One of my favorite wonky topics is the presidential nominating process, and as it happens, the way it’s shaping up for Democratic in 2024 is unusual, as I explained at New York:
Donald Trump’s 2024 announcement signaled that we are now officially in the run-up to the next presidential election. But there’s a big missing piece of basic election infrastructure, at least for Democrats: The order of states holding presidential primaries is very much up in the air.
Earlier this year, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee, which sets guidelines for the nomination process and administers sticks and carrots to get states to comply, announced it would authorize five “early states” allowed to have nominating contests prior to March 1, 2024. The four states that were allowed across this golden rope line from 2008 through 2020 — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina — would have to reapply for privileged status along with everyone else. As many as 20 state Democratic parties expressed interest in vying for these five spots. But because some of the changed calendar positions would require action by the state government, which typically control and finance primaries, the DNC delayed a final selection until after the midterms sorted out who ruled where.
Now Michigan Democrats, who flipped both legislative chambers and hung on to the governorship this month, are galvanizing the 2024 calendar discussion with a clear bid for an early spot, as NBC News reports:
“Michigan Democrats — led by Rep. Debbie Dingell — feel well positioned to join the coveted ranks of the early states, after they made huge gains in the Nov. 8 election. With Iowa facing possible eviction from the early states, many expect Democrats to elevate a Midwest state.
“Democrats now have full control of the Statehouse in Lansing, which would allow them to easily change state laws to support a new date for the 2024 primary.”
The DNC’s previously announced criteria for early states, as reported by CBS News, were diversity (racial, ethnic, geographic, and economic diversity as well as union representation), general-election competitiveness, and feasibility (whether states can move their contest into the early window, if they can run a “fair, transparent and inclusive nominating process,” and the logistical requirements and cost of campaigning in that state). It was an unstated but understood criterion as well that the five early states would represent different regions. So Michigan may be competing for an early-state slot with Minnesota, where Democrats also nailed down a trifecta in the midterms.
Iowa’s traditional first-in-the-nation caucus has looked doomed all along. The state is famously nondiverse and is now solidly Republican in general elections. The “feasibility” of an Iowa event was also called into question by the 2020 fiasco, in which no Iowa caucus results were announced until the next day.
New Hampshire will be harder to dislodge, despite its nondiverse population, because of a state law that authorizes the secretary of state to move the primary date around in order to maintain the position of first primary. But Nevada Democrats are making a sustained effort to leap ahead of New Hampshire by switching to a primary and aggressively advertising their superior diversity and obvious competitiveness. It’s unclear, however, whether Republican Joe Lombardo’s gubernatorial win in Nevada will disrupt efforts to authorize a new state primary.
That points to one of two variables complicating the early-state selection process: By and large, Republicans are happy with the existing order of states. There is no pressure within the GOP to dump Iowa or displace New Hampshire or do anything else unusual. So in states where Republican cooperation is necessary to move things around or make the requisite resources available, Democrats have to convince their partisan enemies to care about it as well. And if the proposed new primary date in any given state violates the RNC’s existing calendar rules, that state’s Republicans could be penalized and lose delegates to their own convention. The prospect of a serious battle for the GOP presidential nomination adds another series of calculations.
It’s a Rubik’s Cube, and that’s largely why the existing calendar for both parties has stayed in place for so long aside from the fact that, in Iowa and New Hampshire, both parties have long cooperated to defend their calendar privileges like crazed badgers.
The other big variable facing Democrats is the broader context: What sort of decisions will Democrats be facing in 2024? At this point, we don’t know for sure whether President Biden is running for a second term, and we don’t know if he’ll face major competition if he does. If Biden has to fight for renomination, how he performed in particular states in 2020 may have some influence on a loyal DNC deciding where he has to run in 2024. That might really doom Iowa, if it’s not already doomed, given Biden’s fourth-place finish there in 2020. And Biden finished fifth in New Hampshire. The DNC likely wouldn’t want to give calendar privileges to the home state of a potential rival.
But decisions have to be made, and the Rules and Bylaws Committee is set to make them when it meets from December 1 through 3 in Washington, D.C.
Perhap’s Obama’s infatuation with Reagan gives insight as to what his plans are as to how he will president as President. From Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s History of Presidential Elections, 1789-1984:
Reagan’s political strength was similar to that of Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was a personal not a party, phenomenon. Without Reagan, the Republicans would be much weaker. The first major political event of the year, therefore, was Reagan’s decision to seek reelection despite his age. At 73, he was already the oldest man ever to serve in the White House. The Democrats dared not to make Reagan’s advanced age an issue; his evident physical vigor and unbroken record of good health made the fact of his age a matter for public admiration rather than concern. This admiration was bolstered by the presidents insouciant response to the shooting attempt on his life in March 1981. “I forgot to duck,” he joked to his wife. As he was about to undergo surgery for removal of the bullet, he’s wisecracked to the surgeons, ‘I hope you are all Republicans.’
