The District of Columbia Primary

1:30 P.M. EST

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. Today we're having the third in our series of briefings for "Elections 2004," and I'm very pleased to be able to welcome to our podium today Mr. Mark Plotkin, a political commentator and analyst for WTOP Radio.

Mr. Plotkin's going to brief to us today about something that is, from my point of view, rather unique in our political landscape, but I'll let him get into all the details. It's the District of Columbia's primary, and he's a real expert on this and knows it backward and forward, and will be able to place it in the context for you of the overall election year that we have ahead of us.

After his opening statement, we'll be glad to take your questions.

Mark.

MR. PLOTKIN: First of all, I apologize for being late. I hate people who are late, and politicians, I think, usually do this. I have somewhat of a good excuse, and in some ways it coordinates what I'm going to talk about.

There was a group meeting called, "Our Nation's Capital," which is a new group of well-off white people that were down the street. And they usually are a very accommodating -- there really is a linkage to what I'm talking about because it has to do with the D.C. primary -- a very accommodating, passive, quiescent -- what else can I say -- timid, tenuous constituency in the District that is economically well-situated, but doesn't seem to have any passion about our political situation or our political -- the political inequities that we suffer from. And so I was so -- I really went there almost as as a sociologist or an anthropologist because I was so glad that a group of well-off white people got together and were maybe reaching the point of getting angry about what is happening here in the District of Columbia.

Now what is all this venom and invective about? If you don't know, you should know that the District of Columbia is the only jurisdiction in the world -- in the world -- whose -- the residents of the capital are denied representation in their national legislature.
Let me repeat that, that the residents of this capital, this beacon of democracy, the free world, this shining city on the Hill -- the capital of democracy wants to export democracy to Iraq, deprives the citizens of its own city any representation.

It is not my idea and so I give -- and I'll get to the primary, but I want to set this foundation up for you. This is just not a polemic, because it explains why the primary, and what was the reason for the primary.

A gentleman named Tim Cooper who is taking our plight to all these different international agencies has said that he would like to suggest since the American Government is interested in helping draft a constitution for Iraq, that since the American model, which I have great respect and admiration for, should be duplicated; and in the Iraqi constitution they should deprive the residents of Baghdad representation in their national legislature. Thus, they would be mimicking what happens here in America -- what our political situation is.

Now, why is that? Walter Fauntroy, who was a non-voting, we have a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives -- we have no representation in the United States Senate. And the non-voting delegate was the non-voting delegate for 18 years, and I wasn't a great admirer of his -- but he did say one thing, which I think explains not only to the foreign press but maybe to the American press, why do we have this situation that we do?

The District of Columbia suffers from the four "toos," T-O-O: We're first perceived as too liberal in terms of political philosophy; second, I would say we're too urban, which is a bias among some people; then, we're too democratic, meaning too many people belong to the Democratic Party. We have the highest registration amongst Democrats of anywhere in the country -- 77 percent of the registered voters in the District of Columbia -- no state even approaches that -- are democrats. And finally, and not to be diminished at all, we are too black. 60 percent of the population is black.

So you combine these four things, and that creates an amalgam. I mean look, we're grownups, we can talk honestly and frankly. That creates a recipe for political disempowerment. There are enough people that don't like black people, that don't like people that live in the city, who don't like Democrats, and what have I forgotten -- and don't like liberals, that you have a majority constituency -- and this isn't "victims' syndrome," this is, I mean, this is my -- this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to analyze the politics of why a situation is a situation. That's why we are where we are.

Now, we were allowed -- we have one political right in the American political universe, and that is we get to vote for President. We are permitted, the residents of the nation's capital are permitted to vote for President; and that happened for the very first time in 1964, and it required a constitutional amendment -- it's the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. And a constitutional amendment is a very arduous and numerically difficult thing to get. It requires two-thirds of both the House and the Senate passing it, and then it goes out to the state legislatures and 38 states have to ratify it.

Interestingly enough, that ratification process by the state legislatures, which I think occurred in 1961, happened in rapid time -- faster than any other amendment being approved. Now, there are some states -- and I believe in naming names -- who literally didn't ratify it, such as Arkansas comes to mind, but 38 states did ratify it.

I have a tendency to ramble, you'll have to excuse me, but I think there is an under-girding foundation for this. The only ticket we have in the political universe is our role in the Presidential Electoral Process.

Now, people in this jurisdiction, in this city, did vote for, in the D.C. primary, prior to when they got the actual vote to vote for President. Voting for President is in a November general election. Everybody, every American, gets to vote for that -- not Puerto Rico, not the territories. We are treated -- the District of Columbia -- as the 51st state in terms of presidential voting, and that is it. And with that comes three electoral votes, in the Electoral College, which actually, as you full well know, determines the presidency.

