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

i havent finished the nydn transscript, but i havent found anything that is that damning compared to previous statements. he has very broad ideas about policy that he wants but he's not really good with specifics. am i missing anything?

That's basically it, just a lot of it in one place. I think I was sort of hoping he was keeping the message simple but had thought all of these things through.

I saw a pre-primary video of Trump yesterday and, true to the stories circulating, he did look and seem tired. To the extent that, for a change, he looked and sounded like a halfway reasonable person (except for that thing where he looked like he'd just gone face first into a bowl of butterscotch pudding).

I have a feeling the Republicans are headed for the point of maximum awkwardness re the delegate count. Somewhere over, I don't know, 1,100 for Trump make it very difficult for them to deny him (without incredible anger), and anywhere under 1,000 renders complaints from Trump less and less valid. I think Trump might end up somewhere in the middle.

xpost Are Bernie's policy ideas in fact so broad, or is he instead savvy about messaging? I say this as a supporter who is sometimes frustrated w/ his tendency to gloss over details. After all this is a ranking member of the Budget committee who also sits on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, etc. High Wonk stuff. I wonder if instead he knows how precious media attention is (esp. for a marginal candidate w/ an unconventional platform), and that a certain amount of cynicism from decades of witnessing the ascent of so many idiot colleagues—has him deliberately going big and simple and repetitive.

how do you think the potus should best address it keeping in mind the growth of industry in non-first world countries

how about sizable assistance to implement eonc growth via greenest possible methods? after we cut DoD budget in half.

(i know this won't happen and i recognize yr attempt at gotcha question)

it's not a "gotcha" question. you said that the foreign affairs stuff will work itself out once we handle climate change but from what i can tell the route to addressing climate change runs directly through foreign affairs.

re cutting the DoD budget, which parts do you recommend we cut? are you in favor of Trump's plan of shedding any countries under our defense umbrella? aka, pacific nations, europe / NATO, middle eastern countries? do you think there might be consequences to withdrawing from these agreements in terms of Russian or Chinese or Iranian reactions + potential aggression? i don't think these are side questions - these are v important questions and i don't know if Bernie has given them a ton of thought. nb i believe DoD can be cut too but i think some of this is what ppl are balking at - these broadsides that don't seem to address the specific conditions that are essential to work out.

i'm not running for office; i don't need a motherfucking plan.

i agree that politically apathetic ppl not running for office probably don't need to think about these things

Cutting defense spending as I understand his position has less to do with any radical realignment or policies of engagement (although not being in war all the time wld help) as it does curbing the influence of lobbyists and gaming defense contracts so that we're not paying exponentially more than fair-market value.

realistic ppl who know nothing will be done in time. xp

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43648/climate-change-slavery/

start by cutting the F-35?

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43465/f-35-disaster/

bernie's been in congress for decades -- i'm pretty sure he's given the topic some thought

and i'm sure HRC will cut Waste, Fraud and Abuse in the defense contracting/procurement system.

i havent finished the nydn transscript, but i havent found anything that is that damning compared to previous statements. he has very broad ideas about policy that he wants but he's not really good with specifics. am i missing anything?

nah it's really not as bad as people are making it out to be. it's also pretty unforgivingly edited/transcribed and the interviewer is a dick

If you're not sufficiently upset about this, here are the defense omnibus earmarks:

http://www.protectingtaxpayers.org/assets/files/2014-Defense-Earmarks-Omnibus-Bill.pdf

Incidentally, those earmarks alone nearly equal the amount projected to close gap btw public and private govt. higher-ed spending that could make public colleges and universities tuition-free

voter id laws in wisconsin are "working"

http://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-caused-major-problems-at-the-polls-last-night/

xpost* "public and private higher-ed spending"

Wonder how much this helped Sanders' numbers

Xpost

The Nation always sez i have read all my free articles (for life i guess)... So why did it help Sanders?

Just wondering out loud if voter suppression ends up working in his favor, the article did not get into that

looks like they are working hard to keep both blacks and students home come November, so maybe a wash in the primary

my big takeaway from these primaries is that if the left wants to stand a chance at changing anything they are going to need to [prioritize?] taking over their state governance or the voter suppression alone is going to marginalize them for years to come.

which they are not doing, cuz protest voting for Bernie is easier/more exciting

Right, yes, successful characterization of millions and millions of voters

xpost agreed and also revisiting Voting Rights Act w/ new appointment to court, if/when

Do you guys really think Sanders' down-ticket efforts or lack thereof have more to do with him not caring or acting selfishly than with plain fact that he is not a member of the Dem party, until recently has had zero national profile, not to mention anything even remotely close to the political resources and infrastructure/connections of his opponent, who has been running for President for thirty years?

there's a ton of little things he could be doing that would make a huge difference - his campaign could be sharing its donor lists with allied congressional candidates, for ex.

