this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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I have a hard time understanding how "the party" "picks" the candidate.
We have primary elections. There's months of publicity and news reports. There's debates. There's polls. What mechanism(s) does the DNC have to "pick" the candidate? What's the point of the primary if the DNC can overrule what the people want?
I presume the DNC gets to choose where to spend their campaign dollars and can shift marketing one way or the other. Is there some other way they can pick the candidate?
I actually just picked up "Primary Politics" by Elaine C. Kamarck. I'm sure the answer lies in this book I've yet to read.
I'll tell you. It starts with throwing money at ±14 other candidates nobody has ever heard of but whose policy platforms spans the spectrum between the most conservative two candidates and the most progressive. Then the party collectively staggers the primary elections to the point where the progressive candidate can lead and win most of the initial states, but when the party finally comes around to the first state of a moderate size and one of the otherwise less popular conservative candidate suddenly inches ahead, the remaining no-name candidates suddenly drop out, throw their support (and delegates) behind him in a less-than-legal exchange for cabinet positions, so before a large portion of the country even gets a chance to vote, the progressive candidate is told to pull out because there is no possible way he can win enough delegates for the nomination.
When the Democrats say 'don't vote 3rd party because it will split the vote' -that's because they're projecting and it's exactly what they do to ensure a more conservative candidate wins the primary.
Remembering the media hysteria after Bernie won Nevada's caucus followed by the relentless promotion and support given to Biden after he won SC with Clyburn's help. You could feel their collective sense of relief from cable tv heads that their taxes weren't going to go up transmit from the tv into your soul. They were laughing at us.
Wasn't just Clyburn. Obama organized for all the candidates besides Biden and Warren to drop out ahead of SC. This was to ensure that the centerists didn't siphon votes from Biden but Warren did siphon votes from Bernie.
Also Biden didn't have the organization to do well on super tuesday because the establishment didn't like him until they decided he was their only choice for stopping Bernie, so his campaign was anemic and underfunded. They solved this by having the democratic committeemen step in as an impromptu campaign organization where Biden didn't otherwise have get out the vote operations. So they had the democratic party whipping up votes for a particular candidate in their own primary election.
In 2016, there were superdelegates who went exclusively for Clinton, but in 2020, the superdelegate system had been changed, and Biden just won. Most of the other candidates pulled out of the race and endorsed him, making his coalition bigger than Bernie's. Some people on this thread would have you believe that's some grand conspiracy rather than just politics. I voted for Bernie twice, and he was done dirty in 2016, but he just lost in 2020.
All the candidates dropping out to endorse the guy who had thus far been pretty much last was quite the maneuver indeed.
The only things to add would be Warren staying in the race through Super Tuesday. Her supporters would say she was trying to spark a contested convention where she thought she would win the gamble. Her opponents would say she stayed in too long and just worked to keep Sanders campaign from having momentum and kept the left disorganized and divided after the Biden camp drew lines and consolidated.
That and the Clyburn maneuver: Sanders was toast. But that's how shit went down and we all kinda lost.
Murder is also "just politics" if there's no legal accountability
Yeah, sorry you don't see it, but 2020 was as bad as, if not worse than 2016 for the dirty tricks against Bernie. Sorry, but for all the candidates who were contending for the same voters as Biden to drop out at once, but the one candidate who was contending for the same voters as Bernie not dropping out for the the same reason (they couldn't win) stunk to high heaven. That wasn't "just politics" any more than the Superdelegates were in 2016. Both were pure, undemocratic manipulation.