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Colbert Ballot Bid Shot Down
wizzard2k writes "Some of you may have seen Stephen Colbert's bid for the South Carolina Presidential Primary, however it seems his hopes to appear on the ballot as a candidate for the Democratic Party have been shot down. From the report: 'Stephen Colbert's bid to get on the ballot for the upcoming Democratic primary in his home state was shot down on Thursday (November 1) by the executive committee of the South Carolina Democratic Party. Colbert's bid was voted down 13-3 ... Using criteria such as whether the candidate was recognized in the national news media as a legitimate candidate and whether they'd actively campaigned in the state, the committee put the kibosh on the Colbert bid.'"
Two-party duopoly? THREAT DOWN!
I Go Pogo in '08
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... was probably because he would have won. Can't have that big of a threat to the Establishment.
Why should they break with tradition?
I have yet to hear any candidate with a convincing tale that they should be President...have you?
Wait a second... not only do the media have massive power to influence how people vote - their approval is also are one of the criteria used to decide if a candidate is allowed to run at all? WTF?
Why does anyone bother to vote at all? It would be faster to just let the media companies nominate our public officials directly.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
Yeah that's democracy for you, a bunch of unelected political bosses deciding whether to even give someone a *chance* for people to vote for them. Hell I'm thinking of writing him in anyway (even though he's not even trying to run for president of Mass.).
Well I hope at least they gave him back his $2500.
They were just afraid eh might win the whole things. Because dim democrats would vote for him for his recognizable face and dim republicans would vote for him because they can't detect satire. The rest of us would vote for him because it's funny.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Ron Paul has convincing tale... but then, he isn't running as a Democrat.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
And thats The Word...
...why can't Stephen Colbert?
Is it because he is just too damn smart and over-qualified?
Todays WØRD: SHAMOCRACY
Man, I suddenly have a hankering for some Doritos.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
... on the air, I knew he wouldn't make it on the ballot. For a small group of people to decide who end up on the ballot like that just shows how little we need political parties in this country. Getting on the ballot need to be a little more democratic.
I hope Colbert's candidacy and its high level of support serve a large clue-stick to the entrenched political parties. A large number of people are so sick and tired of politics as usual that they are willing to support anyone who is unusual.
Somehow I doubt the Republicrats and Democans will listen to this warning, though. I remember in college when a local comic-strip character (Hank the Hallucination, no less) won the student government presidential election (beating Paul Begala who went on to serve Clinton). All the budding young politicos were incensed that their resume-padding ambitions were being damaged by the will of the student body. But it didn't really change anything then and a fear Colbert short-lived candidacy won't change much now (but I can hope!).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I think this is fascinating, and I hope Colbert continues to see how far he can go. It's great that he is testing our democratic process, and bringing in his fans into how the system works.
Perhaps he can get on a third-party primary? As an independent? How hard is it to start your own party? Is running as a write-in the best option?
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
...40 years ago when Pat Paulson did it the first time.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7406420086&ref=nf
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
I hope for America's sake (and that of the world) that American voters wake up and stop voting Republican or Democrat.
Two sides of the same coin...
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
I'm reminded or comedian Pat Paulson, a regular fixture on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour back in the late 60's (yes, I'm showing my age). He was a perennial (fake) presidential candidate back then. He managed to get on the ballot a few times, and came in second to George H.W. Bush in the North Dakota Republican primary, and second to Bill Clinton in the 1996 New Hampshire primary.
But what I remember best was his bid to get on the California primary in '96. He had twice the number of required signatures on his petition, paid the fees, filed well in advance of the deadline, but was still denied. March Fong Yu, California Secretary of State, explained the denial as "he's not serious about the campaign."
Paulson's response: "You mean those other guys are?"
310 of us wrote him in anyway....
Man, the irony is that so many people would've voted for him. Regardless of the fact that he's a comedian and actor, he has an amazing sense of people and character, exactly what a good politician should have, as well as charisma aplenty. Add in the fact that he's quite brilliant at just about anything he does, and you have yourself a good candidate. They simply voted him off because of the stigma of being a "joke".
