Democratic party leaders are idiots

It's spin, not an honest assessment. There are just some people in politics who respond to any criticism or misfortune aimed at their organizational structure by denying there's a problem, or by claiming what's being revealed is actually a positive, etc.

SH

You assume that the Democraps and Rethuglicans are two seperate parties. They are one in the same coin and they are not for the people of the U.S.. They are out for themselves. It is this fact to me that makes voting so hard. Why should we in the U.S. be forced to vote for the lessor of two evils? And when one person comes along who could possibly change the direction of incompetence. What do we see? The political handlers sabotage their own efforts and do something like this.

OK, now setting that aside, I'm a naive biologist, not a political scientist at all, and even I can see how having two Democrats (or, one Democrat and one "Democrat") is bad. Does he think that every Democratic voter in Connecticut gets two votes?

It's only actually a problem if people vote for candidates because of their party affiliation. And of course Americans vote for the candidate they feel is best qualified... right?

I think Democrats in CT are emboldened by the incredibly pathetic candidate the Republicans have on the ticket. A google scan thru the blog-o-sphere indicates that Republicans are lining up in droves to endorse Lieberman. Listening to the radio in New England a few weeks ago, I got the idea that many think the question is not how badly the Democratic vote will be fractured, but if Lieberman splits the Republican vote enough to sneak away with a win. A recent article is typical of the discussion, and reveals some of why the Republican - Schlesinger - is not highly regarded.

The problem for Lieberman will be answering the obvious question, given the endorsement by Republicans (Bush's kiss was the likely kiss of death for his primary campaign), as to his true part affiliation - Democratic or Republican?

Man, I look at the disarray of the Republican party, the mess their policies have put us in, and the general venal corruption of the ruling clique, and I feel pretty good about the next election--I think we've got a chance of kicking the vermin out. And then one of the beltway bozos of my party opens his mouth, and I realize...they're damn good at blowing it.

Yeah, I was optimistic about the impending regime change. That was before I realized that the Democrats are going to let the Republicans walk all over them with the usual "Candidate X hates America, kills babies, has gay sex with Osama bin Laden, and wants to raise your taxes because he hates you and he hates Jesus". Even if that doesn't happen, then the Democrats who do get in are probably going to be more Ken Salazars.

I just keep telling myself: "He's not Pete Coors, he's not Pete Coors".

Why should we in the U.S. be forced to vote for the lessor of two evils?

I get kind of exasperated at this argument.

Ummm...because it's less evil!?!?! Isn't the lesser of two evils better than the greater of two evils?!?!?!

Funny how conservatives never say this, just liberals. I don't think the spinelessness of the Democrats in Congress is the only reason the Democratic party is screwed right now.

If we used the Condorcet election method, or instant-runoff, rather than the method we currently use, then it wouldn't be a bad thing to have two or more Democrats running. Since we in the U.S. use the crappy method that we use, then two candidates from the same party only hurt each other's chances, and third parties are shut out.

Given that most people are total idiots so far as I can tell, I don't really expect that having an instant-runoff system would really improve things much though, we'd just have a wider field of idiots to choose from.

OK, now setting that aside, I'm a naive biologist, not a political scientist at all, and even I can see how having two Democrats (or, one Democrat and one "Democrat") is bad. Does he think that every Democratic voter in Connecticut gets two votes?

Actually, the Republican candidate is polling somewhere around 6%, so it's basically a contest between Lieberman and Lamont in the general. The Republican Party has withdrawn support from their own candidate and is unofficially supporting Lierberman. In a way, that's even worse than the Democrats' ambiguous support of Lamont.

The long and sort of it is though, people like Rahm Emanuel have nothing to worry about, because the seat is safe. I suspect that's what he means by two Democrats running -- whoever wins, the Party keeps the seat. Although if Lierberman wins, he may very well owe a few favors to Karl Rove when the dust settles...

