DNC Panel Recommends New Early Caucuses Be Added to Election Calendar
WASHINGTON, Dec. 10- A special Democratic National Committee panel recommended Saturday that one or two presidential caucuses be inserted into the 2008 election calendar between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary as a way to include more racial, ethnic and geographic diversity among early voting states.
New Hampshire’s primary election law, however, may thwart the Democratic plans.
The proposal, which must be approved by the full DNC, would also add primaries in one or two other states after New Hampshire votes and before Feb. 5, the official “window” that the party establishes every four years for its presidential nominating contests.
States in the South and Southwest have been discussed, but which ones should join Iowa and New Hampshire in early voting would be left up to the DNC.
Although the panel’s proposal would leave New Hampshire as the site of the nation’s first presidential primary, Secretary of State William Gardner has said that state law requires him to schedule the primary at least a week before any “similar election” and that caucuses in any state other than Iowa would qualify as “similar.”.
“I will set the date in the spring of 2007, and I will set it so that it preserves the New Hampshire tradition,” he said. “The state law will be followed no matter what happens.”
When asked if the matter might end up in court, Gardner responded, “Anything can end up in court.”
New Hampshire Democratic Gov. John Lynch has also pledged to protect the state’s first-in-the-nation status and said he would support Gardner’s efforts.
Other state Democrats are up in arms over the DNC panel’s recommendations, including New Hampshire Democratic Party chairwoman Kathy Sullivan, who issued a statement Saturday saying the national party was “crazy” to try to strip a valuable swing state like New Hampshire of something so important to its heritage.
Raymond Buckley, vice-chairman of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, predicted that the relationship between the state and national party would suffer if the DNC approved the proposals.
“Kathy Sullivan and I and other Democrats agree that we are New Hampshire Democrats first and national Democrats second,” he said. “If this means we have to stand up to the full DNC, then so be it.”
The panel’s proposal recommends that the criteria for choosing which states should accompany Iowa and New Hampshire as early voters be based on racial, ethnic, regional, and economic diversity.
“We wanted to recommend a process that would be more inclusive,” said Alexis Herman, co-chairwoman of the panel. “We have reached a significant milestone.”
The minority population in both Iowa and New Hampshire is small, with African Americans making up only 0.8 percent, compared with 12.2 percent for the nation as a whole, and Hispanic/Latinos making up only 2.1 percent, compared with the national figure of 14.2 percent.
A leading figure in the fight to diversify the primary process has been Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan.
“We are an anti-privilege party,” he said. “We shouldn’t have a rule that says some states are more equal than others. Even this is barely a crack in the wall that Iowa and New Hampshire have surrounded themselves by.”
But James Farrell, a campaign expert and professor of communications at the University of New Hampshire, said that the logic for adding more caucuses to increase diversity was faulty.
“It is true that New Hampshire does not have a large minority population,” he said. “But the impact of that is overstated. I think that black, white, and Hispanic voters are all concerned about the same issues. Why are racial demographics the key factor over all other kinds of diversity that may or may not be present in other communities, like income or education?”
The voters in New Hampshire bring diversity to the electoral process in other ways, Farrell argued.
“There are a lot of independent voters here who are willing to tell their party from time to time, ‘You can’t take me for granted,’ ” he said. “Very few places do it as well as New Hampshire. If I had to rely on one state to pick the candidate that would run for president, I would pick New Hampshire to do it, because of the experience they have in doing it and the seriousness with which they undertake the process.”
Some Granite Staters are worried about what would happen to the state economically if the primary were to lose some of its thunder.
A study commissioned by the New Hampshire Political Library found that the Democratic and Republican primaries in 2000 generated more than $260 million in economic activity in the state, with large portions of that money going to hotels, restaurants and rental car companies.
“It would affect our business for sure,” said Darlene Johnston, owner of the Ash Street Inn, a bed and breakfast in Manchester. “For the last one we had a lot of journalists and campaign workers stay with us….I was floored that so many people would just drop everything and come up here.”
And although the panel has recommended that Iowa remain the nation’s first caucus state, Iowa Democrats are very sympathetic to New Hampshire’s cause, according to Jennifer Mullen of Gov. Thomas Vilsack’s office.
“We definitely see it as kind of a partnership,” she said. “The governor has rallied just as hard for New Hampshire to remain the first primary as he did to keep Iowa as the first caucus.”
Local Democratic organizations in New Hampshire are worried about the political ramifications of losing part of the Granite’s States treasured identity.
“We serve a valuable purpose for the nation: we vet the candidates,” said state Rep. Jane Clemons of the Nashua City Democrats. “It’s a tough group to fool, and candidates don’t get away with platitudes and rhetoric. If they change the primary, I’m really concerned that we will go to a tarmac president” who puts in only token airport appearances.
Clemons said she also fears what will happen to the Democratic Party if the quarrel over New Hampshire’s primary escalates.
“We’ll have a candidate by March with no focus and no media attention because Republicans aren’t going to change what they’re doing,” she said. “It is going to hurt us as a party.”
Warren Henderson, chairman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee, said the Democrats were making a mistake.
“Our primary is under siege on the Democratic side,” he said. “When I listen to what is likely to be proposed, I am really concerned about it. If the problem is with diversity, than why isn’t this being done with caucuses? Primaries are for regular people to vote. Caucuses are for political insiders. It just seems inconsistent.”
Several high-profile Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, have made statements in favor of keeping New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation status.
Henderson says he thinks that the GOP is keeping the status quo because the party is aware of the valuable national service New Hampshire provides.
“New Hampshire measures a candidate’s viability,” he said. “Nobody can come up to the state during a primary, give speeches in the cold, go door to door, and not ultimately reveal who they really are. This is the reason people still have meetings and don’t conduct everything over the phone or internet: you get a better idea of who someone is when you see them face to face.”
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