by publius
One overlooked aspect of the DNC’s admittedly clusterf***ish meeting this weekend is that things could have been far worse. Consider this — what if the meeting had actually mattered? What if the actual nomination had depended on how the DNC handled Michigan and Florida? That, my friends, would have been ugly. Really, really ugly. And frankly, I don’t see how it could have been resolved legitimately at that stage (or at the convention).
For that reason, the Democrats actually dodged a bullet here. The nomination has essentially already been decided. But if it hadn’t been, then things could have become extremely messy.
The broader lesson here is that the Democrats (and Republicans too) need to get their procedural houses in order before 2012. The primary selection process is need of a drastic procedural overhaul — and this election provides a perfect excuse for comprehensive reform. In fact, I’d like to see “primary reform” on the netroots agenda in the months and years ahead. In that spirit, below is a short list of the most obvious problems/recommendations:
Replace Iowa and New Hampshire with Rotating Regional Calendar
The Michigan/Florida debacle is a direct consequence of Iowa and New Hampshire’s unholy monopoly on the early elections. David Broder aside, there is absolutely no justification for allowing the same two states — states without major urban centers or diverse populations — to host the first elections every cycle. And it’s especially unwise given that one of these states holds caucuses and forces all candidates to embrace ethanol-first policies.
I’d prefer some sort of rationalized rotating regional calendar (e.g., 5 states in Week 1, 7 states in Week 3, etc.). In fact, I’m not sure any individual state should have an election day all to itself. That’s not how the general election works, and individual contests don’t test for the type of skills candidates need in national presidential elections. But regardless of how it’s structured, the order of the states needs to rotate from cycle to cycle. As Senator Levin correctly noted, these states don’t have a God-given right to go first.
Kill the Caucuses
These should simply be eliminated — no ifs, ands, or buts. The Clinton people are right that they are disenfranchising. If you are (1) old; (2) have small children; or (3) work at night, it’s a lot harder for you to sit around the high school gym for hours listening to others talk. And even if you’re none of these things, caucuses still sharply increase the “costs” of voting. If, by contrast, you can just walk in and walk out, you’d be more likely to go vote.
If there are local political issues that need to be debated, fine. Caucus about them all you want. But the actual presidential election part needs to be carved out and converted into a primary.
Kill the Superdelegates (Metaphorically)
While we’re at it, let’s get rid of these guys too. The whole superdelegate concept seems illegitimate to me (in a normative rather than positive sense). Indeed, the Democrats dodged a bullet on this front as well — things could have been worse. Even though superdelegates will ultimately decide this year’s outcome, Obama has a pretty clear (not huge, but significant) lead in pledged delegates. Thus, the superdelegates aren’t “robbing” anyone.
You could imagine, though, a much closer election with superdelegates splitting more evenly. And that situation would be a total disaster — one that would be a mockery of democracy. For one, the decision would be made by unaccountable party hacks that no one’s ever heard of. Second, the decision would likely be based more on deal-cutting and chits than on principle.
The point is that the superdelegate concept creates terrible incentives. Even worse, it creates the conditions for a true intraparty meltdown in the case of a virtual tie (indeed, we got a glimpse of that this cycle). For this reason, I would recommend eliminating them entirely. But if the Democratic rabble is deemed unfit for democracy, then superdelegates should at least consist only of elected officials — no DNC officials allowed. We need some modicum of accountability.
These are just off the top of my head. Others?
how about we go the other way on the caucuses, giving people 8 hours off to participate, national holidays for voting, daycare centers, grilled vegetables, the whole shebang? geez, its that really how you spell it?
Sheesh, I take off two days to go to Vegas and I come back to find Clinton gambling with the future of the Democratic Party.
The key thing that we need to commit to (and this showed up in 2000, 2002 and 2004) is that you have to make election rules well in advance and you absolutely must stick to them when it comes down to it. It is impossible to maintain the seeming of fairness if you try to tinker with the rules once the votes are cast. At that point it becomes possible to know exactly how your rule-changing will help or hurt you and the urge to tweak that toward your favored candidate is almost impossible to resist. Humans are too good at post-facto rationalization.
Redwood, it still wouldn’t help for a lot of folks. You’d have to mandate the break time nationally, and then you’d have to attend to the situation of people who really can’t afford to lose a day of work and also time-sensitive processes that need someone to tend them. (This includes rocket science, drying concrete, people needing constant medical supervision, and a lot else.) You’d still have problems for people who can’t devote extended periods of time to any activity (like people recovering from various illnesses, just for starters, plus folks like my friends just getting started with treatment for severe sleep apnea, and so on), and like that.
Gary Farber makes some great arguments in favor of caucuses, and I can see his point. But insofar as the goal is to get as many Democratic voices heard as possible, primaries are the way to go.
Publius, in addition to the things you list – all of which I agree with – I’d want to make sure there’s PR about procedures for appealing policies in advance and a much clearer, firmer rule about challenges made after the fact.
I agree with those things on paper but I have qualms
1) Such a system would greatly favor people with high name recognition and boatloads of money. Say what you want about Iowa but if they had not taken the time to get to know Barack Obama one-on-one, Hillary would have swept everything. Regardless of whether you think that was the right outcome or not, as everyone pointed out, our party benefits from fighting the nomination at least a bit. A sweep for Obama if he had won NH would have been bad. Same thing if Hill had won Iowa. Same thing happened in 2004. Without Iowa, John Edwards would never have been on the scene in 2008 and influencing the nomination the way he has.
I understand the idea that it is not fair for a state to always go first but there are clear drawbacks to multi-states primary right off the bat and Iowans do know how to vet candidates.
2) Caucuses do not always disenfranchize people (see Maine where people could vote by proxy) and are very useful in terms of party building. As Kos pointed out a few days ago, an hybrid system in every state would help gathering name and energy for the party while opening the results to a larger population.
3) The SD system as is now is ridiculous. That someone like the moron from the VI who changed his mind twice in three weeks is allowed to have such an impact on the nomination is outrageous. That said, the system was created for a reason, and I don’t see anything wrong with guaranteeing a spot at the convention to, at least, our elected officials such as Governors or Senators. That may even reward states that elect Democrats vs those who don’t.
All to say that while I understand your reform proposals are grounded in principle, in real-life things are different. There are good reasons for every messy piece of the messy puzzle and there are flaws with what seems on paper an ideal system.
PS:
While I hope President Obama will direct the DNC into that reform direction, I do NOT want this to be the focus of the netroots for the time being.
First, we have an election to win. And secondly, this would end up being played as a proxy for the Hillary/Barack wars. People would start projecting their candidate on every system and would judge based on what impact it would have had if …
Better let those passions die down and let’s talk about it next year.
Benjamin, I’ve seen proposals for assembling blocks of states that include states with various features: low-population relatively rural, major industrial, and so on. It’d need a lot of work and testing to make sure each block was in fact comparable, but then that’s true of anything. And then the idea is that one could arrange them in any order and get the benefits of our current system without the liability of the same states dominating every time.
Sebastian, is it okay if we blame this all on your not paying attention? 🙂
Eliminate caucuses.
Hold primaries and count all the votes.
Revise the delegate allocation by districts to remove the unfair influence the all black districts have on the party. Revise the demographic allocation of delegates to reflect the actual demographics of the states they are representing.
Keep the superdelegates as is. With or without them it is possible for two or three candidates to go to the convention without the needed majority of delegates to win on the first ballot. Super delegates provide a cadre of people who know how to horsetrade and that is what is required when no one has a clear majority.
Right now the Democratic party is in danger of becoming a permanent minority party. If they don’t change then no matter what the republicans do the democrats will be unable (deservedly so) of winning a national election.
You are dead wrong about the first four primaries — it’s not just IA and NH, there’s also now SC and NV. Those four primaries spread over a few weeks in relatively small states makes it possible for lesser know, lesser moneyed candidates to get in the race. (Or, let’s put it this way: No Iowa means no Obama.)
Perhaps there’s some way to broaden the pool of states to begin the process, but in principle beginning with a one smaller state at a time series makes very good sense because it keeps the process open to smaller name, less well known candidates.
Now I agree with rotating regional primaries after that. That makes a lot of sense. But to demand of small time candidates that they compete right off the bat in a regional primary just ain’t right. If that had been in place this year then Clinton would be the nominee.
Oh, one more. Rotate the primaries, but by region instead of by state.
So when New Hamphire votes, then so do the other states in its region. California votes with Oregon and Washington. Texes votes with New Mexico and Oklahoma. The midwest all votes on the same day, etc.
a couple of thoughts on that and then to bed.
first, I don’t think you can base everything on obama. this system also brought us kerry — (not awful, but not the strongest either, i think). the point though is that we need to look more systematically and outside the lens of this particular race. on balance, is beginning with individual states good or bad and why.
second, i’m not completely opposed to beginning with individual states. I can see why retail politicking is a good thing at first. But even if that’s right, i think it’s clear that those individual states need to rotate. but is suspect few disagree with me on that last point.
ken: “Super delegates provide a cadre of people who know how to horsetrade and that is what is required when no one has a clear majority.”
Well, that is one way of solving the problem. A better one is to actually ask the voters. Really, it’s not so difficult: On my workplace, all internal votes, from the photo competition to election of board representative, are taken with ranked ballots. In case of no outright majority (really, in all cases) it is resolved with something called Schwartz’s rule or CSSD. It’s deep mathematical election theory magic, and I dare say very few can explain why it works so well, but around here we respect mathematics 🙂
Just like all voters don’t need to know arcane rules for delegate distribution, all voters don’t need to know the math here. People just rank the candidates from best to worst and voila – you have a winner.
I totally agree with the desire for a rotating (and centrally dictated) calendar. Rotating so that IA and NH don’t own the candidates for a year before the election every time, and centrally dictated so that states can’t jump the queue.
I am not at all sure I agree with Publius about caucuses. I’ve never voted in a caucus state, so I’ve got no experience, but the retail politics, neighbor-swaying-neighbor, and high-commitment voter aspects impress me in theory. That said, I realize that if caucuses are to be just some accomodation must be made for those unable to attend.
There are some other problems. For example, this is being discussed as a Democratic party issue, but I;d suggest it is not. In states such as Michigan, citizens can vote on the Democratic or the Republican primary ballot – but this only works if the primaries coincide. So rescheduling either means a joint Democratic and Republican effort, or it means addressing the laws in some number of the 50 states, which in turn might require cross-party cooperation.
Also, I see all the enthusiasm for regional primaries, and I never know whether there’s more behind it than simple efficiency. I don’t actually care for regional primaries; in fact, I rather like the notion of scattering the primaries on any given day. If a region happens to vote en bloc very early in the process, that could skew the results towards the candidate with a demographic advantage there – think Clinton in Appalachia, or Obama in the deep South.
My own pet notion for the scheduling is a Reverse Auction: states vote the delegate penalty they’re willing to accept, and get slotted into a fixed schedule on the basis of lowest bid first. So a state willing to lose 90% of its delegates can go first, while a state that wants 150% of its delegates goes last.
I’m not convinced it’s a feasible notion, mind you, and I think additional controls should be added to make sure that the first few states are relatively small and affordable, but at least it’s reasonably fair and transparent.
P.S. One other fix: Puerto Rico should become a state or a country (from my position of ignorance, I’m agnostic as to which), and shouldn’t have this bolus of delegates if they don’t vote in November. Similarly, DC should become a state or a country, and I rather think the latter option there is impractical and undesirable.
I fully agree that both parties should revise thier primary systems before 2012. Most of these issues are equally salient for the Republicans, they just didn’t have an extended close campaign for these to matter. Also, some of these issues, in particular the order of states, will be much easier if there is coordinated action by both parties. If for no other reason, there is a cost and time savings for the government officials who run the elections.
I agree with the commentators who have tauted the value of having individual, small states conduct the first few elections. It allows for less well known and less funded candidates to have a chance. Some will be a flash in the pan (Ron Paul); others make a reasonable showing but still get overtaken by the favorite (Dean, Huckabee) but every now and then an initial dark horse will make it (Carter, Obama)
If the first election is in either a big state (or medium state with expensive markets, e.g. CT) then the first primary will essentially be the money primary, as a large ante will be required to have any chance. In particular, if there are two candidates with strong money and establishment support, others will be boxed out from the start.
Even after a few small state primaries are held to winnow down the field, I would not want to see regional primaries. The problem would be that all of the candidates would zig their positions to suit one region, then zag them back for the next. Look at how both Clinton and Obama became very vocally anti-NAFTA when OH and PA were coming up, after both being seen as moderately free trade candidates. Just imagine if CA / OR / WA were the following week. Have several states each week, but have each week be a mix.
Finally, there needs to be a balance struck between having a party center strong enough to enforce rules versus having the deck stacked against insurgents. One technical fix would be to set the Rules Committee membership early on, with strong pledges of neutrality (and maybe a requirement to recuse themselves if they or a close family member endorse a candidate.) Pick true elder statesmen, judges, law deans, rather than politicians.
Another idea would be to get the candidates to very publically committ to a statement of the rules and their guiding spirit as a condition of participating in the primaries, or at least DNC / RNC run events such as debates and caucuses. Make them say on video that they agree that the count of delegates should be the only measure of who won, that pledged delegates should not be tampered with, that penalties given to states should be respected.
I’m not sure about caucuses. One one hand, the caucus goers are also the party volunteers, the people the party will need to get the campaign going. By attending the caucus they are committing to the party, so I can see a reason for the party to take more notice of their voice. On the other hand, more and more people see the primary as another part of the election, rather than an intra-party function, and we should encourage voting, rather than make it expensive. The only compromise I can think of is a Texas like hybrid, but that leads to even more confusion.
Warren,
Looks like we had similar ideas (involve both parties, break up regions) at the same time.
Harald,
The deep mathematical election theory magic is actually black magic. There is a mathematical theorem (Arrow’s impossibility theorem), stating that were there are more than three voters and more than three choices there is not voting method which can satisfy a list of criteria which most people would consider highly desirable in an election. For example, the methods you describe can allow for a candidate who is first choice of some but detested by 49% to win over a candidate who is everyone’s acceptable second choice.
One idea that comes to mind (although probably less important than the others being discussed here) would be to alter the delegate allocation system, maybe to base it on the percentages of the vote for the entire state rather than by district. The current system leads the candidates to focus on districts with odd numbers of delegates, and weights large-margin victories disproportionately heavily — neither of which is all that harmful, I suppose, but both seem arbitrary.
marc,
I think simple citing of Arrow’s theorem is somewhat off point. Yes, any voting system will produce non-intuitive results in some pathological situations. For good voting systems, these pathological cases will be extraordinarily rare. So what? Why should that be an impediment to their adoption? Our current voting system produces bizarre results quite often, so it seems that we might benefit from alternative systems that produce nonsensical results less often.
There’s no need to have a highly theoretical discussion here: these alternative methods have been in use in many governments for years now and have accumulated a track record. If you think their failure to handle pathological cases is a serious issue, then you should be able to cite specific instances where things have gone awry in actual elections and compare the incidence of such cases to failure rates in more traditional first-past-the-post systems.
To put it another way, my house is extremely ill suited to withstand falling meteors, but that’s OK. Falling meteors are extremely rare and I’d much rather spend the vast sums of money it would cost to strengthen the house against meteors on things that practically benefit me.
One thing I DO like about the current system is the proportional delegates. I’ve always thought the winner take all system of the general elections does nothing but polarize the country more and disenfranchise voters in a lot of states.
If you’re a Democrat in Texas (or a Republican in California), you’re less likely to vote because you know you can’t win there. And thus, you’re less likely to win there because no one in your party gets out to vote.
It also encourages highly partisan and vindictive Presidents (like, Oh, say, the one we have now) to ignore, insult or even punish entire regions of the country, knowing they’ll never pay a price.
I’d push for proportional Electoral Votes, personally, but only if it was done in every state.
1) As others have pointed out, it’ll be hard to find alternative starting states that share some of the desireable features of the current setup.
2) AFAIK caucuses are cheaper and there is a point to letting each states party decide the process they favour. Admittedly, I also just don’t care that much about potentially making it harder for some groups. One does get some other features in return and since it’s not a general election but a party i.e. (special interest) group of people deciding who they want to be represented by I’m fine with allowing them to do it their way.
(Coincidentally the benefits of caucuses over an election increase as the party becomes weaker in a state. If everyone votes D anyway, sure, have a primary election. If it’s only five people who will do all the work anyway there’s little point to having their preference overruled a bunch of old people voting on predjudices or campaign promises.)
There’s a tipping point obviously, but I’m fine with giving activists a greater say in who they’ll be active for. They have greater stakes as well.
3) They’re not only useful for a tie, they could also offer a useful corrective to excessive populism. I agree there need to be fewer of them and the selection process needs to be refined.
Far and away the best system would be a closed (to indpendents and members of other parties) single day, national primary with some system of single transferable voting (or rating voting) that directly selects the nominee. Such a system is the only way to let the voters of a particular party decide on the nominee in such a way that every one of their votes counts equally. And it’s a revised and improved, through transferable or rating voting, variation on the way parties select nominees for every other office.
I simply do not understand the attraction of letting any states go first, even on a rotating basis. We don’t vote for any other office this way. We don’t select nominees for any other office this way. And nobody thinks we should.
Would our general elections for president be better if states rotated, with some voting in September, some in October, some in November? Of course not. Even with rotation, such a system would be entirely unfair in the short-to-medium run, giving an arbitrary group of states far more say in the governance of our country for at least four (and potentially eight) years.
California, New York, and Texas are big states in which “retail politics” are more or less impossible in statewide elections. Should the Democratic party of California or New York or Texas select its nominees for governor or senator through a series of rotating county or regional elections over several weeks or months? Isn’t it interesting that nobody thinks that such a reform would make any sense?
There’s a more particular problem with rotating presidential primary calendars: primary seasons are radically different in importance. Most important are primaries in which there is no incumbent from either party running in the fall (like this year). Least important are primaries in which the party in question has an incumbent running (e.g. Dems in 1996; GOP in 2004). In the middle are cases in which a sitting VP is seaking the nomination (GOP in 1988; Dems in 2000) and cases in which the party’s nominee will face an incumbent from the other party (Dems in 2004). So even in the long run, rotating states won’t necessarily create equal influence over the process (though it will, to a certain extent, randomize the system’s bias).
Like our system of deciding on NCAA Div.I football champions (the “BCS”), our major parties’ current systems for choosing presidential nominees are the result of a series of reforms (some more rational than others) to a system whose basis is “tradition,” which is a red-white-and-blue way of saying “vested interests.”
Will a single national primary favor candidates with lots of cash on hand? Without other reforms to campaign financing, of course it will. But so would any other system of selecting nominees without such reforms. It’s no accident that the last two Democrats standing are the two candidates who started the campaign season with the most cash on hand. Letting the states vote in dribs and drabs does not at all reduce the advantages of money under our current system and rotating the order of the states is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
As for the myth of “retail politics”: if a whole state, let alone a whole region, votes on a single day, the campaigns can, in no meaningful sense, be “retail.” The only retail politicking that goes on now is the result of the year-and-a-half of the NH and IA campaigns. Even this is only possible because these are relatively small states. And I think this process is, at any rate, overrated. At the end of the day, in nearly every election for the last three decades, the candidate who has won the “invisible primary” of party insiders in the year leading up to the election has gotten the nomination. Obama’s victory this year is an exception to that rule, but I am not at all convinced that it depended on “retail politics.”
Of course, just as we will never get an NCAA football tournament for the BCS schools, we will never get a rational, democratic, single-day primary. And for the same reason: vested interests in the parties would lose out. But let’s not kid ourselves about what would be the best system in theory.
instant runoff voting.
I AM convinced Obama’s victory in Iowa was due to retail politics. It’s why he soared in the polls in Iowa and stayed firmly behind Clinton nationally in the weeks leading up to that caucus. I don’t know what else would explain that difference.
“I don’t think you can base everything on obama”
Nobody is doing that. The point of the Obama example is to make clear that the early primary structure has significant consequences. Unless you begin with series of small, retail politics states you give almost total advantage to the big name candidates.
