DNC, Stop Letting Losers Decide Candidates

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There's a guy who keeps failing at investing in the stock and commodities markets. Do you take his advice or allow him handle your investment portfolio?

No. Of course you don't. That would be irrational. But that's exactly what the DNC does. It gives full influence in the primaries to red states that lose in the general election.

I would argue that primary delegates from states which lost in the last two or three general elections should not have the same influence as states where the candidate won.

I propose that red state loser delegates be given half a vote applied to the primary, if that. Delegates from states that won should get a full vote. And we might even consider that swing-state primary delegates should get one and half or two votes per delegate. After all, those are the states that will make the most difference in winning the general election.

Some might argue that it is not fair or democratic to give some delegates less influence. But there's a precedent. The DNC has made policy, in the past, cutting delegate influence in half for a state as a penalty.

If the DNC can use influence-cutting for a penalty as a brute force way to get states into compliance, then the DNC can use influence cutting in a strategic way to make sure that the most viable, most likely to win candidates win the primary. This policy idea could make the difference between selecting the strongest candidate, most likely to win the general.

That means that states like Alabama, North Dakota, Idaho, South Carolina and Tennessee get half a vote credit per delegate. And states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and maybe even Texas get 1.5 or two votes per delegate.

To fine tune the model, states that lost the presidential election in the general by five or more points, but elected Democrats to statewide offices like US Senate or Governor might catch a break, or get extra points.

But just keeping things the way they are, allowing chroniclly losing states to have equal influence in determining the candidate is irrational, just as it would be to allow a loser stock investor handle your investments.