When a fundamentally undemocratic process is a major revenue and influence source for your (small, unrepresentative) state, public perception counts. So in an editorial unsubtly titled, “Something Smells in the Democratic Party,” the Des Moines Register (which, btw, endorsed Hillary) is calling for a full audit:
What happened Monday night at the Democratic caucuses was a debacle, period. Democracy, particularly at the local party level, can be slow, messy and obscure. But the refusal to undergo scrutiny or allow for an appeal reeks of autocracy.
The Iowa Democratic Party must act quickly to assure the accuracy of the caucus results, beyond a shadow of a doubt.
First of all, the results were too close not to do a complete audit of results. Two-tenths of 1 percent separated Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. A caucus should not be confused with an election, but it’s worth noting that much larger margins trigger automatic recounts in other states.
Second, too many questions have been raised. Too many accounts have arisen of inconsistent counts, untrained and overwhelmed volunteers, confused voters, cramped precinct locations, a lack of voter registration forms and other problems. Too many of us, including members of the Register editorial board who were observing caucuses, saw opportunities for error amid Monday night’s chaos.
But I know: Bernie supporters are so annoying.
SP
Remember when President Santorum was found to have won Iowa several weeks after the fact and it revived his campaign and propelled him to a two-term presidency?
The press has moved on to its next shiny object, no one will notice if the official results change (unless they decide some detail from the audit fits their narrative of “Dishonest Hillary”.)
henqiguai
They are. But what’s that got to do with the Iowa Democratic Party’s internal processes, and the Des Moine Register’s concern trolling? Not like those issues are *new* and *unique* to this particular cycle.
Hal
Why bother. Iowa has too much influence on the primaries. Just move the hell on, and even better, hold the Iowa caucus at the end of the election.
Luther M. Siler
On the one hand, yes, this was very close and I don’t see any reason not to do it. On the other hand, the way the Iowa delegate apportionment works, the vote only barely counts at all anyway, so dark mutterings about conspiracies are even more pointless than usual. There’s no actual election here and it’s not like they’re going to suddenly discover one candidate actually got 70% of the vote.
JMG
How would such an audit even be possible at this stage? If the paper or any Sanders supporter wanted to argue the process should be changed, that’d be both common sense and good politics. This is just nonsense.
Ruckus
So the Dems are wrong, not the entire process?
JMS
If this is the sort of thing they are harping about, then yes, yes they are so annoying–Trumpian, even.
Hillary Rettig
@henqiguai: i think we agree that there are suspect motives here – in my case, I think it’s a concern for public perception more than true democracy – but sincere question: what do you consider the difference between a legitimate concern and concern trolling?
Belafon
So, in other words, like every other Iowa caucus that has been conducted since I started paying attention to national politics.
Hillary Rettig
@Ruckus: the Republican process is much simpler – people vote directly for their candidate – so less opportunity for the kind of mess mentioned in the post.
BGinCHI
@Ruckus: Exactly.
Hey local newspaper in Iowa that no one should have to hear from: Your process sucks and you should go to the back of the line in the primary system.
End Primary Segregation!
amk
sanders has moved on. looks like dmr wants a distraction from their disastrous polling prediction this season.
Marc
@Hillary Rettig: Whether it favors their candidate or not, I suspect.
Hillary Rettig
@SP: levels of irony in your comment, starting with that the whole point of the article is that the process may have been dishonest (not necessarily intentionally). Sometimes the narrative isn’t just “narrative”–sometimes it’s facts.
but hey don’t let that change your own narrative.
Germy
http://theimmoralminority.blogspot.com/2016/01/so-just-why-is-karl-rove-helping-bernie.html?showComment=1454436908712
Belafon
I’m kind of curious how you would audit this? “OK, I need everyone to come back to their caucus locations so we can do another head count.” I’m especially curious how you audit a coin toss.
Germy
http://kikoshouse.blogspot.com/2016/02/cartoon-du-jour-on-todays-beyond-over.html
The most advanced political system known to mankind…
Hillary Rettig
@Luther M. Siler: if we’re going to be stuck with the damned caucuses, let’s at least have them be honest.
hate the caucuses, which also have the unfortunate effect of eliminating potentially great candidates preemptively.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think a lot of close races trigger automatic recounts, so, okay. I also think the whole caucus process, especially for a First-in-the-nation that is automatically gonna generate interest beyond its importance, is kind of ridiculous. For either party, especially the Democrats, to give so much weight to such an unrepresentative state is beyond ridiculous, it should be a scandal.
Some of them seem to put effort into it.
OT: Good Lord (just an expression) Obama just spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast. Are these fucking things held monthly?
Bobby Thomson
@henqiguai: this.
Barbara
Hillary, concerns about the intra Iowa caucus process are dwarfed by the overall concerns that this small state ends up having sway that is grossly disproportionate to its population in what is supposed to be a democracy. And to boot, the caucuses don’t even really decide who gets delegates. This is the Iowa press desperately trying to keep Iowa in the news for a few more weeks, generating some additional sustenance from its role as a parasite on the body politic. Bottom line, is that when you design a process to be as undemocratic as this one is you get undemocratic results no matter how accurately you count. Like a little kid having a tantrum, the best thing we can do is stop giving Iowa any more attention.
Bobby Thomson
@JMG: also, too, this.
scav
Oh the talking box heads are so desperate for drama and intrigue, but then so everyone seems to be. For a bunch of unrepresentative of anyone but themselves wandering about gyms / locations, arguing about an eventual candidate and self-generating an approximation of a election. And all over a tie in any practical senses, so it’s really about hype, hyperbole and spin. Between the need for excitement! and narrative flow!, deep-meaning! and conspiracy! I think everyone imagines themselves living in some combination of the X-files and daytime drama. Claims of amnesia, abduction and mysterious probings are next.
Belafon
And let’s talk about perception. Most Democrats I’ve heard from think Iowa is a bad starting point for the nomination. It doesn’t represent the country or the Democratic party at all.
Hillary Rettig
@amk: I wonder about that. if they really do see the need to hedge their bets even at the cost of pissing off the democratic establishment in their state, then Bernie’s doing better than I thought.
Luthe
@Belafon: This is what I was wondering. Maybe next time they should make the precinct captains and such wear body cameras to ensure the accuracy of the vote?
MattF
I don’t have any problem with doing an audit– but, you have to be set up from the start with an audit trail. Otherwise you just add to the confusion. And suppose an audit comes to the conclusion that you just can’t come up with a confirmed answer. What happens then?
Omnes Omnibus
How does one audit a caucus?
Hillary Rettig
@Germy: Even Karl Rove isn’t more powerful than the whole frickin internet, and I suspect his influence would be minor at best. (Although it’s in his devious interests to make it seem YOOGE.)
Voting for Clinton b/c she seems more electable is a reasonable choice, just not the best one in my view.
Marc
@Belafon: Iowa is a legitimate swing state that is small enough for retail politics. So is NH, although that certainly wasn’t always true. Retail is good because it prevents deep pocketed candidates from dominating the process, and appeal to swing state voters is a good starting point for a national candidate.
What other states qualify? Ohio, Florida, etc. are too large to make retail politics practical. Nevada is already early. I suppose Colorado, maybe Virginia at this point, but both are much more populous than Iowa or NH.
Hillary Rettig
@JMG: Baud asked the same. Please remember it’s not the Bernie camp asking for this – they’ve moved on – but the state’s major paper (who endorsed Clinton). I do think, as per my OP, they’re not doing it out of pure concern for democracy, but the Benjamins.
henqiguai
@Hillary Rettig(#8):
Never really bothered to articulate to myself a hard definition of ‘concern trolling’. Always looked at it as some variation of worry-wart, hand-wringing, omg-the-sky-is-gonna-fall, and the-kids-know-about-sex! kind of blathering; usually with no real world import. If their concerns were legitimate, because there is nothing I see as particularly undemocratic about their caucus process, then they should articulate said concerns and propose a realistic approach to highlight and address the issue(s). After all, doesn’t the Des Moine Register sort of constitute the, or one of the, state’s paper of record?
randy khan
Based on the what I understand about the caucuses, I’m not exactly sure how much would be auditable. For instance, there aren’t paper ballots at the precinct caucuses – people stand in corners and are counted. I suppose you could double-check the arithmetic on whatever’s reported, but that’s really about it.
Here’s a better idea: scrap the caucus system entirely and have a primary.
Hillary Rettig
@JMS: please note NOT the Bernieites “harping about” this, the DMR.
