By EDMUND H. MAHONY | Courant.com
Statehooders hope it calls attention to the injustice of life in one of the world's last colonies.
Commonwealthers want to scare Washington away from even talking about statehood.
And the Independentistas are counting on enough confusion that reporters from the mainland write a simpler story: The "emptiness" of it all.
Welcome to the Democratic presidential primary in Puerto Rico, a place where, for the uninitiated, things rarely are what they seem when politics is part of the equation.
Normally, the island rates an asterisk in national elections. Voters, although U.S. citizens, are prohibited as residents of a territory from voting for president or members of Congress.
But the Democratic Party gives Puerto Rico's 4 million citizens 63 delegates, more than it gives 27 of the states. With Hillary Clinton invigorated by Pennsylvania and again challenging Barack Obama in one of the most contentious primaries ever, Puerto Rico's June 1 election has acquired unprecedented importance as the last big — and potentially decisive — contest on the national calendar.
And that is getting it unprecedented attention.
Over the nine remaining primaries, Clinton's best chance of nomination lies in a cumulative or popular-vote victory, and in using such a win to persuade superdelegates — the party leaders who hold a controlling block of convention votes — that she is more electable than Obama, whose delegate lead at this point looks secure.
Puerto Rico could play a key role in settling the question. Its 2.4 million registered voters participate at rates that shame voters in the states. An independent poll conducted the first week of April showed Clinton leading by 13 percentage points among likely primary voters of both sexes, all ages and from all parts of the island.
Of course, Clinton faces an uphill fight. She will need to remain competitive through primaries in Indiana and North Carolina. And she'll need a favorable apportionment of votes in the disputed states of Michigan and Florida. But if events fall her way — a big if — it could leave Democrats with a mess: one candidate ahead in votes, another in delegates and a nomination fight spilling into summer.
Political leaders in Puerto Rico see opportunity in that mess, a historic chance to draw attention to pressing local issues, foremost among them the fundamental fact of political life on the island: Even if Puerto Rico plays a decisive role in selecting a Democratic nominee, its enthusiastic voters will watch in enforced silence come November.
The contradiction has paralyzed the local political debate for decades, dividing voters into rival camps.
Should the island become a sovereign nation and be done with Washington? Should Congress make it the 51st state, with national voting rights? Or should it remain some form of territory, a status referred to as commonwealth but castigated by statehood advocates and Independentistas as a vestige of colonialism?
Clinton and Obama are profoundly neutral on the island's pre-eminent political issue. A candidate who supports one status alienates devotees of the others. But their local surrogates already are sniping over the issue. That could give the last, big stop on the primary map a decidedly Puerto Rican flavor.
"It is ironic that the colony may end up deciding who the president of the empire is going to be," said Juan Manuel Garcia Passalacqua, an author and commentator in San Juan. "Actually, it is absolutely amazing. Secondly, this primary will have nothing to do with Obama or Hillary. It will be very local, very Puerto Rican."
Quirks
And, potentially, very quirky.
English-speaking candidates will court mostly Spanish-speaking voters on the mountains and beaches of an improbably urgent, Caribbean campaign stop.
They will do so in a Democratic primary on an island where mainland political affiliations, Republican and Democrat, are largely irrelevant. Puerto Rico voters can register to participate in presidential primaries, but identify with local parties built on the competing status options.
It is the island's political leaders who use Republican and Democratic affiliation mainly as a means of gathering support in Washington. With no votes in Congress, those leaders are forced to rely on personal political alliances — and paid lobbyists — to protect Puerto Rico's interests at the nation's Capitol.
"Let's look at the bright side," said Fernando Martin, executive president of the Puerto Rico Independence Party. "The primary is a caricature of colonialism. And if in some way that becomes more evident to Mr. Barack Obama and Mrs. Hillary Clinton, well, all the better. Because, any observer can't but be somewhat shocked by the politically grotesque nature of the event, no?"
While others are voting on June 1, Martin said, the Independentistas will have a "mass rally" to demonstrate "the emptiness of the process" while "trying to take advantage of the fact, I presume, that there will be substantial press from the U.S."
And some in the pro-commonwealth, Popular Democratic Party are hoping for a massive turnout — for a reason their opponents in the pro-statehood New Progressive Party find infuriatingly cynical.
A big turnout in a Democratic primary, the thinking goes, will mortify mainland Republicans who, blind to the nuance of island politics, will take it as a sign that Puerto Rico would send an overwhelmingly Democratic delegation to Congress if admitted as a state.
"Who can convince a Republican that Puerto Rico will not be a Democratic state?" Alejandro Garcia Padilla, a pro-commonwealth candidate for Puerto Rico's Senate asked last month. "The vote in the primary should stop statehood for many generations because no Republican is going to include a state that would have several Democratic legislators."
Statehooders are treating the primary seriously, just as they would if Puerto Rico had a voice in Washington. But they, too, are alert to a chance to make their case.
