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Question as a non-American: why did these candidates (virtually) win the primaries? Were the other candidates of the end-run liked even less? Are the voters tha

Question as a non-American: why did these candidates (virtually) win the primaries? Were the other candidates of the end-run liked even less? Are the voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general population?

unlinker 10y ago
I think the rest of candidates were even worse. You can take Cruz, who is the weirdest and most spineless guy I've ever seen, or Bernie, who is a Jewish socialist.
- aidos 10y ago
  I think you'd be better to leave race out of it.
  - 78666cdc 10y ago
    I don't see what you could be referring to with the "race" comment besides "Jewish". Judaism is not a race. Why do you say that it's better to leave race out of it when nobody has mentioned race?
    - simonh 10y ago
      Bernie has described himself as a "secular Jew who does not practice any religion". So if he doesn't practice any form of Judaism, to what extent can you say that his Jewishness is not racial? What else is it?
      - k-mcgrady 10y ago
        Cultural. I'm not a practicing Catholic but I still enjoy some of the cultural aspects of celebrations like Christmas and Easter.
  - unlinker 10y ago
    Race of whom? Cruz, Trump, Bernie and Hillary are all caucasian. What am I missing?
    - aidos 10y ago
      My parent implied there was something "worse" about a "Jewish socialist" - ie because of his birth parents, in part, Bernie Sanders is a worse candidate. Maybe it's an honest question but I suspect you're simply choosing to be pedantic with the definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism is peppered with references to the persecution of the Jews, so evidently others would file it under racism. Either way, my parent's comment was out of line.
- somefuckingguy 10y ago
  It boggles my mind how "socialist" is perceived like a BAD WORD by the general public in America.
tempestn 10y ago
> Are the voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general population? I'm not American either, but my understanding is that the answer to this question is a big yes.
simonh 10y ago
I think on the Republican side the other candidates were either weak-water, nutty or too divisive. If they'd had a 10 years younger McCain in there he'd have walked away with it. Trump wouldn't have stood a chance. But while many of the things Trump said were alarming, many of the things the other candidates were saying were also alarming. They also lacked the spine to properly stand up to him and allowed his position on things to dictate theirs. When he took an extreme position on something they moved to becoming more extreme on it as well, which lended him credibility. On the Democrat side, the Clintons just have such deep roots in the Democrat party institutions. Whatever you think of her personally she's a very experienced heavy hitter and her husband is still very popular in his own right. Many people on the Democrat side that dislike Hillary personally still like Bill.
alexc05 10y ago
I've been following Bernie's run very closely (and am the foolish pollyanna type that still has his fingers crossed for a miracle in California) But, if you look at Clinton/Bernie he underperformed in States with "closed primaries" meaning people had to declare party affiliation months in advance. (New York was almost a year ago) independents and swing-voters weren't allowed to say "hey, I actually like this Bernie guy." Bernie did overwhelmingly well in places with open primaries. On two occasions he "beat the polls" (IIRC -Indiana and one other had Clinton's chances of winning at ~99% and he came out with victory) open primaries are being credited with contributing to that phenomenon. People who have never voted are coming into the mix for Bernie If you look closely you will also see a couple States where there has been either "gross incompetence" or voter suppression / electoral fraud. People's part affiliation swapped without their knowledge, budget cuts forcing extremely long lines, running out of ballots. In some areas around electronic voting machines, the disparity between voter counts and exit polls are higher than the ones seen at the Ukrainian election which was declared fraudulent. In Chicago for example there was an "audit" where the observers saw the clerks alter their tallies to match the expected number. I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of places where the disparity is highly suspect. Edit: (Apologies, I started pasting in references for my outlandish claims and it got wiped because of a mobile-page-reload and have now got to decide whether or not to throw my phone out the bleeping window :)) Here's one reference covering a few points about the electoral fraud thing: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9550670.html http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9... The examples have gotten more egregious since it was written though.
- mahranch 10y ago
