Democratic Rumblings 2008: Considering the Congressional Races

Forget all the talk about the superdelegates and what will happen to the Florida and Michigan delegates, and think for a moment about a couple of low profile but potentially very important Democratic events.

In the first of these temblors yesterday, Democrat Bill Foster defeated Republican Jim Oberweis for the position left vacant by Dennis Hastert, the Republican from Illinois and former Speaker of the US House of Representatives. Foster won 53 percent of the vote in a heavily Republican district. Wads of money were spent on this special election race (Hastert is retiring), and the candidates went head-to-head on issues like Iraq and health care, each with conspicuous support from McCain (Oberweis) and Obama (Foster) in what could be a preview of the general election. With an incredible five Republican senators retiring (four of the five senate races to replace the retiring senators are currently considered tossups by Congressional Quarterly), and the possibility of big wins in the House, such as yesterday’s, if Democrats remain excited enough to turn out in the general election, and change remains as powerful a theme as it currently appears to be, Democrats could do to the Republicans in congress what Republicans did to them when they swept Democrats from power in 1994.

The ground also shook a bit yesterday, way out west, in the Democratic caucuses in Wyoming, which Obama won 58% to 42%, when turnout eclipsed previous caucuses. Approximately 10,000 voters turned out yesterday, as compared to 675 in 2004. Everything is on a small scale in the miniaturized world of the caucus, and all the more so in sparsely populated Wyoming, but nonetheless the turnout was consistent with others Democrats have been receiving across the country and indicative of the great length voters will seemingly go to vote for a Democrat this time around.

While excitement about Hillary Clinton and, more generally, the battle between her and Barack Obama is responsible for some of the excitement, it is evident that Obama, especially, is the primary catalyst for the huge Democratic turnouts. He has won nearly all of the caucuses so far, which require quite a bit of effort on the part of voters simply to attend, and is met with huge crowds wherever he goes. He has even caught the attention of young voters (18-29) and consistently beats Clinton in this demographic. Obama is a rockstar and the Democrats, most of whom are more likely to have Frank Sinatra tunes in their head, know it.

No one in the Democratic party doubts Obama’s ability to attract new voters and bring out many traditional Democrats in a way that few other Democratic candidates have recently. That’s why the looming fight over superdelegates and the Florida and Michigan delegates could be so perilous. The Party simply can’t afford not to tap into Obama’s star quality and his ability to expand the electorate, and energize Democratic voters. If, as is likely, Hillary Clinton wins Pennsylvania, she will have a legitimate claim that she is electible and that Barack Obama is not. And if you look at the states that both candidates have won, it is pretty clear already that Clinton is more likely to win the crucial Electoral College votes than is Obama. Not only has she done well in the big states, she is doing well in the swing states such as Ohio and Florida one of which a Democrat will have to win in November if he or she is to be elected President.

And Obama, what happens to him if he loses Pennsylvania? He will almost certainly be able to argue throughout that he has more states, more delegates, and, if they don’t count Florida and Michigan, possibly the popular vote.

And Democrats, in general? They are facing a nearly insoluble problem. Leaving aside questions of fairness and the dangers of alienating especially black voters —there are plenty of folks already talking about these now and certainly will continue to do so in the days to come--if this scenario comes to pass, the superdelegates will be faced with another excruciating variable: should they go with the candidate most likely to win the presidential election or the one that is most likely to pump up the turnout and possibly radically transform the makeup of the House and the Senate?

This is where it would be great to say that Howard Dean and the rest of the geniuses leading the Democratic National Committee (DNC) could, like gods from the machine, descend from above and craft a solution that would lead the Democrats to glory—the presidency, big gains in the house and senate, and a losing candidate that at least believed he or she was not railroaded out of the nomination.

This would be an awful lot to ask of anyone, let alone the architect of the colossal mess of the Florida and Michigan (non) primaries, so you’ll have to forgive me if I’m not too sanguine about the prospects of Dean, the DNC, or the superdelegates even knowing what is best for the Party let alone coming up with a strategy to achieve it.