Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean says infighting between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama threatens the party’s chances for winning the White House in November:
“Let the media and the Republicans and the talking heads on cable television attack and carry on, fulminate at the mouth. The supporters should keep their mouths shut about this stuff on both sides because that is harmful to the potential victory of a Democrat.”
— Howard Dean

“You do not want to demoralize the base of the Democratic Party by having the Democrats attack each other,” he said Thursday during the interview in his office at Democratic National Committee headquarters. “Let the media and the Republicans and the talking heads on cable television attack and carry on, fulminate at the mouth. The supporters should keep their mouths shut about this stuff on both sides because that is harmful to the potential victory of a Democrat.”

Dean says he has a plan for resolving the superdelegate conundrum:

Dean wouldn’t talk in detail about what the plan is, but it likely involves encouraging superdelegates to pick a candidate shortly after the voting ends. He said he will not encourage any delegate to vote one way or another.

“I am going to stand up for the rules, and I know I’m doing the right thing most of the time because I’ve got both Clinton people and Obama people mad at me,” he said.

For instance, while Obama’s campaign has been encouraging superdelegates to support the candidate with the most pledged delegates — which almost certainly will be Obama — Dean says the rules don’t require that and superdelegates are free to chose who they want.

On the other side, Clinton has been arguing lately that even pledged delegates — awarded to a candidate based on the outcome of state contests — aren’t bound to vote for that candidate at the convention. Dean called that “a very technical argument.”

“You aren’t going to get pledged delegates to move unless something really shocking happens,” he said. And he thinks it unlikely the superdelegates would support a candidate who did not have the most pledged delegates.

And he commented on the Florida and Michigan controversies:

[…]

This is what happens when Obama goes on vacation and leaves Hillary to her own devices. She implodes.

Clinton’s personal approval rating has dipped significantly according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, with 48 percent of Americans holding a negative view of her compared to the 37 percent who hold a positive view. For Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the ratings are better: 49 percent positive, 32 percent negative.

The Bosnia snipers/8-year-old girl poet confusion took a toll on Clinton’s ratings, even as the Obamas sunned in the Virgin Islands. It’s probably not all Hillary’s fault though. She getting some pretty bad advice on how to campaign.

“The only thing that matters is, what happens to you?” [Bill Clinton] said. “That’s all that matters. If a politician doesn’t wanna get beat up, he shouldn’t run for office. If a football player doesn’t want to get tackled or want the risk of an occasional clip he shouldn’t put the pads on.”

The problem is the beating up is self-inflicted and the tackles are just fumbles.

An open letter to the Democratic candidates from Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore.:
You both claim to be better suited than the other to take on the so-called Straight-Talk Express, so prove it. Run the next six weeks of your campaign against McCain, not against the other Democrat. Go after McCain for his policy positions, not the other Democrat for theirs.

Dear Senator Clinton and Senator Obama:

I write today as a concerned member of the Democratic Party and an uncommitted super delegate. I appreciated the manner in which you both conducted your campaigns during the early primary process. It was a manner that respected the other and tried to highlight policy differences without resorting to destructive smear campaigns. In the lead up to the March 4th primaries, the tone of both campaigns shifted and the civility that I had appreciated disappeared. The long term goal of beating the Republican nominee took a back seat to the short term goal of proving one’s viability by tearing down the other Democratic candidate. We lost sight of the general election, we lost sight of the true opponent and if we continue to be shortsighted, I fear we will lose in November.

The heated rhetoric between both campaigns has continued to intensify as we head into the Pennsylvania primary. While you trade barbs, McCain is uniting the Republican Party around his thinly disguised rightwing agenda. In the next six weeks, McCain can sit back, amass his war chest, concentrate his base and delight as you deconstruct each other.

I propose that you not allow him that luxury. You both claim to be better suited than the other to take on the so-called Straight-Talk Express, so prove it. Run the next six weeks of your campaign against McCain, not against the other Democrat. Go after McCain for his policy positions, not the other Democrat for theirs. Allow the Democratic voters to believe in a campaign that can provide a new direction for this country and stop McCain from continuing the failed policies of the Bush Administration. In the end, it is the candidate who can take the fight to McCain and win that deserves my support and, most importantly, the support of the Democratic Party.

Both of your campaigns have been built on the fundamental idea that if elected, you will bring about change. Let’s change the way we are doing business in this primary election. In the last few months, you have been running for the Democratic nomination. In the next six weeks, I urge you start running for President.

Sincerely,

PETER A. DEFAZIO

Rachel Maddow on AirAmerica has been beating this drum for a while now.

Photo from CBS News

The New Republic’s Norm Scheiber sums up the current state of the election.

