2008 Primaries Thread 2: THE QUICKENING

(b), and Clinton certainly would never concede that point.

she doesn't have to concede it - the superdelegates just have to realize it. and I don't see how they could avoid this realization, as it is rather super-obvious, even at this stage.

either way I have no doubt the Clintons are gonna go down swinging and its gonna get real ugly - machetes and all lolz

obama should agree to another debate and bring this up.

make joke re: "stolen election" of 2000

(we don't need ANOTHER stolen election, etc.)

as it is rather super-obvious, even at this stage

I wouldn't say it's super-obvious. As I posted a ways back, it's not enough to look at nationwide head-to-head polls. A better analysis would look at the likely swing states and the voting blocs that are up for grabs. The white, working-class vote has been a key factor in presidential elections stretching back to Reagan, as observers like Ruy Teixeira pointed out after the 2004 election. If Clinton remains stronger there, that in itself could be a reason to think she would do better than Obama against McCain.

so the solid majority of under-30 voters, of either gender, (skip it) all have more or less the *same* gender biases?

Under 30s:

Hate mom
Like hot guyz
Wish Jay-Z would run

this is gonna end with bill swinging a machete around, isn't it?

That would be so cool and would turn me into an HRC supporter.

is there any chance for the dems to replace the congressional leadership after the election?

Hi yance! Whyever would you WANT to? They're doing what's POSSIBLE!

funny thing is if you wanted to make an analogy w/single payer to education its closest to vouchers!

no. vouchers would allow people to opt out of publicly accountable schools and attend whichever private schools they wished. allowing people to opt out of some future national healthcare scheme would have the same disastrous effect on it as vouchers would have on the already horrible school system we've got.

it's a good point that public schools as a model for health care is not exactly a winning sales pitch. but i don't think many people would be in favor of abandoning the universal right to publicly-funded education. even voucher programs have never really gone anywhere. it matters too much.

The tipping point of a recession is not the best time to sell or embark on a massive, insanely expensive, new social program. (Or a war, for that matter.) Hell, single-payer was a hard sell during the cash-flush Clinton years.

single-payer health care would cost america much, much less than the current system. you're right about how much health care costs though. it's insane. when the children's defense fund was trying to get a bill passed that would guarantee coverage for all kids -- who are not an expensive group to insure; they don't get seriously ill very often and when they do it's usually treatable -- they calculated that a year of coverage for all children would cost as much as three months of the iraq war. that is a hell of a lot of money!

Hi yance! Whyever would you WANT to? They're doing what's POSSIBLE!

-- Dr Morbius, Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:03 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

so you admit to being a bitter goof throughout this thread because you'll only be satisfied when politicians can deliver things they are not able to deliver.

"not able" is a self-fulfilling delusion in SO many cases, but keep on listening to the Spin Room

oh im aware, im supporting the candidate who was considered a long shot at the beginning remember? I just have to question the circular logic that insists you will be disappointed because candidates won't achieve, but the bar for achievement is set by their inability to meet it

how many years ago would you have been questioning the dems ever being able to nominate a black candidate for president?

For me? 1.

Also, there is the possibility, unpleasant though it may be to contemplate, that some sort of national security event might happen between now and the election. If so, the very hawkishness which Dem primary voters perceive (and often dislike) in Clinton could turn into a very crucial asset in preventing a tidal surge of support to McCain. Dem primary voters who rate national security as higher on their list of concerns tend to favor Clinton over Obama.

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VOTE YR FEARS

deej, this democratic congress has been awful, though! what have they actually accomplished, even in a ceremonial manner?

i dont think thats voting your fears, i think thats voting based on the fears of others xp

Yancey OTM.

is my rss reader slow, or is there no backlash coalescing against the wolfon's "we'll do it with superdelegates" and penn's "significant states" chat? quite apart from the relative truth of either statement, they both sound really bad.

deej, this democratic congress has been awful, though! what have they actually accomplished, even in a ceremonial manner?

-- YGS, Thursday, February 14, 2008 2:15 PM (58 seconds ago) Bookmark Link

uh oh yeah no i agree - i didnt meant to come across as capn save a FISA failures, I was more objecting to morbius' political outlook in general

if that happens, McCain wins. If not, I don't see how Hillary's positives outweigh McCains, especially given all her negatives. Obama, otoh, has a way better angle against McCain (youth, optimism, broad coalition excited about voting) - Hillary doesn't bring any of that stuff.

