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Quietly revising the 2012 Democratic nomination process.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 17th, 2010 at 01:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Or, Why Barack Obama Will Win the 2012 Democratic Nomination.

A good number of people – on both sides of the spectrum – are allowing themselves to speculate on the previously-unthinkable scenario that possibly, just possibly, the President might be successfully challenged in the primaries in 2012.  This is America, right?  People come out of nowhere to win elections all the time.  Why, look at President Obama!  He did precisely that in 2008.

Yes.  That’s why he’s redesigned the system to keep it from happening in 2012.

You’ve probably never really heard of the Democratic Change Commission; it was set up after the 2008 elections “to recommend changes to the Party’s 2012 presidential nominating process.”  Its two chairs were both Obama super-delegates: Sen. Claire McCaskill was an early supporter of the President, while Rep. James Clyburn was merely treated as one long before he got around formally endorsing Obama.  A handy list of Change Commission members is here: note that there are thirty-seven people in this commission, which is about thirty-three more than was actually needed.  When you see this kind of commission bloat, you can safely assume that it’s there to serve the same purpose as octopus ink: a cloud of opaqueness to obscure its originator.

And its originator? David Plouffe.

Yup.  The guy who designed the 2008 primary insurgency.  The guy that people mean when they talk about how great a campaigner Barack Obama is*. Which makes Plouffe the perfect choice for plugging all the holes in the nomination process; after all, he found them all in the first place.

You can find the Change Commission’s report here:  save yourself time and throw out all the historical details, the process by which they ostensibly made their recommendations, and pretty much everything else except the actual recommendations.  I’ve reproduced their summary of those recommendations below, followed by my cynical translation of each.

Timing of presidential primaries and caucuses: First, we recommend pushing back the window of time during which primaries and caucuses may be held so that the pre-window could not begin until February 1st or thereafter, and the primary window could not begin until the second Tuesday in March or thereafter. Second, the Commission suggests an incentive system to encourage states to regionally cluster their contests and/or hold their contests later in the nominating calendar so as to avoid frontloading in the calendar.

Looking at the 2008 calendar… shortening the convention schedule by a full month like this and encouraging regional clumping will force insurgent candidates to have to pick and choose which states to focus on inside those clusters.  Great for the incumbent, who has the structural advantage of an existing network of staffers and activists; bad for the insurgent, who is trying to use wins to generate them.  Also, in 2012 the President would like to win California, New Jersey, and New York in addition to Illinois and Missouri, so having those primaries on different days would be helpful.

To significantly reduce the number of unpledged delegates: The Commission recommends: 1) the category of unpledged add-on delegates will no longer be allocated; and 2) converting unpledged delegates (DNC members, Democratic Members of the House and Senate, Democratic Governors and Distinguished Former Party Leaders) to a new category of pledged delegates called the National Pledged Party Leader and Elected Official (NPLEO) delegates, which will be allocated to Presidential candidates based on the state-wide primary or caucus results. These individuals would also have the option of attending the convention as a non voting delegate. In either case, they would receive the same floor credentials and housing as others in their state delegation.

Funny thing about the 2008 Democratic nomination; Hillary Clinton won the popular vote (we will dispense with the polite fiction that Michigan’s totals should be invalidated because the then-Senator goofed up by taking his name off of the ballot).  And neither candidate walked into that convention with an outright majority of hard delegates.  Clinton lost the nomination because the Democratic party establishment decided that Obama was the better choice – yes, that means that all of what happened afterward, including all the things that the progressives hate too, is their fault – so they decided to give it to him instead.  Well, that’s not going to happen in 2012!  Your state picks a candidate, then so have you – and if you don’t like it, hey, you can still go to the convention and get all the perks.  Just no vote.

There’s one other little relevant bit here that is not in the executive summary of recommendations, and it’s arguably the most important bit:

The Commission also shall review the formulas for delegate allocation to assure that delegates are fairly allocated to accurately reflect the will of the voters and that the right of the delegates to reflect the sentiments of those who elected them shall be secured to all delegates.

