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US Presidential Elections 2008 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Gambra
- Start date
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jane
Well-Known Member
Hm, that makes me wonder a bit about the Democrats Abroad vote. Obama has 7 delegates from that, but I don't know what that means and am concerned now that maybe I should have voted as part of the Massachusetts primary. Or maybe Slate just forgot, but they tend to be fairly thorough.
I just want to make sure my vote counts when it comes to the general election.
It's all very nerve-wracking.
I just want to make sure my vote counts when it comes to the general election.
It's all very nerve-wracking.
snakybus
Well-Known Member
O'Bama must feel Clinton is like the terminator or something. She just never gives up.
cephalopod
Well-Known Member
Anyone know who's gonna win this?
MBV or Led Zep confirmed yet?
MBV or Led Zep confirmed yet?
Obama aide quits in 'monster' row
Here. Douchebag journo prick.
Off the record, means off the fucking record.
That would be the opposite to on the record.
Good luck with that career as a journalist after pointing out why no one can every say a single fucking thing to you again.
"Our main leads for the Watergate investigation came from an off the record leak from a man we chose to reffer to as Deep Throat. Or, as he is usually referred to as Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark Felt, Sr."
"Oh wait. Make that the recently deceased Bill Felt."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7283965.stm
Here. Douchebag journo prick.
Off the record, means off the fucking record.
That would be the opposite to on the record.
Good luck with that career as a journalist after pointing out why no one can every say a single fucking thing to you again.
"Our main leads for the Watergate investigation came from an off the record leak from a man we chose to reffer to as Deep Throat. Or, as he is usually referred to as Deputy Director of the FBI William Mark Felt, Sr."
"Oh wait. Make that the recently deceased Bill Felt."
quasiquasi
New Member
A month ago everyone was going on about how civil and friendly the Democrat race was; the point being, this was a very unusual state of affairs. Now we're back to politics as usual and a lot of people (what you'd call "progressives" in the US or "centrists" here) are discovering that political life is a lot harder to change than they had dreamed.
Obama's team need to adapt to the reality where you win elections by telling people their babies will die if they vote for your opponent, but you can never make nasty comments about the opponent unless they stay unattributed. They can adapt by trying to rise above it or they can hit back by pointing out how dirty Hillary is playing. But Hillary is controlling the media discourse, so unless they play it just right they risk coming off either weak or whiney.
Obama's team need to adapt to the reality where you win elections by telling people their babies will die if they vote for your opponent, but you can never make nasty comments about the opponent unless they stay unattributed. They can adapt by trying to rise above it or they can hit back by pointing out how dirty Hillary is playing. But Hillary is controlling the media discourse, so unless they play it just right they risk coming off either weak or whiney.
shower another shower
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Apr 29, 2003
- Messages
- 5,740
Interesting essay on superdelegates.
Screw the Voters. Let Superdelegates Decide!
by Paul Rockwell
Millions of Americans, many of them first-time activists, voted for Barack Obama in the Democratic Party primary. They voted in good faith, expecting their votes to be counted and respected.
Now many young voters are discovering that there are two kinds of delegates at Democratic Party Conventions: real delegates (duly elected from the states) and fake delegates, delegates artificially created by the Democratic National Committee. These delegates, who lack direct support from primary voters, are called superdelegates.
With over 200,000 signatures, a Move-On petition to Democratic Party superdelegates reads: “The superdelegates should let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama. Then support the people’s choice.”
The seating of delegates at Democratic Party conventions has often been a source of conflict. In 1964, Fanny Lou Hamer led a sit-in on the convention floor. The Mississippi Freedom Democrats wanted nothing more than a few convention seats-seats to which they were entitled by open, fair elections in their home state. Walter Mondale, who was to become the architect of the current superdelgate system, refused to seat the elected delegates of color in 1964. Wait until 1968, Mondale insisted, as the representative of the Credentials Committee.
