A Brokered Democratic Convention?
Posted: Sat Mar 09, 2019 3:39 pm
Some may remember the rule changes made by the DNC intended to reduce or remove the influence of superdelegates in selecting the party's presidential nominee. The rule change prohibits superdelegates from voting on the first ballot, and requires that pledged delegates vote for the person to whom they are pledged. The change was intended to ensure the candidate who receives the majority of votes from voters in state primaries would not be overwhelmed by a party insider candidate who had picked up the votes of superdelegates.
Relevant article: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/25/64172540 ... ng-process
Sounds very small "d" democratic.
But the Democrats have other rules and procedures that are almost guaranteed to make this rule change not only irrelevant, but backfire completely. Those include spliting delegates based on votes earned rather than have a winner-take-all system at the state level. Or allowing any candidate with 15% of the total vote to enter the convention. Taking both into account, while the impossibly perfect split of 6 candidates with 15% each won't happen, it would take only two candidates with enough votes to enter the convention to prevent the leading candidate from winning the nomination on the first ballot. And who here doesn't think that three Democrat candidates will earn at least 15% of the vote total during the primary process? And insist on going to the convention to make sure their constituents are heard?
Other factors likely to matter include the way campaigns rely more and more on bringing in large numbers of small but regular donations. This matters because the drying up of campaign contributions as a candidate becomes less likely to win is one of the most likely causes for someone dropping out of a race they can't win. When the contributions are coming from potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of people ideologically aligned with a candidate, like Bernie in 2016 for example, the ability to win the nomination stops being a consideration when one is deciding to give up a $5 coffee a week to send to the cause.
If we look back at the Republican primaries in 2016, the field was about as wide (17 candidates) but with different rules. Having a loyal, "30% of the vote" base meant Trump was often able to win states where he would then receive all of the delegates. Often this occurred where another candidate was neck-and-neck with him but came up empty handed when it came to delegates going to the convention. A great way to see this is to check out the pie charts state by state at this wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_o ... _primaries
This had the effect of winnowing the field down as his loyal, dedicated base ensured he could walk away with all of the marbles available state-to-state as long as he could out-compete the next most supported candidate even if no one was able to win more than 30-40% of the votes. The rest of the candidates found themselves playing chicken with one another, each urging everyone else to quit the race so that someone could beat Trump but not being willing to step aside until either the math or the contributions made it clear it was time to hand their delegates over to someone else. In effect, they lost sight of the bigger picture in the name of their own interest. Of course, the other aspect of the Republican side that doesn't exist among Democrats is the sense the evil on the other side of the political aisle is worse than anything any candidate from their side would represent. It's hard to tell if Democrats would be able to shift from supporting a candidate they felt represented them to someone who was more/less ideologically liberal, not the gender they wanted to see elected, or too inside/outside Washington. How's that? Isn't Trump the bigger evil that the party will be able to unite around? Personally, I wouldn't put money on that. Democrats are going through the equivalent of the Tea Party revolution this cycle where ideological purity against establishment or radical elements in the party are seen as being equally problematic if not just another face of some bigger evil that needs to be resisted. Whether this week's attempt to censure Ilhan Omar over the use of anti-Semitic tropes in expressing opposition to the US's pro-Israel stance that became instead a general condemnation of bigotry represents a shift that bodes well or ill for this is up for debate. But it certainly seems to reflect what we should expect to see over the next year and a half.
Coming back to the 2020 Democrat Convention, it is looking more and more certain that no one candidate is going to win on the first ballot. It just isn't going to happen if today has anything to say about a year from now. At which point, the rules are a dried tinder bed of uncertainty. If a candidate fails to win a clear majority on the first ballot, where delegates are obligated to vote for the person to whom they are pledged, then this obligation goes out the window and delegates are free to vote for whomever they want on the next ballot. And, in a move almost certain to set fire to the tinder bed of outrage on the part of younger, much more liberal Democrats, the superdelegates will not only be back in the voting but they are exactly the people that have developed the skills and connections for brokering political deals for a candidate.
At this point, the exact opposite happens compared to what the rule changes were intended to cause: The nominee of the Democratic party in 2020 will be selected at the convention by the delegates and not based on who won the most votes in the state primaries. I don't see that going well.
So, what does this mean today? If I were a Republican strategist working at the national level or Russian online troll I'd be doing all I could to make sure Democrats can't stand one another. You know, telling Democrats that the left wing of the party is dangerously bonkers, that establishment Democrats are maneuvering to keep progressives from having a chance in the election, that it HAS to be a woman this time, that is HAS to be a minority candidate this time, that anyone who thinks it HAS to be a woman or minority candidate this time is dangerously bonkers, that everyone over/under a certain age can't be trusted...stuff you're already hearing.