Whatever you do later, you have to start out with retail politics to put all the candidates on as level a playing field as possible.
By the way, while I agree with the idea of regional primaries, I actually think there are a few “mega-states” that should go by themselves – California, Texas, New York and Florida. Given their population such states are effectively regions unto themselves.
Had I my druthers you’d have one event a week and each event (whether a regional primary or a mega-state primary) should have (very) roughly the same number of delegates at stake.
So after the opening retail states you’d have a series of “regional primaries” (like the Potomac Primary — maybe one for New England, the Pacific Northwest, the Four Corners, a traditional souther Super Tuesday). And amid the regional primaries you have all the “mega states” interspersed one by one.
And every four years you rotate everything around. Or perhaps you decide the order by lot (which might be the fairest).
I have no particular information as to whether “retail politics” is real, though I would point out that a lot of people who’ve looked closely at Iowa seem to believe in it.
But I am a firm believer in an elongated primary season. It can be too long, and it can be structured to prevent the emergence of a decisive winner in a close race, and this can result in poisonous levels of divisiveness. I’d argue that in 2008 we’ve had all of those problems, and unfortunately the candidate that had essentially lost by March 4th but that, because of poor design, was on a technical level conceivably viable for three more months (at best!), chose to magnify the divisions in the party.
But if we’d had one national primary day, Clinton would be the nominee. A national primary gives extraordinary advantages to the institutional candidate, the one with the name-recognition and credibility with the cable pundits. That is to say, not Obama; and possibly not the 1992 Bill Clinton, either.
marc in asia, to get technical: Condorcet systems such as CSSD satisfy Arrow’s desirable criteria if and when they _can_ be satisfied, which is happily almost always – as I said, we use them internally in my workplace, and we have never had anything but a true Concorcet winner.
In those cases where Arrow’s criteria can’t be satisfied (when there is an intransitivity in majority preference, to get even more technical), other methods fare just as badly, if not worse.
With your example I think you mix up Condorcet and IRV. The only time the candidate loathed by 49% (ranked below all others by them) would be preferred, is when 51% ranked the candidate above all others, or there was a huge preference cycle of candidates within one percent of being tied. I would be more worried about ties in the present system, to put it like that.
Condorcet is generally very good at choosing candidates agreeable to all, which is something you dearly want in a primary.
Ben, I think a single national primary would be an awful idea. It would reward the candidates who can most successfully amass a lot of money at once, and encourage them to concentrate on a handful of vote strongholds. Both of these are bad.
America is a big country. Geographically, it’s worth noting, Los Angeles and Chicago are about as far apart as Lisbon and Moscow, and in the US there’s still another third of the country to go after that. And it’s got a lot of people. Nobody conducts all-at-once votes over that social and geographical scale anywhere else, and for very good reasons.
A primary season that was, say, four months long from first primary to convention would give time for the emergence and testing of candidates that I think we should want. Our current system is too long, but that doesn’t make some duration a good idea, just as it’s a good idea to start with some compact (not necessarily low-population) states, even though it’s bad to always start with the same few.
Oh boy, voting systems? Well, I think someone has to mention range voting… it *does* satisfy Arrow’s criteria, because it doesn’t satisfy the hypotheses of the theorem!
Wow, a year+ has gone by, and now someone has finally gotten around to thinking of an alternative! Billions wasted, two states worth of primary voters disenfranchised, and now someone sees the light!
Firstly, if the DNC has punished Florida and Michigan LAST YEAR, this year’s primary calendar was not that bad.
http://www.radicalcontrapositions.com/left_flank/2008/06/02/more-sense-than-the-democracy-deserves/
Secondly, there is an alternative, and it’s been around for awhile, the Graduated Random Presidential Primary System, or American Plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graduated_Random_Presidential_Primary_System).
Nothing was done, because no one wants reform. The only solution is to destroy the Democratic party and start over, and hopefully the GOP will go down with it. And then, it’s realignment time. It’s been awhile, but nothing says either party deserves to exist any longer.
I AM convinced Obama’s victory in Iowa was due to retail politics. It’s why he soared in the polls in Iowa and stayed firmly behind Clinton nationally in the weeks leading up to that caucus. I don’t know what else would explain that difference.
Well Obama in fact won under the system we have this year. That’s indisputable.
Although nobody in this thread (thank goodness) seems interested in coming up with a system based on who would win, there seems to be a general concern that Obama wouldn’t have without a long series of primaries.
Although this is, of course, purely speculative, I don’t think one could write off Obama’s chances if there were a national primary conducted with some system of tranferable or rating voting (and that would include range voting as a possiblity, Sniffnoy). There was always a large Anybody But Clinton vote in the party. Obama was setting fundraising records long before Iowa voted. And there would be an extended primary campaign even without an extended calendar of primaries; just look at how long the general election campaign lasts. Of course, such a primary campaign leading up to a national vote would look totally different from the campaign we actually saw, which was almost entirely framed by narratives about who was winning and who was losing. Again, think of the way general election campaigns look. Very often, the candidate ahead at the beginning of such campaigns is not the winner. Even Michael Dukakis was up by 18% on Bush just before the GOP convention in 1988.
But if we’d had one national primary day, Clinton would be the nominee. A national primary gives extraordinary advantages to the institutional candidate, the one with the name-recognition and credibility with the cable pundits. That is to say, not Obama; and possibly not the 1992 Bill Clinton, either.
Again the current system gives precisely this advantage to the institutional candidate (and Bill Clinton was the institutional candidate in 1992). See this academic paper for a thorough rundown of the advantages that the current system confers on institutional candidates. This year has been a partial exception to this rule, but as I’ve already said, I’m not at all convinced that it wouldn’t have been an exception to this rule with a national primary, too. Certainly the drawn out series of state contests has never prevented institutional candidates from always winning in the past.
Ben, I think a single national primary would be an awful idea. It would reward the candidates who can most successfully amass a lot of money at once, and encourage them to concentrate on a handful of vote strongholds. Both of these are bad.
As I’ve already pointed out, the current system already rewards candidates that can most successfully amass a lot of money at once, as Clinton, Obama, and McCain all did. Rearranging the order of the states wouldn’t change this at all. Serious campaign finance reform would take serious campaign finance reform, not fiddling with the calendar.
As for concentrating on areas with the most votes: that’s democracy. It follows from the principle of one person, one vote. I’ve been assuming that the best system is the most democratic. But I suppose a more self-consciously corporatist or sectional primary system might be preferred. Parties are private entities and they can select candidates any way they like. Just don’t claim that such a system is the most democratic.
America is a big country. Geographically, it’s worth noting, Los Angeles and Chicago are about as far apart as Lisbon and Moscow, and in the US there’s still another third of the country to go after that. And it’s got a lot of people. Nobody conducts all-at-once votes over that social and geographical scale anywhere else, and for very good reasons.
This just isn’t true. We ourselves conduct such an election every four years, in our presidential election (which is marred by the electoral college system that, whatever its quite different theoretical biases, actually irrationally biases the system toward the concerns of battleground states in general, and large ones in particular).
And other large, diverse countries conduct actually direct elections of heads of state: Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Indonesia immediately come to mind. But I think France, though a good deal smaller, also passes the size threshold for these purposes. And as I’ve already indicated, I think our larger states also pass the most significant size thresholds, too. It is perfectly possible to have a national election in a physically large republic.
there seems to be a general concern that Obama wouldn’t have without a long series of primaries.
I’d like to think that Obama would have been nimble enough to have come up with a strategy that would have worked for him. That his strategy worked this time does not necessarily mean that if the circumstances had been different, he would not have done things differently.
Here are some random thoughts.
I haven’t seen this mentioned. Primaries are incredibly expensive to mount. Not all states are willing to fund them. Caucuses are what the parties can reasonably be expected to put on themselves.
Caucuses are also highly effective for party building. I understand the “count all the votes” appeal, but, for instance, in my state, no one registers as D or R — so everyone, literally, has the right to vote in one of the two primaries (sometimes the other party won’t even participate in the primary because it objects to this feature of it). So you are still going to be left with disparate processes and the notion that you simply cannot limit D party selection process to Ds.
I think the biggest reform that would be important for blunting the effect of name recognition and early fund raising advantage would be prohibiting states from holding contests in January. It still steams me that one of the reasons that Michigan was moved up was pretty directly to help Clinton win an early big state.
OTOH, how can I say this — I am hoping that we NEVER get another candidate with such embedded name recognition advantage. I feel like it distorted the entire nomination process, and I still feel like it’s the main reason why the Clintons can’t believe they lost. Her support was a mile wide — and an inch deep. An early nomination process clearly leveraged that advantage.
Considering the death spiral that the Republican Party is in, the Democratic Primary of 2012 could be and the Democratic Primary of 2016 will be the defacto national election.
Thus, a single national primary should be held some time in May or June to limit the amount of time between having a de facto president-elect and the inaugural.
Image is Senator Obama would have won New Hampshire. He would have been the de facto president-elect for an entire year.
I think the biggest reform that would be important for blunting the effect of name recognition and early fund raising advantage would be prohibiting states from holding contests in January.
How does the date of the first primary make any difference whatsoever? People start paying attention relative to the start of the primary process, not relative to the general election. If the first primary were held a month earlier, people would simply pay attention a month earlier. Mind you, I’m not arguing for earlier primaries. As I say above, I think a single-day national primary is the answer. And if it were up to me it would take place in June or July. But if you’re going to have a multiple primary system, I just don’t see the starting date of the first primary making that big a difference. Incidentally, the parties’ concerns about controlling the starting date have more to do with preventing states from fighting amongst each other and making the calendar unstable (this year, for example, we didn’t know the date of NH until December, I think), than any absolute concerns about slightly earlier opening primaries.
I am hoping that we NEVER get another candidate with such embedded name recognition advantage. I feel like it distorted the entire nomination process, and I still feel like it’s the main reason why the Clintons can’t believe they lost. Her support was a mile wide — and an inch deep. An early nomination process clearly leveraged that advantage.
This year was unusual, but in nearly the opposite way from what you suggest. Check out the paper “Political Parties in Rough Weather” (I linked to it above without mentioning the title), which was published this January. The four political scientists who authored it argue that there is usually a candidate who has the backing of the party establishment and from 1980 to 2004, whenever there was such a candidate he won.
What was unusually this year was not Clinton’s advantage, which is all too typical, but the fact that she lost despite it.
Considering the death spiral that the Republican Party is in, the Democratic Primary of 2012 could be and the Democratic Primary of 2016 will be the defacto national election.
This seems wildly optimistic to me.
The GOP seemed like it was in a “death spiral” in 1936. In addition to FDR’s landslide victory, the Democrats attained a majority in the House of Representatives of 334 to 88 (with 13 seats in the hands of minor parties). Following the 1942 elections, the Democrats majority had been reduced to 222 to 209 (with four seats in minor party hands).
Or look at 1964: a huge, landslide win for LBJ and a Democratic majority in the House of 295 to 140. But the GOP won the White House four years later, and won in a landslide eight years later.
We have no idea what this country will look like four, let alone eight, years from now. There are an enormous number of chicken that will come home to roost from eight years of malfeasance and corruption. And the last year and a half of Democratic control of Congress does not necessarily suggest that the Dems have the answers. And if the Democrats control both houses of Congress and the White House, they could well be blamed from all the domestic and foreign blowback that is to be expected after two terms of Dubya.
Ben,
Your forgetting that in all of the elections you are citing over 90% of the voters were white. Given the difference in birthrates between whites and non-whites, anyone should recognize that there will fewer republican voters in eight years and more automatic votes for the Democrats.
Given the changing demographics of the U.S., the Republicans as a conservative party in any form will cease to exist. Thus, the question is whether the U.S. needs to liberal parties or can function with only a single political party. Given the current political climate in places like Mass., RI, Del, Maryland, California, or even Ill, it is easy to see that large political bodies can function as de facto one party states.
Also, the voting patterns of Detroit, NJ, Mass., Maryland, Phiily, chicago, etc clearly show that there are huge blocks of automatic Democratic voters no matter how bad the government performs. Those automatic Democratic voting blocks are growing relative to the population. Thus, the Republicans will eventually be irrelevant.
I don’t think that the IA/NH/NV/SC part of the process is broken. There’s no reason to believe that some different combination would have given us different nominees or better prospects in November in any election. All you’re really talking about is moving patronage around — and, like term limits in state government, what you end up with when you do this is replacement of a skilled cadre with a profesisonal class. NH and IA have well developed local systems and institutions designed for their respective roles. Replace one with NJ, and you end up with national people taking a more prominent role.
I have no obection to caucuses as part of the mix. There should be a mechanism for absentee voting, but there'[s nothing intrinsically wrong with a bias toawards higher-information/committment voters in the selection process.
Superdelegates are usually there to change the nominee — we nearly always have that decided before the convention. They are there to be co-opted into the candidate’s campaign. This is a very big deal, and well worth keeping.
I’d say more, but I have to get on a plane.
I think the circumstance that superdelegates were created for was if no candidates can reach a majority because more than 2 candidates ran strongly. For example, if Edwards had received enough delegates to be the difference between Hillary and Barack getting the magic number, what happens? If the Edwards delegates aren’t binded to his say-so, then you get a bunch of Joe Blows deciding the nomination. If they are, it’s not much better: you get one candidate, who might not have gotten that many votes, with spectacular leverage over the winning campaign, and possibly the next administration. With super-delegates, at least you get a cross-section of the party casting the tie-breaker.
Ben, I disagree. Having a primary election on January 3 compresses the available time to pay attention to an absolute minimum, given the impact of the holiday season for most voters (e.g., college students out of school, people more likely to be on vacation or engaged in personal commitments). It may be that in NH or IA, people are paying attention because they have such a tradition of early nomination voting, but I think it’s definitely suboptimal. Even late January would be okay.
I’d like to see states that are expected to be battleground states (probably defined by how close the election was in that state the year before) be given disproportionate representation. A candidate who performs well in Ohio is more valuable than one who performs well in Texas (and arguably more valuable than one who performs well in Florida).
I take the points about caucuses being harder to participate in, but I’d hate to see them eliminated entirely. It’s worth something if a candidate has a lot of activists who are willing to invest that kind of time in a cause.
Apportioning delegates by statewide percentage of vote rather than by district is a good idea, too.
I like Warren’s ‘Reverse Auction’ idea. And I think it could be done without stepping on the states’ right to set their own primary dates, which I think will kill stricter rescheduling proposals.
I’d keep superdelegates, but I’d cut out the unelected officials, mostly as a way to cut down on how many there are.
I just want to put in a plug for caucuses. As others have pointed out, they are party building tools and they can and do work to create party loyalty and active voters. That they could and should be tweaked, no doubt, is a good idea. Myself, like redwood, I’d serve liquor and sausages, organize daycare, and make them fun. Primaries are OK but they are no picnic given that they almost always happen on work days and people often have to vote near home instead of near work. My main take home point is that there are zillions of better ways to pick the nominee and we should really run through them all publicly–that is, have a real open debate with games and systems theorists explaining just which kinds of candidates do best under which scenarios so that whichever system is picked (or combination of systems) at least its public. I like the long primary, myself. It was acrimonious but it certainly got people’s blood up and got them committed to their candidate. A short winner takes all primary means that the biggest bucks and biggest names rule, and that seems like a recipe for more of the usual disaster.
I like the reverse auction suggested above, how about a reverse auction which also let the first state privilige go to the state that could get the *largest number of candidates* on the ballot and also allowed IRV with the proviso that the winning candidate’s votes would be apportioned to the eventual winner of all the primaries? That is, the first states would be the ones with the most candidates on the ballot and people could really vote their conscience knowing that if their candidate dropped out later their vote would kick over to their second or third choice automatically? In my case this would have enabled me to give my vote to Edwards (say) and yet have it still “count” by going to Obama or Clinton as the race narrowed. I know, crazy talk, but it would be cool and perhaps give fringe candidates and their issues more viability.
aimai
One of the problems with caucuses, depending on how they are organized, is that they are not accessible. But they also could be held on weekends (unlike primaries, which typically require the assistance of a state agency), over a longer period of time at a greater number of locations, whic would allow people to attend for less time, with “organizers” committed to being there for longer periods of time. Trading a weekend day and making caucuses more accessible timewise would go a long way to avoiding some of the more acute problems associated with caucuses.
I harp on the name recognition issue because, IMHO, that is why we ended up with Bush. Just because Clinton is a much more credible person doesn’t mean that the issue isn’t a real one.
Don’t buy this Clintonite bullshit. Until this year, the understanding was that caucuses were dominated by old people. Obama manages to do something amazing in terms of getting young people to go to caucuses, and suddenly caucuses discriminate against old people. This is ridiculous.
I’d like to see states that are expected to be battleground states (probably defined by how close the election was in that state the year before) be given disproportionate representation. A candidate who performs well in Ohio is more valuable than one who performs well in Texas (and arguably more valuable than one who performs well in Florida).
That creates a perverse incentive to make the race as close as possible to conserve influence down the road. And for places like NY and Califonia to just not bother. Which IMO is short term thinking, sacrificing long term commitment to democracy and the democratic process for short term electability.
Even aside from that, it imposes a measure (ability to compete in battleground states) on the primary voters which strikes me as unnecessary and a bad case of best for me, best for everyone. Currently, we trust the primary voters to make their own calulations about electability and to weigh it against other factors (issues, sympathy). I’m convinced it would to a lot of long term harm to render those concerns irrelevant and subjugae everything to the ability to win in battleground states.
I think caucuses are unfairly maligned. They are certainly better than open primaries.
How about a move to all caucuses, in all 50 states, Jan – Mar which would allot say 15% of the delegates followed by a national primary in June to allot the other 85% for the candidates that clear a certain threshold of support in the caucuses? That gives you 3 months of retail door-to-door and neighbor-to-neighbor politicking finalized by a national count of the preference of all Democrats. Also, it would lessen the value of going first since the actual contest would be the national primary.
Wagster – for an indication of the idea behind superdelegates, see 1984, when, if there had been no superdelegates, Mondale would have been forced to cut a deal of some sort with Jesse Jackson (or, less likely, Hart; or else Hart and Jackson possibly could have gotten together, although that also seems very unlikely) to get the nomination. It was for circumstances like that that the system was designed.
As to supers, I think what they need to do is to eliminate the vast majority of DNC superdelegates. Including the elected officials makes considerable amounts of sense – shouldn’t major elected Democratic officials get a say in who the party’s nominee is? And giving votes to the “distinguished party leaders,” to the National Chair and National Vice-Chairs, and to state party chairs, arguably makes sense (especially since some states, like Alaska, have no Democratic congressmen, senators, or governor). But there’s hundreds of other superdelegates who nobody’s ever heard of and who basically have no Democratic legitimacy at all. They should be culled with extreme prejudice.
I think people are confused about what is and is not within the purview of the DNC regarding the primary structure. The number and role of superdelegates, yes. The scheduling of primaries, yes, although not absolute. Whether a state uses a primary or a caucus? No. States can choose whatever method they like, and there’s really no way around that. Nor should there be.
Just for an example, Nevada refused to fund a primary this year, which is why the parties had a caucus. States might be more willing to fund primaries, but, pace Michigan and Florida, once the state gets involved the party can lose control because the state might try to advance other goals (like greater state influence) and not be willing to just remain a neutral enabler of the political system. Demanding a “primary only” system could cede a lot more influence to the state than you might imagine.
There are all sorts of interesting arguments in favor of caucuses, but caucuses are unquestionably an alternative to, rather than a way of achieving, one-person one-vote democracy.
I go back to my original point: the most democratic system is a single, national primary with some sort of transferable voting (or rated voting) system. And I remain wary of other less democratic systems of selecting nominees because they are less democratic.
I obviously don’t expect everyone to agree with me about national primaries (I know my support for them puts me in a small minority). But I wish someone would take more seriously the issue of democracy.
So far Bruce Baugh has come closest to taking the bull by the horns by opining that democracy is impossible in large republics. I very much disagree with this argument, but at least it’s an argument.
