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For Democrats, Florida Primary May Not Count
be951 writes "Democratic party leaders are seriously considering making the Florida primary 'nonbinding', meaning they could ignore the actual vote by Florida democrats and allow party leaders to decide how Florida's more than 200 delegates are divided up among the candidates. 'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee. This is in response to Florida's move to an earlier presidential preference primary, which scrambled the primary calendar carefully worked out by the two national parties."
Bear is driving!
How can that be (first post)?!
...that the Illuminati have already decided who they want to be the next US president, and they are worried about the sheep messing it up for them.
Please mod me down: -1, Troll.
Thanks!
A Slashdot troll
The older I get, and the more I learn about US politics, the more the picture becomes clear:
The primary problem is the parties.
The USA has 3 major control structures in the culture: businesses, religions, and government. Each entity within these categories are major hierarchies with internal rules, norm, and oversight (when it works).
The two prevailing political parties are not really in any of these 3 categories, but are (arguably) the most influential and powerful organizations in the society. They literally control the actions and votes of public, elected officials, under threat of reduced support. Now it would seem that they are brazenly making explicit the ability to alter the election process. This level of power in the society is far beyond any other organization.
Having private organizations, without oversight that can manipulate and control elected officials is a very bad thing, and mostly what screws the "democracy" ideals that this country was designed to protect and promulgate. At this point USA has 2 socially-endorsed groups that enforce (as much as they can) one particular world-view onto member politicians with the intent of collecting revenue and support(votes). These two groups are warring over attention of the population but NEITHER ONE really is looking out for preserving the democratic ideals. It is like a poker game, all either one has to do is beat the other party to win, not really play a great game (represent the people). Both parties just private organizations looking to expand their power to promote their view of how the society should be structured.
People don't need them both the voters or (more importantly) the elected officials.
Imagine a world where your senator voted for what your STATE really wanted, and not for what their party line said they should. Imagine a president who made decisions for what was really best for the county, and not for how to get his party's line promoted.
But the aren't willing to practice democracy with a lower case "d".
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
This is, of course, part of the Democracy Reform Movement, popular in both major parties, which will culminate in all elections being 'nonbinding.' It's much tidier that way.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I, for one, welcome our new democrat overlords.
Okay, now that I'm done with that, why would the democrats even consider this? It may be just a primary... but it's usually the most dedicated voters who turn out for primaries. Alienating them would not be a good thing for their party.
Moving the primary to such an earlier date was tried in the '99 Republican primary in Louisiana, and it didn't take so well (partially because the party chair was such a nutcase). Primaries ARE moving up, though, and I would like to see a few early ones spread more around the country than just New Hampshire and Iowa. The national parties (and candidates) don't like to play along...because of the travel that it entails, I suppose.
Other than that, I don't mind the primary system all that much in the US. Each state has its own particular "flavor" of primaries, and they work rather well.
They aren't the problem...it's the money involved that doesn't give lower-tier candidates (who occasionally make sense) a chance, but I don't want my tax money to go to one of them for their campaign.
Is it too late to declare the 2000 and 2004 elections to be non-binding? Maybe we could set up a new system by which the votes of individual Americans are considered to be "suggestions" rather than actual statements of desire. Heck, lets just go back to the more traditional system of watery tarts distributing scimitars.
Life needs more saving throws.
Of course this has nothing to do with hanging chads... I mean - who DOESN'T think Florida has a working voting system in place...
(I didn't see anyone else bring it up...)
My Slashdot Journal! YAY!
That's not going to happen because this is POLITICS.
Human beings are not wired that way. They form groups. The group can be based upon ANYTHING.
And once you start a group, by definition, everyone else is part of "them".
You do what you can to help your group and hamper "them".
if they republicans are the amateurs, then how were they able to get bush elected? twice??
mod parent down "Score:-1, Absolutely Retarded"
Democrats vote for YOU!
Hmm...emphasis is wrong...
Democrats vote FOR you!
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
How do we hold a candidate accountable if they switch their "views" to lure votes from the opposing party? Say, Obama becomes pro-life and pro-war after the primary, claiming that God spoke to him or something. In that sense, disregarding the early vote increases democracy by increasing the number of people who get to vote for the same "package" in a primary and in a presidential election.
Is laid out pretty well in Broder's piece today in the Washington Post.
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The way primaries are handled varies from state to state. Personally I think that only members of a party should ever be eligible to vote in that party's primary. You could register as the other party in order to [help] sabotage their primary, but then you wouldn't be eligible to vote in your primary, and your party would look weak and since the world operates not on reality but on the perception of reality, it would become weak, and thus it's not a good tactic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The Democrats counted the votes enough times in 2000 to hold them over!
Speaking of 2000, what happened to all that "every vote must be counted" line they kept giving? I can't even say that they only want Democratic votes counted because it looks like they are the only ones being thrown out, and it's Democrats doing it!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
And isn't Florida the very state they did this insisting about?
