Vote your conscience. We're well past the point where anything that Sanders can do will upset the race. He won't admit it officially because people won't vote (or fewer people will vote) for a guy who's given up, and he still wants as many delegates as possible.
I'm nowhere near as confident as Heebie about the general. If Clinton stumbles and/or there is a major bad event like a stock bubble bursting or a terrorist attack I could see Trump winning. He's already moderated some of his more odious positions, and elections are decided by low information voters anyway, so all he has to do is seem strong and in charge, which is pretty much his only skill.
elections are decided by low information voters anyway
Elections are decided by the electoral college. That's why I'm confident.
And yeah, I wish that campaigning didn't involve overpromising consistently about your prospects for success, but then I also wish GOTV didn't involve calling people over and over again and reminding them that this is election day and to go vote because you didn't after the first five calls but apparently voters kind of suck.
Partially thinking about this letter challenging Barney Frank and some other guy for the DNC rules committee. One the one hand, it is kind of petulant (going back to stuff Frank said in 1991!) and has the odd implication that partisanship has no place in party organizations; on the other, it is not actually threatening a lawsuit or to go through other redress procedures besides internal ones, and could be interpreted as them taking their best shot at influencing the convention/platform on as many fronts as possible.
I'm on the bus to city hall to vote as will be out of town next week, here's a link to spur's SF ballot measure guide for other SF voters: http://www.spur.org/publications/voter-guide/2016-05-01/june-2016-voter-guide
I'm voting yes on C.
I'm voting yes on C.
It's not actually a referendum on Clinton.
Agree with 1. And in 2008, Hillary bowed out on June 7, well after Obama had sewn it up, so the dramatis personae should be in a familiar place.
All the PUMA talk in 2008 gave Republicans the mistaken impression that there were otherwise Dem votes to be had from nominating a woman for VP. Which totally worked out for our side.
I'm not sure what this means in 2016.
The VP nominee will be an elderly, irascible Jew?
I'm not sure what this means in 2016.
An unstoppable Trump/Nader juggernaut.
Rodney Dangerfield would have been the Palin-like choice, assuming that his personality is something like his act.
10: A Trump/Adelson ticket would be something to behold.
2: It's over. Clinton has won the presidency. Absent the proverbial dead boy/live girl, there's really no way for her to lose. And frankly, even the live girl, by itself, wouldn't be enough to cost her the election.
We have irascible Jewd of our own, yes? Trump/Von Wafer I could believe in.
Assuming "girl" doesn't mean somebody under 18, it would be great to see lesbian Clinton. The heads that would explode at that would be just too great.
While I am still utterly confident in Clinton's victory, I'm a little irritated that Bernie hasn't signaled more clearly that he's fighting for key policies and not for the actual office.
I admit I don't understand this complaint. He's fighting for policies, if that's what he's doing, by fighting for the votes of the public. He would immediately lose clout if he actually said, explicitly, "I'm not trying to get elected, just to put pressure on Clinton and influence policy"---many fewer people would turn out for that, even, I suspect, among those who already understand him to be fighting solely for policy stuff, and as far as I can see it would mean that he actually would lose the ability to put pressure on Clinton/the party---because he'd have admitted he doesn't intend to actually go after them.
I would absolutely love for California to vote for the more left of the candidates. I think it would contribute to the overall message against centrism.
Relentless rejection of centrism is how the Republicans got Trump.
22: No. Relentless rejection of centrism would have got them Cruz.
Relentless rejection of decency, competence, and sense got them Trump.
19: What heads? Both lesbians and homophobes take it as a given already.
Elizabeth Warren will make America great again!
I think the main thing people need to do to coalesce around Clinton is to stop the negative campaigning against her. I would vote for Sanders if I were in California, but I really wish leftist types would stop spreading nasty talk about those damn emails. It is as if people think failure to follow email protocol is morally equivalent to operating a con game that defrauded people for up to $35,000 a pop.
24: All the people who took it as a given back in the 90s and nobody listened to.
23: Cruz (and others) thought that denouncing centrism would result in the nomination of a doctrinaire conservative such as himself and instead they nominated an amoral, inexperienced asshole. The Democrats would find the same. Voters are not capable or willing to give a shit about ideology. Openly rejecting any attempt to accommodate the center (as opposed to gently trying to move it in your direction) will tear down anybody who is going to run on competence or decency or whatever.
Trump can totally win this thing. People shouldn't deceive themselves.
You know, a bunch of other states are voting June 7 as well.
In California, I expect Sanders to do better on delegates than with votes, because of the geographic component of delegate selection in California. He'll win rural counties going away, but get beaten in heavily minority districts.
It's over, folks. Trump has secured the only endorsement that counts.
If Clinton stumbles and/or there is a major bad event like a stock bubble bursting or a terrorist attack I could see Trump winning. He's already moderated some of his more odious positions, and elections are decided by low information voters anyway, so all he has to do is seem strong and in charge, which is pretty much his only skill
Doesn't this need a better audit? What everyone who says this is thinking - the trauma they're revisiting - is George W. Bush. But they're eliding Bush's original non-election with his re-election. Bush was not, in fact, (non-)elected in the wake of a massive terrorist attack. He certainly got re-elected by yelling about supporting the troops, but he had the vast advantage in seeming strong and in charge of being the goddamn president, already.
You know, a bunch of other states are voting June 7 as well.
What do you know. I assumed just NJ, because that's the only other one 538 models.
31 is right. Bush won (or came close enough that he could be made to win) by trying to appear as much as possible like a centrist.
Honestly, at this point the notion that Bernie is fighting for "policies" or that his campaign is part of some plausible "left" push in the Democratic party is so preposterous I can't believe that anyone of good faith is taking it seriously. Let's build a plausible left Democratic party by ... Attacking Barney Frank! Appointing Cornell West as my authentic voice of the black community on the platform committee! Making my primary attack on procedural rules of the Democratic party! Attacking Peter Staley and joining up with the geniuses as the AHF! Advocating policies not actually to the left of the mainstream candidate, except to the extent that they are extremely ill-thought-out and rest on an impossible theory of politics. Meanwhile, attack and/or lose the support of actually inclined to the left politicians across the country! There is literally no plausible connection right now between Bernie getting more primary votes and the party (let alone policy) moving to the left. If anything, the campaign is now causing Bernie's purported ideals to lose credibility by being associated with the guy. That wasn't necessarily true at the beginning of his campaign, but it is true now.
Meanwhile, the numbers are clear. Trump is a very weak GOP candidate, but a horrific one. Odds are low but consequences terrible. The only way he gets elected is if the Democratic party splits and/or a ton of Democratic voters stay home. I don't think thay even if Bernie wins California that's particularly likely. But Bernie himself is playing with fire, and at this point will have a hard time talking some of his supporters down, even if he wants to (and signs are he may not).
So, even assuming you liked Bernie to begin with, there's real risk to voting for him now and no real benefit. If you think his campaign moved the party to the left (I don't, but will assume this for the sake of argument) that's already succeeded as much as it's going to. His campaign is now at best neutral if not affirmatively counterproductive on the "move Dems to the left" front. And there's real risk to a Bernie win, though "risk" isn't the same thing as "throw the election to Trump." So, the only reason to vote for Bernie at this point is if you're a true Bernie or buster or Hillary hater, and want to make that point. Which I hope no one here is.
31: Or Obama with the financial crisis. He probably would still have won that one, but not with the margin/downballot results that he did.
The danger with Trump is that we've got a policy focused but low charisma politician proposing incrementalist wonky reforms but who people don't trust running against a dramatic alpha-male-nonsense idiot who is trying to be everything to everybody (by, literally, saying everything to everybody and hoping that people remember the stuff they liked hearing) and looks like a really amazing thumb in the eye to everyone in DC. It's not the 2004 election that people are remembering here, it's 2000 (and 1992, and 1980, and...) just with the volume turned up a couple notches on the insanity. The press will still cover Trump with bewildered looks and Clinton with 'but where there's smoke there's fire'.
I don't think that's nearly enough to overcome the fact that Trump is, visibly, undeniably a dangerous narcissist freak who could do some serious damage to the country in a way we haven't seen before. But there's a good reason to think the election will be uncomfortably/unnecessarily close, and when Americans feel threatened they run for the most belligerent posturing goon they can find. Something like that, or a revelation of an actual Clinton scandal, or economic trouble, or something could be enough to shift things in the wrong direction. And two of those could very easily end in a Trump presidency.
I filled out my sample ballot yesterday. It took forever. So many elected judges! I spent so much time researching all the judicial candidates, and as usual it turned out that most of them were total looney tunes. Why are we okay with this terrible system?
20: One could be forgiven for going all-out--to the point of dirty play--in a contest that one is losing but could still win. Once one's loss is ensured, dirty play reflects poorly on one.
I probably wouldn't go so far as to say that Bernie is playing dirty, but it's clear that his advocates are*, which is where the objections come in. It's not "why is he still competing?", it's "why is he still still advocating dirty play in a lost cause?"
As I've surely said before, it's a bizarre defense to say that Clinton was as bad or worse in 2008, since Clinton acted shamefully in 2008. It's especially rich coming from self-styled idealists.
*within the bounds of normal, live competitions
Both lesbians and homophobes take it as a given already.
Some book I read once had an organization: "Christians and Atheists United Against Creeping Agnosticism."
Advocating policies not actually to the left of the mainstream candidate, except to the extent that they are extremely ill-thought-out and rest on an impossible theory of politics
Huh? Practicality is certainly disputable, but I don't see how Bernie's main positions are not to the left of Hillary's. Unless you're implicitly equating them with proposals for nothing since they will get nowhere.
I don't think e.g. "free college that can't possibly be paid for under my own assumptions and even assuming an impossible theory of politics" is meaningfully to the left of "here is a real plan for reducing college debt." And so on and so on. If you treat his policies as policies, they don't work; if you treat them as aspirational statements of goals, they aren't any different than Hillary's.
or a revelation of an actual Clinton scandal
The most dangerous scenario is if Clinton gets indicted and drops out, either before or after the nomination, and the Party Bosses impose Biden/Kerry or Biden/VP on the Party by fiat. I think this is why so much negativity is being directed toward Sanders.
Voting for Sanders June 7 gives him just a little more leverage in that scenario.
But, frankly, that's a sideshow to my main argument in 36. Even if you think that Bernie has meaningfully "to the left" policies vis-a-vis Clinton, at this point he is at best a neutral, more likely a counter-productive advocate for them. Whatever work he's done in moving the party to the left has already happened.
42: You may be thinking of a different fake NK news source which gets around on Twitter - this item is confirmed by both BBC and WaPo.
What everyone who says this is thinking...
Your mind reading is rubbish. There's no need to reason by analogy with any other single election. I have no idea how you got to GWB 2004 as being what I'm supposedly thinking about because as you point out, it's it's irrelevant. 2008 might be sort of relevant, but there hasn't been an election in recent memory shortly following a major terrorist attack. The two recent elections (1992 and 2008) following bad economic news resulted in a turnover of the presidency.
What I'm actually thinking is: It's known that fear makes people more conservative, which is why I think a major attack close to the election would sway people to Trump. It's also generally true that the presidency rarely stays in the hands of the party in power if the economy sucks balls. Neither of these things has happened, but if they did I have a hard time seeing how that doesn't sway lots of voters, perhaps enough to win. It's all speculation anyway, so no way to know unless horrible things happen. I just want to push back against the notion that Trump is not a threat.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings Trumpal obliteration."
26: It's kind of funny how in the late stretch of the primaries, all these "Bernie bros" have suddenly shown up who just so happen to claim to believe any and every possible lie and conspiracy theory about the Democratic Party generally and Clinton specifically, who are viciously vitriolic to the point of denouncing Clinton and the party as evil and corrupt, and who actually seem far more concerned with ratfucking Clinton than with supporting Bernie's actual stands. Why, it's enough to make a body think there might be some sort of shenanigans afoot. Of the rhymes-with-Tublican variety, almost.
I don't think it matters who you vote for if you want to keep Trump out. There will be some number of Bernie supporters that refuse to support Hillary. Work on convincing them to do it anyway.
All y'all who think Clinton is a near-lock in the general should go put some money on it. For my part, I think 66% sounds about right.
Despite being less sanguine about Clinton's chances, I'm more sanguine about a Sanders victory not hurting those chances. The Sandersites will sigh and vote for the Democrat like they've always done.
