Things are getting nasty, or nastier, out there on the hustings. Hillary’s chief spokesman comparing Obama to Ken Starr. A Pulitzer prize winning Obama foreign policy advisor (now a former advisor) calling Hillary a “monster.” Where are we headed? And at what cost?
I have been holding my breath, and my pen, for a number of weeks awaiting the outcome of the Ohio and Texas primary elections. Hillary had to win the popular vote in both primaries to truly stay alive. Despite pollsters predicting that she would fail to do so, she won both primaries and Rhode Island’s too, taking three of the four contests held on March 4, 2008. She still trails Obama in the delegate count, as well as in the number of primaries and caucuses won and the total popular vote among Democratic voters, but she is able to claim that she has won in most of the big, industrial states, not even counting Florida and Michigan. While there are two small contests, Wyoming’s caucuses that Obama just won and the Mississippi primary on March 11, along the way, April 22 looms as the date of the next big watershed event, the Pennsylvania primary. But will it be decisive and what may occur between now and then?
It seems reasonable to believe that almost all Democratic leaders, Bill Clinton being one notable exception, hoped that Hillary would not win both Ohio and Texas. I suspect even many of those who strongly support her secretly hoped that she would lose one of the races and then, after some further posturing, bow out of the campaign. But that didn’t happen. Her victories, albeit narrow especially in Texas where she appears to have even lost the overall delegate count because of that state’s odd arrangement of caucus voting following the popular vote, definitely buoyed up her campaign and gave her bragging rights when it comes to big states. Hillary supporters feel that, despite Obama’s appeal to independents and his efforts to bring together blue and red Americans, most of the smaller traditionally red states in which he has easily won primaries and caucuses will vote Republican in the fall. As such, they tend to discount these victories. Obama supporters assert that even if Hillary won victories in key Democratic states such as New York, New Jersey and California, Obama performed well and that either Democrat is likely to carry them in the fall. As such, they tend to discount these victories. What would we do without the spinmeisters, not that I am not guilty of being one at times!
The outcomes on March 4 certainly mean that Hillary will continue to vigorously pursue the Democratic Party nomination and that the race between her and Obama will grow even more strident. At this point, many feel that Hillary is more likely than Obama to win the popular vote in the Pennsylvania primary. It is a northeastern industrial state and parallels have also been drawn between it and Ohio in terms of the demographics of the electorate. The state’s governor is a strong Hillary supporter as well. Her supporters believe that her victory there should count considerably in her pursuit of the nomination in light of her successes in the other large industrial states.
At the same time, because Hillary is in second place by most measures today, or at a minimum is seen as being in second place, a loss by her of the popular vote in Pennsylvania could indeed be decisive in ending her run for the nomination. The pressures on her to concede at that point would be enormous, including by many Hillary supporters. Despite arguments that it shows the strength of our democratic system, I suspect that most Democrats believe that a hotly contested national convention would be the death knell for Democratic prospects in the fall and they wish to avoid it.
But a loss by Obama of the popular vote in the Pennsylvania primary will certainly not lead him to drop out of the race nor would the pressures on him to do so come close to those that would befall Hillary if she were to lose. He is the front runner and will surely be so going into and probably even in the aftermath of the Pennsylvania primary. Hence, a Hillary victory in Pennsylvania may well mean a brokered Democratic national convention with all that portends. This is not to completely rule out the possibility that Obama might withdraw from the race before the convention were he to lose Pennsylvania (and subsequent primaries), but at this point any withdrawal regardless of the outcomes of upcoming primaries appears extremely remote. Obama’s astonishing fund raising numbers, among other indicators, attest to the strength of his support.
Then, too, despite the enormous pressures that would be brought to bear on Hillary if she were to lose the Pennsylvania popular vote, it isn’t at all clear that she would in fact bow out of the race. She might simply refuse, especially if she loses the vote by a hair, and seek to await verdicts in May primaries in Indiana, Oregon, North Carolina and Puerto Rico, among others. She could even decide to remain in the race through the national convention. Many have written of the Clintons’ resolve. But I suspect that if she loses Pennsylvania’s popular vote she will not make it to the convention, even if she hangs on for later primaries.
How have the Democrats gotten themselves into this fine mess? Clearly few anticipated Obama’s emergence as an incredibly popular, well organized, attractive, charismatic candidate. I certainly did not. More importantly, Hillary and her strategists didn’t either. Her performances in caucuses demonstrate that her campaign did not organize well in those states and apparently felt that her victories by super-Tuesday would be enough to wrap up the nomination.
But another “cause” of the present situation is the proportional representation voting system mandated for Democratic primaries by the national Party. By forbidding winner-take-all contests, the Democrats practically ensured gridlock in the case of two equally or almost equally matched candidates. A proportional representation voting system may be more “democratic” in theory than a winner-take-all voting system but historically it often spawns instability and weak governance. In national elections to Congress, the United States uses a so-called single member constituency voting system. This kind of system tends to under represent minority factions (i.e., minority factions in terms of political views, not necessarily in terms of ethnic groups) but also tends to lead to more decisive elections and more stable governance. In this instance, the Democratic nominating campaign voting system has ensured that, between Hillary and Obama, even the candidate who has lost the popular vote in a primary has still walked away with a considerable number of delegates.
Unfortunately, the likelihood that the campaign will grow even nastier than it has is great. There is much at stake for both candidates. The image Obama has sought to convey of a candidate committed to not turning negative on his opponent may constrain him and his campaign a bit, if only to attempt to deny Hillary the argument that Obama is ultimately like all other politicians, including her. But a candidate’s negative advertising is often seen by the candidate, strategists and supporters as merely truth telling with an edge.
It would appear that there is ever more concern among Democrats that this increasingly contentious contest between Hillary and Obama will lead to more and more bloodletting and seriously undermine the prospects for their party’s victory in the fall. Might that concern actually affect the voting pattern in the Pennsylvania and subsequent primaries? Specifically, will some voters who might otherwise vote for Hillary defect to Obama not because they favor him more but because they want an end to this race? I think some feared that might occur on March 4, but even if some voters determined their vote with that in mind, enough remained faithful to Clinton that she prevailed. We shall see how things develop as the weeks unfold.⌂