And the Electoral College is determined, in terms of calculation, by the number of House members plus the two senators for each state. Every state has two senators, so the District of Columbia, on the basis of population, would have one House member and two senators. So we have three electoral votes. And I can confidently say that in America there are three things that are certain: death, taxes, and D.C. will go Democratic.

Now, in 19 -- I can't remember -- in the year 2000, I wrote an op-ed piece, which I'll take ownership and authorship for, because somebody called me when I worked at my previous radio station, WAMU, and said, "Why don't," because the Presidential Electoral College is composed of electors: real human beings, real people who cast their votes.

Now, there have been nine instances in American history where there have been wayward electors. That is, the electors are chosen in each state, and the electors are obedient party regulars. They are selected as electors because the party that chooses them, the Republican or Democratic Party, knows they weren't going to be radicals or independent-minded, they are just going to ratify whatever the popular vote is, so that if George Bush wins Oklahoma, they know they choose the number of electors -- whatever Oklahoma has, eight or nine -- they choose -- maybe fewer -- they choose those human beings who they know will cast their vote and just validate what the popular vote is.

Now there have been instances where electors, and the most recent was in the District of Columbia, a gentleman called me and he said, "Why don't one -- why don't all the three electors, the Presidential Electors from the District of Columbia, cast blank ballots?" Now, this is really considered an outlandish, revolutionary and very politically anti-social behavior; and one did. Barbara Lett-Simmons cast a -- we had three electors and one cast a blank ballot.

Why did she cast a blank ballot? She cast a blank ballot for the same purpose that I am talking to you -- to draw attention to our patently un-American status, and the hypocrisy that the residents of the nation's capital don't have voting representation in their national legislature.

Now, you've seen other things that I've had something to do with. These are never -- I'm not very original. All I do is merchandise ideas. When I was at WAMU, someone named Sara Shapiro called up -- no, e-mailed the station and said, "Why don't, on our license plate, it say -- " What does it say?

A PARTICPANT: “Taxation without Representation.”

MR. PLOTKIN: Thank you. Now, that is not a slogan. That was the brilliance of that idea. The slogan would be, "No taxation without representation." “Taxation without Representation” is a statement of condition. It is a political fact -- not a political fact, it is a fact. You can't disabuse anybody that it exists.

And to tell you just a humorous aside story, and then I will move to the D.C. primary, but I think it's important for you to understand the collective insult that the District of Columbia has received, so that we resort to gimmicks like this to get not only your attention but even the attention of our own citizenry. Sixty percent of college graduates -- supposedly educated, informed people -- don't know that the District of Columbia has no voting representation in either the House or the Senate.

Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was elected by the populace, has to come up for election every two years -- votes in committees, but has no vote on the floor of the House. None. And in terms of the Senate, we don't even have partial sort of representation at all.

The license plate is an interesting story, and it illustrates something, and then I'll move to the primary, which you're most interested in. Sarah Shapiro e-mailed the show and we started a campaign to have this affixed to the license plate. Why the license plate? Because it's universal, everybody has a car; people drive their cars to other places all over America, and it was an "in your face" tactic -- more than anything -- an educational tactic -- for people to say, "What does that mean? What are you talking about? Why is that -- what is this all about?" And then hopefully, the driver or the passenger of the car would explain to people what I just said to you, that we don't have any representation. Taxation without representation means no constitutional foundation. It was the rallying cry of the American Revolution and every kid knows that.

But there was a lawsuit because when the political situation closes you down, you obviously go to the courts. That's what they did with the Civil Rights Movement. That's what Board vs. Board of Education was about. You go to the courts. And we went to the courts, and the courts, in a three-judge panel, said that they could not dictate to Congress to give us representation; that we have to go the constitutional amendment route.

Now, I know I'm sort of jumbling facts, but in 1978 -- this is a little-known historic item -- there was a vote in the House and the Senate to do for representation what they did for the Presidential voting. The Presidential voting was acquired by a constitutional amendment -- passed two-thirds of the House and Senate, went out to the state legislatures, and 38 states ratified it.

So they said, "All right. We'll get Congressional representation, representation, full representation in the House and the Senate by constitutional amendment. Well, it was a far different political situation: You had a Democratic President; you had ample or helping majorities of Democrats in both the House and the Senate in 1978, you had a Republican Party, National Republican Party, who was very self-conscious about the fact that they didn't have any minority support. They were drawing eight and seven percent in Presidential elections, and about 30 -- I don't know the exact figure, I should -- Republican House members voted for this amendment, some Democrats voted against it too, but 16 Republican Senators in 1978 actually voted for full voting rights, including such leading “liberals” as Strom Thurmond, Barry Goldwater, Howard Baker, Robert Dole.

