Who would you vote for if the election was today?

[Denny Crane]

I wrote about 1/2 of Hillary's voters, tongue in cheek. Though McCain has a reputation of being appealing to Democrats, I always got the impression they were hyping him up in hopes of running against him, rather than actually wanting to vote for him.

When push comes to shove, Democrats are going to hold their noses and vote for Democrats. That's what they do. Or they'll stay home.

When I've looked at the universal health care systems around the world, the only one that looks half-way decent is the German one. Participation is optional, and they force the families to care for family members to reduce the number of prolonged hospital and hospice stays.

If our government wants to insure the 45M or so uninsured, it'd cost maybe $150B to $200B out of a $3T budget. A far cry from the $1.5T additional bloat the UHC fans want to grow govt. by.

BJM - the Democratic Party selected Obama, the voters didn't choose any representatives to do the voting on their behalf. As I pointed out, the folks you call "representatives" of the people of Mass. voted against the will of the people as witnessed by their voting preference in the actual democratic voting.

 

[Real]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane)</div><div class='quotemain'>I wrote about 1/2 of Hillary's voters, tongue in cheek. Though McCain has a reputation of being appealing to Democrats, I always got the impression they were hyping him up in hopes of running against him, rather than actually wanting to vote for him.</div>

I disagree. I think Democrats realized that he was the best and by far toughest GOP candidate. That might explain partially why guys like Huckabee and Romney got a lot of attention.

 

[Денг Гордон]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Hunter @ Jun 10 2008, 03:21 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>I think its important to take the popular vote numbers and put them in perspective that it really is just a number because the electoral college decides the Presidency, not the number of Americans who will vote.

Ultimately, I think the Democrats royally messed themselves up in Florida/Michigan because those are two battleground states who could easily go McCain. I fully expect the Democratic party to seat all their delegates now the that primary election is over however you have to be thinking that the people of Florida will be upset that their vote will only count, when it doesn't really count.

That being said, I think this race is going to be a lot closer then most people think. I'm not the biggest McCain fan however I don't want to see universal health care. I have talked to enough friends in France, England and Canada who all think the idea of universal health care is horrible.

Too bad neither of the candidates are in favor of drilling in Alaska. The way gas prices are and the public focus on wanting prices to go down, I think a majority of Americans would vote on economic policy alone.</div>

Democrats already decided to seat all of the delegates from Michigan and Florida about a week and a half ago.

 

[Денг Гордон]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Denny Crane @ Jun 10 2008, 12:06 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>That the voters turned out for primaries was irrelevant in the end. Nobody won the required number of delegates.

Unelected superdelegates chose Obama, and often against the will of their voters. In Massachusetts, the voters "elected" Hillary, but the superdelegates from there chose Obama.

UN-Democratic.</div>

Obama won the pledged delegates, he was the people's choice. He also won super delegates, he was the party insider's choice as well.

I don't see the problem. It isn't like he lost in pledged delegates and secured the nomination. If they went away with super delegates, Obama would still be the nominee.

 

[Denny Crane]

Let me get the logic straight here. If there were 1000 candidates running, and they all won 4 delegates except one who got 5, the one with 5 would have "won" the nomination? Remember, 2025+ are needed to win the nomination.

In other words, Obama did not win enough delegates, just as the one who got 5 in my example didn't.

 

[bbwchingy0007]

^^ The UK system in a nutshell.

 

[Denny Crane]

^^^ Our system isn't that different, actually.

Our rules are:
1) The state legislatures decide how they're going to choose the state's delegates to the electoral college
2) The electoral college meets one time and elects the president and vice president
3) The electoral college is disbanded
4) If the electoral college doesn't elect a president, meaning not enough votes for one of many possible candidates, then the house of representatives chooses the president and vp.
5) The house is known as the peoples' house, as it is elected by the people and is the only position in the federal government that the constitution demands be elected directly by the people.

(The state legislatures have allowed for direct elections for delegates to the electoral college since almost the beginning).

The differences are:
1) We don't have viable political parties beyond the big two, though a 3rd party candidate can do well from time to time.
2) Our president is not a part of our "parliament." He is required by the constitution to give a state of the union address once per year where he delivers the speech to the congress at the capitol building. Otherwise, it's rare that he will go to the capitol to otherwise make a speech or influence votes.
3) Our vice president serves as president of the senate. He is effectively chairman of the board, he runs the senate sessions and only can vote or speak on issues in the case of a tie vote.
4) Since we only have the two parties, we don't have the same kinds of governing coalitions. Though within the parties, you might have coalitions like between the far left wing of the democratic party and the other far left wing of the democratic party.
5) Whichever party has the majority of votes in either the house or senate will elect/select the leadership of that house.
6) Both parties are represented in the various committees and subcommittees of both houses, but the party with the majority of votes has a majority of seats on each committee.

More info:
1) It takes 60 votes (out of 100) to accomplish various things in the senate. It's rare that either party will have 60 votes, so it is possible for the minority party to filibuster an agenda item to prevent its passage. The majority may have to form a temporary coalition with a few from the minority party to get the required 60 votes.
2) Legislation must pass both the house and senate in the exact same form. Often they pass similar bills that are different enough that the two houses meet (via subscommittees) to align both bills' language. The resulting bill must pass both houses again.
3) The president has the power to veto any bill passed by both houses. Congress may override the veto by a 2/3 vote in each house.
4) All spending bills must initiate in the house of representatives.

 

[bbwchingy0007]

Do states chooose delegates in the primaries based on PR or First Past The Post (plurality)?

 

[Denny Crane]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (chingy0007 @ Jun 11 2008, 09:16 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}></div><div class='quotemain'>Do states chooose delegates in the primaries based on PR or First Past The Post (plurality)?</div>

The constitution says a couple of things.

First, all state governments must be a republican form of govt. (more on that in a bit).
Second, elections for federal offices must be held on the same day.

46 of the 50 states choose delegates in a winner-take-all format. Plurality of the votes and you get all the electoral votes/delegates.

The other 4 award delegates based upon the national popular vote. Otherwise, the national popular vote is meaningless - you can win that and lose the electoral college by a landslide.

As for the primaries, each party (Democratic, Republican) makes their own rules. They are private entities, not government ones. In theory, there can be as many parties - all private - as the public can muster.

The Democrats have a small group of people at the top that decided that the votes of Michigan and Florida would not count in their nomination, and only a slightly larger group of people who decided Obama is the nominee since nobody won the primaries outright.

Each state decides when it will hold its primaries, since the state govt. foots the bill. New Hampshire and Iowa have traditionally held their primaries first in the nation, but this time around there was a rush by many states to move their primaries earlier in the calendar so their voters could have more influence on the election. It's an odd thing, but our largest state, California, often had their primary after the nominees were chosen.

Now, about state and local elections. Those are up to the states. In many places, a person has to win an actual majority of the vote, not just a plurality, to win the office. In the case where no one person gets the majority, they hold a new election with just the top two vote getters.

I haven't really talked about the supreme court - they are a 3rd and equal branch with the congress and the executive (presidency). The left/right debate here is often whether the court should rule strictly on the constitution, or whether it should find new rights in the constitution and even legislate new laws (traditionally a congressional power) via its remedy powers.