Kautzman’s AP GO PO Blog

David S. Broder
The Washington Post
February 10, 2008

When this remarkable political year began, many Democrats were expecting a smooth passage to a historic nomination and a relatively easy presidential victory. That is hardly the case today.

Sen. Hillary Clinton was clearly the established favorite among a large field of challengers, blessed with far more financial and organizational resources than anyone else and the best brand name in Democratic politics.

She was the center of attention, not only for the Democrats but for the Republican candidates as well – the person they expected to face in the general election. As Republican aspirants were struggling to escape the downdraft of the self-immolation that had overtaken President Bush and the GOP Congress, with no assurance that anyone in the group could reassemble the scattered pieces of the Reagan legacy, all of them were focused on Clinton as the final barrier to keeping the White House.

Because the odds seemed so favorable for a Democratic victory in November, eight or nine candidates – with varying degrees of plausibility – decided it was worth the gamble to try to wrest the nomination from Clinton. The conventional wisdom at the start was that someone would emerge to challenge her after the first round of primaries and that she would probably defeat that unnamed opponent.

To everyone’s surprise, the least credentialed of her opponents, young Sen. Barack Obama, turned out to have the personal and political skills that rocketed him past all the others. He beat the field in Iowa, stumbled briefly in New Hampshire and Nevada, recovered in South Carolina and emerged from Super Tuesday almost even with Clinton in delegates and ahead in the race for campaign dollars.

As the next phase of state-by-state contests begins, no one can claim the favorite’s role in a Democratic contest that could go all the way to the national convention.

Meantime, on the Republican side, John McCain has resurrected his candidacy with a series of primary victories from New Hampshire through California, amassing enough delegates that his nomination is assured.

With Mitt Romney’s withdrawal, and only Mike Huckabee, a friendly sparring partner, and the eccentric Ron Paul still running, Republicans can begin to focus on November. Their challenge is still difficult. The war in Iraq remains a heavy burden, its costs outweighing its dividends. The economy has turned down. And public weariness with the White House fuels a desire for change.

Nonetheless, McCain now has the luxury of time in which to mend his differences with some of his fellow conservatives and to pursue the independents whose support would make him a formidable contender.

Where Clinton was the measuring stick for all others in both parties during the past year, McCain now becomes the standard of comparison. As the Democratic race continues, the key question becomes, “Who matches up best against John McCain?”

That will increasingly be a factor for Democratic voters, who find themselves being fragmented on gender, racial and generational lines even in the absence of any serious policy or philosophical differences between the candidates.

And it will be even more central to the deliberations of the almost 800 “superdelegates” – elected and party officials who may represent the balance of power at the convention.

Both Clinton and Obama are now framing their campaigns as a riposte to John McCain. Clinton argues that, given McCain’s authority as a warrior and as a defense expert, her experience and toughness are essential for the Democrats to have a chance.

Obama counters with the claim that it is only by providing the sharpest of contrasts – a generational gap linked to a flat-out denial of the strategic centrality of Iraq – that the Democrats can confront McCain and hope to win.

As I have previously noted, Clinton and McCain come close to matching each other when voters are asked to compare their experience and their ability to bring needed change. But McCain has a huge lead on Obama when voters judge experience, and Obama has a large advantage when it comes to promoting change.

The Democratic contest is more than a battle of personalities. It represents two sharply contrasting strategies for victory in November. The choice is one Democrats never expected to face.

796 insiders could override ordinary voters

Peter Wallsten and James Rainey
Los Angeles Times
February 10, 2008

WASHINGTON – In a year that has seen Democratic voters flock to the polls but produce two evenly matched candidates, some party leaders are becoming alarmed that the process for deciding an eventual winner is in disarray, and that the decision may come down not to ordinary voters but to the group of 796 insiders known as “super delegates.”

