...this should be clearly addressed, particularly in light of Democratic electors voting for a Republican.

although nothing is wrong with that, but we can't have a repeat in 2020.

I feel strongly that caucuses need to go

Sanders did not come close to getting enough votes.
http://pleasecutthecrap.com/a-message-for-hardcore-bernie-stans/

Sanders would have beaten Trump? Sanders campaign did nothing to help Democrats, only himself..

were Hamilton electors who settled on him as a Republican consensus candidate.

Hate hate hate.

--imm

I would like to be able to participate in the candidate selection of all parties. Democrats, Republicans, Greens, etc. General public would not have selected Trump. If everyone can decide who runs, the candidates will be more moderate.

Of course, if Republicans had superdelegates, we would not have had Trump. Still, taking away superdelegates would limit the head start of an insider.

And no he wouldn't be.

And without caucuses, the primary wouldn't have been even remotely close.

His tax plan (for instance a typical suburban couple grossing 60K a piece would pay 16.5K usd more per year under Sanders than Clinton and 23K usd MORE per year under Sanders than Trump) and his falsely self-labeling as democratic socialist (when he is NOT one, he is a proponent of social democracy, huge difference) in reactionary, red-baiting, mouth-breathing USA would have decimated his chances.

primaries where delegates were awarded based on the proportional representation of the vote, Trump would perhaps not have won the GOP primaries.

And if Electoral College votes were awarded based on proportional representation instead of winner-take-all, we might also have had a different result in the 2016 election. But neither was to be.

One irony of SDs is that while they have been around for several election cycles, the only times any attention has really been paid to them were in 2008 and 2016. Another irony is that Bernie's campaign manager was one of those who instituted the SD system and yet he railed against the system big-time when his candidate was in the losing column. It would had been *crickets* otherwise.

but they get attacked both from the GOPers and those who are further left "purists" than most center-left Dems are.

They also get absolutely no help from the M$M. GOPers get away with everything.

from them by repug cheating.

That's what has to change and we all need to get on board and start talking up and pushing this issue until we get attention paid to it, including getting rid of that relic from slavery, the electoral college which is still continuing it's original mission, tipping the scale towards racists to help them win.

Most of them agree with us on issues such as global warming and income inequality. In the last election, we nominated a candidate who was severely underwater in her favorability with independents before she even got the nomination. The reasons she had the deficit wasn't because of her stance on the issues. I believe this played a big part in her losing the election. At a time when such a large portion of the electorate is independent, having closed primaries is incredibly negligent.

That's the problem. You don't persuade independents and millenials like myself with that attitude and that process of non -inclusion until the final hour and then attempt to convince us to vote for the democrat because their candidate is less horrible. Don't depend the independents for vital votes in the Senate to overcome the filibuster or other procedural hurdles and then expect their vote without even the decency of acting like you know them come the big party.

Has anyone learned anything ?

It's 2017 shortly, times have changed. And, it's time to understand that today's voters, especially millenials, eschew labels and will demand elected officials fight for our votes.

(among others) should have listened to older folks who remember how Bush became president. We remember when environmental activist / Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore was cast in the role of the "lesser of two evils".

Instead of demanding that elected officials fight for their vote, people should be demanding that elected officials fight to reinstate the voting rights of those disenfranchised by the gutting of the Voting Rights Act.

your first point seems to be rehashing the 3rd party = spoiler foolishness. Green and libertarian votes are not votes Dem candidates are entitled to any more than Dems are entitled to republican votes. So I'm going to ignore that nonsense.

your second point is frivolous deflection. Obviously we all need to move public policy away from vote suppression. Fighting voter suppression is separate from demanding that candidates represent us and these two things are not mutually exclusive. I can, and do, do both.

begged gullible spoilers not to play into Trump's hands by staying home or voting third party. They could have been heroes and chose to act like entitled narcissists instead. They deserve every measure of contempt that they will be facing for at least the next four years.

It is good to know that you are working hard to fight voter suppression. I spent September and October weekends in a swing state far from my home state re-registering voters who were thrown off the rolls due to new laws enabled by the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and devising election day transportation plans for working class and working poor voters for whom getting to the polls is a genuine hardship.

There are too many keyboard warriors who confuse commenting on blogs with genuine activism. It's commendable that you were on the ground helping the disenfranchised to recoup and exercise their rights.

