Lots of Obama supporters have been arguing that it’s time for Clinton to drop out of the race. I can see the arguments, but I think it makes more sense for Clinton to decide when Clinton drops out. Sandy Levinson argues that the extended primary should be welcomed:
Consider the following: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama actually have had to visit states like Texas, Wyoming, and Mississippi, which they will certainly not do for the general election. They will also find themselves in North Carolina and South Dakota before too very long. This means, among other things, that they are actually forced to become familiar with issues that might matter to people in those states and address them as, gasp, the equal of Democrats in safe states or the fabled swing voters in the few “battleground states.” […]
Puerto Rico’s delegates are suddenly precious commodities, so that Obama and Clinton will have to pay attention to what is, at present, the largest remaining colony in the world. […] I, for one, will be extremely interested to hear what the candidates have to say about the future of Puerto Rico, as I assume is the case with Puerto Ricans themselves. Obama has supported “self-determination.” Is he prepared to fight for statehood if that should be the majority’s desire, including the retention of Spanish as the island/state’s primary language? Ditto Hillary. Would either accept an unlikely vote in favor of independence? I am absolutely confident that neither would feel the slightest need to learn anything about Puerto Rico in the absence of the need actually to campaign for votes there.
That seems persuasive to me.
It’s possibly true, as many have argued, that an early decision would allow Democratic guns to swival McCainward. But maybe not; after all, campaigning in every state forces Clinton and Obama to build ground organizations in every state, which will give them a compensating advantage in the general election.
(Now if only Democrats could manage not to rip each other apart with hatred before then.)
Sure, the super-extended primary generates benefits for various parties. And costs. The issue is, what do you want to accomplish, and what choices would best help accomplish them?
PUBLIC: First, let’s consider the question from the public’s perspective. What do we want? Specifically, do we want the primary process to force candidates to learn stuff about each state? That’s a nice benefit. But at what cost? While Obama and Clinton will brush up on how best to pander to the citizens of Wyoming, McCain will be free to focus his attentions elsewhere. Of course, he’s free to focus on the desires of the citizens of Wyoming. But he’s also free to focus on the desires of the citizens of Iraq or Iran or China, even though he knows he will get no votes there. And which focus will be more important in the coming years?
No free lunch. The benefits of the current system come at a cost. I’m not persuaded the costs are worth it.
CLINTON: Since Clinton is the one with the power to stay in or drop out, let’s consider the matter from her perspective. What does Clinton want to accomplish? Lots of things.
1. She wants to win. She may see advantages in prolonging the process on the chance that the Obama campaign implodes. In this case, she should continue as she is.
2. She may want to be a VP. She may want to curry favor with the Obama folk; alternatively, she may want to wield a sufficiently big club (weakening Obama to such an extent that he will need her endorsement to secure the support of her voters, threatening the drain his resources by dragging out the process and contesting the convention) that the Obama people will offer her the VP seat to buy her off. In this case, she should continue as she is.
3. She may want to influence the policies debated and adopted by the other candidates. Hard to imagine this is much of a factor, given the degree of agreement between herself and Obama. But in this case, she should continue as she is.
4. She may want to see a Democratic candidate win. In this case, she’d presumably want to drop out, permitting Obama to marshal his resources as he sees fit.
There is a theory that this has already occurred, that Clinton is now effectively part of the Obama campaign, and that the Obama campaign has concluded that it benefits by continuing the primary race. That is, Clinton is continuing the fight in order to help Obama a) raise money b) build local organizations throughout the nation, c) air out issues that the Republicans were going to unleash on Obama anyway (like the minister flap), and d) get more free publicity than McCain. Think about it, how much attention does McCain get anymore?
In short, in the absence of a credible plan for Clinton to secure the nomination, I think Obama needs to focus on beating McCain. There may be strategic reasons why prolonging the primary process is the best way to do this. But don’t be fooled; the primary season is over.
This may be wishful thinking on my part, but I would argue that the extended primary is good for another reason: free publicity. Who cares what McCain is up to right now? He’s not very interesting. Clinton and Obama are. It’s like the old quote about I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right. People are talking about Clinton and Obama. McCain who?
