This post is speculation. It assumes that Trump will lose and lose big in November and that the Republican establishment as defined by a variety of rules committees has the power and the will to institute changes to the Republican primary process to Trump-proof the process.
The easiest way for the Republican Party to Trump-proof itself is to stop lying to its supporters. The Republican Party elite is fundamentally not trustworthy to its base voters. The core example is the promise that a Republican House and a Republican Senate could force President Obama to unwind PPACA while he sat in the White House. That was not going to happen. Trustworthy elites won’t happen as there is too much money to be made from fleecing the rubes. Once we take policy honesty off the table, rule changes are the next step.
Trump is the delegate leader (and presumptive delegate majority holder once the process plays out) with a low proportion of the total vote.
Total votes, primaries
Donald Trump ——— 10.5M
All other GOP ————— 15.6M
— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) May 4, 2016
He benefited from a split field and a rules system that allowed factional plurality leaders to amass delegate strength out of proportion to their actual vote counts. Winner take all elections with more than two candidates have this common failure. There were two sets of winner take all elections in this current Republican primary. The first was state level delegates where the winner of a state received a significant bonus number of delegates and then winner take all at the Congressional District level. The Republicans assigned three delegates to each Congressional District without regard to how many Republicans actually lived or voted in that district.
538 has a good example of how this flat allocation of winner take all delegates by district helped Trump:
If Ted Cruz wins by a huge margin in Milwaukee’s suburbs, as expected tonight, he’ll get all three delegates from Wisconsin’s 5th Congressional District, which cast 257,017 votes for Mitt Romney in the 2012 general election. But in two weeks, Donald Trump could capture just as many delegates by winning a majority of the vote in New York’s heavily Latino, Bronx-based 15th Congressional District, which cast only 5,315 votes for Romney four years ago.
Three weeks ago, Trump won three times as many delegates — nine — at the Northern Mariana Islands convention, which drew just 471 participants.
This is problem #1. The GOP primary delegation process favors plurality winners and it favors candidates who can win in very low turnout environments. There is a massive variance between the minimum number of votes needed per delegate and the maximum number of votes needed per delegate. Some districts are extremely efficient and some are extremely inefficient places to win. The Republicans treat districts like the Senate treats states. The first rule change would be to scale the delegate award to some measure of Republican vote strength.
The Democrats do this as they vary the number of delegates assigned to each Congressional district. The state level delegates are spread among the Congressional districts by some formula that attempts to scale somewhat linearly with a measure of Democratic strength in that district.
For the purposes of district-level delegates, states use either congressional districts or some smaller district. A state with one congressional district does not need to split the state for the selection of the district level delegates although, in the past, some have. For the purposes of allocating the district-level delegates, states are given three basic options: 1) a formula based on population and the average vote for President in the last two elections (similar to the formula used by the DNC to allocate delegates to the states); 2) a formula based on the Democratic vote for President and Governor in the most recent election for those offices; and 3) a formula based on Democratic Party registration in the state and the average vote for President in the last two elections.
For the Democrats, a district where President Obama has pulled in 85% of the vote in the last two elections is worth more than a district where Obama never crested 20% of the vote. This is not a perfect measure but it roughly narrows the range of efficient and inefficient districts.
The second major problem is the problem of a plurality winner. Parties are private organizations. They have a right to nominate whomever they want. An argument can be made that there are ta least two distinct sets of stakeholders. The first is the general populace of party members and party voters. The second is elected party officials as their futures as elected representatives is heavily intertwined with the nominee of their party. The Democratic Party uses superdelegates to give party officials a stake in the nomination. So far, superdelegates in the Democratic Party are the condom tucked carefully into the wallet of a college student on a dry spell before he goes to a party or the reserve parachute before a skydive — they are there, probably won’t be needed if everything goes as expected but very valuable in the very unusual circumstances when they are truly needed.
The Republican Party does not have a strong unpledged/elected official stakeholder interest in their nominating rules. Some type of superdelegate expansion is a highly probable modification to the rules where party elites who are worried about their own seats can exercise their interests independently of the interests of the plurality of voters.
These are two steps that are fairly straightforward and rip-offs of the current Democratic nominating process which has proven to be fairly resilient to chaotic insurgencies so far.
There is one more step that could be taken and that is restructuring how voting and selection actually occurs.
Republican primary voters get one vote to give to one candidate. In a two person race, this is not a problem. The more preferred candidate always wins the vote. However in a multi-candidate race, tactical voting with massive coordination problems arise. Does a voter whose preference order is Kasich, Cruz, syphilis, Trump vote Kasich or Cruz in a first past the post plurality winner system? Well, that depends on their assessment of how other voters who have K-C-s-T and C-K-s-T and s-C-K-T preferences will vote?
Approval voting where a voter can mark their ballot as many times as they want for candidates that they are okay with would remove tactical voting coordination problems and marginalize factional candidates who have strong plurality support and even stronger majority disgust (the Trump situation until New York.)
Assuming Trump loses to the same margins that experts are predicting today, the Republican Party will make some effort to innoculate themselves against a re-infection of Trumpism and since fleecing the rubes is still a very viable and profitable business model, the treatment will be rule changes in the nomination process.
Patricia Kayden
Oh no. Let Republicans live with their Trumpenstein. I hope they do nothing to Trump proof their nomination process in the future and that in 2020, David Duke or Sarah Palin runs. That’s exactly what they deserve.
Republicans are now a laughingstock to sensible people. By the way, Shrub and his Father have vowed not to endorse him which is saying a lot given how disastrous Shrub’s presidency was.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/04/donald-trump-endorsements-george-bush-election-2016
AnonPhenom
I’m sorry, are you asking us to participate in gedanken in making our political process less (small ‘d’) democratic?
I don’t wanna play.
Richard Mayhew
@AnonPhenom: the only thing that is less democratic in the proposal is the idea of superdelegates and that can be defensible on the grounds of bi-cameral legislatures are defensible where different combination of interests need or at least “should” have different means of expressing those interests.
As far as district delegate allocation is a spread of 50 votes per delegate (Northern Mariannas) to 80,000 voters per delegate (WI-5) democratic. Reducing that type of spread would get rid of some of the rotten borough benefits. The US Senate looks represenative with its 66:1 population to Senator disparity between Wyoming and California compared to current GOP delegate allocation.
As far as approval voting, that is a legitimate form of voting which optimizes for the most acceptable candidate instead of first past the post plurality winning system which optimizes for the candidate with the largest plurality even if that person is despised by everyone else.
Richard Mayhew
@Patricia Kayden: I agree it is what they deserve. This is more of a predictive post as the GOP establishment will think that if Trump lost, their primary rules cost them a very winnable election. They will change. The question is how?
Baud
I think I’m back to being glad it’s Trump and not Cruz who has the nomination.
