quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD
I think they should have it so all states have their primaries on the same day, about two months before the general election. It would also be nice if politicians would refrain from announcing their candidacy no more than six months prior to the general election.
Sounds good.
The problem is that unless you have a second round of primaries, maybe even a third or fourth, you will get someone that represents a small but dedicated group of voters. 1984 is a good example, Jessi Jackson had about 25-30% of the vote with five or six candidates, looked pretty good. But when it came down to two he had 24-30% of the vote, a pitiful showing.
We need to have a means of wittling the feild down to get the "best" candidate.
I would suggest 4 regional primaries, rotating the order so the same part of the country doesn't get only the wittled down field.
I would also suggest that the polls should open nation wide a midnight Eastern Time and stay open for 24 hours, thus we don't have presidential winners declared at 8 eastern time with hours left to vote in Hawaii. See 1980 when Carter conseded about that time.

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

I see people crowing and lamenting about who is leading and not leading presidential polls.
Seriously folks. Does no one have a memory?
8 years ago, Hillary was so far ahead because of the country's perceived notion that Dubya had made a hash of the economy that the RNC didn't even bother to campaign hard with a viable candidate. They conceded to her a year before the election. What happened?
This unknown freshman senator from that hotbed of honest politics, Chicago, came out of nowhere and took the nomination. The RNC was caught with no message, no viable candidate, no campaign and no win. They lost a heck of an opportunity.

4 years later, they believed the polls again and thought they would have a cakewalk so they decided they could ram a Christian agenda down everyone's throat.
Same result, they got their asses kicked.

Maybe folks, especially those at the RNC, need to just ignore the damn polls for now at least.

Lately, leading in the polls early has been kind of a kiss of death.

quote:

ORIGINAL: joether

quote:

ORIGINAL: thompsonx
Typically about a third of u.s. voters actually vote. The ones who vote tend to be the ones who vote regularly. If we take these two thoughts and add the "none of the above " option at the booth. (lots of pretrial publicity) I think it most likely that the two major candidates would get about the vote count that would have happened if the option were not there. I think the voter turnout would approach 80%. The ones who would be voting for the option would seem to be the ones who feel that voting for this bum or that bum is less important than watching the reruns of "the howdy doody show".

" In late 1999 in California, citizen proponents of Proposition 23, titled the "None of the Above Act", qualified a new State ballot initiative through circulated petitions submitted to the Secretary of State. A total of $987,000 was expended in promotion of the ballot option, which was defeated in the March 2000 general election 64% to 36%. If passed by the voters, it would have required this new ballot option for all state and federal elective offices, exempting only local judicial races; in determining official election results, the "none of the above" voter tally would be discarded in favor of the candidate with the greatest number of votes."

[COLOR=#0000FF]SOURCE

Seems the voters of Nevada (which is a purple state) were not in favor of such a measure. It sounds nice of an idea, but there exists not enough evidence to support the idea. Nor in drawing a greater percentage of people to the ballot box.

quote:

ORIGINAL: joether

quote:

ORIGINAL: Zonie63
[b(A) think they should have it so all states have their primaries on the same day, (B)about two months before the general election. (C)It would also be nice if politicians would refrain from announcing their candidacy no more than six months prior to the general election.

I disagree. On each point.

(A): What if states want the same individual at their primary verse another state? That implies the richer state gets the person. Is that fair for the poor states? Three states would like President Obama at their DNC primary; which one gets the President's attention? Why should the other two suffer? What your arguing creates alot of unneeded resentment between the states. The country already had a wide and deep enough of a political chasm without encouraging it!

quote:


Likewise it would be a security nightmare for law enforcement and intelligence agencies. That is 100 primaries to cover, assuming each state....ONLY....has the Republican and Democrat running for office. Most states average about four or five political parties. So now we are up to 250+ security details of varing sizes, in either the same or different areas of each state.

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By breaking it up into a number of days/weeks, allows the limited resources to focus into specific areas of the nation.

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(B): Two months is not enough time to property analyze a person for the White House. Most of us have day jobs. What little time we have to study and make an informed decision is scrapped from several days of free time. Besides, gives more time for a candidate to screw up and make it entertaining.

Yes, I know most Americans are completely stupid when it comes to elections. This forum is a great example of that concept! But some of us would like more time to study each person beyond the sound bites and political buzz phrases.

quote:


(C): I'm fine if someone wishes to announce their ran beyond or under that six month window. There is no law stating one has to perform this practice. Frankly if there was, I'd be amazed it wasn't challenged as a violation of the 1st amendment!

quote:

ORIGINAL: tj444

quote:

ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam

I see people crowing and lamenting about who is leading and not leading presidential polls.
Seriously folks. Does no one have a memory?
8 years ago, Hillary was so far ahead because of the country's perceived notion that Dubya had made a hash of the economy that the RNC didn't even bother to campaign hard with a viable candidate. They conceded to her a year before the election. What happened?
This unknown freshman senator from that hotbed of honest politics, Chicago, came out of nowhere and took the nomination. The RNC was caught with no message, no viable candidate, no campaign and no win. They lost a heck of an opportunity.

4 years later, they believed the polls again and thought they would have a cakewalk so they decided they could ram a Christian agenda down everyone's throat.
Same result, they got their asses kicked.

Maybe folks, especially those at the RNC, need to just ignore the damn polls for now at least.

Lately, leading in the polls early has been kind of a kiss of death.

as with everything the US does, this is wayyyyyy over done and dragged out... there are too many damn polls!.. remind me, when is the US election again?

meanwhile.. in Canada, on August 2, 2015, Prime Minister Harper called an election.. it will be all over and done on October 19th, 2015.. btw, this campaign is the longest in Canada's history.. a total of eleven (11) weeks!... imo, that is the way it should be done, politicians should be spending their time working at making the country better, not spending years fundraising, making backroom deals with big corps and buying votes.. Back here in the US, y'all have been in election mode since Obama was re-elected!!!.. Is it any wonder that your country's problems aren't being solved??? Don't y'all get tired of it all? block this shite out? what a waste of energy (and billions of dollars), imo.. Just sayin'...

quote:

ORIGINAL: DesideriScuri

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD
I think they should have it so all states have their primaries on the same day, about two months before the general election. It would also be nice if politicians would refrain from announcing their candidacy no more than six months prior to the general election.
Sounds good.
The problem is that unless you have a second round of primaries, maybe even a third or fourth, you will get someone that represents a small but dedicated group of voters. 1984 is a good example, Jessi Jackson had about 25-30% of the vote with five or six candidates, looked pretty good. But when it came down to two he had 24-30% of the vote, a pitiful showing.
We need to have a means of wittling the feild down to get the "best" candidate.
I would suggest 4 regional primaries, rotating the order so the same part of the country doesn't get only the wittled down field.
I would also suggest that the polls should open nation wide a midnight Eastern Time and stay open for 24 hours, thus we don't have presidential winners declared at 8 eastern time with hours left to vote in Hawaii. See 1980 when Carter conseded about that time.

Maybe having 3 primaries with the final one being 2 months prior to the General election? The first would be anyone running that is qualified for the seat. The second one would only have the top handful vote getters from the first primary, and would whittle the field down for the final primary.

ETA: The candidates can't announce (or receive funding) until 12 months prior to the General election. The first primary would be 6 months prior to the election, and the second would be 2 months after the first. That gives each remaining candidate 2 months to state his/her case prior to the next primary.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

if harper gets back in we are completely fucked.