The contest between Clinton and Obama drags on and shows no sign of ending. Well, I have two ways to fix the situation and end the primary sooner rather than later. All they require is the democratic leadership to do what they're supposed to do - lead.
The first way is to issue an ultimatum to the superdelegates: If your state has already voted, you have to declare your support for a candidate. Period. Nothing else changes - you can change your declaration at any time, and if your state hasn't voted you don't have to declare. But if you won't stick your neck out when we need you to, don't expect to be a superdelegate ever again. In fact, don't expect your "leadership" to be relied upon much in the future either.
The second way is for the leadership to put their foot down and issue an ultimatum to the candidates: Stop campaigning against each other and start campaigning against the Republicans. The superdelegates will enforce this - whichever candidate demonstrates their inability or unwillingness to pursue the general election should find their superdelegate and popular support publicly draining away.
Forcing the superdelegates to vote has a simple purpose - tightening the probabilities of getting elected to force the candidates to face reality. The justification for the means to this end is also perfectly sound: with great (voting) power comes great (voting) responsibility. This is no time for cowards.
Forcing the democratic candidates to campaign against the Republicans is pretty much self-explanatory. The Democratic Party cannot stand by while the Republicans start campaigning in the general election uncontested. Both candidates say they will be the better nominee. Both say they will represent the party. Well, now they'll have a chance to prove it.
I know what you're thinking. "Look at all the unprecedented turnout of Democrats at the primary! Look at all the dissatisfaction with the President! Look at how the punditocracy's hatred for McCain! It doesn't matter which candidate we have, or when we have them, this election is in the bag!"
Well I say don't count your chickens before they're hatched. The general election is a completely different game from the primary. The Republicans will get their machine moving and they will not pull any punches. You want the Democrats to win this thing, you're going to have to work for it. Letting McCain run uncontested while the sniping between Obama and Clinton gets uglier all the time is not a good idea. It's going to be a long month until the next big primary and an even longer three months until we reach the end of the whole process. We can't let this drag on.
I'd just like to take this moment to point out that John McCain will probably select a running mate soon. Like all running mates, this one will probably balance the ticket, which means a someone who can really bring in the conservative base to McCain's relatively independent ways. My money's on Mike "Amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards" Huckabee. He stuck through 'til the end and never went negative against McCain. His following is quite religious and very dedicated, and while not big enough to win the nomination garnered a respectable percentage of the vote. Even the media is routinely swayed by his personable demeanor despite the ruthless policies he's endorsed. And if you think the Vice Presidency doesn't matter, I submit to you Dick Cheney's eight years of unrestricted power and the 74-year-old type-A-personality McCain's history of melanoma.
I think all of us can agree that the Democratic nomination system has proved to be way too complicated. Endless empty debates, the unfair influence of early voting states, many different styles of vote allocation, states being denied votes, rules changing and states being re-given votes on short notice in the middle of the process, and most vexingly the superdelegates. What was that all about? Should party insiders really have literally thousands of times more voting power then the the average member? Are they really willing to go against the popular vote, and if not just what purpose are they supposed to serve?
It's a bit late to be asking these questions this year. But as long as we're stuck with these superdelegates we might as well put them to use extracting the Democratic party from this alkward situation.