I've heard Republicans say that all of the time. Usually it's when I'm expounding on the various idiocies of their candidate (I'm pretty good at that). Thing is, though, even after I've ripped their god-bothering fascist apart like a rabid badger, they just hedge around and go "Well, you know, you just have to go with the lesser of two evils".

I was thinking more of the rabid supporters of the god-botherers than just a Republican.

Which is why I made sure to say conservative.

Although I would think that if there's anything the last 6 years (vs. the previous 8 years before that) have taught us is that there *is* a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Caledonian:

It's only actually a problem if people vote for candidates because of their party affiliation. And of course Americans vote for the candidate they feel is best qualified... right?

Actually, the problem follows directly from electoral math, as PZ suggests but does not elaborate on. Let's say there are two kinds of candidates: "Perfect" candidates and "Crappy" candidates. Fill in your own semantics; these don't have to correspond to political parties. Hypothetically assume that the Perfect candidates are indistinguishable.

How can it possibly be bad to have two Perfect candidates running? More is better, right?

What happens when 34% of the voters prefer the Crappy candidate?

Although I would think that if there's anything the last 6 years (vs. the previous 8 years before that) have taught us is that there *is* a difference between Democrats and Republicans.

Well, you'll get no argument from me. In fact, the difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is the difference between a masochist and his dominatrix.

Right, willful incompetence versus natural incompetence.

Don't look at me. I'm the one who thinks simple majority elections are a dumb idea.

But in that scenario, the crappy candidate is the one that the majority of people prefer. By the implicit 'reasoning' of the electoral system, he *should* win.

"It's spin, not an honest assessment"

Its slightly spin, but I am comforted by that fact that in this race, the Democrats are not going to lose a senate seat. But we will potentially get a much better democrat in the Senate. To me theres no downside risk here.

Right, willful incompetence versus natural incompetence.

No no. There are plenty of Democrats who can handle themselves once in office. It's just that they've let the Republicans walk all over them to such an extent that, when this one guy I know ran for office as a Democrat, he sent out a survey with his platform and his opponent's platform, but with no mention of which platform belonged to which candidate. When asked which candidate they supported, 80% of the people picked the Democrat based just on the platforms. When the same survey was given, but this time he was labeled as a Democrat, his support went down to 40%.

It's the "Candidate X hates America, kills babies, has gay sex with Osama bin Laden, and wants to raise your taxes because he hates you and he hates Jesus" factor. Demagoguery will get you everywhere.

The rumor is that Rove is backing Lieberman and if he's reelected will have Bush offer L a cabinet post (Rumsfeld's) which would allow the Repub Gov of CT to appoint a Repub Senator.

Since the Dems might take over the Senate (if they take over the Senate at all) by only 1 or 2 seats, they can't alienate Lieberman too much for fear he'd take the cabinet slot, denying them their majority. So Lieberman can use the threat to force the Dems to accept him in their caucus, should he win, and give him the committe chairmanship(s) he wants--and he wants committee chairs on foreign policy and defense issues.

Lieberman is as hawkish a neocon on foreign policy as any Repub, so a committe chair for him is not good for our country.

If the Dems should take over the Senate by say 3 seats (which is nearly impossible), they can tell Lieberman to go to hell. As they should.

Dustin: And on top of that people say things like "Well, a Democrat is just a lesser evil than a Republican," and don't vote at all (or vote for a third party), which only makes the problem worse.

Maybe I'm just vastly oversimplifying it, but I don't really see how not voting for the lesser of two evils gets you anything other than the greater evil.

I agree, there are a miniscule number of sincere politicians in government, but they are a minority to the majority of career politicians. It just so happens the career Republicans are better at unifying their message of ambiguity.

I guess what I'm saying is I wasn't singling out either party as better, instead saying they are equally bad, with scattered, unpopular (relatively) exceptions.

"Why should we in the U.S. be forced to vote for the lessor of two evils?"

I was a non-voter in my youth. I called it being apolitical, but it was laziness. It's a bad place to be.

