The American election - are you sick of it yet?

[Darth Wong]

I'm sick not so much of the election but of the extraneous bullshit like the "Reverend Wright Controversy." I'm sick of the endless discussion of issues that do not matter. There isn't nearly enough discussion about the really important issues.

Of course not, because the goddamned primary campaign drags on for a year. Why the fuck does it have to last so long? When it lasts that long, news people start manufacturing shit in order to keep up the viewers' interest.

Could someone explain to me why, for example, the party primaries are held sequentially across so many months? Why aren't they all held on the same day, nationwide? Is there some rationale to this incredibly tedious process?

[Ohma]

Even something as simple as having all of the primaries *gasp* on the same day in every state would make it a lot less painful for everyone involved. Seriously, when you spend a third of a year just on one single vote, something's seriously wrong with your system.

Shit, even the same week or month would be better.

As a voter in one of the states on the ass end of the primary race voting schedule, this pisses me off even more since it pretty much marginalizes my (and everyone else's) vote. Yeah, technically my vote doesn't count any less in the current system, but I sure as hell feel like it's less important when the voters in, what is it like 45 other states? have their say loooong before the voters in Oregon.

[Darth Wong]

I would very much like to hear from someone who can attempt to justify the idea of spreading the primaries out over such a long period of time (and by that, I mean an actual justification, not "that's our system and we're stuck with it") but I wonder if such a person could be found anywhere.

[Glocksman]

To my mind most of it comes from the outsized influence that Iowa and New Hampshire enjoy by virtue of being first.
Other states see this, and want to share in the influence, so they move their primaries back.
This results in Iowa and New Hampshire (I think NH even has a law that mandates their primary be first in the nation) moving their days back further.

Repeat this cycle a few times, and you have the spread out primary season we have now.


I totally agree we should either have a single national primary day or perhaps a two month cycle of regional primaries.

[Superboy]

What is the official explanation for why the primaries are so spread out? How long has it been like this?

[Darth Wong]

It's almost as if your system is deliberately designed to be dysfunctional.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

What is the official explanation for why the primaries are so spread out? How long has it been like this?

Because the Superdelegates are either too divided, spineless, or they have vested interests. Some of Clinton's supporters are borderline fanatical to the point one questions their integrity and rationality. It gets worse when words like "loyalty" gets thrown around.

[Darth Wong]

What is the official explanation for why the primaries are so spread out? How long has it been like this?

Because the Superdelegates are either too divided, spineless, or they have vested interests. Some of Clinton's supporters are borderline fanatical to the point one questions their integrity and rationality. It gets worse when words like "loyalty" gets thrown around.

You could get rid of all the superdelegates and this problem would remain.

[Fire Fly]

I'm sick not so much of the election but of the extraneous bullshit like the "Reverend Wright Controversy." I'm sick of the endless discussion of issues that do not matter. There isn't nearly enough discussion about the really important issues.

Of course not, because the goddamned primary campaign drags on for a year. Why the fuck does it have to last so long? When it lasts that long, news people start manufacturing shit in order to keep up the viewers' interest.

Could someone explain to me why, for example, the party primaries are held sequentially across so many months? Why aren't they all held on the same day, nationwide? Is there some rationale to this incredibly tedious process?

My own reasons why:

1. Short term attention span on the part of the populace; the candidates need to constantly repeat their slogans so that it sinks in.

2. Voter apathy due to a shit load of economic and health care problems; most people have more immediate worries. The average household is swimming in bills, taxes, and mortgages, partly because of the "American dream." Much of the US is built on an attrition-style survival, going day to day with a basic routine, working 40 to 60 hours a week just to make enough money. Of course, this leads to the short term attention span.

3. Because we tend to have problem bloated lives, we increasingly distract ourselves with various forms of entertainments and escape. For those who don't have problem bloated lives, they fill their ennui with various forms of entertainment and escape.

4. Because we fill our lives with so much escapism, the media outlets have to constantly compete with one another, resulting in scandal driven reporting to one up the other. Of course, this only leads to contentless politics, resulting in more apathy and shorter attention spans.

The American middle class is stuck in this vicious loop and every time an honest politician tries to undo it, others will come in and bring up guns, religion, abortion and hot topic issues to distract them. So the cycle never really ends. The rich don't want to lose their money and the poor don't want to lose their guns and religion.

