For first time, CA and TX vote on March 3, 2020, Super Tuesday, which will greatly diminish the role of small, mostly white populations in IA and NH in winnowing the field. https://t.co/xY7tZ19n5B
— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) December 9, 2018
A vast percentage of even America’s poorest voters now have access to hand-held social media devices supporting a vibrant national conversation. We also have an an experienced & dedicated nationwide postal distribution service that can deliver, and retrieve, ballots that could be prepared and printed with a speed unimaginable even a few decades ago.
Just as we no longer need to vote on Tuesdays because of Sunday travel bans and the limits of horse-drawn transportation, we no longer need melanin-challenged Iowa corporate welfare farmers and flinty-faced NH tourist harvesters to personally inspect our Presidential candidates as they would any other potential livestock purchase…
A little over a year from now, millions of Californians will be mailed their ballots on the same day that Iowans head to their famous first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses. They could start mailing them back before New Hampshire holds its first-in-the-nation primary in 2020.
Meanwhile, Texans will likely have a chance to vote early, too — even before Nevada and South Carolina, which typically round out the earliest portion of the primary calendar.
The explosion of early voting and reshuffling of the primary calendar in 2020 could transform the Democratic presidential nominating contest, potentially diminishing the power of the traditional, tiny and homogeneous early states in favor of much larger and more diverse battlegrounds. That would be a boon to the best-known candidates with warchests sizable enough to compete in big states early.
And it would empower black and Hispanic voters in large, multiracial states like California, which was a virtual afterthought at the back of the primary calendar in 2016. Criticism has mounted for years about the primacy of New Hampshire and Iowa, which are both around 90 percent white…
Across the aisle, VSP confuses ‘credible’ and ‘credulous’:
We have a winner! Earliest public speculation by a (highly) credible analyst about a brokered convention. Breaks the record set by the late WaPo columnist Dave Broder, set in late December, 1986. Should it happen, the accumulated jackpot of $15,000,000,000 willl be his. https://t.co/eX14JVXnZd
— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) December 10, 2018
The Dangerman
November 3, 2020: (insert name here) defeats John Kasich (what, you really weren’t hoping for Flake, I hope)
January 21, 2021: Trump indicted after he pardoned himself yesterday on the way to the golf course (what, you really think he was going to show up to the biggest inauguration crowd ever)
Yarrow
I don’t know about NH, but Iowa’s role is clearly not diminished. Everyone who even might consider running for president is going to Iowa.
Aleta
(But It is a cute animal)
guachi
I hate that California votes so early. Looking at the primary calendar, the primary will be over by March 17.
NotMax
Am I the only one who noticed that Pence has now adopted the way too long necktie look (judging from pictures of today’s White House sitdown smackdown)?
Yarrow
@guachi: I’d rather they just draw state names out of a hat for the order in which the states go. Every four years a different state (probably) gets to be first. Every state then has the chance to to have their interests be front and center. It’s stupid that the same states get to go first every time. Why not Hawaii? Or Alaska? Or Oklahoma? Or Washington? Make everyone trudge out to one of those states for months. Hawaii wouldn’t be such a bad deal.
Raoul
Does anybody under the age of 70 care what Jeff Greenfield thinks?
poleaxedbyboatwork
@NotMax:
Staff needs the extra length to tie a Spanish windlass on the wind-up key hidden in the small of his back.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Don’t believe I’m going out on a limb in saying, on behalf of Hawaii, thanks but no thanks.
Major Major Major Major
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: I don’t think Gabbard can win a primary against the President.
Mike J
The downside of CA and TX voting early is that they’re expensive. The best thing about small states is that they’re cheap places in which to to advertise and campaign.
My big push this year is to get rid of the Washington caucus. Caucuseseseses suck ass.
Mnemosyne
My main worry with this is that, if you think the presidential campaign feels interminable now, just wait until the whole fucking thing is decided by March and there are EIGHT MONTHS between deciding on the candidate and the actual election.
Mnemosyne
@guachi:
I hate it more when we vote in June after the candidate’s already been picked. The most populous state in the US should get some kind of say in who the candidate will be.
NotMax
OT. Noticed at Costco yesterday:
Wine department suddenly has, at a minimum, two dozen different wines from New Zealand on sale. On shopping trip in November, there were none.
