Having the most votes in the party caucuses is definitely not equivalent to having the best chance to win the election, where you have to appeal to a different set of voters.
The major deficiency of the two-party system is that the parties have to resort to this kind of second-guessing the "average voter" instead of just presenting all the options and letting the voters choose for themselves.
In most democracies that don’t suffer from the two-party system, there is as far as I’m aware nothing like the American primary/caucus system. The parties just decide who their candidates are with no input from anyone but dues-paying party members.
The last UK leadership election for the Labour Party [0] had a turnout of 500k+, or roughly 1% of the population. I won't bore you with the details of whether it's correct to think of all 500k as "dues-paying members".
That's a lot less than the 30 million or 10% of population [1] who voted in the last Democratic primaries in 2016, but not "nothing like" it. And we could pick other years the turnout was much lower, e.g. 7 million [2] in 2012 where Obama did not have meaningful opposition).
UK is not a good counterexample here. It also uses the first-past the post voting system, which trends towards two parties since any third party becomes a spoiler.
With a different voting system there would be a wider range of smaller parties, so you don't need to wrest control of a major party to be represented.
It seems there are people in the Democratic establishment that would rather have 4 more years of Trump than elect a non-establishment Democrat they can't control. At least with Trump they can spend 4 years pointing to him and saying what a disaster he is to better position themselves for next election.
And I would even argue that it's not always best to go with the person who gets the most votes amongst the Democrats. Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is.
So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans.
This election, it seems like the top candidates for that are Yang, Biden, or Tulsi, based on what few articles I can find on the matter.
But it doesn't seem like the DNC cares about that as much as long as one of the establishment candidates wins the nomination (Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, Kloubuchar).
>> Most Democrats and Republicans will vote for their party in the election, no matter who the nominee is.
>> So I would think the best person to win the election would be a candidate that is able to get the most support from across the aisle, from Independents and Republicans.
Well that means picking a candidate specifically for the swing votes, which may be very different than what party members want. In other words someone that almost nobody likes. But hey, they can win. Because people will vote their party regardless.
Washington's warning rings true in this case. The really odd side-effect, though maybe not unpredictable, is the amount of people who voice approach along the lines of 'burn it all down, start from scratch'. Sentiment like that must be scary to the existing powers. That said, I have no idea how common that is.
The weirdest thing about it is that Trump seems very much result of this trend.
I agree that it's bad to make a quick leap into conspiratorial thinking, but many Bernie supporters still have a bad taste in their mouths from 2016, when the DNC essentially conspired with the Clinton campaign to stop Bernie. That's the lens these moments are viewed with.
>“The agreement — signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and [Clinton campaign manager] Robby Mook with a copy to [Clinton campaign counsel] Marc Elias— specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised,” Brazile wrote in the story under the headline “Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC.”
>Brazile added of the deal: “[Clinton’s] campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.”
Yeah, irrelevant. The fact that this was spun as some sort of conspiracy is a massive indictment on how naive Bernie supporters are.
Meanwhile, there's an actual international conspiracy to hand-pick a president from our enemies and the Sanders folks don't make a peep. Instead, they boo John Lewis. Disgusting.
Ironically, the DNC did not conspiratorially help Clinton against Bernie, you just quoted another bit of weaponized disinformation used by the right to divide the left.
Let me be frank: Bernie Sanders lost the 2016 nomination fair and square and there was no rigging, no conspiracy and no cheating going on.
If you think otherwise, you've been lied to by propaganda and disinformation, and you should question every source that led you to that conclusion, because those sources will be working in 2020 to do worse.
- Brazile now says she found “no evidence” the primary was rigged.
- Warren now says that though there was “some bias” within the DNC, “the overall 2016 primary process was fair.”
- “I found nothing to say they were gaming the primary system,” Brazile told me.
In fact, smart insiders believe that the "invisible primary" of democratic insiders hurt everyone BUT Bernie, because they got rid of all of the moderate competition like Biden, and gave Bernie a clear path as an outsider to being the #2 in the race, something he would have struggled to attain without the insider winnowing.
You mean Brazile, the one who leaked town hall questions ahead of time to Clinton?
edit: I'm not a Bernie supporter so it doesn't really bother me, I just found it amusing that you're quoting Donna Brazile here. Who was responsible for one of the clear, actual offenses against Bernie in 2016 for which she was forced to resign from CNN only to be rewarded with being head of the DNC. Well if she says everything was fine, I guess I better reconsider my sources...
Let me be frank: I don't give a shit if candidates got questions for a town hall (not a debate!) an hour before hand.
Personally, I prefer when questions go out beforehand so we get more thoughtful answers. "Gotcha" style questions require candidates to rote-practice certain political speeches and stock answers, and those rapid fire live questions devolve into stump speeches every time.
But getting questions to a town hall is not rigging a primary. It's not even close.
I was responding to someone who literally said the caucuses were rigged by the DNC to hurt Bernie. Read the thread please!
And for the record: Biden has never called this process rigged at all. Your link shows him rightfully criticizing the many failures including the technology failures.
Bernie's fans on reddit and beyond are certainly using the "rig" word just like Donald's fans are though!
You do realize that the Iowa Democrats who prefer Bernie or Pete are the SAME DEMOCRATS running this process right?
There is no national party there. The people running this are Iowans. If they, as you say, prefer Bernie or Pete, then why would they be intentionally hurting their own guys?
I wish people would learn about these processes so they could think through their own disinformation! What you're saying literally doesn't make sense.
Why would Iowans who you claim are mainly Pete/Bernie followers help Biden by sabotaging their own caucuses?
Rigging is not the right term for what's happening but you have to admit that if Pete or Bernie end up winning Iowa and Biden ends up 4th, delaying the results will dampen the impact of the outcome. Nate Silver just pushed an article about the impact of timing of the primaries on the outcome. Then you have to so factor in the Des Moines poll getting pulled, which supposedly showed Biden coming in 4th.
No surprise, it shows Bernie Sanders winning solidly. This whole situation reeks of the DNC trying to stunt his momentum.