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

krugman was always an apparatchik shitbag

"“I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television,” Mr. Clinton said Friday of the Black Lives Matter protesters"

Fuck you dude

i have a legitimate question: when is bill clinton going to die? asking for a friend.

http://rs279.pbsrc.com/albums/kk143/faeini1/CrystalBallHands.gif~c200

"I know those young people yesterday were just trying to get good television,” Mr. Clinton said wearing his $2000 suit, $300 tie, obligatory American flag lapel pin made of enameled 18 caret gold, and what he would have referred to in his youthful days as a "shit-eating grin".

Any time I post about the Democratic nomination, I usually point out that I don't have a great rooting interest--I have a mild preference for Sanders. Headlines like these (I see similar ones here and there) drive me up the wall, though:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/bernie-sanders-is-even-further-behind-in-votes-than-he-is-in-delegates/

I've just skimmed the piece, but the idea that Sanders really isn't doing as well as everyone thinks strikes me as absurd on the face of it. How can you write about the Democratic race without starting from the inescapable fact that Sanders has done amazingly well thus far? Quibbling that his caucus strength overstates his overall strength seems extremely defensive to me. "Even Less Competitive"???--the pledged delegate count is currently 1,280 to 1,030!

polls indicate he is trailing by dougle digits in PA, NY and CA.

http://rs279.pbsrc.com/albums/kk143/faeini1/CrystalBallHands.gif~c200

Polls have been preeeettty accurate except for Michigan.

I'm looking at it in more general terms, and it's the headline I find especially misleading. You're a baseball fan, VHS--to me it would be like, on the eve of the 1969 World Series, titling an article "Mets Head Into Series with an Alarmingly Weak Bench."

polls indicate he is trailing by dougle digits in PA, NY and CA

Opinion polling has a good enough track record over the past half century that it can't be dismissed as meaningless, but polls have become less unreliable as partisanship has become more pervasive and insinuated itself deeper and deeper into the process.

Large numbers of people seem to be adopting my position, which is to flatly refuse to answer any pollster's questions. I was even called a while back (2008?) for a NYT poll and hung up. So-called 'push-polling' really was the last straw for me, but it basically boils down to rarely knowing who has commissioned a poll or what purposes the information will be used for.

Of course the only polling that counts takes place at polling places on election days and we'll have those results soon enough. I can wait.

oops "less unreliable"

There are recent polls where he's down by six in PA and CA. Of course, he has to average wins by about thirteen points from here on out.

Trump has now cancelled a California trip, after doing the same in Colorado. Weird. I can't seem him bailing at this point, but what is the thinking there?

I've just skimmed the piece, but the idea that Sanders really isn't doing as well as everyone thinks strikes me as absurd on the face of it. How can you write about the Democratic race without starting from the inescapable fact that Sanders has done amazingly well thus far? Quibbling that his caucus strength overstates his overall strength seems extremely defensive to me. "Even Less Competitive"???--the pledged delegate count is currently 1,280 to 1,030!

― clemenza, Saturday, April 9, 2016 2:20 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'll be honest and say I don't really get the differences between primary and caucuses, but I don't know, the way the math was presented to me a Bernie nomination is still a long shot.

Opinion polling has a good enough track record over the past half century that it can't be dismissed as meaningless, but polls have become less unreliable as partisanship has become more pervasive and insinuated itself deeper and deeper into the process.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Saturday, April 9, 2016 2:42 PM (38 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How to explain the accuracy we've seen for the democratic nomination process then ?

I think Sanders has a very tough stretch ahead with those big states, and I don't doubt the basic accuracy of the polling. I just think "Bernie Sanders Is Even Less Competitive Than He Appears" is an extremely weird and ungenerous headline for a longshot candidate who's won six out of the last seven states, will likely win Wyoming today, and so far has won 45% of pledged delegates.

The thing about 538 is that they really, truly treat political races like basketball or any other thing which might be susceptible to a "data" analysis. Interpretation of real-world relevance, causes and effects, perspective, historical context, values, and meaning are all essentially outside of their wheelhouse, and whenever they venture that-a-way the stuff they say is absolutely maddening.

Every now and then they get it right, though: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-calling-hillary-clinton-unqualified-smacks-of-sexism/

Sanders is projected to win 55-45 in Wyoming, which seems to end up 7-7 delegate split. He needed 11-3 (a win with +57%) to be on track.

"polls indicate he is trailing by dougle digits in PA, NY and CA."

no, he's closing the gap in CA. i don't know if he'll win here but it'll probably be close unless he loses a ton of steam by june.

How to explain the accuracy we've seen for the democratic nomination process then ?

― Van Horn Street, Saturday, April 9, 2016 3:21 PM (1 hour ago)

the polls have been pretty bad actually

natesilver: I’m a bit surprised that the Wisconsin polls have it so close. Then again, we’ve been conditioned to think in terms of caucuses when we’re back to primaries now.

clare.malone: How much do we trust Wisconsin polls?

natesilver: The polls have been pretty crappy overall on the Democratic side, but they’ve missed in different directions in different states.

clare.malone: So, with Sanders up 3 percentage points in our weighted average of Wisconsin polls, is a win of 15-plus points unrealistic?

natesilver: The average poll in the Democratic race has been something like 10 points off. Polling averages do a fair bit better

harry: Within 21 days of the caucus or primary, the average poll has been off 11 percentage points so far this campaign. But as Nate said, it’s been a mixed bag. In Ohio, which everyone thought could be a Sanders state after he won Michigan, the polls were dead-on.

micah: And the polling error hasn’t consistently been in either Clinton or Sanders’s direction?

natesilver: Bernie winning by 15 would be a big deal, but not a huge, epic surprise. Like a magnitude 6.0 earthquake, not an 8.0.

harry: Right, it’d put me into a more of a wait-and-see mode.

natesilver: The polls have tended to underrate Clinton in the South and underrate Bernie in the North.

