Various articles during this campaign — including some in Salon — have attempted to tie Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to that outdated vision of the Windy City. But over the past 25 years, Chicago politics has evolved. The city is still divided along racial lines, and other layers of government here — from the Illinois Statehouse to the Cook County government — feature as much grandstanding and as many ad hominem attacks as anywhere. But anyone who doubts that a toxic political environment can be overcome should look to Chicago. Consensus has become more conspicuous than conflict. Deal-making is more important than showboating. In short, the city’s politics has become post-partisan. It’s a concept that should be familiar to anyone who has followed Obama’s presidential bid.

A line from one of Obama’s stump speeches sounds very much like words that could have been spoken in his adopted hometown at the end of the 1980s: “This election is about whether we settle for the same divisions and distractions and drama that passes for politics today, or whether we reach for a politics of common sense, and innovation — a shared sacrifice and shared prosperity.”

They don’t sing “Kumbaya” in City Council meetings, but a general sense of civility prevails. In the same chamber that during the Council Wars featured endless parliamentary maneuvers and more than a few fistfights, policies are ratified in generally dull proceedings; details are usually ironed out internally before going public. Ideas hatched at City Hall are floated with community activists, business leaders and aldermen first — and woe onto any mayoral staffer who presents a plan to the mayor that did not receive the full sign-off before making it to his desk.

It’s a far cry from the Chicago politics Barack Obama first experienced when he moved to town in 1984. While this city hasn’t been divided along party lines since the New Deal — everybody’s a Democrat — racial divisions have largely defined Chicago politics. In the 1980s, during the administration of Harold Washington, the city’s first black mayor, racial animosities were at their height. In his 1995 autobiography, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama tells the story of an asbestos removal problem at the Altgeld Gardens housing project and how the residents came together to make sure the problem was dealt with and that the Chicago Housing Authority heard about other problems in the public housing community.

But just as momentum was shifting toward dramatic change at Altgeld that addressed a wide range of resident concerns, a public event featuring housing residents and the CHA commissioner devolved into a comical media circus that featured the commissioner grappling with a pregnant Altgeld resident for control of a microphone, then the commissioner sprinting out of the hall to his limo, to audience jeers. This led some to conclude that the entire event was set up not by Obama and the CHA residents, but by Mayor Washington’s intra-party political nemesis Alderman Edward “Fast Eddie” Vrdolyak, looking to embarrass the mayor.

Chicago in 2008 is a city far more hospitable to community organizers like the young Barack Obama. Community leaders have real power in Chicago today — and they have the ability to raise funds not only from City Hall, but from a vibrant philanthropic community that includes heavyweight donors like the Chicago Community Trust and the MacArthur Foundation.

Obama knows about Chicago’s political evolution very well. In his 1995 autobiography, Obama noted how the petty divisions of the Council Wars made community action difficult — even with African-American mayors in charge for most of the 1980s. Obama’s wife, Michelle, worked in the Daley administration, in his Department of Planning and Development. It has been during the Daley administration, which began in 1989 and will never end, that Chicago has changed. Michelle saw firsthand the transformation of city government to its new model of consensus governing. Obama’s team includes Daley stalwarts like Valerie Jarrett, a possible White House chief of staff, and John Rogers, a major fundraiser. And Obama’s top political aide — David Axelrod — also happens to be Mayor Daley’s prime political advisor.

But with Obama’s nomination now all but assured and the general election rapidly approaching, Obama’s post-partisan politics remains largely undefined. It has led detractors — many of them loyal, liberal Democrats — to question whether there is a commitment to progressive policies behind the mantras of hope and change and to wonder if he’s a bit too naive, too academic and too “Dukakis” to win — or if he wins, to govern effectively.

Obama addressed this characterization directly during the MTV/MySpace Forum in November 2007: “The politics of hope … is not based on us all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya,’” Obama said. “It is based on the idea that instead of people operating on the basis of fear, instead of people operating on the basis of division, I want people to come together and focus on the problems that we face: healthcare, education, global warming. We are not going to be able to solve those problems if we don’t talk about them honestly.”

Still doubts persist. And no one has expressed them more forcefully and consistently than New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. In a March 3 column, one of more than a dozen about Obama he’s written this year, Krugman says, “Obama, instead of emphasizing the harm done by the other party’s rule, likes to blame both sides for our sorry political state. And in his speeches he promises not a rejection of Republicanism but an era of postpartisan unity.”

