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Exiled in a kilt

Stuff I dont understand

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by
kilted exile
, 02-06-2008 at 11:29 AM (1187 Views)
Ok, I have been trying to watch the stuff on the US party nomination stuff. I have decided that either the system seems decidedly unfair to me or I dont understand it. (dont worry, I'm not going to go on a rant about policies or candidates or the like. I just have some issues with the procedure/system)

1) Why dont all the states vote at the same time for their nominee? The people living in states which vote later in the process seem to get a lot longer to decide on who they want to vote for as their candidate. Also I would be annoyed to vote for someone and then during campaigning for another state find that my choice says something I fundamentally disagree with & which would have led to me not voting for them if they had said it previous to my states voting.

2) The whole thing about candidates dropping out of the race: Ok, scenario - I vote for Candidate A as opposed to B or C. Later in the race Candidate A drops out and says their votes should go to Candidate B, however between the 2 I would prefer Candidate C. In this case my vote is worse than wasted as it has ended up going to the person I would least like to see get it.

3) The issue with independents: I know this doesnt affect every state but here is my problem with letting people other than registered democrats or republicans vote for the candidate - What is to stop people who have no intention of voting for a certain party (but still declared as an independent) voting for the candidate they feel is least likely to win against the party they actually do support (yeah, I know, I sound like a conspiracy theorist but....)

Anyway, those are the main issues I have with the system. Thoughts?
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Comments

  1. motherhubbard's Avatar
    I wish I had a little more time this morning to address all three of your very good questions. I'll quickly address #3- I know a republican that is registered as a democrat just so that they can vote for the worst dem. in the primary. What's to say that any voter will vote next time?
  2. B-Mental's Avatar
    In one phrase, we appoint our elected officials, and this is a great year to witness it. B
  3. Virgil's Avatar
    Let me first say this has been and continues to be the most exciting election cycle in my life time, and that's for both parties. As to Number 3, yeah in some cases that happens, but pretty much it doesn't. There are rules in some states as to if independents can vote in primaries or by when they need to register in one party. I would say that the jerks that do this are so few that it doesn't alter the winner. As to number two, I do not believe that any states transfer the votes of one candidate to another. The person that drops out maintains his delagates. The winner still needs to amass the winning number on his own. When a loser endorses another candidate, he is just asking his supporters in states that have not voted yet to now support someone else. But it's just asking. As to number one, I'm not sure how the current Primary system evolved. in the olden days, it was just internal party members deciding (that's how you get these analogies to back room deals) who the nominee should be. That's how Lincoln was selected. It evovled to where party members get to vote. I don't know how they decided on the sequence of states, but for some reason certain states had a tradition of going first: Iowa, New Hampshire, and now those states fight like hell to keep that tradition. To some degree it's good that it's not just one day. It gives people a chance to really learn about the candidates over several months. It has been suggested that we have regional primaries, where you do the northeast one month, the south another month, the west another, and so on. It kind of makes sense, but there could be problems with that too.