US Presidential Debate #2 Tonight: Discuss Here 706
The second U.S. Presidential debate kicks off in about a half-hour (9PM ET, 6PM PT, 0100 UTC) from Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. Incumbent Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney will take questions from an audience of allegedly undecided voters. A live stream of the event will be available from a number of sources (C-SPAN, CNN, ABC, and PBS), and it will be broadcast nationally on the major networks. The flash-less and television-less can use rtmpdump to catch the debate from C-SPAN. It won't preempt the more important telecasts, like playoff baseball. Candidates from smaller parties again went uninvited (e.g. Gary Johnson from the Libertarians, Jill Stein from the Greens, Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party, and Rocky Anderson from the Justice Party). In fact, Jill Stein was arrested for attempting to enter without credentials (her side of the story). Assuming she's out of jail by Thursday, she and Gary Johnson will be participating in an online debate hosted by IVN.us. While tonight's debate is in progress, Politifact will be fact-checking the candidates in real-time (while CNN has demonstrated their journalistic capabilities with a debate drinking game). Feel free to weigh in with your commentary on the debate below — it would be helpful to provide timestamps or other context when referring to particular statements. As before, we're posting this here in a vain attempt to keep the political discussion out of other story threads tonight. If either of the candidates spontaneously concedes the election or catches fire, we'll do our best to update you.
Re:Who cares? The Yankees are playing. (Score:3, Insightful)
You call what the Yankees are doing lately "playing"? That's generous.
Re:If Obama doesn't come out swinging, he's toast. (Score:4, Insightful)
A well run business employs as few people as possible
More importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
The American system seems very weird. Well, on paper it seems reasonable but in practice it seems to operate in a way that ensures nothing 'difficult' gets done and that everybody has someone else to blame for the inaction.
Meanwhile....... [sbs.com.au]
Will you ever lose your job and need health care ? (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the question that the great majority of Americans need to be asking themselves
in the privacy of their own minds.
Most people get health insurance as part of a package of benefits from their employer.
If you lose the job, you lose the health insurance coverage.
Romney will let you die in the gutter. Obama is a genuinely decent man and he wants to make
sure that no one will suffer a lack of health care because of their personal circumstances.
If you think that you could never be "one of those people", you don't have much life experience,
because for most of us, the shit can hit the fan any time.
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
Presidents are the de facto leader of their party. If Romney pushes a tax plan and the Republicans control the House (which they almost certainly will), then Romney's plan will pass. It could possibly get stalled in the Senate, but I don't expect the Democrats to have the balls to actually fight back.
WILL THIS BE A TOPIC FOR DEBATE? (Score:5, Insightful)
Do they actually differ at all? [imgur.com]
Both candidates have the same platform (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't listen to what the candidates major party say, it is just a side show. Look at what they actually did in the past, and look at what they don't say. Has Mitt Romney criticized Obama for failing to demand that the TSA actually follow the law (seriously, how much more effective of a criticism can one make than pointing out their opponent's failure to uphold the law while serving in the highest political office in the country)? The debates are a waste of your time, designed to reinforce the view the the Democrats are "liberals" and the Republicans are "conservative" (both parties, in fact, are fascist, hawkish, and pro-corporate).
Re:there is jail / prison care or the ER (Score:5, Insightful)
The ER has to stabilize you. If you're dieing quickly- a stab wound, a heart attack, a bullet wound- they'll patch you up. They don't have to try to give you chemo, give you follow-up care for infections to the wounds (unless thhe infections become life threatening), or give you a bypass to prevent the next heart attack. That's not health care.
Re:Why do they call him governor? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's nothing but an opportunist. He's a prick
You don't say who "He" is, but since he's a politician I'm pretty sure you're right on both counts.
Re:If Obama doesn't come out swinging, he's toast. (Score:4, Insightful)
A well run business employs as few people as possible
But a well run country employs as many of its citizens as possible.
Re:Spoiler (Score:5, Insightful)
what they lie about is what matters.
What they don't bother to talk about at all matters a lot more. Which candidate is brave enough to bring up the fact that America has more prisoners than China? Which candidate is brave enough to bring up the fact that the TSA is currently operating outside of the law? Which candidate is brave enough to bring up the fact that we are using drone strikes to kill American citizens without a trial?