I'm not talking about polls at this point, I agree that this far out they're meaningless. But it is possible to conceive of what kind of campaign each candidate would run and what kind of appeal they would bank on. In that sense, Hillary is doomed to lose, imho.

They held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for "GOOD GOV'T DAY."

(xp)

(er many ex-posts)

they calculated that a year of coverage for all children would cost as much as three months of the iraq war. that is a hell of a lot of money!

Is there supposed to be an irony buried here? So mysterious. Anyway, yeah, what we're talking about is a system that would be comparable in cost to keeping the Iraq war going forever. And single-payer would probably always be less expensive per covered individual than what we've got now, but I don't think it's fair to say that it would necessarily end up being cheaper period. The cost of maintaining gov't bureaucracies and social programs tends to balloon over time, as there's no direct penalty for overspending (e.g., bankruptcy, in the private sector).

I mean if there's a nat'l security disaster while McCain and Clinton are running against each other, all McCain has to do is point out that he never wavered on Iraq, that he is the bigger hardass, etc. and there goes the nat'l security vote (inluding independents that the Dems need to win) to the Repubs.

It's possible - but I'd still rather have Clinton than Obama in that match-up scenario.

If so, the very hawkishness which Dem primary voters perceive (and often dislike) in Clinton could turn into a very crucial asset in preventing a tidal surge of support to McCain. Dem primary voters who rate national security as higher on their list of concerns tend to favor Clinton over Obama.

sure, clinton might beat obama in concerns about national security, but if national security ends up actually being the main issue in the general election, i really can't imagine that clinton could attract more voters than mccain on that subject, so it's kind of a moot point to make

I mean if there's a nat'l security disaster while McCain and Clinton are running against each other, all McCain has to do is point out that he never wavered on Iraq, that he is the bigger hardass, etc. and there goes the nat'l security vote (inluding independents that the Dems need to win) to the Repubs.

exactly

i dont think i would - if you get a response along the lines of FEMA in N.O. then I think Obama's change message resonates even larger xps to o. nate

but if national security ends up actually being the main issue in the general election, i really can't imagine that clinton could attract more voters than mccain on that subject, so it's kind of a moot point to make

It's likely to be one issue among many, but I wouldn't ever call it a moot point. I think there's a bit of disingenuousness in the idea that perceived strength on national security won't matter because if it did McCain would win anyway - the truth is that the bigger the perceived difference in the candidates' relative strength on the issue the more voters will defect.

It's hard to imagine which candidate would benefit or suffer most from imaginary disaster scenario. I wouldn't trust the results even if you polled everyone in the nation w/ such a question. Unknowable.

One R. Santorum frets.

i wouldn't be so sure. the only 'national security event' i could predict is the surge failing, either the army getting even more broken down than it is or violence rising back to pre-surge levels. this would be a big anvil for mccain to carry.

but yeah, another big terror attack on US soil would change the game beyond reckoning; whether it would exactly mimic the shift to the right after 9/11 i'm not entirely sure. but it seems like a dumb thing to make the primary decision on in any case. "hillary MIGHT be SLIGHTLY better against mccain IF a VANISHINGLY UNLIKELY thing happened to us AND the public reacted exactly like they did in 2001."

deej OTM

and Clinton's war record is a liability on nat'l security, not a strength.

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Santorum. He's named after buttfucking.

rick santorum partially otm!

Were Pennsylvania and the other Republican states in the Northeast "conservative" states? No, they were all mixed bags ideologically. Ideological disagreements rarely split along partisan lines as they do today, because each party had robust "conservative" and "liberal" wings. In Washington, conservatives and liberals were divided on issues, but it was actually easier to find common ground because partisanship didn't work to exacerbate ideological divisions.

All that changed after the 1960s. The Democratic Party embraced the '60s Cultural Revolution, with its hostility to the military and traditional values. The GOP pursued Richard Nixon's Southern Strategy to court Southern conservatives away from the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party became the party of George McGovern and Ted Kennedy. After some stiff resistance, the Republican Party became the party of Ronald Reagan. The upshot today: If you are a conservative, you are a Republican; if you're a liberal, you're a Democrat.