For a party promoting their open, inclusive, and ethical values over the opposition, they're not having a very good year of it so far.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Does that mean the Beloved Party is prepared to go back to actually picking their presidential candidate at the conventions? Will the Other Beloved Party be following suit?
Well, if nothing else, this will make the conventions interesting and potentially historically significant again, but not necessarily for the reasons the parties will like.
Another possible outcome is that, if Florida's "non-binding" primary vote is ignored, Florida may decide to put forward its own electoral slate, committed to their original choice rather than who the party puts forward. This makes things even more "interesting."
RTFA
The party rules are that a state can't hold the primary before February 5. Florida is going to break that rule and the Democrats have to figure out what the penalty should be.
Primaries aren't really part of the democratic process. In fact, they somewhat retard it.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
meaning they could ignore the actual vote by Florida democrats
This is "democracy" at work. Then they wonder why there's such apathy and poor turnout among voters. Why vote if it doesn't do anything anyway. To those who choose to believe the lie about how important your vote is - take note. You are now a slave, you just don't know it yet.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If it wasn't for election cheating in Florida (and later in the Supreme Court), we wouldn't have had the slow-motion disaster that is the Bush II "administration".
In light of this I say that Florida (and the Supreme Court) from now on never be allowed to participate in the election of the office of President, not at all, ever again.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
I like the idea of making the primaries go one at a time in order from most to least % (of total elegable pop, not just regestered voters) turnout in the last election
The Iowa caucuses are non-binding, and that didn't prevent them from deciding the 2004 Democratic nomination. The 24/7 news media is so desperate for media that they will over-play any event, no matter how insignificant it's intended to be. You didn't hear that John Kerry won a non-binding caucus that, due to its format (no secret ballots, and caucus-goers need to stay at the events for far longer than it takes to cast a ballot) might not even reflect the will of the Democrats of Iowa, much less the Nation. You heard that John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts. You heard this for a solid week every time you turned on a TV, opened a newspaper, or listened to the radio. Once they'd finished carpet bombing America with the results to the point where everyone knew what had happened a few day later, they spent the rest of the week with talking head after talking head dissecting WHY John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts. Even their coverage of what the candidates were doing in New Hampshire introduced Kerry as the Iowa winner, Edwards as the young attractive runner up, and Crazy Howard Dean. Wesley Clark chose to ignore Iowa, and it's unclear if anyone even knew he was in the race a week later. No grassroots campaign, no amount of phone calls, ad purchases, emails, or even door to door visits can equal the impact this had on undecided voters, and what do you know, a week later New Hampshire believed that John Kerry was a winner, John Edwards was a cute number 2, and Howard Dean was bleeping nuts.
The Florida Dems can make the contest non-binding, but the point is moot if coverage of their primary decides the outcome in all the binding contests that happen after the Florida Primary. Unless, of course, Iowa 2008 has already decided the race by then.
Maybe make it like the NFL draft- if New Hampshire wants to be first so badly, make them give some concessions to the state that got the highest turnout in order to swap places.
Sig cannot be found.
The most dedicated "aka" extreme voters turn out for the primaries.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
As a Floridian, Democrat, and citizen of Tallahassee (it's always weird seeing things about your relatively small town... like all the references to Tallahassee on Lost), i must say that this is ridiculous. i don't want Florida deciding Hilary when i want Obama to win! (that is a personal political matter, i don't want to start arguing about the two sides, my point is i want my choice to count)
Every vote must count, and especially here where we have so many voting problems.
In Soviet Russia, elections bind you!
doesnt count? This sounds illegal if not unconstitutional. If a group can reelect themselves without the need for citizens voting we're in serious trouble. How long till Congress decides, we dont need to have a vote, we'll choose who is best for president.
If I read correctly, it was the state level republicans that
changed the date, and the democrats are reacting to that.
emt 377 emt 4
that shouldn't be a big deal... after all, back in 2000, the actual Florida election didn't count! hey-o!
stuff |
I guess this means Pat Buchanan doesn't have a chance. Again.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
The real problem is the intermixing of large states with small ones. They need to do this in 3 or 4 waves. Start with a group of the smallest states, in term of electors (New Hampshire, Wyoming, mississippi, etc). Then 4-6 weeks later, a wave of next larger states. Then 6 weeks later, the largest states, who can sway the vote one way or another (such as CA, NY, Ill, Texas, etc). If done in this fashion, it allows the candidates to get everywhere in fairly short period of time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's easy to poke fun at the Democrats on this (and I'm not claiming that's what you're doing), but the facts are much more prosaic. When the Republican controlled Florida state legislature and the Republican Florida governor first considered moving the primaries up to make their state more relevant (and, hence, other states less relevant) there was talk that both the RNC and the DNC might not support this, but that the RNC probably would feel compelled to since it was done primarily by Republicans.
