Michael Moore working on a follow up to his 2004 political documentary 'Fahrenheit 9/11.'

Forum Cruiser wrote:

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There were several recounts and Bush won them all. After the whole debacle the Dems (Clinton among them) complained about the process stating the president should be elected via popular vote.

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eternal cynic wrote:

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I don’t agree, the incident in the Florida general election was different. Most of that bantering was over hanging chads, essentially a debate over the count.
In this DNC incident two states violated DNC rules. Neither state should have been counted. If there should be any anger that anger should be aimed at the state level. The folks who decided to violate DNC rules should be the recipient of the anger.
Yes, these two incidents do share a common base, in both cases the argument is made over the popular vote. Though same the causes were very different.
The real crime here is the fact Florida or Michigan votes were counted at all. Both states violated rules and knew the consequences for that violation.

eternal cynic wrote:

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I don’t agree, the incident in the Florida general election was different. Most of that bantering was over hanging chads, essentially a debate over the count.
In this DNC incident two states violated DNC rules. Neither state should have been counted. If there should be any anger that anger should be aimed at the state level. The folks who decided to violate DNC rules should be the recipient of the anger.
Yes, these two incidents do share a common base, in both cases the argument is made over the popular vote. Though same the causes were very different.
The real crime here is the fact Florida or Michigan votes were counted at all. Both states violated rules and knew the consequences for that violation.

Forum Cruiser wrote:

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The DNC's decision was about as dumb a decision as it could be. At least the RNC allowed half of a delegation. It is always stupid when the person that won the popular vote in a primary looses the election!! This is not suppose to happen during a primary.
I hope the electorate in Nov. remember how stupid the DNC is and thinks twice about having them run our country.

eternal cynic wrote:

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On the decision we agree. They should have upheld their own rules and excluded both states.
It’s not always stupid when the person who wins the popular vote loses. One of the reasons we have the Electoral College is to give smaller states a more equal say in who the next president should be. While not perfect, it still does make sense. Look at Congress, more populous states more representation but then in the senate all states have two representatives.
We’ve had four presidents who lost the popular vote and became president.
John Quincy Adams (1824) lost by 44,804 votes
Rutherford Hayes (1876) lost by 264,292 votes
Benjamin Harrison (1888) lost by 96,713 votes
George W. Bush (2000) lost by 543,816 votes
It’s only reasonable the primaries would follow a similar pattern. I’m not sure how much I like the super delegate portion of it. But, do keep in mind it’s just a primary. The party is selecting their candidate. Look at how some of the minor parties make their selections. The Democrats and Republicans could select their candidates without a single vote from the people.
The Constitution makes no mention of the primaries. Anyway, here’s an interesting read which deals with the 2008 primaries
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/col...
It’s far more complicated than most people realize.

Forum Cruiser wrote:

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what you are missing is the fact that I distinguish between the primary and the general election. The electoral college is great in the general election (for the very reasons you point out) but during party primaries the winner of the popular vote should always come out on top for their party.

eternal cynic wrote:

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Actually I didn’t miss the point you were separating the primary from the general election. In fact I stated “It’s only reasonable the primaries would follow a similar pattern”.
The reality is legally either or both parties could choose their candidate with no input from any of us. Yes, ideally the candidate who wins the most votes should be the winner. In the case of the Democrats this year even that is difficult to determine.
Since Florida and Michigan both violated party rules neither state should count. However, a compromise was made, each delegate would be counted as a half. If the DNC were to make a similar determination for the popular vote shouldn’t each vote be counted as a half?
To complicate this further most of the candidates had their names removed from the ballot in Michigan. The notable exception was Clinton. Florida only 33.8% of eligible voters went to the polls. Michigan only 20.2%(source http://elections.gmu.edu/Voter_Turnout_2008_P... )
This does appear to be in line with most other states but Michigan numbers are on the low side.
We need to introduce a what if here. What would have happened had Florida and Michigan held their primaries on the assigned dates? Would voting turn out be greater?
Since Obama’s name wasn’t on the Michigan ballot what impact would there have been had his name been left on the ballot?
Without Florida and Michigan Obama does have the popular vote. I didn’t take the time to do the math if we counted Florida and Michigan at 50%. Would Obama still have the popular vote? I don’t know but that could be determined.
We’ll never know what would have occurred had both states followed the rules. We might have a different result, we might not. All you and I can do is speculate, the same holds true for everyone else.
I do think we should use the same method of selection of the primary as we do for the general election though. For the same reason we use it for the general election.
I have very mixed feelings on the super delegates though.

Knottie wrote:

He is just a great writer; and then he has this creative "artsy" disheveled thing going on...