The Old Ways

Posted on February 13, 2020 by gcochran9

The Democratic Party can best serve the nation by going back to the tried and true: reinstate the two-thirds nominating rule for the convention.

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28 Responses to The Old Ways

  1. Highlander says:
    February 13, 2020 at 8:52 am

    Better yet, go back to property requirements for the voting franchise. By getting rid of voters who pay no taxes or receive any money from the government be it welfare, employment, or government contracts the modern Democratic Party would dry up and blow away.

    Reply
  2. Smithie says:
    February 13, 2020 at 10:20 am

    They probably should get rid of super-delegates.

    Another possible problem is that primaries for incumbents are largely meaningless. No primary challenger has ever won against an incumbent president. Though, philosophically it is an interesting question whether this is a good thing or bad thing. Would it just create more signalling, and a greater lurch to the left?

    One odd thing to be remarked upon is the senescence of most of the candidates. It is as though there is a convergence with the Soviet Union, where people were falling asleep at cabinet meetings, and worried that they would lose their dachas and other privileges, if they retired.

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    • J. says:
      May 25, 2021 at 7:34 am

      Fair enough, but neither Truman nor Johnson dared to run for a new term when they could have. Reagan performed pretty well in 1976 against Ford (although the fact it was St. Reagan, may prove that vothering the incumbent it is the performance ceiling for a challenger).

      Reply
  3. ASR says:
    February 13, 2020 at 10:23 am

    But this would make the Democrat Party democratic, something which would threaten those who currently control both major political parties and most other power centers within the USA. I don’t think it’s likely to happen.

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  4. dearieme says:
    February 13, 2020 at 11:02 am

    How about a series of votes each of which deletes one contender?

    The zeroth vote would simply be a plebiscite to agree that the candidate must be a member of the list presented to the convention. That is, it would rule out interlopers such as – to take an example at random – La Clinton.

    Then the first ballot proper would rule out whoever came last. And so on until there was only the last man standing. You may object that someone with only 50%+1 vote could become the candidate. The same is true for the Electoral College.

    Alternatively the last two men standing could fight a duel. That way God can judge. Or if one of the last two men is actually a woman use a ducking stool. Same justification.

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    • ASR says:
      February 14, 2020 at 8:00 am

      A great idea IMHO. I’d just change your emphasis a bit. Each vote should be for the most loathed remaining candidate, the one the most voters would like to see removed from running. That way the obloquy of an early removal might dissuade more loathsome candidates from subsequent runs for office. But, on second thought, I’m probably underestimating the egotistical, self-centered scumminess of most politicians these days.

      Reply
  5. st says:
    February 13, 2020 at 1:28 pm

    Greg, sorry for the OT, do you think this https://www.snpedia.com/index.php/Rs6632677 may imply differential survival rates in coronavirus infections?

    Reply
    • Highlander says:
      February 13, 2020 at 7:19 pm

      For God’s sake, enough with the coronavirus!

      Reply
      • Dave Chamberlin says:
        February 13, 2020 at 9:50 pm

        Yes lets change the subject from probably the most important news story of a generation and instead talk about your pea brained idea of dismantling democracy for the good of the people.

        Greg you sly dog, you just want the Democrats to fight more among themselves, that’s the only result a change to a higher percentage to be nominated will bring.

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        • Highlander says:
          February 13, 2020 at 10:19 pm

          “the most important news story of a generation”

          You need to take a Xanax and go lie down.

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          • David Chamberlin says:
            February 17, 2020 at 8:45 pm

            I’m a mellow fellow and don’t need a chill pill, I guess those 780 million Chinese living under travel restrictions are overreacting too. So you really think what ails us politically could be solved if we ditched democracy and went back to rule by kings. You have got to be the biggest dipshit we have had around here since Greg banned the Bronze Age Nazi Pervert. Maybe we just misunderstood him too.

            Reply
            • shadow on the wall says:
              February 18, 2020 at 7:31 am

              I’m a mellow fellow and don’t need a chill pill, I guess those 780 million Chinese living under travel restrictions are overreacting too. So you really think what ails us politically could be solved if we ditched democracy and went back to rule by kings.

              Easy to prove that monarchy is more efficient than democracy.
              Monarch ruling for life who will leave the kingdom to descendants will invest and develop the realm, while president or PM elected for few years will loot and plunder as much as he can during his term.
              Simple question of incentives, Economics 101 stuff.
              Of course, economic science presupposes that humans are rational, profit maximizing being.

