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.

Super-delegates and the Democratic party

The Democrats don’t trust their constituency.

But that’s OK. Or so that’s what the Democratic National Committee would like us to believe. They are protecting voters from themselves in an effort to avoid another McGovern like disaster. Wikipedia can tell you all about that.

There are many explanations of the super-delegate, but I’m here to discuss the fact that these delegates are not bound to any currently-relevant primary election process. These folks are former presidents, current or former members of congress, and certain elite members of the Democratic party or the Democratic National Commitee. They are free to chose which candidate to endorse, and they are essentially a safety net for the DNC so they don’t end up with any ideological freaks representing the party in the general election.

In 2004, there were a number of notable super-delegates that had come out in favor of Howard Dean prior to the Iowa primary, based on his appeal to a young demographic. After his poor showing in Iowa, Dean was abandoned by those same super-delegates. This, of course, means that an endorsement is also not binding.

These super delegates represent about 40% of the overall delegates required to secure the Democratic nomination. Of the 197 super delegates who have endorsed a candidate to date, Hillary Clinton has support of 58% of those. Barack Obama holds 23%. If those percentages hold, that gives Clinton 488 or so of the 842 super-delegates available. That’s somewhere shy of 25% of what she needs to win the nomination.

OK – so what’s the point? Well, it would appear that the watchword in the early days of the primary season is change. Change is likely to become synonymous with another favorite and equally meaningless watchword – electability. If there is no clear-cut leader heading into the Democratic Convention in August, these super-delegates clearly become very important. We haven’t seen a race with two such strong and popular candidates in recent memory.

This puts the party and the super-delegates in an interesting position to chose the candidate to represent them in the general election. There will likely be enough poll data, enough conventional wisdom, enough punditry to go around for party officials (read: super-delegates) to chose the candidate of “change” who is most “electable”. At this point, all endorsements are up for grabs, including that of former President Bill Clinton, who is of course related to Senator Clinton through marriage.

Let’s say, by some strange twist of fate, conventional wisdom leads the DNC to believe that Obama is that candidate. Would the party ask Al Gore, Bill Clinton, the New York Representatives, et. al. to pull their endorsements of Senator Clinton and back Senator Obama for a run at the White House? Not hard to imagine this scenario.

As stated, the super-delegates were put in place as a safety valve for the party. This same safety valve could conceivably fracture the party, leading to a disenfranchised constituency and pave the way for a Republican victory.

Interesting times.