US Elections

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I do like how much is being read into these two opening states - yes, there's some momentum to be gained, but 0.5% of the populace have voted thus far.

[Verbal]

Then like the beeb says, its still wide open

[blurred]

Then like the beeb says, its still wide open

Oh indeed - a trickle of states to come during January, but Super Tuesday (when large swathes of the country all decide on the same day) will be the most telling, as per usual.

It's certainly making for interesting viewing, and I do so love American politics.

[Batman]

vote for David Palmer

[superjohnmcginlay]

Then like the beeb says, its still wide open

Oh indeed - a trickle of states to come during January, but Super Tuesday (when large swathes of the country all decide on the same day) will be the most telling, as per usual.

It's certainly making for interesting viewing, and I do so love American politics.

I find it bemusing - they get very excited about it. All those people cheering and waving stuff - its more like a fooking gig or awards ceremony. I dont understand.

[blurred]

I find it bemusing - they get very excited about it. All those people cheering and waving stuff - its more like a fooking gig or awards ceremony. I dont understand.

I ignore the seal-clapping, placard-waving morons and appreciate the stuff behind it

[superjohnmcginlay]

I find it bemusing - they get very excited about it. All those people cheering and waving stuff - its more like a fooking gig or awards ceremony. I dont understand.

I ignore the seal-clapping, placard-waving morons and appreciate the stuff behind it

Cash?

[blurred]

Cash?

More the political/constitutional side of it.

Although it's always worth asking why someone would spend tens of millions of pounds to get a job that pays bugger all (true of most american political offices, not just the president).

[fatshaft]

Cash?

More the political/constitutional side of it.

Although it's always worth asking why someone would spend tens of millions of pounds to get a job that pays bugger all (true of most american political offices, not just the president).

Power/ego. Same goes for just about any PM/Presidential position worldwide. The candidate could usually make vastly more in civvy street but they don't, they go for running the country, the biggest job around.

put it another way, what sort of person thinks - Prime Minister, run the country, yeah I could do that!

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Power/ego. Same goes for just about any PM/Presidential position worldwide. The candidate could usually make vastly more in civvy street but they don't, they go for running the country, the biggest job around.

put it another way, what sort of person thinks - Prime Minister, run the country, yeah I could do that!

That question is more appropriate for the lower levels of american politics, really, not the President - the perks/reasons behind that are obvious. People do spend vast amounts of money, however, to become Governor/Senator/Congressman and you do have to wonder why they do it...

The people who want power should be the last ones to have it!

[Montreal Wanderer]

I do like how much is being read into these two opening states - yes, there's some momentum to be gained, but 0.5% of the populace have voted thus far.

The whole population doesn't vote in caucuses and primaries. It's kind of a weird system and the two parties handle things differently. If a Republican wins a state, even with only 30% of the votes, he gets all of that state's votes at the convention. The Democrats use proportional representation to divide the states votes. Either way Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire represent more than 0.5% of the votes at the national convention. And momentum is generally quite important.

[TANGODANCER]

A teenage girl, interviewed on her views on Hilary Clinton: "Yeah, vote for Hilary. Girl power, yeah!"

Er, yeah.

[blurred]

The whole population doesn't vote in caucuses and primaries. It's kind of a weird system and the two parties handle things differently. If a Republican wins a state, even with only 30% of the votes, he gets all of that state's votes at the convention. The Democrats use proportional representation to divide the states votes. Either way Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire represent more than 0.5% of the votes at the national convention. And momentum is generally quite important.

The whole system intrigues me as a way of picking and electing candidates, it has to be said. I was unaware of the PR use by the Democrats - I thought they worked to the same system as the Republicans? Presumably, therefore, margin of victory is more important to Democrats than Republicans (as for the latter it can only add momentum rather than actually 'matter')? And wouldn't the Democrats end up with more of a chance of a 'hung convention' with that system, rather than allocating blocks of votes? If they are handing them out to all candidates in a PR system, isn't there a problem getting the 2162 votes (or whatever the number is)? I thought they preferred a confirmed nominee before the convention rather than rounds and rounds of voting?

[americantrotter]

It generally works itself out. Plus not all states have primaries, it's a very odd system. It says no where in the constitution how we have to nominate our candidates. It's all silly really.

