Was the Nevada Caucus an Outrage against Democracy?

[Tom Rinaldo]

Who won Nevada anyway, Clinton or Obama? What is the fair criteria to use to make that call? Was it the candidate who won the most popular votes in Nevada, or the candidate who won the most delegates in Nevada who "won"?

Next question:

Is it a serious problem that the candidate who won the most votes in Nevada got the least delegates from Nevada?

And finally:

What if any candidate supporters attacked the agreed upon system in place for awarding Nevada's delegates as anti-Democratic?

[ursi]

1. Are you following this issue, really? It's not over.

http://www.rgj.com/blogs/inside-nevada-politics/2008/02/dems-to-appoint-committee-to-look-into.html

[Tom Rinaldo]

4. I have been under the impression that complaints from both sides

regarded how the actual caucuses were run, and irregularities and problems associated with that, not over the actual formular used to disperse delegates awarded.

And I also am reflecting on how DU posters related to all the intitial reports, which showed one candidate winning the popular vote and another winning the most delegates.

[sfam]

2. Outrage against democracy by letting the state party determine how best...

to allocate their delegates??? How is this even a valid argument? The regional delegate thing is in place to make sure the candidates work the rural areas as well as the large city populations. Whether or not you personally agree with this, I just don't get the "outrage against democracy" rant.

What's there to be outraged about? At worst, I would understand if the state democratic party wants to tinker with their rules - but this is a FAR thing from an outrage. An outrage would be, say, if they closed the doors earlier than they said they would, which would leave many voters disenfranchised. This might be an outrage, but the agreed upon delegate proportioning??? Come on.

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I did not call it an outrage. I asked if others thought it was

and I did so for a reason. The Nevada Democratic Party set the rules for that contest in advance, and the caucus was played by those rules. The DNC set the rules for the overall Democratic nomination contest in advance, and currently it is being played by those rules. Some are claiming those agreed upon rules are undemocratic. I wonder if there is intellectual honesty and consistency being shown by DU posters on the whole question of what are and are not "democratic rules".

[Medusa]

3. Well I think if you have Clinton supporters hiding ballot boxes in their garages

yes, we may have a problem.

[madfloridian]

5. Yes, I agree.

And apparently it really happened.

[Tom Rinaldo]

7. Two points in reply

1) This thread is not about anything that happened in New Mexico. I don't mind so much you bringing up something that is not directly related to the OP, lots of important things are tangeentally related to whatever topic is under discussion. But I do mind you completely ignoring the topic of my OP and bringing up a different issue to deflect from addressing what I actually asked about. Plenty of DU members had a lot to say about the Nevada results at the time. On reflection I wonder if they still feel the same way about it now.

2) There are threads on DU currently about New Mexico and the boxes in that garage. I have no problem with them. I commented on one, and I assure you that my comment on that thread was not devoted to talking about the Nevada Caucus. If existing New Mexico themed threads do not support the discussion you want to have, you are free to start another one. I will simply say here that no one has established that the fact that an individual election official supporting Clinton is proof s/he put those boxes in their garage over night to support Clinton. There may have been other races on that ballot that person wanted to influence, or excuses I have seen given related to weather conditions or whatever may be true - there may be a greater case for stupidity and incompetence than election theft. Further thre is no evidence anyone has cited to establish that the Clinton campaign either knew of or supported that action. I fully support a thorough investigation and let the chips fall where they may on that.

Meanwhile I would still appreciate your reaction to the actual theme of THIS thread.

[caseycoon]

6. This primary season

has been an outrage against Democracy from the beginning!

[Tom Rinaldo]

9. No one willing to try answering these qustions?

Does that mean that everyone agrees that whoever wins the most delegates, according to the rules in place at the time of the contest, deserves to be the overall wonner regardless of the popular vote tallies?

[robbedvoter]

10. Civilised countries have direct, equal, secret vote. So, yeah, all this primary

has been some stone age illusion of what Democracy should be.

[TankLV]

11. I wouldn't call it an outrage - but it was seriously fucked...

too many inexperienced people running around not knowing what to do...

I prefer the Primary System...

but because of the caucus system - I got to meet a lot of nice people - from all sides...

I really came away liking my neighbors...

