Convention Reform
(wikimedia photo)
Democrats are taking a look at reforming their presidential nominating process. Steve Benen is particularly excited by Elaine Kamarck’s proposal to do away with the superdelegates. I think I agree with that, but when it comes to this kind of reform it’s important not to expend too much energy on fighting the last war and also think about elements of the current system that could go wrong but didn’t.
On the top of this list I would put the fact that the quasi-proportional manner in which the Democrats award delegates to the national convention raises the very real specter of a totally indecisive primary campaign. As regular readers know, I’m actually a fan of proportional electoral systems. But that’s as a way to produce a legislature in which post-election coalition-building is an integral element of the process. A proportional system helps ensure that everyone is fairly represented at that coalition-building stage.
But when it comes to a party trying to choose a single standard-bearer the considerations are very different. If there’s anything we saw in the 2008 cycle it’s that the mere fact of an ongoing competition can breed enormous ill will even in the absence of huge substantive gaps. At the same time, bringing the contest to a decisive conclusion sets the stage for reconciliation. Under the circumstances, it makes a ton of sense to try to forge an election system that’s likely to produce a clear winner.
53 Responses to “Convention Reform”
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June 28th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Yeah, no superdelegates in a proportional system means taking the same king-making power and allocating it to the third-place candidate(s). On the one hand, that could be good to the extent it encourages longer and more diverse primary debates. On the other hand, that could be bad politics for the party, because presumably there is some reason the candidate in question finished no better than third (e.g., they might be a regional candidate, or an ideological niche candidate, or so on), and it may not be a great idea to have that person choosing the nominee.
I actually think how the superdelegates happened to work in this last case was pretty good. By the end, it seemed clear enough of them had adopted the view that their job was to ratify the ordinary delegate leader (absent some recent disqualifying event or revelation) to make that the de facto system. The problem, of course, is there is no guarantee that future superdelegates will see their role in the same way.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
How much money will the Democratic candidate have to raise in 2016? Two trillions? Three?
Any reform should have as first and only objective freeing the future potential president from the influence of lobbies and special interests. And the Dems will make it happen when pigs fly.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
If there’s anything we saw in the 2008 cycle it’s that the mere fact of an ongoing competition can breed enormous ill will even in the absence of huge substantive gaps
Because all those angry PUMAs elected president McCain!
Actually the moment when Clinton nominated Obama was fantastic political theather, the highlight of the primary season. It was almost worth the one-trillion tag or whatever that had already been spent.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Matt, the circumstances of 2008, where the Democrats were pretty evenly divided between two strong candidates most Democrat voters found appealing are unlikely to be repeated, since it never happened before, so I think you are worrying over nothing. It’s not like the primaries kept Obama from winning or anything. You could argue that the long campaign helped him.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Was there *really* that much acrimony with the drawn-out primary? I know it’s a flame that sure felt hot *at the time*, but I thought it flickered and faded very quickly. Maybe BHO got lucky that McCain proved to be such a bad candidate, maybe he got lucky that the economy cratered in September. But for all the fear about permanent damage and how it was the GOP’s ‘dream scenario’ to have McCain coast while HRC and BHO bickered, November 5th still dawned with a big win for the Democrats.
I agree with DTM…and would add what is maybe a minor reason. The superdelegates are all people in positions of power in the party or government at various levels, right? Whoever becomes president will have to not only appeal to the masses, but also the party elite. Making the superdelegates part of the process means a candidate who can’t twist some arms won’t make it to the WH.
It’s a little meta – but for the same caliber of reason I think the caucuses are good (not that they’re up for debate). I like that awarding delegates for caucuses forces candidates to be more than simple holograms who look good on TV commercials and 5-second speech snippets. The candidate has to be an organizer – has to talk people into acting, being part of a movement…not just casting a vote one day of every 4 years. Those are good skills to have in the Oval Office.
Bottom line – the nominating process should obviously reflect the will of the people…but I don’t think it’s a bad thing that there are multiple routes to a victory, and that it filters out candidates who won’t have the skills to be successful in the general election AND candidates who won’t be successful in the WH.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Yes, because the primary campaign sure did come back to haunt us in November.
June 28th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
“I actually think how the superdelegates happened to work in this last case was pretty good. By the end, it seemed clear enough of them had adopted the view that their job was to ratify the ordinary delegate leader”
Yes and no.
