Interests & Goals of the Party, Presidential Candidates & Voters

This presentation from Dr. Melanie Springer (Wash U) was an excellent overview of primary timing and effects.

Aspects of primary timing and then survey results about what voters might want to see.

Primary reform: within American federalist system – it’s mostly been States determining rules of credentials and such. With decentralization, there’s  a lot of variety/fragmentation.  States get to decide rules is impressive –but tension between state & national objectives (around equality, fairness, etc…) – become more important when looking at presidential selection.

Extreme fragmentation – then named all sorts of different goups.  But fragmentation interpreted as irrational and disorganized.

Frontloading – in 2004 , iowa had a disproportionate value.  “Frontloading”= selection fo delegates earlier and earlier)

First super Tuesday in 1984 – 9 states  In 1988 – 21 states  = thus – huge % of the delegates selected on super Tuesday

By 1996 – evolved to a virtual national primary

In 2008 – had the most compressed schedule in history .

Showed map from Stateline.org of 2004 v. 2008 of states and when they held their primaries. 

Why frontloading has happened: self interest so that they can have more impact. 

Sequential voting allows voters to learn how other shave chosen before they have to choose.

Earlier voting decisions convey 2 types of info to later voters.

1. Information about a canddiate’s polity positions or general qualities
2. Information about how successful a candidate can be in defeating “the opposition”

Early wins & resources

• Money raising is key here  -people want to give to a winner (and campaign costs increase over time).  Virtuous cycle
• Therefore – a lot of the early voter states’ money has that much more emphasis. 

The earliest states:

Iowa & New Hampshire

• They’re not considered reflective of the country and have disproportionate influence
• They have extremely polarized parties. Therefore – average party member is more extreme than other places.  Therefore – perhaps the candidates they’re selecting are more polarizing candidates
• In Iowa – rural dominated economy affects their decisions
• If early voters are ideologically different than the later voters – does it mess up the ideological balance of the candidates.

Advantage of frontloading:

• More media attention
• More expenditures of time and money in state
• More influence

Effect of frontloading:

• To speed up the choice of nominees to months before their praty’s national convention

What happened in 2008?

• Going last/close to last – gave states big exposure and impact
• Many complained about how long and contentious the process was this time around.

Some recommendations  about how we reform this process:

1. Set of regional primaries scheduled 2-3 weeks apart, with a randomly determined starting order
2. Or a single national primary day

By slowing down the process – candidates could focus on a particular area – with incremental info gathering process to occur with voters.  Sequential still remains

Nationalizing campaign & unique fragmentation of the process

What the public wants (survey conducted in 2007)

• Americans don’t care about the issue
• They want continued control of the process and would be hostile about elite power
• Support a national primary system compared to any other reform alternatives

Polling done in 2007 (not after the2008)

• 42% are unhappy to some degree
• 53% are unhappy to some degree

 Partisan  answers:

• 65% of Republicans were happy
• 52% of Dems are happy
• 48% of Independents were happy

Primary timing?

• 62% favor national primary
• 55% favor not allowing New Hampshire to vote first

Fundamentally: 93% want it to be more predictable orderly & fair

 Q&A:

Suzi Question: how do we unpack how Obama got elected and the value of the length of time he had to build up a head of steam and get to know each other?

A: Didn’t really answer the question.

Primaries have historically been all party insiders and not about general.

Unpledged Delegates (superdelegates)

This next session with Dr. Elaine Kamarck was all about the history, utility and viability of the superdelegates.  What’s especially interesting about her giving this session is that she was the research director back for the Winograd Commission in 1976 – so has a very long history with this topic (and is coming out with a book this next month on the topic)

This ABCNews article does a pretty good job of summarizing what came out of her session.

She harkened back to what Rhodes Cook had said that, for our first 150 years, our nominee was selected by superdelegates.  In 1972, there was a total revelation in the nominating process.  That said – it’s interesting to note that the McGovern-Frasier guidelines (developed after the Chicago debacle in 1968) didn’t call for more primaries.  However, the number of primaries went from 15 to almost 30 between 1968 and 1972 – giving McGovern a major advantage since he had written the rules and understood the importance of going out early to garner delegates.

How we do this is unique in the world.  Most democratic countries do it by party (ie Prime ministers)

In 1972 – several became caucus systems (it’s just easier)

Because people had to run for delegate, members of congress who had previously been delegates didn’t want to run against their constituents.  Thus – the number of elected officials dropped off at the conventions.

