SC Kennedy Retiring
Morganna said:
A couple of things we can ask for, a larger selection of candidates, more debates, and for the DNC to dump the super delegates. And move the primary up so that the bluer blue states have a say.
I do not understand "asking for a larger selection of candidates". People decide for themselves whether they want to be a candidate. No one decides how many there will be. There are as many or as few as want to run.
There will probably be many.
Just an idea, with zero thought into the ramifications. First Tuesday in February is the initial NATIONAL primary, where ALL candidates must run in their party's race. Top 3 in each party move on to First Tuesday in April, as a national runoff (no write-ins allowed). Majority winners move on to general in November. If no 50%+, top 2 go at it on first Tuesday in May (also no write-ins). Also, wouldn't object to changing the Tuesday thing to whatever makes the most sense (2 day weekend voting?).
Thoughts?
Dennis_Seelbach said:
Thoughts?
Well, as long as we are back in class,
Nationwide Primary in early June. Weighted voting with run-off between top two 2 weeks later. Convention held as rally which it really has been for a long time. The last time a nominee was actually chosen at a contested convention was 50 years ago.
General Election in the Fall on all day Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday as a national holiday. No Electoral College. Winner decided by popular vote. Candidate getting 50%+ wins. If no candidate gets above 50% run-off between top two.
Or how about we chuck the whole thing and go to a Parliamentary system like almost everyone else has?
Dennis_Seelbach said:
Just an idea, with zero thought into the ramifications. First Tuesday in February is the initial NATIONAL primary, where ALL candidates must run in their party's race. Top 3 in each party move on to First Tuesday in April, as a national runoff (no write-ins allowed). Majority winners move on to general in November. If no 50%+, top 2 go at it on first Tuesday in May (also no write-ins). Also, wouldn't object to changing the Tuesday thing to whatever makes the most sense (2 day weekend voting?).
Thoughts?
Like, the button doesn't work for me. Trying to digest the part about no 50%. Love the 2 day weekend voting.
LOST said:
Morganna said:I do not understand "asking for a larger selection of candidates". People decide for themselves whether they want to be a candidate. No one decides how many there will be. There are as many or as few as want to run.
A couple of things we can ask for, a larger selection of candidates, more debates, and for the DNC to dump the super delegates. And move the primary up so that the bluer blue states have a say.
There will probably be many.
Actually, lots going on backstage at the DNC to decide who gets to be a candidate. In 2016, it was decided that it was "her turn" and the understanding was no to run against "her." They got some people to run against her but they did not see them as a threat--especially an old socialist senator from VT.
Morganna said:Like, the button doesn't work for me.
Works on my desk-top but not on my lap-top. I have been wondering why that is.
LOST said:
Dennis_Seelbach said:Well, as long as we are back in class,
Thoughts?
Nationwide Primary in early June. Weighted voting with run-off between top two 2 weeks later. Convention held as rally which it really has been for a long time. The last time a nominee was actually chosen at a contested convention was 50 years ago.
General Election in the Fall on all day Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday as a national holiday. No Electoral College. Winner decided by popular vote. Candidate getting 50%+ wins. If no candidate gets above 50% run-off between top two.
Again, Like, but wondering about the 2 weeks later. Wouldn't a longer gap give the candidates a chance to look at the numbers from each state and either campaign in states that they are weak in or adjust their message.
You and Dennis work it out and let's get a petition going and send it off to Cory Booker or the Senator of your choice. No kidding. Anything that would get our congressmen thinking of changing a system that could use improvement.
DaveSchmidt said:
nakaille said:Staggered primaries and caucuses allow for a field of candidates to be whittled down over time. Hold all the votes on the same day and chances are that multiple candidates pick up a passel of delegates, but none of them enough to seal the nomination. Hello, brokered convention.
Why not hold ALL primaries on the SAME DAY?????? It's not like present-day candidates need the Pony Express to let the voters know what they (claim) they stand for.
That's why you need ranked voting. That said, a single day national primary would seriously reduce the opportunity for debate and, I suspect, simply deliver the nomination to the candidate that started out with the most cash.
