Democrats in Big Hurry to Lose White House, Think They Can
Not Lose. Judge Smith and Role Reversals
For
the third election in a row, the Democrats are in a big hurry to lose the White
House. In 2000, Al Gore jumped into his
limousine at 2:00 a.m. to rush over and concede defeat even before the votes in
Florida had been counted. In 2004, John
Kerry conceded defeat in less time after the polls closed than some voters
waited on line in Ohio. Now, Democrats
are in a big hurry to end the primary race in spite of conclusive proof that
the voters are still unwilling to decide between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. By any and all objective measures, Clinton
and Obama each have the support of 48% of the
Democrats and voters, with 4% still undecided.
Democrats Think They
Can Not Lose
At this moment, May 18, 2008, the Democrats think they can
not lose in November because they have recently won three Special House
Elections in solidly Republican districts.
The House district of Speaker Dennis Hastert even went to the
Democrats. A solidly Republican district
in Mississippi and another in Louisiana went for the Democrats, too. Naturally, the Democrats think this is a sign
that the tide is running in their direction.
But
a look at the numbers reveals a very different story. Dennis Hastert’s 14th
Congressional District in Illinois went to the Democrats 52,205 to 47,180. Less than 100,000 votes, 99,385 to be exact,
were cast in that Special Election. The
Democrats won by 5,025 votes. In November
2004, 279,018 votes were cast in the 14th Congressional
District. Hastert received 191,618
almost double the entire turnout in the Special Election. The Democrat received 87,400 votes. In other words, the Democrats did not so much
win in the 14th District as the Republicans lost. While 60% of the 2004 Democratic vote turned
out, only 24.6% of the 2004 Republican vote turned out. One might almost say that the Republicans
threw the election.
In
Louisiana’s 6th District, the Democrats won by 2,957 votes out of
101,017 ballots cast. The Democrat
received 49,703 (49.20%) to the Republican’s 46,746 (46.28%), while
independents received 4,568 (4.52%). In
the November 2004 General election, Louisiana’s 6th district had
258,869 voters, with the Republican receiving 186,106. In Louisiana, the Republican turnout of 25.1%
of the Republican 2004 general election vote is shockingly close to the 24.6%
in Illinois. The Democratic turnout of
68.3% of the Democratic 2004 General Election vote was comparable to the 60% in
Illinois. The major difference between
the Democratic victory in Illinois and Louisiana is that in the latter the
Democrats failed to win 50% of the vote.
Mississippi’s
1st Congressional District Special Election attracted only 67,361 voters
in a district that polled 277,584 voters in 2004. Less than 1 in 4 of the 2004 voters bothered
to vote in the Special Election in Mississippi, while in Illinois and Louisiana
it was slightly more than 1 in 3. The
Democrat won by 2,127 with 33,304 (49.44%) to the Republican’s 31,377 (46.28%)
and independents’ 2,880 (4.28%). As in
Louisiana, the winning Democrat did not receive more than 50% of the vote.
The
Democratic victories in the three House Special Elections are more a sign of
hope than a harbinger of victory. Paper thin margins on severely depressed turnout is not a
good predictor of results in November when the presidential candidates will
bring out the voters in droves. It will
not take many of the 150,000 to 200,000 extra traditionally Republican McCain voters
who will cast ballots in each of these districts in November to overturn these small
margins. The Democratic victories in the House Special Elections is less a certain
sign of Democratic victory than an indication that they have a chance of
winning.
In
some ways, increasing Democratic margins in the House bode poorly for the
presidential candidate. In 28 years
since Ronald Reagan was elected, the Congress and the White House have been
held by the same party for only 6 years.
Split party government, a rarity until World War II, has become the norm
since. In those interstices when the
same party held both the Presidency and Congress, the country has been plunged
into war three times: once in Vietnam and again in Iraq and Afghanistan. The record of single party rule has not been
a good one. At the moment, the trend of
the voters is toward a McCain presidency with an overwhelming Democratic
majority in the House (which handles economics of which McCain admits he knows
nothing, and a sizable Democratic majority in the Senate where former
presidential candidates Clinton and Obama would be
able to rally their colleagues who endorsed them into delivering on their
promises to get out of Iraq.)
Judge Smith and the
Women’s Movement
In
retired first woman Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s book The Majesty of the Law she tells the
story of how women’s rights came to be included in the landmark civil rights
statutes passed in the mid 1960’s under Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society
legislation. Judge Howard W. Smith, an
arch conservative segregationist from Virginia, was the Chairman of the
powerful House Rules Committee from the 84th Congress, when
Democrats took back control after the Eisenhower landslide in 1952, until he
was defeated for renomination in 1966.
When
John Kennedy was elected president in 1960, his first item of legislation was
to expand the House Rules Committee because it was a given that any socially
progressive legislation would go nowhere unless Judge Smith’s power was
diluted. House Speaker Sam Rayburn and
former Senate Majority Leader and Vice-President Lyndon Johnson helped Kennedy
pass this crucial first item on his legislative agenda.