Patricia Kayden
@Richard Mayhew: But they didn’t change anything after losing in 2012 and doing an “autopsy”. If Trump loses, many Republicans will simply say that he was a fake Conservative and wasn’t a true Republican and that’s why they lost against Secretary Clinton. It’s the Republican base which chose Trump over other better qualified (although awful in my opinion) candidates. Republicans will have to change their base to get better nominees.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: It’s the difference between being poisoned and shot in the head, you’re still dead either way.*
*H/T to Sen Graham.
Schlemazel Khan
One of the goals that both parties have is preventing a contested convention. The super delegates were sort of a safety valve for the Dems who have had proportional distribution much longer than the GOP has. I couldn’t care less what the GOP does to change this on their side. They deserve what they are about to get and if they make bad decisions inb the heat of the moment it will bite them in the ass in the future & they deserve that also.
@Patricia Kayden: EXACTLY
JPL
Will someone please explain to me what’s the difference between supporting a candidate but not endorsing the same candidate?
The Lodger
Are we sure syphilis didn’t run in the GOP primaries?
Sasha
Richard Mayhew
@Patricia Kayden: They lost conventionally with their best option in 2012, they’ll lose unconventionally with either their worst or 2nd worst a priori option in 2016.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: You need to be angling for that sweet VP position that Trump is auditioning folks for. Once he’s impeached for general douchiness, you’ll be the Prez. Sweet!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Good, thoughtful post. As much as I would like to see the current incarnation of the Republican party destroyed, the country does need a sensible opposition party. Strengthening a national party structure so that it can’t be taken over by a small band of reactionaries (see the GOP in VA) is a good thing. Parties that have no effective opposition become lazy, insular, and often ultimately corrupt (look at Chicago). The Democrats have the better argument now (and usually have for the last 30+ years), but they’ve got no monopoly on virtue. The country needs to keep Team D on their toes, and that means having a sane opposition.
But they should make that turn to sanity after HRC wins 40+ seats, flips the Senate and the House. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: seats states.
(Grumble…)
Cheers,
Scott.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
seatsstates.(Grumble…)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who hopes the edit-throws-you-into-moderation bug is fixed soon…)
gvg
I had not been aware that Trump was getting more delagates due to some districts having lower population per delegate. It makes the Republican voters look slightly less stupid overall. I assume this is a sort of rural versus urban bias? Did the GOP do it on purpose or did they just not notice when they designed their process? Do you think he knew about that possibility and planned for it or did he just stumble into the luck?
I am sort of concerned with our own process. The more I learn about caucuses the less fair they sound and they don’t seem to encourage participation which is the reason given for their existence. The problem is the choice is each states and the cheap states prefer caucuses. Is there anything we can do about it?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Patricia Kayden: Baud! may have few standards; but he does have some, so that ain’t happening.
Capri
Right now lying to the base is working – in spades. If Trump wins and the base sees him not do any of the things he’s promising now perhaps they turn on him. But if he doesn’t win, there is really no reason the next candidate won’t do the same thing.
BillinGlendaleCA
@gvg: The party could fund primaries.
OzarkHillbilly
@gvg:
Who? Trump? You have to ask?
gvg
@JPL: It means a politician is trying not to catch cooties from 2 different conflicting needs. A certain politician used that phrase recently and my understanding is the GOP made promises to support Trump if he won the nomination, because they don’t want Trump to go 3rd party or just get his followers so riled up they vote anti all other current GOP office holders But she is also aware being associated with Trump is going to cost some GOP office holders their seats and it looks like she may be one of them.
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: yes i have to ask. Trump seems stupid to me, but the luck seems to good to be luck.
max
The easiest way for the Republican Party to Trump-proof itself is to stop lying to its supporters. The Republican Party elite is fundamentally not trustworthy to its base voters.
That’s the entire point of the Southern strategy. If they abandon that, they lose out to Trumpism.
Trustworthy elites won’t happen as there is too much money to be made from fleecing the rubes. Once we take policy honesty off the table, rule changes are the next step.
Won’t work. There are relatively very few people who are both dedicated CNBC ideologues and vote in R primaries. That’s why they’re lying in the first place.
Parties are private organizations. They have a right to nominate whomever they want.
As long as they don’t depend on the state to facilitate or finance the process. If they bring the state in, the state comes in through the regulatory door.
Assuming Trump loses to the same margins that experts are predicting today, the Republican Party will make some effort to innoculate themselves against a re-infection of Trumpism and since fleecing the rubes is still a very viable and profitable business model, the treatment will be rule changes in the nomination process.
If they do that, they’ll go farther down the rathole than they already are. They depends on voters, and if enough of those voters aren’t happy, and get stonewalled on getting what they want, the party will sink even further. The RNC folks have recognized this.
max
[‘It isn’t going to happen that way.’]
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@gvg: Your comment reminds me – the GOP probably gave up all it’s leverage to stop Trump when they went through that charade of making him (and the other candidates) sign that pledge that he wouldn’t run 3rd party and would support the nominee. They knew the process was broken then and should have started destroying him then (last summer), not waiting until he started winning actual races.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jon Marcus
@gvg: Yeah. Don’t underestimate your enemies.
I was only 17, but I remember people assuring themselves there was no way this third-rate Hollywood actor could ever get elected president…
OzarkHillbilly
@gvg: The man didn’t know that just because you won a primary or a caucus didn’t necessarily mean you won the delegates. He didn’t know what the nuclear triad is. He didn’t know…. Oh Hell, you know as well as I that his ignorance** is of epic proportions. The one thing he did know, is that misogyny, racism, and xenophobia are the 3 legs that hold up the Republican party and how to play to that.
In today’s GOP, that’s all it takes.
**and take note, I say ignorance. the man is a genius when it comes to playing to the lowest common denominator so he is not unintelligent.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Trump is a bully.
Marc
Superdelegates have never played a constructive role in the Democratic primaries, and they wouldn’t prevent a disaster. One of the clear results from the Republican primaries was that there was enormous hostility to explicitly overturning the outcome of the primaries. We saw the same thing in 2008 and we’re seeing it in 2016 on the D side – the idea of superdelegates over-ruling the pledged delegate winner in 2008 (Clinton) or 2016 (Sanders) infuriates the other side.
What they want to do is to tilt the odds so that it is less likely for (what looks like a) fair primary process to produce a bad result. If you’re trying to over-rule what is perceived as the legitimate outcome of the primary process you can argue abstract reasons as long as you want. You will still lose, and you might even lose more badly than you would have with a flawed candidate.
There is simply no modern precedent for party officials overturning the outcome of a primary process that I’m aware of. It’s a meaningless safety valve, roughly the equivalent of an electoral suicide belt.
Having said that, people would not notice if you shuffled around the rules to make it harder for Trump-like candidates to get large delegate majorities in the first place. Something like having delegates split proportionally between the top 3 vote-getters, for example, early in the process. I actually think that winner take all late in the process is a good idea, as it prevents a pre-determined outcome from dragging out (I’m looking at you, Democratic primary season….)