Why did they vote for this? Well, Barry Goldwater, who was the 1964 Republican candidate for President, wrote a constituent a letter and said, "I voted for this knowing full well that it would never be ratified in the state legislatures." It would never get the requisite number of 38 states. It was a cheap vote. There's no other way to say that.
So he was on record for being for something, and since it wasn't ratified by the state legislatures, it never became an amendment. The thought was, can we do this same process of providing full representation without a constitutional amendment? The constitutional amendment, the numerical hurdle, is so difficult: two-thirds of the House and Senate, three-quarters of the state legislatures -- really the real difficulty is more the state legislatures, who I think, would be more obstructionist and conservative than the U.S. Congress, even though the two-thirds vote needed is very high.

So, excuse me, I get worked up. So we went to court asking a three-judge panel, under apportionment -- and I won't get into all this -- and the three-judge panel by a vote of two to one said, no, you can't get this by -- you can't ask Congress to do this by simple legislation. You have remedies. The remedy is the constitutional amendment. You can't -- these are my words, but for your understanding -- you can't short-circuit it by just getting a simple majority in the House and the Senate and thus, get representation.

Now let me make a distinction. Representation is not statehood. All representation is -- you get to join the country club called America -- the Congress-- the House and the Senate. Every law that the city council, there's a 13-member city council, every law that the city council -- our own elected city council -- passes can be overturned by the U.S. Congress; every law.

Every cent that we raise -- we raise about 85 percent of our budget -- we don't get a federal payment anymore, the rest is grants -- can be abrogated -- can be nullified by the U.S. Congress. Our judges are not selected by us; our local judges that serve in the Superior Court and the D.C. Court of Appeals are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate, just like any federal judges.

The lunacy, or the absurdity, or the insult is so great that there was a citizen-initiative -- it was a controversial initiative, but still, initiatives are a participatory form of democracy: You get signatures on a petition, and then you put it on the ballot, and the voters vote for it. There was an initiative for the medicinal uses of marijuana. One Congressman who, thankfully, is not a Congressman anymore, Bob Barr, forbid us, not only for the initiative to go into effect, but to even to announce the results of the initiative. That is -- did you hear me? That the Chairman of the Board of Elections could not tell the public what the results were.

And I called the chairman, Ben Wilson, and I said, "Ben, this is an act of civil disobedience, announcing the results of an election? Announce the results!" He said, "I'm no Rosa Parks." Rosa Parks was the [black] woman who refused to sit in the back of the bus. I said, "Ben, don't flatter yourself."

So this is the level of accommodation of the citizenry, and that was allowed to occur. The results were never announced. Nobody was even in defiance. So this is the kind of stranglehold that we allow ourselves to operate under, coupled with the sanctions.

Now, why is the political situation what it is? Both parties are to blame. There are Democrats that don't like D.C. because of the four "toos": too liberal, too urban, too Democratic and too black; and overwhelmingly Republicans don't want D.C. to have any political power. And you can understand that. That is in their self-interest. Yes.
Two Senators, you can bet your bottom dollar, would be Democrats, and the House member would be Democrat, unless there was an extraordinary individual with extraordinary popular appeal. And why should they want to add to a) add; add to -- especially if the Senate is just one vote difference, why would they want to add to this?

But what is interesting, what is interesting, is that the Republican Party platform -- when you go to the conventions, they write these platforms, which nobody really abides by, but they are a statement of principles -- Republican platforms, not this past, not in 2000, but in previous years, has come out for full representation for the residents of our nation's capital.

The Democratic Party platform has gone further, and every four years comes out for statehood, which is total autonomy, total sovereignty. You can have representation, but still -- we could still be under the repressive, not picking your own judges, not controlling your own budget, not having your legislation being negated.

So representation -- people, even, not foreign press, but even American press, interchange these two words, and there's a clear distinction.

As I said, representation just means you get two Senators and a House member. But the legal restriction for full autonomy: legislative, budget, prosecutorial -- we can't pick our own local prosecutor. The federal U.S. attorney is our local prosecutor. In any other place, the county has a state's attorney, a prosecuting attorney, or the state has an appointed or an elected attorney general. We have neither. We are truly America's last -- the world's last colony. And the President of the United States, who is so fond of talking about democracy in every instance, is unalterably opposed to any form of representation for the residents of the nation's capital.

He was asked by The Washington Post about this and he said in his typical, articulate manner, "I'm against the senators." Now, there used to be a baseball team called the Washington Senators. So we don't know what that means. So the hypocrisy is really overwhelming that we have a President of the United States who talks about democracy and building democracy, but is personally against any form of representation for the residents that live in his [city] -- where the White House is.

And I must say there is now presently a bill to provide full representation in the House and the Senate and there is not one Republican co-sponsor. Not one. Not one.

Now, not every Democrat has signed on. And the Democrats, when they controlled the Senate in the lame duck session, had an opportunity to bring the issue up, have Republicans filibuster or have a vote on it, and they chose not to -- so their hands are not totally clean either.

So this is the dynamic of the situation, which brings me to the primary.

