2008 President

Maybe one of the most intriguing – and nefarious – aspects of this long-running Democratic presidential campaign is that the legitimacy of the system itself has come into question. Doubts, to be sure, have been raised about the role of the unelected “superdelegates”. But the campaign of Hillary Clinton has fingered a different villain for its greatest contempt – namely, the caucuses, which it claims are undemocratic as well as unrepresentative. They argue that her hard-working, blue-collar base was largely disfranchised by the sometimes awkward caucus meeting times. The ire of the Clinton forces is a bit understandable. While the New York senator has run close to even with Barack Obama in the primary states, she has lost decisively to him in virtually all of the caucuses. The latter constitute a large share of her deficit in both delegates and popular vote which could in the end be her margin of defeat. It is ironic that such a small slice of the nominating process could prove to be so decisive. For in size, the caucuses are much like the tip of an iceberg. In recent elections, about 35 to 40 states have held primaries. The rest have scheduled caucuses (with

Forget about soccer moms and NASCAR dads. The key voting bloc in 2008 is the white working class. According to the new conventional wisdom of American politics, the presidential candidate who can win the support of white working class voters will have the inside track on becoming the next president of the United States. Moreover, the support of this group is considered especially critical for the Democratic candidates since the white working class was a key component of the electoral coalition forged by Franklin Roosevelt during the New Deal. For Democrats to regain their dominant position in American politics, according to this argument, they must first regain the loyalty of the white working class. It’s an appealing story and one that the Democratic presidential candidates appear to believe. Lately both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have been spending lots of time on the campaign trail trying to woo white working class voters by promising to renegotiate trade agreements and bring back good paying blue collar jobs in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. There’s just one problem with this story. It’s not 1936 or 1948 any more. It’s 2008 and those good paying blue collar jobs are not coming back.

As Barack Obama prepares to move from the primary to the general election phase of the 2008 presidential election, he faces a new challenge which combines both – to bring many of the states where he suffered primary losses this winter and spring into the Democratic column this fall. Obama has expressed confidence that he can hold Democratic mainstays such as California and New York, as well as strongly compete in battleground states such as Pennsylvania and Ohio – all places he lost decisively in the Democratic primaries to Hillary C linton. But his ability to actually carry these states is another matter, and if he is to succeed, he will need to prove himself a coalition builder of the first magnitude. Any half decent candidate is going to carry their party’s strongholds, whether they won the state in the primary season or not. But it takes a special candidate to win electoral votes in more problematic terrain where they have come up empty in the spring . Ronald Reagan was such a candidate; so was Bill Clinton. And Obama has shown the grit and political skills this primary season that could make him a third. But first, the daunting

The presidential Democrats may still be tussling, but soon the national focus will turn to the vice presidential selection frenzy. The Crystal Ball has long discussed the possible candidates on both sides, but which contender should each nominee select? The Crystal Ball does not endorse or support any candidate for any office, but we asked two veteran, skilled political observers to argue, from their perspective, which possible Veep ought to be chosen by Barack Obama and John McCain. (Should Hillary Clinton somehow manage to upset Obama’s applecart, we’ll publish a similar piece from her perspective.) Thanks to the distinguished political scientist Professor Gerald Pomper of Rutgers University, whose piece appears below, and the lively and talented writer Kathryn Lopez of National Review, whose coulmn you can read by clicking here, for their essays. –Larry J. Sabato Virginia Senator James Webb should be the Democratic candidate for vice-president. Senator Barack Obama is close to winning the Democratic nomination for president. His overwhelming victory in North Carolina and virtual tie in Indiana, with a forthcoming tide of superdelegates, will bring him within a hundred votes of the nomination. Obama has victory in sight, unless the iron laws of arithmetic are repealed by

The presidential Democrats may still be tussling, but soon the national focus will turn to the vice presidential selection frenzy. The Crystal Ball has long discussed the possible candidates on both sides, but which contender should each nominee select? The Crystal Ball does not endorse or support any candidate for any office, but we asked two veteran, skilled political observers to argue, from their perspective, which possible Veep ought to be chosen by Barack Obama and John McCain. (Should Hillary Clinton somehow manage to upset Obama’s applecart, we’ll publish a similar piece from her perspective.) Thanks to the lively and talented writer Kathryn Lopez of National Review, whose column appears below, and the distinguished political scientist Professor Gerald Pomper of Rutgers University, whose piece you can read by clicking here, for their essays. –Larry J. Sabato For Mitt Romney, the suspension of his campaign at the Conservative Political Action Committee conference two days after Super Tuesday marked the beginning of a new and promising campaign. As he ended his quest for the Republican presidential nomination, he staked for himself a position as leader for the conservative future. It’s a good position to be in for a potential 2012 run for