It's almost as if your system is deliberately designed to be dysfunctional.

That can be partly blamed on our Wise and All Knowing Founding Fathers, Wisest of Wise and Purest of Pure. God bless them but they designed a system with so many checks and balances that if there's any disagreement, one party can always seek an alternative path to have their way, resulting in lots of grid lock and political bickering. Because our Founding Fathers are demi-gods and are always wise and right, we aren't willing to make the necessary changes to our political system to remove the problems that arise with a modern society and government.

[Guardsman Bass]

What is the official explanation for why the primaries are so spread out? How long has it been like this?

It's because they are legally the responsibility of the states, so the states (and state parties) get to decide when they want to hold their primaries. The national parties have some say in this (like saying that nobody can hold their primaries before a certain date), but they aren't strong enough to strong-arm the state parties into a single, nation-wide primary (although I would actually prefer a few regional primaries, since a nation-wide primary would in America amount to a second presidential election before the first one, and favor people with a brand name and connections - like Hillary Clinton).

It's been like this forever, but until within the past century people mostly didn't give a shit about the primaries, since the party leadership would decide who the candidates were.

[Havok]

Of course not, because the goddamned primary campaign drags on for a year. Why the fuck does it have to last so long? When it lasts that long, news people start manufacturing shit in order to keep up the viewers' interest.

Could someone explain to me why, for example, the party primaries are held sequentially across so many months? Why aren't they all held on the same day, nationwide? Is there some rationale to this incredibly tedious process?

Money I would imagine. If you had all fifty State primaries on the same day, you would have to campaign before that in EVERY state, or at least the majority of them. The way it is now, the primaries can end well before every state has actually voted, like the Republicans this year. You save the time and resources of having to campaign in those states.
Example: The Democrats have TWENTY states left to vote in their primaries. They are going to be hotly contested because both candidates need the wins, one much more so than the other.
The Republicans on the other hand had theirs wrapped up March 5th. So they don't have to spend any more resources on their remaining states.

If you did have two giant primary vote days, the campaigning leading up to them would probably take as much time and media coverage as it does now, and the less financially well off candidates wouldn't be able to sustain their campaigns long enough to stay relevant leading up to the big day. Also, can you imagine how much of a cluster fuck it would be to have 7 Republican candidates and 8 Democratic candidates, using this year's numbers, all fighting for attention up to the big day?

[Darth Wong]

It's because they are legally the responsibility of the states, so the states (and state parties) get to decide when they want to hold their primaries. The national parties have some say in this (like saying that nobody can hold their primaries before a certain date), but they aren't strong enough to strong-arm the state parties into a single, nation-wide primary (although I would actually prefer a few regional primaries, since a nation-wide primary would in America amount to a second presidential election before the first one, and favor people with a brand name and connections - like Hillary Clinton).

Small parties can select a presidential candidate without holding primaries in every state at all. How can the primaries be so thoroughly regulated?

[Darth Wong]

Money I would imagine. If you had all fifty State primaries on the same day, you would have to campaign before that in EVERY state, or at least the majority of them. The way it is now, the primaries can end well before every state has actually voted, like the Republicans this year. You save the time and resources of having to campaign in those states.
Example: The Democrats have TWENTY states left to vote in their primaries. They are going to be hotly contested because both candidates need the wins, one much more so than the other.
The Republicans on the other hand had theirs wrapped up March 5th. So they don't have to spend any more resources on their remaining states.

If you did have two giant primary vote days, the campaigning leading up to them would probably take as much time and media coverage as it does now, and the less financially well off candidates wouldn't be able to sustain their campaigns long enough to stay relevant leading up to the big day. Also, can you imagine how much of a cluster fuck it would be to have 7 Republican candidates and 8 Democratic candidates, using this year's numbers, all fighting for attention up to the big day?

You really can't extricate yourself from the current system, can you? Does it occur to you that with nationwide primaries in a short campaign, there would be no need to have specially tailored political campaigns for every individual state at all, and that you could run the campaign at a national level instead?

All of the expensive per-state primaries cost a shitload of money because each state gets the spotlight in succession and politicians have to pander to them each in turn, until their selection is guaranteed. Take that away, and they have to campaign nationally, rather than focusing on individual states. It would save money. A shitload of it, especially when you consider how much shorter the whole thing would be.

