According to this Buzzfeed article, Latino participation rates in this year’s Iowa caucuses increased more than 10-fold over 2012 rates and were triple the 2008 tally:
After dismal Latino turnout numbers in Iowa the past two presidential caucuses, early indications suggest that a $300,000 nonpartisan effort to get Hispanics to caucus succeeded in getting record turnout.
The initiative by the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) aimed to get 10,000 out of 50,000 registered Latino voters to caucus sites by repeatedly contacting them through phone calls and door knocks. NBC News exit poll shows that 4% of Democratic caucus-goers were Hispanic and 2% were on the Republican side. With both sides seeing huge turnout (171,000 for the Democrats and more than 180,000 for the GOP) that comes out to close to 10,500 Latinos.
Only 1,000 Latinos caucused in 2012. In 2008, when the race was competitive for both Democrats and Republicans, that number was 3,500.
LULAC, drawing from responses campaign field staff received from phone calls, door-knocking, and “Commit to Caucus” returns from mailers, believes the number is closer to 13,000.
I wonder how much of the turnout was driven by the LULAC initiative vs. Trump’s anti-Mexican scaremongering. It would also be interesting to know how the Latino Democratic caucus participants voted between Sanders and Clinton.
The article says exit polls showed 58% of minorities in last night’s Democratic caucuses went for Clinton, but I don’t think it was broken out by ethnic group, and Sanders won most of the large counties where minorities live.
Latinos preferred Clinton to Obama almost two to one in the 2008 primaries, and if they break decisively for Clinton again, that could be a huge factor in who ends up winning the nomination. Or not. Who knows?
PS: Once again, Richard was right about how dumb it is to extrapolate from the Iowa primaries, so please take this post with a grain of stupid (as usual).
Felonius Monk
So the notion that the rethugs’ anti-immigration rhetoric and especially derTrumpster’s deport them all and build the wall was going to drive the latino vote to the democrats in overwhelming numbers was just so much BS?
WereBear
Voter apathy is a serious issue for Democrats.
Which is why all Republican outlets scream FEAR FEAR FEAR at their electorate 24/7.
We’re too civilized, and thank goodness. But I’m terrified of Republican plans, it makes me more informed and determined. I wish I knew why others are not, frankly.
rikyrah
SATURDAY, JAN 30, 2016 02:30 PM CST
Obama as folk hero: To be what he’s trying to be — black, idealistic and president — is nothing less than superhuman
Obama’s had unprecedented importance for black people. We even forgive his blunders, because he’s one of the family
ERIN AUBRY KAPLAN
Excerpted from “I Heart Obama”
The unlikely heroism of Barack Obama began for me the first and only time I saw him, on a warm winter day in Los Angeles in 2007. He had just declared his candidacy for president and was holding a rally at Rancho Cienega Park in the Crenshaw district. Crenshaw is the last primarily black area left in the city; it is next to Dorsey High School, one of three majority black high schools left in the 700,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, and for nearly twenty years it was the site of the African Marketplace and Cultural Faire, held in late summer. In other words, anybody holding an event at Rancho Cienega was trying to get a message out to black folks. The fact that lots of white folks lived pretty close by, some just across the street at Village Green, a leafy condominium community built as a prototype of utopian urban living in the 1940s, didn’t matter. Nor did it matter that whites live in considerable numbers in Ladera Heights, a few miles north of Rancho Cienega, and in much greater numbers in Culver City, a couple of miles southwest. The proximity of these places doesn’t connect them at all. Crenshaw is a black nation-state, so those whites who do live here don’t live outdoors, are never seen on the streets, and more than likely tell their white friends and potential visitors that they live not in Crenshaw but in adjacent places like Culver City or West Los Angeles. They will acknowledge black neighborhoods only when special events are held there such as the African Marketplace or the Martin Luther King Day parade, when the place itself is the point; on those occasions, Crenshaw lights up as local exotica, an in-house tourist destination. But for most of the year, as far as Los Angeles and Southern California and the rest of the country and the rest of the world are concerned, Crenshaw, like black hubs in big cities anyw
Betty Cracker
@Felonius Monk: I’m not sure we can draw that conclusion from these scant metrics. In any scenario, these caucuses were going to yield a Democrat to oppose Trump’s horrid immigration “proposals.” I think we’ll need to see how the eventual Democratic nominee fares against the Republican in the general to get an inkling.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
CNN Entrance Poll (Key Race Alert):
Ø% of Latinos voting for Trump
rikyrah
Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 8h8 hours ago
#IowaCaucus turnout:
GOP 180,000 (vs prev record of 121,000 in 2012);
Dems 171,109 (vs prev record of 239,000 in 2008)
Joel
2% in the republican primaries? I hope this was the result of voting against Trump; 67% would represent a ~5% slide for the Democrats in the Latino vote from 2012 (same as 2008, though).
PhoenixRising
Since LULAC raised and spent the funds in consequence of Trump, that’s not an either/or.
Cacti
Nevada Caucuses are on 2/20. Probably a better gauge of where BS and HC stand with Hispanic voters.
