More GOP Rule Changes in Store

Once again, I've been beaten to the punch on things invisible primary, but Fridays are filled with classes and cricket (I'm proud to be the Bob Uecker of the SDSU Cricket Club), so delay was inevitable.  In truth, I've been pondering this post since December when details began to emerge about the rule changes the GOP was considering, particularly their plan to compress the nomination calendar.  The mulling is now over, and changes have been adopted.  Over at Bloomberg, Jonathan Bernstein has an insightful post on the net effects of the rule change on the nomination process.

Speaking for myself from the perspective of a political scientist, the GOP navel gazing is at once heartening, yet quite frustrating.

To the former, as someone who spends a great deal of time studying institutions, it nice to see that politicians and party officials recognize that individual behaviors are affected by rules and structures, and that they are trying to harness that behavior in a positive direction.

What's frustrating is precisely what Bernstein dubs "fighting the last war;" ferreting out what they felt went wrong in the last race and rearranging institutions based on some pretty spurious evidence of what made the election break against them.  Could the calendar have mattered in 2012?  Highly unlikely.  As Bernstein articulates (and as most political scientists would concur) the happenings of the primary season are noticed by only a very small sliver of the population and they're lost in collective memory come November.  Assuming that the divisions of the primary season aren't indicative of deep, irreconcilable factionalism  - and 2012 wasn't such a case - an extended primary isn't the worst thing that can happen to a party.  And frankly, it didn't take an undue amount of time for Republicans to choose Romney in 2012.  GOP suspicions in 2012 that the partial move from primarily winner-take-all to a degree of proportionality in delegate allocation in early primary states drew out the nomination fight were effectively shown to be mythological by Josh Putnam and John Sides.  GOP navel gazing by the likes of Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels, and John McCain was purely speculative, superficially impressionistic, and wildly uninformed with readily available empirical evidence.  It seems to me that these rule changes now are due in part to the survival of this myth.  What's more important to the party's general election prospects are election fundamentals, and what candidates can do in their campaigns to make the best of the cards they are dealt.  That's what the party ought to be concerning itself with, not so much the timing of primaries and sanctioning states for breaking their rules.  It's just not determinative of general election results, or even the results of the nomination fight.  Now, if a primary season is extended by an inability of the party to triangulate on an acceptable candidate across factions that is highly problematic, but a compressed calendar isn't going to help, as the party's got far bigger issues to worry about.

One minor departure that I take from Bernstein's post has some direct relevance to the invisible primary.  While he's spot on in noting that "any old crank" can have a good two weeks in the pre-primary period (and if the timing is right lucky, in the early primary states ala Santorum), I'm more confident that threshing machine of the invisible primary will effectively separate the wheat from the chaff.  So by my reckoning, a compressed calendar won't make much of a difference on nominee quality.  While the cranks might stick around for the sake of landing a book or TV deal, the probability was exceedingly low that the GOP would nominate Bachman, Cain, Santorum, or Gingrich, as each were at the very best factional leaders, and frankly, not particularly serious candidates to begin with.  To the extent that proved necessary, Romney had the party behind him before the first vote cast in Iowa.  The invisible primary actually threshed out some serious candidates, as it should, like Governors Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry.  And though this thought isn't original to me (and for the life of me I cannot remember who had written it) we know they were serious because they dropped out when they recognized nomination was out of their grasp.  What was left for Romney to contend with were empty husks of challengers, that more or less blew away in the in the early primary season winds.

The bottom line for me (like Bernstein) is that neither party should worry too much about the little details of their nomination systems, they just don't matter that much.  While wholesale changes we saw in the aftermath of the 1968 election cycle were very consequential (and the parties had to scramble to adapt), it seems to me that monkeying around on the margins carries high opportunity costs.  Spend the time, money, and effort on ensuring the chaff is separated from the wheat effectively in the primaries while keeping your party unified, and help nominees carefully choose a general election path that maximizes political return on the fundamentals they have to work with.  Should both parties play a larger role throughout the entire electoral process, our democracy will be that much better off.