Turbulence and Harald,
I didn’t mean to make too big a deal of Arrow’s theorem; I agree that there are good methods which work reasonably in all but extreme cases. I mostly wanted to reject the idea, which I have heard from proponets of some systems — most commonly STV and IRV — that these solve all problems.
Practically, I think there is an issue with having millions of voters fill out a preference vote rather than just a choose one. I’ve also participated in elections using these systems and it takes a non-trivial amount of effort to fill in the ballot correctly (“I’m putting A at the top. B should be second … or maybe C … D I don’t like, he goes last, E I haven’t heard of, put that somewhere in the middle, F, oh yeah, I like her, I’ll put her high, but I’ve already filled in 1,2, and 3, can I move one of these down ….”) Think of the state of our voting systems. I just won’t work.
So practically we are left with either highest vote takes all nationally, highest vote takes all by state / county / CD, proportionate allocation (not necessarily direct) or some combintation. We’ve seen from this election that reasonable sounding ideas, like allocating delegates by CD based on their D votes in previous elections and using PR within districts can lead to strange effects, such as some odd delegate districts mattering more than other even delegate districts. Voting system design is not easy, and what will work well for a multicandidate election may not work as well for a two candidate election. However, since the most important issue is to set rules well in advance of knowing how candidates are likely to be doing, we need to try to balance all possibilities. Just remember here that we are looking for good; perfect is not available.
On the timing issue, I strongly disagree with Ben on a single national primary date. The staggered primary serves as a form of run off or tiered primary. This year provides two examples of how that can work. For the Democrats, there was one forerunner (Clinton) who had a considerable following, but also a considerable number of Democrats who did not want her. The Iowa through South Carolina primaries, in effect, served as a primary for the anyone-but-Clinton half of the party, with Obama winning. This set up a two candidate election for Super Tuesday and beyond. Without the early primaries, we would have had a national result likely similar to early polls — Clinton with a clear lead over everyone else, but well shy of 50%, Obama and Edwards with sizeable but much smaller votes, and a good number spread among many other candidates. Then the allocation system would make a big difference, either giving the election to Clinton or leading to a brokered convention with each candidate trying to suade their delegates to back them in some deal with another. That would be much worse than what we had even this year.
For the Republicans, the early primaries served as a first round for each of two wings of the party, with Huckabee emerging as the choice of the religious right and McCain besting Guiliani as the choice of the secular Republicans.
Note that France does not have a single national election. They use a two stage election where unless one candidate achieves over 50% in the first round, there is a second round among the top two candidates. The first round has traditionally functioned like a dual primary, with two left parties and two right parties each running candidates, and one from each side emerging to the second round. This broke down in 2002 when several candidates on the left split the vote widely, allowing the facist LePen to take second place and forcing the French leftists to vote for Chirac in the second round. I wouldn’t be so quick to use that system as a model.
The other problem with a single national primary, mentioned by several others, is money. Obama and Clinton raised and spent over $50 MM each to campaign in every state; and that is without either spending much in two of the most expensive markets. Only candidates with significant name recongnition (i.e. former presidential candidates, VP’s or their relatives) or the ability to raise at least $25-30MM before showing any election victories outside their home state would be able to play a full hand.
A two to four state early round, whether its IA / NH / NV / SC or some other four, is manageable for a few million dollars; within the fundraising ability of most senators / govenors / house leaders. Performing well in the early round can lead to sufficient money to keep going (see Obama and Huckabee.)
I too will take a moment to speak up for both the first month of the process (to help candidates overcome pre-existing name recognition issues) and the caucuses. They can be made more accessible, and they are important for party building. As to the time issue, it’s not like everyone can just vote in 60 seconds in primary. Years like this one when people are excited you might be waiting for a long time to get to a voting machine. So given that such an investment may be demanded anyway, an extra hour for a caucus doesn’t seem terribly worse.
A personal note on caucuses: I can’t go. Ever. Health reasons.
I’m not exactly the Boy in the Bubble, but there’s enough of that in my situation to make it a useful starting point. Crowds are never safe for me, my energy is never reliable, there’s nothing I can do to make aphasia or seizures less likely, nothing can greatly reduce the problem of neurotransmitters running scarce (whenever I’m using them a lot, in fact – it’s why there are always gaps in my participation in the threads that most engage me, or one of the reasons), and that is by no means all of my list of concerns.
So I always hear “we need caucuses all the time” with the inevitable subtext “Bruce, you’ll never be involved on election day again.”
I would be happy if caucus advocates would take note of my existence and reiterate, from time to time, that they support some provision for those of us who genuinely can’t do it. My situation is extreme, yes, but there are lots more people with more mundane reasons that are just as complete, for one election or all.
Caucuses are a more involved form of citizenship then simply voting. If simply marking a box on a ballot was a good party building mechanism then the American Idol Party would dominate and we’d have Speaker Ryan Seacrest. Caucuses have value in that they are incubators for involved citizens. I am sympathetic to the disenfranchisement that occurs from people who don’t have the time to attend a caucus for whatever reason but I’d rather see a more liberal absentee caucus program for people who work shift work and party provided transit and day care to caucuses then simply saying “it’s too hard to attend a caucus”. Make it easier to attend and challenge people to become more involved citizens.
Bruce Baugh – I’d of course support health waivers for an expanded absentee process for caucuses. The point of a caucus isn’t to create barriers to participation, it’s to A) have a cheap party run vote counting excercis and B) encourage participation in party activities.
If the average time of attendance at a caucus is 2 hours then the absentee process could be involve some similar alternative commitment of time to party activities from the housebound or otherwise indisposed.
Granting a caucus waiver to anybody who does 1 hour of party volunteer work would be one way to address the problem.
How about allowing for tele-caucuses? Possibly even one at large tele-caucus per congressional district?
I know there are logistical issues (data security and authentication among others) but it could work, may work better for Bruce Baugh than even in person voting.
We can’t have a rational discussion on this point. The Clinton dead-enders are bitter and irrational, and their solutions will take the form of change-things-that-helped-Obama. We’ll end up with rehashing of fresh indignities and wounds. Witness the person upthread wanting to reduce the baneful influence of black people on the process.
Once we’re back to the point of sanity, I’d suggest that a shorter primary calendar that starts later makes good sense. Nothing was gained by the desultory schedule of the last two months.
I think that caucuses have some enormous positives: participatory democracy instead of big-money advertising blitzes. And they truly help progressive elements in the party.
There should be far fewer superdelegates and more of a bonus (although not winner take all) for the statewide winner. In particular, I have no problem with Senators, Governors, and Representatives as superdelegates, but none of the background party apparatchiks deserve votes.
I’ll fight you unto death on this.
I’m all for reform of aspects of the caucus system, but I’d rather have more (reformed) caucuses than fewer. I’ll eventually try to blog on this whenever life settles down, and I’m not having intermittent extreme pain, can afford a place to live of my own again, and so on.
Meanwhile, I’d like to ask anyone who opposes caucuses just how many election cycles they’ve participated in them to know their pros and cons. Me: 1980, 1982, 1984, 2004, 2006, 2008.
If someone has never participated in one, and therefore has no direct knowledge of their pros and cons, I’m rather inclined to doubt they are in much of a position to evaluate the pros and cons of caucuses. It’s like that old joke about asking a Catholic priest for advice about sexual positions.
Among the reforms I’d like to see are:
1) having caucuses held on weekends only;
2) possibly finding a way to allow for 2, or even 3 possible alternative dates and coordinating the results;
3) Making it clear that simply showing up for one minute to cast a written ballot, and leaving, is a mandatory alternative. (This is effectively the case in every caucus system I’m aware of, but many people don’t seem to be aware of it, given the immense degree about caucuses, particularly among those who have been participated in one.)
3) Allowing straightfoward proxy written ballots. And make them internet-castable.
This would allow for the same level of access, I think, as there is to a primary voting system, while still allowing the wonderful benefits of the direct democracy of the caucus system for those interested and able to make use of those add-on benefits.
4) Anything else that can increase access without screwing things up completely. I’m open to any kind of idea to do that, which I fully agree is the primary, and perhaps the only, negative aspect of the caucus system to date.
I’m always interested in hearing of any other problems, so that improvement might be considered and put into effect.
Additional note: I’ve just moved to a non-caucus state, and I’m extremely unhappy about that.
Unlike the caucus system, where in two different states I’ve been able to walk in not knowing anyone, or more than 1-2 people, and get elected to a party position, or slot to the County Convention, simply on the basis of what I had to say to my neighbors, I as yet have no idea what it will take for me to get involved with and participating in the local Democratic organizations. I find non-caucus-based party organizations to be vastly more opague, insiderish, and vastly less accessible, at first view, than the openness of a caucus. I never joined a local NYC party organization, despite fair knowledge of them, and despite working on a few campaigns as a low-level grunt volunteer, because of the insidery complexities. I’ll have to do research here to figure out what the situation is here in North Carolina and Raleigh.
But I’d like anyone who complains that they find the caucuses system confusing to first tell me how easy they found it to get active in their local, primary-state, Democratic party organization, and how quickly it took them to, say, get elected as precinct committeeperson/leader, or to their State Democratic Convention. Me: 1 meeting for the former, commitment of 2 hours; 2 meetings for the latter, commitment of ~6 hours.
You? Did you find it that easy to get that involved that quickly in your primary state? If so, I’d like to hear more. If not, I’d like you to consider that you may have little idea what the benefits of a caucus system are, and that maybe you essentially, therefore, are missing out on the crucial aspects that would allow you to really know what you’re talking about when you blithely want to wipe them away, and wipe other people’s political access away, and that you might try moving to a caucus state, and going through at least one 4 year cycle, or even 2 year cycle, to find out what you’re talking about killing, sight unseen, before advocating such from a position of no actual direct knowledge.
Lastly, were I still in a caucus state (previously I was in Washington State, and then Colorado), I’d bitterly resent people from out of state trying to tell us how we should arrange our system, save on a basis of equal access. And if someone told me that we had to change the system completely, I’d ask them to move to our state first to make the commitment that would entitle them to a say, and let them join in our state Democratic Party, and participate in setting our rules and procedures. They they have as much say as anyone else. But otherwise: no ticket, no play.
Okay, now to read the rest of the post, and the comments. Boy, that’s quite a conversation opener, there. And trying to shut down the conversation from the get-go with “no ifs, ands, or buts” doesn’t exactly give me warm fuzzies about your open-mindedness, and willingness to consider other points of view on this topic, publius. Maybe we could all talk about this first, before accepting your no-negotiation, my way or the highway, opening gambit? At least pretend to consider what other people have to say?
Crack; it’s less of a solution than you think, when you’re dealing with people who have to give attention to time-sensitive processes, for starters. I will spare you the complications I personally suffer, because they’re depressing and not really relevant. Just…yeah, there is a pool of people who could take part in a real-time link from elsewhere, but there are still folks who would be left out.
I’m going to be a little radical here. I don’t see why choosing the candidate of a political party should be a one-person, one-vote process. Presumably candidates are supposed to represent something. And that something is supposed to be some sort of promise about what the party in which the candidate campaigns would do in office.
From this perspective, caucuses, run by the interested party with reasonable provisions for folks who cannot attend, seem to me the BEST possible way to pick candidates. That’s not elitist; rather, it is a plea that our system of governance be used delineate some ideological lines. And that candidates be held to some responsibility to parties.
Party activists should be the ones who decide who they run; if the majority of the citizenry choose to be indifferent to party involvement, they get stuck with the choices the activists come up with. Otherwise they can get involved.
The popular democratic moment is the election, NOT the candidate selection process. I don’t get the need to replicate the election in the primary season.
Janinsanfran, I feel a lot of sympathy with that stance.
Gary, this is embarrassing to admit, but I think that my disagreement with you on this issue, insofar as I have one, is one of those basically emotional things rather than a justifiable one. I’m going to poke at it a bit more to see if I can draw out any actual concepts from the part of my brain that’s going “yea, but”. I am right now particularly impressed by your comments about the ease of getting involved in the organizational stuff, since I regard that as important.
None of this discussion matters. At all. As long as state governments have a significant say in the running of primaries there is nothing the national party can do to avoid things like Michigan and Florida.
The national party needs to set up a system that completely divorces the primary process from state government. Once that is done the system can be fixed. If it is not done the system will remain broken.
What Gary said on caucuses. I’ve been to them. They are useful. I’d also like to add that caucuses and primaries are not mutually exclusive. Having both is an option. The press being unable to ‘call’ TX the night of the primaries isn’t a bug its a feature. The delegates will get apportioned and the horse race coverage will be hindered.
I’m sticking to my caucus-national primary hybrid idea.
Should nominees for office represent party activists/lobbiest/elitist or should they represent ordinary people?
Caucus results give us nominees that represent activists/lobbiest/elitists.
State run primaries get us as close as we will ever come to having candidates who represent actual real people who spend their lives working and raising a family with no time to sacrifice for party building.
Given a choice between the two I would always go with listening to as many voters as possible over letting a small group of partisans control the outcome.
But then, I have pretty liberal principals that guide me.
When I read those above comments talk about party building what they are really saying is that they do not want to lose their prividged position of influence over events. After all, in a primary election they would be just one vote among hundreds of thousands, or millions. They see themselves as above the riffraff, due to participation in activities like GTV, so they should count more than the riffraff.
I have to disagree with them. Your vote should count no more than does the vote of the mother with small kids who votes after the kids go to school as she heads off to work. Your not that special. Get over yourselves.
Ken, the word you’re looking for is “principles”. “Principals” are the heads of educational institutions and such.
Washington has caucuses – on Saturdays, always. We also have proxy voting, and alternate delegates, in case a delegate chosen at the precinct caucus can’t make it to the next step(s) in the process.
I *love* caucuses. Not only do people get a chance to talk about their candidate, and why everyone else should support that candidate, but we also – at the district caucus level – get to hear from candidates for other positions.
We had candidates for the state legislature speak at the District caucus this year. How often do voters take the time and trouble to listen to candidates for state races, and how often do such candidates have a chance to reach thousands of voters all at once?
All that, plus we get to know our precinct’s, and District’s, fellow Democrats; get to talk about the issues that matter most to us; and get to do some campaigning of our own.
I support a dual system of caucus AND primary: caucus for those who can and are interested, primary for those who for whatever reason can’t participate in the caucus. Some states manage this (Washington has both, but only the GOP actually choses a percentage of delegates based on primary results; the Democratic primary is purely a beauty contest).
I agree that primaries are more convenient, less effortful, and certainly more accessible to people with disabilities. But they’re also rather sterile and uninteresting, compared to caucuses.
With the collapse of the Republican Party and the coming dominance of the Democratic Party, having staggered caucuses would be about the most undemocratic thing that could occur. That would leave a few percent of the voters in a few states deciding who the president will be.
Currently Iowa and New Hampshire have too much power and with only one real political party, those states will gain in power. Why reinforce the parts of the system that are causing the problems.
As someone who lives in NH, let me remind you all that it is a matter of law for this state to have the first primary. So people who are advocating that NH lose its place in the calendar should keep in mind that NH lawmakers will have to be convinced of this also. (I’m not advocating one way or another here; I think both sides have good points to consider.)
The Republican party is not collapsing. It’s taking a beating, but they’ll regroup and come back strong. The Democrats, meanwhile, will assume they have a lock on power and use the space for intraparty fights instead of moving forward on the things they all agree on. The GOP’s superior party discipline will be able to take advantage of this and slow progress to a crawl, after which they’ll be back as the party of change.
This dynamic may not even need to wait until after the November elections. The Dems are already clawing each other’s eyes out.
Just to go back to an earlier topic from this thread: a new study shows that Obama won this primary campaign by outspending Clinton. Over the course of the entire campaign, he outspent her 1.6:1. But during the crucial period in February when he built his delegate lead (and when, pace digby, he won this thing), he outspent her 3.71:1!
The current system of staggered primaries and caucuses is entirely dominated by money. Arguments that defend staggering primaries in terms of the system allowing those without money to compete are completely ignoring the reality of that system as it has always existed. And remember that Obama was outfundraising Clinton even before Iowa caucused.
Janinsanfran–
Agreed in full.
It’s worth noting that the propositions “the primary process ought to be as democratic as possible” or “the primary process ought to adhere to the ‘one-person-one-vote’ principle as much as possible” are simply assumptions, and need to be argued for. I have not seen yet a convincing argument for why that ought to be the case, but I have seen some pretty good arguments for why that ought not be the case.
For one, the Democratic primary process is not a public event; it’s a privately-run process (that sometimes but not always involves state assistance) designed to elect institutional leaders. The Democratic party is an institution, and I don’t see it as a given in the least that a purely democratic process necessarily will meet all the institutional goals the Democratic party is reaching to achieve through the primaries.
When selection a nominee, the Party is looking for someone who, yes, has broad appeal (which is an argument for including, not excluding, non-registered Democrats), but also someone who can activate volunteers to work on his/her behalf in the general election, who clearly presents the values and principles of the party, increases the popularity of the party, etc etc.
The primary process, as such, is about about more than anything selecting a tool. The goal, then, is not to be as fair as possible to every tool in the toolbox, nor is it to be as fair as possible to every individual who could have a voice in selecting the tool, but rather to accurately assess what functions the tool most perform, and then picking the best tool for the job. The primary process ought to reflect that reality, and not some abstract appeal to “democracy”. Further democratizing the system is only good insofar as it increases the likelihood of selecting the best candidate (I’d argue it does not) or increases the viability of the party as a whole (I’d argue it definitely does not).
We can apply the same ideas to the suggestion we do away with caucuses, and it becomes obvious that they should have a role in the process. Having committed, enthusiastic, active supporters who are willing to advocate for their candidate is a very desirable trait in a candidate. Having strong organization and GOTV operations that can actually affect turn-out is a desirable trait in a candidate. The fact that those qualities is are disproportionately rewarded in caucuses should not be a knock against them; it’s certainly in their favor.
Conversely, name recognition is a desirable trait in candidates in general, but its value is much diminished in General Elections, when message saturation for both candidates is pretty much a given. With that in mind, winnowing the pool of selectors to groups more likely to be highly-informed and less-reliant on name recognition seems to me a good thing. Again, caucuses are useful in that task.
Don’t buy this Clintonite bullshit. Until this year, the understanding was that caucuses were dominated by old people. Obama manages to do something amazing in terms of getting young people to go to caucuses, and suddenly caucuses discriminate against old people. This is ridiculous
Thank you sir.
You’ll notice that those arguing for maintaining caucuses are really arguing for maintaining the priviledged position they enjoy as a small elite that can afford to spend several hours in the company of other elites in order to make decisions for the common people.
Let caucuses settle issues like when and where the next party BBQ is going to be held and who is going to speak at the 4th of July celebration. But caucuses are lousy ideas for choosing party nominees when primaries are readily available in their place.
farmgirl – this is what I mean by the need to get state governments out of the primary process. As long as the state government is dictating the terms of the primary we will get things like NH, FL, and MI.
State government involvement is *the* long pole in the tent. Unless something is done about that nothing else matters. Instant runoff, rotating schedules, caucuses – all just pie in the sky dreaming until the state governments are taken out of the equation.
People are simply not paying attention to what happened in Florida – the state lost 50% of its impact in the DEMOCRATIC primary due to the maneuvering of REPUBLICANS. The only power the national party has is to decide how to punish Democrats for the actions of Republicans.
Why should Republican politicians have any input at all on the scheduling or running of Democratic primaries?
I think the best proof that caucuses are lousy ideas is to look at what happened this year. Obama, who is not qualified to be dog catcher, got a bunch of true believers out to dominate in minor state caucuses and he pulled ahead.
The cult like committment to him by the activists who dominated in caucuses will not be turned even by knowledge that his advisors routinely condemn America. The latest outrage is his close friend and advisor Pflager recently saying:
“America is the Greatest Sin against God’
I don’t see this changing the minds of Obama’s rabble of true believers but it would surely, and deservedly, lose him votes in any election held anywhere in America.