              You have got to be the biggest dipshit we have had around here since Greg banned the Bronze Age Nazi Pervert. Maybe we just misunderstood him too.
              This guy was here too? LOL, this blog is really nerve center of alt right movement.
              Self proclaimed mighty bronze barbarian, one of alt-right heroes who humbly stays anonymous, whose sub Nieztschean drivel mysteriously became bestseller, whose positions on world events (Hong Kong, Bolivia, Venezuela etc…) always mysteriously 100% align with CIA.

              Reply
  6. Assistant Village Idiot says:
    February 14, 2020 at 3:51 pm

    Pat Buchanan’s challenge to George H W Bush probably sunk him in the long run, even though it did not prevent his nomination.

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    • Highlander says:
      February 14, 2020 at 4:06 pm

      Eugene McCarthy’s strong showing against LBJ in the ’68 New Hampshire primary led to LBJ’s dropping out of his re-election campaign.

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      • dearieme says:
        February 15, 2020 at 4:22 am

        Which led the previously pusillanimous Robert Kennedy to enter the fray, who was then murdered in a hotel kitchen. I think of it as the greasy knoll.

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    • Christopher B says:
      February 17, 2020 at 5:19 pm

      I have to disagree somewhat.

      There’s only been three times in the last 120 years that two (or more) men of the same party have been elected to three (or more) consecutive terms. They are Harding-Coolidge-Hoover, FDR-HST, and Reagan-GHWB. Two of those involved the death of a sitting President and his successor winning another term as an incumbent. GHWB was the only man to break that pattern, and it took being closely associated with a popular President, running at a time of almost unprecedented peace and prosperity, and against one of the weakest Democrat candidates of the 20th century for him to do it. (As an aside, this is why I was fairly sure that Hillary wasn’t going to be the first woman President).
      GHWB winning a fourth Republican term was probably never in the cards.

      Reply
  7. dearieme says:
    February 15, 2020 at 7:40 am

    The Dems might be subject to a New Way. The Wuhan virus will winnow the geriatrics and the morbid, leaving … I dunno, Mr Botty gig of South Bend.

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  8. mtkennedy21 says:
    February 15, 2020 at 11:25 am

    The thing that took out GHW Bush was Perot and he was right about NAFTA. He would have been in the same situation as Trump now. Maybe the Deep State was less organized then, but probably the same. I was ready to vote for Perot until he went nuts about his daughter’s wedding.

    Reply
  9. Rob says:
    February 17, 2020 at 7:31 pm

    I was reading about Jensen the other day. He said (possibly referencing, others, I forget) that the IQ of mildly retarded kids correlate with the slblings’ IQ, but the IQ of severely retarded kids does not. This is evidence that mild (familial) retardation is part of normal variation, and severe (organic) retardation is caused by other things, like homozygosity for a recessive, a novel dominant, or chromosomal abnormalities.

    My question is, does this apply at the other end of the scale? Say gifted kids whose siblings and parents are average or lower, or families where the gods flip a coin for brilliance or madness, like the Targaryens? It seems organic brilliance could be used to find very rare alleles with big cognitive effects. At a guess, the familial gifted would have smart siblings and parents, though regressed to the mean on average, and the organically gifted IQs would not correlate with their families’. Probably the familially gifted would have low genetic load, and so be more attractive and athletic, but the organically gifted would be spazzy or average.

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    • John C. McCloy says:
      February 24, 2020 at 2:41 pm

      Makes me think of a good friend of mine. He hit the ceiling on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) at age 19 (unfortunately, he was one of those highly gifted students who was forced to remain in a lockstep curriculum with his age peers for the duration of his schooling). The rest of his immediate family, on the other hand, is nowhere near him in terms of cognitive ability (I’d say IQ ~120 for his father, ~110 for his mother, ~105 for younger sister, and ~95 for his other younger sister). All five of them are physically attractive and athletic, and the parents look like they’re in their late 30s at the most when in fact they’re both in their early 50s, which suggests a low mutational load. May he still be an example of “organic” giftedness? I don’t know, but he also happens to suffer from autism spectrum disorder (Asperger’s syndrome), though he’s EXTREMELY high functioning for someone with ASD (which we both agree is likely due to his very high IQ).

      Reply

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