This proportional delegate thing is awful.

[Unsane]

Who's idea was this? Basically, Obama creams Clinton in Wyoming, but only wins 2 delegates? The same can be said for Clinton, who wins Ohio, but only nets like 4 or 5 delegates. Such a terrible system; it virtually assures that this thing will drag out as long as possible with a fractured party and damaged candidates. I literally can't think of a worse process for picking a nominee.

EDIT: I like the idea of a system with no SD's + the candidate who reaches 60% gets all delegates.

[scheming daemons]

1. It would be fine if there were no Superdelegates.... Then they would BOTH know exactly what...

..they had to achieve the rest of the way to get the nomination.

No maneuvering... just win delegates.

[Unsane]

2. I prefer the Republicans' method.

Winner take all, no super delegates. Our way is moronic.

[TAWS]

5. The Republican system is a hybrid, some are winner take all, it's not fair at all

[ctaylors6]

28. I kinda like majority apportioned but some bonus % (eg 10-20%) for winning state

The % could be set so a few big state wins don't decide, but still get someone closer to a win at some point.

[TheWraith]

34. That's fairer. Winner take all definitely isn't.

Otherwise, you basically tell all the people who voted for the person who didn't win the state to go to hell. Even if the person only won the state by a dozen votes, winner-take-all would give them the same credit as if they'd won 90+ percent.

[Abacus]

52. I despise winner take all methods. /nt

[monmouth]

3. It's also an enormous expense for such little return. There's got to be a better way...n/t

[Unsane]

7. Yep. What the hell is the point?

[papau]

50. it is not even proportional - AA areas get more del. votes to reward past loyal voting plus

small district rules make allocations far from proportional.

[ossman]

4. and Obama actually won more delegates in TX!

Kinda getting annoying being a Democrat

[DJ13]

22. "and Obama actually won more delegates in TX!"

I believe that stems from those Republicans willing to vote for Hillary in the primary that "helped her win" not wanting to go to the evening Democratic caucuses to continue helping her.

[Igel]

62. Sure.

If having the repub vote break for Obama is a bad thing.

The point is that usually it broke more strongly for Obama; in Tx it was only something like 52% for BO, 48% for HRC.

The case could be made that a significant (not necessarily large) portion of BO's votes are republicans crossing over, repubs that actually support him. Like one kind of crossover, you're sort of stuck with the other kind of crossover; the way to avoid such a phenomenon is to go with closed primaries. (Texas' being more closed than many.)

[Zachstar]

6. The bigger problem is the length of this entire race.

I strongly suggest that next time we have regional super tuesday. Every tuesday from the start.

That way the candidate will be known soon and we can move on to kicking ass in the GE earlier.

[LisaL]

48. Why exactly can't all states have their primary on the same day?

[Unsane]

51. thatd aid big $ candidates

[Zachstar]

53. Logistical Nightmare

It will make stealing the election much easier.

A weekly regional vote is much better in my view.

[XemaSab]

8. I think it makes sense in a close election

but I think for blowout victories, such as Obama's 80-20 steamrolling of Hillary in Idaho, the delegates should be winner-take-all.

Maybe 60-40 or greater? :shrug:

[NightWatcher]

9. I prefer the proportionate system

it represents the voice of the people rather well

[IsItJustMe]

14. How does that work?

[TwilightGardener]

10. A win is a win. Good enough for me. He gets bragging rights today.

[SKKY]

11. If we had a system like the republicans...

...Hilary would be ahead by about 250 delegates. I'll take ours. I think it represents the will of the individual much better.

[bluestateguy]

12. We have to overhaul the system for 2012

I would have some delegates be winner take all in each state, and then have winner take all in each congressional district.

There should only be so many points for second place.

[scheming daemons]

13. It forces the candidates to campaign in EVERY state..... with winner-take-all, would you have seen..

Bill make a stop in Wyoming the other day?

Would Obama have set foot in NY or RI?

Would Hillary have made ANY stops in SC or WI?


With winner take all.... the candidates would ignore ENTIRE STATES where they thought they had no chance.


By putting EVERY delegate in play, the candidates are forced to visit states that they KNOW they will lose, just so they can maybe steal an extra delegate or two.


It's brilliant, and it FORCES the candidates to be seen up-close-and-personal by ALL of America.