Why should she quit? She can still win. If the Democrats think that her victory would be tainted if she is elected with the help of unelected delegates, then why did they design their candidate selection process to enable just that very thing to happen? The whole point of the current process is to enable the Democratic party leaders to take control of the nomination process if it’s reasonably close, and this one certainly is. If Sen. Obama thinks that there’s something wrong with that, well – he’s been an elected Democratic official for more than 10 years. Why hasn’t he said anything before?
No one questions that in an election this close, under current rules, the super delegates have the power to choose the winner. But that doesn’t mean that they have the right to choose the winner and not potentially face consequences from voters. No elected politician has that right, and neither does a political party that needs its activist base to support it.
I don’t think the question of superdelegates has come up before in any prominent way in the past ten years, Ron. It’s a bit unreasonable to expect Obama to have pre-addressed every technical issue before it ever becomes relevant. A more reasonable complaint would be if he had previously voted in favor of a rule or a sanction, but then suddenly changed his mind during the campaign.
Should Clinton quit? Well, that depends on if she has a realistic chance of winning in a way that won’t cripple the Democrat party in the upcoming election. If she does, then she shouldn’t quit. If she doesn’t, then she should. But obviously if and when we’ve reached that point is a subjective question.
What I’d really like to see is pressure on both candidates to focus at least as much firepower on McCain as on each other. How effectively they can attack McCain’s candidacy matters is (imo) a much more important issue than how effectively they can attack each other.
Ron, out of curiosity, what issues do you agree with Clinton/Obama on but disagree with McCain on? You mention that you’ve voted for Democrats (including Obama) in the past, and I’m wondering why, since virtually all your political advocacy here has been fairly right-wing.
Amp, one of the arguments I’ve seen from Clinton is that she’s more electable than Obama. If she can bring him down, she’s the only logical choice. All she has to do is convice that supers that she can’t win and he can.
If she can’t manage to beat Obama solidly in the delegate count or the popular vote, I don’t think there’s a clear-cut case that she’s more able to beat McCain in the primaries. And without a clear-cut case, I doubt enough superdelegates will be willing to go against the “non-super” delegate results.
I’m confused — earlier you were saying that you thought Dems should (and would) support the Democratic nominee in Nov, regardless of whether they support that candidate right now. But here you seem to think that they won’t, or, at least Obama supporters won’t support Clinton.
Oh, and the way it looks now, neither one of them is going to beat the other “solidly” in either the delegate count or popular vote. So, again, wouldn’t the same apply to Obama?
I do think Dems should support the Democratic nominee in November, regardless of which wins. And I think most Dems will.
However, I think the best way to keep that from happening is for the delegate count to say one thing and the superdelegates to say the other. That is, if Clinton ends up with more delegates than Obama, but the superdelegates choose Obama as the winner, I think that would piss off Clinton supporters far, far more than anything that’s happened so far. And ditto if you reverse the names.
I also think that black voters are — for very good reasons — particularly sensitive to having their votes ignored in favor of a High Court, or the equivalent, deciding to support their candidate. So yes, I think the impact would be even worse if Obama wins the delegates other than the superdelegates, but Clinton is the nominee.
That said, the most recent poll I saw said (iirc) that 27% of Clinton supporters would vote for McCain over Obama, versus 17% of Obama supporters would vote for McCain over Clinton. So who knows? I hope that once the danger of McCain is more imminent, folks will change their minds.
By “solidly,” I think I mean something other than what you mean. I would call a 51/49 win “solid,” in this context, if it’s agreed upon by most Democratic leaders outside of the two campaigns.
If Clinton wins the majority of (non-super) delegates by the official count, I’d call that a solid win. If she loses by the official count, but wins by some other means of counting suggested by the Clinton campaign, then I would not call that a solid win for Clinton.
Similarly, if Obama loses by the official count, but wins by some other means of counting suggested by the Obama campaign, I wouldn’t call that a solid win for Obama, either.
