posted
It has been discussed on a few threads how the current way of conducting the political primaries gives the first states to have their primaries undue weight in deciding who will be the party's candidate. This is due to candidates dropping out after the results are back from the first few primaries. It simply costs too much to campaign in more and more states as the primaries continue if your ship is sinking.
One solution that has been put forward is to have the first states to hold their primaries rotate. Yet, whichever states go first will have that same undue weight.
Another solution is to have all the primaries take place on the same day. The argument against this has been that it would cost too much to have every candidate campaign in every state. I have a few ideas on how to cut down on the cost, but I’d like you to help me think through this.
Offer the nation’s newspapers to publish a one-day special section that lists all the candidates for the primary and their self-described platform, their strengths and their web address for additional information. Following each candidate’s personal statement would be a series of points critical of this candidate submitted by his or her opponents with their names beside their submissions. Following this would be the candidate’s response to these criticisms. There might also be a chart comparing and contrasting each candidate’s views on a variety of topics. The newspapers might agree to publish this section for free as it would draw people to purchase a copy of that day’s paper. This section would also be available online.
PBS or another free channel might also sponsor a debate. The candidates would be free to write a book outlining their plans if they desire. But, beyond that, there would be no campaigning. In this system, the primary candidates would only be paying for the upkeep of their website and travel to the debate location. The contest would be more about the issues, the candidates’ public record and their strengths as leaders, etc. There would be no emotional commercials playing on people’s fears or chanting phrases like “flip-flop”. And the influence of money will been greatly neutralized, which might also mitigate the influence of lobbyists. The only pre-existing advantage that would remain is name recognition, which is also an advantage in the present system.
Now, here is how the nationwide single day primary would work. I am not sure whether to open each party’s primary up to independents (what would be the pros and cons?) Anyway, the ballot would have a line next to each candidate. The voter would simply rank order the candidates in terms of which candidates they would prefer to be the party’s choice with “1” being their top pick.
After the election is over, the votes are tallied (first round) giving one vote to the candidate who has a “1” beside his or her name on each ballot. If after the votes have been counted one candidate has greater than 50% of the votes, then that candidate will be the party’s choice for the general election. However, if no candidate receives a majority of the votes, then the top two candidates (or three if second place is a tie) are retained for the second round of the tallying of the votes.
Second round: For each ballot the candidate (of these two or three candidates from the first round) that has the highest rank will receive one vote. And whichever candidate has the highest number of votes in this second round will be the party’s choice. This is done to avoid the expense of a run off election.
To illustrate, imagine you ranked the following candidates thusly: 2 – candidate “A”; 1 – candidate “B”; 4 – candidate “C”; and 3 – candidate “D”. So, candidate “B” is your number one choice, but when the results come in, no candidate has a majority, but candidates “D” and “C” received the most votes. During round 2, candidate “D” would receive one vote from you because you ranked him or her higher than candidate “C”.
Several months later, the party’s convention would just be used to rally support for their candidate and raise money for the campaign leading up to the general election.
Posts: 264 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
I'm all for having all the primaries on the same day with either a run off election or a selection at the conventions. Selecting at the convention would be nice in a way, as it would give people a reason to watch. But it would take the choice out of the hands of the people and give it to unelected delegates. (very bad)
But why does anyone need to GIVE the candidates anything? Why does PBS need to sponsor a debate? Why can't it be on the commercial channels like the general election debates? I would think they would all want to cover them.
Why should the newspapers GIVE them space (except for the fact that it's newsworthy, in which case, it's not GIVING them space, it's siply Content.)
In CA, Candidates pay to be put in a voter handbook that gets sent out by the state. Now, I'd rather private industry do this, obviously, but it IS very useful in helping to determin how to vote.
I don't like the idea of picking your second best. I think I'd rather have a second chance to pick my favorite of the remaining two. I think too many people would leave the rest blank or not give it much thought. Especially when it came near the bottom of the list.
Your points are noted. I wouldn't really care who sponsors the debates as long as people without cable or satellite could watch them, in other words stations that broadcast in the air (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, etc).
I don't like the idea of selecting a candidate at the convention either.
I had not heard about the voter handbook in CA before. I would prefer that the candidates get a chance to not only put forward their plan and credintials, but also criticize their opponents. I am not sure if the voter handbook enables that. And I would like it to be widely distributed, such as in newspapers.
Posts: 264 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
The whole idea of having primaries at all is the problem, in my opinion. It seriously undermines moderate, middle of the road candidates and third party candidates so much so that we end up with the choice, as usual, of the lesser of two evils.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
I have long been in favor of choosing candidates in much the same way as Miss America is chosen.
Any candidate campaigns in his/her own state only. From there you go on to a state election (primary) for each party.
Mr./Ms. Ohio State/Republican (for example) is then sent to the Republican convention, which has 50 contestants. Likewise there are 50 democratic contestants at the Democratic convention, etc.
The party leaders moderate the convention, in which the 50 contestants choose among themselves who will be the two candidates (President and Vice President) for each party.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Here's a thought, and I'm just throwing this out there:
What if the current representatives and senators picked from a pool of presidential candidates to represent their party.