Cacti
@srv:
Yep. Trump got out the vote.
And 76% of it wasn’t for him.
goblue72
@rikyrah: Worth keeping an eye on with upcoming primaries. A voter enthusiasm gap is the last thing we need.
Hillary Rettig
Excellent headline mojo this afternoon Betty
Matt McIrvin
@Felonius Monk: This wasn’t a general election. You couldn’t vote against Trump in the Democratic primary.
guachi
@Felonius Monk:
Do you even math, bro? 4% of 171,000 is 6,800. 2% of 180,000 is 3,600. That’s 10,400 total. 6,800 is 65% of the total number of Latinos caucased with the Democrats.
Schlemazel
@Cacti:
Years ago I was at the funeral for a local pol. My dad was talking to another pol who had 1 term as mayor but an over sized ego. The ex-mayor was going on about how this funeral was really something but his would be a huge thing with an enormous turn out. My dad just looked at him & deadpanned, “Yeah, give the people what they want & they’ll turn out!”
SoupCatcher
I defer to Gary Segura and company, over at Latino Decisions, on the importance of the Latino vote in Iowa. (shorter version, efgoldman Johnson is right!). Even though there is a Senate race there this year, Iowa doesn’t fit their criteria of “focusing on ten states featuring competitive electoral environments and with large and growing Latino populations.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Lessons from difference in Dem turnout 2016 vs 2008.
1. Maybe Barack Obama was a superstar, after all.
2. Maybe influence of vaunted blogosphere has been greatly exaggerated.
3. Maybe there’s no correlation btwn size of rallies (large or small) and actual vote.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@efgoldman: muchas gracias, mi amigo
Brachiator
Very interesting. Thanks for this.
I don’t see that this means much or says anything about Clinton’s Latino support today. I guess Team Clinton is hoping that Latinos still support her after voting overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008 and 2012. This may be a reasonable assumption, but we don’t know what Sanders might do to court their support.
Also, as we go deeper into the primaries, you have to also look at gender. White males and married white women in past elections have tended to vote Republican.
Baud
Those numbers don’t mean much without comparing it to population changes.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I noted your award-winning performance last night, but if you missed it, kudos. How would you like to be the official White House social media coordinator?
gwangung
Hopefully a better job than he’s doing in the black community.
Mnemosyne
I’m curious to see how the primary voting splits in states that are not so overwhelmingly white. SC is usually a decent bellwether for which direction African-American voters are going, and CO seems like a likely state to get a decent gauge for Latinos.
I’m saving my energy to work for voter turnout in the general. I think we have a very good chance of winning with either Democrat, so it’s going to be all about who bothers to show up and cast their vote.
trollhattan
@Hillary Rettig:
Reminded me of Carlin’s quip about “vacationing in the Caucasians.”
CONGRATULATIONS!
@goblue72: I’m betting there’s a huge one just by my reactions to our two candidates. One is wholly out of touch with reality and the other is as uninspiring as anything the Dems have ever put forth in my voting lifetime. The reality of the situation is that we’re electing a veto firewall for at least the first two years of the victor’s term and, unless we get a vacancy on the Supreme Court, that’s all we’re getting. Which is fine, but let’s acknowledge that and not promise all this shit that will not and can not be delivered this cycle.
If we didn’t have local elections at the same time this is one primary I would not even bother voting in. I will probably flip a coin before leaving the house. And skipping a vote is something I’ve never done in my life.
trollhattan
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Your lifetime must be Dukakis-free.
Just Some Fuckhead
@WereBear:
That’s because the new owners of the Democratic party abhor populism.
Brachiator
@SoupCatcher:
In addition to the Iowa results, here is the key statistic that should be scaring the Republicans with respect to the Latino vote:
Given Trump’s stance on immigration and his keeping the other GOP candidates’ feet to the fire on this, the Republicans may always be in a defensive position from now throw election day.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I don’t think there’s any fear that minority voters are going to turn Republican in the general. W was the last Republican that Latinos voted for in large numbers, and the current Republican candidates are actively driving those voters away. Republicans had already lost the Asian-American vote, except for a few holdouts in Orange County.
Turnout turnout turnout. If Democrats can’t get African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans to vote in the general election, we’re dead in the water no matter who the candidate is.
Baud
@trollhattan: Was there a lot of excitement among Democrats for Mondale? Obviously, there wasn’t among the general pop.
debbie
@Baud:
I don’t remember hearing any complaining, but Democrats used to be a more accepting lot.
MomSense
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Yes to all three.
The turnout last night wasn’t exactly revolutionary.
Baud
@debbie:
I don’t think I’ve heard anyone express that view before. Based on my limited knowledge of history, it seems that until the 1970 reforms, the party bosses, after much tussling, would generally congeal around whoever won the nomination.
trollhattan
@Baud:
One of those his-turn candidates, so far as I can remember. And Ferraro wasn’t quite the coup they’d hoped for. What a trainwreck.
