2016 Democratic Presidential Primaries

[The_Queen]

This is a good example of spin. Younger starts off inquiring about whether she would support Bernie after he won Alaska. She tells him, verbatim, "Sorry, but I'm supporting Hillary. I've spoken with quite a number of Bernie supports, and I find the conversation to be quite negative. I am a firm, committed supporter of Hillary Clinton. Thanks for your inquiry. I will support Sanders if he is our nominee." Nothing about this is aggressive, hostile, or belittling. Even her statement that the conversations have been negative is not surprising considering (1) the internet and (2) BernieBros.

At this point, captain internet says "Of course you are!! Well, thanks anyways. I appreciate you showing me, a young Democrat and recently graduated [sic] political science graduate, just how real democracy works." This part was notoriously absent from the main article, only available in the screenshots below. This is the kind of negative conversation that Ms. Metcalfe is talking about, and it kind of proves her point.

Now, I would like to point out to captain Political science that there is a thing called procedure. In principle, the concept of superdelegates is not inherently undemocratic any more than the idea of elected representatives. Further, it kind of make sense that party leaders should have a say in who the party puts forth (I would not be surprised to see the GOP create a superdelegate system to avoid another Trump in future). While they are 714 people within the party who have a say in the outcome of the nominee, they are neither (contrary to previous accusations) corralled to vote a certain way nor do they vote as a bloc. Since the concept of them is not inherently undemocratic, it's kind of silly for captain political science to complain when the process didn't work the way he wanted it to. Further, his argument is self defeating as Hillary leads among pledged delegates, and if every superdelegate did as he asked, Hillary would still be leading among superdelegates by virtue of her lead among pledged delegates. More so to the point, the use of superdelegates was known since at least 1984 or 1988 when they first came onto the scene. Seriously, the party has never attempted to hide its use of superdelegates. So, if the procedure is not undemocratic in principle, and if it was known in advance, then I don't see a problem. If captain political science, or anyone else, wants to change this procedure, the proper time to do it is not midway through a competition, but like Ms. Metcalfe says, to stay involved in party politics after the election.

And before someone accuses me of bias, I have felt this way since discovering the concept of superdelegates when a lot of them sided with Hillary over Obama (who I supported at the time). Instead of complaining about the procedure, I accepted it as something that Obama would have to either overcome or win over. And Obama did, not by crying establishment or conspiracy, but through rapport and popular vote. I sincerely believe that if Bernie wins a majority of pledged delegates, that the superdelegates will jump to his side. However, until Bernie wins a majority of pledged delegates, these hurt feelings from captain political science, and others, is really much ado about nothing.

Finally, I don't expect a response. The substance of every post in which I've taken the time to detail and look into things about Bernie has gone largely ignored. As such, all that is really left for me to do is to sit back and see how the future contests turn out.

[Askold]

The concept of superdelegates is silly. Actually, the concept of using delegates instead of simply counting the votes is also silly in my opinion. These are outdated methods which may have been a good idea hundred years ago but not so much today. Just like Gerrymandering and Filibusters I think the way politics in USA runs is either outdated or simply poorly designed but people refuse to change things, either because this is the way things have always been or because the current method is beneficial to them. (Gerrymandering and Filibusters in particular are a part of the de-facto two-party system and are still a thing because one is useful when your party is in power and the other is useful when your party isn't in power and the parties are more afraid of losing their chance of using them than they are of the other party using them against them.)

[RavynousHunter]

The concept of superdelegates is silly. Actually, the concept of using delegates instead of simply counting the votes is also silly in my opinion. These are outdated methods which may have been a good idea hundred years ago but not so much today. Just like Gerrymandering and Filibusters I think the way politics in USA runs is either outdated or simply poorly designed but people refuse to change things, either because this is the way things have always been or because the current method is beneficial to them. (Gerrymandering and Filibusters in particular are a part of the de-facto two-party system and are still a thing because one is useful when your party is in power and the other is useful when your party isn't in power and the parties are more afraid of losing their chance of using them than they are of the other party using them against them.)

It isn't just that.  Actually changing things in any meaningful way would probably have to come in the form of a Constitutional amendment for it to have any lasting impact.  That is a ridiculous process that almost never succeeds on the national level.  Actually getting things done was almost intentionally made to be nigh-impossible from the very outset of the country.