50: My anecdotal unscientific impression is that the "Bernie or bust" folks, to the extent they exist at all, are mostly people who were unlikely to vote for Clinton in the first place. Either Ron Paul types or else people whose main interest in politics is in preening about how "independent" they are.
I'm mainly just looking forward to the primaries being over. There are sites I read regularly that I've been avoiding for the last 2 months because I don't want to see writers I normally like acting like 12 year olds.
If there were a terrorist attack, it would _kill_ Trump. Some fraction of voters are going to vote for Trump for lulz. His bizarre behavior in the aftermath of a terrorist attack would convince these people that they don't want him as Commander-in-Chief.
My sense is that 53 is right and that part of the deal with this election is that Obama has been a good President and there have been few major disasters in the last 2-3 year timeframe that shape folks' voting views, so people are willing to vote for lulz. But I'm not very confident about that.
49: You don't know and I don't know. It is not as if I am making up the email investigations out of whole cloth, they deposed Cheryl Mills last week. I don't know how to assign probabilities, and you don't either. The kind of language you and Tigre use is certainly alienating and increases suspicions.
I would not have believed that a candidate who has been openly ambivalent about abortion, tax cuts and war could possibly win the nomination of the modern Republican Party. Who knew that as long as you are rock-solid on racism, nothing else matters?
So, even assuming you liked Bernie to begin with, there's real risk to voting for him now and no real benefit.
You've been saying exactly this for months, and there's no more evidence it's true now than it was then.
Vote for Sanders if you prefer him, Minivet. If Clinton manages to lose in November, it will have almost nothing to do with the results of the California primary.
I'm embarrassed to say that 49 never occurred to me. Though most of the Bernie Bros I've encountered are friends or friends-of-friends on Facebook, so they're probably sincere.
53: His bizarre behavior isn't hard to predict though, and as long as it's basically the same stuff that followed the attacks in Paris at the very least we'll see him becoming even more appealing to the right wing bigot base of the Republican party. If he reacted in a genuinely bizarre/unpredictable way, like took to wearing a propeller beanie and ranting about flying saucers or something* then, sure. But otherwise loud angry belligerent racism in response to scary brown foreigners doing something isn't exactly something that's shocking in American politics.
*Which isn't that far from McCain's reaction to the housing crash, honestly. His total loss of any composure/sense of what to do in response to it was something that hurt him because it was a good sign of how temperamentally unfit he was for the presidency.
58 - Yes, no evidence at all.
To be clear, it's still overwhelmingly likely that Hillary does OK even if Sanders wins California. But while (a) overestimating Sanders' benefits and (b) underestimating his potential costs could be forgiven last December, it's really just contrary to reality now. The guy is literally running on attacking the party!
The Bernie-or-Busters I see on social media include (a) some people who were hardcore Obama supporters in 2008 and seem to just be over-invested in the Sanders campaign; (b) people who are way too into punk rock and somehow think that this involves Bernie in some way; (c) the French cheese truck guy who is extremely pro-National Front in France and extremely pro-Bernie here.
It's McCain example that is the relevant one. I don't see how Trump could possibly be more appealing to the right-wing bigot base, so it wouldn't help him. He's clearly out of his league for any substantive issue, so the chances of random off-the-cuff remarks blowing up on him are substantial.
61 doesn't seem to be evidence for your claim, halford, but maybe I'm not understanding you.
Regardless, Sanders has been attacking the party from jump. He has, as I've said before, better message discipline than any candidate this side of George W Bush. And his message amounts to: monied interests control American politics, the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party is in the thrall of moneyed interests, the Clintons control the Democratic Party.
Bernie-or-Busters I see on social media
And away we go.
62: If Sanders really does have a lock on the punk rock cheese truck driver demographic then he could be a serious threat to Clinton.
49 - They're increasingly indistinguishable, but I believe this particular set of mischief is not so much low-level Republican ratfucking as chans in it for the lulz.
It helps to have a set of Facebook friends who are 95% Republican*. I don't see any Bernie Bros and barely any Clinton supporters. What I do see are Republicans convincing themselves that Clinton is somehow worse than Trump by saying almost exactly what bob keeps saying.
* They'll all vote in Nebraska so it won't matter for a competitive state.
64 - Oh come on, you know how to read. The risks of independent left-leaning Sanders voters keeping away from Clinton -- a risk Bernie is deliberately playing with -- is now the only thing that is keeping the general election from looking like a Hillary blowout, instead of relatively close. That would still mean Hillary wins! But a close race is one where more random events can lead to a Trump win, not to mention one that may be worse for electing Democrats to lower offices. The size of the risk can be debated, but it's clear that it's real.
And if 64 last is in fact true (the part about message discipline is, IMO the idea that Sanders can actually do anything about "monied interests" other than be a narcissist is not) then your point is self-refuting. Why wouldn't a relentlessly disciplined politician whose message is "the Democratic party is corrupt" hurt the Democratic party?
Regardless, Sanders has been attacking the party from jump.
He has, unless you count taking the trouble to actually join the party. Which would have to count as something less than attacking.
I would think that getting substantial concessions from the party while running on that line (as well as others) would benefit the party if only because it shows the people unhappy about it that they do actual have political influence and it is worth it for them to go out and vote. Also I think saying that his campaign has been focused around attacking the Democratic party is a bit of a stretch - he has, certainly, but it's nowhere near all of what he has been doing. And railing against moneyed interests isn't something new in the slightest: he's just one of the first really prominent people to do it so credibly.
I think it's hilarious to have watched Halford go from "it's good to vote for Sanders when he can't win because it would send a useful message and help to pull the party leftwards" to "it's evil to vote for Sanders when he can't win because people might hear that message and it would pull the party leftwards!"
The idea that Sanders threatens the democratic party in some way is indistinguishable from the idea that Sanders has leverage over the party. If his bargaining position was "I mean, obviously I'll do exactly what you want afterwards that's a given but please give me..." that would be the traditional progressive position, I know. But at the moment he's working with "look, those people are pissed off and there are a lot of them (see electoral results) and you need me on board to help cool them off". And that's how negotiations work: if you want someone to have an influence you have to give them something to wield. That's what voting for him in the primary does.
68: no, of course not. I'm denying they're relevant to the discussion at hand. I mean, of course there are shithead Sanders partisans. Just as there are shithead Clinton partisans. Are there more of one than the other? I have no idea and don't especially care (though at this point in the race, the Sanders partisans are certainly more likely to be aggrieved and act like idiots). Regardless, what I do care about is that nut-picking seems to have become something that even smart people treat as data collection. Paul Krugman, Josh Marshall, Jonathan Chait, Joan Walsh, and a bunch of other bright people, including halford, keep pointing to shitheads in their facebook feed as some kind of evidence of...I don't even know what.
Which would have to count as something less than attacking.
Why? He said from the get-go that he wanted a political revolution. That seems like as overt an attack on the status quo as I can imagine. Still, he's mostly voted with the Democrats and will continue to do so when the primary is over. And he'll endorse Clinton and probably campaign for her. Or he won't, and then I'll think he's being an irrational ass. But until that happens -- and again, it won't -- this all seems like business as usual. It's just that politics is a shitty business.
73: I reject this framing utterly. We're all fucking sick of the Bernie-or-Busters, even people who voted for Sanders. I don't give a shit what Josh Marshall or whoever said about Sanders. I read several stupid "There's no difference between Clinton and the Republicans" posts a day in the time that I used to fill looking at people's vacation photos. They've made the Internet suck even more than it already did. They need to be stopped, by force if necessary.
You know who never pointed to shitheads in a Facebook feed?
Regardless, Sanders has been attacking the party from jump.
He has, unless you count taking the trouble to actually join the party. Which would have to count as something less than attacking.
So instead of being outside the tent pissing in, he's inside the tent pissing in.
Right. Like at a wedding reception in a garden.
Why leave the tent when the floor is just the lawn?
The point is, the guy's brand is now becoming running against the party. When getting people to vote for the party is what you need to do to win a general election. And the running-against-the-party thing is now becoming (if it wasn't already) affirmatively counter-productive to any policy goals he might have -- big difference between trying to move the party from within and from without (why -- because you actually need to convince reasonably well-intentioned politicians you're right on policy and can support them, and they won't do so if you're denouncing them and their friends as corrupt) , and in the last few weeks it's clear he's making a move against the party from without.
There's been nothing but half-hearted attempts to turn whatever is going on with Bernie into a genuine movement to support more left-wing Democratic candidates at the grass roots level, in part because his support is not in fact particularly policy-driven.
It's actually in Emily Post. I think.
76: The empty set is not a person.
Oh come on, you know how to read.
I do, yeah, and I'm not seeing where in that piece it suggests that a closely contested primary will necessarily hurt Clinton's chances in the general election. As for Sanders's left-leaning and independent voters, I have no idea if they'll come around to Clinton. That will depend, I expect, partly on whether Sanders asks them to but more so on whether Clinton runs to the center in the general election.
a risk Bernie is deliberately playing with
Or Sanders is actually trying to push the Democratic Party to the left and shape the national debate. You can't stand him, halford, and so you see everything he does as pernicious and disingenuous.
Why wouldn't a relentlessly disciplined politician whose message is "the Democratic party is corrupt" hurt the Democratic party?
Because maybe a less corrupt Democratic Party would be a better Democratic Party. Again, it's possible that Sanders actually believes that.
I think a less corrupt Democratic Party would lose big time. It's not really a cohesive thing and the ability to cut deals between factions is what keep the coalition together.
75: fine. Seriously, I think those posts are just as stupid as you do. And I think the Sanders campaign hasn't worn well at all. I think he's a boring, one-note politician. But the fact that your facebook feed is filled with assholes tells us very little about national politics, though maybe it tells us something about your facebook friends.
I actually agree with 84. But it doesn't have much to with halford's claims about the California primary.
76: Me. I have never even glanced at Facebook. So not an empty set.
If nothing else, a vote for Sanders on June 7 might help him get the Clinton hacks off the rules committee, if you think that is a reasonable goal. Certainly much more important than the meaningless platform committee.
I also think Congress should bring back earmarks. Not including them gives assholes a bigger veto.
Bob and Hitler have never glanced at Facebook. That's about it.
Bernie winning California but not winning the nomination will not really hinder Clinton materially. He will figure out a way to patch it up by November just like she did with Obama. On the other hand, Bernie winning California and winning the nomination will end Trump. So vote Bernie if you were going to anyway. That's what I'm doing.
I'm not seeing where in that piece it suggests that a closely contested primary will necessarily hurt Clinton's chances in the general election.
I don't think it does say this. But "necessarily" is a very high bar. The point is that lack of support from Bernie-supporting, liberal-leaning independents is what is keeping the election from looking like a blowout, and looking like a close race that could be swayed by a lot of stuff. To the extent you're keeping the Bernie party going, which is what giving him primary support is doing, you're prolonging that weakness for Clinton. And this is particularly true given that his message is "the party is corrupt." Will she be fine even if he wins California? Probably. Does voting for him in California risk hurting her in the general election? Absolutely yes, though probably not decisively, but we're playing in probabilities here. Is there benefit to "moving the party left" or for something else that makes it worth casting your vote for Sanders despite the risk? I say absolutely not.
91: I think there's not quite a consensus but something close to general agreement among political scientists that a hotly contested primary in 2008 helped Obama in the general election. Granted, the vitriol in 2008 wasn't directed toward the party; it was far more personal. It hasn't been nearly as personal this time. Though, having said that, Clinton complained repeatedly that the process was unfair, the game rigged. Regardless, I'm not sure what makes you so certain that Sanders's attacks on the party will hurt Clinton more than Clinton's attacks on Obama's and the process's legitimacy hurt in 2008. I think it's just as likely -- more likely? -- that this kind of primary helps Clinton. Again, I'm assuming that Sanders pivots when it's over and endorses her and campaigns for her. If that doesn't happen, we're having a different discussion. In the meantime, I'm going to keep calling you and Krugman and JMM and all the others bedwetters.
80: An argument promptly debunked by, of all the places, the Washington Post. Turns out if you include Republicans in your "who do you like better Sanders or Clinton?" polling then, yeah, you're going to get something that looks like that because they may not like Sanders much but they hate Clinton. Once you correct for that the Achen/Bartels results disappear and are replaced by exactly what you'd expect if policy disagreements were there.