  > I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of places where the disparity is highly suspect. It is tinfoil hat sounding because it is tinfoil hat territory. I'm sorry, but the internet has made Sanders supporters lose touch with reality; Hillary Clinton, even at the very end, still beat Sanders by double digits (source: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...). The Obama vs Clinton matchup was much, much closer. We're only talking a few point difference. I saw this same thing happen back in 2008 with Ron Paul. Paul supporters had a hard time believing that Paul didn't stand a chance. The reason Clinton trounced Sanders is multifaceted; First off, Sanders is old and he's Jewish. Unfortunately, that puts some people off right away (bigotry and prejudice is still alive and well in America). Secondly, he embraced the term Socialist. While people under 40 may be aware of what that term entails (we think of European/democratic socialism, not Russian/Chinese socialism) the older generation & boomers still thinks of the commies and pinkos. America is still 10-30 years away from using that word without the stigma & negative connotations. And that kind of sums up Sanders; he's espousing an ideology that America isn't quite ready for. We need to move further to the left a bit. Kind of like how the GOP has kept moving this country to the right over the last 35 years, we need to move it back to the center, and ultimately to the left. I'm a democratic socialist myself but even I knew Sanders didn't stand a chance. That's because I'm aware that it's going to take some time. Perhaps a couple decades. It starts with small steps, electing moderates who lean left, then finally left candidates like Sanders.
tveita 10y ago
The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't support to avoid their least-preferred candidate winning. For instance, you may prefer Bernie Sander's policies but still vote Hillary if you think she will have a better chance against Trump in the election. Or you may prefer other Republican candidates, but want to avoid Trump going independent, splitting the voter base and handing the victory to the Democrats. I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo
- alexc05 10y ago
  Actually, the primaries are proportional.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - eru 10y ago
    They still elect a single candidate at the end.
- braythwayt 10y ago
  > The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system Canadian here. I didn’t know that a first-past-the-post system virtually guarantees a two-party system.
  - tveita 10y ago
    It's more or less unavoidable if voters are voting strategically. The sad and undemocratic reality of FPTP is that voting for a third-party candidate with little chance to win is "throwing away your vote". I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP. For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?
nabla9 10y ago
You need votes from only 4.5% of the 220 million Americans eligible to vote to get your party nomination in general election. Using ballpark numbers to present the idea: You have country with 220 million Americans eligible to vote. 16 percent of all age-eligible citizens voted in the 2012 presidential primaries. That's 35 million. If those voters are equally divided between the two parties, and winning party candidate gets roughly half of the votes, they get their party nomination with 9 million votes each. Checked the numbers and they check out. George W. Bush, with his 10.8 million votes in 2000 is the record holder in the GOP side. Trump will likely break this record.
- toyg 10y ago
  16% is a shockingly low number. That means less than 8.001% of the population decide the range of opinions allowed in the presidential office. By the time the general election is over, the winner will be bound to a platform fundamentally agreed on by 4% of voters at best. We have some problems in this area in Europe as well, but US numbers are ridiculous. How can candidates say that they represent "the whole country" with a straight face?
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Because voters are assumed to be a sampling of Americans. Is there reason to believe that preferences are significantly different among those that don't vote?
    - nabla9 10y ago
      Oh yes. Political scientist have extensively studied the issue. Those who vote in primaries represent different demographics than Americans in general. There are differences in age, race and ethnicity, education, income, religious and political views.
snomad 10y ago
On the Democrat side, it is a rigged system. The concept of "super delegates" who don't vote by primary voter choice - instead they vote by some nebulous concepts such as "democrat purity" - has meant the Clintons' deep connections have triumphed over the enthusiasm that Bernie has supported. https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 On the Republican side, Trump did something I don't think people quite get yet. He basically became a gaffe machine and didn't walk it back. Everyday was 2 or 3 gaffes that kept him in the news. He covered one gaffe with another.
protomyth 10y ago
Trump did well because of the early open primaries allowed him to do well. Plus, Fox News continued pushing of him helped. A perfect storm of hate for the establishment. He lost my own state because our reps didn't buy it.

unlinker 10y ago

I think the rest of candidates were even worse. You can take Cruz, who is the weirdest and most spineless guy I've ever seen, or Bernie, who is a Jewish socialist.

