What to do about Florida and Michigan

After the American Century

The news media and the blogosphere are full of discussions about what to do about the unseated delegates from Florida and Michigan. You probably recall that both of these states moved their primaries up before Super Tuesday. They wanted to be important and would not wait, even though the Democratic and the Republican National Committees both warned that they would be punished for this. The Democratic National Committee decided that none of their delegates would count. This was harsh, but the judgement was public, and the two states might have rescheduled their elections to later dates. They chose not to do this, and now have created a difficult situation. 

In the extremely tight race for the nomination Obama and Clinton would love to get some of those delegates, especially Clinton, because she "won" in each state. But there was no campaign, no personal appearances, no shaking of hands, no engagement between the public and the candidates. Indeed, Obama took his name off the ballot in Michigan, as did John Edwards, so Clinton ran unopposed there. This makes it hard to see that she "won" when 45% of the voters still did not choose her. In Florida Obama's name was still on the ballot, but he did not advertise or appear there in any way.

The Clinton campaign wants the vote to count as it stands, while the Obama camp feels that you cannot change the rules in the middle of the game. But both sides are wrong. It is patently unfair to accept these results, and it is also unfair to deny the citizens of these two states any representation at the Democratic National Convention. What should be done?

Step back a moment and consider whether this is not rather like a rained-out sporting event. The contestants did not come into the arena, but the fans there shouted at each other. But there was no real contest. When a baseball game is rained out, it gets replayed later in the season. By analogy, these two primaries need to be played later in the season, to help discover who has won the pennant, or Democratic nomination. Only then do we know who should be in the World Series, or general election in November. 

The two state governors are saying that they might be willing to hold new elections, but that the Democratic National Committee has to pay for it. This is politically motivated nonsense. The two states should be delighted to get all that publicity, all those reporters, all those volunteers spending huge sums on motels and meals and donuts. Are they really going to demand to be paid because they broke the rules and created this problem in the first place? However, Florida's Republican Governor Crist seems quite delighted to have this opportunity to complicate the Democratic Party's problems.

We need to hear from Michigan and Florida voters. They are large states, important states, states with many delegates. But ultimately, they will only give advice. They will not be able to eliminate one candidate in favor of the other. For with two extra primaries, neither Obama nor Clinton will be able to mount a 400 vote lead. That is what one of them needs to do to reach 2025 pledged delegates. Even with a replay of the Michigan and Florida primaries, in the end the 796 superdelegates are still going to make the choice. It is hard to see how either the loser or the American people can possibly feel that it was a fair result. Worse still, some voters might think that a party which is unable to organize and run a system of primary elections, is not ready to run the country. One can only hope that the Democratic leadership finds an elegant way to resolve the crisis it has created.

Obama and Clinton: Dangers of a Long Race

After the American Century

Obama has now won a string of impressive victories. Ahead for the first time in the race, however, he faces new kinds of problems. The front runner never gets a free ride. He has been the media's darling, but now they may begin to play a little rougher. Where before the Republicans were busy with their own race, McCain has now begun to attack him directly, by name. Obama has seen the advantage in that kind of attention, and is responding to McCain. It seems to say that Hillary is history. She is not, and Obama will now need to fight them both.

Clinton will likely have trouble winning in either Wisconsin or Hawaii, but when the battle shifts to Texas and Ohio on March 4, she will be in states where polls show her well ahead. Texas has been a Republican stronghold since at least the 1980 presidential elections, and there is little chance that the Democrats can win there in November. But take away the Republican majority, and the voters left include a large Hispanic population that now votes more than in the past, plus a sizable number of working class southerners who are comfortable with the Clinton name. For Obama, it will be an uphill fight in Texas outside of the Black community and college towns. Since Hispanics greatly outnumber African Americans there, Hillary starts with an advantage. However, Obama has been doing better with the kinds of voters who earlier went for Clinton. In Virginia he drew more women voters and started to attract more Hispanics and older Democrats as well. Still, the game for Obama in Texas is probably not to lose by too much, getting as many delegates as possible so that Hillary does not catch up.

In the crucial state of Ohio, Obama needs a better showing. If he can wrest Ohio from Hillary, such a victory might convince super delegates that he is the best standard-bearer for the party. However, if he looses in both Texas and Ohio, then Hillary has a real chance to raise additional money and rally for a showdown in the Pennsylvania primary. Even more than Ohio, Pennsylvania is a place the Democrats must win in November to ensure safe passage back into the White House. But Pennsylvania has a conservative history. It went for Herbert Hoover in 1932, in what was otherwise a Roosevelt tidal wave. Pennsylvanians also liked Ike in the 1950s and Reagan in the 1980s. In recent times the Democrats have carried it (1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004). With more than 12 million people, it is a crucial state, where polls now show Clinton in the lead. Bread and butter issues will be important there, particularly in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and among the remaining steel workers and coal miners.

