The 2004 Election is Over, Now

The national press was all atwitter this weekend over the announcement that Howard Dean was going to skip public financing in his campaign for the Democratic nomination for President. However, the press was unanimous in missing one of the small but necessary elements within that decision, and they therefore missed the big picture – the real story.

The real story is that this election is now over. Howard Dean (or "James Dean," as a reporterette for Fox News called him once) now owns the Democratic nomination. George Bush now owns the general election. And once you've finished reading this column, you don't need to read anything else about this election except the long, or impressively long, list of states that Bush will carry in that election.

The included detail that the press missed was this: public funding comes with restrictions on spending. Total spending in any state is capped by a sliding scale based on the population of each state. And typical of bureaucratic rule-making, the cap on spending makes no allowance for the difference between small states like Delaware and Wyoming where no one in his right mind would campaign seriously, and small states like Iowa and New Hampshire, where every known human with a tangential interest in the presidency has spent much of his or her life in the last year.

Candidates have long developed creative ways of maximizing their campaigns in the early primary states while restricting direct spending. Staffers are routinely instructed to stay in motels and eat in restaurants that are just across the border in neighboring states, so those expenses don't count against the cap.

But, per the Supreme Court's ruling in the original campaign finance law challenge (the Buckley case in 1976), the government only has a right to place caps on spending in individual states, if the candidate voluntarily accepts public financing. Those who refuse the public financing and raise their own money are free to spend it as they choose, in accord with the First Amendment.

So the Dean announcement means two things. First, he and his advisors are satisfied that they can raise sufficient funds to conduct a successful campaign with no public money. Second, they want to bury all possible opponents (Hillary Clinton excluded) in the three early primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Each of his "real" opponents – which list excludes four of the nine dwarves – is planning on his own version of a fire wall, to beat or at least effectively tie Dean in a selected one of those three states. If Dean buries all of them in all of those states, the money will flow to him, the endorsements will fall on him like rain, and his candidacy will be unstoppable.

This is a proper strategy for any clear front-runner like Dean. In the "sweet science," boxing, it's referred to as finishing off your opponent when you have him on the ropes. In all other sports it's referred to as building a lead that will break the spirit of your opponents, so they're embarrassed to come out for the next quarter, inning, hole, chukker, whatever applies. Dean is about to beat each of his primary opponents like a rented mule.

There is a second reason for this strategy, which applies especially to Howard Dean. He needs to win before he self-destructs by making one too many exceptionally stupid comments in public, like his reference to seeking the votes of "guys who have Confederate flags in their pickup trucks." Did he stay up all night with his staff deliberately trying to find a comment that would alienate the black votes which he must have most of, while simultaneously alienating the white Southern votes which he must have some of? Had he done that, he could not have crafted a worse comment than what he did say, apparently off the cuff.

Dean is a son of Eli, a graduate of Yale. So are Joe Lieberman and John Kerry. So am I. I knew the latter two well, starting when we were surrounded by "ivy-covered professors in ivy-covered halls." One of the two, I respected at that time. But unlike the three of them, I am a Southerner who wears jeans, drives a Jeep, and knows how to split wood. Splitting wood isn't just an idle occupation here; we heat with wood, and would freeze to death come January without it. But I digress.

The bottom line is that the Dean strategy is to front-load his spending on his campaigns in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. And in the Democratic primaries in those three states, his strategy will work perfectly, even in South Carolina (but keep in mind that the Democrat voters there are only a third of the electorate, and Dean will only take, say, 60% of those who vote in the primary).

Three of the real opponents have suggested that they, too, will reject public funding of their campaigns. If they do this, that will prove that the Dean strategy is correct.

Consider the national and international poker tournaments now being carried variously on ESPN or the Travel Channel. The game is Texas hold-‘em, which I won't explain here. (I recommend those tournaments to readers interested in risk and mathematical strategy, and you'll quickly understand the game.) The relevance here is the betting process in those poker tournaments. They are "table stakes" games. That means any competitor can at any time go "all in." That means they bet every chip they have, on one hand or even on one card. All other players must then "see" or match that bet, which may be as high as a half million dollars, or fold.