[Unsane]

23. I'm not sure why that's a good thing.

It makes the nomination process ridiculously long, and our candidates waste money in states they will NEVER win in a GE (see WY, MS etc); more time is spent attacking other Dems than the GOP candidate.

[scheming daemons]

31. Here's why it is good... please think about each point....

1. It forces campaigns to set up ground organizations in EVERY state. Win or lose. This gets the local people engaged, and they are likely to REMAIN engaged in the fall.

2. It gets the candidates to really get to KNOW the ENTIRE country, and what the issues are everywhere. This will in turn make them better leaders.

3. It makes them into BETTER candidates for the fall, since they will be continually honing their message - seeing what works and what doesn't - and preparing to take on their GOP opponent.

4. It opens up the possibility that we don't just have to play to the 2000 or 2004 electoral map, hoping to pick off one of Ohio or Florida. It means that maybe some FORMERLY red states might flip and turn blue.

5. By getting the ground organization in place (step 1), it increases our chance of picking off a senate seat or house seat somewhere where we otherwise wouldn't have. If a previously-solid-red state that went 60-40 for the GOP in 2004, all of a sudden goes only 54-46 for the GOP... that could turn a couple GOP house seats to the Dems.


The proportion delegation system is perfect for getting the ground games in place for the 50-state strategy that worked so well in 2006.

It also opens up a whole new group of donors... and increases the enthusiasm across the country.

Most red states will still be red.... but maybe by half the margins as before.... This gives us a larger popular vote win (i.e. mandate), and also helps increase our majorities in both houses of congress (i.e. veto-proof and filibuster-proof majorities).


The only thing we need to get rid of is the Superdelegate system. Then the candidates would simply be going for the most pledged delegates... the people would have their say - and it would be the ONLY say.


Think long-term.

[thunder rising]

40. And the long primary as WY points out today ... is a good thing. People are excited and involved.

[housewolf]

15. It's WAY better than winner-take-all

which is like the Electoral College, where someone can win the popular vote and lose on the delegate/electoral counts.

Plus it allows for states later in the schedule to have their votes count for something.

The problem is the front-loaded schedule, not proportional allocation of delegates.

[Unsane]

21. huh?

In a proportional system, you can lose the popular vote within a state, and yet still win a majority of delegates. How is that fair? With a winner take all, the candidate who wins a majority of votes in the state wins the delegates.

[housewolf]

42. Winner-take-all is just like the Electoral College

Where nationwide, a candidate can win the popular vote but still lose the election (ex. Al Gore). I see winner-take-all primaries as exactly the same.

The problem you state, someone losing the popular vote and still winning a majority of voters - that's a because of the super-delegates, not because of proportional allocation of delegates.

[fujiyama]

55. Proprtional is good

but the way the party does it is almost going overboard. What it does it weighs them by congressional district....So I believe that more populated districts get more delegates...

Winner take all is the other extreme, which also is unfair because someone that gets 49.9% of the vote still gets nothing. Why not just allocate it such that if one candidate gets the plurality of the state vote they get more delegates? Base it on the state's popular vote, not the district or whatever else.

[ruggerson]

16. We agree on something

this system is ridiculous and needs to be revamped.

[musicblind]

17. I agree with you. What we need, in the NEXT election, is to get rid of all delegates and

base the nominee off of the popular vote. I also STRONGLY feel that we need to get rid of the electoral college and select our president with the popular vote. We live in a very different time than when these rules were implemented. The whole nation is connected now in ways it was not before. We now have the technology to quickly and effectively (though I wish for a paper trail) count the votes of each and every person. It wasn't that easy before to get all that data together so quickly. We need to just go by the popular vote in the GE this election to prevent another Gore. We also need to, in the NEXT primary, go by the popular vote to prevent this crap from happening again.

[IsItJustMe]

25. Either that or determine the delegates of a state on the overall popular vote for that state, rather

than on congresional districts. Makes a hell of a lot more sense.

Lets say a state has 100 delegates. The vote was 60/40. The delegates would be split up accordingly, 60 to one candidate, 40 to the other. No, that makes too much sense.

[musicblind]

56. Exactly... we can't have our leaders actually THINKING

when they plan out our next election system now can we ;)


actually it should be more like :( since what I said is probably true. They wont be thinking ...

