As I said in the other thread, there are a lot of takeaways we need to consider from the Super Tuesday results in our own backyard.
Let’s keep the primary out of this for now and use this as a space for local action.
Key takeaways for me:
1) Our continued failure to reach out to communities of color,
2) The moderate suburban firewall that keeps the Corner Office Republican and state legislature fiscally conservative
3) The lack of action locally on climate, transit, and affordable housing.
One new idea is creating a Working Families Party in our state modeled after the Working Families Party in New York with chapters in 14 other states. Now in our state this organization would not be a traditional political party, it would act more as a counterweight to the Massachusetts Majority SuperPAC Charlie Baker is creating.
It would be a vehicle to raise money and endorse progressive candidates up and down the ballot while bringing organized labor and like minded community organizations together. Until we pass RCV, it is also a way to clear the decks for a single progressive candidate in an open race or single progressive challenger so we do not repeat the mistakes of past campaigns. This endorsement should be a badge that lets us know whether the D on our ballot is really a progressive.
What do the rest of you say? Do we double down on what hasn’t worked or try something new? What should that new thing be?
I think what we’re seeing in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville are good models. Younger, diverse candidates engaging with communities of color and winning. It’s only a matter of time before the mayor’s seat tips and we could have a diverse, progressive, women-led metro region that is focused on transportation, services, and housing.
That doesn’t solve statewide and suburban problems, but it is very encouraging and we see similar actions in other diverse communities.
I wonder if headway can be made with wealthier suburbanites who are seeing themselves sit in 3 hours of traffic every day on 93. Or less engaged people in the city seeing themselves spend $1000 a month on Uber because the T never works. Those folks seem mostly content with a strong economy (for them) and no major scandals from a Baker admin.
The statewide and regional problem for traffic on 93 is that it can ONLY be solved by collective statewide and regional action. In particular, solving the problem on 93 north of Boston requires cooperation from at least NH and some argue even Maine.
The only graceful way to solve the traffic problem on 93 north of Boston is to move a huge number of those commuters over to commuter rail or persuade their employers to provide distributed telecommuting alternatives. Remote work isn’t an option for a great many shift workers, tradespeople, hospitality workers, and so on.
Still, a huge number of those one-occupant round-trips on 93 carry a worker who drives from Reading MA, Salem NH, or similar places into Boston/Cambridge/Somerville, parks their car someplace (at huge expense) and walks to an office where they sit in front of a monitor that connects them to systems and people spread all over the world. That can be done just as well from a nearby facility as from downtown. It should be noted that working from home is not possible for a huge portion of information workers for a variety of reasons.
There is a vicious cycle where workers can’t use commuter rail because it simply SUCKS, and therefore genuinely can’t afford to pay the increased taxes needed to improve it — especially when those improvements don’t benefit those workers until years or even a decade have passed. So they refuse to support legislators who want to do the right thing. It’s an excellent example of a scenario where deficit spending is required, either at the state (through bonds) or federal level.
The public infrastructure MUST be built before the public will use it. Once that infrastructure reaches a critical mass, then an entire region is transformed and the tax base explodes even without explicit tax rate increases. That’s how Slummerville of 1980 turned into Somerville of 2020.
I agree that it is imperative that we make regional changes like you suggest. I don’t see how advocating a revolution gets needed to changes those to happen.
I think the bigger issue is that no matter who is president, or frankly governor, these issues go unaddressed. Time to build a constituency to address them.
I would like to propose that engagement with local government should be part of the program.
Not in a “run for mayor today so you can run from President in 40 years” kind of way, and not in a “let’s bring our global climate change agenda to Town Meeting as a nonbinding resolution” way either, though both might be valid.
But rather to actually dig in and engage in the complicated issues that affect people day to day. Including schools, policing, land-use, housing, and transportation.
This is complicated because cities and towns are hardly independent agencies. They are creatures of the Commonwealth and subject to many constraints. But there are many spheres in which they traditionally have a good deal of autonomy.
In other areas such as transportation there may be no autonomy but good local policies are nonetheless necessary if not by themselves sufficient.
I really think this is the most important step we can take for the future.
I also think this is entire consistent with a new party, whatever its name.
