First quarter recap

By Carter Bundy

This January 3rd, Virginia Tech’s football team was favored against Kansas in the Orange Bowl. The Hokies folded, though, proving that picking winners before the game ends is not the same as playing the game.

The even bigger story that night was the record number of Iowans who skipped the Hokie implosion to kick off this year’s presidential primary season.

With Hillary Clinton dominating Super Tuesday II, the primary game is far from over.

There seems to be a widespread, and very understandable, feeling that the superdelegates shouldn’t overturn the will of the voters. Those who want to stop the game early look at the elected delegate totals and figure Hillary has a nearly impossible task if she’s to win “the will” of the voters.

Numbers, numbers, numbers

Problem is, according to Chuck Todd on NPR, Hillary’s already winning the popular vote (by 30,000) if you count Florida and Michigan.

Michigan’s a skewed result because Barack Obama and some others took themselves off the ballot, and Michigan Dems themselves scheduled it outside of the DNC window.

But Florida not only had all the candidates on the ballot, only Obama advertised on TV there. Plus, it was the GOP Legislature and governor who scheduled the early primary, so Dems in Florida have a strong case to have their votes counted.

Even without Florida, if Hillary wins Pennsylvania with a big margin, there’s a decent chance she leads the popular vote going into Denver.

If Hillary wins the popular vote, it kills Barack’s argument that superdelegates are unfair. The truth is the entire delegate allocation process is unfair and undemocratic. Obama will come across as a tremendous hypocrite if he argues that superdelegates should only vote for the elected delegate winner if the elected delegate winner himself is not the popular vote winner.

Other questions abound: What if one candidate wins if superdelegates go with their state delegation but the other wins if superdelegates go with the national popular and/or elected delegate winner? The math is going to be crazy.

Red-state Dems

In the electability argument, there’s one piece of information that doesn’t show up on John King’s map (which is incredibly cool): an analysis of who the Dems are in each state. Much has been made about Obama’s success in red states.

I’d wager dollars to donuts that those Dems are far from typical red-state voters, but journalists keep reporting Barack’s red-state success as a sign that he can win them in the general. Maybe, but it’s a hard argument without knowing more about the composition of Dem primary voters.

Test time

The primary campaign will go forward for at least another two months. Bad for the Dems, right? Not necessarily. First, Hillary and Barack get the spotlight through at least April 22, and probably through August. That means Dem issues dominate, and as long as they aren’t vicious to each other, that’s a plus.

The grueling calendar is also a good test for the presidency. There’s the physical stamina test. Both Hillary and Barack have shown they’re able to work 15-20 hour days for weeks on end, while not completely breaking down.

There’s the test of how candidates handle adversity. For example, Obama had the bad luck of having two negative stories break at the same time – the start of a legal case against his long-time friend and major donor Tony Rezko and Goolsbee-gate.

Goolsbee-gate was the disclosure (covered up at first by the campaign) that one of his top economic advisors, Austan Goolsbee, had been telling the Canadian government that Obama’s anti-NAFTA talk in Ohio was just political posturing.

Obama handled his first foray into negative press badly, digging at a reporter personally and losing his signature cool, calm, deflecting demeanor.

The good news for Obama is after being tested by negative media, he should grow from it.

Both Dems are being tested in ways that Senator McCain hasn’t been since W ferociously attacked him with the most disgusting of race-baiting in South Carolina in 2000 (with South Carolina Republicans eagerly accommodating the Bush campaign’s racism).

Third, there’s the test of how good an operation each candidate can muster. One of the most underrated challenges of being president is filling thousands of political appointments and overseeing the running of dozens of cabinet and lower-level agencies.

With Hillary’s exposure to a competent executive branch in the 90s, she doesn’t face questions about that issue. Barack, on the other hand, simply by virtue of his youth and relative inexperience, will face Republican questions about his ability to pull together an administration.

This year’s drawn-out primary season has given him an opportunity to address that question, and on this test, he has done very well. Obama has put together a solid field and media program across the country, and is getting high marks for organizational prowess while picking up substantive experience.

Two months down, eight to go

Iowa was 61 days before Ohio and Texas. Pennsylvania is 49 days after Ohio and Texas. You think the last two months were an eternity, wait until you have the same intensity, with more dollars, but only in one state. Yikes!

So sit back, fill the fridge with beer and the pantry with chips, and enjoy the second quarter. By June we should have an idea of whether there will be a popular vote/elected delegate split, and then we’ll kick off the third quarter.

Bundy is the political and legislative director for AFSCME in New Mexico. The opinions in his column are personal and do not necessarily reflect any official AFSCME position. You can learn more about him by clicking here. Contact him at carterbundy@yahoo.com.