Who is going to be the next President of the United States?

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Interesting to note, though, that the parties used to just pick their candidates behind closed doors. Then they eventually got to the point of letting the electorate have almost complete control over picking the candidate. And now have been trending toward giving the party more power to override the electorate with superdelegates.

People forget that they're private organizations, and picking their candidate isn't really part of the democratic process, unless they choose to make it democratic.
 
MrX
Now I'm completely on tilt. After the edit period, too. Preserved forever.



So, the writing on this is horribly bad, but it's my understanding that the rules are now that delegates are bound (for the 1st ballot) to the candidate voted for in their state's primary or caucus. And that only delegates from states without primaries or caucuses are unbound.
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yes it is...but what states don't have a primary or caucus at all? Maybe you mean ones that don't have a poll?
 
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IAG
Wth is going on in Colorado Reno? That is a bullshit selection process going on right there. I'm pretty sure it wasn't that way when I left. The fix is in in the 303.
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Not Reno but what happened was that the Republican Party of CO felt they got screwed in 2012. They had their election which bound their delegates to the winner, which happened to be Rick Santorum. Santorum had dropped out by the national convention time but their delegates had to vote for him and support him. So they chose to change their system and not bind their delegates. They had small caucuses to elect delegate nominees to a state convention. The state convention then invited the candidates (well the 3 remaining) to come speak to them. One accepted. And that one ended up "winning" the delegates via the state convention. Afterwards, the losers started complaining about the "people's vote" being stolen, however, this wasn't the truth. This is how they had already determined they were going to do it and announced their rules last year.
 
Why couldn't they have a system in which the voters could still vote for the actual candidate and not just vote for a delegate? They effectively cut the voters out of most of the process. Why not just say that if the winning candidate is no longer running at the time of the convention that the delegates are not bound on the first ballot? Hell, bind or don't bind the delegates, but at least let the people vote and keep up the appearance of a fair fight...let their voice be heard. Yes the rules were announced last August I believe. However it's still a ridiculous process. From what I hear, the Cruz team encouraged everyone who might be for an alternate candidate to drop out of the process early. Good for them...well played. DOesnt change the fact it's a ridiculous system going on in the 303.
 
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but see that isn't accurate. They didn't vote to begin with. They had a caucus. They have primary caucuses which elect people to send to the state nominating convention. They did consider switching to a primary but the state Republicans started fighting amongst themselves and it didn't pass the state senate. And notice, this story is from last spring, way before people started picking sides.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot...witch-to-presidential-primary-in-2016/119300/


and Breitbart has been trending with a strong lean towards Trump. They are usually very biased.
 
The caucuses guarantee lackluster voter participation and the disproportionate influence of activists on both ends of the political spectrum who are not representative of the parties mainstream. Some romanticize the caucus system as the purest form of grass-roots democracy, but thats only accurate if your idea of democracy involves excruciatingly low turnout by design.
 
Badnina
but see that isn't accurate. They didn't vote to begin with. They had a caucus. They have primary caucuses which elect people to send to the state nominating convention. They did consider switching to a primary but the state Republicans started fighting amongst themselves and it didn't pass the state senate. And notice, this story is from last spring, way before people started picking sides.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/thespot...witch-to-presidential-primary-in-2016/119300/


and Breitbart has been trending with a strong lean towards Trump. They are usually very biased.
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But Nina they DID do a poll/vote at their caucuses previously Like every other normal state with the caucus. I am not sure of your point with the Denver Post article. I understand they weren't using a primary...but they polled. I guarantee before the next election rolls around they will revert to their old way of doing things or move to a primary which makes more sense.
 
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I don't know anything about how New York's primary worked specifically, but I do find it interesting that Kasich gets over 1/3 as many of the popular votes as Trump. Trump gets 89 delegates. Kasich gets 4.

I understand how the popular vote in itself means nothing, and the reason for it. However every time I see the drastic comparisons in races like that one, I still shake my head .
 
eh, I think that the voting process should be more uniform. But I don't like screaming "Foul" when one of your opponents masters the rules of the game (and this is like a big game) better than you did after the fact. If anyone was gonna complain about how CO was going to choose it's delegates and who they would pledge to, there was plenty of time beforehand. Otherwise, it just strikes me as whiny and makes you look bad cause you weren't organized enough.

On a happier note, I made a pound cake! From scratch!! All by myself. I'm gonna go eat cake!!
 
"Democracy....its just a big ass game!"
 
technically we aren't a direct democracy. Representative republic remember? And you have rules and a score to reach. How is that not like a game? You just have to convince people to help get you to the magic score first.
 
another words it's a bunch of bullcrap that has nothing to do with democracy.

The least they can do is let the people pick the sold out puppet of their choosing through direct popular vote. :dunno:

Personally I feel, there should be a monthly(if needed) public referendum for all important public policy decisions.
 
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