Eliminating Primaries? Party Bosses Choosing Candidates? Hmm...

There are those who want to claim we're the party of the "Big Tent", in terms of political spectrum "Left/Center/Right". Yet, from the "Big Tent" promulgators, the Left is the primary cause of the most egregious internecine fights and conflicts within the party.

It has been stated that it is largely due to a dangerous, destructive and irresponsible failing (among the Left) to recognize when it comes to choosing who our elected leaders should be, we (leftists) should accept that "Father Knows Best", and for these reasons (and others not mentioned here) Election Primaries really ought to be dispensed with. After all, party leaders possess the necessary professional skills, wisdom and judgment required to win elections, so why not let them do the choosing?

I strongly disagree with this point of view, while others in the party seem to think that this ought to become the new paradigm, and seem to take some comfort of what I consider as an autocratic party structure, i.e. Party Bosses handling these pesky matters of selecting the "best" candidates for open seats, side lining a process of open debate and competition and let the people to decide.

I'm not going to enumerate the reasons (which i think are obvious) for why I strongly disagree with this thinking, rather I want to raise the question regarding what happens to those who may not yet be completely disenchanted at this juncture, but may see THIS as the "last straw"?

It's been suggested in another thread, that if the Left doesn't like it, they should go and form their own party. That isn't a new idea, and i think most of us can at least intuit that scores of people have likely defected following the recent Alito Filibuster Failure and many before then, and let's not overlook the Patriot Act that is being re-authorized including the most egregious provisions with additional harm to be made permanent (see Feingold)

But here's the thing (regardless of how the mid term elections turn out) by the time the 2008 presidential election season rolls around, knowing that the rank and file will have absolutely no say in the process, I predict a major shift of Civil Libertarian Leftists and others will be looking for something much different to throw their support behind than what's been served up on the table these past several years, and will likely be looking elsewhere for the representation they've been so thirsty in seeking.

I also predict that a strong Progressive Populist type of Candidate will appear on the scene, perhaps running as an Independent (who knows right now?) and will likely be a serious challenge to the existing list of front loaders put forward during the past year.

That's likely to take a significant chunk of the vote, much more than the past several elections - and because we are in an Electoral College system, that factor will impact the outcome of both parties, much more significantly than in past elections.

I think it's time for this party to seriously understand that it is time to abolish the Electoral College system so that the Spoiler problem is removed from the 2008 election.

There already exists Third Parties. More may even be created, who knows? But there will also be other "Independents" emerging (rightly or wrongly) based on all the reasons that have been argued and discussed and debated and so on.

I have no idea how the elimination of the Primaries will impact the rank and file in the coming year - but i can say that it will not go well with a lot of people. In other words, for those who the "final straw" hasn't already occurred, this may just be it for them.

But certainly know this, party leaders who think that most within the rank and file will not be bothered too much with an autocratic decision making process, will be in for a huge surprise.

With every passing revolting action the party issues or engages in, the more fuel is fed toward a party Revolt. There are a lot more people who are anarchistic in nature (than most people recognize or understand) and they will not take kindly to the "shut up and fall in line" edict, and will most assuredly reject the very idea of being told that it's "irresponsible and reckless" to do otherwise.

One can disagree with this point of view or not. One can ridicule and engage in hyperbolic vitriol and character assassinations all one wants, but at the end of the day, the party bosses cannot force the people to "vote" against their own will or their own perceived self interests.

The only reasonable solution to this quagmire, is to abolish the Electoral College system, which requires a constitutional amendment.

Last year Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation on the floor to do just that (just following the 2004 elections). I don't believe it was voted on, (don't remember right now) but I do know that several years ago, such a Constitutional Amendment came very close to passing, and I suspect it can be done the next go around. The Bill is already written, just needs to be re-introduced and voted on.

I strongly suggest, for the sake of future presidential elections successes, that this electoral college system be abolished, in order to avoid similar results of past presidential election, with the so called "Spoiler Vote".

