New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus epidemic, has cancelled its already once-delayed presidential primary.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1306153
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1306153
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At the time, Cuomo said that it wasn’t “wise” to bring people into close contact to vote.
On Friday, he issued an executive order to ensure that all New Yorkers receive an absentee ballot application ahead of now just the state and local primaries on June 23.
I don’t get it. Why cancel the primary instead of just relying on absentee ballots? Will November serve as a primary for any competing candidates in races for the House and legislature? I’m sure the switch to all absentee would present problems, but this will make it an absolute shitshow.
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I understand why this is being done but I think it’s a mistake. It’s going to feed into the “rigged” narrative.
Among other questions, how will N.Y. delegates be distributed?
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That’s fine but might I suggest Biden reserve the ballroom in Trump Tower for the night of Nov. 3rd.
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“Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) had lobbied the board Sunday to keep his name on the ballot.”
Sorry, but if you’ve already dropped out of the race, then you don’t get to appear on the ballot.
Sh!tcan your ego, get behind the Dem nominee, and work like hell to end the madness of Trump.
Before he gets us all killed.
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Giving ammo to the remaining “rigged against Bernie” people – who not only exist, but are actively recruiting against Biden on social media right now – is major stupidity.
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My guess is they just couldn’t scale up fast enough to get that many ballots out and counted. This allows shifting the focus to the remaining regional primary contests. Scaling back would seem to be a good idea in NY, considering how hard they’ve been hit with the pandemic.
Meanwhile, there’s this for context:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/27/wisconsin-tested-positive-coronavirus-election-211495
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Good question. If you see a sensible answer, do let me know.
(Seriously.)
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I doubt Biden would complain if they just split the delegates 50/50. Sanders on the other hand…
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What are elections for?
That’s right: electing people.
If you’re not trying to get elected, get the fuck out.
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Only if the Bernie camp tries to push that narrative.
Bernie dropped out, so what is there to rig??
No decision has been made, but since there is only one candidate, it is probably safe to assume that he’ll get them all.
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The point is the composition of the platform committee. There’s this threshold in the Democratic primary of needing 25 percent of the delegates to being assured of members sitting on that platform committee. Sanders is headed toward nearly a coin toss as to whether he meets that threshold. The Biden campaign – reflecting the good relations they and Sanders have long had – seem inclined to let Sanders people on the platform committee anyway. The DNC wants the Sanders people gone. Hopefully Biden’s good sense prevails – we want a balanced platform that broadly represents Democratic and progressive values and not special interests.
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Why on earth would they do that? Bernie dropped out. He’s entitled to bupkis.
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Yes, in large part – from a factional perspective.
There’s also the broader small-d democratic perspective.
The platform committee has over 180 members.
Prove it.
Since when do progressives not qualify as a “special interest?”
The platform is going to be fairly progressive, and as liberal overall as the party has ever had.
That said, it doesn’t really matter much. It’s like a president’s budget proposal—a set of ideas, 90% of which will never, ever be law.
Biden is not an ideologue. That is one of his biggest assets, because it means that, like FDR, Biden is open to experimentation with policies that might work well, despite being out of his comfort zone.
We’ve had ideologues as president before—Reagan, Bush the Lesser, Trump—and they cause enormous amounts of trouble.
We want a president who will do what works----not what fits a narrow ideology.
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Elections are for electing people, not proving you have or trying to gain influence. If Sanders wanted to play for the latter, he’d still be playing for the former. There’s no “waaaaaah, I dropped out too early and don’t like the consequences” in politics.
And Sanders’ and his supporters not-so-veiled threat to cause division in response to this is on them, nobody else. By threatening division at every turn, using unity as a hostage, they are admitting that unification is up to them. If they want to hold unification hostage, then they’ve ALREADY decided on division.
And that’s as far as I’m going so as not to violate the pact.
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And that could be the “rigged” part. Sanders already stated that he wanted to continue getting delegates to influence the platform.
Obviously the DNC is rigging things so this doesn’t happen.
EDIT: /s (Debated wether this was necessary…but yeah)
Most of those people use the Cyrillic Alphabet in their native language anyway.
Трахни их
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The DNC has no say whatsoever in what the state of NY does vis-a-vis the primary.
If Sanders wanted more delegates, then he should not have suspended his campaign.
The loser doesn’t get to dictate the content of the platform. Bernie has already had influence on what the platform will be.
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