aidos 10y ago
I think you'd be better to leave race out of it.
- 78666cdc 10y ago
  I don't see what you could be referring to with the "race" comment besides "Jewish". Judaism is not a race. Why do you say that it's better to leave race out of it when nobody has mentioned race?
  - simonh 10y ago
    Bernie has described himself as a "secular Jew who does not practice any religion". So if he doesn't practice any form of Judaism, to what extent can you say that his Jewishness is not racial? What else is it?
    - k-mcgrady 10y ago
      Cultural. I'm not a practicing Catholic but I still enjoy some of the cultural aspects of celebrations like Christmas and Easter.
- unlinker 10y ago
  Race of whom? Cruz, Trump, Bernie and Hillary are all caucasian. What am I missing?
  - aidos 10y ago
    My parent implied there was something "worse" about a "Jewish socialist" - ie because of his birth parents, in part, Bernie Sanders is a worse candidate. Maybe it's an honest question but I suspect you're simply choosing to be pedantic with the definitions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism is peppered with references to the persecution of the Jews, so evidently others would file it under racism. Either way, my parent's comment was out of line.
somefuckingguy 10y ago
It boggles my mind how "socialist" is perceived like a BAD WORD by the general public in America.

tempestn 10y ago

> Are the voters that vote in the primaries not representative for the general population? I'm not American either, but my understanding is that the answer to this question is a big yes.

simonh 10y ago

I think on the Republican side the other candidates were either weak-water, nutty or too divisive. If they'd had a 10 years younger McCain in there he'd have walked away with it. Trump wouldn't have stood a chance. But while many of the things Trump said were alarming, many of the things the other candidates were saying were also alarming. They also lacked the spine to properly stand up to him and allowed his position on things to dictate theirs. When he took an extreme position on something they moved to becoming more extreme on it as well, which lended him credibility. On the Democrat side, the Clintons just have such deep roots in the Democrat party institutions. Whatever you think of her personally she's a very experienced heavy hitter and her husband is still very popular in his own right. Many people on the Democrat side that dislike Hillary personally still like Bill.

alexc05 10y ago

I've been following Bernie's run very closely (and am the foolish pollyanna type that still has his fingers crossed for a miracle in California) But, if you look at Clinton/Bernie he underperformed in States with "closed primaries" meaning people had to declare party affiliation months in advance. (New York was almost a year ago) independents and swing-voters weren't allowed to say "hey, I actually like this Bernie guy." Bernie did overwhelmingly well in places with open primaries. On two occasions he "beat the polls" (IIRC -Indiana and one other had Clinton's chances of winning at ~99% and he came out with victory) open primaries are being credited with contributing to that phenomenon. People who have never voted are coming into the mix for Bernie If you look closely you will also see a couple States where there has been either "gross incompetence" or voter suppression / electoral fraud. People's part affiliation swapped without their knowledge, budget cuts forcing extremely long lines, running out of ballots. In some areas around electronic voting machines, the disparity between voter counts and exit polls are higher than the ones seen at the Ukrainian election which was declared fraudulent. In Chicago for example there was an "audit" where the observers saw the clerks alter their tallies to match the expected number. I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of places where the disparity is highly suspect. Edit: (Apologies, I started pasting in references for my outlandish claims and it got wiped because of a mobile-page-reload and have now got to decide whether or not to throw my phone out the bleeping window :)) Here's one reference covering a few points about the electoral fraud thing: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9550670.html http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/its-not-just-arizona-elec_b_9... The examples have gotten more egregious since it was written though.

