U.S. Senate
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(D) J. Hickenlooper*
(R) Somebody
80%
20%
Governor
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(D) Phil Weiser
(D) Joe Neguse
(D) Jena Griswold
60%
60%
40%↓
Att. General
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(D) M. Dougherty
(D) Alexis King
(D) Brian Mason
40%
40%
30%
Sec. of State
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(D) A. Gonzalez
(D) George Stern
(R) Sheri Davis
50%↑
40%
30%
State Treasurer
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(D) Brianna Titone
(R) Kevin Grantham
(D) Jerry DiTullio
60%
30%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
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(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
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(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Somebody
90%
2%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
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(R) Jeff Hurd*
(D) Somebody
80%
40%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
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(R) Lauren Boebert*
(D) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
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(R) Jeff Crank*
(D) Somebody
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
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(D) Jason Crow*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
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(D) B. Pettersen*
(R) Somebody
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
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(R) Gabe Evans*
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(D) Joe Salazar
50%
40%
40%
State Senate Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
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DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
August 27, 2018 07:03 AM UTC
28 Comments
Democratic National Committee has limited some superdelegate powers. Supers can't vote on first ballot anymore.
Lobbyists can still be superdelegates, and corporations can still contribute unlimited dark money (Wasserman Schultz rolled back the Obama era reforms, and today's DNC has stayed on Wasserman Schultz' path).
Who thinks that this will be enough, or at least progress, in diluting the influence of corporate interests on DNC policy?
So your thoughts, please: Is this just window dressing to try to keep the Sanders folks in the Big Tent, or is it meaningful reform?
I'll go ahead and save time and respond for the knee-jerk folks who despise us left wing Democrats: Jilliots! Free Stuff! Berniebots! You made Hillary lose! etc
So that's out of the way, then. Any reasoned responses?
As odd as this may sound, MJ, I agree with you about banning the lobbyists from being superdelegates and I do not have a problem with limiting the power of the superdelegates to vote. (I would go one step further and reduce the number of superdelegates as well. Maybe just Dems who are incumbent governors and senators. What does that total? About 65. Or at most, governors, senators and house members. I fail to see why the lone Democrat on the Brush town council gets to be a superdelegate.)
I have mixed feeling about the ban on corporation contributions. If banned, it will still be spent by outside groups. The only difference is that the party doesn't have control over the message being put out. (Although perhaps that is good. My Machiavellian mind says it gives the candidate and the party plausible deniability when the outside groups cross the line in trashing the opposition with really over the top stuff.)
And since you mentioned, Jill Stein did cost Hillary the election. By I digress…..
Nice to know there's some things we agree on, R&R.
And our lone Brush council D is a super? Who knew? I actually find that hilarious. What is the criteria for being a superdelegate, anyway?
Edit: No, that is apparently not true. Our lone Brush CC Dem was not on the superdelegate list. She may have been a pledged delegate; I can’t find that list. What was your source, RR?
He was probably a national committeeman or something in addition to being a big-time Beetdigger.
What is the criteria for being a super-delegate, anyway?
They are formally called PLEOs: party leaders and elected officials. The elected officials include governors, senators, US reps, and mayors of cities over a certain size. (Denver, yes; Brush, probably not) I'm not certain but I think in addition to the party chair, the vice chairs and DNC members are also super-delegates.
RR, I didn't find any Brush council members on the 2016 delegate lists. What was your source?
I'm curious, because I'm active in the county party and haven't had any interactions with these people.
Also, our city council election is really ugly right now in the way that only small town politics where everyone has too much time to post crap on Facebook can be.
It was a joke. The PLEO's don't go that far down the food chain. I think it is just large city mayors.
A reasonable point of view from someone who was there and actually had a vote: Chris Reeves on DKos: This week, the DNC takes a vote to pass Unity. Why I am voting YES.
I would have preferred proposals for change that maintained a role for those elected & serving as delegates, as I have a pretty high regard for the difficulty of winning elections by "the people" and "Democrats." There is something to be said for a set of people who have long-term experience and commitment to building the party.
That said, I'm with Chris on the importance of other changes to diminish caucuses, to insure the caucuses become more inclusive, and to open up paths to leadership.
JiD, what do you think the reforms will do as far as:
bringing back the alienated young people and older Bernie voters to the party
getting independents out to vote for Dem candidates
rebuilding trust in the DNC, and generating the kinds of millions of small-donor contributions Obama and Bernie got, which the DNC did not.
