One of the dumbest arguments of the 2008 Democratic primary season was the extrapolation of primary results to general election results.
“Obama rolls up big margins on the Plains, he can win there in November…”
“Clinton winning the Democratic primaries in Ohio and Pennsylvania means she and only she can win the industrial Midwest”
Both sides of that argument are stupid.
And we’re seeing the same stupid on Iowa:
It seems like Clinton’s weakness among youth should be a big warning for the general that it’ll be hard to replicate Obama’s coalition.
— Joseph Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) February 2, 2016
Repeat after me, primary electorates and caucus selectorates are not random samples of the general electorate.
It is perfectly plausible in 2016 for a 23 year old Democratic activist in Iowa to have the following preference order: Sanders>Clinton>Chlamydia>Republican Nominee.
In last night’s contest the only part of the preference order that was under examination was how Sanders and Clinton related.
In November, the relevant preference order is either Sanders and Republican nominee, or far more likely Clinton and Republican nominee.
The same logic applied in 2008. In Pennsylvania, the primary preference order was usually Clinton-Obama, but the general election preference order was Obama over McCain.
The people who take part in caucuses are highly unlikely to flip parties in the general election. They are self-identified intense partisans. Trying to generalize caucus results into general election results is obtuse.
Cermet
But the MEDIA say’s …oh, wait. That explains your point perfectly … .
Baud
Agree. Under that analysis, Rubio is doomed in the general election, but the media is treating him like the winner.
It’s all spin.
Brandon
You make reasonable points. However, I think you are a bit off about the primary v. general youth turnout analysis. That is a demographic group that has and will stay home if they are not energized and it is an important constituency for Democrats to turnout. Nothing from 2008 to 2015 seems to indicate that Clinton can provide a viable reason to get them behind her campaign or to their precincts in November.
It is not about “Obama coalition” but about important Democratic constituencies. Similarly, the same could potentially be said for Sanders and Black voters.
Dork
Josh Marshall just went Epic Concern Troll (cant link, but not worth reading) on TPM. Claiming a 3rd place finish for Rubio means the Dems are doomed.
Buy stock in bed sheets and bed sheet shit removal products.
Baud
@Brandon:
Agree. We’re doomed either way. Some portion of the Dem’s white voters will stay home in November. It’s only a question of which one it is.
Sly
In fairness to Joseph Weisenthal, there is a no more loyal and reliable Democratic Party constituency than young white guys.
Brandon
@Baud: Definitely. And it is certainly a trade off regarding which are more important both numerically and geographically. I am personally not in a position to be able to opine on that one way or another.
Punchy
Rubio’s campaign has the feel of Murph and the Magic Tones. Generally stale, boring, and dimly lit, but appreciated by the olds….
Baud
@Brandon:
The young grow old, but the old stay old until they die.
Ex Libris
@Punchy:
Except Murph and the Magic Tones had hidden talent; I think Rubio’s surface “charm” is as deep as it goes
JMG
The Villagers of Tomorrow, like Josh and Ezra Klein, share the irrationality about the Clintons of the Villagers of today.
Clearly, a system where finishing third means you were the big winner is a model of rationality to be followed by all peoples seeking to emulate the glories of American exceptionalism. Or maybe it’s just that our political commentators and analysts know less about their subject than Phil Simms knows about his.
Major Major Major Major
How dare you make sense. The nerve. I’m going to run off to GOS now and learn how this is good news for john mc, sorry, I meant Bernie.
In the meantime, here’s two songs to jumpstart everybody’s day
The Ballad of Bull Ramos
The Diaz Brothers
Sherparick
@Baud: Steve M at No More Mister Nice Blog predicted a year ago that Establishment Republicans and Village Media would be all in for Rubio as the bright young thing who will draw the youth vote and Hispanics into the Republican Party and defeat that old, declasse, uptight broad Hilary, despite the horrible policies he promises to enact. All weekend it was predicted that Rubio will be declared the winner if he has strong third place finish in Iowa. So that part of the self-fulfilling pundit class prediction held up. However, much like George H.W. Bush winning Iowa in 1980, I expect both Trump, Cruz, and the other establishment candidates will all turn their rhetorical guns on him for the next week to drive his vote down in New Hampshire.
FlipYrWhig
@Dork: Rubio is such a pissant pipsqueak. He has this aura of “little shit” even beyond Cruz, who’s an asshole but doesn’t have this other yip-yip-yap-yap quality that Rubio does.
FlipYrWhig
BTW, I think three out of four of the victory-ish speeches laid into the media. The missing one was Hillary’s, and she’s the one the media actually hates.
Baud
@Sherparick:
Except for Jeb (Ha!), the other establishment Republicans really didn’t complete in Iowa. Rubio finished third simply because he advertised there IMHO. But now that he has it, we’ll see if he can carry the momentum forward.
beltane
The issue of young voters tuning out goes well beyond this year’s primary contest. There is evidence that young people have soured on our form of democracy altogether:http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2016/1/29/135443/098
Perhaps this is something that should be addressed now, rather than ignored until it’s too late.
Baud
@beltane: How?
gvg
@Dork: I cannot find Josh Marshall saying any such thing. He said Hillary did what she needed to and will probably win the nomination but it wasn’t certain. That was about 1 paragraph. He said Rubio may have given the GOP establishment a way out of a choice of either Trump or Cruz and that was a way out of catastrophe for all of us. 3 paragraphs, short ones.
He did not say Rubio would beat Clinton or anything like that. I agree because even though I think the electorate is going to vote Democrat this time, there is always a chance some event may cause the GOP candidate to win so the sanest possible is safer for all. Unfortunately I think they are all really bad put Trump and Cruz are probably more chaos than the others.
Tsukune
@Sherparick: ;Jeb; has massive amounts of SuperPAC money, and after his impressive 6th place finish, he needs to make a decision. Whether to firebomb Rubio in NH with every piece of dirt from Florida, or to try to disappear anonymously and make people think that Neil Bush was the smart one.
NotMax
It’s like Charlie Brown and the football. The traditional media falls into the same pattern every single time.
dedc79
Given that MSN politial coverage consists nearly entirely of putting poll numbers up on a big screen, and discussing the math of whether 53 is bigger than 47, it’s not so surprising that they are deciding last night’s winners and losers based on whether their percentages are bigger or smaller than the final poll numbers. Rubio “won” because he did better than his poll numbers. Nevermind that he came in third. This is the same media that would call 5 inches of snow a “surprise blizzard” if 1 inch had been predicted, but “flurries” if the prediction had been 12 inches.
different-church-lady
@beltane: To me, all it says is “Spoiled Brats”.
150 years ago the idea of a black woman being allowed to vote would have seemed like a miracle. 250 years ago nobody voted at all. And today all we can do is complain.
danielx
Fixed.
Brandon
@Dork: Josh Marshall, wow. I think I stopped reading him when he started peddling his “bull moose” nonsense. He’s king of the “I’m hearing from close friends in politics, who I cannot cite or quote, that big things are happening right now, that I promised not to disclose. But watch this space.”
Baud
@Brandon: He’s a mixed bag. But he’s better than most of the mainstream media.
Richard Mayhew
@danielx: Ebola is what I had in my Twitter response, but I decided to go for something more tangible and probable here.
henqiguai
@Brandon (#3): Probably late on this class of response but what the heck.