In 1980 - one of the bitterest conventions ever - spurred the Hunt commission.  This opened the door to superdelegates.  There was disstisfaction – led heavily by organized labor.  They looked at the last 10 years and saw that they gave us McGovern & Carter (who didn’t win a second term) and saw that it was bad news.  They didn’t see that it was a realligning era & a Republican resurgence.  They said they wanted party leadership back at the convention and on the floor.  The original proposal was for 30% to be supers, but they were concerned about diversity (most of the supers would be white men). SO – they settled on 14% and determined that those delegates would be elected by the house caucus. 

In 1984 – Mondale got a lead at this first caucus.  However, in every other election, supers have simply ratified the party results.  After 1984, the number of supers also continued to grow (to include all congresspeople, all governors, all DNC members).  The only major opposition raised was by Jesse Jackson. 

In 2008, it was the 1st race where it mattered – because the delegates were neck and neck.

Jeff Berman (Obama’s “delegate hunter”) really undertood the system the deepest and the Clinton folks didn’t.

Kamarck commented that she felt the supers should simply have positioned themselves to ratify the popular vote – and believes that this marked the end of the supers era.  Turning back the clock doesn’t work.  The deliberative role of the supers has been supplanted by public process. 

She also feels that this is at the root of caucuses and that they, too, are an elite system (note from Suzi – she obviously hasn’t been to a caucus in WA state ).  Therefore – anything that diminishes the public voice  becomes a problem.

In terms of regional primaries and state timing - the challenge is – who decides.  There are really 2 choices:

1. you can hope that the respective parties, state legislatures, etc… all agree on a calendar.
2. you can have congress mandate a bill – but there’s a big constitutional question about whether they have jurisdiction here.  plus – they’ve never shown an interest here.

she reminded us that conventions don’t deliberate -they ratify the results of the primary.  Last time the convention was deliberative was in 1980.  the convention is only deliberative if candidates take the fight to the floor.  the 1976 Ford v. Reagan race is worth looking at in terms of this situation. 

Q&A:

Q: Motivation of states for regional primaries?

A: None

Q: Deliberative nature was the basis for funding conventions by the FEC.  Does that persist?

A: yes. 

Kamarck want on to a slightly different topic – talking about the motivation for states to go first.  One big motivator is revenue.  States who get more attention make more money.  Thus – how do equalize the delegates & voters in later states to spread the calendar?  Bonus delegates?  a “sliding window” in which you allow winnter take all rules later in the process.  It emphasizes big prizes at the end.

Q: PLEO (party leader and elected official) – does that address the need for a designation for elected officials to make it to the convention?

A: not really. you could expand pleo ,but you still have the issue that those elected offiicals do not want to displace the mayors, councilpeople, etc… – and you also have that some folks won’t/shouldn’t state their preferences

The Change Commission’s first meeting

Today marked the first of the Change Commission meetings. 

Who & why we are:

 A group of 37 people – a wide range of backgrounds - (incredible people and I’m humbled to be a part of this group) – - assigned to provide a recommendation on how the presidential nominating process should be done in the future. 

Up front caveat: these notes do not reflect any decisions by the commission nor any DNC recommendations.  Today was all about background from experts.  I also want to caveat that, while I was taking copious notes, I missed my calling (at least according to my prescription -ready handwriting) to be a physician – so not all of my notes were easily decipherable and some points may not fully represent the expert’s commentary.  In those cases, I did a bit of interpolation.

The issues for the Change Commission to examine as put forward by the DNC resolution include (more detail in a separate post on the session led by Patrice Taylor)

1. the issue of timing and frontloading of primaries
2. the issue of superdelegates and their out of proportion representation
3. the question of caucuses and how to run them better

Here’s a photo of our illustrious chairs – Sen. Claire McCaskill and Rep. James Clyburn:

 

Today’s meeting agenda (I will be posting separate blogs on a couple of the sessions that had more detail)

• They ran a tight meeting – it was supposed to go from 9:30-4 and we were out by 2:45.
• Today’s session focused on history and analysis of how things have been done in the past.  Our next 3 sessions are slated for August, October and December. 
• Opening remarks from Gov. Kaine, Sen. McCaskill, and Rep. Clyburn
• The History of Modern Day Democratic Presidential Nomnations (1976-2008) by Rhodes Cook (here’s his picture)

