learn me the american presidential race

The other important thing to remember is general citizens were never meant to have any power in elections, because we couldn't be trusted to make the "right" decisions. Took what, 30 years just for the all white males to get the vote? Originally it was only land owning white males, which was about 5% of the nations population at the time.

I looked into getting into politics as a career path. Be the only honest politician, and wear my corporate sponsors on my suit like a Nascar driver. Hell yes I'm corrupt, but at least I'm honest about it. Turns out I can't even run for schoolboard in my area without being registered to one of the two main parties. I'm also not allowed to vote in my state primaries because I'm not registered Dem or Rep. Not that I would anyway particularly this year where over 50 delegates are "non committed" Oh yes, nothing says "vote for me" like not telling me who you're supporting, but it's the principle of the thing.

The best advice I have for anyone is to just ignore politics. Anything that could affect us, we don't have a say in, so it doesn't make a difference. This election season has been particularly polarizing, which is surprising since the majority of Americans despise all 3 of the main candidates.

This is a useful read on the evolution of the U.S. electoral process in the context of the 12th Amendment.

Linky

I think if Trump does not get it done on the 1st ballot it will be interesting to see how the party - who clearly do not want him as their candidate - will foil it on the 2nd/3rd, etc because there are a lot of "new" supporters who have come off the bench in support of him as well as Sanders for the D side and they will be very disenfranchised by the idea that someone can have an overwhelming popular vote and still lose the nomination. Not so much in Bernie's case maybe but... Trump definitely. Or will the party fold their cards and just go with it to avoid blowing themselves up for another 8 years? Interesting stuff.

The fact that they (new blood) didn't understand the system going in will not make the outrage any less intense or valid. And since the system is obviously rigged on both sides with fail safes that allow the party to over-ride the will of the voters - maybe it's good that they are finally seeing how it works and are rightly (about to be) outraged.

I'm registered independent so... I can only watch with interest as the drama unfolds until the general election. When my choices will be the same as everyone else's. What was bought for us to choose from.

bearmtnmartin wrote: Why do the parties not have a convention first, and pick a leader to represent them? It seems so backwards. If Americans are interested in the process they can still join the party and vote for their choice.

You have a good point. If there is one thing that has come out of this election round is that the will of the people takes a distant backseat to the will of the party; as my boss is fond of saying "This ain't a democracy so get over it".

So why not skip the whole farce and just announce the party choice in August of the election year and get it over with? I mean it's no different than basketball where you could give each team 110 points to start and play for 15 seconds; same result!!

ultraclyde wrote:

aircooled wrote: The thing to remember for foreigners (and many U.S. Citizens), is that the political parties are PRIVATE organizations and are really not connected to the government as far as rules are concerned. They can do whatever they want. They do not have to have primaries, they can select a candidate by feats of strength, etc. Not sure this discussion is OK, but it really is useful info for non-US people.

oh, yeah. this. I'd never thought about it, but to an outsider our primary voting must look a lot like a governmental election. What's going on currently in the US IS NOT a governmental function even though it's facilitated by the voter systems run by the government. It's not legally required in any manner.

Well I learned something today...

GameboyRMH wrote:

ultraclyde wrote:

aircooled wrote: The thing to remember for foreigners (and many U.S. Citizens), is that the political parties are PRIVATE organizations and are really not connected to the government as far as rules are concerned. They can do whatever they want. They do not have to have primaries, they can select a candidate by feats of strength, etc. Not sure this discussion is OK, but it really is useful info for non-US people.

oh, yeah. this. I'd never thought about it, but to an outsider our primary voting must look a lot like a governmental election. What's going on currently in the US IS NOT a governmental function even though it's facilitated by the voter systems run by the government. It's not legally required in any manner.

Well I learned something today...

Yeah... one of those weird things that is surprises fer'n'ers. Like how the U.S. has no official language. No, English is not the official language of the U.S. It is the de-facto language of government.

Beer Baron wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

ultraclyde wrote:

aircooled wrote: The thing to remember for foreigners (and many U.S. Citizens), is that the political parties are PRIVATE organizations and are really not connected to the government as far as rules are concerned. They can do whatever they want. They do not have to have primaries, they can select a candidate by feats of strength, etc. Not sure this discussion is OK, but it really is useful info for non-US people.

oh, yeah. this. I'd never thought about it, but to an outsider our primary voting must look a lot like a governmental election. What's going on currently in the US IS NOT a governmental function even though it's facilitated by the voter systems run by the government. It's not legally required in any manner.

Well I learned something today...

Yeah... one of those weird things that is surprises fer'n'ers. Like how the U.S. has no official language. No, English is *not* the official language of the U.S. It is the de-facto language of government.

