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politics (and a great link)
OK, I haven't been posting about politics much, partly because I'm trying to save my energy for the fall.
Since I haven't been talking about it, I'll first get my opinions out of the way in two paragraphs. As for the Democratic primary, I've felt all along that the most important thing is to get a Democrat in the White House in 2009. This hasn't changed one whit. If we want to get out of Iraq, end the tax cuts for the rich, move toward universal health care, keep the American middle class from dying a slow death, address poverty, keep abortion legal, and not have an irretrievably right-wing supreme court for the next generation, we need someone in the White House with a (D) after that person's name. The details of who that person is matter much less. This is a consequence of the American political system that I feel is unfortunate but real.
I've supported Obama for several months. I've liked his policies a bit more than any other candidate's ever since I made this decision in late winter. Clinton was pretty close for me at one point, but the tipping point then and since was that I think Clinton is more entrenched in the inside-the-beltway world, with lobbyists and a lack of grassroots, crashing-the-gate-style support. Since April, I especially haven't liked how she's campaigned. I am not sexist. Back when I supported Dodd and Edwards a bit more than Obama, I was not racist either. However, I feel that Clinton has been right to stay in the race up until now, and I feel that her presence in the race has been a net plus for the Democratic party as a whole and the Democrats' chances in this race in November in particular.
Now, the main reason for this post is to link you to a site that I found recently and loved, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. The author of this blog recently revealed himself to be Nate Silver, an employee of Baseball Prospectus, my favorite baseball website of all time. Nate and the other BP guys revolutionized the way I (and many others) look at baseball, by taking statistical analysis and performance measurement to a level of rigor never seen before. Nate has apparently been blogging about politics in the same way.
A few good links from FiveThirtyEight from the past few days: a popular vote calculator where you get to pick the counting method and it counts the votes for you, a discussion of the turnout in the Michigan primary, and a detailed calculation of how many delegates are needed to win the nomination and how the media might be a bit off.
Feel free to leave comments to this post, though I warn you that I probably won't participate too long in a discussion about policy or campaign strategy. As I said, I'm trying to save my energy. It would be bad if I exhaust my limited interest in this stuff over the next few months, and have no energy left in the fall to help the Dems win the White House.
Since I haven't been talking about it, I'll first get my opinions out of the way in two paragraphs. As for the Democratic primary, I've felt all along that the most important thing is to get a Democrat in the White House in 2009. This hasn't changed one whit. If we want to get out of Iraq, end the tax cuts for the rich, move toward universal health care, keep the American middle class from dying a slow death, address poverty, keep abortion legal, and not have an irretrievably right-wing supreme court for the next generation, we need someone in the White House with a (D) after that person's name. The details of who that person is matter much less. This is a consequence of the American political system that I feel is unfortunate but real.
I've supported Obama for several months. I've liked his policies a bit more than any other candidate's ever since I made this decision in late winter. Clinton was pretty close for me at one point, but the tipping point then and since was that I think Clinton is more entrenched in the inside-the-beltway world, with lobbyists and a lack of grassroots, crashing-the-gate-style support. Since April, I especially haven't liked how she's campaigned. I am not sexist. Back when I supported Dodd and Edwards a bit more than Obama, I was not racist either. However, I feel that Clinton has been right to stay in the race up until now, and I feel that her presence in the race has been a net plus for the Democratic party as a whole and the Democrats' chances in this race in November in particular.
Now, the main reason for this post is to link you to a site that I found recently and loved, http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/. The author of this blog recently revealed himself to be Nate Silver, an employee of Baseball Prospectus, my favorite baseball website of all time. Nate and the other BP guys revolutionized the way I (and many others) look at baseball, by taking statistical analysis and performance measurement to a level of rigor never seen before. Nate has apparently been blogging about politics in the same way.
A few good links from FiveThirtyEight from the past few days: a popular vote calculator where you get to pick the counting method and it counts the votes for you, a discussion of the turnout in the Michigan primary, and a detailed calculation of how many delegates are needed to win the nomination and how the media might be a bit off.
Feel free to leave comments to this post, though I warn you that I probably won't participate too long in a discussion about policy or campaign strategy. As I said, I'm trying to save my energy. It would be bad if I exhaust my limited interest in this stuff over the next few months, and have no energy left in the fall to help the Dems win the White House.
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I had a huge rant here about the Michigan Primary, but I deleted it because I was getting too aggravated. Basically, I think it's ridiculous that the National Party said they wouldn't count the votes, no one campaigned here because of it, and therefore most of the voters just didn't show up. Why would they? No one addressed their specific concerns, and they knew it didn't matter. And then they just decide to count those votes anyway? Without a revote? I really don't agree with that.
