This is going to be political, and about the horse race.
I think it was yesterday that I heard a bernie bro say something like:
"Only Bernie can beat Trump."
And, well, who cares?
That is: Bernie is not going to be the nominee. He's not. And he's not going to be the nominee because people are voting for HRC. Because people like HRC. Because HRC has all the experience.
To suggest that Bernie should be the nominee is inherently to want to ignore the will of the voters.
Why? Because the people voted and chose HRC.
So, to say that only Bernie can beat Trump is self-defeating nonesense: you're really just saying that the only way to accomplish democracy is to ignore it.
And besides, HRC is going to cream that windbang.
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I think (though I hesitate to speak for Bernie supporters) that the argument is a heady two-part witch's brew of:
ReplyDelete(1) If people were rational and well-informed, they would make the same choice I am making, and therefore their irrational, uninformed votes should count less, because
(2) The Establishment contributes to keeping them irrational and uninformed, for its collective self-serving purposes.
Great joke set in the Leninist period. Revolutionary proclaims "After the revolution, everyone will have strawberries and cream!" Crowd-member replies "But I don't like strawberries and cream." Revolutionary: "After the revolution you will."
Or maybe its "The Democrats ought to chose someone who can win. I believe that only Bernie can win, therefore the democrats ought to chose Bernie."
ReplyDeleteWhich "The Democrats" are you talking about there?
ReplyDeleteThe party, I think?
ReplyDeleteThat is the only way this makes sense is to say that the party ought to ignore the will of the voters and have Bernie as the nominee because reasons.
In which, why even have an election? If Bernie doesn't need to be elected to get the democratic nomination, why should he get elected to be POTUS?
ReplyDeleteMaybe saying "Bernie is the only viable candidate" is part of continuing to campaign for a victory by trying to sway minds and turn out enthusiastic voters in the remaining primaries.
ReplyDeleteOr maybe, once you associate with a candidate you keep cheerleading for them even when it's clear they're not going to be the victor. Maybe you cheerlead more because you know you'll never be at risk of being disappointed by them.
Aren't the super-delegates supposed to decide who to vote for at a contested convention? And actually decide, not just represent their constituents in lockstep? As an outsider, I could totally have that wrong, but I thought that was the deal. If that's right, and if deciding whether Sanders or Clinton goes into the election is in their hands, then those are the Democrats who ought to choose Sanders. I think.
ReplyDeleteFor some value of ought (including, the value that would make me personally happier, but obviously that's not of value to anyone but me).
She's been winning since before anyone voted. There has never been a time where it made sense to suggest Bernie might win, and exactly due to Superdelegates.
ReplyDeleteSetting aside superdelegates for a moment (I'll return to them before end of post): Here's a link to the vote-count for those primaries that have voting: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_vote_count.html
ReplyDeleteHRC has a 3 million vote lead over Sanders. 12 million primary-goers have voted for her. 9 million have voted for Sanders.
So ... who should the Superdelegates be throwing their weight behind, and why? If they were, hypothetically, to throw their weight behind HRC is that an injustice?
Well, that's an interesting point, but we all know that Gore won in 2000, and the vote count didn't matter. The rules are such that it really doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteObama won, but Clinton beat him by about 3mil votes too.
T: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=democratic+primary+2008+popular+vote&l=1
ReplyDeleteSo sorry, no. Obama won a narrow victory in the popular vote.
Tony Lower-Basch Be nice.
ReplyDeleteStrange. Wikipedia is incorrect then:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008
Both parties use the delegates as gate keepers, but we're seeing that the Democratic party's strategy is much more sound.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, some days I feel like all my fact-checking should be delivered in an lmgtfy link, but I will try to restrain myself.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't have to be nice. I don't care, honestly : )
ReplyDeleteI do, though. Not for your sake, for anyone who wishes to speak up. And I'd rather people be able to say things in my spaces and get gently corrected if they are mistaken. I think that leads towards truth for more easier.
ReplyDeleteIt is weird that wiki disagrees with real clear. Who wants to look into it?
T: I think the Wikipedia article may be using the popular vote including Michigan (listed line three).
ReplyDeleteThat's a difference of 300K, not three million. And it's a difference over all primaries (35 million voters) not the primaries so far (21 million).
