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There is a very distinct difference between primaries and general elections that people continue to ignore and it is simply unacceptable at this point in the game. It is simply a tiring argument that I just have to make at least one more time here while I have the opportunity.

Nominating Contests Explained

Caucuses and Primaries are selection methods for the party. Within its bylaws and rules, primaries and caucuses are generally free to be run as the party decides (yes, there are significant exceptions to this but let’s simplify the game). This is why some state parties choose a primary and some state parties choose a caucus and some state parties inexplicably choose to do both. Okay, so it isn’t inexplicable but it is still really stupid. Then there are open and closed primaries that either allow anyone to vote or closes it to declared party members only. Ultimately, if the party allowed, it could pick its candidate without any external influence at all. There is no law that states a person has a right to vote in a primary and for it to count in any way (i.e. there might be a law saying that a primary must be done and that people must be allowed to vote but the party doesn’t have to take the result for anything). And while it is generally good to get the opinions of your party, it isn’t necessary. Since there was no right to have your voice heard, the people of Michigan and Florida were not disenfranchised. Saying they were disenfranchised implies that they were entitled to a meaningful vote regardless of party actions. That never was the case.

The winner of the nomination contest (under party bylaws) is the party nominee. This is formalized at the convention. That’s it. It says very little to the strength of the nominated candidate in relation to the general election. Since there are naturally more losers than winners, this should go without saying but it doesn’t seem to be obvious to a lot of people.

The argument of the Obama campaign is that he has more delegates for the Democratic nomination and that makes him the strongest and most able to win the general election. This logic seems tortured at best on at least two fronts:

1. The delegate difference is fairly small. When it comes down to it, the delegate difference isn’t going to be that significant. If it is simply a matter of winner versus loser, that would be one thing but that simply doesn’t jive with the results.
2. More delegates does not mean better electoral success. Using that formula, Kerry should have had a better chance of winning in 2004 than either Obama or Clinton would have in 2008 and that doesn’t seem plausible. Kerry, by the numbers, was a nearly consensus candidate (especially after second place Edwards joined his campaign).

Democrats “Turning Their Back on Obama”

Those who would accuse Hillary Clinton supporters of not being logical when they think that McCain would be a better choice than Obama are missing a few things. One being that not all Hillary Clinton supporters are party Democrats. Open primaries guarantee that. Clinton has also clearly been positioning herself as a centrist in her Senate career. Given the priorities of voters, it is likely that those who are turning their back on Obama are the ones doing so because they are following their centrist tendencies. I know as a more centrist, non-party conservative, I’d rather support a moderate centrist Democrat than a hard right religious conservative. I would vote in the Republican primary though for who I thought should win and if someone who I found more counter to my centrist views won it, I would switch in the general (or vote third party). People who are loyal to the Democratic party will vote for the Democratic party. People who are loyal to people will pick their next candidate based on a litany of criteria. It isn’t far out, illogical or “moronic” and it seems insulting that people still go down that road.

The Superdelegate Math

If superdelegates were simply supposed to confirm the will of the people, then the Democrats should get rid of them. The purpose of superdelegates was to correct the people whenever they went too far left to win. It was to bring a centrist bias to the organization. If you’re a Democrat and can’t stand this process, then rewrite the bylaws. Democratic leaders believed that this would help preserve the party’s place in American politics.

Now we could argue all day on the impact of superdelegates if they did in fact reverse the will of the people (regardless of the small margin by which it would be). But the fact that Clinton has been so harassed about her position that she is best able to beat a Republican, I am starting to wonder if Democrats are losing sight of the big picture. If Hillary is the best person for the job and she still has a chance and you are a Democrat, I think you support that until that is no longer the case. I would hope that Obama supporters would make the same argument. The point is to field the best candidate, period.

If you can’t argue your candidate on that basis without resorting to party intimidation/unity bullshit, then don’t bitch when people who grow tired of party politics leave you behind (which is one of the reasons I am non-party now). I am not going to make the argument that McCain should be elected because he has an “R” next to his name. You need to consider him, along with the other options for president, based on criteria that is important to you. If that D or R is the most important, then fine. Just don’t be surprised when someone else happens to think differently.

If anything has perked up my ears about Obama, it has been this quote that has been widely circulated:

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them…And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not,” he said.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations,” he also said.

Hillary misses the mark on this issue for focusing on the “bitter” part of the remarks. I think it is hard to argue whether or not midwesterners are bitter overall. Obviously if you live in an area referred to as the “Rust Belt” though, you may be bitter. Especially when people are building businesses and creating new industries. When you consider that Oregon and California both have higher unemployment than all of the rust belt states except Michigan, I don’t know how these people could be MORE bitter than other areas. Still, whether or not people are actually bitter is really moot. I don’t care.

