I hope Cliff voted twice.
When the movers and shakers of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party got together in Washington last year for their annual conference, attendees were stunned by breaking news: New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg had just announced he would shed his GOP registration. Many lamented that the mayor appeared on a path to a third-party presidential run and would create a Ralph Nader spoiler scenario again for Dems in 2008.
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Though the poll showed that progressives have united around Obama, it also revealed vexing issues the party has to contend with going into the presidential election: an increasingly long and bitter fight between Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton, lingering antipathy toward Clinton, the fracas over whether to seat delegates from Michigan and Florida, and the likelihood that party superdelegates will decide the nomination.
A sobering 41 percent of the 413 conventioneers who participated in the straw poll said they would feel "dissatisfied" if Clinton were the nominee, compared with 86 percent who said an Obama candidacy would satisfy them. Seventy-two percent said they would most like to see Obama as the party's nominee, and 69 percent believed that Obama had a better shot at defeating presumed GOP nominee Sen. John McCain in the fall.