Here’s the specific danger that Krugman envisions: “If Mr. Obama does make it to the White House, will he actually deliver the transformational politics he promises? Like the faith that he can win an overwhelming electoral victory, the faith that he can overcome bitter conservative opposition to progressive legislation rests on very little evidence — one productive year in the Illinois State Senate, after the Democrats swept the state, and not much else.”

Krugman has a point. Despite the rhetoric, it’s hard to find evidence of what post-partisanship means to Barack Obama in his legislative record. Obama likes to note the way he’s worked with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., on security issues and with Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to create a federal database of government spending. But on a range of issues, such as ethics reform, Obama’s been a valuable soldier for the Democratic side, even helping Democrats to take on John McCain.

So like everyone else, I’m left wondering just what post-partisanship means to Barack Obama and how it could possibly work as long as the Republican Party has enough votes to stop a Democratic president from enacting his or her ideas. But having worked in Chicago for Mayor Richard M. Daley, I would like to suggest, gently, to the senator and his staff that an imperfect, but helpful model for post-partisanship can be found right here in his hometown and in a brand of politics a world away from “Kumbaya.”

When I arrived in Chicago in 1995, I expected hardball. I had just taken part in a brutal four-way U.S. Senate contest in Virginia featuring Democratic Sen. Chuck Robb, Republican nominee Oliver North, former Democratic Gov. (and the nation’s first elected African-American governor) Doug Wilder and former state Attorney General Marshall Coleman. Having worked for the failed campaign of Wilder, looking for a new job was not easy. The Democrats had just been booted from power in Congress, making it a mini-Great Depression for Democratic political operatives seeking work. And to make matters worse, I was a conspicuous supporter of a Democrat who had run as an independent. It was an opportune time to get out of Virginia and the Washington, D.C., area and head to the last place in America where Democrats retained a stranglehold on power.

I landed in Chicago right before the city elections, which always take place in the dead of winter and several months after regularly scheduled elections for Congress and statewide posts. That was my first tip-off that the city of Chicago had its own customs and mores — and the powers that be were eager to keep it that way. In Chicago, politics isn’t a spectator sport, and if you don’t pay enough attention to know how to participate, that’s all on you.

In the course of a haphazard job search, somehow my résumé found its way to the Axelrod & Associates fax machine just as Mayor Daley’s speechwriter had decided that he’d like to move into a policy position in the mayor’s next term. For all the talk about patronage hiring in Chicago city government, my experience — a complete outsider with no history in the city and no ties to any powerful person in it — could best be described as a mixture of 10 percent merit and 90 percent good timing.

After a few rounds of interviews, Mayor Daley offered me my introduction to Chicago politics. I only remember the first and last things that he told me that July day in his office. First, he said that national Democrats tried on several occasions to get him to endorse Chuck Robb in the 1994 Senate race. But Mayor Daley wouldn’t do it. “I’m a Doug Wilder guy,” Daley told me. It was nice to hear — not just for the respect he showed my old boss, but to receive the signal that the old Chicago of opportunistic racial division was at least in part passing from the scene.

He drove home that point with his final words to me as I exited his office, job offer in hand. “You’ll like it here,” Daley said. “There’s not a lot of partisan politics.”

That was a good thing, but writing speeches for Mayor Daley presented a few unique challenges. First, his Bridgeport accent tends to create strange sounds when applied to longer words (for example, “community” comes out sounding like “cuh-mun-ah-tee”). David Axelrod put a positive spin on it while I was interviewing for the job, saying that being a speechwriter for Daley forces you into a form of simplicity and clarity that makes you a better writer. Maybe true, but I still missed using words in the English language with three or more syllables.

The second challenge was that Daley demands full staff input into all speeches before they reach his desk. Daley, in this regard, is incredibly well-grounded for such a public person — he knows his own liabilities and relies heavily on experts to ensure that all bases are covered. Once I presented an education speech for his approval and he asked if I had run it past his education advisor — an advisor who had been hired only days earlier and whom I had not even met. When I answered no, I was subjected to a grilling that included the phrase “How dare you!” Over the top, certainly, but I never made that mistake again.

The third challenge for me was that Daley has strong beliefs about personal responsibility. He doesn’t believe that it’s the proper role of government to promise a solution for every problem — citizens have a responsibility to take care of their children, join block clubs, go to police beat meetings, run for local school councils and take ownership of their own communities. It’s a powerful message — one that defines him as a public servant and has made him an effective mayor for two decades — but it can be a difficult message to write without making the speaker sound like a scold.

