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Monday, February 04, 2008

How Democratic rules will drag out this election fight

Robert Novak points to the system that the Democrats put in place after McGovern's victory in the Democratic nomination fight in 1972 as now coming back to haunt them today. I talked about how Democrats have historically hurt themselves with their convention rules on Friday.
The full consequences of adopting proportional representation three decades ago finally will be realized by the Democratic Party. In 1972, supporters of Hubert Humphrey protested George McGovern's winner-take-all capture of the huge California delegation that clinched the presidential nomination. Appalled at being called majoritarians, McGovernite liberals adopted proportional representation. For the next seven presidential elections, Democrats have avoided its impact creating a stalemate, in the absence of a prolonged two-candidate contest.

Under proportional representation, a candidate collects delegates by achieving the 15 percent viability level either statewide or in a congressional district. In a four-delegate district, Clinton could win 59 percent of the vote and still split the delegates with Obama, two to two. The impact of California consequently is dissipated in view of polls showing Clinton's former double-digit lead cut in half. Although she can win handily in New York and New Jersey, Obama will be first in Illinois and smaller states, and is strong in barometric Missouri. So, the supposed national primary will settle nothing.

Nor, because of delegate division, is it guaranteed that a nominee would be selected by March 4, in the Texas and Ohio primaries, or even by April 22, when Pennsylvania votes. Many of the 796 "super delegates" (unelected prominent Democrats) can remain undecided. Finally, Clinton will try to restore Florida and Michigan delegates purged from convention rolls for scheduling their primaries too early -- primaries that she won virtually uncontested.
I know it seems that this election has been going on forever, but it's really just been a year.

And after the Democrats' fears of being seen as majoritarian in 1972, they then in the 1980s established the superdelegates so that the party leaders could have a role in choosing a more electable candidate. That system gave us Walter Mondale in 1984. So, if it continues this close, the votes of those superdelegates could be determinative this year. Ari Berman writes in The Nation that this could favor Hillary Clinton because she's had more of a campaign to lock up the superdelegates, but that is not a sure thing.
The obvious beneficiary of the superdelegates this time around is another establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Before Super Tuesday, Obama had sixty-three pledged delegates, compared with Clinton's forty-eight. But as we went to press Clinton had a huge advantage in superdelegates, 184 to ninety-five, according to CNN. "Many of the superdelegates were in and out of the Clinton White House, invited to dinners, have received contributions from Clinton allies," says Hart, who has endorsed Obama. "There will be pressure brought to bear to cash in those chips."

Clinton has a wealth of contacts to tap, in the party and in her campaign. There's the former president himself, of course, and Clinton's campaign chair, Terry McAuliffe, who ran the DNC from 2001 to 2005, and a top Clinton surrogate, Harold Ickes, who serves on the DNC's influential rules committee. The Clintons are working hard to bring the large bloc of uncommitted superdelegates into the senator's camp. "I know Hillary is calling superdelegates regularly, which is a smart play," says Art Torres, California Democratic Party chair. Interviews with superdelegates in Alabama, California, Colorado and Massachusetts — a random sample of February 5 states — illustrate this close attention. After Ramona Martinez, a Denver city councilwoman, switched her support from Bill Richardson to Clinton, she received immediate thank-you calls from McAuliffe and Clinton adviser Ann Lewis. In Alabama "Hillary would get the majority of the superdelegates," predicts state party chair Joe Turnham. "A lot of it is longstanding relationships. People go back to the 1980s with Bill Clinton, when he first came to Alabama."

There's often a disconnect between the choices of rank-and-file Democrats and the preferences of superdelegates. In Colorado, Martinez admits, "Obama has a lot more troops on the ground." Obama is expected to do well in Alabama, whose African-American population matches South Carolina's. Even so, the Obama campaign argues that the tally among superdelegates is closer than reported in the media — and that the so-called uncommitted delegates lean his way. "Bill and Hillary got what they could," says a senior Obama campaign adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They picked the low- to-midhanging fruit. The rest of the superdelegates remain neutral or undecided and may be resistant to the Clinton pull."
I think that a lot of these officials are waiting to commit so that they can put their finger in the wind at the appropriate time and make their choice. A lot of these elected officials won't want to go against the popular will in their states if there was a strong vote for Obama there. And if it's close, they might just go with whom they like better and think would be a stronger general election candidate. And, barring some major error I think that has got to be Barack Obama. So don't be too impressed with Clinton's seeming lead among the superdelegates. A lot of Democrats are probably secretly appalled at the idea of having Bill Clinton back in the public eye for four or eight years. He's fine for raising them money and making attacks against Republicans, but they can also remember how the Democratic Party suffered losses across the board during his time in the White House. And, as Robert Novak reminds us, some Democratic senators are not happy with how Hillary Clinton has been twisting her own record.
Senatorial support of Obama helps explain why the McAuliffe plan failed. In addition to habitual Democratic resistance to being controlled, many colleagues simply do not trust Clinton. They complain that in Thursday's debate from Los Angeles she repeated that she opposed the Levin amendment to the 2003 Iraq war resolution because it would "subordinate" U.S. decision-making to the United Nations. It did not, and Clinton made no such claim until her presidential campaign. That kind of performance has helped build the stalemate.
So, it's too soon to predict how the superdelegates would divide up. It could be very close and those Florida and Michigan delegates could suddenly loom large. With the nomination on the line, would the Democratic Party really want to deny two large states their voice at the convention just because they ignored the sacred rights of New Hampshire and South Carolina to be first?
Labels: Election 2008

