14 February 2008
Political Experts Discuss Super Tuesday and Beyond
Ask America webchat transcript, February 14
Political experts Thomas Schaller and Ann Stone answered questions in February 14 Ask America webchat on what is next in the American presidential race after “Super Tuesday.”
Following is the transcript:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of International Information Programs
Ask America Webchat Transcript
Elections 2008: Beyond Super Tuesday
Guest: Thomas F. Schaller, Ann Stone
Date: February 14, 2008
Time: 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT)
Ann Stone is an entrepreneur and activist who heads The Stone Group Inc. (TSG), which has built a name as an innovative, cutting-edge campaign strategy, public affairs and public relations firm.
Thomas F. Schaller is associate professor of political science at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and co-author of Devolution and Black State Legislators.
Moderator: Welcome to our webchat! Today is February 14, 2008. The webchat will begin at 08:30 EST / 13:30 GMT. You are welcome to begin submitting your questions now.
Moderator: Welcome to those of you joining us early. We see your questions coming in, thank you. If you have more than one question please ask each one separately.
Thomas Schaller: This is Tom Schaller. I will preface all my comments and replies with "TS:" so that you can distinguish mine from Ann Stone's. Some opening comments:
1. The nomination process for the Republicans, which I'll leave mostly for Ann to cover, has moved to the point where we are near certain to have John McCain as the nominee. After Tuesday, he survived what had to be the last chance for former AR Gov. Mike Huckabee to catch him, and Huckabee failed.
2. The Democratic primary contest is far more complicated and closer. As of this week, I think it is safe to say that Obama is now the frontrunner, but he is far from certain to win. Clinton is on the defensive and needs to get wins in both Ohio and Texas on March. If she loses either, and certainly if she loses both, I think Obama will have a lock on the nomination at that point. So we will know a lot more in two weeks.
Ann Stone: Thank you so much for your interest in the elections here in the United States. I want to make sure that you know that here in the United States we have very decentralized elections. It is not one national election but rather 51 elections …50 states and Washington DC. A state could choose to hold a convention, a caucus or hold a primary to determine how their delegates are chosen. The Republicans have more winner take all contests and the Democrats have proportional….so all this makes it very confusing for people out side AND inside the United States to follow…. This year’s primaries and election are the most exciting I have ever seen and I have worked in 10 Presidential elections…So we are having great fun watching all this….if you love politics you will love this election…the conventional wisdom and the experts have gotten it wrong in their predictions…so all that makes it even more fun…so fasten your seatbelts…..
Question [gold]: Excuse my ignorance but I want to know what's the difference between caucus and primairies.
thank U
Answer [Thomas Schaller]: The basic difference between a caucus and primary is that a caucus involves a face-to-face interaction between voters and in a primary the voters cast votes in private. So, a caucus is what we call "physical democracy" or "deliberative democracy." Voters get to interact and try to persuade one another to vote on behalf (or against) certain candidates. No such discussion--except for perhaps while waiting in line to vote--happens during a primary. People line up, sign in, cast their votes, and go home.
The effect of these differences are two-fold: 1. caucuses tend to have smaller overall turnouts, and are thus dominated by the most fervent and regular party members; and 2. the training needed for voters in caucuses is more intense and requires campaigns to invest a lot more time teaching local precinct leaders how to caucus, how to persuade their fellow voters.
Q [Kimat]: Hello. We are from Tajikistan-Dushanbe deaf school #8. We know America as a developed democratic country. So the country will elect their President every four years. We wanted to know when will be next election?
Have every man from parties opportunity to be a President?
Are the deaf people vote too?
Students from deaf school.
Answer [Ann Stone]: We are in the primary phase now...the partisans from the major parties will choose their delegates and then these delegates will choose the nominees for each party at their conventions....then on to the general election this November...the first Tuesday in November....and yes EVERYONE can run...this year for the first time we have a woman and an african-american running...women and minorities have run before but they did not have a real chance to win...these two do....
Deaf people vote too....all are equal....
Moderator: To those of you just joining us, welcome! We see your questions coming in. Our speakers are reviewing your questions now.
Q [Chat Participant]: What is your biggest suprise of the elction so far? Obama Clinton or McCain? Or other suprise?
