Stop the Insanity

As the months of 2007 have passed by much too quickly, one thing has gone on far too long in the minds of many people, and that is our Presidential nominating contests. Already, two of the original 10 have dropped out of the race, and Former Senator Fred Thomspon (R-TN) entered last week, with speculation still abounding on Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA)'s prospects of getting in. Of the eight Democratic candidates, the field has remained the same for months, although there is still the possibility that Former Vice President Al Gore (D-TN) may enter the race. On our side of the field, several of the frontrunners, led by Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who wanted to change the tone in Washington so very, very much, have opted out of having any more debates than the ones that have already been scheduled by the Democratic Party. (Perhaps his insistence on a moratorium on new debates comes from the fact that Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has beaten him in all of the debates, except for the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago, where the two have appeared.) There was a stretch where it seemed like states were threatening to schedule their primaries earlier and earlier, with the possbility of pushing Iowa and New Hampshire into December 2007. (However, a crackdown on bolting states such as Florida and Michigan by DNC Chairman Howard Dean, plus a pledge by the top six Democratic contenders seems to have stopped this lurch into January in its tracks on the Democratic side.)

The problem lies in the frontloading of our national primary calendar. In an article on Slate, Jeff Greenfield argues for the virtues of the 1984 Presidential nominating calendar that eventually selected Former Vice President Walter F. Mondale (D-MN) over then-Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) as the Democratic nominee. At the time, Vice President Mondale was the heavy favorite, with the backing of labor and civil rights leaders, and the benefit of a divided anti-Mondale vote. However, as Greenfield noted, by finishing second place, Senator Hart became the anti-Mondale and pulled off a huge upset in New Hampshire. Then, for those of us looking for an ebb-and-flow of a campaign that actually involves voters rather than speculation, and a ridiculous money chase that may end up with the first billion-dollar campaign, whether by one of both candidates, the following happened:

When Hart followed up with a landslide victory in Vermont a week later, Mondale found himself on the verge of political death.

And then the nominating process saved him. The progression of primaries from March to June gave voters time to take a longer look at the players. Even as Hart's face splashed onto the covers of news magazines, unsettling questions began to pop up. Why had he changed his name from Hartpence? Why had he dissembled about his age? Why had his signature radically changed? Then came a memorable moment during a debate in Atlanta, shortly before the March 13 primaries in several Southern states. Turning to Hart, Mondale borrowed a line from the famous Wendy's TV ad of the day: "When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad: 'Where's the beef?' " (Mondale had actually never seen the ad; his campaign manager, Bob Beckel, had to act it out for him).

Mondale also had time to rally groups in the traditional Democratic coalition, which was suspicious of Hart's post-New Deal "new ideas" rhetoric. In two Southern states, it is not too much to say that Mondale's campaign was saved by the black vote. Mondale was a civil rights stalwart; Hart had entered politics after that movement's great victories and had once said of himself and his ideological contemporaries, "We're not a bunch of little Hubert Humphreys." To blacks (and to unions), that was not a recommendation. On March 13, already three weeks into the long primary season, Mondale lost the Florida, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island primaries. But with the support of civil rights leaders Julian Bond and Coretta Scott King in Georgia, and Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington in Alabama—who broke with other blacks and shunned the Jackson campaign—Mondale won those two states and survived to fight another day.

From mid-March to June, the contest went on, without a clear victor. On March 20, the remnants of Richard Daley's Chicago organization managed a five-point victory for Mondale over Hart. A week later, New York weighed in with a 17-point win for Mondale. But while Mondale re-emerged the front-runner, the contest was far from over. During the next two months, Wisconsin went narrowly for Hart; Pennsylvania went big for Mondale; Indiana went for Hart; Maryland and North Carolina chose Mondale; and Ohio gave Hart a two-point victory.

On June 5, six states voted. Hart seemed poised to stage yet anther comeback, with poll leads in California and New Jersey. Then, in an act of self-destruction trumped only by his sleepover with Donna Rice three years later, Hart apparently forgot all about the sensibilities of New Jersey voters. He said of his wife, Lee, at a fund-raiser in California in Los Angeles, "The good news for her is that she campaigns in California, while I campaign in New Jersey. " When Mrs. Hart interjected, "I got to hold a koala bear," Hart said, "I won't tell you what I got to hold: samples from a toxic waste site." On primary day, Hart went on to scratch out a win in California, but the aggrieved citizens of New Jersey gave Mondale a 15-point win. And finally, the race was effectively over. All told, Mondale won 6.8 million votes to Hart's 6.5 million (Jesse Jackson placed third with 3.3 million votes).

