Periodic reminder that Bloomberg's big new idea for how to run the government is to turn the East Room (the White House's grand reception hall where JFK lay in repose, the Camp David Accords were signed, and Obama announced the Bin Laden raid) into f***ing Dunder Mifflin. https://t.co/0SUzvNGYnr
— zeddy (@Zeddary) February 17, 2020
“… He sees other people as things.”
Some of you will recognize that line as a paraphrase of Terry Pratchett, concerning a professional assassin whose idea of quiet recreation was working out how to eliminate a fantasy-world Santa Claus by kidnapping the Tooth Fairy.
But maybe we lesser beings can better grasp Technocrat Bloomberg’s vision by imagining that, to him, we are not actually people — just units. There are Competitor units, Customer units, Convenience units (a/k/a ‘women), and (when he is in governing mode) Citizen units.
Many of these (we) Citizen units are inherently sub-optimal — distinguishable by skin color or gender. In his professional capacity as someone who profits from cutting out unnecessary complications, it is surely efficient to remove as many sub-optimal units from the Citizen process as possible (stop & frisk, sexual harrassment), while simultaneously enacting rules that will prevent the slightly less susceptible Citizen units from costly self-destructive habits (soda bans). He doesn’t hate the sub-optimal units… he just hates the inefficiency we introduce to the smooth functioning of the system.
"We need a candidate who doesn't take any money from rich donors and who shares our fetish for ruthlessness and belligerence."
*Another finger on the monkey's paw curls down.*
— DSA Pinkerton Caucus (@agraybee) February 17, 2020
Bloomberg has learned one lesson from Trump, fortune favors the shameless.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) February 17, 2020
Bloomberg doesn’t even have it in him to be condescending, because he doesn’t care about acknowledging the public exists. He doesn’t even really do campaign events. He’s just throws money at staff, bots, ads, any of the things a campaign can have till he drowns our competitors
— Proud Bloomberg Disliker (@MenshevikM) February 14, 2020
Mike Blooomberg is pro-choice and a leading gun control advocate. There was only one party for him to run in.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) February 16, 2020
Seriously, the dude ran NYC with initiative & decisiveness to execute a very specific personal vision of what it should look like. You all see that it's bad, mostly because that vision was weird & bad, but actually having one dude being able to do that at all is the scary part.
— The Mall Krampus (@cakotz) February 17, 2020
Democrats desperate for a sure bet to beat Trump have been flocking in recent days to a billionaire ex-Republican w/ a history of misogyny and bad policy on race. What voters are missing about Bloomberg v. Trump – and the threat to democracy. My new column https://t.co/zZp8bdyPQs
— Will Bunch ?? (@Will_Bunch) February 11, 2020
Hearing this more and more on the trail. Trump is in the heads of many Dem primary voters (but not all or even a majority). Beating him is all they care about, thus the “Mike will get it done” slogan which is ostensibly about issues but is also about winning. https://t.co/Klg9MtFDdK
— Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) February 14, 2020
Seems worth noting that 400m dollars has bought him something like a 10% national poll share, which, in an ordinary year, would make him a sad also-ran. The problem is that our field is super divided by sad also-rans like Amy Klobuchar, so he’s competitive https://t.co/jb1yc3pFFE
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) February 18, 2020
(NB: I do not consider Klobuchar a ‘sad also-ran’… especially while Tom Steyer is still buying a slot)
The only reasonable way to view a Trump-Bloomberg election is triage. Trump is wrecking institutions that make any approximation of democracy possible. A billionaire buying the presidency makes the problem worse, not better. Question is who makes things the worst. Hint: it’s 45.
— jelani cobb (@jelani9) February 16, 2020
The real danger of Bloomberg becoming president – besides the fact he sucks – is that electing a racist, corrupt, sneering oligarch as president and then using the Democratic Party’s infrastructure to defend him would basically supercharge the American fascist movement
— Proud Bloomberg Disliker (@MenshevikM) February 14, 2020
They’ve already got the racism, the cultishness, and the tactics, the only thing holding the GOP back from going full Nazi is that their economic policies are at odds with white communalism. Bloomberg as president would make the pitch for white communalism very obvious
— Proud Bloomberg Disliker (@MenshevikM) February 14, 2020
It's not hair splitting to note that the same candidate with a different party platform will have very different policy outcomes and no one hurt by them will congratulate you for sitting this out because they're both tyrants.
— Elizabeth Spiers (@espiers) February 18, 2020
jl
Bloomberg’s internet ads say he has had many voter ‘interactions’, so there is that.
Betty Cracker
Warren ain’t pulling any punches:
Another Scott
ex-Mayor Mike won’t win the nomination if people don’t vote for him. So don’t.
BC – Jinx!
Cheers,
Scott.
Major Major Major Major
In general elections I’m a pretty predictable voter. My priorities are gun control, climate change, urbanism, non-Republican judges (i.e. civil, reproductive, & workers’ rights), and a functional bureaucratic state. Any of the Democratic candidates, sans Tulsi, are acceptable in this framework compared to any Republican. Which is not to say we should give Bloomberg a pass in the primary obviously.
Also…
Capping sugar-sweetened drink sizes at 16oz., no limit on how many you can buy, is a ‘soda ban’ in the same way that limiting magazine size is a ‘bullet ban’. (Both policies, incidentally, are recommended by a lot of folks in the public-health space)
hells littlest angel
Sadly, given another 20 years of climate change, that will become the consensus among the power class.
