Michael Shaw wrote a thoughtful response to my latest Huffington Post item. Seriously, it's a great read and makes a lot of sense.
I stand by my view, though, that it seems like a strange time for the progressive blogotubes to remain neutral. Party unity and loyalty never stopped the blogs from favoring Lamont over Lieberman, or Donna Edwards over Al Wynn. Unity never stopped the blogs from hammering the DLC wing of the party. Unity never stopped the blogs from going after otherwise decent Democrats who supported the wrong side of FISA, Bankruptcy, Iran, Iraq, Military Commissions, etc.
So why now?
We're all going to hug and make-up once there's a presumptive nominee anyway. That's the way it always works. Four years ago, Howard Dean supporters shifted their enthusiasm over to Senator Kerry. In 1992, I published articles in favor of Paul Tsongas but when President Clinton became the presumptive nominee, I switched my support and ended up a feverish defender of all things Clinton for eight years. And I suspect the same thing will happen this year if Senator Obama drops out. Vice versa for supporters of Senator Clinton.
Even the primary process itself is designed to behave like shifting sands. Superdelegates, for example, are out there endorsing candidates all over the place -- but when there's eventually a presumptive nominee, the superdelegates will flip over and support that nominee with whole-hearted enthusiasm and zeal. That's the system even though it's a screwy one.
(On the delegate tip, by the way, a brokered convention is never going to happen. We'll have a presumptive nominee long before then. It would be party suicide -- on either side of this thing. The party, quite simply, won't allow it.)
So that's all I have to say about that. My support for Senator Obama notwithstanding, if Senator Clinton wins the nomination, we'll have to reconcile her Iraq votes, her posture on censorship, her suspicious campaign tactics, and all the rest. But we've done it before and we'll do it again.