No, didn’t purchase any.
divF
@Mike J: That ship had already sailed in 2016. Super Tuesday was March 1 that year, included 11 states, most of which were in the South (including Texas). By including California, at least you get a large state that is reliably Democratic.
Sab
@NotMax: I noticed that necktie too. My husband says I am wrong.
jl
Hey kids, I have an idea! Let’s all run from president. Then we can all broker the convention together. We’ll all be in on the deal and it will be cool.
And think of the Dems in disarray pundit madness it would set off.
Let’s go!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
Beto!
Also too, note how old man Wilmer collapsed from 78% to low teens.
Mary G
@Mnemosyne: My entire voting life my vote hasn’t really mattered, because by June when our primary rolled around, it was already decided. So I look forward to be first, but I probably won’t like it either, because what if I missed some important information?
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Agree. It’s going to be tedious. Unless the Republicans are destroying themselves by primarying Trump. Or if he’s no longer the President, then destroying themselves as they try to figure out what they even are anymore. That would probably take a bit longer and might provide some entertainment.
Mnemosyne
Also, a reminder that I think everyone here already understands:
Women of color — particularly Black women — will choose the Democratic candidate in 2020. Democratic white women and men of color will follow their lead. Keep this in mind as various people announce their candidacy, because anyone who does not cater to the actual base of the Democratic Party will get nowhere.
Platonailedit
When you can have a one day GE, I don’t see why it can’t be done for primaries too? All that needless drama, corporate money spending, wasting of time could all be gone.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: It’ll be interesting which candidates rise to the top of the pack. Could be some surprises.
Yarrow
This cracked me up earlier today:
The angry shouting man is Popehat on Twitter.
Mnemosyne
@Mary G:
I looked it up and CA got to vote in February in the 2008 primary. That was pretty cool, though it meant we ended up with something like 4 separate elections that year.
I was literally deciding up until the last minute whether I should vote for Obama or Hillary. I finally went with my heart and voted Obama. I have never regretted that choice. ?
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
The funniest part is that Move On was frickin’ Wilmer Central in 2016, and now their members don’t want to give him the time of day. His dead-enders are already denouncing Move On for being a hotbed of Hillary cultists who never really supported the One True Candidate. ?
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
LeBron has already made his choice (photo)
Aleta
@NotMax: By george you’re right. Did you see this picture?
https://twitter.com/AdamGorightly/status/1072545778873311234
Aleta
@NotMax: By george you’re right. Did you see this picture?
https://twitter.com/AdamGorightly/status/1072545778873311234
Adam L Silverman
@Platonailedit:
This is the operable part. It is all about the money that can be made by the campaigning professionals and the networks and the radio stations and the newspapers. This is why it takes the US almost 2 years to do what every other country manages to do in six to eight weeks.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
LeBron has already made his choice. (photo)
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I hope there are at least a few surprises. I still think that Beto is running for VP, but that’s what Obama thought he was doing in 2008, so who knows?
I find it darkly funny that a Certain Someone’s supporters are already thrashing around trying to kneecap the other potential candidates Tonya Harding-style. It’s almost like the only problem they had with a candidate’s “coronation” was that it wasn’t their guy getting the crown. ?
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I wonder what place is going to be Wilmer Central in 2020? It really reminds me of the Paulites in 2012. Last campaign. Now or never. One true leader. That kind of thing. Creepy cultists.
Matt McIrvin
@Platonailedit: Only if we’re using some kind of ranked-choice system, to keep some marginal candidate from winning a plurality in a field split several ways (or producing that brokered convention).
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
Popehat is also the author behind @DPRK_News, I believe.
Platonailedit
@Matt McIrvin:
The current system brought exactly that rank outsider to win the presidency.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
Kamala-Beto 2020!
My dream ticket, inspired by Cali and Texas moving up front, among other factors, 2020 being a year Dems should double down on the COOLNESS being one…
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: According to this article Ken White doesn’t run the twitter account:
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: Right on
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
I said Popehat, not Ken White.
Yarrow
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I’m kind of neutral on what candidate I’d prefer at the top of the Dem ticket, although I’m definitely against Wilmer and I’m also not a fan of Elizabeth Warren in that role–love her in the Senate. I’d really like to see some Governors in the mix. I don’t think we have too many to choose from, especially since state races weren’t really a focus in the Obama years, but there has to be one or two who might consider it. I’m a bit tired of the names most commonly mentioned being Senators–Wilmer, Warren, Harris, Booker, etc. Governors bring slightly different skill sets to the table.