Thoughtful David
@Patricia Kayden:
This. If they really want to have no more Trumps, they’re going to have to stop welcoming in the various KKKers and other haters. That means they have to stop the dog-whistling racism, misogyny, Xtian dominionism, etc. Camt see them doing that. It’s who they are.
Punchy
Their diaphram flexes and releases. Their bodies process oxygen and carbon dioxide. Their brains utilize glucose to produce ATP. They lie to their base. About everything. It’s what they do. It’s how they live.
Mary
@Marc:
I’m curious as to why you think they wouldn’t prevent a disaster? They might not prevent a disaster like Trump, but they could certainly play a significant role in a case where the front-runner had a major dead girl/live boy type scandal late in the primary.
MattF
It’s well-known that there is no perfectly fair system of proportional representation. This means that any system will be biassed. This, in turn, means that choosing a system that will prevent whatever catastrophe that happened last time is a case of preparing to fight the previous generation’s wars. It’s futile.
Which is not to say that the present system is good– since, after all, it failed catastrophically. But it does mean that any voting system can be gamed. The problem is (and I repeat myself here) that politics matters, and Republican politics is just sick and awful, perhaps sick unto death. Any solution, insofar as there is one, must fix the politics.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: You think Republicans would knowingly vote for a bully? Say it ain’t so!
Face
Hahahahahahahaha! Ah…hahahahahha! Also as likely, Leicester City repeating as EPL champs next year, or Mississippi coming in <20th place in any meaningfully positive state metric.
Marc
@Mary: Because if the party overturns the outcome of the primary process they are certain to lose in the general election. Does anyone here think that the Trump voters would have supported Kasich if the Republican party simply denied him the nomination with the equivalent of superdelegates? Trump will almost certainly lose, but Kasich would probably lose by more. And, more to the point, the Trump voters would probably take out their anger on the entire party, from president to county clerk, as being corrupt. With a bad nominee the party can at least triage.
Schlemazel Khan
@Mary:
They were also a guard against a 1968-like disaster It allowed cooler heads, people who have to face general election voters themselves to exert some control. Like the Constitution it was an attempt to allow democracy but with a thumb on the scale to prevent mob rule. I have mixed feelings about it, it has good and bad potential but has never mattered in the past
lollipopguild
@Patricia Kayden: They need to stop lying to their base which is not going to happen. Trump is lying his ass off to his voters but its a use me/ i will use you situation.
Hoodie
@gvg:
That was a feature. The GOP learned from Rove to appeal to the knuckledragger segment of the GOP base with guns, gays and god stuff, so the process is skewed to reinforce that market and deliver a candidate that can mobilize that segment of the base. It backfired on the leadership because they mistakenly thought the evangelicals would be repelled by Trump’s personal story.. What they didn’t understand is that group is more about resentment than morality, and Trump got inside their OODA loop by mounting an aggressive early hate campaign. Trump was also helped by the fact that that particular segment of the GOP base is the one most pissed off by the GOP leadership’s selling of empty promises.
cleek
i don’t think lying is the issue. plenty of lefties have the same irrational fear of the Democratic party that the wingnuts have of the GOP.
what they need are lessons in basic civics and in how groups with conflicting goals work together to get things done.
Anonymous At Work
@Marc: The problem with this scenario, early splits and late take-alls, is that it differentiates early vs. late primaries in an arbitrary fashion. One of the more hypocritical Sanders lines recently is that early primaries shouldn’t count for much but late caucuses and primaries should count for more. That’s an arbitrary difference based on the results, not the process.
What Democrats could do instead is tweak the formulas for delegate allocation and minimum thresholds as the campaign progressively continues, so that obtaining delegates becomes harder while winners, especially outright ones, gain better shares of delegates. This would increase the winnowing of candidates and only a truly see-saw sequence of primaries would draw out the process (as is proper).
Chris
I think at this point, that’s impossible, because the base supporters themselves won’t allow it. Anyone who speaks remotely honestly to them about the world – “no, it’s very unlikely that we’ll be able to repeal Obamacare, no, we couldn’t impeach Obama and probably won’t be able to impeach Clinton, no, black people and immigrants are not the drain on your tax dollars that you think they are and it’s vanishingly unlikely that hurting them will somehow make your job or economic situation better, no, not everybody can be a successful Galtian CEO and you’re probably one of those who can’t” – will find it impossible to win the nomination. It’s no accident that their revolution against the party establishment has involved lining up behind Donald Trump, a man who’s just as dishonest with them as the old establishment and not even in so different a way. They want to be lied to, and will shoot any messenger who tries to give them a clue.
In the end, the Republican Party’s most fundamental problem is its voters, not its elites.
Redshift
Richard, it was my understanding that the GOP rules don’t just allow this, they were actually designed to produce this result (or at least that this tendency was strengthened after 2012.) They thought the long primary battle with multiple opponents had weakened Romney, and sought to tilt the system to make it easier for a frontrunner to wrap it up early. So in other words, they focused on fighting the last war and got bitten by unintended consequences.
However, I don’t have a factual source for that assertion, so it may just be pundit blather.
Weaselone
@Marc:
You keep thinking that it is solely applicable in a situation in which the the party thwarts a candidate like Trump who is insurgent, but popular. As others have pointed out, it has its uses when the candidate chosen by the process is no longer palatable to those who voted for him/her, but the pledged delegates can’t or won’t change their votes to reflect this. An example would be if Hillary actually was indicted over the emails (not going to happen) or Bernie wins California 98% to 2%, but is found later that same day in bed with a dead boy and a copy of his tax returns showing 50 million dollars of campaign funds were funneled to his wife in consulting fees in 2015.
rikyrah
tee hee hee
Man….every ad I’d put out for Senate would begin with a picture of Trump morphing into whatever GOP Senate candidate there is.
I would NEVER allow the two of them to be divorced from one another.
McCain on tape: Trump damages my reelection hopes
‘If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket,’ the senator says in a recording obtained by POLITICO, ‘this may be the race of my life.’
05/05/16 05:17 AM EDT
Publicly, John McCain insists Donald Trump will have a negligible effect on his campaign for reelection. But behind closed doors at a fundraiser in Arizona last month, the Republican senator and two-time presidential hopeful offered a far more dire assessment to his supporters.
“If Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket, here in Arizona, with over 30 percent of the vote being the Hispanic vote, no doubt that this may be the race of my life,” McCain said, according to a recording of the event obtained by POLITICO. “If you listen or watch Hispanic media in the state and in the country, you will see that it is all anti-Trump. The Hispanic community is roused and angry in a way that I’ve never seen in 30 years.”
