Big Money

Cash makes a splash in the news this week. Campaign finance is the story.

It's been a few week since Barack Obama locked the nomination and that Hillary Clinton begrudgingly "suspended her campaign". This expression is used when a candidate is no longer fighting for the election but is still making public appearances and raising money on her own behalf. Remember she owes $10M to vendors and $12M to herself ! 

A joint fund raising campaign is now underway with Obama trying to encourage the 1.6Mdonors who contributed small sums to his campaign to help Sen. Clinton and with the Clinton campaign sharing their big "bundlers" ( people who raise bundles of small donations on the behalf of a candidate) with the Obama camp. 

This effort seems to yield two net results : first it improves the Democrats ability to fund their campaign but more importantly by campaigning side by side the candidates are certainely sending a reassuring message of unity to their base. 

To send the message out, they held a rally in Unity, New Hampshire, one of the battlegrounds of November : check out the coordinated outfits of the two former rivals!

Previously another money related piece of news hit the headline : Obama declined the public funding for his campaign, thus signalling that he trusts that he can raise more money than the limited amount ($84M) he would be granted by the State to run his presidential bid. 

This is the first time that a candidate has chosen this option ever since campaign finance regulation was introduced in the wake of the Watergate scandal. And during the primary, the Democratic candidate had said he would accept this limited funding and try to find an agreement with his Republican opponent to cap campaign spending. He thus appears to have opportunistically changed his mind after discovering the power of his fund raising machine. 

McCain will be using public funding and thus spending a large yet mimited amount of money trying to get elected. Republicans obviously attack Obama for his decision and say that their candidate will be placed at a financial disadvantage. The Democrats' response is that : in fact the Republicans will spend far more than $84M dollars to get their candidate elected, via advertisements financed by "shadow groups" commonly called "527s". These groups often run extremely aggressive ads : the most infamous example being the swiftboat smear campaign against Sen. Kerry that seriously damaged the Democratic candidate's credibility. Watch the video. McCain himself lost the 2000 primary to George Bush in part due to a rumour about his daughter, fueled by such 527 organizations. Their allegations seriously impaired his chances in South Carolina and might have cost him the nomination. 

For an analysis of this issue of campaign finance, refer to the NYTimes.

Other issues at random : 

Obama seems to be courting the evangelical vote and competing with the Republicans for what has been one of their strongest voting blocks since 1980 and Ronald Reagan's first election. This emphasizes the evolution currently underway within the evangelical community, perhaps heralding a break-down of what has long been called the religious right. 

The National Review is suggesting that Barack Obama himself is injecting race into the campaign in the hope of hurting McCain by a preemptive strike. 

The blog www.politico.com write about the GOP's strategy to paint Obama as a conventional politician, eager to serve his own ambitions; thus seeking to undermine his message of hope and renewal. Simultaneously the Republican strategists are re-introducing McCain as a patriot, a war hero who is able of making the tough decisions: when a prisonner in Vietnam he was offered the chance to go home, but he "put his country first" (= refused to offer a great propaganda opportunity to the ennely). McCain also highlights his achievements as a bi-partisan legislator, capable of bringing people together to pass important pieces of legislation. This will help the Senator from Arizona dissociate himself from the Bush administration which, it is suggested, placed self interest and political motivations ahead of the common good. 

Extra seminar on Wednesday 11

Dear students, 

I've booked a room for next Wednesday at 2PM. 

I hope this is a convenient slot for all of you who wish to attend. I'll have your exam papers so that you can consult them and see where you fell short. Please come with your answer sheet, available from the google group. I'd like you to let me know via email if you are thinking of coming. 

Good luck on your exams. 

AM

PS : Hillary Clinton won South Dakota (surprising me at least) and made a speech in which she willed to go on. Meanwhile in Minnesota, Barack Obama proclaimed himself the winner of the primaries after reaching the threshhold of 2118 delegates required to win the nomination. He emphasized his now traditional themes : change and the fact that this was  a historic moment. 

Montana and South Dakota and we're done

Two more primaries and the season will be completely finished. These two States are not very well known so it's time to find out more about them : 

To learn more about Montana, you may want to listen to a ten minute presentation of the State by the youthful journalists of the Bryant Park Project. 

And now meet South Dakota.

Obama is expected to win both primaries, it'll be interesting to see by what margin he takes the two States : can he match Clinton's performances in Puerto Rico (+60%), Kentucky (65%), West Virginia (67%)? 