Sometimes It Isn't So Invisible

A quick tip of the toque (it is -5 outside) to Seth Masket for putting his tweeps onto this NYT article a few moments ago.  As Masket noted, sometimes the signs of party insiders gravitating towards a candidate are very "subtle" indeed.  In this case, with Priorities USA being handed over from President Obama's allies to supporters of Hillary Clinton's likely run, it's as subtle as a sledgehammer.  According to Open Secrets, Priorities USA pumped about $65 million into outside spending in 2012, with nearly all of it on negative ads targeting Mitt Romney.  While they were outpaced by nearly $100 million by Karl Rove's American Crossroads, we're talking about an organization poised to spend a serious chunk of change come election season.  While we're talking big bucks here, the significance of this in regards to the invisible primary, isn't so much the potential funding, but the people lining up in her corner.

As important as this is, we must remember that in the invisible primary, just as in the general election, money isn't a guarantee of success.  As I noted here, not only is the term "money primary" something I'd like to relegate to the dustbin of the political lexicon (as it tends to conflate two separate processes: one nearly determinative of the nomination outcome, one not at all so), the key financial variable that we need to pay attention to at this stage is the money flowing from the candidates to other political organizations (candidate, committees, and parities), rather than flowing to them.  Obviously, the stream of money through outside groups, who in turn spend on behalf of a candidate, has had an imprint on the invisible primary, but just how instrumental of a role it has in securing the actual nomination is yet to be seen.  Of course the rules could very well change in any given cycle, but I'm skeptical about declaring that sort of seismic shift in the invisible primary rule book until we see some hard evidence in our 2016 postmortems.

Regardless, this is a clear sign that many in the Democratic party elite, in this case key operatives and fundraisers, are triangulating on a certain focal point; and boat loads of outside spending certainly won't hurt Clinton's chances.  For me, I'm still betting that the real key to Clinton's invisible primary success or failure will be how much money she can direct towards others within the party, just as George W. Bush was doing at this point in the 2000 election cycle.  The only real difference as I see it between now and then, is that some of the means of funding and spending have been further refined (yes refined) in the intervening 16 years.  The same can probably be said for the rules of the Invisible Primary.

Addendum: I was rereading chapter 8 of The Party Decides this morning for a research project I've just picked up (stay tuned, as it's all about the invisible primary), and a very prescient passage jumped out at me.  For those of you that haven't read the book, do so soon.  For those who have, recall the analogy the authors use of "the restaurant game" (a large group of people deciding on what type of restaurant to go to) for the various factions of a party triangulating on a candidate.  "If fish lovers flock to the fish restaurant, it provides little information to diners who happen not to be fish lovers." (261)  That is largely what's happening here.  The original NYT article notes, that this is a veritable who's who of the Clinton administration's political team, with a few Obama hangers around thrown in the mix.  Obviously the fact that the Obama crew has handed off the structure of Priorities USA is an important development, but we mustn't lose sight of the fact that what we're seeing here is previously loyal Clinton people rallying back to Clinton for this open nomination.  Should they cast a wider net, and start bringing in folks from other Democratic factions (beef and porker lovers, and vegans, to press the analogy further), then we've getting somewhere in terms of invisible primary traction.

Screw me? Screw You! The IP Chris Christie Edition

There is much hullabaloo at this moment about IP fave and current NJ Governor Chris Christie’s political plot to snarl traffic in an attempt to thumb his honker at the Democrats. Christie has acquired for himself a rather bad-boy reputation as an aggressive and plain talkin’ politician who sticks it to the media (bad media!) and opponents (bad opponents!) and teachers (bad – wait. What?).  Christie’s intensity has endeared him to many on the right who like to use words like “strong” and “powerful” when describing the kind of take-no-prisoners leader they idealize. You know – the exact opposite of the wishy-washy equivocating liberal stuff they get from the Democrats.

But there’s always the other side of the coin, and while some may admire Christie’s force others have called him a bully. The kind of bully who yells at people and leaves them shaking in fear. Which is why the story about the GW Bridge feeds into the Christie narrative so well, and is such a compelling story to tell nationwide.

