All Kindle Mags Seem to be Liberal

[HarryT]

Thanks snookums, that's very interesting.

I'm not sure you're entirely correct in saying that they are the opposite to the UK, although they are certainly slightly different. We have three main political parties rather than your two: labour (currently in power - nominally socialist although not very), liberal democrats (middle of the road to slightly left of centre), and conservative (right of centre).

Even our conservative party, however, is probably rather to the left of your Democratic Party, in that they support government-funded health and education; our "national health service" has been one of the cornerstones of politics in the UK since the 1940s and it would be political suicide for any party to come out against it .

Thanks again for the interesting information; one of the best things about MR is the fact that one gets to talk to people from all over the world and find out how things are done elsewhere.

[Sparrow]

Just curious, do most US voters register with a particular party?
Not many people in the UK openly affiliate themselves with a political party (that way we get to moan about all of them ); but the election coverage we're getting from the US talks about Democrat/Republican registered voters, with Independents as the third option. It sounds as if most voters are identified as belonging to one of the groups.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

Just curious, do most US voters register with a particular party?
Not many people in the UK openly affiliate themselves with a political party (that way we get to moan about all of them ); but the election coverage we're getting from the US talks about Democrat/Republican registered voters, with Independents as the third option. It sounds as if most voters are identified as belonging to one of the groups.

Generally most do register with one party. Until recently this was required in order to vote in the primaries. However, some states now permit independent voters to vote in the primary by picking one of the two parties ballots. In CA, this year, the democrats allow independents to vote for the presidential candidate while the republicans do not.

By the way, Harry, democrats in the US are the liberal group and are usually fine with nationalized medicine.

Dale

[Sparrow]

Thanks for the reply, DaleDe

[snookums]

Well Harry different states have different primary structures. The primaries, as I'm sure you've heard, are how the parties pick their candidates to run against the opposition. You don't have to register as either party to vote in the general elections for president and congress. For the primaries it comes down to how the individual states handle the matter. For instance, I live in a state with an open primary so I registered as a independent. That means that come Feb 5th I can walk up to my polling location and cast my votes in any particular parties primaries whether it be Democrat, Republican, Reform, Libertarian, Communist, Nazi, etc. (We do have those parties on the ballot in my state. You just don't hear about them because they don't have a chance in hell of winning.)

I can't switch off though. I have to only vote for candidates in one particular party. The choice of party is up to me when I arrive. Open primaries have been criticized because some people believe that a process called "raiding" can go on. They suspect that people sometimes sign up as independent so they can vote in the oppositions primary and vote for the candidate least likely to win. No one has ever proved that this goes on, but I've heard some say that it is one of the reasons for the Democrats stranglehold on Louisiana.

At the state level there are some good reason why you might not want to vote for your particular parties primary. I live in Arkansas which is one of the few southern states that still votes almost entirely Democrat for our state government. I know that many Republicans in my state vote for the Democratic primaries because they know that none of the Republican candidates are likely to win. Thus whoever wins the Democratic primary will probably be the winner.

[FourOhFour]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

I hope this doesn't end badly.

In an American context, there are two labels, liberal and conservative. The label liberal is largely synonymous with the Democrat Party, and can include the labels progressive, socialist, communist, as well as some fringe group rights loonies (NAACP, NOW, PETA).

A liberal magazine genrally takes the position of "it's wrong if a conservative did it, but perfectly okay and wonderful if a liberal did it". They will take this position not just on editorial content, but on how the news is slanted.

Things tend to end better if they start better.

Oh, and the "wrong if they did it but right if we did it" thing? The conservatives, centrists, and, well, anyone and everyone else does it too.

[HarryT]

Our political system works completely differently, snookums, in that we don't have a separate vote for Prime Minister - the PM is simply the current leader of whatever political party is in government. If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

Brown was the only candidate - did Labour actually bother with a leadership election?

(If they did, is it too late to demand a recount )

[HarryT]

I think they did, yes, and obviously they had to go through the election process because they didn't know in advance whether or not anyone else would stand.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Our political system works completely differently, snookums, in that we don't have a separate vote for Prime Minister - the PM is simply the current leader of whatever political party is in government. If the party changes its leader, the PM changes too, as happened recently when Tony Blair resigned as leader of the labour party, and Gordon Brown was elected leader of the party and hence became PM.

How is the current leader of the Party selected? That is more or less exactly what our Primaries are about. We are selecting the leader of the party. In the US we never elect a party, we elect people and then that serves to name the leader of the party if the person gets elected. In the congress the party with the majority of people in it then is considered the majorty party and they select a majority leader for congress (separate person in senate and house).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

How is the current leader of the Party selected? That is more or less exactly what our Primaries are about. We are selecting the leader of the party. In the US we never elect a party, we elect people and then that serves to name the leader of the party if the person gets elected. In the congress the party with the majority of people in it then is considered the majorty party and they select a majority leader for congress (separate person in senate and house).

Each party chooses its own method to elect a leader. In the case of the labour party (of which Gordon Brown is the leader) I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!) that the leader is voted for only by labour Members of Parliament. Some other parties have a vote of all party members.

Our parliamentary elections work pretty much the same as yours - the country is divided into "constituencies" which are roughly equal-sized in terms of the number of people in them (the borders gets adjusted every 10 years to maintain that). Each constituency elects a member of parliament, who (normally) represents a particular party. The party which ends up with the most seats (generally) forms the government, and the leader of that party becomes Prime Minister.

One interesting difference between our systems is that, although a government can stay in office for a maximum of five years here, it's the PM who decides when to call an election, so he (or she) naturally does so at a time that they consider to be most favourable to their own chances of being re-elected. We don't have elections at fixed times, as you do.

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Each party chooses its own method to elect a leader. In the case of the labour party (of which Gordon Brown is the leader) I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong, anyone!) that the leader is voted for only by labour Members of Parliament. Some other parties have a vote of all party members.

MPs decide who can stand, but lots of people associated with Labour can vote (why candidates need so much cash for their campaigns I guess):
"It is likely that up to a million people will have a say in the leadership race this time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5177180.stm

[HarryT]

Thanks, Sparrow!

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

MPs decide who can stand, but lots of people associated with Labour can vote (why candidates need so much cash for their campaigns I guess):
"It is likely that up to a million people will have a say in the leadership race this time."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5177180.stm

sounds very similar to our Primaries in states that use closed primaries. thanks for the info.

Dale

[cvbesq]

Originally Posted by carld

For not wanting this to end badly you certainly went out of your way to ensure that it did. What an insulting bunch of tripe.

Amen!