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

What does anyone hope to achieve by arguing on the internet? I'm interested in American politics, they're hugely important to the whole world. Plus I've lived in the US for a year. What's hard to understand?

Why are people so focused on personally attacking me instead of looking at my arguments? They happen to be correct most of the time. Oh wait, I just answered my own question?

― Frederik B

smh at the *privilege* of 'let's argue about us politics, it's an interesting hobby, don't you understand how hobbies work?'

Btw, I was right that Bernie Sanders is a self-described radical. As I most often am.

Okay morbs

haha

sorry i’m late to thread and this is just me banging my head against a fleshy wall but whatever.

i agree that there are a ton of important issues concerning which there is very little, if any, air between clinton (and obama) and several of the GOP candidates. and that you prioritize those issues.

however there are a lot of other issues where there is more than a little sunlight. many of those issues have to do with domestic policy, particularly in re. entitlements.

maybe this is unfair, but i sometimes wonder if the folks who make the "tweedledee, tweedledum" argument are insulated by their privilege from the effects of the sort of policies on which the two parties clearly differ.

that’s the nice version. the not-nice version is that people who can’t hold in their mind two propositions—

1) hillary is a corporatist candidate who embraces many policies that are odious (and has a very unfortunate tendency to a warlike foreign policy) (simple translation = Hillary Is Shit)

2) a clinton presidency would likely have many real advantages over a rubio (or bush/trump/kasich/whatever) presidency. (simple translation = Rubio/etc. Is Much Worse Shit)

—seem to me to have some kind of problem with critical thinking.

(just to add more evidence for #2, who do you think even "moderate" kasich will appoint to the NLRB?)

keep in mind that i live in state that, as of 2011, is controlled — in every branch — by activist republicans. the state has gone to shit faster than i could ever have imagined. walker et al have undone unions, undone the civil service code, undone almost every protection the safety net afforded the poor, undone the schools (K-12 and high ed)…. it will take decades, maybe longer, to undo the damage. it is a fucking nightmare and i have students every semester who tell me about the very real effect of GOP policies on their lives and those of their parents, sisters, brothers….

need i add that i have no love whatever for clinton, sanders, kasich, bush, obama, or any other establishment politician? but my choice is not to pretend — or to insist, over and over and over and over and over and over again, in the face of the evidence — that there are no substantial differences among them.

bottom line: the world is shit! but that doesn’t mean it can’t get much worse. (with or without our help.)

i don’t know why this makes me so mad. maybe it’s because this attitude seems so smug in its infantile misanthropy, its "edginess," but is actually so fucking corny and stupid.

"you" == some folks. i can't even remember what post i was responding to!

oh it's just your standard perfect (although Bernie is far from perfect) being the enemy of the good

It should make you mad! The morons like Chris Matthews who dare to run ads touting their Love of the Game don't understand how clean water and hacks operating state bureaucracies affect your children.

i guess as a teacher it just really frustrates me when seemingly smart people are so obstinately stupid about something!

also, a reminder that SC nominees matter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-puts-obamas-clean-power-plan-on-hold/2016/02/09/a56476f8-cf84-11e5-90d3-34c2c42653ac_story.html

btw the democrats in wisconsin suck! they really do. not all of them, by any means. but the party machinery, most of the prominent state politicians. they suck! they got lazy! they lack vision! that's one reason they lost so badly this decade. but the GOP --again, most, not quite all, of it -- is SO MUCH WORSE. SO. MUCH. WORSE.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/opinion/campaign-stops/the-destruction-of-progressive-wisconsin.html

http://www.openprocessing.org/sketch/306571/embed/?width=900&height=350&border=true

generate semi-random NH results, and NYT headlines that would go with them

maybe this stuff is harder to perceive from NY or California or whatever.

xpost

see also kansas

Yes, let's peek into Kansas: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/kansas-gov-sam-brownback-cut-45-million-public-school-funding

btw Shakey in the Supreme Court thread reminded me why elections matter: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-puts-obamas-clean-power-plan-on-hold/2016/02/09/a56476f8-cf84-11e5-90d3-34c2c42653ac_story.html

i don’t know why this makes me so mad. maybe it’s because this attitude seems so smug in its infantile misanthropy, its "edginess," but is actually so fucking corny and stupid.

― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, February 9, 2016 4:04 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

Yeah, like Holden Caulfield ranting against all the "phonies."

all those crumb-bums in politics, they kill me, they really do

banging my head against a fleshy wall

i just realized this could also describe the pre-natal months

and now i have this song in my head

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miT-rJx5nKQ

oops, rong thread !

it isn't!

ha, you might be right, in an oblique way.

LOL at AP declaring winners with less than 10% of precincts reporting in both races

so is NBC.

everywhere is calling for sanders and trump

lol @ Chris Matthews freaking out

http://gawker.com/everything-you-need-to-know-about-new-hampshires-attemp-1758164713

Andrea Mitchell reporting that HRC campaign released a three-page memo a half hour ago explaining how they're gonna kick ass in March.

CNN too. I mean, I don't think there's any question--Trump's up by 20%, Sanders by 15%.

Kasich might finish second. Can't see him winning, so I'm sure Trump would welcome that.

Wonder what the Clinton reaction would be tonight if she hadn't escaped Iowa with the win.

I mean, this one would always have been easy to spin with the whole "neighboring state, liberal like him, etc." thing. I'm sure they would have loved to win, and at some point a ways back probably still thought that was a viable possibility had Sanders's campaign kind of fizzled in toto. That didn't happen so they'll rest on basically saying it's an irrelevant non-surprise.

Kasich and Bush in second and third for now

I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I kinda want Bush to do well here

Kasich is the only candidate with whom I disagree profoundly but is still a carbon-based life form.

Christopher Hayes ‏@chrislhayes 6m6 minutes ago

What gets lost in all the talk of "74 year old Socialist" is that Sanders has run BY FAR the best campaign of the cycle.

Obviously it's great for Trump if Kasich/Bush/Rubio more or less tie. They keep going, each convinced that he'll outlast the other two, and Trump's unshakeable 35% wins states he wouldn't win otherwise.

Mona Charen @monacharenEPPC

Oh please. He's not Jewish. He's a religious socialist. https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/697226525754728448 …

Kasich is the only candidate with whom I disagree profoundly but is still a carbon-based life form.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 9, 2016 7:21 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

if you were from ohio i think you wouldn't say that; he's a little more personally palatable than walker, but his policy ideas are similar; he just didn't have his way with the other branches of gov't that walker did.

Who is this Mona, I will fight her

oh here we go, love it when ohio and florida get into it.

if you were from ohio i think you wouldn't say that; he's a little more personally palatable than walker, but his policy ideas are similar; he just didn't have his way with the other branches of gov't that walker did.

― wizzz! (amateurist), T

Oh no doubt, despite his acceptance of the Medicaid expansion and saying he'd go to a gay wedding; we're talking margins of humanity. I know John Kasich b/c of two decades of sins: Gingrich foot soldier, advocate of the balanced budget amendment, host of a horrible FOX show in the early '00s, and Bono friend.

Kasich said some crazy hateful fundamentalist crap at one of the first debates. Fuck him

he's also ugly

what are the candidate stances on fingers in the booty

^^^^^^

xpost kasich used to have a tv show on fox news like back before obama was elected, and he came off as really obnoxious and shouty on it

so now on the gop side.. if kasich gets a bunch of money from this.. jeb! still has a ton of money, plus i guess rubio hauled in some after iowa, and now they're headed to south carolina where 1) ted cruz has prob a lot of support and 2) campaigns always get REALLY ugly

what are the candidate stances on fingers in the booty

― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, February 9, 2016 8:51 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"I'm Done w/this Shit, Fuck All These Assholes"

what are the candidate stances on fingers in the booty

*nixon peace sign*