“Uncommitted” Seeks Democratic Nomination.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Disassociated Press
LANSING - In a press release today, a person only known as “Uncommitted” announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for President.
In the press release Uncommitted was quoted as saying:
"With a strong grassroots movement already up and running in Michigan, I think I have a shot at taking Michigan’s delegates to Denver."
Remarkably, Uncommitted is already on the ballot in Michigan and some pundits have him polling ahead of presumptive leader New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the only other lead candidate on the ballot. Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama and other candidates asked to have their names removed from the ballot last fall in deference to national party rules.
LANSING - In a press release today, a person only known as “Uncommitted” announced his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for President.
In the press release Uncommitted was quoted as saying:
"With a strong grassroots movement already up and running in Michigan, I think I have a shot at taking Michigan’s delegates to Denver."
Remarkably, Uncommitted is already on the ballot in Michigan and some pundits have him polling ahead of presumptive leader New York Senator Hillary Clinton, the only other lead candidate on the ballot. Senator John Edwards, Senator Barack Obama and other candidates asked to have their names removed from the ballot last fall in deference to national party rules.
19 comments:
I am a huge fan of uncommitted. I plan to vote for Uncommitted. Uncommitted is clearly the most qualified.
Does anyone else think that the uncommitted silhouette looks like Don Imus?
HA! It totally does. Don Imus for President!!
Wait...what am I saying???
Look for a press conference today or tomorrow from State Senator Buzz Thomas and State Rep. Fred Miller urging Michiganians to vote for Uncommitted. Thomas is an Obama guy and Miller is an Edwards guy.
Am I the only one getting flashbacks to Brewster's Millions?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3LPdTXRjIKQ
intersting article in today's nytimes on the whole extreme hops trend in U.S. beermaking these days:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/dining/09beer.html?_r=1&ref=dining&oref=slogin
Not a bad article Rickey, though I think the pictures were a bit disturbing first thing in the morning...
Once my Cable Modem at home stops flaking out, I'll have an "Old World Extreme" beer review for belated hump day... Never could get on the net last night.
Beer? We discuss beer here?
I am kind of glad we had a little recess from beer related items.
Bobby over did it a little on New Years Eve and hasn't even wanted to smell alcohol since. I may soon feel the need to ease back into it.
So here's what I understand.
The Republican party in Michigan, under Saul Anuzis, is who actually wanted to move the Primary date up to January. They wanted to help Mitt a little (after talking Michiagn's AG Mike Cox out of supporting McCain last September), get a buch of Republicans into Michigan, spend a ton of money here and as a side benefit, break-up the monopoly that Iowa and New Hampshire have. It drives up Republican voter turnout as well.
Not to be outdone or outmaneuvered, Dem Party Chair Mark Brewer agreed to go along with it.
Each were told what their punishment for braeking the rules would be: Republicans were told they'd lose half of their delegates to the convention this fall. Dems were told they'd lose all of them. Each side agreed to go forward, despite strenuous objections from unions, Dem Senators and Representgatives at the state-level and party strategists.
In the end, Saul got everything he wanted: an early primary, lots of money, the promise of high Republican turnout (higher than what the Dems will have, which will only energize his base for our own State elections this fall) and relevance and recognition as the guy who got it done on the national scene. Romney, by way of example, stopped soending money in South Carolina so he could spend it all here. McCain's already here.
The Dems got nothing. They get NO delegates at the convention in Colorado. They got 2 of the 3 Dem frontrunners to drop off the ballot. They got a confusing message from a scrambling party chair to vote "uncommitted" next week. Nice job.
I don't belong to an organized political party. I'm a Democrat.
F%$@ both parties and their rules. The primary system in this country is stupid. I am sure glad that Iowa and New Hampshire get a dispropotionate say in who the candidates are.
George Washinston was right when he feared the rise of political parties. We are now seeing why. Politicians place more weight on what is good for the party, as opposed to what is good for the people.
I have had this debate a hundred times ever since poly sci 101 in college.
Thank goodness political parties came into being and thank goodness there are only two of them, because if it wasn’t for the two-party system, along with the Electoral College, every election would be decided by Congress and we'd have a parliamentary system. This is actually what some of the framers preferred.
If we have more parties or no parties, more people will vote, but a majority of voters will see their candidate lose and be pissed off. Then welcome to France, regular revolution and minority rule. No thanks.
That said. The Democrats and a lot of others really fucked this primary thing up. They had a good motive, but the execution was terrible. There was a time when we should have said “nice try” and moved on to a Feb. caucus, or we should have put everyone back on the ballot. Now, the Dems. look like a bunch of fools out to disenfranchise voters or rig it for Hillary.
"Thank goodness political parties came into being and thank goodness there are only two of them, because if it wasn’t for the two-party system, along with the Electoral College, every election would be decided by Congress and we'd have a parliamentary system."
I'm not the most politically savvy guy, in fact I think politics is a load of rubbish. Can you help me out with this one Bob? Why would we be parliamentary and why would Congress decide elections if we had no parties/more parties and no electoral college? Popular vote can't elect a President? I'm lost...
I think what Bob is pointing out is that a President can't be elected with less than a majority vote. So even under the two-party system, if we went by popular vote, there is a real chance that no one would get more than 50% of the vote (it happened in 2000). If you go to a system where there are more than two legitimate, big name candidates on the ballot, you're almost never going to get a majority winner (think Bush/Clinton/Perot in 1992).
Therefore, almost every election would result in an inconclusive vote, which under many systems (ours included) are decided by the legislatures. So instead of the voters electing a president, the congress would basically appoint a Prime Minister.
There are other ways to allow the voters to choose (run-off elections, etc.), but I'm of the "if it ain't really really REALLY broke, don't f*ck with it" camp.
I am not proposing we become parlimentary, but Ireland has stable elections and they have 4 or 5 viable parties.
I just hate the lack of choice and the pressure to toe the party line. For an example of how messed up that can be, just look at the budget fiasco in Michigan. If you want another example, look how Ron Paul has been treated by the Republican party.
B Mac has basically nailed it.
As he mentioned, in 1992, 1996, and 2000, there wasn't a majority vote winner of the popular vote, but the Electoral College ensured there was. The more parties we have, the less likely we are to have a majority vote. Of course the unthinkable happened in 2000 when the popular vote and Electoral College was flipped.
If we are to rid ourselves of 2 parties or the Electoral College, then we must make other changes to avoid creating a parliamentary system:
One, we would need to amend the U.S. constitution to allow a winner to be chosen by plurality. Again, this could create a minority rule situation where if there were 3 strong conservative candidates and one strong liberal, the liberal could win with 26% of the vote. This would not be cool because it would be clear that 74% of the population preferred a conservative President.
Or, two: we would need to create some sort of run-off system, such as Instant Run Off Voting (IRV) or some sort of Primary-like system. The problem here is though that we could have an entire final field of liberals or an entire final field of conservatives as long as a party played it’s cards right and knocked off an entire opposing field. Then there would be no real choice in this system either.
Don't get me wrong, inside party politics is the ugliest form of politics there is. I have witnessed some nasty stuff myself. That said, systems that don't guarantee a choice of 2 as the final contest create unstable democracies. Retaining that means that we are less satisfied with the initial choices, but there is usually a consensus winner.
Or we could just name me..."His Excellency President for Life"
'Or we could just name me..."His Excellency President for Life"'
If I am part of your inner circle and can have influenece, I will vote for that. Then we can remove the Whitehouse bowling alley and put in a brewery!
Deal. I am not above croneyism, so just name the post you would like.
Thanks Guys, I really appreciate y'all shedding some light on that for me! Makes more sense now =)
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