With the wins posted by Senator Clinton Tuesday night, an opportunity was wasted by Senator Obama to end things now and begin to focus the entire might of the Democratic Primary behind winning in November, now we still have some things to sort out first.
Let me start off by congratulating Senator Clinton on her wins in Rhode Island, Ohio, and the Texas Primary, as Senator Obama did himself in his speech that very night (something she rarely does, one of the many reasons I have lost the feelings I once had for her not very long ago). At worst, she stopped Senator Obama's momentum, at best, perhaps she gained some for herself.
But before we get too carried away with anything, Barack Obama came into last Tuesday's races with a delegate lead of well over 100 and he came out of Tuesday's races with a delegate lead of well over 100. In fact, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram believes that despite losing the popular vote in Texas (by less then 100,000 in a state where almost 3 million voted) he might come out of Texas with more delegates then his primary advisary.
So, sure, Hillary Clinton had a big night, a very important night for her if she wanted to keep her canidacy alive. But that's all she did, in my opinion, was keep her canidacy alive. She didn't become the front runner after that night. She didn't even really gain any ground on the front runner. She just kept from losing any.
What it really means is that it is going to be much harder for either of them to secure the nomination any time soon. This is shaping up to be a race to the very finish folks.
What becomes interesting are the varying factors that can help to decide it. I've spoken in this blog before about the Super Delegates, but we haven't really talked about the Strange Case of Florida and Michigan yet, so what do you say we do that now? Good.
Both Florida and Michigan signed the agreement with the National Democratic Party that they would abide by rules that stated primaries had to be held on or after Feb. 5th (aka Super Tuesday) with the exceptions being Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. However, both moved up their primaries in order to be important in the upcoming election. In punishment, both were stripped of Delegates in the nomination process causing them both to become pointless. The irony of course is that had they stayed in their normal places, both states would have been not only important, but, much like last Tuesday had the potential to be, critical. Instead they risked being a complete non-factor.
Hillary Clinton claims that since she won both of those primaries, the delegates should be counted and given to her. This is simply unfair, however, as she was the only major candidate on Michigan's ballot, and Barack Obama was given no opportunity to campaign in Florida (where Clinton is already well known, but at the time of the Florida primary, Obama was still relatively new to the nation). And with his ability to speak and the wonders he has already accomplished while campaigning, denying him that opportunity in Florida is completely unfair.
But, what it comes down to is that the delegates in Florida and Michigan might be very important in securing the nomination for one candidate or the other, and, after all, it isn't the fault of the voters that their party leaders tried to up the date against the rules. They shouldn't be penalized.
So, the answer on first glance seems obvious. Let's hold new primaries in each of the two states, with both Clinton and Obama given a chance to make their case to the voters. Oh, if only it were that simple. You see, primaries cost tax payers money. Money that tax payers have already spent on primaries in this very election season. Redoing them (while it seems logical) would require repaying for them, and let's face it, the economy ain't that great right now folks. (Thanks a lot, W. And McCain is promising more of the same, I'm just saying.) According to an article on cnn.com, Michigan's redo could cost approximently $10 million and Florida's could cost upwards of $25 million.
Everyone agrees that delegates in these states might have to count. It's the how that is the question and will bear watching as this race continues.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Good post. Michigan and Florida are certainly conundrums. I do have a question about something you said in the first paragraph:
"With the wins posted by Senator Clinton Tuesday night, an opportunity was wasted by Senator Obama to end things now and begin to focus the entire might of the Democratic Primary behind winning in November..."
Did you think Obama should drop out of the race? Is that what you mean by he wasted the opportunity to end things now? Or did you mean to type "Clinton" there?
I meant that if he had been able to win Ohio and Texas, Clinton would have been forced out of the race, so Obama missed the opportunity by not finishing things there.
Is it really his fault, though? Saying that he wasted the opportunity is putting a lot of blame on him, when I think a lot of factors were at work. He campaigned hard in Texas, and so did HRC. Many people were torn between the two, and I think the election results show that.
I do give his campaign credit for their organizational skills. I think they did a much better job of getting people to the caucus.
I'm curious -- what do you think he could have done to have won Texas and Ohio?
I was more just pointing out that the opportunity was there and it didn't happen, I didn't mean it to read like it was all his fault.
I actually give a lot of credit to the Clinton campaign, not that I like the steps they took, but you can't argue with the effectiveness. They used the "NAFTA memo" which was later proven to not be as damning as it was made out to be, which HRC's campaign no doubt knew, but they also knew they could use it and did to their advantage right before the vote and they did. Obama's campaign didn't do as good a job as responding to that as they probably could have, either. As for Texas, I think it's clear that unfortunately the "red phone" ad had some effect. Exit polls show people who decided in the last couple of days overwhelmingly chose Clinton, and this is no doubt due to the Clinton campaigns outstanding work the weekend before March 4th. It's almost as if the Obama campaign was willing to stand pat since they had the momentum and the lead and had closed her leads in those two states so much in the weeks leading up to those two states.
I'm wasn't intending to put all of the blame on him for losing those two states, just trying to point out that there was an opportunity there that was missed for whatever reason.
I agree with you that the Obama campaign did a much better job with getting people to the caucus, but unfortunately, I don't hear much talk about his winning the caucus or the fact that he got out of Texas with more delegates then she did, you just hear that Clinton has won 3 straight primaries.
Post a Comment