Remember Texas, and how Barack Obama walked away with a majority of hard delegates despite losing the popular vote there?  It was done by exploiting Texas’ use of an unique split primary/caucus system where the latter produced about 1/3rd of the total hard delegates, at a fraction of the voter participation of the former.  Obama’s campaign manipulated that caucus system and used it to erase Clinton’s lead handily – and, well, nobody’s going to do that to him in 2012.

To improve the caucus system: The Commission recommends establishing a “Best Practices” program to help states improve and strengthen their caucuses, keeping in mind that different types of caucuses are used within the Party and that state parties often have limited resources with which to work. The “Best Practices” program would help states adequately plan, organize, and staff caucuses and maximize the opportunity for full participation by all Democratic voters.

Oh, this is the good one.  To pick just one random caucus example: how many votes did Obama get in the general election in Colorado in 2008?  1.2 million.  How many did he get in the caucus? 80 thousand, to Clinton’s 39 thousand. That’s less than seven percent of the general election total.  Would 200K voters in a Colorado caucus in 2008 have had the same lopsided two-to-one ratio of Obama to Clinton supporters? Certainly not.  Will 200K voters in a Colorado caucus in 2012 have the same lopsided two-to-one ratio of President Obama to Random Democratic Insurgent?  Probably.  Can the President shift the odds of that happening in his favor?

YES, HE CAN!

The bottom line here is that if you want the President gone in 2012, I suggest that you vote for the Republican candidate (name TBD).  Unless Barack Obama decides that he’s tired of being President in the next six to twelve months – which is possible; he’s never really been challenged in his job before, and it shows – he’s set things up so that his nomination will be smooth, straightforward, and absolutely immune to the same techniques that he used to upset the front-runner in 2008.  I know that this message will be unpopular with some people, but if you like being told precisely what you like to hear, there’s a bunch of left-sphere blogs that will be happy to oblige you.

Moe Lane

*Obama actually is rather bad at it, as not-Governor Corzine, not-Governor Deeds, not-Senator Coakley, and soon-to-be not-Senator Specter can bitterly tell you.

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • redneck_hippie
  • Blueblood

    Two other things about the Democratic primary that Obama is attempting to manipulate that will also impact the general election.

    Obama attempted to bully the SCOTUS during his State of the Union address because according to Obama money that does not go into his coffers is bad for politics (Obama raised $600 million for his campaign). The Democrats are now in the process of attempting to undermine the 1st Amendment in order to help Obama maintain his fundraising advantage.

    Related to this is the struggling MSM. Obama believes due to past performance that the MSM will give him an advantage like they did in 2008, so watch what he does to help out struggling media outlets.

    Believe it or not, the NY Times came out against many of the tactics that Obama employed to win the primary, the thing that made their position intellectually dishonest is that they waited until the day after Hillary quit the race to publish the piece. So basically the NY Times had an editorial that was ready to published, but they did not want to give the superdelegates anything to hang their hats on to help out Hillary, so they waited to print the editorial. Here is the link to the editorial about “Primary Reform”,

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/opinion/08sun1.html

    We must be vigilant about these things because they could impact the general election.

    In 2008 the unethical and irresponsible Democrats and their lackeys in the MSM showed how low they are willing to go when they undermined their own democratic nominating process and forced Hillary Clinton out of the race when neither candidate had anywhere close to the number of delegates to win the nomination outright.

  • clintonformccain

    The topic of the rigged Democratic Nomination process in 2008 one that I know intimately, but it makes me too angry to think about. So, I won’t cite chapter and verse except to say that, if the DNC had counted the votes in Florida, the nominaton would have been over.

    I’ll add to what Moe Lane wrote and take it in a slightly more macro direction. There is no longer a moderate, “blue dog”, “Reagan Democrat” wing of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party is code pink and Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank. This has been explicitly stated by DNC operative like Donna Brazille who have described the New Democratic Coalition. Ironically, Howard Dean played a big role in exorcizing the centrist element from the party at the state party apparatchnik level, which makes it kind of fun that he wasn’t even offered an amabassadorship to Trinidad/Tobago for his efforts.

    I agree with Moe that it is ridiculous to think that there will be a primary challenge to Barack Obama in 2012. People who imagine such a thing don’t understand the New Democratic Party and need to be sentenced to a month of reading the Daily Kos.

