Behold the Marathon Primary Season (D)

by Ali-Asad

"A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman, of the next generation"
James Freeman Clarke

Iowa has come and gone. Obame, Huckabee and McCain are up while Hillary, Edwards and Romney are down. People turned out in droves and voted overwhelmingly for ‘change’. Perhaps the caucus result had less to do with change than the ‘Obama phenomenon’. Looking back, we may pin the ‘agent of change’ label on Huckabee but his win in Iowa really underscored the support among evangelicals for the self-described ‘Christian Leader’. Mitt Romney came up with the second-best line of the caucus night: “This is the first inning of a 50 inning race”. For better or worse, he is right.

Don’t be fooled by Obama’s insistence that a vote for him in New Hampshire will secure the nomination. All politicians need to motivate their supporters; Obama is especially good at this motivation. And yes, a win in New Hampshire will increase his momentum tremendously. But at the earliest, the nomination will be decided by February 5th and, at the latest, at a brokered convention in late August. Let me explain. February 5th is the date over 20 states will hold their primaries. And these states have a lot of delegates up for grabs: California, New York, New Jersey etc. In a competitive primary race, the candidates need to do well in these states. Why? There are two important facts to keep in mind: Hillary has a lot of money and Obama is not the only change candidate. With over $100 million in the bank and just as great determination, Hillary Clinton will do everything she can to win this nomination. And so she will compete all the way up to February 5th and try to win as many delegates as possible. But you would think that if Obama has the momentum he will win all those states and take their delegates; not true. Delegates are allocated somewhat proportional to the vote. For example, even though Obama beat both Edwards and Hillary by 8 % points, he received only one more delegate than Hilary. The final delegate count was;
Obama – 16
Hillary - 15
Edwards – 14
- An extremely close battle.

Now I hear you say that Obama just needs to win a plurality in most of the primary states and he’ll be fine. Not so. For the democrats, there are 4,049 delegates up for grabs, and so to win a candidate needs the support of 2,050. But not all these 4,049 delegates are directly elected through the primaries; 796 are superdelegates (these include members of congress, party officials etc). These delegates do not have to go for the currently winning candidate. In fact, so far, most superdelegates have declared their support for Hillary. My point? In a close race Hilary could secure enough delegates to win the nomination without actually having to win in most of the primaries; she just needs to keep close. But this is an unlikely situation only made possible by one man: John Edwards.

Edwards’s performance in Iowa has made it clear that he is the other candidate for change. However, he does not have the level of support or infrastructure that Obama and Hilary have acquired. Many democrats agree with his message of change, and not just any kind of change; real change that will result by taking on corporatism and special interests. But this is a losing message in a general election against any republican candidate; recall the outcome of Al Gore’s shift towards populism in the 2000 election. So, as time goes on, Edwards supporters will realize that Obama is their man. But Edwards is not letting them go. He insists that he will fight all the way. This will only result in splitting the change, anti-Hillary vote, and may end up denying Obama a true majority in the primaries and the delegates contest. In this case, Edwards will be under pressure to through his support to Obama. But not if Hillary has any say. She will put a significant effort towards courting Edwards by possibly offering him the Veep slot (what a bad move that would be!). And so we come to the possibility of a brokered convention where Obama has a plurality of delegates but not the 2,025 to secure the nomination outright. Obama may need to offer Edwards a deal to secure the nomination. Or perhaps, by then, the party will have thrown their support behind Obama and dashed Hilary’s dreams. But that outcome is extremely unlikely. This contest will not come to a swift conclusion. Watch this space.

And that's jus' the tip.

References

Primary Results for Iowa, CNN Election Center

Delegates Scorecard, CNN Election Center