IOWA is a useless factor now... lol... The candidate that wins it usually loses anyway right? I think it's largely just media hype to get ratings on something because they need to pull viewers.
Should be done all at once and just get that **** overwith. We no longer live in the day of trains when candidates would tour around stumping. Just talk on youtube and have everyone go vote. This crap is a waste of money and lets useless states sway the election more than they deserve. Not to mention the candidates flip flop a lot on the trail and it's good to just force them to nationally reveal their positions.
Putting the focus on Super Tuesday states would just mean the richest candidates win. Hillary would have smoked Obama. Bernie would have been a nonfactor in 2016. etc. The point of using small states early is that it involves retail campaigning and candidates who weren't the best known on Day #1 would have a shot to impress and build momentum early on. That said, Iowa by itself is silly. I think Iowa, NH, Nevada, and South Carolina should all go on one day, and then another set of smaller/mid-size states should be at least 2-3 weeks later, and then all the biggest states should have to wait until after that. Those 4 states are a good mix geographically and demographically and lets multiple campaigns have success early and focus on their individual strengths.
@Major I have always appreciated your detailed knowledge on topics like this in regards to political topics like this. I know you own your business. Have you ever worked i n politics? You seem a lot more knowledgeable than most talking heads. I know on most topics on Clutchfans you are facts first. Its appreciated
Thanks. Businesses are my income sources and passion projects (I love the creation/challenge/etc). Politics is more of an obsessive hobby for me - I've never been involved in it professionally, but I did go to grad school for policy stuff and love watching the process and getting into the details. I'd love to get involved with campaigns on the strategy side, but just have never really pursued it. Ultimately, I'd be more interested in policy than politics, but so much of policy is just driven by politics instead of sound fundamentals that that got depressing real fast.
We should all vote on the same day. I get the basic idea that states enjoy the direct attention candidates give their states in early voting, but it is ridiculous that our vote is so spread out. It affects voters in other states by somewhat narrowing the field by Super Tuesday, and for those of us that vote after Super Tuesday, our votes are usually worthless by that point. FWIW, I'd love to do away with primaries at all because screw the party system.
That's good to hear -- because it sounded even more terrible and incompetent than normal. Cool. That doesn't really address anything I posted though. I'm sure. This does not alleviate the central concern about conflict of interest, though. We probably ought not invite partisan actors into the process whereever we can avoid it. It ain't that hard to find someone who doesn't have a lot of political ties to develop an app for you. The assumption is fairly obvious. Sanders was going to win and delaying/complicating the outcome basically robs Sanders of his "moment" and precious momentum and attention. Now the narrative isn't about who won, it's about the caucus itself and the media coverage will immediately move on to the SOTU and the Impeachment Acquittal to follow. If you're not going to win, it is in your best interest to muddy the waters as much as possible. If you hate Bernie, it is especially in your interest to make sure he doesn't get a chance to have a clean victory. Call it garbage all you want, but you didn't really address anything other than simply saying it isn't true... and that's cool, because maybe you are correct and the little internet sleuths on Twitter are all making these things up. For the record, I'm not buying it either (the part about the malicious intent/kneecapping Bernie), but I'm astounded that we'd leave the door open for things like this to manifest. Edit: Mercifully Shadow Inc (or their Parent company as far as I'm aware) did not donate to the Buttigieg campaign. The receipts are showing rather that the Buttigieg campaign paid Shadow Inc, which is much less worrisome.
Doing it all in one go has its advantages and disadvantages. Spreading the candidates so thin is harmful in some ways. Having them too concentrated is harmful in other ways. I think it is obvious we are far too tilted toward the latter now. Maybe do it 4 waves. Waves 1 is 5 states. Then Wave 2 is another 5 states. Then Wave 3 is 10 states. Then Wave 40 can be the remaining 30. Rotate the pool each cycle. Wave 1 moves to Wave 4, Wave 2 moves to 1, etc.
None of this is true. Several caimpaigns have "connections" to the app company. So we really are gonna have the biggest hand in reelecting Trump. This must be the russians wet dream. Sow dougt and watch them turn on themselves. We probably deserve another 4 years of Trump the way this is going.
Do you think the app was the only way to tabulate votes. Do you even know what the job of the app was? How do you know who was behind?
It's probably helpful to drive primary turnout. The hype of the Iowa caucus results gets people (those so inclined anyway) to start salivating for their turn to vote.
I would not be surprised if Russia had something to o with this, it's right out of there playbook and they know how the Berny bros and Yang gang will react.
Wow this didn't take long. First voting day and we have within the Democratic party: a voting system debacle, progressives shouting conspiracy centrists slinging the brown stuff with name calling/flame-throwing Silly me for thinking the Democrats wouldn't knife each other to death at least until after Super Tuesday. Hard to say what to have less faith in: The Dems not succumbing to self-immolation before the election or the Texans with a 20+ lead. Meanwhile Trump booked 97% in Iowa and has the highest approval rating in 3 years...
Well Trump's performance in Iowa isn't particularly relevant. The caucus is primarily old, white, less educated and rural. It's a perfect demographic for Trump. With that said, Iowa Caucus screwups aren't new. It wasn't that long ago when the Iowa Republican Party flat out announced the wrong winner and screwed Rick Santorum out of the media spotlight and momentum that he should've gotten. With that said, the system as a whole is terrible. Primaries are generally run by the same people who run state and local elections. Caucuses are run by the parties themselves who more often than not are just ill equipped to even attempt such a thing. My state got rid of caucuses for this election in part because turnout is terrible and unrepresentative and people don't enjoy waiting hours for the caucus ceremonies to complete (including waiting in the cold just to enter the building). The caucus system needs to end asap and both parties have proven that caucuses are a failure.
