It took a few days, but now there are signs that Gov. Bill Richardson’s hard-won status as a preferred or back-up presidential candidate for leading elements of the left blogosphere and/or netroots has been seriously endangered by his performance in last week’s SC debates.Before wading into this subject, let me emphasize that I like Richardson, and that I have been and intend to remain studiously neutral in the presidential nominating contest, not that it much matters to anybody, other than those who think every blogger has a secret candidate-driven agenda. But the Richardson phenomenon does raise interesting questions about the instability of candidate preferences in the New Media age.Check out this post by Trapper John at DailyKos–previously a largely pro-Richardson site–for the case against Big Bill, which includes several things Richardson said just yesterday at the California Democratic Convention (more about all that later).To back up a bit, the netroots’ special interest in Richardson is two-fold. First are those facets of his biography that attract people from all over the party: his golden resume which combines international and domestic credentials; his electoral record; his Latino ethnicity; his laid-back personality and communications style; and his lack of identification with any controversial faction in the party (though he was very much a Clintonian for much of his career, and has been quite friendly to the DLC).Second are things about Richardson that especially attract netroots support. These include his current status, unique in the field, as a governor and thus (despite his long prior federal service) non-Washingtonian; his Western background (attractive to many bloggers for a variety of personal, ideological and empirico-political reasons); his active engagement of the netroots; and recently, at least, his adoption of a fairly hard line on withdrawal from Iraq. One leading blogger–Markos of DailyKos–even likes Richardson’s NRA-friendly record on guns as conducive to a “libertarian Democrat” movement that might expand the party base, especially in the West.And like all political junkies, netroots observers have largely concluded that past rumors about Richardson’s behavior towards women must be mostly hot air, since the hordes of oppo researchers and journalists lusting for documentation of such rumors do not appear to have turned up anything of note.That was all before last Thursday. To begin with, Richardson drew two questions that underlined his affinity with the NRA, and his occasional strong words about the Democratic habit of supporting tax increases (the latter came directly after Edwards was challenged to defend his support of a tax increase, or more accurately a rollback of Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, to pay for his health care plan).And then came Richardson’s immediate and startling citation of Byron “Whizzer” White as a model for the kind of person he’d like to name to the Supreme Court. It didn’t take more than a few minutes for posts to pop up noting that White was not only one of the dissenters in the original abortion rights case, Roe v. Wade (abortion being the context of the SCOTUS question), but also the author of Bowers v. Hardwick, the 1986 decision upholding the constitutionality of state sodomy laws. In one fell swoop, and for no apparent reason, Richardson managed to offend at least some abortion rights and gay rights activists.Over the weekend, at the California event, Richardson happened to follow Edwards at the podium, and repeated his I’m-not-a-tax-raising-Democrat line. Trapper John took that as a direct shot at Edwards (who is the number one favorite candidate on sites like Daily Kos), and worse yet, as one of the progressive blogosphere’s biggest no-noes: reinforcing Republican attack lines on Democrats generally while attacking another Democrat.Moreoever, while in California Richardson got asked to clarify his Whizzer White endorsement. There’s a quote flying around the blogosphere (here and here, in addition to Trapper John’s post), for which I have yet to see a primary source, wherein Big Bill allegedly responded: “White was in the 60s. Wasn’t Roe v. Wade in the 80s?” Way wrong, of course, on both counts (White was on the Court until 1993, and Roe was decided in 1973.In other words, the growing progressive blogospheric grievance with Richardson is growing, not going away.The irony is that there are reasonably easy ways for him to put the dispute to sleep, if not to rest. Richardson ought to say now what he might have said last week before even addressing the SCOTUS question: “You know, unlike the other candidates, I’m not a lawyer.” He could add: “I’ll spot them at least one factual error on diplomatic issues to even things up,” and then close off the subject by swearing his fealty to a constitutional right to privacy and non-discrimination in all matters involving abortion and gay rights.The tax issue should be even easier to clear up, assuming that Richardson agrees with virtually all Democrats that Bush tax cuts for the wealthy (the usual cutoff being individual taxpayers with over $200,000 in income) should be repealed. Interestingly enough, there’s nothing specific on that topic at the Richardson campaign web page, though a recent New York Times roundup on tax policy listed Richardson as in accord with all the other candidates–including Edwards–as favoring preservation of tax cuts for those earning less than $200,000). Every single Democratic candidate in 2004 favored this sort of rollback, with the only argument being over total repeal of the Bush tax cuts, supported by Dean on general principles and by Gephardt to pay for his health plan. Assuming Richardson isn’t staking out a truly unusual position on the subject, his only argument with Edwards might be over what to do with the proceeds of a rollback. He ought to just say so, and then go on to tout his record in New Mexico for cutting taxes there.I don’t know where if anywhere this “story” is going next, but it is a good indicator of how the development of blogs and other new media have made gaffes much easier to make and more essential to correct than in the past.