Here's what you do:

1) Register to vote (easy these days)
2) On election eve, get a good night's sleep, so you have lots of energy for the morrow.
3) On election day, go to the polls and vote for the lesser evil. [possible to vote by mail in many states, too!]
4) Pat yourself on the back. You have participated in democracy and helped the lesser evil to prevail. Hopefully, things will get better.

5) Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 at each election. No skipping the state and local stuff, either. It's all important.

That's just voting. Think of all the other stuff you could do in addition to voting if you don't like the way the country is going.

And on top of that people say things like "Well, a Democrat is just a lesser evil than a Republican," and don't vote at all (or vote for a third party), which only makes the problem worse.

Yeah, I was going to point that out. That's one of the small litany of catchphrases that people use when they want to dismiss politics, and that really pisses me off.

I guess it doesn't bother me so much when it comes from some wishy-washy college freshman (they just shouldn't be voting if they're not interested in having informed opinions). But it particularly annoys me whenever I hear a lot of that kind of thing from working-class people, and especially since they're supposed to be the Democratic party's voting base. Somehow, we've soured them, and it's almost like the Democrats think of them as a lost cause, so they're really trying to play the education card. That's a mistake because the people who are really interested in education are going to vote for the Democrats anyway, the anti-intellectualist crowd will just drone on some stuff about ivory-tower types and then go vote Republican anyway, and we'll have alienated the working class even more.

Caledonian:

But in that scenario, the crappy candidate is the one that the majority of people prefer. By the implicit 'reasoning' of the electoral system, he *should* win.

I don't think it's pedantic to point out that it's not a majority, but only a plurality. A majority wanted one of the "perfect" candidates to win.

Just to flesh out the details, say the election has three candidates (no write-ins allowed).

Candidate A is Perfect
Candidate B is Perfect
Candidate C is Crappy

Candidates A and B are indistinguishable to any reasonable person. 66 percent of the voters prefer either one of the Perfect candidates over the Crappy candidate. 34 percent prefer the Crappy candidate.

The 66 percent do not form any kind of coalition or communicate in any way. When casting their votes, they're in a "Buridan's ass" scenario, which they resolve by, say, flipping a coin.

The statistical expectation is that the Crappy candidate gets 34 percent of the vote, while the Perfect candidates each get less than 34 percent of the vote. Given enough voters, this occurs with very high probability.

The point is that that the majority did not want the crappy candidate. This is why a simple plurality vote can lead to undemocratic consequences.

Over 60% of americans are against being in Iraq now.

Lieberman is going down. Emanuel is of the DLC philosophy... "be moderate by pretending not being a liberal and by not fighting with the republicans"

He's failed to see that the "base" of the Democratic party isn't buying it anymore.

Republicans run to their "base" and the Democratic leadership seems to run from it
in order to woo the 10% in the middle. The Republican's strategy gets out the vote
the Democrat's does not.

I see the "netroots" of the Democratic party not giving a shit about the inside the beltway party or the incumbents, either act like Democrats or get out of the way.

Moveon and Kos should not be shunned but embraced.

This is why a simple plurality vote can lead to undemocratic consequences.

At least, that's true in a "to the victor go the spoils" system like we have here. That's the one conceptual thing that I really don't like about our system.

"Demagoguery will get you everywhere."
Then it is time for the Democrats to start pounding out their own....

I don't think it's pedantic to point out that it's not a majority, but only a plurality. A majority wanted one of the "perfect" candidates to win.

Point taken. However, *I* don't feel it's being pedantic that while a majority wanted a member of the "perfect" set to win, no majority wanted any particular member of that category to win. Not even a plurality.

The real issue, as one of the previous posters indirectly alluded to with his story about labels, is that most people do not deserve to have votes.

What I don't get is why Schlessinger (the R candidate) is taking this. It's not like campaigning is all that much fun, especially if you own party is humiliating you in public, and it sure isn't cheap.

On the other hand, if he drops out, it's harder for their boy Lieberman to pretend not to be the de facto Republican. Do you suppose that Schlessinger will be/was paid off in some manner?

agreed.