The problem with allowing loyalist and activist a priviledged position in determining the nominee is that they are more willing to make excuses for the inexcusable than are ordinary Americans.
This is one good example of why primaries are preferred of caucuses.
Just to go back to an earlier topic from this thread: a new study shows that Obama won this primary campaign by outspending Clinton. Over the course of the entire campaign, he outspent her 1.6:1. But during the crucial period in February when he built his delegate lead (and when, pace digby, he won this thing), he outspent her 3.71:1!
Meh, that study is unimpressive. Clinton’s problem there was not an inability to raise funds, it was doubling-down on an already-evident strategic blunder.
Along the lines of my previous post, the primary process ought to reward superior strategic planning and disbursement of resources, and punish poor strategic planning and mis-allocated resources.
Clinton’s campaign bankrupted itself by investing heavily in big states on Feb 5th, banking on the difficulty of getting message saturation for Obama depressing his support, and winning on her superior name-recognition. This was, in retrospect, an obvious mis-allocation of resources, since the proportional representation aspect of the system blunted any advantage she gained there. The key was the ability to run up the score in strong states, something the Obama campaign saw in advance and planned accordingly: rather than investing heavily in what were likely to be poor-return areas, they organized the hell out of small states where their GOTV and GOTC operations would have out-sized impact. This allowed them to squeeze more net delegates out of smaller states. It was an example of an intelligent assessment of the electoral landscape and appropriate distribution of resources.
The Clinton campaign, conversely, never invested heavily in field operations anywhere, relied heavily on “airwars”, and bankrupted her campaign on likely low-return states. The primary process ought to punish that.
The result of those decisions was that the Clinton campaign had a clear choice: they could continue to heavily contest every primary and caucus, even though the coming states all seemed to demographically favor Obama, or they could double down on their already-failed “big state” strategy, go into triage mode, and horde cash for a big push in March and April in Texas, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. They chose the latter, it was a poor choice, and the process appropriately punished them.
Clinton’s choice to not contest the remainder of February was a strategic choice. It was a poor choice. The same events we saw on Feb 5th were repeated 11 times in a row, and not point in time did their campaign ever think to maybe change gears and start trying to blunt the delegate gains his campaign was receiving, exactly the type of delegate gains that a sober assessment of the process would tell one would be hard for her campaign to replicate on the back end in their chosen battleground states of OH, PA, and TX.
Blaming her disastrous February on lack of money is a mistake; it was a lack of flexibility and strategic acumen that doomed her.
And again, if her campaign demonstrates a poor ability to accurately assess where it ought to allocate resources in the primary, why should we expect it to suddenly become strategic geniuses in the general? Indeed, their myopic focus on PA, OH, FL, & MI and constant harping on the importance of the white working class suggest that their strategic ineptitude would indeed extend to the General. Dismissing VA, IA, CO, NC, GA, and a host of other states that could be strong Dem pickups in the Fall hardly inspires confidence that they understand the opportunities presented by the electoral college, the changing demographics in the country, and the overall political mood of most voters. It’s not just that they mistaken believe we’re stuck with the same map and electoral battle we’ve seen replayed over and over the past two decades; its that they’re actively working to make that so, and it need not be at all.
It’s certainly not a flaw that our primary process badly punished the Clinton campaign for relying on a poor fundraising model, poor assessment of how to rack up delegate advantages, and overall poor allocation of resources. Indeed, to these eyes, that’s a sign that the primary process worked exactly as one would hope, but choosing the candidate more likely to craft a winning General Election strategy.
. Apologies on the lack of the close html tag in the above post.
Ben Alpers,
Are you are writing about the primary process somewhere other than blog comments? If not, you should be.
To those who think a single national primary would increase the role of money and name recognition in the nomination process — and would increase it by so much that it’s worth sacrificing the fundmantal principle of one person, one vote — I have a question:
Where are the candidates who, thanks to the current process, have defeated better funded, better known opponents?
Maintaining a privileged position? No sir, not at all, that’s not what I am arguing. If you read Gary’s post, you will find that caucuses allow ordinary people to participate above and beyond simply voting — which means that it is those states that use primaries that reward insiders and the well-connected with outsize influence in party operations, while people who sincerely want to get involved are forced to stay outside the process.
togolosh is right. Get the state governments out of the nominating process. I’d love to see an initiative on the ballot in CA (my home state) stating that the state government may only sponsor one election in any calendar year.
Not only would this mean that Republicans can’t force Democrats to break the rules, it would mean that I, as a registered Green Party member, would not be subjected to the farce that has been made of this primary season.
Short of this, though, the Democrats could help themselves enormously simply by deciding in advance what are the consequences of breaking the rules. It seems to me that a big part of the problem this go-round was that there had to be a long debate about what punishment was fair and just.
My own suggestion (though it holds no weight since I’m not registered a Democrat) would be to seat no supers (they’re the ones most likely at fault for the breaking of the rules in the first place), but seat all pledged delegates at half-voting strength. Then get on with life already.
Geez.
Ken:
Why have primaries at all? Why not just have all the people run for themselves in the general? That will show us what the people want, not just those special few who have time to vote twice a year.
close tag…
barbara, ordinary people who want to be ‘involved’ by way of cuacuses are to be encouraged. But the caucuses themselves should be limited to deciding such things as chosing a decorating committee for the election night celebrations. They should not be allowed to choose the parties nominees as long as holding a primary election is a viable alternative. Otherwise we have a group of activists/lobbiests/elitists sitting in an undeserved priviledged position and without the wisdom provided by the mass of voters who take part in primary elections.
I’m all in favor of a rotating regional primary system. I don’t think Iowa and New Hampshire should be exempted, but some folks have proposed that to stop them from whining.
I hate caucuses, and have heard far too many complaints about how poorly they’re run from people who have participated. I know some people like the speeches-persuasion aspect, but there’s no reason people can’t do the same thing at party meetings in the weeks before an election. Iowa, with a record turnout, had about 16% participation of eligible voters (fewer than 6% in 2004) compared to New Hampshire’s 53%. That said, I think the caucus versus primary thing has to be left to the states.
I’d also add instant runoff ballots. Rank your top three candidates, if so desired. That would solve some problems down the line, would be interesting data, and would be a better and more efficient way of preserving the “next choice” aspect of caucuses.
Public funding for elections would also help, and for the national election, I’d like to see electoral college reform. There’s also the idea of a national holiday for the presidential election, as some countries have. The main arguments against a straight popular vote count for the general election would be how horrible it would be to have a recount, as well as unequal and unreliable voting systems across the country. Proportional allocation of electoral votes would be a step in the right direction, though. There are problems and challenges for some of those proposals, too, of course, and I realize some are not bloody likely any time soon. Regardless, I’ll be happy if reforming the process received some serious consideration, and would like to hear other proposals, since I know some folks have already given it a great deal of thought. I’ll try to check in later…
I think the caucus versus primary thing has to be left to the states.
Why? The national party already sets lots of rules, e.g. it does not allow states to hold winner-take-all primaries.
ken, I really think you are mixed up about what political parties represent. They are private organizations of like minded people who are trying to influence government through the election of representative members who (a)agree with the party and (b)have sufficiently broad popular appeal to be elected in a general election contest by those people who are also members of the party, and those who aren’t.
About 20 years ago I worked on a case in which a Republican party member sued his state party for certain reforms it enacted to promote the participation of women in the party and reach out to women generally, in a very liberal state where women were a lot less likely to vote Republican. His argument was that it violated equal protection to “prefer” female delegates in the way that the party did (I’ll spare you the technical procedural measures that were adopted, but they were fairly heavy handed), and the decision was: it’s a private party and the party has great leeway in determining the methods and procedures by which it can promote its political agenda. In some cases, that might be a primary election, and in others, it might be a caucus, or a combination.
The notion that your most important position should be selected by people with little or no demonstrated loyalty to your agenda is a little bizarre, particularly in states (like mine) that don’t even permit voters to make party designations when registering. I could have voted in either (but not both) of the primaries that were being held simultaneously on the same day.
Forgive me if this point has already been covered above, but I think there is an extremely important value added by having staggered primaries and/or caucuses over an extended period of time rather than compressing the calendar, which is:
If you bunch the contests together the payoff for dirty tricks, planting false stories in the media, attack ads and negative campaigning more generally is much higher. Staggered electoral contests give voters in the next series of states a chance to punish a campaign for “low blows” used during the preceding primary, which usually take some time to discover and document. Remember the Kantor video with the doctored audio this time around? If something really explosive like that (or worse) is released just before a national primary and it will take days or weeks to refute it (keep in mind that each year it becomes easier to tamper with video and audio records) and/or to trace it back to the source (in this day and age such things will likely emerge via blogs or other semi-anonymous sources first), then it will have a greater chance of succeeding without the campaign which benefits from it suffering from a backlash against such tactics sufficient to act as a deterrent.
For campaigns which are tempted to engage in negative tactics vs. each other, staggered primaries and/or caucuses are like an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma, whereas a national primary would be more like a one-shot Prisoner’s Dilemma. The payoff matrix for cooperation vs. defection is different for these two scenarios, so choose carefully between them as you will get what you asked for in the way of campaign tactics.
barbara, where primary elections are not feasable then the less worthy alternative of having a caucus is the only remaining choice. But the subject we are talking about is what reforms should be made and why.
Caucuses are totally inferior to primaries and lead to crazy outcomes like having someone like Obama lead in delegate count. That would never have happened if the voters of those caucus states had an equal say, along with the activists/lobbiest/elitists in choosing the nominee.
“Ben, I think a single national primary would be an awful idea. It would reward the candidates who can most successfully amass a lot of money at once, and encourage them to concentrate on a handful of vote strongholds. Both of these are bad.”
Absolutely. Worst idea ever.
Unless the goal is to absolutely lock in the most corporately acceptable, maximally establishment, best fund-raising, candidate, that is.
I still think that it’s not possible to have an objective discussion now. For example, look at ken’s comments.
———————————-
“Revise the delegate allocation by districts to remove the unfair influence the all black districts have on the party.”
“Should nominees for office represent party activists/lobbiest/elitist or should they represent ordinary people?”
“You’ll notice that those arguing for maintaining caucuses are really arguing for maintaining the priviledged position they enjoy as a small elite that can afford to spend several hours in the company of other elites in order to make decisions for the common people.”
“I think the best proof that caucuses are lousy ideas is to look at what happened this year. Obama, who is not qualified to be dog catcher, got a bunch of true believers out to dominate in minor state caucuses and he pulled ahead.”
———————-
This is pure sour grapes from a partisan of a losing presidential candidate. It is worth discussing this, but the process needs to be divorced from the truly unusual Obama-Clinton contest. Before this year, for example, the common wisdom (borne out by polling data) was that retired voters were the key to caucus victories. Obviously that’s not Obamas main demographic, and he got a lot of people out to vote in them.
The other more subtle problem I see with a single national primary or compressed schedule is that it would sample the concerns of the voters at a particular point in time rather than getting a broader sample over a wider range of dates.
The problem with a narrow chronological sampling is that it is more vulnerable to manipulation or freak events having an undue influence on the results.
Are people ticked off about high gas prices? No problem – the oil companies can take a loss selling gas below cost the week before the national primary.
What happens if there is a terrorist attack or a natural disaster right before the scheduled national primary? Then the candidate who took the most extreme position on the subject of national security, or earthquake preparedness, or flu-vaccination, etc. is the winner, swamping the effect of other issues which play out over a broader period of time.
IMHO this is not a good idea.
ken, I think your reasoning is result oriented. Since I think that “voting by name recognition” is the bigger threat to democracy than the disproportionate participation of party activists and loyalists (which is usually what happens in the averagy primary anyway), I interpret your comments as stating, in effect: “Clinton should have been able to skate by on name recognition with little or no effort to actually speak to the concerns of engaged voters let alone field a party operation in caucus states.” Why? Why should she be able to do that? Why is name recognition such a clear indication of the suitability of a candidate?
I voted in a primary state that went to Obama overwhelmingly, so I disagree on that ground as well.
“Given the changing demographics of the U.S., the Republicans as a conservative party in any form will cease to exist.”
Man, you’ve worn the groove deep in that broken record, superdestroyer.
“The most democratic system is….”
Is the highest priority to get the maximum number of people voting? If so, why? Are there other values to consider (ease of involvement in party matters; ease of achieving office; maximizing the involvement of subcategories of voters, be they the poor, the low-information voters, the high-information voters, the handicapped, the wisest, the most radical, the least radical, etc., etc; geographic distribution; other forms of population distribution; minimizing the Law Of Unintended Consequences; lessening the power of money, and so on and so forth)?
Discuss. I certainly don’t see Maximum Democracy as an unquestionable highest priority.
“Get over yourselves.”
Useful advice. We’ll get right on that.
Helpful extra credit tip: assertions are not a substitute for reasoned argument. Argument by assertion doesn’t fly very far. Announcements that things “should” be done the way you want because… you say so, aren’t apt to be very persuasive to anyone but you and your mother. If you have an argument to support your preferences, I’d suggest making it.
It’ll help people increase the attention given to your ukases no end, I suggest.
OT, but ARG says Clinton is up 60/34 in SD. 538 is skeptical.
Some truth to that, Marc. I am genuinely astonished at the level of virulent hatred within the party this primary. I blame Clinton’s campaign for stirring a lot of it up, but it’s by no means all their doing – there’s been some really shameful sexist wallowing, and a lot of just plain freefloating rage going off. I don’t recall anything like this going back and forth between candidates and supporters in any other primary season I’ve participated in (which takes us back to 1984).
Also, ken: repetition is not an argument.
“I don’t recall anything like this going back and forth between candidates and supporters in any other primary season I’ve participated in (which takes us back to 1984).”
I’d venture the thought that there hasn’t been this much acrimony in the Democratic Party since 1968.
Though there’s a good case to be made for 1980, and Ted Kennedy’s battle to get the nomination away from incumbent Jimmy Carter. This year seems very reminiscent of that race in several ways, though, of course, the racism and sexism issues weren’t in play, and there were many other crucial differences, including the most obvious, that that was a fight between an incumbent president and a challenger.
1968 also had innumerable severely different circumstances than this year, of course, including the entire clash of youth counter-culture and mainstream culture, and The Draft.
“I know some people like the speeches-persuasion aspect, but there’s no reason people can’t do the same thing at party meetings in the weeks before an election.”
I’m open-minded. I doubt this very much, but if this is so, please point us to which state that has a primary system, and which makes it equally easy for the average citizen, with no prior involvement in party politics, to walk in and get elected as a precinct committeeperson/leader, and equally easy to get elected to the State Convention, with only a total of 10 hours involvement, as has been my experience over many election cycles in the two caucus states of Washington and Colorado.
3 states would make a better case that this can be done, but let’s start with the best case: which state are we going to look at and compare objective metrics to in comparison to the ease of involvement and citizen power in caucus states?
“Caucuses are totally inferior to primaries and lead to crazy outcomes like having someone like Obama lead in delegate count.”
“My position is correct because the other position gives results I don’t like” isn’t an argument many people are apt to find persuasive, no matter how convincing it is to you. This is not, as it happens, a solipsistic universe.
Might I recommend some perusal of this page? It might, perhaps, help your ability to make an actual argument no end.
Sounds about right, Gary. I was just reflecting on my own experience as a participant rather than teenaged observer or after-the-fact student.
I also strongly agree that maximizing all possible votes isn’t the point. Primaries are about preparing for the general campaign, where that is the point, or much closer to it. The primaries, I’m thinking, should be foremost about motivating those who will be helping drive the general campaign, including those who’ll be doing it entirely apart from the organized campaign through their individual enthusiasm.
*blinks*
It occurs to me that I’m on the brink of suggesting the Democrats follow fandom. But I am. As Gary of course knows, and some other do, being a “fan” of some things can carry two strongly distinct meanings. There are those who are identified as fans because they read, watch, listen to, and otherwise enjoy something. And there are those who are identified as fans because they participate in the fannish subculture for their activity, help run conventions, and the like.
Well, in some ways I’d like primary participation to be less crucial to a lot of people’s self-identification as Democrats. Most particularly those are sure their candidate is the unique snowflake of a messiah, but others too. I’d like it to be an honorable estate to vote Democratic without feeling obliged to turn into a junior administrator.
It is astonishing; I agree there Bruce. A lot of rage has built up over the last 8 years, largely warranted in my view. We have an uncompromising aesthetic which has become dominant in progressive circles. It’s noteworthy to me that a candidate like Obama got such withering criticism for occasional references to comforting bipartisan bromides. I always interpreted these as being polite fictions for the most part, but they have become evidence of heresy (among Clinton supporters) and worrying signs that require renunciation (among Obama supporters.) It was inevitable that the weapons honed against Bush would be employed in a primary fight, at least in hindsight. However, race and gender factors ended up dramatically raising the temperature. There is a different level of heat between “you have an inferior health care plan” and “you’re a sexist/racist.”
Feminist identity politics sharpened the divide and made it more personal, and Clinton chose to amplify these factors rather than damping them. The Obama campaign worked very hard to avoid racial appeals (which would, in any case, have backfired for a minority candidate.) But their online advocates were primed for offense, no doubt about it, and seized upon it both when present and when imagined.
It is going to take time to heal these matters, and there will be permanent losses. I was really sadddened by how many of the people I’d been reading for years turned out to have either blind spots or to have some truly unpleasant traits revealed.
Keep dreaming about fixing the next one because this is never going to end.
All the nice little structures in the world don’t mean anything if there’s no downside to violation. Those of you proposing a regoinal primary have to answer this question: what do you do when Kansas decided it doesn’t want to go on the same day as Oklahoma, but instead wants to go the same day as Vermont or Oregon? Do you ‘disenfranchise’ the voters? Or do you ‘count every vote’ and make a total hash of your nice little system?
The parties can’t run primaries. There’s no way they could afford the machinery, venues, tabulating infrastructure, voting judges, registration enforcement, and all the rest that comes with an election. And they can’t ‘certify’ the results. They’re not public officials and, you’ll be shocked to learn, some may not be objective.
LeftTurn – your 2:47 comment got me thinking. Obama’s nomination campaign could be fairly described as “tit-for-tat”, which tends to be one of the best strategies (if you don’t count the ones that implement back-room deals).
Somehow, though, many people erroneously think that “a new kind of politics” requires an “always cooperate” strategy.
There’s a good nerd article in there somewhere 😉
If Sen. Clinton had won in Iowa, Kansas, and Maine, it would be evidence of her superior organizational ability, and of the passions her leadership brings forth.
Publius, the place you really have to start is “what’s broken?” Going early is important enough that a state is happy to risk getting penalized (and then arguing about it later) to get to go early. No one except a few potential delegates cares how many Floridians go to the Republican convention. Rotating isn’t going to change this calculus: do I go early now, or wait until 2020 when it’s my turn. Most of the people charged with making that call will be out of office by then, and unconcerned with events.
I’d venture the thought that there hasn’t been this much acrimony in the Democratic Party since 1968.
Though there’s a good case to be made for 1980, and Ted Kennedy’s battle to get the nomination away from incumbent Jimmy Carter. This year seems very reminiscent of that race in several ways, though, of course, the racism and sexism issues weren’t in play, and there were many other crucial differences, including the most obvious, that that was a fight between an incumbent president and a challenger.
1968 also had innumerable severely different circumstances than this year, of course, including the entire clash of youth counter-culture and mainstream culture, and The Draft.
Gary,
This year’s contest reminds me more of 1972 (an antiwar candidate vs. a moderate political insider and establishment candidate politically compromised by association with fence-straddling regarding the war, and also re: what stage of the war we are at in terms of escalation vs withdrawl), but I’m not old enough to remember anything about 1968 other than kids having fistfights in elementary school over the political affliation of their parents.
This contest does seem more bitter and polarized at the grass-roots level than I remember the 1980 contest being; the latter campaign seemed to be dominated by a split in the party leadership more so than by acrimony amongst the rank-n-file, IIRC.
I guess one upside of having parties conduct the elections at the nomination stage is that we’d get rid of open primaries.
