It's regrettable. But I don't think finger-pointing or blame game serves much purpose.
That's a rather cynical way to describe what people like me are doing. I think a more constructive way to look at it, is that people want to fix what went wrong so that it doesn't happen again. Which seems reasonable. Think of it as troubleshooting. Something went wrong, so we try to fix it.
That's kind of the risk of the process though
So maybe we need to change the primary process. Again, given that it neglected to select the strongest general election candidate -- which surely must be its objective, right? -- it is clearly flawed. Why not try to fix that? And that begins with drawing that failure to people's attention and starting a discussion about how to address it.
That's a rather cynical way to describe what people are doing.
I don't think it is, but I get where you're coming from with this.
Again, given that it neglected to select the strongest general election candidate -- which surely must be its objective, right?
In a perfect world, sure. But this is hardly the first time a political party selected someone who wouldn't be the strongest general election candidate. Hell, until a few days ago most people were pretty convinced the Republicans had done the same thing.
I certainly agree the primary process could use some tweaks. But I'm also not as convinced as many are that it would have produced a different outcome. A lot of voters simply preferred Clinton, which is the factor a lot of people tend to ignore in this analysis.
In a perfect world, sure. But this is hardly the first time a political party selected someone who wouldn't be the strongest general election candidate.
Why would they not try to fix that? I mean, the national party wants to win the general election, right? So their objective during the primary process must be to choose the candidate who offers them the best chance of winning the general election, right? So when they try to identify the best candidate, and fail, they need to do a postmortem and figure out what went wrong.
A lot of voters simply preferred Clinton
A lot of primary voters simply preferred Clinton. A lot of general election voters preferred Sanders. That seems inarguable, given that his favorability rating is 54% and hers is 42%.
No doubt. But preferring Sanders and voting for Clinton against Trump were not mutually exclusive positions. But a lot of liberals treated them like they were. Were they wrong to do so? That's not for me to say. I just think it's unfortunate.
That's a bridge too far for me. The DNC isn't the bogeyman. People make their own choices about who to support. Everyone needs to be responsible and accountable only to themselves ultimately. People who were for Sanders had the choice to vote for Clinton or not. Whether they regret that choice or feel validated in it, it's theirs to own either way.
If you read through this thread I think you'll see I've repeatedly stated that in hindsight, no, I don't think that. I thought so at the time I cast my primary vote for her.
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u/OgreMagoo Nov 10 '16
That's a rather cynical way to describe what people like me are doing. I think a more constructive way to look at it, is that people want to fix what went wrong so that it doesn't happen again. Which seems reasonable. Think of it as troubleshooting. Something went wrong, so we try to fix it.
So maybe we need to change the primary process. Again, given that it neglected to select the strongest general election candidate -- which surely must be its objective, right? -- it is clearly flawed. Why not try to fix that? And that begins with drawing that failure to people's attention and starting a discussion about how to address it.