The Presidential Nomination Process Sucks

We have lived through the crazy math of the caucus system in Nevada, never quite knowing whether it was different than the Iowa Caucus, which was hailed as the start of an Obama Revolution by pundits like Chris Matthews, the Nostradamus of MSNBC. Did voters in the controversial Strip casino precincts get to vote twice or three times, as in Iowa, or play double or nothing?

Was Kucinich in the Big TV Debate before the Nevada Caucus or not? One court said he was in, another court said he was out. That great friend of democracy, NBC, went to the law to keep him out. Why? Did they not have another chair to put at the round table, a wrinkle in the format that was hailed as a breakthrough in political discourse?

Some of us may still be puzzled about the legal issues involved in making a candidate disappear when he was not ready to go. "What about me?" I could hear the Congressman from Ohio screaming as they dragged him off the stage. It was the political version of the old vaudevillian trick of the manger giving an act the cane, as it shuffled off to Buffalo.

Was NBC guilty of news managing, thinking three was better political theatre? Without Kucinich, the threesome was one of the dullest debates of the season, a love fest, which didn't prevent the media from hailing it as the best debate since the next one.

We lived through both sides declaring victory in Nevada Caucus, even if it meant one of them counting delegates, while the other counted noses. What happened to all the Big Union Muscle for Obama, the pundits blathered about? And did it matter who got 13 or 12 delegates now, since it wouldn't be decided finally for months at the state convention?

Meanwhile, we were living through the AP dust up with Romney claiming he was not in the pocket of lobbyists. But how, a reporter asked, could he ignore the work of a prominent lobbyist in his inner circle? It was easy, Romney proved.

This was all foreplay for the really big show to come on this Saturday Night Live episode of presidential politics, the must-win battle in South Carolina between Gen. McCain and the huckster pastor from Arkansas.

The punditocracy was calling Obama-Clinton a civil war tearing the party apart, as if this had never happened before in picking a candidate. Whether Nevada was Antietam or Manassas was unclear. But Nevada was nothing compared to the crucial South Carolina GOP race.

Even the exit polls were not smart enough to predict a winner. We had to wait for hours after the polls closed for the count from the rich veterans-by-the-sea counties vs. the Bible Belt counties up-country to see if evil had triumphed over evil. Either way, the pundits would characterize it as the turning point in the Republican race.

Watching MSNBC, "the best place for politics," as they say, suddenly I was in Florida with Mitt Romney, caught by the cameras taking off his jacket and rolling up his sleeves. He had transformed himself from the big shot three piece suit corporate executive who had met a payroll to the shirtsleeve candidate who understood blue-collar problems. When Keith Olbermann, the best anchorman on cable news, asked him about this innocent bit of stagecraft, Romney did not seem to know what he was talking about.

Romney was seeing Nevada in his rear view mirror because everybody knew Florida is the key state in the presidential sweepstakes, as was Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

On Thursday night there would be an even a more crucial TV debate in Florida. "A scorcher," MSNBC promos said, "Republican Heat".... " A Monster Debate." The key race in the primaries, said the promos, pouring snake oil on the fire.

I don't doubt the promo writers' prediction. As Florida goes so goes the 24 other states that will be holding primaries on a single day (Feb. 4). If the tin horn politicians who had arranged such a mind-boggling series of climactic events, had staged it a day before, it would have made a great half-time show in the eight hour Super Bowl show on Fox, the usual attempt to show football at its slowest.

After all the hair-pulling at the record setting number of debates (34 so far), after all the record amounts of spending for TV and radio commercials, after all the media coverage, after listening to Chris Matthews accusing the Clintons of trying to marginalize Obama with black voters, after all the naming of must-win states, with all of this politicking, I am now ready to make a projection.

And I'm going out on the limb to say this:

The current system of nominating party candidates is dysfunctional. The whole system of caucuses, primaries, debates and commercials sucks.

Despite the agony of victory and the thrill of defeat, the candidates counting the number of silver and gold, not to mention lead and wooden, medals, the people are exhausted by the coming election. Not here, of course. The Internet is the Foreign Affairs Quarterly of the media. We're all presidential politics junkies where the over-exposure limit is somewhere over the rainbow. But the country as a whole is sick of it.

You would be surprised how many people think the election took place last November already.

The 2008 race began on Jan. 20, 2004 as the last President got to the last line of the Inaugural Address. Despite all the blood, sweat, tears and money, to pick one side of the race at random, the Democrats are in a state of confusion, if not disarray: 1/3 for Hillary, 1/3 for Obama, 1/3 don't know or don't care. In the end, I further predict, the undecided vote will carry the election one-way or the other. They will decide at the last minute on the basis of the color of a candidate's tie or shirt and whose face looks more honest.

You know, the American people are not the brightest bulbs in the store. They are the folks who elected George Bush in 2004. And that generation was the best and brightest compared to the generation coming to the polls.

"Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it," George Santayana wrote in "Reason in Common Sense." Santayana? Wasn't he a rock star?

Of the current latest history-impaired generation, Bluto Blutarsky said it best in "Animal House" when he asked, "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

Without meaning to be unduly negative, I have a positive electoral reform program, which I will be presenting in this space tomorrow.

Comments

[Sceptic42]

The next generation may not be "the best and the brightest," but something tells me they'll be able to do better than a Reagan, two Bushes and a Clinton (for all his economic success, he wasn't exactly a progressive).

After all, it was members of the "Greatest Generation" who failed to double-check their votes in Broward county - leaving us with the current president (who is frankly more of an Animal House representative than anyone I know in the 18-29 age group.)

I think a little new blood in the electoral process will only help things. At least they seem to be voting with their hearts - something that many of the cynical "old-timers" have forgotten how to do. Voting on "electability" gave us John Kerry, remember.

[shelleybear]

Marvin, you used the wrong quote from "Animal House".
The one you should have used was:
"You fucked up - you trusted us!"

[CarolLee]

Regarding Kucinich's absence from the Nevada debate, it's not that NBC was guilty of news managing, it's that NBC parent company General Electic, a military contractor and war profiteer, was guilty of election managing. A Kucinich presidency will not benefit General Electric -- thus, no seat at the table. Wake up, people...c­orporation­s run this country. The elections are just a fun little exercise to make you think you have a say in things.

[FearlessFreep]

What they should do is have four regional primaries: the Northeast, the South, the Midwest and the West. (They can take turns being first in successive elections.) And they should take place every three weeks, between April and June.