Dems: Long Primary Contest Fine by Them

Fri, January 11, 2008 - 2:37 PM

With the Democratic field all but narrowed to a two-person race between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the Democratic Leadership Council today weighed in on the race, saying the early trends bode well for their party.

Though Clinton is a member of the DLC’s ‘leadership team,’ the organization is not endorsing her candidacy right now.

In fact, DLC Founder and CEO Al From seemed to relish in the idea of a drawn out primary, telling reporters on a conference call today, “We are looking for a good long fight and I think a constructive one in the primaries, because of the nature of our candidates.”

The organization, made popular for its heavy involvement in drafting policies for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, has pushed the Democratic party more toward the political center. But today its chairman, Harold Ford Jr., said, Democrats need to start giving voters more substance and specifics in defining ‘change,’ which has emerged as an overarching 2008 campaign them.

Looking at the numbers, the DLC, and Dems in general, have something to smile about: turnout. The record-breaking turnouts in early contests have not been divided equally among the parties. In Iowa, Democrats increased their caucus turnout compared to 2004 by an estimated 78-percent. Republicans increased by 30-percent over the same time period.

Registration rolls tell an even larger story. Since 2004, Democratic registration numbers have increased by 14-percent in Iowa. Republicans have decreased 1.4-percent. The Iowa Secretary of State’s office now shows total registration favoring Democrats by 30,000 voters. Just four years ago Republicans held a 51,000-vote margin in the state.

--Neil H. Simon