HRC would have left Obama in the dust in 2008 if we had held a single day primary.
Dennis_Seelbach said:
Just an idea, with zero thought into the ramifications. First Tuesday in February is the initial NATIONAL primary, where ALL candidates must run in their party's race. Top 3 in each party move on to First Tuesday in April, as a national runoff (no write-ins allowed). Majority winners move on to general in November. If no 50%+, top 2 go at it on first Tuesday in May (also no write-ins). Also, wouldn't object to changing the Tuesday thing to whatever makes the most sense (2 day weekend voting?).
Thoughts?
I like that but I think (like you, with no serious time for pondering) that three primaries might allow more discussion and debate and, thus, result in a refinement of the voters choice.
I do wonder what turnout would be like for that first primary.
One problem with such a system for the Dems would be that it would greatly reduce the voice of African Americans in selecting the candidate.
Klinker said:
DaveSchmidt said:That's why you need ranked voting. That said, a single day national primary would seriously reduce the opportunity for debate and, I suspect, simply deliver the nomination to the candidate that started out with the most cash.
nakaille said:Staggered primaries and caucuses allow for a field of candidates to be whittled down over time. Hold all the votes on the same day and chances are that multiple candidates pick up a passel of delegates, but none of them enough to seal the nomination. Hello, brokered convention.
Why not hold ALL primaries on the SAME DAY?????? It's not like present-day candidates need the Pony Express to let the voters know what they (claim) they stand for.
HRC would have left Obama in the dust in 2008 if we had held a single day primary.
Why would they limit debates? Hold the primaries after a robust debate schedule.
ElizMcCord said:
Question. Why didn’t RBG retire during the Obama administration? Or did the Senate Majority evaporate right after Sotomayor and Kagan?
Something I ask as well. Apparently she was lobbied to retire just as Kennedy was. He listened, she didn't. Thurgood Marshall retired during the Bush 41 admin, just a few years before Clinton could have replaced him. The option to approve justices with a majority rather than a vote of 60 was lead by Harry Reid, not McConnell. And of course McConnell blocked Garland. Many people who didn't like Trump voted for him anyway, recognizing that he would name Scalia's replacement. Many people who didn't like Clinton just stayed home.
Seems that almost every decision and move regarding the courts in the past few decades have benefitted the Republicans, not the Democrats, and here we are.
DaveSchmidt said:
nohero said:A 359-8 advantage among superdelegates before the caucuses and primaries even begin makes no impression on a party’s electorate whatsoever.
Morganna said:Hillary Clinton wasn't nominated because of super delegates. She was nominated because more voters chose her.
A couple of things we can ask for, a larger selection of candidates, more debates, and for the DNC to dump the super delegates. And move the primary up so that the bluer blue states have a say.
This.
We will never know how the primary voting may have played out if the super delegates had held off on giving Clinton an enormous delegate lead before anyone had even voted
Morganna said:
Klinker said:Why would they limit debates? Hold the primaries after a robust debate schedule.
DaveSchmidt said:That's why you need ranked voting. That said, a single day national primary would seriously reduce the opportunity for debate and, I suspect, simply deliver the nomination to the candidate that started out with the most cash.
nakaille said:Staggered primaries and caucuses allow for a field of candidates to be whittled down over time. Hold all the votes on the same day and chances are that multiple candidates pick up a passel of delegates, but none of them enough to seal the nomination. Hello, brokered convention.
Why not hold ALL primaries on the SAME DAY?????? It's not like present-day candidates need the Pony Express to let the voters know what they (claim) they stand for.
HRC would have left Obama in the dust in 2008 if we had held a single day primary.
In a normal year you start off with 6 or 7 candidates. They debate, we hear a little from each and then folks vote and it drops to 3. They debate, we hear a lot more from them and it drops to 2 who hopefully then have 2 or 3 serious, 1 on 1 debates.
2016 was unusual in that, for whatever reason, there were only two serious candidates in the primary.