I also enjoyed the derision from the “Bill Clinton ushered in economic paradise” mantra that has infected Democrats for a while. Would Clinton even be mentioned if his wife weren’t running in the primary? Doubtful. But I am off topic…

What I am bothered by is this idea that because of poor economic conditions, they cling to guns, religion, racism, anti-immigrant and anti-trade ideas. That if someone were to give them a helping hand (I am assuming the government), that they would be able to rise up out of this desperate dependence on these (assumingly) bad things. Or, even assuming the best possible implication, that midwesterners would then be able to choose whether or not they actually like these things.

What I feel like he is saying is that a large number of people (at least in the midwest) who want to have guns, who believe in a god, who are racist, who are anti-immigrant/trade haven’t at all thought about their stances. That if their economic conditions improved, that they would simply come out of it.

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t know any middle or upper class people who are racist, religious, own guns or are anti-immigrant. So maybe he has a good point. Haha

Of course, it is smart of Obama supporters to play off the actual words with what he intended: using wedge issues that exploit these beliefs is wrong. And that’s popular with people who feel that Kerry was denied the presidency because of wedge issue gamesmanship. Even if I believe that Obama misspoke and that he doesn’t have a problem with people who have legitimate and differing beliefs on immigration policy, gun rights, believe in a god, or trade issues, I still get hung up on something.

Wedge issue voters, while perhaps more emotionally charged and controversial than others, are still simply single issue voters. And the problem with deriding single issue voters is that they end up being your supporters too so you come off looking like a hypocrite when you pander to issue groups.

And it is only suspicion at this point but I do believe that Obama meant exactly what he said in Frisco. He wants to help them overcome their financial difficulties so that they can see the light and embrace his viewpoints. It may be inspirational to hear for people who think religious belief or gun ownership has more to do with economic hardship than actual beliefs but for everyone else, you’ve got to be curious where that comes from.

If I may end on a cop out note, Obama’s views not withstanding, I still feel like he would be a weaker executive than Clinton would be. And when you are talking about weakness in regards to an opposing viewpoint, you prefer the weaker one because they would be less successful in implementation. So my views on Obama are still nil but I thought the quote was not a pretty thing for him.

Obama has been visiting Oregon the last couple days and has been getting an inordinate amount of press coverage in the local media. This isn’t surprising or anything but two things of note:

• Arguably, it doesn’t make a big difference who is elected president. I am one to believe that politicians often go back on their word and are more moderate and more extreme on views we’d like them to be more extreme/moderate on. I am also one to believe that being a good President isn’t necessarily a matter of political skill but of timing and…well, let’s be blunt: dumb luck.
  • Imagine if Reagan had won the nomination in 1976 and won the Presidency. Would he be as universally lauded as the right person for the time? Hell, I have doubts he would would have been re-elected.
  • Imagine if Nixon had won in 1960. Assuming he does or doesn’t get assassinated, he is probably looked at much more differently than the politically hardened Nixon we saw win later in his career.
  • That’s not to say that presidents don’t make their own destiny, or that there aren’t bad presidents, just bad circumstances; just that we often assign more control over world events to presidents than they deserve (in good and bad)
• On the other hand, if some political experience does matter for Democrats (or at least effectiveness in political experience), don’t you really have to look more closely at Clinton? First of all, she is married to a master politician and it really shows in her work in the Senate. You can make a really easy argument that Hillary was at least twice as effective as Obama in gaining influence and pushing through an agenda that served her and her constituents well for the first four years of her Senate bid. Let’s couple that with the fact that her first four years was two as a split majority and two as a minority party and that Bush and Republicans were basically untouchable from 9/11 until mid 2003, that’s impressive. Obama has had a weak Republican majority for two years and one year and change as a majority party. We can talk about her judgment on one issue (defense where she is hawkish), but her ability to deliver as a junior senator has been really interesting.

And honestly, part of Obama’s appeal to me as a conservative is that he has a lot of big ideas but that those ideas still have to go through Washington DC. He is not terribly effective as a politician and that might be refreshing for some and it certainly doesn’t bother me but for entirely different reasons. If you want to make JFK comparisons, consider one of JFK’s bigger ideas was to put a man on the moon. Considering the fact that there wasn’t a ton of political baggage with this and it could be considered defense project (and thus given extra funding and priority with minimal political baggage). Let’s also consider that DC in 1960 was immensely less bureaucratic than today’s government.

