Two party FPTP, yay.
Jut changing to some kind of STV system and doing nothing else would make a hell of a difference.
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This happens in places where there are more than two parties as well. Which is why Iâm intereseted in this aspect of the race even if not so much in the election itself.
When people vote for the lesser of two evils then political parties can be as evil as they want. It can happen with three parties and Iâve seen it happen with four parties.
If all potential options are corrupt then it doesnât matter how many choices you have.
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The money goes to a PAC, right? Does the DNC even get to see the list of donors?
Iâve given money to Republicans and Democrats in the past and Iâm probably never going to do it again, except anonymously. Once you give money, they call, and call, and callâŚ
Who was the left-wing Dem challenger trying to primary Obama out in 2012 again?
I agree, which is why I wonât be voting for her. But I have that luxury, and Dem voters in swing states donât.
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Thatâs more or less my point.
By 2012 it was obvious that Obama was going to let the fraudsters responsible for the 2008 meltdown take a walk. It was obvious that his intent was to replace Gitmo by killing with drones rather than taking prisoners.And it was obvious that he was going to nail as many whistleblowersâ scalps to the wall as he could.
So where was that left-wing challenger? Where were the leftist protests against Obama? Where, where indeed??
Those are good questions. The leftist protests existed: OWS and the other Occupy protests in 2011. My theory is that they took the wind out of the sails of any truly progressive primary challenger to Obama the next year. During those two years progressives were under the romantic delusion that a critical mass of protesters operating outside the system would change things, despite the fact that they couldnât articulate their message.
It was only around 2013-14, a year after the Occupy movement withered, that the message (growing inequality) began articulating itself and gaining traction. I see Piketty as the turning point, when Serious People⢠started to take notice. Sanders saw his opportunity and took it.
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My theory is that the First Black President was never going to be challenged by any Democrat, not even if Obama personally machine gunned whistleblowers on the White House lawn a la Kim Jong Un.
I donât think anyone was going to stick their head up when there was no chance theyâd win.
Has any sitting president been challenged by their own party since Ford? (any others ârecentlyâ since LBJ?)
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Ted Kennedy ran against Jimmy Carter in 1980.
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I agree that Obamaâs race, along with the general reluctance to primary out an incumbent President, also played a part. But there were large progressive protests, and some of their rhetoric was aimed at him in the hope that he could still live up to his 2008 rhetoric.
But youâre fine with Sanderâs campaign manager saying that the super delegates should ignore the peopleâs mandate, and vote for Bernie?
I think heâs arguing that the super delegates should vote according to the winner of their state. Which I donât agree with, insofar as it defeats the function of super delegates. Sandersâ campaign manager, Weaver, is a serial screw-up whoâs been in way over his head on a national campaign.
Iâd rather see super delegates eliminated entirely. Party hacks and establishment bagmen have no place determining the Presidential candidate of a supposedly liberal party in opposition to the popular will. That applies as much now in 2016, when theyâre being whipped by DWS in favor of the heir apparent, as it did in 2008, when they opportunistically rebelled against her.
I just re-read the transcript, and thereâs nothing in it about state winners. He wants to flip everyone, even in states he did poorly in.
WEAVER: Well, because they are going to want to win in November. And if the polling continues to show that Bernie Sanders is a much stronger candidate in the general election, and thatâs for a few reasons, right?
He brings out a lot of young people into the process who might otherwise participate. Heâs extremely popular with independent voters. If you look at when you have open caucuses and open primaries, he wins independents 65/35, 70/30.
And in November, you know, only about a quarter of the population is Democrats. If you canât create a coalition with independent voters, you canât win the White House. You canât win the Senate. You canât bring additional people into the House.
So this is what has to be built in November. It has to be Democrats along with independents to defeat the Republicans. And Bernie Sanders is the candidate who can do that.
KORNACKI: Because you know as well as I do, if June 7th comes and goes and Hillary Clinton has won the pledged delegate count and the primaries, and she has won the popular vote, there are going to be calls from her campaign and calls from a lot of influential delegates in this country for you the Sanders campaign to make a decision to unite around her.
Youâre saying instead of that, you will spend those months, those weeks in the summer trying to flip superdelegates to Bernie Sanders before the convention?
WEAVER: At this point, yes, absolutely.
Trumpâs only path to the white house, is to split the Democratic party, and get as many as possible to stay home, and Weaver is playing right into it.
Thanks. It may have been some of Sandersâ supporters walking back Weaverâs nonsense that I was thinking about, then. My point about the super delegates remain: not only am I not fine with Weaverâs proposed use of them, Iâm not fine with DWSâs either, or really their existence in the Democratic Party.
If Drumpf is in the running, I think most Sanders supporters â especially those in swing states â will hold their noses and vote for Clinton. The more likely split scenario is on the GOP side, with Drumpf doing an independent run under the banner of a party that registered ballot lines in enough states after the RNC screws him out of the nomination.
The job of superdelegates is to make sure the the most electable candidate is put forward, isnât it?
I donât like them, theyâre an affront to democracy, but so are the parties generally, as is the confused mess of primaries and caucuses, open and closed.
With that in mind, I think itâsâŚokayâŚto argue that your preferred candidate is better place to win in Nov if you can (itâs kind of the campaign managerâs job to try to do what he can to win). But I think that in the absence of a Sanders landslide he was never going to win over enough party insiders against someone as central to the party as Clinton.
I still think sheâs a crappy candidate, I think sheâd lose to pretty much anyone in Nov other than Trump or Cruz, and I donât and wonât support her. But I suspect that (as in 2008, when Clinton voters were saying they wouldnât vote for Obama), when push comes to shove, enough lefties will hold their noses in swing states to help her win.
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Their job is to make sure the most electable candidate whoâs most acceptable to the neoliberal establishment is put forward (which is why a lot of them switched to Obama in 2008). When it comes to cleaning up the confused mess of the primaries, one of the few things the Dems can do is get rid of the super delegates.
I think Weaver lost sight of Sandersâ goal here, which is to shift the party left. I understand going with momentum, but Weaver is not clever or sophisticated enough to do it.
I agree completely about what will happen in the general if (as is likely) sheâs the nominee. Iâll still be writing in Sanders in my comfortably blue state, but I think most Dems will just suck it up and vote for her. As unresponsive to constituents and crappy as she is, the alternatives are worse.
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How well are write-in votes reported? Will we be able to get a figure as to how many people write Sanders in?
I think it varies from state to state. What the Clinton campaign will be watching are the Democratic turnout numbers in the general election, especially in reliably blue states like mine. If her numbers are down significantly there from Obama in 2008 (say a 10% difference), thereâs a chance she might take notice and understand that the issues Sanders brought up arenât going away and may be a factor in the 2020 primaries. Whether sheâd do anything about it is another question.
Both parties have superdelegates. But the GOP only have 210, which isnât really enough to have a meaningful effect. The Dems believe itâs important to be able to put a hand to the tiller if something catastrophic is looming ahead. To date, theyâve always voted along with the majority. But assume that sometime between the last primary, and the convention, the FBI investigation of Clintonâs emails goes south, do you want someone whoâs on trial to be the partyâs standard bearer, which the GOP would love, or allow the superdelegates to fulfill their function and cast their votes for Bernie?
Although heâs already weaseled out of his âno 3rd party runâ agreement, based on some Trumped up (ha!) technicality, I doubt heâd do it. Heâd rather get the most delegates, but not a majority, and then have the party select someone else. That way, he can claim he won, but it was stolen, possibly by Mexicans, and he can go back to playing golf, and putting his name on tacky building.
