Presiding Over Chaos

"The candidates have got to understand that they have an obligation to our country to unify. Somebody is going to lose this race with 49.8 percent of the vote and that person has got to pull their supporters in behind the nominee."

-- DNC Chairman Howard Dean on the messy and ugly liberal Democratic primary season

Top Democrat wants party contest decided by July 1

By David Morgan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic Party chairman said on Friday he hopes the increasingly contentious rivalry between presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton can be decided by July 1 to avoid a fight at the party's convention.

Howard Dean, former Vermont governor and a presidential candidate in 2004, urged the two candidates to focus on the November general election battle against Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican presidential nominee.

"I think it would be nice to have this all done by July 1," Dean said on ABC's "Good Morning America" program. "If we can do it sooner than that, that's all the better.

"There has been some personal criticism," he said. "We don't want this to degenerate into a big fight at the convention."

Dean is worried about the PR nightmare of a convention floor fight for the liberal nomination for president, not any perceived obligation to the country.

The country would be well served if the Democratic Party were to implode either before or during their convention.