http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/31/dems.delegates/index.html

You are only worth 1/2 of a vote.... 1/2 of a person...


Hell, even in the Dred Scott decision black people were worth 3/5 of a person. Wow. You want that kind of leadership running this country? Discuss.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/31/dems.delegates/index.html

You are only worth 1/2 of a vote.... 1/2 of a person...


Hell, even in the Dred Scott decision black people were worth 3/5 of a person. Wow. You want that kind of leadership running this country? Discuss.

Republicans did the same thing...

im pissed. i didnt vote because they said it didnt count. and obama wasnt even on the ballot.

Republicans did the same thing before the votes were cast, and Obama was on the FL ballot, but not Michigan's - I think.

Admittedly, I may be mistaken here, but my recollection from one of the news shows was that the actual rules of both parties requires a penalty of only half of the delegates being seated if the state violates the party rules regarding the voting procedures.

The Republicans exercised a penalty of half the delegates. The Democrats are now doing basically the same thing, which if they were following their own rules they would have done so to begin with and avoided all the drama.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Thats exactly it. States are all pushing their primaries up earlier and earlier hoping to be as important (ha) as New Hampshire and Iowa. They should just do all of the primaries the same day in April or May and end the whole nonsense.

Thats exactly it. States are all pushing their primaries up earlier and earlier hoping to be as important (ha) as New Hampshire and Iowa. They should just do all of the primaries the same day in April or May and end the whole nonsense.


I would love to see a national Primary day.. Say..... Mid June. Then BAM you have your 2 candidates.. they campaign like hell until Nov and we all vote again for the pres. I am aware the Republican did it also, but they(I will not be voting for McCain) have their candidate while it's a mess on the democrat side. I was more along the lines of asking the local libs their feelings.

One last desperate attempt by Billary to snag the nomination. I hope Obama destroys her at the convention.

1/2 a vote is better than what the Dems were doing to MI and FL initially.

It's really the only viable answer after the DNC totally focked up the situation to begin with.

Clinton was pushing for the results as they were originally voted. Of course she was as she was the only one on both Ballots. lol

She's such the Political Icon, lying manipulative egocentric....yup she's got it covered.

Now lets see how she handles the upcoming convention. Atm she sounds as though she's going to go full out (and really endanger the Dems shot).

I'm still torn between McCain and Obama. However if the Dems can't get their own party in order prior to the Convention I'll swing to McCain.

Don't need anymore division, if the Dems are so torn asunder in their own party they aren't the ones to be in charge.

/grumble, what a lousy election year.

all this shit could be avoided if we'd just have a national primary day.

This is definitely far more complicated than it ought to be. It's like watching a pack of elementary kids argue over the rules to a new game. It's also one of those times when I wish we could collectively smack some sense into all of the heads of the dems, but unfortunately we cannot.

Don't ever go to Florida and make fun of their voting, by the way. They're still sensitive over that whole chad business.

How the hell do you propose that candidates campaign if there were all the primaries on one single day?

Is there something magic that I'm missing about that being so totally different than them campaigning if the real election is on a single day?

Is there something magic that I'm missing about that being so totally different than them campaigning if the real election is on a single day?


My thoughts exactly, the answer to Ain's question was so painfully obvious it made me laugh out loud.

Give them 3 months after signing up to run to stump and ramp up their rhetoric then have them all done on one day. /nods

This long dragged out process is absolute bullshit.

I completely disagree with 1 day. The forums come alive every 4 years. what would we talk about if they only had a 90day election season ;P

At this point i didnt actively campaign against Hillary, i was just pro-obama, but after the recent events i am now anti-hillary.

By the time the general election rolls around, how long have the candidates been on the campaign trail? Two years? The magic comes in when you consider that the primary elections do not have this luxury.

If you had single-day primary elections, the candidates would have to begin campaigning even earlier than they already do, in order to ensure that they got their message across in all 50 states. What you see as shortening the process would simply draw it out longer.

If you put time limits on it, like three months, it would be even worse. Instead of waiting to hit the late states, they will have to spread their attention across all the states in a shorter amount of time. This means that individual states would get less attention, and states with low number of delegates would be ignored in favor of large states, simply due to time constraints.

That doesn't seem like a very good idea to me.

EDIT: I'm operating under the premise that you would move the primary elections up to around the NH primaries. If you moved them all to June, I suppose that the time spent campaigning would be relatively similar, but the watered-down, catch-all rhetoric that we all hate would be increased tenfold. The marginalized would become even more so.

all this shit could be avoided if we'd just have a national primary day.

I'll vote for you if that is your platform! :D

How the hell do you propose that candidates campaign if there were all the primaries on one single day?

I would propose that they cut their spending by at least half if not have a specific cap imposed on all candidates, and utilize broadcast debates, visiting only two cities in each state would allow for most to be able to commute to hear them that want but also broaden televised coverage of speeches on local television, publish records of the candidates political activity in local media (such as votes cast on what legislation and legislation they have been sponsors to and/or written), and that each candidate presents a basic outline of the foreign and domestic policy they wish to bring to Washington.

Give the candidates from January 1 through may 1 to visit the states with a limit of two visits per state, have debates interspersed over the five months, let the media (the talking heads) do their interviews and present their commentaries, and then use the month of May for final debates to clarify positions, and have a one day vote in June.

This would allow all the initial candidates to remain in the race until the vote, it would level the playing field so that exposure to candidates would be fairly even, it would force the candidates to become more skilled in presenting their ideas in contrast to their opponents, and it may just cut back on the negative trivial bullshit that detracts from the process. Most important, it gives all the candidates vying for the position an equal shot to be heard, rather than only those that raise a lot more cash than the rest.

A pipe dream, yes, but a good pipe dream. :)

It seems to me the order of primaries should be selected randomly each election year.

Better still, maybe the primaries should be in a fixed order based on geographic location in order to minimize the amount of travelling that would be necessary (travelling salesman problem!) but the starting location within that list should be selected randomly?

If you're going to that sort of effort to fix a broken system, why not just replace the broken system with one that works better to begin with, like a Single Transferable Vote setup?

There is no reason the primaries, or any general election for that matter, should be dependent on the 18th century communication model and its timing requirements. Not that it matters much, the people in control of our two primary parties have way too much invested in the current system as a way to keep the available choices small and well controlled.

It seems to me the order of primaries should be selected randomly each election year.




That is a fantastic idea, which would remove the elitist attitudes that have caused so much havoc in the primary season, and would also give each state more weight due to changing order of their votes. I would also advocate eliminating the caucus system and going all primaries.