I've talked to a lot of Greens and Libertarians. They aren't Dems and no one should count on them to vote Dem. Just like we don't expect republicans to vote Dem. Condescending to people isn't going to change minds and get people to come around to the Dem platform, party, or candidate.

What people did expect was that those who claimed to be Democrats during the primary would support the most progressive platform in decades by actually showing up on election day and voting Democratic in the general.

I have absolutely no respect for Stein & Co. after the way they illegally purchased the convention credentials of Sanders delegates who were going home after the first day. The use of illegally obtained credentials to advance the deliberate disruption of my party's convention in order to draw votes away from my party's nominee was the very depth of unethical behavior.

And while it may be somewhat productive to speak of better engaging with non-Democrats like Greens and Libertarians, I think most people realize that the problem this cycle was the BoBs and the lazy, entitled no-show bitter knitters who were played and pwned by pretty much everyone except the woman they refused to vote for. They were instrumental in putting Trump in the White House, and 65,000,000+ angry voters know it.

That'll turn out well.

her and did not. We are adults pick the best candidate--period. Our Democratic presidential candidate is better than any republican. Why do they need to be coddled, no one coddled me. I chose the best candidate, it is as simple as that.

I'm well aware of my responsibilities - I can make judgments about who will advance my causes - maybe not 100% of all the things I want but most of the things I want.

It's a simple strategy of understanding who the enemy is: Our opponent is the GOP, they have wrought enough pain across legislatures and states. A progressive platform - whether 50% progressive , or 60 or 70 is infinitely better than risking the election of officials who have zero progressive policies on theirs.

It's not rocket science - and the policies and details I get from a candidate allows me to hold them to account. I don't need them to rant and rave, I want them to be smart and deadly serious about implementing our objectives.

It's really that simple.

including New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, and 8 others.

21 other states have mixed primaries with stipulations involved for unaffiliated voters.

Unaffiliated voters may vote in the primary, however they cease being unaffiliated voters.

When I registered in NJ (right before Super Tuesday 08) they messed up my registration and accidentally put me in as unaffiliated. They told me to change it, vote in the primary of my choice. I've been in the system as a registered Democrat since.

However if a Republican wants to vote in the Democratic primary (or vice versa) then they have to change their party affiliation 45 days out.

Not every state has partisan voter registration.


There are 4 types of primaries (excluding caucuses).

Closed--- only registered party members can vote in it. If you wish to register with the party, you must do so in advance
Semi-open--- primary is open to registered party members and unaffiliated voters. Should an unaffiliated choose to vote in the primary, they are automatically registered with the party. (In NJ, partisan voter registration must be changed 45 days out to vote in the primary)
Open--- Usually in states with no partisan voter registration. You can vote in any primary you want to. If runoffs happen, typically the runoffs are limited to people who voted in the initial primary.
Top two--- Primaries are not partisan at all and open. Top two advance to the general election. This can result in two Democrats or two Republicans being the general candidates

This varies state to state. If you wish for the system to change, work within your state.

I've heard Bernie Sanders people complain that the NY primary was closed (and it is, as a former NY unaffiliated voter). What the campaign should have done was a VR push to register people to vote in the primary. (Side note, I believe this rule also affected Ivanka Trump or one of her brothers). Voter registration deadlines are easy to find online and should be on any campaign calendar.

There are closed primaries, and then there are absurdly closed primaries, such as New York's. It may be the only example.

In other closed primaries, a change of party affiliation takes effect something like 30 or 45 days before the primary, enabling the new party member to vote in the primary. In New York, there must elapse 30 days and then a general election. As a result, the deadline for changing for the April 2016 primary was in early October 2015 -- before even the first Democratic debate.

The Sanders campaign was well aware of this. In addition to online efforts, they were tabling. More than once, in September and early October, I saw Sanders volunteers at a table in Manhattan, with a big sign warning people about this idiotic rule.

There's a limit to how effective they could be, though. On DU, people had been arguing the merits of the candidates for months. Out in the real world, many voters hadn't even begun thinking about the primary. Some registered independents or Green Party members or the like might focus on the race as their own state's primary approached, or earlier when they read about the results from Iowa and New Hampshire, or even earlier than that if they watched the first debate and were inspired to want to vote for one of the candidates. These people would not pay attention to the reregistration push in October and would then find themselves out of luck.

Incidentally, the New York rule is the same for all primaries, including those for the state legislature, which are held in September. That means that, to vote in the primary -- which, in one of the many heavily Democratic or Republican districts, is often the only vote that matters -- a former independent had to have enrolled in that party some eleven months earlier.

