On Democratic Party Rules Changes for 2020

UPDATE (7/25/16): The Democratic National Convention passed a rules package that included the the charter of a Unity Reform Commission to examine the rules outside of the convention before 2020.

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Primary and caucus season is just a little more than two months old (with three months to go until the national conventions), but already people are coming up with ways to "fix" the process for 2020 and beyond. The Post's Greg Sergent recently weighed in under the headline "Here's one way the Clinton-Sanders brawl could end well". The premise? The Democratic presidential nomination battle could lead to delegate selection rules changes at the national convention in Philadelphia.

Well, maybe, only that is not really how it works. Meaningful change rarely comes directly out of the national convention on the Democratic side. Unlike their Republican counterparts, there is no baseline set of rules that emerges from one convention to guide the process (with some tweaks thereafter during the last two cycles) for the next cycle.

Instead, the Democratic National Committee through its Rules and Bylaws Committee has traditionally empowered a commission to reexamine the nomination rules and recommend changes to them in the time after the presidential election of one cycle. Those recommendations are then handed off to the Rules and Bylaws Committee to vote on and pass usually during the summer of the midterm election year between cycles.¹

Nothing, then, really happens rules-wise at the Democratic National Convention.² Sure, there is a report on rules from the Rules and Bylaws Committee to the convention, and said Committee meets immediately after the convention, but any rules tinkering takes place well after the convention (or it traditionally has in the post-reform era).

Heated battle or not during primary season, the Sanders campaign may have little leverage on this issue at the convention itself. The key will be the long game: getting surrogates on the Rules and Bylaws Committee who can affect change through that channel. This is the sort of thing that latent campaigns do during the rules-making phase; something the would-be Sanders campaign and allies failed to do in 2013-14.

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Not to pick on Sargent, but he does go on to catalog a number of changes at which the party could look. And the list is made up of the usual suspects :

• Eliminate superdelegates
• Eliminate caucuses
• Limits on the number of primaries on one day
• Eliminating closed primaries

This always operates like a quadrennial deja vu.

It is the same list. Go ahead. Give the FHQ posts from the 2009-10 proceedings of the Democratic Change Commission a glance. Or look at the DCC's recommendations: 1) reducing the number of superdelegates by shifting add-on delegates out of the category and making them the PLEOs (Party Leaders and Elected Officials) that are now a part of the process and 2) developing a set of "best practices" for how caucuses should be run. One could also look at the scant deliberations of the Rules and Bylaws Committee in 2013-14.

The problem, as always, is that the national parties have only so much control over the presidential nomination process. The system started out and has evolved into a patchwork of overlapping national party rules, state party rules and state laws. In attempting to fix the perceived problems of any given cycle, the national parties have to navigate that patchwork. And they often run the risk of crossing the  Sununu line; that parties are better served by attempting to manage rather than control the component parts of the presidential nomination process.

Why?

Well, when state parties opt into state-funded primaries, they cede the power in most cases to set the date of that primary (see clustering issue above) or to determine who can participate in that primary (open vs. closed). And state parties, more often than not, opt into those state-funded primaries to avoid having to raise and spend money on an election rather than on other party-building exercises.

Eliminating caucuses means some states with some combination of Republican-controlled state governments, no presidential primary, a closed system and no means of funding a primary election have to somehow overcome all or some of those barriers to comply. Perhaps one could take exception with what Washington Democrats do: traditionally hold caucuses despite having a Democratic state government (in most cases) and a presidential primary option. Perhaps Democrats in the Evergreen state could be convinced to change tradition.

But what about a state like Maine or Wyoming or Iowa where there is a mix of state government partisanship and no primary system in place? Can the Democratic National Committee make Wyoming Republicans in change of state government institute a primary?³ Are they willing to foot the bill for that election if not? If they are unwilling, this is an unfunded mandate that would hypothetically force Wyoming Democrats to opt for the cheapest form of election for most state parties in similar situations: a caucus.

And what about this idea of reducing clustering? The national parties have attempted for a long time now to reduce frontloading on the presidential primary calendar. Both national parties have a fairly effective mix of rules and penalties to keep states in line, but the overall process is still pretty organic within a broader set of calendar guidelines. The motivation is still there to push to front; to cluster at the beginning of the calendar. And do not lose sight of the fact that the DNC currently has a bonus delegate regime in place to motivate later, subregional clusters of contests. That has been somewhat effective in 2012 and 2016, but has not rid the process of the motivation to move earlier in some states.

This is a thorny set of issues that involves state-level traditions that stretch back more than just a cycle or two and partisan divisions between state government control and the national parties. Very simply, the national parties have managed the nomination system to varying degrees in the post-reform era by deferring to the states on a number of issues to allow states to better tailor a plan that works for them but also within an overarching set of national party guidelines.

That is an institutionalized feature of the process that seeks to overcome a multifaceted coordination problem: nominating a presidential candidate within two diverse, big tent parties.

The problem with eliminating superdelegates is a little different. There is no overlap with state party rules or state laws, but nixing those unpledged delegates is an idea that requires superdelegates -- members of the DNC -- to vote to strip themselves of that power. It is not a non-starter, but that idea is a long way from being enacted (even if Sanders supporters sit on the RBC or a commission examining the rules).

The only addition to the list of perennial grievances is the handling of the debates. This is something that is not really codified in the Democratic Party rules. The RNC added debates-curtailing rules to their rulebook, but with mixed results. But even that can get pretty close to the Sununu line.

If one is placing bets on likely rules changes or additions, look to the debates issue. The others are more difficult to manage much less control.


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¹ That post-reform routine was disrupted after 2012. Rather than have a commission look at the rules and recommend changes, the Rules and Bylaws Committee handled that task directly.

² It is right there in the Charter of the party. None of the rules-changing activity is confined to just the national convention and by practice it has happened outside it.

³ Yes, Wyoming legislators are considering a switch, but on their own, not as part of some directive from a national party.

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Changing the Rules [at the Convention] Changes the Game

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Thoughts following the 2nd Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting

Over the weekend the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee reconvened in Washington (yes, sans FHQ) to further cement the rules governing the 2012 Democratic presidential nomination. The set of rules coming out of this meeting will go before the full DNC in St. Louis next month for approval. In its initial meeting in May, the committee made quick work of the most of the rules -- only tweaking some of the particulars from the 2008 rules -- but following discussion, tabled most of the more contentious issues that concerned some of the recommendations made by the Democratic Change Commission. Namely, what to do with the superdelegates' influence, how to make more uniform the caucus process across states, and how to curb frontloading. For our part, FHQ will focus on the last of those in this initial post, but will return to the other issues later. [Side note: And yes, I do need to put this all together with the changes the Republicans have proposed as well. FHQ has neglected the much more interesting and consequential Republican rules-making process. Amends will be made, I assure you, dear readers.]

