mycatharsis.com

Actually, yeah, I really like the Democrats proportional representation/delegate system.  Criticism of it has been rife lately, mainly because Hillary Clinton has been losing under this system since about February 5th.  And any system that does not allow the Clinton’s free rein over the Democratic party is immediately suspect.   Now the superdelegates, on the other hand, I certainly do not think that was a good idea.  But look at what has happened to this campaign under the current system.  Every state has become involved, and the candidate who adopted a 50 state strategy has the nearly insurmountable lead over the establishment candidate.  Turnout last night in Pennsylvania was great, and with the way delegates were apportioned, there was great incentive even for Obama voters, many of whom probably knew deep down he wouldn’t win, to get out there and make their voices heard. Even though their guy lost, their votes still worked to elect delegates who will represent them at the Democratic convention.  Perhaps the closeness of this race is partly a function of the proportional representation, but on the other hand, so is the 50 state strategy that now seems integral to winning the Democratic nomination.

This system forces their nominee to tailor a message suitable to all of America, not just the cities and college campuses they see as their strength.  And this, I think, could help them greatly in November.  They actually have to run a little to the middle now during the primary season, while the Republicans, who value loyalty and a clear winner, all had to line up behind the most unpopular President in history in order to get the nomination. And that’s going to be a central theme in the campaign against McCain.

Since Senator Clinton is losing this race, I expect a movement to start among her cronies to ‘reform’ the system and make it more ‘fair’ (politcalspeak for unfair, ironically) once all is said and done.  However, moving to a winner takes all strategy would reform nothing, and again only serve to tailor their message to the coastal big delegate states. In fact the Republicans should adopt this very same system as a way to get their message to all of America, although there’s virtually no chance that will ever happen.  Does it seem fair that, under a winner take all strategy, that a win by one of these candidates in PA last night would count more than a win by the other in Wyoming, Hawaii, Mississippi, Vermont, and Wisconsin combined? Or that the votes of the losers of all of these states would count for nothing? And under such a system, doesn’t it seem obvious that Pennsylvania would then also receive a greater amount of attention from the candidates than all five of these states combined?  Ok, so maybe that happened here, but that was more a function of Pennsylvania being the only primary within a two month time span.

Maybe the Dems should shorten the primary schedule for 2012, and it seems indubitable they should get rid of the superdelegates next time around.  But keeping the proportional delegate system should also be just as high a priority for them …