Posted on 02/03/2020 10:59:02 AM PST by edwinland
[snip]
The DNC’s rules backfired spectacularly
In late 2018, DNC Chairman Tom Perez unveiled the revamped rules for the upcoming Democratic primary debates. Perez pledged that the DNC’s debate rules would “give the grassroots a bigger voice than ever before” and “put our nominee in the strongest position possible to defeat Donald Trump.”
...
But a year later, what’s beyond a doubt is that they did not empower the grassroots and they replaced old gatekeepers with new ones.
Because of these new rules, the most powerful people in the primary up to this point have arguably been the pollsters.
...
For the past year, campaigns lived and died by the latest Quinnipiac or Fox News or CNN poll; journalists built devoted followings around reporting on polls and interpreting the DNC’s obscure guidelines for which polls did and didn’t count toward the debate. And for voters, polls came to represent — rightly or wrongly — a proxy for viability, strength, the ability to beat Trump.
The DNC also required that candidates meet a threshold of individual grassroots donations to make the debate stage. Candidates and staffers say they understand why the DNC used this metric as a stand-in for grassroots support, but they complained that the donor requirement — like the polling threshold — gave a leg up to candidates who already had high name recognition and a preexisting network of small-dollar donors to draw on.
Candidates without both of those qualities entered the race at a disadvantage. Instead of spending money to build a field operation in Iowa or make an early play for California’s delegates, campaigns spent money to buy email lists to fundraise off of in order to meet an arbitrary donor target.
(Excerpt) Read more at rollingstone.com ...
BUT it's a great exploration of how planners make rules expecting humans to act one way, and then they act a totally different way and the rules end up screwing everything up rather than achieving their desired result.
The lesson the Democrats will take from this is that they need to make better rules next time.
The lesson that they should but won't take is that free people are unpredictable and so you should make rules of behavior based on principles rather than outcomes. But if they believed that, they'd be Republicans.
Well, yeah. DemocRATs/Liberals/Commies screw up everything that they come in contact with. There are no exceptions to this Golden Rule. From a block of granite to a wet dream, these people can and will screw it up. It’s who they are and exactly what they do.
Democrats could screw up a one-car funeral. They are not known for high organizational skills.
But man, are they good at passing the buck.
“And for voters, polls came to represent — rightly or wrongly — a proxy for viability, strength, the ability to beat Trump.”
Right, because the polls worked so well in 2016...
"Everybody's got a plan -- until they get punched in the face." -- Mike Tyson
Maybe, if the Republicans don't manage to somehow screw things up even worse...
Keep tryin', though, Dems -- we're pulling for ya!
There is, of course, the option of looking at people who actually got elected. Starting out with the premise that Trump's election was somehow illegitimate is exactly the wrong way to go, as is the premise that he won because his voters were stupid, racist, and contemptible. The author seems to get a glimmer, and then maybe not:
A fixation on the spectacle of Donald Trump blinded us to the tectonic changes in American culture that delivered Trump the presidency.
Yes, and those changes were? Nobody looked - what they did do was:
There was a brief period of hand-wringing. There were pledges to get out of our coastal bubbles and reconnect with Middle America. But this largely meant seeking out Trump voters in Rust Belt diners — that is, applying the old model of doing things to a new reality.
Connecting with prospective voters is never a change in any political paradigm. The change in the Democrat approach has been actively repelling them through tribal disdain and cultural arrogance, and they never got that because they're still at it. I have a modest suggestion to the hand-wringers and navel-gazers on the Left: drop the habit of cursing the country for a litany of stale sins and insisting that the only solution is an authoritarian government under the guidance of a self-proclaimed elite. Recognize that it's failed politics and move on.
He obviously wrote this article before Team Trump totally annihilated the House managers in their closing argument.
Depends on what "THIS" is!
.
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Stupid is as stupid does.
Democrats cheat.
They WANT to change the rules halfway through the game - - all games, any game. They hate game rules that make them lose. Remember all their howling about the electoral college? After Hillary the witch lost, democrats decided the ‘old rules’ weren’t fair. It should have been ‘popular vote’.
Democrats have been cheating for decades, changing rules after the fact when they think those rules won’t let them win... if this tactic has just come to the awareness of journalists then I’m speechless.
“Because of these new rules, the most powerful people in the primary up to this point have arguably been the pollsters.”
In any system there’s always the powerful and the weak. The idea of “evening the playing field” is a fool’s errand.
I frequent some Bernie sites. They are all energized as Bernie is peaking in the polls at just the right time.
If Bernie loses the nomination....right or wrong....hook or crook....they will burn the DNC down and the party will take a generation to recover.
Meanwhile, next door in the Trump camp, everyday politics on television is like a joyous circus finale. Colorful, fun, balloons, loud music, sad clowns, beautiful ladies, dancing bears, people zinging overhead on trapeze, confetti cannons going off.
Seriously, politics has never been this fun. Ever.
I read the article. I need a shower.
But thanks for posting. It is fantastic to see the DNC Elite Strategists “think” they know where they are failing while simultaneously proving they are still stuck in a bubble.
Also, did you notice how the article implicitly adopts the media as an ally against Trump and how they need to change the way they report in order to help the democrats? LOL! But they also miss that completely as one of the problems CAUSING the division in this country. “How is the next Democrat president going to unite this country after all the division Trump has caused?” - What?!!
Trump knew how to “play the media” to eliminate the Establishment Media’s support for the Left. No wonder why CNN and MSNBC are not doing well overall.
Great insight about the media being the PR wing of the DNC. Since I totally already assume that to be true, I hadn’t noticed that they were accidentally but quite explicitly admitting it.
As gramps would say: They’d mess up a steel wall with a rubber mallet.
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