80: There's been nothing but half-hearted attempts to turn whatever is going on with Bernie into a genuine movement to support more left-wing Democratic candidates at the grass roots level
Nonetheless, I was surprised to read of the so-called Bernie Congress the other day. We won't know until election day, of course, whether the efforts outlined there will have counted as "half-hearted."
92 - Well, for one thing, Clinton did much better in 2008 than Obama among (non-black) people who were committed lifelong Democrats. And she was clearly a party insider in 2008. Her base then and now were people who were committed to the Democratic party. So there's good reason to think that her base of support in 2008 was less likely to be swayed to the point of sitting out a general election simply because of primary rhetoric, and certainly because of primary rhetoric about the political process. Also, the race was much closer in 2008, up until the very end (eg., Clinton got more of the popular vote). And, Clinton's eventual endorsement of Obama was completely whole-hearted and devoted to party unity. Sanders is running a different kind of campaign -- he can't just say "lifelong Democrats, let's get together and back the party!" because his whole thing is "the party is corrupt."
Sanders still could make good moves to help in the general election. I hope he does so and still believe that he will! But, as you've said, he's running a very different, more outsider-y, more anti-party kind of campaign. The risks of him not endorsing/campaigning are higher, and even if he does so there are very good reasons to think that the lingering effect of his campaign will be worse than in 2008.
93: Huh. And the one exception where Clinton supporters are mildly more liberal than Sanders supporters, "Police Treat Whites Much Better", is consistent with Clinton having high support among African-Americans.
Or Clinton having higher support among people just paying attention to life in general.
From over here I can see no reason to write off Trump in the general. Firstly for togolosh's reasons, which are good. Secondly because a scandal could easily by pinned on Clinton between now and November; it doesn't even have to be real, just vaguely plausible and shouted loudly enough. Because even Clinton's supporters admit that she's widely believed to beas corrupt, and nobody actually likes her as a person. So she's standing there covered in glue, waiting for stuff to stick to her. And thirdly, because there's no reason on earth to suppose that Trump won't run a perfectly competent general election campaign. If he can't do it himself, he can hire somebody to do it for him. He's six different kinds of bastard, but I've yet to see evidence that he's an idiot.
I think the "nobody likes her as a person" is just another thing tossed out continually over the past 25 years in hopes that it will stick somewhere.
I think the same about the corruption.
96/97 I'd suspect that the causal arrow there goes from having a larger number of African-Americans in that particular group to seeing that effect, rather than anything else.
there are very good reasons to think that the lingering effect of his campaign will be worse than in 2008
I suppose it's not worth pointing out that there are not, actually, "very good reasons to think" this at all. There are, instead, suspicions, fears, anxieties, and lots innuendo and speculation, most of it coming from Clinton's partisans.
Yes, you're probably right on that. But, maybe not.
I thought the piece linked in 93 was consistent with my understanding of the original Bartels piece -- very liberal voters are mildly more likely to pick Sanders, but you can't explain the margins that are producing his wins, especially among young white people, based on policy preference for more liberal policy. Thus the "Sanders Movement" such as it is, is primarily about personality, not policy preference. But we'll have to wait for an actual response.
99-101. Yes, but they've been thrown around for over 20 years now. She can't shake them off.
Again, I'm assuming that Sanders pivots when it's over and endorses her and campaigns for her. If that doesn't happen, we're having a different discussion.
I look forward to it. I am lousy at assigning probabilities.
Of course, it is the Clinton's camp responsibility to do what it takes to keep the Sanders voters in the party, 45+% of the pledged delegates. It would really not be that difficult, just understanding that party politics in principle are the opposite of "winner-take-all" as demonstrated by the move to proportional primaries.
Entire economic team in the Clinton administration will do for a start. Control of party apparatus after the convention. Whatever. A major sacrifice to show she cares. Platform is nothing, rules a mere start.
No, it is not at all Sanders and supporters responsibility to bring the party together and work for a win in November. That's Clinton's job.
And "STFU get in line and Obey, party traitors!" is not all that effective with jobless 20-somethings and old internet cranks. Trust me.
Because even Clinton's supporters admit that she's widely believed to be as corrupt, and nobody actually likes her as a person. So she's standing there covered in glue, waiting for stuff to stick to her.
This point has seemed very obvious (and important) to me too, and why I find it baffling that people kept arguing that the long history of right wing attacks against Clinton made her a stronger candidate overall than Sanders who, up till recently, had mostly just been ignored. It reflects well on her (to some extent anyway) that she kept fighting through as impressive a quantity of nasty bullshit as that stuff for as long as she has, but it doesn't make her a stronger candidate electorally by any means.
She can't shake them off, but they also can't hurt her any more than they have.
So, let me get this right. The argument is that Bernie Sanders is an excellent message-driven politician who has won based on arguing "the party is corrupt." But none of his supporters will actually believe that "the party is corrupt" or will be otherwise inclined to stay at home in the general election. Instead they will enthusiastically embrace the putatively corrupt figure in large numbers.
I mean, 111 could happen! It's not logically impossible, at all. But it doesn't seem like a great thing to just assume as being true.
IIRC, the argument in 2008 was that seeing a qualified older woman passed over for a "promising" younger man would be just too much for a lot of older women who had put up with just that shit all their lives to stomach and thus DOOM.
110 to 107, mostly. But also to 109. The reason isn't that it makes her a stronger candidate, but that we know what will happen to her support after Republican attacks. We don't know for Sanders but it is very reasonable to assume his support would drop after a few months of attack adds.
Older women being one of the key constituencies of the party et cetera et cetera.
Thus the "Sanders Movement" such as it is, is primarily about personality, not policy preference.
Or its about general discontent, discouragement, disaffection, there is lot of that going round, Austria just split 50-50 between fascists and greens
It's not really about Sanders nor really about Clinton. There is a desire for change and hope that is not being addressed by mainstream politicians bureaucrats and pundits. It is not just frustrating to have to keep pointing this out, it is becoming both boring and terrifying.
115: But then to old white men's horror it turned out older white women couldn't resist a charming younger black man.
In fact, I take it as obvious that the lack of Republican attacks on Sanders is evidence that they agree with me that Sanders would be weaker than Clinton in the general.
111: I've been voting for Democratic candidates for decades while believing that the party is corrupt.
I'm gonna outsource my comment to my uncle's facebook in honor of RT.
"So let me get this straight. The good ole USA main political parties are giving us wee folks a choice between a PT Barnum huckster who fleeces people out of their money peddling a real estate scamversity, who thinks we ought to give nukes to Japan and Korea, denigrates just about everyone and who is just the most lame brained orange person you would ever hope not to meet AND a pathological liar who never saw a war she didn't like, who started almost single-handedly the Libyan disaster, which just last weekend resulted in 800 drowned people fleeing ISIS, who will say or do anything to get elected, whose moral compass lets her take 225,000 bucks a pop giving chats to bad corporate players and who as a bonus feature hauls along that near/dear to our hearts husband Bill so we can relive the fabulous 90s. At the same time we are told the sane, little bit lefty FDR democrat who has never been accused of any crime or ill-intent, who goes out of his way to think of other peoples problems (us wee folk) and wants to do good is the bad choice? Color us all fucked over."
118: Huh, I thought in all the head-to-head polls had Sanders doing better against both Generic Republican and Trump. I figure no one attacks Sanders because it's been clear for a while that Sanders has lost. Why waste energy? (Sad!)
121: I see the same thing, except from Republicans and they aren't mad about starting a war in Libya but peace agreements with Iran/Cuba.
111: Or, you know, the Party could try to become or appear a little less fucking corrupt, a little more responsive to its disaffected members, marginalized minorities, or might-be-recruitable independents.
Sure am glad we keep having political posts for some reason!
But all the rest of it is the same, including, with absolutely no self-awareness or sense of irony, the stuff about corporations.
I love 117.
I don't know that Republicans should necessarily be taken as very good judges of the world, though. So I don't know how seriously to take 118. Also the sheer ragehatred that the right has had for Clinton since (and even before) other-Clinton's* inauguration was going to mean that they'd be going all in on that the second it was a possibility at all. I mean, they stoked those fires even when she wasn't out in public much.
*One of the big upsides of a Hillary Clinton presidency is that I'm "President Clinton" will immediately come to mean "Hillary Clinton" to like everyone within a decade or two of her leaving office, and Bill Clinton will vanish into obscurity even faster than he otherwise would have. I hope he enjoys thinking about the fact that future generations, even ones who study history, will remember the succession of Presidents as "Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter (was after Nixon, right? Am I forgetting someone?), Reagan, there was someone here but I can't remember, Bush the Lesser, Obama, Clinton, ..."
You forgot our only Nebraska-born president. Ford.
Also, you're not even batting .500 post-Reagan.
You think that history won't remember the first husband and wife presidential duo? And you think Bill is going to be quiet for the duration of Hillary's term (that he survives, anyway)?
By "history" I mean "random asshole American." The keys are like right next to each other.
126- Makes sense he is in your neck of the woods.
The counterpoint to the 'after a few Republican attacks...' bit is that Sanders has now had, what, six months or so to lock in a relatively positive public image without their interference which would make attacking him harder (though far from impossible, obviously, given that they're not bound by silly things like "anything that has actually ever happened in reality").
When it was being pushed for (futilely) I sort of shrugged at the idea but now I really wish Warren had thrown her hat into the ring last year. Sanders isn't enough of a magically awesome politician to explain why he made such a strong showing in ways that Warren wouldn't have and she has any number of additional advantages to boot.
To be mildly conciliatory, I will say that Sanders' campaign, combined with Trump's nomination, moved my rating of the argument "Sanders will be a better general election candidate than Clinton" from "preposterously crazy" to "probably untrue."
I mean, I still think it's probably wrong. And that in a general election with an insane liar on one side you're better off with a policy-oriented steady hand on the other than with Grandpa one-note. And that the Republicans would tear Sanders to pieces once they were forced to take him seriously. But I'm less certain of that now than I was when I thought Trump would not be the nominee, perhaps Sanders' relentless willingness to lie in service of "populism" would be an OK Trump antidote.
129/130: Yes obviously. That is the entire point of the part of the sentence in quotations that attributed that list to a different, fictional future person.
First husband/wife presidencies would salvage some of it - but would it beat 'first father/son presidents'? I'm guessing that a pretty significant number of people right now, when asked that, would pick the either the Bushes or "I dunno"*. Even then though knowing that his most memorable trait as a two term president was that he married a person who also became president would have to sting pretty bad.
*Attn Moby: I do actually know. It is John and John Quincey Adams
Bernie has, with a few trivial exceptions, colored within the lines and played nice. He is running for president as a Democrat because he believes in the Democratic Party as a vehicle for change. Bernie has never even hinted at a third-party candidacy because such a candidacy would be antithetical to what he's actually doing in the real world.
The whole point of political primaries is to allow factions within a party to contend against each other, then to unite behind the winner. Parties in the American system are about assembling a majority. Bernie clearly knows this.
Once the primaries are over, Bernie needs to back Hillary. Either that will happen, or Bernie will depart radically from everything he has done to date.
136: All Nebraskans are dedicated to the memory of Gerald Ford.
The impeachment/sex-scandal thing will be memorable for a long time. And, perhaps, being president for a long span of relative peace and prosperity. That's gotta count for something, right? Then again, the presidents between Wilson and Hoover are remembered poorly, in both senses of that phrase.
Maybe we'll get to see John Goodman playing Linda Tripp on SNL again. Those were pretty great.
139: I suppose 68 isn't too old for a sex scandal. It would be nicely symmetric if the Clintons were not only the first husband/wife pair to both be presidents of the United States, but also the first to both get caught having affairs while in office.
I say this because I'm a feminist.
And Ken Starr is once again unemployed.
I'm not sure even the Clinton Scandals! will last that long in the popular memory - especially if there are a new set for a more memorable Clinton presidency. It's certainly the case that the press has been aggressively disappearing them, at least in any detail above "Clinton was impeached for lying about having an affair".
Seriously that article is absolutely stunning and sort of hilarious. It would be genuinely side splitting without reservations if I didn't expect to see lots of articles like that in the future and I didn't think people would cheerfully go along with that. Still, though. Bewilderment at how someone who says the nasty stuff that Trump does could turn out to be so popular or even just say stuff like that coming from (1) a person who supported and leveled plenty of nonsense stuff himself and especially (2) when the examples involved are literally examples of something the entire Republican party spent the '90s screaming at the top of their lungs is an amazing level of "the past does not exist" denialism.
