Our Primaries

THE ABSURD TIMES

Tom Lehrer explaining Math, link below.

Our Primaries

By

Chicago Thought

There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to the "Democracy" pervading the United States.  Now this can only be cleared up by realizing that when the political parties use the term democracy it does not mean "one man, one vote".  Once you get that absurd notion out of your head, things become more understandable.

Donald Trump (hey, a broken watch is right twice a day, eh?) is quite right when he says that the system is "rigged".  As a matter of fact, for you mariners out there, the rigging is as elaborate as you ever saw, and it is so rigged that the two-party system will protect its interests and keep sailing on as if the people have no power over it whatsoever.

Now, the Republican system is beyond description in its complexity.  For example, you may hear about the delegates in Pennsylvania amounting to, say, 85 or thereabouts.  However, not told is the fact that only 17 of them are chosen by the voters.  The rest are just there and can do whatever they want.  In addition, two of those 17 that are running against each other both are Cruz supporters.  That really means 15 are left. 

Enough of the Republicans as I have no intention of writing a 300 page book in two days.  Let's look at the Democrats.

Whenever you see the delegate count, it probably says, as of April 21, 2016, that Clinton has 1,930 delegates and Sanders 1,189.  2383 are needed to win.  This means that Clinton only needs 453 while Sanders needs 1144.  When those numbers are presented, it looks as if the primary is over.

However, 540 of those delegates are so-called "Super Delegates" (hereafter referred to as SD to distinguish from STD) and really have not been elected by anyone as a delegate.  Now, Clinton has 502 SDs while Sanders has 38.  Let us just take the whole population and see what happens.

If those 540 SDs were to all support Sanders, he would have 1691 and Clinton would have 1390.  (The 540 is a fixed number and all will vote and not go away so if one person leave one and goes to the other, it makes a total difference of 2)  Why not? Now Sanders is leading and on his way to victory.  

I'll tell you why not: "The system is rigged".  Where have I heard that before? 

One final fact: many Democratic, not as many Republican, states hold primaries that EXCLUDE independents.  In other words, unless you pledge allegiance to the Democratic Party, say in New York, 9 months before the election, you can't vote.  Of course, in the real election, once the parties decode on their nominees, Independents can vote.  So, one man, one vote?  Don't be silly.

Here is a link that will help you understand how the math works:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIWaJ0sy03g&feature=em-share_video_user

Apologies for the commercial (something about divorce – just click the x in the upper right-hand corner of the insert).