Campaign 2008 – I Mean 7! 2007! Notes
At this rate, the Iowa caucuses will be tomorrow. We’ll wake up to an announcement that all Iowans and New Hampshirites are to head to the polls immediately. Maybe there will be sirens.
Mrs. Offering, who knows things, says that the rush to the head of the line will play havoc with various races at the state level. In Pennsylvania, apparently, it could mean some officeholders have to resign to get on the ballot if the primary takes place early enough.
Comment by Nell —
August 17, 2007 @ 11:34 pm
This is outtacontrol.
And you know what I don’t ever read at any of the election-head sites like MyDD and DKos (but maybe only because I don’t spend that much time there)? Anyone asking why Howard Dean doesn’t put a stop to the madness.
Dean got where he is with the support of the state parties, who had been slighted under the McCauliffe and previous regimes. And he’s done a great job restoring balance between the national and state committees — putting organizing resources out into the states, increasing small donors as a proportion of total contributions, and making the national Dem voter files much more useful to campaigns. And probably some other good stuff I don’t know about.
But now things may have swung too far in that direction, because the national committee seems oddly powerless.
When Florida Dems announced a couple of months ago that their primary was moving to late January, the DNC drew a line in the sand. The national committee said they wouldn’t recognize or seat any delegates chosen via that primary, and made some equally harsh threat against candidates who campaigned in Florida before X date.
But the Florida party appears just to have walked across that line without hesitating, and it’s not clear that they’re going to pay any price for it. Whenever I see lists of the early votes, there’s the Florida primary in late January — no asterisks or anything. And the leapfrog contest not only hasn’t stopped, it’s gotten more intense, with really big states joining in.
There are echoes of the 1971-72 party, when post-Chicago reforms that gave the grassroots much more power led to a convention where no one seemed to have the ability to keep things under enough control to get the damned acceptance speech on during prime time.
Someone I went to college with, a dweeby student council politician, started his career in actual politics by helping systematically reverse every one of those reforms. We’ve been under the corporate thumb ever since.
Comment by foolishmortal —
August 18, 2007 @ 2:04 am
I feel compelled, by virtue of single-comment solidarity, to answer, but I am not qualified. I don’t know how intra-Dem politics work, and I don’t know how they should work, Neither do I expect anyone else here to. Nell, my lonely-comment brother, spread your wisdom among those who might understand, and thereby, appreciate it. Though we are sympathetic, here you are casting pearls.
Comment by stm177 —
August 18, 2007 @ 8:51 am
Link to a Detroit News article on the change to the primary date. The motivations sound typical for any state wanting to move up its’ primary. They want more influence on the nomination, and attention to local issues.
It might be a good idea to get rid of New Hampshire and Iowa as the first primary and caucus. They are 95% white in a multicolored nation. Iowa is rural while the nation is suburban.
The three key states in the next election will likely be Michigan, Ohio, and Florida. If that is the case, then a candidate who could win those states’ primaries would also be well positioned to win the general election? That’s assuming that the primary voters also reflect the statewide general election mood of the particular state.
The UAW, the teacher’s unions, and the Detroit black community are the three major players in the Michigan Democratic party. All three of these groups are very establishment-oriented, and defer to the party hierarchy, once a decision has been made on any candidate or issue by the party elite. So, on its’ face, this would help Hillary Clinton. If there was a major split between those three groups, I’d assume the UAW would go for Edwards, and the blacks and teachers would go for Clinton. Obama would not get traction in Detroit because he is too white. That’s my feeling at least.
It’s a closed primary, so only people declaring for a party can vote in their party’s primary. I’m not sure if you have to declare on the same day, or a month or two in advance.
In 2000, McCain won the open Republican primary, but because it was an open primary the results were discounted by the true believers in the Michigan Republican party. I believe Kerry won the Michigan primary in 2004, but the nomination had already been decided by then.
The big upset in 1988 was Jesse Jackson winning the open Dem primary. Many Republicans crossed over to vote for Jesse Jackson, in order to stir up trouble for the Democratic Party.