In short, Obama has had all the momentum of late, but if Clinton holds on to her current leads in both Ohio and Texas, then it will stretch out the decision at least until at least April 22, and do possible damage to the Democratic Party. The super delegates may even wait it out to see who wins what in May.

Granted that neither candidate can attain the magic total of 2025 delegates through the primary process alone, the hope must be that one of them convinces the super delegates that he or she is the best choice. Ideally, whoever that is ought to have won a plurality of the pledged delegates as well. Unfortunately for the Democrats, however, it might not happen that way at all. Obama has the most delegates, but Clinton has the most super delegates. Roughly 390 of them have not made up their minds, and both candidates are wooing them non-stop.

Ominously, in the long gap between primaries from March 4 until April 22, other than vying for super delegates, the festering question will be: What to do about Florida and Michigan? There are no good choices. Playing strictly by the rules, these states held their primaries too early and were sanctioned for it: neither was to get any delegates. Abiding by this decision, Obama did not even get his name on the Michigan ballot. That made it easy for Clinton to win there, since she essentially ran unopposed. Now that she is behind, her camp has begun to call for giving Michigan delegates again. This seems grossly unfair. But if you are from Michigan, it no doubt seems just as unfair to be kept out of a close election. Florida offers almost the same connundrum, except that Obama at least was on the ballot there, though he did not campaign. Should Clinton win the nomination by getting Michigan and Florida seated - reversing the party's earlier decision - then Obama's camp would rightly feel aggrieved. But if they are not seated, Clinton's supporters will feel that two states where she was strong unjustly were excluded. I happen to side with Obama on this one. Don't change the rules in the middle of the game. But watch for unpleasantness on this issue.

Finally, because it is not likely to end soon, the campaigning, especially from Clinton's side, may get negative. That would also be a danger to the Party, not only because it will make it hard to unify for the fall campaign, but in October the Republicans will gleefully repeat whatever charges have the most destructive force. If it is not over, then, the Democrats will have to conduct themselves with some dignity. If it becomes a dogfight, they risk losing to McCain.

The Michigan Results

Romney has won in Michigan, with 39% of the votes, and so he keeps his hopes alive. McCain had 30%, Huckabee only 16%. It was a convincing victory. Romney was the strongest candidate in all age groups except for those over 60, who went for McCain. Romney also beat Huckabee among both Protestants and Catholics. Meanwhile, McCain carried the Republicans who never go to church, with 39% of that little constituency. Furthermore, as noted in an earlier blog here, Huckabee did extremely poorly among the Catholics, getting less than 10% of their votes. And these are the very conservative, Republican Catholics, who represented about 30% of the vote. Huckabee would have even less appeal to the larger group of Democratic Catholics. In short, Michigan's results suggest that Huckabee may have been a one-win wonder in Iowa, who now must redeem himself in South Carolina next week, if he is to look viable. 

McCain, on the other hand, did respectably in Michigan, which after all is Romney's former home state. It is hard to beat an opponent who can bring his old schoolteacher and classmates up on stage. Nevertheless, if we probe these results further, it turns out that voters who think the economy is on the right track and who are generally satisfied voted for Romney. The unhappy voters were more likely to be for McCain, whether they were upset by Bush in particular, the poor Iraq results, or the economy.  McCain also was relatively successful with Independents and Democrats, some of whom crossed over to vote for him. Finally, McCain defeated Romney in urban areas (40% to 31%), which is obviously important in the coming contests for New York and California.  So while he lost, McCain showed that he can appeal across party lines, and remains in a good position for the contest in South Carolina.  In terms of money, however, Romney has $60 million to McCain's $31 million, a difference which could begin to be a real problem for McCain by February. 

There are also three footnotes to these Republican results. The first is the strange failure of Giuliani to put up any fight at all, as he dropped to just 3%. Perhaps if neither Romney nor McCain can win an advantage soon, this strategy will yet be vindicated, but it looks like a long shot. Only slightly better was Fred Thompson's 4% showing. He seems unable to ignite his campaign, and one suspects that he is staying in the race in order to have a shot at being the vice-presidential nominee. Indeed, perhaps that is Giuliani's idea as well. If he can show he is strong in Florida, he becomes an attractive VP who can deliver that vital swing state and help carry New York. Finally, there is Paul's fascinating maverick candidacy. He describes himself as an old-fashioned strict constructionist of the Constitution. He is so far to the right that he emerges on the left on some issues, notably Iraq, where he advocates withdrawal. If you have not seen him in the debates, pay more attention, for the Texas congressman has some vocal supporters, as he calls for balancing the budget, an end to military adventurism abroad, and a return to the foreign policy of Thomas Jefferson. I strongly doubt that he is seeking the vice-presidential nomination, and he is smart enough to know that he is but an articulate gadfly. If nothing else, he shows how boring Fred Thompson is by comparison.