The party doesn't welcome or want Leftists, so the Leftists will naturally go elsewhere, go where they are welcomed or stay home. But many Leftists are also activists, and will throw their energy, time and money in the outreach work to promote their favorite candidate, and will argue a good case why people should reject the status quo. It seems that this maybe getting easier and easier to accomplish, even if it has not reached the necessary level to win presidential elections, this "other movement" is growing, none the less.

By abolishing the Electoral College System now, will help to eliminate the Spoiler Vote problem, and so ends this circle jerk firing squad between the "leftists" who are so despised and vilified by the Right Wing in this party, and vise versa.

it is. At least as far as the evolution of our electoral system suggests.

what do you see as regressive?

to chose candidates directly.

...but I fail to see why you think getting rid of the Electoral College would remove the spoiler problem. Even without the Electoral College, a progressive third-party candidate would still split the progressive vote.

Hi Skinner,

Lot of hearts you got there!

Gosh, In the last several elections there were Third Party choices which many claim greatly impacted the election results, i.e. Nader is referred to as the "spoiler vote" and many believe the canard that both Al Gore and John Kerry lost because of Nader. The facts show otherwise, but you know as well as I do, that people refuse to believe otherwise despite the evidence.

Well I see this issue growing, not lessening, where as it is possible that the Third Party will actually have an impact the election results. If we abolish the Electoral College system, implementing one person one vote, you collect the popular votes from the so called red states, which are really purple, and by implementing a decent Choice Voting method progressvies can rank their choice, so votes are neither wasted nor does it spoil the outcome of the most popular candidate.

Simply abolishing the Electoral College still doesn't get rid of the spoiler issue; it just moves it up a level to a nationwide election rather than a statewide election. The dynamic would sill be the same. Imagine:

Republican presidential candidate gets 47%
Democratic presidential candidate gets 46%
Third-party progressive candidate gets 7%

Total progressive vote = 53% (ie: the election's been spoiled)

By the way, I'm not sure what "facts" and "evidence" you are referring to when you say that Nader did not spoil 2000. Despite what many DUers want to believe, the facts are very clear: If Nader hadn't been on the ballot in Florida in 2000, the election would not have been close enough for the GOP to steal:

FLORIDA 2000
Bush: 2,912,790
Gore: 2,912,253
Nader: 97,488

Total progressive vote: 3,009,741

Source: http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm

Of course, we don't know for certain where those 97,488 Nader votes would have gone if Nader weren't in the race. But I think it's a safe bet that Gore would have gotten significantly more than Bush would have. If Gore got just 1% of the Nader vote, he would have won Florida.

Of course, Nader does not deserve all the blame for Gore's loss. If Gore had run a better campaign, he should have been able to beat Bush even with Nader in the race. But that doesn't change the very clear fact that Nader's presence did tip the outcome of the election to Bush.

a better system, which i advocate is Proportional Representation, and IRV .

(or something superior to IRV, which is being advocated by some now)

2000 and 2004 "other party" votes were at historic lows, So low in fact that they were a non issue. Voter apathy is a real issue. BC didn't let a few percentage points bother him in 96.

than in the past... plus there was massive election fraud, rigging and voter suppression, so we really don't have the accurate numbers ..

has little to do with proportional representation, which is what we need to allow third parties to have an effect. Mind you all advanced democracies, and some not so advanced democracies, save the US have implemented Proportional Representation. Here it will take a revolution since BOTH parties like it the way it is.

Now I agree the Electoral College should move to do only one role, CERTIFY the election... but not have any other role. After all electors CAN vote for either candidate on the ballot, not just their party candidate.

so the abolishing the EC in order implement Proportional Representation seems to be the way to move in order to effect IRV or other choice preference voting method. (?)

And after months of screaming about how much you wanted to purge everybody else from the Democratic party, here Deport 'em all Paul Hackett quit to make way for him.

"Election Primaries really ought to be dispensed with."
Says who?

