We Democrats are balancing on a live wire and need to take decisive and immediate action after the primaries are finished to ensure the nomination battle does not make it all the way to Denver. That, surely, would cost us the general election in November.

I am writing today in strong support of a plan I’ve been reading about for the past week to end this primary process with transparency and fairness. If you haven’t already done so please check out my recent appearance on MSNBC (here comes the plug!) where I argued this prolonged primary process is good for Democrats and especially good for Obama. I want to see him tough and tested in the primary so he can be ready to stand against the crap that McCain will have coming in the general. If Clinton only managed to throw the kitchen sink, McCain and his doofi will surely throw the sink, cabinets, bathroom fixtures and the family minivan.

So, how does this all end neatly?

Phil Bredesen, the current Governor of Tennessee, has proposed a plan to hold a superdelegate primary immediately following the final party primaries in South Dakota and Montana on June 3, 2008. The plan, which Bredesen outlined in a recent New York Times editorial, makes sense because it brings closure to the process and pressures superdelegates to act swiftly in casting their votes.

Here is some more from the New York Times:

Here’s what our party should do: schedule a superdelegate primary. In early June, after the final primaries, the Democratic National Committee should call together our superdelegates in a public caucus.

Of the 795 superdelegates, over 40 percent have not announced which candidate they are supporting; I’m one of them. While it would be comfortable for me to delay making a decision until the convention, the reality is that I’ll have all the information I reasonably need in June, and so will my colleagues across the country.

There will have been more than 20 debates, and more than 28 million Americans will have made their choices and voted. Any remaining uncertainty in our nominee will then lie with the superdelegates, and it will be time for us to make our choices and get on with the business of electing a president.

This is not a proposal for a mini-convention with all the attendant hoopla and sideshows. It is a call for a tight, two-day business-like gathering, whose rules would be devised by the national committee, of the leaders of our party from all over America to resolve a serious problem. There would be a final opportunity for the candidates to make their arguments to these delegates, and then one transparent vote.

This is our electoral process at work in a way the founders would be proud of.

The formal nomination itself obviously awaits the Denver convention. However, if most of the superdelegates were to come to the table in June, there could be a clear conclusion, and enormous moral pressure on the candidates to accept the result and move on.

Some might raise reasonable concerns about the cost and logistics of assembling these superdelegates. But those would be manageable; this is a business meeting of a few hundred people almost three months from now, not an extended, cast-of-thousands convention.

Possibly the nominee will become clear by June and such a gathering will no longer be needed. That’s fine: it can be canceled or turned into more of a formality. The chance to have our nominee clearly identified in June as opposed to late August far outweighs any logistical or financial concerns.

Much ado been made about the rules that govern the Democrats’ nominating process. The angst that been expressed from many people comes from the feeling that, after all of the campaigning and votes cast, there would be a chance that superdelegates could make a decision that would seemingly overturn the “will of the people.”

My biggest concern is that with over three months between the final primaries and Denver, all parties will have too much time to meddle, court and lure the uncommitted superdelegates and as a result we could end with a stalemate or worse– a result that is seen by many as tainted.

The superdelegates have had over a year to study the candidates and analyze their candidacies. After the South Dakota and Montana results are reported and the campaigning officially ends, the ball moves squarely into their courts and they must immediately get off the fence and pledge their support.

We all know there is a lot at stake in the coming weeks. Without a superdelegate primary, I fear we stand a good chance of squandering an opportunity to win this election and change the direction of our country. However, worse than losing an election, we stand to lose the trust of millions of voters from around the country and that will prove fatal for the future of our great party.

Just watch it, it is more than worth your time:

Says the New York Times:

There are moments — increasingly rare in risk-abhorrent modern campaigns — when politicians are called upon to bare their fundamental beliefs. In the best of these moments, the speaker does not just salve the current political wound, but also illuminates larger, troubling issues that the nation is wrestling with.

Inaugural addresses by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt come to mind, as does John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech on religion, with its enduring vision of the separation between church and state. Senator Barack Obama, who has not faced such tests of character this year, faced one on Tuesday. It is hard to imagine how he could have handled it better.

Iraq is the defining issue between Sens. Clinton and Obama in this race.

Hillary Clinton, along with many of her Senate colleagues (on both sides of the aisle) voted to authorize force, while some, like Barack Obama stood up strongly against it. Yes, it is in the past, but that is the choice that we have in this election. It’s about judgement.

Some (namely the Clinton campaign) point to the fact that Sen. Obama wasn’t in the Senate at the time, so his opposition was somehow not real and it should be brushed off and discounted.

I believe that Sen. Obama’s judgment was sound and his reasoning was correct when he spoke out against the war in 2002. Listen to the speech that he made back then.

Today, Clinton is bashing Obama because he didn’t do enough after entering Congress to end the war. This is just a silly argument. Watch this video that the Obama campaign put out today - it tells the story of Clinton’s bad judgment when it comes to Iraq.

Hilarious.

As now-Republican nominee John McCain heads back to New Hampshire, we turn back the clock to just 2 months ago, when Senator McCain’s triumph over his opponents was far from assured. From DoubleSpeak’s coverage of the New Hampshire Primary for the Huffington Post.

Originally posted on Off The Bus.

Let me just say I have been a big fan of Paul Krugman’s for quite a while now. Even prior to September 11, Dr. Krugman had the Bush administration figured out for what they were. And in the insanity of 2002 and 2003 he was one of the very few mainstream voices that recognized the dangerous path we were pursuing. But this election season, Krugman has taken a turn away from economics (his specialty) and its intersection with politics. He’s repeatedly inserted himself into the race as an opponent of Barack Obama over his health care plan.

I understand his argument and even agree with parts of it, but Krugman has now crossed the line from Obama critic to Clinton shill. Witness his op-ed today about the Fed and financial markets. It’s full of interesting observations about the economy that help a layman like me understand this increasingly chaotic and complex element of our national debate. But he ends the whole thing with a non sequitur Clinton talking point:

But hope is not a plan.

At least we can now put all his past denials behind us and acknowledge that for all intents and purposes Paul Krugman is now a Clinton surrogate.

By DoubleSpeak guest contributor Todd Henkin

At a local pub the other night, I struck up conversation with a few raggedy dressed guys sitting near me. One looked to be about seventy years old and the other maybe twenty-five. Though of completely different ages, they had a similar look in clothes, in mannerisms, and in the dark circles under their eyes. My friend nudged me and told me they came often. They were coming from the Veteran’s Hospital nearby. They drained their beers over little words before we started speaking, eyes pasted on the television, four elbows on the beer-wet counter.

We were watching the national news, a rare break from sports at an Irish pub. This was evidence of a new interest in America; politics. These primaries have been like the NCAA tournament as we approach March-Madness with no clear candidate. The sport has especially intensified on the democratic side as the two candidates spar with each other in training for the championship fight. Each is secretly throwing extra power behind their bruising body shots. There are usually no knockouts in sparring bouts, but recently we are seeing something different.

Leaning in to hear our conversation, the younger veteran decided to join us with a comment. He told us he’d just gotten back from two tours in Iraq and found it to be a completely useless and un-win-able war. He said he’d vote for whoever would get us out quickest. Having identified himself on the Democratic side, we then pushed him to a decision between Clinton and Obama. His answer struck up a new topic. Both he and the older veteran agreed that Obama seemed like a worth candidate except with one major drawback. “He’ll never make it through a full term if he wins. Someone will definitely shoot him. They always assassinate guys like him. They’ll find a way.”

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