I find it amazing that this board has the power to eliminate him from the primaries so arbitrarily.
If I were Colbert, I'd be seeking justice from the courts on this one. Show them just how serious a candidate he is.
Why can't he run as an independent?
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
The Democrats should let Colbert run considering that he does better in polls than many Democrat candidates. From the Washington post:
In the Democratic primary, Colbert takes 2.3 percent of the vote -- good for fifth place behind Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (40 percent), Sen. Barack Obama (19 percent), former Sen. John Edwards (12 percent) and Sen. Joe Biden (2.7 percent. Colbert finished ahead of Gov. Bill Richardson (2.1 percent), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (2.1 percent) and former Sen. Mike Gravel (less than 1 percent).If they're going to let Richardson be on the ballot, they should let Colbert be on it too!
I like my beverages with warning labels!
I guess I don't know for *sure*, but I'm fairly convinced Colbert never had any real plans to begin with. He's just using this "presidential bid" to poke fun at the US electoral system, and shine a light on the shady practices that go along with a bid. The whole Doritos business is hilarious, and I can't wait to see what he does with this most recent development.
Not to directly compare Stephen to greats like Pryor or Carlin, but how many comedians have had this much impact on political discourse, this quickly? Most subversive types get the soccer moms up in arms, but there's more mainstream media hand-wringing over Colbert than I ever remember seeing before.
Also his persona is dead-on perfect for this sort of stunt. I mean, come on: "Democrats lead in all the polls by at least ten points, except one... Fox News. That is with a margin of error of plus-or-minus the facts." Beautiful.
why? forty-two.
Colbert has handled this poorly, and while I'm dismayed he won't be on the political stage, I think it's his own fault.
I think he would have taken the place by storm if he'd gone out of character when off his show and dealt with people as a regular person, instead of making any attempt whatsoever to be funny. It would have put people off guard and left him the upper hand to control the political stage.
Nothing would have shown modern politics for what it is better than to have people show up to debate with him, armed with one-liners so they could compete one what they imagined to be the called-for level only to find that he was armed with complete thoughts on issues that he surely knows about but does not normally speak of.
That he has left people unsure about what he's doing is not the fault of the people he's confused. He's the one with the savvy to have overcome it, and his entire point is that people are not good about setting serious agendas. They're waiting for someone else to do it in lemming-like ways, and then instead of him doing it, he's leaving it to others to figure him out.
I love his show, but I think he has botched this. He could still recover, I think, but the only way I see him doing is stepping out of character. And to be honest, I think he's afraid to do that, which bodes ill for him as a candidate.
He wants to orchestrate things, but the US situation is not something that needs orchestration right now. It needs plain honesty. Honesty we know he's capable of. But it needs it straight up, not confusingly presented.
I don't care what he says on his show--I'll still watch the show. I care a lot that off the show, if he's going to do this, he do it as a regular guy, not a persona.
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
It's one thing to joke about politics, it's another to make the politics into a joke. In doing the later, Colbert was going to take the focus off of the race and put it onto himself.
I hardly give Colbert credit for making politics into a joke. It was that long before he made the scene. The fact that a good portion of the MSM couldn't suss out whether Colbert was actually kidding or not for a while (and Rasmussen actually put a damn poll in the field) should be evidence enough.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
Otherwise no one would take the Democratic Party seriously. They'd be powerless. Impotent. Laughable. They could run a Nobel Peace prize winner against a guy who can't say "nuclear," and still lose. But by quashing Colbert's bid, they retain their power and dignity.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
...[I care] whether the politician is honest and will support the positions I care about. I will vote for said person... So, you're saying you're not voting anymore?-G
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
The reality is that this is not preventing him from being in the presidential race necessarily, just from running as a Democrat. Unfortunately, in the modern-day USA, you can only realistically run as a Republican or Democrat.