Now that it appears to have moved beyond the consideration phase, the Democratic party is considering not having it count. IIRC, there is precedence for this. Also, for the record, (well) before the Florida legislature started considering this, both the RNC and DNC had a policy against such an early primary. The RNC is bending (i.e., breaking) that policy (I assume), and the DNC has not yet said if they will or not. For the record, if it was a Democratic legislature instead of a Republican legislature, I am quite certain that all roles would be reversed (including the early waffling).
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
You only vote for electors in the Electoral college. They can technically vote for whomever they want to be president. They are usually elected from the hard-core ranks of the party, so it doesn't happen often, but it has before. Only 24 states have laws to punish electors for voting differently. But those are punishments, they don't actually force the elector to vote in a certain way. They are known as Faithless Electors
The Secret Service is good, but they're not that good. If an overwhelming segment of the U.S. population wanted the President gone -- as in, really gone, he'd either have to step down or wait for some nut to get lucky with an RPG on his limousine.
Or, at least, that's how it was supposed to work. You might as well rephrase the question, "how do we deal with a candidate if they decide to make themselves King after taking office?" The answer is the same.
My take that "front-loading" is the main reason states move their primaries forward. Primaries are a huge deal, but only if you're one of the first few states to have them. After that, the primaries have been decided.
The Democratic Party is a private organization. (The same for any political party, it's not just the DNC) It should be up to them to determine -- by their own means and at their own expense -- who their candidate is that they want to promote in the General Election.
Why does the state fund an election cycle which benefits nobody but the political parties?
Why should the state be able to, as it does in many states, tell the Democratic party that "Your sworn enemies, the Republicans, get to vote in determining who you will put up against them in the election"?
Political parties should be able to determine their candidate in whatever fashion they so choose -- intraparty elections, interparty elections, closed-door back-room top-secret stategy-meeting decisions, randomly chosen powerball winner, whatever they want . The only people who really should have any say are the members of the political party in question (and even then, in accordance with their own organization charter, etc., etc.)
But certainly this is not a matter that the government should be involved in at all.
If the Dems decided to make the primary vote in Florida "non-binding", then Florida Dems have no compelling reason to go vote in the Democratic primary. However, they do have a compelling reason to vote in a primary where the votes will be binding:the Republican primary. How would they do that? Simple, they just change their registration from Dem to Repub for the Republican Primary and then switch back for the general election, or just simply vote for the Democratic nominee. Now the question is why should the Florida Dems vote in a Republican primary? There's a simple answer to that question as well: To vote for the weakest, most unlikely Republican candidate to win the general election in November 2008. The Republican candidates will end up spending a lot of campaign money for the Florida primary, while Democrats will save their money for states like California, New York, and Texas. And frankly, they can do this because it's not like Florida Democrats are going to have a choice. In the general election they will, like most Democrats across the country, either vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is, or stay home. Florida Republicans may have fucked themselves here if this actually happens.
1. I believe the framers of the U.S. Constitution thought that governments that have multi-party systems don't work. So, they structured things to sort themselves out into a couple of parties. Maybe someone else can verify/clarify this some more, but a few-party system was never viewed as a problem.
2. all either one has to do is beat the other party...
Your simplified statement strikes a cord. But when it comes down to election time, voters are more considerate than you give them credit and the competition benefits voters.
3. NEITHER ONE really is looking out for preserving the democratic ideals
That responsibility does not belong to the political parties. That responsibility lies with the voters. When people let the Executive branch dramatically expand their powers and actively pursue unlimited executive powers for years now then the only place to look for what's wrong is at each other.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I believe it was Boss Tweed who once said, "I don't care who does the electing, so long as I get to do the nominating." He was (ironically enough) a Democrat.
"nope, it doesnt count"
The thing you have to understand is that this is not Florida state's primary, its the Florida Democratic Party's primary. The Republican legislature is pulling its usual dirty tricks: telling the Democratic party that the election infrastructure for a primary will only be available outside the acceptable range of dates.
If I were the Democratic state chair, I'd call the bluff: tell the governor that the Democratic Party intends to hold its primary on March 11 2008 as scheduled and requests that the state make the normal voting infrastructure available. If the Republican legislature insists on disenfranchising Florida Democrats then the Florida Democratic Party will implement a vote-by-mail primary for all registered Florida Democrats on March 11 at the party's expense.
It'd cost around $10M but there's lots of money in the process this cycle anyway and if spun right the party would get at least that much free press as a result.
and as a taxpayer, I strongly object to spending any public money on primaries. They are not in any way "elections," they only server to reduce the choices we have. If the parties don't want to run half-a-dozen candidates in a real election, let them figure out how to reduce that number, by private means.
