2008 was destined to be a Democratic year at the presidential level. As has been pointed out in many other places, the electorate was thoroughly tired of George W. Bush and after the economic crisis that began with the failure of the Lehman Brothers Bank on September 14, last year's election would have been an unwinnable scenario by any Republican candidate against any competent Democrat (maybe if the Democrats had nominated John Edwards and the Rielle Hunter scandal had erupted a week before the election, but it would have taken something of that magnitude to shift the poltical landscape last year enough to produce a GOP win.)
In that framework, it is worth taking a look back to last year's epic primary battle betwen Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. There is no reason to suppose that the November result would have differed much (Clinton might have lost North Carolina and Indiana and won Arkansas, West Virginia, and/or Missouri but regardless of small differences in the electoral map, in the end the result would have been the same.)
The differences come after that. The ongoing differences between Clinton and Obama are highlighted by a report today that Clinton urged Obama to take a tougher line last week with Iran. One can argue whether she was right or not (certainly the Khameini/Ahmadinejad regime has blood on their hands and deserve to be called on it, but equally certainly the unarmed demonstrators never had a chance against the armed militia, backed by the police, backed by the army if it had come to that, and Obama was fundamentally right during the campaign that Iran is too big and too important a country to maintain the Bush policy of isolation in regard to) but this is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is different. Hillary Clinton remember, backed the Iraq war (and continued to back it well after most Democrats had realized that the most we could win was a Pyrrhic victory) even siding with the Bush White House on the surge, interrogation methods and a whole host of other war issues, and also voting with the Bush White House against Iran on a resolution in late 2007 naming the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization (a vote which in fact may have cost her crucial support in Iowa, especially when she appeared to blow off voter anger over it, chastizing a man who asked her about it at a rally.)
It is impossible to know how Hillary Clinton as president would have dealt with any specific situation but let's remember that she was intimately involved in decision making during her husband's presidency and he would have been very involved in hers. Hillary is not Bill, but the Bill Clinton presidency (not least because they do in fact have similar political views) provides a guideline for what we might have expected. Bill was far more ready to use military force than Obama has been. For example it's a good bet that if Hillary Clinton were president we'd have marines on the ground right now returning president Zelaya to Honduras (remember that Bill Clinton faced a nearly identical situation in Haiti and sent the marines to restore Aristide.) It's also worth noting that Hillary Clinton in the Senate several times voted for more funding for the military (including for the war in Iraq) that Barack Obama opposed.
Besides the fact that Bill (and very probably Hillary) was and would have been more hawkish in terms of foreign policy, there are also domestic policy differences.
On social issues there are very few differences. It's not hard to imagine Hillary Clinton nominating Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, and on issues like the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the 'Mexico City Rule' the results would likely have been identical. In fact, arguably Hillary Clinton would have done more on gay issues than Obama has done (an area of civil rights where he has been slow to implement promises he made during the campaign.)
However on economics there are some major differences. Hillary Clinton was strongly pushed by the DLC (Democratic Leadership Council), an economically conservative pro-business group within the Democratic party. Bill Clinton was instrumental in its founding, and if one thinks back to the Clinton Presidency on economic issues Bill Clinton had a decidedly conservative tilt. He actively pushed for less regulation of markets. On this issue he was nearly indistinguishable from most Republicans; in fact, Bill Clinton deserves a share of the blame for the present multiple crises caused by lack of adequate regulation. For that matter Hillary would likely have had more trouble than Obama reversing course on regulation, not only because doing so would cut against her core economic beliefs but because in many cases Obama has had to change rules that were written during the Bill Clinton presidency-- something Hillary Clinton would certainly have to answer about. Also, Bill Clinton generally was opposed to bailouts and favored free trade. Hillary Clinton in the Senate took these positions as well. There may have been a stimulus bill if Hillary Clinton were president but with the Clintons' aversion to deficits (even going back to Arkansas) and her early campaign promise (granted, made before all hell broke loose) to produce balanced budgets it might not have been large enough. Remember too that Al Gore was frustrated that the Clinton White House never pushed for higher CAFE standards or other environmental legislation because they spent too much time listening to the business lobby, and it's likely that if Hillary Clinton were president we would never have seen much of an effort along the lines of the global warming bill the House passed last week.
On health care, Hillary's most famous battle (and most famous defeat) came in 1994 trying to create a universal coverage plan. During the primary she promised to try again, but between her dislike of deficit spending (one reason for the big surpluses during the Clinton presidency was that they raised taxes to pay for a health care plan early on but then didn't get the plan) and her more cautious approach (even more so having been burned once on it) the likelihood is that healthcare 'reform' would have been something much more modest than the sweeping changes we are likely to see in the Obama bill. With the Clinton ideal of focus groups, triangulation and pollwatching driving the process we might well end up with a fancy sounding 'reform' that in the end would do relatively little. There might have been a mandate to buy health insurance (as there is today in Massachusetts) but no public plan to hold down costs by competing with the private plans.
Of course, there are areas where I don't agree with Barack Obama (and at least in one area, civil rights, there are reasons to believe that Hillary Clinton might have been the more progressive of the two) but on balance I believe that it is a good thing that Democratic activists (including me) became involved in the primary and pushed Obama over the finish line. In at least two major areas, foreign policy and economic policy it is clear that because of the primary we have a far more progressive presidency than we would have if Hillary Clinton had been nominated.
Showing posts with label primary elections. Show all posts
Showing posts with label primary elections. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Thursday, August 21, 2008
CD-1 primary analysis.
Living in Arizona Congressional District 1, I've decided to do a post on what may be the hottest congressional race in the country (certainly among the top five or so), pitting five Republicans and four Democrats against each other to replace indicted Republican congressman Rick Renzi. FULL DISCLOSURE: I AM ON RECORD AS BEING A SUPPORTER OF DEMOCRAT ANN KIRKPATRICK. I will try to be objective in this post, however. The primary here is late (Sept. 2). Call it the 'Arizona incumbent protection racket.' There is no incumbent in this race though so all the candidates are equally disadvantaged by the late primary.
Let's begin with an overview of the district itself. Prior to 2002, rural Arizona had been divided up among a number of metro Phoenix based districts, so that a map of Arizona districts often looked somewhat like a pizza, with a number of districts in which the majority of the population lived in the Phoenix area with a large, sparsely populated area extending all the way to the far reaches of the state. In 2002 however a citizens redistricting commission replaced the legislature in drawing district lines and they decided to create an exclusively rural district (the largest cities in the district at the time were Flagstaff and Prescott, both considerably less than 100,000 people.) The district includes almost all of rural Arizona, skipping only the counties along the border with Mexico and Mohave county in the northwest. Because of the Navajo-Hopi land dispute and other issues between the tribes, the Hopi reservation is actually not in CD-1 but is represented by the congressman from another district, CD-2 (presently Republican Trent Franks.) This looks like a gerrymander to anyone not familiar with the situation but in fact it is necessary in resolving disputes between the two tribes (maybe working nominally in favor of the GOP since both tribes normally vote Democratic in national elections.)
District 1 does include the Navajo reservation, the nation's largest (and a place where Renzi was able to sizeably dent the democratic base in the district by procuring enormous amounts of pork.) The district also includes a portion of Pinal county. When it was drawn, the district lines very nicely delineated the edge of development in 2002. However since then Pinal county, Arizona's (and one of the nation's) fastet growing county has been filling up rapidly with exurbanites from metro Phoenix and Tucson (which are growing together, with Pinal county as the primary target.) Pinal county now has up to one third of the population in the district. The number of votes from Pinal is somewhat less than a third just because there is a lag time between when people move there and when they get registered to vote. The district as a whole has an eight percent Democratic registration edge, but in fact this district is huge and diverse (being larger in land area than good sized eastern states like Illinois or Pennsylvania) so it would be a mistake to try and summarize it that way. The Republican bases of the district include Prescott, small mostly LDS towns in the east (like the one I live in) and portions of Pinal county (though in 2006 Democrat Ellen Simon almost tied Renzi in Pinal.) The Democratic bases include the reservations (besides the Navajo reservation the White Mountain and San Carlos Apache reservations and several smaller reservations are also in the district), Flagstaff (home of Northern Arizona University) and older towns with a Democratic history like Globe, Winslow and Holbrook. Given that there is no evidence that Rick Renzi's pork-bought popularity will be transferable to another Republican, it seems likely that the decisive votes in the election will be cast by two groups of swing voters-- 1. Pinal county residents (who as I mentioned didn't go as Republican as one would have thought in 2006 and where the mortgage crisis has hit hard) and 2. conservative rural Democrats, especially in places like St. Johns-- so called, 'pinto Democrats' who always vote Democratic for local and county offices but who supported Republicans George Bush, Senators McCain and Jon Kyl and Rick Renzi, but also supported Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Terry Goddard-- in other words for higher offices willing to shuffle their ballot either way.