A basic one is that school lunch should free for area districts according to federal guidelines, but some districts refuse to implement it since they want the data and more regressive school committee members worry about kids “gaming the system”. Making it free like Boston would be a great change, students shouldn’t leave high schools hundreds of dollars in debt.
That’s also an easy one for largely white unions to push for and male cross racial coalitions. Ditto the Somerville paras who are mostly women of color while the affluent predominately white and superficially woke school committee denies them their dignity.
Primary where appropriate, but not at Tea Party levels of purism. (BTW, two people have pulled papers against Rep. Dave Nangle, “D”-Lowell, who was arrested recently on charges of using campaign funds to cover gambling debts, and at least one of them is definitely progressive.)
Keep making sure campaigns reach communities of color, but I think they have been shown to be very reliable Ds, but not necessarily super-progressive.
Emphasize the right issues in the suburbs, plenty of which DO seem to be progressive. There are already organizations promoting progressive candidates.
I’m agreeing but will give it a push. It’s not enough to say “they are reliable Democrats” and not engage them on areas where “reliable Democrats” in office are falling short and failing their communities as well as the broader progressive agenda. I think the WFP has exerted that outside pressure in the states where it exists. They flipped the NY Senate and got Cuomo to flip on a lot of important issues. No reason Massachusetts can’t do the same. Virginia is about to leapfrog us on climate, transit, and housing affordability.
Win South Carolina
Be a lot less annoying
Wonder if Ranked Choice would take care of some of these issues by themselves …. I’m cool to third parties. They seem like a solution in search of a problem, or at best a technical proposal to more intractable problems. I think I’d rather learn lessons from the occasional policy/political success, like school funding, rather than re-invent wheels of process in search of better results.
Where I work, I interact with a lot of customers and have gotten to know several quite well. Some of them are not native born. One of my favorite customers is a man named Peter. Peter is here from the Czech Republic. While I am hesitant to talk about politics at work, Peter is one exception.
His perspective on the results of Super Tuesday was that “The left hand side of your political party won and it’s unfortunate that you have few choices” followed by “You offer 15 varieties of bagels but only two political parties that are really different sides of one party.
IMHO, Warren never stood a chance and Sanders will not make it….because the fix is in just as it was in Massachusetts when, after a convention that Grossman won and that newcomer Berwick was virtually tied for second, the media and those in control told is “It’s Coakley!”
@the fix is in:
Are you willing to tell the millions of AfAm voters turning out in record numbers to vote for Joe Biden that Mr. Biden’s surge is the result of some conspiracy against white male voters like you and me? This is as insulting as those who label those voters “the Establishment”.
AfAm voters turned the tide for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and may well turn the tide for Joe Biden in 2020. That’s not “fixing” the election, it’s belatedly giving voice to tens of millions of Americans whose votes have been actively suppressed for generations and are STILL being repressed by the widespread GOP “suppress the vote” programs nationwide.
To the extent that a “fix” is at play, it is a fix against women candidates and women voters.
Like it or not, AfAm voters are speaking out across America and America needs to listen. One of the things they are shouting at us is that they are less “progressive” than we are and — sadly — just as sexist. The priority in November of 2020 is to SHRED Trumpism. Not just Donald Trump, but everything he represents.
America needs enthusiastic support from AfAm communities and voters. They are NOT as progressive as you and me. That’s not a “fix”, that’s reality.
It took generations for women of all races and ethnic groups to get the vote after the 15th Amendment extended that right to former slaves in 1870. Federal laws against racial discrimination were put in place long before gender discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment is not yet the law of the land.
White voters have benefited from systemic racism for centuries. Men of all races still benefit from systemic sexism and misogyny today.
The assertion that Joe Biden is surging because the system is “rigged” against white progressives exemplifies white privilege in action. Sadly, the strength of women candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton is also an example of white privilege.
America has a sexism problem. America has a racism problem. America has a Trumpism problem. The last problem is the only one that we have a shot at solving in 2020.
I know I’ve been particularly tough on you and those you support lately and this comment highlights why. Your views and approaches remind me of the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over again and expecting different results.
The “process” is the problem. In this case I don’t think RCV would have the impact on school funding…but public financing of campaigns might, as this is an issue voters care about vs campaign donors representing the natural gas industry. You keep bemoaning the lack progress and/or the unprogressive Democratic politicians in this state. Yet you don’t embrace the process changes that would change that paradigm.
