Conventional Mealy Mouths: The 2016 Primary Voting Thread, Part 5

Nah, 2008 was way, way worse. This is like a picnic lunch.

(Thankfully, Mark Penn is nowhere to be found in this campaign.) xp

bums me out that the dem contest is going here

― marcos, Thursday, April 7, 2016 9:46 AM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's a bummer, but isn't 'here' exactly where Hillz dragged it the last time she ran?

― My Whole Existence Is Flan (Old Lunch), Thursday, April 7, 2016 10:56 AM (19 minutes ago)

more or less. while i think sanders' comments on whether HRC is "qualified" are kind of dumb, he's not really saying anything that he hasn't said before, and they're not personal attacks, just the usual stuff about donations and bad votes. 2008 clinton otoh was calling into question obama's viability by bringing up things about his upbringing and his church pastor

stifle Fred

@ggreenwald
Oh my, Mr. Sanders, I do declare: your tone is now so very gauche. #DemPunditColumn: from those red-baiting him & blaming him for Sandy Hook

His refusal to play that role meekly & gratefully is rude. I hope the civility lectures from Dem pundits fix him.

How are those quotes "devolving into a small child"? clickbait post headline

xposts

'Well, she started it!"

I was relatively agnostic about Clinton until her behavior during her '08 run, which was frankly appalling. So, yeah, really thrilled to see her strapping in to the Spitemobile once again.

you're right Frederik, Bernie Sanders should leave baseless allegations against his character and ability unchallenged

lol at this being "going negative," and counting as some kind of major shocking letdown by sanders. he's been loose with their "disqualify" language and i agree that was sloppy but, come on, have you seen an election before? you'd think he'd was doing a trump "make fun of your spouse's appearance" thing, or dropping a willie horton ad, or at the very least the more typical thing in our elections, the reason why people get so burned out on "negative campaigns" which is to say, like, running an ad like "Hillary Clinton (full color photo of Hillary in the Senate) SAYS she's for American families... (sinister music, picture fades to black and white and slow-mo as big red text flashes on the screen) but she voted AGAINST the American Family Act" (that this ad doesn't mention was primarily a pork barrel project for South Dakota and in fact was intended to eliminate tax breaks for families and instead subsidize gypsum mining companies). "Hillary Clinton: against American families, against American values - - - against America." etc.

i mean if anybody's done that kinda thing - - - and in general i would say the Dem race has been honestly as mild as i can remember on this front - - - it's been Clinton, when she was going after Sanders's "voting against the auto bailout" (that is, when it was bundled with the blanket bank bailout). i realize we've talked about that particular issue and we can disagree on sanders's voting choice, but the point is that it was misrepresented and clinton kinda clearly gave up that line after sanders patiently explained himself and then won michigan resoundingly. but like that's really been it? everything else, yeah, they've said things about what they don't like about the other person, and what they disagree with, but probably a lot less than they could say, and they're generally in the category of reasonable things you might bring up as a reason to vote for you instead of the other person. it's "negative" in that it's not an ad strictly about how great a candidate YOU are but i don't personally find it to be offensive or damaging to the public conversation or w/e.

Not that invested in who's got the high ground, but a) yes, 2008 was worse, and b) this time I'm much more surprised--I thought the Democratic side would get less contentious past a certain point, not more.

this "qualified" argument is so dumb. the entire election is about which candidate you think is more qualified - that's the subtext of EVERYTHING. why do either campaigns think making the subtext the text will be compelling to people? "oh, i've been following this election closely but i never stopped to think about who is more qualified. now that i've considered it i am changing my mind."

like "hillary is not qualified because she voted for the iraq war" is not a different argument from "hillary's vote for the iraq war indicates poor judgement." these are synonymous.

Nah, 2008 was way, way worse. This is like a picnic lunch.

(Thankfully, Mark Penn is nowhere to be found in this campaign.) xp

― Ⓓⓡ. (Johnny Fever), Thursday, April 7, 2016 11:18 AM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yea i agree 2008 was worse

This isn't even as negative as a Canadian election campaign tbh. This Dem race could be the least negative US election I can remember.

so don't care about this manufactured kerfuffle

"Hilldog bullied me out of my Ecto Cooler"

we're surprised that a rancorous candidate in 2008 has reverted to form and that the race is finally getting contentious?

surprised by some of the responses

also: 2008 was nastier because two white people are running in 2016.

I think neither Clinton or Sanders has much to gain by going negative. Sanders because he's running as an unconventional politician, and Clinton because she'd prefer to cruise serenely to the general.

I watched rachel maddow for the first time in a while last night. Was she always so weird? She worked herself into a pique about Ted Cruz winning a senatorial seat in a midterm when barely anyone voted, the was all aghast at Bernie's "hill's unqualified" statement. There wasn't really a sense of perspective; everything was un be liev able

the whole thing is dumb. the only reason qualificationgate is being pushed as a thing is bc the bernie campaign is trying to make up ground in the upcoming big states and without forcing controversy (like the dumb argument over what date they should debate) it's unclear how he's going to move the numbers. maybe hillary feels the same way but she's up in these states so her interest is to not have the race change dramatically.

and i mean in this thread as well plenty of you are bernie supporters making a big deal out of nothing for presumably the same reason. just chill.

