2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumI'm sick of California and the West Coast going damn near LAST in having a say in the process
in the primaries!
This is so wrong. All the liberals and progressives are out here in the West (yes, I live out here as well ) And we deserve a more important place to decide the candidate!
California, Oregon and Washington should all move up their primaries to damn near Iowa. If not all three, then at the very LEAST California. It should go Iowa is first, then California!
hill2016
(1,772 posts)why should white liberals have such a large early say?
upaloopa
(11,417 posts)Minorities are 51% of CA population
hill2016
(1,772 posts)Washington and Oregon as well
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)New hampshire and iowa are such bastions of diversity, too.
One Black Sheep
(458 posts)We are not being represented with the proper respect and significance in this process, IMHO.
LonePirate
(13,419 posts)PepperHarlan
(124 posts)Retrograde
(10,136 posts)And the candidate we picked in the Democratic primary went on to lose the nomination to Obama (my own candidate dropped out by the election day itself - a drawback to voting early by mail).
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)but you want the winner called after you vote, which is hardly unreasonable. But if it happens before, surely you can take it? After all, it would be very wrong and dysfunctional for California, with something like 548 delegates, to vote early. Many millions of Californians, including my husband and I, have had no problem handling this great adversity like mature adults.
Coming last in a long line for a public bathroom--now that can be a problem.
PowerToThePeople
(9,610 posts)We could just start a new west of the rocky mts left leaning nation.
RandySF
(58,799 posts)But, for some reason, they refuse to move the rest of the primary ballot to an earlier month alongside the presidential.
mythology
(9,527 posts)The first four states are small and demographically diverse for a reason. It allows a lesser known candidate to build a base of support.
Putting California and it's giant population, size and expensive media markets would make it harder for lesser known candidates to gain traction.
One Black Sheep
(458 posts)that needs to be done anyhow.
RKP5637
(67,108 posts)Exilednight
(9,359 posts)The AA community is less than 3% of the population, the and Hispanics make up approximately 5% of the population.
The state that comes the closest to matching the countries demographics as a whole is Illinois.
Personally I would go for a rotating system by dividing the country into thirds. Each third of the country selects one state to go on the first day. Once a state goes first it goes to the back of the line and during the next presidential election each section picks a new state to go first.
Hortensis
(58,785 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Lot of Progressives, too.
Bluestar
(1,400 posts)California always has an election in June. The legislature decided it didn't make sense to pay for a special primary earlier.
thelordofhell
(4,569 posts)The time frame for changing parties and requesting the proper ballots would have been far past the point of the freshly declared Bernie to do any good in California......He would have lost and lost big......to the point where it would almost be useless to go on from there.
Tarc
(10,476 posts)Why did they move back to June?
onenote
(42,700 posts)Tell that to the folks in Vermont, among other places. Tell it to the folks in dozens of communities in states around the country.
By the way, California was a relatively early primary state in 2008 and the winner of that primary didn't end up winning the nomination.
I know the news from tonight is hard to take (and it would've been hard to take tomorrow if it hadn't been announced tonight).
But let's try not to go entirely off the deep end.
Lars39
(26,109 posts)Full transparency. Should be illegal for media to call it before the votes have all been counted.
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)I don't think the order must be what it is, and I think there are ways of avoiding loading the primary season so that early events have more influence than later ones.
But unless there is some big value I don't see, no thanks. I don't want consolidation of any thing political. Democracy as a process really requires promotion of access to different voices with different ideas.
Protecting the process so that it cultivates new voices identifying new problems and new solutions when they are still small and relatively unknown is really enormously valuable.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)They set themselves up to be queen maker. It just didn't work out that way. Think about this. If both NJ and Cali were last in '08. If I remember correctly they weren't. I think that is the scenario the state parties were hoping for. Clintons lead is simply too big for it to matter.
ucrdem
(15,512 posts)we haven't gotten this much attention since the San Francisco earthquake (the 1906 one)
wyldwolf
(43,867 posts)Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)Much more money required to advertise and build name recognition, more travel expenses, much less likelihood of a Dean or a Sanders insurgency breaking through to challenge the big-money establishment favorite.
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)It would have dealt a deathblow to pretty much unknown candidate Bernie Sanders right at the start!
Be careful what you wish for folks.
Sancho
(9,069 posts)At the beginning he had no money, no recognition, and no rallies. If CA had gone first - Hillary would have trounced Bernie before he got any traction.
If Hillary had won 60-70% in CA in Feb. or March for example, then a caucus in Iowa would be worthless in May or June.
The rural caucus states are "easy" for new candidates to get their name out there. That's exactly what Bernie did. It got him some money, some TV time, and a place on the ballots.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)I say Florida, California and Texas get together and have their primaries the friday before Super Tuesday
HereSince1628
(36,063 posts)placed across the entire primary season. Let it function more like the mini-nation state that it mostly is.
If they did that they'd have influence in multiple super-Tuesdays (more influence for CA and keeping CA issues talked about during the entire primary season) and it would probably more accurately track the developing/shifting sentiments of CA voters across the entire campaign season.
Why have all the eggs in one basket at all???
bigwillq
(72,790 posts)Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Pot legalization is a giant joke- or a 3rd rail.
Like on marriage equality, theyll catch up eventually.
As for the primaries, i think the order should be random, or rotated every 4 years.
goldent
(1,582 posts)Besides if California voted for Bernie it might well have an effect on the process - at least it would make the convention more interesting. If the race were a little closer, CA might actually be the decider.