The non-violent mass movements of the ’60s, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the rise of the feminist movement, the change in voting age, the anti-nuclear campaigns- all generated a groundswell of new voters in Democratic party politics. However, far from welcoming the newly enfranchised activists, party leaders were filled with fear-class and race fear. They never accepted the democratic reforms enacted in the 1970s, when youth and people of color participated for the first time in establishment politics.
The superdelegate system, as we know it, came from the backlash of the 1980s. In January 1982, supported by Mondale, the Hunt Commission and Democratic National Committee reversed grassroots reforms. They rewrote the rules, not to make elections open and fair, but to make sure that centrist (right-wing) candidates maintained hegemony over nominees and party affairs. It was out of fear of new uncontrollable voters that the Commission created a block of uncommitted delegates drawn from a primarily white, male establishment. Mondale, the same insider who prevented elected Mississipppians from taking their seats in 1964, played the pivotal role in creating hundreds of unelected delegates in 1984. Superdelegates comprised 14 percent of the convention in 1984, and eighty-five percent of the superdelegates picked Mondale. Not long after superdelegates picked “the sure winner,” Mondale was trounced in the presidential election. Nevertheless, the superdelgate number passed the 600 mark by 1988. The Jesse Jackson campaign, especially the massive victory over Dukkakis on Super Tuesday, electrified the party and the country. Jackson won 7 million primary votes in 1988, more than Mondale won as the nominee in 1984. Many party regulars were gripped with panic, and some superdelegates organized a stop-Jackson movement within the party. Jackson protested the role of superdelegates, but his challenge went unheeded. Party leaders continued to look for ways to blunt the growing power of grassroots movements. While they could not stop voters from voting, they could dilute the impact of the reform movements by manufacturing added voters as a countervailing force.
Mondale was quite open about the undemocratic aims of the superdelegate system. In a number of talks, he acknowledged that superdelegates were created with the explicit aim of preventing voter insurgencies. He espoused his anti-democratic sentiments in the New York Times, February 2, 1992, where he called for expansion of superdelgate numbers:
“The election is the business of the people. But the nomination is more properly the business of the parties….The problem lies in the reforms that were supposed to open the nominating process….Party leaders have lost the power to screen candidates and select a nominee. The solution is to reduce the influence of the primaries and boost the influence of the party leaders….The superdelgate category established within the Democratic Party after 1984 allows some opportunity for this, but should be strengthened.”
Today, faced with enthusiastic, grassroots support for Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton now espouses the old Mondale position (in the guarded, euphemistic language of a candidate), pitting the party regulars against the danger of the popular vote. I do not intend here to compare the merits of the candidates. But there is a question of principle involved in the superdelgate controversy. The very integrity of our elections is at stake. No vote is safe when a self-appointed group can nullify the results of a primary election that displeases them.
When Obama recently told a reporter that he thinks superdelegates should respect the wishes of the primary voters, Clinton took exception. “Superdelegates are by design supposed to exercise independent judgment,” she said. She also claimed that Obama’s view is “contrary to what the definition of superdelegate has historically been.” Historically she is right, of course. Superdelegates were never expected to respect the integrity of elections. But are we compelled today to embrace a system that was corrupt in its very design? Should voters be supervised, and finally overruled, when the superdelegates disagree with their wishes?
All Democratic members of the House and Senate become superdelegates automatically. Let us not forget that George Bush led the vast majority of Democrats by the nose into pre-emptive war, implicating most of the current superdelegates in the biggest catastrophe of recent decades. What makes these individuals wiser than nurses, technicians, custodians, lawyers, teachers, athletes, fire fighters, proprietors-all who voted in good faith in the recent primary? Why don’t the superdelegates do the job they were elected to do-end the war-and let the voters do their job in the primaries-select the next nominee?
And finally, what is the difference between superdelegate intervention in the outcome of the primary and the right-wing intervention in Florida in 2000, when Republican judges stopped the counting of votes, and appointed Bush as President? How many times will the loser in an election be imposed on the electorate?
