For many years Americans paid little attention to the majority of primaries and caucuses that make up the modern presidential delegate selection process. We didn't have to. Nominees were almost always chosen after the initial contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, or relatively soon after. The party conventions, held toward the end of the summer, only served to formalize things and to give each candidate a bump in national polls. This time around, however, we have a real race, and -- now that there's a reason to look more closely at this -- we're realizing how complex and crazy this whole format is.After yesterday's contests in Washington state, Louisiana and Nebraska -- which all fall into the Obama column -- the candidates are neck and neck in the delegate count. The Associated Press tally, which the Boston Globe and other media outlets rely on -- has Hillary Clinton with 1,095 delegates and Barack Obama with 1,070 (with 2,095 needed to secure the nomination), but other counts have differing totals and the so-called "superdelegates" -- Democratic officeholders and party officials -- are a wild card. Though the AP interviewed them to as to their preference to add their votes to the total, whose to say that they don't change their mind before the convention? Couldn't they conceivably be swayed by the happenings over the next half-year? For example, one factor that I think Democrats must consider is that Obama tops McCain in the latest national polls, while the Arizona senator beats Clinton in that prospective match-up.
Part of the confusion surrounding this process is that different states have different rules for things like delegate apportionment (winner-take-all or not? split up by state total, by Congressional district or some combination?) and who can vote (only registered party members or unaligned voters as well?). There are other rules as well: In Louisiana on the Republican side, for example, a candidate needs 50% of the vote to win any of the delegates or those delegates are not committed to anyone (as happened last night).
Back on the Democratic side, there is a second wild card. The primaries in Michigan and Florida were moved up before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday vote, even after the Democratic National Committee told those two state parties not to make such a move. In response, the DNC stripped both of their delegates, meaning they would have no vote at the convention, and had candidates -- including Clinton and Obama -- agree not to campaign or advertise there. Clinton, ahead nationally and in those two states when the campaign in each was effectively stopped, won both. Now, her campaign is setting in motion attempts to undo the sanctions so that the delegates, 174 from Michigan and 210 from Florida, would count. "The seeds of a massive fight have been planted," one political science professor said.
Today: the Maine caucuses.
22 comments:
Election rules have always been the state's prerogative. However, I agree that the mishmash of rules in such a tight race reveals a level of unfairness that can only be addressed by national rules. Personally, I think all states should have open primaries, like we have here in MA. Moreover, felons who have served their time should be allowed to vote in every state.
It still leaves open the question of whether to get rid of caucuses in favor of primaries or vice versa. I've never lived in a state that does caucuses, so I don't know if that is a better or worse way of choosing a nominee than primaries.
While caucuses sound somewhat interesting, it's clear that because of the greater time commitment fewer people turn out. So, if we want as much participation as possible, then all states should have primaries instead.
I also agree that felons who have served their sentences should be allowed to vote. Further, I think the voting age should be lowered to 16, and I am completely against any kind of voter ID law.
Why are you not in favor of a voter ID law? Is that because you lean left politically and you know that illegals and those underage tend to vote that way? Hmmmm...
Hello Librals
Please go to your Merriam Dictionary in your computer dictionary ,and look up the word Illegal.
It states as in Illegal Alien.
Anyone who would support a candidate that want's to give these illegals from any country,drivers licenses ,as well as give them free tuition at state education facilities,should try going to another country illegal,then break another law,and ask for free health care,and a drivers license.
You know what you would get 20 years in prison or worse.
Face it the people are revolting against even Ted Kennedy,also known as the Mary Jo / Capaquidick looooooser.
I predict Even John Kerry will get the boot soon. People its time to get rid of these elected officials who have so much sympathy for criminals.
To those who favor rewarding them ,if you were a victim of a vicous crime as I was ,and the Police couldn't even ask the suspect if he was illegal .
**Ya thats right ,they cannot ask**
I 1,000,000,000,000,% believe you would feel different. He never showed up for court,and was never found,or heard from again.
Who knows maybe he just bought another stolen Social Security number from yet another innocent American Citizen.
Now what have you got to say. I have a 36 stich scar to remind me everyday of the ramifications of Librals.
It could be you some day,or some one you know,and Love.