Furthermore, I think the party system is all a big scam on the public. The major parties two sides of the same coin. Where there are differences, they are minor when viewed in context, and are artificially inflated to make the electorate perceive that they have some kind of choice.
The major parties agree very completely, and work quite effectively together, on the one thing that matters most to both of them - maintaining and building power and authority over ordinary citizens.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Primaries are run by the parties, they're free to make up any rules they want.
[Insert pithy quote here]
All of this fiddling and finagling with the primary calendar has the effect of making some State's primaries have more influence on the selection process than others. It also makes the primary process unnecessarily long, expensive and grueling. The obvious answer is to have one Primary Day for the whole nation, and we go and vote, and that's it. The Media would hate it as a long primary season generates a lot of news stories for them that are easy to cover. Broadcasters would hate it as it would concentrate all the political ad revenue during a shorter period of time, leaving them scrambling during the other parts of the year. But it would reduce the horse-race aspect, the front-runner syndrome and overimportance of new hampshire and iowa, two otherwise wholly unremarkable states. People would have to go out and vote for the person they chose as opposed to the ones who had been doing best in previous primaries.
'I think it's much higher than 50-50 that we will make Jan. 29 a nonbinding' election, said Jon Ausman, a veteran Democratic organizer in Tallahassee and member of the Democratic National Committee.
I know what he meant: that it is more than likely than not that the primary will be non-binding. That is to say, the non-binding part has a more than 50% chance of becoming reality.
However, for the daily dose of pedantry, I first read that quotation and thought "What? Much higher than 50-50? Like 100-100? 1000-1000?" How much higher can we get? There's only 100% you can divy up here, so "much higher than 50-50" seems to defy probability.
I see no evidence that the "American people" make smart decisions in choosing their leaders when there are many choices. There is little if any thought given to making a selection among 5 or more candidates. Very early in the process, they winnow their choice to 1 or, alternatively, they wait and make the selection with the last good word they hear. When the party politicians select their candidate, they have at least some sensible criteria. You may not agree with the criteria, but it is present. "W" could not have been elected if we disbanded the national primary system. He simply was not qualified by any reasonable standard.
The primary system is only suitable for deciding that someone is "electable" and not for deciding the candidate is a suitable choice.
The same situation does not hold for the election. Given a clear, distinct choice between exactly 2 alternatives, the people electorate attempts to make a sensible choice. I do not always agree with the result, but the reasons for the choice are generally clear.
"If all the American people want is security, let them live in prisons." Eisenhower
If primary season is over too quickly, you are very likely going to end up with buyer's remorse. I don't think John Kerry was the majority's first choice within the Democratic Party. But before you knew it, Dean stumbled, Kerry is the victor.
This will happen much more often in the future unless this is changed. Or...they start campaigning in early 2007. I'm sick of the election already. Only 1 and a half more years of this.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Excuse me but, when is a state bound by political party rules? If a state wishes to make themselves more relevant in the primary process -- and face it, currently two tiny states have influence far beyond what is justified by their populations -- sovereignty alone justifies them in enhancing the value of their voters. In fact, I'd say it's incumbent, if not required, of them to do so.
And if the Democratic party doesn't agree -- I'm not hearing the Republicans complaining yet -- whose going to come out looking the worst in this battle?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
hax
Welcome to the new Democratic Party. They are taking their lead from the Supreme Court who have recently cited foreign law in formal Opinions. In this case the Democratic party has taken their cue from Soviet and Chinese law. Fidel Castro is cheering this move, I am sure.
In Canadian federal elections, some tax money is provided to the parties if there was sufficient support in the last election. If 4% or more of the popular vote was achieved, then the party receives $1.75 per vote received to use in the next election.
Private donations are allowed, though the amount is capped (I'm not sure how easy the caps are to circumvent). This allows previously unpopular parties to join the process.
It's a good system, allowing unknowns a chance at gaining traction while limiting influence via contributions.
So what? They reacted to nothing by making the primary irrelevant.
I hate you stupid fucking apologists so much, you morons have ruined political discourse with your ignorant attempts to support your idiot party no matter how badly they behave.
You hear all those jackasses still saying good things about Bush and the war? THAT'S YOU YOU STUPID FUCK, just playing the game from the other side.
STFU
Excuse me but, when is a state bound by political party rules?
When it's holding elections for political party nominations, of course.
This is yet another example of why both state and federal government need to get out of party politics. Unlike many of the posters here, I don't think the two-party system is necessarily a bad thing. Throughout American history, almost from the very beginning, there have been two major parties (and since the mid-19th century, those parties have been called Democrats and Republicans) but they've changed positions on just about everything several times; whenever an issue gets divisive enough, big chunks of one or both major parties splits away and join the other, or sometimes coalesces into a third which then becomes one of the big two, replacing the husk of one of the old ones. "The Democratic position on X" and "The Republican platform for Y" are by no means set in stone.