Kent
Seriously? The White House is basically divided up into 3 categories of spaces already: (1) private quarters for the first family, (2) public and ceremonial spaces for events, receptions, receiving foreign delegations, etc. and (3) working space for the White House staff.
The working spaces within the White House are already a sea of cubicles anyway. Bloomberg doesn’t have to do anything to create a cubical farm at the White House. It already exists. And he isn’t going to sacrifice any of the public or ceremonial spaces for this sort of nonsense because those are needed for public and ceremonial events. So this is just the urban technocrat version of Buttigieg and Klobuchar’s noting of bringing homespun “heartland” values into the White House.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: @Another Scott:
It’s so good, we don’t mind seeing it twice.
Baud
I thought the argument with Trump was that he was so rich, he wasn’t corrupt because he didn’t need rich people’s money.
WaterGirl
We are all just voting units to Bloomberg. Little pieces to be moved around on the board as it suits him. Ugh.
Archon
Bloomberg needs about 8 things to go exactly right to be President. Biden imploding, Warren not gaining any traction and Sanders having a clear lane to the nomination thus scaring the Democratic establishment were 3 of them.
Facebones
It’s not a mystery why Bloomberg is hitting 19% in polls. He is literally the only candidate out there attacking Trump every day. Instead of taking on Trump, the other candidates are screaming at each other over minor differences in health care plans that will not pass the Senate regardless.
Some of the online Berners were literally saying “Just wait! Once we have the nomination, all of this smart, funny snark will be laser focused on Trump!” To which I say
1) you ain’t that smart or funny
2) literally nothing is stopping you from doing that now rather than tweeting homophobic memes at Pete and snake emojis at Liz
3) What was stopping you the last 4 years?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe this was fake news, but I thought I read that she pushed for the change in the debate rules that allowed Bloomberg to qualify for the debate (for the noble purpose of preventing him from hiding behind his ads).
Major Major Major Major
Oh, and that open-office picture gives me all sorts of hives, too.
Cacti
@Betty Cracker: The voters likely to be impressed with Warren’s tweets are already voting for Sanders.
Archon
@Cacti:
Ain’t that the truth…
Baud
I just want you all to know that I consider all of you extremely valuable blog units.
eclare
@Facebones: Yep. I am seriously considering him. I’ll watch the debate tomorrow and see how SC goes. I only have two priorities: nominate someone other than Bernie and defeat Trump.
And for people saying that he is buying the presidency, we are in a post Citizens United world. That ship has sailed.
Baud
The Baud! White House will be managed out of a WeWork.
gene108
So Cabinet Secretaries will now report to work in the East Room of the White House?
Really not seeing how him sitting in the East Room of the White House, with his direct reports will make for a better or more efficient government.
Miss Bianca
“Look, when I *say* ‘at least Bloomberg would be better than Trump’, what I *mean* is that a pile of flaming dog crap would be better than Trump!”
Not loving Mike. But I’m not loving any of the geriatric white guys in the race, with the possible exception of Biden. I just hope that people don’t get so freaked out they start voting for Mike in any primary races.
Betty Cracker
@Archon: What are the other 5 things that have to go just right?
Cacti
Yep. The chance to right that wrong was 2016. But the combined forces of Trump and Bernie were able to defeat the Dem nominee. They’re hoping to do so again.
gene108
@Baud:
I thought that was the argument for Perot, in 1992…
eclare
@Miss Bianca: People, including me, are freaked out.
zhena gogolia
Yeah, I’ve been Bloomberg curious, but this is BAD (the open office plan).
Ohio Mom
Am I to assume that Bloomberg thinks I’m naive enough to think that the work of the federal government rests on a couple of dozen people glued to their computer monitors, isolated from all else, or that he actually thinks that? Because I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.
BroD
Save the Left–vote Moderate!
JPL
@Archon: Bloomberg is causing Biden to implode. His support is coming from the moderates and he is clearing a way for Sanders to win the nomination. As someone who voted for McGovern, let me say that scares the shit out of me.
Cacti
I wonder if Kamala Harris is thinking she bowed out too soon.
Baud
OTOH, the Office was a great show.
@Cacti: Good question
eclare
@Cacti: She was who I originally supported.
David Anderson
Dumb question — wouldn’t the White House security officers (if they actually show up for work in the next 12 months) be throwing massive screams into the void at the security/compartmentalization problems of an open office scheme?
JPL
Not that I believe in conspiracy theories, but what if Wilmar is being paid by repubs to run and Bloomberg is running as the next republican president.
trnc
Nope.
Cacti
Indeed.
Thus far, the greatest beneficiary of the Bloomberg campaign has been Bernie Sanders.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia:
Nevertheless, I still prefer him to Sanders, since he has a better chance of winning the GE and he is not a Russian asset.
Mnemosyne
I am very glad that, as a voter in California, I won’t have to vote for Bloomberg unless the rest of y’all fuck up and nominate him.