Guess how long it took us to get to the moon? Eight years. That’s two presidential terms. And this isn’t even as politicized as some of the proposals Obama has made.

I think both Obama and McCain are in a unique position to come off as genuine people to the casual moderates who often tip the scale for candidates. To a certain extent at least, I believe both to be true to their word in this sense. I think what differentiates McCain’s experience from Obama’s inexperience is that McCain has learned how to get his way on policy when it is really important to him and still come off as a disinterested Washington outsider (a.k.a. the maverick label). If Obama doesn’t win the presidency, he could easily be in the same position as a Senator. Someone enormously popular at home and has a big enough national image to not have to bow to party pressure when he doesn’t want to (but also knows when to toe the line unlike the “hated” Lieberman).

Obama Speech

So I watched the Obama speech that everyone has written about today and figured I’d throw out my two cents.

I was underwhelmed.

I don’t know how to better put it. I am sure if I had a different political philosophy I may have gotten some semblance of optimism from it but as it stands, the speech simply bored me to death when it came down to the reason he was giving the speech. I don’t think this was a Kennedy moment or anything along those lines. I honestly haven’t read any commentary on it yet but it lost my interest early and often.

What if Hillary is better?

It looks as though that, if no candidate drops out, that Superdelegates will be the deciding vote on the Democratic nominee. I have to ask though: what’s the problem? The same people that complain about rule changing in regards to Michigan and Florida revotes are the same one’s often backing rule changes in the way Superdelegates vote for and nominate their preferred candidate. The ground rules were set in 2004 and people knew that this was a possibility. If you have a problem with it, change it at this convention for future conventions.

The reason this rule was implemented was because Democratic leadership wanted more of a say in the process because they felt they made better decisions for the future of the party. Now what if Clinton is the best candidate for Democrats (both present and future) and the superdelegates make that decision? Would Democrats accept that or would they move to change the nominating rules?

Old dogs, old tricks

A common theme that seems to be popping up in the DNC’s criticism of McCain is associating him with Bush (a.k.a. the boogie man). Are we going to have another election against Bush and not for ideas? Seriously? Because, this is going to be like the third one in a row and it is getting really old. Bush hasn’t even run in the last one and won’t be running against him. Nor is McCain a member of the Bush administration nor has he ever been considered to be a crony (unless you are a DNC staffer who came to consciousness about three months ago).

Democrats have to be big fans of Bush at this point as they use him in every one of their advertisements. It is just getting old. It was one thing when he was in the election, it is quite another now that he is on his way out.

When you use the term “swiftboating,” you often do so incorrectly. Like a poor little boy that cries wolf too many times, you really need to get a freaking grip on the term.

Swiftboating is not:

• All negative advertising
• A brutal attack on an issue the candidate agrees with
• Sarcasm or mocking of a candidate
• A misrepresentation of a candidates views
• One candidate saying another did something (like sleep with a former employee) that has nothing to do with policy and may be true or false (that’s usually called a smear)

If you are going to use the term, it is typically when a third party group with unlimited fundraising capability smears the “apparent” opponent of their causes with information that is unrelated to policy.

I say “apparent” because these organizations, by law, have no affiliation with any candidate and a candidate, by law, cannot have control over that organization.

If you need a reason to universally hate CFR, I can point to MoveOn and Swift Boat Veterans For Truth as two organizations that can appeal to whatever side of the political fence you are. I hate both of them.

I’d much rather have soft money donations going directly to political campaigns where the campaign would actually have to be responsible for what they say. We can point to instances where it has both mattered and not mattered but giving them a third party to blame it on has changed the dynamics of campaigning in a terrible way.

And yes, I realize I am arguing against the namesake law of the candidate I am supporting. For the last time, politics isn’t about perfect fit. Unless you regularly ride on unicorns, perfect isn’t happening in this world.

Democratic Primary: it looks more and more like Hillary Clinton is going to fight until the end for superdelegates. This is a road that almost everyone thinks is a bad one for Democrats; a fight until the bitter end and not winning the support of the entire party because of fragmenting of supporters and basically going against the will of the electorate.