Superdelgate Intervention Unconstitutional
Even critics of superdelegate deals tend to underestimate the gravity of the issue. In its very essence, the superdelegate system is unconstitutional. It destroys the right of primary voters to choose their own nominee. It offends the principle of one person one vote. In three primary cases (Nixon v. Herndon, 1927, Nixon v. Condon, 1932, Smith v. Allwright, 1944) the Supreme Court affirmed that the right to vote in a primary (a right which includes the right to be counted and respected), is protected by the Constitution. Officials cannot legally circumvent the vote. These were discrimination cases, but the arguments apply directly to the superdelegate situation in the Democratic primary.
Up to a point, a political party is master of its own house. But no party, or group within a party, can legally tamper with primary results. In Terry v. Adams (1953), the Court ruled against the “Jay Bird Association,” a group of powerful white Democrats who tried to create a private enforcement process within the Democratic primary. Justice Clark ruled that “any part of the machinery for choosing officials becomes subject to the Constitution’s restraints.”
The superdelegate system flouts the very purpose for which primaries were conceived. “Fighting” Bob LaFollette, the Wisconsin progressive who organized the first primaries in 1903, hated boss-controlled conventions. The aim of the primaries is to remove the nominations from the hands of professionals and the wealthy donors whom professionals obey. The superdelegate issue should not be resolved through deals or negotiations. The integrity of elections is not negotiable. The superdelegate system deserves to be abolished.
Oh yes, there is one small practical consideration, an afterthought perhaps. If the superdelegates, in their arrogance, defy the majority will of the voters, the stain on the Democratic Party nominee-Obama or Clinton-would nearly destroy the chances for victory in November. The Party would be divided. Idealistic voters would be disillusioned. And McCain, who happens to be associated with electoral reform (McCain backed Arizona’s Clean Money system) could easily turn superdelegate meddling into a scandal. The Republican Party has no superdelegates.
Respecting the will of the voters is a precondition to unity in the Democratic Party and victory in November.
Paul Rockwell, formerly assistant professor of philosophy at Midwestern University, is a national columnist who lives in the Bay Area.
Screw the Voters. Let Superdelegates Decide!
by Paul Rockwell
Millions of Americans, many of them first-time activists, voted for Barack Obama in the Democratic Party primary. They voted in good faith, expecting their votes to be counted and respected.
Now many young voters are discovering that there are two kinds of delegates at Democratic Party Conventions: real delegates (duly elected from the states) and fake delegates, delegates artificially created by the Democratic National Committee. These delegates, who lack direct support from primary voters, are called superdelegates.
With over 200,000 signatures, a Move-On petition to Democratic Party superdelegates reads: “The superdelegates should let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama. Then support the people’s choice.”
The seating of delegates at Democratic Party conventions has often been a source of conflict. In 1964, Fanny Lou Hamer led a sit-in on the convention floor. The Mississippi Freedom Democrats wanted nothing more than a few convention seats-seats to which they were entitled by open, fair elections in their home state. Walter Mondale, who was to become the architect of the current superdelgate system, refused to seat the elected delegates of color in 1964. Wait until 1968, Mondale insisted, as the representative of the Credentials Committee.
The non-violent mass movements of the ’60s, the passage of the Voting Rights Act, the rise of the feminist movement, the change in voting age, the anti-nuclear campaigns- all generated a groundswell of new voters in Democratic party politics. However, far from welcoming the newly enfranchised activists, party leaders were filled with fear-class and race fear. They never accepted the democratic reforms enacted in the 1970s, when youth and people of color participated for the first time in establishment politics.