If there's one thing I've learned from my politics class, its that the American system is hopelessly broken, slow, and barbaric.  Unfortunately, actually getting shit to work like the rest of the civilized world (read: well) would take several generations worth of active effort and American politics doesn't have that long an attention span because we, as a nation, seem to suffer from almost terminal ADD.

[mellenORL]

The two big political parties are privately controlled not-for-profit citizen groups, allegedly, and historically. Sorta like the NFL is a not-for-profit athletic league. Tax exempt. Like a religion. Which football is to a lot of Americans. There's so many other reasons things are fucked up over here, but these two are exemplary of the sociopolitical symptoms.

[The_Queen]

The concept of superdelegates is silly. Actually, the concept of using delegates instead of simply counting the votes is also silly in my opinion. These are outdated methods which may have been a good idea hundred years ago but not so much today.

The idea of delegates is simply applying principles of a representative democracy (i.e. we vote for people who vote for us) to the decision of picking the president. I decided to look up Finland, and it appears to be a parliamentary republic, which uses elected officials to make decisions, and that is very similar to the process here. Even the vast majority of superdelegates are *gasp* elected officials (with the exception of 20 distinguished party leaders). Yes, less than 1/2 of one percent of the delegates are unelected; it's not a big deal. If the nomination was purely decided by superdelegates, then we would be using elected officials (which is good enough for Finland) to decide the nominee. But we don't do that. We have 4051 pledged delegates and 714 superdelegates. So, for democrats, 85% of of the delegates are chosen via direct democracy while 15% are chosen via representative democracy (and seriously, if the people of Alaska are so mad at Metcalfe, the proper thing to do is vote her out in her next primary and vote someone in who will side with the majority of Alaska in their superdelegate vote). Furthermore, the pledged delegates largely break down in accordance with the popular vote. While that is a redundancy in the system* it is neither undemocratic nor outrageous. I break this down because I think it's pretty shitty of you to talk about Americans like we're stupid or unable to count (yes, you said as much before) because we don't do democracy the way you would like us to do it.

*i.e. why find 4000 random people and make 52% of them vote a certain way just to reflect that 52% of the populate voted a certain way?

The two big political parties are privately controlled not-for-profit citizen groups, allegedly, and historically. Sorta like the NFL is a not-for-profit athletic league. Tax exempt. Like a religion. Which football is to a lot of Americans. There's so many other reasons things are fucked up over here, but these two are exemplary of the sociopolitical symptoms.

If you have such a problem with the superdelegate system, then take this advice: write a fucking letter to the DNC after the election voicing your concerns. A good argument that you could make is that superdelegates always side with with the candidate that has a majority of pledged delegates. So, their existence is superfluous while potentially giving off the appearance of impropriety to people who are blissfully unaware of the existence of superdelegates. Will it change anything? Probably not. But, it is at least doing something. Because complaining about a hypothetical situation that has literally never happened and using it to support the assertion that the democrats are like the NFL or religion--on the internet of all places--is  weak.

ETA: and for all the complaining about the procedure, I doubt I'll get a response... again. But, capt. Political Science does amaze me, because of his focus on the "political" part to the exclusion of the "science" part. While it is a soft science, the crux of the field is that certain phenomenon can be qualified and trends can be realized through examining the institution. Hence my reliance on polls thus far. As such, my favorite news site is FiveThirtyEight. Nate Silver does a very good job of removing the spin and giving you the straight facts, by focusing on things like statistics and trends and not his personal bias or wishful thinking. A lot of pro-Bernie news sources cannot say the same. But this article is particularly illuminating as it details exactly what Bernie would have to do to win a majority of pledged delegates. And it is illuminating because the superdelegate count is entirely moot if Hillary wins among pledged delegates.

