The Liberal Thread #2 - No Debate Please

[LuvDuke]

Hillary's response to the MI caucus and FL vote:



Color me SHOCKED!

Can signing statements be far behind?

 

[JARNJ3]

Can signing statements be far behind?

By Hillary? I don't think so.

 

[chris1gill]

Actually,most of the Democrats here who I've spoken to are angry at the Republican legislature that passed the law, the Republican governor who signed the law, and local Democrats who screwed up another one. I don't know anyone who's laying this one on the DNC.

Btw, one of the reasons why there was such a turnout on Florida's primary day was because there was a vote on a law to reform the state's property tax system.

LuvDuke, good to hear from a local what the local perspective is. Your perspective makes good, common sense.

Funny enough Michigan and Florida were only 2 of 4 states that had lower Democratic turnout than Republican turnout. You know which other 2 states had higher Republican turnout? Utah for Romney & Arizona for McCain & remember, Michigan is a democratic state even if you could argue Florida democrat's were not hampered in any way shape or form that their primary vote wasn't counting.

 

[chris1gill]

KO was great tonight.

The one night I missed most of his show figures....

 

[Honu]

The one night I missed most of his show figures....

We have it on again at 9 pm here. A hour and half from now. Don't they replay it on the east coast feed?

 

[NewJersey]

We have it on again at 9 pm here. A hour and half from now. Don't they replay it on the east coast feed?

I think they do...I know I've seen it flicking through at night but I don't know what time...could be midnight (which makes sense given the 9 pm PST).

 

[chris1gill]

I think they do...I know I've seen it flicking through at night but I don't know what time...could be midnight (which makes sense given the 9 pm PST).

I was hoping to be in bed by midnight tonight.... maybe not by the sounds of it... might stay up to watch it...

 

[JARNJ3]

Changing the subject for a little while

Keep the caucus? Or get rid of it - next election cycle.........

Here's a con opinion - what's yours?

And yes, you may have seen me talk about this before - I am not a fan of the caucus!!

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/close_down_the_caucuses.html

March 06, 2008
Close Down the Caucuses
By Froma Harrop

One can assume that the people brawling into the late hours of a weekday night are not representative of your broad electorate, even in Texas. Compare the orderly primary vote in Ohio -- where the results were known by bedtime -- to the weird "Texas Two-Step," which pasted a caucus onto a primary.

Actually, the primary part of the Texas process went smoothly. It was the caucus that led to the unseemly spectacle of pushing and shoving in overcrowded rooms. More worrisome, some caucus leaders apparently didn't understand all the caucus rules.

Down with caucuses. They are not only chaotic, they are undemocratic.

Some decades ago, Democrats decided they didn't want their presidential nominees picked in a smoked-filled room of old party dons. Open the windows, they said. Let the people decide. They even rejected winner-take-all state primaries, which award all the convention delegates to the candidate who scores a majority of votes. Candidates now receive convention delegates relative to their primary vote.

Proportional primaries and the caucus system have both worked against Hillary Clinton and for Barack Obama. Clinton consistently won the majority in the big-state primaries in California, New York and now Texas -- but couldn't walk off with all the delegates. With his core of impassioned supporters, Obama has been able to dominate the caucuses.

But this isn't about what helps one candidate or another. It's about whether the Democrats will complete the journey to empowering a broad range of their voters.

In primaries, a voter can show up at the polls anytime between, say, 8 a.m. and 9 p.m., cast a secret ballot and go home or to work. Caucuses are run at a set hour. If you couldn't show up at an Iowa caucus precinct at 7 p.m. on Jan. 3 (a Thursday), you couldn't participate in the nation's first presidential contest. Only 227,000 people attended the Iowa Democratic caucuses, a population smaller than that of Norfolk, Va. Yet Obama's strong showing there provided him with powerful "momentum" -- at least according to the herd analysis.

Caucus rules are often complicated. That, too, turns off many people who will vote in November but don't care enough to go through the caucus hassle. The deliberations are public, and that lets activists bully shy participants into supporting their candidate.