The Democratic National Committee resolutions and procedures are inside baseball …. I'm betting that even on a site like this one, with majorities of highly involved people, most could not come up with 2 of the 3 national committee members from Colorado, couldn't tell you if Ken Salazar is or isn't a superdelegate, or have any informed opinion on whether general election voter participation is helped, harmed or is uninfluenced by closed primaries, open primaries, closed caucuses or open caucuses (and have any evidence or supported arguments to back their opinions).
Most people vote based on habit or someone they "know" talking to them about the people or the issues of an election.
The few people who give are motivated by habit or someone they know asking for money. I can see candidates going for a small donation strategy. For a national political organization? Not so much. Heck, the NRA, with all of its built-in gun nuttery and 2nd Amendment passion, only gets monetary support from SOME of its claimed "5 million members." People who have tried to reverse engineer their filed income tax/nonprofit disclosures guess they may get dues from 2 to 2.5 million people in a given year. "Since 2004, the group has averaged about $128 million a year in total membership revenue. But that number has varied from $72 million in 2006 to $228 million in 2007, a peak it hasn't come close to matching since."
In the 2017-2018 cycle, Federal reporting shows DNC Raised:$117,257,261, Spent:$120,928,678, and has Cash On Hand:$8,041,452. Trying to raise 80-100 million each year based on small donations seems to me to be a huge shift in priorities, one unlikely to happen.
In the 2015-16 cycle, Sanders raised $134 million from small donors (<$200) and $97 million from large donors. Can you really think there would be an equal enthusiasm from small donors to the DNC, when not many know who it is, fewer know what all it does, and it doesn't really have the power to make the promises or claims that an individual candidate can?
Obama did it in 2012 (raised $75 mil for the DNC and his campaign from small donors).
This was after he insisted that the DNC not allow lobbyists to be superdelegates, and banned "dark money" donations. So average voters Jose and Janice trusted national Democrats more, and donated accordingly. I did.
Bernie repeated this formula in 15-16, as you noted, much to everyone's astonishment. But I agree with you that so far, the DNC has not fielded a national candidate who generates that kind of excitement, and its recent financial self-dealing has not helped in the trust department.
I am not moved to donate to the DNC yet, although I think that these small reforms are a positive step in the right direction. I do donate down ballot as I am able.
While Hillary led in delegates pretty much from the start, the media definitely hyped the lopsided contest that resulted from early PLEO pledges for her campaign, and it can honestly be argued that people vote for people who look like winners, further skewing the results over time. The time for who could have won and why is over; it's time to address perceived problems as best we can.
I think taking the PLEO early pledges out of the media horse race by giving them a reduced role as convention brokers rather than potential majority changers is a smart move. PLEOs will also retain significant roles in other convention and day-to-day DNC operations, and they still get tickets to the convention floor. If I were a PLEO delegate, that's what I'd most want anyway.
I just noticed this Pew poll regarding 2016 Trump voters that makes an effort to carefully identify people who actually voted, as opposed to self-reporting or exit polling.
Four types of Trump Voters stand out:
59% Enthusiasts
23% Converts
12% Skeptics
6% Disillusioned.
One value of market segmentation analysis is that you can be more efficient with your persuasion activities. If I was spending money on marketing or Facebook ads, I would target the Skeptics and Disillusioned. In preparation for the 2020 elections, I would do a lot of preparatory work building a Democratic message in the Midwest, Plains States and Florida.
It also highlights that the Republican Party is in a defensive mode: they are trying to keep the Converts and Skeptics and pull back the Disillusioned, rather than broaden their message to gain more converts.
It's bullshit. The changes at DNC, I mean.
Anger is fine, but maybe to be more productive:
Slightly reducing the Super-delegates influence is a start, but insufficient.
One issue in 2016 was that the Super-delegate votes were listed as we marched through the Democratic primaries, showing Clinton consistently leading in delegates, even as Bernie Sanders was pulling in 60% of the voters.
That never happened. Hilary always had the lead in elected delegates, even without counting superdelegates. And among actual voters in primaries, she crushed Bernie. Only in caucus states did he win more delegates.
Hillary beat the
Bernie Bros in every category except whining.
At that, they are invincible.