Now, some have called the rules recommendations that came out of the this meeting and the earlier Republican meeting, the "most significant alteration to the primary calendars since '68..." The McGovern-Fraser reforms fundamentally reshaped the way in which presidential nominees were chosen from that point forward. They turned presidential primaries and caucuses from non-binding contests meant to influence party leaders at the national convention into binding contests that determined to some degree the level of support candidates would receive at the convention. The primary calendars after that point evolved, and though the negative effects of frontloading were being discussed as early as the Hunt Commission (the pre-1984 cycle's equivalent of the Democratic Change Commission), it took until 1988 and into the '90s for the full effects of McGovern-Fraser to be felt in terms of the calendar. And, of course, these were unintended consequences of those reforms.

Perhaps you can tell, I don't particularly like the comparison to the 1968 Chicago convention's reform measures. FHQ also has another problem with this comparison.* As I alluded to above, it overstates matters. Both parties have recognized frontloading as a "problem" for several cycles now. And it is no small feat that both the DNC and RNC determined that the best way to combat the problem was to work together, representing a unified front against would-be rule breakers (Florida and Michigan, I'm looking in your direction.). That fact alone is significant in and of itself, but this process is only in its first phase: rules formation. The national parties will have to ratify those changes in order to end this part of the cycle.

The next phase will play out through much of next year. It is one thing to institute new rules, but it is another to have the states go along with those changes. A good first step is to have both parties on the same page, but Florida and Michigan (and all the pre-February 5, 2008 states but Nevada and Iowa on the Republican side) may have set a precedent in 2008. And with so many states having to move the dates on which their primaries are held to comply with the new rules, there is more incentive than ever to shirk.

That was the real message that came out of all of these meetings on both sides. Both parties are together in terms of their calendar set ups, but the sanctions did not change in the least from 2008. Yes, the Democrats bumped up their incentives for states electing to hold later contests, but that has proven ineffective in the past. The true effect of one of those 2008 sanctions likely won't be felt until 2012 anyway. That the Democrats stripped candidates of half their delegates if they campaigned in a state in violation of the timing rules was very crafty. It kept Obama and Edwards among others out of Florida and (they took themselves off the ballot in) Michigan. That has the effect of making a state meaningless or at least far less influential than otherwise. And that penalty is back for the 2012 cycle. States might have thought twice about flaunting the rules if that sanction was in place on the Republican side. Of course, it is a Democratic sanction and I doubt it will matter much if the Democratic Party strips Obama of half his delegates in a state in violation (they won't). With all the action on the Republican side, a promising sanction won't mean a whole lot.

As I said over the weekend on Twitter, it only takes one state to unravel the best of intentions and trigger a calendar somewhere between what the parties want and where things were in 2008. So, while tweaking the timing of contests is unique in the post-reform era, it isn't that fundamental a change in the grand scheme of things and certainly won't be if states don't comply.

*Another issue is that the parties did voluntarily change their rules to allow January and February contests over the last decade and a half. That was at least an equivalent change to what has been proposed for 2012 (proportionality rules excluded).

Thoughts on the Democratic Rules and Bylaws Committee Meeting

As FHQ alluded to on Friday, we sat in on the festivities at the Democratic Party's Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on both Friday and Saturday. The intent of the meeting was to begin reconciling the recommendations of the Democratic Change Commission with the political and structural realities on the ground with regard to the rules governing the 2012 Democratic presidential nomination.

[For a blow-by-blow account of the two day rule-a-thon, you can follow our real-time Twittering at @FHQ.]

As some have already said, this was a jump off the deep end into the minutiae of delegate selection rules. However, the committee members revved up for the discussions surrounding the three areas the Change Commission was tasked with re-examining: primary and caucus timing, superdelegate reduction/elimination and caucus rule uniformity. The most animated portions of the proceedings came at the tail end of Friday's session and at the beginning of Saturday's. Of the 21 rules -- based on the 2008 delegate selection rules -- Rules 9 (superdelegates) and 11 (timing) seemed to elicit the most concern; the departure from the '08 rules the Change Commission's recommendations represented did, at least. The decisions on both rules were tabled at this meeting pending further discussion at the July 9 and 10 meeting in Washington that will finalize a set of rules for the full DNC to vote on in August.

But let's look at some of the discussion around these two issues from Friday and Saturday:

Superdelegates

Well, if the Change Commission's recommendation is approved, they won't be superdelegates anymore. They'll be NPLEOs (National Pledged Party Leader and Elected Official). That's right. The recommendation calls for the elimination of add-on delegates and a change to the superdelegates as we knew them in 2008. Under these rules, the party and elected officials would lose their independence in 2012. They would be proportionally pledged to candidates based on the results in the primaries or caucuses in their states.

As you might imagine, this didn't sit particularly well with a group of folks (the RBC) who happen to be superdelegates. No one seemed to like the loss of independence (read: influence). That loss prompted RBC member, Mame Reiley, to ask if leaders shouldn't be able to lead instead of follow. She cited Ted Kennedy's endorsement of Obama ahead of the Massachusetts primary (and Hillary Clinton's win there) as an example. In other words, how could you tell an elite within the party to support someone they don't want to support (with the only alternative being to become a non-voting delegate)? To FHQ's mind this isn't any different from the average delegate moving over to the actual nominee at the convention despite that earlier pledge. It happens routinely. Still, the members of the RBC took issue with the proportionality calculus and how that would play out in reality. Some made the argument that it was the job of the RBC to plan for the worst case scenario, a floor fight over the nomination. But while that may be true, it isn't likely to be the reality in 2012. As RBC member, Ray Buckley said, "I'm ambivalent about this...because I don't think the president will be challenged in 2012."

There were some alternate proposals bandied about. The one that seemed to resonate was one that had alternate delegates becoming actual delegates as a means of diluting the influence of the superdelegates. This seemed like a clever enough idea, but obviously needs to be fleshed out some. That represents quite an expansion of the number of delegates which has implications for floor seating because there would still have to be alternates who also get a spot on the floor even if they are not voting.