WereBear
@Baud: As I recall, no one was excited about Mondale. And it showed. He’s the one who lost 49 states to Reagan.
Baud
1984 Democratic Primary (h/t wikipedia)
CONGRATULATIONS!
@trollhattan: Nope. Both him and Mondale. But conditions were such that back in the day, they could have gotten things done. Now, with the House being where legislation goes to…not be made, and the Senate being the home of the 24/7 filibuster, well, things are different. And that is a problem that is simply not being addressed.
Felonius Monk
@Betty Cracker: You’re right the sample size is very small here, but I still think it is a not insignificant indication that the idea being perpetuated that the Republicans anti-immigration stance is going to drive the latino vote overwhelmingly (like 85-90%) to the Democrats is probably illusory.
Even with the small sample size in this case about 35% of the latino vote registered as Republican. That could be interpreted to mean that a pretty sizable proportion of latinos still favor Republicans in spite of their anti-immigration stance or, in the case of Iowa, maybe they viewed Trump as the worst of the worst and just wanted to vote against him. I’m not sure how you interpret that.
In any event, I think it indicates that the dems really cannot take the latino vote for granted.
Cacti
@trollhattan:
A Ficus tree would have won more states in 1984 than Mondale/Ferraro.
Baud
Baud!/Ficus! 2016!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: In Baud I Trust!
goblue72
@WereBear: @CONGRATULATIONS!: Agree in part, except for the not promising stuff. This is not county dogcatcher we are talking about. There seems to be this assinine argument in these parts that this election is “just” about electing someone to veto because we have pre-surrendered to the Republicans. The “pragmatic” centrist line is just so much B.S. And in this, the hippies – as always – are right, and the hippie bashers are wrong.
Running a campaign based on “we aren’t the other guy”, or “vote for me so I can veto stuff” is the quickest path to electoral defeat.
You want to see absolutely god-awful outcome to the Nov 2016 election? Convince the Democratic base that the reason they need to vote is because their candidate is “Not the Republican candidate”. And watch the turnout numbers for our side go down – and watch the Independents vote for the GOP candidate, because at least they stand for something.
Baud
@Felonius Monk:
I’d like to know whose vote we can take for granted. Because I’m in the mood to take something for granted.
Felonius Monk
@Baud: I understand Baud was the undeclared winner in Iowa last night. Did you celebrate until the wee hours?
trollhattan
@Baud:
I have a ficus so YUUGE it wants to be in front of the ticket. Ficus/Baud, forever green in ’16.
debbie
@efgoldman:
Right, but that’s mostly hindsight, isn’t it? I don’t remember hearing any disgruntlement from Democrats, but then I was living in NYC and probably wouldn’t have. Or I was deaf due to my Reagan hatred.
MomSense
If you haven’t checked out Propane Jane on twitter, she is a must-read. theobamadiary.com has helpfully compiled some of her tweets if you want to take a look.
I can’t link because FYWP and stupid phones.
Baud
@Felonius Monk: I feel like I had support among the people, but since there are no secret ballots in caucuses, there was heavy external peer pressure from the Man and the Woman that prevented me from getting any delegates.
I’m sure I’ll do much better in primary states.
goblue72
@Felonius Monk: Correct. Anymore than Dems can take the Asian vote for granted. In the 2014 mid-terms, amongst Asian-Americans voters, the strong Dem preference we saw in 2012 mostly evaporated.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Know quite a few Latino folks who, when they talk politics at all, are perhaps best described as libertarian-curious. As mom once said, “assume nothing.”
Betty Cracker
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Has anyone actually talked up the influence of the “blogosphere” this go-round? I thought the smart money abandoned that chimera after Lamont vs Lieberman…10 years ago.
Hillary Rettig
@trollhattan: in high school we used to say that our bio teacher took his vacation in the Islets of Langerhans :-)
Baud
@srv: I blame Andrew Cuomo for not putting his hat in the ring.
Hillary Rettig
@Betty Cracker: didn’t the blogosphere (and social media in general) help Bernie? It’s not like he had a lot of support from the mainstream media, and his base (the younguns) get most of their information from the web.
Baud
@trollhattan: Sometimes I feel like the Party should go Galt. Who exactly is worth the effort?
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: But then to flip your argument, perhaps Latinos will flock to the GOP if the nominee is either Rubio or Cruz. We’ll have to wait and see.
Hillary Rettig
Anyone else think the “coin toss” thing discredits the caucuses in general (because they’re supposed to be all about thoughtful and committed voters deciding) and that 6/6 coin tosses going to Clinton is pretty suspicious? (1/64 odds)
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/coin-toss-broke-6-clinton-sanders-deadlocks-in-iowa-and-hillary-won-each-time-2016-02-02
goblue72
@Just Some Fuckhead: Pretty much. The Democratic Party, at least at the Federal level, is owned by economic elites at this point, in particular Wall Street. There’s a reason you never see Dems make any real effort to go after the carried interest deduction that essentially provides a tax subsidy to the already outsized salaries of hedge fund managers.
