My Twitter feed is blinking red about the Nevada convention, along with scary pictures of cops, but as far as I can tell, the only real news is that the Chair ruled on a voice vote (rather than a roll call) to close the convention. This is of course well within the chair’s rights as chair.
Am I missing something?
Please share widely!
HR's Kevin says
I would strongly suggest that those interested in the pie fight go over there.
marcus-graly says
The crux of the issue was that the Sanders folks thought, based on the country convention results, that they were going to have a majority of delegates at the state convention, despite losing the original precinct caucuses. As it turned out, they did not. The fickle hand of people randomly not showing up despite being elected as a delegate for the next round swung the other way and Clinton won the number of delegates she was originally projected to win based on the original results.
Needless to say, the Sanders folk reacted badly to this. The Clinton folks were rather upset with what happened at the Clark County convention too, so I don’t want to assign any undue blame. Rather the caucus / convention system for electing delegates is fundamentally undemocratic and we’re better off sticking to primaries.
ryepower12 says
-About 65 Sanders delegates were barred from entry, likely flipping the majority for the convention.
-A very radical rules change was adopted on a highly contested voice vote, which shouldn’t have happened. (On such a big vote — count it.)
-Things were badly handled by the state party, which greatly exacerbated what may or may not have been legitimate actions (and we’ll never know how legitimate they were at this point because of the way they were handled).
One of the things that is making me go bonkers of late are the way Hillary supporters and surrogates have been acting. Both sides have been acting like children lately, but the key thing here is that 1) Hillary is winning this primary with such a degree of certainty at this point that it would essentially take something on the order of an act of god to stop her — so they should ignore the frustrations of Team Bernie, because that’s all they are — and 2) Hillary’s camp badly needs party unity to beat Donald Trump.
What was going to happen at the Nevada convention wasn’t going to matter one iota to the final result at the national convention, so there was absolutely, positively no reason on earth for the Nevada State Democratic Committee to have handled it the way they handled it. They should have gone above and beyond to make sure the process moved perfectly and that there was nothing remotely akin to shenanigans happening at the convention to benefit Hillary — because Hillary didn’t and doesn’t need it.
What Hillary does need were all the Bernie supporters in that room — those were the leaders of Bernie’s campaign in that state, a state that Donald Trump *can* win.
It just baffles me that no one on Team Hillary seems to get this, that our elites running the national and state committees don’t get this, that they seemingly aren’t content to just defeat Sanders — they want to delegitimize him and kick him when he’s down. It is horrifying, frightening, childish, tribalistic and — at this rate — *will* cost us the General Election. I hope cooler heads can prevail, but either way we need a serious cleaning house of Democratic leadership in state committees across the country and the DNC.
JimC says
Are you sure on that?
ryepower12 says
that’s not to say they can’t be wrong.
johntmay says
For the same reasons that she botched health care reform, for the same reasons she she thinks that “everyone is attacking ME”, her approach to unity, resistance to cooperation, and a lack of trust, even respect of others means that #2 ain’t going to happen. She’s not about to have an epiphany anytime soon, nor are her militant supporters.
HR's Kevin says
Once again, I strongly suggest that those who are interested in what happen go and read all of the diaries on the subject at dailykos.
There is no need to start the fight all over again on this site.
In any case the end result accurately reflected the will of the voters in the original caucuses, so I don’t know why this is worth a big fuss.
JimC says
I’m trying to get information. I don’t read kos enough to know who’s credible and who isn’t.
marcus-graly says
(He’s Nevada’s leading political wonk and not a big fan of Clinton)
Mark L. Bail says
premature to indict Team Clinton. It’s at least as likely, if not more so, that this was part of the state party’s antics, not Hillary. As Ryan says, Clinton has it sewn up. Any shenanigans are counter-productive, (aside from just being wrong).