Try thinking about it from that point of view.
Do not vote for anyone who want's to support amnesty,free licenses,free tuition,to ANY,ANY,person who is an Illegal Alien. NEVER!
Super Delegates: Protection from the people.
The Democratic party, you know those folks who still complain that Dubya stole the 2000 election (although every media sponsored recount since has come out in favor of the sitting president). You know those people who clamor for a national popular vote to decide the presidency. Those people who don't want you to show a driver's license to protect your vote from being voided by someone voting illegaly. Yes, those folks... they don't trust you. They don't believe that you, those that vote in Democratic presidential primaries, are smart enough to decide for yourselves who should be the nominee. So what have they done to protect themselves from you? They created (dun-dun-daaahhh) SUPER DELEGATES. These are political insiders who WILL decide who the Democratic nominee will be this year. They are not bound by law or convention to vote for anyone. Since they make up 20% of the voting delegates, they can fix any mistakes you might have made.
I see a pattern emerging, Democrats don't trust you with your money, as they support higher taxes, now they don't trust you with your vote either.
Don't worry your pretty little heads about it though, Uncle Teddy and Auntie Bunny er I mean Billary will make it all better.
All of the research on the matter of voter fraud finds that it almost never occurs at the polling station. The overwhelming majority of voter fraud occurs through absentee ballots and the rest happens in the process of transporting and counting ballots.
It should be noted that Republicans have steadfastly opposed any policies that require identification of absentee voters. This may largely be because significant number of Republican voters vote by absentee ballot.
Also, all of the investigations conducted by many state and federal agencies in the past 20 years on the assertion of undocumented immigrant voting have not found a single election in which there was a pattern of fraudulent voting by immigrants. In the vast majority of investigations, there has not even been found a single incident of fraudulent voting by immigrants. The largest of these investigations was done for the election of Representative Sanchez (D) in Orange County, CA. The investigation took about 3 or 4 years, cost millions of dollars, and did not find any evidence of voter fraud by immigrants. They did, however, uncover quite a bit of fraud by absentee ballot that benefited the Republican candidate.
Every single piece of research on this subject, whether done by a university or by the Department of Justice, has found that strict voter identification laws end up disenfranchising African Americans and poor white Americans.
John R.'s comment that "every media sponsored recount since has come out in favor of the sitting president" is just not true. I have seen numerous stories that conclude just the opposite.
N Starluna - although I don't agree much or often with John R. I beg to differ with you. I am 100% certain that voter fraud does happen. I am not sure why folks are so against requiring that I.D.'s be shown?
As for John R. You are over the top on your assessments! If it's the Dems that don't trust their party members with their own votes, could you kindly explain to us what methodology the Republicans employ to select their nominee? Are you suggesting that they are much more enlightened of the two parties? Honestly if "Dubya" as you sophisticates fondly refer to your leader, is your best and brightest - well, I'm not surprised that I'm leaning toward the other side.
P.S.You should really learn to listen to your Auntie Bunny. I hear she's pretty bright!
It's true that both major parties have superdelegates voting at their conventions and part of the rationale, I assume, is that an awful lot can happen between the primaries and the convention. Should the leading candidate's viability in the general election be undermined by, for example, scandal, then the supers can use their votes to change the selection. John R's assessment that the format offers some protection against the people isn't completely wrong.
We should note also that the Founding Fathers didn't completely trust the masses either, which accounts for the creation of the Electoral College. As a result, of course, the loser of the 2000 popular vote occupies the Oval Office.
Of course, the arduous task of securing a constitutional amendment to eliminate the Electoral College is so daunting that little consideration is given to attempt it. So, essentially those in positions of political power will continue to be confident in their ability to trump the populace, should they deem it necessary to void our ballot-spoken directive. I would support efforts to eliminate both the Electoral College and the system of super delegates, even though those efforts stand a slim chance of success.
The Constitution should be a fluid, not static, document. Changes to it must be considered prudently and never with haste. Consideration of the document itself is the bedrock of our democratic process. The processes available to us to amend it are also vital to the democratic process, but challenging the power structure to secure an amendment will always be difficult. That should not stymie the effort to try.