"There already exists Third Parties"
And the voters regard them like cat vomit on a carpet...and with good reason.

assuming this rant came about because of Hackett. There are a number of stories going around, who to believe is the question.

As far as changing election rules and third parties and such. There are rants every week on the subject and nothing, NOTHING, will be done to change the way it operates unless the dems are in power.

So, let's get this right. A congressional district has a total of $10 million that it will be able to scrape up for the dems, but 4 dems want to run. A repub in the same district has $10 and he has 3 other who want to run. The repub party bosses say look, we want xyz to run and the other 3 back down. Meanwhile, the 4 dems are battling it out, and when the dust clears, there is a wounded dem declared the dem candidate, but now he only has $6 million to campaign with. And you wonder why we lose...........

Right now, if the local districts don't get their acts together and pick only one person to run, we are always going to be on the losing end of the race. We can't change ANYTHING if we don't WIN.

So, stop the crap about third parties and dnc or dlc or whatever boogie man is the flavor of the week and pick a candidate, get behind him and get the win. Nothing else matters. Principles about this side issue or that side issue is a moot point when this country is falling apart. Get it glued back together first and then start adding the finer points.

BTW, this rant is not aimed solely toward this poster, but to all the posters who see themselves within this rant..........and you know who you are.

zalinda

to those who are busy activists, but are not necessarily engaged on line or on discussion boards, like DU. :hi:

The problem isn't just with the electoral college, it's that the two party system tends to drift every candidate toward the center to capture the broadest grouping of people.

Instant run-off would let me vote FOR someone rather than just against someone.

I'll need to do a bit of digging around for the information on this, a couple of months or so ago, i posted something on this abolishing the electoral college system - thinking that IRV was the way to go, but some folks who have really researched alternative choice methods have said that IRV is also subject to corruption and rigging - and that there are other more credible, transparant and accountable choice voting methods and systems.

actually this information might be in the elections reform forum, come to think of it.. you might want to go explore there in case i forget... ;)

abolition of the electoral college? I'll admit that my understanding of this complete process isn't clear just now, but I seem to remember having discussions about this with members of my local party and concerned others a while back.

While I may not like the electoral college process of the winner take all I am very leary about tinkering around with the Constitution without a truly clear understanding of any unintended consequences from doing so.

So please refresh my memory and educate me. I think that our discussion group decided that on a state by state basis instant run-off elections might be possible, but then again, if all states had different ways of determining electors and representation then in the event of any dispute we'd be looking at '00 all over again.

I'm no expert on the subject, so i hesitate to provide anything other than links to articles relied on in the past. While involved in the re-writing of bylaws we attempted to democratize a national media organization - which included the implementation of local and national board elections and procedures, vis a vis it's widely diverse membership, politically, economically, ethnically and so on.

We adopted Proportional Representation, with IRV as ranking choice method. We've conducted several elections, but I do not believe that IRV will work well for Presidential Elections, because that's only ONE office (as opposed to Two or more) I think IRV works well for City Councils and other Boards, but a single office is different so I think it will require a different ranking choice method.

Here's a couple of links arguing why we need to abolish the electoral college system:

Staten Island Democratic Association
Position Paper on the Electoral College
Adopted April 17, 2001

http://www.sidems.org/electoral.htm


http://www.pww.org/past-weeks-2000/Abolish%20Electoral%20College.htm

http://healthandenergy.com/electoral_college.htm

There is also an election reform forum on DU and that might be one place to learn more... in fact i have put out a call for the link on this other choice preference method, which I've lost at this time.

but here is the forum link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

Ain't going nowhere, regardless of anything.


Now that's the truth!

:rofl: true, but look how long the repugs took to make their revolution happen, they didn't say it's gonna happen over night.

But here's another Truth: they would NEVER have been able to pull it if off had we abolished the electoral college system a long time ago.

and that's the truth! :hi:

and allows Isty teeny weeny li'l beady Red states importance undeserved! I hear you on that one!

