This Is How Broken Our Political Process Has Become...

[Crackpot]

I have
No issue with safe seats as long as they are organic. Gerrymandering to create safe seats creates inertia.

[Sue U]

Sue--are there many one house parliamentary systems? It seems the proportionality suffers when an upper house is included, whether it's senators or lords or whatever. Also, my understanding is that in parliamentary systems "safe" seats are just as important to assure that party leaders who are to be appointed to high level positions are elected.

Yes,there are a lot of unicameral legislatures, including all of the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway & Iceland), Portugal, Hungary, Luxembourg, Greece, Israel, New Zealand, Turkey, Costa Rica, Peru and Ecuador, to name just a few. To encourage proportionality, you can have multiple representatives per district and/or at-large representatives and/or various forms of preference voting. If you have a system that includes at-large voting by party list, it doesn't matter whether there are any individual "safe seats" for party leadership.

There are many different forms of democratic representational government around the world, and we shouldn't be afraid to learn and adapt from their experience. Especially because what we have now is not actually working very well at all. I would be totally in favor of a constitutional commission to study various modifications and alternatives to our current system and to make recommendations appropriate for American values.

[oldr_n_wsr]

I tried voting for "none of the above" he's never on the ballot.
I'm writing him in this election.

[Big RR]

There are many different forms of democratic representational government around the world, and we shouldn't be afraid to learn and adapt from their experience. Especially because what we have now is not actually working very well at all. I would be totally in favor of a constitutional commission to study various modifications and alternatives to our current system and to make recommendations appropriate for American values.

I would have no problem with a commission that would just study and recommend, but a constitutional convention (as some are screaming for) scares the hell out of me as I cannot imagine what sort of even more dysfunctional system they would come up with.

But face it, there's a lot we can do within our current system, including enacting a constitutional amendment overruling Citizen's United, encouraging people to hold their representatives responsible for the mess that occurred. Of course, this does mean that they also have to believe their vote makes a difference and that the candidates are not just pandering to them. Maybe a "none of the above" election system is worth a try.

[Long Run]

After a great victory for Hillary Clinton in the Empire State on Tuesday, her presidential campaign is outwardly clinging to the comforting talk of math and how impossible it is for Bernie Sanders to capture the Democratic nomination.

But inside the Clinton campaign, everyone knows that just because Sanders no longer has a path doesn’t mean their candidate no longer has a problem.

Not only is Sanders now nearly tied with Clinton in national polling, having wiped out what last fall was more than a 30-point lead, the former secretary of State’s favorability has fallen with most groups and frankly is awful.

Clinton’s favorability with white voters is worse than President Obama’s ever was, and her favorability with African-American voters is at its lowest ever, according to Bill McInturff, the GOP pollster who conducted the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll with Democratic pollster Peter Hart. Thanks to Donald Trump, who is more toxic and remains the focus of most election coverage, Clinton’s email scandal and electoral vulnerabilities continue to be obscured. McInturff told The Washington Post: “Her terrible numbers for months have been masked because we have the one candidate in modern history who has worse numbers ... her numbers have gone from terrible to historic to disqualifying.”

Clinton’s problem with Democrats could become worse as she gets closer to the nomination, depending on Sanders, who has promised to campaign all the way to the convention in Philadelphia at the end of July. While the Vermont Independent has refused to go after Clinton’s greatest liability — her use of a private server at State is under investigation by the FBI — he has recently openly questioned her judgment and continues to assail the enormous speaking fees she accepted from Wall Street interests.

* * *

Clinton will now pivot toward a race against Trump, whose match-up numbers against her in the general election are ghastly, placing even Mississippi in play for her. But she can’t count on it yet.

* * *

Between now and his departure from the race, Sanders will either fight for a cause or fight to win the Democratic nomination by trying to change the minds of the superdelegates aligned with Clinton. He will do either by campaigning against a rigged economy and political system and by contrasting himself with a candidate he believes has relied on corporate money to get elected.

Both sound like problems for Clinton.

http://thehill.com/opinion/ab-stoddard/ ... t-over-yet