Reformicons are okay but I liked Autobots more.
In the event that there's anyone still reading this who is persuadable, I think this is also a true and important reason not to vote for Sanders in the CA primary.
A big Clinton win helps down-ticket Democrats. But, more than that, getting party money and organization to down-ticket and state-election Democrats through a coordinated campaign helps down-ticket Democrats. A coordinated campaign means a single office pooling money and under unified control to elect Democrats. Right now, it's very hard for these coordinated campaigns to get going because there is not a clear and presumptive nominee. If Sanders holds true to his pledge to keep fighting until the convention, which he will be more likely to do if he wins California, that's months of lost time and money for organizing ground game and all the other things that coordinated campaigns do. Money and campaign work matter and getting money and work done earlier pays results.
That's a specific reason to vote against him that has nothing to do with whether you like Sanders or not.
Maybe I'm just whistling past the graveyard, but I'm hard-pressed to feel any more confident about Democratic chances in November than I do right now. The EC map sucks for Republicans and is getting worse. Trump is utterly undisciplined, his campaign has almost no money in the bank, the big money donors aside from Adelson are sitting on their hands, and down-ticket candidates are foregoing the convention. Now Trump has to try to appeal to a larger audience than the assholes, racists, and trolls that constitute the bulk of the GOP electoral coalition, after having gone out of his way to antagonize most of the demographics that weren't already in that coalition, and the media has turned on him.
Republicans are going to have a massive case of buyer's remorse from the convention until November. Everybody should relax and grab a beer.
I'm going to a kiddie soccer thing where I'm not allowed beer.
Even if 146 is true (and I think in broad outlines it likely is true) the size of the win matters a lot. Turning the Senate now has to be a minimum goal. Trump is crazy enough so that even the House could be in play. And so could a lot of state offices. All the stuff necessary to have a Dem presidency really mean something.
Put differently: It's not just enough to win. There's a chance here to comprehensively kick the Republicans' ass at all levels. That's a "reach" goal, not an easily obtainable one, but it sure as fuck is one worth working for.
Oh sure. I'm way less confident about the down ticket elections. I would love to see a concerted obliteration!
Fuck!! Hornets nesting in our mailbox!!
WE'RE OBLITERATING AS FAST AS WE CAN.
I'm right too! (See 16). All wise people know the shortest route to rightness is agreeing with heebie.
It took me awhile on this one - it's only been clear to me for a few weeks that Trump is doomed. But I have belatedly set my feet on the path to wisdom.
Can't you just have Jammies get the mail?
Anyway, my mail comes right into the house because of denser housing and grandfathering.
I agree that the probability of a Trump win is very low, but the expected damage done is very, very high, so it's hard to be too sanguine in outlook.
146 and 149 are both right. Tigre, I think 149 helps me to clarify where most of my disagreement about the utility of Sanders sticking around comes from.* I agree that what he's doing is risky, I just think that the risk is likely to pay off in the sense that we'll have, come January, a drastically broadened set of progressive goals within the realm of acceptable discourse, and a generation of politicians that understand that the electoral basis for getting these passed is there and growing.
*Aside from the fact that you think that Sanders is a narcissistic BS artist with no interest in the party, in which case I don't understand why he's spending so much energy on down-ballot races. Or bashing Trump. He'll drop, but it takes time and care to channel the anger of the more moronic of his supporters onto the Republican Party where it mostly belongs, politically speaking.
I would feel exactly like 146 if I didn't have such a deeply ingrained distrust of the basic moral fiber of the American public (even leaving aside general "imagine someone of average intelligence half of the people are dumber" stuff).
As it stands I'm nervous about it because I've seen so many (to me at least) cases where a really easy question got answered wrong, and usually from transparently nasty motives to boot. I doubt he'll win, but I get nervous when I wonder about the ratio of "scales fall from the eyes of complacent low-knowledge republican voter" to "asshole/bigot/spiteful moron who didn't used to decides to vote for lulz and/or actual agreement with Trump" that we're going to see in the general election.
Put a bit differently, does anyone really think that Sanders supporters would be more likely to vote for Clinton if he had dropped out three weeks ago and haphazardly endorsed Clinton, looking like he'd seen a ghost the way Chris Christie did with Trump? I think he's moving things in a direction where he'll be able to credibly explain to supporters what a political revolution means going forward, and why, yes, voting for Hillary Clinton in November is a big part of getting that.
Kevin Drum defending Bernie Sanders is good enough for me. I think it makes sense for Sanders to stay in the race through CA, and for Minivet to vote for Sanders if he wants.
I remain fairly optimistic that Sanders will eventually offer a full endorsement of Clinton, and I accept that it takes a while for anybody to admit to themselves that it's time to stop fighting and move on, and more time after that to be willing to endorse your opponent.
That said, I still feel like this primary has felt different than previous ones (in my experience) and I'm still curious to figure out why that is, and how it plays out in the general.
I think he'd be getting as many votes, and have an even better chance at effecting change, if he spent no time complaining about Clinton, DWS, and the like, and all his time talking about inequality, what can be done about it, and how once Trump is defeated and the House is won, real change is possible.
I'm just going to go back to 145. It's not just the Trump election. Not having this wrapped up is making it harder to run downticket races, and a vote for Bernie prolongs that, even if you disagree with me about him generally.
To 159/162, I hope you're right and that this is some master plan to more convincingly back Hillary. I don't see it though. I do think Sanders will support her. But can he do so in such a way that (a) he makes up for the damage he's caused with his supporters to date and (b) encourages his supporters to vote for all Democrats, up and down the ticket, in the general election? I don't see it. Too hard to pivot in that direction now and I don't think he's been playing rope-a-dope with his supporters so that they'll eventually back Clinton/electing downticket Democrats more. Would love to be proven wrong.
I'm about 80% on board with 146. The last 20% is fear of an HRC health crisis, particularly if she picks someone young and relatively untested (eg Julian Castro) for VP. Or a big terrorist attack. Although she's such a hawk that I'm actually less worried about that in terms of it causing a Trump victory, and more worried about what it would mean in terms of the American response she would unleash.
Too hard to pivot in that direction now and I don't think he's been playing rope-a-dope with his supporters so that they'll eventually back Clinton/electing downticket Democrats more. Would love to be proven wrong.
Downticket races are a reasonable (and big) concern. But, in terms of how the Clinton/Sanders dynamic affects the general election, I think you're too narrowly focused on risks. Two or three months ago I feel like the conventional wisdom was that Clinton benefited from having a genuinely contested primary -- for two reasons (1) it made her better as a campaigner and (2) that it made her more clearly the "moderate" figure to have explicit attacks from the left, and that's generally a good thing in American politics.
Since that point three things have happened that could make you reconsider that feeling (1) Some of Sanders attacks about quote-unquote trustworthiness have landed, and seem to have caused some harm to Clinton. (2) With Trump as the Republican nominee it scrambles some of the standard left-right dynamics of the election and (3) Sanders has become much harsher over the last month or two. All of those are, to some degree or another, disconcerting, but I don't know that they outweigh the advantages listed above*. So then you can either say two things** (1) that the conventional wisdom three months ago was wrong, and that the primary wasn't helpful to Clinton or (2) that it was helpful, but that it would have been more helpful if Sanders could have wrapped up his campaign in the the most Clinton-friendly way possible and he didn't do that.
(2) is clearly true, but feels like nit-picking. If you like the contested primary, then you have to accept that it's going to include some acrimonious moments.
* I genuinely don't know -- I don't feel like I'm a good enough political handicapper to have a clear read on that.
** Somebody please stop me from creating any more numbered lists . . .
163: Wow, that article he quotes is straight up surreal. I mean, even leaving aside the obvious lunacy of the idea that it's completely obvious that Sanders will somehow have "an epic meltdown" if he doesn't win the nomination, this person literally wrote "Clinton may have said a few undiplomatic words about Obama in the final days of her campaign, but it never seemed as though Clinton personally loathed the future president." That's some world class rose colored glasses there: the 2008 primary was genuinely impressively nasty for almost the entire thing, and in an openly personal way from the Clinton camp. (The whole thing read like an extended exercise in projection on the part of the author, but that part was really something else.)
Drum is right, though. People who thought that it was good for Sanders to be able to have some genuine influence on the party? This is what that looks like.
you have to accept that it's going to include some acrimonious moments
No you don't. When we were talking about the Trump/Sanders debate, some folks were saying Sanders could/would use it as an opportunity to bask DT in support of HC, as he did early on with the emails. I didn't think that's what was likely to happen, because I think that having some acrimonious moments is a course of action that's intentionally selected.
I'm really not sure how much down-ballot harm he's doing at this stage. I'm not seeing any down-ballot positives either, though, but that could just be the small sample size of contested sate/local primaries with a clear choice for the Sanders effort.
Downticket races are a reasonable (and big) concern. But, in terms of how the Clinton/Sanders dynamic affects the general election, I think you're too narrowly focused on risks. Two or three months ago I feel like the conventional wisdom was that Clinton benefited from having a genuinely contested primary -- for two reasons (1) it made her better as a campaigner and (2) that it made her more clearly the "moderate" figure to have explicit attacks from the left, and that's generally a good thing in American politics.
This still could be true. But for me the problem is Sanders' clear desire to run against the party. And the risk is from people, i.e. his increasingly het up supporters sitting at home. And/or not voting for/supporting ordinary boring mainstream downticket Democrats (not just people running primaries against Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who sucks, but her primary opponent is a wackjob)). That makes the election vs Trump way riskier and the chances of achieving downticket gains less likely. How much less likely depends a lot on what Sanders does, and a lot on how seriously his supporters care about his anti-party rhetoric, neither of which are things really known by me.
I will say, when I read the Vox interview with Shaun King, and then Drum's reaction it felt oddly similar to some of the unfogged arguments about the primary (with Drum playing the JRoth role . . .)
Also depends on the Dems choosing fewer people who suck to make decisions.
Maybe this is a pipe dream, but getting better policies and fewer people focused first on keeping big donors totally satisfied is a worthy goal. Getting voters who actually pay some attention is a prerequisite-- Sanders, flawed as he is, is making people pay attention and turn out. Not everyone that votes for him is a fanatic.
I would love to see a concerted obliteration!
California politics have been so lovely since we managed a concerted obliteration. I highly recommend it.
Does anyone know how many new voters the Sanders campaign has registered? I'm betting the number is in the millions. I remember figuring this out for the Obama campaign in 2008, but I don't remember how I did it.
67: Could be. (Although with chan culture these days the "lulz" seem to be more and more indistinguishable from just straightforward racist/sexist rage.) But offline there are also people actually going out vote in the primaries who are coming out and claiming to be pro-Trump in large numbers, which seems a bit meatspacey for chan culture.
I thought turn-out was down, as compared to 2008. Is that not true?
Turnout was flat or down from 2008 and even 2012 on the Democratic side, at least from the last thing I saw on this which is a while ago. And I believe that youth voting, i.e., under 30 as a percentage of the Democratic primary vote is down from 2008 as well. Of course many Sanders voters are young first-time voters so in that sense he is getting "new" voters but I don't think there's evidence that he's pulling in substantially *more* new voters than one might otherwise expect. But I haven't seen anything since the linked article, maybe things are different in later states.
Sorry, the "and even 2012" is totally not true. I just typed too fast. But down from 2008 for sure.
175 There's no substitute for swamping the polls. None.
IMB that I'm setting up our county convention. The difference in communicating with the campaigns is pretty striking. On the one side, I have a person who was the state senate majority leader, and has attended every Dem convention since 1968; 2008 as the chair of the state delegation. On the other side, it's really different.
More stuff on turnout. Through the first 12 primaries, turnout on the Democratic side was substantially down from 2008, a bit up from 2000 or 2004, and down from 1992.
It's decidedly unsexy to have to work at this stuff, but taking over a party, unless you're developing some sort of Trump-like cult of personality which is always only skin deep, requires a whole bunch of people with organizational aptitudes of differing types.
We chose four of our six superdelegates last August. (The other two are elected officials). The electorate choosing them was elected, in turn, last May.
173/174: The bizarre thing about the King interview is that he's basically making good points right up until his conclusion about leaving the party and so on, which is manifestly not justified by what he said before that.
