Maine Democrats vote to bind superdelegates to results of statewide vote from 2020 - Polidicks

[url]http://www.pressherald.com/2016/05/07/maine-democrats-vote-to-change-superdelegate-system/[/url] [quote]Thousands of Maine Democrats gathered in Portland on Saturday unified in their opposition to Donald Trump but still divided over which candidate is better equipped to take on the controversial Republican this November. The split between the Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton camps was evident from the start of the second day of the Maine Democratic State Convention, when Sanders backers successfully led an effort to change the role of “superdelegates” in the national nominating process. But the debate over superdelegates – delegate seats held by party leaders free to vote for a candidate of their choosing – provided a lively and at times rowdy flavor to a convention focused on building party unity ahead of the upcoming state and national campaigns. In a message aimed at national party leaders, Maine Democrats voted to require that, beginning in 2020, the state’s total delegate votes at the national convention must be awarded proportionately to the results of the state’s presidential caucus or primary. That could bind some superdelegates – who currently hold five of Maine’s 30 seats to the Democratic National Convention – to supporting certain candidates in order to maintain the outcome of the statewide vote. The proposal, which was sponsored by state Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, would urge but not require this year’s superdelegates to honor the outcome of the Democratic caucuses in March, when Sanders won 63 percent of the votes amid record turnout in Maine. Finally, it calls on the national party to eliminate the superdelegate system altogether.[/quote] Not sure this will necessarily work though because that kind of shit is kinda controlled by the DNC

Kind of takes away the point of superdelegates

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50280872]Kind of takes away the point of superdelegates[/QUOTE] The state conventions can't abolish superdelegates so this is the closest they can get

I guess we accomplished something this primary election cycle, then.

[QUOTE=proboardslol;50280872]Kind of takes away the point of superdelegates[/QUOTE] They want to do that. [quote] Finally, it calls on the national party to eliminate the superdelegate system altogether.[/quote] Right there in the OP, in fact. And I agree. We no longer need supers. Today all they do is add in a way for the establishment to protect itself.

[QUOTE=TestECull;50280957]They want to do that. Right there in the OP, in fact. And I agree. We no longer need supers. Today all they do is add in a way for the establishment to protect itself.[/QUOTE] Ironically, this election has proven that you do need supers. The Democrats have the establishment candidate with them while the Republicans hate theirs because they didn't have any

I do think that superdelegates are an overall good idea. There's not enough of them to force a completely disliked candidate onto the ticket - note that even without superdelegates, Hillary would [I]still[/I] be winning by a substantial amount. What superdelegates do is give an extra edge to candidates who have proven to work well within the system, [I]which is something a President needs to be able to do[/I]. If you have two candidates who are equally liked by the Democratic voter base, it makes sense to give the nomination to the one who is better able to work with the system already in place. There are perhaps more superdelegates than there ought to be, but the general idea is not bad at all.

[QUOTE=gman003-main;50281571]I do think that superdelegates are an overall good idea. There's not enough of them to force a completely disliked candidate onto the ticket - note that even without superdelegates, Hillary would [I]still[/I] be winning by a substantial amount. What superdelegates do is give an extra edge to candidates who have proven to work well within the system, [I]which is something a President needs to be able to do[/I]. If you have two candidates who are equally liked by the Democratic voter base, it makes sense to give the nomination to the one who is better able to work with the system already in place. There are perhaps more superdelegates than there ought to be, but the general idea is not bad at all.[/QUOTE] The concept sounds good in theory but in reality I take issue with it. If you're an elected official in a position of high authority and you support Hillary Clinton, that should be your right. But if you come from a state such as Maine in which two-thirds of your constituents voted for Sanders, it doesn't make sense that your vote alone should countermand thousands of caucusgoers. The superdelegate system is essentially a tie-breaker for situations in which there is no consensus candidate, so it doesn't really have a place in a state where one candidate wins by landslide margins. I attended the convention yesterday as a delegate for Bernie and I can't describe how exciting it was to watch the whole situation develop. With the exception of a few instances of heckling during Barney Frank's and Chellie Pingree's addresses, the event was largely positive overall. From what you hear on CNN you might think that the Bernie and Hillary people are at each other's throats, but I can tell you from personal experience that the mood was very civil throughout. People are just people, after all.

I don't think superdelegates are inherently bad and I think it's alright for a party leadership to have a say in their party's policies. After all, they're the party leadership. Like all organizations, you have management at the top, not the bottom.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284579]I don't think superdelegates are inherently bad and I think it's alright for a party leadership to have a say in their party's policies. After all, they're the party leadership. Like all organizations, you have management at the top, not the bottom.[/QUOTE] The only issue is with who the parties would give the status to, it helps preserve an ideological mindset even after the demographics have changed. Look at Bernie, he's not getting any deligates because he's solidly left of where the Democrat leadership wants to be. Bill Clinton is a super delagate, many of the former Clinton leadership are delegates, they want to be moderate at best, so they back the furthest right candidate even as the demographics and even the candidates swing left

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284579]I don't think superdelegates are inherently bad and I think it's alright for a party leadership to have a say in their party's policies. After all, they're the party leadership. Like all organizations, you have management at the top, not the bottom.[/QUOTE] Superdelegates would be 100% fine if we didn't have a two-party system. If we had a parliamentary system that allowed multiple candidates, primaries wouldn't exist. Parties would just nominate a candidate and you could pick between what's available. Aren't happy with any of the options? Make a new party and run. Also, if superdelegates exist, states should no longer fund primaries. It isn't voting when one individual has the voting power of tens of thousands of others. The government shouldn't fund intentionally unequal elections.

