On the so-called Will of the People!

[kennetha]

Obama's supporters keep crowing and crowing about having "the will of the people" on their side. They keep threatening that there will be hell to pay if the superdelegates overturn the expressed will of the people. I see more self-serving demagoguery at work here. More old politics of intimidation. More impregnable and delusional sense of absolute entitlement.

How is the will of the people to be measured in this primary campaign and to what extent do pledge delegates adequately represent the will of the people?

First, take the caucuses by means of which Obama has won a large number of his delegates. The caucuses themselves are incredibly anti-democratic and are very poor reflections of the will of the democratic electorate at large. We have two concrete proofs of that. First, take Texas and its absurd two step. A democratic election held during the daylight hours, was basically partially reversed by an undemocratic procedure at night. Which is a better representation of "the will of the people?" The primary Obama lost or the Caucus he won? Similarly compare the Washington State Caucus with the barely covered Washington State Primary. THe primary was very close, as I recall, something like 52 - 48 for Obama. But Obama won the Caucus overwhelmingly. Again, which better represents the will of the people?

Focus next on the fact that many of Obama's wins came in states that we Democrats unfortunately have NO chance of carrying any time soon. For the superdelegates to be cowed by threats and intimidation into awarding the nomination to Obama because he won states we can't win and loses states that we must win would be the height of self-defeating absurdity and cowardice.

And then there is the delicate matter of Florida and Michigan and with it the utter bitter irony of a campaign that pretends (and only pretends) to be the high-minded spokesman of the will of the people actually doing everything it can to prevent the voices of the good people of Florida and Michigan from being heard and counted. If Obamaniacs cared so much for the will of the people, they would stop standing in the way of counting the votes of Florida and Michigan. Instead, they crow endlessly about "the rules! the rules! the rules!" to justify disenfranchising millions, to justify undemocratic unrepresentative caucuses and then they claim to stand for "the will of the people?"

Finally, it's pretty clear that DEMOCRATS prefer Hillary to Obama. Obama needs open primaries and a flood of independents and repugnants to prevail. Open primaries may or may not have their place in our total system. But they cannot lay any particular claim to represent the will of the democratic electorate. I think the democratic nominee should really be decided by democratics. Don't you?

All in all the constant refrain that "the will of the people" should not be overturned is more disingenuous, self-serving demagoguery of the sort I have come to expect from the Obama supporters on this board.

[antigop]

1. I'm not a HRC supporter, but I agree that the Texas two-step is absurd n/t

[democrattotheend]

2. On Washington

You may have a point, but Clinton's campaign was asking people to make phone calls to encourage people to vote in the primary, probably to make the point you are making. Many of the people who attended the caucus may not have voted in the primary, since they were more likely to know that it did not count for anything. And Obama's campaign did not do anything to encourage its supporters to vote in the meaningless primary.

[wileedog]

3. Again, you can't change the rules mid-game.

I'm all for comprehensive Primary Reform for the party, and after this years debacle I find it likely.

But it can't start until the day after the convention. And no, caucus delegates should not and will not be considered 'inferior' by Superdelegates.

Also, your premise is flawed. Obama won open primaries in VA, MA, WI and may others. In fact IIRC he has MORE pledged delegates from open primaries than even Clinton does.

That dog don't hunt.

Other than that, great rant. I especially love the continued use of the word demagoguery. Extra credit for you.

[kennetha]

4. You make my point about open primaries.

He can't win among Democrats only. So his primary victories are not representative of the DEMOCRATIC voters. But it's we DEMOCRATS who should decide our nominee.

[stahbrett]

7. Obama has run his campaign on the existing system

How he would do with a different system is purely hypothetical - his approach to many facets of the election would likely be different. Hillary has run as if it's a winner-take-all system, which is a great way to run IF WE ACTUALLY HAD A WINNER-TAKE-ALL SYSTEM. :)

[papau]

9. Obama won open primaries in MA -with only 38% of the vote? -yep - sounds like the will of the people

[stahbrett]

5. Here's one of Hillary's problems

She seems to have run this whole thing on the following assumptions:

1) She'd win handily; she'd be the presumptive nominee by Super Tuesday
2) If she won the "big" states, she'd be ahead by a lot of delegates (shouldn't she have known that the delegates are awarded via a convoluted proportional allocation system, rather than winner-take-all?)

Instead, Obama actually looked at what the existing rules were, and planned his campaign accordingly. Hillary planned her campaign along the lines that an incumbent president would likely need to run.

So all of the whining about caucuses and the existing system of proportional allocation of delegates may very well be valid, but they are besides the point - the rules will not be changed mid-stream, so the only smart move is to campaign as well as possible based on the existing rules!

[kennetha]

8. I don't disagree about the strategic and tactical issues you raise

I'm just arguing that the claim that somehow Obama's delegate lead represents "the will of the people" which should not be overturned by the supers is disingenuous and self-serving.

[stahbrett]

10. It's simple to me - based on the existing system, Obama has won more delegates

This whole thing is about winning the most delegates. The superdelegates can do what they want to, and I'm not calling for the rules to be changed on that for this election cycle. However, I just honestly don't see the superdelegates going against the pledged delegate lead that Obama will have. That would tick off so many people who are hard-core and loyal Democratic voters... to think that offering the VP to Obama to soothe over those voters is also not believable. I don't think Obama would take it, and even if he did I don't think it would work.