He's an entertainer. Putting the focus on himself is not only his job, but it's part of his act. I mean, four nights a week, he introduces a guest and then steals the applause that would usually welcome that guest. Stealing the stage from the likes of Hillary, Obama, Mit, Fred, Rudy - that's second nature to him.
When a satirist can steal (or come close to stealing) the political process, it says more about the political process than it does about the satirist. He isn't making politics into a joke. He's simply pointing out that it is.
I really do hate our current crop of Republicans, but absolutely can't stand just how incompetent the Democrats are as a whole. A trained monkey should have been able to win the 2004 election, and they managed to pitch a candidate so bland and nondescript that they blew it.
Blocking Colbert's nomination has the very serious potential to completely alienate their base. If he's only running for the SC primary, the amount of potential damage is extremely limited, and not likely to make much of a difference even if he wins the nod in that state. On the other hand, if Colbert runs as an independent in the general election, he has a very serious chance of fucking things up completely.
(As a sidenote: I'm a strong proponent doing away with the 2-party system by allowing voters to cast a vote for as many candidates as they want. If you like both Nader and Gore, vote for both of them! If for some unholy reason, you want to vote for both the republican and democratic candidate (ie. you hate independents with a firey passion), there should be nothing stopping you from doing so. This means that there's no longer such thing as a 'wasted vote', and if the independent candidates are truly unviable, we'd be no worse off. This would be a huge boon to candidates like Mike Gravel or Ron Paul)
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Shouldn't political parties have to pay their own way in nominating their candidates? Why should my tax dollars go to help them count the votes? In other countries, political parties hold their own conventions at their own expense.
South Carolina requires a filing fee of $ 20,000 for each candidate, so the Republican party of South Carolina makes $10,000 off each candidate they put on the primary ballot, and the Democratic party of South Carolina loses $17,5000 for each one of theirs.
:)
That tells you which party knows anything about financial matters
Didn't Clarke say in "Imperial Earth" something to the effect that wanting an office was grounds for disqualification and the best officeholders are dragged kicking and screaming into office?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Jack Johnson: It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: "I'm against those things that everybody hates".
John Jackson: Now I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man but, quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said!
Jack Johnson: I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far.
John Jackson: And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough!
In this case I think it is Pringles.
"Given the inefficiencies of what D.C. laughingly calls the `criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal," Paul said.
Paul also wrote that although "we are constantly told that it is evil to be afraid of black men, it is hardly irrational. Black men commit murders, rapes, robberies, muggings and burglaries all out of proportion to their numbers."
Stating that lobbying groups who seek special favors and handouts are evil, Paul wrote, "By far the most powerful lobby in Washington of the bad sort is the Israeli government" and that the goal of the Zionist movement is to stifle criticism. A publication endorsed by Ron Paul put forth those opinions. Those are the facts. Spin it any way you like, in my book he's a racist.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
In Canada (sorry, not Soviet Russia), we have the Rhinoceros Party for political humour. They have had some fun policies, like bulldozing the Rocky Mountains as a makework project to reduce unemployment, and paying off Canada's national debt by putting it on Visa.
In one election some years back I was so disgusted with the mainstream candidates (I had 4 to choose from) that I voted Rhinoceros. Lots of other people did too, and they came very close to electing an MP.
...laura
Comes up in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy too. The people who most want power are the least qualified to actually have it, or something similar.
I would rather see the election run where, the most votes wins the presidency, the second most wins the vice presidency.
This would allow for independants to have a more realistic chance of getting into office and demonstrating their abilities.
I would much prefer this approach to the all or nothing election system we have now.
The primary season is unusually front loaded this time around, and the candidates that intend to contest all of the early states could be dealt a serious blow by a Colbert candidacy. The comments here speak volumes. Lots of people would vote for him either as a protest or because they think it's funny. Given Colbert's media exposure he'd likely do well. But what will that do to the other candidates?