LeftTurn – your 2:47 comment got me thinking. Obama’s nomination campaign could be fairly described as “tit-for-tat”, which tends to be one of the best strategies
I’ve had the same thought all the way through the contest – that Obama’s campaign was running a Robert Axlerod iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma tournament strategy trying to elicit cooperation from the HRC campaign, by alternating between positive and negative signals using a “Tit for Tat with forgiveness” schema.
I’ve been enormously impressed by the way they tried to steer the campaign away from the gutter without rendering themselves defenceless against attacks (and avoid the dreaded “can’t stand the heat” meme), one of the reasons why I think this is the smartest campaign we’ve seen in a long time. It would not surprise me to find out that The Evolution of Cooperation is a well known text with some of Obama’s people.
Determining the nomination through a series of state contests spread over several months did have at least one advantage for Clinton. It allowed her to campaign as a liberal early on when she was trying to win Democratic states like New York and California, and then reinvent herself as a redneck complaining about latte-sipping liberals as she tossed back shots later on when she was trying to get West Virginia and Kentucky. She didn’t have to worry about all the New Yorkers and Californians she was alienating because they’d already voted.
Similarly, she could talk about her respect for the sacred position of Iowa and New Hampshire and how Michigan and Florida must be punished for infringing on it, and then after the early states were finished she could start pandering to Michigan and Florida by talking about the injustice of not counting their rogue primaries.
This election feels like 1980 only if you reverse the partisan labels.
Winner-take-all-ness isn’t a characteristic of the primary itself. It comes from how the state party (following DNC rules) decides to use the primary results. The state has nothing to do with that.
I don’t think that’s true, since few state legislators are superdelegates. They would be only if they happened to be DNC members.
So we just need a few more states to pass similar laws and there’ll be some solution found. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet. New Hampshire law applies in New Hampshire, of course, but it’s silly to expect it to bind the whole country.
CharleyCarp: “The parties can’t run primaries. There’s no way they could afford the machinery, venues, tabulating infrastructure, voting judges, registration enforcement, and all the rest that comes with an election. And they can’t ‘certify’ the results. They’re not public officials and, you’ll be shocked to learn, some may not be objective.”
This only matters if parties are public institutions, which they are not. They can hold primaries in whatever way they can most afford. Maybe all states would go to caucuses. Who knows? At any rate, not my problem. They do not need to “certify” the results for the general public because the general public has no legitimate claim on them.
And you’re right, having parties hold their own primaries would nicely do away with all the heat rather than light expended on the issue of open primaries and crossover votes and Rush Limbaugh’s army of Republicans voting in Democratic primaries and on and on and on.
“things can carry two strongly distinct meanings. There are those who are identified as fans because they read, watch, listen to, and otherwise enjoy something. And there are those who are identified as fans because they participate in the fannish subculture for their activity, help run conventions, and the like.”
“Actifans” is a longtime term for the latter, I remind you, Bruce.
I also agree with more or less all of Marc’s 3:35 PM. (Could I again suggest that people using generic IDs perhaps consider using something a little more distinctive, so we can tell you apart from the next “Marc” or “John” or “Jane” who shows up to comment?)
“This year’s contest reminds me more of 1972”
Fair point. And I’m only 49, but, then, I’ve never been to any national convention, so it’s all just what I know from reading, and occasional historical footage, anyway.
I prefer to assume we won’t degenerate into something resembling Chicago, 1968. Or god help us, and welcome, President McCain, and lots more wars, universal health coverage only over his veto, etc., etc., etc.
But even 1972 was rather catastrophic.
I’d prefer to see us at least do as little badly as 1976, and preferably I’d like to see a dawn of a new politics, and a whole new way to truly organize and active Democrats for the long term, and to achieve our legislative and social goals.
(Nightmares, brick oven bill! Nightmares!)
Absolutely. Worst idea ever. Unless the goal is to absolutely lock in the most corporately acceptable, maximally establishment, best fund-raising, candidate, that is.
gary, you need to tell us, then, which candidate who clearly do *not* fit these criteria has won under the current system. (Note that Obama significantly outraised Clinton this year.)
And keep in mind, your argument is not just that we should prfer a system that supposedly favors underdogs. Your argument is that we should prefer a system that supposedly favors underdogs *even tho that system massively violates the principle of one person, one vote.* So you really don’t need just one or two arguable exampels, you need an unambiguous, consistent pattern of underfundeded, anti-establishment, anti-corporate candidates winning the nomination under the current system.
Because otehrwise, the principle that a Californian or a New Yorker is entitled to the same say as a resident of New hampshire or Iowa is dispositive.
(And tell me: if someone proposed, tomorrow, that in general elections the votes of Iowans and New Hampshirites should be wighted ten times as heavily as everyone else’s, and explained that this would encourage more retail campaigning and help more populist, progressive candidates, what would you say?)
A few things after reading some of the comments:
1) Environmental concerns: Not only are hosting primaries, caucuses and the campaigns expensive; the transportation is as well. Having primaries in South Carolina and Nevada on the same day seems silly. Having primaries in different states on the same day is fine, but the example I gave (which was real in January) seems extreme in pollution, cost, etc, and ultimately unnecessary.
2) Keep the caucuses: States can’t always afford primaries, and some just like having caucuses and shouldn’t be forced to adopt primaries (e.g. Iowa). Caucuses build local support for the party and I’d imagine they’re valuable for local Congressional and State Assembly candidates and incumbents.
3) Reform the caucuses: With that said, caucuses need 2 big changes. First, there needs to be a drop-in/mail-in alternative that’s immediately accessible and promoted so people who can’t go have a way to participate that is well known to them. Second, keep individual vote tallies. This literally makes no sense, as not being able to count the popular vote in caucus states puts too much emphasis on the popular vote count in primary states, as evidenced in this primary season.
***Note: Having caucuses on Saturdays alienates Jews and Adventists, so while you may appreciate a Saturday caucus, they won’t and are among the people who need an alternative, lending credence to the idea for reformation.
4) Abolish statewide/congressional district bonuses: While caucuses aren’t “truly” democratic, we should strive for democracy, and having a statewide bonus isn’t helpful in that regard, as it can easily inflate the vote for a particular candidate that isn’t reflected in the popular vote. Additionally, shifting focus on congressional districts with an odd number of delegates because of the dumb math involved (50% +1 = extra delegate) is silly, as is making a convert’s vote counted for less than a stalwart partisan vote.
My main argument for this is that, as a partisan, you want your party to be dominant. You want to encourage as many people to join your party while still holding to your party’s main ideas. To please the partisans, you reward them with more delegates. This discredits a district full of the opposite party to flip. At the same time, rewarding flippers discredits the loyal partisans. The fair thing to do here is to count them all equally, discouraging neither the partisans or the flippers on the basis that they deserve equal attention to foster a stronger party.
“*even tho that system massively violates the principle of one person, one vote.*”
As previously discussed by others in this and other threads, the notion that “one person, one vote” is a principle that should apply to a nomination contest is a category error. There’s no reason it should necessarily apply. Parties can do as they like, and people are free to vote for them, or for another party with a different methodology and principle.
“The popular vote” is a meaningless calculation in a contest like this, where some states have caucuses and some primaries, some are open and some closed (and some in between), and the contests occur over a period of months. Adding apples from January to oranges from June makes no sense. Pretending that the popular vote is a meaningful measure of something undervalues caucus states. (And of course adding in Michigan in this case undercuts any argument that it means something.)
But even 1972 was rather catastrophic.
Assuming that Hillary doesn’t try emulate George Wallace, I doubt we would see anything like a repetition of the 1972 general election campaign. There seem to be stark differences in organization, funding, and message discipline between that year and this year (on both sides), and that’s not even getting into the more complex area of ideological differences and candidate personalities.
As previously discussed by others in this and other threads, the notion that “one person, one vote” is a principle that should apply to a nomination contest is a category error. There’s no reason it should necessarily apply. Parties can do as they like, and people are free to vote for them, or for another party with a different methodology and principle.
This is formalism carried to an absurd extreme. One person, one vote is a foundational ethical principle of our society, and parties are, like it or not, quasi-public institutions (and less and less quasi as time goes on.) And the notion that if you don’t like the Democrats and republcians, you can just pick some other party does not apply to American politics at any point in the last 100-odd yers, at least on the planet I live on.
The notion that democratic norms don’t apply to primaries is absurd.
What purpose would that serve? Like winner take all (as in the Electoral College), a bonus makes it more likely that one candidate can beat another preferred by fewer Democrats. If one candidate gets 50.1% of the vote in a state while another gets 49.9%, why should there be any significant difference between their delegate gains? And why should a candidate who wins a state 35%-30%-20%-15% get a bonus?
the notion that “one person, one vote” is a principle that should apply to a nomination contest is a category error. There’s no reason it should necessarily apply.
At some point in the process, it can’t apply.
There is a probouleutic chokepoint in every democratic process.
If you have government by initiative petition and referenda, someone still has to write the questions, as some of them qualify onto the ballot, and some don’t — or the ballot is an encyclopedia.
When you have elections, some people make it onto the ballot, and some don’t — or the ballot is a phone book.
There’s no way to engineer the process that doesn’t wind up ‘undemocratic’.
It’s the psephological version of Goedel’s Theorem.
There’s no way to engineer the process that doesn’t wind up ‘undemocratic’.
And yet, there are better and worse approximations.
Gary, you haven’t answered by question: if a single national primary would improve the chances of well-funded, well-known, pro-corproate candidates, then there must be underfunded, relatively unknown, anti-corporate candidates who have won the nomination under the current system. Who are they?
Lemuel has a point, but so does Gary Farber. Each espouses a valuable principle: “freedom of association” versus “one person, one vote”, to put it crudely.
Perhaps they would both accept the other’s principle enough to settle on this: “one Democrat, one vote”. Surely Lemuel would not insist on the right of Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary process. And surely Gary would accept a party process in which every actual party member gets an equal vote.
The question then becomes: who is a “member” of the Democratic Party?
— TP
Ben, I’m sympathetic to the idea that primaries should be held simultaneously across the nation. I agree that this would remove the disproportionate influence that is exercised by the early states and result in a system that is closer to the ideal of “one person, one vote”. My concern, however (a concern that I suspect is shared by most of the other commentators here) is that one of the worst flaws in our political system is the outsized influence of money.
While I hate the bad policies that prospective nominees are forced to adopt to placate the Iowans and New Hampshire’ers (?) Iowa has demonstrably led to dark horse candidates with little money or institutional backing being able to emerge as a viable candidate (see Huckabee, Mike & Carter, Jimmy). Therefore I feel that while IA and NH should have to share their privileged early spots that having an early contest or contests (such as the rotating lottery system advocated by Larry Sabato in “A More Perfect Constitution”) is necessary to minimize the effect that money has on the process.
You did say something about campaign finance, though. I’m guessing that the way you envision a national primary would include a robust public financing program that would minimize the huge advantages that monied and incumbent politicians typically exercise. I must say that I am skeptical that a public financing system would be willing to fork over the big bucks needed for candidates to compete nationally. John McCain spent more than $70 million in the primaries and didnt’ even have to compete in half of the states. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have spent $400 million combined and both went relatively light on media spending in the most expensive media markets. In 2004 Kerry and Bush raised $880 million and since we see that in 2008 there has already been half the ’04 total spent just during the primaries we will in all likelihood see over a billion dollars spent on the ’08 election. How can a public financing system keep up with that? I would love to see public financing instituted nationwide but I don’t think it has a prayer of ever beeing passed into law if it has a billion dollar price tag to go along with it.
I’d love to hear it if you have some ideas on how a nationwide publicly financed primary could be held, but failing that sort of public financing I think-in purely practical terms-that it will be necessary for some sort of calender of early voting states to be maintained. Therefore, I feel the best areas for reform are with the way delegates are awarded and allocated, as legitimacy is the most critical element to an election and, as we are now seeing, any perception of rigging or cheating by the party (real or imagined) tarnishes the credibility of the electoral process.
Perhaps they would both accept the other’s principle enough to settle on this: “one Democrat, one vote”. Surely Lemuel would not insist on the right of Republicans to vote in the Democratic primary process. And surely Gary would accept a party process in which every actual party member gets an equal vote.
Yes, I agree with that. As for who’s a Democrat, any consistent, non-arbitrary formula is fine. You could even require dues (as long as they’re not too high) — that might even give the party a little more accountability to its members.
The important thing, tho, is that a process in which some people vote significantly before others does not give each party member an equal vote.
Huckabee, Mike & Carter, Jimmy
Huckabee lost, tho. And McCain, who won under the current system, is exactly the sort of national-known, establishment, consensus candidate we’re supposed to get if we switch to a national primary.
As far as I can tell, the entire empirical case against a national primary is that we might have gotten Ted Kennedy instead of Carter in 1976. In every year since then, the guys Farber et al. are warning us would win with a national primary won anyway, with the undemocratic crazy-quilt system we’ve got.
Publius-
Another item for your list could be universal voting by mail. Lowers the barriers to participation even further than primaries (which of course are still much better than caucuses) and reduces the cost.
I have been screaming for years that the primary system was flawed and unfair to states that don’t vote early, which was why we had Michigan and Florida move out of turn. Usually it’s been whoever wins the early states gets the momentum and the funding and it’s pretty much done by late Feb. (this year was the exception, mostly due to Hillary’s unstoppable drive to win at all costs)
However, I still oppose the idea of a rotating regional primary system. Because it’s still unfair to the states that vote later. Whoever wins the first round still gets the advantages (front-loading). And the states going first will NOT reflect the overall national mood, just their own interests.
A President has to represent the whole nation. Therefore, the whole nation should hold the primary on one day. We can do this now: we have the technology. People are able to watch primary debates across the whole planet, it’s not like the candidates have to hop from state to state as in the days before television (or even radio). It’ll bring an end to the regional/state pandering candidates do when they campaign state-by-state. And yes, it won’t be fair to the small less-populated states, but I ask you is it any less fair than having Iowa go before California? New Hampshire before Texas?
Make the primaries all on one day (some time in May, hmm probably around a holiday perhaps to ensure people can turn out the vote). Make the rules of delegate counts uniform across the board (2118 plus for Democrats?! Jebus! Can’t we just proportion delegates equal to the Electoral College or something?) No more caucuses. Prevent campaigning before the year of election (all campaigns start Jan. 2nd). And have all candidates currently serving in office Resign To Run so there won’t be any distractions between campaigning and needed duties to be done back in DC. (It’ll cut down on the egos who run simply just to get their names out there).
Paulw-
You are, of course, right on all points excep this:
it won’t be fair to the small less-populated states
Since the delegates are apportioned, in part, based on states’ electoral votes, residents of smaller, less populated states would still get more weight than the rest of us. It would still be the big states being treated unfairly — just far less unfairly than in the system.
The reason I don’t like the single nationwide primary idea is that if it were held before candidate has been fully ‘exposed’ to the voters then we have a situation like we have this year. I would have voted for Obama if the entire nation voted at the time of the Iowa caucus. Thank god we did’t. Now I know I will never vote for him. But I did not know that then.
I think regional primaries are the way to go.
Caucuses should be reserved for people like Gary Farber so they can make party building decisions like which caterer to use for the victory celebrations and who is going to be in charge of sending out thank you notes to all the poll workers who saw to it that democracy was still alive and well in their state.
Ken, how many thousands of “activists/lobbyist/elitists” do we need before they become “ordinary people”? The first-level delegates in my state included war vets, disabled people, young single moms, middle-aged married parents, kids still in high school, retirees, housewives, union members, entrepreneurs, and just about any other type you could name. All colors, all religions, all professions. Most were first-timers, not old party hacks. Those were the delegates — so it seems very likely that the actual caucus-goers were even more varied. So I have to wonder whether you have any facts to back up your claims or are just yammering.
The difference between someone who goes to a caucus and someone who doesn’t is simply the decision to go. I saw people turn up with kids of all ages, so don’t buy into the notion that single parents can’t participate. Sure, there’s a small fraction of the population who just plain can’t make it — shut-ins, religious people on whose holy day the caucus is held, the very busy, the very poor, those who have weekend jobs and unreasonable bosses, and the very ill. Many states have an absentee ballot system for the ones who can’t make it. In other states, some people do have to miss out. But just about as many people, often the same ones, couldn’t make it to a voting booth either, for much the same reasons.
The system does not force the vast majority of “ordinary people” to stay home, and the groups who are excluded by logistics are not especially non-elite. You could just as reasonably argue that a caucus system discriminates against elites: busy professionals or business owners don’t have time to come, slackers do. But the truth is, most of the people who don’t come just can’t be bothered. So, why is it so important to count their votes for an internal party decision?
Note: Having caucuses on Saturdays alienates Jews and Adventists
Hear, hear.
I don’t want a separate Jewish/Adventist caucus on Sunday, tho. Very divisive. I wonder how many Christians would honestly care if we held the caucuses on Sunday. It’s not like their religion prohibits caucus-type activities (travel, writing). And I refuse to believe there are many caucus participants who never miss church for vital public events like the Superbowl.
I would point out that, it was largely because of Iowa’s small state that Obama was able to compete and win there. Say the regional primary were in the NE, Obama would not be the nominee now. I live in Iowa but don’t vote there and I agree with rotating regional primaries but I’d like to point that out.
Second on the Super Delegates I will go with elected office holders only. These are people who have to run with the candidate at the top of the ticket, have to deal with him if he wins, or deal with the aftermath if he loses. They really should have a say though party officials shouldn’t.
Lemuel:
Moving to a national primary would, I believe, only exacerbate the current situation where name recognition and institutional support are such advantages. I think the key point you’re missing is that while the nominee ends up being the best-funded candidate, it doesn’t always end up being so.
Obama was a strong fundraiser throughout 2007, sure, but it was only after Iowa that he was able to surpass Clinton in fundraising. The current system allows candidates to build name-recognition and fund-raising; there’s no chance Obama is able to build his machine and catch Clinton without his early victories. For that matter, I doubt Bill Clinton would have won in 1992 with a national primary, not that he would have been my choice.
I also think having staggered primaries allows challengers with different messages to push issues into the national conversation, even if they don’t win. Throughout the nominating process, Edwards consistently pushed Clinton and Obama to the left on issues like healthcare, because they had to worry seriously about his winning in Iowa and changing the media coverage. With a national primary, Clinton and Obama would probably been able to rely on their great funding advantage to raise their profile across the country. Instead, they were forced to be far more vocally supportive of universal healthcare and serious climate change solutions. The staggered primary leaves an opening for a candidate to catch fire with an ignored issue.
Huh. I thought Obama DIDN’T fit those requirements that easily, given that a great deal of his fundraising came from small and moderate donors.
tribolite,
The importance of inclusiveness is to remove he party from the influence and domination by the activist/lobbiest/elitists who are nothing like the ordinary American and don’t share their values.
The Democratic Party knows how to nominate losers. It does not have institutional knowledge of how to nominate winners. How many more elections do we need to see just how true this is?
The exception was Bill Clinton. But he wrested the nomination away from the party regulars and he was able to do this because no one thought he had a chance to win anyway so the Washington establishment did not have one of their own choice running. And as president he never got the support of the democratic insiders. They continued to resent him and stood by as he was savaged by the conservative media and the republicans in congress.
This year the choice of the Washington establishment was Obama and just look at how flawed he is as a candidate. As a result of the manner in which the party choses it’s nominee he might squeek by to win the nomination, barely. But thanks to the manner in which he demonized both Hillary and Bill Clinton he will leave Denver with a deeply divided party. He will not win in November. Heck I am a lifetime Democrat and liberal activist and I will never vote for him. I cannot imagine that the rest of this nation will accept him either.
So the party can remain a party of losers dominated by those who do not respect the American people or it can change and become a closer reflection of our nations people.
That’s why Clinton began the race with a head start over Obama of about 100 superdelegates, mostly DNC members. A New York senator who is the wife and chosen successor of the previous, very popular Democratic president is obviously an outsider and an insurgent. How could anyone consider her part of the establishment?