I believe that this definition of post-partisanship — a return to community values in politics — works for Obama because it’s authentic. Early on, shortly after graduating from college, Obama showed a desire to create change by building coalitions, not employing media stunts or demonizing opponents. As detailed in “Dreams From My Father,” Obama’s early career as a community organizer forced him to find areas of agreement. Working to organize industrial plant workers who had lost their jobs, Obama would run into people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds, but who were experiencing the same hardships. They wanted nothing to do with each other politically, but discovered that the only way to get their jobs back was to find common ground with each other.

And again, Obama would find this common ground among parents concerned about gang activity and a lack of police presence in their community. Action required bringing these parents together, getting the local church and small businesses involved and then arranging a meeting with the district police commander. And even when the efforts failed and the action lagged, the process for change was on target. There was no magic formula for success, but rather just enough incentive to keep working it until a major success — like the opening of a job training center — convinced activists that their hard work was paying off.

Somewhere between Obama’s arrival in Chicago at the beginning of the Harold Washington administration and my entrance at the end of Richard M. Daley’s first full term in office, a sea change engulfed Chicago politics. The community-based, coalition politics of wards and blocks had overwhelmed the theatrical sideshows of the Council Wars. Much of the credit belongs to Mayor Washington for empowering community groups that had long languished — organizers like Barack Obama suddenly had a friend in City Hall eager to build the community anchors, like modernized schools, job training centers and new parks, in black communities that had for generations gone to meet Irish, Polish or even Swedish-American needs. By the time Washington won reelection in 1987, he had become a true coalition mayor with substantial support from business interests and lakefront liberals.

But there’s no question that Mayor Richard M. Daley continued this momentum and, to the surprise of many, calmed the city’s political tensions. Mayor Daley adapted to the times and recognized early that he had a great deal to gain by reaching across racial lines to build coalitions with African-American and Latino leaders. He’s now routinely reelected with more than 70 percent of the vote despite the fact that white voters comprise only about a third of the city’s voting population.

Daley’s form of post-partisanship can lead to surprising government actions that defy ideological labels. Just last month, Daley responded to a wave of murders across the city with a very non-governmental suggestion — not new gun control, not more police on the streets or new drug laws. Rather, he called on people in all Chicago communities to organize — hold block club meetings, talk to neighbors, go to police beat meetings. Daley said that the solution to violence will come from citizens taking action and demanding change — finding their own unique solutions. And when they found solutions with a chance at success, government would be glad to help them succeed.

The authentic Obama has always believed in political organization and activism — and he’s often seen politics-as-usual as the enemy of real change. In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama recounts his job interview in New York with community organizer Marty Kaufman, who wanted Obama to work for him in Chicago. After talking a bit about Obama’s background, Kaufman asked, “What do you really know about Chicago anyway?”

After some fits and starts, Obama responds: “America’s most segregated city. A black man, Harold Washington, was just elected mayor and white people don’t like it.”

What follows is an illuminating dialogue. Kaufman says that the racial division in Chicago has created a media circus and nothing is getting done. The young Obama replies, “Whose fault is that?” And Kaufman says: “It’s not a question of fault. It’s a question of whether any politician, even somebody with Harold’s talent, can do much to break the cycle. A polarized city isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a politician. Black or white.”

And that’s the precise question facing America today. Not necessarily the racial part — although this year’s Democratic primary battle raises fears the party might be going down that path. But rather, even if Obama lives up to his potential and offers America hope of real change, given the pitched partisan battles of the past two decades, can any politician, no matter how skillful, break the cycle? Or are we stuck in a permanent state of battle over questions like: How badly was John Kerry really injured in Vietnam?

Are Americans ready to shout, “Who cares?” And if so, can a politician like Barack Obama seize this sense of exhaustion and forge a new style of politics in a political company town that once excelled in, that was built on, the examination and exploitation of divisive trivia?

If this approach has worked anywhere, it’s here in Chicago. This city — seemingly a liability to Obama’s electoral hopes — is actually the best, most authentic way for Obama to explain to voters precisely why some of the prominent controversies of his campaign so far are largely beside the point.

