The "Organization" of the Democratic Convention

I belong to no organized political party...I'm a Democrat!
-Will Rogers

Despite my best efforts to spend my time writing for my dissertation, I find my mind wandering to the Super Tuesday results from yesterday and what it might mean from both a political and sociological perspective come time for the Democratic National Convention in August. Part of this stems from a very contentious thread posted by hilzoy at Obsidian Wings. She argues that yesterday bodes well for Democrats as we approach the general election because there are two good candidates and turnout is incredibly high. No contentious arguments, she claims, will be able to overcome that momentum and give the Republicans the advantage in the general election.

This obviously brought out a good deal of discussion about who would do what if Clinton won the nomination and how she won it. This got be thinking, from an organizational point of view, what does the convention mean, then? How could all of the different scenarios play out and, what—if anything—would we expect from the outcomes. For my own mental clarity, here is what I see as the possibilities^[1]:

1. Scenario 1 (Best Case/Least Likely) Obama Wins Outright: Obama wins outright by a margin comfortable enough that he can a) overcome any disadvantage in superdelagates, b) allow the Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated (assuming all undeclared delegates go to Obama) and c) make Edwards' delegates a non factor. This would be a mandate and, while making for a boring convention (which might be supplied via a labor dispute, anyway), would unite the party and create a strong sense of momentum that will be hard to stop.


2. Scenario 2: (Almost Best Case/Tied for Least Likely) Clinton Wins Outright: Clinton wins outright by a margin comfortable enough that she can a) overcome any difference in superdelagates, b) allow the Michigan and Florida delegations to be seated and c) make Edwards' delegates a non factor. This would be a mandate and, while making for a boring convention (which might be supplied via a labor dispute, anyway), would unite the party and create a strong sense of momentum that will be hard to stop. The difference between 1 & 2? My candidate didn't win. And, I think that there will be A LOT of anti-Clinton backlash that might help unite the Republicans and swing independent voters. This was made all the more obvious when I talked to two people I know very well who are politically are not extremely far removed from me, but will not vote for Clinton.


3. Scenario 3 - (Decent Case/Highly Likely) Clinton Wins By Superdelegates: In this scenario, Clinton wins by picking up enough superdelegate votes to overcome the possibility that all of Edwards' delegates go to Obama without the need to seat the delegations from Florida and Michigan. As this scenario plays out, they would probably be seated anyway after it was obvious that Clinton was going to squeak by with the nomination without them and it would be a particularly classy move that could go a long way towards healing hard feelings of "insiders" (i.e. superdelegates) deciding the nomination if Obama personally makes the motion requesting that the two delegations be seated.


4. Scenario 4 - (Very Bad Case/Very Unlikely): Obama, including Edwards' delegates and superdelegates, wins by enough of a margin that he beats Clinton, but not by enough that he can overcome the seating of the Michigan and Florida delegations. All candidates, including Clinton, honor the fact that these state parties broke the rules and the delegations are not seated and Obama takes a fractured nomination. This is likely to make Clinton's supporters very angry and create animosity in two key swing states between Democratic voters and the Democratic Party.


5. Scenario 5 - (Worst Case/Somewhat Likely) Clinton "Steals" the Nomination with Michigan and Florida: In the worst of all possible scenarios, Clinton ends up getting the nomination by seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida after losing when the pledged delegates, superdelegates and Edwards' delegates have voted. This will leave a very bad taste in LOTS of people, causing many to refuse to vote, others (mainly independents) to vote Republican and giving the wingnut windbags like Limbaugh all kinds of ammunition against Clinton straight out of the gate.

I am not sure if this is all of the scenarios, feel free to add others. I am interested in an organizational point of view, how these scenarios get negotiated among the participants. From a political point of view, I think that it is going to become very obvious who has power in the Democratic Party and whether there is a foreshadowing of changes in the powerful players in the Party. From a sociological point of view, this presents a very interesting case study of what happens when rules are made by an elite membership in an organization where everyone is presumably fully knowledgeable and what happens when a wider audience then sees how those rules are (or, are not) upheld and what that means for legitimacy of both the organization and the actors themselves.

^[1] In case it is not obvious from my past comments, I support Obama in this race.