I’m still waiting to see how SC and NV go before I make my final decision, but I know I’m still #NeverBernie in the primary.
zhena gogolia
@Cacti:
Sad, if true. But I think the “HUNTER BIDEN” crap that the MSM picked up on after the impeachment trial probably has played as big a role.
danielx
Bloomberg: another predacious doucherocket billionaire. Just what we need.
rivers
Before I lose my mind over the Bloomberg threat , I’ve decided to see how he performs tomorrow night. Also, I’ll wait to see how people vote on Super Tuesday. I don’t see the point of sounding the fire alarm about how he plans to use the East Room. Surely that’s the least of our worries. (This is not aimed at fellow jackals but at some of the Twitterati listed above.)
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
I am so fucking livid about that. We just had an entire fucking impeachment that proved all of the Hunter Biden stuff was bullshit and THE MSM is STILL FUCKING PRETENDING IT’S REAL?!?!
Jesus fucking Christ.
Kraux Pas
There, fixed
But do the voters know that?
sdhays
I’m team broken glass, no matter how much I loathe Bloomberg. But I just don’t think that people have really thought through their assurance that Bloomberg can beat Dump. There are at least as many assumptions about what people will be willing to swallow if he’s the nominee, and we’re not getting a lot of time to work through those ramifications.
He doesn’t want to be vetted, because the longer Bloomberg is in front of voters, the less they’re going to like him. He’s hoping it will then be too late. I hope the debate highlights this reality, but I don’t have high expectations.
Eljai
@zhena gogolia: The law firm I work for switched to an open plan three years ago and I have not been productive since.
Archon
@Betty Cracker:
I was being more tongue and cheek then specific about 8 things “going right” for Bloomberg to win, but things couldn’t have gone better for him this past month.
Bloomberg still has a very, very tight path to the nomination that are gonna require a bunch of other things working out for him. (Biden becoming completely non-viable before Super Tuesday, a Sanders scandal that rocks Democrats belief in his ability to win the general, etc)
danielx
@Baud:
My day is now complete.
gene108
@David Anderson:
I am assuming the East Room gets turned int a SCIF. I don’t see, how else it can be done.
topclimber
@eclare: Maybe because all those Trump ads from Bloomberg, which probably haven’t moved the dial a micron on Trump’s approval ratings, sure have played up the notion of “My God, we can’t do anything the least bit controversial because only by playing it scared can we beat Trump.”
What selfless billionaire and media mogul might that benefit?
Nothing is more controversial than running a women in 2020 when President Hillary only beat Trump by 3 million votes and women fueled the 2018 blue wave. Surely we can’t turnaround a few hundred thousand voters in swing states without someone safe like Mayor Mike(R-Lite).
Major Major Major Major
@zhena gogolia: Iowa is causing Biden to implode. His support looks like it’s going significantly towards Bloomberg. Easy to see on the polling averages, where Biden had a steady ~27% from August until February 4. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/national/
Cacti
Sadly, he seems to be headed in that direction. His support has cratered. And with his fundraising difficulties to date, I have a hard time seeing how he recovers.
gene108
@zhena gogolia:
The Hunter Biden-Burisma lies have cast a question on Joe’s campaign. At one point, my mom was thinking Biden’s corrupt. Stay away from Biden. She’s better informed than most, but isn’t into blogs, so she gets caught up in MSM/NPR framing.
Bill Arnold
Oooh, I get to rant about open plan office layouts. This from 2018 eviscerates the unscientific, unmeasured claims of greater collaboration (and implicitly, higher productivity) in open plan offices, at their worst, fishbowls full of loud talking fish. (At their best, can be OK if there are visual partitions.)
Open-plan offices drive down face-to-face interactions and increase use of email (Christian Jarrett, 2018/07/05)
which references the actual experimental study:
The impact of the ‘open’ workspace on human collaboration (2 July 2018, open access)
In two intervention-based field studies of corporate headquarters transitioning to more open office spaces, we empirically examined—using digital data from advanced wearable devices and from electronic communication servers—the effect of open office architectures on employees’ face-to-face, email and instant messaging (IM) interaction patterns. Contrary to common belief, the volume of face-to-face interaction decreased significantly (approx. 70%) in both cases, with an associated increase in electronic interaction. In short, rather than prompting increasingly vibrant face-to-face collaboration, open architecture appeared to trigger a natural human response to socially withdraw from officemates and interact instead over email and IM.
(bold mine) The paper is pretty clear and has a bunch of interesting references.
Gravenstone
@danielx: Just be thankful that Elon Musk isn’t native born…
Served
Supporting Bloomberg right now is like a child running for their safety blanket after hearing thunder in the distance.
He will be an autocrat, he will reap all of the benefits of unchecked executive power now that Trump has done the historically-noteworthy dirty work of tearing the norms that weren’t codified, and Democrats will have to decide whether or not to tear down our party’s elected leader and hand government back to Republicans in 2022/2024 or take the same Faustian bargain Republicans have gladly lined up to take with Trump
Sure he’s not Trump, but I will not even consider voting for him unless he somehow wins the primary. The thought will not even be allowed to cross my mind.
rp
I’m starting to freak out about the primaries. To all of those dumping on Bloomberg, what are our options at this point?
Biden isn’t going to recover.
Klobuchar is an extreme longshot.
Buttigieg…maybe, but it’s hard to see him having much appeal in the upcoming states, and I don’t think he’s ready in any event.
Warren is great, and would be the best President by far, but I just don’t see her catching on. I hope I’m wrong.
Sanders — god no. I’d much rather have Bloomberg.
This really, really sucks.
catclub
@Baud: That is the argument. It just ain’t true, is the problem.
