He'll be raising plenty of hell at the convention. And here we were thinking the GOP convention would be fun. Just wait til the Dems take center stage, it will be explosive.
2016 US Presidential Elections | Trump Wins
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He'll be raising plenty of hell at the convention. And here we were thinking the GOP convention would be fun. Just wait til the Dems take center stage, it will be explosive.
Every nationally elected Democrat is a superdelegate. None have cast their "superdelegate votes" yet, they've just endorsed her publicly. So you have to either stop them doing that, or not.
So let me get this straight, they can say they endorse candidate X for president, saying how great he/she is, but then say they are not voting for him/her, or are undecided?
It's actually not.
Ancient history now, but back when there's no superdelegates in place, the 'public' chose two uniformly terrible general candidates that the only reason one of them managed to win once before getting shellacked in the next election is because he was up against an incumbent who was never officially elected and bear the albatross of Tricky Dick around his neck.
Again, they are not casting their votes until the convention now.
Am I misunderstanding you? You believe the superdelegates are good for swaying the nomination if the public attempt to elect candidates that are perceived as poor?
I'm ambivalent about their actual usefulness, as stated eons back in this thread, since Mondale and Dukakis hardly did better than McGovern. But that's the reasoning from party elites, yes. There's always a danger of ideologues/demagogues hijacking the party which can sink them at the general election and consequently damage them for years. Superdelegates are a firewall collectively against that possibility.
Yes. The party should conceal who superdelegates as a whole intend to vote for during the primaries, since they A- haven't actually voted yet and B- revealing it only allows for the perception as we're seeig this cycle, of the party being in the tank for one candidate before the voters get a chance to have their say and subsequently allowing news organizations like CNN to add unpledged delegates (SuperDelgates) to the delegate totals.
The party should find a way to do it or else completely do away with the system and stick to good old fashioned Democracy by way of citizens voting for their preferred candidate.
I agree with Raoul here. The superdelegates can sway voters by creating the perceprion that a candidates lead is insurmountable early on, therefore some might think a vote for the other candidate would be a waste. It also influences the perception of a candidates viability.
Right, so you think there should be no endorsements after all.
This is pretty much the crux of the issue.
Yes. The party should conceal who superdelegates as a whole intend to vote for during the primaries, since they A
Well, you can believe that's feasible, but it's not gonna fly.
Scrapping the system altogether is a logical outcome from your reasoning, with the risk of sinking yourselves like the Dems did in the 70s/80s, or the GOP about to with Trump. This 'endorsing but not show who I'm going to vote for' can't fool a toddler, I'm afraid.
Individuals may endorse, but the party should make it known (as should the media) that endorsements don't guarantee superdelegate votes since they can change their minds, and that actual votes won't take place until the convention - as opposed to now when the media are blatantly adding superdelegates into the delegate totals as if its a done deal, which tends to skew voter perception of what is actually going on.
The system is pretty ridiculous and should be scrapped all together - it's basically just elites deciding who gets to be the nominee, so effectively any candidate who is deemed in sync with the party establishment, can stack the odds in their favor by recruiting agreeable party elites to become superdelegates for them. In this case you have the perfect storm of the Clinton apparatus, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and a cabal of insiders like Donna Brazile, Maria Cardona, and their ilk, who are herding everything towards Hillary.
Is this Raoul or Red Dreams with tidier grammar?
Err... you do know that superdelegates, aka Ex Officio - 'by virtue of their office', must be elected office holders or past Prez, VPs etc right? For example, Hillary is not a super now because she's not holding office. So how can anyone just 'recruit agreeable party elites to become superdelegates for them'?
If you believe in scrapping them, fine, but this is getting in the realm of conspiracy theories. Any candidate that do become the nominee or President will by default be the party leader, so he/she, some could argue, should showcase the ability to persuade and corral other prominent party members to their support.
My preference would be to keep them in place, but decrease the portion of the vote to about 10% and include life long progressives that aren't office holders but are prominent in various progressive movements.
