Democrats risk losing a generation by RON DZWONKOWSKI

If -- and it's still an if -- the numbers just don't add up for U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton to be the Democratic presidential nominee, but the party, through its arcane rules and superdelegates process, gives it to her anyway, Democrats will pay dearly, for a generation or more.
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Instead of re-establishing themselves as the party in power for perhaps the next 20 years, Democrats could be effectively handing the White House to Republican John McCain and alienating up to 30 million young voters who have gotten engaged in politics this year for the first time because of Barack Obama. If these voters feel that Obama has been cheated out of a chance to run for president, they and the hordes more of them becoming eligible to vote in the years ahead, will not easily return to the Democratic fold. Even if they like the party's principles, they will distrust its processes.

In this scenario, Clinton mitigates the damage only somewhat by choosing Obama as her vice presidential candidate -- a role he has said he doesn't want anyway.

More likely, young voters sit out the election (as they have in the past) and McCain wins and Democrats dissolve again into their bickering, finger-pointing ways while an emerging generation that desperately wants to see a stronger, safer and better America backs out of the political system.

This is truly a nightmare scenario for the Democratic Party, which has on its hands a much closer battle for the presidential nomination than anyone, especially Clinton, expected when the race took shape last fall. It seems as if it can be avoided only if in the weeks ahead either Clinton or Obama emerges with an indisputable command of the contest and the loser delivers a strong, convincing endorsement of the victor. Given the way they've been going at each other for weeks, the convincing part may be difficult.

This Democratic dilemma came up this week in a conversation with two old-line party members who have written a new book on young voters. "Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube and the Future of American Politics." The book is all about the political potential of the so-called Millennial Generation, born from 1983-2003, and at 80 million strong, the largest generation in American history. It also is the most diverse and most technologically savvy and has been forecast to be America's next great generation, reshaping the nation to the same extent that the "GI Generation" did after World War II.

With its defining moment so far the 9/11 attacks, the Millennial Generation is concerned about security and is in constant communication via cell phones and the Internet. Thanks in part to Title IX and growing up with TV shows that melted down stereotypes, the generation has little sense of traditional roles for men and women, doesn't make much of racial or ethnic differences, and relies for advice largely on friends and peers. Millennials prefer "win-win" solutions to outright victories for one side, which means they have little use for politics as practiced in this country for the past 20 years or so.

Although, at 46, not part of the generation, Obama obviously is in tune with it. His campaign is the first to tap nationally into the online "social networking" that is an essential part of life for just about every Millennial.

"They don't see a black candidate; they see hope," said Morley Winograd, the former Michigan Democratic chairman and adviser to Vice President Al Gore who wrote the book with Michael Hais, a researcher and analyst who worked on campaigns for Michigan U.S. Sen. Carl Levin and former governor James Blanchard.

"They are not out to resist government authority, but for them that authority has not worked very well," Hais said of the coming generation of voters, who have only known presidents named Clinton or Bush. "They want to make it work better and don't see the current leadership doing that."

For them, Obama means change. And if he can claim the most votes or the most states going into the Democratic convention, that makes it pretty simple for Millennials to decide who should be the nominee.

Although McCain, at 71, is almost three generations removed from the voting-age Millennials, he still could appeal to them with his personal example of "serving a cause greater than yourself" -- a theme from his 2000 presidential run.

"The Republicans can take advantage of this," Hais said of the Democrats' dispute. "The partisanship among Millennials is not so firmly set that they couldn't lean Republican."

And the Democrats are not so forward-thinking that they couldn't screw up the chance to capture a generation.