I don't see that proposal making it nor do I necessarily see the Change Commission's proposal getting through the full DNC. One thing we can likely count on is the elimination of the add-on delegates. Beyond that, there may not be a whole lot of movement on the superdelegates issue. With Obama running unchallenged in 2012 (more than likely), that group will return to its spot in the background of the process.

[Before I shift gears to the timing issue, there's one other point I'd like to raise about superdelegates and conventions. It was interesting to me from my basement position in the ivory tower to see how these matters were viewed by some of the elites within the party. Academics tend to take a macro view of conventions. They matter in that they move the needle in the polls in their immediate aftermath. But as Seth Masket pointed out last week when the GOP tapped Tampa to be its 2012 convention site, the link between conventions location and electoral results is tenuous at best. The same holds for conventions overall. But members of the parties involved in the process don't necessarily share the same view. Instead of a macro view, they adopt a micro view. To the elites, winning in November matters, but things like convention seating and hotel arrangements matter. One of the DNC staffers was joking with me before the Saturday session about the Michigan delegates having to stay in Boulder during the 2008 convention in Denver. Rick Stafford, and RBC member from Minnesota, said the Democrats from the Land of 10,000 Lakes suffered a similar fate for holding a pre-window caucus in 1988; staying "somewhere in Georgia." These folks will protect that turf unless compelled to do otherwise. The bottom line is that these sorts of things matter to folks within the RBC and that obviously has the potential to impact the rules that emerge from this process.]

Timing

This issue was why FHQ went to Washington for this meeting in the first place. Presidential primary and caucus scheduling (or movement from cycle to cycle) is our bread and butter. And while Tom Schaller is right that not much substance came out of this meeting, the group will have a large discussion in July that will have found its roots in the groundwork laid on Friday and Saturday.

First, the Change Commission has called for Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina to retain their privileged positions in the pre-window period of the primary calendar from 2008. The Democrats got a major assist on making that recommendation a reality from the Republican Temporary Delegate Selection Committee last week. The TDSC followed the Change Commission's lead in not only keeping those four states early but in knocking back the start date of the process from January to February and preventing all other states from going before a the first Tuesday in March (A return to -- at least for the Democrats -- something akin to the 2000 primary calendar.). That's a big deal and it certainly helps both parties on the enforcement front somewhat. If both parties have the same timing rules, it makes it far less likely that a Republican-controlled state government, for example, will opt to flaunt Democratic Party rules to maintain or move to an earlier, pre-window date on the calendar (This assumes a scenario where the Democrats adopt the Change Commission recommendations on timing, but the Republicans are more open to allowing earlier contests.). Enforcement of the delegate selection rules is more difficult when the parties aren't on the same page. However, just because it appears that the parties will, I won't call it coordinate, but correspond with each other on timing, doesn't necessarily mean there won't be any rogue states like Florida and Michigan in 2012. Enforcement of the timing strictures was one of the sticking points with members of the RBC during this discussion. In the end, it really wasn't dealt with, but pushed to the July meeting instead. There are enticements (bonus delegates) for going later, but will that get the 19 states currently scheduled (according to state law) in February to move their primaries in accordance with the possible rules changes? That is the question at this point. Nothing has worked thus far on that front as a means of curbing frontloading, but both parties will have to hope that all works out for the best when and if both produce similar calendars for 2012.

There was also a varied discussion over the Change Commission's recommendation for encouraging more regionally or subregionally clustered primaries. More questions than answers emerged from this particular topic. What constituted a cluster? Are big states like California and New York large enough on their own to constitute clusters? How do you get states to cluster? What enticements can be used? How do you go about scheduling which cluster goes first? Getting states to cluster is the conundrum. It seems that Democratic-controlled states would be better able to cluster states controlled by the Republicans or with some form or fashion of divided government. [Truth be told, that is one of the major findings of my dissertation on frontloading decisions over time. But who am I to toot my own horn?] Some states are better able to move and the creation of clusters also seems as if it might be fraught with the same sort of Iowa/New Hampshire privileged position issue. [Hello unintended consequences.] I don't know that there is any way of getting to this point other than to allow states to come to clustering conclusions organically. [Think Potomac Primary or the Great Lakes or Yankee Primaries in 1996.]

One final thing that received quite a lot of discussion was the idea of opening the pre-window period to a bidding process for those four slots. A similar proposal system was used by the Levin Commission in 2006 before it added Nevada and South Carolina to the Democratic pre-window period for 2008. But RBC member, Michael Steed, proposed opening all four slots (including Iowa's and New Hampshire's) up for 2012. This received some support in the room, but was shot down by RBC member, Jeff Berman, who said it was too late in the process for that (especially if a set of rules was going to be in place for the full DNC to consider and vote on in August). The proposal process was already well underway at this point in the cycle before 2008. Another talking point concerned just adding an additional slot or two in the pre-window period. This, too, was denied, but an amendment was added to the rule that this be considered for 2016. That was passed while the rest of the timing issue was tabled for the July meeting.

At this point, the calendar will is very likely to be adopted by the full DNC, but the questions of clustering and enforcement still remain in shadowy territory. There are no clear answers for either.

Parting Shots

The theme of this meeting was the balance between crafting a set of delegate selection rules that rectifies some of the issues raised by the Democrats' 2008 primary race and reelecting the president. To some members of the RBC those two were countervailing forces. The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument that RBC member Alice Germond made is a tough one to counter. Indeed. Why mess with a formula that worked? Upon further reflection, FHQ is not terribly sympathetic to that line of thought. Now, we don't have a dog in this fight. Reform or not, this site will have an eye to the 2012 rules regardless. However, this argument seems like a veiled attempt to maintain the status quo. After all, how much of the election results in November 2008 were attributable to what happened in the winter and early spring? A Democrat would have won in November regardless, whether it was Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. [Well, Edwards would have been in some hot water in August 2008 with the Rielle Hunter ordeal if he was the presumptive nominee at that point.] At the margins, the competitive races in Indiana and North Carolina may have helped lay the groundwork for Obama and the Democrats successfully turning those long-standing red states blue. But those 26 electoral votes would not have been decisive. They were luxuries that a severely toxic 2008 Republican brand afforded the Obama campaign and the Democrats trying to elect the president.

That said, here are a few things to note. The status quo with some minor changes is probably what both the Democrats and Republicans will produce for this upcoming cycle. There were some problems with the rules in 2008, but that was mostly a function of a close Democratic race. In the post-reform era, that has been more an anomaly rather than commonplace. The best argument for the status quo is not that it worked in 2008 or any other year, but rather that wholesale changes to the system could lead to unintended consequences. For example, no one in the Democratic Party in 1984 could have imagined the potential impact superdelegates -- new in 1984 -- would/could have had in the 2008 process. [This was a point that was raised by someone on the RBC at the meeting this weekend.]