See, there are some issues (some call them "the important issues") that neither major party candidate is even willing to mention. Which is why I do not vote for the major parties.
Re:Romney's Tax Plan (Score:4, Insightful)
Can somebody help me with this question I have had regarding the Romney Tax Plan?
From what I understand, Romney's tax plan is to drop everyone's marginal tax rate and then eliminate deductions, credits etc.
In his debate speech just now, he noted that the top 5% of people are still going to be paying 60% of the taxes.
If his plan is revenue neutral (meaning they still take in as much as they currently do) doesn't that mean, the lower 95% are still paying the same 40% of taxes that they are paying now? If so... how does that tax plan change anything? Whether you say it's through deductions or just a lower rate everyone is still paying the same amount of taxes no?
I suspect that the top 5% gather a lot more than 60% of the income.
Also, last I heard neither he nor his campaign have actually listed any deductions they would eliminate that would have more than the most trivial impact on revenues. Mostly they say they're *not* going to eliminate some particular deduction, when asked about it.
You know the drill -
Democrat: tax and spend
Republican: tax less, spend more, and also balance the budget
That kind of mathmagics is what got us into the hole we're in now.
Answer the damn questions (Score:4, Insightful)
I think at this point I would vote for any candidate who would just answer the questions that are being asked...or at least address them tengentially.
There also needs to be a buzzer or something to shut them up whenever they want to discuss their opponent's plans, i.e., put words in their opponent's mouth.
Re:A farce (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a farce. 2 sides of the same exact coin are arguing about who is made of a purer metal. Give a fucking break, if you have half a brain cell for each 10 people, you still should be able to see through this charade.
Gary Johnson 2012.
Only an idiot would think that who you chose on election day doesn't matter. Neither side is "good", but that doesn't mean that they're equally bad.
Re:Will you ever lose your job and need health car (Score:5, Insightful)
The only democracy in the world where sociopaths have their own party is the United States. Even better, that party has groups within it that variously argue both Jesus and the Founding Fathers approved of sociopathic policies.
Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If Obama doesn't come out swinging, he's toast. (Score:5, Insightful)
A well run business employs as few people as possible
But a well run country employs as many of its citizens as possible.
Errr....gov't jobs for all??? Hell no.
A well-run country maximizes incentive to provide sustained employment for as many of its citizens as is possible.
I never said the government needs to provide government jobs to citizens, but running a country is fundamentally different than running a company. When you need to cut costs in a company you can shed employees and trust that some other company or the government will take care of them. When you need to cut costs in a country, you can't simply shed citizens to save money - you're going to end up taking care of them one way or another. And sometimes cutting costs in obvious ways doesn't save any money at all. You can slash military spending by cutting expensive weapons programs and reducing troop levels, but then you have to find jobs for all of the ex-soldiers and ex-military contractors that are suddenly out of work.
Easy answer - the one you can see (Score:2, Insightful)
Which evil wizard do you want to ravage the kingdom?
I want the one where the press reports which areas of the kingdom are being ravaged, not the invisible wizard that ravages without notice.
Just look at the moderation of this and other debates. The mainstream press is liberal almost to a (wo)man, and it has showed in the debates. The moderators are literally feeding the democrats talking points, while sneering at Republican candidates.
The press has ignored all kinds of major debacles from the Democratic administration that it is plain to see would have been pinned firmly, with a repeating nail gun, to the chest of a Republican president. From the invasion of Libya which really was war for oil (otherwise we'd be in Syria too since the same reasons we supposedly went into Libya apply only moreso), to sending guns to mexican drug lords (operation Gunwalker) to terrorist attack killing our ambassador in Libya, the press is trying to stay as quiet as possible instead of looking under rugs and in closets.
Look at how many reporters were way in out Alaska looking for anything on Palin, compare to zero interest in Biden and what he has been up to over the years.
The one way democracy really works is if you have a body of people watching over the politicians. That's not been happening for four years now and we are all the worse for it.
If you are undecided at all on any candidate for any office, just ask - which person will be under greater scrutiny if elected?
Re:I would love to see someone challenge Romney on (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely brilliant.
I suspect some of these (presumably) low-budget satires end up having more influence than most big-budget campaign ads.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
Even the QUESTIONS are lies.
