Debate discussion

[doctork]

Gailkate:
Anyone watch the debate? I wimped out, too hard on my blood pressure. I figure they can all beat each other up for a few months before I start subjecting myself to all that brawling.


Jane:
Of course I didn't watch the debate. Humiliating to think this is how low we have sunk.


Doctork:
I did watch the debates - almost all of both of them. I like to hear what everyone has to say. The Donald was kept under much better control this time, though he did complain about Rand Paul being there, as there were only supposed to be 10 candidates in the prime time debate and Paul was #11. Carly Fiorina looked good and did a tart response the the "Look at that face" comment.

I don't get why they are having any debates anyway. I thought they were for after both parties had their conventions and declared their candidates. I am tired of "perpetual elections."
Sometimes the lights all shining on me, Other times I can barely see.
Lately it's occurred to me what a long strange trip it's been.


Joew:
Watched the debates. Liked Bush, Christie, Rubio, Kasich, and Fiorina (mostly). Carson and Trump aren't qualified to be POTUS. Cruz and Paul are too rigid. Huckabee and Walker, not as good as my top five.

They have them now for the benefit of people who will vote in the primaries to choose delegates to the conventions.

We've got to get away from relying so heavily on primaries. We need brokered conventions where party leaders can make deals and settle on who's best, instead of popularity contests where someone who can give good speeches and become a fad gets the nomination even though he's not qualified for the job. It happened to the Dems in 2008 and it could conceivably happen to the Repubs this time around.


Gailkate:
Well, first, that's how convention delegates are chosen, right? Otherwise the convention delegates are simply the best power brokers or the lamest doofuses who finally work their way up by taking minutes and setting up chairs for district meetings. Of course, the primaries still end up choosing among party insiders, at least that's how it works here. Either way the machine still decides the candidates and then the people get to choose between people who might not be the best qualified.

But, um, I guess we'd better not talk about it. Give me Obama over any Republican since Eisenhower.


Joew:
In the good old days, convention delegates were often chosen in a state convention or by the state party committee. Either way, it favored party activists and insiders who were less inclined to support the latest flash-in-the-pan demagogue. They chose between people like Eisenhower and Taft. Nonentity nice guys like Carson or johnny-come-lately demagogues like Trump wouldn't have had a chance. They could tell that a Harold Stassen wasn't really up to the job, despite his popular appeal.

The backroom dealing was capable of producing bad nominees, but I think a system of a few primaries, to give some idea of electability, together with party insider choice in other states, would give us better results than we've been getting for the past 50 years.


Gailkate:
I need to mull on this because, though I was around for and relatively informed all those 50 years, I just can't remember when the shift came. Caucuses in MN have been around for much longer, and the caucus process elected delegates who were committed to candidates. Of course, there could be brokering at the state and national conventions that would make delegates switch over to their 2nd or 3rd choice. It seems to me the kick-off primary in the snows of New Hampshire goes back a very long way. But I don't know when other states started primaries or how their process worked/works post-primary at the conventions. Certainly the conventions used to be a lot more entertaining, but we've only followed them on TV since the 50s.

Now I have to start poking around in election history, which may take my aging brain a long time. I found this first:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_presidential_primaries,_1968

Toward the end of this piece (bringing up names I'd forgotten were involved) they seem to be mixing Dems and Repubs, so I'll have to investigate further when I'm more motivated.


I think probably we should take this whole discussion into a news/politics thread. Does anyone know how to do that?

[doctork]

So I cut and pasted a little to reproduce the political discussion about the debates & primary systems here.

One thing that looks a lot different to me about "today" vs "the old days" is the huge amount of money going into politics. Anyone with a few (hundred) millions of $$ can buy the politician s/he wants. I know this got worse since Citizens United but I think it was certainly there before once PAC's began to take precedence over individual donations.

Previously influence and longevity seemed to count more than money, so long as a certain basic amount was available. Remember when that little check box on your tax return to donate $1.00 seemed important, and candidates thought federal monies were necessary for a campaign?

[gailkate]

Thanks, K!

Yes, I do remember the $1 check-off, though I haven't thought of it in years. I think the rise in money-mongering has definitely changed the process and people's feelings about govt. Here's a piece by a MN politico who has moved into national Republican consulting.


