a clown car full of millionaires: the 2016 presidential primary thread

Are you so connected to horse race politics that you take personal offense from me taking the piss?

Cool so Bernie Sanders is not going to win, I got that. I don't care. It doesn't matter I can still look at him like he has ideas and can bring value to the campaign season beyond being a percentage number. The real winner is probably going to be the same old shit we have now.

xp Frederik B's so detached from reality that he takes personal offense from everything.

Sorry if I'm blowing up there anyways. It's all good. Whatever we're all doomed anyways.

I suppose if a Clinton supporter calls you an asshole then you should vote for her.

I still think Sanders is running to be in the debates, raise some hell, and survive as long as possible with poll numbers high enough that he can't be marginalized as a fringe candidate; in other words, to re-establish a much harder-left economic progressivism as a viable alternative for the party and for the electorate to consider. He's not out to win the nomination - so I sort of tune out when the conversation turns to how detailed analysis of how unlikely he is to get the nomination and each of the hurdles he faces state by state, etc.... Like... duh?

That's not to say, however, that the conversation about constituencies and groups within the party that his message is/isn't resonating with isn't relevant though. It would be a failed candidacy in a lot of ways if he proves unable to model a version of left progressivism that listens to and incorporates the concerns and demands of minority voters, or to articulate a post-Ferguson stance on race in America that connects across the board. The anti-corporate progressive left needs those things if it's not going to just reiterate for the nth time (as many here believe Sanders has, or assume that he will/must) the "we're the left, you're minorities, surely that means you'll come along with us" attitude. If Sanders has become, however implausibly, the current standard-bearer for the party left, then I would like to see him accomplish this, and I'll be watching the polling as the race develops not to see if he's going to win, but to see if he's making inroads in these areas.

To the, let's call it the "Bill Bradley" point - yes, there have been people in the same position in many elections, but the point is in the act itself: if he does really well, it demonstrates that these are not in fact fringe positions, but something you can run on and do well, and in some states maybe even run on and win. That CNN poll showing Clinton 42 - Sanders 35 - Biden 17 (or with no Biden, Clinton 53, Sanders 38), if it's not a fluke, is important for this reason - that's a big enough chunk that you really can't ignore it. The equivalent on the Republican side would be someone with the combined support of Trump and Carson (at this moment). Not a winning coalition but clearly no Republican candidate is going "well we can basically calculate this thing as if those people didn't exist" and presumably a lot of others (in state and local elections) are taking it as confirmation that they can run on their wingnut views. I don't think Bradley was ever in that position outside of a few states like NH.

Interestingly, CNN has announced its debate thresholds for the first Democratic debate, and they are exceedingly generous: anyone who averages 1% in any three cherry-picked national polls between August and October. Not even a "the x most recent polls" deal. No one's even taking the chance that Jim Webb, Lincoln Chafee or Martin O'Malley might slip into further irrelevancy by then - per those rules, all three have already been issued invitations. Not to get conspiratorial but if you were trying to minimize Sanders's speaking time versus Hillary in prime time, that'd be a good way to start.

clinton was also "it's the economy, stupid" and tax increases (top two brackets, corporate tax, gas tax) and the earned-income tax credit among many others and major expansion of pell grants and college scholarships and the family and medical leave act and attempted universal health care falling back to the state childrens' health insurance program (thanks to hillary, on the issue that's driven her entire career) and how old were you in 1993 anyway?

― it's not a tuomas (benbbag), Monday, September 28, 2015 5:32 AM (13 hours ago)

not denying that clinton did some good things in his first year, but it is perverse to characterize the candidate who ran on "ending welfare as we know it" and subsequently did exactly that as an "economic populist."

maybe webb/chafee/o'malley will be allowed to stand at the back of the stage, kind of to the side, without a microphone

Doctor Casino otm

Adam Bruneau: Look, you're perfectly entitled to write what you want to write, and to say when you think our arguments are horseshit. I'm saying I think the way you say those things make you sound kinda assholish, and furthermore, that you remind me of a bunch of other Sanders-supporters. Which is crucial. Because on the other hand, I might be an asshole, but I don't think I'm a typical HRC asshole, though every time I criticize Sanders I'm being told that I'm probably payed by her or whatever. There's just a bunch of annoying reactions coming from Sanders' supporters, and I'm by no means the only one thinking so, and if his supporters were serious about helping him, they'd try to change that dynamic. They act as if there could be no legitimate reason not to support him.