Dean has just decided not merely to skip public financing in his whole campaign, he has decided to go "all in" in the first three states. If the other players (excuse me, candidates) go "all in" also, pushing their smaller piles of chips to the center of the table on one of those three hands in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina, they will be recognizing the truth that this is the whole ball of wax. Their only chances of defeating Dean are here. And if they fail here, it is sharply downhill all the way for Dean to roll through the remaining primaries and take the nomination.

In short, Dean's strategy is to win the nomination with three knockouts in the three opening rounds. That will leave the Democrats nationally a minimum amount of time and space to reflect on whether they are acquiring another McGovern, Mondale, or Dukakis. Or if one wants to be bipartisan about doomed campaigns, whether they are acquiring another Goldwater or Dole (him).

Howard Dean has run, so far, an exceptionally open campaign. He has been more honest about who he is, and what he stands for, than your average politician. He has repeatedly described himself as representing "the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party." That is correct, and that is half the reason why he now owns the nomination.

The other reason is that Dean is a more interesting candidate. He is not as dull as his "real" opponents, and not as irrelevant as his other opponents. To understand the level of dull here, recall the civics teacher played to perfection by Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. (It is one of the fifty most memorable scenes in American movies.)

In front of his totally non-responsive students Stein drones, "In 1930, the ... House ..., in an effort to alleviate the effects of the... Anyone? Anyone? ...the Great Depression, passed the... Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered? ...raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone ...?"

The very reasons that now guarantee Dean the Democratic nomination also guarantee that he will be buried in the general election. His "Democratic wing" is the arch-liberal, high tax, large government, anti-war wing of his party. He will carry a strong plurality in all of his primary races. But he will win the nomination by earning a majority of a minority. His capacity to unify his own party is limited. His capacity to reach beyond it to a significant number of independents and a small fraction of Republicans is nil.

Dean will lose all of the South, much of the Midwest, part of the West, and part of the East as well. I will concede him the Electoral College votes of Vermont and the District of Columbia, all six of them. Beyond that, it will be catch as catch can for Dean in the general election, but mostly catching nothing.

It is unfortunately necessary to factor in the possibility that Hillary Clinton will "parachute in" and take the nomination away from Dean at the last minute. She will not attempt to do that until two conditions have been met. They are: 1. Dean has in hand almost, but not quite enough, delegates to the Democratic convention for a mathematical lock on the nomination. 2. All major polls agree that Dean is headed for a Dukakis-sized defeat at the hands of George Bush.

The pundits on TV and elsewhere have been considering this possibility on the basis that there are deadlines for filing to be a Democratic candidate in various states which therefore require Hillary Clinton to throw her hat in the ring no later than late November or early December. The pundits, as usual, are wrong. There is a wrinkle in the election laws which allow Hillary several more months to make her move.

When voters in any primary "vote" for a candidate for President, they are actually voting for delegates who are pledged to that candidate. And any candidate can "free" his or her delegates by withdrawing from the race. (This varies with individual state laws; in some states the delegates once chosen are bound to their candidate for the first ballot, regardless.)

Wesley Clark has already demonstrated that he is a stalking horse – or sock puppet if you will – for the Clintons (both of them). He has shown this by dumping his independent volunteers as major players in his campaign, in favor of Clinton-grown professionals. All it would take for Hillary to jump into the game very late in the day is a joint press conference with Clark. He announces that he's leaving his name on the remaining ballots but that he is resigning from the race for President in favor of Clinton (her). He offers, and she accepts, the support of all of his pledged delegates on the earliest ballot at the convention when they are free to change. Both urge all Democrats who want Hillary to be the nominee, to vote for Clark in the voting booth.

This tactic, if pursued by Hillary, will not change the outcome of the general election. She will be able, if she chooses, to snatch the nomination out of the grasp of Dean just before he closes his fingers around the brass ring. But she would have the same difficulties as Dean, beyond that point.

She will have trouble unifying her own party, in part because some of the dedicated Deaniacs will resent the "stealing" of the nomination, and will sit on their hands during the campaign, and sit on their sofas come election day. She will have the same problems in the South, the Midwest, the West, and the East. I will concede her the Electoral College votes of New York and the District of Columbia, but all else is up for grabs by Bush and mostly beyond her grasp.