• Presentation on Unpledged Delegates by Dr. Elaine Kamarch (Kennedy School of Government)
• Interests and Goals of the Party, Presidential Candidates & Voters by Dr. Melanie Springer (Wash U)
• Overview of the Change Commission Issues by Patrice Taylor (DNC)
• Presentation on the Caucus System by Mitch Stewart (Heads up Organizing for America)

Highlights/Key takeaways:

• Fundamentally,  it was incredibly enlightening and humbling – not to mention incredibly fun – to re-live some of the campaign moments from last year – especially during the session
• As was stated by DNC chair Gov. Tim Kaine – we have a bit of a luxury to come up with something that’ll be thoughtful because we don’t have a major battle coming up in 2012 – whereas the Republicans, who are going through this in parallel, are also jockeying for what will serve their own candidates best.
• The key is not just reverse engineering the 2008 victory – because we don’t know whether that is the new normal or a complete anomaly.  Rather – the key is coming up with plans that are long-lasting and non-reactive.
• I feel like the group was still very focused on the “issues” we were designated to resolve but didn’t really work to set out the objectives.  I mentioned to a few key folks that I thought it was critical that we stay focused on the bigger objectives of getting a great candidate and building up the wave behind them.  Hitting the objectives and conflict resolution are not necessarily the same thing here. 
• From the sessions – one big point I took away was that having a single national primary day would not benefit our objectives – but that it’ll be very difficult without incentives to get the states to voluntarily change their dates, spread the map or move to a same day primary.  Two ideas raised were: bonus delegates for later states and allow later states to do a winner take all strategy. 
• Caucuses – there had been some fear among friends that the commission intended to do away with caucuses.  On the contrary – i think that the commission and the DNC recognize the value of caucuses and, if anything, seem like they want to make them better and, perhaps, more systematic. 

welcome to civics!

Here’s another site with some analysis on the makeup of the commission.

 Press coverage so far:

ABC News:

Washington Post

Thanks!

Suzi

 

 

From my Son…Jog-a-thon Fundraiser for his school

Please email me if you are interested/able to help.  Here’s what my 6 year old wrote to share why you should help him/his school (I corrected the spelling, but these are his words).  If you could consider a contribution of $10, that’d be tremendous!

This year, there is going to be a Jog-a-thon at Coe which is the school I go to.  Right now, I need help raising money because , well, for example, i learned to write poems.  This is how you think of something.  To start with, then instead of doing sentences, you do line breaks where you do words and then you do little lines to show the reader to pause. 

In other words – his school is raising money for covering a myriad of core programs (as I’m sure all schools are).  We’d be so appreciative if you could help him/his school.

Logistically – he has a deadline of May 29th.  If you can make a pledge, it’s fine if you can get the $$s to us within the next couple of weeks.

Thank you so much!

Suzi

Feel good moment du jour…

This morning, I’m having a meeting at a coffee shop on Capital Hill (Seattle neighborhood where I lived when I first moved here).  En route to the meeting, a frail, slightly disheveled, elderly gentleman who exuded warmth and humor was getting out of a car.  Trying to negotiate his walker, his bag, the car and the curb, I offered help.  He happily took it, holding onto my hand and offering me his bag.  As we walked into Ladro, everyone greeted him “Hi Ted” came from about 3 different people.  I helped him into his seat and then, on my way out, one of the people who said hi to him shared a very mini-version of Ted’s story with me when I asked why everyone knew him.

Turns out Ted has spent a lot of time at the coffee shop.  Plus – he used to play piano up the street at Victrola and, a long time ago, was a vaudeville performer.

In addition to feeling blessed that I had the opportunity to help  a person, I feel so honored that I had the chance to interact with a very local icon.  It makes me realize even further that everyone has a story and, given the chance, we should take the 2-3 seconds/minutes or whatever timeframe is needed to help others (i know – sounds totally trite, but get over it! I’m feeling mushy right now).   It also makes me hope that, when I’m that old (he seemed about 80) that people know and help me and feel a positive connection with/from me.  I also hope that when I’m 80 or so, that I’m getting out to the coffee shop! (although by then – who knows what the vice delivery vehicle will be).

It reminds me of a few weeks ago when we were getting off of I-5 and my 6 year old son, Sidney, saw a panhandler on the left side of the offramp.  Unfortunately, we were in the right lane.  We discussed how we might get that person the apple we had.  As I continued on without trying to get that person the apple, he got mad at me saying something like: you traded a small amount of time for a big amount of time.  (his statement was more crisp and more profound than my butchered version).  In other words – this kid put me in my place for trying to save a small amount of time in exchange for what could have really helped that person for a longer amount of time stay away from hunger (or so Sidney explained).

