The problem with early momentum

Early leads often appear “insurmountable”. Clear, consistent trends lead to “foregone conclusions”. Neighbors of a murderer often comment “he seemed like such a normal guy – this is such a shock.” Friends and relatives of heart attack victims have been known to comment: “she was so healthy – we never saw this coming”. These are reasons the current political trends are concerning for the Democratic Party.

When prevailing public sentiment indicates one direction, look the other way. And don’t get hit by the bus.

What are the current indicators, trends, majority opinions, predictions, or other things that we can see at the moment?

1. Democrats are showing up at the polls in droves – 14.6 million democrats vs. 8.3 million republicans. Pundits seem to think this is good news for the democrats. It could be, but usually isn’t. It’s a historical trend, with only two notable primary seasons where the 3:2 ratio/rule did not hold true: Clinton re-election in 1996 and Gore in 2000. (Numbers here.) Most notable in all of this, the Democrats are very excited about their candidates, while the Republicans clearly are not.
2. Democrats are raising more money than the Republicans. This is actually interesting, as the Republican Party is typically viewed as having deeper pockets than their Democratic counterparts. But it only matters if the Democrats don’t waste it all attacking one another in Primary Elections. But it still is interesting.
3. At least 6 different polls show or have shown that Obama beats McCain in the General Election. OK. Polls also showed Obama beating Clinton in New Hampshire, and that certainly didn’t work out according to the numbers. Polls are inherently unreliable, and yet the media continues to forget this fact 14 seconds after acknowledging it each time they re-learn it. The gum on my shoe has more memory recall than many of these political pundits.
4. The super-delegate safety valve in the Democratic Party looms as a large concern. As I wrote previously and as many outlets are also beginning to report, this is a potentially devastating problem for the Dems. Not so much a trend, but the Republicans have to be giddy at the prospect of the Democrats undermining their constituency by going against the popular vote to accede to prevailing wisdom (see item 3 above) and select the candidate with the best shot at beating the Republican nominee. This leads to disenfranchisement and low turnout and an easy path to victory for the Republicans.

If I were a hard-core democrat, I’d be very concerned about each of these developments. But I am superstitious, and each of these things concern me, as I don’t think four more years of Republican leadership is what this country needs. Let’s take a quick look the whole problem in a bit more detail, because that’s when concern really starts to grow.

As stated, the Democrats are showing up at the polling places and caucus sites in big numbers. Part of this is due to anger with the current administration, part is historical trend, and part of this is no doubt due to the magnetism of Barack Obama. He has shown a strong ability to pull the younger demographic, while Hillary consistently pulls the 59+ crowd. They fight for the middle age ranges. As far as race goes, Obama has proven he can win the white vote with victories in the south, midwest, west, northeast. He has great pull among African-Americans, and has shown he can win in the midwest. He has also shown he can pull the moderate vote. Clinton resonates with women, but not as consistently as Obama with the African-American vote.

If the super-delegates push the tally towards Clinton, I don’t expect Obama’s core following to simply fall in line behind her. I don’t think there will be a dream ticket with Obama on the undercard. These voters will either stay home in November, or jump ship to a moderately conservative McCain. Either way, not good for the Democratic Party.

McCain’s chances greatly improve against Clinton, as he will be able to capture the moderates and independents as well as those who simply want to keep the Clintons out of the White House. This coupled with disenfranchised Democratic voters will cause McCain turnout to skyrocket.

The Democrats need to address the national campaign sooner rather than later. Howard Dean, DNC leader, has said as much recently. Dean indicated a candidate will emerge in February or March, or they will have a sit down. In the meantime, the DNC can run counter-McCain ad campaigns, but don’t really have a message to rally around other than “don’t vote for another Republican who sounds a lot like the current president”.

Obama and Clinton continue to rack up big campaign donations to fight against one another. Their public positions have really become much more civilized and a bit more unified. In their debates and speeches, they are focusing on their differences on issues rather than taking one another’s words out of context and twisting them. That’s what the ad campaigns will be for. This is a waste of time and money.

The Democrats need to capitalize on this early momentum and grow it. Otherwise, as the saying goes, past performance will not be an indicator of future success.

Hillary Clinton’s super-delegates and “The Establishment” of Barack Obama: What’s the difference?

Today, Hillary Clinton made the statement that Barack Obama’s campaign is “increasingly establishment-oriented”, due to his recent endorsement by heavy hitters of the Democratic Party. As Alex Koppelman points out in an article on Salon, “Clinton’s husband held some sort of high position in the government and the Democratic Party not so long ago”.

Let’s put that portion of the argument aside. The real pot/kettle situation here can be seen in the delegate count. According to numbers from CNN, Clinton has won 625 delegates, (575 on Super Tuesday), and Obama has won 624 (560 on Super Tuesday) delegates during the primary/caucus season to date. Very close race.

Now, let’s take a look at the super-delegate counts (numbers from CNN):

• Clinton has 193 super-delegates
• Obama has 106 super-delegates

That’s a big difference, and that difference clearly is the reason that Clinton has a measurable lead over Obama. And as I wrote a month ago, those super-delegates are members of the Democratic Party elite. Also known as…the establishment. So accusing someone of being the establishment candidate due to party endorsements while failing to acknowledge your own supporters from the same elite class of the party, well isn’t that some form of…hypocrisy? Political election season…it’s faaaaaaaantastic.

These are the actions of a desperate candidate. So is floating your campaign a $5 million dollar “loan”. Appears that many of her big donors have met their limit on campaign contributions. Now not quite Romney numbers, but dipping into your own pocket sure doesn’t bode well for the future of the campaign war chest. Looks like it is time for some trickeration with funneling campaign dollars.

So with dwindling campaign funds, but clear backing from “The Establishment”, what’s a woman to do? How can we get television exposure without having to spend millions on air time? How can this be done…there has to be a way…

Debates! How about lots and lots of debates? We obviously haven’t had enough, at least not this year. “Free” airtime for both her and her friend Barack, where she hopes to pants him with more lies about his comments about the Republican Party or other such word twisting. So she has agreed to four additional debates, one per week, over the next month or so.

So with lots of time before we have a winner, and with more time appearing to benefit Barack Obama ($32 million raised in January!), the Clinton camp realizes they are in trouble. Watch for some classic dirty tricks in the coming days and weeks.