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Newsmakers

December 6, 2007

Host: Pedro Echevarria

Guests: Scott Brennan, Iowa Democratic Party Chair,

and Ray Buckley, New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair

Reporters: Susan Milligan, Boston Globe,

and Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune

PEDRO ECHEVARRIA, HOST: Turning us on Newsmakers from the site of the Democratic National Committee fall meeting is Scott Brennan, the Iowa Democratic Party Chair. We’re also joined by Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair.

To both of you, gentlemen, thank you for joining us.

SCOTT BRENNAN, IOWA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR: My pleasure.

RAY BUCKLEY, NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR: Thank you.

ECHEVARRIA: Joining us here in the studio to interview our guest are Susan Milligan, the National Political Reporter for the Boston Globe, and Mark Silva, the White House Correspondent for the Chicago Tribune.

Susan Milligan, you have the first question.

SUSAN MILLIGAN, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, BOSTON GLOBE: Thank you. Well, gentlemen, you voted today, or rather the DNC voted today, to punish Michigan for moving up its primary. What practical effect do you think this is really going to have? They seem quite determined to go ahead with it. Isn’t it arguable that candidates, if they win that primary with no delegates, that they’ll nonetheless benefit from the momentum, and what does that mean for the – for the primary schedule in the future?

RAY BUCKLEY, NEW HAMPSHIRE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR: Well, I think it was a very difficult choice by the Rules and Bylaws Committee to have made that decision today. I don’t believe that any party committee wants to, quote-on-quote, “punish” any state, and I would hope that in the ensuing weeks that perhaps Michigan revisits that issue. They were given a 30-day reprieve, as you will, by the Rules and Bylaws Committee to revisit that issue, and we certainly hope that all 56 states and territories are able to fully participate in the convention so we can move forward and elect the next President of the United States.

ECHEVARRIA: Did you have a follow-up?

MILLIGAN: Well, but if the states – I mean Florida’s doing the same thing. If these states are insisting on breaking the rules that, you know, you made very clear what the rules are, what does that mean for the primary schedule in the future? I mean why would any state bother to adhere to the schedule?

BUCKLEY: I think that’s exactly why the Rules and Bylaws Committee made that very difficult decision this morning, that they made the decision to strip both states of their delegates to send a powerful message. Otherwise, which was the term that was used repeatedly by members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee, is that there’s complete chaos.

SCOTT BRENNAN, IOWA DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR: And the process has to be fixed, and it’ll be – it’ll get fixed for the next cycle. But the bottom line is that Michigan and Florida both were in violation of the rules, and because of that they were punished in accordance with the DNC rules.

MARK SILVA, CHICAGO TRIBUNE: A question for both of you, really, but perhaps starting with Iowa. You know, I recall before the 2004 caucuses just how fluid it was in Iowa. In the last week there, you could see things moving, and some thought that perhaps that if it had lasted another week, John Edwards might’ve won. How fluid right now is the situation in Iowa in particular, and also how much impact will the five-day spread between the two primaries or contests have in New Hampshire?

BRENNAN: Well, at least in regard to Iowa, I mean I think it is in flux. The polling numbers, you’re seeing some movement among, you know, Edwards, Obama and Clinton. They’re all within the statistical margin of error, and they remain there. We’re seeing some movement among some of the other candidates too, and so a lot of Iowans still haven’t made up their minds. I mean we’re now in the last, you know, just barely over 30 days, and they’re starting to make up their minds. But I think it’s still a very fluid race in Iowa.

ECHEVARRIA: And Mr. Buckley?

BUCKLEY: Well, I think that both Iowa and New Hampshire, this is an unprecedented, I think, process that’s happening. Not only are we closer than ever before, but we really mirror each other in the sense that 60 to 70-some (INAUDIBLE) shows even more of the voters have not made a final decision, and that’s not just happening on the Democratic side, but it’s happening on the Republican side as well, and New Hampshire, when 40 percent of the undeclareds have the ability to choose either a Democrat or Republican ballot on primary day, this, I think, is extraordinarily fluid. I don’t think we’ve ever seen an election where both parties are so fluid in both states at the same – in the same year. So I think that we’re in for a very exciting few weeks ahead of us.

MILLIGAN: Mr. Brennan, how critical do you think Iowa will be in determining who has momentum going into New Hampshire? Because there is such a short window, as Mark mentioned, does that give a candidate who’s come in second or even third the time to regroup before going to New Hampshire, and Mr. Buckley, I’d like to hear from you as well.

