Letters to the Editor
RIRedinPA
Published Letters: 121 Editor's Choice: 4
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The Big State Argument
[Read the article: What Pennsylvania tells us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The argument that Hillary and supporters keep making is that superdelegates should declare for her, regardless of popular vote because she has demonstrated that she can win the big electoral states with victories in California, New York, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and now Pennsylvania.
But if (and I wish the press would) break this down the whole argument is very weak. Their argument makes the premise that California and New York won't break democratic if Obama is the candidate, which is just silly. Those two states will be Democratic come November, regardless of candidate. Texas goes Republican, no matter who the Dem candidate is so you can toss those numbers out of the mix. Florida is a toss up, it could go Republican or Democratic, with Hillary on the ticket one has to consider the snow bird vote, the retirees from New England, the rust belt and Pennsylvania now living down there, with Obama, the black vote (which is traditionally low) become significant. Florida is a toss up. Pennsylvania is also a swing state but one turning blue, I live in one of those four Philly suburban counties they always speak of and when I moved here in '88 it was as Republican as it gets, now I think the Reds only have the majority in one county and demographics point to them losing that in a few years. I think PA swings Democratic regardless of candidate.
Then there is Michigan. It's hard to tell how Obama would do there since he wasn't even on the ballot - and with no one opposing her 40% still voted against Hillary. One would have to assume, based on Obama's campaigns in other rust belt states that he would have made it a tight race, especially with his appeal to blacks (which would deliver Detroit) and young voters, UoM, Michigan State, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan and the other colleges. I would toss Michigan up to either candidate in a primary and, as it has in the past, to a Democrat in the general election.
That leaves Ohio. Ohio went red in 2004 but not by much and one can argue that with Clinton's appeal to blue collar voters she would carry the state in a general where Obama would not. But Obama makes up for those lost 20 electoral votes by carrying Missouri and potentially Virginia, which is turning blue, which would bring in 23 votes combined. Obama also has the potential to carry a few southern states with the black vote which Hillary would not.
So if the only electoral map shakeup Hillary does is bring in 20 votes in Ohio the whole argument is moot. Obama has the potential to change the electoral map, spreading Democratic power into states that haven't gone Democratic since the Johnson administration. And the electoral votes gained would be far significant (10-15) over what Hillary could bring in.
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@odog
[Read the article: What Pennsylvania tells us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Florida and Michigan can be ignored because they broke party rules and suffered the consequences and because all the candidates agreed before the race to abide by the punishment the DNC dished out to them.
I thought that was pretty obvious.
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@odog
[Read the article: What Pennsylvania tells us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The people denying the Michigan and Florida peeps a voice are the local democratic parties who decided to break DNC rules and knew full well the consequences they would suffer from it.
You know, you can't reward bad behavior, sends the wrong message to the other kids.
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@odog
[Read the article: What Pennsylvania tells us]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm not claiming the solution makes sense, what would have made sense is what the RNC did to punish their local parties - reduce their delegates by, I think, half.
But in the end, the DNC went draconian and all candidates at the time agreed to abide by the edict passed down on those two states. And now, when changing the ruling would obviously (though maybe not so) be beneficial to one candidate than to the other it is clear why the one candidate cries disenfranchisement and the other humbly submits to the DNC ruling.
Of course no one in the DNC saw this coming because before the primaries had started Hillary was pre-ordained and all thought it'd be over by Super Tuesday. But, as it turned out, she didn't close the deal on Super Tuesday and hadn't thought beyond it and has been playing catch up since, scrambling to keep the campaign alive.
So the rules were good last summer, not so much this spring. But you just can't change them because they are to your disliking.