I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

Right, not disputing that she can get nasty. Just pointing out that (a) There is a contrast in tone between Sanders's supporters and Sanders himself, and (b) Both Obama and Sanders have generally avoided attacking Clinton. Is this because they're such standup gentlemensches? Or because they've made a calculation that it won't work and may possibly backfire.

it would totally backfire

It would massively backfire

I couldn't imagine that it wouldn't be a disaster.

salon just dropped a camille paglia piece. p sure she already hated hillary, and for sure has always hated gloria steinem.

the sentence "Steinem’s polished humanitarian mask had slipped, revealing the mummified fascist within" appears. you get the point i think.

would've figured Paglia was into fascists, they're so sexy

oh how I remember fondly Paglia's spring 2008 Hillary columns

"Which will make it a difficult pivot for them if she wins the nomination."

No it won't any more than it made it difficult for Clinton supporters (with a few exceptions) to pivot to Obama eight years ago.

in other news JEB! demonstrates Optimal-Tip-to-Tip Efficiency
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/02/10/Others/Images/2016-02-10/JEBSC0361455146000.jpg?uuid=483RENBLEeWQ0zTCxCZTrA

Alex: "No it won't any more than it made it difficult for Clinton supporters (with a few exceptions) to pivot to Obama eight years ago."

Fair point. I know righties were counting on massive PUMA defections that didn't ultimately occur. Are Bern-feelers the new PUMAs?

have we had any andrew sullivan sightings this primary season? i'm sure he has fantastic hillary takes

I think it's pretty simple actually. Bernie is too far left. There's no way the country is going to elect a self-described socialist. It will not happen.

― o. nate, Thursday, February 11, 2016 2:12 AM (16 hours ago)

this is true and yet one of the weirdest things about our current weird situation is that i can imagine a number of scenarios where sanders could win the general election. like in a hypothetical race between sanders and trump i think sanders would win, ppl hate and fear the donald trump whose face is everywhere every day a lot more than they fear the word "socialist."

@CornelWest
#FeelTheBern

Actually on second thought (to Alex in SF) the Clinton-to-Obama pivot was easier. tbh I made it myself, with no effort at all.

Clinton supporters circa 2008 weren't thinking, "This Obama guy is evil incarnate and he will drive the country toward disaster." It was more like, "I like what he's saying, but I don't know that he can do what he's promising."

(Sound familiar?)

I'm looking at the anti-Clinton content of my pro-Bernie Facebook peeps and it's stuff that's much more difficult to walk back than "sounds great, but can he really do it?"

I think it's pretty simple actually. Bernie is too far left. There's no way the country is going to elect a self-described socialist. It will not happen.

Good thing nobody is describing themselves as a socialist.

There have already been several things that have happened this election season that many/most said would not happen, starting with Trump's endurance. Atmosphere feels a little like what they call in the stock market world "a correction." Which makes sense. Apparently few in America seem to be terribly happy/secure, and even if they can't pinpoint exactly what it is they want, they definitely know what they don't want. Like preparing dinner for picky kids.

"I'm hungry!"
"OK, what do you want for dinner?"
"I don't know."
"Do you want hot dogs?"
"No!'
"Chicken?"
"No!"
"Soup? Pasta?"
"No!"
"Then what do you want?"
"I don't know!"

salon just dropped a camille paglia piece. p sure she already hated hillary, and for sure has always hated gloria steinem.

the sentence "Steinem’s polished humanitarian mask had slipped, revealing the mummified fascist within" appears. you get the point i think.

― goole, Thursday, February 11, 2016 10:10 AM (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

she had one in salon a few weeks ago, billed as "the story too hot for the new york times" and all about how hillary hates and seeks to dominate men

The non-existent Bosnian sniper fire may have been a shadowy memory of the strafing dictates of an authoritarian father, against whom mother and daughter were united in conspiratorial defiance.

not making this up, as dave barry used to say

i guess we've already done this but hey it's february:

dem running mates? Bernie's more or less committed to Warren, yes? Is the new presumption that Clinton would pick up Bernie?

given the messiness of the past two years, do republican running mates necessarily come from outside of the clown car? who the fuck could trump conceivably pick? Schwarzenegger? and more realistically where do cruz and/or rubio look?

Is the new presumption that Clinton would pick up Bernie?

idk if this is something people are saying might happen but it sure would be pointless and sad

A Bernie/Warren bill would be a terrible idea. Can't think of any other running mate that would enhance his chances without diluting his brand. But Warren is just right where she is, staying put. And then she can either run in 8 years or in 4 after a disastrous Repub admin.

GOP could pick pretty much anyone as a running mate at this point. Bruce Willis, Megyn Kelly, Barney the Dinosaur.

Is the new presumption that Clinton would pick up Bernie?

Julian Castro

who the fuck could trump conceivably pick? Schwarzenegger?

this is a weird thing I never thought I would say but Schwarzenegger is a) smarter than Trump and b) not really conservative either (he believes in climate change!)

feel pretty confident that warren is staying in the senate & not running for president ever

Just pointing out that (a) There is a contrast in tone between Sanders's supporters and Sanders himself

What is surprising to me is that, afaics, Bernie has not been delegating the job of attacking HRC to a set of surrogates, which is the traditional tactic. Bernie just doesn't seem to have a kennel of attack dogs.

The greatest feeling you can get in a gym, or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is... The TRump. Let's say you train your biceps. Blood is rushing into your muscles and that's what we call The Trump. You muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute, and it's really tight - it's like somebody blowing air into it, into your muscle. It just blows up, and it feels really different. It feels fantastic.

