We want a say in who runs for president. Don’t you? I don’t want the parties to control that as they do now. If they are really just a private club why is the public funding and regulating their private elections? Why do they get to hold a place for an unknown candidate in the election?
On top of that, don’t you think the members of the Democratic party should have a say in who their private club nominates? The superdelegates are intended to deny them that say.
I’m a Republican, so I have some objective distance on this. I don’t think that you realize how the superdelegate thing looks to a lot of people.
So Clinton has public support from 80% of the superdelegates. Furthermore, she’s been way ahead of Sanders in terms of endorsements from the beginning. Do you honestly not understand how that level of support could be viewed as a “coronation by the party elite”?
The superdelegates likely would’ve switched to Sanders had Sanders actually won the election. But he didn’t, Sanders lost by 3-4 million votes and about 400 pledged delegates.
Like I said in my OP, all the superdelegates (and superPACs, and DNC support) would’ve meant nothing had Sanders won more votes and more pledged delegates.
Had Sanders won 200 more pledged delegates than Clinton, but the superdelegates chose Clinton instead then yes that would’ve been very undemocratic. But that didn’t happen. My point is that having DNC support, superPAC money, superdelegates, etc would’ve meant nothing had an additional 3-4 million people voted for Sanders. But the people didn’t vote for Sanders enough to make the superdelegates switch sides.
Sanders got 45% of the vote and $200+ million from small donors, neither of which anyone thought was realistic when this primary started. Progressives did really well this election cycle and showed we can be organized and well funded. But we still lost.
I’m a Bernier supporter. I think it’s absolutely amazing how well he did. How he, this incredibly unlikely outsider, was able to come so close to upsetting HRC. How no one else, inducing Biden, had the courage (or whatever it takes) to take on the Clinton machine. I think the primary/caucus process is rigged, and that it was rigged more towards HRC than to anyone else.
But… Bernie lost, and Hillary won. There are certainly other scenarios imaginable where Bernie could have won, but all that was set form the beginning, and Bernie lost. Let’s not forget that there are scenarios (no caucuses) where he would have lost even worse. If anything is to “blame” it’s America’s fascination with celebrity culture and how name recognition plays such an important part in politics.
I can understand why Bernie is not giving up-- he doesn’t give 2 shits about the Democratic party. That’s both admirable and damnable, depending on how loyal you are to that party.
So, yeah, the Bernie-Bros need to give it up. It’s over. It was over weeks ago, but it’s REALLY over now.
Realistically, it has been over since March. There was no chance of him catching up to Clinton’s 200-400 pledged delegate lead after the southern states voted. Plus Bernie did so poorly among black voters that there was no way he would get the votes he needed to catch up seeing how black voters make up something like 1/4 of democratic voters.
Sanders did do far better than anyone expected. I was afraid he’d end up like Kucinich when he first started, being viewed as a fringe candidate who won 3% of the vote.
When Sanders announcedin April 2015, the media barely showed up. Eventually Sanders was giving speeches that filled stadiums and auditoriums and raising hundreds of millions from small donors.
Look, Hillary isn’t a saint, but she’s taken 20 straight years of non-stop heavy fire from the hate mongers and she’s still around and still making sense.
I honestly don’t think Bernie has ever (or could ever) withstand that level of withering hate for a full 4 years.
Want to know the one and only thing I can Ever fault her on?
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I’m not a big fan of the design of her buttons/car-magnets/signs.
Suggested Re-fit?
Dark Blue background, one word “Hillary” in bright white, underlined in red, white, and a different shade of blue… and top the field with white stars in a semi-circle along the outer edges…
If she’d consider making one of those, I’d sure want one…
Is it clear, yes. Is it simple, no. There’s a difference between those words. It’s not a handcount. There are a lot of rules and a lot of steps, but there’s clarity at all of those steps. I can understand why someone who was expecting an straight tally vote might be surprised at the complexity of the process, but if they actually look (not just guess or read something that some guy said in the comments section on the internet) at how the nominee is to be chosen, I don’t think they’ll have trouble doing that.
Is it fair? You’d have to define “fair” and that’s a very elusive target. (For example, is the Senate “fair” where every state gets the same vote or is the House “fair” where it’s more or less based on population? Are they only “fair” because both exist? Is that kind of geographic representation “unfair” so neither? Are both “fair” in different ways?) From my POV, it’s not patently an unfair process.