So, you’re saying ‘the youth vote’ constituents are too stupid to breathe. For a viable reason to get behind her campaign, assuming she’s the Democratic nominee, how about those putative 3 Supreme Court replacements, continuation of the PPACA, continued work on such items as college loan/costs mitigation, ensuring Social Security remains strong. And let’s not forget that it’s not only Roe v. Wade the theocrats want to reverse but also Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird (look’um up if you don’t know).
No, the Black community has its issues, but that level of political stupidity ain’t one of them. We still have, in living memory (mine included and I annoy the *shit* out of my daughters reminding them of such things), experiences with Jim Crow, recall Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights bill(s).
FlipYrWhig
@beltane: What if our form of democracy actually sucks and the proof is that terrible idiots get elected and proceed to do nothing good, which is precisely what the terrible idiots who elected them want, and there are millions of terrible idiots at large in the nation?
Betty Cracker
Trump has ghosted on Twitter. As some wag put it, sometimes silence is the loudest scream.
Baud
@henqiguai:
To be fair, they’re not alone.
I learned it by watching you, dad.
dedc79
@different-church-lady:
You know who else dismisses the youth vote as being a bunch of “spoiled brats” who want everything handed to them on a silver platter and for free? The GOP.
beltane
@Baud: This is a problem for candidate Baud to solve.
Thoughtful David
@Dork:
Yes, that Josh Marshall thing is a steaming pile. Rubio is not much of a threat in the General. He’s got a big problem: his previous statements on immigration. He has a choice in those:
1. He can double down and confirm his earlier statements, in which case he loses all of the Trumpenproletariat and loses the election.
2. He can flip-flop and try to go all anti-immigrant, in which case he loses the Hispanic vote and loses the General.
He’s been actively doing #2 for the last few months. Going to be very hard to get that Hispanic vote back. Besides, most non-Cuban Hispanics hate the Cuban-Americans, so even though his name is Hispanic, it won’t help.
Baud
@beltane:
Baud!/Poochie! 2016!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Baud
@rikyrah: Hey!
amk
@dedc79:
If the youth want their issues to be taken seriously, they need to participate in electoral politics constantly instead of voting only when they see some one who strikes their fancy. No pol is gonna go where there are no votes.
beltane
@dedc79:Perhaps it is the parents of the spoiled brats, the people who enjoyed the benefits of affordable higher education and decent job opportunities, who are the real spoiled brats. “Abandon all hope” may not be a winning campaign strategy but it would be an honest one.
Iowa Old Lady
Based solely on my teacher instincts, Rubio strikes me as not very bright.
One possibility I’ve seen talked about is Clinton as the nominee choosing Julian Castro as her VP. That would represent the Democratic coalition and undercut any argument that Rubio would draw Hispanic voters.
Baud
@beltane: Not mutually exclusive.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@JMG:
That’s how it works in a lot of fairy tales: the third son is the one who goes on adventures and wins the princess.
C.V. Danes
I think it is 99% certain that the Dems will win in November, no matter who wins the nomination. The choice for me is between a continuation of more of the same under Clinton, or pushing the party further to the left under Sanders. Personally, I think we have a rare opportunity to push left, so we should go for it.
And as to the whole ‘pragmatism’ argument, I think it is complete bullshit. Sanders has been in government for decades. He knows how to close a deal.
japa21
@Tsukune:
From everything I have heard, Jeb hates Rubio with the heat of a thousand suns. In the last debate he basically turned Rubio into a punching bag, but Rubio still did much better in IA than anybody thought he would. Nonetheless, I think he will be Jeb’s main target over the next week.
I don’t think Cruz will do well in NH, but I do expect Trump to rebound strongly. The problem for the GOP as they try to find the magic pony of the “anybody but trump or Cruz” candidate is that, at some point, one or the other will drop out. If they think that person’s voter will go to an establishment candidate, they have a problem. As long as Trump and Cruz are over 50% combined the GOP has little chance of getting one of the establishment favorites into place.
satby
@henqiguai:
The trouble is that younger people think history is over, it’s boring, and none of that stuff can happen again. Those of us older watched it unfold IRL, and know the zigs and zags that got us this far, and we don’t take what progress that’s been made for granted. Sadly most people, not just younger ones, are unable to imagine that progress can be reversed. They think it’s a straight line forward.
beltane
@Baud: I’ve just returned from one of the socialist hellhole European countries and the dreariness of American life has hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m afraid it will be even worse once Obama is out of office.
FlipYrWhig
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: But that’s because the third son doesn’t have a profession.
@C.V. Danes: Sanders knows how to get his own pet stuff into amendments to other people’s legislation, but what’s his track record of getting other people on board with his own priorities? I genuinely don’t know the answer to that. Reading that Alternet piece about his amendments led me to believe that he lends himself to liberal-libertarian crossovers, like expanding spending on worthy goals while accepting closer scrutiny of where the dollars go. I’m all for that myself but in the scheme of things and compared to the rhetoric on offer it also seems a bit small-bore and Clinton-Gore-ish.
japa21
@FlipYrWhig: You know who else had a great record of working with the GOP to get things passed? Obama.
In fact, that was one of the reasons I supported him in 2008. I felt he had a track record of cooperating with and getting cooperation from the GOP whereas I highly doubted Clinton would be able to.
The GOP doesn’t care about the past, except in deciding how far back into the past they want to take the country. Any working with the GOP that Sanders was able to achieve while in Congress will be thrown out the window.
Betty Cracker
@C.V. Danes: I wish I shared your optimism about our chances in the general. Right now I think we have an edge, but so much could change that.
Gimlet
If only Baud would drink more bottled water and wear elevator shoes, he could trounce the competition in NH.
dedc79
@Baud: that was one of the show’s last brilliant episodes.
FlipYrWhig
@japa21: That’s right — I remember reading about Obama’s working with Dick Lugar and even Tom Coburn. Forgot about that.
beltane
@Betty Cracker: I think the White House is likely to stay in Dem hands but I am worried about the Senate. A low turnout in November would be disastrous.
danielx
@satby:
Most people have not been greatly affected by efforts to
eliminate voter fraudsuppress the votes of black/brown people (to name one of a host of examples), at least so far. They haven’t paid attention to attempts to gut the provisions of the Clean Water Act, etc etc etc. It’s an all too human failing to not recognize a crisis (whether willfully or through sheer ignorance) until it’s imminent, by which time in many cases it’s too late to do anything about it.HRA
It has been my experience that all Hispanics do not exactly support anyone Hispanic as some seem to be thinking lately. They are not fond of certain Hispanics.
If the caucus I saw on TV last night is any indication of the makeup of the Clinton versus Sanders campaign, then it’s more than obvious the younger voters are with Sanders. That includes those in their 30s and 40s.
I was shocked last night by one of my five daughters who came to visit and watched the caucus with us. “Are you kidding! Is that how they vote in a caucus? What a mess! Anyone can cheat.” She voted for GW and Obama. She is a Democrat. .
gene108
@C.V. Danes:
I don’t think Sanders pushes the Party further to the Left.
Nancy Pelosi has stated she does not want Congressional Dems to run on a platform of raising everyones taxes. The tax increase will be needed for single-payer to be viable.
There’s a problem of how Sanders builds a coalition within the Democratic Party, as he is not doing much for anyone in the Democratic Party, at the moment.
Congresscritters doe not want to risk their seats, whether Democrat or Republican, to support a sitting President of their own Party. When immigration reform became unpopular with Republicans, Congressional Republicans killed reform, even though their President wanted it done.
Obama did not get the public option passed because Congressional Democrats dragged their feet.