mahranch 10y ago
> I know that it's all very "tinfoil hat" sounding, but there are a number of places where the disparity is highly suspect. It is tinfoil hat sounding because it is tinfoil hat territory. I'm sorry, but the internet has made Sanders supporters lose touch with reality; Hillary Clinton, even at the very end, still beat Sanders by double digits (source: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-democratic-primary http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-d...). The Obama vs Clinton matchup was much, much closer. We're only talking a few point difference. I saw this same thing happen back in 2008 with Ron Paul. Paul supporters had a hard time believing that Paul didn't stand a chance. The reason Clinton trounced Sanders is multifaceted; First off, Sanders is old and he's Jewish. Unfortunately, that puts some people off right away (bigotry and prejudice is still alive and well in America). Secondly, he embraced the term Socialist. While people under 40 may be aware of what that term entails (we think of European/democratic socialism, not Russian/Chinese socialism) the older generation & boomers still thinks of the commies and pinkos. America is still 10-30 years away from using that word without the stigma & negative connotations. And that kind of sums up Sanders; he's espousing an ideology that America isn't quite ready for. We need to move further to the left a bit. Kind of like how the GOP has kept moving this country to the right over the last 35 years, we need to move it back to the center, and ultimately to the left. I'm a democratic socialist myself but even I knew Sanders didn't stand a chance. That's because I'm aware that it's going to take some time. Perhaps a couple decades. It starts with small steps, electing moderates who lean left, then finally left candidates like Sanders.

tveita 10y ago

The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system where voters must vote strategically for candidates they don't support to avoid their least-preferred candidate winning. For instance, you may prefer Bernie Sander's policies but still vote Hillary if you think she will have a better chance against Trump in the election. Or you may prefer other Republican candidates, but want to avoid Trump going independent, splitting the voter base and handing the victory to the Democrats. I think this is a huge problem with the current system, as the lack of candidates they agree with make people get disillusioned and stop voting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7tWHJfhiyo

alexc05 10y ago
Actually, the primaries are proportional.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- eru 10y ago
  They still elect a single candidate at the end.
braythwayt 10y ago
> The first-past-the-post voting model is broken and virtually guarantees a two-party system Canadian here. I didn’t know that a first-past-the-post system virtually guarantees a two-party system.
- tveita 10y ago
  It's more or less unavoidable if voters are voting strategically. The sad and undemocratic reality of FPTP is that voting for a third-party candidate with little chance to win is "throwing away your vote". I understand it that in Canada it's first-past-the-post per "riding", so I'd expect each riding to have a maximum of two viable parties. I'm sure it's messier than that in the real world, but I still think you'd be better off with something else than FPTP. For instance, looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canadian_federal_election,_2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_by_riding_of_the_Canad..., is the Green Party accomplishing anything else than diverting votes from other parties?

nabla9 10y ago

You need votes from only 4.5% of the 220 million Americans eligible to vote to get your party nomination in general election. Using ballpark numbers to present the idea: You have country with 220 million Americans eligible to vote. 16 percent of all age-eligible citizens voted in the 2012 presidential primaries. That's 35 million. If those voters are equally divided between the two parties, and winning party candidate gets roughly half of the votes, they get their party nomination with 9 million votes each. Checked the numbers and they check out. George W. Bush, with his 10.8 million votes in 2000 is the record holder in the GOP side. Trump will likely break this record.

toyg 10y ago
16% is a shockingly low number. That means less than 8.001% of the population decide the range of opinions allowed in the presidential office. By the time the general election is over, the winner will be bound to a platform fundamentally agreed on by 4% of voters at best. We have some problems in this area in Europe as well, but US numbers are ridiculous. How can candidates say that they represent "the whole country" with a straight face?
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Because voters are assumed to be a sampling of Americans. Is there reason to believe that preferences are significantly different among those that don't vote?
  - nabla9 10y ago
    Oh yes. Political scientist have extensively studied the issue. Those who vote in primaries represent different demographics than Americans in general. There are differences in age, race and ethnicity, education, income, religious and political views.

snomad 10y ago

On the Democrat side, it is a rigged system. The concept of "super delegates" who don't vote by primary voter choice - instead they vote by some nebulous concepts such as "democrat purity" - has meant the Clintons' deep connections have triumphed over the enthusiasm that Bernie has supported. https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 https://youtu.be/dGeyhgp2N8A?t=151 On the Republican side, Trump did something I don't think people quite get yet. He basically became a gaffe machine and didn't walk it back. Everyday was 2 or 3 gaffes that kept him in the news. He covered one gaffe with another.

protomyth 10y ago

Trump did well because of the early open primaries allowed him to do well. Plus, Fox News continued pushing of him helped. A perfect storm of hate for the establishment. He lost my own state because our reps didn't buy it.