I am going to vote for Obama. If we had an Obama/Edwards ticket we will crush any Republican.

[Montreal Wanderer]

The whole population doesn't vote in caucuses and primaries. It's kind of a weird system and the two parties handle things differently. If a Republican wins a state, even with only 30% of the votes, he gets all of that state's votes at the convention. The Democrats use proportional representation to divide the states votes. Either way Iowa, Montana and New Hampshire represent more than 0.5% of the votes at the national convention. And momentum is generally quite important.

The whole system intrigues me as a way of picking and electing candidates, it has to be said. I was unaware of the PR use by the Democrats - I thought they worked to the same system as the Republicans? Presumably, therefore, margin of victory is more important to Democrats than Republicans (as for the latter it can only add momentum rather than actually 'matter')? And wouldn't the Democrats end up with more of a chance of a 'hung convention' with that system, rather than allocating blocks of votes? If they are handing them out to all candidates in a PR system, isn't there a problem getting the 2162 votes (or whatever the number is)? I thought they preferred a confirmed nominee before the convention rather than rounds and rounds of voting?

The delegates are only committed to voting for a specific candidate on the first ballot. Generally speaking however there is seldom a second ballot for either party. The whole system is difficult for an outsider (I include myself) to comprehend and it gets worse with the electoral college in the actually election. It is designed to protect the interest of the individual states and they determine how their delegates vote. I'm fairly sure the Democrats use PR in most, if not all, states, so finishing third in New Hampshire is not necessarily bad.

[blurred]

The delegates are only committed to voting for a specific candidate on the first ballot. Generally speaking however there is seldom a second ballot for either party. The whole system is difficult for an outsider (I include myself) to comprehend and it gets worse with the electoral college in the actual election.

I would've thought that you'd see more rounds of ballots at the convention under such a PR system. Has it just been that there are clear leaders in the party which have avoided the need for this in the past? With Clinton/Obama this time round, is there a real chance that they could head into the convention without the requisite number of votes in their pockets?

[Montreal Wanderer]

The delegates are only committed to voting for a specific candidate on the first ballot. Generally speaking however there is seldom a second ballot for either party. The whole system is difficult for an outsider (I include myself) to comprehend and it gets worse with the electoral college in the actual election.

I would've thought that you'd see more rounds of ballots at the convention under such a PR system. Has it just been that there are clear leaders in the party which have avoided the need for this in the past? With Clinton/Obama this time round, is there a real chance that they could head into the convention without the requisite number of votes in their pockets?

It could but hasn't happened in the recent past.

Regarding PR Wikipedia tells me:

Under the Democratic Party's Delegate Selection Rules, delegates are awarded by proportional representation, with a minimum 15 percent threshold required in order to receive delegates. Each state party is required to publish its own state level delegate selection plan and take public comment. The plans indicate how each state will select delegates at the congressional and statewide level, how the delegation will implement the party's affirmative action policy, and how the delegation will ensure an equal balance between women and men. Those plans were adopted at state conventions and forwarded to the national party in mid-2007.

In caucuses, the viability threshold (15 percent or higher depending on the caucus) must be met at each level in the process, from the precinct level upwards. Thus, it is to the interest of the candidates that meet the threshold to woo the votes of the caucus-goers for candidates that did not meet the threshold.[31][32] The focus on viability is designed to weed out small, divisive factions from gaining delegates to disrupt the national convention. However, this can result in candidates gaining viability in some precincts but not others, and a complicated "caucus math" required to allocate whole delegates to the county and state conventions for each precinct.[33] (The exception is Washington, whose delegate selection plan does not include thresholds at the precinct level.) In the primaries, the viability threshold is set based on statewide votes, so candidates who get fewer than 15% of the votes in a state get no delegates, with the others splitting the delegates based on the proportion of votes.

Edit: Not sure my url didn't go blue.

[blurred]

Found this from CCN from 2004 - it certainly is a strange way of doing things!

While elected officials, party leaders and dignitaries will converge on the Fleet Center, the real power rests with the convention delegates. A Democratic hopeful's many months pressing the flesh on the campaign trail aside, it is these delegates who actually choose the party's nominee.

The system operates much like the Electoral College, in which vote-mandated "Electors" ultimately select the U.S. president every four years. Each Democratic state party is allocated a number of delegates based on a complicated formula that takes into account the state's electoral votes and the strength of support for Democratic presidential candidates in the last three general elections.