A [Thomas Schaller]: The biggest surprise to me is that the Republicans are close to finished but the Democrats are still fighting. Four months ago, a national poll showed that "none of the above" had more votes for Republican nomination than any of the candidates, so it looked like the Republicans had no idea what they wanted to do. But they have slowly, if sometimes reluctantly for some conservative elements of the party, rallied to McCain. Of course, this is partly a consequence of the fact that Republicans mostly use winner take all format for winning delegates in most of their state primaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats use a proportional system to allocate their delegates, which means that if McCain wins a state by 55% of votes casts he gets all the delegates, but if on the same day Obama wins the same state by 55% of the votes cast he might only get 60% or 65% of the delegates. (The Dems also assign delegates based on how each candidate does within the congressional districts of the state, which makes the formula more complex.) But the real reason the Dems are still fighting it out is that they have two candidate that are widely liked and highly competitive with each other. The party is split evenly, with a recent and small advantage to Obama.
A [Ann Stone]: Obama and McCain are the big surprises...Obama since he is so young and inexperienced and Hillary on the Democrat side was expected to win the nomination easily...McCain since two months ago everyone thought he was out...he had only 7% support in the National polls and had not raised much money...but SURPRISE he is back!!
Q [Chat Participant]: Dear Ann Stone. Will women make the big difference?
A [Ann Stone]: Yes...perhaps more than ever...especially for Hillary. They can save her floundering campaign if they turn out in record numbers for her like they did in the New Hampshire primary..... They are the majority of voters in our country and they have been a swing vote in the last few elections...but this year in the Democratic primaries they are a large part of Hillary's vote...
Q [Kuba]: Certainly the youth vote is a untapped power. But only if the power is used! So far the youth appears to be most excited for Barak Obama. The question for you both: Will the youth "show up" on November?? Can Mr. McCain count on youth too or Clinton?
A [Ann Stone]: AS They are excited about Obama and about the Republican Ron Paul...but much more for Obama. This is the most youth vote we have seen in quite a while if ever...but if Obama is the nominee for the Democrats the question will be will the youth stay excited and vote in November...? In the past their interest has fallen off....but this year may well be different.... The young people do find McCain inspiring because of his personal story as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and how when his father who was an important military man got the North Vietnamese to agree to release him from the prison early...McCain refused the special treatment and stayed with the rest of the men....his fellow soldiers...he did not want to leave them behind... Also McCain has been a maverick for a long time and his willingness to stand up to his Party's leadership is something else young people like....so yes I think he can win some of the youth vote...how much remains to be seen....
Q [Chat Participant]: Dear Thomas. Will african american make the big difference? (Or Latin American)
A [Thomas Schaller]: African Americans have already made a huge difference.
In fact, Obama would almost assuredly be finished by now. A key state for him late last month (though it seems now like ages ago, it was only three weeks ago) was South Carolina, which has the second highest A-A population in the country, and which came out strongly for him when he most needed them, following Clinton's narrow but important wins in New Hampshire and then Nevada. A-A voters were also pivotal for Obama in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri on Super Tuesday, and Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia this past Tuesday, and they will be again in Mississippi and perhaps Ohio for him next month.
What's fascinating is that Bill Clinton has been referred to, informally, as America's "first black president" because he was beloved by African American Democrats--until this year, when some of his comments about Obama infuriated them and drove them away from Mrs. Clinton and to Obama.
Moderator: To those of you just joining the webchat, welcome! Our speakers are reviewing your questions now.
Q [selinawang]: Hello. I have a question, what do you think is Hillary's advantage. Thank you.
A [Ann Stone]: ...let me add that I agree with Tom...this has been a big surprise that the great aura around the Clinton's appears to have disappeared...but all this could change if she wins Wisconsin in the next week and then goes on to win Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas...
Hillary was already so well known by the voters and you either loved her or hated her...Obama was an unknown so he could take time and shape how people viewed him....and that turned out to be his best advantage...
Q [Kimat]: Hello. We are students from Dushanbe Islamic University wanted to know about American Muslims.