Cheryl Rofer
My Nevada friends are saying that anyone who doesn’t get the pronounciation of the name of their state right in the debate will lose.
The New York vibe of Ne-vah-da is very strong.
Just saying, fwiw
gene108
@topclimber:
2016 scarred most of us.
Hillary had three million more votes, but Trump had 77,000 more in a total of three states, and thus won the Presidency.
Trump keeps getting worse and worse.
For a lot of us, beating Trump is the only thing Democratic candidate needs to do. Everything else is just gravy.
Major Major Major Major
@Bill Arnold: my work has:
So it’s just great for people with ADD and people who need to use high-order cognitive functions, which I’m going to guess is “most office workers.” And folks wonder why I only show up two days a week.
Brachiator
Bloomberg is a non-entity as far as I am concerned. I know nothing about him and this is deliberate on his part.
I was listening to a local talk radio show. The host noted that Bloomberg’s people had contacted him and wanted to send a surrogate to talk about Bloomberg. The host replied that he would like to speak to Bloomberg himself. His policy was not to talk to surrogates. Of course, no booking was made.
I noted earlier that Bloomberg has never allowed himself to be interviewed by any newspaper’s editorial board. But he can unleash a ton of ads.
In one ad, there is a reference about how Bloomberg holds himself accountable for his actions. Nothing about being accountable to citizens.
Right now, I have no interest in this guy at all. None. Doesn’t matter than he hates Trump. If he were running for Trump Arch Enemy, I might vote for him. But I am looking for a president, not another supervillain.
Cacti
So, we just need to have faith that the revolutionary fantasies of the far left will win 270 votes in the EC?
Hard pass.
Another Scott
I agree that it’s time to freak out.
The only candidate that can possibly win is someone who has no back story, no paper trail, and knows how to work complicated subjects into pithy slogans.
It’s clear that the time has come for…
Baud!
Who’s with me!!!??!11
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: So no to the Larry David double?
catclub
@rp: I think Sanders going into the convention with a small delegate lead, but nowhere near a majority, gives Warren or Klobuchar better chances to get the nom. I think Bloomberg would have a harder time convincing delegates. Also kicking a different billionaire in the nuts might be something democratic delegates would like.
problem: if you kick too hard he might not support the Democratic candidate as ferociously ( read $wise) as he might otherwise.
Major Major Major Major
I’ve recently decided that the candidate who wins the most pledged delegates ought to win the nomination. If that means a Sanders nom, well, it might do the least damage to acquiesce to the will of the voters.
Bnad
@Facebones: 3) What was stopping you the last four years?
Trump is a close #2 after Bernie for them. Either one of them gets smashing the establishment done. The glorious revolution is inevitable; after Trump’s second term it will just be that much more glorious, like jumping into ice water after a sauna.
They may not be so off about the revolution part; it may actually happen after a few hundred years of increasing fascism, feudalism, and regular people getting ground into the dirt.
Kraux Pas
@Major Major Major Major: Clearly whoever spends the most of their own money should get the nom.
Baud
@Another Scott: I can’t believe we’re finally that desperate.
Happy Day!
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Agree 100%. I hope voters choose wisely.
Cacti
If that’s the case, why even have a convention?
Mnemosyne
@rp:
I’m not going to freak out until we hear from Nevada and South Carolina at a minimum. Sorry, but I need to hear from more than 0.001% of the voters before I decide we’re all doomed.
Nicole
As someone who was here in NYC for all 12 years of Bloomberg (note: I never voted for him), I have thoughts, and these thoughts are mostly, FOR FUCK’S SAKE DOES NO ONE REMEMBER THE 12 YEARS OF HIM BEING MAYOR?
Meaning- he’s not a good politician. He’s good at buying his way into weak situations. See: switching from Dem to GOP prior to the ’01 mayoral election because no way he could have made it through the NYC Dem primary. But, when he faces a well-financed opponent, he flounders, because he’s not well-organized and he doesn’t know shit about how to make a persuasive argument. See: smoking ban in NYC restaurants vs attempted large soda ban. The restaurant industry is not well financed or well organized and couldn’t put up much of a fight against him, even though numerous news articles at the time pointed out the ban was on shaky legal ground. So, it went through. Then, he tried a ban on oversized sodas (as was pointed out upthread, the ban was on SELLING large amounts of soda; not buying large numbers of smaller containers of soda. You could still drink a gallon of soda at the movies if you wanted; you’d just have to get up to refill your 16 oz cup, which most people won’t bother to do, thus drinking less). However, the soft drink industry has lots of money and is very well-organized, and ran a barrage of TV ads and blanketed the media and very shortly, Bloomberg was the Nanny Mayor who was trying to tell NYCers what they could eat and drink and because he has negative charisma he couldn’t make the case for his soda ban and it didn’t go through. He also wasn’t able to get the West Side Stadium built, which he REALLY wanted to do. He’s not good at getting actual things done that require actual politicking and negotiating. He also called the NY Transit employees “thugs” for going on strike, even though the majority of NYCers were on their side. He’s not good at politics.
Don’t get me started on whatever changed hands to get City Council to vote to allow him to run for a third term (and only him), except it ended Christine Quinn’s political career so I hope whatever she got out of it was worth it to her. A third term he barely won against an opponent who, as best I could tell, didn’t campaign at all.
