Petition: Bernie or Hillary? Let the voters decide -- not the party elite!

[Hotspring 44]

Sign Robert Reich's petition: Bernie or Hillary? Let the voters decide -- not the party elite

Petition says:

One thing is increasingly clear about the race for the Democratic nomination for president: This is going to be a long primary season, and every single delegate is going to be important.
In addition to the thousands of pledged delegates, who are allotted to each campaign based on primary and caucus results, there are 712 superdelegates -- made up of Democratic elected officials and party insiders -- who get to vote on who the party's nominee should be at the convention.

If the race is close, superdelegates could determine who the nominee will be regardless of who the majority of voters supported.

The race for who the Democratic nominee will be should be decided by the voters, not by a handful of party elite. Add your name now to call on all Democratic superdelegates to pledge to support the candidate who wins the popular vote.

https://act.democracyforamerica.com/...uperdelegates/

[Hotspring 44]

Well has anybody from here singed this or other one like it?

I am somewhat surprised and and slightly dismayed that not a single gratitude for this so important (I think) petition post.

Is the majority of waccobb persons so far ahead in timing than me and already have signed it or another one like it; am I just late with it?... ...Or is there really a Clinton cabal here... ...Or was my timing that far off for another reason that I have not figured out yet?

I ask because I have received gratitude for far less important posts... ....Just sayin.

[Eller]

I am quite concerned about this rigged superdelegate system. I've signed more than one petition online, but I hope there will be more action on this.

Here's a list of superdelegates and their endorsements: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...elegates,_2016

You'll notice that District 2 Congressman Jared Huffman has endorsed Clinton. If you click on the small number to the right of his name, a window opens up below that takes to his FB page. He provides a lengthy explanation for his endorsement that is followed by 498 comments. I hope that number will keep growing.

Thanks for posting this!

Well has anybody from here singed this or other one like it?...

[Shandi]

I received this in my email a few days ago, so I didn't pay any attention to your post, except to note it. Maybe it's the same for most others. But thank you for posting, since some may not have seen it.

... https://act.democracyforamerica.com/...uperdelegates/

[Joseph]

Before everyone makes a lot of assumptions and wishes to change the agreed upon rules, do your own search on how and why there are Super delegates.

Changing the rules of the game because they don´t look good for the side you support is like the Repubs changing voting registration rules.

The time to change the reasoning for these procedures is before the game starts not after but look at the history instead of claiming the game is rigged.

Stop being followers, research on your own. You may still not agree with these rules but this goes back 40 yrs and all candidates since then have played by them. Bernie is not more important than the many who accepted this process before him.

Sign Robert Reich's petition: Bernie or Hillary? Let the voters decide -- not the party elite...

[rossmen]

Any research shows that the super delegate system is an establishment filth that is regularly challenged. You disparage democracy in action.

[Hotspring 44]

Considering that politics these days is year round, 24/7, then there really is no time or place to change the "rules" as you state should be done before the “game” Because now there is no "before the game".

Before everyone makes a lot of assumptions and wishes to change the agreed upon rules, do your own search on how and why there are Super delegates.
Changing the rules of the game because they don´t look good for the side you support is like the Repubs changing voting registration rules.
The time to change the reasoning for these procedures is before the game starts not after but look at the history instead of claiming the game is rigged.
Stop being followers, research on your own. You may still not agree with these rules but this goes back 40 yrs and all candidates since then have played by them. Bernie is not more important than the many who accepted this process before him.

By the way, it's not a “game”. It's our government of the people by the people and for the people (at least it's supposed to be anyway).

It seems like people have been "gaming" the government so much that people now have it imprinted in their brains that it is a "game". It's not a game; It's real times of life and death, war or peace, justice or injustice, freedom or servitude, economic prosperity or economic disaster, It's really not supposed to be some frigging “game”!

And yes, there were probably good reasons why they did the superdelegate system in the past, but as in politics that we have been witnessing for the last 35 or more years, certain factions of people have become extremely powerful by 'gaming the system' and have been playing our country's political system as if it's a game of Monopoly.

