The seemingly interminable Democratic primary season has now come to an end, and if you thought that Sen. Barack Obama's lengthy struggle to clinch the nomination was so hard-fought as to be an almost Pyrrhic victory, then you'll love the latest activism of some of Sen. Hillary Clinton's supporters.
In a fascinatingly "bipartisan" move, a subsection of the former Democratic candidate's backers have declared their intention to throw their political weight behind Republican Sen. John McCain for the Presidency. The truly important question for those of us who wish to see a Democrat in the White House is: exactly how many of these millions of Clinton voters will fail to vote for Obama in the general election?
But, as I'm rarely interested in truly important questions, let's talk about a related issue: the importance of political parties in American politics and, more specifically, whether Democrats supporting Republicans is bipartisan or bipolar?
I sometimes worry that, as a non-American interested in American politics, I am intellectually overprivileged in that I can afford the luxury of idealism to a degree that actual voters cannot. I distinctly recall a certain feeling of ideological superiority, nay purity, during the 2004 Presidential election campaign as I railed against the Democrats' nomination of Sen. Kerry - a move I fiercely believed to be an error. I did not share the "anybody but Bush" approach that so many Democrats advocated because I thought that one should support the best candidate - not the better candidate. I was no relativist.
Yet, as my reaction above suggested, I find the idea that people who had conscienced voting for Clinton in the November election consider McCain to be their second-best bet absurd.
However, I think that this is the result, not of a conversion on my part, to a practical approach to politics which emphasizes party victory over better representing the preferences of the electorate, but rather, an inability to understand how, given the stated platforms of the three candidates, Clinton could be seen to be closer, on policy, to McCain than Obama.
I recall a debate I had as an undergraduate with a roommate over the merits and demerits of the two-party system in the United States as a method of democratic representation. It was instructive because we were able to articulate some reasons, beyond the purely banal and venal, for having a two-, rather than a multi-, party system.
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I've counted up the exact number of Clinton supporters that will vote for McCain: zero. Those claiming that they were Clinton supporters and are now voting for McCain are nothing but attention hounds. When they get in that voting booth, and no one is watching, and they were truly Clinton supporters, they'll be voting for Obama.
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