DEMOCRATIC PARTY v. CONVENTIONAL WISDOM

It’s bound to go down as the persistent narrative of this campaign: time and time again, the Conventional Wisdom has been proven wrong by the efforts of the candidates and will of the voters.

The current Conventional Wisdom holds that the longer the Democratic primary continues, the worse it is for the Democratic Party. But this “Wisdom” may be as faulty as Hillary’s “inevitability” argument or the post-mortems that streamed in after Iowa. In fact, this battle royale could prove beneficial for the Party as well as the eventual nominee, thanks to the abundance of free media, favorable focus on Democratic policy issues and training effect this extended race will have on the eventual winner.

It may sound like a stretch, but improbable scenarios are the hallmark of the 2008 Democratic primary.

De facto incumbents
A common concern is that Democratic fundraisers will face dry coffers in the general election, having tapped every resource during the primary. But here’s where the Fourth Estate comes into play: free press.

Our national obsession with this primary has made Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the most common images on news desks from coast to coast. If ever two campaigns didn’t need free press, it’s these two –record-breaking fundraisers with seemingly endless reservoirs of cash. But this year the press is free and copious. The Democrats monopolized pre-Super Tuesday coverage: even a certain spouse garnered twice as much airtime as the top Republican newsmakers, and Sen. Obama alone won more coverage than all Republicans combined.

In this incumbentless election, Democrats’ dominance of news broadcasts makes them the most familiar faces in America – de facto incumbents, if you will – which gives them a clear advantage.

Re-framing the discussion
Even the politically-averse can’t avoid being bombarded by Democratic talking points or ad-nauseam dissection of minute policy differences. With the Republican race effectively concluded, coverage of Republicans – and therefore Republican ideas – is secondary.

When the main event features two senators of converse personalities but nearly identical voting records, minor policy differences are magnified – and the gap between them becomes the middle. To the extent that voters adjust to this new politics, they, too, tend to move in that direction.

The result is an inadvertent reversal of something master political strategists such as Newt Gingrich and Karl Rove spent years to create as they endeavored to frame the discourse in such a way that Democratic ideas seemed unviable and irrelevant. But as we agonize over which healthcare plan is truly “universal” or which candidate will most zealously punish corporations, over tax hikes for the rich or bailouts for the working class, and over who will remove forces from Iraq the fastest, these ideas get mainstreamed.

Buoyed by a near-complete collapse of the Neo-Conservative agenda, Democratic policies are emerging from the shadows. From the environment to the economy to foreign policy, American voters are giving progressive ideas a good, hard listen.

The wild card phenomenon
Finally, no exercise in handicapping would be complete without a sports analogy. It’s no secret that a political campaign is a lot like a football game, won with an impenetrable defense, a brutal ground game and incremental advances into an opponent’s territory, ultimately building that all-important momentum.

Sports fans will attest that teams emerging from hard-fought contests often perform better in their next round than teams that have rested or coasted to victory. As dramatically witnessed in last month’s Super Bowl, where a wild card emerged victorious over the most successful team ever, it turns out that rest & relaxation are no match for consistency, precision and stamina cultivated by ongoing competition. And few campaigns demonstrate more clearly the importance of timing and momentum than this 2008 Democratic primary.

Heading into the general election, many predict that rest and wagon-circling will do Republicans good. But Democrats would be wise to consider the 2007 NFL season and the triumph of the wild card.

American voters, rabid sports fans that we are, love a good upset – especially if it means overturning the Conventional Wisdom. After all, the only thing we know is how much we don’t know; the only constant is change. And isn’t change what Democrats seek in 2008?

Of course, as we approach “Mini-Tuesday” on March 4, Conventional Wisdom maintains that the race is nearing its end. Which, according to the narrative of this primary, may bode well for Sen. Clinton. And, more importantly, for the Democratic Party.