- The Zetes swept the doubleheader yesterday, beating our first opponents 23-3 and our second, who were supposed to be the big challenge, 14-6. We were solid in fielding, pitching, and hitting. We need to retain this formula and repeat on a weekly basis.
- The Yanks defeated the White Sox in the opener last night. The key offensive moment was a GS from Bobby Abreu.
- The Twins edged out another tight one, this time against the A's in Oakland. Craig Monroe went 3-4 with 3 RBIs, and Jason Kubel drove in the go-ahead run in the 8th.
Hillary Clinton managed to hang on in Pennsylvania and "win" the state by ten percentage points. This led her to exclaim "The tide is turning!" at her rally, and now she thinks she has some sort of mandate to stay in the race. ...Despite the fact that she's behind in the popular vote. And how she can't catch up in pledged delegates. And how she's quickly ripping the Democratic Party into shreds. Cool, Hilldawg. Real damn cool.
I mean, I could sit here and rant and rave about how awful this situation is and how McCain is currently guaranteed the White House, but I won't. I've done that enough. Instead, I wonder what reforms the DNC will implement to prevent this trainwreck form happening again. Because they have to change something, right? This primary season exposed some MASSIVE flaws in the current system, and I can't see Howard Dean and crew not pushing for reform, lest they want to see serious backlash in 2012. But I digress. Here are some of my suggestions:
Reduce the magic number. I think it's silly that the 2024 necessary delegates are unobtainable through primaries alone. The number needs to be recalculated such that if a candidate wins 51% of delegates in all primaries, then he/she will have the nomination. That makes logical sense, right? Of course, superdelegates complicate things.I suppose many of those ideas could be implemented simultaneously. But whatever the solution, something needs to get done.
Reduce the number of superdelegates. Party elities were given this status to serve essentially as tiebreakers, but I don't think ~800 are needed to give a candidate a simple majority. Cut this spoils system nonsense--the only people who need to be superdelegates are elected top party officials, such as senators and governors. They should be enough to correct an awkward outcome (and to prevent the race from dragging out, which brings me to my next point).
Change the nature of superdelegates. Even if the number of supers is reduced, it still doesn't change the fact that they have the ability to prolong the race because they don't have to make a solid decision until Convention. Solve this by either 1) forcing them to pledge at the same time as their state primary, 2) forcing them to vote along with the majority of the state, or 3) allowing them to retain their autonomy but remove the power of that vote (as in, make supers only necessary in a crazy tiebreaker scenario, as I stated above). Imagine how much easier this would be if we didn't have to wait for a random group of 800 to make up their minds.
Group primaries closer together. We live in an era of mass communication. We get our information from more sources than just the TV, so early primaries are now obsolete as tools for "informing the nation." I mean, think about it: who cares about Iowa anymore? Exactly. The Party needs to get out of the past and have primaries in a more timely manner so they don't go on for 6-months; there's just no need for that any longer. Find a way to get them all done by the end of April, if not earlier.
Move Convention up. In fact, why don't we just shorten the whole damn process? As it stands, it is one of the most poorly designed machines I've ever witnessed. Imagine: when you're designing a system, you design it to meet the specs nearly all of the time. You would never create something that is counterproductive in its nominal state. Ha, well, the Dems did. Convention is in August. The primaries end in June. This is the deadline for the nominee to be selected. Yet, they'd like for it to be done by early spring and get nervous if it goes longer than that. THEN WHY DON'T YOU DESIGN THE SYSTEM TO MEET THAT STANDARD?! I mean, good god, if you want a nominee by April then force your nomination phase to be over by then--don't design it to go on for four more months but hope for the best. That's bad engineering and miserable business. Who comes up with this stuff?
And I leave you on this fine evening with the following. Enjoy:
