c4countdown

I've been following the whole US election as closely as I can, but there's a lot of stuff I'm not understanding. So I'm hoping one of our American readers (I know we have some) or anyone else who knows what they're on about can explain some of the following:

- How do the caucuses work? As soon as I think I've figured out the process, the next result comes along and seems nonsensical if that process is followed. Do they all operate different rules or something?

- What happened in Washington? I definitely read that there are 101 delegates, and Google tells me the vote was 72.7% Bernie Sanders vs 27.1% Hillary Clinton. If they're awarded proportionally, then I make that 74 delegates for Sanders and 27 for Clinton, but the result was 25 for Sanders and 9 for Clinton. 25-9 is proportionally right given the vote, but where did the other 67 go?

- What's the difference between a caucus and a primary? I can't seem to distinguish one, but some states have caucuses and some have primaries, so presumably there must be some difference?

- Who are the superdelegates and when do they get to do their super-stuff?

- And relatedly, what would have happened if Bernie Sanders had stood as an independent instead of a Democrat? I seem to remember an election with Ross Perot in as an independent, so do they do straight through? The consensus of opinion seems to be that he's got an almighty uphill struggle to get the nomination and almost every commentator says Hillary will win it. From my admittedly uninformed position, it just seems that Bernie would have been better off running as an independent; normally I'd say it would be impossible for an independent to win, but as a lot of Americans seem to hate Trump and Clinton equally, an independent candidate would surely do quite well?

Any help appreciated!

And while we're here - when Hillary Clinton won all those coin tosses a while ago, was that meaningful as in potentially - realistically - deciding the outcome?

I'm not 100% sure how (or why) it works but a third person candidate has virtually no hope. Trump could have run as an independent too but without your name on either the republican or democratic ticket you won't win. Here's a good video on the stupidity of the electoral college https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlwbTUs-17k

JimBentley wrote:I've been following the whole US election as closely as I can, but there's a lot of stuff I'm not understanding. So I'm hoping one of our American readers (I know we have some) or anyone else who knows what they're on about can explain some of the following:

- How do the caucuses work? As soon as I think I've figured out the process, the next result comes along and seems nonsensical if that process is followed. Do they all operate different rules or something?

Yes, they all operate different rules.

JimBentley wrote:- What happened in Washington? I definitely read that there are 101 delegates, and Google tells me the vote was 72.7% Bernie Sanders vs 27.1% Hillary Clinton. If they're awarded proportionally, then I make that 74 delegates for Sanders and 27 for Clinton, but the result was 25 for Sanders and 9 for Clinton. 25-9 is proportionally right given the vote, but where did the other 67 go?

The other 67 delegates are distributed among the congressional districts.

JimBentley wrote:- What's the difference between a caucus and a primary? I can't seem to distinguish one, but some states have caucuses and some have primaries, so presumably there must be some difference?

Caucuses are local delegate selection processes, primaries are state-wide.

JimBentley wrote:- Who are the superdelegates and when do they get to do their super-stuff?

Superdelegates get to do their super-stuff at the party's national convention. They are unelected delegates who can support any candidate, but in practice, they wouldn't oppose a candidate that the majority of voters had chosen (so if the majority of Democrats preferred Sanders, the superdelegates who have already pledged for Hillary would likely reverse their decision).

Dan McColm wrote:

JimBentley wrote:- What happened in Washington? I definitely read that there are 101 delegates, and Google tells me the vote was 72.7% Bernie Sanders vs 27.1% Hillary Clinton. If they're awarded proportionally, then I make that 74 delegates for Sanders and 27 for Clinton, but the result was 25 for Sanders and 9 for Clinton. 25-9 is proportionally right given the vote, but where did the other 67 go?

The other 67 delegates are distributed among the congressional districts.

But how are they distributed and does the public get to find out the distribution? It seems a bit perverse to have a vote and then only reveal the results of one-third of it. I obviously need to research this more...