At the very least this NY primary HAS to be Sanders' last stand as a credible threat, right? Hopefully he'll stop before he damages the credibility of progressivism further.

Also, fuck Jeff Weaver.

He has not "damage the credibility of progressivism" jesus

He's not a perfect candidate but the left wing of the democratic party was entitled to put up a challenge to hillary.

Also, Alfred, sexism is a thing as well.

Hopefully he'll stop before he damages the credibility of progressivism further.

hahaahahahahaha

what a disaster for progressivism

the first tightly contested primary in history, and here we are to witness it

Also, Alfred, sexism is a thing as well.

― Frederik B, Thursday, April 7, 2016 12:27 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh man pwned

I'm disappointed in myself that it boils down to this but I think the main reason I am not as gung-ho for Sanders as many of my friends aside from irrational lingering concerns that he has not adjusted his platform enough to remove the spectre of colorblindness from it (or, more accurately, that his defensive position is a colorblind one that reinforces a status quo where any gains made from his policies will be disproportionally granted to white people over everyone else in the country) is that he seems really old and frail to me. It is completely ageist and I don't know what to do about it beyond telling myself "stop thinking that" but it's difficult for me to look at him and not think that this campaign is killing him, to the point where he might rival WHH's short tenure should he win the election.

Also, Alfred, sexism is a thing as well.

― Frederik B, Thursday, April 7, 2016

oh shit yeah let me retract that statement: 2016 is worse

hes not all that much older than hillary, maybe six years or so

Yes, and the overall impression I get is that she's much healthier than he is, which could be a gigantic pile of bullshit for all I actually know.

Some of that might be due to the fact that, as a woman, she is pressured to put more effort into her appearance. I think bernie could stand to stand up straight and wear better fitting clothes tbh.. Maybe his people think that would hurt his authenticity

Basically at this point I've gone from "I will happily vote for whichever Democrat wins" to "they both still represent my interests so I will vote for either of them but I will be very irritated about it"

― more or less 40% of the country, Thursday, April 7, 2016

not being snarky at you dan, that just so completely sums up the end of any presidential politics conversation i've had in person with almost anyone for the past year

DJP, this isn't related to the ageism, but I just wanted to say by way of general appreciation that I have really valued your posts on Sanders throughout the election cycle; I've brought them up a few times in IRL conversation to try and help sort out some mixed feelings, to try and confront blanket statements about his performance with African-Americans, etc.

(actually that's not quite right - your posts have participated in forcing me to confront some of my own assumptions, not just provided illustrations for concerns i was having already!)

Jeff Weavers plan is built on disrupting the race, causing everyone to panic, forget the factual math, and abandon Clinton. There's no way in hell it works without sexism.

Fuck that dude, and shame on Sanders for tripling down on his male privilege.

fred, please go away

It's kind of magical how any qualms I have about Sanders that come from a conservative "devil you know" place of interacting with American politics as an African-American melt like wax before a blowtorch almost every time Frederik posts.

omg fred has cracked the race wide open, my mind is just blown, how could i not have seen it

Putting Fred aside it does seem to me like sexism does play a role in a lot of the disgust I see directed at Hillary. Not in some kind of overt bigoted way but in terms of how we view women who are ambitious and ask for our votes and money. That it's somehow cruder and more vulgar coming from a woman which magnifies otherwise legitimate critiques. I don't know that this is true 100% but it does occur to me as an explanation for why the rhetoric is so over the top when it comes to her but not to male politicians with the exact same politics. Also I'm sure it doesn't help that she's bad at connecting to large audiences (though I keep hearing that she's extremely personable in person).

Yeah I mean of course it's probably amplified by sexism, certain Danes acting like that's a #truthbomb is not super insightful.

sexism for sure plays a very real albeit unquantifiable role in probably everyone's choice to vote against hillary, some clearly more than others. this has nothing to do with sanders, who as far as i can tell has never made a gendered critique of clinton's legitimacy as a candidate. unless you believe that any criticism he makes of clinton, when considered in the context of the partriachical society it was made, is de facto gendered. but that strikes me as a pretty unserious opinion

the rhetoric is so over the top when it comes to her but not to male politicians with the exact same politics

I'm not sure I agree that this is true, although I don't know if you're talking about the mainstream media, the Sanders campaign, Republican campaigns, random people on social media, ...

The more vile overt stuff comes from supporters which on one hand Bernie should not be forced to answer for otoh it's impossible to completely disambiguate a candidate and their campaign from their supporters.

Afaict: #1 seems pretty favourable to her, #2 has been exceptionally if not excessively civil imo, #3 were at least as nasty to Obama and her husband.
xp

She is mockable in many of the same ways that her husband is, on both the aesthetics and odious substance.

As my last two November prez ballots went to Jill Stein and Cynthia McKinney, my conscience is clear.