Sab
Talk me down on this. Every Texas president we have ever had has got us into an unnecessary, long and costly war.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Yarrow: Sure thing – any specific Govs to draft into the race?
I love my Governor, but she’s not available at the moment ;)
dmsilev
At this point, I’m aggressively neutral as to who to support in the primary. Ask me again a year from now.
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: Ken White is Popehat on Twitter, which was my original point. There is a Popehat blog that he started that also has, or had, other people posting at it. I guess these guys wrote there. It looks like Ken White does most of the posts there now.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Sab: Texas is a big state. Let’s not over-generalize…
Kelly
@Mnemosyne:
Fresh idea! A quarterly two dice roll on nationwide TV. Snake eyes, national snap election in 30 days. All other outcomes no change. Election in 4 years for every national office if we never get snake eyes.
Yarrow
@Sab: Define “Texas President.” Eisenhower was born in Texas, for instance.
Sab
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Fine, but LBJ and W were politically as different as they could be, but still each had to push for a big war. Even the yankee transplant HW had to have a small unnecessary war to prove something.
Texas is big but it still seems to be Texan.
Yarrow
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: I don’t have any suggestions. It could be a former Governor who has recently left office, too. Doesn’t have to be a sitting Governor.
feebog
@Mnemosyne:
Trying to undercut Beto is going to backfire on Wilmer. Moving the California and Texas primary dates up gives both Harris and O’Rourke a huge leg up. And Harris/O’Rourke fits on a bumper sticker pretty well.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@dmsilev: I hear you. And it will be a different field of candidates by then, for sure.
Kattails
Ahem. “Flinty-faced tourist harvesters”? This is my adopted state. The largest voting block is Independent. Our entire Senate/Congressional delegation consists of Democratic women, and we just flipped the house back to Democrats. A large percentage of the population moved here from elsewhere; my neighborhood is mostly owner-built homes. We tend to have broad skill sets. NH ranks number one in standard of living. Just had a Californian woman move here after a lengthy search of the entire country: one of her comments was “Everyone is so nice!” Well, it’s beautiful and peaceful and we take pretty good care of each other. The opioid crisis is a nasty sub-text but that sure isn’t limited to here.
My best “native” friend is salt of the earth, thoughtful, Democrat, good public citizen. Calls to ask when he can come over to help with whatever I need help with. Puts in 3-4 hours after his own long day of work, he’ll cut up firewood by the light of his truck…. Sorry to rant a bit. Of course there are arseholes up here, just please watch out for slapping tar around with that broad brush, thanks so much, appreciate your attention to this matter.
Off to do some Xmas stuff.
oldgold
Having early primaries in geographically large and heavily populated states with multiple media markets, like California and Texas, gives candidates backed by big money a huge advantage.
feebog
@Yarrow:
Jay Inslee, currently Gov. of Washington state.
ruemara
@Mike J: I think that happened. But my arms are throbbing & I can’t remember anything.
Sab
@Yarrow: But he wasn’t raised there. Also, he was career military.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@feebog: Yes, it does!
sukabi
@Platonailedit: which is precisely why there will never be a one day national primary.
How else can that much money be openly transferred?
divF
@Kelly: This is moving into Philip K. Dick territory (Solar Lottery).
ETA: Although I keep waiting for a headline reading “Trump quacked!”
Mnemosyne
@Kattails:
You guys did have that problem in the 1990s with pesky libertarians moving in and trying to turn the place into Galt’s Gulch, but it sounds like you’ve managed to repel the invasion at last.
Yarrow
@Sab: W. wasn’t raised solely in Texas either. He went to high school at Phillips Academy in MA. And George H.W. Bush only came to Texas as an adult with a family, so he wasn’t raised in Texas.
What does someone being career military have to do with anything?
There are plenty of presidents from other states who got us into dumb wars, if you go back in history.
ProfDamatu
@Sab: But El Paso, where Beto is from, is….not really Texan in the usual sense. I mean, some of the trappings are there, but overall, my sense of El Paso growing up is that it’s more of a Southwestern vibe. I’d be surprised if an El Pasoan had that kind of mindset that leads to starting unnecessary wars.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@oldgold: Big money like Beto? He raised huge money for his Senate race, but in thousands of small donations.