[Guardsman Bass]

Personally, I'm not convinced on the effectiveness of a blanket ban on campaign advertising, simply because it's fragmented so much. Campaigns could still get around this by having surrogates blog or run websites favoring the candidate without officially supporting him/her for the presidency, and (we see this to an extent already) groups could always run "issue ads" where they promote/attack a certain policy.

If you really wanted to kill some of the overdone campaigning, then you I think you need to remove aspects of public office from the direct-campaign-for level. It's at the point where restricting the actual campaigns means that they simply delegate work to "unaffiliated" groups like the 527s to do their issue campaigning and attack ads.

[Darth Wong]

Personally, I'm not convinced on the effectiveness of a blanket ban on campaign advertising, simply because it's fragmented so much. Campaigns could still get around this by having surrogates blog or run websites favoring the candidate without officially supporting him/her for the presidency, and (we see this to an extent already) groups could always run "issue ads" where they promote/attack a certain policy.

If you really wanted to kill some of the overdone campaigning, then you I think you need to remove aspects of public office from the direct-campaign-for level. It's at the point where restricting the actual campaigns means that they simply delegate work to "unaffiliated" groups like the 527s to do their issue campaigning and attack ads.

You can ban any ads which are perceived to be attacking a party or candidate rather than discussing an issue. And frankly, I find issue ads VASTLY preferable to personality ads. If all political ads were issue ads, that would be a gigantic improvement.

[Guardsman Bass]

It's because they are legally the responsibility of the states, so the states (and state parties) get to decide when they want to hold their primaries. The national parties have some say in this (like saying that nobody can hold their primaries before a certain date), but they aren't strong enough to strong-arm the state parties into a single, nation-wide primary (although I would actually prefer a few regional primaries, since a nation-wide primary would in America amount to a second presidential election before the first one, and favor people with a brand name and connections - like Hillary Clinton).

Small parties can select a presidential candidate without holding primaries in every state at all. How can the primaries be so thoroughly regulated?

It's not so much that they have to hold primaries to pick their candidates - it's just that if they do decide to hold a primary, the responsibility for when and where it is set is usually done by the states.

I should correct what I said above. It's not that only the states legally have the authority to set primaries (you don't even have to hold them for your selection process if you do); it's just that the federal government has more or less refused to step in on this issue, so the state governments (who put money up to help run primary elections)legally set the primary dates in their states.

[Havok]

I read everything you wrote. I didn't say it was a good idea and I don't care. If Clinton still has a chance to win, why should she drop out? Why are we afraid of finishing out the process.

Except she doesn't have a chance to win you moron. It's mathematically impossible for her to win except with illicit back-room deals. What part of this do you not comprehend? You clearly aren't bothering to think this over in anything resembling a critical fashion beyond "zomg we must work according to the system teh system cause it can't possibly be wrong lolol!!!111!".

Except she DOES have a chance to win. What you call illicit back room deals, is EXACTLY how the DEMs set up their system. The delegates, super or pledged do not HAVE to vote for who their states vote for. If they get to the convention and they feel one candidate has a better shot than the other one, say she has a very strong showing in the remaining primaries and has a better shot to beat McCain, then that is fine. It is the way they wanted it, or else they would have changed it in the last 50+ years.

[Lusankya]

I'm sick not so much of the election but of the extraneous bullshit like the "Reverend Wright Controversy." I'm sick of the endless discussion of issues that do not matter. There isn't nearly enough discussion about the really important issues.

Of course not, because the goddamned primary campaign drags on for a year. Why the fuck does it have to last so long? When it lasts that long, news people start manufacturing shit in order to keep up the viewers' interest.

Could someone explain to me why, for example, the party primaries are held sequentially across so many months? Why aren't they all held on the same day, nationwide? Is there some rationale to this incredibly tedious process?

My own reasons why:

1. Short term attention span on the part of the populace; the candidates need to constantly repeat their slogans so that it sinks in.

2. Voter apathy due to a shit load of economic and health care problems; most people have more immediate worries. The average household is swimming in bills, taxes, and mortgages, partly because of the "American dream." Much of the US is built on an attrition-style survival, going day to day with a basic routine, working 40 to 60 hours a week just to make enough money. Of course, this leads to the short term attention span.

