It is becoming increasingly clear that the Democratic Party will not be able to settle on a candidate before the August party convention in Denver. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, roughly even on current delegate counts, look like they will battle to the very end of the primary season, yet surprisingly, neither looks able to land the knock-out punch needed to win the nomination.
Entering Denver with just under the required number of delegates needed to win would put the convention into turmoil. And usually, turmoil leads to tragedy. A divided party, a fractious party, would appear to the voters to be a party unable to unify itself, not to mention the nation. Such turmoil would guarantee a Republican victory in November. And after eight long, torturous years of George W. Bush in the White House, the Democrats would have only themselves to blame for four more years of Republican rule.
At the convention, the party could be deeply and bitterly divided, each side would, just a few votes short of nomination, fight tooth and nail to win over the few remaining delegates who might swing the nomination to their candidate. It could get ugly. Neither Clinton nor Obama would give an inch, being so painfully close to capturing the nomination. It would be a bloody heavyweight battle for the highest of prizes. And all this would be fully aired on national television for the voters to see.
How to resolve the dilemma? If neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has the necessary delegates to win the nomination, and after several rounds of delegate votes fails to resolve the standoff, the party – and here the super-delegates might be the key – could turn to a compromise candidate in hopes of unifying the party as it heads into the November election. And who is the most likely compromise candidate? Al Gore.
And why not? The Nobel Prize winning former vice president was, in the eyes of his party, already elected President once, in 2000. And that election, stolen from the rightful winner (or so the Democrats feel) by the Republican Supreme Court, led to the tragedy of George W. Bush. Now the party has a chance to put Al Gore into the White House where he belonged all along.
Michael A. Genovese holds the Loyola chair of Leadership at Loyola Marymount University and is the author of seventeen books, most recently Memo to a New President, published by Oxford University Press.