posted
If you read the news, you've probably read more than a few articles in the past months about how the extended primary battle between Clinton and Obama is going to tear the Democratic Party apart. The logic behind this seems to be that Democrats will be focused on attacking eachother during the next few months, thereby giving John McCain the chance to solidify his base and make unanswered attacks upon both Clinton and Obama. And so, the common logic seems to say, the Democrats are only hurting themselves with this drawn out primary process.
But wait... what about this article: AP Poll: More Say They're Democrats. The article suggests that since the primaries started in December, there has been a significant increase in the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats - a trend that does not exist on the Republican side. Doesn't this suggest that, perhaps, the primary process is actually bringing more people in to the Democratic Party?
Consider: It seems likely that voters in EVERY state are going to have not just a say, but a meaningful say in the selection of the Democratic candidate. Normally, voters in only a handful of states can feel that they "selected" a Democratic or Republican nominee. But this year, everyone will have had a say. I would think that when you have a say in a candidate that gets elected, you'd be more enthusiastic about supporting them later on - compared to a candidate that Iowa and New Hampshire selected for you. And thus I would think that involving all states meaningfully in the primary process, rather than just the first few, should give a boost to the party's candidate across all those states.
Consider also: Turnout has been high in each state for Democrats. Democrats are building a network of support in every state, through this process, for whomever gets the nomination. They are building a network of volunteers that probably would not have existed had a candidate been determined by Super Tuesday. When the actual election comes around, this network of volunteers will have experience and enthusiasm that their Republican counterparts do not.
Given this, I don't see what good reason the media has to be so confident that the lack of a shortened primary process is going to severely hurt Democrats. It certainly is possible that it could hurt them, IF the candidates get beaten up too badly. But at the same time, the benefits of involving ALL states in the democratic process might outweigh that, possibly significantly. And given that this situation has never really happened before in the age of modern media, I'm not sure if we can make assumptions one way or the other.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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posted
I think it depends a lot on how the candidates conduct themselves for the rest of the primary season, and how convincingly they "make up" at the convention. If their campaigns go more negative, and there's lawsuits over MI and FL or the TX caucuses, that kind of thing may hurt them. If they each shift the focus more to their own positives instead of attacking each other all the time, and can keep the overall message of "even though we have our differences we're on the same side here" visible,* then the longer primary and extra free press from it can help them.
*From the last few weeks, I am not terribly optimistic on those two fronts, mind you.
posted
I have the same lack of optimism, Enigmatic.
Ideally, the contest could go on in a way that will only strengthen each candidate.
While I'm not sure where Obama will go in response, Hillary or her surrogates have, in the past couple of days:
1. Equated Obama with Ken Starr for his questions about her tax returns.
2. Stated that both Hillary and McCain are qualified to be "Commander in Chief," but that Obama needs to prove that.
It's pretty clear that Hillary isn't bothered by the prospect of making Obama have a harder run if he gets the nomination. The latter of those two quotes will get used in the general campaign if Obama is the candidate.
Without going negative, I think Obama needs to do a few things after Tuesday's primary in Mississippi:
1. Arrange for a long, in-depth interview with a journalist regarding his long relationship with Tony Rezko. Sitting here in Chicago, nothing I've read leads me to believe there's anything more than some embarrassment in this story, but until Obama sits down and gives a long account and answers questions, this issue will eat away at him while this trial goes on.
2. Obama worked for three years as a community organizer in Chicago in areas hard hit be steel plant closings. Considering the difficulties he's had with blue-collar votes, it might be a good idea to interview some of the people he worked with in that area who can talk about his work helping them organize to get job training programs and other issues accomplished in his time there.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
I'm completely disgusted with the Ken Starr comment. Hillary will do or say anything at all to win, and it is coming off as very sleazy. She doesn't appear to have any integrity at all.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Honestly, I think I hope that Obama will respond to the 3am phone call attack in a way that exposes what Hillary Clinton did in that case, i.e. cave to the Bush administration over and over.
