Reality check: A Gift to the G.O.P.
This should have been the year when the Democrats just hammered the Republicans over the economy, the war, energy policy, health care, appointments to the Supreme Court, the failure to rebuild New Orleans, and so on. The list of important issues on which the Republicans are vulnerable is endless.
Instead of running for cover, the G.O.P. is growing ever more confident that it will be tossing inaugural balls for John and Cindy McCain come January.
There is no end of blame to be apportioned among the Democrats. The Clintons have behaved execrably. But weak-willed party leaders showed neither the courage nor the inclination to stop them from fracturing the party along gender and ethnic lines.
As for Senator Obama, he’s been mired in a series of problems of his own — problems that have done serious damage to the very idea that brought him to national prominence in the first place: that he was a new breed of political leader, a unifying candidate who could begin to narrow the partisan divides of race, class and even, to some extent, political persuasion.
Can the Democrats still get their act together?
Only if they hurry. The party will have to exhibit extraordinary unity, coming together quickly to heal the wounds of this long and bitter primary. Senator Obama will have to develop (again, quickly) an exceptionally compelling economic program while trying to strengthen his appeal across ethnic and class lines.
The Democrats have done far more damage to themselves than the G.O.P. could ever have inflicted.