If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking for a little more information about the Michigan Presidential Primary Election on January 15^th, 2008.  In the years that Publius has been working to help voters get non-partisan information about elections we have never encountered an election like this.

This is a stupid and confusing election. 

It is a stupid election at a time when so many Michigan voters
need and want to participate in determining the direction of the
country. When the stakes are high for this state, the country, and
the world, Michigan loses its voice.   It’s not easy
to be non-partisan about it.

What?! Primaries a Problem?

In 2000, the election system in this country hit a big snag in
Florida.  Everyone involved would have preferred a landslide
victory either way.  Afterwards, elections in this country came
under serious scrutiny, some of which fell on the party primary
process. Too few people have too much power in the process, and many
suggested ways to make it fair. Thoughtful solutions like rotating
primaries were ignored, but you know you have a fairness problem when
playing eenie-meenie-minie-moe is an improvement. 

It is absolutely true that Iowa and New Hampshire have
disproportionate influence on the presidential election process in
relation to their populations, which don’t really represent the
country in terms of race, creed or economics.  Too few people
have too much power over the process. We knew it was an issue. 
And there were solid suggestions about how to change things and make
them a least a bit more fair, but change did not happen.

Then, in 2004, after suggestions for plans to change the system
were ignored, Howard Dean came in 3^rd in Iowa’s primary. Then Dean yelped, and the media over-hyped that yelp which showed how the
flaws in the primary system could disenfranchise voters.  It
became clear that the first contests could provide enough ammunition
for an irresponsible media and shallow audience to end a national
campaign, without the nation actually voting.  Later, a lot of
people thought that yelping was a pretty stupid reason to bounce a
candidate, but the damage was done.  The flawed primary system
and power of being first, amplified by the media, let a fraction of a
percent of the voters in this country deprive millions of voters
their chance to choose.  Over a yelp. 

Through an interesting twist of fate, Howard Dean, the guy who got
crushed after Iowa because he yelped, ended up in charge of the
Democratic Party.   Of course that guy would now make sure
the show wasn’t over after Iowa.  Surely, he’d bring
his own experience to the system?   Well, not really. 
The National Democratic Party has boosted a couple states earlier in
the cycle. But they’re pretty small states (NV, SC). The
National Democratic and Republican Parties let voters down - in seven
years of scrutiny there has been little improvement in the primary
system - in fact, the situation is now worse. 

States Take the Lead

How did it get worse?  Some states got antsy moved to make a
change.  The intention was noble: to make sure that Michigan
voters had a say.  They made their case on a national lever and
that didn’t work, so the Michigan legislature tried to call
“shotgun!”  shifting the entire primary process
forward by moving Michigan’s primary up to January 15^th
(Florida’s is on the 29^th).  And that’s
how our stupid primary election was born. 

It didn’t have to be stupid, but the folks who wrote the law
that moved up the primary put all kinds of weird provisions in it, a
kind of "electoral pork", to make campaigning easier and
cheaper.  One provision forces people to declare a party in the
primary (violating the established right to vote in Michigan without
declaring party affiliation). Another provision seals up records so
that no citizen can check to verify if they were added to the
Democratic or Republican mailing lists. 

Eight years after Florida, the Michigan legislature, passed
bi-partisan legislation that seals-up election records.  Super.
Transparency is the only way we the people can make sure elections
are actually democratic.  Politicians seal election records when
they want to do something shady.  It may be that they only want
to save some money by making it impossible for third party number
crunchers to analyze voting patterns and re-sell it to back to them. 
However harmless the reason, it doesn’t matter. We deserve
better.

What Electoral Pork?

The electoral pork resulted in a series of legal challenges and
injunctions that blocked and unblocked the primary in the months
before this 2008 Michigan Primary Election.  As it turns out,
some judges in Michigan were opposed to closed election records.
Trying to get a handle on it, the media reported the news as it
unfolded day-by-day and, unless you were taking detailed notes, 
the whole thing didn’t make much sense.  The legal
wrangling gave the impression that the Michigan presidential primary,
may or may not happen on the 15^th, and made it impossible
to plan around.  That made it seem like the votes of Michigan
citizens really weren’t that important. 

Meanwhile, The National Democratic and Republican Parties had to
react to the upstart Michiganders who weren’t doing what they
were told, so they issued an ultimatum.   The Democrats and
Republicans both decided that any state that holds a primary before
it was supposed to would loose its delegates to their respective
national convention (Remember: a primary really only assigns the
percentage of state delegates that will officially vote for candidate
X, Y, or Z at the National Convention after all the primaries are
over.).  If you don’t follow the rules, you get no
delegates.

