The American election - are you sick of it yet?

[Lusankya]

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.

Do you honestly think that voter apathy in the US is that special that it requires such a time-consuming process? There's plenty of voter apathy in other nations, and that's usually dealt with by making the elections as quick and painless as possible.

[Gerald Tarrant]

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?

I thought part of the argument was that Senator Obama's better showing in traditionally Democratic states isn't important. I.e. California will probably still go for a Democrat whether it's Senator Clinton or Senator Obama who gets the nod. So instead Clinton's campaign has talked about those states that regularly go Republican, and the possibility of stealing one or two of them. Getting a few of those swing states is more important in the "electoral math voodoo" that all the analysts do, than winning big in traditionally democratic states. At least that's my understanding of the "Electability of Senator Clinton" argument.

[Havok]

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?

Are you fucking stupid. Did I say anywhere that she had a greater chance? What I said is: "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 a possible situation. And it could very well be what happens. I'm sorry you don't like it, but it is the way the DEMs set up their system. Again, if they really didn't want this as a possibility they had 50 fucking years to change it.

[Fire Fly]

Do you honestly think that voter apathy in the US is that special that it requires such a time-consuming process? There's plenty of voter apathy in other nations, and that's usually dealt with by making the elections as quick and painless as possible.

Its certainly part of the problem and leads to candidates trying to dominate the airways to plant their message. More visibility requires more money, more fundraising, more campaigning. There are probably other reasons but I'm simply pinning apathy as one of them. Most of the people I know perceive candidates as not really caring about their issues and thus do not vote. Candidates in turn have to "earn" their trust to show that they do care.

That's my view why the primary season is so long and if others disagree, well do share.

[General Zod]

Are you fucking stupid. Did I say anywhere that she had a greater chance?

Your own goddamned words in the previous post, dumbass:

Except she DOES have a chance to win.

Stop waffling with this mealy-mouthed bullshit. My original fucking point is that the system is fucking broken and yet you continue willfully ignoring that as though it doesn't somehow matter. Of COURSE the Democrats allow the system to continue, but that DOESN'T mean it's a good system to have in place, or that it isn't harming the Democratic party. Do I have to use fucking crayon to spell it out for you?

[Lusankya]

Do you honestly think that voter apathy in the US is that special that it requires such a time-consuming process? There's plenty of voter apathy in other nations, and that's usually dealt with by making the elections as quick and painless as possible.

Its certainly part of the problem and leads to candidates trying to dominate the airways to plant their message. More visibility requires more money, more fundraising, more campaigning. There are probably other reasons but I'm simply pinning apathy as one of them. Most of the people I know perceive candidates as not really caring about their issues and thus do not vote. Candidates in turn have to "earn" their trust to show that they do care.

That's my view why the primary season is so long and if others disagree, well do share.

I'd put voter apathy down as a symptom, rather than a cause of the long election cycle. Seriously, just look at the poll in this thread: about 80% of the people who have voted so far said they're sick of the election, and the population of this board cares more about politics than your average American. The constant repetition of what we already know about each of the candidates is making the whole thing about as interesting as hearing about starving children in Africa.

[Havok]

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.

So how would this campaign be run? Through TV ads and debates. So you have to have enough money to buy nationwide TV spots on the networks and cable channels. The debates would have to involve all the candidates and would have to be hours long to give everyone a chance to speak, which means they would probably be relegated to public access. The poorer candidates would be virtual unknowns as they couldn't possibly afford to get the TV coverage they needed vs the candidates with money. Someone like Obama would never get to the point he is at now.

[Dartzap]

From this side of the pond.....hells yes. Its not the prolonged and dragged out nature of it,its the debates we see parts of, it just leaves me cringing. If a Sunday morning politics show can draw out the policies and ideals the candidates of London have and get them to bicker about those, why can't the damn US networks? It just infuriates me how there has been no decent scrutiny of all three candidates.

[Havok]

Are you fucking stupid. Did I say anywhere that she had a greater chance?

Your own goddamned words in the previous post, dumbass:

Except she DOES have a chance to win.

Fuck you. The above quote was a direct response to her having a chance to win the DEMs nomination. NOT her having a chance to beat the REPs nominee.

Stop waffling with this mealy-mouthed bullshit. My original fucking point is that the system is fucking broken and yet you continue willfully ignoring that as though it doesn't somehow matter. Of COURSE the Democrats allow the system to continue, but that DOESN'T mean it's a good system to have in place, or that it isn't harming the Democratic party. Do I have to use fucking crayon to spell it out for you?