There are reasons why there are third parties!...
...And of course the who actually gets elected seems to be largely depended on very large campaign contributions to the politicians.

If Bernie Sanders was not running in the Democratic Party, I most certainly would not join it to vote for Hillary Clinton, The only reason I'm Seriously considering to join the Democratic Party is because I intend to vote for Bernie Sanders....

... If it weren't for Bernie Sanders I would not change my voter registration from declines to state to Democrat, instead I would either vote green or for somebody else from a third-party or even right-in the candidate for president in the general election, just so I could vote for local and state elections, and propositions, etc.

I looked over the rules (as much as I had the patients and Internet conditions for) enough to know that the establishment politicians in the Democratic Party are legally bound by sheer non-understandable to the average layperson legalese which is probably normal, but it gives them the legal power for having too much control even if it means specifically and intentionally thwarting the popular vote (although historically, that has never happened).
It is supposedly for the greater good, but if it were to happen there most certainly would be unintended consequences which would have quite negative and potentially devastating effect in the future.

By the way, the electoral college is kind of a rip off too; but that's another (constitutional) issue for a different thread, but I thought I would at least mention it.

One negative effect of the superdelegate system is that it discourages otherwise would-be Democrat voters, particularly the young; they (and others to whom are not so young, I might add), end up feeling disenfranchised and could indeed end up being disenfranchised because of it in this election cycle; if so, what will voter turnout like in November or the next senatorial race?... ... Low voter turnout would be quite deleterious to the Democratic Party in the next senatorial election cycle. If Democratic Party superdelegates power-trip too much it could make things even worse in Washington than they are now.

A couple of other reasons are (that) it makes the Democratic Party less viable because; 1- it looks like a lie and feeds into the myth that Democrats are liars, and; 2- The word "democracy"

1. Government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives.
2. A political or social unit that has such a government.
3. The common people, considered as the primary source of political power.
4. Majority rule.
5. The principles of social equality and respect for the individual within a community

...

Note: I do believe that "majority rule"in an absolute sense would be horrible. We need the Constitution. That is why we’re a democratic republic.

The apparent hypocrisy of the establishment Democrats with this particular issue is quite repulsive even to people who would agree with them on most of the issues of which they stand for as representatives in general.

The 'establishment' Democrats and even some of the more left-leaning Democrats blamed Ralph Nader's candidacy for Al Gore's loss in the 2000 election because the supposed would-be otherwise Democrat voters voted for Ralph Nader instead.

I don't blame it on the Green party that we got a George W. Bush for president, and I don't blame Ralph Nader or the people that voted for Ralph Nader, Instead, if there is anyone to be blame, it rests on the Democrat party, precisely because of that kind of attitude which basically has talked down to and shunned the left side of their constituents as if they (we) were young and naïve children (childish) at best and they actually more often than not downright chastised us as some kind of radical heathens most of the time; now the calling us "grassroots".

With such attitudes, it is obvious to me that that they (the Democratic Party establishment 'elite') have in essence said, whether you like it or not 'we', the establishment know what is best, (your) "popular" votes when it really matters only count when they are what we think they should be, particularly when it looks to us like it is going to be close call (primary) election and (Of course) the non-establishment so-called "grass roots" has a tendency to irk the establishment Democrat politician 'elitists'.

It, (ruel 9. A) and other rules that pertain to superdelegates In the Democratic Party may have indeed been the best for the party for one or two election cycles at most sometime between now and after it was created, but now it is just another glaring example as to one of the reasons why there has been such low voter turnouts and further reason for the generalized resentment towards "the establishment" politicians even though those so-called establishment politicians might not have been as bad in the minds of voters who actually voted as what the press seems to be so focused on, albeit certainly is not the only reason for the resentment.

My issue with the established Democrats over the years is they have not fought hard enough for their espoused stated democratic, (supposedly) values and instead they have repeatedly capitulated to the right and sometimes even the far right got its way because of that and the whole system ended up being more like there were only right wingers running it considering what they actually legislated and put into law.

True progressive Democrats would have never fallen for that bait and switch, good cop bad cop scenario.