[mellenORL]

The very fact that the super delegates' candidate preference is announced at any time, much less right from the beginning and constantly throughout the primary season, inculcates media bias and unduly influences voter opinion. Why? Because, "Everybody loves a winner!" and "People tend to vote for the leading candidate". Those are paraphrased quotes from media pundits across the broadcast spectrum. They are also truisms I've heard all my rather long adult life. Low information voters are an actual and big thing, and that's the point of those statements. And why I'd personally rather DNC did not have super delegates. "Oh, the Supers historically change allegiance if another candidate wins the most pledgies". Fine, except the supers' existence and stance has been influencing the outcome of primaries and caucuses in every state on the way to the convention. And, even as an outlier possibility, the supers are in no way obligated to change their stance. We are very likely going to witness a brokered GOP nomination. If the race between Clinton and Sanders continues to tighten up, it is not impossible or illegal under party rules for the supers to hand Clinton the nomination anyway. In fact, I'd even bet a dollar or two on that, just for fun.

DNC can do as they please, will do as they please, and unless some random social media storm about the system blows up into a (probably hopeless) lawsuit, it will never change any policy because some citizens complain. The same goes for the GOP. 18th century gentlemen's clubs for the power poobahs, both parties. This is one of the reasons why the majority of voters are now independents, and both parties are bleeding registered voters over the past decade.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/28/467961962/sick-of-political-parties-unaffiliated-voters-are-changing-politics

This one is an interesting take that independents are not independent. Because the parties copy righted the candidate platforms? Regardless, GOP and DNC aren't getting donations from those voters anymore.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/11/independents-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-but-theyre-not-very-independent/

Note: I'm a registered Democrat because in my huge, delegate-rich state, Florida, independent voters were barred from both the GOP and Dem primaries.

[dpareja]

Queen, hypothetical situation:

Let's say after the DC primary, neither Clinton nor Sanders has a majority of delegates solely from pledged delegates, but Clinton has more pledged delegates than Sanders.

Let's also say that current polling trends hold steady: looking at polls from March 23 (from RealClearPolitics), both candidates beat Trump, Sanders beats Cruz while Clinton's matchup is inconclusive, and Clinton loses to Kasich while Sanders' matchup is inconclusive.

Let's then say that the Republican Convention nominates Cruz or Kasich.

Would you be fine with the Democratic superdelegates proceeding to nominate Sanders over Clinton in light of that polling?

To amplify the scenario, let's say Clinton actually does get a majority of all delegates from her pledged delegates, but the polling shows that she could well lose the general election to the Republican nominee, while Sanders likely wins. Do you think it would be acceptable for the delegates to change the nomination rules on the floor (say, requiring a two-thirds majority, or majorities on three consecutive ballots) in order to ensure that Clinton does not win the nomination on the first ballot and Sanders can be nominated instead?

(I'm not saying either of these is a likely scenario.)

[rookie]

I haven't yet seen what We the People are supposed to do about the issue of super delegates. Unless this is idle bitching, in which case never mind.

[Askold]

Finland used to elect the president with delegates. The first round of the election was a regular election and the second round was with delegates and their votes were read at the parliament house (There is still a meme where you repeat "Kekkonen, Kekkonen, Kekkonen" over and over because that is what it sounded when the votes were read and Kekkonen kept getting re-elected again and again.) but we stopped that after 1988 and nowadays it's just regular elections.

There was also once a scandal when a delegate who was supposed to vote for one candidate chose to vote another one instead changing the outcome of the elections.

I just think that that the delegate business is outdated and more susceptible to corruption.

[RavynousHunter]

But, Askold, if we let people actually choose who gets to be put forward for the ticket, then the peasants might actually have a say in what their government does!  Mob rule!  Anarchy!  Fornication in the streets!  BIRTH CONTROL!  The serfs must never be allowed an actual say in what goes on, that is for the landed gentry to decide.

[The_Queen]

The very fact that the super delegates' candidate preference is announced at any time, much less right from the beginning and constantly throughout the primary season, inculcates media bias and unduly influences voter opinion. Why? Because, "Everybody loves a winner!" and "People tend to vote for the leading candidate". Those are paraphrased quotes from media pundits across the broadcast spectrum. They are also truisms I've heard all my rather long adult life. Low information voters are an actual and big thing, and that's the point of those statements. And why I'd personally rather DNC did not have super delegates. "Oh, the Supers historically change allegiance if another candidate wins the most pledgies". Fine, except the supers' existence and stance has been influencing the outcome of primaries and caucuses in every state on the way to the convention. And, even as an outlier possibility, the supers are in no way obligated to change their stance. We are very likely going to witness a brokered GOP nomination. If the race between Clinton and Sanders continues to tighten up, it is not impossible or illegal under party rules for the supers to hand Clinton the nomination anyway. In fact, I'd even bet a dollar or two on that, just for fun.