"The main issue of security for the United Sates is Iran..."
The main issue of security is the outright theft of all meaningful government and control of public discourse by oligarchal, corporate wealth. And the creation of the largest, enslaved incarceration population in world history.
But these two puppets are already OWNED.
Re:Can't make heads or tails of it all. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only that, the claim is laughable on its face: "I'd rather sit here and starve than do work if I have to give x% to the government" Go to anyone on the street and offer them $40 if they promise to give you $20 back. How many people do you think are going to turn it down because they don't get to keep the whole $40?
The reason that the economy ran so hot under high taxes (as high as 90%!) was because the people who wanted $40 didn't whine and sob and threaten to go Galt, they said "What do I have to do to get you to give me $80?"
Re:Nick Hanauer's economic illiteracy (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll strive for brevity here and continue with the Grass,Zebra,Lion analogy: The big lie you're adhering to is that the grass is production, when in fact the grass is actually a combination of the zebra's hunger or demand (what it wants) and the zebra's fundamental ability to actually walk over to the grass (i.e. the consumer isn't so crippled with debt that it can't afford to actually buy what it wants).
I had in my head a quite long allegory about zebras and companies producing grass and then hoarding it or setting fire to it or hoarding it, but it's a waste of time continuing that line. I'll be blunt and very pragmatic in my final reply here: Entrepreneurship doesn't count for anything if your brilliant new idea doesn't have a block of consumers who have the disposable income. It doesn't matter how much someone wants something if they can't afford it.
The greatest intellectual dishonesty you can perpetuate is when you actually believe that you can keep actively sabotaging the prosperity of the largest block of your population that want to work and want to spend earned wealth within their own economy. Then funneling that wealth back to people more concerned with cutting costs by moving jobs overseas and topping up their offshore bank accounts is even more insane. It's that cut-and-dry.
Re:More importantly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I smell rope-a-dope (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you sure? All references I can find has Obama saying something of the sorts that America won't back down from acts of terror but not Obama claiming is was a terrorist attack. The transcript has "No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nationâ but this isn't obvious that it was about the killing of the Ambassador or the attack on the embassy.
OF course if you are drinking the cool-aid, I suppose you could claim that as calling it terrorism, but then the government went around apologizing for the first amendment and insisting is was over a infantile production of an inflammatory movie about an illiterate pedophile somehow shown as a bumbling idiot (a step up I think )
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't decide between the Green Party and the Libertarian Party, you probably shouldn't vote for either... they are pretty much polar opposites as far as the government's overall influence in many areas.
That said, if you want to throw darts at a board, go for the Greens. They are probably less likely to shoot you for straying onto their proppity, and they make better lifeguards [imageshack.us].
Re:If Obama doesn't come out swinging, he's toast. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooooo... what explains the worse unemployment rates in much further-left Europe?
Austerity. Europe has actually been doing what the Republicans (Ryan in particular) have been wanting to do, and it's made things much worse for them.
Re:Easy answer - the one you can see (Score:3, Insightful)
The press has ignored all kinds of major debacles from the Democratic administration that it is plain to see would have been pinned firmly, with a repeating nail gun, to the chest of a Republican president. From the invasion of Libya which really was war for oil (otherwise we'd be in Syria too since the same reasons we supposedly went into Libya apply only moreso), to sending guns to mexican drug lords (operation Gunwalker) to terrorist attack killing our ambassador in Libya, the press is trying to stay as quiet as possible instead of looking under rugs and in closets.
I actually see things exactly the opposite, that the press is going after all of these things and following the rants of the right-wing pundits as if they were credible rather than laughable attempts to create a scandal.
I don't know about you, but I remember a ton of hand-wringing over HOW DARE THE PRESIDENT AUTHORIZE THE USE OF FORCE IN LIBYA, which in constrast to the complaints about not acting in Syria seem a tad hypocritical.
As for the Mexican Drug Lords, why does nobody point out how they had plenty of Guns before the Obama administration, and that the tiny amount of guns that came through the program to TRACK that whole process is miniscule in comparison to the arsenal they had already built up?
Look at how many reporters were way in out Alaska looking for anything on Palin, compare to zero interest in Biden and what he has been up to over the years.
McCain picked Palin because she would get attention. Obama picked Biden because he wouldn't.