Marc
@Weaselone: I understand – but for this to work it requires the candidate to accept the verdict of the party and bow out, which in turn doesn’t require superdelegates. If the candidate doesn’t bow out, then the superdelegate ploy doesn’t work.
And there is a real cost – in terms of internal party discord and dragging out the primary season – in having a fail-safe for unlikely events.
rikyrah
@Redshift:
No, you are correct. They changed it after 2012 because of Romney. Maddow had a spot about it a few weeks ago, before Super Tuesday, explaining it all and why it happened. Her point was that, as usual, the law of unintended consequences was about to happen – because Trump was poised to do well Super Tuesday.
scav
There’s also a case to be made that at least a portion (how significant or not is TBD, if knowable) is merely an artifact of the order in which the primaries were held. Rearrange the states — trend lines will follow and watch the bouncing momentuntous momentum. Not disputing that it can and does exist, there’s also the practical need to construct the illusion of it for the convention. It’s just a feable straw with which to wave away everything else.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
Oh, it’s all the fault of the Hispanic media. It’s not THE THINGS THAT DONALD TRUMP SAYS AND DOES.
Anya
Calling all front-pagers: Can we, the Balloon Juice community, put our efforts in targeting corporate sponsors of the RNC. Anyone who sponsors the GOP convention or gives money to Trump, is endorsing his bigotry. I just want our energy focused on something that can unify us until our side’s nomination is official.
Immanentize
@gvg: caucuses:
The party could allocate only 50% of the normal delegate allotment to caucus states. Easy fix. Hard to implement. But MUCH more democratic
rikyrah
@gogol’s wife:
I know….isn’t that something?
The MSM thinks that they will be able to pivot and cover for Trump and try and gloss over what he’s said.
but, that Spanish-language, Latino-targeted Media will not forget. Nor, will they allow the ‘pivot’.
And, there’s not a damn thing the MSM can do. They can pretend all they want, but I don’t speak Spanish, but i know that the media focused on Latinos has made Trump, front and center.
Immanentize
What do people think of Hillary and all surrogates (maybe just the surrogates?) calling Trump “bully boy.” It is both demeaning and infantilizing. Might really get under his skin.
lol
@gvg:
Not lower population – fewer Republicans in the district. Brooklyn’s CD would be a good example. The relative handful of Republicans there had as big a voice in the primary as a district in rural Utah.
This is just at the district level though. States get extra *at-large* delegates for electing Republicans.
rikyrah
UH HUH
UH HUH
GOP Pulls Off Brazen Court-Packing Scheme In Arizona
ByTIERNEY SNEED
Published MAY 5, 2016, 6:00 AM EDT
Want to pack your state’s Supreme Court? Well, Arizona has provided a model.
Arizona Republicans are about to get two more justices on the state Supreme Court thanks to a bill approved by the legislature and heading to Gov. Doug Ducey’s desk that will expand the court from five to seven members and allow the Republican Ducey to appoint the new justices.
The move is being called a naked power grab and an obvious example of court packing — an accusation seemingly backed by the fact that the five current justices have said there’s no need for additional justices. However, in a twist, the state Supreme Court ultimately backed the proposal when the legislature leveraged much-needed funding for the judicial branch to get the court’s support. Ironically, some of that promised funding has already been scaled back, while the new judges will cost the state about $1 million annually.
“This is just another example of people in power exploiting their power,” said Mark Harrison, the chair of Justice at Stake, a nonpartisan judicial watchdog group. “They can do it, so they’re doing it.”
The bill was introduced by Republican state Rep. J.D. Mesnard, who denies that it is politically motivated court packing.
“More heads are better than fewer heads, especially when it comes to interpreting laws and the constitution,” he told the Associated Press.
Supporters point to the growth in Arizona’s population to justify expanding the state’s top court, as well as the fact that other states have larger benches. The measure’s opponents, many of them in the judicial system themselves, say the workload remains the same and that funding for an extra two judges could be better spent elsewhere.
“It is a form court packing, which is to change the way the court operates, the balance on the court, through an immediate change in number of members on the institution rather than through the natural evolution of vacancy,” Patricia Norris, an appellate judge in the state, told TPM.
Princess
Another time where super delegates could become useful is in a three-way split in a primary. In the Democratic party, you could have, say, a Bernie Sanders candidate, a Jesse Jackson candidate, and a Bill Clinton candidate splitting the vote more or less three ways. Superdelegates could be useful for figuring out which of the three is the second choice of the others and thus the nest candidate to nominate. It’s not the most likely scenario but possible.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Gee, I hope Ann Kirkpatrick doesn’t have video of John McCain saying “build the dang fence” to the second-rate Arpaio knock off who was having an affair with an undocumented immigrant at the time
googling to see if i had that right, it seems that former Sheriff Babeu is running for Congress, because apparently Arizona is jealous of Florida having Florida Man
MattF
@Immanentize: Well, it’s schoolyard level, so it might work. And there’s always the path of denigrating his reproductive organs. MIght draft Sen. Franken for that– laughing at Der Trump could be the best thing to do.
scav
@gogol’s wife: Could also be that politicians with a long history of winning in states with a goodly amount of hispanic (etc) voters know that to gauge the mood of said voters you actually have to go to their media because the Main Stream souces are fantasticaly biased and unrepresentative, that is, when they bother to consider the population at all.
Redshift
@Marc:
“What is perceived as the legitimate outcome of the primary process” is not a constant either; it’s influenced by the claims of candidates who have a vested interest in the outcome. In a hypothetical close primary season where a candidate wins the most delegates but clearly loses the popular vote, I suspect the two candidates would be pushing very different perceptions of what a legitimate outcome is.
My point is that we have a big focus on the legitimacy of superdelegates this year because the Sanders campaign made it a focus, not because primary voters generally had that focus beforehand.
For comparison, one of the reasons Scott Walker won the recall election is because his campaign spent the Democratic primary convincing voters that recalling a governor for policy reasons (rather than for misconduct) was illegitimate. During the recall campaign, and when he won, news organizations reported that he was winning because voters didn’t support recalling a governor for policy reasons. But they just treated it as a fact of the electorate, and completely missed that voters didn’t start out believing that.
Obviously that’s a more extreme example, but if illustrates the hazard of trying to judge voters’ background beliefs during an election where candidates are seeking to influence those beliefs for their own benefit.
Immanentize
@Anya: I Like!
Immanentize
@MattF: Franken is a great surrogate idea — also all of President Obama’s writers. They are really awesome at the cut.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The dang fence ad was worse than I remembered. It could, and I suspect will, be intercut with Trump’s nastiest comments.
Stan
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Right. Albany County, New York is another example. The local dems are so completely dominant for the last 100 years, it looks like the 1920s. Parties need credible opponents.