DNC can do as they please, will do as they please, and unless some random social media storm about the system blows up into a (probably hopeless) lawsuit, it will never change any policy because some citizens complain. The same goes for the GOP. 18th century gentlemen's clubs for the power poobahs, both parties. This is one of the reasons why the majority of voters are now independents, and both parties are bleeding registered voters over the past decade.

http://www.npr.org/2016/02/28/467961962/sick-of-political-parties-unaffiliated-voters-are-changing-politics

This one is an interesting take that independents are not independent. Because the parties copy righted the candidate platforms? Regardless, GOP and DNC aren't getting donations from those voters anymore.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/01/11/independents-outnumber-democrats-and-republicans-but-theyre-not-very-independent/

Note: I'm a registered Democrat because in my huge, delegate-rich state, Florida, independent voters were barred from both the GOP and Dem primaries.

I'm not really sure there are many facts here. Superdelegates may shape part of the narrative in that their alignment can create news. But, there isn't much evidence that Superdelegates shape the outcome of a primary. Indeed, the last three contested democratic primaries were 1992, 2004, and 2008. All of them had early Superdelegate breaks to one of the candidates; none of those candidates went onto being the nominee. Superdelegates in 1992 expressed doubt about Bill Clinton, and very few supported him until after he won a round of April primaries. Superdelegates in 2004 broke early for Howard Dean, and prior to his Dean Scream, he lost Iowa. In 2008, the Superdelegates initially endorsed Hillary, before switching to Obama when it became apparent that he would net a majority of the pledged delegates. You'd have to go back almost 30 years to find a possible example of what you allege.

Additionally, while not against the rules for all 714 Superdelegates to vote as a bloc and "hand Hillary the nomination," my point remains that it has never happened. More so, since they don't vote as a bloc, their power to sway an election is further compromised.

Finally, I do not think a growing number of independent affiliated voters necessarily means a view that the parties are old boys clubs. First off, while there are more independently identified voters, most still vote exclusively for their preferred party. Second, I won't bother to look up a poll (because how do you quantify this), but I do not think dissatisfaction with the Superdelegate process is a reason cited for being political independents.

Third, a closed primary/caucus system is again not inherently undemocratic. If you recall a few years ago, Rush Limbaugh made an "operation chaos" plan in which his listeners were urged to vote for Hillary to draw out the democratic nomination, on the belief that it would help McCain. A party wishing to prevent such sabotage is justified in excluding independents and the other party. But, states set their own primary/caucus rules. So, if you're upset with that, then the correct thing to do is write to your state DNC chair and ask to change the rules to include independents. Again, will it change anything? Probably not. But it is a little hard for me to take you seriously when you're complaining on the internet about something that has been known for over 30 years and isn't inherently undemocratic. The rules and procedure are known well in advance, and changing party affiliation is free. Also, as an aside, I am actually registered as an independent, and I did not vote for Hillary. Instead, I voted for Kasich in the Republicans. Do I support him? Fuck no. But due to proportional allocation on the democrats side, the most my vote could do is sway one delegate away from Bernie. On the GOP side, with winner-take-all, I could delay, or possibly prevent, Trump from hitting 1237 and give all 66 of Ohio's delegates to a nobody in the GOP field. For the same reason, I voted for Ron Paul in Virginia in 2012. All I am saying is cross-party sabotage voting happens, and I don't see a problem with closed primaries to protect the integrity of the election. Your concern is further mitigated by the fact that changing affiliation is free and easy, and the rules are known well in advance.

Queen, hypothetical situation:

Let's say after the DC primary, neither Clinton nor Sanders has a majority of delegates solely from pledged delegates, but Clinton has more pledged delegates than Sanders.

Let's also say that current polling trends hold steady: looking at polls from March 23 (from RealClearPolitics), both candidates beat Trump, Sanders beats Cruz while Clinton's matchup is inconclusive, and Clinton loses to Kasich while Sanders' matchup is inconclusive.

Let's then say that the Republican Convention nominates Cruz or Kasich.

Would you be fine with the Democratic superdelegates proceeding to nominate Sanders over Clinton in light of that polling?