Jim, thanks for continuing to challenge your readers to think about these important issues.
I completely agree that voter fraud happens. It just rarely happens at the polls. The overwhelming amount of documented voter fraud happens through absentee ballots.
It doesn't seem like such a big deal to many people like us to have an ID. You have to have an ID to buy alcohol, to cash a check, to open a bank account, and to show the police officer when you are pulled over. But think about it, when's the last time you pulled out your ID? I only get carded when I go to a restaurant in a new city and the waiter/waitress is trying to get a larger tip. The folks at Kappy's know me, I don't cash checks - I only deposit them, and I've only been pulled over once in my life and that was because the counties in Virginia rely on fines from out of state drivers for their municipal revenue.
I was pretty amazed to learn that somewhere between 13 and 21 million American adults do not have a government issued photo ID card. From a recent survey by the Brennan Center at NYU, as many as 6 million senior citizens, 25% of African Americans, and 15% of people who earn less than $35,000 a year do not have a government issued photo ID. Many women who have an ID do not have their current names on their card.
People don't have a photo ID for a variety of legitimate reasons, mainly because they don't need it. If you don't drive, why go through the hassle of going to the RMV to get an ID card that you will never use. Here in MA, a regular ID card only costs $15. In some states it is as high as $90. And the REAL ID Act will actually increase the cost of our drivers licenses and other IDs somewhere between 260-800%, according to one analysis. If you are an elderly person, or a person taking care of an elderly parent, I could understand why they would spend that money on medications rather than on something they will never use.
I know it seems like something that shouldn't be a big deal because it seems like everyone would have an ID. I felt the same way about swimming; I know how to swim so I expect everyone else to know how to swim. But in fact, many kids here in East Boston don't know how to swim and neither do many adults. I just feel that there are too many people who would not be able to vote if we required a government issued photo ID. I'd rather err on the side of facilitating the franchise then worry about the minuscule amount of votes that might be fraudulent.
And I can't emphasize this enough, voter ID laws it would not reduce voter fraud because most voter fraud happens through absentee ballots which require no proof of identification.
Good to hear from Mary B. again, and she is correct in her assessment of the chances of the Electoral College being eliminated. Those in power have no reason to dismantle the system that got them there.
N.Starluna is also correct. We don't need voter ID laws. They are a bald-faced attempt by Republicans to eliminate some of those pesky voting blocs that usually side with Democrats.
And finally, I was born in and live in East Boston, with the Atlantic Ocean just feet away, and I never learned to swim.
...but Auntie Bunny has a mustache...
The media-sponsored recounts to which I refer are only those that were conducted by third party accounting firms and that counted both undervotes and overvotes as well as all of the contested counties... each of these accounting firms (and you all can do the research) established a standard before they began the re-counting. This is the substance of the court's decision in 2000, there was no clear standard, aside from "determine[ing] voter intent".
Why I'm glad you asked about Republican superdelegates... they do exist... but they make up less than 5% of the total body, remember that the Democrats employ 20% superdelegates, they can only serve as more of a tie-breaker as opposed to the decidng factor.
As far as the electoral college is concerned, the reasoning behind the electoral college is two-fold: some (but not as much) mistrust of the commoner's ability to intelligently select the Executive Officer; and the desire to preserve equity among the states. The former was a vestige of the British rules regarding voting, which held that only male landowners could vote, the thinking there was that if you owned land, you had a vested interest in the stability of the government. The latter is a natural extension of the way in which large and small states are represented in both houses Congress. If you read commentary on the Continental Congresses, you'll find that the Founding Father's were very fearful that the more populated states, Virginia in particular, would run roughshod over those less populated. If we were to elect our presidents by popular vote alone, candidates would pay no attention to "fly-over" country and this republic, not democracy, wouldn't have survived as long as it has.
As a result we are privileged to live in the best country this planet has ever seen. If you doubt that, ask the next immigrant legal or illegal you see why they came here.
When people say, or write, things like The US is "the best country this planet has ever seen," I honestly don't know what the heck they mean? How does one quantify that?
If it means that we are the wealthiest country ever, then yes, it's true. And if it means we are the most powerful country ever, well that is true also. But to say that America is "the best" is rather meaningless ... at least without some definition of the parameters being discussed.