No - I think you're right. It has to do with his not being a member of the Dem party and having zero national profile, few political resources, infrastructure, lack of experience running a national movement, etc. I don't want to speculate about why he has those disadvantages - maybe it just never occurred to him until recently that building a national movement might be an important thing to do - his attention was locally focused. xp

this was Sunday's NYT op by 2 poli-scientists: the Republicans losing prez elections has become their base of power for everything else:

The electorate is changing in ways that will weaken the Republican advantage in the future — in particular, it’s becoming much more diverse. But Republicans have managed to hold back this tide to some extent by making voting harder (with voter ID laws and the like) and by mobilizing their core voters even more aggressively. And they’ve mobilized them not in spite of their presidential disadvantage, but often by virtue of it.

It is not simply that the G.O.P. enjoys these structural advantages. More and more, it feeds on the failure of its presidential standard-bearers. Party leaders sincerely lament these repeated losses (and may come to lament them more with the Supreme Court’s balance now on the line). They are not trying to win by losing. But they are doing just that, and this tells us a lot about how the contemporary Republican Party works.

Republicans excel at generating and then exploiting hostility to government, and thrive on being in opposition, especially to presidents. Almost without fail, recent presidential losses were followed by a “backlash” election — in 1994, 2010 and 2014 — in which the G.O.P. swept to victories in Congress and statehouses.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/03/opinion/campaign-stops/why-trump-cant-break-the-gop.html?_r=0

"which they are not doing, cuz protest voting for Bernie is easier/more exciting"

I thought they were posting on message boards.

there's a ton of little things he could be doing that would make a huge difference - his campaign could be sharing its donor lists with allied congressional candidates, for ex.

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 12:31 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is hilarious considering the lengths the Democratic party has gone to to prevent him from having the same

his lack of support for down-ticket races is concerning to me. there's still a small chance he could get the nomination (i feel like the NY primary in a couple weeks could be the make or break point), so when i think of him as a candidate i still think of how he would actually function as a president, rather than just how he's affecting the left on a macro level by merit of how well he's done so far. i think it would be difficult for him to consolidate democratic support in the house and senate if he didn't make an early and strong effort to support down-ticket races. even more difficult than it would already be, i mean.

I don't want to speculate about why he has those disadvantages

why not?

I agree w you that those things limit his effectiveness re: this revolution that he says is required

xp

This is hilarious considering the lengths the Democratic party has gone to to prevent him from having the same

these things are not related

Bernie wouldn't have to go through the DNC, he could respond to requests for coordination from individual candidates, which his campaign has refused/ignored

Candidates who have endorsed him? Is there some story here which details this?

ive been getting emails from Democracy for America (which supports him) asking for $ for candidates. Proxies will have to do?

are there all that many candidates sympathetic to him running?

It's also not like there's no risk, in a tight race, to calling in the elderly Socialist for a photo-op. There are more sensible plays. I mean I doubt he's turning down invitations for reasons other than scheduling. Can you enumerate these?

There is one running for PA senate who has endorsed him and his campaign desperately needs funding. I'm sure there are others but I don't think the Bernie campaign has the resources or wherewithal. They have their hands full just making sure they're opening enough campaign offices in primary states.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/sanderss-candidates-for-congress-an-snl-alum-a-hay-farmer-and-a-guy-with-a-bernie-tattoo/2016/02/26/6e44bd7c-da4c-11e5-81ae-7491b9b9e7df_story.html

They have their hands full just making sure they're opening enough campaign offices in primary states.

yup, and this is precisely what makes me angry about his campaign - ass-backwards priorities

so easy when you're running against the Machine, dawg

his campaign is prioritizing his bid for the presidency (a non-achievable goal) over actual "revolution" that would produce electoral and legislative victories for the left

xp

xpost Mordy I think that is a fair take

his campaign is prioritizing his bid for the presidency (a non-achievable goal)

yes, that should be the campaign's #1 bead right now, tacitly acknowledging he's lost. Go work for Pelosi.

his campaign is prioritizing his bid for the presidency (a non-achievable goal) over actual "revolution" that would produce electoral and legislative victories for the left

so, his campaign for the presidency is foolishly prioritizing his campaign for the presidency?

p much!

This nerve of this Sanders guy

he should stop pretending that his fairytale dream of being president = revolution