It is the content of the chapter "Pre-election within the Party" in the book "American Political Vane"

In p>2118, when Hillary and Obama competed for the US presidential candidate within the US Democratic Party, Hillary's team spoke.

Hillary Clinton's campaign team firmly grasped the lengthy loopholes in Obama's campaign speech and launched a fierce attack on Obama, saying that "his campaign is like a poem, while being in power will be like an essay". Hillary's speech is more like a potluck. Although it is trivial and boring to others, she can explain every question raised by voters with confidence.

The contents of this book are as follows: All politics is local inner-party pre-election, which is a process in which voters decide the nomination of political parties, including primary election and party group meeting. O' Neill, a well-known politician of the Democratic Party who has served as a member of the House of Representatives and Speaker of the House of Representatives for 34 years, once said a famous saying: "All politics are local." Indeed, in American electoral politics, no matter how fierce the high-level competition is and how hot the media reports are, the campaign must be implemented at the local level in the end. Specific to the presidential election, candidates must strive for grassroots public opinion from the pre-selection stage or even earlier, especially the popular tendency with the state as the main unit. In the history of the United States, there was no pre-selection, but the party's big names delineated the party's nominations after the secret room transaction. This undemocratic method was spurned by many parties, and it took half a century to change to today's pre-selection method, in which voters, not party leaders, decided the nomination of political parties. First of all, the candidates in the party have to undergo fierce competition, and the pre-selection has become a rehearsal for the general election. Pre-election, to be precise, is not direct election of voters, but voters choose representatives to attend the national congress of political parties held in summer to vote. The national convention is no longer a place of competition, but a place to confirm voters' choices. It is up to each state to decide when and how to hold the primary election and other rules. At present, there are two main types: primary election and party group meeting. The former is that voters vote to choose their representatives, and the latter is to hold a regional voter meeting to vote. Primary primaries are generally divided into direct primaries and indirect primaries. Direct primary election means that voters directly choose their favorite candidates and distribute their votes to representatives who support a candidate. Indirect primary election means that voters can see the names of delegates on the ballot, and delegates can also not announce their supporters. Secondly, according to the different groups of voters, it can be divided into three categories: closed primary: only those registered as voters of a certain party can participate in the party's primary election, which is currently adopted by about 15 States. Open primary: You can participate without registration. Some states are open to independents and closed to other parties. Some states are all open. Party leaders often dislike this kind of primary election because it allows non-party voters to influence the choice of nomination within the party. However, this is the most popular primary election at present, which is adopted by about 27 States. Advisory primary: Allow voters to express their preference for their favorite candidates while choosing delegates to the congress. Thirdly, there are two kinds of results distribution: winner-take-all system and proportional representation system. The proportional representation system is more popular. The Democratic Party generally adopts the proportional representation system. As long as it gets more than 1.5% of the votes, it can get the corresponding proportional representation seats. In 2118, the Democratic Party adopted the "proportional representation" system throughout the country. In the primary election, if four candidates, A, B, C and D, get 35%, 31%, 21% and 15% of the votes respectively, then the representatives of the state participating in the National Congress will be allocated according to this ratio. If it is a party group meeting, the delegates attending the state congress will be allocated according to the proportion of votes in the constituency. However, even the "proportional representation" system, such as in the party group meeting, the distribution of representatives is not so strict and accurate. According to the regulations, all candidates who have won more than 1.5% of the votes in the constituency must obtain at least one representative. For example, in a constituency, if there are five places to attend the state congress, and the above four candidates A, B, C and D all exceed the survival line, then A may get two representative places, and B, C and D must ensure at least one representative place, so the difference in votes among B, C and D will be ignored. On the day of the Iowa caucus meeting, American C-SPAN TV broadcasted the Democratic caucus meeting in the 53rd district of the state (Roosevelt Middle School Restaurant in Dimont). In this party group meeting attended by more than 411 voters, Obama received 181 people, Edwards received 151 people and Hillary received 71 people's support. Three of the six delegates in this constituency will be allocated to Obama, two to Edwards and one to Hillary. In contrast, the * * * and the Party implement proportional representation in some states, while in others, it is a winner-takes-all system. Different from the "winner takes all" in the presidential election, the "winner