So that would be a margin of 0.8%, vs. a margin of 14%. I can see where you can make an argument from there that in principle the popular vote doesn't have to determine the delegate shake-out (as, indeed, it is designed not to do) but I don't know that I think it is as straightforward a comparison as your slipped digit makes it seem.
_ If they...throw their weight behind HRC is that an injustice?_
ReplyDeleteCertainly not. But I wouldn't call it an injustice if they did the opposite, either. I can see reasons to go either way and think either choice is easily justified (not that they have to).
I'm not in a position to provide serious analysis on my own and I'm not willing to do the lifting to get there. But I see a bunch of stuff saying Clinton fares worse against Trump than Sanders does in polls. If that's the case and there's not some actual reason to invalidate that, it seems like a perfectly good reason they might use. (And it might be perfectly reasonable to assert that Clinton can win and go with her, too!)
It's because their source, The Green Papers, who supposedly got their info from the convention, disagrees with Tony's preferred source.
ReplyDeleteI apologize for the typo reado, and appreciate your attempt at humility.
ReplyDeleteA major reason the superdelegates exist is so that elected representatives will show up to the nomination. Before that, they just didn't show. That was bad for the brand.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not they are meant to be super smart people who act for the good of the party like an aristocracy is secondary, I think.
Is there a time when they overturned the popular delegate vote? (as opposed to the popular vote, which isn't the same thing.)
Christopher Weeks Should we use polling information to select the President, then?
ReplyDeleteWho's we? We should follow constitutionally outlined procedures as explicated by federal and state law.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that the parties have tremendous power in deciding how their internal struggle works and the constitution doesn't speak to that.
Christopher Weeks Yeah. The parties are private organizations, and can use whatever the hell rules they want. Or no rules.
ReplyDeletePeople forget that, too.
So, my point is that the superdelegates using polling numbers to steer their votes is as legitimate as any individual voter using them to steer their individual votes. And not at all equatable to just using some private poll to determine president. (Though the voting process sort of is a poll...)
ReplyDeleteIf I were head of the DNC I would encourage Clinton to name Sanders as VP. That would address some of the concern that Sanders supporters may not vote for her.
ReplyDeleteI am unsure about the last time the delegates went against the popular vote, but the rules of the DNC are that a simple majority needs to agree upon a candidate.
ReplyDeleteI have the same confidence that they look to the voters for guidance in that process as they do when they execute the duties of their elected offices.
I think Bernie will have a choice:
ReplyDelete1. Full throated supported of HRC, and a Secretary position. Probably Treasury.
2. Don't give such support, and hope the DNC isn't vindictive.
William Nichols: It turns out that the superdelegate system is sufficiently young (instituted after the divisive 1968 Democratic convention, but because of slow-moving bureaucracy not implemented until 1982) that I was able to just run through the elections since then and answer your question.
ReplyDeleteThe superdelegates have never had an opportunity to change the outcome by casting their votes for a candidate that did not have a (substantial) majority of the pledged delegates.
In 2008 (the closest the party has come), HRC had officially suspended her campaign and endorsed Obama two months earlier. Once the convention started, she released her delegates and encouraged them to vote for Obama. When roll-call voting was under way, she moved to suspend the rules and nominate Obama by acclamation, which was done.
So, superdelegates deciding to overturn the balance of pledged delegates would be an action without historical precedent, but there isn't any history of them being presented with such a choice. No precedent either way.
Thanks, Tony!
ReplyDeleteI knew the superdelegate system was instituted after the disaster of 1968. I didn't realize they'd never had a chance to overturn the vote. That's fascinating.
ReplyDeleteI do remember -- and NPR has been playing -- when HRC put her support behind Obama. That was pretty fantastic.
My expectation is we will see something similar from Bernie.
I hope not. I would like Benie to run as an Independent. I think Hillary is unpopular enough, and so is Trump, that disaffected people from both sides will elect Sanders.
ReplyDeleteThat is, if another third party, or Indie candidate doesn't overshadow his candidacy.
Still, my view stands. Many Sanders supporters are unlikely to vote for Hillary, because of her experience (which isn't really an asset in the eyes of many, due to what she was doing while accruing it). It would be wise not only to demand Sander's support, but to court him as the VP, because that would also be acknowledging the "will of the people". By that, I mean all the other people who didn't want Hillary.
