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

TBF, we don't know that these speeches weren't just hour-long, expletive-filled excoriations of the banking industry, now do we.

Hillary Clinton has been running for president since at least '91, iirc.

that's true, she could be holding them back because she dropped the f-bomb too much while suplexing a commodity derivative market specialists

again, see my beatles comment. i don't disagree that non-politcians can also get big big fees for telling wealthy people/groups/companies that everybody's free to wear sunscreen, or paraphrasing 'oh the places youll go' or whatever. but when it is a politcian, there are obvious conflicts of interests which is why they're not supposed to be able to take huge gifts and bribes. there are loopholes: you can do it while you're not currently in office or officially running, and if you accept the money under this comforting label of 'speaking fee' it's less likely that people will complain about it two years later than if you just take the mansion and the yacht directly.

sanders is basically calling that bluff and seeing if people DO find it suspicious once attention's brought to it. i dunno whether or how it could be regulated exactly, but at the very least, the court of public opinion might shift us to a point where people who take these sackfuls of cash are seen as 'bought' and consequently can't get votes.

as to why not release them: i suspect that at first she probably just figured it was a non-scandal that would blow over and sanders would either look bad for sticking to it, or just give it up after gaining no traction with it. it doesn't seem to have hurt him, and maybe now backing off would look bad in itself. could also be that the speeched are so empty and vaporous that, now that there is attention on them, they become campaign ad fodder. ''Hillary Clinton's Wall Street friends paid her x dollars a word for her insight. What did she have to tell them? (Quote most empty section.) Very insightful. Is that really all Goldman Sachs expected for their money? When the chips are down, whose side do you think Hillary Clinton will be on?'' That needs a lot of polish obv but I think the contents of the texts might be mobilizable in a way that the idea of 'the speeches' isn't, by itself. idk.

welp

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/717003103871115267

https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/files/2016/04/BENNETT.jpg&w=1484

we'll have the last laugh, just wait! stupid lamestream media.

Did that say..."no more oreos - Donald trump" or have I finally just lost my mind completely.

I too am wondering if I have actually gone insane.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/18/trump-s-oreo-boycott.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5zjVUZA7rY

^from back in september

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfHwqbCUIAEbhB6.jpg

oh thank god this all is referring to the actual cookies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZK9vrBNRys

The NYT with one of its where-did-it-go-wrong stories about Sanders.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 4, 2016 6:39 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What I take away is that Sanders himself is awesome and that the people running his campaign are kinda assholes.

― Frederik B, Monday, April 4, 2016 7:16 AM (5 hours ago)

once this is all over, i really hope this is going to be the takeaway certain people have -- people who for whatever reason have devoted a lot of their time to attacking sanders and his message and tactics. he genuinely seems to be a fundamentally decent human being, something that can't be said of a lot of politicians, let alone national ones

(tbh i don't think anything in that article painted sanders' team in a particularly unfavorable light either. tbh i find the recoil at what are perceived to be the "attacks" coming out of the sanders camp pretty funny -- it's like people have completely forgotten about 2008, or maybe arent paying attention to the current GOP race. (sanders' supporters, esp those on social media, are another story otoh))

from that story btw:

Several prominent Democrats say that a different candidate — one with more history in the South and more experience with black voters — might have been able to beat Mrs. Clinton. Some singled out Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who considered seeking the nomination.

“Biden could have competed among African-Americans far better than Sanders and possibly stopped Clinton from getting the delegate lead she has,” said Joseph P. Riley Jr., a former mayor of Charleston, S.C., who is a Biden ally and supports Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy.

it's amazing to me how clueless some apparent dem insiders can be. someone, i think jamelle bouie, pointed this out on twitter last night, but basically anything bad you can say about hillary from the 90s -- and there is plenty bad to say -- biden was just as bad or worse. HRC supported (and made some pretty awful comments about) the crime bill -- biden wrote it. biden was as cozy with the financial and credit card industries as anyone in congress in the 80s and 90s. biden voted for the iraq war too. (though, to his credit, he's certainly more dovish than clinton these days.) the list goes on

why can't hillary just take their money & then stab them in the back

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, April 4, 2016 11:53 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they paid her to speak & she's not legally obligated to do anything beyond that for them