"I think it draws attention to this grave injustice that you can be a resident of Connecticut and move to Paris and in 30 years of being an American in Paris, you continue voting for president," said Kenneth McClintock, a statehooder and president of the Puerto Rico Senate.
"But if you move to San Juan and continue to live under the American flag, you lose the right to vote for president. An American in Paris votes, while an American in Barrio Paris in Puerto Rico cannot vote."
Hillary Vs. Barack
For their parts, Clinton and Obama are indistinguishably bland on Puerto Rico's status — at least to mainland eyes.
Clinton "strongly believes that Puerto Rico should have the status that a majority of its people want from among all the options." Obama promises to "work closely with the Puerto Rican government, its civil society, and with Congress to create a genuine and transparent process for self-determination."
That hasn't stopped the mining of the campaigns for nuggets of bias.
Some local observers are convinced Obama tipped his hand in February when he wrote Gov. Anibal Acevedo Vila that he could support a local constitutional convention on status, the mechanism favored by Acevedo's pro-commonwealth party to resolve the impasse. Acevedo, a Democrat and Puerto Rico superdelegate, endorsed Obama the following day — a coup until March 27, when the governor was indicted for violating federal campaign finance laws.
On the other hand, many prominent statehooders support Clinton. They believe Clinton obliquely endorsed giving the island the political powers of a state when she said, in a position paper, "All people are entitled to a representative form of government at all levels." What's more, when her husband was president he convened a task force that proposed settling the status issue with two plebiscites, the mechanism backed by statehooders.
Clinton is the better known of the two on the island. She was there to protest the U.S. Navy's use of the island of Vieques as a bombing range and, later, inspected damage from Hurricane Georges. As senator, she has support in New York's large Puerto Rican community, and by extension, among others of the 4 million mainland Puerto Ricans living in places like Hartford and Orlando.
Obama visited briefly late last year for a fundraiser, but did not make a public appearance.
Aside from status, both candidates promise to expand health care benefits, clean up and better utilize the bombing range on Vieques, create jobs and stimulate the economy. Clinton is more specific about bringing federal payments, particularly Medicaid, Medicare and tax credits for parents, in line with what Washington gives the states.
Although issues arising from status surround the primary campaigns, status now appears less likely to be the solely determinative factor that it has been in past elections. That, local analysts said, is due to the loss in a March gubernatorial primary by Pedro Rosselló González, an influential Clinton supporter and arguably the island's most ardent statehood proponent.
Had Rosselló won, many believe he would have moved the Clinton campaign closer to the statehood camp and created more space between the candidates on status.
The result has been what one local wag called "gatherings of strange bedfellows." Clinton and Obama have collected endorsements from local political figures on both sides of the status question — politicians who normally would not share a podium.
Hard To Call
The cross-pollination makes the game harder to call.
When status drives elections, the result is usually a draw, because statehood and commonwealth advocates neutralize one another. That's what happened in the last notable presidential primary, the 1980 contest between President Carter and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Puerto Rico gave Carter, a statehood backer, one delegate more than Kennedy, who supported commonwealth.
Garcia Passalacqua, the San Juan commentator, believes the candidates' declared neutrality this time could yield the same kind of tie — giving lie to the prospect of Puerto Rico's playing the role of pre-convention wild card. When polled in early April, supporters of both candidates said the biggest concern they will bring to the polls is improving relations between Puerto Rico and the U.S. Garcia Passalacqua said that's code for resolving the status impasse.
The candidates "have chosen to be irrelevant to the enormous majority of voters here," he said. "This means participation in the primary will very low ... making it irrelevant, since delegates will split evenly. No wild card in Puerto Rico on June 1st."
Not everyone agrees, including Bruno Haring, whose firm, Research & Research, did the poll. His survey indicates 600,000 have a high interest in voting and the number increases to 850,000 when people who "may" vote are included. He said 700,000 voted in the March gubernatorial primary, a figure believed to be a record in a Puerto Rico primary. Others, including the Clinton campaign, have said the June 1 turnout could be even higher.
Andres W. Lopez, a statehooder and early member of the Obama team, said Obama has worked mightily to transcend the status divide, "because in a sense, this is about something larger than that."
"One of the things I think is terrific about this whole process is that it opens the door for people who may have legitimate differences on the status issue to actually work together for this common goal of getting their Democratic presidential candidate to win the primary."
Lopez, a political novice, could not have sounded more sincere. But former Miami Mayor Maurice Ferre, a Puerto Rican, said that when status is involved, even open-handed gestures to political unity should be viewed with skepticism. He warned anyone watching the primary results on June 1 that what they see may not be what is really happening. The presidential primary could become a trial run by the statehood and commonwealth camps, preparing for their November elections.
"You may think the horse race will be between Clinton and Obama and that's not what it's going to be," Ferre said. "It is going to be between the two local parties and therefore it will completely skew the results, because nobody in Puerto Rico gives a damn who the candidate is. The irony is that Puerto Rico could give Clinton or Obama the result they need, but Puerto Rican voters in reality would have been voting on a local contest."
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