I’m not saying they always act on the findings. But at least they go through the discovery process. The Dems don’t even do that.
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Yes, you need that, which is why a general algorithm rather than a strict selection of states is important.
That doesn’t make it OK that there’s lots of money involved.
I’m all for campaign finance reform, but I don’t see that as any easier than reforming primary scheduling. Especially even when erstwhile reform candidates have big dark-money organizations supporting them.
Unless the final block is large enough to overcome all preceding blocks it’s still largely set before most people vote.
Approximately 1/5 of the delegates are not determined until the final round. It is certainly possible that a candidate is unassailable by then, but in that case it was unlikely that the last states would have changed things anyway, and at least we have the advantage of having some vetting of the candidates, rather than just going with the start-of-season front-runner. And the randomization ensures that every state gets a fair shot.
More important is where turnout lags most.
Again, data indicate that American turnout isn’t bad. Registration is. That’s not a function of the extended primaries.
Things went pretty good in Ireland the other day.
A country with the population of a very small US state.
Initiatives like non-partisan primaries and instant-runoff voting are attempts to make parties fundamentally less important, so that their internal mechanics don’t matter as much.
Smoke-filled back rooms would be a perfectly reasonable way for any party to anoint its champion if there was no duopoly, no “spoilers,” no systemic disadvantages for third parties and independents.
What we have today are two parties, and whole industries of partisan propaganda, that are so powerful they’re drowning out both democracy and the sensible administration of public institutions.
As it is, we have to worry about whether the internal logic of “our party” is democratic enough, because that’s all we get. And the parties definitely don’t want us thinking there is any other way.
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But how do you impose that without getting the GOP and a critical mass of states on board?
Especially the GOP. They’re opposed to things like enfranchisement and dislike high turnout so much they’ll openly argue it’s a bad thing. They have an active interest in over representing smaller more rural and whiter states. The bulk of early states are GOP controlled ones. And they opposed the reforms that gave us the modern process, attempting to stick with close door caucuses in the first few years. And were often the prime mover in states jockeying to be first.
As a stop gap that can improve things so long as federal reform isn’t happening it’s a decent model. You’d likely have to leave New Hampshire and Iowa hanging out there unless things continue to shift in New Hampshire. But you undercut them through the weight of bigger primary days made up of many states. Multiple dates gives more space for negotiating with individual states.
But again that was a big part of the idea behind Super Tuesday. And it wasn’t a silver bullet. The base pathway on that is still negotiating with and pressuring individual states, and those states have to have an interest in fixing things.
Part of my hang up on this is that reforming the primary schedule has been a central plank in reforming campaign finance for decades. The two are inherently tied, because of the escalating cost associated with the very long election season. This process started in earnest two years before the actual election. And Trump has technically, legally been campaigning for a full 4 years.
The base idea that turnout of register voters vs registration is a different issue. That turnout is good/not a problem but registration is something something is basically an attempt to ignore the problem.
If you have 100% turnout, but only 5 registered voters you do not have good turnout. When we publish turnout numbers after elections we aren’t publishing the percentage of registered voters who actually voted.
It’s a semantic arguement predicated on looking at the number that looks better. Participation in our elections is low. Who can and who does participate is a massive problem.
The central problem is that we have a rather restricted population of regular voters, who are on the whole older, whiter, and richer than the general population.
Pointing out that that group is really reliable doesn’t mean it’s not a problem.
You do know how formal rules are are set within our political parties right?
They’re voted on at the National convention. By delegates who are voted on in state conventions, who are selected based on votes/caucus counts in the primaries.
By definition they happen during elections. After a presidential election just means during a midterm. In between it’s planning, negotiations with states and state parties, soft pressure. Actual formal changes take a critical mass of delegates (and voters) to propose them and vote in favor of them.
And like I said both have happened recently. There is no magic button Nancy Pelosi can push to “fix” all of this unilaterally.
It’s a good practice to do that even when things go well. First, it allows you to capture what you did right and make sure that gets applied to future projects. Second, it allows you to figure out if things were a hairsbreadth from going pear-shaped and make adjustments, even though it turned out ok.
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In several of my posts above I specifically agree that you need GOP and state support, exactly for the reasons you say (and some of the other posters don’t seem to grasp). The DNC by itself doesn’t have the authority for any of this, though for sure they can exert pressure on state parties, especially if they can get the GOP to press the same states at the same time.
I think agreement between the parties and the states is more within reach with a general proposal that doesn’t specifically say “state X is 1st, state Y is 7th” but rather just says “8 electoral votes are first, 16 are second” and so on, with the composition of those cohorts determined with either randomization or rotation. As an ex-Iowan I can see Iowa embracing a proposal which is obviously fair and reasonable, rather than one that says “right, you’re out, Florida is in”. The GOP already endorsed the Delaware plan, the California Democratic party endorsed the later California plan. I don’t know if either of those is the best proposal, but think a proposal like this is possible, especially if the GOP ever returns to being something other than an extension of the Trump brand.
If you have 100% turnout, but only 5 registered voters you do not have good turnout
I agree. However, you introduced specifically low turnout as something exacerbated by fatigue from the long primary season, and that’s what I was responding to. I don’t think there’s any evidence that the long season has much impact on low registration.
I do. Which is why the review and discovery process has to begin now, with a clear action plan ready and supporters in place for a vote at the next convention. Three years would be enough for people who actually want to get things done ()including working around the state laws and not letting the state GOPs determine Dem policy) and who are capable of it.
And the national leadership has to show some backbone about a serious 21st century political party having one national and actually democratic, anonymous and inclusive standard for how primaries in all states are run, and not showing favouritism to certain states when it comes to order because of empty tradition.
That won’t happen of course. This Iowa schmo will take the fall for this debacle but otherwise nothing will change. In 2024, this Iowa misery will continue. It might not matter anyhow, since these clowns are likely to hand Il Douche a second term and end liberal democracy as we know it.
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