Emperor Has No Clothes: Don’t Look

What do you do when the emperor has no clothes?

You don’t let anybody look, it seems.

At least that is the state Democratic Party’s approach. They locked their convention’s doors. They shoved - that is the word - the press out.

This slamming-door treatment was all for a vote where the final results were never in doubt. On top of all that, there’s no drama and no stake in the presidential race in Arkansas. Our six Electoral College votes aren’t going to re-elect President Barack Obama under any reasonable set of circumstances.

The only reason for this lockout was to prevent Arkansas from giving the president another embarrassing headline in the national press. Some guy whose only merit is he’s not President Obama got 42 percent of the primary vote here. He was never going to win, but the lack of enthused support for the sitting president made the news.

So the party convened Saturday to pick delegates based on the primary vote.

The party locked itself in. It didn’t come out until it had a 100 percent vote for the president, who was going to win anyway.

The party is in the fight of its life to hang on to a bare majority in the state Legislature. We totter on the edge of going Republican. And what do state Democrats do? They slam the door of their state convention in the public’s face. They do this to spare a president who is extremely unpopular here a fl eeting moment of discomforteverywhere else.

So much for all politics being local.

Now some might contend the party shielded the state from the embarrassment of having the bigotry of some of its citizens exposed. This is bunk. Such an implication smears people who aren’t happy with the president for any number of reasons and denies them the chance to give those reasons.

Racism is a real and powerful force - that should be openly fought. It wasn’t a big enough factor to sink Obama in 2008 in nationwide results. Racism alone isn’t a big enough factor to sink him in 2012, either. So stop hiding behind it. You don’t get to declare the desire for change is why you should be elected, then claim four years later the fact you’re different is why you’re losing.

“The Emperor’s New Clothes” didn’t start as a child’s fairy tale. It’s political satire. It mocks boot-lickers who surround the powerful.

These sycophants would rather let their lord prance around naked than risk losing his favor. In the story, at least everybody is shamed when a kid blurts out the truth. Here and now, they have the kid shoved out and the doors locked behind him. Everybody then goes along like nothing happened.

What a sorry state.

Know what the Democratic Party needs, here and throughout the nation? It needs some democracy. It needs the vitality and the selfcorrection only debate can bring about. It needs to look beyond the naked emperor of the moment and start asking the bigger question: Who’s picking out this wardrobe anyway? Obama’s just wearing - or notwearing, to be precise - the clothes the party leadership tailors for him.

The Democratic presidential primary process is beyond broken. It’s corrupt. Anybody who reads my stuff knows where I’m going with this. The process is so flawed, the Idaho caucus gave Obama as many delegates as Hillary Clinton netted from winning the New Jersey primary in 2008.Want to know why this country has wasted billions of dollars and decades of time on corn-based ethanol?

The first presidential caucus is in Iowa.

Do you believe that big money is corrupting politics in this country?

Then stop looking to the Congress or the Supreme Court to save you. Give voters back some power with a primary process thatisn’t so weighted that a few backpackers in Idaho can cancel out the whole state of New Jersey. Votes are the only possible power that can give money a run for its, well, money.

That would be worth an embarrassing headline once in a while.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.