posted
And I've said that. I've said the words "in my opinion" or something very close to it, almost every time I've presented that statement.
Do you need me to go back in the thread and quote every time I've done it thus far?
What do you want from me? Seriously. Either you haven't read the last 10 posts that I've posted in this thread, or you willfully ignored every other time I said it just to POUNCE on this one.
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Does Lyrhawn really have to preface every one of his sentences with "In my opinion..."? That's exceedingly petty. Declaring something to be a "poor conclusion" necessarily implies an opinion in a situation like this.
EDIT: He beat me too it. Anyways, if I said "Picasso is a crappy artist" would you interpret that as me trying to state an objective fact?
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If you believe current polls, then about half of the people who voted for GW Bush in the last election don't approve of the job he's doing. To me that suggests that about half the people who voted for Bush agree, at least on some level, that they made a poor choice when they voted for him.
I suppose that they might argue that even though they disapprove of the job he's doing -- he was still better than all the other options they had at the voting both. Still that suggests that they would have liked different options on the ballot and that in turn ought to indicate some level of dissatisfaction with the current electoral process.
There is a major disconnect when 3/4's of the population think the current president is doing a bad job, but few if any see any major problems with the way we select our President or are working toward reforming that process.
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Nope. Came to a conclusion that you disagree with."
Its more then that. Pick a purpose of government, any purpose, and given the factual evidence available in 2004, its hard to make an argument that Bush promoted that purpose of government.
"Came to a conclusion that isn't in line with the voter's views on good government," would actually be a better way of putting it.
Why did people do that? A variety of reasons, most of which have more to do with our method of selecting candidates, and what makes for an effective campaign.
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quote:Does Lyrhawn really have to preface every one of his sentences with "In my opinion..."? That's exceedingly petty. Declaring something to be a "poor conclusion" necessarily implies an opinion in a situation like this.
When he states that people who voted for Bush are either stupid or failed to take appropriate care in making their selection, he's doing more than expressing an opinion.
The inconsistency of some of the people who regularly attack RL is becoming more and more clear here.
In this thread, we've had the thread starter tossing off half-baked accusations of partisanship while utterly ignoring the reasons given. We've got Lyrhawn calling people either stupid or neglectful.
Demonization of political opponents is a serious problem, and I'm sick of seeing people who regularly attack others for it doing it themselves.
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I'm interested to know what happenned between 2004 and 2006. Why did some people who used to support Bush stop? Was it the changeover in Congress, or did the changeover in Congress reflect a growing disaffection? Is it simply that the war had gone on too long without any measurable progress?
How do we know that half of the people who used to support Bush no longer do? Or is it the case that very few of people entering voting age over the last 4 years support Bush?
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quote: There is a major disconnect when 3/4's of the population think the current president is doing a bad job, but few if any see any major problems with the way we select our President or are working toward reforming that process.
Not really. If it continues to happen, that could certainly indicate a serious problem.
But then again, bear in mind that much of those 3/4s are secretly still satisfied because at least their party came out on top, and don't really care about anything else.
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quote:There is a major disconnect when 3/4's of the population think the current president is doing a bad job, but few if any see any major problems with the way we select our President or are working toward reforming that process
There is a problem with the leaders we end up selecting, but it isn't due to the electoral college or voter fraud. It is a more fundamental flaw in democracy.
The problem is that we tend to end up electing the people who are best at politics rather than the people who who have the best judgement and ability to lead. People get elected by saying what the public wants to hear rather than telling the truth and doing the right thing.
I'd love to fix this problem, but I don't know of any clear solution to it - and I'd guess that any solution to it would require the system to be LESS democratic.
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quote:Does Lyrhawn really have to preface every one of his sentences with "In my opinion..."? That's exceedingly petty. Declaring something to be a "poor conclusion" necessarily implies an opinion in a situation like this.
When he states that people who voted for Bush are either stupid or failed to take appropriate care in making their selection, he's doing more than expressing an opinion.
The inconsistency of some of the people who regularly attack RL is becoming more and more clear here.
