publius

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I’ve seen lots of virtual ink spilled lately on whether the prolonged primary will leave lasting intraparty scars. The short answer is who knows. But speaking personally, even though my irritation with Clinton has spiked lately, I don’t see any lasting scars so long as the ending is legitimate – i.e., is consistent with ex ante rules.

For instance, let’s say that Obama holds a majority in elected delegates (and popular vote), but Clinton pulls it out with superdelegates. I won’t like that, but that’s a perfectly legitimate result. The ex ante rules (however silly they may be) incorporate superdelegates, so I’m not going to march off sullenly if Clinton wins through rules that everyone agreed to going in. In fact, I’m going to go out and work for her.

At the same time, however, I would not accept a Clinton victory that depended on seating the Michigan and Florida delegates (assuming no re-vote, etc.). That’s breaking the rules, pure and simple, and the Clinton campaign should understand in no uncertain terms that the “nuclear strategy” will drive away supporters for the fall and leave lasting damage. I won’t be supporting the Brian Wilson Tribute Band, but I can stay home.

If there’s something that progressives should have a consensus on these days, it’s respect for ex ante rules and political legitimacy. That’s why it’s been so disappointing to see Jeralyn Merritt (whom I deeply respect) making the case for brazenly breaking the rules that all candidates agreed to. She writes:

The exclusion of Michigan and Florida was a penalty imposed by the DNC. In my view, it was an unfair one and should be lifted. The votes should count as is, the delegates should be awarded and seated.

In a series of posts, she makes at least two arguments for seating these delegates: (1) the candidates only promised not to campaign, not to ignore delegates; and (2) dropping out of these races was a self-serving tactic that helped everyone but Clinton. Both arguments have problems.

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McCain’s general election campaign is not off to a smooth start. First, his opening salvo focused on Obama’s commitment to public financing promises — whoops. Next, his campaign responded to the (grossly irresponsible) NYT article with an impulsive, overbroad “never helped any lobbyists ever” denial – thus opening himself to more unfavorable press.

These tactical misfires won’t sink his campaign by any means. They do, however, raise larger concerns. Simply put, McCain hasn’t proven himself to be a good campaigner yet. In fact, there are many reasons to think that he’ll actually campaign poorly.

I’m a big believer in the “primaries matter” theory. Elections are Darwinian environments – and candidates tend to win for a reason. Tactics matter, as does an ability to tap into the larger Zeitgeist (i.e., structural forces matter too, but good campaigners recognize and tap into those underlying currents). For this reason, candidates who look great on paper (Dole, Rudy, HRC) lose if they run wretched campaigns. Similarly, candidates who don’t look so hot on paper can compensate with superior campaigning skills. In short, people who win tend to run superior campaigns. Not always, but generally.

At first glance, you might think McCain’s primary victory is evidence of his own campaigning skills. But I don’t think so. His victory (for unique reasons) doesn’t necessarily show his Darwinian chops. Despite all his experience, McCain remains in many ways a roll of the dice.

Consider 2000. While he had some initial success due to fawning press coverage (which is probably his key “skill”), the ultimate result was a spectacular flameout in South Carolina and beyond. The South Carolina tactics were despicable, sure. But Republican primaries aren’t pretty. He knew the players involved and should have been better prepared. More to the point, you can’t win a Republican nomination when you ostentatiously demonize key coalition members, as he did. Personally, I applauded the criticism of Jerry Falwell, but I’d have been cringing if I were his campaign manager.

Moving on to 2008, the stars aligned perfectly for him. Ross Douthat has made the case more eloquently than I have, but McCain’s victory had a lot to do with luck. First, his rapid ascent helped him avoid embarrassing media moments. Remember that, for most of 2007, McCain was ignored. Thus, he wasn’t subject to the type of exacting scrutiny that Romney and Rudy (and, to a lesser extent, Fred Thompson got). He had to keep things together for a month rather than a year – a much easier task.

