Why do the Democrats lose Presidential Elections...?

[Care4all]

The simple answer is the Electoral College vs. Proportional Delegates in their Primary.

We choose our Presidential Candidate in our primaries via proportional Delegates when our Elections are chosen by the Electoral college.

Why do the Democrats choose their candidate via a method that is meaningless when it comes to electing a President?

For those that don't know what i am talking about, for the most part in an Election for President the citizens of a state vote for their Presidential choice, and whoever wins the majority of votes in that state, receives ALL of that state's Electoral votes....adding to their total until one candidate has the majority of Electoral votes.

However, in the Democratic Primary, the citizens vote or caucus, and the candidate that wins, receives ONLY their portion of the Delegates according to the vote and the losers receive their portion of the Delegates according to the votes they received.

Seemingly, this is only fair....after all, it is how the people within the state voted...giving more credence to the actual choice of the voters....a voice for all of them.

But this is NOT how Presidential Elections are won, which is for the most part, winner takes ALL.

We are put at a disadvantage from the get go in an Election for President....

 

[Silence]

I actually agree with you Care. I'm not sure why the Dems do it differently except to make the race more competitive. Someone who loses two or three primaries on the Dem side would be out of the race early.

That's what happened in the Republican race...McCain locked up the nomination in like March or something whereas Hillary and Obama had to keep discussing the issues and winning or coming close to winning.

I think the reason Dems have a hard time winning is because Dems are much more likely to jump over party lines to vote for (or against) someone. Republicans are party loyal, even when the absolutely HATE their candidate.

Repubs are also much more inclined to go negative when campaigning. That's not to say Dems don't do it too, they do. But the level of nasty, dirty, politics on the Right is legendary. They wage culture wars to win elections and rarely run on their record OR their policy. When the election is about the issues, the Dems win...when the Repubs are able to distract from the issues they win. Sadly, America is full of easily distracted people.

 

[editec]

Dems lose elections for a lot of reasons, just as Republicans do.

While I object to the electoral system, I don't blame that system for why Dems lose.

they lose for the same reason Rs do...because they get out of touch with the people.

Just ask some of us in the middle class who actually do make somewhat less than $5,000,000 a year, we'll testify that some the leadership class is totally out of touch with our reality.

 

[Care4all]

Dems lose elections for a lot of reasons, just as Republicans do.

While I object to the electoral system, I don't blame that system for why Dems lose.

they lose for the same reason Rs do...because they get out of touch with the people.

Just ask some of us in the middle class who actually do make somewhat less than $5,000,000 a year, we'll testify that some the leadership class is totally out of touch with our reality.

not really.....look at Gore, he won the popular vote, but he was not set up to win the electoral vote.

each primary candidate is set up with teams of people that they send to various states or that they build in various states that they think they need in that state...in some cases, candidates do not set up a strong campaign team in a state that they know they are going to lose the popular vote in against their counterpart....because they know, that no matter what, they will get a certain amount of delegates off of the people's vote and the limited amount of workers would better serve the candidate by being in another state that they know will get them a ton more delegates over their competitors.

That's all good thinking and a strategy that helps them in the Primary to win.

But this leaves them with a void, in the state that they did not set up a strong campaign team in the primary and states that have big electoral colleges might be starting to build their team only after the Primary is over, while the republicans are already set up in these states because their primary voting process mimics the Electoral college with their delegates.

Their whole mindthink on winning a primary verses winning an election has a transition period that may never catch up....

Yes, it is honorable to have proportional voting, but the president is not elected by the popular vote, thus to me, this is a waste of time having primaries in this fashion.