2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThe AP has covered a lot of elections. They have written procedures.
They don't make this stuff up on the fly. They always decide races based on the same information. The information they look for is here, so they're calling the race.
There is gray area on election night as results come in, but this is clear. They are handling this race just like they've handled every other one.
There is no conspiracy and Hillary isn't behind what they do. I assure you, no one at AP is calling Hillary asking her when they should call the race.
If there was a conversation at AP, it would have sounded something like:
"We have the information we need to call the race, but it's right before the California primary."
"We have to follow our written procedure. We can't change how we do things from one election to the next."
"OK we'll go with it."
writes3000
(4,734 posts)Politicians are notoriously loose-lipped. Even though the EXACT SAME ANNOUNCEMENT was coming today, Clinton would rather undermine her own victory speech so she can have an excuse for the CA primary which....doesn't matter!
joshcryer
(62,265 posts)The couple or so who made the phone calls (with interns perhaps doing some of the grunt work), making the tally, etc.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)Or one would hope so.
There's probably some ethics thing there, too. Maybe after they leave the field they can write a book about it.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)More to the point, THIS truth will set the conditions of a contested Democratic Convention
Why? Because it represents what's been happening all along, in spite of the corporately owned media running headlines on the day of the California Primaries as the final blow job required of their masters.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)However attracting people to rallies does not necessarily lead to getting more votes. Hillary is running a very different campaign, because she's felt assured she would win pretty much all along. Bernie has had to build up enthusiasm, because he's been the underdog in this. So yeah, he has a lot of rallies and tries to attract a lot of people to them.
But the election is decided by votes, not rally attendance.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)And if you'll follow the votes within the 50 states, you would see how the votes should have gone, had the election process not have been so controlled.
Finally, we have one more state where the election laws are (certainly more progressive than my state of PA). Let's see how many people such as some of the Californians I spoke to phone banking, are able to vote. Some of the practices of voter suppression are evident. The least you can do is your homework on this.
And, correction... the number of people who rally for Sanders is commensurate with the potential voters who are counted.
It's who's in charge of elections and the way votes are counted that matters. I'm sure someone else said it better than I just did.
Let them vote!
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)It's telling what kind of a nation we live in, not only that it was done, but that the news has essentially no comments on it this morning.
If brains prevail (which is unlikely in these times, there will be hell to pay. There already is, and I suspect that's why they're in the tank. Papers were filed yesterday, against a number of big MSM outlets that might just turn a few heads.
Undemocratic. It's another form of election tampering.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)They call every election at some point. They would tell you that they aren't deciding when it's over, but just reporting the fact that it's over.
I am sure nothing will come of any "papers filed." They might have to explain themselves if they did not follow their normal procedures, but they don't have to explain why they are doing things the same in this election cycle as every other election cycle.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)There is a line not to be crossed and they crossed it.
In journalism decisions have to be based on circumstances and accptable standards.
The conversation probably went more like this.
"We can call her the winner based on what we know."
"It would be irresponsible to do that the day before an election."
"But dang we got ourselves a scoop! We can have a scoop! We can be IMPORTANT!"
They do like to be the first to give out information, that's true, but the procedures are in place to keep them from falling for that trap. The overall objective is to behave only based on what information exists and independently from what else is going on, so to call the race if the information exists regardless of whether there is a primary the next day.
Autumn
(44,762 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 7, 2016, 10:16 AM - Edit history (1)
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-trailguide-clinton-money-email-uses-images-labeled-1465266744-htmlstory.htmlgollygee
(22,336 posts)They do get things ready ahead of time. They have obituaries written for most public figures ahead of time, so they can just put in specifics and publish them right away. I imagine they do that with tweets too - get them written and formatted so they can just push "send" when the time is right.
Autumn
(44,762 posts)bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Since they have to plug in last minute details they do prepare templates for every scenario ready to go and get on air within minutes. They do this all the time, lol. What's the conspiracy in that? It's SOP.
hellofromreddit
(1,182 posts)They're predicting how the supers will vote in the future. That's not journalism.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)If the supers tell them that's how they're going to vote, they'll report on that. They aren't just making it up, and this is not something new this year that they're doing because Hillary is involved.
hellofromreddit
(1,182 posts)If they had reported that "X number of supers claim to support Clinton" then they're relaying a fact. If they back it up by fleshing out an argument why that's not likely to change and support that argument with more facts, then that's reporting too. But if they just take those assertions by the supers at face value and then turn around and report "The election will turn out this way!" then they're making a claim about the future.
That's ain't journalism.
Obviously, I never claimed that this is some special occasion because of Hillary, so I don't know where you were trying to go with that jab.
gollygee
(22,336 posts)If your complaint is about the procedure, then that's different from complaining that they did it this way differently from the past, or that they did it because of Hillary. Most of the complaints I'm hearing are based on assumptions that this is some new and unusual way of operating, or that they are doing it to benefit Hillary or at her request/demand. I'm sorry if I conflated those complaints with yours.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)the convention is on. Each cycle the system is contentious and the reason it is contentious is that those delegates and the candidates abuse the actual position of the unpledged delegates and in doing so defeat the purpose for them.
They have no vote until the convention is seated. The votes they have are defined as 'uncommitted' or 'unpledged' and not as 'Super'. If they pledge or commit, logic tells us they are no longer filling the role they are supposed to fill, they are claiming power to pledge when they actually have no such power.
Those delegates, in theory, are there in case of emergency. Three way ties, a candidate who becomes unelectable late in the process that sort of thing. By pushing their own importance in the process the Party is going to end up losing that emergency valve because it is being used daily, habitually and would then be useless in actual emergency.
We should not have any unpledged delegates because they don't know how to behave. If they did, it might be a good idea, but they don't. They abuse that position and use to to stack the races prior to convention, claiming to be casting 'votes' that by law do not exist until the convention.
The whole thing is demonstrated by the fact that the Party rules call them 'unpledged' but they call themselves 'Super' while making pledges they are not really supposed to make, they are to be unpledged. But they pledge. And say 'we are Super powers'.
stone space
(6,498 posts)Not individually, but as a group.