Now, some of the points outlined above regarding the status quo may be moot. It may not matter and here's why: The head of the Democratic Party may want to make the Democratic Change Commission's recommendations a reality. Changes to the rules are not likely to affect the president's chances at renomination. The likelihood of him being challenged for the Democratic Party nod is as close to nil as it gets at the moment. So, why not push these recommendations through? The DNC probably won't balk at the president if this is what he wants. But is that what the president wants? That's the $64 question; the one that is likely to determine the extent to which the Rules and Bylaws Committee goes along with the Change Commission's recommendations.

But we'll have to wait until the July meeting for that answer.

[For more, please go over to DemRulz and read Frank Leone's write up of the events from the weekend as well. He offers a different perspective; both legal and from within the DNC.]

Democratic Change Commission Meeting (#3) Tomorrow

The Democratic Change Commission is scheduled to hold its final meeting at 10:30 am on Saturday December 5 at the Capitol Hilton, at 16th & K Sts. NW, Washington DC. The group is to make recommendations to the DNC by the first of the year and this is the final meeting. However, whether that means those recommendations are made public tomorrow is up in the air.

FHQ will be on the lookout for updates and news and posting them here. Here are a few links I'll be keeping an eye on:

DCC Member Twitter feeds:
Claire McCaskill
Suzi LeVine (Oh, and here is her blog where she posted some great material following the first and second meetings. Now, whether that happens tomorrow or later is yet to be determined, but this remains a great place for firsthand accounts from inside the process.)
Rebecca Prozan
Joan Garry

DemRulz (Frank Leone has had great live blogs from the first and second meetings in Washington. He has already said he will reprise that role tomorrow. In addition, Frank has a great series of posts up concerning each of the points of emphasis for the commission: timing, caucuses and superdelegates. Here, too, is his Twitter feed.)

DemConWatch (Depending on the news out of Washington on Saturday, I'll likely be cross-posting some thoughts over there. But Matt may or may not have some things of his own to add to the discussion.)


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Did Democratic Superdelegates Write Their Own Epitaph?

That's a question I tweeted over the weekend, but would like to explore a bit more. The question finds its root in some of the comments Elaine Kamarck made at this weekend's Democratic Change Commission meeting (from ABCNews):

Touching on what may prove to be one of the more contentious issues considered by the DNC, one presenter, Democratic Party activist and Harvard University lecturer and former superdelegate Elaine Kamarck, suggested that it may be time to completely eliminate superdelegates since most of those party leaders clearly determined their role in 2008 to be one of ratifying the decision made by voters in primaries and caucuses.

"We can probably let go of the superdelegates," said Kamarck.

"Their deliberative role," she added, "has in fact been supplanted by a very very public process."

I hadn't really given this much thought before, but by following the will of the people (voting the way their constituents did), most superdelegates actually undermined their original purpose. The reason superdelegates came into being in the interim period between the 1980 and 1984 elections was to allow the party establishment an increased voice in the nomination process (something they saw as having diminished in the post-McGovern-Fraser reform era). Make no mistake, that is code for giving the party the opportunity to put a check on the decision of the people's choice. And no, that's not necessarily a bad thing. For the Democratic Party that was a strategic decision based on the prevailing conventional wisdom* of the time that primary voters are typically more extreme (or at least further to the left or right) than general election voters. It was a basic electability argument.

Regardless, superdelegates have basically served to ratify the choice of primary voters since 1984. But they operated in the shadows -- in virtual anonymity -- not triggering any controversy until their role appeared consequential to the outcome of the 2008 Democratic nomination. Their role never changed, though -- not the intended role, at least. Technically, superdelegates are/were still unpledged delegates. However, by very visibly coming out in favor of the candidates their constituents voted for in the primaries and caucuses, they (or most of the superdelegates) completely undermined their initial purpose.

And this was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. There was no exit strategy where the superdelegate system was going to emerge unchanged. Either the superdelegates were going to vote with their constituency and risk countering their intended purpose or they were going to vote against their constituents and run the risk of ripping the party in two. [Yes, there are a series of gradations in between, but one of those narratives would have emerged as the dominant theme at some point.] Politically, they made the right move for many reasons. [Not dividing the party and their own re-election prospects would have damaged in the case of the office-holding superdelegates were chief among those reasons.] In the process, though, the role of the superdelegate has likely been rewritten.

The Hunt Commission initially called for superdelegates to comprise approximately 30% of total delegates, but that number was whittled down to 14% by the time the 1984 cycle rolled around. Ever since then, there has been what Democratic Change Commission member Suzi LeVine cleverly called a "superdelegate creep" with that percentage rising as time went on. By 2008 superdelegates made up about 20% of the total number of Democratic convention delegates.

Saying that superdelegates wrote their own epitaph with their actions in 2008 is probably a bit of an overstatement. Will they be eliminated? No, because the Democratic Change Commission membership is about one-third superdelegate and the group the DCC will make recommendations to -- the Rules and Bylaws Committee -- is made up of DNC members who were also superdelegates. They won't be eliminated, but their voice in the nomination process -- the voice of the party establishment superdelegates were created to protect -- will likely be significantly diminished for the 2012 cycle and beyond.

We'll find out a little bit more about how much when the Democratic Change Commission reconvenes in late August.

*This is still being debated in various ways within the political science discipline. Early books by Crotty and Jackson (Presidential Primaries and Nominations - 1985), Marshall (Presidential Primaries in a Reform Age - 1981), Lengle (Representation and Presidential Primaries: The Democratic Party in the Post-Reform Era - 1981), Polsby (Consequences of Party Reform - 1983) and more recent articles (highlighted by McCann 1995) all describe varying levels of differentiation between primary voters and (same party) general election voters while Norrander (1989) and Geer (1988), among others, offer evidence against the ideological extremism argument.


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The Best Inside Account of the First Democratic Change Commission Meeting

Last night I linked to Democratic Change Commission member, Suzi LeVine's, blog. She updated her already detailed account of the events that transpired yesterday with insights into the discussions (and Q&A) around each of the presentations. This is THE site (so far) to track the DCC's progress from an inside perspective.

The presentations (and comments)...

