Big Picture
It’s been a while. Since then we’ve had 4 Democratic and 6 Republican primaries and caucuses of the 2008 presidential nomination. Obama won Iowa, then Clinton took New Hampshire and the Nevada Caucus (but Obama got more delegates), and finally Obama won more than fifty percent of the vote in South Carolina last Saturday. Edwards, has yet to taste victory.
The Republicans are no better. Huckabee shot up to take Iowa away from the confident Romney, who also won the overlooked Wyoming and Nevada Caucuses. McCain won New Hampshire and South Carolina. Now on to Florida (where the Democrats are not campaigning but are fundraising) and Super Tuesday on February 5th.
At this point the big news in the Democratic race is the constant in-fighting between Clinton and Obama (and Clinton). I appreciate the chance to pick apart the candidates and their positions, but the feud has only negative benefits to the ultimate goal: a Democrat in the White House. Obama and Clinton attack each other for attacking each other about attacking each other. This has to stop.
The fighting also covers up the interesting aspects of the nominating race. For example, in one Nevada district with five delegates the votes for Clinton and Obama were identical. In the proportional voting system, each got half. But that left one delegate out of the equal division. So a Clinton supporter and an Obama supporter drew cards to pick the winner of the final delegate. Clinton got a queen, Obama got a ten. Drawing cards is not the image of democracy in my mind. To make it worse, CNN reported this event like any regular news. Doesn’t seem right, doesn’t seem fair, doesn’t seem smart.
Also, we all remember the outrage and disgust in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election. There were other complications, but that seems to be a simple summation of the final result. Yet no one cares about Nevada? Less people voted for Obama in the state but based on the votes cast by district, he was able to capture more delegates. Delegates by congressional district seems fair, but Clinton won the state and Obama won the price. That doesn’t seem fair. The worst part is the inconsistency. Where is the division? Is the state line important or is the district line important? If we go smaller, maybe we can have neighborhoods elect delegates and the units become even smaller. At the extreme, everyone gets to vote for one delegate and we have a complete popular vote. The math doesn’t make sense.
The issue of the state line is also interesting in the Republican sphere. Giuliani–hanging on for life in Florida–has a focused campaign. One key element is a national catastrophe fund for natural disasters. This seems to go over well in hurricane-stricken Florida. In the most recent Republican debate, Giuliani questioned his opponents about this issue. Their responses were far from clear on the issue. Romney made one interesting point:
“Now, I’m not in favor of saying that the people in Iowa should have to subsidize the people in Massachusetts or the people in Florida. That doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
The state lines are not an arbitrary boundary. However, I cannot get passed this “refusal to subsidize” idea. That means that, in the case of Florida, a resident living right on the border with Georgia, who is completely safe from hurricanes must subsidize those living in the dangerous areas (and, of course, the nice beach areas) while a Georgia resident with the same risk has no obligation. Seems like the state boundaries are arbitrary in this decision. I don’t know the details of this national fund, but the idea of a national fund should be just that: national.
