Thursday, April 24, 2008

Get ready for a political screwjob!

This is not as timely as it should have been. I actually wrote this, what, a month ago? Some of it may still have relevence. Some may not. Tell me what you think:

So, recently the political flavor of the week is the fact that neither Hilary nor Barack will achieve the delegate count necessary to get the presidential nomination. Of course, this makes votes from those wacky Michigan and Florida primaries crucial. That also means that somehow, someway, there’s going to be some brokered back room deal that is going to get us the democratic presidential nomination! Yay democracy!

I’m also not one of these huge media watchdogs, but it certainly would seem that rather than passive spectator, at least some media outlets are trying to influence rather than report on these happenings. These examples are pretty subtle, and maybe, just maybe I’m grasping for straws here, but hear me out. The first example comes from time.com:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1720264,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

Read with me the first paragraph.

It is looking increasingly likely that Democrats in Florida and Michigan are going to have a do-over of their primaries, so that their 366 delegates — who could be enough to tip the nomination one way or the other — can be seated at this summer's Democratic National Convention in Denver.

I suppose that one could surmise that the increasing pressures from these states to have their delegates seated at the democratic convention would warrant such a statement, but it certainly feels like the tone of this paragraph is to get the potential outraged onlooker used to the fact that a re-vote is going to happen, and that we should not only get used to it, but start considering how it might happen. A slightly more overt example can be found here at cnn.com:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/07/florida.michigan/index.html

Democrats agree that new voting is needed to determine convention delegates for Florida and Michigan, but they can't figure out how to pay for it.
Now, please, check the link so that you can determine for yourself whether or not I’m taking this out of context, but I have to tell you, this democrat doesn’t agree with that! This is just flat out speculation, being reported as fact, and not only that, it’s further trying to push this “re-vote is a foregone conclusion” angle. What the frick??? I personally applaud Howard Dean (not too often I can utter those words) in sticking to his guns at the peril of alienating Florida and Michigan. The consequences were set out for those states, they ignored those sanctions and went ahead, and as a teacher, I cannot tell you how loathe I am to perpetuate the growing idea that in this country, if you bitch, complain, or litigate enough you will get your way. Great example disgruntled Michegoneons and Floridians!!! I am disgusted with these primaries, but I have to say even taking it a step further, the Democratic nominating process is moronic.
But enough with the complaints, what do I propose that’s better? Well, Mister, I’ll tell you. 10 weeks. That’s what we need. 5 states per week, distributed according to relative electoral weight (although, if we’re at it, the Electoral College is a joke as well). So, we’ll say Texas would be paired with a few smaller states the first week, and California would be paired with a few smaller states, making the relative importance equal week to week. Winner takes ALL, none of this divvying up crap. If someone starts running away with momentum, people drop out, and we’re all happy. Every election year we’ll rotate the states so that New Hampshire ( New Hampshire people! What is even in New Hampshire???) doesn’t dictate the front runner status of candidates every year. This idea of our primaries is reified (second time I’ve used this word in a blog, check out my complaints on the Phoenix Suns being robbed of the NBA championship last year for a definition). We should change what sucks. I mean, once upon a time, people thought that slavery was a pretty good idea, but I think we can all pretty much agree that it wasn’t…

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Reading this post almost makes this non-Democrat feel guilty for how gleefully we enjoy watching the marathon deathmatch between your potential nominees. Your idea has merit, but don't write off a cage fight just yet. And don't be so quick to poo-poo the Electoral College; without it, Nevada would be even more of a nothing than it is!

Good call on the media's puppet-master mentality; never would have caught those...