The Democratic debate access pre-primary is now approval voting

[Bootstoots]

...or at least it should be, if they play their cards right. I could be wrong and they're being stupid again.

The DNC seemed to place extremely lax requirements on candidates for getting into the first debate. Only 1% of the vote in a pre-debate poll average qualifies a candidate for debate placement.

I just decided to give $10 to three candidates, and I found that everyone was concerned about (or feigning concern about) getting 65,000 individual donations. That's another requirement for debate placement, and it's especially important for candidates whose ideas are interesting but who might not make the cutoff.

That requirement serves as a type of approval voting. If you* give even $1 to a candidate you think has interesting ideas that you want to hear in a debate, you increase the odds of those ideas being heard by quite a bit. An influence of 1/65000 is a much stronger influence factor than 1/millions. Select multiple candidates if you know of multiple people whose ideas you think should be heard.

Spoiler Who I "voted" for :

Elizabeth Warren. She's one of the only people who have a good understanding of how the financial system works while also truly desiring to fix it at a deep level. She has serious shortcomings as a politician and I do not want her to actually be the nominee, but I want her ideas to influence whoever is nominated.

Andrew Yang. The Silicon Valley candidate who actually wants to help fix the problems that are being caused and likely to be caused by automation. His signature issue is a UBI, which I have mixed feelings about, but the rest of his proposed policies address other emerging problems, e.g. technology addiction. Not sure he's candidate material but he's definitely a good person to put in a debate.

Tulsi Gabbard. Unconventional foreign policy views are really needed right now. Deciding to cut loose the Saudis, while also finding a modus vivendi with Russia and with other autocratic regimes that we have been antagonistic toward, is brilliant. She is not a total peacenik and has some current views and some past views that the left would find very distasteful, so she will probably not get the nomination and I probably won't vote for her in the primary. But her ideas are needed at the debates.

*If you're a US citizen or permanent resident. Don't even think about it, @red_elk.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't know enough of their platforms to make a rational decision on them. I need to take some time to educate myself I guess.

 

[Berzerker]

dont know Yang but I agree with your assessment of Warren and Gabbard

 

[Imaus]

dont know Yang but I agree with your assessment of Warren and Gabbard

Ditto, though I want to throw my hat in for Harris as well.

 

[Camikaze]

Haven't Warren & Yang already passed the 65k mark?

I find it concerning that such a focus is placed on donations, or money in politics. The intermediate goal of focusing on small-dollar donations is to get rid of corporate influence, but Democrats shouldn't lose sight of the end goal. It seems small-dollar donations are often treated as an unalloyed good rather than a necessary evil. In this context, it's good there are dual tracks to the debate stage, but it's strange that one of those tracks is to demonstrate you have 65,000 supporters with a disposable income. What about those candidates whose supporters are less well heeled? If there are too many candidates this time around, will the DNC impose a minimum donation threshold? It's approval voting, but in the sense that a voter's approval for multiple candidates is being sought only to the extent they can afford to pay for it.