And the GOP is very well-financed, very well organized, and will chew him up like a dog toy.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t agree. If Sanders has 48%, then yeah. But if he has 30% and Pete and Bloomberg have 28%, I don’t see the will of the voters coming into play. In this case that means Sanders voters abandon us, but I don’t think the outcome is illegitimate if someone else gets more pledged delegates on the second ballot.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rp:
My feeling about primaries is that you should just vote for your preferred candidate. That’s what you can control. The rest of it is beyond you.
Mnemosyne
Also, to reiterate something: at this point, all polls are speculative. They’ve already been really far off in both Iowa and New Hampshire, so I honestly don’t know how they can even be relied on this year.
Mary G
@Brachiator: Every old interview with Bloomberg they dig he says something more offensive. I like him less and less as time goes by. I’m surprised he’s debating.
stinger
@Another Scott:
FTFY
sdhays
@Major Major Major Major: I think that’s a very bad idea. If 70% of voters voted for someone else, the plurality winner should need to work at winning over a majority. One of the things that Bernie has been bad at is reaching out across the coalition, and it’s something a party leader needs to be able to do.
eclare
@topclimber: I am scared. 2016 was gut-wrenching, and yes I am willing to play it safe while hoping every day RBG does not die. 2020 will be nothing compared to 2016 as far as foreign interference and voter suppression.
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
Cubical farms are not open plan. Open plan is (typically) no visual partitions at all, no significant audio dampening, all doors including all conference rooms transparent class, no quiet. Most people have their backs to large numbers of people (stress-inducing). The only quiet places are the restrooms. Fishbowl with talking fish. Sometimes the fish are persistently loud.
Inattentional blindness[1] and and inattentional deafness are important abilities in such an workplace.
[1] Gorillas in our midst: sustained inattentional blindness for dynamic events
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I just printed it out and stuck it on my bumper.
Major Major Major Major
Gosh it’s almost like I think the convention setup, much like the electoral college, is an antiquated relic designed to ignore voters, and that this is bad. Also like the electoral college, getting rid of it entirely seems hard, so I support workarounds like “believing that the person with the most delegates should win”
This is not how it works in any other election with more than two candidates, sans alternative voting schemes.
catclub
Have you noticed how much the electorate cared about old things dug up on Trump?
If the question is “what can you do for me today?” and the answer is “beat trump” a lot of people can ignore the past.
Another Scott
It’s clear that we must vote for a pig-in-a-poke because only he can spend money on TV and FB commercials.
Yay! PiaP!! We Must Do It Because The Media Who Gets Paid To Run His Commericals Tell Us To!!!1ONE
(sigh)
[eta, from the Tweet] – https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/the-case-for-michael-bloomberg-democratic-primary-plutocracy.html
Cheers,
Scott.
Repatriated
@stinger:
No shirt, no shoes: no service.
No pants: no-mination.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
The other problem is that if you implement first past the post in the primary, you shouldn’t have the 15% threshold to qualify for delegates.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud:
Agreed if he has majority then yes but not if he has 30%.
catclub
@sdhays: I agree.
My take is that the entire job of the convention delegates is to decide who will be the best candidate in the General, if there is no majority coming in.
Zelma
My best friend and I nearly got into a shouting match about Bloomberg! I’m a retired academic leftie; she’s a semi-retired ex-business person/entrepreneur whose politics are pretty centrist. She’s as anti-Trump/anti-Republican as you can be. But she is talking about supporting Bloomberg. What she wants is someone who can beat Trump. I want a Democrat who can beat Trump. There’s a big difference.
I don’t know anymore who my candidate is! I think Bernie would be a disaster. I think he is the one Democrat who could lose to Trump. I like Warren but I’m worried she subconsciously reminds too many people of Hillary. Mayor Pete is the same age as my son and my son has more government experience than he does. (Hey, I’d vote for my son!). Amy is promising; maybe I’ll give her some money.
I support Biden if only because I hate the fact that Trump’s campaign against him has succeeded. Plus I think he could have beaten Trump sans the fake Ukraine scandal.
Given the wealth of candidates we started out with, how the hell did we end in this mess?
Miss Bianca
@eclare: I have come to the conclusion that trying to fight one plutocrat by voting for another may not, in fact, be the best response to freaking out.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
Which is why you often see either partisan general election ballots or things like run off elections.
Cacti
@Major Major Major Major: Actually, it sounds more like you’ve grown accustomed to the modern convention, which is effectively a coronation event with a pre-determined outcome, long before it ever comes around.
I get that it’s unsettling that this one might not be. But if no candidate can get themselves to 50% +1 coming in, they need to show that they can on the convention floor.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
IIRC, most other elections require a run-off if no candidate breaks 50 percent + 1.
A Ghost To Most
Y’all can chew on this for days,with the accompanying mental stress. I’m too busy to get stressed.
We crossed a line that can’t be uncrossed. Things I’ve put off need doing now. YMMV.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Baud: Yup. If the moderates have 70% of the delegates, why should they roll over for someone with 30% of the delegates.
There’s a great 1964 movie “The Best Man”, written by Gore Vidal and starring Henry Fonda. At the convention, none of the candidates have a majority and after assessing all the distasteful options, Fonda, with the most delegates, decides to withdraw back a compromise candidate.