Any event that takes place at a specific hour -- no matter what the hour -- can't be democratic. Nevada Democrats contended that their caucuses were easy to attend because they were held on a Saturday afternoon. The Texan caucuses were scheduled to start after dinner.

But the notion that these caucuses were held outside of normal working hours is a relic of the time when there were normal working hours. Midday or 7 p.m. can be peak times for employees at McDonald's. Wal-Marts may be open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., even on Sundays. And workers in 24-7 industries (finance, cyber-retailing, call centers) toil at 3 a.m.

And for those home by 7 p.m., how many are in any mood to drive to a caucus for an evening of strife? After a hard day's work, one might rather see the kids or collapse on the couch. Any event limited to a few hours is impossible for the mother who can't find childcare covering that particular time slot.

We can thank the Texas Two-Step for clearly showing how the caucus method of allotting delegates is cracked. The caucuses favored one candidate (Obama) mere moments after the wider electorate chose the other (Clinton). Democrats cannot truly open the process of choosing a candidate until they close down the caucuses.
fharrop@projo.com

 

[NewJersey]

I was hoping to be in bed by midnight tonight.... maybe not by the sounds of it... might stay up to watch it...

Let's hope I'm not wrong and its 1 am.

 

[JARNJ3]

One more discussion point - then time for bed......

To me - this indicates a combined ticket would definitively seal the deal in November. While my signature belies who'd I like to see in the Presidential spot - I'd accept the other way around. Either way - HISTORICAL

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/

State By State

It's early; it's just a snapshot; some of the numbers are within the margin of error and all that. But these 50 state polls put out by SurveyUSA are fascinating. The topline is that both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton beat John McCain by the slimmest of margins. But they do it in starkly different ways. Barack Obama manages to beat John McCain while losing Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida -- which I would scarcely have thought possibly (i.e., that a Dem could win while losing those states). Meanwhile Hillary wins in a more conventional way -- judged by the standards of the last twenty years. Most of the blue states are blue and red states red. But where she loses the Pacific Northwest she takes Florida.

Supporters of Clinton and Obama can both take from this that they're backing solid general election candidates but it does show they're very different -- at least at this moment -- in terms of the package of states they'd put together. The maps here are well worth taking a look at.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/surveyusa_hillary_and_obama_wi.php


So which Democrat is the more electable option?

After crunching the numbers from these quite dissimilar maps, one finds that Obama would beat McCain 278-260, while Hillary would win by a nearly identical 276-262.

 

[NewJersey]

If Clinton likes the idea of a combined ticket, maybe she should stop praising McCain on the campaign trail and questioning whether Obama is fit to be commander-in-chief. A VP is one breath away from being President.

...just sayin'

 

[eclectics]

If Clinton likes the idea of a combined ticket, maybe she should stop praising McCain on the campaign trail and questioning whether Obama is fit to be commander-in-chief. A VP is one breath away from being President.

...just sayin'

While I can see the short term campaign advantage for her with that tactic, she's gotta ask herself...at what cost? That particular slant she's taking will more than likely come back to bite her. You're back in the radar, Hillary, start the positive campaigning back up again. Just mho.

 

[Hound 109]

Spin it however you want, the Supes never were intended to overturn the vote of the people. It would be the quickest way to completely discredit whatever nominee we put forward.

As for Hillary's response, I'm surprised she'd even go for a primary. I mean, she's lost more of those than she's won, too.

"Vote of the People"? or the Caucus Goers?

I do think that the winner of the popular vote is the candidate that the Supers will break toward.

 

[va32h]

So the argument against caucuses is "they aren't convenient and some people can't be bothered to understand how they work"?

If you care enough about the election, you'll make the time to attend your caucus. You'll make the effort to figure out how it works. Why go out of our way to appeal to the laziest, least interested segment of the voting public?

How incredibly easy is it to register to vote? When I registered 19 years ago, you had to find a deputy registrar to swear you in. Now you can do it at the DMV. And yet there are plenty of unregistered voters, why? Because they are too lazy to check off a box on their driver's license renewal. They are too lazy to go vote, even with polls open 12 hours out of the day.

