As a Sanders supporter, I don't like what happened in Nevada, either.

[Ken Burch]

It points out some major flaws in the caucus process.

But OUR campaign is blameless in this. It's the Nevada state Dems that screwed the pooch here.

Let's go after them...not anybody's presidential campaign.

[noretreatnosurrender]

1. Really

Let's be reality focused here and not go off into la la land.

[MADem]

2. Caucuses suck. They are exercises in disenfranchisement, bullying and exclusion.

There is nothing "democratic" about them. They are a vestige of The Bad Old Days, when no one had TV or busy lives, where community gatherings were the only form of amusement, and where everyone was up in everyone else's business.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. Nevada Caucus is not a vestige it is a new thing, 2008 was their first, they replaced the primary

to get an earlier slot. I don't care for caucuses. But the Democratic Party of Nevada seems to. Washington State Democrats sued to be allowed to caucus instead of primary. It's not about traditions in either case, not about the past, not about the candidates.

[MADem]

11. Well, I was talking about the history of them but I take your point--primaries are a new thing,

too.

We used to pick our party leaders in smoke-filled rooms. I'd as soon go back to that, if the alternative is caucuses.

[Ken Burch]

18. Fine. But at least admit the Sanders campaign didn't invent them.

It was the party leaders in the states(few of whom would ever have wanted a progressive to win our presidential nomination)who did that.

I posted a series of proposals for caucus reform(if we can't get rid of caucuses, that is):

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511628657

[Bluenorthwest]

23. Part of my point is that if we do not like caucuses we should make sure those who push for them know

we don't like them. To do that we need to know that actual elected persons in NV created their caucus system very recently. Harry Reid promoted the caucus idea and he should hear the push back. Nevada had a primary until 2008.

[Ken Burch]

16. Nonetheless, Bernie's caucus wins have all been legitimate.

There were no states in which HRC would have won if only there had been a primary instead of a caucus.

Nobody is counting what happened in Nevada as a "win", and the Sanders campaign is blameless.

[MADem]

22. Small numbers in terms of the total eligible voters--people who have the time, who don't have to

work, who have rides, who aren't afraid to drive at night, who can get child care, who aren't afraid of being bullied or berated, etc.

Primary contests would bring a magnitude more of people out to exercise their franchise. They could vote on the way to work, on the way home, or by absentee ballot. Caucuses do not permit this.

[Ken Burch]

25. Agreed, primary contests would bring out larger turnouts, and we all want that.

I'm just saying that that wouldn't have switched any of the states Bernie won to states HRC would have won. Bernie would have won all of those states anyway. The landslide margins we have piled up in most caucus states wouldn't have happened if the vast majority of voters in those states weren't favorable to our candidate and the issues we fight for.

Aggressive conduct has always happened in all caucuses, unfortunately. It's just part of the deal. And Bernie didn't win any caucus by bullying-generally Sanders supporters outside of the cyberworld(as is the case of HRC supporters outside of the cyberworld) are decent, polite people who treat others with respect. The HRC campaign has no special claim to superiority on the civility question.

[MADem]

33. I just don't think aggressive conduct should ever be part of the enfranchisement process.

It's one thing to advocate ahead of a vote, but on the day of voting, people should be left the hell alone.

[Ken Burch]

34. OK...but that wasn't invented this year.

And if you are implying that Bernie supporters are more aggressive than HRC supporters, that simply isn't the case.

We are not a campaign of thugs.

[MADem]

39. Well yes, I am claiming that, because it is true.

The youthful voters are very enthusiastic and they are quite brutal in their scorn. The Clinton voters, many of whom are older, are sometimes intimidated by their behavior.


You even see it here on this board. Every time I critique Sanders, I get told all about MYSELF. It's the default response--if I question his national security credentials, I'm an (insert rude invective). If I ask about why he has refused to release his Schedule A--or all but one lame summary (not a tax return) from last year that raises more questions than it answers--I get called names.

It happens over and over again.

I notice.

I am not the only one who gets this treatment, either.

I don't return fire, I simply point it out.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Like I said before, that's we have super delegates.

I'm not worried.

Super delegates are there to fix situations like this where some campaigns try to bend the rules.

Thank god for super delegates!

[kiva]

7. Bend some rules?

Proof...oh wait, you don't actually ever provide proof, you prefer to make accusations and run.

[Henhouse]

9. Agreed...even more so when the Supers support the candidate with the majority of votes.

Not sure how Sander's supporters are going to reconcile Bernie getting more delegates in a county where he lost the actual vote by 10%.

[Ken Burch]

12. The Sanders campaign has never tried to bend the rules.

We've played fair throughout this.

And what happened in Nevada was not the Sanders campaign's fault.

We have never supported anything remotely like voter suppression.

Everywhere we've won, we've won fair and square.

[questionseverything]

20. i have no problem with what happened in clark county @ convention

i think it shows perfectly that hc's support is manufactured

a mile wide and an inch deep

i think it shows the possibility that the counts announced on caucus day were not correct

[kiva]

4. Thank you!

Harry Reid and the state Democratic Party got so caught up in being "the first in the West" that they agreed to perpetuate this system that disenfranchises voters...and I say that as a Bernie supporter who help to flip yesterday's convention.

We need to get rid of the caucus system.