Klinker said:
One problem with such a system for the Dems would be that it would greatly reduce the voice of African Americans in selecting the candidate.
"splain" please !
Dennis_Seelbach said:
Klinker said:"splain" please !
One problem with such a system for the Dems would be that it would greatly reduce the voice of African Americans in selecting the candidate.
Well, as I understand it, part of the point of Super Tuesday (for Dems) is that includes a number of states where, in terms of Democratic registration, African Americans make up a majority of the voters. This has the effect of giving that demographic some buy in, even though they do not make up a majority of the Dem voters in most blue states.
That is "as I understand it". As someone so helpfully observed, I am not a political scientist so I could be making some untenable assumptions here and, if I am, I apologize in advance and look forward to learning more.
There was a lot of discussion of this in 2016 focussing on HRC's "Southern Wall" and whether it would stop Sanders.
ml1 said:
DaveSchmidt said:This.
nohero said:A 359-8 advantage among superdelegates before the caucuses and primaries even begin makes no impression on a party’s electorate whatsoever.
Morganna said:Hillary Clinton wasn't nominated because of super delegates. She was nominated because more voters chose her.
A couple of things we can ask for, a larger selection of candidates, more debates, and for the DNC to dump the super delegates. And move the primary up so that the bluer blue states have a say.
We will never know how the primary voting may have played out if the super delegates had held off on giving Clinton an enormous delegate lead before anyone had even voted
With all due respect, that's nonsense. If you're going to tell me that voters (especially in the early primaries) didn't have their own views (no matter what the "super delegate" count was), I am going to disagree.
nohero said:
With all due respect, that's nonsense. If you're going to tell me that voters (especially in the early primaries) didn't have their own views (no matter what the "super delegate" count was), I am going to disagree.
Even if voters had their own views, the impact on nonvoting (why bother showing up if one candidate is already well on her way?) is something I’d be loath to dismiss out of hand. Then again, I have a pretty high threshold for nonsense.
I kinda doubt that the average voter has the slightest clue of what a super-delegate even is, much less let their number influence their vote.
Personally, I’d also be loath to dismiss out of hand the impact that a dominant superdelegate advantage might have on media coverage of a race before a single primary or caucus vote is cast.
DaveSchmidt said:
ElizMcCord said:Kagan was confirmed in August 2010. Democrats retained the majority until January 2015. The reason Ginsburg didn’t retire is that she didn’t want to retire.
Question. Why didn’t RBG retire during the Obama administration? Or did the Senate Majority evaporate right after Sotomayor and Kagan?
Maybe I’ve watched too much West Wing but she has to be wishing she had retired back then, now she has to hold on probably until 2020. The idea of a possible 6-3 Senate Majority has to keep her up at night. All her life’s work could be undone.
DaveSchmidt said:
Personally, I’d also be loath to dismiss out of hand the impact that a dominant superdelegate advantage might have on media coverage of a race before a single primary or caucus vote is cast.
Well, news coverage of campaigns is generally pretty bad anyway. It's all about the horse race, and superdelegates might negate a horse race - so the editorial decision may be just as likely to discount their importance, so as to create a competitive race.
In the beginning of Sanders' campaign, he was mostly seen as not-a-chance-in-hell candidate - kind of legitimately, I think ( though I was for him the minute he announced). So, in the beginning of the campaign, he probably didn't get much coverage, just like most fringe candidates. But that certainly changed once he started to do well in the primaries.
Klinker said:
Morganna said:In a normal year you start off with 6 or 7 candidates. They debate, we hear a little from each and then folks vote and it drops to 3. They debate, we hear a lot more from them and it drops to 2 who hopefully then have 2 or 3 serious, 1 on 1 debates.
Klinker said:Why would they limit debates? Hold the primaries after a robust debate schedule.
DaveSchmidt said:That's why you need ranked voting. That said, a single day national primary would seriously reduce the opportunity for debate and, I suspect, simply deliver the nomination to the candidate that started out with the most cash.
nakaille said:Staggered primaries and caucuses allow for a field of candidates to be whittled down over time. Hold all the votes on the same day and chances are that multiple candidates pick up a passel of delegates, but none of them enough to seal the nomination. Hello, brokered convention.