Internet Priorities

I am sure that it was un-noticeable to most (but not all) readers of this blog that my hiatus over the past month has been especially long. Well, there is a good reason for that. As I both want to finish my dissertation and remain active in the world around me, only a certain amount of time can be devoted to my internet pursuits. A fair share of my self-alloted "internet time" over the past month and a half has been devoted to this project. While not completely finished, is largely done now.

For those who don't know why my name is "Mike3550", you'll be to find out why this is my screen name. For those who do know, I think that you might be interested in the site anyway.

I Don't Hate Hillary, But...

I don't hate Hillary Clinton. I think that she gets a bad wrap for things that, if she were a man, wouldn't be questioned. I think that people are scared of her because she is a strong, intelligent and powerful woman. I am appalled at the level of "I Hate Hillary" sentiment that exists in this country because I believe that most of it is driven by peoples' fears of strong, intelligent and powerful women.

All of that being said, I hate Hillary Clinton's politics.

The fact that her campaign, largely led by Bill, has gone on an inexplicable offensive in the past couple of weeks is bad for politics and it's bad for the Democratic party. Josh Marshall has an excellent post about trying to pinpoint where he finds a problem with "Bill 2.0". He settles, it seems, largely on the fact that Bill Clinton is the leader of the Democratic Party and, as such, has an obligation to ensure the health of the party—even if that means not supporting Hillary as much as he would otherwise want to. For Josh, the problem is that Bill Clinton is thinking personally when he should be thinking professionally. His obligation to his party and, given the way that the two parties control the election of public officials in this country, also his country should come above his family obligations. Bill's actions are bad because it leads to political dynasties, not because of the actions themselves.

I respect Josh's analysis and believe that he is right about the problems of political dynasties. From very early one of my largest reservations with Hillary Clinton is the fact that, if she is elected and subsequently re-elected in 2012, two families would have controlled the Presidency for 28 years. Over a quarter of a century ruled by two families. That's bad for democracy. But, I have a bigger problem with what has happened with the Clinton campaign in the past two weeks that really gets at my intense dislike for the Clinton's politics.

That problem is this: Hillary Clinton's campaign is designed to win her the nomination at all costs and that cost might be the health of the Democratic Party. The actions of her campaign in the past couple of weeks has demonstrated that she does not mind stepping on the party if it can be a stepping stone to her nomination. In the past two weeks, Bill Clinton alleged that Obama was suppressing votes and the campaign was simultaneously claiming that the Culinary Workers Union was ordering members to vote for a particular candidate. Those lines are straight out of the corporate anti-union tactics playbook. Of course, that shouldn't be a big surprise, considering Mark Penn is one of her top advisors, and CEO of the company that runs the PR for firms such as Cintas, who has run an intense anti-union campaign against UNITE HERE, the same international with whom the Culinary Workers are federated, and whose poor worker safety led to a record fine by OSHA for a worker's death.

Then, in the past week to stir up controversies over the fact that Obama is winning in South Carolina because he is likely to get more black votes, among the other questionable truths (h/t lmw) means that the Clinton campaign is intentionally using this race-baiting tactic because they know the saliency of race and politics in this election. This was confirmed today, when Bill Clinton subtly brought up that Jesse Jackson won S.C. in the 1984 and 1988 primaries. Feeding into perceptions that black voters are going to vote for Obama because he is black feeds straight into the kind of despicable behavior that Republicans have used against black Democratic candidates (see Harold Ford).

This win-at-all-costs politics is bad. Not only does it have the effect of suppressing voters who are not already active participants in the political process (among whom, I believe, the majority would support Democrats) but it also sells out the very base of the Democratic Party. Arguing that union bosses intimidate their own workers does nothing to help workers organize and it undermines the very institutions that are responsible for the largest and most effective political machine on the left. Claiming that Obama is going to win South Carolina because he is black, not for his politics, plays into the racial-quota race-baiting of the conservative movement. But, it is politically expedient. And, it's worked. Many of the major media outlets are covering Obama's huge margin among black voters (including the AP, CNN, Fox, and international outlets). And, it seems that Clinton's strategists agree, "Clinton campaign strategists denied any intentional effort to stir the racial debate. But they said they believe the fallout has had the effect of branding Obama as 'the black candidate,' a tag that could hurt him outside the South."