But that being said, there is no reason whatsoever why the government (any government) should treat the party nomination processes in the same way as official election processes. If Democrats in Florida or Republicans in Texas or for that matter Libertarians in North Dakota want to make their particular contribution to choosing their party's candidate on a certain day, that should be an issue between them and the national party leadership. And they should do it (primary, caucus, whatever) in a way they work out between them. There is no reason different parties have to do it at the same time, or in the same way, and most of all, neither the state nor federal government has any reason to be involved.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
The voters won't be interested. We want the voters interested.
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"Florida violated the Democratic party rules blah blah blah..."
Um, so what? I'm not beholden to the Democratic party, they are beholden to me. They work for me. If my duly elected representatives choose to exercise their ability to change an election date, what the fuck makes you think the Democratic party, which is not duly elected, has ANY say whatsoever?
They don't like it? Fuck them. It's not a state's responsibility to give a shit about them.
I really don't know why you think what the Democratic party wants means two shits, but you're wrong.
Once upon a time, we didn't do Primaries. The Party bigwigs picked the candidates, and the people lived with the bigwigs' choice.
Later, some people decided they wanted more say than the Party bigwigs were allowing them, and things were changed.
First, they went with the Caucus. Which worked pretty well, except that "real people" couldn't really do anything - the Party bigwigs could just keep the Caucus arguing till all the people who had to make a living went home, then pick who they'd like.
Later, they went with the Primary. Of course, elections are expensive, so they got the States to foot the bill (wonderful thing, to have enough clout with the State Legislatures to get them to pay your bills). Which is where we're at today.
Note that there's nothing sacred about New Hampshire and Iowa. They have the first Primary and Caucus because their State Parties set the dates early. There is no moral imperative on anyone's part, nor is there a legal imperative, to NOT move any given State's Primary to an earlier date than those two.
I'm all for the race to an early decision on candidacy. By the time we get all the Primaries back to more than two years before the election, everyone will have forgotten the who the candidates are by the time the real election comes around.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
"When it's holding elections for political party nominations, of course."
Source that please. I'd like to see the legislation that requires a state to base it's elections on rules of an unelected group of lobbyists.
I'll wait.
Read the Supreme Court decision: basically, states are only allowed to regulate the internal business of political parties (such as how a Party chooses its nominees) up to the point where those parties are "state actors" -- which is a pretty strict test. Parties are private organizations; if the state of Florida decides it wants to hold a Primary election on January 29th, so be it, but it has *absolutely no expectation* that those of us who are Democrats from the rest of the country will honor the results. In fact, we have rules ( http://www.demconvention.com/a/2007/03/delegate_se lect.html ) to the contrary.
It's not unusual at all. Idaho has a Primary on May 27th; because the Idaho Primary is *not* restricted to people who are willing to commit to being Democrats (again, in response to the Jones decision), we have a *binding* caucus which has recently been moved up to Feb. 5th. I believe the Republicans here actually observe the Primary for Presidential delegate selection (that's *their* business), but the only part of it that is binding for Democrats is the election of down-ballot candidates (and the overwhelming majority of those Democratic Primary races are generally uncontested anyway).
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
You're right. What a case of mistaken generalization. You're an individual. You *are* unique.
;-)
Just like everyone else
There's nothing tech or science related in this story. Just an attempt by someone to "important" and "relevant" again.
I don't come to slashdot for pure politics. If there are more stories along these lines, I will lose interest and stop visiting.
This is a tech site. If some of the editors want a politics site, go start it.
Which is why Washington abolished the government after the Whiskey Rebellion and we all live in Libertopia now, right?
Or maybe it means that government is prone to abuse when left unchecked, and that only systems of reciprocal accountability can prevent corruption and oppression. Imagine that.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
is not the job of voters. If someone gets bored by national discussions of policy differences between party nominees, instead of "who screamed when", penetrating analysis of primary successes and failures, maybe they shouldn't vote.
Also, do you get a big kick out of starting sentences in the subject line? I tried it, and it was so-so.
I'm not sure why that pompous ass get's paid to spew forth conventional wisdom that is usually wrong.
The mistake made was the 2004 primary season, a lot of states moved up their primaries so they were bunched together in February. The idea, espoused by the DNC party chair, was to have a candidate chosen by March so they'd have a longer time campaigning.
The result, with the assistance of the MSM, and the boring fact that candidates started campaigning a year before the primaries, was that by the time Iowa and New Hampshire occured everybody was bored to death and just wanted it over. The shortcutting of the primaries in February made this easy to accomplish, and so it was done.
So now this year, every state in the Union wants to be part of that "choice", and they think the only way they can become part of that choice is by moving up their primary as well.
Broder's solution, a typical convoluted one, involves rotating primary schedules, blah blah blah. That is, we continue to have everything happen early, and we have the long drawn out boring summer. It's just different states will decide each time.