Anyway, it appears to me that the establishment Democrat politicians in Washington sold us out for the sake of some sort of so-called bipartisanship or the "getting things done" theme we've been hearing so much of from the Clinton campaign recently, and I'm sure there were some other kinds of fear-based like political manipulation which made it easier to at least make the appearance of getting along with the "friends on the right ".

Not just for entertainment purposes but it is a real serious issue and leaves me with a question that I have pertaining to:

In February of 2016, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chair of the Democratic National Committee, was asked by CNN's Jake Tapper, "What do you tell voters who are new to the process who say this makes them feel like it's all rigged?"

... ...Her answer was:

"The unpledged delegates are a separate category.

The only thing available on the ballot in a primary and a caucus is the pledged delegates. Those that are tied to the candidates that they are pledged to support and they receive a proportional number of delegates going into the a going into our convention.

Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don't have to be in a position where they are running against grass roots activists.”

The part I put in bold is quite perplexing considering the context of the next paragraph which is what makes it so perplexing to me:

We are as a Democratic Party really highlight and emphasize inclusiveness and diversity at our convention and so we want to give every opportunity to grassroots activists and diverse committed Democrats to be able to participate, attend and be a delegate at the convention and so we separate out those, those unpledged delegates to make sure that there isn't competition between them."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RawGr83DxpE

Considering its entirety, I am not sure how to interpret that answer because it seems to contradict itself.
What I mean by that is that it sounds like she's trying to convince us that the Democratic Party is trying to be inclusive and exclusive at the same time simultaneously.

On the one hand; include the so-called grassroots in the conversation trying to give the appearance of caring and protecting their point of view so they can be heard but at the same time preventing the establishment politicians from having to compete with them, and or the vice a versa.

Anyway, (first of all) it is apparent if you do decide to look at the “rules” as you put it, (if you can find them and cipher them individually for each state)... ...(and if you actually do find them, you would discover, as I did when I found what little I was able to find, that they are very complex. Unless you're a lawyer or somebody that shuffles lots of paper and understand what's in those papers); {you know the rules in which you infer}, you can forget about most people, even voters understanding it in any reasonable and comprehensive way.

Therefore, I at this point in time, conclude from my readings that Democrat delegates system abides by different rules according to each state's rules which makes it far too complicated for a layperson to reasonably deal with as an individual voter to interpret how the vote counts within the jurisdiction of the Democrat convention, particularly on the fine points of the actual law and or policies (particularly in different 50 different states).

I have more to say but this post is way too long already.

[Joseph]

The question is not whether this is best way to avoid dead locked conventions or not but to ask why claim it to be unfair when it doesn't help the person you want to win.

Bernie is not a Democrat, so he didn't have the history or connections Hillary or other Democrats had. They all started with the same rules and now, in the midst of the process, one candidate is ¨bad¨ for using the rules, everyone before her have used, Obama included, she shouldn't benefit from her advanced work.

Incidentally, these delegates can shift allegiance any time they choose, so maybe they go with Bernie as they did with Obama, down the road. How much noise will be be hearing then ?

It is disingenuous to argue the unfairness of the rules when you can't have it work for you. Remember, this is a political party, not a government. It is the party that has caucuses and picks its head from party workers. Not much is democratic or one person one vote anyhow.

It may no be fair but why not be against 50% of the rules that could be challenged.Fair is letting the rules of the game stand and feel good about having someone good succeed, even if it should not be your 1st choice- Bernie is not a savior, just another politician who intends good, just like Hillary or O'malley would have been. I hear your frustration but pinning so much hope on a guy with little chance of winning or effecting real change is not recognizing reality. His solutions are not real solutions, if you think about it. Just take free college. How does anyone stop a private college from continually raising its fees ? If you can't then how can we ever pay uncontrolled amounts, into future ? This true for most of his proposals. They sound good but, in the end would be unrealistic. Hillary´s answers aren't much better but no one expects a revolution from her, just progress.
The middle class is not coming back, that is unless the resources are taken, not from the wealthy but the poorer nations with even lower standards. We can´t keep thinking of this world as us and then them. Its all us and real solutions are global. Politicians can solve this- least of all Bernie.