The Fix seems to have a pretty good run-down, and, I think, clarifies/contradicts Ryan’s statement that 65 Sanders delegate were barred from entry:
centralmassdad says
I have seen this variously reported as the convention (a) adopting a rule change (relating to having delegates be members of the Democratic Party) on a voice vote; or (b) declining to make a rule change, depending on which camp the reporting source was in. And precious little actual news reporting that might clear things up.
Mark L. Bail says
They adopted the temporary rules with a voice vote. The Sanders people had been working for weeks previously, including a lawsuit, to change the rules.
I haven’t found out yet if that vote required a 2/3 majority, though I’ve read that’s the case. The voice vote was gaveled in favor of the adoption by the chair who took a voice vote. At that point, and at the end, there were more Clinton people than Sanders people. Voice votes, evidently, are used because there are a few thousand convention goers.
Some of what Ryan says is debatable. Some is likely false. The biggest problem for the Team Sanders was the fact that only 78% of their delegates showed up. 98% of Clinton delegates showed up.
Christopher says
At least per Roberts a member of an assembly who doubts the chair’s determination of a voice vote can call for a different method, usually a rising vote.
Trickle up says
as though members were allowed to do so. And the person who ought to have made that call was the presiding officer; she’d have avoided a lot of trouble.
Honestly the main test of a set of rules is how well they work under pressure. Nobody cares about them at other times. Their first job is to make things transparently fair, so that everybody accepts the validity of the results. Major fail.
Mark L. Bail says
was a pre-liminary count of the delegates. Non-binding, but allowing the convention to start. That was the controversy on the first vote.
The vote on adopting the rules was controversial. I don’t know the motive of the chair, but they’ve been fighting with Bernie supporters for weeks in and out of court. If I were to guess, they got sick of the Bernie people.
The whole process from caucus to convention is terrible.
Mullaley540 says
http://m.dailykos.com/stories/1527598
jconway says
With the contest all but over let’s agree to these changes on the merits:
-Only primaries, no more caucuses or conventions
-Open primaries or same day registration if closed
-IRV primaries, let’s always do this on Team D to decrease negative campaigning and keep folks like O’Malley from getting squeezed out
-More debates with more candidates early, longer debates at fewer intervals with less candidates towards the end
-Super delegates are bound to support the popular vote winner of their state on the first ballot at the convention
I think these are things everyone can agree to that simplifies the process and takes the nonsense out. And if we really want to be bold, rotating the calendar so more diverse states vote earlier.
Christopher says
My preference is primaries, but caucuses are legit if that is what the state party wants and state law allows. I want them closed with pre-declarations. If you want to vote in the Dem primary then darn it, be a Democrat! IRV is fine, but might require changes in state law.
More debates early are good if for no other reason than news cycle parity if the other party is constantly doing it. Also, none of this letting the polls determine who participates and how much time they get. Each question should be asked of every candidate with each candidate getting the same response time, rotating who goes first. That way voters will actually have a chance to compare everyone’s answers to the same question.
Completely disagree with shackling the superdelegates. They often have insights we don’t and an opportunity to show leadership. They are just as much part of the party as the masses are and should be allowed to exercise independent judgement. Requiring they follow the popular votes on this would be like requiring they follow popular whims according to opinion polls on legislation.
Don’t forget, this is a nominating process within non-state organizations that need not be absolutely one-person, one-vote democratic.
Christopher says
…I think the states with the widest margins of victory in either direction should go early in order to get their share of attention, since narrower margins mean swing states and thus a lot of general election attention. I have to admit as a political junkie I do enjoy living so close to the NH line, however:)
Mark L. Bail says
if you’re going to shackle them? (That’s not a rhetorical question).
The reasons I heard for superdelegates: 1) prevent a Trump from happening 2) prevent elected officials and party apparatchniks from taking up all the other delegate seats.
ryepower12 says
Democratic voters should be treated like grownups, not children. We don’t need paternal leadership, we need a leadership that knows how to listen.
Reason 2 is baloney. Just add the same number of seats to elected delegates as would be subtracted by eliminating supers. The message would be clear that the people who were supers would clear to run and have every advantage in the world… but they’d actually *have* to run.