Hopefully, for the good of the country, Bloomberg, Biden, and Pete pool their delegates and back an Amy/Harris ticket. It would be electric.
Ksmiami
@Archon: I would vote for Bloomberg in a heartbeat over Sanders even though my first choice is Biden- I am terrified over how badly that old grifter will destroy the Democratic party
Baud
@Cacti:
I think the issue gets complicated if, in fact, this year the supers get the choose the winner. I hope they hold off until the candidates get to try to win over a majority of pledged delegates.
eclare
@Zelma: I agree with everything you wrote.
zhena gogolia
@Zelma:
Putin working against Biden and for Bernie.
Bill Arnold
@Cheryl Rofer:
Lose what? The Nevada caucus? FWIW, D.J. Trump got it wrong (and true to form, thought he got it right) in 2016 and still won the presidency.
Reid schools Trump in ‘Nevada’ pronunciation (David Wright, October 6, 2016)
Major Major Major Major
@Cacti:
Believe it or not, I actually think that the person with the most delegates should win the nomination.
Have the vote. Count the votes. If you want anything other than FPTP, use an alternative voting scheme.
schrodingers_cat
In the latest NBC poll, BS leads, he is at,
*Drum roll please*
27%
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: It’s a scheme. It wouldn’t be illegitimate. But I don’t think it’s necessary for legitimacy, and it’s not the scheme we have.
mrmoshpotato
@jl: “Hello fellow citizens. I would like to have an interaction with you. How about that up and coming Music Band?”
Ksmiami
@Gravenstone: I remain convinced Elon is an alien sent back in time to warn us one final time that AI is a really really bad idea
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Non-FPTP decision schemes should be done at the ballot level. You want a runoff, have a runoff, count the votes, the winner is the one with the most votes. You want horse-trading, do ranked-choice and have the horse-trading beforehand.
Why should the convention just be like, a giant caucus? With 700-odd superdelegates thrown in for good measure? It’s dumb, it looks bad, it’s not where the party should be.
Cacti
Fascinating, but irrelevant.
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Dammit, you spoiled the movie! ;)
Actually, it’s been years since I’ve seen it and I did not remember the story at all. I still remember a film like “Seven Days in May.”
KithKanan
@Major Major Major Major: Electing delegates to a convention who then have to chose a candidate by a majority (instead of plurality) requirement with successive ballots until that’s achieved IS an alternative voting scheme. It’s also the system we have, so I’m not sure why it’s illegitimate (I can understand why people can be convinced it’s illegitimate, but it’s no more inherently illegitimate than the single outcome plurality vote you’re proposing).
Major Major Major Major
@KithKanan: where did I use the word illegitimate?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
You can’t pretend that we have a FPTP system when we don’t.
In terms of the future, our reforms have been to move past the FPTP system into things like ranked choice voting. Worthy of discussion, but the delegates this year have no moral obligation to just hand the nomination to the FPTP winner.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Brachiator: Fonda’s decency in Mister Roberts, in 12 Angry Men, in Fail Safe, in The Best Man was the forerunner to Tom Hanks’s career.
Brachiator
@Zelma:
There is absolutely nothing to support the ideas that Bloomberg has any special ability to defeat Trump. None. Nada. Zilch. And Bloomberg is doing all he can to hide and run from his shitty record and attitudes.
I thought that Trump was a weird political mistake. It seems as though the crazy just keeps on coming.
This notion that plutocrats are coming to save us is ridiculous.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I’ve been using the word ‘should’ a lot and I feel like people have decided I wrote ‘must’.
Betty Cracker
I’m no expert on how delegate math works (at all!), but if Sanders wins the lion’s share in delegate-rich states where he’s expected to do well, like California, and runs up a big lead by doing that, I don’t see how he doesn’t win the nomination, unless his support completely collapses in other states and he doesn’t keep racking up 30% or whatever, which doesn’t seem likely.
I’m not happy about it, so if someone can present an alternative scenario, I’m all ears, but it sure looks like we’re headed that way, unless the polling is way off. Which it may be!
TS (the original)
I hate open plan offices – individual efficiency level drops. Whoever dreamed it up simply assumed people won’t work if they are not under constant supervision.
trnc
It’s funny that someone did a study of the effect on collaboration, because I seriously doubt that paper thin claim gets anywhere close to the real reason – saving money on construction and being able to pack more people in the space.
Having said that, I moved from a large, nicely spaced office to a cube when our old office building scheduled to be demolished. It hasn’t been as bad as I expected, but I’m able to tune noise out pretty easily, plus the space has low level white noise.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am not eager to hand over power to people who doxx women, tweet guillotines. Can you imagine what they would do if he becomes President.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t know what stops it unless other candidates start dropping out of the race.
From what I can tell, 1988 and 1992 primaries were also kind of messy early on.
mrmoshpotato
@David Anderson: But open office plans promote workplace comradery and (barfs offscreen).
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Yep. But in The Grapes of Wrath, Fonda also suggested a hardness and anger that I don’t think I have seen in a Tom Hanks performance.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: The race is in flux. Polling is fluid. Also BS has under performed relative to his polling both in Iowa and NH. The MSM is trying to set the narrative that BS is inevitable with little evidence to support it.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
It won’t be worse than what we have now, although it may feel worse because it’ll be coming from inside the house.