It's as satisfying to me as, uh, coming is, you know? As, ah, having sex with a woman and coming. And so can you believe how much I am in heaven? I am like, uh, getting the feeling of coming in a gym, I'm getting the feeling of coming at home, I'm getting the feeling of coming backstage when I Trump up, when I pose in front of 5,000 people, I get the same feeling, so I am coming day and night. I mean, it's terrific. Right? So you know, I am in heaven.

Paul Ryan quote?

I agree re: Castro.

Good demographics, doesn't take a key Senator out of the chamber, and has the added bonus of tweaking the noses of old-school anticommunists with the whole "Castro" thing.

Castro. Cory Booker?

Kind of wondering what role the economy is going to play in all this -- odds are going up that we'll have the beginnings of a new economic crisis before the general, and at a minimum the stock market is looking terrible. If the real economy and not just the stock market gets worse, that makes Obama's legacy look a little less like something you want to run on. I'm not sure whether that's a greater benefit to Sanders (loves hammering Wall Street) or the GOP though.

hillary is not picking bernie as her VP, lol

this is true and yet one of the weirdest things about our current weird situation is that i can imagine a number of scenarios where sanders could win the general election. like in a hypothetical race between sanders and trump i think sanders would win, ppl hate and fear the donald trump whose face is everywhere every day a lot more than they fear the word "socialist."

I think trump vs sanders is the only conceivable scenario where sanders becomes president

but it is also a scenario where donald trump has a decent chance of becoming leader of the free world.

Schwarzenegger is not eligible - LOOK AT HIS BIRTH CERTIFICATE. love the idea that trump would just say fuck it and pick another conservative celebrity - Ed Harris isn't doing much these days. he's definitely crazy enough. but at the same time he's foxy enough that he might look for someone that makes the ticket look more "credible" according to conventional metrics. a general or something - they haven't voted for/against anything and they just stand around having gravitas. plus they won't steal the spotlight.

sanders/warren seems silly to me. not sure who exactly it adds to his coalition, though maybe i'm in a sort of liberal facebook/NPR bubble where it seems to me like they have almost exactly the same fans as it is. and yeah, she's doing good work in the senate and a president bernie will seriously need her there championing his stuff. in this fantasy world where he gets the nom, i feel like he'd want someone that shores up his "there's nothing un-american about all this" cred without contradicting the actual politics. a union-friendly person, like a joe biden without the credit-card baggage. there's also the maintaining-minority-turnout thing, which would depend on exactly how he got to the nomination (not possible without his minority numbers having gone up along the way). any energizing, young-but-not-too-young minority steelworker-turned-governors out there? hillary i think would basically be looking for that same exact person, minus the scruples about credit cards. hell maybe she'd just pick biden on a "stay the course, are you better off than you were eight years ago" kinda thing.

i think never-be-the-nominee-sanders could also beat ted cruz, but more narrowly, and it will depend on a very steady, unrelenting let's-remind-you-how-crazy-this-motherfucker-is campaign. cruz would be playing the very familiar game of pretending to be just an ordinary guy in a suit who cares about the middle class and being tough and solving america's problems, not ranting about eliminating most of the government as part of a strict construction of the constitution. it would be easy for someone not paying close attention to miss how much he really is the Dead Zone candidate, and think "ehh, he seems kinda middle of the road and i've been told sanders is a crazy communist."

i would think cruz is completely unelectable nationally because he is personally incredibly odious.

but you know, nixon. although maybe nixon didn't come across quite as oily in 1968? i wasn't around.

lol remember in the seventies and eighties when Schwarznegger would claim he'd amend the Constitution.

The moment he became governor it seemed plausible. For a moment.

but you know, nixon. although maybe nixon didn't come across quite as oily in 1968? i wasn't around.

― wizzz! (amateurist),

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qRZvlZZ0DY

i'd elect nixon in a heartbeat compared to any of these fuckers in the republican primaries

which is basically how i feel about clinton

economic crisis would benefit trump more than anyone, which is kinda terrifying. at least among republican voters, who consistently place him far above the others on questions like "who is best suited to handle the economy?" economic crisis? trump must be the best guy, because he's a businessman and he's rich! it's idiotic if you spent more than 5 seconds thinking about it, but...

not sure how much it would benefit trump in a general election though. i guess it would depend on his opponent.

lol crut lolololololol

Trump will be a veep-less president. He's in such fantastic shape, what would even be the point?

Trump would also do wonderful work in the face of an economic crisis. He'd just ask his dad for a small, million dollar loan and we'd be set.

didn't Trump have a tete-a-tete with Christie right before Christie dropped out?

not that means anything necessarily, but jfc could you imagine?

I guess if they want to double down on the loudmouth bully vote.

omg dlh the full paragraph is even more insane-o!!

But surely that overwrought action-adventure tale was a strange flashback to an episode from Hillary’s youth, as reported by Mr. Bernstein: the usually stingy Hugh Rodham had once treated his wife and daughter to a shopping spree at a New York department store. Under tight time pressure from Hugh, the two women pulled off their shoes and ran laughing and barefoot together through the store. The non-existent Bosnian sniper fire may have been a shadowy memory of the strafing dictates of an authoritarian father, against whom mother and daughter were united in conspiratorial defiance.

http://www.salon.com/2016/01/27/camille_paglia_hillarys_blame_men_first_feminism_may_prove_costly_in_2016/

makes me wonder, in the few classes she still must teach, what students can get away with in their papers

i could see trump picking a woman to quell some of his misogyny. idk who it would be though

Fiorina, duh!