I’ve never bought that argument for a second. It’s always seemed much more likely to me that most electeds know they may very well NOT win these delegate races for any number of reasons (backed the wrong candidate, are disliked by the activist base even while they can win elections in their district, etc.) — and so don’t want to risk the embarrassment of losing, or have to actually put in the work to win (why work your machine to get your people to show up when you can have the thing handed to you).
Heck, Charlie Baker lost a delegate vote to a college student to go the RNC not so long ago, if my memory serves me correctly (and if it wasn’t Charlie Baker, it was some other big name in the state GOP). It’s rare that such a thing would happen on the Republican side, but not unprecedented — and that’s a good thing. A seat to a national convention should be earned, and reflect the vote count in the state that is sending the delegates.
Mark L. Bail says
superdelegates.
jconway says
Fat fingers on the iPhone at it again.
jconway says
In ensuring a swift nomination on the second ballot if the first ballot doesn’t produce a winner. They would be more likely to vote as a bloc and choose a unifying candidate than a choatic convention that continues for several ballots.
jconway says
So far, the super delegates have always followed the will of the primary voters including the last cycle with Obama and Clintkn. We’ve never had them overturn the will of the voters in the six competitive Democratic primaries since they’ve been implemented. There is a good chance in 1980 they could’ve booted a wounded incumbent president who handidly defeated his challenger democratically.
We have never elected a fringe nominee that is on par with a Goldwater, let alone a Trump. People forget McGovern was a fairly middle of the road liberal, a voting record scarcely different than Humphrey, Mondale
or Bobby Kennedy. He just ran a historically strong outsiders race for the primary and happened to benefit from first hand knowledge of the new rules while folks like Jackson and Triple H were wooing labor bosses and mayors like the old days. No insiders campaign has neglected the primary process ever again.
So I think my compromise removes the controversy that they could overturn the will of the voters of their state will ensuring that in a contested convention they’d play the elder statesmen role needed to ensure a swift nomination of a unity candidate, possibly in defiance of said voters.
stomv says
The changes en masse might be better than what we have now, but pointwise, I’m not thrilled.
I don’t want open primaries.
I don’t want IRV for primaries until I’m convinced it will result in the Democratic candidate being more likely to win POTUS relative to what we do now.
I don’t want super delegates bound.
I don’t want IA, NH, and SC to go 1-2-3 but I’m not sure what order I’d prefer.
HR's Kevin says
– Yes to primaries (although states have to agree to fund them)
– No to wide open primaries. WV Democratic open primary in which fully a third of the voters said they will not vote for the Democrat no matter who it is, is a clear example of the perils of an open primary. I am fine with Independents helping to make a positive selection, but am totally against making it easy for people to deliberately choose someone they think will lose.
– I like ranked voting, but not IRV. IRV requires you go over all of the ballots in the state multiple times. I would prefer a much simpler system in which you can simply vote for as many people as you want and simply count votes. It would also eliminate ballots that get thrown out because someone filled in more than one circle.
– Yes to more debates.
– If you are going to bind super delegates to the popular vote, then why have them at all? In fact, it makes the system less fair because it awards the supers in “winner take all” fashion instead of proportionally.
Christopher says
…is that they are not evenly spread throughout the country. Where our party has more strength there are more superdelegates. I’m not at all convinced the system is broken so why fix it.
ryepower12 says
because — and I say this with all due respect — you are not the final arbiter here, and as a state committee member, are highly biased to boot.
Christopher says
…but since 1984 when superdelegates were created they have never had the effect of superceding the winner of the primary/caucus process. Even if they had, they have unique rolls mostly themselves directly or indirectly elected. I can only imagine many in the GOP wishing they had a superdelegate system to push back against the presumptive nominee they find themselves saddled with.
ryepower12 says
What about it seems broken to you?
Now, there are states that have truly open primaries — where anybody can vote in any primary, no matter their party ID or lack of ID, and those are a different beast.
