Is Primary Front-loading Really Madness?

An editorial from the Washington Post today suggests that the front-loading of the primary calendar that is likely to occur in 2008 is "madness" which is bad for the "health . . . of the Democratic Process."

I'm not going to post any answers to that, but somehow I doubt it. Let me suggest one thing: in the era of the 24-hour news cycle, where people who want information on candidates can get it, and in an era when the Presidential campaign effectively starts almost immediately after the previous Presidential election, and for all intents and purposes officially kicks off following the midterms 2 years later, is front-loading, or even a "national primary," really a bad thing?

The underlying premise behind such lamentations is that a long, drawn-out primary calendar helps lesser-known candidates come up and sting the establishment folks, and sometimes steal the nomination away. But even if this was true 15 years ago when Bill Clinton emerged from a less-than-stellar field to win the Democratic nomination, I simply don't think it's true now.

I'll probably look into this in more detail later, but suffice it to say that I think the structural reasons that may have made a drawn-out primary calendar a positive thing in the past are now more likely to make a drawn-out calendar a liability.

Toward a National Primary?

UPDATE: Great minds think alike? Well, I won't call my mind great, but Peter Brown and I both came to the same conclusion from the news that several large states are considering moving their primaries to February. His article is titled "A de facto National Primary," and I thought I should mention it to avoid plaigiarism charges. My original post is below.


For years, Iowa and New Hampshire have served as the kickoff events of the Presidential election cycle. Both states have done everything in their power to keep it that way, however absurd the notion may seem to those of us who think that Iowa and New Hampshire aren't particularly representative of the rest of the country, and therefore get significantly more importance in the process than they deserve. Meanwhile, many big money states such as California and Florida have sat on the sidelines (California, with it's June primary, moreso than Florida). That may be changing.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the state legislature are in agreement that the state should play a bigger role in selecting Presidential candidates, and so are targeting a February primary date. In a move sure to give campaign manager's headaches, several other states, including Florida, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Missouri are contemplating similar moves.

All of this leads me to wonder one thing: Are we destined for a national primary day, or something close to it, not so much because the parties decide that it's a good idea, but because the selfish (and I'm not using that word pejoratively) interests of each State will cause them to move up their primaries? The parties can try to preven this, but I suspect that the days of May and June primaries, at the least, will soon be over. I leave it as an open question who these moves would help - although the CW is that it would be Clinton and McCain, the two best financed and most established candidates in the race. It will be interesting to watch this develop over the next few months as the candidates spin their wheels trying to find traction nearly two years before the election.

Long Time Away

First it was finals, then it was a visit home, and then the start of the new semester. With all of that, and my primary devotion to my Twins blog, this poor little blog has been neglected of late. Really, that's a shame - there has been a lot of political news, what with the start of the new congress and all of that.

For the few who actually check this blog on occassion, let me say this - I intend to continue posting on occassion, but it will probably be very infrequent. Things will build up over the next year as we approach the primary season, and my desire to write about politics will increase the closer we get. Until then, entries will probably be pretty sporadic.

For now, let me just put up my early thoughts on the 2008 Presidential race:

Democrats
As much excitement as there has been over Barack Obama in some circles, this is Hillary's race to lose. She has the experience and the gravitas - Obama has the charm. While I would love to see a few other names (Edwards, Richardson, even Gore) emerge as legitimate possibilities, I think this will come down to Hillary v. Obama by the end of February, 2008. Expect Hillary's superior organization and money to be the difference maker.

Republicans
The conventional wisdom is that McCain is the guy - but I'm all about questioning the CW. That's why I think the nominee is going to be Rudy Giuliani, who is polling well in the completely meaningless polls that have been conducted thus far. This pick gives me a two-for in opposing the CW - it lets me pick against McCain, and it lets me pick a guy who the CW says can't no-way, no-how win Republican primaries. McCain is ultimately going to be hurt by his fierce hawkishness, and while I think he'll be a force to be reckoned with all the way to the end of the race, I don't think he'll be able to seal the deal with enough voters to secure the nomination. A dark horse like Huckabee could end up emerging, I suppose, but I think the support is going to go to Giuliani (in a version of the "pick the nationally electable figure" dance).

Thoughts on the First Two Days

I've been house-sitting for the last few days, and so haven't had much to do other than watch C-Span and read. That means I've seen a whole lot of the proceedings on the floor of the House through the first two days, and thought I'd make a few comments on who impressed me, and who did not, early on. I admit to being somewhat surprised by the results.

First, a recap on what Congress has done so far since convening. The answer - not a whole heck of a lot. In the Senate, members have been sworn in, officers have been selected (including the ever-exciting Sergeant-at-Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate), and a whole lot of simple resolutions have been passed notifying the President and the House that the Senate is in session, and who the leaders and officers are. They also passed their half of a joint resolution renaming a park in Vermont for the late Senator Stafford.