The problem is that each day Clinton and Obama spend consumed with the other is a day that moves John McCain closer to the White House. McCain’s biggest asset is his political brand, which evokes a straight-talking, party-bucking reformer. Among his biggest liabilities is the suspicion he inspires among conservatives thanks to these same attributes. McCain apparently plans to spend the next few months making nice with his base. But anything he accomplishes on this front clearly diminishes his swing-voter appeal and, therefore, his chances in November.

Ideally, the Democrats would be exploiting this tension like mad…

Instead, something close to the opposite is happening. McCain’s courtship of the lunatic right and his ties to K Street have largely been hidden from view, while the Democrats’ dirty laundry has been aired for swing voters.

Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.

…On March 12, Ferraro and the racially polarized Mississippi primary were A-1 news in The Washington Post. It wasn’t until page A-6 that you stumbled across a story about McCain’s ties to the parent company of Airbus, the Boeing rival to whom the Pentagon recently handed a lucrative contract. The second story could have muddied McCain’s reformist credentials, but it barely caused a ripple on cable or the blogosphere.

Schreiber all but says it: Hillary Clinton needs to get out.

If McCain winds up facing Obama, he’ll enjoy yet another advantage: a nominee weakened by attacks from a fellow Democrat…

Hillary’s only path to the nomination, barring a meltdown by Obama, is to destroy his electability. But harsh attacks on Obama will inevitably discourage African Americans from voting in the fall, and Hillary can’t beat McCain without strong black turnout in places like Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Conversely, any attack on Hillary that alienated moderate Republican women could cripple Obama’s chances.

The chances of Hillary Clinton doing the right thing and stepping aside are about equal to the chance that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will someday put impeachment on the table. That they aren’t going to happen doesn’t change the fact that both decisions would be good for America.

Dr. He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named, as Jon has come to call Howard Dean around me and Buck, since just a mention of his name to Florida folks Gets Us Started, is taking well-deserved criticism. Time’s Tim Padgett asks all the good questions: Does Dean really plan to pursue a 48-State Strategy for victory, and if so, where is his leadership? More importantly, will Dean cost the Democratic candidate the votes of Florida and Michigan? We’ve been wondering the same things.

Florida’s famously feckless electoral system usually deserves the ridicule it gets. But not this time. Instead of the typical jokes about Flori-duh, the Sunshine State debacle currently gripping the Democratic Party has evoked reminders of the Dean Scream — the notorious petulance of Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean. He, along with the other sage bosses of the DNC, has left Democratic voters in what is arguably the nation’s most crucial swing state feeling dissed, disenfranchised and, it now seems, disinclined to back whomever the Democratic candidate is in November. And that could harm the party’s White House bid as severely as any butterfly ballot or hanging chad ever did.

According to a poll conducted this week for various Florida media, almost a quarter of Florida Democrats say they’ll be “less likely to support” the party’s nominee if their state’s delegates aren’t seated at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August — and by seated they mean counted in the final tally to choose the presidential nominee.

I don’t agree with those who would withhold their votes from the Democratic candidate over this. But I do understand where they’re coming from. Dean claimed it was of vital importance that states like Iowa and New Hampshire, with tiny homogeneous populations, get to go one-on-one with the candidates because this intimate voter contact is what makes democracy work. He then forbade any candidate to be heard or seen by Florida voters.

[…]

The report from the daily Presidential Tracking Poll from Rasmussen Reports describes Hillary Clinton’s support among African-Americans as a glass that is half-empty:
The Democrats are too busy attacking each other to do what needs to be done — connecting McCain to George W. Bush, morning, noon and night.

African-American support for Clinton has collapsed, falling to 55 percent in the general election match-up. [Barack] Obama, on the other hand, earns solid support from African-American voters but attracts only 36 percent of white voters in a match-up with McCain.

Considering the charges that the Clinton campaign has used racial issues to marginalize Obama, it is noteworthy that Hillary Clinton has held onto the support of a majority of black voters. It’s hard to parse what this says about the attitude in the community toward Obama, but may simply mean that 55 percent of African Americans believe Clinton stands a better chance of beating McCain than does Obama.

If the Obama campaign fails to recover from the controversy over the racial comments of Rev. Jeremiah Wright (or if other scandals come to light before the summer) and Clinton becomes the nominee, African-American Obama supporters — like the hordes of newly minted liberal Clinton-haters — will have to decide between their antipathy for Hillary and the vital interests of the country, which might not survive four more years of Republican control of the Executive Branch and the Judiciary.

Underscoring this, the Rasmussen report also shows that John McCain’s advantage in the general election is widening. McCain leads Barack Obama 49 percent to 42 percent and Hillary Clinton 51 percent to 41 percent margin.

The reason for this is simple: The Democrats are too busy attacking each other to do what needs to be done — connecting McCain to George W. Bush, morning, noon and night.

H/t: Trish