Jonathan Bernstein describes the invisible primary as being far more important than the visible primaries of people voting as the invisible primary sets the conditions for the visible primary. He sees the selectorate involved in the invisble primary as such:
Remember, we’re in the “invisible primary” stage, in which party actors politicians, party-aligned groups, campaign and governing professionals, activists, formal party officials and staff compete and coordinate over candidates. We’re still two years from the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire getting involved, but for people whose business or passion (or both) is party politics, the nomination contest has been under way for at least a year, and probably a lot more….
The evidence suggests that party actors communicate with each other to some extent through high-profile endorsements. Fundraising matters too, of course, especially to those within the party network. So does recruitment of staff. In each of those realms, the universe of party actors is large, but signs that one candidate is winning a lot of support along with a large share of party-controlled (or at least party-connected) resources is a good sign that a candidate is performing well in the invisible primary.
Balloon-Juice, as a community, is part of the extended party that takes part in the invisible primary. Quickly doing a google search, I see that we’ve raised at least a quarter million dollars on Act Blue in the past couple of years. The commenters and frontpagers here routinely are quoted, massaged and memed in liberal arguments ( eg: peak wingnut, anthrax and tire rims, Equitablog, NY Times and LA Times columnists etc). We have some influence, not much, but some.
The question is how to use that influence as a community if there is a consensus that more bombs and more drones in Iraq is not a particulary wise idea.
Cervantes
You may have to first figure out if there is a consensus.
If there is not, you may have to figure out if you really need one in order to act.
Belafon
I would be disappointed if the entirety of Obama’s plan consisted of “we’re gonna bomb until we win.” But that’s not his plan.
Though, if we’re going to start a meme, is should be centered around why won’t the chicken shit Congresspeople do their jobs.
BGinCHI
We have a consensus on pets, food, and quality TV viewing. Also that Andrew Cuomo is a dickhead. Also that Clive Owen is a handsome man. Obviously Liverpool is the greatest EPL side.
That’s all I can think of, unless you want me to list all of the idiots on the right that we all know are idiots.
balconesfault
The meme should be … if we’re going to take any military action … we need new revenue streams to offset the cost.
No bucks, no Buck Turgidson
El Caganer
@Belafon: I dunno – sort of depends on what gets bombed. If his plan is to bomb Congress and Wall Street, that’s a win, isn’t it?
Roger Moore
@balconesfault:
We need a lot more than that. If we’re going to take military action, we need a concrete definition of our goals and a plausible plan for how we can accomplish them. I’m not convinced that we can do much to ISIL in Syria without a more powerful ally there, or that arming the “moderate” rebels is a wise or effective way of getting one.
gian
@BGinCHI:
Not sure about pets. Don’t start talking about dog breeds
Cervantes
@gian: Or haggis.
Roger Moore
@El Caganer:
Can I put in a good word for Davos during the World Economic Forum?
Geeno
I think the meme should be “why can’t the chickenshit republican congress do its job by approving or not this action?”
Bobby Thomson
@Belafon:
No, I think his plan is “we’re gonna bomb to get past the mid-terms.”
Far more Americans were killed by toddlers in the last year than by terrorists. There is no crisis requiring action, other than the president giving a crappy sound bite about not having a plan (a truly honest and nonproblematic answer, in a sane world). This now supersedes that.
Ironically, it could wind up hurting Democrats in the mid-terms. Rally-round-the-flag effects tend to be short-lived and followed by pendulum swings in the opposite direction.
srv
I stand against the Obamabandoniers. The thing is, you guys have nobody to cling to – who you going to throw in with, Bernie Sanders?
Elizabeth Warren just threw down:
She’s All In with Courtesy Bombing.
You see where this is going? She’s got to run to the right of Hillary.
Villago Delenda Est
We clearly don’t have enough influence, as Chuckles the Toddler is still employed.
And living.
Villago Delenda Est
@Geeno: You’ve answered your question in the question.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Exqueeze me. You need to include our wonderful friends in the Village in the ordnance expending plan.
Villago Delenda Est
@BGinCHI:
This would violate the general consensus that really long blocks of grey text are a bad thing.
BGinCHI
@Villago Delenda Est: So many idiots, so little time.
/said in the voice of John Goodman
catclub
@balconesfault:
Seizing Iraqi Oil? It worked well as a proposed revenue stream in 2002.
catclub
If true ( always an important proviso) the report that Hillary is not helping lots of desperate Democrats in tough races, because she does not even NEED chits in 2016. Is distressing. If and Only if she is also running. (for which evidence: Harkin Fish fry in Iowa).
If she would be useful to Democrats in tough races, she should help.