It's clear that we can't have dozens of presidential candidates, but they have to be narrowed somehow.
Another important question would be: How do we go about having more than two viable candidates for president? Are we too entrenched in a two party system, or is it possible that a third or even fourth party could be added, and have any chance to win?
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
The majority of the country doesn't seem to identify with either of the major two parties, based on turnouts over the last several elections.
It's rare to get more than 50% voter turnout, and even then there's a small percent that are third party voters. The majority generally don't care strongly enough about one candidate over the other to even bother making their way to the polling booth, and a good chunk of those that do vote would much prefer someone to vote *for* rather than just someone worse to vote *against*.
Posts: 3960 | Registered: Jul 2001
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posted
Not sure how we got to the current system, but the constitution says you vote for a bunch of people and the one with the biggest vote gets to be president, and the first runner up gets to be vice president.
Where did this "running mate" thing come from?
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Pix, do that and you get what we had in California a few years ago, a ballot with a hundred people on it. Only it will be 100,000 names, and no-one will know who their voting for, or what qualifications they have.
Not that I don't sympathize- I do. The electoral process is designed to weed out anyone who actually might make a good president.
But then again life is designed to promote and utilize all useful and intelligent people. Politicians with designs for the presidency are always personality deficient IMO, lackeys and people pleasers who have been unwilling to go it in the real world all their lives. Its rarely actually about "making a difference," because if it was, these candidates would do the smart thing and realize that being president doesn't actually allow you to change things, only put others in a position to do that work. That's where the real goal is, its the position, the title, the real prime movers are the people who work for a living. Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: Not sure how we got to the current system, but the constitution says you vote for a bunch of people and the one with the biggest vote gets to be president, and the first runner up gets to be vice president.
That was the way it was envisioned when it was believed that the popular vote would be divided among many candidates, so that there was no majority, and the house of representatives would choose a president from among the candidates, (runner up was vice). In fact this has happened only a few times, and since we currently recognize only two parties, it can't happen under the current circumstances, thus the running mate.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Orincoro: I live in CA. The recall election was very interesting. If only we could have had a run off between Arnie and McClintock though...
Posts: 7085 | Registered: Apr 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: Not sure how we got to the current system, but the constitution says you vote for a bunch of people and the one with the biggest vote gets to be president, and the first runner up gets to be vice president.
That was the way it was envisioned when it was believed that the popular vote would be divided among many candidates, so that there was no majority, and the house of representatives would choose a president from among the candidates, (runner up was vice). In fact this has happened only a few times, and since we currently recognize only two parties, it can't happen under the current circumstances, thus the running mate.
Actually, we recognize a lot more than two parties, but this can't happen no matter how many parties run, as per the XII amendment:
quote:The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President...they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as president, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President...
posted
We'll need a constitutional amendment to have runoffs. I'm for it, but it won't be easy, since the 2 parties won't vote for it, and others can't get elected until they do. Catch-22.
Posts: 1877 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Revamp primaries then. Do a signature thing. You need to get 100,000 signatures to get on the presidential ballot.
Scratch the electoral college and make it a direct election.
So long as it's anyone's game, you'll see a less coordinated effort by either party to support just a single candidate. It changes the entire dynamic of how an election works, and I think it would be an interesting change.
More candidates really makes it impossible for negative campaigning to work. If everyone goes negative, then everyone looks stupid, and a dark horse candidate has a better chance of winning.
It might just become a campaign of ideas and ideologies rather than personal attacks.
And just for the heck of it, since we're talking about fixing the process: Term limits for Congressman and Senators.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: And just for the heck of it, since we're talking about fixing the process: Term limits for Congressman and Senators.
Why? I've often heard that it takes a president his entire first term just to learn how the system really works, so that if he does anything intentionally, its in his second term. Why limit the amount of time that senators can have to learn how to get things done? Senators and Congressmen don't have the kind of power a long running president like Roosevelt had, where everything is in place to allow them to win over and over again. This is why term limits were imposed, you can't give too much power to one person, but the houses never have that much power anyway, so I think they should at least have experienced members.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Congressman going on their 10th term figured out how the system works a long time ago, and they figured out how to manipulate it.
I think in many ways I want a Congressman who DOESN'T know how the system works. I want him to know how to pass a law, not how to curry favor, take money from lobbyists, vote only for things that will get him a favorable vote in return, etc. It's the current establishment, unable to be dislodged and unwilling to reform itself, that has to go.
Making it impossible for that establishment to be replaced by a differet establishment is to make sure that the Congress never stays static enough for that kind of corruption to take hold.
Hillary Clinton has been in her office for a single term, and already is working the system better than some senators who've been there much longer. I don't think it takes them that long to catch on. Many senators and congressman come from state legislatures, or from other parts of the federal or state level governments. These people know how the government works, the only problem is that so many of them only look for ways to make it work for them, not for us.
Term limits will ensure that they can't get into the you scratch my back I'll scratch yours kind of problem where people stay in power too long and run the show however they want. It also makes sure that businesses will hesitate to invest thousands or millions in a candidate who may not be there for the next term.
It's either term limits, or we find a way to elect better, more incorruptable congressman, which do you think has a better chance of success?
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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