Sanders
consistently
wins the support of Independent voters in exit and other polls.
Independents are 40% of the electorate compared to Democrats who
barely reach 30%, a number that will likely continue to decline as
the party's corrupt election rigging practices under challenge in
2016 become even more apparent. Since Independents determine presidential elections, factoring their choices into the run-off process is conducive to victory. Should Independents get turned off the Democratic Party due to its transparent
election rigging, Democrats will lose in November to Trump, who at
least keeps a straight face when pretending to be a post-plutocracy
plutocrat.
Different
approaches to primary elections range from, say, Minnesota's, which
has an entirely open process requiring little more than future voter
eligibility and a signature to participate, to a state like
Massachusetts which is not so open, to states like New York that are
closed. In Minnesota, a solid blue state that has consistently
contributed all its electoral votes to Democrats for two generations
since
1976.
Sanders accordingly defeated
Clinton with a landslide vote of 61-38%
on Super Tuesday, in an historic turnout second only to 2008. The
Minnesota results were comparable to Sanders' landslide in his
neighboring New Hampshire, and exceeded
in Kansas. In Massachusetts, by contrast Sanders ran almost even.
The Super Tuesday and other states range
across this spectrum from open to closed, giving their results
variable validity in representing the actual preferences of general
election voters.
The
DNC cannot by itself change this variable discrimination in different
states against Independent voters. It was unsuccessful
in trying ad
hoc
discipline of state primary practices it disapproved in Michigan and Florida in
2008. Discrimination against voters that the party will need to win
the general election is usually rooted in state laws which the
corrupt parties have created for their mutual duopolistic benefit.
But the DNC rules committee could immediately ameliorate this problem
with a rule change demonstrating its commitment to a democratic
run-off process. The rule change would compensate for this bias by
making an adjustment in delegate voting strength.
Comparable to the proposed remedy for the rotten borough problem, such a rule would handicap each state's procedures on the spectrum from open to closed. The adjustment would deduct voting strength to the extent a state party chooses to distort voter preference by restrictive processes which tend to misstate the relative prospects of different candidates in the general election. Voting delegate strength at the Convention would be adjusted to favor the voting strength of delegates selected by open primary voting, like Minnesota, over those selected by closed primary voting, like New York. Failure to use paper ballots and tolerance for election law violations would also be factored in to the estimate for openness. This adjustment would attempt to better approximate the likely Democratic general election voters' actual choice for a nominee rather than a manipulated choice designed to represent only a 30% share of the electorate, or less, and who Independents might well actively dislike.
Why should a state that runs a tightly controlled primary that deliberately misrepresents the actual preferences of the state's voters have the same weight as Minnesota, which seeks to allow everyone interested to participate, and thereby also more reliably contributes to Democratic electoral votes year in and year out?
Failing to make this rule change would continue to condone election rigging by excluding or deterring the 40% of Independents from entering a winning coalition by participating in the run-off process. Manipulating the process to privilege a plutocratic nominee is not a winning strategy in an election year when such political corruption and rigging of the system is foremost in many voters' minds, especially of the Independents who will decide its outcome.
3.
Disinformation
Virginia is the only state that is not a deep red state where Clinton has crushed Sanders, nearly two to one, as Sanders crushed Clinton in the blue states of Minnesota by 23% and New Hampshire and Maine by similar margins. Virginia was previously a red state along with the other former slave states upon which Clinton has built her "major victory." Virginia shifted to Obama in 2008 and 2012 and has a governor who is a Clinton ally. It can now be called a purple state, just behind Colorado on its way to claiming blue status, if the trend continues.
Washington
Post exit polls of Virginia voters raise another issue for which the
solution is somewhat more elaborate than the other rule changes
proposed here. This issue no doubt also affects Clinton's other
delegates, especially those from red states where reliable information
about national Democratic politics is far more scarce than it is in blue
states. Delegates from the red states would be eliminated by the
above "rotten borough" rule change in any event. So the analysis
in this section will focus solely on Virginia.
The Virginia exit polls tell us that the 52% of Democratic primary voters who expressed a preference for a candidate who "Can win in November" or one who "Has right experience" overwhelmingly voted for Clinton. Meanwhile the 47% of such voters who prefer a candidate who "Cares about people like me" or who is "Honest and trustworthy" tended to prefer Sanders by lesser, though still respectable, majorities (56% and 78%, respectively).
One must ask whether the experience of Clinton which is preferred by these voters is that of selling US foreign policy for the benefit of the Clinton Foundation as described by Peter Schweizer, Clinton Cash (2015), or the experience of defending herself against an FBI investigation for national security breaches that may or may not be related, or Clinton's destabilization and warmongering for the benefit of weapons manufacturers who pay her, as described in Diana Johnstone, Queen of Chaos: The Misadventures of Hillary Clinton (2015).
When fending off the accusation that her most significant "experience" has been her service to the plutocratic Establishment, Clinton admitted Sanders' superior relevant experience: "He's been in Congress, he's been elected to office a lot longer than I have." The non-sequitur that experience in office could be considered interchangeable with serving plutocrats is beside the point of Clinton's express acknowledgment of Sanders' superior elected experience. Clinton is not even close to Sanders' long-term experience in public service, including executive experience. The experience "advantage" relied upon by Clinton's voters becomes even more ephemeral when one tries to pin it down to specific accomplishments as opposed to the "blur" of activity that obscures borderline criminality. Clinton Cash 101.
As
to the second issue, that of Clinton voters' preference for winning
in November, every poll since December has shown Sanders defeating
every Republican with significantly higher margins than Clinton, who
some polls show actually losing such match-ups. This widespread
misperception as to electability, which nevertheless motivates many
Clinton voters, flies in the face of known
fact.
Can anything be done about such Democratic voter ignorance on these two themes? It is primarily the consequence of pervasive mass media propaganda which is bought one way or another by plutocrats for their favored candidate. Propaganda cannot be regulated without enacting laws that the Scalia Supreme Court and lower courts would have ruled unconstitutional. Cf. Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. _ (2014)(on remand).
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