The error no one dare speak of. W/Poll

There's plenty of talk about the failures of the Democratic party and the Media.

But what I haven't seen, ever, is either one of them taking the time to publicly mention the real deal. Which is surprising because I think if more people knew, more people would vote Democratically.

It wasn't until this year that I understood there was more to the primary process than just selecting a nominee. Is it because the media and the Dem party believes everyone is aware of that, or is it something they prefer to keep a secret?

I don't have a television. I do listen to the NPR and PRI, but not twenty four hours. I read the internet ( what I can in my time ). To date, other than BFA and a few sprinkles in blogs I have never seen someone explain the mystery of the Other process of the primaries. Even if I did have a television, I believe the result would be the same. In fact listening to them I wonder if they even know themselves. I know the Dean gang has given numerous politics 101 to local tv and journalism reporters.

Why hasn't the media/Dem party promoted this?

Do you agree that it might inspire more people to vote in the primaries or disagree? How much of an impact do you think it would have on the actual voting process if more people were aware of this aspect?

•  hmm...

  you never said what this other purpose is, I don't think... what is it?

  by JMS on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:35:58 AM PDT

  •  It's getting late here

    Sending delegates to the convention. Each candidate has a platform they run on or something like that. Not sure what the proper term is. The more delegates that go to the convention for a candidate, the more chance they have of getting their ideas into the party agenda for the next four years.

    2000-2004 is something like Peace, Prosperity, and and I've already forgotten the last one of the three, but if you go to the democratic site you can read the long ass document on it. It comes in pdf or html flavored :)

    by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:41:15 AM PDT

    •  okay

      i understand what you were getting at now...

      Why hasn't the media/Dem party promoted this?

      Because they want to pick the nominee.

      by raincat100 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:48:03 AM PDT

      •  Granted

        But it's a disservice to everyone. If Dems want people to get involved and want people to vote, what better way then to give them a reason to feel like a ....a Party Of the People?

        It's just a peeve that has been nagging me for awhile.

        by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:55:10 AM PDT

        •  Yes

          I agree with you.  I was referring to the power infrastructure within the Dem party DNC/DLC.  

          [Why do we have to have caucuses and primaries spread out over months?  Why do Iowa and New Hampshire factor so largely into the primary season?  Why not California and New Mexico?  Why don't we have just one day to vote in a primary?]

          True confessions: I did not get my ticket for the clue train until just before the 2000 election.

          by raincat100 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:10:55 AM PDT

          •  ja

            The power infastructure of the DNC. I find a bit of irony in that. Time hasa way of altering things. The republican party was founded by a group of anti-slavery activists.

            by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:45:14 AM PDT

    •  party platforms

      I don't really think they matter except to the people who work on them.  You're right that no one hears about them or how delegates get to be on the committee that writes them but I think thats more because they are a sop to activists but the nominee actually doesn't "run" on the party platform; he runs on his own platform.

      Republicans put a "Human Rights" Amendment (I think thats right) in their platform to stop abortion at conception but the nominee never, ever, ever talks about it.

      Relating to the Dean campaign, I don't think being involved in the party platform is worthwhile.  Its saying, "Here, this doesn't matter so you can have it and spend your energies on it and maybe that'll make you happy."  I hope that folks who supported Dean have their eyes on the prize for the long haul.  Its a 50/50 presidential election and we can't affect that.  Other forces affect that.  But there are opportunities at your local level if you keep "meeting up":  go to local town meetings together, get out and talk with local town leaders, even if they are Republicans.  Its actually pretty interesting.  

      by Lois on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:03:34 AM PDT

      •  Agreed

        I still think the more Dean folk at the convention, participating for the first time would be healthy and entertaining for the dem party.

        by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:47:30 AM PDT

•  dude

  what are you talking about?

  by raincat100 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:41:14 AM PDT

  •  I knew I should have waited

    I'm waiting for the dem site to load. I'll post the exact link to the last four year platform

    by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:44:18 AM PDT

  •  2000-2004 Peace, Progress and Prosperity

    
    http://www.democrats.org/about/2000platform.html

    Delegates at the convention decide the platform for the next four years. Which might explain the superdelegate thing that has always kind of bugged me.

    As I understand it in my limited view, each candidate sends delegates whom represent the candidate and what they ran on during the primary season. So if you like a particular candidate's ideas more and want to see them incorporated into the the next four years, vote for that person so they can send delegates to the convention.

    My question is why isn't this common knowledge? I didn't know about it until the aftermath of our primary happened and the talk about attending the caucus to select those delegates.

    by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:51:11 AM PDT

    •  where

      are my manners?