In this thread, we've had the thread starter tossing off half-baked accusations of partisanship while utterly ignoring the reasons given. We've got Lyrhawn calling people either stupid or neglectful.
Demonization of political opponents is a serious problem, and I'm sick of seeing people who regularly attack others for it doing it themselves.
He retracted the generalization of "stupid" (albeit he didn't really apologize for it which would be appropriate). Perhaps this would be resolved if Lyrhawn clarified his use of "negligent." You are going by the strict definition. I interpreted it more broadly to mean that Lyrhawn feels that people who voted for Bush made a bad decision. Given Lyrhawn's later comments I feel that my interpretation of his intent is correct. He said "But the people who are left, many of whom I imagine are smart people who think they have good reasons still came to a poor conclusion." In other words, he acknowledges that there are people who thought carefully about their decision but who still came to a poor conclusion (in his opinion). Maybe he could clarify.
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quote:Its more then that. Pick a purpose of government, any purpose, and given the factual evidence available in 2004, its hard to make an argument that Bush promoted that purpose of government.
This is a really big argument involving many topics, and I'm not at all interested in getting into it, but I would like to say that I disagree with this, and it's hardly a matter of fact as you're suggesting, Paul.
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quote:Originally posted by The Pixiest: Rabbit: The purpose of Representation, and of our government in general, is to protect our freedom. Or, as the Constitution put it "Secure the blessings of Liberty."
The US constitution describes the purpose of our Federal Government in General as being to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,[1] promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty. "
It is only your opinion that "securing the blessing of liberty" is a legitimate function of government but "promoting the general welfare" is ill-legitimate. Both are enshrined in our constitution and both are legal, legitimate and in my opinion desirable purposes of government.
quote:Does Lyrhawn really have to preface every one of his sentences with "In my opinion..."? That's exceedingly petty. Declaring something to be a "poor conclusion" necessarily implies an opinion in a situation like this.
When he states that people who voted for Bush are either stupid or failed to take appropriate care in making their selection, he's doing more than expressing an opinion.
The inconsistency of some of the people who regularly attack RL is becoming more and more clear here.
In this thread, we've had the thread starter tossing off half-baked accusations of partisanship while utterly ignoring the reasons given. We've got Lyrhawn calling people either stupid or neglectful.
Demonization of political opponents is a serious problem, and I'm sick of seeing people who regularly attack others for it doing it themselves.
He retracted the generalization of "stupid" (albeit he didn't really apologize for it which would be appropriate). Perhaps this would be resolved if Lyrhawn clarified his use of "negligent." You are going by the strict definition. I interpreted it more broadly to mean that Lyrhawn feels that people who voted for Bush made a bad decision. Given Lyrhawn's later comments I feel that my interpretation of his intent is correct. He said "But the people who are left, many of whom I imagine are smart people who think they have good reasons still came to a poor conclusion." In other words, he acknowledges that there are people who thought carefully about their decision but who still came to a poor conclusion (in his opinion). Maybe he could clarify.
I've apologized specifically for that at least twice now. And your take on it seems to pretty much nail down what I meant.
quote:Originally posted by Dagonee:
quote:Does Lyrhawn really have to preface every one of his sentences with "In my opinion..."? That's exceedingly petty. Declaring something to be a "poor conclusion" necessarily implies an opinion in a situation like this.
When he states that people who voted for Bush are either stupid or failed to take appropriate care in making their selection, he's doing more than expressing an opinion.
The inconsistency of some of the people who regularly attack RL is becoming more and more clear here.
In this thread, we've had the thread starter tossing off half-baked accusations of partisanship while utterly ignoring the reasons given. We've got Lyrhawn calling people either stupid or neglectful.
Demonization of political opponents is a serious problem, and I'm sick of seeing people who regularly attack others for it doing it themselves.
Blah blah blah blah blah. How am I doing more than expressing an opinion Dag? Especially when I say multiple times that it's my opinion. You are willfully ignoring my explanations and trying to assign more meaning to my words than I've expressly intended. I would like you to stop it, but really at this point I don't expect you to.