The argument makes sense from a party perspective, I guess I'm a bit tired of party politics in general. So my point would be, while superdelegates are effective for the democratic party, do they effectively represent the people of the US? Are they helping or hurting our democratic process? The whole my team vs your team is taking attention away from very important issues and allows for mechanisms such as superdelegate voting that allows party elites to greatly influence the nomination if not outright decide it.
And yet there are people on the list who don't meet your own criteria. I wonder how on earth that happened.
Hi mate, I've been here for a while. Nice to have company
I ain't comin out with mah guns till Bernie's prez!
What criteria? Fact of the matter is you cant just choose any party member you want and make them a superdelegate, which you seem to think is the case.
The two people i randomly mentioned before are not elected officials. I'm not going to comb through the entire list, but if I can randomly pull two out of a hat, chance are there are more.
Trade wars are funny. Half the time its about trying to save what is a poor capital allocation made in the past.
@whoever is arguing over this: A large number of superdelegates are unelected: http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P16/D-Unpledged.phtml
About accomplishing his platform I agree with you, a GOP Congress makes almost every single policy impossible (it would be different if this was a wave election with the result of a decent senate majority and parity in the house). Though the president does have some control over foreign policy and that would make him markedly different from Hillary.
Well, I'm not arguing over whether Obamacare has been an actual success - I'm no expert, all I'm saying is that it has been spin-ed and damaged enough that a plurality of voters want it gone even when there's nothing to replace it. So, right now, when single-payer seems popular, would be a good time for a leftwing candidate to run. Btw, this contrasts with limited gun control which despite the best efforts of the NRA always has popular support (but a very flimsy legal basis given the SC's precedents on the 2nd amendment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...6d35dc-1c49-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html)
About accomplishing his platform I agree with you, a GOP Congress makes almost every single policy impossible (it would be different if this was a wave election with the result of a decent senate majority and parity in the house). Though the president does have some control over foreign policy and that would make him markedly different from Hillary.
Well, I'm not arguing over whether Obamacare has been an actual success - I'm no expert, all I'm saying is that it has been spin-ed and damaged enough that a plurality of voters want it gone even when there's nothing to replace it. So, right now, when single-payer seems popular, would be a good time for a leftwing candidate to run. Btw, this contrasts with limited gun control which despite the best efforts of the NRA always has popular support (but a very flimsy legal basis given the SC's precedents on the 2nd amendment: https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...6d35dc-1c49-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html)
Brazil's is a former DNC chair, and Cardona I'd presume is one of the 438 elected members of the DNC.
I'd say you can scrap most of those 438, leaving only the 100 chairs and vice chairs from states Democratic party, and get 100 prominent grassroots activists from progressive groups in. Problem solved.
You're really splitting hairs now. We've gone from a corrupt Hillary gaming the electorate to it being a messaging problem. The media like to talk about superdelegates because it gives them a further story, as in 2008, if they start abandoning one candidate for the other. They also forget about them when it suits to make the race look close and maintain interest.
The actually useful thing about endorsers during the primaries, rather than just being a statistic that people can look at, is acting as a surrogate to the media, on the stump and when fundraising. Once again, all in accordance with free speech.
I hope so, it has been obvious for a while that we're probably going to have to settle for a Clinton presidency that is slightly more peogressive than Obama's terms. Not the worst thing ever but more of the rich getting richer, probably an unnecessary war thrown in, and a continuation of the status quo with regards to our broken and corrupt political system.
Well yes, when super delegates are used to coercively give one candidate a clear advantage over another, then the entire system needs to be changed. There is too much at stake to allow this sort of disingenuous light cheating to influence public elections. Just get rid of them completely and we should be in good shape.
Therein lies the problem. If you have a Democratic power structure that is heavily influenced by the Clintons, then all they have to put their hacks into place as superdelegates, then proceed to pad their vote counts before any voting actually begins. Its deceitful bullshit and needs to stop.