Are you really obtuse? Did you not know what was happening?
If you are undecided at all on any candidate for any office, just ask - which person will be under greater scrutiny if elected?
Probably the Democrat who will be accused of being a communist traitor and scrutinized for the tiniest of offenses while the Republican is treated under IOKIYAR.
Re:Will you ever lose your job and need health car (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:4, Insightful)
Romney believes in a completely discredited world view on economics and the role of government. Barrack Obama is terrible at actually playing politics, so even if he knows what he should do he's usually incapable of doing it. He managed to win his previous elections by having stuck to reasonably credible policy proposals, and failing to really deliver, Romney is a compulsive liar, who is used to talking to people who drink the same intellectual kool-aid he does, so he panders to whomever is in front of him with whatever they want to hear, but nothing he says is based in reality.
Given the choice - and given the '3rd party' choices are basically in the romney camp of completely discredited or impractical world views your best bet is Obama.
And before you, or anyone else thinks that's somehow a sad statement about democracy, that is democracy, everywhere. In canada and the UK we have baby republicans Harper and Cameron, Cameron has been caught in a double dip recession precisely because he bought into the same nonsense the republicans have been spewing, while canada is saved by the price of oil. In France Sarkozy and Hollande were both looking at ways to radically cut the budget deficit, which in the first place is bad economic policy and hollande wants to do so with a 75% tax on the ultrarich, who can just move to switzerland or monaco. Angela merkel in germany is pushing for european federalism - which might be good policy- a completely untenable prospect politically in europe, and so on and so on. On the rare occasions politicians are actually capable of looking at and understanding evidence they usually don't know how translate that into actual action.
Re:Can't make heads or tails of it all. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the 2000s should have been a huge boom with GWB's tax cuts. Oh, wait, it wasn't. Part of the reason the economy boomed under Clinton was caused by the tax increases first by Bush Sr and Clinton. This reduced the deficit and helped make cheap credit available for the economy to boom. Most of today's deficit can be blamed on GWB's tax cuts, two wars (one by choice) and the financial collapse of 2008 due in large part to poor financial oversight and deregulation.
Trickle down has been proven not to work. You lower the taxes at the people at the top and they don't start spending more money, they horde it. I think the problem is a lot of the huge financial gains made by the financial sector often don't trickle down to everyone else in a consumer driven economy. If you give money to the people at the bottom they spend everything they have. The expanded unemployment insurance probably helped more than any other form of stimulus since it immediately was pumped right back into the economy. The more money that is made to the bottom and the middle class, the better the economy will do. Most of the time giving more money to those at the top does not result in them hiring more people or buying more stuff.
The CBO released a chart that shows the deficit in detail. More and more of it is due to GWB's tax cuts. If it were not for those we would be in much better shape today.
Re:Can't make heads or tails of it all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Trickle down has been proven not to work.
I never understood how it was supposed to work in the first place. A company doesn't create jobs because it has money left over, it creates jobs when there is more demand for a product than it can satisfy with the current workforce. If you want jobs to be created, you should give money to the people most eager to spend it, which is the people who have the least amount of money.
Re:Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely it's evaluating the difference between the effect of an Obama versus a Romney win, and establishing what that is first. To some people it will be minimal.
As the Republicans say: "Are you any better off with Obama?"
It is hardly an "expense of one's future" to forgo a vote which would make minimal difference. What's the worst thing that could happen? The greater of two evils wins, and you're slightly more angry that usual?
Voting a third party will show the media that people vote and have interests in third parties. If a third party starts getting significant support, the problems with the electoral system will become clearer. You're making more of a change than voting for one of two effectively similar individuals.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
Why wasn't she (or any of the other 3rd party candidates) included? Because they are not high enough in the polls.
The 15% polling number for inclusion is arbitrary and no 3rd party candidate has reached 15% anytime during the last hundred years (AFAIK).
The Commission on Presidential Debates is a private, bi-partisan (with emphasis on the partisan) organization created by the two parties specifically to freeze out 3rd parties and to create a 'safe' space for the candidates to debate.
American politics has been a duopoly for generations.
The parties aren't interested in a free market of ideas.
Re:Gary Johnson is the Libertarian candidate (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh, you are the same person who replied to me earlier - well, being from NZ you probably don't understand the US Supreme Court.