And I'm not demonizing anyone. I didn't specify a side, I didn't specify a political affiliation, and I didn't say they were out to destroy the country, I said they made a mistake in my view. Oh no! I said some voters were neglectful! I'm practically Ann Coulter. I think they made a mistake, made the wrong choice, screwed up, put whatever synonym you want there, but stop trying to make it out to be more than it is, and stop being melodramatic, it's starting to piss me off.
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quote:How am I doing more than expressing an opinion Dag? Especially when I say multiple times that it's my opinion.
It's my opinion that you are demonizing people by asserting that there are only two possible explanations for voting for Bush in 2004: either they were stupid or they were neglectful.
It's just my opinion. So that makes it OK, right?
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It's my opinion that you're being intentionally provacative, insulting, and willfully ignorant, maybe intentionally to piss me off, I can't tell, though I've never thought you were that petty before.
There's a difference there in what you're trying to use as an opinion as. My opinion is that people who voted for Bush were wrong, and I have never commented on their reasons for doing so. The thing is, that's subjective. It changes from person to person, and there'll never be a proveable right or wrong answer, and historians can argue about it for centuries to come without ever arriving at any sort of empirically true answers.
Your opinion of my argument is irrevelent. It's my argument, and I know what I mean, and clearly at least one other person here knows what I mean too, but you're ignoring what I mean and are misrepresenting my point, directly opposed to several further clarifications I've tried to make to you. I know you well enough to know you aren't stupid, so I can only assume you're intentionally doing this, though I have no idea why. You're trying to use opinion as if saying "it's my opinion that 2+2=19" as opposed to "it's my opinion that blue is the best color."
Either that or after everything I've said you still don't get it, which at this point I find unfathomable.
PS you dodged the question in the quotation marks by the way.
PPS Demonize means, in the conext you're using it, "To represent as evil or diabolic." How does that definition jive with what I've said, since we're being precise in all our meanings here, with no wriggle room?
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posted
Dagonee, you made it clear in previous posts that you took issue with the word "neglectful." Lyrhawn has expressed multiple times that he did not intend for his comments to come across the way they did and has already provided alternative ways of stating what he meant to convey. Do you take issue with "I think they made a mistake, made the wrong choice"?
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quote:Either that or after everything I've said you still don't get it, which at this point I find unfathomable.
Which is pretty much how I view you in this conversation.
The only reason I commented was because of your "So when I said that, I guess I was really just asking not to be summarily dismissed because of my opinion."
That's exactly what BB was asking for, too. You still don't get that, apparently. Not only you do not get it, but you got pissy because BB decided there was no point in talking to someone who made such sweeping judgments.
Your subsequent clarifications don't change the basis of my argument. In fact, I've been quoting one of your subsequent clarifications since you made it.
The fact that you think that clarification changes the basis of my complaint is a perfect indicator that you don't understand the basis of my complaint.
It's like someone saying "I wasn't speeding" when I tell them that driving on the left side of a two-way road is unsafe. If they say that, I can be sure they don't understand what I'm getting at. Similarly, the fact that this is your opinion does not change the nature of my complaint.
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I fail to see when, where, and how I dismissed anyone, for anything. You jumped into the conversation to try and say "gotcha!" and to me that doesn't make sense. I never said anything to BB to shut down the conversation, and subsequent clarifications should've made that abundantly clear.
And no, I don't understand the basis of your complaint, because you keep complaining about a position I don't hold.
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quote:I fail to see when, where, and how I dismissed anyone, for anything.
I know that.
quote: I never said anything to BB to shut down the conversation
But you did. You might not have intended to, but you did. Would you like to discuss politics with someone who said that people who support the candidate you do so because they are stupid or "failed to take appropriate care IN making their selection"? More importantly, even if you would like to discuss politics with someone who said that, can you possibly understand why others would not?
It's true that if one takes dismissal to mean "that you're shutting down all debate for whatever reason" that you didn't do that.
But that's not what dismissal means, and it should be abundantly clear that it's not what I intended it to mean when I used the word.
You asked for clarification on how I was using the word and I gave it - repeatedly. So did others.