Lots of ifs, here.
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m pretty sure that many of the worst offenders from the Village will be in Davos.
steve
The best we can do, I think, is to pressure the administration to actually go to Congress to get authorization for this. Right now they are saying that the AUMF is sufficient authority, which should offend all of us on the Left regardless of whether we support military action against ISIS. Last year Obama was saying it should be appealed and it was too open-ended…now he is falling back on it.
The Congressional Progress Caucus (parts of it, at least) is calling for a vote. I think lefty blogs can get behind that effort.
El Caganer
@srv: I don’t think this is some sudden change of heart. She’s been pretty hawkish on the ME for a while – check out her thoughts on Iran.
steve
@srv:
Yeah she made some comments in support of Likud’s recent war in Gaza. She is either not a progressive in matters of foreign policy or she is keeping her options open for a primary run against Hillary by projecting “strength” on foreign policy so it doesn’t distract from her progressive domestic policy message. Laws and Sausages.
Belafon
@steve:
Even when he said that, he still used it for actions he took. He still thinks, in some cases, that actions are required to be taken until Congress says otherwise.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
It has always struck me as mildly amusing where Herr Schwab decided to locate his Forum. Over the decades, conversations there have too often resembled some of the loopier ones in Thomas Mann’s sanatorium on The Magic Mountain, also located in Davos.
Belafon
@srv: I’m curious why you, or anyone else, thinks that using the military is something only Republicans do. It’s not like history shows only Republicans joining wars. Republicans were isolationists for both of the world wars (though some of that might have to do with initially supporting the other side).
Cervantes
@steve:
Don’t know if it’s the best we can do, but it’s a good idea — a good cause.
robotswillstealyourjobs
More bombs and drones in Iraq doesn’t faze me at this point, and is preferable to the slow motion collapse it was having this summer. It’s the possibility of bombs and drones in Syria leading up to boots on the ground that scares me. NOBODY knows how to thread the needle of taking down ISIS without helping Assad, and they certainly don’t know how we’d get ethnic groups that have been shooting at each other for years now to put down the guns and get along democratically in their now-wrecked country. Which we’d have to accomplish somehow, otherwise ISIS or whatever it may change its name to will rise again.
The whole region is a mess. I think eventually we’re going to end up partitioning Iraq and Syria into two Shia states, a Sunni state and Kurdistan, because with the level of corruption and economic deprivation and emnity in the region I don’t see how we can hold the artificial constructs of Iraq and Syria long-term. It’s only going to get worse when climate change hits and the place gets hotter… and drier.
Belafon
@Belafon: To expand on this: Using the military is not a Democratic or Republican thing any more than any other government action. The difference between Democrats and Republicans is in how they are used. Case in point: You’d have to go back to the early 20th century to maybe find a Democrat that would have started Iraq.
steve
@Cervantes:
Well I mean that liberals are split on the necessity/prudence of a/this/any military campaign against ISIS. I am opposed but it is the sort of thing reasonable people can disagree over. But I think we can all get behind an effort to do this constitutionally and get people on record.
Mr. Twister
After reading this, I am not sure what the point is. http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/what-people-dont-know-can-hurt-them
Cervantes
@steve: Yes, your meaning was clear and it’s what I meant also.
Sir Laffs-a-Lot
Apropos of nothing……for Steve and other Feline Overlords who’s domestic staffers lurk here instead of tending to their duties:
http://www.vox.com/2014/9/12/6136451/catnip-cats-science
srv
@Belafon: So why all the anti-war Obots now?
Even Reddit is all “How I learned to stop worrying and love the drones” now. Where are the John Cole’s of the Left supposed to go?
Maybe they’re waiting for Putin to swoop in and save the day. Might be a little problem with that.
Cervantes
@Mr. Twister: Sure, it may be that supporting things like the Bannock Street Project are the best use of scarce resources.
Roger Moore
@robotswillstealyourjobs:
I’m not sure that is or should be an absolute requirement. We’ve managed to survive decades of the Assads in power in Syria, and Bashar’s term has been one of waning Syrian power relative to his father. The strategy of letting people we dislike fight each other in Syria has been a humanitarian disaster, and now it’s turning into a strategic disaster, too. I don’t think we should hold out waiting for a magic solution that takes down both Assad and ISIL. Instead, we should be willing to take on ISIL and accept that it’s going to wind up helping Assad.
Cervantes
@srv:
You need to either read better, or think harder, or (preferably) both.
If you’re not yet in Kirkuk, can you take a personally pro-active stance on this, at least?
Belafon
@srv: There are anti-war people on the right as well.