― ejemplo (crüt), Monday, April 4, 2016 11:54 AM (33 minutes ago)

can't tell if you're being facetious but if not you may not understand the idea of conflict of interest

btw to sort of synthesize a few points about this upthread: as a private citizen HRC is perfectly entitled to give speeches to whomever she wants. doesn't mean it's not fair game on the campaign trail, tho

Kind of curious what the effect would be on the market for the supposed insights if it was clear that they'd be in the papers a month later.

Now that "No more oreos!" makes more sense, the shot with that quote still offers us

"Donald Trump is simply awe-inspiring" - all who gaze upon him

"I wrote the Art of the Deal" - Donald Trump

lol djp: hey, it's still only april give him a minute

I think policing black identity is one of the places that Trump has left to go once he needs to really unfurl his sails in the general.

the entire reason Trump had momentum to begin with is that he policed the identity of America's most powerful black person

^^^

We really need more intrepid reporters setting rhetorical traps for Trump. He's proven so suggestible and adept at taking the bait thus far, exposing the void where a system of values would lie in a functioning human being. Ask him questions in such a way that it steers him towards voicing a hugely-unpopular and perhaps even broadly offensive position that is in no way reflective of his having given any real thought to the issue. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" as political tool. I like it! Can we get this on the air by Tuesday?

Old Lunch otm. In the abortion conversation, Matthews deserves some credit for continuing to press Trump, but he (Matthews) also comes off as somewhat rambly and disorganized. He gives some cover to Trumpoids who say it was a baiting question and that it needs to be heard in context. Even so T. needed to release several flailing and contradictory clarifications, and he is still on the defensive. Which is great.

Slightly better planning and a more laserlike focus might get some truly un-walk-backable stuff out of Trump. Ask him about affirmative action. Ask him about voter ID. Ask him about pay equity. Let the fun commence.

All this said, it's not primarily the media's job to torpedo Trump's candidacy. I continue to believe that Trump is his own worst enemy, and that if permitted enough rope he will destroy his own chances just by being himself.

x-post re Clinton and Sanders on Wall Street and possible influence or not of her speeches

http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/01/05/3736113/bernie-sanders-wall-street-plan/

How Sanders and Clinton differ with their Wall Street related plans (as of January)

Some agreement, but differences on Glass-Steagall, what a financial transaction tax should cover, and other things

video game fascism, who could have predicted...

Just to sidestep for a moment the vitally important conversation about Hillary Clinton's speeches - do you Sanders supporters really not see that your belief that he'd do better nationally than Clinton is the exact mirror image of right-wing nutjobs' belief that "if we just nominate a True Conservative, the country will be ours!" Sanders is fucking doomed, and it's not the word "socialist" that kills him, it's the word "revolution." People don't want a revolution. They want to be left the fuck alone. That's why voter turnout is what it is. Clinton's presidency promises to be low-impact for the average person, and she's the only candidate of whom that's true. Trump, Cruz, and Sanders all promise to make people's lives more complex, and bring trouble, if they win. Only maniacs vote for politicians who are going to require them, the voters, to actually do something or change their own lives in a significant way. And the vast majority of Americans are not maniacs - they're people with other shit on their minds, who want to think seriously about politics for about a month, once every four years.

tbf current polling does suggest that he'd be competitive nationally tho who knows how that looks when we get to october

on, eh, clinton's speeches (sorry), just ftr, for me they represent a massive problem in where she's coming from - even if there's no formal quid pro quo it tells you tons about where she feels comfortable and who she thinks is important. but there was nothing actually illegal about them as far as anybody can tell.

it's similar to how carrying a heavy jug of your own excrement and putting it up the lectern next to the microphone as you give a speech is not illegal. "No, Victoria, I will not move this jug of excrement down from the lectern, and I do not care if it is blocking your vision. That is YOUR problem, Victoria, that is YOUR problem, not mine!"

