Democracy Deficit in Michigan

Michigan’s presidential primary election has come and gone. The Republican candidates who graced our state the past two weeks have moved onto South Carolina and Nevada after Michigan native Mitt Romney secured the victory he needed to stay in the race. But the major Democratic candidates were notably absent from the motor state, and ultimately conceded the race — without delegates and without campaign stops — to Hillary Clinton after the New York Senator made the controversial decision to leave her name on the ballot. Michigan’s Democratic voters have a right to be upset about the democracy deficit that unfolded, and it remains to be seen whether the Democratic National Committee will actually re-invite the state’s delegates to the national convention in August, and whether those voters will punish their party in the general election, when the votes for this important swing state will definitely be on the line.
Our Gonzo reporter Paul Berg was able to interview Michigan Democratic Party Chair Mark Brewer in Lansing Tuesday, as the votes were being counted. Their dialogue follows as a web exclusive for www.glenarborsun.com:

Paul Berg: If Hillary Clinton had withdrawn from this race as she pledged to do, would this primary still be held?
Mark Brewer: Well I don’t know to be honest. In late November, early December, the executive committee of the party made the decision to go forward with this. It was a virtually unanimous decision. We have almost 80 people on the executive committee, and it was unanimous. What that committee would have done, had at that point Hillary Clinton pulled off the ballot, I don’t know. I really don’t know.
PB: Once that decision was made at that committee level, we pretty much were locked into this course of action?
MB: Yes, that committee can change its mind. I don’t have the power to over-rule the committee. Basically I’m a creature — I’m a servant of my state committee. And so once they made the decision that they were going to follow this path, my job was to implement it as best I could.
PB: So there’s no — you don’t have kind of a gut feeling perhaps that a Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel ballot might not have been run?
MB: You know, I just don’t know. You know, it would be really speculative for me to guess.
PB: Well I guess when I first came into the situation I wasn’t certain where culpability lied. I didn’t know what I know now about the sponsorship of the bill. That it was that level decision … Since then, how has your office responded to the flak that you’ve been catching from the voters?
MB: Well we’ve gotten several different kinds of questions. The question about whether we’ll be seated at the convention, I think people worry about it, and it’s frankly the easiest question to answer. We will, for at least two different reasons. First historically, when penalties like this have been imposed on states in the past, they’ve always been lifted before the convention. Second, and it’s particularly true of Michigan and Florida, because Florida’s in the same boat, these two states are so politically important to the Democratic nominee. There’s no way you can be elected President without carrying Michigan, and probably Florida, but certainly Michigan. It’s inconceivable to me that the Democratic nominee will start the popular campaign by refusing the Michigan delegation access to the convention. Some way will be figured out to resolve this so they will be seated. So that’s one set of questions we’ve been answering, that legally we’ll be seated. A second question is, how did the ballot end up this way? And this is what we say we’ve experienced. The legislature passed the bill, the governor signed it. I, in the name of the party, under the law, put all the candidates on the ballot, which is my responsibility. All eight names were submitted. But then the candidates, half of them, pulled their names off, which was their right under the law as well. So that’s how we ended up in this situation.
PB: You could argue it was their obligation under the law given the pledges they had signed.
MB: Those candidates I understand interpreted the pledge to include withdrawing from the ballot. I understand that. Senator Clinton did not have that interpretation. And a final set of questions revolved around — it’s actually two final sets of questions. Why the write-ins don’t count, there are some people that are blaming the party for that, and I keep explaining to them that no, it’s state election law, that unless you give advance notice that you are a write-in candidate, those votes don’t count. That’s been a Michigan law, gosh, for nearly a dozen years I think. It’s obscure, and you rarely see it affecting an election like it’s going to effect today’s. So that’s another state election law to explain, and the final set of questions revolve around “uncommitted.” What does it mean, how will the delegates be elected, how can we try to make sure that they will vote for the candidate that I want them to vote for? So we take people through the process of how they’ll be elected here over the next couple of months and so forth. Those are kind of the four categories of questions we’ve been getting.
PB: Do people have a say in that process?
MB: Oh absolutely.
PB: They elect these delegates?
MB: Party members and precinct delegates, and there are nearly 20,000 people in those two categories now, but anyone can join the party before these conventions at the end of March. We’ll hold congressional district conventions at the end of March, and each of those conventions, they’ll elect delegates, uncommitted, delegates pledged to Clinton, whoever wins at least 15 percent of the vote.
