Turnham unplugged—Part 2
Last week, I brought you Part 1 of my conversation with Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Joe Turnham. (If you missed it, click here to catch up.)
Here’s Part 2, a few days late but no worse for the wear.
Hillary Clinton continues to make her argument to the Democratic Party’s superdelegates on the basis of an electability argument. She points to states she’s won – like Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and Massachusetts – and says that she has won in the spring where Democrats must win in the fall. And anyway, her surrogates say, if Democrats awarded delegates on a winner-take-all basis, as Republicans do, rather than a proportional basis, Clinton would already be the nominee-in-waiting.
So what of the proportional vs. winner-take-all debate? Turnham said he’s asked staff to give him analysis of this issue vis-à-vis Clinton’s campaign against Barack Obama. But convincing him to scrap the current system will be tough.
“I’m still a fan of proportionality, and I’m still a fan of the Electoral College,” Turnham said. “I think the tendency is to be able to say that someone who wins 51 percent of a state gets all of (its delegates). But that primary process is not representative of a party of great diversity,” he said. “When you look at proportional representation in its totality, everyone’s voice gets heard somehow.” In Alabama, for example, Clinton won some congressional districts 2-to-1, but Obama racked up big numbers in the Black Belt, in Birmingham and in the Mobile area. “At the end of the day, everyone felt like they got something and their vote counted,” Turnham said.
Under a winner-take-all system, if candidates split a hypothetical vote of 47-39 percent, the candidate with 39 percent walks away with nothing. But Turnham has a warning for those who decry the proportional system that has given us this extended presidential nominating contest: Beware the law of unintended consequences.
“The flip side is that if Republicans succeed in getting proportional representation in California, the Democratic path to White House becomes much greater,” Turnham said. “Instead of 53 (delegates), you get 30. That’s a big difference.”
Turnham pointed out that some “solid red” states, including Arkansas, West Virginia and Virginia, may be in play for Democrats this year. In addition, he said, some “light red” states, like Colorado, Texas, Kansas and Mississippi, may turn blue in November. “Most of the national trends are to Democrats,” Turnham said.
“The real key is, I think Democrats probably pick up a minimum of 15 House seats and three to five Senate seats,” he said. But it’s not all wine and roses, and Turnham is already looking ahead to 2010 and beyond.
“The danger for Democrats is if they win it all and they have to govern, and they inherit a war they didn’t start, record energy prices, recessionary features of the economy, falling real incomes, an infrastructure that needs about a trillion and a half spent on it, the rising clout and power of Russia and China and the potential for a nuclear Iran … if you have it all, you’ll be (held) totally responsible, whereas 2008 is still a little bit a referendum on the Bush presidency,” Turnham said.
One of the good things about the drawn-out primary season is that controversies that are likely to dog Barack Obama in the general election campaign – his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, certain statements made by his wife and the infamous lapel pin flap – “have been exposed early,” Turnham said.
“He’s kind of weathered all that … Some is residual and will go over into November, but a lot of voters will have fatigue on ‘Obama-bashing’ on some level,” he said. That’s especially true when other issues, like gas prices, continue to take center stage.
Speaking of those gas prices, Turnham predicted more trouble at the pump, calling it “not out of the question” that prices could climb to $4 or $5 a gallon. And if that happens, all bets are off. Turnham said that is one alarum bell he’s heard the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) ringing for its members and candidates – and rightfully so.
“That’s why I feel good about (congressional races in districts) 2, 5 and 3,” Turnham said. “Those open seats like (retiring Congressman Terry) Everett’s that lean Republican, they aren’t going to get the multimillion-dollar commitment that (Congressman Mike) Rogers got against me,” Turnham said, referring to his own race for Alabama’s Third Congressional District in 2002. As such, he said, Republican challengers seeking to win open seats being vacated by Democrats “are left to their own devices, without the cash advantage of incumbency,” Turnham said.
Turnham said one of the brightest spots for Democrats may end up being CD 3, where 29-year-old Josh Segall will challenge Rogers, the two-term incumbent. Segall “has raised more money than any congressional candidate at this point, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s passed $350,000 to $400,000” before loans by the end of the next quarter, Turnham said. Because of the district’s demographic makeup – Turnham estimated that 26 percent of the population is African-American – Segall could benefit from an Obama-led ticket that boosts African-American turnout from just under 20 percent to just over 25 percent, he said. Under that scenario, if Segall went from 40 percent to 44 or 45 percent without spending any money, Turnham said, “paid communication can get him that 6 percent. Plus, you throw the dynamics of fuel prices, and … you just don’t know what’s going on out there.”
