John Kerry is the Democratic nominee for president. He won the roll call, 4,254 to 43 over Dennis Kucinich.
The AP has an article about the roll call:
With the nomination in the bag, the biggest questions at roll call was which states would go first, which state would clinch the nomination for Kerry, and what delegates would say when it was their state’s turn at the microphone. …
Hawaii was the “most beautiful fleet of islands anchored in any ocean.” Idaho was named the “gem of the mountains.” Kansas said it the home of actor Dennis Hopper. …
Arizona, of course, was the Grand Canyon State. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, one of Kerry’s defeated primary rivals, boasted of the home of the Razorbacks. Not to be outdone, Connecticut said it was home of the men’s and women college basketball champions.
Yay! Go Huskies! :)
The article also explains the procedure:
The roll call of states, which used to be a fixture and a feature of national conventions even after they went from real business to show business, is a late night TV postscript in Boston.
Kerry’s name was placed in nomination at cocktail time on Wednesday by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. Later New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the convention chairman, announced that - surprise - “there being no other nominations,” Kerry was the only name entered.
Then the central business of the convention, installing the presidential ticket, went on hold. After an evening of speeches, Edwards delivered his major address while the network television cameras were on the Democrats between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. EDT.
End of TV, end of oratory and back to business. The roll call that officially makes Kerry the nominee was programmed for 11 p.m. …
Edwards’ name won’t officially be put into nomination for vice president until Thursday.
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Categories: Election 2004
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July 28th, 2004 at 10:29:06 pm
Just for the PSP (Pure Strict Process :) Record: B, as we’ve been discussing by email, Thus far it appears that the Democratic National Convention has (pursuant to its Rules) nominated its candidate for POTUS, but not yet for VicePOTUS — notwithstanding that its Presumptive Nominee for Veep has given (and very admirably) his Big Speech, in which he wisely did Not accept the Nomination not yet Conferred upon him.
You’ve sent me a newspaper article indicating that Edwards will be formally Nominated for VP on Thursday. Let us Hope So. / Not that a Dem failure to formally Nommynate any VPOTUS candidate would necessarily be Fatal — there would be some Hoo-Raw about state Ballot designations, but in the end it would probably come out that neither the States, nor the Repubs, nor anybody else, have Standing to challenge the Dem Convention’s bogus Certification of what they did in (non)compliance with their own Party Rules — and nothing can prevent Dem Elector candidates who Win on Nov. 2 from voting for Sunshine Johnny for VP in December if they Want to — but, still. It wouldn’t especially strengthen the D Competence argument. :>
I’ll assume they will actually Nominate a Veep on Thursday.
July 29th, 2004 at 6:20:06 am
what’s the point of having the convention these days? to blow smoke? the prez and veep are both chosen long beforehand. assuming people actually stick with what they “should” do, there’s no point in bothering to even hold a vote! are we going to make some kind of argument about a widespread disloyal elector syndrome? (hey, it could happen . . . enough times to make the election go the “wrong” way . . . riiiiiight, like the party would really hand their opponents fodder on purpose). these days, the vote for the veep candidate is even more pointless than the vote for the prez candidate! at least in the politbureau you could get shot for voting against the supreme leader’s wishes ;-)
some people will say that the purpose of the convention is to decide the party’s platform. yeah, and obama’s speech the other night really fell in line with the “two-america” speech edwards gave last night.
my point is that the conventions are simply a waste of time and money. media attention can be garnered in other ways . . . but neither party wants to be the first to do away with the whole pointless proceeding. after all, that would give their opponents excellent media coverage and leave nothing to them!
and who should i see being interviewed this morning when i turned on the news and they were reporting live from the democratic national convention? that’s right, rudy giuliani! no, he didn’t make any kind of party-switch . . . he was there to gather intelligence about the democrats. maybe the republicans should send him to iraq . . . (that’s a diss at the administration’s expence, not necessarily giuliani’s). yeah, like he couldn’t get the same intelligence from watching the 24-hour coverage on cable.
well, that’s my two cents on the convention. and if you’re interested, the front page picture for the washington post the last two days has looked vaguely the same . . . one was the back of edwards’s head looking out into a sea of “edwards,” “kerry,” and “kerry/edwards” signs . . . this morning’s is the back of kerry’s head looking into the same sea of signs.
