The Sweet Smell of Desperation (JM)

"It's over! Why does anyone even care?!"

"Look at the Delegate Calculator, she needs to win over eighty percent of the remaining delegates to win!"

"Hillary should just drop out! She cannot possibly win!"

For people who are so sure of victory, Obama supporters are feeling more and more like people desperately clinging to a conviction slowly slipping away. It's like a game of Risk, where one opponent is about to do something that will really screw you and you insist that this is a bad move for them. The more urgently that you insist, the more sure they become that it is precisely the move that ought to be taken. Until you're screaming and yelling and threatening absurd consequences that you cannot possibly follow through on (Author's Note: Don't play Risk with me, I am unpleasant to play with).

Anyway, here's my take on tonight. This is Hillary's shot to game change, she has to win Indiana pretty well and come close or win North Carolina. There are two scenarios that work for her: 1) Huge Indiana win, tiny North Carolina loss; 2) Moderate Indiana win; North Carolina effect tie or win. Either of these scenarios really put a knife in to Obama, especially with a predicted 20 point possible drubbing coming up in West Virginia (which is basically all the parts of Pennsylvania that loved Hillary, with none of the metropolitan areas). Anything else and despite momentum I suspect Hillary is done. But then, I have thought this before.

"Jonathan, superdelegates will never allow Hillary to steal this election."

Please, hypothetical Obama-supporting strawman, you are ridiculous. The same inane group of people who think Florida and Michigan should be outright disenfranchised because "rules are rules" cannot stand that other rules will get in the way of Obama's ascendancy. But let's take this one further, oh worshipers of the might principle of democratic representation. Obama's entire delegate lead is on the back of incredibly unrepresentative caucuses. I've explained this before, but once more with feeling. Caucuses drive down turnout insane amounts and are most likely to suppress the votes of poorer working-class individuals as well as the elderly. They are often much more representative of the loudest, pushiest voters (ie. Obama supporters). Superdelegates are, for the most part, people elected by way more votes than people who actually vote in caucuses. So do me a favor and stop using the word "steal" as your last ditch effort to stop people from realizing if Hillary gets to McCain that she will flatout steamroller him.

Oh, just one more thing... (said like Columbo). I am tired of people referring to Obama as the candidate of the educated elite. Having a college degree does not make you a member of the educated elite, my god I know some encephalitic Obama supporters who count, statically, as members of the educated crowd. There are obviously exceptions of both sides of the table (very noted ones so if you are my friend and an Obama supporter I am probably not talking about you), but the truth is amongst my most educated friends it has always been the ones whom I have considered the smartest who support Hillary, not Obama. They are the people who rail for Obama with some sort of crazy belief that he'll actually change politics, make candy grow from trees, and turn international war crimes in to some magical, delicious form of frozen yogurt that tastes better than ice cream, but has no calories, that I lack any sense of intellectual respect for, and this usually began before they even started supporting him.

In fact, let me end with this hierarchical theory. The first plateau is working class folk, who have no time to indulge in the dream of a better world, and thus largely support Hillary. Then there are the well-to-do suckers who think that magically politics will change over night. Finally, there are the cynics who are aware that politics will always be a ground fight because it involves groups of people who very very much disagree over issues. Compromise is possible, but it's the Hillary-type, not the Obama-type that gets compromises hammered out. Obviously there are exceptions to these rules (interest groups come to mind) and not all people support either candidate for such reasons, but most do and it's pretty silly how it has been categorized.

So tonight will mean a lot in the grand scheme of things. For what it's worth I expect a tie in the sense that Hillary will get a slightly favorable outcome. I suspect a decent Indiana win and a pretty close showing in North Carolina. It probably won't matter in the long run, but I will allow myself, just for tonight, the audacity of hope.