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"This is a really big argument involving many topics, and I'm not at all interested in getting into it, but I would like to say that I disagree with this, and it's hardly a matter of fact as you're suggesting, Paul."
Of course its a matter of fact. Either a president promotes a purpose of government, that is he acts in such a way as to make government better at accomplishing that purpose, or he doesn't.
There was evidence available before november 2004, and I think an unbiased examination of that evidence shows that bush did not make our government accomplish any purposes of government more effectively then a replacement level president would have been able to. (Not referenced to any specific opposition, but rather then general quality of presidential candidates).
My "any purpose" was overly broad, because you could certainly make, for example, the argument that the purpose of government is to gather power into the hands of fewer and fewer people, and I would suggest that the facts are that the bush administration has accomplished this. I think this would be a ridiculous purpose of government to express, but one could believe that this is the purpose of government.
I am making no claims that Kerry would have accomplished a given purpose of government better. Rather, if we had a non-broken system of electing presidents, we would have very easily been able to find candidates for president who would fulfill that given purpose of government more effectively then Bush.
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quote:But you did. You might not have intended to, but you did. Would you like to discuss politics with someone who said that people who support the candidate you do so because they are stupid or "failed to take appropriate care IN making their selection"? More importantly, even if you would like to discuss politics with someone who said that, can you possibly understand why others would not?
Depends. If they apologized for it immediately and clarified that to mean that they think I made an error in judgement, then I'd want to explain my reasoning about how I came to that conclusion. It's really just a fancy way of saying "I think you were wrong," without specifying a reason (despite the fact that you keep saying I've specified reasons, I never have). And I'd imagine most people probably wouldn't shut down a discussion at that point. But most not being all, I can see how some would.
You described my dismissal as:
quote:you made up a reason for their actions rather than considering the reasons they actually have.
And that isn't what I did, and I've said maybe a dozen times since then that that isn't what I did. Then you changed it to this:
quote:Dismissal implies that you took all the possible reasons that intelligent people who took time to investigate and make their choice and ... dismissed them. There's really no other way to say it. They're either stupid or neglectful in your world.
And I didn't do that either, and my clarifications expressly denied that. I didn't dismiss them under either if your definitions of the word. It seems to be your opinion that that is what I was intending, and I'm telling you right now that it was not my intention.
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quote:And I didn't do that either, and my clarifications expressly denied that. I didn't dismiss them under either if your definitions of the word. It seems to be your opinion that that is what I was intending, and I'm telling you right now that it was not my intention.
No, it's my opinion that this is what you did, whether you intended to or not. I'm not expressing an opinion on what you intended to do.
quote:If they apologized for it immediately and clarified that to mean that they think I made an error in judgement, then I'd want to explain my reasoning about how I came to that conclusion.
For the record, you didn't apologize or clarify this immediately. The summary I gave here is a clarification you made well into the discussion, which you have since further clarified.
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quote:No, it's my opinion that this is what you did, whether you intended to or not. I'm not expressing an opinion on what you intended to do.
Well I think you're wrong. If you want to take it a step further, I think that, taking into account all the facts you have at hand on my position, you've made an error in judgement, and by your definition, I guess that means I'm dismissing you.
And define immediately. I posted it, someone took exception in the very next post, and I apologized in the post after that, and clarified. I apologized again later on, and clarified at length again and again.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
Sorry, grammatical error there, take the comma out after "and by your definition," and it reads as it should. Or turn the comma after judgement into a period. Either way, I'm referring to your definition of dismissal, not my definition of judgement errors.
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quote:In this thread, we've had the thread starter tossing off half-baked accusations of partisanship while utterly ignoring the reasons given. We've got Lyrhawn calling people either stupid or neglectful.
To whatever extent I am responsible for the current argument, I am sorry.
I have over many many years observed that whether or not most people support the electoral college is dependent most strongly on whether they feel the system is favoring their side at the time. I apologize for applying that general observation to the specific individuals in this debate. That was rude and inappropriate at hatrack.
I do object however to the accusation that I totally ignored the reasons people were giving for supporting the electoral college. I believe I clearly addressed those reasons and explained why I don't find them compelling for the US as it exists today.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: No, by my definition of dismissal, calling something a judgment of error is not a dismissal.