I know plenty of people personally (like me, and pretty much all my friends in Ann Arbor) who didn't go vote for that reason. And I know we should have, if only to get a representation of the voter's opinions, but I assumed (correctly) that most people wouldn't go out and vote either and the representation would be off anyway. I don't know, it's all just really messed up. The party's eating itself.
Oh, looks like I kind of ranted anyway :/ Sorry.
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Obama has done a good job of staying out of the in-fighting. I think that will help him with the independents. In fact, I still think he's going to clean up among the independents and win this thing in a landslide, but I don't want to get my hopes up...
And yes, I'm SO sick of the gotcha politics. New rule: you're only allowed to criticize a candidate for what they say or what one of their paid advisors says, and only if they say it more than once, or say it once and then refuse to apologize for it. Fair? Good.
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I watched a lot of the rambling on Saturday off and on, and an interesting argument, at least for Florida, was that maybe not that many people stayed home. I'm not sure how valid that argument is. The numbers of people who did vote were already relatively large, and I think it's clear that campaigning would have resulted in a higher turnout, but I'm not sure if it would have been decisively higher--in terms of a race changing difference in popular or pledged votes anyway.
But, much like I think the experience ship sailed months ago, as did the disenfranchisement. Watching the debating on Saturday was nuts "well, we didn't know when we made that ruling that it would be such a competitive race!" So, uh, voting only matters in a competitive race? What other caveats are there? Please.
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I don't know whether the voters thought it counted, though. You'd have to ask them.
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I definitely like your new rule. I'm so up for no more political distractions.
Jeff's Rant, Part 1
Florida was actually not all the Democrats' fault. The state legislature (Republican dominated) voted to move up the primaries, and the Democrats were forced with a choice - have a token primary that doesn't count in early January, and a caucus later on that would have to be paid for entirely by state party money... or take the Republican-forced primary and run with it. The Republicans knew that their party's penalties would be a slap on the wrist, and used that advantage to screw the Democrats - and the worst part is that the Democrats knew it, and couldn't really do anything about it. So they resigned themselves to the early primary, the campaigning embargo, and the threat of lost delegates, all the while trying to convince the Democratic National Committee that it really wasn't ALL their fault. I'm 100% certain that self-awareness of their own futile struggle in this case played a big part in discouraging Floridian Democratic voter turnout. If they were ABSOLUTELY forced to, I'm sure they would have agreed to a re-vote or caucus, as that was their backup plan anyway - but the state party wants to save its money for the downticket (state legislature, etc.) campaigns, if it can. Florida Democrats can use all the help they can get, so I'm inclined to be a bit more sympathetic to them.
Jeff's Rant, Part 2
So, there you have both a fairly solid summary of the situation AND my opinions and biases splattered liberally throughout. Enjoy!
--Jeff
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Namely because, how is any of that the voters' fault? The state party made these decisions and the voters paid for them. There are a lot of things that could have gone differently in the whole process. From the beginning, the national party could have punished the state party directly without throwing away votes of the actual citizens who have a right to be heard. A party fine perhaps, or even stating from the beginning that the votes would count as half. Even that wouldn't have skewed results like this whole "my vote won't count so why bother" mentality. It would have created a more accurate representation of the state's delegate choice - because as you said with only Hillary on the ticket it's not even a fair election.
What's going on right now is also completely wrong. It's clear the Michigan Primary does not actually reflect the opinion of the voters for a multitude of reasons - they were told their votes wouldn't count from the beginning and this affected the turnout, the only candidate on the ballet was Hillary which effects the number of delegates she really earned, none of the candidates were able to directly address any of Michigan's concerns, creating apathy for many of the voters - the list goes on. So why in the world are they all of a sudden using these VERY SKEWED results at the national convention? It doesn't matter if it's the National Party or the State Party that's at fault, it's still an awful decision. I'd almost rather not have the votes count at all than have inaccurate voting. At least then the information the voters had in the beginning would remain the same.
And finally, no matter how pissed the National Party was at the State Party, they should have looked at things in the long term. How many independents and weak democrats are going to be turned off by this whole debacle and vote instead for a party that seems to actually be cohesive or be apathetic to the whole process and not vote at all? Being told your votes won't count doesn't exactly incite warm feelings to a party. With the way the state is faring right now, it's not a sure Democratic win anymore and I don't think the Party understood that. Michigan has traditionally been on their side with their abundance of union workers and general political lean - but with the automotive industry breaking down and the Democratic Senator not being able to do much about it (whether it's her fault or not doesn't matter to disenfranchised voters) - this whole thing probably wasn't the best way to get on their good side.