But that's not the problem.
The problem is that the nominee is known prior to the convention. That's the actual problem. It causes the summer to be boring, but more importantly it means that the Convention is not covered in any detail by the media. The downside of that, is that the party does not get much of an opportunity to get their full message out in an unadulterated fashion. Which means the voters are more reliant than ever on the idiot pundit class.
It's really simple to solve. Go back to the pre-1972 way of things. Back when the parties choose decent candidates in smoke filled rooms, rather than letting the people decide so all we get is a panderer. Back when the nomination wasn't known until after the 15th ballot at the Convention.
Hell, choosing the Pope got more media coverage then the last political convention.
Well, when I think of Politics...I think of Slashdot.
Ok, so someone want to tell me how in the fuck this has anything to do with technology?
WTF? Over?
At this rate, one might as well declare any major election involving the Daley dynasty in Chicago nonbinding as a response from the right-wing.
(Or is the election not really up to the highest bidder there, media time excluded?)
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This from the party that claimed the Florida elections were rigged and had all these Floridians saying, "I voted, but my vote didn't count!". Isn't this a little like pouring salt on the wound?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Most of florida will be under water in 20 years anyhow...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There is a fair way to set up the primary schedule, and it would make the races more exciting.
The first step is to use the Maine-Nebraska method of choosing electors. In both states, the winner in each congressional district gets one electoral vote, and the overall state winner gets two electoral votes. If we extend this to cover the entire nation, it would give candidates a reason to visit normally uncompetitive states, because there could well be battleground districts inside.
The second step is to have per-district primaries. You could have primaries in 2-3 districts per day (or a dozen every Tuesday), either randomly chosen or via some selection criteria to make it fair. Once all the districts in a state had their primaries, the combined vote could be used to select the over all winner for the final set of delegates corresponding to the two electors one gets in the general election (there are a lot more delegates than electoral votes, and I know there are "superdelegates" you'd have to stick in somewhere). Candidates would have to run a truly national campaign right from the start, but they wouldn't be blown out by an "Ultra Tuesday" where half the country votes at once.
By the time the conventions came around, candidates might visit states several times, rather than visit once and then off to the next primary. I'm pretty sure Iowa gets lonely after their caucus, as does New Hampshire after their primary (though the latter only has a couple of districts, so it wouldn't do that much more), and California has several competitive districts compared to the solid blue status as a state.
er...
A blog about stuff.
Lincoln Chafee.
The parties in the US do not have anything close to the party line discipline that parliamentary systems have.
Parties may be bad, but every democratic system in existence has them. What is bad about the US system is that it is so slanted against minority parties. What is bad about many parliamentary systems is that minority powers often can tip the balance of power, giving them too much power.
A system with parties that imposes relatively weak party discipline is not an unreaonable compromise.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Then by that logic the Democratic party as a whole, the party made up by members of _OTHER_ states who want to be relevant can just universally agree to ignore the Florida results.
Which is exactly, i guess, what is going to happen.
And if other states want to enhance the value of THEIR voters they can do that and I guess what the democratic party as a whole is wanting to do makes perfect sense, in fact to ignore someone who goes outside the party rules like Florida is almost incumbent, if not required, for them to do so.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
It's in everyone's interest to have a system where candidates who don't have a bazillion dollars from the get go have a chance. Such a system only tests the ability of candidates who can raise a lot of money up front. A system where the primary starts in smaller states allows candidates who might be stronger in the long run to have a chance by getting started with less money and more "sweat equity". It's not perfect of course because it does give Iowa and NH more clout than is reasonable.
However it's in any individual state's interest to moveits primary ahead.
Flordia is a large state; placing its primary shortly after NH tilts the game in favor of early money raising. NH makes or breaks many candidates, but if FL is right after NH then the election is over for many candidates before a single vote is cast.
Personally, I think the primaries should be structured so that (1) relatively unknown candidates with relatively small war chests have a chance and (2) they produce competitive races up until the last primary vote is cast.
Think of it as a design problem. How would you design a system that meets those criteria?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
At the time that the U.S. Was founded British politics was dominated by two major parties, the Whigs and the Tories. Despite initial differences in the philosophies of the two groups (according to some) they were in essence pure factions fighting less over any extant policy (since both groups answered to the same basic economic interests) than over "beating the other guy." This infighting occupied almost the whole of the government and included disputes such as what party the generals should be from and the potential for advancement in the military less attached to qualifications than to political connections. At least one Naval officer was court martialed on false charges. It is also just possible that a few of their many many wars were driven by the need for party gain as opposed to any real Causus Belli. The two parties had become an end in themselves and to hell with actually governing.
