Democratic caucuses and primaries

Segnosaur said:
Not really sure why you think one statement (Sanders isn't a democrat) automatically leads to the other (supporters not democrats). Its certainly possible for some democratic supporters to thrown their support behind an "outsider".

I guess the question is, if he wasn't co-opting the machinery of the democratic party, would he even get enough support to become a spoiler?

I don't think he was a 'big name' prior to his 2016 election run, and its not like he had the financial resources to 'buy' his way into spotlight (a la Ross Perot).

Maybe if Sanders ran as an independent (or for some 3rd party ticket) he might have ended up siphoning off some support from Clinton. On the other hand, he might have also siphoned off some of the 'BernieBros' who migrated to Trump. (Plus, without the prolonged Clinton/Sanders battle, perhaps the Democrats would have been better focused on Trump.)
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My point is this. What does it mean to be a Democrat?

Bernie is running as a Democrat and getting lots of support from Democratic primary voters.

So yeah, if being a Democrat means getting the blessing of the DNC elites, then Bernie isn't a Democrat.

If being a Democrat means people in that party turn out to vote for him in large numbers, then he obviously is.

People saying "Bernie isn't a Democrat" would be more accurate in saying "Bernie isn't sanctioned by the party elite".

Who decides who is a real Democrat? Is it the primary voters who like Bernie, or the party establishment who don't?

WHen people say "Bernie isn't a Democrat" the implied statement is also "Democratic voters shouldn't vote for Bernie". Seems presumptuous to me.

As an example. Many people said that Trump wasn't a Republican. Obviously he is. He's more Republican than any other mainstream Republican he beat. The Republican voters were the final authority, not some party operative.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
People saying "Bernie isn't a Democrat" would be more accurate in saying "Bernie isn't sanctioned by the party elite".
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Uhhh... no. I think they're saying "taking out a membership makes you technically a democrat, but we don't believe you are really a democrat because you weren't one just a few months ago, and you probably won't be one in a few months from now if you should lose". Sanctioning by party elites has little to do with it.

Again, I don't think Sanders should be treated differently, but I can understand long-time Democrats being miffed at any outsider trying to take over.
WHen people say "Bernie isn't a Democrat" the implied statement is also "Democratic voters shouldn't vote for Bernie". Seems presumptuous to me.
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Why? If you're a long-term Democrat who has fought to keep the party in power for the past few decades, why shouldn't you be wary of someone who is going to step in at the last minute to co-opt your party for their own uses?

You have no idea if they will work with other Democrats. You have no idea if they will work towards whatever goals you have fought for over the past years.

As an example. Many people said that Trump wasn't a Republican. Obviously he is. He's more Republican than any other mainstream Republican he beat. The Republican voters were the final authority, not some party operative.
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Again, I never claimed that Sanders should be treated differently than any other candidate. I'm saying that individual democratic voters should consider whether 'an outsider' is worthy of support, and it would not be wrong to consider their status as an 'outsider' as a reason to vote against them.

And yes, Trump is a republican. And yes, he was an 'outsider' prior to the 2016 election. It would not have been wrong for an individual republican voter to look at him and say "do we really want someone from outside the party to take over?" If someone were actually interested in actual conservative principles, they should have been wary about giving the party reigns to Trump. (Of course, because they are completely corrupt it didn't really matter. But it could have.)
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
If Sanders isn't a democrat, then are his supporters also not democrats? Would you be happier if he ran under a different party and took his voters support there?

I recall in 2016 a lot of anger directed towards Jill Stein and the Green Party as spoilers.

Complaining about spoilers and saying Sanders isn't a Democrat aren't consistent criticisms. You have to pick one. Would you rather Sanders ran as a Democrat or as a spoiler? I know many would prefer he just disappeared from the political stage, but that's just wishful thinking.
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All I'm saying is that it makes sense for a party to want their candidates to actually be members of their party. To some degree, its generous of them to let him run at all. A rule to the effect of, "in order to stand for election as a R/D you must have been a registered R/D for x amount of time would be entirely reasonable. I wouldn't suggest it as a law, just an internal rule. Where it gets squirrely is that the US runs public elections for internal party decisions which is really quite strange.

Keep in mind, I'm probably not one of those folks who were complaining about spoilers. At least not last time. There's pretty good arguments for Nader and Perot when they ran though. As a rule, I encourage third parties.

I'm curious, is bernie even currently registered as a democrat?
 
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ahhell said:
All I'm saying is that it makes sense for a party to want their candidates to actually be members of their party. To some degree, its generous of them to let him run at all. A rule to the effect of, "in order to stand for election as a R/D you must have been a registered R/D for x amount of time would be entirely reasonable. I wouldn't suggest it as a law, just an internal rule. Where it gets squirrely is that the US runs public elections for internal party decisions which is really quite strange.