Obama did a lot of good things – but one thing he completely shat the bed on was holding anyone accountable for the Great Recession. One of the biggest mistakes of his Presidency.
And we wonder why middle America has a pox on both your houses attitude – and why two populists have done as well as they have so far – in spite of one being a talking arsehole with a hairpiece and the other being a caricature of an old Socialist Brooklyn Jew straight out of central casting.
Just Some Fuckhead
@goblue72: The steely-eyed realists of the Democratic party have spent many years explaining to Democratic voters that the Democratic party can’t do anything for them and nothing is possible. You can’t blame people for starting to believe that.
I mean just the other night, Hillary Clinton literally screamed that single payer will never happen. 80% of Democrats support single-payer and their flagship candidate just shit all over it.
Baud
@Hillary Rettig: I don’t like coin tosses either. Although,
goblue72
@Baud: The umlaut shall rise again.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Betty Cracker: the mainstream media didn’t talk about them this cycle. you’re right. what I had in mind was triumphalism with in social media about their “power” and their “control” of the primary process.
jl
@Just Some Fuckhead: Learned helplessness is a terrible thing. Also a good con if you can profit from it.
I think corporate interests in both parties are running cons. The GOP con is far more dangerous and toxic, but that doesn’t mean their counterparts in the Democratic Party are not running a con.
I don’t believe HRC herself is running a con. I think she has to thread a needle between the corporate consters and idealistic folks riled up be Sanders to do well. For example, she has to figure out a way to bluff Bloomberg out of making a mess.
Edit: in other words, just IMHO, I don’t think HRC really means it when she dumps all over single payer, but I think that is, unfortunately, how she reflexively does politics in come situations.
JPL
@Hillary Rettig: If MSM ignores the democratic candidate, that’s a good thing.
Baud
@JPL: I agree. We really need an alternative communications network. It’s one thing the right does well.
gwangung
@Hillary Rettig:
Actually, no.
El Caganer
@Hillary Rettig: Coin toss? I thought there was a shoot-out if nobody scored after the first overtime. Or am I thinking of something else?
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
The Republicans are in disarray, but they are not total fools. They know their backs are against the wall with respect to Latino votes. It will be interesting to see if they continue to let Trump and Cruz push demolish them by antagonizing Latinos or if they develop some kind of counter-strategy.
BTW, a segment on KPCC Air Talk not too long ago suggested that while the Democrats are trying to court Asian American voters, Republicans are backing more Asian American candidates for political office. One way to try to peel off support for Democrats.
I noted before in another thread that Latino potential voters are younger than other ethnic groups, and it is harder to motivate younger voters (unless you are Bernie Sanders).
But it is early, and the Democrats know what they have to do.
goblue72
@Just Some Fuckhead: Pretty much. And a lot of the base is falling for it. If you accept her argument at face value, under a President Sanders – if he tries to get single payer passed (granted, highly improbable), it automatically means the ACA somehow is repealed. As opposed to the reality, that any GOP bill to repeal the ACA would be vetoed immediately by Sanders. That the WORST case scenario in reality is that the ACA remains as is.
But hey, economic elites control the party. They will throw whatever shit agains the wall they need to squelch any populist demands that would affect the status quo. The unending distribution of wealth upward must not be stopped.
Baud
Speaking of ACA repeal (Kos)
Felonius Monk
@debbie:
I know in my case, it wasn’t a vote for Mondale, it was a vote against St. Ronnie.
NR
@Just Some Fuckhead: But remember, when she loses the general election, it will be the liberals’ fault.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: I would only correct one thing here, white & latino voters. Black voters are now pretty reliable, especially black women. White women tend to vote Republican, Latinos tend to not vote. I have been hoping there’s going to be some level of national reg & GOTV organization soon, but since all I hear is banisters from those who know better what the real issues are, I guess it’s all good if you yell populism.
DCF
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Jon Stewart on Bernie Sanders
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280108631
Just Some Fuckhead
@NR:
Berniebros’ Revenge!
NotMax
@Hillary Rettig
Um, not really.
1/64 chance in the case of six coin tosses in a row, not of six coin tosses in a sequence
The toss of a coin in Ames does not affect the chances of having the same result repeat in Keokuk.
debbie
@Felonius Monk:
Between McGovern and Clinton, that was how i voted (against the worse of the two). In 1992, I remember thinking how weird it felt to have actually voted for the winner.
Just One More Canuck
@NR: if liberals as a bloc don’t vote, yes it will be
Felonius Monk
@Baud: If we could only get House Republicans to repeal themselves, I’m sure PBO would gladly sign the bill.
Baud
@Felonius Monk: That would be a BFD.
chopper
@Hillary Rettig:
not really.
not really.
not really.
David *Rafael* Koch
Another gorgeous gown from the SAG awards (Sophie Bush)
Yesterday Ronda Rousey turned 29. She celebrated by posting this cheeky photo of her in her birthday suit. Phew!! Help me, Rhonda!