It is not BROKEN. It is working EXACTLY as it is supposed to. Your original point is that you think the system is dumb, NOT that it is broken, and DEMs should be done with this process and be on to McCain already.

Anyone but a blind, ignorant fool can see that Shillary has no chance of winning without pulling off back-room deals. Why should the system be blindly conformed to when it clearly does more harm than good by giving the Republicans more fodder material for the general election? That's pretty much the only thing dragging it out for so long accomplishes when the Democratic party should be focusing on the general election and turning their attention to the Republican candidate by now.

[Dahak]

Personally, I really like the current "show". It's incredibly funny reality satire. Slightly less funny than the first Bush election, but almost on the same level.
Granted, the outcome probably will affect me in Europe, too, to some extent. But I can't stop laughing.

[General Zod]

Fuck you. The above quote was a direct response to her having a chance to win the DEMs nomination. NOT her having a chance to beat the REPs nominee.

Semantic horseshit. If she doesn't have a chance to beat the Republican nominee why nominate her as the candidate at all? By nominating anyone as the Democratic candidate that means the majority thinks the candidate can or at least should win the general election.

It is not BROKEN. It is working EXACTLY as it is supposed to. Your original point is that you think the system is dumb, NOT that it is broken, and DEMs should be done with this process and be on to McCain already.

That wasn't my point at all you goddamned retard. Try responding to what people actually said and not what you want them to say. Just because something is working the way it's designed does not mean the design is good. I don't fucking know how else to phrase this without using mono-syllable words.

[Darth Wong]

So how would this campaign be run? Through TV ads and debates. So you have to have enough money to buy nationwide TV spots on the networks and cable channels. The debates would have to involve all the candidates and would have to be hours long to give everyone a chance to speak, which means they would probably be relegated to public access. The poorer candidates would be virtual unknowns as they couldn't possibly afford to get the TV coverage they needed vs the candidates with money. Someone like Obama would never get to the point he is at now.

And you don't think you already need money and connections to get into this gig? What planet do you live on? The process would cost a lot less money, by virtue of being far shorter. Sure, it would be national instead of regional; all that means is that neither side would be able to achieve the kind of saturation marketing they do now in their region-by-region battles. How the fuck does this accrue even more benefit to the super-rich? Do you honestly think some guy with no money or connections can get into this gig the way it's set up now?

Your mindless defense of the current system is breathtaking in its stupidity; with no reasoning whatsoever, you assume that the current system is ideal and that any other system must cost more money, with precious little reasoning other than the fact that it is different. Just to campaign in a single state, you need to spend millions of dollars on ads already, and in order to devote public time to DOZENS of debates, networks need to allocate huge blocks of time. A severely shortened campaign would cost far less money for everyone. Every candidate already goes into these things with a war chest; you are hopelessly naive if you think you don't need one.

Frankly, I don't even see why primaries are necessary at all. The people are supposed to vote for the person they want to be president. Why should there be this enormously expensive, convoluted process by which people sort of vote on which candidate a party will field? The only reason is that they're hoping democratic input will help them choose the candidate most likely to win in the general election. But as we've seen repeatedly, it often fails. Candidates with old money and moribund policy platforms get chosen over more inspiring and principled choices because the politicking starts far too early and they get mired in the game. It happened to Howard Dean, and it's happening now to Obama. The whole thing is a joke.

[Starglider]

Frankly, I don't even see why primaries are necessary at all. The people are supposed to vote for the person they want to be president. Why should there be this enormously expensive, convoluted process by which people sort of vote on which candidate a party will field?

Because the US doesn't have instant runoff, multi-round or even approval voting. As with all the other constitution-era stuff, the current system isn't considered an obsolete piece of crap, it's sacred and holy and not to be questioned. As such they have to fake a multi-round election via the massively expensive, distracting and open-to-manipulation primary system.

[ray245]

So how would this campaign be run? Through TV ads and debates. So you have to have enough money to buy nationwide TV spots on the networks and cable channels. The debates would have to involve all the candidates and would have to be hours long to give everyone a chance to speak, which means they would probably be relegated to public access. The poorer candidates would be virtual unknowns as they couldn't possibly afford to get the TV coverage they needed vs the candidates with money. Someone like Obama would never get to the point he is at now.

And you don't think you already need money and connections to get into this gig? What planet do you live on? The process would cost a lot less money, by virtue of being far shorter. Sure, it would be national instead of regional; all that means is that neither side would be able to achieve the kind of saturation marketing they do now in their region-by-region battles. How the fuck does this accrue even more benefit to the super-rich? Do you honestly think some guy with no money or connections can get into this gig the way it's set up now?