• Overview of the Change Commissions Issues

• History of Modern Day Democratic Presidential Nominations

• Presentation on Caucus Systems

• Interests & Goals of the Party, Presidential Candidates & Voters

• Unpledged Delegates (superdelegates)

This is great stuff (...that I'm sure I'm bound to come back to later).


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Future Democratic Change Commission Meetings

Mark your calendars folks. Frank Leone, over at DemRulz, who was at yesterday's first Democratic Change Commission meeting, has the dates for remaining three meetings of the commission. Recall that the resolution that created the commission called for the group to make recommendations to the DNC Rules and Bylaws Committee by January 1, 2010. All of the following meetings are scheduled accordingly.

August 29 (meeting open to public comment)

October 24

December 5

The latter two are meetings to discuss and decide on proposals for recommendation.


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DemRulz Liveblog of Democratic Change Commission Meeting

Virginia DNC member Frank Leone is liveblogging the action from the Democratic Change Commission meeting today in Washington. You can follow along at DemRulz and also have a look at the group's agenda (There are some nice graphs in there that I'll pull out and post in a little while.) there as well.

Also, Dan Balz has a story up on Washington Post's page dealing with the 2012 nomination process tinkering that will likely appear in tomorrow's Post (Note the use of the word yesterday in reference to the meeting taking place today.). It is an interesting read. You can check it out here. Importantly, he notes that Elaine Kamarck, in her presentation on superdelegates, indicated that the time was right for their (the superdelegates) elimination.

Now, some graphics on delegate allocation from the meeting's agenda notes (These are from pdfs and that explains the graininess. However, they come to us courtesy of the Democratic National Committee, so let's grant credit where credit is due.)...

1976 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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1980 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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1984 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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1988 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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1992 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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1996 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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2000 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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2004 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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2008 Democratic Delegate Allocation

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So, what do we see here? It isn't that unlike the maps I have in the left sidebar. But instead of being couched in terms of how early the contests are (and those changes over time), these graphs show how a process that had a relatively even distribution of delegates throughout the window period in 1976 shifted to what we witnessed in 2008. Mainly, we see that 60% of the delegates were allocated in the first week of February with no other week breaking the 15% barrier. Of course, those numbers would have been even more lopsided in 2008 if Florida and Michigan had been included in the data. Those states would have pushed the delegates having been allocated by February 6 (the day after Super Tuesday) to over two-thirds and close three-quarters. That, folks, is the impact of frontloading in a nutshell.

For other posts related to the Democratic Change Commission, click here. And here's the progress thus far on the GOP side.


Hat tip to Matt at DemConWatch for the tip on Leone's coverage.


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On the Agenda at the Democratic Change Commission Meeting

According to First Read...

*** Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’: Missing those daily superdelegate counts? The speculation about when states like Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan would hold their primaries/caucuses? Come on, admit it -- you miss it. Well, if you are, you can head over Saturday morning to the first meeting of the DNC’s Democratic Change Commission, which has been tasked with reforming 1) the primary calendar, 2) the number of superdelegates, and 3) the caucus system. Presiding over the meeting will be DNC chair Tim Kaine and commission co-chairs Jim Clyburn and Claire McCaskill, and there isn’t supposed to be any big news. The 37-member commission will listen to a presentation of Democratic Party presidential nominations by Rhodes Cook; a look at the superdelegates by Elaine Kamarck; and an examination of the caucus system by Organizing for America’s Mitch Stewart. This is all in the fact-gathering stage, but ask yourself this: How likely is it that this DNC would dramatically change a system that helped launch the president's campaign? Iowa and South Carolina are VERY safe. As for the superdelegate system, well that’s another story…

As I said earlier in the week, no decisions are going to be made tomorrow, but it is quite another thing to see how much listening the group will be doing tomorrow. That probably isn't the kind of action most people want. My hope? That the DNC posts the presentations as part of their coverage.

UPDATE: Oh, and C-SPAN's TV schedule is full in the morning tomorrow (when the meeting is going on), but C-SPAN2 still has some holes to fill. The former does have some spots in the afternoon to run a rebroadcast if they get some cameras out there.


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The Group That Might Change It All? A Closer Look at the Democratic Change Commission's Membership

Earlier today in a post about the Democratic Change Commission's first meeting -- set to take place this weekend -- I set myself the goal of finding out how many superdelegates from 2008 were among the group's members. The logic there is that if the group is made up entirely of former superdelegates, then the likelihood of that portion of the nomination equation being changed drops significantly. But there are three points on the commission's to-do list. Let's look at them again and then examine how the members' backgrounds may influence the commission's ultimate recommendation to the DNC:

1. The window of time in which presidential nomination contests are held
   
2. The impact of superdelegates
3. The caucus system

So, if superdelegates comprise a majority of the group, that [hypothetically] negatively affects the chances of that issue being meaningfully reformed. And that logic holds for the other two issues as well. If caucus states are overrepresented on the commission relative to primary states, that affects action on the system of caucusing. Also, if earlier states are represented in higher proportion on the commission, they may be more likely to protect the status quo.

Before we turn to the numbers, let's revisit my back-of-the-napkin analysis from when the commission was named in March.

The Membership

My first inclination is to look not at who specifically these 37 commission members are, but to focus on where they are from and what that says about the group collectively. Let's look at it by the numbers:

• 37 members (2 co-chairs and 35 members)
• Representing 26 states (plus DC, Puerto Rico and the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe)
• 7 members are from 7 red states
• 24 members from 19 blue states (and four more from DC)
  
• Of the 15 states within ten points in the presidential election, 13 are represented on the commission (only Indiana and North Dakota are excluded)
• All of the January 2008 Democratic contest states are represented (Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan, Nevada, South Carolina and Florida)
  

Now, what does any of that have to do with the changes this commission may bring about? Well, it has a "take care of your own" feel to it. The membership hails from the Obama coalition of states and of those outside that coalition, most are states that were within ten points last November. These states won't necessarily have privileged positions on the 2012 calendar but they will be represented on the commission. Part of the Obama success story was primary season organizational efforts that paid dividends in the general election. The flip side here is that the membership isn't a reflection of future goals (in terms of states to target), but represent states where those organizational efforts were the strongest/most vital.

First, let's augment this with a look at the caucus states representatives on the Democratic Change Commission (DCC). Of course, we should probably start this by noting that proportionally there are far fewer caucus states than primary states. About a quarter of the states (12) held Democratic caucuses in 2008. On the DCC, six of the members are from caucus states and that amounts to just under a sixth of the total membership.

Prognosis: The likelihood of some change to the caucus system -- uniforming the process across caucus states, for example -- actually has few obstacles.