Many of the state party leaders pushing in both Michigan and
Florida essentially said, "We’re so far back in the pack we just
get to sign off on who is already picked anyway."  Somehow,
Michigan’s Republicans managed to work with their party to
figure out how to avoid the humiliation that the Democratic Party
candidates visited upon Michigan voters. All Republican presidential
candidates are on the January 15^th ballot, and Michigan
has hosted a Republican debate and we’ve even seen ads on TV
for some of the candidates.

Democratic Blowout

The Michigan Democratic Party’s negotiations with the
National Democratic Party did not go as well.   Michigan democrats tried to keep their delegates by officially
assigning them at a convention later in the year, according to the
National Democratic Primary schedule, which effectively meant that
the January 15^th primary was just for show, a 10 million
dollar opinion poll, since the end result of a primary is supposed to
be assigned delegates.  Then the National Democratic Party
forbade any candidates to campaign in Michigan.  The Democratic
candidates for president agreed, perhaps scared by the strange notion
that Hillary Clinton could win without campaigning, or because their
campaigns were too busy with strategies for New Hampshire and Iowa to
deal with Michigan’s more complicated issues.

So John Edwards (despite the fact that his campaign is managed by
a stalwart Michigander, former Congressman David Bonior) and Barack
Obama pulled out, along with Bill Richardson and Joseph Biden, who
called Michigan’s delegate free-democratic primary election a
“beauty contest”.  Dennis Kucinich tried to get off
the ballot, but didn’t file the right paperwork – and he
gets credit for being the only Democrat who actually did campaign in
Michigan. At the last minute it was even proposed that the Michigan
Legislature could fix this mess by a newer, better law forcing
candidates to appear on the ballot.  When they heard that, at
least one of the drop-outs threatened to sue to stay off the ballot. 
Awesome. 

There were good intentions along the way, and, as it turns out,
Michigan’s Republican Primary will matter.  But Democratic
Party voters and democracy in general have taken a big hit.  The
state party spin that this “throwaway” primary is going
to make a point to the National party is shameful.  The decision
of democratic and independent voters to sacrifice their vote to teach
the national parties a lesson should have been ours. 

Try selling that to Michigan’s troops in Iraq or Afghanistan
– because of this silliness, they cannot vote two of the
highest profile Democratic candidates, and some might not be able to
vote at all because of the extra time it takes to print, send and
return an absentee ballot from overseas.  Imagine telling our
troops – “Oh, we decided we’d sit this one out
because we’ll get better seats next time.”  How dare
we send Michigan troops ballots without all the choices? 
They’ve earned them.

What Choice do I Have?

If you wanted to vote for Barack Obama or John Edwards, you can’t. 
There is no tricky “uncommitted” back door.  If you
vote “uncommitted”, a MI Democratic Party member at a
statewide convention in March may be able to leverage enough
uncommitted votes to argue for delegates for Edwards or Obama.  Or
they may not.  It has nowhere near the power of a vote cast in
New Hampshire when a voter marks “Obama” on the ballot. A
concerned democratic voter might have more direct influence
registering for the party and attending the convention in March. 

In addition, the effort to encourage voters to vote “uncommitted”
cheapens this already dismal affair because the state does not track
party affiliation except for the pork in this election. 
Processing that uncommitted vote puts your name onto the “secret”
sealed lists that the state elections bureau has to collect and turn
over to the parties at our expense.  There’s nothing wrong
with a good accurate mailing list going into a big election, and
there is no doubt we need a healthy cathartic election this year, but
state funds shouldn’t pay for the party’s secret
projects. 

That’s how it came to this: an election where attempting to
balance an unfair system, National Party inaction, the best
intentions of state party leaders, shady state legislative electoral
pork, campaign ease, draconian ultimatums from the National
Democratic Party, and undemocratic presidential candidate assumptions
/ anxiety / cowardice / ambivalence has resulted in disenfranchising
millions of Michigan voters whose vote will count for even less than
it did in the last primary.  This is a stupid election
considered a throwaway at this critical time in history that makes
Michigan voters way, way, way less important than voters in the
Democratic contests in New Hampshire or Iowa.

So that’s it the history of this stupid election.  If
you happen across one of the architects of this debacle, Michigan
voters must all let them know that no matter how noble the intention,
how important the message, no one should ever mess with our votes
like this ever, ever again. 

-PUBLIUS