If you are a glutton for punishment, feel free to read or watch further coverage of the 2004 Presidential Election. But that really isn't necessary, and you certainly have better things to do with your time. It's all over but the shouting. Today.

About the Author: John Armor is an author and columnist on politics and history. He currently has an Exploratory Committee to run for Congress.

Hillary might be looking at the Schwarzenegger campaign as a model for victory.

Surprise late entrance, a campaign of only about 60 days, massive use of name recog and star power to wow the media and create nonstop buzz. A campaign too short for details or numerous debates, keeping to very general themes, and based on attacking the incumbent. Arnold escaped a thorough vetting and won in a state that disfavors his party.

The key difference is the level of distaste among the electorate for the status quo. Depending on events, that could swing against Bush, though surely not to the levels of Gray Davis.

A short campaign/coronation with limited questioning is certainly what she'd prefer, and it's probably the only way she could win.

Come on, your post... dare I say... stretches the boundary of credulity? The Clintons are OUT of power and will remain OUT of power. There's no comeback for the "comeback kid"; they've killed the Democrats as a majority party. The next 40 years belongs to Republicans. Now, let's just see if we can do anything with it.

Buchanan never enjoyed an early surge this early before the primaries... and was NEVER considered a lock. If anything, he was seen as a fluke. Buchanan himself has even said that he never led in the polls at any point. What he had going for him was his ground troops.

November 22, 1963 taught me a lesson you never learned. Oh I get it now (thanks to the poster who wrote, "it's a trap."). JFK's assassination should have taught Congressman Billy Bob a lesson about politicians that threaten the establishment. Congressman, this is a threat to you that you should stay out of the campaigning business. Hflynn, are you a SPOOK? Did Oliver Stone send you? Do you need... oh, noooooo.... GRAVY?!!

I said nothing about assassinations. Why are you going down that street? It is irrelevant to a discussion of elections, unless you think the US will degenerate into parties shooting candidates of other parties when they can't beat them. Is that your logic?

John / Billybob

Well, I thought my post was an attempt to be humorous and sarcastic. Apparently, I've accomplished neither. I wrote in response to a post by "huckleberry finn" or hyflynn or whatever the heck it was. The subject was NOVEMBER 22, 1963 to which you responded about where you were on that day. Sheesh!!

Some people be too serious...

unless you think the US will degenerate into parties shooting candidates of other parties when they can't beat them.

Just as an aside, this did happen in Tennessee, I think in 98, for a statewide office. An (R) killed a (D). At the time I joked with my liberal Dem supervisor, "I'm for any tactic that gets a Republican elected." Very tasteless.

unless you think the US will degenerate into parties shooting candidates of other parties when they can't beat them.

Buchanan won the early primaries. That is the point. As for name recognition, Dean has less name recognition than Gephardt.

With all of the press, he is stil behind the pack in that category.

Not a statewide office -- a local state rep race. The incumbent dem was killed by "Low tax" Looper [his real last name, and he had changed his first name for ballot purposes], the county tax commissioner. It happenend about 4 days before the elctions. The widow got 98% of the vote as a write-in!!

I'm with you on that. Complacency is not an option. The stakes are too high to give the Democrats any breathing room. If some think Pres. Bush is a shoe-in next year, that's fine, but let's all work hard for a total blow-out. I just don't want to beat the Democrats next year...I want to rip their lungs out and squeeze the life of them. I just don't want to see them out of power for another two-to-four years...I want to rid this country of the cancer that is the Democrat Party.

I agree with you. Hillary is totally unelectable. The only thing that keeps her name afloat are her own megalomania, and panic in the ranks at the prospect of a McGovernesque wipe out.

white liberal angry white guys

Wow! Is that a mental picture or what!

It's also an extremely miniscule demographic.

I just don't want to beat the Democrats next year...I want to rip their lungs out and squeeze the life of them. I just don't want to see them out of power for another two-to-four years...I want to rid this country of the cancer that is the Democrat Party.

I like the way you think.

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