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

like after watching the Seinfeld finale

Hillary was the runner-up last time, and then the secretary of state. Of course she was the pre-emptive nominee.

Brace yourself for some grief over "pre-emptive," Frederik.

she was also widely popular among democratic voters and her candidacy will be a historic event

yeah i think any party is going to feel pretty good about having a candidate as ready-made as clinton waiting her turn.

doc casino otm tho -- maybe there was a deal, maybe there wasn't; i'm not sure what that changes, since she was gonna be the strongest candidate anyway

eh there were no backroom meetings just a bunch of cuomo types doing the math and deciding not to waste a year of their life. this has been a huge contributor to sanders' success - he's never had to split the not-clinton votes or spotlight. if there were one more candidate that had *any* support, the math woulda never worked out for sanders.

There was O'Malley. I suppose a more previously high profile person with a similar platform might have gotten more traction.

Might have.

yeah idk i think lumping all the "not clintons" in the same category might be a mistake, bernie sort of had his own lane and brand of followers

sure I think that's true, he just also got every "I don't really like clinton" voter too

I'm surprised O'Malley didn't get more traction! He's been, for years, that guy in Democratic politics about whom you hear "this is the guy you haven't heard of who's gonna be big."

This is the guy.

http://static1.squarespace.com/static/5159fd2ce4b01cd3b022cf44/515b91f8e4b09551b25cdfb0/515b92e1e4b09551b25cf4bf/1364955938738/MD-Luigi.jpg

tbh we don't really know and probably never will, about deals made or inquiries rebuffed or whatever. not like it's some big secret, i just mean that it's the kind of thing that history won't necessarily give us access to. the cuomos of the world deciding not to run - which i agree has been very crucial for bernie, but not sufficient in any way to his success (see: gore/bradley) - gets us to a question of causality. okay, they decided not to run. why? because it was obvious they had no chance. why did they have no chance? some of them may have simply run the same factors iatee refers to and concluded it was no chance.

but another such factor would be knowing that all the doors are already going to be closed to you and that People Who Matter have already chosen to get on board this ship. it's not the 19th century anymore but it seems pretty obvious that you don't want to be on the wrong side in terms of endorsements, aiding and abetting, when it turns out Clinton wins the thing and it comes time to see who gets rewarded and who doesn't. or there could have been conversations like "hey mr. president/other party leader, i'm thinking about running" and they say "look, i like you a lot, that would be great, but you need to know that we're all pretty much ready to root for hillary here." i think part of clinton's inevitability was self-reinforcing, and you can imagine another universe where other passable democratic candidates not named o'malley would have thought, hey, this person's been beaten once before, she's associated with very unpopular foreign policies, she has some scandals going that might peter out but might weaken her, voters are ready for a fresh face, i'll be too old in 4/8 years.... or whatever. like, without that factor of her being ensconced as the obvious candidate, and having spent years laying the groundwork to maintain that spot, it's not really so obvious.

o'malley really struggled to offer any particular reason you should vote for him, there was no message or movement or (sorry) unique selling point there. and while there may have been some clinton non-fans out there (see also the hazy poll numbers Hypothetical Biden was showing for a while) it's also pretty clear that most clinton voters have a positive opinion of sanders (they just like clinton much more) and believe it or not vice versa, so there aren't THAT many votes up for grabs in the "i just really dislike clinton and want to vote for someone else" pool. it is a non-zero number obviously! but it doesn't seem to be enough to make a campaign on, or at least nobody really tried it; even sanders has not gone nearly as far as his supporters in articulating everything that is wrong with the clinton/clintonite worldview, even if he's provoked that conversation. (so, so much more has been written about the troubling aspects of clintonism, the compromises of the 90s, the iraq war and patriot act votes, than would ever have been written had sanders not been running - but he has not gotten up and said "this party was hijacked to an ideologically bankrupt but politically expedient center-right calculus twenty-five years ago and it's time to take it back" or whatever.)

the word on her seems to be she is a cynic who will do whatever it takes for power. i don't think that's true. even her interventionist tendencies -- like her pushing to back up the rebels in libya -- seem to be borne of idealism if anything. she may claim kissinger as a friend but i don't think she is machiavellian and ruthless the way he was.

― Treeship, Sunday, March 27, 2016 6:07 AM (Yesterday)

eh, it's pretty hard to put an "idealistic" spin on her role in the coup in honduras.

she was also widely popular among democratic voters and her candidacy will be a historic event

She also sucks up cash like a SuperMop, AND considers the Mubaraks personal friends.

sick freestyle

http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/00494/SNN2702A_682_494542a.jpg

thats cool that theres a beer that predicts what job u will have

i guess that means i will be a fat tire soon

well then I'm a fuckin founding father bitches

which founding father will you be a-fuckin

damn it feels good to be a yuengling

i bet she was very excited to open that case: "WHEW presidente, glad i didnt get "bartender", what a shitty...oh im sorry youre still here arent u? here, have a campaign button."

which founding father will you be a-fuckin

not really my favorite Roseanne Cash tune but a good'un

She also sucks up cash like a SuperMop, AND considers the Mubaraks personal friends.