The Rules of the Game (JM)

Josh Marshall over at TPM makes the argument that the new Clinton camp spin, brought forth by Sen. Evan Bayh (otherwise known as Senator Really Wants to Be Vice President), that the candidate who would have gained the most electoral votes in primary season should be the one chosen by the superdelegates is wrong. That we should stick to rules as laid out, despite our feelings about them. While I am usually in agreement with Josh, I could not disagree more on this. I think it is totally within the rules of the game and that the best democratic representation does matter.

As much as the reformulations of reformulations of the measuring stick for a successful candidate according to the Clinton camp has gotten a bit silly, it is both relevant and well within the rules. Superdelegates were created to make a decision based on what is best for the party, if the Clinton team can come up with relevant metrics to convince supers that their particular team is either a) more electable or b) a better representation of the will of the Democratic party, then this sort of rejiggering is perfectly well justified.

The electoral college argument could be quite persausive in marshalling the argument that Hillary would be the ideal candidate. The reason this argument is problematic is that it doesn't control for the candidate's effectiveness against McCain. For instance, clearly Obama would win New York in such a contest and Hillary would win Illinois. The popular vote proxy would have been decent, but for the fact that caucuses surpress the popular vote count and Michigan and Florida were disenfranchised. I actually think the best measure of electability is probably state-by-state polls of the two candidates over a long period of time in competition with Sen. McCain. Of course, no superdelegate could ever explain their vote by that logic. At this point it is simply a task of the Clinton campaign to supply superdelegates with the appropriate narrative by which to justify a vote for them, as well as to convince them of her superior electability and her greater representativeness of the Democratic party will.

These statements are well within the rules of the games, since there are technically no "rules of the game" as it comes to the way superdelegates make their decision. Heck, Hillary should feel free to point out that she has the support of more periodontists than Obama (this is not necessarily true, sadly polling on this is limited), it would not be terribly persausive I suppose, but that's largely up to her.

Lastly, if she can make a compelling argument that this is simply a better representation of the democratic will (a tough sell), it seems to me totally worthwhile. I am not sure why "rules are rules" is enough of a reason to not try to persuade independent arbiters that maybe we should invalidate these less than fair rules. It's kind of akin to jury nullification, a practice which, in certain cases, is definitely justifiable.

Sorry Dennis, Better Start Watching Arena Football (JM)

Tremendous night for Hillary Clinton. Wins in all the major states, except IL and MO. Wins when there aren't caucuses. It's going to go all the way to PR, and possibly MI and FL... Like I said, I still think this is good for the Democrats. If MI and FL are redone they best be primaries, not caucuses. All I can say is the Hillary will drink your milkshake.

Primary Night Instathoughts (JM)

A few thoughts on primary night coverage thus far:

1) No amount of bad press will keep Tweety from hating Hillary. When he called Vermont tonight he basically acted like the whole election was over. That is until Brokaw sarcastically remarked, "No one thought Sen. Clinton was going to win Vermont."

2) McCain won Vermont and Ohio, the nation yawns. Say what you will, but I think this Democratic campaign is great for the Dems. I don't know why the media keeps claiming it is not.

3) How in the world do they keep running out of ballots? This is an exciting election. People care. You should plan for this.

4) The economy is becoming a more central issue in this campaign. That is good for Hillary, but way better for the Democratic Party. McCain has about the silliest perspective on the economy. He still still believes that we should have private social security accounts and the Bush tax cuts. This will be a great advantage in the general election.

Obama and NAFTA (JM)

Hey all, sorry it's been so long between posts. Dennis and I were being inducted in to the Royal Order of the Golden Bison this weekend and so were, understandably, a little bit distracted. But here we are, back at it again.

So a little on a story that is just starting to get some press. Obama advisor, Austan Goolsbee, met with the Canadian Counsel in Chicago to discuss the upcoming rhetoric about NAFTA policy. There is some dispute about what was said, but the Counsel has been pretty clear that Goolsbee flat out asked the Canadians to disregard the NAFTA politics and know that, in the end, Obama would not be an anti-trade president. Goolsbee denies that this was the content of their conversation.

