The Fallback

Writing for the New York Times, Matt Bai provides a savvy analysis of the Democrats’ race for the 2008 presidential nomination, as it pertains to Virginia’s Mark Warner. “The Fallback” is worth the time to read.

“...The Democratic field now emerging, on the other hand, is looking a lot like Gladys Knight and the Pips -- and you can guess who gets to be Gladys. The party's insiders, expecting Clinton to be a virtually unstoppable force, seem to be falling in line behind her, which means there will be only so much additional money and organization left over for those who would challenge her. But more than anything, Democrats will tell you that they are desperate to win next time around, and a lot of pragmatic activists and voters worry that Clinton is simply too divisive a candidate to take back the White House. (In a Gallup poll in January, 51 percent of respondents said they would definitely not vote for her.) These Democrats are actively shopping for a candidate who can derail Clinton before the party, as they see it, dooms itself to yet another near miss. And so the conventional thinking holds that there may only be room for two serious candidates by the time the primaries roll around: Hillary and the anti-Hillary. What Mark Warner needs to do now, just as his rivals do, is to begin making the case, as subtly as possible and before most of the country has even started to think about 2008, that the senator from New York is the wrong candidate for the party — and that he's the only guy who can stop her.”