Remember, 8 years ago Clinton was the one who seemed unfamiliar with the rules, not appreciating that the Democratic party in many states had transformed from “winner take all” to proportionate allocation based on vote totals. She also didn’t appreciate, as Obama did, that there was a tactical advantage for an underdog with strong local support to put resources into caucus states. As a result, Obama built up an early lead in the delegate count which Clinton never was able to catch up to.
Which supports the point made up-thread that someone who is able to put together a campaign that is essentially fifty mini-campaigns, appreciating the considerable differences and nuances in those fifty mini-campaigns, and playing to one’s own strengths, is demonstrating considerable executive ability.
A few things about this supposedly rigged nomination process.
[ul]
[li]The Democratic Party is fundamentally a private organization and has no particular obligation to let independents or anyone else besides registered Democrats vote in its primaries and caucuses. To some extent, of course it does anyway, within reasonable limits set at the state level.[/li][li]The nominating process is decentralized. Every state and its parties get to more or less set their own rules, within essential guidelines. It would be astoundingly difficult for a conspiracy to “rig” the system on a national level under these circumstances, even if someone tried.[/li][li]The superdelegates were established for a purpose: to reward candidates who had been loyal, and had earned strong loyalties, from within the party, and to block extremists or non-Democrats from taking over the nominating process. The GOP presently wishes it had a similar setup. Having said that, the superdelegates have never overridden the wishes of the majority of pledged delegates. [/li][li]Barack Obama in 2008 similarly faced starting as an underdog, and a slate of superdelegates pledged to HRC, from the beginning of the nominating process. He was able to overcome both, and of course eventually the superdelegates, who had at first overwhelmingly pledged to Clinton, switched to him once he had a insurmountable lead in pledged delegates. I’m sorry that Bernie was not able to mount a comparably effective campaign, but he wasn’t. Quite simply, he was not as effective a candidate as Obama, and he needed to be to beat Clinton.[/li][/ul]
So, in a sense, the system is rigged, in that it’s established to reward loyal Democratic members, which Bernie never was, but also to allow for the possibility that if the candidate isn’t a well-established, respected and loyal party member, there is still a chance to prove he or she could be and would be. Bernie did not succeed at that, either. In no way was the system rigged against Bernie specifically.
In fact, the ease with which he descended into repetitively dealing with setbacks by complaining about conspiracies and the system being supposedly rigged against him made it worse for him. He knew what the process was when he declared his candidacy; it was hardly secret. After all, once again, Obama succeeded in 2008 exactly where Bernie failed. Resorting to negativity, complaining, and conspiracy mongering is not an effective campaign tactic.
Hillary had an advantage starting out, and in my mind, even as an early Bernie supporter (I changed my mind about that a few months ago) it was always fair that she should. She has been a successful leader in the Democratic Party for a long time. She’s campaigned for many fellow Democrats, she has for decades personally championed Democratic causes, and she was built a solid foundation of loyalty from the Party’s longest serving and most loyal members. Bernie has done little to none of that. Therefore, it was always fair that Hillary started with an advantage, both in 2008 and in 2016.
In my opinion, the Democratic Party is as fair in potentially allowing an outsider to win the nomination as it reasonably could be. I’m glad it is not as easy for this to happen as it apparently is in the GOP.
Bernie had his chance. He blew it.
If I did, I’d join a party. I’m fine not being beholden to a party. So no.
I do think the members of the party should have a say - and they do. The Superdelegates can’t override the will of the people if its really a clear mandate. But they can keep Trump from happening in a three or four way race where no one is getting more than 40% of the vote. And that is what we want - lots of participation - and a system that rationalizes that to a pragmatic outcome.