If you were another candidate, would you risk your limited funds in a primary you're likely to lose or have a poor showing in because of a "joke" candidate? If you're hoping to gain momentum from a South Carolina/southern victory, and the future of your campaign depends on it, is it worth taking the risk? I think the answer would be no for a few of the less recognizable candidates. This would have the potential to reduce the importance of South Carolina's primary as well as distort the succeeding primaries. A week after South Carolina there are primaries in 21 states. Colbert won't be competing in any of them. If the party allowed him onto the ballot they would effectively be saying their primary didn't matter in the big scheme of determining who the overall nominee will be.
BTW, I don't live in South Carolina and I'm not a Democrat (or a Republican). But I think they've done the country a favor this time. I enjoy Colbert's routine on television but that's where he should stay. We should resist the urge to turn the process of selecting our leaders into entertainment.
Anybody can run. He ran. I guess I don't see how this changes things. Anybody can run, but there can be only one President of the United States of America. It is the responsibility of the SC Democratic Party leadership to make sure their state has the greatest possible chance of helping their candidate be elected President. To do otherwise would turn the Democratic Party into a less viable party than the Republicans. Perhaps it would let some other party sneak in there and usurp their place as the other major party in that state.
If you think Colbert had a good enough chance that he should have been put on the ballot, you should register as a Democrat in South Carolina as soon as possible, and work your butt off so you can be on that committee some day.
That's part of the reason I finally registered with a party. I wanted more of a say.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
> You can't win without being a member of one of the two major parties.
Nonsense. You're just saying that because no one ever has.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
In "Founding Brothers", the author posits that shortly after the revolution, it was socially expected that leaders should appear not to want/have-wanted the office; Washington and Jefferson both did the [Lucius Quinctius] Cincinnatus "I'm retiring to my beloved farm" thing, and during the Jefferson/Adams presidential race, neither campaigned for themselves, but rather had/let their friends & colleagues do so for them.
I think they are. When I registered with my party, and when I attended the caucus meeting and county meeting, no one ever asked me anything about race or anything else like that. I think the closest they came was reading the official party policy and informing me that I should not plan on getting any support if I didn't support the party platform.
I cried real tears when Li Mu Bai died.
Colbert, in his own way is an absolute genius. (personally I believe everyone has a genius, but Colbert has both found his, and developed a way to profitably express it).
The denial of his candidacy is a stark reminder of what is really going on with political parties in the USA. It is an old-boys power network, and frankly, Colbert was not playing by their rules. Those rules are (im my opinion) pretty close to these: be rich, be a career politician, suck up to companies, trade favors with those more powerful, be a political insider, lie cheat and steal your way into power -- and, depending on the party, when one meets most of these rules, the current party system will accept you as one of their own, and "allow" you to run.
Why are there 2 private organizations that run how governement works in the USA? That's crap and very few people see it. No one elected the leaders in these groups to decide "the party line", to pressure senators to vote a certain way, to hide emails, and whatever else they do. Why on earth should 13 people in SC get to tell the people of that state if a legal citizen can or can't run for president? Show me where the Constitutional process for how the Rebuplic runs discusses that kind of political power. It is an abomination of the system the US had.
While I don't think Colbert is a serious candidate, his running was deeply meaningful. His rejection highlights the absurdity of the process, and the entrenched position of political parties that control the US and governements.
He wasn't rejected by any kind of election commission -- he was rejected by the South Carolina Democratic Party, on whose ticket he was trying to run. I happen to love Stephen Colbert and watch almost every night, but if there's a tight race in South Carolina (which there might be given Clinton's general popularity and Edwards' southern appeal), they can't afford to water down the votes in South Carolina by allowing a TV personality to make a statement. If I understand what Colbert is going for, it's a valid statement. But I think the general idea is that too much is at stake this time around, and we need to have definitive votes for real candidates so the Democratic Party can circle the wagons and put a well-supported candidate out there. Again, I happen to really enjoy Stephen Colbert. But what if he skims significant votes from Clinton, Obama, or Edwards in the primary? He will have a fun win in South Carolina, but it will weaken the position of the Democrats nationally. It won't be on the scale of Ralph Nader, but it will give the Republicans a talking point that the Democrats don't want to give them. Colbert made his point, I think, and was not likely to pursue this to the end anyway. I think he meant to make a statement and was not seriously pursuing actually being President. And our current bozo of a president is an example of that very phenomenon.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You're right.. if Colbert won he would have signed laws that only favored flavored tortilla chips and laughter.