Your mindless defense of the current system is breathtaking in its stupidity; with no reasoning whatsoever, you assume that the current system is ideal and that any other system must cost more money, with precious little reasoning other than the fact that it is different. Just to campaign in a single state, you need to spend millions of dollars on ads already, and in order to devote public time to DOZENS of debates, networks need to allocate huge blocks of time. A severely shortened campaign would cost far less money for everyone. Every candidate already goes into these things with a war chest; you are hopelessly naive if you think you don't need one.

Frankly, I don't even see why primaries are necessary at all. The people are supposed to vote for the person they want to be president. Why should there be this enormously expensive, convoluted process by which people sort of vote on which candidate a party will field? The only reason is that they're hoping democratic input will help them choose the candidate most likely to win in the general election. But as we've seen repeatedly, it often fails. Candidates with old money and moribund policy platforms get chosen over more inspiring and principled choices because the politicking starts far too early and they get mired in the game. It happened to Howard Dean, and it's happening now to Obama. The whole thing is a joke.

Although I doubt Obama have a serious chance, if it is a direct and general nomination round.

[Darth Wong]

Although I doubt Obama have a serious chance, if it is a direct and general nomination round.

Why? Because morons like Havokeff keep saying so? Obama raised $25 million in the first quarter of 2007, for fuck's sake. The fund-raising campaign already starts well in advance of any primaries, and if you can't raise tens of millions of dollars before ever winning a single primary, you aren't in the game. Period.

[ray245]

Although I doubt Obama have a serious chance, if it is a direct and general nomination round.

Why? Because morons like Havokeff keep saying so? Obama raised $25 million in the first quarter of 2007, for fuck's sake. The fund-raising campaign already starts well in advance of any primaries, and if you can't raise tens of millions of dollars before ever winning a single primary, you aren't in the game. Period.

Cause from the polls, it's seems that alot of states that votes for obama don't have him as the top canidate until Obama won the Iowa cacus...the early polls still indicate that alot of people still thinks well about clinton...

[Darth Wong]

Although I doubt Obama have a serious chance, if it is a direct and general nomination round.

Why? Because morons like Havokeff keep saying so? Obama raised $25 million in the first quarter of 2007, for fuck's sake. The fund-raising campaign already starts well in advance of any primaries, and if you can't raise tens of millions of dollars before ever winning a single primary, you aren't in the game. Period.

Cause from the polls, it's seems that alot of states that votes for obama don't have him as the top canidate until Obama won the Iowa cacus...the early polls still indicate that alot of people still thinks well about clinton...

And the late polls have Obama's numbers plummeting. You can't judge a political system by trying to create some kind flimsy alt-history scenario to speculate about whether it would have benefited Barack Obama at a particular point in his campaign.

Besides, this is still reactionism. The only reason those early primaries matter so much is that voters have become accustomed to waiting for them, to see which way the wind is blowing. Without that mechanism, voters would simply have to start paying attention earlier. Saying "if we change the system, we lose this mechanism that the voters rely on" is retarded; the voters only rely on it because the system was designed that way. It's like saying that you can't use a steering wheel in cars because people have gotten used to a tiller stick, and if you put the wheel in, how will they use the tiller stick?

[Coyote]

Going through this quickly--

Our primaries are spread out (so I am told) to give the candidates a chance to campaign individually in states and to concentrate on small-town type meetings in limited geographic areas. This allows them to campaign fairly cheaply and efficiently in the beginning and see what is resonating with voters. It also gives "smaller" candidates a chance to compete and build up momentum, or to weed out those who really don't have a hope. In this case, it gave Obama a chance to "break out" and develop mementum against Hillary "the inevitable" Clinton, and to winnow out the limited-issue moonbats (Kucinich, Gravel) or those who are fooling themselves with regards to their actual staying power and support (Dodd, Richardson).

Then, as they build momentum, they switch to national-level "super Tuesday" type campaigns, that are multi-state and more like smaller versions of the national elections, where it is practically guaranteed they won't be able to make personal meetings and they have to rely on the strength of their platforms, policies, and organization, and their surrogates.

Now, I can see the merit in these, but I knew when the whole damn thing kicked off months ahead of schedule that it would get old, quick. I'd prefer maybe 4 or 5 small, individual states to start with, and then maybe one or two big multi-state Super Tuesday type campaigns, all within a 6 month stretch, maximum.