Congresscritters will not just fall in line, because their Party holds the White House. They have a certain self interest that trumps their loyalty to a sitting President.
JPL
Clinton has some work to do because her base is not excited. Her comments about a no fly zone in Syria, scare the heck out of me. If the eventual nominee is Rubio, let’s remember that he’s against abortion in all circumstances. He’s against gay marriage. Citizens United will stay on the books.
Admiral_Komack
I guess Hillary’s feeling the Bern.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
NickM
What scares me about the election results is that Republican turnout in the caucus was 50% higher than the previous record. That plus the effects of voter suppression in many states does not bode well. I am really getting worried about a Cruz presidency. Someone talk me down, please.
p.a.
It’s certainly about turnout and demographics, but it’s also about states and where you spend your resources trying to GOTV of your demographics. Sometimes statewide issues can be a driver: gay marriage pro/con initiatives etc. Sometimes nothing matters; Cali may be a D win whether young people vote or not. Texas same for R’s. Fuck you Electoral College.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@FlipYrWhig:
Well, yes. Not that most of the people who grow up on those fairy tales think it through that far.
Doesn’t change that Rubio winning the caucus is just as much of a fairy tale.
JPL
@NickM: Cruz campaigns about the government coming between you and your doctor. I might have missed the time, MSM asked him about Hobby Lobby deciding your health care.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@danielx:
For a Sandernista, it goes Sanders>Contradiction-Heightening-GOP-Candidate>methicillin-resistant syphilis>Hillary Clinton.
Did you know the Iraq war was the solitary responsibility of Hillary Clinton?
gene108
@HRA:
What’s interesting about that is Hillary is trying to run for Obama’s “third term”, so these folks, who were probably part of Obama’s “youth revolution” seem to me to implicitly imply they are disappointed with the direction Obama’s taken.
JMG
@NickM: Turnout is high in close contests because people get more excited when they think their votes might really make a difference. Because of their inane system, the total Democratic turnout wasn’t reported that I could see, but I’ll bet it was pretty high, too. I’m sure turnout will be high in New Hampshire as well on both sides. It’s not predictive unless a party has a series of walkover wins for a candidate AND turnout remains high. That party’s got a good thing going on.
p.a.
@gene108: Any “fringe” national pol can move his/her party (incrementally at least) if s/he’s a credible threat in the primaries. Congressional candidates not so much. Senators, well E. Warren is an interesting example in real time.
OzarkHillbilly
@NickM: Republicans absolutely loathe Cruz.
gene108
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
From a Facebook meme, I saw this morning, Bill and by association Hillz, are responsible for the 2008 financial crisis, the destruction of the American middle class via NAFTA sending manufacturing jobs to China, and some other stuff.
FlipYrWhig
@gene108: Or they’ve been meh on Hillary since 2008 and still feel the same way now. I think that’s a pretty big chunk of the Sanders campaign.
OzarkHillbilly
@JMG: Dem turnout was second only to 2008.
FlipYrWhig
@p.a.: But who is she moving? I like what she says but is she converting people who used to disagree with her?
Keith G
There are a lot of the generalizations on this thread, but I guess that is what the internet lives for. Some of what is being said above seems to come from an understanding that Clinton and her campaign are as intellectually active as rocks and can only be acted upon and not be the authors of their own fate.
I feel, or maybe it’s just a hope, that this understanding is wrong. It seems to me that Clinton and her campaign can make the choices that are necessary to move ahead and win the nomination and win the general election. Voters young or old, black or white, Clinton or Sanders are real people with real concerns possessing an understanding of the world that is meaningful to them. The rest of Hillary’s story comes down to what is going to happen during what will seem like a very short 9 months.
There are constituencies whose energy and investment she needs, but their support is not her entitlement. It is up to her to reach out to them and convince them of her commitment to their concerns.
If she does this, she wins hands down.
Van Buren
@Ex Libris: Rubio ought to just come right out and say,”Look, we all support the same policies, but I’m not a bully or an insufferable prick. You might as well vote for me, because you will end up hating the other two.”
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@FlipYrWhig:
I often say that impoverished rural whites DO vote their interests.
It’s their interests that suck.
NickM
@OzarkHillbilly: I get that “establishment” Republicans loathe him, as do anyone who’s ever met him, including his wife and children; what I’m afraid of is the low-information haters that make up 90% of their electorate. They’d vote for Hitler’s brain in a jar over Hillary or Bernie and if they’re energized — hoo boy. The out of control lunatics would control all three branches of government and would be sure to rewrite the rules so that they never again lose it.
JPL
@NickM: yup
The Republicans will all line up and bow to their candidate.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig: She moved me to send her money, and I despise the idea of contributions to people who don’t represent me, I live in MO, but I sent it to her because she is the only person in the Senate representing me.
Eric U.
I always wonder how many of the Bernistas at dKos are paid by the Koch’s, but a couple of them have been around forever. They should remember Dean, etc. I guess a batch of them are people that were really pissed off by the PUMAs.
Bobby Thomson
@Brandon: Marshall Wittman was the bull moose, not Josh Marshall.
But I agree that his hot takes on Iowa are completely predictable CW. Expect him to lose perspective after Sanders wins NH by 30.
boatboy_srq
Brilliant. I LOLd.
WarMunchkin
@gene108: I’ve actually been seeing Sanders push lots of Democrats economically rightward as they harden for Hillary. Whether that’s new or its always been the case, I’m uncomfortable with the splintering.
@Dork: I’ve don’t understand this. Josh Marshall rightly points out that Rubio is more of a threat than Trump or Cruz, that’s all.
@different-church-lady: You can either call people spoiled brats or engage them positively and persuade them to get involved with civic life. Given the predilection of this site, I’m thinking continuing to call younger voters spoiled brats and blaming them for losses while voraciously consuming articles about entitled Millenials will be the choice.
p.a.
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t know; that’s why she’s a real-time experiment! I do think the Overton Window is a viable concept: conservatism and Democratic-me too’ers over the past generation, and possibly Duncan Black with Increase Social Security.
OzarkHillbilly
@NickM:
I think they amount to only 27% even if they make 90% of the noise. I’m really not sure which would be worse for the GOP: A Ted Cruz win. or a Ted Cruz loss in the general. His Presidency would be dead in the water with GOP sharks circling it’s putrescent corpse before he even named his cabinet. There isn’t a GOP in the Senate that wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy shivving Ted at the first opportunity.
Admiral_Komack
@gene108: @gene108: Or it could imply that they don’t like/trust Hillary Clinton.
hueyplong
I’m rooting for Trump not to melt down to the extent that his campaign collapses in the way everyone actually expected a half year ago. Let’s save that for the general.
I’m rooting for Rubio to say something breathtakingly stupid this week and then for him to get shellacked in NH in a way that can’t plausibly be spun. [Just as good might be if he says something so patently reasonable that it kills him with GOP voters.]
I’m rooting for as many GOP candidates as possible to stay in the race. More chaos. More anarchy. More perception that they have no one to whom we should entrust any issue at all. Above all, Jeb Bush must stay in the race so that those gazillions of dollars can continue to be unintelligently spent to no end that actually helps the GOP.
Chyron HR
Speaking as a typical BJ “Clinton supporter” (ie, someone who will not give her money, will not volunteer for her, does not particularly like her and will not vote for her if the primary comes to my state, but is still sick of having literal autists screaming “VOTE BERNIE OR ELSE, GEEZERS” on this site every fucking day), I can only hope that she manages to turn her campaign around after yesterday’s disappointing, um, win.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Betty Cracker:
If the nominee is Sanders, even California will be a struggle.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: How was your Italian trip?
p.a.
