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

o'mg

a lot is lost in brand design when it is done in ms paint

I love that they call Hillary the 'nominal' frontrunner. She is leading by 16 points, and 538's endorsement count has her leading Sanders 354 points to 2. She is the frontrunner, to a larger extent than pretty much anyone has been the frontrunner in a primary.

Sanders has doubled his support among black americans in latest yougov poll, from 4% to 8%, which is still pitiable, and as much as Salon and other places clamor that it's just because nobody knows him yet, he has created a gap in awareness of him among white and minority voters, a gap that people like O'Malley and Chafee has created. He can't win a democratic primary just reaching out to the votes of educated well-off whites, and he'll hit a wall in South Carolina at the latest. That is his most major problem, one that has been pointed out for months, but which he seems incapable to fix. And when glowing panegyrics like that Salon piece ends with naming two things Sanders needs to do, but fails to mention his lack of support amongst minorities, it makes me think less of his chances. His supporters don't get it, and that recent interview with Sanders in Ebony magazine made me think that he only sort of gets it.

om shanti shanti shanti

I'm certain that Sanders himself gets it

Appreciate the received wisdom, Fred.

whether he gets it or not, he's not going to be nominated, so rest easy

Well yeah, right now that seems clear; it will be interesting to see if it holds true over the next few months.

@ Frederik B - I still agree Sanders has little hope of winning South Carolina. Still, as I mentioned when you brought up the 4% share of the national black electorate on August 25th, it'd be good to pin down some idea of what would be non-pitiful performance, or basically, how would we know if he's making progress versus not making progress? You say going from 4 to 8 is not enough to get him out of the "pitiable" zone. 8% is obviously really low. Thing is, the South Carolina primary is ~20 weeks away. So long as we're just playing with numbers, suppose he continued to double his support every 6-7 weeks - why, he'd be at 64% of the black vote! Obviously that is ludicrous and takes nothing else into account. So, is going from 4 to 8 more or less than other candidates who've started with such low numbers have done in a similar span of time? How should we weight this against him going, in the South Carolina polls specifically, from 9% to 20% over the same period (with Biden included in the polls)? Can we rate this against advertising and events in South Carolina? Can we track any of this against his baseline name recognition over time? All this is what you'd expect 538 to be doing, and doing well - but I think they've actually continued to get worse over the last couple months. They're not even doing likability vs. name recognition, which is part of their standard playbook. So I feel kind of in the dark in the numbers game in a way I haven't since Silver first donned a green visor and pulled up a seat by his trusted adding machine.

Look, Sanders has huge, huge problems. He has tons of work to do. His numbers with black voters in South Carolina are worse than his numbers nationally. I maintain that this race is not about him winning, but if it is about him insisting that there is a path to winning for some kind of progressivism, then it's crucially important that he demonstrate an appeal to, and real ability to listen to, minority voters. Otherwise, yes, it's the same old doomed white leftie sideshow, whatever its other ripple effects. I'm not sure what point there is in writing postmortems for that project before it's clearly failed.

The people who pay for the party will make it fail. The voting won't have much to do with it, except to the degree the leadership and the media will kneecap Sanders if they have to with whatever Dean Scream is at hand.

Clinton is certainly doing her best to run the shittiest campaign since oh maybe Al Gore (or perhaps herself eight years ago).

Morbz and Alex both otm

Morbz: I mean "fail" in the bigger sense, like does it actually bring together new coalitions, or sketch out bridges between recently-emerged ones, or provide animating rhetoric or energy for progressives further down the ticket or in future elections. Those things are, I think, what Sanders is trying to do, and certainly what I'd like to see him achieve. Whether or not he wins the nomination (answer: "not") doesn't enter into that directly. It's kind of like that one movie about the Italian boxer.

@realDonaldTrump
At the request of many, and even though I expect it to be a very boring two hours, I will be covering the Democrat Debate live on twitter!

@ggreenwald
The celebratory shrieking noises you hear are emanating from the offices of CNN executives...

or provide animating rhetoric or energy for progressives further down the ticket

this is the best possible outcome but it's kinda early to determine if this is going to happen

Yes! Exactly!

Sheryl Crow will be performing at the debate

Well, it can't be that bad.

xp: you're kidding, right

hoping she drops the guitar and points accusingly at Sanders on "my friend the Communist"

Glad the DNC is still trying to bring in the youth vote with the Rock and roll

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/07/entertainment/sheryl-crow-cnn-debate-feat/

@ggreenwald
The overt fusion of entertainment & politics this election is healthy: more honest. CNN should pay Trump to attend.

one of the debate questions should be listening to Crow play and then asking each candidate what they thought of her performance (as she's still playing in the background really loudly)

Too long have we neglected the uncool youth of the mid-90s demographic, THAT ENDS TONIGHT

Huge laff, Doctor Casino

"This ain't no country club..." Well...

