Crash: More on the Coming Democratic Train Wreck

Recall yesterday I argued that in the ongoing Clinton/Obama nomination struggle we have "a true internecine battle erupting, and the stakes entail the very future of the Democratic Party."

As I indicated, things'll get nastier as we move along, and Pennsylvania's a long way off yet.

So let's update: Newsweek's got some new polling data suggesting a dead-heat for the Democrats:

Sen. Hillary Clinton's primary victories in Texas, Ohio and Rhode Island have revived her near-dead campaign and brought her into a statistical dead heat with Sen. Barack Obama among registered Democrats and Democratic leaners, according to a new national NEWSWEEK Poll. The survey found that Clinton has erased the once-commanding lead that Obama held in most national polls following his 11 straight victories in February's primaries and caucuses. Obama is the favored nominee among 45 percent of Democrats, compared with 44 percent for Clinton, according to the poll, which was based on telephone interviews with 1,215 registered voters March 5-6.

The poll also found that Democratic voters are ready to rally around the candidate they trust most to improve the economy, amid fears of a recession. But neither candidate has been able to lock up that issue, or many others, and the vast majority (69 percent) of Democratic voters now support the idea of a "dream ticket" - leaving aside the crucial question of who runs on top.

I doubt either camp is "dreaming" of the ulti-multi-culti Democratic ticket, but we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Remember, we're in a situation likened to an epochal battle between the new and old, the hip and the square, between the politics of hope versus the politics of pugilistic parsing.

And it's going to continue.

Michael Tomasky, writing before Hillary's big Texas and Ohio victories, suggests the New York Senator will take it all the way to Denver, taking advantage of party rules, popular voting dynamics be damned:

Depending on how the rest of the voting shakes out, the possibility exists of a convention floor fight over the seating of these delegates. And 120 delegates [Clinton's current shortfall] ... could prove decisive. So imagine this situation. Clinton trails Obama by, say, eighty or ninety delegates. Her campaign has already said it will fight if she is within one hundred. If she has won more large states—so far she has won New York and California and she might possibly win Ohio, Texas, and Pennsylvania—her forces might be overrepresented on the credentials committee. Interestingly, it, too, is chaired by Alexis Herman and James Roosevelt Jr. (as well as Eliseo Roques-Arroyo). So we will have a circumstance in which the candidate who is behind but who has a functional advantage on the committee handling credentials might be able to muscle through a vote that gives her a sufficient number of delegates to vault from second place to first.

Would the Clinton campaign do that, risking the fury of millions of Obama backers—on national television no less? Democratic leaders have started warning her against that course. "It would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on February 15. But the Clinton team's aggressive exhortations in behalf of seating the delegates, issued by spokesmen and the candidate herself repeatedly since January 25, do not suggest that if the time arrives to show her hand, she will meekly fold it.

Well, as noted, Tomasky's conjectures were offered before the Hill's "Second-Super Tuesday" comeback. This race is heading for a long brawl.

But it's a fair fight, in contrast to the tender sentiments of Andrew Sullivan.

Obama's not wrapping up the big states, rich in Electoral College numbers. Hillary's got some momentum, and a win today for Obama in Wyoming (which is looking likely) will only slow it a bit.

More later, but don't miss my earlier post, "Riots in Denver? Radicals May Seek "Direct Action" Against Democrats."

See more analysis at Memeorandum; and don't miss Ari Berman, "The Dean Legacy," and the Democratic Party's insider-outsider schism between the Clinton camp and the DNC.