Politics – As the long and tedious presidential primary season draws to a merciful close, what have American citizens learned about the democratic nature of the process and why should they care ?
"..The primary caucus is undemocratic for several reasons. The caucus does not give an opportunity for all persons to vote. Every state with a caucus system, in effect, discourages thousands of voters from participation..."
I agree with the above 100%.
Anybody who wants to vote badly enough can get to a caucus. And the caucus process does something else. It tests how well a candidate can set up and manage an organization to get out the vote.
There has been a great deal of criticism leveled at the process this election cycle which, when you really break it down to see what's behind it, amounts to, "This process is lousy because my candidate doesn't win in it."
In this election cycle, when all three candidates have little to no experience running anything, watching how they manage a campaign is a VERY good measure of their management ability.
Dump the so-called "superdelegates"?
Give Michigan and Florida a voice?
Agreed 100% on the former.
Not sure how to do latter, or who should pay.
Long term questions exits too. In FLA, for example, the state was told many months in advance of party rules and when the national parties allowed the FLA primary/caucus. FLA govt said, `F U, we want to be more important, we want it sooner`. The parties tried to compromise, but FLA wanted more and held their own citizens democratic rights hostage. Well, they killed the hostage to get what they selfishly demanded. End result, FLA citizens` votes worth less than a quarter of the votes of citizens of other states.
How do we stop arrogant politicians from doing that again?
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The sure showed us some major flaws the so called "democratic" process has .
Well, first of, America is not and never has been a Democracy. We are a Democratic Republic.
AFAIK, the last true Democracy was Athens in ancient Greece, and that ended very badly. You have only to look at public opinion polls to see the inherent flaw in pure democracy. George W. Bush has won two outside-previous-readings scores in his Presidency. He has achieved both the highest public approval rating in the history of polling, and the lowest. All within the space of about 6 years.
We need something to slow down the herky-jerky swings of day-to-day public sentiment.
I see problems in the winner-take-all approach the Republicans use to quickly give one candidate the nomination. It might be better to let the process run a bit longer, let the wind have time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The proportional delegate plan superdelegate counterbalance of the Democratic Party rules has gotten a ton of negative press coverage this year. But is that criticism fair?
The process has generated excitement, voter registration and turnout never before seen in a primary election. It has gotten Americans, particularly young Americans, involved in and concerned with how this country is run. And it has honed the messages of both the leading Democratic candidates.
Whoever emerges as winner will be much better prepared to confront the fear and smear machine they will doubtless face this fall.
Maybe the process needs tweaking. But let's be on our guard not to throw the baby out with the bath water.