Redshift
@Immanentize: I think referring to him as a bully is fine, but I don’t think “boy” is particularly effective. Fundamentally I think he likes being a bully, so I don’t think it will get under his skin that much. I think a better tack is mocking his intelligence, because he thinks he’s a genius and he’s obviously not.
“Trump is so dumb he thinks the National Enquirer is a reliable news source!”
Face
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It doesn’t matter how angry Hispanics may get if they’re not allowed to vote. And if you think that the GOP is going to allow a bunch of Hispanics to vote (or have their vote count), I’ve got some polar ice caps to sell you in 15 years.
Voter suppression is going to completely hose at least 20% of minority (Dem) voters this year. Mark it down.
MattF
@Redshift: “Trump is so dumb he thinks he’s smart”.
Amanda in the South Bay
Even after the debates started the non Trump candidates would attack each other more than Trump. He benefitted from not just inept opponents, but not being attacked as much as he could’ve.
And maybe they shouldn’t have had over a dozen candidates, and maybe some should’ve dropped out sooner. Those stubborn fucks helped Trump divide and conqueror.
Immanentize
@Princess:
IIRC that was the original purpose — after LBJ’s withdrawal, the assassination of Bobby Kennedy (weep), and the popularity among many of Gene McCarthy followed by the choice of Humphrey…. Oh man! Super delegates were fashioned to solve such riddles while at the same time increasing direct delegate allotment by the states. They were the necessary part of the deal to increase direct party member choice.
Burgermeister
“The easiest way for the Republican Party to Trump-proof itself is to stop lying to its supporters.”
That may be the most reliable method. Maybe the “simplest”. But “easiest”?
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
“The easiest way for Mr. scorpion to get to the other side of the river is to stop stinging everyone he meets”
Immanentize
@Redshift:
It isn’t?!
That one would just sound elitist I’m afraid, but I think you are on to something — bad at business, bad at marriage, bad with his taxes — too stupid to run the country.
Immanentize
@MattF: so nice!
Immanentize
One of the great failings of my profession (law) is that too many equate wealth or wealth generation with intelligence. Most people see the two are not the same.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
so apparently Rob Reiner didn’t follow the VSP script on Marning Joe?
Amir Khalid
@Redshift:
You can’t use this as a real-life attack line, alas. Trump is actually in cahoots with the National Enquirer, which is run by a close friend of his. Say this in public, and Trump will reckon he’s put one over on you.
Calouste
@Marc: The superdelegate ploy works as long as the candidate doesn’t have enough delegates to have a majority of both the pledged and superdelegates.
Chris
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
@Stan:
Agree completely that parties ultimately need credible opponents for a healthy system in the long term. I just don’t see how the hell Republicans get to that point – they’re not a credible opponent, haven’t been in decades, and it’s a problem that infests the entire system, it goes beyond Trump or even the teabaggers. It would take years if not decades of work to bring the GOP back to the point of being a sane and reaonable opposition party, even if there was any significant Republican faction that wanted to do that, which there isn’t.
gvg
@Redshift: well my reasons for becoming anti Caucus due to Sanders blather are the fact based articles that show turnout is way lower, and it favors those with time to spend which is to say not your typical democratic voter. I do not recall that being said when it was Obama vrs Clinton and her complaints came across as sore loser then. What I recall was that Obama’s people used caucus rules more effectively. Well another factor is I have 8 more years reading and thinking about politics when for my first several decades I didn’t pay as much attention, so now I know how significant the time factor is to people paid hourly with irregular scheduals and children. I think Obama would still have won with no caucuses because I think if the rules had been different, he would have understood those too and made good plans in that scenario also. That is how highly I think of him. It’s also part of why I am not impressed with Sanders. He had a chance to learn but couldn’t be bothered so he won’t in the future either.
Super delegates over ruling the voters could be percieved by those voters as legitimate if it was used intellegently only. Suppose the leading candidate died or resigned due to scandal? those left if they didn’t have nearly the sucess might be obviously going to lose and voters might think a supper selection was better. Suppose we got Warren instead of Clinton? Last minute scandal, possibly after all voting was done? Not very likely though.
LAO
I don’t think I can take 6 more months of idiot Trump supporters. http://www.rawstory.com/2016/05/trump-loving-tow-truck-driver-says-god-told-him-to-leave-bernie-sanders-supporter-stranded/
Lee
Any post that supports an alternative voting method gets my vote for post of the year!!
My personal opinion is that we could solve some of our problems with moving away from FPTP voting.
Grumpy Code Monkey
This, right here, cannot be shouted loudly enough. The GOP repeatedly makes promises that it has no intention of keeping, and after 20 years of it even the dumbest rednecks are clueing in. To my eternal shame, I did not realize this back in September, otherwise I wouldn’t have dismissed Trump’s candidacy so confidently.
Of course, the question then becomes, what does the GOP really stand for?
The answer, of course, is tax cuts and privatizing as many public functions and institutions as possible, all to funnel more wealth into fewer hands. Which, okay, is an ethos, but not one that’s really gonna get the base all that excited.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Mika never met a racist she didn’t side with (maybe David Duke). I remember a segment in 08 when she almost made Eugene Robinson lose his cool. She claimed Obama didn’t appeal to white working class and they will all go to McCain. This was after Eugene pointed out thaI there were AA and Latina working class and talking only about white working class is not accurate description of the American working class experience. I remember that segment because my dad got up and turned off the t.v. out of disgust.
MomSense
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, and it was awesome. In fact he was so confident and strong in his opinion that Joe kept trying to talk over him and shut him up but he would not be silenced by Joe’s bullying. Mika was practically catatonic and doing her best Munch The Scream impression.
Immanentize
@LAO: I hear you! But at the same time I think: “Please proceed.” Trump has allowed the meanest among us to let loose freely. UGLY!
Or is it the second coming when “the best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity?” I love me some Yeats.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anya: i remember her solemnly reminded her fellow coffee klatschers of right that Sarah Palin speaks for “real Americans”
for me the moment of (“liberal”) media cowardice wrt racism is Tom Brokaw in 2012 finger-wagging that he didn’t believe Romney’s exploitation of birrthererism and Trump was racist because it wasn’t ‘part of a pattern’. He didn’t have too much time to make his point, because now-Berniac Lawrence O’Donnell ate up most of the segment star-fucking the dimwitted old coot.
MomSense
@Redshift:
I keep asking people if they would let him babysit their kids–especially given what he has said about women and his own daughter.
Anya
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I missed the Brokaw segment because I stopped watching MSNBC’s morning line up. Mika is a disgrace. I actually dislike her more than her horrible co-host.
LAO
@Immanentize: I’m going to default to Molly Ivins:
Not her best — but we are doubtless in a “lunatic asylum” phase.
Shalimar
There won’t be another Trump to proof the process against. You will have in the future what you would have had this year if you had taken half of Trump’s delegates and divided them among Cruz, Rubio, Bush, Christie and Carson: the new dictionary example of “clusterfuck”.