In the House, things have been a bit more exciting. After the tedious election of Speaker Pelosi, the House proceeded to a consideration of a Rules package (after doing the busywork of Officer appointments and announcing resolutions like the Senate). Of the five titles in the rules package, three of them (adoption of the bulk of the 109th Congress' rules, ethics reform, and "civility") pretty much passed without opposition (I think two were unanimous, and a lone Republican voted nay on the other), while two others (pay-go and a miscellaneous section) faced lock-step Republican opposition. Of course, when you're the Majority, you can ram things through anyway (rightly or wrongly), and the Dems did just that, adopting the Rules as they wanted them, without allowing amendments.

Here's who stood out to me in the pieces that I saw and paid attention to:

1.) Ron Paul (R-TX) - Paul stood up at the end of the legislative day today to speak for five minutes. He spoke forcefully against the proposed surge of troops in Iraq, and even more forcefully against any proposed draft. In fact, rather than wanting to impose a draft, Paul wants to pass legislation eliminating the draft; he views it as a form of "indentured servitude," and therefore unconstitutional. I don't know enough about Paul to say whether this a new position for him to take or not, but I can't imagine that it's easy being a Texas Republican with these views.

2.) David Dreier (R-CA) - the ranking member on the House Rules committee, Dreier controlled the Republican side of most of the debate on the new Rules package. He was convincing and forceful in his responses to Democrats, without seeming petty.

3.) Alcee Hastings (D-FL) - the man is smug; he battled back and forth with Dreier a number of times in the early stages of the Rules debate, and I'd say Dreier got the better of him.

4.) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) - I don't know if our new Speaker is trying to look natural and not pulling it off very well, or if she just naturally looks like she's trying to stage manage things. Seeing her grandchildren scampering all over her was fine, but she seemed to be actively trying to make sure that they'd be in the camera shot with her. I don't know - her speech was good, she was gracious to the Republicans, but it didn't always look smooth.

5.) Steve King (R-IA) - King made a lot of sense today in a 60 minute address to the empty chamber that finished off Friday's House action. I didn't catch the whole thing, but what I caught was pretty dynamite. He made a strong case for line-item removal of earmarks in the middle of the year, talked about the impact (the positive impact, nonetheless) of blogs on the political world, and discussed his desire to get all campaign contributions online in a searchable database that is easily accessed. He made his points quite effectively, without seeming like a nutcase.

6.) Ted Poe (R-TX) - I don't know why he does it, but Poe ends every floor speech with "and that's the way it is." I don't know if it's an homage to someone else, but it's obnoxious, distracting, and more than a little strange.

I Return!

I don't imagine that I was missed much, seeing as this blog gets about 2 hits a day on a busy day. Nevertheless, I plan on blogging semi-regularly again at this blog, and this post is to announce my (triumphant?) return.

Obviously, there has been a lot of political news over the last month while I've been out, but I'm not going to address any of that. Instead, I'm going to point out an improvement to the House website which debuted today. The old site was far inferior to the Senate site, but now I'm pleased to say that the House site has been updated to provide a lot of good information regarding scheduling and the like. For political junkies, it's a welcome improvement.

I look forward to blogging about the goings on of the 110th Congress, probably starting later today.

FL-13

Election 2006 isn't over yet - not only do we have runoff elections in Texas and Louisiana to keep us entertained, there are still some races that are going through the varying certification/contest procedures. Most of these "too close to call" races have been settled in the last few weeks, as the trailing party realized it just wasn't going to happen for them. But in Florida's 13th District, currently held by the soon-to-be-banished-to-the-wilderness Katherine Harris, the fight over who won is ongoing.

A little background. On election night, Republican Vern Buchanan came up with a narrow lead over Democrat Christine Jennings. Over the past few weeks, that lead has narrowed somewhat as the official certification and recount procedures have been conducted. The interesting thing about the race, however, is the fact that in Sarasota County, ballots recorded a huge undervote in this race, at about 13%. For a baseline, absentee ballots in that race recorded an undervote of 2.53% (because voters legitmately did not want to vote for either candidate or for that race). I've seen typical-undervote numbers of between 2-5%, so the 13% undervote is exceptionally large.

Now, it appears that the undervote is the result of flawed ballot design (many reports on this: here's one). If you assume that the undervoters would break out the same way as those who actually voted in the race, then it's virtually certain that Vern Buchanan's slim lead (down to about 400 votes) would disappear, and Christine Jennings would win.

All of this has led Rick Hasen, the man behind Election Law Blog, to conclude that the House of Representatives should declare the seat vacant rather than allow Vern Buchanan to take it, because the results of the electorate are in doubt. In case you were unaware, this is perfectly Constitutional - the House (and the Senate, for that matter) are officially the judges of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its members. Such matters are considered inherently political, and the Courts tend to prefer to stay out of them - and so the Legislative Branch essentially can deal with these situations however it sees fit.

