The Arkansas Democratic party may decide not to award delegates to an opponent of Barack Obama in the state’s primary next Tuesday, according to reports. The opponent, John Wolfe, Jr., says if he’s denied rightfully won delegates, the party would be effectively disenfranchising those who chose him over President Obama.
“This is ridiculous,” said Wolfe in an interview with THE WEEKLY STANDARD. “These guys are trying to tamp down voter enthusiasm.”
According to the Associated Press, Arkansas Democratic party spokeswoman Candice Martin claims Wolfe, a lifelong Democrat who qualified to appear on the ballot, did not comply with the party’s rules. “Martin said the national party has told the Arkansas Democratic Party that delegates Wolfe might claim won’t be recognized at the national convention,” the AP reported.
Wolfe says if that happens, he’ll take the party to court. “They took my money and put my name on the ballot,” he said. “They’re trying to make people think it’s hopeless to vote against Obama.”
Wolfe insists he’s done the due diligence to qualify for delegates and that the state party is making decisions ad hoc to get the results they desire. “These people are unbelievable,” Wolfe added.
In a recent poll of Democratic primary voters in one of Arkansas’s congressional districts, the relatively unknown Wolfe trailed Obama by only 7 points, and the president did not even receive 50 percent support. Wolfe, who is also on the ballot for Texas’s primary on May 29, says there is plenty of discontent with Obama within the party but that the Democratic establishment isn’t interested in dissent.
“They want a coronation,” Wolfe said. “They’re conflating him with the party. Are we supposed to call him ‘Dear Leader’? Is this some kind of North Korea thing?”
Wolfe has been critical of Obama for being tied too closely with Wall Street interests and not pursuing a more forthrightly liberal agenda, like a single-payer health care system that Wolfe (and other Democrats, he says) prefer to Obamacare. A lawyer from Chattanooga, Wolfe speaks in a Southern drawl, and he says Obama and national Democrats don’t want to acknowledge that there are members of the party like him.
“He says ‘Chil-ay’ and “Pah-kee-stahn’,” Wolfe says, emphasizing Obama’s pronunciations of Chile and Pakistan. “I say ‘Chil-ee’ and ‘Pack-a-stan.’ They like a person who talks like them.” Wolfe says he’s never heard from the national party or the Obama campaign.
Wolfe also had sharp criticisms of the president’s style. “He doesn’t like to be challenged,” he said. “Strong people don’t mind dissent.” Wolfe says that some of the pressure to quell his presidential campaign may be coming from Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. During a recent encounter with Wasserman Schultz in Chattanooga, Wolfe says the two got into an argument about the rights for Tennessee farmers to sell their goods to Cuba.
With regard to the Arkansas primary, Wolfe says he believes he could even beat Obama on May 22, with the Texas primary soon thereafter and primaries in Montana and even California on the horizon. If the Arkansas party decides not to award him any earned delegates, Wolfe says he’ll make his case at a June 16 party meeting. “We’ll be there to crash the party,” he said.
