PolitiPorn™

by Stewie, PolitiPorn Wash., DC Bureau Chief

There has been an outbreak of “Primary Revision” in commentary over the past week. Columnists have taken to devising fairer schemes for the Democratic Party to use in allocating delegates. Is this the product of the long dry spell between races that can offer hard numbers to parse? 

Example 1 comes from Wesley Little posting his contribution to Rasmussen Reports. Little posits that if the Democrats had just used the Republican winner-take-all approach Senator Hillary Clinton would be the one with the 100+ delegate lead instead of Senator Barack Obama.

I have two problems with this. The first is that one should not attempt to pose the idea that it is fair and makes sense to use winner-take-all just because it works for the Republicans. Second, even the Republicans don’t use a pure winner-take-all scheme. Theirs is a hodgepodge of varying schemes that allows for winner-take-all as a possibility.

Little proposes that Clinton can use this as an argument to the superdelegates. Good luck with that.

Example 2 hails from Salon.com commentator Sean Wilentz. He writes, “If the Democrats ran their nominating process the way we run our general elections, Sen. Hillary Clinton would have a commanding lead in the delegate count, one that will only grow more commanding after the next round of primaries, and all questions about which of the two Democratic contenders is more electable would be moot.”

Of the decision to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates he writes, “The exclusion thus far of these two vital states has come about because of an arbitrary and catastrophic decision made last year by Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee.” We can disagree on whether the decision is “catastrophic,” but was it arbitrary? The leadership of Michigan and Florida decided to jump the line in violation of the primary scheme. As a result of the violation the DNC voted to deny them their delegates unless they moved their primaries. They did not and the punishment ensued. This is hardly arbitrary. Whether it is good politics is another matter entirely.

Example 3 comes from Clinton surrogates and announced superdelegates, such as Gov. Ed Rendell (Pa.) and U.S. Senator Evan Bayh (IN). “Look at the electoral college votes she has won.” This is, quite possibly, the most inexplicable. 

All of these schemes have one thing in common. They all take the delegate lead from Obama and give it to Clinton. The idea seems to be that if the DNC had chosen a “fairer” method for choosing delegates she would be in the lead. Of course there is one major wrinkle in this fairness game. No matter how you count the delegates, Obama leads in the popular vote. Therefore, these “fair” systems would deliver a substantial delegate lead to Clinton even though she is trailing in the popular vote. Also the much touted popular vote is somewhat misleading since some caucus states do not even report a popular vote total.

My favorite scheme if only for its chutzpah is the electoral vote argument. It was the electoral college that allowed George W. Bush to be president even though he lost the popular vote. If I remember correctly, in 2000 most Democrats did not view this as the “fair” result. The argument also has the virtue of essentially grafting a screwy system that few understand (the Electoral College) onto another screwy system that few understand (the Democratic Primary system).