I started a post this morning on Hillary and the corporate establishment wing of the Democratic Party getting shellacked in New Hampshire but my heart just wasn't in it. I'm rather burnt out on thinking about politics. We've spent the last 4 years hearing about how 2016 was going to be Hillary's year, which meant I was sick of thinking about Clinton quite a few months ago -- yes, she's smart, and yes, she's competent, but there is a reason I keep wanting to tack an "S" on to the beginning of her name. If she wore a jumpsuit like a NASCAR driver she'd have trouble finding enough space for all the corporate logos.
Anyway, I'm happy Bernie Sanders won in New Hampshire. I truly hope that victory has scared the crap out of party establishment types like DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schulz (a woman who really needs to get shellacked in a primary herself), but I doubt it. Now I'm going to hope Bernie manages to shock the shit out of people in a few more states. I know that if I were a black voter, I'd be getting pretty sick of hearing about how black votes are the firewall that's going to allow Shillary's coronation to proceed as planned.
Of course by modern standards Goldwater would be a flaming liberal.
ReplyDeleteI wish he had won. Remember the system is rigged. Super Delegates, like the Electoral College, can swing elections away from the popular vote - and in New Hampshire's case they did: both ending with 15 delegates.
ReplyDeleteI always ask the question: Who are the Super Delegates? Who appoints them?
And just like the Electoral College: why do we need them?
This system is obviously a way for some controlling entity to place its thumb on the scale of elections.
And no one seems to care.
One person, one vote; and then an adjustment.
the Ol'Buzzard
According to the S.O., who seems to have a better grasp of this stuff than I do, superdelegates are people like current elected persons (e.g., members of Congress) and party bigwigs (state party chairmen, etc.). The big difference between superdelegates and regular ones is that the supers can change their votes. That is, they can say now that they're for Hillary, but they can switch to Bernie any time they feel like it. They're the swing votes at a tight convention.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I do know is that the current system is fairly recent. There's nothing in the Constitution about how political parties should select their candidates. Whether a party caucuses (a system than can easily lead to decisions being made in smoke-filled rooms) or uses a primary to thin the herd is internal to each party. Brokered conventions used to be the norm: delegates would arrive at a convention not having any firm idea who was going to emerge as the nominee. That all changed in the 1960s when groups who had been systematically excluded (blacks, women) raised hell. Think it was the 1964 Democratic convention that may have been the tipping point.