OK, that makes sense. But, that brings up another issue. Earlier in this thread, you said:
FWIW, I totally agree. But! Who do those elected politicians owe more to? That is, they should expect to (at least potentially) face consequences for choosing against who the voters wanted. But, should that be based solely on the national vote, or should they be held more to what their own voters wanted? It’s easy to say that if Obama wins the popular vote and the delegate count, nationally, that any of the super delegates from the states (or, in some cases, from the regions of the states he won) should support him (and vice versa if Clinton is leading). But, what about the super delegates from states that the other one won. If Obama is ahead at the convention, should Kerry and Kennedy and Richardson continue to vote for him (as they have already publicly stated they will?) Do they owe anything to the people who voted for them? Or does the national vote trump what the more local voters voted, even though the potential consequences for the individual super delegates may be more detrimental to their own political careers?
I haven’t done the math, so I don’t even know if it would matter or not — maybe if all the super delegates voted the way their constituents voted, it would still mean that whoever was ahead in delegates and the popular vote would still win. But, is a super delegate voting for the person voted for by their constituents, regardless of who is ahead nationally, going against the “will of the people” (mostly people who can’t vote for or against them anyway) or are they supporting the “will of the people” that they actually represent?
Let’s say it came down to one super delegate vote (just for the sake of simplicity here). Now let’s say that that vote is up to Barney Frank. Obama is ahead in the non-super delegate delegate count and the popular vote. Should Frank vote for Obama, despite the fact that his state voted for Clinton? Despite the fact that the voters from MS, ID, and KS can’t ever vote for or against him, but the people of MA can very well make him “face the consequences” of not going with their “will”?
Just to be clear here, I’m not actually trying to argue for or against “will of the people” voting. And the main reason I won’t is because I just don’t think the “will of the people” is so clear cut, nor do I think it will be.
I think that a useful function that the super delegates can serve is to line up behind the winner of the primaries, so whichever candidate gets the most pledged delegates/ popular vote, the super-delegates should vote for that candidate. This will push a marginal win of a 150 or so pledged delegates to a larger win in total delegates, which serves to protect against the losing campaign hunting through the pledged delegates for individuals who are willing to be bought into reneging on their pledged position.
While the pledged delegates are permitted to renege on their pledged position even in the first vote under the rules, but I think is properly intended to be used only in cases where conditions have radically changed (for instance, if Kerry had been found in a compromising position with a goat in May 2004, after the primaries had given him an insurmountable lead), not merely because the losing candidate promises them a position in the next administration or a new car. I think in a super close convention, I think there is a real risk of dirty dealings with the pledged delegates, which would be both unjust and very damaging to the party.
Actually, I think that super delegates should vote however they please, but I think it would be a bad thing if too many of them decide to vote for the candidate who loses the pledged delegate race. If they want to vote with their own voters, that’s fine. If they want to vote for the overall winner, that is fine. If they decided relatively early on to back the candidate who they thought was meaningfully the better candidate, that’s fine. If they decide at the very end that they need to back the losing candidate, that is legitimate, but if enough of them do that to overturn the pledged delegate vote, I think the results will be bad, so I can’t really say that I’m fine with that.
Ron, out of curiosity, what issues do you agree with Clinton/Obama on but disagree with McCain on?
Frankly I’ve been following the Democrats’ intermural scrum so much that I haven’t paid a lot of attention to this. I’ll answer that question, but not right now.
The Democrat I have voted for most recently is my House Rep, Lipinski (D-IL). The views of both Clinton and Obama seem to be to the left of his, and he is more towards the center than his primary opponents have been. I’m sure he’ll endorse whoever wins, but I have to wonder whether this pattern applies in other regions of the country represented by Democrats. The activist base you refer to is needed to get the nomination, but are they as big a factor in the general election as they are in the primaries?