In an age where there is little trust in politics and we are a gridlocked state and nation in terms of confronting/addressing the big issue in front of us. But your “solution” seems to be doing more of the same (like reelecting Ed Markey) and not taking a step back and realizing that the process is in fact the problem. It keeps getting the same (bad) results.
Your proposed “cure” to our “process problem” is worse than the disease. One of the reasons why public financing of campaigns has never happened is that, at least as it’s been proposed so far, it DOESN’T WORK. Term limits (another of your favored proposals) are a giant step backwards. That’s why they are most enthusiastically supported by reactionary extremists.
Massachusetts, like America, has a sexism problem and a racism problem. Process changes will, at best, reveal rather than solve those. Massachusetts, like America, has a wealth concentration problem. Again, process changes aren’t going to change that.
We need to heal the culture of Massachusetts and America. Public financing and term limits are irrelevant to that. Even RCV is, at best, and indirect response.
I’ll repeat an assertion I made elsewhere on BMG this week. However we accomplish it, if we ever reach a place where the ranking of the 351 Massachusetts cities and towns by minority household percentage, per capita net worth, and per capita public spending are the same, then many or most of these process issues will dissolve.
I have to disagree insofar as this. This is not a reductionist problem. Drop any word into the sentence “process changes aren’t going to change that.” Whatever is going to change that: money, priorities, reforms.
Then explain how we get that thing without process.
I’m not saying that process doesn’t matter.
I’m saying that the core issue is wealth concentration. I therefore suggest that the first filter to apply to any proposed change — money, priority, reforms — is “how does it affect wealth concentration”.
I see how a wealth tax, a significant increase in the top bracket of the gift/estate tax, a significant increase in the Massachusetts capital gains tax rate (with corresponding increase in exemptions) and so on address the wealth concentration issue. I don’t see how changing to RCV, term limits, or public campaign financing accomplishes similar progress.
It makes it harder for the fiscally conservative majority in the state legislature to keep power. Great examples abound of progressive candidates splitting the vote leading to conservatives getting elected within local primaries. Not to mention having a WFP stamp of approval helps the low info voters who come to the booth know who the good Democrats are before they just pull for the straight ticket. It’ll make it easier to primary people since the challengers can coordinate their efforts against the incumbent.
These reforms won’t make the comfortable voters get afflicted to comfort the afflicted, but it will help. We need to also convince suburban voters that their property values will suffer with poor transit, climate change, and their kids won’t be able to raise families in this state. Make it personal and they can defect from the safety of maintaining the status quo.
You are so wrong on many levels. First, I’ve NEVER expressed support for Term Limits. They simply keep the current system of sucking up to the rich and demonizing our opponents, but recycle the same kinds of politicians over and over again. So please don’t tell me what my positions are.
Secondly, tell me were public financing doesn’t work? Sure if you use the criteria that states like Maine, Arizona and Connecticut are not utopian societies with their public finance systems, then OK, you right, they don’t “work”. But if you look at it from the vantage point that citizens in those states can now “trust” that their politicians aren’t being bought and paid for by special interests, then they are in fact a success. Yes, these systems have lots of challenges, the biggest being unregulated dark money that overwhelms public funning limits. But we work to override Citizens United and not raise our hands in surrender.
And you are clearly blind to the relationship to money in politics and the very issues you correctly point out must be addressed: sexism, racism and wealth concentration.
Access to money to fund campaigns is a major barrier for minorities and woman to run for office. By creating this high barrier to run for office (can you raise $100,000 to run for State Rep in Massachusetts?) limits those who can run for office. If you’re poor, working class or middle class, it is either impossible or is an huge challenge. But if your wealthy, it’s a check you write to yourself. If you among the “professional class” you know lots of people that have, or can help you get access to, fundraising networks needed to run for office. Those people are disproportionately white and men.
So it is apparent to me that you don’t see the connection between the current “rules” that favor rich white men and the sexism, racism and class divisions that exist today. You apparently don’t see how the rules favoring incumbents like Ed Markey or Joe Kennedy, so they got to keep $4 million each in their campaign accounts past campaigns, resulted in a very qualified woman and a man of color to withdraw from the race. If that’s not an example of current campaign finance rules favoring a white male dominance against women and minorities, then I don’t know what is. I know you’re not aware of what your doing, but your comment only perpetuates the very forces that you oppose.