I strongly agree that the superdelegate system worked pretty well in ‘08, even though the superdelegates went against the candidate I’d have preferred. The job of the superdelegates is to settle a virtual tie well in advance of the convention, and that’s precisely what they did.
But I strongly disagree that they were doing it because they saw themselves as “ratifying the ordinary delegate leader”. Instead, they were simply choosing their own preference. They went for Obama for the exact same reasons that caucus participants went for Obama – the majority of Democratic activists preferred Obama to Clinton.
—–
As to Matthew’s suggestions in his post, they’re pretty much a Big Bag of Wrong.
You want to have a primary system that forces a nominee with majority support. Bad things happen when you have a primary system that allows a plurality nominee to squeak through.
Most of the current rules are in place specifically to force a majority nominee.
If you were to change anything about the current system, the best answer would be to find a way to delay heavy front-loading of delegate selection. Having half the delegates chosen within a single month after idea the way it happened in ‘08 is a bad idea. You want a longer “off-broadway” phase of contests to allow more consensus to form before you select the bulk of delegates.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
A no-brainer reform would be to have all primaries done before May… it’s rare that things are as drawn out as they were in 2008, but if it had been a closer election and McCain had bee a less incompetent campaigner the advantage he gained with a couple months of opposition-free campaigning would’ve been hard to overcome. The GOP system leads to picking a winner sooner.
The best reform, in terms of the Democrats chances in November, would be an accelerated system that guarantees contested primaries in every state with a chance of being a battleground. I’d suggest the following:
1. Do away with superdelegates
2. Retain proportional awards of delegates, but scale it to congressional representation instead of # of registered Democrats
3. Change the calendar as follows:
Week 1: IA
Week 3: NH
Week 5: 5 closest states in last Presidential election
Week 6: next 5 closest states
etc…
Keep IA and NH where they are so that you can hold debates and primaries at the same time and capture public attention, then get to the interesting portion of the event. The pseudorandomness involved with the arrangement of primaries avoids the controversy with the latest calendar trying to move up Nevada and South Carolina in favor of other states. Frontloading with competitive states would ensure that all candidates with a chance to win get organized in states that will be close in November.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Oh, and if Obama had had a slimmer elected delegate lead and Clinton had had a larger popular vote lead, it was hardly certain that the superdelegates would’ve switched.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
It seems like the lesson from 08 wasn’t that a drawn out primary was bad, it’s that it was good. Raising money in the primary, setting up a ground campaign, and constant debating and campaigning seems to a compliment to the general election, not zero-sum. Also, it let’s someone who frankly didn’t have a lot of experience, BHO, seem like he had a lot of experience simply because he had been campaigning for two years (or at least let people get over it, because he had to deal with so many issues). From that perspective we should be doing more to draw it out, like reducing events like Super Tuesday, then preventing a drawn out campaign.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
@Kyle – the money thing is kind of a double edged sword. It allowed a lot of organizing to be done on primary money but also required a lot of money to be spent in places where money didn’t need to be spent in November. Obama still could’ve raised and spent primary money through the convention whether primaries were still going or not. The primary is going to be long, anyway; it’s just a question of whether it’s 18 months long and bleeds into when people would rather start campaigning against a Republican or a few months shorter.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
If we get rid of the super-delegates, would there even be any point to having the Convention at all other than the supposed “bounce”? Once a candidate got the majority of regular delegates, we’d already know he or she’s going to win the nomination.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Oh, and if Obama had had a slimmer elected delegate lead and Clinton had had a larger popular vote lead, it was hardly certain that the superdelegates would’ve switched.
I believe the only way to get Clinton to have a popular vote lead is to throw out every single caucus and to include results from Florida (arguable) and Michigan (idiotic; Obama wasn’t even on the ballot). Which suggests that the problem isn’t with superdelegates, it’s with states trying to break the rules that the national party has agreed on and getting their primaries put into limbo as a result.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Oh, and if Obama had had a slimmer elected delegate lead and Clinton had had a larger popular vote lead, it was hardly certain that the superdelegates would’ve switched.
Clinton didn’t have a popular vote lead. There was, in 2008, no such thing as an overall popular vote in the Democratic primaries.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
If we get rid of the super-delegates, would there even be any point to having the Convention at all other than the supposed “bounce”? Once a candidate got the majority of regular delegates, we’d already know he or she’s going to win the nomination.
