So tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary and Bernie Sanders is expected to win it. He was supposed to have no chance in Iowa and came out even so tomorrows result might very well be absolutely awesome. So here's all about primaries, all about New Hampshire and all about Bernie.
A primary like a caucus is just part of the process each party has of nominating a candidate for the presidential election in November. Each state has its own rules and each party has its own rules, but what is unique to the US is that the primaries are organised by public authorities in the same way as elections rather than the parties themselves. In some states anyone can choose to vote in whichever primary they want and sometimes who you can vote for depends on the preference that you state when you register to vote. You can register for a party, or as an independent or decline to state. So in some places there are also Libertarian party candidates that you can nominate and in just few districts also Green party, so there really is very little protection against the kind of Entryism that was happening in the recent Labour Party election but that does not seem to be a worry. Only the Green party are telling their supporters that if they vote for Bernie in the Democratic primary they can't then stand for office for the green party at any level. (Yes expect an HOOOGE collaspe in the New England green party vote...from tiny to tinier).
The point of all this nomination process is to collect delegates committed to voting for you at the party convention in July (in Philadelphia for the Democrats and Cleveland for the GOP). So between now and then all the states get to vote in their own way. There has been a lot of wrangling especially in the 2012 election about changing who goes first, but on the whole the experts and the media agree that while we need a new plan that its good to have two small states first as a kind of bellweather and it allows candidates with less money to do relatively well because campaigning in a small state is cheaper. Of course as bellweathers go Iowa and New Hampshire are about as useful as a piece of seaweed in the desert because they are both very rural and not in tune with the metropolitan culture where all the votes really are. "New York" values goes down well in Iowa and early enough for everyone to have forgotten the phrase by June.
So in terms of numbers of delegates at the convention New Hampshire ought to be of marginal importance but the media pay so much attention to it and the candidates do all their campaigning there because it is believed that American like winners. Americans vote aspirationally, and losing, even coming second in a primary makes you a loser and who would aspire to be a loser? So the whole underdog thing that Brits like so much doesn't work here - unless your second name is Clinton. Famously in 1992 Bill Clinton was way behind in Iowa and in the polls in New Hampshire. The Genifer Flowers story broke about him having an affair and he and Hillary went on TV resulting in a surge to second place in the New Hampshire primary, a surge that carried them all the way into the White House. Hillary also in 2008 lost to Barack Obama in the Iowa caucus and was visibly shaken by the result (yes she cried but in a good way because it made her seem more human), and then she won in New Hampshire...but her comeback was not enough to counter the Barack Obama Yes We Can "you have done what the cynics said we couldn't do" narrative.
Bernie Sanders is expected to win tomorrow in New Hampshire and the Clinton campaign are dismissing this as because he 'comes from' the next state (He actually comes from New York but Vermont is is political home). Actually there is more to it than that: its because he has much greater name recognition in New England and because some of his differences with Clinton that come from his being senator of Vermont (such as his hesitancy on gun control and environmental responsibility) play really well in New Hampshire as a rural state.
I am surprised actually that British people haven't gotten much of a clue about Bernie Sanders. Somehow the international media only like to report about the marginal crazies in US politics on the right wing side. Not that he is marginal or crazy at all but the media here would like to portray him that way.
Bernie Sanders is old - although actually Clinton who is just a few years younger would also be the oldest president ever elected. He has been in politics for ever. Eight years as Mayor of Burlington in Vermont and then 16 years as a representative for Vermont in the House, and since 2008 he's been Senator for Vermont. As a politician he's a hard worker, he sits on loads of committees, he sponsors legislation and and works really hard to make laws better for working Americans. He does what he can to work with a other politicians and perhaps the best reason for him not to be president is that they will miss him in Congress.
He hasn't always been a Democrat by party affiliation. He has usually run as an Independent but voted with democrats in Congress. He identifies as a 'democratic socialist' which he describes as striving for something like Scandinavian social democracy. Of course the 'socialist' tag is very controversial here where it is not associated with the great traditions of the British Labour Party or with the French economic success of Mitterand's Parti socialiste but with Marxism and the communist planned economy of the Soviet bloc. Some people just hear 'Stalin'. But they weren't going to vote Democrat anyway.
He is a true radical - he was arrested in 1963 at a demonstration in Chicago - but actually as Mayor of Burlington he was actually quite pro -business and pro-development, even in one case going against the unions to support business. He is widely credited with running an economically successful city. Interesting that it turns out that radical socialists like Red Ken can be quite good mayors. What's more is that experience as mayor even of a small city is probably the best practice for the presidency because of the day to day nature of executive politics and their direct face to face access to stake holders. Like Ben Barber says - if Mayor's ruled the world...they would actually solve problems.
Maybe what seems a little crazy is why is he running for President? To begin with there was a strong feeling in Democrat circles that Hilary should not be crowned (or coronated as they say here) but that the primary process is an important part of honing out the campaign before you get to dealing with the Republicans. More than anything the Republicans started with 18 candidates which is a lot of people throwing money and soundbites at the media and without someone to campaign against Clinton would not get a word in edgewise. Secondly I think Sanders as a campaign from the left draws Clinton away from the center that she will have to occupy to win the election but might not be a good place to govern from. Part of the frustration on the left with Obama is his incessant insistence on trying to govern with bipartisan support which he was NEVER going to get. The orthodoxy from the 80's that you can only win by occupying the center simply allows the GOP who refuses to play the game to draw the entire political field to the right and the Sanders campaign counterbalances this and, like Obama's 2008 campaign, enthuses activists who really are not that interested in campaigning from center right. So even if Clinton comes out as the candidate, the Sanders' campaign has done a great job of showing that free education, campaign finance reform, environmental responsibility and income equality are policies that can garner a great deal of support.
The problem with the primary campaign is that it forces candidates to attack their own potential party nominees, who they will later have to support in a General Election just months away. In Sanders' case they even seem to be attacking the Democratic Party infrastructure that seems weighted against him but will have to put all its resources into to electing him if he wins the nomination. Sanders and Clinton have both worked really hard on avoiding negative campaigning and the usual bickering showing the Democratic debate to be so much more civil and substantive than the GOP. But now it looks like Sanders actually has a chance, the attack dogs are at least being taken out for a walk on a leach. The issue that has sparked outrage is campaign finance. While Sanders has been careful to only talk about his policies and not to knock Clinton he has been pointing out how much money she gets from Wall street. The Clinton campaign is trying to present this as a vicious and unfair attack. And the Sanders campaign is coming right back at your with Elizabeth Warren (oh if only she was running) keeping it real.
In truth Sanders may not have a super pac and may have raised an awesome amount of individual contributions but he has been spending lots of money that has come from major labor unions and other left thinking campaign groups. Of course in the primary, Clinton can't suggest there is anything wrong with getting union money (especially not in New Hampshire) but in the General Election this will be presented as 'special interest money'.
On the Republican side Trump is expected to win in New Hampshire and all eyes will be on who gets second, third and fourth place. The entire country is hoping that the candidates have heard the expression "Its win or go home" because they seriously need to winnow out the field and find a candidate that can rally an "anybody but Trump" vote. And also because the most entertaining meme of the process so far has been Stephen Colbert's Late Show bit "Hungry for Power Games" which he does every time someone drops out, although he did Jim Gillmore who didn't actually drop out but ought to and we are still waiting for him to do Santorum. So Wednesday night at 11.30 we will all be waiting for the next tribute to fall.
Hope you can watch the Colbert clip in the UK.
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