Drum's reaction seems about right too: the Clinton/Obama fight was an easy example of the narcissism of small differences - and as far as their dueling healthcare proposals went Hillary was clearly right (and Obama was dishonestly promising things he knew would be utterly disastrous let alone couldn't deliver hi there halford!). But he's understating - a lot - the differences and importance of those differences on foreign policy. Clinton is, and was, an unrepentant strong practically neoconservative hawk, and Obama was not. And that's a genuinely important difference and, I would bet, one of the biggest factors in Obama winning the primary.*
*The others being (1) not being as personally nasty; (2) being more openly charismatic and (3) let's be honest, not being a Clinton.
Also I don't know how much turnout in this election can go when asking whether or not Sanders is bringing in new voters. We'd need to know what the primary would look like if it was still contested but by a more establishment/new-democrat-y candidate and that's hard to imagine because honestly I don't know who the other Barack Obama could possibly be. (And we really need to stop comparing everything to 2008 anyway because that was a huge-massive-holy-shit record breaking year. We probably won't see anything like that within our lifetimes, so drawing conclusions from it is awkward.)
I think it's really obvious to say that without Sanders the turnout in the primary would be very small and almost no new voters would have showed up. But honestly if Sanders wasn't in the primary I probably wouldn't have bothered going to the caucuses either because it's hard to see how it could have been contested at all (unless, I guess, you switch out Sanders for another progressive-wing candidate in which case I'd be there). But that doesn't really mean much except that it's good to get people voting in primaries because every time someone votes the chances that they'll vote the next time goes up. The excitement among young people is probably good overall, though, because getting them involved is a good thing.
(3) let's be honest, not being a Clinton.
One of the good parts of Rebecca Traister's excellent sympathetic profile of Clinton was the description of her dysfunctional relationship with the press (emphasis mine).
If Clinton suffers from a kind of political PTSD that makes her overly cautious and scripted and closed-off, then its primary trigger is the press corps that trails her everywhere she goes. Clinton hates the press. A band of young reporters follows her, thanklessly, from event to event, and she gives them almost nothing. Unlike other candidates, she does not ride on the same plane with them (though this may change once the general election starts and the traveling group gets bigger). Every once in a while she has an off-the-record drink with them, but without the frequency or fluidity of her husband, whose off-the-record conversations with the press were legendarily candid.
...
One of the biggest recent flubs from the Not Great Communicator was in Kentucky, when Clinton harkened back, as she often does with certain crowds, to the good old days of her husband's administration. But this time she suggested, carelessly, that she was going to put Bill "in charge of revitalizing the economy, because you know he knows how to do it." Social media -- and traditional media -- went nuts; the Times ran a full story on it, suggesting that Clinton's "passing promise" indicated that "Mr. Clinton would be put in charge of a significant part of a president's portfolio."
It was a (bad!) rhetorical error in which she gracelessly crossed the (bright!) line between invoking Bill's name and naming him to a post. That she hadn't intended it was made clear by the manner in which she practically rolled her eyes when saying "No" to a follow-up question about whether she'd appoint her husband to her Cabinet. But this is the price Clinton pays for not having a warmer, closer relationship with reporters: She does not get the benefit of any doubt; there is no elasticity of comprehension. She does not enjoy the goodwill that someone like Joe Biden -- a king of misstatements, prone to offending entire nationalities -- has earned, which permits him to get out of media-jail time and again.
...
And this is the rub exactly: Everyone assumes Clinton is harboring an underlying secret. It's a paranoiac cycle -- Clinton and her team think that everyone is after her, and their behavior creates further incentive for everyone to come after her. But at some point, cause and effect cease to matter. Defensiveness, secrecy, and a bunkered combativeness (that perhaps relates to her worrying hawkishness) are her very real shortcomings. The question is whether they can be overcome by her very real strengths, especially as she prepares to take on a man whose own flaws are so outsize.
There is an Indiana Jones-style, "It had to be snakes" inevitability about the fact that Donald Trump is Clinton's Republican rival. Of course Hillary Clinton is going to have to run against a man who seems both to embody and have attracted the support of everything male, white, and angry about the ascension of women and black people in America. Trump is the antithesis of Clinton's pragmatism, her careful nature, her capacious understanding of American civic and government institutions and how to maneuver within them. Of course a woman who wants to land in the Oval Office is going to have to get past an aggressive reality-TV star who has literally talked about his penis in a debate.
I didn't ask if turnout is up or down. I asked how many new Democratic voters the campaigns have registered. I'll see if I can figure it out. The numbers are, I recall, public at the state level. It would be interesting, to me at least, to know if Sanders has been registering a lot of Democratic voters -- I believe, based on what I saw on campus, that the answer is yes -- or just counting on pulling in lots of independents.
Clearly there's a relationship between turnout (as a percentage of total eligible-voter population, which is what those numbers measure) and newly registered voters who register for the purpose of participating in the primary. It's true that those aren't the same thing but there aren't many people who registered because of Bernie Sanders but then don't participate in the Democratic primary. And looking at newly-registered voters would need to account for life-cycle issues; there are for sure lots of young 18-21 people who registered for the first time and then voted for Bernie, but you'd have to look at how that compares to young people who registered for the first time in other Presidential years and likely would have registered anyway. No?
188: How would you disaggregate any affect you find from Trump-fear?
You're wondering whether he working for or against the party. I'm trying to figure out an answer that isn't based entirely on speculative bullshit. New voters seems to be a way to do that. Turnout numbers, by contrast, have too much noise to be meaningful data. As someone said above, imagine the primaries without Bernie: nobody turns out to vote in a coronation.
Also there have definitely been reports of a huge surge in Latino voter registration, much of which is almost certainly Democratic, but which clearly is mostly about Trump, not Sanders.
190: in registration numbers? Most of the registration drives happened before people believed Trump was going to win.
a huge surge in Latino voter registration
But who's registering those voters? The numbers, at least in 2008, were readily available at the state level. I can't believe that I've become so much stupider that I can't figure this out. Getting old sucks.
No doubt an unbiased source. Fuck it, I can't find anything useful. I suck.
How could Sanders have brought in substantial numbers of new registered Democrats (compared to 1992, 2000, 2004, and 2008) when participation rates (again, as a percentage of total potentially-registerable voters, not percentage of already-registered Democrats) is slightly above the levels of 2000 and 2004, substantially less than 2008, and less than 1992, according to the link in 183. This is a non-rhetorical question, I suck at math. But as a proxy for "number of people brought into the process by the primary" the number you'd want to look at is percentage of voters in the primary vs. percentage of overall eligible-to-register voters, right? And by that measure it looks like 2016 was at roughly the same excitement-generation level, slightly better, than 2004 or 2000, and worse than the (yes I agree quite unique) year of 2008. So not much evidence of a Bernie-driven surge in participation in the process.
For sure you could have had a non-contested primary with low participation rates, but lots of newly-registered Democrats. These aren't the same numbers. But if you're looking at trying to explain participation rates (among potentially register-able voters) driven by a primary campaign it seems like the participation rates are the place you would start. Very few people register because of Bernie but then sit out the primary and wait for the general election, I'd think.
189: Yes - but that's where we run into the fact that we have exactly one datapoint every four years and basic social facts change way, way, way too fast for us to normalize much of anything in there. (I mean, we have what, four previous presidential election year registration numbers since the internet became a massive dominant source of information about politics?)
Also we have no obvious way of picking out the causes of the Latino voter registration surge because one of the biggest (Latino) groups involved is going to be young people (who, just like the general population, slant very heavily towards Sanders). There's a huge number of different factors in play and no obvious way to control for any of them, let alone the all-but-one stuff we'd need to come up with a really good justification for anything.
Also 194 is right, but even then "holy shit those people hate us and there are real stakes here" is enough to boost registration numbers, even if you do think that one of the less openly-a-nazi candidates would win the nomination.
And 196 kind of makes the point. There was a big surge in voter registration in California. My understanding is that most people think this is Latinos registering to take out Trump, not people registering because of Bernie. Yet Bernie takes credit for the registrations.
Does anyone know how many new voters the Sanders campaign has registered? I'm betting the number is in the millions
No, I don't know, but I'm guessing 'in the millions' is, ahem, a bit of an exaggeration. You know I love you, VW, but I'm afraid I'm just not buying it. Bernie has been given far too much credit for just being the kind of guy we should all support, but without being asked to come up with, you know, the actual numbers.
Taking credit for shit that happened for other reasons is a very useful skill for a president.
Sanders campaign updated my registration address. Would have missed the primary deadline without them too. Presumably I could have voted anyway, but still it's nice.
Whether or not it's "because" of Bernie, it's still his volunteers doing it. His campaign deserves credit for motivating people to donate their time to registration, and I think a lot of those volunteers wouldn't be volunteering for Clinton. I wasn't re-registering because I was "feeling the Bern" but the people who signed me up sure were.
If you're talking a particular state or even groups of states ("the south") "in the millions" is Obama-in-2008 numbers at the least. In the country overall it's probably more sane though, at least if you assume a low end of the numbers that you could describe as "in the millions".
It's worth noting that the alternative reading is basically that almost everyone in the younger generation who is involved in politics enough that they would have registered one way or the other is far enough to the left of Clinton that they're aggressively enthusiastic about Sanders even compared to his supporters who are older. So really either way the tactical conclusion for the Democratic party is identical.
I went and early voted today in our second primary (because of the redrawn districts). My ballot contained exactly one race, for NC Supreme Court.
the alternative reading is basically that almost everyone in the younger generation who is involved in politics enough that they would have registered one way or the other is far enough to the left of Clinton that they're aggressively enthusiastic about Sanders even compared to his supporters who are older.
That seems to me to be the most likely explanation as to what's going on, except that the "far enough to the left" part is wrong. Bernie obviously is overwhelmingly favored the youth vote, most of which (it looks like) would have registered anyway in an ordinary Presidential year. But the Bernie youth vote seems to be driven more by cohort identification than policy differences (again, very liberal voters break slightly more favorably for Bernie, but in nothing like the percentages that youth favor him, so there's something else going on with the youth vote than youth being more "to the left").
So, you don't have an enormous primary-driven increase in Democratic participation. But you do have one cohort (youth) overwhelmingly favoring one candidate in the primary, for reasons that seem primarily driven by something other than lefty policy preference.
Read this thread, or maintain harmony while saving time? Easy-peasy!
"very liberal voters break slightly more favorably for Bernie, but in nothing like the percentages that youth favor him,"
I'm not certain what this means: young people being both more to the left* and more likely to vote for Sanders would look like a big advantage among young people for Sanders and a moderate advantage among left wing people for Sanders (because of all the other older left wing people involved).
*Especially if you think in terms of actual policies rather than the words people use to describe themselves, or even how they see themselves when it comes to general issues. A lot of things that look like issues with a broad ground for debate to older people look like things with a narrow ground for debate to younger people (like with same sex marriage, where younger people just don't see the same range of available positions that older people do because of how settled an issue it has become).
The availability of detailed registration statistics might vary by state. Alaska's are here, updated monthly and available broken down by age. There's a definite uptick in Democratic registrations between March and April (the caucus was March 26), especially among young people, as well as a longer term increase over the previous few months. It doesn't look like there's an easy way to export the data for more detailed analysis, but the age data is sufficiently granular that someone could potentially tease out a lot of patterns. It separates 18-19-year olds from 20- and 21-year-olds, for example, so you could in theory control for first-time registrants versus other young people, and you could also compare the Democratic to Independent numbers to see how many of the new Democrats are actually new voters versus people changing parties to caucus.
Interestingly, I just found in my mailbox a flyer making various state and local endorsements but a dual endorsement for Sanders/Clinton and a message about Democratic unity.
Anyhow, Minivet, my 145 is my answer to the question actually asked in the OP.
In other political news, it seems Alaska might end up with two senators with the same name. It was confusing enough when he was mayor.
It doesn't matter which one. Just pick one and mark him with a Sharpie.
Noted. I doubt he's going to win, anyway.
The one who's running in the primary this time. The other one won last time.
So... to follow up, should I go out and get a ballot that will let me vote in the Democratic primary, or should I sit it out? I haven't mailed my nonpartisan local-only ballot yet.
I say sit it out, regardless of who you would vote for, to punish yourself for being lame enough to not actually be a Democrat.
RT's going to regret 223 when Hillary loses California by one vote.
