Who Supports Obama
The latest DMR poll showed something strange: the majority of support for Obama isn’t coming from Democrats but from Independents. Problem?
The latest Des Moines Register poll, about which we have written a lot at this blog, said that Barack Obama has expanded his lead over Hillary Clinton and John Edwards to some 7% and 8% respectively. This came as quite a surprise, mostly because Democratic voters seem to rally behind the latter two and not behind the Senator from Illinois.
If one, however, looks at the break-down of the poll results one quickly sees why it is that DMR puts Obama in the lead: he seems to have the support of most Independent voters (and even of Republicans). In fact, as Big Tent Democrat shows, the “majority of Obama’s support comes from NON-Democrats.” Please take note that this isn’t relatively spoken, it’s in actual numbers.
The question is, of course, whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Ron Chusid argues that it’s great: after all, if the Democratic Party wants to win elections it has to be a big tent party, he says.
Although that’s true, I have to say that I find it incredibly awkward that Independents and even Republicans will decide who’ll become the Democrat’s nominee. In the Netherlands we’ve got quite a lot of parties, and some of them – like my own – organize elections so that members can choose the leader of the party. I consider that a good thing. As a VVD member, however, I don’t want to think about what would happen if people who aren’t members of my party would suddenly be allowed to vote in these internal elections as well. In fact, I consider it to be completely ludicrous to allow them to vote: this is my party. If you want to vote become a member. It’s really not that difficult to do.
The same goes, it seems to me, for America: if people want to decide who the Democrats should nominate they should register as Democrats. If they’re not willing to do so, well, they’ll simply not be able to vote in the Democratic primaries. Sure, it’s important – especially in the US – to be a big tent party, but that doesn’t mean that you have to allow everyone in, even if they don’t have a ticket (register). A big tent party doesn’t – or shouldn’t – mean that independents and members of the other party are allowed to play an important role in internal affairs: it means that you convince these independents and Republicans in this case, to register as Democrats. O, and it also means that once you’ve settled who your nominee will be, you’ll reach out to them and try to convince them to vote for you.
What Obama should do, isn’t to get as many Independents as possible to vote for him in Iowa, but to convince them to reregister, this time as Democrats.
That’s all from my Dutch perspective of course.
Though I’m not an expert on the matter, it’s my understanding that each party gets to decide who votes in it’s primaries, and the rules vary from state to state. This means that the democratic party is not being required to accept independent votes, if it does so it’s because it wants to.
I too find it rather strange that a party would allow non-party members to decide on it’s candidate, but that’s their perrogative. While allowing independents to vote can be understandable, allowing people from the other party to vote seems a really bad idea. If I were a democrat and I voted in the republican primary, I’d be sure to vote for a candidate that I thought could get the nomination but NOT the presidency, in order to weaken the other parties chances.
On the other hand I think that if you vote in one primary you can’t vote in another one, so that reduces the likeliehood of large participation of non-party affiliates.
Whether it’s a good thing or not, it appears to me that the independents are going to have a lot of influence in this election cycle because I presume this same phenomenon is happening with Ron Paul on the GOP side. So then the question is, how will the primary/caucus rules work to either allow or disallow independents or opposing party members to participate? That seems to also be the explanation to the DMR polling discrepancy: how many independents will turn out?
C. Stanley, happy new year!
Allowing independents to vote in a party primary carries an advantage that just occured to me. It can contribute to nominating a more electable person for the general election. Allowing independents to vote means that candidates have to give more balanced messages, not just red meat for their party base. People married to a party don’t represent the electorate as a whole and could nominate someone that has a lesser chance of winning, once faced with the general population.
The greater support of Obama amongst independents simply serves to reinforce my impression that Clinton is a far more polarizing figure. Even if you don’t support Obama on issues, he does seem a lot less likely to get people frothing at the mouth. I can only imagine that independents appreciate this quality.
But that’s, in my opinion, something registered party voters should decide about / take into account. If, then, independents want to influence who gets nominated in what party, they should reregister. That’s also what Obama should try to do.
Christine: to a degree, you’re right. However, what many Paulites do is that they reregister. Sure, that’s still a bit ‘fake’ you could very well argue, but at least it’s better than "let independents vote in the primaries."
It seems to me that if you want to be registered as an independent, that’s fine, but then you should accept that you’re not able to vote in the primaries. And the parties shouldn’t overdemocratise their nomination process.
But then: let them reregister. If they don’t want to do that, they seemingly don’t support Obama very strongly, do they?
It seems to me that Democrats should decide about the democratic nominee, and republicans about the republican nominee. Independents can then cast their votes in the national elections.
It’s also interesting to see that Obama has been attacking Democrats in recent weeks (such as Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, etc.). This makes him more popular among independent voters, but not among Democrats.
In the end it’s the Democratic party that presents a nominee, not the Independent party.
I could be wrong because I’m really not that familiar with the voting rules of each party, but my gut tells me that more of Paul’s supporters are probably doing this because the GOP rules might be more prohibitive of independent voters taking part than the Dem rules are.
Happy New Year to you, too, Lynx, and to all! I agree with both you AND Michael on this: I think that the parties do allow some independent voters in for the reason you stated, so that they can get a better read on what those voters want- but I also agree with Michael that it’s not a good way for the parties to choose their candidates. It might give them some extra information about the mindset of the independent voters, but it also dilutes the principles that the party stands for. They should determine which candidate is favored by voters who believe in their party’s platform, and then they should figure out how the eventual nominee can sell that message to the swing voters.
I am an independent who votes almost always on the Republican side, but used to have a blog called "The Independent Conservative." I prefer states like Iowa & New Hampshire that permit "cross-over" votes because I think politics & national security transcend mere party lines. I’d like to see a middle-of-the-road pol like Obama in the White House than, say, a guy like Ron Paul, whom I consider right on a lot of issues, but dead wrong on national security.
I prefer a conservative to a Republican, and therefore support Fred Thompson for his consistency, even though he has a snowball’s chance in hell to get the nomination.
On policy terms, I consider Hillary & Obama to be MOR types, but I detest Hillary’s baggage, meaning the former POTUS who is part of the final package.
I distrust McCain on illegal immigration, ergo if Fred bombs in Iowa, I’ll hold my nose & go for Mitt in Florida [though I can't vote here since I'm not a registered Republican.]
Like most Americans, party loyalty & ideological consistency are not my priorities, though I do give them weight.
Sui generis hopeless eclectics like myself comprise a large minority of the bloc of Americans who end up voting in primaries & the general—we should get a shot at seeing that the best two candidates in BOTH parties are at the top of the ballot.
One more thing I forgot to mention: in the case of Obama’s appeal to independent voters, it’s apparently due to his style rather than the substance of his positions, at least in terms of his position along the right-left spectrum. In other words, rather than him representing a more moderate policy than Clinton, he’s actually farther to the left. You’d think that he’d then be the choice of the base of the party and Clinton would be the one with centrist appeal, but the dynamics are changed due to her association with machine politics and her tendency to polarize voters.
Not cool Joe Starks
well it is true he is going to the extent of having the baby born and still being able to kill it after its born. if thats the case thats murder and why u delete wat i said it was 100% true
joe starks: A lot of us believe that abortion itself is murder too, but that kind of rhetoric really doesn’t help advance our cause.