All right, faced with all this, what do you do? Well, you do things like -- and just a brief aside about the license plate -- Clinton, who supposedly was for statehood -- there was a statehood vote in November of 1993. In fact, it was almost ten years from today. It was the Saturday preceding the Thanksgiving, and it provided for full statehood -- full -- we would be the 51st state. There was a vote in the House of Representatives. There were 153 votes for it, and whatever the other number that adds up to 435 were against it. It lost. 152 Democrats voted for it, one Republican of profound courage, Wayne Gilchrest, voted with the Democrats, or for statehood, and he went up to Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was the non-voting delegate for the District of Columbia, who had no vote on our own future, and said, "Eleanor, I voted for it because it's a question of dignity."

Clinton, the last month [of his administration], in typical Clinton fashion, who testified as a candidate for statehood before the House District Committee, and then did absolutely nothing, nothing to help the District reach that level -- even in those two years that Democrats were in control -- as a sort of pyrrhic victory, I guess, put the "Taxation Without Representation" plate on the Presidential limousine, because if you notice, the Presidential limousine has D.C. plates. They don't have U.S. Government plates. And that was my suggestion. I literally took the license plate, and I went to a press conference, and I said, "When is the President putting this on the limousine?" And the last Press Secretary, who I can't remember his name said, "Mark, you'd be surprised. He's going to do it." He did do it. It was on the limousine for the [last] month.

Now -- I think almost like a cinematographer -- I know that the President, the departing President and the incoming President, take that very famous ride up Pennsylvania Avenue together. And then they come back with the same car for the inaugural parade. Or maybe they don't, they don't join each other in the same car. They go up together, and the President of the United States is the President until the new President comes in, until 12:04, when they took off.

So Clinton had control of that car, up until [the moment when] President George Bush was sworn in. So my, my visualization was that the car would go up with the "Taxation Without Representation," knowing Bush didn't want this, and then it would come back to watch the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue with the license plate off; and what a perfect illustration.

Well, Clinton wimped out. Either Bush's people said, "Take the plate off," the night before or Clinton, in his always magnanimous manner, decided to take it off of his own volition, I haven't found out. So these are some of the gimmicks and some of the things that you do to draw attention to what is inherently an un-American, anti-democratic, hypocritical state of affairs.

All right. That gets to the primary, finally. But you had to hear some of that, at least, maybe not all of it, but you had to hear some of that to realize what the purpose or the motivation was for the primary.

I worked for a succession of presidential candidates in my previous life, all of whom I cursed. In '72, I worked for McGovern, Muskie and McCarthy. In 1976 I worked for Morris Udall. In 1980 I worked for Ted Kennedy. And in 1984 I worked for Gary Hart. All of them lost. So I thought I'd get out of that business and do something else.

But I was aware of the rhythm or sequence of the nominating process. And historically, New Hampshire, which is not a representative state, demographically, in the country, has distinguished itself by being the first. And for some -- don't ask me to explain this, or you can ask me, but I don't think I can accurately answer it -- I don't know why New Hampshire has the importance that it does, except that it's first. And it's a contest.

And there are all these other states that have caucuses and primaries. Caucuses are not primaries. Caucuses are, you show up in this room and there are so many people in the room, and that's a caucus. A primary is actually a ballot where you actually vote on -- some states only Democrats can vote in the Democratic primary, some states, like New Hampshire, the person, Independents, people who are not registered as Democrats or Republicans, can participate. Some states have crossover, some have closed primaries -- but anyway, the big thing about New Hampshire is it's first.

So in 1976 Iowa decided, "We want to be more important than New Hampshire.” So they have something called precinct caucuses. Precinct is the smallest tier, the introductory tier of the political process: precincts, then probably wards, which are a little larger, then state legislative districts, then Congressional districts; so precincts are the bottom tier.

In Iowa, on a snowy -- not even a Tuesday -- because all elections in America except for Louisiana are on Tuesdays, [but in Iowa] they have a Monday night caucus. And I've been out there, and people meet in church basements, they meet in living rooms, all the people for Lieberman stand here, all the people for Edwards stand here, all the people for -- it's a very convoluted process -- you have to go out there to experience it -- stand here, and then out of this whole (inaudible), the whole deal, the precinct delegates are selected.

But Iowa in some ways didn't replace New Hampshire, but in some ways -- what's the word -- enhanced New Hampshire, because it was kind of the prelude to New Hampshire. No delegates are selected on Monday night [in Iowa], but it's the first contest.

So a gentleman named Tim Cooper called me -- and I have a microphone, a megaphone, because I have a radio show, which on 1500 AM on your dial, if you should be, on Fridays at 10:00, and then I have commentary -- said, "Why don't we, -- D.C.'s primary has been in May – go before Iowa?” No, this is just a crass, brazen, deliberate -- what other word -- transparent effort, to get publicity for the District of Columbia. We are the Rodney Dangerfield of American politics. We get no respect. So all the idea of the primary was, was we'll go in front of the person who was even first, which is Iowa; the Iowa caucus is January 19th, the primary in New Hampshire is January 27th, Tuesday -- we'll go before Iowa."