Given ages of current justices, whoever is elected will likely get to nominate 2 Supreme Court justices. If that's Romney that will likely mean overturning Roe v Wade (ie banning abortion), validating the Defense of Marriage Act barring same sex unions, overturning any possible attempt to ban assault rifles, allowing warrantless wiretapping and surveillance of US citizens, deciding on the legality of any immigration reform, and any chance at gender equality laws or affirmative action. And that's not just for the next 4 years, Supreme Court justices serve for life so it could affect individual liberties for a decade or more. (yes, you can see from my description which side I support. But if you hold the opposite opinions it's equally important, of course).
So, yes, that IS potentially at the expense of MANY peoples' futures. Not to mention the power of Congress to declare war has been completely subverted by executive order, so the current two futile and baseless wars the US are fighting are due to the actions of a single President over 10 years ago.
Calling these two candidates "similar individuals" is completely cynical and naive. Like it or not (and many Americans don't) the core beliefs of the US President has an inordinate amount of influence over both American domestic policy and many world events.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
Why aren't they polling well? I expect it's because they cannot get media coverage for love nor money.
...or maybe ... just maybe ... some things are simply not as popular as others. It's not that evil, awful "mainstream media" that's at fault, it's that some things just are not what the vast majority of people are looking for.
And "the media" is going to report - shock horror - on the things people are actually interested in. I know it's a "chicken and the egg" scenario, and some things that deserve to be popular aren't ... but especially in the Internet age, well, let me put it this way: if "Gangnam Style" can gather tens of millions of hits, if your idea is good enough and well presented on the Internet, there's no excuse for saying "I'm not popular because nobody knows about me!"
Don't get me wrong, I agree that including some 3rd party candidates would have made this a MUCH more interesting debate... it would have been great! But there are dozens if not hundreds of small-base candidates out there, and the debate organizers wanted to give as much of a limited time as possible to the candidates voters collectively were most interested in. If a line had to drawn in where to include or not include candidates, ">40% of the US voting population vs. <3%" seems like a reasonable place to draw the line.
P.S. - just so you know, you can ALWAYS get coverage if you have enough money! You just buy your own TV commercials, newspaper ads, web banners, etc. "Love" - meh, not so much.
Re:Can't make heads or tails of it all. (Score:5, Insightful)
The way I understood "trickle down" was that rich people would have so much money that they would buy all sorts of items that would, in turn, create jobs to produce such items, lifting up the lower classes. I'm not saying I understood it correctly, because it sure looks like, "Let's give money to rich people."
Almost. The idea is that investors will have more money to invest in expanding existing business or creating new ones. This makes a certain amount of sense with a 50's style isolated industrial economy. If you wanted to make your money work for you, you pretty much had to invest in activities that created jobs in the US.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really work today. Globalization and various rent seeking oportunities ensure that, most of the time, it is more profitable to invest in ways that don't create American jobs. Opening a new factory is great but it doesn't help workers in the US much if that factory is in China. Investing in elaborate schemes to harvest money from regular investers in the stock market doesn't really help anyone.
Depressingly, "trickle up" doesn't work all that well either. If people spend their surplus buying foreign made goods, benefit to the overall economy is quite limited.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a difference between fostering the success of corporations versus completely unfettering them. Unfettering an entity whose sole goal is profit scares me.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got no objection to corporate wealth as such, let alone the existence of corporations. What I have an objection to is the fact that the corporations and the individuals who own and/or run them essentially get orders of magnitude more voting power than anyone else does. It's not about whether corporations or wealthy people are entitled to free speech or whether they can petition the government, it's about the fact that if your "petition" comes with a million dollar check politicians listen. Government in the US is very much pay for play and so long as that is the case, we're all screwed.
Re:I smell rope-a-dope (Score:0, Insightful)
If this isn't a sign of incompetence, I'm not sure what is.
Hmm, ordinarily I feel like I can at least slightly understand where conservatives are coming from - even if I don't agree (e.g. rich people wanting to pay even less tax). But this issue has me baffled.
I mean, to the extent that this is about Obama's general competence, is this really the best example that conservatives can come up with - an obscure technical disagreement regarding the differences between an "act of terror" and a "terrorist attack"?
