As analysts and political junkies follow the Democratic presidential primary races in Iowa and New Hampshire, perhaps some attention should be focused on New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. The first time voters will go to the polls during this presidential campaign will be January 13, here in the District of Columbia.
However, until recently, candidates have avoided campaigning in the District like President Bush avoids the White House in summer. They worry that they could be risking voter retaliation in other states if they focused their attention on a place like the District of Columbia.
All of this returns back to the notion that voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are born with the right to have the first primaries in each election cycle. This is the system that drives presidential politics, and candidates focus most of their time and resources to clinch these early victories. As a result, candidates essentially ignore residents of any state (or non-state with electoral votes) that does not have an early primary.
Now, enter the attempts to focus attention on what is arguably one of the largest voter rights problems in the United States today-the lack of congressional representation for the District of Columbia. Earlier this year, when the District announced its plans to move its primary to January 13, the Democratic National Committee threatened to void the votes of the District’s delegates at the convention. The District got around this by making the Jan. 13 vote non-binding, and declaring that the delegates would choose their candidates at a later time.
And so the scene is set, the District will be holding the first primary. At first, no major candidates were willing to appear on the ballot. However, in the months since the decision to move the election was made, things have changed a bit.
The once-long-shot-now-frontrunner, former Vermont governor Howard Dean, M.D. has decided to take the contest in the District seriously. Dean has spent time courting members of the D.C. Council, and already has council members Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), Adrian Fenty (D-Ward 4) and Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6) endorsing him and Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and others are expected to join in soon. Dean has also built a vast network of grassroot support here in the District.
Now that Dean has decided to take the plunge and campaign in the District will other candidates join in? Not likely, with the possible exception of Senator Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) At this point, however, none of the other “front runners” have shown a great deal of interest in the District or the issues important to voters here.
What does this all mean? An early victory in D.C. for a long-shot candidate such as Al Sharpton would provide media attention and perhaps some semblance of legitimacy. An early victory for Dean or one of the other front-runners, however, would mean little in the entire scheme of things. Would this result in voter backlash? Would voters in New Hampshire or Iowa choose not to vote for the winner of the District’s primary, simply because they decided to think out of the box and campaign somewhere other than Des Moines, Concord or Nashua?
It all goes back to the broken-beyond-hope structure of presidential primary politics. Expectations count more than votes, and the media has more influence than citizens or the convention delegates themselves. After Iowa, New Hampshire and Super Tuesday, everything else becomes, for the most part, irrelevant. Changing the system to become fairer is not likely to happen anytime soon. So steps like moving the D.C. primary ahead of the others is only a bandage on a hemorrhaging wound to voter rights here, and everywhere. However, at least one doctor has made a diagnosis for the District: Dr. Howard Dean.
