How to choose our 2008 nominee

When it comes to candidates for 2008, I propose this test: Instead of having inane debates where the candidates get 5 to 9 minutes to answer dumb questions posed by right-leaning media talking heads, put all the candidates in front of audiences of various constituencies around the country, including Northern and Southern blue collar workers, Plains farmers, African-American city dwellers, non-fundamentalist evangelicals, military officers, college students, people in the financial industry, and whatever other group comes to mind.

Then have unrehearsed open mike question sessions--not after the talking heads have had their say, but as the entire program. Make sure each candidate gets the same number of questions.

See who appeals to which audiences, who gets the most applause, who gives the most satisfactory answers, who seems to have done his homework.

Not only will the voters get a nuanced view of the candidates, but the party brass will have a better idea of which candidates can handle the pressure and appeal to the widest range of voters.

The potential winner of such a process may not even be on the radar yet.

This actually isn't my idea. Helmut Schmidt suggested it years ago when he spoke at the college where I was teaching.

the most "personable" candidate will win the contest...

Who would appeal to all these different constituencies?

At this point, it's all the partisans of each candidate saying "My guy's the one," but we don't really KNOW.

we start January 1 running attack ads on Bush, Rudy, McCain, Arnie, Condi, Jeb and every other potential contender. We organize our own phony "Swift Vets" style smear groups...

Rather than having ad campaigns, which are expensive, just give everyone in Congress assertiveness training so that when they are interviewed on TV they show some spine.

It's called the primary election process and it's stretched over many months. Most candidates have some kind of unscripted event in each region of the country before the primary is over. The problem is that no one pays attention.

never see the candidates unscripted.

Instead we have those phony "debates" in which brainless media whores throw lame questions at the candidates and favor some candidates over others.

Put all the primary candidates in front of an audience of Southern blue collar workers. Set up an open mike. See who comes out alive. Broadcast the proceedings on live television.

Arizona was early enough to see them visit often too. All the regions get visited. We just don't see it anywhere in the corporate media. Getting it on TV is the problem.

Given the fad for reality TV, unscripted encounters between voters and candidates might have some audience appeal.

right now that kind of stuff only gets on C-Span. It would be interesting.

Homogeneous States In The Union?


Iowa and New Hamphire are not remotely close to represnting the demographic make up of America....

That's my guess as to why it was set up that way. That's also why many of the other early primary states used to be in the South.

The first primaries are Cali, New York, Illinois, and Florida.....


There's a nice cross section...

The one good thing about Iowa and New Hampshire is that a little known insurgent candidate can reach enough people to come out ahead. If we make the first primary states in large states with expensive media markets then only the candidates with the most money and corporate media coverage will have a chance.

I would pick something like Louisiana, New Mexico, and Iowa, but no one at the DNC is asking me what I think about this.

the first Dem to step up to the plate and say the word "fraud" gets my vote!

The people who don't pay attention, the people to whom accusations of fraud would sound paranoid, since they don't know the background? They're the majority of voters.

By the time the primaries get to my state, it's already decided. :-(

I think the primary process prevents us from getting the best nominee because many well-informed people come from states that have late primaries. Your idea makes a lot of sense - I think it's terrific! Unfortunately, we would still be stuck with the problem we have now, which is that most people don't even think about who's running for President until convention time.

If we could come up with some way to get people interested early and then have debates using your format, I think we would have one of the best Dem candidates ever!

But ... above all else ... I want someone with a backbone, which I why I originally responded the way I did. I've had it with Dems who keep trying to "play nice" while we're getting our asses kicked by liars and cheaters. They always "apologize" for our beliefs and convictions, instead of being proud of them. I was a Dean supporter - not because I agreed with everything he said, but because he had the guts to stand up to the status quo, even when everyone thought he was crazy to do so.

The more unscripted, the better. The problem is getting RNC and DNC to go for it.

were handled last time.

Of course, the way the DNC has been run the past few years...

I like the emphasis on a range of voters' questions and reactions, and the candidates having a longer time to answer deeper questions than happens in the so-called debates. As televised "survivor" events, these could get an audience.

However, the problem is when we have nine or ten candidates, in which case such an event would be endless and/or limited for each of them. It was wonderful to have the diverse voices we had in the primaries this time; I couldn't have chosen any one to exclude (well, except Lieberman). But maybe that could be balanced with some winnowing process where we would have, by the end, fewer people, so we could present a deeper process as you suggest and a more clearly-defined choice for voters.

I don't know exactly. It goes to that "more democracy" question -- do more candidates equal "more democracy?"

putting democrats in front of people to discuss issues is a great idea ... we need to connect with people and "grow" the party ...

but the goal of this process should not be a selection process for our next nominee ... the goal should be to build a better understanding of what people expect from the party, get them involved in helping the party and getting them to help get others involved ...

viewing the next four years solely as "candidate training school" should not be our primary focus ... developing the broad, central themes on which all of our candidates can run and developing the policies that are in harmony with those themes is far more important ...

Who would win over the various crowds with his personality?

It wouldn't be so much training as a dry run for the election.

You wouldn't want to nominate someone who fell flat with key base constituencies or with constituencies that the Dems hoped to peel off from the Republicans.

again, i like the idea you've proposed but i think it's critical for the party to develop a broad set of themes and then derive specific policies that tie back to those themes ...

every candidate needs to stay on message ... there's plenty of room for individual differences but the party as a whole needs a unified message .. i see no reason that the forums you're proposing couldn't make a major contribution to this process ... i guess i see the process you're defining as one of many means to an end rather than the end in itself ...

the process you're defining, as i understand it, would have as its goal the selection of a candidate ... the process i'd prefer would set as its initial goals the identification of broad party themes from which detailed policies, and eventually a candidate, would emerge ...

over our message. The Republicans would never vet a candidate who deviated too far from their party line, and the Democrats shouldn't either.

The basics should be something like what the liberation theologians would call "a preferential option for the poor," although I would expand that to include "a preferential option for the non-wealthy, non-powerful" in every possible situation.