Democratic primaries
May. 13th, 2008 12:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackWait, what?
I know I shouldn't bother about American elections, there being politics I'm so much more relevant for elsewhere. But as I understand it: the Democrat (and republican) party has primaries (ie. like a general election within all x-ist voters to decide the X-ist candidate for the presidential election).
Four states primaries happen first, before Feb 5, then all the others. This year, a couple of states, notably Michigan, rebelled and held their primary earlier, the democratic convention chose to ignore them, and most candidates removed themselves from the ballot.
Remaining were Hilary Clinton, and a couple of others. Now Clinton[1] says the convention should count that election after all. [Edit: or some people do, not sure if she said that herself.]
* Why are the four states that are voted on first voted on first? Is there a good reason or is it just tradition?
* How did Michigan and the convention manage that snafu?
* How by any stretch of the imagination could you count that election?
Even if you accept that Clinton would have come ahead in it, you can have no idea by how much. That 60% of people voted for Clinton instead of not doesn't tell you anything. The exit poll has Clinton beating Obama 46% to 35% and that's only of people who actually turned up to vote, and she voted and he didn't. And you can't base a result on an exit poll. No result other than an implausible revote could reenfranchise Michigan, so the only argument is which flawed result to take. But since the purpose of the primary is to produce a popular presidential election candidate, surely the fact that Obama is more popular with any likely Michigan result is more important than how the primary was run?
[1] It's pleasantly surreal reading old wikipedia pages which refer to Bill Clinton as "Clinton". Style guides successfully made the switch to "Clinton" being by default Hilary. Though now I wonder, were there no examples of this confusion before? No couples (or other people with the same name) equally prominent? I don't remember ever any ambiguity.
I know I shouldn't bother about American elections, there being politics I'm so much more relevant for elsewhere. But as I understand it: the Democrat (and republican) party has primaries (ie. like a general election within all x-ist voters to decide the X-ist candidate for the presidential election).
Four states primaries happen first, before Feb 5, then all the others. This year, a couple of states, notably Michigan, rebelled and held their primary earlier, the democratic convention chose to ignore them, and most candidates removed themselves from the ballot.
Remaining were Hilary Clinton, and a couple of others. Now Clinton[1] says the convention should count that election after all. [Edit: or some people do, not sure if she said that herself.]
* Why are the four states that are voted on first voted on first? Is there a good reason or is it just tradition?
* How did Michigan and the convention manage that snafu?
* How by any stretch of the imagination could you count that election?
Even if you accept that Clinton would have come ahead in it, you can have no idea by how much. That 60% of people voted for Clinton instead of not doesn't tell you anything. The exit poll has Clinton beating Obama 46% to 35% and that's only of people who actually turned up to vote, and she voted and he didn't. And you can't base a result on an exit poll. No result other than an implausible revote could reenfranchise Michigan, so the only argument is which flawed result to take. But since the purpose of the primary is to produce a popular presidential election candidate, surely the fact that Obama is more popular with any likely Michigan result is more important than how the primary was run?
[1] It's pleasantly surreal reading old wikipedia pages which refer to Bill Clinton as "Clinton". Style guides successfully made the switch to "Clinton" being by default Hilary. Though now I wonder, were there no examples of this confusion before? No couples (or other people with the same name) equally prominent? I don't remember ever any ambiguity.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 11:36 am (UTC)Michigan assumed that if they held primaries early, the national party would accept the results. Basically, they lost a game of bluff.
Wrt style guides, my local newspapers either refer to either or both Clintons by first name (they're big on this--the current mayor is sometimes "Mike" to them, his predecessor was always "Rudy," the incumbent president often "Dubya"--especially in headlines, or use full name or name and title (Senator Clinton or former President Clinton) on first reference. And then we go by context. I suspect that on many of the old Wikipedia pages, it's clear which Clinton is meant, just as most history articles don't have to tell me which Roosevelt (or, earlier, which President Adams, though both Roosevelts were more influential and get more attention than John Quincy Adams).
no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 11:54 am (UTC)There must be a lot of inertia behind the system. But I wonder why the convention doesn't rotate the order or something; if New Hampshirians are just sufficiently good at backroom politics that no-one can rock the boat.