One category where Clinton did not beat was in generating and maintaining interest. Bernie and the Bros had things that made people pay attention and get excited. Clinton, sadly, was as interesting as cold oatmeal. I say that as an oatmeal lover who voted Clinton and tried my darndest to get people I knew to be non-voters to turn out. I could not convince young people at CCD to vote for her, against Hair Furor, for historic women president, nothing. She just did not have it.
Well, in the end, Hillary had three million more votes than Stinky Boy, albeit
she was robbed of the electoral college by the Bernie Bro/jilliot coalition.
I assume you are a man Denependent. If you wanted to see emotion you could have come to my house the night Hillary was nominated. My wife, my daughter and my granddaughter watched history made as the first woman was nominated by a major party for president. There wasn't a dry eye between them.
Robbed in the electoral college is the whine of someone who was playing the game badly. Everyone knows the popular vote only counts as far as bragging rights and the real win is in the electoral college. She LOST. Full stop. Lost. Yes the electoral college is a relic of a bygone era, etc, etc, etc. It is in place and whining about it won't change her loss to win.
Also, everytime you call the Green voters “Jilliots” the supporters of His Fraudullency smile. Maybe if you did not treat people with different points of view like idiots the Democrats might win more often.
There's gonna be jilliots, jilliots
Let me hear the far right laugh.
There's gonna be jilliots, jilliots
Kissing Trump and Putin's butts.
-0+
Sorry to bring up math on you, Denependent.
You claimed hilary couldn't generate enthusiasm.
She won nationally by three million votes.
She also won Colorado comfortably.
And yes, without the Jilliot/Berniebro betrayal, she would won the electoral college.
Suck up to Jilliots all you want. But do the math. You can’t accuse Hillary of not attracting votes when she creamed Bernie and Stinky Boy both with real voters.
The problem is that they were idiots. They could not remember back a mere 16 years earlier when the same exact thing happened. Then – as in 2016 – a small batch of left wing nut jobs announced that the two major party candidates were equally unacceptable. They wanted to feel good about themselves and maintain their purity rather than compromise so they cast protest votes for a non-viable choice leaving the rest of us to have to live with the results.
Den, I didn't bring up the topic to rehash the 16 primary, though I suppose that's inevitable given that emotions are still raw about it. Rather, I genuinely want to know if people think that the DNC reforms will make a difference in:
bringing back the alienated young people and older Bernie voters to the party
getting independents out to vote for Dem candidates (since you're independent, I'd like to hear from you on that)
rebuilding trust in the DNC, and generating the kinds of millions of small-donor contributions Obama and Bernie got, which the DNC did not.
I'm kind of "meh" on all three, although I'm willing to be convinced. BTW, I'm very active with my local county Democratic party.
PS. You'll find that arguing with V is not productive. Sooner rather than later, he'll escalate and start insulting you, including what you were thinking as you posted, because he does believe he has that superpower.
There you go again, mj, just can't resist the random insult to get your morning started, can you? In Denependent's case, he banged up against basic math by claiming Hillary couldn't generate voter enthusiasm. Since you also lack basic math skills, maybe you can explain how a candidate can win the popular vote by almost 3 million votes without generating at least some enthusiasm.
You are to be congratulated, however, for being the first poster to use "jilliots.". It never hurts to remind those idiots how they betrayed America by electing, first, George W. Bush, and , second, Stinky Boy.
VG does have a point in that Ralph Nader's Ego, as the Green candidate in 2000, cost Al Gore Florida and the presidency.
I differ with MJ as to the best way for Dems to win in 2018; assuming the goal is to take back the US House. The best way to run is to imitate Conor Lamb, who won the heavily Republican district in SW Pennsylvania with a common sense centrist and pocketbook message.
I think it's likely that the Dem candidate will win in Nov. in Ohio 12, if he keeps to a centrist and pocketbook message–name escapes me at the moment, but he came so close in the special election in another heavily Republican district. The left wing message does not play well in districts like these.
On the whole, centrist dems are running well and are our clearest route to victory. In ultrablue districts like New York, we can toss the left an occasional Zephyr Teachout to keep them happy.
Uh … Bernie didn't pull in 60% of the voters. In fact, he lost the overall vote in primaries by something like 3 million votes (of 24 or 25 million cast).
There's that 3 million number popping up again. Weird, isn't it?
Yes, though as a share of Democratic primary voters it is much more substantial.