@pogo:
@term limits:
I apologize for mis-stating your position on term limits. I thought you had supported them here. I looked at your comment history, and you have not. You are correct, I was mistaken, and I apologize.
@tell me were public financing doesn’t work:
The most obvious example of its failure is the little check box for the “Presidential Election Campaign Fund” that has been at the top of the Federal 1040 every year since 1976. Various sources report that that fund allowed the candidacies of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan to survive. Whatever success it had in its first twenty years, it hasn’t been a factor since the 1990s. It ultimately failed.
@blind:
I’m well aware of the corrupting influence of wealth in our electoral system. The efforts at public funding have, so far, failed to solve that problem.
You have not, so far, offered any proposals that are actual improvements over the broken system we have today.
I’m reminded of the similar back-and-forth about the Citizens United decision. It is easy to attack it — the decision has had awful consequences and those consequences were predicted even as the case was being argued.
The issue is that nobody has yet offered an alternative that actually improves the big picture. For example, the same principle that provides First Amendment protections to corporations also provides those protections to publishers like the Washington Post and New York Times and to non-profit organizations like labor unions and interest groups such as the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood. It’s easy to write a bumper sticker about reversing Citizens United. It has proven MUCH harder to write a constitutional amendment that doesn’t carry a heavy burden of unintended consequences.
Public financing is a great theory and has been for at least fifty years. I don’t see Arizona, Connecticut, or Maine as bastions of good government producing elected officials that are any better than anywhere else. In fact, all three have resulted in elected officials that strike me as just as bad or worse — neither Susan Collins and Martha McSally are on my list of elected officials that I admire.
Show me the text of a proposed amendment to fix Citizens United and we’ll talk. Show me concrete proposals for public campaign financing that work.
Regarding racism and sexism in politics, my bottom line is that you have the cart before the horse. Our task is to end racism and sexism in our culture and economy. As we do that — especially in our economy — our political systems will follow.
It doesn’t require legislative action for an employer to actively seek and recruit top-quality minorities and women — it takes a grassroots uprising of workers that demand that.
I support term limits for the state legislature. I think Congress is a different beast, but if we want to stop concentrating power in the hands of the Speaker it seems like the best way to do it.
I only support them for leadership. Otherwise the voters should be able to re-elect those they like ad infinitum.
Thank you Tom for your comments, but I do feel you’re not fully versed of this issue. Yes, your correct the Presidential public financing is a failure, mostly because the public funding limits from the 1980s were never increased with inflation, so by 2008 candidates could raise far more money than public spending limits at the time allowed.
And let’s not forget the “failed” public financing law passed in MA in 1998…although it was more of the murder of a referendum question by the “progressive” MA Leg killing the will of the voters. So if you mean public financing has failed, yes it has failed because the powers that be killed it.
And you apparently do set the bar at “utopia” for judging public finance programs, as you won’t recognize the simple value that politicians are not soliciting campaign donations from special interests, but rather seeking small donors as a way to rebuild voter trust in elected officials. Just like RCV won’t magically end negative campaigning, or independent redistricting commissions won’t end gerrymandering, theses effort do reset the tables for a greater chance of responsive govt.
Because I’m amazed you don’t see the social justice aspects of democracy reforms. The way you end racism and sexism in our political economy is to give people of color, woman and others POWER. How are you going to give them power in our system? By making the rules of the political system more fair for those who don’t currently a fair chance to obtained power. I don’t know of any other way you’re going to end racism and sexism in our society. That’s what political reform is all about. I have no idea how else you plan to achieve it.
@pogo:
I don’t think old white men give power to people of color, women, and others. I think those people TAKE power from old white men. Industrial magnates didn’t give power to labor unions in the early years of the twentieth century — working men and women TOOK power from owners and management.
Politics has always been the tool of whatever groups have power in society and culture. Some governments are better than others, of course. Some administrations are better than others. Nevertheless, fundamental change in racism and sexism will be forced on government and politics by men and women who rise up and take it.
When people of color and women make the same money for doing the same job, they’ll have more power. When we take wealth away from the top 0.01% and put it back into circulation in the consumer economy, people of color and women acquire more wealth. Along with that wealth comes more power, as warmth accompanies light on a bright sunny morning.
