An Obama-Clinton dialogue between friends

A week and a half ago, my buddy Ryan in Yellowknife, Canada, emailed me about the Democratic race and his "two cents" on Florida and Michigan's delegates.

We emailed back and forth for a couple of days, and over that period the emotional tone dialed down from being a bit contentious at the outset to remembering that we've got a lot more in common in outlook and principles than we have differences.

I asked Ryan if he'd mind my splicing together our emails and posting it here, and he happily agreed. Here are our two perspectives:

RYAN’S “MY TWO CENTS” (with my responses to each paragraph of his original email inserted inline):

Also, regarding the Michigan/Florida delegate/vote count, primaries/caucuses, etc….

1. Obama's lead in the popular vote is ambiguous at best, because even if Michigan and Florida are not counted, their (disenfranchised) voting blocs have tried to make their voices heard. The fact remains that Clinton still won both states. If a majority of people in Michigan did not want to see her as the candidate, they could have protest-voted for the other Democrat on the ballot, or voted uncommitted (a bloc that could have gone for Obama had they chosen to do so). Clinton was strong in Michigan, with growing support, and it remains a possibility the other candidates' decision to remove their names from the ballots were *calculated* political moves to undermine the boost she would have gained had she won a plurality or majority with all the names present anyway.

MY RESPONSE: well, guess what? the system the democratic party designed was to select their nominee via delegates. not the popular vote. we select our president the same way: by the electoral college, not the popular vote. you can argue about whether it's smart. but you can't argue with the fact that those are the rules in place.

2. Regardless of Clinton (& camp) changing position regarding the early primaries, and the ill-informed choices of state parties to change their dates, their huge voting blocs have been disenfranchised, AGAIN, and it was hardly their idea to move the dates in the first place. Yet otherwise powerless people, AGAIN (in the case of Florida) must contend with the consequences of the actions of the political elites. It is to the Democratic party's peril that they *once more* allow a Florida voting debacle in a close, divisive race to occur.

MY RESPONSE: are you saying the voters aren't responsible for the dates being moved up? if they aren't, who is? the dates were changed by elected officials. the voters elected those people. that's how representative democracy works.

3. The caucus system that favors Obama is problematic: they go against the principles of the secret ballot, & coercion at the ballot box; they disenfranchise otherwise busy or indisposed people (service men & women, elderly, medical care workers, the poor & over-worked classes, people with children, people without time to commit to long hours at a caucus, absentee voters, etc); a fraction of otherwise eligible voters ever participate, compared to a primary held all day; it favors the activist elite in a public forum, and activism should be *absent* in the moment a vote is expressed. If the United States is a democracy, primary contests (as the first expression of the democratic process) should function as democracies as well.

MY RESPONSE: again, these are the systems that have long been in place (in most places for decades). why suddenly such a big fuss about them now? and if residents of those states have selected caucuses, who are we as outsiders to argue with them?

4. Primary reform: *all states* should hold primaries between Feb 1st and March 31st, with the 52-54 states, territories, overseas Democrats, et al. holding a set of 13-14 fixed primaries every second Tuesday on a rotating schedule. The rotating schedule would allow each state to be a part of the first cohort of the voting year primaries every four years, disallowing early and "standalone" primary states like Iowa or New Hampshire to have the undue influence on the process that Florida and Michigan were protesting against. States would be allocated to their fixed "primary week" according to their size (large states would be distributed), and traditional turn in the primary schedule (Iowa might be assigned the first cohort), but every four years, the following cohort would go first, resulting in a 16 year cycle. Two weeks between primary weeks would allow candidates still in the race adequate time to campaign in the states to follow. The Democratic convention would be set early, at April 15, so that a candidate would be chosen before the summer.

MY RESPONSE: i agree we need a new system... badly! the republicans seem to be moving in that direction.

5. Split ticket: healing & reform should start from the beginning, with Clinton & Obama on the same ticket (in whatever order). That would be the first and ultimate test of Obama's "we need to work together despite our differences" rhetoric, a gesture to heal the rift among Democrats, a nod to the significant support Clinton has earned in the race thus far, and it is mindful of the troubling fact that Obama is still unable to decisively win this race despite leading (by a close margin).

MY RESPONSE: it's an unattractive ticket to me but i understand many like it. time will tell!

Ryan included these links in his original email:

• The Michigan Democratic Primary’s wikipedia entry
• “The Dubious ‘Popular Vote’” from BBC News

[This marks the end of Ryan's original email.]

MY POSTSCRIPT TO THE ABOVE RESPONSES:

one other point: it's interesting that you say the caucuses "favor" obama.

imagine that it's some arbitrary date last summer or fall. you are running for the democratic nomination. you look out across america and see the rules in place in each state. you devise a strategy.

so the fact that obama's campaign chose to compete aggressively in caucus states now is interpreted as those states favoring him? i don't understand the logic.