Even I have fallen into it. I have spent this entire post discussing Clinton when, in fact, the day belongs to Obama. He didn't just win South Carolina, he skunked Clinton there. His 55% percent mandate against two candidates is as high as Clinton's Michigan win against "Undecided." This is his day, his week and should be—at least until February 5th—his campaign. And, his victory speech was brilliant. It is worth watching all 17 minutes of it. But, talk about striking back with a brilliant political move, here is my favorite part of his speech:

We're up against the idea that it's acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election. But we know that this is exactly what's wrong with our politics. This is why people don't believe what their leaders say anymore. This is why they tune out. And this election is our chance to give the American people a reason to believe again. (Cheers, applause.)

But let me say this, South Carolina. What we've seen in these last weeks is that we're also up against forces that are not the fault of any one campaign but feed the habits that prevent us from being who we want to be as a nation.

It's a politics that uses religion as a wedge and patriotism as a bludgeon, a politics that tells us that we have to think, act, and even vote within the confines of the categories that supposedly define us, the assumption that young people are apathetic, the assumption that Republicans won't cross over, the assumption that the wealthy care nothing for the poor and that the poor don't vote, the assumption that African-Americans can't support the white candidate, whites can't support the African-American candidate, blacks and Latinos cannot come together.

Obama is right and his politics are good for the country. Whether I agree with him about the issues (I think, in the end, I would tend to support Edwards the most on the issues), the fact that people are engaged, involved and active in a presidential campaign is better for democracy and could help prevent useless wars and unbridled corruption in the future. Obama's campaign will mean more to the politics of this country losing this election than Clinton's will winning it.

Speaking of the Katrina Disaster

Adding onto the moral crimes following the Katrina Disaster that I mentioned yesterday, today MSNBC is running this story describing how $600 million in HUD funds earmarked for community development in Gulfport, Mississippi are being diverted to fund the expansion of the public port there —including the increased development of casinos. The lobbyist-governor Haley Barbour has justified this diversion by highlighting the number of high-paying jobs that it is going to bring to the region. I'm not convinced and, apparently the citizens of the area are not, either:

That misses the point that plenty of homeowners who didn't qualify for that program and many non-homeowners still need help, say Steps Coalition members. “There’s no other explanation except that the state doesn’t think the lower income storm victims are as important a priority as the port," said Reilly Morse, an attorney with the Mississippi Center for Justice, part of the coalition.

The whole thing is worth a read.

What's Not Asked is as Important as What Is

Global warming is certainly not the only issue being neglected by the major media outlets; however, I found this video particularly well-done pointing out how little of a focus it has actually received (h/t Bry):

Speaking of issues that have been neglected, wobblie has a great dispatch of his experience in New Orleans and the lack of political coverage about its reconstruction. What has amazed me, although being a sociologist it probably shouldn't, is the lack of connection that anyone sees from New Orleans to anything else in the country. Wob's picture of the lower Ninth Ward impressed me because of its familiarity. Not to New Orleans, mind you, but to Detroit. When I went out block-listing for the Detroit Area Study, I was amazed at the absolute abandonment of the city. We literally had addresses to be listed that were next to holes in the ground that used to be a basement with a house on top of it. No house, no families, just a masonry hole and foundation where a house once stood. Entire blocks were wiped out with a combination of overgrowth, vacant houses with anti-arson signs (to prevent Devil's Night fires) and holes. The conditions didn't look that dissimilar from New Orleans, other than the fact that there was snow and there were a few property lots still dotted with non-vacant houses.

It is depressing situation when there were calls to "never forget" the catastrophe and a brief moment to mobilize around issues of poverty and racial inequality in this country. Maybe getting the mainstream media outlets to cover these issues in the presidential race could be a project for The Point (h/t: Brayden) ?

Another Reason to Hate Wal-Mart

The company that is the bane of most small retailers', employees', social justice advocates' and anti-globalization activists' existences has given them all another reason to hate them. Wal-Mart has decided to go after the legal settlement money of employees who were catastrophically injured in an accident. The terms of the health care coverage plan offered by Wal-Mart (and many other employers) demand that any settlement money for medical expenses be given to the medical insurance company. To not do so, they argue, is double-dipping and getting the same money twice.

