Dems going to get a new nominating process?

[MadImmortalMan]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/12/05/democrats-consider-new-presidential-nominating-process/

Democrats consider new presidential nominating process
Posted: December 5th, 2009 04:15 PM ET

From CNN Political Editor Mark Preston
Clyburn said the presidential nominating process needs to be 'improved'.
Clyburn said the presidential nominating process needs to be 'improved'.

Washington (CNN) - National Democrats are considering changing the presidential nominating process, by establishing a new primary calendar and deemphasizing the influence lawmakers and political insiders have on choosing the party nominee.

The battle for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was marred by controversy as the Democratic National Committee argued with some state parties over when they could hold their primaries and caucuses and candidates were forced to take sides in this important internal party dispute.

House Majority Whip James Clyburn, D-South Carolina, said that the 2008 nomination contest "yielded a great candidate," but readily acknowledged the problems that arose.

"We need to improve a little bit in spite of the fact that we got a great candidate out of the process," Clyburn said Saturday at a meeting of a DNC working group tasked with drafting a new plan. "It was not very comfortable at various points along the way."

Democrats see an opening to change the system now, because this is "a rare cycle of no apparent Democratic presidential nomination challenge" in 2012 as President Obama is expected to seek a second term, according to the "Draft Report of the Democratic Change Commission," discussed at the meeting.

Commission members, who range from lawmakers and grassroots activists to President Obama's campaign manager, are charged with putting forth recommendations to help expand the Democratic base and increase more ethnic and regional diversity in choosing the party's presidential nominee in 2016 and beyond, assuming Obama seeks a second term.

A commission suggestion would be to allow the first four states that held nominating contests in the January 2008 maintain their early, privileged calendar positions. But these states - Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina - would be directed to delay holding their caucuses and primaries before February 1. All other states would be forbidden from holding their nominating contests until at least the first Tuesday in March.

Another recommendation in the report suggested grouping states by "region or sub-region."


"This would not be a mandatory obligation upon the state parties," the commission stated. "The commission recommends that these clusters be staggered throughout the window to allow for a deliberative process that benefits all voters and caucus-goers through the country."

States parties that abided by the DNC's calendar would be rewarded by getting special perks at the national nominating convention.

The commission also discussed how to reduce the influence of unpledged delegates – lawmakers and party insiders also know as superdelegates – who played a big role in the 2008 nomination contest.

"Unpledged delegates constituted 19% of the total convention and the presidential candidates were compelled to spend a substantial amount of candidate time and other resources to seek the support of these automatic delegates," the commission stated. "We learned that in a closely contested presidential race, the nomination could be decided by this category of delegates."

No formal solution dealing with superdelegates was arrived at Saturday and the commission will draft a plan to reduce their numbers in the coming weeks.

"The DNC must address the perception that there are too many unpledged delegates and those delegates could potentially overturn the will of the people, as determined by the state contests," the commission stated.

The commission is expected to vote on its final recommendations before December 18. The recommendations will then be sent to the DNC's Rules and Bylaws Committee for further debate and discussion.

Mark Brewer, chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, said he had no problem with reducing the number of superdelegates as long as state party chairs and vice chairs maintained their status and party leaders continued to play a role at the conventions.

But Brewer took exception to the idea of allowing four states to be granted a special exemption to hold their primaries before other states.

"From the perspective of Michigan and other states, it is unfair that any state have a permanent place at the top of the process," said Brewer, who attended the meeting but is not a commission member. "It is unfair to give any states or state a monopoly."

The Republican National Committee is also looking at how its party chooses its presidential nominee, and the DNC expressed interest Saturday in working with its political rival on a nomination calendar.

I think we should scrap the superdelegate thing entirely. It sucks.

Also, I don't want my state to vote too early. I want to vote late so I know which of the scrubs are going to drop out of the race before I waste my vote on them.

[ulmont]

I think we should scrap the superdelegate thing entirely. It sucks.

As a vehicle to get elected officials to show up to the convention, it's not bad.  It's an extremely aberrant race when they could change the outcome, and even more aberrant when they do (I don't think this has ever happened).

[Fate]

Superdelegates don't change the outcome. Giving small states a disproportionate amount of delegates with respect to their populations changes the outcome.

[Fate]

I think we should scrap the superdelegate thing entirely. It sucks.

Also, I don't want my state to vote too early. I want to vote late so I know which of the scrubs are going to drop out of the race before I waste my vote on them.

Most primaries aren't on the epic scale of Clinton vs Obama, so voting later means that your vote is more likely to be wasted.