BRENNAN: I think they would have time to regroup, but clearly I think the campaigns are – I believe that Iowa is very important in light of the number of offices they’ve opened, the amount of time they’re spending there and the staff. You know, I think they have concerns because they haven’t had a five-day window previously, and so they’re not sure what effect it has. I think you can come back, but it could be very difficult.

BUCKLEY: I think the front-loaded system by having so many states so close moving forward that it has over-influenced both Iowa and New Hampshire this cycle, and we’re hoping that the next cycle and into the future that we can spread out the nominating process so the candidates can go and campaign in all 56 states and territories and really allow all voters to have the ability to speak with and meet with the campaigns. Because of Iowa and New Hampshire being this close, we’ve never seen this. So we don’t know what the impact of Iowa’s going to be. It could have a very large impact, or it could have no impacts at all. If you look at the polling, I think both Iowa and New Hampshire, as Scott just said, the margin error is where the movement’s going on, and the race has essentially been frozen for months now. So is that going to be the end result in each of these states? We don’t know. So you could have a vast movement coming up, or you could have no movement at all, and that’s what really makes it so interesting.

SILVA: Have you sensed among voters in your state, whether it’s a particular issue that’s driving them, as you see this contest in Iowa, in particular the jockeying for first place, is it an issue of this driving – issue of this driving people, or is it a question of electability, which one of these Democrats really has the potential to win the White House?

BUCKLEY: I think it’s electability more than a single issue. I mean there are multiple issues they’re talking about. They’re talking about – you know, they’re talking about Iraq, obviously. They’re talking about healthcare and they’re talking about things that are important to Iowans like ethanol and things like that, but the bottom line is that they’re really looking at the candidates to see who they can get into office, who can get rid of, you know, eight long, long years, dark years, and that’s really what we’re looking at. We want a Democratic president, and I think that’s more important than any particular issue at this point.

BRENNAN: And the real challenge for the voters is to look at the diversity of our candidates. We have an excellent, probably the best crop, to use an Iowa word, crop of Canada than we’ve probably ever had before, and so it – the voters, I think at this point the reason they haven’t made a definitive decision, it’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a good thing because they see that five to six of our candidates really could potentially be a good president, and obviously the diversity of our candidates, where our group of candidates certainly look like America. You compare that to the Republican candidates that are all older white guys. I mean they’re just simply not what represents the true diversity of America, and so we’re very proud of our candidates, and frankly, I think Scott would agree 99.9 percent of the issues the candidates have 100 percent agreement on. So the issue differential is very, very low between them all.

BRENNAN: Ray’s exactly right.

SILVA: Five to six is an interesting number to credit the field with for potential candidates. I think all of us tend to focus on one, two or three, perhaps, and I know it’s difficult as party chairman. It’s a handicap, and you don’t want to do that. But could you talk a little bit about what, perhaps, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and John Edwards have done in the last few weeks that have perhaps helped each one of them from that point of view the electability question?

BRENNAN: I don’t know that I’ve really thought about it. I mean, you know, they’re continuing to spend lots of time in Iowa, and I think by meeting with Iowa voters, I mean, you know, that’s the way you convince people on the ground that you’re electable, you know, that you can actually deal with people one-on-one, and that’s what they’re continuing to do. I mean they have staffs and everything. But, you know, they discount the other candidates in the race. I mean they really have worked very, very hard. They have – they’re running excellent campaigns, and you know, there’s the old adage get hot at the end, and I think they’re all looking for an opportunity to get hot at the end.

BUCKLEY: I think a lot of – I think a lot of people had written John Kerry’s obituary at this point four years ago. I was a Jimmy Carter supporter back in 1975, so I know what that’s like to come from behind and be with the nominee and the eventual President. Bill Clinton certainly had significant challenges at this point in 1991. So I think that whatever the national media may be paying attention to which candidate (INAUDIBLE), I certainly couldn’t create a scenario that certainly allows Senator Dodd or Governor Richardson or Senator Biden to eventually win both Iowa and New Hampshire. I don’t think that that is out of the question.

MILLIGAN: Mr. Brennan, you talked about how the Democrats are looking for something that they can get elected. Are the democratic voters fundamentally different from the Republican voters? The Republicans in Iowa seem to be looking pretty closely at Mike Huckabee, who, you know, six months ago didn’t seem to have a chance at all of getting any traction in this race.