I haven’t seen what I consider a creditable opponent from the Illinois GOP, whose overall competence I have summarized by generally referring to them as the Illinois Reflublicans. It grates on me not so much for his political stances as for the fact that he inherited his office from his father, who had represented my District for a number of years and then, after winning the primary two elections ago resigned before the general election. Under State rules, the Democratic Central Committee got to choose his successor on the ballot. Oddly enough, instead of choosing a candidate from the district they selected Lipinski’s son, who was a Professor of Political Science at the University of Tennessee at the time. But it has to be admitted that he manages to balance the views across his district, which is part suburban and part City of Chicago (this is a deliberate strategy the Democrats set up at the last re-apportionment when they controlled the General Assembly with a number of Chicago-area Congressional districts).
That’s indisputable. A lot of that will depend on how close the final count of the elected delegates goes. Right now the ratio is 53:47::Obama:Clinton. That’s a win, but it’s not overwhelming. If Clinton can close that gap I shouldn’t think that it’s a foregone conclusion that the party officials should automatically presume that there’s going to be a huge backlash if they go the other way. OTOH, if it does widen, then there’s more of an argument there. It’s also worth asking whether all the backers of the losing candidate will automatically back the winner in the general election, as opposed to voting for McCain or staying home.
I’m not basing my comment on this matter on whether or not the party officials should or should not consider the reaction of the electorate. Of course they should. But Sen. Obama seems to be stating this not as a matter of political expediency but as a matter of obligation. If that’s the case, then the whole concept of giving party and elected officials is useless and they should get rid of it.
Well, is it just a technical issue? After all, to have a fundamentally non-democratic process as part of how the Democratic Party selects candidates for President seems pretty important (and ironic). It certainly became important to him once he stood for election as President. After all, this process is at the heart of their national conventions, and it was the last national convention that brought him political stardom. I’m wondering how much of his stance on the matter is a real feeling that there’s a moral principle here and how much of it is another example of taking a position after weighing his self-interest and seeing which way the wind is blowing.
It’s kind of interesting that the Democratic Party has put up a bit of a House of Lords into their nominating process. It’s an inexact analogy of course, but the idea is that unlike the Republicans, the Democrats have a very significant number of people who either while having been elected by the general electorate from various districts and constituiencies were not elected as convention delegates, or else were not elected at all by anyone except party members/insiders. People might not vote for the Democrat’s Presidential candidate if they don’t like what that crowd votes for, but the continuance in office of the delegates who are elected officials likely will not be affected by how they vote at this convention.
One more thing, and then I’ll shut up for a while. There are voters in Michigan and Florida that are feeling disenfranchised right now; after all, they had little control over either what their state did in moving the primary timings or over the Democratic Party’s reaction to it. If those votes had been held in a normal fashion their voters might well have closed the gap or even put Sen. Clinton ahead. Can Sen. Obama rightly claim that the current results reflect the actual will of the people? Or is it in part a result of what could fairly be characterized as political machinations, much as lobbying the super delegates is being characterized?
If the superdelegates should only vote for whoever wins the delegate count and/or popular vote, shouldn’t they stfu until there is a clear winner? Isn’t pledging to vote for one of them before the final count in going against that very philosophy — especially in cases like Kerry, Kennedy, and Richardson where they are supporting the possible leader, but not the one their constituents voted for?
FTR, I’m like Eliza, I’m not trying to argue which way the superdelegates should vote. I just don’t think there is any one right way for them to vote. But, I just think that if you’re going to take a stand on it one way or another, it should be consistent, not which ever gets your candidate the win.
According to a Pew survey yesterday:
Among Clinton’s backers, 32% say they would vote for McCain if Obama is the Democratic nominee, and among Obama’s backers, 28% say the same if Clinton wins the primary race. When the analysis is limited to those who identify themselves as Democrats (as opposed to including Dem-leaning Independents), just 20% of Obama supporters say they would not vote for Clinton in the fall, and 25% of Clinton supporters would not vote for Obama.
That’s not the poll I saw, but I’ve been told that the Pew survey is one of the best-done surveys out there, so what you posted is probably more accurate than the numbers I remember. Thanks.
Those numbers are higher than I would have guessed. I’m surprised.