Super Tuesday, the day that more state primaries/caucuses are held than any other date on the calendar is usually the end point to the presidential primary process. In most cases it has determined the ultimate nominees and in a few it has narrowed the field down to two remaining competitions for the party’s nod.
2012 has been unique, not in that there is an incumbent in one party thus leaving the primary contest to the other - 1996 and 2004 are recent example s of that. Nor is it unique in the large number of candidates initially seeking the non-incumbent President’s party’s nomination there were large groups of initial contenders in the 1988 and 2008 Democratic field and the 1996 Republican lists.
What is unique in 2012 is that Super Tuesday turned out not so Super. Now remember this is a Republican Presidential battle and as always that party is behind the Democratic Party in reforms that open up the system. So the Republican having embraced caucuses (a poor way to gauge the opinion of all the voters not just activists) and proportional allotment of delegates have failed to recognize that some states using primaries and some states using caucuses with some winner take all and some proportional result in an ultimate decision that does not necessarily reflect the majority of the party’s voters.
This year has become a four way battle which doesn’t seem able to get itself down to two candidates (three if you assume Ron Paul stays no matter what happens). And so with the combination of proportionality and winner take all Romney will ultimately prevail since the remaining votes are invariably split. But he will also prevail because of Citizens United the Supreme Court decision that handed our nation’s Democracy to the Oligarchs and Billionaires. If a candidate emerges who the media decides can defeat the choice of the Billionaire they spend money to destroy him - in the recent Ohio primary Romney is reported to have spent twelve million dollars in the last week of the campaign - a figure that shocks even hardened politicos.
I am a liberal Democrat -- a New Deal Liberal Democrat. I agree with the former Senator from Pennsylvania, Rick Santorum, on almost nothing. But I do agree as Andrew Jackson said “One man with Courage Makes a Majority”. Santorum’s success in a general election would be a disaster for the future of America. But every time he defeats or comes close to defeating Romney he strikes a blow against the corporate billionaire takeover of our democracy. Like William Jennings Bryan he preaches a gospel of return to an earlier day, appeals to what is misperceived as a rural simpler America, and wears his patriotism on one sleeve and his religion on the other. But he is when it comes to campaign money David against Goliath. He is when it comes to handlers and consultants his own man against “the candidate”.
The 2012 Presidential election may become just another in the long line of contests beginning in 1796 (no one considers the two Washington elections contests). It may end up being just another re-election of an incumbent President helped along by the mistakes and hubris of the opposition and its candidates (e.g. 2004 and 1996) or it could become perhaps not transformative like 2008 but a “game changer”. Were Romney to be defeated due to the campaigning of Santorum it could be the beginning of the end of Citizens United. If the billionaires find out their money won’t buy them the White House they may in their classic way decide to save their money and spend in on better jets or yachts. I go so far as to say that if Romney were defeated due to the campaigning of Santorum it might restore confidence in the ability of the system to elect the choice of votes not the choice of money. Such a restoration of confidence would be of great help to the liberal Democrats who will face in 2016 the necessity of nominating a candidate to run after two terms of President Obama. Since Jackson in 1836 only Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 and Reagan in 1988 were successful in having themselves succeeded by members of their own party (with no death causing succession intervening - 1868 and 1948 or outright stealing of the election- 1876.)
Two hundred years ago President James Madison, with the War of 1812 having begun faced his re-elected. He was challenged by a young former Mayor New York City, DeWitt Clinton in the only truly contested Presidential election between 1800 and 1824. Madison won a basically sectional election and went on to watch the White House and most of Washington D.C. burned to the ground by British soldiers. Are we now all to watch as the White House and most of Washington D.C. is bought by the Billionaires? Some historians contend that the Roman Empire was destroyed by the hordes of barbarians who invaded and sacked the cities and villas; others say that Rome fell when Senate seats were sold and the Senators in turn sold the imperial crown to the highest bidder.
7 March 2012
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