The biggest problem with the Republican process is Republican voters and billionaires. They are defined by their hatreds and most elected officials of their own party are included on their hate lists.
You will never find a nominee more than 50% of them don’t hate.
The Golux
@Immanentize:
I don’t think it would faze him in the least. Keep in mind that what bugged him about being called a “short-fingered vulgarian” 25 years ago (and still bugs him today) is the “short-fingered” part. He’s perfectly happy with the vulgarian aspect.
So there has to be an insult regarding his appearance. To bad she can’t use John Oliver’s description: “a clown made of mummified foreskin and cotton candy”.
Chris
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Which in turn leads to the question “what is the GOP?” Is it the party apparatchiks, the whole cesspool of consultants and lobbyists around them, and the big money that finances the whole thing, or is it the voters?
raven
@The Golux: He’s from da city, waddaya expect?
raven
Herman Cain is going ballistic because the Bush dopes are not supporting Trump!
Chris
@raven:
Who?
Immanentize
@LAO: Molly spoke at the St. Mary’s Law graduation when I was teaching there and she said something like:
“It is the honor and duty of the graduation speaker to stand before the assembled — graduates, parents, friends, faculty, guests — and impart wisdom from his or her time on this planet that will help you as you move forward in your own lives. Never plant bamboo.”
guachi
I was aware that the Democrats allocated delegates based on Democratic votes in the prior two presidential elections (or some variation thereof).
I did not know, before this election, that the Republicans were crazy enough to allocate the same number of delegates to every congressional district no matter what. That’s insane. Who thought that up?
MomSense
@The Golux:
If it bothers him and he over reacts- bonus. I agree with defining him early so he is on defense the whole campaign.
I hope candidates for the House and Senate start immediately to have their Republican opponents sitting in a tree k i s s i n g Trump and all his offensive comments.
jl
I’m more interested in Trump- and Ryan- and Cruz-proofing the country. Democrats and Democratic leaning independents have to play the key role. I don’t see the point in kibbitzing what kind of cons, incompetence, white collar crime and nefarious anti-social activities the GOP decides to jump into next.
catclub
@Richard Mayhew:
I assume they will fight the last battle. The next threat is unlikely to be identical to the last threat.
Calouste
@guachi: Anything more complicated smells of science, and we can’t have that.
MattF
@Immanentize: Yes. An old friend of mine rented a place for the summer that had bamboo in the backyard. She said you could hear the bamboo creak as it grew overnight. So, just don’t.
Immanentize
And my favorite all-time put down comes from one of my favorite movies of all time: People Will Talk. There is a bunch of backstory which makes it even better, but it stands well enough on its own for our purposes:
“Professor Elwell [Donald Trump], you’re a little man. It’s not that you’re short. You’re little, in the mind and in the heart. Tonight, you tried to make a man [woman] little whose boots you couldn’t touch if you stood on tip-toe on top of the highest mountain in the world. And, as it turned out, you’re even littler than you were before.”
catclub
@Shalimar: Crux wins that primary in a walk. Cruz unifies the crazy far right/evangelicals.
All the ‘respectable GOP candidates’ split the rest, to their downfall.
So, that is actually the threat for 2020. Will they stop Cruz in the rules?
catclub
@Anya: I think Joe Scar is a likely Trump VP. He was a politician.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub: I don’t watch the show, but from the clips and quotes I see, I figure Scarborough has been campaigning to get on a ticket somehow, some way, for years. I think he thought Bloomberg would either pick him as Veep or bankroll him at the top of a no-labels ticket, so I can see him auditioning for Trump. I’d love to see the wrestling match between him and Christie for that spot, with Newt braying on the sidelines that he should be allowed to compete
LAO
@Immanentize: LOL. Sound advice.
PS — I wish I had seen her live.
PaulWartenberg2016
I blogged about this awhile back. One thing the Republicans could have done as a party is have a vetting system in place for Presidential nominees so they can weed out the unwanted candidates BEFORE they get on a ballot. They do that at the state level for Congressional and state seats.
They could also put a rule in place saying that any person running for the President on their party ticket has to have at least WON an election to an office at the federal or state level (this would have knocked Trump, Carly and Ben off the ballot right there). Granted, this could block military generals and Cabinet Secretaries from running for the Presidency, so a work-around has to be established for them (an obvious one is to have them run for a lesser office first and prove their bona fides).
These aren’t Constitutional requirements, true, but parties CAN and DO have their own restrictions in place and can legally set these parameters in place.
LAO
@catclub: I can see it, but I’m getting a weird, Gov. Paul LePage vibe. Wouldn’t that be an insane VP choice.
eclare
@Hoodie: That is also why so many southern states have early primaries: to ensure the most conservative (awful) GOP candidate gets a big boost
gogol's wife
@MomSense:
I just watched it. Disgusting.
I’m thinking of writing to the New York Times, “I guess this is what the mainstream German newspapers looked like during the rise of [Godwin].”
Gelfling545
@Richard Mayhew: I don’t think they will change. I think they’ll just go on saying they weren’t conservative enough yet again & go on hunting for Regan Redux.
shomi
Why in the hell do you care so much about the GOP fixing itself? Let them burn. Screw every last one of them! A one party system with other minor players is better than what we had the last 8 years.
trollhattan
@LAO:
The Donald is very media-savvy and knows a troglodyt like LePage won’t net a single vote and will cost plenty. He’s looking for a cast member, not a true believer.
Michael Bersin
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Problem fixed! No problem, eh?
The 2012 presidential primary in Missouri cost approximately $7 million. That was for both the republican and Democratic Party primaries. The republican end of it was a beauty contest (Santorum won with over 55.2% of the vote, Romney got all of the delegates). You might note that voters in Missouri do not register by party in Missouri, they pick a party ballot at the polling place. Since the Democratic Party race was not issue you can assume that there was considerable crossover voting. Much hilarity ensued.
Do the math for the cost to the party for more than fifty primaries (including DC, Puerto Rico, etc.). Yep, that would add up.
Open primaries? Nope. Especially if the party ends up paying for it. Anyone wants to run in or vote in a Democratic Party primary? Then be a damn Democrat.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah:
If this roused Hispanic community really gets organized and can overcome AZ voting restrictions to turn out in droves and vote…could this, finally, be bad news for John McCain?
gogol's wife
@gogol’s wife:
And by the way, the New York Times is now without a Public Editor (ombudsman), as we go into the election season. There is no one to write to with questions about their political coverage.
Chris
@shomi:
Yeah, it would. And honestly, a world where only Democrats won elections would probably end up with more ideological diversity, not less, than a world in which half the political spectrum is made up of honest-to-God nihilists and the rest of us have to spend so much energy just holding them back and fixing what they break that there’s barely any time left for governance and for fixing the nation’s deeper problems. There’s enough different constituencies among the Democrats – heck, even the Republican viewpoint would basically continue to be represented via the Blue Dogs. They just wouldn’t be able to completely take over every debate and make it all about them.