To amplify the scenario, let's say Clinton actually does get a majority of all delegates from her pledged delegates, but the polling shows that she could well lose the general election to the Republican nominee, while Sanders likely wins. Do you think it would be acceptable for the delegates to change the nomination rules on the floor (say, requiring a two-thirds majority, or majorities on three consecutive ballots) in order to ensure that Clinton does not win the nomination on the first ballot and Sanders can be nominated instead?

(I'm not saying either of these is a likely scenario.)

I've already answered this question for you,

To Queen and nicki (and generally anybody else who strongly prefers one of Clinton or Sanders to the other): if neither candidate has, from their pledged delegates, a majority of all delegates to the national convention, what would you think if the superdelegates handed the nomination to the candidate with fewer pledged delegates?

I knew I read a question that I overlooked in the haste,

No, I would not. The rules were known from the outset and it's not fair to the other to call shenanigans after the start when something doesn't go your way. Let's assume you need 2400 delegates to win and there are 4800 total, 4000 pledged, 800 superdelegates. If Hillary won with 1600 pledged and 800 superdelegates, I'd feel that Bernie got wronged. If Hillary wins with 500 superdelegates and 1900 pledged (to Bernie's 2100), I would not, because of the stance I took earlier about rules being known at the outset.

But, the superdelegate total is moot if Hillary wins the pledge delegates, as then she would logically get an equal percentage of superdelegates if it were "fair," and then she would win by virtue of having more delegates in both categories. And, as seen from today and the way that Super Tuesday is shaping up, she's gonna walk out with a lot of pledged delegates. Sandersr didn't really put together a post-Nevada campaign plan.

And, I also addressed the head to head polls. They have very little predictive value this far out

Finally, askold, that does nothing to address the substance of my post. Representative democracy is regularly used around the world, and when less than 1/6 of the delegates are chosen by that method on the democratic side, I don't see a problem. It's simply the way that we have organized the procedure fore electing a presidential nominee. Additionally, it's a slap in the face for you to act like we're stupid because we don't elect our leaders the way you do.

[dpareja]

Queen:

Yes, sorry, I forgot about that post. My apologies for the redundancy.

You didn't answer my second question, however: what would you think if the delegates changed the nomination rules on the convention floor?

[The_Queen]

Queen:

Yes, sorry, I forgot about that post. My apologies for the redundancy.

You didn't answer my second question, however: what would you think if the delegates changed the nomination rules on the convention floor?

Yeah, that's a little different. But again, that is a giant what if. While it is possible, I doubt I'll ever see that within my lifetime in the democratic party. Yeah, maybe with Trump and the GOP, but that's a different can of worms entirely.

[Ultimate Paragon]

Hilary seems like she'd be really amazingly mediocre at best. She has some decent stuff under her belt but she just seems to have way to many major missteps.

At least she isn't Hulk Hogan! *Skronk*  You may have beaten Gawker, but the Warrior will take you down!

[The_Queen]

Queen, what's your opinion on Hillary's foreign policy?

1. This isn't the well and I'm not here to serve as some token Hillary supporter. So, asking questions unprovoked about my views really just comes off as entitled.

2. That is an incredibly open-ended question on a broad area, ranging from trade, to intergovernmental organizations, to terrorism, to full-blown Bush level war. I'm not going to write a treatise to cover every sub-field of someone else's foreign policy.

3. In one sentence: she's going to mirror Obama in just about every substantive way.

I'd just as soon do away with the caucus system as is and just do a straight up primary.

Ironbite-but then again I'm an advocate for the Bern Lord Sanders so what do I know?

I doubt you'll be singing the same song in dance in a few months. The final apportionment of these delegates is very dependent on enthusiasm of supporters. Hillary won Nevada in 2008, but lost the delegate count to Obama. Ron Paul won the delegate count for both Nevada and Iowa in 2012, IIRC, while not wining the popular vote, or anything near the popular vote, in either.

But then again, you're an advocate for the Bern Lord Sanders, so what do you know?

Damn, I am good. I am very good. But all of my predictions for this election have panned out. At the Nevada delegate convention, enthusiasm prevailed: Hillary won 52.5% of the popular vote in February, but now Bernie will get a majority of the state's pledged delegates.

Come 2020, I'm betting some money on vegas for the primaries. Gonna make me some mad bank.