24th May 2016, 12:45 AM
Dark Jaguar Wrote:So, you're saying independent voters aren't really being good citizens, because a good citizen is one that picks a party? Are you kidding me? I reject that entirely.You could solve all these problems by just joining a party. There's no reason not to! Being independent gets you nothing in this country.
As an aside, let me describe how the primaries went for me in Oklahoma. This state, as you may already know, picked Sanders. What you may not be aware of (it's public knowledge but rarely reported) is that Oklahoma law has set up primary votes so that individual parties can, depending on their whims, decide whether or not independent voters can vote for that party's primary. So, one term I can vote, and the next I can't, depending on whatever the higher ups in that party decide. In this case, Dems allowed independents to vote, and Republicans did not. It all felt very arbitrary. For my part, when I got in line, I soon found out that if I'm an independent voter, I have to state out loud for all and sundry to hear that "I am here to vote for the democratic candidate", which isn't a very good feeling when it's as likely as not you'll be surrounded by people who interpret that as meaning I'm some limp-wristed socialist.
However, on the issue of caucuses, yeah, they are awful. Caucuses need to go away and be replaced with primaries! Caucuses are unrepresentative, depress turnout, don't usually have an entirely secret ballot, and when a lot of people DO turn out the lines quickly get horrendously long, like the 4-hour wait I had to deal with earlier this year to vote in the Maine caucus. And fortunately the state party listened, and we'll be switching back to a primary system soon. That'll be good. I made a thread about it at the time, and I do like some things about caucuses (getting to meet people more directly, talk to candidates' representatives or local officials without needing to go to the convention, etc.), but the drawbacks are much worse than the benefits.
Quote:Let me just say this. It's a bit contradictory to say at once "they are individual parties and can run themselves as they see fit" and also "you need to accept that this is how our system works and if you don't pick a party you're not really a contributing member of the process".What contradiction? The parties are independent organizations, not directly a part of our government, but informally they are vital parts of it and control much of how our political system works. So if you don't choose a party you are choosing to have less of a say in how America is governed. In a super-Republican-dominated state like Oklahoma maybe this doesn't matter as much as it does in some places, but in the abstract it's important. I know some people make the choice to not join a party, or to join a third party, because they hate the parties or really believe in one of the minor parties, but that isn't going to make the system change; the two main parties are too powerful for that, and won't just give up their power. Saying "you are not a participant in the process" if you aren't in one of the two main parties goes a bit far, as outsiders do sometimes matter -- Maine has elected independent governors and US senators for example, Ralph Nader got just enough votes to help Bush "win" in 2000, etc -- but you do have less of a voice. And anyway, despite issues, all things considered the American system has mostly worked pretty well -- no other nation has been a representative democracy for as long as America has! There are increasing problems now, due to the hyper-partisan atmosphere today with parties much more clearly divided than they were in most of the 20th century, but I do think we'll survive them. But political parties will always be a part of any representative democracy, because through experience we have learned that you cannot organize people without one.
Quote:I'll end by saying that if you are claiming that the Republicans aren't at fault just because your campaign decided not to focus on them as lost causes, that's pretty weird, and not at all my point.The thing you can control best in an election is motivating your supporters. You win by motivating your supporters more than the other side can motivate theirs. If you lost in any competitive race, it's because the other side was more motivated. But you can't control what the other party is doing, only your own! So naturally the most important factor in any election is how well you got your side out to vote, and the main reasons you lost are that you failed to motivate your voters as much as the other side motivated theirs'. And since you can't control them, this means the problem was in your get-out-the-vote effort, messaging, advertising, what have you.
Of course this is simplifying a complex topic, but to talk about my own experiences volunteering for the Democrats again, once you've called someone and they clearly state a preference for the other candidate, you probably do not call that person again. They're lost to you.