One could argue that there are really 5 types of primaries. You need to add to your list, above the "Closed", the "Absurdly Closed". That category would have New York and perhaps no other state.

I last voted in NY in 2006.

NJ is at least reasonable that they let unaffiliated declare that day.

I'm glad the campaign put in the effort. I'm not in NY much these days, let alone the city so thanks for clarifying about their activities.

After talking to my mom (registered unaffiliated in NY), the state does have strict voter laws. No early voting, absentee only with a reason, etc. She's not normally one to speak out politically but she wants them to make their voting laws more liberal (I know Cuomo is interested in this too). Maybe their ridiculously closed primaries should be a part of a voter reform bill. The only thing about NY's laws that I like are late poll closing time (9pm) and preregistration. If not for pre-registration, I probably wouldn't have registered at 18.

When I was a senior in HS, the county board of elections came to my government class with a voting machine, showed us how it worked with a mock election, and preregistered anyone turning 18 before graduation.

that they are truly vested in an organization are permitted to vote in that organization's election.

For the 2016 presidential primary, the deadline was not in the same YEAR as the primary.

While I can appreciate the merits of a closed primary, I think the deadline is a little too far out. NY is typically not an early state on the Presidential calendar, and especially in presidential primaries, you don't know when the contest will be over. In NJ, to switch party affiliations (excluding unaffiliateds, so D to R or R to D) the deadline is 45 days out. Even doubling that to 90 days out would make more sense and at least put the deadline in the same year as the primary (and when people are thinking about it).

Let me also say that I think it is ridiculous that NY has different primaries for the presidential, other federal (congressional mostly) and state level races. 3 primaries in a year is insane (and expensive).

(I was born and raised in NY. Registered there from 1998-2006 but unaffiliated).

The rule is that you must formally declare party affiliation at least 25 days before the previous year's general election. This prevents unaffiliated voters from switching back and forth from one party to another in order to game the primary calendar.

NY's deadline for registering to vote in a general election are much more liberal. NY rules prevent the manipulation of party nominations while still affording those eligible to vote in the general election their right to vote.

Our primaries are not "absurdly closed". To vote in a party's primary, you have to have declared party affiliation before the most recent general election. The theory is that only those who are vested in the party should be allowed to choose that party's standard bearer.

The deadline to declare party affiliation in order vote in the April 19, 2016 primary was not eleven months before the race. It was October 9, 2015.

New voters had until March 25, 2016 to register for the primary and were allowed to declare party affiliation at the same time.

The NY deadline to register to vote in the general election was October 14, 2016.

Nobody games a NY primary.

Why not just demand that everyone get a donkey tattoo, to show they're vested?

In the most recent cycle in New York, six months was the required lead time for the Presidential primary. Eleven months was the required lead time for the state legislative primary. If current rules remain in effect for the 2018 cycle, eleven months will also be the required lead time for the primary for Governor and the other top state offices.

I see good arguments on each side of the dispute over closed primaries. If the primary is to be restricted to registered party members, though, the rules concerning change of affiliation should not be unduly restrictive, which IMO New York's are.

feel entitled to select that organization's representatives. The NY rules prevent "party shopping" from one primary election to the next. A voter cannot decide to be a one day Democrat for an April presidential primary and then change affiliation to be a one day Republican for the September state office primary.

Like I said, no one games a NY primary.

I think to be fair the deadline for party switching should be the same deadline for candidate filings. That way the voters have the same calendar as the candidates when it comes to voting.

For their June 28 Congressional primary this year, candidates had to file by April 14.


NY's deadline for new voters is on par with many other states. It's not extremely liberal, but not extremely conservative either.

Justices Douglas, Brennan, and Marshall all joined Justice Powell's dissent in Rosario v Rockefeller, 410 U.S. 752. From pp. 768-770 (footnote omitted):

With New York's multi-month requirement having been upheld, the constitutionality of shorter lead times will never come up. I'm guessing these dissenters would have been OK with something more typical like 30 days. They might have had trouble deciding where to draw the line.

From p. 771 (footnote omitted):

in that we didn't get 24/7 news coverage beginning at least a year before any votes were even scheduled to be cast. If anything, the current situation weakens the dissent in that the assertion that "partisan political activities do not constantly engage the attention of large numbers of Americans" no longer holds.