BRENNAN: Well, I think it’s very different from the Republican side because the Republican side they’re so disappointed by their candidates. They just – they’re struggling to find someone that they feel comfortable supporting, and so I think they’ve turned issues because they’re not sure about electability, and everything we see is that the support for the Republican candidates really is lukewarm in Iowa.

SILVA: Well, certainly a Democratic party chairman would like to think so. You’re both aware that the contest in 2004 were extremely close in both states. I think the Republicans carried Iowa by about 10,000 votes, and New Hampshire, the Democrats by 9,000. From your point of view, as a chairman who has to motivate people to vote in November of 2008, which Republican would you like to see the other party nominate? Who would you like to run against?

BRENNAN: Ray?

BUCKLEY: Ten (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED PARTICIPANT: And once again, I’ll defer to the esteemed chairman from New Hampshire.

SILVA: Well, let me – let me put the question a different way then, perhaps. Would you like to see Rudy Giuliani as the nominee?

BUCKLEY: I was sitting around the party headquarters in 1979 gleefully enjoying the fact that Ronald Reagan was going to be the Republican nominee, thinking that he didn’t have a chance at all of being elected President of the United States. So at age 19, I stopped making those sorts of handicapped decisions a year out.

BRENNAN: And I think that’s right. I mean, you know, once the Republicans have a nominee, they’ll coalesce around whoever that is, and so, you know, I think that their candidates are flawed. But, you know, let’s let the – let’s let the Democratic nominee and some other folks take care of pointing out those flaws.

SILVA: Thank you.

MILLIGAN: Mr. Chairman, there – the argument that Iowa and New Hampshire have always made about having their early contests is that the candidates really can’t buy Iowa and New Hampshire. I mean people really expect you to show up and meet them one-on-one. There’s only so much air time you can actually buy. But why is it then that, in the polls, the candidates who have raised and spent the most money also happen to be leaving in the polls almost in the same sequence?

BUCKLEY: I think that’s an anomaly to this cycle, frankly. If you look at the candidates, both on the Republican and Democratic side near stocks (ph), that wasn’t always necessarily true. So perhaps that may be true temporarily as we look at the race today, but I don’t think that that necessarily means the end results on the night of the Iowa caucuses or a few days later the New Hampshire primary that the person who spent the most may not even end up being in the top one, two or even three. We just don’t know. It’s that fluid. Whoever catches the imagination of the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire, that’s who’s going to end up winning, and there’s a long time – this is a lifetime in politics between now and when the Democrats of Iowa and New Hampshire cast their votes.

BRENNAN: I think the other thing you have to look at is that, you know, while there are some clear money differences, you know, in the amount of money that candidates have raised, the bottom line is that they’re still spending an amazing amount of time in places like Iowa and New Hampshire, and you know, they all – they all respect the retail politics of it, and I think Ray’s right. It may be an anomaly this cycle.

ECHEVARRIA: And remember, folks, despite all this money being spent, there is 70-plus percent of the voters in our states that are saying that they haven’t made a final decision. So that money has not cemented the deal.

SILVA: We all know what a peculiar, perhaps unique, operation the Iowa caucuses are in terms of turning people out of the rules involved in how many people it takes in a room on that evening to support a candidate. Is there any sense that any of the candidates have done a better job this year at organizing for the caucuses, and in particular, the Obama Campaign has placed a lot of emphasis on young people, college students who don’t have a great track record of participating in the caucuses. Do you see any change in that regard?

BRENNAN: I think less looking at youth. I think one thing you can look at is that all the campaigns have changed their strategy a little bit this time in that because, as you mentioned, the Iowa caucus, a unique process, being a voters second choice is very important, and I think all of these campaigns have started to talk to people about, you know, if I’m not your first choice, then I want my candidate to be your second choice, because that becomes, you know, with the viability issue, that becomes important, and so I think that’s a – that’s a little bit of a unique strategy that they’ve – that they’ve all sort of taken to this cycle.

SILVA: Well, then who’s running for number two?

BRENNAN: They all are. I mean they’re all looking very hard at number two. I can’t differentiate between one or the other because, you know, frankly, they don’t call my house because, you know, I’m not participating in the caucuses this time. I’m running them.

ECHEVARRIA: If you’re just joining us on Newsmakers, we are talking to Scott Brennan, the Iowa Democratic Party Chair, as well as Ray Buckley. He serves as the New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair. Our guest reporters interviewing them are Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe, their National Politics Reporter, and Mark Silva of the Chicago Tribune, their White House Correspondent.