Second, his victory was less than overwhelming. McCain won a relatively small plurality among a sharply divided field. His victory had less to do with his savvy campaigning, and more to do with (1) a conservative base split between Romney and Huckabee; (2) Rudy’s rapid collapse and strategic blunders; and (3) Thompson’s silly last stand in South Carolina. None of this establishes that McCain is a bad campaigner. The point is that his victories don’t necessarily establish that he’s a good one.

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It’s hard to express how happy – nay, gleeful – I was to see the House recess without caving on FISA. The outburst of backbone literally brought tears of joy to my eyes. At last, I thought, Congressional Dems have exorcised the ghosts of 2002 and that most wretched of midterms – the winter of Dems’ discontent.

Looking back with some perspective, though, I think the 2002 election actually scarred Republicans far more than it did the Democrats. If there’s a party that needs to do some 2002 ghost-exorcisin’, it’s the GOP.

The story of how the 2002 election scarred the Dems is of course quite familiar. It’s not so much the thrashing itself, but the manner of the thrashing that scarred them. Remember that the GOP’s campaign strategy didn’t just beat them, it reduced them to shivering petrified little cowards who spoke of prescription drug benefits on the eve of war. (To this day, the image of Gephardt in the Rose Garden makes my blood boil – and isn’t that Edwards back there too?).

The abject humiliation is what traumatized the Congressional caucus – and that same fear resurfaces during the endgame of each national security debate. Nobody wants to risk that again.

At the same time this fiasco played out, the liberal base’s anger grew in direct proportion to its elected leaders’ cowardice (it even drove some to start blogging). This anger hasn’t really gone away – it’s been repressed, but it still lurks beneath. And that’s why the base pushes Congress so passionately when these issues come up. It’s 2002 all over again in their heads. Neither Congress nor the base wants another 2002 – it’s just that they have very different ideas about how to avoid it. (On an aside, this is more than a subtext of the opposition to Hillary Clinton – too many images of Gephardt float around her candidacy).

So that’s the Dem side of 2002 – but all that’s been said. What’s more interesting, then, is the negative effect of 2002 on the Republicans.

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Although I reject the whole “nothing counts until March 4” argument, I have been looking ahead to the Texas Democratic primary. Quite understandably, Clinton wants to make Texas the firewall. It is, after all, the most Clinton-friendly of the remaining big states – on paper anyway.

The problem for Clinton, though, is that Texas has an extremely arcane delegate allocation system that is structured in a way that will help Obama. The system won’t necessarily help him win, but it will help him avoid the type of blowout that Clinton so desperately needs. In short, Texas may not be much of a firewall at all.

Below, I’ve attempted to provide a basic summary of how the Texas primary will work. Be warned though – it’s extremely dense. Some who’ve sought its truths have never returned. But I, dear reader, risked it — for you. Like Virgil before me, I will guide you through the Inferno that is the Texas Democratic primary. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here . . .

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To join the chorus tonight, I too am favoring Obama. I feel like I’ve given my reasons over the past few months, so I’ll limit myself to one example that best captures the stakes for me.

Katherine recently posted on Clinton’s distasteful support for deporting immigrants who have committed crimes without legal process. Of course, as Hilzoy has pointed out until she’s blue in the face, “legal process” isn’t about supporting criminals – it’s about generating information to make sure the person is a criminal in the first place. Removing all legal process here would be cruel because it would completely ignore the underlying factual context. Multiple public urinators could face the same summary deportation that real criminals would. (Good thing I was a citizen while in college … and now).

But the larger problem is the demagoguery. Even more broadly, the problem is that the demagoguery provides further evidence of Clinton’s unwillingness to break from the larger conservative (and even nationalist) narratives that currently define our political debates.

To use an analogy, consider the Internets. More precisely, think about the process of downloading a pdf file. To be grotesquely general, you contact the server that contains the file and it then transmits that information in the form of packets. Those packets eventually reach your computer and are “translated” into a readable form as they ascend the application layers to the Adobe program.