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:49 AM 0 comments

Comments:

Robert Novak points to the system that the Democrats put in place after McGovern's victory in the Democratic nomination fight in 1972 as now coming back to haunt them today. I talked about how Democrats have historically hurt themselves with their convention rules on Friday.

The full consequences of adopting proportional representation three decades ago finally will be realized by the Democratic Party. In 1972, supporters of Hubert Humphrey protested George McGovern's winner-take-all capture of the huge California delegation that clinched the presidential nomination. Appalled at being called majoritarians, McGovernite liberals adopted proportional representation. For the next seven presidential elections, Democrats have avoided its impact creating a stalemate, in the absence of a prolonged two-candidate contest.

Under proportional representation, a candidate collects delegates by achieving the 15 percent viability level either statewide or in a congressional district. In a four-delegate district, Clinton could win 59 percent of the vote and still split the delegates with Obama, two to two. The impact of California consequently is dissipated in view of polls showing Clinton's former double-digit lead cut in half. Although she can win handily in New York and New Jersey, Obama will be first in Illinois and smaller states, and is strong in barometric Missouri. So, the supposed national primary will settle nothing.

Nor, because of delegate division, is it guaranteed that a nominee would be selected by March 4, in the Texas and Ohio primaries, or even by April 22, when Pennsylvania votes. Many of the 796 "super delegates" (unelected prominent Democrats) can remain undecided. Finally, Clinton will try to restore Florida and Michigan delegates purged from convention rolls for scheduling their primaries too early -- primaries that she won virtually uncontested.

I know it seems that this election has been going on forever, but it's really just been a year.

And after the Democrats' fears of being seen as majoritarian in 1972, they then in the 1980s established the superdelegates so that the party leaders could have a role in choosing a more electable candidate. That system gave us Walter Mondale in 1984. So, if it continues this close, the votes of those superdelegates could be determinative this year. Ari Berman writes in The Nation that this could favor Hillary Clinton because she's had more of a campaign to lock up the superdelegates, but that is not a sure thing.

The obvious beneficiary of the superdelegates this time around is another establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Before Super Tuesday, Obama had sixty-three pledged delegates, compared with Clinton's forty-eight. But as we went to press Clinton had a huge advantage in superdelegates, 184 to ninety-five, according to CNN. "Many of the superdelegates were in and out of the Clinton White House, invited to dinners, have received contributions from Clinton allies," says Hart, who has endorsed Obama. "There will be pressure brought to bear to cash in those chips."

Clinton has a wealth of contacts to tap, in the party and in her campaign. There's the former president himself, of course, and Clinton's campaign chair, Terry McAuliffe, who ran the DNC from 2001 to 2005, and a top Clinton surrogate, Harold Ickes, who serves on the DNC's influential rules committee. The Clintons are working hard to bring the large bloc of uncommitted superdelegates into the senator's camp. "I know Hillary is calling superdelegates regularly, which is a smart play," says Art Torres, California Democratic Party chair. Interviews with superdelegates in Alabama, California, Colorado and Massachusetts — a random sample of February 5 states — illustrate this close attention. After Ramona Martinez, a Denver city councilwoman, switched her support from Bill Richardson to Clinton, she received immediate thank-you calls from McAuliffe and Clinton adviser Ann Lewis. In Alabama "Hillary would get the majority of the superdelegates," predicts state party chair Joe Turnham. "A lot of it is longstanding relationships. People go back to the 1980s with Bill Clinton, when he first came to Alabama."