Give Hillary Clinton credit. She has shown toughness, stamina, and persistence in one of the longest presidential campaigns in American history. She has fought hard and come back time and again in the 2008 primary season, defying the pundits who insisted on writing her political obituary prematurely. She has held the charismatic phenomenon named Barack Obama almost to a draw in the fight for votes and delegates in the Democratic Party’s nominating battle. As some of Obama’s weaknesses become more apparent — and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright continues to bask in the spotlight — her arguments are drawing new attention, and Democratic leaders are considering them. It’s easy to see why. Imagine if John F. Kennedy’s priest or bishop had proven divisive and taken the public stage in 1960, claiming the campaign had become an attack on the Catholic Church, just as Rev. Wright has insisted that the controversy over his sermons are an assault on the “black church”. There would have been no JFK presidency. All that being true, the odds remain long that she will overcome Obama’s lead. With just seven states (plus Puerto Rico and Guam) remaining on the primary schedule, Obama is ahead by close to

Barack Obama caused quite a stir a fortnight ago when he told a suburban San Francisco fund raiser that small-town Pennsylvania voters were “bitter” about their economic plight. As a consequence, he added, “they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them…” As political comments go, it was a self-inflicted “twofer”. Not only was Obama’s sociological analysis delivered in a place synonymous with permissive liberalism, but also it raised questions about the candidate’s sensitivity to the lives of the hard-working, small-town voters that he was so intensively trying to woo. Yet as controversial as they were, Obama’s remarks basically have reflected the contours of his vote-getting appeal. By and large, he has succeeded thus far by rolling up the vote in urban areas with their large minority population, and penetrating populous white-collar suburbs and the growing exurbs beyond. Yet in many places where new subdivisions give way to countryside, the Obama vote noticeably begins to ebb. There, his only consistent support has come from the occasional oases of academe that dot the rural landscape. Al Gore showed back in 2000 that a Democrat can narrowly win the fall popular vote with the cities and a

Democratic leaders are becoming increasingly worried about the long-term consequences of the drawn-out and contentious presidential nomination race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In the past few weeks a number of prominent Democratic elected officials, including Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, have called on Hillary Clinton to consider ending her campaign in the near future on the grounds that by staying in the race she is damaging the party’s chances of winning the presidency in November. Pundits and journalists have also argued that the extended nomination battle between Clinton and Obama is allowing the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, to get a head start on the general election campaign while the two Democrats are training their fire on each other. Recent public opinion polls appear to support the argument that the extended nomination battle between Clinton and Obama is helping John McCain. Despite a national political climate that is very unfavorable for the Republican Party due to President Bush’s low approval ratings and an economy that appears to be on the verge of a recession, John McCain has been either leading or running even with both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in recent

It’s obvious to just about everyone that, at least theoretically, the Democrats have a near-perfect climate for presidential victory in 2008. A deeply unpopular Republican President is mired around 30 percent in the polls; last week, Bush was at 28 percent, a couple points higher than Richard Nixon on the day he resigned. Bush hasn’t seen majority backing in three years or even a miserable 40 percent support level in two years. General Petraeus’ optimism notwithstanding, a large majority of Americans believe that the Iraq war wasn’t worth fighting and should be phased out as soon as reasonably possible. The economy has tanked, gas prices are through the roof, and an incredible eight in ten Americans think the country is seriously off on the wrong track — usually a death knell for the White House party. John McCain, as the nominee of the Republican Party, is saddled with the legacy of the 30 percent President. He spends much of his time defending and advocating the out-of-favor Iraq War. He admits that he knows relatively little about economics and hasn’t focused on the subject during his decades in Congress. If elected, McCain would be the oldest first-term President, but this appears

One of the basic themes of the long-running Democratic nominating campaign between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton speaks to the need for a new era in American politics. But increasingly it seems as though their race could be decided by a method quite old–a decision by the convention credentials committee that is voted up or down on the convention floor. Why is that? Because the Clinton-Obama battle could very well be decided by the fate of Florida and Michigan, two states currently denied representation because they violated party rules by holding January primaries. Clinton won the unsanctioned events but thus far that has settled nothing. Virtually everyone agrees that delegates from the two states, both vitally important to the Democrats in the fall, should be seated. But “how” is the rub. The candidates cannot agree, nor can party leaders find common ground for a solution. Hence, the growing specter of the credentials committee. It is the court of last resort in the nominating process, the place where politics is at its rawest and the stakes are the highest, because which candidate’s delegates are seated on the convention floor often determines who wins and who loses. In the fight for power,