ETA: The point being that it’s too simplistic to think of using the military in terms of the parties, and you’re not “moving to the right” when you decide to go after ISIS. Not claiming that it’s correct or not.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore: Given that we and the Brits were able to ally ourselves with Stalin and against Hitler in WWII, your point ought to be fairly obvious.
Elizabelle
I really hate that MSNBC appropriated the Kongos’ “Come with me Now” for its promos.
Although it’s kind of perfect, because I thought the lyrics were:
And that is NBC for you.
But it totally ruined the song for me. I hear it and think of Mrs. Alan Greenspan, Joe and Mika, rotating heads. I turn the channel so quick.
[lyric is actually “whoa”, always a good thought when considering NBC News.]
linky to the Kongos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stfn-WS3bE4
srv
@Cervantes: I am, right here, standing with Obama while you nattering nobobs of negativity question him.
I’ll go to Kirkuk when Malia does.
srv
@Belafon: I think you have me confused with someone else. Obots have always been for Courtesy Bombing – anybody and everybody. Even to the point that they understood it was an 11th Dimensional Ropa-Dope to trick Putin into dealing with Syria’s WMDs. They’re even smarter than the John Cole’s of the Left who were too dull to figure that out was the plan the whole time.
Now, they’ve gotten weak kneed during an important mid-term election.
M31
@BGinCHI:
“unless you want me to list all of the idiots on the right that we all know are idiots.”
aint.nobody.got.time.for.that.gif
Roger Moore
@Cervantes:
Maybe it ought to be obvious, but it seems as if it isn’t. We’re faced with a set of imperfect choices, and some people understandably don’t want us to choose any of them because they have consequences we don’t like. Unfortunately, doing nothing is also making a strategic choice with some unpleasant consequences, a point that people advocating taking no action seem to miss.
Ruckus
If you want a plan, how about we plan how we don’t control the entire fucking planet? We are somewhere around 5% of the planet, spend more than the rest combined on military, have police kicking small teenage ass in schools, have our own religious fundamentalists who are fucking crazy, and want to kill those that disagree with them, they just don’t have the balls to do it themselves(thank, well whomever) so they want to send the military, which as noted we have plenty of. We have massive inequality, both financially and racially(among others), we lack solid planning for the future(because an unreasonable segment of our population thinks there isn’t one and so wants to fuck it up for the rest of us), and, OK I’m done for now. You are welcome to come up with your own lists.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
I don’t miss that point, I just think that we’ve basically done all the other actions available over the last 50-60 yrs and long term none of them has had the desired effect. Maybe doing nothing is the best plan.
Have we ever really tried that one?
robotswillstealyourjobs
@Roger Moore:
OK, suppose Assad wins. What stops all this from happening again in a decade or two? It’s not like Assad rampaging over the Sunnis is going to endear him to them, it will just radicalize them further and things will explode into genocide even quicker next time Assad looks weak.
Assad’s repression is what allowed ISIS to portray themselves as Protector of the Sunnis, which is what got them so many recruits and so many Gulf emirs throwing cash at them in the first place. They then used this perception to convince Iraqi Sunni tribes to sign on with them against Maliki’s Shia-favoring government. ISIS has gotten this far because of massive Sunni grievances, real and imagined. If we don’t treat the source of those grievances we will just be fighting someone like ISIS again, and again, and again.
Montanareddog
@BGinCHI:
well, your consensus just drove into a wall right there.
steve
@Roger Moore:
I’ll note that Obama’s plan calls for arming and training anti-Assad/Anti-ISIS rebels to be our boots on the ground so unless that is just lip service, “bomb ISIS and let Assad take back control because he will impose order and is the lesser of two evils,” is not one of the actual choices available.
Also, give us anti-war types a little credit: plenty of us understand that not getting involved is also a choice with repercussions. It is not just a matter of purity/keeping our hands clean; we don’t actually think getting involved will make things better or we don’t believe getting involved in the ways proposed will make things better.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore: Well, the point I felt ought to be obvious is that sometimes it’s dangerous to wait around for perfectly good solutions that will never present themselves. Sometimes one has to pick the lesser of evils.
Whether this is one of those sometimes is, I think, still an open question. There may be alternatives that have not been tried.
Cervantes
@steve: With you, again.
srv
@robotswillstealyourjobs: At least it will be Hillary’s or Santorum’s problem then.
Obama and Iran got rid of Maliki. Would have been better to go Diem on him and make an example of him, but you just can’t trust the CIA to keep its mouth shut anymore.
We have contained the ME for a long time, it is the White Man’s Burden to continue to do so for our masters in Riyadh and New York.