But letting independents/unenrolled voters vote in primaries? Most states do that and it seems like it works fine to me. President Obama would not be President Obama if we had all closed primaries in 2008, FYI.
Christopher says
…it also means independents can vote for partisan state and town committees, which really doesn’t seem right. I just think in principle to participate in an organization’s elections, you ought to be a member of said organization. You couldn’t just walk into my church and vote on our affairs and leadership. Neither could I show up at the Elks or Lions, or a union for that matter, etc. and vote for their leadership without first having joined. Since I was a Clinton supporter in 2008 your last sentence won’t get a complaint from me.
jconway says
And keep that closed. I get your objection about town committees actually, and understand more about them now as I’ve been organizing them. I do think it’s unfair to put them on the presidential primary ballot (a legal requirement unfortunately) and low info voters don’t know what they are doing. My parents in Wakefield for example blanked it since they don’t know the names like they did in North Cambridge.
But I do think a major party presidential nominee is someone who can affect all of us and people should vote their preferences. I know a decent number of true independents, greens and liberarians who came out for Sander’s and even some Republicans who unenrolled to vote for him. If Obama were running uncontested for another term this cycle, I would have felt a patriotic obligation to unenroll and help deny Trump the nomination.
We have a few independent relatives in NH who liked Sander’s but voted for Kasich hoping to stop Trump. And open primaries are essentially what advocates of jungle primaries claim to want since it will produce on average more moderate nominees. Closed primaries and caucuses contributed to the radicalization of the Tea Party after all, especially in the toppling of Dick Lugar and Mike Castle who would’ve been helpful to the President in the current majority and might’ve voted for Garland.
Christopher says
Presumably if you favor letting independents help choose presidential nominees you could use the same argument for letting them help choose nominees for other offices. Don’t forget, every eligible voter has the right to choose a party. I am just asking that they actually do so.
jconway says
Seems like that’s a no brainer compromise. The averages voter doesn’t have the time or activity or knowledge we have to go out of their way and figure out the deadlines. It’s not like Galvin sent a postcard to every voter about the deadlines 😉
Most people aren’t googling this and our high schools and colleges do a lousy job. You want greater youth, minority and working poor turnout you make it free and easy and same day accomplishes both. They are still committing to a particular party to vote in that primary so it solves your issue with open primaries while solving the accessibility and equity issues critics of closes primaries tend to have.
Christopher says
…I might be OK with same-day first time, but not same-day switching. Maybe Galvin should send postcards and high schools should hold annual registration drives. I’d prefer automatic registration upon turning 18 (though that would be default unenrolled, the voter would still have to initiate party affiliation. Plus in a perfect world registering is just one of those things you do when you move. When I moved to my current residence I registered ASAP rather than wait to see when a deadline was. Even so, access is less a concern of mine for primaries than it is for actual elections; I’m all in favor of same day registration in November.
jconway says
You register in one party same day to vote in its primary and have to keep it for a certain period until you could switch back. And yes automatic registration with unenrolled as a default is a no-brainer. I’m glad the newer forms say No Party parenthesis “unenrolled” but I prefer the “non-partisan” or non-affiliated used by other states.
jconway says
-They are bound in the first ballot, in the event of a contested convention they could still go with their first personal choice. A lot of ink has been spilt over this issue and I think that’s a sensible compromise to continue the ability to put a stop to a Trump style of candidate while respecting the will of
primary voters
-I am fine with a closed primary so long as it allows for same day registration,
I felt the NY rules were ridiculously unfair but think MA has pretty decent ones. I prefer open primaries since it expands the party’s appeal and theoretically produces a more electable candidate. Though there are exceptions to this like the WVA example hence the either/or option. Entirely
open or closed with same day registration.