Dr. Alan Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, and the author of Voice of the People: Elections and Voting Behavior in the United States (2004, McGraw-Hill). It is becoming increasingly clear that the outcome of the Democratic presidential nomination will hinge on the votes of the party’s so-called superdelegates, elected officials and party leaders who are automatically entitled to attend the Democratic nominating convention regardless of the results of the primaries and caucuses. Right now Barack Obama has a fairly comfortable lead over Hillary Clinton among delegates elected in the primaries and caucuses. According to the realclearpolitics.com website, as of March 26th, Obama had the support of 1414 pledged delegates to 1247 for Clinton, giving him a lead of 167 pledged delegates. But because of Democratic rules requiring proportional allocation of delegates, it now appears impossible for either candidate to reach the magic number of 2025 delegates needed to win the nomination by the end of the primary season in early June. That means that the nomination will be decided by the 795 superdelegates. At the moment Hillary Clinton holds a modest lead among those superdelegates who have declared their support for a

Wesley Little is the Political Chair for Washington & Lee University’s “Mock Convention”, the nation’s most accurate mock convention since its inception in 1908, and a political columnist for several Virginia news papers, including the News Advance and the News-Gazette. Even as the Obama and Clinton campaigns fight frantically to establish the appropriate yard-stick by which to judge the will of the American people, one fact has been largely ignored: Obama’s significant delegate lead is largely a product of the Democrats ‘ unique delegate allocation system. A remnant of the bitter convention of 1968 and the McGovern-Fraser Commission that followed, Democrats now award their presidential convention representatives in a proportional manner, under which delegates are given to all those surpassing certain percen tage thresholds. We have to wonder, what would the race look like if the Democrats used the same “winner-take-all” system used in the Republican Party? The results are quite surprising, to say the least. Table 1. Pledged Delegate Totals Using Hypothetical “Winner Take All” System Barack Obama Hillary Clinton Still to Come TOTAL 1260 TOTAL 1427 TOTAL 566 Alabama 52 Arizona 56 Guam 4 Alaska 13 Arkansas 35 Indiana 72 American Samoa 3 California 370 Kentucky 51 Colorado

John F. Kennedy was correct about life and politics when he famously said, “Life isn’t fair.” Not only is politics unfair, it may be the least fair part of life. In many election years, if we had blue-ribbon selection panels charged with considering only the qualifications and likely performance of potential presidents, governors, and senators, the list of winners would likely be quite different from the ones actually elected by the voters. But that’s not the way democracy works, and people learn to live with their mistakes–and maybe even learn not to repeat the same mistakes. Part of politics’ unfairness is also the constant criticism that cascades down upon each candidate from every conceivable direction. Yet the critics are often wrong. For example, Republican nominee John McCain came under fire for his multi-nation, mainly taxpayer-funded trip through the Middle East and Europe. Obviously, the event served his political interests. McCain’s bestriding the world stage with other presidents and prime ministers beats the heck out of the petty Democratic in-fighting dominating the stateside news. Still, to call this a junket was to miss the point. The taxpayers would be lucky to be gouged by all the candidates, if they would take

This week’s detour into the murk of racial politics underlines that it’s going to be a long, hard slog on the Democratic side. The next opportunity for Democrats to resolve their deadlock will come in June, once the primaries are over and every state (and territory) has had its say. And that is actually good news in a way. For once, Iowa and New Hampshire didn’t get to pick the nominees by themselves, though they certainly still had too much influence for small, unrepresentative states–and they winnowed out some outstanding candidates too quickly. On the surface of it, and the surface view is often the best view, Barack Obama is still the Democratic favorite over Hillary Clinton. The strong likelihood is that he will emerge as both the pledged delegate frontrunner (leaving the superdelegates aside), and the popular vote winner, once all the tallies from Democratic primaries and caucuses are included. The superdelegates, reason the Obama forces, will not overturn the popular-vote and elected delegate choice, for to do so risks a party conflagration. This is a powerful argument, and the current odds are that it will prevail, given the 2000 Democratic mantra of “let every vote count”. But it

As the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama approach the ides of March, they are virtually tied in the Democratic primary vote count. Include results from the unsanctioned contests in Florida and Michigan and Clinton leads by less than 80,000 votes out of almost 30 million Democratic primary ballots cast. Exclude these unsanctioned results and Obama is ahead by more than a half million votes, a lead which grows if caucus votes are added to the mix. Boosted by record Democratic turnouts this year, each candidate has already won more primary votes than any other presidential nominee in the nation’s history. In the sanctioned primaries alone, the individual vote total for each has surpassed 12 million. That is higher than the number received by the previous high primary vote-getter, George W. Bush, in the entire 2000 Republican primary season. Yet one of the most striking features of this year’s Democratic dead heat is the feast or famine nature of the competition between Clinton and Obama. Few individual primary contests between the two have actually been that close. Most have been decided by landslide margins for one candidate or the other. Take the primary voting on March 4. Clinton