2004 Presidential Race - seeing past the media blather. First ignore the nine dwarves problem. The media see anyone who they haven't annointed as a dwarf. The race they were looking for was Gore v Saint Hillary and neither chose to play. Even with a bad economy incumbents have too many pluses the way we structure our system. Expect them back in 2008 when it will be an open race, doubly so as NO one sees Cheney as a viable candidate. If Bill Clinton can vault from Governor of Arkansas to the White House, many things are possible. So let us look at this logically. The original office that bestowed ennough prestige to lead to the White House was Secretary of State. We haven't had a cabinet member win since Hoover. We also haven't had a member of the House who didn't first become VP, Governor or Senator win since Garfield. The last successful general to win was Ike which was half a century ago. What we get are VP's, Senators and Governors. Governors used to be favored. They were executives and had a local political machine. Senators came into favor in mid-century: Truman, Nixon, Kennedy, LBJ. If you count contenders add Humphrey, Mondale. However the current trend is Governors - Carter, Reagan, Clinton, Bush 43. The exception is the one term Bush 41 who was VP twice first.
Now let us look at the dwarves. Dean is only a governor, and an ex one to boot. Kerry, Lieberman, Edwards, Graham [ex governor of Florida] are Senators. Mosley-Braun was a Senator. Sharpton is a street agitator / civil rights leader whose two biggest claims to fame are helping work up a successful pogrom in Brooklyn and the Twana Brawley fraud. He has made some creditable runs for office in NYS. Kuchinich is a House member who as mayor of Cleveland presided over a major municipal bankruptcy. Gebhardt was House Speaker, then Minority Leader. We will presume that the money primary [the prior year's fundraising that seems to determine much of who gets nominated] is too far advanced for new entrants at this point.
Now remember in looking at this that the name of the game is getting nominated. This means that a few small early states and a minority of activists have disproportionate strength. Dean and Kusinich are counting on this. Their only hope is that one will knock out the other and win a media trimupth in a crowded field. Left candidates such as these have the luxury of doing a cheap campaign and staying alive. The activists that would back them do it for ideology, not $, which is what the others need to hire professionals and do media blitzes. Either would have an order of magnitude better chance if the other dropped out. To stay alive they must be in the top three in Iowa and Nnew Hampshire then keep pulling a win every week out of the bevy of states that will go to the polls. Their strategy beyond that seems geared to staying alive and having the mainstream candidates kill each other off. However, they DO have an effect. They will force the debate to the left. This is where the votes are in an Iowa caucus. It is NOT where the votes are in a contested Presidential election.
Sharpton and Braun are running for influence. Neither one can be nominated and they know it. However they can vacumn up black votes and win a media annointed title of national black leader. With that can go appointive office, a great deal of money to assist in the national campaign, and founding their own permanent money machine on the lines of Jesse Jackson's PUSH. Both are potentially viable because the black constituency, which is key for the Democratic Party, is getting tired of being taken for granted. The Democrats have made the White House and other elections competitive by getting out the African-American vote quietly [the NAACP runs a bunch of ads claiming the Republican in question will bring back lynching - see the ads on Bush 43 in 2000 when his refusal to pass a hate crime law was held the reason why three racist ex-cons killed a black man named Ronnie Byrd IIRC. Apparantly it isn't enough to come out for the death penalty for the crime. The three swine losers must be executed for being racist murderers instead of just for being murderers. Me I wouldn't have even charged them with murder. I'd have pulled them in for parole violation, put them in the general population [the Klan and the Muslims both wanted them dead] and then let them die a far harder death than anything the state will do to them...but then I'm not a nice guy]. In the meantime the Democrats [having quited the public discussion of race and its allied issues of crime and welfare] can concentrate on Reagan Democrats, union members, suburban soccer moms - i.e. their weak point which is straight white nominally Christian people. The black voter base and office holders are getting awful tired of being told that it is never the time to address their issues in a serious way [the Democrats situation with the Congressional Black Caucus is very much like the Republicans with the theocrats - they need their votes, cannot win without them but their agenda is political suicide]. There are fifty black office holders who could have stood up better than the two that did. They all prefered to work within the system. Sharpton is not well regarded by these folks. When he insisted on running, Donna Brazile, acting as a front for the real black leadership, tried to get state leaders to run as favorite sons and daughters. When that failed she was stuck with Mosley-Braun, a lady with shall we say a fairly bad record on public and private ethics even by Clinton standards but at least a member of the club as it were. She is the anti-Sharpton and expects a suitable reward for her services [IIRC she was made ambassador to New Zealand the last time she was in need of a job]. So treat these two as spoilers. What they will do is make the primary electorates the real candidates must compete for whiter by siphoning off many if not most black votes while at the same time forcing the rest to take public positions that are respectful of 'their' issues [which will come back to haunt the winner in November].
