US presidential elections: The American process (2)

KWENU! Our culture, our future

US presidential elections: The American process (Part 2)

Acho Orabuchi

Dallas, Texas

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

The stage is set! It is Bush versus Kerry for the presidency of the United States of America (USA) on November 2004; thanks to Kerry’s sweeping victory on Super Tuesday. His enormous victory attracted a congratulatory call from President George Bush.

The Super Tuesday, when 10 states, California with 370 delegates, Connecticut, Georgia, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wyoming had their primary and caucus elections, has come and gone with veritable results, thereby setting the stage, unofficially, for President George W. Bush, the incumbent president and Republican candidate and Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president.

Immediately the networks started announcing the exit results in various states, it became obvious that the causality of the Super Tuesday would be John Edwards. Facing reality, it became evident that Senator Edwards would drop out of the race thereby making John Kerry the unambiguous nominee of the Democrats.

John Edwards congratulated and praised Kerry for his victory on Super Tuesday. He officially dropped out of the race a day after the Super Tuesday. In folding his campaign, Senator John Edwards, in his magnanimous tone sounded supportive and committed to working for the Democratic victory in November. He reechoed the sentiments of the rank and file Democrats when he said, "John Kerry has what it takes right here to be president of the United States ... I, for one, intend to do everything in my power to make him the next president of the United States, and I ask you to join me in this cause."

The potential impact of the Edwards’ withdrawal to the unity of the Democratic Party is enormous in many ways. For one thing, it is unprecedented for the party to be unified behind one candidate as early as March. Secondly, it has removed the unpredictable elements or factors that may pose some problems for any nominee should there be a prolonged contest that would end on the floor of the convention. Thirdly, having a sole candidate this early frees up resources, time, and energy for the nominee and the party to concentrate on the opponent. The present phenomenon in this polity has forced the Bush campaign to start spending huge money from their campaign coffer earlier than they had planned. Consequently, the lunching of campaign ads on Thursday, March 4, 2004 by the Bush campaign has signaled the beginning of an unprecedented eight-month long presidential campaign.

The major drawback to the Senator Edward’s withdrawal is there will be no strong challenger to Kerry to attract meaningful debates, which have served the platform for the Democratic candidates to attack President Bush in unison. John Kerry has enjoyed wide media coverage throughout the primary and caucus elections. As a result of Edwards’ withdrawal, there is a great potential for diminished media coverage of John Kerry.

However, let us not forget that Edwards’ departure at this point is good for the Democrats. It is pertinent to know that the Democrats in the past have torn themselves apart by taking the fight for nomination to the convention floor and in so doing suffered resounding defeats in the hands of the Republicans in the general elections.

Prominent among the nominations that were decided on the convention floor, were the protracted primaries and caucuses of the 1980 Jimmy Carter-Ted Kennedy and the 1972 George McGovern –Hubert Humphrey duels with Carter and McGovern losing to Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon respectively. In both cases the party was not united going into the general elections and in both cases the Democrats lost the presidency of the United States of America resoundingly.

Senator Kerry acknowledged the import of Senator Edwards’ campaign to the overall resolve of the Democrats to win in November. In his victory speech, Kerry thanked Edwards and said, “There is no question that John Edwards brings a compelling voice to our party, great eloquence to the cause of working men and women all across our nation and great promise for leadership for the years to come. And we thank him so much for what he has done in the course of this race. And we will build one America of freedom and of fairness for all”

“Tonight, the message can now be heard all across our country: Change is coming to America… Together we are going to build a strong foundation for growth by repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and investing in education and health care…

And we will cut the deficit in half in four years, and we will invest in education and health care and the creation of jobs in this country…. And I pledge to you with every fiber in my body and every ounce of energy that I can find, we will put the tax code of this nation up to the light of democracy and scrutiny of the American people, and we will repeal every tax break and every loophole that rewards any corporation for gaming the tax code and going overseas to avoid their responsibilities to people in the United States of America.”, he emphasized.

Interestingly, the 2004 Democratic primary and caucus elections did not end with the conclusion of the Super Tuesday. Rather, the results of that outing have made it impossible for any Democratic candidate to stop Kerry from clinching the nomination. Other states will continue with their primary and caucus elections until all the states have completed the process. As a result, John Kerry will continue to campaign in those states holding primary and caucus elections primarily for the following reasons: media coverage, defining himself to the American public, espousing ideas and contrasting himself with President Bush, reaching out to the swing voters and the Independents, and most importantly, raising money.

Primary and caucus elections are not winner takes all mechanism. The rule of proportionality applies in earning the delegates. One garners delegates based on established threshold. As a result, the Super Delegates were much sought after commodity; Kerry and Edwards were vigorously courting the Super Delegates and supporters of Howard Dean and Wesley Clark prior to the Super Tuesday primary and caucus elections.

Who are the “Super delegates”? These are “unpledged” delegates commonly called “Super delegates”, who are 802 of the estimated total of 4,322 convention delegates and about 37 percent of 2,162 needed for the nomination, are comprised of party state and national leaders, former presidents and vice presidents, members of congress, current governors, and local elected officials. The “Super delegates” are not obligated to publicly support any candidate prior to the party’s national convention.

Going into the Super Tuesday on March 2, 2004 when 10 states held primary elections worth more than half of the required 2,161 delegates for nomination, polls showed Senator John Edwards was significantly behind John Kerry and he needed to do something quickly to catch up.

Well, before the Super Tuesday, on February 26, 2004 and on February 29, 2004, the remaining four Democratic presidential hopefuls, John Edwards, John Kerry, Dennis Kucinich, and Al Sharpton squared up in Los Angeles, California and New York respectively in nationally televised debates discussing a wide range of issues from civil rights to same sex marriage. The California debate was a lackluster event that never witnessed the much-expected knockout punch from Senator John Edwards. In the same token, the New York debate was not different except for the sporadic attacks from John Edwards on John Kerry on trade issues hoping that such attacks would help him to close the gap or even overtake Kerry. The uphill task was insurmountable for Edwards as he tried to stake out the differences between the two frontrunners. On both debates, however, the four candidates were united on their attacks on President Bush on broad range of issues. The following are the issues have so far been in the forefront during the primaries and are likely to dominate the debates during the general elections campaign: the economy, exporting jobs and unemployment, taxes and spending, health care, deficit, education, national security, environment, social security, and gay marriage.

Officially, to clinch the nomination, a candidate has to garner 2,162 delegates in the Democratic National Convention in Boston, Massachusetts on July 26-29, 2004. The delegates, specifically, the pledged delegates, are being won through victories in primary and caucus elections. There will be an estimated total of 4,322 delegates to the Democratic National Convention who will come from the 50 states, including those living abroad, American Samoa, Guam, and Puerto Rico to cast their votes.

The primaries and caucuses for the presidential nomination are similar to gubernatorial and congressional nominations. Now, recall what happened in Nigeria in the last elections, especially, in choosing the presidency in 2003 and contrast it with the American process. The difference between the two presidential systems may seem glaring to some people.

Though the epilogue of the series has not been written, yet one could reasonably conclude that Edwards, being a young politician, fought gallantly for the nomination, but fell short of his dreams for now. Conversely, Senator John Kerry has emerged the Democratic nominee for the presidency of the United States of America (USA) thereby setting the political stage for an unprecedented long campaign before the general elections.

US presidential elections: The American process (Part 3)