Cervantes
@srv: Thought so.
srv
@Cervantes: Your service in Benghazi was appreciated.
Cervantes
@srv:
No, those were Australians and (mostly) Brits.
But you’re welcome, I’m sure.
robotswillstealyourjobs
BTW, for those of us who think ISIS is no threat to the US, here’s food for thought:
Suppose ISIS gets its way and sparks off a war of the knife between Sunnis and Shias in Iraq, which they were on track to do until we started bombing them. Iran would get dragged in on the Shia side almost immediately. The Saudis would be put between the rock of supporting ISIS and the hard place of letting Iran turn Iraq into a puppet while it’s killing Sunnis, and they might get dragged in as well; a certain portion of their population thinks ISIS has the right idea (even some generals were seen posing with ISIS flags recently) and if the Shias retaliate with their own ethnic cleansing that support would grow dramatically. The Gulf states would have the same choice but they already like Iran even less than Saudi does. So great, now we’d have the Eastern Front of WW2 being reenacted in the Middle East, the region containing most of the world’s oil. The price of oil would skyrocket, and the economic recovery, such as it is, would sputter to a halt. Just in time to get Ted Cruz elected in 2016.
Yeah… ISIS can harm us, all right.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: My GOP dad used to say that Dems started all wars. He blamed SAW on TR, WW1 on Wilson, WW2 on FDR, Korea on Truman, Vietnam on JFK/LBJ. He was shocked that Carter didn’t start another misguided military adventure. And he was retired military, so either he should have known better or USNA was in the business of hiding things from its students.
robotswillstealyourjobs
@srv:
That’s not a solution, that’s a prescription to have someone like ISIS as an ongoing threat indefinitely. Maybe the Military/Security complex would like to see that, it certainly would be good for their business, but I don’t. The region’s problems go back to the bungled division of the Ottoman Empire and they will have to be dealt with eventually.
srv
@steve:
The plan is to make Jordan-trans-Syria-Iraq safe from ISIS while leaving Erdogan’s ISIL in the north. Assad gets plinked at some point and an acceptable transitional figure emerges.
Not my idea, but better than just surrender-monkey ISIL everywhere.
@robotswillstealyourjobs:
Cart before horse. Turkey, Qatar and KSA were already well at work on toppliing Assad.
Cervantes
@boatboy_srq:
They did a good job of the latter with him, anyway, if they left him thinking TR was a Democrat.
JGabriel
Richard Mayhew @ Top:
I don’t think it’s a particularly wise idea, but I feel like when ISIL is using we people we trained and weapons we left behind to commit genocide, terrorize minorities, and wage war against our at least nominal allies, then maybe we have a responsibility to remove those weapons and people from the equation.
Of course, sending even more weapons into the region seems like folly – they always end up in the hands of people who hate us. And putting troops on the ground will just repeat the mistakes of the last Iraq war and further entangle us. For the time being, air support for the peoples being attacked by ISIL seems like the best choice. But since we can’t afford to lose if we engage, that will eventually mean troops on the ground.
In other words, the whole problem, instigated by and inherited from the Bush II administration, is a colossal clusterfuck.
So I don’t know what the fuck we should be doing. Going back in is foolishness cubed, but we can’t walk away and ignore it either – because we’re the ones who broke it.
Suffern ACE
@robotswillstealyourjobs: And? Which side to we get to take?
srv
@robotswillstealyourjobs: @robotswillstealyourjobs: The best solution is to keep ISIS out of Iraq and refocus them on KSA. Sadly, that won’t happen.
This is a divide and conquer strategy against an army. The KSA would like their Sunni Hezbollah, but we just can’t allow that. We can break up ISIL into two (north & south) in Syria, probably defeat the south part, and sit on ISIS in Iraq long enough to win back some of the Sunnis. Those that can’t be bought (Fallujah, Ramadi…) we just bomb them again. Rinse, repeat.
Ideally, Sunni Iraq can be turned into a Kurdistan. Don’t like Talabani today? Go with Barzani. Barzani wants too much, have a Talabani stab him in the back. It is the way.
It will take time, some politicking, a lot of dough and a smattering of hellfires, but perhaps it can be done.
ISIS is then just fragmented and becomes a CT problem.
Northern Syria, well, sorry, just going to be a long civil war by proxy between Turkey, Iran and KSA. Gotta have some place for the kids to go:
[saudi demographic pyramid marked as spam by FYWP]
Bobby Thomson
@Roger Moore:
maybe
How exactly? Show your work.
Bobby Thomson
@Ruckus:
Works for me. You realize that the refusal to ascribe God-like omnipotence to the United States makes us deeply unserious, right?
