Why is it a positive that the presidential aspirations of Hillary R. Clinton have only been able to win primary elections in the so-called “large states?”And why should anybody outside of Michigan or Florida be expected to contribute one dime to the cost of holding special elections for presidential delegates in those two states?
THOSE TWO QUESTIONS came to mind while listening this weekend to the professional political pontificators who offered their instant analysis of the Democratic presidential primary. Seriously, I would appreciate if anybody could give me legitimate answers – but somehow I doubt they will be able to.
I kept hearing it over and over – the Clinton campaign is the legitimate frontrunner among Democrats, even though Barack Obama’s presidential dreams have more delegates and have won elections or caucuses in more states.
The Clinton camp keeps spinning us with the knowledge that she won primaries in New York, California, Texas and Ohio, and even won the illegitimate elections that were held earlier this year in Michigan and Florida.
Clinton is considered the favorite in the one remaining “large state” to have a primary. In Pennsylvania, the governor is a big Hillary backer and is expected to use his influence to “gently persuade” (perhaps with a sledgehammer to the kneecaps) other Pennsylvania politicos to get out the vote for Clinton.
BY COMPARISON, THE only large state won by Obama is our very own Illinois – which is considered irrelevant to the argument because it is just us “hicks in nice suits” (I once heard a St. Louis guy refer to all Chicagoans that way) throwing our support behind our hometown senator.
Now my argument is not made out of some altruistic claim that all states are created equal. They’re not. Some of us are more important to the country than others. The issue involved helps determine which are the important states.
It is why a Republican candidate could care less if the New England region doesn’t think much of him, because he knows his candidacy will get a significant boost in the South and southwestern United States.
For Democrats, those large industrial states and other places with large cities are the ones that turn out the bulk of the vote come the November general election.
GETTING THE SUPPORT of New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, Cleveland, Dallas and Houston, Detroit, Seattle, Portland, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, along with Chicago – that is what a Democrat needs to do to offset the large numbers of votes from Dixie that will (reluctantly, this time around) go to Republican opponent John McCain.
But the problem is that focusing too much attention on those large industrial states, while ignoring that the states undergoing significant growth are in the west and southwest, has been the Democratic Party’s problem in recent years.
The 2000 and 2004 presidential elections saw Democrats clean up big in New York, California and Illinois (which used to be a reliable bellwether state for the nation but is now solid Democrat due to Chicago’s growing influence in statewide affairs), and win slim majorities in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Yet they lost both elections. Even if you seriously believe all the “conspiracy theory” rhetoric about the Supreme Court “stealing” the 2000 election for George W. Bush, one has to admit that trying to get a presidential election victory by focusing purely on the electoral votes of the “large states” has not worked.
YET IT SOUNDS like focusing attention on the “large states” is exactly what Clinton intends to do – get New York, Chicago and Los Angeles to give her such overwhelming levels of support that her presidency gets rammed down the throats of the South.
It failed twice. What really makes anybody think that Clinton would be any more successful with this strategy than Al Gore or John Kerry were? In fact, she might do even worse, since the presence of Hillary on the ballot will bring out all the social conservative nitwits who detest the Clintons and will do anything to prevent a return of the “House of Clinton” to the White House.
Are Democrats really so daft that we want to re-live the failed strategy of the past two presidential elections? I am a Chicago Democrat who does not, and when I hear the pundits bring up this logic, it makes me think they are either twits who don’t pay attention to history (not even contemporary events) or they are closet Republicans who want the Democrats to sabotage themselves.
Trying to re-play the 2000 and 2004 Democratic political strategy in some hope that it works this time would be nothing more than political masochism.
BY COMPARISON, THE Obama campaign is picking up overwhelming support in places outside of the extremely large states, and is even getting support in the “large states” that supposedly give Clinton the moral high ground to claiming “front-runner” status.
I can’t help but notice the Texas political rules that will result in Obama getting more delegates from the Lone Star State than Clinton does, even though she narrowly won the popular vote.
By comparison, Obama took 61 percent of the popular vote in Saturday’s Wyoming primary, and has built up equally impressive victory margins in many of the states where he won.
While Clinton got a significant lead (56 percent to 44 percent for Obama) in the Ohio primary last week, I can’t help but wonder if it is the effect of all those years of watching the Cleveland Indians fail to win a World Series (60 and counting) that has caused them to go daft and lose their better judgment.
OBAMA APPEARS TO be the candidate of change and hope who could get people who normally would think Republican to consider picking a Democrat this time around.
While I don’t think the presence of Obama would persuade the people of such hard-core GOP bastions like Mississippi and Idaho to send Democrat electors to the Electoral College, it might sway just enough voters in close states to shift them from the “Republican” column to the “Democrat.”
After all, the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections eventually came down to Democrats falling just one state short (Florida in 2000, Ohio in 2004) of having enough electors to win the Electoral College tally.
Obama could be the candidate who persuades people to shift, whereas Clinton becomes the candidate of the Democratic Party hard-liners. A shift is what is needed, unless Dems really are satisfied watching John McCain take the oath of office on a cold, wintry day in January 2009.
MY OTHER QUESTION entails the cost of special elections for Michigan and Florida. Michigan officials have said they expect the presidential candidates (Clinton and Obama) to hit their financial contributors for even more money to pay for the administrative costs of another round of voting.
Florida paid about $18 million to hold its first round of elections, the ones that produced electors that are not valid. Neither state wants to have to pay for a second round, with Michigan officials saying there will be “no tax dollars” involved.
When one thinks of it logically, why shouldn’t there be local tax dollars to pay for these things?
I can understand why that stinks for people who live in Michigan or Florida. But it is the political officials in those two states who screwed up by holding their primary elections so early in the process that they knew the national political parties would penalize them.
NOW THEY EXPECT the rest of the country to bail them out so that they can have legitimate political representation at the Democratic National Convention?
Political pundit James Carville (among many others) is absolutely right when he says that the people of Michigan and Florida (of whom more than 5 million cast votes in the two illegitimate elections) would be politically disenfranchised if nothing is done to give them representation at the presidential nominating conventions.
But he/they is/are wrong when they say it is Obama who is causing the disenfranchisement. This is a problem caused squarely by the elections and political officials in those two states.
Perhaps Michigan and Florida voters should keep that in mind come their next round of elections. They could “vote the bums out” of office for causing the two states to have to spend tens of millions of dollars more in order to have legitimate elections this spring.
-30-
EDITOR’S NOTE: The third question I have about the Triple-P perspective on the Democratic presidential elections is to wonder why anyone seriously thinks an Obama/Clinton (or is it Clinton/Obama) ticket would make any sense. But I previously (http://chicagoargus.blogspot.com/2008/01/obama-wont-be-anybodys-v-p-neither-will.html) addressed that issue.
No comments:
Post a Comment