Kent
The 1880 Republican National Convention went to the 36th ballot until they finally nominated James Garfield over Ulysses S. Grant and James Baine. He came into the convention with no delegates at all. Garfield and Blaine were first and second after the first ballot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1880_Republican_National_Convention
We will get a nominee out of this process. That much is guaranteed. But I see no reason to hand it to Sanders if he walks in with a plurality of say 28%. That’s what the convention is for. He will need to build a coalition and earn the votes of all the other delegates. That’s politics. And if they prefer Warren or Klobuchar or Bloomberg, I can live with what.
Raven Onthill
And we have this. Published in The Intercept, so take with grain of salt. But the author is reputable, and there is risk to publishing this story, so it is probably true.
Trump:Russia = Bloomberg:China?
dogwood
This has been a depressing primary season. The Democrats looked at what the Republicans did in 2016 and doubled down on their “winning” strategy. They had 14 candidates; we started with 20. That’s an open invitation for someone like Bloomberg to parachute in. 2008 was actually a good season on both sides of the aisle. Maybe 8 candidates threw their hat into the ring on each side. Very manageable for the candidates, voters and even the lousy press. This year it took 2 nights to introduce the Democrats at the first “debate” and the stage was overcrowded both nights.
Fleeting Expletive
Dear mods, how about throwing up an ActBlue link for our respective preferred presidential candidates tonight? I think today is another $$ deadline for their campaigns, but the pace of news is dizzying and I forgot the details. THanks.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Well it will be worse because Ds are one hope we have against R misrule and their Russian friends. A D party with BS at the head will mean that our politics will oscillate between 2 unworkable extremes.
Baud
@Kent:
There it is.
Kent
Do you want a staff that will only work if supervised? Or do you want a staff that will work without supervision. You get what you plan for.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
We won’t be extreme. We will be severely divided to the point of an actual schism.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: BS minions are talking about rounding everyone up who doesn’t agree with them in Central Park. They call themselves Jacobins, They seem pretty blood thirsty to me.
ETA: I know they will say that these rhetorical excesses are “jokes”
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
Is this a national poll? Or just Nevada?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
But they are puny in numbers.
debbie
@TS (the original):
I work in an open office, and it sucks. As hard as I try to concentrate, if something is in the corner of my eye, I’m going to look up. Headphones help a little with all the conversations going on around me, but still…
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Look at the people BS has running his campaign they will be the ones running his administration too. But you are right. He won’t win most likely we will probably lose the House and the Senate. And we will still be stuck withe the Orange King,
Putin must be laughing.
https://twitter.com/regwag2003/status/1229903909357047808/photo/1
Screenshot of a BS supporter making Neera Tanden a death threat.
cckids
@Cheryl Rofer:
In 2016, Trump not only got it wrong, he gave the crowd a little rant about how people told him how important it was, and how right he was. Didn’t matter a damn bit (nor should it, no matter how aggravating Ne vaaah-da is)
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: National poll I believe,
Archon
@Kent:
Like it or not, if Sanders goes into the convention with the most delegates and a plurality of votes (even if it’s 30 percent) he is going to be the nominee.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
C’mon, cat. You’re one of the strongest people here when it comes to handling Trump. Neither Bernie nor his Bros are going to amount to anything more than immense frustration.
TS (the original)
@Eljai: Didn’t see your post before I posted on how much I hate open office plans – and I agree it is the most inefficient way for people to work.
A Ghost To Most
For those of you that don’t have a Daily Beast sub:
Rick Wilson is my spirit animal.
Another Scott
@Baud:
Relatedly, from the NYMag Intelligencer piece by Eric Levitz linked above:
Two tiny states have voted. We need to (wo)man up and not decide that we’re doomed. Come on people (mainly people who aren’t here) – do we really think that only the plutocrats can be our leaders? Really?? What happens after we elect Bezos???
I’m still voting for Warren. I’ll worry about the convention in mid-July.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I don’t like their attempted hostile takeover of our party.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I heard a pollster suggest that Sanders has not shown that he can build out beyond his base. Nevada might be an interesting test.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Like I said, inside the house feels worse.
Anywho , if you think he’ll lose to Trump, that’ll be the end of their “takeover” attempt. And unfortunately of progressive credibility too.
rp
Kamala really needs to jump back in.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
As good a sentiment as any.
schrodingers_cat
@rp: Can she do that?
Mnemosyne
@Bill Arnold:
Trump may have “won” the presidency in 2016, but he lost Nevada. They knew him too well to vote for him.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: True but then we get 4 more years of the lawless Orange King.
Nothing is set in stone yet, the nomination is still up for grabs.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Brachiator: It’s a caucus. He does well in caucuses. He got 47% in Nevada, last time.
Mnemosyne
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
He was supposed to do well in Iowa and couldn’t even get more delegates than Mayor Pete, so … ?♀️
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: That was a really good article. If it comes down to Sanders or Bloomberg, I’ll go with Sanders — significant misgivings and all. But my calculus is different from many folks here. I believe Trump is weak and can be beaten by either.
topclimber
@gene108: Scarred me too. Could not sleep more than 3 hours a night til 2018.
In a fair election I think any of the candidates, even Bernie, will beat Trump. Some have better odds. Some are more of an improvement than others.
But beating Trump is not enough. If we don’t advance an agenda that addresses structural defects in our politics, we will have Trump Redux before you know it.