Aside from that, my point about super-delegates, and we might as well throw the electoral college in as well, is that thus far, there has been no precedent of the public seeking successful legal recourse against a party for not having a fair primary, nor does it seem that we can even see justice at a national level.
These instruments are that of Republicanism. They ensure only a certain class of person might run, and get elected, and guarantee, by virtue of parceling out the process bit by bit, that the selection an be supervised by those in a position to do so.
Parties are private entities, so they have a right to select who they will, however they want. The smaller parties, like Libertarians, don't even have elections to pick their candidate.
What I dislike is the pretense of the public mattering.
When we vote, we are offered choices, but those choices are akin to those offered by an ice cream shop. You can't pick whatever you want. You get what they put out, and what they put out is what is in their best interest.
So, we get to choose, but only from candidates that have already been determined to be in the best interests of the parties, which both take monies from the same sources.
I'm not sure the GOP thinks Trump is the candidate in their best interest.
ReplyDeleteT: What would it look like, to you, to have an election where (as you put it) "the public matters"?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think the public matters tremendously, but you don't, and I'm trying to figure out what you think is missing.
They totally changed the rules to eliminate Ron Paul. The Dems totally changed the rules to keep Larry Lessig from running as a Dem.
ReplyDeleteThey haven't done that to Trump. If they had, I would believe that they didn't find him acceptable. He will secure the interests of the people who fund the RNC, I am sure of it, and I think they are too.
Here's one way it could look that would come very much closer to making Democracy a core mechanism in elections: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting
ReplyDeletePerhaps I should have posted my response via Imgtfy : )
I kid, but our system is pretty far removed from having the "will of the people" in the foreground.
I wouldn't say it's absent, entirely, but the role of it is more similar to how our will affects the release of Apple products. It's not direct pressure. They release whatever they want, make that however they want, and hide all the pertinent nasty stuff about their processes, and products from us.
In a sense, opting for Republican systems of election is the most sensible thing to do in a system that actively encourages disinformation, and really doesn't offer much in the way of deterrents to outright falsehood.
Campaign finance would be needed as well. I order for the will of the people to matter, the people need to be fully informed, to an equal degree, about all of their options. There at least needs to be equal representation of the candidates, and issues at hand, and the ability of people seeking public office to spend their own money, or raise money to conduct more effective campaigning should be curtailed.
Further, the media should abstain from reporting on non-news, and bias towards candidates.
Trump may well be winning, and he may well ultimately be our president, simply because the media won't shut up about him.
They are making him seem inevitable, and I expect that's disheartening to a lot of people.
Also, why isn't everyone just automatically registered to vote? I would go so far as to make voting mandatory, but I would automatically register everyone of voting age, and I would also make election days local, state, or nation holidays...
...all of this would be an effort to make sure the voice of the people was heard loud, and clear.
I may as well write a sci-fi novel though, because none of that is going to happen.
I agree. That's not going to happen. Thank God.
ReplyDeleteI got tetchy enough at the crowded GOP field in the early primary. I shudder to think of the hundreds of candidates who would be demanding their equal share of media attention if campaigns were publicly funded and equal media coverage were mandated.
That's exactly what Europeans think. They all wish they could have the orderly, and fair elections that we have ; )
ReplyDeleteI don't mean to suggest their systems are perfect, but I do mean to suggest that they work to the satisfaction of the public, and may actually come closer to realizing the "Will of the people".
ReplyDeleteCool. I get what you're saying. Thanks for elaborating. It doesn't have to be my cup of tea for me to be interested in your opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo, suppose your candidate doesn't win. We're gamers, let's roleplay : )
ReplyDeleteGiven that, would you prefer that the seat be filled by someone you actually didn't want at all, someone who may be almost the antithesis of what you hope for, OR would you prefer to have the next closest thing to what you wanted occupy that seat?
Is that not remotely appealing?
It's like, "Tony, you said you wanted Chinese, but everyone else is sick of that. If you can't have Chinese, what else would you like?"
"Nothing! It's Chinese, or nothing!"
"Well, we're not eating nothing, Tony. Come on. Wha...."
"I SAID NOTHING! I"LL EAT MY FOOT BEFORE I CONCEDE!"
I know it's not like that, but I do think your fears could probably be addressed, and still grant us the same degree of input that we tend to have when eating out in a group.