Well, that’s how the Republicans do it, and how the Democrats do it in years when primary voters aren’t split down the middle. There’s really *isn’t* a point to having the Convention beyond the free media time and coverage, which is reason enough.
June 28th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
I thought the longer primary was better. Kerry was such a foregone conclusion so early that everyone lost interest all summer long. Including many Democrats. The Clinton-Obama maytchup kept Democrats engaged, interested, volunteering and donating right up to the end.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Shouldn’t coalition-building happen before the election? You know, when people are deciding how to cast their vote? That’s one of the flaws of proportional voting.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Beyond them being a bunch of yahoos, I don’t really know what super-delegates are. I’m in favor of direct democracy, though. And Condorcet voting.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I think that I agree that the Clinton-Obama angle on this is not the way to look at it. As a Clinton supporter I came to think both that the system was completely unfair but not in a way that favored Obama over Clinton in any clear way. They both engaged in a fight in which the rules were set ahead of time so as long as the rules were followed it wasn’t unjust to either side. That said I think that Caucuses should be replaced by primaries. Then the total number of votes won by a candidate would decide the outcome. I think that a tie in total number of votes is much less than the odds of a tie in a state by state winner take all system. There is a reason we worry about the 269-269 tie problem. Its true that this may cause primaries to run on to the end, but I think thats a good thing. We should have several contests to narrow the field but then we should have everyone else vote and a Saturday in February.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
As a side note to my comment above the problem with a state by state winner take all system is that Florida could have a very close count between the two candidates thus requiring recounts and possibly litigation. If total votes decides it by contrast it is extremely unlikely to have it come down to just a few votes.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Hillary received more votes than Obama,even if the caucus estimates are included.
The superdelegates gave the nomination to Obama anyway.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
“Clinton didn’t have a popular vote lead. There was, in 2008, no such thing as an overall popular vote in the Democratic primaries.”
Sure there was such a thing as an “overall popular vote in the Democratic primaries”. It’s just that there were numerous ways to define the count of that overall popular vote.
Obama won the overall popular vote no matter how you chose to count it, although it was very close to a tie if you counted it in ways more favorable to Clinton.
The fact that Obama won the nomination while also winning the popular vote helped unite the party. If the Obama forces had tried to parlay their caucus wins into the nomination while Clinton had clearly won the popular vote, the superdelegates could have conceivably protected the primary voters by swinging to Clinton, which would have made sense for the Party.
The rules are actually pretty sensible. The superdelegates only come into play if a race is quite close, and they are subject to pressures to do the best thing for the Party.
June 28th, 2009 at 6:20 pm
I know Matt likes to go all contrarian on occasion, but this one takes the cake. The Dem system is aimed at preventing a plurality winner a la McGovern. I’d argue that the Rep system gave them their version of a McGovern candidacy. McCain was loathed by the theocons, not horribly popular with the corpcons, and only kinda-sorta liked by the neocons. Their system ensured that he got the nomination w/o really having to seriously appeal to the other groups. A more Dem-like system either gives them a McCain with more intraparty outreach or, more likely, Mittens.
June 28th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Obama won the overall popular vote no matter how you chose to count it, although it was very close to a tie if you counted it in ways more favorable to Clinton.
Only if you choose to exclude Michigan.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
“Only if you choose to exclude Michigan.”
Look, I was a pretty strong Clinton supporter during the spring of ‘08, but a fair reading would give somewhere around 2/3rds of the Michigan “uncommitted” vote to Obama.
If you also include estimates for the caucus states, you end with almost a perfect tie in the popular vote, with Obama likely having a very slight edge.
My opinion at the time was that the superdelegates should have gone for Clinton since Clinton pretty clearly thumped Obama in the popular vote among self-identified Democrats, with Obama’s strength among self-identified independents making the overall popular vote a tie. My opinion was that the superdelegates should protect the wishes of Democratic voters, but the superdelegates had other criteria for deciding than mine.
Although I didn’t like the results the rules produced in ‘08, I do like the actual rules. Without something like superdelegates, the thing could have gotten seriously messy, and that would have been in no one’s interests.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
“I know Matt likes to go all contrarian on occasion, but this one takes the cake. The Dem system is aimed at preventing a plurality winner a la McGovern. I’d argue that the Rep system gave them their version of a McGovern candidacy. McCain was loathed by the theocons, not horribly popular with the corpcons, and only kinda-sorta liked by the neocons. Their system ensured that he got the nomination w/o really having to seriously appeal to the other groups. A more Dem-like system either gives them a McCain with more intraparty outreach or, more likely, Mittens.”
