Unabashed Sour Grapes... and the Saving Grace of Hillary's Win in New Hampshire

I wasn't going to write a thing about Senator Clinton's victory in the New Hampshire primary last night. I was hoping for an Obama win and a Kucinich surge and got neither. Instead, New Hampshire gave me a rude reminder that the Clintons are indeed vampires: they can't be killed.

However, New Hampshire gives me one cause for hope this morning: By shaking up the order from Iowa in both parties, New Hampshire keeps the race wide open. The party hierarchies want their nominating contests to wrap up as soon as possible so they can save money for the fall election -- a reasonable desire -- and so they can avoid having too much actual debate that might expose their ultimate nominee to too much public scrutiny before the fall campaign -- also reasonable, but darned bad for democracy.

Jon Lauck argues that the Dems in 2004 would have benefited from a "grueling nomination process similar to that of 1968 and 1972, when candidates were given a thorough going over" [Lauck, Daschle v Thune, p. 47]. Of course, the Dems also lost the presidential race in 1968
and 1972. But they also lost in 2004, when Kerry became the nominee before he could get the "serious grilling" in the primary season that Lauck would have wished on him.

A grueling nomination process won't hurt the Dems so much this year because the Republicans can't settle on a frontrunner, either. If I had my druthers... well, I'm the wrong guy to ask, because I'd wish for a Kucinich win every time. If democracy had its druthers, we'd have a different winner every week: Kucinich take Michigan, Richardson take Nevada, Edwards take South Carolina, then all five split the big Feb. 5 fracas equally. Ditto on the Republican side: let Giuliani resurge in Florida, give Thompson Nevada and Paul Maine.

The longer the primary contest lasts, the more chance there is that voters and the press will really look at the candidates, not just their images and slogans and tears, but their policies. I'll bet Obama's win in Iowa encouraged folks to do that in New Hampshire. If Clinton had come out with an easy win in Iowa, there would have been a fair number of voters who figured she was inevitable and wouldn't have bothered to investigate what she or the other candidates really had to say. The longer the race lasts, the longer candidates have to stay and fight, the more chance we all get to investigate their policies and discuss the future of the republic.

And of course, the longer the presidential contest remains a horserace, the more chance there is that the South Dakota primary on June 3 could matter. Even Mike Rounds, Huckabee booster that he is, has to root for that outcome: all those candidates and press would spend all sorts of money in the state, boosting sales tax revenues and saving his budget.

So keep those surprises coming, Michigan, Florida, and everyone else. Stick with it, Edwards, Romney, and everyone else. Democracy depends on a long conversation, and the more winners we can have at the table before the convention, the better that conversation will be.