What could be seen as a regional spat went global because of Christie’s anointment as IP front runner for 2016. But it also landed solidly because many people already think Christie is a tyrant. Whether or not he knew that his underlings closed lanes of the George Washington Bridge as a political maneuver is almost beside the point, because people already believe he is capable of such scheming. The joke lands because we get it. Christie’s a bully. We got it.

Also, there is the question of what kind of office he is running. According to military experts (meaning: My husband) there is an Army expression called “Command Climate” which is loosely defined as the environment established by a leader. In other words: The example set by a boss  is important. If Christie’s command climate encouraged or even just allowed such machinating, that speaks loudly to his leadership and management style. And while voters like force, they don’t like intrigues, plotting, and manipulations done out of spite. Ask Richard Nixon – they’ll get you for that.

So this is why the GW Bridge story has legs and why it matters to the Invisible Primary. It will be interesting to see how Christie manages the story and what happens to his front-runner status which has already been codified by big press coverage. It will also be interesting to see how the new NY Mayor deals with all of this, how comedians make hay of the situation, and whether or not it will impact the polar vortex.  Mittened fingers crossed that it helps warm things up outside the Christie household.

Invisible Primary: “Double Down” Edition

The best part of a political campaign is the after-action review that comes when some enterprising journos grab DC insiders by the lapels and convince them to talk about all the crap that went down on the trail. Convincing politicos to talk is not as difficult as it seems, since most people in DC will yak endlessly about themselves prompted only by the word: “Hi.”

For years this campaign accounting was accomplished nicely by Jack Germond and Jules Witcover, who managed to uncover such nuggets as the one about Dan Quayle being so dumb that if you told him to turn off the light he’d forget what he was doing before he reached the switch. Good stuff. Today we have Mark Halperin and John Heilemann who knocked the socks off of the chattering class a few years ago with “Game Change.” Since Sarah Palin isn’t here to kick around anymore, the newest tome about the race for the White House is “Double Down” and it goes for the Romney jugular while managing to hit collateral damage against Obama's campaign in the process. 

I know what you’re thinking: Of course I haven’t read it. No one will – they’ll do the “Washington Read” where you look in the index, find your name, read about yourself and put the book on the table so people will think you studied it. But I can skim the breathless accounts and book reviews like the next girl, and it seems to me that the whole megillah is less about the past and more about the future: Specifically, what is going to happen in 2016. So buckle in, kids. Here are the gossipy “Double Down” tidbits about our favorite IP candidates. Thanks to Politico for this helpful account:

#1: Chris Christie: Today marks the official Christie gubernatorial re-election walk, but the book is bound to cast some long shadows over Christie’s victory. The book makes several accusations about lateness, errors, and temper tantrums that would make a three year old stand back and applaud. Basically, the one line summary is that the New Jersey Republican’s file was “littered with potential landmines” which was why he was not considered for a VP position in 2012. Whoops.

#2: Joe Biden: And speaking of Vice Presidents, perhaps the biggest jaw dropper to come out of the book is that the Obama campaign considered dumping my boyfriend Veep Bee for Hillary Clinton. The White House, of course, vehemently denies this, but the account made a larger point that Obama did exclude Biden from a number of campaign appearances which makes him look marginalized at best, like a yutz at worst. The yutz factor has always been Biden’s Achilles heel, so this is not good news if he’s planning a bid against Hillary. 

#3: Bill Clinton: Though not running for anything, the book is apparently littered with tales of Bill’s annoying solipsistic behaviors which may have an effect on the Mrs. as she launches her own 2016 campaign. I doubt anyone is going to be surprised that Bill Clinton, who was once described quite funnily to me as a man with “owl sized appetites” has narcissistic tendencies, but who needs that when Chuck Schumer wants you to be the first woman president?

All of this is good, clean fun unless you are the subject of the fish-themed nicknames that were apparently used in the super-secret vetting process for VP: “Pufferfish” for Christie, “Filet o Fish” for Portman, Rubio was “Pescado” and Ryan was (giggles) “Fishconsin.” Well at least that one was funny.