July 29th, 2004 at 6:27:35 am
whoops, i screwed up. what i meant to say is that the NEXT two days should look vaguely the same. today’s IS edwards’s head looking into the sea. tomorrow SHOULD be the same, but with kerry. that’s what happens when josh doesn’t pay attention to what he’s doing . . .
July 29th, 2004 at 6:44:48 am
Oh, come on it’s not like there is anything else on in the middle of summer, long before fall sweeps start again.
July 29th, 2004 at 10:54:56 am
Josh, your analogy is a good one. Maybe better than you realized. To wit:
Congress & the States can abolish the Electoral College, but only by amending the Constitution to provide that the President & Vice President shall be, for the first time, elected by some other specified mechanism to replace the Electors’ votes cast in December.
Similarly, the parties can abolish the Conventions, but only by amending their Party Rules to provide, for the first time, that their national Candidates be Nominated by some newly-specified means, replacing the votes of Delegates cast in July or August.
And no, those respective brand-new mechanisms are not in place already. The popular votes at “Presidential elections” elect real-live candidates to the state office of Presidential Elector. The popular votes at “Presidential primaries” choose (or at least “allocate”) real-live state party Delegates to the conventions. (Well — except for the Dem “Superdelegates”, some 20% of the total btw, who are designated “automatically” with no popular vote whatsoever. :)
If we move to direct popular-vote Pres/VP Nominations and Elections, many substantial and thorny questions will have to be answered. Not merely the “technical” ones (though those will, thank G*d, abound too :) but bigtime substantive Public Policy/Governance ones as well.
Of course they all can be answered (after much Controversy, trust me on this :) and it can be done, if that’s what we really really want.
My Take: if we replace the Electors with — Just Us, voting at a single popular election in November, then logically we should replace the Delegates with Ourselves as Primary voters, at a single national Primary for each party, held separately on the same day.
(Which “parties”, you say, Sean? What same day When, sez you, Andrew? What about all the “independents” who simply Want to Run, queries Josh? What about the Dud candidate who wins this One-shot deal unVetted {{{johnkerry :}}} and now we can’t even think, let alone Blog, about Dumping him ’cause it’s TOOLATE!, bellows Brendan? / Serenely I reply: “Waw Haw Haw.” See above re Substantive Governance Questions.)
Let us say we abolish Conventions, but retain a long-running (OR a shorter-running) series of state-by-state popular-vote-only party primaries which will no longer produce any Delegates — and presumably Expanding the primaries to All states since Caucuses will no longer Fill the Bill (and certainly the odd Republican State Convention, with neither primary nor caucus, won’t do at all, at all :). I suppose the Winners (plural - Pres & VP - separately? as Tickets?) will be those who, after the last Dog is Hung, have the most cumulative votes, as Certified by Somebody or other. // OK. Brendan’s Vetting, albeit telescoped, has occurred.
But what then is the Policy argument against doing the popular-vote Presidential Election exactly the same way? What, we gotta get Stuck with a Dud {{{georgewbush :}}} in a One-shot deal in November?
:)
July 29th, 2004 at 11:35:14 am
joe, you made some very good points, but you forgot one thing:
OUR VOTES MEAN NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! isn’t it ironic that madison, hamilton, and jay all made sure that the people can’t be fully trusted, so they instituted this inane system to make sure that the people don’t actually elect the president (or until the 22nd amendment was passed, their own senator), and yet we are arrogant enough to believe that we are the “cornerstone of democracy and of free societies”!
any direct election of the president would be contrary to what madison warned in his now-famous Federalist #10: the individual is too easily swayed by what madison calls “factional leaders” and will “temporarily” follow these leaders to “detremental” decisionmaking. Therefore, it is vital that individuals be checked by some “learned” body–the electoral congress
but i digress into history and my political science training . . .
the reason why the outmoded electoral college still exists–even after the 2000 election–is that those in power see “tradition” as being important to the american system. i question whether the electoral system would have been done away with had both houses of the federal congress been controlled in a substantial majority by the democrats.
but that is a debate for another time . . . that’s my two cents for now
July 29th, 2004 at 12:14:42 pm
“the reason why the outmoded electoral college still exists–even after the 2000 election–is that those in power see ‘tradition’ as being important to the american system.”
Hmm. I’d say the reason it still exists is because it provides the agricultural “heartland” states with a disproportionate amount of power — and since those states have an even more disproportionate influence over the constitutional amendment process, the system cannot possibly be gutted without their approval.