[QUOTE=Sableye;50284637]The only issue is with who the parties would give the status to, it helps preserve an ideological mindset even after the demographics have changed. Look at Bernie, he's not getting any deligates because he's solidly left of where the Democrat leadership wants to be. Bill Clinton is a super delagate, many of the former Clinton leadership are delegates, they want to be moderate at best, so they back the furthest right candidate even as the demographics and even the candidates swing left[/QUOTE] Ideally, the demographics should find a new party then. People can criticize the superdelegate system for keeping a party's platform "in place", but when you look at the GOP with the Tea Party ransacking the Republican primaries and Trump winning the nomination, it makes one wonder if having the party leadership have a small say in matters isn't such a bad thing. It's good to have a steady rock as your foundation against the tides of political fads like the Tea Party.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284783]Ideally, the demographics should find a new party then. People can criticize the superdelegate system for keeping a party's platform "in place", but when you look at the GOP with the Tea Party ransacking the Republican primaries and Trump winning the nomination, it makes one wonder if having the party leadership have a small say in matters isn't such a bad thing. It's good to have a steady rock as your foundation against the tides of political fads like the Tea Party.[/QUOTE] It's less of an issue of Trump ransacking the GOP and more of an issue of the GOP alienating their voterbase to the point where they self destruct. The solution is not super delegates to enforce party platforms. Trump's appeal was being an outsider, there is no one but the GOP leadership to blame for millions of GOP voters not wanting an insider. The Tea Party had barely any strength in this primary cycle. If Marco Rubio didn't error out before NH then Cruz wouldn't have gotten nearly as far as he did. Cruz's voter base was too narrow in scope to have any impact so superdelegates clearly aren't necessary for that.

My mention of the Tea Party was when they came and knocked out a dozen moderate GOP members in their primaries for Senate and House a few years back, not this presidential election. Sorry I wasn't specific on that part.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284813]My mention of the Tea Party was when they came and knocked out a dozen moderate GOP members in their primaries for Senate and House a few years back, not this presidential election. Sorry I wasn't specific on that part.[/QUOTE] I realized that after I posted. That's an understandable point.

The primaries are probably why American politics is so polarised today. Ideally, the Democrat and Republican establishments would want to field centre-leaning candidates, so that they can win over the silent majority of independent, swing voters at the general election (the most important of voters). Which is how you win elections where only one candidate can win. Insert primaries into the equation. These elections tend to only involve devout or passionate supporters of each party. These people aren't interested in 'compromise', which is a dirty word in America as far as I can tell. These people want their party's candidate to be strongly ideological; candidates who are not centre-leaning. And those candidates are nominated by each party from the primaries. When the general election happens, the independent, swing voters will look at the ballot and see two options: A hard-left Democrat, or a hard-right Republican. No wonder political apathy is so big in America. I genuinely do think America would be better off without primaries. The candidates produced by each party would at least welcome compromise, would be closer to the sane, political centre, and the economic cost would be so much lower without having to conduct primaries, caucuses, having money spent on political campaigning for the party nominations etc.

[QUOTE=sb27;50284881]The primaries are probably why American politics is so polarised today. Ideally, the Democrat and Republican establishments would want to field centre-leaning candidates, so that they can win over the silent majority of independent, swing voters at the general election (the most important of voters). Which is how you win elections where only one candidate can win. Insert primaries into the equation. These elections tend to only involve devout or passionate supporters of each party. These people aren't interested in 'compromise', which is a dirty word in America as far as I can tell. These people want their party's candidate to be strongly ideological; candidates who are not centre-leaning. And those candidates are nominated by each party from the primaries. When the general election happens, the independent, swing voters will look at the ballot and see two options: A hard-left Democrat, or a hard-right Republican. No wonder political apathy is so big in America. I genuinely do think America would be better off without primaries. The candidates produced by each party would at least welcome compromise, would be closer to the sane, political centre, and the economic cost would be so much lower without having to conduct primaries, caucuses, having money spent on political campaigning for the party nominations etc.[/QUOTE] To be fair, it's only been polarizing for the past 10 or so years. We have almost a century of using primaries beforehand without having Congress have nothing but deadlocking, partisan candidates elected into it.

[QUOTE=Sableye;50281408]Ironically, this election has proven that you do need supers. The Democrats have the establishment candidate with them while the Republicans hate theirs because they didn't have any[/QUOTE] The supers are why the democrats got the establishment candidate. Whether or not the party likes the candidate is irrelevant, America chose Trump and, for better or worse, he's on the November ballot. That is how it should be.

