USA Presidential Politics - 2008

[roni]

Originally Posted by ryberg

Well it's like jtm said: if there's any lesson we should definitely have learned over the past couple of elections, it's that we shouldn't sit by complacently and wait for November, assuming everything will be all right.

Steve

What interventions would you like to see before the convention?

On what basis?

Do you believe there should be a meeting of the DNC before the convention in an attempt to install rule changes before then?

What is it you want?

Ron

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by roni

Well horizon, you have changed your tune, it seems, from a couple pages ago where you were outraged that the rules might be changed in the case of MI and FL - even absent any evidence that the rules would be changed.

Now, in your most recent post you sound as though you want the rules to be changed this close to the convention.

Absolutely not...I think it's ridiculous to even consider. I'm responding to what you posted that the Convention has the right to over rule the DNC. I still don't see why they would in this case. If they do, I think it will divide the party. But, the Clinton Machine doesn't really care about that if it gets them into the Whitehouse!

[horizon200]

Originally Posted by roni

What interventions would you like to see before the convention?

On what basis?

Do you believe there should be a meeting of the DNC before the convention in an attempt to install rule changes before then?

What is it you want?

Ron

Ummm abide by their own policies maybe?

[roni]

Originally Posted by horizon200

Absolutely not...I think it's ridiculous to even consider. I'm responding to what you posted that the Convention has the right to over rule the DNC. I still don't see why they would in this case. If they do, I think it will divide the party. But, the Clinton Machine doesn't really care about that if it gets them into the Whitehouse!

It seems to be the Obama campaign that wants changes. It was the Obama campaign that pushed the superdelegate story early on. I see the Clinton campaign playing by the rules and the Obama campaign trying to circumvent the rules by trying to apply unwarranted and unseemly pressure on delegates to the convention to do its (the Obama campaign's) bidding.

I think the Obama campaign's plan is to take the Democratic party to the brink of the cliff and then decide whether to push it off or not. Whether he pushes will depend directly, I believe, on how much he buys into the Obama cult of personality narrrative his campaign has been weaving.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by roni

It seems to be the Obama campaign that wants changes. It was the Obama campaign that pushed the superdelegate story early on. I see the Clinton campaign playing by the rules and the Obama campaign trying to circumvent the rules by trying to apply unwarranted and unseemly pressure on delegates to the convention to do its (the Obama campaign's) bidding.

I think the Obama campaign's plan is to take the Democratic party to the brink of the cliff and then decide whether to push it off or not. Whether he pushes will depend directly, I believe, on how much he buys into the Obama cult of personality narrrative his campaign has been weaving.

Why do you believe Obama is tryinng to apply some pressure to delegates that is more "unseemly and unwarranted" than the pressure that Clinton applies? What would make you believe this and what would be more "unwarranted or "unseemly" pressure that Obama has used that Clinton would/has not?

"cult of personality narrative?"

[roni]

How McCain campaign would use President Bush:

For McCain, a Choice on a Role for Bush

[roni]

The cult of personality question is easy to answer.

The campaign's main and most important narrative, I think, is this:

Follow me and I will lead you out of Egypt, through the desert to the land of post-partisan bliss (the land of milk and honey).

Some (Joel Klein, for example- "There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — 'We are the ones we've been waiting for' — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign.") have written about it as a movement with messianic tendencies - and I did for awhile, but now I think the Moses story is a better analogy.

[Jacko]

Originally Posted by roni

The cult of personality question is easy to answer.

The campaign's main and most important narrative, I think, is this:

Follow me and I will lead you out of Egypt, through the desert to the land of post-partisan bliss (the land of milk and honey).

Some (Joel Klein, for example- "There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism — 'We are the ones we've been waiting for' — of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign.") have written about it as a movement with messianic tendencies - and I did for awhile, but now I think the Moses story is a better analogy.

And how would you say Clinton's message differs given the sour milk we have drunk the past 8 years? Do you really think that Obama has done anything to portray the challenges ahead as anything less than extremely difficult? If so, how so? Or rather, is what you perceive merely a media hype of the core idea of focusing more on consensus building vs. constant fighting that accomplishes nothing?

[ryberg]

Well I'm a little surprised not to hear more... well either sadness that Clinton has gone negative on health care (wasn't the quote "too important an issue to people's lives to play politics with" or words to that effect?), or defense of that flier as somehow more legitimate than Obama's.

In fact I'm struck by how hers is the one that's misleading, as his asks a legitimate (if inconvenient for her) question she has failed to answer (How will her plan account for people who don't pay as it mandates? Garnish their wages?), whereas in hers, the main question there not only knowingly asks, but also personally frames, a question that is invalid (since his plan does not mandate universal care and thus nobody determines who is not covered except the people who don't participate).

