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

i like barney, but he seems like a prick

― k3vin k., Wednesday, March 30, 2016

I recommend his memoir, one of the best of its kind: well-written (no ghost writer as far as I can tell) narrative about how purity's the enemy if you're in the minority. I wrote this at the time:

That excrescence, to which Frank devotes an entire chapter, might never have made it out of committee had opponents done the boring work of calling and writing congressmen. This chapter contains the book’s second leitmotif: Liberals protest. Conservatives vote. Liberals chant. Conservatives organize. The National Rifle Association, the most successful voting bloc in the country’s history, does it right. The NRA, writes Frank, urges “urge all of their adherents to get on the voting rolls. They are diligent to the point of obsession in making sure that elected officials hear from everyone in their constituencies who opposes any limits on guns…” A denizen of a safe district who spent half his political life in the minority, Frank has no patience for purity. Activists who reject partial victories get the full force of his contempt

The excrescence is DADT.

i hate the fucker.

More Stone!

http://www.gq.com/story/roger-stone-donald-trump-interview

He called me a henchman, and I don't really object to that, but henchmen get paid, and I have been paid nothing by Trump.

so he's Trump's Barney Frank

tbh i lost a lot of respect for frank after reading that interview, his opinions come off as lazy and misinformed at best, and defensive of the worst aspects of modern u.s. politics at worst.

Well if that’s the case it’s even dumber than I thought. The financial system is people lending money to other people so they can do things. I do think that he overstates it when he says, “they’re all corrupt.” It’s simply not true.

i don't think bernie has ever said that every single person in america's financial system is "corrupt," he's said that america's campaign financing system is corrupt and harmful to democratic politics. which is, in and of itself, a completely normal opinion that countless ppl across the political spectrum, including obama, have expressed over the last decade. the primary difference between sanders and other liberal politicians is that he's put that opinion front and center in his platform in a way that makes politicians who are basically comfortable with the system and proud of their accomplishments within it (like frank) uncomfortable.

also calling sanders a "mccarthyite" for calling on clinton to release her wall street speeches is pretty gross, jeez.

The remarks on caucuses are pretty otm, though.

oh good, our conversion into Facebook is complete

a few more flowcharts drained of jokes and we can call it "clemenzaland"

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

welp

this is fun

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-fact-check_us_56fc375fe4b0daf53aee9175

not even going to read the Politico piece beyond its assertion of what Hillary "needs" to beat Trump when the answer is anything beyond "continue existing through November."

I raised an eyebrow at "the Democrats don't need to recruit a Latino anymore" and stopped reading once I got to "the Democrats don't need to include another woman"

If your takeaway from all of this is "the Republicans are so toxic that we can, no MUST go back to selecting an older white man to be VP", you should probably stop writing

like, there are multiple reasons why Franken would at least be an interesting pick to discuss and the article touches on some of them, but including "plus we don't have to worry about minorities or women anymore" is immediate middle-finger rhetoric

oh i didn't read the article

hp;dr

oh that was politico lol

still

oh politicopaws

Are Jews not a minority group anymore? I haven't read the article either, but if its POV is "no need to pick a minority - we can go with this Jewish guy" that's kind of interesting, no?

the argument is that hillary needs to shore up her left flank, keep the rust belt happy and have someone who can trade shittalk with trump. franken sort of superficially looks like he could do all 3.

BUT, i don't know if that's what hillary would need to look for in a running mate AND there's a lot to quibble about in terms of franken's ability to those 3 things anyway

i like him ok as a senator but come on

TS Gremlins 2 vs Trading Places

i'd shore up her left flank if you know what i mean

somewhat reduces the daylight between "bozo" and "the serious people"

i don't think bernie has ever said that every single person in america's financial system is "corrupt," he's said that america's campaign financing system is corrupt and harmful to democratic politics.

Then blame the interviewer not Frank, because he certainly gave the impression that Bernie had said that.

A shock! Trump would be least popular nominee in modern times.

Man, that Matthews-Trump interview from yesterday: outside of Palin, I don't remember a clearer case of a politician with a "What I am supposed to say here?" thought bubble over his head as he tries to answer a question. They argued and yelled and interrupted each other for four hours on CNN last night--thought Trump's surrogate was going to break down crying at one point--and then, just before midnight, they brought Betty White in for 10 minutes.

I think the main issue that Frank has with Sanders and his supporters is their seeming belief that a model of ideological and fundraising purity that can work for one quixotic Senator from a small liberal state can be a model for a national party, and their willingness to attack Clinton for making the deals and accepting the fundraising that are necessary to actually make things happen in the political world that exists.

does any of this hurt Trump, even if he loses WI, Real Clear Politics shows him with sizeable leads in California, New York and Pennsylvania...

that politico franken article was already posted, and some of y'all liked it!

