I know this has been argued ad nauseum within the party over the years, but I have been thinking about it a fair bit after this weekend.
Do we want that kind of situation this year in the LG’s race? Do we want there to be attempts to keep people OFF the ballot? Don’t we want to be open to all good candidates? Regardless of his fundraising, doesn’t Sam Kelley have good and important points to make? Shouldn’t he be allowed to make them?
And what about Reilly? What if those rumors are true and he didn’t get his 15%? What does that say about us? Do we WANT him off the ballot? (The argument for a unified candidate early on is strong, I know, especially since the other side always seem to have one.)
What are some other bars we could require people to cross besides signatures (which I like as a test of an organization)?
Fundraising? No, we’re Dems, we’re not all about the $$, even though elections really always are…
Polling? That’s how Presidential debates are, so why not our selection? Nope, can’t be effective for lower tier races.
Endorsements? If this were the bar, we’d be screwed because, for better or worse, those primary candidates with the most endorsements lose as often as they win. (Pines 98, Segel 02). If we’re going to use this, we might as well have “# of lawn signs” or “# of people at your standout at the Sagamore Rotary on Memorial Day” be the threshold.
Sooooo, whaddya think?
all of these rules suck. They’re fundamentally anti-democratic and serve only to confer unwarranted power on the party insiders. I’ve talked before about these rules – especially the changes that were made this year – and I continue to think that they represent the bad old days.
I agree.
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On the other hand, if a candidate cannot effectively organize 15% of the delegate vote, I don’t see that campaign winning even if the odds weren’t stacked against them to begin with. Patrick has now proved that with a lot of hard work and mobilization a candidate can get on the ballot even with significantly less money.
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And I not sure that a candidate should represent an issue, as you seem to suggest that Sam Kelley does with Health Care. An LG or any position must be about more than one issue, so if that’s what this candidate offers I am not sure I do want the candidate on the ballot.
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The 15% is not fair, but I don’t think opening the doors to anybody is either. If 100 people wanted to be on the ballot that would certainly be more democratic (as it was during the Recall fiasco in CA), but it doesn’t seem to be a great democracy. Call it democrat-ish. Maybe it should be 10%. Or maybe it should just be a certain number of signatures. I’m not sure. But there has to be some hurdle.
*less money than his opponent.
What’s the goal of the selection process? Is it to choose the Democrat most likely to win? To choose the best Democrat? To make party loyalists self-important?
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Requiring the 15% is important if the candidate is going to win the general. Why? Because it proves that there’s a significant number of movers and shakers who support the candidate.
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You don’t win a race with good looks and good ideas. You win with good ideas and good organizing. You need folks working for you — and if you couldn’t get 15% to work for you at the caucus, where will they come from for the general election?
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Furthermore, by preventing a huge number of candidates on the primary ballot, it allows for more media attention for each of the candidates who are on the ballot. Since the primary is 5 or 6 weeks before the general, splitting media time between too many candidates means the primary winner hasn’t gotten as much media time, and that deficit hampers the general campaign.
daclerk is on to something and it’s not about organizing, it’s about favoring insiders over outsiders. Yes, a candidate has to organize delegates in order to win 15% (on the first ballot, according to the Mass Dems website – an even more ridiculous and punitive-to-newcomers rule – at least you could take more than one ballot in the past) and organizing is an important part of the campaign.
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I would bet almost all of the people who are the players at the convention, (state committee members, elected officials, town chairs) have been part of this process for at least 2 conventions. I do not begrudge any of them for their organization efforts on behalf of the party – but should we be a party that puts more power in the hands of the insiders and activists than the voters?
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With the 15% on the first ballot rule, it makes the process very much an insider game, as if you have been in and around the party game, then you don’t have to organize to the same degree to just get on the ballot. For example, for an insider like Tim Murray, this convention becomes about how much he wins the convention by vs. someone like Andrea Silbert, where (despite her public service record and lead in campaign $) it’s about survival to get on the ballot and be allowed to take the case to the voters.
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To me, doing away with the 15% rule (at least on the first ballot) is job #1 for our party to open up the door to more first-time candidates.
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A real organizing litmus test is the signature drive. If we want to see candidates prove how much they can organize, we should increase the signature requirement from 10,000 to a higher number.
Perhaps what you had to say is quite reasonable, but I stopped at the word “activist” because I’m really sick of it. If you have something to say, use words that have real meaning instead of meaningless jargon that’s recently been violently siezed by the lunatic fringe Right to connote negative actions.