Contributing to the tension is a continuing battle over the roles of Florida and Michigan, which were stripped of their participation in the party’s national nominating convention due to a fight with the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, over the primary election calendar.

Now, with the prospect that neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor Barack Obama will win a clear majority in the delegate count, a discussion is re-emerging over whether voters in those states should return to the polls and help pick the nominee, voting this time in an election formally sanctioned by the party.

“We’re headed for a train wreck if we don’t get this resolved,” said Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., referring both to the role of super delegates and to the DNC’s decision to penalize his state. “It is a flawed system that has to be changed.”

Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore’s 2000 campaign and is herself a super delegate, threatened to quit her leadership post in the party if the nomination were to be decided by insiders rather than the broader group of Democratic voters who have turned out in huge numbers. Brazile, while pleased that the competitive race has invigorated the party, said Friday she was “deeply worried about our ability to ensure that this is a very smooth process.”

The anxiety has risen in the wake of Tuesday’s coast-to-coast primaries and caucuses, which left Obama and Clinton nearly even in the delegate count – leaving strategists in both campaigns to conclude that neither was likely to win the needed 2,025 delegates even after primary and caucus voting ends this summer.

Republicans, meanwhile, have all but crowned a nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Now some Democrats are fretting that the GOP can prepare for the general election while Clinton and Obama wage a bitter and personal war for delegates that would end in a swirl of controversy.

DNC Chairman Howard Dean sought last week to calm those fears, predicting that the party would likely know its nominee by the spring – even if it requires some sort of deal between Clinton and Obama.

“The idea that we can afford to have a big fight at the convention and then win the race (in November), I think, is not a good scenario,” he said Tuesday. “I think we will have a nominee sometime in the middle of March or April. But if we don’t, then we’re going to have to get the candidates together and make some kind of an arrangement. Because I don’t think we can afford to have a brokered convention.”

Florida and Michigan together account for more than 350 delegates. But at the moment the DNC is refusing to seat the delegations because both states held primary elections earlier than the official party calendar allowed.

With the delegate race so close, the dispute over Florida and Michigan has emerged as a point of contention between Clinton and Obama. Clinton, who won the votes in both states, is demanding that the delegates be counted. Obama disagrees, noting that his name did not appear on the Michigan ballot nor did he officially campaign in Florida.

Florida officials said they were especially loath to put aside the Jan. 29 primary results, given that more than 1.7 million Democrats turned out that day and that Clinton and Obama appeared on the ballot.

“You can’t undo an election with a caucus where you would be switching 1.7 million private ballots with maybe as many as 50,000 attending a caucus,” said Nelson, who has endorsed Clinton. “That just is not going to work, especially in a state that is so sensitive about having the right to vote and having it count as intended.”

Another senior Democrat, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, issued a similar statement Friday, noting that 600,000 Democrats voted in that state’s primary and that it “would not be practical or fair to throw out the results of that election.”

Adding to the friction is the role that super delegates are entitled to play at the party’s national convention in Denver, set for August.

Both campaigns are now focusing intensely on those 796 insiders – members of Congress, governors, state party chairs and DNC members from each state – who could play kingmaker at a competitive convention. Those super delegates are free to vote for a candidate of their choice, regardless of the outcome of nomination contests in their states.

The super-delegate process appears to benefit Clinton, with her family’s long-standing political connections. She leads among declared super delegates, about 270-170 – a lead that includes the vote of her own husband, former President Clinton, who gets a vote as a “distinguished party leader.”

The tradition of super delegates was adopted in the 1980s as party leaders and elected officials looked for ways to maintain their influence over a national convention. DNC officials on Friday defended the practice, arguing that many of the super delegates are grass-roots activists.

But the closely fought contest between Clinton and Obama is making some super delegates uneasy. Some do not relish the idea of deciding the nominee, even after millions of Americans have already voted.

Questions from Kautzman: What do you think the Democratic Party should do to resolve these two issues? What do you think it will do? What will be the result?