Bingo.
—–
The current Dem rules really are pretty good, and much better than the horror show the GOP has going.
The problem lies in the calendar. The system would work best if the bulk of delegates were chosen two months after the first contest rather than one month. It would give more time for low-information voters to get to know the candidates and get any second thoughts out of their system.
In ‘08 we chose about half the delegates in a single day less than a month after Iowa, and that’s a system that could produce a real disaster.
Calendar reform would be the most productive way to improve the process, but nobody seems to have the stomach or ability to do calendar reform.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
But I strongly disagree that they were doing it because they saw themselves as “ratifying the ordinary delegate leader”. Instead, they were simply choosing their own preference.
There was obviously no way to look inside their heads as they cast their votes. But here are a couple brute facts:
First, the bulk of superdelegates remained uncommitted until after it was clear Obama was going to finish as the ordinary delegate leader (which really happened no later than the Wisconsin primary, and yet many superdelegates waited much longer to commit), and those superdelegates then ended up overwhelming favoring Obama. If it was really just a matter of personal preferences, there would be no real reason for the very long delay as the outcome of the delegate contest was determined.
Second, once it became clear Obama was going to finish as the ordinary delegate leader, there was a net switching of previously committed superdelegates in his favor. Again, if it was just personal preference, this shouldn’t have happened.
So, I think it is difficult to argue that the results of the ordinary delegate contest were completely immaterial to the superdelegate count. I also personally think it is pretty clear that it would have gone the other way if Clinton, rather than Obama, had taken a commanding lead in ordinary delegates (I think the uncommitted superdelegates to that point would have swung her way just as solidly), but I admit we can never know for sure.
June 28th, 2009 at 7:55 pm
“First, the bulk of superdelegates remained uncommitted until after it was clear Obama was going to finish as the ordinary delegate leader”
I think you are confusing a core Obama campaign “talking point” from the spring of ‘08 with the actual reality of what happened. (This is something that commonly happens to all of us when we try to write the history of primary races Everyone is spinning like crazy for six months, which makes is somewhat tricky to figure out what the actual mechanics of the race really were.)
“Ordinary delegate leader” was one factor the was steering the superdelegates. If there had been a clear “popular vote leader”, that would also have been one factor steering the superdelegates.
But at the end of the day, in the best history I can construct of it, the superdelegates proved most susceptible to pressure from Democratic activists, who were solidly in Obama’s camp.
My personal preference was that the superdelegates should have protected the wishes of the majority of Democratic voters in the primaries, who were with Clinton, but I think it was the pressure from Democratic activists that truly won the superdelegates over. (You could plainly see this happening in several different ways, with the immense pressure put on the African-American Clinton superdelegates being the most visible.)
One of the most fascinating aspects of the ‘08 race was that the Democratic rank-and-file voters supported a different candidate than the Democratic activists, which is somewhat unusual.
June 28th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Forget the superdelegates. How about getting rid of the corporate sponsorships?
June 28th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
After the two systems were showcased in the respective parties’ campaigns of 2008, how anyone can conclude that the Republicans’ was better is beyond me.
McCain snuck into victory because Romney and Huckabee split the majority of the votes. Obama and Clinton earned every one of their delegates. The Republicans, by an overly granular allocation system, got a candidate their base wasn’t enthusiastic for, and every mistake he made after winning (Palin, grossly offensive attacking, economics stance) was an attempt to catch up in that regard. The Democrats got a candidate they could all get behind.
A case with 2 closely-competitive candidates is unlikely, and it is even unlikelier that such a case would end up hurting its party. A case like the Republicans had is very likely, and suicidal.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
I have one reason to keep the superdelegates around: John Edwards. Imagine a 2008 in which Obama decided he needed a little more seasoning before he ran for Prez, and imagine Edwards squeaking out a slight edge over Clinton. Now, just before Denver, the National Enquirer breaks its story. At that point, wouldn’t it be nice if the Democratic Party had a mechanism to take action based on new information that may have come into play after the primaries and caucuses? Jut sayin’.
June 28th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
To save money, eliminate the conventions. Why should one dollar be spent on a bad infomercial that very few people watch.