RYAN REPLIED: But as regards the caucuses, I've had questions (concerns?) about them ever since I first learned about them, and these have only grown as time has gone on. Further, as regards the choices states make about their policies: we are happy to criticize states that choose to define (anti-gay) marriage or other issues according to outdated or prejudiced means, but why, when it comes to how they choose to conduct their democracy, is that criticism is out of bounds? Anyhow, every state, and the American nation itself has grown and evolved, and certain older institutions have been phased out or replaced when it was deemed necessary. I guess I'm a federalist when it comes to certain issues, and seek a consistent process with strong central leadership.

But fair point, strategy is strategy. Every campaign is bound to engage in political maneuvering, posturing, publicly-stated and privately-executed strategies. But strategy is not at issue here: maximizing political and democratic participation is. Every constituency in the county must continually review and amend their process to that end, and in general, the caucus system is flawed because of the larger proportion of people that are unable to participate because of other pressing concerns in their lives. And anyhow, take Texas, with the mixed primary-caucus system. If the two systems were equal in their outcomes, and accurately representative of the will of the Texas voter, then wouldn't the caucus results match the primary ones? No, they benefit one candidate more than the other, again, speaking to the subset of the electorate that is (or is not) able to participate in them, and the perils of coercing an individual's democratic voice in a public forum.

Canadian law severely limits campaigning on election day. I'm not sure that America has similar laws; but wouldn't it be fairer to leave the voters to their own, private devices and processes at the last moment, when they make their final choice, rather than subjecting them to yet another torturous round of passionate argument?

AND I REPLIED:

my point is simply this: if the caucus system is a problem, address it for 2012. it's unfair to change the rules in the middle of a campaign season.

keep in mind also that there is a key distinction here: parties are purely private entities, unmentioned by the constitution. consequently, the supreme court has upheld the right of the parties to select candidates as they wish.

again, not saying that is the best model to use. but it is the one currently in place.

so i think you are talking about different things: in one case, the government of (let's say) iowa discriminating against lgbt citizens, and on the other, the iowa democratic party making it more difficult for shift workers to participate in the nominating process. one is the government acting, the other is a private entity in iowa acting.

and again, you seem to have a narrow idea of what the nominating process rules are for. there are lots of objectives, and not all of them are perfectly aligned with having a pure vote of the people determine the nominee. if that were the case, why not just have a single national primary with a pure one vote per person algorithm? that might be a good system, if you had only one objective in mind, but it's not the system in place.

democratic party rules currently give rural counties in many states greater representation because the national democratic party has had the objective of making inroads into communities which have been safely republican for several electoral cycles. again, you can argue the merits of it, but the point is that the party has a bunch of objectives it's trying to achieve, and the process in place--like any process that would replace it--would be an imperfect attempt to satisfy all of these objectives.

and one final point on the topic of caucuses: have you ever attended one? you speak of coercion, but there is also the opportunity to speak to and persuade (or be persuaded) by your neighbors. dialogue with one's community members was most surely a critically important pillar of democracy in the time of the founders. it seems like something to be promoted, not lampooned.

RYAN RESPONDS:

hey! you yourself drew comparisons to the electoral college! and also, you noted that it was the statewide publically-elected officials who changed the date, and resorted to the "we're a representative democracy" defense, so the argument that the conduct of the primary process is purely private is not completely accurate. we're all guilty of convenient parsing. don't feel bad, happens to the best of us. ;)

anyhow, granted, granted, granted. mid-stream course-correction *would* be unfair, but leaving aside the caucus issue for the moment, my understanding is that DNC rules allow for an alternate/second primary process, so the "rules are rules" rule-book argument doesn't hold water, since the powers that be decided long ago that there should be a contigency for, say, *exactly this type* of scenario that we find in Florida and Michigan! further, the super-delegates may very well decide, as is their right and responsibility, to go against the "popular" will or pledged delegate count, to the cry of "foul" from Obama supporters no doubt! but rules are rules, and the rules say that super-delegates can make their decision based on whatever calculus they see fit, even if it goes against "popular will". i agree that the party has a right to conduct their races however they choose, but i argue for a less complex, more consistent, nation-wide standard is all, and one that endeavors to more closely emulate the democracy that it aims to lead, even while attempting to find inroads with new constituencies. perhaps super-delegates should have less power too, in the end. and perhaps, the decisive Republican process should be considered. if there's one thing they're good at these days, it's winning, and i admire their organizational fortitude.

and finally, in my defense, i'm not trying to "lampoon" the caucus system--doesn't this involve satire of some sort?--i just seek to criticize it as we conduct this dialog. i appreciate the grassroots value of the forum; but i view the days leading up to an election as the proper time for the neighborly debate; and i value my private vote, and the protection from retribution it might afford me in more contentious times.

MY RESPONSE:

yes, i think the best path would have been to hold re-votes in michigan and florida. something i wish obama had supported.

as for my use of “lampoon,” i knew it was the wrong word even as i typed it. lazy me!

sigh. oh, for the days when it was a relatively simple matter for the tribal leaders to resolve the disputes between rocks-fall-by-tall-tree and waters-runs-fast-over-pebbles.

thanks for sharing your perspective… it was a good chat!