RCP is using old polls for California in their average. the latest poll in CA had Trump's lead at 1, and 538's polls-plus model now gives the odds of a Cruz victory in CA at around 55%. There hasn't been an actual poll to show him in the lead yet, but there's ample time before that primary to swing in either direction.

He's largely winning by a lot in PA because of vote splitting - Kasich and Cruz both polling in the 20%s there. The only way for Kasich or Cruz to win there is if one asks his followers to vote for his competitor, and who knows how well that will go.

3 of those polls used in RCP's average for CA, for instance, were taken before Rubio even dropped out. the one with Trump's lead to 1 is the only post-Rubio poll there.

technically also, Pennsylvania's most recent poll (which showed Kasisch within 3 points of Trump) spanned two days in which Rubio was still in the race. so who knows what's going on there.

puritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypuritypurity

well you sure just typed "purity" a buncha times congrats

o. nate OTM.

In that Frank interview, the statement regarding individuals who sat out the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections being angry at Democrats for not being able to produce policies they like struck a chord with me. Applies to so many enthusiastic Bernie supporters I know.

that's the part of Frank's thinking that's always resonated. Unlike the candidate of his choice, he has worked and was in the minority for half his public life using amendment. That's the part of his criticism of Sanders that sounds bat shit .

*amendments

Krugman especially sharp today with his analysis of the deer-in-the-headlights reaction of the Republican establishment to the rise of Trump:

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/the-pathos-of-republican-reformers

that politico franken article was already posted, and some of y'all liked it!

― global tetrahedron, Thursday, March 31, 2016 10:53 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh sorry, i know that's a bad habit on these threads

ftr I didn't open it the first time

I missed my window to post this earlier

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d8/AlFranken_WhyNotMe.jpg/220px-AlFranken_WhyNotMe.jpg

The initial Franken post gave me big LOLs just because I imagined the snit my mother would have if it happened.

Facebook is summarizing that Barney Frank interview as "Barney Frank: Former Congressman Expresses Disinterest in Seeing 'The Big Short' in Interview" for me.

E.J. Dionne is not a statistician, not does he have a perfect track record as an astute observer of the political moment. However I thought this piece was worth some eyeball time:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-great-trump-distortion/2016/03/30/3f93792a-f6a6-11e5-8b23-538270a1ca31_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Basically, Trump is currently eating up the airwaves not because he's popular, but because cameras like to follow whatever's in motion. It doesn't mean that Trump or Trumpian ideas are popular. In fact, Obama's popularity eclipses Donald's, yet Obama is widely thought to be an unpopular and failed President.

Obama’s approval rating is at 89 percent with Democrats and 50 percent among independents. But it stands at only 12 percent with Republicans and 9 percent among conservative Republicans. Yet the voices of conservative Republicans are being amplified beyond all reason by the obsession with Trump and the GOP’s struggles.

So the people speaking loudest say Obama sucks, so that attitude gets more headlines. No one is interviewing the people who think he's more or less okay. Got it.

Back to the Hateful Yam:

A March 16-21 Quinnipiac poll found that Trump was viewed favorably by 62 percent of Republicans but only 34 percent of independents and 6 percent of Democrats. His overall favorability rating: 33 percent. In the case of Trump, affection is mostly a Republican phenomenon.... Trumpism is not sweeping the nation. It has a strong foothold only in the Republican Party, and not even all of it.

I don't mean "Democrats, relax because it's in the bag," but rather "Democrats, relax (a little) because this ridiculousness is still a niche phenomenon." The people with the loudest voices still only get one vote each.

The remarks on caucuses are pretty otm, though.

― Frederik B, Thursday, March 31, 2016 1:04 AM (8 hours ago)

The part where he accused participants of having a lot of time on their hands?

yet Obama is widely thought to be an unpopular and failed President.

by GOP rabble maybe

frank is being his usual Good Dem and basically trotting out all of the usual pro-HRC anti-bernie talking points, but his point that caucuses are dumb and less democratic than primaries is definitely right. that said i do think bernie's success in caucuses is heavily confounded by the demographics of states that happen to hold caucuses, something i haven't seen enough people point out

Οὖτις, precisely, see above. To borrow a bit from George Saunders, if you're in a room with ten people and one guy has a megaphone, you're going to remember his opinions more than those of the people quietly speaking in the corner.

Terrific read: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_03/how_barack_obama_destroyed_the060108.php

these "'Silent' 'Majority' Stands With Trump" signs are just the best. these idiots are certainly NOT a majority, and for the love of fuck they are not silent - irl or online. i've never seen a group of people so loud and incapable of shutting tfu.

barney frank, barty frack, party hack

though the Bernie superfans certainly give them a run for their money ;)

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