@Keith G:
I hope (and I believe) you are right. But her crew wasn’t too nimble in 2008. I don’t know if her team has changed since then; that’s too in-the-weeds for me to investigate.
ruemara
@C.V. Danes: he knows how to close a deal? Based on what evidence? Support him, but don’t make him a superhero.
Look, the spin is smart sounding people trying to rationalize our stupid choices. I was told Clinton had no enthusiasm behind her, turns out she does. Sanders has tons of enthusiasm behind him, but he drew even and even if he won, it wasn’t the trouncing Bernie enthusiasts have been expecting. Sadly, O’Malley never got any traction between those two, because he had the better campaign to me. I expect in the next demographically favorable state, NH, Sanders will win but the margin will be narrow. Once you leave majority white states, Clinton will go back to winning. Barring Sanders suddenly making huge inroads in communities of color. For right now, all the interpretation is ridiculous.
different-church-lady
@dedc79: I’m not dismissing them. I’m dinging them on their cynicism. Young people today complain more than old cranks do. They sound like caricatures of retired factory workers from 30 years ago.
ETA: and just so we’re clear here, I got no love for the boomers either. Nor my own group, which falls in the middle and consists about 17 dozen kids who were old enough to watch Nixon about to get impeached on TV but not old enough to know what it meant.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I hope you can get all your white voters to polls in November.
p.a.
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Yup. My intrest is in knocking you down, not raising us all up. Crabs, meet bucket.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: Cruz looks like the spawn of the Wicked Witch of the East. Has that same chin & pointy cheekbones. Especially when he smiles/grimaces.
Bobby Thomson
@beltane: Dems have already failed to flip the Senate. Look at the small number of seats that are actually in play. Toomey is actually leading in polls. That’s the real disgrace of 2016. If people put half as much effort into getting people like Donna Edwards past her primary as they did on presidential politics they might actually accomplish something.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Thank you for asking! It was better than I could ever have hoped. Lots of crying and hugging relatives I hadn’t seen in many, many years. Other than my children, I do not have any family in this country so the feeling of connectedness there was truly magical. Plus, the lifestyle is more to my liking. I will not wait so long before returning this time.
azlib
News is entertainment. The Press has to say something relevant about Iowa even though it has almost no bearing on national setiments. I was surprised by Josh Marshall’s comment about Rubio. His policies are crap and almost as extreme as Trump and Cruz.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin:
What do you mean by “economically rightward”? AFAIK the big split is about tactics, very little about policy. I don’t think Clinton supporters are keen on TPP either. I don’t think they want to roll back the welfare state or do “entitlement reform” or any of those “rightward” things. They are loath to reopen the debate over health care coverage. If I had to put it in a nutshell I’d say the Clinton pitch is “She’s fine, she fights, she’s a hard worker, she says most of the right things, let’s get on with it and not go out of our way to fuck it up.” At least that’s where I am.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Baud:
Even so, not sure there’s a causal relationship there. After all, ¡JEB! spent $14.5 million in IA on ads, and came in sixth with a total of 5,235 votes. That works out to $2,770 per vote.
Paul in KY
@Iowa Old Lady: Is ‘Castro’ Cuban? Think Rubio is. Most non-Cuban ‘immigrant’ Hispanics really dislike Cubans (the ones we have, they like the Cubans still in Cuba).
I would want a non-Cuban Hispanic on my ticket.
Bobby Thomson
@JPL: young white liberals are not the base. Hint: the base shows up for the midterms.
Bobby Thomson
@gene108: those 25 and under couldn’t vote in 08.
beltane
@Bobby Thomson: At the rate we’re going, the best we can hope for is a Democratic president who will provide a few speed bumps on the right-wing’s highway towards a reduced standard of living for the majority of Americans. While this is certainly a worthy and essential cause to fight for, it is not something that tends to get people excited.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Thoughtful David:
Oh, so excellent.
different-church-lady
@WarMunchkin: I can call them spoiled brats without blaming them for losses.
Goddammit, people, do you understand exactly how good you have it here? A hundred years ago YOU COULDN’T VOTE IF YOU HAD TWO X CHROMOSOMES.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: That’s wonderful. That reminds me that I need to make plans to go to India this year.
Matt McIrvin
@HRA:
True, but I’ve also heard anecdotal reports of Hispanic voters who still think of Rubio as the guy who is going to fix immigration, presumably on the basis of what he was doing back in 2013. I think most people just haven’t been paying a lot of attention to the race.
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Sh!t, I’d sell him my primary vote for half that much.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: And they’ll say: Now you can vote but it doesn’t make a difference anyway.
maurinsky
I am already committed to voting against whoever the Republicans nominate, with great enthusiasm. I like Bernie a lot, I like his economic focus on middle class/working class people. My main concern if Bernie gets the nomination is….what will the Democratic party do? He has caucused with them in Congress, but he’s not actually a Democrat. Will he get endorsements? Will he get Democratic elected officials on the campaign trail? I think they are putting a lot of effort into making sure Hillary is the candidate, but if not, what then?
Tripod
@japa21:
I was surprised by Clinton’s domination of the super delegate count. Sometimes politics involves politicking, and then horsetrading those chits to move something in the Senate, or lining up delegates when running for POTUS….
tl;dr: His inside game is for shit.
Paul in KY
@Van Buren: Only problem with that is their voters like bullies. Some of them also like insufferable pricks.
Paul in KY
@NickM: If we are gifted by the Canadian in the general election, it is the duty of our nominee to get his nasty simpering face out there in commercial after commercial after commercial.
Paul in KY
@boatboy_srq: To me the only equation the Republicans win is:
Republican Nominee>leprosy.
Bobby Thomson
@Paul in KY: Julian Castro is Chicano.
FlipYrWhig
@Tripod: I feel like Bernie may be fairly good at the transactional politics that come with people trying to entice _him_ to get on board with something. But I’m not sure how it works, or would work, if it was up to him to entice _someone else_ to get on board. That’s the problem with being a creature of staunch principle: accommodating the wishes of people you may think are selfish weasels when you need their vote to get by. Especially when you think they’re all corrupt.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: Ex-freakin’-ACTLY.
45 years ago a 20-year-old wasn’t even allowed to vote. Today they say “Oh, what’s the point? It all sucks anyway.” Jesus.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: Bernie has had no problem getting on the restrictionist bandwagon with the Republicans where immigration is concerned. This predates the Obama presidency.
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: I actually thought of you while I was in Italy in the context of the veganism threads we were mostly in agreement on. Although Southern Italian and Indian cuisines are certainly different, there are some similarities in the proportions of animal protein to carbs and green vegetables (these were very fresh and very inexpensive), with freshly made mozzerella filling much the same niche as paneer. The mountainous terrain has always been conducive to livestock grazing, not so much for soybean production.
Matt McIrvin
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: California is actually one of Sanders’ stronger primary states–Clinton is leading but the margin is a bit smaller than the national average:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-california-democratic-presidential-primary
beltane
@Paul in KY: I would like to be gifted with Justin Trudeau. Can we swap him for Ted Cruz?
OzarkHillbilly
@Paul in KY: Unless the GOP nominee is Ted Cruz, than leprosy wins in a landslide.
different-church-lady
@beltane: Why on earth would Canada take that deal?
beltane
@different-church-lady: Maybe we can wrap Cruz in pretty paper and stick a bow on him. That might work.