The superdelegate system, as we know it, came from the backlash of the 1980s. In January 1982, supported by Mondale, the Hunt Commission and Democratic National Committee reversed grassroots reforms. They rewrote the rules, not to make elections open and fair, but to make sure that centrist (right-wing) candidates maintained hegemony over nominees and party affairs. It was out of fear of new uncontrollable voters that the Commission created a block of uncommitted delegates drawn from a primarily white, male establishment. Mondale, the same insider who prevented elected Mississipppians from taking their seats in 1964, played the pivotal role in creating hundreds of unelected delegates in 1984. Superdelegates comprised 14 percent of the convention in 1984, and eighty-five percent of the superdelegates picked Mondale. Not long after superdelegates picked “the sure winner,” Mondale was trounced in the presidential election. Nevertheless, the superdelgate number passed the 600 mark by 1988. The Jesse Jackson campaign, especially the massive victory over Dukkakis on Super Tuesday, electrified the party and the country. Jackson won 7 million primary votes in 1988, more than Mondale won as the nominee in 1984. Many party regulars were gripped with panic, and some superdelegates organized a stop-Jackson movement within the party. Jackson protested the role of superdelegates, but his challenge went unheeded. Party leaders continued to look for ways to blunt the growing power of grassroots movements. While they could not stop voters from voting, they could dilute the impact of the reform movements by manufacturing added voters as a countervailing force.
Mondale was quite open about the undemocratic aims of the superdelegate system. In a number of talks, he acknowledged that superdelegates were created with the explicit aim of preventing voter insurgencies. He espoused his anti-democratic sentiments in the New York Times, February 2, 1992, where he called for expansion of superdelgate numbers:
“The election is the business of the people. But the nomination is more properly the business of the parties….The problem lies in the reforms that were supposed to open the nominating process….Party leaders have lost the power to screen candidates and select a nominee. The solution is to reduce the influence of the primaries and boost the influence of the party leaders….The superdelgate category established within the Democratic Party after 1984 allows some opportunity for this, but should be strengthened.”
Today, faced with enthusiastic, grassroots support for Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton now espouses the old Mondale position (in the guarded, euphemistic language of a candidate), pitting the party regulars against the danger of the popular vote. I do not intend here to compare the merits of the candidates. But there is a question of principle involved in the superdelgate controversy. The very integrity of our elections is at stake. No vote is safe when a self-appointed group can nullify the results of a primary election that displeases them.
When Obama recently told a reporter that he thinks superdelegates should respect the wishes of the primary voters, Clinton took exception. “Superdelegates are by design supposed to exercise independent judgment,” she said. She also claimed that Obama’s view is “contrary to what the definition of superdelegate has historically been.” Historically she is right, of course. Superdelegates were never expected to respect the integrity of elections. But are we compelled today to embrace a system that was corrupt in its very design? Should voters be supervised, and finally overruled, when the superdelegates disagree with their wishes?
All Democratic members of the House and Senate become superdelegates automatically. Let us not forget that George Bush led the vast majority of Democrats by the nose into pre-emptive war, implicating most of the current superdelegates in the biggest catastrophe of recent decades. What makes these individuals wiser than nurses, technicians, custodians, lawyers, teachers, athletes, fire fighters, proprietors-all who voted in good faith in the recent primary? Why don’t the superdelegates do the job they were elected to do-end the war-and let the voters do their job in the primaries-select the next nominee?
And finally, what is the difference between superdelegate intervention in the outcome of the primary and the right-wing intervention in Florida in 2000, when Republican judges stopped the counting of votes, and appointed Bush as President? How many times will the loser in an election be imposed on the electorate?
Superdelgate Intervention Unconstitutional
Even critics of superdelegate deals tend to underestimate the gravity of the issue. In its very essence, the superdelegate system is unconstitutional. It destroys the right of primary voters to choose their own nominee. It offends the principle of one person one vote. In three primary cases (Nixon v. Herndon, 1927, Nixon v. Condon, 1932, Smith v. Allwright, 1944) the Supreme Court affirmed that the right to vote in a primary (a right which includes the right to be counted and respected), is protected by the Constitution. Officials cannot legally circumvent the vote. These were discrimination cases, but the arguments apply directly to the superdelegate situation in the Democratic primary.
