Yes and no. For running the country, yes. For picking a party’s candidates… not always. You have such low participate rates in the primaries that there is a weird self-selection process going on that isn’t always in the interest of the party, a a whole.
Why is that a good reason to let a minority control the process? I know it’s an argument as old as our country, but I think the system of democracy works best by letting it work.
But the superdelegates didn’t control the process. If you waved a magic wand and made the superdelegates go away the outcome would be the same. If participation of superdelegates has no effect on the outcome they are by definition not in control.
They can control the outcome if they want to, and they did affect the process by announcing their choices before the voting began. But I wasn’t talking about the supers as the minority, it’s the whole Democratic Party that is the minority, there are more independents than members of any political party now. I’d prefer the parties were out of the process altogether.
Why is it a good thing to allow a minority to control the process now? We don’t get a majority of voters participating in the primaries, and it’s even worse in the caucus states.
Maybe we’d get more participation if people thought their votes counted. Democracy gives people the the representatives they deserve, that’s what the system was intended to do. Since the beginning there’s been the endless hand-wringing about the foolish people being taken in and voting away our rights. The electoral college, smoke-filled back rooms, and the pretense of democracy in loaded primaries haven’t prevented the worst people from getting elected so far, it’s time to get over it and let the people decide. Perhaps I should have let life crush all my ideals, but I still believe we are better off in the long run by letting democracy work and living with the consequences in order to get better at it.
I’m trying to figure out what system you are proposing that would satisfy you.
Nationwide, one day, open, jungle primary, and then the top two face of for president?
I think it led the GOP to exactly demonstrate what it has become … a party of old white men racists and bigots who’ve chased everyone else out of the tent. This is a good thing. Maybe the party will reformulate itself, or just wither away and die. Either’s good IMO. If it dies something else will come along to replace it.
Are you sure that isn’t an orange marmoset with a reality-show idiot on his head?
I wouldn’t rule out regulating the party primaries to keep the process fair, but I’d rather have statewide primary systems that converge on national primaries to select from a limited number of candidates in a general election. There are a lot of ways to do it without letting a couple of private clubs do all the selecting. We’ll have a few more crazy people running for office but we’ll also have fewer capable candidates dissuaded from attempting to serve. The party system is nothing but tradition left over from a pre-technological age, and one that has a long history of corruption.
Parties are not part of the government. They can’t be made part of the government. And they are all-pervasive, down to the smallest localest position. You can’t make a change just at the national level.
Who does the selecting if the parties aren’t involved? How can anyone expect the parties to support candidates with all the money, people, and apparatus they currently have if they aren’t in charge of their own process to select their own candidates? I don’t believe for a second there are lots of ways to do this.
You may not like the current process, but your replacement is unworkable even in theory. Certainly so in practice.
If anyone thinks that open primaries everywhere would have made a difference please consider this summation of all 16 open primaries.
Votes Pledged Delegates Wins
Clinton 5,915,968 763 11
Sanders 4,374,928 520 5
Why? Because we’ve always done it this way? That’s the best reason to change things.
If you’re saying it won’t happen I can’t argue with that. The parties have a stranglehold on the electoral process. Not even 1% of the elected and appointed officials in this country are independents. From the dog catcher to president candidates have to kowtow to the parties to stand a chance. Donald Trump rolled the Republican Party, but he still needed a party. And those few independents who have any success get tarred as outsiders even if they’ve spent their entire political career supporting one of the parties. Without a revolution far beyond any past upheaval in American politics the parties will not let the American people choose their candidates.
What on earth does that have to do with anything? This is about how the game is played. In open primaries independents get to participate in the process. In closed primaries they are locked out.
Why must Americans be forced to join a political party in order to participate in choosing the candidates?
Um, because they’re choosing the candidates of a particular political party. Independents get to enjoy their purity high, but shouldn’t have a role in picking candidates for a party that they’re independent of.
Because each party selects candidates to represent that party in the general election. Why let people who are not in the party choose for them?
Texas has open primaries–but is it that hard to register as a party member? Do you have to sign a lifetime contract? If there’s an election coming up & you want to help pick the candidates, why not join the party that more closely matches your beliefs, even temporarily?
Of course, this would be a problem for voters who think that Democrats & Republicans are identical. And those who can’t be bothered to learn their state’s election laws.
But they don’t. They need the party name, but they can essentially hijack the name by winning a primary and suddenly being a Republican or a Democrat, regardless of any past relationship with the party. There are tons of people who’ve done this, more at the lower levels of elected government than at higher ones. They simply claim they’re with a party, file the papers and run in a primary or an election.
I find it quite interesting that the parties themselves have no effective control of their membership and even the use of their name. I’m a Democrat if I say I’m a Democrat, and if the Democrats don’t want me then too bad for them.
The idea of having to declare a party preference when you register to vote is completely alien to me. Why should you have to tell the government which party you prefer? Thank goodness my state does not collect party preference.
If they didn’t control the political process the parties would be outlawed. Independents do not have a chance, the open primaries are just a pretense of allowing independents to participate.
Again, why should I be forced to join a party to participate in choosing the candidates? That is effectively what happens. My tax dollars pay for these primary elections, they are not private elections, if they were then the parties would be gone already.
Unless you are someone like Donald Trump and can hold off the massed forces of the parties you have no chance of running. The current standard is that you must have personal appeal and resources greater than a major political party in order to run for office.
This is June. The major parties haven’t actually selected their candidates yet but those candidates will be on the ballot in November in all 50 states no matter who they are. It is virtually, if not totally impossible for an independent candidate to now appear on the ballot nationwide in November. There is no reason for that except the corrupt control of the process by the parties.