US Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI) Discusses DNC Superdelegates and DNC Primary "Rigging" with Joe Rogan

Interesting thread timing, this happened about 3 weeks ago:

In response, the DNC has adjusted how it selects its presidential nominee. Earlier this summer, a DNC subcommittee voted to make it impossible for superdelegates to have the deciding vote on the first ballot at a national convention. In practical terms this means that superdelegates cannot vote in the first voting round if their support is going to decide the selection. If no candidate wins a majority in the first round, superdelegates get to vote in subsequent rounds. Thanks to DNC Chair Tom Perez — who lobbied heavily for the change — the DNC has now voted to implement the proposal.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...or-2020/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5f02e86fc515

 

and what she said is BS.

The DNC is a political party that is joined by choice. If you dont like how they do things in the DNC, then join another party or create your own.

The elites of the party do a lot for the success of the party including the key responsibility of raising funds and developing the political machinery. Sanders most likely joined the DNC primaries (and didnt contest as an independent) not cos of some democratic ideals but cos he wanted access to the party resources. It can be argued that being able to lobby the support of both the popular vote and the elite reflects the ability of the candidate.

The superdelegates were only 716 (about 15%). If you lose cos of superdelegates, it can be said you werent overwhelmingly popular in the first place.

On the electoral college, beyond the implicit disenfranchising that happens with block allocation of electoral votes, faithless electors can vote against the result of the election in their state, which is not much different from super delegates voting against the result of the primaries..

 

I read up on it when it was brought up last year.

RCP’s tally shows that Obama won the pop vote by certain counts and the “official total”, unlike the popular vote outcome for 2016.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html

 

Your opinion interestingly falls along party line... i am shocked.

 

If you count all the votes, clinton won the popular vote for the primaries. The Dem primaries are so stupid and controlled it didn't matter after the super delegates sold her down the river. something the old guys in the GOP were unable to do to Trump.

 

You ASSume Bernie would have still won where Clinton won and then won more in the Rust Belt.

You don’t care about Bernie, you care about smearing Dems. Trump taking over the GOP is far worse than the DNC wanting to pick an actual Democrat instead of an independent who needed access to campaign funds and resources. Were equally upset when Obama won over the established elites choice of Clinton in 2008? Of course you aren’t.

 

Isn't this because of the whole Michigan thing where she broke the rules and ran unopposed when no other candidate did? IIRC, she would have lost otherwise...vaguely remembering the debates on this board between Obama and Clinton supporters about that issue.

 

I listened to this podcast last night. I also knew the information before I heard it.

I agree with some of what you said here. The thing is though it it’s rotten to its core. You don’t have ratios like that in voting. Then have the superdelegates doled out in that way. It literally throws intended votes away.

 

Fair enough. I forgot why they threw out the MI primary delegates, but the rules shouldn't be designed to be arcane or procedural that a normal voter can't spend five minutes to understand.

 

Yes.... we get it dude. Corruption is bipartisan... but you’re missing the point and what you are doing now is a big big problem instead of being realistic about real solutions and a pathway to actually fixing the problem.

Since Citizens United (based on a Reagan era SCOTUS decision) the Democratic Party and its top leaders have had to be in bed with billionaires and Corporations as well. They cannot compete financially against the GOP without doing so.

So what do we do... exactly what we are doing now. Start electing more and more candidates like Beto, and co who don’t take PAC money and continue to help those candidates win elections. Because the only way Citizens United can eventually be overturned is by way of the Supreme Court. Why aren’t you putting this much energy into the Kavanaugh nomination? If you care about money and corruption in politics... the buck stops there in the SCOTUS.

This change cannot happen overnight. It starts with getting the right candidates elected though.... and what you are doing now doesn’t help. b****ing about Hillary’s “EMAILS” like a Russian bot does not help.

You want to help, help get candidates elected that aren’t beholden to PAC money. Are THOSE candidates also on “both sides”. Do you see Ted Cruz swearing off PAC money?

This is where the change starts man. Continue to voice the issue of money in politics and help get candidates elected not in bed with dark money coming from PAC’s.

The most unproductive thing you can do is what you are doing now. Making a both sides argument with conspiracy theories galore where the only outcome seems to be a suggestion of blowing everything up with a chaos candidate in the White House who believes in the same conspiracies.... How’s that working out now for everyone???

 

Again.... the voters on the left are doing this. There are actual goals that we have though other than just jumping on the messiah complex train like the right did with Trump
and your so-called “libertarians” do to continue to empower him. (Yes...Rand Paul... the Freedom Caucus... they are complete hypocrites on this subject).

The goal is to eventually overturn Citizens United and get money out of politics. b****ing about Hillary vs Bernie in 2016 runs contrary to those goals, and weakens that cause.

Nobody on the left is disagreeing with Gabbard or saying that Bernie didn’t get screwed in 16. But rehashing over and over again hurts the ultimate objectives we have and helps create the disfunctional vacuum that gives rise to people like Trump to begin with.

The Democratic Party has been bloodletting for two years now and going into 2018 and looking at the change in candidates winning primaries I see ZERO reasons to believe the Left hasn’t been working to resolve everything you are talking about, and as long as the electorate continues to remind the officials that what we want is Money out of politics, progress can be had, but it won’t be had just with an overnight fix with a messiah complex like the right had with Trump.

And it certainly won’t be had by continuing to rehash Hillary and her damn emails.

 

It's not a bigger deal because Superdelegates tend to change their votes later to reflect public opinion if it ever matters. This happened in the so-long-ago-its-apparently-too-hard-to-remember 2008 election, where the majority started with Hillary, and as it became clear Obama would win, they shifted to him.

At the end of the day, superdelegates are pretty irrelevant and have never changed the results of the primaries, which is why it's not a bigger issue. The are simply a dumb way for people to feel imporant about themselves. The only people it "baffles" are the ones that desperately want to believe Bernie was cheated (the rep) and/or people who want to b**** about the DNC (you).

 

LOL. The entire GOP has rallied around being anti-trade and pro-spending because their new GOP leader was that way. They literally threw away decades of domestic and foreign policy beliefs to jump in line with him. The party has majority belief in a variety of random conspiracy theories Trump has promoted. The only GOPers at the national level who challenge are people who are not running for re-election - Flake, Corker, etc. Cruz - who once was horrified by Trump - has embraced him fully. Rand Paul, the supposed radical libertarian independent, has basically ditched everything he believed and wrapped himself in Trump. Let's not pretend that the GOP challenges their party at all.

 

Do we wonder how Trump won?

A right-winger shares a Democratic candidate who he feels he could get behind. But yet this thread has turned into a bunch of nonsense about Super Delegates.