David Fud
Approximately zero people would be protesting or concerned if HRC had lost, because it would have fallen in line with expectations. The fact that the (poorly accounted for) vote in the corn-picking paradise of Iowa shucked out a virtual tie, which has been reported that way in every headline, is the kind of angels-on-a-pin argument that I expect from my Facebook feed when I bother, not from Balloon Juice.
Yes, yes, I know, we BJers apparently like to argue over nits. I guess I had better take a political vacation for a couple of months and come back to work for the Democratic nominee in the summer and vote for the Democratic nominee in November. It will certainly be a long general election and the perceived slights by Sandernistas is probably going to intensify for a few months until the thing is over.
Horse race coverage insists on its day, even here, I guess.
Tinare
Yep. The bigger question is why the Iowa caucuses should remain as is at all. (Or for that matter, the entire ridiculous primary circus where it’s all over but the shouting long before they get to a lot of the states anyway.)
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Anything is possible if you believe in revolution.
I have a question for Bernie supporters, how is he going to break up the big banks? How do you define big? and bank?
You do realize that your favorite bugbear, Goldman Sachs is not a bank that takes deposits from consumers and makes loans to them.
amk
wait, possibly dmr got the do-over trump virus?
FlipYrWhig
Fine, the original story is from the paper and not from the campaign, but citing it and framing in this way leads me to say…
If Bernie Sanders had prevailed and Hillary Clinton supporters were saying, “Hold on now, this was really close and we want to raise concerns about issues of process,” they’d be SKEWERED for sore-loser-ness, longing for a “coronation,” and so forth.
Germy
@Hillary Rettig: OT, have you seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGRAonpLeQg
Barbara
I used to work for a window factory for a summer, and one of my jobs was to cut out the frames and drill holes at precise lengths along the way for the muntins (look it up). I would get these precise measurements — like place hole at 33 and 1/16 from the end, but when I tried to use the equipment it wasn’t properly calibrated so I was told to just “eyeball” the measurements. WTF? This is how I feel about the Iowa caucuses. There is no freaking way you can run this kind of caucus process without a lot of what I view as the equivalent of eyeballing the measurements along the way. The point of it is the participation, not the “precision” of the results (which don’t even matter anyway). The best thing they could do is to improve the process going forward but my guess is that will never happen. Too many people want their 15 minutes of power.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: So, like, maybe you shouldn’t have framed the post as the complaint of a Bernie Sanders supporter daring to annoy.
Hillary Rettig
@Barbara: I agree with you overall. However, it’s hard for me to imagine that IA’s best strategy for staying in the news was to publicize their own corruption.
The article is a big deal – for IA! – it impugns their whole system AND the candidate they endorsed. I can’t help but suspect some particularly nasty machinations in the background..
rp
@Hillary Rettig: Well, except for you of course.
NCSteve
@Hillary Rettig: @Hillary Rettig: Maybe the difference between a caucus that is only tangentially related to delegate selection and an election that actually allocates delegates?
Hillary Rettig
@rp: cynicism is cheap and no one is forcing you to play!
chopper
@Belafon:
the sanders people were pushing this horseshit conspiracy theory over the coin flips as well. I guess the point was to make the caucuses look crooked because he didn’t win.
BR
Sorry to say, but the pseudo-trolly posts don’t do Bernie any credit. I was impressed with his performance in the town hall yesterday, and I’ve been neutral so far and generally dissatisfied with both Clinton and Sanders. But I get turned off by things like, fwiw:
schrodinger's cat
You forgot smug and self righteous.
Betty Cracker
@henqiguai: FWIW (hint: zero), I have a different definition of concern-trolling. To me, it’s a deliberate effort to stir up discord among factions in a group for the purpose of disrupting that group’s overall goals. In other words, a less profane, digital-age synonym for rat-fucking. This post doesn’t qualify under my definition, but SRV’s inevitable comment will.
Regarding the larger question about the audit, I don’t know, but I do think it’s past time the RNC and DNC come together in a bipartisan effort to blow up the Iowa caucuses’ “first in the nation” status. I get the “retail politics” angle, but it’s always a clusterfuck, the state isn’t representative of the nation, and it enables so much bad policy to continue to exist (i.e., ethanol). Enough already.
chopper
@BR:
I’m starting to think Rettig actually works for both the Clinton campaign and the meat council.
Iowa Old Lady
I would guess most election systems have weak spots that show up only when the vote is close. IMHO, that’s a good time to examine what you’re doing and fix what weaknesses you can.
Hillary Rettig
@FlipYrWhig: I’m sorry, i thought you were familiar with all internet traditions. pls check out Al Gore is Fat.
permafrost
Oregon primary should be first. We know how to run an election.
This editorial is just an attack on the Democratic Party. Sad that a Sanders supporter is latching onto that.
elmo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Why does he insist on being divisive?
elmo
@Hillary Rettig: I blame Obama.
Hillary Rettig
@schrodinger’s cat: You again! Maybe it’s time to get out of the box. It sounds stressful.
Hillary Rettig
@Iowa Old Lady: the sanest comment on the thread ty
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Why do we even have a National Prayer Breakfast?
amk
Even if bernie had won the vote count or the coin flip flap or whatev, it would have made jacksquat difference in the delegate count.
btw, didn’t the dmr board flip full rethug somewhere in 2012?
Germy
@schrodinger’s cat: To appease the God of Waffles Eggs & Pancakes?
BR
@chopper:
Hah, maybe you’re right.
schrodinger's cat
@Hillary Rettig: Its not stressful at all, it is cozy, but thanks for your concern.
FlipYrWhig
@Hillary Rettig: Right, it IS like “Al Gore is Fat,” which is a signal that the related material IS important while anticipating that someone will dismiss it out of hand with an unrelated smear.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@elmo: that will come, from what I heard he said some divisive things indicating that some religions are not more American than others
FlipYrWhig
@schrodinger’s cat: Because National Prayer Brunch would be too boozy.
Hillary Rettig
well peeps gotta run and get some work done. hope your day is beneficent thanks for chatting
Just Some Fuckhead
@Marc:
In my area of Virginia, when Democratic presidential candidates visit, they go to one of the large black urban churches. When Republicans visit, they have a military veterans rally. No one hangs out at the factory shaking hands or goes to the hundred year old diner that every politician has been going to since time began. Everyone just flies in and speaks to the constituency that already supports them and then flies out.
I don’t recognize the kind of politics Iowa and New Hampshire has. Maybe FlipYrWhig has a different perspective.
Germy
@Betty Cracker:
When I see my cat sleeping comfortably next to my neighbor’s doberman.
schrodinger's cat
@FlipYrWhig: That’s a great idea and the only way I could stomach gasbags pontificating about God and sin and such!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: short answer: Dwight Eisenhower, longer answer in this book that is on my to-read list.
One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.
Iowa Old Lady
@amk: The Register endorsed Romney in 2012 after endorsing Obama in 2000. It was the first time since 1972 that the Register endorsed a Republican.
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Well that’s downright neighborly. But my it’s my in-laws that are in NH. I live in Virginia too.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: what disastrous polling prediction?
Just Some Fuckhead
@FlipYrWhig: Yes, I know where you are. I’m asking you to weigh in on my assessment of retail politicking in our area of Virginia.
schrodinger's cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So Ike was not that wonderful actually. He also gave us Tricky Dick. So do I have to go all the way back to Lincoln for a good Republican President?
Thanks for the recommendation, I will take a look.
Bobby Thomson
@Marc: why a swing state? Why not Adelaware (which used to be considered a swing state)?
Barbara
@Hillary Rettig: I just disagree. This is a case where any attention is good attention. They aren’t fundamentally calling for a fairer process, like you know, a PRIMARY where it’s a lot easier for more people to vote. Instead they want all kinds of people to descend on Iowa again and put lots of revenue into hotels and restaurants. I mean, the whole Iowa gambit is seriously corrupt and if they want it to be fairer there are so many other, better things they would call for than this. That’s why no one should pay attention.
WarMunchkin
So, uh, it’s 2016. Why can’t I vote online yet?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodinger’s cat: heres the authors Fresh Air interview. He’s also a regular on twitter
nutella
@Belafon:
And like the Republican caucuses this year and every other year: Many questions have been raised about those, too! I know I can be accused of both-siderism on this but in this case it is true that many questions ‘have been raised’ about all of the caucuses.
maya
The only results I pay attention to out of Eye oh way, are those of the River City Pool Hall Tournament.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
Well, how do you audit a caucus, anyway?
amk
@Iowa Old Lady: yeah, that’s when I read that the board went rw.
amk
@Bobby Thomson:
+3 hillz, +5 for carnival barker ?