Although it didn't come up in this story with Stephen Colbert, I believe I can address why the Democrats and Republicans are part of the problem when it comes to American electoral politics: Ralph Nader is currently suing the Democrats for the stunts they pulled to keep him off the ballot when he ran in 2004 as an independent. It's worth your while to learn why Nader is suing and ask yourself if you are better served by having a few corporate candidates to choose from or more candidates spanning the political spectrum of ideas on the ballot. Voters aren't sufficiently outraged to support non-Democrat/non-Republican candidates, choosing to not vote at all most times. But their anger at the process is rising while the two major parties put up what Lawrence O'Donnell calls "virtually indistinguishable candidates" (and, let me assure you, after canvassing for signatures to get someone on the ballot in a local Congressional race, I know there's plenty of anger out there on this issue).
If you want to have a more informed view of the power which the Democrats and Republicans hold and how they use that power to keep candidates off the ballot, I suggest looking into
The real rub in Colbert's rejection is that he was polling higher than some Democrats (according to one brief clip Colbert played on his show last night). Perhaps the Democratic Party wanted to be the group that shut those Democratic Party candidates out, not let some citizen show them up and point out how managed American elections really are.
Digital Citizen
Once again we have evidence that the two big political parties are nothing short of the same cliques that most of us hated and detested in high school.
The Democrats (not to be confused with the democrats, small d) are thrilled to have someone like Steve on their side as long as he's not rocking the boat within their party. The second that he tries to cross the line from being the king's jester to trying to be a king he gets smacked down by the same people he supported for years and years. He's good enough to be their goof because he makes them laugh and be brings them free PR but he's not truely one of them. He's simply not a Democrat. He doesn't have the money nor does he do the same goosestep. He's the class clown that all the preps and jocks laughed at yet wasn't good enough to sit at their table during lunch. He has no chance within their exclusive socio-political structure to make any real headway. His role is defined and his attempt to leave that role is what really got him beat down. If he makes further attempts on this he'll find that those who use to laugh at him and praise him for being a stooge are going to be more than willing to feed him to the wolves. They're hoping that they've made their point and that Steve will go back to his old role. Otherwise he'll be doomed.
You see, both of the big political parties have this going on. Either you're a Republican or Democrat or a republican or a democrat. If you're not among their power elite they'll humor you into thinking that you're part of their structure but if you try to advance in their structure without being the power elite you're going to get flogged for being a bad dog and getting out of line. Their affluence and exclusivity are not to be questioned or approached. Especially within the ranks. As outsiders we can scoff but if you're inside there is a consequence for this. Stevie is finding that out. I'd like to think he's smart enough to have already known it. It'll be a dark day for him if he decides to rock the boat more.
The really sad thing is that the lemmings of the Republicans and Democrats are the ones who let this structure exist and regardless of how discontent these people are in their role they refuse to start supporting people who'd be willing to support them. This isn't to say that third parties could not fall into the same ruts but only having two choices makes it easy to stay in power when you're in the rut.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The benefit would have gone to the democratic party. I really think that the SC democrats made a big mistake by turning him down. Think of how many additional viewers would have tuned in to watch the democratic debates in South Carolina just to see what happens. Think of how many more people would have heard the opinions and values of the democratic party. What would it have cost the democrats? The time that Colbert would have been allotted to speak is all I can think of. I doubt he would have been over the top or disrespectful. He would have been funny during his time to speak and that's it. I really think the democrats missed a good opportunity to get their message heard by more Americans.