In sum, in 1984, we got what we say we want today. Iowa and New Hampshire gave a long shot a chance to be seen and heard. The South then played an early pivotal role. The big industrial states got their chance to be highly consequential. And voters around the country had months to learn more and more about the candidates.

Yes, it is true that Vice President Mondale went on to lose in one of the most lopsided Presidential defeats in American history (winning 41% of the national vote and carrying his home state and the District of Columbia for a 525-13 rout, the fewest electoral votes by a major party nominee since Alf Landon's defeat by Franklin Roosevelt in 1936 by a total of 523-8.) However, for better or worse, Walter Mondale was a better representative of the Democratic Party in 1984 than Hart. (Does anyone else besides me think that the Donna Rice incident would have occurred three years earlier if Hart were the nominee?) He went out and worked hard after realizing that his sit-back style would not work, and he did what he had to do, getting the votes to win the nomination.

For those who think that this is a bad example of Presidential nominations, consider the fact that the last Democrat to have a margin of victory that was above reproach of the Supreme Court was Bill Clinton. In 1992, he became one of the early favorites, only to seem to have it all go away when rumors of an affair with Gennifer Flowers became the first thing that many Americans would hear about Bill Clinton who didn't live in his home state of Arkansas or the key early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. After finishing a distant third in an Iowa contest that was rendered irrelevant because no one ran a serious campaign in the state to oppose Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), he went on to become the famous "comeback kid" in New Hampshire with his close second place against Former Senator Paul Tsongas (D-MA). Then, the campaign went to the South, where Clinton dominated and after Super Tuesday, Tsongas dropped out of the race, with Former Governor (and current state Attorney General) Jerry Brown (D-CA) staying in the race as the leading opponent of Goveror Clinton. At first, the race seemed to be Clinton's, especially after his huge win in New York, but Brown managed to stay in the race a little while longer, beginning with a win in Colorado in April. Once this happened, even though the race was virtually Clinton's to win, Brown was able to stay in the race and Clinton didn't get the required delegates for the nomination wrapped up until June 2nd. (In contrast, Gore had that total by March 7th and Kerry had that total by March 10th.)

As Greenfield notes in the article, there were other battles for the nomination that resulted in battle-tested candidates who either won (FDR in 1932 and Eisenhower, nominated on the third ballot in 1952, the last nominee in either party not selected on the first ballot, although JFK came very close in 1960) or made huge comebacks from things that sunk their campaigns before they began (Ford in 1976).

In addition to the Greenfield argument of simply returning to the 1984 schedule, except for giving other states the chance to go first, there are other proposals out there. There are some who call for a striaght-up national primary, but we practically have that already, and for underfunded candidates who have shown a somewhat decent amount of support, such as Former Senator John Edwards (D-NC) and Governor Bill Richardson (D-NM), who have raised $22 and $13 million in the first half of this year, respectively, barring a huge win in an early state, there is no chance for them to get in. (The sad thing is that just one election cycle ago, those numbers would have been massive.) Also, there is still the question of a brokered convention, because it would be easier for no one to win an outright majority of delegates if everyone voted on the same day, meaning a return to the smoke-filled rooms. So, that is out.

There is also the proposal of a rotating regional primary, but again, even though this won't be quite as expensive as a national primary, that's still a lot of voters, and people who live in small states will be lost in the shuffle.

Then, there is the plan known as the Delaware Plan, without allowing any of the early contests to retain their positions in the front of the line, has the states go in pods spaced 30 days apart in increasing order based on the size of the state's population. This has the problem of not allowing any early states at all, thus providing a smaller opportunity for underdogs to have a chance, because instead of competing in two to four early states, depending on the calculations, the candidates would have to campaign in 12 states, DC, and the US territories.

Finally, there is the California Plan, also known as the American Plan, which sets ten two-week intervals of states randomly selected that have totals of (in order) 8, 16, 24, 56, 32, 64, 40, 72, 48 and 80 Congressional districts. I think that this is an interesting proposal, although I must admit that I like the idea of having a few small states selected to go first, but I think that we need to have something that can be done in order to keep the wolves at bay, and I think that if we don't do it sooner rather than later, Pandora may not be able to get the box closed again.