In a city as big and diverse as Chicago, creating a working coalition requires people to put aside old rivalries and past political disputes. When controversy erupted recently over Barack Obama’s longtime association with Hyde Park neighbor and former Weather Underground member William Ayers — who is unrepentant about his radical political past and the violent acts he committed — Mayor Daley immediately came to Obama’s defense, noting that he worked with Ayers in shaping school reform programs and that Ayers is a valued member of the Chicago community.

Daley then went on to say, “I don’t condone what he did 40 years ago, but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over.” That answer may not pass the smell test in Washington, but it’s the way politics is practiced here. In Chicago, it’s more important that Ayers is the son of the former chairman of Commonwealth Edison and has become an expert in public school reform. He wants to participate at the table and he brings something to that table, so he’s taken seriously. This attitude helped former Black Panther Bobby Rush attain and hold a congressional seat. And it’s why former Students for a Democratic Society peace activist Marilyn Katz — who regularly battled Mayor Richard J. Daley, the current mayor’s father — owns a lucrative public policy P.R. firm that does a great deal of business with the city.

It’s also why the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has been judged here more for the community work performed by the Trinity United Church of Christ than for what he said in the pulpit. And it’s also why, when someone like Tony Rezko starts doing favors for you and helping you to raise money, Chicago politicians don’t immediately question his motives or check into his business dealings. In Chicago, as long as you bring something to the table, people are willing (almost eager) to ignore the less flattering dimensions of your character.

Doug Wilder, who, like California’s Jerry Brown, decided to run a city after serving as a governor, agrees that the open-seat-at-the-table style is essential to managing a modern American city — especially at a time of declining government ability to solve problems directly. Wilder, now mayor of Richmond, Va., likes to quote from Charles Landry’s landmark book “The Art of City Building,” especially a passage where Landry calls city management “more like improvised jazz than chamber music. There is experimentation, trial and error and everyone can be a leader, given a particular area of expertise. As if by some mysterious process, orchestration occurs through seemingly unwritten rules. …There is not just one conductor, which is why leadership in it’s fullest sense is so important — seemingly disparate parts have to be melded into a whole.”

Of course, Obama isn’t campaigning to lead a city, but a nation — the world’s richest, most powerful nation in a time of economic distress and lingering war. How is an open seat at the table going to improve the economy or win the war on terror? How does assembling a winning presidential campaign create a lasting coalition that can change the way the nation is governed?

The honest response is that greater activism, in and of itself, guarantees nothing. Maybe the level of civic education in America is so low that voters may be unprepared to meet this challenge. Critics might also argue that leaving a seat at the table open — and allowing a multitude of unelected leaders to emerge — opens the door to corruption.

Chicagoans would respond that the true naif is anyone who thinks that citizens who are inactive in politics — who bring nothing to the table — should share equally in the largesse of government. Politics does not reward passivity. And those who think that only the purely virtuous should be allowed to participate in public life care more about living out a grand-scale morality play than using the levers of politics to take action to build a more perfect union, or more livable city.

Also, if Obama were to embrace Chicago openly and use it as a model of change, there’s no question that it would invite Americans to place Chicago under the microscope. I live here, but believe me, I don’t want our tax rate, school system and, in early 2008, at least, level of violent crime replicated elsewhere.

Furthermore, many Americans fear our big cities — and no sane political advisor would recommend exporting the urban lifestyle to the suburbs and small towns that define the idyllic American life. But, for better or worse, big cities already define the dominant cultures of our nation. New York defines our economy, Los Angeles our entertainment and Washington our government.

So perhaps the best, fairest way to frame Chicago as a model for change isn’t to look at the policy specifics — because they are unique to Chicago. The city’s government is a better example in structure and process than policy. And it certainly isn’t fair or useful to offer a choice between Chicago and the rest of America. Rather, the most informative way to frame the discussion is to draw the distinction between Chicago and Washington. Do the American people want to remain tethered to the political treadmill of personal destruction and political grandstanding? Do they think that Washington — that most dysfunctional of all major American cities — should continue to dictate to the rest of us how we have to be governed?

Like Barack Obama, I became a lifelong Chicagoan when I married a Chicago native. Marry a Chicagoan and you are married to the place. And like Obama, I married a Chicago city employee — so my views are not only somewhat biased, but connected. For us, that kind of personal and professional attachment is normal.

What Obama promises is an America where politics is a good thing, where arguments on the merits are encouraged, where a seat is always open for anyone eager to sit at the table and contribute what they can.

I made my choice 13 years ago. And given all the facts, I’m confident that America too will pick Chicago over Washington.