Edwards and Graham are running against each other to be the Dixie candidate. They are being too logical. Rationally if this were still the era of the old boss dominated conventions[pre-1972] the Democrats would nominate a Southerner plus a Great Lakes States governor. The only Democrats elected since JFK have all been from the South [LBJ, Carter, Clinton]. However LBJ was a VP running on the Dallas martyrdom against a Republican, Goldwater, who made electoral suicide an art form. Carter ran against an unelected President, Ford, after the fall of Saigon and the Nixon pardon. Clinton might be one of the two best natural politicians of the last 50 years [the other being Reagan]. It is quite true that the Democrats cannot win if they cannot crack Dixie. Yes theoretically they could take everything they took in 2000 and add New Hampshire and Ohio. As a practical matter giving the GOP a Dixie sweep will probably be too big a burden to overcome. Their problems come in getting nominated. Edwards is a freshman Senator who is an ex-tort lawyer. His fund raising is already mired in controversy from tort law firms that fed money to him through their clericals. Graham seems to be running on ego. Like many people before him, he sees himself as brighter and more capable than any of the existing front runners. The history of US Presidential races is chock full of bright people who couldn't make that last jump. For either to stand a chance they need a major win in South Carolina as neither will get far in Iowa or North Carolina [indeed both may be committing electoral suicide when they stand for reelection by trying - moderate in an Iowa Democratic caucus is too liberal for reelection in North Carolina or Florida]. Their problem in South Carolina is that 40-50% of the vote in that primary will be African-American. A good part of this will be split between the two black candidates. So the remaining 6-7 whites [I doubt that both Kuchinich and Dean will survive New Hampshire - there will probably be one left true Democrat going forward from there] will be competing between them for 60-65% of the vote. If I give Mosley-Braun and Sharpton 20%+ each somebody has to get hot to get the media play or the big news is that one of them wins a state. If Mosley-Braun selfdestructs, then Sharpton in the high 20's could make it even harder.
That leaves the New England duo. Lieberman still has his centrist image as baggage. He also will have many people who whatever they say in public may find an Orthodox Jew not the best national leader for a time when we are trying to avoid a war of civilizations with Islam and the Arabs. Kerry has the military background, however much he repudicated it later. He has his wife's money [but that comes with his wife's mouth]. His drawbacks are a lack of personal charisma and prior lies on his ethnic background. The New Englanders also have the problem of being from New England. Our last New England President was accidential Calvin Cooledge. The memories of Michael Dukakis will haunt the party. Plus three New Englanders may starve each other for oxygen.
You will note that this leaves Gebhardt. Border state. It can be called MidWest, farm or Dixie. He has got to win Iowa. He has got to find somewhere else to have a win the day of South Carolina [probably Oklahoma]. He has got to still be able to call in his IOU's with the laor movement. He has got to overcome the gravitus problem of just being a House member. However, he has a few issues - trade, jobs, health care - that can appeal to both the core Democratic base and the larger electorate. His biggest problem is going to be raising enough money to be competitive.
So pay little attention to the headlines at this point. Watch two things - money raised and the national polls. To be serious each has to stay in at least double digets nationally while showing a few early states where they are strong. However cross reference the opinion polls with the money primary. So far it is Kerry and Edwards with the $. If that is the race Kerry wins by a mile and expect to hear chicken hawk over and over as the SEAL goes up against the AFNG pilot.
posted by scott 3:57 PM