“i question whether the electoral system would have been done away with had both houses of the federal congress been controlled in a substantial majority by the democrats.”
The answer to your question is clearly no, because even if a mythical two-thirds-majority Democratic Congress had passed a constitutional amendment eliminating the Electoral College, it would still have to be approved by three-fourths of the states… and I fail to see how it would benefit a state like Wyoming to reduce its total voice in the presidential election from 0.6% of the votes cast to 0.2% of the votes cast.
Wyoming is the most extreme example, but a total of 38 states are overrepresented by the EC. (Thirty-eight, ironically enough, is the exact number of states you need to approve a constitutional amendment in order for it to pass, but these 38 are the ones most unlikely to vote for an amendment, assuming people vote in their own self-interest.) Only the 12 most populous states would benefit mathematically from such a change. So California, whose voice in the election would increase from 10.2% to 12.2% if the EC were canned, would surely vote for an amendment, as might the eleven other underrepresented states and perhaps various other solidly Democratic states… but how on earth are you going to cobble together a three-fourths majority? I can’t see it happening, regardless of who is in power in Congress.
July 29th, 2004 at 1:14:59 pm
“OUR VOTES MEAN NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Really? I hope that means you aren’t planning to bother to vote this election….
“and yet we are arrogant enough to believe that we are the ‘cornerstone of democracy and of free societies’!”
Since we’re getting all technical on our asses, last time I checked, we were a Republic and not a Democracy. And yes, I’d say we are the most free society in the world, if you take into account government’s overall burden on society via regulation, economic cost, and civil rights and liberties. If just the latter count in your eyes, I’m guessing you’d prefer to live in Holland or Scandinavia, and if just the former matter, you’ll probably want to move to Singapore or Dubai.
July 30th, 2004 at 12:57:39 am
The Founders’ & Federalist Papers’ conception of the EC as a Gathering (or rather, various separate simultaneous Gatherings) of the Wise has long since been relegated to the proverbial Dustbin of History. Nobody defends it as That anymore, not since we completed the move, incrementally & state-by-state, to (a) the evil Party System (Faction! Boom!! Doom!!! :) and (b) popular election of Electors, today rendering the mythic College the 51 Gatherings of the Respective Hacks. (Trust Me On This. For Seven Cycles have I Received & Transcribed & Proofread & otherwise Processed the names of one little state’s various Electoral Wannabes & eventual Get-to-Be’s (and attended their ceremonial Votings) — and often Peeked at many Other states’ lists, as well. Thomas Jefferson, they Ain’t. :)
The Reasons for Keeping the EC — apart from its obvious appeal to the disproportionately-advantaged Small-states Majority, which Andrew well expounds but I suspect statistically understates (i.e., I thought the Slant was Steeper) — have been:
The Electoral Vote Majority has provided a decisive, clearly-ascertainable Certainty (no Recount needed) to the election outcome, with its pleasingly (albeit artificially) Enhanced public sense of Mandate — by almost always proportionately exceeding — substantially, very often Wildly– the Winner’s “winning”, #1, Top Gun, percentage share of the Popular vote.
Thus it’s not just “tradition” which has sustained the EC — nor is it merely its theoretical bias toward low-population states which can, Constitutionally and (sez I) quite properly, block a Constitutional amendment. Certainly it’s not some residual attachment to the long-gone (albeit perfectly plausible :) republican notion of having the Wise freely select the wisest among them, to be the most Powerful.
No. It is simply that the EC has, almost always, functioned not just democratically — but Hyper-democratically. I.e., it has made representative democracy appear, numerically, even more democratic, and broadly representative, than it has usually been.
If the EC reverts to its usual Form this year — and stays there, for at least several cycles into the future — the hoo-rah will settle down & it will survive.
But if Not — well then it’s Katie bar the Door.
And — then I’ll be amongst the riotous mob of Serfs with Sledgehammers, beating down that door. / I support the EC — provided its mystical underlying Equations haven’t suddenly decided to start Inverting the sucker on a Frequent basis. But if that really has occurred — about which we will know more on Nov. 3, or 4, 5, … :) — then, I’m Out. I shall suppress my Horror at contemplating the evils of the Alternative (shudder! :), and plump for Democracy. :)
(After all, They can put a Man on the Moon, how come They can’t count 100 million Votes exactly right? What do we Pay These People for? :)