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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."
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
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.
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".
A bit of a problem with your premise. Senators and Representatives are elected by a majority who, more often than not, share the beliefs of their constituencies. Most of their votes (especially the highly visible ones) tend to be the same as what the electorate would have wanted. Saxby Chambliss is probably going to vote right-wing because his constituents are conservative. Harry Reid is going to swing left because that's what his constituency elected him for, and his beliefs match theirs. Just because your personal representative doesn't vote the way you want him to does not mean that he is voting because of the party line.
You have to be pretty specific on a few votes that you have seen for the "votes-only-the-party-line" argument to fly, and THEN you have to show that it isn't what the constituencies voted for him/her to do.
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."
Just because your personal representative doesn't vote the way you want him to does not mean that he is voting because of the party line
No, but when they ALL vote that way, it means exactly that.
It gets worse. On many items (NAFTA. Immigration Reform. etc.) BOTH parties line up on the same side of the ball, so you can't even make a difference by jumping ship.
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
Have you followed votes in the federal government over the last 10 years? Correlation between votes among common party members is incredibly high. It is blatantly obvious that most votes on the federal level go down on party lines.
The point of representational democracy is that the representative THINKS and VOTES their own beliefs, as a representation of what the their constituents want. It is their responsibility to understand their constituents and represent them. This is not what politicians do at all today - politicians primarily represent their party, mostly for financial reasons.
As for not following what the constituents what, examples are rampant. This post is an excellent troll, as it starts out sounding reasonable and casts doubt on a situation that is completely obvious.
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.
It's pretty simple. State political parties looked at Iowa and New Hampshire with their early primaries and saw all the money that got spent in those states in order to gain momentum. The other states got jealous that they hadn't thought of it first, so a whole crapload (that's the poli-sci term) of states moved their primaries forward to try to get some more attention, and more importantly, money. Apparently, Florida is one of those states that didn't think it had a big enough impact on the political process in 2000 and 2004 *boggle*.
Now the national political parties are pissed because they have do dilute thier funding and not focus on only a few states very early. So the Dems are reacting (IMO appropriately) and saying that if Florida really wants its primary so early we might just not pay attention to it.
The older I get, the more I agree, and the more I think campaign finance along the lines of what other countries have is the solution.
Parties apply, and get $x million per candidate (or however it's decided). This money comes out of the treasury, paid by taxes. No private donation. When the Republicans (me), the Democrats (others), and the Greens and such have to play on a level field, we'll get some real competition.
Of course, as you can guess, neither party is going to vote for this. We'd need to make this a referendum or some such.
So this idea goes with Steve Forbes' tax plan and many others that are great ideas that congress won't vote for because they have such a vested interest in the status quo.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I only mention this because when Republicans do something bad, it's because they are evil. But when Democrats do something bad, both parties are evil. A single standard would be nice.
Get your blinders off, man. For years (and sometimes even now), every time anyone on Slashdot (or almost anywhere else really) chided a Republican for doing something evil, unethical, or illegal, the GUARANTEED response was "But Clinton...". These days, it's more generic ("The Democrats did it (or something else tangentially related) too!"), but the sentiment is basically the same. Whether you perceive this place as liberal biased or conservative biased seems to depend primarily on what side of the fence you identify with. This would indicate to me that there are probably a pretty good mix of crazies from both extremes of the political spectrum on this site, and a good mix of people on both sides that are content to parrot the party line and blame the opposition for all the ills of the world.
Whether you perceive this place as liberal biased or conservative biased seems to depend primarily on what side of the fence you identify with.
I think the fact that my original comment was modded "overrated", even though it had not been rated by anyone else, kinda speaks for itself.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Really? Is there some unwritten rule that we must vote for the guy with the most money? Or is it actually codified into law? The internet is busting down lots a barriers that were put up against the small guy. There is no excuse anymore. We make or break the system. What choice will you make? The solution is in the mirror, not some unworkable legislation.
What?
The government and people of the State of Florida are not giving up the pretense of anything. The party bosses of the Democratic (big D) party in Florida has given up any pretense of caring about democratic (little d) issues.
This is all about control. Florida (like many states) is trying to move the primaries earlier so that Florida has a larger say in who the nominees for each party are. Of course its an arms race no state can win 'cause other states will simply move it even earlier. The entire attempt is foolish, but not anti-democratic.
The party bosses (of both parties) don't want a "new" guy they can't control to get early buzz from a primary without other coverage. They want it to be "non-binding" so the party power owners can make their deals and get their guy.
