Why Democrats lose in Massachusetts (a.k.a. Tuesday [I refuse to call it super])

Alright it's time for my official inaugural post on The Cynical Hammer. The "hey, I'm here" and copied from facebook notes posts don't count to me.

Well, seeing as there are roughly 83 primaries tomorrow (I haven't bothered to count so that may be the tiniest overstatement) I figure that should probably be the basis of this rant. That said, let's talk about Massachusetts.

Its my home state so I feel somewhat safe in talking about it and acting like I know a thing or two about the political system. My father was involved in the political realm sometimes and I met a fair number of politicians while I was growing up. My first job was delivering the Sunday paper to Eddie O'Brien (nepotism at its finest). He was the father of Shannon O'Brien the former Massachusetts State Treasurer and 2002 Democratic gubernatorial candidate. She lost that election to none other than Mitt Romney.

Now I like Shannon, and the whole O'Brien family for that matter, they were always nice to me when I was growing up. But I remember watching the 2002 primary and wondering how the Democratic candidates could be so stupid. The Democratic primary between Shannon and her opponent (who I can't remember and don't care enough to look up) was fairly close and it was brutal. It was like watching a no-holds-barred grudge match. The campaign got dirty and fast.

But the tactics work. They galvanize their supporters so that they couldn't dream of supporting a different candidate. Unfortunately if their candidate loses, they often can't support a candidate who has said so many horrible things about the candidate they loved. This drives a lot of voters to vote for the other party (if its a moderate candidate and Mitt Romney was) or to not vote. That's how Mitt Romney won the governorship in the Democratic bastion of Massachusetts and its how the Republicans can win in a country that has an almost visceral reaction to George W. Bush recently.

Clinton and Obama need to get their acts together. By the end of tomorrow I expect the Republicans will be more or less unified behind one candidate (probably McCain, but Romney could still pull an upset if the stars line up just right) and the Democrats will still be ripping each other apart. That means the Republican front runner can start framing himself as a moderate again, appealing to the independents and moderate Democrats, while the Democrats are still fighting over their liberal base. If the Democrats can't cut the infighting before the convention the Republicans are going to have an almost guaranteed win in November.