[alcibiades_mystery]

6. Fuck closed primaries

First, the Democrats tell us (independents) that to vote for anybody but a Dem is insane, and third parties are out of the question. Then, they tell us that we have no say in who the Dem is unless we sign up as Dems.

Fuck that. The only demagoguery here is your own.

[housewolf]

11. The Will of Those Who Show Up to Vote

"The Will of the People" is only a valid argument if you have 100% turn-out of all voters. In a primary election, that would mean "100% turn-out of Democratic Party voters" or Republican Party voters.

What's true, actually, is that winners of elections today only represent "the will of those who turn out to vote". It may or may not represent the will of a majority of people, much less the will of all the people.

When it comes to awarding delegates by states, they are awarded based on the will of those who show up to vote, be it a Primary or Caucus.

[kennetha]

12. But if you put barriers in their way

like holding caucuses at hours when many could not show up to vote or not counting their votes after they do show up, then the vote is even less representative of anything except the will of some of those who actually did vote.

So that gives the supers, who are supposed to be guardians of the long-term interest of the party, not to be move by the Obama sides threats and intimidation.

[cascadiance]

13. You can also make other arguments that caucuses help democracy today more than primaries do too...

I know the issues that are commonly held against caucuses that you guys keep repeating are:
1) Need a better way to get more people not able to attend for various reasons to be there (which absentee ballots, etc. in primaries can help).
2) Votes aren't private, which for some might be less of a "democratic" mechanism.

On the other hand:
1) Caucuses aren't prone to manipulation with today's voting machines the way straight voting machines are with the way primaries have been voted on. A clear illustration of this frustration is comparing Iowa results with the New Hampshire afterwards. And even comparing the machine counted districts in New Hampshire vs. those that weren't machine counted. I'd argue that caucuses are a more honest measurement of those who attend than we have currently with our very corrupted election mechanisms we have today.
2) Caucuses force people to come out of their shell and talk to fellow Democrats about their choices and why they are choosing who they are choosing to vote for. This allows for more grass roots campaigning on issues not normally heard about in today's very stilted mainstream media environment, which doesn't let many of these issues get analyzed or discussed (i.e. public campaign financing, instant runoff voting, corporate lobbying, impeachment, etc.). Primary voting now helps those that like to mass market us to death a lot more on who to vote for, instead of encouraging thoughtful evaluation of candidates and issues.

I think the DNC's adamant stance of keeping Iowa's caucuses first were in fact a good thing in the PRESENT environment we have highlighted here for these reasons. I think it is important that we have the first contest be well thought out and have grass roots issues discussed right off the bat to set the tone for subsequent primaries. If we had some bigger mass marketed primaries first that already established well-heeled candidates like Clinton before the voters had a chance to interact about their choices, then we would have lost a lot more. I think that equation can be fixed in the future, but for now, I think having Iowa go first made sense.

Now, the two issues favoring caucuses now could be helped in future elections by fixing the electronic voting machine messes and putting in something in place that we can all feel we can trust. As for the voters being informed, a reversal of the Clinton's Telecommunications Act and other problematic FCC decisions since then to break apart the corporate media would be a good start. We still need a lot more citizen understanding of what they are voting for to have an "informed" citizenry who votes to ensure we make the right choices. There's a lot of other things we can do to help this process too (not having people work two to three jobs to keep up in a "globalized" economy, etc.).

For now though, to say somehow that caucuses are "inferior" and anti-democratic I think is a partisan misrepresentation of a process that Hillary hasn't done well with, and the reasons aren't necessarily because they are "less democratic".

[Drachasor]

14. I concur with this view of caucuses, it is not a black and white issue -- some other points

Additionally, caucuses, I think, show enthusiasm for particular candidates much better. They show the fervor of support relative to other candidates. Since research indicates that's an important aspect in determining the actual preference of the people, I have to say caucuses are mixed bag given their problems, but far from being undemocratic.

Besides that, Obama actually was favored by polls in most of the caucus states, because Hillary viewed them as too small to be worth bothering much with. While the margin of victory would have been much, much smaller, a primary would not have change the popular vote that much overall. If anything, given the increased voters, primaries would probably increase Obama's lead.

Now, personally, I think I'd prefer a primary where you rated each candidate on a scale from 0-10 (or 0-9, if you prefer). Those numbers are added up to determine a winner. Research shows this is one of the most effective forms of voting in determining the actual preference of the group (and it is less prone to strategic voting abuse as well). Make no mistake, standard primary voting is far from perfect.

Beyond that, the OP's dismissal of independents and republicans who no longer care for the republican party is needlessly divisive (and goes against his argument that Hillary is more electable). These are people we can bring into the Democratic party and bring in to support us again and again -- they are very valuable, and knowing their preferences is valuable. He also dismisses the fact that Obama can win a number of States that Hillary has no chance of winning; pretending that every State Obama does well in are unwinnable, as stance not backed up by any evidence.

Lastly, Obama has won a number of closed primaries, including Maryland and Connecticut. The OP is horrendously wrong on this point. So it is, in fact, not clear that Democrats prefer Hillary, even though I disagree that that should be the only measuring bar.