[W:295]Pete Buttigieg to Quit Democratic Presidential Race

[btthegreat]

I think the choice of conduit for these transformative choices was fascinating. How do you get Pete, a devout Christian with ambitions of doing good in politics to listen to reality? You pick an old conscience in the party with plenty of experience juggling in all of the above. Pete had had several meetings with Carter prior to this. I don't know who picked up the phone first, but I can guess the pressures the Biden campaign to quit and unify made a visit to Plains, a high priority. Carter was always at his absolute best in intimate one on one situations. Its why we got the Camp David accords. Nobody appeals to the higher calling, the better angels in a man like Carter does. He can't do squat in a public speech, but put in him in a room with somebody wanting to do the 'right' thing, and he can get a lot done.

 

[Diesel]

And because

- the organization that was tasked with tallying up the vote in Iowa was ran by the wife of Buttigieg's Senior Strategist
- AIPAC spent nearly a million dollars running ads against Bernie Sanders in Iowa.
- the DNC decided to recanvas after Sanders closed the lead that Buttigieg had initially.

Why did Mayor Pete declare victory a few hours after voting had ended, when CNN, Fox and MSNBC had no results in yet?

I don't know. Why don't you ask him?

 

[haymarket]

I thought it was done in a very touching way. During Pete's endorsement event, Biden compared Pete to his late son, Beau.

Very well done!

Saw that also --- those are the moments where Biden is at his best.

 

[OrphanSlug]

ideally, a national primary day.

I would agree with that, some means to deal with 'momentum voting' over voting on the issues. But ultimately deal with how both major parties determine the order of states.

 

[btthegreat]

I would agree with that, some means to deal with 'momentum voting' over voting on the issues. But ultimately deal with how both major parties determine the order of states.

I do agree that the order of these state contests needs a serious look but No way on the national primary. We learn too much about our candidates watching the process unfold. We see their strengths, their weaknesses, how they handle success and failure. Do they handle these with grace, are staff shake-ups a first response or a last response? Do they find ways to share their victories, or do they hoard the credit and share just the blame? Do they self correct for deficiencies or are they stubborn? How much are they chameleons changing their coloring depending on whether they are in the north or south, farm state or urban? Do they do better in open primaries, closed primaries or caucus states and what does that say about the breadth, and passion of their following?

 

[OrphanSlug]

I do agree that the order of these state contests needs a serious look but No way on the national primary. We learn too much about our candidates watching the process unfold. We see their strengths, their weaknesses, how they handle success and failure. Do they handle these with grace, are staff shake-ups a first response or a last response? Do they find ways to share their victories, or do they hoard the credit and share just the blame? Do they self correct for deficiencies or are they stubborn? How much are they chameleons changing their coloring depending on whether they are in the north or south, farm state or urban? Do they do better in open primaries, closed primaries or caucus states and what does that say about the breadth, and passion of their following?

You have three, perhaps more, glaring problems with how we deal with primaries now.

Perhaps most import it still gives a plethora of power to the party itself to greatly influence, for lack of a nicer way to put it, what happens in states later in the process based on states earlier in the primary season. Some states are gifted with the option of looking across multiple candidates, in latter stages other states are dealing with 'momentum voting' pretty much telling them how to vote without saying as much.

And a close second goes to the voter themselves, a significant number of states still have early voting for whatever reason. In that condition we see time and time again the actual voter placing support for a candidate that has dropped out before the official primary vote day in that state because of earlier state voting results pouring in where their state early voting was in progress. The process nullifies votes before that state can count them.

Perhaps lastly it creates a quagmire of a party purposeful playdoh fun factory approach to narrowing down candidates before other states get a say. Early on Democrats go left and compete to see how far they can go so those early states vote on that process but later on come back to the middle (sort of) and those states see a very different candidate in the same primary season, Republicans have a similar approach but rarely come back to center as often as the left does.

A national primary day solves the overwhelming majority of those issues where the voter in each state sees each candidate on who they represent themselves to be up to that point, not putting on one hat in an early state and pivoting to some other candidate down the road.

