Now, however, it appears that this exhausting race will continue. As of printing, Hillary Clinton has won the primaries of both Ohio and Texas. With these results, it appears that Clinton will be able to keep the this race going, setting her sights on Pennsylvania and other remaining primaries. She will be able to tout her victory as vindication for her belief that the Democratic voters will eventually come to their senses and reject Obama’s idealism. Notwithstanding my support for Obama and my wish for closure to this wild ride, I understand Clinton’s rationale for staying in the contest, based on her wins yesterday. She has valuable experience and foreign policy knowledge, and there is nothing wrong with a long-running Clinton-Obama debate on the relative merits of change and experience.
Even though I support Clinton’s continued presence in the race, there is one tactic she hopefully will not degrade herself by using. There have been rumors circulating that, in a last ditch effort to help her candidacy, Clinton will attempt to get the Democratic National Committee to reverse its decision to prevent the pledged delegates of Florida and Michigan from participating in the convention. This may seem an innocuous request, but the reality behind the decision to bar these delegates illuminates why seating the two states would be an unjust and monumentally divisive tactic.
In 2007, the Democratic Committees of both Florida and Michigan decided that they would move their primaries up to a date before Super Tuesday, in an effort to give their votes greater impact on the outcome of the election. But, there was an obvious problem with this sort of unilateral action. If every state could determine their own caucus or primary dates, a whole host of states would move their primaries up, causing chaos in the electoral calendar. Thus, the DNC told these two state committees that they would have to keep their primaries at the original dates, or else risk losing their official sanction and having their delegates discounted. Instead of listening to reason, Florida and Michigan decided to call the DNC’s bluff, holding their primaries ahead of time. This, however, was a major misjudgment of the DNC’s resolve, as the body proceeded to follow through on its threatened punishment.
These primaries, which haven’t mattered so far because of their illegitimate nature, gave Clinton sizable victories. This is no surprise; polling trends show that Obama usually gains in the polls the more he campaigns. Since Obama obeyed the election rules and didn’t so much as send a single member of his staff to either state, Clinton won both contests by wide margins. Now, rumors are swirling that, despite the obvious unfairness of these primaries, Hillary Clinton is planning on contesting the DNC’s ruling. If the delegate count remains close, sitting the Florida and Michigan representatives at the convention could give her a cheap election victory.
The unfairness of this possible strategy has not gone unnoticed by election analysts and political pundits. They predict that if this strategy is used by Clinton as a last ditch measure, the obvious desperation behind it would cause more damage to Clinton’s candidacy in future primaries. They also note that even if this issue was challenged after the primaries are over, many super-delegates who had supported Clinton because of her perceived uprightness would move to the Obama camp in response to her flouting of party rules. Indeed, the only certain effect that this strategy would have on the Democrats would be a vast discrediting of their nominating system. The resulting weakness and confusion would give the Republicans ample ill will to use against them in November. Hopefully, if Clinton is tempted by such a strategy, she will consider what is best for the party before what is best for her. Either that will happen, or she will forever have a special place in the affections of the John McCain administration.