Cacti
@Hillary Rettig:
Do you have a nice gluten free tofu buckwheat loaf recipe to go with your conspiracy theories?
chopper
@Cacti:
i think the issue with the coin toss is that the coin was not certified gluten-free.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Hillary won 6 of 6 coin tosses. Damn. I didn’t know that.
The Force is strong with this one.
I mean obviously she won by using the Jedi Mind Trick.
“This is not the ‘Heads!’ you’re looking for”
Cacti
@chopper:
I saw that the Bern was wanting the raw precinct vote totals from Iowa.
I figured with his campaign’s aptitude for accessing data, they already had it.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: So many great ones, it’s hard to choose. But I loved this one:
“Save your buyers remorse for the GOP Congress you bought when you stayed home in 2010 and 2014 to punish Obama for political reality.”
The Obama Diary
I also loved the photo of Barack and family from 2009 – just after all the twitter quotes. Thanks for calling this to our attention.
P.S. Is anyone else getting the awful autoplay ads here on BJ?
goblue72
@Just One More Canuck: Self-identified liberals show up, and they have one of the strongest partisan identifications amongst Democratic voters. Meaning, they vote and they vote Democrat. Liberals are not the problem.
JPL
@WaterGirl: I’m on google chrome and fortunately, haven’t seen the autoplay ads.
I left you a note thanking you for the links about Sugar and Sam.
Brachiator
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Odd. Obama didn’t run on this belief. Neither did any of the other Democratic hopefuls in 2008.
This may be a cynical attempt to attach herself to Obama’s legacy. I like that in a politician. It’s a simple message, that she will defend ACA against Republican attempts to repeal it.
If we somehow magically got a Democratic majority in the Congress, the president (Hillary or Bernie) could advocate changes to ACA or a new system.
But either way, we are beyond the simple BS that Sanders pushes: “we need single payer or some other mystical system that is exactly like other advanced nations (or Europe).” We have ACA, and we know what it provides and what it costs. Any alternative proposal must be compared to ACA and must be shown to better than ACA. It is not sufficient to say, “it is single payer, therefore it must be good.”
goblue72
@Hillary Rettig: No. And I am Bernie supporter. Sanders out-performed expectations in Iowa. He came way closer than the polling had him.
gene108
@goblue72:
But who is running that campaign?
That’s the assumption of the electorate, from what I’ve seen and not the candidates.
Both Bernie and Hillary have similar goals, such as making college more affordable, higher minimum wage, etc.
The difference is Bernie wants to try to re-fight the issues of healthcare reform and regulations on the financial sector, which were hard enough in 2009 and 2010.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I held a caucus here in my house last night, in solidarity. I want you to know you got 100% support. Me, two dogs, two cats. Three males, two females. You got the caucasian vote (me) and the black and brown vote (the 4 others).
Very diverse, unless you count political leanings. We are so liberal/progressive that we still have our Obama decal in the window, where it will stay until the end of time.
Patricia Kayden
@Hillary Rettig: Not really. I assume both camps (Clinton and Sanders) agreed to the coin toss and thus if things went mostly for one candidate, even if unusually lucky, both camps should be okay with that. Perhaps Democrats need to come up with a better way than using coin tosses for the remainder of the primaries.
@Mnemosyne: It shouldn’t be hard for either Democratic contender to excite minority voters since Republicans have been pretty vocal about their stance on voter rights, immigration reform, gun control, the minimum wage and the ACA.
Felonius Monk
@Baud: That would a Biden Double BFD.
Bobby Thomson
@Hillary Rettig:
No, I’m thinking the six-flips-to-Clinton story is total bullshit intended, along with the “virtual tie” nonsense (not present in 2008 when Clinton was not described as being in a virtual tie for second when she came in 0.3% behind Edwards and won more delegates than he) to deny the legitimacy of her victory:
Get that weak shit out of here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
t@DCF: so Bernie’s gonna have us all take turns driving into the Holland Tunnel?
WaterGirl
@Hillary Rettig: There was a Clinton person running the show at the caucus I attended/worked at for Obama in 2008, and that’s who would have done the coin tossing in that precinct.
Before I decide the coin toss results are suspicious, I would have to ask who was doing the coin tossing at the 6 locations.
ruemara
Apologies, didn’t think I’d hit post before I had to deal with something else. We need the voters who feel that they are liberals to commit to vote, whether or not it’s the one with all the very liberal ideas. And yes, it’s not all white women and frankly, a lot of Latinos may be angry or scared enough to show up. But, I can look at the Wendy Davis outcome & Kentucky to say that no matter what the threat or progressive on key issues the candidate may be, if you don’t believe republicans will do the shit they say they want to do, you won’t show up. Just not sure if marginalised populations can afford the fallout from a Dem loss with this current House & Senate plus a constant message from all media outlets that government doesn’t work is corrupt and your voice doesn’t matter.
Baud
@WaterGirl: I appreciate your support! I’m not surprised about the dogs and cats. As I’ve repeatedly said, BaudCare is the only health care proposal out there that covers pets. Some people say it’s too much, too soon, but I say . . . um . . . that it’s not.