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Probably a working-class solidarity thing, I’d bet.
I still want to know how “Bernie’s canny enough to exact a price for his vote on stuff,” to paraphrase the Alternet piece about Bernie Sanders, Amendment King, which zipped around here and my Facebook friends, proves very much about how Bernie fares when he has to exact a price from someone else to get _their_ vote on stuff. I think that’s kind of important.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: One similarity between the Italian and Indian cuisine is the reliance on carbs. Meat is an accompaniment rather than the star of the meal in most cases. Also, there is a great deal of similarity between the north Indian cuisines and the Mediterranean ones. The Indian ones being more spicy. Other similarity I can think of is that the regional variation is immense, what we get here barely scrapes the surface.
ETA: Some examples:
Paneer and ricotta are very similar. Popularity of the tomato based sauces.
different-church-lady
@beltane: Wouldn’t that be cruel to the bow?
Kropadope
@maurinsky:
If he secures the nomination, he is the party’s nominee and the party’s broader electoral fate is tied up with him. I’m not saying they’ll definitely get on board, but if they don’t they’re in major nose cutting on behalf of facial spite territory.
CarolDuhart2
@p.a.: Hills has hired just about all of Obama’s team from last time and adopted his tactics.
Am I the only one that has noticed that there is no substance behind the HIllary dislike? Name one thing she has done that is really bad,that has been really hurtful. The answer is nothing-nothing. The Hillary dislike comes from the fact that the national press dislikes her and the Republicans do. And why? Hillary Clinton wasn’t Barbara Bush or Nancy Reagan. She’s liberal, educated and not cuddly. That’s it.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: Please, there is a long way to go between being tied in Iowa and winning the nomination.
WarMunchkin
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t really know how real it is – but a good example of the phenomenon is in 2008, when candidate Barack Obama made an issue of the individual mandate against candidate Hillary Clinton. You had a whole bunch of people talking about how the individual mandate was either the best or worst thing ever, and it was an entirely ephemeral issue in a campaign where they were very close on many issues, and policy resulted in an unimplemented individual mandate, which is sad-funny in its own right.
In current era, it’s a lot of right-wing attacks by people who call themselves Democrats (tax-and-spend liberal who doesn’t pay attention to the deficit, income inequality isn’t a real problem, etc.)
beltane
@schrodinger’s cat: Also a mutual love of chick peas.
Now I am hungry.
sparrow
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Actually, I’m a Sanders supporter and for me it really is Sanders > Clinton > Ebola > GOP (well, I would sit out, or write in Donald Duck before voting for a GOP clown). This is what all of my friends who support Sanders say as well. And I’m by no means going to sit on my ass if/when Hillary wins the nomination. It’s very important that she win, if that’s who we’re going with. But no, let’s demonize the other camp because that’s more fun and makes Botsplainer et al feel mighty righteous…
CarolDuhart2
The press is mad that Hillary would not leave Bill-the man they really hated and humiliating him in the process. They wanted Bill driven out of office and humiliated by a divorce. They got neither.
FlipYrWhig
@CarolDuhart2: The substance of Hillary Clinton dislike is the Iraq War vote and hawkish leanings. Add to that some hard feelings about the tone of the 2008 campaign. Other than that, I agree, I’d sort of like to know what the Very Bad Things were that earned her this level of dislike. Even here you find people who say that they don’t like the way she disagrees with them on certain stuff and they also don’t like the ways she _agrees_ with them on other stuff because you can tell she doesn’t really mean it because she’s a lying chameleon who lies and transforms herself.
ETA: In terms of media coverage and intra-party sniping, Clinton ’16 is starting to resemble Gore ’00.
SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel
@Paul in KY:
Julián and Joaquín Castro are Mexican-American, not Cuban-American. I suspect most Hispanic voters already know that. The twins are rock stars in the Hispanic community, from all I have seen, and I think Julián would be an asset to the Clinton ticket.
schrodinger's cat
@WarMunchkin:
Who has said that here? I don’t recall any deficit fear mongering.
Income inequality is extremely important. However, you cannot boil everything down to economics, that is the weakness of Bernie’s arguments. That was the biggest problem socialists and Marxists had as well.
Paul in KY
@Bobby Thomson: That’s good to hear!
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin:
Hillary Clinton supporters say these things? I can’t say I’ve noticed that.
Bobby Thomson
@CarolDuhart2: Iraq.
There’s a reason I didn’t cite for her in 08 and was Bernie curious up until his staff demonstrated they were running an absolute shit show. She was a more conservative senator than she was a First Lady, and while she was a better Secretary of State, she also has Trumanesque instincts that are out of date.
I can fully understand why someone might have a different preference. However, I think his staff are too amateurish to be trusted with the presidential campaign, and I don’t think Sanders is the best candidate for electing lots of a Democrats. And she was at least as liberal a Senator as Obama, so there’s that.
C.V. Danes
@gene108:
My recollection is that he took the public option off the table from the start.
FlipYrWhig
@C.V. Danes: My recollection is that he sniffed around to gauge the limits of support for the public option and determined it didn’t have enough support to bother.
(ETA: And presumably to some Democrats it was not only a non-starter but a deal-breaker.)
beltane
@FlipYrWhig: There were also “Democrats” like Joe Lieberman to contend with back then. The Senate really is a better place without that man.
Paul in KY
@beltane: Gee, I wish…
One problem is that as nice as Canadians generally are, I think they would get downright mean once the trade was explained.
Mike in DC
@Kropadope:
He joined the party a few months ago.
C.V. Danes
@NickM: Cruz scares me more than Trump for sure. However, I think a Trump win would lead to a constitutional crisis of epic proportions, as he does not think Congress is legitimate and feels that the president can just do whatever he wants.
Paul in KY
@OzarkHillbilly: That’s the way I feel. I think Ted Cruz is a dream candidate for Hillary. Brings no new voters into GOP, and he’s Ted Cruz!
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat: Let me tell you about the function of the word “if” in that statement and the background of that comment. I said “if” because it was a hypothetical situation and my comment was in response to someone who had concerns about how that hypothetical situation would play out. You may also note the distinct lack of any statements to the effect of “Bernie is a lock for the nomination.”
Paul in KY
@beltane: Canadians are not that stupid. They remind me of the tortoise in those Bugs Bunny cartoons.
C.V. Danes
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
No, but when the chips were on the table that’s how she voted. If the chips were there again, she would vote the same way, no matter what she says now.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: If wishes were horses, Bernie would win the Democratic nomination. See, I too can use if.
Paul in KY
@CarolDuhart2: She made a politically calculated vote on Iraq that I really, really disliked.
FlipYrWhig
@beltane: Plus the only way to get around Joe Lieberman’s arbitrary red lines around what he will and won’t allow, when the margins are that narrow, would be… getting some Republicans on board. Hey, maybe that was the reason why Max Baucus seemed to keep slow-walking his side of the project!
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat: Man, the straw is strong with the Clinton supporters.
CarolDuhart2
@FlipYrWhig: Have we forgotten just how hysterical 2002 was, and how scared Dems were about being called “unpatriotic” if they didn’t vote with Shrub? And a Senator with a target on her back was hardly going to court more abuse. And with 911 in her home state to boot?
That vote was to insulate herself against that. In any case, she didn’t start the Iraq War or manage it. And back then, a vote against the war was seen as a vote for a dictator like Saddam Hussein.