Probably but, honestly. I hate our stupid ass nonpartisan primary system.
I mean, seriously, why should someone who can't be bothered to check "Democratic Party" on their motor-voter registration get a say in who the Democratic Party's candidate for any office is? Fuck off! It's a private organization, no one has a right to pick its nominee without the (insanely minimal) commitment of indicating a willingness to vote for the party more generally.
I mean no one wants to say this because it's bad politics, but come on.
Shit, are you going to make me consider registering D? I guess you're going to make me consider it.
Whatever principled reasons I had in my younger days for not wanting to register as a member of any party probably aren't consistent with my current principles. I did have some, though. It wasn't carelessness.
I registered D for the first time in my life to participate in the Alaska caucuses this year. (I caucused for Sanders, of course, so still not totally RT-approved.) It's not so bad.
I do more or less agree with RT's perspective on this general question, though. When I was an independent I just accepted that I couldn't vote in primaries as part of the deal, which was the case everywhere I lived until I moved here and could (and sometimes did).
I could not get myself to register as D when I updated my registration, but also I don't feel left out of the Dem primary because of that. I've always known not registering with a party means not voting in internal party elections.
Oh, it makes my life very very easy if there's a consensus (of three!) that I shouldn't cast a primary ballot. There's just this general sense of, I don't know, an all-hands-on-deck moment for civilization (the general election) and some of that obligation trickling down to the primary elections. As always the actual obligation is to care about downticket stuff, but there again formal support for the Democratic party doesn't seem like a bad idea.
There's just this general sense of, I don't know, an all-hands-on-deck moment for civilization (the general election) and some of that obligation trickling down to the primary elections.
Really, no. It's the general that matters, especially now.
I've always wondered, when I phone interviewed for a DCCC opposition research job in 2008, if anyone bothered to pull my registration showing I was registered without a party affiliation, and if that was a part of why I didn't get the job. I think there were bigger reasons I didn't get it, and except for the extended unemployment it was kind of a relief not to get it. I don't think I'd do well toeing party lines, although I'd bet I'd be really good at pulling public records.
I mean, seriously, why should someone who can't be bothered to check "Democratic Party" on their motor-voter registration get a say in who the Democratic Party's candidate for obtain a photo ID have a say in who the holder of any office is? Fuck off! It's a private organization, serious matter, no one has a right to pick its nominee the President without the (insanely minimal) commitment of indicating a willingness to vote for the party in elections more generally.
I mean no one wants to say this because it's bad politics, but come on.
Nope, 237, that is not convincing.
Neither is the original. Barriers to political participation are barriers to political participation, and "seriously if you can't be bothered to do an arbitrary thing, then that's your problem" is not a good reason to impose them.
Checking the box on the form you already have to fill out isn't a "barrier." There's nothing wrong with deciding not to be in a party. But really, it's kind of silly to make that decision then complain that, wait ,what, you're not in a party/
Yeah, I agree with 238 and 240. Joining a party is trivially easy if you're going to register to vote at all, so it's not at all unreasonable to expect people who want to influence the direction of a particular party to join it.
Why don't I get to vote in BOTH primaries? Who says I've made my mind up already?
242 provides an innovative way to definitively answer the apparently important question of how many Sanders/Trump voters there really are, anyway.
But seriously, as noted above, for many years I was registered independent, didn't vote in primaries, and was fine with that. This year I decided I would in fact like to participate in the candidate selection process for one of the parties, so I registered for that party and voted in its primary. It wasn't hard, and as barriers to participation in the electoral process go this has got to be one of the most trivial.
Fuck off! It's a private organization, no one has a right to pick its nominee
If the Democratic Party a private organization, maybe they can stop accepting the massive state subsidies which they, in partnership with the GOP, have arranged for themselves.
Until they do, I don't mind treating the Democrats like the quasi-Governmental organization that they are. And being a quasi-Governmental organization comes with certain responsibilities, like having to take all comers in voting for the nomination process - even if those who prefer not to check the party loyalty box.
I'm 120% with RT on this. Open primaries are stupid and obvious targets for shenanigans. Your candidate is an incumbent without a serious primary challenge? May as well vote in the other party's primary for the worst candidate available.
Your candidate is an incumbent without a serious primary challenge? May as well vote in the other party's primary for the worst candidate available.
What are some real-world examples where this has swung an election?
In 2016, that's why Kasich won the Ohio Republican primary. Probably.
245 makes kind of an important point: if we're going to have a two-party-only system (which we are), and those parties are going to operate as sort of half-government-half-not institutions, then we shouldn't engage in some kind of pretense that they're just bigger versions of the local hippy grocery store or something.
I mean, if the members of the Seward Co-op in Minneapolis voted to only stock vegetables raised in environmentally destructive ways and meat where the animals were killed painfully and slowly I'm guessing a lot of non-members who shop there would be unhappy, but they really wouldn't have any real complaint about how the decision is made. The Democratic and Republican parties seem kind of different than that, though.
The Democratic and Republican parties seem kind of different than that, though.
Follow the money.
I don't really understand why the leftier people are arguing for open primaries. (But then I don't understand how a party is supposed to function if it can't set rules on access.) The usual result of open primaries is to move candidate selection toward the moderate end of the party.
I don't think process is foremost in most people's minds right now. And one of the 'center-right' (for here) commentators is arguing for closed primaries.
I'm center right for here and arguing for closed primaries also. Not because they tend to select leftier candidates but because I think party organization and institution building is vital and threatened by open primaries.
My general feelings about this are 'Meh,' but I guess I am curious. How do open primaries threaten party organization and prevent institution building?
Because if you let anybody vote without requiring registration in a party, you would have huge areas of the country where people who aren't members of a party could outvote those who are in an election in that party. This was mentioned above. I'm wasn't arguing against that point. I was just adding in some details.
I don't really understand why the leftier people are arguing for open primaries.
My preference is for undermining the power of party insiders.
But that's basically unilateral disarmament for the more populist party or the more populist elements in either party. The insiders that require organization/structure/rules in order to exist are the ones too small to have influence on their own. You can't get rid of insiders but you can get rid of all the ones that aren't independently wealthy.
Do you have the thing where you can just cross one box to vote the whole party ticket, and if you like you can go down the ballot optimising your picks for master of sewers and dogcatcher?
We do here. But we don't actually vote for dogcather.
That would be such a great HST/George Plimpton style participation journalism project - find somewhere with an elective town dogcatcher, and run for election.
I did not vote in the primaries. I'm not registered as a Democrat, though I can't think of a time I haven't voted a straight ticket in an actual election. I would have had to change my affiliation by December 31, and then it still looked like as usual my vote wouldn't matter anyway. I may be history's greatest monster but I don't feel particularly bad about this.
I think my town voted for weed control officer. That was actually fairly important.
I don't know whether we vote for dog catcher, though ours often drives her daughter to Mara's school in her work van. We do vote for soil inspector, which autocorrect wants to make the creepier soul inspector.
Eli Rabett from the Rabett Run blog is on a local water management board, IIRC. As is or was, I think, Abi Sutherland, on the rather different Dutch version of the same institution. (Eli's is more "where are we going to find water?" while Abi's is more "what are we going to do with all this water?")
I have not seen a public official catch a dog. I've seen them trap "wildlife". And I know that if your cat somehow gets trapped inside the wall of your house, you can call animal control and they will send a nice lady who will tell you how to calm your cat enough that you can knock a hole in the wall without hitting the cat.
I wasn't expecting to do this but here is an argument for open primaries. Large institutions tend to get set in their ways and find it difficult to change course. Regular course changes are needed in politics. Insurgent outsiders can help change the course of parties. Open primaries help insurgent outsider candidates mobilize new coalitions in election, thereby enabling insurgent candidates to make necessary adjustments in the party.
I am a Bernie fan but dudes on Reddit are way too much into that Clinton email shit
The main "insurgent" candidates trying to change the course of political parties are "the Tea Party" and Donald Trump. Sanders isn't even close to the most significant insurgent of 2016, let alone looking back over the past few years. The Democratic Party has rules that would make winning a primary more difficult for those sorts of insurgents than in the Republican Party. Donald Trump ran in the Republican primary because the Democrats have rules (mainly superdelegates) that would have made it impossible for him to win.
Did it used to be "Lemmy" or is my memory going?
Wasn't there an article about the "dog catcher" thing recently? I think they dug in and found dog catcher was never an elective position anywhere, it was always a figure of speech?
"Dog catcher" is just an informal way of saying "animal control officer." I image some of those are elected. Like in Ohio, where they have to shoot the gorillas.
Maybe this (caveat, it's Slate). And yes, according to them, animal control positions have typically been appointive since governments started taking responsibility.
Republican party committees in several counties are suing the state here to close their primary -- the thinking is that Democrats and others are voting the Republican ballot in deep red counties, and thereby ensuring the victory of more moderate candidates. This is a really big deal right now, because with Republican control in both houses, having a few Republicans willing to cross over on a few issues has been critical for the Democratic governor to get some priority bills passed.
(We have an open system -- I get to choose one ballot or the other, and when I vote by mail, I have to return the blank Republican ballot in a special envelope. I like our system, but think parties should be free to opt for a closed system. I do not approve of the jungle primary at all.)
That is, Democrats in, say, Ravalli County aren't engaging in some kind of ratfucking. Because the Republican is very likely to win the general no matter what, Democrats are voting the candidate most likely to cross the aisle on select issues.
Evidence that Sanders is actively trying to avoid hurting Democratic unity: when they sent a letter to the DNC formally challenging Barney Frank and Dannel Malloy's positiosn in the Rules committee, according to Rachel Maddow, it was after 7PM Friday before the holiday, which is what you do when you want it not in the news cycle.
I've been thinking about registering republican for the same reason. Republican insanity is the limiting factor in our government right now. Replacing a crazy R with a sane R will do more good than replacing a moderate D with a liberal one. (Not that we have liberals running here for most offices anyway.)
Will it, though?
I mean, the insanity is based firmly in the actual voters, not just an organizational problem. So while the genuinely freakish loons are particularly problematic even the most sane/centrist/whatever Republicans are often voting right there along with them because not doing that means a primary contest that they'll lose. A lot of the time the difference between a crazy and a sane R is that one of them will sound crazy when they vote in crazy ways and the other one will be very quiet and avoid getting too much attention when they vote in crazy ways.
I think as long as everybody gets one vote, its perfectly reasonable for them to spend it at whatever point on the political spectrum that they feel best serves their interests.
I don't mind treating the Democrats like the quasi-Governmental organization that they are. And being a quasi-Governmental organization comes with certain responsibilities, like having to take all comers in voting for the nomination process
Last I checked freedom of association is a constitutional right while take all comers in voting in the nomination process is not. You don't get to walk into every organization getting a tax break or a grant and demand that now every citizen gets to vote as to who runs the place.
Replacing a crazy R with a sane R will do more good
Replacing armed spouse abusers with unarmed spouse abusers would save lives.
You don't get to walk into every organization getting a tax break or a grant and demand that now every citizen gets to vote as to who runs the place.
Although, as long as MLB and the NFL are government supported monopolies perhaps people should get a vote . . .
I find it actually offensive, though obviously I'm a far outlier on this. "I'm such a special snowflake and independent thinker that I can't have my name sullied by association with the (necessarily flawed because reality) political organization that organizes money and labor to elect people, but I demand the right to choose its candidate because reasons." It's the solipsistic bullshit and unwillingness to just pick a fucking side combined with entitlement that is the mark of a particular kind of bullshit American.
Are independents heavily, disproportionately white and middle class or above? I don't know the answer but would put a small amount of money on "yes."
The "sane" Republicans 100% set the table for the current crop, and will do the same damn thing every time.
283 is right, assuming we're not just ruling out inductive reasoning.
And lots of other conclusions require induction.
282: I don't find it offensive per se, but I do have an eye-rolling "well aren't you precious" reaction to it.
I think the only places where voting for a "sane" Republican makes sense are the places that are genuine one party monopolies (maybe, Utah state government). That's where you can still get considerable, real intra-party ideological difference.
But that's not the same thing as a "safe" Republican seat in a bipartisan legislature like the US Congress. While there are differences between Rs that are real, and strategic voting like the kind of thing Carp is talking about can make short term sense, in the long term stopping the Rs from electing their openly crazy people just delays the ability of Ds to take over and gives "moderate" cover to what is now a blatantly ideological and conservative party. In that scenario you're not so much moderating the party as giving the party moderate cover.