A few things are striking about this dust-up. First of all, it was very weird for Obama and his people to have straight denied that they had met with Canadian ambassador (which the original stories reported) and not mention they had met with the Canadian Counsel's Office in Chicago. This decision makes them look more like they have something to hide. Secondly, I fail to see why the Canadians have any interest in lying about or overstating this. Such a revelation can only work to their disadvantage should Obama get the nomination, he'll have to push hard against NAFTA to avoid looking like a typical politician. Maybe, I am missing an angle and I am open to correction, but it strikes me as a very believable story from that perspective. Finally, this is just another example of how screwed up our primary system is. By most accounts NAFTA is a favorable, though by no means perfect, policy. Massive job loss in places like Ohio, Michigan, Texas and Pennsylvania has very very little to do with NAFTA and much more to do with other institutional practices (as well as modernization). This is an issue I have address a bit more in other spaces on AOTG, but its relationship to the primary is critical. Because Ohio and, to a lesser extent Texas, are to play crucial roles in deciding our next president this becomes a bit issue and the positions on it have nothing to do with logic and assessment and everything to do with polling and political winds. It is akin to issues like ethanol and farm subsidies. By all accounts most politicians are on the incorrect sides of these issues, but because of this disproportionate influence of certain states when you have progressive primary, rather than a single day of voting, there are issues that get prioritized.

So it really opens up two questions to which I don't know the answer: 1) Will Obama's apparent apostasy on trade have a significant enough impact in Ohio and Texas to be a game changer?; 2) Will we see substantial electoral reform when this whole mess is over? We'll know the answer to the first tomorrow, but the second won't be for some time and it won't happen unless people begin advocating for it.

Yay, Democracy! (JM)

Okay, so I will warn you ahead of time, this is absurdly anecdotal but this is exactly the terribleness I imagine all caucuses to be. Here we have a whole family of people arguing about which candidates to support and woman being overwhelmed in to supporting Obama by her husband and two sons. Honestly, I couldn't care less which candidate they were swayed in to supporting, this is truly terrible way to choose a president. This is not even to mention absurdly low voter turnout, repression of key demographics like the poor and elderly and generally funky way of attributing voter preferences when all is said and done.

One thing we need to take out of this year is that we are in the need of some serious primary reform, even bigger than the post-1988 reforms fought for by Jesse Jackson. There are a couple of absolutely necessary planks to this reform:

1) The Democratic Party should create a unitary, powerful election commission. This commission in turn should provide a single, universal way of conducting in state primaries. State's rights yay! Geographic diversity awesome! But this is a stupid place to allow for creativity, this is a national office and all votes should be counted in the same way. There should be national oversight and neutral observers. This means no more terrible caucuses, no more individual states choosing their primary dates, and no more weird vote counting mechanisms. I recognize that parties have the right to do things as they will, but in many ways primary season is just as democratically important as the general and thus we deserve some modicum of regularity.

2) Geographic diversity matters, but we need to find some way to shake the system up. There are a lot of arguments in favor a national primary and some equally compelling arguments supporting a series of regional primaries that include both large and small states simultaneously and a rotating schedule that changes each election. I have a suspicion that the latter scenario is the better one, but could be persuaded otherwise. The shenanigans that went on with MI and FL are ridiculous and a large part of the Democratic base is going to be disenfranchised (and those votes alone probably would have swung this election). Despite the fact that IA and NH didn't appear to have a disproportionate effect on the race this year, it definitely has in the past and still did this year. The so-called second-tier candidates: Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, Bill Richardson all would have faired much better if this election had started in other states. Basically, we allowed Iowa farmers to vett the field for us, and that is some real nonsense.

3) One man, one vote is a principle that matters. We should strive to bring our primary system as close as possible to this principle. It's insane for a candidate to win the popular vote in Nevada (Hillary), but for someone else to get more delegates (Obama). Also it's weird that campaigns are forced to target districts with odd number delegates because the percentages required to pick up a 4-2 split in a 6 delegate district are so very high, whereas it is much easier to pick up that extra delegate in a 5 delegate district, because someone has to get it. I recognize that our current federal election system is not exactly the paragon of one man, one vote but that, of course, is inane (and disastrous) as well.