Meanwhile, Hillary won, running unopposed, and will get zero delegates, because the Democratic Party is punishing Michigan for advancing its primary date, as discussed a few days ago here. A notable 43% did not support her in the absence of other candidates. The real action was out in Nevada, where delegates can be won or lost, and where a debate took place yesterday. It apparently was a particularly friendly affair, as the three main candidates made a point of not attacking one another. After some un-pleasantries earlier in the week over the relative contributions of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson, it seems that Clinton and Obama have returned to their senses. Arguing about events that took place 40 years ago, and bringing up race, were just not going to sell either candidate to the electorate.

One final aspect of the Michigan vote needs to be emphasized. Fully 46% of those exit-polled admitted that they did not make up their minds until this week. Indeed, more than 30% made up their minds during the last three days. As in Iowa and New Hampshire, this remains a fickle electorate, one that can be swayed by small events or media images right up to the end. The last minute shifts on the whole favored Romney. McCain outpolled him (32% to 28%) among those who had decided more than one month ago, but Romney garnered 41% of the voters who decided on the last day, as they neared the ballot box. McCain only got a quarter of these votes, and that represents much of the margin of difference between them.

Michigan Primary

Michigan is much different than Iowa or New Hampshire: it is more like the rest of the United States. In that sense, the Michigan Primary could function as a reality check. How might these candidates fare in an industrial, multicultural state? Unfortunately, the Michigan Primary will not function this way, because when it was moved to an earlier date, this was against party rules. Both parties have punished Michigan by taking away delegates to the national nominating conventions. The Republicans took away half, the Democrats took away every one of the delegates. As a result, Obama, Edwards and Richardson have taken their names off the ballot, while Clinton did not. So, on the Democratic side, there is no contest, though voters may choose to vote "uncommitted." In a curious way, the vote then turns out to be a referendum on Hillary. Her or "uncommitted"?

 

In the first two contests, the candidates could reasonably expect to come into personal contact with a good deal of the electorate. On a good day in Iowa or New Hampshire, they might be seen and heard by 15,000 people or more, and multiply that number by the days they spent in the state, and it compares rather well with the turnout in Iowa and New Hampshire. Fully half of the voters in each state got a first-hand impression of the candidates, and anyone who wanted to do so certainly has the opportunity. A friend of mine in New Hampshire wrote me that he and his wife managed to see Obama three times, Clinton, Richardson, and Edwards twice each, plus McCain and Giuliani.  He decided for Obama, saying, "When we first saw him, a year ago at a book signing event, I was underimpressed. But he grew into his candidacy. His Welcome Back to New Hampshire rally the morning after the Iowa caucus was rocking - and actually very moving." 

The voters in the first two states are the lucky ones, because they can really study the candidates and talk about them based on direct contact. Michigan is another matter, and more typical of the campaign for the presidency from now on. To begin with, there is the sheer scale of the State. Michigan is six times larger than New Hampshire, though about the same size as Iowa. More to the point, Michigan has 10 million inhabitants, more than twice as many as Iowa and New Hampshire put together, and they are not going to get many chances to see the candidates in the six days between primaries, no matter how intensive the campaigning. This means that the candidates will have to use the media to reach the voter, and that fact favors candidates with deep pockets.

Since there is no Democratic contest, we should focus on the Republican side. Huckabee and McCain do not have much money, and they will need to calculate carefully how to use the scarce resources. Huckabee will presumably be mobilizing the churches, as he did in Iowa, and McCain can count on support from veterans organizations. By comparison, Romney has more, and apparently plans to spend heavily.

Not only does Michigan demand more money to run a campaign, but it has a more varied electorate. More than 800,000 people in Michigan do not speak English in their homes, including many of the 400,000 Hispanics. Iowa and New Hampshire basically do not have Black people, which makes Obama's success there almost astonishing. Michigan's 1.4 million African-Americans traditionally vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. Had there been a three-way contest with Edwards and Clinton, Obama presumably would have received far more than a third of the Black vote. Even more intriguing, Michigan also has a sizable Arab population, more than 400,000 in the Detroit metropolitan area. Dearborn, where Henry Ford once built his largest factory, today is 30% Arab. It seems reasonable to think that because of his cultural background, Obama would have appealed to such voters. But because the Michigan Primary is meaningless for the Democrats, we will never know how Obama might have done. However, the Arab voter is not necessarily a Democrat. The Arab population is better educated and more highly paid than the Michigan average, and half typically vote for the Republicans. This group may choose Romney, rather than the Bible-thumping Huckabee or militant McCain.  

