The good news is, Trump has yet to deal with a debater who actually knew what they were doing. Hillary is a very skilled debater. But Trump thrives on defying "experts" and "facts", and can make emotional appeals that resonate more with the cynical voters they're trying to reach right now. A conventional debating style might just reinforce her image as the smug, corrupt corporate robot.
We don't need to. It was all out in the open in with #NeverTrump. They actually fought to change primary/convention rules to prevent Trump from getting the nomination.If that was out in the open, there was worse behind the scenes. It's never all out in the open.
Also, who exactly is "they" in that scenario? I feel like everyone who rails against the #NeverTrump movement conveniently omits the part where they accomplished exactly nothing at the convention.
Meanwhile the DNC has decided to re-evaluate the super delegate system. Why would anyone who didn't want to waste their vote in the primary choose Trump over Sanders, exactly?
Only skimming through, noticed the rehash of the Nader/Gore wars, noticed (unless my skimming wasn't thorough enough) that nobody mentioned the 90,000 or so voters, half or so racial minorities, that were erroneously purged from the rolls as "felons."
New Jim Crow, anyone?
EDIT: Woops. Comrade Jeff, of course, mentioned it.
I honestly don't think the #NeverTrump movement did that much in the shadows. Not because I don't think they would if they could, but because by the time of the convention, they were a crippled minority with almost no influence to achieve their goal. I'm pretty sure what we saw is all they had.
I support superdelegates existing, but I don't think they should be allowed to formally state their planned votes ahead of time. That gives them influence they shouldn't have, since soft delegates are only supposed to go against the voters in a Trump-style emergency (as opposed to, "We don't like this socialist very much"). Letting the media treat them like they've already voted really impacts the narrative when it shouldn't.
We need superdelegates, but I don't like them putting their fingers on the scale before the convention. The convention is the only time of year I want to be hearing from them, generally speaking.
Really? I got the sense the superdelegates had basically stated their votes ahead of time, and that that was what the media was working with.
Regardless, it's within the DNC's power to adjust the rules on how superdelegates work. I'm hoping they find a way to limit their "endorsements", or otherwise reduce their pre-convention leverage.
Yeah, and that kind of contributes to my point: Soft delegates almost never actually decide primaries—and even if they could, they would almost never choose to (they sure didn't in 2008). They wouldn't have decided this one. We seem to agree on that.
So why, if the soft delegates are symbolic in all but the most contested primaries (like, say, a Trump for the Democrats), should they wield such power over the media narrative? Most of the time, the votes they offer are hollow. Since, like you said, they wouldn't actually contradict a pledged delegate majority.
Everybody knows who's won if the pledged delegates come out with a solid majority for one candidate or the other. We don't need superdelegates to "make things clearer" any more than we need this convention to confirm to us that Hillary's won. In other words, we'll do it, but nobody's exactly waiting with bated breath to see if the convention votes her in.
So no, superdelegates contributing to the media narrative isn't necessary or good. The best argument is that this power over the narrative is simply an unavoidable evil associated with superdelegates. Acting like it's good, or like it doesn't exist, just isn't realistic. It's dishonest when the media uses those soft delegates to inflate or deflate a lead.
Obviously, the media will do whatever it wants (and it wants more numbers, and superdelegates are more numbers, so they get counted), but it would be nice if we could avoid it. That's all I'm saying. I'm hoping the DNC finds a way to reduce the current impact premature superdelegate totals make. If not, eh. It's not like the superdelegates were the biggest problem in the media narrative this year. :P
Yeah, like I said, this isn't the hill I want to die on. I actually support superdelegates being around, though I'd like it if we could find a way to keep them from coming out save in emergencies. I don't think we can, though.
I was actually just trying to decide what a Democratic Trump would look like. I mean, we have to remember that Trump isn't actually very conservative—he just panders to the ethnocentrists among the conservative party. My best bet was some sort of aggressive quasi-libertarian who wants to break up banks, protect minorities by simply removing all negative legislation and otherwise doing nothing, and also invade a ton of third-world countries to "fix their regimes" (or he might preach "America First" as a peaceful philosophy, come to think of it. He might also oppose environmental legislation. And he might still be bigoted, just in a more patronizing, "Upper-Class White Liberal" way. ;P
The entire point of superdelegates is for party leadership to override the people and select the candidate. You have to count their votes up front or they don't serve their purpose.