JimBentley wrote:

Dan McColm wrote:

JimBentley wrote:- What happened in Washington? I definitely read that there are 101 delegates, and Google tells me the vote was 72.7% Bernie Sanders vs 27.1% Hillary Clinton. If they're awarded proportionally, then I make that 74 delegates for Sanders and 27 for Clinton, but the result was 25 for Sanders and 9 for Clinton. 25-9 is proportionally right given the vote, but where did the other 67 go?

The other 67 delegates are distributed among the congressional districts.

But how are they distributed and does the public get to find out the distribution? It seems a bit perverse to have a vote and then only reveal the results of one-third of it. I obviously need to research this more...

The 67 delegates from the congressional districts will be allocated proportionally based on the voting results of March 26th, according to http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2016/03/24/ ... d-to-know/this article

Mark James wrote:I'm not 100% sure how (or why) it works but a third person candidate has virtually no hope. Trump could have run as an independent too but without your name on either the republican or democratic ticket you won't win. Here's a good video on the stupidity of the electoral college https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlwbTUs-17k

Presumably it's because with the First Past the Post voting system, people don't want to waste their vote, and since independents are perceived as having no chance, that then becomes reality.

On the electoral college, and America's presidential voting system generally, it's complete bullshit. The job is to elect one person to one position, so states shouldn't even come into it. It should be a single national vote (once the parties have decided who's standing for them - and that shouldn't be state-based either).

So, the Donald gets the Republican nomination unopposed. I wonder what the odds on that were a year ago?

However, it seems that the consensus of opinion is that he'll be destroyed by Clinton (even in my more optimistic moments, I can't see Bernie nicking it at the last for the Democrats) in the actual presidential race and I've no real reason to doubt that.

If Trump also believes this to be true - and given that he's exposed the gross deficiencies in the nomination system (although it was pure self-interest to raise the issue at the time he did, his comments remain valid, and there's not many times you can say that) - I wonder if he's had a thought of waiting for the the head-to-head vote to start and simply saying "I'm not interested in doing this anymore" and dropping out of the race? In his mind, he would be the man who could have been President but decided not to (that he would have been soundly beaten in the ultimate race is not a factor that the Donald would consider).

I wonder what would happen if he did?

What do people suspect would actually happen if Trump came to power? There a tiny part of me that would actually like to see how he gets on.

Trump can win the election. It's not likely but it's possible. Especially if Berniebros refuse to vote for Clinton. Doing so is essentially a half-vote for Trump.

JimBentley wrote:the Donald

you on Reddit Jim?

JimBentley wrote:So, the Donald gets the Republican nomination unopposed. I wonder what the odds on that were a year ago?

However, it seems that the consensus of opinion is that he'll be destroyed by Clinton (even in my more optimistic moments, I can't see Bernie nicking it at the last for the Democrats) in the actual presidential race and I've no real reason to doubt that.

Just looking at Betfair, the odds imply a probability of about 26% that he will be the next president. That's actually quite high.

Matt Morrison wrote:

JimBentley wrote:the Donald

you on Reddit Jim?

I'm not as it happens but I must've glanced at various threads on it over the years. I didn't realise it was used on there, but it was always the way he was described when he was trying to build his golf courses all over Scotland and it sort of just stuck with me.

I've a feeling that if I got too stuck into Reddit I'd end up like one of those Korean guys found dead in front of their computers, having played Metal Snake Gear Solid Nuke The Commies IV for seventeen days straight.

haha. yes. probably. it's the only place i've seen "the donald" used so it's all i knew.
the subreddit supporting him (/r/The_Donald, though recently also kinda /r/HillaryForPrison) has taken over the site in a big way, kinda mad watching it grow in take over from all the Sanders support on the front page

Reddit is one of those trendy modern websites that I often hear about but I have no idea what it actually is.

Yeah, I'm just about to log into my Tumblr account.

Matt Morrison wrote:haha. yes. probably. it's the only place i've seen "the donald" used so it's all i knew.
the subreddit supporting him (/r/The_Donald, though recently also kinda /r/HillaryForPrison) has taken over the site in a big way, kinda mad watching it grow in take over from all the Sanders support on the front page

As far as I remember, "The Donald" came about in the 90's as a descriptor when his wife and her not particularly good at the time English accidently called him it. So it's long been a thing.