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

the mailman...delivers

the mailman always relies on anecdotal information to make a point

xposts agreed there's no way Hillary picks Bernie Sanders for that slot. There's no value-added, it gives oppo the add'l "Commie" target, and anyway as Alfred says upthread why would he ever accept? It's asking to be marginalized. Same for Warren. Unfortunately, balancing the ticket will not mean appeasing disgruntled progressives. Esp. for HRC.

and i also don't get the thinking where she has more influence as a senator than she does as the president of the united states. i also don't understand why she'd lose her senate seat if she ran for president. she's senator until 2018, right?

BASICALLY WE DISAGREE ALFRED

― Karl Malone,

Not if we swap Warren for k3vin

xpost anyway not trying to be confrontational or anything, i just don't think warren running for president is/was a ridiculously bad idea. my gut is that she would do well. i'm biased because i personally think she's fantastic, i think she's a great public speaker, and a great communicator. also i really really really want to help elect the first female president, and i would be sooooo much more into that if it were warren instead of clinton.

ultimately they're one of 100 people making up one half of the legislative branch. the president runs the executive branch.

This is reductive in the extreme. The president "runs" the executive branch - by adhering to laws, made by the legislature - for up to 8 years. A single Senator, even one who only wins two terms, can powerfully influence the direction of the executive branch for 12 years, and can, with sufficient committee influence, subpoena any member of the executive branch to hold them accountable and hence the entire President's administration.

An influential Senator decides to run for President entirely because of ego and perhaps for a change of pace (i.e. recesses are boring for them)

Not if we swap Warren for k3vin

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, March 28, 2016 4:44 PM (3 minutes ago)

i would bring the people togethuh

you just get a bunch of birds to follow you around and fly all over you, people love that

xpost the Captain and Tenille platform

EW still biding time w/ endorsement. If she ever did sign onto Sanders (I don't believe she will) and they made the highly unusual move of announcing her as running mate in the next few weeks, I don't see how they wouldn't sweep past HRC. If in such a scenario Bernie, at 74, announced his intention to serve a single term making EW presumptive 2020 nominee/pseudo-incumbent they would probably get a double-digit bounce.....

the president "runs" the executive branch by appointing all of the people who run its divisions (departments), who answer either directly or indirectly to the president; appointing the members of the federal judiciary, including the supreme court, when vacancies arise; and by signing into law or vetoing bills voted on by the legislative branch. among other things. no one is gonna slatepitch me that a senator *well actually* has more power than a president

look, guys, we all love Elizabeth Warren -- we're fighting about where she'd do the most good.

no I'm actually fighting about the fact that civics 101 is not sufficient to explain all the complexities of power and influence in DC, especially when comparing an 8 year term to a career that might easily span 30+ years

in addition to the idea that elected officials are real people with their own agency and career choices to make instead of comic book characters who should take up excalibur and fight for us because it would be awesome, that's why

but k3vin knows how the executive branch works so stick a fork in me folks I'm donezo

artist's conception of warren at the end of her 30+ year senate career

http://i.imgur.com/M6vIvHq.jpg

no I'm actually fighting about the fact that civics 101 is not sufficient to explain all the complexities of power and influence in DC, especially when comparing an 8 year term to a career that might easily span 30+ years

― other people systems as applicable (El Tomboto), Monday, March 28, 2016 5:04 PM (3 minutes ago)

we're talking about this in the context of warren, who's in her late 60s. but anyway i'd still disagree, a president's legacy lives on long after they've left office, through their judicial appointments especially

in addition to the idea that elected officials are real people with their own agency and career choices to make instead of comic book characters who should take up excalibur and fight for us because it would be awesome, that's why

― other people systems as applicable (El Tomboto), Monday, March 28, 2016 5:06 PM (4 minutes ago)

no one is blaming warren for not running, take a deep breath

it seems like there would be a ton variables making one position more "powerful" or effective than another, e.g. who controls congress and by what margin, the number and import of the preceding admin's executive orders needing to be reversed, whether or not as an executive you are capable of still wielding influence in congress, etc.

FWIW I think a lot of Presidents' legacies lives on because most popular history is still stuck on biographies of "great men" instead of how shit actually works

Personally I think she'd be more valuable in the white house. For one, progressive replacement would ride her coattails into the senate here in MA, she would demonstrate combativeness and put a bright face on progressivism nationally.

in know senators still have to spend most of their time on the phone begging for money, presidents don't have that duty anymore, do they?

i understand that's the reason people jump from the senate to a cabinet post, which always seems like a huge step down and a political death sentence from the outside, to me. but it's probably cushier!

