The Democrats, it seems to me, have both a problem and an opportunity.
Obama and Clinton got where they are largely because of the positions they staked out on the Iraq War, which was seen during most of the primary season as THE issue. Now, with the economy in a slow slide, the election is likely to turn on the issue most elections turn on: the domestic economy. And neither of these candidates have really put a whole lot of emphasis on this issue, and have incompletely developed their arguments about it. A clear and cogent position on this set of issues could make all the difference in November, and neither Democrat really has one that impresses me.
McCain has a different, and potentially much more serious problem, and not much of an opportunity. His position on Iraq is currently being (mis)understood as a pledge to keep troops in Iraq for the next hundred years, which is bad enough in this political climate, but he has also boasted of his ignorance on domestic and economic issues. Once one has claimed ignorance on an issue, establishing authority on that issue is hard to do. Statements that begin, “I don’t know anything about this, but…” may be listened to, but are seldom taken seriously.
The Democrats are traditionally stronger on domestic than on foreign policy issues. And as the economy continues to be troubled, this is likely to be good news for them: it’s the economy, stupid.
But having opportunity isn’t enough. The candidates need to take advantage of it.
Written by Mary Stuckey on May 16th, 2008 with no comments.
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We are just about 19 weeks into one of the wildest nomination seasons in several generations and things just keep getting wilder. Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party, who has all of the advantages of the inevitability bandwagon in his favor and a much bigger bankroll for his campaign than his opponent loses the West Virginia primary contest to Senator Hillary Clinton.
Wild enough that he lost a big primary this late in the game. Worse yet, he was trounced. Obama lost the primary among Democratic Party voters in a swing state by worse than 2.5 to 1. For those unaccustomed to dealing with odds, for every TWO Obama voters in the West Virginia Democratic Party, there were FIVE Clinton voters. As the old Batman show would put it: ka-pow.
What is worse for Democrats is that the exit polls indicate that nearly a majority of these Clinton voters, and you have to figure these are the among the most committed Democrats, say they will not vote for Senator Obama. Now many of these voters will relent in the end and vote for Obama, should he hold on to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination, but the question is will enough make the trek back.
This is very bad news for the Democrats, but should it give Democrats pause or should they continue their march to an Obama nomination? Under the party’s rules, Obama is almost certain to end the nomination season with a majority of pledged delegates, but he will be short of a full majority. The nomination will be decided by the superdelegates. It is in their hands. They will call the shots. Superdelegates have been moving to Obama as his pledged delegates totals edged toward a majority, but there may be good reason for them to step back and reassess this decision.
Superdelegates ought to be deciding their votes based on which candidate stands the better chance of winning in November. The problem is that it is pretty hard to determine who would run the stronger race against McCain (though I think both are far too liberal to beat the moderate-conservative McCain). Obama supporters point to the number of pledged delegates as an indicator of his general election strength. Clinton supporters in recent weeks have raised the total popular vote as an indicator, though it is not so clear how this pans out and how one should count the contested states of Florida and Michigan and the caucus states.
Another metric, however, has been neglected: the Electoral Vote division, the way we actually elect presidents. Using the statewide winner-take-all rules in awarding electoral votes instead of the Democrats’ various proportional rules in awarding delegates allocated in often peculiar ways (West Virginia, a state with five electoral votes, has 28 delegates; while Puerto Rico, lacking any electoral votes, has 55 delegates), Clinton actually leads Obama by a wide margin. Obama has won 27 states having a total of 210 electoral votes. Even without counting Florida or Michigan, states that Clinton probably would have won, Clinton has won 18 states with 263 electoral votes, 53 more than Obama.
Would Clinton in the general election win all the states she defeated Obama in or would Obama carry the states that he defeated Clinton in? No, but winning pledged delegates or the popular primary vote does not mean you’ll do well in the general election either. However, if the nomination contest reveals anything about candidate general election strength, it might not be a bad idea to take the electoral vote system into account. If we learned anything from the 2000 and 2004 elections it should be that the Electoral College matters.
Written by James E. Campbell on May 16th, 2008 with no comments.
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