If reporters noted that Reagan worked only five or six hours a day, spent long weekends at Camp David, and took frequent vacations, this too, was not circumstance the Democrats could easily convert into an issue. After President Carter’s long hours and studious work, and the earlier crises of the Nixon and Johnson years, Reagan had hung President Calvin Coolidge’s portrait in the Cabinet room as a symbol of his esteem for that Republican predecessor. Like Coolidge’s famous naps, Reagan’s relaxed approach to the Presidency was not only acceptable to the country but actually reassuring. It was as if the man at the top was signaling the nation that things were not as bad as the news media would have the public believe.
Reagan’s administrative style was not an accommodation to his advancing years. It was a continuation of the way he had governed California for eight years from 1967 to 1975. He viewed himself as a chairman of the board, rather than as an active executive. He delegated to senior aides most of his administrative power over appointments, legislation, the budget, and supervision of departments and agencies. He involved himself on a day-to-day basis in only a few issues. He was content to prove by broad policy direction and to serve as his administration’s most persuasive spokesman. A at the middle and upper levels of his administration, there were frequent struggles for power and for control of policy among Cabinet officers and factions of the White House staff. Rivals waged ideological and personal feuds through “leaks” to the press. These conflicts did the President no political harm; Reagan stayed above these battles, clearly unconcerned about any inefficiency or loss of morale that infighting might produce, and serenely confident of his ability to impose his will if and when he chose to do so. Since the huge expansion of the activities of the federal government had begun under Franklin Roosevelt a half-century earlier, no President had governed with such a loose rein.
Reagan was unfamiliar with the details or even the main issues in many disputes, both foreign and domestic. Indeed, the breath of his ignorance was sometimes startling. In October, 1983, for example, at a time when U.S.–Soviet arms control negotiations were breaking down, The New York Times reported that Reagan told a group of visitors that he had only recently learned that most of the Soviet nuclear deterrent force was in land-based rather than submarine-based missiles. Surprisingly this disclosure evoked relatively little public comment.
Like Eisenhower, but to an even greater extent, Reagan stayed politically popular by distancing himself in public from his own administration. Scandals occurred and controversies flared, but the President, not ever having involved himself closely with most of these appointees or the problems confronting them, was untouched.
Having been elected as an opponent of big government, Reagan said in his inaugural address government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem. Once in office, he continued in speeches around the country to attack Washington and the bureaucracy. He faltered to believe that he and his fellow citizens were allies against the government rather than that he had been chosen by them to direct the affairs of that government.
Reagan’s detached style of governing, his distancing himself from his own appointees and the career bureaucracy, and his blithe cheerfulness and impertubable optimism was central to the political problem faced by the Democrats in 1984. Reagan was dubbed “the Teflon President: nothing sticks to him.” It was significant that in the fourth year of his Presidency there were no anti-Reagan jokes of the kind that normally circulate about Presidents. There seemed to be no audience for them. Politicians of both parties reported that many constituents disagreed with the President’s policies, distrusted his intentions, or questioned his competence, and yet avowed that they liked him personally. Democrats in Congress and at the state level were consequently reluctant to mount against him the kind of sustained attacks that had weakened other recent Presidents.
This liking for Reagan did not have the firm foundation of respect for past accomplishments that undergirded a liking for Eisenhower in the 1950s. Nor was there the profound gratitude and loyalty from broad masses of people that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s innovative programs had evoked. Still less was Reagan a hero who inspired emulation and enthusiasm, particularly among younger voters, as John F. Kennedy did. The liking for Reagan was a reflection of his sunny disposition, a reciprocation of his positive approach. It also correlated closely with the trend of the economy.
If this is what we are ion for, I prefer to pass and prefer the Clinton gamble. Obama’s handlers are filled with “hasbeen” Democrats who would love to govern by committee!!!!! In my humble opinion, Obama is no JFK, RFK, and is being used as a poster child for evryon’es dream of a real capable African-American politician which he is average, and is a coriporation filled with deception. His hiuse and land deal, his arrogance, and lack of content in his speeches are indications of status que bunk.
Professor/Dr. Neil Garland-We Deserve Better Than Average Presidents
I don’t believe Jesse Jackson ran in 1992. I know he ran in 1984 and 1988. The only African-American I recall making a bid for the presidency was Doug Wilder and I’m not sure that he ever officially announced or made it to any caucuses or primaries.
“E.J. might have added another parallel: Bill Clinton’s trump card in the 1992 nominating contest was his overwhelming support among African-Americans.”
One problem with that analogy is that “overwhelming black support” is a “trump card” only if one is a white candidate………..otherwise, if the candidate is African-American, he runs the risk of being seen as just another Jesse Jackson-like candidate, having an African-American base with support from upscale, educated whites and the young…
If I recall, Bill Clinton didn’t “win” the African-American primary vote in 1992……….he just got more of it than any of the other white candidates…….the “winner” of the A-A vote was, of course, Reverend Jackson….
I’ll be interested in seeing how Obama’s voter demographics change (or don’t change)as he is perceived as getting more and more of the A-A vote…