In the absence of any polling data (which is surprising to me) here is how I see the race unfolding:
The Democratic race is shaping up to be a real barn burner. Ann Kirkpatrick, an anglo who was raised on the Apache reservation and is fluent in Apache has easily raised the most money and is the favorite of many in the party establishment. Kirkpatrick has served as a prosecutor and also in the state legislature (where she represented both Flagstaff and the Navajo reservation.) Kirkpatrick has been very active on education and evnironmental issues in the legislature. She has the endorsement of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups but is a proponent of gun rights (which puts her in good standing with the 'pinto Democrats' for whom guns are a big issue.) I know many people who have known Kirkpatrick for years and they all consider her biggest asset to be that she is honest and ethical. After Renzi's ethical lapses this is a big plus. I know many people who have known Kirkpatrick for years and they all consider her biggest asset to be that she is honest and ethical. After Renzi's ethical lapses this is a big plus.
A few weeks ago I thought that Kirkpatrick had it in the bag, but recently Flagstaff Attorney Howard Shanker has been running very strongly. Shanker represents the Navajos in an ongoing lawsuit to prevent Arizona Snow Bowl from using treated wastewater to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks (considered sacred by the Navajo--- think of the Mapplethorpe exhibit and the crucifix in urine and you get the idea of how they feel about it.) Right now, after several rounds in court that have gone both ways, the ski resort has won the latest round but it is likely to be appealed, maybe even up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shanker has a lot of enthusiastic volunteers and seems to have boundless energy. I don't think I've gone to a major event in the past two years where I haven't seen either Howard Shanker (often personally) or someone representing him. Working against Shanker are the huge geographical size of the district and the fact that he has been far less successful at fundraising than Kirkpatrick. Shanker is the most liberal of the leading candidates and he has a lot of personal charisma.
The third major Democratic candidate in the race is Mary Kim Titla, a former television reporter. She therefore has high name recognition and a reporter's good looks, style and charm in person (I've met all the Democratic candidates personally this past year.) If elected Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, would also be the first native American woman to serve in Congress. However, she is handicapped by the fact that she has been neither as successful on the fundraising circuit as Kirkpatrick nor generated the enthusiasm that Shanker has. Part of the reason may be her position on issues. She is (and proclaims herself to be) the most conservative of the Democratic candidates. This seems calibrated to appeal to the 'pinto Democrats' but in fact Kirkpatrick's pro-gun position deprives Titla of an edge on a key issue and frankly many of her other positions just aren't in tune with a lot of Democratic primary voters. Titla remains within striking distance though (particularly if Kirkpatrick and Shanker go negative on each other, which hasn't happened so far) and if she wins it will only be a mild upset.
Former Kucinich volunteer Geoffrey Brown is on the ballot but he will finish last.
The Republicans had trouble recruiting candidates last year (partly due to Renzi's legal problems, which has made the atmosphere here difficult for Republicans despite John McCain being at the top of the ticket.) It appears they will settle for Sydney Hay, the President of the Arizona Mining Association, an industry trade group. She ran when the district was created in 2002 and finished third in the Republican primary that year. She held a fundraiser that year with Ron Paul and is still friends with Paul and if elected would likely be an ally of Paul on most issues (except Iraq, where she favors staying until 'we win.') She is very conservative on taxes and spending and has a past as an education reform and anti-abortion activist (back when it looked like other serious candidates might be contending for the GOP nomination, Hay already had the endorsements of Phyllis Schlafley's Eagle Forum and of the national Right to Life committee in the bag.) One reason why Republicans are nervous about Hay is because she is so conservative it will be easy to paint her as an extremist. I still expect she will win the primary with around fifty percent of the vote though given that there are no other first tier candidates.
There are two second tier candidates. Sandra Livingstone of Prescott likes to stress that she is the only Republican running who was born in the district (a way of suggesting she is not like Rick Renzi, a carpetbagger who moved here from Virginia only to run for Congress). For a Republican she is very liberal-- in fact I feel she is probably to the left of Democrat Mary Kim Titla, all issues included and is openly running as a 'moderate Republican'. Livingstone hates partisanship and-- taking a gutty position that is sure to enrage the GOP's right wing-- has proposed a policy legalizing undocumented workers who are already working here. She even suggests that in time they could all work towards citizenship. This is amazing to hear coming from a Republican in Arizona. She won't win (though she will be in a close race for second) but if she gets a lot of votes it may underscore the fact that the anti-immigration crew makes a lot more noise than they can deliver at the polls (ask J.D. Hayworth about that.)
Tom Hansen is a school board member in St. Johns. He is more of a standard issue conservative Republican. On virtually every issue he is in line with the party orthodoxy. Given Hay's far right bent and Livingstone's tilt to the left I suspect that if the Republican establishment could choose the candidate themselves with an eye to choosing someone who was conservative but also mainstream they'd go with Hansen. One asset he has is that he is LDS, and has strong support in LDS communities (which represent about a quarter of the GOP vote in the district). The problem is that being from St. Johns he is from the less populated eastern side of the state (there are no cities in at least a hundred mile radius of his home with more than 10,000 residents), has more enthusiasm than money and as a school board member has a long jump up to running for Congress. He will probably contest with Livingstone for second, and together they may get as many votes as Hay does individually.
Baptist Minister Barry Hall and Preston Korn, who has withdrawn from the race will finish fourth and fifth.
In the absence of any polling data I have to make predictions based purely on what my own perceptions are so these run the risk of being completely off base (and of course there are still two weeks to go), but here is what I see right now:
My predictions for the Democrats:
1. Ann Kirkpatrick (37%)
2. Howard Shanker (33%)
3. Mary Kim Titla (28%)
4. Geoffrey Brown (2%)
My predictions for the Republicans:
1. Sydney Hay (46%)
2. Sandra Livingstone (26%)
3. Tom Hansen (24%)
4. others (4%)
Independent Keith Maupin will also be on the ballot in November but I'd be surprised if his presence makes a difference then.
Let's begin with an overview of the district itself. Prior to 2002, rural Arizona had been divided up among a number of metro Phoenix based districts, so that a map of Arizona districts often looked somewhat like a pizza, with a number of districts in which the majority of the population lived in the Phoenix area with a large, sparsely populated area extending all the way to the far reaches of the state. In 2002 however a citizens redistricting commission replaced the legislature in drawing district lines and they decided to create an exclusively rural district (the largest cities in the district at the time were Flagstaff and Prescott, both considerably less than 100,000 people.) The district includes almost all of rural Arizona, skipping only the counties along the border with Mexico and Mohave county in the northwest. Because of the Navajo-Hopi land dispute and other issues between the tribes, the Hopi reservation is actually not in CD-1 but is represented by the congressman from another district, CD-2 (presently Republican Trent Franks.) This looks like a gerrymander to anyone not familiar with the situation but in fact it is necessary in resolving disputes between the two tribes (maybe working nominally in favor of the GOP since both tribes normally vote Democratic in national elections.)
District 1 does include the Navajo reservation, the nation's largest (and a place where Renzi was able to sizeably dent the democratic base in the district by procuring enormous amounts of pork.) The district also includes a portion of Pinal county. When it was drawn, the district lines very nicely delineated the edge of development in 2002. However since then Pinal county, Arizona's (and one of the nation's) fastet growing county has been filling up rapidly with exurbanites from metro Phoenix and Tucson (which are growing together, with Pinal county as the primary target.) Pinal county now has up to one third of the population in the district. The number of votes from Pinal is somewhat less than a third just because there is a lag time between when people move there and when they get registered to vote. The district as a whole has an eight percent Democratic registration edge, but in fact this district is huge and diverse (being larger in land area than good sized eastern states like Illinois or Pennsylvania) so it would be a mistake to try and summarize it that way. The Republican bases of the district include Prescott, small mostly LDS towns in the east (like the one I live in) and portions of Pinal county (though in 2006 Democrat Ellen Simon almost tied Renzi in Pinal.) The Democratic bases include the reservations (besides the Navajo reservation the White Mountain and San Carlos Apache reservations and several smaller reservations are also in the district), Flagstaff (home of Northern Arizona University) and older towns with a Democratic history like Globe, Winslow and Holbrook. Given that there is no evidence that Rick Renzi's pork-bought popularity will be transferable to another Republican, it seems likely that the decisive votes in the election will be cast by two groups of swing voters-- 1. Pinal county residents (who as I mentioned didn't go as Republican as one would have thought in 2006 and where the mortgage crisis has hit hard) and 2. conservative rural Democrats, especially in places like St. Johns-- so called, 'pinto Democrats' who always vote Democratic for local and county offices but who supported Republicans George Bush, Senators McCain and Jon Kyl and Rick Renzi, but also supported Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano and Attorney General Terry Goddard-- in other words for higher offices willing to shuffle their ballot either way.
