California is an example of good government? Sure, under Jerry Brown, but that’s because Jerry Brown has never been a part of the machine. He’s always been a maverick, his own man, and he’s resisted a lot of what the legislature has wanted.
Plus once there’s no opposition party, the ruling party just fractures, as we saw in California’s affirmative action debate, where the Asians in the legislature put a stop to efforts to get rid of Prop 209. Asians were actually against 209 back when Republicans could actually win elections, but now that Republicans aren’t a threat, they calculate their interests much differently.
OK, I admit I’m not at all up on a lot of pop culture crap, but if it’s Kanye West, doesn’t that put a Kardashian as FL? I’m thinking that would be a Yuuuuge benefit for the GOP, since I suspect that most Trump fans are Kardashian fans, too.
I’ve said before that the first major party to ditch the primaries will gain an instant advantage. The primaries are counterproductive. They lead to bad candidates getting nominated, lead to division within the party, and give the opposing party ammunition to use (some GOPers, I’m sure, use Clinton’s primary attacks on Obama against Obama, and Obama’s attacks on Clinton against Clinton.)
Well before the insanity of this election got going, I was predicting the GOP would have a rough time. My thought was that any candidate that won the primary would have had to win over the Tea Party faction and that would make him (pronoun chosen deliberately) too right-wing to have that great a shot at the general election.
But after this year, I just don’t know. Who do they have that can stir up the Trumpistas, but not endanger the GOP as a whole? Or is that an impossible task?
The attacks are important, because they help vet a candidate. What I think should happen is a combination: hold the primaries, but make it more proportional, no winner take all states, and a two thirds majority needed to win on the first ballot(the Democrats had that rule long ago). After the first ballot, delegates are released.
Depends on timing as well and what they replace the primary horse race with. Criss crossing the country helps to solidify the base and get them excited. If the candidates instead cut down those public rallies and just made private appeals to party bosses, you may have a nominee who is uninteresting to the voters and unable to get people out to the polls.
Unexciting, but competent candidates used to be the norm. Now we’re selecting candidates for the X Factor, as if it’s a reality show. I’m not suggesting going to smoke filled rooms, but the Democratic idea of superdelegates as a just in case measure might be a good idea for both parties.
Doesn’t look like they are going that route, but going purely proportional might prevent a future Trump situation. Without those winner take all states, Trump might have had the most delegates(Cruz would have been close), but he’d have been nowhere near a majority. Then if there’s no first ballot nominee, you throw the convention open.
I’ll be beating the drum for the most reasonable candidate in the field three years from now, and maybe i’ll get better luck this time. After all, I did get McCain in 2008, and when I was supporting him he was pretty much left for dead. That’s why I always keep my hopes up.
Whom nobody even remembers, much less wants to vote for.
The point was that your claim that “If the nutcase base agrees to present the public with that candidate, then it’s pretty much a sure win” is provably false, as Romney showed.
Now it’s time to address the problem that your party’s base is nutcases, but you support them anyway.
Romney was up against a candidate who could unusually mobilize young and minority voters. We’re already seeing that Clinton cannot duplicate that in the early voting data. So yes, and reasonable Republican should win.