Since the Democratic primary will be the real election for president in 2016, the Democratic Party needs to keep Iowa and New Hampshire from having too much power. If the same candidate wins Iowa and New Hampshire, everyone will know who will replace President Obama a year before the inaugural. Why have such a long transition time and why give the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire the ability to decide who will be the next president.
June 28th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
But at the end of the day, in the best history I can construct of it, the superdelegates proved most susceptible to pressure from Democratic activists, who were solidly in Obama’s camp.
I just don’t see any real evidence for this claim, and it doesn’t make sense of the timing of when the superdelegates finally moved decisively to Obama (including switchers from Clinton, African-American or otherwise). Indeed, the bottomline is that the timing of the movement of the superdelegates looks just like what you would expect from a bandwagon effect. So your theory about activists simply doesn’t appear to be adding any necessary explanatory power.
My personal preference was that the superdelegates should have protected the wishes of the majority of Democratic voters in the primaries, who were with Clinton . . . .
Not to relitigate old battles, but you were effectively asking for the superdelegates to collectively override the national party rules allowing open primaries and caucuses, and/or the state parties which had decided to go ahead and hold open primaries and caucuses pursuant to those rules. That was never a realistic hope, since among other things many superdelegates were party officials who had originally helped decide to either allow or actually to have open primaries and caucuses, and others were once and/or future candidates subject to those open primaries and caucuses. So, the “let’s pretend we actually have a closed primary process” movement never had a realistic chance among the superdelegates, activists or no.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:22 am
I was a pretty strong Clinton supporter during the spring of ‘08, but a fair reading would give somewhere around 2/3rds of the Michigan “uncommitted” vote to Obama.
Sorry, but Obama can’t get votes when he’s not on the ballot.
That would violate “the rulz”
June 29th, 2009 at 6:50 am
I just want to underscore again how reliance on the popular vote, however counted, would be an obviously unfair change of the contest rules after the fact. Specifically, if it was known in advance that the nominee would be chosen by popular vote total, no state would hold a caucus. That is because due to the longer time committment involved, caucuses inevitably result in relatively low participant totals. Therefore, a state choosing to use a caucus in a popular vote system would be dramatically reducing the weight of their state in the final decision, which no state would voluntarily do. Similarly, no state would hold open primaries if it knew that only the votes of registered party members would be counted, since open primaries remove an incentive for party registration and therefore would again lower the relevant state’s weight in the process.
Now one can argue that states shouldn’t be allowed to hold caucuses, or that they shouldn’t be allowed to hold open primaries, or so on. But those decisions have to be made in advance: you can’t decide after the states have already adopted procedures under the existing rules that the rules should have been different, then determine the outcome as if the rules had been different all along. That actually violate a basic principle of fair elections (that the rules of the election be transparent and known in advance), and the superdelegates would have been right to reject any such reasoning.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:29 am
“I just want to underscore again how reliance on the popular vote, however counted, would be an obviously unfair change of the contest rules after the fact.”
The “rules” include superdelegates, who are allowed to take anything into consideration that they like, including the popular vote. The role of the superdelegates is to do the best thing for the interests of the Democratic Party, and if taking the popular vote into account is the best thing for the interests of the Party, they can do so.
“Now one can argue that states shouldn’t be allowed to hold caucuses, or that they shouldn’t be allowed to hold open primaries, or so on. But those decisions have to be made in advance”
Unfortunately, the ability to force primaries instead of caucuses, and the ability to force closed contests is something that the national party doesn’t seem to be able to control. The rules of each state contest are determined by the states, sometimes by the GOP in those states, if the GOP controls the government of those states, and in other cases by local Democrats who aren’t friendly to the interests of the national Party.
One of the chief purposes of the superdelegates is to be able to counteract the delegate count of a race that gets out of control because the national party can’t really mandate the nature of each state’s contest. And given the numbers, the superdelegates have a pretty limited ability to do even that.
If the national party had more control of the rules of each contest, I would be more amenable to getting rid of superdelegates, although I think superdelegates would still have some useful purposes even in such a hypothetical situation.
June 29th, 2009 at 8:09 am
> One of the chief purposes of the superdelegates is to
> be able to counteract the delegate count of a race
> that gets out of control
Define “out of control” please.