Comment by stm177 —
August 18, 2007 @ 8:55 am
Also, I should add that Mitt Romney might do well in Michigan, since he was born here, and his dad was a former governor. The Republican party in Michigan is more rural and based in Oakland County, and in Grand Rapids.
I haven’t seen any polls for Michigan, but I’ll look around a bit.
Comment by Thoreau —
August 18, 2007 @ 8:59 am
I think Iowa and New Hampshire should have the first primaries.
In May of 2008.
And then states that actually matter should have their primaries 24 hours later. Keep the ceremonial “first states” to avoid the hissy fits, but for God’s sake there’s no reason to hold primaries so far in advance of the election. Most other countries manage to conduct their primaries much closer to election day, and consequently have shorter campaign seasons.
Comment by KCinDC —
August 18, 2007 @ 10:27 am
Let’s just have every state pass a law requiring that its caucus or primary must be at least a week before all the other contests. Then New Hampshire and Iowa’s laws can be put in context and given the respect they deserve.
Here in DC we tried moving our primary up to first place in 2004 to call attention to our lack of votes in Congress. The DNC cracked down, and it turned into a meaningless exercise that all the major candidates except Dean withdrew from. We had the real primary months later.
Comment by Nell —
August 18, 2007 @ 10:34 am
@foolishmortal: That’s “lonely-comment sister,” but aside from that you’re absolutely right. About halfway through that comment I thought to myself, “WTF are you doing, Nell? The closest anyone here has come to Democratic politics is voting for a Democrat, and that only once in most cases.”
But having written that much, I decided to go on, figuring it would be handy to have written down if I went to more suitable arenas to seek answers. To some extent I probably was addressing myself to Mrs. UO, whose point about the down-ballot races demonstrates that she does indeed know things (making me even more puzzled not to have seen the issue raised at the Dem-internals blogs).
If the DNC were able at this late date to regain control of things, I’d be completely in favor of Thoreau’s plan (except that I’d prefer the big states to come two weeks rather than 24 hours later). If there were some way to hold a national plebiscite of Dem voters, I bet something like that would turn out to be what most of us would prefer, too.
Comment by Gary Farber —
August 18, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
“About halfway through that comment I thought to myself, ‘WTF are you doing, Nell? The closest anyone here has come to Democratic politics is voting for a Democrat, and that only once in most cases.’â€
A shame you’d think such a wrongheaded thing.
Comment by Nell —
August 18, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
Sorry, Gary, I was mainly thinking of the bloggers when I said that.
Although there are some fairly regular commenters here with a Dem-voting history (you and KCinDC, for sure, and there are others), you’d have to acknowledge that UO isn’t exactly the first place you’d go to find people knowledgeable about or even terribly interested about the innards of party decision-making.
Comment by Nell —
August 18, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
Okay, on closer inspection, commenters at MyDD are asking the same question I did about the DNC and Dean. And commenters in a related thread say that the DNC will make the decision about whether and how to bring the hammer down at their meeting at the end of August.
Another comment points to a Rasmussen poll that supports my speculation in #7 that 62% of voters would prefer a whole different process — or at least a later one.
Comment by Mike —
August 23, 2007 @ 12:48 pm
I think primaries should be held on a series of 8 Tuesdays. Each Tuesday should represent a predetermined number of electoral votes; significantly more electoral votes than the tuesday before.
In January of an election year, the dates and electoral maximums are announced, and a sealed bid election is started for the first Tuesday. The winner is the most profitable Tuesday that can be arranged from the given votes without going over the maximum for that Tuesday (If the limit for the first Tuesday were 20 EV, Ohio (20EV) would have to bid more than MA(12EV), ME(4EV) and NH(4EV) put together, as well as any other combination that could be arranged, to take it). When the winners of the first Tuesdays auction are decided, the next Tuesdays auction begins.
Why?
1) I like games.
2) States who want more influence should put up or shut up.
3) Money raised by this method can go towards reducing the national debt.
4) Maybe the press can get the “horse race style coverage” out of their system while covering the primary auction, and concentrate on the issues when the actual election comes around.
Why not?
Its an infringement on state’s rights.