At the time of the U.S.' founding the founding fathers believed, rightly, that the two groups were soley interested in serving themselves and didn't give a damn about making life better in the colonies, as evidenced by the bizarre handling of the French and Indian Wars.
Because of this the founder believed that parties should be avoided at all costs lest we go the way of the British and cease to be so focused on the struggle to survive as opposed to petty factionalism. As such they sought to avoid parties at all costs even as they unwittingly laid the groundwork for them in the early federalist-states-rights fights. They knew, and feared, that any nation governed by entrenched parties would be divided more than united by them, and driven more to irrational opposition than actual operation.
It is kind of like two cults duking it out over what color the priest's robes should be while their followers starve.
The parties are like injecting two types of concrete in the system each one will bond to its own kind but not the other. The only end result is gars that stick 'just because'.
> There's just too much money involved in politics. That makes the stakes high, which means
> more money gets poured in, and so on.
The money is there because the stakes are high, you can't seperate em and bluntly I wouldn't want to. What I would prefer is attack the root cause of the problem.
Put government back into the limited role the Founding Fathers envisioned for it and it won't be important enough to attract the money it currently does. Because government consumes half of the economy and it is done mostly based on political decisions rewarding political favors everyone, rightly mind you, decides they would be fools to ignore the government. So they buy lobbists and found/fund PACs. Because a whim from an influential Committee Chairman or Dept Secratary can either ruin your whole industry or throw obscene amounts of money at you.
Depending on who wins the PR & lobbying spin war you are either a valuable (and worthy of billions in subsidies) alternative energy producer or an evil (that must prevented from destroying the 'family farmers') agri business conglomerate. But if the Federal government were reigned back into the limits set out in the 9th and 10th Amendments it would have neither the power to decide how big a farming operation 'should' be, nor would they be in the business of deciding to take money from one group of people and subsidize another. So ADM would have little reason to buy lobbyists. And the same logic would work with 90% of the rest of the current pressure groups, not just picking on ADM, they are just playing the game by the current rules.
Democrat delenda est
They started in on the same spiel in 2006 about election fraud and this and that before the election was over. When they realized they gained the majorities they desired, suddenly it was crickets chirping.
And that is deciding what is best for you.
US voters elected a democrat majority in congress in 2006 with a mandate to end the war in Iraq. instead of listening to the voters they are debating how to continue funding the war until 2008. why should we care what they do with their primary? it doesn't matter because no matter the outcome of the elections their party will continue to support the interests of a tiny wealthy elite over those of the working class majority.
is that the Democrats have already decided to commit political suicide and run Hillary.
For the uninitiated, it is a fallacy to think of the whole of America as a beautiful, progressive shining city on a hill. Most of America is not NYC, San Fran, Chicago, and other progressive bastions. The whole of America, and especially of the red states is a lot more like Tulsa, Oklahoma. They send their kids to Bob Jones University, a Taliban-like environment that forsook its tax-exempt status rather than relax its ban on interracial dating.
To give you a better idea, consider that 35 per cent of Americans view the Bible as the literal and inerrant word of the Creator of the Universe. Approximately 40 per cent take a literalist view of creation. In other words, anywhere from a third to half of my (for now) countrymen believe that the same deity who created 250,000 species of beetles wrote a book that is stylistically inconsistent, self-contradictory, and consists largely of mistranslations from documents of dubious provenance. Yet, this country makes its public policy based on quotes taken out of context from said book.
What does this have to do with Hillary? Well, the Bubbas aren't going to vote for her or any other woman in a million years. Despite his international popularity, the Christian Reich^H^H^H^H^HRight thought Bill Clinton was a quarter-step above Satan. They will come out in force to fight her with every fibre of their being. That, and the Bible says that women are to be "submissive" to their husbands. In other words, they sure as hell have no business in the White House.
The fact that she voted for the Vietraq war will not stop the RepubliKKKans from portraying her as an extreme leftist. And if it comes right down to it, they'll manipulate the election to make it close enough that they can hit the Diebold button and ensure a Romney or Giuliani victory.
Bottom line, the Democrats couldn't pick a worse candidate, yet the party has already anointed her to be The Nominee. This is just further proof of what a sham the primaries really are. In 2004, the grassroots wanted Howard Dean, but The Party decided that Ketchup Man was the guy. We were then left with a Hobson's choice of which Bonesman to vote for. We got the chimp whose Skull and Bones name was and still is "Temporary." Things aren't looking much better this time around.
O Canada, our Home and Native Land . . .
Rightwing mods, fire away, I have karma to burn.
Well said!
Now if only they could find a way to make the 2000 Presidential election non-binding.
And before I get flamed, I am both a Republican and a Floridian. Funny, saying both of those things used to make me proud.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Never forget that principle is a facade in politics. People pick and choose their positions based on emotional investment combined with thirst for power. Then they back-fill the rationale to support the decision.