PB: So uncommitted, you could see those precincts, at that level, decide to pledge them to Clinton, or …
MB: I suspect what will happen in a particular congressional district if there are uncommitted delegates, when the party members and precinct delegates gather that morning to elect them, I expect that those candidates will be interrogated. You represent uncommitted, but who are you really going to vote for? And that will determine who in fact gets elected. So it’s going to be a very open and transparent democratic process.
PB: That’s the level where I haven’t seen the word out …
MB: Yeah, and we’ll start to focus more on that. There’s stuff on our website about that, but we’ll focus more on that process once we get past the primary, and completely focus our education efforts on party members and precinct delegates who are eligible to vote.
PB: The process notwithstanding, there are a lot of people here who, even now that I understand it, I still see a rather large miscarriage of democracy and a lack of choice for the majority party in my home state. I was born in Cadillac and raised in Traverse City.
MB: Ah, okay.
PB: I can’t fathom — it hurts my feelings. People want to be able to blame someone. Is Governor Granholm perhaps the place where the buck stops in this game of chicken?
MB: No, I think the blame ultimately lies with Iowa and New Hampshire and this undemocratic system that we’ve got. We moved up to challenge them, and their response was, threaten the candidates to protect their own monopoly going forward. They’ve threatened candidates like that before, Delaware a few years ago, they also threatened candidates and they pulled out of those contests as a result. So I think, ultimately, the blame here is on Iowa and New Hampshire, and their defense of this indefensible system.
PB: I would say that seeing the promises Mitt Romney, John McCain, and Mike Huckabee were forced to make, you can see exactly what moving a state like Michigan up in the process does that it wouldn’t have done if this was February.
MB: From that perspective, yes, obviously they’re addressing our issues, which they wouldn’t have done, if we wouldn’t have moved it up. Do we wish the Democrats were here addressing our issues? Yes. On the other hand though, once the primary season is over, Michigan will be a targeted state. Our candidate is going to spend an enormous amount of time here. I suspect they’ll spend some make-up time here, because we’ll insist that they do that. I think come the first of the year, our issues will be front and center.
PB: However, how does the cause of disrupting this monopoly with New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina and Nevada now I suppose — has that cause been served by this effort? Or does it just look more like a scramble?
MB: I think we’ll advance the cause. There’s been a lot more discussion nationally about this issue. People see Michigan and Florida being punished while Iowa and New Hampshire get to go early. That’s not fair. That’s not right. So I think we advanced the cause. Has it been painful? Yes, but a lot of times, we’re engaging in a form of civil disobedience, and when you do that, there’s usually a penalty associated that you have to suffer along with it. So, again, should we be going through this? Yes. Are we disappointed? Yes. But I think we have advanced the cause of reform. So hopefully in 2012 no state will have to endure what we’re enduring now.
PB: Is there a thought that there should be like a regional lottery? I see four regions in four smaller, perhaps less influential blocs represented now. And that may be by design. That means nothing too large happens too soon.
MB: There’s lots of different reforms out there. Senator Levin’s got a reform proposal. I mean anything would be acceptable for us, so long as no state or states are guaranteed the right to go first every four years. That’s our goal.
PB: To change tradition, which is always difficult … no one likes to defy the laws of tradition.
MB: I appreciate the tradition, but the question I ask, is if you’re designing a nominating system from scratch with a blank slate, you would not design this system. It’s irrational. And I don’t think you can defend something based on tradition. If we were still basing things on tradition in this country, African Americans and women wouldn’t be voting, for example.
PB: Our next president could come from one of those groups.
MB: For states to resort to tradition to defend their status, I just think that’s a very weak defense. Traditions need to change. They need to be updated.
PB: Is the desperate economic situation that’s been brewing in Michigan since the auto industry expatriated, has that caused Michigan to make this move where say Illinois, or another Midwestern state wouldn’t have?
MB: Well, Carl Levin’s been leading this effort in Michigan for several cycles. So there’s been a consistent effort, it’s particularly timely now given our economic troubles, but I think we would have done this even if the automobile industry was thriving and the state was in great shape because after reform here.
PB: He’s pushed that into the party culture in the state.
MB: In the state, and because he’s been doing this for several cycles.
PB: Since perhaps 2000 or 1996?
MB: Ninety-six, when I first became chair, I know he was pushing for reform then, and I think he was pushing even before then.
PB: I guess going forward from there, do you feel what’s happening now, in January, will hurt the party in November? As far as the GOP having an exclusive, kind of, media for their message and chance to gain new voters?