Not much changed, but the party mainline was more unified around Hillary than it really should have been, and without the racial voting bonus of Obama any other candidate was going to have a hard time. No one in the DNC did anything wrong by the rules, but you could argue the moral and ethical complications of a democratic system that allows a large organization to be the vetting process for one of the two candidates that has a chance to win. It leads to long term political alliances being necessary to have a chance to win. Speaking on a personal conspiracy theory, there was much less competition on the Dem side compared to 2008. Only 3 candidates made it into any primaries, and the other 3 had dropped out by October. Of the ones who held on to the end of 2015, 2 were governors who had just ended their term and one was a professor. In 2008, the vast majority of the candidates were Senators or Representatives mid term. It just seems like there was much less effort from the party to really combat Clinton than in 2008, which could mean that either the party as a whole decided they wanted to unify quickly and prepare for the election or the party leaders were being shady and trying to squash dissent. Either way, the election was much more stacked against Bernie from the beginning, seeing as it was mostly a 1v1 from September and he was fighting tooth and nail. In 08, you had Clinton at only ~30% of the vote in the run up with most of the drop-outs moving to him. Possibly, the party thought that in a primary, people who oppose Clinton will eventually rally around a candidate as theirs is defeated? It would give a good motive to prevent other candidates with strong claims from arising.
Anyway, Hillary won fair and square at the booth, and any fraud was simply the result of incompetence or malice at the local level. I don’t think the DNC was gaming the votes, but I do think they were being political in the run up.
But there was a racial voting bonus - it all went to Clinton, not to Bernie. It seems that the African-American voters largely trusted Clinton more than Bernie, and that gave her a big boost in several states. And there is nothing wrong with that - it showed that Clinton had broader appeal than Sanders did, particularly amongst a key Democratic constituency, and that in turn is important in choosing a candidate for the general.
And what is wrong with that? Politics is about getting elected, and then getting things done once you’re elected. One of the knocks on Obama was that he was not sufficiently experienced in the second part, so wasn’t as effective as he could be in the Presidency. So Hilary has a lot of personal connections within the party and in Congress - why is that a bad thing? It means she will have clout to get things done. And Bernie apparently doesn’t have a lot of clout in Congress, even though he’s been there for quite a while. And why should he? He’s been a socialist independent, not a Democrat. Nothing wrong with that, but when you’ve spent your senatorial career refusing to join the Democratic party, and someone else has worked closely with the Democratic party all her political career, which is more likely to get things done, if elected?
The managing body of a political party was being political! The HORROR!
Look, traditionally parties don’t get a third term in the Presidency. Bush I was an exception, the first since Truman.
The DNC’s job is to win the presidency, and a lot of other elections. If the people at the DNC thought, with all of their collected experience, that Clinton had the best bet of getting a third term, shouldn’t they have been doing everything they could, within the rules, to dissuade others from weakening the nomination?
The party is not a neutral, non-partisan organization. It is the definition of partisan. Doing what they could to keep the nomination process from degenerating into a 16 candidate clown car (I mean, clown bus) like the other guys were doing strikes me as a smart thing to do.
I was once a Sanders supporter, and stopped supporting him sometime between when I voted for him in AZ and now. The conspiratorial thinking from the camp has been there since the beginning, The Young Turks was one that really stood out to me, their whining about the “Mainstream Media” as it relates to Sanders was bringing up serious Fox Opinion Show vibes. (I have no idea if they’re like this all the time, but their videos reflected what I saw in Sanders supporters).
First, a few “pro-Sanders” things I believe:
[ul]
[li] I do think the Superdelegates had an effect, even if they ultimately wouldn’t have gone against the will of the electorate. Their large support for Clinton had, if nothing else, a psychological effect on the election.[/li][li] It does seem that the party had some pro-Hillary bias with regards to things like debate scheduling.[/li][li] While the Democratic and Republican parties being “private institutions” is technically true, I do feel the idea is increasingly more spurious. We’re talking about two organizations that essentially control the entire fate of the nation. It’s in the public interest to have a say in our candidates beyond the ultimate choice between only two platforms and ideologies you get in November.[/li]
It’s no secret that I prefer nationwide electoral reform for both President and Congress (e.g. condorcet or IRV and MMR, respectively), but barring that, allowing more voices to speak up in primaries is at least better than what we have now.
[li] I think it’s plausible, that Bernie could have won with more favorable conditions starting last year with regards to things like more frequent, better scheduled debates and more open voting, but is by no means assured.[/li][/ul]
The last point is probably what separates me the most from the current crop. The thinking that is a current underneath many of his current supporters is that Bernie was suppressed so he didn’t get enough votes early, and his “early momentum” would have carried him to the nomination easily. This is the thinking behind the superdelegate switch to Bernie. The idea is that he clearly would have won if not for part shenanigans, and thus the superdelegates selecting Bernie represents the true will of the people.
