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ically needed black Democratic voters on a fishing trip on election day.
Of course, he may do none of these things. He may loyally support whomever the party nominee might be, and insists he would do so. But concern over his political clout is so pervasive in Democratic circles that any move to oppose him has been, up to this point, stricken with total paralysis.
In truth, the Democrats’ options are limited to two.
They can get behind the Wilder candidacy and make the best of what most of strategists believe would be an electoral disaster in this fall’s lieutenant governor’s race. With the state’s 84 percent white and increasingly conservative electorate, they see no way for the Wilder candidacy to succeed. Their main effort would thus be confined to damage control and, if possible, saving the governorship and attorney general’s post for the Democrats. But they harbor, with considerable justification, a haunting fear that Wilder would bring down the full fury of the state’s vast independent conservative bloc of voters on the entire Democratic ticket.
Or they can seek a candidate to oppose Wilder who would attempt to preserve Wilder’s dignity and respect if he should lose the nomination. However, any hint of a racist appeal in such an effort would, without doubt, trigger massive black defections from the entire Democratic ticket with disasterous results on election day.
93.3%