This was a close decision, but it has stood for 40 years. Maybe someone who thinks the timetable is absurd and who was closed out of voting in NY's presidential primary should seek legal redress to test whether the decision would stand today.

I hope that those in NY who were closed out of voting in the 2016 presidential primaries will remember to register affiliation with a party before November 2019 so that it will not happen again.

you need to register with a party well in advance in order to vote in the primary.

over open ones. Atleast during republican incumbency years to avoid ratscrewing.

That being said, it is time to get rid of the caucus. We can't claim to be for working people when we empower a process that disadvantages anyone who can't afford to stand around for 2-3 hours in the middle of the work week.

...you do not do it on the eve of an election. You need to give everyone lots of notice.

internal primary races. They rarely happen for altruistic reasons and more often are disruptive efforts intended to weaken the eventual candidate. On the other hand, we don't want to be exclusionary to the point that general election appeals to non-Democrats, especially those considered closely aligned, to fall on deaf ears because they have been alienated. It's all too clear that the Jill Steins, Ralph Naders and Gary Johnsons are ready and willing to welcome any & all voters in order to pursue their own agendas.

The issue is not just about voters, but about candidates. Sure enough, Senator Sanders is closely allied and will be in the Senate's minority leadership. I judge that general political agreement should be enough for the caucus membership, but it strikes me as falling short when it comes to leadership. Coalitions like we seen in European-style parliamentary systems lack the party discipline.

And when it comes to fielding candidates, I'd go further and support rules that require party membership before the 1st primary vote is cast as a condition of eligibility to run as a Democrat.

I have no doubt that these views will be embraced by Senator Sanders' supporters. But most of them are big D Democrats and he has chosen freely not to be one.

Here's a chart of them (2014 so a little dated)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/state-party-registration_n_5399977.html

Your open primaries are going to be in the other 19 states. I don't know how you would run a closed primary in a state without partisan registration (and many of those states are GOP controlled).

If I'm the manager of a baseball team, I'm not going to hand the lineup card to my opponent and have him fill it out.

It's more like allowing the opponents back up and relief pitchers vote with your team. Not nearly as effective as u insinuate... And that's if their teams vote isn't close..

If the DNC had not allowed Bernie Sanders to run as a Democrat, there is a very real chance Hillary Clinton would have won the White House...he was/is a very divisive person who tore our party apart.

Also, we need CLOSED PRIMARIES....if Independents want to help us chose our candidates, then they need to be LOYAL members of our party, not outside interlopers.

The end result would have been the same-Trump elected.

with Hillary winning.

If Sanders ran as more than a gadfly, he only would have taken votes away from Clinton. This is of course why he didn't run in the GE and said so from the beginning.

BernieBro supporters are exactly like most Trump voters, much as they dispute that. They hate Clinton with an unjustified and inordinate passion resembling that of Trump's most zealous and most nasty supporters. F**k every single one of them!

But you are correct, Hillary would still have had to get to 270 electoral votes. Her husband did exactly that during the rancorous election in 1992 when his opponents were Bush I and Ross Perot. it is likely that Hillary would have too. But we'll never know.

What we do know is that there was skulduggery in "red"states, a M$M that bent over backwards to cast her in the nastiest light possible no matter what she said or did, 30+ years of nonstop, unjustified and generally false attacks by the Reich Wing, lots of fake news disparaging her, James Comey's treasonous acts and Russian interference in the election, etc.

Yet with all that, she STILL won nearly three million popular votes MORE.

don't be too shocked when independents reject the person you chose as your nominee since you know, they didn't have a say in who it would be. I don't get the practicality of telling independents they don't matter one minute, then begging for their votes the next.

If you want to be an independent fine, be one. Vote for whomever. If a person prefers right wing fascism over the Democratic Party Platform then they should not be here or even remotely attached to the party. Wish washy people who have no real moral compass should not have a voice in PARTY primary choices.

Most independents I know care about a specific candidate more than they care about a specific party. In a presidential election, voters are voting for a candidate, not a party. Some 43% of voters in the United States are registered independents. How is telling them that their voice doesn't matter in choosing a candidate practical and logical?

Survey after survey after survey backs that up.

your geographical region. I'm from Maine and our voting patterns look odd to the outsider. The same people who voted for Obama voted for Republican Senator Susan Collins. The same people who voted for Democrat Chellie Pingree voted for Independent Angus King. We're much less beholden to party and look at the individual candidate.

