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A Report on the Flawed 2016 Democratic Primaries

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212 points DamienSF | 1 comments | 27 Jul 16 05:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 16:46 UTC] No.12174358[source]▶
I think the most interesting (and perhaps hopeful) aspect here is that people now have an expectation of fairness in the selection of party candidates. That's a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, I think people widely assumed that the party was biased towards individual candidates. Even now, that's clearly the case when the sitting President is a candidate. I personally think that expecting an unbiased party structure is unrealistic, given the very nature of the organization. The party doesn't have a product, other than its opinion. The idea that an organization of partisans only arrives at that collective opinion through primaries and caucuses seems quite naive to me.
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r_smart ◴[27 Jul 16 18:36 UTC] No.12175417[source]▶
Interesting. My take on it is that most people have never paid much attention to the details how candidates are chosen and know they're going to vote with their party anyway or will wait until November to decide on their 'lesser of two evils'. They just never knew how it worked, and probably never expected a voice in the matter. I certainly never paid much attention to this stuff. I would sometimes follow primary candidates and maybe watch a debate or two, but all this stuff about delegates and super delegates etc. was not a thing until this year. This feels like it is quite possibly the longest span a presidential election has held the attention of the voting public. And we've still got quite some time to go.
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1. vannevar ◴[27 Jul 16 18:54 UTC] No.12175562[source]▶
I think this is right. We don't notice when things run smoothly, only when they go awry. Of course, if you want dramatic political change, "running smoothly" isn't what you're looking for. This nomination was unusual because: a) the nominee in this case wasn't the President or VP, which usually dampens any rival campaign before it gets started; b) the nominee was nonetheless more or less widely regarded as "next in line" in a way usually reserved for the VP; c) the nominee had unusually high negatives; and d) an Independent 'crashed' the Democratic party, bringing a lot of non-party voters with no vested interest in the existing party hierarchy. Had any one of these conditions been different, I don't think we would've seen the same degree of discord.