February 14, 2008
This 2008 election cycle has produced one of the most exciting, truly competitive political seasons in at least a generation. Entering the middle of February, the Democratic nominee appears to be probably weeks if not months away from being selected, while the presumptive Republican nominee emerged out of a breathless horse race.
At the same time, this nominating cycle, which will carry on for more than 18 months, already is reported to have cost all the candidates combined over $500 million.
The campaigns have succeeded in wooing segments of the voter base that traditionally have been among the more passive and least engaged in party politics — African Americans, Hispanics, and youth.
At the same time, this year’s primary cycle has raised many serious questions about the rules, participation, and logic of the process. It has also made a fraud of any serious suggestion that either party really cares about what their own party faithful’s interests or demands are. This race has also produced extraordinary polarization within the Jewish community.
Most Americans consider elections, the contests that take place in November, as constitutionally and statutorily mandated. Despite the enormous flap created by the 2000 Bush-Gore vote, these elections at least have a process ordained by U.S. and/or various state laws. The nominee election procedures, by contrast, are determined by party rules and party leadership and are not subject to any legal, statutory requirements. The rules within each state differ; the distribution of votes follows arcane or previous voting patterns; each state decides if registered independents can vote in party primaries; and states determine whether Republican or Democratic crossover voting is permitted.
In short, parties operate within rules and procedures over which the party rank and file has very limited input.
Consequently, protests concerning Democratic “superdelegates” — independent, current, or former party office holders or functionaries free to support any candidate for the nomination — fall on deaf ears. The only exception comes from those Democratic critics who for years have been ruing the famous 1972 McGovern-Fraser post-Watergate reforms, which were intended to take the nominating process out of the hands of a limited number of power brokers and return them to the “people.” Critics of these changes — plus the creation in 1982 of the unelected superdelegates — warned they would come back some day to haunt the Democratic Party.
It now seems a strong possibility that the superdelegates will swing the Clinton-Obama contest at the conclusion of the primary/caucus season. Their voting will reflect their own whims and interests without necessarily paying any heed to their individual state’s vote.
Similarly, the official, “unofficial” non-primary elections in Florida and Michigan, whose delegates so far have been barred from the Democratic National Convention in Denver, raise considerable ire against the leadership within the Democratic Party.
At the same time, critics within the Republican Party long ago stopped protesting the anachronistic winner-take-all system that still dominates most of the Republican primaries and caucuses. Millions of non-McCain voters are likely to be ignored on the one hand — or patronized on the other — through a vice presidential selection process seeking to placate the conservative/fundamentalist wing of the party. Whereas John McCain could have seized the opportunity to bring, for the first time in years, the Republican Party back to the center and capitalize on his centrist appeal to moderate Republicans, independents, and disenchanted Democrats, he may well capitulate to his conservative base and ensure a Republican defeat in November.
For American Jews, this election campaign has also presented new challenges. A number of writers in the Anglo-Jewish press and Jewish blogosphere have suggested that this election demonstrates for the first time the decline in Jewish political power. As African Americans and Hispanics throughout the country vote in the largest numbers ever, Jewish ballot box clout, it is suggested, is being overtaken.
It seems, however, that this obituary for Jewish power is premature. In some key states, such as New York, New Jersey, California, Connecticut, and others, Jews still represent a minimum of 4 to 10 percent of the turnout of Democratic voters in the primaries. While Hispanics and blacks made dramatic moves in participation, it remains to be seen if they will sustain the same level of participation in November and in future elections. Even if they do, actual Jewish voters as a percentage of the number of eligible Jewish voters — especially in Democratic primaries — remain huge.
Finally, the amount of outrageous, vituperative, unchecked Internet chatter — in the name of free speech — that burned through Jewish cyberspace during this primary season probably affected more right-wing, conservative Jews who did not even vote in Democratic primaries in many states. Assuming this degrading strategy persists, it may well have the effect of only energizing Jewish voting in the fall.
In some respects the extended 2008 election season is, hard as it may be to believe, only beginning to heat up. It is likely to get more challenging and uglier before it is over.
Dr. Gilbert N. Kahn is a professor of political science at Kean University in Union.
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