There's often a disconnect between the choices of rank-and-file Democrats and the preferences of superdelegates. In Colorado, Martinez admits, "Obama has a lot more troops on the ground." Obama is expected to do well in Alabama, whose African-American population matches South Carolina's. Even so, the Obama campaign argues that the tally among superdelegates is closer than reported in the media — and that the so-called uncommitted delegates lean his way. "Bill and Hillary got what they could," says a senior Obama campaign adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They picked the low- to-midhanging fruit. The rest of the superdelegates remain neutral or undecided and may be resistant to the Clinton pull."

I think that a lot of these officials are waiting to commit so that they can put their finger in the wind at the appropriate time and make their choice. A lot of these elected officials won't want to go against the popular will in their states if there was a strong vote for Obama there. And if it's close, they might just go with whom they like better and think would be a stronger general election candidate. And, barring some major error I think that has got to be Barack Obama. So don't be too impressed with Clinton's seeming lead among the superdelegates. A lot of Democrats are probably secretly appalled at the idea of having Bill Clinton back in the public eye for four or eight years. He's fine for raising them money and making attacks against Republicans, but they can also remember how the Democratic Party suffered losses across the board during his time in the White House. And, as Robert Novak reminds us, some Democratic senators are not happy with how Hillary Clinton has been twisting her own record.

Senatorial support of Obama helps explain why the McAuliffe plan failed. In addition to habitual Democratic resistance to being controlled, many colleagues simply do not trust Clinton. They complain that in Thursday's debate from Los Angeles she repeated that she opposed the Levin amendment to the 2003 Iraq war resolution because it would "subordinate" U.S. decision-making to the United Nations. It did not, and Clinton made no such claim until her presidential campaign. That kind of performance has helped build the stalemate.

So, it's too soon to predict how the superdelegates would divide up. It could be very close and those Florida and Michigan delegates could suddenly loom large. With the nomination on the line, would the Democratic Party really want to deny two large states their voice at the convention just because they ignored the sacred rights of New Hampshire and South Carolina to be first?