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
The Buffalo Bills virtually tied the New York Giants in Super Bowl XXV, NYG 20 – BUF 19.
They even got their own trophy with “Virtual co-NFL champions” inscribed on it. Or not.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gene108:
You assholes told us we’d make them better. When did you imagine that could be done?
WaterGirl
@JPL: I even run an ad blocker, so the bastards (ad makers) have apparently upped their game. Hopefully AdBlock will up theirs, too.
I saw your comment, thank you.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
TOD is the best.
WaterGirl
@ruemara: When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Or, as Maya Angelou said: When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.
Bobby Thomson
@Just Some Fuckhead: make them better, not repeal and replace. So long as we have a Republican Congress, they’d be on board with the repeal but not much else.
goblue72
@Felonius Monk: Good example how if the reason to vote for Candidate X, is because Candidate X is not Candidate Y, that its an uphill battle for Candidate X to win.
At the end of the day, voters want to vote FOR something, not to just stop the other guy. Particularly so in Presidential elections as its the distillation of a large, once every 4 years, national conversation about the direction of the country. And given the power of incumbency, its often a once only every 8 years conversation.
Look, I am a Sanders supporter but I don’t think he’s the best we can do. I just prefer what he stands for than Clinton. Period. But I’m a socialist. That said, I think we can do better. And overall, I think BOTH our candidates are kinda crappy. We’ve allowed the temporary clown circus on GOP side to distract us from the fact that our party pre-decided to coalesce around a retread candidate with a lot of baggage who sucked all the air out of the room too early.
A candidate who has such obvious weaknesses that an old Vermont socialist with a Jewish Brooklyn accent so thick you’d think he was faking it, and who sports an honest to god Doc Brown crazy-man hairdo (along with the world’s frumpiest suit) has managed to actually draw a sizable portion of the Democratic electorate to vote for him. That is just…crazy. But that’s what happens when your bench is weak and you don’t have any other real choices.
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
The ACA is a beachhead in the battle for healthcare reform. Clinton wants strengthen the position we’ve already gained. Sanders wants to retreat back to the water to design an even better landing craft.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Oops, that should have been two caucasian (me and the little white dog) and three black and brown. Without thinking, I had assumed that Henry would identify more with his dog & kitty brothers and sisters than with me, so I counted him in with the black and brown vote.
Of course, I didn’t have a problem with the white lady who self-identified as black, either.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I hope they keep the site up even after Obama isn’t president anymore, even if they don’t add to it.
Although they were smart enough to call it The Obama Diary, not president Obama or whatever, and they could surely keep it going after January 20 next year. I so love seeing those early photos of Barack and family.
Baud
@WaterGirl: One of the advantages of my virtual candidacy and androgynous nym is that I’m able to overcome distinctions such as race and sex and species that the elites use to divide us.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
White people vote Republican except in a handful of states (two of which are Iowa and Vermont). Latinos don’t vote in Texas, but they do vote in California.
I think we’re on the same page when I say there is NO group the Democrats can take for granted in the general election. I want Black women in their 60s (the most loyal Dem voters) to be getting constant reminders of where their polling location is and not take a single Democratic vote for granted.
Just Some Fuckhead
@goblue72:
Yeah, I agree. But until Clinton is allowed to ascend her throne, she’s going to keep running with the vast resources she has at her disposal as the wife of a former president and one of the most well-connected men on the planet and scare off all the other Democratic candidates as a result.
gene108
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Don’t 90% of Democrats support more background checks before buying guns?
Democrats support a lot of things, but they are not organized enough to bombard their Congresscritters with relentless amounts of mail and phone calls to make it happen.
Is a candidate promising single payer someone a potential Democratic voter will crawl over broken glass to cast a vote for in an election? When the issue of raising taxes come up, will these 80% of Democrats protest day and night to demand a tax increase?
Right-wingers will crawl over broken glass to keep “gun grabbers” at bay and to outlaw abortion. The anti-abortion crowd made its bones by harassing people in front of abortion clinics. That level of single minded enthusiasm to push your agenda does not materialize from Democrats.
*******************************************************
On a side note, my mom was so frustrated with the political process she was thinking about sitting out the 2012 election (changed her mind when she saw how much of a prick Romney was). She usually votes in both mid-terms and Presidential years, and has been a reliable Democratic vote for years.
She wondered why Democrats were spending so much time worrying about healthcare reform, when what people needed, in her opinion, was jobs.
She’s had employer coverage, since she started working and has managed to avoid ever being laid off, which is a testament to her hard work.
Anyway, most folks have and have had health insurance in America, even before the passage of the PPACA. Between Medicare and employer sponsored insurance most folks had pretty affordable access to healthcare.
About 10 years ago premiums started going up enough that people started noticing the larger and larger chunks employers were taking from their paychecks to cover the cost of insurance, but the benefits were still pretty good.
Then the benefits started to be carved out a bit here and there, so by 2009, people were not totally satisfied with their employer based coverage, unlike in 1993, for example.