A [Thomas Schaller]: The Muslim American population is very small in the United States, but they are concentrated in certain cities and states. But it is unlikely that, like African Americans or Latinos or Jews and certainly Catholics, that they have the voting power yet to swing a state for one candidate or the other in either the primaries or the general election.
The two big political developments this year in regard to Muslim American politics are: 1. The first Muslim elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, of Minnesota, which is ironic because that state doesn't have nearly the concentration of Muslims that Michigan does; 2. There was the first major public opinion poll of the political attitudes of Muslim Americans, conducted by the venerable Pew Research Center, which you can read here.
Moderator: The website Mr. Schaller refers to can be found at: http://pewresearch.org/pubs/483/muslim-americans
Q [selinawang]: Hello. I want to know what will be the biggest challenge for the new president to conquer.
Thank you
A [Thomas Schaller]: Ending the Iraq war, or perhaps in McCain's case, perpetuating it correctly. The war has, strangely enough, faded a bit in people's minds as the economy has moved more to the forefront of late. But the war will be a big issue in the general election phase, for sure. Both McCain and Obama began to speak Tuesday night as if they were running now against each other (this was Obama's way of depicting himself as the inevitable winnner, by ignoring Hillary Clinton) and both he and McCain talked about Iraq. So that was an early preview of the November general election.
Q [IRC Cairo]: If the candidite did not fullfile his promises could the Congress ask him for reasons?
Khalid Malik Mahmoud
IRC Cairo
A [Thomas Schaller]: They can, and do. But the whole point of the American system, in which presidents are elected independently from Congress (unlike in most parliamentary systems where the prime minister is chosen by the national legislature) is to give the chief executive independence--not total independence, but significant independence--from the Congress.
Yes they can and should ask...but even more our free Press will ask...the TV, radio and newspaper reporters will all ask. And we have very active citizen's groups who even issue report cards on the elected officials to show if they are keeping their promises.
Q [IRC Cairo]: Who has the power in the election?
Khild Milk
IRC Cairo
A [Thomas Schaller]: The voters, obviously, but more specifically on the Democratic side women have a great deal of power because they cast a majority of all votes in our national general elections, but because they are more Democratic than Republican they cast an even larger majority of votes in Democratic primary races, sometimes close to 60 percent of all votes. An increasingly powerful swing voting block, both in the general election and in Democratic primaries are Hispanics (Latin Americans).
A [Ann Stone]: The people have the power. Really...they do...
Q [IRC Cairo]: Who control the race between both sides?
Medhat Magdy
A [Ann Stone]: The leadership of each of the national political parties exert some influence when they set the rules...but each state has some control and within that framework local workers in the campaigns determine how much effort is made to get voters to come out and vote.
Q [IRC Cairo]: Who is the responsible person for the election expenditure? Is there a certain amount of money to spend for every candidate?
Emad Ali
IRC Cairo
A [Thomas Schalle]: Candidates raise money, mostly from individuals, but there are limits on how much a person can give to a candidate. They can give up to $2,300 to any candidate in both the primary contest and the general election contest. So, a total of up to $4,600. However, the candidate CANNOT spend the second $2,300 during the primary phase. Hillary Clinton has "maxed out"--that is, received the full $4,600 from far more donors than Obama, who receives a lot more contributions in smaller amounts--and this puts her in a tough spot for two reasons:
1. She can't use the second $2,300 until and unless she wins the primary first.
2. She can't ask them for anymore money, wheras something like 95% of all Obama donors still have not "capped out" and so he can keep asking them for more donations as he goes along.
Q [adolatkal]: Really, who are behind Obama and Clinton as possible presidents then?
Also, who/what are people, who make them future presidents: wellknown is that the servants are making the King?
A [Ann Stone]: Gone are the days of the back room king or queen makers...there is so much transparency in our elections that if a candidate is made to look like a puppet it will be all over for them. Don't know who other than our TV personality Oprah Winfrey has great influence over Obama...in Hillary's case...have you ever met her...NO ONE ...NOT EVEN HER HUSBAND has control over her!! LOL LOL ["Laugh Out Loud"] And in fact she unfortunately has shown that she has no control over him...his antics on the campaign trail in January may have sunk her campaign...