Well then it looks like you disagree with me and you. You've listed at least two, and possibly three definitions now of dismissal.
Make up your mind. Maybe after you figure out what your argument is, you can try and figure out mine.
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quote:There is a major disconnect when 3/4's of the population think the current president is doing a bad job, but few if any see any major problems with the way we select our President or are working toward reforming that process
There is a problem with the leaders we end up selecting, but it isn't due to the electoral college or voter fraud. It is a more fundamental flaw in democracy.
The problem is that we tend to end up electing the people who are best at politics rather than the people who who have the best judgement and ability to lead.
Agreed.
There is also the "best of two bad choices" issue, which is why I can both be in that 3/4, and still think Bush was a better choice than Kerry.
And not be a Republican, Rakeesh. Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:There is also the "best of two bad choices" issue, which is why I can both be in that 3/4, and still think Bush was a better choice than Kerry.
Agreed, but haven't we been discussing election reform in a much broader sense including how we end up with the final election ballot.
I would think that people who are highly dissatisfied with Bush but still think he was better than Kerry, should be leading the charge for electoral reform. There must be some way to get good (or at least acceptable) candidates on the ballot.
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posted
I convinced that the process is a primary part of the problem, but I'll agree that the electoral college isn't the primary problem with the process.
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quote:There is also the "best of two bad choices" issue, which is why I can both be in that 3/4, and still think Bush was a better choice than Kerry.
Agreed, but haven't we been discussing election reform in a much broader sense including how we end up with the final election ballot.
I would think that people who are highly dissatisfied with Bush but still think he was better than Kerry, should be leading the charge for electoral reform. There must be some way to get good (or at least acceptable) candidates on the ballot.
I'd imagine apathy and a sense of feeling powerless in the process have left most people feeling shut out from that part of the process.
But to be fair, I think this year showed a marked increase in the availability of information and attention paid to candidates who normally wouldn't see the light of day. Mike Gravel was like a the drunk uncle that comes over for Christmas but everyone hopes won't. He had virtually no money from fundraising, went nowhere in the polls or actual vote...and yet there was information on him from CNN, he had an accessible website, ads on YouTube etc. The information was there, and with the internet there was a chance for him to fundraise. And Ron Paul, who I think in any other year would have been ignored for being too far out of the mainstream view of the party he ran under was given front and center attention, had huge media attention, and massive grassroots fundraising.
I think we're at a point where anyone who is a big enough figure to garner some sort of national attention, which I think means any high level state elected official or federal government official has a serious chance of making a go of it, so long as they have something of substance. And of course I think Obama is a posterchild for how a virtual unknown can explode onto the scene if he has a well received message and good organizational support behind him.
I liked what Tresopax said earlier about people choosing those who are better at politics vs. people who are better at judgement and leading. I think that's too often been the case as well, and sometimes our best presidents have had great judgement and leadership and also happened to be decent at the political side of things as well. And a lot of them make it through on sheer force of personality, which is I think a lot of Obama's appeal.
I think we're better off now in many ways that we have been in the past, but I'm hard pressed to think of a better mechanism for nominating well qualified people for the job.
Edit to add: And I agree that the electoral college, much as I'm against it, doesn't have anything to do with the process of selecting candidates. I'm not convinced the primary process does either, for many of the reasons I listed above.
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posted
The biggest problem with the primary system is that the challenging party usually has a candidate established for nomination long before the primaries begin, and the incumbent party can run either the president, of course, or the vice president.
It hasn't always been like this of course. The McGovern campaign, Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat run, and Theodore Roosevelt's Bull Moose campaign come to mind. But even the most recent run was 40 years ago. Nixon's resignation threw a wrench into the timing, but the system was settled by then.
In my opinion, changing dates of primaries and which state goes first won't change how parties do this because there will always be a favored person among the party leaders.
