Watching Washington

Step Back from the Edge: The Florida-Michigan Dilemma

What are the Democrats going to do about Florida and Michigan? The answer to that question could determine the party's nominee for president in August, and it could affect the fate of that nominee in November.

As it stands officially, no delegates from either state will be welcome when the party gathers in Denver in August. That is because both defied the national party and held their primaries before the first party-sanctioned date in February. They did this in frustration over the favored role granted to four smaller states that held their events in January (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina).

The confrontration between national and state parties erupted last year and has festered through a winter of malign neglect and unlucky circumstance. But two things are pretty clear now: First, the full delegations from the two states must be seated in Denver. Second, their votes for president cannot be apportioned according to the primaries they held in January.

Obviously, some may disagree with the first of these points. They may argue for the "death penalty" for both states because they defied the national party and scheduled their votes outside the calendar window as determined by the proper party authorities.

But this would be ugly and alienating within the party and make a nasty spectacle on TV for all the world to see. It would also all but doom the national ticket in both states; and while Florida may be a reach for Democrats this year, Michigan is essential to any Democratic victory scenario.

Looking at the other side, there will be those, including the senior Democratic senators from Michigan and Florida, who insist the states have done nothing to deserve punishment and ought to have their seats and be allowed to allocate their votes according to the January primaries.

Such protestations of innocence are disingenuous, to put it politely, given the two states' willful rule-breaking in their bid for greater power in the nominating process. To be sure, either Michigan or Florida would be more representative of the big states and the diversity of the Democratic party than Iowa or New Hampshire. But it's equally obvious that every other Top Ten state could say the same, and virtually all of them wanted to move up into January too. The difference was that Florida and Michigan actually did it, thumbing their noses at the rest of the country in the process.

But it's easy to understand why the state party people responsible for the January move are digging in their heels. They feel defensive about it. For one thing, both states blew it. If they had stayed within the approved calendar, each would have voted at a critical stage in what has become the closest Democratic battle for the nomination since 1984.

Beyond that, the party sanctions kept the candidates from campaigning in either state, and in Michigan all the major contenders except Hillary Clinton removed their names from the ballot. Local broadcasters and other businesses lost out on a bonanza when the campaigns in both states were cancelled.

So at this point, those responsible need to come away with something of value or risk taking the blame.

The national figures in this fiasco are also in desperate straits. If they can't reconcile the competing interests they may bruise the party's nominee and degrade its chances in November. That would always be stupid, but this year it's insane. The country has not been this ready to put the GOP out of the White House since at least 1992, when Bill Clinton won -- or 1976, when Jimmy Carter did.

Fortunately, there is a reasonable zone of compromise to be found, provided both sides of this confrontation are ready to climb down from their respective high horses.

First, the states must be assured they will not be barred. Second, their superdelegates must be told they will be seated as well, under the usual rules preserving their independence. Third, the bulk of the delegations, the pledged delegates must be apportioned according to a system acceptable to the rule-making body the states defied.

The states could hold new primaries or caucuses, although this is unlikely because it would either require Republican cooperation or cost the state parties money they don't have. It would also alienate people who don't want to have to vote a second time.

But there are still other possibilities for compromise.

One would seat the full delegations but split their votes equally between the remaining candidates. Another would apportion the delegates according to the delegate split of the other 48 states. Yet another would give Hillary Clinton whatever share she won in the two states but give all the remaining delegates to Barack Obama. That way, no one is "disenfranchised."

In any event, what is most necessary is that these two states not be allowed to both seat their delegates AND determine the party's nominee. That would not only rescind the punishment for their brazen defiance of the rules but richly reward them for it.

7:02 PM ET | 02-15-2008 | permalink

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Caucus Strategy Bolsters Obama's Bid for White House

Anyone can point to the big reasons for Barack Obama's surprising success in 2008. There's his personal appeal and the country's readiness for a new face and style in presidential politics. Surely his ability to raise nearly $150 million on the broadest donor base in American history has been crucial, too.

But February has revealed another key element in the Obama plan, one that had been largely overlooked. His campaign emphasized building support and organizing turnout in caucus states. Most of these are smaller in population and do not have primaries to choose their delegates to the Democratic National Convention. They rely on precinct level caucuses to gauge the sentiment of activists and core voters.

It started with Iowa, of course, the state that made caucus states famous by putting its event at the front of the line. Ever since 1972, this upstart caucus has won national attention by going ahead of everyone, including New Hampshire, which by law holds its primary first in the nation.

Obama won the Iowa caucuses two days after New Year's and then turned the same intensive attention and tactics on a succession of other caucus states: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, Washington.

Obama won all eight of these contests by wide margins, and the size of the margins matters because it allows him to take the lion's share of the delegates. His 80 percent in Idaho, for example, gave him 15 out of 18 delegates at stake, and 74 percent in Kansas gave him 23 out of 32. That's as close as you can come to winner-take-all in the Democratic Party, obsessed now for four decades with distributing delegates in proportion to the vote.

In the other two states to caucus so far, Nevada and New Mexico, Hillary Clinton was the apparent winner in the raw vote. But the vote was so close that Obama emerged with a virtual draw in delegates awarded both times: Clinton will reap no more than 26 delegates from the two states together while Obama gets no fewer than 25.

Still to come are caucuses in Hawaii and Wyoming and Texas (which also holds a primary). If current trends hold, Obama is likely to win Hawaii and Wyoming, and he has a fighting chance in the Lone Star caucuses as well. That would help him balance out Clinton's expected strength in the primary held the same day.

Winning in these states has paid big dividends for Obama's campaign on three fronts.

