Forget about the Electoral College. Let's look at the primaries and conventions instead

[Stevicus]

As Boss Tweed once famously said: "I don't care who does the electing. I just want to do the nominating."

I think this current debate and argument over the Electoral College is a bit of a red herring, which distracts people from examining and discussing the processes of selecting political candidates for an election.

The concept of "superdelegates" seems totally bogus and should be done away with. In fact, conventions themselves should be done away with. Why are they necessary?

My proposal would be to eliminate sprawling primaries and caucuses as well. Instead, there should be a national primary so that all the states vote on the same day, preferably in the September just before the election.

I've observed that one of the common complaints about the EC is that some states have a distinct advantage over others in the general election, but what about the primary process? Iowa's caucus and New Hampshire's primary are among the first states to select candidates, so as a result, those states have a distinct advantage over the rest of the country which has to wait.

Many years ago, Arizona tried to move its primary date so that it would be before New Hampshire's primary, but that led to a mini firestorm of complaints that Arizona shouldn't do that, that it went against the "tradition" of New Hampshire always being the first primary. But who decided that and why? Why should New Hampshire enjoy such an advantage?

The sad part is, candidates who do poorly in New Hampshire often drop out of the race before anyone in any other state even gets a chance to vote.

The primaries are a joke. The conventions are a joke. Yet all anyone complains about is the Electoral College.

But where is the logic in endlessly complaining about the EC? Seriously, by the time the EC even becomes any kind of factor, it's already after the public has been presented with two crappy candidates who never should have been selected in the first place.

Why aren't we complaining more about that?

 

[columbus]

The primaries are a joke. The conventions are a joke. Yet all anyone complains about is the Electoral College.

Here's one huge difference.
The political parties, with their processes and primaries and whatever, are entirely private concerns. They've managed to give voters the impression that they are official government agencies, but they are no more so than Wal-Mart. They don't have to do anything, and they're not accountable to anybody but their donors.

That's completely different from the EC.
You have no more to say about how a political party runs their affairs than you have say in McDonald's menu.
Tom

 

[Stevicus]

Here's one huge difference.
The political parties, with their processes and primaries and whatever, are entirely private concerns. They've managed to give voters the impression that they are official government agencies, but they are no more so than Wal-Mart. They don't have to do anything, and they're not accountable to anybody but their donors.

That's completely different from the EC.
You have no more to say about how a political party runs their affairs than you have say in McDonald's menu.
Tom

Not sure it's analogous to a corporation, but going with that analogy just the same, each member of these political parties is, in essence, a stockholder and also a customer.

They're also sensitive to public opinion. Talking about McDonald's, all it took for them to remove their "Super Size" from their menu was some guy producing a documentary called "Super Size Me."

I disagree with your argument on that point. These companies are most definitely influenced and can be persuaded to change in much the same way that government and political parties can change.

The political parties may not be official government agencies, but they're all a part of politics just the same.

 

[pearl]

It has come down to these two states actually presenting a litmus test for the candidates to meet. Years ago some state moved their primary ahead of NH and in turn NT moved there's up once again.
But if candidates cannot make it through the primaries they're never going to win the election. I think the primaries are important as they give the potential voters a chance to size them up. One major problem is the dependency on money which determines whether or not a candidate can even get her/his message out to the public. So they must rely on the generosity of TV networks offering interviews hoping there watched. The system is so open to corruption.
I think the conventions serve the party in determining the platform and of course there's the hype they hope will last to election. As for electoral votes they ought to at the very least be uniform throughout.

 

[Shiranui117]

The fact that the Democratic presidential nominee is overwhelmingly nominated by "superdelegates" shows that the Democrat Party cares far more about representing the views of the party brass and the establishment than they do about representing the views of the voter base.

 

[Twilight Hue]

The fact that the Democratic presidential nominee is overwhelmingly nominated by "superdelegates" shows that the Democrat Party cares far more about representing the views of the party brass and the establishment than they do about representing the views of the voter base.

The history is actually quite interesting as to how superdelegates came about and the reasons why.

One of the Inventors of Superdelegates Explains Why They Were Created: To Stop ‘Outlier Candidates’

It's worth knowing also in 1984 , the superdelegates were set at 14% by the Democratic National Committee as opposed to the original 30%. Makes you wonder why it happened and who influenced the change.

That's when things spiraled out of control in my opinion and Blue Dog Democrats pretty much became a thing of the past to be replaced by the far-left Socialist that we see today that have all but dominated and decimated the once respectable Democrat Party.

 

[Shad]

Americans have genuinely been deceived into thinking that their terrible system is "democracy" and despite all it's deficiencies they falsely think it's the best possible system, and some things are always going to be messed up. Instead of struggling in any way to make things better, most people retract from electoral politics entirely, while some weirdos become partisan apologists build an identity around their party in the name of promoting the "lesser evil".

Seems more like people are not being taught what a Representative Republic and Federation are.

 

[columbus]

Seems more like people are not being taught what a Representative Republic and Federation are.

I keep hearing that Trump was democratically elected.
Seems more like people are not being taught what democratic or elected mean.
Tom

 

[Shad]

I keep hearing that Trump was democratically elected.

Misuse of the term by those using it. As I said if people were taught what system the US uses they wouldn't be fooled.

Seems more like people are not being taught what democratic or elected mean.
Tom

Or as I said they think the US is a democracy at the federal level.

 

[Shad]

You are correct in that the average person does not have any idea what these labels mean.
However even those who do now what federalism and republicanism (in the proper sense) are, still don't realize the disconnect between these political concepts and the actual US institutions, the electoral process and how votes translate to political representation.

Examples?

 

[columbus]

Examples?

Examples of what?

You can go through RF and find lots of examples of people claiming that Trump won a free and fair election.
He came in second, but took office because our system is rigging in favor of the sorts of people who supported him.

Tom