How about superdelegates? How many former supers are on the DCC? From the 2008 cycle, 12 former superdelegates are among the members of the commission and that is roughly a third of the membership. However, just because there are a fair number of superdelegates on the commission doesn't necessarily mean that they'll stand in the way of some change to the superdelegate formula.

Prognosis: Perhaps less likely than a change to the caucuses, but the chances for change are not bad on the whole.

And primary/caucus timing? It'll never happen. Frontloading is here to stay. I'm kidding, but when you look at the numbers there may be a significant obstacle here. This, after all, is the most difficult plank on this three-pronged platform to change. How can we quantify this, though. For our purposes, I'll look at DCC members from states that held contests prior to March. [Yes, I know. That's over half the country.] And there are 28 members from pre-March states out of the 37 person group. That's quite a few. But the obstacle theory doesn't necessarily hold here. If all or most states are already early, as they were in 2008, those early states are more likely to be amenable to just moving everything back a month if no one is better or worse off for the move. Texas and Ohio and the other handful of March states get something of a boost (Well, that's debateable given the likely March logjam. But it isn't a given that at 2012 or 2016 race would play out and last as long as the race in 2008.) and all those February states just shift back a month. Basically, things would, on the Democratic side, revert to their pre-2004 levels.

However, we could also see members complain about the difficulty of pushing such a shift through unreceptive (read: Republican-controlled) legislatures. In other words, state legislators wanting their constituents -- the Republican ones at least -- to have an influence over the 2012 Republican nomination would basically thumb their noses at the Democratic rules if they asked for there to be such a February to March shift. In fact, such legislators may even see that as an opportunity to keep their state in a less crowded, more advantageous position on the calendar.

One final thing we can look at here is how pre-2008 February states are represented on the committee. By this logic, new early state's in 2008 may be more willing to go back to the way things were with the 2004 calendar. This seems less likely now that I'm typing this out, but I've got the numbers and I'll go ahead and share them. Instead of 28 members from pre-March states, there are only 16 (a little less than half) that were from pre-March states in 2004.

Prognosis: There are a lot of early states represented on this commission and that may or may not bode well for some reform on this particular aspect of the group's plan. However, this group was handpicked (possibly making the above numbers moot), so if they desire to make a change -- like the February to March shift -- then they are likely to be able to push it through. But they'll have to tackle the issue of the problems that could create with the RNC. There have been some contacts kept between the parties on this, but without bipartisan action, it is unlikely that we'll see any sweeping reform to the system.


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ABC News: Obama Now Leads in Superdelegates

With an additional switch this morning (Rep. Donald Payne, NJ) and a new endorsement (Rep. Peter DeFazio, OR), Obama now leads Clinton 267-266 among the superdelegates.


(via Daily Kos)

Paul has mentioned this several times in our discussion group meetings, but I'll reiterate the point here. It has seemed like only a matter of time before this happened. A new leader in the count has emerged and Clinton has one less thing to lean on in making an argument to the other uncommitted superdelegates.

Unpledged Add-On Delegates

Well, we can thank the lengthy and competitive race for the Democratic nomination for bringing to light any number of rules and political players during this current nomination season. I mean, who among you was talking about the primary/caucus in Texas in 2004? Did Al Gore even care that there were superdelegates in 2000? And what about the timing of nominating contests? That never warranted any discussion before this year. Well, I suppose that has been discussed some (here and elsewhere).

As we glance forward at the race post-North Carolina/Indiana there are a couple of related questions that come readily to mind: 1) What are the numbers? and 2) Is it over? I'll leave the latter to the pundits and Hillary Clinton. The former, however, has been covered and seems to point toward the affirmative on the latter (See, the pundits are already at work.). If you are Hillary Clinton and her campaign, though, you are trying to find a way to cobble together an unlikely coalition of delegates to somehow pull this thing out. We all know the math on the pledged delegates and the superdelegates, but what about these mysterious unpledged, add-on delegates? Could this potentially be a hidden bastion of support that Clinton could use to get her close enough to Obama's tally; close enough that legitimately begin making the electability arguments again?

Possibly, but it's doubtful. There are only 76 add-ons (81 if you count Florida and Michigan's) and this group insn't going to act anymore monolitically than any other group of Democratic delegates. In fact, Obama already has a lead among those add-ons that have been selected. Most are selected at state conventions (others by committees of state party leaders) to represent their states as unpledged delegates to the national convention. Only a hanful have been chosen thus far but more will follow as the process transitions into the state convention phase for both caucus states and primary states.

Want more? If the link to 2008 Democratic Convention Watch isn't enough, NPR ran a story on the add-ons just last week as well.


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The Credentials Committee and "The Dean 25"

Depending on how the next handful of nominating contests go for the Democrats, the Florida/Michigan situation may once again be resurrected (In fact, Michigan Dems are going ahead with their delegate selection process despite the DNC sanctions.) and prove crucial to the outcome of the party's nomination race. In the UGA Campaign Discussion Group on Wednesday, the issue of the Credentials Committee and its role in deciding the fate of those delegates from Florida and Michigan was raised. This 186 member group is comprised of 1) party members from the states based on each state's primary or caucus results (not clear whether the results are from this cycle or from the past) and 2) party members appointed by the chairman of the party. There are 161 of the former and 25 members appointed by DNC chairman, Howard Dean. This committee is a completely separate entity from the Rules and Bylaws Committee that opted to strip Florida and Michigan of their delegates for violating the contest scheduling rules in their delegate selection plans. The "make an example of them" approach may not be felt as intensely in the Credentials Committee as it was in the Rules Committee. However, "the Dean 25" (as Avi Zenilman of Politico is calling them) may have something to say about that.

The question though, is, are these appointees in lock step with the positions Howard Dean has taken on the Florida and Michigan question. One thing that the Politico analysis fails to examine directly is when these appointments were made. They do come to the conclusion that these Credentials members may not be beholden to what Dean wants. But if these appointments were made when he became chairman in 2005, there's no way this was even an issue in the appointment decisions. Like everyone else then, these folks are faced with having to choose between Clinton and Obama. And just like in the primaries and caucuses and just like with the superdelegates, there is a pretty even split in who members of the Credentials Committee appear to backing. Based on the "hints" information in the Politico piece, eight support Clinton, eleven favor Obama, five are neutral and one has donated to both and favors the 50 state strategy under which Dean has the party operating. Obama then, has a slight edge with five or six members holding all the power. Even if that 50 state strategy backer opts for Obama (And as FHQ has speculated, Obama puts more states in play on the electoral college landscape than Clinton, with the result of promoting the strategy more effectively.), the Illinois senator only has 12 of the 25 members of the committee in his corner. The other five would all have to break for Clinton though to give her an edge.