Doing so would burn a lot of bridges with the Democratic establishment, though, because that's what most of them did.
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edit: If the Democratic candidates could keep the campaigning positive, I could see this being a benefit for them. I have no expectation that that will happen though.
I don't know that exposing the poor performance of the Democratic party will help either of them (it definitely wouldn't help Hillary Clinton). It might be better for the country, though, depending on what came out of it.
I could see a strategy where Barack Obama pursues a strategy of looking strong by challenging cowardice in government.
posted
btw, when I suggested the campaign find some blue-collar folks who worked with Obama during his years as an organizer, I was thinking in terms of using them as something to build a couple of 30-second TV and/or radio spots around, especially in Pennsylvania.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Addendum here for anyone interested in a profile of Obama from before all the hype about him. I don't think this has been posted here before.
In 1995, the Chicago Reader published a profile of a man starting on a new career in politics.
What Makes Obama Run? offers a nice look at Obama at the start of his political career:
Excerpt -
quote:Lawyer, teacher, philanthropist, and author Barack Obama doesn't need another career. But he's entering politics to get back to his true passion--community organization.
By Hank De Zutter December 8, 1995
When Barack Obama returned to Chicago in 1991 after three brilliant years at Harvard Law School, he didn't like what he saw. The former community activist, then 30, had come fresh from a term as president of the prestigious Harvard Law Review, a position he was the first African-American to hold. Now he was ready to continue his battle to organize Chicago's black neighborhoods. But the state of the city muted his exuberance.
"Upon my return to Chicago," he would write in the epilogue to his recently published memoir, Dreams From My Father, "I would find the signs of decay accelerated throughout the South Side--the neighborhoods shabbier, the children edgier and less restrained, more middle-class families heading out to the suburbs, the jails bursting with glowering youth, my brothers without prospects. All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we've done to make so many children's hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right their moral compass--what values we must live by. Instead I see us doing what we've always done--pretending that these children are somehow not our own."
Today, after three years of law practice and civic activism, Obama has decided to dive into electoral politics. He is running for the Illinois Senate, he says, because he wants to help create jobs and a decent future for those embittered youth. But when he met with some veteran politicians to tell them of his plans, the only jobs he says they wanted to talk about were theirs and his. Obama got all sorts of advice. Some of it perplexed him; most of it annoyed him. One African-American elected official suggested that Obama change his name, which he'd inherited from his late Kenyan father. Another told him to put a picture of his light-bronze, boyish face on all his campaign materials, "so people don't see your name and think you're some big dark guy."
posted
There are advantages and disadvantages to this thing dragging on.
Advantages: As has been mentioned, the candidates and the party in general are doing a lot of great organizational and morale boosting efforts in states that traditionally never get this kind of attention. What happened in Texas will be huge, especially in downticket races, come November. It means that when the General comes around, the candidates, Obama really, won't have to spend extra time and money setting up operations in these places, they'll already be in place, he knows who to call and he just has to spread around the vast sums of money that he'll have. It whips up voter fervor, gets them excited and energized, and brings new people into the process. All of that will have big time advantages come November.
Swings both ways: Press coverage. It remains to be seen exactly how this will play out, but even in the last month McCain has largely been a sideshow to the main Democratic event. All the news coverage has been on Clinton and Obama, as if the Republicans didn't matter. So they get a lot of screen time, but there IS such a thing as bad press in politics. If they can manage to keep it clean, and I think with Clinton there that's going to be hard, then this will be amazing, and McCain will be fighting for media table scraps, but more likely I think when he opens his mouth to slam them, he'll get on the air. Still, Democrats will get a lot of free media.
Disadvantages: If it goes on TOO long, I think people will get disenchanted with the process. Hopefully Pennsylvania will be a split and someone (Clinton) will drop out by then, otherwise it'll go six more weeks until mid June, or 8 weeks if Florida and Michigan revote in June. If this campaign goes dirty, it'll kill EVERYTHING that has been built up until now. If it's over at the end of April and both players are still clean, then Democrats come roaring out of the primary with an advantage and mostly united, since most Democrats don't really have a preference whilst Republicans are still iffy. If it goes on too long, the risk becomes greater and greater that Dems will say "Enough already!"