Matt McIrvin
The Iowa caucus is a ridiculous event that should be replaced with a real primary at their earliest convenience, but as far as I can tell, this is all about the completely meaningless metric of who “won”, which will have a tiny effect at best on delegate counts. It drives me up the wall that people have been treating the caucus as a winner-take-all primary.
scav
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim: With great fanfare, over a critical news cycle, preferably with ambiguous results so one can have followups.
sparrow
@chopper: I initially freaked out about this, but only because dishonest press were pushing a story (hastily corrected later), that Hillary won ALL of the coin tosses that night. A Hillary-supporting friend of mine actually told me about it first, and she was mad because she thought the ‘smell of scandal’ would be a bad story for Clinton and democrats generally (and they were certainly chomping at the bit to run with it, as we saw).
Of course the story turned out not to be remotely true.
henqiguai
@Marc(#30):
Show your work, ’cause your logic is weak. With the whole ground game thing, almost by definition, the deep-pocketed candidate can afford to fund saturating the state with surrogates to roust out supporters to the caucuses. And if the bulk of the voting population is comprised of non-agrarian urban and inner-ring dwellers, why would anyone care one whit about the very narrowly focused political opinions of a few thousand plains clod busters and hog farmers?
Cacti
@chopper:
Bernie being the perpetual victim of something or other is great for his fundraising numbers.
But I know: he’s really just concerned about the fairness of it all. ;-)
FlipYrWhig
@Just Some Fuckhead: Oh, right. Yeah, occasionally a candidate shows up at a school auditorium and then shakes hands afterwards.
? Martin
Why? It’s not that the caucus results actually matter. Who won the GOP caucus in 2012? We thought it was Romney, then later learned it was Santorum, but really it was Ron Paul whose delegates actually bothered to show up and would have delivered the state for Paul had he still been in the race as of the convention.
We have no idea who won the GOP caucus in 1980 – they never finished counting. And it’s not like primary votes even need to count at all. In 2008 Florida lost all their Democratic delegates, so they had no say in the Obama/Clinton race, and in 2012 Florida lost all of their Republican delegates.
Primaries and caucuses are not elections in the sense that they are protected in the same way as a general election. They are private party activities that look like elections in a effort to legitimize them. We would all be much better off going with IRV in the general or doing a formal two-tier election than this choreographed bullshit. It’s entertaining, but nothing more.
Oh, and the one thing that both the RNC and DNC agree on is that this system must not change because it’s true purpose is to ensure that 3rd parties receive no oxygen. How many Green or Libertarian party debates is CNN hosting? 3rd parties die months before the general election because of this farce.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: +3 Clinton was within the MOE and the right result, and +5 possum was closer than a lot of other polls had it. Hardly a disaster. That would be Gallup in 2012.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: Bernie’s not going to break up the banks. Anyone who’s an adult supporter of his and not a naive college student knows this.
That would require Congressional action. I still think it’s worth him railing against the banks and that as head of the Executive branch he might be more selective in appointing/nominating heads of the various regulatory agencies which have been captured/neutered in recent years.
Goldman Sachs is still regulated as they have bank holding company status even though they don’t handle primary customer accounts.
You know, it’s not just an emotional appeal in the end. It’s an appeal for law & order and a level playing field. Breaking them up isn’t the only action that can help towards that goal.
Cheers.
singfoom
Count me as a Bernie supporter who thinks the coin flips are a red herring /conspiracy theory. It was close, he did well. Time to move on. It’s disappointing that some supporters can’t let it go, but campaigns aren’t their supporters as has been mentioned in multiple threads…
chopper
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
exactly. seems like a stupid thing to demand. maybe a little sprinkle of bernie’s revolutionary pixie dust will magically make it doable.
sparrow
@schrodinger’s cat: If you’re at the point of insulting a big chunk of the people that you want to vote for your candidate, you’re not doing well. It’s always good to consider how easily politics hijacks our brain (straight for the emotional centers, so says research, and my own personal experience). I say this sincerely, because I like you as a poster but you’re getting downright mean lately whenever it’s about Bernie v. Sanders. We’re more or less on the same side, here.
Bobby Thomson
@sparrow: it’s reached zombie lie status, though. And the whole point was to taint things so that reporters didn’t report a loss.
chopper
@Cacti:
well it looks like the gambit worked anyway.
Captcha
@chopper: Anything else would be a tragedy of epic proportions.
amk
@Bobby Thomson:
by the dmr standard, it was. ann herself admitted the flaws in her polling this time around.
also. too. saying 0.1% is within 3% moe is redenculous.
eta: yes, gallup was so bad in 2012 that they gave up the polling this cycle.
mapaghimagsik
Anything that hurts participation in the process is a problem. I’d rather they made sure the same issues didn’t occur in NH.
schrodinger's cat
@schrodinger’s cat: OK answering my own question
Big = According to assets
Six banks/financial institutions he mentions are
Morgan Stanley
Wells Fargo
Goldman
J P Morgan Chase
Citigroup
BoA
So only 3 of these are banks in the traditional sense of the term. So reinstating Glass-Steagall would only affect 3 of them. How is he going to break them up? Using anti-trust laws? He wants the Fed to regulate them. Wants to use transaction taxes to fund free college for everyone. Has anyone done the math?
Is A (Transaction tax) > B (College Tuition)?
henqiguai
@Hillary Rettig(#43):
Corruption? What corruption. I scanned through the article and I didn’t see ‘corruption’. Auto-concern trolling themselves, yes, but I missed the whole corruption thing. Expressing concerns about how the process functions does not necessarily imply corruption.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: a number less than 3 is in fact less than 3. If you can’t understand that I don’t know what to tell you.
Germy
Just saw a NewYorker cartoon. Two women looking at a Bernie sign.
“Who cares if he’s not electable? Nobody’s electable anymore.”
Cacti
@chopper:
Since the start of his campaign, I’ve faintly suspected Bernie as a Trojan Horse candidate, out to punish the Democratic Party for insufficient ideological purity. Nothing much that he’s done so far has made me change my mind.
kc
@Barbara:
You really think the Register’s editors wrote that in order to help hotels? LOL, okay.
amk
@Bobby Thomson:
By that logic, even a negative number is less than 3. I can tel you that.
Bobby Thomson
@henqiguai: everything is corrupt, man. The whole system is rigged, man. So why vote?
That’s the logical end point of Sanders’ framing. It’s not a way to develop a governing coalition.
khead
Yeah, pretty much this. Plus, there’s no crying in trolling. It’s like baseball that way.
Matt McIrvin
@Bobby Thomson: The thing I’ve been noticing about Gallup lately is that their CEO’s opinion articles reveal him to be a complete wingnut, and every poll about Obama gets spun as negatively as possible in the explanatory text (lately they keep noting that he’ll be one of the least-popular Presidents since polling began, averaged over his entire term in office; this metric, of course, gives extra credit to people like Nixon and the Bushes whose popularity was once high but collapsed as a result of their actions).
I think they should basically be regarded as a Republican outfit, and treated accordingly.
schrodinger's cat
@sparrow: I am not a Hillbot, I don’t think she is miraculously going to solve all our problems. I just find Bernie’s proposals airy and lacking in any substance, its like he takes his voters to be idiots. I am sorry I can’t suspend my judgement just because he is saying what I want to hear.
One of the things I admired about Obama was he always talked to us as rational intelligent people who could handle the truth.
henqiguai
@Betty Cracker(#50):
Thanks, and I do see your point. But I’m just not that invested in most things I see on the ‘tubes of a non-science or engineering nature and even when I see concern-trolling as you describe, I generally don’t care; my <Scroll> and <Delete> keys are *well* worn in dealing with such items. In the real world, and yes I do run into concern-trolling IRL, I’m just as likely to be openly dismissive if not out right insulting.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: no, the relevant number is 2.7 or 2.8, the delta between the survey prediction and the actual result. (Also, I think the 3% was a top line number that didn’t account for viability switches, which would make the error even lower, but I could be wrong about that.). A delta within the MOE is exactly what should happen in a well designed poll.
Cacti
@Bobby Thomson:
Not to mention his knee jerk tendency to attack ostensible allies, and unleash the hive mind on them for not seeing things exactly his way (see: Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Campaign).
One man revolutions don’t go very far.
kc
@Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim:
Read the editorial; there’s documentation that can be reviewed.