Oh heck, let's just make it super easy and run the election American Idol style. No registering; voters just call, text or go online. Instead of reporting on election returns, we'll have Fox air "The Results Show" with Ryan Seacrest announcing "America, this is Your New President!"

 

[NewJersey]

While I can see the short term campaign advantage for her with that tactic, she's gotta ask herself...at what cost? That particular slant she's taking will more than likely come back to bite her. You're back in the radar, Hillary, start the positive campaigning back up again. Just mho.

I guess she doesn't care about health care, a woman's right to choose, and getting out of Iraq, as much as she claims, given her seemingly daily praises of McCain over Obama.

 

[chris1gill]

I guess she doesn't care about health care, a woman's right to choose, and getting out of Iraq, as much as she claims, given her seemingly daily praises of McCain over Obama.

I believe her truth is somewhere in the middle....

 

[MerryPoppins]

My problem isn't so much the caucus as it is the open system in some states. I think Democrats should vote for the Democratic candidate and Republicans should vote for the Republican one. I don't see a need for crossing over. And I personally know of people that did this for Hillary...I still think it's wrong. It skews the whole thing where it's hard to know what the constituents want. Let people cross the line and vote for the other party during the final election if they want, but let's choose our own party's candidate.

 

[chris1gill]

While I can see the short term campaign advantage for her with that tactic, she's gotta ask herself...at what cost? That particular slant she's taking will more than likely come back to bite her. You're back in the radar, Hillary, start the positive campaigning back up again. Just mho.

If it works for her campaign, then why would she stop? What would be the incentive? Don't give me for the public good as an answer either because that is irrelevant, just like all us small states..... there are only a few states that matter, and if you're not in them, then you don't much matter.

Now after doing some math (you know which math New Jersey), I think the Obama supporters would very much like a do over for Florida and Michigan, maybe those of us on the DIS can come up with the money, somehow we just have to cover the costs....

 

[chris1gill]

My problem isn't so much the caucus as it is the open system in some states. I think Democrats should vote for the Democratic candidate and Republicans should vote for the Republican one. I don't see a need for crossing over. And I personally know of people that did this for Hillary...I still think it's wrong. It skews the whole thing where it's hard to know what the constituents want. Let people cross the line and vote for the other party during the final election if they want, but let's choose our own party's candidate.

When would be your cutoff date for choosing party affiliation? As an Independent thinker I will always be an Independent, I always have been and at times I've crossed the aisle, so I'm not sure that everyone in the USA would like to be put into one box or the other, but say you had up until 3 weeks prior or 1 month prior to an election, I could see that as a possible cutoff for marking your party affiliation for the primary or general upcoming.

 

[Hound 109]

So the argument against caucuses is "they aren't convenient and some people can't be bothered to understand how they work"?

If you care enough about the election, you'll make the time to attend your caucus. You'll make the effort to figure out how it works. Why go out of our way to appeal to the laziest, least interested segment of the voting public?

How incredibly easy is it to register to vote? When I registered 19 years ago, you had to find a deputy registrar to swear you in. Now you can do it at the DMV. And yet there are plenty of unregistered voters, why? Because they are too lazy to check off a box on their driver's license renewal. They are too lazy to go vote, even with polls open 12 hours out of the day.

Oh heck, let's just make it super easy and run the election American Idol style. No registering; voters just call, text or go online. Instead of reporting on election returns, we'll have Fox air "The Results Show" with Ryan Seacrest announcing "America, this is Your New President!"

Some arguments would be:

- that it's inconvenient to stand in a dark parking lot to begin the caucus with 300-500 strangers.

- No one is "in charge" of the caucus so different leaders argue over how to proceed.

- That it might begin at 7:30 or 9:30 or 11:30.

- That it might be a little inconvenient to a single parent to have 1-3 children with them until 11:30 in the evening to post a SECOND vote for someone you've already voted for.

- That some of the folks kind of made up the rules as they went along.

- That there were REPUBLICANS attending the caucus.

I attended the caucus two nights ago & it was a crock....as is allowing Republicans to vote in a Democratic Caucus.....as is disenfranchising FL & MI VOTERS for perceived transgressions of their less than strategic state party leaders....as is giving Guam & Puerto Rico a say in our nominee.