Your state or locale may vary. Aroumd here it is a way for the right wing cuckholds to feel like they are impartial and intelligent, lol.

And that's my point. More are Republicans than Democrats.

I suspect, though, that the vast majority of the "independents" taking part in Democratic primaries are of the Democratic variety. I think crossover voting is pretty rare.

Is there anyone who keeps track?

I know in Ohio you can choose any party you wish for the primary. So if your party is running an incumbent you create a ot of havoc on the other side. Remember operation chaos?

Possibly enough to be the difference in a very tight race. But when it came time for Ohio a week later, those who might have crossed over didn't because they wanted to support Kasich in his home state.

I don't know, though, if anyone tracks how much crossover voting occurs in primaries/caucuses. Even if it might impact a contest or two, it wouldn't be substantial enough to alter the end result, especially with proportional allocation of delegates. With winner-take-all contests, it might be a different story.

I would hope we can all agree that caucuses need to be done away with, as they are disenfranchising. So many persons with jobs, kids or disabilities are going to be disinclined to participate in a caucus.

So the collective hive can have the desired candidate. Sounds quite simple to me. Don't like the Democratic Party or it's methods, join another party or create your own.

The special snowflakes will never be happy, ever. Compromise isn't a virtue they posses in my opinion. And most of the bobs I know voted trump or third party. One of the biggest problems with our party is it's penchant for coddling those who were never with us anyway.

In the end, if you want a voice when it comes to picking the democratic nominee, join the party, see how easy that is?

yet you won't compromise in having open primaries so potential general election voters who might vote our way can have a say in the candidate they want representing them? Seems a bit hypocritical to me, like you want others to budge but you're unwilling to budge yourself.

Want to shape a political party? Then join in and get to work. Nothing worse than people who do nothing to help the party, then stand by and criticize it. You don't even strike me as a democrat. I realize I am new here, but it get the feeling you would be more at home somewhere else, like jpr.

I was doing plenty to help change the party during the primary by canvassing, phonebanking, driving people to the polls. Then when Clinton was our nominee I put on my big girl pants and supported her. I also lend my time to traditionally Democratic causes- donating supplies to Standing Rock, protesting against natural gas in my state. Simply signing up to this website, as a millennial mind you, shows I want to be part of the process (just as everyone here does). To the main point though, why do some feel the need to call into question someone's party credentials as if to make them show identification if they dare question the way the party does business and the direction it is going in? I love the Democratic party enough to criticize it and push it forward because I want it to succeed- just like Americans can criticize what our country is doing without being deemed "unpatriotic." We can love something enough to demand the best from it. People who are complacent, push people away, and tear down new and opposing voices are what's wrong with the party and unfortunately, you seem to be contributing to that. If you want people to budge, perhaps lead by example.

Millenials are going to make our leaders represent us. We don't put tthe democratic sign over oour mouth and nod in acceptance to party leaders. The reason the voters were so lackluster and unmotivated to show up is that kind of attitude and a belief by many that dems don't fight and lie down too often. know thats a novel concept
Hence the past couple months till today. The rethugs would have completely run over the dems and been rewarded by it if roles were reversed but here we are.. The lunacy of the current situations and thelack of genuine anger and demands for answers ...

See post #29. Most "independents" simply like the term "independent" during these polarized times. And many young people are especially fond of the term, at least until they get into their late 20s.

But, make no mistake, most independents are partisan. In fact, surveys have shown they tend to be even more loyal to a particular party than partisans were a few decades ago.

Crossover voting (i.e., Republicans wanting to cause discord) sucks, but it's a fairly small price to pay for encouraging young people (and other 'independents') to take part in the process.

I think caucuses, which are disenfranchising, are what we really ought to be eliminating.

Just don't pay enough attention to politics or just don't give a shit enough to affiliate themselves with a party. Turnout in (non presidential) primaries is often pathetic.

And very few people are technically registered as independent, the term is 'no party affiliation' or 'unaffiliated'. If someone does not write a party in or check a box on their voter registration form, it defaults to independent. Other unaffiliated voters (my NY self) became interested in politics after they registered and just were too lazy to update their registration (if there's no competitive primary, there really isn't a point). And partisan registration is not always accurate. THe first time I ever phone banked, I was calling seniors (all registered Democrats) and I had the N word used to describe President Obama. This person was probably a Demosaur who's been GOP for awhile but never changed their registration.