Bobby Thomson
@schrodinger’s cat: it turns me off because it’s dishonest. Yet Clinton has the rep as the shady character and the guy whose numbers don’t come close to adding up is the brave truth teller.
Cacti
Now who was it that said the Bernfeelers would be crying foul and conspiracy if their guy didn’t prevail in Iowa?
(raises hand)
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: So then the conclusion of that logic is that anyone who supports Bernie is an idiot? I mean, I prefer Bernie over Clinton. I’ll pull the lever for whatever D that gets the nom regardless.
I just think it’s not worth painting the other campaign’s supporters as either stupid or having bad intent. I know that some Bernie supporters have done so about Hillary supporters, but in the end we want much of the same thing. YMMV.
Preventing a psychotic like Trump or Cruz or Rubio or whichever klown gets the R nom is the goal, no?
Cheers
ThresherK
@Betty Cracker: I always took concern-trolling as something with the patina of Savvy Centrism and ratfcking as something that decidedly needs to be hidden and can’t even pass muster as a hack trying to keep his Beltway Inbred job.
A CNN debate question launched from the base of an “everybody agrees” or “some people say” GOP talking point, which a Democrat must answer to? Concern trolling.
(Frank Luntz does both simply because he’s treated as what we geeks call a Subject Matter Expert.)
Peale
@JMG:
It can’t be. However, you could cancel the results of the caucus and hold a primary! Let’s make sure Iowa stays in the News and after spending a few million, each campaign has to spend the money all over again.
Eric U.
the DMR also endorsed one of the Republicans, so it’s not exactly a reliable Democratic outlet. I used to think the Iowa caucus did a valuable service for the rest of us, now I’m not so sure
magurakurin
@schrodinger’s cat:
This exactly how I feel. Bullshit is bullshit even when it is my brand.
henqiguai
@chopper(#51):
Interestingly, while I may disagree with the intent of one of Hillary’s postings, they can almost always be counted on to start some spirited discussion; and let’s face it, that is why we keep hanging around this joint, innit??. And, as always, if you don’t like the posting, there’s always your system’s equivalent of the ‘next’ key.
joes527
Quickly conceding messy tight races is the best thing to do. Worked for Al Gore in Florida. Nothing bad happened because of that.
Goblue72
@Marc: In a nutshell, yes.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: I am criticizing Bernie’s proposals and pointing out what seem to me as obvious flaws. I have posted stuff directly from Bernie’s campaign website. So there is no MSM filter.
So there are two possibilities:
Either that he has drunk his own kool-aid
or his supporters have.
As for self righteous, the proof is in the comments.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Betty Cracker:
For my definition, you’re missing one important element.
The concern troll pretends to agree with the group’s aims but injects a lot of “not good/pure enough” into the conversation.
It’s a type of ratfucking, but not the whole playbook.
bystander
@Hillary Rettig: The call should be to reform the process going forward not some dumb bandage on a deeply flawed process.
henqiguai
@Hillary Rettig(#57):
Most excellent. Always appreciate physics humor.
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: Ok, that’s fair. There’s plenty of self righteousness all over, so that’s not a surprise.
BTW, I tried to answer your question about the banks upthread before you answered it yourself.
Cheers.
piratedan7
maybe if everyone was given a ballot, and they counted that and then… you know, added them up and perhaps (just sayin’) declared the winner to be the person that got the most votes… who knows, maybe they could try that?
Spinoza is my Co-pilot
@Cacti:
Agree (well, not really on the “Trojan Horse” thing, but very much on the “insufficient ideological purity” deal).
And Bernie supporters — the ones I know personally, anyway — are pretty fucking annoying, primarily on the “insufficient ideological purity” of Hillary and, well, the majority of Democratic voters.
Somewhat like earlier Nader supporters (yeah, that worked out great) they’d rather damn the whole country to a fascist executive if their purity pony comes up lame. Which Bernie would, if we are so unfortunate as to have him get the nomination. No way in hell does this country elect very-elderly Sen. Larry David (Socialist) as president, even if the odious Ted Cruz or (more likely, I think) Marco Rubio is the other choice.
You think the W years were bad (and of course yes they were) wait till you see what the country — the world — is like in that eventuality. Hillary has plenty of flaws (as do we all) but far as I’m concerned she is about the only thing standing in the way of full fascist control in America. Not ideal, not by a long shot, but there it is.
schrodinger's cat
@henqiguai: You again part of it sounded like a personal insult to me. The box comment was funny.
schrodinger's cat
@Cacti: He even voted for an amendment to audit the Fed and proudly boasts about it on his website.
Just Some Fuckhead
@joes527:
I see what you did there.
Iowa Old Lady
@piratedan7: Obviously it’s hard to argue with that, but I have to say I’ve seen the value of establishing a viability threshold and allowing people to make a second choice. If Maine had done that on their gubernatorial ballots, they wouldn’t have Le Page.
Barbara
@kc: I think you should not underestimate how ridiculously important the “caucuses” are to anything that happens in Iowa. The only reason we have ethanol requirements is because of the Iowa caucuses. The reason more states don’t enact laws requiring humane treatment of farm animals is because of the Iowa caucuses. The reason more legislators can’t be swayed on corn subsidies is because of the Iowa caucuses. So the laugh is on all of us who don’t live in Iowa and I, for one, don’t want to spend even one more minute wringing my hands about a process that could be made fairer instantly by just making it a primary.
Matt McIrvin
These primary-race fights just make me depressed because my first instinct is to believe just the negative statements about everybody.
Villago Delenda Est
The Des Moines Register editorial board: premiere whiny ass titty babies of Iowa.
STFU assholes.
CONGRATULATIONS!
So, now every loser wants a do-over of Iowa? Perhaps JEB? can finally get that win!
When your grandkids ask what was the end of democracy in the United States, just tell ’em “Bush v. Gore”. Delegitimized the results of every election in this damn country since, and has made every last one fair game for endless litigation.
Barbara
@Spinoza is my Co-pilot: As I have started to pay attention to Sanders and his most ardent supporters, I believe they typify the kind of person who routinely makes the better the enemy of the best. The constant focus on how Dodd-Frank and the ACA could be better is the clearest evidence. Yes, I agree, but most things could be better (including, BTW, the current Medicare program), but we have this increasingly obviously maddening system that practically locks us into “good enough” for now. Reversing that won’t take a revolution, it will be reversed one Supreme Court Justice, one redistricting and campaign reform effort at a time, just the way the current power dynamics have been imposed — with many of us being frogs who were dropped into cold water as the temperature was turned up. It’s not a mystery and whether you admit it or not, the virtue required is patience not the opposite. Or no one has learned anything from OWS.
Bobby Thomson
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: no, the concern troll pretends to agree but offers “helpful” suggestions that aren’t and/or undermine the group’s basic objectives.
Like the people telling the Democrats to go pro coat hanger in 2005.
Matt McIrvin
@Spinoza is my Co-pilot: I could make just as strong an argument that no way in hell is this country going to elect Hillary Clinton. She’s a woman, who has been the focus of ginned-up scandals and hatemongering in the national media since the 1990s, and is probably almost as loathed on the further left as on the right. Her negatives in personal approval polls are much higher than Bernie Sanders’, who is one of the few candidates in either party who is actually net-positively regarded right now.
Based on conventional electability considerations alone, I’d say we’re doomed either way… except that you can make an analogous impossibility argument about any of the Republicans. Especially the ones who are doing the best in the primary race.
chopper
@Bobby Thomson:
indeed. the guy’s selling political vaporware to his followers knowing full well that there’s no realistic scenario in which he could get any of it passed, yet clinton is the untrustworthy one.
henqiguai
@schrodinger’s cat(#59):
Started back during the Eisenhower administration; conservatives in Congress and religous leaders of the day were looking for a way to congress. It started small and snowballed. See One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse.
Princess
@Matt McIrvin: Agreed. When in fact, it is the positive statements about everybody (well, at least about the Dems) that are more true than the negative caricatures. Both candidates have many virtues; both have some flaws. Both have some idiot supporters (or trolls). Both are supported by people who are thoughtful and have weighed their reasons for their preference. I lean Clinton but I appreciate the perspective of a Bernie supporter like, say sparrow.
Darkrose
To quote the late motorist and philosopher, Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?
The only reason to have a real problem with supporters of either Bernie or Hillary is if they don’t vote for the nominee if it’s not their preferred candidate.
Marcia
I have a better idea:
screw Iowa.
screw New Hampshire.
There’s no excuse whatsoever for not scrapping this system that was a joke a half-century ago in favor of one national primary.
