What some fail to understand about the rules and this campaign.

Drunken Irishman

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Wed May-21-08 09:31 PM
Original message

What some fail to understand about the rules and this campaign.

Edited on Wed May-21-08 09:36 PM by Drunken Irishman

When you're laying the foundation for a campaign, you build a strategy based around the rules and guidelines of the campaign. Every campaign has its own strategy to success and many campaigns have different paths to that success. Looking at the paths to victory for both Clinton and Obama shows a stark contrast in style.

Obama decided early on he would devote a lot of his time, effort and manpower to smaller states and caucus states. And why shouldn't he have, no rule from the DNC stipulated those voters and delegates were any less than that of big state primaries. Had the DNC ruled smaller states and caucus states could not count toward the delegate number, Obama's strategy would have dramatically changed for the primary campaign.

But since it was all within the rules, Obama put out an amazing ground game in Iowa, won that and during Super Tuesday, managed to win more pledged delegates than Clinton, even with losing the big prizes like New Jersey, Massachusetts and California. Clinton supporters and even the campaign themselves like to point to this fact to diminish Obama's success, saying many of these states would not vote Democratic anyway and many caucus states were undemocratic and favored the activists, so why should they count? Well they should count because that's what every campaign agreed on prior to this primary season. Clinton had her chance to criticize and question caucus states long before the first vote in Iowa, but she was silent. Not once, from January of 2007 when she kicked off her campaign, to January of 2008, did she raise any type of argument against caucus states. But now we hear from many that Obama's delegate lead should not count because he won many of them in caucus states and smaller states that probably won't go Democratic in the fall. Well who cares? These are the rules, rules that every candidate agreed on and no candidate questioned until one of them began losing.

Whether you agree with caucuses or not, they are permitted by the DNC as a way to select delegates. This is something every candidate knew and supported when they decided to run for the nomination. So Hillary can deny the caucus vote all she wants, but it doesn't change the fact that their delegates are just as valid as those from primary campaigns. And if she wanted it changed, she should have addressed this problem long before Iowa.

Now the second point of campaigning.

You can't count Michigan and Florida as is because they were not legitimate elections. No one knows how each state would have gone had the candidates been allowed to campaign there. Again, this is what ties back to the original rules in which EVERY campaign agreed on. Had the DNC decided to allow Michigan and Florida to move up their primary dates, I'm willing to bet Obama's campaign strategy -- along with Clinton's -- would have changed to fit their needs. A ) Obama's name would have been on the ballot in Michigan and B ) Obama would have campaigned there. That might not have been enough to win him Michigan, but it could have made it a far more competitive contest than it eventually came when Hillary was essentially running against her own self.

Now Florida is a bit different, but only because Obama's name actually appeared on the ballot. However, you can't justify those results when neither candidate stepped foot in that state. I know some would love to believe this makes the election more pure, because there is zero spin, but there's a reason they call it campaigning and for Obama, that was vital for him in Florida. Vital because Hillary Clinton is nearly universally known and while I don't doubt Obama had far more name recognition the week of the Florida primary than he did a year before, it doesn't change the fact he was never given the opportunity to show Floridians who he really was. To talk about policy, his background and what he wanted to do as president. Even at that point, not many people knew who Obama was outside of the fact he won Iowa and the endorsement of Ted Kennedy (the week of the Florida primary). That's not enough to endear yourself to voters and I think we can all agree had Obama spent even a week in Florida, he would have made somewhat of an impact in the polls. I concede Obama probably would not have won, but I don't think he would have lost as big as he did.

Ultimately, the reason I have a problem with Clinton's arguments is because I don't think Obama would have run the exact same campaign had the rules been altered. And why should he be the one punished for abiding by the rules? Because he built a stronger campaign utilizing what is an acceptable form of voting in the Democratic Primary process? That isn't right and I don't think we should reward Clinton because her campaign failed at a winning strategy within the Democratic Party rules.