First, the good side of this. I think if you actually spoke to the voters who cast an undervote, the majority would have said "I meant to vote for Jennings" or "I would have voted for Jennings." I think that about 3% (of the total voters, not of the undervoters) would have chosen not to vote at all. That means that roughly 10% of the people who went to the polls didn't have their intentions recorded. As a result, holding a new election is probably the only way to register the intent of these voters - and Jennings would almost certainly emerge victorious.

HOWEVER - I have to remain consistent here. I have always said that, in the case of bad ballot design, both the person who designed the ballot AND the voter are at fault. Voters need to take the process of voting seriously. Yes, the design was flawed (it placed the race at the top of the page, with a very large STATE heading right below it) - but, voters who were paying attention would have noticed the race at the top of the page (after all, at least 87% of voters succeeded in casting a vote).

Additionally, new elections are generally unfair. Voters know that their vote is important (because it's a close election), so they show up when they wouldn't have before. They know the makeup of the new Congress, so Republicans may be dispirited and Democrats may be complacent. There are all sorts of factors that aren't present on Election Day. There is, in other words, no guarantee that the results of a new election would be consistent with the supposed "true results" from election day.

IF the undervote in this election were mechanical (i.e. the machines failed somehow), THEN I would support the push for a new election. As it is, the undervote was most likely the result of voter and ballot design failure - and I can't justify pushing for a new vote on those grounds.

Bolton Gone

Yet another of the high-profile members of the President's coterie is going to be gone soon. Rumsfeld, now Bolton - how long before Secretary Rice disappears? I think Bolton clearly made this decision himself, because the White House showed no signs of wanting to give him up at his post. I thank him, because he may have saved the President from making an embarrassing misstep (such as trying to give Bolton the job in all-but-name, and thus skirting the requirements of the Constitution).

I'm reviving my theory that Dick Cheney will resign, just because it would be a last, poetic example of this Administration's flagging powers - and would fit in line with the disappearing leaders we've already seen.

2008: Year of the Third Party?

Joe Lockhart and Mark McKinnon both mention 2008 as a possible breakthrough year for Third Party candidates in an MSNBC article. Frankly, I agree - and I hope it's true. Here are some thoughts regarding the possible rise of a third legitimate option on the ballot in 2008.


First, let me just point out that there are numerous opportunities for a third party challenge this year. Forget about the usual also-ran suspects like Ralph Nader, Pat Buchanan, and whoever the libertarians decide to throw out there this year - they are significantly too much of a niche product to be successful in a general election. Instead, there are possibilities for a third party run in a number of other areas:

1.) Unity 08 - This group wants to use a net-based nomination process to create a bipartisan ticket to run for President in 2008. This is not really a third party effort - the folks in charge of this thing are trying to send a message to the establishment in both parties, not create a whole new party. However, the ticket that they plan on putting forward will be running essentially as a third party. With the kind of long-range planning that has gone into the Unity 08 process, they should be able to get on the ballot on the vast majority of states. If the people who come through the online nomination process are compelling enough, the ticket this group puts forward could be a formidable opponent.

2.) Mayor Michael Bloomberg - The Mayor of New York City running for President (or Vice-President) in 2008 might not be the one you think. While early signs indicate that "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani is at least considering running for the Republican nomination, there's a good chance that he'll decide he has no chance and back off. Bloomberg, however, is at least seriously considering being involved in a third party run.

3.) John McCain or Rudy Giuliani (or both!) - Both of these men might make runs for the Republican nomination, but there is a very good chance that neither will emerge victorious. Both are considered too moderate (and Giuliani, really, is quite liberal on most social issues). That may make them unpalatable to the class of persons who actually vote in primaries. Either of these guys could decide that they could garner support from the middle, leaving the base to the presumably more conservative Republican nominee. Call it the "reverse Lieberman" strategy.

Those are just three possibilities right off the bat, and I think any, or all, of them could in fact happen. The internet has revolutionized how elections are conducted - and that process is still carrying forward. I think that one of the ramifications of the increased communication of the "modern era" of politics is that it will be harder and harder to satisfy constituencies with just two parties. That, of course, is in conflict with the structure of the American political system, which makes two parties optimal. Which force wins out is a question for the future, but I think the interim result is going to be a proliferation of serious third party candidates making runs.

Now, the interesting thing to consider is what this means for the 2008 election. All it would take to throw the system seriously off track would be a close election with a third party candidate winning one swing state. If Ohio or Florida had gone for a third party candidate rather than for George W. Bush, the election would have gone to the House rather than be decided on election night. Since elections seem likely to be close for the forseeable future, this is an interesting thing to watch for.

I'm not going to go too much further in depth for now. Suffice it to say that I think there is a substantial opportunity for third party movement in 2008, and that I hope we see a strong challenge - one that actually leads to electoral votes going to a third candidate. That would shake things up!