I think Sanders seem like kind of a cranky asshole, and his supporters are condescending and annoying. And more important than that, I just don't like his policies, I think he's the wrong kind of left-left candidate for the election in 2016. Because there is a movement on the left, that are actually trying to change massive structural issues, that has made the right so terrified that they demonize and stigmatize as much as they can, that could hopefully pull the candidates to better positions. And that is obviously #BLM, and a good left-left candidate in 2016 would be much more in sync than Sanders, instead of crankily having to be drawn every inch of the way, to realize that perhaps it's not just a question of the 1% cheating the rest. Someone who wouldn't leave the stage when activists are trying to get him to speak up (lol at the description upthread that he 'stepped back and let the activists speak', they were trying to get him to talk about their issues, and he left the stage...)

Just curious, Frederik, have you lived in the US for any period of time or visited here for a while?

"they were trying to get him to talk about their issues" does not sound like any of the descriptions of that event that i read.

tbh on this thread it seems to be the anti-sanders crowd that's gotten obnoxiously personal ("how old were you in 1993 anyway?").

x-post: Yeah, I lived in San Diego for a year.

DrC otm as usual

Is "cranky asshole" the way of calling a jewish dude an "uptight bitch"?

Frederik as baffling as always

I bet if Bernie Sanders and his supporters got to spend a year in San Diego they'd be less cranky.

^ basically true

Are you seriously suggesting that calling a jewish dude 'cranky' or 'asshole' is as bad as calling a woman a 'bitch'? Wtf?

That horse poop joke was directed at the political system and not you. I am not good at humor.

Crowdsourced mudslinging.

xxp I am suggesting that dismissing a politician based on a pretty caricatured personality description is not much different yes.

Lol. Come on. You can't possible be serious. That is the most ludicrous thing I've heard in hours.

San Diego's got a zoo, it's close the desert, nice beach, what else

a gay sports bar

what bernie really needs is a weekend at comic-con

what else

sailors

San Diego's pretty low density, relatively affordable, everyone seems to wear shorts and flip-flops all the time. Naval base, too, so if you like sailors...

lol shakey's got it

hey guys can we take a sec and answer this important question: https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/09/28/are-bigotry-and-lies-exactly-what-the-republican-electorate-wants/

Of course not, they're the party of Lincoln.

hey maybe he could just acknowledge that the BLM activists have a point, even one valid to his own campaign

― μpright mammal (mh), Monday, September 28, 2015

he's done this already

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, September 28, 2015 12:06 PM (5 hours ago)

shhh alfred

NOT TO OUR SATISFACTION

sorry, angry twitter man popped out there for a second

"Lol. Come on. You can't possible be serious. That is the most ludicrous thing I've heard in hours."

Considering the nonsense that comes out of your mouth, I somehow doubt this. I guess I should add that the equivalence is in kind, not in vitrol. Either way it is a fairly stupid critique to make about a politician but completely at home with kind of lame "personality politics" critiques that Americans (and Danish Americans who spent a year in San Diego) seem to love.

That is the most ludicrous thing I've heard in hours.

board description?

it does have a certain poetry to it

I would vote for Gore, but it's so not gonna happen. Biden = No. Warren more useful in the Senate. The rest = blech

― Οὖτις, Monday, September 28, 2015 1:56 PM (3 hours ago)

amazing. the guy who proudly voted for nader in 2000 refuses to support bernie sanders but wishes gore were in the race

Well, now that Gore's a loser, he can be as lib as he wants.

refuses? likely he won't even be on the ballot by the time of the California primary. I just don't care, is more accurate.

Gore's stature has improved since he's been out of office. He ran a terrible campaign, and at the time climate change was not as front and center in my political orientation as it is now.

xp

iow lol Alfred otm

also I could proudly vote for Nader secure in the knowledge it would have absolutely zero impact on the election, which was true.

What's Gore up to? Does he still have a beard? Does he have a girlfriend? Does he still work for Apple/Google? Does he still make documentaries about the environment? Seems like a guy very much at ease out of the public eye.

Does he still have a beard?

I thought he was straight!

Al Gore GIS is very rewarding.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhMwA4YQ5Sw

beautiful use of the glottal by big Joe

What is up with this free speech social network bullshit that Joe Lieberman is pushing?

Al Gore GIS is very rewarding.

Actually it wasn't, though here he looks a lot like Philip Glass:
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSo6X4ySSPeH1jH8u6J9id2zOPqDGkYGzvv2NzbHyST00O7Pwuh

http://bhcourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Don-Henley1-540x360.jpg