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I refuse to be so much of a hypocrite that when Bill O’Reilly and whoever else screams about “activists” I call him an unreasonable loon, and when you (or Tom Reilly) uses it in the same context and as having the same meaning and about the same people, then it’s somehow a real derogatory term.
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from http://www.m-w.com:
Main Entry: ac·tiv·ism
Pronunciation: ‘ak-ti-“vi-z&m
Function: noun
a doctrine or practice that emphasizes direct vigorous action especially in support of or opposition to one side of a controversial issue
– ac·tiv·ist /-vist/ noun or adjective
– ac·tiv·is·tic /”ak-ti-‘vis-tik/ adjective
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Exactly how, then, is “activist” automatically a negative term? Yes, people can be activistic in ways that some people think are negative about issues that not everyone agrees with. But you need to define your frame of reference so that the reader understands the context of said activism.
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And yes, it can be a noun according to the above definition, but the term is meaningless unless the said “controversial issue” is identified. Exactly what is the controversial issue at hand? The 15% I assume, but I haven’t really heard about any “vigorous action” regarding it, except for a bunch of complaining on various blogs (which, I’m sorry to say, doesn’t actually count as “action”). Please, explain to me your rationale for using that word, and tell me how it’s appropriate in this context?
I’m fine with the 15% rule — you can buy lots of signatures if you’re rich, and if you can’t get 15% of active party members maybe you’re more of a distraction on the ballot than a serious candidate — but let’s not have so many “automatic” delegates. Make the mayors and legislators and state committee members get themselves elected at a caucus. And there’s too many “outreach” or “diversity” delegates. Not that diversity’s a bad thing, but this category gives insiders a chance to pad their forces by selecting “politically correct” (from their point of view) young people, people of color, et al. If we want to have more young people, have a separate election for under 30s (or whatever) at the caucus.
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If the convention was actually 90% or more delegates who get elected by real rank-and-file Democrats at a caucus it would more truly reflect the active grassroots of the party. It also is a great way to build an electoral organization early. Sorry Rep. Atsalis, but we’ll be seeing “these people” again and again this year — as volunteers for and contributors to the candidates they supported at caucuses.
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The irony is that Reilly’s spin seems to be that people who give up two or three hours on a Saturday are “special interests.” The true special interest in all of this is party insiders with a sense of entitlement, not insurgents who take the time to organize and show up.
The problem with a signature-gathering hurdle is that anyone with money can do it. (See CA recall petition.) If there were a ban on paid signature-gathering, then I could see that as a very viable option, but until that’s the case it would only open the door to wealthy influence.
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Additionally, while I’m sure that most of the people here don’t mind taking a minute to sign a petition outside the grocery store, many people find them annoying and I can easily see a scenario of increased numbers of signature-gatherers and higher-pressure gathering tactics which would serve to turn a lot of decent people away from the entire process.
While I understand your concern about “good people getting screwed,” my guess is that the 15% rule is in place to keep the number of candidates to a reasonable number, in this case, six and two thirds people (6.67)… umm, right.
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Is it beneficial to good democracy to have many options? From a market perspective, competition is a good thing, but it is no guarantee that the best product (candidate in this point) will be the most popular.
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I look at Italy for the 40 years leading up until about 2001 when their parliamentary system causes frequent flux in their government (they had many dozens of small parties that came together to form “coalitions” – La Casa delle Libertà and L’Unione). I’m not an expert, but I believe around the turn of the decade they began altering their voting procedures to strengthen more of a “two-party” system, and that the continuing source of problems is:
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There was/is only a 4% threshold to be admitted into the lower chamber, and no threshold to be admitted into the upper chamber.
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Whatever voting rules are in place, they have to strike a balance between being open to new faces and change but also exclusive of unqualified individuals… just look to President Bush… his campaigns’ public persona was that of a “common man,” which is attractive, but now we have a common man walking in the halls of power.
The short window between the primary and the general election plays in to this as well. If you had an unlimited number of candidates getting on message to take on the republicans in 6 weeks would be even that much harder. Personally I would love to see the primary take place in June or July leaving more time for post primary reorganziation, but that is another issue all together.
Does the 15% rule apply to U.S. Senate races, or only to state constitutional offices?
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(I can’t remember the last time we’ve had a contested Democratic primary for Senate, but someday it will happen.)
The last time we had a contested U.S. Senate primary was 1984, the year Kerry was elected. There were a multitude of candidates, a couple were left off the ballot because they failed to make it through the convention.