Here we are talking about Hillary’s hawkishness, while Republicans are wanting to tear up the Iran agreement, would cancel the Cuba opening, and are actively jonesing for a war with Iran or Islam (the wider war). A no-fly zone that she knows is probably not workable-and someone who when she sees that it is so, will not insist on creating one.
Paul in KY
@SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel: Cool! Glad to hear that.
FlipYrWhig
@CarolDuhart2: I think she (and Edwards and Kerry and Biden and Lieberman and others, virtually all the Democrats with national aspirations) were figuring that Iraq War 2 would go roughly like Iraq War 1, in which case there would be nothing to be gained by being antiwar–you would risk looking like a wimp who’d never gotten over Vietnam Syndrome.
Joel
@schrodinger’s cat: Traditional ricotta is not really that much like what people buy today. It’s made from leftover whey, not curd (as paneer and other “fresh cheeses” are). That’s why it’s called ricotta (re-cooked).
Joel
@Bobby Thomson: Sounds about my take, as well. Obama showed a lot of early competence, especially in rounding up support from key democratic figures. Another point in Obama (versus Sanders’) favor was the visible absence of Cornball West.
Paul in KY
@C.V. Danes: That’s what scares me about him. He’s not a politician/lawyer. Is not bound by any conventions. Maybe he would do some ‘novel’ things that a regular politician would never think about/attempt.
schrodinger's cat
@Joel: Interesting, I didn’t know that.
Paul in KY
@CarolDuhart2: Anyone with a lick of sense could see that Saddam had nothing to do with 911. She could have hilited that & been hawkish on owning Afghanistan, with Bin Laden’s head on a plate & insulated herself that way (IMO).
She has apologized for that vote, I think.
WarMunchkin
@CarolDuhart2: There are many weird justifications by Democrats for their Iraq War votes, but please think about what you’ve just argued.
Clinton had a target on her back? No. She wasn’t up for re-election until 2006. I know this because she’s the first national politician I voted for.
She voted for the Iraq War to insulate herself from accusations of being unpatriotic? Is that really how we want to justify our votes as Democrats? By saying we’ll vote for things that affect millions of people and their lives based on how it can insulate us from political fallout?
It doesn’t actually matter what the Iraq War vote “was seen” as. What matters is what she believed and what she voted to do. “I made a mistake” is a far more charitable explanation than “everyone else thought so, too”. If you use the logic you’ve supplied for the Iraq War votes to other votes, then it’s just about voting for what the centrist consensus is at any particular time.
You could have said the same thing about the PATRIOT Act vote, too. Also, for Democratic votes for the Bush Tax Cuts. Just political insulation against being accused of being unpatriotic or pro-tax.
catclub
@Bobby Thomson:
Good to know that 10 months before the elections.
C.V. Danes
@Paul in KY: Exactly. Bush/Cheney pushed the limits pretty far on executive authority as defined by the Constitution, but Trump would be like the proverbial bull in a china shop.
FlipYrWhig
@WarMunchkin: IMHO the real answer, which no one can really say, is “I voted for the thing because I thought it would be quick and easy and Show Global Leadership, like in 1991, and to negate any political advantage Team Bush would derive from it (by not opposing them too much), and I had no idea they would fuck up the peace so badly that we’d still be dealing with it 13 years later.”
catclub
@CarolDuhart2: Well put.
The national media (NYT in particular) have a long, relatively unexplained hatred for the Clintons. And at the same time, the people of the nation really like them. When Bill was being impeacher, his popularity went up.
Hillary has been around 25 years and has become overall, more popular than when she started. It is ‘common knowledge’ that no one likes her and she is untrustworthy’. Both of those are untrue right wing attacks.
henqiguai
There are constant discussions about Hillary’s hawkishness and her vote for the AUMF, which W promptly abused. But am I mis-remembering all of the later discussion around the doctored intelligence provided to the Senate regarding the Iraq and Saddam situation? You know, that doctored information which was used, in part, to determine which way to vote on the AUMF by Democratic as well as Republican Senators.
And, for the record, I don’t really understand all the heartburn by people because she may be more hawkish on foreign policy than some. Maybe because I grew up in a violent environment, but I’ve always seen a certain amount of ‘hawkishness’ as a desirable attribute.
FlipYrWhig
@henqiguai: I think there’s a tendency on the left to conflate humanitarian intervention/human rights hawkishness (a la Samantha Power) and imperialist/great power hawkishness (a la Dick Cheney). And it’s understandable because the imperialist hawks often use humanitarian rationales as cover (c.f. Kuwaiti incubator babies). But using the weaponry of warfare to protect civilian populations and promote human rights has a long history _on the left and among Democrats_, and I wish that liberals and lefties would acknowledge it a little more often.
Kay
Sorry, Richard, but I disagree. I think Clinton should have had a stronger showing in Iowa.
She has a better organization- both better than it was in 2008 and better than that of Sanders- plenty of money, all the institutional support of elected, incumbent Dems, just about every labor union, and all the incentive of losing there last time to an “insurgent”. She also has the advantage of actually having run there before.
I thought she’d win it by 5-7 points. I stopped watching when she pulled ahead because I thought it was over.
I will probably vote for Clinton in the primary and I will definitely vote for her in the general (when she’s the nominee and I believe she will be) but Bernie Sanders shouldn’t be able to get that close to beating her. I think they should stop denying it and make an honest effort to figure out what’s going on.
Ziggy
@Dork: that was John Judis. Concern trolling is his forte. That said, Rubio is certainly a harder candidate to beat than Cruz or Trump.
geg6
@CarolDuhart2:
It’s the whole “she” thing, as far as I can tell. I honestly think it comes down to that in the end. I honestly don’t hear a whole lot of women saying these things, unless it’s a wingnut woman.
Matt McIrvin
@sparrow: I’m seeing two distinct classes of Sanders supporters: the first, which includes most of the ones I know in real life and also some online ones, are Sanders > Clinton > Any Republican and will definitely vote for Clinton if she is nominated.
The others, who I know mostly through the Internet, are Sanders > Republicans > Ebola virus > nuclear war > Hillary Clinton. They are very energetic about reposting all the memes with unflattering photos of Hillary with her mouth open that make her look like she’s going to breathe radioactive fire on Tokyo.
geg6
@Mike in DC:
Only because he had to in order to get on many ballots.
He’s raised exactly $0 for other Democrats. He has campaigned with and for exactly 0 other Democrats. He has no chips to call in and never will.
The biggest mistake Jimmy Carter made during his presidency was thinking he didn’t have to play nice with congressional Dems. Bernie is even one of them. How many of them are going to have his back, especially those from less liberal congressional districts than those in Vermont?
Kay
I would put it like this- while it is true that Hillary Clinton will run better with AA and Latinos than Bernie Sanders when she gets to state that are more representative of the national Democratic voter base, that does not mean that she should have so much trouble in Iowa. One of those things doesn’t explain the other. It’s not either/or.
geg6
@Kay:
That can be turned right around, though.
Why, in a state that has one of the three most liberal Democratic electorates and skews about as white as the whitest states in the union, did Bernie not run away with it?
gvg
there were democrats who voted against Iraq War I on principle who promptly lost reelection. Senators have to face reelections too so even if she wasn’t planning a presidential run already then, yes she did face pressure. I wasn’t happy about it and it was a factor in my preferring Obama, but it’s unrealistic not to see the pressure. In fact that is why I was unhappy, I considered she had wimped out when in mattered. Plenty of times fighting the tides of popularity is a wast of energy, but some votes are not routine. Hillary has had a target on her back since Bill was elected that has never made a lick of sense to me. It has always been shrill and over the top. Clearly some GOP inclined men are just total haters of women’s equality. I don’t get it because my dad wasn’t that way and I just didn’t encounter that growing up.
