Let begin the General Election Primary!

Democratic primary candidates should now campaign against the Republican Party turning this period into the General Election Primary. For the remainder of the Democratic primary campaign, starting right now, both Democratic candidates should turn and immediately train their fire on the presumptive Republican nominee.

In addition to the essential brilliance of such a plan, the General Election Primary resolves a number of practical problems, and may provide a blueprint for future primary contests.

How would this work?

Starting immediately, both Clinton and Obama should begin to contest the general election. Each Democratic candidate will ignore the other Democratic candidate, and each will campaign solely against the Republican platform, that party's presumptive nominee, his positions and ideas, and his legislative and oratorical history.

There are scores of benefits for Democrats from a General Election Primary.

Democrats can stop the internecine struggles. The Democratic candidates will stop sniping at each other. This change alone will lift the entire party. New cause for compromise may even be birthed here. The growing ire between the two camps has caused one camp to question the other campaign's legitimacy, with reciprocity in the question the of fitness of the first. Both are false questions. Democrats can move on, so they must.

The two campaigns will cease to provide made to order sound bites for the opposition general election commercials. Enough snapshots have been produced already to be sure. I do not take this issue terribly seriously. Most pundits agree, however, that it is a pretty common practice, and this year will be no different. Democrats can do better, so they must.

The Republican nominee is currently basically getting a free ride. Many pundits think that candidate is fairly squandering an opportunity by closely linking himself with the evangelical right and the neo-cons. Maybe. But this period is equally an opportunity squandered for Democrats, inasmuch as the overwhelming majority of voters from all political stripes have rejected the approaches of both of those groups as guiding principles. Highlighting the policy linkages of the presumptive Republican nominee and keeping him off-balance would be an incalculably much better use of the Democratic candidates' time and money than a continued discussion of the nearly non-existent policy differences between them. Democrats can be more effective, so they must.

Very importantly, the General Election Primary provides the voracious and bored -- and thus dangerous - media with something more substantive and interesting to cover.

One of the main problems in the current Democratic primary -- illustrated on The Daily Show's nightly video collage -- is that the 24 hour media cycle is bored. NOTHING happens all day. The OReilly-Olberman Twins are more dangerous when they are bored, if that is possible. The O-Twins actively misinterpret everything and NOTHING when they are not bored. They fabricate outright about NOTHING when they are bored. I like Keith Olberman and his Miami Vice-style "news" production much better when he is not also engaged in his dramatic teary-eyed Sally Struthers "The Children!" imitation, or his hollow and hallowed "How Could You?" euro-indigation.

Currently, a bored but ambitious reporter somewhere gleans and actively strips from its context some trivial one-phrase quotation about NOTHING from the news-free black hole. The MSNBC-NYT-CNN-WP-FOX-LAT-NBC-ABC-PBS ©Newsglomerate then reports slash repeats that context-free NOTHING ad nauseum over the next 48 hours, or until the next too-clever columnist diverts their ferret-sized attention span to the next phrase. A General Election Primary will provide the media a surfeit of appropriate material. As an editorial note, I love watching talking heads. I do not find it productive for the Democrats right now. Democrats can provide more substance, so they must.

Most importantly, the entire electorate will get to experience and evaluate the strategies and approaches, the inventiveness, the creativeness, and the effectiveness each Democratic candidate can muster against the Republican candidate. What an invaluable bit of data to have! Consider the General Election Primary an internship, with real on-the-campaign-trail training for the general election. All hiring-managers would revel to review a potential employee's work for three months before hiring him, but the factors arrayed against that option in business are many. In this case, however, the candidates will be doing exactly the same job as they are now for the same pay, but facing a new, more salient, and more legitimate target. Consider further the fantastic positive impact of two big guns pounding incessantly on the opposing machine. Democrats can innovate, so they must.

It is my observation that Obama is a great speaker on great issues. He is relatively less effective with wonk-speak. Clinton, on the other hand, does not inspire in the same manner with grand themes of hope and inspiration, but she is very effective at wonk-speak. Democrats should look forward to an experience mixing these ingredients in a simultaneous general race with the presumptive Republican nominee. Democrats can evaluate, so they must.

Begin the General Election Primary!

Democrats
    can
        compete
            with
    the opposition,
        so
            they must.