Seth Bodnar - independent US Senate candidate

[SAJ-99]

Ok. In a two party system there's really no other choice. Most people call themselves Independent because they vote for both Rs and Ds depending on the race. You'll never get to actually vote for someone with moderate, nuanced positions

Agreed. Little 'i' independent, but not big "I' Independent. I had five choices in my Democrat primary for House. There was quite a bit of nuance in their positions, but voters didn't care because sorting through those is hard. That is the role the parties play now. They vet the candidates so the voter doesn't have to, in theory. My view is that the little "i" Americans still don't want to compromise. They want a candidate that agrees with them 100% on big stuff. They are not interested in nuance. When they realize they made a mistake, they slink into the shadows and vote for the other side the next election.


Proportional representation is a change from electoral system. It will never get implemented because Republicans would never win the presidency again, ever, without a huge course correction.

 

[jimh406]

Two parties are the way to get things done

Proportional representation is a change from electoral system. It will never get implemented

I agree it's not going happen. The people who wrote our founding documents were smarter than those who want to change it.

 

[BigHornRam]

Not nationally, and national party image has a huge impact at the state and local level.

Many people would be embarrassed to admit out loud that they lean left in a lot of rural America these days. The party is starting to walk back some of the crazy because of this, fortunately, but a lot of the damage has been done (main explanation for a second round of DJT, imo).

Looks like Wisconsin Democrats narrowly escaped nominating crazy in your states Governor race yesterday.

 

[Elky Welky]

The people who wrote our founding documents were smarter than those who want to change it.

I disagree with this statement but don't take it from me, even many of our founding fathers did too.

Thomas Jefferson famously said the constitution should be re-written every 19 years: https://oll.libertyfund.org/quotes/...-at-the-time-it-was-signed-and-agreed-to-1789

And our constitution has been amended 27 times since.

"Smart" is also relative to time and place, and also subjective. They were smart people, but they didn't know nearly as much as we do today. They believed in a lot of junk science and many of them were slave owners. Neither of those things are all that smart/ethical by what we know now.

Unyielding faith to a document that was meant to be--and should be-- updated is a recipe for disaster.

 

[Treeshark]

Looks like Wisconsin Democrats narrowly escaped nominating crazy in your states Governor race yesterday.

Yes, barely. It looked like she was going to walk away with it up until last week when some national Dems (most notably Bernie and AOC) disavowed her for being too crazy even for them.

 

[Elky Welky]

Yes, barely. It looked like she was going to walk away with it up until last week when some national Dems (most notably Bernie and AOC) disavowed her for being too crazy even for them.

Wow. Some of the political podcasts I listen to were so confident she would win they were already trying to put positive spin on it. This is the first I am hearing of it, congrats on dodging that bullet.

Back to MT, I predict Forstag will lose in large part because Bernie and AOC endorsed him, which will only bring their haters out of the woodwork to vote against him as well as drive away moderates. DSA and DSA-adjacent people aren't going to do well here, given how tarnished the democratic brand already is.

 

[Southern Elk]

Back to MT, I predict Forstag will lose in large part because Bernie and AOC endorsed him, which will only bring their haters out of the woodwork to vote against him as well as drive away moderates. DSA and DSA-adjacent people aren't going to do well here, given how tarnished the democratic brand already is.

I thought it was a bad decision for him to accept those endorsements. And I think AOC campaigned for him?

 

[Elky Welky]

I thought it was a bad decision for him to accept those endorsements. And I think AOC campaigned for him?

Yup, she did, flew out to MT and stumped for him in the days leading up to the primary. I think that tipped the scales for him in the primary, he wasn't a runaway and there are a lot of young Missoulians that like her, lean far left, and showed up.

It was a good tactic to win the primary, but probably not the state.

 

[jimh406]

I disagree with this statement

Naw, you just took it out of context.

 

[Elky Welky]

Naw, you just took it out of context.

No I didn't.

 

[R.K.]

Two parties are the way to get things done

The people who wrote our founding documents were smarter than those who want to change it.

And the founding fathers were mostly against political parties.

 

[jimh406]

Since some of you missed it, we were talking about the electoral system to elect Presidents.

 

[Elky Welky]

Since some of you missed it, we were talking about the electoral system to elect Presidents.