Bobby Thomson
@robotswillstealyourjobs: Yeah, right. Like the Saudis would ever do their own fighting.
mclaren
The obvious answer to that question involves Balloon-Juice as a community avoiding support of warmonger Demo candidates (like Hillary) and moving support toward candidates who take an anti-burning-brown-babies stance.
Incidentally, can be please get away from squeaky-clean euphemisms like “bombing and drones in Iraq”?
This is antiseptic and inaccurate.
What we’re really talking about is burning brown babies and dismembering innocent women at their wedding parties.
Can we tentatively assume a consensus in the Balloon-Juice community against burning brown babies and dismembering innocent women at their wedding parties?
Cervantes
@JGabriel: Thanks for the comment.
Whom are you calling “we,” kemosabe?
Anyhow, if it could be shown that walking away is the option that does the least harm at this point, then you’d agree that “our” having broken it is irrelevant, yes?
(A big if, obviously.)
Amir Khalid
@Montanareddog:
Right now, the greatest EPL side is definitely not Manchester United.
catclub
@Bobby Thomson:
From a wise poster at LGM. “The Saudi Battle Music is ‘Onward Christian Soldiers.'”
JGabriel
@Cervantes:
The United States.
Question: You put someone in harm’s way, such that there is a 100% chance that they are going to get killed. If you intervene, there is a 50% chance that you’ll both be killed but a 50% chance that you’ll both be saved. Which choice is most ethical?
In other words. it’s Prisoner’s Dilemma. I don’t know the right answer. There may well be no right answer. But I feel that we, as a country, have some culpability for the situation.
steve
@JGabriel:
How about this framing instead: “we put someone in harm’s way, such that there is a X% chance that they are going to get killed. If you intervene, there is a Y% chance that they be killed but a 1-Y% chance that they’ll be saved. Which choice is most ethical?”
Is Y>X?
NobodySpecial
I think we should use this newfound power to punch hippies. That’s something most of BJ can get behind, plus someday a frontpager might get to use McCain’s tire swing and eat his sweet sweet barbecue.
Cervantes
@JGabriel:
No, it was the dishonest-to-the-core Bush Administration, and not a well-informed populace, that did it — although you’re right that such subtleties are naturally lost on many angry Iraqis, especially if they remember the 1990s as well as the 2000s.
I fought like hell to prevent the situation arising and then fought like hell to prevent it from getting worse, from roughly 1999 through 2008. Perhaps you did, too.
Now the situation is what it is, I’ve let various elected officials know what I think. For all the effect that’s likely to have at this point, I’m inclined to say we should make Cheney, and his neo-con minions, and his sycophants in the media, go fight ISIS, up close and personal, with none of my flesh and blood or money. If they fail, I’ll mourn them good and strong, and then I’ll take another look at the situation.
More seriously, I am not convinced that anything we can do will help the people on the ground, and I’m not ready to support some action simply in order to salve someone else’s conscience.
————-
As for the Prisoner’s Dilemma, here’s what the game actually entails: deciding in isolation whether to cooperate with an accomplice or to defect. You can (1) cooperate with your accomplice by keeping silent, in which case both of you may be set free as there is no evidence against you; or you can (2) seek a lighter sentence by ratting out yourself and your accomplice. If you trust the accomplice to keep silent, it’s in your interest to do so as well; whereas if you think she will confess and betray you for a lighter sentence, it’s in your interest to betray her first — but then you may both stay in jail. It’s a matter of trusting, or not trusting, your accomplice.
While I am enjoying the mental picture of Bush, Cheney, et al., sitting besmirched and bedraggled in separate ISIS crypts, each trying to decide how much they really trust the others — nevertheless I’m missing the connection you see between the Prisoner’s Dilemma and our situation vis-à-vis ISIS and the Iraqi people.
Cervantes
@mclaren:
That’s a hard case, you’ll find, if you haven’t already. For example, what if burning and dismembering innocents is an occasional, predictable, and sadly necessary side-effect of a policy that also, sometimes, kills people who (for mysterious, unfathomable reasons) want to harm us? Consensus against that? Not sure you’ll get it, anywhere.
And while that’s a hard case, it’s not the hardest case. Do we need Congressional debate and authorization to burn brown babies and dismember innocent women at their wedding parties? Should we pursue justice through trials and due process instead of simply spilling blood through assassinations? Should we use reliable evidence instead of acting on surmise or suspicion or less? Should we respect international law or the sovereignty of other nations? Are you tentatively assuming consensus on any of this? I hope not.
Bobby Thomson
@JGabriel: more like if we intervene, there’s a one percent chance everyone gets saved, and a greater than ninety percent chance more people die than would have.