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Editor’s Corner
By Ed Kilgore
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January 16: Towards a 2028 Democratic Primary Calendar
Don’t look now, but it’s already time for the DNC and the states to figure out the 2028 Democratic presidential primary calendar, so I wrote an overview at New York:
The first 2028 presidential primaries are just two years away. And for the first time since 2016, both parties are expected to have serious competition for their nominations. While Vice-President J.D. Vance is likely to enter the cycle as a formidable front-runner for the GOP nod, recent history suggests there will be lots of other candidates. After all, Donald Trump drew 12 challengers in 2024. On the Democratic side, there is no one like Vance (or Hillary Clinton going into 2016 or Joe Biden going into 2020) who is likely to become the solid front-runner from the get-go, though Californians Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris lead all of the way too early polls.
But 2028 horse-race speculation really starts with the track itself, as the calendar for state contests still isn’t set. What some observers call the presidential-nominating “system” isn’t something the national parties control. In the case of primaries utilizing state-financed election machinery, state laws govern the timing and procedures. Caucuses (still abundant on the Republican side and rarer among Democrats) are usually run by state parties. National parties can vitally influence the calendar via carrots (bonus delegates at the national convention) or sticks (loss of delegates) and try to create “windows” for different kinds of states to hold their nominating contests to space things out and make the initial contests competitive and representative. But it’s sometimes hit or miss.
Until quite recently, the two parties tended to move in sync on such calendar and map decisions. But Democrats have exhibited a lot more interest in ensuring that the “early states” — the ones that kick off the nominating process and often determine the outcome — are representative of the party and the country as a whole and give candidates something like a level playing field. Prior to 2008, both parties agreed to do away with the traditional duopoly, in which the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary came first, by allowing early contests representing other regions (Nevada and South Carolina). And both parties tolerated the consolidation of other states seeking influence into a somewhat later “Super Tuesday” cluster of contests. But in 2024 Democrats tossed Iowa out of the early-state window altogether and placed South Carolina first (widely interpreted as Joe Biden’s thank-you to the Palmetto State for its crucial role in saving his campaign in 2020 after poor performances in other early states), with Nevada and New Hampshire voting the same day soon thereafter. Republicans stuck with the same old calendar with Trump more or less nailing down the nomination after Iowa and New Hampshire.
For 2028, Republicans will likely stand pat while Democrats reshuffle the deck (the 2024 calendar was explicitly a one-time-only proposition). The Democratic National Committee has set a January 16 deadline for states to apply for early-state status. And as the New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher explains, there is uncertainty about the identity of the early states and particularly their order:
“The debate has only just begun. But early whisper campaigns about the weaknesses of the various options already offer a revealing window into some of the party’s racial, regional and rural-urban divides, according to interviews with more than a dozen state party chairs, D.N.C. members and others involved in the selection process.
“Nevada is too far to travel. New Hampshire is too entitled and too white. South Carolina is too Republican. Iowa is also too white — and its time has passed.
“Why not a top battleground? Michigan entered the early window in 2024, but critics see it as too likely to bring attention to the party’s fractures over Israel. North Carolina or Georgia would need Republicans to change their election laws.”
Nevada and New Hampshire have been most aggressive about demanding a spot at the beginning of the calendar, and both will likely remain in the early-state window, representing their regions. The DNC could push South Carolina aside in favor of regional rivals Georgia or North Carolina. Michigan is close to a lock for an early midwestern primary, but its size, cost, and sizable Muslim population (which will press candidates on their attitude towards Israel’s recent conduct) would probably make it a dubious choice to go first. Recently excluded Iowa (already suspect because it’s very white and trending Republican, then bounced decisively after its caucus reporting system melted down in 2020) could stage a “beauty contest” that will attract candidates and media even if it doesn’t award delegates.
Even as the early-state drama unwinds, the rest of the Democratic nomination calendar is morphing as well. As many as 14 states are currently scheduled to hold contests on Super Tuesday, March 7. And a 15th state, New York, may soon join the parade. Before it’s all nailed down (likely just after the 2026 midterms), decisions on the calendar will begin to influence candidate strategies and vice versa. Some western candidates (e.g., Gavin Newsom or Ruben Gallego) could be heavily invested in Nevada, while Black proto-candidates like Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Wes Moore might pursue a southern primary. Progressive favorites like AOC or Ro Khanna may have their own favorite launching pads, while self-identified centrists like Josh Shapiro or Pete Buttigieg might have others. Having a home state in the early going is at best a mixed blessing: Losing your home-state primary is a candidate-killer, and winning it doesn’t prove a lot. And it’s also worth remembering that self-financed candidates like J.B. Pritzker may need less of a runway to stage a nationally viable campaign.
So sketching out the tracks for all those 2028 horses, particularly among Democrats, is a bit of a game of three-dimensional chess. We won’t know how well they’ll run here or there until it’s all over.