Hillary was first active politically in a time when honestly being progressive and for various types of equality was often just a way to lose elections. People she knew and was friends with lost, get it? I thought she was actually too used to losing and the younger Obama was more aware of the small sum of changes that made more possible. People now say she will fight harder than Obama because she isn’t fooled by the GOP and there is some truth to that but also some forgetting. She needs people to back her in order for any fight to suceed. We have to have the democrats backs when those in Congress (and the WH) fight for us….or they won’t.
If there were a better candidate especially one who was younger, I would not pick Hillary but still she is pretty good. Sanders I don’t care for but if I have to…O’Malley’s problems with over policing Blacks and fudging statistics were a problem for me but I was looking.
I have progress I want to make but the GOP extremism is scaring me. I just want them to implode and get it over with without harming us to bad. I don’t see any way for them forward except blowing up and something new forming.
Kay
@geg6:
I don’t understand why people keep saying this in a Clinton/Sanders race. Clinton’s strength with AA does not mean she’s weaker with white people, just as Sander’s weakness with AA does not mean he’s stronger with white people.
I don’t know why this has gotten so much traction. Are you telling me Hillary Clinton is less popular in Iowa with what is the Democratic base because she has strong support with AA’s in other states?
There are mostly white people in Iowa and both Clinton and Sanders are white. That’s the electorate. Are you telling me Bernie Sanders has not just a weakness with black people but a unique strength with Iowa white people that Clinton somehow cannot have?
WarMunchkin
@henqiguai: I mean, that gets us to the VSP discussion though. Something like: the intelligence showed that the “correct” vote was to invade and the people who voted against it didn’t do so from an evaluation of facts.
@Kay:
I’m probably going to vote for Clinton as well, unless Sanders is getting his ass kicked by the time my primary rolls around (I’d like him to stick around for a bit longer). But I don’t think that figuring out what’s going on is going to be a thing amongst Democrats. The whole winner-take-all thing means something, and it’s not like Clinton has to offer an olive branch by appointing Warren VP or something (as I sometimes fantasize about). I still think the whole OWS message scares a lot of Democrats, and it’s easier for many to breathe a sigh of relief and win on social issues than to attempt to engage it.
Joel
@Kay: I’m not so much focused on the outcome of the Iowa caucuses — the pre-election polling was actually pretty accurate, depending on how you felt O’Malley’s supporters were going to break. What’s alarming are the reports of low turnout, especially among new voters.
Clinton, Sanders, whomever — they need to convince people to get out and vote. I know it’s a lot harder when you’ve been around for what seems like forever (in Clinton’s case) or when you lack a strong campaign apparatus (Sanders’ problem).
C.V. Danes
@henqiguai:
Perhaps that might be a contributor to your violent environment, no?
Kay
@WarMunchkin:
I agree. I think there’s a kind of fatal flaw in this, though, because a candidate like Bernie Sanders has both.
I listened to part of his speech last night (I heard all of Clintons) and he lists the exact same civil rights agenda any mainstream liberal-leaning D poll has. I prefer using civil rights to ‘social issues’ because a lot of social issues are civil rights. I wish that would catch on :)
Villago Delenda Est
@Dork: Is Josh Marshall angling for some permanent sinecure in the Village? Because it sure looks like it from here.
NR
@FlipYrWhig: Actually Obama cut a secret backroom deal with the hospitals and the insurance companies to kill the public option. This was documented in the New York Times. Everything that happened in Congress after that was kabuki theater.
And really, that’s Obama’s presidency in a nutshell. Promise change, then deliver for the CEOs and find some convienent excuse for why you “couldn’t” do what you said you would do. You want to know the reason we’re in the mess we’re in today, look no further than that.
Eric
@Ex Libris: You mean his tan? That’s about all that’s charming about that empty suit.
bobbo
Yes, even a lot of liberal pundits fell for the “Obama has Jewish problem” or “Obama has a Hispanic problem” because Hillary out-performed him in those demos in the primaries. Turned out, not so much!
henqiguai
@C.V. Danes (#180):
No. Be as pacifistic as you want, but if the predators are running wild and free, to *not* take defensive actions (beyond bleating ‘can we not all get along?!’) is simply an acknowledgement that you are simply prey. I *was* pacifistic; then finally got tired of being a target and started fighting back, hard and nasty – and voilá, no longer a target. Human predators tend not to fυck with other predators. To this day I am openly contemptuous of professed pacifists.
C.V. Danes
@henqiguai: Wow. Kill ’em all, eh?
Kay
@geg6:
To me, geg6, you’re telling me Sanders is unpopular with AA voters and then telling me that somehow makes it harder for Clinton for win Iowa, or, maybe, that it somehow makes Sanders more competitive in Iowa.
I understand why that would make it harder for Sanders to win South Carolina and probably a general election, but what does it have to do with whether Clinton runs strongly with the white people of Iowa? I’m just not accepting the idea that Hillary Clinton is somehow intrinsically less popular with white people than Bernie Sanders is.
henqiguai
@C.V. Danes (#187): It’s a dead thread at this point, so…
So, your only response in a defensive situation is to kill everything? Aside from developing a decent capability for personal violence, including demonstrating a remarkable facility with a pistol (actually, my mother did that; silly story), psychological methods worked more often than not; the violence thing was the backup because I have never been able to run far or fast. And where and when I grew up, the ability to hurt someone was a basic survival skill; okay, partially because of the guys with whom I frequently hung out.
geg6
@Kay:
No, I’m just pointing out that the argument can go both ways. Look, Bernie does tend to do well in very liberal areas (and Iowa Dems tend very liberal) and with the young. Hillary tends to do better with minorities and old school liberals (and no, she’s not a neoliberal, no matter what the Bernistas say). It’s just true. So they both have their strengths and weaknesses. I think the Iowa result has shown us that. I just happen to think, right now, that Hillary’s outweigh Bernie’s. He can prove me wrong, but he’s got to reign in some of his supporters. I like Bernie. I don’t like them. Especially Fuckhead. ;-)
Kay
I think we can all agree this is good news:
The elusive- to-the-point-of-unicorn libertarian-Republican youth vote continues to not show up :)
henqiguai
@Kay (#188):
My interpretation of that was that the super duper liberal radicals out there in really white Iowa have the same list of issues as African-Americans, it’s just that our respective lists have a different ordering. Economic equality means squat if you’re still going to be shot on sight by the cops, denied equivalent service, or treated (sometimes not so) subtly different. History tells us that Bernie’s contention that all things clear up with economic equality is false.
geg6
@Kay:
Well, I’m not one to deep dive into the polling numbers, but I have read in numerous places that it is true that Bernie’s support tends white and Hillary gets many fewer whites, especially males, than he does. It’s not me making something up. And I also have to take it from the black people I talk to who say Bernie just doesn’t get it when it comes to how to approach the African American community. They do not take kindly to his criticism, implicit and explicit, of the president and to his new campaign buddy. That’s not me talking, that’s them. I tend to defer to their opinion of what the black community thinks.
Edited to add from henqiguai:
Yes, also this.
Kay
@geg6:
Okay, but in terms of Iowa, I don’t think “lily-white” should hurt Hillary Clinton or help Bernie Sanders.