-Caucuses are a joke and should be done away with, I am unsurprised process junkies like Christopher, probably the most consistently small r republican here (and I mean that complimentary) like them but most small d democrats should find them offensive
-NY or CA should be earlier in the cycle so that they are relevant and since they have the largest D delegations in Congress and the most Democratic voters by population. You can keep the 1-2-3 if it’s followed by larger regional primaries that happen quicker. This primary is too long, the nominee should be decided by April.
Christopher says
…unless you figure out a way to limit it to brand new voters and not party-switchers or those who had been independent. An idea I have is to standardize the registration deadline to January 1st nationwide, late enough to know who the candidates are, but still requiring just a bit of prethought as to which party you identify with. If we are going to shorten the primary season I would actually shift the entire thing later.
jconway says
Berwick and Grossman supporters could’ve tactically blocked Coakley by listing the other as the 2nd choice, while Katherine Clark wouldn’t have won her election with nearly 4 out of 6 primary voters selecting someone else. That latter race in parricular had a lot of strong candidates and it would’ve been nice to rank a vote for all of them rather than having to pick just one. It likely would’ve blocked Boncore’s Ascension to the state senate too (though he probably would’ve been Rizzo’s and Morabitos #2 so who knows).
Trickle up says
in races where the winner gets like a third of the vote. Or less.
That happens in a lot of democratic primaries because we are functionally the only party and thus the primaries can attract 5 or even 10 serious candidates.
IRV would also dilute the power of incumbency, it seems to me.
jconway says
As was the case in Brockton, East Boston, and the Fitchburg specials.
Mark L. Bail says
Prior to the convention, there was a whole lot of politicking going on with Bernie supporters. This isn’t to say they didn’t have a reason to politick, but they were circulating petitions about the rules:
The paragraph I find most telling about the party is,
I’m not choosing sides here. I don’t have enough info. But this last paragraph suggests there is state party turmoil.
Mark L. Bail says
lawsuit against the NV Democratic State Party:
The suit was tossed.
ryepower12 says
announces an election with a deadline to run for it 8 days later?
That is ridiculous and not in any way legitimate, even ignoring all the other issues that the plaintiffs alleged.
Mark L. Bail says
it, though your comments seem to suggest I do.
ryepower12 says
?
HR's Kevin says
The Nevada State Democratic Convention Through a Delegate’s Eyes
Mark L. Bail says
They adopted the temporary rules with a voice vote. The Sanders people had been working for weeks previously, including a lawsuit, to change the rules.
I haven’t found out yet if that vote required a 2/3 majority, though I’ve read that’s the case. The voice vote was gaveled in favor of the adoption by the chair who took a voice vote. At that point, and at the end, there were more Clinton people than Sanders people. Voice votes, evidently, are used because there are a few thousand convention goers.
Some of what Ryan says is debatable. Some is likely false. The biggest problem for the Team Sanders was the fact that only 78% of their delegates showed up. 98% of Clinton delegates showed up.
Mark L. Bail says
read on the Nevada Convention so far. It’s written by a Clinton delegate, but it has good info on process.
Trickle up says
What a train wreck.
Christopher says
…that some Sanders supporters resorted to tactics I usually associate with Trump supporters:(
Mark L. Bail says
The best part of the Nevada Convention is that it is now out of the news. If anyone wants some fact-checking, here it is.
I’m not always a fan of Politifact, but it has a good run-down of the Nevada Convention and the largely untrue assertions of some Bernie partisans:
http://www.politifact.com/nevada/statements/2016/may/18/jeff-weaver/allegations-fraud-and-misconduct-nevada-democratic/
Snopes actually checks and debunks the media’s reporting of people throwing chairs and fighting. One guy did lift a chair, but he put it back down. I actually saw that video previously.
http://www.snopes.com/did-sanders-supporters-throw-chairs-at-nevada-democratic-convention/
Trickle up says
Warning: I always hold the leadership, so called, of these things to a high standard. So it seems to me that the party leadership screwed up.
Why do I blame them when one could also point fingers at the Sanders campaign for bad behavior? Because the Sanders campaign was not in charge of this event.