[DJ13]

18. Theres nothing wrong with proportional delegates if there was a bonus for winning

Say a reserve of 10-20% of that states delegates that would be awarded to the actual vote winner over the proportioned delegates already awarded based on districts.

That and the party needs to increase the delegates to have enough delegates available for someone to actually win in a close two person race in the primaries themselves to prevent a convention floor fight.

[THUNDER HANDS]

19. there shouldn't be a set number they have to get to

it should be whoever has the most at the end.

What if Edwards was still in the race and say, for example, that Obama had 1600 delegates, Clinton had 1500 and Edwards had 900.


There would be no way, mathematically, that anyone could get to 2025.

[Benhurst]

38. If no candidate wins the majority of the votes,

there should be a national runoff between the top two vote-getters, not only in our primary (which we could easily institute), but in the general election as well.

If we had a runoff, we would no longer be in the position of having a candidate who failed to achieve the backing of the majority of Democratic voters.

[PM7nj]

20. Hillary would be winning.

I remember someone posted a few days ago that if we had a winner take all system she would be ahead. This race probably would have been over on Super Tuesday if it was winner take all.

[Apollo11]

26. Correct - because Hillary has won the most big states.

With winner take all primaries, Hillary would already be the Democratic nominee! B-)

[Bucky]

24. I'll bet you complain about the electoral college, too.

If you "literally can't think of a worse process for picking a nominee," then you apparently are unaware of your party's history. We used to have a much worse system for picking nominees. They were called smoke filled rooms and they stank. Literally.

Proportional delegates is a clear headed form of representative democracy. It's the idiotic Republican winner-take-all approach that distorts the popular will. Obama only gets a few-delegates advantage out of winning Wyoming because it's so fucking small.

If you compare delegate totals to actual votes awarded to candidates, you'll see that delegate counts are pretty damned representative of our closely divided Democratic Party.

[Unsane]

27. Yes, it's so great that we've won 1 presidential election in 32 years.

The system gives us candidates like George McGovern, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis.

I'm starting to like the smoke filled rooms.

[Bucky]

35. You prefer the system that gave us William Jennings Bryan, Adlai Stevenson, & Hubert Humphrey?

The honorable men we both mention lost for many reasons. The circumstances of their nominations are not among those reasons.

[yourguide]

29. I think winner takes all is far worse

I dont think 47% of the primary voters in TX would be pleased if HRC got all of the Texas delegates.

Winner takes all is crap.

[LisaL]

46. They might not be pleased, but that's how general election is.

And I am not pleased Clinton only got a few extra votes out of OH.

[yourguide]

49. Truthfully I am not pleased to see HRC get any votes anywhere

And I know how the general election is, I dont think that's particularly fair as well, it allows for someone like GWB to actually win although Gore got more of the popular vote.

[gristy]

30. I think the system is great!

The Texas 2-step system is what we need more of, where you can vote for you fav Dem in the morning and then caucus with your fellow Democrats in the evening.

What we certainly don't need is a winner-take-all electoral college-like system for the primaries.

[democrattotheend]

32. It's usually pretty representative, and it's better than winner take all

But it can be problematic in smaller states that don't have a lot of delegates, as well as states with screwed up systems like Texas.

In California, the final delegate breakdown mirrored the popular vote almost to a T.

[Eric J in MN]

33. It's better than giving all the delegates to a person who gets 51%.

Proportional reflects the voters.

The DNC could say for 2012 that the latest primary is in April (and no more superdelegate system) if they wanted this to end sooner.

[truebrit71]

36. Exactly.

..

[LisaL]

47. Well, in a general election, winner takes all.

[Eric J in MN]

59. I'd like it if we switched to a proportional system in the general...

...but all states at once.

I don't want California proportional while Texas stays winner-take-all.

[Lucinda]

37. I agree. Debbie Dingle stated on CNN yesterday that our election system is broken and

that is why MI (in part - I would assume) went forward with the early primary.
Election reform is something I'd like to work on with other Du'ers after this cycle.


http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0803/07/se.01.html

ROBERTS: Debbie Dingell, you pushed for this early Michigan primary. How are you feeling now about the whole thing?

