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

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.

The quote was copied from an Al Jazeera article but reported in the same way by Huff Post, Slate, the Guardian and others.

The whole segment of the book is instructive, though - rolling back the idea that a coup even took place and implying that everything more or less worked out well in the transition back to civilian rule. There is no mention of death squads, the suspension of habeas corpus, the removal of the right to free speech and freedom of association during the election period, the overwhelming condemnation of Zelaya's removal by the international community, etc.

Whether the U.S. had a role in planning the coup is a grey area and it's perfectly possible they didn't (state department people on the ground appear to have condemned it in internal memos) but whitewashing what happened isn't accidental.

How Clinton’s email scandal took root

The FBI is now trying to determine whether a crime was committed in the handling of that classified material. It is also examining whether the server was hacked.

One hundred forty-seven FBI agents have been deployed to run down leads, according to a lawmaker briefed by FBI Director James B. Comey. The FBI has accelerated the investigation because officials want to avoid the possibility of announcing any action too close to the election.

Well there's not a whole lot else for them to do

this ought to be "self-recommending" but idk if i have the energy for it -- patricia lockwood goes to a trump rally

https://newrepublic.com/article/131936/lost-trumplandia

thanks for posting that, i'm enjoying it immensely

Can anyone explain clearly to me the current delegate "math" situation? What I really want is to see what the dem primary looks like without superdelegates, i.e., assuming the superdelegates will switch to whoever has the majority of vote/caucus-based delegates, what percent of the remaining vote/caucus-based delegates does Bernie need to get a majority of them?

I know that it's 1243 to 975 in non-super delegates right now. I'm unclear on how many non-super delegates remain.

iirc, he needs to win ~58% of remaining pledged delegates

ignore the dumb title/url: http://www.npr.org/2016/03/27/472056754/despite-the-math-bernie-sanders-has-already-won

Going into the day, he would have needed 58 percent of all remaining delegates for a pledged majority. Coming out, he would need 57 percent. With superdelegates factored in, he needs a whopping 67 percent of all remaining delegates. (The Sanders campaign is focused on winning a pledged majority, because superdelegates can switch their allegiances. The Sanders team believes they will do that if he wins a pledged majority.)

be sure to read the article, though, especially the latter half where it details how well he would need to do in key upcoming primaries

Truly, use the Fivethirtyeight delegate tracker - it's really good:
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

The only thing that's confusing is 538 "targets". These "targets" are based on candidates' past demographic results. Most of Bernie Sanders' wins will come from certain demographics; ditto for Clinton. In states with tons of young people and progressives, for instance, he is expected to do well. He will have a high "target" there. In states with lots of POC, olds and moderates, Clinton will do well. Her target will be higher there. If a candidate is trailing their target, they are falling short of what they need to (eventually) clinch the nomination, given state-by-state demographics.

The targets are relevant/interesting because they factor in future races. Demographically, Sanders is expected to do well in many of the races yet to come; he is still behind where he ought to be if he hopes to clinch.

the problem with those "targets" is i don't think they've updated them since the beginning of the race. so bernie actually needs to outperform those targets by quite a bit to get to a majority

x-post to article about 147 FBI agents under its Republican head, Comey investigating the email thing

http://nypost.com/2016/03/20/will-hillary-get-charged-or-what/

unnamed "career agents" say...

<i>the problem with those "targets" is i don't think they've updated them since the beginning of the race. so bernie actually needs to outperform those targets by quite a bit to get to a majority</i>

Yes - because he is at a deficit he needs to outperform the target in each state.

But the targets are v helpful because they put the candidates' delegate counts into perspective after a given state primary/caucus. "Bernie wins!" is irrelevant. But seeing how well Clinton/Sanders did vs their target lets you understand how momentum or expectatons are shifting.

yeah

58% - 57%, by the way, is rounded. I think he made up closer to a percentage point and a half on Saturday and I have the remaining pledged delegates needed at 56.7%.

(The Sanders campaign is focused on winning a pledged majority, because superdelegates can switch their allegiances. The Sanders team believes they will do that if he wins a pledged majority.)

This is OK for public consumption, because it places a burden of expectations on the party, but it does not describe the Democratic Party as I know it or the designated role of superdelegates to save the party from the enthusiasm of its progressive voters.

did this already get covered here? http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/03/donald-trump-republican-convention-213770
this is going to be so much fun

(xpost) Isn't that more or less what happened in 2008 (leaving aside the word "progressive"; it's fair to say that the enthusiasm was on Obama's side).

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/silver-superdelegates-1.png?w=575&h=465

Obviously, Clinton's superdelegate lead is much larger this time.