Regardless, the whole issue here is the system. The State Party made a choice that the National Party didn't like, so they made a choice, and then unmade the choice after-the-fact. The voters have been thrown around by these institutions, completely ignorant of goings-on until it happens, and that's not at all what the point of an election is, is it?
That of course leads into my whole deal with the delegate nomination process - but that's a whole other issue. So, yeah. Anyway.
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- Taking away money directly from the State Party means less money to spend on local Dem candidates. That'd be basically like handing Michigan over to the Republicans, which is NOT a good outcome. By the by, forcing the State Party to pay for a re-vote is the same thing as levying a fine, only that's a multi-million dollar fine.
- Other, smaller states get fucked when bigger states vote first. The current Dem primary system, fucked up as it is, is designed to give certain smaller states more of a voice earlier on in the primary process, so that they aren't drowned out later by larger states. That was the reason why "Super Tuesday" was such a big deal - it was the first date, according to Democratic party rules, that other, larger states (e.g. California) could vote on. That's why Michigan's Dems - not exactly a "small state party" with 157 non-halved delegates, - should not be allowed to break the Democratic party rules. Better to screw all the Democratic votes in Michigan than the Democratic votes in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina (the "legal" primaries that happened pre-Super Tuesday).
- Discarding or discounting Michigan delegates is the only "fair" punishment for the state party. It doesn't affect downticket races, it doesn't affect the state party budget, and it sends a clear signal that the National primary calendar (and thus the smaller states that vote first) should NOT be fucked with. The only thing it does do, which is unfair but unavoidable, is disenfranchise Michigan Dem primary voters. The state party will learn from its mistake, the current national primary system can be reviewed and overhauled WITHOUT causing anarchy in the party and an "every state for itself" scramble to make earlier and earlier primaries, and Michigan will be able to vote in the general election anyway. And I'm okay with that, since the other alternatives are all worse.
- Michigan's primary results were not used to apportion its delegates. Well, not directly, anyway. The Rules and Bylaws Committee agreed to split the Michigan delegates 69 Hillary - 59 Obama, as a compromise between Clinton (who wanted to "stick" to the primary's results, giving her 73 to Obama's 55) and Obama (who wanted a 64-64 straight split of the delegates). This apportionment was approved by the RBC, and though Clinton kind of supports it, she also kind of wants to argue about it (her campaign is "reserving the right to challenge the ruling", without challenging it officially). In that way, the RBC's decision both somewhat follows voter sentiment in Michigan, extrapolated from polls, the vote results, and the sentiments of the two remaining candidates, but it also somewhat doesn't follow the will of the voter at all. Yay for compromise!
- The national party (DNC) does not have direct control over the state parties. This is more of a statement of fact than opinion, as it should be apparent to everyone that this entire fiasco of voter disenfranchisement could have been avoided had the national party simply OVERRULED the state party in 2007. Sadly, that's not possible, which is why we are in the fucked up situation we are today.
Hopefully this will cause the average Michigan Democratic voter to get very angry with their state's Democratic party. My ideal outcome of this debacle would be a replacement of the state party leadership with more pragmatic, less ego-driven party members, and the reinstatement of a later primary, so that tensions between state parties all across the U.S. can calm down enough that the national party can overhaul the current system.
--Jeff
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Even if it wasn't decided directly, the HUGE gap between Clinton and Obama (considering the way the other states have been going - it IS huge) is proof of a ballot skew. That's not debatable. You can't just decide "oh, well the election is REALLY close and Clinton's throwing a fit, so I guess we'll count you guys now." I think that's what I'm more upset about, really. I understood the decision when it was first made; changing things around just because things are getting narrow only makes me think the party's comprised of people who can't agree or reconcile their differences for the sake of the election or the party's interest.
I'm still voting democrat in the election because I'm scarily liberal... but how many others will?
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You are right - the DNC ideally should have stuck with their original punishment, but I think since Obama has literally locked this nomination up, it's a moot point. I'm glad he's made it a moot point, because if Florida and Michigan were the crux of a victory or defeat for either candidate, then the Democrats would be in a WHOLE lot of trouble. As it is, since those two issues have become moot, I think we can safely sweept them under the rug and start the push for the general. And really, I think we can win. No, I know we can win. This election is, as of right now, ours to lose - so let's get in gear and try not to fuck things up!
--Jeff
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