Wow, Wyoming is NOT democratic heartland: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2016/apr/09/wyoming-democratic-caucus-results-live-polls-election-2016

With 87% of precincts reporting there's been a total of 262 votes. In Niobrara county Sanders won in a landslide 2 votes to 0. A bunch of 1/1 splits as well. Which seems sad, somehow. At least in Niobrara they agree.

no, he's closing the gap in CA. i don't know if he'll win here but it'll probably be close unless he loses a ton of steam by june.

― akm, Saturday, April 9, 2016 4:34 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't see any evidence he's closing the gap in CA here fwiw

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ca/california_democratic_presidential_primary-5321.html

down 7, 11, 14, 6 doesn't really say anything other than he's probably behind by around 10 +/- 5. it's certainly not a trend.

xpost
from the bottom of the page:

"Vote totals for the Wyoming Democratic Party are state convention delegates won by each candidate."

wyoming is a lonely land but more than 262 people have participated in the caucus

*neil diamond*
everyday on ilx
fred's commenting on america

Oh, yeah, d'oh. Caucuses don't report voters. My bad!

I had a whole scene in my head, of driving all the way to the polling place in Washakie county, getting there, and there's a big empty hall with only one other person... Whom you then get into a big argument with.

even if that were voters, not delegates, nearly nobody lives in wyoming anyway, I wouldn't be shocked

yeah if there were any state i'd believe that about it'd be wyoming lol

Lol Trump has no campaign mgr in CA

Sanders is projected to win 55-45 in Wyoming, which seems to end up 7-7 delegate split. He needed 11-3 (a win with +57%) to be on track.

― Frederik B, Saturday, April 9, 2016 1:25 PM (1 hour ago)

Where did you read that the delegate split will be even? That doesn't sound right. He doesn't need 11-3 to be on track, he needs 8-6 (i.e., he needs 56.5% to 43.5% wins, not margins of 56.5 points).

Which is pretty much exactly what he got again, as with Wisconsin.

harry enten says it depends on goshan - if hill wins there it's an even split, if sanders does he's up 2 delegates

x-post: That's the old track, but Sanders has fallen a lot behind. Nate Silver made a new one: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-really-hard-to-get-bernie-sanders-988-more-delegates/ And no, he did not hit that target in Wisconsin either, though it was close.

I'm talking about the track for the majority of pledged delegates.

Well, yeah, but which one?

Just a general one where he gets 56.5% of those remaining. I see that article is arguing that he needs bigger margins in particular states; that's obviously true.

Well, yeah. For all that the vote is closer than expected in NY, I don't think anyone expects a double digit Sanders win. Nor in Maryland or DC. Only just about hitting 57% in the second to last caucus, in one of the most 'demographically advantageous' states left, is not a good sign. Not when the idea was that 'dynamism' or 'momentum' from the last many wins should fuel a great big comeback.

Goshen goes Clinton. 7-7, it seems.

It's pretty obvious to most people that the safe bet is that Sanders won't win the nomination. But he was always a longshot and he's has made it close enough that it's obvious that his proposals resonate with a hell of a lot of voters.

I greatly doubt that the majority of the pro-Sanders votes are just Hillary haters who don't know or care that Bernie's in favor of that dreaded bugaboo 'socialized medicine', and he wants to break up the biggest mega-banks, or find a way to make college tuition-free. Conventional wisdom was that he'd get nowhere with a platform like that.

just found out my dad is for hillary and my mom and sister are for bernie, and it's so contentious they can't even discuss it! ffs people.

Sander's is like all the good grandpa's from the Great Depression that are now dying off, except I guess he's a bit younger and won't dead quite as soon.

it's totally predictable though. my dad is a Organization Guy. the biggest tribe provides the most safety. the team is all, loyalty to it is everything. when SEIU split from the AFL-CIO he washed his hands of them and admits their successes in glancing terms at best (but if it was trumka spearheading the fight for 15 you'd never hear the end of it from him)

did your dad go to college?

For me, my Bernie support USED to be about economic justice, socialized medicine, etc. At this point, I'd just like him to win so I can repost and mock the endless fucking arrogant horse-race-y, conventional wisdom-spouting strings of posts from Frederick and the rest of the ILXers who've been calling the the Sanders campaign DOA for the last 9 months as he went from 60+ points behind to within a few percentage points. We. Get. It.

tbf, most of the conventional wisdom-spouting horseshit posts about Sanders were from Freddie B. they hardly count, since almost everyone got on his case for them.

I'm not sure "only" winning by 11-12 points reflects negatively on his momentum at all.

If Sanders somehow pulls this off, I'll mock Shakey in-person.