3. Because we tend to have problem bloated lives, we increasingly distract ourselves with various forms of entertainments and escape. For those who don't have problem bloated lives, they fill their ennui with various forms of entertainment and escape.

4. Because we fill our lives with so much escapism, the media outlets have to constantly compete with one another, resulting in scandal driven reporting to one up the other. Of course, this only leads to contentless politics, resulting in more apathy and shorter attention spans.

You know that none of this actually addresses the question, don't you?

You really can't extricate yourself from the current system, can you? Does it occur to you that with nationwide primaries in a short campaign, there would be no need to have specially tailored political campaigns for every individual state at all, and that you could run the campaign at a national level instead?

Tailoring individual campaigns for each state seems like a ridiculous idea on the face of it, since surely any Presidential policy would be applied on a national scale, which means that the promises tailored to Iowa should be just as relevant to someone in New York as the promises tailored to New York.


And is it a particularly American thing to defend something that's sub-standard as being "the system", and then to complain about how much money it will cost to fix it (even when comparable changes in other countries actually save money)? You see it in health-care debates, you see it when you bring up the idea of changing the shape of US currency, you see it in gun control ads.

I can almost imagine the same argument being played out just prior to the civil war:

Abolitionist: Slavery is immoral and demeaning to both the slaver and the slave. We should stop it.
Southerner: But it's the system we've got, so we just have to live with it. You don't want those slaves going around cheating the system now, do you? Besides, think about how much it would cost.
Abolitionist: Well, actually, the example set by the northern states would suggest that slavery not only is not necessary to a strong economy, but also holds economic growh back.
Southerner: But think about how much it would cost! And besides, it's the system that we have in place!
Abolitionist: ...

[Fire Fly]

You know that none of this actually addresses the question, don't you?

And you realize that my point is that the problem lies with the voter? The short attention span results from many factors but essentially forces politicians to campaign even earlier to "get their message across." The media is complicit in this also because they essentially crown the winner of the Iowa caucus as the heir apparent, thus forcing the candidates to campaign even earlier to reduce the risks.

[Guardsman Bass]

Money I would imagine. If you had all fifty State primaries on the same day, you would have to campaign before that in EVERY state, or at least the majority of them. The way it is now, the primaries can end well before every state has actually voted, like the Republicans this year. You save the time and resources of having to campaign in those states.
Example: The Democrats have TWENTY states left to vote in their primaries. They are going to be hotly contested because both candidates need the wins, one much more so than the other.
The Republicans on the other hand had theirs wrapped up March 5th. So they don't have to spend any more resources on their remaining states.

If you did have two giant primary vote days, the campaigning leading up to them would probably take as much time and media coverage as it does now, and the less financially well off candidates wouldn't be able to sustain their campaigns long enough to stay relevant leading up to the big day. Also, can you imagine how much of a cluster fuck it would be to have 7 Republican candidates and 8 Democratic candidates, using this year's numbers, all fighting for attention up to the big day?

You really can't extricate yourself from the current system, can you? Does it occur to you that with nationwide primaries in a short campaign, there would be no need to have specially tailored political campaigns for every individual state at all, and that you could run the campaign at a national level instead?

All of the expensive per-state primaries cost a shitload of money because each state gets the spotlight in succession and politicians have to pander to them each in turn, until their selection is guaranteed. Take that away, and they have to campaign nationally, rather than focusing on individual states. It would save money. A shitload of it, especially when you consider how much shorter the whole thing would be.

It probably would save money, particularly if you combined it with spending limits and advertising limits. Although you need to keep in mind that this would favor certain people with established reputations on a national level along with established connections and organizations. In other words, Hillary Clinton would probably be better off under a national primary system with limited advertising time, since any less well-known competitors (such as Barack Obama) would have a more difficult time attacking her and defining her in unfriendly terms as well as reaching a national base of potential primary voters. *

*Interestingly enough, it is unlikely that Bill Clinton would have been elected President with a national primary system. One of the effects of spread-out primaries is that a potential candidate can use a win in a state to "bounce" and raise money for the next effort. Clinton did very poorly leading up to Iowa, but bounced back after New Hampshire.

