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Primaries and Presidents
Yesterday's Human Rights Campaign Presidential Forum was a bit anti-climactic. I'd been hoping to see some sparks fly between some of the more conservative and progressive candidates, but it was not to be. The forum was highly structured, with only one candidate appearing on stage at a time so that there was no dialogue between the candidates. Each candidate gave an opening statement, answered two questions (and whatever additional related questions moderator Sam Donaldson decided to put to them), and gave a closing statement. To control things further, the candidates knew the questions in advance so they had prepared answers to make them look as good as possible. You can see the archived webcast of the forum here, but the bottom line was that what the candidates had to say was fairly empty—for the most part they just rehashed statements you can find on their websites. What was important about yesterday's forum is that it happened at all. The fact that the HRC could get seven presidential candidates (all except Edwards and Graham) to speak at their event—even in such tightly controlled conditions—shows that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues have come out of the closet, so to speak, and are finally legitimate topics for national public debate.
But now that the first-quarter money race is over, the top candidates are really starting to look toward the primaries. According to Politics1, Presidential politics will start getting at least a little hot on January 13 when the District of Columbia holds its "Presidential Preference Primary." That's followed on Jan. 19 by the Iowa Caucuses, followed on the 27th by the New Hampshire Primary. (I've heard rumors that some people in New Hampshire are angry at DC for trying to steal the title of "nation's first primary," so some New Hampshire-ites have vowed to vote against anyone who campaigns in DC. I hope that's just a rumor, 'cause that's just nuts.)
But since I'm actually living in a suburb of DC, I'm supposed to be interested in the Maryland Presidential Primary on March 2, which appears to be "super Tuesday." The Maryland process for getting a candidate on the ballot looks a little sketchy. According to the Maryland Secretary of State, the ballot is up to him or her, in conjunction with the state and national media:
The Office of the Secretary of State is responsible for designating the people whose names appear on the ballot for each primary election. This is done when the Secretary has determined that the candidate's candidacy is generally advocated or recognized in the news media throughout the United States or in Maryland and in accordance with party rules.
Wow, sounds democratic, doesn't it? Not.
Meanwhile, factions of the Democratic party are going on about some huge battle between the left and right wings of the party, which to me only highlights how successful the Repubs have been in shifting the terms of debate to their end of the spectrum. The only candidate to mention this "division in the party" at yesterday's candidate forum was Lieberman, which isn't really surprising since he would definitely be one of those in the right wing. But this little battle could be troublesome for someone like Dean, who is rising in the polls primarily because he's doing a better job than anyone else of straddling this little divide. Although Dean's image as too liberal is fading, he'll still have to work hard to sell his definition of "center" to the nation as a whole. Steve Snyder, in a letter to Salon, does a beautiful (if highly cynical) job encapsulating the challenge facing the "democratic wing of the democratic party" in politics today. Snyder writes:
This rhetoric proves even more appealing when the circumstances that necessitate living in a community recede into the past. Most of the people who bother to vote today grew up in middle-class suburbs and segued fairly smoothly into their careers, homes and money. In fact, most of those likely to vote have never known really hard times. Americans once lived their entire lives with the knowledge that they were only a drought away from starvation. For them, accommodating the demands of annoying neighbors wasn't just a lofty idea; it was a survival strategy.
But today -- as the Republicans recognize -- those most likely to vote have reached a level of affluence that evokes the illusion they can buy their way out of the inconvenience of community altogether. That leaves the Democrats to make the rather joyless argument that "we're all in it together," which, unfortunately, will necessitate paying some taxes and doing the hard work of learning to live with one another.
In the end, the Republicans will keep winning because they champion what we secretly desire: a world where we can have all the goodies with none of the larger responsibilities. Their policies are an adolescent's wet dream, and, sadly, we are a politically immature nation.
I think Snyder's got the issue right—it's a self-centered worldview that sees society as the enemy vs. a bigger picture worldview that sees society as the whole point of existence. The "we're all in it together" ethos underlies the most biting critiques of recent U.S. foreign policy, but it also lines up behind critiques of "globalization" and "free trade" schemes that sacrifice human needs for balanced budgets and corporate profits. And yeah, that's a hard sell to people who see so many short-term benefits from the "server yourself" way of doing things. But that doesn't make those benefits last any longer.
Posted July 16, 2003 04:13 PM | election 2004
