I haven't commented to date on Charles Djou's (R-HI) remarkable victory in the special election to replace Congressman Neil Abercrombie (D-HI-1), whom resigned to run for governor. Hawaii has a special open special election process, top vote getter wins. Former Congressman Ed Case (D-HI-2), a moderate, competed against state senate president Colleen Hanabusa, a liberal with traditional interest group support. Case in 2006 unsuccessfully sought to unseat Senator Akaka. Djou got about 40% with Hanabusa narrowly edging Case over the remaining votes. The conventional spin is that Djou is the Michael Patrick Flanagan (whom defeated scandal-ridden Rostenkowski in 1994 but was thrashed by Blago in 1996) of 2010, that whoever gets the singular Dem nod this fall will swamp Djou this fall. I think that's a very superficial reading of the election. The first district has a military base and is more well to do, and incumbents regularly have an edge with fellow Asian American voters. Moreover, the one local election Djou has lost was by less than 200 votes in 1998, with his winning the rematch. There are reasons why I think Djou will be very competitive this fall, beyond voter backlash against Democratic failures on the economy and an escalating federal debt. Say, for instance, Hanabusa faces Djou this fall. Djou's moderate stands will appeal to many of those conservative to moderate Democrats and independents supporting Case. And it's hard to see how Case, who probably would be the more electable Democrat, would win the party primary with most of the establishment Democrats against him, and even if he got the nod, he could lose a significant percentage of the ethnic vote to Djou. All Djou needs to do is pick up 1 in 6 voters from the opposition. (That and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks. After all, I thought in an anti-incumbent year with liberal groups gunning to topple Lincoln, the more centrist Lincoln would lose the runoff.)
The reason I brought up the special election--and Ed Case's third place finish--is to underscore a key reason why Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and others strongly pushed for the open primary approach. The idea is that special interest groups tend to support more ideologically pure candidates (unless a candidate has the advantage of fame, such as Schwarzenegger's movie star credentials, or resources, such as former CEO's Meg Whitman (R-CA), Mike Bloomberg (I-NY), Linda McMahon (R-CN), or Mitt Romney (R-MA)). Schwarzenegger sees himself as a moderate, able to broker between liberals and conservatives.
The basic idea behind California's enacted Proposition 14 is to ensure that the two candidates with the broadest appeal face off in (non-Presidential) fall elections; a closed primary system eliminates the impact of non-party voters in choosing candidates. However, party primaries are often won by candidates with more motivated ideological supporters. One classic example was Ned Lamont's anti-war campaign against former national Veep candidate Joe Lieberman where Lamont barely beat Lieberman in the primary, but Lieberman won the general election as an independent going away. Another example was Arlen Specter's decision to switch parties last year, knowing he couldn't beat the more conservative Toomey for the GOP nomination. A third example is the current Florida US Senate campaign, where popular governor Charlie Crist was begged by party leadership to abandon his gubernatorial reelection plans in order to ensure the Democrats didn't capture the US Senate seat, from which incumbent Mel Martinez resigned. Tea Party activists, angry with Crist's support of the Obama stimulus package, flipped Crist's original huge lead over largely unknown Marco Rubio, despite polls showing Crist much more electable than Rubio versus the Democratic opposition.
The core objection to open primaries come from the concept of political diversity; it would make it almost impossible for third-party candidates, like Ross Perot or former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, to emerge. You could get two ideologically similar candidates, not providing the voters a real choice. The parties also oppose it not only because it undermines the whole concept behind political parties, but it also makes it possible for the opposition in party majority districts or states to manipulate the election, the sort of thing you often see in reality TV shows, like Survivor. For example, if it was Florida, if Marco Rubio had not won because of the Tea Party endorsement, liberal activists may have launched an operation to inflate Rubio's numbers to avoid running against the stronger general election candidate, the incumbent governor.
In concept, the Supreme Court supported open primary systems, so long as the open primary doesn't dictate the nomination of the party candidate. The general pros and cons are well-known (see the above cited source), but I want to state objections differently than others have.
I think it undermines checks and balances; this is a key reason why I strongly oppose the direct election of the President. Overnight you would see a shift away from less populous regions or states towards maximizing vote counts--meaning large metropolitan areas. You could end up with something like the 2004 and 2008 Democratic Presidential primary campaigns where candidates were barely distinguishable on litmus test issues; you had candidates competing on which candidate was more pro-abortion choice or which candidate first spoke out against the liberation of and honorable withdrawal from Iraq. The only "moderate" was the failed 2004 candidacy of Joe Lieberman, whom waited out Gore's decision on whether to make another attempt and then found himself undermined by Gore's subsequent endorsement of Howard Dean, before the infamous Iowa scream destroyed his candidacy.
In fact, I think elections have consequences for political parties. Goldwater's landslide loss resulted in more moderate nominees Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. McGovern and Dukakis' blowout losses yielded in the nominations of moderate Southern governors Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. If Democrats end up holding Nevada and taking Florida's Senate seat, both which would have been locks if Sue Lowden and Charlie Crist had been nominated by the GOP, perhaps we'll see the GOP look to reform its nomination processes. You would have thought they learned something in the aftermath of losing NY-23 and not taking Murtha's old seat.