Moderator: Visit America.gov's "Guide to the 2008 Elections" at:
http://uspolitics.america.gov/uspolitics/elections/index.html
A [Thomas Schaller]: While waiting for further questions, I will make some suggestions about what to watch for on the Democratic side.
First, Hillary Clinton has staked her campaign on winning both Ohio and Texas on March 4. There's not a lot of good polling out there, especially in Texas, though I suspect that there will be an increasingly number of polls in those two states as we approach 3/4. Watch to see if Obama is able to close her margins and/or catch and pass her in the polls there. He has done this in other states, and if he does it here, she's in major trouble. But if not, the fight could go on. She is spending most of her time during the next two weeks there. She had 4 events in TX the past two days, and has three coming up in Ohio today and tomorrow. He is still working on Wisconsin and Hawaii, which vote this Tuesdays.
Second, watch how two groups vote: Latinos in Texas, and people in households making under $50,000/year in Ohio. If she holds those two groups by wide margins, she has a chance to hold those two states. If she doesn't, she is in trouble in one or either. Overall, she needs two wins in those two states, and Obama just needs one. And if Obama wins both, well, that does it--she is gone.
A [Thomas Schaller]: Here are some good links to sites where people can track the results and follow the election better, including poll results and articles:
Real Clear Politics has stories and polls and other stuff: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
The New York Times has a good calendar and results and other good stuff:
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/index.html
And Salon and The Politico have good stuff on the Democrats' delegate situations: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/12/election_results/
http://www.politico.com/superdelegates/
A [Ann Stone]: I want to add to the answer about the biggest challenges the next US President will face...clearly the war and foreign policy...rebuilding America's image worldwide...but also carefully supporting our economy...not interfering but removing obstacles from job creation and economic growth. That was Bill Clinton's strength...he knew not to heap more regulations on a weak economy...I think Bush knows that too. To better understand the US economic system let me recommend a book that is written as fiction but is the first time a moral case is made for why capitalism works so well. It is written by Ayn Rand considered to be one of the most important economic philosophers of the 20th century and her book Atlas Shrugged is rated as the second most important book in America by a survey of "opinion molders" and people of influence in both Parties.
Q [adolatkal]: Also, Mrs. Clinton has changed her campaign environment for the reasons you have explained. Who are her new people? It is not good to change horses while crossing a great River! Maybe, she is very emotional, like in "Pride and Prejudice"...
A [Ann Stone]: Her new people are old friends and colleagues and accomplished political people...McCain also made changes last Fall and it saved his campaign...she hopes it will do the same for her. It may not be good to change horse mid stream or mid river but if the horse does not know how to cross the river it may be necessary ;-) I am concerned about your emotional comment. It sounds sexist...I hope you do not mean it in that way. She made a logical decision...not an emotional one...they say that if you keep doing things the same way and expect a different conclusion that is the definition of insanity...Mrs. Clinton showed us she is not insane!
A [Thomas Schaller]: Well, thanks to everyone for their great questions. Hope to see you all in this space again soon. To follow my writings on the election, you can go to this site:
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/bal-columnist-schaller,0,5743439.columnist?coll=bal-opinion-utility ...and feel free to buy my book, Whistling Past Dixie: How Democrats Can Win Without the South http://www.amazon.com/Whistling-Past-Dixie-Democrats-Without/dp/0743290151.
A [Ann Stone]: I would like to wish you all great fortune in your endeavors. And again thank you for your interest in our elections. Let me also add the websites of organizations I am involved with as well as my company site so you can learn more about what we are doing:
http://www.tsgrp.net (my company site) http:www.ewint.org (Empowered Women International...a group I started with a young lady from Romania) http://www.nwhm.org (the National Women's History Museum another group I co-founded that has a new exhibit about to be posted on how many women have run for President in the United States...many more than you would think...some ran before women even had the right to vote!!) Thank you and good day!
Moderator: We wish to thank Thomas Schaller and Ann Stone for joining us today. The webchat is now closed.
A full transcript of today's webchat will be available on our Ask America Homepage (http://www.america.gov/multimedia/askamerica.html) usually within one business day.
(Guests are chosen for their expertise. The views expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of State.)
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