Net net – if only to avoid ridicule from my kids, I now take the opportunity to do good deeds whenever possible. 

Oh – and here’s one we do all the time that takes no time – but contributes to the positive energy in the world (and I got it from a book by a Rabbi about 365 good deeds we could do) :

If you see an emergency vehicle rushing to or from somewhere, send a little blessing/wish that the person/people they’re helping will be okay and that the responders will be able to do their jobs well and safely. 

Have a great day!

NEO ‘93 vs. NEO ‘09

I spent from about 8:20am until 3:15pm today in Microsoft New Employee Orientation.  Throughout the day, I had incredible flashbacks to my first NEO on July 19th 1993 – some mundane, some more profound; some obvious, some surprising.  Here are some  of those flashbacks and comparisons to today’s orientation.

• Size of the organization: approx 15,000 in ‘93 with 80-90% in Puget Sound v. approx 95,000 in ‘09 with somewhere less than 60% in Puget Sound (the data point I heard was that +40% is overseas – so am assuming that, with so many US folks in non-Puget Sound offices, it’s got to be less)
• Attitude – ‘93 - there was a pervasive sense of immortality and infectious infallibility – laced with the knowledge and excitement of being able to change the world with what we were doing.  In ‘09 – there’s still a sense of impact and being able to change the world, but in a more sustainable way (they even talked about not wanting people to be heroic – instead, wanting there to be more sustainable performance).  There’s also a lot more self-awareness of MSFT’s reputation and of areas that MSFT needs to improve (ie – they talked about wanting to improve the fact that people use their laptops during meetings). 
• Lasting friendships – ‘93 – there were about 40-50 people, if I remember correctly, in that NEO – and I made friends with Yoram Bernet – with whom I’m still good friends today.  ‘09 – there were about 30 people today and it was fun getting to know a couple of the people at my table.  In particular – I met Pradeep – a recent graduate from a Masters program who is going to be a developer.  From him, I learned a lot about the school system in India and expectations/stress.  Fascinating! 
• Lifestage of the organization – ‘93 – everyone at the training was young, there was hardly any mention of families.  ‘09 – almost every slide had something pertaining to families.  I’d guess the average age of the attendee was about 35 (I was older than some and younger than some) and many were asking family questions.
• Work/Life Balance – ‘93 – they shared that “Microsoft will take 120% of you 150% of the time if you give it. Your job is to make sure that you give enough that you’re still excited to come in to work every day”.  ‘09 – it’s recognizing that it’ll never be a real “work/life balance”  – but it’s critical that employees take ownership for their  own work/life plan – knowing that the company recognizes the importance for it.
• Spit and/or Polish – ‘93 – it was in a windowless big meeting room with a simple powerpoint and a presenter.  It took about 3-4 hours.   We did our paperwork at our seats.   ’09 – I walked into a very clear and well prepared set of paperwork filling out zones – and then spent the day in a gorgeous room with a high end projection system.  Over the course of the day, we did see powerpoint, but it also had videos and a demo built into the day – along with a tour of the Library and it’s amazing resources.  Extremely impressive.  While it may be tempting to wonder why the company should incur the extra expenses, it’s also important to recognize that happy, excited, fired up employees will work harder and do better.

Tomorrow – the work really begins and I can’t wait!

Note: It doesn’t escape me that Neo was Keanu Reeves’ character’s name in the Matrix.

Suzi Meets Microsoft – Part Deux…

There must be something about matzo and Passover that helps me get job offers.  16 years ago (Hebrew year 5753), while I was on an unleavened Spring break  at my mother’s home in Boca Raton, Brad Chase called and offered me a position on his MS-DOS team.

I had recently received an offer to work at AMS (American Management Systems) in DC, so I wasn’t sure about this much lower offer from this small company – especially since it was located in Siberia…I mean Seattle (they were interchangeable at the time.  Note – Seattle remains the city where TV and movie characters are euphemistically exiled). 

After watching Singles and having just read an article about Brad in that Sunday’ s NYTimes business section, regardless of the disparate offers and the fact that AMS was closer to home, I daringly took the Microsoft offer. 

And thus, my life was changed in March 1993 (Nisan, 5753).