Obama was a strong fundraiser throughout 2007, sure, but it was only after Iowa that he was able to surpass Clinton in fundraising.
In this, you are mistaken. Obama was outraising Clinton through . It’s true that he opened up a huge lead in contributions in January, but he was never in any sense an underdog in the money race. I think a failure to realize this fact is distorting a lot of the discussion here, and allowing people to present Clinton as more of the clear establishment favorite than she really was.
Throughout the nominating process, Edwards consistently pushed Clinton and Obama to the left on issues like healthcare, because they had to worry seriously about his winning in Iowa and changing the media coverage.
This is a more convincing point, as far as it goes. But it would have to go awfully far — much farther, IMO, than it actually does — to justify a system that gives the preferences of some primary voters so much more weight than others. Sorry to keep repeating myself, but political equality is a bedrock principle. You need overwhelming reasons to reject it.
Close tag…
I think what people are pointing out is that money is a necessary, but not sufficient, qualification to make a successful run to the candidacy–and it will remain that way in any conceivable system. What people are pointing out is that your proposed changes are moving the qualification from necessary to sufficient. (Because, certainly, if Obama had lost in primaries, he would not have ended up as the top fundraiser).
If the the Democratic Party is the only relevant political party, can anyone really claim that it is a private organization that limit who votes in the party primary or how the party is organized?
As the Republican Party collapses, more former Republicans and independents will start voting in the Democratic Primary. Eventually some judge will decide to apply the Voting Rights Act to the Democratic Primary when the Democratic Party is the only party.
Excellent point. I couldn’t agree more. Particularly the point about the Democratic party dodging a bullet this time.
i for one welcome our eternal Democratic overlords!
i for one welcome our eternal Democratic overlords!
Yeah, well easy for you to say.
But when you consider the last period of extended political dominance by the Democrats, the appalling downside (defeating Fascism, containing Communism, climbing out of the Great Depression to build the largest and most prosperous middle class in history, etc…) is so obvious that you have to admit superdestroyer kind of has a point there.
I don’t know how to fix the nominating system. I’m not even sure it needs to be fixed. I believe it feels like it this year because there were two popular candidates who more or less split the votes–but does that mean the system wouldn’t have “worked” in another year, with different candidates?
I moved to Colorado five years ago after living my whole adult life in California. In Cali, I was resigned to NEVER having my primary vote make a difference, because it was always so late in the season. (I’m aware they moved up to Super Tuesday this year.)
I had never been to a caucus before this year. I freely admit that I liked it, and don’t really see what’s wrong with caucuses for smaller, poorer states. At the one I attended, it was possible to get in and out within about half an hour if you only wanted to vote for your candidate. To vote on other issues, or to be considered as a county delegate, you did have to stay for a couple of hours.
There were elderly people and people with young children at the caucus I attended. (And the adults present voluntarily took turns amusing the little ones. We’re neighbors, you know?) The process struck me as friendly, local, grass-roots, and small-D democratic. I felt way more involved in the process than I ever did in 35 years of voting in California.
My 23-year-old son, spending a year with me between college and grad school, put himself forward as a county delegate, and was chosen. He was thrilled. He was chosen again there as a state delegate and attended the convention in Colorado Springs. That could never have happened in a primary state. Maybe you think it *shouldn’t* have happened, but I think there’s something kind of great about it. Because we live in a caucus state, he got deeply involved in politics in a way that he’s likely to remember all his life.
I feel like I understand why Obama won so many caucus states–he had a great ground game. Our household got five GOTV calls from the Obama campaign, several more from the local Democratic party, and none from the Clinton campaign.
I believe everyone in my precinct got a GOTV call from either the Obama campaign or the Democratic party. Every registered Democrat was invited to attend the caucus.
I do agree that people who cannot attend a caucus for whatever reason should be able to cast a vote by mail.
This is the sound of me changing my stance.
I’ve been reading today, and reviewing primary-season accounts from caucus participants, and I’ve decided that I just plain do approve of how caucusing shapes people’s political actions and thoughts. It seems to me that Jane in Colorado, Gary, and lots more are much more in tune than primary participants in what I think of as the civic part of democracy – the exchange of ideas and feelings and concern and all the rest, and the acting together.
This is what I like decision-making to sound like. There is a time for individual secret balloting, and it’s the general election. Primary season is a good time for open declarations, the chance to reconsider, and all like that. And they are particularly good for broadening the pool of people who get to actually serve in the chain of authority, as with Gary and with Jane’s son. That’s really good stuff and I want to see more of it.
So I think that my concerns can be addressed within the general framework of “more caucusing, please, as long as you keep these bits in mind too”.
There is a time for individual secret balloting, and it’s the general election.
There is a time for democracy and one person, one vote. And it is whenever a self-governing group needs to make a decision.
Imagine some decision needed to be made about the future of Obsidian Wings. Suppose Hilzoy, Publius and Eric Martin got together, had a long discussion of various alternatives — in which Publius and Katherine were not allowed to take part — and then told those two, OK, here are two choices, pick one, that’s all the input you’re getting. “But we’re equal blog contributors, we have exactly the same status, why weren’t we included?” ask the other two. “Sure you are, but these discussions are just easier to have in a group of three then a group of five. If you don’t like it, go write for some other blog.”
Or suppose everyone was allowed to take part in the discussion, but it was held face to face, in a city where only Katherine and Sebastian lived. “It’s not reasonable to expect us to fly out there. Why can’t we do this online?” say the other three. “Better discussions happen face to face — it’s just the kind of decision-making we like. And hey, if you don’t like it, go write for another blog.”
All of us would agree that both cases would be wrong. Those would be *really bad* ways to make collective decisions. And all we need to know, to reach that conclusion, is that the five are in some general way equal contributors to the blog.
It’s really astonishing for me that there are so many people like Bruce Baugh and Gary Farber, for whom basic norms of civic and political equality just don’t matter. Sure, they say, equal rights are nice, I guess … in their place … unless there’s some possible advantage to inequality, in which case that’s just as good.
Lemuel, if you’ll recall, I’m the one who explained why I can’t ever caucus, and why others can’t sometimes or ever either. Hence my emphasis on providing for the needs of all who can’t. What I’m saying is that I find caucus a better default, so long as there’s adequate provision for people who can’t (or simply prefer not to) do it that way.
Something that I hadn’t touched on before, and that I expect to be denounced as paranoid: the US has horrible, horrible problems with vote security. None of our major suppliers of vote machines is anywhere close to meeting basic standards of security. There have been professional alerts from security organizations about this stuff for years. We simply can’t verify a large fraction of votes cast in many parts of this country. I’m not saying that all of them are tampered with, or anything like it, but it’s unquestionably that nobody can prove they aren’t, not in the way that one can with (for instance) a simple tally of ballots marked by pencil on paper.
Caucus voting adds a measure of reliability that I think is well worth having.
Well it would seem that I am somewhat in the minority here. I don’t think the entire system needs to be blown up although I do think some changes would be good.
I see nothing wrong with caucuses, particularly in smaller states. Caucuses give activists a greater voice in the process. And when we are talking about smaller states it gives them a bigger voice than they normally would have. If a state decides to hold a caucus, why should the DNC stop them?
The problem with changing the ordering of the state primaries is that we need the states to go along with that. What possible incentive can the DNC offer NH or SC to move their primary back? How can the DNC prevent states from ignoring the DNC schedule? While I think it would be great to have a random schedule I just don’t see it happening.
The one thing I absolutely do agree with is eliminating the superdelegates. They serve no good purpose and are simply a tool to create political mischief. Had there been no superdelegates this entire race would have been far more civil as partisans on both sides wouldn’t have felt the need to convince the supers of the evils of the other candidate. They should be abolished immediately.
Changing delegate apportionment is fine, I guess. Seems to be a pretty minor issues spotted by people focusing too closely on the process.
Quoth the ken:
Hillary and Bill have done plenty to demonise themselves without needing any assistance from Obama on that count. As to your complaints of demonisation coming on the heels of your several comments demonising Obama, all I can say is “irony abounds”.
I’m getting both tired and saddened by how much work that some of Clinton’s supporters are putting in toward the destruction of the Democratic party’s chances of winning the Presidency this year (I’ve heard Obama supporters say that they won’t vote in November if he gets the nomination, but it’s only Clinton supporters that I’ve heard say they’ll vote for McCain if their candidate doesn’t get it, just to name the example I find most particularly appalling).
What I’m saying is that I find caucus a better default, so long as there’s adequate provision for people who can’t (or simply prefer not to) do it that way.
Well OK. But if you really do that, you’re going to end up with something that looks a lot more like a primary than a caucus.
What possible incentive can the DNC offer NH or SC to move their primary back? How can the DNC prevent states from ignoring the DNC schedule?
Um, you might have missed a little news story this past weekend, where only half the delegates from Florida and Michigan are being seated? And I guess you also missed the part where the DNC established clearly that it had the power to seat none of them. Sounds like a fairly adequate incentive to me.
“The notion that democratic norms don’t apply to primaries is absurd.”
No, it’s a fact, and a matter of law.
Parties aren’t countries. Confusing them is a category error. You are guaranteed rights in this country by our constitution. You are guaranteed no rights in a party other than that which are incidentally granted by law, or by party rule.
If I decide to start the Glasses Wearing Guys With Growing Bald Spots He-Man Party tomorrow (GWGWGBSHMP, for short), and limit membership to only those who fit that description, or, for that matter, whom I approve of, and I can get enough people to sign a petition to get our candidates on a particular ballot for a particular office, you have absolutely no right to tell me I can’t run my party the way I like, unless I violate a law, or the U.S. Constitution.
Parties are private. Not public. And while I agree with you that there are ways the major parties have been written into law in some small bits and pieces, I believe that any such law that doesn’t treat all potential or existing parties equally and fairly is wrong.
Meanwhile, you have no right to tell me how to run my party unless you’re a member of it, and have joined according to my rules.
If you don’t like it, form a party of your own, or join some other party than the GWGWGBSHMP.
And that’s all there is to it, in essence. The same applies to all the existing parties, including the Democratic and Republican Parties, only writ larger.
Look into it, if you have any doubts about this. And look into how Britain and other democracies more clearly treat their parties: as private entities, with discrete memberships, and no input taken from those who don’t literally pay dues. Don’t want to pay dues? You can’t join.
Same here in America, only far more mildly, far less visibly, and the dues aren’t in monetary form.
But they come in the form of playing the game according to party rules, or working within the party to change the rules, and if you don’t like it, you can join another party.
And there ain’t the slightest requirement whatever to be “democratic,” save to not violate anyone’s rights under the U.S. Constitution.
And I assure you — consult a lawyer, or look it up — you have no right to join a party, and there’s no obligation whatever for a party to adhere to “one person, one vote.”
Indeed, the idea would be far more clearly absurd to you if you ever participated in a caucus, which is neither “one person, one vote,” nor a secret ballot. Feel free to be shocked, shocked, if you’ve just discovered this.
Nor is it, according to my understanding, something whose sole function is to select a candidate.
“One person, one vote is a foundational ethical principle of our society”
This is also just silly. Do corporations act according to “one person, one vote” when people vote their shares? No, they don’t. Do you get a vote in how your local police union, or any other union you don’t belong to? No, you don’t. When in school, do you as a student get a vote in the curriculum, or with the teachers on issues that matter to them? No, you don’t. When in a religious body, a church, mosque, synagogue, shul, temple, do most such collectives decide on the sermon, and the nature of the service each week by a vote? Some do, but most do not. When you are a member of a semi-pro football team, or baseball team, do you take a vote before each play as to which play is to be run? No, you don’t. When you’re in the military, does your platoon, or air wing, or ship, take a vote on policy? No, you do not.
And so on and so on and so on, through most all of the groups you are a member of in your life: some take votes, and some even do it according to “one person, one vote,” for the members of the group, but most do not, and you never get a vote in some group you don’t belong to.
In other words, your statement is confused and false. Sorry.
“It’s really astonishing for me that there are so many people like Bruce Baugh and Gary Farber, for whom basic norms of civic and political equality just don’t matter.”
Wrong again.
“And the notion that if you don’t like the Democrats and republcians, you can just pick some other party does not apply to American politics at any point in the last 100-odd yers, at least on the planet I live on.”
You should have gone to the Libertarian Convention in Denver last week, and told everyone that. Also, I hope you showed up when Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan got the Reform Party nominations, and told everyone that. And that you told everyone in the Green Party. And that you told everyone who voted for Ralph Nader that. And that you told all the socialists and members of all the various little parties that have been on ballots for far longer than I’ve been alive. I didn’t hear you when John Anderson ran in 1980, but maybe I missed it. But, then, in turn, maybe you missed Ross Perot’s effect on the 1992 election. Or Ralph Nader’s effect in 2000.
But maybe you’re not on this planet. I’m guessing you are, though, and just haven’t paid enough attention.
“Gary, you haven’t answered by question: if a single national primary would improve the chances of well-funded, well-known, pro-corproate candidates, then there must be underfunded, relatively unknown, anti-corporate candidates who have won the nomination under the current system.”
Setting aside that I’m busy, and now have to go to sleep very shortly, I can’t answer that because I don’t understand the question. Why “must there be,” etc.? Are you unfamiliar with the excluded middle?
Prodigal,
Um, you might have missed a little news story this past weekend, where only half the delegates from Florida and Michigan are being seated? And I guess you also missed the part where the DNC established clearly that it had the power to seat none of them. Sounds like a fairly adequate incentive to me.
So they both flaunted the rules and their punishment was being the center of conversation for 4 months and getting seated still?
This is the problem. The system in place will be very tough to unseat EVER.
For much of our history both the Senate and President were voted in by state legislatures not by the people.
Even today we don’t have a 1 person 1 vote system for Presidents. We vote for electors who can vote for whomever they so choose.
The Senate, by it’s very design, is intended to stymie the 1 vote, 1 person concept. It gives an inordinate amount of influence to small states by granting them equal power to large states in the much more powerful wind of our legislature. If we believed in 1 person 1 vote we sure as heck wouldn’t allow Vermont to have equal power in the Senate to California.
I’m against giving activists “greater voices”. Orwell thought that the Middle would be behind the “Activists” who use the Low:
The aim of the Middle is to change places with the High. The aim of the Low, when they have an aim — for it is an abiding characteristic of the Low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily lives — is to abolish all distinctions and create a society in which all men shall be equal.
…
They [the High] are then overthrown by the Middle, who enlist the Low on their side by pretending to them that they are fighting for liberty and justice.
Orwell was wrong on this one. It turned out to be the High who are using the Low to checkmate the Middle (won’t work in the end; strong people like freedom and are motivated to fight for it).
Activists are agents of the High (most don’t realize it) to influence the Middle and Low and subjugate both. No to activists, even the well-meaning ones. No to caucuses. Elections are better.
“But he wrested the nomination away from the party regulars and he was able to do this because no one thought he had a chance to win anyway so the Washington establishment did not have one of their own choice running.”
Ken, if you reread that more slowly, you might note that this makes no sense whatever. If this “Washington establishment” is so hellbent on keeping the nomination with a “party regular,” then how or why would or could they have chosen to not “have one of their own choice running”? What kind of sense would that make? Clinton had to “wrest the nomination away” from the party regulars who were running no one? What?
“And all we need to know, to reach that conclusion, is that the five are in some general way equal contributors to the blog.”
Here’s where you go wrong: if, say, those five people were the only five blog-owners, then, sure one way to set up how decisions are made would be by equal vote of the five.
But they could also decide to set up decision-making authority any number of ways, and you, and I, as non-blog-owners, but mere commenters, would have no say in their decisions, including in their decisions as to how to divide up their own votes.
If they wanted to make one of the blog-owners dictator, and an hereditary dictator, that would be their right.
And all the yammering in the world about how We Commenters Must Be Able To Decide The Rules because One Person, One Vote Is Sacred wouldn’t change a damn thing.
But if these hypothetical five people had equal votes to each other, your vote and my vote still wouldn’t count for anything.
Your argument is that everyone should get an equal vote in how ObWi is run. And your argument is wrong, because ObWi is a private entity, just like a political party, and neither are countries.
Category error.
“Sure, they say, equal rights are nice, I guess … in their place … unless there’s some possible advantage to inequality, in which case that’s just as good.”
It’s fairly annoying of you to announce what I think, especially since you’re completely wrong. As it happens, I’m rather expert in what I think, and you’re not, so I ask that you please stick to announcing what you think, and leave it to me to explain what I think.
And I’m 100% for equal rights for all citizens before the law.
I’m 100% for equal voting rights in elections to public office.
But private groups can make up whatever damn rules they like. You don’t get a vote, in the end, in how ObWi is run, unless the ObWi collective decides to listen to you. Don’t like it? Go to another blog.
And if you want a vote in a political party, join it. If you want a say in its rules, become an activist and persuade people.
But do you have a right to a say in the rules, if you’re not a member? No, you don’t. And whatever say you have in a party has to be according to party rules. Which aren’t required to be “one person, one vote,” by anything. That you think it should be otherwise doesn’t make it so.
These are just facts. I regret if they bother you, but there they are, nonetheless.
I’m hoping, incidentally, that publius might participate in some of this discussion: comment, publius?
I would eliminate the money cap that individual donors can make to a political party. I personally like the Constitution Party, but they’ll never get a second look.
If some rich guy were to donate $500 million to the Constitution Party, it would be able to get its message out.
The big two parties keep the money cap in place to maintain their monopoly on power. Get rid of the money cap.
Huh? That’s the way caucuses are, and always have been. You can walk in, put down your vote, and walk out, in five minutes, most years. This year it tended to take a few minutes longer, due to over-crowding.
I take you’ve never actually been to a caucus? Because you’d know that, if you actually knew much about how caucuses work.
Lots of people walk in, fill out the sheet, and leave. That’s the way it works. It’s up to you if you want to stay for the whole thing, and participate more deeply. Nobody forces anyone to do it.
Basically, caucuses are like primaries, but with a heck of a lot more options for involvement. That’s why I think they’re far superior to primaries, which don’t allow for all the incredible involvement and access to the party, and to persuading your neighbors, and to turning your ordinary voter’s power into something far more effective and meaningful.
And this year, like many other years, out of the 43+ people in my precinct caucus, the only ones who had ever been to a caucus before was me, and the two precinct captains. Everyone else was new to it. So this notion that it’s only for wizened old hacks is just lunatic ignorant nonsense. It never is that way, save maybe in very off years in small places. But that’s only if people don’t choose to bother. it’s always a free choice, save for those few who can’t make it, which, as previously pointed out, also is a problem for any other kind of election. (I agree that making a mail, or internet, ballot for caucus votes should be mandatory.)
Flyerhawk confused me by posting this:
Could you please explain what this, and the rest of your comment, had to do with my response to ken’s claim that Obama was going to leave the Democratic party divided through the demonisation of Clinton that ken claimed he was engaging in?
Also, my experience at my caucus this year was very much like Gary’s – only three of those of us who stuck around for the whole thing had participated in one before this year.
“So they both flaunted the rules”
Don’t you hate when that happens? It’s so declasse.
Gary, it is you who are making a category error.
You think that fairness and equality are only relevant in public, political processes. But you have it exactly backward.
Our electoral system is based on equality because that is one of our fundamental values. Not vice versa.
And to pretend that a political party is indistinguishable from a grocery store or a hiking club, simply because they are in some sense “private” is simply to ignore reality. Parties *are* public, civic bodies. All meaningful participation in elections above the local level — and at the local level as well in many places — takes place through parties. If we don’t have equal political rights within parties, we don’t have them at all.
Why do you call parties private, anyway? Election law is *full* of references to parties. Their internal procedures are specified in exhaustive detail. In the law.
You are making a category error, by confusing a label with reality. You’ve decided — god knows why — that parties are private, and that all private entities are interchangeable. And so you’re completely ignoring the actual place of in our political system.
In short: there are ethical claims that apply to the internal practices of even the most “private” bodies. And political parties are not such bodies — they are somewhat private, somewhat public, but much closer to the latter.
“No to caucuses. Elections are better.”
