US Politics: The Day After The Political Earthquake

[Commodore]

Primaries are not general elections. They are parties picking their candidates for the general on the public dime giving the false impression of a "playoff" before the "championship game". I'm not fond of primaries.

Parties and primaries are an organic way to organize political differences and select nominees to represent those differences.

There is far too little focus on primaries. The reason incumbency is so high is because it's a tall order to get a voter to switch parties. In a primary that's not a consideration. But primary challenges are not encouraged (you come at the king, you best not miss).

As a voter, the primaries are far more interesting to me. In the general I vote straight GOP every time.

[TrackerNeil]

the accuracy of polling is getting worse, in 2012 it skewed R and in 2014 it skewed D

Uh...the polling in 2012 did not skew Republican; most polls plainly showed a victory for Obama and the Democrats, but Republicans ignored them and were therefore shocked to lose. In 2014, the polls showed a Republican takeover of the Senate, and that's exactly what happened. Seems fine to me.

[Mr Fixit]

As a voter, the primaries are far more interesting to me. In the general I vote straight GOP every time.

Americans really do need more parties! :cool4:

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I've, in 25 years of voting, never voted straight party line. My preference has leaned different directions over the years but never such that one party has gotten my entire ballot.

[Ormond]

Ormond,

Interesting. It's an early general election that turns the general election into a runoff. Obviously, that's not how things work here in SC. Does that lower turnout for the ballot issues that appear in the November General Election?

And what's the effect? Have non-Democrats and non-Republicans managed to improve their odds under this system?

This is only the second national election the system has been used in California so we just may not have enough data to tell for sure yet.

The rationale presented to the voters when this system was adopted was not that it would help elect third party candidates but that it would lead to the election of more moderates instead of ideological extremists. So far that doesn't seem to have really panned out, although perhaps as voters gradually become more used to the system things will change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/06/is-californias-top-two-primary-working/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/06/is-californias-top-two-primary-working/

[Commodore]

Americans really do need more parties! :cool4:

Third parties don't understand basic game theory.

The Green party needs to have their own primary, and run that candidate in the Democratic primary. Same with the Libertarians or the Tea Party.

[Fez]

Gah. Had a question about how Democrats could go about combating likely obstructionist tactics on bills they are looking for in the next two years, but I have no idea how to frame it properly.

So broader question: Do the Democrats have a strategy for the next two years at all?

Be reactionary. They no longer have a way of controlling the agenda, and seeing what's happened in the House the past 4 years, we know that Republicans aren't interested much in getting Congressional Democratic input.

One thing I wouldn't be surprised to see is if Senate Democrats don't filibuster that much, so long as its bills they know Obama will veto. That way in 2016 they can run all sorts of campaign ads about 'The Republican Congress passed X horrible bill' without getting bogged down in semantics about congressional procedure.

Uh...the polling in 2012 did not skew Republican; most polls plainly showed a victory for Obama and the Democrats, but Republicans ignored them and were therefore shocked to lose. In 2014, the polls showed a Republican takeover of the Senate, and that's exactly what happened. Seems fine to me.

Actually the polls did skew Republican in 2012. They showed Democrats winning, but undercounted the margin of victory by an average of 3.4 points. The difference is that in 2012 even with the skew it was obvious Democrats would win, whereas this year, the skew made it unclear that Republicans would win as convincingly as they did.

[Mr Fixit]

This is only the second national election the system has been used in California so we just may not have enough data to tell for sure yet.

The rationale presented to the voters when this system was adopted was not that it would help elect third party candidates but that it would lead to the election of more moderates instead of ideological extremists. So far that doesn't seem to have really panned out, although perhaps as voters gradually become more used to the system things will change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/06/is-californias-top-two-primary-working/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/06/06/is-californias-top-two-primary-working/

Thanks for the link; I found the article very interesting.

Here are my totally amateurish non-American know-nothing-about-US-politics proposals on how to maaaaybe increase the chances of third-party candidates in California. Forgive me if I come off as a clueless moron; odds are I am one with respects to this topic.

1. Start re-shaping the political scene not on the federal, but on the state level. Build up conditions for new political forces from the ground up, locally.

2. Increase the number of California Legislature... legislators is the term, I guess? 80 guys in the lower house for such a vast population? No wonder small parties/independent candidates can't get enough traction. Dramatically decrease the population per representative ratio so that voters have a better idea of who they're voting for, in the process decreasing voter reliance on party instruction.

3. Lose the Perpetual Election Syndrome that goes with elections being held every other year, driving costs up and disfavouring parties with weaker infrastructure and money sources. Have elections every 4 years maybe?

Do that and together with the two-round system political alternatives to Rs and Ds may crystallize. Once they take root on the State level, it should be viable to make inroads on the federal level as well.

[Fragile Bird]

On a totally different note, someone just told me that the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, received a $25 million wedding gift from his father-in-law.

They really do live in a different world, don't they. Senate millionaires.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Third parties don't understand basic game theory.

The Green party needs to have their own primary, and run that candidate in the Democratic primary. Same with the Libertarians or the Tea Party.

Pretty sure they can't do this unless they're in one of the handful of states that allow fusion ballot.