Keep in mind, I'm probably not one of those folks who were complaining about spoilers. At least not last time. There's pretty good arguments for Nader and Perot when they ran though. As a rule, I encourage third parties.
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Again, would they rather Sanders run third party?

We have a two party system. That cuts both ways. The party has to be open to outsiders because otherwise outsiders might run as third parties and poach their vote.

Sanders is a candidate that is pulling tremendous support in the primary.

Excluding Sanders means excluding some percentage of his supporters who would go with him to third party.

The Democratic party has a choice. Excluding a popular candidate means resigning itself to non-viability.
 
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Parties have to let those qualified to run* do so because we all have the right to participate in the political process.

There may be other ones, but that's the big one.

*citizenship, age, residency, etc.
 
d4m10n said:
I don't think they really do, though.

Are you talking about a legal or moral requirement, here?
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It's a foundational requirement for a functioning democracy.

Allowing parties to be gatekeepers of who is or is not allowed to participate would just be outsourcing the suppression of that right.

I'm not for it.

If you don't like someone not declaring allegiance to a specific political cabal, express so by not voting for them.
 
Okay, what Iowa did was stupid, in at least two ways;

First, they didn't consider the users. I've always that Steve Jobs "genius" was not in tech (that was Steve Wozniak, look it up), it was in the UI, and in presentation.

Second, they didn't stress test their system. Apparently at the moment, they didn't test it at all. The Iowa dems are absurd. And again, don't mean the people, I mean the party...

look

In the long term, I doubt this Iowa mess will make a difference, but it's the sort of mistake that we should all be wary of, not just in elections, but just living generally.

I don't know what will get rid of the idiot in the White House or more importantly what will get rid of Moscow Mitch in the senate. That's for dems in Kentucky to decide.

What I know is, the UI is messed up, to underlying problems. The GOP as is stands now, is a group of radical authoritarians, white wing white nationalists., And we should protect our constitutional rights against them. If it means tossing out a justice on the Supreme Court, or a senator or three, then...do it. Our basic rights are in danger.

It's time to destroy th GOP as it exist today.

You may see this as terifying, but it's really just a nod to reality.
 
d4m10n said:
Do you believe the UK lets just anyone run for head of their parties?

(...or are they not a functional democracy?)
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I said nothing about picking the head of a party. I'm speaking of controlling who gets to appear on the ballot. I don't know that sitting Presidents in the U.S. have ever tended to concurrently serve as chair of their national party. Doesn't seem so in my lifetime, anyways. It's usually a mix of House and Senate leadership, some prominent state-level personnel moving up, bundlers, etc.

Yes, I know they are cited as such, but that's colloquial, or as a figurehead.

At the end of the day, his legislative affairs department would identify the party and underlying caucuses that are more or less of favorable disposition and the party and caucuses that will be the other thing.

Like all Presidents.

Even with supermajority numbers from the same party, Presidents can run into sub-committee bloat and delays. Everyone needs certain assurances. Or at least they need to wring their hands on TV for a minute until, oh, there's a check from a contributor in the leadership PAC account, ok, nevermind.
 
d4m10n said:
Do you believe the Labour Party or the Tories pick a Prime minister based on nationwide popular balloting?
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No.

Neither is the comparison so straightforward. The arrangement of leadership in parliamentary parties is a lot more of the calculus of voting, see: Labour. Parties can become internally fractious, despite plurality or majority numbers, see: Tories.

Plus you have equivalent bodies to those I referred to in pointing out where party control actually resides. Labour calls Corbyn their leader, but they have a National Executive Committee with a Chair. Sometimes they are an MP (or MEP), sometimes not. Then there's the "party chair", a fancy title until recently given more of a coordinating role for election strategy.

The parties can put whoever they want in those committees, I agree to that much. But final say on head of state, executive power, what-have-you, should lean more towards people's will than party's will. It's a feature of PM models I find questionable. Perhaps easily fixed with a recall mechanism of some kind. YMMV.
 
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SuburbanTurkey said:
Again, would they rather Sanders run third party?
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Sanders is a candidate that is pulling tremendous support in the primary.

Excluding Sanders means excluding some percentage of his supporters who would go with him to third party.
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I have previously given multiple reasons why a 3rd party or independent candidacy for Sanders would not be a significant threat to the Democrats.

To reiterate:

- Without his (temporary) association with the Democrats, Sanders would not have a significant national profile. He was an independent senator from a relatively small state, and unlike (for example) Ross Perot, he wouldn't be able to self-fund any part of his campaign. I suspect most people probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup prior to the 2016 primaries. So if he ran as a 3rd party candidate, he wouldn't be contending for the presidency end up being a spoiler, he'd end up as the answer to a question on Jeopardy under the 'political losers' category

- Lets say he actually did manage to get some attention nationally.... Yes, Sanders might have stolen some votes from Clinton. But remember, a lot of BernieBros ended up voting for Trump. If Sanders was running as a 3rd party candidate, he would also be taking votes away from the Republicans, so Clinton still might have won the popular vote

- Without Sanders in the race, the democratic primary would have likely gone a lot smother. Hillary probably would have clinched the nomination weeks earlier, cutting out much of the bitter primary battles and allowing the Democrats to focus on Trump much earlier. And without the whole "poor bernie was cheated" myth going around, perhaps Clinton might not have been tarred with the 'elitist' label
 
Segnosaur said:
But remember, a lot of BernieBros ended up voting for Trump.
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Mmm, depends on what "a lot" means.

Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election.

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A more important caveat, perhaps, is that other statistics suggest that this level of "defection" isn't all that out of the ordinary. Believing that all those Sanders voters somehow should have been expected to not vote for Trump may be to misunderstand how primary voters behave.

For example, Schaffner tells NPR that around 12 percent of Republican primary voters (including 34 percent of Ohio Gov. John Kasich voters and 11 percent of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio voters) ended up voting for Clinton. And according to one 2008 study, around 25 percent of Clinton primary voters in that election ended up voting for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the general. (In addition, the data showed 13 percent of McCain primary voters ended up voting for Obama, and 9 percent of Obama voters ended up voting for McCain — perhaps signaling something that swayed voters between primaries and the general election, or some amount of error in the data, or both.)
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Linky.
 
Delphic Oracle said:
It's a foundational requirement for a functioning democracy.

Allowing parties to be gatekeepers of who is or is not allowed to participate would just be outsourcing the suppression of that right.

I'm not for it.

If you don't like someone not declaring allegiance to a specific political cabal, express so by not voting for them.
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Uh, no. If a political party instituted a rule that said "You must be a member of the party for at least 1 year prior to joining the primary" that would not be a suppression of the right to join in the elections.

1) An individual wanting to participate but who wasn't a long-time Democrate still has the option of running as an independent and/or for another party

2) The act of taking on a membership and holding it for a certain time period is not a significant barrier for participation. It is not discriminatory (i.e. does not target a person's gender, race, religion, etc.) and I'm pretty sure a party membership would be affordable to even a poor candidate. If Sanders wanted to participate under such a rule, he has an easy out: Get a membership and hold on to it.

And lets face it, you are complaining about the requirements to hold a party membership as somehow an excessive burden. Yet in order to run in the primaries candidates often have to pay various filing fees. And to participate in debates they have to show a certain level of funding and/or support. In theory those requirements can prevent a poor person from running for election. That seems like it is just as much of a problem as a candidate maintaining a party membership, but its seen as acceptable requirement.
 
Segnosaur said:
I have previously given multiple reasons why a 3rd party or independent candidacy for Sanders would not be a significant threat to the Democrats.

To reiterate:

- Without his (temporary) association with the Democrats, Sanders would not have a significant national profile. He was an independent senator from a relatively small state, and unlike (for example) Ross Perot, he wouldn't be able to self-fund any part of his campaign. I suspect most people probably couldn't pick him out of a lineup prior to the 2016 primaries. So if he ran as a 3rd party candidate, he wouldn't be contending for the presidency end up being a spoiler, he'd end up as the answer to a question on Jeopardy under the 'political losers' category

- Lets say he actually did manage to get some attention nationally.... Yes, Sanders might have stolen some votes from Clinton. But remember, a lot of BernieBros ended up voting for Trump. If Sanders was running as a 3rd party candidate, he would also be taking votes away from the Republicans, so Clinton still might have won the popular vote

- Without Sanders in the race, the democratic primary would have likely gone a lot smother. Hillary probably would have clinched the nomination weeks earlier, cutting out much of the bitter primary battles and allowing the Democrats to focus on Trump much earlier. And without the whole "poor bernie was cheated" myth going around, perhaps Clinton might not have been tarred with the 'elitist' label
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This was probably all true back in 2015, yes. It certainly does not apply if Sanders were to suddenly abandon his "Democrat" label and run as a 3rd party candidate at this point.
 
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Cabbage said:
This was probably all true back in 2015, yes. It certainly does not apply if Sanders were to suddenly abandon his "Democrat" label and run as a 3rd party candidate at this point.
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True, things would be different now if Sanders were to run as a 3rd party candidate in 2020. But the discussion seems to be "what if candidates had to be long-term members of the party". If that was a rule, I suspect it would have been in place back in 2016.
 
Segnosaur said:
True, things would be different now if Sanders were to run as a 3rd party candidate in 2020. But the discussion seems to be "what if candidates had to be long-term members of the party". If that was a rule, I suspect it would have been in place back in 2016.
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Not necessarily. I think 2016 is more likely to inspire such a decision instead of being subject to such a decision. I can't think of any event in the past 50 years that would be more likely to inspire a "candidates had to be long-term members of the party" rule than the 2016 primaries.
 
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