The Republicans will battle it out in a state whose economy has been struggling for decades. Detroit is the headquarters for General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and as they have lost market share to Japanese and European firms, jobs have been disappearing. This is a blue-collar state, where only one adult in four has a BA (in New Hampshire it was one in three), and where the number of jobs has shrunk 7% during the Bush years, at a time when the country as a whole has created more than 2 million jobs. Given these local hard times, the populism that Edwards brought into the campaign and that other candidates have picked up, should play well in Michigan. That ought to favor Huckabee and McCain more than Romney. Note also that while Detroit dominates Michigan, it has a large rural area as well, and an entire penninsula, Upper Michigan, that has no large cities. This population is less multicultural and more conservative, and it will be interesting to see how Huckabee and McCain do in these areas. Romney's father was once governor of Michigan (and an unsuccessful Presidential candidate), and the resonance of the name, plus old family connections, can only help his faltering campaign. Indeed, the news today is that Romney has pulled his advertising off the air in South Carolina to focus all his energies in Michigan. This seems to be a recognition of the fact that if he cannot win there, his campaign may be over.

The Michigan Primary could have been the dramatic third act of an electoral drama, pitting the Clinton machine with its strong ties to the labor unions against the Obama wave. Instead, it will be a sort of referendum on Clinton by herself, and if half the Democrats are "undecided" that is a kind of defeat for her. At least on the Republican side there is still a contest, and a very interesting one, between Huckabee, McCain, and Romney, who each have around 20% in the average of all polls, with Giuliani running at about 10% and assorted others garnering a few votes, too. If one looks back over the polls for a year, McCain had a high point of 30% back in March of last year, before his finances collapsed and his campaign seemed hopeless. After falling as low as 10%, his numbers are rising rapidly now. Romney peaked at 26% at the same time that McCain waned. But Romney has been fading a bit ever since then, even before his losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Giuliani once had 28% in Michigan, but he has been falling to his present 10%. Huckabee, in contrast, has not suffered any relapses. Starting at 0% in June of 2007, his numbers have continually risen to his present tie with Romney and McCain.  If the electorate in Michigan is as volatile as that in New Hampshire, the next week should be very interesting.

Hillary Beats Obama, Just!

I was wrong, and so was everyone else who believed the polls. I looked at them all, and as of two days ago, Obama was widening his lead. But something happened in the two or three days since those polls and the actual election. Clinton got far more support from women than the polls had predicted - they said women would split between the two. In fact, she got 14% more, showing that when women go into the polling booth they are still thinking about their decision. This was decisive, as Hillary defeated him by only two percentage points - 39% to 37%. Obama was also perhaps a victim of his anticipated success, as Independant voters, who can participate in either primary, seem to have gone over to help McCain, because Obama apparently was going to win without their help. Had the polls showed Obama in a close race, then more Independents might have supported him.

Voters clearly were volatile in New Hampshire, and the process of the election brought more energy to Hillary's campaign. This surprised all the pundits, who admitted it on CNN and in the other media. In the last two days Hillary became more populist in tone and more open to questions from the crowds who came to hear her. Until this week, she gave few interviews and the communication was all one way. She also teared up in an emotional moment surrounded by women in a small public meeting. That moment was caught on TV and rebroadcast many times. (This seems to have worked once, but how many times could she become emotional before it would begin to hurt her?) She was learning from what worked for other candidates, and that is as it should be. The primary process gives candidates a chance to know the public and find out what they care about. She refocused on younger voters, as Obama has, making a point to pose many of them behind her on the stage. In her victory speech Hillary sounded a bit like Edwards, speaking about the "invisible Americans" and the hard-working people who cannot afford to pay the bills. She has also begun to attack the oil companies, the pharmeceutical companies, and the insurance companies, which may win the primary for her, but may alienate swing voters and can stimulate these companies to give more money to Republicans. Overall, Clinton presented her self as more emotional, and won over many to the cause at the last minute.

Now we have an open race, with two candidates almost equally strong in the North, and Edwards hoping for a comeback in the South. So far, the campaign has not tested the candidates' appeal in large cities or among Black and Hispanic voters. The next primary in Michigan will be the first in a large, urban, and multicultural state. Can Hillary appeal to that audience as well as Obama will?  Can she continue to outpoll him among women voters? 

On the Republican side, McCain made a tremendous comeback, defeating Romney, who has now come in second twice. But that race is still wide open, as it rolls on toward Michigan. Romney's father was governor of Michigan, after all, so he has one more chance to win a primary. But if he cannot win there, then it may come down to a race between McCain and Huckabee and perhaps Giuliani, with Fred Thompson as a remote outside possibility.