I think Schlessinger needs to stay in to get the hardcore Republican vote that if was faced with a choice between Lieberman and Lamont would obviously vote Lieberman.

There's no chance Schlessinger can win. He doesn't even get the support of his own party because they know he can't win, and if he stays in the race is more likely to go to Lamont.

Um, for all those fretting about Lieberman, I wouldn't worry excessively about it. I doubt he will win, with his constant position shifting and lack of any real strong backing (his republican backing hasn't turned into boots on the ground). His poll numbers don't look so good anymore, either (Lamont is already within the MOE). Also, Hillary Clinton (whatever you may think of her, she does know which way the wind blows) has offered Lamont some heavy-duty help for his campaign whereas Lieberman can't even find anyone to put together a serious web presence, let alone any campaign workers. Lieberman could win, but only by Lamont doing something stupid, which he hasn't as yet. As for Rahm Emmanuel, well, he's not someone I'd put a lot of stock in.

One of the disturbing things I found with shows that revolved around "political discussions" was that:

a) The people on the right never seemed to comprehend why they had gotten the facts wrong, why their way was bad or how flawed their argument was.

b) ***However***, the Democratic representives always seemed to have the most unbelievable, almost breath taking, and incomprehensible ability to spend several minutes refuting every stupid thing the right said, only to, in the last 30 seconds, pull something out of their back side that made the Republican's look slightly smarter and marginally more sane.

I have yet to see a debate, at least on the news stations that run them, which doesn't have this crazy outcome. Its like watching someone performing an escape trick: "He's got his arms loose. He's now got one buckle undone. He's got the other one! Now all he needs to do is free his feet and climb the rope to safety. Wait! He's sawing through the rope with one of the buckles! Oh, no, the rope just broke!" *SPLAT!*

I really didn't need to know that this was common practice among the entire party... :( The fact that a Republican in the same position would simply pretend it wasn't happening, or pray to God to be saved, only to have everyone get bored waiting for "anything" interesting to happen, thus resulting in them eventually being let down without the need to do anything (besides deny that the problem existed in the first place), doesn't in any way alter the situation.

But that's one of the problems. If you strung up 50 Democrats and fifty Republicans like that, half the Democrats would do something stupid, making us all look like idiots. 98% of the Republicans would be found, long after anyone remembered the stunt or knew who they where, still dangling over the ground, and quite dead. However, the one twit the audience got bored watching, and who was lowered to the ground instead, would have developed his own congregation and sold an endless stream of books about how "God" saved him from certain disaster, because he had the patience and faith to "wait" for intervention.

I would like to think that the alternative to, "Intentionally clueless believer", was something other than, "Often shoots oneself in the foot."

The real problem is that lies are easy, and truth is hard. It's easy to just say "God Hates Fags and Libruls eat Babies" over and over and over again, but the time it takes to say something worthwhile and evidence-supported is way too long. Corporate media have eroded the attention span of the voter to something less than 12 seconds.

uh. Lieberman is NOT A DEMOCRAT. He should, if the party had a spine, be expelled from the caucus, lose his committe positions, and be kept from any party-specific events. He lost his primary and is running anyway. that's a direct betrayal.
also all this "safe seat" BS makes me confused. How is it safe with non-Democrat Lieberman? Isn't he running on the Lieberman-for-Lieberman ticket? didn't he help broker the death of the fillibuster? didn't he vote for the banruptcy bill? didn't he vote against choice? didn't he vote for, and still vociferously supports, the war? isn't he bush's very good friend?

so how in the hell are there two Democrats running here?

There it is again: the idea that 'corporations' are somehow to blame for everything.

Well, I've got news for you, pal: corporations will do whatever makes them a profit, and they can't sell anything to the public that the public isn't willing to buy. History shows that we aren't just willing but eager to purchase pap.