In the absence of any polling data (which is surprising to me) here is how I see the race unfolding:
The Democratic race is shaping up to be a real barn burner. Ann Kirkpatrick, an anglo who was raised on the Apache reservation and is fluent in Apache has easily raised the most money and is the favorite of many in the party establishment. Kirkpatrick has served as a prosecutor and also in the state legislature (where she represented both Flagstaff and the Navajo reservation.) Kirkpatrick has been very active on education and evnironmental issues in the legislature. She has the endorsement of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups but is a proponent of gun rights (which puts her in good standing with the 'pinto Democrats' for whom guns are a big issue.) I know many people who have known Kirkpatrick for years and they all consider her biggest asset to be that she is honest and ethical. After Renzi's ethical lapses this is a big plus. I know many people who have known Kirkpatrick for years and they all consider her biggest asset to be that she is honest and ethical. After Renzi's ethical lapses this is a big plus.
A few weeks ago I thought that Kirkpatrick had it in the bag, but recently Flagstaff Attorney Howard Shanker has been running very strongly. Shanker represents the Navajos in an ongoing lawsuit to prevent Arizona Snow Bowl from using treated wastewater to make artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks (considered sacred by the Navajo--- think of the Mapplethorpe exhibit and the crucifix in urine and you get the idea of how they feel about it.) Right now, after several rounds in court that have gone both ways, the ski resort has won the latest round but it is likely to be appealed, maybe even up to the U.S. Supreme Court. Shanker has a lot of enthusiastic volunteers and seems to have boundless energy. I don't think I've gone to a major event in the past two years where I haven't seen either Howard Shanker (often personally) or someone representing him. Working against Shanker are the huge geographical size of the district and the fact that he has been far less successful at fundraising than Kirkpatrick. Shanker is the most liberal of the leading candidates and he has a lot of personal charisma.
The third major Democratic candidate in the race is Mary Kim Titla, a former television reporter. She therefore has high name recognition and a reporter's good looks, style and charm in person (I've met all the Democratic candidates personally this past year.) If elected Titla, a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe, would also be the first native American woman to serve in Congress. However, she is handicapped by the fact that she has been neither as successful on the fundraising circuit as Kirkpatrick nor generated the enthusiasm that Shanker has. Part of the reason may be her position on issues. She is (and proclaims herself to be) the most conservative of the Democratic candidates. This seems calibrated to appeal to the 'pinto Democrats' but in fact Kirkpatrick's pro-gun position deprives Titla of an edge on a key issue and frankly many of her other positions just aren't in tune with a lot of Democratic primary voters. Titla remains within striking distance though (particularly if Kirkpatrick and Shanker go negative on each other, which hasn't happened so far) and if she wins it will only be a mild upset.
Former Kucinich volunteer Geoffrey Brown is on the ballot but he will finish last.
The Republicans had trouble recruiting candidates last year (partly due to Renzi's legal problems, which has made the atmosphere here difficult for Republicans despite John McCain being at the top of the ticket.) It appears they will settle for Sydney Hay, the President of the Arizona Mining Association, an industry trade group. She ran when the district was created in 2002 and finished third in the Republican primary that year. She held a fundraiser that year with Ron Paul and is still friends with Paul and if elected would likely be an ally of Paul on most issues (except Iraq, where she favors staying until 'we win.') She is very conservative on taxes and spending and has a past as an education reform and anti-abortion activist (back when it looked like other serious candidates might be contending for the GOP nomination, Hay already had the endorsements of Phyllis Schlafley's Eagle Forum and of the national Right to Life committee in the bag.) One reason why Republicans are nervous about Hay is because she is so conservative it will be easy to paint her as an extremist. I still expect she will win the primary with around fifty percent of the vote though given that there are no other first tier candidates.
There are two second tier candidates. Sandra Livingstone of Prescott likes to stress that she is the only Republican running who was born in the district (a way of suggesting she is not like Rick Renzi, a carpetbagger who moved here from Virginia only to run for Congress). For a Republican she is very liberal-- in fact I feel she is probably to the left of Democrat Mary Kim Titla, all issues included and is openly running as a 'moderate Republican'. Livingstone hates partisanship and-- taking a gutty position that is sure to enrage the GOP's right wing-- has proposed a policy legalizing undocumented workers who are already working here. She even suggests that in time they could all work towards citizenship. This is amazing to hear coming from a Republican in Arizona. She won't win (though she will be in a close race for second) but if she gets a lot of votes it may underscore the fact that the anti-immigration crew makes a lot more noise than they can deliver at the polls (ask J.D. Hayworth about that.)
Tom Hansen is a school board member in St. Johns. He is more of a standard issue conservative Republican. On virtually every issue he is in line with the party orthodoxy. Given Hay's far right bent and Livingstone's tilt to the left I suspect that if the Republican establishment could choose the candidate themselves with an eye to choosing someone who was conservative but also mainstream they'd go with Hansen. One asset he has is that he is LDS, and has strong support in LDS communities (which represent about a quarter of the GOP vote in the district). The problem is that being from St. Johns he is from the less populated eastern side of the state (there are no cities in at least a hundred mile radius of his home with more than 10,000 residents), has more enthusiasm than money and as a school board member has a long jump up to running for Congress. He will probably contest with Livingstone for second, and together they may get as many votes as Hay does individually.
Baptist Minister Barry Hall and Preston Korn, who has withdrawn from the race will finish fourth and fifth.
In the absence of any polling data I have to make predictions based purely on what my own perceptions are so these run the risk of being completely off base (and of course there are still two weeks to go), but here is what I see right now:
My predictions for the Democrats:
1. Ann Kirkpatrick (37%)
2. Howard Shanker (33%)
3. Mary Kim Titla (28%)
4. Geoffrey Brown (2%)
My predictions for the Republicans:
1. Sydney Hay (46%)
2. Sandra Livingstone (26%)
3. Tom Hansen (24%)
4. others (4%)
Independent Keith Maupin will also be on the ballot in November but I'd be surprised if his presence makes a difference then.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Obama literature appears fair on health care but not on NAFTA; I think he should get rid of it anyway.
I was a bit distressed today to see a story out about campaign literature sent by the Obama campaign in Ohio, which Hillary Clinton is calling 'shameful' and comparing to Karl Rove type-tactics, saying bluntly that the literature falsifies her positions on NAFTA and health care. The Obama campaign has responded that the literature is correct.
Now, I've been clear in my support for Obama, for whom I voted. And I still believe he is the best nominee for our party and would make the best President in the general. But that doesn't mean that I support a sudden shift towards negative campaigning, if that is what this is. Obama will win the nomination if he continues doing what he has been, and if he does then he will need a united party and needlessly antagonizing supporters of Hillary (many of whom are very passionate in their support) would be a serious mistake. At the same time if the literature is accurate and points out a matter of record then she should respond on the issue and not complain about the fact that he is sending it out.
On NAFTA, she takes issue with a line in the literature that says that she was a champion of NAFTA when it was signed but now wants to make adjustments in it. This I believe is an unfair attack. For one thing, when NAFTA was signed she was the first lady and her husband was signing it, and it would be very difficult to gauge what her true feelings were on the subject from public statements she made at the time. First ladies don't undermine their husbands in public, and I wouldn't expect that she would do so even if she didn't agree with it-- she might tell him behind closed doors but neither I nor anyone from the Obama campaign would know whether she did or not. So that line should not be included in the literature.
On healthcare, the charge is that her plan would force people to buy health insurance even if they could not afford it (as opposed to Obama's plan which still gives people the right to not buy health insurance.)
So I decided to test his charge by downloading her plan from her website here it is and I find that he may well be justified in his concern.
