View Single Post
Old February 13th, 2008 #16
ANSWP Commander
Banned
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 2,235
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ron Doggett View Post
What looks bad is when he wins Idaho, Nebraska, Iowa, Washington, etc etc. What is their excuse.
Their Democratic Party is small and marginalized and consists of a tiny fraction of the electorate -- 29% of Idahoas vote Democrat; most are not party members who vote in caucuses -- 32% of Nebraskans are registered Democrats; 34% of Iowans; and probably something similar in Washington (I didn't see it off hand).

Almost all of those states elect by caucus, as well, rather than primary, which severaly limits those permitted to vote, generally to those in physical attendance at the party caucus; sometimes only to elected party officials.

For instance:

"Unlike the first-in-the-nation primary in New Hampshire, the Iowa caucus does not result directly in national delegates for each candidate. Instead, caucus-goers elect delegates to county conventions, who in turn elect delegates to district and state conventions where Iowa's national convention delegates are selected"

Thus, when Obama wins "60%" in those states, and voter turnout is about 30%, he wins about 5.75% of the total voters in the state. If its the Iowa caucus, he wins 60% of the 99 delegates selected at the caucus. Given they are usually highly politicized party people, the whole system is a bit of a farce.

What the primaries say is "here is the candidate that best represents this major party", not "here is what Americans want for president". Given what the Democratic and Republican Parties are, Obama and McCain are probably pretty good representatives of them and then combined 10% of the American electorate that supports the policies of one party or the other.