| I have been watching the primary calendar dispute with real bemusement these past weeks. Partially, this because I just want the calendar settled, so we know the order of events for the 2008 nomination campaign. Partially, this is because I find the demands of Iowa and New Hampshire elitist and anti-democratic, even if Iowa in particular has largely guilt up an economy based on being the first state in the nation. Mostly, however, the process bothers me because it is a good example of how our federalist system in America can turn states against each other and lead to a race to the bottom:
In government regulation, a race to the bottom is a theoretical phenomenon which occurs when competition between nations or states (over investment capital, for example) leads to the progressive dismantling of regulatory standards. This theory states that this reduction of regulation, welfare, taxes, and trade barriers will increase poverty, and drive the poor to the few remaining areas that retain protections. In the end this theory argues that this will force the last remaining states to drop their protections in order to survive.
In the same way that towns, counties, and states have long competed against each other in this country to give the best sweetheart deal to large companies looking to build / relocate factories, shopping centers, corporate headquarters, or sports franchises, now they are competing against each other over presidential campaigns. An example of this recently took place in Philadelphia, where Comcast is building a new skyscraper, and received $43,000,000 in public funding to do so:
The 57-story tower, which will cost $465 million to build, drew heavy debate among the city's property owners last year as Liberty and Comcast sought state approval to make the site largely tax free to most new tenants. The two companies failed in their bid, but were given and pledged a total of $43 million in state funds for the project.
That's right-the $43,000,000 in public funding was a defeat for Comcast, since they had originally sought tax breaks estimated at $153,000,000. And I'm sure that if they hadn't received that amount, they would have been happy to find another state, county or town somewhere in America that would have given them a fatter deal. Another example I saw recently is the new ownership group of the Seattle SuperSonics threatening to move the team to Oklahoma City unless they get a new, publicly financed stadium in Seattle. These are just two prominent examples I could find quickly on Google out of several thousand possible examples. Corporations are able to play regulatory agencies off one another in order to make those regulations more favorable to larger corporations. And the race to the bottom continues, right here in America, because states, cities, and counties are competing with one another instead of working together.
Since there is virtually no federal or national control over elections in America, especially primary elections, now the Iowa and New Hampshire fueled primary calendar is engaging in a race to the bottom of its own. For years, many states have moved their contests further and further ahead in an attempt to hold more sway over who becomes the next President of the United States. Iowa and New Hampshire, through their willingness to do whatever it takes in order to remain first and second respectively, guarantee that the race to the bottom, or in this case "the race to December," continues apace. This process of frontloading and an ever-earlier start to the primary season will continue unabated unless all fifty states agree on a new process together. However, since Iowa and New Hampshire are willing to cut everyone else out of talks on what they do, and since they both have demands that many other states cannot accept, that does not seem likely anytime soon.
A couple years ago, the DNC nobly, if quixotically, tried to step in and assert some form of federal control over the process. Using control of the national party convention, and an attempt to split Iowa and New Hampshire away from each other, as points of leverage, it sought both to end the race to the bottom and to inject more diversity in the early nomination contests. However, Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and Florida now all clearly believe that the DNC's points of leverage are meaningless, and so they are ignoring any threats from the national party. As others have pointed out, they are probably correct to do so, since the only way control over the convention matters is if the convention itself matters. The odds of that happening are extremely low. Further, in the highly likely event that the nominee is decided well before the convention, from what I understand the DNC convention credentials committee will almost certainly reinstate the entire delegations of the states that offended the rules committee. As such, the DNC's leverage is reduced to the extreme outside possibility of the campaign continuing after Super Tuesday, at which time the delegate counts for candidates will not reflect their performances in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan and Florida. However, I seriously doubt that will be enough to prevent the campaigns themselves from competing and spending money in those key states, since momentum is still to be had from victories there, since every campaign is probably rightly betting that the nomination will be decided on February 5th or earlier, and since there is a good chance the delegates would be reinstated anyway.
It will not be easy to stop this race to the bottom, given both that states control our elections and given the unfair demands of Iowa and New Hampshire, but it can be done. Personally, I hope that when the Iowa caucuses take place in December, it will lead not only to the fifty states all getting together and determining a better primary calendar that they can all accept (or at least to the other forty-eight states collectively forcing a new calendar down Iowa and New Hampshire's throats), but also to a larger national awareness of how this competition between states creates larger problems for our country in many other sectors of our economy. Given the lack of leverage actually held by the federal government and the two major parties in this matter, it will take interstate cooperation to solve this problem. Importantly, it will also take cooperation between states to solve other major problems we face, including the tendency for large corporations to extort billions of dollars a year from local governments even as our levees are breaking, our bridges are collapsing, our health care costs are skyrocketing, and our schools are struggling. The threats Iowa and New Hampshire make to the rest of the country are basically the same threats that Comcast or the new owners of the Seattle SuperSonics hold to their local governments: hand over your public funds to us, or we up the ante in the race to the bottom by taking our business elsewhere / moving our primaries earlier. Beyond the primary calendar, as we saw most graphically in New Orleans two years ago, these demands are causing far more serious problems then what is actually a rather amusing prospect of the Iowa caucuses taking place in December. However, if we are unable to end the race to the bottom in the primary calendar, I am not very confident will be able to end it in other sectors of our economy. |