Labels: Election 2008

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:49 AM 0 comments

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Monday, February 04, 2008

How Democratic rules will drag out this election fight

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HOME Betsy neither necessarily uses, nor endorses, the products advertised on this site. The truth about Avesil Cheap Hosting Atlanta Bankruptcy Attorney Dallas Bankruptcy Attorney Wikio Get exclusive travel deals and book discount cheap flights Online Bachelors Degree Comments from an AP history and government teacher in Raleigh, NC. e-mail betsynewmark AT gmail.com Commissions earned from selling items through Amazon will go towards buying materials for my classes. Thank you. Site Feed		Monday, February 04, 2008 How Democratic rules will drag out this election fight Robert Novak points to the system that the Democrats put in place after McGovern's victory in the Democratic nomination fight in 1972 as now coming back to haunt them today. I talked about how Democrats have historically hurt themselves with their convention rules on Friday. The full consequences of adopting proportional representation three decades ago finally will be realized by the Democratic Party. In 1972, supporters of Hubert Humphrey protested George McGovern's winner-take-all capture of the huge California delegation that clinched the presidential nomination. Appalled at being called majoritarians, McGovernite liberals adopted proportional representation. For the next seven presidential elections, Democrats have avoided its impact creating a stalemate, in the absence of a prolonged two-candidate contest. Under proportional representation, a candidate collects delegates by achieving the 15 percent viability level either statewide or in a congressional district. In a four-delegate district, Clinton could win 59 percent of the vote and still split the delegates with Obama, two to two. The impact of California consequently is dissipated in view of polls showing Clinton's former double-digit lead cut in half. Although she can win handily in New York and New Jersey, Obama will be first in Illinois and smaller states, and is strong in barometric Missouri. So, the supposed national primary will settle nothing. Nor, because of delegate division, is it guaranteed that a nominee would be selected by March 4, in the Texas and Ohio primaries, or even by April 22, when Pennsylvania votes. Many of the 796 "super delegates" (unelected prominent Democrats) can remain undecided. Finally, Clinton will try to restore Florida and Michigan delegates purged from convention rolls for scheduling their primaries too early -- primaries that she won virtually uncontested. I know it seems that this election has been going on forever, but it's really just been a year. And after the Democrats' fears of being seen as majoritarian in 1972, they then in the 1980s established the superdelegates so that the party leaders could have a role in choosing a more electable candidate. That system gave us Walter Mondale in 1984. So, if it continues this close, the votes of those superdelegates could be determinative this year. Ari Berman writes in The Nation that this could favor Hillary Clinton because she's had more of a campaign to lock up the superdelegates, but that is not a sure thing. The obvious beneficiary of the superdelegates this time around is another establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Before Super Tuesday, Obama had sixty-three pledged delegates, compared with Clinton's forty-eight. But as we went to press Clinton had a huge advantage in superdelegates, 184 to ninety-five, according to CNN. "Many of the superdelegates were in and out of the Clinton White House, invited to dinners, have received contributions from Clinton allies," says Hart, who has endorsed Obama. "There will be pressure brought to bear to cash in those chips." Clinton has a wealth of contacts to tap, in the party and in her campaign. There's the former president himself, of course, and Clinton's campaign chair, Terry McAuliffe, who ran the DNC from 2001 to 2005, and a top Clinton surrogate, Harold Ickes, who serves on the DNC's influential rules committee. The Clintons are working hard to bring the large bloc of uncommitted superdelegates into the senator's camp. "I know Hillary is calling superdelegates regularly, which is a smart play," says Art Torres, California Democratic Party chair. Interviews with superdelegates in Alabama, California, Colorado and Massachusetts — a random sample of February 5 states — illustrate this close attention. After Ramona Martinez, a Denver city councilwoman, switched her support from Bill Richardson to Clinton, she received immediate thank-you calls from McAuliffe and Clinton adviser Ann Lewis. In Alabama "Hillary would get the majority of the superdelegates," predicts state party chair Joe Turnham. "A lot of it is longstanding relationships. People go back to the 1980s with Bill Clinton, when he first came to Alabama." There's often a disconnect between the choices of rank-and-file Democrats and the preferences of superdelegates. In Colorado, Martinez admits, "Obama has a lot more troops on the ground." Obama is expected to do well in Alabama, whose African-American population matches South Carolina's. Even so, the Obama campaign argues that the tally among superdelegates is closer than reported in the media — and that the so-called uncommitted delegates lean his way. "Bill and Hillary got what they could," says a senior Obama campaign adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They picked the low- to-midhanging fruit. The rest of the superdelegates remain neutral or undecided and may be resistant to the Clinton pull." I think that a lot of these officials are waiting to commit so that they can put their finger in the wind at the appropriate time and make their choice. A lot of these elected officials won't want to go against the popular will in their states if there was a strong vote for Obama there. And if it's close, they might just go with whom they like better and think would be a stronger general election candidate. And, barring some major error I think that has got to be Barack Obama. So don't be too impressed with Clinton's seeming lead among the superdelegates. A lot of Democrats are probably secretly appalled at the idea of having Bill Clinton back in the public eye for four or eight years. He's fine for raising them money and making attacks against Republicans, but they can also remember how the Democratic Party suffered losses across the board during his time in the White House. And, as Robert Novak reminds us, some Democratic senators are not happy with how Hillary Clinton has been twisting her own record. Senatorial support of Obama helps explain why the McAuliffe plan failed. In addition to habitual Democratic resistance to being controlled, many colleagues simply do not trust Clinton. They complain that in Thursday's debate from Los Angeles she repeated that she opposed the Levin amendment to the 2003 Iraq war resolution because it would "subordinate" U.S. decision-making to the United Nations. It did not, and Clinton made no such claim until her presidential campaign. That kind of performance has helped build the stalemate. So, it's too soon to predict how the superdelegates would