The point I want to emphasize is the translation process and how it’s similar to the way political narratives translate facts on the ground into “readable” form. Issues like the war or immigration bubble up from the ground and eventually get translated into some broader narrative or schema that helps people digest it. While Lakoff is wrong about a lot (especially remedies), he’s right that narratives matter – and can be stubbornly resistant.

The problem though is not so much the existence of narratives, but that narratives are skewed in nationalist ways – “evil Adobes,” if you will. For instance, it bothers me that we as a nation translate willingness to go to war into signs of personal courage and strength. It bothers me that diplomacy is translated into lovey-dove appeasing of teh enemy. It bothers me that legal protections that people spent centuries fighting for are translated into, and casually dismissed as, terrorist sympathy measures. It bothers me that any tax increase – no matter how limited or progressive – is translated into robbing working people.

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Though I watched the Democratic debate, I’ve read very little post-debate commentary today. So I don’t know who “won.” But as I was watching them last night, I stopped thinking about who was winning or losing. Instead, I found myself marveling at their combined performance. The entire debate – certainly the most substantive one in my lifetime – was a collective advertisement for the Democratic Party. Whatever else it achieved, the clash of these Titans made the Republican field look small, petty, and tired. Democrats should feel proud about both the caliber of the candidates and the level of the policy discussion on display last night.

It confirmed how much I enjoy primaries – especially this one. Frankly, I’ve never agreed with those who belittle primary races, or feel above picking sides. For obvious reasons, these races are extremely important – and historically consequential. But what’s less obvious is how interesting they are from a purely aesthetic perspective. The horse race we’re witnessing is drama of the highest order – pure political theater. And while emotions will surely run high in the weeks to come, political junkies in particular should take a step back and enjoy the beauty of it. Not beauty in the sense of flowers and butterflies, but in a higher, more human, aesthetic sense.

First, consider the novelty of this race. The Democratic Party is about to hold a runoff between a woman and an African-American for President of the United States. Obviously, this is a testament to these two individuals and their immense talents. But from a broader perspective, this runoff is the vindication of generations of activists and political organizations (armies of Katherines, if you will).

Consider the condition of both women and blacks a mere hundred years ago. Francis Fukuyama notwithstanding, there was nothing inevitable about the changes we’ve seen. Those changes were the product of blood, sweat, and tears over a long period of time. They were willed by political engagement and social movements that were often ridiculed in their day (and remain ridiculed – note the smug way people refer to “identity politics” today). Again, I’m not taking anything away from these two individuals, but we should remember the broader social and political struggles that made their ascension possible in the first place.

Second, step back and appreciate the epic-ness of this particular contest. This is a clash in a primary between two massive, well-oiled, well-funded machines. (Obama supporters should not ignore how many establishment bigwigs bundle for, and otherwise support, Obama). It’s rare to see these levels of competence, funding, and organization in rival presidential primary camps. Regardless of who wins, the nominee is going to be well-prepared for the general given that each is doing daily battle with nationally-organized campaigns performing at the top of their respective games.

These are big-time organizations. That’s why, at least here, I enjoy even the “silly” horse race focus. On some level, sure, I wish that media coverage and political strategy were 100% policy-based. But in the all too human world in which we live, it’s impossible to fully separate these contests from the schoolyard fights that remain the highlight of my primary education experience. In short, perceptions of the horse race matter. And for this reason, how the campaigns drive – and respond to – these stories is part of the broader “fight” that makes for such compelling theater.

It’s also quite fitting that, in the week before Super Tuesday, both camps are humming on all cylinders. They truly are at the top of their games right now. The debate, for instance, quite appropriately shifted from schoolyard antics to high-level policy discussions. And though this sounds cheesy, it was an honor to watch it. I haven’t enjoyed the debates this year, but the “runoff” debate last night was a different story. To see candidates of this caliber engaging one-one-one in a high-level substantive debate about the great issues of our day (e.g., Iraq and health care) was political junkie manna.

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