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

reading william saletan re: any candidate's feminist bona fides is insane, he's written in the past that any abortion after the first term should be illegalized, that 'real feminists' would shame any woman who gets an abortion as it brings ill repute on their cause, and that feminists should 'admit' that any abortion is morally equivalent to murder. this was all as part of his grand compromise between pro-choicers and pro-lifers wherein in turn pro-lifers would accept that birth control (note: does not include abortion or morning after pills - still murder!) was legal (how grand of them!) and 'admit' that early term abortions, while still murder, are not as evil as second or third term abortions which would be compltely illegal as part of this compromise anyway. he also, for many many years though not of late that i can recall, argued that morally there is no difference between homosexuality and incest or beastiality and that if homosexuals were given 'special rights' than so much ppl that wanna fuck their sister or their sister's dog. then he would glibly dare anyone to point out a flaw in his logic and when dozens of readers would simply ignore them and go 'aha! so you admit i'm right!' he's the very definition of a slate writer, a fungus that grew out of a stack of moldy old new republics in the basement.

I've been spending way too much time in chat rooms soaking up all the HRC-Bernie bickering, and I must say, it's getting really bleak out there if you hoped he had a shot. The HRC people are saying this thing is sewn up and I'm starting to believe them. What I am hearing from people in their 20s is "gee, I like his ideas but he seems so decrepit" and people in the 30s and 40s are like, "he's the worst campaigner ever, he has no plan for how to achieve all this stuff". Depressed.

surprise!

right i know saletan is an asshole, my *shrugs* was meant in a "broken clock is right twice a day" sense xp

i didn't read every single response to the debate but i don't recall anyone arguing that sanders was being sexist by using the word 'shouting' until clinton decided to use it as a talking point in a speech a few days after the debate.

slate is awful in general but the observer piece makes some good points.

It would be cool if people voted for the candidate who they agreed w rather than the one that is 'going to win'. This isn't horse racing.

was that "surprise" directed at me, shakey?

yes

HRC had a great response to 'how would your candidacy differ from a third Obama term?' and her answer was she is a woman.

yeah i gave up on that article the moment he brought up "race cards." and tying that kind of persona in with being a captain-save-a-bernie dudeblogger is totally NAGL. nonetheless i do think the point about the "shouting" bit stands - sanders was creakily deploying a canard about two sides in a debate "shouting at each other" and one which he indeed uses all the time. that may totally be a lame answer to the gun control problem; that's a separate issue. for clinton to turn it into "when women talk, some people think we’re shouting" is cynical and disingenuous. she knows that's not what was going on but she also knows this will be a winning tactic.

I mean it's cute when young people adopt totally ahistorical positions (less so when olds do it) but the enthusiasm for Bernie was always misplaced imo.

he did make Hillary shift campaign positions a bit, which is a net positive.

xp

lol at bernie sanders taking a stand against shouting

maybe he can take a stand against weird torture erotica next

ftr i didn't actually read the article, just the headline and sub header, but if you think what bernie did was "mansplaining" then we're gonna be in for a lot of mansplaining over the next 12 months

― k3vin k., Wednesday, October 28, 2015 5:49 PM (10 minutes ago)

the term is useful in lots of situations but i don't think a debate where candidates are expected to explain their views and defend them against criticisms from other candidates is one of those situations.

right

maybe he can take a stand against weird torture erotica next

― balls, Wednesday, October 28, 2015 1:00 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no way, this is key to the general in 2016

it would show weakness against trump

the term is useful in lots of situations but i don't think a debate where candidates are expected to explain their views and defend them against criticisms from other candidates is one of those situations.

exactly. he wasn't primarily speaking at or for the other candidates, he was speaking for the audience.