Crossover voting does happen but I don' think it is a big enough problem to change the laws.

I've run voter registration drives in multiple states before and in some states, if you fail to declare your party you're defaulted to independent/unaffiliated. Others have that as a box on their form.

I officially became affiliated at the age of 27, but was a partisan Democrat when I woke up politically at 24. I changed because I moved out of state and became a Democrat in my new state.

I also know quite a few people who are unaffiliated because their voter registration is public record (your affiliation is) and they fear that it has professional consequences. These include journalists and public employees.

Many posts on DU suggest many people are under the impression that "independents" are swing voters, but that's rarely the case. And that's my only point.

THEM! Do you really want to give up many of the millenials who voted for Bernie & a number of women who voted for Hillary because she was aa woman & because the Con was a womanizer?

I've never found a Pub candidate that I liked, but I still want the option to cast a primary vote for a Pub candidate if I find one I preferred over the Dem who was running in the Dem Primary.

And to those who will say something about the public carrying the burden of a closed system. I will say this's. As a poll judge, I learned we had to spend a lot of money to include the Green Party on our primary ballot. Guess how many were requested? None, zero, zilch, nada. So the good people of our area paid for the Green Party for no reason.

I think that allowing them to participate provides an excellent opportunity to outreach. Also, generally speaking, what is it that establishes someone as a "Democrat." I think that in some states there isn't even any partisan registration. I would support eliminating partisan registration in California if it were brought to a vote.

(In downticket races) how exactly does that work? I know their Senate race this year was two Democrats, but are unaffiliateds allowed to vote in the top two primary?

The presidency is the only case in which there is a partisan primary. I believe that in the presidential primary, decline to state voters may vote in the Democratic primary and may not vote in the Republican primary.

For all other offices, any voter may vote for any primary candidate. It isn't a partisan primary for those offices; rather, it serves the purpose of identifying the top two candidates that will face off in the general election. In one case, there were actually three general election candidates (for assembly I think), because two candidates exactly tied for second place!

With this system, there were a number of instances of two Democrats or two Republicans facing off in the general election. I could foresee that a Democratic district could have the top two positions going to two Republicans, if the Democratic field was very segmented. I could also see the opposite happening.

The commonly held belief that "independents" are moderates or swing voters is false. Young people (who happen to make up a huge bloc at this time) are especially fond of the term "independent" (at least until they get into their late 20s when many register with a particular party). I don't want to discourage them from voting.

Crossover voting is somewhat of a concern, and I suspect it played a significant role in the Michigan Democratic Primary. I don't want Republicans trying to cause discord. But I also don't think crossover voting is nearly substantial enough to impact who becomes the nominee.

Now caucuses are something I'd get rid of in a heartbeat. They're disenfranchising, which is not something the Democratic Party should stand for.

So who defines what it is to be a Democrat?

Is Joe Manchin a Democrat? His positions are far to the right of Bernie Sanders and most Democrats.

he resigned and went back to being an independent, Bernie Sanders is officially not a Democrat.

If the general election Democratic vote encompassed everyone on the spectrum from Manchin but stopped short of Sanders, Clinton loses. If it encompassed Democratic voters from Manchin through Sanders, Clinton would have won the Electoral Vote. The challenge is to find the spot where you keep enough of the both ends of the spectrum and when your positions move to cut too much off either end, you lose too many voters in the states that really matter.

Also, it is necessary to convince voters that you can help them. And this is not to say that Clinton failed at that. Her plans were detailed and fairly progressive, but she was also the victim of massive negative framing.

No more spoiler shenanigans.

There was and is huge support for what Bernie advocates WITHIN the party. And the overwhelming majority of independents who voted Bernie would simply have re-registered and participated in caucuses and primaries anyway, so the results would have been much the same.

Bernie's candidacy had nothing to do with Trump taking the EC. The voters felt exactly the same way about HRC before and after Bernie's entrance into the race.

There were some bad people who identified as Sanders supporters(as there some bad people who claimed to be HRC supporters)but the vast majority of the supporters of BOTH candidates were and are good people who simply want to work for a better world.

HRC would not have done better in the fall if her campaign and fall platform had had NO Sanders influence to them, if she had run on the same platform as 2008. There was no large group of votes to be won by pretending Occupy and the anti-austerity movement hadn't happen or by being totally just fine with total corporate dominance.

Let's remember, it was Clinton who won a majority of the open primaries.

