I will keep doing, but not worth it! The 2016 Presidential Primary Voting Thread

well i'll be, good analysis from matt yglesias

http://www.vox.com/2016/2/2/10892724/bernie-sanders-wake-up-call

Democratic leaders aren't as smart as they think

The Clinton campaign's strategy will, of course, be second-guessed as stumbling frontrunners always are. But the larger problem is the way that party as a whole — elected officials, operatives, leaders of allied interest groups, major donors, greybeard elder statespersons, etc. — decided to cajole all viable non-Clinton candidates out of the race. This had the effect of making a Clinton victory much more likely than it would have been in a scenario when she was facing off against Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Deval Patrick. But it also means that the only alternative to Clinton is a candidate the party leaders don't regard as viable.

Trying to coordinate your efforts to prevent something crazy from happening is smart — otherwise you might wind up with Donald Trump. But trying to foreclose any kind of meaningful contact with the voters or debate about party priorities, strategy, and direction was arrogant and based on a level of self-confidence about Democratic leaders' political judgment that does not seem borne out by the evidence. This is a party that has no viable plan for winning the House of Representatives, that's been pushed to a historic low point in terms of state legislative seats, and that somehow lost the governor mansions in New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Illinois.

It's a party, in other words, that was clearly in need of some dialogue, debate, and contestation over what went wrong and how to fix it. But instead of encouraging such a dialogue, the party tried to cut it off. That leaves them with Sanders's Political Revolution theory. It doesn't seem very plausible to me, but at least it's something.

so gonna happen...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2015/4/clinton.jpg

Iowa poll a year ago

https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/694534028775530496

huh, i didn't see that shaun king had endorsed sanders. that seems like it could mean something

ok lol at the thread title. my suggestion was meant in jest ftr.

Super Tuesday is basically intended to arrest any New England liberals getting too far along in the process. so yeah not so surprising that it looks like a rough day for sanders. massachusetts, minnesota, colorado and lol vermont do all seem do-able though not without a fight in most. it's the next couple weeks after that where he could actually soak up some delegates, so long as he still looks like a real, fighting candidate:

MARCH 5 - Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas
MARCH 6 - Maine
MARCH 8 - Mississippi, Michigan
MARCH 15 - Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio

as previously noted, i think the effective tie in iowa helps him more than hurts him in this regard, he just has to be able to shrug off a week or so of bad news. he has the money to keep campaigning, and since his mission is to force his issues into the conversation, he has every incentive to stay in and keep churning up delegates even in states he can't win. even if the national media basically tune him out, each state that he campaigns in extensively (ad buys, public appearances, etc.) is subject to an overton window shift of some kind. people whose first voting experience is voting for the democratic socialist are going to have to see the range of possibilities a little differently.

i know i sound like a broken record on these themes, but i really think this is the more interesting story in this election, since the horse-race stuff (on the dem side) is a foregone conclusion bar the details. may i remind you that a self-proclaimed socialist just tied in a nominating contest in the corn-fed heartland of america! saying "oh yeah sure but iowa is full of white liberals" is leaving out too much detail imho - exactly what does "liberal" mean, what kind of things are on the table... i mean generally "liberal" in america has come to mean a pretty short list of MOR civil-rights positions and not being aligned with the real corporate scumbags, not necessarily "fuck it, let's just go back to taxing the rich to pay for needed services and an expanded welfare state." it could be that some core things are shifting under the radar. i dunno. this isn't really fully formulated, sorry.

("week or so of bad news" referring to super tuesday results, not iowa)

feel like it's important to bear in mind that at some point the math of "[candidate] needs to win x number of delegates in upcoming contests to win the nomination" becomes more and more critical. And once one candidate starts to outpace the others and the likelihood of the remaining candidates racking up the necessary number of delegates in the remaining contests diminishes, things start to look like a foregone conclusion pretty quick.

also lol: http://www.sfgate.com/news/local/politics/article/Loser-com-now-redirects-to-Wikipedia-page-of-6800933.php

another critical factor that hasn't yet gotten the thinkpiece it deserves:

chants of "BER-NIE! BER-NIE! BER-NIE! BER-NIE!" are inherently more exciting and easier to join than "HIL-LA-RY! HIL-LA-RY!" or "CLIN-TON! CLIN-TON!"

xpost Juvenile and yet so beautiful.

who is Shaun King?

Retired surgeon Ben Carson, who was polling strong a few months ago, headed for home to Florida after finishing in fourth place with 9 percent of the vote. In a bizarre message, his campaign said he wasn’t suspending his campaign but just that “Dr. Carson needs to go home and get a fresh set of clothes.”

xp: Civil rights guy who sorta came to prominence in the wake of the Michael Brown shooting.

ok, i read a NYT Mag profile of him about a year ago but forgot his name.

Lindsey Lindskog
‏@lollipopxlindz
Did @HillaryClinton just take notes on everything @BernieSanders has been saying, paraphrase it, and pass it off as her speech? #IowaCaucus

Matt Taibbi
‏@mtaibbi
Yes. It's the politics version of the movie "Species."

Shaun King is an activist loosely affiliated with Black Lives Matters who has started becoming famous for being light-skinned enough that some of his detractors have claimed he's pulling a Rachel Dolezal, raising funds for charities aimed at improving the lives of black people that seem to dissipate after the fundraising effort completes and getting denounced by other Black Lives Matters activists on Twitter.

http://i.imgur.com/e2GdYPW.png

luv 2 gamble

lmao predictorbros are so panicky

if it turns out that yes, one early narrow loss is enough to deflate or derail the whole trump phenomenon it'll be so weird. strangely encouraging and disheartening at once

it's Short Attention Span Punditry

i think part of trump's brand is his power and losing to ted cruz even if it's not a surprise makes him look vulnerable, which is probably the worst thing he can appear to be.

