Mob scene in the primaries
By Patrick Kelley
Originally published 12:52 p.m., January 7, 2008
Updated 12:52 p.m., January 7, 2008
The rush has started. Iowa had its caucuses last week and New Hampshire has its primary Tuesday.
Already, commentators — who blindly groped at the tail of the elephant during Iowa’s caucuses — are trying to predict the shape of the whole animal. Who will be the Democratic and Republican candidates come November? The commentators are giving it their best guesses, but they are only that — guesses.
In this accelerated campaign year, as states madly vie to grab national attention with early primaries and caucuses, the guessing is likely to be over within a month. The big day will be Feb. 5 — being referred to as “Super Duper Tuesday” — when 24 states will have their caucuses or primaries for at least one political party. The states involve range from the great and populous — New York, California, Arizona — to more sparsely settled members of the Union, including Kansas. The Kansas Democratic Party will have its caucuses that day. The Republicans will have theirs four days later.
That’s not going to mean much here in Emporia. Do not expect to see Barak Obama or Mike Huckabee — or even Bill Richardson and Fred Thompson — striding down Commercial Street and shaking hands. One month is a short time to try to get a lock on the nomination, and the candidates’ time is better spent on states with a large number of convention delegates at stake.
It’s probably just as well. Emporia is not good campaign territory this year. There are too many candidates and too few diners. Diners are the natural habitat of the vote-stalking candidate and Emporia has so few diners that if all the candidates came to town, they would have to double- or triple-team each eatery. A tiny place, such as J’s Carryout, couldn’t hold one candidate and entourage without crowding out all the customers. Two candidates at once would tax even the biggest diner in town.
Just covering the bigger states involved in Super Duper Tuesday is going to require extraordinary endurance by the candidates. Over the next four weeks, candidates will spread themselves thin wooing votes in the bigger states. The race will become a sprint.
When Super Duper Tuesday is over, it is likely that the participants in the November election will have been chosen. The summertime party conventions, once cauldrons of bubbling excitement and surprises, will move even closer to meaningless ritual.
The primaries will not be the end of the race. The nation will still have to endure nine months of relentless campaigning before voters have the chance to cast their ballots and bring this long, strange campaign to its end.