Molly and Steve_C, re: Schlesinger:

In fact, the Republicans want him to step down - that's why they won't support him. Back when this race was unwinnable for R's (before Lamont showed up at all), no one else could be persuaded to gather signatures and go to the trouble of running for a seat he would never in a million years get. So Schlesinger is a crappy nobody candidate, and the only way to replace him on the ticket is if he voluntarily steps down. Of course, he's saying no out of spite, so they're refusing to support him. If he stepped down they could have someone more popular, like Chris Shays (my House rep) or Jodi Rell (the governor) run instead. Of course, both Shays and Rell are busy running to be reelected to their own positions, so I don't see that as being such a hot idea either.

I think Lamont will win. I wouldn't be surprised that Lieberman runs out of money.
Lamont has run a campaign on issues if Lieberman gets dirty it'll only hurt him more.

For anyone who thinks that all politicians are the same, all politicians are bozos, or that most elections boil down to voting for the lesser of two evils: 1) Did you hold that opinion during the 2000 Gore-Bush contest? If Yes, then 2) Go and see "An Inconvenient Truth", and 3) Try to imagine Bush holding those views, showing Gore's understanding and commitment, and delivering Gore's presentation. 4) Then stop rolling on the floor laughing, stand back up, feel ashamed of yourself for buying into Republican smears of Gore, and go out and support some Democratic candidates.

"Lamont has run a campaign on issues if Lieberman gets dirty it'll only hurt him more."

Ok, boys and girls, can anyone say "Swift Boat?"

Seriously, though, I hope you're right.

Why don't we just have a lottery for public office? That way, we can just fund the government directly with the proceeds! Woo hoo! And the rich will still have a far better chance of winning, so they'll be happy too.

Seriously, Lieberman needs to go bye-bye. He's so totally over....

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2006/08/mr-wolf-has-arrived.html

I think Lieberman is done. Any Lieberman staffer wishing to have a future in the party after the election will tread lightly from here on out.

I don't see much wrong with what he said: no matter who wins, the seat basically stays Democratic. Given that I don't live in Connecticut and I could care less about all the hair-pulling rage over Lieberman's supposed evil ways, and given that there are many many many more important races where Dems have a chance to take a seat away from Republicans, focusing on this race just seems really silly and obsessive.

I think it's sort of hilarious that after years of promising to be all big and important, and then failing to win any elections against Republicans, the Dem netroots are crowing about defeating another Democrat in a primary. Talk about setting your sights low! Wake me when the netroots is more than a bunch of screaming boobs who think photoshopping blackface onto politicians is the height of mature media savvy politics.

Oh, and I should note that for the head of the Dtrip to focus on the balance of Congress is 100% appropriate: his job is focus almost exclusively on getting a Democratic majority. End of story. If Lieberman wins, he'll still caucus with the Dems no matter what's on the ballot. So from the perspective of taking back Congress, when there are many many other races where Dems could switch a seat, the L vs. L race is just a noisy, pointless circus.

You've picked up that meme nicely.

A fan of the New Republic are ya?

Wake me when the netroots is more than a bunch of screaming boobs who think photoshopping blackface onto politicians is the height of mature media savvy politics.

How many liberal bloggers can you name who approve of photoshopping blackface onto politicians?

How many liberal bloggers do you think are out there, total?

What's the ratio? It may be time to wake up already.

If Lieberman wins, he'll still caucus with the Dems no matter what's on the ballot.

Leaving aside the rest of the namecalling, I wonder what makes this poster think that. Joe's word? Hah.

Joe just withdrew his endorsement from the 3 Dem House candidates in CT, hired a Republican pollster, and is taking money from traditionally Republican interests.

Seems like Joe Lieberman is a DINO - a Democrat In Name Only.

And yes, plurality voting leaves a LOT to be desired. There do exist alternatives; this Wikipedia article has a nice summary of alternatives.

The two main alternatives for single-candidate elections are approval voting (can vote for more than one candidate at a time) and preference voting (rank candidates by preference).

Approval voting could have the interesting possible outcome of Lieberman winning, since Democrats might vote for Lamont and Lieberman, and Republicans for Schlesinger and Lieberman.