Up to a point, a political party is master of its own house. But no party, or group within a party, can legally tamper with primary results. In Terry v. Adams (1953), the Court ruled against the “Jay Bird Association,” a group of powerful white Democrats who tried to create a private enforcement process within the Democratic primary. Justice Clark ruled that “any part of the machinery for choosing officials becomes subject to the Constitution’s restraints.”
The superdelegate system flouts the very purpose for which primaries were conceived. “Fighting” Bob LaFollette, the Wisconsin progressive who organized the first primaries in 1903, hated boss-controlled conventions. The aim of the primaries is to remove the nominations from the hands of professionals and the wealthy donors whom professionals obey. The superdelegate issue should not be resolved through deals or negotiations. The integrity of elections is not negotiable. The superdelegate system deserves to be abolished.
Oh yes, there is one small practical consideration, an afterthought perhaps. If the superdelegates, in their arrogance, defy the majority will of the voters, the stain on the Democratic Party nominee-Obama or Clinton-would nearly destroy the chances for victory in November. The Party would be divided. Idealistic voters would be disillusioned. And McCain, who happens to be associated with electoral reform (McCain backed Arizona’s Clean Money system) could easily turn superdelegate meddling into a scandal. The Republican Party has no superdelegates.
Respecting the will of the voters is a precondition to unity in the Democratic Party and victory in November.
Paul Rockwell, formerly assistant professor of philosophy at Midwestern University, is a national columnist who lives in the Bay Area.
Absolutely.
Clinton has lost the popular vote. She is not going to be able to get enough popular delegates to get near Obama's popular delegate count.
The only chance she has is if the delegates overturn the will of the voters, and veto her in.
In the mean time she is concentrating on fucking up Obama's campaign, saying that McCain is a better man for the job than him.
She is a fucking disgrace, she is fucked no matter what happens. If she wins via super delegates, they will lose. The other option is losing via super delegates.
The only thing she can do at this point is damage Obama and whatever chance there is of a non Republican president being elected.
She is not a stupid person. She must know this. So what is her goal?
jane
Well-Known Member
I think I was naive to expect any better, but I am a teensy bit ashamed of how the Democratic race is looking increasingly like a senior class election.
jane
Well-Known Member
You know, I don't know, but I reckon everything has snowballed to the point where she's lost sight of any goal. I feel pretty annoyed at her because I'd like to think she's better than this. I think as a president, she'd be okay. I don't think very much would change. You've got 'experience' and you've got 'vision'. People are genuinely choosing vision, and she's so hellbent on convincing everyone that this vision is actually a crazy and unfounded delusion that she's forgotten to be sound.
Be sound to each other, Democrats! WHY WON'T EVERYONE BE SOUND?
Tom Daschle (ex Senate Democratic Party leader) was on The Daily Show last week, he's a superdelegate and although what he was saying wasn't exactly clear what I got was that he's an Obama supporter and intends to vote that way at the convention. But he feels that the superdelegates should follow the popular vote so if Hilary goes to the convention in the lead he'll vote for her. He claims that that's the attitude of many of the superdelegates. So maybe it's just a big fuss over nothing.
I don't think she would be a bad president.
I think she would be comparable to Clinton, who was not particularly good, but was not a bad president.
That is not the point. The point is, she is never going to be the President.
If she gets nominated, she will be up against a decrepit (sorry, its true though) pro lifer who envisions 100 more years of constant war, who is going to take up the mantel of arguably the worst President the US has ever seen.
And she is going to lose.
McCain is probably going to be better than Bush, unless he croaks it, and some ultra conservative fuckwit chosen to be his Vice gets power.
But better than Bush is not good enough. Honestly, the US could be in a spot of bother here. They need to change some stuff soon.
People think empires cannot fall, but they do fall. Look how fast the British Empire fell.
Right now, China / Japan / Asia is propping up the US economy, because their economy needs it to consume the stuff they make. If Asia withdraws these props today, the US is finished. Overnight.