In late 1993, Wilder, the first African-American ever to be elected governor of a U.S. state, flirted with challenging Robb in the Democratic Senate primary. He backed away — then changed his mind and entered the race as an independent in 1994. Six weeks before Election Day, Robb was trailing Republican nominee Oliver North by double digits. In a brutal election year for Democrats, the seat looked lost.

Few believed that Wilder could ever be persuaded to give up his campaign, and then endorse and vigorously campaign for his longtime rival. But that’s just what happened — the Democratic Party pulled together, long-standing scores were settled, debts paid, and legacies preserved. Today, some believe that Hillary Clinton will never drop out before Denver, and others ponder what she might want in return for a rapid, graceful exit. In 1994, Robb and Wilder proved that how a campaign ends is often more important than how it is waged — and both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can learn from the way these rivals built a lasting peace. And it all began with that most underrated of campaign rituals– the post-campaign negotiation.

I had a front-row seat to this greatest of all Democratic crack-ups as Wilder’s press secretary. The candidate trailing badly in the polls on Labor Day weekend, our campaign decided that we had only two options left: keep running the same campaign, or sink Sen. Robb.

We wanted to win. We decided to treat the month of September like a “voteless primary”; less charitable pundits might say it was an intra-party divide and conquer. We ignored Ollie North and focused our fire on Robb alone — attacking him from the left in hopes of passing him in the polls and then driving Democrats toward Wilder in the final month as the best Democratic hope of holding the seat.

In the first week of September, Wilder caught a break in a debate when Robb made an astounding gaffe — promising to take food out of the mouths of widows and orphans if that would help balance the federal budget. What followed was a solid week of good press for Wilder as he became the new champion of Virginia’s poor huddled masses. And then, a new round of polls came out, and the news was universally bad. A Mason-Dixon poll showing Wilder slipping to fourth place, far behind North, and even behind independent Marshall Coleman, was our Indiana. It was obvious that Wilder’s campaign was over.

It was hard to accept — like Hillary Clinton’s 2008 campaign, we’d finally found our message, but we were out of time and money. Wilder had dug deep into his own pocket — again, like Hillary — to fund the race, but we still couldn’t afford to put ads on the air. We’d all worked weeks without pay. We had no realistic path to victory, but we believed down deep that our candidate would make the best senator.

So the campaign ended and the negotiations began. Very often, political observers groan at the mere mention of post-campaign unity negotiations. Thoughts travel back to the “What Does Jesse Want?” questions during the Democratic presidential primary summer of 1988. It turned out that what Jesse Jackson wanted in order to end his quest for the nomination was a proportional representation primary system that would give him or another African-American a chance of winning a race in the future. Obama supporters should thank Jackson for playing those cards.

But more often, these negotiations are about smoothing over personal disputes and ensuring that no one walks away from the campaign with lost money or hurt feelings — but mostly lost money.

The interesting thing about the Wilder-Robb negotiations is that this was round 3. The first round came in December 1993, when Robb enlisted President Bill Clinton to become personally involved. Clinton hinted to Wilder that if he stayed out of the Democratic primary, a Cabinet post or choice ambassadorship could come his way. Wilder, whose gubernatorial term ended in January 1994, made a late decision not to challenge Robb for the nomination.

Fast forward to spring 1994. After a series of embarrassing gaffes, Robb won the Democratic nomination, beating Virgil Goode — yes, the same Goode who is now a GOP congressman and has become infamous for his anti-Muslim remarks. Once nominated, however, Robb sank badly behind Oliver North in match-up polls. And oh, by the way, that ambassadorship for Wilder never materialized. So Wilder, in dramatic fashion, reentered the race as an independent. When the Republicans refused to unite behind convicted felon Ollie North, and former state attorney general Coleman entered the race as an independent Republican, Wilder was declared a plausible candidate. In a four-way race, Wilder was thought to have a fighting chance to win; polls showed all four candidates within 7 points of each other.

Wilder’s reentry sparked round 2 of the Robb-Wilder negotiations in July 1994. Wilder was summoned to the White House to meet with Vice President Al Gore. The White House might have assumed that since they had promised but not delivered for Wilder the first time around, it might be worth their while to try again. But Wilder embarrassed Gore by leaking news of the meeting ahead of time to the campaign press. A White House media circus ensued, Gore was not happy, and the negotiations went nowhere.