Cranky
Might want to take into account your strident support for John Edwards in so doing…
June 29th, 2009 at 8:13 am
> Now, just before Denver, the National Enquirer
> breaks its story. At that point, wouldn’t it be
> nice if the Democratic Party had a mechanism to
> take action based on new information that may
> have come into play after the primaries and caucuses?
That’s call “the convention”, at which the “delegates” perform an action known as “voting”.
Cranky
June 29th, 2009 at 8:15 am
> The current Dem rules really are pretty good,
Petey,
Given your track record, and your inability to correctly analyze even the simplest races in 2006 and 2008, why should anyone care what you think?
Cranky
June 29th, 2009 at 8:45 am
The role of the superdelegates is to do the best thing for the interests of the Democratic Party . . . .
I think the superdelegates can and should take into account basic issues of fairness as well. That is true for both moral and practical reasons (practical because a party which cannot run a nomination process that comports with basic principles of fair elections obviously cannot be trusted with governance).
Unfortunately, the ability to force primaries instead of caucuses, and the ability to force closed contests is something that the national party doesn’t seem to be able to control.
Of course they are able to mandate closed primaries: states cannot dictate to the national party that their delegates be accepted to the national party convention in violation of the national party rules, and no state would voluntarily choose to deny its citizens access to the nomination process in one of the two major parties. So the national parties could adopt a nationwide closed primary system if they wanted to.
The fact is that the parties have simply chosen not to adopt your preferred system. So, you wanted the superdelegates to do it for you on a post hoc basis, but as I noted above, that was always a pipe dream because it would amount to severely punishing those states which held open primaries and caucuses as allowed by the national party rules.
One of the chief purposes of the superdelegates is to be able to counteract the delegate count of a race that gets out of control because the national party can’t really mandate the nature of each state’s contest.
Again, the national parties certainly could adopt a nationwide closed primary system if they wanted to, so it makes no sense to view the superdelegates as a way of trying to guess what result your preferred system would have produced in the counterfactual world in which the national party had chosen to adopt such a system.
The bottomline is that if you want the Democratic Party to use an exclusively closed primary process, you need to be agitating right now for the national party to adopt that system. Again, that is because it is extremely unlikely you will ever get the superdelegates to buy your argument that states which hold open primaries and caucuses should be punished for doing so on a post hoc basis.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:08 am
Speaking as a Virginian, this was literally the first time in my life that I could cast a vote in a presidential primary that might actually matter, instead of having nominees chosen for me by Iowans and moneyed interests. I think that was kind of important (certainly the primaries had unprecedented – for Virginia – turnout), and might even have contributed to flipping Virginia.
So I see the most pressing issue as calendar reform, but in precisely the opposite direction as #10: most of the time, a long calendar leads to most states being deprived of any voice because a winner has already been decided (since extended 50-50 splits are rare). (That happened to the Republicans this cycle. A few states got to vote, then the rest were told to like it or lump it. How enthusiastic does that make them feel? How did it help build their ground game for November?)
The Democratic Party should move toward a one-day national primary (or, if some states prefer to caucus, let them, but make it all on the same day). Then residents of all states have the right to be heard in the nominating process, and not have foregone conclusions thrust upon them.
June 29th, 2009 at 10:36 am
“Of course they are able to mandate closed primaries: states cannot dictate to the national party that their delegates be accepted to the national party convention in violation of the national party rules, and no state would voluntarily choose to deny its citizens access to the nomination process in one of the two major parties.”
(my bolding)
Dude, this very thing happened multiple times in 2008 alone, and it’s happened many times in the past as well.
I’d strongly guess you followed the 2008 race closely enough to be well aware of this, should you re-ponder the issue.
—–
“The fact is that the parties have simply chosen not to adopt your preferred system. So, you wanted the superdelegates to do it for you on a post hoc basis”
I don’t think you have any clue what my “preferred system” for nominations would be. FWIW, it would be a mixed system that wouldn’t consist of 100% closed primaries. But “preferred systems” are essentially irrelevant, since national parties don’t have the ability to dictate the nature of state contests. The entire history of the post-’68 nomination system consists of the national parties being unable to dictate the nature of state contests.
We basically had a tie in the ‘08 nomination race. In such a case, the superdelegates are decisive. I thought the superdelegates should have given my candidate the nod for various reasons outlined above. They didn’t.