Each individual convention delegate casts one vote for a Democratic candidate. The first candidate to receive a majority of the convention floor's votes (2,162 in 2004) becomes the nominee. "Alternates" will also be on-hand for the convention, ostensibly to replace delegates who do not or cannot show up, as will thousands of Democratic officials, leaders and regular citizens, plus the usual horde of journalists.

So how can delegates get a spot in Boston? That's where the process gets tricky.

Like the general presidential election, the party primaries and caucuses do not constitute a direct election. In other words, people don't actually vote for a candidate, but they vote for a delegate allied with that candidate. (Before the primary or caucus, each candidate on a state's ballot submits the names of local Democrats who would serve as their delegates at the national convention, if necessary.)

The actual vote determines the allegiance of "district-level delegates," based on vote tallies in each of the state's U.S. congressional districts. Per guidelines set by the national party, each state splits these delegates evenly, male and female. In this regard, the Democrats' delegate-dividing formula is more intricate than Republicans.

While the GOP favors "winner-take-all" elections -- compelling all convention delegates tied to a state's vote to support a particular candidate -- Democratic primaries and caucuses are proportional. So multiple Democratic candidates can earn a share of a state and district's delegate pool, based on how they finished in each primary or caucus.

Pledged and unpledged

Even then, the proportionally allotted (or pledged) district-level delegates only make up roughly half of a state's contingent to the party's national convention. The remaining delegates are comprised of pledged at-large delegates and party leaders and elected officials (PLEOs), and unpledged add-on delegates and PLEOs (also referred to as "superdelegates").

Generally, each state's district-level delegates will select at-large delegates to the party's national convention, as well as some PLEOs. Both at-large picks and delegate-selected PLEOs must openly commit to one candidate before this vote, and their names are subject to the candidates' review. So, given the clear-cut allegiances of district-level delegates, the statewide vote roughly determines the allegiances, and thus the identities of pledged at-large and PLEO delegates.

But this process makes it difficult to simply correlate the statewide vote to delegate totals for each candidate. Voter tallies in each congressional district create races within the race, and how those shake out ultimately determines the at-large and pledged PLEO delegates.

And this doesn't cover all the states' delegates. Every state has a set of wild cards -- that is, unpledged delegates chosen to attend and vote at the national convention, but not obliged to support a particular candidate.

Unpledged delegates make up about 20 percent of all convention delegates (ranging from 12 percent in Ohio and Florida, to 35 percent in Delaware, to a whopping 59 percent in Washington, D.C.).

They typically include local members of the Democratic National Committee and elected officials (like Democratic governors and representatives), who automatically earn a vote on the convention floor. In addition, the state Democratic committee (or existing delegates) chooses one or more "add-on" delegates a few months or weeks before the national convention.

The unpledged delegates give state delegations flexibility on the national convention floor. Further complicating the process, candidates may drop out of the race before the convention or even before all of the pledged at-large delegates are chosen. In those cases, the state party and the withdrawn candidate may have some influence on how those delegates vote on the convention ballot.

As a result, a candidate wraps up the nomination beforehand only if he or she garners the allegiance of a healthy majority of pledged delegates -- enough to outweigh a potential revolt by unpledged delegates.

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

All a very, very odd system...

A cynic might say that Obama won't win because he's black, Clinton won't win because she's female and Edwards won't win because he's being backed by Michael Moore...

As Batman implies, 24 might just have paved the way...

As Blurred says, it's mainly excitable guesswork until Super Tuesday (somehow you imagine Sky Sports covering it)...

If Clinton wins that'll be the world's most powerful nation ruled by just two families for a quarter of a century... land of opportunity...

[Montreal Wanderer]

All a very, very odd system...

A cynic might say that Obama won't win because he's black, Clinton won't win because she's female and Edwards won't win because he's being backed by Michael Moore...

As Batman implies, 24 might just have paved the way...

As Blurred says, it's mainly excitable guesswork until Super Tuesday (somehow you imagine Sky Sports covering it)...

If Clinton wins that'll be the world's most powerful nation ruled by just two families for a quarter of a century... land of opportunity...

Don't exaggerate - it would only be 24 years.