My guess? Clinton has already lost but can't admit it. Superdelegates don't matter, they won't violate the pledged delegates and I don't see the math there for her to overcome Obama's lead, not with the 10 or so states that are left. But I think come April, if she wins 55/45 or so (which isn't a bad guess), people will really start urging her to get out. That might change if Michigan and Florida really do get to revote, where she'll expect to pick up big support (even then, likely 55/45 splits), she might stay in to mid June, which I think will be bad. But if they don't revote, I think she's out by mid-May, and Dems will be much stronger for how this process has run.
As of right now, the Dems are stronger because of this, and it's giving them big, big advantages...but they run the risk of it exploding on them if they hold onto it for too long.
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posted
I think the biggest disadvantage is they are going to have to keep spending money to stay in the fight while McCain builds a solid war chest.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
The real problem there is really that all the money they raise right now mostly can't be used for the General. It's not so much the waste, it's that for example the $55 million that Obama raised last month, only $2 million can be used in the General. I'm really not as worried about his ability to raise money though. Of the million donors he has, the grand majority only donated a couple hundred at most. He won't have any problems with money come November.
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posted
I believe they said 90% of his donors are under $200. I can't find the link for that right now though.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
Senator Clinton's whining is pretty silly (except it seems to be working). Seriously, if Senator Obama weren't keeping it above board and gentlemanly, there is plenty of mud available to sling.
Does she really want to talk about relationships with shady real estate developers?
Or to counter the 3 am phone call ad, play the the same ad but have it end with a woman's voice saying, "It's for you again, dear." Or even worse, follow that up with a man's voice (with a southern accent) saying, "I told you not to call me here."
Senator Clinton has no call whatsoever to complain about Senator Obama's campaigning. Asking for tax returns is perfectly legitimate in this situation. I hope people figure this out pretty soon.
Honestly, how does she reconcile the "I am a fighter and can take anything the Republicans throw at me" with playing the victim now?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Honestly, how does she reconcile the "I am a fighter and can take anything the Republicans throw at me" with playing the victim now?
Playing the victim has been a key campaign strategy for her almost since the primaries began. Seriously, it's what kept her in the game initially, and it worked, big time.
I'm surprised at the surprise I'm reading here about this.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
The main danger I see, if people agree that this is a danger, is that crossover republicans in 2 states (4, if MI and FL revote) will strengthen Clinton's case for the superdelegates. Most democrats don't seem to give any credence to this idea, but I'm pretty sure it's real.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I've yet to see anyone give hard numbers on how many Republicans are crossing over, and if they are, who are they voting for? I hear on one side about how Republicans are voting for Clinton because they want to face off against her, and on the other side about how left leaning Republicans are voting for Obama because they wouldn't mind him in the White House if he won.
I think there's a lot of guesswork involved in these predictions. But, so far Obama is still holding a very, very healthy pledged delegate lead. Super delegates aren't going to matter in the end. And I don't think Republicans will cross over for one candidate over the other to have a race altering effect on the results.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
I doubt that the superdelegates are gonna meekly play out a purely symbolic role in the first Nominee-selection in which they hold the deciding-votes in 40years. PartyLeaders&ElectedOfficials are strong-willed individuals, and the other superdelegates go before screening panels consisting of their own state's PLEOs to get selected.
Obama is comfortably ahead only in currently-qualified pledged-delegates. The popular vote totals are much closer together. Add Florida and it'll be close to a tie. Add Michigan and Clinton's ahead. Which brings us to Florida's and Michigan's currently-unqualified pledged-delegates. Add them as is to Clinton's total, and Clinton's effectively tied. Then figure that Michigan's currently-unqualified pledged"uncommitted"delegates will have been selected by the same MichiganPLEOs who rigged the primary in Clinton's favor, and she goes ahead.
