Poll of the Day > If there's a Dem President, can't a different Dem candidate run at end of term?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I don't know.
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Technically yes but in practice no. The DNC would stop them from running unless the current president declined to seek a second term.

If I'm not mistaken, the party platform (IE the DNC and the RNC) choose the candidate that they want to run. For example, in 3 years, the RNC can choose to have Donald Trump run again or they can pick another person to run instead. I might be wrong though so don't quote me on that.

Edit: Also, as far as elections go, the DNC generally has more control on who runs than the RNC as we saw this past election. The DNC chose Hilary Clinton despite her being significantly less popular than Bernie Sanders. As for the RNC, they really, really didn't want Donald Trump but he was so much more popular that they had to run him.
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XlaxJynx007 posted...

If I'm not mistaken, the party platform (IE the DNC and the RNC) choose the candidate that they want to run. For example, in 3 years, the RNC can choose to have Donald Trump run again or they can pick another person to run instead. I might be wrong though so don't quote me on that.

Edit: Also, as far as elections go, the DNC generally has more control on who runs than the RNC as we saw this past election. The DNC chose Hilary Clinton despite her being significantly less popular that Bernie Sanders. As for the RNC, they really, really didn't want Donald Trump but he was so much more popular that they had to run him.

Yes, I'm actually interested since I don't know.
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Also the incumbent candidate wins the election more often so it behooves them to put them up again.
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http://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/07/a_president_denied_renominatio.html

Looks like only one time in the history of the presidency has an active president been denied by his party when he tried to run for a second term. It has happened a few more times in the case of a vice president becoming president after the president died though.

So yeah it seems for a sitting president to not have the support of his party in a second term that president has to be unbelievably bad and/or extremely against what the party is going after.
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Also, depending on how you want to split hairs, a Democrat could run even if they don't have the support of the party; they'd just have to run as an independent.
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In theory, perhaps. In reality, they'd probably need the president to announce he wasn't seeking re-election. Generally speaking, expecting a president to partake in the primaries would mean that he wouldn't be able to do his job given how long the primaries last.
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SomeUsername529 posted...

Technically yes but in practice no. The DNC would stop them from running unless the current president declined to seek a second term.

This, more or less.

The real problem is that if an incumbent chooses to run, but someone else in their party wants to run against them, it tends to create a really awkward situation where the party vote gets split and you more or less hand the election to the other party. Because of this both parties tend to support the incumbent no matter what, even if they don't really like them very much.

It's one of the many, many reasons why party politics suck.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

The real problem is that if an incumbent chooses to run, but someone else in their party wants to run against them, it tends to create a really awkward situation where the party vote gets split and you more or less hand the election to the other party. Because of this both parties tend to support the incumbent no matter what, even if they don't really like them very much.

It's one of the many, many reasons why party politics suck.

Not that I disagree with the fact that party politics suck, but the spoiler effect is a result of FPTP voting systems, not anything to do with parties (two ideologically similar candidates from completely different parties would suffer the same effects).
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Even if they decide to use another candidate than Trump, then Trump would go on how his own party worked against him and that he needs four more years to make America great again, and people would still vote on him.
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darkknight109 posted...

Not that I disagree with the fact that party politics suck, but the spoiler effect is a result of FPTP voting systems, not anything to do with parties (two ideologically similar candidates from completely different parties would suffer the same effects).

True, and that's more of a flaw of democracy in general.

But I meant the idea of a party running a candidate they don't actually want to win solely because he's on "their" side, and they feel like they need to run them in order to beat "the other side". In a scenario without "sides", yes, you may still get voter-base division as similar candidates can split the vote and allow for dark horse candidates to slip in, but you'll rarely get cases where a specific person is getting votes solely out of ideological alliance or "have to beat the other team" mentality.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Not that I disagree with the fact that party politics suck, but the spoiler effect is a result of FPTP voting systems, not anything to do with parties (two ideologically similar candidates from completely different parties would suffer the same effects).

True, and that's more of a flaw of democracy in general.

But I meant the idea of a party running a candidate they don't actually want to win solely because he's on "their" side, and they feel like they need to run them in order to beat "the other side". In a scenario without "sides", yes, you may still get voter-base division as similar candidates can split the vote and allow for dark horse candidates to slip in, but you'll rarely get cases where a specific person is getting votes solely out of ideological alliance or "have to beat the other team" mentality.

This still strikes me as an issue of using FPTP. Proportional systems generally do not suffer from the effects you're talking about (at least, not to anywhere near the extent we do under FPTP).

The whole two-party "Us vs. Them" mechanic exists because that's what FPTP strongly encourages, since if there were two ideologically similar candidates, each with 30% of the vote, it would make sense for them to unify in order to claim 60% of the vote (and victory), rather than lose to an opponent who has the other 40% of the vote. Under a proportional system, the two candidates getting 30% of the vote would not be a problem, as they would get 30% of the representation, then simply pool their resources on issues they agree on and wield a majority of the power.

Similarly, it's difficult - in many ways, impossible - to vote "against" someone in a proportional system, whereas it is common practice in FPTP.
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