      Thanks for the link!

      by raincat100 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:13:23 AM PDT

      •  Welcome! NT

        by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:49:01 AM PDT

•  Kos needs a new Diary rule

  No diarizing while intoxicated

  by DaveOinSF on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:51:07 AM PDT

  •  Ha, Good one

    Bombed I am not, tired, yes

    by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:52:23 AM PDT

  •  That's discrimination...

    2/3rds of my posts are written under the influence, and the ones I write when I am sober elicit no comment.

    Since I treat every political event like a sporting event its hard not to imbibe on any day a primary is held or a poll is released.

    But don't worry...I'll stagger to the polls to oust Bush.

    by Keith Brekhus on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:55:33 AM PDT

    •  Drinking works........;)

      despite all the proselytising against it (and other forms of "influence"... )

      by Marisacat on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 07:53:18 AM PDT

•  Once upon a time ...

  Platform fights were titanic occasions. As a graying boomer I'm old enough to remember some of them. However, that vanished more or less the same time that brokered conventions did - basically after primaries replaced the smoke-filled rooms.

  Since then, not only platform fights but the platforms themselves have effectively disappeared. Tedious hearings will be held, and everyone will get something of their wish list, so long as it isn't stuff that would hand Bush a stick in the campaign.

  The platform will be adopted, and will immediately vanish forever.

  -- Rick Robinson

  by al Fubar on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 02:58:59 AM PDT

  •  All the more reason for something New

    or a change to the system that makes sense. Perhaps with fresh meat it wouldn't be tedious. Maybe it is just what the party needs to wake it up.  Maybe platforms wouldn't vanish if people cared about them.

    Thank you for the perspective.

    by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:51:41 AM PDT

•  Best diary ever

  Made me wonder if I was intoxicated

  by TVOR on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:05:30 AM PDT

  •  Intoxicated?

    Hey bud, I live with the Primate. It's like being on a bender all the time.

    by Del in MO on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:21:21 AM PDT

  •  Honest

    to God!

    by PhillyFilly on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 04:41:45 AM PDT

•  The Primate Has A Point

  Our civics class education (Do they even teach civics nowadays?) of the democratic process leaves  most of us with this sugar-coated view of the electoral process. The masses tend to tune in as the general election rolls around and vote for the "nominees" without any conception of how their parties selected them in the first place.

  Newbies to the political world start to get involved and the first thing they run into is the "caucus." Old hands get the drift but here in Missouri the rules are 40 pages of fine print and with so many zigs and zags of logic that it takes special training to figure it out.

  Even then you talk to experienced caucus goers and they tell you all sorts of things that aren't mentioned in the rules.

  It's danged confusing.

  The Primate's complaint that the media doesn't discuss the matter might be misplaced - fact is, the media doesn't understand how it works either, they just report it in their vaguely detached, content free style. Somehow the parties, the state government or the schools or somebody ought to do a little better job of letting people know what the process entails. Either that or they ought to simplify the process a bit.

  The complication of the party delegate selection get in the way of the transparency that ought to be there, leave too much room for backroom dealing and generally turn off the average citizen from more involvement in the process.  

  by Del in MO on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:17:34 AM PDT

  •  yes, yes, yes

    as a newbie, i say: it's a jungle out there.

    by raincat100 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 03:40:03 AM PDT

•  the only reason I know any of this

  is because my dad used to explain this stuff to me when we would watch the conventions when I was a kid. I don't know how he learned.

  But I haven't paid any attention to this stuff since the 1972 convention when I was 15.

  by mimi9 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 04:11:45 AM PDT

  •  I'd be lost without

    the conversations in the home I grew up in...and i grew up in a primary state, so caucuses leave me breathless.  The cameras in the two this year made me frantic.  Even if Howard had won, I'd have figured god, what unbelievable luck, missed the big and many bullets.  Now I understand that luck is but a part of it, plenty of hard bargaining, but the opportunities for extended gaming (legit and otherwise) is enormous.

    by Marisacat on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 08:00:46 AM PDT

    •  Iowa

      I understand now that I had no idea what the Iowa caucuses were about.  This was the first year I tried to figure them out and I was wrong every step of the way.

      Its a terrible way to start a nominating process and have such impact.  The money that got spent on such a piddling turn-out of people - like 120,000 - was gigantic.  And then people went to the caucuses and made their decisions based on someone giving them a cookie!  Its mindboggling.  

      by Lois on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:10:11 AM PDT

      •  Yep.

