The Emperors Have No Clothes: The Democrats and Strip Poker

The two remaining Republican presidential candidates, Mike Huckabee and John McCain, and the two remaining Democrat presidential candidates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, at this stage of the nominating process can be viewed as allegorical card games. Huckabee and McCain are playing Old Maid. Clinton and Obama are playing a malodorously public game of strip poker.

There are many organized and individual strategies manifesting themselves on the eve of the Ohio and Texas primaries. The two primaries that could very well decide the end of Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the Texas primary, a registered Republican voter can vote in the Democrat primary and in Ohio a Republican voter can do the same if that is how they voted in the last primary, but this is a historically loosely enforced rule.

The emerging strategy of Republicans and conservatives is to cast a vote for Clinton in the primaries in hopes of keeping her campaign a viable ongoing concern. There are several compelling reasons for this methodology.

If Clinton can win either Ohio or Texas, or both, it will extend her campaign and give her hope of building momentum for the later primaries which could possibly propel her into the Democrat convention. It is at the convention that the playing ground becomes equal again and thus bolsters her chances of capturing the nomination. The Republican strategist believes this is a winning situation for their party because, with statistical and polling confirmation, she is the most beatable candidate in the general election.

If Clinton and Obama both make it to the convention, and if they are very close in delegate count, the Super Delegates come into play as the deciding factor. If it does come down to the convention to decide the nominee, it will most likely have a splitting effect on the party and if the candidate is selected by the Super Delegate vote, it will most assuredly split the party. The Democrat party will try to avoid this at all costs and will push aggressively for a brokered candidate deal before the convention. The Republicans prefer this outcome because of its capability to split the Democrat party if the Super Delegates are the deciding factor.

The Republican Party will benefit bountifully if the Democrat nominating process can be as scandalously protracted as long as possible. As the Republican candidates are playing a benign game of political Old Maid, the Democrats are playing a nasty game of political strip poker. Every negative word, comment or accusation is highlighted in the media. And every word, comment, accusation, and quote in the media by either candidate about the other rips another parcel of fabric from their opponent to expose another piece of unsavory flesh that the candidate would rather the masses not be witness to.

By the time the Ohio and Texas primaries are completed and if Clinton is still in the game, both candidates will be reduced to their under garments and shoes. If a deal is not brokered and they both make it to the convention, by the time they get to the convention, they will be standing stark naked for the world to see every conceivable flaw, blemish, shortcoming, lack of ethos that they have exposed about each other. All this while the Republican candidate will be fully clothed, relaxed and prepared with their play book for the general election written all over the naked body of their opponent before the truly ugly process heads into the final stretch.