>So please follow me in this. Primaries and/or caucuses or other
>methods of delegate selection are meant to select people to run as
>representatives of a Political Party. I know it is crazy, but the
>Democratic Party still claims to be a political organization.
Well obviously a primary system where the majority of those voting are not members of the political party whose electoral candidates they are choosing, is precisely designed to ensure that political parties *cannot* be effective. It surely cannot be merely accidental or incidental. So I take the view that it was a system specifically designed to ensure that political parties cannot participate in the US electoral system.
These caucuses are perhaps a small step back towards an electoral system that involves political parties. Which would be consistent with the theory that the exclusion of political parties from the electoral system in the US was a measure designed to counter the growing electoral strength of socialist parties in the early twentieth century (when the primary system was introduced.)
The threat having subsided, a more democratic electoral system might be allowed to evolve.
>By the way, I don't think that anyone on this list has dealt with the
>fact that the reason Obama does better at caucuses is because his
>ground level organization is better.
Good point. As I've followed the discussion (which has been quite enlightening) it occurred to me that perhaps a process which awards at least some points for a capacity to mobilise grass-roots volunteers makes a lot of sense. You can't expect to win an actual election without some sort of organisation on the ground. You need to be able to get people to mark your name off on the ballot paper, sure, but you need much more than that.
>I don't think anybody on this list who complains about Obama is going
>to answer me here.Some seem to be crypto-Clinton supporters. Some seem
>to be so caught up in the bourgeois political process as to accept the
>delusion that the primary system is supposed to be democratic, or that
>party selection is supposed to represent "the will of the people." Any
>party selection system that claims to represent "the democratic will
>of the people" as a whole instead of party faithful and regulars is
>bullshit to start with. And shame on any leftist who believes that
>this bullshit _should_ be true.
I'm still trying to work out exactly what it is about Obama that people so object to. (Or, alternatively, so excites people). Doesn't seem that much different to any that have come before. I've read how people justify their loathing, or their support. Yet the reasoning of neither side convince me.
I'm missing something, a piece or two of the puzzle eludes me.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas