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Saturday, January 31, 2004
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NO MONEY, MO' PROBLEMS
The great P.J O'Rourke once decribed the American system of government as consisting of three branches, bullshit, money and television. While this may or may not be true of the government, it is most assuredly true of American political campaigns and particularly the primaries. The question I'm most often asked after, "How can you satisfy a woman with such a miniscule penis?" is, "How is it that places like Iowa and New Hampshire are so instrumental in choosing the Leader of the Free World?"
This is a kind of complicated situation and requires some historical backround to properly explain. Prior to 1950, primaries existed in about 13 states but were routinely ignored by party bosses. The prevailing party machines controlled the delagates to conventions and would gather in a hotel room somewhere and decide amoungst themselves who the standard bearer would be for the campaign. This is where the phrase, "smoke-filled back room" came from. It actually worked pretty well. All one needs to do to test this theory is to look at the presidents who came from the system. Lincoln, Clevland, both Roosevelts and Truman.
By 1952, the populist movement - which oddly enough started within the Republican party - had gained sufficent strength to influence the nominating process. The populists decided that the party machines were circumventing democracy by limiting the choice of the people to maintain their own power. The first candidate to fully utilize the primary system was General Dwight Eisenhower. The conservative party bosses supported Senator Robert Taft of Ohio, having decided that losing 5 straight elections to the Democrats was fun. A popular "Draft Eisenhower"movement was established and set up a write in campaign for the, until then irrelevant, New Hampshire primary. It is noteworthy that Eisenhower as NATO Supreme Commander in Paris hadn't even committed to run.
When Eisenhower soundly beat Taft without even being on the ballot, the party took notice and the modern primary system was born. The Democrats came to the party in 1960, when the party establishment was divided between Governor Adali Stevenson and Senate Majority Leader, Lyndon Johnson. The insurgent campaign of Senator John F. Kennedy took on a momentemum with victories in Wisconsin and West Virginia that it never lost and Kennedy won the nomination on the first ballot.
The Iowa caucuses, which are too bizarre to describe here, were established in 1972 and became important in 1976 when an obscure, former one-term Georgia governor, Jimmy Carter won a suprise victory over 153 establishment Washington powerhouses.
This is a very abbreviated history of the primary system. I could get far more detailed, but I'm cognizant of the fact that I've probably bored the shit out of 98% of you already. Fear not, I'll get back to the beastiality stories and tales of gay porn producing, Japanese baseball players you've all come to expect and love shortly.
That explains how Iowa and New Hampshire became important. Now I'll get to why they remain important. These states are very small and no one lives there. Accordingly, all one needs is ten bucks and a dream of "I'ma gone be parsdent" and can, in theory, succeed. As no one actually lives in these states, media is very cheap in these places. Advertising rates are determined by the number of viewers or readers the ad can be expected to reach. Since fewer people live in the state of New Hampshire than live in New York City, media rates are far less expensive. Carter demonstrated how a poorly financed yet tightly disciplined team can beat more financially flush and recognizable candidates. A win or a better than expected showing in either (or both) of these states would bring in a flood of campaign contributions, which combined with the system of federal matching money, established in 1976, could allow a heretofore obscure candidate to compete and win in states with much larger (and expensive) media markets like New York and California.
The system worked pretty well. Outsider campaigns actually had a shot at winning. Barry Goldwater, whom the Republican establishment actively loathed, actually won the 1964 nomination. Eugene McCarthy and Gary Hart actually came reasonably close to being outsider nominees in 1968 and 1984. Ronald Reagan very nearly took the nomination from a sitting president, Gerald Ford, in 1976. Primaries became interesting.
And, as is true with most good things, it was not to last. The parties decided to fuck it up. As more and more states established primaries, they became marathon campaigns. To use the tortise and the hare analogy, these campaigns were long hauls in which the little guy could prevail. In the first modern campaign, 1960, the New Hampshire primary was in early February and the last one, California, was held in late June, just before the conventions. Since then, the parties have moved the primaries closer and closer together. This year the Iowa caucuses were held on January 19 and the final big primaries, New York, Texas and California will be held on March 2 and the nominee will be decided. A system that was spread out over 5 months is now compressed into five weeks.
The result of this is that an outsider has to have a fucking boatload of money up front or he's doomed. This is how Howard Dean gained prominence. Dean managed to blow a record 41 million dollars on two very small states. And he lost. Badly. Because of the shortened calander, an unexpected win doesn't even produce a financial bounce anymore. John Kerry, who came back from the dead to win in both Iowa and New Hampshire, will soon be reduced to selling his own blood to finance his campaign past next week. You see, Kerry was so desperate a month ago that he opted out of matching money, along with Dean and Bush, so that he could mortage his home and loan his campaign the $6.5 million. With the short calander, Kerry won't raise any significant money until he has the nomination secured. Then he faces the president's expected $200 million war chest.
Well, the system was fun while it lasted. I'm going to miss it.
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