Now, this created an enormous -- "Oh, you can't you do that because then every state will want to go first." It's just like butting in line. Everybody said, you know, "What is your basis for this?"

Well, our basis and rationale, besides the basis that we don't get any attention and we don't get any visibility and everybody takes us for granted, and we're at the bottom rung of the American political ladder, is the Democratic Party -- only seven percent of the registered voters in the city are Republican. But the Democratic Party, more than any party, should want to celebrate the fact that this is the most loyal jurisdiction, you know, of any state in the union, and thus should have allowed us to do that.

Now I knew they weren't going to allow it. I know Terry McAuliffe, the DNC Chairman, and he told me, which he later denied, in fact, he told me he -- you'll be interested in the press thing, he said, "I wanted to let you know that I have told every presidential candidate not to come into the District of Columbia. And if you report this, I will deny it," after which I reported it -- he didn't say it was off the record, he said he would deny it -- and then they called him, and he denied it.

But he told every candidate, "Don't you dare campaign in the District of Columbia because you'll screw up our system. We want the system to be Iowa and New Hampshire," and he, actually, his greater motive is, he wants everybody, the whole process to be over by March so the Democrats will have a nominee, even though the convention is [not until] the last week in July, so they won't be fueding amongst themselves. So in terms of symmetry, in terms of just, you know, his master plan, it screws up his master plan.

All right. So my Machiavellian, or Svengali idea was, I knew the national party would be against this. I knew they would be against it. Great! Absolutely! I'll tell you what I actually did once. The changing of the date from the first week in May, even though this is a party primary, has to be done by the municipal legislature, that is, unless the party has a caucus, which they determine by themselves, the actual using polling places, spending public money, requires a change in the law. And so the law required that the D.C. city council change the law from the first week in May to January 13th. And Jack Evans, the council member that represents this area, got his 13 members, including the two Republicans, to vote for this change of law, and so the law goes up to Congress, changing the date.

Now, you remember I said that Congress can nullify, negate any law [passed by the D.C. City Council]. What I first wanted to do, to have happen, but they weren't stupid enough to do that, was for Congress to forbid us from changing the law. And then, I thought, "How wonderful. Let's have an election that Congress forbids us from having, and everybody will go vote. What is George Bush going to do, call out the National Guard and stand with bayonets fixed at the polling places, and forbid us to vote, even though our local legislature changed the date?" They weren't stupid enough to do that.

But the National Democratic Party was stupid enough to do that. And the local party was an enabler. The local Democratic Party, because it's a change of party rules -- changing the date -- had to vote to approve this and to be in conformity with the National party.

Now our primary, in the past, people vote for one of the nine Democratic candidates, and then the amount of delegations are apportioned to the candidates based on how many votes the candidate gets. And you also vote for a delegate, that is -- let's say you vote for Lieberman. You have these pieces of paper, nine different pieces of paper, and they'll have Lieberman's name -- they'll have nine different ballots. You pick the candidate you like, and then you vote for his delegate. And then there's competition amongst the delegates to see who wins.

But the salient point is that the popular vote is apportioned to the candidate based on the voters voting on a primary day. Some do it just by caucus, and so there is no public involvement, I mean, there's no changing of the date. The date can be done any time, because the caucus doesn't require public polling places. People can meet anywhere for a caucus.

Well, the state party has to be in conformity with the National party's rules, so they could be seated at the convention -- every state has to be in conformity with the National party -- this is kind of a bifurcated thing, that is, the civil legislature, the public legislature, had to change the date. Once the date was changed, for the local party to be in conformity with the National party, the National party had to approve the way in which we elected people.

And the local party is so desperate and so eager, and so lacking in any institutional backbone, that they were afraid of offending the National party. So by a vote of 19 to 17, with one vote, with the chairman of the party, who's since been displaced, a real profile of courage, abstained. They voted to have a non-binding primary, which is a fancy term for meaning -- it's called, in the vernacular, a beauty contest.

You get to vote for the presidential candidates, but it doesn't mean anything. It means something for headlines, but no delegates are selected on the basis of that vote. That is, there are two elections. You vote on Tuesday, January 13th, there will be a list of names. There will be no delegates. And then there's a caucus in February, which is the real election.

So they really, the city party said, "We're not going to go along with the way we used to elect delegates. We so eager to be in Boston, and they have our 33 delegates and stay at nice hotels and be part of the party, that we don't want to defy the party. And so we will have this primary, which doesn’t count, but allow us to kind of have it. But our real delegates will be selected [later]. Well, the party didn't even like that. They didn't even like that, and that's when McAuliffe told all the candidates not to run [in the D.C. primary].

