Collateral Damage?

By David Nather | April 28, 2008 8:46 AM | | Comments (0)

Of all of the Democratic Party’s 300-plus uncommitted “superdelegates,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has some of the best reasons for worrying about the way the nomination fight between Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton is dragging on.

As the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Van Hollen is in charge of making sure House Democrats win their own races in November. He is getting concerned, he says – but not because of how long the contest is going on. It’s the nasty tone, he says, that could be the real threat to congressional Democrats this fall.

“If the campaign gets increasingly negative, the way it has in the past couple of weeks, that hurts our ability to unify the party” in time to make sure Democratic congressional candidates can benefit from a strong turnout in November, Van Hollen told me last week. As a party leader, he’d naturally rather see Clinton and Obama beating up on Republican John McCain – particularly on the top-tier issues of the economy and the Iraq war – than on each other.

“If that negative tone continues, then we’re better off resolving this early,” he said. “If we can keep it positive, and focused on the differences with Sen. McCain, then it could go on longer.”

That’s the concern many Democrats are starting to share. As Bob Benenson reports in today's CQ Weekly cover story, a drawn-out and bitter Democratic nomination fight is about the only hope Republicans have in the Senate and House campaigns this fall. They’re saddled with an unpopular war, a struggling economy and an incumbent president who has alienated most of the country – so the only way they can avoid a total rout is if half of the Democratic electorate walks away from whoever wins the nomination.

Some party leaders, like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, are talking about putting pressure on the undecided superdelegates to make up their minds after the primaries are over – or, at the latest, by the end of June, the deadline Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean suggested on Meet the Press Sunday.

Other superdelegates, however, are also focusing on the tone of the race rather than the length of it. Paul G. Kirk Jr., who served as DNC chairman in the 1980s and says he is supporting Obama this year, wrote an open letter to superdelegates in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette a few weeks ago urging them to speak up – not to take sides, but to stop the attacks.

“The thing that’s the most damaging is if the candidates continue to smear each other and leave scars and burns that Sen. McCain and the Republicans can pick up on in November,” Kirk told me last week. “The superdelegates can collectively say, ‘Knock it off.’”

Van Hollen’s Senate counterpart – Charles E. Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee – sounded less concerned about the impact on this year’s Senate races, where his party is otherwise in a good position to pick up seats. But even Schumer, a Clinton supporter, didn’t dismiss the threat entirely.

“So far, it hasn’t really affected us,” Schumer said. As for the future, he said with a shrug, “who knows?”

Post A Comment


(for verification only; will not be published with your comment)