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Democratic Nomination 2012: Proposal
PROPOSAL FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION 2012
1. Until December of the year before election year: Early campaigning, fundraising, debates
As before, all candidate declare their intentions, do fundraising as usual, and so on. Their focus is on wooing the superdelegates and stacking the polls, in anticipation of the convention. Candidates also agree not to raise funds for the general election —
for primaries only. All general election donations must be made to the DNC at this point.
2. December Convention:
a.) Last debate of all candidates
b.) Candidates make closing 1-hour speeches
c.) Existing superdelegates publicly vote to narrow down candidates to 4 using approval voting, marking all that they are willing to support as the nominee.
d.) The top 4 candidates debate
e.) Existing superdelegates publicly vote to narrow down
candidates to 2 using approval voting, marking all that they are willing
to support as the nominee.
Superdelegate votes do NOT carry over.
3. VP agreement due
Both candidates declare their willingness to be on each other's ticket by December 31. This is not an agreement to choose each other. It is just an agreement to be willing to be chosen. This agreement is binding and irreversible.
4. January 1 - June 15: Biweekly Debates and Primaries
DNC selects debate sites and formats before January 1 with the option to cancel them. Timetable for voting is completely up to the states. Only rule: Election year. Note that the process below makes late-voting states important — there is little incentive to move up the primary!
5. Ballot format.
In each state, the ballot shows four and only four options:
Choose 1 option below:6. Points for each state:
• No Preference between A and B
• Candidate A
• Candidate B
• Write-in ___________
Each state is awarded 1 point for each 100,000 residents based on population of the state according to the last census. The U.S. population is about 3,050,000 now, so there will be roughly 3,050 points available. The nominee is the candidate with the most points.
7. Point Allocation in each state:
Candidates earn points based in proportion to the electorate. For example, Massachusetts has 6,349,000 people, worth 63 points. Here are hypothetical results:
50% No Preference = 16 points each8. Party Unity Day: 7 days after final primary.
30% Candidate A = 19 more points
15% Candidate B = 09 more points
0.4% Blank = 0 points
4.6% Write-in = 3 points
Note: Rounding may cause the total points to be between 61 and 65. That's fine.
Preplanned celebration event organized by the DNC in which the loser endorses the winner. If s/he refuses, the event is canceled.
9. August Convention.
VP nominee due 1 week before convention. No votes for president needed since the delegates will have already done their thing. Only the VP vote is cast. Other typical convention events.
10. Withdrawal Clause
In the event that a candidate withdraws during the primary process, superdelegates will vote at the convention to confirm the remaining candidate. If a 2/3 majority is not reached, a new round of approval voting takes place, with the highest vote getter becoming the nominee.
What do you think? Serious discussion only. Please be to-the-point, referring to steps/clauses by number for clarity.
Comments (8)
To begin with, I decline to refer to steps/clauses by number.
So that's the first problem your plan runs into.
You surely noticed the difficulty the DNC had imposing even the most modest and reasonable of rules on states this year, despite penalties that were publicized far in advance.
Crucially, the state parties would have to endorse these new rules, and they will not.
On top of which, your plan takes a process that already seems to last far too long, and pushes much of the electoral jockeying into the previous year. Why would anyone want that?
Third, you turn the scheduling of primaries and caucuses into a complete free-for-all.
If the 2008 campaign established anything, it's that there needs to be a previously agreed, staggered and rotated schedule: not one Super Tuesday, but a series of Rather Good Tuesdays.
Finally, your August convention sounds really boring. You do want the media to cover it, don't you?
The way I see it, your proposal solves a lot of problems that don't really exist. The major problem in 2008 was a number of states trying to game the system by defying the DNC's primary schedule.
So the key task is improving the schedule by 2012, and getting all the states to commit to it.
June 7, 2008 3:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here in lies the major fault of the Democratic Party. We're constantly making the complicated much more complicated.
June 7, 2008 3:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
For Pete's sake, make the process shorter, not longer!
June 7, 2008 5:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
There's no justification for having superdelegates at all in 2012, much less in giving them more power, as you seem willing to do.
June 7, 2008 6:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
The real problem here is that you seem to be assuming the 2012 Democratic primary will be a seriously contested election. It won't be.
June 7, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hillary, making complicated processes didn't work with health care reform in the early 1990s, why should it work now?
June 7, 2008 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could we maybe concentrate on winning in 2008 before we start planning for 2012? Just a though...
June 7, 2008 3:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since the 2012 primary will be a re-election campaign ;), it will make a good place to test all sorts of new voting schemes. The real goal is to have a good system in place for 2016.
June 7, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
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