Now just for information's sake, there are nine Democratic presidential candidates. Five of them wrote the Board of Elections and said, "Take my name off the ballot. I don't even want my name on the ballot." And they did that to appease New Hampshire and Iowa, but really more to appease the Democratic National Committee. And the four candidates whose names will appear on the ballot are: Howard Dean, Al Sharpton, Dennis Kucinich, and Carol Moseley Braun. So the D.C. voters right now, at this time, will only see four names on the ballot.

Now what I wanted to see, and then I'll go to the significance, and then I'll take questions -- what I wanted to see is that the local party, and I kind of underestimated their cowardice and timidity and wimpnish (sic), how wimp -- institutional wimps they were because they should have ratified the choice of the city council. Usually the party in American politics is much more radical and experimental and prone to do odd things than the elected legislators.

In this way, a different behavioral mechanism had occurred. The legislators, the more establishment figures, the city council members, were really ahead of the party. The party, by voting to just have this beauty contest, that is, to sort of deflate -- I hope you're following me -- to sort of just make this, this primary insignificant -- they thought they are in accord with the party.

What I wanted the party to do was to ratify what the council did, and said, "No, we are holding an election. We're going to hold the election on January 13th. It will be the first in the nation primary, and the delegates will be selected in the same way as we always selected them in May." And then what would happen? Well, the Democratic National Party would say, "You are not in conformity with the rules, and for that reason, we are not seating your delegation. You will not be allowed into the convention hall. You will have to go through the credentials committee and there will be a vote on the floor, in the credentials committee and on the floor." And I'd say, "Wonderful! That's the whole point of it." I wanted that scene, as did others, where the National Democratic Party refused to seat the most loyal jurisdiction in the Democratic party just because they moved their primary in front, to January 13th.

And by the way -- what are there, 12,000 credentialed-reporters all over the world covering the conventions? At the conventions, no balloting has gone more than one ballot since 1952 and so all the world would be saying, "What's -- there's nothing to cover in a convention except the acceptance speech and who they had picked the Vice President." You people will be up there for three or four days -- there's nothing to do.

[But this time] you'd have something to do, too. You'd have a story. And the story would be, "Why is the Democratic Party depriving the resident democratic citizens of the District of Columbia, the party members, from being at the convention? Why are they not allowed to be delegates?" And there is a historic parallel, and then I'll finish, which was the Mississippi Freedom Delegation in 1964, which was a very famous case.

The Mississippi Democratic Party was all white. There were some black people who felt since there are more black people in Mississippi than any other state in the union, they felt they should be part of the Democratic Party. This is 1964. They wanted to go to the convention.

The Democratic party of Mississippi practiced -- if you're not white, you can't go to the convention. And so there was a challenge. And if you listen to the C-SPAN tapes, you'll realize that Lyndon Johnson, who was the President at that time, was so worried, so worried about that challenge and what that would expose -- the hypocrisy of a supposed and all-inclusive democracy excluding people because they were a different color, that in 1964, after Kennedy's assassination, and he was unbelievably popular and he had no primary opposition -- and you know he won all states but five in the election -- he was so worried about that challenge at the convention and the disarray that he felt it had the potential of causing, that he was not going to run for President.

That little thing -- now, I can't say that that could be duplicated or replicated, but it's true, you know, everybody says you have 15 seconds or 15 minutes of fame -- this was the opportunity for D.C. to have their 15 minutes of fame. So what is the occurrence now?

Right now, we're neither here nor there. Some of the candidates, like Sharpton, say, accurately, that the national party is treating D.C. like a mistress, you know, get to see you sometime but can't take you home to see the parents, meaning you can't really take them to the convention. He says he's the only non-drive-by candidate. He doesn't just drive by and wait. He's actually campaigning here.

Now, Howard Dean, that's interesting, is having it both ways. He allowed his name to be on the ballot, but he comes to D.C. and never mentions the D.C. primary. He's the only candidate I've ever heard of that comes to a primary, to a state, and doesn't ask the people to vote for them or remind them when the day is. So he wants to win it on the cheap. In fact, I had a conversation with him last week, and I said -- there was like 700 people at Capital City Grill. I said, "Governor, do you plan to mention the D.C. primary?" "I don't know," in his best bedside manner.

And then I said, "Well, quite frankly" -- see, I'm a commentator so I'm allowed this latitude. I said, "Quite frankly, Governor, I've been to three D.C. events and you never mentioned the primary. It's insulting." And he said, "This is not the time for this discussion," and then summoned some staff and walked away.

So that's the political calculus of what's going on. What would be the result -- and then I'll entertain your questions. The result will be yes, we will be the first contest, there will be more headlines than people think, and if Howard Dean, who is in trouble with the black community because of his confederate flag statement and because Al Sharpton calls him anti-black, if he should win, Howard Dean will say: Great, see? I won in Chocolate City. How can you say I'm anti-black? I won in a majority black jurisdiction.

If he doesn't win, he will say: Oh, I really didn't campaign there, I really didn't make an effort. So Howard Dean is really trying to have it both ways.