takes all" in the primary election is "all" at the constituency level. The number of delegates in each constituency will be given to the candidate who has the highest number of votes in this constituency. If the above four candidates are still taken as examples, candidate A will get all the delegates in this constituency. The caucus meeting is a gathering of voters in a small electoral area to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of candidates, and then vote for candidates in a group atmosphere, often at the same time in various regions of a state. Candidates and their teams with good organization and mobilization ability can guide the direction of public opinion and win the vote by virtue of the number of supporters at the meeting. The caucus meeting is a more traditional nomination system, which has a longer history than the primary election. However, it is not as simple and easy as the primary election by direct voting, nor as fair and rational as the secret ballot. The turnout rate is much lower than that of the primary election, and it is rarely used today. However, such a form of "town meeting" is deeply rooted in the tradition of civil autonomy that has been widely implemented since the colonial period. From the procedural point of view, primary elections and caucus meetings are more democratic than secret room transactions, but from the perspective of voter turnout and voters, there is still room for improvement. Compared with the general election, the turnout rate of the primary election, especially the party group meeting, is very low, which is about 1/11-1/2 of the general election. This problem is aggravated by the advance of the timetable, because the voters behind the timetable feel that the nomination is obvious and their opinions are irrelevant. Compared with the low turnout rate, many people are more worried about the types of voters attracted by primary elections and party meetings. Scholars have found that primary voters are more educated, richer and older than general election voters, and they are more inclined to political parties and closer to the core of political activities. For * * * and the party, primary voters are more conservative; For Democrats, they are more liberal. The candidates were forced to disagree in the primary election and the general election. In the primary election, they will express partisan and ideological views to win the loyal supporters of their party. In the general election, they are closer to the political center where centrist voters are concentrated. In the primary election, candidates with extreme ideological tendencies have an advantage. If five Democratic liberals and one Republican conservative run in NSW, the latter is likely to win. There are fewer participants in the party group meeting, 1% less than the primary election. Voters who are willing to spend the whole night discussing candidates and issues are more partisan than primary voters. The following are examples of the 2118 Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary. Iowa has a population of 2.9 million, accounting for 1.98% of the country's total population. Among the 51 states in the United States, it ranks 31th in population and 31th in area. New Hampshire has a population of 1.3 million, accounting for 1.43% of the national population. Among the 51 states in the United States, it ranks 41th in population and 42nd in area. To put it bluntly, apart from the presidential primaries every four years, this is a place where the two States have little chance to make headlines in the United States. However, in this small Iowa alone, the US presidential candidates of both parties spent $41 million on TV advertisements, which were divided equally among 2.9 million voters, with $17 each. Since only 11-21% of the voters finally attend the party group meeting, the candidates spend $ 151-211 on TV advertising for each participant. During the pre-selection, party member was registered in more than 1,711 constituencies in Iowa to attend the meeting at designated places near his home (usually public facilities such as schools, churches and libraries, and sometimes even in someone's living room). At a small "town meeting" similar to that in early New England, voters discussed their party's policies, and the cadres sent by the candidates ran directly against the voters, and then the voters voted for the candidates they supported. There are no votes in the election, and everyone is given a blank sheet of paper, and people write down the names of the candidates they support. The whole process is not so strict, even if the name is misspelled, for example, Clinton's Clinton is written as Klinton, as long as it does not cause misunderstanding, it is still a valid vote. After the election results of each meeting point are released, they will be reported to the state party department and announced by the media. There is no voting process in the Democratic Party caucus meeting. Registration of party member is "open voting with their feet". Participants are grouped according to the candidates they support, and those who support the same candidate stand together to form a group. Early schedules have always been the pride of these two States. Before most Americans began to vote, the masses in these two States set the tone for the general election, determined the advantages of some candidates and excluded some candidates they didn't like. After that, most Americans will generally agree with their choices and closely unite around the leaders. The caucus in Iowa and the primary in New Hampshire proved to be the key tests for the candidates of both parties. The history of presidential elections in recent decades shows that if a candidate wins both States at the same time, it seems that he can win the national nomination. If these two States