Party over Policy

[*bfine32*]

Does anyone do it better than the DNC?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/eye-bernie-sanders-democratic-national-committee-adopts-new-restrictions-2020-presidential-candidates-225841348.html

Quote:The Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee adopted a new rule on Friday that would prevent outsiders like Bernie Sanders from seeking the party’s nomination in the 2020 presidential race. The move seems to be the latest salvo in the ongoing jockeying over the party’s future that emerged following the at times bitter primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Sanders in 2016.
But while the rule change left some of Sanders’s top allies thinking the party was being driven by “spite,” it likely won’t affect him directly and could pave the way for one of his favorite reforms.

[treee]

(06-08-2018, 11:45 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Does anyone do it better than the DNC?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/eye-bernie-sanders-democratic-national-committee-adopts-new-restrictions-2020-presidential-candidates-225841348.html

Basically the new rules just says that they have to publicly announce their partnership with the Democratic party and pledge to work with them. Seems reasonable if one is running on their platform, though I can understand the concern in a limited 2 party system.

[jj22]

This just ends the argument that the DNC and RNC have to help people who represent other party's than there own get elected. Completely fine with that. That's how it's always been until the fake news about the DNC not helping Bernie got pushed as some sort of scandal, when the real scandal would have been them helping someone other than a Dem.

[Belsnickel]

Both the DNC and RNC exist to win elections, not enact public policy. Our political parties in this country are not like those in other WEIRD nations, where they are coalitions of similar minded politicos that rally around a common core of principles. Our parties are giant umbrellas that overlap each other in a significant way and have no actual structure within our government. The caucuses in Congress are more informal than most people realize and MCs aren't beholden to the party in any way other than by helping to raise money.

Honestly, I was pretty ticked off about Sanders and his situation during the last cycle. Even though from a policy view I agree with him more than Clinton, it bothered me that he was doing what he was doing to the Democratic party without being an actual member. Yeah yeah, he caucuses with the Dems in the Senate, but THE reason you are a party member is for the infrastructure for elections that they offer. You give to that infrastructure by fundraising for them, and they help with staffing, logistics, and pooling of resources. Sanders came into the primaries as a party outsider, trying to take advantage of that infrastructure.

Party over policy is just how our political parties exist in modern times. I don't like it, but that's the reality. Complaining about the parties behaving the way they have been for a century or more is inane.

[*bfine32*]

I don't think it is inane to complain about how the National Committees operate. I think it would be beneficial it they were more exposed to be the self-serving entity they are.

Too many people say I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat so I've got to vote for the candidate. It would be great if folks could see those candidates are no more viable that someone running on a smaller platform.

This past election cycle showed the worst of both National Committees and I think it was too quickly swept under the rug. The RNC did all it could to prevent a candidate from getting the nod while the DNC did all it could to ensure one person got the nod.

[Belsnickel]

(06-11-2018, 12:33 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I don't think it is inane to complain about how the National Committees operate. I think it would be beneficial it they were more exposed to be the self-serving entity they are.

Too many people say I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat so I've got to vote for the candidate. It would be great if folks could see those candidates are no more viable that someone running on a smaller platform.

This past election cycle showed the worst of both National Committees and I think it was too quickly swept under the rug. The RNC did all it could to prevent a candidate from getting the nod while the DNC did all it could to ensure one person got the nod.

The problem is that the parties are private organizations and can operate, essentially, how they please. There is no recourse that we, the citizens, have against this. They make their own rules, they are not subject to governmental oversight, and the can be as undemocratic as they please in their operation. I think the issue is that too many citizens don't know this and so assume that the parties have to have some semblance of democratic principle in their operation. Far from it.

The only way to change this would be through legislation, which isn't going to happen. It could be attacked through the route of campaign finance reform, changing the way elections are held in the states, or other ways I'm probably not thinking of off the top of my head. But the legislators aren't going to do this without the public demanding it, and the majority of the public doesn't actually understand how our political parties operate and that there are different models. If there isn't enough of a public demand, nothing will happen, and there won't be any demand because people don't know. If they don't know after over a century of this sort of thing, then I don't know how we are going to change this.

[BmorePat87]

Nothing wrong with this. It's the same as the GOP loyalty pledge. If you want to use the party's infrastructure and resources, you need to be a member.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

Seems to be the norm for both of them.....time to end the duopoly of corruption.

[Benton]

Reminds me of the Pledge to America a decade or so ago. That worked out well.

Neither party is big on helping the majority of folks, but they’re both big in grandstanding.