I mean it's cute when young people adopt totally ahistorical positions (less so when olds do it) but the enthusiasm for Bernie was always misplaced imo.

he did make Hillary shift campaign positions a bit, which is a net positive.

xp
--Οὖτις

K thanks

heh, some silly stuff in this article:

Campaigns erupt over greenrooms at third GOP debate
Aides to Chris Christie and Rand Paul complain their work spaces look like bathrooms.

http://static2.politico.com/dims4/default/637fce8/2147483647/resize/1160x%3E/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstatic.politico.com%2Fbd%2Fed%2Faf44d5664e28a85ae2bfc24c45ac%2Falex.jpg
(left, right: Trump, Paul)

“This is ridiculous,” fumed Christie’s campaign manager, Ken McKay. “We’re in a restroom.”
Paul’s team also piped in, with one adviser, Chris LaCivita, demanding that something be done to remedy the situation.

but for some reason this part is the funniest:

At various moments, the conversation veered to more substantive matters. Brett O’Donnell, an adviser to Lindsey Graham, suggested altering the debate format so in the future there would be two debates with seven or eight candidates onstage — each lasting 90 minutes, with the participants picked at random. Representatives for Paul and Bush, however, pushed back on the idea.

pffffffffft so pathetic

what would the pro-bernie enthusiasm be better directed toward?

I think the idea is you're supposed to be a very serious adult and vote for HRC. Although it's cute when people want to vote for someone else...

what would the pro-bernie enthusiasm be better directed toward?

what they call "downticket" ballot candidates - contested House/Senate seats, state legislatures and governorships, local gov't positions and ballot initiatives. Time and money spent on Bernie is, for the most part, wasted imo. Better to direct that time and energy to pushing GOP out of state legislatures, getting other committed leftists elected to offices they actually have a chance of winning.

I totally understand not wanting to vote for Hillary (I will not be voting for Hillary, for the record), but pretending there was ever going to be any serious challenge to her as the Dem nominee, and spending millions of dollars and hours trying to will this fantasy into a reality - especially when this *exact same* tactic has been attempted (and subsequently failed) in every single previous Dem nominating process since 1984, often with candidates that were quite similar to Bernie in various ways - is just delusional.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/xQqJFxusZ5vJ5gW_ygpGDA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAwO2lsPXBsYW5l/http://40.media.tumblr.com/297810061510d8bf06032ce0f4051e8f/tumblr_inline_nwxsguMaYt1tou6vb_1280.jpg

Wait, that's the scene right before he goes out back and meets the monster who lives behind the dumpster.

Better to direct that time and energy to pushing GOP out of state legislatures, getting other committed leftists elected to offices they actually have a chance of winning.

glad you mentioned that, because i was having ~thoughts~ about that last night and then completely forgot about it. wondering why it was that more time and energy and money wasn't poured into off-presidential election years, like 2010 and 2014. (obviously a lot of effort is involved in every election, but in off years it's perceptibly more low key)

the most obvious factor would seem to be that the house districts are so polarized that it's not worth the effort to put up a serious fight in most republican-controlled districts. there's probably a better dataset out there, but check this out from 2010:

http://www.fairvote.org/research-and-analysis/congressional-elections/dubious-democracy/dubious-democracy-1982-2010/state-rankings-2010/average-margin-of-victory/

the average margin of victory in a house race was 33%. and in many states (check out the state profiles here) most of the races were complete blowouts.

that's from 2010, so i'm guessing the elections are even more polarized by now. it just seems difficult to motivate people to get involved and vote on a large scale because for most people, the outcome of the election (dem vs gop) is already predictable. i'm sure the DNC and RNC and megadonors focus their efforts on the swing districts, of course, but that still eliminates the involvement of most potential voters because most people don't get too concerned about house election outside of their own district.

i guess i'm just having a hard time thinking of a way to dramatically increase voter turnout in off-presidential election years with all of these disincentives to vote in play

lol @ jeb's paleo salad

yr dataset is all House-centric. It's widely acknowledged that there are very few House seats up for grabs, which is why I specified "contested" House seats, and then listed a bunch of other stuff that is not related to the House. State legislatures and governorships, for example - there's no reason the GOP should dominate those so thoroughly.