Frankensteinbeck
Jesus fuck on a cracker. I try to ignore this stuff from a commenter, but this is a front pager. Rettig, you should be ashamed of yourself for this post. Do you realize that by throwing your little snip there you are implying that Hillary Clinton rigged the caucus results, and thus her supporters have no right to complain about Bernie’s?
I was mad enough when I thought that was a passive-aggressive attempt to start a fight, but your comments in the thread make it clear you not only know that’s what it sounds like, you actually believe it. Beyond the blatant hypocrisy, do you realize how paranoid and childish that accusation is? You didn’t like the result, caucuses are a sucky mess, so Hillary must have deliberately cheated?
You know why some Hillary supporters here have gotten nasty? Because they got sick of bullshit like this. You just demonstrated everything people complain about in Bernie supporters.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Matt McIrvin: You’d think electability arguments would have died with Obama’s two wins. But everyone knows exactly how things are going to go, including me, and everyone is always right, especially me.
Amir Khalid
Off topic: Guess who is among the nominees for the next Nobel Peace Prize.
WarMunchkin
Seriously guys, online voting? What are the steps to make this happen?
I’ve seen some initiatives for online voter registration – but that’s not the same thing as the ability to cast a ballot without showing up to a precinct, which, again, in 2016 shouldn’t be that big of a leap anymore.
Patricia Kayden
So Bernie Sanders thinks that Democrats have buyers remorse when it comes to President Obama? That’s a hell of a way to reach out to the Democratic base which elected President Obama twice and would do so again if we had that option.
https://www.freespeech.org/video/bernie-sanders-wrote-blurb-bill-press-book-buyers-remorse-how-obama-let-progressives-down
Joel
I’m all for a full audit. It will let Iowa hang on to the spotlight *just a little longer* so that people don’t start wondering why we care so much about the caucuses to begin with.
Well, passive aggression is definitely endearing.
Matt McIrvin
@Princess: I’m still undecided, myself. I am ideologically much closer to Sanders but think Clinton is probably more temperamentally qualified to be President, but that doesn’t mean it’s strategically the best choice for the country for me to vote for Clinton. It’ll probably come down to what I think the race looks like on the morning of Super Tuesday.
Marcia
@singfoom: Taking off points for starting an aggressive statement with “so”.
schrodinger's cat
@Joel: She gets hissy when called out on it.
Just One More Canuck
@Frankensteinbeck: this
Matt McIrvin
@WarMunchkin: Oh, God, you think people are concerned about election fraud now? Online voting would be a Pandora’s box.
Frankensteinbeck
@Just Some Fuckhead:
I have no truck with the electability argument, myself. There are plenty of reasons to prefer Hillary over Bernie. I don’t like pretending he’s better on policy but can’t get the job. If he can get the nomination, he has a chance.
Of course, the evidence is much, much stronger he can’t get the nomination.
Patricia Kayden
@Frankensteinbeck: It appears that Senator Sander’s supporters are going to burn everything to the ground if he doesn’t win the primaries. I’ve come across several who have already stated that they will not vote for Secretary Clinton if she’s the Democratic candidate. This is a recipe for turning over the White House, the Supreme Court, and Congress to the Rabid Republicans who are chomping at the bit to just tear this country apart with their extremism and bigotry.
Sigh.
Bobby Thomson
@Frankensteinbeck: testify.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@schrodinger’s cat:
Also, he had a plan to actually win – by the time Hillary found her footing and got on a roll in the later primaries, it was too late – O’s team had already cut her off from her last best hope of superdelegates. It was Art of War-ish. If Bernie can do the same thing, more power to him and a good indication that he’s really seriously thought this through. Any grown up touting the word “revolution” in this country with a Constitution designed to make both dictatorships and revolutions highly unlikely, makes me fairly confident predicting he can’t.
Cacti
@WarMunchkin:
The above condition already exists in states with vote by mail. Lack of online voting I would guess is a mixture of security concerns plus lack of will from TPTB.
One of the things I found surprising about living in Arizona was how easy they made it to vote by mail and get on the permanent early voting list. Red states generally hate making it easier.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Patricia Kayden:
And this is the difference between childish revolutionaries of all ages, and grown ups. There really needs to be a whole lot of checking of privilege between now and November.
@Patricia Kayden: “Buyer’s Remorse” – written by a white guy about our first black president. Yeah, that’s not coming from a clueless tone deaf place of white privilege at all.
Matt McIrvin
@Just Some Fuckhead: I just think that, while the Democratic electorate is obviously different from the country as a whole, it’s not so different that the ability to win the nomination is a terrible proxy for the ability to win the general election. A really unelectable candidate is unlikely to get nominated unless the whole field is doomed anyway (1972, 1984).
The story’s increasingly different on the Republican side, though up to now they’ve usually ended up nominating someone with theoretical centrist appeal (we’ll see how it goes this time).
Peale
@schrodinger’s cat: JP Morgan Chase is also a “bank.” So that would be four banks and two investment banks. I’m not certain what “break up the banks” means, though. Of the six, JPMC, BoA and Citi would have the greatest impact if broken up so that retail, commercial and investment banking would be separated into different companies. If you counted asset management as another service, Wells and Morgan Stanley would be impacted as well.
I still don’t know if you can break them up if you are allowing foreign financial services firm to compete with them in the US. When the glass-stegal repeal happened, that was the competitive issue. If BNP, AXA, Allianz, ING and Deutsche Bank (and at the time the Japanese banks as well) were going to be allowed in the US to compete for clients, if US banks were going to be competing with them in their own markets, they needed to be allowed to compete, and do do that, they needed to scale up.
I’m surprised MetLife and AIG aren’t on the list.
I don’t think its the size of the banks that’s the problem.
Frankensteinbeck
@Bobby Thomson:
I don’t like to rant. It makes me feel dirty. But that was some Matoko level bullshit, and seeing it on the front page… ugh.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Butting into your conversation to thank you for the rec — I just downloaded the free sample to my Kindle, and I’m sure the full book will follow in short order.
Joel
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well, to be fair, Thomas Jefferson was a big fan of revolutions, including the one in France.
Loviatar
Hillary Rettig (8)
When the person asking the question actually cares about the subject versus not giving a fuck about the subject or the people being screwed over.
—
Concern troll example: the person asking the question decides to leave within 45 minutes after giving a few bullshit responses to pushback
Hillary Rettig front page @ 09:57am
Des Moines Register Calls for Audit of Democratic Caucuses
Hillary Rettig (67) @ 10:41am
well peeps gotta run and get some work done. hope your day is beneficent thanks for chatting
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Co-sign.
Origuy
Make the primary sequence completely objective; the closer the popular vote in that state in the last election, the earlier the primary or caucus. Florida and North Carolina should go first this year, and Utah and North Dakota should go last. Kind of like the NBA draft.
schrodinger's cat
@Peale: Yes thanks. This breaking up the banks business doesn’t even touch the hedge funders and private equity like Blackstone.
Frankensteinbeck
@Peale:
And this is why I support Hillary over Sanders. I think she addresses the actual problems, while Sanders’ proposals are not just unreachable, they are based on attacking symptoms, emotional stuff. I like wonk and technocracy.
Andy
Who is always quoting Charles Pierce pieces here?
Yet lately seems to be very silent of the great writer.
Hmmm….
Cacti
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Obama won twice, ergo Sanders can win too is a facile argument absent supporting facts.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Joel:
Because there were dictators, or as they were called back then, “kings”.
chopper
@Cacti:
but obama was just lucky! right?
WarMunchkin
@Cacti:
Well, I should have specified. I’d like to vote while being a hermit in my house, without having to go to the post office or use a printer or pick up a form. Actually, even further – I’d like to vote, using my mobile device, on-the-go. I think that in current era, it’s not that big of a leap of imagination to think about a world where this is possible.
Security and trust in the system is something that has to be built and earned over pilot programs and repeated efforts to test scalability and vulnerability, just like any other electronic system that we use for, say, transferring our life’s savings to other bank accounts.
Lack of political will is just elite vernacular for The Republicans Said No. That’s going to be true for anything nowadays, so I’m curious about how we’d actually implement online voting – what’s the implementation path to getting there?
gwangung
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Yes. Exactly this. Being able to wage a successful campaign is the perfect answer to the unelectability charge. If he can do this, that shows management skills and an attention to detail that means he would be a good President.
It’s just that, to me, the available evidence suggests that he’s not very flexible or dynamic (he’s even slower than Clinton to adapt), his management team is farm league at best, he doesn’t have a firm tactical plan to get his change done and his team misses details that would help in the short and long term.