Ms. Milligan?

MILLIGAN: Just a follow-up on Mark’s question, Mr. Brennan, the average age of a caucus-goer in Iowa, I think, is something like 61. Is the party doing anything to bring more young people out and make the caucuses a little bit more reflective of the populace?

BRENNAN: Well, the party actually puts on the caucuses. I mean we are in charge of getting the 1,784 caucus locations, identify temporary chairs, et cetera. The campaigns themselves are the ones who really draw people out, and so we try not to interfere with their work in that regard, and so the campaigns themselves, you know, they’ve all reached out to young folks, and clearly, you know, it’s been reflected in the young faces that are in many of the crowds that these candidates are drawing.

SILVA: If we could run a scenario by the two of you, and that is that perhaps Hillary Clinton, who went into this contest the overwhelming favorite, by virtue of name recognition, largely, comes out second, perhaps a close second in Iowa to, let’s say, Barack Obama. What impact does that have on New Hampshire? In a few days, can that turn New Hampshire where Senator Clinton actually has a still sizeable lead in the polls?

BUCKLEY: It all will depend on what the differences between the margins – between the candidates. Traditionally, the person or persons that come out of Iowa, at least one, two and three, have a complete fair opportunity to go to New Hampshire and express there the reasons why they should be the winner of the New Hampshire primary and get their votes up. I don’t – I don’t see that you’re going to – if one or two or any of the scrambling of the top three occur, I don’t – I don’t, at this point, don’t think that there’s going to be a significant impact. But if there’s a significant difference between the number one Iowa vote-getter and number two and number three, then that perhaps could. But, you know, sometimes it’s worked in reverse in New Hampshire, and New Hampshire voters have decided to send an opposite message. So nothing is really a guarantee, and that’s, as I said, what really makes this year so exciting.

BRENNAN: And you know, at least, certainly what, you know, what we don’t believe the polling in Iowa is very accurate. If you look at the polls, they’re so closed – they’re so bunched together that I’m not sure that, you know, unless somebody really breaks free at the very end, I’m not sure it makes a huge difference.

SILVA: If I could just follow-up quickly on that point, I think voters would be interested in knowing why polling is not very informative in Iowa.

BRENNAN: Well, it has to do with my point about the second – the second choice, because, you know, one thing is it’s different. You have to go to a caucus location and spend a couple of hours on a cold January night, and so I think it’s a little hard to determine, you know, what the support levels really are because it involves a little more effort from individuals to participate, and then knowing – you know, identifying who would be second under the viability quotient, which they used. I think that makes it hard to do very accurate polling because if your candidate isn’t viable in the first round, then who’s second, because typically Iowans will then pick a different candidate, and that will greatly affect what the polling would ultimately show.

BUCKLEY: And the same case is with New Hampshire, where Iowa it’s because of the system and the complexity of having a second choice play a factor so the polling doesn’t necessarily represent what’s going to end up happening. The same thing happens in New Hampshire because we do have such a significant number of independents that that morning they wake up and decide whether they’re going to take a democrat or a republican ballot, and we saw in 2000 with McCain what happens when they decide to, by and large, pick one party and one candidate in that party, so somebody who just days before were three points behind to end up winning by 19 points.

So that’s – I think that’s what makes this year so exciting, where there’s such an interest, and when Scott was talking about the level of interest of the voters out there, both Iowa and New Hampshire, and I think across the country, there is a lot of interest, and you can talk to people that go to both events, whether they’re members of the meeting or just regular citizens that are, you know, looking at both – the candidates are – in New Hampshire are attracting about twice as many people or more at each of their – even in the small traditionally republican towns, you really see a real sense of excitement that whoever is the Democratic nominee is more than likely going to be the President. So the voters out there have much greater interest, and because I think of the difference of quality of our candidates too. I think the general public can look at any one of our top tier or second tier, or whatever tier you want to call, bar (ph) candidates can feel comfortable about them potentially being President of the United States. It’s very difficult to look at the Republican, even top tier, think that they’d be comfortable with them being President.

MILLIGAN: I know you don’t like to handicap the race, but you both talked about the viability issue and convincing people that you’re electable. Isn’t there more pressure on Senator Clinton to do that because she’s made it such a central theme of her campaign that she’s the inevitable candidate? I mean isn’t this also an issue of expectations where Bill Clinton looked like a winner in New Hampshire in 1992, even though he didn’t win the primary in New Hampshire in 1992? Does she suffer more if she doesn’t come in first in one of your states?

