First of all, terribly sorry about the triple post; the draft screen twice showed all my text, and then most of it disappeared upon publication. It would be wonderful to be able to edit or delete a post. --S

Whatever happens today in the Keystone State, it is extremely likely that at some point in the next few weeks the Clinton campaign will realize that winning the nomination is not realistically possible and Senator Clinton will concede and pledge her support to Barack Obama. Everyone who’s been following this extraordinary and exhausting race, will need to take a quick breather, perhaps a couple days at the beach or the softball field, and then turn to the matter at hand: uniting the Democratic Party, winning the Presidency, and creating workable majorities in Congress.

Some thoughts on what some of the major tasks will be:

1. Recapturing Floridian and Michigander Hearts: Obama, and the Party, are going to need to show a good deal of extra special love to these two prodigal states, whose voters (in contrast to their elected officials) are justifiably aggrieved that they did not get the same opportunity to participate in the primary process. In addition to the actual resentment at the party, and Clinton-fanned resentment at Obama, there is a failure in these to states to conduct the voter registration and organization-building that went on during the contested primaries in other states, and that provides the Democrats with important advantages for November.

It strikes me that the answers to Florida and Michigan lie mostly in Barack spending lots of time in both places, and spending heavily on organizational work. But it would be great to see Barack, Hillary and Howard Dean take it on the road in both states – appearing with local leaders most associated with the states’ illicit primary efforts (e.g., Gov. Granholm in Michigan, and Senator Nelson in Florida). A commitment from Dean to work to rationalize the primary process going forward – "so that these voters will not have been frustrated in vain" – would be helpful.

2.  Crafting a Tactically Sound and Principled Response to the GE Funding Question. Obama has properly declined to address whether he will opt out of public funding until the nomination is decided. Like many other Obama supporters, I firmly believe he should not agree to public funding, which would (1) deprive Obama’s supporters of what they have redefined as political participation, contributions from very large numbers of small donors, (2) deprive Obama of one of his most significant tactical and organizational advantages (people who have contributed money then tend to feel ‘invested’ and to want to contribute in other ways as well); (3) leave Obama open to attacks from outside Republican groups that are likely to be extremely nasty and well-funded (while O would have the DNC and his own groups, their ability to protect him will be much less nimble); (4) accede to pressure from McCain that stems more from his own poor, and at times legally dodgy, fundraising status than from any principle. Obama has argued that his campaign has created a "parallel public financing system" by relying on large numbers of small donors. And he is right. But to amplify that point – and to counter what will surely come as a major attack from McCain for foregoing public financing, Obama should consider a self-imposed limit on large donations – perhaps limiting contributions for the GE to $1300, or half of the legal limit.

3.  Preventing Mindless and Reflexively Right-Wing Political Media from Controlling the Debate. Obama is a much stronger and more dynamic candidate than McCain, and 2008 shows all signs of being a great year for Democrats. But Obama’s biggest risk is being dragged into a media echo chamber in which right-wing slurs and assaults are endlessly repeated and thereby rendered credible. (Imagine weeks after weeks of the ABC debate). John Kerry experienced something like this last time. Although Obama has far more charisma than either of the last two Democratic candidates, his race and non-European name will open up attacks that were not used on those two patrician veterans. (Although recall that even Kerry was tinged with "foreignness" – specifically, Frenchness). Obama also has huge advantages Kerry lacked, including running in a period in which there appears to be somewhat lessened public receptivity to jingoism and fear-mongering (if only because, with Bush, we’ve seen that jingos and fear-mongers are often poor leaders); a more mature internet that provides a basis for organizing the progressive community, and a mass of highly organized, highly motivated supporters. He is going to have to develop a comprehensive, proactive strategy for shutting down or minimizing what will surely be efforts to ignite media slurstorms. In addition to Obama’s quite effective use of the "same old politics" theme, perhaps that strategy will involve some mixture of boycotting Fox-like outlets; engaging the public’s distaste for gotcha politics, and harnessing his supporters’ voices and market power.