POLITICS
Will Montana Pick
The Next President?
By Stump Connolly
The latest memo coming out of the Clinton campaign suggests that Iowa is in danger of becoming irrelevant. “Thirteen of the last 14 major-party nominees have won Iowa, New Hampshire, or both,” deputy campaign manager Mike Henry wrote his boss. “But I think this old system is about to collapse and it will happen this year because of the impact of primary elections that are being held on February 5.”
Henry may have been ill-advised (a polite word for stupid) for releasing his thoughts to the media – and Sen. Clinton promptly promised to soldier on in the Hawkeye State despite her current third place standing -- but there’s more than a little truth in his reasoning.
On a nuts and bolts level, Henry predicts Sen. Clinton will have to spend $15 million and 70 days to even be competitive in Iowa, with no clear reward for winning.
In the best case, he says, “results are likely to be inconclusive on caucus night (first, second, and third place decided by a point or two) and they will provide little or no bounce for anyone. . . . Worst case scenario: this effort may bankrupt the campaign and provide little political advantage.”
Henry’s memo points up a dilemma for all the campaigns, Republican and Democratic: too little time in a compressed early primary schedule and -- despite an abundance of money -- too many places to spend it. Indeed, Adam Nagourney of The New York Times reports former New York Mayor Rudy Guiliani is considering doing just what Henry advises. I’d be surprised if, when push comes to shove, more candidates don’t adopt his strategy.
The media attention on the January 14 Iowa Primary is enormous so no candidate can actually skip Iowa. But the turnout at precinct caucuses is so slight (125,000 in the Democratic caucuses of 2004) and the stakes so meager (a proportional share of 45 delegates*) it’s hard to make a good cost-benefit argument for competing.
The best a candidate can hope is that he doesn’t
lose Iowa, a pitfall that Howard Dean demonstrated happens more often in the
media aftermath than in the actual precinct voting. Show up, show well and
hope the single-digit showing for many of your competitors will convince them
of the futility of continuing on. With eight Democrats and ten Republicans
in the field, there’s still going to be a gaggle of contenders coming
out of the first turn – and running into uncharted territory ahead.
New on the track this year is a stopover in Las Vegas five days after Iowa
for the Nevada Primary where the stakes are even lower (25 delegates chosen
four years ago by 9,000 caucus attendees.) Then on January 22, it’s
New Hampshire’s turn. Under intense media scrutiny, New Hampshire is
a legitimate place for Iowa’s winner to solidify his credentials –
and a great place for all the losers to resuscitate theirs.
It’s not until the next Tuesday, January 29, when Florida and South Carolina weigh in, that the campaign hits population centers that make a difference. Florida alone, with 185 delegates up for grabs, offers more delegate opportunities than Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada combined.
But Florida too is just the run-up to the main event: a nationwide primary on February 5 that will see 20 states go to the polls on a single day. These include New York, California, Illinois, Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Colorado. As Henry notes in his memo, even a well-heeled candidate like Sen. Clinton could weather the early voting but find herself with only $5 or $10 million to compete on the national stage. “This new focus forces us to rethink our overall strategy and assess where our time and money are best spent,” Henry advises.
All of the campaigns, of course, hope to catch
the “Big Mo” in the January contests and use it to “run
the table” on February 5. Those are key phrases to watch for in the
political coverage because the outcome of this race depends less on the votes
accumulated by the candidates at that point than whether the media –
whatever that is in this screwed-up election year –
decides somebody has established momentum or, better yet, proven unstoppable
in the big state showdown.
As I’ve written before in Do The Math!, the chances a candidate in either party will have a majority of delegates after Giga-Tuesday are slim to none; and there aren’t that many big states left -- Wisconsin on February 19; Ohio, Minnesota and Massachusetts on March 4; and Indiana on May 6 -- to pick up the balance.
So the search to build early momentum drives all the candidates to make an all-out effort in Iowa, but Henry has a word of caution for the momentum-ists as well. Many of the big Feb. 5 primary states also allow early absentee voting. Before Iowans even arrive at the caucuses, voters in Florida, Arizona, California, New Jersey, Georgia and Texas may already be casting their ballots. In California, the state will mail out three million absentee ballots on January 7. If past elections are a guide, roughly a third of California voters will vote absentee. Will they wait to see how the momentum is flowing in Iowa and New Hampshire -- or mark it up and mail it in?
And what happens if nobody runs the table on February 5? Now, the scenario becomes even more intriguing. While candidates are off chasing votes in every little primary down the line, one part of the staff at the home office will be busy contacting party leaders and elected officials in both parties who attend the conventions as un-pledged Super Delegates. Another will start leafing through some pretty arcane party rules.
Look to the losers of the Florida primary to challenge the results. In defiance of both Republican and Democratic party rules, the Florida state legislature moved up it’s primary ahead of February 5 knowing the penalty, according to party rules, is that Florida delegation may have its convention vote discounted 50%. If that rule is upheld, watch for Democrats to challenge other delegations because they don’t have enough gay, lesbian and disabled delegates and/or because they didn’t use their best efforts to install voting machines with paper trails.
If there is no clear concensus winner on February 5, there are still seven long months until the conventions start. Start circling the firing squad, Democrats. It won’t take long for the fissures among competing camps to appear. If you thought this campaign started early, it may not end until Montana metes out its 15 delegate slots in a state convention June 3. Maybe one of them will be the all important vote that decides it all.
I was watching ABC News and they interviewed a woman in Iowa who was aghast that a candidate would skip the Iowa caucuses. “Why shouldn’t they listen to us? We pay as much attention to the world as anyone else.” I don’t think it will be hard to find a similar sentiment among voters in Montana.
Sometimes it’s good to be first. But sometimes it’s great to be last.
* For the sake of simplicity, I am using Democratic delegate tallies. Republicans will send fewer delegates from each state to their convention, but in roughly the same proportions.