BRENNAN: You know, and you are getting into handicapping, and obviously that’s something that neither Ray nor I, you know, would be comfortable talking about. But I think that’s an expectation game that comes a lot from you all. I mean, you know, from our perspective, I mean they’re here, they’re running, and you know, you guys have created the expectation that somebody has to win Iowa, and I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I mean it’s a fluid process.

SILVA: Is there a potential that undecided will have a good share in Iowa on January 3? You know, I think Jimmy Carter was beaten by undecided in 1976. What’s the potential for some skewed confusing results?

BRENNAN: I think the – I don’t think the results would be confusing at all. I mean I think undecided, at least on the Democratic side, won’t be an option. That’s probably the best option on the Republican side.

MILLIGAN: Can both of you gentlemen make an argument for why your states cycle after cycle after cycle are given this incredible position of holding the first caucus and the first primary, which I really does not necessarily have to determine the nominee, but certainly has been a pretty strong indicator in the past. I mean why I win New Hampshire? Why not Michigan, why not Florida?

BUCKLEY: Well, I think the most important statement regarding that is that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire ever wanted to be the determiner of the nominee. We are simply the first; we should not be the last, and if we can bring some more common sense to the – to the nominating calendar, then this sense of importance that has suddenly been thrust upon us, I think that that will settle down if we can create a more rational account and spread the nominating process throughout the spring. There is a difference between campaigning a state where essentially the campaigning is arriving at the airport, making a speech on the tarmac with a rally of several thousand people, getting – people getting in the plane and flying off and going into the neighborhoods and the small towns of Iowa and New Hampshire, where, frankly, our voters, because they’re used to this process, are not overly impressed by someone who’s flashy or showy or might have more money or a little bit more name recognition than somebody else. We really aren’t fearful, and we’re not overly impressed by those who may have been on the Sunday talk shows or have been a nominee in the past or that are particular – any of the sorts of things that some other states may or may not have been able to feel comfortable asking the tough questions. You know, if you go to any small town in Iowa, in New Hampshire, and you see a candidate, they’re going to be asked tough, difficult questions but not necessarily representative of what you would think either somebody from Iowa or New Hampshire would I ask. We have, I think, a highly informed electorate, and I think that we would like to see all Americans have that opportunity as well by starting in two small states, and beginning that process, let’s make sure that the candidates do have to go into the inner cities of New York and Georgia and California and in Texas and all across, and so that all Americans have that sort of ability. But for us to be able to start off the process, I think that’s where we have, I think, the unique ability, at this point, anyway, to really take a more fair, generous look, and as other states get to see the kicks (ph), they get to make that decision as well.

BRENNAN: Well, I also think it’s a case of, you know, both, I think, Iowa and New Hampshire would agree. We recognize that our status, certainly in this cycle, is a privilege. But it’s also a great responsibility, and we really are looking at the candidates very carefully, and I know – I know Iowans, and I’m sure the folks in New Hampshire too, take the process very, very seriously, and they do. They ask very hard questions of the candidates, and you know, we want to be a part of the process. But we don’t want to be the ultimate decision maker. I mean, you know, that’s the Democrats, the United States will be the ultimate decision makers as to who the nominee is.

ECHEVARRIA: Gentlemen, we are out of time, but we want to thank Scott Brennan of the Iowa Democratic Party Chair and also Ray Buckley, the New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair. Thanks for joining us on the Newsmakers.

BRENNAN: You’re welcome.

BUCKLEY: Thank you.

ECHEVARRIA: Mark Silva, I was interested in the fact that he – I think it was Mr. Brennan who brought (ph) up the fact that Iowa polling is not necessarily to be trusted. I’m paraphrasing.

BRENNAN: Well, that’s right, and it does have to do with this – the essential organizational element of the caucuses. It’s not a – it’s not an election. It’s turning people out to attend specific meetings on a – on a cold night, like you said, and once they get there, if there isn’t the support for the candidate they were seeking, who do they move to, because that happens. If you don’t have enough people in the room for your candidate, you’ve got to find somebody else, and sometimes you end up with undecided precincts. It’s a – it’s a unique, somewhat arcane process, and it’s very difficult to poll, and I remember in 2004 going into those caucuses, you could see it moving on the ground. You could – you could feel difference and you could feel the change, and the polls were worthless.