The language bit is kinda ironic to me cause I live in a country that styles itself as "Bilingual". That is a huge joke. Percentage of population wise, I suspect there is a hell of a lot more Spanish spoken in the USA than there is French in Canada. Or lets put it this way...pretty much any trip to the states I end up speaking Spanish with somebody. In 33 years of living in Canada I have not spoken to more than a few people in French.

My advice is that the US should NEVER adopt a second language.

NOHOME wrote: So why not skip the whole farce and just announce the party choice in August of the election year and get it over with? I mean it's no different than basketball where you could give each team 110 points to start and play for 15 seconds; same result!!

That was how they did it for nearly 200 years. Then this happened. So the parties decided to respond by what is effectively opening up the selection process to collect input from a much larger number of party members. But it's still the party's candidate selection process.

One can also get on the ballot without a party nomination by collecting enough signatures in each state, a la Ross Perot.

In reply to revrico:

And this is why I actually like Indiana, we don't have to register as anything. Each primary cycle we choose which primary we wish to vote on. It comes in quite useful as traditionally our local level people are typically so far off from the polarized national big 2 parties that they might as well all be independents. It is somewhat common for us to vote in either the Democrat or Republican primary and not vote for that party on the national level in the general election. It's why Indiana has a reputation of being relatively unpredictable during the actual election. In some states doing precisely this is illegal somehow, which honestly seems like the exact opposite of how it should be.

Love it or hate it, our political system is a convoluted mess that shells out massive sums of money each election cycle in an effort to either do what is best, line your own pockets, for prestige, or wield power over others.

WOW Really Paul? wrote: In reply to revrico: And this is why I actually like Indiana, we don't have to register as anything. Each primary cycle we choose which primary we wish to vote on. It comes in quite useful as traditionally our local level people are typically so far off from the polarized national big 2 parties that they might as well all be independents. It is somewhat common for us to vote in either the Democrat or Republican primary and not vote for that party on the national level in the general election. It's why Indiana has a reputation of being relatively unpredictable during the actual election. In some states doing precisely this is illegal somehow, which honestly seems like the exact opposite of how it should be. Love it or hate it, our political system is a convoluted mess that shells out massive sums of money each election cycle in an effort to either do what is best, line your own pockets, for prestige, or wield power over others.

Yep, Georgia is that way too. They just ask which primary you want to vote in when you show up. I'll pick whoever's primary seems to have the most important decision on it at the time.

In reply to MadScientistMatt:

Typically for me, the local stuff tends to make the difference as the good people who are running or in office are scattered between parties.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Pji_IX-UacM

bearmtnmartin wrote: Why do the parties not have a convention first, and pick a leader to represent them? It seems so backwards. If Americans are interested in the process they can still join the party and vote for their choice.

Isn't this what's going on when you boil it down to basics? What we're seeing right now is just the run up to the convention. A very noisy run up with a certain amount of voting that may or may not have an effect at the convention, of course.

I think the biggest problem with the US system is the two-party setup. It makes everything too black and white, "for us or against us". It encourages partisanship and polarization. Having a third party in there really shakes things up, and allows for a middle ground. As far as I can tell, it's basically just how things evolved and I'm not sure it's due to the design of the system.

NOHOME wrote:

Beer Baron wrote:

GameboyRMH wrote:

ultraclyde wrote:

aircooled wrote: The thing to remember for foreigners (and many U.S. Citizens), is that the political parties are PRIVATE organizations and are really not connected to the government as far as rules are concerned. They can do whatever they want. They do not have to have primaries, they can select a candidate by feats of strength, etc. Not sure this discussion is OK, but it really is useful info for non-US people.

oh, yeah. this. I'd never thought about it, but to an outsider our primary voting must look a lot like a governmental election. What's going on currently in the US IS NOT a governmental function even though it's facilitated by the voter systems run by the government. It's not legally required in any manner.

Well I learned something today...

Yeah... one of those weird things that is surprises fer'n'ers. Like how the U.S. has no official language. No, English is *not* the official language of the U.S. It is the de-facto language of government.

The language bit is kinda ironic to me cause I live in a country that styles itself as "Bilingual". That is a huge joke. Percentage of population wise, I suspect there is a hell of a lot more Spanish spoken in the USA than there is French in Canada. Or lets put it this way...pretty much any trip to the states I end up speaking Spanish with somebody. In 33 years of living in Canada I have not spoken to more than a few people in French. My advice is that the US should NEVER adopt a second language.

I think you're right about Spanish in the US. At the very least, it's more evenly distributed than French in Canada. But you need to travel east more often, I've had to use my French often enough in Canada to make it worthwhile.