This year is special. Neither major party had an initial prohibitive favorite or an incumbent intent in running. In my opinion, the system will revert back to the old way in 2012, but it won't stay that way for much longer.
quote:I think we're at a point where anyone who is a big enough figure to garner some sort of national attention, which I think means any high level state elected official or federal government official has a serious chance of making a go of it, so long as they have something of substance. And of course I think Obama is a posterchild for how a virtual unknown can explode onto the scene if he has a well received message and good organizational support behind him.
I agree with Lyrhawn here. Any figure who can get attention is legitimate. I think that no amount of legislative action will improve the primary and general election system. It is set up so that the voters can have the major influence on who the parties choose, but in turn the voters can't become complacent. That did happen, which is why we have had a "lesser of two evils" choice for so long. It looks to me like the complacency may have ended, and it's all thanks to The Internet! This is all just opinion of course.
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quote:Neither major party had an initial prohibitive favorite
Debateable. On the Republican side Giuliani was a favorite for a long time, though their side has really jumped back and forth so often that I don't really dispute it. But on the Democratic side Hillary Clinton was the prohibitive favorite for a long time. Considering they've been running for like a year now, Clinton was the party favorite, polled 20 points ahead of Obama or more nationally and in almost every state. It was only in mid to late November that he started inching up in states like New Hampshire and Iowa. And it took until December or early January for him to get ahead in Iowa, which changed everything, vaulted him into the national spotlight, but even then he lost New Hampshire to Clinton.
I think he's the best example we have that anyone has a chance, so long as they have something that appeals to regular people, and that's Obama, for better or for worse. Clinton was the odds on favorite, and people, rather than party favoritism, party machinery or any political power, launched and sustained his candidacy.
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posted
Yesterday's primary in Mississippi demonstrates my point about the system the Democrats are using for awarding delegates proportionally by districts being subject to abuse similar to Gerrymandering. Consider what happened: Sen. Obama won the popular vote over Sen. Clinton by 60.8% to 37.02%. That is a 23.78% margin. And yet Obama only got 17 delegates, while Clinton got 14 delegates (with two as yet to be announced). So despite getting a huge landslide, Obama only gained a net of three delegates over Clinton.
How did it happen? Well, the landslide was not unexpected, since over half the voters in Mississppi are African-American, and Obama has been winning 80% to 90% of that group. But since the delegates were awarded according to senatorial district, they were apparently Gerrymandered so that most of the African-American voters were grouped together in a few districts, while a larger number of districts were in less-populated areas--suburban and rural--which were more likely to have a majority of whites, who would vote for Clinton.
If the Democrats really want to have proportional awarding of delegates that is fair, then it should be based on percentage of the popular vote. Under that system, Obama would have gotten 20 delegates, and Clinton 12. Then Obama would have netted eight delegates over Clinton, instead of just three.
It appears that the Democratic Party's Gerrymandered district-based awarding of delegates is actually designed to diminish the impact of the African-American vote. That is certainly the effect it had in yesterday's election.
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posted
Ron, Where are you getting your numbers from? Right now on CNN, Obama is reported to have 17 delegates and Clinton has 11. That's pretty close to the margin of their percentage of the popular vote (My spot checking has it slightly favoring Obama, actually).
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posted
That's what I heard reported on I think it was Fox news about two hours ago. 17 vs. 14. The networks always seem to disagree on how to count the delegates. It will probably take another day or so for them to settle on the same numbers. The CNN figures could not be right, because they only add up to 28, and there were 33 delegates at stake in this primary. The news source I heard had only two delegates yet to be allotted.
[ March 12, 2008, 01:58 PM: Message edited by: Ron Lambert ]
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posted
Now CNN is reporting Obama with 19 and Clinton with 14 meaning Obama got the two unannounced delegates you mentioned earlier. CNN tends to be fairly cautious with their delegate estimates so it doesn't surprise me that they lagged a little.
EDIT: Or what Squicky said
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quote:The biggest problem with the primary system is that the challenging party usually has a candidate established for nomination long before the primaries begin.
I don't think that is a valid assessment of recent political elections.
In 1976 Carter entered the race as a virtual unknown on the national scene (2% name recognition) and was not initially considered a contender for the democratic nomination. Ford was the sitting President but nearly lost the nomination to Reagan.