Wait until we get to Appalachia. Then this theory really falls apart. Then we’ll have to say Sanders has a disadvantage with white people if we’re to be consistent.
geg6
@Kay:
I don’t agree. I think if you have a place that has a large concentration of very liberal white voters, then the person who is trending higher with that demographic has a built in advantage there. And conversely, the person who does less well with that demo has a built in disadvantage. I’m not sure why that wouldn’t be. It may be a small advantage/disadvantage, but it would be there nonetheless, I would think.
henqiguai
@Kay (#194):
Really? I don’t follow such things with regards to political candidates so I honestly don’t know. But I would have thought the curmudgeonly ole white dude from the very white Vermont would be more acceptable in Appalachia than Hillary with her multicultural New York values. Not to mention that she’s a *she*.
C.V. Danes
@henqiguai: My response to a defensive situation is to not get into one on the first place. Geniality goes a long way. But push comes to shove, I’m not a ‘professional pacifist’ either. I will push back, and push back hard. But I at least try to give peace a chance first.
jl
Substitute ‘botulism and getting hit by a bus’ for ‘Chlamydia’ and I would agree.
slag
@jl: I’m more of a
voter.
slag
@slag: Actually, that’s not true. I really don’t have a preference between Sanders and Clinton. I’ll take either/or.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: did you really just call Iowa voters the base? You know better.
Prescott Cactus
Chlamydia: 7 days with 100 mg Doxycycline, orally, twice a day.
Republican Nominee: 4 years
Easy choice.
Leland
This, plus the nauseating concept that someone who came in 3rd “won” harder than someone who came in 2nd or 1st. Rubio may have helped clear the “establishment lane” in future primaries, but Trump and Cruz still came out on top and still have polling leads. Further, the anti-establishment vote outweighs the establishment vote by massive margins. Being the king of a mediocre pile of shit is not a yoooge win as far as I can see. God I hate pundits and horse race political coverage.
mclaren
Mayhew’s bullshit has revved up into overdrive with this one. Shorter Mayhew: “An Iowa vote tells us nothing. Nothing to see here folks, move along.”
Actual reality: the Iowa results tell us a couple of important things. The first thing it tells us is, contrary to the Hillbots disinformation, Sanders is electable. If Sanders had polled at, say, 15%, with Hillary at, say, 70%, the bogus disinformation “Sanders can’t win a general election” might have had a chance of flying. But with these results, that bullshit can’t stand the light of day.
So that’s Important Result #1.
Important Result #2: these results put paid to the myth “Sanders has no ground organization, HIllary is the expert at get-out-the-vote organizing on the ground so she’s going to nuke Sanders easily.” No, as we saw, Sanders has at least as good a ground organization at Hillary. Sanders has easily been able to get out the vote.
So contra Mayhew’s standard bullshit, we’ve learned several significant things from this supposedly “misleading” and allegedly “unreliable” caucus straw vote. And both of the things we’ve learned nuke from orbit the bogus claims put out by Hillbots that “Sanders can’t win the general,” and “Sanders has great rhetoric but he falls flat in the pragmatic nitty-gritty of organizing a door-to-door campaign on the ground.”
So at this point, the only argument Hillary supporters have is: “Sanders can’t accomplish his grand goals, whereas Hillary’s grand goals — leaving too-bit-to-fail banks unbroken-up until they blow up the world economy, waging endless unwinnable foreign wars forever and ever, amen, and letting the middle class strangle and decline until American cities burn with riots — are easily attained.”
Yes indeedy, Hillary’s goals can indeed be accomplished. And why the fuck would anyone want to?
Source: Politico, 17 July 2015.
Source: Huffington Post, 9 September 2015.
mclaren
@slag:
So you don’t really have a preference as to whether you’d like more endless unwinnable foreign wars or not. You don’t really have a preference as to whether you’d like to break up the giant banks that are taking over the U.S. political system and raping consumers with outrageous fees right and left. You don’t really have a preference as to whether you want the federal government to raise the minimum wage.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-kay then…
Do you have a preference as to whether you’d like to continue breathing? How about whether you’d like to continue eating? Any preference there? Or is it all just the same to you?
mclaren
@geg6:
As an alleged “college administrator,” you really ought to learn the English language.
You mean “rein.”
Might want to check out one of your college’s remedial English courses…
mclaren
@maurinsky:
The Democratic party has got to fish or cut bait. Either they turn away from the triangulation Clintonian bullshit and stop deep-throating the big banks and futilely trying to out-warmonger the Republicans by advocating more endless unwinnable foreign wars, or the Democratic party will implode and disappear the same way the Republican party is imploding and disappearing.
The sentiment is overwhelming among all voters on both sides of the aisles: 75% favor ending America’s endless unwinnable foreign wars. 85% favor breaking up the too-big-to-fail giant banks and throttling ’em hard with stringent financial regulation. 80% favor increasing the minimum wage.
If the Democratic party tries to go against the voters on these issues, the Democratic party will get crushed like a steamrollered cockroach and it will vanish.
mclaren
@Kay:
This entire argument of “Sanders polls better among whites, Hillary turns out more blacks” is 100% bullshit. Does anyone really seriously think that the African American vote is magically going to shift to…fucking Donald Trump…if Sanders is the Democratic nominee instead of Hillary?
Puh-lease.
African Americans are not going to vote for any of the racist psychopaths running for the Republican presidential nomination. And you know why?
Because the Republican candidates are fucking racists. And the Republican candidates are goddamn psychopaths.
People like geg6 are actually trying to tell us with a straight face that African Americans are going to flee across the aisle in significant numbers, or stay home on election day, to help out a Republican candidate who has openly called one minority group “rapists and drug dealers” and ridiculed a black dissenter while urging his followers to beat the guy up and throw him out of his rally. Get the fuck out of here. That’s retarded. No black person with a brain is going to vote for a racist like Trump, no black person with a brain is going to vote for a psychopath like Cruz, no black person with a brain is going to vote for a corrupt loon like Rubio.
And you know why?
Because no person with a brain is going to vote for these lunatics and racists and psychopaths. Full stop. End of sentence.
This is not a black/white election, this is a “sadistic racist billionaires”/”middle class and poor people trying to survive” election. If you ride a helicopter to work, you’ll vote for the Republican candidate. Otherwise…no fucking way.
This is a replay of the Mitt Romney “48%” speech, and it’s going to go very very very badly for the Republicans. Just look at the messages the two parties are putting out: Republicans say that what America needs is lots more foreign wars, more torture, a lower minimum wage, more offshoring of U.S. jobs, less banking and business and environmental regulation.
Democrats say that what America needs is less foreign wars, an end to torture, a higher minimum wage, more U.S. jobs, more banking and business and environmental regulation. Hillary is trying to double-talk and evade but even she’s being forced to give at least lip service to these policies (in weasel-worded claims like “I favor increasing the minimum wage but I oppose federal legislation to do it. We should let the states decide.” In other words, do nothing at all to change the status quo).
Blacks and Latinos and millenials are not going to suddenly decide to sit out this election if the wrong Democratic candidate gets nominated. Get real. This is not an election like 2000 where Democratic voters feel there’s no difference between the two parties.
So all the arguments about Bernie or Hillary carrying more blacks or fewer millenials are horseshit. The millenials are not going to vote for Ted Cruz. Blacks are not going to vote for Trump. That’s the reality. Those voters are never going to vote Republican, so it’s a moot issue.
Chuck Simmons
@Brandon: Seriously? Youth can’t get energized at the thought of Rubio, Cruz, or Trump possibly winning the election?
LosGatosCA
@Tsukune:
Firebomb it is