    I disagree with Moe in one way. My read of Barack Obama is that he is a thin-skinned narcissist who probably cannot deal with getting rejected in a reelection bid. I think that it is more than a remote possibility that he will “pull and LBJ” and decide not to run. It just depends how bad things look after 2010.

  • Brian_Roastbeef

    Let Obama rig the Dem primaries as thoroughly as possible. Let him win every state and every last delegate if he so chooses. I want the 2012 election to be against him.

    I’d much rather run against the President whose name is thoroughly attached to the disasters of health care reform, illegal immigrant amnesty, massive government spending, intrusion into the private sector, and the failure of leadership in the Gulf. Bring it on.

    To me his rigging the primary process only helps us dodge the ridiculous bullet of people rethinking Hillary Clinton. It really bothers me. Somehow in her position of becoming the lesser of two evils during the Dem primary, too many people have forgotten how bad she is. She is not a moderate. She would not have stopped an invasive health care program or been friendlier to business over this past year and a half. Yes, her husband’s administration is looking a little bit “not too bad” right about now, but she is not her husband (and the fondness is in the conservative congress, not a moderate liberal administration. Nobody thinks of the glory days of Clinton pre-1994.)

    So go ahead and rig the elections, Barack. Its the one idea of yours I can support. It will make our choice clear in 2012, rather than allow some to fool themselves into thinking they are getting something better, when really its the same snake oil with a different salesperson.

  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica
  • Scope

    because the O is losing his sparkle with more and more Dems every day. The left leaning Independents left him in droves long ago, he has thrown more groups of voters under the bush than you can shake a stick at, and, he is now peeing off the far left radicals because he has not done things fast enough top please them. Somehow I have doubts that the Commission members will stay married to the O if he is severly weakened, and is at big risk of losing to the Republican. Soros will not allow it to happen.

    But, the more unpopular the O is becoming, even with his ardent former cheerleaders, if they keep him as the D candidate, and that is a big if, they are looking to commit political suicide. If the R’s have a candidate that has wide appeal and support, the O will get his pink slip.

    Some time ago, the conservatives were favored by the majority, for the first time by 40%, the Libs garnered 20 something % in that same poll. In a recent poll, I believe 51% of those polled believe the Obama administration is too liberal. His far left policies and shove down your throat tactics have been a gift to the Republicans. Let’s just hope that the new crop of R’s in the House and Senate in 2010 will “lead” the way for Republican party reform, away from their go along to get along foolishness, and that they actually replace at least some of the Communists passed legislation, with something more akin to what the American people can/will accept.

    A lock in for the O- Ahhh, maybe not.

  • http://www.veronicaestrada.com/ Veronica

    isn’t an automatic guarantee for him and he senses the disputes within his own party.

    He senses the challengers gearing up — one of which would be Hillary, who seems to be the only one from that stinking Administration these days who’s willing to say something hard-lined against Tehran — nice little padding to her “moderate” resume.

    Moe, this was a great piece. I didn’t understand all of it or know what everything meant, but I know it’s very, very, very important, so I’ll be archiving it.

    Plouffe is trash. Obama was smart to put the guy back on the rolls once he came out with that “tell-all” and starting making the rounds on talk shows. Even if it didn’t include every golden nugget of Obama’s win, Obama didn’t want to give his canary the opportunity to squak.

    Killer of democracy, the lot of them.

    Backdoor dictators and tyrants.

  • bk

    they mean it needs to “reflect the will of the voters … if they vote as directed by the Democratic Party elite.” Case in point:

    The Commission also shall review the formulas for delegate allocation to assure that delegates are fairly allocated to accurately reflect the will of the voters and that the right of the delegates to reflect the sentiments of those who elected them shall be secured to all delegates.

  • IJB

    Sure, this system would massively shift the playing field in the incumbent’s direction if there is a long fought-out primary battle.

    But that’s not what’s likely to happen.

    What an insurgent needs to be able to to is simply win, or even just come *close*, in either NH, or Iowa (less likely).

    If Barry, say, loses NH, there seems very little chance that his support wouldn’t evaporate on the shop, and he’d have to head for the exits just as the humiliated Lyndon Johnson had to do in 1968.

