If Democrats are going to win the White House in November, they need a shotgun wedding in June. This is not something that either Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wants to hear, nor is it anything party leaders have been willing to say - at least not publicly. But without both Clinton and Obama on the same ticket, Democrats stand a good chance of suffering a humiliating defeat in the general election.

While much of the focus has been on the new voters who have been drawn into the primaries, the historic competition between Obama, a black man, and Clinton, a white woman, has transformed the Democrats in another way. It has opened a chasm between blacks and white women - the party's two most loyal constituencies.

White women have voted largely for Clinton, and blacks have cast their ballots overwhelmingly for Obama - a split that might not easily be healed after Democrats settle on a nominee. If Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean gets his way, that choice will be made sometime after the party's final primaries in Montana and South Dakota.

"Well, I'm hoping it'll be over by the end of the month of June," Dean said Sunday on Meet the Press. Whenever that happens, Dean expects the loser to rally his or her supporters behind the nominee.

That won't be easy.

The contest between Clinton and Obama isn't ideological; it's not a tug of war between different wings of the party, or a skirmish that pits insurgent Democrats against old-line Democrats. This goes deeper than that. It's about entitlement.

Many blacks believe it's time that one of their own be the party's choice for president. And a lot of white women think the time has come for one of them to be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.

There's no historical parallel to the situation Democrats find themselves in. Their fractious primary battles in 1968 or 1980 cut across virtually every Democratic Party voting bloc. The core divide between Clinton and Obama is more sharply drawn and entrenched.

Last week in Pennsylvania, where Clinton soundly beat Obama, 90% of blacks voted for Obama and nearly 70% of white women supported Clinton, according to a CNN exit poll. Even more troubling, 19% of the state's Democratic voters said race was an important factor in how they voted.

Last month, 19% of voters in Texas and 20% in Ohio made the same admission. In both states, Clinton took a big share of the white vote and Obama got an even larger chunk of the black vote.

And in both states, a sizeable majority of white women voted for Clinton.

"We need time to heal," Dean said of his push for the party to settle on a nominee in June - a couple months before the general election campaign gets underway. The key to that effort, he said "is the person who doesn't win the nomination." He or she will have to persuade supporters to vote for the Democratic candidate in November.

But I think it'll take more than some kind words from one of these candidates about the other to salve the wounds of their disappointed backers, many of whom see in this contest their greatest aspiration for their race or gender.

Democrats need to be reminded that the ultimate prize is the presidency, not their party's nomination. Clinton can't win the presidency without the overwhelming support of black voters; and Obama can't get into the Oval Office without the backing of large numbers of white women.

The best way for Democrats to repair the damage done by the bruising primary election campaign is to find a way to make Obama and Clinton ticket mates in the general election.

Such a shotgun marriage worked in 1960 with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, and it can work in 2008 - if good sense prevails in the Democratic Party.

By DeWayne Wickham, USA TODAY, April 29, 2008