The primary season for the Democratic Party has turned out to be the most interesting and unpredictable series of events since at least 1980, the year President Jimmy Carter was challenged by Massachusetts Senator Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy. Kennedy took ten primaries from Carter and cast some doubt on the nomination of the sitting President, but eventually cooler heads prevailed as public opinion turned back toward Carter. Whether this year’s version of theater is similar in any degree is somewhat debatable, but the level of disorganization and bickering offered up from the Democratic ranks is a spectacle worth following.
One of the largest, perhaps the largest, conflicts that has arisen is the battle between the two states who were punished for holding their primaries too early and the Democratic party, who punished them. These two states, Florida and Michigan, have been actively looking for ways to have their primaries be counted and their delegations seated at the party convention. Of course, the conflict has found its way to the candidates. Hillary Clinton wants the contests to count. This is mainly because she was the winner of the meaningless votes. Barack Obama, who obeyed the candidate agreement to avoid campaigning in those two states, does not support the counting of the contests or any attempt to have another primary.
Even if all parties were to agree to have a do-over primary in the two states, there is another debate about how to go about doing it. Disputes over funding, logistics, and authenticity are all valid arguments that have been raised. Everything from a mail-in primary to various formulas on how to allocate the delegates based on the original primary results has been discussed. One particularly unique idea, editorialized in the Boston Globe recently, would consist of a caucus-like group of voters who would attend a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate between the two candidates and base their vote on what they learned from the debate. This particular idea is the best one in terms of actual logistical reality, but the majority of the population is unfamiliar with Lincoln-Douglas debate and would likely find the various rules confusing.
There is, however, one idea that has had little attention paid to it. It is not necessarily the easiest, and it certainly will not satisfy everyone, but it is probably the most fair and authentic of all proposals. It’s most significant downfall is that it would require both Senator Obama and Senator Clinton to agree to the idea.
The plan calls for funding of the primary by the two campaigns. Funding the two primaries would be extremely expensive, especially for just two Presidential campaigns with realistic chances of competing in November. Due to this, if the campaigns wish to enlist the support of private sources for donations, they should be free to do so. There will be two main stipulations. To insure fairness and voter freedom, the primaries will be funded with equal portions of the Clinton and Obama campaigns. In other words, the campaigns will sponsor half of each of the primaries, with complete disclosure of the money’s original source. This insures that voters feel no pressure to vote a particular way because of an imbalance of funding between the candidates. The other stipulation is that the candidates will not seek nor accept any funding from any national or state party or committee. This too will allow voters to have no allegiance to anyone or anything other than their preferred candidate. Finally, the Democratic parties of the two states will handle the logistics of the contest, such as whether the primary will be handled in normal polling places, by mail, or any other method. The staff needed to carry out the primary will be paid by the party, through the funding of the two campaigns. This would avoid, for example, a polling official’s wages being handed out by a particular campaign, thus opening the contest to manipulation. All other expenditures will be handled in the same way.
For the moment, this plan is no different than any other; it is just a proposal up for debate. It does address the most urgent and fundamental questions though, which is something some other plans do not. Whether the candidates can come together long enough to get to the point of setting up a do-over primary remains to be discovered, but that is not to say that they cannot or will not. When and if they do, however, they have plenty of ideas to choose from.