Does any of this hearsay mean anything as our tireless IP candidates run for the roses? Probably not explicitly. I mean, who cares if Obama said that he liked Bill Clinton “in doses?” What matters is the fuel this book gives to the existing narratives about the candidates. If the public already has a wary eye on Christie's temper or Biden’s ability to be taken seriously, this doesn’t help. But that is why time is a friend to candidates who need to restore their street cred. Remember Rubio’s water lunge from the post-SoTU speech last year? Neither does anyone else. Five bucks says that in a year from now “Double Down” will simply be that awful KFC sandwich that can kill a healthy man with one bite.

Unless the book gets made into an HBO movie with Zach Woods as Paul Ryan.

Whoops.  

There's More to It than Being on TV

I thought I'd rip off a quick post here not so much as to offer some new and profound thoughts on the pre-primary, but to give us all a quick reminder what the invisible primary isn't either in theory or in practice.  As this is my first chance to watch a live game on Sunday this season I'll make this brief.

A lot of ink has spilled and pixels darkened about Sen. Ted Cruz and his apparent 2016 ambitions.  As many would have us believe, grabbing the limelight is the first order of business for presidential hopefuls at this point in the election cycle.  While this may help a candidate's invisible primary strategy, let's not forget a couple things.  

First, the invisible primary isn't all about candidates going to the people; it's a conversation that takes place within a party (broadly defined) as they seek candidates.  This isn't to say that candidates actions are unimportant in invisible primary success, they're just less important than many folks assume.  Several, if not most, of the invisible primary winners (think George W. Bush) weren't out playing a public game at this point.  Quite importantly, Bush wasn't out there pissing off anyone in the party at this time in 1997, he was making nice with nearly every GOP governor and other well placed Republicans whilst they were vetting him. 

Second, Sen. Cruz's faux filibuster has only appealed to a narrow band of the Republican electorate.  While the talk of a Republican civil war is in no doubt overblown, he is irritating a rather important wing of his party.  As the invisible primary is in largest part a party-centric enterprise, simply gaining public standing in one faction of the party, while simultaneously alienating another isn't the best course of action.  The Tea Party may be a plurality, or even a majority of the party at the moment, but those simple numbers don't guarantee success.  We know that when the party does land on a strong general election nominee,  faction leaders tend to lose out in the invisible primary in favor of another candidate that isn't any faction's first choice, but is nevertheless unobjectionable to the mix of constituencies within both parties.  

So if Sen. Cruz is seriously pondering a presidential run, he'd best start playing nice with his colleagues and worry about broad party goals as well as his own personal electoral ones.  If he blows off the better part of his caucus, he'll in no doubt be in a good spot for reelection, but he'll be shooting himself in the foot for higher office.

The invisible primary in hiding.

It is tempting to want to unload over the current budget and impending debt limit crisis.  There is so much to say, so much grist for the mill.  But most of it has probably been said and, besides, this blog is about the invisible primary so, is there anything to say about it given the current distraction?

How about Paul Ryan’s almost no-existent roll in all this?  He is, as I remember it, the Radical Right’s wonder-boy when it comes to the budget.  But he has almost nothing to say.  In realty, his former obsession with Medicare might actually be a better fit as a bargaining chip for the GOP.  Medicare actually has a big impact on the current and future federal budget, certainly more than the ACA by most assessments.  I mean, if you are going to hold a hostage, you might as well get what you want for its return straight.  It is like someone stealing my cat and demanding a ransom from my proctologist (not that I need a proctologist….).  More accurately, it is like kidnapping your own child, and demanding ransom from their sibling for her to be returned.  You both want her returned, you will make sure she is going to get returned, you were just too stupid not to hold the Dora the Explore DVD in return for the ransom.

