Il Douché and His Discontents: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 4

That's only actually worked once though since the war, where the losing VP got the nomination next time: Mondale in 1980, which is a special case, really, seeing as he'd already served a term as VP in '76. I can't see any instance of it happening otherwise--they either run and lose, or don't run at all.

Winning VPs, yes.

xxpost some betting markets have his odds as better than Kasich (albeit the ones more manipulated by pump 'n dump but w/e)

NBC News
April 1 at 10:20pm ·
"At this moment the laws are set. And I think we have to leave it that way," Donald J. Trump said 2 days after telling MSNBC he thinks abortion should be illegal.

lol cos that's what Republicans treasure in their candidate, a guy who says "welp law's the law, caint do nothin bout it"

http://joshspilker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Screen-Shot-2015-07-22-at-8.39.13-PM.png

-James Hetfield, Creeping Death Party

sorry, "Part-ehh-ehhhhh-oh-whoooa!"

that's what trump's hats should say instead of "make america great again"

if he thought anything mattered he wouldn't change his positions so dramatically and recklessly

abortion is so bad, we need to punish people who get abortions, except maybe it's not so bad so they should just be allowed. i don't know. it's up to me.

^ some weird ass Mac Miller lyrics

Anderson Cooper made a salient point about Trump the other night: how suggestible he is in interviews. Chris Matthews mentions punishing the woman, Trump says yeah, there should be some punishment. Chris Wallace says, this morning, so you're not ruling out a third-party run, Trump hints that yes, maybe that's something he'll still do (after not speaking about that for months). There have been other examples.

This could present a problem when sitting down with other countries.

"yeah we'll lift the ban on nuclear weapons, just play nice k?"

he seems like he has a severe case of ADD and can't keep his thoughts straight for more than one minute at a time. i say this as someone who has ADD and frequently feels similarly "jumbled." this is a thing that people can deal with, but they need to first realize that it's a problem, that their random whims don't pass for deep insight.

Makes me think of Kevin, Elaine's Bizarro-Jerry friend on Seinfeld. "You know, maybe I don't like children after all--maybe I will get a vasectomy!"

kasich to me has a little bit of that stuart symington thing going on, if you've read "the making of the president 1960" (which is an informative read for anyone wanting to know how brokered conventions worked in practice).

I mentioned Stuart Symington in 2012, how much something written about Symington in 1960: LBJ vs. JFK vs. Nixon (The Epic Campaign That Forged Three Presidencies) reminded me of Romney: "the most possible of all nominees, but he was also a man lacking any deep and abiding political philosophy...his appeal is largely to the older-line professional politicians, and their hope is that the convention will find objections with each of the other candidates and agree on Symington." Applies to Kasich too: he'd be the perfect nominee except for the fact that no one actually wants him to be the nominee.

the GOP equivalent then was Harold Stassen.

That's only actually worked once though since the war, where the losing VP got the nomination next time: Mondale in 1980, which is a special case, really, seeing as he'd already served a term as VP in '76. I can't see any instance of it happening otherwise--they either run and lose, or don't run at all.

the question is whether people are treated as if they have loser's stench after being on a failed ticket. only one person is gonna get the nomination, everyone's chances are always low. lots of those vp candidates never were gonna get further in national politics regardless - it's not like sarah palin tossed away her chance at a presidential run by being on mccain's ticket. but for the ones w/ presidential aspirations (edwards, paul ryan) I don't think they found themselves in a worse position after the election.

might depend how spectacularly they lose by? i mean it's a small sample set so who knows. just feel like if there's a decisive rejection of the cruz/kasich ticket, say, they lose everywhere, it's gonna be hard to shake that off even if in the abstract you might be like "oh well it wasn't his fault" etc.

I don't think they found themselves in a worse position after the election.

Probably, but you initially framed it as a clear advantage: "you cement your place as a nationally recognized politician and get granted front runner status for the next election." Was there actually a moment when Edwards was considered the front-runner for 2008 once Clinton announced? I can't remember. Ryan's VP loss clearly paved the way for him to become the speaker, but I'd ask the same question: how far back do you have to go find him as the front-runner for 2016?

If a losing bid were a clear advantage, I would think there'd be at least one instance of someone moving on to the nomination. There isn't, unless you count Dole getting the nomination 20 years after his loss in '76.

I'll put it this way: I think there are the perceived advantages you mention, but they're outweighed, or at least neutralized, by a reluctance to go with someone who's already lost one national election.

http://predictwise.com/blog/2016/04/market-ineffeciency/

I don't know how it happened but my FB feed is now full of Hillary supporters strategizing on ways to attack Bernie's wife.

classy! as ever

so Clinton is up 12 in NY, sez Quinnipiac... lolclaims a few weeks ago that she had a 48-pt lead.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/274935-clinton-seeks-to-avoid-loss-in-home-state-ny

Comment from the Greenpeace volunteer in the video fwiw; http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/im-the-greenpeace-activist-who-asked-hillary-clinton-to-pledge-to-reject-fossil-fuel-contributions-at-the-purchase-ny-campaign-rally/

Kasich's VP play doesn't have to come down to a second-ballot Cruz coalition - he could join a Trump ticket before before the first ballot. Could be bingo: insta-win.

i feel like we're overdue for a candidate in one of the two parties dropping dead during the primaries

perhaps someone could bring a live bear into the RNC

Trump's arrogance in saying Kasich is "taking" HIS votes suggests he would've made a fine Gore Democrat in 2000.