Keith Tanner wrote: I think the biggest problem with the US system is the two-party setup. It makes everything too black and white, "for us or against us". It encourages partisanship and polarization. Having a third party in there really shakes things up, and allows for a middle ground. As far as I can tell, it's basically just how things evolved and I'm not sure it's due to the design of the system.

I agree. I don't know if it was designed with the intention of being two-party, but the design made that inevitable. It's that our system is winner-take-all, rather than proportional representation. Which means that you need to try to get >50% of the vote. Third parties pop up, but the portions that actually want a chance of effecting legislation quickly fold themselves into whichever larger party is most sympathetic to their ideology.

I think the source of this was when our nation was founded. Information was a lot harder to share. "United States" was kind of like saying "United Nations". It was more similar in concept to the EU than anything else we have today. So congress people weren't so much supposed to be representatives of an ideological party, but representatives of a community or location. As things got more densely populated and it was easier to share information and trade, the shift was towards ideology rather than geography.

What would happen if there was a third party and nobody got a majority of the electoral votes? Not so much the long term effects, but how would it work day to day? I'm assuming two of the parties would have to work together to get legislation passed. Obviously the president would be whatever candidate got more electoral college votes than anyone else, but I'm thinking of congress.

I don't know enough about the US system to know. Or is it simply not possible?

aircooled wrote: The thing to remember for foreigners (and many U.S. Citizens), is that the political parties are PRIVATE organizations and are really not connected to the government as far as rules are concerned. They can do whatever they want. They do not have to have primaries, they can select a candidate by feats of strength, etc. Not sure this discussion is OK, but it really is useful info for non-US people, because the process can be pretty wacky.

Because of this I have always wondered why do the taxpayers pay for primaries? The PRIVATE political parties use public polling machines, polling places, polling workers, election officials, etc to choose their candidate.

Where should we send the bill?

Keith Tanner wrote: What would happen if there was a third party and nobody got a majority of the electoral votes? Not so much the long term effects, but how would it work day to day? I'm assuming two of the parties would have to work together to get legislation passed. Obviously the president would be whatever candidate got more electoral college votes than anyone else, but I'm thinking of congress. I don't know enough about the US system to know. Or is it simply not possible?

From what my research has shown me, it's not entirely possible. The rules have changed since Perot ran and almost had a chance. But some rules stay the same, like those that kept him out of debates for not being in either party.

Of course, if you go back to pre-1950s, Democrats and Republicans were polar opposites. Todays democratic party stood for all the things the republican party did then, and vice versa.

All democracies inevitably fail, all through out history. Because of pretty much what is going on now. Polarized sides that are both working for the same benefactors (sounds like a good word), essentially eliminating parties all together.

Of course, I'm in the camp that believes the Thomas Jefferson quote of a revolution being necessary every 200 years to keep power in check should be listened to, and that we're many years past due. A government should be afraid of its citizens, the citizens should not be afraid of the government. The fear of the citizenry is gone, in part due to an ingrained dependence on the government, and in part because most people are just Bob Costas these days.

Keith Tanner wrote: What would happen if there was a third party and nobody got a majority of the electoral votes? Not so much the long term effects, but how would it work day to day? I'm assuming two of the parties would have to work together to get legislation passed. Obviously the president would be whatever candidate got more electoral college votes than anyone else, but I'm thinking of congress. I don't know enough about the US system to know. Or is it simply not possible?

The main difficulty I'd see would be with picking a Speaker of the House, as this requires a majority vote and typically Representatives won't vote for anyone in a different party. I suspect after a couple dozen failed votes, though, they'd break tradition and get a Speaker elected somehow. If one is trying to put together a more centrist third party - instead of how most current third parties seem to view the two major parties as not extreme enough - I'd imagine the day to day job of getting legislation passed wouldn't change very much. It would be the same sort of vote-wrangling it takes now. It might even be easier, as having more parties could potentially make it easier to vote for a piece of legislation from another party since partisanship for it's own sake would be more obviously destructive.

The Electorial College might actually have more problems - they require a majority vote, or otherwise the decision gets kicked to the House of Representatives. Which would have the same Speaker of the House problem again...

Some of the regular elections might end up with a bit more drama here in Georgia (and also in Louisiana, but this probably wouldn't apply to most other states under current law). Here, to win an election, you must get a majority of the vote - not just the most. If nobody gets the majority of the vote, they take the two who got the most votes and hold a run-off. So this could effectively force campaigns to go into overtime.

revrico wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: What would happen if there was a third party and nobody got a majority of the electoral votes? Not so much the long term effects, but how would it work day to day? I'm assuming two of the parties would have to work together to get legislation passed. Obviously the president would be whatever candidate got more electoral college votes than anyone else, but I'm thinking of congress. I don't know enough about the US system to know. Or is it simply not possible?