But if there hadn't been caucuses, it wouldn't have been even remotely close. Look no further than the difference between the WA caucus and the WA primary.

As is, the race was effectively decided by mid-March.

We'd have been worse off if HRC had had 95% of the delagates and the convention was as bland as the ones in 2000 and 2004.

And there's no historical support for the assertion that we do better when our nominee clinches the nomination early.

We've often done far better when the nomination was decided late in the game, in fact

in 1932, it took FDR 4 ballots to get over the top:

in 1948, the Southern delegations walked out to support Strom Thurmond before Harry Truman was nominated;

in 1960, JFK just barely won on the first ballot(he didn't secure his majority until Wyoming voted.

in 2008, Hillary didn't concede until June(and was at nearly a dead heat in the pledged delegate count at the time, with a small popular vote lead due to her insistence on actively campaigning in Michigan and Florida despite the fact that the party had asked all presidential candidates to boycott those states because they had violated party rules by holding their primaries BEFORE New Hampshire);

By contrast:

We lost badly in 1984 even though Mondale, the candidate of the "pros", wrapped up the nomination as early as humanly possible;

We lost in the EC in 2000 even though Gore essentially had it wrapped up in February;

We lost outright in 2004 even though Kerry clinched the nomination by the beginning of April;

So it's not as simple as saying "we'd have beaten Trump if ONLY Hillary had been acccepted by all as nominee after Super Tuesday and if only there was nothing in the platform that reflected the Sanders campaign".

That said, I think the message that "both parties are the same" was damaging.

Regardless, we shouldn't create an artificially close race just for the sake of having a close contest. Caucuses are disenfranchising and should be done away with, even if that means Sanders wouldn't have won nearly as many delegates.

It's my conviction that a lot of people POSED as Sanders supporters just to post divisive shit(some may have posed as HRC supporters for the same purpose).

(I worked in WA this cycle and had access to VAN data)

Primaries are top two and in many districts the general election is two Democrats or two Republicans. The only partisan voter activity recorded in VAN was the 08 and 16 presidential caucus.

Caucuses are not accessible for many people. Many persons with jobs, kids or disabilities (or people who simply want their vote to be kept private) are disinclined to participate in caucuses.

Caucuses are also the only reason Sanders made the race even remotely competitive, though the race was still essentially over by mid-March.

Any DNC Chair who argues for open primaries is not a Dem. I would hope that whoever is selected as DNC Chair will do the job full-time and will work - beginning now - to rebuild all the state networks so that we truly have a 50-state system. We have NOT had one since the departure of Howard Dean as DNC Chair in 2009 and the results for Dems since then for Congressional, Senatorial and Gubernatorial elections have been disastrous. F**k Rahm Emanuel! Howard Dean had to fight him tooth and nail to use the strategy.

Also -

1. No candidates should be allowed run as Dems in Presidential primaries without having been members of the Dem Party for at least one Presidential cycle (four years).

2. All caucuses should be abolished and replaced with primaries.

3. All primaries should be open to registered Democrats only. It is easy enough to register as a Dem in time to vote.

Caucuses being trashed if you give me no more National Democratic Party tipping the scales for one candidate over another.
Otherwise, no thanks. I'll stick with the educated and passionate voter in the caucuses. More trust they are better prepared to vote for the better candidate

by the DNC. Get, Over. That. Please.

There was one primary candidate - who never was a Democrat before and who spent a LOT of time both before 2016 and during his primary campaign trashing Dems - and then wanted the DNC rules that have been in place for every election since at least 1980 waived for him and him alone.

That person is NOT a Democrat now. Sheesh!

As for caucuses, do you not understand how UNDEMOCRATIC THEY ARE for people who actually have lives to live and who cannot be at a certain place on a certain date for an unlimited number of hours? Yet, you appear to consider yourself an educated and passionate voter. So do you consider those of us who vote in and prefer primaries to be chopped liver?

Enjoy your purity and smugness! I hope that you are among the fortunate well-off percentage of the US population because your purity and smugness may not serve you well otherwise.

And you do not sound like a Democrat to me.

The emails proved that. Did you miss the fact that the head of the DNC was forced to resign because of her blatant bias?

I agree that caucuses are a bad idea, but what about the states that have them and like them? We can't force them to adopt a primary system instead.