T: If HRC doesn't win, I'm likewise thrilled to vote for Bernie. He seems like a really decent guy, with positions I can totally get behind.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad this kept going while I had a night away from screens.
ReplyDeleteone value not yet mentioned of a republican government as opposed to direct democracy is simple: I don't have to know everything.
That is, I can elect my representatives to be the experts, and to know what's up the field. My decision is intentionally -- and virtuously -- limited to elections. It would be a full time job to know every issue sufficiently well to cast an informed vote. We can see that's true, as even our elected representatives don't do a very good job of knowing what they are supposed to know.
By no means is this perfect. There are issues that we can and ought to correct -- campaign financing being an obvious one -- but, asking me to know more than A or B becomes a tax on my attention and intellect.
On the other hand, with the internet, we could subscribe to proxies on an issues by issue basis whom we believe to be (or even pay to be) informed on that issue and of like mind.
ReplyDeleteI could then vote green, pro-gun, free-market, socialist instead of the basket of beliefs that Democrats happen to hold dear.
Voting over the internet has its own basket of problems.
ReplyDeleteFor example: Virginia (my state) just went back to paper ballets from the electronic ones we were using. We're using scantrons, and they work beautifully. We get an anonymous paper trail, and the machines let you know if you did it wrong. You can put the ballot into the machine in any direction you want.
Why'd we change? The electronic machines were hackable from a starbucks across the street. In 30 seconds.
Moving towards a technology that most of us don't understand -- and treat as magic -- invariably means we are putting control into the hands of the technologists who actually do understand it. Or, who have a back door.
Two things:
ReplyDeleteFirst, I didn't specifically mean that we'd vote over the internet, just that we have an enormous ability to research and network in ways that were previously unavailable. So I can actually find some informed and sympathetic agent willing to put in the time researching a particular issue or piece of legislation.
Second, I think the problems with vote hacking are probably soluble. One quick first step would be to keep the equipment as simple as possible and everything open-source.
Christopher Weeks
ReplyDeleteWhen you can tell me this is not being routed, hacked, or otherwise taken advantage of, then we can talk about using technical solutions:
http://www.wired.com/2015/11/peter-garritano-where-the-internet-lives/
That is, technological solutions are incredibly complicated, in part because we cannot take the time to make them simple. We're -- rightly -- more concerned with making them better. And part of that means we don't really understand them.
ReplyDeleteAnd sure, we could assign public and private keys. Because that can't go wrong.
ReplyDeleteshrug
ReplyDeleteSacks full of paper ballots being carried from my poll to the district registrar is also a system that can be (read, is routinely) hacked.
You can't do nothing in fear that something wrong will happen. You have to just do your best.
... In the system we've moved to in Arlington, they are immediately counted. Sure, you can hack it, but it is much, much harder.
ReplyDeleteBecause you'd have to hack lots of paper. Rather than use a purpose built back door.
I just read your omment about Bernie's choices William Nichols. Have you considered that the DNC is heading the same direction as the RNC? Maybe it is they who are faced with some tough choices? Perhaps they need to get on board with the likes of Bernie, and everyone that supports him, or find their membership declining.
ReplyDeleteI only frame that as a possibility to be kind. I think that's actually concrete reality. They need to present a viable, structural option. I don't think it's enough to simply give voice to issues within a system that is just as bankrupt.
The DNC intentionally changed the rules to exclude Larence Lessig, and the RNC did the same to exclude Ron Paul, but later in the game.
So, while it is tough to blame the DNC for playing the game, just like the RNC, it's not hard for me to expect more, nor is it remotely difficult for me to change my political affiliation to Decline to State.
I offer this peak into the matter from a data stand point: http://www.gallup.com/poll/180440/new-record-political-independents.aspx
The future is young people, and young people want Bernie. That doesn't mean that the DNC must bend over backwards for him, but it does mean they need to consider how relevant they are if they don't at least pay him some respect.
I think we're at a point where we may see a dynamic shift in parties, or a near complete withdrawal from the two party system. The people that are pious about party are dead, and dying.
The DNC has a real chance to revitalize themselves by facing the future. That future, ideologically, looks like Bernie, not Hillary.
I have no idea why the media continues to dismiss the youth vote. That's who won the election for Obama, and that's who will win this one for whoever becomes the supreme dictator of Trumpland.