I could almost see a butthurt Trump just taking his ball and going home.

"I thought you wanted me to be president, but I guess you're all just a bunch of losers. Maybe I'll sue you. I dunno."

I think he had more on the line than anyone with Iowa since his whole campaign narrative was 'everyone loves me, I'm number one, look at the polls' etc etc

one early narrow loss is enough to deflate or derail the whole trump phenomenon it'll be so weird.

he seems well positioned to win NH, unless he's committed the same predictable error there as he did in Iowa (ie hoping his media exposure will make up for not having a ground game that turns out actual votes). If he happens to lose NH it's gonna get pretty ugly for him.

xp

I could almost see a butthurt Trump just taking his ball and going home.

― Chortles And Guffaws (Old Lunch)

interesting mixed metaphor

Trump gives every indication of having no respect or interest in the actual mechanics of getting voters to the polls - retail politics, state-level infrastructure, etc. It isn't just about polls and exposure, there's this whole other more grueling, more mechanical process that converts that other stuff into actual votes. If he doesn't get that, he's fucked.

http://l1.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/PZYAvZoBgSwUF.mEZIYu9Q--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztmaT1maWxsO2g9Mzc3O2lsPXBsYW5lO3B4b2ZmPTUwO3B5b2ZmPTA7cT03NTt3PTY3MA--/http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/afp.com/Part-GTY-507942236-1-1-1.jpg

Why is she licking his hand?

should I make a dirty joke

btw NYT said last week that Bill has lost the Old Magic on the stump -- meandering, boring, wheezy

interesting that Hillary took Des Moines, figured Sanders would've had the advantage there

I liked how that NYT piece attributed his lack of dynamism to his veganism

the 2012 convention speech excepted, WJC has been meandering, boring, loud, and self-pitying for years

if trump loses he's still prob not going anywhere as a populist political figure. he'd actually be in a pretty good spot to start a right-wing media business and god knows he loves putting his name on shit.

i.e. a variety show

Hillary should use something from Tusk for her theme song. "I Know I'm Not Wrong" maybe.

I was gonna say "Walk a Thin Line"

Bill has lost the Old Magic on the stump

He's just not as motivated as he was when it was his own campaign. Put him in front of a convention crowd and big television audience and he'll be Elvis again.

from goole's quote: "the party as a whole... decided to cajole all viable non-Clinton candidates out of the race. This had the effect of making a Clinton victory much more likely than it would have been in a scenario when she was facing off against Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Deval Patrick."

So are we now supposed to take it as given that Warren, Biden, and Patrick were "cajoled" out of the race (vs. making their own choices for their own reasons)? Isn't that kind of like saying the 1961 Cubs woulda won the World Series, if only they'd signed Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Yogi Berra? FWIW Clinton might also be less likely to defeat Zombie Gandhi as well.

interesting that Hillary took Des Moines, figured Sanders would've had the advantage there

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 12:38 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

DSM is the Big City but apart from Drake and idk DMACC there aren't any colleges there, just saying

i need to dig up a good results map

yeah I 100% certain that neither Warren nor Patrick were interested in running for President

i assume anyone over the level of County Assessor wants to run for president; but it didn't take much "cajoling " to not want to run for president against HRC

but yeah MY looks like he's trading on his status as a clued in DC journo to tell us something about the pre-pre-primary stage there

MR PRESIDENT WHAT

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/scott-brown-endorsing-trump-new-hampshire

hats off to Karl for this thread title, it is wonderful lols

so much awkward kissing in iowa...

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_550_400_noupscale/55df6f5b1d00002f001461f6.jpeg

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

the Scott Brown clown show continues

take it to the "show me some men who look like old lesbians" thread

xp

http://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/scalefit_550_400_noupscale/55df4d8a1d00006e00146198.jpeg

Chicken Lady Gives *BAWK*ward Fist-Bump

Reagan was so Christian that he never went to church

The tea party was specifically obsessed with the budget though, I thought, and this idea that people who couldn't pay their mortgages should suffer for it. Seems like a very different message than Trump, although I assume it involves many of the same people

Reagan's religious allegiances showed themselves with the Bob Jones shit and hiring James Watt and the cult of lachrymose masculinity that worked at Pentagon and NSC.

a very Hollywood-esque melange of New Age beliefs and idiosyncratic theology.

yeah this is about right afaict. hardly disingenuous tho.

Tea Partiers were proportionally drawn more from the wealthier end of the GOP, which would be kind of the opposite of Trump's core demographic. xxp

That describes a lot of American Christianity honestly

Xp to dll.

Should probably get zing so this doesn't keep happening

And yeah, you're right o.nate. The original "tea party" was supposed to be a rebellion of bond traders rebelling against Obama's debt relief program lol

it was Bush's debt relief program when it started

this thread is so big it’s crashing my browser, so I took the liberty of starting a new one:

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

or bank bail outs or whatever

Santelli's rant was about Obama's mortgage relief i thought

I've never heard of him, he was a CNBC anchor?? Wiki says he made some kind of statement on February 19, 2009, and my memory is that Tea Party was in the air well before that

I thought thats where the word "tea party" came from, but i am just going off my memories of reading griftopia in 2011

Taxed Enough Already = T.E.A., plus the dudes already had a boner for the Founding Fathers