Thoughts on the Democratic Primary, Part Three

 

The Calendar

There's a lot to think about for those who want to remake the Democratic Primary to balance all the different interests of the party. Not least of which was the calendar.

Yes, there was the problem of Michigan and Florida. And yes, there was the excessive front-loading on Super Tuesday.  But just think about how the role of placement impacted our perspective on the race.

Imagine the first races (IA, NH, NV, SC) finished exactly the way they did. The candidates split the races evenly and seemed evenly matched at the end of January.

Then Super Tuesday, where Obama finished roughly even with Hillary. Take Georgia, Minnesota, and Colorado out and replace them with Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Follow that up, not with the Potomac Primary, but states like West Virginia, Texas, Indiana, and the territory of Puerto Rico, and suddenly, by the end of February, it's hard to imagine Obama being able to justify staying in the race. Given his underdog status and his near burial in delegates at this point, he'd probably have been forced to call it quits before March even rolls around.

But this calendar, by accident, was custom-made for Obama. He took advantage and won.

A different calendar? Very easily a different result.

Thoughts on the Democratic Primary, Part Two

Identity Politics

Much has been made of race, gender, and age in this primary. More than in most.

One of the most controversial statements uttered by a Clinton supporter was the following by Geraldine Ferraro:

"If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."

She may have received a lot of flak for that statement, but she was actually right. Barack Obama would not be the next Democratic Presidential Nominee if he was not black.

He would not be there if he was not a good speaker, she also could have added.

But why stop there?

He would also not be there if he was not straight. He would not be there if he was not college educated. He would also not be there if he was 20 years older than he is. He would also not be there if he was not a Christian. He would also not be there if he was transgendered. He would also not be there if he was deaf. He would not be there if he didn't have all of his teeth.

It's actually kind of a fun game to play. What characteristics are mandatory for the job of the presidency and which ones are (currently) forbidden?

The point of all of this is that this is really a stupid thing to say. Barack Obama is lucky to be who he is not only because of the color of his skin, but also because of his intelligence, political aptitude, speaking ability, strategic planning, good advisers, and everything else that it takes to get to where he is.

Nature, nurture, and a fair share of luck or chance or whatever you want to call it.

I don't really think it's fair to call Ferraro's statement "racist", which is a very loaded term. Why she's wrong, and why it's a stupid statement is because  it implies that Obama is nothing more than the color of his skin and his supporters nothing more than guilty whites and proud blacks.

No black person has ever been a nominee for the American presidency and not just any black person could pull it off. Love or hate Obama, you have to give him this: He put together the right biography with the right message at the right time with the right strategy with the right voice.  That's foresight, hard work, and more than a little bit of luck. It is not skin color.

Thoughts on the Democratic Primary, One

I just wanted to lay out some thoughts of my own about this Democratic primary. I have always favored Barack Obama, but I want to document some of my own impressions about the underlying issues surrounding the primary process.

Part One:

What does it mean to win the popular vote?

Hillary Clinton frequently claimed that she won the most popular votes. Barack Obama doesn't make the claim so often, but he has from time to time. The media has repeated Hillary's talking points, but downplayed the math that underlies those calculations.

So today I stumbled across this web site that lets you figure out how you want to add up the popular vote. You can take a look at all the different possibilities that the author considers and play with the math to come up with your version of the top vote-getter.

The catch? In his math, there are 972 ways to count the "popular vote".

Read enough of the comments and you begin to see arguments as to why, really, that number of 972 still leaves a number of interesting possibilities out (count the Texas primary for 2/3's vote and its caucus for 1/3, for example).

The point of all of this is that there is NO standard way of counting the popular vote. This primary has not been one person, one vote (neither is the general election, but I digress).

Why was there no standard way? Because the system is set up so that each state has its own rules and regulations for how it allocates delegates.

1. Some states had caucuses instead of primaries.

2. Some states do not report caucus turnout.

3. Other states had both primaries and caucuses, though voters were told one of them didn't matter.

4. Texas had both and both of them mattered.

5. Michigan and Florida broke the rules and voters were repeatedly told not to go to the polls because the votes would not be counted.

6. Obama and other candidates took their name off the ballot in Michigan. (They weren't allowed to do it in Florida.)

And the kicker? Superdelegates can choose anyone they want, regardless of the tallies.

If the Democratic party wants to make this a popular vote, they need to change the system. I think there are good reasons to maintain the delegate system and even to keep its proportional allocation. Having said that, the current system will have to undergo reform.

At the end of the day, the only metric that you could fairly measure was pledged delegates. Hillary was not wrong to argue that she had a very strong base of support. Mess around with the calculations enough and you come to the conclusion that for all intents and purposes, the popular vote was a tie.

In baseball, the tie goes to the runner. In the Democratic primary of 2008, it goes to the person who comes out in comfortable financial standing, with a strong appeal to the youth, and the potential to turn Republican states into Democratic ones not just in this election, but also in future elections.