But more to the point of Schwarzenegger's suggestion that more moderate or centrist candidates are better legislators or leaders: I have doubts about that. It seems to me under the open primary scheme, candidates will not be that anxious to do or say something that goes beyond mere incremental change at best for fear of offending the majority of voters. Can you imagine a centrist candidate talking about compromises in resolving entitlement solvency that cuts benefits or increases taxes? A more defined candidacy increases transparency to the voter. Schwarzenegger is confusing process with the vision of leadership. (Have we learned nothing from Obama's embarrassingly bad performance in office?) Of course, negotiation is an important process; some politicians, in particular, Ronald Reagan, were both principled and pragmatic.
What I think needs to happen is to take power away from the activist and give it the party faithful. The following suggestions aren't necessary meant to be a panacea, but simply indicative of the kind of reforms I'm suggesting: We could mail out open voting period ballots to all registered party members (just like the Oscar's) (and/or electronic voting). Independents who wished to vote would be required to choose a party ballot on the official primary date (or obtain an absentee ballot processed against voter rolls for eligibility). A second method might to include a nomination process where primary results are factored in with party leadership preferences and candidate polls against the opposition (e.g., just like Billboard charts reflect a multi-factor process involving sales and air play).
Palin, Obama and Talking to BP
I have a visceral dislike of populist, sound bite focused or pandering politicians like Obama and Palin. For example, hopefully Obama has learned by now in dealings with Iran that kinder, gentler, more inclusive diplomacy means nothing to a theocratic regime which has no problems with killing or jailing its protesting citizens, arming radical Palestinians, or furnishing IED components to insurgents seeking to kill or maim American solders.
It's true that Barack Obama has exposed himself to serious criticism for refusing to see (until next week) the BP CEO several weeks after the Deepwater Horizon tragedy and ongoing oil leak. Really, what do we expect from a meeting with Obama? Did we forget a few weeks back that he decided to leave a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to eat dinner with his family? I guess we know where the Middle East peace process lies on his list of priorities... And, oh yes, he had two widely-publicized photo ops with GOP House members on a retreat and with a small bipartisan group of legislators for a one-day summit on health care.
Of course, Obama never learned the real lessons of Katrina, in particular, analysis paralysis by government bureaucrats and turf wars. Long before the oil spill, I criticized Bush on Katrina for failing to act first and apologize later. It was like he was thinking, "Well, I used to be a governor, and I know how feel if the federal government tried to railroad me..." We had nonsense going on like Governor Blanco's National Guard troops keeping supply relief from getting down into New Orleans, Ray Nagin refusing to order an evacuation when that was required by earlier contingency planning... So this President Obama, claiming he is the environmental President, takes weeks to come to a decision to okay in part Governor Jindal (R-LA)'s urgent request for sand barriers to protect the fragile wetlands while oil continued its path towards the coast. And now we're finding there hasn't even been a waiver of the Jones Act (e.g., for foreign vessels and manpower to assist with the cleanup). Although, of course, there was a waiver of the Jones Act in the aftermath of Katrina... And Obama is defensively insisting that there's nothing he can do--he doesn't have BP's technology, etc.
Sarah Palin is willing to have Obama some advice on how to deal with BP. Newsweek has an interesting post indicating her noted achievement of a natural gas pipeline and jawboning the big oil companies (including BP) was mostly political posturing (since many Alaskans feel that Big Oil's gains are at their expense). So the Canadian company that won the pipeline project is quietly partnering with Exxon Mobil--which has the natural gas. I seriously doubt that Obama needs any help from Sarah Palin on political spin.
As for FNC's slobbering love affair with all things Sarah Palin, I've never been able to understand her appeal to my fellow conservatives, because her political spin doesn't match her actions. Probably the thing they like most is that she drives progressives absolutely crazy. The following sarcastic comments from MJ are spot on:
Palin would make a fine Republican nominee for president. Her record includes raising taxes on corporations, seizing oil company profits and redistributing oil company wealth to Alaska's citizens, expanding the Alaskan government by creating a climate change task force, and taking in Billions of dollars in earmarks from the federal government.As an aside, I normally wouldn't discuss women's breasts in a political post, but there is a current controversy going on over whether Sarah Palin has had breast augmentation surgery, and I heard her deny the rumor twice on FNC. Sarah Palin has always dressed conservatively when I've seen her. I don't know why anyone would think a married woman with 4 kids suddenly decides in her 40's to get a boob job. There are lots of things that can account for the illusion of a size difference--the angle of the camera, minimizing or tighter-fitting clothing, etc. But a lot of people also forget that one of the embarrassing photos to come out after her Veep selection was a college-age picture of a shirt she was wearing, saying "I may be broke, but I'm not flat-chested." But remember the Hillary Clinton cleavage kerfuffle? The real boobs are the idiots whom originally report this nonsense.
Political Cartoon
Lisa Benson points out that listening Obama speak is like listening to your grandfather repeat the same jokes and stories for the umpteenth time, only not as charming. "I inherited the worst...", "...8 years of [fill-in-the-blank]". Been there, done that...
Quote of the Day
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
Abraham Lincoln
Musical Interlude: Chart Hits of 1962
Isley Brothers, "Twist and Shout"
Brian Hyland, "Sealed With a Kiss"
Neil Sedaka, "Breaking Up is Hard to Do"
Peter, Paul, and Mary, "If I Had a Hammer"