The divide intensified due to the dramatic leftward shift of the Democratic Party. It has morphed into a made-in-the-USA Western European liberal party that seeks to grow the power of government, increase the public's reliance on Washington, wage class warfare, downplay national-security threats, relinquish our sovereignty, redefine the family, and substitute secular humanism for our society's Judeo-Christian underpinnings. As mainstream Democrats, both Clinton and Barack Obama see America as deeply flawed and needing massive "change."

he's right about the 'polarization' of US politics being a natural consequence of the parties' much more firm ideological sorting since the 60s.

tho it is funny how the existence of black people is entirely unmentioned in how and why these changes occurred and were persued... "funny" that is.

but yeah, another big terror attack on US soil would change the game beyond reckoning

What about a small terror attack? Or an attack not on US soil but on an ally? Or any event that brings national security further into the fore-front of people's minds that it is right at this moment, in the middle of an Obama-mentum media frenzy?

Read between the lines of that Santorum op-ed, tho:

Many of us want a leader who believes in his core that this race is a fight for the soul of America, her Judeo-Christian tradition, her sovereignty, her courage to defeat not appease or surrender to her enemies, her belief in capitalism and limited government, and her commitment to equality of opportunity, not result. We want a leader who's not interested in moving the country in the same direction as Clinton and Obama, only slower.

Is McCain that leader? It's a question that both he and conservatives will have to answer. My own doubts prompted me to oppose him and, finally, endorse Mitt Romney in the GOP primary. But general elections pose such questions in a different, more complex context, and the best answers come after a period of post-primary decompression.

Santorum -- who was openly, stridently opposed to McCain on cable news programs last week -- is now softening his rhetoric. Once the GE begins, it will be time for GOP'ers nationwide to come home, and they will.

what about a giant sea turtle attack?

sy hersh says that any national security event between now and the election will hand it to the republicans without a doubt, fwiw

contenderizer, the overall cost of insuring the united states would be as little as half what it is now if the us moves to single-payer. i don't have links to hand but every study done shows massive savings. it's interesting that you say govt bureacracies always bloat over time; not all of them do. the social security administration's overhead has been something like 2% of total cost for decades i think. as far as worries about overspending go somehow i don't think that'll be a problem with an entitlement program.

The last Santorum reads like rejected lyrics from Bowie's "Big Brother."

*last Santorum excerpt

Sy Hersh may be an expert on certain things (although what I've read by him in The New Yorker seems to have often landed wide of the truth) but I wouldn't necessarily consider him an expert on the electorate or political mood shifts.

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Worth noting in that Santorum piece:

While he's partially right about what's happened in the Democratic party over the last 40 years, he avoids mention of the concurrent rightward shift in the Republican party (towards religious fundamentalism, harsh militarism, and authoritarian centralization of power w/ the executive). More honest to say that the parties split in the sixties and have been moving away from one another ever since. Which is old news anyway.

i could be wrong but i think single-payer is inevitable. the question is how long are we going to keep paying double and keep wrecking peoples' entire lives and leaving millions uninsured. the cw could be right that it's still politically unfeasible. who knows. but the day will come when people will be begging for it. it would be nice to set it up before that day arrives.

yeah o nate that's true

contederizer you think the democrats have been moving "away" from the republicans since the 1960s??

What about a small terror attack? Or an attack not on US soil but on an ally? Or any event that brings national security further into the fore-front of people's minds that it is right at this moment, in the middle of an Obama-mentum media frenzy?

considering the media, there will be no such thing as a "small" terror attack on US soil. also, considering how much the 7/7 london bombings shifted US public opinion on its central defense question (iraq) (ie: not at all), i don't think a foreign attack would mean very much either.

i think i've answered this, tbh: some 'event' that gets people scared again and starts tipping things toward mccain (or toward the right in some general sense) is not going to damage hillary any less than it would obama. he promised to fuck with pakistan if he had to!

xps

what about a giant sea turtle attack?

-- Jordan, Thursday, February 14, 2008 8:38 PM

mccain & obama have to trek across ny to save hilary. santorum has the camera.

man-on-turtle

why does anybody care what this douchebag loser says - he's not even in office

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