4) Finally, superdelegates can either exist or not. I am slightly inclined toward not, but I don't much care. However, if they do continue to exist we cannot be asking them to support whomever the majority of the delegates support. That completely undermines their entire purpose. Instead they should act as the old wise council of the party and choose whomever they think would make the best president. I actually think this might be nice to have if we lowered the sheer number of superdelegates and truly made them no more than a near tiebreaking vote.

That's all that comes to mind now, but I am definitely interested in other thoughts on this. I don't think this primary season has been that bad for the party, but I think its conclusion might well be. No matter who wins this, the other side is going to feel like it was won unfairly, no matter what occurs. This is the fault of the system, not the candidates, and that's just a shame.

(Thanks to Jennifer for the article above)

A Better Proposal (Dennis)

Home for lunch so posting...

While I thought Jon's plan was good, I think it is probably too costly given that people aren't even acknowledging primaries as an option for revoting in MI and FL. I do share his belief that we need some sort of decisive way to choose the Democratic nominee.

What better way then, than to have a winner take all 7 game Democratic Series, between two baseball teams recruited by Obama and Clinton? I mean, if the nomination is going to be won by recruiting random bigshots, why not make it the recruitment process exciting and highly visable?

I envision both teams getting some sort of salary cap (say $20 million) and then left to their own devices to sign players for the game. Can you imagine how amazing this would be? "Oh my lord, Hillary got Santana!" "Obama's really got a murder's row with Manny A-Rod and Ortz." "Is Hillary going to sign any of the steroid players?" "That Team Obama middle relief looks shaky, he really needs another closer or a starter that could eat innings."

You could hold the series in late March, towards the end of spring training and right before the start of the season. If it's warm enough, it would be cool to have it at Wrigley Field and Yankee Stadium, but it almost certainly will not be, so perhaps all of the games could be done at a warmer, neutral site like the new Nationals Field. The logo designs would perhaps be an O version of the Cubs C for Obama and a New York Yankees style HC for Team Hillary.

The best part is that you could sell the television rights and donate the fairly large sum to buy adequate body armor for soldiers in Iraq. You could also schedule political speeches by the "home" candidate before the game, and get tons of free media exposure. Also this would just dominate all of the sports and political coverage for the next month.

Isn't this the best solution? Excitement, watchability, and an appeal to swing voters who might not be watching the primary debates. C'mon Dems, you know this is the right choice.

A Slightly Modest Proposal (JM)

Some have suggested that the fairest way for superdelegates (the 700-plus unpledged Democratic Party functionaries who will be the difference in this election) to determine their vote is to go based on what their state decided or vote for the person with the delegate lead. I think these are both poor solutions, as they merely mimic the weirdness inherent the terrible primary (and excruciatingly horrific caucus) process. Instead, I would propose that we schedule a national primary. This would have a couple of benefits:

1) It would be a total fair and smart way to gain closure on this process. By now no one can complain that name recognition ruled the day and it would be a true mandate of the people.

2) It would avoid the incredible acrimony from either side should this be decided by superdelegates. Moreover, it would probably avoid the vicious floor fight about Michigan and Florida receiving credit for their delegates.

3) It will overwhelm John McCain in the media. The truth is that the more I think about this close race the better it is for the Dems. Every headline is about the Democrats (except for the McCain's party hates him stuff). You will not see coverage of McCain in a positive light because it will be totally obscured by the spectacle of this final, winner-takes-all primary. Also McCain won't know who to hit or to whom he should draw a contrast. Also it can't hurt to make a 979 year old man remember two different policy slates.

It think logistically this might be difficult to achieve, as well it is not clear that both camps would agree to this (though I am not sure which one would object), but this seems like the fairest and best compromise to solve a seemingly intractable problem. Thoughts? Better suggestions? Ad hominem attacks?