Interestingly enough the one glimmer you see of him is fundraising over the issue for his leadership committee, Prosperity PAC.  And his dealings over this issue are not the only place he stays hidden.  In August, as these issues began to percolate, he attended a highly secure and secret meeting with the Koch brothers in New Mexico.  Does his public silence on this tip his hat to a view that this battle may not be good for a presidential run?  Given the leadership vacuum in the House, this would be a good time for him to try and give clarity and logic to the Tea Party message.  His potential challengers, Cruz not withstanding, have been equally quite or even somewhat critical of the approach adopted by the radical minority of the GOP.  Marco Rubio weighed in on the faux-filibuster with Cruz, but just enough for the people who care to notice.  In fact, except for Cruz, the Senate Republicans really want little to do with all of this.  Chris  Christie criticized the approach, but his position has to be taken in context of an impending reelection as governor.  Jeb Bush, critical; Rand Paul, mostly silent; Scott Walker, silent; Condoleezza Rice; silent (yes, I am the first on this blog to suggest she could be a conten-da).  Rick Santorum, he is talking about it, but I addressed him last week in my entry.

I think one reason why Ryan, and some of the other invisible primary contenders, are staying silent is because they are interested in governing and this is clearly not governing.  So they have that going for them, which is nice.

Beware of Turkish Prime Ministers Bearing Gifts

In the middle of our routine, faux-panic over government shutdowns, debt ceiling limits, heightened polarization, and various other events that make Americans think their system is falling apart, allow me a diversion to a nation that faces similar problems for reals, with huge stakes...  What does this have to do with the invisible primary?  Nothing really, but I'm the macdaddy of this blog.  So if I want to write about parties and elections elsewhere in the world I will.

As many of you know,  I've more than a passing interest in Turkey.  I lived and worked there for four years in capacities varying from university professor, political consultant, to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  My obvious familial connection to the nation (well, obvious to those who know me), runs far deeper; and my family's future there is highly dependent upon decisions made in Ankara.  The connection is deep enough that I honestly see my self keeling over Michael Corleone style (at the end of Godfather 3) as I'm gazing over the lush beauty of Kocahıdır in western Thrace.  Simply put, I care deeply about what goes on there, particularly on political issues that pertain to the Kurdish "problem" and the general liberalization of the political system.

My son Liam doing the çapulcu thing in Ankara, June 2013.

Parallel to the events of this summer's nation-wide protests that stemmed from PM Erdogan's plans to put yet another big assed mall in Istanbul's Taksim square (hallowed political ground for the Turkish left and some of the last open space in the Beyoğlu district), has been the decades long struggle for Kurdish cultural and political rights (by the way, these protests have not gone away, though domestic and international attention to them certainly has).

The AKP government has been trickling out reforms in a fractured, erratic, piecemeal fashion for some time now; always with an eye on capturing a piece of the Kurdish vote (which worked to a degree) yet not giving more than they need or get away with politically.  A couple of days ago they released yet another round of such reform proposals.  The center piece of this package is a proposal to re-work the most undemocratic aspect of the militarily imposed constitution of 1982 - the 10% electoral threshold.  10% is no accident.  Back in 1935 Ismet Inonu, acting as Kemal Ataturk's PM, wrote a report in which he recommended that no ethnic group be allowed to comprise more than 10% of a local population.  This was then used as a benchmark in the continuing "population exchanges" to Turkify the Kurds (as well as other "others") throughout the southeast and relocate many to the western parts of the nation.  Fast forward to 1982, when the military wished to impose barriers to virtually ensure that no Kurdish party could be consistently elected, a national threshold of 10% was chosen.  Was 10% a coincidence?  Possibly in the strict sense, but the long term goal of Turkish socialization has been realized to the degree that Kurdish identity has been weakened enough to be a primary political identity for about 7% of the population.

The present system is pretty straight forward, and apart from the threshold, quite fair.  At present there are 85 districts based mostly on municipal boundaries, with Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir divided into multiple districts.  District magnitudes vary from 1 to 30.  Seats are apportioned using the D'Hondt method of proportional representation.  For reasons made abundantly clear in the 2002 election, when over 50% of the population voted for a party that didn't enter the parliament, the two main parties dig this threshold.  The AKP turned a 34% take into a 66% share of seats in the TBMM.  The farcical opposition party, the CHP, magically transformed a 19% vote into 32% of the seats.  Since then, they have dogmatically supported the high threshold as they've both picked up far more seats than their electoral support has warranted in each succeeding election.  So it came as something of a surprise to me yesterday when a student asked me about the suggestion of lowering the threshold to 5%.  Let's be clear on this, Erdogan is no genius.  But what he lacks for in brains and sophistication, he makes up for in raw political instinct.  Surely he hadn't walked into such a blunder?

