Democratic Freak States Holy Saturday results thread (1st caucuses begin @1pmET)

[izixs]

 Looks like NYT called Alaska.

[izixs]

The Berniebots celebrating this Alaska win reminds me of the Romney supporters clapping and cheering when Alaska was called for them, even though they had already lost the election an hour ago.

No need to be salty just because Sanders won a state.

I'm not salty. I'm just annoyed at delusional Berniebots who act as if their hero and savior can still win this race when it's clearly over.

While they're annoyed at constantly being called Bernibots. Maybe the animosity can be fixed by not insulting people constantly.

[izixs]

Rules are rules, but I don't think low turnout unrepresentative caucuses are the best thing for the party. I like both of our candidates and I don't mind seeing the race go on (especially because California's top-two system can product nasty results if only Republicans have competitive races, such as CA-31 in 2012), but I really don't believe these kind of margins are representative of the broader Democratic electorate.

I think all states should have primaries. And, I think if Washington Republicans can have a primary for delegates, Democrats should certainly do so as well. I would hope this is something the party can work on for the future once we have our nominee.

Agreed. Caucuses are a relic

For the anti-caucus crowd, if you got your way and caucuses were done away with, would you make an exception for Iowa?  There is a lot of tradition there, and they do a good job managing it.

No. No exceptions. I've participated in the Iowa caucuses. And though going to the county and district conventions was kind of fun and interesting to a political junkie like m'self, in the end, the terrible starting process is not worth it.

[izixs]

In other news, looks like Alaska is 100% in with Sanders at 80.7% to 19.3% for Clinton.

[izixs]

For the anti-caucus crowd, if you got your way and caucuses were done away with, would you make an exception for Iowa?  There is a lot of tradition there, and they do a good job managing it.

Absolutely not, particularly because I don't think Iowa or New Hampshire should go first. Those states should not have a stranglehold on the nominating process anymore. Ideally, I think both parties should work together to find a new nominating process. (If anything, I wouldn't mind invoking a penalty that puts those two states at the very back of the line for once.) Eliminating caucuses can be done unilaterally by one party. Considering their swing state status, I think both parties will have to act on IA and NH together, not just one party acting on its own.

I'd hope that if the parties work together to fix the nomination process they'd move to some sort of national primary or a rigid system of state regions (either a whole region goes at once, or one state from each goes for each primary day). If a national primary, do it either as a preference vote thing (vote for all candidates you find acceptable, the one with the most votes wins) or a two round system where all but the top two finishers after the first round compete in the second vote. Eliminate delegates other than for handling party processes like platform and writing the party rules and such, removing them from the presidential selection process entirely. And most easy to do, no more super delegates and no more caucuses.