On page 4 she states that
• Individuals: will be responsible for getting and keeping insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible. (which she reiterates on page 8).
Of course we knew that already, that she proposes mandates while Obama does not. Further down on page four she indicates that
• Government: will ensure that health insurance is always affordable and never a crushing burden on any family and will implement reforms to improve quality and lower cost.
I'd feel a lot more sanguine about this if it was defined somewhere what a 'crushing burden' is. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and therefore any additional cost at all would be such a burden.
She then goes on to explain how she will do this:
• Provide Tax Relief to Ensure Affordability: Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage.
Something similar is in John McCain's plan as a matter of fact, and he spells out the amount ($5000 per family.) She does not, but given that the cost right now of premiums for an average family exceed $12,000 it is clear that she would need to more than double McCain's proposal (which is disastrously low) to match the cost of premiums. Of course even if this were the case, there are some problems here. Tax refunds (including refundable tax credits) come once per year, and even if the tax credit were given the year before initially, there would be some people who would be unable to pay their premiums because it would be more than the tax credit for them (for example if they are cancer surivors or have a chronic illness or otherwise have much higher premiums.) Also, many people's tax refunds (and presumably refundable tax credits) are tied up in collections, bankruptcy proceedings, old IRS debt, child support and a whole host of other issues. If a family is barely making ends meet but one of the spouses owes child support to a previous spouse (or to the state for payments made to a previous spouse), or has a judgement against them from a creditor or bankruptcy court, then that is where any kind of tax refunds go, and suddenly the family (which may also have children) is stuck being mandated to pay for insurance without having any additional money with which to pay for it. You can rail against so-called 'deadbeat parents' or 'bankruptcy bums' if you want to, but it is a fact that there are millions of people, including current family members of people with a judgement against them who may have nothing to do with the reason for the tax garnishments, but who could be stuck in a situation where this plan would require them to spend money they don't have while the money that is supposed to help them pay for it would be directed by the government and the courts to go to someone else.
Further in the Clinton plan it says
Limit Premium Payments to a Percentage of Income: The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.
What percentage? Right now the $12,000 I referred to above is about a quarter of the average family income in the United States. Is 25% the figure that will be used? Will it apply to everyone (i.e. would someone earning $100,000 have to pay $25,000 in premiums so that a family earning $8,000 per year would only be charged $2,000?) There are no numbers here, which causes me to wonder. Obama's plan is similarly short on numbers (there are some) but since there is no mandate that is less of a concern (if you don't like his numbers then you still have the right to decline the option to purchase the insurance.) This is sometimes compared to mandatory auto insurance but the differences are that 1. some people don't have a car (which is a choice for some of them at least, though not all) and 2. the price of auto insurance, especially if you drive a car that is only designed to get you around with no frills is far, far less than what health insurance costs.
So having looked at this, I have to conclude that the Obama campaign's claim is right on target-- clearly there will be some people who would be mandated to buy health insurance by Clinton's plan but who won't be able afford it.
But I still think he should consider pulling the literature and keep on running the positive, uplifting campaign that has made many in the country, including myself consider him the better candidate. She hasn't found a way to beat Obama yet when he does.
Now, I've been clear in my support for Obama, for whom I voted. And I still believe he is the best nominee for our party and would make the best President in the general. But that doesn't mean that I support a sudden shift towards negative campaigning, if that is what this is. Obama will win the nomination if he continues doing what he has been, and if he does then he will need a united party and needlessly antagonizing supporters of Hillary (many of whom are very passionate in their support) would be a serious mistake. At the same time if the literature is accurate and points out a matter of record then she should respond on the issue and not complain about the fact that he is sending it out.
On NAFTA, she takes issue with a line in the literature that says that she was a champion of NAFTA when it was signed but now wants to make adjustments in it. This I believe is an unfair attack. For one thing, when NAFTA was signed she was the first lady and her husband was signing it, and it would be very difficult to gauge what her true feelings were on the subject from public statements she made at the time. First ladies don't undermine their husbands in public, and I wouldn't expect that she would do so even if she didn't agree with it-- she might tell him behind closed doors but neither I nor anyone from the Obama campaign would know whether she did or not. So that line should not be included in the literature.
On healthcare, the charge is that her plan would force people to buy health insurance even if they could not afford it (as opposed to Obama's plan which still gives people the right to not buy health insurance.)
So I decided to test his charge by downloading her plan from her website here it is and I find that he may well be justified in his concern.
On page 4 she states that
• Individuals: will be responsible for getting and keeping insurance in a system where insurance is affordable and accessible. (which she reiterates on page 8).
Of course we knew that already, that she proposes mandates while Obama does not. Further down on page four she indicates that
• Government: will ensure that health insurance is always affordable and never a crushing burden on any family and will implement reforms to improve quality and lower cost.
I'd feel a lot more sanguine about this if it was defined somewhere what a 'crushing burden' is. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and therefore any additional cost at all would be such a burden.
She then goes on to explain how she will do this:
• Provide Tax Relief to Ensure Affordability: Working families will receive a refundable tax credit to help them afford high-quality health coverage.
Something similar is in John McCain's plan as a matter of fact, and he spells out the amount ($5000 per family.) She does not, but given that the cost right now of premiums for an average family exceed $12,000 it is clear that she would need to more than double McCain's proposal (which is disastrously low) to match the cost of premiums. Of course even if this were the case, there are some problems here. Tax refunds (including refundable tax credits) come once per year, and even if the tax credit were given the year before initially, there would be some people who would be unable to pay their premiums because it would be more than the tax credit for them (for example if they are cancer surivors or have a chronic illness or otherwise have much higher premiums.) Also, many people's tax refunds (and presumably refundable tax credits) are tied up in collections, bankruptcy proceedings, old IRS debt, child support and a whole host of other issues. If a family is barely making ends meet but one of the spouses owes child support to a previous spouse (or to the state for payments made to a previous spouse), or has a judgement against them from a creditor or bankruptcy court, then that is where any kind of tax refunds go, and suddenly the family (which may also have children) is stuck being mandated to pay for insurance without having any additional money with which to pay for it. You can rail against so-called 'deadbeat parents' or 'bankruptcy bums' if you want to, but it is a fact that there are millions of people, including current family members of people with a judgement against them who may have nothing to do with the reason for the tax garnishments, but who could be stuck in a situation where this plan would require them to spend money they don't have while the money that is supposed to help them pay for it would be directed by the government and the courts to go to someone else.
Further in the Clinton plan it says
Limit Premium Payments to a Percentage of Income: The refundable tax credit will be designed to prevent premiums from exceeding a percentage of family income, while maintaining consumer price consciousness in choosing health plans.
What percentage? Right now the $12,000 I referred to above is about a quarter of the average family income in the United States. Is 25% the figure that will be used? Will it apply to everyone (i.e. would someone earning $100,000 have to pay $25,000 in premiums so that a family earning $8,000 per year would only be charged $2,000?) There are no numbers here, which causes me to wonder. Obama's plan is similarly short on numbers (there are some) but since there is no mandate that is less of a concern (if you don't like his numbers then you still have the right to decline the option to purchase the insurance.) This is sometimes compared to mandatory auto insurance but the differences are that 1. some people don't have a car (which is a choice for some of them at least, though not all) and 2. the price of auto insurance, especially if you drive a car that is only designed to get you around with no frills is far, far less than what health insurance costs.
So having looked at this, I have to conclude that the Obama campaign's claim is right on target-- clearly there will be some people who would be mandated to buy health insurance by Clinton's plan but who won't be able afford it.
But I still think he should consider pulling the literature and keep on running the positive, uplifting campaign that has made many in the country, including myself consider him the better candidate. She hasn't found a way to beat Obama yet when he does.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Democratic candidates stick with DNC plan on primaries.
What happens when the immovable object meets the irresistable force?
I don't know, but get ready for what could be a bumpy ride.
In the headlong rush to crowd into the front of the Presidential primary field, (in which nearly half the nation may follow the designated 'starters' of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and vote on the first party sanctioned date of February 5-- unofficially dubbed 'super-duper Tuesday'), several states are now jumping the gun. Florida, Michigan and Wyoming either have moved or plan to move their nominating primaries or caucuses into January, upstaging the four states which are now sanctioned by both parties as the first caucus, the first in the west, the first primary and the first in the south. The DNC has responded by saying they will refuse to seat delegates from states which jump the gun at the national convention.
In yesterday's Washington Post, Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 Presidential campaign and who now serves on the DNC's bylaws committee, lucidly spells out the party's reasoning that we must follow the rules at this point.
And it seems that in the struggle between the party and the states, the party is winning and the Presidential campaigns are getting the point, as the top six Democrats have now agreed to not participate in any states which jump the gun. I doubt if there will be much media attention on a race for a bunch of delegates which won't be seated at the convention and which is slugged out to the finish between Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.
There are to be sure both some benefits and risks that go with standing firm on the primary start date.
The biggest risk of course is the possibility of alienating voters and party activists in the states which are being punished in this way. In Florida, in particular, the issue of voter disenfranchisement among Democrats still rubs an especially raw wound. Florida has 27 electoral votes which in each of the last two elections provided the margin by which George W. Bush was elected to the White House. And in Florida, Democrats can point out that the bill which was pushed through the legislature and signed by Governor Charlie Crist was pushed by Republicans (though only one Democrat in the legislature actually voted against it.) In Michigan, which gave 17 electoral votes to Democrats in each of the last two elections, they don't even have that excuse; it was Democrats in the legislature and Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm which are pushing for an early primary. Certainly Florida and Michigan are important, large states and there is a risk of alienating voters in a key state which may cost us the November election. Wyoming is also talking about moving its primary to January 5, but the chance of a Democratic Presidential candidate being competitive there (unless perhaps Dave Freudenthal is on the ticket) is about as remote as the chance that when Dick Cheney leaves the White House he will retire to and actually live in the vacation home in Jackson Hole he bought while he was living in Texas in order to duck the requirement that the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates not be from the same state.
Right-leaning talk show hosts are already blasting the DNC for making this decision and 'dictating' to the states, although they seem to forget that pretty soon the RNC will have to make a similar decision (though with the enthusiasm that GOP candidates are already ginning up in states like Florida and Michigan it may be much harder to make them comply if the decision is to hold the line-- and nothing could make the RNC look weaker than to make a decision like this and have the candidates ignore it, especially with Democratic candidates falling in line with the DNC-- which is why I predict the RNC won't hold the line with the states.)
Another risk (though a minor one) is that Republicans competing in Florida and Michigan will steal all the headlines for a few days. I doubt if that will mean much in the overall scheme of things though.
The rewards are less tangible though clear enough. The biggest one is order. The primary system, already twisted and warped to the point that nominees will be chosen in a window of less than a month and have to then wait most of a year for the general election, was in danger of spiraling completely out of control. Standing firm was a choice the party had to make, and fortunately had the guts to make.
A second reward is that if the GOP doesn't similarly stand firm and the Republican primaries degenerate into a contest between states instead of between candidates, Democrats look like a stronger party with stronger leadership. I don't know whether that will translate into a lot of votes in November though since most swing voters choose between candidates, much more than between parties.
A third reward if the Democrats stand firm and the Republicans don't is that then while Democrats could take their lumps in Florida and Michigan, it's worth noting that Iowa (where the first caucus is almost as revered a tradition as Hawkeye football and voters consider they have a 'right' to it), New Hampshire (where the first primary is similarly revered) and Nevada have a total of 16 electoral votes that will be in play for both parties in November. South Carolina has eight, but if it goes Democratic in November then the election is already in the bag.
Either way, this decision by the DNC to stand firm against the states is dicey. But it is right, it is principled, and I'm glad they are doing it.
I don't know, but get ready for what could be a bumpy ride.
In the headlong rush to crowd into the front of the Presidential primary field, (in which nearly half the nation may follow the designated 'starters' of Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina and vote on the first party sanctioned date of February 5-- unofficially dubbed 'super-duper Tuesday'), several states are now jumping the gun. Florida, Michigan and Wyoming either have moved or plan to move their nominating primaries or caucuses into January, upstaging the four states which are now sanctioned by both parties as the first caucus, the first in the west, the first primary and the first in the south. The DNC has responded by saying they will refuse to seat delegates from states which jump the gun at the national convention.
In yesterday's Washington Post, Donna Brazile, who managed Al Gore's 2000 Presidential campaign and who now serves on the DNC's bylaws committee, lucidly spells out the party's reasoning that we must follow the rules at this point.
And it seems that in the struggle between the party and the states, the party is winning and the Presidential campaigns are getting the point, as the top six Democrats have now agreed to not participate in any states which jump the gun. I doubt if there will be much media attention on a race for a bunch of delegates which won't be seated at the convention and which is slugged out to the finish between Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel.
There are to be sure both some benefits and risks that go with standing firm on the primary start date.
The biggest risk of course is the possibility of alienating voters and party activists in the states which are being punished in this way. In Florida, in particular, the issue of voter disenfranchisement among Democrats still rubs an especially raw wound. Florida has 27 electoral votes which in each of the last two elections provided the margin by which George W. Bush was elected to the White House. And in Florida, Democrats can point out that the bill which was pushed through the legislature and signed by Governor Charlie Crist was pushed by Republicans (though only one Democrat in the legislature actually voted against it.) In Michigan, which gave 17 electoral votes to Democrats in each of the last two elections, they don't even have that excuse; it was Democrats in the legislature and Democratic Governor Jennifer Granholm which are pushing for an early primary. Certainly Florida and Michigan are important, large states and there is a risk of alienating voters in a key state which may cost us the November election. Wyoming is also talking about moving its primary to January 5, but the chance of a Democratic Presidential candidate being competitive there (unless perhaps Dave Freudenthal is on the ticket) is about as remote as the chance that when Dick Cheney leaves the White House he will retire to and actually live in the vacation home in Jackson Hole he bought while he was living in Texas in order to duck the requirement that the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates not be from the same state.
Right-leaning talk show hosts are already blasting the DNC for making this decision and 'dictating' to the states, although they seem to forget that pretty soon the RNC will have to make a similar decision (though with the enthusiasm that GOP candidates are already ginning up in states like Florida and Michigan it may be much harder to make them comply if the decision is to hold the line-- and nothing could make the RNC look weaker than to make a decision like this and have the candidates ignore it, especially with Democratic candidates falling in line with the DNC-- which is why I predict the RNC won't hold the line with the states.)
Another risk (though a minor one) is that Republicans competing in Florida and Michigan will steal all the headlines for a few days. I doubt if that will mean much in the overall scheme of things though.
The rewards are less tangible though clear enough. The biggest one is order. The primary system, already twisted and warped to the point that nominees will be chosen in a window of less than a month and have to then wait most of a year for the general election, was in danger of spiraling completely out of control. Standing firm was a choice the party had to make, and fortunately had the guts to make.
A second reward is that if the GOP doesn't similarly stand firm and the Republican primaries degenerate into a contest between states instead of between candidates, Democrats look like a stronger party with stronger leadership. I don't know whether that will translate into a lot of votes in November though since most swing voters choose between candidates, much more than between parties.
A third reward if the Democrats stand firm and the Republicans don't is that then while Democrats could take their lumps in Florida and Michigan, it's worth noting that Iowa (where the first caucus is almost as revered a tradition as Hawkeye football and voters consider they have a 'right' to it), New Hampshire (where the first primary is similarly revered) and Nevada have a total of 16 electoral votes that will be in play for both parties in November. South Carolina has eight, but if it goes Democratic in November then the election is already in the bag.
Either way, this decision by the DNC to stand firm against the states is dicey. But it is right, it is principled, and I'm glad they are doing it.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Poll casts perspective on how weak GOP primary field really is
As if we've not had enough confirmation of the fundamental weakness of the Republican field:
Today AP-Ipsos released a poll of the top four candidates in the GOP field (Rudy Giuliani, yet unannounced candidate Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney,) and 'none of the above' beat all the candidates.
Yes, it's true. That option got 23% (and I doubt if it's because they all wanted to pick Duncan Hunter), while Giuliani (whose own consistent decline in polls over the past two months has only not been noticed because McCain has been falling faster) got 21%, with Thompson at 19%, McCain at 15% and Romney at 11%.
In contrast, even with some Democrats still holding out hope for Al Gore, most Democrats have expressed satisfaction with the candidates running (and if a poll sampled just Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson, the top four Democrats, we'd already have more total support according to all recent polls than would be needed to ensure that 'none of the above' didn't do very well at all.)
