PoliBlog: A Rough Draft of my Thoughts

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    1. I’m not so sure that a close primary is unlikely. If I understand correctly, the reason the primary is close has to do with divvying up the regular delegates on a proportional basis. And that was instituted after Jesse Jackson failed to get the nomination.

      I believe the policy of handing out delegates proportionately was first used in ’92. I’m surprised it didn’t lead to a close primary then. But after ’92 we’ve got ’96 (President Clinton running for re-election, so no real primary), ’00 (Gore running, not a close primary), and ’04 (Kerry). ’92, ’04, and ’08 are really the only years where a close primary was possible. The fact that it hasn’t happened more often may be simply a fluke. There really isn’t enough data to determine how close future primaries will be.

      Comment by Max Lybbert — Monday, March 31, 2024 @ 5:21 pm

    2. The launch of http://www.LobbyDelegates.com for the first time empowers grassroots Democrats with the only 1-stop portal for influencing Super Delegates, the nearly 800 top party officials allowed to vote for any Presidential candidate they choose at the Nominating Convention.

      Super Delegates’ votes could be decisive in a continuing close race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Both candidates remain better than 600 delegates shy of the 2,024 “magic number” for clinching the nomination. Given this math, neither candidate is expected to win enough pledged delegates during the 10 remaining state primaries to clinch a victory before the August 25th convention in Denver.

      This likelihood has led some Democratic leaders to recently suggest holding a special Super Delegate Primary in June to avoid the intra-party rancor anticipated from a brokered convention.

      With such high stakes, many Democrats want greater Super Delegate accountability–by endorsing either the candidate who won their state primary, or the one winning the most delegates from all primaries nationwide. LobbyDelegates.com enables rank-and-file Democrats to communicate such grassroots views directly to these Super Delegates–who include party leaders, governors, mayors, state and Congressional lawmakers.

      Users of LobbyDelegates.com can communicate with some or all of their state’s Super Delegates, who are categorized by whether they’re currently supporting Clinton or Obama, or have stayed Uncommitted. Users can thus tailor messages urging Super Delegates to switch candidates, or switch from being uncommitted to one candidate or the other. Users can even lobby Super Delegates to stay uncommitted until the Convention.

      The LobbyDelegates.com website is strictly impartial and is not affiliated with any political party, candidate, campaign or advocacy group. LobbyDelegates.com was created as a public service under the auspices of the StateDemocracy Foundation. This tax-exempt nonprofit was established in 1999 to run http://www.StateDemocracy.org — a civic engagement portal dedicated to delivering democracy to your desktop!

      Comment by Ken Laureys — Friday, April 4, 2024 @ 2:00 am

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