[roguevalley]

5. when I caucused in Alaska I wanted to be a delegate but couldn't because traveling to Anchorage

was too far and too hard at this time. I didn't because I couldn't show up. HRC and her people own this one. THey didn't show up.

[Henhouse]

10. Hillary's actual voters showed up by large margin on 02/20/16. Bernie still lost the popular vote ;-

But hey his supporters showed up in force to win the delegates. Congratulations....

[Ken Burch]

13. Bernie's supporters weren't obligated to not show up just because HRC's didn't show up.

We didn't invent the caucus process and we didn't corrupt it.

The issue is with the Nevada Dems, and no one else.

[WolverineDG]

31. Then your real beef is with the HRC voters who didn't show up

and since she's been campaigning for President since 2008, there is absolutely no excuse for her to not anticipate needing her supporters to show up to caucuses. Instead her campaign neglected the caucuses (again) & I see the same whining used in 2008 has been recycled.

[Gwhittey]

6. Yea the Nevada win is kinda like

Masturbating to Bestiality porn. At first it might feel good, but afterwards when you are thinking about it it makes you feel all dirty inside.

[Ken Burch]

14. The state party itself is solely to blame.

Bernie did nothing to cause HRC supporters not to show up.

(and I'm not going to ask if the erotic genre that inspired your metaphor actually involved the party mascot).

[Gwhittey]

19. Oh I know that

Even though I am not actual one doing the nasty to the donkey I feel guilty after watching it because I enjoyed watching it and donkey really is not a consenting adult to the whole thing.

[Skwmom]

15. If this post is correct, the Clinton campaign should be ashamed.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/1509733/full_content

[kiva]

24. OK, this explains a lot about what happened. nt

[merrily]

26. The OP says NO campaign is to blame. S/he KNOWS more about it than anyone because....no reason.

Primary after primary, caucus after caucus...each one, just an isolated sitch, and collectively, just lemonysnickets series of unfortunate (for Sanders) sheer coincidences.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/04/01/how-hillary-clinton-bought-the-loyalty-of-33-state-democratic-parties/

http://jackpineradicals.org/showthread.php?8042-Democrats-angle-for-power-in-Clinton-administration

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/democrats-power-hillary-clinton-administration-221308

And nothing, nothing has been stacked in her favor. Not DWS, not the DNC, not the Party, not the msm--NOTHING.

The Tyndall Report, the many politicians, the many pundits and the many articles by responsible journalists saying otherwise are pure fiction. DU posters always are the ones--and the only ones-- with the real skinny, especially the Bernie Butter DUers. You KNOW you can trust everything they post in Hillary's favor because, after all, they self-identify as Bernie supporters.

[Skwmom]

27. +1,000,000,000,000!!!

[merrily]

29. Thanks for persevering though the many typos. I think I just corrected most of them.

My computer was freezing on me until I re-booted.

[dorkzilla]

32. Wow

Mind boggling.

[baldguy]

17. If the irregularities favored the Sanders campaign, nobody would have heard a peep about this.

And if the recount had favored Clinton, the Bernistas would still be screaming about conspiracies.

[merrily]

30. Bull puckies. Hillary supporters have "screamed" over much less, including fabricated crap.

[riderinthestorm]

21. Agreed but nobody said anything when CoffeeCat reported this in IA

and the county flipped to Hillary after some real shenanigans.

Ive said it though and will repeat again, caucus' must go. Nobody should be disenfranchised ever.

[stillwaiting]

28. I did not like the shady shit that happened in Las Vegas during the precinct level caucus.

There have been SO many shenanigans in so many states and all of them had benefitted HRC.

It is not surprising to me that some of HRC's delegates from Las Vegas failed to show at the county level caucus. I think many of the people that caucused for her in Vegas were forced to do so by their bosses while they were on the clock. We have actual video footage of individuals being ushered in to caucus for HRC that were not registered to vote. How many locations did this occur in where we did not have video footage?

This has been such an unfair primary for so many reasons on so many occasions. This incident does not bother me a bit. It might even more fairly reflect what would have happened without the casinos ushering in their workers to caucus for HRC.

The party has been very biased this primary which has made it extremely difficult for Bernie to compete fairly.

[Eric J in MN]

35. In some primary states, delegates are weighted by Congressional District.

And so presidential primaries aren't necessarily one-person-one-vote.

Next time, we should get rid of delegates. Make the winner of the popular vote automatically the nominee.

[Ken Burch]

36. That is a great idea.

What possible objection could there be?

Most conventions start with the nomination already decided*that might not be the case this year), so other than giving the host city a chance to sell overpriced hotel rooms for several days in the heat of summer, what real purpose do they serve?

They don't settle policy matters.

They don't empower the party rank-and-file.

Other than being great for the silly-hat industry(based mostly in other countries nowadays), what is the point?

[Bernin4U]

37. Of course it's our fault!

If we'd have given up and stopped supporting Bernie in Feb, like we were supposed to, then Hilary's said fukkups would be irrelevant.

And remember, "like it or not, them's the rules." (Except for when the wrong side wins.)

Having caucused in WA twice, I don't see it as undemocratic at all. You get to openly debate with your neighbors; a refreshing change from "head down, mouth shut." Those who can't make it for good reason can still vote absentee.

Only downside so far is that the party seems pretty lousy at planning and managing for the crowd size. If 1000 people show up instead of 300, don't plan for somewhere that maxes out at 350.

[JaneyVee]

38. END THE CAUCUSES.