So that's a very -- thank you for your patience -- that's a very roundabout, but I think comprehensive, discussion and analysis of why the primary is the first and why it was done, and really, more than anything, what the lost opportunity is. The lost opportunity was that the D.C. Democratic Party should have been in total defiance: one, to not to be seated at the Democratic Convention, because then it would have drawn attention to our inherently unequal status; and the other addendum is that Sharpton is the only person who is that Sharpton is the only person who is bringing up this issue, although all the other Democrats pay lip service to it.

And I must say also that it was his intention to make the issue, to make the issue an issue in the general election campaign, so that George Bush, who is against any form of representation, would have had to defend something which is so patently indefensible, and that you would think that that would appeal to the best interests of this country, that if they were aware that one party overwhelmingly was for including people in democracy, and another party was so overwhelmingly against that that would benefit the Democratic Party.

So that's the whole composition. And, yes, it is a stunt. Yes, it is a gimmick, but it has a higher calling, and its motivation was very pure.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, Mark. I'd like to take your questions now. As usual, please use the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization.

Okay. Let's start up here.

QUESTION: Thank you. (Inaudible) with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I'd like to know -- well, first of all, just a detail, is a D.C. primary an open primary?

MR. PLOTKIN: Good question, very good question. It's a closed primary.

QUESTION: Oh.

MR. PLOTKIN: And that's an important question, meaning, only Democrats can participate in the D.C. primary. If you were an American citizen and you wanted to participate in the D.C. primary, [but you were not a member of the Democratic party,] you would have 30 days, 30 days prior to the Election Day, that is you could go and change your [party] registration [so that you could vote in the Democratic primary].

Let's say, you were an Independent, that is NP, no party, or Republican. There is a Statehood Party in the District; there's a Green -- no, they're together now -- Statehood -- there's a Statehood Green Party; there's a Umoja Party, which is a, sort of, a Black nationalists party; there's a Democrat and there's a Republican.

Let's say, you were not a Democrat. You would have 30 days prior to the election to become a Democrat. This is a very important question. Because in some states, like Virginia, has no party registration. To vote in their party primary, you, by voting in the primary, declare yourself a Democrat, so there is no party registration in.

In New Hampshire, which is an open primary, up to a point, meaning that Independents can vote in the Democratic Party, but Republicans cannot. Now just to make you even further confused, Puerto Rico, you can vote in both primaries. They just like politics so much, you can participate -- I don't even know if they have -- sometimes they have the same day, sometimes they have other. You can vote in both the Democrat and Republican Parties. But for D.C., it is a closed primary, meaning, only Democrats can vote in the primary.

QUESTION: Second question, if you'd allow me.

MR. PLOTKIN: Okay.

QUESTION: Which is, what does happen when a candidate doesn't participate? Like, for in D.C., I can figure that it's not very -- that it has no consequences because there is no delegates. But in a regular primary, what happens when the candidate --

MR. PLOTKIN: That really goes to the phenomena of how candidates decide which primary to enter. This is the Plotkin key. Do two things to win -- I mean, raise a lot of money like Howard Dean does and draw a buzz -- but win early -- do three things: First, win early, and win convincingly.

Second, and very importantly, win where you're not supposed to win. That is, Howard Dean, this New Englander, who is really from East Hampton, Long Island, if he wins in Oklahoma on February 3rd, and wins on Arkansas, they'll say, "Oh, my God, he's got it. He's got it locked up." Win where you're not supposed to win, win early.

And I have forgotten the other one, which is important, but that's good enough. Right now, you have the calculation where, "Let's exclude D.C. and be conventional wisdom." Dean is facing Kerry and Gephardt in the Iowa caucuses. Now I remind you, in Iowa, no delegates are selected. Yes, it's start of the process of selecting delegates. But on that night, not one delegate is selected, and I've seen how the delegates' actual turnout is at the convention compared to the preceding caucuses. Once they view the caucuses, there are other caucuses going up to a state convention.

Nobody pays any attention, and the press is really the villain there. I want a candidate -- and that's what Clarke and Lieberman did. They said, "I'm not participating in Iowa." You know, it's not important. Now, they're not participating because they don't think they can win there. But still, you know, all the states vote, and it used to be that, you know -- and that's why 1952 was the last time we had more than one ballot.

What was your other question? I'm sorry.

QUESTION: No, that was it.

MR. PLOTKIN: Okay.

QUESTION: Well, I wanted to know (inaudible) and you don't.

MR. PLOTKIN: Oh, oh, what I think (inaudible) in real life will get more attention than it -- than they probably think it will. Just by virtue, it's Americans, they're impatient. The Iowa results -- you know, the Iowa straw poll, which is meaningless, meaningless -- George Bush got nominated because he did well in the Iowa -- what is the Iowa straw poll?

You go to some field, farm field and you just put a ballot, and you say, "I'm for these people." And people spent hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars because it was the first test, and the press decided this is the first test. This is an indicator of what's going on.

