When Bernie Sanders inevitably bumps up his non-stop nationwide grifting tour to a rerun presidential campaign, he might as well headline it RESPECT THE WHITE PENIS, because there isn’t one of his ‘positions’ that isn’t already being presented by a better (and in many cases more effective) candidate already. But, hey — maybe after last week’s debacle(s), genius ex-Repub media guru Steve Schmidt can persuade Howard Schultz to ‘defer’ his own vanity campaign in favor of supporting the dude voted Most Likely to Undercut Successful Opposition to Trump 2020!
And then these two can duke it out (quite possibly literally) for the undercard position as Sanders’ ‘In case of senile decline, break glass’ vice-presidential candidate:
Seth Moulton: "I’m thinking about running for president" https://t.co/D0s8JFA9ZH pic.twitter.com/k4D00cggoz
— The Hill (@thehill) February 11, 2019
De Blasio heads to New Hampshire as he contemplates run for president https://t.co/BnWSO2zPXq
— Yashar Ali ?? (@yashar) February 12, 2019
******
Also, speaking of political traditions I hope 2020 will finally put into their coffins, let’s hear it for the end of the Great Whitebread-States Media-Mulcting Processionals:
These are the most significant changes to the Iowa caucuses since their inception in 1972. They are meant to allow for absentee voting. They also make an already complicated voting system a bit more so.
— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 11, 2019
NH Secretary of State Bill Gardner tells me “so far it doesn’t appear that they’re changing it from a caucus,” but he reserved judgment until the Iowa plan is final. “It’s not all together yet. It’s just mostly an idea or theoretical…but ideas sometimes can morph.”
— Matt Viser (@mviser) February 12, 2019
trollhattan
New poli-thread so will repost from below. Shutdown avoided?
Gotta say, the more legit Dems declare their candidacy the less chance of some aardvark sauntering and gumming up the works.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@trollhattan: I guess you could feed the aardvark to your unicorn. What do unicorns eat anyway?
Baud
Good news about Iowa. Makes the caucus a little more democratic.
Mike J
I’m willing to vote for an old white guy, just not THAT old white guy. Or that one. Or that one. And certainly not THAT one.
Anne Laurie
@Mike J: I LOL’d… well, I chuckled. Actually.
Mike J
@Anne Laurie: I do think Jay Inslee would make a great president, but I don’t think he has much of a chance. I’d prefer senators from swing states stay in the senate.
Jay
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Rainbow skittles and Nazis.
Arrdvarks not on the menu, boys.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
Fuck Iowa.
It has a very outsize influence on the primary process, which is part of the reason corn and dairy subsidies are so high.
I’d much rather do a series of 4-6 regional primaries, starting off with a block of coastal states.
After all most of the population lives in the Eastern or Western regions, not fucking Flyover country, and I say this as a resident of Indiana.
AnotherBruce
@Baud: As a native Iowan, I say fuck the Iowa caucus. It’s anti Democratic. In fact, fuck all caucus’s. Goddamn Wilmer thrived on that shit. Caucus is a way to destroy one person one vote. The Democratic Party should not allow this.
Mel
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Hamberders” with a side of pixie dust?
AnotherBruce
I’ve lived in Washington state for awhile now. The caucus they had in 2016 was a sweep in favor of the BS coalition, but when the state put out a non binding ballot, the BS coalition was crushed. So fuck all caucus’s everywhere.
Villago Delenda Est
@AnotherBruce: Ron Paul’s entire 2008 strategy was built on gaming caucuses.
Smiling Mortician
@Mike J: Inslee might not have much of a chance, but at least he’s not a senator from a swing state.
Sab
@Smiling Mortician: Good point.
Jay
Amazing must read twitter thread:
https://mobile.twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1092961519250268160
TriassicSands
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Unrealistic dreams?
Someone should tell the Democrats: There’s only one president. There are 435 Representatives.
This just out of B-F Nowhere — Biff Jablonski, itinerant pool guy and one-time 4th grade class secretary has announced he’ll run for president as a Democrat. Seeing that as a challenge, all 123 other residents of B-F Nowhere also entered the race. And one golden retriever was thought to be considering a run, as well.
TriassicSands
@AnotherBruce:
I’ve been attending WA caucuses for many years now and I really enjoy them. They’d be a lot better if more people approached them in the way they are supposed to — concerned citizens get together to discuss candidates and issues and make public pitches in favor of their preferences hoping to persuade others. But most people who do show up do so to cast a quick vote and go home. That’s a waste of time.
And because it is difficult for lots of voters to get to their caucus, caucuses are a poor way to choose a candidate. If we had a more involved, better informed electorate and made caucus day a statewide holiday, they would be more defensible.
Contrary to your experience, Bruce, in my 2016 caucus I think we actually accomplished something quite positive, though on a very small scale. We had several young voters who had boarded the Bernie Bandwagon and they swore they would not vote for Clinton in the general election if she got the nomination. Through concerted efforts on the part of several older attendees the young voters were forced to see the shortsightedness of such an attitude and all agreed to vote for Clinton if she got the nod. No, they wouldn’t work for her, but they’d vote. Based on what they said and their sincerity, I think they probably all held to that promise.