Is that good news for Florida and Michigan? Probably not. But it won't necessarily be because of the Credentials Committee bowing to Dean's desires on the matter.

I still feel like the party will quietly punish Florida and Michigan, but will ultimately strip half their delegations as called for in the original rules for 2008 delegate selection. But that will only be "quiet" if Florida and Michigan are inconsequential in the grand scheme of things in this nomination race. However, predictions are made to be broken in this primary season. So don't hold me to that.

10 is the Magic Number?

In a campaign season rife with various numbers of some significance to the race, why not make room for one more. We've had 2025 and 1191 for the number of delegates necessary to win the Democratic and Republican nominations respectively. For a while there during the post-Super Tuesday Obama streak, 100 delegates was the margin under which Hillary Clinton had to get to make an argument to superdelegates. As the reality of not being able to get the delegate count under that number though, the focus of the Clinton team has shifted. And with it, the decision making calculus of the superdelegates has changed as well.

In an earlier set of posts (here and here), I laid out the parts of that process in terms of knowns and unknowns. What we know is the electablility factor and the number of contests won. The number of contests is easy enough. Obama has already won over half the states. Of course the Clinton camp is focusing on what types of states those are (red) and contending that they won't be won by a Democrat anyway. On the electability scorecard, both Clinton and Obama seem electable enough, but the more the rancorous tone of March continues, the less able the two candidates and the Democratic party will be to bridge the divide and heal the wounds in a timely enough manner for the general election.

The superdelegates who remain undecided know that though, and that was added to the decision making calculus (ver. 2.0). They feel the pressure to wrap the nomination up, but also feel the countervailing force to not choose incorrectly. That pressure figures into the unknowns of upward ambition and a superdelegate's relationship with or personal feelings for each of the candidates vying for the nomination.

With the remaining contests looking to be split fairly evenly between Obama and Clinton and with Clinton, as a result, being unable to cut significantly into Obama's delegate lead, the superdelegates are once again viewed as decisive. A post this morning by Jim Geraghty on the National Review Online hints at one remaining consideration for the undecided superdelegates to factor into their decision: taking cues from the remaining big time superdelegates.

The new magic number then, is ten. These ten superdelegates are the ones who hold enough clout within the party to tip the scale in one direction or the other as the contest phase of the nomination season draws to a close.
1. Al Gore
2. Jimmy Carter
3. Nancy Pelosi
4. Harry Reid
5. Joe Biden
6. Steny Hoyer
7. Jim Clyburn
8. Jim Webb
9. Red State House Dems up for re-election
10. Donna Brazile

With the exception of red state Democrats (a group likely to remain undecided until everyone else has weighed in--Why choose when you can use the "The party chose them" excuse with constituents?), this list makes sense. If a majority of these folks opts for one candidate over the other then either Obama is looking good or the Democratic party is likely headed for a messy convention pitting party elites against the rank-and-file membership. Given Jimmy Carter's 1980 experience, you'd think he'd weigh in to attempt to avoid a repeat of the post-convention chasm between Carter and Kennedy factions that year. None of these ten (nor the rest of the superdelegates) wants to be on the wrong side though. And that means most will wait for the chips to fall before making a decision. In other words, maybe this superdelegate convention, Tennessee governor, Phil Bresden is pushing has some validity to it.

[For a long discussion of each of these decision making factors see the earlier posts linked above.]

Superdelegates: The Deciders [March Edition]

Since it has been a few weeks, I'll bump this post back to the top. We've endured the Obama surge and the Clinton counter, and now the focus is shifting back to the superdelegates as the decisive faction of delegates in the Democratic race (not necessarily the way the DNC would have wanted things to play out). Ohio senator, Sherrod Brown was on NPR this morning talking a bit about the calculus that superdelegates go through in making their decisions.

In the post linked at the outset of this one, I go through some of the steps in this calculus. It had changed somewhat as Obama made his surge over the last few weeks, but as Clinton rebounded on Tuesday, the race was pushed back into doubt. That, in turn, brought the superdelegates and their decision making calculus back to the fore.

One thing that we can add to this calculus is that since the race has continued a month beyond Super Tuesday, the pressure to wrap this nomination up has intensified. That pressure though, is counterweighted by the desire among superdelegates (and perhaps the DNC) to avoid the perception that they are the ones making the decision.

The DNC may need to change how this superdelegate discussion is playing out in the media though. Instead of allowing the superdelegates to be portrayed as instruments of the party that have been given the power to potentially overturn the will of the people, they need to begin talking about the superdelegates as the arbiters of the various Democratic primary and caucus voters. If they begin talking about how the race is a tie and will continue to be through June, then it becomes necessary for some individual or group to break the tie. Well, they have a trusted panel of 796 individuals in place to make such a decision. Does that line of argument hold water? Maybe, maybe not. But the superdelegates as unfair institutional quirk, is not working for the DNC. The complication here is that the superdelegates too, may be unable to effectively break the tie. But that's a story for another day.

Early Voting Analysis from Texas and the Events of February 27

With a couple of weeks between contests, the next round of primaries and caucuses are receiving the kind of scrutiny not seen since the pre-Iowa days (Remember those days...when we were still singing Christmas carols? This campaign has already been long and we aren't even out of February yet.). The rules in Texas and the playing field in Ohio have been examined within this space over the last several weeks. However, the broader political science community is starting to weigh in with some actual data from Texas. Now, while NPR will simply state, as they did this morning, that early voting had commenced in both the prized states of March 4, some have gone beyond that to look into what the early information (from the fifteen largest counties) released by the Texas secretary of state's office actually mean.

The folks at both Election Updates and The Monkey Cage have some interesting analysis and commentary on what is coming out of Texas. Former UT graduate student and current John Jay College professor, Brian Arbor has found that early voting turnout is up versus four years ago, and that the increase is in areas that have demographic characteristics similar to voters that have gone with Obama in other states. There are caveats to these findings, to be sure, but some of this information is backed up by Paul Gronke over at Election Updates, who has done a lot of research on the impact of early voting. He cites the Wall Street Journal article that discusses Hidalgo County having the highest proportion of early voting. However, it is also one of the counties in a state senate district that has the fewest delegates at stake; just two. So while Hidalgo is full of the Hispanic voters that Clinton has targeted and proportionally is voting early, it may not in the end help Clinton all that much.