During my professional tenure with Microsoft and then Expedia, I was imbued with the knowledge that I can learn and do anything – including change the world (which I very much did while at each company).  After leaving Expedia, I translated that power to make change into a number of non-profit volunteer ventures (Kavana, I-LABS, Obama, etc…)

This November, I realized it was time for me to go back to work.  The first (and only other time) I looked for a job, all I wanted was “a place to communicate technology to non-technologists”.  This time, I wanted that, PLUS – having become addicted to change, I wanted – NO – I NEEDED  – impact.

After a lot of searching, I have come full circle and am super excited to share that I’ll be starting in Microsoft’s Education Product Group in May with the goal of helping Microsoft improve education through technology.  Knowing the challenges and opportunities education has right now and how technology is one of the keys to ameliorating those challenges and pursuing those opportunities, I couldn’t be landing in a more perfect place. 

Note: I came across a couple of other incredible opportunities that really fired my jets and wish that cloning technology existed – or that I could have Hermione’s time-rewinding necklace.  But alas – I had to choose.

As I enter this next chapter, I look forward to sharing what I learn and, more importantly, letting you know what action items there are.

In the meantime – I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks with my kids and with hikes on April 21st and 29th.  Let me know if you’d care to join me.

Anonymity meet Animosity…

I had the honor, recently, of having the story of the volunteer activities I do shared in the Seattle Times.  I received many wonderful notes from many people.  What I hope was achieved with that story was to inspire people to do good deeds.  Here’s the story

One nasty side of the story, though, is the comment section in it.  Frankly, those comments scare me.  Those cowards hide behind anonymity to make personal attacks on people they don’t know.  In history, when people hide behind masks – whether it’s white sheets over their heads or hiding in the crowds of lemmings conducting nefarious acts, they do scary and horrible things.  it’s critical that we hold people accountable - even for their words. 

As I say to my kids – the old adage “sticks and stones can break your bones, but names will never hurt you” is only useful to help build up callouses.  In fact, it’s a load of crap and we should be instilling into people that words are to be wielded carefully and with great compassion.

I am thankful for the other comments from individuals who know us and are putting those other fools in their places and I hope that those who clearly have deep seated issues are able to decouple the individuals in the story from the social situation that is, I believe, clearly bothering them. 

If they want to take issue with something, they should identify that it’s apples to kumquats to compare people who left successful jobs and companies a few years ago with people who are leaving jobs today under duress.   But don’t attack those who are trying to make a difference.

The flip side of transparency…

The perils of transparency are:

1) Misinterpretation: putting information out there that the recipients don’t know how to parse and, therefore, misinterpret

2) Abuse: putting information out there that those who do not agree  can manipulate and selectively cite to twist and defame those who are being so open as to share.

thus – the key with providing information is to make sure that it is crystal clear (the litmus test for me is whether my 3 and 6 year olds understand it) – and to be vigilant about both listening and upholding that information.

As President Obama maintains his commitment to transparency, his detractors will use his own information against him - as they did throughout the campaign and as they have continued to do since he was elected.

It is incumbent on all of us to make sure that we are getting information from the source and, before believing others’ interpretations or before reacting to something we’re hearing, that we do the legwork to look the information up ourselves AND ask the questions.

Picking your nose: Joyous and Forbidden…

A little digression from politics (although I’m sure you could draw some comparison). 

This morning, I was at a super sweet family shabbat service and watched a little girl really grooving on picking her nose.  The adults around her forced her to stop and scolded her a little for what she was doing.  I, too, have been guilty of getting angry at my kids for picking their noses in public. 

But looking at the zen this child was clearly feeling (and many I’ve witnessed while picking their noses enter a similar state of nirvana), I wonder: when did it become a bad thing to pick your nose?  Seriously – think about the meditative state that you see kids (I won’t accuse any adults of picking – they must just be scratching) enter when their little fingers find the perfectly matched hole in their nose to start picking.

Sure, you can use a tissue, but what about before tissues existed?  Whether their hard & crusty or smushy and gooey – boogers are texturally curious and attractive.  I can’t blame kids for picking a winner (although, I’d never do it, of course!). 

If you’re religious, you can think about it as such: If God meant for noses to be left alone, why make fingers that size?

From an evolution standpoint: why did we evolve with fingers the same size as our nostrils?  oohhh.. excuse me.  why did children evolve to have fingers sized to their nostrils? 

Of course – none of this goes into eating boogers – which seems to me more of an afterthought for a kid and not a part of the zone.  I’ll leave that discussion alone…