xxp

like a bunch of other things are going to be on various state ballots in 2016 (and not just House seats) - better to spend time+energy on those, where marginal victories are achievable and desirable and will have a serious impact, then to entertain fantasies of ol' man Bernie winning the Dem nom (so not gonna happen) and then the Presidency (even more so not gonna happen). But flipping your state legislature from red to blue? Might happen. Throwing out your shitty governor? Might happen. etc.

the monster who lives behind the dumpster

GHWB lives behind a dumpster now? how fortunes fade

those blowouts are surely magnified by them being midterm years, yes? not to say that incumbency effects aren't real and very powerful but the extra pathetic turnout in midterm years is not coincidental to the extra severe one-sidedness of those races.

i'm on the fence about the "energy should have been put into something else" thesis. again, i never thought bernie was running to win, still don't, so it's not like i could really feel surprised or ripped-off when he turns out to not win. perhaps having this progressive loudmouth in the race and polling as well as he is, is a good thing, or a better thing than not having that, and accepting that the sole consensus is around the corporate wing of the party. yes, that can be boiled down in soundbite form to statements of no substance like: "will he 'move hillary to the left.'" but i don't agree that the enthusiasm stirred up by a bernie just goes away and accomplishes nothing once he inevitably doesn't win. i think this could be extended by saying, again, that having the progressive loudmouth do this well actually enables those downticket people to run, or gives them the confidence to run on a single-payer health care platform when they previously would have hemmed and hawed about tweaking obamacare. who knows. this of course depends on how he 'does' which is measured not in whether he wins, but in whether he can muster real quantities of delegates in states besides vermont, quantities that make people (candidates, donors, local newspaper editors) pause and go "huh, he did that well? against party heir apparent hillary clinton? maybe there's something going on in america here." and we're not really yet at the point where those kind of effects can be measured.

however i would understand the argument that it's less important/urgent to field more progressive democrats or build a progressive consensus, than it is to try and flip statehouses or win ballot initiatives where possible. i might even agree with it, though it's not so clear to me how people throwing $10 to bernie every so often and clicking 'share' for him is actually hindering those efforts. just going on facebook shares i feel like the same people also click share on stories about, with my circle of friends, a recent outrageous ohio state legislature move regarding planned parenthood. it's not an either/or (not that you were saying it necessarily was).

freely admitted, i think i've made virtually this same post once a month since june, but the race is basically in the same place it was when it was june and all reasonable folks said "well, nothing actually happens until next year, this is all sideshow." that's... still true, right? like just because we're bored of nothing happening doesn't mean something has suddenly happened, right?

Wait, that's the scene right before he goes out back and meets the monster who lives behind the dumpster.

― pplains, Wednesday, 28 October 2015 21:59 (16 minutes ago) Permalink

MASSIVE lol at this, thank you!

meanwhile i guess there's another republican debate tonight? missed that. the hopeless goofnuts (pataki, jindal, graham and santorum) are on right now.

though it's not so clear to me how people throwing $10 to bernie every so often and clicking 'share' for him is actually hindering those efforts

yeah these aren't necessarily mutually exclusive but I do think that in general people are liable to get *more* excited and engaged about a presidential candidate than they are about smaller stakes stuff like their local state rep (whom most voters probably can't even name). This is understandable, people like that frisson of national media attention - "we're part of a MOVEMENT!" - it feels more significant, the political landscape is often simpler and easier to grasp. But it also plays into a national misconception/delusion that all that matters is "the most powerful office in the world". In reality, in terms of real hard policy that directly affects people's lives, if someone really cares about the issues Bernie cares about, it's not that much of a stretch to say that those interests will be more concretely advanced if that enthusiasm is channeled into local and state elections.

Folks.