By that standard all this forensic analysis about number of votes required is irrelevant. The presiding officer is supposed to run a meeting where it’s clear what is going. Where even the side that does not prevail nonetheless can say, We lost, but it was fair.
The leadership of this event ensured that would not happen. That is whom I blame, and that that is why.
PS You really do not want to get me started on Wasserman-Schultz.
HR's Kevin says
I really don’t see what the party chair could have done differently in a way that would not have forced them to adjourn with unfinished business due to the time limit on the rented space. And the fact that Sander’s ground team was directly involved in what happened does implicate at least Sander’s NV campaign. I really doubt that the national campaign was behind this, but his local campaign team was definitely involved.
The fact is that if Sander’s people had been able to motivate their delegates to actually show up to the convention — 400 Sander’s delegates didn’t show — they would have had a clear majority and would have gotten more of what they wanted. Much of what happened was the result of frustration on the part of Sander’s delegates that they would not be able to execute their plans without the majority they thought they were going to have.
Clinton’s ground team got their delegates to show up. Sander’s ground team did not.
In the end Clinton got exactly the number of delegates she should have based on the voters who showed up to the caucuses.
SomervilleTom says
Bernie Sanders is special.
His supporters turn out (or don’t) because he is special. They didn’t turn out before and are unlikely turn out after his candidacy. Because Bernie Sanders is special, the rules that everybody else follows should not apply to him. Other not-so-special candidates spend entire careers building and grooming grass-roots organizations. That makes them “establishment” candidates, and therefore disqualifies them from contention in this very special election.
You clearly just don’t understand that Bernie Sanders is the special one-and-only savior who is going to restore good health and health care, prosperity, fairness, and egalitarian well-being to the entire nation if not the world. He will do this by magically waving his hands, pronouncing his benediction on his congregation, and riding the resulting wave of freedom, democracy, and good government into the promised land.
Any indication that this is NOT what is going to happen is therefore, by construction, prima facie evidence that the system is rigged against him. The other candidates are all corrupt, all have sold their souls to the Evil Ones, and their overwhelming dominance of the political process demonstrates the corruption of the political process itself.
The possibility that Mr. Sanders is NOT the person that Democrats in America want as our next President is an abhorrent distraction that must be vigorously rebutted.
Peter Porcupine says
…for Trump. Exactly the same dynamic; I saw it at the caucus I attended,which was very well run by Rob Willington, who was bending over backwards over every bit of minor arcana. He even held the transparent tubs for ballots up in the air, and repeatedly invited campaign representatives to proctor and participate.
BUT the ginned up expectation of establishment cheating buzzed throughout the day. They seemed disappointed by transparancy.
(I wore my Romney delegate tee just to be bad)
Trickle up says
I really have no idea what you are talking about, hrs-kevin, or Somerville Tom in his equally cryptic and sour comment that follows. Perhaps you replied to my comment by accident, because these remarks are real non sequeteurs in relation to my point. Which is that the convention leadership failed and bears the largest part of the blame.
Why? Because they were in charge, and had both the power and the obligation to run a meeting where the process was clear and unimpeachable, not just in light of Mark Bail’s hermaneutics-grade research after the fact but plainly and at the time.
HR's Kevin says
First of all, while the process was complicated, as most such public meetings are, the rules were very clearly stated and distributed to all the delegates far in advance of the convention. Sanders delegates had absolutely no excuse for failing to read and understand the rules.
Sander’s delegates bogged down the convention with endless motions. While they are indeed entitled to do that, they knew they had no chance of prevailing given that to many of their delegates did not show up to the convention. The end result was to make the convention go hours past the allotted time for business. If every single voice vote were to be replaced with an actual count of the thousands of delegates in the room it would have slowed down the convention even more. And most of these contentions voice votes were over fairly mundane procedural issues.
I suppose one thing that the chair could have done but did not is they could have enforced the decorum rules and physically removed disruptive delegates from the room. Not sure if that would have made things better or worse, but I am pretty sure that the decorum rules will be strictly enforced in Philadelphia this summer.
