justen

Momentum. It can apparently make or break a campaign for president, on a somewhat regular basis. Barack Obama seized on momentum after winning the Iowa caucuses, and moved from being a relative unknown to being a national leader. Hillary Clinton caught her own breath of emotion, and momentum, after becoming the “comeback kid” in New Hampshire.

Today will be a big day. If Hillary Clinton carries the popular vote in the primaries in Texas, and, especially, Ohio, it will be tough for Barack Obama to argue that the momentum from a caucus in Nebraska is more potent than a decisive primary victory in a Democratic bellwether state.

I say “especially, Ohio” because I’m afraid it’s unlikely either Senator Obama or Senator Clinton could carry Texas in a general election. That’s where that whole “momentum” mystery goes out the window for me. Of the states which went Democratic in 2004 and which have held primaries to date, Senator Clinton has picked up 6,706,059 votes to Senator Obama’s 6,648,471. That’s 50.2% to 49.7%. (That includes Michigan, where Senator Obama and Senator Edwards played up a “vote against Hillary” campaign, yet she still won 55% of the vote.) Count Florida (where Senator Obama advertised and Senator Clinton didn’t), where we need to win, and it becomes an even wider 345,755 lead for Senator Clinton.

I think the victories Barack Obama has had in states like Utah and Alabama are impressive, but a general election works a lot differently than the unwieldy Democratic primary mess. Utah and Alabama, and other states where Senator Obama has done well, haven’t voted Democratic in a general election in (at least) modern history, and even Senator Obama’s strong showings in those states don’t indicate anywhere near the tide turn that would be required to switch their electoral delegates from red to blue.

I don’t believe that we can or should, as a party, write off states like Utah, or Alabama, or even Texas, but I also worry that Senator Obama’s strength in those states has overshadowed his losses in critical Democratic states like California, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York. In fact, of the eleven solidly Democratic states which have held primaries to date, Senator Obama has carried four, to Senator Clinton’s seven.

At the end of today, either Senator Clinton or Senator Obama could be on their way to becoming the Democratic nominee. I think both represent an amazing step forward for our country. But I think this close, critical primary has highlighted some tremendous problems with the Democratic nominating process. From caucuses that seem to be easily swayed by who shows up first; to “superdelegates” who seem to exercise some sort of supreme wisdom over us lowly Democrats; to the sometimes-proportional, sometimes-preferential divvying up of pledged delegates in a way that has ignored the popular vote in many states… Did I forget something? Yes, yes, and then there’s the disenfranchisement of a critical Democratic state, Michigan, and a critical swing state, Florida…

All I can say is that the first election with Howard Dean as Democratic party chair had better damned well be giving him an awfully long To Do list. Can anyone say “National Primary Day,” please? (A National Primary Day which I know either President Barack Obama or President Hillary Clinton will easily carry on their way towards re-election in 2012!)