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 Primary
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By Ian Williams
When the voters of the US state
of New Hampshire go the polls this week, anyone who
wanders into the polling station can declare that he or
she is a Democratic supporter, or an independent, and
then vote to decide who will be the Democratic candidate
for the White House in the November presidential
election. Since there is no serious Republican contest,
we can be sure that some Republicans will take the
opportunity to pick the opposing party's candidate.
With so much media attention directed at the
primaries, in the US and abroad, it is surprising that
more people do not question the whole process, both in
principle and in practice. In which other country in the
world would a party allow its candidate for office to be
picked by anyone, including its opponents? Even in those
states that restrict voting to citizens who have
declared their support for a party weeks or months
beforehand, they do not require voters to be party
members in the sense that the rest of the world would
notice.
They do not have to pay a cent in dues,
apply for membership, subscribe to its principles, or
even demonstrate any particular loyalty in order to
choose the party's candidate. For example, Mike
Bloomberg was a registered Democrat until he decided it
was cheaper to buy the Republican nomination for New
York mayor than contest a fractious Democratic primary.
Of course, the association of party and principle seems
oxymoronic to many disgruntled Americans, but maybe the
primaries have had something to do with that as well.
In fact, each state has its own rules for
primaries. More than 20 of them have "open primaries",
in which all voters can pick the candidates of whichever
party they choose. One of them is Georgia, where, last
year, incumbent black Democrat Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney was defeated in the primary, according to her,
by cross-voting Republican supporters. Despairing of a
Republican defeating her in the general election, her
opponents had rallied a "cross-party coalition" to
defeat her - in the Democratic primary. Incidentally,
they also brought in a lot of out-of-state money to do
it. She had had the temerity to question Israeli
policies, and that brought out pro-Israeli money for her
opponents in a big way.
Regardless of who votes,
it actually is a fairly bizarre process. Nine Democratic
contenders began the current nomination race, committed
to spending the best part of a year, and untold millions
of dollars, rooting through one another's dirty linen
and waving it about in public. Ironically, the one thing
they all agree on is that President George W Bush should
go - but collectively, they do not seem to have noticed
that the president has actually amassed US$200 million
for the Republican primary fight - and he has no
opposition!
It could be worse since, this year,
the Democratic candidates keep reminding themselves that
the voters will not forgive them if they give too much
aid and comfort to the Republicans. But it is worth
remembering that the Bush campaign's killer attack on
Mike Dukakis in 1988 for giving parole to murderer Willy
Horton was originally Al Gore's inventive way of beating
up on his co-Democrat in the primary earlier.
The Reverend Al Sharpton's sharp and telling
jibe at Dr Howard Dean for not having appointed a single
non-white while he was governor of Vermont was allegedly
dreamed up by a consultant who normally advises the
Republicans. But Sharpton's campaign is not about
winning the candidacy. It is about winning a position
with black voters so that he can negotiate with whoever
does win.
This public disembowelment is not
unique to the Democrats - but they certainly do
specialize in it, while the Republicans tend to add up
the money and hand the nomination over quickly to the
highest bidder.
But consider the result for the
Democrats. How can you expect activists who have spent
such a long and tedious gestation period cheering on one
contender to switch the same enthusiasm to a winner whom
your hero or heroine of choice has been castigating for
all that time? How can you expect ordinary voters to
turn out for someone who has been so thoroughly
besmeared by his own alleged party colleagues? Any
shining armor would be rusty and dented by the time it
comes through this process. Any white horse would be
brown and dirty by the time it reached the finish line.
Indeed, after the long and tedious primaries,
the candidates and their supporters have drained their
energy and their cash, so whoever actually wins the
primary has to fight the real election reeling and
punch-drunk, against a Republican candidate who smirks
happily as he flies around the country in Air Force One,
allegedly on official business but never too busy to
pick up an occasional check for the campaign and make a
partisan speech that will surely get television time.
Primaries on this scale are a development of the
past few decades, and their intention was to open up the
smoke-filled rooms and cabals of party bosses who had
previously dominated the nominations. But apart from
anti-smoking laws, all that has happened is that the
process has moved to rubber-chicken-filled banqueting
rooms where people pay thousands of dollars a head to
back their candidate. The amount of money an individual
needs to find to run a primary campaign has risen
dramatically - and with it the influence of those who
have money by the bucketful.
So one of the most
pernicious effects of the primaries contests is that
they provide the first of many points of entry for large
donors to buy the candidates of their choice. They
become a financial steeple chase, in which electorally
popular candidates are forced to drop out because they
have run out of money. You may remember that Bill
Clinton was not the leading candidate when he reached
the New York primary back in 1992 - but he had found out
where the checks were to be found, which more than made
up for any temporary embarrassment on the voting front.
We now take it for granted, almost as
constitutional in fact, that the race is much more
likely to go to the richest than the worthiest, so to
win a contested primary, candidates need to find people
with money to help them along. Television and radio ads
are a huge cash-gobbling expense, whose main end is
probably to persuade uncommitted voters that the
Democrats are not a cohesive challenge to the incumbent.
Money that comes wholesale is much easier.
Howard Dean may have pioneered a neat way to kick-start
the campaign with smaller donations and enthusiastic
activism, but we can be sure he will be disappointed if
bigger checks do not accompany any campaign against
Bush.
In the end, there is one sure-fire winner
of this bizarre primary race: the one whose campaign
treasury outlasts the others. And that may be George W
Bush.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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