DINGELL: That the fight is the right fight. And if we haven't proven that the presidential nominating system is broken in the Democratic Party, I don't think we ever will.

And that's what we were about. We are about saying two small states should not dominate the presidential nominating system. We have tried for 20 years to change the system. Sometimes, a little civil disobedience is necessary to change it. We probably didn't know that the consequences would be so serious. But we are...

(CROSSTALK)
<snip>
ROBERTS: You were warned, though, weren't you, many times about the consequences?

DINGELL: But you know what? This is the one thing that I want to say.

ROBERTS: OK.

DINGELL: Nobody thought we would be here, including the two presidential candidates and Howard Dean, who came to Michigan and Florida, by the way, and said, they're going to seat your delegations.

So, this is about a fight that's still a very legitimate fight. And, at the end of this, one of the other things that has to happen is this presidential nominating system must be changed.
</>

[elixir]

39. I totally agree, Unsane on both points. a new board should be started for dem primary reform.

[Perky]

41. The allocation system is fine. it rewards grassroots organizing

AT the congression district level. I do think that their needs to be a standard schema across the country if all congresional districts are the same size thenen their ought to a standard allotment based on the perventage of the vote in the last two presidential elections.

Super delegates are fin too but each congressional distric out to have one: the COngressman or the Dem Lose if a republican is the incumben. Same thing For Senators anf Governors. People who are not elected Party officials should not have the right to vote for the nomination.

[joshcryer]

43. Why not simply proportion it equal to the popular vote? Very simple.

[Dinger]

44. Representative Democracy Isn't A Bad Thing

[LisaL]

45. How many delegates would each one have under

"winner takes all" scenario?

[fujiyama]

54. My idea is scrap the idea of superdelegates

Keep proportional allocation (it's more representative than winner take all), and have a weekly Tuesday election with a set of primaries. Start the process closer to the convention though, to keep the election shorter as well. I would also start with smaller states (pick one or two - each from a different region) and keep going up gradually in terms of population, in the end having the largest states with the biggest media markets.

This way, the system would be fair enough to give smaller states a say giving less funded candidates a chance to connect with voters (though I like the idea of public financing anyways) and eventually you end up with big states that cost a lot to advertise in.

Allocate state delegations by the number of congressional districts or population. Also get rid of caucuses. I agree that it inhibits certain voters from making it to the polls.

No, this isn't a simple plan, but the key is consistency. I think it's crazy that each state does things a bit different (like the whole Texas system)...

[Hippo_Tron]

57. I think the problem is the way the delegates are apportioned

And I don't think the system is entirely proportional, either. It's got something to do with a certain threshold and varies state by state.

Clinton should have netted far more than 5 delegates out of Ohio.

[stahbrett]

58. Why not just based on percentage of popular vote?

Obama supporter here, but it's crazy that a candidate can win the popular vote in a state and wind up with the same or fewer delegates.

Why not give 55% of the delegates to a candidate that gets 55% of the popular vote? Give the overall winner a bonus of a few delegates, or give them any tie-breakers due to rounding issues. For example, a state with 11 delegates - it's almost a tie... Candidate A gets 50.01%, Candidate B gets 49.99%. Candidate A would get 6 delegates to Candidate B's 5 delegates.

[Eric J in MN]

61. I agree. The delegates should be awarded based on the popular..

...vote statewide.

I don't care for the Pennsylvania system of awarding delegates based 2/3 on who got a majority in a district, and 1/3 on statewide.

It should all be based on statewide.

[sniffa]

60. No, it's a good thing

and it's the reason Obama is ahead as he is. He's actually campaigning to the system, and targeting rich delegate areas based on the system. Clinton does not, and that is a detriment IMO. Her only recourse seems to be the path she's on: demeaning the process, complaining of unfairness, and trying to change the rules as need be.

[tandem5]

63. I look at it this way...

in terms of the power of a voter relative to the state he or she lives in...

let's optimistically say 60,000 voted (it was a much lower number) in today's primary then it takes ~4600 voters to determine one delegate. In contrast it takes about ~10,000 voters to win one delegate in California. Boy am I living in the wrong state!

I might also add that this is exactly why one might end up with more votes overall, but fewer pledged delegates - like in the general election, its states rights over the individual voter's right gone a muck.