Joel
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Well, yeah. I’m with anyone who recognizes how — despite all our modern problems — we are extremely fortunate to be living in this very narrow slice of history.
But the point was more a shot at Jefferson than anything else. Team Hamilton, motherfuckers!
Just One More Canuck
You say you want a revolution? We’d all love to see the plan
Tractarian
@Matt McIrvin:
Gallup may be a GOP outfit, but they did a poll last year and guess what? 92% of respondents stated they would be willing to vote for a woman, but only 47% would vote for a socialist (that’s less than would vote for an atheist, Muslim, or gay person).
We may be doomed, but it’s not because both Dem candidates are conventionally unelectable.
Cacti
@WarMunchkin:
In this case I’d say it’s fairly universal, unless there are some pilot programs in blue districts that I’m not aware of.
But as we both know, if online voting is ever to become a thing, it will have to start in a solidly liberal area where the GOPer presence is too small to thwart it in any meaningful way.
Miss Bianca
@Iowa Old Lady:
As a person who has actually participated in an Iowa Dem caucus, could you enlighten me? Because the way we’ve always done it in (very) rural CO, there really wouldn’t be anything to ‘audit’ – we sit in a room, we take a tally of the total number of folks there, we call ‘to your corners’, each of us who favors a particular candidate goes to that candidate’s corner, we take a nose count of who favors who, then we either aportion delegates according to the state rules, or as we did in 2008, we argue it out till we reach consensus on a candidate, and *then* we report. Sorry to sound so ignorant, but is it really that different in Iowa?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Andy: great writer, funny guy, if he thinks Sanders can get elected on a platform of “higher taxes for the greater good”, I think he’s wrong.
scav
@Frankensteinbeck: There’s certainly a trend and a theme developing, I’d say so much as a general style and I’d suspect intent. Mayo, Causus, it’s all one and all to the same goal. Long thread-count, high-temperature. Win!
bleuh.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Frankensteinbeck: The Clinton supporters were losing their damn minds in 2008 at the prospect of throwing the election away by nominating Obama.
I think it’s generally more muted now because everyone sort of realizes we are in a post-establishment period of politics.
Marc
@Frankensteinbeck:
Alternatively, it’s an expression of irritation against an exceedingly common statement in discussion threads here.
J R in WV
First, no audit of any process can be conducted successfully unless the process was set up with an audit-trail from the beginning. My state agency once was audited by the Legislative Auditors, which is a process that happens to all WV state agencies eventually. There were several issues that, in the report generated after 18 months of work by the auditors, were defined as un-auditable, because of a lack of data to support any audit conclusions.
I think the Democratic Caucus in Iowa is one of the least subject to audit processes I’ve ever read about. There is negotiation, physical head counts after further negotiation, coin filpping for FSMs sake!!
I think the Des Moines Register, a Gannett publication, is the last organization in Iowa, perhaps excepting the Republican party or Chamber of Commerce, in a position to have moral authority in an election. The paper was practically founded by a member of the Hoover administration, and was sincerely Republican for many years. This means that criticism of the Democratic party comes naturally to them.
Enough said. It’s over, put it to rest.
WarMunchkin
@Cacti:
Agreed, which brings me to my actual issue: What do I have to ask my (state or municipal) senators or representatives to do actually. What recommendations can I make to get my local area on the path to online voting? Because I honestly have no clue how to begin turning the proverbial crank on this.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Including me. I thought Clinton was more electable then, and that’s not necessarily wrong. Obama won and I’m glad but possibly HRC would have won.
I still support HRC over Bernie for the same reason.
Cacti
@gwangung:
Using Obama 2008 as a point of reference for why someone else can succeed politically is like using Michael Jordan as your point of reference in a basketball analogy.
Obama was a once in a generation combo of extremely bright, very practical, and having rock star charisma. His 2008 campaign team will be studied for years for basically creating the blueprint of a 21st century political campaign, and integrating the technologies of the digital age to maximize the probability of success.
We’ll not see the equivalent of Obama and the Obama campaign team for a very long time.
Mike J
@gwangung:
For 16 years we’ve been told that Al Gore ran the worst campaign in the history of campaigns, and that was why it was close enough for Nader votes to matter. The guy who ran Gore’s campaign is running Bernie’s.
sukabi
@Luther M. Siler: the point of doing an audit would be to put the party(s) on notice that “Calvin Ball” rules won’t fly any more. That there should be a clear, transparent, auditable process from caucus to final election. Because yes, it does matter in a democracy.
amk
@Origuy:
Great idea. Whichever state voted the most in the last cycle, gets to go first in the next cycle. Might improve the voter turnout.
Iowa Old Lady
@Miss Bianca: The only difference I see is that Iowa Ds use a viability threshold. You have to have 15% of the people present to be viable. My precinct gets 7 delegates, so I always thought that 15% came from having to have enough supporters to equal 1 delegate, but I could be wrong. If your candidate isn’t viable, you get to go elsewhere or try to persuade people to come to you.
My caucus had only 5 O’Malley supporters, when they needed something like 24 to be viable. Of those 5, 2 went to Sanders, 2 to Clinton, and 1 left.
Other than that, it’s the same.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Unfortunately, the Clinton campaign staff were also losing their minds. The infighting and daily drama coming out of that shit show was a huge red flag that convinced me that electability is more about details, process and team work, if you have a good candidate. Which Obama was, in spades (pun intended).
singfoom
OT, I’ll just leave this here: Trump Donald
Cacti
@WarMunchkin:
I don’t know either.
redshirt
No way I’d trust online voting. Banks can’t secure their own web sites. You think something as important as electing the President wouldn’t be hacked? By everyone?
rikyrah
White America’s ‘Broken Heart’
Charles M. Blow
FEB. 4, 2016
………………
This idea of negotiating the terms of sharing the future is an expansive one, on both ends of the ideological spectrum, but it also seems to me to be an internal debate white America is having with itself.
Much of the energy on both the left and the right this cycle is coming from white Americans who are rejecting the direction of America and its institutions. There is a profound disappointment. On one hand, it’s about fear of dislocation of supremacy, and the surrendering of power and the security it provides. On the other hand, it’s about disillusionment that the game is rigged and the turf is tilted. It is about defining who created this country’s bounty and who has most benefited from it.
White America is wrestling with itself, torn between two increasingly distant visions and philosophies, trying to figure out if the country should retreat from its present course or be remade.
…………………………………….
America has a gauzy, romanticized version of its history that is largely fiction. According to that mythology, America rose to greatness by sheer ruggedness, ingenuity and hard work. It ignores or sidelines the tremendous human suffering of African slaves that fueled that financial growth, and the blood spilled and dubious treaties signed with Native Americans that fueled its geographic growth. It ignores that the prosperity of some Americans always hinged on the oppression of other Americans.
Much of America’s past is the story of white people benefiting from a system that white people designed and maintained, which increased their chances of success as it suppressed those same chances in other groups. Those systems persist to this day in some disturbing ways, but the current, vociferous naming and challenging of those systems, the placing of the lamp of truth near the seesaw of privilege and oppression, has provoked a profound sense of discomfort and even anger.
………………………………
Indeed, the current urgency about inequality as an issue is really about how some white Americans are coming to live an experience that many minorities in this country have long lived — structural inequity has leapt the racial barrier — and that the legacy to which they fully assumed they were heirs is increasingly beyond their grasp.
Inequality has been a feature of the African-American condition in this country since the first black feet touched this ground.
Loviatar
@J R in WV:
(my highlight)*
This is why I believed the person who Front Paged this article was concern trolling.
* This statement could be said about the host and many of the front pagers and commenters when it comes to the Clintons.
Frankensteinbeck
@Marc:
Context matters. Throwing it in as the last sentence of an unrelated post is a textbook passive aggressive attempt to start a fight. When the post is about the desirability of a recount, it becomes an implication of cheating – which she confirmed in the thread, thus removing even plausible deniability of innocent intent.
rikyrah
@rikyrah:
Bottom Line:
” All you gotta be is WHITE”
doesn’t go as far as it used to.
when you are used to it being enough for EVERYTHING, and think you were ENTITLED to it being enough…
and, now, you have to compete with folks who NEVER thought that they were ENTITLED to ANYTHING….
you don’t know how to cope.
rikyrah
when I heard that they were declaring winners based on ‘toin cosses’
that means that there WAS NO WINNER on the Democratic Side of the Iowa Caucus.
pseudonymous in nc
Maybe the Des Moines Register ought to editorialize about getting rid of caucuses, and also about Iowa being too white and rural to be an appropriate first vote in the nation?