But Tigre, the Democratic Party (with which you're registered) does hold an open primary in California, unlike the Republicans. Why? What's the benefit to them? (Was it forced on them somehow, or did they make a decision as a party to adopt the policy? I don't know the story.) I take your point that I have some obligation not to vote in the primary, but the party itself seems to have invited me to do so in practice. So it's on me to graciously abstain. (Although less on me at the moment since they didn't send me a ballot.)
282: Word. I think there's often a similar dynamic wrt unions.
I have some obligation not to vote in the primary
No, you play by the rules until they change. Similarly, believing that taxes should be higher to support a better safety net doesn't obligate you to pay extra taxes out of the goodness of your heart.
California has a "top two" vote getter election for all primary elections except President, by law that was passed in 2011. That's effectively not a primary at all; it's a nonpartisan election before a runoff. As you probably know, there's a good chance that the CA senate race in the November election will be between two registered Democrats. This is a dumbass system in my view but is part of California's long history of goo-goo "nonpartisan" progressive bullshit that has created the fantastically effective state government we see today.
We have the current system because the Supreme Court (correctly IMO) overturned on freedom of association grounds a prior CA law that allowed "blanket" primary voting (ie, all candidates from all parties were on the primary ballot, any voter could vote for any candidate, and the top vote-getter from a party would be that party's candidate. This was a freedom of association violation because it forced parties to be associated with candidates despite not controlling the selection process.
In CA Presidential primaries, the Dems have a modified open primary, the Republicans do not. I think the Dems were stupid to open up their primary in that way but it was a political choice designed to attract special snowflake "no part preference" independents. I still think you're a dick for being a special snowflake, but as you say the party decided that special snowflakes can have a voice too. So you don't have a moral obligation to sit it out, but you should feel SHAME.
It seems weird to hear a Californian complaining about people wanting to be special snowflakes. I thought that California was the state where all the special snowflakes from the regular states went.
We barely have any snowflakes at all, and snowboard on top of the few that we do have.
They've been short on special snowflakes for the last five years or more. Ask Megan -- snowpack in the Sierras is way down.
Anyhow, the newish top-two "primary" system gave us candidates you can vote for now like the "I am mainstream Facebook in all social media" lady, the guy whose primary platform was a bunch of binary code, and the self-identified "Franklin Pierce Democrat" guy, so it wasn't ALL bad.
it was a political choice designed to attract special snowflake "no part[y] preference" independents.
But attract them to what? To identify with the Democrats as "their party" and eventually buy in (i.e. register) to get the premium features? Does it work? At a bare minimum I suppose it provides direct information about the left-leaning electorate.
A little market research would show them that these independent voters never, ever, ever buy the premium content. Ever. Well, possibly Spotify. I humbly request that the analogy ban be lifted for this very useful and telling analogy. I bet the psychology (get as much as possible for free, anonymously, at a distance) is widely consistent across the board.
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I'm watching my Texas radar map to see if it will ever stop raining, and we have some very strong counter-clockwise rotation here, which only happens here with hurricanes.
If you have been watching this spring, the usual pattern is strong wet winds from the southeast gulf toward Dallas meet strong dry northwest winds, sheer off tornadoes, create dry line front that moves due easy into louisiana
this time wind and rain have been coming from the fucking south southwest el paso I though that was desert dammit, meeting the gulf winds over like austin, and creating a rotating counterclockwise storm that is blocked by the usual northwest winds and parks on our heads
A storm or front that moved from houston to denver would probably mark the end of the world as we know it. I would go get dunked by some vietnamese catholics round here.
|>
Anyone waiting for Peak Crazy in Ravalli County Montana may have a long wait. I totally understand why progressive folks there would vote for a moderate in the Republican primary. Medicaid expansion squeaked through a heavily Republican legislature because a few members defied their caucus and leadership to vote for it. You can say that in the long run having Republican moderates is bad, but for people who need medical care, the run just may well not be long enough.
The same "reasonable Republicans" joined Dems, in defiance of the leadership, to vote for disclosure of Dark Money.
One of the RR guys is going to be running for my senate district. No way will I vote for him -- we'll have a good Dem candidate, who'll have a decent chance of winning the general (it's close to a 50/50 district) -- but I'm sure not sorry he ended up in the legislature last time around.
At the party rules convention last summer, there was an effort to read out of the party persons and organizations that endorse Republicans. Various interest groups, including unions, fought that off so they could endorse the more moderate Republican in primaries.
It's basically sausage all the way down.
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Dilemma.
I have been offered a job with a private consultancy, working in a basically for-profit version of the job I already do. For a _substantial_ pay increase.
I also heard today that I have an interview to be one of the top people in the National Library of Jockistan.
I'm 99.9% going to take the private gig. I like the people, and have known them for a years, and the money and the job are good, and no relocation.
But, should I tell them that I have the National Library of Jockistan interview? On the plus side, it sort of backs their decision that I'm the right person to hire and adds a bit of gloss on me.
I don't want to sneak around behind their back. But, travel and accommodation is already booked for Jockinburgh, and I'm inclined to do the interview just to see if they offer it to me. I'd 99% turn down the Jockinburgh job, but still ... it's the National Library.
>
Did they give you a deadline for responding to their offer?
I don't see any reason to tell Job A about Job B.
My inclination is not to mention it until you accept the consultancy job. It will make your future colleagues shrink up and feel competitive and defensive and put them on edge. Whereas if you accept the job and then mention it, they'll feel warm and fuzzy and triumphant, for the reasons you mention.
Tell the National Library that you have an extremely attractive offer and would they like to match it?
That is, don't tell them any details. See what they can come up with.
I agree with 310. This is an age of growing nationalism, so a national library might be a good idea.
I also agree with 311.
Hooray, Alex! And a second hooray! Any commuting relief likely?
We all have no idea who Alex is or how he or she rolls.
The National Library of Jockistan in Jockinburgh sounds like something you should at least look at. I mean, I would consider that a dream job. So I'd go to the interview anyway, and it will give you extra leverage.
Also, on the off-chance that you happen to live someplace with crippling real-estate prices: you're talking about not having to relocate as a benefit of the private job, but would the Jockistan job maybe mean a lifestyle upgrade, in terms of homebuying and commute and that sort of thing?
And of course woohoo! and congratulations!
Jockistan sounds like Nebraska to me.
re: 317
Yes, that's in the back of my mind. A definite lifestyle upgrade, although at the cost of leaving basically everyone we know. My Jockistani friends live largely on the west coast, and two of my very good friends and one of my wife's best friends live within 2 minutes walk of our current place. Moving away would be hard.
I suspect I won't tell consultancy gig about the other one until I know either way.
re: 307
I can verbally indicate I want it, and they'll send me the paper contract for review. I could obviously turn it down at that point as nothing is signed.
I think I couldn't leave verbal acceptance until after the other interview. It's a week away, and I know they are keen to get at least a verbal agreement before their MD heads off on vacation in a couple of days.
Anyway, this sounds like it falls into the category of excellent dilemmas to be faced with. There doesn't sound as if there's a bad outcome.
Wow Alex, congratulations! And I hope it all goes for the best. No advice just good wishes (though I'm sure you can guess how I feel about working at a National Library).
With a parliamentary system, parties can choose their leaders as they wish. With a two party system, control by insiders invites misrepresentation.
Jockinburgh is not too far from the west coast, though; I've taken the train to Glasgow for an evening out and headed home again at the end of it on a few occasions. it's only forty minutes which is nothing by London commute standards.
Congratulations anyway! On both!
325 is a good point.
What does Mrs Salmond think about all this? Would she be able to get a job in Jockinburgh?
Yay Alex! It's great that you have such good options.
re: 325
Yes, during the Chibopolis curfew, we used to travel through to Jockinburgh for clubbing. But purposeful journeys aren't quite the same as strolling round the corner with child in tow for a few hours of play, and then a wander to the riverside pub for a beer. IYSWIM.
This is true.
You could always live in Chibopolis and commute through - the National Library is about ten minutes walk from Waverley Station...
Chibopolis
A dangerously confusing city name. Many is the unsuspecting tourist who believed that it was from the Japanese word for 'tiny, cute characters', and was unpleasantly surprised on arrival.
And by 'surprised', I of course mean 'stabbed'.
during the Chibopolis curfew
Please tell me that this was too much knife fighting so no one can go out after 10 pm, or something like that.
Also, extreme congratulations. Sounds awesome however you slice it.
Looking it up, it was no entry to clubs after midnight, and clubs had to close at 2am. Unfortunately rules like that are pretty common in most US cities. Or at least that you have to stop serving alcohol by 2am.
So basically we're one gigantic Chibopolis under curfew, but with no train to Jockinburgh. We suck!
I don't understand how "after hours" clubs work here, but other than those, you can't serve after 2am in this whole state.
This chart is basically saying "flee North America now, fools!!"
Even at 2 a.m., I haven't closed down a bar in way over a decade. On weekdays, I doubt any of the bars in my part of town are open that late anyway.
I mean, of course I haven't either. But it still feels like my rights are being infringed upon. Maybe I am a entitled white guy after all.
324 Insiders can be co-opted or overthrown/replaced.
Our breweries have to stop serving at 8 pm. So I see last call a whole lot more nowadays than in several decades past.
Can you order a growler and finish it there?
There's a 3 glass limit too. So you probably can't drink a growler on the premises yourself. You can buy two growlers and take them home, of course.
Here, a growler is four pints (American).
Congratulations, Alex! I'd probably take the consultancy, with the idea that the National Library will still be there in the future as a possible place to work.
Speaking of consultants, I'm still getting used to working with medical writers, but it doesn't look that hard other than the fact that literally every single person in the whole project will complain at you.
Woohoo Alex! I say take the fat consultancy check and stay local. Relocating a family blows.
339: For instance, the Wall Street-funded neoliberal takeover of the Democratic Party.
You think? Those bombers were nearly indigestible.
At this point, anyone who uses the word "neoliberal" without an EXTREMELY precise definition appended gets flamethrowered to death from a helicopter. Those are the rules, sorry Eggplant, it's a painful way to go.
In graduate school, I used to know 99 different meanings for "neoliberal". But 48 of them were words for "snow".
352: so, you're saying that neoliberals are liberals that snort cocaine. Is that precise enough for you, Tigre?
Sure, and it makes 348 accurate, in that there was a time when cocaine partially funded with Wall Street money played some role in the Democratic Party.
296: We had some O'Neills who might have been there, except that of course they couldn't possibly have been there, because we don't talk about that, no, not ever, and therefore it never could have happened. We were loyal subjects of the British Crown, dammit (except when we were not).
355: I've marched in a parade held in honor of the leader. I was very adorable.
And I wasn't usually adorable, even as a kid.
I feel like there are a lot of holes in this plan.
Here, a growler is four pints (American).
There, a growler is...something completely different.
359: How many towns are named after you?
Because you haven't invaded Canada yet.
I have been scolded by city employees for inadequate leashing of my (extremely well-trained) dog. But I'm pretty sure they answer to the mayor.
Also, today we spent ~5 hours filming for a Hillary commercial focused on CHIP. My Hillary-loving daughter was too shy to speak to the cameras. I blame Bernie Bros*.
*that's a joke, although it's actually true that she's been bullied out of wearing a Hillary pin by (non-bro) Bernie supporters.
364 to the pre-300 part of the the thread. I thought I was refreshed.
If Alex is to be the National Librarian of Knifecrime Island, I think he should take the job, knowing he'll be slaughtered within the decade.
knowing he'll be slaughtered within the decade.
The post which he held by this precarious tenure carried with it the title of National Librarian; but surely no head of a library ever lay uneasier, or was visited by more evil dreams, than his. For year in, year out, in summer and winter, in fair weather and in foul, he had to keep his lonely watch, and whenever he snatched a troubled slumber it was at the peril of his life. The least relaxation of his vigilance, the smallest abatement of his strength of limb or skill of fence, put him in jeopardy; grey hairs might seal his death-warrant. To gentle and pious pilgrims at the library the sight of him might well seem to darken the fair landscape, as when a cloud suddenly blots the sun on a bright day. The dreamy blue of Knifecrimean skies, the dappled shade of summer woods, and the sparkle of waves in the sun, can have accorded but ill with that stern and sinister figure. Rather we picture to ourselves the scene as it may have been witnessed by a belated wayfarer on one of those wild autumn nights when the dead leaves are falling thick, and the winds seem to sing the dirge of the dying year. It is a sombre picture, set to melancholy music--the background of forest showing black and jagged against a lowering and stormy sky, the sighing of the wind in the branches, the rustle of the withered leaves under foot, the lapping of the cold water on the shore, and in the foreground, pacing to and fro, now in twilight and now in gloom, a dark figure with a glitter of steel at the shoulder whenever the pale moon, riding clear of the cloud-rack, peers down at him through the matted boughs.
