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 12:41 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.