Bartholomew
I appreciate the attempt to give Bernie supporters some representation here, I do have a lot of things in common with many here … but I’m wondering if there is a site for engaged liberals that doesn’t have so many self-described (and acting) ‘leftists’ ? I am finding it’s not a positive for me to listen to the fling chatter since my mind isn’t going to change.
I believe Obama has done well as President, mostly by granting the limits of intent in this environment, but I’d be misleading other commenters to say I’d ever vote for another Clinton under any circumstance. It amazes me to be at this point.
I do have reason, though it all seems washed down the memory hole for many. When ‘our side’ was in the streets against the Iraq War, Mrs. Clinton voted with our supposed political enemies and decided, on her own volition, to become part of one of the worst military debacles of modern history. She threw away my support for her Presidency with that vote. In the most important decision possible Hillary Clinton did the worst by not only screwing up badly, but because she betrayed ‘her side’ to do it.
So, being honest, I’m not going to ever vote for that family again, and truthfully I’m feeling distance from the Democrats for putting me in this situation. I read comments and wonder. Just my .02
joes527
@Patricia Kayden: Do you honestly think that in a hypothetical universe where Hillary loses the nomination (again) there wouldn’t be be an angry contingent willing to burn it all down (again)?
Party unity my ass.
But, I’m sure bern-bros invented emo-venting so lets use that as the criteria for selecting the nominee.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Well, c’mon, she’s Just Asking Questions based on Hillary’s long history of corruption with Whitewater, Travelgate, the Rose Law Firm records, that Chinese spy Wen Ho Lee ….
Seriously, it’s like there’s a whole group of Democrats who never got the memo that every one of those scandals was fake. Every. Single. One.
Peale
@sukabi: Ummm. Yeah. The effect of doing an audit would be that it would be expensive and impossible. Audits are possible when there are records and papers and something to audit. Audits get really time consuming and expensive when there’s nothing there and audit needs to be completed. First you have to create records. That’s not cheap.
I hate the Iowa caucus. I really do. I loathe it. I think its stupid. It makes me judge Iowans poorly as I am tired of hearing about their state and it’s arcane process and rituals for 18 months straight each election cycle. But the practical effect of an audit at this point would be to divert funds from the Iowa Democratic party that it could probably spend elsewhere. I don’t see a crime, but I see the audit as punishment.
Sucks. It should be a primary. The caucus is stupid. But its over. Change it next time and move on. Like if you’re going to have a caucus, set it up in advance so that it can be verified and audited.
redshirt
@Bartholomew: If the possibility of President Cruz or Trump doesn’t motivate you, you’ve got your priorities misplaced.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Frankensteinbeck:
Emotional stuff is what the Republican base needs, wants, craves since they’re haters, hence Trump. I just can’t even, thinking about a national election with both sides’ campaigns appealing to emotion – that’s a loser for Dems. Republicans have the appeal to emotion locked up. The Dem needs to be a rational, calm, wonky grown up.
Mnemosyne
@Bartholomew:
I’m actually okay with the people who can’t vote for Hillary based on her Iraq vote. That’s a valid reason, and people who still feel that way should say that’s why they can’t vote for her.
It’s the people who mutter darkly about “corruption” and “scandal” but can’t give any examples that aren’t right-wing bullshit who drive me nuts.
Joel
@joes527: A number of supporters for either candidate will make a lot of noise about not participating in the general election, and a few of them will. And it’s our loss (in entirety) that we count on a small contingent of Cartmans among the Democratic electorate. But the same is true for some Republicans, too, even if they’re not quite as loud about it.
Miss Bianca
@Iowa Old Lady:
Thanks for the reply! So…uh…is there any actual “paper trail” or whatnot to audit in there? Cuz…not in ours.
elftx
But I know: Bernie supporters are so annoying.
You defeat your own purpose with all the butt hurt ya know
singfoom
@Bartholomew: So, I’m a Bernie supporter and all I can say in response is that I think you should vote for the D that wins the nomination.
Remember, when turnout is high, Ds win, when it’s low, Rs win. We need all the turnout in the general that we can possibly get.
Just consider that you’re voting for the Rs if you refuse to vote for Clinton in the general if she wins the nomination. I’m sure you don’t want them to win.
gwangung
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Bears repeating. Humans have this tendency to concentrate everything into one magic person, who can wave their hand to get things done. That’s not how things work in the world. There’s tactical and mechanical ways to build a machine to get things done collectively. And in order to defeat the “establishment”, you have to build a machine that’s at least as robust (and probably much stronger). That’s sine non qua for success.
Barbara
@rikyrah: rikyrah, except all that stuff about the coin tossing was all made up. Or there are different versions, some of which Bernie won 6 times and some of which Hillary won 6 times and no one is too sure.
Seriously, the whole experience is so corrupt and chaotic that people who were actually there don’t even fucking know what happened and if they didn’t know it then how in God’s name are they going to “verify” it by recreating the chaos?
This for a right to win a state that profits from the cruel treatment of farm animals and requiring the whole country to be locked into environmentally stupid requirements on ethanol and corn subsidies.
Iowa Old Lady
@Miss Bianca: Not that I know of.
Mnemosyne
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I would slightly disagree with you — I think Democratic voters do respond to emotion, but they respond to positive emotions, not negative ones. The right wing made fun of “hope and change” in 2008, but it got Democrats to turn out.
One of my worries with Sanders is that he doesn’t understand that fear only makes conservatives show up to vote. Fear makes Democrats stay home.
Ultraviolet Thunder
New Deal Democrat at The Bonddad Blog has been doing some very careful analysis over the last year on how economic conditions in the year before a Presidential election affect and predict the outcome. I won’t summarize here because I can’t do justice to it, but he’s cautiously optimistic for the incumbent party in the White House at this time.
http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2016/02/forecasting-2016-election-economy-it_4.html
It’s actually fascinating reading.
Miss Bianca
@Iowa Old Lady:
Well then, in the name of Heaven, what is the Register actually calling for? An impossibility. The tone of that editorial sounds really passive-aggressive to me, in that case: “Here, Iowa Democrats, DO WHAT CAN’T BE DONE BECAUSE REASONS.”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mnemosyne:
I think that is what instinctively turned me off to him during his Iowa post-caucus speech. He seemed old, tired and angry and without a positive message.
Frankensteinbeck
@joes527:
I don’t think there’s been a single Hillary supporter here declaring they won’t vote for Sanders in the general, so… yeah, I honestly think that. Hillary has grown in the last 8 years, is a different candidate with a different appeal and has a different base.
@joes527:
Invented? Hell, no. But they’re the ones who just took a dump on the front page.
lol
@singfoom:
Bernie’s campaign repeatedly laid the groundwork for screaming conspiracy before, during and immediately after. They get zero credit for “moving on” now that the train they built and loaded is barreling down the hill.
They’re *still* claiming they’re looking into “discrepancies”… which of course they refuse to specify or release. It’s funny that they didn’t bring up any of these “discrepancies” when they say down with the IDP and Clinton campaigns to go over the results.
But here they are, still putting it out there that the results are fishy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
I would say that too – not so much emotions, as appealing to our better angels – our common humanity and the moral high ground as being in our interest – iow, enlightened self interest. More head and heart, less viscera.
nutella
It’s weird to me that Sanders supporters are unhappy about Iowa.
Sanders did really really well, much better than expected. He got 50%! That’s an excellent performance for a newcomer to presidential candidacy in his first primary.
It’s similar to Rubio and the MSM celebrating his third-place showing. The reaction to the event seems to be appropriate to some other event that didn’t happen.
It’s ridiculous that Rubio is celebrating. It’s ridiculous that Sanders is not.
boatboy_srq
Late to the party, but:
1) Concurring with others: how do you audit a caucus? What kind of paper trail exists? IIRC, not much.
2) Agreed that this narrow a result should trigger some kind of recount, but audit seems a bit formal.
3) The print media deserve more support, but really, DMR?
4) This is important for Iowa… but unless either Clinton or Sanders somehow didn’t qualify for the ballot, we’re only talking about a handful of delegates either way (out of 270 to win nationally), so this is a big deal for the rest of us, why, exactly?
5) Have they taken a side on the GOTea contest? tRump wants a fresh caucus after Cruz’ admission he told caucus-goers that Carson was dropping out, which actually makes tRump’s complaint sound valid (without it it would just be another bad hair day). If they want us to believe the histrionics aren’t unhappiness with just the Dems they ought to weigh in on the other half of the event.