I see several problems with this. Often settlements do not cover the complete cost of medical services, meaning the family is forced to find money from elsewhere. Also, any award given in settlement is only net of the legal expenses that it requires to recover that award. Essentially, then, what Wal-Mart is doing is outsourcing it's legal costs to recoup the money for its own insurance claims. The insurance provider can receive up to 100% of the settlement award after legal expenses meaning that the former employee (who, now, has no health insurance because they are no longer an employee because of said accident) is left with nothing after paying for attorneys and insurance companies.

And, to stick their thumb in the eyes of this poor couple going through this, Wal-Mart is now suing not only for the money received in the settlement award, but get this, they are also suing for the legal expenses incurred by their company to try and get this money from the couple! Nevermind that they paid nothing to aid in the legal claim to win the settlement.

I hope that, if there is a Hell--especially the fire-and-brimstone one favored by the Waltons--that there is a special ring of it reserved for their family.

Writing, Just not Here

It has been well over two weeks since I last posted here, after expressing a hope that I would be able to write more frequently after my last post. Ah well, I recall hearing something about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.

Most of the radio silence was caused by the fact that I was busting my behind to finish my second prelim—essentially our version of a master's thesis, I suppose. Anyway, it is a journal-length article that I am hoping to send out this month, meaning I'm not sure how much I will be able to commit to the blog in the near term. I did finish and defended last week, which was a huge relief. Although my committee gave me several great, albeit time-consuming, suggestions to make before I send the paper out for review, I am feeling really good about it. Now I hope that I can figure out how to incorporate all of the suggestions.

Passing this prelim made me step back and evaluate grad school. In part because I am looking to finish in the relatively near term, in part because this was the last bureaucratic hurdle (as in paper to get signed) to jump before moving onto my dissertation, and in part because it did feel like an accomplishment. Although completing my second prelim was considerably later in the timeline than it should have been, this was largely due to the fact that I have had several other opportunities along the way that have delayed this particular event but, I hope, have helped my career progress.

Thinking about this also made me realize that there is great advice out there about getting through grad school and different parts of the grad school experience. I realized one particularly salient suggestion from lmw's class on "Launching your Academic Career" which suggested: "Think about each step along the way and what issues you faced, how you handled them, and what you learned." Although I didn't write one out step-by-step, I was thinking that it might not be a bad idea to write it up now so that I can remember the pitfalls and get through the next several papers much more quickly.

It also made me realize how little instruction I have received on the "brass tacks" of writing. This is probably somewhat due to the fact that we all have our own styles of working and, to each of us, they all seem a little dysfunctional (see Impostor Syndrome). Part of it, I'm sure, is that there are, from what I can tell, deep divisions between the kind of writing for qualitative projects and quantitative projects^[1]. I am lucky to have had the good fortune and opportunity to collaborate on projects with two different professors, so that I could see how it's done. This is obviously the best, but there are some basic things that seem to be fairly consistent and it just seems weird to me that this part of academia is kind of left hanging. For instance, we don't really have an academic writing course or a proposal writing course as part of the curriculum. Although lots of professors will incorporate this into their classes, there isn't anything going over the basics of how that is done in a systematic way.

Part of me also wonders if it is because writing has become so basic to many professors (and, even, advanced grad students) that it is easy to forget what it was like to learn to do these things. Like riding a bike - I can remember learning, but I'm not sure that I could teach someone now how to do it... Or learning to drive, things that are so basic I do them mindlessly now took a great deal of effort to learn (which, caused endless consternation for both of my parents as they were teaching me...like, not SLAMMING on the breaks when I tried to stop). That's part of what I love about having both a grad student and larger community in the blogosphere—we get great advice on both levels. Now, I just need to be sure to do my part to contribute my fair share...

^[1] In fact, one of the interesting criticisms given to me in my defense was that I was trying to combine a sociology focused on cultural analysis and one based on quantitative writings and my writing ended up falling, unsuccessfully, somewhere in between those two.