The Presidential Campaign: Florida, Michigan, and the Democratic Distemper

"I am a member of no organized political party,

I am a Democrat," Will Rogers famously said. As

am I, sometimes to my wonder.


Here we are, with two candidates who most every-

one in the party likes, two candidates who like each

other, looking forward to that Democratic novelty,

a united party after the convention, and we're still

going to screw it up.


Even for Democrats, this is stupidity on an unimaginable

scale. The stupidity is also multi-tiered. It took real

effort to get us into this position. Consider:


(1) The Democratic National Committee decides to

disenfranchise Florida and Michigan as payback for

those states' attempt to move up their primaries.

Disenfranchise Florida and Michigan. Those

are two huge states, one of which resulted in the

election of President Gore in 2000, before the

Supreme Court stepped in and "corrected" things.

How could the D.N.C. ever think that this was going

to work out OK?


The Republicans, facing the same dilemma,

at least allowed Florida and Michigan to keep

half their delegates. A 50% penalty is severe,

but a 100% penalty is beyond draconian. But wait,

there's more.


(2) The Democrats keep the nominating threshold

the same. So now, a candidate has to accumulate the

same 2,025 delegates, but without Florida and Michigan's

cache. If the Democrats had reduced the nominating

threshold proportionately to the loss of the Florida and

Michigan delegations, at least they would have made it

no more difficult for a candidate to amass the

necessary number of delegates. But, noooo.

So now, the Demos are in the position where it's

virtually impossible for either Obama or Clinton

to get to that magic 2,025 number in the remaining

primaries. And this mathematical law is

compounded by...


(3) ...the way that the party allocates delegates within

each state. You know how, in the Electoral College,

a candidate wins all of the state's delegates if (s)he

wins that state's popular vote, even if by one hanging

chad? The Democrats don't do that. They award

a state's delegates in proportion to each candidate's

percentage of the popular vote. So Obama won

Wyoming, with it's whopping 12 delegates at stake.

But, Obama only won 7 of Wyoming's delegates. Clinton

took the other 4 (one is still up for grabs somehow

and I don't want to know how).


This allocation procedure, coupled with screw-ups

one and two above, almost guarantees a drawn out

primary season, and a divided convention.


The Framers realized what the Democrats don't,

that elections should encourage resolution, not

division. The Democrats, rather, have adopted

an allocation system similar to that of Israel, where

ten people in a living room can form their own party,

get on the ballot, win a seat in the Knesset, and then

play kingmaker in the coalition-building necessary to

select the Prime Minister. Wildly disproportionate

influence is thereby conferred on tiny fringe parties.

The Democrats liked that whole idea.


(4) The result of this perfect storm of stupidity is exactly

the opposite of what nominating primaries are about:

letting the voters decide.


Used to be, party conventions were real arenas of drama

because party officials would get together and decide

the nominee. "Bosses" in "smoke- filled rooms" deciding

who the nominee would be. Baaad. So the parties went

to the primary system. Goood.


Except that the parties reserved a large chunk of

delegates, called "super delegates," for the Bosses,

as a moderating influence, in case Democratic voters,

perish the thought, were about to nominate a knuckle-

head. In that event, The Bosses would step in and

"correct" the unruly voters (much as the butler

in The Shining "corrected" his unruly wife and children,

with a hatchet). Well, we're back to the hatchet, Bosses,

and smoke-filled rooms.


Democrats, lineup in a firing squad in the customary

way, in a circle. This is Public Occurrences.