The world economy would be fucked as a consequence, but who knows how long Asia is going to rely on the US consumer. They can create their own consumers, ally with the increasingly large number of countries that are fucked off with the US, set up trade relations and cut the US out of the picture.
I think she would be comparable to Clinton, who was not particularly good, but was not a bad president.
That is not the point. The point is, she is never going to be the President.
If she gets nominated, she will be up against a decrepit (sorry, its true though) pro lifer who envisions 100 more years of constant war, who is going to take up the mantel of arguably the worst President the US has ever seen.
And she is going to lose.
McCain is probably going to be better than Bush, unless he croaks it, and some ultra conservative fuckwit chosen to be his Vice gets power.
But better than Bush is not good enough. Honestly, the US could be in a spot of bother here. They need to change some stuff soon.
People think empires cannot fall, but they do fall. Look how fast the British Empire fell.
Right now, China / Japan / Asia is propping up the US economy, because their economy needs it to consume the stuff they make. If Asia withdraws these props today, the US is finished. Overnight.
The world economy would be fucked as a consequence, but who knows how long Asia is going to rely on the US consumer. They can create their own consumers, ally with the increasingly large number of countries that are fucked off with the US, set up trade relations and cut the US out of the picture.
snakybus
Well-Known Member
Rock on, Flashback.
Ah sure. The only reason I'm getting worked up about the US going down the jacks is the gaff I just bought would be worthless.
Its all about me. As usual.
Although, I will still have my trusty Suzuki. No matter what happens. Mine.
jane
Well-Known Member
Exactly. I just hope enough people realise this. We can have better. We are being OFFERED better. Do people want another form of the status quo, or do they want ACTUAL CHANGE?
I also hope that if and when Obama does get in, people will not rest on their laurels. Just because Bush is easy to criticise doesn't mean people can stop thinking critically about decisions that are being made. That's how we ended up with Bush in the first place (ok, apart from the stealing), people just got lazy and apathetic.
McCain? McCain is so scary I don't even want to think about it. I'm glad people are starting to see it, but I worry a tiny bit that people are taking refuge in Obama rather than supporting what he stands for. Maybe I'm even one of those people and I'm not thinking hard enough. Does that make sense? Am I worrying too much?
I hear this a lot but I don't think the situation for the US is a bad as people say.
First of the fact thet there is a huge trade defecit between China and the US ignores the fact that are huge defecits on the other side between the rest of Asia and China - so the position for China isn't quite as powerful as the trade surplus they run over the US would indicate when you look at the US/China relationship in isolation.
Also remember the huge trade surplus with the US actually represents flow of goods which have been outsourced to China by US manufacturers. The bulk of the added value stays with the US companies and all that is left in China is the small profit on the labour element. It would be a different picture if these were indigenous Chinese firms selling their goods into the US (for example remember the worry in the US about growing sales of Japenese cars back in the late 80s and early 90s).
Finally China have a vested interest in keeping the relationship with the US running as sweetly as possible. China needs growth, growth, growth. If they prick around with the relationship - for example by dumping dollars for euro they run the risk of enormous internal upheaval if their economy slows down even a bit.
Yeah, sorry that's actually what I was trying to say.
The US needs Asia to give its currency value. And the Asia needs the US to buy their shit.
Each economy is reliant on the other.
However, what I am trying to say is : this wont necessarily go on for ever. If Asia can get their stuff consumed elsewhere, then it will no longer need to keep the US running.
And, the instant they pull their support for the US dollar, it becomes worthless.
The US needs Asia to give its currency value. And the Asia needs the US to buy their shit.
Each economy is reliant on the other.
However, what I am trying to say is : this wont necessarily go on for ever. If Asia can get their stuff consumed elsewhere, then it will no longer need to keep the US running.
And, the instant they pull their support for the US dollar, it becomes worthless.
snakybus
Well-Known Member
till the oil runs out
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