    And, frankly, I think the odds of this scenario happening are actually pretty decent right now…

  • IJB
  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    “Will of the people” in the general election.

    And if the actual votes don’t go the way the Democratic party decision-makers think they should have gone, well just throw out the votes and decree the winner (keep an eye on S.C. to see if this happens).

    Or count and recount, finding new votes or inventing votes that they know should be there, until the “will of the people” (that only they know) can be expressed. Perhaps with a little street action to encourage the counters to shape up.

    Hey, works for Hugo, why not for Barack.

  • joshputnam

    These are the three points (understandably) that the Rules and Bylaws Committee had the most difficulty with at their meeting last month to begin codifying the rules for the 2012 Democratic nomination.

    The timing issue is complicated by the fact that so many states moved the dates on which their delegate selection events were scheduled in 2008. In total there are 19 states that are currently in violation of the proposed rules that both parties are putting forth at the moment. There are a lot of opportunities in there for Florida and Michigan type rogue states to emerge. Both national parties can craft whatever rules they wish, but the states have to implement those rules (or not), and states may not have the incentive to tow the parties’ lines on this one.

    As far as regional clustering is concerned, again, that would be up to the states to coordinate. There is no clear incentive structure to entice states to comply. This is something that would have to occur organically (ie: the Potomac Primary in 2008). And to suggest that clustering is a means of favoring the incumbent is misguided. That assumes that the national parties have complete control over where states schedule their primaries and caucuses. The parties have some control over that, but not complete control. Recall that New Hampshire, Wyoming, Michigan, Florida and South Carolina took the 50% delegate penalty from the GOP in 2008 so that they could hold their contests where they wanted. And the Florida-Michigan debacle is well documented on the Democratic side.

    The unpledged delegate reduction is going to be a tough one to sell. The bottom line is that DNC members (a group of unpledge delegates) are being asked to reduce their own significance. Without the president working behind the scenes to push a reform like that through (and Obama very well could do that. It is his commission after all.), this proposal may be dead on arrival. It was not greeted all that warmly by the Rules and Bylaws Committee last month.

    Obama and the Democratic Party are indeed intent on ensuring the president’s renomination. Their best bet to retain the White House is still to run the incumbent. And that will remain the case unless Obama’s numbers approach something akin to where Bush’s were during much of the final year of his presidency. Unless those numbers drop in a similar fashion, there will be no challenge to Obama by Clinton or anyone else. And that possibility didn’t even seem to be on the Rules and Bylaws Committee’s radar.

    Both parties look to tweak their rules for every cycle. The intent isn’t to rig elections so much as it is to produce the best possible candidate to both represent that party and to be successful in the general election. Obama is that candidate for the Democrats and the rules will be made accordingly. The Republican Party through its Temporary Delegate Selection Committee is also looking at its nomination rules as a means of producing the candidate that gives the party the best chance to take back the White House in 2012.

  • romeg

    with some of the contributors to this site.

    We seem to be losing the language. Some keep referring to the entity known as the Democrat Party and its members and supporters by using the word “Democratic”. It is misleading at a minimum and downright fraudulent in most instances.

    I’m all to aware that they whine about not having the “ic” appended to the end of their name but they do not call themselves “Democratics” as in “Hi. I’m Howard Dean and I’m a Democratic.”

    But most importantly, it creates the impression that there is actually something democratic in the way they go about doing things and it is here that the fraud gets perpetrated.

    There has been nothing even vaguely resembling “democratic” in the way Obamacare was passed. There is NOTHING even vaguely resembling “democratic” in the way that Cap and Trade is being shoved through the Congress and, I dare say, there is nothing on the Obama Agenda that has even a hint of democracy embedded anywhere within it.

    So, Please, I Implore you. They are Democrats. Their Agenda is the Democrat Agenda and they belong to the Democrat Party.

    Thank you

  • crosley

    The only way Obama gets thrown off the ticket is if things get Jimmy Carter-bad, like 20% interest rates and double digit inflation. If things are that bad, even a “fresh face” won’t save the Democrat Party in 2012. It will be like the 1980 election where it’s a done deal.

