26th August 2018, 8:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 27th August 2018, 11:05 AM by A Black Falcon.)
Yeah, the DNC made two important changes.
First, superdelegates won't get a vote in the first round, only the second or beyond if nobody has a majority going into the convention. We'll see how this works, but I've never been opposed to the concept of superdelegates. Of course in the old days party leaders were the ONLY ones with a vote on who their party selected, which often lead to safer choices that the electorate may not be as excited about, but I don't think that getting rid of superdelegate votes will make anywhere near as much of a difference as Bernie fans seem to think; the superdelegates were not what decided 2016 for Hillary for example, that was decided by the primaries. And it leaves the party more vulnerable to something like Trump, someone who never would have been selected in the old party-leaders-choose-canddiates system. So yeah, I have mixed feelings here; democracy is a good thing and more democracy is usually good, but having some role for people more knowledgeable about the subject -- not ALL of the role, importantly, but some of the role -- historically has worked. The new system will probably work fine and not change things all that much. I'd rather have kept the superdelegates though.
The bigger deal, in my opinion, is the other change: the party is trying to discourage states from using caucuses, so there are new rules setting standards for caucuses that try to push states to use primaries instead. This is a great idea, because while caucuses have some benefits, they are a terrible way to select presidential candidates! Maine is a caucus state so I know caucuses, and as I know I've said before, for contested presidential races they are awful. First though I'll mention caucuses' advantages. The main one probably is that at a caucus you see other people in the party in your community, have a chance to hear from and talk to candidates or people speaking from them, sign candidate nominating petitions, collect paperwork and signs and stuff for candidates, and such. In non-presidential years, like 2018, it makes for a fun event and you get something out of it that you don't get from just voting in a primary. Going to the caucus also makes getting a slot for the state convention easy, which is nice.
However, the drawbacks are very significant. First, getting to a caucus can be challenging. Each town has only one caucus site, so a place like this with multiple polling places has to have everyone go to one place. When you have a contested race like the Hillary v. Bernie race of 2016, the result was a horrible massive line that took hours, literally, to get through. And worse there's no recourse to this, because you have to go to the caucus for your vote to count. If you can't make it, too bad, you can't vote. Caucuses here are always on a Sunday too, which can be good or bad depending; sure many people aren't working that day, but public transportation may be less available. So, while I first voted in a November election in 2000, I didn't participate in a caucus until 2010, because before that I could not get to the caucus sites on the days in question. I voted in many of the summer primary elections, but your presidential preference "vote" there means nothing, only your vote at that possibly hard-to-get-to caucus.
As a result of all this, caucuses are undemocratic, as they encourage only hardcore party loyalists or committed activists to show up and vote at all, so you will get a less representative vote than you would from a primary. They can be fun to be at in off year elections, but they are awful for contested primaries for access and line-length reasons. So yeah, I'm glad that the Dems are going to try to push more states to use primaries instead of caucuses, an I hope the move works.
And yes, I know that Hillary won most of the primaries, while Bernie won most of the caucuses, because of the aforementioned reasons mostly. I hope that I would be saying all of these same exact things if that was the other way around, because caucuses have always been bad, it's not a new issue.
First, superdelegates won't get a vote in the first round, only the second or beyond if nobody has a majority going into the convention. We'll see how this works, but I've never been opposed to the concept of superdelegates. Of course in the old days party leaders were the ONLY ones with a vote on who their party selected, which often lead to safer choices that the electorate may not be as excited about, but I don't think that getting rid of superdelegate votes will make anywhere near as much of a difference as Bernie fans seem to think; the superdelegates were not what decided 2016 for Hillary for example, that was decided by the primaries. And it leaves the party more vulnerable to something like Trump, someone who never would have been selected in the old party-leaders-choose-canddiates system. So yeah, I have mixed feelings here; democracy is a good thing and more democracy is usually good, but having some role for people more knowledgeable about the subject -- not ALL of the role, importantly, but some of the role -- historically has worked. The new system will probably work fine and not change things all that much. I'd rather have kept the superdelegates though.
The bigger deal, in my opinion, is the other change: the party is trying to discourage states from using caucuses, so there are new rules setting standards for caucuses that try to push states to use primaries instead. This is a great idea, because while caucuses have some benefits, they are a terrible way to select presidential candidates! Maine is a caucus state so I know caucuses, and as I know I've said before, for contested presidential races they are awful. First though I'll mention caucuses' advantages. The main one probably is that at a caucus you see other people in the party in your community, have a chance to hear from and talk to candidates or people speaking from them, sign candidate nominating petitions, collect paperwork and signs and stuff for candidates, and such. In non-presidential years, like 2018, it makes for a fun event and you get something out of it that you don't get from just voting in a primary. Going to the caucus also makes getting a slot for the state convention easy, which is nice.
However, the drawbacks are very significant. First, getting to a caucus can be challenging. Each town has only one caucus site, so a place like this with multiple polling places has to have everyone go to one place. When you have a contested race like the Hillary v. Bernie race of 2016, the result was a horrible massive line that took hours, literally, to get through. And worse there's no recourse to this, because you have to go to the caucus for your vote to count. If you can't make it, too bad, you can't vote. Caucuses here are always on a Sunday too, which can be good or bad depending; sure many people aren't working that day, but public transportation may be less available. So, while I first voted in a November election in 2000, I didn't participate in a caucus until 2010, because before that I could not get to the caucus sites on the days in question. I voted in many of the summer primary elections, but your presidential preference "vote" there means nothing, only your vote at that possibly hard-to-get-to caucus.
As a result of all this, caucuses are undemocratic, as they encourage only hardcore party loyalists or committed activists to show up and vote at all, so you will get a less representative vote than you would from a primary. They can be fun to be at in off year elections, but they are awful for contested primaries for access and line-length reasons. So yeah, I'm glad that the Dems are going to try to push more states to use primaries instead of caucuses, an I hope the move works.
And yes, I know that Hillary won most of the primaries, while Bernie won most of the caucuses, because of the aforementioned reasons mostly. I hope that I would be saying all of these same exact things if that was the other way around, because caucuses have always been bad, it's not a new issue.