In the third round of negotiations, which took place in September, Wilder added a request for money. He asked to have his 1994 campaign debt retired by Robb and, if necessary, President Clinton. Well, sort of. He negotiated to get all of his own money back and to pay vendors.

The third time was the charm, and the deal was struck. Wilder got his money. We hardy campaign staffers? We got a few weeks of very low money, no-show job pay with the Virginia Democratic Party until Election Day.

Wilder also won a theatrical send-off to his run: a big photo-op event in October. At a fundraising dinner, a symbolic onstage handshake with Robb and Wilder’s endorsement of his longtime rival led to a Washington Post front-page shot of Wilder, Robb and President Clinton smiling broadly, with party chairman Mark Warner standing gleefully behind all three as the peacemaker.

How important is a picture? Warner’s future role as a unifier of the Virginia Democrats began with that photo. His successful term as governor, followed by the election of Gov. Tim Kaine in 2005 and Sen. Jim Webb in 2006, has given Democrats hope of carrying the state this fall, for the first time since 1964. In 1994, however, the picture was most important for signaling to Wilder’s supporters — crucially, the one in six Virginia voters who is African-American — that all was well and that voting for Chuck Robb was the right and proper thing to do.

The final piece for Wilder was the resolution of the diplomatic post. I remember listening to him muse about being appointed to the Court of St. James. That post was never offered. I could ask Wilder if he had been promised that or any other position, but I’m sure he wouldn’t answer. Still an expert poker player, Wilder’s not one to reveal his cards. Now mayor of Richmond, Wilder’s growing surrogate role in the Obama campaign demonstrates that he’s still in the game — maybe the same game.

Like Wilder 14 years ago, Hillary Clinton is simultaneously holding a losing nomination hand and a very strong negotiating hand. It’s in Obama’s best interests to start negotiations now because Hillary has options. She can keep attacking him. And even if she just attends rallies or puts ads up on cheap West Virginia TV, she’ll make plenty of news. Based on recent polls, she can run up big wins in West Virginia and Kentucky, which could inspire another round of “Why can’t Obama close?” stories and renewed speculation about his appeal to blue-collar voters. And she can make things very uncomfortable for Obama in Florida and Michigan by not compromising and pushing for their votes to count.

So if, eventually, Hillary Clinton does the math that the rest of the world is doing and decides to fold her hand, she could learn a great deal from Doug Wilder’s negotiations back in 1994. Get your own money back. Don’t worry so much about everyone else; they knew what they were getting into. Get a big symbolic victory that will show that the race was about something more than your ego. And keep in the game long term by promoting a supporter for a future role.

So if she does concede defeat, the question “What does Hillary want?” should have some fairly obvious answers.

Debt Relief. Here’s an irony: Hillary can keep lending money to her campaign, at least in the short term, without much risk because it’s very likely that Obama will agree to pay it in exchange for peace. There are limits to Obama’s generosity, of course. Money used for negative attacks from here on out would put her debt repayment at risk. So too would any funds to stretch the campaign beyond the primary end date. And as for Mark Penn’s debts? Take a lesson from Wilder: Your staff should consider your good company compensation enough.

A Major Platform Win. Namely, healthcare. Hillary needs to be able to make the case that her campaign had a substantive impact on the race. The best way to do that is to get to write the party’s healthcare plank in the platform. If Obama folds on the mandate issue, Hillary walks away with a policy win. Plus, this would please John and Elizabeth Edwards. Choosing Elizabeth to write the healthcare plank of the platform could appease both camps.

VP Right of First Refusal. Here the Clintons have the power to tie Obama’s hands. Harold Ford on MSBNC Tuesday made a strong case that Clinton and Obama together should hammer out a team, whether it ends up Obama-Clinton or not. In 1960, John F. Kennedy felt obliged to offer the vice presidential slot to Lyndon Johnson and was stunned when he accepted. Negotiations will probably force Obama into a similar situation. In the end, Hillary Clinton may not want the vice president’s job … but she would be wise to negotiate some form of veto power over Obama’s choice. That way she can tactfully say no to another woman making it onto the ticket to steal her spotlight. She could ensure that none of the potential 2012 candidates get positioned for a run in case Obama should fail in November. And she can get in one last twist of the knife on Bill Richardson. NBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell’s speculated last month that Wesley Clark could be the compromise choice. That theory looks plausible. Clinton loyalists like Evan Bayh and Ted Strickland could be acceptable choices too. If the VP choice is a Hillary loyalist who validates her claim that Obama needs help with blue-collar voters, she will have done what Wilder did with the Chuck Robb-Bill Clinton-Mark Warner “unity” photo — maintain a grip on the future of the party.