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]
No. You want the other way around, the least % turnout should go first - it will encourage participation. If the lowest turnout doesn't vote until the decision has already been made, then turnout will be even less next time around. Feedback goes the wrong way.
I'm honestly trying to figure out if your comment is satirical or not. The Supreme Court didn't in any way decide Bush won, they decided that Gore counting the votes more then 2 extra times was wasting everyone's time and after 3 confirmations of Bush winning Florida, to stick with that.
As for the real topic...
THIS IS A PRIMARY. The different parties are companies, they are run like such and completely exist as such. The democrat party can chose whatever it wants to do for how it will decide it's candidate, the primary is a party voting, not a government one. If they decided it would be best to play beer pong until there was only one candidate left standing, that would be an equally valid way of doing it vs the current convention.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Just out of curiousity, under your system, if I have a couple million to blow and want to run a commercial favouring a particular candidate, would I be allowed to?
If so, then your system is essentially the same as the one we have now.
If not, that will raise some First Amendment issues.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I agree - elections should be 100% taxpayer funded to keep "special interest groups" (which 99% of are corporations looking to enhanse their bottom lines) from pwning "our" government. However, this (as you say) won't happen, because the "special interest groups" who control "our" government won't let it.
An alternative plan without the "oh noes higher taxes" component likewise will never fly, as those same folks (i.e., the 1% of the population that controls 90% of the wealth) are not about to let it.
I'd like to see (but never will, of course) two reforms. First, if I contribute a million dollars to each of the two viable candidates in any given race, how is that not a bribe? Is there anyone who will publically condone bribery of government officials? Yet that's exactly what our method of campaign finance is, a thinly disguised method of bribery.
Nobody should be able to contribute to more than one candidate in any given race. This would end the legalized bribery of "our" government.
Secondly, Bill Gates' minor children are millionaires. They can contribute to candidates in my state, despite the fact that they can't legally vote at all, let alone in my state. Yet after giving million$ to Durbin, Bill Gates' minor children have more access to "my" Senator than I do. Why in the hell should this be legal?
If you're not eligible to vote for a candidate, you shouldn't be eligible to contribute to that candidate. This not only stops Bill Gates from bribing Dick Durbin, it stops corporations from bribing any candidate.
This wouln't be as good as publically financed campaigns, and it would still give the rich greater access to politicians than normal people, but at least that power would be local. And even though hell will freeze over before it happens, it will still happen before tax funded campaigns do.
-mcgrew
Yes, and since parties are essentially private entities, my question is, why is the state involved in paying for and running the party primaries at taxpayer expense?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
California (heavily Democratic controlled) also foolishly moved their primary earlier.
The real point is not the idiocy of moving the primary, but that the powers in the parties themselves don't like States to do that and so the parties themselves are talking about making more primaries "advisory". People think they will have a voice in choosing a nominee, but the parties themselves will do the choosing.
Pay attention to how many "at large" voting delegates go to each parties convention who are NOT chosen by a popular vote of the people. Most people don't even know this happens yet they are the swing votes who actually choose the nominee.
Of course, I'm not sure why the State (i.e. the public) must have anything to do with the primaries anyway? Why do the people PAY to have the Republicans and Democrats pick their candidates? This is not a Constitutionally mandated election. This is a way for large parties to use the machinery of the people and have the people pay for it.
Each party should figure out who their nominee is how ever they want (I figure an election by their members is smartest, but it's their party) and whomever they choose would stand in the "real" election.
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.
Which is exactly the problem. The idea the States can be "allowed " to do something by a political party is laughable.
The major parties entered a devils agreement with the States. The State agreed to pay for the whole thing in exchange for their making rules. Rules like "Open Primaries" where people from one party could legally vote in another parties primary. Or when the date of the primary is. The parties have allowed the government to have a large voice in who they run for office. Huge conflict of interest!
If the party wants the money (i.e. to have the State pay millions to run the primary election) the party has to get used to losing control of their own process.
The whole idea is bad for the country. The parties should make their own arrangements and pay for the primary themselves. This would wholly remove the party nominating process from State control.
Parties apply, and get $x million per candidate (or however it's decided). This money comes out of the treasury, paid by taxes. No private donation. When the Republicans (me), the Democrats (others), and the Greens and such have to play on a level field, we'll get some real competition.
What if I don't want *my* money to go to any of them?
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.