Democrat primary calendar about more than diversity

August 24, 2006 – 8:32 am

A professor at the University of New Hampshire has an interesting op-ed in today’s WaPo about the New Hampshire Primary and the recent shift of the primary schedule by the Democrats. A lot of attention has been focused on the racial/diversity issue, which was the argument that the DNC used to move up Nevada. But the point that I found interesting was this:

But unlike Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina, New Hampshire has a strong, broad-based economy with a significant concentration of high-tech companies and global exporters. In many respects its economy represents the nation’s (hoped-for) economic future. It’s a very good place for candidates to test out economic ideas and principles and to learn from workers and entrepreneurs.

In the past quarter-century, New Hampshire’s economy has been transformed. Its economic base has changed from traditional manufacturing to concentration in high technology and skilled professional services. It has improved in rank among the states in per capita income from 25th to sixth. It has been the strongest economic performer in New England, with the region’s fastest growth rates in employment, gross state product and exports. New Hampshire consistently has among the lowest rates of unemployment and poverty.

This is in contrast with Nevada, whose caucuses are dominated by the hotel workers union, according to Hotline’s Chuck Todd:

[Edwards] close ties to the hotel labor workers give him an interesting leg up in Nevada.

…

Consider the first three states in the Democratic schedule: two are caucuses (Iowa and Nevada) whose very nature favors liberals (Nevada also proved how liberal its primary electorate is in their most recent primary for governor) …

…

Rants against New Hampshire aside, there seems to be one giant unintended consequence of this early primary calendar jiggering: shifting the Democratic primary balance of power to the left.

As for electability, Edwards should be considered too liberal to win a general.

In other words, the new schedule emphasizes the low-skilled service workers at the expense of high-skilled aspirational information workers. And it favors economic populists over candidaes more in touch with aspirational voters.

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Hillary as Senate Democratic Leader — The Hillary Movement

August 22, 2006 – 3:56 pm

What is this about? Ezra Klein writes about this in the LATimes. The answer is simple. It is about turning her into the national boss of the Democratic Party. She would use her fundraising network to raise money for candidates and pick candidates in primaries. She would use her power in the Senate to control the debate to shape the message of the Democratic Party. This is a Newt-like ambition and vision.

Her husband failed to shape the party. He tried to tack to the center and the party rebelled after he left, starting with Gore’s populism in 2000. This would be a place from which they could shape their party. The question is whether they are more interested in the office of the President than the future of their party. That is what I failed to communicate the other day in my post on her future.

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This is starting to get old

August 22, 2006 – 3:05 am

Do Democrats think that if you repeat something enough times, it will become true? They do it on the economy every day… What today?

The DSCC is attacking McCain again for violating campaign finance laws. This is funny. Last time they got it wrong.

In fact, their press release makes 3 accusations:

  1. Some Club for Growth complaint that is actually a complaint against Chafee. I don’t know about that.
  2. Their most recent attack. As we demonstrated at the time, it was bogus.
  3. A California complaint. Again, the proof is in the invitation. The invitation has all the disclaimers.

You can do this. It is legal (summary, draft FEC opinion, meeting it was approved). The Democrats repeating it doesn’t make it true. It just makes them liars. Again and again and again.

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Online markets prefer Edwards to Clinton in the general

August 21, 2006 – 1:09 pm

H/T to Greg Mankiw for the analysis.

The GOP markets at Tradesport only have McCain and Giuiliani, so I don’t think that they are very meaningful. But Mankiw points out what is interesting about the Democrat ones:

[W]e can obtain for each candidate the conditional probability–the probability that the person will win the general election if nominated. Here are the results:Clinton 48.3
Edwards 57.3

Note the relative performance of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards. Although Clinton is more likely to end up President than Edwards is, Edwards is more likely to win the general election conditional on being nominated. At least that’s what the market says.

I think that jives with most people’s understandings. I also think, looking at some of the other stuff on there, that there’s some room for arbitrage…

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Dems move up NV and SC, Screw NH

August 19, 2006 – 11:57 am

Hotlineblog has some of the details (unfortunately, something is screwed up with their link). The Chicago Tribune and Manchester Union Leader have the best coverage.

First, the procedure. The DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee passed a resolution fixing the beginning of the 2008 Dem primary and caucus schedule. Today it will be considered by the full DNC and is expected to pass. Details from the Trib:

Unless there is unexpected maneuvering, the Democratic calendar will begin with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 14, 2008, followed by Nevada’s caucuses Jan. 19, New Hampshire’s primary Jan. 22 and South Carolina’s primary a week later. After Feb. 5, other states would be allowed to hold primaries and caucuses.

Why do schedules change? To pick winners. In 1988, Lee Atwater moved up South Carolina because he could deliver it for Bush. In 1992, Zell Miller moved up Georgia because he could deliver it for Bill Clinton.

