Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

thats where im at, too. like, he's kinda signaling that candidates who hit hard on some economic left issues have some traction nationally. im hoping there are dem candidates, esp young ones, watching this and running in some state and local races a few years from now.

i get the impression that the DLC wing is still skittish about embracing this wing and gave up on it a long time ago bc of the electoral success of reagan and w bush and they may be the last ones in the room to recognize that the country might be shifting left.

it was the clinton campaign's undoing, rly from her iraq war vote onward. i think the clinton camp still operates under this idea that america won't like HRC if they dont project moderation at all times and a willingness to jettison progressive ideas if they seem challenging at all.

i honestly didn't know if i would ever see a day when a prez candidate would basically say yeah the war on drugs was a major fail and we need treatment centers it's a disease not a crime. i'm paraphrasing...but still it does my heart good after all these decades of stupid fucking bluster about zero tolerance from both parties.

i find it stressful to hear sanders

he's that guy who points his finger when he talks at you and goes on and on and on and on about his highly unoriginal and negative ideas about how the world works because he knows it all. it's really off putting. i've had to work for enough managers who behave that way, i'm not voting for one

― arts and crafts THIS GUY (daria-g), Sunday, January 17, 2016 9:56 PM (50 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

tbf the country is messed up in a really unoriginal and off-putting way

when bern said he was gonna put the goverment on the banks' back all i heard was that he was going to put the government on our back. because that's how my brain works. subconsciously lots of people heard that too. and people hate the idea of the government on their back. and its totally the fear a lot of people have of Dem supremacy. which is why he can't win. i already called the election for hil months ago though. its hers to lose.

i find most politicians' public personas kind of creepy and repellent but bernie always seems sweet and sincere to me. o'malley seems much more like the annoying droning know-it-all to me.

i also thought he could have phrased 'government on their backs' better

get me out of this Stupid Fucking Country Run by Aesthetically Pleasing Goldman Sachs Whores.

"it was the clinton campaign's undoing, rly from her iraq war vote onward. i think the clinton camp still operates under this idea that america won't like HRC if they dont project moderation at all times and a willingness to jettison progressive ideas if they seem challenging at all."

america won't like hrc full stop. we've spent close to 25 years irrationally despising her while all the time clinton has been sloooowly doing things to justify that hatred. the bizarre irony is that when her number is finally coming up her opponents on the other side of the aisle somehow managed to find a candidate more detestable than her. 25 years of "anybody but hilary" and now this year it's "wait, except for him".

bernie is a magic underwear gnome. i don't hate him in the same way i don't hate jandek.

Looking forward to '24 race when it's Elizabeth Warren vs th Duck Dynasty guy.

Elizabeth Warren will be well into her 70s by then.

Phil Robertson is 3 years older!

sanders demeanor... really cannot overstate how abrasive and off putting it is

I think maybe this is just how Gentiles feel. Me, I hear Sanders talk and it's like listening to my uncles argue at Passover. I'm relaxed and at home. I do in fact literally have an Uncle Bernie. We all do!
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Sunday, January 17, 2016 10:25 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Please give jews some credit here... most of us very easily see through bernies shtick. He is an atrocious politician.

http://i.imgur.com/YifevOC.gif

haha I mentioned that scowl last night

Elizabeth Warren will be well into her 70s by then.

― its subtle brume (DJP), Monday, January 18, 2016 8:34 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

IT WAS A JOKE, D.

http://i.imgur.com/8IvCm6e.gif

really gotta love some of the "who would you rather have a beer with" analysis ILX is going with of late

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/01/case-against-bernie-sanders.html

marginally better is chait's latest, i guess. i'm not sure anyone who actually pays attention to US politics thinks a single-payer plan is likely during the next presidential term, but sure, use that as an example of why he'd be a bad president

I dislike Chait, but he made a couple of decent points. However:

But it seems bizarre for Democrats to risk losing the presidency by embracing a politically radical doctrine that stands zero chance of enactment even if they win.

How is Sanders as the nominee a "risk"? How is he a bigger risk than HRC?

also
"Obama did organize passionate volunteers on a massive scale — far broader than anything Sanders has done — and tried to keep his volunteers engaged throughout his presidency. Why would Sanders’s grassroots campaign succeed where Obama’s far larger one failed?"

he doesn't qualify this at all. i might be ignorant of something here, but what exactly did he do to 'try' to keep his volunteers engaged?

most of what chait says about bernie and his priorities is not wrong. it's true that sanders would be powerless to bring into effect some of his most ambitious policy plans. what's accepted as a matter of faith is that hillary would necessarily be better at the other stuff

Of course Sanders is a bigger risk, he is far more leftwing than Hillary. I can't see why it's more 'bizarre' than every other time a party has chosen to nominate someone other than the most moderate.

