Archive for category Presidential elections
Dem primary do-overs
Mar 6
The Democratic primary election rules punish states that conduct their primary elections and caucuses earlier than Super Tuesday by denying their delegates from attending and having their votes counted towards selecting the Democratic presidential nominee. Michigan and Florida are two states with significant numbers of delegates, who are so denied.
Now, with the Dem presidential race so close, and neither candidate being able to accumulate enough pledged delegates to become the nominee, the DNC has a dilemma. Florida’s Republican governor, Republican controlled state senate, and Republican controlled house refuse to pay for a Dem primary do-over. It would be up to the DNC whether they want to fund a $20M Dem primary do-over in Florida. If they do not, millions of Florida voters will be disenfranchised. A similar situation exists for Michigan. Hillary Clinton won the primaries for both of these states, although Barack Obama was not even listed on the Michigan ballot.
The interesting thing with Florida being a key swing state (as was undeniable for G.W. Bush’s victory in 2000) is that should Florida voters be disenfranchised by the Democratic party, there could be a voter backlash, which could result in a significant shift in votes in favor of the Republican nominee, John McCain.
The Democratic party appears to be faced with quite a dilemma. A do-over would cost $20+M and take away funds from the Presidential campaign towards the general election. It would also back down from punishing early primaries, which would result in more states breaking the rules in the future. However, without a do-over the disenfranchisement of millions of voters could backfire catastrophically on the Democratic candidate in the general election.
This Cato Institute article on NAFTA’s effect on Ohio’s economy helps clarify why it is ludicrous for both Clinton and Obama to blame NAFTA for Ohio’s woes.
Work is migrating from Ohio to right-to-work states. Unions and collective bargaining result in huge inefficiencies, because employers lose agility and flexibility to restructure in response to changes in the business environment. High performing workers also do not benefit from unionization, because they can get better deals in a meritocracy (pay for performance). The exodus of both businesses and talent from Ohio can be attributed to its labor laws. Heck, even when a company wants to open a steel mill in Ohio, its regulators can’t decide on electricity rates, resulting in the deal falling through.
Modern information technology, logistics, and supply chain management enable companies from across the globe to reach all markets and compete. Globalization is the natural result of markets exploiting efficiencies, as the players compete to offer the best products and services at the best prices. To oppose free trade is to support the use of regulations and government interference to protect certain players from having to compete, and therefore enable them to operate less efficiently. This helps to artificially raise costs and labor rates for the few who are benefiting from the government strong-arming, but those costs are ultimately passed on to the many consumers who are stuck with higher prices. Opposition to free trade helps to pad the wallets of the few at the expense of the many. Is that really what we want?
Ohio now has the second-worst economy in the nation. The state is shedding jobs – 58,600 lost jobs since November 2001. I have some personal experience with this. Lucent used to have a sizable office in Columbus, where they developed high tech communications products. These high paying software development jobs moved to China. One might think this would be tragic for the Lucent employees, who all lost their jobs. Many of them moved to Dallas, TX (the telecom capital of the world) to accept better paying jobs at Cisco, Alcatel (ironically later purchasing Lucent), and MetaSolv (now Oracle Communications). Texas is a right-to-work state. So did Ohio lose these jobs to China? Or is it more accurate to say that Ohio lost these jobs to Texas?
Updated: Texas v. Ohio by the Wall Street Journal