Amir Khalid
@LAO:
Trump knows you need something sweet in the mix to attract the punters, and I don’t see where he’d get that from Paul LePage. My own guess is, he’ll be looking for a woman or handsome-ish young guy who can be fobbed off on the GOP faithful as having some legislative/governing chops — maybe Paul Ryan or Nikki Haley or someone like that.
schrodinger's cat
@MomSense: Mika is like a high class escort, she has sold her journalistic cred to become Joe’s bitch.
* Apologies to escorts, who I am sure have more integrity as human beings than Mika.
schrodinger's cat
@Amir Khalid: Fellow philanderer Petraeus?
MattF
OT. Via Ars Technica, the tech doubletalk industry is getting into the ‘sleep’ game. A sample:
Insomniacs beware.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: India had that for the first 40 or so years after independence. It did not end well. A credible opposition party is essential, I think.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
As noted above, it’s not a good idea, especially long term. I just feel like it would still be healthier than the current clusterfuck.
Iowa Old Lady
At the state and city level, one-party rule tends to breed more corruption because no one will rat anyone else out or even oppose them because the party will punish the opposition. We need two good parties. Over the last couple of decades, the Republicans have rejected the very idea of governing, so we wind up with Trump.
LAO
@Amir Khalid: I agree with you — maybe,l I just really really want him to pick LaPage?
I actually think it will be Sen. Ernst. I expect that both Ryan and Haley are too politically smart to get into bed with Trump.
Brachiator
Well, that’s a non-starter.
Did anyone work through an analysis to see who might have won had the various changes discussed here been implemented?
And, as I am sure others have noted, the fundamental problem is that I would want whoever was the Republican nominee to be defeated. So, I don’t see any of this as a problem, nor do any “solutions” really interest me. The entire enterprise is fundamentally flawed.
Anya
@catclub: one can only hope. Two rageaholic, narcistic white men against Clinton and a charismatic Latina running mate.
Michael Bersin
@Marc:
Are you assuming that unpledged PLEO [party leader/elected official] delegates (that’s the Democratic Party’s term for the media’s turn of phrase) are not accountable to their constituencies?
In Missouri the unpledged PLEO delegates include Governor Jay Nixon (D), Senator Claire McCaskill (D), Representative Emanuel Cleaver (D), Representative Lacy Clay (D), the Missouri members of the DNC [elected for a four year term by elected delegates at the 2012 state Democratic convention], the chair of the Missouri Democratic party [elected by the elected members of the state party committee), and any former Democratic Speaker of the U.S. House, or Democratic minority leader of the U.S. House [Dick Gephardt, if he’s still in Missouri – I haven’t checked], or majority leader of the U.S. Senate, or former Democratic Party nominee for president [if from Missouri], or any former Democratic President [if from Missouri]. So yeah, they’re answerable to their constituencies at some point for their vote for the party’s nominee. Unless that constituency is someone who crossed over once to vote for someone else and will never show up to work for the party’s candidates or may not even bother to vote in an off year election.
You want to mess with the unpledged PLEO process? Plan ahead. Get elected a delegate to the state convention (that’s easy – the turnover before the state convention practically guarantees that any alternates who show up )gets seated as a delegate), then cast your vote for Missouri members of the DNC. Run for precinct committee in your county (that’s really easy), then run to get on the state senate district committee (that’s fairly easy), then run to be one of two slots from your senate district to be on the state committee (over time, that’s fairly easy, depending on what part of the state you’re from). Voila! You’l be in a position to change the world – you’ll just need to convince 63 other people that what you have in mind is going to work.
Just One More Canuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: i just watched this – great on Rob Reiner, but holy crap, is Joe ever a smarmy asshole
Anya
@schrodinger’s cat: I am not sure I like that analysis. The few times I watched the show I get a battered spouse vibe from Mika. They have that dynamic.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I have noticed a great deal of anger among Latinos in Southern California, but I don’t know if this has resulted in increased voter registration.
BTW, there are currently some big drives by Bernie supporters to register college students. Bill and Hillary Clinton are in town for various events and fund raisers, but I don’t know if any of this is connected to voter registration efforts.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m going to throw in with some others. The GOP is not lying to their voters to cynically manipulate them. They are lying to their voters because those voters want to be lied to, demand to be lied to, and flip their shit and turn into screaming mobs if they’re not lied to. Remember 2009, when the cynical manipulators like Rove and McConnell suggested on television that Rush’s apocalyptic descriptions were exaggerated, and the outcry was so bad they had to apologize a few days later? That happened repeatedly.
The lies that are upsetting the Republican base are the lies that reality is telling them. Trump is offering them a better fantasy land.
Brachiator
@MomSense:
Are we talking about Trump? His supporters are looking for a president, not a babysitter.
redshirt
@LAO: I wish! But like others said, it’s unlikely. LePage himself laughed off the idea yesterday, correctly stating that they are too similar. He would be up for a role in Trump’s Administration though, God help us all.
Michael Bersin
@srv:
“….People know the only way to change that is with disruption….”
Before or after buy the t-shirt? That, and you’ll have to convince them to not look at their smart phones every 30 seconds and, oh yeah, have them actually show up.
schrodinger's cat
@Frankensteinbeck: If they face the truth they will have to give up their cherished worldview.
schrodinger's cat
@Anya: No one has held a gun to her head right? Why doesn’t she behave like she has some self respect. Battered wife is a role she is playing, as to why is anybody’s guess.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
The GOP is also lying to itself. It’s leaders insist that the only legitimate ruling party in the United States is the Republican Party. And yet this supposedly pure and principalled party is for sell to the highest “patriot” bidders.
dww44
@Chris: WOW! Got just the relative to share this with.She’s sent me 3 emails in 2 days that indicate she’s already lining up behind her party’s nominee, which I knew she would. Oh, she won’t admit it, but this will probably send her over the edge because they are and have always been defensive and think we Dems look down on them..
IMO,all those who claim that Trump’s appeal is to a certain working class white male segment have left out a just as large other segment. The strongest Trump supporters I know are upper middle class and educated white women. I don’t quite yet understand it, except that they are always looking for a reason to vote for the Republican, no matter who it is. They’ve always voted for a Republican because those who are culturally similar to them have as well. How else do you justify to yourself your support for a person like Trump when you are also a committed Church going Christian?
catclub
@gogol’s wife: I was at a museum at one of the concentration camps in Germany and thought that the Gothic fonts the newspapers used was part of what pushed the Germans over the edge.
NonyNony
@Immanentize:
Clinton should stick to mocking Trump’s “policies” for the most part. Stay above the fray and be the better woman. It’ll actually drive him crazy if she doesn’t respond to his infantile remarks.