So be it. I’m still fine with the rules even though the rules produced the nominee I least wanted. Get rid of the superdelegates, and the next time there is something close to a tie, the thing won’t be settled until the convention – ala 1980. That would be A Very Bad Thing. The superdelegates exist to settle a tie in the beginning of June, that’s how it played out in 2008, and that’s how it should play out.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:32 am
This post is dumb. Primaries are good, long campaigns are good, there was no acrimony, no one covered McCain at all during the primary, etc.
June 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Dude, this very thing happened multiple times in 2008 . . . .
No, in 2008 the relevant states tried to violate some of the national party rules, but they also tried to get their delegates seated. That has been the pattern in the past as well: no state has voluntarily just given up on getting its delegates into one of the two major party conventions. But if you like, you can amend my statement by adding a “permanently” before “deny”.
FWIW, it would be a mixed system that wouldn’t consist of 100% closed primaries.
This is impossible to reconcile with your wanting the winner of the registered-Democrat-only vote to be the nominee. Either non-registered-Democrats are allowed to have a vote, or not. Saying they can have a vote, but not if it actually makes a difference, is the same as saying they really can’t have a vote after all.
The entire history of the post-’68 nomination system consists of the national parties being unable to dictate the nature of state contests.
I have no idea what you had in mind when you wrote this.
Here are the relevant historical facts. In Cousins v. Wigoda (1974) and Democratic Party of the United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. LaFollette (1981), the Supreme Court held that the national party rules govern presidential delegate selection, including over contrary state law. LaFollette is particularly on point, because it involved Wisconsin mandating an open primary and the national Democratic Party refusing to seat their delegates. The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Wisconsin state law, but the Supreme Court reversed.
So, the national parties have all the legal authority they need to mandate a closed (and non-caucus) nationwide delegate selection process. What happened with the Democrats is just that the national party decided to modify its rules to allow open primaries starting in 1988. That voluntary decision is the one you need to reverse if you want your way.
We basically had a tie in the ‘08 nomination race.
Talk about not being able to give up on campaign spin! A close contest is not a tie, no matter how much the person who finishes second would like people to believe that.
I’m still fine with the rules even though the rules produced the nominee I least wanted.
But you are NOT fine with the rules if you think the winner of the registered-Democrat-only vote should be the nominee. Or, in the words, if you are serious about that notion, you should put it in the rules, not ask for the superdelegates to act on that principle on a post hoc basis.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
By the way, in thinking back on national Democratic Party rule changes, it just occurred to me that the national party added the superdelegates in 1982 for the 1984 contest, right after the Supreme Court in LaFollette had held that the national party could enforce its closed process rule. In fact, I believe the 1982 rule revisions included an even stronger version of a closed process rule.
It was only afterward, for 1988, that the national party decided to start allowing open primaries. So it is all the more bizarre to claim one of the “chief purposes” of the superdelegates was to undo a decision the national party hadn’t even made at the time it created the superdelegate system.
June 29th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
“So, the national parties have all the legal authority they need to mandate a closed (and non-caucus) nationwide delegate selection process.”
The Party can “mandate” anything they like, but the states can, have, and will conduct things that are different than the mandates. We saw this play out multiple times in 2008 alone!
The real-world effect of all of this is to prevent the Party from dictating how the state contests happen. That’s how it’s played out over and over and over again since ‘68.
“It was only afterward, for 1988, that the national party decided to start allowing open primaries.”
This is historically incorrect. Flat and simple. Open primaries were conducted, counted, and “allowed” prior to 1988. They have existed since the very beginnings of the post-’68 system.
“A close contest is not a tie, no matter how much the person who finishes second would like people to believe that.”
Because of the byzantine methods of voting in the post-’68 system, you can most definitely have a tie for all essential purposes. We had one in 1972. We had one in 1980. And we had one in 2008.
I don’t think anyone can flatly state who got more votes in the 2008 nomination race. I (as a Clinton supporter) think Obama probably got more votes. But I’m not sure of that. As you can see from my dialog with another commenter upthread, it depends in large part on how you allocate the “uncommitted” vote in Michigan. And you also have discretion on how you count Florida, not to mention the need to make estimates for caucus states.
So if we can’t figure out who got more votes for sure, it really was a virtual tie. And that’s one of the very contingencies the superdelegates were designed to address. If it’s a virtual tie, a group of “party elders” get to make the final decision.
