CALIFORNIA
FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TAIL WAGS DOG AGAIN IN PRESIDENTIAL RACE”
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 2015, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“TAIL WAGS DOG AGAIN IN PRESIDENTIAL RACE”
Almost exactly one year from today –
Jan. 26, 2016 – voters in New Hampshire will don parkas and trek through
snowdrifts to tell the rest of America who should be running for president and
who should not.
That vote will come eight days after
the Iowa caucuses draw a few tens of thousands of die-hard activists from both major
parties to give their version of the same thing.
Within less than three weeks, Nevada
and South Carolina will follow, ensuring yet another four-year electoral cycle
where the tail wags the dog. Candidates will have to know all about ethanol
subsidies to compete in Iowa, but because California votes on June 7 next year,
no candidate will have to know much about this state’s high speed rail project
or the “twin tunnels” water development sought by Gov. Jerry Brown.
Once again, California won’t matter as
the Podunk states of America decide the future of this country and much of the
world’s future as well. California won’t even be a factor in the general
election, as the Democrats’ heavy voter registration advantage here pretty much
assures its 55 electoral votes to the Democratic nominee, no matter who that
may be.
It didn’t have to be this way, and it
doesn’t necessarily have to be that way in 2020 and beyond.
One big reason California won’t count
for much next year is that state legislators made no effort to set an early
date for the state’s primary. They figured that every time they tried that –
the state has voted in early February in several recent election cycles – it
still hasn’t mattered much.
This was because whenever California
moved up its primary, other states governed by an “anywhere but California”
mindset moved theirs up even earlier, with things getting so absurb that in
2008 and 2012, Iowans caucused just
three days after the New Year’s celebrations.
California lawmakers also have their
own reasons for disliking early primaries, the main one being that early votes
accelerate filing deadlines, which normally fall about three months before
primary day. This forces them to speed up their decision-making process,
eroding their comfort levels. An early primary also means early fund-raising,
forcing many officials to get on the phone with donors just a couple of months
after taking office.
But no one can say accurately that
moving California’s primary up doesn’t increase its influence. The hard-fought
2008 Democratic contest between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is probably
Example A of this. Obama dominated much of the initial going, but when
California voted in early February, Clinton emerged about even with the
eventual president. So California alone assured that the Democratic race
extended well into April and all the way to Pennsylvania before Clinton finally
conceded.
It
also meant that both candidates trekked around the state, it meant millions of
advertising dollars for California media, plenty of revenue and extra jobs for
services like caterers and charter bus lines.
The only reason California didn’t
decide the Democratic race for Clinton was the national party rule demanding
proportionate representation. Obama lost in most California congressional
districts, but got plenty of national
convention delegates anyhow. The result would have been very different under
the Republicans’ more decisive winner-take-all rules.
So anyone who says California didn’t
matter when it voted earlier is only partially correct. And anyone who says the
calendar can’t still be altered is also not completely correct.
If California legislators and Gov.
Brown want to increase this state’s influence, they can do it right now, even
though there would be a bit of a price. If California moved up into January,
Republican Party rules would deprive it of about 70 percent of its convention
delegates.
The Democrats might also assess a
delegate penalty, but it’s not automatic, and there’s some doubt they would,
since they want to keep California solidly in their column.
All of which means California will be
irrelevant-land during the next presidential season, unless politicians here
are willing to defy the national parties. But they won’t, and most likely will
find new excuses to avoid moving up the vote in future election seasons, just
because staying put in June is easier for them despite the fact it
disenfranchises their tens of millions of constituents.
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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