Talk:Tantamount to election

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Untitled

This phrase ("tantamount to election") appears in scores of articles. Wikipedia needs to explain it. Rammer (talk) 22:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Really? I'm not so sure. Wikipedia is not a dictionary. Unless there's a unique history or context of this phrase that can be described, I don't think it needs an article. It's not a "thing" it's just a phrase. Axlrosen (talk) 15:53, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your contribution, Axlrosen, and for your reasonable expectations.

"Tantamount to election" has a unique history. The phrase is an outgrowth of the post-Reconstruction one-party Democratic politics of the Solid South and consequently has an etymology as a phrase. Unless one knows the definition of the phrase anyway and thus doesn't need the dictionary, you cannot capture that derivation from the words defined separately. It is an adjective phrase involving a preposition + noun object, but the words defined separately fail to capture that "tantamount to election" is a stock phrase which merits being defined as a unit.

The phrase "tantamount to election" is ambiguous if one does not already know its collective meaning instead of just the discrete meaning of each term in the phrase. Does tantamount to election mean being the controlling decision in a voting process, or does it mean coming close to providing for a democratic decision? If you were not a native speaker and you came upon the phrase "tantamount to election" in an unclarifying context, which meaning would you attribute? Perhaps the issue is less with the adjective tantamount than with the noun election, but the ambivalence in the phrase "tantamount to election" merits clarification.

Rammer (talk) 02:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point. My practical concern is that this article will never actually grow out of its stub phase. (In fact I'm sorely tempted to delete the 3rd paragraph, as being essentially a restatement of the definition in the first paragraph, but making the article even stubbier.) I think we're in this weird situation where no explanation is too little, but a full article is too much. Axlrosen (talk) 23:18, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I like three paragraphs. They give things a beginning-middle-end (nose cone, fuselage, tail) structure. In this case the third paragraph makes explicitly categorical that the phrase can apply to Republican primaries. One could go on to say that some of the districts where "tantamount to election" once applied to Democratic primaries now have it applying to Republican primaries. Much of the South is apparently re-Solidifying, in the other party, just as once-Republican New England has tended the other way. Consider leaving the article as is for a while. Maybe somebody will add something anyway. Rammer (talk) 01:56, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Quotes

this article quotes to much. As a rule one should only quote when there is no other way to say it. Plus the syntax suggests it is at times quoting a state constitution when it is not. 67.176.160.47 (talk) 03:24, 19 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Merge

Should this be merged into "Safe Seat"? 75.193.222.220 (talk) 16:07, 12 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

LOL, sorry, didn't see this. 10 years between comments.... --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:11, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Change to redirect

Can anyone think of a good reason not to simply change this to a redirect to safe seat? I don't really see the point of this as a stand-alone article (except, apparently, as a honey pot for a sockpuppeteer, which I've ruined by semi-protection). It's also kind of veering into DICDEF territory. In theory I could do this now via BRD, but I'd rather see if I'm missing something first. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:10, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @Rammer and Axlrosen:, who had a similar discussion above 11 years ago. Also pinging @RandomCanadian:, who I briefly discussed this with at ANI. Also pinging @Richard David Ramsey:, who created the article and therefore probably disagrees with me (tho it looks like he isn't here anymore). Almost everyone else active on the article recently is just reverting a sock. --Floquenbeam (talk) 01:17, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If there were more sources, there'd probably be some amount of content that could be merged into safe seat. The only reason I even noticed this was due to an edit to another article about US politics ([1] - oddly enough this bears similarity with this IP geolocating to rural Michigan, if that has anything to do with the socking). Given the only source is used to support one rather off-topicish statement and in a wholly different context to what the article is referring to; I'd have no objection to redirecting this. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 01:29, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. The actual subject is United States v. Classic. That's the court case that ruled that primaries are tantamount to elections, and thus subject to the same Congressional authority as the elections. See Rosenthal 1972, p. 370 for example.

Rosenthal, Albert J. (1972). "Campaign Financing and the Constitution". Harvard Journal on Legislation. 9 (403): 359 et seq.

Uncle G (talk) 00:53, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Uncle G: The phrase in question is not used in connection with that court case. Dan Bloch (talk) 01:18, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is, and I've even given you the exact page number. Uncle G (talk) 01:56, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps it is. I don't have the work in question. But if you read this article you'll see that that definition has nothing to do the topic of the article. Dan Bloch (talk) 02:35, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's some off-the-cuff Wikipedia-made definition, though, with nothing to back it. And it actually is roughly what actual published literature says, given what the article goes on to discuss. When people talk of things being "tantamount to election" they are talking (as Rosenthal is) of primaries in the U.S. electoral system(s), and they are specifically talking about this case and the ramifications of it actually extending the law on this point. They aren't talking about safe seats, not least because that's a non-U.S. concept as well, but also because safe seats are not things that people in the literature talk about as being "tantamount to election". A safe seat is safe because one party will very likely win, but a primary is tantamount to an election in contrast because it ends up being where the decision is made as to which person wins.
One doesn't need Rosenthal. One just needs to look. I picked Rosenthal because it's an article in a law journal, but there's plenty of other stuff if one looks. There's a U.S. Senate debate in the Congressional Record in 1947 discussing this very case and how primaries are tantamount to election. There's a 1977 article by Larry Sabato about the discontinuance of Democratic primaries in Virginia that is entitled "tantamount to election no longer".
United States v. Classic and its ramifications, and its idea that primaries are tantamount to elections in one-party states, are what the subject actually is, when actually discussed by experts, and this is a quite bizarre not-noun title for it.
Uncle G (talk) 04:42, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- So do you suggest this should instead redirect to the lawsuit? Safe seat seems the more obvious target to my non expert eyes (and well, readers are unlikely to be experts or know about that case)... RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 04:57, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - The lawsuit, or if there is a better target related to primary elections (which there does not seem to be, white primary not being suitable I think) is what I suggest, yes. But have a look at what experts say for yourself, too. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 05:27, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - Redirecting to the lawsuit is a nonstarter, since there are hundreds of Wikipedia articles which link to this article, every one referring to a safe seat. What I still see from this discussion is that there are (unfortunately) two different definitions, the one from the lawsuit about equivalence to elections for legal purposes, which is used very rarely, and the one in this article describing a nomination in a safe district, which is used in many places. Note that the Sabato article is referring to this second definition--the Virginia Democratic primary was tantamount to election because the Democrats were guaranteed to win the general election. Dan Bloch (talk) 06:09, 8 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see RC has redirected to safe seat, which might still be the best target, but I want to think about it a little more. I think the idea that different people might have two different optimal targets is right. I wonder if adding a paragraph to the lawsuit article and using hatnotes at safe seat could help, or if they'd be overkill? I'll think about it some. But mostly returned to say I'm glad to see you here, Uncle G and Dan B; I fully expected it would just be RC and I talking to each other in an unwatched echo chamber. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:08, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The lawsuit and it's ramifications could still be mentioned at Safe_seat#United_States. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:25, 9 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]