ETA– And HRC actually won my caucus. There weren’t a lot of avid Clinton supporters, but many of them had paid attention and seen what an empty vessel Sanders was…
Starfish
@TriassicSands: it is undemocratic nonsense that keeps the parents of infants and children from voting. Spouse went to feel the Bern, and I went to the one after.
TriassicSands
@Starfish:
As I said their limitations make them unacceptable today to choose a candidate for president.
But they aren’t undemocratic, they’re a form of direct democracy that is great for small communities. They have a number of positive attributes that primaries lack…completely.
First, caucuses are designed to encourage voter involvement because individual voters are expected to come prepared, make the strongest case they can for their candidate and issue preferences. Discussion follows and multiple votes are taken. Minds can be changed, opinions strengthened. They encourage informed citizen involvement. All a primary does is get a person to show up for a short time to cast a quick ballot. The voter can be badly misinformed and often is. The problem with our democracy is not only that Republicans have abandoned democracy. The problem is that so many people don’t bother to vote and those who do are so often poorly informed. There are mountains of evidence supporting that.
When the ACA came out, the majority of Democrats I spoke with about the new law had no idea what it did or why an individual mandate was necessary. They almost all opposed the law. The hadn’t taken even the few minutes it takes to understand why the mandate was critical to the plan’s success. Often, after I explained why there had to be a mandate, they’d shrug their shoulders and say they still didn’t like it. Polling showed that the only major feature of the ACA that voters really didn’t like was the individual mandate. But they sure liked making insurance companies cover pre-existing conditions.
The current state of our democracy is dismal because our electorate is, on average, abysmal. The real problem with caucuses is that even if you made it so that the vast majority of voters could attend a caucus (multiple caucuses, holidays, even reimbursement for lost wages) the majority of American voters wouldn’t show up or if they did they wouldn’t have done the necessary preparation to fulfill the purpose of a caucus.
Gin & Tonic
@TriassicSands:
And if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle.
Another Scott
@Jay: Good. Thanks for the pointer.
Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner, also too.
Artists have to stand up to power and make them uncomfortable and get them to see reality. That’s one of the major functions of writing and performing and art.
Cheers,
Scott.
kindness
Who is it that is whispering in all these people’s ears telling them they have a shot at the presidency? And what kind of meglomaniac does one have to be to believe what these people are saying is plausible?
I just don’t get it.
stinger
@TriassicSands: Thank you for your spirited defense of caucusing! At ours, the biggest challenge always is helping attendees understand how it works. Once they understand it’s not just “cast my vote and go home,” most people really get into it. It’s especially useful for helping younger voters understand concepts such as “compromise” and “consensus”. There are ways around most of the practice’s drawbacks, such as providing on-site childcare, holding multiple sessions, and employing Facetime/phone-in technologies.
cmorenc
@stinger:
The purported benefits for the fraction of the electorate who actually attend caucuses are enormously outweighed by the fact that they facilitate a militant faction to skew the results from extent of actual support among the broader electorate. What exactly did caucuses teach Bernie – bros about compromise and consensus? For every one of ’em who took the suggested lessons from the caucus experience, I’d wager there were at least ten who became even more stubbornly dug in from attending a caucus.
Brickley Paiste
This obsession with Sanders is kind of sad.
I see more posted about him here on this blog than anywhere else on the internet.
You all should charge him rent since he’s living inside your head.
opiejeanne
@cmorenc: They disrupted the second tier caucus where the delegates met, so badly that no one could speak unless it was to praise Bernie. Other people I knew who were supporters of Bernie described worse than what we saw, and our experience was pretty awful.
Give me a primary any day. That was a ridiculous exercise in chaos.
TriassicSands
@stinger:
I agree with your comments. I didn’t respond to Gin&Tonic’s snark because there didn’t seem to be any point.
@cmorenc:
If you read my comment then you would know that at my caucus they learned some important lessons, the most important being that it is vital to never lose site of the big picture. There’s your preferred candidate and there is winning the election. In every group there will be people who aren’t open to learning. Alternatively, there may be people who understand the importance of winning but lack the skill or patience to bring others along. It’s not always easy. Part of the problem with Sanders’ most fervent supporters was that many of them were young and too sure of themselves to accept the possibility they could be wrong. In my mind the problem with Sanders wasn’t the policies, which were often better than Clinton’s, but with the candidate himself who was shallow and clearly was unprepared. I seriously doubt he’s changed that at all in the past 2 years. Sound bites and slogans, but no substance.
Mike J
@Smiling Mortician: Way late getting back to this, but The second sentaence was supposed to be unrelated to the first. I was thinking of all the old white guys I would be ok voting for. I like INslee, and my only problem with Brown is we need him where he is.
Mike J
@opiejeanne: Yes, the first tier was disorganized but we muddled through. The second tier was hell with people standing two inches from you and screaming in your face that you were betraying the revolution. Fuck that.
Feckless
White dick?
Why dont you leave the ad hominems to the Nazis?
The trumpets bombed a synagogue, considering that do you think it’s okay to keep up the daily verbal assault on the first Jewish candidate for the presidency?