Caucuses function by elections, of course. Plenty of votes are taken. You couldn’t have a functioning caucus without everyone voting a bunch, or at least once.
Arguments work better when you understand what words mean.
But, lucky you, no one will ever force you to come to a caucus, so you can say “no” to them all you like, to your heart’s content.
“You think that fairness and equality are only relevant in public, political processes.”
No, I don’t. Please stop telling me what I think, since you’re consistently wrong. In return, I’ll stop telling you what you think, which will be especially easy since I’ve never done otherwise.
Could you please explain what this, and the rest of your comment, had to do with my response to ken’s claim
It had to do with this (which I meant to quote, but neglected to; sorry!):
What possible incentive can the DNC offer NH or SC to move their primary back? How can the DNC prevent states from ignoring the DNC schedule?
“If we don’t have equal political rights within parties, we don’t have them at all.”
Yes, as it happens, we do. Though perhaps you might want to define “equal political rights within parties” more clearly, since it’s pretty unclear precisely what you mean by that.
But if you think that the members of the Republican or Democratic National Committee don’t have more of a say in their parties than you or I do, you are, you know, wrong.
And yet we do have relatively equal rights before the law, regardless! It’s a miracle!
“You’ve decided — god knows why — that parties are private,”
It’s only true up to a point, but God knows why the federal courts think it’s true. I suggest doing some reading on why I have this wacky idea.
Be sure to ask someone from Britain.
Who knew?
“Their internal procedures are specified in exhaustive detail. In the law.”
Geez, funny how, in fact, so long as party procedures don’t violate a constitutional principle, in fact, they’re not controlled, or run by, any legal authority of the state at all. The rules get changed according to the rules of the party, be it at the state level, or the national committee level. All the time. I can give you reams of examples.
“And political parties are not such bodies — they are somewhat private, somewhat public,”
That’s a fair statement, and best left there.
You can walk in, put down your vote, and walk out, in five minutes, most years. … I take you’ve never actually been to a caucus?
That’s true. But there were many reports this year of an extended process of discussion — indeed, that’s exactly what people seem to find appealing about the caucus — that it’s a deliberative process and not just a recording of preferences. If, indeed, the usual procedure is to walk in, cast your vote, and leave, then why not just allow people to do the same thing at any time of the day, i.e. hold a primary?
You should have gone to the Libertarian Convention in Denver last week, and told everyone that. Also, I hope you showed up when Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan got the Reform Party nominations, and told everyone that.
Sure, or I could just form the Pitkin Party here in my living room. Come on, let’s be serious.
But private groups can make up whatever damn rules they like. You don’t get a vote, in the end, in how ObWi is run, unless the ObWi collective decides to listen to you.
Well, this is obviously false. There are lots of rules we *don’t* allow private groups to make, such as ones that discriminate against people based on race, sex, etc. Which is precisely because we, as a society, have decided that our equality as human beings doesn’t disappear when you cross the magical line dividing “public” from “private”. You might wish it were otherwise, but sorry, we don’t live in a libertarian paradise. (Thank god!) Parties, being closer to the public end of the continuum (note that word!) are subject to stricter requirements on the type of rules they may have, both legally and ethically.
You’ll note my ObWi examples referred to clear principle separating the blog collective and the blog readers. They are understood to have a different stake in the blog and different rights to govern it. But there is absolutely no principle that says residents of New Hampshire have more of a stake in the governance of the US (or the Democratic Party), or more right to determine its future, than residents of New York. my analogy works; yours does not.
And if you want a vote in a political party, join it.
American political parties are not membership organizations.
“Parties *are* public, civic bodies.”
But that’s not a fair statement. Really, how would you have explained that last week in Denver to the Libertarians? That claim would have gone over real well with that party.
I repeat: I can found a party with any rules I want, so long as I don’t violate the U.S. or state constitution in some way. If I want to restrict membership in some way that doesn’t cross the line, I’m free to do so.
And so is every party, big or small. It’s just a bloody fact. So I’m not going to repeat myself any more on this point.
Helpful hint, though: just because I can do something doesn’t mean I want to, and just because I observe that someone is making a category error doesn’t mean, duh, that I Don’t Believe In Fairnes.
I simply may not agree that your view of fairness is the only correct or adequate view.
“Come on, let’s be serious.”
I tend to assume that when someone can’t, apparently, make a substantive response, it’s because one isn’t available to them. Content-free placeholders speak for themselves.
Be sure to let Hilzoy, Eric, et all, know.
Good night.
Actually, you seem to be ignoring reality here.
A political party is precisely the same as a grocery store or club, because they are subject precisely to the same rules as other legal, entities. No more, no less. The same laws of incorporation, the same limits on behavior in the public sphere. But what goes on internally is not in the public sphere. Selection of party chairs is not a public matter. Nor is selection of other party officers.
You’re confusing what is with what you want to be.
This is, of course, quite false.
Once again, you’re confusing what is with what you want to be.
And what reality are you from, again?
in fact, so long as party procedures don’t violate a constitutional principle, in fact, they’re not controlled, or run by, any legal authority of the state at all.
I only know New York election law, but I know it fairly well. And in New York, This. Just. Is. Not. True.
Exactly which party bodies make nominations for which offices, how a party’s committees are formed, when candidates can be nominated by convention vs. primary (and the forms and dates those conventions and primaries must take), how someone becomes a member, the specific procedures for filling any vacancies on the party’s ballot line, etc., are all specified in Article II of the state constitution and in various state laws.
You’re a political party, and you don’t want to hold a primary, or hold it on a different date, or change the requirement to get on the primary ballot? You want to charge people dues to become members, or increase the time they have to be members before they get a vote? You want to organize your local bodies by region instead of by county? Too bad. Your party has zero autonomy to change any of those things.
I believe the situation is similar elsewhere — note that the whole Florida controversy started with a decision by the state legislature, not the Florida Dems — altho maybe not to the same degree. But the assertion that political parties have anything like the same degree of autonomy as other “private” entities is fantasy.
There are lots of rules we *don’t* allow private groups to make, such as ones that discriminate against people based on race, sex, etc.
This is, of course, quite false.
Gwangung — So you’re saying Congress never passed the Civil Rights Act, and that there has never been a successful lawsuit for employment discrimination. Right?
Alternatively, I’d say that a grocery store is not the same as a church or a shooting range, because they all serve different purposes. But they are all nonetheless private institutions with great (but not total) freedom to choose how they arrange their affairs. Most political parties aren’t churches, though some are strongly tied to a particular religion or philosophy; most political parties aren’t stores, though some are strongly tied to commercial enterprises; and so on. But they are still private institutions even though they play a crucial role in our politics. They’re no more innately public than, say, 527 lobbying groups.
I suggest a bit of Google fu, using the terms “Democratic Party” and dues.
Gary-
I’ve been disagreeing with you forcefully, but in general I respect you. You’re a smart guy who usually argues in good faith.
But your last reply to me, you truncated my text in a flatly dishonest way.
You said:
“But private groups can make up whatever damn rules they like. You don’t get a vote, in the end, in how ObWi is run, unless the ObWi collective decides to listen to you.”
My response, “This is obviously false” clearly referred to your *first* sentence.
Then, a little further down, I replied to the second sentence, clearly *agreeing* with you that commenters don’t get a vote at ObWi, but saying that there is no equivalent to contributor-commenter distinction in politics.
If you don’t find me worth replying to, fine, don’t. But please don’t distort what I’ve written.
There are lots of rules we *don’t* allow private groups to make, such as ones that discriminate against people based on race, sex, etc.
This is, of course, quite false.
Gwangung — So you’re saying Congress never passed the Civil Rights Act, and that there has never been a successful lawsuit for employment discrimination. Right?
I’m saying that you are growing increasingly sloppy with your arguments. Private groups, oh, such as the KKK, can and do discriminate on the basis of race. Groups such as August National Golf Club can and do discriminate on the basis of sex. Yet they are participants in the public sphere. And there’s nothing the government can do to change their internal procedures.
I think you need to rethink your arguments more than a tad, because as they stand, they are not particularly factual.
So, lemuel, what would you like to see happen? I think you would agree that there need to be rules and some kind of structure around choosing a candidate. How do you want to see it done? Would you like to prohibit small states from holding caucuses–which are much cheaper to do than primaries? Who should make this prohibition, if you believe it should be made? The DNC? The states? The Feds? On what authority?
Gwangung, Bruce Baugh, et al.:
Here is the New York State Election law. You’ll see that Article 2 describes “Party Organization” and Article 2 describes “Designation and Nomination of Candidates” (parties’ core function), both in great detail. Show me the equivalent legislation mandating specific decision-making procedures for churches, grocery stores, etc.
what would you like to see happen?
I would like to see the nomination process come to resemble the simple, transparent, one-person, one-vote procedures used for every single other election in the United States.
There is no other election in the United States in which parts of the electorate votre well ebfore otehrs. There is no other election in the United States in which people must cast their votes in public at a meeting. There is no other election in the United STates openly and explicitly designed to give more weight to some peoples’ votes, than to others’.
As for specific steps in this direction, I like the ones Publius proposed in the original post.
Would you like to prohibit small states from holding caucuses–which are much cheaper to do than primaries?
Yes. Fundamental rights are not something you give up to save a little money. If cost is really an obstacle for some small states (but they manage to hold other elections every year, don’t they?) then the primaries should be funded nationally.
Who should make this prohibition, if you believe it should be made? The DNC? The states? The Feds? On what authority?
The DNC should establish a single, rational, uniform system. If that doesn’t happen, federal legislation might be necessary. But I’m fairly hopeful that, after this year’s fiascoes, we’ll at least see some steps in the right direction.
Have you read the relevant rules for formation of corporations and non-profits, which stipulates composition of board of directors, timelines for election of directors and reporting to the state?
They are, of course, not the same for political parties as they are for corporations and non-profits, but many of the requirements are similar.
Lemuel, this is tiresome. Look. None of the people you’re arguing with are what you’d want to call enthusiastic libertarians; we all expect some state interference in private groups’ operations and feel that this doesn’t turn them into public ones.
For instance, friends of mine home-schooled their daughter for most of her pre-college years. They had to meet some standards and she had to pass some performance evaluations, but neither they nor I think this made them part of the public school system.
Professional associations like the bar association have to meet a variety of standards – and unlike the Democrats and Republicans – often get a monopoly over who’s liscenced to practice – but remain private.
And it goes like that. This is life in a non-laissez-faire social order.
Oh, please be careful. THAT is most certainly not true on the face of it. Mail in votes, hm?
Gwangung, 1:30 AM:
A political party is precisely the same as a grocery store or club, because they are subject precisely to the same rules as other legal, entities.
Gwangung, 2:04 AM:
Have you read the relevant rules for formation of corporations and non-profits, which stipulates composition of board of directors, timelines for election of directors and reporting to the state? They are, of course, not the same for political parties as they are for corporations and non-profits, but many of the requirements are similar.
we all expect some state interference in private groups’ operations and feel that this doesn’t turn them into public ones.
Right. But the point is, some private groups are subject to more “interference” (a word which already assumes that the public does not have a legitimate interest) than others — churches more than families, privately held corporations more than churches, public corporations more than private ones, and political parties far more than any of them.
And this scale is not arbitrary — it is precisely because some of these “private” entities really are more public than others. By the time you reach the political party end of the scale, you’ve got something that is, for most intents and purposes, a part of the state, precisely it’s a central part of the core state function of elections. To focus exclusively on the *formal* similarity — that all are in some sense private — is to miss the much more important substantive differences.
Also, Bruce, I am sorry I’ve probably been more aggressive in tone than I should have been. Gwangung is hopeless but you and Farber are definitely people I’d like to continue having conversations with.
Lemuel: Thanks, seriously. I’m bowing out for a day, but not because I’m super annoyed. It’s just that the 2nd was my father’s birthday. He died on the 22nd two years ago, and I’m missing him a lot. I recognize that I’ve been edgy myself, and hope I haven’t given too much offense. I’m taking the day tomorrow to rest and recuperate, chat with Mom and brothers, and do stuff to renew my spirit. It’s not like we’re going to fix stuff in this thread this week. 🙂
Lemuel Pitkin,
Thanks for the compliment above!
But you’re still wrong about Requiem for a Dream 😉
Interesting discussion and obviously winding down. I would only add this to Lemuel Pitkin: You have something of a point about the semi-public/semi-private nature of parties. I would argue that you are exaggerating the public part of the equation but that is really neither here nor there.
The point is that it cuts both ways. As much as there may be ethical issues concerning a party’s identity as a public entity, there are also ethical issues with respect to its function as a private entity. The Democratic party has a responsibility to strengthen itself and its influence on the public agenda and sometimes that requires it to strategically operate in a way that clash with principles that are more appropriate for public entities. You may disagree with those strategies but arguing on the basis of the parties responsibilities as a public organization misses the point that it is also very much a private organization.
So, arguing about what the purest form of democracy might be is really irrelevant. The real question is what is the best method for the party to promote its goals in elections because, however publicly oriented you believe a political party to be, they clearly have no public requirement under law to operate on this basis. They have no such obligation precisely because of their status as private organizations. Arguing the ethics of their strategic approach has to begin with that understanding. There is simply no reason to assume that what you consider to be the most democratic approach lines up perfectly with what is in the parties best interest.
The real question is what is the best method for the party to promote its goals in elections because, however publicly oriented you believe a political party to be, they clearly have no public requirement under law to operate on this basis.
Brent, I more or less agree with you on the public/private issue.
However, your view fails to take into account is that the nature of major American political parties is that they are broad coalitions that including groups with often starkly contradictory interests and goals. For example, most advocates of single-payer healthcare are Democrats, but the Democratic Party now receives nearly as much money from the insurance industry as the GOP does. Or look at the often bitter divide between hawks and doves that has split the Democratic Party for most of the last half century.
The Republican Party has always been a little more ideologically cohesive than the Democrats (the GOP was born as an ideological party), but even today, divisions between more economically and more “socially” oriented conservatives remain. Look at Club for Growth anger at Mike Huckabee. Or the big divisions over immigration between business interests and the Republican grassroots.
These internal divisions mean that the primary process is–or at least should be–about determining what a party’s goals are in the first place. Primaries are often the best opportunity for ideas and policies currently ignored by the leadership of the major parties to find a place in our national political discussions.
This has of course not happened in this year’s Democratic primary, which has come down to a contest between two candidates with nearly identical, centrist agendas.
Construing the primary process purely so as a way to maximize a party’s ability to achieve some pre-existing set of goals neatly elides this critical process of goal formation. Unsurprisingly, those who construe the primary process in this way tend to be those in the currently dominant group within a party, who obviously don’t want the primary to overturn the last set of goals that the party established for itself. For the Democrats since at least the mid-1990s these goals have been neoliberal globalization, fiscal conservatism, and a military-oriented, but somewhat internationalist, foreign policy. And that will not change this year.
An amendment to my last comment:
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the center-right, DLC wing of the Democratic party often argued for its agenda of moving the party to the right purely in terms of electability.
At least in that case, a group trying to transform a party managed to do so in part by rhetorically glossing over major ideological differences within the party and turning an argument over ideology (which they were likely to lose among the most active Democrats) into an argument about winning elections (which they won….and then lost a bunch of elections).
An amendment to my last comment:
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the center-right, DLC wing of the Democratic party often argued for its agenda of moving the party to the right purely in terms of electability.
At least in that case, a group trying to transform a party managed to do so in part by rhetorically glossing over major ideological differences within the party and turning an argument over ideology (which they were likely to lose among the most active Democrats) into an argument about winning elections (which they won….and then lost a bunch of elections).
An amendment to my last comment:
During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the center-right, DLC wing of the Democratic party often argued for its agenda of moving the party to the right purely in terms of electability.
At least in that case, a group trying to transform a party managed to do so in part by rhetorically glossing over major ideological differences within the party and turning an argument over ideology (which they were likely to lose among the most active Democrats) into an argument about winning elections (which they won….and then lost a ton of elections as a result).
Ooops! Sorry about the multiple post…
Brick Oven Bill: Removing the caps might give the Constitution party a sugar daddy or two, but rest assured, it would give the established parties way more!
As much as there may be ethical issues concerning a party’s identity as a public entity, there are also ethical issues with respect to its function as a private entity. The Democratic party has a responsibility to strengthen itself and its influence on the public agenda and sometimes that requires it to strategically operate in a way that clash with principles that are more appropriate for public entities.
Brent-
This is a fair point.
Besides Ben Alpers’ point (which I agree with) that it is the primary process itself that largely determines the party’s strategic goals, I would make three responses:
1. The party has a strong interest in making decisions in a transparent, legitimate way. A system that leaves large numbers of Democrats with the sense that they have no voice in “their” party has major strategic costs.
2. Conversely, it’s not at all clear that the current system has real strategic benefits, in terms of producing systematically better (or even different) candidates than a more straightforward system would. That’s why I keep asking for concrete examples of nominees under the current system who would have lost (to someone worse, by whatever criteria) under a single national primary or something close to it. With the arguable exception of Obama vs. Clinton this year, nobody so far has been able to come up with any. Can you?
3. Finally, even if we grant that that there are real strategic benefits to a departure from one person one vote, that outweigh its real strategic costs, the current system is *so* awful and crazy that there should be lots of space for democratizing it without giving up those benefits. E.g. if you think retail campaigning in small states is so wonderful (I don’t), at least rotate which states. If we must have superdelegates, at least limit them to elected officials. If you want caucuses, at least take steps — as everyone here agrees — to increase participation. And so on.
Count me in for the rotating regional primaries approach. Its not perfect, but its a lot better than having ONLY Iowa and NH be first, year after year, as if God commanded it. Who goes first is always going to be important- let everyone have a shot at being first.Hey with rotating regional primaries, we could have them voting LAST some years-which is a reason all by itself for RRP. As for money and name recognition, well if a a candidate is good, he will find a way to win.
I’d also want the primary season to run from march to July, with the convention in August. Every other major country in the world manages to select its leader in campaigns that last weeks, not months or years.
We can’t know how some game from the past would have turned out, if played by different rules. Might Dean have won a nationwide primary — or rotating regionals? We can’t know, nor can we say that that would have led to a better result. (I think it would not have, but rather that the result would have been far worse. Whether this matters depends on going further into the counterfactual: was the relatively narrow margin of Bush’s victory in 2004 a factor in the failure of the effort to wreck SS in 2005? Arguably.)
Would Tsongas have won in 92? Maybe. Would Perot have gotten as much traction (and thus put Tsongas in the WH) with a deficit hawk already in the race? Arguably not.
It’s a game that’s not really worth playing. I don’t think the IA/NH system has served badly, and don’t see any reason to change it. Obviously people disagree, and are willing to break the rules, and risk chaos, to makew their little point.
Ben and lemuel,
I think you misunderstand me. I am not arguing that there is necessarily some benefit to having less rather than more openness in the nomination process from the party’s standpoint. I might have some opinion about that but that is really beside my point. I am arguing that the basis for that argument over how the Dems decide their nominee cannot really be whether or not or how much of a public institution they are.
The public nature of any institution is the part that describes what it is compelled to do according to the various laws under which public institutions are bound. When I say any group is public, what I am really saying is that, as a citizen, I “own” certain rights with respect to that organization that I can require it by law to satisfy if it comes to that. That is true with respect to almost any institution and is certainly the case with political parties. But, in the case of political parties, one of those rights is not the right to tell it how to conduct its elections by law. With respect to that issue, it is not “public” at all. If that were ever in any doubt before, the two cases in Florida certainly clarified it to a large extent.
A party is not, as you know, a Government agency that is required by law to perform elections in a certain way. The only question it needs to ask itself is what is best for its membership and its political agenda. It may be that the answer to that question is to get as close as possible to one person/one vote. But that will be true or not regardless of how public or private it is. Arguing over that particular issue, I think, misses the point entirely.
“There is a time for democracy and one person, one vote. And it is whenever a self-governing group needs to make a decision.
Imagine some decision needed to be made about the future of Obsidian Wings. …”
We make decisions any way we like. In practice, we act as a collective. But I would resist any attempt to say that we *must* do so.