But seriously, I don’t believe that a Mike Bloomberg-type candidate will be able to buy a win in the California or Texas primary. It will take a lot more than money to win in 2020.
Steeplejack
@Yarrow:
Even on Twitter the profile says, “Most tweets by Ken White.”
But whatever. There seems to be some connection between some portion of the entity called “PopeHat” and the @DPRK_News feed. I just thought it was an amusing callback.
Platonailedit
@Kattails:
And donnie dick probably would have dropped out if NH ‘indies’ hadn’t given him a second wind. So, it’s not all roses.
magurakurin
@Yarrow: The thing is, you can get pretty good odds that Wilmer’s flame will no longer be flickering on this mortal plane in 2020. The whole Wilmer cult…as you say….is creepy.
Yarrow
@Steeplejack: I just thought the tweet was funny. It’s so true.
@magurakurin: Wait…are you saying he’s going to die?
Matt McIrvin
@Platonailedit: Well, from a voting perspective Trump wasn’t a marginal Republican candidate. He crushed the rest of the field in the primary–I don’t see his primary performance as an electoral fluke, he won that fair and square. General election is a different story.
Yarrow
@Matt McIrvin: It’s interesting that the one who came in second to him, Ted Cruz, had the Mercer’s Cambridge Analytica data helping him out. They moved to Trump after that.
Matt McIrvin
@Kattails: I married a former New Hampshirite and live a few miles from the border of the state, so I spend a lot of time there and appreciate a lot of what it has to offer–but one thing that does make it unrepresentative of the US is that it is very white, much whiter than the country as a whole. Same with Iowa. It’s something of a demographic anomaly that we give these states such outsized importance in picking Presidents, especially for a party that relies on a diverse electorate.
Platonailedit
@Matt McIrvin:
He crushed jacksquat in the early states. He gathered momentum in later states only because of other cowardly thugs in the field. A one day primaries would have squelched that roach easily.
Yarrow
I hadn’t yet had the chance to look at the Hoarse Whisperer’s twitter feed yet today. This is a useful observation:
scott alloway
@Raoul: No.
Sab
@Yarrow: I am asking you to talk me down. You are doing the opposite. I like Beto ORoarke a lot. I want to support him. But I have lived sixty plus years in this country and every raised in Texas president and one carpetbagger have started or accelerated wars we didn’t need to fight.
Why would Beto be different? I am not saying he wouldn’t. I am saying that I need to be convinced, because my limited exposure to Texas political culture is that the default position for Texas politicians is always go to war.
Talk me out of that perception. You can yell at me but I won’t be persuaded. I would love to be persuaded, because I admire him, but I do need to be persuaded. Yelling at me won’t do the trick. And I do care and I won’t be bullied into shutting up.
We’ve been at war enough. I know a bunch of military families and I want them home and not at risk anymore.
Raoul
@NotMax: Mike Pence. It strikes me, he is the Dan Quayle of Spiro Agnews.
Yarrow
@Sab: I think your thesis is flawed. It’s not just Texas presidents that get us into wars. Presidents from various states have gotten the US into wars and they probably will again.
I’m not going to talk you up or down. No Democrat is even officially running for President at this point. There’s no saying if Beto will choose to run. If he does, he’ll be running a national campaign, as opposed to the state campaign he just ran, those issues will likely come up and you can decide how you feel about him at that time.
Platonailedit
Fucking petulant idiot of a moron.
ProfDamatu
@Sab: I guess you didn’t see my first post, so I’ll try again. Beto is from Texas, yes, but El Paso is culturally a lot more Southwestern than stereotypically “Texan.” He’d also be just about the right age to have absorbed the cultural moment around the opposition to the first Gulf War. I’m not trying to be an asshole, but this “guilty by virtue of being from Texas” thing is just….baffling to me.
I’ve got to say, as a native Texan I’m trying hard not to be offended here. It seems that you think the state is full of warmongers. Perhaps I could point out that Molly Ivins was also born and raised in Texas, and there’s really no reason to just assume that Beto would be more like GW Bush in terms of foreign policy than he would be like her? (I mean, seriously, WTF? It is indeed possible to grow up near a military base and NOT come away from that looking for excuses to use it!)
