Moral of the Story: Primaries exist for a reason

The shear breadth of explanations being offered suggests to me that we plainly don’t know why elections go the way they do. I am also not convinced that the lack of primary has little to do with anything. Until this year, the general election loser had always won their primary.

 

Also, I want to go back to the argument made by many posters that choosing Harris as the Democratic candidate was undemocratic. Hopefully people can now better see why this was always a fallacious argument. Being the choice of a private political party in no way guarantees you any public office. You must win an election of the people to enjoy that privilege, and therefore a party only hurts itself by choosing a poor candidate.

 

Just a note, the use of primaries to select a party's nominee has only been used for around 50 years or so. Prior to 1972 in a majority of states delegates to national conventions were selected through state conventions rather through primaries, in a number of states primaries were preferential rather than binding and some states didn't bother holding primaries at all. Jimmy Carter was probably the first president who was nominated for the office based entirely on binding party primaries. George McGovern was the first candidate nominated entirely through the primary process and he lost by one of the largest margins in history.

 

Amazing how this fact is glossed over. Wasn't popular in her own party and people wonder why she couldn't pull votes.

 

Yeah, to lock in the shittiest candidates for the football mentality idiots who actually identify with these worthless parties. And because the track record of the primaries in selecting good candidates is so strong these days.

Further is the irony of this from a MAGA. If the R's hadn't removed similar restrictions/firewalls from their primary system that the D's had in place to kill Sanders, very good chance your boy never gets the nomination in 2016.

3-4 elections. People move on based on percentage of vote. Choose a candidate and let the parties do what they want with those numbers. Time to ditch the 19th century BS and move into the 21st Century.

P.S. There wasn't a single D who was going to win this election. Right or wrong, it was a referendum on the economy mostly, and the thought that Trump can bring 2016 back again.

 

That people close to Biden should have had foresight of.

 

No, they hurt the rest of us by providing such a poor candidate that djt won

edit...and they did it 2X

 

If by this you mean, had the Democratic Party done X, Y might not have happened, sure the democrats caused Y. But once we Cast such a broad net for culpability, we will have to recognize almost infinite responsible parties. Personally, I don’t think Trump voters should be let off the hook like this. It was those people that made this choice.

 

@gaterzfan perhaps my “let them off the hook” language makes my point sound overly negative, but I’m trying to give you back your agency. Consider Gr8t’s alternative that you indirectly endorsing: you vote for Trump was not due to your own free choice but because the Democratic Party made you do it.

 

many of those voters wanted something better, likely enough to provide a different outcome.

yes, they chose between two bad choices. sadly, the dems choice was seen as worse by too many. that is due to the quality of the candidate that the dems rolled out and their ability to get the proper message out. crime isn't bad, inflation is worldwide post covid but USA economy tops int he world.

had Biden abdicated midterm as he committed to before his ego and his posse convinced him otherwise, there would have been an open primary and the best candidate would have been chosen. the only uncertainty is whether that would have been Kamla or not. imo, that isn't much of an uncertainty

dems failure to provide a better candidate with Hillary and Kamla gave us djt, both times. can't try and force feed the country someone they don't want and then blame them for not wanting the option you gave them. Both Hillary and Kamala were anointed, not chosen, and they both cost the country huuuugely

dems didn't make anyone vote for anyone, they just failed to provide a better candidate..than Donald J Trump..twice...for christs sake, the country chose a senior Biden over djt, how bad does that make hillary and kamala chocies?

 

It's interesting you say that. My daughter mentioned that she still recalls a class in Middle School where they were taught about sources, the different kinds, how to identify bias, and to be skeptical. So many in my generation (Gen X) and especially older generations didn't really learn that and are/were too trustful of what they find on the internet/broadcast/print because misinformation wasn't near the problem it became in the internet age. I remember repeatedly having to provide links to Snopes for my Dad who seemed to believe (or wanted to believe) information that would come via email in the somewhat early days of the internet.

 

I understand your argument, Gr8t, and it makes a lot of intuitive sense. But if everyone must vote the lesser of two evils, the Republicans would deserve equal blame for putting forth a better candidate than Harris. And more to the core of my perspective, we don’t have to vote for either of these two. That’s our choice to do that. Frankly I wish we wouldn’t keep making that choice.

 

Yea, I vaguely recall my mom staying up to watch a convention to see who the candidates would be. Seemed pretty exciting. Of course wouldn't be so exciting now with the Internet and social media.

 

Some are blaming Biden for not stepping out sooner. imho Harris wasn’t a strong candidate and wouldn’t have won even with more time. They needed a primary where the candidate would have been vetted and built a loyal base. I don’t think Harris ever had that. Ever.



These Are The Democrats Blaming Biden For Trump’s Defeat Of Harris

 

It's hard to argue against Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, which are two nominees who would have never received the nomination if it were merely hand-picked by the DNC. Dems have been trending towards the old way for about a decade now and it's really starting to show its consequences.

 

I would think the president could debate anyone he wanted to, at any time, as long as the other person was willing to show up. He could take on all the republicans together, or one at a time. I agree, it wouldn't be conventional.

 

Both Hillary and Kamala were underqualified, as well. Neither had executive experience as a governor of a state, and neither could be considered a great leader in the Senate (Hillary handed out awards to girl scouts). Hillary did have additional experience as Secretary of State, but I would not say that that experience was a net positive, as a number of disasters occurred not only on her watch, but were at least partly attributable to her incompetence, not to mention her grifting for donations to her "charity".

Message to Dems: if a Senator shows interest in becoming president, tell them to run for governor and work that job for a few years first.

 

And have open primaries with at least a handful of viable candidates and let the people choose. Want to increase your odds of winning, let independent voters vote in your primary.

 

It wouldn't matter what the pubs did if the dems gave the middle a better choice. If dems chose a good candidate in time for them to work, the pubs would have suffered for choosing djt. It wasn't the pub base that gave djt the election. They can't dovit alone