Four wrongs make a right (-wing presidency)

Posted 4/26/2008 09:29:00 AM

By Carter Bundy

Three absurdly unfair sets of rules in the Democratic primary process are going to leave whoever is not the nominee feeling robbed. In turn, the unfairness of the process will lead some Dems to resist uniting behind the eventual nominee. If enough do so, Dems will have locked up a third term for George Bush’s terrible policies.

The first three wrongs are all history, and neither Obama nor Clinton are to blame for them. The rules were set up decades ago, and there’s nothing that can be done before this August’s DNC Convention in Denver. They’re worth pointing out, though, for two reasons: First, highlighting the fact that the unfair rules help Obama and Clinton in different ways may dampen the rhetoric on both sides. Second, all three wrongs need to be changed prior to 2012.

Wrong number one: the caucus system

Don’t confuse this wrong with the retail politics of Iowa (a caucus state), which is good. Those retail politics also happen in New Hampshire, which is a primary state.

Caucuses are wrong because they exclude military personnel, families with children, the elderly, the sick, people who work swing shifts (including nurses, corrections officers, construction workers, police officers and fast-food and other restaurant employees), and people who work second jobs.

What do they all have in common? The excluded groups all break strongly for Hillary Clinton. The reasons? Irrelevant for the discussion here. The point is that the caucus system is absurdly exclusionary.

Want numerical proof? Iowa Dems had their strongest caucus turnout ever this year. 218,000 Iowans made it to the Democratic caucuses that night, in a state with 2.982 million citizens, for a 7.3-percent showing.

Meanwhile, New Hampshire, a state with less than half the population of Iowa (1.314 million), turned out 287,542 voters for their Democratic primary, a 21.9-percent showing.

Want more evidence? Washington State conducted both a caucus and a primary. Despite the minimal primary publicity, no effort by campaigns or others for the primary, and the fact that only the caucus really counted, there were 691,381 primary voters and only 250,000 caucus goers.

Barack won by only 5.5 percent in the Evergreen primary, but because only the exclusionary caucus counted, he picked up 52 delegates to Hillary’s 26. The primary showed Barack is only marginally more popular (39,000 votes) than Hillary in Washington State, but he netted more than twice the delegate gain that Hillary got from a 215,000-vote blowout in Pennsylvania.

Texas? Hillary won by a solid 101,029 votes out of 2,868,454 primary voters. But a paltry 42,538 caucus goers – 1.4 percent of primary voters – overturned the will of the other 98.6 percent. Talk about stealing democracy from the people by an exclusionary process…

Wrong number two: delegate allocation

Hillary won Nevada by six points, but Barack will get the most delegates. Hillary won Texas easily, even if you count all the caucus-goers, but Barack will net five delegates.

It gets worse. Take Idaho, for example. Barack dominated their caucus, winning 80 percent of the 20,000 voters. As a result, he picked up 15 of the 18 delegates.

So in a state with just more than 20,000 total Democratic votes, Barack netted 12 delegates over Hillary. In a consistent, democratic system, using the Idaho math of a net of 12 delegates per 13,000 vote advantage, Hillary’s 215,000 vote win in Pennsylvania should have yielded her a net gain of 198 delegates. Instead, she’s likely to net 12 delegates or fewer from the Keystone State.

In this case, an Idaho Democrat’s vote counted for 16 times more than a Pennsylvania Democrat’s vote. The system rewards blowout wins in small states and minimizes wins even of 10 or 12 percentage points in big states.

One person, one vote? Not in the Democrats’ delegate-allocation system.

Wrong number three: superdelegates

In 1982, Dems did something terribly undemocratic and un-Democratic: they took 20 percent of the power to select the party’s nominee out of the hands of the voters and put it into the hands of political insiders.

That was just wrong. As James Madison said at the beginning of our Republic, “If man is not fit to govern himself, how can he be fit to govern someone else?”

Superdelegates do exist, though, and they have the monumental challenge of figuring out how to vote. Do you go with the popular vote nationally? The current elected delegate leader? What if the elected delegates aren’t fairly allocated? Do you include Florida and/or Michigan?

What about the standard Governor Richardson once championed: Go with the Democrats in your state? By electoral vote? Do you weigh the chances of beating McCain in key states? Do you discount numbers from states that have gone Democratic once in 40 years?

It’s a tough decision, but let’s not have our superdelegates pretend it’s based on some democratic principle when the democracy arguments cut both ways. Especially in this state.

No matter what, it’s a dilemma we should never face again. No more superdelegates after this year.

Wrong number four: holding grudges

The ultimate result of the three undemocratic rules is that if Obama gets the nomination, Hillary supporters will feel (rightly) that it was unfairly stolen from them. If Hillary gets the nomination, Obama supporters will feel (also rightly) that it was unfairly stolen from them.

The supporters of the loser will have to make a decision: hold a grudge that Clinton or Obama was wrongly kept off the ballot, or unite behind the other candidate.

The first three wrongs are beyond our control for 2008. The fourth wrong is something we voters do control, and half the party swallowing its pride is the only thing that will keep the Republicans from extending the Bush nightmare of never-ending war, social and economic injustice, deficits and politicization of our judiciary and Constitution.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.