There’s a fine line between tolerating dissent and allowing one’s self to be walked all over. I think anyone who supported Richard Tisei over Katherine Clark jumped that line long ago. Kudos to the campaign worker who brought up this issue, otherwise I don’t know that anything would have happened.
The Democrats will not win with any more than three candidates in the primary because of the severe internecine warfare that inevitably divides the party. And, despite the fact it would win back the governor’s office, the primary won’t be moved forward b/c it’s in the interest of every state legilsator to have a later primary b/c of the pressures of the two-year election cycle.
So what’s the best answer? The one the state party decided on: require 15% on the first ballot.
Drop 15% to 12%, move the primary to May, hold the Convention and the Caucuses within a month of each other. Done.
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Just for the record, Reich was able to get just over 15% on the first ballot in 2002. Steve Grossman and Warren Tolman traded delegates to make sure they both got on. That said, let’s not relive 2002 tonight and tomorrow. For the love of all that is good and decent.
Forget the 15% rule for a minute, but the May primary is the best thing I’ve read all day. I’ve been saying that for years. Other states do it, why don’t we?
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It does the voters a disservice to have just a 6 week general election campaign and it hurts the party more likely to have a bruising primary battle.
is b/c the state legislators (majority of whom are democrats) feel they will be pinched by early deadlines and hard-pressed to run a good campaign.
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thus moving the primary up to May would never pass, although it was one of the recommendations of the Dukakis/McGovern commission (I don’t think they said May specifically.)
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one answer which has been floated, would be to move our state legislators to four-year terms from their current two-year terms. Lengthening the term would decrease the pressure of the “constant campaign” and garner more support for an earlier Democratic primary.
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Why? Because 15% was so sticky this time? What’s the logic to 12%? Why not 10% Why not increase it to 20%?
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If the idea is to reduce the total number of Dem candidates, I’d argue that increasing it to 20% all but guarantees (in reality) that you’ll have three or fewer. 15% allows for 4 candidates pretty easily, and 12% realistically allows for as much as 5, although four is more likely most often.
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If the idea is to keep Loony Lyndon LaRouche and his ilk off, you could probably accomplish that with 5%.
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So, why 12%
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* move the primary to May
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Why does it have to be May or September? May seems too early to me. Why not June or July? Moving the primary up to May puts a tight pinch on the state reps.
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p> * hold the Convention and the Caucuses within a month of each other.
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I’m not so sure that’s smart either. I’m not arguing that 4 months is appropriate, but if you keep enough time between the two, you allow the campaigns to do more organizing — and the delegates are more likely to lead their neighbors, their towns, etc on the issue. Organize your future organizers. Plus, clumping them too close doesn’t take advantage of news operations as well. The Dems want their guys in the news as much as possible, so keeping the events from being on top of either helps keep Dems in the news throughout the entire campaign cycle.
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I’d like to see the Convention move up a month — although that would severely mess with my local elections; I wouldn’t want to give up a Friday night & Saturday before local elections took place, and I have no idea what the Spring election timeline is state wide…
If we had instant runoff voting, it would be a lot less likely that candidates would be at each others throats, because no candidate would want to alienate and lose the second-choice votes from the strong supporters of another candidate. Also, under IRV candidates from the same ideological camp would no longer divide votes (think Reich and Tolman).
It seems everywhere I turn these last few months my fellow progressives can’t stop exclaiming IRV as the answer to everything. I am not shooting it down because I don’t know much about it to be honest but it seems to pop up everywhere. How would IRV make candidates less “at each other’s throats” Greg?
It seems everywhere I turn these last few months my fellow progressives can’t stop exclaiming IRV as the answer to everything.
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I suggest toning down the hyperbole. I know you’re seeing me and others bring up IRV emphatically as a solution, but we only do it in response to people discussing poblems that IRV actually solves or mitigates, not “everything”. You’re the only one who is referring to it as a universal “magic bullet”. You may be doing that as a way to express how often you see us bring up IRV, but when you use extreme hyperbole like that, you redirect the discussion into unproductive places. We don’t need to argue about whether or not there exist problems IRV can’t solve – we know there are many.
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That said, yes, IRV is indeed a powerful answer to some of the most common and insidious problems with the way we currently vote for most offices. And the one you bring up is one of them: candidates who should be natural allies, are prevented from allying when running for the same seat, and must instead attack each other. IRV allows them to cooperate and compete positively, because they want the same voters.
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Currently, there’s no incentive to be nice to the other candidate courting the same voters you target, because every vote the other candidate gets is lost to you. This makes both of you weaker compared to all other opponents. With IRV, multiple candidates targeting the same voters only compete relative to each other – they do not weaken the whole “team” against other candidates. By being nice to each other, candidates can attract friendly candidates’ #2 and #3 votes. The one who does a best job of appealing to the targeted voters, and gets the most #1 votes, will be the one who benefits, but the allied group all stand to benefit from that, and the number of votes their top voter-getter receives will be much higher for it.
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In Cambridge, where we have IRV, this actually happens. Candidates on the same sides of the issues often compete to be nice to each other rather than to attack each other.
I like the idea of IRV too. But there’s no need to spend your first paragraph taking Andy to task for asking a simple question. “Magic bullet” is hardly an offensive turn of phrase or an insult to those who advocate for IRV. Just answer his question.
I think the level of hyperbole in questions like that throws a lot of discussions way off track. Whether he meant it or not, his comment reads as half honest question, half snide remark dismissing IRV’s importance. Knowing Andy, I thought it was an honest question. Knowing that many people here don’t know Andy, I thought it was important to take the hyperbole to task. It’s damaging.
drgonzo, I have to strongly disagree with this comment:
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“Ironically, the first-ballot requirement was largely a response to the vote-swapping used to get Robert Reich — the most liberal candidate and currently a Deval supporter — on the ballot”
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In point of fact, Reich and Tom Birmingham were the only two candidates NOT to engage in any vote swapping. Reich got 16% on the first ballot the hard way: he earned every one of those votes. Steve Grossman and Warren Tolman (arguably even more liberal than Reich) were the ones who had their supporters vote for the other candidate on successive ballots so both could make it to the primary. Grossman, as you’ll recall, dropped out before it. Shannon O’Brien also engaged in a lot of vote swapping herself. I was a Reich delegate from western ma and I got a call right before the convention from O’Brien’s brother Michael, asking for my vote on the second ballot.
sorry about that, edited version above. Sco also pointed this out earlier in the thread.
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Also, I don’t know much about Warren Tolman and his campaign, but I would be hard-pressed to find a gubernatorial candidate more liberal than Robert Reich. I’m open to reasons proving me otherwise, though.
You’re right – it’s pretty hard to find someone more liberal than Bob Reich. Warren Tolman, however, may have exceeded Reich by taking a hard stand on campaign finance laws. As you may recall, he sued the state to get a voter-backed finance reform law passed. Tolman refused to engage in any huge fund-raising, instead taking a very moral ground on the issue. And, he won.
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His victory in courts was ironic, as he then turned around, and used the taxpayer’s money to air some ads that took earlier comments by Reich out of context. I hope I am not pissing off any former Tolman supporters here, as this is all in the past (plus, I can’t remember the exact quotes!). I recall Tolman as a very decent man, who was very liberal and very pissed off at Reich for getting into the race so late, and siphoning off a lot of his votes.