Karl, that's a great question, and I know it's a question that's on the minds of the American people and the Democratic party as we face a real choice in this election. Because, and this is an issue where we have been consistent from day one, Sheryl Crow issues are American issues, they are middle class issues and if we want to continue to recover from the recession and build good jobs in this country we will all have to be thinking about that. And I think Senator Webb agrees with that also and that's an issue where I think we can look to have broad bipartisan support, and if you look at the polls most Americans do agree, but with the Congress we have right now, nothing is happening on this and we're looking to change that. I've introduced a bill that would safeguard our shared opinion of Sheryl Crow through 2030, but that bill died in committee. With a new administration I'm hopeful we can turn that around and move forward on this issue which means so much to so many Americans.

All I wanna do is have some guns

Senator Sanders, how did you feel when Lance Armstrong was revealed to be a terrible liar? Please look into Sheryl Crow's eyes as you explain.
*cut to Sheryl Crow POV camera*

Too long have we neglected the uncool youth of the mid-90s demographic, THAT ENDS TONIGHT

I've told my story of going to Kerry's election night rally in 2004, right? Right after the Black Eyed Peas hyped up a crowd full of young people with a boisterous performance, Kerry came out to address the crowd and said, "We've got a SPECIAL TREAT for you all tonight!" Everyone leaned forward, thinking that maybe we'd get a surprise Beyonce/Destiny's Child performance. Kerry beamed and shouted "JT IS HERE!" and everyone went nuts... until James Taylor walked out with a stool and an acoustic guitar. 35 minutes later everyone in Copley Square under the age of 40 was asleep.

Sensing he was losing the crowd, Kerry said "We've got another great artist for you guys, tonight is going to be historic!" and Sheryl Crow walked out with HER acoustic guitar. At this point, I turned to my wife and said, "Okay, so Kerry has clearly lost the election." This was about 45 minutes before the results started coming in.

Hope it's one of those awkward things where she comes out and all of the candidates have to stare at her blankly from their podiums for like five minutes.

series of duets

did they do the anthem before the last GOP 'debate'? where was The Nuge?

Karl, this is an issue that's very important to me personally because as you know I started my political career riding with the vending machine repairmen. It was a very inspiring time for me, and we were all very excited about intellectualism and other ideas. Very excited. Those were days when anything seemed possible. And so of course, Lance Armstrong, it was a terrible thing. We came very close to a tragedy there. We were dangerously close. But if you look at the big picture it is clear that for ten years the American economy has been living in a paper bag, where billionaires enjoy Mercedes rule and rent Lear jets while the average family is struggling to keep above water. And it is my opinion that a change would do us good, and that is why I'm running for President.

hahaha DJP i do remember that story but it just gets more sad/funny each time

also i don't think you've shared the "JT is here!" part before, that is amazing

DJP, that anecdote is gemlike in its perfection. I want it to be engraved in bronze a thousand times over and shipped COD to every Democratic politician for at least the next 20 years.

added lol is that i'm sure a fair amount of people, upon hearing "JT is here!", thought that maybe Justin Timberlake would be walking on stage

oh wait, that's implied in the anecdote. no lol's added, they're already at max value!

"James Taylor, reporting for duty!"

xp: Haha I was about to say I need a better editor than myself

I thought you left out an initial and meant to suggest Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

Clinton is certainly doing her best to run the shittiest campaign since oh maybe Al Gore (or perhaps herself eight years ago).

she doesn't have to run much of a primary campaign. she's going to win. I predict that her game in the general election will be of a much higher order.

I was hoping that maybe a hologram of James Thurber came out and did 40 minutes of live off the cuff illustration.

I predict that her game in the general election will be of a much higher order.

based on what?

where's all that delicious PAC money going right now anyway? probably being squirreled for the general

majority of it's going to the GOP

"she doesn't have to run much of a primary campaign. she's going to win. I predict that her game in the general election will be of a much higher order."

I've seen no evidence that she knows how to bring an "A"-game, but obv we'll see. Her opponent in the general election is probably going to be pretty weak regardless so she might be thinking no point in expending much effort period.

Gore doesn't have to run much of a primary campaign. he's going to win. I predict that his game in the general election will be of a much higher order.

main diff between Hillz + Gore is that it's highly unlikely Hillz' opponent is going to be anywhere near as broadly appealing as Dubya was