Someday this election is going to end. And we'll all go woohoo!
Also fa makes a really good point about the job above.
After a very long struggle I've finally worked myself back to the point where it feels that life is what happens between waiting in airports.
Because you haven't invaded Canada yet.
I'm still working on a solid plan.
Why do the sick coughing ones always sit near me?
370, 373: nosflow deserves a bough.
Balls. I'm now boarded and how did I completely forget to change money?
How do you know they're not just downloading all your data when you plug your mobile into a USB charging port?
I have no idea what they'll do with all that stegosaurus porn.
I have no idea what they'll do with all that stegosaurus porn.
Probably nothing very different from what you do with it.
Ugggh, so appalled: http://www.pasadenanow.com/main/black-lives-matter-pasadena-organizer-convicted-of-felony-lynching-charge/#.V1EQO2hlDxA
383: It's my night off, so I'll bite. What part of this is appalling?
Maybe not! I'm already regretting 383.
I guess it depends if and how Nick responds.
I found that article's summary of the case hard to follow.
Yeah, me too. It's not clear what, exactly, her specific role in the events described is alleged to be.
387: The basic gist is that some BLM activists surrounded some cops and attempted to prevent the arrest of a woman who had been chased from a restaurant for not paying. A basic low level theft. Apparently up until fairly recently the criminal code for trying to forcibly take someone from police custody included the word lynching. So the outrage I guess is that a black activist was arrested and convicted under a "lynching" code. Which to me seems to kind of be missing the point that of course it's a crime to whip up a crowd and try to interfere with an arrest.
But whatever. There's way more injustice in the world, like how last Thursday my wife and daughters conspired to end my 14 year dog free existence by buying a puppy.
You know who else didn't have a dog-free existence?
Update to 215 et seq.: This analysis sounds very plausible to me, and suggests that we won't actually end up with two Dan Sullivans in the Senate.
"We have nothing to lose but our chains!" she shouted, citing Black revolutionary activist Assata Shakur
OPINIONATED KARL MARX is not happy about this whole "sampling" thing.
Still, a year in jail seems excessive. Even three months seems steep for what is basically the crime of having little sense and a loud voice.
from each according to his abilities; to each according to her needs.
Sadly the National Library post isn't high heidyin. It's something like 'Supreme Artificer of Difference Engines', and is only an interview, not a job offer (I believe there are another two candidates).
One of the other candidates is probably Vermin Supreme.
of course it's a crime to whip up a crowd and try to interfere with an arrest.
In the article it looks like she was also charged with these things, separately, and then those charges were dropped in favor of the lynching one:
Richards was arrested for inciting a riot, child endangerment, delaying and obstructing peace officers in the discharge of their duties, and the lynching offense. By the time Richards had come to trial this month, only the lynching charge remained.
I guess it depends if and how Nick responds.
Yeah, sorry, that was a bit of a drive-by. My feelings are two-fold.
1) I am appalled for mostly symbolic reasons. When gswift says,
So the outrage I guess is that a black activist was arrested and convicted under a "lynching" code. Which to me seems to kind of be missing the point . . .
The reaction of, "what's in a name?" is appropriate most of the time, but this feels like on of the rare cases where it may not be. It just seems wrong to convict an African-American activist under an anti-lynching statute. I just can't get past my feeling of wrongness there.
2) As MHPH says, I also think there's something a little bit suspicious about convicting an activist under a rarely-applied charge. As the article says, "Richards, 28, was the first African-American ever actually tried on these charges." Shaun King says:
According to PC 405a, the "lynching" law Pasadena claimed Jasmine violated, it is reserved for "a person who participates in the taking by means of a riot of another person from the lawful custody of a peace officer is guilty of a felony."
This was is a gross misapplication of the law. . . . What you saw in that video was not a riot.
Though the link that King provides contradicts him to some degree:
3. What if the "riot" did not involve violence, but was instead a group of people peacefully protesting?
A peaceful protest could be the setting for a possible charge for using a "riot" to free someone from custody. Though the setting in which the person is arrested may have been peaceful, the "riot" can occur when two or more people use any level of force to attempt to free the arrested person. It is the circumstances that immediately surround the freeing of the person that the prosecution will use against a person facing this charge.
On the other hand, this section:
Because the law is closely tied with rioting, a person charged with violating PC 405a could also face several related charges, such as:
Rioting (Penal Code Section 404);
Incitement to riot (Penal Code Section 404.6);
Participation in a riot (Penal Code Section 405);
Unlawful assembly (Penal Code Section 407);
Battery on a peace officer (Penal Code Sections 243(b) and 243(c));
Rescuing a prisoner from lawful custody (Penal Code Section 4550);
Resisting arrest (Penal Code Section 148(a)); or
Resisting an executive officer (Penal Code Section 69).
The fact that none of those charges were made makes it sound like it was a stretch to charge her with lynching.
My personal suspicion would be that (1) they had some real political goals when it comes to the black lives matter movement and wanted to damage them by scaring people off and (2) if they'd put those lesser charges in front of a jury it's likely that the jury would have looked at the facts and thought "oh, this was clearly [one or more of the misdemeanor] charges, but the lynching thing is stupid". Not giving them the comparison was a more effective way of convicting her of a felony rather than a misdemeanor.
Also while I've been (and still am) worried about Clinton as a candidate this is a very good sign for the general election. It's exactly how the Democrats should be going after the Republicans as a whole at this point. If she did something like this at a debate with Trump there on the stage with her I'm guessing we'd see an incredible meltdown on his part, and one which would probably cut his legs out from under him.
392: INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IS THEFT!
I feel so confident in prosecutorial probity.
397, 398, 399: As a legal matter what she was doing easily meets the criteria for inciting a riot. There's a more detailed account of the scene here. From what I've read they had her dead to rights on the charge and I'm guessing it only went to trial because she made the same mistake as that Occupy protestor who elbowed the cop in the face while in custody. She probably refused a plea deal thinking there was no way a jury would convict her and now reality is teaching her otherwise.
Don't know the details but the defendant was certainly ill-served by her lawyer, a well-known local clown.
404 to 403, 397 et al., not to 402.
404: Right? Not that I'm local but it's not hard to spot from the interviews and statements alone, not to mention how about not letting your client go to court on a felony with a lip ring and backwards cap.
Whatever the elements of this particular offense, it's grossly wrong to use the word lynching. Lynching is removing someone from police custody to do them harm. It's not aiding in the escape of a prisoner, or preventing an arrest so that the person can go free.
I think it's pretty obviously appalling, and for essentially the reasons in 398. Lynching isn't just a word, it's a horrible horrible practice that went on unpunished for decades. It's patently offensive to use that word in this context, and the prosecutors and the jury should have known better.
Did the prosecution use the word? It's not clear that they did from the linked article -- all it says was that the word lynching appeared in the statute until recently.
408: Known better than to do what? They didn't put it in the code and it's pretty clear that the code is more broad than what we think of as lynching. It was kind of dumb to have it in there, but the law dates to the 30's and the wording was removed a year ago.
407, 408 -- the word "lynching" is no longer used in connection with the law by statute passed well before this verdict. The prosecution and the jury did not use the word "lynching." The only remaining connection with "lynching" is the reportage. Beyond that, the only reason why this crime was ever referred to by shorthand as "lynching" in California is that the law in question was passed long ago as a package of anti-lynching laws specifically designed to prevent against racial crimes. "Black lives matter activist convicted of lynching" is, in the context of this trial, simply a false statement. The "name" of the crime was, with good reason, changed in 2015 precisely to avoid this connotation.
"Black lives matter activist convicted of lynching" is, in the context of this trial, simply a false statement.
Too late, I'm already outraged.
Was this really a riot? I'd guess there's plenty of California law on the subject. But I'm not going to look into it on my phone.
400: I bet it helps her in the California primary, too, despite the fact that it's been scientifically proven that you can't gain politically without attacking your opponent.
I had a friend in Berkeley charged with incitement to riot in the early nineties. I don't recall the circumstances exactly, but it wasn't much of a riot as far as I know. I mean, knowing her, it was probably a fair cop.
Was this really a riot?
404. (a) Any use of force or violence, disturbing the public peace, or any threat to use force or violence, if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by two or more persons acting together, and without authority of law, is a riot...
404.6. (a) Every person who with the intent to cause a riot does an act or engages in conduct that urges a riot, or urges others to commit acts of force or violence, or the burning or destroying of property, and at a time and place and under circumstances that produce a clear and present and immediate danger of acts of force or violence or the burning or destroying of property, is guilty of incitement to riot.
Ah, ok, 411 makes sense.
That's some a-level trolling by the media though.
Did the prosecution use the word? It's not clear that they did from the linked article
My understanding is that they did not.
I think Gswift and President Obvious are probably correct, and I feel less appalled at this point. But I still find it deeply uncomfortable.
The "name" of the crime was, with good reason, changed in 2015 precisely to avoid this connotation.
Note, based on Shaun King's link that the name change is not completely disconnected from this case.
An example of this crime is the case of Maile Hampton, the African American activist whose arrest set in motion the vote to remove the term "lynching" from California Penal Code 405a. Hampton was accused of trying to pull on the handle of a sign held by a protestor who was in the custody of Sacramento police officers. The incident occurred during a "Black Lives Matter" rally against police brutality in January 2015. She originally faced a charge of "lynching," but ultimately faced a reduced charge of misdemeanor resisting arrest.
That seems like recent enough history that it doesn't seem like just fabrication for the news* to describe this as "felony lynching".
* particularly news which is symathetic to and familiar with the BLM protests.
That's some a-level trolling by the media though.
I'd be really curious to know what Witt thinks of the story. It seems like there is an element of trolling but I don't have a good sense of how large that element is.
It wouldn't be great trolling if there weren't an element of truth.
391: Is it common in Alaska to capitalize "Outside"?
421: I know it's the usage in Dana Stabenow's work.
I'm predicting that when Gswift's daughters leave for college, it is going to be Gswift and the dog going trout fishing and he will come to think of the dog as one of his best companions.
I'm depressed that these thieves are in fact the good guys.
it is going to be Gswift and the dog going trout fishing and he will come to think of the dog as one of his best companions.
OMG is gswift bob via some kind of stable time loop?!
418: That's especially true given that the crime in question and the removal of the word were fewer than sixty days apart. So it's not like it's some weird old remnant that the press are hanging onto out of sentimental crazy-headline feelings.
Two people yelling on a street corner doesn't sound to me like a riot, and yet under that code section . . .
It's not that it was out of line for the media to mention that the provision used to be known as 'lynching', but the wording of the article did make it sound as if there was some sense in which the use of the word 'lynching' could be actively attributed to the present-day prosecutors. Which would be offensive if it were true, but it doesn't seem to be true in any real-world sense.
A careless vandal has written "COPS is PIES" on a utility box by my bus stop.
423: Dogs not allowed in some of those canyons, and right now good luck getting all the kids out. My older one decided after like three months of being moved out last fall that it sucked and came back home. She missed hanging out and cooking dinner and likes the freedom to do things like quit her part time job in a few weeks because it won't accommodate her going to the invitation only Muay Thai camp up in Oregon at the end of July.
I do have to grudgingly admit that the dog is so far working out fine. The heelers are smart and not prone to barking and my wife and girls are happy with him.
I give it three weeks, a month max, before gswift has a really great story about how cool his dog is, and also check out these photos from when (etc.)
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Sigh. Made the mistake of reading the comments on some nasty transphobic person's FB post about the Georgia ACLU director resigning.
I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away; but with Blood.
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426: some kind of flat circle.
Gswift just knows himself. He can't be trusted around a dog, else he might generate newer, more embarrassing, pictures. And lord knows what ogged might infer, and then imply (or just say outright).
428: Kinda goes to the point that pretty much everybody is guilty of committing crimes on a regular basis, but only black people get prosecuted.
