The American Political System ...
 

OK,

Can one or more of you worldly Americans explain the following to all in 25 words or less each?

# 1 What is the process by which the Democrats and Republicans select their nominations for President and do they differ ?

# 2 How is the President elected and what does someone's vote in Boise count for in comparison to say someone in San Diego?

I have had this conversation with many late at night at shows, with the most common response being no response, and the diverse "opinions" on the topic quite scattered.

This could be fun.

:winkwink::thumbsup

# 1 What is the process by which the Democrats and Republicans select their nominations for President and do they differ ?

They're the same. They each have primaries that select delegates in each state as well as super delegates. It takes about 1200 delegates to get the nomination and the delegates are divided by each state based on population. California, Texas and New York get almost 400 delegates and small states like Montana get 3. There are 200 super delegates who are elected members of congress. Whoever gets to the 1200 delegates first gets the nomination and if nobody gets the 1200 then they broker the delegates at their convention. The last time this happened was in 1960 when John Kennedy didn't have enough delegates so he made a deal with Johnson who told his delegates to vote for Kennedy. In return Kennedy picked Johnson as his Vice president.

# 2 How is the President elected and what does someone's vote in Boise count for in comparison to say someone in San Diego?

It's the same as the primaries but instead of delegates they have the electorial college. The electorial college gives the winner of a state all the
electorial college votes which gives smaller states some say who's elected.

The idea of the electoral college is to give several smaller states the same power as say one large state like California.

The USA was set up to give a balance of power because in 1776- 1791 there was a huge fight over slavery and the south wanted to keep their slaves and the north didn't so for the south to sign on they wanted equal power.

The congress is set up the same way with the each state getting two senators no matter their size then the house of representatives is divided by districts based on population.

It takes the house, senate and the President to all agree on anything unless the Senate can get 2/3 to vote against him. This limits the Presidents powers
so he/she can't be a dictator.

Touche I believe the saying is called ;-)

A few more than 25 words, but the most succinctly and clearly I have ever seen it put.

Ta ;-)

i forget how it's decided how many electoral college votes each state gets - anybody know? i'm not going to Wikipedia - ruins the fun of asking other people. i used to love trivia until Wikipedia - now everybody just says 'let's look it up at Wikipedia'

it sucks that a candidate can win the popular vote of the all the people but lose the election in the electoral college. something symbolically wrong with that. fuck New Hampshire, Iowa, Rhode Island etc - nobody cares about you - grow your corn, make your maple syrup and shut the fuck up.

A few points were missed

For #1 not every state has a primary election. Some have a caucus which is basically a big meeting and debate. these caucuses take the place of the primary elections in some states. Some states have what are called open and others closed primaries. The basic difference is that in an open primary anyone can vote for anyone regardless of what party you are a registered member of. If you are democrat and want to vote for a republican, you can and vice versa. You can only vote in one primary though so if you vote during one parties primary then a few weeks later the other party holds their primary you can't vote in that one too. A closed primary is one where only registered members of that party get to vote.

oops double post

You can read it in the original in the Constitution and one of the amendments. It's just a few paragraphs.

I would add that

1. the number of electoral votes per state is the number of senators plus congressman.

2. The Constitution does not say that a state must allocate all its electoral votes to one candidate. I think all of them do though.

Oh, and IMO the electoral college needs to be tossed out. the presidential election should be a general election. Most votes wins. It would increase voter turnout, decrease potential tampering and it would make it like every other election we have in this country.

The problem with this is the 3 big states would control the country and the other 47 states wouldn't have a say. Then it wouldn't be the United States !

I couldn't do it in 25 words or less.

senators and congressmen

You would never see a presidential campaign in your state again. :2 cents:

sure the small states would have a voice. Everyone would have an equal voice. If the majority of the people in the country want a candidate they would vote them in. If not, not. Every other election we have is majority rules, why should this one be different?

We pretty much don't anyway. I live in a smaller state with very few electoral votes. We might get a vice presidential candidate stopping in her or a quick swing through when they are on their way to seattle or LA, but rarely do we get many visits. Campaign visits are over rated anyway. Most of the people that go to see them speak are their supporters. You can find out anything you could ever want to know about a candidate through the many media outlets everyone has available to them.

You get into office and get your hommies paid by going to war.

Even the diversity here somewhat underscores my point in this thread.

It ain't exactly cut and dried ;-)

I would suggest bascially the "average" American wouldn't be able to explain it.

Is that a true hypthesis you think?

The other reason the electoral college is there, is because the founders didnt have that much confidence in the general population to make informed choices about their candidates. The electoral college can always vote contrary to the popular vote in a given state, if the circumstances are extreme enough.

"The best argument against democracy, is a five minute conversation with the average voter"
-Winston Churchill