Boston '04: Imagine the '68 Dem Convention, but with RFK alive.

[arendt]

About a week ago, I posted a thread saying that the
Dean Campaign reminded me of the Eugene McCarthy
campaign in 1968. Of course, mainly I heard how that
was a smear on Clean Gene.

But, after watching the orchestrated hammering of
Dean by the most opportunistically short-sighted pack
of Democratic candidates I have ever seen, this feels
like the McCarthy debacle all over again. Gene, you may
recall, was accused of being "unelectable". Only this time,
the RFK role is being played behind the scenes by Bill
Clinton. Wes Clark is definitely Cllnton's cat's paw here.
(Go ahead, flame away.)

Clinton needs a cat's paw, because his situation is doubly
constrained. First, as a two-term President, tradition calls
for him to retire from the day-to-day brawling of politics
and limit himself to an elder statesman role (in spite of
his young age). Second, the name Clinton (of either gender)
can mobilize the GOP base to defeat the Dems. Al Gore chose
to run away from Clinton in 2000. Perhaps this hurt him,
perhaps it helped him. Who could ever figure it out, then or
now, in the RW media echo chamber?

For both these reasons, Bill must be totally circumspect;
even Hillary has yet to figure out, much less divulge, how any
potential 2008 candidacy of hers will deploy Bill. But, everyone
knows that Bill is the kingmaker of the Democratic Party. His
elder statesman role resembles the party leaders in the corrupt
old Japanese Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Those guys met
behind the scenes, like some Italian social club, where large
piles of cash and political IOUs traded hands.

But that's about as far as the analogy goes. The DLP was the
dominant party in Japan. Those godfathers had real clout.
In the US today, Bill Clinton's dominance extends little beyond
the DLC. And the fact that that "little beyond" is shrinking every
day is one of the reasons that has pushed him into taking sides
in the Democratic Primary. (Like dissing Dean in NH.) By
endorsing Dean, Al Gore essentially challenged Bill's role as
kingmaker in the DLC social club. The payback has been quick
and in earnest. Al is about as ineffective, if intelligent and honest,
a national-level politician as Gene McCarthy. He surfaced, fired
his shot (which certainly hit SOMEthing), and seems to have been
vaporized by the counter-battery fire.

----

I want to get back to 1968 which, while most forget the fact, was
a three-cornered game between February and June.

If you massage the roles a little bit; with Bill playing an invisible
RFK, and Al Gore playing an amputed-duck version of LBJ, you
can actually argue that Dean is playing two corners of a triangle
reminiscent of the 1968 struggle among: 1) McCarthy idealists;
2) Kennedy partisans; and 3) machine democrats like Mayor Daley.

Everyone knows the 68 convention was a horrible debacle for
the Dems; but just imagine the mess if RFK had been alive!
Would LBJ have done a deal with McCarthy just to spite RFK?
In my opinion, in a New York minute. LBJ and RFK viscerally
hated each other. McCarthy had been decent to LBJ, and LBJ
was remorseful about Viet Nam. There was no decency and
no remorse between RFK and LBJ.

LBJ could have gone with McCarthy as an "End the War" candidate
magnanimously endorsed by a disgraced, but honorable president
who was seeking peace, both at international conferences and by
approving a peace candidate in his own party. LBJ would swallow hard,
but if he could get Bobby, he would swallow a lot.

----

I think the situation in today's Democratic Party has a lot of this
dynamic. By way of Hillary, Bill Clinton still has a dynasty going.
Al Gore has taken on an oppositional role to the DLC which, from
the violence of the counter-attack and the lack of any defense
from the DLC, seems to indicate a growing rift between Clinton
and Gore. Finally, the most overlooked people today are the
state and local level Democratic politicians and operatives. They
have been getting hammered for years. In some places, they
have already been replaced by populists; e.g., Jesse Ventura,
faux-populists; e.g., Arnold Schwarzegger; and inside the party
populists; e.g., Jim McGreevey of NJ (who just endorsed Dean).
These professional Democrats are not overly impressed with the
DLC, which has cost them dearly.

In my scenario, populists (McCarthy) and anti-Clinton DLCers (LBJ)
will unite in opposition to the DLC candidate (RFK). That candidate looks
like Clark since Kerry just flip-flopped himself into oblivion on
the Iraq war. But, I couldn't have predicted 1968 and I can't predict
2004.

Even worse, the press is a partisan wild card that it was not in 1968.
The press will do whatever it can to maximize and prolong dissension
inside the Democratic Party, and then try to bring the weakest of
the resulting candidates to victory by the standard partisan spins.

I never considered this particular alternate history of 1968, but I'm
sure someone on this board has. Enlighten me with how it might
have come out. Then, let me know how you think the current
situation might come out.

Have fun,

arendt