If like me, you are a Boomer, you have suffered by comparison with the Greatest Generation. Let’s prove our worth (which is more than the media credits us with) by beating the banksters and Fascists like they did.
Let’s be determined to fight on, with the same lack of guaranteed success that they had in the Depression and WWII.
Courage!
patrick II
@Brachiator:
Not to mention “once Upon a Time in the West. “
Steeplejack (phone)
If anybody is watching the CNN town hall tonight in Las Vegas, my old friend from college got a ticket and will be in the audience. Look for the blond retired teacher (female) with the “taupe and white polka dot scarf.” She submitted a question but has no idea whether it will be used, of course.
topclimber
@eclare: What the perspicacious TopClimber wrote, #155.
lurkypants
@Nicole:
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
Plus, he’s really fucking pissy when he’s challenged, which is not a good look on TV. I can see him regretting getting into the debate when Warren and Klobuchar go after him on some of his policies and his recent support for Republican candidates.
I worked for the NYC Law Department when he became mayor, and I think the only reason we escaped the open-plan office plan was that we’d been displaced by 9/11 and just getting our offices cleaned up and habitable was expensive enough before you started adding in tearing down walls.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack (phone): Didn’t know there was a town hall! Will look for the lady in taupe and polka dots!
Eljai
@Archon:
That’s not how the rules work. If we don’t have a nominee who has 50% plus one delegate, we will have a contested convention. If a candidate can forge a coalition together that gets them there on the first ballot, then that candidate could be the nominee. If not, we’ll have a brokered convention with a second ballot that includes super delegate votes.
topclimber
@Major Major Major Major: When delegates are awarded through primaries and caucuses rather than via party bosses, a convention is representative of people’s desires. No more Boss Tweed. Far fewer super delegates.
I see no more reason to respect a plurality of 30% in favor of one candidate than the 70% who are not reconciled to him.
Brachiator
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
Clinton still beat him. And here is a tidbit from 2016.
Even before we get to South Carolina, Sanders needs to show that he is expanding beyond his old base.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Mnemosyne: in 2016, he was 13-2 in caucuses and 9 -26 in primaries.
there was a pattern.
CliosFanBoy
@hells littlest angel: calorie units at that
HarryBee
God save us from the damned CEOs. I call them the Make-It-So CEOs. They are natural autocrats, steeped in the belief that instantaneous obedience is their just due. Of all the bad ideas foisted on us by the right, one of the worst is the notion that the country should be run like a business by a businessman.
Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor was shaped by his invincible certainty that his every decision and idea were the right ones. They say he’s “data-driven.” That just means he has zero idea of how people feel, think, or live, and couldn’t care less if it gets in the way of what he wants.
If Bloomberg is the nominee, voters will have the choice between Napoleon and Attila the Hun.
CliosFanBoy
@David Anderson: not to mention the intel community doing the daily briefings.
Elizabelle
@Another Scott:
Applause, applause.
prostratedragon
A line I recently heard in a mystery play:
The primaries are the best chance to do something positive, and stay away from the temptation of doing nothing.
Bill Arnold
@HarryBee:
Seen recently:
hitchhiker
All I can say is, this is a hell of a time for me to be voting in a meaningful primary for the first time ever.
Here in WA we’ve always had caucuses in mid-May when it didn’t matter, but not this year. This year we get a primary right after super Tuesday. Like most of you I’m holding my cards to see what happens. The only thing I know for sure is that Sanders would be a historically bad general election candidate — and I was there when McGovern got clobbered.
I know this because every day of the week I see places like Breitbart promoting him & suggesting that the Dem establishment is trying to sabotage him. He’s trump’s chosen candidate for a reason.
sdhays
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, and that’s how we get atrocities like Paul LePage in Maine, Jesse Ventura in Minnesota, and Donald Trump in 2016 Republican Primaries (the winner-take-all rules in many states gave Trump a commanding lead even with mediocre wins). Just because it’s familiar doesn’t make it good.
The point of the nominating process isn’t to deliver a prize to someone, it’s to find the person that best unifies the party going into the general election. Doing it all at the convention if no one breaks away from the pack is messy and inefficient, but so is doing it all state by state. I don’t think the Republican process in 2016 is something worthy of copying.
J R in WV
@Major Major Major Major:
Isn’t that a health hazard? Can’t the great liberal city of New York send in a health inspector to test the air, and make them fix the indoor/outdoor air circulation? No union, huh!
OGLiberal
@Bill Arnold: And yet this is exactly what my company is doing in our HQ move from NYC to Nashville. Our building in Nashville is currently under construction so the staff there currently – and there are quite a bit – are in a WeWorks space. They are shoulder-to-should, back-to-back, face-to-face. Noise levels can get so loud that if one person has to participate in a call with folks in NYC, he/she will get a conference room to get away from the commotion.
I know this is kind of WeWorks MO but word is the floor plan in our own, soon to be completed space is going to be pretty much the same. And they are also severely limiting the work-from-home option, even if it’s just one day per week. (can work from home if you have a doctor’s appt or a contractor coming but not as a weekly thing – much more flexible policy in NYC)
My guess is this will last no more than 2-years. Then you’ll see senior managers move from the floor to offices converted from previously meeting room space. Then they’ll build a few more offices for middle managers. Then the cube walls will go up and it will look like our current space in NYC.
But will still be cheaper, which is why we’re moving.