You empower the voter and lessen the ability for parties to turn to insider shenanigans to ensure an outcome, like Democrats did in 2016... right to an epic loss because of an awful candidate that lost to Trump of all people.

 

[btthegreat]

You have three, perhaps more, glaring problems with how we deal with primaries now.

Perhaps most import it still gives a plethora of power to the party itself to greatly influence, for lack of a nicer way to put it, what happens in states later in the process based on states earlier in the primary season. Some states are gifted with the option of looking across multiple candidates, in latter stages other states are dealing with 'momentum voting' pretty much telling them how to vote without saying as much.

And a close second goes to the voter themselves, a significant number of states still have early voting for whatever reason. In that condition we see time and time again the actual voter placing support for a candidate that has dropped out before the official primary vote day in that state because of earlier state voting results pouring in where their state early voting was in progress. The process nullifies votes before that state can count them.

Perhaps lastly it creates a quagmire of a party purposeful playdoh fun factory approach to narrowing down candidates before other states get a say. Early on Democrats go left and compete to see how far they can go so those early states vote on that process but later on come back to the middle (sort of) and those states see a very different candidate in the same primary season, Republicans have a similar approach but rarely come back to center as often as the left does.

A national primary day solves the overwhelming majority of those issues where the voter in each state sees each candidate on who they represent themselves to be up to that point, not putting on one hat in an early state and pivoting to some other candidate down the road.

You empower the voter and lessen the ability for parties to turn to insider shenanigans to ensure an outcome, like Democrats did in 2016... right to an epic loss because of an awful candidate that lost to Trump of all people.

I think a rotation would work, or a lot system might work to keep the same states from having the same advantage or disadvantage. Don't mind that. If voters want to cast their votes early, they take the risk that they are casting them with less information than later voters will have. Its their convenience, its their price. I dismiss this out of hand. Voters reward what they want more of, if they want candidates moving left, that is what they reward, and that is what they deserve. Likewise a move to the right. No sympathy there either.

In essence the later on in the process that a voter casts his ballot, the more information he has to work with, but the more restricted his field of options becomes. The problem with 2016 had little to do with 'shenanigans' during the voting period. The problem was that there were virtually no candidates to start with. Only three were at the Iowa Debate, and O'Malley quit right after he lost Iowa. We seemed to have solved this problem without a national election day which is a terrible idea. If it were me, I'd be breaking up Super.Tuesday and postpone that kind of pressure to flood 12 states with massive advertising ( you cannot possibly do any personal campaigning effectively for super Tuesday. It kills grass roots campaigning entirely) for at least another month! The traveling circus is actually better for a more intimate understanding. The media have time to vet these different candidates as the ebbs and flows of the campaign move on.

 

[OrphanSlug]

I think a rotation would work, or a lot system might work to keep the same states from having the same advantage or disadvantage. Don't mind that. If voters want to cast their votes early, they take the risk that they are casting them with less information than later voters will have. Its their convenience, its their price. I dismiss this out of hand. Voters reward what they want more of, if they want candidates moving left, that is what they reward, and that is what they deserve. Likewise a move to the right. No sympathy there either.

In essence the later on in the process that a voter casts his ballot, the more information he has to work with, but the more restricted his field of options becomes. The problem with 2016 had little to do with 'shenanigans' during the voting period. The problem was that there were virtually no candidates to start with. Only three were at the Iowa Debate, and O'Malley quit right after he lost Iowa. We seemed to have solved this problem without a national election day which is a terrible idea. If it were me, I'd be breaking up Super.Tuesday and postpone that kind of pressure to flood 12 states with massive advertising ( you cannot possibly do any personal campaigning effectively for super Tuesday. It kills grass roots campaigning entirely) for at least another month! The traveling circus is actually better for a more intimate understanding. The media have time to vet these different candidates as the ebbs and flows of the campaign move on.

You are basically saying the party and those campaigning are more important than the voter, some of those voters you directly say are not important.

 

[truthatallcost]

I don't know. Why don't you ask him?

I'm asking for your opinion.

 

[Diesel]

I'm asking for your opinion.

You're asking me why a politician who began a comment with the words, "So, we don't know all the results," declared victory in a race that he won?

Think about that.