The Patricia Lockwood article is v good

That Politico piece is ridiculous. A whole lot of contorting to avoid the fact that way more actual individual primary voters have voted for Trump than for any other individual candidate. The author should have just extended his dumb "95 yards of a hundred-yard dash" analogy by saying the "not-Trumps" won the race because Ted ran 65 yards, Marco ran 45 and Kasich ran 30 or some such foolishness.

i think he makes a few valid points though. the degree to which non-trump republican voters seem to actually hate trump seems unusual. and they make up a majority of the republican electorate.

for sure, and the party is well within its rights to deny him the nomination according to the agreed-upon rules, I just think it's disingenuous to so blatantly evade the fact that he's gotten significantly more votes so far than anyone else.

berniebro on fb breathlessly pinging me w/ every update on this hillary email case. he claims he doesn't actually want her to be indicted but it seems pretty transparent. i told him to msg me again when they actually indict her but he couldn't help himself :(

i wish she hadn't set up the server in her bathroom. that detail makes the whole thing way better fodder for the conspiracy-minded aka republicans

That Politico piece is ridiculous.

If you say so. But the American political system has never been a direct democracy. It always interposes representatives and procedural rules between the mass of citizens and the power to make decisions. Trump is basing his argument on principles of direct democracy, but even then it is a weak argument, if he does not command the votes of either a majority of voters or a majority of delegates.

In a parliamentary system, someone in Trump's position would have to make a coalition and share power, which is what he'll effectively be expected to do at the convention: seek coalition partners who will allow him to control an actual majority, not just a plurality. If he can't put together a majority coalition, but Cruz or someone else can, then fuck him, he has lost the nomination and it is fair and square.

"fair and square" are not legal principles - they're in the eye of the beholder. and when your system is built on legitimacy what matters is perception not the arcane bylaws of a political party (esp when part of what is under threat is said party's authority as a representative of its voting base)

I just like that they're in an unresolvable bind. They won't be breaking any rules by denying Trump, but they will have a mutiny. And if they give it to him, they'll have Trump. Good luck.

remember they can make any laws they want. they can say first day in cleveland: "electors have been reduced to 1: mitt romney." the problem isn't the breaking the rules, the problem is not picking trump without alienating his supporters. afaict there's no way to do it unless someone else comes into the convention w/ more delegates.

prevailing wisdom is that hillary would never pick bernie or that he would never take it because he'd have more power in the senate. but nothing is getting passed in the senate anyway, and vermont is a safe seat to defend... VP slot is where you make speeches, which Bernie is good at, and it'd allow Hillary to grab a few economic populists from trump, sate the young, etc. why wouldn't hillary offer him?

Nobody cares how they do whatever. clemenza otm. this disastrous shit show couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

xp - they're both elderly. Someone on the ticket needs to not qualify for Early Bird Senior Specials.

sherrod brown maybe? if she was asked i think warren would say yes. there are options in the party who are younger + target similar audiences that bernie does.

clinton/bernie would seem like a one term plan to me, not a plan for another 12-16 years of Democratic control

oh, milo said basically the same thing

Assuming Trump doesn't have an outright majority and none of the other candidates with delegates are anywhere near to being aligned with Trump's positions, then it means the results of the election process were inconclusive. Any conclusion arrived at will be a kludge, one that yokes together pieces that don't fit and don't agree. This falling apart is a natural outcome of the Republican party's internal divisions. The only process that works in such a case is horse-trading, bargaining and compromise, which the Republican base has been taught to revile and will cause many of them to turn away from the result, whatever it is.

So, it's just as many people have pointed out, a case of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. The convention will award the nomination to someone, and whoever they choose will not represent the party, because a party so divided cannot be represented by any one.

Sherrod Brown would be great, if only because it would put his wife, former Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Connie Schultz, at the White House on a regular basis; thereby causing early death via heart attack for thousands of moronic Ohioans whose letters I've seen in the PD over the years and who comment on her Facebook page.

please tell me you guys understand why sherrod brown would be an awful pick for VP

from whose perspective? i can imagine his constituents would prefer him in the senate but i only see upside for hillary's campaign in putting a young white male populist reformer type from a major swing state on the ticket.

prevailing wisdom is that hillary would never pick bernie or that he would never take it because he'd have more power in the senate. but nothing is getting passed in the senate anyway, and vermont is a safe seat to defend... VP slot is where you make speeches, which Bernie is good at, and it'd allow Hillary to grab a few economic populists from trump, sate the young, etc. why wouldn't hillary offer him?

Bernie is just fine in the Senate, thanks. Why would he be veep when he'd be reliant on the generosity of the president for any power or influencee?

that seems to be the CW but i think when you're asked to be VP it's very hard to say no

assume k3vin means that kasich would get to appoint his replacement, in a year when retaking the senate is more precarious than winning the presidency

when a senator vacates his seat to work in the executive branch, his replacement is picked by that state's governor. sherrod brown represents ohio. ohio's governor is john kasich

bernie has said any endorsement of hillary would come with a 'so what are you going to do for me/my supporters' sort of leveraging. i feel like he could add a lot to the ticket and he might do it if given certain concessions/leeway. i dunno.

he loses any ability to continue exerting that leverage in the future when he agrees to be her subordinate

whatever movement Sanders leads dies when he enters the White House. I don't get it. It's like libs who wanted Warren to run for president.

how marvelous to have some fiction of a liberal firebrand cohort in the Senate. Ted Kennedy was the last of'em.