Without question, Barack Obama is entering a very uncomfortable stage of his campaign. Comparisons to Mike Dukakis in 1988 are inevitable — and if the negotiations drag out, there will be questions about who is really in charge. The sooner he gets it over with, the better for him.

And if he needs a confidence boost that everything will turn out right, he can just ask Doug Wilder. After his endorsement, Wilder hit the campaign trail for Chuck Robb, cut radio advertisements, and did everything else possible to get out his supporters to vote for the incumbent senator. He repaired the damage not in five months, but five weeks. In 1994 — one of the worst years for Democrats in the 20th century — the supposedly divided and hopeless Virginia Democratic Party pulled off the most surprising win of the year. Wilder announced he was leaving the race in September, and his photo-op reconciliation with Chuck Robb took place Oct. 21. Less than three weeks later, Robb beat Ollie North by 3 points, largely because of a strong turnout from black voters.

So stay calm. This is what Democrats do … from bitter fights often come the most surprising and useful political alliances. But first, everyone has to talk.

The first problem is legal: The same law Bush lawyers cite when claiming the Florida Supreme Court cannot change election laws after the fact and extend the deadline for a manual recount (the “Safe Harbor Law”) could also invalidate legislative action if the Legislature chooses electors directly. A number of election-law scholars, such as University of Chicago law professor Elizabeth Garrett, believe the Legislature would be violating federal election law by giving the right of elector selection to the Legislature and not the voters, after the fact.

But even if such action proved legal, it would be unwise politically.

Should the Florida Legislature ignore the ongoing legal challenges and preemptively select Florida’s 25 electors, it would remove the only obstacle — tradition — that prevents Democrats from taking similar action. If Vice President Al Gore chose to do so, he could play tit-for-tat in five states.

Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri and North Carolina were carried by George W. Bush but have Democratic governors and Democrat-controlled legislatures. Should Bush choose to take the 25 Florida electoral votes through a legislative vote, Democrats in those states would face no legal or political impediment to appointing Gore electors.

Of course, it would be political suicide, both for the vice president and many Democrats, for the Gore campaign to ask those states to overturn the will of the people and award all of their electoral votes to the losing side. But there is a less onerous option: State legislatures could decide to award electoral votes on a proportional basis, as is done in Maine and Nebraska.

If these five states awarded an elector for each congressional district carried by Gore, the vice president would pick up an additional 17 electoral votes: five in Georgia; four each in Missouri and North Carolina; and two in Alabama and Mississippi. Combined with his recently certified wins in Oregon and New Mexico, that would give Gore 284 electoral votes, enough to win the election even without Florida.

Republicans would have fewer options to retaliate, since only two states whose electors are pledged to Gore — Michigan and New Jersey — are firmly under Republican control. Even if Gov. Bush’s team could persuade those two states to award electoral votes proportionally, Bush would gain only 13 additional electors, not enough to deny Gore the presidency.

The Gore team could argue that a proportional allotment of electors in those five states is an appropriate step, given the vice president’s victory in the national popular vote and the disputed outcome in Florida. Missouri Democrats, who have already accepted the idea of keeping the polls open in St. Louis and electing a deceased U.S. senator, might be most easily persuaded to breathe new life into the Gore campaign.

Furthermore, the Bush campaign would be on shaky legal ground in challenging the action in those five states while defending what happened in the Florida Legislature. Congressional options also shouldn’t give Republicans solace. While it is true that Congress determines which electoral slate to accept in case of a dispute, a tie in the new Senate, with its 50-50 makeup, would be broken by the sitting vice president, Al Gore. With the House voting Republican and accepting the Bush slates, the governor of the state with the disputed electoral slate is charged with determining which is valid.

The current thinking is that Florida Gov. Jeb Bush could eventually decide who becomes our next president. But if Democrats choose to retaliate in the legislatures, similar choices may be up to Democratic governors Bob Holden (Missouri), Don Siegelman (Alabama), Roy Barnes (Georgia), Ronnie Musgrove (Mississippi) and Mike Easley (North Carolina).

A preemptive vote in the Florida Legislature to award 25 electoral votes to George W. Bush before all legal challenges are resolved could make every future presidential election outcome with a margin of less than 1 percent fair game for legislative meddling and partisan, state-by-state retaliation.