One of the nation's leading political insiders thinks the system he helped devise is broken and has undermined Americans' confidence in their government.

Former U.S. Rep. Vin Weber, a prominent Republican strategist from Minnesota, said Thursday that the fact that the three leading GOP candidates for president -- Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina -- are people "who have never served a day in government" and that Democratic socialist Bernie Sanders is rising in the polls as Hillary Clinton's campaign falters suggests American voters have reached a "breaking point" with the political status quo.

People throughout the western world are angry with their political leaders and institutions, prompting the rise of radical parties on both the left and right, Weber said in an address at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs in Minneapolis.
In the U.S., he said, recent polls show that three-fourths of Americans think their political system is dysfunctional and more than 70 percent believe it's fundamentally corrupt.
"What bothers me is that for the past 12 years, a majority or plurality of the American people have said we're on the wrong track," Weber said. "Eventually, that has a corrosive effect on our politics."

Among the reasons Americans are angry, he said, are income disparities, stagnant incomes and a lack of social mobility.While people are venting their anger at establishment candidates now, Weber, who supports Jeb Bush, thinks Republicans will nominate the former Florida governor for president and Democrats will pick Clinton has their standard barrier.
That's because the nominating system is rigged in favor of candidates who can raise huge sums of money and organize vast networks of supporters, he said. But that system further alienates voters who feel their voices aren't being heard.

Weber thinks one positive political sign is that voters are tuning in early in this campaign. A year before the election, Trump is drawing the kinds of crowds that most presidential candidates don't get until a week or two before the election. And the Republican debate Wednesday night had ratings that rival an NFL football game.
"No matter how pessimistic people are about conditions in the country and how angry people might be, it is a good first step to see people are getting heavily involved in the process," he said.

He predicted Americans eventually will take control of the political process they don't believe is working and the institutions in which they have lost confidence.
 
I guess he's right about the disenchantment, though I hope it isn't as high as whatever poll he's citing says it is. I am surprised he didn't mention the huge money issue as a reason for the disenchantment. Shenanigans were increasing before Citizens United (think about "bundling" of limited contributions under McCain/Feingold) but nothing like what we're seeing now. That's why I mentioned the debate in the first place - so many people are too dispirited to bother.  The high viewership on Wednesday doesn't mean people are genuinely more interested in the process.  They're like the rabble kept entertained by bread and circuses -Trump being the showman who produces the spectacle. I don't think it helps, either, that CNN has put no limits on audience cheering and jeering.  So far the debates have looked a lot like World Wrestling - I don't watch, but I think WWE draws a big audience at least 5 nights a week.

[Jane]

I heard today on NPR that this is the most wealthy field of candidates who have ever run. There's something wrong with that. It shouldn't be a matter of money--one's own or large contributors to win a race. I wonder if anyone running this year isn't a millionaire. I know that the Obamas only paid off their student loans right before he entered the race. I know he is rich now because of all the books he sold since he has become pres, but he wasn't before. And Truman? I don't think he had money. Joe Biden was supposedly the poorest man in the Senate.

Now it seems that they are ALL (with the exception of Sanders) in thrall to men with money.

It's damn depressing.

[doctork]

From time to time I think that if only wealthy people ran for office then we would actually be better off. Like the Rockefellers or John Heinz or the Kennedys - they already had plenty of money and were well-known so they didn't have to win political office to achieve that. They could actually vote their conscience and for the people they represented.

They still may not be beholden to wealthy donors if they are super-wealthy (think Trump and other billionaires) but the fact is now one can start without too much money but can buy an office through very wealthy donors (Koch, Adelson, Soros), who have then purchased the government they want that will reliably act for their own benefit. The system is rigged now; we have government of the big corporations, by the big corporations and for the big corporations. "We the people" don't matter any more.

I think there is still some hope at the state level. The problem is that politicians who do well at the state level get "promoted" to the federal level. A few of them are ethical and so shocked that they don't run for re-election, while the rest become interested only in being re-elected. I've known quite a few state level politicians who completely change when they enter the House, and especially the Senate, or run for President.