Tellin' ya.

GAMECHANGER.

https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/659492313853353984

for a sec i thought you said "like their local state (whom most voters probably can't even name)"

with you on the rest though tbh. definitely we would be better off rolling up our sleeves and ~getting involved~ generally speaking than clasping our hands to the sky and waiting for a superman. but, just to explore this a bit, is that an argument against bernie running specifically because he obviously has no chance, or would it also apply to long-shot candidates who sort of have a chance? like what's the break point where "don't accept local politics as they are, get involved and change them" takes us to "and therefore accept national politics as they're given, the ready-for-coronation candidate is the only likely outcome so why bother"? to be clear i think there could be a range of points there, where bernie in 2016 versus Clinton Has Been Waiting is a pie-in-the-sky candidate to campaign for, but other people aren't.

i personally don't agree with the pie-in-the-sky characterization of course, not because i think he can win but because i think non-winning candidates can matter, as outlined above. hillary will remain hillary but the party can change, the agenda can change, the overton window can change, and those things can matter a lot for those local races and referenda. not saying that national races are the only thing that can move that window, or even the main thing; if anything, i think they tend to lag behind a bit. but they're part of this wider picture of different fronts, different gears turning at different rates. nice to keep them all moving in the right direction.

yeah and that's why I don't begrudge Bernie his candidacy too much - he has had some impact on what the "conversation" even is, he's made Hillary shift rhetoric, he's clarified what the base is most fired up about.

re: is that an argument against bernie running specifically because he obviously has no chance, or would it also apply to long-shot candidates who sort of have a chance?

Obama was a similar long-shot candidate who sort of had a chance, and for different reasons. He was more closely connected to Dem party apparatus, he had a natural flair as a candidate, a messianic appeal as the guy who might actually be the first black President - and Hillary ran a really shitty campaign that revealed weaknesses that he was prepared and able to exploit. 2008 was a genuine upset (albeit one that had been presaged a bit by Kerry's dismal showing and the shadow of the Iraq War), and I was totally onboard for Obama, something I can't say I really regret. But Bradley? Sanders? Jackson? Dean? These guys were all pretty doomed from the start in terms of them winning the nomination. Which is not to say their campaigns were totally worthless, just that what goals they may have ended up achieving were pretty distinct from winning the nomination and subsequently the White House. I get that Bernie can't really come out and say "I have no chance of winning, but I want to have some impact on what issues are talked about this campaign and where party resources go, and that's why I'm running!", because that's not much of a rallying cry, it would be a self-defeating admission. But any time anyone would tell me how good Bernie's chances were I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"Obama was a similar long-shot candidate who sort of had a chance"

Obama was not a long-shot candidate at all and 2008 was seems an upset if you were not paying attention to Obama and/or Clinton for the previous 4 (or 16) years.

if you were not paying attention to Obama and/or Clinton for the previous 4 (or 16) years

prior to a few months before the Iowa primary, this was most of the electorate tbh

Yes well suffice it to say that changed pretty quick.

Except even by a few months prior to that Obama had been obliterating fundraising records. Also Obama clearly about a million times better candidate than any of those other guys you mentioned. I remember people (democratic party mouthpieces, not just random lefty types) saying after 2004 convention speech "this dude will be president". I think only surprise was how quickly it happened, but it wasn't like this guy was a fringe/long-shot dude. He had a lot of support from the get go.

We're obviously talking about the perceptions of different subgroups here - I didn't think he was much of a longshot by Iowa for all the reasons you mention, and because I remembered his speech coming out against the war, and his speech at the convention, and his fundraising numbers. But I think there were plenty of other Dem primary voters who were taken by surprise, or wanted to cast him as fringe/longshot (what was the name of those vocal women-for-Hillary groups? I can't remember)

Hillary definitely had plenty of support and I think her supporters (PUMAs, I think?) were trying to dismiss him as unelectable (not sure about fringe, Obama was pretty MOR Democrat really) but again I think for most folks paying attention his rise was not a huge shock. He still could have been turned out to be a bad campaigner (he wasn't though--maybe a little lackluster in a debate or two) and Hillary a great campaigner (she's obv not though) but I'd say on the surface by this time in 2007 anyone arguing that he was the equivalent to a Dean or a Bradley was a little deluded.