All the while, Hillary Clinton is making her case that she has won the popular vote (to be closer to the truth let's say it's a virtual tie) and trying to convince the superdelegates that she would be a stronger candidate in November. But the superdelegates continue to endorse Obama in a steady trickle. Many of them will have to make up their minds in the coming days, once all voters have had their say. However, the voters have not delivered a clear message to the superdelegates, it all rests in their hands; for good or for bad, they are the kingmakers.  

Is the end nearing or receding?

Over the week-end several key events have been in the public eye but have not brought the Democratic fight to an end. One may even say that these events may prolong the fight. 

On Saturday, the Democratic Party's Rules and By-Laws Comittee handed down its much awaited decision on the issue of the Michigan and Florida delegates. A very quick reminder : these two States had held their primaries in January, in defiance of the Democratic National Committe's calendar rules. In consequence, the DNC made it known that the delegates would not be seated at the Convention in Denver. The two States ploughed on regardless, eager as they were that their vote should "count", or make a difference in the race by voting before Super Tuesday. All the candidates abided by the rule that they were not to campaign in these States and all candidates except Clinton took their names off the ballot in Michigan. 

The results of these two primaries were favourable to Clinton. And ever since, the candidate has been clamoring to have the delegates seated at the convention, lest the voters of these States should feel disenfranchised and fail to turn up at the polling stations in November. 

The DNC was in a bit of a pickle : either it stuck by its rule or it allowed the delegates to be seated and thus lost all authority. 

Amidst agitation and demonstrations, the Rules and By-Laws Committee approved a compromise, as expected by the media and the politicians : the delegates from Florida and Michigan will all be seated at the convention but each will have half a vote. They then proceeded to allocating the delegates betweeen Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. 

For Florida, 105 delegates were awarded to Clinton and 67 to Obama. 

In Michigan the problem was a bit more complicated due to the circumstances : who should get the 55 "uncommitted" delegates? Obama, or should they be kept "uncommitted" ( open to being convinced by the Clinton camp, for instance)? Clinton's campaign insisted that it had won 73 delegates, while Obama supporters wanted to split the delegates in two, allocating 64 to each side. The Rules committee chose a different allocation altogether : 69 delegates to Clinton and 59 to Obama. 

For some this ruling is unfair and Clinton has been cheated of 4 delegates. It might only fuel Clinton's outrage and undermine Obama'a chances of winning Michigan when comes November : for more on this read Thurlow Weed's article on Real Clear Politics. 

A staffer of the Clinton campaign has said that they might take the issue to the Credentials Committee for an appeal. In that case, the primary contest would continue through until July, when the committee is expected to meet. The other scenario of a never ending primary is one in which the fight continues until the Denver National Democratic Convention at the end of August. What this means is that Clinton would refuse to step down and thus encourage the fight to be settled by the vote of the delegates. This is often referred to as a brokered convention.

The other important event was Senator Clinton's win in Puerto Rico. She trounced the Senator from Illinois by a 2 to 1 margin. Clinton remains a huge forcein the field even if the media have been trumpeting the victory of her opponent for over a week now. 

 Once again this primary showcased the strength of Clinton in the Latino constituency. Will Obama manage to do well in the general election if he only has lukewarm support in several key Democratic constituencies : working class voters, women and Latinos? 

An interesting question worth considering by the super-delegates that have not made up their minds is : who is really winning the popular vote? 

Picking a running mate.

Although this is an issue that obviously concerns both the Democrats and the Republicans, I will only deal with the latter ( for a very brief discussion of the Democratic conundrum see my reply to a comment by one of you on a previous post). 

So, John McCain is pondering who to put on his ticket and has launched the "vetting process" to find the best match. 

How do you pick a running mate? How has it been done in the past? 

For an very good and short article on this : read this. For a thirty minute coverage listen to NPR's political junkie. 

The choice of a VP is a strategic one and has always been so, at least ever since the VP was no longer the candidate that received the second most electoral college votes. And when did that rule change? After the 1796 election, John Adams was elected President and his archrival Thomas Jefferson, Vice-President; creating a somewhat awkward situation at the top of the executive branch. In 1804, the 12th Amendment to the Constitution changed that rule.