Both points give Obama an edge and must be ominous signs to the Clinton camp in Texas.

In other news, NPR has been discussing the presidential race with noted conservatives this week. Grover Norquist's interview came up in the comments yesterday. This series of interviews has been fertile ground for one-liners. Norquist maintained that McCain played dead last summer (through no fault of his own) and ultimately benefited from the scrutiny his opponents underwent. Today, the Southern Baptist Convention's public policy chief, Richard Land, had a great comment about the Democratic race. He said that Clinton was "on a job interview" while Obama was "on a date." And that really is an interesting way to frame and a testament to the Obama momentum/movement within the Democratic party (and outside of it with independents).

John Lewis made it official yesterday: he's switching over to Obama in a nod to the voices of the constituents within his Georgia congressional district. Now I'll have to see if that change has been reflected in the running tally at Superdelegates.org and on their GEarth layer. This story has already played its way out because of the New York Times story recently, but it still isn't a welcome sign with the Clinton campaign.

Finally, New York mayor (I bet you think I'm going to say Rudy Giuliani. Nope, but I have written that phrase a lot during this cycle, though a lot less lately.), Michael Bloomberg, ended the speculation that he would enter the presidential race as an independent today. And that officially brings to a close the discussions of an all New York race. Yes, it was as recently as late last summer that that was a talking point within the live discussion group here at UGA. And at the time it seemed conceivable that it could happen with Clinton the frontrunner on the Democratic side and Guiliani leading in the polls amongst the Republican candidates. C'est la vie, all New York presidential race.

The Weekend Wrap Up--The Presidents' Day Edition

Well, this post won't break any new ground, but is simply a selfish attempt to catalog the events of the last several days for my own personal use (Hey, someone else may want to look at it too!). So what has happened to change the landscape? Let's look at the events for each party:

Republicans
--Romney endorses McCain: This move doesn't affect McCain as much as it affects Huckabee. McCain will get the nod (eventually), but Huckabee's time in the race is dependent upon the time it takes McCain to get to the 1191 delegates necessary to secure the GOP nomination. CNN is giving all of Romney's delegates in this story; getting McCain to within 78 delegates of the threshold. There must have been some movement in the unpledged delegate area because those numbers don't jibe well with the cable network's current delegate tally. By the current count (and remember, these things vary) McCain would be within 75 delegates of 1191. Handing all those Romney delegates over though is misguided. Their release is dependent upon the rules in each of the states in which Romney was able to capture delegates. That's seventeen states:

State	Delegates	Contest	Bound?
CA	6	P	B (2nd ballot)
UT	36	P	B (1st ballot)
IL	2	P	NB
AR	1	P	B (1st ballot)
MA	22	P	B (2nd ballot)
TN	8	P	B (2nd ballot)
MI	24	P	B (1st ballot)
NH	4	P	B
MN	38	C	NB
AK	12	C	NB
ND	8	C	B (1st ballot)
MT	25	C	NB
CO	43	C	B (1st ballot)
ME	18	C	NB
NV	18	C	NB
WY	9	C	NB
IA	12	C	NB
Total	286
Key:	P	Primary
	C	Caucus
	B	Bound
	NB	Not Bound

But how many of those delegates can be released to McCain within the rules in each of these states? This may be a less than scientific approach, but applying the rules of the 2004 GOP delegate selection (concerning which states' delegates were bound), 133 of those 286 Romney delegates are not bound. Returning to CNN's delegate count, that would move McCain up to 963, but would keep him 228 away from the mark that would knock Huckabee out. [One thing I should note is that only Utah's delegate binding rules are known of the 17 states above. The language in the bylaws of the other state parties was less than forthcoming.]

UPDATE: The first President Bush has endorsed McCain now. Now if the McCain folks could figure out how to use the current President Bush in their campaign. They face a similar quandary to the one faced by Al Gore during the 2000 election. That balance will go a long way toward determining how successful McCain will be in the general election.

--Huckabee takes a vacation: Here's all you need to know (from The Caucus this morning):

"Meanwhile, as the Democrats were dealing with the snowstorm, Mike Huckabee’s greatest immediate problem was perhaps his reddened face, scorched by the intense Cayman Islands sun, writes Katharine Q. Seelye of The Times. Mr. Huckabee, the G.O.P. candidate, spent the weekend on the resort island while he addressed a crowd and collected a speaker’s fee.

Mr. Huckabee turned the occasion into an opportunity to point out that his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, John McCain of Arizona, and the two Democrats seeking their party’s nomination are senators and that unlike them, he did not receive a taxpayer-financed salary while campaigning.

'No taxpayers pay for me to have health insurance, to pay my mortgage, to pay my bills,” Mr. Huckabee said. “And so to me, it’s not just absurd, it’s beyond absurd — it’s insulting — to think that there’s something nefarious about my being here when nobody has raised the question about sitting U.S. senators taking their full paycheck and enjoying all the magnificent perks they get from the U.S. taxpayers.'"

I liked this story and especially Huckabee's response to questions of his means of acquiring necessary campaign funds. One of his marks on this race will not only be how his performance questioned McCain's standing among the very conservative within the party, but his campaign's wit. He's been consistently good at delivering clever one-liners for a while now.


Democrats
--Clinton wins New Mexico: Since this decision came to light after the Super Tuesday vote, some have speculated that this win breaks Obama's streak of recent victories. Possibly. However, what it does do is give the Clinton campaign a break in the slew of negative stories that have hit her campaign of late (personal loan to campaign, losing campaign and deputy campaign managers, losing eight contests in a row). The polls continue to look favorable in Wisconsin and good in both Ohio and Texas.

--SEIU endorses Obama: On the heels of the endorsement of the United Food and Commercial Workers, the SEIU endorsement further bolsters Obama's support among the unions. As the UFCW link on The Caucus points out, there are many Hispanics among the ranks of both unions and that could help Obama in Texas on March 4.

--Wisconsin turns "ugly": It really remains to be seen whether this will help or hurt Clinton in Wisconsin. One thing's for sure, we'll be able to start putting together an answer to that question when tomorrow's results start coming in. Obama has been up to the task thus far though; dispatching Wisconsin governor, Jim Doyle, to counter Clinton's claims. The Obama camp has been very disciplined in responding to attacks.

--The Lewis flip-flop: This has already been discussed in the comments section, but like the Romney delegates' release, it has real ramifications during this cycle.