For preference voting, one has to find some overall preference ranking from all the individual ones, and there are various algorithms for doing that, like Borda, Condorcet, and instant runoff.

In the Borda Count, the highest preference of n candidates gets (n-1) votes, the next-highest (n-2) down to the lowest at 0. Thus, if one chose the preference ranking Lamont, Lieberman, Schlesinger, Lamont would get 2 votes, Lieberman 1 vote, and Schlesinger 0 votes.

In the Condorcet system, a matrix is set up representing the counts of who beats whom for each pair of canddiates. Thus, with the above arrangement:

Lamont beats Lieberman: 1
Lamont beats Schlesinger: 1
Lieberman beats Lamont: 0
Lieberman beats Schlesinger: 1
Schlesinger beats Lamont: 0
Schlesinger beats Lieberman: 0

The winner is whichever candidate consistently beats all the others; there are various algorithms for resolving cases without a clear-cut winner.

In Instant Runoff, the first choices are counted up, and the candidate with the fewest votes gets removed from the race, though that candidate's ballots are not. Instead, the next choice is used in the next round of counting, until a clear winner emerges.

Thus, someone who voted for Schlesinger may want Lieberman as their second choice, and so if Schlesinger gets the least votes, that voter's vote for Lieberman may then be used.

And that's just for single-candidate races.

For multicandidate races, like for House seats in multiseat states, there are alternatives to creating single-member distrcts. It's possible to create multimember "superdistricts" whose members may then be elected by some variant of proportional representation.

And the nice thing is that no Constitutional amendments are necessary; all that is necessary is to change appropriate state and federal election laws.

The Electoral College will require a Constitutional amendment to eliminate, but one can use the workaround of each state selecting electors in proportion to the number of votes each candidate had received. This would mean that Republicans in California and Democrats in Texas could get more representation, though Democrats might not want to risk California and Republicans Texas.

"You've picked up that meme nicely.A fan of the New Republic are ya?"

No, in fact, I don't read it. But I do work in politics and maybe that colors my opinions. But how about we leave accusations of brainwashing and such back in kindergarden, ok?

"How many liberal bloggers can you name who approve of photoshopping blackface onto politicians?"

I don't think I have to name too many, when I can just name Kos. Although in his case, the best example wasn't blackface (though that came up in the L vs. L thing too): it was photoshopping Sambo makeup onto a black politician. Classy! When some southern Dems pulled their advertising from the site in question (the much lauded Kos pal NEWSBLOG) kos whined big time about it being cowardly (apparently, he confuses that word with the concept of "having taste" or "having some sense of decency" or "it could be sort of bad to have your campaign associated with racists").

Why don't we just have a lottery for public office?

I've long thought that would be a great idea... only in reverse. Instead of people buying tickets and getting chosen at random, EVERYONE is automatically entered by virtue of having a social security # and the winners are truly selected at random for one term only. We'd probably want to narrow it somewhat by applying an age limit, but maybe not; I can think of some pretty smart teenagers who'd make better congressfolks than some of the boobs currently in office. (Besides, with a one term max, they can't do much harm.)
I can't claim originality for this idea, though; it's a variant of something I saw in a Poul Anderson novel.

Well, I've got news for you, pal: corporations will do whatever makes them a profit, and they can't sell anything to the public that the public isn't willing to buy.

Sure. The only teeny problem is that you're overlooking the existence of a multi-trillion dollar industry dedicated to making people want to buy things they've never even heard of before.

I realize I'm pretty late to this thread, but an important point was made here about instant runoff voting. I'm convinced now that a non-plurality voting method is a necessary step if we want to restore some sort of government by the people in this country. There are a lot of smart people who seem to care sometimes reading this blog - if you get a chance, take a look a www.fairvote.org

donna: Reforming Canada's Senate has long been a popular subject of discussion. I have seriously (though not in any public way) advocated we adopt a jury senate to counterbalance the "political class"/careerist politicians. A lottery has the weakness that it still rewards wealth.