Basically you have several choices : 

1. You try and balance your ticket geographically : if you are from an Eastern State you run with someone from the West. McCain is from Arizona, he may want someone that has an eastern background. With this scenario in mind, Mitt Romney from Massachusetts who ran against McCain in the primaries and dropped out in a spectacular manner (remember he said it was for the good of the country and the party...) now thinks he is the real deal and that McCain will pick him, regardless of their lack of warm feelings towards one another. 
2. You try and balance your ticket ideologically : McCain being alledgedly rather  liberal on social issues or having a reputation for not being a true Republican might want to pick someone with strong conservative credentials in order to satisfy the religious wing of the party (Mike Huckabee?)
3. You pick someone whose presence on the ticket will deliver a strategic State in the general election. Historical example of this : Lyndon B. Johnson ran on John Fitzgerald Kennedy's ticket and was there to ensure a good performance for the Democrats in Texas : it worked and they were elected. But the two men hated each other and did not work as a team. In this year's context Charlie Christ, the popular governor from Florida (the hotly contested State that was a instrumental in getting George W. Bush elected in 2004) may be a clever choice.
4. You pick a person that shares your core values and with whom you will form an energetic and convincing team. A good example of this may be the Clinton-Gore ticket.
5. You chose a VP that is different from you in other ways and will bring some sort of equilibrium to the ticket : McCain will probably pick someone who is much younger than he is (although not too young : you don't want the photo ops to be ridiculous). Mc Cain being rather weak on economic issues, the Republican ticket might be stronger with someone with business and managing experience ( Mitt Romney?). Similarly McCain may choose a woman, or someone that isn't white (Bobby Jindal from Indian-American descent), or even both (Condolizza Rice?), this may also depend of who he is running against in November although there is no simple, hard and fast solution. 

To sum it all up for you. The pundits say that the top three contenders for the VP slot are Charlie Crist, Mitt Romney and Bobby Jindal.

Charlie Crist, the governor from Florida. He would probably guarantee that Florida support the Republicans, even more so  because of what has happened there in the Democratic Party. He has solid conservative credentials but is not married which has raised questions on his sexual orientation, an issue that would not go down too well with the religious wing of the party. 

Selecting Mitt Romney would help McCain in the East, and with voters

 concerned about the economy since his main claim to fame is his success as a businessman and his "saving" the Salt Lake City  from olympian ruin in the 1990s. 

A more audacious choice would be the very young governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal. He is in his thirties and has just been elected, he is a Roman Catholic with traditional socially conservative views. This choice might reassure Republicans who fear that McCain is too old ( although obviously were McCain to die or be incapacitated during his term, a rather inexperienced VP would have to step up and lead the country) or too liberal. Jindal's ethnic origin could also be seen as an asset, helping change the image of the Republican party as a party of white males. 

An addendum to this post : a link to a NYT article on Jindal his gubernatorial campaign and his first steps as the Louisianna Governor. 

Exam on June, 19

Dear students, 

For those of you who will be taking the June 19 exam, I think it might be a good thing to have an hour long session during which we can discuss last term's exam. 

Remember that there is a fully written up set of answers on the google group that you may find helpful in understanding what went wrong in your paper and how you can avoid mistakes this time. 

Bring your answer sheet along and I will see if I can get your papers from the administration. 

I could make it to Cergy on Monday 9 or Tuesday 10 in the afternoon. Any preference? If this is during your exams let me know and we can reschedule. I will be back from the UK at the very start of the month of June. 

Once I get a bit of feedback from you, (if I do!) I will book a room and have an ad posted on your wall by Mrs. Dusseaux. 

the enigma : What on earth is Clinton up to?

Ever since last Tuesday I've been hearing pundits credit positively (= without the shadow of a doubt) Obama with the nomination. Super-delegates that had been holding out their decision are flocking to Barack Obama (before its too late for them to get any credit out of it), the figures indicate that regardless of what happens in the last States, Obama will soon reach the threshhold of 2,250 pledged delegates. 

And yet, oblivious and dismissive of all these petty facts and figures Sen. Clinton is racing on, campaigning in West Virginia today ; and in her speeches she shows no sign of giving up, she seems as fired up as ever. She is presenting the all-white and mostly working-class State of West-Virginia which is home to almost as many senior citizens as Florida, as yet another must win State (a bellwether State). In the polls, she had a huge lead over her opponent.  She reminded her audience that no Democrat had ever won the White House without winning West-Virginia's 5 electoral vote in the general election. Is she suggesting that if Barack Obama loses the W.V. primary to her, it means that he won't win in November? Similarly, when Sen. Clinton highlights Sen. Obama's inability to conquer the hard-working whites ( she quoted an article and declared : "Sen Obama's support among working, hard working Americans, white Americans is weakening again") not only is she painting his constituency as solely composed of high-flying elitist liberals, soft-working students and bums and Blacks. Is she playing the race card? Read a Polico Blog on this or listen to NPR's News and Notes.  

All this looks a bit like she's trying to discredit him for November, she doesn't want her boat to sink alone, does she? Is she preparing Obama's defeat to cast herself as the saviour of the Democratic Party in 2012, as has been suggested by some commentors. 

Next post will be on John McCain: it's been too long since I blogged about him.  What do you want to hear about?