I'm an avid Daily Show viewer, but I only watch the Colbert Report occasionally. I agree with one of my ancestor posts that he sometimes talks over his guests and that pisses me off. However, I think his other material is very funny and very valuable. Most people that "hate" Colbert don't understand his humor is all. They tune in expecting to see liberal clarity like what Jon Stewart provides and instead they get well hidden sarcasm preaching crazy conservativism. His show is a satire of Bill O'Reilly, plain and simple.
I saw an interview _of_ Colbert a few weeks after his show started (may have been Larry King) in which King out right asked, "Is this for real? Do you really believe this stuff?" Colbert didn't come right out and say it, but he basically said no. He even said that he doesn't allow his kids to watch his show because some of the things he says and the way he says them are things that he doesn't want his kids to mistakenly believe that their father really believes. Colbert does an excellent job of sharing views that are similar to most conservatives, but a little more warped, which should clue people in that he being satirical.
Take for instance his latest war on Halloween. He says that Halloween should be abolished because it is just a training ground for beggars. He calls Halloween the equivalent of a hobo Christmas. Very funny, in my opinion. But, he is making a bigger statement about the stupidity of some people who read too deeply into childish holiday traditions. Many conservatives despise Halloween because they equate it with the practices of pagan rituals, which must be evil since they don't believe in Christ.
What made Colbert really great in the beginning was that conservatives didn't understand that he was really satirical. They thought that he was just a conservative version of Jon Stewart, so they embraced him. They invited him to dinners and speaking engagements, only to have him do his bit of spouting off their beliefs, but in a twisted enough way that it made it difficult for anyone with a conscience to hold on to. The conservatives eventually wised up...
I think Colbert can be very funny at times. At times, he does go over the top and I want to tell him to STFU. But, for the most part he is very good for the American dialog.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
I agree, in theory, with your assertions, but the practical effects of parties are overlooked in this analysis.
While this is technically true: "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position." - the obvious reality in the US is that the parties have so much power and are so ingrained in the financial support, the media coverage, and the voting decision process - that they do have the power to control who is elected. Without the support of one of these two parties, being elected is almost impossible for high visibility political positions.
Same applies for this statement: "You don't have to affiliate with a party to run for an office at any level." Technically true, but in practice, on the ground, the way the system works today - actually getting elected absolutely requires playing the game with these two powerful organizations. And this "No party has the power to keep anyone off the general election ballot for any position. " - also technically true, but in practice this is a blatantly misleading assertion. That's like saying "You can get any job you want" or "Anyone can be president"; both technically true, but in practice they are not functional assertions.
This word election: I do not think it means what you think it means. When I use the word "elected" I mean in a government election. There is an INTERNAL selection within these two organizations to select their leadership. This is not an election. This is not democratic as would befit the level of power and influence these people have over the state.
Asserting I'm not informed and ignorant is childish, and a person attack. Not helpful. I'm quite familiar with the system in place, and stand behind my views.
The internal organizational dynamics of these private clubs is not the same as an open, everyone-must-participate system of the state, a government based on laws.
I would go much much farther on characterizing the real nature of these organizations - beyond lack of above-board transparency or abuses of power. Those problems are the obvious ones; everyone who looks can see those. These organizations hold an effective lock on political fundraising in the US. They are, without question the two most powerful private organizations in the country. Their mandates dictate the way that Senators and Representatives vote in the congress. Trying to play this off as a need of the running candidate for "supportive followership" is offensive to me. What exactly does that mean? Funding support, votes? Politician are party of these groups only because they would not get elected any other way.
I don't beget these two organizations their right to exist, raise money, and peddle influence. It is their right. However, that the US has devolved to (effectively) only 2 organizations, and their power combined is so great that they warp the decision process of elected representatives is an unavoidable wrong, and in opinion, a serious problem.
We don't necessarily have to abolish political parties. I'm not sure that's even possible in practice. What we do need is a system without the property that only one Democrat and one Republican have any shot at any given political office.
The best suggestion I've heard so far is this: Move to approval voting for the president and senators and to proportional representation for the house of representatives.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.