Again, I didn't miss it at all and was tracking. Your direct quote to support your position was about the people who wrote our founding documents being "smarter" than those that would like to change them. Those founding documents lay out our electoral system. The electoral college is outlined in the U.S. Constitution, Article II. Everything I wrote was in that context.

Don't really want to piddle around with you on this though and throw the thread off topic, so that's the last I'll say on the subject.

 

[WanderWoman]

Montana’s statewide races as of late are littered with “old white guys” who had a D by their name and were demolished.

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It ain’t the dick nor the melanin in their skin that matters most

Gosh, I remember the exact moment I lost a whole lot of respect for the MT Democratic Party, and that was when they put Rob friggin’ Quist up against GG for the house seat. They took it even further when they tried to smear GG with his elk hunting violation (if I remember correctly, he turned himself in for shooting a spike or something along those lines). It then came out that while GG did something that a lot of other MT hunters have done, Quist had never even bought a hunting license. The details are foggy but it’s how I remember it—correct me if I’m wrong. It’s a great metaphor for how the MT Dems don’t really read the room well nowadays.

We have a combination of the state swinging hard red (thanks Covid, CA, CO, WA, etc.) and a state D party that is increasingly out of touch with with us, too.

I’ve generally always voted D, as personally I prioritize environmental issues and leaving women’s health decisions the heck alone. I will be voting for Bodnar and grumbling that this race is most likely lost. It will be another reason to be PO’ed by the state dems. I’m missing the heck out of Tester. He was imperfect but a heck of a lot better than what the options now are. Even then, the writing was on the wall his time was limited, and the MT Dems could/should have been bringing someone up through the ranks to replace him, instead of flinging largely unknown folks at us. Still an uphill battle in this day and age.

 

[SAJ-99]

Gosh, I remember the exact moment I lost a whole lot of respect for the MT Democratic Party, and that was when they put Rob friggin’ Quist up against GG for the house seat. They took it even further when they tried to smear GG with his elk hunting violation (if I remember correctly, he turned himself in for shooting a spike or something along those lines). It then came out that while GG did something that a lot of other MT hunters have done, Quist had never even bought a hunting license. The details are foggy but it’s how I remember it—correct me if I’m wrong. It’s a great metaphor for how the MT Dems don’t really read the room well nowadays.

We have a combination of the state swinging hard red (thanks Covid, CA, CO, WA, etc.) and a state D party that is increasingly out of touch with with us, too.

I’ve generally always voted D, as personally I prioritize environmental issues and leaving women’s health decisions the heck alone. I will be voting for Bodnar and grumbling that this race is most likely lost. It will be another reason to be PO’ed by the state dems. I’m missing the heck out of Tester. He was imperfect but a heck of a lot better than what the options now are. Even then, the writing was on the wall his time was limited, and the MT Dems could/should have been bringing someone up through the ranks to replace him, instead of flinging largely unknown folks at us. Still an uphill battle in this day and age.

I hope Bodnar surprises. However, the reality is we can have 2 parties or 20, the same types of candidates are going to run. It’s a thankless job where you set yourself up to be attacked and besmirched and often lied about, often driven by PACs to hide the attackers identity. Until that gets fixed nothing will change in Montana because a relatively small amount of money will buy 4% of the Senate seats in DC.

 

[Elky Welky]

I hope Bodnar surprises. However, the reality is we can have 2 parties or 20, the same types of candidates are going to run. It’s a thankless job where you set yourself up to be attacked and besmirched and often lied about, often driven by PACs to hide the attackers identity. Until that gets fixed nothing will change in Montana because a relatively small amount of money will buy 4% of the Senate seats in DC.

What has really surprised me about this whole Bodnar/Bankhead fiasco is how quickly some of Jon Tester’s biggest past champions flipped to attacking him as some Democratic Elite kingmaker that didn’t have the interest of the people at heart. Pretty sure he just wanted to bet on a horse he thought could help take the senate back from the GOP.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but I’ll admit that it did.

 

[Nameless Range]

What has really surprised me about this whole Bodnar/Bankhead fiasco is how quickly some of Jon Tester’s biggest past champions flipped to attacking him as some Democratic Elite kingmaker that didn’t have the interest of the people at heart. Pretty sure he just wanted to bet on a horse he thought could help take the senate back from the GOP.