I saw Elizabeth Warren eschew donations from special interests. I also watched her end her campaign from her driveway. I hear Bernie Sanders doing the same, and I see VOTERS — not some unnamed “establishment” — choosing Joe Biden.
Mr. Sanders has been talking a great game about a grassroots movement for a long time. People of color are choosing Joe Biden. People who actually care about racism listen to that.
I’m all for grassroots campaign financing. When proposals are made, I’m all ears. I’m not saying I oppose it, I’m saying that I’ve seen those proposals about as often and for about as long as I’ve seen Star Trek episodes on cable TV.
I can’t believe you can’t even connect the dots in your own comments to draw the very picture I’m talking about!
You wrote: “I don’t think old white men give power to people of color, women, and others. I think those people TAKE power from old white men.”
No kidding! And how do they take that power? By making the rules of politics more fair so they can take that power.
But we get ourselves stuck in a feedback loop that seems to have no ending or resolution.
You wrote: “I’m not saying I oppose it (public financing), I’m saying that I’ve seen those proposals about as often and for about as long as I’ve seen Star Trek episodes on cable TV.
Again, no kidding! And have you ever wondered why? Does it have anything to do the fact that proposals that even the political playing field being blacked out from corporate media coverage and dismissed out of hand by those defending the status quo?
Let me give you a REAL example. Are you familiar with HR 1? As the name implies, it is the first legislation filed in the new Congress. And as you can imagine, that doesn’t happen by mistake, as it was the premiere bill of the Democratic Congress, lead by Pelosi. It is also chalk full of political reforms like public campaign financing.
But watching or reading news coverage on a daily basis, you wouldn’t know that. Because the powers that be don’t want you to know about it. Of all the “talking head” panels that make up “news” nowadays on Sunday mornings and cable networks, have you EVER seen a panel discussion on the merits or politics around HR 1?
So while you outline noble goals for society, you don’t recognized where the deep obstacles of the problem lie. I noticed you ignored my point about the two white guys in the MA Senate race having a huge advantage over two other folks–a woman and a black man–who wanted to run. But they decided not to (or withdrew) because the rules of the game gave the two white guys a head start of $4 million each.
And you don’t see institutional racism and sexism in that? With all due respect, we won’t be ending racism and sexism in society when we the status quo of giving the white men all the advantages of the system. Again, I’m very surprised you’re not connecting the dots.
I’ll try and take these point by point. Perhaps as we do we can dial back the accusatory rhetoric a little bit.
@No kidding! And how do they take that power?:
One immediate way they take that power is by voting for officials they like and trust, like Joe Biden. I hope that candidates are paying attention to what happened to Mike Capuano and Elizabeth Warren. Winning that affection and trust takes more than giving good speeches to mostly white audiences.
@Let me give you a REAL example. :
I agree with you about this, and I think that’s the point. Nothing you’ve said or proposed changes this dynamic. I fear you assume the outcome you’re arguing for. The lightning speed with which huge appropriations for fighting SARS-COVID-19 shows that Congress is capable of acting swiftly when the public demands it.
HR-1 is buried in the news media and the public in a vicious catch-22 — a handful of activists know about it, because a handful of activists care about it, because there’s nothing there that everyday people struggling to get by can relate to.
@the rules of the game gave the two white guys a head start of $4 million each:
I think the average AfAm voter in South Carolina disagrees with you. I think that that voter watched a bunch of honkies argue with each other. How much time did any of the initial round of candidates spend with Jim Clyburn while exploring whether or not to run? How much time did Elizabeth Warren spend meeting AfAm South Carolina voters?
It seems to me that the very reason we’re having this discussion is that when Democratic momentum shifts in an obvious way, the rules of the game are changed accordingly.
The argument that I hear you making is essentially that the nomination process is bought. If that were true, then it seems to me that those left standing should be those with the most money. Yet various sources report data to the contrary. The Joe Biden campaign was famously short of cash, especially in comparison to Mr. Sanders.
I agree with you that our culture reeks of institutional racism and sexism. I agree with you that HR1 would address that, if it ever saw the light of day (which it won’t). I disagree with you that the strength of Joe Biden is a symptom of that.