And, to the extent that this is about safety of embassy personnel, is this really such a burning issue for conservatives? I mean, do conservatives really lay awake at night thinking "All those children of single mothers can starve for all I care. But, oh my deary me, I do hope our embassy personnel are safe?"
I guess I'm just a heartless liberal but even if I was convinced that electing Romney over Obama would save the lives of a few embassy personnel every year, it wouldn't really affect my decision at all.
All very puzzling.
Re:Can't make heads or tails of it all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:More importantly (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of the whole "Obama had a filibuster-proof majority" line is to imply that the President had a free hand to institute whatever policies he wanted. Therefore, the thinking goes, the state of the economy can be blamed entirely on Obama's bad policies, not at all on Republicans stopping him from instituting his policies. Which is a load of crap. There are a lot of things Obama could have done had he actually had the Rasputin-like mind control powers over his congresscritters that Republicans seem to be blaming him for not having.
What is well-documented is this: Obama did not control Congress. Health care reform could have taken a couple of months, if only three or four Republican senators had been willing to take Romneycare national. It was originally the Heritage Foundation's idea, and something very similar was proposed by Republicans twenty years ago when Clinton was trying to pass his own health care legislation. How did such a right-wing friendly plan go from The Official Position of the Republican Party to something the Republicans were able to unite 40-0 against? Simple: back in 1992, Republicans actually wanted to increase the number of people with health insurance. Today, their number one goal is to deny President Obama any legislative victories.
And no, the fact that a few minor, "uncontroversial" bills managed to pass during that period doesn't change anything.
Re:Easy answer - the one you can see (Score:5, Insightful)
Not sure why this was rated +5 insightful, must be the Kosbots. Allow me to explain the hand wringing, first the candidate Obama talked about how awful it was for the then President to unilaterally go off and start a war in the Middle East(despite having received an authorization for the use of force in Iraq, hey his VP nominee even voted for it). By contrast, Obama as President didn't even both to go to Congress to get an authorization for the use of force(hell he even pretended we weren't using force, merely "Kinetic Military Action"), then to add to the hypocrisy, didn't bother to comply with the War Powers Act, which lead to well known "conservative fire brand" Dennis Kucinich to label Obama's war action an impeachable offense.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe you misspelled leaked the sordid details of his opponent's divorce proceedings or work to have your only viable opponent thrown off the ballot.
Re:Logical Fallacy Bingo (Score:5, Insightful)
The sad thing is that the real policy setting and rules making which ultimately determine who becomes president is in the hands of a much, much smaller minority. The elections that really matter today are those for the "state central committee" of each political party who in turn (either through convention or in that committee meeting... it really doesn't matter as the rules are set in those committees anyway) who in turn select the national committee members.
In the case of the Republican Party (because I've studied it a whole bunch more) the real power to make changes and to set the national agenda for that party is in the hands of 110 "national committee members" (two from every state + territories including DC) who set the convention agenda, make the delegate rules, act as the "credentials committee" (aka those who recognize if you will be a delegate on a case by case basis), and really are where the actual political power in America resides. Note that these "national committee members" (they exist for both Republicans and Democrats) are not members of congress but separately selected for their positions in what is sometimes not a very democratic process in the first place. At best, they are selected during state conventions by state delegates... if those delegates even bother showing up to the vote as it isn't one of the sexy "presidential" votes or even deciding the nomination for the senatorial candidates. Often the place where these national committee members are selected is at a separate convention different than the main election year convention as well... leading to even fewer delegates being involved in the selection of these people.
Ron Paul found this out the hard way, as did most of the contenders for the Republican Party as Mitt Romney was able to get the support of most of these national committee members and definitely the support of most state committees as well. That is why Ron Paul supporters were tossed out into the cold, because they didn't have the internal support from within the party to get the job done. That is also why almost nobody gets the nomination unless they have been running for the Presidency several times: they need to get "their people" into those very important national committee positions in the first place.
In other words, those actually selecting who becomes President of the United States isn't even the 10% of the eligible voters who bother to show up to primaries or participate in neighborhood caucus meetings, it is instead that very select and largely self-appointed groups of just a few hundred people in both major parties who set the rules to decide who gets the job, or just 1 out of a million possible voters set up in a manner that is clearly not proportional by population either.