Put it this way-- another measure of how weak the Republican field is, is that John McCain is still polling at a level that puts him in the thick of the race. Most national Republicans (and even a lot of them right here in Arizona) don't like John McCain, don't trust John McCain and certainly don't support John McCain. Further, 'Mr. fiscal conservative' is coming off a terrible stretch of bad news, in which he pretty much destroyed his own campaign by assuming he would raise mammoth amounts of money ahd setting the spending curve so high that it is hard to imagine how anybody could be that broke after raising over $20 million more than fifteen months before the next Presidential election (and more than six months before the first primaries.) In any normal year, with decent GOP candidates, a candidate who had the high negatives of McCain who then proved himself so incompetent at running his own campaign would be long gone, or at least relegated to the 2% or below level (and yes, the candidate is responsible for his campaign if nothing else-- otherwise how could you expect him to handle being responsible for the whole country?) But he is there anyway because what other options are there?
Giuliani, as I mentioned has been slowly losing air. His campaign has not fallen as fast as McCain's, and he has raised more money than any Republican (Thompson does not have to report contributions since he still officially only has an exploratory committee) but since he grabbed the lead from McCain earlier this year, it seems like a lot of his supporters have been giving having second thoughts and have moved away from him in the polls. Maybe it's the nasty divorce he had while in the middle of an affair that has caused his kids to stop speaking to him, maybe it's his position on abortion, maybe it's the fact that other than working for a Houston based law firm that helps out Big Oil he's done little since leaving the mayor's office, maybe it's his flip-flop on gun laws, maybe it's a concern among GOP primary voters that if his successor as mayor, Michael Bloomberg runs as an independent he could all but destroy Rudy's candidacy by picking off many of his core voters, but whatever it is, the 'magic' that Rudy seemed to have, has quite clearly rubbed off with Republican voters.
Thompson keeps getting compared to Reagan. Yeah, he's a conservative and an actor. But he obviously doesn't have Reagan's charm with Republican voters, since he still can't beat 'none of the above,' and even evangelicals-- who Thompson was courting-- have not really committed to a candidate. And the truth is, Thompson has spent most of the past few years as a lobbyist on capitol hill. Many Americans believe that lobbyists are precisely at the root of what has gone wrong with Washington, and to elect one of them President would be handing the keys to the henhouse to the fox.
Romney has gone up consistently, but he is behind the other three and also hasn't made many inroads with evangelicals who are probably as important in GOP primaries as, say, African-American voters are in Democratic primaries.
And the irony is that you'd think it would be easier for these guys to convince Republicans. After all, there are fewer of them since about one in eight Republicans has left the party in the past three years.
But obviously those left are still having a tough time figuring out who to support.
Today AP-Ipsos released a poll of the top four candidates in the GOP field (Rudy Giuliani, yet unannounced candidate Fred Thompson, John McCain and Mitt Romney,) and 'none of the above' beat all the candidates.
Yes, it's true. That option got 23% (and I doubt if it's because they all wanted to pick Duncan Hunter), while Giuliani (whose own consistent decline in polls over the past two months has only not been noticed because McCain has been falling faster) got 21%, with Thompson at 19%, McCain at 15% and Romney at 11%.
In contrast, even with some Democrats still holding out hope for Al Gore, most Democrats have expressed satisfaction with the candidates running (and if a poll sampled just Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson, the top four Democrats, we'd already have more total support according to all recent polls than would be needed to ensure that 'none of the above' didn't do very well at all.)
Put it this way-- another measure of how weak the Republican field is, is that John McCain is still polling at a level that puts him in the thick of the race. Most national Republicans (and even a lot of them right here in Arizona) don't like John McCain, don't trust John McCain and certainly don't support John McCain. Further, 'Mr. fiscal conservative' is coming off a terrible stretch of bad news, in which he pretty much destroyed his own campaign by assuming he would raise mammoth amounts of money ahd setting the spending curve so high that it is hard to imagine how anybody could be that broke after raising over $20 million more than fifteen months before the next Presidential election (and more than six months before the first primaries.) In any normal year, with decent GOP candidates, a candidate who had the high negatives of McCain who then proved himself so incompetent at running his own campaign would be long gone, or at least relegated to the 2% or below level (and yes, the candidate is responsible for his campaign if nothing else-- otherwise how could you expect him to handle being responsible for the whole country?) But he is there anyway because what other options are there?
Giuliani, as I mentioned has been slowly losing air. His campaign has not fallen as fast as McCain's, and he has raised more money than any Republican (Thompson does not have to report contributions since he still officially only has an exploratory committee) but since he grabbed the lead from McCain earlier this year, it seems like a lot of his supporters have been giving having second thoughts and have moved away from him in the polls. Maybe it's the nasty divorce he had while in the middle of an affair that has caused his kids to stop speaking to him, maybe it's his position on abortion, maybe it's the fact that other than working for a Houston based law firm that helps out Big Oil he's done little since leaving the mayor's office, maybe it's his flip-flop on gun laws, maybe it's a concern among GOP primary voters that if his successor as mayor, Michael Bloomberg runs as an independent he could all but destroy Rudy's candidacy by picking off many of his core voters, but whatever it is, the 'magic' that Rudy seemed to have, has quite clearly rubbed off with Republican voters.
Thompson keeps getting compared to Reagan. Yeah, he's a conservative and an actor. But he obviously doesn't have Reagan's charm with Republican voters, since he still can't beat 'none of the above,' and even evangelicals-- who Thompson was courting-- have not really committed to a candidate. And the truth is, Thompson has spent most of the past few years as a lobbyist on capitol hill. Many Americans believe that lobbyists are precisely at the root of what has gone wrong with Washington, and to elect one of them President would be handing the keys to the henhouse to the fox.
Romney has gone up consistently, but he is behind the other three and also hasn't made many inroads with evangelicals who are probably as important in GOP primaries as, say, African-American voters are in Democratic primaries.
And the irony is that you'd think it would be easier for these guys to convince Republicans. After all, there are fewer of them since about one in eight Republicans has left the party in the past three years.
But obviously those left are still having a tough time figuring out who to support.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Michael Bloomberg quits GOP
Current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today that he is resigning from the Republican party. Of course, more than one out of eight Republicans have also left the GOP since 2004 so it's hardly remarkable anymore that he is doing so.
However, in his case, it heightens speculation that he will run for President next year. Like Ross Perot (who got 19% of the vote in 1992) Bloomberg has hundreds of millions of dollars he could spend on a campaign, which alone makes him a viable candidate. Unlike Perot, he has already held elective office (the same office as Giuliani's highest in the past) and he isn't so nutty-- I have my disagreements with Michael Bloomberg but I can't see him accusing his opponents of sabotaging his daughter's wedding or quitting the race the moment he gets some bad news and then rejoining it later.
As a candidate, Bloomberg starts out with one big advantage.
And that advantage is one that the parties did to themselves. By failing to stop states from piling on with front loaded primaries. I blogged on the dangers of this headlong rush to the head of the line (Super-Duper Tuesday frought with peril) a couple of months ago, but failed then to consider what the effects might be of a third party candidacy. But supposing that the two major parties have nominations all locked up by February:
1. Bloomberg could then take his time and announce a run about mid summer. Because of his enormous personal financial resources he won't have to do much fundraising (and as I'm sure he would point out, wouldn't have to make any backroom deals to raise funds). He would be able to start with a complete warchest just as his two major party opponents were depleting theirs attacking each other between February and when the conventions start in late August and then having to try and raise more money for the general. And by July people will know all about the two nominees (and probably not like them) so Bloomberg would be a fresh face on the scene.
2. People are already weary of partisan politics. One effect of the nominees being known by February is that they will be driving up each other's negatives, and Bloomberg can pick his time and announce just when some partisan battle really drives up people's disgust with both parties.
3. Bloomberg, who has only had to run twice for Mayor (and then in elections largely focused on 9/11) has not had to define many of his positions on issues. Once it is known who the major party nominees are, he could carefully triangulate a platform that plays to issues where people are dissatisfied with both nominees. In particular, if Giuliani is the GOP nominee then look for Bloomberg to take a surprisingly conservative tack on cultural issues but if it is somebody else Bloomberg could define himself as the 'new' Giuliani and run to the center (as he did when he ran for Mayor.)
Now granted, no third party candidate has won for President since the modern two party system began. In fact, only once-- in 1912 when former President Teddy Roosevelt finished ahead of Republican William Howard Taft (but losing to Woodrow Wilson) has a third party candidate even managed to finish second. Also, without an existing party organization Bloomberg would face some stiff organizational challenges regardless of how much money he has, but he also-- largely thanks to the disastrous primary schedule that both major parties have allowed to happen-- could have all the advantages he would need to be successful.