Anyway.
Article worth reading for background thoughts: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... c-primary/
Relevant article: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/25/64172540 ... ng-process
Sounds very small "d" democratic.
But the Democrats have other rules and procedures that are almost guaranteed to make this rule change not only irrelevant, but backfire completely. Those include spliting delegates based on votes earned rather than have a winner-take-all system at the state level. Or allowing any candidate with 15% of the total vote to enter the convention. Taking both into account, while the impossibly perfect split of 6 candidates with 15% each won't happen, it would take only two candidates with enough votes to enter the convention to prevent the leading candidate from winning the nomination on the first ballot. And who here doesn't think that three Democrat candidates will earn at least 15% of the vote total during the primary process? And insist on going to the convention to make sure their constituents are heard?
Other factors likely to matter include the way campaigns rely more and more on bringing in large numbers of small but regular donations. This matters because the drying up of campaign contributions as a candidate becomes less likely to win is one of the most likely causes for someone dropping out of a race they can't win. When the contributions are coming from potentially hundreds of thousands or millions of people ideologically aligned with a candidate, like Bernie in 2016 for example, the ability to win the nomination stops being a consideration when one is deciding to give up a $5 coffee a week to send to the cause.
If we look back at the Republican primaries in 2016, the field was about as wide (17 candidates) but with different rules. Having a loyal, "30% of the vote" base meant Trump was often able to win states where he would then receive all of the delegates. Often this occurred where another candidate was neck-and-neck with him but came up empty handed when it came to delegates going to the convention. A great way to see this is to check out the pie charts state by state at this wiki link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_o ... _primaries
This had the effect of winnowing the field down as his loyal, dedicated base ensured he could walk away with all of the marbles available state-to-state as long as he could out-compete the next most supported candidate even if no one was able to win more than 30-40% of the votes. The rest of the candidates found themselves playing chicken with one another, each urging everyone else to quit the race so that someone could beat Trump but not being willing to step aside until either the math or the contributions made it clear it was time to hand their delegates over to someone else. In effect, they lost sight of the bigger picture in the name of their own interest. Of course, the other aspect of the Republican side that doesn't exist among Democrats is the sense the evil on the other side of the political aisle is worse than anything any candidate from their side would represent. It's hard to tell if Democrats would be able to shift from supporting a candidate they felt represented them to someone who was more/less ideologically liberal, not the gender they wanted to see elected, or too inside/outside Washington. How's that? Isn't Trump the bigger evil that the party will be able to unite around? Personally, I wouldn't put money on that. Democrats are going through the equivalent of the Tea Party revolution this cycle where ideological purity against establishment or radical elements in the party are seen as being equally problematic if not just another face of some bigger evil that needs to be resisted. Whether this week's attempt to censure Ilhan Omar over the use of anti-Semitic tropes in expressing opposition to the US's pro-Israel stance that became instead a general condemnation of bigotry represents a shift that bodes well or ill for this is up for debate. But it certainly seems to reflect what we should expect to see over the next year and a half.
Coming back to the 2020 Democrat Convention, it is looking more and more certain that no one candidate is going to win on the first ballot. It just isn't going to happen if today has anything to say about a year from now. At which point, the rules are a dried tinder bed of uncertainty. If a candidate fails to win a clear majority on the first ballot, where delegates are obligated to vote for the person to whom they are pledged, then this obligation goes out the window and delegates are free to vote for whomever they want on the next ballot. And, in a move almost certain to set fire to the tinder bed of outrage on the part of younger, much more liberal Democrats, the superdelegates will not only be back in the voting but they are exactly the people that have developed the skills and connections for brokering political deals for a candidate.
At this point, the exact opposite happens compared to what the rule changes were intended to cause: The nominee of the Democratic party in 2020 will be selected at the convention by the delegates and not based on who won the most votes in the state primaries. I don't see that going well.
So, what does this mean today? If I were a Republican strategist working at the national level or Russian online troll I'd be doing all I could to make sure Democrats can't stand one another. You know, telling Democrats that the left wing of the party is dangerously bonkers, that establishment Democrats are maneuvering to keep progressives from having a chance in the election, that it HAS to be a woman this time, that is HAS to be a minority candidate this time, that anyone who thinks it HAS to be a woman or minority candidate this time is dangerously bonkers, that everyone over/under a certain age can't be trusted...stuff you're already hearing.
Anyway.
Article worth reading for background thoughts: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/th ... c-primary/