They were created in response to the democrat losses in the 70's and 80's to stop the people from selecting the far left candidates that kept losing in the general election so party leaders could selected a moderate candidate and win.
Here is a link to an interview with one of the creator's of superdelegates that explains this.
relevant quote: "Superdelegates were created as a safeguard against nominees like George McGovern, whom Democratic Party officials saw as ‘too far to the left."
Why bother to allow voting for primaries at all then? Why put up the pretext that the people even matter if it's inevitably to be decided by leadership?
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Why bother to allow voting for primaries at all then? Why put up the pretext that the people even matter if it's inevitably to be decided by leadership?
Because it isn't inevitably decided by leadership. You haven't internalized what you were just told.
The original purpose of superdelegates wasn't so that the party leadership would always decide the nominee. It was as a safeguard against particularly extreme candidates being advanced by a combined effort of the far-left wing of the party and a coalition of non-Democrat independents. To date, the people have always decided the nominee.
The original purpose of superdelegates wasn't so that the party leadership would always decide the nominee. It was as a safeguard against particularly extreme candidates being advanced by a combined effort of the far-left wing of the party and a coalition of non-Democrat independents.
[Perks up ears]
Hadn't really followed the Bernie campaign as closely as I probably should have, since, from the beginning, I viewed it as an attempt by Sanders to shepherd the Occupy kids and the stirring leftie-labor types (e.g., the United Electrical Workers, who sat 2012 out) back into the arms of the Democratic Party which, of course, I despise. So I, alas, didn't read all of the articles explaining the origins of the superdelegate system that have been going around for the last six or so months.
Did some cursory googling, read about Humphrey and the McGovern-Fraser Commission and the Hunt Commission, thought about the timelines and pondered your comment above. For example, 1980 is too early for the whole inside-outside strategy employed by the New Communist Movement and others in conjunction with the Jesse Jackson campaign, so I was wondering who were these particularly extreme candidates. If you could help me out with this, Citizen Betts, I can work out who the non-Democrat independents were on my own.
Here is a link to an interview with one of the creator's of superdelegates that explains this.
relevant quote: "Superdelegates were created as a safeguard against nominees like George McGovern, whom Democratic Party officials saw as ‘too far to the left."
Oh, shiznit, really? McGovern was the particularly extreme candidate? How disappointing.
Sanders himself wasn't part of the Democratic party until now—he's a Socialist who joined the party to run in the primary, initially planning to just bring some attention to his issues. It was less about "shepherding labor into the Democratic party" and more about trying to move the Democratic party closer to his platform. :P
For all his independence, Bernie's been allied with the Democrats since 1990. Caucusing with them in the Senate, getting the nod for committee chairmanships, and, so the story goes, having a deal with the Vermont Democratic Party in which they agreed to not run anyone against him (although I have read that some did anyway, but without the party's backing) and he did his best to block further third party developments in the Green Mountain State.
From the beginning, I've viewed his run as a nation-wide replication of his Vermont deal.
I read this story on a leftwing site that I don't expect anyone else to believe, but I'm going to keep repeating it until someone disproves it. Which might not be hard, but, as I've said, I never cared for Sanders enough to look further.
[Edited]
Hey, if you PM me the article, I'll ship it over to Gark. That commie bastard brother of mine can probably give it a more balanced lookthrough than I can, since he supported Sanders just as enthusiastically as I did.
That said, if his campaign had hurt third-parties but brought a party that's actually in control further to the left? Still a huge improvement.
It remains to be seen whether he actually brings the party to the left in any meaningful way (i.e., other than empty platform planks and campaign promises.)
I'll go search for the article tomorrow. Say "hi" to Gark for me!
Hey, if you PM me the article,
My apologies, Comrade Cleaver. Been busy. Not going to bother with the pm.
Bernie the Bomber’s Bad Week put out by his former friends in the Vermont Liberty Union Party.