Like I said, go back and read the extremely detailed accounts of what happened. I also don’t get the bogus claim that somehow the chair is responsible for everything bad that happened at the convention because she was leading the convention, but Sanders has absolutely no responsibility for the behavior of his delegates and his ground staff who were instructing the delegates. You can’t have it both ways.
Mark L. Bail says
covered themselves in roses. I think you may have more experience than I do at conventions, but I don’t have high expectations when it comes to them. Were I running things I would want to meet your standard. I’m not sure the NV Dems or their intra-party opponents was up to anybody’s standards.
My guess, based on my reading, is that the Bernie delegates are part of a faction in the NV Dems. They’d been pushing for changes for rule changes prior to the convention, and the party establishment said “fuck ’em” when it came to the convention. The Bernie delegates proceeded to release a lot of false charges and the NV Dems, who’s chair was being threatened, responded with their misinformation. Blaming these events on Bernie or Hillary is stupid.
SomervilleTom says
If the 400 delegates for Bernie Sanders had shown up, none of this would have happened.
You’re missing the forest for the trees. All this mucking about happened because when the rubber met the road, the room was dominated by supporters of Hillary Clinton.
When your “supporters” don’t show up at events like this, your candidate is not going to do well.
Christopher says
All primary season we have heard that Sanders draws bigger crowds at rallies and does better in caucus states because his supporters have all the enthusiasm and are willing to show up.
Trickle up says
unfortunately. Ground operations like this are where Sanders has typically been weakest.
The real surprise is how Sanders outflanked Clinton at the county conventions.
Given the stakes, and the potential for misunderstanding and enmity, one would think the state party would have made an extra effort to be clear and fair and transparent. Instead they seem to have gone out of their way to be partial, and to prevail with a cloud of technicalities.
HR's Kevin says
is that Sanders clearly DID have the ground operations for the county conventions. You would think they would still be there for the more important state convention. All they had to do was to get their delegates to show up. That’s a pretty low bar. Why did these people even want to be delegates if they had no intention of actually attending the convention?
I really don’t know how the process could have been more “transparent”. The rules were quite clear and given to everyone in advance. Everyone knew when the convention was to start and had plenty of time to get their and register in advance. Furthermore the chair had no idea that the Sander’s delegates were planning to vote against usually pro-forma procedural motions. The Sanders side had absolutely NO transparency as to their intentions. If the chair had known what they had intended going in, she could have tried to make things a little clearer or someone could have explained to them in advance how some of their motions were misguided and had no chance of success. The Sanders team (or at least some of them since it appears that the Sander’s delegates on the rules committee had no idea any of this was in the works) planned a sneak attack. It shouldn’t be all that surprising that there was some chaos.That’s on them, not the chair.
Trickle up says
HR's Kevin says
The delegate counts were already known. The Sander’s supporters knew they were going to lose. They were simply pissed about it. I doubt that doing a count for every motion would have calmed down the Sanders delegates one bit and it would have made the convention take much, much longer.
Like I said there was ZERO transparency coming from Sanders side. And not much organizational competence either. Sanders delegates wanted to cause chaos in the nature of their motions. Please tell me what possible rationale Sanders delegates would have to drop the decorum rules? They were trying to disrupt, pure and simple, and that is what they did. No amount of “transparency” (whatever that means) would have made much of a difference.
Obviously this is just one data point, but the failure of the Sanders campaign to get their supposedly higher motivated and energized supporters to show up when it counts should raise some questions as to how truly engaged in the political process his supporters really are.
Mark L. Bail says
the trees. The Bernie people pulled an upset at the county conventions when the Hillary people didn’t get their people there. The Clinton campaign got their people to show up for the state convention.
I speculate that of the huge number of Sanders delegates, many were only recent Democrats or agreed to be delegates not knowing what it entailed or just agreed to it.
Big rallies and crowds don’t convert to large voter turnout.