1115.org

I’m worrying a lot that Obama might win the Democratic nomination. This has nothing to do with my personal feelings about the weakness of Obama’s … platform, I guess, for lack of a better word–the whole feel-good “I will bring this country together again by the magnificence of my rhetoric and the magnetic force of my personality” thing.

I’m worried because there’s only one scenario under which I see one of the Republican candidates-from-hell sitting in the Oval Office on January 20, 2009. And that scenario is that Obama wins the Democratic nomination, and then in November 2008 too many Americans vote the racism that I very much fear still bubbles just under the skin in large swathes of the country, the racism that these voters will never admit to a pollster in any way, shape or form.

If someone could design a reliable survey to get deviously at racism that might exist but would never be admitted directly or be tricked out even by simple indirect questions, I would very much like to see the results. And if they showed that I am totally off the mark in my fears, I would certainly stop worrying about Obama winning the nomination, and sit back and say: “Let the best person win”. But until someone can convince me that my fears are unfounded, I’m going to be worrying my head off at what I consider the very real prospect of the presidency staying in Republican hands. Even more dangerous hands than those of George Bush. How cruel would it be of the political gods if this is what they have decided will be the last component of Bush’s worst-of-all-time-so-far legacy? That he so polluted our body politic that he left the country only with Republican choices who were so much worse even than himself.

For the record, TNR’s Noam Scheiber sees two paths to an Obama nomination. One, Obama wins Iowa convincingly (by five points or more), in which case Edwards is done, and Obama consolidates the anti-Clinton votes and goes on to beat Clinton. Two, the Iowa caucus results in an inconclusive muddle:

An inconclusive muddle actually benefits Obama. The reason is that a muddle kills Edwards, who needs the kind of fundraising and free-media boomlet that only a clean victory can provide. And without Edwards in the race, Obama consolidates the anti-Hillary vote, which nudges him over the top in what’s now a dead-even race in New Hampshire, makes things look pretty good for him in South Carolina (where he’s been closing but still has to convince some African-Americans he can win), and generally gives him the upper hand for the nomination.

According to Scheiber’s analysis, if I don’t want to see an Obama nomination, I need to hope for “Hillary wins by more than a point or two, in which case the race is basically over”, or “Edwards wins convincingly and Obama is third, in which case Obama is probably done and Hillary and Edwards duke it out”.

For the next few days, all the goddesses and saints who listen to me on a regular basis are going to be at the receiving end of a lot of beseeching on behalf of the second scenario, and failing that, the first.