don't take it, the result is almost out, with the only exception of Bill in 1992? Clinton. At that time, both States chose their fellow villagers. However, Clinton did well, but won national support and large donations, and finally entered the White House. However, a more telling record is that from 1952 to 1988, all the candidates who finally won the presidential election won the New Hampshire primary election. The victory in the two States is not only an objective vote victory, but also a superb psychological expectation game. More specifically, a candidate's performance beyond people's expectations is the "victory" that is really concerned, and vice versa, even if he is the most advanced, it may not be a victory. For example, in 1996, Dole was regarded as the leader of the party, but he only won 26% of the votes in Iowa, ahead of Patrick? Buchanan is only 3%. So the media think Buchanan won, because he exceeded the original expectations and put Dole in trouble. Dole then lost to New Hampshire, but a few weeks later he recovered and won the nomination. Obama's skin color vs Hillary's tears The 2118 US presidential election was full of suspense and drama from the beginning. In terms of * * * and the party, the dark horse and the white horse fought for the second time in two pre-selections, and the candidates from all walks of life fell into a melee. On the Democratic side, the focus is on women Hillary Clinton and black Obama. On October 3, 2118, the first primary in Iowa brought surprises to everyone. Hillary Clinton, who had the highest momentum before, not only lost to Obama, but even lost to Edwards. The wind direction of the media and public opinion immediately deviated, and Obama took advantage of the victory to enter New Hampshire. CNN's "poll" showed that Obama was ahead of Hillary by 13% in the state. Some media disclosed that the Hillary camp had given up the hope of winning in New Hampshire and turned its attention to the next state: "The only goal of the Hillary camp is not to lose too badly and try to narrow the gap with Obama." At 7 o'clock on the evening of October 8, the voting figures of the New Hampshire primary began to be announced one after another. For this high-profile election, TV stations have devoted all their efforts to broadcasting, and experts and commentators from all walks of life have appeared in the studio to make on-site comments. Almost everyone is talking about a question: what does the failure of New Hampshire mean to Hillary, and will her presidential journey end here? Interesting things have happened. Commentators are talking on the screen, and the statistics at the bottom of the screen are constantly changing. When 11% of the polling stations reported the figures, Hillary was 38% and Obama was 36%; By the time 15% of the polling stations reported the figures, Hillary was 41% and Obama was still 36%. The commentators in the studio seem to be ignorant and still talk endlessly about the problem of "what to do after Hillary loses". The audience was stunned. Obviously Hillary was in the lead. What were the commentators talking about? More than two hours later, the final election result came out: Hillary defeated 37% Obama with 39% of the votes. This time, the experts and commentators in the studio were stupid. Before the election, it was obvious that Obama was ahead of the double-digit poll. How did it end up with a big rollover? According to the general law of American opinion polls, the error probability of sampling survey should be 3%, which means that the difference is close within 3%. The result of this poll in New Hampshire is over 11%, which should not be wrong in theory. Since the United States launched a "poll" on the general election in the middle of the 21th century, there has only been one "big mistake" in history, and that was in 1948. The "poll" showed that Dewey would overwhelm Truman, but the result was just the opposite. "Poll" scientists quickly studied this major mistake, and found that the reason for the mistake was that the usual means of "poll" was to conduct sampling interviews by telephone. At that time, telephones were not popular, and all the people with telephones were rich and the poor did not have telephones, which led to the unrepresentative sample of the survey. Since then, the technology and means of public opinion survey have been continuously improved and become a reliable tool to predict the results. The problem of "poll" distortion in New Hampshire immediately became the focus of attention from all walks of life, and the media and experts gave explanations one after another. Some people think that the "poll" distortion before the election may be a deliberate strategy played by Hillary's camp. By creating the illusion that Obama is far ahead, Obama's supporters think that the overall situation has been set and there is no need to vote, while Hillary's supporters will be out of the nest. This explanation is strange. It seems that the media and "polls" can be manipulated, which is probably impossible in reality. Another explanation is that the "poll" distortion is mainly caused by the voter structure in New Hampshire. New Hampshire is located in the northeastern coast of the United States, with a relatively large population flow. Young voters who have the right to vote for the first time account for 23% of the total. Many of the voters are middle-class people aged 31-49 who have moved from other States, and residents aged 51-69 who use this place as a retirement place. These voters are ambiguous, independent and vacillating. Artel, head of the Department of Politics and International Relations, Derek University, USA? Professor Sander believes that Obama's defeat is mainly due to the fact that independents and young voters did not actively vote, which led to "public opinion" and reality.