The NYT with one of its where-did-it-go-wrong stories about Sanders.

What I take away is that Sanders himself is awesome and that the people running his campaign are kinda assholes.

Will read the article when I get a moment. It does seem like an odd way to frame things--for most casual observers, I think Sanders has wildly exceeded expectations. If he had jumped in very aggressively from the start, like Kerrey suggests (skimmed a bit), I'm not sure that that would have helped him.

Where did it all go wrong for the little-known challenger to the Democratic heir apparent? I can't believe how badly he botched it.

"Making the transcripts of the Goldman speeches public would have been devastating"

does anyone actually think there's anything interesting in these speeches? my guess is they're boring as hell. even in a private forum her speech writers aren't gonna be handing her anything that could haunt her. the reason not to release them is that doing so makes people talk about it more.

yeah the 'devastating' version is where she's systematically listing all the bills she's planning to support per their requests, which, come on, that's not what's in there. i think the likelihood is that they're banal, full of effusive praise for wall street people and vague statements about how they need to be given the freedom to use their wonderful creative power or whatever. there's also the possibility that they're really short. i mean the 'scandal' would not be what's in the speeches, but in the bigger point: what the fuck can a politician possibly say to a niche of well-funded and organized constituents in under an hour, for hundreds of thousands of dollars? i'm not sure the sanders campaign is going about this the best possible way, but kinda good to shine a light on how this system is transparently a way of conveying a bribe by another name. the mafia are more subtle when securing a favor.

My impression and I could be wrong is that she got something like the going rate for a super high profile speaker? Like I bet Mark Zuckerburg commands a large speaking fee and I doubt it functions as a bribe.

what the fuck can a politician possibly say to a niche of well-funded and organized constituents in under an hour, for hundreds of thousands of dollars?

recommend that they read Marilynne Robinson.

Don't you think there's a difference when the high-profile speaker commanding that fee could also be responsible for legislation that governs the person paying the fee?
xp

no doubt and even if it wasn't explicitly intended as a bribe i think it's impossible to not have a conflict of interest when dealing w/ someone who has paid you a lot of money. but that's different from insinuating that the payment was intended to be a bribe and that's why it's so large.

like i'm sure after obama leaves the WH he will get lots of offers to speak to a variety of groups for lots + lots of money. does that mean they think he'll be returning to politics and will owe them a favor? maybe it means that they want to ask him to introduce them to someone he's met during his years in office, but also maybe it just means they want the prestige associated w/ their institution of having a former POTUS address them.

I said it a few months ago: I don't give a damn about what Clinton might have said; it won't make her less – or more – attractive as a candidate. Call it confirmation bias.

As political strategy, though, maybe saying "speeches for Wall Street" a dozen times a day might have worked even if it would've sullied Sanders' hands. I don't care about his purported purity anyway.

Oh, I see what you're saying, Mordy. I think we're on the same page. The conflict of interest would be the key point for me.

still don't understand why she couldn't just release the transcripts the following day, as soon as she was asked. it's not an unreasonable request to ask for transcripts of the speeches, and it wouldn't have been a controversy if she just would have addressed them and moved on.

i feel like we're overdue for a candidate in one of the two parties dropping dead during the primaries

― Neanderthal, Monday, April 4, 2016 4:19 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I've wondered about the odds of one the candidates not making it to Election Day.

Yeah, you figure that orange clown makeup has to be carcinogenic.

- "This way, Mr. Trump."

- "What, through the kitchen?"

still don't understand why she couldn't just release the transcripts the following day, as soon as she was asked.
--Karl Malone

She's a shitty candidate that's why

here's some more on clinton's climate change plan and why many activists remain skeptical:

ince the start of the campaign, Mrs. Clinton has moved strikingly to the left on climate issues, including opposing the Keystone XL pipeline, offshore drilling and, indeed, most forms of fracking, a drilling technique also known as hydraulic fracturing.

In a debate last month in Flint, Mich., she said she would severely regulate fracking.

“By the time we get through all of my conditions,” she said, “I do not think there will be many places in America where fracking will continue to take place.”

But Mr. Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, had a snappy retort: “My answer is a lot shorter. No, I do not support fracking.”

The absolutism of Mr. Sanders’s position on this and other climate issues — as well as the fact that Mrs. Clinton arrived at her views under pressure from the left — has made many activists mistrustful of her and supportive of Mr. Sanders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/05/us/politics/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-climate-change.html