It seems to be a throw-back to the "smoke filled back room wheeling and deeling" days...I thought we had progressed beyond that long ago...aparently not...

[boston bean]

12. Well we're gonna be in a pickle.

If it is basically a tie with neither getting the majority of delegates, which way should a super delegate determine their pledge.

I go with most popular votes, because we already know how an electoral process can be manipulated, see the year 2000.

Now, I can understand why one would want the consideration to be most delegates, because that is how the game was played. Although, caucus states are much smaller and easier to manipulate, so if obama only wins small states, should he be the candidate. Will the larger amount of votes be disenfranchised going this route.

Either way it is not going to be pretty if it comes down to either scenario. So I hope the person with the most delegates is the person with the most popular votes.

[Tom Rinaldo]

14. I agree with that.

I hope the person who wins the most delegates is the person who won the most popular votes also. But it gets complicated after that. What if one candidate rolled up big numbers of popluar votes in one region only, like the South or the North East, but tended to lose elsewhere by smaller margins? What if one candidate rolls up significant popular vote wins in states that it is virutally impossible that a Democrat would win in 2008 while tending to lose states that were potentially more competitive? What if one candidate tends to win contests that only Democrats can vote in but loses contests that anyone who wants to declare as a Democrat as a day, or as an independent, can vote in?

[paulk]

13. I think caucuses in general are a load of crap

I've thought this for many years. The state party organizations should all go to primaries, and most have over the years, because they are a much more accurate gage of the will of the party members.

The candidate who gets the most votes should win, period. One man, one vote. We've got Bush in the White House because of a delegate system.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. Here is my own reply

Clinton won Nevada, and Obama won the most delegates from Nevada. If Clinton keeps winning that way she will lose the nomination, even though in the most popular sense of the word she won Nevada by getting the most votes there.

The nomination is determined by who wins the most delegates. Rules were set up in advance by both the individual State Democratic Parties and the DNC to establish who gets to be a delegate to the National Convention and how. Some rules have clauses that allow for the initial determination of delegate allotment to be reviewed and potentially overturned. Some do not. Where there is an appeal process it is valid for any interested party to pursue an appeal by previously agreed upon rules.

All of the candidates knew or were able to know all of the rules in advance of this primary season. There are internal democratic procedures governing both the National Democratic Committee and the various State Democratic Committees. There is always an opportunity for members of the Democratic Party to seek changes to rules they feel poorly serve the Democratic party in advance of them needing to be used in practice.

By both the national and state rules, some delegates are bound by pledges, and some are not.

I am sure that it can be argued either way that the rules governing delegate selection in Nevada are wise or unwise, but they were put in place well before the caucus was held, and those rules reflected the position agreed on by the Nevada Democratic Party in advance.

The candidate supporters on DU who most strenuously argued that the rules used in Nevada established that Barack Obama won the Nevada caucus because he won the most delegates from Nevada despite losing the popular vote there were Obama supporters. With very little effort that can be established by using the Search function on DU.

My overall opinion is that you play a game by the rules in effect when you agreed to play in that game. If the rules should be improved then work to improve them, but until new rules are formally accepted and in place, than the old rules are not only still valid but in a practical sense they are fair - since they were agreed to by a legitimate proscribed process that any Democrat was free to organize to change at any time before this contest began.

[marcellobarrios]

16. Why Nevada and not the zillion caucus states that Obama won?

cherrpick much?

[Tom Rinaldo]

18. Were there any other caucuses where the majority of votes went to one candidate

and the majority of delegates went to another candidate? I would gladly include them in this discussion also.

[sandnsea]

17. It's about minority representation

Using proportional calculations to give all citizens a voice, something Democrats used to believe in. Obama won Nevada.

[Tom Rinaldo]

19. It's about rules established in advance by the Democratic Party

to further the interests of the Democratic Party. This is an example of a rule that over rules flat out one person one vote representation. Personally I can accept that for the reasons you mention. There are arguments in favor of giving Democrats elected to the highest offices in our land a small say in picking the nominee also. You or I may or may not agree with the reasoning behind those, but they are pre-established rules also that do not adhere strictly to automatically giving the nomination to the person who wins the highest total vote count.