Senators confirm judicial and cabinet appointments - Senators write the laws the President gets to sign - Senators (as above) get to hold the executive branch "accountable" at their whimsy if they accrue sufficient influence, and they can do all of this for decades. They also get to try all impeachments. Senators are the most atavistic and undemocratic aspect of our entire enterprise, and I include the judiciary in that (which has extensive processes of appeal and review etc - the Senate just does shit and if you don't like it well elect a new one, three elections at a time)

senate to a cabinet post, which always seems like a huge step down and a political death sentence from the outside, to me. but it's probably cushier!

Retirement lap. And sets you up for a much more lucrative private sector post-retirement lap lap.

Best way to rid the Republic of a nuisance legislator is to kick'em to the executive branch

The reason it's unusual to announce your running mate before you have clinched the nomination is the same it's unusual to name your cabinet picks before you have clinched the nomination. Ditto promising to serve only one term.

Not many people do these things because (A) they are rightly perceived as gun-jumping and gimmicky, (B) they are as grounded in reality as fantasy baseball is, and (C) because few voters make their decisions based on these kinds of tissue-paper promises.

Also they've basically never worked, but I know that 2016 is not he year in which one is permitted to cite history as precedent.

gah, The reason it's unusual to announce your running mate before you have clinched the nomination is the same reason why it's unusual to name your cabinet picks before you have clinched the nomination.

i half expected Trump to name his and then to attempt to enter the White HOuse to start working last week

I like Warren but I actually think she's an annoying public speaker, she sound patronizing all the time. Plus I still think the Indian this is a ding on her, regardless of whether or not she used it to her 'advantage' (I don'tt hink she did, but I also don't like people claiming heritage based on family lore of cherokee princesses, she should know better). She's fine in the Senate.

remember when trump called her "the indian"? cool guy

the main thing I didn't like about that was the insinuation that being indian was somehow less.

yeah, i interpreted it as totally racist.

ed kilgore on the logistical mess of planning the RNC convention:

...News-media interest in a contested convention so far has focused almost entirely on byzantine scenarios for the presidential balloting and what they might produce. But a better and more immediate question is whether chaos will break out long before the balloting begins, in the full view of cameras and with no one in particular in charge.

As I’ve confirmed by conversations with veterans of conventions in both parties (and from my own experience as a script and speech staffer at six Democratic conventions), the modern national party conclave is designed to be celebratory, not deliberative. Many internal convention decisions normally made by the putative nominee’s operatives will have to be made some other way, and the number of conflicts could massively proliferate if the nomination contest spills over into every corner of the event, making every routine decision part of the struggle for power. Is the chairman of the host committee who typically greets delegates after the opening gavel a Trump person or a Cruz person? Maybe the convention needs two greeters! Is there boilerplate language in the draft platform carried over from the last five conventions that could serve as a point of departure for undermining a candidate’s support (e.g., vague support for trade agreements condemned as job losers by Trump or for infrastructure investments condemned by Cruz as wasteful)? They won’t be boilerplate anymore; they could become the meat and potatoes of minority reports and platform fights. Normally noncontroversial proceedings such as credentials and rules could and probably will become exceptionally controversial, making “neutral” decision-making by the event’s nomenklatura impossible.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/03/this-problem-might-cause-chaos-at-gop-convention.html#

Paul Ryan should invite Rage Against the Machine to play. Iirc that worked out last time, and besides, he's a fan.

i bet someone in the RNC invites springsteen to play born in the usa EVERY YEAR

Pink Floyd might be more apt

"Ooh babe, of course mama's gonna help build the wall" would be a neat, gender bending slogan for Trump he should think about it

Maybe we hypothesized this already when I asked rhetorically so many posts back, but when Trump doesn't lose, how will he go out? Swinging and starting shit? I expect he'd go out like Ice T at the end of the "OG" album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1YH6u6jHzY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38_MwcGDNhQ

I like the way CNN described Trump's threatened lawsuit over Louisiana delegates: "Donald Trump and Ted Cruz now have something to fight about other than their wives."

and over who the most hated man in america is

Cruz's face looks like a croissant

one that hasn't been baked yet, maybe, like a pillsbury crescent straight out the fridge

"Ted Cruz has the face of an unbaked croissant" is solid gold, thanking you both

so does il douche though tbf, or maybe it's more like an unbaked hungryman

his is more like playdough that got left out in the sun

sorry, hungry jack xpost

iirc Warren got added to a school register through no action of her own and spoke speculatively about her heritage (ie she spoke of stories she had heard) rather than saying definitively that she has Indian roots.

lotta movement towards Trump in the Wisconsin race today in the Pollsplus and BETTING MARKETs today.

gonna be a close one, though not winner-take-all, one I think Cruz needs to win for narrative.

really feel like it's a shame that Pennsylvania has both Kasich and Cruz doing decently, if one of them was in single digits he could just do the "vote for my enemy" Ohio strategy again.

xpost yeah that whole thing got twisted around badly

Someone needs to compile the list of things that Ted Cruz's face has been compared to. I like Taibbi's: "It looks like someone sewed pieces of a waterlogged Reagan mask together at gunpoint."