February 21, 2008
Clinton & Obama's Disingenuous Outrage
By
Reid Wilson
As the race for the Democratic presidential nomination heads into what can be considered its fifteenth month, two candidates remain standing, at their backs two of the best political teams ever assembled. But when the presidential contest blew through February 5, when more than twenty states held nominating contests, the Clinton campaign seemed to have been caught unaware of the prospect of a long, drawn-out campaign in which neither is able to deliver a fatal punch to the other. Obama, thanks to a $32 million fundraising haul in January, was more prepared to deliver resources to post-Super Tuesday states, but that effort only started in the few days leading up to February 5.
Now, with the prospect of a brokered convention becoming more than idle speculation, top strategists in both camps are increasingly concerned at the prospect of a nominating contest drawn out until August, in which party leaders and elected officials -- commonly known as "super delegates" -- make the difference. That possibility is one both Democrats want to avoid at all costs, but in reaction, each campaign is protesting and complaining about factors of which they were each completely aware, feigning outrage that makes both sound completely disingenuous.
It has been noted many times that the Democratic nominee will be an historic figure. If Hillary Clinton is the pick, she will be the first woman to head a national ticket, breaking the ultimate glass ceiling. If Barack Obama scores the nod, he will be the first African American -- in fact, the first minority of any kind -- to lead a party, going farther to tear down institutional racism than any single person in American history.
With John Edwards out of the race, the party faces a real problem. Two huge segments of the party's base, women and African Americans, each put up an equally-qualified candidate who raised monstrous sums of campaign cash and has fought this far. Someone, in the end, has to fall short. But given the number of delegates each has received so far -- 1,187 pledged delegates for Obama, 1,028 for Clinton, according to the latest count by Real Clear Politics -- neither can practically reach the magic 2,025 number necessary to clinch the nomination without the aid of super delegates.
That presents a potentially huge embarrassment for the Democratic Party. The winning candidate could emerge from what amounts to a smoke-filled room, only after what will be portrayed as nefarious deals have been cut. In either case, women or African-Americans will feel slighted, and should the nominee only become evident at the convention, the ensuing riots could make the 1968 Chicago convention look like a peaceful picket line.
Both campaigns see and feel the need to avoid that situation, but both seem to believe that it is the other campaign's fault for raising the possibility in the first place and not simply rolling over and dying. As each tries to spin its way into first place, both are coming up with arguments that ring, at best, disingenuous, and at worst, ignorant of even the most basic Democratic Party rules.
"As you've probably heard, there could be a wildcard in the race for the Democratic nomination," Obama campaign manager David Plouffe wrote in an email to supporters last week. "We firmly believe that the candidate who has won the most pledged delegates -- the result of having more voters in more places supporting your campaign -- will be the Democratic nominee." The Obama campaign must also enjoy recent comments from New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who told the New York Times a super delegate's choice "should reflect their state or constituency," and from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said on Bloomberg TV: "It would be a problem for the party if the verdict would be something different than the public has decided."
But super delegates have been around since 1980, and their freedom to choose which candidate they prefer has never been an issue, until now. And even if super delegates were artificially forced to abide by their state's choice for president, Obama would hardly blow Clinton from the water. An initial tally shows states Obama has won will send 300 super delegates to the convention in Denver, while states Clinton has won will offer 250 super delegates. Ironically, Richardson and Pelosi, both of whom have yet to endorse but seem to prefer Obama, would each be forced to cast Clinton votes.
Any artificial force, though, simply won't happen. Rule 9(A) of the DNC's delegate selection rules clearly defines who a super delegate is and is as clearly mum on for whom those delegates should vote. Any change to those rules would have to come at the convention, and with representatives of each campaign so narrowly split, neither would allow the other to benefit.
The Clinton campaign, too, is beginning to make noise about delegates who could give them an advantage. After victories in Michigan and Florida, both of which broke party rules by holding their contests ahead of the February 5 window allowed by the DNC, Clinton won exactly zero delegates; the party had already stripped both states of their convention delegations.
Now, though, Clinton and others want delegates from Florida and Michigan provided places on the convention floor. Clinton herself made the argument Saturday during a press conference with reporters, while surrogates have been on message over seating delegates for weeks. Also earlier this week, top Clinton adviser Harold Ickes repeated his argument that delegates be seated. It is somewhat ironic that Ickes was one of the committee members who voted to strip delegates from Florida and Michigan for holding primaries ahead of the window. "When they don't like the delegate math, they try to rewrite the rules," Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe said on a conference call on Tuesday.
Ickes, who maintains he voted in his capacity as a committee member and not as an agent of the campaign, is not alone: Committee members Don Fowler, Mame Reiley, Elaine Kamarck and Tina Flournoy, all Clinton-backing super delegates, also voted to strip the states of their delegates. Ironically, committee member Allan Fox, of Florida, was the only vote against the sanctions; he is now backing Obama, though if sanctions stand he will not get to cast that vote.
In August, if party elders do not step in to manage some sort of resolution, both campaigns will take their battles to Denver, where they will fight the ugliest, most public political battle in forty years. Despite the party's promising national standing, as a generic Democrat runs far ahead of a generic Republican in polls, viewers who tune in will see chaos in Denver and a coronation in St. Paul, as John McCain takes the GOP reins.
It has been said that one should never underestimate the Democratic Party's ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Both candidates for the Democratic nod, while actually trying to win both the nomination and the election, are headed toward what looks like an unavoidable convention battle, at which each will come off looking worse than they did before.
While both camps complain about rules they don't happen to find convenient at the moment, it is not as if the rules are new ones. If Democrats' leading candidates can't seem to figure out the rules by which the party operates, Democrats are in for a long summer of what amounts to nothing more than disingenuous complaining.
Reid Wilson is an associate editor and writer for RealClearPolitics. He can be reached at
reid@realclearpolitics.com
