Bitter? You better believe it.
Democratic stalwarts, excited by two groundbreaking candidates and a strong shot at the White House, are wondering what the heck happened. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are mud wrestling their way through Pennsylvania, while John McCain enjoys a jolly honeymoon.
In short: The magic’s gone.
That became even more obvious after a debate that helped neither candidate Wednesday night, after which Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean pleaded for superdelegates to make up their mind – now.
Dean, who last month called on superdelegates to declare their allegiance by July 1, seems increasingly worried about the impact the protracted primary is having on Democrat’s prospects for the White House. “I need them to say who they’re for starting now. We’ve got to know who our nominee is.”
Blame it on Pennsylvania – the Keystone State that’s become the Tombstone State.
While jumping from state-to-state has kept the Democratic race fresh, the six-week stretch since Mississippi’s March 11 primary and Tuesday’s Pennsylvania showdown has kept both candidates bogged down. The process has sullied both Obama and Clinton, fatigued Democrats and fostered animosity between their supporters. It has also offered a treasure trove of material for McCain in the fall.
An Associated Press/Yahoo poll released Friday found that the long primary has exacted a price on Obama, the presumed Democratic nominee. More voters are now saying he is inexperienced, unethical and dishonest. Those rating him as “not at all honest,” rose from 18 percent last fall to 27 percent in April.
Meanwhile, the man he will face in the general election – assuming Obama is the nominee – is gaining ground. Another AP-Yahoo poll last week showed McCain pulling even with Obama and Clinton, despite the fact that several months earlier, Democrats had been favored by 13 points to win the presidency.
One Independent voter told the Associated Press, “It’s not that I’m that much in favor of McCain, it’s the other two are turning me off.”
This is not a difficult to understand. It’s been an endless family feud between Democratic candidates battering each other over sniper fire in Bosnia, a controversial pastor, remarks by campaign surrogates and trying to prove who loves guns and working class voters more. The attacks have become more biting and sarcastic.
Clinton, who knows it is do-or-die for her now, has pounded Obama over the “clinging” comments, running ads and hitting him at every campaign stop for insulting working class Americans.
The bickering culminated in a contentious ABC News debate Thursday night, where for the first time, Obama was on the receiving end of a barrage of questions over difficult issues. His supporters, who had sat by mutely as Hillary Clinton was targeted in previous debates, went postal.
ABC’s Web site was inundated with complaints, MoveOn.org circulated a petition condemning the debate and a YouTube video declaring the death of George Stephanopoulos’s career made the rounds.
The crime? Treating Obama as the front-running Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States.
At the debate, Clinton repeatedly challenged Obama on hot-button issues from his relationship to the Weather Underground to his controversial pastor. She even raised Louis Farrakhan as an issue.
After participating in more than 20 debates, Obama turned in his worst performance, coming off as defensive and unprepared for tough questions. He also telegraphed to Republicans how to get under his skin. Hint: challenge him.
Obama has shown he doesn’t like to be questioned. When pressed last month over his relationship with Chicago slumlord Tony Rezko, Obama told the reporters to back off saying, “Come on guys; I answered like eight questions.” On the debate, he called it “the rollout of the Republican campaign against me in November,” ignoring the fact that if that is so, he demonstrated that he is not prepared to take them on.
Had Obama secured the nomination earlier in the process, he would have entered the general election unsullied and riding high on his message of hope, unity and a different kind of politics.
Despite an enormous financial advantage, a hypnotized press corps and an uninterrupted string of victories, Obama was unable to deliver a knockout punch. He left Clinton enough of a rationale to stay in the race.
Obama has wrongly been given sole credit for record turnouts in the primaries even though Clinton has pulled in more than 14 million votes, only 133,000 less than Obama. A recent poll showed 30 percent of Clinton voters saying they would vote for McCain if Obama were the nominee. True, there have been plenty of contentious primaries in the past, and many think all this will blow over once there is a nominee. And maybe it will.
In 2000, there was open hatred between McCain and Bush supporters. A March 2000 Pew poll, following Bush’s victory in the primaries and McCain’s exit from the race, found that 51 percent of those who backed McCain during the primary campaign would vote for Gore in the general election. That’s a much larger percentage of either Clinton or Obama supporters who have said they would vote for McCain this fall.
However, Bush had nearly eight months to court McCain’s old supporters. The Democratic nominee will have a fraction of that.
No wonder Howard Dean is worried.
Kirsten Powers is a political analyst for Fox News.