In 1980, Carter was the sitting president but had a serious challenge from Kennedy for the party nomination. In early 1980, there were at least three serious contenders for the republican nomination Reagan, Bush and Anderson. Early in the primary season Bush was actually ahead of Reagan.
In 1984, the Reagan/Bush were essentially uncontested for the republican nomination but the democratic nomination was hotly contested by Mondale and Hart (and to a lesser extent Jesse Jackson).
In 1988, Hart was considered the front runner going into the primary but faltered because of reports of extramarital affairs. Dukakis didn't emerge as the front runner until well into the primaries.
In 1992, Clinton was relatively unknown on the national scene before the primaries. He didn't emerge as the front runner until he swept the super tuesday primaries.
In 1996 and 2000, the republican challengers did indeed nominate a pre-anointed candidate. But aside from those two elections, I can't think of an example where there where either parties nomination was won by a clear establishement front runner other than the sitting President or vice President.
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posted
If the CNN figures turn out to be right, then Obama still only netted five delegates over Clinton. A fairly apportioned system would have allowed Obama to net 8 delegates over Clinton. So he was Gerrymandered out of three delegates.
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posted
I predict that in Pennsylvania, if Sen. Clinton wins by more than ten points, she will have a disproportionately larger number of delegates, because the Gerrymandering appears to be set up to favor white votes. Another words, she will get MORE delegates in PA than would be calculated on the basis of percentages of the popular vote.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: In 1992, Clinton was relatively unknown on the national scene before the primaries. He didn't emerge as the front runner until he swept the super tuesday primaries.
Was there a candidate who was considered a front runner prior to Super Tuesday in '92? I'm thinking that there was, but I can't remember who it was. Jerry Brown? I know he gave Clinton some trouble later on in the primary season, but I don't think he was seen as all that strong a contender early on. Paul Tsongas, maybe?
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posted
I can't think of Jerry Brown without thinking "Governor Moonbeam." I wonder how Linda Ronstadt is doing these days.
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quote:The biggest problem with the primary system is that the challenging party usually has a candidate established for nomination long before the primaries begin.
I don't think that is a valid assessment of recent political elections.
In 1976 Carter entered the race as a virtual unknown on the national scene (2% name recognition) and was not initially considered a contender for the democratic nomination. Ford was the sitting President but nearly lost the nomination to Reagan.
In 1980, Carter was the sitting president but had a serious challenge from Kennedy for the party nomination. In early 1980, there were at least three serious contenders for the republican nomination Reagan, Bush and Anderson. Early in the primary season Bush was actually ahead of Reagan.
In 1984, the Reagan/Bush were essentially uncontested for the republican nomination but the democratic nomination was hotly contested by Mondale and Hart (and to a lesser extent Jesse Jackson).
In 1988, Hart was considered the front runner going into the primary but faltered because of reports of extramarital affairs. Dukakis didn't emerge as the front runner until well into the primaries.
In 1992, Clinton was relatively unknown on the national scene before the primaries. He didn't emerge as the front runner until he swept the super tuesday primaries.
In 1996 and 2000, the republican challengers did indeed nominate a pre-anointed candidate. But aside from those two elections, I can't think of an example where there where either parties nomination was won by a clear establishement front runner other than the sitting President or vice President.
Ah, I had forgotten history. Thank you for the correction.
Now that my opinion has been invalidated by fact , I'll try to make a point along the same lines. It seems that whenever a candidate emerges far ahead enough to be noticed, the media tends to push that person along, mostly for a story. That is what is called "momentum." Party leaders unite behind the person so they can have someone to beat the "other guy."
However, the history pointed out above demonstrates that it isn't an automatic process. There is always enough passion for someone to pursue the spot, especially when a party has been out of power for some time, or a strong movement develops within the party.
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Thank you for the correction.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
, I'll try to make a point along the same lines. It seems that whenever a candidate emerges far ahead enough to be noticed, the media tends to push that person along, mostly for a story. That is what is called "momentum." Party leaders unite behind the person so they can have someone to beat the "other guy."
