Keep in mind that in a caucus situation, participants can see in real time if their candidate is going to clear the 15% hurdle and switch to their second choice if necessary. So with a very large field of candidates, a caucus may actually be more democratic than a primary election.
But I don’t really get why a contested convention would be a disaster for the Democrats. Of course it could turn ugly and divisive, but so could a close primary battle that* doesn’t *result in a contested convention.
The worst kind of contested election for Dems would be a centrist candidate “stealing” an election from a more hardline progressive. Think Beto O’Rourke or Joe Biden “stealing” an election from Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. The more ardent progressives wouldn’t accept the outcome.
I think the biggest obstacle for Democrats are the Berniebots. They’re just as much a personality cult as the MAGAbots. If they perceive that Bernie should have won the nomination but doesn’t, they’ll sit out the election and hand a second term to that felon in the White House.
Single payer health care (and variations) has been a Democratic goal for decades. “Open borders” is a bullshit characterization of most of the candidates’ positions. “Higher taxes and more spending” than the present level is also entirely mundane, and nothing new – is it really shocking that one party is in favor of higher taxes on the rich, and more social spending, than the other?
In short, this is a false characterization of the Democratic field that no doubt makes the GOP spin-meisters very happy to see “out in the wild”.
There’s the realistic path to re-election the thread title asks for. For very very large part of American society the pay stub on the 30th of this month beats “institutional order” over a generation, and the figure of the “a**hole boss” is just a common trope of life, not a deal-breaker.
The smear machine will be at it as usual. If the Dems on top of it get mired in a huge kerfuffle about trying to figure out who would be the absolutely perfect candidate, either from the ideological or electability viewpoints, that just oils the gears.
What a bunch of recycled pablum.
Right-speak for “they don’t hate Latinos”. Who precisely is for open borders?
We need higher taxes to rein in the Republican deficits. We need more spending on infrastructure and education.
What a quaint term! Southern border states? Like Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri where Democrats have no chance in no matter what they do. Kamala Harris could fellate an AK-47 and still not carry Kentucky.
Ha. By who? Don’t tell me- the eeeeeeeeeeeeevil George Soros.
Keep in mind, by the way, that the border areas are all Democratic. Clinton won every county that borders on Mexico. Apparently the people who live there don’t actually fear Hispanics as much as Republicans think they should.
A lot of people who live in the border states ARE Hispanic, and Hispanics generally vote Democrat.
Oh nuts, my bad. I thought SS was referring to Civil War border states. Still- California and New Mexico are blue and will stay that way, Texas is red and will stay that way. The only state that borders Mexico that is in play is Arizona.
This is false. For example, in Arizona, Trump won both Yuma and Cochise County.
Agreed. We’re too far from the election to make decent predictions, but if the economy come election time is similar to what it is now, I think Trump will win.
I think we’re still 2-3 presidential cycles out but the phenomenal growth of the state’s cities coupled with a growing latino share of the electorate turns Texas blue. I think 2020 is a bridge too far, however.
I’m not sure that it would be any better party unity-wise if it were Sanders being perceived as having “stolen” the election from Biden. But again, a very close election isn’t necessarily the same as an election whose integrity is in question.
I assume this is limited to the Democrats, since the Republican primary rules can vary wildly from one state to the next.
If only one candidate gets 15% at a particular level (Congressional district or statewide), that candidate gets all of the delegates at that level. If none do, then the delegates go to the candidates that got at least half as many votes as the winner did at that level. (Some states claim to use the old “within 10% of the winner” rule, but the Call for the Convention implies that they all have to use the “at least half of the winner” rule in 2020.) Keep in mind that, except in states that have only one Representative, about 2/3 of the delegates are at Congressional district level.
i have friends planning on going out to pick up people and take them to polling stations, calling/visiting to make sure people are registered and taking them to get reregistered if they mysteriously got struck from the rolls … stuff like that.
That’s assuming that sort of thing is legal once the election rolls around. Not even kidding.
Yeah, there’s a bill up for a vote in Texas that would make it illegal to carpool to the polls.
Agreed - Sanders could “steal” the election from Sanders. And some old dog Democrats may refuse to accept the progressive anti-establishment turn of the party.
I suspect that the Supreme Court is going to allow the citizenship question on the census, allowing the GOP fro preventing the fair distribution of House seats, couple with Trump’s re-election giving him at least one more seat to fill, this is about it folks.