However, in his case, it heightens speculation that he will run for President next year. Like Ross Perot (who got 19% of the vote in 1992) Bloomberg has hundreds of millions of dollars he could spend on a campaign, which alone makes him a viable candidate. Unlike Perot, he has already held elective office (the same office as Giuliani's highest in the past) and he isn't so nutty-- I have my disagreements with Michael Bloomberg but I can't see him accusing his opponents of sabotaging his daughter's wedding or quitting the race the moment he gets some bad news and then rejoining it later.
As a candidate, Bloomberg starts out with one big advantage.
And that advantage is one that the parties did to themselves. By failing to stop states from piling on with front loaded primaries. I blogged on the dangers of this headlong rush to the head of the line (Super-Duper Tuesday frought with peril) a couple of months ago, but failed then to consider what the effects might be of a third party candidacy. But supposing that the two major parties have nominations all locked up by February:
1. Bloomberg could then take his time and announce a run about mid summer. Because of his enormous personal financial resources he won't have to do much fundraising (and as I'm sure he would point out, wouldn't have to make any backroom deals to raise funds). He would be able to start with a complete warchest just as his two major party opponents were depleting theirs attacking each other between February and when the conventions start in late August and then having to try and raise more money for the general. And by July people will know all about the two nominees (and probably not like them) so Bloomberg would be a fresh face on the scene.
2. People are already weary of partisan politics. One effect of the nominees being known by February is that they will be driving up each other's negatives, and Bloomberg can pick his time and announce just when some partisan battle really drives up people's disgust with both parties.
3. Bloomberg, who has only had to run twice for Mayor (and then in elections largely focused on 9/11) has not had to define many of his positions on issues. Once it is known who the major party nominees are, he could carefully triangulate a platform that plays to issues where people are dissatisfied with both nominees. In particular, if Giuliani is the GOP nominee then look for Bloomberg to take a surprisingly conservative tack on cultural issues but if it is somebody else Bloomberg could define himself as the 'new' Giuliani and run to the center (as he did when he ran for Mayor.)
Now granted, no third party candidate has won for President since the modern two party system began. In fact, only once-- in 1912 when former President Teddy Roosevelt finished ahead of Republican William Howard Taft (but losing to Woodrow Wilson) has a third party candidate even managed to finish second. Also, without an existing party organization Bloomberg would face some stiff organizational challenges regardless of how much money he has, but he also-- largely thanks to the disastrous primary schedule that both major parties have allowed to happen-- could have all the advantages he would need to be successful.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Super-Duper Tuesday frought with peril
It's official. New York has moved its primary up to February 5 (the unofficial 'start date' of the open primary season, after Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina have held their caucuses and/or primaries.)
What this does is bring us closer to a 'national primary.' New York may be one of up to twenty-four states voting on that day, including the four largest (California, Texas, New York and Florida.) This means that more than half of the voters in the country will likely be voting on February 5. The day even already has a nickname. the old fashioned 'Super Tuesday' (when a half dozen or more states might vote together) wasn't good enough for this one, so it is being tagged, 'Super-Duper Tuesday') No apologies made to former Miami Dolphin's receiver Mark 'Super' Duper either.
A national primary day is not necessarily a bad idea, in that it gives voters from all different parts of the country an opportunity to be heard. On the other hand, that didn't work very well in 2004, in which Iowa and New Hampshire in essence picked John Kerry for the rest of us and with most states voting by March 2, no one else had much of a chance to stop his momentum (we can see how well that worked.) Of course it meant that he had from March to November to run against George Bush, but then that worked both ways-- while Kerry was skiiing in Idaho after wrapping up the nomination in March, the GOP was spending millions of dollars 'defining' him, as well as organizing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (which they officially rolled out just after the Democratic convention) so that by election day in November, 46% of the voters in the country absolutely refused to vote for John Kerry-- a very thin margin to work with, and one which he failed to overcome.
Traditionally, Iowa and New Hampshire have begun the process and picked candidates like a Jimmy Carter or a Ronald Reagan or a Gary Hart or a Paul Tsongas-- candidates that people may be surprised by, but who then undergo a thorough vetting by both the media and by the voters in the larger states, over a period of weeks or months so that if they are found wanting then there is time for a better candidate to emerge. This system worked well for many years (though the argument that New Hampshire and Iowa are two of the three 'purple states' in the middle-- states which switched parties between the 2000 and 2004 general elections is bogus; Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans are often very conservative and Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats are often very liberal-- if the states are 'purple' it is only because the conservatives and liberals exist in approximately equal numbers.)
A true national primary would be having everyone vote on the same day.
But what we have now is a situation that seems the worst of both worlds. Iowa and New Hampshire can get the momentum rolling for a candidate and it snowballs so fast with the front loaded primaries that it is over before anyone can really examine the candidate. That certainly happened in 2004.
So now we see that this kind of mistake could be repeated, but even worse, with the nominee selected a month earlier-- and nearly seven months before the convention and nine before the election. The real failure is one of leadership, on both sides. There are many reasons states move their primaries up. It may be that they are just sick of not having a voice. It may be that with the increasing exposure and ad dollars that Presidential campaigns bring in these days they want the shot for their economy. It could be that they want to help local favorites (certainly one motivation for the early New York primary is to help local favorites Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Rudy Giuliani for the Republicans.) Or this year especially, it might be just part of the 'stampede mentality'-- everyone else is doing it, so why not us?
I'd like to suggest a couple of possible scenarios that could bring the problems here into perspective. I would rate each at about a 5-10% probability (meaning that they probably won't happen, but certainly they are possible, and if this happens every four years then sooner or later one of them will).
Scenario #1: First, take it on the Democratic side: Obama wins Iowa, Clinton recovers and wins New Hampshire and Edwards takes South Carolina. In Nevada the frontrunners all disappoint while Richardson (who has now clearly moved to the front of the 'second tier'-- exactly where John Edwards was last time around) does surprisingly well. On 'Super-Duper Tuesday,' Feb. 5, the mixed verdict produces no clear winner at the polls== but all the candidates do well enough to make it clear that no one will have a majority heading into a brokered convention. The months between that day and the convention is filled with the candidates wasting time and money attacking each other in an increasingly acerbic battle to pick up the few remaining delegates and go into the convention in as strong a position as possible-- and no one still enters with a sure nomination. This could drag on for months, and end with a nasty convention fight. The one saving grace for the Democrats is that if there is a brokered convention and none of the candidates can gin up a majority, there is a consensus candidate they could draft from the floor who is respected across pretty much all sectors of the party-- namely Al Gore-- who could probably be nominated and run a strong campaign in the fall.
Same scenario GOP side: Suppose that Giuliani puts together a win in Iowa, but former Massachusetts neighbor Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire. Veteran John McCain (who this time around has the support of Pat Robertson) wins in veteran-heavy South Carolina, but Georgia neighbor Newt Gingrich does very well there. Super-Duper Tuesday again produces a mixed verdict, with everyone doing well enough to effectively deny the nomination to anyone else. The Republicans fare worse in such a scenario since if they don't have a nominee in place by the convention they don't have an Al Gore as a backup-- a single unifying candidate that likely they could get a majority of the delegates to agree on if none of the announced candidates can garner a majority.
Of course in any case such a scenario would really harm either party if it happened to them but the other party had a nominee by February. That nominee could then collect lots of cash to use in the general, unify his (or her) party and let the other side squabble amongst themselves, all at the relatively cheap price of absorbing an occasional potshot from the other side when they aren't too busy wasting their resources on each other.
Scenario #2: A party nominates a candidate over a couple of weeks from late January to February 5. The candidate has maybe been cruising in the shadow of the frontrunners (as was the case with John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004) who self-destruct in a negative ad war (exactly what happened in Iowa to Howard Dean, who had been the front runner, and Dick Gephardt who was just behind Dean in Iowa). The relatively unknown candidate wins Iowa, rides the momentum (and the negative momentum of the former front runners) to a win in New Hampshire and sweeps Super-Duper Tuesday. That candidate has the nomination all sewed up by early February. Then it happens. The media, which had been focusing on the front runners, maybe with an assist from the hawks on the other side of the political spectrum, finds a scandal. Not just any scandal. A 'the candidate is a child molester,' or a 'the candidate authorized the terrorizing of a person who knew something embarrassing about the candidate to keep them quiet,' or a 'the candidate while in the Senate leaked classified information to Iranian agents' level of scandal. While I am in no way suggesting that I have any reason to believe any of these charges about any candidates currently running in either party, I am suggesting it as a hypothetical-- the type of scandal that makes the candidate a pariah. Or, perhaps no scandal at all but comments that reveal the candidate to be unstable, bigoted or otherwise unsuited to be President. Unelectable, and with the BEST scenario possible being a brokered convention, if party leaders can convince the candidate to quit and release his or her delegates. The worst part about this is that it would drag on for nine months (especially if the candidate refuses to step aside), and not only cost the party the Presidency but likely seriously damage members of the candidate's party all up and down the ballot as they couldn't flee the top of their ticket fast enough.