After
Kennedy’s assassination, as Johnson started sending civil rights legislation up
to the Hill, Judge Smith remained implacably opposed to any federal legislation
designed to ensure equal rights for blacks.
In a last ditch attempt to derail the voting rights and public
accommodations acts, Judge Smith inserted “women” into the legislation, because
he thought the inclusion of women would tip the balance and defeat the
bills. Legislative legerdemain can not
stop a runaway train, and the legislation passed intact, thus piggy backing the
woman’s movement onto the civil rights movement, almost like an afterthought.
Of
course, legislation can not and does not change people’s opinions. In the latest polls, 14% of the voters think
that a black person should not be president of the United States, but 18% do
not think a woman should be president.
Worse for women, is that many of the people who oppose a woman as
president cite scripture as the reason. These poll percentages alone should
give pause to people who think a Democratic presidential victory in November is
inevitable. Any candidate
who starts with 14% or 18% of the voters automatically against their winning,
regardless of position on issues or anything else, is a decided underdog. Anyone who thinks otherwise is suffering from
what Andrei Gromyko, the late Soviet Foreign Minister called, “mass ideological
psychosis.”
And
there can be little doubt that the Republican, CIA trained, regime change,
election stealing, war mongering incumbents are well aware of these facts and
are unethical enough to use them to the fullest to preserve the war in Iraq by
electing McCain in November.
Obama Does Not Have the
Nomination Clinched
Currently,
Senator Barack Obama is
planning to claim victory in the Democratic Nomination on May 20th,
after the primaries in Oregon and Kentucky.
His argument is that he holds the majority of the committed delegates
and that therefore the super delegates should vote for him, the contest should
end, and he should be the nominee. That
he is currently behind in the popular vote is dismissed as irrelevant. That the number of delegates needed for
nomination is determined by omitting Florida and Michigan, two states needed
for a Democratic victory in November, is called “obeying the rules.” Obama removed his
name from the Michigan ballot. Even
giving him credit in Michigan for all the non-Clinton voters (there was an
uncommitted slate on the ballot) he is still slightly behind in popular
vote. Can the Democrats win by choosing
a nominee by ignoring the 2,329,672 voters in Florida and Michigan? This is beginning to sound a lot like the 2000
General Election where Bush was selected as president by not accurately
counting the votes in Florida.
Furthermore,
every president in the 20th century until Bill Clinton had won the
New Hampshire primary. George W. Bush
lost the New Hampshire primary, too; and really lost the election. In 2004, Kerry won the New Hampshire primary
and New Hampshire was the only state that voted for Bush in 2000 that switched
to Kerry in the General Election. New
Hampshire will be a swing state in November.
Al Gore would have been elected president even with Florida being stolen
from him if he had only carried New Hampshire.
The switch to Kerry in 2004 is a mia
culpa. This year, McCain and Clinton won
the New Hampshire primary.
So,
does Barack Obama have the nomination
locked up? Not if anyone is paying
attention to the voters. The voters are
still undecided and want the contest to continue, if for no other reason, so
that they can really understand the nomination process in all its minutiae and
detail. After eight years of Bush and
Cheney, voters really want to understand where these candidates come from. They also want to choose the vice-president,
which is why Clinton and Obama are neck and
neck.
Superdelegates can
say anything they like. They can say
they are for Obama today and Clinton yesterday, and change back tomorrow. But the votes of the superdelegates
do not count until the convention convenes in Denver and the votes are cast for
the nominee. If the Democrats want to
guarantee that they lose in November, all they need to do is end the nomination
contest in May, before all the delegates have even been selected.
The
last time this happened was in 1984 with Walter Mondale who lost to Ronald
Reagan in one of the biggest landslides in history. Mondale was losing primary after
primary. When
Democrats called his headquarters urging him to drop out so the party could
find a good candidate to run against Reagan, the party leadership said, “We
believe that Vice-President Mondale is the strongest candidate.” Strong candidates win votes. In the most recent contests, including North
Carolina and Indiana, Clinton was winning in the high turnout counties while Obama was winning in the low turnout counties. Clearly, the Democratic nominating contest is
not over. Only a Clinton-Obama or Obama-Clinton ticket
stands any chance to eek out a narrow victory in November. If Clinton and Obama
can’t figure out how to get together for the good of the party, how are they
ever going to figure out how to get the country together for the good of the
nation?
But the real
indication that Obama does not have the nomination
clinched is proved by the following thought experiment. Change the candidates. Say Obama was ahead
in the popular vote and had been on all the ballots, but that Clinton was ahead
in committed delegates based on low turnout caucuses in predominantly
Republican states. Say that Obama was urging that all the votes be included and that
the number needed for nomination include Florida and Michigan but that Clinton
was claiming to follow the party rules by having removed her name from the
Michigan ballot and supporting the exclusion of Florida and Michigan from the
number needed to nominate. Would anyone
be saying that Clinton had the nomination locked up?
Return
to Institute of Election Analysis Home Page