NYT: "Carrying primary scars into the general election"

[AZBlue]

Convention fights often spell ruin for a party. The 1980 experience for Democrats — as well as a fight in 1968, and one in 1976 for Republicans — all suggest that a bruising primary carried through the summer can contribute to defeat in November.

Today, nervous Democrats are worried that history will repeat itself as Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who lags in delegates and the popular vote, has refused to concede the nomination to Senator Barack Obama. Despite the increasing rancor of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton says she is staying in until the voting is over.

“There are interesting patterns of convention fights weakening the parties going into the election,” said Ted Widmer, a presidential historian at Brown. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen this year. All the issues favor the Democrats. There’s a wobbly economy, the war in Iraq, and huge numbers of Democrats are ready to go vote for anyone but the Republican nominee. It would take considerable effort by the Democratic Party to lose this election.”

In the case of Mr. Carter, many analysts say he would have lost anyway, even without a primary fight. The economy was mired in “stagflation,” Americans were held hostage in Iran and his approval ratings were in the low 30s. A primary challenge was almost inevitable, and an independent, John Anderson, was also drawn into the race.

Still, it could not have helped Mr. Carter that a prominent member of his own party took him on, or that Mr. Kennedy left the convention with a defiant vow that “the dream shall never die.”

“What would hurt is if we had three or four months of escalating negative attacks and a huge fight over Michigan and Florida,” Mr. Shrum said. “We could have a situation where we set gender and race against each other, and we could lose the unlosable election in the bonfire of the vanities.”

Some Democrats fear just such a trajectory.

“This contest will get even more contentious, and there will be more charges and countercharges,” Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore’s campaign in 2000 and is neutral in this race, said after Mr. Clinton told Democrats last week to “saddle up.”

“People were excited; now they’re exhausted,” Ms. Brazile said. “In the beginning, they liked one candidate and respected the other; now they love one and hate the other.”

While intraparty squabbles can toughen a candidate, they can also provide ammunition for the other side.

“The Republicans are not asleep,” said Paul Kirk, who was chairman of the Democratic Party from 1985 to 1989 and was the political director for Mr. Kennedy in 1980. “They’ll use all that stuff for cannon fodder.”

Mr. Kirk said that was the case in 1984, when Gary Hart branded Walter F. Mondale the candidate of “special interests,” a phrase that was used against him after he won the nomination.

Mr. Hart, who was the candidate of “new ideas,” recalled the difficulties of patching up the party, especially with some of his supporters — who, he said, stayed home instead of casting a vote for Mr. Mondale.

“I think they just didn’t feel he had the ideas about the future I had,” Mr. Hart said, an edge in his voice nearly 25 years later. “Mondale wasn’t able to close the sale.”

Mr. Mondale, who was running against a popular incumbent, Mr. Reagan, lost 49 states.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/us/politics/01fight.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Senator Clinton, are you listening? This is from a newspaper that endorsed you!