Hillary Clinton
With the nominating contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama getting ever-tighter, there's a growing call -- mostly from Clinton partisans -- to allow Michigan and Florida primary results to count at the Democratic National Convention.
Hold the Michigan and Florida Democratic primaries again. The voters -- not the party insiders -- have the moral authority to choose the nominee. Democratic voters in Michigan and Florida should get that chance. Then in November, we'll have a fair fight. And I'll be honest -- it may not help the chances for a Republican victory in the fall. But it will help something even more important: the integrity of our political process.
Lately I find myself wondering: Why aren't more powerful Democrats in both the Obama and Clinton camps lobbying for a revote in Florida and Michigan? Is it simply about money? Sure, it would be expensive, but both candidates are raising money phenomenally.
And sure, the party would like to save some of that Democratic cash to fight John McCain in November. But I have to wonder, what's worse for Democrats: A protracted battle that results in a near-tie, with superdelegates carrying the day in Denver (leaving plenty of cash to fight McCain but one camp or the other furious), or a party whose coffers are maybe depleted (though I can't imagine that), but whose supporters know that democracy, though expensive, prevailed.
I'm not sure I can answer that question, but my gut tells me it's the latter.
Romney finally got his gold. Now what?
Mitt Romney is back.
The man whose father was once governor of Michigan won that state's primary, giving him a much-needed win in the race for the GOP nomination. And his aides are proclaiming his "Mitt-mentum."
Mitt Romney’s victory in Michigan is a testament to his remarkable elasticity. Having spent two years running as a social conservative, which he is not, he decided a week ago to run as a businessman reformer. It didn’t carry him over the threshold there, but it evidently has in Michigan — where, among other things, the Republican candidate seems to have made wildly un-Republican promises to use the powers of the federal government to restore, through some mystical spell, automotive-industry jobs to the suffering state.
Romney may not have won in Michigan so much as McCain lost it.
Now Romney is once again moving on from Michigan, just as he did when he left the state for school, a career, a family; for life, basically. By beating McCain here, he kept himself in the race and kept the field wide open. Three different candidates have won the first three contests.
To hear him tell it, Romney won in Michigan because voters are finally sick of a broken Washington. He's the candidate of the future, he says, not the pessimism of the past. But if his path to the White House is going to stretch longer than his father's did, Romney needs to prove he can keep winning -- even when the race moves to states where no one keeps the family's old memorabilia lying around.
A president, or a pastor?
Christian values usually features prominently in Mike Huckabee's stump speech. But Huckabee got specific in Michigan on Monday night, elaborating on his belief that the constitution needs to be amended.
"[Some of my opponents] do not want to change the Constitution, but I believe it's a lot easier to change the constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God, and that's what we need to do is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards," Huckabee said, referring to the need for a constitutional human life amendment and an amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Did Huckabee cross the bounds of American political discourse?
If I work really hard, I can just barely defend that remark, but jiminy, if that quotation is accurate, it's a disaster. In one sentence Mike Huckabee just:
Yes, he wants to amend the Constitution to reflect God's laws. American Taliban anyone? How long before adultery is punishable by stoning? And divorce? Forget about it. We should probably go ahead and cancel the NFL on Sundays too. Mike Huckabee's grand plan to save America is to save us all... one by one. The question is, are voters ready to be saved?
Sen. John McCain seeks conservative support.
With John McCain’s victory in New Hampshire and his surge in the polls going into today's Michigan primary, the Arizona senator has moved from struggling hopeful to serious contender to become his party’s standard-bearer. That, in turn, shines a spotlight on the policy differences between John McCain and his GOP colleagues.
There’s a reason some of John McCain's conservative supporters avoid discussing his record. They want to talk about his personal story, his position on the surge, his supposed electability. But whenever the rest of his career comes up, the knee-jerk reply is to characterize the inquiries as attacks. In fact, the McCain domestic record is a disaster.
By all accounts, Romney is basically a managerial technocrat interested in finance, the economy, and related issues. Put another way, he's interested in doing bad things that largely require legislation to be enacted. This means he's subject to the checks and balances of a Democratic Congress. Giuliani and McCain, by contrast, seem to be interested in doing bad things in foreign policy, where the president has considerable autonomy to deploy fighter jets and anger allies.
Mitt Romney hopes to win the state where his father was governor. But will Democrats taint the victory?
Pity Mitt Romney.
The Republican once seen as a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination has pinned his hopes on tonight's primary in Michigan. But even if he wins, there's no guarantee it will be because Republicans love him.
If you’re Obama or Edwards, you don’t want Democrats crossing over to play mischief in the Republican primary, as Hillary could easily throw more than 100 delegates onto her pile, which may or may not be counted later. (Pulling out of Michigan in accordance to the DNC’s wishes is going to look like a mistake on Obama’s part.)
It seems reasonable to conclude that a state that is 14 percent African-American may have some votes for Obama, and that a state with a workforce that is 21 percent unionized may have some support for the economic populism of Edwards. But since their names are not on the ballot, the best they can hope for is for Michigan Democrats to vote “uncommitted,” and for those uncommitted delegates to vote Obama or Edwards.
My view: Stay in your party. Vote for Hillary, if you like her. If not, do what Sen. Levin says and vote uncommitted, hoping that the DNC will ultimately seat Michigan delegates at the August primary. Dems can't in good conscience talk about election reform then go out and treat an election like it's a game. But that's just me.
