Exactly which party has the "elitist" nomination process?
There’s been a lot of talk from Montana Democrats over the past few months about the MT GOP's decision to hold caucuses in February to select their presidential nominee as opposed to the traditional June primaries. As the Dems continue to harangue the GOP on their supposed elitism, we started wondering just how “democratic” their system is.
Let’s do the breakdown of the delegates that the Montana Democrats are sending to Denver:
The Dems get 24 total delegate votes. Of these 24, eight of them are “superdelegates”—party insiders, known as Party Leaders and Elected Officials (PLEOs), such as Senators Baucus and Tester, Gov. Schweitzer, MDP Chairman Dennis McDonald, etc. who are not bound to a particular candidate. The remaining 16 delegates are split into two groups: one group of 10 proportional pledged delegates, and another group of 6 delegates (including another 2 PLEOs) who are bound to vote for the primary winner.
I know, it’s complicated, but it is interesting to me that the Montana Dems keep spouting this rhetoric of how the Montana GOP let party insiders select their nominee. Isn’t this a little hypocritical? The Dems are allowing that many of their delegates—all party insiders—to vote for whomever they please without regard to ANY Montanan’s voice in the primary.
So how does the Montana GOP decide which delegates get to vote for whom? Montana Republicans from all walks of life decide who their nominee is and the delegates vote as a block bound to that candidate. No mathematical formulas, no superdelegates, no chance for a split vote based on the party elite—just the voice of Montana Republicans.
And this year that voice was heard by all four major candidates. Candidates or their surrogates were not hard to find in Montana in the weeks leading up to the caucus. With the early caucus, the presidential hopefuls had to pay attention to Montanans when it still mattered, when there was still a decision to be made. The fact that Gov. Romney was selected as Montana’s nominee is a testament to our GOP’s newly-found voice. His nomination was a statement to the nation that Montana Republicans believed that they would be better represented by someone who wasn’t the eventual nominee. Would they have had that chance in June?
Even with the tight race between Hillary and Obama, it isn’t likely that Montana Democrats will be afforded that same voice. True, Montana has 24 delegates, but only 16 are decided by the people and they will not all go to one candidate—of the 10 proportional delegates, 4 will likely go to the loser in the primary. So in the likely scenario, that would put the delegate count at 12-4, which is really a net gain of 8 delegates. Including the 8 superdelegates, that means that the state Dems are truly only allotted 16 consequential votes with HALF of them coming from the party leadership, not popular will. So what happens if all of the superdelegates vote the other way? Then, with the miniscule net gain of delegates for a candidate, how is that going to influence a party with 800 national superdelegates?
And this scenario is only in the unlikely event that there are still two candidates in the race in June.
When will the Democrats realize that the people of their party need a voice in the selection of their nominee? The Republican caucuses have illustrated why we need to finally move both primaries to earlier in the process to give all Montanans a choice in who will lead their party’s ticket—and possibly the free world.
Carter
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Reader Comments (12)
WWRKD? What Would Roger Koopman Do?
A very astute and well-presented analysis. I have one question: Doesn't John Bohlinger get to be one of the PLEO delegates? By Montana law he is a Democrat elected official. A man without a Party. How sad.
Help me to understand your convoluted math. Must be the same kind of math that shows recent job gains, success in Iraq, that sort of thing...
625 Republican party insiders send all 25 MT GOP national delegates to their convention, and roughly 120,000 (I added a bit to 2004 totals given that I you probably lost some party members in rigging your caucus for Romney) Dem voters will send 16 (sans "super delegates") to Denver.
State pop: roughly 944,000
25/(944,000/625)= .0165
16/(944,000/120,000)= 2.033
2.033/.0165= 122.88
So I guess that means that a Democratic primary vote in the state of Montana has the weight of roughly 123 GOP votes. Nice job all, Iverson's "master stroke" sure worked out great for a guy who's not even in the race anymore.
Clearwater, you ignored the whole point. Don't you see any hypocrisy in your party at all in pointing fingers at the Republicans for being "elitist" and then utilizing a superdelegate system that completely shuts out all but your 8 top party officials?
Superdelegates are still primarily democratically elected officials and fewer yet, elected at the state convention. Who elected the 625 people who wasted their votes on Mitt? Nobody knows, because most of those deals went down with a dozen people voting in places like the Joker's Wild (must miss the Sizzler so much).
If you'd like Carter, I'll add up the votes that elected the officials who comprise Montana's Democratic superdelegates. You guys made your beds; so lie in them.
Clearwater, we're running in circles here, but I'll remind you that nearly all the people who voted in the Republican Caucus were also elected officials. Isn't that the argument you're making here? Some were statewide elected officials, many were legislators, some were county elected officials, and the vast majority were precinct committeemen and women who were elected in the last Primary Election.
So go ahead, add up the number of votes cast for the handful of your superdelegates who were elected by the Montana public. Then go and add up all the votes for every Republican elected official who voted in the Caucus(including legislators, county elected officials, and precinct committeemen/women). Republicans have you beat at least 2 to 1.
By the measure you outline, Republicans have a vastly more democratic process. However, I think it's sillyto even go this route.
This is dumb to try and split hairs like this. The bottom line is this is just one more example of blatant hypocrisy from your party.
Carter, of course it's hypocrisy, it's what the D's feed on, what I find interesting at this point is none of the Montana super delegates will say who they are supporting. My guess is that's being driven by the Governor's office. What Big Bri' doesn't want is his picture on the front page of all the major daily's holding hands up in victory with Hillary, talk about the kiss of death politically in Montana. This whole process has been real interesting to watch, we all know how power hungry ol' Hillary is, let's see if she can practice her voo-doo in Montana!
You and I both know how easy it is to stack a central committee. All you do is let the Romney crew know a few months ahead of the party convention that the fix is in, they do a little organizing, send a few emails, etc... Then you pass the caucus proposal in the summer and cross your fingers that you don't get out-hustled by the Ron Paul loonies. Don't pretend like it's democratic.
Clearwater, you're going to have to back that up with something. You're alleging that the Montana Republican Party conspired with the Romney campaign to "fix" the MT GOP Caucus?
Please provide any proof you have for this. If you don't have any, please apologize to The Hardliner's readers for your being such a jackass.
Oh Clearwater, you are giving the Romney folks way too much credit, the Ron Paul folks were the ones that got that job done, now it's going to be interesting to see if they hang around to do the heavy lifting and work in the party to get Republicans elected. I'll sure be watching......
Hey Clearwater!
Get a load of this quote:
"In the hybrid primary-caucus state of Texas, Hillary beat Obama by three points and 100,000 votes in a primary where 3 million people voted. But Obama will get more pledged delegates out of the state because he beat Hillary in a caucus where 100,000 people participated."
And Obama is the candidate of people power?
It looks like you need to either go to Texas and straighten those folks out, or quit grousing about the Republican caucus here in Montana.