- John Oliver

top man - which of ''you sanders supporters'' are you politely addressing? we try to all keep on the same page, you know, but differences of opinion slip through which is why our hive mind has resolved that we should continue to post under separate screen names, at least through the current phase of the campaign. but it does make it tricky to answer blanket responses to what may in fact be phantom strawmen. i for one am comfortable with the idea that sanders's current hypothetical general numbers would crash hard once he's subjected to a full-bore GOP smear campaign. the only caveats are that some of that loss might be canceled out by clinton's preexisting high negatives, and the enormous disadvantages that any of the toxic GOP candidates has going in re: electoral map, etc. etc.

"Clinton's presidency promises to be low-impact for the average person, and she's the only candidate of whom that's true."

I think there may be are more "average" people who are looking for more significant changes than you think, Phil (congratulations on speaking for all the normals though).

yeah, i mean the whole basis of sanders's campaign, and in a different way trump's, is that lots of 'regular people' feel like the status quo is actively screwing them over and they are seeking restitution. not saying that that by itself is an election-winning coalition but it's an odd year to lean hard on people's fundamental complacency and preference for business-as-usual.

do you Sanders supporters really not see that your belief that he'd do better nationally than Clinton is the exact mirror image of right-wing nutjobs' belief that "if we just nominate a True Conservative, the country will be ours!"

― the top man in the language department (誤訳侮辱), Monday, April 4, 2016 1:46 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you say so

xp also an odd century.

Sanders v. Trump
RCP Average 3/16-4/2 53.4 37.4 Sanders +16.0

Clinton v. Trump
RCP Average 3/16-4/2 49.4 38.6 Clinton + 10.8

(it's been holding steady like this for a long time now)

vs. Kasich, currently

Sanders: +1.3
Clinton: -6.3

And vs. Cruz

Sanders +9.8
Clinton +3.1

i think he's vulnerable on the soviet / communism / bread lines stuff

like i've never seen this clip before today and i've been following the election closely. there's likely a lot of usable stuff out there like this that hillary has not made a part of her campaign in any way:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJBjjP8WSbc

A fair point.

Bernie Sanders praising bread lines and food rationing... as preferable to widespread starvation.

and he only went on his honeymoon to the USSR bc they had a sister-city program. if you think americans respond well to context + nuance then you'll disagree that these things could have an effect. i'm not as optimistic about polity.

(it's been holding steady like this for a long time now)

― Hadrian VIII, Monday, April 4, 2016 2:17 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

head to head polls are meaningless this far out

on the subject of someone dying before november

One explanation for all this raggedness is that the Trump team is simply burned out. People who know Trump say they’ve never seen him so tired. Several months ago, he began wearing a bulletproof vest, two sources close to the campaign told me, which has added to his discomfort on the stump, leaving him sweaty and spent after events. And given that his unfavorables among women already are at ruinous levels (a CNN poll last month found that 73 percent of registered female voters held a negative view of Trump), his ill-advised comments about punishing abortion-seekers seem like they might have been a function of sheer exhaustion as well.

sweaty and spent

Gah, erotic Trump campaign fic should not be permitted into the national conversation, even under Rule 34.

http://i.imgur.com/cGX1Spn.jpg

it's similar to how carrying a heavy jug of your own excrement and putting it up the lectern next to the microphone as you give a speech is not illegal. "No, Victoria, I will not move this jug of excrement down from the lectern, and I do not care if it is blocking your vision. That is YOUR problem, Victoria, that is YOUR problem, not mine!"

I legit can't tell if this is real Oliver or parody, and I say that as someone who generally likes him (though now I'm starting to reconsider).

Bernie Sanders praising bread lines and food rationing... as preferable to widespread starvation.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), 4. april 2016 20:32 (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That's... A pretty bad excuse... I don't think he's talking about Ethiopia or whereever.