(no subject)
"The Democrats' Super Disaster" - WSJ Editorial
I don't really get what he's getting at there. Is he trying to simply trying to widen the gap between "the Democrat party" and democracy?
His argument undercuts itself. Let's analyze his argument by inverting what he's said:
"But the historical record on this is not heartening. During the reign of the Jeffersonians, the progenitors of today's Democrats, the congressional caucus chose the party's nominee. It was a system that yielded mediocrity, even danger. Congressional hawks pushed James Madison into the War of 1812 by demanding ever more aggressive trade restrictions against Great Britain and ultimately declaring war -- all because they wanted to absorb Canada. It ended with a stalemate in the north, the torching of the U.S. capital, and Gen. Andrew Jackson winning a victory at the Battle of New Orleans."
"Democratic Party reforms in 1982 gave super-delegates about 20% of convention votes -- so that party greybeards can stop a popular, but politically extreme, candidate from seizing the nomination. The Democrats deliberately rejiggered their party's rules to head off insurgent candidates, like a George McGovern or a Jimmy Carter, who might be crushed in the general election"
First of all, the war of 1812 was both popular AND politically extreme. The change in the rules to moderate the party to come up with an electable nominee seems narrowly tailored to avoid the situation he describes with the Jeffersonian Democrats. Add in something he elided from the article - choosing a nominee was never meant to be a small d democratic process. Not now, not then, not in the Republican party, the Democratic party, or any other iteration of a nationalist party.
The Republicans select their nominee ALSO by a convention process... if there is no clear winner by the time the convention rolls around, candidates can still broker for cabinet positions, or perhaps the delegates may change their votes (I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, but the convention doesn't last for days just so people can hear themselves talk - I'm pretty sure that the convention votes are subject to a caucus-like minimum %age). The fact that educated individuals can restrain potentially extreme politics is almost exactly like the Electoral College that he seems to both revile and exalt in the article.
And worst of all, he conflates the process of selecting a nominee with Electing a president, which seems equally bad. In the event that there is an electoral college plurality, nothing in the Constitution prevents the vote from going to the House as it did in 1824, raising once again everything he rails against in the article.
Pure (big R) Republican nonsense. He tries to play both sides against the middle, and the result is that he's proved his own counterpoint, which in my view seems much more compelling than the argument.
I don't really get what he's getting at there. Is he trying to simply trying to widen the gap between "the Democrat party" and democracy?
His argument undercuts itself. Let's analyze his argument by inverting what he's said:
"But the historical record on this is not heartening. During the reign of the Jeffersonians, the progenitors of today's Democrats, the congressional caucus chose the party's nominee. It was a system that yielded mediocrity, even danger. Congressional hawks pushed James Madison into the War of 1812 by demanding ever more aggressive trade restrictions against Great Britain and ultimately declaring war -- all because they wanted to absorb Canada. It ended with a stalemate in the north, the torching of the U.S. capital, and Gen. Andrew Jackson winning a victory at the Battle of New Orleans."
"Democratic Party reforms in 1982 gave super-delegates about 20% of convention votes -- so that party greybeards can stop a popular, but politically extreme, candidate from seizing the nomination. The Democrats deliberately rejiggered their party's rules to head off insurgent candidates, like a George McGovern or a Jimmy Carter, who might be crushed in the general election"
First of all, the war of 1812 was both popular AND politically extreme. The change in the rules to moderate the party to come up with an electable nominee seems narrowly tailored to avoid the situation he describes with the Jeffersonian Democrats. Add in something he elided from the article - choosing a nominee was never meant to be a small d democratic process. Not now, not then, not in the Republican party, the Democratic party, or any other iteration of a nationalist party.
The Republicans select their nominee ALSO by a convention process... if there is no clear winner by the time the convention rolls around, candidates can still broker for cabinet positions, or perhaps the delegates may change their votes (I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, but the convention doesn't last for days just so people can hear themselves talk - I'm pretty sure that the convention votes are subject to a caucus-like minimum %age). The fact that educated individuals can restrain potentially extreme politics is almost exactly like the Electoral College that he seems to both revile and exalt in the article.
And worst of all, he conflates the process of selecting a nominee with Electing a president, which seems equally bad. In the event that there is an electoral college plurality, nothing in the Constitution prevents the vote from going to the House as it did in 1824, raising once again everything he rails against in the article.
Pure (big R) Republican nonsense. He tries to play both sides against the middle, and the result is that he's proved his own counterpoint, which in my view seems much more compelling than the argument.