Slate's Trailhead takes up the idea that a long primary will be good for Democrats:
You hear the idea batted around that Democrats want this race to be over (perhaps among Obama supporters more than others). Republicans have chosen their man, the thinking goes—it’s time for Dems to wrap this up.
But that doesn’t take into account the extent to which the longest primary in history has energized the Democratic Party. Take this estimate that Texas’ primary turnout is expected to be more than 3.6 million on the Democratic side. Compare that with the 2.8 million Texans who turned out for John Kerry in the 2004 general election. I thought Clinton was delusional when she said in her acceptance speech tonight that she thinks Democrats can win Texas in the general. But look at those numbers.
By that logic, the longer the primary drags on, the more the party benefits. Democrats will probably turn out in record numbers in Wyoming and Mississippi next week, and again in Pennsylvania in April. And in swing states (Pennsylvania, North Carolina), energizing new Democratic voters could make a huge difference in the general.
I don't see it. To start with, at least some of those voters are being energized by the fact that they don't want the other candidate to get in; to the extent that that's how you're motivating them, it doesn't help you in the general. Also, the Republicans are taking this time to rest, rebuild, and fundraise; the Democrats are spending record fundraising hauls on bashing each other. By the time they come out of the primary, McCain will have had a nice long stretch to recuperate from the trail, and can begin attacking his opponent; whoever the Democratic nominee is will have to do the equivalent of running a marathon and an Iron Man triathlon back-to-back. And it may well come down to a superdelegate showdown that will leave some part of the base angry and demoralized. Sure, Humphrey almost beat Nixon after a nasty primary battle. But McCain is no Nixon.
That is not to say that McCain will win. But I don't think that this is going to be good, or even neutral, for the party.
"Sure, Humphrey almost beat Nixon after a nasty primary battle. But McCain is no Nixon. "
Yeah, Nixon was much smarter and politically more savvy.
I also disagree that significant numbers of people are coming out to vote against the other in the Democratic primary. The contest is fierce because both camps believe with great confidence that the primary campaign will be much more of a challenge than the general election.
A long and contested nomination fight is bad for the Democrats. To imagine otherwise is pure fantasy.
If John McCain were a relative unknown, the time out of the spotlight might be a negative, but he is one of the best known Republicans. The time to lay the plans and the time to fundraise while the Democrats continue to battle each other is a great blessing, and one he sorely needed.
And neither Barack Obama is no Hubert Humphrey (nor is Hillary Clinton).
Also I wonder to what extent the “record turnout” is being driven by Republicans who after having chose their nominee are trying to prolong the bloodletting on the Democrat side for as long as possible. It’s no secret that more than one popular conservative radio host advised their listeners to vote for Clinton yesterday to keep her in the race for as long as possible so as the weaken their eventual nominee while demoralizing the base of whichever one loses the primary.
Neither of the two egoists competing for the Democrat nomination are about to step down “for the good of the Party” and when (probably not if) it comes down to a brokered convention, we will likely see either (a) Clinton getting the nomination because the super delegates decided to buck the choice of the voters in the primary and caucuses (in which case she will have “stolen” the nomination and those first-time voters who went for Obama will be even less likely to support her in the general election) or (b) Obama getting the nomination while the delegates of Florida and Michigan (two battleground States in the general election) were disenfranchised (so much for “count every vote.”).
Isn't Democratic primary turnout being driven precisely by the closeness of the race? Comparing this year's Texas turnout to Kerry's in 2004 is silly. His race was already wrapped up by then.
My bad. I thought the comparison was to Kerry in the primaries.
In 1968 George Wallace took 13% of the national popular vote and actually carried 5 Southern states with 46 Electoral votes, so Nixon's close victory maybe wouldn't have been all that close.
Tom, that was back in the days of the "solid south." They could just have easily gone for Humphrey as Nixon, in fact, without Wallace, Humphrey would probably have won.
Back to the present though. There is one advantage the Democrats have in this that hasn't been mentioned. The presidential race is about defining the person running as much as it is about issues. The flush-with-cash DNC can now bash on McCain for a few months, while attacks from McCain have to be spread between two candidates.
Also, McCain has his trouble with the FEC public financing, which might curtail his effectiveness.
The question isn't whether Humphrey came close to Nixon. The question is how much better Humphrey would have done had he come out of a primary that wasn't so disastrously divisive. History doesn't give us the luxury of testing counterfactual scenarios -- but we should at least take care to frame counterfactual questions correctly.
Personally, I think it's obvious that the Democrats would have done much better in 1968 if they didn't have all the negative fall out from the primary season.
It goes to show that with a good narrative, anything can be made to look good. If someone is trying to sell you something like this, with no numbers, they are tap dancing. If it was good for Democrats, then John McCain wouldn't be polling 48%.
Using 1968 as an example is bizarre. 1968 shows exactly the opposite- a divided Democratic party lost the Presidency for only the third time since 1932. If people can believe narratives like this, sprinkled with facts that show the opposite, they need to stop reading political opinion pieces.
I am of the camp that says a long fight is possibly a lost election for the Dems.
Why? Because if the fight takes that long it will be Hillary striving againt the inevitable, and we can assume that either candidate will be damaged in the process. Hillary will make her best effort to use every method possible to win, and both reputations can end up damage.
Meanwhile, indeed McCain can sit back, relax, organize, fund raise, and also evaluate the attacks used by Hillary and Obama against each other; those proving effective he can make his own.
I think it's in Obama's interest to not get sucked into a tit for tat campaign or to go low, but rather to take the approach of spinning her own attacks back against her. He basically has to not mess up and he wins. The Democratic Party is not about to deny the first possible black presidential candidate the nomination if he leads in voted delegates or voter support.
longer primary = more registered voters = better results in November
It is plain logic.
In addition, do not listen to the talking heads on television. They are only telling you what will drive you back to their network.
A long primary is a good thing. There is very little proof in the past that would say otherwise. Any other long primary that had a perceived negative impact in recent decades has been far more impacted by the economy than anything else.
People vote with their pocket books.