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 12:00 pm (UTC)By tradition, Iowa holds the first caucus (an event where people spend an evening getting together and debating the quality of candidates before picking who to support) and New Hampshire holds the first primary (a normal tick-the-box style format).
Other states get pissed off that, as a result, Iowa and New Hampshire get far more leverage (and advertising money) when it comes to picking primary candidates. But the parties aren't willing to try to change the system, because at this point the two states see it as their right, and changing it would almost certainly lose big votes in the main elections.
* How did Michigan and the convention manage that snafu?
Some states decided to move their primaries to before Iowa/New Hampshire, who responded by moving theirs up too. The DNC and RNC then declared a cut-off point beyond which any state that moved their primary would be penalised, to stop the silliness and preserve Iowa and New Hampshire's primacy.
Michigan and Florida went ahead and moved their primaries anyway, at which point the Republicans announced that they would only get half as many votes at the convention, and the Democrats announced they would have no say at all.
* How by any stretch of the imagination could you count that election?
It's kind of tricky. In Florida, at least all the candidates were on the ballot, so you can claim it was kind-of fair. But because the Democratic primary wasn't going to have any effect, the independants (who at that point overwhemingly favoured Obama) mostly voted in the Repoublican primary, where their vote had some effect.
In Michigan, it's an even bigger problem, because Obama (and Edwards) actually removed their name from the ballot, leaving Hillary as the only major candidate (though she still only won 55% of the vote - 40% of voters voted for 'none of the above').
On the other hand, not counting their vote, if the primary is cole enough it matters, is likely to seriously piss over the voters of those two states, who are likely to feel they were screwed by a dispute between the state and local Democratic party. The obvious fix would be to rehold the election, but no-one seems to favour that - a primary would be extremely expensive and not practical without national funding, a causus would be a lot cheaper but would almost certainly give an unfair advantage to Obama (who has won virtually every causus in the primaries due to having younger, more motivated voters willing to devote an evening to the event).
Hillary's people are currently trying to sell the national committee on the idea that she should get half the extra delegates she would have got were it a straight vote, while Obama's people want the delegates split straight down the middle, not giving the advantage to either candidate.
Basically, the whole thing was a gigantic cock-up that would have been resolved had the DNC simply done what the RNC did and halve Florida and Michigan's voting power, which would have penalised them but still given them a voice.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 12:06 pm (UTC)It's worth noting that in virtually any other primary, this wouldn't have been an issue - traditionally things are over by February, and it's only because the race is so close that the extra votes from Michigan and Florida mattter. Otherwise, come the convention the DNC would simply have seated the delegates and told them not to do it again, since their votes wouldn't have been important. It's also the reason the faff with superdelegates is proving a problem - there've been loads of superdelegates for ages (or at least since after the '72 disaster) but this is the first primary since then which has been close enough.
Also, I believe that in at least for one of the two states, the decision to move the primary was made by the Republican-dominated state senate, so the Democrats didn't actually have much say in the matter (but were still penalised by losing their say in the primaries).
no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-13 12:41 pm (UTC)This is because of the frankly stupid decision by the Democrats to run their primaries on a system whereby states assign their delegates in direct proportion to the number of votes the candidate got. Yes yes, all very equitable. But daft, because the point of a primary is to settle on the party's candidate as quickly as possible, thereby not exhausting funds (or candidates - Obama has not exactly been at his best this last month) prior to the main campaign.
In a normal primary contest of the sort the Republicans ran, Obama would have won months ago, and the Democrats would be in a much better position now than they actually are. Only because we are at the peak of a Democratic tide with the incumbent President having an approval rating in the low 30s will they have half a chance at getting away with this.
That said, the Democratic talent for foot-shooting is not exactly a new story.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-15 11:30 am (UTC)