[alfred russel]

I think we should scrap the superdelegate thing entirely. It sucks.

As a vehicle to get elected officials to show up to the convention, it's not bad.  It's an extremely aberrant race when they could change the outcome, and even more aberrant when they do (I don't think this has ever happened).

As long as television cameras are at the conventions, the politicians will be there.

[DGuller]

I'm for both scrapping superdelegates, and for scrapping the early states.  I'm tired of freaking ethanol subsidies that make no sense.

[MadImmortalMan]

I'm for both scrapping superdelegates, and for scrapping the early states.  I'm tired of freaking ethanol subsidies that make no sense.

Don't forget federal taxes on visitors that pay for tourism advertising. 

[Razgovory]

The Dems definitely need a new nominating process.  The last one showed that quite well.

[Neil]

If the Democrats weren't freedom-hating retards, they'd just have all the primaries on the same day.

[DontSayBanana]

If the Democrats weren't freedom-hating retards, they'd just have all the primaries on the same day.

Thankfully, the freedom-loving retards are trying to push for same-day primaries.

[jimmy olsen]

I wouldn't have them all on the same day. I think a good system would be to split the country into 5 regions and have the elections spaced 4 weeks apart. The order would be cyclical so in 2012 the Northeast would be first, in 2016 the South, etc.

[stjaba]

Also, something needs to be done about allowing caucuses. What essentially give Obama the victory was victories in caucus states. Why? Because delegates were given out proportionally. Since every single primary race was close, the net effect was a tie, or a maybe 1 or 2 delegate swing one way or the other. But since Obama had a sick organization, he dominated all the early caucuses and ran up huge delegate margins. That's what screwed over Hillary, and that's why(combined with the fact that Obama had the superdelegate lead) she was out of the race even though she beat Obama in many of the larger states.

If the Dems had had the Republican system of winner takes all, Hillary definitely could have won: I mean she won Texas(primary, not caucus), New York, Florida, Ohio, and California. But due to the rules, you had the absurd consequences of Obama having a better net benefit of winning the Idaho caucus(12 delegate margin) than Clinton's combined winning Ohio's primary(7 delegate margin) AND Texas's primary (4 delegate margin).

A good strategy for a smart candidate with limited resources in the Dem primary as it stands would be to emphasize Iowa and New Hampshire(to appear viable), and then shift organizational funds to the early caucus states- those votes are probably way cheaper to earn than votes in big primary states since the likely voters are party acitivits. you'll still pick up votes and play defense in the big primary states as long as you appear viable and campaign visibly.

[Fate]

Something needs to be done about dumb candidates who don't create a ground game for caucus states and end up whining all the way to the convention. Perhaps there can be some sort of high stakes test?

[sbr]

A good strategy for a smart candidate with limited resources in the Dem primary as it stands would be to emphasize Iowa and New Hampshire(to appear viable), and then shift organizational funds to the early caucus states- those votes are probably way cheaper to earn than votes in big primary states since the likely voters are party acitivits. you'll still pick up votes and play defense in the big primary states as long as you appear viable and campaign visibly.

Hasn't this been the general strategy of every candidate regardless of party, viability or pocketbook?

[stjaba]

A good strategy for a smart candidate with limited resources in the Dem primary as it stands would be to emphasize Iowa and New Hampshire(to appear viable), and then shift organizational funds to the early caucus states- those votes are probably way cheaper to earn than votes in big primary states since the likely voters are party acitivits. you'll still pick up votes and play defense in the big primary states as long as you appear viable and campaign visibly.

Hasn't this been the general strategy of every candidate regardless of party, viability or pocketbook?

No- candidates sometimes ignore New Hampshire or Iowa to the exclusion of the other. And in the past, everyone ignored the caucus states that no one cared about(ie Idaho). In 2008, Guiliani went all in to win Florida, and lost there. So not everyone acts rationally.

If the race is all about momentum, you definitely need to allocate serious resources to the Iowa/New Hampshire, and any other early states. But if you anticipate a long drawn out competition for delegates, it is suffiient to remain viable in Iowa/New Hampshire if you can pick up cheap western caucus delegates that are worth equal in value to the delegates from Iowa and New Hampshire.

What the media got wrong, at least early in the Obama/Clinton battle, was that they viewed the contest as a quick battle decided by momentum, like previous nomination battles typically were. What turned the Obama-Clinton race into a race for delegates is that it quickly turned into a 2 horse race, and both sides had immense resouces. What decided the victory to Obama was his strategic decision to allocate sufficient resouces to score big victories in states like Idaho, where Clinton essentially wasn't even competing.