In other words, as things now stand, the superdelegates have plenty of leeway to claim "I am voting in compliance with the wishes of the majority of Democrat-leaning voters" whichever candidate they choose to vote for.
I dunno about the primaries hurting the Democrats... ...but stuff like Clintons want Obama for VicePresident after their "Obama's not fit to answer the RedPhone" ads sure makes me feel like the Clintons have an extremely low opinion of the people who vote for her. And she's already proven many times that she thinks of the DemocraticNationalCommittee as a buncha lackeys. What's funny is that if she were to become the DemocraticNominee, she's burned so many bridges to so many Democrat-leaning voters that she can't win the GeneralElection without Obama campaigning full-time for her.
Even if she were to win the GeneralElection, she'll have caused a Republican landslide in all of the Republican-leaning states, and probably have tilted the elections Republican-ward even in areas that she wins. ie Democratic incumbents will have a tougher time holding on to their seats.....and currently-strong Democratic challengers would be weakened. So she would have at best a weakly DemocraticCongress after the 2008Election, then face a RepublicanCongress after the 2010Election. Since there are always FAR more DemocraticCongressmen who crossover to vote with the majority of Republicans than there are RepublicanCongressmen who crossover to vote with the majority of Democrats, even the first-term of a Hillary presidency would be more ineffectual than Bill's second-term. ie Nothing that she has promised, is promising, or will promise on the campaign trail will pass through Congress.
1. revamps our military to be able to deal with terrorism more effectively by teaching cultural awareness
2. bankrupts the oil companies and Halliburton, etc. and puts all the money into alternative energy research and development
will be basically acceptable in my book. I think Obama would do both. Clinton probably would do both. McCain...it's tough to say. I have no idea.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Bankrupting the oil/etc companies would cause around a billion deaths the first year, a couple of billion or more the next, etc until the world population drops to under a billion total. In the process, many plant and animal species would go extinct cuz starving people will be eating them, as well as burning down woods and forests to make more agricultural land.
Somehow I can't see Obama viewing the above as a solution to our energy crisis.
quote:I doubt that the superdelegates are gonna meekly play out a purely symbolic role in the first Nominee-selection in which they hold the deciding-votes in 40years. PartyLeaders&ElectedOfficials are strong-willed individuals, and the other superdelegates go before screening panels consisting of their own state's PLEOs to get selected.
I do continue to be amazed at the ineptitude of the Democratic party, so I'm always willing to be surprised by the next boneheaded thing they'll do. But, in this case I think I'll take them at their word to abide by the choice of the pledged delegates. They know there will be a revolt if they essentially steal away the election and choose whoever the hell they want. People will wonder why they bothered voting in the first place. They know this. I've heard many of them voice the opinion that they'll either vote for the pledged delegate winner or they'll all vote to abstain and let the pledged votes determine the winner. Two of the party's strongest leaders, Pelosi and Dean, have both said as much as well.
The risk in exercising the power they finally have I think may be too much.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Meh, half of those people aren't really democrats.
My dad voted for Hillary because he's a republican and he thought McCain had a better chance of beating her. I voted for Hillary because I wanted her to win.
Gotta love disaffiliation.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
I am really disgusted by Hillary's mud-slinging. I was never really wanting to vote for her, but considered it in a "least of the evils" scenario, but after the mud-slinging, which only seems to be getting worse, I'm feeling like I couldn't vote for her even if it was her vs. MoJo JoJo.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
Yes. Of course. It's obvious. Obama has an unfair advantage because he's black. Undoubtedly folks didn't spot that fact cuz the Clinton campaign kicked off the election season by telling the black community that he wasn't.
Mind-boggling how the Clintonians keep trying to transform the Presidential Campaign into a racial fight. And pathetic that their get-out-and-vote slogan is "Vote for a Woman because She's not a Man" when the rest of her campaign is focused on proclaiming how macho Clinton is.
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