However, it’s essentially an unproven question, it’s stating “if things had been different they may have been different.” Well, yes. It’s tremendously unsurprising to me that the party didn’t treat a party outsider like one of their own, and I do think it would’ve been nice if they had been a little more open to him. However, whether that would have led to his success is not clear at all.
Bernie also does have a large contingent of voters that concern me. It is extremely cult-like behavior. I don’t think that as a whole they’re sexist or racist (meaning: those telling black people voting for Bernie is “best for them”) or whatever. It’s essentially just extreme fervor, and any anti-whatever movement for someone is going to attract some people and some rhetoric that falls into those ugly traps. By and large, the trouble is the extreme cultish fervor, which leads to all the $hillary nonsense, the conspiracy theories, and so on.
Yes, Hillary does have some traits that worry me. Her ties to monied organizations aren’t great. But nobody is a bastion of moral purity, not even Bernie. Not to mention Bernie has some concerning woo-ish support of “alternative medicine”, anti-GMO thinking, anti-nuclear thinking, and the like (and these things are partially what made me drop support for him). Hillary is, in my view, much better in her support for scientifically supported policies. Does this outweigh her monied supporters, her different economic policy, and some of her “scandals” (real or imagined)? I’m not sure, but I don’t feel like if you really look at either of their policy ideas in detail you’ll agree with either 100%, nor will you entirely disagree with either.
The biggest shame, though, is that the two sides were at each others throats as much as they were. This could have been a much more civil election. The Republicans may have had a circus, but the Dems practically had a civil war.
Woman who has spent decades fighting for Democrats gets more support from Democratic figures than guy who just joined the party out of political convenience after decades as an independent socialist. Film at 11.
I find it amazing that open primaries exist at all. If you want a say in who a political party should nominate in a race, you should be a dues-paying member of that political party. Open primaries are ridiculous.
If you don’t want to join a party, wait until the open election in November.
Starting?
The problem is black people will vote almost 100% democrat regardless of the candidate, but that wasn’t even my point. Obama managed to beat the stronger established candidate because he had an ace in the hole. “Normal” candidates who don’t have party backing or a character trait that allows them to unite a base behind them will struggle.
The problem with political parties in America is the American voting system only allows two parties to have a chance. I wouldn’t care how corrupt any party was if it was feasible to actually make a new one. My problem is the first stage of what’s supposed to be a democratic race depends far too much on non-democratic factors. You have a very small group of people who steer the entire party one way or another, and as a result get to control what candidates receive any sort of credibility. By picking and choosing who gets to be a candidate, they get to pick and choose who gets to have an opinion that matters before the American people get to vote on it.
I don’t care about whatever political game they want to play, although I think the way they’re doing it right now has selected a painfully weak candidate. I just don’t like the fact that a large amount of the American population gets little to no say in who ends up being the president. Its not just the nomination process, but that combined with a flawed General Election system means that the majority of voters have basically no say outside of “I’m somewhere to the right of center” or “I’m somewhere in the center or left”, and in many states they don’t even get to say that because of the Electoral College.
I don’t agree with the dues thing, but that is how much of the rest of the world with multiple parties does it. We have - relative to other places - a very open primary system.
As far as I can tell, you don’t even have to pay any dues.
I think that’s one of the great advantages of the American system. Even if you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, you don’t have anyone becoming President with 30% of American voters choosing them. Sometimes I don’t like the person my fellow Americans have picked - but at least it tends to be fairly clear that America has picked him (or her) (the exception is Bush/Gore - but then, there is a prevailing opinion that the reason that wasn’t clear was a third party candidate).
American Presidents have a lot more power than other forms of government. They weren’t really intended to have that much power - but the idiotic frat boys who were our Founding Fathers needed George Washington to keep them in line and the country together. John Adams was sort of a non-entity as a President, but Jefferson had a cult of personality and an ego the size of Virginia - and those men shaped the Presidency. By the time you get to the non-entities (I’d say starting around Harrison), you had a powerful head of state.