Given the inability of the national Party to dictate a system of state contests that would be as reliable as federal elections, an institution like the superdelegates seems incredibly wise to me. The alternatives being suggested are not robust, and have the potential to break down in some disastrous ways. You simply can defer the day of reckoning to the actual convention.
Any viable alternative would need to have some kind of pre-convention convention, and that’s not going to work because then the actual convention would get less news focus. The superdelegates are a kind of early June convention that happens out of sight, which allows the actual convention to act as a week-long TV commercial for the Party.
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Basically, DTM, you seem to be addressing this issue from the vantage point of the 2008 race, wanting to prove the “legitimacy” of the Obama nominaiton. But that’s not the issue here. I’m not questioning the legitimacy of the Obama nomination. I think the superdelegate system is legitimate, and thus their decision to give him the nomination was legitimate, even though I disagreed with their decision.
The point is to address the issue from the vantage point of post-2008 nomination races.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
“But you are NOT fine with the rules…”
Dude. I’m arguing in favor of the current rules. Get a grip.
June 29th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
The real-world effect of all of this is to prevent the Party from dictating how the state contests happen. That’s how it’s played out over and over and over again since ‘68.
No, in each such case the state lost and the national party won.
This is historically incorrect. Flat and simple.
The very first lines of the Supreme Court’s opinion in LaFollette:
But I guess in your alternate reality, that never happened.
you can most definitely have a tie for all essential purposes.
In other words, not actually a tie.
I don’t think anyone can flatly state who got more votes in the 2008 nomination race.
Right, in part because it is a stretch to even call caucus participants “voters” and then lump them in with primary voters. But that is irrelevant, because the winner isn’t determined by trying to count primary voters and caucus participants, so neither can a tie be determined in that way.
Basically, DTM, you seem to be addressing this issue from the vantage point of the 2008 race, wanting to prove the “legitimacy” of the Obama nominaiton.
First, Obama doesn’t need me to prove his nomination was legitimate. Indeed, if you really think we are actually arguing about Obama’s legitimacy, you are just delusional–that issue is moot.
Second, my actual point is that if you don’t want non-registered-Democrats to have a real say in the nomination process in future contests, then you should get that put into the national party rules. That is an inherently forward-looking point.
Your apparent response is that the national party doesn’t have the power to do that, and so needs the superdelegates to do it for them on a post hoc basis. However, the Supreme Court says you are wrong, and I’m going to go with the Supreme Court on this one.
Dude. I’m arguing in favor of the current rules.
Dude, no, you are arguing in favor of the superdelegates trumping the national party’s selection rules on a post hoc basis, thereby punishing those states which hold open primaries or caucuses. And I am pointing out that is unlikely to ever happen.
June 29th, 2009 at 5:29 pm
For reasons discussed above, Matt is obviously off-base with this one. Obama vs. Clinton was **the** news story of the summer. McCain was lucky to get his name on pg. A4. Everyone talked about Democratic candidates, Democratic issues, and Democratic strategies all year long. That educated the public about the Dems and their eventual nominee in a way that money couldn’t buy. It built donor lists, got people used to volunteering, and provided a platform for the eventual nominee to get himself comfortable with the process of campaigning (which he hadn’t been, except for the stump, previously). Once Obama beat Clinton’s machine (as woeful as it sometimes was), there was nothing McCain could through at him he hadn’t already seen. And as Matt I think has commented, even the oppo stuff had been trotted out in the primaries — meaning that voters had already processed and made their peace with. So when McCain tried to spin it up again in October, it fell flat. There can be such a thing as a primary that’s too brutal to survive. But I’ve never seen one.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
“But I guess in your alternate reality, that never happened.”
I have overrated your reading comprehension skills, DTM. Mea culpa.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
“There can be such a thing as a primary that’s too brutal to survive. But I’ve never seen one.”
The Democratic Party had such things in 1980 and 1972.
That’s why the superdelegate rules were instituted as a reform in the first place. They help bring the nomination race to a conclusion in early summer, rather than right at the convention.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:11 am
How long has Petey been commenting on various MY blogs? Since 2003 maybe? And in that time he has been wrong about **every single electoral race** he has tried to handicap and/or analyze. Why even he, much less anyone else, thinks his advice on how to run Democratic Party primaries is of any value is an utter mystery.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Cranky Observer make it quite easy to avoid making the mistake of overrating his reading comprehension skills…