divide up. It could be very close and those Florida and Michigan delegates could suddenly loom large. With the nomination on the line, would the Democratic Party really want to deny two large states their voice at the convention just because they ignored the sacred rights of New Hampshire and South Carolina to be first? Labels: Election 2008 posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:49 AM 0 comments Comments: Robert Novak points to the system that the Democrats put in place after McGovern's victory in the Democratic nomination fight in 1972 as now coming back to haunt them today. I talked about how Democrats have historically hurt themselves with their convention rules on Friday. The full consequences of adopting proportional representation three decades ago finally will be realized by the Democratic Party. In 1972, supporters of Hubert Humphrey protested George McGovern's winner-take-all capture of the huge California delegation that clinched the presidential nomination. Appalled at being called majoritarians, McGovernite liberals adopted proportional representation. For the next seven presidential elections, Democrats have avoided its impact creating a stalemate, in the absence of a prolonged two-candidate contest. Under proportional representation, a candidate collects delegates by achieving the 15 percent viability level either statewide or in a congressional district. In a four-delegate district, Clinton could win 59 percent of the vote and still split the delegates with Obama, two to two. The impact of California consequently is dissipated in view of polls showing Clinton's former double-digit lead cut in half. Although she can win handily in New York and New Jersey, Obama will be first in Illinois and smaller states, and is strong in barometric Missouri. So, the supposed national primary will settle nothing. Nor, because of delegate division, is it guaranteed that a nominee would be selected by March 4, in the Texas and Ohio primaries, or even by April 22, when Pennsylvania votes. Many of the 796 "super delegates" (unelected prominent Democrats) can remain undecided. Finally, Clinton will try to restore Florida and Michigan delegates purged from convention rolls for scheduling their primaries too early -- primaries that she won virtually uncontested. I know it seems that this election has been going on forever, but it's really just been a year. And after the Democrats' fears of being seen as majoritarian in 1972, they then in the 1980s established the superdelegates so that the party leaders could have a role in choosing a more electable candidate. That system gave us Walter Mondale in 1984. So, if it continues this close, the votes of those superdelegates could be determinative this year. Ari Berman writes in The Nation that this could favor Hillary Clinton because she's had more of a campaign to lock up the superdelegates, but that is not a sure thing. The obvious beneficiary of the superdelegates this time around is another establishment favorite, Hillary Clinton. Before Super Tuesday, Obama had sixty-three pledged delegates, compared with Clinton's forty-eight. But as we went to press Clinton had a huge advantage in superdelegates, 184 to ninety-five, according to CNN. "Many of the superdelegates were in and out of the Clinton White House, invited to dinners, have received contributions from Clinton allies," says Hart, who has endorsed Obama. "There will be pressure brought to bear to cash in those chips." Clinton has a wealth of contacts to tap, in the party and in her campaign. There's the former president himself, of course, and Clinton's campaign chair, Terry McAuliffe, who ran the DNC from 2001 to 2005, and a top Clinton surrogate, Harold Ickes, who serves on the DNC's influential rules committee. The Clintons are working hard to bring the large bloc of uncommitted superdelegates into the senator's camp. "I know Hillary is calling superdelegates regularly, which is a smart play," says Art Torres, California Democratic Party chair. Interviews with superdelegates in Alabama, California, Colorado and Massachusetts — a random sample of February 5 states — illustrate this close attention. After Ramona Martinez, a Denver city councilwoman, switched her support from Bill Richardson to Clinton, she received immediate thank-you calls from McAuliffe and Clinton adviser Ann Lewis. In Alabama "Hillary would get the majority of the superdelegates," predicts state party chair Joe Turnham. "A lot of it is longstanding relationships. People go back to the 1980s with Bill Clinton, when he first came to Alabama." There's often a disconnect between the choices of rank-and-file Democrats and the preferences of superdelegates. In Colorado, Martinez admits, "Obama has a lot more troops on the ground." Obama is expected to do well in Alabama, whose African-American population matches South Carolina's. Even so, the Obama campaign argues that the tally among superdelegates is closer than reported in the media — and that the so-called uncommitted delegates lean his way. "Bill and Hillary got what they could," says a senior Obama campaign adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity. "They picked the low- to-midhanging fruit. The rest of the superdelegates remain neutral or undecided and may be resistant to the Clinton pull." I think that a lot of these officials are waiting to commit so that they can put their finger in the wind at the appropriate time and make their choice. A lot of these elected officials won't want to go against the popular will in their states if there was a strong vote for Obama there. And if it's close, they might just go with whom they like better and think would be a stronger general election candidate. And, barring some major error I think that has got to be Barack Obama. So don't be too impressed with Clinton's seeming lead among the superdelegates. A lot of Democrats are probably secretly appalled at the idea of having Bill Clinton back in the public eye for four or eight years. He's fine for raising them money and making attacks against Republicans, but they can also remember how the Democratic Party suffered losses across the board during his time in the White House. And, as Robert Novak reminds us, some Democratic senators are not happy with how Hillary Clinton has been twisting her own record. Senatorial support of Obama helps explain why the McAuliffe plan failed. In addition to habitual Democratic resistance to being controlled, many colleagues simply do not trust Clinton. They complain that in Thursday's debate from Los Angeles she repeated that she opposed the Levin amendment to the 2003 Iraq war resolution because it would "subordinate" U.S. decision-making to the United Nations. It did not, and Clinton made no such claim until her presidential campaign. That kind of performance has helped build the stalemate. So, it's too soon to predict how the superdelegates would divide up. It could be very close and those Florida and Michigan delegates could suddenly loom large. With the nomination on the line, would the Democratic Party really want to deny two large states their voice at the convention just because they ignored the sacred rights of New Hampshire and South Carolina to be first? Labels: Election 2008 posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 6:49 AM 0 comments Comments: Post a Comment