First, it has enabled him to overcome Clinton's early lead in the delegate count, which swelled with wins in California, New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts. With caucus wins this past weekend, Obama pulled ahead in the race for pledged delegates. His overall total, including the superdelegates (elected officials and party officers), is expected to surpass hers following the Potomac Primary on Feb 12.

Second, the caucus strategy has enabled Obama to win more states numerically and grab more headlines in so doing. On Super Tuesday, Clinton won slightly more votes and delegates nationwide, but Obama won 13 states to her 8 (not counting New Mexico). With Obama racking up three more caucus states over the following weekend, and adding several more primary states thereafter, he is on track to finish February winning 22 states (plus the District of Columbia) to Clinton's 11.

Third, and perhaps as important, winning all these caucus states frees Obama from being typecast as The African American Candidate. When interviewers ask about his poor showing among whites in the South (most recently in Louisiana's Feb. 9 primary), Obama shrugs and asks how many black people there are in Idaho or Alaska or North Dakota.

That may not answer the question of racially polarized voting in the South, but it allows Obama to maintain his claim to transcending race. And in this sensitive stage of the Democratic nomination contest, maintaining that claim may be as important to Obama's chances as counting states and delegates won.

7:20 AM ET | 02-12-2008 | permalink

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Romney's Departure May Speed Process in Both Parties

Mitt Romney's decision to leave the presidential race this week handed the Republican crown to John McCain, the man whose dominating wins on Super Tuesday put him well past the halfway mark on the march to 1,191 delegates -- the magic number needed to nominate.

It also meant the super-early placement of Super Tuesday on February 5 had achieved its predicted effect. It enabled a GOP nominee to emerge sooner than in any previous cycle in history, barring only those instances when an incumbent Republican was seeking re-election without significant opposition.

In fact, McCain claimed the nomination even earlier in the year than incumbent Republicans George H.W. Bush and Gerald Ford had in 1992 and 1976, respectively.

Romney bade his farewell in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, an annual red-meat festival for activists in Washington D.C. The crowd groaned and there were shouts of "No! No!" But Romney said he had to get out now because a protracted nomination fight would help the Democrats.

Perhaps. But it's not likely the former Massachusetts governor would scruple such a thing if the numbers gave him a chance of succeeding. As it was, a review of the facts told this former investment banker not to throw any more good money after bad -- especially considering how much of that money would have to be his own.

Thanks to Republican winner-take-all rules, McCain got all the swag Tuesday night in New York, New Jersey, Missouri, Arizona, Connecticut and Delaware. In California, where it's winner-take-all by congressional district, McCain got virtually all the 170 delegates; and in Illinois, where they use proportional distribution, McCain still got 54 out of 67.

You get the drift. So did Mitt.

When the counting was done, McCain had more than 700 delegates while Romney had fewer than 300. To overcome this gap, Romney would have to win better than three out of four delegates available in the remaining events. This was not plausible.

And, it was going to be inordinately expensive.

Romney has reported spending $35 million of his own in 2007 on this campaign, and he appears to have been largely self-financing since. Right after losing in Florida, the Romney campaign hesitated before making its media buy for Super Tuesday -- no doubt pondering how much to add to its sunk costs.

So, the runner-up bowed to the inevitable, leaving only Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul to chase the frontrunner. Huckabee won five Southern states on February 5 and may win some more in the weeks ahead. But neither he nor Paul will impair McCain's march to his 1,191.

It is far less obvious, but Romney's departure may also move things along on the Democratic side.

The Democrats' events on Super Tuesday did not produce a clear winner or a frontrunner: Hillary Clinton won the biggest states, much as McCain did, but the proportional rules of her party meant Barack Obama got lots of delegates in these states too. In California and New York, he got three for every four she got. In New Jersey, his 48 nearly matched her 59.

That allowed Obama to battle back in the 13 states he won, most of them smaller caucus states that nonetheless produced fat margins for him -- including 2 to 1 ratios in Georgia, Minnesota and Colorado. On the night, the difference between the two candidates was a handful.

So right now, the Clinton-Obama duel looks set to continue indefinitely. Over the next four months, Democrats will be voting or caucusing in more than a score of states. We could have the first nomination contest that lasts into June since Walter Mondale held off Gary Hart in 1984.

Or, possibly, not. Consider the psychological and practical effects of the Romney decision on Democratic contests to come.

Watching the Republicans fall into line behind their nominee ought to make Democrats long for closure as well, especially as they spend tens of millions of their dollars on an internecine struggle -- money they would rather spend against McCain. An endless and debilitating fight of this kind would sap the party's energy and create animosities. A multi-ballot convention might make it all worse.

And if all that waste is not enough to change the minds of many Democrats, the votes of independents and crossover Republicans might be enough to alter the outcomes of future Democratic primaries.

Take the February events, for example. Virginia and Wisconsin allow non-Democrats to take part. Picture yourself a voter in either state who might have been planning to vote in the GOP primary (probably for McCain). There's no suspense there anymore, and McCain does not really need your vote. But on the Democratic side, it's quite a different story.

In the states that have voted so far, independents and Republicans who take a Democratic ballot usually vote for Obama. If that holds true down the road, it could tip the balance in more than a few states. It is worth noting that the open primaries still to come include not only Virginia and Wisconsin but also Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Indiana.

In the end, it may well come down to the superdelegates. These are the elected officeholders and party officials who are delegates by virtue of their position. Right now, Clinton has the stated loyalty of more than 200 superdelegates, roughly 80 more than her rival. But there are 825 all told. Most have not yet recorded a preference between these two candidates, and all 825 are free to change their minds.

The superdelegates' job is to help the party reach a decision and pull itself together. And nothing focuses the mind of a superdelegate quite as quickly as the sight of a Republican nominee in place, preparing for November.

9:12 PM ET | 02- 7-2008 | permalink

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