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OldSpeak

The Hard Lessons of the Primary Season

By Neal Shaffer
February 10, 2004

Editor's note: This was the fourth entry in what was regular coverage of the campaign for the 2004 presidential election.

Although the 2004 primary season has not yet ended, it’s tempting to look at the results from Iowa, New Hampshire, and the other early states and declare Kerry the victor—to declare that it’s all over but the shouting. Would it actually be a surprise, however, if any of the three remaining serious candidates—Howard Dean, John Edwards, or Wesley Clark—found his legs and ended up with the nomination? Given what has already transpired, the only logical answer is no. Indeed, one of the joys of this primary season has been watching the “experts” jump from bandwagon to bandwagon in vain attempts to appear prescient.

Still, we have seen some amazing things. Anybody who claims to have known in November how things would look in February is, simply, lying. Yet it’s also true that John Kerry had been the frontrunner before things really heated up. The bizarre position swap with Howard Dean was impossible to foresee, and Dean and Kerry are but two of many interesting angles. For example, who knew that John Edwards was such a formidable candidate? Or that Wesley Clark would come out of the gate so flat? Or that Joe Lieberman is a Republican? One thing for certain is that we’ll know before long who the candidate is, and he and Bush will duke it out all summer. At the very least, the larger American electorate will have a clear picture by November of just who they want to occupy the Oval Office.

It’s strange to think, though, that Dean’s rise and fall (at least in the reality of perception) occurred before 90% of the delegates were chosen. Can we really trust residents in a handful of states to bear standards for the entire country? It would certainly be better for all of us—Republicans included, since not everybody votes by party—if we had a whole spring and summer to see each of the Democratic candidates over the long haul. We’d have a fairly accurate impression of each of them by then, and voters in late-primary states could feel as though their vote actually mattered. This story, in other words, is less about Dean than it is about the difference between those who are involved in the process and those who have to wait for the process to come to them.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the majority of Americans—in any party—don’t really start paying attention until some time after it has become a two person race. The people in Iowa and New Hampshire aren’t necessarily right, but they are empowered. They enjoy a status that is wholly unique these days: their votes matter. Any voter in those states (and, to a lesser extent, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Missouri, and the other “Super Tuesday” states) who chose to participate did so knowing that he or she did, in fact, count. Contrast this with residents of, say, Maryland or Georgia or even California. By the time voters in late primary states go to the polls, external factors have whittled the field down and weakened many of the candidates who remain. There are no more debates and far fewer personal appearances. Decisions have to be based on second- and third-hand information, and in the end only a stunning upset in a late primary will have any real impact on the race.

Candidates tend to be anointed long before they are chosen, which is why John Kerry enjoyed frontrunner status before even the dedicated started to care. Had Wesley Clark jumped in last summer, he would have likely enjoyed the same treatment. These are candidates who make their name with inside money. Dean’s surge was funded largely by outsiders and small donors—the sort of people that anointed candidates aren’t pressured to address. His fatal mistake was thinking that each and every one of those early supporters was also a loyalist. If he had paid more attention to his supporters than to Gephardt in Iowa, he probably would have won. Had he won in Iowa, he probably wouldn’t have faltered so badly in New Hampshire. Would have, could have, should have.

But his strong early showing proves something about American politics and points to a change that needs to be made. Dean succeeded in using the Internet as a grassroots organizing tool to involve voters across America long before they’re used to being involved. Even though the old forces won out in the end, Dean’s achievements cannot be ignored. By nature, most of his early support had to have come from people in states beyond those with early primaries. He’s lost much of that support now because of his poor early showing. Why? Because voters in those states will have no reason to feel like they still matter. They will have no reason to be loyalists, let alone supporters, even if they were at the beginning. The choice will have, in many ways, already been made. So why bother?

One can hold out hope, however, that the Dean campaign has served as a wake-up call to Democrats and Republicans (who will face their own nomination battles) alike. The disenfranchised voter is not a myth, as some have blithely suggested. Such voters are the true undecideds, the battleground voters who, if they can be excited early and often by truly democratic political machinations, will and should decide elections. The problem is that too many decisions are made before it’s time to make them, leaving too many folks at home. We need to pay close attention to the rest of the 2004 campaign, to be sure, as it will be a referendum on the future of America—regardless of who wins the Democratic nomination. But it won’t be long before we need to turn our eyes to 2006 and 2008 to see if the hard lessons of this season take hold of the people who most need to learn them.

DISCLAIMER: THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED IN OLDSPEAK ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE.

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