ECHEVARRIA: Susan Milligan, a lot of discussion also about the fluidity of this race, especially among the two states. Anything about the arguments they were making about that ring true to you?

MILLIGAN: Well, yes, I think that we’re all a lot more focused on this race than most of the electorate is. We’ve been covering it since January – but actually December of last year, and most people don’t make up their minds until a week before the caucuses or the primary, and I do think a lack of change. I mean clearly we have some front-runners, but I think we could have some real surprises in early January.

ECHEVARRIA: Do both of you just kind of take the fact that, you know, running for number two is as important as winning, as far as this contest is concerned?

MILLIGAN: In which one? In Iowa?

ECHEVARRIA: In Iowa.

MILLIGAN: I do – I do think that there’s probably a little bit more pressure on Senator Clinton because she’s just, you know, made it such a big part of her campaign that she’s inevitable, and if she doesn’t show well there, it’s not that she can’t go on and win. She certainly could. She’s a very strong organization and, you know, strong record and so forth. But it does maybe make people think, well, wait a minute. What happened to the express train of the nomination? Maybe, you know, maybe the other people are just as viable or more viable, and I think it opens up things – opens things up a little bit more for the other candidates.

ECHEVARRIA: Mark Silva?

SILVA: This campaign did start on both sides in a – in an unusual position, where one extraordinarily well-known candidate dominated for the first year just by virtue of name recognition–Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani. Everybody knows them or thinks they know them, and so what’s happened now, particularly at the end, is people have gotten to know the alternatives. They’ve also gotten to know things about Giuliani and Clinton that perhaps they didn’t know and may not like or may like, and so really this is a campaign in which the campaign for number two is incredibly important, and Iowa could play a huge role in that.

ECHEVARRIA: Right.

Talk about New Hampshire’s position now. Coming straight out of it, how does it change things, what’s happening there, and is there anything did Mr. Buckley say that kind of made you curious about its new position now? Well, his point about people being undecided is interesting, and you know, if there is a dramatic outcome in Iowa, and with such a short period between Iowa and New Hampshire, it could have an impact on those undecided people because it has both, say electability is what people are looking for, and if they’re scratching their heads and saying which one of these democrats really can win the White House for us, and they get this impression coming out of Iowa that, hey, there’s somebody here with some steam, that could have a big impact.

ECHEVARRIA: Susan Milligan?

MILLIGAN: I can envision a scenario on the democratic side where Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada go for four different candidates. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but I think it’s totally plausible, and that – boy, that throws us into February 5, which, again, we tend to think it’s going to be the deciding day, and it may not be as well. I mean a lot of states could divide that day as well. You can’t possibly compete in every one of those states. No one has enough money to be on the air in every single one of those states, and you can’t physically be in every one of those states. So people will have to pick a strategy about which states they want to play in. You know, this could be going on a lot longer than we used to think.

ECHEVARRIA: I want to hear your thoughts on both the long-term effects, if any, from the Michigan decision today as far as the delegates are concerned, not so much for this race, but maybe four years away from now. Are there any long-term ripple effects from this?

MILLIGAN: I think they’re going to have to come up with some way to appease these states that are just getting tired of being laid around in the process, because the way they’ve got it now too, with everybody going on February 5, in some ways it diminishes the importance of those states because why New York as opposed to California on that particular day? So they’re probably going to have to come up with some kind of a process to spread it out because now they’ve got it set up in a way that if everybody squeezes right up to the first possible day, you have a national primary, and basically the person with the most money gets the nomination, and I don’t think that’s the way they want the process to go, not just because it’s unfair; because it doesn’t necessarily produce the best nominee.

ECHEVARRIA: Nevertheless, in the short-term, whatever happens with the parties vis-à-vis the delegates and punishing the states, I think it will still be interesting to see what is the practical effect of a victory in Michigan, Florida. I mean what’s going to happen when the fourth largest state votes for a democratic candidate, and the news media says, well, it doesn’t really matter because the delegates aren’t counting, but people will be watching. So, you know, I think Florida will have an unusual and important impact on the February 5 cycle, in particular.

ECHEVARRIA: And we will leave it at that and say, we shall see.

Joining us on Newsmakers, Mark Silva with the Chicago Tribune and Susan Milligan of the Boston Globe. Thank you both for joining us.

SILVA: Thank you.

MILLIGAN: Thank you.

END