I think AfAm voters passionately prefer Joe Biden over Bernie Sanders. I think those AfAm voters might well force changes to our future primary process so that the candidates of color and most of the women are still in the race when the first AfAm votes are counted.
I think wealth IS power, and has been for all of human history. I think that so long as American wealth remains concentrated in a tiny handful of American men and women, those men and women will dominate our political processes.
I think we have to take back some of that wealth. After we have done that, I think the reforms you and I both support will happen.
I think the reverse sequence cannot and will not happen.
We are obviously talking past each other. The two white guys with a $4 million head start are Kennedy and Markey in the US Senate race. I make no mention of Biden, Bernie or SC…so I’m completely confused about what your trying to say.
I will agree that the central problem is wealth concentration that is making a large part of the country in either desperate shape or feeling the anxiety that they are one bad thing away from desperate shape.
But you seem to think we can operate in the current environment and “take some of that wealth back”. That goes back to my insanity comment I often use in this situation. How do you expect to do the same thing over and over again and expect different outcomes? What evidence can you give me that operating in the current political environment will result in a far different out come?
And I don’t believe a magic wand can be waved and fix everything. I know money will always have an impact, as will nasty election politics. But why make it easier for the monied interests and the political character assassins to ply their trade? And their trade is to divide and conquer, often along racial lines. You seem content to try and end racism, sexism and income inequality using the rules that opponents to these goals have set. And I’m genuinely puzzled about that.
Related to that. Do you think we can make real progress with climate change or health care, given the strangle hold the energy and drug companies have on Congress…both Democrats and Republicans? Even if/when the Dems control the power in DC, they won’t just give these folks a seat at the able (as they should have input) but they’ll be calling the shots, writing the legislation as they keep reminding everybody of the millions they’ve “invested” in buying a bi-partisan majority of politicians. How do you achieve real change with that?
Also, do you see Warren at all in NH? Her real message was ending this kind of corruption. So I really have to disagree with you that “no one is talking about it”. I will agree though, the media are reporting it and the voters aren’t connecting the dots.
I think the anti-corruption agenda is very important along with small donor fundraising and a push for renewed public finance. I think these priorities are falling by the wayside as Trump’s plumbers are out in the open and treated as just another political story by a major outlet like the Times while our own side calls any curb to the influence of corporate dollars ‘unilateral disarmament’ that hands the right a win.
I think Sanders and Warren both showed this message resonates with the suburban moderates and independents we need to win. Biden would do well to have a small donor centered strategy harnessing the anti-Trump and progressive energy for his own anemically funded campaign.
To clarify-WFP would not be a third party, at least not here where we do not have fusion voting. it would be more like the Tea Party for working people. A party within a party as it were that could endorse, primary, fund, and advocate for candidates and positions.
I can’t remember any so-called ‘third-party’ in recent years that wasn’t the lengthened shadow of one person; Far from being a solution in search of a problem, it’s often a fortune in search of an occupation or an ego in search of a gratification; From Ross Perot in the 90’s and later Pat Buchanan in the 2000’s. Ralph Nader in 2000, brought the Green Party to prominence, but which has since devolved into a life support system for Jill Stein’s ego. In Mass we had Evan Falchuk, and the United Independent Party.
It seems nascent parties are subject to capture by ego… maybe not so nascent parties either: Bloomberg tried to buy the Democratic party, and Bernie Sanders certainly thinks he can wield sole influence over it, despite the clear contempt he has for it.
I’m in! A Working Families Party is what the Democratic Party used to be.
Connecting the dots – let’s have Ranked Choice Voting so we can play in a third party and vote for the third party even though it won’t really count for anything.
That’s genuinely funny. However, the poli sci answer is that the way interest is articulated can make a big difference in how political institutions behave, which can lead to different policy outcomes.
(Look no further to how an extremist was able to hijack the 2016 GOP presidential nomination with winner-take-all primaries.)
If the Green Party gets 30% of the vote in such a scenario, then I’ll bet (1) the organization currently known as the Green party undergoes a pretty rapid transformation and actually becomes a real political party (2) everyone else suddenly tries to coopt Green No 2 votes and (3) other salutary effects.
It may not change the parties in power, but it might change how they govern.
There are other benefits to RCV too.
