Let's assume for a moment that Hillary Clinton holds a narrow and legitimate popular vote lead. For example, if the MI/FL debacle never occurred or she won a couple hundred thousands more votes in other states. Would her popular vote argument then be legitimate in a way it is currently not? I've argued before that the Obama campaign appears to have strictly followed a delegate-winning strategy rather than a popular vote total strategy. And while those two measures of support are strongly correlated they are not the same. His margin of victory in pledged delegates will be wider than his margin in popular votes as a result of the strategy they followed which was predicated on the rules of the party. I'll make a new argument here: that the purpose of the primary campaign is fundamentally different than the purpose of the general election and that the differences make certain claims wrong. How are they different? 1. The general election is a snapshot of public opinion, hopefully a well-informed public after months of campaigning and debate, but a snapshot nonetheless. This year's snapshot will be on November 4. The primary campaign is NOT a snapshot of public opinion. The primary campaign is a process. It is designed to take longer. The voting takes place over a period of 5 months. It is intentially front-loaded with a few small states to allow lesser-funded candidates a chance and to encourage a thorough understanding of those candidates by the residents of those lucky states. They get to see the candidates up close. 2. Voters in general elections are choosing between, for the most part, 2 candidates. This year we'll have Nader and Barr and ?? also on the ballot but for most voters it will be a choice between the Republican candidate and the Democratic candidate. The primary process, on the other hand, involves a winnowing of major candidates from 8 or so down to about 3, then 2 and then 1. This was most clearly seen this year on the Republican side where Giuliani and McCain were the early frontrunners but then faded while Romney and Huckabee rose up. McCain made his comeback and eventually won. If we had a truly national primary, held in, say, November of 2007, then the nominees would be Giuliani and Clinton. And if we had such a "snapshot" primary we could clearly and without fear of contradiction point to the results as say The People Have Spoken. But wouild we have the best candidates for President of the United States? (UPDATE. We are trading the popular vote certainty that a national primary would give us for something better. Something that takes longer but allows, hopefully, the strongest candidate to emerge.) When we look at the popular vote total in the primary, as Chris does below, it is important to remember that we are adding together votes from January, votes from February, votes from May, etc. In the earlier contests there were multiple candidates, in the latter only 2. Were these contests held all at the end of the process we would have different totals. If they were held at the beginning, we would have different totals. If there were only 2 candidates all along, we would have different totals. Adding these all together and pretending the totals tell us something critically important about who is the legitimate "popular" winner is folly. The primary system is not perfect but it is specifically designed to be a dynamic process that at least allows for non-establishment candidates to have a shot. This year, with the ludicrously-stacked Super Duper Tuesday, we came as close as ever to a national primary. This stacking of the deck, if not orchestrated by the Clintons, certainly played directly in their favor. If not for the exposure Iowa afforded and for some astute delegate hunting by the Obama campaign, it would certainly have been the end of the campaign. If we had a national primary this year in early January, Clinton would be the likely nominee. As it is, voters got just enough time to learn about and hear Barack Obama to give him a bit more support than Clinton. In the process, we also got to see how Obama and Clinton managed a large complicated operation. That Obama's team beat the experienced Clinton machine, however narrowly, should be taken as evidence of his ability, even by Clinton supporters. |