― we can be heroes just for about 3.6 seconds (Dr Morbius), Sunday, March 27, 2016 10:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

sick freestyle

― Neanderthal, Sunday, March 27, 2016 10:11 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol

Haven't read this yet, but when it showed up on my FB wall and I saw the headline, my first reaction wasn't "That's so ridiculous." It actually made sense at least a couple of ways right away.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/the-case-for-vice-president-al-franken-213756

i read that this morning. it's...actually kind of otm??????

the logic is basically: hrc needs the energized progressive vote and someone who can effectively manage the trump media circus. lots of other choices have too may downsides (sherrod brown leaving the senate means kasich picks his successor; julian castro too green and too pro-TPP; other women too womeny; not that many dem govs)

That's what I thought, beyond the obvious cover he provides from the left: that if you're going to face Trump, instead of the normal "attack dog," having someone with a sense of humour is your best way to highlight his ridiculousness.

thats basically it.

i was gonna share that article but then the author at the end was like "plus if its franken thatll make this more entertaining and thats what rly matters 4 me" and i was getting some morbsian apoplexy

It comes down in the end to how you view the prospect of facing Trump. If you see it as an unlosable election, you probably go for the safest pick possible--a familiar senator or someone. But if you instead see something incomparably strange and unpredictable ahead, where you can't just sit back and end up getting blindsided by something, you pick someone less obvious.

eh, it's pretty hard to put an "idealistic" spin on her role in the coup in honduras.― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), 28. marts 2016 03:31 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is really vague, and yet I'm 100% sure it's untrue.

If she is genuinely naive enough to think that democracy and freedom would flourish under a brutal military dictatorship that's arguably more worrying than a cynical calculation to shore up American interests.

Also, I've seen no evidence she had anything to do with the coup. And I checked for it the last time this kind of vague insinuations bubbled up in this thread. Although that time it was only her behaviour after the coup that was misconstrued.

Misconstrued how?

it's a coup, they're misconstrued, c'mon

The political version of the croque monsieur

should probably go in the quiddities thread too:

It was about 9 p.m. on a recent Saturday, the first I had off in two months, and I was sipping an organic vodka and rosemary cocktail at a restaurant in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

My cellphone rang. Bernie Sanders wanted to talk. He was worried that reporters were starting to conclude that he had no chance of winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

“I don’t want to disturb the media narrative too much,” he said wryly, with his unmistakable Brooklyn inflection. “But don’t write us off.”

The Sanders campaign is unlike any other this election cycle. The packed rallies of liberals, young people and union workers; the anger at Wall Street; the indie rock anthems; and the kiwi slices consumed aboard his campaign plane characterize a movement that feels both unexpected and yet perfectly aligned with this cultural moment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/29/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign.html?ribbon-ad-idx=4&rref=homepage&module=Ribbon&version=origin®ion=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Home%20Page&pgtype=article

x-posts: It was insinuated that the Americans supported the coup because they insisted on new elections instead of reinstating the overthrown president. Without bringing the constitutional crisis into the equation (and also leaving out the fact that he would have had to step down in november 2009 anyway, as the constitution doesn't allow for re-election)

Clinton admits to having strategised with other LATAM leaders to work on a transition of power, rather than allowing Zelaya back - which went against the EU, UN and OAS line on the legitimacy of his removal and contradicted Obama's own statement that he was the proper president of Honduras. Even if you want to read some kind of noble intent into the statement that she was working towards ensuring free and fair elections in continuing to provide political and material support for the interim government, it clearly didn't work. The elections were rigged and the country has seen a horrific, ongoing wave of political murders ever since.

Propping up dictatorships is part of the job description but if she's an idealist, she's an incredibly naive and inept one.

Ah I was wondering about the ilx favouritism shown but that'd be it

x-post: Link? There was a transition of power at the exact time that it was supposed to be, according to the constitution. Which is a pretty significant detail, imo.

Wait, do you want me to provide a link to the effect that the 2009 Honduran election was not free and fair or a link to prove that there has been a horrific wave of political murder? Are you disputing the idea that there was a coup?

No. I'd like a link to Hillary discussing her own role.

It's in her autobiography, Hard Choices, though the key quote is this:

“In the subsequent days I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary Espinosa in Mexico,” Clinton writes. “We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot.”

None of this is really disputed, even by Clinton supporters.

I'm sure Fred can step up to the plate though.

well she said "free and fair" so that checks out

@ShariVari: No, I'm not disputing any of that either. But I don't find that quote supports a lot of the insinuations out there about her role in the time after the coup, not to say anything about any alleged 'role in the coup' as said by JD upthread.

Also, just out of curiosity, where is that quote from? The fact that it includes 'Clinton writes' makes me think it's not taken directly from the book ;)

hey look what happens when you google things

https://books.google.com/books?id=XJDHAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=%22In+the+subsequent+days+I+spoke+with+my+counterparts+around+the+hemisphere,+including+Secretary+Espinosa+in+Mexico.%22+%22We+strategized+on+a+plan+to+restore+order+in+Honduras+and+ensure+that+free+and+fair+elections+could+be+held+quickly+and+legitimately,+which+would+render+the+question+of+Zelaya+moot.%22&source=bl&ots=hpeKCn9zw0&sig=kjU9cUDCRm1RDurCKYX76EGn9o0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBrYWcxuPLAhVCSyYKHaIGCr4Q6AEIHTAA#v=onepage&q=%22In%20the%20subsequent%20days%20I%20spoke%20with%20my%20counterparts%20around%20the%20hemisphere%2C%20including%20Secretary%20Espinosa%20in%20Mexico.%22%20%22We%20strategized%20on%20a%20plan%20to%20restore%20order%20in%20Honduras%20and%20ensure%20that%20free%20and%20fair%20elections%20could%20be%20held%20quickly%20and%20legitimately%2C%20which%20would%20render%20the%20question%20of%20Zelaya%20moot.%22&f=false

but maybe that was THE GHOSTWRITER protecting her??!!!!

crut, that's not how ShariVari quoted it. I wasn't disputing the quote at all, I was just interested in knowing where he took it from, and reading the context. ShariVari often has interesting links.