He hasn't.  True to his pattern of political reform for the benefit of himself, the devil here is in the details.  For starters, he didn't personally endorse the lower threshold, but merely stated it should be a point of parliamentary discussion.  Given the extreme personalization of the parties there, I can imagine how that discussion will conclude.  He immediately proposed two other possibilities: 1) Increasing the number of districts  to 110 districts of 5 each, and if I read this correctly (and how do I hope I am not) the party that takes the majority in the district takes all five seats.  2) Moving to 550 single member plurality districts.  To say this is a sharp break from what they have now is the understatement of the year.  Either option would represent a clear regression of the democratic process in Turkey.  Being an illiberal democracy, the only thing Turkey really has going for it is its electoral system, which is both fair and freely administered by a politically independent commission.  Take those democratic qualities away, and we'll see another precious layer of democracy stripped from the nation.

True to Erdogan's caginess, either of these monstrosities would serve both the aims of limited "reform" and his own political security.  The AKP will clearly dominate the political map in either scenario, and I don't even want to speculate on how strongly they'd gerrymander the districts to achieve this.  Either scheme would most likely result in a marginal increase in the number of MPs from the Kurdish BDP (Peace and Democracy Party) who has until now, "sneaked" under the threshold by running independent candidates (that have suffered from severe limitations of electoral efficiency as it requires tremendous coordination of write-in voting).  However it would come at a cost, they may well increase overall numbers by getting more candidates out east, but they'd undoubtedly lose their MPs from the urban centers in the west.  In the main, the BDP has been very cool to the proposal; just as they have in every round of reform coming from the man.

As for the other parties it is a mixed bag.  The CHP as the consistent number two party would probably be marginally effected.  But in the best of scenarios, the pathetic state of the party's leadership, rank-and-file, back benchers, local officials, members, and voters in the electorate dooms them to parliamentary ineptitude despite any marginal gains (or losses) they may see.  The neo-fascist MHP is screaming bloody murder at this proposal, which on a normal day I'd say is a good sign.  Not only are they troubled with any relaxation of state or citizenship identity drifting away from an ethnic or racial basis in some of the packages other points, they will be the big losers here electorally as they have very little chance of taking a majority in most constituencies however they may be drawn geographically.

The bottom line is this: beware of Turkish Prime Ministers bearing gifts, even if on face the reforms seems genuine.  The initially lofty and loudly trumpeted democratic ambitions of the AKP's first and second governments have been all but lost in the personal ambitions of their leader after he learned to consolidate power without their help.  What once looked like the foundation of a genuinely mass based political party (something that's never been seen in Turkey before) that included many liberal voices has collapsed into something quite narrower - just another neo-patrimonial party intent on doling out state largess to its patrons.  Seeing this, Tayyipbey needs to proceed with caution if he has any intention of staying in the political game much longer.  There are limits to how much this kind of institutional monkeying can benefit one's party, particularly when you live in an electoral democracy as volatile as we have in Turkey.  In the past couple elections, the Turkish electorate has very consciously made a tradeoff between the political stability and economic benefits that have come with AKP single party government, and the deviation from long standing norms of the Turkish Republic (see Ali Carkoglu's work on economic retrospective voting in Turkey).  Voters knowingly departed from their own policy preferences in favor of good economic conditions and calm political times, while tolerating much of what the AKP has stood for socially.  Their tolerance will only go so far and they may well renege on that bargain should the hubris of Erdogan take him much farther down the road of blatantly stacking the institutional deck in his favor.  His barbarous response to the mass demonstrations this summer has undoubtedly hurt him.  True enough, he has the luxury of a ridiculous main opposition party in the CHP that makes things easier, but there's always the possibility that the political power demonstrated this summer could be channeled through either an existing party or something new that could upset the political calculus that Erdogan has been banking on.  I'd like to think that his winter is coming, but only time will tell.

You can try to delay it with institutional trickery, but it's still coming...

all photos courtesy of Evren Çelik Wiltse