This must have been meant to mislead people and paint Obama as heartless and cruel on purpose, too, as there are no accidents in these cases where political pros are concerned.

Steve

[ryberg]

In answer to that question, Roni, I want transparency, logic, democracy & fair play, with the voters of the public choosing the nominee as much and as directly as possible, and want to oppose vestiges of back-room deals, insider manipulation, the old boy network, and, if you want to call it that, cheating.

I think where David Brooks & I have it right over you & Mark Shields is that there is no hypocrisy in the above view because these 2 cases are not equivalent "change the rules" sort of cases, as many people are thinking.

On the one hand, FL & MI were punished clearly and publicly for their own behavior for breaking the explicit and recognized rules of the party in the first place. What the Clinton camp wants is to have that punishment nullified and evidently no punishment at all applied (which makes one wonder why they didn't argue for that in the first place, before the residents of those states went to the polls and the results looked good for her), and their results, ones that she herself agreed would not count as official, to now be considered as official after the fact. This is something that would be lauged out in about any analogous context you can think of. Take contract law, just for example, if you find the sports world analogy too insignificant.

(And none of this addresses the question of why these states, if they're really so concerned about their residents' voices behind heard in the process, refused to return their primaries to their original dates, as the DNC said they should, and refuse now to hold some type of do-over attempt, as the DNC has said they can. They strangely want to avoid the latter option, though it's open to them, even though they're so insistent that these people be given a voice... )

On the other hand, by stark contrast, Obama has done nothing wrong and is in no way responsible for the existence and power of the superdelegates in the Democratic system, but he is nevertheless being punished for it, as it favors his opponent. The close race having unveiled this surprising, and surprisingly undemocratic, aspect of the system, Obama's camp has understandably called it to light, which obviously Clinton wasn't going to do for the simple fact that it favors her.

So rather than asking for a reversal of a clearly understood and reasoned punishment and post hoc officialization of something everyone already agreed would not count (and all despite the chance to replace it with something everyone agrees would count now and resolve the issue fairly), Obama's side asks if we want to retain in our system a fundamentally undemocratic aspect that favors one candidate over others and may well also overrule the choice of the people as determined by the whole massive primary campaign system.

Steve

[roni]

So, you are suggesting that super-dels be allowed to do fractional voting, perhaps, in to perfectly reflect the votes of people who voted in Democratic primaries in their home state - which would totally negate the rationale and reason for being of these delegates in the first place.

Then you have the caucus states, which are a whole nother non-election ball of wax.

[ryberg]

Michael Goodwin (oddly the name of a quirky friend of mine from junior high) is seeing the issue you mention and the paradigm shift, I think:

Yet the chorus of criticisms misses the huge potential benefits of Obama's appeal and indeed why he has become such a phenomenon in the first place.

In amassing a large coalition of young and old, black and white Democrats, independents and some Republicans, Obama offers the possibility that America can finally get beyond its partisan stalemates. If that happened, a united nation would be better equipped to move forward on everything from the economy to the scourge of Islamic terror.

I say that because our polarization has become so acute that it is our most pressing problem. Solving it could open the door to other solutions. As it is, we are unable to muster a consensus on the time of day. [source]

Steve

[ryberg]

Originally Posted by roni

So, you are suggesting that super-dels be allowed to do fractional voting, perhaps, in to perfectly reflect the votes of people who voted in Democratic primaries in their home state - which would totally negate the rationale and reason for being of these delegates in the first place.

Then you have the caucus states, which are a whole nother non-election ball of wax.

I don't think so...

Well I do think (and I've said this before) that now that I know more about them and have been to one, I would definitely reject caucuses in favor of primaries. I mean, the caucus format is more entertaining and social, and that is worth something, but I don't see it as being as democratic as a regular voting primary.

But on the former point, no, I just don't want superdelegates at all. Wouldn't that be easier? I mean, with the Electoral College, as I said if it's too hard politically to get rid of the system entirely and just let the people's votes decide the thing, well then I'm a reasonable man and I'm not opposed to a proportional system, dividing a particular state's Electoral College votes proportionately to reflect the popular vote in that state, even if that means in the math that you can't always do it exactly. But I would not suggest in that context or in this one any kind of fractional voting, because in that one, it would be overly complicated and gain little, and in this one, the much more obvious solution is just to get rid of superdelegates (or explicitly prevent them from overturning the people's choice via pledged delegates, though that would amount to the same thing s just eliminating them, since the power to overturn the people's choice is their whole raison d'être).

Steve

[roni]

To get rid of the delegates you do not like, I suggest you become a party activist and work on / support changing the party rules about delegates. That is your avenue for changing the part of the system that you see as unfair to your favored candidate.

[melliedee]

What was the rationale for installing super delegates in the first place?