Just don't think it will ever be abolished no matter what....cause in the end, those pesky Isty teeny weeny li'l beady Red states hold the deciding votes in their hot miniature populated hands!

the so called red states with minisucle populations (huge land/ranch owners)have really abused this system - it was in fact designed for land barrons. Abolishing the Electoral College system would so MUCH benefit the Democratic Party it's almost insane that we haven't tried to do this when we held majorities in both Houses and the White House, we should have abolished it at those times.

I think that the Dems have seen how much damage the EC has done to our national politics, and how much it has hurt the party, dollars to donuts if the Dems get control of both the House and the Senate, Feinstein or someone else will re-introduce that bill - because it doesn't make sense that the most populated centers in the country have to be subjected to the tyranny of racists,sexists red necks and bible thumpers. What is it that Biden always says about this administrations war plans in Iraq?

Something like, "if you want different results,you can't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again"... something like that?

In a system of representation based on geographic single-seat districts, Duverger's Law states that only two parties will be viable. There are exceptions to the rule, but the overwhelming trend is that there will only be two parties.

We also utilize first-past-the-post voting. The winner is somebody who can gain a plurality of the votes, not a true majority. In 1992, 1996, and 2000, no one won a majority of the vote. Other nations have systems in place to determine candidates who appeal to the majority of the population. This way, a president who wins also has the support of the majority of the people, not a minority.

Abolishing the Electoral College is one thing, but you fail to acknowledge the central limitation on third parties ever entering government. If you want to open the door to a multi-party (more than two) representative democracy, you're going to have to institute IRV (Instant Run-off Voting) for all federal races as well as institute proportional representation in the House. The Senate can be left as is except, of course, IRV.

Proportional representation circumvents Duverger's Law, and IRV cuts down on the tremendous costs of having run-off races. If one combines those two, then one is liberated to vote one's conscience, and one is spared the headaches of last minute heavy campaigning by politicians in the second round by grace of IRV.

I would argue that combining these two elements would lead to less in-fighting on the left and more coalition building. You have several ideological groups under the Democratic banner, and they would not be under one banner if it weren't for our winner-take-all system. In proportional representation many of these groups would be their own political parties, and they would be free to negotiate and build coalitions on their own terms, not the terms the current system forces them to go under, which simply leads to more acrimony.

I also recommend 100% voter-verified paper trails; random, unannounced audits of voting equipment/results; a national holiday for national election days; and only open-source code if electronic voting devices are used. Furthermore, I recommend a publicly subsidized election system. Candidates who collect a set number of individual contributions to get on the ballot, choose to follow spending limits, and choose to forgo all private donations in the election should be 100% subsidized in the race, and they should be allowed to advertise their campaigns as "clean."

"In a system of representation based on geographic single-seat districts, Duverger's Law states that only two parties will be viable. There are exceptions to the rule, but the overwhelming trend is that there will only be two parties."

I am not familiar with Duverger's Law, but I think it is obvious that our system makes it inevitable that there will only be two major parties. The belief that third parties can be viable in the US under our current system is just a pipe dream.

you selected that statement, but ignored the rest of his argument which essentially supports the idea that I posited, which is the necessity to abolish the electoral college in order to have a more representative democracy, the lack of which goes to the very core of the divisions we experience daily in our own party, which is to be expected in a nation of nearly 300 million of very diverse population (and growing).

As i stated in a previous post, i'm no expert, not as thoroughly studied/informed as many others who have made it their life's work on these alternative election methods that take into account the plurality of our nation, and the woefully inadequate system of representative democracy, which requires a constitutional change to recognize and adjust to.

What I do know, is that from it's very inception, our constitution was written and designed to prohibit full representation to all of it's citizens. Abolishing the electoral college was always the obvious beginning point necessary to begin eliminating the built in discriminatory elections practices (which still exist) and after having been involved in writing new bylaws (which is 43 pages longer than our nation's Constitution)to implement democratization of the national network governance structure, Proportional Representation with IRV was decidedly the model we adopted preceding many many workshops, townhall meetings and until the ultimate ratification and passage. It's seems common sensical to me, that this needs to be done.

recently i have been informed that IRV has it's problems, and that a different system based on similar principles (but less conducive to corruptability - which was identified, but I can't remember which system that is right now) is superior to IRV..

