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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[GlyphGryph]

No, we fill each others rosters with what we see to be the most acceptable candidate possible, and only when there's no better option.

If people deciding "If I have to pick between these two, I'd rather have this guy, because he'll likely do less damage than the other guy" is the problem, I'm not entirely sure if the open primary here is really the thing you should be focusing on.

You're concept of "taking the meta to the extreme" is pretty stupid. In this district, the race was between Bart and Cantor, and people voted for Bart as the lesser of two evils. This is how elections work. Why would the Republicans throw their votes away by voting in the Democratic primary? The Republican primary is where the actual election happens, not in the run-off the winner of that primary is essentially guaranteed to carry. Are you saying that if you belong to an opposing party, you shouldn't get an actual say in who your representative is?

No, I don't even have to ask - that is what you're saying. You're saying that if 70% of the population would prefer Candidate A to Candidate B, but 25 percentage points of that total don't share his political alignment, they should have no say and Candidate B should get elected instead.

That's pretty dumb.

If the Tea Party and the Democrats both agree that Candidate A (Brat) is the candidate they'd prefer, you're going to argue this is a bad strategy if we want a functional government?

If the problem isn't that you want to disenfranchise people for professing the wrong political affiliation, is it just a problem with the whole "lesser of two evils" thing? Because.. that's not really a problem based around open primaries, and the lesser of two evils is still better than the worse of two evils.

[Bauglir]

No, I think he's saying that voting in each other's primaries for the candidate you think likeliest to lose the general election because they're such an unacceptable choice that the general public couldn't possibly vote for them, is how we wind up with a field composed entirely of unacceptable candidates come election time.

[GlyphGryph]

That's not what happened here, though. None of the Dems I've heard from who voted for Brat actually think he's going to lose, they just would rather have him than Cantor. While, sure, they'd probably be happy if this ended up with a Democrat victory, I think they'd be happier with a Brat victory than a Cantor victory.

The sounds like a system that is working.

[Sheb]

But why would they prefer a Brat victory? Because they actually think his policies are better than Cantor's, or because they want the GOP to make an ass of himself?

[GrizzlyAdamz]

'Better for the country' != 'Better for the democrats' (or republicans for that matter)
& this primary result is 'Better for the democrats'.

While open primaries might empower political minorities, it's also vulnerable to cynical political abuse. And this is an example of just that- the actual effect & intent of unseating cantor is to deprive the republican party of their majority leader & throw a wrench into their works. Instead of one of their figureheads, the republicans get a freshman congressman that rode in upon the hands of their enemies.
It's not as if voting in the primary excludes one from voting in the general election either- or even voting against the candidate you helped nominate, (which will be widespread here).

Meanwhile your 'disenfranchised' voters still vote. They just lack a majority.
Without an open primary they'd be 'disenfranchised' in the sense that they can't prop up an imbecile as their opponent's candidate before voting against him.

Further, your '70% want candidate A instead of candidate B' fun-with-numbers argument doesn't hold up, (btw I think this math is off, should be more like 60% want candidate A).
Let's see..
Candidate A: repub underdog
Candidate B: repub frontrunner
Candidate C: dem frontrunner

So, of 100%,
40% prefer B, then A, then C
35% prefer A, then B, then C
25% prefer C, then A, then B

If C is out of the equation, (like in a republican primary), then yeah sure 60% want A over B.
But without A, (like in the general election), 75% prefer B.



This wasn't a heartwarming 'political minorities unite!' story, it was a spiteful play to hurt the republican party.

No, I think he's saying that voting in each other's primaries for the candidate you think likeliest to lose the general election because they're such an unacceptable choice that the general public couldn't possibly vote for them, is how we wind up with a field composed entirely of unacceptable candidates come election time.

Yar, that's the 'meta-to-the-extreme' I put forward.

[GlyphGryph]

But why would they prefer a Brat victory? Because they actually think his policies are better than Cantor's, or because they want the GOP to make an ass of himself?

Because they think he and his party will be less able to do terrible things than Cantor would be able to.

So, of 100%,
40% prefer B, then A, then C
35% prefer A, then B, then C
25% prefer C, then A, then B
If C is out of the equation, (like in a republican primary), then yeah sure 60% want A over B.
But without A, (like in the general election), 75% prefer B.

So even though more people would prefer A over B, you think B should win because most people would prefer B over C.

You are literally saying the opinions of people who would vote C as their first choice shouldn't matter, and that their votes for the candidate with an actual chance of winning shouldn't be counted because their first choice was someone else.

I am sorry, but this is a reprehensible opinion to me.

Alternatively, your opinion is "People who vote for reasons I disagree with shouldn't be able to help the candidate they would prefer to win, win". Maybe both! Still utterly terrible.

Cantor lost the only election in his district that mattered because he managed to get a significant amount of his constituency to hate him more than the other guy. And you're really going to try to argue that this was wrong and he should have been able to hold his position?

[RedKing]

Cantor lost the only election in his district that mattered because he managed to get a significant amount of his constituency to hate him more than the other guy. And you're really going to try to argue that this was wrong and he should have been able to hold his position?

This. It's sort of like a football game where a team loses 28-7, and the losing team fans are complaining about one bad call that denied a touchdown. Cantor should not have even been in any position for Democratic spoiler votes to make an impact. This wasn't a Nader-Gore type spoiler where the margin of victory was razor-thin. This was a 11-point drubbing.

Margin of victory was 7,212. Again, it would take a concerted conspiracy to get that many Democrats out to the polls in an off-year election to sabotage the race in what is considered a "safe" red district to begin with.