Turnham is also encouraged by what’s going on in CD 2, where several big names are slugging it out in a Republican primary. It’s “not a great, stellar lineup on the Republican side. There’s no heir apparent,” Turnham said, adding that even the eventual winner of that contest will end up “broke, angry and tired when they get through.” The Democratic primary features several candidates who are “outstanding individuals,” Turnham said, but “I do think that it will be tough for (Montgomery Mayor Bobby) Bright not to prevail.” Turnham called Bright “a popular mayor” and noted that he grew up in the Wiregrass but governs in Montgomery, so he has a geographic advantage in the general election.
Finally, in CD 5, Democratic candidate State Sen. Parker Griffith “is a popular state senator with his own resources who’s raising money and is endorsed by the sitting congressman (Cramer),” Turnham said.
And so, all things considered, with a couple of breaks here and there and a high turnout in November, Alabama’s congressional seats could go from its current split of 5-2 in favor of Republicans to 4-3 in favor of Democrats. “I think that’s achievable as we sit here today,” Turnham said.
And that’s not all.
If the presidential nomination can be settled without lingering hard feelings and Democrats can unite around their nominee, the sky is the limit for Democrats downticket.
“We can win anything downballot if (support for the Democratic presidential candidate) gets into the mid-40s, but not if it’s in the high 30s,” Turnham said. “It’s tough for downballots to outperform presidential candidates by 12 points.”
Turnham recalled how, when he was party chairman in 1996, the Clinton-Gore ticket was within the margin of error against the Dole-Kemp combo in the waning days of the general election. Word got back to President Clinton, who decided to come to Alabama two weeks before the election; Dole quickly followed suit. Clinton was in Birmingham at the BJCC, and Dole was in Montgomery for an event on the steps of the Capitol on the same day, Turnham said.
“It made (Republican nominee Bob) Dole change his plan,” Turnham said. “We made the Republicans defend Alabama, two weeks out, with their nominee … I think we can do that this year, no matter who the nominee is,” he said.
For the sake of conversation, Turnham said, consider the likely McCain-Obama matchup. If it starts at 50-38 for McCain but Obama and Democrats can pick up four points, suddenly the race is 46-42. “With (McCain’s campaign) not knowing what turnout is going to be, they may have to spend money here,” Turnham said. “That’s the beauty of a 50-state strategy, when you make people play the entire field of battle. It makes them spend resources … sometimes you can win by not winning.”
And if that happens, Turnham said, cue the domino effect.
“If our presidential ticket’s running at 46 percent, (PSC candidate Lucy) Baxley and (Alabama Supreme Court candidate Deborah Bell) Paseur and Bright and Segall and Griffith can win,” Turnham said – and that’s not counting the district court judges.
Such is the potential benefit of a long presidential primary, Turnham said.
“This thing has been hand-to-hand combat for months and months,” he said. “Hillary and Obama had people in Wyoming. They had 15 and 30 people on the ground in Wyoming working caucusgoers, ID’ing them. That’s a place where Democrats would wave at them when they flew over,” he said. “In Alabama, they had offices in three places, paid communications and donor and volunteer lists. That’s going to have residual effects around the country, and if it comes down to turnout in individual states, I like where Democrats are on that.”
Turnham said he is seeing the change firsthand. He recently spoke to a group of honors students in a class at Auburn University, he said. Groups like those, he said, are typically heavily Republican.
“I’ve gone to those before and seem three Democrats in the room,” he said. But the professor told him that he had polled the students, and they came down about 40 percent for Obama, 30 percent for McCain and 20 percent for Clinton, he said. “I was like, ‘What?’” Turnham said. But it bears out what exit polls have been saying: That Democrats are winning big among young voters, he said.
So there’s reason for optimism, Turnham said, adding, “We’ll see. It’s tough sledding in Alabama. I’ve sat through some disastrous nights, too.”
Success in November means addressing Obama’s “deficit on a number of fronts,” Turnham said. That includes fending off the “elitist” label with which Republicans have been trying to tag Obama, but it also means “adequately addressing the things that hurt Democrats,” he said. That includes making sure Democrats are strong on terrorism, homeland security and border protection, Turnham said.
“I think (Speaker Nancy) Pelosi did a little of that when she came, talking about our long-term commitment to veterans and people with traumatic brain injuries, our strong platform on building up our regular forces and taking the pressure off of our reservists and putting them back into their intended roles,” Turnham said. And it means having strong policies on energy and gas prices, health care and education, he said.
All in all, Turnham said, “I don’t think Democrats need to cower and back down.”