Now Harry Reid is moving up Nevada because he can deliver it for … ? Note that Clinton is currently doing terribly in the polls in NH and is tied with Edwards in IA. But, especially in a caucus situation, Reid can almost certainly deliver his state. (On the other hand, Reid appears to have asked Clinton to take over leader in 08 because he has a tough re-elect in 2010) The NH Dem Chair confirms this (Hotline):

“Unless a rule is directly related to taking back the White House, or helping to build this party, I’m not sure why we should be considering it,” she said. “The rules and bylaws committee shouldn’t be in the business of hurting candidates for the nomination. We should be helping them.”

It also creates a more liberal and less white electorate:

While the consequences for selecting a nominee with this order of states are uncertain, adding Nevada as one of the early states could give union members a larger say, considering the number of hotel workers there. It will almost certainly also hasten the front-loading that has already transformed the contest from a months-long slog into a sprint lasting just a few weeks.

This has been reported as a big win for the labor unions, but this is a big win for SEIU and the service worker unions, not the industrial unions. The industrial unions hold sway in IA and MI. Now the other guys — the guys who are growing — have a say. NV is also much less white.

NH’s Manchester Union Leader titles this: “Dems Push Primary Penalty”. For them the story is that NH is getting the long end of the stick. You see, Bill Gardner, NH’s SOS has said, rules be damned, NH will be first. And, by law, he sets the date (more details here, care of NH Insider):

State law says the primary must be held seven days ahead of any “similar election.” Gardner has said that an additional caucus may fit into his broad interpretation that the law requires him to preserve the primary’s traditional impact on national politics, even though party-run caucuses are structured much differently than state-run primaries and may not be “similar.”

Ultimately, NH doesn’t matter because of convention votes, especially in a front-loaded, media-and-money-driven calender. It has a relatively small number in both party conventions. It matters for momentum. The press will report the winner, whatever happens. And it will have an impact on who wins the swing state in 2008 where 4 electoral votes really could make the difference:

Joining Sullivan in criticizing the measure was DNCer Alice Germond, who said she was concerned about the “unintended consequences of this,” including “repercussions that might result in our not winning that state in the general election.”

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A Thought on Hillary’s Strategy

August 16, 2006 – 7:57 pm

Hillary just put out her first ad. Hotline has it. So I pose a question:

Does she have to run for President in 2008? Not necessarily.

Let’s go back to the basics and think about her position:

  • First of all, to quote a friend of mine from IA Democratic politics, “Is there anyone in the world who is persuadable on her?” The answer is, fewer voters every year don’t know who she is. Some die and some become new voters.
  • People hate her. Even Democrats hate her.

  • Why do people think that she is unbeatable if she runs? She has the largest fundraising operation in the country

So here’s a thought. Why doesn’t she run for VP? You can’t really attack a VP candidate. Is someone really going to vote against the Dem ticket because she’s VP? At the same time, she can deliver her organization for someone else in 2008. And then in 2016, she has a clear shot, and 8 more years of voter attrition and positive name ID as VP…

She and Bill are smart enough. They could be thinking like this.

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What really happened in CT Senate and MI-7?

August 10, 2006 – 8:18 pm

The “insurgents” ran very good campaigns. But we learn very different things from them. First, CT Senate.

Ned Lamont, the darling of the lefty blogosphere, had a lot of good campaign ideas. People have talked about all the blog stuff and YouTube stuff (NPR/Slate on this). But, perhaps more to the point, he ran a great ground game. WaPo has the full story (H/T: Matt Lewis). Some tasty bits:

One early move was to launch a primitive Web page seeking 1,000 volunteers in all 169 of the state’s municipalities, building on the strength of local Democratic organizations. They began a voter-history project to track down people who voted in every obscure local primary and referendum — information that was not available in statewide rolls.

And they borrowed Dean/MoveOn strategies:

“Their voting techniques are on the cutting edge of politics,” said Matzzie, whose organization, MoveOn.org, is a pioneer of the house-party model.

In other words, the insurgent ran an incredible grassroots campaign utilizing all the tools of modern campaigning. At the same time Lieberman tried to sleep walk to reelection. Lieberman even sat on $2m. That money might have been able to produce another 10,000 votes.

As for MI-7, Walberg also ran a great campaign. We know less about his campaign, but Hotlineblog gives us a morsel. They used careful (modern) targeting software to identify precincts and voters. And then Walberg, the former minister, got the RTLers, homeschoolers, etc. out to actually ID the voters. At the same time, Schwarz, by all appearances, ran a lousy campaign. He had virtually no ground game. There are news reports that he spent a lot of money upfront on mailers that were not that effective.

At the same time, everyone has to ask a question about Schwarz. Could he have found another 4,000 votes in this district if he had the organization to do it? I cannot imagine that the answer is “no”. But he didn’t.

What is the lesson in this? In CT, a well-armed insurgent was able to defeat a complacent incumbent. In MI, a complacent incumbent never got his campaign off the ground.

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