As to Clinton getting the nomination, and the purpose behind Superdelegates? The stated purpose is in case some popular-issue idealogue garners th epopular vote among the Democratic base, but they have no hope in a "real" election-- the Superdelegates apply the brakes and vote for the person who can actually have a chance at facing against the Republican opponent. For example, if Dennis Kucinich managed to square away the popular vote, but the DNC felt that he'd be roadkill against the GOP, so they throw for the more "realistic" candidate.

I think the superdelegate thing is a case of "I see your intention, here, and while it is a good one in principle, but there is no way to execute it without creating a major problem..."

[Darth Wong]

Our primaries are spread out (so I am told) to give the candidates a chance to campaign individually in states and to concentrate on small-town type meetings in limited geographic areas. This allows them to campaign fairly cheaply and efficiently in the beginning and see what is resonating with voters. It also gives "smaller" candidates a chance to compete and build up momentum, or to weed out those who really don't have a hope. In this case, it gave Obama a chance to "break out" and develop mementum against Hillary "the inevitable" Clinton, and to winnow out the limited-issue moonbats (Kucinich, Gravel) or those who are fooling themselves with regards to their actual staying power and support (Dodd, Richardson).

Would the nation not be better served by parties which simply select their own candidate to promote policies the whole party generally agrees upon, and having more parties in order to satisfy peoples' desire to see more variety in candidates?

This focus upon the leadership candidate as an individual, as opposed to merely being the head of a party, is half the problem.

[Guardsman Bass]

Our primaries are spread out (so I am told) to give the candidates a chance to campaign individually in states and to concentrate on small-town type meetings in limited geographic areas. This allows them to campaign fairly cheaply and efficiently in the beginning and see what is resonating with voters. It also gives "smaller" candidates a chance to compete and build up momentum, or to weed out those who really don't have a hope. In this case, it gave Obama a chance to "break out" and develop mementum against Hillary "the inevitable" Clinton, and to winnow out the limited-issue moonbats (Kucinich, Gravel) or those who are fooling themselves with regards to their actual staying power and support (Dodd, Richardson).

Would the nation not be better served by parties which simply select their own candidate to promote policies the whole party generally agrees upon, and having more parties in order to satisfy peoples' desire to see more variety in candidates?

This focus upon the leadership candidate as an individual, as opposed to merely being the head of a party, is half the problem.

That's sort of the way it used to be in American Politics before about 50 years ago. There were primaries, but they were not very important; the state party leaders controlled the Convention, which controlled the choice of nominee for a party.

Part of the problem is that nobody agrees on what the best mechanism is for a party picking its candidate. The primaries became more important after 1968 (and Jimmy Carter's run, where he used the Iowa Primary to get "bounce"), when the Democrats started reforming the system to make it more open to the rank-and-file in terms of choosing candidates because of the 1968 riot in Chicago (where Hubert Humphrey was chosen by the convention as nominee, and they decided not to include an anti-war plank, pissing off a lot of the party).

Coyote-

You mentioned a case where an ideologue takes hold of the nomination. That actually happened, to a degree, in 1972 with George McGovern, with the result that participation by party leadership was limited, harming his campaign.

[Coyote]

Would the nation not be better served by parties which simply select their own candidate to promote policies the whole party generally agrees upon, and having more parties in order to satisfy peoples' desire to see more variety in candidates?

This focus upon the leadership candidate as an individual, as opposed to merely being the head of a party, is half the problem.

I agree that picking electable champions from within is a good way to streamline the system, but I can already hear how it would be spun-- "Party elites stifling the free will of the people" crap... they forget that in typical elections, barely half the people even bother to show up, and those that do tend to vote based on... less than fulfilling reasons ("gut instinct"/have a beer with him/most "Presidential-looking"/etc).

[Havok]

Fuck you. The above quote was a direct response to her having a chance to win the DEMs nomination. NOT her having a chance to beat the REPs nominee.

Semantic horseshit. If she doesn't have a chance to beat the Republican nominee why nominate her as the candidate at all? By nominating anyone as the Democratic candidate that means the majority thinks the candidate can or at least should win the general election.\

It is not BROKEN. It is working EXACTLY as it is supposed to. Your original point is that you think the system is dumb, NOT that it is broken, and DEMs should be done with this process and be on to McCain already.

That wasn't my point at all you goddamned retard. Try responding to what people actually said and not what you want them to say. Just because something is working the way it's designed does not mean the design is good. I don't fucking know how else to phrase this without using mono-syllable words.

So you just ACTUALLY SAID, "Just because something is working the way it's designed does not mean the design is good.. So again. Not broken, working just as it is designed to, you just don't like it. Well boo fucking hoo. And here, let me post AGAIN what you ACTUALLY SAID...