So there was some room to tell people change could make things better for them and even then, President Obama had to promise people’s coverage would not be changed, if they did not want to change.
So as much as single-payer makes sense and maybe favored in theory, it is still an abstraction for most people. And most people have good enough coverage through their employers that they do not want to blow up the system.
As much as more healthcare reform makes sense, it does not make intuitive sense to a lot of people to make it the main focus of policy goals, as they are not in a bad place with regards to accessing healthcare.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: You should win in a landslide then since your appeal is so wide. Hell, you may even have intergalactic appeal.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Excellent point. However… I have assumed that you are male for all these years. Am I wrong? As your Valerie Jarrett, I will find out sooner or later, so you may as well tell me now. :-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
how many of them make a distinction s=between SP and UHC?
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: I like that you’ve got the Berniebots coalescing around you.
Brachiator
@ruemara: RE: Black voters are now pretty reliable, especially black women.
True, but the differences between black men and black women are not huge.
RE: White women tend to vote Republican
Not true in some key states, especially in 2012. And you have to look deeper, taking age and marital status into account. People confuse national numbers with what happens at the state level. And the presidential election aggregates electoral votes by state.
RE: Latinos tend to not vote.
Latinos voted strongly for Obama in 2008 and 2012. They key is to keep Latino enthusiasm strong.
Trump and Cruz are good for the Democrats.
NotMax
@Baud
Until your opponents point out that Baud is a four-letter word and launch a campaign to have FYWP ban it.
;)
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: Thanks. I like that you can’t ever seem to do better than weak passive aggressive bullshit.
Baud
@WaterGirl: I’ve conceded my maleness in conversation here, but I try not to publicize it for the election, to maintain broad appeal. I haven’t revealed my race or species yet.
Felonius Monk
@Baud:
Hmm. You’re not an alien (as in outerspace) or a dog, are you? Not that it matters, just curious.
NotMax
@Baud
broader appeal
It was Palin who (in initial theory) had broad appeal.
WaterGirl
@Baud: How can the Republicans hate you (and get other people to hate you) if they don’t know who you are?
I mean seriously. They hate women.
Black people.Anyone who isn’t white male. Rapists, but only if they aren’t white male. Any human (once born) who isn’t white male. Hmmm, noticing a trend here, and it has something to do with being white and being male.Baud
@Felonius Monk: A little too personal, no?
@NotMax: Broads for Baud!
@WaterGirl: I’m confident they will find a way.
NobodySpecial
Looking at the link to the detailed poll analysis BL gave us in the earlier thread leaves me a bit worried about this election for one reason: The future age gap.
Under 45 broke for Sanders. Over 45 broke for Clinton. Understandable and fine. The question for me is, do you keep those under 45’s engaged when the over 45’s tell them Nothing Can Be Done over and over?
NR
@Just One More Canuck: If the party doesn’t provide a candidate and platform that makes liberals want to go to the polls, that’s the party’s fault. No one else’s.
Nate Dawg
@NR: Dont’ see why there can’t be plenty of blame to go around in that situation, but the argument is so stupid, it’s laughable. The fringe left isn’t going to overcome the deficit of losing the middle if Bernie Sanders is up against the Republican Establishment candidate. So, therefore, liberals turning out to the polls = Republican president versus liberals not turning out to polls = Republican president in a Bernie / Clinton nomination respectably.
Liberals are *so* good at politics! Jesus, it’s annoying being a liberal.
NR
@Brachiator: Single-payer is better than the ACA, as is evidenced by the fact that countries that have single-payer systems spend less money on health care and achieve better health outcomes. The data is out there and it’s clear in what it says. The ACA fanboys just choose to ignore it.
Nate Dawg
@NR: Who are these ACA fanboys? I’ve yet to meet one. There are those of us living in reality, who have a memory of what happened in 2008-2009, and those of us who live in ‘PERFECT FANTASY KILLS GOOD REALITY’ land.
NR
@Nate Dawg:
You are assuming facts not in evidence.
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Thanks! Keep fighting the fight!
NR
@Nate Dawg: I have a good memory of what happened in 2009 and 2010. The Democratic party made a deliberate choice to improve the bottom lines of the for-profit insurance companies instead of taking the most effective steps to improve the American health care system.
Single-payer didn’t happen because the Democratic party was bought and paid for by the insurance companies. It’s time to change that.
Just Some Fuckhead
@redshirt: If you mean keep on giving my opinion, yes, I will do that and I don’t need your permission. Fuck off, thanks.
Nate Dawg
@NR: I’m all for it. So as far as I can tell your plan is:
1. Nominate Sanders
2. Lose the election
3. Repeal ACA
4. ?????
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@NobodySpecial: maybe we could start by not running down the achievements of the last eight years, endorsing Bill Press’s book and bringing Cornel West out on the stump
@NR: I see you wherever you’ve been, you didn’t get any smarter.
goblue72
@Nate Dawg: False dichotomy. Sanders would not repeal ACA. The Sanders option set is either (1) Pass single payer, (2) Improve ACA with single payer attributes, and (3) Leave ACA as is.