Here is the problem with the argument (and here is where Hillary is, at least, historically correct). From 1968 to 1984, Democrats won one Presidential election. That election was one that the incumbent hardly put his heart into it (sorry to the three Gerald Ford fans out there). The superdelegate system was put into place because they wanted to bring the party closer to the center (and reduce the possibility of Carters, Mondales and McGoverns). It is quite obvious that superdelegates were put into place for undemocratic reasons (why would you need them unless they would overrule the people in favor of electability). If you are going to demand that superdelegates follow the will of the people, then it is actually Obama who is advocating a breaking of precedent and rule.  It is also a good argument that people who are chosen as superdelegates have much more to lose if they fall behind the wrong candidate so they would naturally aim for a winner. If you are a party leader, your job and position in leadership depends on it. If you are part of the congressional delegation, your electability is affected.

Everybody on the left was rubbing their hands in delight over a protracted and bitter Republican battle to the nomination. McCain is it though and people are already starting to think about him strategically against either candidate. Now it is looking as though the fight may be on the Democratic side and it is already looking like Hillary is through making appeals to the people and is content fighting for superdelegate votes. Millions of dollars to ads against each other instead of ads against McCain.

And while I may find talk radio to be pretty vile, please try to convince me that they won’t have a field day with this nomination contest if it becomes bitter. Meanwhile, McCain can punch it in for a few months, go to fundraisers and press the flesh with some of his biggest doubters. While McCain may need the rest more than Clinton or Obama, they could definitely be running on fumes by the time critical October campaigning is going on.

One of the fun things about politics is that things change very quickly, things are very fluid and there are a lot of aspects of it that are open to speculation.

Reading the political ticker this morning got me thinking about the Democrats continued ineptitude when it comes to running campaigns. Sure, you could point to success in 2006 but I think that only shows that voters are willing to look past that when the issues are seemingly important enough. You could also talk about Republicans lack of unity and party infighting that could hurt them. It seems like all of the hype behind the Clinton/Obama race is more in spite of what the party tries to do. Are we coming back to reality? Here is what I think is a beginning of how Democrats can lose in 2008:

Clinton dismisses weekend losses

You have to hope Clinton isn’t (or is, depending on what side you are) the nominee with quotes like this:

“These are caucus states by and large, or in the case of Louisiana, you know, a very strong and very proud African-American electorate, which I totally respect and understand.”

Clinton argued that caucuses are “primarily dominated by activists” and that “they don’t represent the electorate, we know that.”

“It is highly unlikely we will win Alaska or North Dakota or Idaho or Nebraska,” she said, naming several of Obama’s red state wins. “But we have to win Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, Michigan … And we’ve got to be competitive in places like Texas, Missouri and Oklahoma.”

Let’s see here.

• Dismissing opponent wins in black strongholds assuming everyone voted based on race
• Writing off swaths of legitimate nominating contests and Democratic voters by assuming that caucuses do not indicate the will of the electorate
• Explaining that certain reliable red states are gone to the right months before election while inferring that certain reliable blue states are up for grabs if Obama is nominated

The Republicans have problems. If Clinton is selected as the nominee (and there are a LOT of bad ways that could go down), that would solve a lot of the Republicans problems.

Instead of arguing back and forth about which candidate will do better in a general election match up, why don’t you go to the site that, you know, compiles all that sort of information for you.

Oh, and if you’re super a-retentive and want to get technical on electoral college counts, the polling report has state by state results for a fee.

Hundreds of polls at your disposal.

Or you could of course continue arguing. I mean, if polling disagrees with you, it must be incorrect.

I know I have never been a fan of the talk radio zombies but I have to laugh at some of their theories about how voting for Clinton or Obama over McCain is better for their interests. It is strung together over seemingly one issue. I know this is going to come to a surprise but that key issue isn’t gay marriage, abortion or flag burning, it is immigration. Their argument goes as follows:

(Read on …)

I have been wrong all along so here is another go at it:

Democrats:

I have this pit in my stomach that Clinton is going to win big. I am going against that pit in saying that it will be a close race, but Clinton pulls ahead with the media and everybody else talking about “comebacks” and all that.  The only thing I really can’t see is Obama putting it away convincingly.

Republicans:

The big three candidates left are all going to pull states. I predict Huckabee will pull two to three, Romney will pull six to eight and McCain will pull the balance.  When delegates are counted, I think McCain will still be in the lead. If Huckabee drops out, people will split for both candidates fairly evenly defying simplistic media projections. When it becomes a two way race, things are either going to get incredibly civil or incredibly nasty. I can’t see any in between with these two.

Also, I get tired of candidates complaining about negative advertising. I realize it is an easy drum to beat and it rallies your supporters but it changes nothing. It costs much much more for a candidate to portray themselves positively in a compelling, memorable way than it does to paint your opponent negatively in a memorable way. That’s how it goes.