Why progressive states should go for an early presidential primary

Written by: Nora Engel on Feb 11, 2007 10:51 PM EST

To my fellow DFAers: 

Please give me a few minutes of your attention.

I just heard Terry McAuliffe say on TV (9:00 pm on Sun 2/11/07) that he "doesn't have any doubt that by the evening of Feb 5th, 2008, the Democrats will have their nominee for president."  Although I don't agree with much of what Terry McAuliffe (now chairman of Hillary's presidential campaign) says, I do agree with his prediction. So please read my little history below and see if you too do not agree that, in order not to render the Dems of MARYLAND politically impotent, Maryland also should move its primary date up from March 2nd to Feb 5th 2008.  

As you know, the Commission appointed by Terry McAuliffe has set in stone the states it deems the "deciders," the first four states that will vote for the Dem presidential nominee in 2008. And these four primo rural Repub states and the dates were ratified by the DNC this past Dec. They are: Iowa 1/14/08; Nev 1/19; New Hampshire 1/22, and South Carolina 1/29.  And "surprise," the other day Terry McAuliffe announced that he has become the Chairman of Hilary Clinton's presidential campaign. Do you think maybe these conservative states and this "sacred" order for the primaries could have been instituted for her benefit? 

But the big, more progressive Dem states have decided to fight back. And so should we Marylanders. The Washington Post, in its editorial (2/9/07) entitled "Primary Madness," said, "It's too late to stop the front loading in 2008." And they're right because state parties ARE fighting back (especially in the big states) and, any state that cares about whether its citizens have a say in who will be the next Dem presidential nominee, will also push up its primary so that the choice of it's rank-and-file Dems is not completely obliterated by the "Terry McAuliffe four."

So hooray for California, Michigan, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and other states with large bodies of progressive Dem voters. Their leaders have undertaken to respond to the Clinton-band wagonistas by pushing their primaries up to February 5th, the first date in 2008 on which they are permitted by the DNC to hold a presidential primary. The Dem leadership in those states are absolutely right in trying to make the votes of their citizens relevant and I strongly urge that Maryland do the same. Here's why:

If we don't, we, MD Dems, consign ourselves to having no say, none, zero, zip, in who will be the Dem presidential nominee in 2008. (Just remember how you felt in 2004, when Maryland voted in March, long after Howard Dean was out of the race and Kerry was a fait-a-compli). Did you feel good inside when you went to the polls? Did you even bother? So please rev up your attention span and bare with me for a little background on the politics of  the Dem presidential nominating process:

a) In the 1880s and 90s, when the Dem Party bosses were crude tycoons,  Boss Tweed of NYC said plainly  "I don't care who does the electing as long as I do the nominating."  And at that time and actually until 1976, there were very few Dem primaries (for any office) and, those that there were, were mostly in the Mid West, where populist Senator Bob La Follett of Wisconsin had brought democratic reforms to the region .

b) In 1968, the ugliness of the Dem presidential nominating process was visible for all to see on TV.  Mayor Daley ordered the cops to beat-up the peace demonstrators in the streets of Chicago and he cut off the microphones inside the convention for anyone who, like Sen Ribicoff of CT, supported the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. Few states had primaries in those days and the boss-picked delegations voted en-mass for Hubert Humphrey, a man who supported the war and went on to lose the election to Repub, Richard Nixon. 

c) In 1972, when the Vietnam war was raging and tens of thousands of soldiers were dying, Sen Geo McGovern (D-SD), our "peace candidate," managed to win the Dem nomination when the Party establishment determined that the nomination was worthless and that they'd just as soon have Repub Richard Nixon as president again.

The Dem Party and the AFL-CIO abandoned McGovern the morning after the convention and the nomination was rendered worthless. Nixon, soon to be of Watergate fame, won the election and McGovern, abandoned by the Dems, lost every state except Massachusetts. I was there. In CT we won a city-wide "show primary" for McGovern; (there was no such thing as a statewide presidential primary then). It was a June-farce but I was appointed by the State Chairman as a sop to the progroessives and I was one of a handful of McGovern delegates from CT. From that experience we all learned how the system really operated.

d) In 1973 a national Dem Party commission was established (at the urging of defeated Sen McGovern) to revamp the Dem presidential nominating process. There were 50 commissioners, one from each state, and the Chairperson was Barbara Mikulski, then a city councilwoman in Baltimore. I, a city councilwoman in Norwalk, CT, was appointed as the CT member of the Commission. We held hearings across the country and, for the first time in history, wrote a set of rules to govern the Dem presidential nominating process. 

    (a) The first mandate we gave the state parties was that: (a) every state Dem Party must give "full, meaningful, and timely opportunity for all Democrats to participate in the presidential nominating process." And, for the first time in history, state parties were told that no delegation would be seated that failed to abide by the Commission's rules. And we weren't kidding.

    (b) We required that all state parties hold "timely" presidential primaries (or caucuses) and that mandate continues today, except for the special status accorded recently to the four Republican states of Iowa, NH, Nev, and S. Carolina.  

    c) We outlawed winner-take-all primaries and the delegates to succeeding national conventions had to be elected either by caucus or by primary and apportioned in accordance with the vote for presidential candidate in the states, respectively. No longer could the party bosses just haul a delegation of henchmen to vote as the boss ordered.

    d) The delegates had to be equally divided between women and men, and Blacks and Hispanics had to have numbers in the delegation proportionate to their percentage in the state's population. These were called "affirmative-action add-on delegates" and had to be added on  proportionally to the delegations of each of the major candidates. No more all-white delegations.

    e) As far as I know, all of these requirements continue to this day although their function (to give rank-and-file Dems the nominating power) was somewhat blunted when, in recent years, the DNC intervened in the process and voted to give priority to the two white, rural, Republican states of Iowa and New Hampshire. Why was that done? Because, like the Repubs, the Dems in small Repub states tend to be more conservative. The other thing that blunted the effect of the mandate for primaries was the provision that allowed each state to "add on" delegates (now up to 20% and even 30%of the delegation). These are usually elected officials, who need not declare their choice for presidential nominee at the time of their selection. So, if a state goes 1/3 Hilary, 1/3 Edwards, 1/3 O'Bama, the "add-on" delegates can choose the winner

    (f) This year, the DNC added Nev and SC to Iowa and NH,  and now four small Republican  states are allowed to front-load the process with conservative-leaning Dem delegates to the nat'l convention. Ask yourself why the DNC didn't, for example, choose Maryland, a small but progressive Dem state with a percentage of Blacks in the population approximately equal to S. Carolina's. (MD has 28.1% Black pop; S.C. has 29.8%). The answer is: MD's Dem population is significantly more progressive than South Carolina's. So we now have four (instead of two) conservative, rural, Republican states up to bat first.

6) While we cannot counter those first four states directly, it is heartening that at least four large states (each with two relatively progressive Dem U.S. senators), like California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Michigan, are moving their primary dates forward. Now these states will have greater influence on who the Dem presidential candidate will be, hopefully outweighing the DNC's anointed conservative-four.  I urge that Maryland join these other progressive states in holding its primary too on Feb 5th.  Please let's not get left back in oblivion yet again.

Personally, I fought for many years for rank-and-file Dems to have a meaningful vote in the presidential nominating process and I'm not about to throw it over board now. I, personally, have not yet decided whom I'm supporting for the Dem presidential nomination, but if you care about giving progressive Dems a fair say in who nominee will be, please contact me at nnengel@yahoo.com  I'm interested in your views. And thanks for reading this to the end.     

Regards, Nora

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Location: MD