    I definitely want to run against Obama, but a strong Dem primary fight against him would definitely help our side. Just like Pat Buchanan bloodied up Bush Sr. or Kennedy with Jimmy Carter.

    My fear is our side has a nasty, drawn-out primary and we’ll be damaged goods by the time the general election comes around, while Obama just gets to raise massive amounts a money while we’re fighting each other.

  • http://www.dcworksforus.com Kenny Solomon

    That it’s not for 2016 instead of 2012 ?

    Remember……. The left doesn’t plan short-term things so thoroughly and 2012 is definitely short-term thinking for them.

    I’m just sayin’………..

  • clintonformccain

    No matter what they say, the media will line up to lick Obama’s boots during the 2012 election cycle. They will remind us daily that anyone who dares vote against him is a racist.

  • houstoneagle

    To Crossley: Good comment, too, just understand your fear will probably be realized, but that’s OK, we’ll be fine. It certainly beats having the establishment pick for us like they have done in the past. Whoever we nominate, except if it’s Romney, will beat Obama handily anyway. But only if we keep working hard.

  • renny

    by the time they got finished “recounting” the Coleman-Franken debacle (according of MN’s sec. of state). And , yet, Franken only won by 325 votes. Whadda joke. We have to stop dancing to the recount mambo.

    And in OH, little o’s people claimed 700,000 new voters had registered–which were so many the McCain campaign sued the sec. of state of OH to vet all the new “registrees.” The sec, of state argued, and this went to the Sup. Ct., that she had no staff or access to any process that could handle anything like nearly a million new voters in OH. She argued (I don’t know if she was ACORN) that it was better to let maybe up to 200,000 fraudulent votes count than disenfranchise one legal citizen voter. The Court agreed with her. And we have a conservative court?

    How many did little o win by in OH? 200,000 votes. What happened to the other 500,000? Who knows. Only 5000 more real people voted in OH in 2008 than voted in 2004. It was ALL A SHAM.

    They kept announcing 200,000 new voters in FL and 300,000 new voters in NM, just pipe dream numbers. The MSM wasn’t going to challenge them and the Dems. wanted to stir fear and loathing among Reps. not to bother with the whole process. In many ways, they really succeeded, because cons. stayed home in 2008 by the millions.

    Let’s not let that happen again.

    Ergo, we needn’t worry too much about what the idjit Dems. do in their primary or at their convention, we have to WORRY ABOUT GETTING A REPUBLICAN ELECTED WITHOUT MASSIVE CHEATING AND FRAUD in 2012 ourselves.

  • mark1957

    for Obama and the Left if he is unchallenged in the primaries. It will free up democrats to vote in the Republican primaries so that we end up with another John McCain for a challenger. Many states do not require you to declare party affilliation before voting in the primaries. This is why McCain ended up with the nomination, because to many Dems it didn’t matter if Hillary or Obama won so they were free to sway the Republican primary to get the weakest candidate possible as a challenger.

  • m_quick

    If they end up nominating someone weak because the process was rigged, how is that going to hurt us?

    I hope someone does run and Obama wins the nomination. Then all those supporters of the loser will see how the system was fixed to get Obama reelected. It will be 1968 all over again, except with Lyndon Johnson running for reelection. It will 1968 on steroids.

  • p3orion

    They lost the right to call themselves “democratic” when they used their super-delegates to correct things upon deciding the great unwashed masses had voted “incorrectly.”

  • soljerblue

    I have to wonder — assuming the “Plouffe Commission” is able to block any serious challenge to Obama in 2012 — whether the few rank-and-file Democrats once considered “Reagan Dems” will finally decide, as Reagan did, that the party left him, and shift their thinking and allegiance to the right. I think that is happening here in Alabama, although somewhat under the radar at the moment. As I see it, the Obamabots, with their loyalty to one man, their passion to block any and all challengers, especially Hillary, and their embrace of Chicago-style politics on a national level, may help maintain their man in office for awhile, yet ultimately do “their” party irreparable harm on a national scale.

    Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.

  • tlhanger

    With this in place the Democrats will sprial and burn. I know too many that are very unhappy with Barry and have already decided to vote for someone else. This should be fun.

  • tlhanger

    Make that “voters”