[TrackerNeil]

Actually the polls did skew Republican in 2012. They showed Democrats winning, but undercounted the margin of victory by an average of 3.4 points. The difference is that in 2012 even with the skew it was obvious Democrats would win, whereas this year, the skew made it unclear that Republicans would win as convincingly as they did.

As far as I can tell, in both years the polls got it about right. Sometimes a poll under/overmeasures a bit, sure, but they weren't dramatically wrong in either 2012 or 2014. To my mind, that says there are no real problems with the polls, but with the interpretation -- and that's before and after the election. For example, in 2012 we heard that the GOP was wandering in the wilderness, they were out of touch, blah blah, but then a mere two years later they are now powerful and all that. It's just punditry, and not very smart punditry at that. However, should a Democrat win the White House in 2016 I can just hear the stories about a dispirited Republican Party struggling to find its way...it's nuts. Evidently, there are those who think that political parties undergo vast changes in two years, only to change back two more years later.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

As far as I can tell, in both years the polls got it about right. Sometimes a poll under/overmeasures a bit, sure, but they weren't dramatically wrong in either 2012 or 2014. To my mind, that says there are no real problems with the polls, but with the interpretation -- and that's before and after the election. For example, in 2012 we heard that the GOP was wandering in the wilderness, they were out of touch, blah blah, but then a mere two years later they are now powerful and all that. It's just punditry, and not very smart punditry at that. However, should a Democrat win the White House in 2016 I can just hear the stories about a dispirited Republican Party struggling to find its way...it's nuts. Evidently, there are those who think that political parties undergo vast changes in two years, only to change back two more years later.

They got it 'right' in a binary sense in 2012 and 2014, predicting which party would do better. But in a continuous sense they wrongly predicted a greater share of the vote for Republicans in 2012, and for Democrats in 2014.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tracker,

Nate Silver in an article I posted last thread said he saw a skew. What he was very clear about was that the skew was something that was clearly not deliberate and will show up to a lesser or greater extent in any given year.

[TrackerNeil]

Tracker,

Nate Silver in an article I posted last thread said he saw a skew. What he was very clear about was that the skew was something that was clearly not deliberate and will show up to a lesser or greater extent in any given year.

Argh...I was responding to Commodore's post about the polls getting worse, but as far as I can see, they're pretty much OK. They've produced the right predictions. I'm not getting into a debate about how their prediction was a little more or a little less on target than they expected. So I am bowing out of this one, and those who want the glow of satisfaction of winning a distinction without much difference, this is your day!

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

Argh...I was responding to Commodore's post about the polls getting worse, but as far as I can see, they're pretty much OK. They've produced the right predictions. I'm not getting into a debate about how their prediction was a little more or a little less on target than they expected. So I am bowing out of this one, and those who want the glow of satisfaction of winning a distinction without much difference, this is your day!

This is the opposite of missing the forest for the trees. Missing the trees for the forest, maybe? Apparently, there's no good expression that captures the opposite.

The way the polls work is that they predict what percentage of the electorate is going to vote for each candidate. If it turns out that they're consistently off by a significant enough percentage of voters each race, then the fact that they've "successfully" predicted the winner of each race is a happy accident - the races just haven't been close enough so that the margin of bias in the polls is enough to make the wrong call. It just so happens we've had unexpected blowouts when the polls predicted tight races. The problem is, if you have a tight race, given the margin of bias in the polls, you're eventually going to end up with results that are significantly wrong.

[Inigima]

Third parties don't understand basic game theory.

The Green party needs to have their own primary, and run that candidate in the Democratic primary. Same with the Libertarians or the Tea Party.

Huh. Interesting idea.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Commodore,

Will the State pay for Libertarian and Green Party primaries the way they pay for Democratic and Republican Primaries?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Again, I'm pretty confident that a third party candidate could not run in both their primary and a major party primary, unless it was in one of the handful of states that allow fusion ballots.

New York allows this, something utilized by LaGuardia to run as a Republican and a candidate of the now defunct American Labor Party, and to-date the US's only Communist Congressman (or at least the most openly sympathetic to Communism), Vito Marcantonio, who on a few occasions won the Republican, Democratic, and Labor nominations. But in most states this practice was disallowed.

[The Mance]

There is just zero incentive for Congressional Democrats to really try to do anything. They don't want to give the Republicans any legislative victories that they can use to bolster their chances in 2016.

With the GOP majority facing off against Obama's veto pen some Dems facing reelection in purple states in 2016 would have more leeway to vote with the Repubs on some issues. Its not going to change the ultimate passage of Bills, but it may give them some insulation from the "Obama's pet" charges that are sure to come up otherwise. As long as there are enough votes to block overrides, the GOP loses, Obama takes whatever heat he's going to take anyway, and we may keep a few extra battleground seats come 2016.

[Inigima]

I've only just realized I left out of my polemic last night the entire reason I wrote it.

I recognize people can have differences of opinion, different policy preferences, differences of priority. But when a party is almost universally in lockstep in some ways that I find truly loathsome, that I think actually make them bad people, well... yeah, I'm going to judge people who continue supporting them. I don't have a lot of patience for people who enable homophobic policy and the like.