OTOH – Barack Obama should totally go full-on understated mockery of Trump. He’s very good at it and it really gets under Trump’s skin. And Elizabeth Warren looks like she’s ready to take the lead on responding to Trump’s idiotic insults on Clinton’s behalf. Plus it’ll draw Trump’s attacks to them – there’s really nothing better in a Presidential campaign than to get your opponent to take his eyes off of you and start attacking someone else because you’ve got them rattled.
This is going to be a weird Presidential campaign, but I fully expect that the two best surrogates that Clinton is going to have – Obama and Warren – are ready and willing to jump into it. Warren especially seems to have been salivating for a chance to filet Trump and has only been holding back for fear that her work might lead to Ted Cruz or John Kasich getting the nomination instead…
Chris
@dww44:
Portraying white racism as something particular to the working class and/or the poor is the trope that just won’t die. It’s why terms like “white trash,” “rednecks,” “hicks” et al are always associated with racism, even though the middle and upper classes have just about as many bigots of their own.
schrodinger's cat
@Chris: MSM’s behavior during the Obama years is a testimony to what you say.
Frankensteinbeck
@dww44:
For way too many ‘committed Church going Christians’, it’s a club founded on the belief that they are right and everybody else is wrong, especially the liberals who forced them to share schools with black people. Other than slogans to pat themselves on the back for their righteousness, morality never comes into play. Hell, they’ve given themselves a Get-Out-Of-Damnation-Free card, because that’s just how much better than us they are. Lining up behind a crude, bigoted, hate-spewing jackass isn’t that hard, but they do wish he was more dignified about it.
@Chris:
Racism flourishes in the financially secure, the wealthy, aristocrats, and times of plenty. It was in thick supply when whites felt confident they could get good jobs for life, which was why they were willing to put those jobs on the chopping block to make sure blacks never got them. This, specifically, is why I do not buy Sanders’ philosophy.
flister
@Chris: Wealthy racists are seldom put into the position where they must vote against their own self interest in order to support their racism. Poor racists are often put into that position and choose to screw themselves over in order to stick it to the brown folks. It makes them more noticeable and, occasionally, more infuriating than the “I got mine” crowd.
Patricia Kayden
@LAO: That’s a pretty shocking story: So-called Christian/Trump Supporter strands disabled customer because God told him that he cannot help a Sanders supporter.
Wow. This is what we’re getting from his supporters and Trump isn’t even President yet.
Peale
@Chris: Yep. Liberals have this odd tendency to take the worst ideas that come out of the democratic party and associate them with the lower classes, as if they bubbled up from there, and couldn’t possibly have been the idea of someone with a college degree who was paid to come up with ideas.
rikyrah
@dww44:
Will say it again:
The gender gap in 2012 from women came because of Non-White women.
J R in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Scott,
I edit all the time to keep from looking like an uneducated doofus, as typing with a cat on your shoulder is difficult. I have gone into moderation for discussing medical substances in the news, or mentioning the primary business of the Republican nearly-nominee for president.
But if editing to fix nonsense put one into moderation, I would never get a post up without aid from someone with keys to the moderation vault.
Maybe it is partly that and partly your hardware./software installation? If folks having a problem would contact the help desk with a detailed description of both the unwanted behavior and the platform that behavior is happening on, that would help the boffins fix stuff, or at least know what to investigate, if fixing is too much to hope for…
For example, I use an Acer Aspire E-15 laptop, newish, running an up-to-date release of Ubuntu V 14.04 and Firefox V46, and everything works pretty well, for me, on this platform.
J R in WV
Also, Richard, thanks for putting the analytical mind to work on politics.
Good job!
JR
randy khan
@NonyNony:
I think Clinton needs to practice her dismissive laugh. That will really get under Trump’s skin.
scottinnj
The other option Mr Mayhew is the Preferential Voting System, used in countries like Australia.
Basically voters rank order the candidates on the ballot (say there are five candidates). Your ballot is thus for Candidate A, B, C, D and E in that order. If no candidate has a majority the last place candidate’s ballot is then cast for their second choice. So if you voted for A, A is in last, your vote then goes to B, and so on.
So in the GOP, if they had some similar system, in a state like NH you would have seen say Christie’s voters likely given their 2nd votes to Rubio/Kasich, JEB voters to Rubio, and probably few to Trump.
Maybe you allocate 60% of the delegates on a proportional system then 40% to the ‘winner take all’ but on the basis of preferential voting. That way you get a more consensus pick, but don’t go completely all in on WTA.
The problem with the Democratic model is that it would have been fairly easy to see a Clinton/Warren/Webb (or something like that) with the result at 46/47/7% delegate split and you’d have a nightmare on your hands.
Just say no to IRV
@scottinnj:
Okay, I know that this thread has long-since joined the choir invisible (my schedule runs late), but this triggers this nym’s pet peeve…
Richard’s invocation of Approval Voting is much better than ranked voting for an application like this (heck, just about any application that I can think of). The ranked-voting systems (A > B > C) in general can be okay (though, IMO, inferior to approval or range voting), but IRV (Instant-Runoff Voting, or, as you called it, preferential voting), where you percolate votes up by eliminating least-favored candidates results in mathematically-chaotic results (small differences in vote counts at the bottom can end up completely swinging the final result, with the apparent margin of victory potentially large in each variant case). Also, ranked voting systems don’t well capture “Sure, I like A best, but B or C would be fine; D, E, F, and G however would be awful (and I don’t have an opinion about H or J).” Now approval voting can’t quite capture that either (range voting [*] can), but it offers the trade-off of being simpler to explain and implement, and it generally gives good-enough results which simulations show as coming awfully close to the same results as range voting.
[*] In range voting each candidate is given a score within a range, like 0-10 (like scoring a judged event at the Olympics). A “don’t know/care” vote (if allowed by the system) would entail using some special symbol like “DK” instead of a numeric score. Without DK marks the result for a candidate is a simple sum of the scores given to that candidate; with DK marks it’s a little more complicated.
And as long as I’m commenting, I’d also like to address Richard’s original post. If we’re trying to design what an ideal fair system would look like, I’d like to stick to the precept of “one person, one vote”. I approve of the use of Approval Voting, but whether run state-by-state or all-at-once nationally, I’d like to see the total of the whole popular vote, across all jurisdictions (states and territories) count towards the selection of the nominee. I don’t see the point of the indirection through delegates – iit seems like a historical anachronism that isn’t needed anymore. Superdelegates are right out: very anti-democratic (IMO), and the concern about “what-if post-primary, pre-convention the lead candidate flames out” can be addressed simply by picking the second-choice candidate (which is meaningful with approval voting, or pretty much any non-single-mark voting system). Also, no caucuses; state-run primaries would probably be open (or semi-open) and party-run primaries would probably be closed.
My day late and a dollar short $0.02.