This article does a good job breaking down the numbers and pointing out that while there were some crossover votes, it's not enough to account for the margin of victory.

[GrizzlyAdamz]

Excluding C and appointing the winner according to AvB has just as much merit as disregarding A and appointing the winner according to BvC.
Except the latter is much less prone to dishonest voting.


Glyph, I'm against 'Meta' voting, trying to game the system. And if democratic spoiler votes had a large contribution in this, I would be very upset if I were a republican.

This article does a good job breaking down the numbers and pointing out that while there were some crossover votes, it's not enough to account for the margin of victory.

Good source!

[Rez]

No, you wouldn't, because if you were a Republican, you would despise Cantor worse than Obama.  I'm a newcomer, but my read is that most people here are too sympathetic to the Dems to understand how frustrated the right is with the GOP establishment.  They've come out the loser in every confrontation with the White House; real question, can anyone name an issue they've won on?   The GOP leadership regularly comes back to issues that the right generally despises.  To people on the right who aren't in favor of status quo in the GOP and the country, Cantor, Boehner, Priebus are quislings.

I'm not trying to take away your agency, but, if you were actually a republican, you would have had at least 6 years of the GOP pandering to the middle and failing to 'win' on both real terms and in the media.  There's a reason he lost and it's not because the Democrats bused voters into the primary; they didn't and didn't need to.  The GOP establishment has generally been trying to become centrist; quite unsuccessfully, seeing as this desire played an important part in the rise of the tea party during Bush's administration and the hilariously unsuccessful Romney campaign.

[smjjames]

I think you guys are missing one part of the puzzle, perhaps the Republican voters in that district also wanted to change the Majority leader.

[Frumple]

... the GOP's been pandering to the middle? What? I mean, I haven't been paying near as much attention as I should, but aiming toward centrist isn't exactly how the republicans have been coming off... pretty much anywhere, at any level, that I've noticed. I mean, from what I've been understanding (one of) the major reason(s) they're having the troubles they're having is because they started pandering to the extremists in their party, not... the other way around. And naturally enough, the general population started getting leery.

As for issues they've won on, I couldn't speak in regards to white house level stuff, but they've been doing plenty of damage winning on lower levels all over the place. Admittedly that's a lot due to gerrymandering and whatnot more than popular appeal but *shrugs*

[RedKing]

They've come out the loser in every confrontation with the White House; real question, can anyone name an issue they've won on?

Gun control (by preventing ANY meaningful action)
Immigration reform (by preventing the issue from even coming to the floor in the House)
Benghazi (by managing to keep the issue alive for 18 months now)
Banking reform (by preventing it)
Obamacare (by forcing it to be watered down)

GOP: The Party of NOPE

[mainiac]

I'm not trying to take away your agency, but, if you were actually a republican, you would have had at least 6 years of the GOP pandering to the middle and failing to 'win' on both real terms and in the media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

[Rez]

Well, that's my point.  You perceive the places where they've moved to the left as places where they're still far, far to the right of what you perceive to be the center.  Perhaps that is because the GOP is so far out in the field or perhaps the base has moved right while the GOP has stayed in the same place.  However, this is a criticism you see all the time from right-wing pundits and commentators; Republicans go to DC and forget their constituency so they can hobnob and go to cocktail parties.

Limbaugh:

His[Cantor's] constituents cease to be the people that live in his district. Eric Cantor became a creation of Washington and his constituency became Barack Obama and the House leadership. That's why he was doing what he was doing. That's for whom he was doing what he was doing, and the people in his district finally figured it out I think. It didn't take long, really, but they finally figured it out.

I'm more inclined to think that both parties have a significant interest in being seen as centrist and try to create narratives that put them there and their opponents as fringe as possible.  For the right, that means portraying the left as communists.  For the left, that means portraying the right as fascists.  The right are crazy gun nuts.  The left are doped out hippies.  As we all know, people are rarely swayed from their political views and certainly not by politicians.   The parties have a vested interest in creating situations that prevent people from realizing what they have in common and realizing that the Dems and Repubs are both total scum.

Please note, I claimed they had tried to move toward the center.

Gun control (by preventing ANY meaningful action)
Immigration reform (by preventing the issue from even coming to the floor in the House)
Benghazi (by managing to keep the issue alive for 18 months now)
Banking reform (by preventing it)
Obamacare (by forcing it to be watered down)

Democrats don't even want to touch gun control.  I don't know how you can count bipartisan avoidance as a Republican victory.  Democrats own guns too and gun owners tend to be single-issue voters, with a long memory.  It's a long memory that includes previous incrementalist attempts(and successes) to ban gun ownership by citizens, though of course not for politicians and police.

Sure, sort of.  It's part of the point that they keep getting involved in it to the great dismay of their base.  Hardly a win when you get half your constituents baying for your blood.  It's not a win for either side, perhaps.

That you don't think the Benghazi attack or, more importantly, the bigotry and deception by the Obama Administration are important is telling to me.  The attack is bad, but not something you can lay at administrations feet.  The disgustingly bigoted campaign to portray muslims as incapable of handling free speech and purposefully lying about the cause and mode of the attack is quite another.

Care to explain what they would reform?  I don't really buy that either party wants to do anything but put band-aids on the problem and continue insider trading and going through the revolving doors.

How exactly did Republicans force a bill they didn't vote for to be watered down?

[Frumple]

Well, that's my point.  You perceive the places where they've moved to the left as places where they're still far, far to the right of what you perceive to be the center.

... could you give, like, any examples of where they've moved to the left?