MB: I don’t think so. I mean I think the fall election’s going to be a choice between two candidates who have very different visions for the future. Change on the Democratic side, and I think more of the same from the Republican side, and a lot of candidate visits, a lot of voter education, a lot of campaigning here, and I don’t think in the end that the results in November will depend on who was campaigning in Michigan in January. I just think that a lot of things will supersede what’s going on now.
PB: That sounds well and good, but if the nominee from the Republican side is John McCain, who has long been popular with Democrats, could this disenfranchise certain Democrats? Or Democrats that are anti-Hillary, could they see Hillary propelled to the nomination by half the delegates of Michigan and have a bitterness?
MB: Each of the Republicans have strengths and weaknesses. It’s going to be a different campaign against Huckabee, or Giuliani, or Romney or McCain.
PB: But McCain still intangibly benefits in the state, because of no Obama or Edwards to vote for, we could see some Democrats propel him to a victory here.
MB: I don’t know. I think they’ll be back here in the fall. This is the Democratic candidate and what he or she stands for, this is the Republican candidate. And frankly, McCain by and large is the candidate of the status quo. He supports the surge in Iraq — he said we could keep our troops there for a hundred years.
PB: The principle architect of the Surge policy …
MB: I mean, when we get to that point, and we’re differentiating between candidates and party positions, again, I think that will be the determining factor in the election. Not the fact that McCain did well here in a couple of primaries. Again, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but I think that will all be subsumed within the fall campaign.
PB: Living in South Carolina and Virginia the past few years, I’ve come to doubt that Hillary Clinton can win a national election … a very strong polarizing effect.
MB: That’s not something I can get into, because I have to stay neutral.
PB: Now [Wednesday] can you come out for Hillary?
MB: No, I will not come out for a candidate. I am unofficially uncommitted. I will not come out for a candidate until it’s clear that they are the presumptive nominee, that they clearly have enough votes to get nominated. At that point, I will probably pledge to that candidate. It’s particularly important for me to stay uncommitted for the next couple of months until we’ve finished selecting our delegates because I have to supervise that process and I don’t want people being suspicious that I’m trying to tilt it one way or the other.
PB: There does seem to have been a kind of political advantage taken by the Clintons, but it seems to be within the language, that they didn’t — that they’re not campaigning by remaining on the ballot.
MB: People made their choices. They interpreted the pledge as they saw fit. They’re all intelligent people with intelligent advisors and they made their choices. Now they’re going to have to live with whatever happens today.
PB: I guess, to wrap up, is there anything you’d like to express about this happening, and what the positives are? I know you’ve iterated that Michigan can move forward in this process, and by taking this penalty now, we’ve done a great service to other states. I want to be able to depict it as something that in the long run is a good.
MB: I think it is. I think it is, and I think there’ll be much more discussion of the unfairness of the system, because now people have seen what has happened. But as Carl Levin said here last week, he and I did a press conference together, another advance, another step on the road to reform would be next summer, when we are seated at the convention, and people will see that these threats by Iowa and New Hampshire are hollow. That even if a state has the audacity to jump ahead of time and threaten their monopoly, they still get seated at the convention. So, I think we have made progress, and painful as it may have been, I wish it was less painful than it’s been, but I think we’ve made progress.
PB: I would rather have seen, instead of Mitt Romney trotting out his memory of himself and his father at Cobo for the auto show, I would rather have seen Barack Obama there to speak to the downtrodden at Cobo, in Detroit, instead of these little trips. I’ve had to follow Romney around to these exclusive little places.
MB: Again, whoever the Democratic nominee is here, they will spend plenty of time here visiting auto plants and comparable venues.
PB: What issues do you think have been neglected during this campaign because of the lack of a Democratic voice? We hear a lot about the economy at least, but …
MB: What we’re hearing from the Republicans are the typical Republican solutions economically that don’t work. Continue the Bush tax cuts and that kind of nonsense, where we haven’t had, because the Democratic candidates aren’t here, we have not had the opportunity to debate the stimulus packages, for example, that all three of them have put together, the health care programs that all of them have put out, I think far exceed what the Republicans have done.
PB: I think crime too. Without Giuliani here there’s been nothing to draw attention to the crime problem in Detroit, Flint, and Saginaw.
MB: Or just talk about urban issues. These candidates have not done anything to address urban issues generally, so no, there are things that could’ve and should’ve been talked about that weren’t because the Democrats aren’t here. Hopefully, again, I hope we can make up for that once we get past the primary.
PB: we’re all riveted to watch and see that. Most exciting election year of my lifetime …
MB: It is very exciting. It’s a very historic time.