CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2023 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“CALIFORNIA AGAIN GETS SHORTED IN
PRIMARY SEASON”
Always
before, when California was short-changed in the presidential primary election
season, there was no one to blame but anonymous committees in both the
Democratic and Republican parties.
No more.
The 2024 California Primary is currently scheduled for March 5 – most likely
long after most of the important decisions have been made in smaller
states. If this comes off as now planned, it will be yet another in a long
series of letting the tail wag the dog, and there will be one man to blame:
President Biden.
There was
little doubt Biden’s choice of South Carolina to replace New Hampshire and Iowa
as the earliest presidential preference voters was payback.
Anyone
who remembers the 2020 primary season will recall the Democratic race began as
a mish-mosh with no particular favorite, except that Vermont Sen. Bernie
Sanders kept winning pluralities in early states, though never by definitive
margins.
Then came
South Carolina, which voted on Feb. 29, with a preponderance of
African-Americans on the Democratic side. After the dean of that state’s
congressional delegation, the Black Democrat James Clyburn, strongly endorsed
Biden, he won the state by a huge margin and other candidates like Sen. Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota and former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttegieg
quickly endorsed him. Essentially, that ended the primary season. By that time,
then-California Sen. Kamala Harris had long since dropped out.
Biden,
who says he intends to run for reelection next year, would love to see an even
quicker ending to meaningful primaries in his party next year.
That, of
course, would leave California essentially no voice in choosing the Democratic
nominee, and maybe also the Republican. That’s not fair to California voters.
This
state consistently provides Democratic presidential candidates with their national
popular vote margin. It also provides two Democratic senators, without whom
Democrats would be a Senate minority. This year there are 40 Democratic House
members from California compared with just 12 Republicans. That was a net gain
of one seat for the GOP, but without Californians, Democrats would be a
hopeless minority in Congress, rather than almost even as they are today.
So
California makes a more meaningful contribution to the Democrats than any other
state, including 54 Electoral College votes, without which Republicans would
have won every election since 1996.
But
Biden, who owes his November 2020 victory and his current job to California
voters, gave complete preference to tiny South Carolina and its nine electoral
votes.
That’s
just wrong.
Democrats
have long excused their disregard for California by claiming the state’s
campaign costs are too steep for many early candidates. Yes, it costs more to
campaign in California than Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina. But you also
can win far more national convention delegates here. With a big win here,
California could let a candidate virtually clinch the nomination every time.
Why
shouldn’t the largest state have the biggest voice in picking nominees? It does
the most to elect them later on.
Biden
completely ignored this in his December letter to the Democrats’ Rules and
Bylaws committee, which then decided to let South Carolina vote first.
“We must
ensure that voters of color have a voice in choosing our nominee…” Biden said.
“For decades, Black voters have been the backbone of the party, but have been
pushed to the back of the early primary process.” So let South Carolina go
first, he said.
But an
early California vote would involve more Black voters than South Carolina and
exponentially more Latinos. So why push this state to the back, as both parties
regularly do?
Added
Biden, “There should…be strong representation from urban, suburban and rural
America and every region of the country.” He used that reasoning to push South
Carolina, but leave California out, even though it is as large as other entire
regions.
This
makes no sense, and California legislators should not accept it passively.
There is no solid reason for them to stick with the current March 5 date
putting California at the back of the bus.
The
bottom line: California has long deserved a much larger
voice in presidential selection, but likely once again
will not get it.
-30-
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, visit www.californiafocus.net
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