Anyone but a blind, ignorant fool can see that Shillary has no chance of winning without pulling off back-room deals. Why should the system be blindly conformed to when it clearly does more harm than good by giving the Republicans more fodder material for the general election? That's pretty much the only thing dragging it out for so long accomplishes when the Democratic party should be focusing on the general election and turning their attention to the Republican candidate by now.

Did you even bother reading anything I wrote? The fact that the system allows this does not mean dragging on the preliminaries is a good idea.

Stop waffling with this mealy-mouthed bullshit. My original fucking point is that the system is fucking broken and yet you continue willfully ignoring that as though it doesn't somehow matter. Of COURSE the Democrats allow the system to continue, but that DOESN'T mean it's a good system to have in place, or that it isn't harming the Democratic party. Do I have to use fucking crayon to spell it out for you?

Hmmm.. Well at least you finally got to the system being broken, of course not in your original post like you claimed. Just you whining about it and "OH NO the republicans are getting ammo!" which is what your point really is. You are scared that the big bad Republicans are going to beat the DEM nominee, no matter who it is because they've had all this extra time to prepare, and because you think whoever comes out is going to seem or be weaker, which is what the real bullshit is.

[Havok]

So how would this campaign be run? Through TV ads and debates. So you have to have enough money to buy nationwide TV spots on the networks and cable channels. The debates would have to involve all the candidates and would have to be hours long to give everyone a chance to speak, which means they would probably be relegated to public access. The poorer candidates would be virtual unknowns as they couldn't possibly afford to get the TV coverage they needed vs the candidates with money. Someone like Obama would never get to the point he is at now.

And you don't think you already need money and connections to get into this gig? What planet do you live on? The process would cost a lot less money, by virtue of being far shorter. Sure, it would be national instead of regional; all that means is that neither side would be able to achieve the kind of saturation marketing they do now in their region-by-region battles. How the fuck does this accrue even more benefit to the super-rich? Do you honestly think some guy with no money or connections can get into this gig the way it's set up now?

Your mindless defense of the current system is breathtaking in its stupidity; with no reasoning whatsoever, you assume that the current system is ideal and that any other system must cost more money, with precious little reasoning other than the fact that it is different. Just to campaign in a single state, you need to spend millions of dollars on ads already, and in order to devote public time to DOZENS of debates, networks need to allocate huge blocks of time. A severely shortened campaign would cost far less money for everyone. Every candidate already goes into these things with a war chest; you are hopelessly naive if you think you don't need one.

Frankly, I don't even see why primaries are necessary at all. The people are supposed to vote for the person they want to be president. Why should there be this enormously expensive, convoluted process by which people sort of vote on which candidate a party will field? The only reason is that they're hoping democratic input will help them choose the candidate most likely to win in the general election. But as we've seen repeatedly, it often fails. Candidates with old money and moribund policy platforms get chosen over more inspiring and principled choices because the politicking starts far too early and they get mired in the game. It happened to Howard Dean, and it's happening now to Obama. The whole thing is a joke.

[General Zod]

It is not BROKEN. It is working EXACTLY as it is supposed to. Your original point is that you think the system is dumb, NOT that it is broken, and DEMs should be done with this process and be on to McCain already.

My original point is that the system is flawed. Are you through nitpicking over semantics and going to try actually refuting my point now? Or do you need more time in the kiddy pool?

Hmmm.. Well at least you finally got to the system being broken, of course not in your original post like you claimed. Just you whining about it and "OH NO the republicans are getting ammo!" which is what your point really is. You are scared that the big bad Republicans are going to beat the DEM nominee, no matter who it is because they've had all this extra time to prepare, and because you think whoever comes out is going to seem or be weaker, which is what the real bullshit is.

Take your shrill bleating elsewhere and come back to me when you're capable of actually refuting my point instead of throwing out strawmen to knock down. My point being that being the Democratic nomination process is horribly flawed, and thus broken. If it's not producing the desired results (ie - creating a candidate capable of winning), then it's not working properly. This is basic logic for anyone with more than three active brain-cells to rub together.

[Havok]

Oops sorry about that.
I guess I have been misrepresenting myself. I HATE the current primary system. I'm not trying to defend it at all, I'm just trying to see a way to do it without someone like Obama being lost in the crowd. In my mind I just see a shortened primary with all the candidates of both parties vying for national attention and all I can imagine is a giant cluster fuck of the candidates attacking each other, the super rich having the TV advantage and no clear cut winners.