Why not hold ALL primaries on the SAME DAY?????? It's not like present-day candidates need the Pony Express to let the voters know what they (claim) they stand for.
HRC would have left Obama in the dust in 2008 if we had held a single day primary.
2016 was unusual in that, for whatever reason, there were only two serious candidates in the primary.
But that's the problem. The same few states never get to weigh in. So if not all on the same day, I think LOST's idea or the one proposed by Dennis, is more fair. States that are predominately urban will lean towards a different candidate then a state that depends on agriculture.
nohero said:
Hillary Clinton wasn't nominated because of super delegates. She was nominated because more voters chose her.
I’m going over the math again. A Democrat needed 2,383 delegates to win the nomination. Clinton won 2,205 through primaries and caucuses. How did you figure she was nominated because more voters chose her and not because of superdelegates? An overall vote tally?
nohero said:
ml1 said:With all due respect, that's nonsense. If you're going to tell me that voters (especially in the early primaries) didn't have their own views (no matter what the "super delegate" count was), I am going to disagree.
DaveSchmidt said:This.
nohero said:A 359-8 advantage among superdelegates before the caucuses and primaries even begin makes no impression on a party’s electorate whatsoever.
Morganna said:Hillary Clinton wasn't nominated because of super delegates. She was nominated because more voters chose her.
A couple of things we can ask for, a larger selection of candidates, more debates, and for the DNC to dump the super delegates. And move the primary up so that the bluer blue states have a say.
We will never know how the primary voting may have played out if the super delegates had held off on giving Clinton an enormous delegate lead before anyone had even voted
It's not nonsense. It was part of the narrative that Clinton was a shoo-in and Sanders was not to be taken seriously.
But we'll never really know what would have happened without that narrative.
I'm not convinced that Sanders or another Dem would have outperformed HRC, it's a guessing game. Republicans who didn't like Trump saw the stakes - naming one if not more SC justices - and they voted for Trump. Dems found reasons not to like Hillary or to canonize Bernie.
To me, the more important question is why do these people still have lifetime appointments? I understand the need to keep justices immune to pressures from the exec and legislative branches, that they shouldn't be fired on a whim. However with life expectancies increasing - at least for Americans with decent healthcare - someone appointed at age 50 can sit for 30 years or more. Why not limit the terms to 25 years or so - 18 years has been suggested as a way to potentially allow that every elected president might have an opportunity to fill at least one seat. As one legal scholar told The Atlantic, ""Eighteen years is long enough to allow a justice to master the job, but not so long as to risk creating a court that reflects political choices from decades earlier."
apple44 said:
To me, the more important question is why do these people still have lifetime appointments? I understand the need to keep justices immune to pressures from the exec and legislative branches, that they shouldn't be fired on a whim. However with life expectancies increasing - at least for Americans with decent healthcare - someone appointed at age 50 can sit for 30 years or more. Why not limit the terms to 25 years or so - 18 years has been suggested as a way to potentially allow that every elected president might have an opportunity to fill at least one seat. As one legal scholar told The Atlantic, ""Eighteen years is long enough to allow a justice to master the job, but not so long as to risk creating a court that reflects political choices from decades earlier."
Agree on 18 years.
The Electoral College could also go. Modernize, use ranked voting to determine the popular vote.
But good luck changing our constitution considering 3/4 of states are needed to change it. Its become so stagnant that it may just end up being a suicide pact.
I agree and have suggested that many times on MOL. We had a recent discussion on another thread, can't remember which. I've read whatever I can find on the topic and I saw on one site that it is the party that makes up the schedule, but on another it was the state.
And it was even more dramatic on the GOP side as the 17 candidates started dropping out. I've said on another thread that most of the Republicans that I knew in NY and NJ said they really liked Kasich. I think we would have been better off with Kasich than Trump. But by the time it came around to NY NJ and CA to vote Trump was the nominee.