Obama’s Rocky Mountain high?

It should be fun to watch the politics and policies play out at the Democratic National Convention in Denver this week. It will be interesting to see whether policies affect the politics, or vice versa. This year has all the makings of a Democratic landslide, with the party adding to its majorities in the House and Senate. One might presume a Democrat also would gain the seat in the Oval Office just as certainly. Yet a few things don't seem quite right as the party of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama convenes.

First, there's that pesky fact that won't go away. In a presumptive landslide of a year for Democrats, the polls say their presumptive nominee essentially remains neck and neck if not behind his presumptive Republican opponent. We don't want to be presumptuous, but there's probably an important reason for that.

Then there's that pesky Hillary factor. Although Obama seemingly wrapped up the nomination months ago, there remains a disquieting Clintonesque undercurrent. Will she fall in line like a good soldier, or subtly (or not so subtly) stir dissension within the ranks? We tried to remember when a Clinton was a good team player. Or for that matter, a good loser. We're still trying.

Then there are those successive nights when first Hillary  and then Bill Clinton will be given the podium to talk their talk, capped off by the opportunity for the not-quite-majority Clinton delegates to remind each other very loudly - and remind Obama - that they still prefer her over him as they cast their pledged votes in a state-by-state roll call.

Is there any chance the celebrity candidacy, as Republican John McCain dubs the Obama campaign, could be derailed at the eleventh hour? We seriously doubt it. Could it be hamstrung? Perhaps. Perhaps seriously.

One Clinton delegate said the roll-call vote merely allows for honoring Clinton and providing closure. That sounds a little touchy feely. But this is the touchy feely party, after all.

There no doubt are some who wouldn't mind seeing the nomination miraculously delivered instead to the woman they prefer carry their party's banner.

Amid all this politicking Democrats also will approve the party's platform, which already has been influenced by politics with little relevance to policy, but much to do with internal control. The Clinton camp won concessions with the inclusion of language deploring the mainstream media's "sexist" coverage of the Democrat primaries.

It's not hard to figure out who allegedly benefited and who allegedly suffered from such alleged sexist coverage. How much "Hillary-would-have-beaten-Barack-if-only" sentiment can Democrats afford to unleash in the name of "party unity?" Should be fun to watch.
For argument's sake, let's dismiss the all-but certainly impossible nomination of Clinton. Even so, what uncomfortable toll has there been on Obama's campaign from the pressure of this politicking to name her as his running mate? Besieged from within by the Clinton loyalists and ticked-off feminists, will Obama be perceived as easily pushed around? Will voters conclude that this betrays a risky weakness for the leader of the free world in a world full of hostile bullies? Should be fun to watch.

Then there's the presumptive candidate's inability to surge ahead of McCain, who represents a party that hasn't been this much out of favor since the Watergate indictments. The nearer we draw to November, and the closer the candidates draw to each other, the more Obama seems drawn to the center. That must irk the far-left elements of his party that were so enamored with the most liberal of liberal senators.

Obama, indeed, is besieged from without by those counterintuitive McCain poll numbers. Will that result in Obama giving less than full-throated endorsement to maximum ideological stances? Will he grow increasingly squishy on offshore drilling? Military might? Tax burdens? Will he feel a need to moderate at least in tone if not substance positions that previously earned him the distinction of being rated more liberal than even Ted Kennedy? Should be fun to watch.

The party may adopt a platform, but will its fine print jibe with its candidate's acceptance speech on all points?

Then there's the politics within the politics. When the smoke clears, and the votes are counted and the deals cut with Clinton delegates offering them appointments in return for defections on the first ballot, we expect an Obama nomination to emerge from a wild, cheering grand finale held in a football stadium to accommodate the fan base.

There we find the most significant of the politics and policies at work in Denver. Obama will emerge as his party's nominee largely because he promises to give people more of what they want. Other people's money. That's much less fun to watch.