        3% of the registered Democrats of Iowa set the tone of the primary season by anointing the frontrunners.

        by Malacandra on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:20:11 AM PDT

        •  I'm not a fan of caucuses

          (didn't someone say that on Canadian TV?) but it turns out Iowa and NH are extremely representative of what happened in the 15 or so other primaries and caucuses all over the country. You can pretend kerry was an accident, but that's  the 'voters are stupid sheeple' argument. Don't go there.

          by DemFromCT on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:37:39 AM PDT

          •  My concern lies

            overridingly with the tiny tiny number that caucus.  
            Tho I suspect more will be told about the story that is Iowa 2004.  I in no way reject the outcome.  I could not be bothered, but I will learn more about it in this specific instance.  
            I personally am very tired of the ceaseless chiding.  It does seem the reality of the echos in blogosphere. Endless drift in the land of little context. Put it down and it is a theme.

            by Marisacat on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:48:48 AM PDT

          •  Not really saying that, CT

            Its probably the media that turns the whole thing into a snowball after Iowa and NH.

            I just think the overkill, the saturation - its not representative of any kind of election anywhere else.  This November, I'll see a few yard signs around here and a few bumper stickers.  Maybe I'll get a call from a pollster; I've gotten a few in my entire life.  But thats it.  It sure sounded like people were getting calls constantly in Iowa and you couldn't walk ten feet without seeing something to do with the caucus.  

            by Lois on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:50:00 AM PDT

            •  I remember SNL

              doing skits of Carter and others making breakfast, offering to do the grocery shopping, etc en masse camped in someone's home.

              Same as it ever was.

              Doing retail before wholesale campaigning is intriguing, though.

              by DemFromCT on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:56:59 AM PDT

          •  Don't Put Words in my Mouth

            I've got enough of 'em in there already.

            I'm not saying that people are sheep.  I do think they like to back a winner, though... and momentum is a fact of life.

            I do think that Democrats are desperate to get W out of the White House and respond to a media echo chamber that shapes their thinking about who that might be.  

            Does that make people sheep? No. People are making decisions based on the information that's most readily available to them. Most folks have neither the time nor the inclination to be very proactive in seeking out information contrary to the prevailing media currents. They are busy leading full and busy lives, and I can't really fault them for this. Life is complex and it's hard to juggle all the things we must do, feel we should do, and the things we'd much rather be doing. And many people have problems of greater immediacy to them than figuring out who's healthcare plan and foreign policy is best.

            For good or ill, most folks listen to the talking heads in their morning paper, and to their neighbor who they feel may be marginally paying more attention than they are. And to Iowa & New Hampshire voters.

            So, when Kerry and Edwards do better than predicted and upset the perceived frontrunners, people are inclined to think, "These are the guys to beat Bush"... and don't necessarily have the inclination to go much further than that.
            

            by Malacandra on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 04:53:04 PM PDT

            •  you do the voters...

              a disservice.

              They knew what they were doing. They could be wrong aboput it, but they perceive kerray as 'presidential'. Otherwise they wouldn't have voted for him. Despite what's written here.

              by DemFromCT on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 04:57:13 PM PDT

              •  You do me...

                a disservice.

                I wasn't saying that they didn't know what they were doing.

                In fact, I took great pains to indicate why their decision making process was justified.

                by Malacandra on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 05:05:06 PM PDT

                •  then I do not understand

                  3% of the registered Democrats of Iowa set the tone of the primary season by anointing the frontrunners.

                  They were chosen, not anointed. It was a fair process. It was representative. Where's the beef with that?

                  by DemFromCT on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 05:08:34 PM PDT

                  •  It's metaphorical language

                    Lighten up.

                    by Malacandra on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 05:25:43 PM PDT

                    •  oh. n/t

                      by DemFromCT on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 05:26:27 PM PDT

        •  Very Mindboggling

          and something that should be repeated Loudly imho

          by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:56:52 AM PDT

      •  3

        All hail the cookie monster

        by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:58:08 AM PDT

    •  More info, please

      I'd love to hear more about these mysterious things, stories, whatever you have in your memory banks from both of you.

      by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:53:56 AM PDT

      •  Damn threaded

        That was supposed to be directed to Mimi9 and Marisacat

        by primate on the left on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 10:56:16 AM PDT

      •  not much in my memory bank

        I just knew about delegate selection and that the delegates vote for the candidate, the party rules and the platform. I also remember my dad explaining that pledged delgates have to vote for their pledged candidate in the first round of balloting---but can vote for anybody they want after that. I'm sure my dad explained a lot more than this to me, but that's all that comes to mind right now.

        by mimi9 on Sat Feb 21, 2004 at 06:04:03 PM PDT