But I agree that Proportional Representation with IRV (or something superior) is an imperative WHEN we finally abolish the electoral college system .

I also whole heartily agree with the other matters that is imperative to honest, clean elections. If we can't verify our votes, we can't trust our elections results. And certainly we are in a period of two full terms of stolen elections I'm absolutely certain of, after having followed closely the mountains of descripencies, irregularities, voting suppression etc.

It is disheartening to say the least that our democratic leadership have done absolutely nothing to investigate and carry to prosecutions Diebold, ESS, Sequoia et al, despite the GAO Audit reports.

Instead we have utter silence on this, and that does not bode well for the next two election cycles.

Again, i agree with your excellent summary of what is required.

The current system gives the Media too much time to spin their candidate to victory.

We need to vote on the same day.

Forget Iowa and New Hampshire.



Bullsht (coughing)

I mean Boss Tweed was a crook and distorted and corrupted the democratic process, no argument there.

But Boss Tweed won, nobody gave the Boss man grief, he was a power broker.

Our bosses...well, geez, what can I say.

:rofl:

Why am I not surprised?

been talking to a "republican" who grew up in a Republican household... and we have seen the trend in BOTH parties... historically when this happens, we see third parties emerge. Historically when any party fucks up in a major way we have one replace the ossified remains of the other one... but alas, those who refuse to learn from history... are going to repeat it. In this case both parties think that they are immune to repeating mistakes. The GOP... well it has gone so far right that many of its base are wavering.. but then they turn to the Dems and go.. hmmm I don't know. The Dems, well they are refusing to learn that going BACK to the system that existed BEFORE 1968 (study a little history) will only lead a major proportion of the party base to go.. hmmm this is the perfect recipe for a third party.

This is history... in the making... you might even get it after the events unfold...

you fail to recognize that obvious fact.

all one has to do, is take a birds eye view and accounting of where the Democratic party strongholds are - the more densely populated, the more Democratic in terms of party affiliation. rural areas, or the fewer in population, the more conservative. when you abolish the electoral college, the president is elected by the more popular vote, not by a panel of politically appointed electoral officers - casting their vote for their preference.

Do you not want YOUR VOTE for YOUR CANDIDATE to be COUNTED or NOT? In case it has escaped you, WE DO NOT GET TO VOTE FOR OUR OWN PRESIDENT.

we mark our choice on the ballot, but our votes for the president isn't what is counted.

Abolishing the Electoral College STRENGTHENS THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, it doesn't undermine it.

is enshrined in our Constitution, it would take a Constitutional Amendment to alter it. It is no big surprise that a Senator from California would offer such an amendment. However, I doubt that someone like Senator Reid from Nevada or Lahey from Vermont would support such a change and would probably be voted out of office if they did.

it has occurred to me that there has been a movement sort off the radar screen for sometime to get this done - the difference between the last time it was voted on in Congress (which came very close to passing) the political climate was very different - despite the Goldwater types, there was far less bitterness, and acrimony in the nation- (i think largely due to the fairness doctrine being intact - keeping the hate mongering & propagandinistas at bay).

I tend to think that people across the political spectrum are disenchanted with both parties and how the system works, that new parties will be emerging probably on both ends of the spectrum, and will likely to be much more of threat to the two party hegemony that is in place now. This started up with Perot and then the Greens, and then Nader as independent - i believe that those who refuse to recognize these factors are doomed to repeat the history over and over again, until they quit being denial.

On the other hand, understanding what has been devloping in our political landscape, one can determine what kind of actions which would move forward to a more healthier and democratic system of representation, which would serve to STRENGTHEN the interests of the two major parties - most especially the Democratic Party - due of it's voter demographics, which is actually the MAJORITY of the entire nation's population.