It shouldn’t have surprised me, but I’ll admit that it did.

I’m not so surprised. The party supported him, stumped for him, funded him, and backed him for well over a decade. The minute he was outta politics, he turned his back on them.

I don’t blame him. He sees the writing on the wall.

But for people who identify as Democrats, not Independents who chiefly vote Democrat - because there is a difference - they view their party as the only path to better governance. For party people, D or R, they’re usually right, but it’s also obvious that a non-negligible amount of people are open to something different. There’s a limited amount of instances in American history where this has worked - but it has worked before - and perhaps someday there’ll be a critical mass of folks sick enough of the two prevailing financial machines/religions that are the political parties to tip the scales. Just doesn’t look like it’s this go round, and it certainly never a safe bet.

 

[Irrelevant]

While I agree that change needs to happen, proportional representation has flaws. I would prefer a ranked-choice, with a “none of the above” option that could disqualify all candidates if the vote count got high enough.

Me too, but it was good to see just how many people are sick of what we have

 

[antlerradar]

Proportional representation is a change from electoral system. It will never get implemented because Republicans would never win the presidency again, ever, without a huge course correction.

I am not convinced that ditching the electoral collage would lead to the sure victories that many Democrats think.

With out the electoral collage there would be no swing states. Up side is a vote in CA would count just as much as one in WI or PA. Downside is now candidates would have to compete nation wide for votes. Advertising and get out the vote efforts nation wide would be exponentially more expensive than when you only have to spend effort on maybe ten swing states. People think campaigns are expensive now, just wait until you have to compete nation wide. While there are exceptions, in my lifetime it has been Republicans that have been better at raising money.
This would also give more power to the press. While traditionally Democrats have had an advantage in with the press, with the rise of the likes of Fox News, Newsmax and Elon buying Twitter, that advantage is not what it once was.
Elections are often about who turns out to vote and who stays home. The most likely to stay home are the voters who don't think their vote is going to count. Voters on the losing side of a state where the margin is not going to be close. For example, Republicans in New York or Democrats in Wyoming. There are a lot more Republicans in States like NY than there are Democrats in States like WY.
Change the rules of the game and candidates play the game differently. It is not guaranteed that Gore would have won in 2000 and Clinton would have won in 2016 if it had been a simple majority to decide who wins because both Bush and Trump would have play their hand differently. For example, Trump would have held rallies in CA to boost his turnout, would this have made up the difference in total votes. There is no way to know for sure.

 

[406dn]

I am not convinced that ditching the electoral collage would lead to the sure victories that many Democrats think.

With out the electoral collage there would be no swing states. Up side is a vote in CA would count just as much as one in WI or PA. Downside is now candidates would have to compete nation wide for votes. Advertising and get out the vote efforts nation wide would be exponentially more expensive than when you only have to spend effort on maybe ten swing states. People think campaigns are expensive now, just wait until you have to compete nation wide. While there are exceptions, in my lifetime it has been Republicans that have been better at raising money.
This would also give more power to the press. While traditionally Democrats have had an advantage in with the press, with the rise of the likes of Fox News, Newsmax and Elon buying Twitter, that advantage is not what it once was.
Elections are often about who turns out to vote and who stays home. The most likely to stay home are the voters who don't think their vote is going to count. Voters on the losing side of a state where the margin is not going to be close. For example, Republicans in New York or Democrats in Wyoming. There are a lot more Republicans in States like NY than there are Democrats in States like WY.
Change the rules of the game and candidates play the game differently. It is not guaranteed that Gore would have won in 2000 and Clinton would have won in 2016 if it had been a simple majority to decide who wins because both Bush and Trump would have play their hand differently. For example, Trump would have held rallies in CA to boost his turnout, would this have made up the difference in total votes. There is no way to know for sure.

My thoughts are, I don't really care who it favors. Every citizen's vote should be exactly equal to any other citizen's vote. One person, one vote.

It is undeniable that the electoral college boosts the power of the majority in rural states, and effectively nullifies the vote of anyone in every state that does not vote for the winning candidate in their state.

Yes, it would change the strategy of campaigns. I keep coming back to one person, one vote, tallying them up and electing the president.