A third option: I think it’s still important to be cognizant of their very correct call-out of the lack of democratic choice in this process. As you said, it’s too late to change that now, and certainly Beehaw is essentially all aboard the Harris/Walz train, but we did bypass an important phase of our democratic system to get here.
As it says in the article:
So we will do the hard thing: we will celebrate, and honor the joy many in our community are feeling about Kamala’s historic candidacy and path to the nomination—while calling out the undemocratic process and engaging in a vigorous discussion on the issues our community cares about.
They’re the nominees. They’re going to be on the ballots. But while I personally don’t think there was a better pair of candidates readily available at this point, I can still acknowledge that it was sad that it played out this way. Biden should have withdrew from the race back at the start, and we could have had a true primary (apart from the usual DNC shenanigans that they always pull), but Biden robbed that from us in his arrogance.
3 weeks ago, I barely had heard the name Walz, and now from what I’ve seen I love the guy. How many better candidates could we have had if we weren’t 100 days out from the election and being rushed to find good ones?
I get the potential gripe, but realistically it’s hard to call it undemocratic even as it stands. People voted for an incumbent (essentially unopposed) ticket of Biden/Harris. Had Biden simply dropped dead this would have been the very same result. We just skipped the whole death part and moved on to the natural line of succession. Besides, how many times have we had a VP become pres or at least the candidate in the past few decades? Better than half since the 70s if I count correctly.
I’m not particularly disappointed with the outcome, but it was undemocratic. Just because there is a precedent of the party bullying other candidates out of running against an incumbent doesn’t make it democratic. The party bullying it’s way to its preferred candidate is what lost us 2016.
Anything specific to say they forced others not to run? The whole bit of others dropping out and endorsing happens regularly. Happened on the R side too. Bernie didn’t get nominated because not enough people showed up to vote at the end of the day. Having dedicated fans and lots of youth energy means nothing unless the vote count says what you want when it’s over.
They didn’t force anyone to do anything, they bullied them out of it.
They cancelled primaries in Florida and North Carolina entirely, which took those delegates off the table for any challengers. They changed primary dates for 2024 which made it harder for other candidates to get on the primary ballots, and pledged to reduce the number of delegates that a state received if they held their primary on their original schedule instead.
Last year, the Rules and Bylaws Committee voted to strengthen their penalty power over states that jump the line. Not only will those states automatically lose half their delegates, the DNC also broadly empowered the national party chair to take any other “appropriate steps” to enforce the early window.
It also nearly eliminates any path for a potential Democratic primary challenge ahead of 2024 by elevating states that represent the president’s base of support.
The rules change in particular was initiated in 2022, which given it’s placement of Biden-friendly states at the start (to generate immediate momentum in delegates) was about as close to explicitly telling other democrats not to run as if they’d just sent out a newsletter.
Lastly
Bernie didn’t get nominated because not enough people showed up to vote at the end of the day.
If this is in reference to 2016, it’s more because he was robbed of it by the Hillary campaign controlling the DNC and using them to disadvantage him at every turn. But don’t take my word for that, take Donna Brazile’s, the head of the DNC at the time of the election.
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A third option: I think it’s still important to be cognizant of their very correct call-out of the lack of democratic choice in this process. As you said, it’s too late to change that now, and certainly Beehaw is essentially all aboard the Harris/Walz train, but we did bypass an important phase of our democratic system to get here.
As it says in the article:
They’re the nominees. They’re going to be on the ballots. But while I personally don’t think there was a better pair of candidates readily available at this point, I can still acknowledge that it was sad that it played out this way. Biden should have withdrew from the race back at the start, and we could have had a true primary (apart from the usual DNC shenanigans that they always pull), but Biden robbed that from us in his arrogance.
3 weeks ago, I barely had heard the name Walz, and now from what I’ve seen I love the guy. How many better candidates could we have had if we weren’t 100 days out from the election and being rushed to find good ones?
I get the potential gripe, but realistically it’s hard to call it undemocratic even as it stands. People voted for an incumbent (essentially unopposed) ticket of Biden/Harris. Had Biden simply dropped dead this would have been the very same result. We just skipped the whole death part and moved on to the natural line of succession. Besides, how many times have we had a VP become pres or at least the candidate in the past few decades? Better than half since the 70s if I count correctly.
I’m not particularly disappointed with the outcome, but it was undemocratic. Just because there is a precedent of the party bullying other candidates out of running against an incumbent doesn’t make it democratic. The party bullying it’s way to its preferred candidate is what lost us 2016.
Anything specific to say they forced others not to run? The whole bit of others dropping out and endorsing happens regularly. Happened on the R side too. Bernie didn’t get nominated because not enough people showed up to vote at the end of the day. Having dedicated fans and lots of youth energy means nothing unless the vote count says what you want when it’s over.
They didn’t force anyone to do anything, they bullied them out of it.
They cancelled primaries in Florida and North Carolina entirely, which took those delegates off the table for any challengers. They changed primary dates for 2024 which made it harder for other candidates to get on the primary ballots, and pledged to reduce the number of delegates that a state received if they held their primary on their original schedule instead.
The rules change in particular was initiated in 2022, which given it’s placement of Biden-friendly states at the start (to generate immediate momentum in delegates) was about as close to explicitly telling other democrats not to run as if they’d just sent out a newsletter.
Lastly
If this is in reference to 2016, it’s more because he was robbed of it by the Hillary campaign controlling the DNC and using them to disadvantage him at every turn. But don’t take my word for that, take Donna Brazile’s, the head of the DNC at the time of the election.