As the Democratic presidential nomination winds down, it appears that the party leaders will determine the future of Democrats- but will they make the correct choice?
I have always felt that the race between Hillary and Obama was a fight between the DLC and grassroots and a symbolic battle for the heart and soul of the party. It is, but using this argument with super delegates will certainly result in progressives losing.
Elect ability, divisiveness, experience and hope aren’t good enough reasons to chose or not chose a candidate.
The answer of who to chose is found by combining the Harvard’s University’s Institute of Politics report in April
with Ronald Brownstein of the National Journal analysis of A Party Transformed
.
A clear decision for choosing our presidential nominee emerges.
The Harvard study finds strong support by youth for Obama:
As the long primary season begins to wind down, all indications from our survey of ..18 to 24 year olds are that they are preparing to vote in November in significant, if not, record numbers … Nearly two-thirds (64%) of eligible young voters (72% of college students and 61% of those not in college) indicate that they will participate in the general election, which is an increase of three percentage points (3%) since our November 2007 survey.
When 18 to 24 year olds who plan to vote for a Democrat in November (n=807) were asked which candidate they prefer to be the party nominee -- 70 percent chose Barack Obama and 30 percent chose Hillary Clinton.
Ronald Brownstein concludes the Democratic Party is being transformed because of the youth vote:
In most states, [Obama] has defeated Clinton among the affluent and routed her among the young, the two groups whose participation has increased the most. "If you look at the groups that are growing, I think it's safe to say that Barack Obama is both causing the majority of it and benefiting the most from it," one senior Obama strategist said.
The implications for the general election could be significant. If Democrats can maintain the allegiance of the constituencies now pouring into their primaries -- especially young people -- they could seize an edge in November's election, and potentially well beyond. "These are long-term opportunities that could change a generation of leadership in the country and give the Democrats a huge leg up on obtaining or achieving elective office," says Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for President Bush's 2004 election campaign and now a consultant for ABC News….
"If you look at Ronald Reagan and how he performed among youth, he created a generation of Republicans that was able to sustain itself," Dowd says. "Well, what Bush has done in his presidency is almost the opposite: He has won elections and lost a generation. Now this generation is emerging, and if Democrats end up winning this election, and then govern in a way that gives people a sense that it is a new politics, they will have a generation. It will be the reverse of Reagan."
Super Delegates it doesn’t look like a difficult decision to me. Obama gets the youth vote. The youth vote is a high enough percentage to give Obama a win in the fall. – and Democrats get the next generation of voters.