratory and physical presence -- may stir an unspoken anxiety and panic among other voters who fear the kind of change that Obama would bring. Likewise, Clinton's strength is also a source of uneasiness. Throughout her career, she has stirred an irrational hatred that is not primarily of her own making. To much of the public, when she is tough, she seems unwomanly and therefore inhuman; when she is soft, she seems unfit to be commander in chief. It's the old double bind that women have always faced in acquiring power, but wishing it weren't so won't make the dilemma vanish.

The writer is clearly scared of John McCain, but if he understood how many Republicans can't stand McCain and won't support him, he wouldn't be so worried.

Then, from Salon, a report on the battle of Paris...Las Vegas, that is:

I saw it all at the Paris: It was union member vs. union member, men against women, blacks against Latinos. An AFSCME worker (she wouldn't give me her name) was riling up the Clinton crowd, and got into a shouting match with an Obama supporter. "Hillary Clinton has never walked a picket line in her life," shouted Ray Wadsworth, an African-American pantry worker at Bally's casino who was just laid off. "I've walked picket lines with Hillary Clinton," the AFSCME woman shouted back. A Latina worker at Paris started yelling at Wadsworth: "Show respect, she's a woman!" At the worst of it, Wadsworth and other Obama supporters were yelling insults about Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, while the heavily Latino Clinton caucus was trying to shout them down with chants of "Hillary!" In the end only a handful of Latinos seemed to be among Obama's 98 caucus supporters; African-Americans were, by comparison, better represented in the Clinton delegation, but most caucused for Obama. (Only five caucus-goers supported John Edwards, which seemed to herald his dismal showing in the caucuses overall; he got only 4 percent of the vote.)

I watched the caucus battle with one of my oldest friends, someone I attended the 1984 Democratic convention with, a California labor organizer and politico who happened to be attending as an official Obama observer. Back then, in San Francisco, we cheered speeches by Jesse Jackson and Geraldine Ferraro together, so happy for the step forward both candidates provided to the party. There was little to cheer today. "Have you ever seen anything like this?" he asked me, with some alarm. I had to tell him no. Maybe we have to pass through this state of bitterness and chaos to get to a multiracial promised land, but it's not going to be a fun trip.

There's some reason to think the Paris situation was an only in Las Vegas aberration. The ugly atmosphere was certainly fueled by overreaching by the Culinary Workers Union, which faced accusations of strong-arming workers into supporting Obama. While Bill Burton, Obama communications director, told me those charges had been "debunked" on Friday, it was clear they were still roiling workers. I interviewed Sylvia Antuna on Friday, after her account of CWU intimidation was dismissed by both the Las Vegas Sun and the Obama campaign. Even if she was just one potential voter, her tale of coercion by CWU Obama supporters was disturbing. But it was clear on Saturday that she wasn't alone. "It has been really bad," cocktail server Nicky Nicolescu told me Saturday before the caucus began. "We could have a black president or a woman president, it should be great, but the union made this deal for power." Nicolescu said her boss was more help getting her free from work to caucus than the union was.

"I think the union is gonna be very surprised," Paris banquet server Patricio Gajardo told me a few minutes later. "They misjudged the Hispanic population. We don't think with an accent," he said, adding, "Write that down." I wasn't clear what he meant, and he elaborated: "A lot of us come here, we don't speak much English, they think we're naive, and they take advantage of us. We may never lose our accent, but we don't think with an accent; we understand what's going on." Paris worker Pauline Tilley added: "I came here almost 40 years ago, I'm a citizen, I still have my accent, and I support Hillary!" Tilley and Gajardo told of witnessing CWU leaders harassing Clinton supporters, refusing to help them get off work to caucus, removing Clinton fliers from the cafeteria. "We had to get H.R. to tell them to put them back," Gajardo said. In the end the Paris caucus site broke 2-1 for Clinton.

There clearly is no love lost between the Obama and Clinton supporters, and I wonder if the party will unite behind the eventual winner. Bitter losers aren't too excited about working for the person who beat them and may not be motivated to turn out in November. We'll see.

I think it's good news that liberals are worried about blowing it in November, but that could be trouble if they actually try and fix their problems rather than just vent about them.