{"id":4245,"date":"2008-03-24T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2008-03-24T07:20:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/03\/24\/in-praise-of-the-super-extended-primary\/"},"modified":"2008-03-24T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2008-03-24T07:20:48","slug":"in-praise-of-the-super-extended-primary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4245","title":{"rendered":"In Praise Of The Super-Extended Primary"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> argues that the extended primary should be welcomed:<\/p>\n

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.” […]<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That seems persuasive to me.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

(Now if only Democrats could manage not to rip each other apart with hatred before then.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4245\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}