Circus Circus Caucus Caucus
Actually this is a bigger joke than I assumed below.
Disregard any and all numbers being reported, and any claims of victory or loss in Nevada. From dday at Hullabaloo, who talked to the head of the Democratic Party in Nevada, nothing was decided. This vote was to select 11K delegates to county conventions, where they will select delegates to the state convention, where the actual delegates to the national convention will be selected. Until the roll call at the national convention, no one will know who won Nevada. This was not what we thought it was, is irrelevant to the selection process, and tells us nothing about the eventual nominee – it’s a freaking poll!
See Non Sequitur for a further explanation.
9 comments
i originally read the title of your other post as caucus caucus. cartoon network indeed [i love non sequitur].
you would think, what with all the legalized gambling and prostitution available in nevada, there’d be enough to do to while away the long winter months, but apparently there’s not. nevadans seem to have elevated delegate picking to an olympic sport.
As near as I have been able to tell, the same thing is going on in Iowa, so that the delegate counts used by the media are vaporware, not real numbers and many of those involved are “Democrats for a day”.
Hell of a way to choose the “leader of the free world”.
… *sigh* I’ve thought about what I was going to say, and decided to be succinct (yeah, yeah… I know).
No comment.
It’s a terrible thing to figure out how truly screwed up our system is, Kryten.
I know. But it’s not just the US that’s screwed up. Until Raygun and the two Bushes, Aus was a really nice place. Howard screwed up the most, be he wasn’t the one who started it here. *shrug* And the UK is even worse.
And all the interference (especially secretly, out of public view) has hurt many countries, and don’t even think about the domino effect that’s caused!
Some days, I’m just glad I won’t be around too much longer. I’m too tired of all this crap. I really regret being that gung-ho young guy who wanted to do some good and fix things. All I did was learn that the World is more f****d up than I could have imagined (and my Grandfather did his best to make me see the World the way it was). He warned me, I thought he was just a crotchety old man. I was a fool.
*shrug* I’m sure you know.
The more I learn about the nomination process the scarier it gets. I didn’t realize how the caucus worked until I looked it up for Iowa.
I don’t understand why we don’t have a National Primary, but then again, that might make it too easy. It’s annoying that the media puts so much importance on a few states that set their dates early. I really don’t want the farmers in Iowa picking my candidate.
I have this weird, parochial view that people who have actually made the effort and registered in a party should be the ones that select the nominees of that party, and that is should be based on “one person – one vote”.
We have a collection of caucuses, primaries, straw polls, back room deals that are various degrees of “open” or “closed” that varies by state, and a marked preference for small states that are more conservative and less urban than the vast majority of the population of the United States, not just Democrats.
I’m not saying those people don’t need to be represented, just that they don’t need to have much more power over the process than voters in California, Texas, Florida, and New York.
The other annoying thing is that they have all of this power and they don’t show up to vote. There are almost 800K registered Dems and Reps in Nevada and everyone is talking about how wonderful it is that 114K showed up for caucuses. About 14% is not wonderful turn out, I don’t care if it is better than ever.
Something needs to be done so that the system works for all voters, and not just those in a few states.
The need for small states to have more weight just doesn’t cut it today. Maybe in the 1800’s it had some merit, but now it’s all about hanging on to power.
It would be a lot simpler and more representative of the people if we had a national primary and a popular vote for the presidential election. But then, it’s all about political party power and not what the people want. I don’t expect to see it change in my lifetime.
Illinois is having their primary on Super Tuesday this year. I’m assuming the Dems got it moved up because of Obama. For the first time I’ll get to vote before the nominee has already been decided. Whoopee. 🙂
To be brutally honest, the elevation of states in the US government was about slavery, as are many of the more idiosyncratic feature of the “American system”. They should have been eliminated after the Civil War in the same series of amendments that removed the official stamp of approval for that odious practice, but by that time the government was in control of politicians, not statesmen, and there was no overriding vision.
We have no actual voice in the process in Florida, but we do have another Republican attempt to destroy the government on the ballot in the guise of “tax relief” on the ballot, so I will vote. The Republicans who changed the primary date are only losing half of their delegates, but the Democrats are punishing the entire party membership for not controlling the legislature, which is par for the course.
I guess if you are a Democrat you have to move to New Hampshire to get a say in anything. If it weren’t for all the jerks from Massachusetts who have moved in, I might consider it. [One branch of my family originally settled in Granby, Massachusetts before moving to New York after the Revolution and bringing the Baptist faith with them, so I get to complain.]
This is probably going to the convention if John Edwards can hang on and continue.