What’s crazy about that? You vote for the candidate whom you feel better represents your interests, and how that person votes at the convention is one way you gauge how well they represent your interests. And if enough of the people in a district are inclined towards Sanders that they’d do something like that, well then, that’s a sign that that Representative should have voted for Sanders.
Now, crazy would be if Democrats in such districts threatened to vote for the Republican in the general election, out of spite. But they’re not doing that.
That being said, it’s got more than a few problems.
*It would be logistically difficult (many states have filing deadlines that are coming up quick).
*The politicians I’ve known don’t respond well to threats. They don’t want to be seen as weak, so they don’t cave in; they stand up to the threat. If anything, demands like this stiffen their resolve NOT to do what they’re being pushed to do.
*If someone were to primary a non-Sanders-supporting politico, it would probably be unsuccessful (while SOME Sanders supporters will certainly make voting for Sanders at a convention into some kind of single-issue litmus test, MOST voters won’t vote against someone they generally like for one vote they’re not thrilled with).
*A primary challenge would certainly irritate the sitting representative, who would have to spend money and energy in a primary before getting to the general election, which no one likes to do; being forced to do something like that isn’t going to make the sitting representative think favorably of the activists and their program.
*If there’s a successful primary challenge, you may have just replaced a strong, popular candidate with a good chance of winning the general election with a much weaker candidate who won’t win against a reasonable Republican. The Tea Party has of course done this several times: see Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, Todd Akin. The upshot could be the loss of an otherwise safe Democratic seat to the GOP. In this sense, primarying an incumbent could indeed mean “electing a Republican.” Is this really what even enthusiastic Sanders supporters want to see happen?
Agree with your whole post. As to the excerpt above …
Many Sanders supporters have declared loud and long that they see no practical difference between the Republicans and the Clinton / DLC / Establishment Democrats.
I think they’re factually mistaken. But if indeed they believe that, then it’s pretty likely that they’d act as you question: willing to hand a Congressional seat to an R over an Establishment D since they’re perceived by Sanders’ base as equivalent evils.
It is the first *Presidential * election I have paid attention to. I was 18 in 2012, when there were no Democratic primaries. I did vote for Obama, but I mostly paid attention to the local issues here in Maine. In 2014, I was quite involved in our gubernatorial election, which IMO became a massive disappointment. The vote split 3 ways, and we ended up with 4 more years of a racist blowhard for governor.
125k voters were kicked off the registry shortly before the NY primary. Also, the lines were so long at many polling stations that people gave up and left without voting.
No, but I am saying that it wasn’t a fair election because not everyone could vote. Also, the fact that independents were not allowed to vote in the NY primary basically gave it away to Hillary.
NY primary rules have required people to be registered with a party in order to vote in that party’s primary for DECADES. These rules have nothing to do with Hillary. The fact it may or may not have benifited her this time around is irrelavant with regard to the idea of “fairness”. While you may not like the rules, they were established a long time ago.
Voters being taken off the rolls in Brooklyn, which went 60-40 Clinton, is part the conspiracy to cheat Sanders out of his clearly rightful win. Hey, they faked the moon landing, they can fake this.