A year ago, frustrated with the failure of the newly empowered Democratic leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to do anything meaningful, I changed my party designation to independent. To be true, I have always voted my conscience and that included votes for Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and even once for the current occupant. Nevertheless, for an Irish Catholic brought up in traditional Democratic Party politics in New York, it was a big step to admit that I was now an independent.
Admittedly, this year’s cycle of presidential primaries made me question if being neither fish nor fowl was a good idea. Initially there were candidates galore. The Democrats seemed to have found a new inner force with aspirants from previously unrepresented social groups: African-American, Women and Latino in the persons of Obama, Clinton and Richardson. Their deliberations with Edwards and the counter-balancing main stream candidacies of Dodd and Biden, were exciting. There were for a time even others including the rather droll Mike Gravel, whose debating approach was characterized by Tim Russert as a family dinner when your eccentric uncle comes down from the attic. It was fun; it was politics; it was American.
In accordance with tradition we culturally went through the peculiarity of pot-luck supper caucuses in Iowa; the polling non-accord of New Hampshire; the bickering in South Carolina and for perhaps its first time, Nevada whose very name pronunciation was national news. Then the supposed non events in Florida and Michigan and finally the long awaited Super Tuesday. Even after all that, we appear to have a statistical tie: Obama and Clinton!
Having witnessed these interminable prefaces and the ensuing commentary from the leadership of the Democratic Party I am more convinced than ever that I was right to quit. Here’s why.
We welcomed proportional voting in the primary but clearly the party leadership did not trust the judgment of the masses. We now realize that there are non elected delegates, not chosen by the people but appointed by the party privileged largely because of Howard Dean’s insistence. Apparently in the Democratic Party, all men might well be created equal but some are more equal. They are the Super Delegates. The end result is that these people, largely elected officials, major contributors, back-room power brokers and, to use a word from my youth, ward healers, could actually be the ones to pick the final democratic candidate for president. So much for democracy or one man one vote and all that other stuff we learned in civics class.
There are voices calling for change. Donna Brazille, a respected member of the Democratic Party, a fellow at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, and an Adjunct Professor of Government at Georgetown stated yesterday that if the party allows the so-called super delegates to be the deciders in the nomination process, she will resign from the party. This is very meaningful not the least because she herself is a super delegate. Let us hope there are more with her convictions.
Chairman Dean pompously pronounced after the Super Tuesday results that irrespective of his previous declarations, the question of seating the delegates from Florida and Michigan would be decided by the Party’s Credentials Committee. In reality this is an assemblage selected proportionately by the leading candidates and augmented by twenty five members selected by the Party Chairman, Dean. So, after vilifying the state party leadership and forcing all candidates to sign a pledge that they would not campaign in these states, it appears that Chairman’s prerogative trumps fairness.
For some reason, the erstwhile physician, governor and devotee of Edvard Munch had elected to hold the quadrennial gathering of party faithful in September, a mere eight weeks before the national election. Would the possible become the probable? Woud there conceivably be a brokered convention? Could it be that the rights of the people to select candidates would actually be upheld? Alas, no.
Dean stated that he would not tolerate an open convention and if there was no winner, consensus or otherwise by the late spring he would meet with the leading candidates and knock some heads together to pick the ticket. This sounds more like a Mugabe or Putin form of democracy and makes you wonder why we even need a convention. Tradition I expect. But tradition of the party chairmen brings back memories of Jim Farley but only because he spent much of his time at Yankee Stadium. The names of most of the other chairman are about as well remembered as our ambassadors to Luxembourg.
The party of Jefferson and Madison; of Wilson and Roosevelt and Truman; of Kennedy and Johnson should be very discomfited in the realization that the actions of the current party leadership may well cause whoever is its candidate to fail to win back the presidency.
St Petersburg Florida
February 2008
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