Jimbo - I think he means that not only are we the most powerful and wealthiest country, but we also have the freedom to say, or even write, pretty much whatever we want - including questioning whether or not we live in the best country in the world with no repercussions. I guess I would exclude any of the countries where you would be executed for such an infraction from the running. Wouldn't you?
You are misreading my criticism of vague language for anti-Americanism. "The best" or "the greatest" is simply not quantifiable.
If the criteria we're talking about is literacy then the US is not first. If it's average lifespan or lack of income disparity or lowest child mortality, then we are simply not #1.
Yes, freedom of speech is one of our cherished concepts, and we are more free to express our opinions than in many other places, but there are a number of other countries where this is also true.
And, frankly, there are many troubling incidents here when such rights have been ignored. For example, during the 2004 Democratic convention in Boston the treatment of protesters was a disgrace. First Amendment rights were trampled there.
Also, don't forget what White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said not long after 9/11: "Americans ... need to watch what they say." Sure it was a scary and crazy time, but that was a reminder that the freedoms we take for granted may be less guaranteed than we think.
Jimbo - I don't think I would consider you anti-American. I just think that you are one of those folks that are used to having so many freedoms that you want more - which is good.
I am not blind to the inequities that exist in the United States, however we still live in a country where anyone is free to work to change those inequities. Even in seemingly corrupt environments there is always room for the underdog with enough grit to right wrongs. We all at least want to believe that. That's what some of the best hollywood movies are made of. The problem is, that even the seemingly most idealistic among us, have our own agendas - that begin to rise to the surface once we get enough visibility to be able to make an impact. You quickly realize that there is a certain amount of going along required to get along. That's when progress comes to a screeching halt.
We can blame the government or the system all we want for the problems that exist in our country, however until we recognize that being American citizens we ARE the system, and are responsible by our actions or inactions for what exists, no change can occur.
Would that we could convene a gathering of the Founding Fathers to have them assess our progress or lack thereof. We've had many a civics lesson of late, but an evaluation by those who were present at the epiphany of our nation could serve to be instructive at least, or introspective for those who really care about the future of the nation.
Interesting thought, Mary. Being a dork myself, I have thought about how cool it'd be to get a chance to talk to Jefferson and to see what he'd say about the consequences of his little experiment with democracy.
Among those children who grow up to be able to read, the overwhelming majority long to come to America. By popular vote of the huddled masses, we have been elected to the arbitrary and vague position of "best on the planet".
BTW - I'm sure the children of Kosovo would like a say in this discussion. Like millions of other children over the past century, they wake up today, as un-oppressed citizens of an independent nation, thanks to the US.
Jim - I have great respect for anyone who puts their name and opinion out there for others to consider and rebuff. I'm also one of those kids that learned to run the bases backwards and hold on to the bat while running to first base (flubber ball, was it?). I know first hand how deeply you care about this community and by extension, this country. I believe that people like us can differ on our approach to issues and problems but still have the same goals in mind, to keep this country strong and to improve its station in the world.
Jim, Mary, Auntie Bunny, Joe Mason and others who work to make this community better, you don't need a lesson from the founding fathers. You are the people who they counted on, who they expected would come along. You have picked up their guide-on and carry it forward. Were they here, they'd say, "Well done!"
Wow John R! You almost brought a tear to my eye! Are you having a sentimental day? I'll have to call you later to check on you.
I agree with you though. Yay, Jimbo, Mary and Joe!!! We can't all be in all places at all times and we're lucky to have all of you. If we could just get John R. back where he belongs, we'd be in really great shape!
- Auntie Bunny
Also:
Anon 2/12 @ 10:22
& 2/17 @ 5:39
As well as 2/18 @ 12:27
I would have swore that it was Joe Mason posting at 2/11/08 at 10:56 pm (See 1,000,000,000,000,% reference). But I remember now that only he has the "Cannollis" to sign all of his own posts.
Once again Jimbo, I would point out that there are personal and vexatious attacks being made with no moderation when it comes to Mr. Mason. (i.e. calling our Senior US Senator Ted Kennedy a looooser) That is unecessary.
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