At this point, honestly, why even have superdelegates? [editline]9th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Medevila;50284988]with or without superdelegates, Bernie is losing/would lose you better bet the GOP establishment is wishing they had superdelegates this cycle[/QUOTE] I'm still not a fan of claiming Bernie will lose everything, but without SDs there isn't much way to be sure w/o until the primaries

NPR said earlier on the radio that, Bernie cannot mathematically win in any scenario, plus or minus super delegates. Apparently even if every state that he won had superdelegates swing to him proportionate to the popular vote, it still would not be enough to win him the nomination. And they aren't going to swing, anyway.

Not true. There are plenty of unallocated delegates that'd he'd win with. He needs 932 delegates to win, hillarny needs 682. Hillary currently has 523 pledged SDs, Bernie has 39. There are 1090 unallocated delegates. Yay for NPR lying over radio. [editline]9th May 2016[/editline] The SDs from either side can jump ship at any time, as well.

[QUOTE=Medevila;50284988]with or without superdelegates, Bernie is losing/would lose[/QUOTE] Superdelegates had a (hard to measure) effect in that they were used to create the illusion that Hillary had a massive lead even before the first vote was cast. This was carried on throughout, to increase the perception of Hillary lead. Was that significant enough to swing the election, I seriously doubt it. But it was one more piece in the puzzle for the DNC to push their chosen candidate.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50285019][I]NPR said earlier on the radio that, Bernie cannot mathematically win in any scenario, plus or minus super delegates.[/i] [B]Apparently even if every state that he won had superdelegates swing to him proportionate to the popular vote, it still would not be enough to win him the nomination. [/B] And they aren't going to swing, anyway.[/QUOTE] [B]Of course[/B], since he hasn't won a majority of the vote - not a very useful insight, really. [I]And no[/I] that's wrong, mathematically he could win, realistically he cannot (even if we assume superdelegates would switch). According to [url=http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html]this[/url] (and a few calculations), he should also be able to win if we apply the current proportionality to the remaining superdelegates (so 53 total for sanders, 659 for Clinton). With those added to the current totals, Clinton is 896 delegates in front of Sanders, with 931 delegates remaining. Sanders would have to win 914 (98.17%) of those to make it. Even if we assume Clinton gets every remaining superdelegate, Sanders could still make it with 928 (99.7%) delegates. Of course this is a pretty useless mathematical exercise, but they just barely jumped the shark saying it's mathematically impossible for Bernie to win. Unless I fucked up somewhere.

[QUOTE=Medevila;50286490]Superdelegates are unquestionably undemocratic, not arguing with you there, but so are caucuses.. one of the tools Bernie used to get as far as he did[/QUOTE] Well the whole thing isn't about getting Bernie elected, it's about making the process more fair. The superdelegates also have an indirect role - making the candidate incumbent seem way more electable. When Clinton's lead is cited as being 300 from the get go, it has an effect on the primary election. Caucuses should go as well.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;50286648] When Clinton's lead is cited as being 300 from the get go, it has an effect on the primary election. [/QUOTE] Really that's more about the media being unhonest about the SD's and their process. They're the ones that portrayed her with a massive lead, not the Clinton campaign.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50286665]Really that's more about the media being unhonest about the SD's and their process. They're the ones that portrayed her with a massive lead, not the Clinton campaign.[/QUOTE] I didn't say the problem was the Clinton campaign, just that that's how shit went down.

[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;50284783]Ideally, the demographics should find a new party then. People can criticize the superdelegate system for keeping a party's platform "in place", but when you look at the GOP with the Tea Party ransacking the Republican primaries and Trump winning the nomination, it makes one wonder if having the party leadership have a small say in matters isn't such a bad thing. It's good to have a steady rock as your foundation against the tides of political fads like the Tea Party.[/QUOTE] There hasn't been a new party in the US in over 150 years, you either take on one party or the other

[QUOTE=Sableye;50286762]There hasn't been a new party in the US in over 150 years, you either take on one party or the other[/QUOTE] No you view the current two as one and create a counter to it. That how you get a new party.

[QUOTE=GoDong-DK;50286755]I didn't say the problem was the Clinton campaign, just that that's how shit went down.[/QUOTE] You're attributing Clinton's perceived massive lead to the Superdelegates themselves when it's in fact attributed to the media's portrayal of them. [editline]9th May 2016[/editline] [QUOTE=Sableye;50286762]There hasn't been a new party in the US in over 150 years, you either take on one party or the other[/QUOTE] Yet there have been multiple elections over those 150 years in which a 3rd party made it into the national spotlight. If history is truly to teach any lesson, it's that nothing is going to last forever, not that the current political organization is permanent.

[QUOTE=Dayzofwinter;50286794]No you view the current two as one and create a counter to it. That how you get a new party.[/QUOTE] The problem is deeper than that. A two-party system is pretty much an inevitable consequence of a first-past-the-post, indirect-voting electoral system. The only times we've gotten a new party has come from the complete collapse of an existing party - there can never be more than two viable political parties with our current electoral system. If you want third parties to be at all viable, we need the presidential election to be single transferable vote (or at bare minimum, simple national plurality), and we need congressional elections (for at least one house) to be some form of proportional voting.