As for the issue of closed versus open primaries; it seems to me that that is not what we should be discussing now. What we need to discuss first of all is what does the Democratic party stand for and who does it represent and second, can we create a primary schedule that is balanced between different parts of the country?

The number of people who are registered as Democrats has been declining for some time. Does it not occur to people that that is a problem that the party needs to address if it wishes to win? Dissing independents is not the answer. Finding out what they want would be a good step towards bringing them into the party.

BS about the DNC tipping the scale. The emails "proved" nothing other than some staffers speculating about things - not what actually happened.

True, it is up to the state authorities to decide whether there will be caucuses or primaries. But caucuses have generally been superseded by just about everything in contemporary life and states should be encouraged to revisit them.

It is very clear what the Democratic Party stands for. It stands for civil rights and liberties for ALL US citizens, regardless of race, gender, sexual preference, religion (or not), national origin, etc. The Republican party stands for the wealthy and large corporations (mom-and-pop businesses, not so much). That is the shorthand version. But it is the most important.

If you haven't yet figured that out, then you have a LONG way to go before you will be knowledgeable about US politics or political parties.

Frankly, as someone who has the great good fortune to reside part-time in a very blue area of a very blue state (MD) and specifically chose to live in that area BECAUSE the community values diversity and also to reside most of the time in the Greater Geneva region of Switzerland where there is international diversity on a scale rarely found in the rest of the world, I am getting sick and tired of while males/females whining about how THEY are somehow being left behind by the Democratic Party.

Those who have never joined and who expect Dems to "woo" them other than by the very ideals we practice/stand for will be waiting a LONG time. Hillary reached her heart out and those pissant while males/females who "want to be wooed" voted for Trump and did so to spite her. F**k every single one of them!

I however somewhat disagree with blocking the independents because there are a lot of Democrats, who are registered independent who would not be able to participate.

screw them! The choice between the parties is pretty stark and it was especially clear for this election where one candidate was exceptionally qualified and universally respected around the world, if not appreciated by too many in her own country, while the other was neither. If people STILL can't see that, then it will literally take an Armageddon for them to. Too many people in key states chose to go with the person who preached bigotry, racism, misogyny and xenophobia - all because they wanted people to think that they were "Independent" and Hillary still only lost by about 80,000 votes in three of those states! But the Dem (and US) majority - by nearly three million votes - saw through the con man.

It is very easy to register as a Dem to vote and then change back if it's that important to someone. But the voting in Dem primaries should be limited to Dems. Otherwise, why even bother to have primaries? Just go straight to the general and save a lot of time and money. Do as the French do. If one candidate does not get 51% in the first round; then limit a second round to the top two so that one of the candidates WILL get 51%.

Too many people seem just to have woken up to what our political system is for the 2016 election and too many of them - especially whites (of which I am one) - have come to the wrong conclusions, based on what too many are still saying.

But I do agree that our system is a mess. Personally, having studied and taught complementary political systems, I much prefer a parliamentary system to the botched-up and complex two-party mess that was foisted upon us by the Founding Fathers who wanted to ensure that the elites stayed in control. If anyone has any doubt that the elites will be in control for the foreseeable future, you are woefully mistaken.

Many of us are live long Democrats. Every primary, I can take a Democratic, Republican or Progresive primary ballot. That is state law.

Not to mention, this would mean that a large percent of people in states like MA - about as blue as it gets - will not be able to vote including many young people, who are more likely to register as unafilliated.

A lot of people don't register by party.
Getting rid of caucuses should be easy enough, though.

You write:

I often toy with voting for the least conservative of the Rs which have a stranglehold in this state. We've got some real nuts on the R side.

...and Bernie Sanders should have remained a Democrat. Sorry to see him go... but welcome his independent support. Looking to other Democrats for the future.

We got a candidate who was fine as these things go and we won. Don't lose sight of that. Democracy did not fail us. It was stolen. Could we tweek it, yes, but we did win with this one.

That will turn out real well.

Open primaries are an invitation to the fox, swinging the door to the hen house wide open. I don't want fake Democrats Republicans having a say in the selection of the Democratic nominee.

It's fine to be an Independent; have at it. You can vote for anyone on the ballot in the GE. Just like you can sit in the stands at a baseball game but you can't choose the lineup.

..and magically, somehow things would have turned out differently? Everyone would have loved her, she would have been totally trusted by everyone, Comey wouldn't have been the FBI director, Trump wouldn't have been the Republican candidate and we all would have gotten candy canes and lollipops.