Ha you might want to take a look back at the Ilx threads from that time period before you double down on that statement.

i think a sanders campaign could be very very useful in terms of having an impact on local, state, and congressional races. the dean campaign was ultimately a doomed protest campaign (turns out shouty vermont pols don't play well w/ voters) but it innovated techniques w/ campaigning, fundraising, and gotv that allowed the dems to take the house and senate in 06 and the white house in 08 and 12. that 06 victory came via the strategy of dnc head dean, two years after hearing predictions of rove having secured a permanent republican majority, and despite constant criticism and attack from clintonland, w/ terry mcauliffe (who'd managed to give the gop the senate and allow them to reverse their losses of the previous two elections in the house)(during a midterm, during a recession) claiming if he'd still been head of the dnc the dems would've managed a larger margin which is comparable to brady hoke claiming if he'd still been coach instead of harbaugh michigan wouldn't have lost to michigan state.

http://media.giphy.com/media/12ZQbvNTmoFUyI/giphy.gif

the problem is sanders isn't running that kind of campaign. there's no innovation and he's not creating a movement that has a potential to matter much a year or four years from now. nobody is going to copy bernie sanders. that said he's shown that you can be 'extreme far left' and not toxic, if trump and carson have "normalized" the politics of hatred and batshit stupidity then bernie has done as much (and more, he is polling better than either trump or carson. radically different sized fields admittedly but still.) w/ a populist message, he is bringing issues to the table and making them seem not crazy and plausible. he also allows/forces hillary to move left or highlight instead of downplay policies that play to the left (this notion that hillary's liberalism is phony is a bit ridiculous as well; she's a policy wonk so pragmatism is her first ideal which generally leads to centrism but we haven't seen so far this century and i predict won't see anytime soon a bill to make it to the floor of congress as ambitiously liberal as hillarycare was. her foreign policy is fucked and wrong, but it's a liberal foreign policy, i can't think of any argument she made samantha power didn't have her back on), while at the same time allowing her liberal policies to look like a safe middleclass friendly compromise. as for 'lol she think's her being a woman matters', it does fucking matter, if you think there aren't blindspots to women's issues you're going to have because you're a male or to minority issues you're going to have because you're white wtf are you thinking, w/ a congress that's obsessed w/ destroying planned parenthood i can totally understand why an important base of democratic voters (more important than gun owners i'll wager) might put more faith in the female candidate w/ a long history of fighting for women's issues and family issues (again SCHIP) than the old man waving his arms around going 'all i know is if there's blood in the sheets wake them up and push them into a hot shower while screaming 'everything is going to be okay"), white guys ran this country for over two hundred years. by and large they sucked at it. would it be alot better if there was a candidate alot better than hillary running (or out there period)? yes. bernie sanders isn't that candidate.

^^^ otm about Dean. His candidacy ended up fundamentally altering election landscape/Dem strategies

i am curious about how sanders campaigns in the south, because there is that heavy anti-wall street anti-bank sentiment to tap into but the same voters are the most lockstep hannity or beck parroting kneejerk anti-anything that carries the whiff of dem libtard approval. i can remember conservative acquaintances who wanted somebody to do something about wall street, that somebody should break up the banks, but were against dodd-frank cuz they didn't like liberals trying to regulate the economy like they were smarter than everybody else. they want somebody to break up the banks as long as somebody isn't the government. santa claus maybe. in conclusion the south is full of idiots.

insert absalom absalom quote here

http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/why-bernie-sanders-starting-attract-conservative-voters