This is spot-on. This is exactly what’s happening to the Green Party in Germany.
And in our two party dominated system, if we had RCV and a third party takes a chunk of votes away from a dominate party, yes the dominate closest to those views will coop those positions and adopt them.
That is called progress. So in order to have more progress, we need a mechanisms where 3rd parties have a great voice and therefore will have a greater impact on the calcified two parties.
We already have a de facto three party system: the far right (Trump’s GOP), the center (Biden and Never Trumpers) and the left (Warren/Sanders). Ranked choice enables more candidates from the left to get elected without empowering the far right. FPTP benefits the far right, since Trump can win his party with 40% of the vote and then win the electoral college with 42% of the popular vote.
With ranked choice Gore is President and the Nader vote does not split. With ranked choice, Hillary is President and the Stein and Johnson vote does not split. You constantly complain about third party spoilers and then continue to oppose the only remedy to that. You complain about progressives splitting the vote in primaries and complain about the only remedy to that issue.
Without these reforms we will always be holding our nose.
Uprated with the caveat that plenty of us are happy to vote for the Dem nominee without holding our noses.
You know, where we really need RV is some of these 10-way primaries where the winner prevails with like 23% of the vote.
Those 10 way Democratic primaries usually field a candidate against a weak or nonexistent Republican. The general election is virtually meaningless.
In our 1.5 party state, we need a top two “jungle” primary where the two top vote getters move forward into a meaningful November election.
Aka every open legislative seat in this commonwealth
You’d be holding your nose for Bernie. Nose holding is a part of political maturity in a two party, first past the post system. It’s also a lot easier to do so if you know for sure your first or second choice did not attain full viability.
I think a ranked choice election in this primary would likely have resulted in Biden or Warren doing better, since they were consistently the top second choices of lesser known candidates. It’s also shown it’s likelier women or minorities get elected under ranked choice.
Bernie Sanders arguably benefited the most from less democratic aspects of the primary system like front loading the white states, caucuses, and tactical voting.
I would absolutely not be holding my nose for Bernie. There are lots of things I agree with him on and he’s obviously worlds better than Trump. I would fill in the bubble next to his name and walk out of my polling place with my head held high – no clothespins required!
You’re a uniquely committed and idealistic Democrat Christopher. I sincerely admire that.
With a “top two” jungle primary, Nader and the fringe candidates are eliminated before the general election, and the winner of the general election will get more than 50% of the vote.
I’d forgotten how much affection Pablo has for this flawed electoral system.
At best it might duplicate the results of RCV, but with less transparency and at greater expense.
But it fails to provide the same moderating incentives as RCV, multiplies the “strategic voting” problems, and costs more.
At worst it excludes the actual favorite from the final round.
Not to mention a jungle primary reduces party competition. The CA Republican Party and the LA Democratic Party are largely shut out from the general election since their candidates are typically not the top two vote getters.
I’m open to it for the presidential election since it is an improvement over the status quo, but ranked choice voting does the same thing in a single election through the mechanism of transferring the vote to candidates who gain viability. It would be ruthlessly efficient in the primary process if paired with winner take all allocation for the specific state primaries.
I also find it funny the same guy who attacked Joe Kennedy for wasting Democratic dollars on an intraparty primary wants to adopt a system that will increase such contests and drag them out to the November election. It has not been great for CA.
That’s the exact same result that happens with ranked choice voting without the added expense of holding a second election. It’s literally the same thing-only slightly worse!
Not sure why you can’t just jump on board RCV which also ensures a majority vote without the issue of shutting out parties. Perhaps because you keep confusing it with proportional representation? Maybe we should have kept it older name instant runoff voting to illustrate how it works.
I think Johnson votes would have gone to Trump and he would have won the popular vote.
Hard to say for sure, but my gut says more of a split.
He never has and never will win the popular vote. You can take that to the bank. He might get re-elected repeating his Upper Midwest racial realignment of the Electoral College but he ain’t never winning the popular vote.
WFP has years of making political miscalculations again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
News though, they’re now behind Sanders, and here to celebrate the last few seconds before electoral defeat with the movement behind everything they have claimed to stand for. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/working-families-party-endorses-sanders-as-the-left-struggles-to-consolidate/2020/03/09/8141f252-6204-11ea-b3fc-7841686c5c57_story.html