[thejester]

Don Watson wrote an article in the weekend's Age which summed it up beautifully:

All the candidates have energy policies: indeed all declare belief in a carbon cap and trade system along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger's. They are all adamant that the US must end its dependence on foreign oil. But imagine an election in which this notion led a candidate to propose that half of the 3 trillion to be spent in Iraq over the next 15 years was spent developing the country's limitless solar, thermal and wind potential, re-engineering the national grid and doing half a dozen sensible things to end the loathed and poisonous dependence on Middle East oil and give the US an economy as smart as Iceland's.

It just can't happen: not such a policy, but such a substantial debate. Democracy, common sense and logic, even the future of life on earth might tug the argument towards a radical new energy policy — or a health-care policy or a foreign policy — but the campaign pulls harder towards God, or who looks better in a bowling alley, or sounds most like someone who's been hunting squirrels most Saturdays since she was four years old.

It's hard not to agree. The primaries are all about personality, not policy; and the longer they go on, the more policy simply fades into the background. It also seems extraordinary that, given the saturation media coverage available in the modern day and age, so little time seems to be given to actual policy.

[Lusankya]

You know that none of this actually addresses the question, don't you?

And you realize that my point is that the problem lies with the voter? The short attention span results from many factors but essentially forces politicians to campaign even earlier to "get their message across." The media is complicit in this also because they essentially crown the winner of the Iowa caucus as the heir apparent, thus forcing the candidates to campaign even earlier to reduce the risks.

And that explains why the ACTUAL VOTING PERIOD takes place over several months... how? The Primary campaign could have been over four freaking months ago if it weren't for that.

[General Zod]

Except she DOES have a chance to win. What you call illicit back room deals, is EXACTLY how the DEMs set up their system. The delegates, super or pledged do not HAVE to vote for who their states vote for. If they get to the convention and they feel one candidate has a better shot than the other one, say she has a very strong showing in the remaining primaries and has a better shot to beat McCain, then that is fine. It is the way they wanted it, or else they would have changed it in the last 50+ years.

Remind me again, why the fuck does a candidate who's trailing behind significantly in pledged delegates and popular vote have a greater chance of beating the Republican candidate? Or do you lack the ability to do basic math as well as read?

[Fire Fly]

You know that none of this actually addresses the question, don't you?

And you realize that my point is that the problem lies with the voter? The short attention span results from many factors but essentially forces politicians to campaign even earlier to "get their message across." The media is complicit in this also because they essentially crown the winner of the Iowa caucus as the heir apparent, thus forcing the candidates to campaign even earlier to reduce the risks.

And that explains why the ACTUAL VOTING PERIOD takes place over several months... how? The Primary campaign could have been over four freaking months ago if it weren't for that.

Because people don't give a shit about the primary process due to apathy and short attention spans so the parties in turn have to give each state special treatment to get people's attention. But to give each state special treatment, you have to actually invest huge amounts of time and to do so, you have to spread the primaries apart.

[Glocksman]

Don Watson wrote an article in the weekend's Age which summed it up beautifully:

All the candidates have energy policies: indeed all declare belief in a carbon cap and trade system along the lines of Arnold Schwarzenegger's. They are all adamant that the US must end its dependence on foreign oil. But imagine an election in which this notion led a candidate to propose that half of the 3 trillion to be spent in Iraq over the next 15 years was spent developing the country's limitless solar, thermal and wind potential, re-engineering the national grid and doing half a dozen sensible things to end the loathed and poisonous dependence on Middle East oil and give the US an economy as smart as Iceland's.

It just can't happen: not such a policy, but such a substantial debate. Democracy, common sense and logic, even the future of life on earth might tug the argument towards a radical new energy policy — or a health-care policy or a foreign policy — but the campaign pulls harder towards God, or who looks better in a bowling alley, or sounds most like someone who's been hunting squirrels most Saturdays since she was four years old.

It's hard not to agree. The primaries are all about personality, not policy; and the longer they go on, the more policy simply fades into the background. It also seems extraordinary that, given the saturation media coverage available in the modern day and age, so little time seems to be given to actual policy.

Part of it is in how we get our news these days.
Personality driven 'debates', 'gotcha' questions, and so on make good visual theater.
A dry policy discussion C-SPAN style does not.