Tag Archives: 2020 Convention

The VP Pick is?

By tmess2 | Published August 1, 2020

According to the latest news, future president Joe Biden will be announcing his VP pick during the upcoming week.  (At the latest, it would be the following week with the virtual convention scheduled to start on August 17.)  As I noted two months ago, there are two things that go on behind the scenes which make guessing the name a fool’s errand — skeletons in the closet and personal compatibility.  Simply put, even if we knew what Joe Biden wanted in a candidate, we would not know what the vetting of the potential candidate revealed and among the three or four candidates who meet the wish list of qualities and survive vetting we would not know which one will “click” with Vice-President Biden.   But the third factor — political considerations — is something that we can talk about.

There are three aspects to political considerations:  1) the status quo (what the current state of play is in the race); 2) a guess about November (regardless of where things are now, what states will be in play in November); and 3) what are your goals for the next four years (how will the pick help your administration).  On the third consideration, it is always possible to pick a running mate that you will keep mostly on the sidelines (see Dan Quayle), but most recent presidents have wanted somebody who would be able to handle some of the heavy lifting after the election.

The reality is that most VP picks have limited impact on the political equation.  They may make a marginal difference in their home state, but, as long as they are generally qualified, they tend to disappear into the background over the campaign with people ultimately voting based on the presidential candidate.  But the VP pick does say something about the judgment of the presidential campaign and their vision for their administration.  So here are the basic questions that the campaign has to answer. Continue Reading...

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The 2020 Convention — Rules Changes (June 2018)

By tmess2 | Published June 17, 2018

For both parties, the rules governing the national convention is the product of gradual change over time.  It is a natural desire — shared by both parties — to look back and what went wrong and to try to fix it.  The more intelligent members of both parties understand that every cycle will be somewhat different,; so “fixing” something to stack the deck against a candidate is likely to backfire.  A perfect example is the Republican rule changes after 2012.  In 2012, the Ron Paul campaign was perceived as manipulating the rules to get Ron Paul supporters elected to fill delegate slots won by other candidates.  In response, the rules were changed to bind delegates to vote for the candidate that won the delegates.  Regardless of how one feels about the merits of that change, the result was that the Republican Party establishment (which had pushed for the rule change) was helpless to stop the hostile takeover of the Republican Party by Donald Trump.

After the last convention (following past practice), the Democratic Party appointed a commission (the Unity Reform Commission) to study the rules and suggest changes in certain areas.  In early 2018, The commission’s report then went to the Rules & By-laws Committee (RBC) of the Democratic National Committee.  Among the tasks of the RBC is drafting the actual rules governing the 2020 delegate selection process and the convention process.  Since receiving the report of the commission, the RBC has been considering that report along with looking at other issues related to delegate selection process and has been composing a draft of the rules for 2020.  Later this year, that draft will go to the full Democratic National Committee for a final vote.

While the RBC has discussed a large number of changes, the one change that has gotten some media attention is the rules governing who can run.  Most of the media coverage has, at the very least, ignored the history behind this rule, and suggested that the rules change is targeted at Senator Bernie Sanders. Continue Reading...

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A Long December

By tmess2 | Published December 17, 2017

The year comes to a close with its usual mix of good news and bad news.

On the 2020 presidential election, the Unity Reform Commission has completed its work.  Josh Putnam over at Frontloading Headquarters has posting summaries of the Commission’s decisions.   From the first two summaries, the recommendations seem to be moving toward more open primaries (a reversal of the party’s traditional support for closed primaries) and to make caucuses more like primaries with a preference toward using the primary if there is a state-run primary.  These recommendations will go to the Rules & By-laws Committee (which folks may remember from 2008).  The Rules & By-laws Committee will take these recommendations into account in drafting the 2020 Call and Delegate Selection Plan.  When the draft is concluded, the RBC’s draft goes to the full Democratic National Committee for approval.  If the Unity Reform Commission believes that the RBC is not fully implementing their recommendations in the draft, they can ask for the full DNC to intervene.  Presumably, the party will also begin its site selection process early in 2018.

As the site selection and the rule drafting process continues, there will probably be a lot of discussion here.  For now, it is important to be cautious about changes driven by the problems of the last cycle.  There is always a temptation to “fight the last war.”  But the problems in one cycle do not necessarily recur in the next cycle, and it is important not to do things that will probably make more problems than they fix. Continue Reading...

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