Well if you think so then there's really nothing much to say. Personally, I think it's a red herring that's good to get outraged over but won't bring about any substantial improvement once changed.
The real problem is this
As is the case with Oregon voters not bothered to register their affiliation I posted the other day. People are not voting and it's a case of the egg and the chicken.
Why do voters need to have an affiliation to vote for presidential nominees? I get that it is the process of the party but that is the problem. Excluding an entire subset of voters (independents) from deciding who gets to run for president is crazy!
Parties are private organisations. If independents want to be involved in shaping a party platform and choosing its standard bearer, registration with that party for free isn't an unreasonable request. I'm all for same day registration for first time voters and a 1-month cut off point for past voters, mind.
Ratfecking is also another problem. In deep red and deep blue states, the risk is too high to have an open primary. You have a congressional district in NYC with like only 1000 Republicans. Imagine what Dems can do to them just for shits and giggles
The caveat is that primaries are not private events, they are funded and the rules are decided by the respective state governments -- whihc means independents are paying for something they are excluded from.
I'm not advocating one way or the other, I see both sides of this argument as strong.
I'm not advocating one way or the other, I see both sides of this argument as strong.
Semi-closed primaries seem to be optimal.
New PPP poll in Arizona:
GOP voters disapprove of McCain (35-50), but his primary challengers are scattered (he's leading the race at 39%, 2nd is 26%, 27% undecided). I think those numbers are good enough for him, and he also leads the Dem by 6 points (even though he isn't the nominee yet so, again, he should be safe)
Good news on the presidential front: she's close.
Trump Clinton G. Johnson Stein:
40 38 6 2
Trump Clinton
45 41
And the usual way I end all these posts:
Sanders Trump Johnson Stein
42 39 6 2
Sanders Trump
45 44
GOP voters disapprove of McCain (35-50), but his primary challengers are scattered (he's leading the race at 39%, 2nd is 26%, 27% undecided). I think those numbers are good enough for him, and he also leads the Dem by 6 points (even though he isn't the nominee yet so, again, he should be safe)
Good news on the presidential front: she's close.
Trump Clinton G. Johnson Stein:
40 38 6 2
Trump Clinton
45 41
And the usual way I end all these posts:
Sanders Trump Johnson Stein
42 39 6 2
Sanders Trump
45 44
Parties are private organisations. If independents want to be involved in shaping a party platform and choosing its standard bearer, registration with that party for free isn't an unreasonable request. I'm all for same day registration for first time voters and a 1-month cut off point for past voters, mind.
Ratfecking is also another problem. In deep red and deep blue states, the risk is too high to have an open primary. You have a congressional district in NYC with like only 1000 Republicans. Imagine what Dems can do to them just for shits and giggles
I get that, I just think it is undemocratic to have a large number of citizens excluded from picking who gets to run for president, hence my earlier comments that the two party system is broken. I'm arguing that the rules of the game are shit not necessarily that those in the game aren't following them.
Oh, no doubt, but the problem is people out of choice or habit either keep voting for said system, or as Barry said, just abstain altogether, which exacerbate the problem. Thing is, politics is a very messy and slow business, and changes happen very slowly and incrementally, especially in American system with all their checks and balances, which at its worst often leads to gridlock. Most people just have neither the appetite nor the patience for that, and nowadays, the knowledge.
One good thing is because of that system, even 12 years of Reagan/Bush didn't completely feck the country forever. The first thing that will bring about any meaningful change, aside from actual full blown violent revolution, is providing people with better education, especially on civics.
Very good post. The education portion is paramount but even if people are more educated regarding politics it won't help if the system is rigged, there are a number of factors that make it very difficult to fix the current system ranging from corruption and ineptitude to media bias and lack of education. I don't see any of these complex issues being resolved any time soon barring a violent revolution so I guess we try to make very slow progress torwards a country that emphasizes things like healthcare for all, elimination of poverty, and providing quality education for those capable at a reasonable price (should be free but I'd settle for that
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