There is no need for consistency in philosophy -- if a political theory supports one position, it is touted for that position. If it opposes a position of the same politician on a different issue, it is ignored.
Hence you get Democrats all bent out of shape over "every vote counts" for Al Gore, but ignoring it wholesale when it gets in their way, as it does here (or in counting the mailed military votes in Florida for 2000, for that matter.)
And yes, the Republicans do this wholesale, too.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"and this relates to tech news how??" crowd.
Give me a voting method (Approval, Range, IRV, I don't care) that gives third-parties a reasonable shot and we can talk about "de-regulating" primaries. Until then, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let the party leaders have the final word on who gets the nomination.
... as long as there's adequate competition. The problem is that plurality elections don't give you the same kind of competition that you'd find in the marketplace, so you end up with a duopoly. Institute a voting system such as Approval, Range, or IRV (or many others) and you'll introduce a level of competition that can allow young parties to challenge the majors. Once that starts to happen, the parties will be a lot less aloof.
MOD THE TROLL DOWN!!!
I'll simply point out that your claim that the status quo results in the best possible outcome is proof that the system is seriously broken. You believe that Bush/Perot/Dole/Clinton/Gore/Kerry/Bush are the best that the US could produce in the past 4 elections? Thanks for proving my point. You're seriously deluded if you think that the will of the people is reflected in the choices we're offered. It's the media which selects candidates, and big business which funds them. Sorry for pissing in your Wheaties. Doubly sorry that you're such a naif.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
But what does this have to do with nerds? Or stuff that matters?
/. for the 3+ funnies, but I'd usually expect it to be at least vaguely related to *something* technical. This is purely internal US politics, is it not?
I'll freely admit that I generally read
I'm sure it's very important to the USians amongst the community, but to be blunt, it matters not a shit to the rest of us.
Warning: May contain nuts
They should just declare that all primaries more than a month before the national convention shall be treated as irrelevant to the party.
;-)
We need some way of stopping this gradual escalation of primaries to earlier and earlier dates. We're rapidly reaching the stage where primaries will be held more than four years before the election.
Actually, are there any laws stating that parties have to honor the results of primaries? Is there a reason that a party shouldn't just tell the most idiotic state governments to go to hell, and refuse to seat their delegates?
(For that matter, is there a reason that the voters shouldn't tell the parties to go to that same hell?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Of course the primary isn't going to count, it's the 2012 primary. New Hampshire has responded by holding the 2016 primaries next week.
I live in California. Not once has my primary vote decided a damn thing.
It's like we're calling into American Idol even though we're watching the next day on TiVo.
Political parties suck
Millions of innocent human beings gruesomely executed each year - and that has nothing to do with social justice?
Please mod me down: -1, Troll.
I don't think that calling the moderators a troll is going to work, dude.
This is a question that many people are still asking. In my opinion, the problem the Democratic candidates have had for a while is a lack of true leadership, and not understanding why so many states stay either Democrat or Republican, regardless of who the candidates are. You need to ask the question to come up with a solution, and it just doesn't seem to be asked.
The solution I've come up with(that those in power will probably never hear or take notice of), is to educate the people in ALL 50 states about what the issues really are. If a Democrat goes through farm country and starts talking about the standard issues(abortion, war, taxes, etc...), the majority of the people who tend to vote Republican will hear something they don't like and will stick with their party. If they instead hear about the rights of the people, and making sure that both the farmers and the people in cities, and all the different groups have the right to disagree, and because they have the right to disagree, that also means that laws about that subject should NOT be overly specific.
That sort of thing, that a president needs to represent not just certain groups, but to make sure that large groups that disagree are all allowed to feel the way they do and to have that disagreement NOT be settled by laws on one side or another. As a result of not understanding the need to educate those on the Republican side, Bush won twice.
It's also sad that there tends to be a lack of really good candidates from either party that don't divide the parties. Look at the Republican candidates, there are a ton of them, but none that really impress the majority. On the Democrat side, you have Clinton, who many people really really dislike, and you have Obama(who a lot of people don't know yet). If Clinton gets the party nomination, it will split the Democratic party in half because too many people just don't like her, and moderates might be willing to vote Republican as a result. That sort of "bad candidate" is how horrible presidents like George W. get elected not just once, but twice.
dude, that link. Nevada secretary of state website: secretaryofstate.BIZ.
That made my whole day.
Nice troll you have going on there.
Very nice language in a post where you attempt to paint me as someone
who ruins discourse. And a very good way of making a monologue and
waving away the main point.
Just in case you are not though, go and *read* the article. The date
moves matter, and are a political stunt. You are the apologist here.
All that said, I have plenty to say bad about the Democratic party, and
I dont support them no matter what they do.
emt 377 emt 4
I can't imagine something like this being legal or acceptable by the general public, why is it news and why is it even being legitimately considered? I'm lost, here...
Policy