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

― Ⓓⓡ. (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.

would love to have a peak in alt universe where warren was the leftist candidate and biden was the party establishment pick and see exactly how many berniebros would be backing warren (my guess is most?) and how many hillary backers would be giving their support to biden (i have no idea on that one?)

watching some recent Hillary ad w Bill - Bubba is starting to rather eerily remind me of Dick Van Dyke

She does carry herself in a particularly robotic, "I'm just saying things I'm advised to with a very fake smile" way. When she forces folksiness and relatability it comes off as really painful for her. And set against the super progressive angle coming from Sanders she looks especially like a "typical politician". Those two things combined inspire the more extreme rhetoric against her despite others I think.

Biden's record prob worse politically than Hillary's; he'd have to answer directly for all the shitty things that happened in the 90s instead of the highly spinnable vagueness of the first lady's status therein

However, you'd "rather have a beer with him" than Hillary

Bill looks and sounds so unwell, so frail--can't imagine him making it too long unless they give him what they give Cheney

Biden would also have to answer for the goddamn Clarence Thomas hearings.

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

i dunno if she's always been like that, but that's more or less always been my impression of her

above all i find that she treats her audience like eight-year-olds. all the heavy-handed sarcasm underlined eighteen times, the need to make everything seem Like Just An Incredible Development, etc. etc.

i find all the cable news networks completely unwatchable and MSNBC is no exception.

anyway, back to primary stuff i guess.

i also agree thaT DJP's caution w/r/t Sanders has been instructive. i was quite disappointed by his responses in that recent interview and it kind of struck me how little i'd been holding him to the standards i'd like to think i generally hold politicans to, in large part because the /idea/ of a credible progressive/left-wing challenge is so appealing. but sanders certainly has his weaknesses.

quite disappointed by /sanders's/ responses, not DJPs!! :)

memo:

Politicians suck shit.

thanks grandpa!