From what my research has shown me, it's not entirely possible. The rules have changed since Perot ran and almost had a chance. But some rules stay the same, like those that kept him out of debates for not being in either party. Of course, if you go back to pre-1950s, Democrats and Republicans were polar opposites. Todays democratic party stood for all the things the republican party did then, and vice versa. All democracies inevitably fail, all through out history. Because of pretty much what is going on now. Polarized sides that are both working for the same benefactors (sounds like a good word), essentially eliminating parties all together. Of course, I'm in the camp that believes the Thomas Jefferson quote of a revolution being necessary every 200 years to keep power in check should be listened to, and that we're many years past due. A government should be afraid of its citizens, the citizens should not be afraid of the government. The fear of the citizenry is gone, in part due to an ingrained dependence on the government, and in part because most people are just Bob Costas these days.

Uh, not exactly. You have to go back 100 more years until the parties were reversed. Back to the 30's the Democrats were interested in letting government help people, as opposed to keeping hands off- recall how controversial the New Deal was- which were social programs.

As for the black and white bickering- it's also not new what so ever. But it's also partially driven by the "4th" branch- the "free" media. They profit a lot by having angry eyes watch their TV shows- be it Fox or MSNBC- it matters little that angry people like to keep being angry for some reason. We complain a lot about campaign finance- but do little- of course we think that it will have a bad influence- and has much in the past. But the biggest winners for all of this spending are the media. They are quite happy to spend anyone's money putting ads on TV, radio, or in print. They are some who really like to feed on the controversies to keep them in the news.

And if you don't think that is true- why do they care so much how Prince died? He's dead, leave it alone.

That whole media thing also does a great job at keeping reasonable people out of bigger offices. It's hard to survive when you are so in a focus like that. I'm no R, but Paul Ryan seems like a reasonable person, who we now see want's to stay in a more behind the scenes role. Sad that he doesn't want to run for President now.

We love to focus on the money, and where it comes from. Ignoring where it goes.

Instead of the longwinded rant I had initially typed up about the state run media, tax free warzones, and a tangent about how stupid money is to begin with let alone how it controls politics, I decided I would just post a link that will help both citizens and non citizens alike to understand a bit more about our convoluted process.

Adam Ruins Voting source list This actually does have a legitimate, fairly independent breakdown of our voting process. The episode had an unfortunate "you're vote means jack, but vote anyway" twist to it, but it brings to light, with sources, plenty of the fun involved in the elections, from the electoral college to gerrymandering to campaign finance.

For the most part though, the money goes back where it came from. Defense contractor contributions go back to them in weapon sales and 10 thousand dollar hammers, special interest groups get their lobbyists and favors, oil moguls get to control the pipelines and refineries. The only people who's money doesn't get back to them are the regular citizens who donated more money out of their pockets ( i say more because let's face it, tax dollars are donations). It's all just 1s and 0s on screens, changed between accounts, not anything actually tangible like cash or coins.

Keith Tanner wrote: What would happen if there was a third party and nobody got a majority of the electoral votes? Not so much the long term effects, but how would it work day to day? I'm assuming two of the parties would have to work together to get legislation passed. Obviously the president would be whatever candidate got more electoral college votes than anyone else, but I'm thinking of congress. I don't know enough about the US system to know. Or is it simply not possible?

Think in terms of individual candidates, not parties.

Whatever candidate in the open election gets the most votes, wins everything. Say candidates from party A and party B go back and forth getting just over/under 50%. Then a candidate from party C comes in and takes a chunk. Cadidate A gets 45% of the vote, Candidate B gets 40%, and Candidate C gets 15%. Candidate A wins everything. B and C get nothing.

Say Parties A and B aren't equal. Candidate A gets 45% and Candidate B gets 55%. Candidate C splits off from Party B. Candidate C takes 15% of the vote. A gets 45%, B gets 40%, C gets 15%. A wins everything. B and C get nothing.

This is what the Republicans are afraid Trump might do, and the Democrats are afraid Sanders might do.

Sometimes third parties can win at local and regional levels, because at a smaller scale, it's more likely to jump from ~50a/50b to ~30a/30b/40c. Then a candidate affiliated with party C wins a legislative seat. Even though 15% of the people may really like party C, a candidate from party C will only be able to win >1/3 of the votes in a handful of districts. You then get like... 1% representation in the house of representatives because 15% of the population likes them, and enough of them manage to be congregated in a single district.

I understand how it works in terms of individual candidates - in most states, anyhow. Sounds like it would be a pain in GA and LA.

But what happens when Congress consists of 45% Party A, 35% Party B and 20% Party C? It happens outside the US, and it's a fairly stable situtation - the third party does not necessarily get absorbed. I know it's not going to happen in 2016, I'm discussing the mechanisms here.