Saturday, August 16, 2008

Literally hundreds

Do you want an idea of how many caucuses, receptions, and other events are being held in conjunction with the Democratic convention? Check it out here. And the list isn't even finished yet.

I'm really hoping the DNC equips each delegate with a PDA, a headset, and a personal assistant, or this thing is going to be unnavigable.

2 comments:

Alessandro Machi said...

Hillary Clinton won the pledged delegates total from all of the primaries.

Hillary Clinton was actually leading in Colorado Polls just before the caucuses.

I believe a significant percentage of democrats realize that the caucuses did not fairly reflect the true strength of each candidate.

These are reasons enough for Hillary Clinton to not have been forced by the media to suspend her campaign.

Eventually, the truth about how horribly some (not all) Barack Obama volunteers behaved in the caucus states will come out, and in combination with trying to force Hillary Clinton out before the convention, will result a huge long term blow the democratic party.

Ask yourself this, does it make sense to declare Barack Obama the winner before the convention when Hillary Clinton actually gained more pledged delegates from all the primaries (even excluding Michigan and Florida)?

Seth Masket said...

You seem to be making two arguments. First, that caucuses are unrepresentative of the electorate. Second, that Obama cheated in the caucuses.

As for the first one, yes, caucuses have a lower turnout and tend to produce outcomes that differ somewhat from polls of registered voters. Primaries are far from representative of the electorate, but caucuses seem somewhat less so. Nonetheless, the current system, in which states can choose which type of contest they hold and delegates from caucus states count just as much as those from primary states, has been in place since 1972, and all the candidates knew these rules going into this year's race. If you find this system problematic, I suggest you push for reforms of the system, rather than trying to de-legitimize the presumed nominee or to disenfranchise those who participated in caucuses.

As for your second point, that's a pretty serious accusation. Do you have any evidence that Obama volunteers cheated in some way, or that the Obama campaign somehow defrauded the system? I could easily suggest that Clinton cheated in the primaries, but I don't, since I have absolutely no evidence that she did that.