This scenario could be avoided if the media and others began digging when a candidate jumped up and won a primary, but now we've arranged it so that they won't have time to do their job until the die has been cast.
We are playing with fire here. If one of these things does not happen next year, then it will in 2012, 2016 or some other election year. But sooner or later one party will get burned by such a scenario.
One other beef I have with this primary schedule. Bad enough to have it essentially over in a day, but if so then why a day in February? The Iowa and New Hampshire verdicts in January made sense when the Presidential primary season went on until June, but if we insist on compacting this so much, then why not at least move it closer to the conventions? February until September is much too long a time. I'd recommend that if there is to be a national primary, that it be no earlier than June.
What this does is bring us closer to a 'national primary.' New York may be one of up to twenty-four states voting on that day, including the four largest (California, Texas, New York and Florida.) This means that more than half of the voters in the country will likely be voting on February 5. The day even already has a nickname. the old fashioned 'Super Tuesday' (when a half dozen or more states might vote together) wasn't good enough for this one, so it is being tagged, 'Super-Duper Tuesday') No apologies made to former Miami Dolphin's receiver Mark 'Super' Duper either.
A national primary day is not necessarily a bad idea, in that it gives voters from all different parts of the country an opportunity to be heard. On the other hand, that didn't work very well in 2004, in which Iowa and New Hampshire in essence picked John Kerry for the rest of us and with most states voting by March 2, no one else had much of a chance to stop his momentum (we can see how well that worked.) Of course it meant that he had from March to November to run against George Bush, but then that worked both ways-- while Kerry was skiiing in Idaho after wrapping up the nomination in March, the GOP was spending millions of dollars 'defining' him, as well as organizing the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (which they officially rolled out just after the Democratic convention) so that by election day in November, 46% of the voters in the country absolutely refused to vote for John Kerry-- a very thin margin to work with, and one which he failed to overcome.
Traditionally, Iowa and New Hampshire have begun the process and picked candidates like a Jimmy Carter or a Ronald Reagan or a Gary Hart or a Paul Tsongas-- candidates that people may be surprised by, but who then undergo a thorough vetting by both the media and by the voters in the larger states, over a period of weeks or months so that if they are found wanting then there is time for a better candidate to emerge. This system worked well for many years (though the argument that New Hampshire and Iowa are two of the three 'purple states' in the middle-- states which switched parties between the 2000 and 2004 general elections is bogus; Iowa and New Hampshire Republicans are often very conservative and Iowa and New Hampshire Democrats are often very liberal-- if the states are 'purple' it is only because the conservatives and liberals exist in approximately equal numbers.)
A true national primary would be having everyone vote on the same day.
But what we have now is a situation that seems the worst of both worlds. Iowa and New Hampshire can get the momentum rolling for a candidate and it snowballs so fast with the front loaded primaries that it is over before anyone can really examine the candidate. That certainly happened in 2004.
So now we see that this kind of mistake could be repeated, but even worse, with the nominee selected a month earlier-- and nearly seven months before the convention and nine before the election. The real failure is one of leadership, on both sides. There are many reasons states move their primaries up. It may be that they are just sick of not having a voice. It may be that with the increasing exposure and ad dollars that Presidential campaigns bring in these days they want the shot for their economy. It could be that they want to help local favorites (certainly one motivation for the early New York primary is to help local favorites Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Rudy Giuliani for the Republicans.) Or this year especially, it might be just part of the 'stampede mentality'-- everyone else is doing it, so why not us?
I'd like to suggest a couple of possible scenarios that could bring the problems here into perspective. I would rate each at about a 5-10% probability (meaning that they probably won't happen, but certainly they are possible, and if this happens every four years then sooner or later one of them will).
Scenario #1: First, take it on the Democratic side: Obama wins Iowa, Clinton recovers and wins New Hampshire and Edwards takes South Carolina. In Nevada the frontrunners all disappoint while Richardson (who has now clearly moved to the front of the 'second tier'-- exactly where John Edwards was last time around) does surprisingly well. On 'Super-Duper Tuesday,' Feb. 5, the mixed verdict produces no clear winner at the polls== but all the candidates do well enough to make it clear that no one will have a majority heading into a brokered convention. The months between that day and the convention is filled with the candidates wasting time and money attacking each other in an increasingly acerbic battle to pick up the few remaining delegates and go into the convention in as strong a position as possible-- and no one still enters with a sure nomination. This could drag on for months, and end with a nasty convention fight. The one saving grace for the Democrats is that if there is a brokered convention and none of the candidates can gin up a majority, there is a consensus candidate they could draft from the floor who is respected across pretty much all sectors of the party-- namely Al Gore-- who could probably be nominated and run a strong campaign in the fall.
Same scenario GOP side: Suppose that Giuliani puts together a win in Iowa, but former Massachusetts neighbor Mitt Romney wins New Hampshire. Veteran John McCain (who this time around has the support of Pat Robertson) wins in veteran-heavy South Carolina, but Georgia neighbor Newt Gingrich does very well there. Super-Duper Tuesday again produces a mixed verdict, with everyone doing well enough to effectively deny the nomination to anyone else. The Republicans fare worse in such a scenario since if they don't have a nominee in place by the convention they don't have an Al Gore as a backup-- a single unifying candidate that likely they could get a majority of the delegates to agree on if none of the announced candidates can garner a majority.
Of course in any case such a scenario would really harm either party if it happened to them but the other party had a nominee by February. That nominee could then collect lots of cash to use in the general, unify his (or her) party and let the other side squabble amongst themselves, all at the relatively cheap price of absorbing an occasional potshot from the other side when they aren't too busy wasting their resources on each other.
Scenario #2: A party nominates a candidate over a couple of weeks from late January to February 5. The candidate has maybe been cruising in the shadow of the frontrunners (as was the case with John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004) who self-destruct in a negative ad war (exactly what happened in Iowa to Howard Dean, who had been the front runner, and Dick Gephardt who was just behind Dean in Iowa). The relatively unknown candidate wins Iowa, rides the momentum (and the negative momentum of the former front runners) to a win in New Hampshire and sweeps Super-Duper Tuesday. That candidate has the nomination all sewed up by early February. Then it happens. The media, which had been focusing on the front runners, maybe with an assist from the hawks on the other side of the political spectrum, finds a scandal. Not just any scandal. A 'the candidate is a child molester,' or a 'the candidate authorized the terrorizing of a person who knew something embarrassing about the candidate to keep them quiet,' or a 'the candidate while in the Senate leaked classified information to Iranian agents' level of scandal. While I am in no way suggesting that I have any reason to believe any of these charges about any candidates currently running in either party, I am suggesting it as a hypothetical-- the type of scandal that makes the candidate a pariah. Or, perhaps no scandal at all but comments that reveal the candidate to be unstable, bigoted or otherwise unsuited to be President. Unelectable, and with the BEST scenario possible being a brokered convention, if party leaders can convince the candidate to quit and release his or her delegates. The worst part about this is that it would drag on for nine months (especially if the candidate refuses to step aside), and not only cost the party the Presidency but likely seriously damage members of the candidate's party all up and down the ballot as they couldn't flee the top of their ticket fast enough.
This scenario could be avoided if the media and others began digging when a candidate jumped up and won a primary, but now we've arranged it so that they won't have time to do their job until the die has been cast.
We are playing with fire here. If one of these things does not happen next year, then it will in 2012, 2016 or some other election year. But sooner or later one party will get burned by such a scenario.
One other beef I have with this primary schedule. Bad enough to have it essentially over in a day, but if so then why a day in February? The Iowa and New Hampshire verdicts in January made sense when the Presidential primary season went on until June, but if we insist on compacting this so much, then why not at least move it closer to the conventions? February until September is much too long a time. I'd recommend that if there is to be a national primary, that it be no earlier than June.
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