Nowhere on that list is repeal ACA and replace with nothing or replace with worse. Nowhere. He is not proposing that. And no matter how many recovering Republicans on this blog say so, its just not true.
goblue72
@Just Some Fuckhead: I believe redshirt lives in Maine. The bar is pretty low there.
Nate Dawg
@goblue72: I’m saying SANDERS LOSES, and THEN the ACA is repealed by the Republicans! They have voted to repeal it how many hundred times? That is what will happen.
goblue72
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ha. Might as well get on with it – will be a one-term Presidency. We are well on the tail end of the current business cycle. Odds for next recession starting this year are still pretty low, but the odds increase pretty sharply for next recession hitting at some point 2017-2018. So come mid-terms 2018, we are looking real good for being in the middle of recession (or just ending one). Not good for the party of the White House incumbent. And without Dems controlling Congress, a President Clinton will get zero fiscal stimulus. While at same time, being completely unable and hamstrung from making the kinds of sharp critiques of the economic elite needed to weather that kind of voter outrage storm. If shit is going to be a stalemate 2016-2018, I’d rather have a White House that spends those 2 year railing hard against the economic elites to properly frame the fight ahead.
Shit won’t be much better rolling into 2020. Either it will be tail end of recession – or more likely, recession will have ended but the recovery will be dead slow, just like coming out of every recession since the early 1990s. It will be an uphill fight – middle income and working class voters will be even angrier than they are now, given that right now is the BEST the job market is going to get this business cycle. Lighting that fire will be a piece of cake for the right GOP candidate. When Bill Clinton ran in 1992, we were officially well past the end of the Bush recession. But it didn’t matter, since job growth was so slow coming out of that recession. Country still felt depressed economically and decided it wanted a change.
We can certainly hope the Clown Car Circus will happen again – but dollars to donuts, the GOP bigwigs have come to Jesus by that point. And the Dems – having rallied behind a centrist corporate candidate – will have no answer. Which will be just awesome for a decennial election given that it will be the election year that decides who controls the state legislatures, and thus who controls redistricting. A redistricting, mind you, that based on current population growth trends, will result in Congressional seats added to the mainly GOP Southwest & Mountain States, while subtracted from the mainly Dem Northeast and Upper Midwest.
But yeah, us folks on the left are the ones who aren’t pragmatic. Because we are so silly to believe this is a long war against the economic elites, and not just some tactical maneuver requiring the sails to just be trimmed.
NobodySpecial
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I get timidity from the over 60 crowd who came to voting age in the 70’s. They spent a good portion of their youth and middle age being pinatas electorally. But that timidity and deliberately lowered expectations don’t help energize younger voters.
goblue72
@Nate Dawg: Got it. I can see THAT argument. But don’t agree. At least given direction of whom GOP is lining up to nominate. Trump would get smashed in a general election. Cruz has the face of a child molester. And Rubio is constitutional incapable of playing the populist.
People are angry right now out there. Really, really angry. We are in the best economic conditions we can possibly muster given how our political economy is structured – and despite that, the best we can muster is if you are a tech worker, Wall Street finance guy or already rich, then you are doing great – with everybody else sinking under a morass of stagnation. I think people are starting to feel that in their bones – and they really want somebody to call it like it is.
goblue72
@NobodySpecial: Certainly. And frankly, I think they deserve even more blame. Folks who came of voting age in the 1970s are the same folks who voted to turn Congress over to the Republicans in 1994. And they are the same voters who continue to deliver Congress to the Republicans. The Me Generation, by and large, were not uber-liberal hippies. They turned into Me Me Me reactionaries pretty damn quick as soon as they weren’t at risk of being drafted anymore.
redshirt
@Just Some Fuckhead: Super!
Mnemosyne
@goblue72:
Please name a country that switched from a for-profit healthcare system to a single payer system with no intervening steps. I’ll wait here while you find one.
Hint: there isn’t one.
NR
@Nate Dawg: Hillary is just as if not more likely to lose the election than Sanders is.
Just Some Fuckhead
@NR: I dunno about that. I know what the polls say but in real life, America is going to be picking between a Republican fruitbat and someone who has sailed the ship of state successfully for many years both as crew and quartermaster.
NR
@Just Some Fuckhead: Ignore the head-to-head matchups; I agree they don’t mean anything at this point. But the simple fact is that no one with Hillary’s unfavorable numbers has ever been elected president in the history of the United States. Ever.
Her only chance is if Trump is the Republican nominee, since his numbers are even worse than hers are. But even given that, he could still easily win. Never bet against a Republican in a race to the bottom.
Just Some Fuckhead
@NR: When is the last time America elected a non-Christian? How about a Jew? How about a woman? How about a candidate older than 69? How about the spouse of a former president? How about a Socialist? How about a billionaire? How about a Canadian? There’s going to be a few nevers put away after November 2016. We just don’t know which right now.