My internets went down yesterday, so I didn’t get to participate in, or for that matter read, this thread. However:
I think we should absolutely have rotating first primaries. There is no earthly reason why Iowa and NH should always go first.
I also think that if there were some way of writing it in stone that whatever else happens to any state that jumps the party’s orders, no *superdelegate* from that state will be seated at the convention, that would do a lot of good. It’s the party elites who do a lot of the damage, in this case; ensuring that they pay the price would help a lot.
I also strongly resist the idea that people who bother to caucus constitute “an elite” in virtue of that fact. Caucussing is genuinely open to everyone. The people who show up do not suddenly become “an elite” in virtue of that fact.
“I believe the situation is similar elsewhere”
Instead of “believ[ing],” try fact-checking.
“Gwangung — So you’re saying Congress never passed the Civil Rights Act, and that there has never been a successful lawsuit for employment discrimination. Right?”
No. Try sticking to reading what he wrote, rather than imagining someone wrote something else.
And check into the fact that if you want to start a “whites only” club, you’re free to do so.
“But please don’t distort what I’ve written.”
Not quoting everything you write is not “distort[ing” a thing. People have your words right in front of them to read and reread. I interfere with that not at all.
“Gwangung is hopeless”
Gwangung is stating objective facts, and that’s all. If you find that disagreeable, rather than simply being disagreed with, the problems lies not with his anodyne words.
“Here is the New York State Election law. You’ll see that Article 2 describes “Party Organization” and Article 2 describes “Designation and Nomination of Candidates” (parties’ core function), both in great detail.”
New York State is extremely unusual in its election laws, Lemuel. Look into it, and check this for yourself.
We have 50 states, and each is unique, and assuming that all or most of the others are like yours is completely provincial, and will frequently steer you wrong. (Says a guy who has only lived in NY, MA, WA, MI, CT, CO, and now NC, with substantial stays in CA and ME.)
While NY State is extraordinary in the degree to which the Republican and Democratic Parties have successfully written themselves into law — and I think this is extraordinarily corrupt and wrong, but who would think that could happen in NY State politics? — the law also clearly states (thanks for the link):
Beyond what’s already in the law, the parties still make their own rules. NY State is unique in putting this much of a frame around the party rules, but even so, it only goes so far. Most importantly, NY State is very unusual in this area.
As I said, even in the unique state of NY, the law only covers a few provisions, and so long as those provisions aren’t violated, the parties can do what they damn well like.
Your mistakes include imagining that most states have bizarre election laws like New York. Most don’t. It’s a fact. Look it up. Check your own facts, rather than assuming.
Your other mistake is not realizing that even in the most maximum example of writing rules for parties into laws, the rules are just bare frames, within which the parties are free to write whatever more detailed rules they like.
Which is what I said in the first place: “You are guaranteed no rights in a party other than that which are incidentally granted by law, or by party rule.”
“I would like to see the nomination process come to resemble the simple, transparent, one-person, one-vote procedures used for every single other election in the United States.”
You’re as entitled to an opinion as every other voter, of course.
“There is no other election in the United States in which […]” we have a national election. Quite correct. We have only one national election, every four years. No one will argue this point with you.
“But the assertion that political parties have anything like the same degree of autonomy as other “private” entities is fantasy.”
Look, this is entirely simple: there are different levels of autonomy, and of public/private nature. At one extreme is the completely private: someone’s home and assocations. At the other extreme is that which is completely public: an election for governmental office, a public school, a town square or property.
In between, it’s a matter of degree: a commercial enterprise is a private one, with the people who own it having a right of free association, but it’s limited by public accomodation laws that as a matter of public policy, and as a matter of constitutional law since the additions of the 13th and 14th Amendments, and subsequent amendments and evolution of constitutional law, limit the right to discriminate in commercial or quasi-private/public entities to a very limited degree.
And political parties, like some other institutions, have both elements of public and private about them. These are not binary distinctions.
So it pays to talk about the specifics. And except where constitutional law, and other limited cases of public accommodation laws restrain commercial enterprises, or parties, or other hybrid enterprises, in very limited ways (specifically, and the language is different in different states, you can’t discriminate on the basis of race, gender, age, ethnicity, etc.) and that’s it.
And that’s all there bloody well is to it.
“Yes. Fundamental rights are not something you give up to save a little money.”
For god’s sake, there’s no “fundamental right” to not have a caucus. Jeebus.
We have a right to democracy, and to participate in our parties in a grass-roots fashion, rather than leaving the business to those appointed by senior or elected members of the party. I prefer my democracy to be enacted at the grass roots, rather than top down, as it is in primary states. YMMV.
I walked into caucuses not knowing a sole, and walked out an elected official. I was elected to my Congressional District, and to my State, Convention, cold. And that’s how 95% of the precinct caucues electees were chosen, and how some 80-90% of electees to the CD and State Conventions were elected.
Tell me how I, or any other citizen, can do that in a primary state, please.
And, publius? Still want to wipe away caucuses? Why? Any plans to address these points? Are you even reading your comments? Give us a sign, maybe?
“But the point is, some private groups are subject to more ‘interference’ (a word which already assumes that the public does not have a legitimate interest) than others — churches more than families, privately held corporations more than churches, public corporations more than private ones, and political parties far more than any of them.”
You were correct right up until your last phrase, when your assumption that most states are like NY State throws you off completely. Depending on the state, your statement is true, but not nearly as true as you seem to think it is, or only partially true, or more or less not true at all. If you’re interested, you’ll have to check all fifty different state sets of laws, as well as the various territories. But they are very different from each other in many ways.
If you google a bit, you can find plenty of write-ups about this, particularly in political journals, but I’m only willing to do so much of someone else’s work for them, and we learn best what we learn for ourselves, so I encourage you to look into this for yourself, please.
And let me say about this, additionally: “Gwangung is hopeless”
Gwangung has been perfectly polite. I’d encourage respecting that, myself, and this has nothing to do with the fact that we’re both talking facts, even if all of us have been a bit sloppy with phrasing at times, which is the case.
“He died on the 22nd two years ago, and I’m missing him a lot.”
I’m so sorry, Bruce. I have some clues as to how much he meant to you, as does your mom. I can only tell you that, for me, a while after 2-3 years, it starts to get better, and the pain is less, and it becomes more remembering the wonderful parts of someone, and ever less of an open wound, though the loss is always there.
But the pain tends to slowly become less raw, and the wound less painful. May it be so for you, while you always cherish all that was good that your father gave to you and your loved ones.
I lost my longtime beloved four years ago, and I still miss her terribly, but the pain is no longer daily, and I’m slowly more able to think of her without crying — though I’m tearing up again talking about this — but time does much good.
And the first two years are horrible. There’s no way around it; there’s only going through it.
Take care, and be good to yourself.
“Primaries are often the best opportunity for ideas and policies currently ignored by the leadership of the major parties to find a place in our national political discussions.”
And it’s my observation that caucuses do a thousand times better job of this.
It’s only through the caucus method that you get together with your neighbors, and talk about what you believe, and elect someone to speak for you, at the level of 5-50 people making a choice for the next level (county convention), and then that level bopping you up another level (Congressional District and/or State Convention), and at each level you’re doing nothing but talking to each other, and taking votes on what the majority thinks, and voting for platforms and positions.
None of that is available in primary states, and the alternative of joining a local Democratic/Republican/whatever “club,” and doing internal club politics, or working for a candidate’s organization alone, is far more opaque, endlessly more of a time committment (dozens or hundreds of hours per year, rather than 2 hours or 8 hours or 24 hours), and is full of cronyism and internal club politics and appointive hierarchies.
And yet you are perfectly free to participate essentially identically as in a primary, in a caucus state, by just showing up, putting down your vote in five minutes, or half an hour if things are badly organized, and leaving. Same exact deal.
Caucuses have exactly the advantages of primaries, plus all that other democratic participatory stuff that is purely optional. That’s why they’re so effing great!
“1. The party has a strong interest in making decisions in a transparent, legitimate way.”
I completely agree.
“A system that leaves large numbers of Democrats with the sense that they have no voice in ‘their’ party has major strategic costs.”
That’s how I feel about primaries: they offer me no voice. If I want to have a voice here in NC, or if I were back in NY State, I’m going to have to find local party organizations, see what it takes to join, find out who I have to make nice to, find out what I have to do to impress people, and so on. It’s going to be a thousand times more work than just walking into a meeting, speaking for 2 minutes, and walking out an elected official.
And if anyone can tell me it’s different in their primary state, that I can become an elected precinct committeeperson/leader after a few minutes of speaking, at a single couple of hours of meeting, I’d really like to know where that state is, so I can consider that factor if I ever see a reason to move there.
Anyone know of such a state? Anyone? Lemuel?
By definition, those who are most active in an organization set its tone, agenda, etc., and I am really perplexed by the idea that this is somehow a bug rather than a feature of an organization, even one that is as essential to democracy. By all accounts, it is easier to change the direction and agenda of an organization that is the most open to new activists who are more easily able to become the agents of control. I am not dead set against primaries or deadset for caucuses as a means of nomination, but complaing that caucuses give party regulars and activists too much sway really floors me, when, by all accounts, anyone who wants to can assume that activist role simply as a result of their desire to do so. This is definitely not true in a lot of primary states.
True barriers to participation are a different issue that need to be addressed — but some of the claims here come very close to, “well, since some people find it difficult to participate, no one should have the right to participate more than the person who has the least interest or ability in participating.”
No significant or complex human endeavor will succeed on that basis. Whatever short term “democratic” gain that would be gained by that philosophy will be more than offset by long-term shortage of human investment in the organization as a whole.
“f you want caucuses, at least take steps — as everyone here agrees — to increase participation.”
I absolutely agree with making it mandatory that every state with a caucus system have: a) proxy voting; and b) a mandatory mail and email ballot option to vote for your presidential selections of your choice.
And to amplify a point previously made, lots of states now have mail and early voting that takes place over several months before the election. In Colorado, we’ve been voting by mail for several elections. Here in North Carolina, there’s early voting. California has early voting. Etc. 49 out of 50 states, as it happens, are not NY State.
Some actual facts:
All have early voting.
Here is a complete list of states allowing absentee and early voting.
Summary:
Hope This Helps.
“I walked into caucuses not knowing a sole”
Or even a heel, or a halibut. Or a soul.
You could have said “a sole person” and that would also have been correct.
DIng! Ding! Ding!
By the way, lemuel….
Yes, the rules for parties and corporate entities are different. But until you point out what the differences are and how the substance works out in the real world, you don’t have much of a point. If you can point out how these differences make operation of a political party much more onerous and constrained than that of a LLC or corporation, you’d have a stronger case.
I started to like the idea of caucuses more after I talked to some people who had gone to them in Iowa. They described what sounds to me like heaven (though after hearing about the DNC meeting, it could easily descend into hell), people who are voting actually being conscious and aware and willing to talk about their choices and justify them.
But then again, if you’re not a geek like me and as willing to talk about this stuff in person with strangers as you are on the Internet, I can see how it makes things harder.
The biggest thing that I think would make a difference is requiring election days to be holidays. Granted, that still usually means that service industry workers are stuck working, but perhaps our friggin’ democracy is important enough that we should call everyone off work those days.
To ensure the largest amount of people voting, I’d go with same-day voter registration and early absentee-in-person voting (so if you suddenly get called out of town and don’t make the absentee ballot deadline…). That seems to me to be completely glaringly obvious, though, so if no one brought it up in the two hundred comments I didn’t read above, I’m shocked.
Fixing The Primary System: Theory And Reality
…
Gary: Thanks, man. It is easier this year than last, partly because I know more of what to look for and prepare for when it comes to me as an individual.
I remember the words Neil Gaiman gave to Dream to say to his son Orpheus after Eurydice’s death: “You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.”
(And then this reminds me of when I quoted on GEnie Dad’s idea for an adult theme park where you could drive all that great big construction gear after training in its basic use, and Neil said, “There are now going to be days when I say, ‘That’s it, I shall retire and run the steam shovel.'”…laughter lives close to sorrow sometimes.)
I think the reason this is so difficult is that the nominating process does lots of things besides picking the nominee, and that even the definition of the “best” nominee is unclear. The tradeoff among competence, ideology, and electability is a problem all parties have to face.
In short, the nominating process is not an election. It is, IMO, a sort of giant gearing up for the general election, a wakening, in some sense, of the party. So we have the fringe candidates heard from; we have the serious but improbable types – Dodd, Richardson – looking for a lightning strike. We also get lots of publicity, some focus on what issues are important and how the candidates respond.
At the same time the various segments of the party – activists, primary voters, contributors, elected officials – get heard, as do some independents.
I think all these things are valuable. To see the nominating process just as a means of selecting the nominee is too simple. So various pieces of the process serve various ends, and it’s hard to balance it all. Any simple solution, like a one-day national primary, cannot accomplish this.
The test of the process is whether it produces winning results in the general election, not whether it conforms to some ideal standard for elections. And winning the general is not just a matter of the nominee. It is a matter of organization, energy, unity, plus a strong nominee.
While the current system has obvious flaws, I’m far from convinced that a messy system is not best. It gives voice to lots of people, tests the candidates’ organizational skills, and generally gets people moving. I think the focus should be on improvement at the margins – fewer superdelegates, more accessible caucuses, some shortening of the contest, rather than a drastic overhaul.
Checking in later; sorry, some of my responses have sorta been covered already.
Lemuel, as far as I know, you’re right that the national party can dictate that caucuses are eliminated. Personally, although I’m not a fan of caucuses, I’m inclined to leave that decision to the states because it’s less top-down, for just one reason. If the Dems in Iowa want to use the process to submit their picks, fine. If there’s a nomination calendar that diminishes the ridiculous over-inflation of the Iowa caucus, all the better.
Gary, that’s a good point regarding caucuses not solely being about picking a candidate, but also voter registration, party building, and so on. You seem to have had good experiences with caucuses. I’ve read some other bloggers who have similar feelings. I’ve also read several accounts of horribly run caucuses, and have heard the same from a number of people I’ve met (including at Drinking Liberally last Thursday). Again, I’m inclined to leave it to the states.
One question would be, how did Dem voter registration this year compare in caucus states versus primary states, and to what degree did caucuses aid that? I don’t have those numbers offhand. If primary states fail in that respect compared to caucuses, that is a very valid concern. If they do (and I don’t have that data), then I wonder how that gap can be filled, and if party rallies or other measures can do the trick. But again, the data I’ve read said the participation was less than 6% in Iowa in 2004, up to 16% in 2008, compared to 53% in New Hampshire in 2008. Did New Hampshire register more new voters, proportionately, than Iowa? I’ll have to research that later this week (although I wouldn’t be surprised if an ObWi commenter has that). I imagine most newly registered voters this year will vote in November, but if there’s some significant decline there, that and the causes would also bear studying.
I’m also in complete agreement with you on the proxy/early voting thing for caucus states (and all states, actually). That would address one of my chief concerns. (And again, I’m a fan of instant runoff ballots in primary states.)
Like you, I’m certainly open to persuasion. I’m just glad we’re having this conversation. Cheers.
“…stuck working, but perhaps our friggin’ democracy is important enough that we should call everyone off work those days.”
That’s simply not possible. Hospitals have to keep working, and all that supports them, power has to be kept on, infinite amount of infrastructure has to be kept up, food and perishable goods must be kept moving, police and fire and emergency workers need to be available, and on and on and on.
Thus my pointing out that mail, and internet, and early, voting for the basic choice of Presidential nomination preference is precisely as easy in a caucus state as it is in the 34 states that presently allow some form of it.
“…laughter lives close to sorrow sometimes.”
Finding ways to laugh, and not worry about a dark sense of humor, is one of the best ways to be able to respond, I think, and no matter if it’s while crying, or causes crying a moment later. They do mix, and sometimes well.
And I’m taking a wild guess here, but my guess is that your dad would want you to, as you can, slowly move to laughing more when you remember him, and talk about him, along with your sadder responses and thoughts.
I agree with all of Bernard’s 12:57 PM, by the way. (This is often the case as regards many of Bernard’s comments.)
“I’ve also read several accounts of horribly run caucuses”
Sure: it’s tautological, but true, that anything badly run is a mess. And definitely there needs to be better planning for most caucuses than there were this year. I saw all sorts of stuff that could and should have been done far better, and for which there was no excuse, and I wasn’t at one of the really screwed up ones.
I had intended to write about this at length at my own blog, but my recent move and life changes, and usual health problems, haven’t allowed for it. Maybe eventually. But, yeah, Organization And Planning Are Good.
Cripes, at our country convention, in Boulder County, Colorado, our set of precincts took written votes that didn’t even have a place for names, let alone ID numbers, or any means of validation whatever.
This only changed because I ran up to the people running it, and pointed out the really serious problem here, and got them to institute a signature and real name requirement on our ballots. As it was, it took three weeks for the votes to be counted due to this bit of idiocy.
Etc. The Party needs more experienced events planners for this sort of thing; it’s not at all hard; you just have to have some clues as to what you’re doing, including how to structure physical crowd flow on sites, etc.
“One question would be, how did Dem voter registration this year compare in caucus states versus primary states”
Off-hand, the figures I’ve seen for Boulder County, at least, were that we jumped about ten times the level of previous election cycles, and that that was around the level seen all over the place. Huge, huge, huge jump, by an order of magnitude. And it was perfectly predictable, but for some reason, most caucus planners were just blind to that, and thus there were serious problems in many minor ways in some places.
But a lot of those complaints were also partisan playing up of trivial stuff to make a partisan issue out of it. What I saw in no way affected the actual voting; it just made everything take much longer than it should have. Our county convention went on about 6 hours later than it was supposed to, because of this sort of logistical poor planning. But nothing serious.
“And again, I’m a fan of instant runoff ballots in primary states.”
I trust you’re aware that instant runoff ballots are essentially how caucuses allocate delegates/votes for nominees.
Just regarding the efficiency of primaries: I worked as an election integrity volunteer for a national organization this year, and at many primary polling locations in Texas, voters, mostly African American, had to wait for an hour or more because their polling location ran out of Democratic (but not Republican) ballots and the local county clerk’s office (which runs the election) would only photocopy 50 at a time to provide to a given polling location.
In effect, a state agency in a state that is controlled by Republicans can seriously impede the primary voting rights of minorities and others just by doing a piss poor job. Now, the caucuses were also chaotic, and much of the chaos was due to level of turnout, but the point is, anything that can be done badly can usually be done well, and that’s true of both caucuses and primaries.
Gary, thanks for the info on Boulder. Good news, too.
Um, “tautological” seems rather glib, although I could have been more clear, but I didn’t want to write an epic comment describing problems I suspected were well understood. Barbara’s point about poorly-run primaries is well taken. But caucuses being poorly run, from the descriptions I’ve heard, are the rule rather than the exception. I’m glad you were there at your caucus and they listened to you. That sure didn’t happen at the caucuses in Iowa and Nevada that were described to me. It’s anecdotal, but when I keep running into smart, motivated activist types disgusted with that process, with little to no desire to do it again, it does make me question whether the system itself and not merely the people running it is part of the problem. Add to that concern the much lower participation rate at caucuses. Is that off-set by other benefits? I don’t know. At the very least the subject bears some more study. I remain most interested in the voter registration rates and also how participation in primaries vs. caucuses translate into general election participation. At some point I’ll probably dig into that.
As for instant runoffs and caucuses, duh. But there’s a key difference in that there’s no “viability” issue with an instant runoff ballot in a primary. As in my first comment, most of my suggestions have been aimed at eliminating the problems of caucuses while preserving the better aspects of them, including the ranking of candidates. As I’ve said, I think the caucus/primary issue is best to left to the states, so it’s somewhat moot, especially if, for instance, overall the citizens of Colorado like their system as is.
One more comment, since my last one was veerrrry late at night/early in the morning for me – yet again, I’m happy to see the nomination process being discussed. There are many more pressing issues right now, perhaps, but it’s cool to see this. See ya all in other threads…