February 9 Primaries

Barack Obama continued his dominance of caucus and heavily African-American states and Mike Huckabee continued to demonstrate the vitality of his appeal in today's primary contests. As a result, the Democratic race becomes ever tighter and the Republican contest will last a little longer.

On the Democratic side, Obama won three states he needed to win. He ran up better than two to one margins in caucuses in Nebraska and Washington and took the Louisiana primary 57-36% over Hillary Clinton. Estimates give Obama 69 pledged delegates from today's voting and Clinton 40. Obama's campaign predicts he will increase his total to over 100 once final allotments are made. According to CNN's count which includes Superdelegates, Clinton currently leads the delegate race 1100 to 1039. Obama stands a good chance to pull ahead on Tuesday the 12th when Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia will decide nearly 200 delegates. Obama is favored in all three contests. Sunday's Maine caucus, where Clinton is thought to have a chance, has only 34 delegates at stake.

Among the Republicans, Huckabee surged to a 60-24% pasting of John McCain in caucuses in Kansas. Ron Paul garnered 11%. Huckabee will get all 36 delegates from Kansas. Huckabee also outpolled McCain in Louisiana primary voting 43-42%, but a complicated procedure will now come into play to award the state's delegates since no one got 50% of the votes. Returns from Nebraska are very slow in coming in and show Huckabee and McCain running neck and neck, with Paul getting a surprising 21%. It's clear social conservatives are less than happy with the prospect of McCain as the Republican nominee. Even so, number crunchers have demonstrated that were Huckabee to win every state that is yet to vote by an average of 10% McCain would still get to the magic number of 1191 delegates needed to secure the nomination due to the proportional awarding of delegates in most states.

And now a word about the Democratic race's format. With today's victories in Nebraska and Washington Obama is 10-1 in caucus states. He is also 4-0 in states in which African-Americans make up one-third or more of the Democratic electorate. He is 4-12 in all other states, and one of those four wins came in his home state of Illinois. What explains this disparity?

First, most people don't realize how many fewer voters go to caucuses than traditional voting polls. Today, for example, over 350,000 votes were cast in Louisiana while only some 32,000 caucused in Washington, this despite the populations of the two states being roughly equal. The Kansas Republican caucus decided that state's convention delegation based on the votes of barely 18,000 people. Because a caucus requires a voter to be at the caucus at a particular time of day and commit to spending perhaps three hours going through the process, it gives an advantage to the candidate whose supporters are the most enthusiastic. Obama's certainly appear to be so.

Second, it also gives an advantage to those of greater means and independence. This includes those who can arrange child care or don't have children, or don't have to work, for instance. Since Obama's backers include higher proportions of those who are better off (can get out of work or afford to arrange for child care) and who are younger (often who don't have children or are students who do not work) this gives more of his backers an opportunity to attend. Surveys indicate Clinton appeals more to working class voters who are more likely to have child care issues and who are generally less able to get out of work to go to a caucus. Clinton also has more support among senior citizens, and the prospect of securing transportation and sitting through such a long meeting is likely daunting to many of them.

Third, it puts a great premium on a campaign's ground organization, and in this the Obama campaign has by all accounts excelled.

In my view caucuses should be abandoned. A system that defines a single time of day when voters must vote unduly restricts the electorate. A system that subjects the voters to a process that takes hours also restricts the electorate. A process that requires voters to publicly declare their vote instead of using the secret ballot not only resticts the electorate but subjects those who attend to social pressure. Finally, the turnout totals show just how far caucuses depress voting. It is far better to make voting as easy as possible for the greatest number of people, and to open the voting up to the 50% who will go to the reasonable trouble to cast a ballot rather than just the 5% of committed activists and people of means and leisure who will go to a caucus.