The debate seemed ok? From the recaps and parts of transcripts I've read. And of course, the #scowl. Surprisingly left-wing all of a sudden, with all the stuff about #BLM and Wall Street reform. Sanders praising the dictator of Jordan was pretty awful, though, it makes Clinton's hawkishness look more ok in contrast.

I give Clinton points for doing more than mention the horror in Flint.

Always weird when my hometown makes (inter)national news

really gotta love some of the "who would you rather have a beer with" analysis ILX is going with of late

emotions play a HUGE role in how most votes are cast. there's no getting around it.

The debate seemed ok? From the recaps and parts of transcripts I've read. And of course, the #scowl. Surprisingly left-wing all of a sudden, with all the stuff about #BLM and Wall Street reform. Sanders praising the dictator of Jordan was pretty awful, though, it makes Clinton's hawkishness look more ok in contrast.

― Frederik B, Monday, January 18, 2016 5:29 PM (48 minutes ago)

bernie has been the most vocal and consistent supporter of BLM in the race for months

lol at the idea that sanders saying something positive about a middle eastern leader is somehow worse than clinton's long record of consistent support for bombing middle eastern ppl and invading their countries

http://i.imgur.com/4g8hdRF.png

another deep thought from jonathan chait:

https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/688930853678878720

The debate seemed ok? From the recaps and parts of transcripts I've read. And of course, the #scowl. Surprisingly left-wing all of a sudden, with all the stuff about #BLM and Wall Street reform. Sanders praising the dictator of Jordan was pretty awful, though, it makes Clinton's hawkishness look more ok in contrast.

― Frederik B, Monday, January 18, 2016 5:29 PM (48 minutes ago)

bernie has been the most vocal and consistent supporter of BLM in the race for months

They seem to think he's pretty crap at it, though.

How is Sanders as the nominee a "risk"? How is he a bigger risk than HRC?

if you can't see how making larry david the face of the democratic party is a actually a kinda big risk idk what to say

my conservative boss loves Larry David, so America is safe.

larry david is funny

They seem to think he's pretty crap at it, though.

― Frederik B, Monday, January 18, 2016 6:58 PM (8 minutes ago)

oh cool thanks for clearing that up

https://media.giphy.com/media/3o7rbIIhqUSfXlBq4o/giphy.gif

See, I look at this Republican lineup, the Trump factor, and think that in this Dem primary I'd vote for an ISIS flag wearing a Martin Shkreli mask was pushing the most left-wing policies.

The chances that Trump a) wins the nom and fucks downticket races or b) runs third party and fucks Cruz are just too high to waste this year on anyone but the most progressive candidate available.

^if it was, obv

Meanwhile conservatives realize talk show hosts don't mean what they say and are interested in dough.

hahahahahaha oh the delicious schadenfreude

Wowza.

http://gawker.com/i-watched-michael-bays-benghazi-movie-at-cowboys-stadiu-1753238965

"Obama did organize passionate volunteers on a massive scale — far broader than anything Sanders has done — and tried to keep his volunteers engaged throughout his presidency. Why would Sanders’s grassroots campaign succeed where Obama’s far larger one failed?"

I'm sure other ppl have said more about this but ime mostly they tried to point the Organize For America volunteers (OFA) at supporting ACA enrollment and some other boringish supports for the administration, and sent a lot of pleading emails that everyone just deleted. It was like once Obama won the presidency the urgency ran out. Personally I think if OFA had chosen some more radical policy goals or something that felt more changey they could have kept those ppl--if they could have offered more of a crusade? But ymmv.

Oh yeah and then they tried hard to drum up not very well informed support for the TPP for a while, something that frankly I hope every person involved with OFA is deeply ashamed of.

that redstate piece Alfred linked to is PRICELESS.

it really is

conservatism is about ideas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideas_Have_Consequences#/media/File:Ideas_Have_Consequences.jpg

thpbbt
http://tmm.chicagodistributioncenter.com/IsbnImages/9780226090061.jpg

the stunning realization that Sarah Palin's primary priority is the enrichment/advancement of Sarah Palin

I don't think I've ever looked at Red State, and I generally avoid comments sections altogether, but yeah that whole thing is amazing. Especially:

Instead, we've flocked en masse to a carnival barker. We've been used and abused by everyone who we've trusted to fix things and when we FINALLY have Mr. Right on the doorstep, we elbow him aside as we rush out into the arms of yet another one-night-stand pretty boy who wows us with his hollow play-acting and his empty rhetoric.

ooooh yeah, that sexy empty rhetoric makes all the panties drop

I assume Ted Cruz is the Mr. Right being referred to there

Would love for a whole host of conservatives to suddenly realize they've wasted years voting against their own interests and for opportunistic assholes who couldn't give fuck one about them.

(Countdown to Morbs wishing the same for the Dems...)