The national press, I think, we get hurt in D.C. because they don't want to be in D.C. They want to get away from their wives, their girlfriends. They want to stay in fancy hotels and other -- this is a reality, in terms of going to different places. It's not attractive to just stay where you work. I mean there is no sex appeal to that. Get out of town!

So we have been shunned by the institutional, national -- you know, the beltway? We were sort of the reverse recipient inside the beltway, or hurt by inside the beltway because it's no fun, and then D.C. is diminished. They have no senators; they have no House member. It's insignificant. And we're small. I mean, there is only one state, the Vice President's state, Wyoming that is smaller than us.

But I think it will get play. I think -- in fact, my radio station is doing a poll that's coming out with WJLA, and hopefully, that will heighten the interest.

Now, if Dean beats Sharpton here, you'd better believe that Dean, who hasn't made a big deal about it up till now, will make a very big deal about it on January 14th. If Sharpton wins, he'll make a big deal. He'll say, "Look, I won in D.C. I beat Howard Dean." Howard Dean will say, "Well, I never campaigned." And Sharpton will say, "But your name was on the ballot. Why didn't you take your name off the ballot?"

So, I think the primary will have more significance in terms of headlines and press potential, but its original purpose was just not to get headlines. Its original purpose was to draw attention to our unequal status.

MR. DENIG: Okay. We have about four minutes left.

MR. PLOTKIN: I'm sorry. I talk too much.

MR. DENIG: That's all right. Any questions?

MR. PLOTKIN: Did you have a question? Do you have a question? No? Okay, sorry.

MR. DENIG: Any other questions?

MR. PLOTKIN: I mean, it's an oddity, it's a gimmick, it's a stunt, and it was intended to be. So don't try to understand it. It was a PR tactic, but it had a higher calling, and the higher calling was, and then they didn't follow it all the way through. To follow it all the way through was to make this close with this, was to make it like Mississippi '64, which was a very important -- I was old enough -- a very important part of American political history.

And what happened? That's what I didn't mention. In '68, there was a biracial delegation from Mississippi. They allowed two blacks to be, sort of, token to be in the '64 delegation. But it brought the whole world's attention to the plight of black people who were denied and deprived voting rights within their own political party. And that was my thought, and the other people who have been for it -- as I said, I was not the creator, but I was the merchandiser, wouldn't it be wonderful? I want that scene where they don't seat D.C. And you as journalists would say, what is this about? What's going on here? What's the motivation?

And D.C. blew it. We really blew it. Because the local party is so in bed with the national party, and rather than being sympathetic to what should be a larger goal, which is to draw attention to our inherently un-American status, and also, as I said before, politically, to -- George Bush has never been asked a question as a press conference, "How can you be for a democracy in Iraq, and not democracy for D.C.?" If you create enough political pressure, and political visibility, and the issue is elevated, then everybody will start asking the party candidates -- and the Democratic Party, I must say, played lip service. Bill Clinton, on the statehood vote, in November of 1993, didn't make one phone call to the Democratic Party. Richard Gephardt was terrific. That's probably why I'll vote for him, because he was great on the floor, not one.

So the Democrats pay lip service, and say, "Oh yeah, we'll put in the platform, but we won't do anything about it once we get in power." And the Republicans, with the notable exception of very few people, are even -- can get away with being against it. So the idea is, you use a vehicle to highlight an issue, and in some ways, which is so really disappointing and depressing to me, is we were almost there. We got the date changed. But then it required one other thing, which was the local party, and that goes to the psychology of the local party. They were more interested in having little credentials, saying they're delegates, rather than saying, I'm going to pay the sacrifice of maybe not getting into the convention, and being shut out. But why am I doing this? Because there's a higher calling, because maybe four years from now, D.C. will have the vote in the House and the Senate, because of what I did.

So there's, you know, I grew up in the sixties; I'm a prisoner of my own past. This is an Abby Hoffman guerrilla that was, I think, had some legitimacy in a conventional political way.

Now I heard, just as I was coming over here, as an excuse, that there was a meeting today, between the -- for tomorrow, tomorrow, that the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, McAuliffe, the Congresswoman, the non-voting Congresswoman, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and the Mayor, to talk about the primary.

So maybe some heat has been generated. There's talk about Clinton making a major speech in D.C. about D.C. voting rights, and so maybe the idea of this has at least fostered some things from happening, otherwise, D.C. would have gone to the convention, D.C. would have voted Democratic, D.C.'s three electoral votes would have gone -- and nothing would have changed.

So you use what you've got. This is the final comment. George Washington Plunkitt, the fabled boss of Tammany Hall, the big boss of a fabled organization said, "What's your credo?" He said," I saw my opportunities and I took them." This was our opportunity and we didn't take it.

MR. DENIG: Thank you very much, Mike.

MR. PLOTKIN: Thank you.

MR. DENIG: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.