(12-14-2017 12:01 PM)JustAnotherAustinOwlStill Wrote:  Regarding Superdelegates - you can argue for or against them, but they've never decided a race, including 2016. Here are the numbers:

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graph...e-tracker/

Take away the superdelegates and Hillary still wins. Hell, give 75% of her superdelegates to Bernie and she still wins. Bernie did terrible with people of color for the most part. You can't do that in a Dem primary and expect to win. The other argument is that the superdelegates made it seem insurmountable for Bernie, when it wasn't. But 2008 tells a different story. Hillary had most of the superdelegates "locked up" then too. But when Obama started winning, they switched. I'm OK with getting rid of superdelegates, but of all the problems in our politics, I can't believe how much time and energy has been wasted on them.

To Owl69's point about primaries, I agree to a large degree, though I think it has more to do with gerrymandering and self-sorting. When the general isn't competitive, there's no reason for activists of either party to worry about nominating a moderate. Unless you were talking about presidential elections specifically, in which case the party bosses would have still given us Clinton, but probably Jebio! on the R side.

I think we tend to forget/not realize how idiosyncratic our primary process is. To actually have the government running the nomination process for competing political parties is much more something you see in authoritarian regime where you have "elections" - most places the parties have their own process independent of the main election system. We really are strange in that regard. It also formally institutionalized the two main parties in a way that is profoundly undemocratic. Small 'd'.

As far as gerrymandering, there just are not that many gerrymandered districts. Most of them, particularly in the south, are necessary to create safe minority districts to satisfy the Voting Rights Act. Gerrymandering one district obviously creates some knock-on gerrymander effects on surrounding districts. Geometry works that way. But the vast majority of districts are pretty normal.

If a State is 50-50 and you create a safe minority district, it is going to be about 89% democrat, which will inevitably tilt every other district at least somewhat more toward republicans. Math works that way.