Also, let’s not forget the difference between the parties. LBJ was a very long time ago, really, and the Democratic party was very different then. I suspect that given the trends of the past few years, anyone who gets on the ticket, Texan or no, isn’t going to be able to be a hair-trigger go to war type of person, because if they were, they’d have a lot of trouble getting the nomination.
ETA: You said it yourself: you have limited exposure to Texas political culture. Perhaps, then, consider that Texas political culture might not be a giant warlike monolith, any more than California political culture is a giant hippie commune.
different-church-lady
I can hardly wait to see what kinds of better mice result from this better mousetrap.
different-church-lady
@Platonailedit: I believe it’s not a “mode.” It’s more like a constant.
Sab
@ProfDamatu: Thank you for seriously addressing my concern.
ProfDamatu
@Sab: Hey, I’m sorry if I came off a little hot. I just get really really tired of liberals, in meatspace and online, instantly giving me the side-eye as soon as I mention that I’m from Texas. Lots of people forget, despite all the talk about Texas going purple, that there are actually a ton of liberals and folks who are against cavalierly using the military from there! :-)
smike
@Sab:
Beto is not a warmonger, for one thing. He expresses himself in a way that says he is a problem solver. He comes across as a realist who considers alternatives and evaluates their possible outcomes. He won’t be braying about godless commies or “he tried to kill my daddy!” crap.
I’ve been to a couple of his events (even got my picture took with him) and I would support him in a second. I’m sorry he isn’t one of my senators.
JGabriel
NotMax @ 5:
I didn’t notice that particular detail, but I have noticed that Pence has been mirroring (in the psychological sense) Toilet King Donnie for a while now.
Sab
@ProfDamatu: Hey I understand. I do give the side-eye to Texans although I know a lot of Texans I think the world of.
I am from Ohio and Kasich is our current governor and Mike deWine will be our next.
No one I know would have voted for either but hear we are.
I just want a Texan to tell me that Beto O’Rourke is what he seems, and not just another mild talking monster (like we have in Ohio).
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Pence has adopted the way-too-long necktie
All noticed that Donnie-boy did not put his hand over his heart in the pews at GHWB’s funeral.
Few, however, remarked that Pence, sitting right behind him, did not do so either.
I assume that Pence is doing his best to normalize The Donald’s foibles and to ingratiate himself, by acting as if he actually considers Don a role model.
Mnemosyne
@Sab:
If you want to get picky, it was Massachussetts native JFK who started escalating the conflict in Vietnam, and LBJ felt obligated to continue along that path.
And IIRC it was Truman from Missouri who got us into Korea, the original Stupid Land War in Asia.
Sab
@ProfDamatu: @Sab: I think you have done that.
Thanks.
joel hanes
redundant. elided.
joel hanes
I’m an expatriate Iowan.
There are good things to be said about the state, but as long as Steve King and Joni Ernst and Kim Reynolds and Chuck Grassley are in office, much of the bashing is deserved. Bash away.
ProfDamatu
@Sab: You’re welcome!
JWR
Yay! The
now comes with the groovy, bolded vertical line on the left. Also, for me, anyway, the page is a bit more centered. Go, Alain!
Sab
?
Sab
@ProfDamatu: Good luck to you and us.
JWR
@JWR: And now, it’s gone again. This is why I love this blog… you never know what to expect! ;-)
smike
@Sab:
Ahem.
See my reply at 84, but I realize that you were probably typing when it posted.
DHD
I laughed out loud at “flinty-faced NH tourist harvesters” but, poetic license aside, a more realistic description of the NH electorate is “exurban ex-Massholes who don’t want to pay taxes”.
The Castle
@Kattails:
Just saw this comment and wanted to respond even though this thread may be dead.
New Hampshire is a lot like Texas in that there has been a large influx of people into the state but the native-born voters are way more likely to be Democrats. It’s a big gap too – 10 points or more difference.
Fun fact: If only native Texans had voted in the last state election, Beto would be the next senator from Texas.
J R in WV
@Mnemosyne:
Yet, somehow, no one in that primary poll voted for Hillary Clinton, no one at all~!!!~ What’s the explanation? Why did none of the Hillary cultists actually vote for her? Why did no one vote for Senator Wilmer?
At least it looks as though Senator Bernard Sanders has no chance whatsoever at becoming the Democratic Party nominee for President. I would be working for a New True Democratic Party candidate if he were… I’m never going to vote for that stooge for anything above Dog Catcher in responsibility.