6) Are they actually saying that inexperienced personnel and overwork for the staff are an issue here? The Dem turnout was good, but there’s been much better in the past. If any caucus personnel were overworked this time around it was on the GOTea side.
7) And speaking of the GOTea (in 5 & 6), is it possible that what they really want is a GOTea recount/audit/revote, and they’re just too ch!ckensh!t to say that out loud?
Villago Delenda Est
@WarMunchkin: We’ve got that in Oregon right now. Vote by mail.
Cacti
@Bartholomew:
If you’re looking for hand holding, you’re at the wrong blog.
Our national politics are a zero sum game. In each election, somebody’s going to lose and somebody’s going to win.
If you’re going to take your ball and go home because you didn’t get everything your heart desired in a candidate, the nicest thing that can be said for you is that you’re short-sighted and petulant.
Bigger things are at stake in a national election than your personal feelings, special snowflake.
lol
@Barbara:
Basically, roughly half the precincts used the Microsoft app to report results (and the coin flips) and the other half did it the old fashioned way. Bernie winning nearly all the flips is from the MS records while Clinton winning “all” the flips from the latter is from anecdotal reports that Maddow then used to incorrectly say were the margin of victory.
singfoom
@lol: Yeah, I saw the statements by Pete D’Alessandro and it’s embarrassing if you ask me. Even if they look harder, it’s not going to change anything.
They were mealy mouthed. Should just accept the results and move on. Thanks Bush/Gore 2000.
It was a hanging Hawkeye!
Mnemosyne
@boatboy_srq:
Since L’il Donnie is throwing a temper tantrum and the DMR endorsed Romney in 2012, I suspect this is a Both sides do it! ploy. Democrats should be smarter than to fall for it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: All media inventions to sell product. Which is what the Des Moines Register is doing.
The American media needs to be purged by fire.
Frankensteinbeck
@nutella:
It is. I’m impressed by Bernie’s support and pleased by the strong current of progressivism he’s shown in America. I think the point of disappointment is that it’s an excellent performance for a newcomer, but it’s not a performance that will win him the nomination. It pretty much guarantees he won’t win the nomination, since this was one of his strongest states and Hillary’s lead has been solid over most of the nation.
singfoom
@nutella: Maybe I’m the outlier, but I’m a Sanders supporter and I’m happy about Iowa. He didn’t win, but it was close. From what I’ve read his ground game wasn’t as good as Clintons, which makes the small difference even more exciting.
It’s always about expectations vs. reality. Some people expected him to blow Clinton out of the water in Iowa and when it didn’t happen, they have sadz. Get up, move on and keep going.
Cheers.
joes527
@Frankensteinbeck:
Easy while she is the favorite by a mile. No reason for them to consider any outcome other than the one that they want.
If something were to happen that made a Clinton loss in the primary a real possibility you would hear a different tune. (cite: 2008)
Sondra
I am just a little sick and tired of hearing the media hype about the wholesomeness of Iowa and it’s snow white christian values. There are plenty of strip clubs and massage parlors in Des Moines – I just looked it up on Goggle and there is a website listing all of them. They are not all farmers out there and they are not all real conservative or real evangelical either. They may claim to be but they are really MINOs.
That’s Moral In Name Only of course.
That’s Moral In Name Only.
rikyrah
The GOP’s Crump Cancer
Donald Trump and Ted Cruz are two faces of the same phenomenon—the rise of conservative populism with a mean streak—empowered by the GOP’s purge of the center-right.
When asked to assess the presidential prospects of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, Sen. Lindsey Graham famously said, “It’s like being shot or poisoned. I think you get the same result, whether it’s quick or takes a long time.”
Republicans breathing a sigh of relief because Cruz beat Trump in Iowa are rejoicing at the prospect of being poisoned. They may have dodged a bullet, but there’s a long-term critical condition they can’t afford to ignore.
Because Cruz and Trump do not represent different visions of the Republican Party so much as different manifestations of the same kind of conservative populism that gets weak-kneed watching a strongman preach with fact-free certainty from the right side of the “us vs. them” divide.
Frankensteinbeck
@Sondra:
So, conservatives and evangelicals.
rikyrah
But but but…I thought they were all big and bad…
READ: Federal Indictment Against Oregon Occupiers Unsealed
ByTIERNEY SNEED
Published FEBRUARY 4, 2016, 12:13 PM EST
A federal grand jury in Portland has indicted Ammon Bundy and 15 other anti-government protestors who took over a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon, according to an indictment filed Wednesday and made public Thursday. The occupiers were each indicted on a single count of conspiracy to impede officers of the United States.
Cacti
@nutella:
Bernie needs to raise more money going forward.
Bernie raises the most money when his supporters believe he has been wronged by “the establishment”.
Apply Occam’s razor to the above and you have your answer for why The Bern is aggrieved about Iowa.
Joel
Anyways, Booman covers this story more competently, and gets to the bottom of the problem with the caucuses to boot.
henqiguai
@Loviatar(#172):
Not necessarily. Dropping a posting for the
rabbleinmatescommenters torage aboutrant aboutpiss&moan aboutplay with and then have to step out is perfectly legitimate.boatboy_srq
@Sondra:
Sure sign of a FundiEvangelical Xtian metro area. See: Tampa, FL; Atlanta, GA; Charlotte NC; Houston, TX; among other places. The greater sin with Fundie Xtians isn’t the act itself; it’s getting caught in the act.
gwangung
@joes527: No, no. I don’t think so. Because most Clinton supporters actually did vote for Obama.
EconWatcher
@Hillary Rettig:
I share your confusion about the definition of “concern trolling.” I was called a “concern troll” on this blog for expressing deep disappointment and betrayal over the other Hillary’s Senate vote on the Iraq war. The Iraq war vote.
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
Trump drags Republican racism out in such an open way that it’s hard for non-Republican whites and impossible for conservative minorities to hand-wave away. He removes plausible deniability. Reagan created that deniability, and the GOP has used it as their coalition’s foundation, not to mention the excuse to be the mean shits they want, for thirty-five years. That deniability needs to be killed, so I want Trump to be the face of the GOP.
EDIT – Romney put a big crack in the deniability of the asshole plutocracy aspect of the GOP, and I think Bernie is reaping rewards from that now.
Iowa Old Lady
@Sondra: Present company excluded, I assume.
Belafon
@joes527:
You might want to go look up the history of the PUMA. One of the things those actual PUMAs found out was that, on election day, there were very few of them.
A lot of us Clinton supporters were Obama supporters in 2008. And the one thing about pragmatism, which a lot of Clinton supporters claim to be (like I do), is that it’s easy to recognize how un-pragmatic it would be to have a Republican in the White House.
Edited for clarity.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: It should still be reinstated, IMO.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Pop open Google News and this is the first headline:
“A Party Divided Going Into Tonight’s Debate”
It’s like a fucking clock. Election year, early Feb, time to run out “Democrats in Disarray!” Works every fucking time.
Darkrose
@Joel: I am not throwing away my shot!
CONGRATULATIONS!
@rikyrah: The difference there is that I think Trump might be electable. He knows how to pander quite well.
I am quite certain Cruz is not, for pretty much the same reason.
Mnemosyne
@Sondra:
You know what else Iowa is, though? Solidly Democratic. Obama won there in both 2008 and 2012. Which means all of those heartlanders don’t hate the Kenyan Muslim like the MSM keeps claiming.
Villago Delenda Est
@Peale: It’s banks that are for profit entities that is the problem. Because they toss fiduciary out the window when it comes to more profit.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah:
I think the way Charles Blow ended the article says it all for me:
“Last month, the MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes tweeted: “This campaign is starting to feel more and more like a long, national nervous breakdown.” For white America, I believe this is true.”
I’ve been trying to ignore a Nice White Lady on another list who was snarking about “maybe I’m just old but why do these PC people up here in Canada want to make everyone learn about First Nations history?” So, it’s not just white (United States) America, evidently, that’s having a problem with being forced to come to terms with the legacy of white supremacy…
Keith G
I don’t know if Iowa should be replaced as a starting point or not, but I do like the fact that the media costs can be so low.
And even though I am not a Sanders supporter, I do like the fact that insurgent candidates who are fighting against the political establishment of their party would have a better chance of making the case in the states like Iowa than in other locations. As a political party that wants to continue to grow and improve and not grow stagnant and calcified, this is a very necessary attribute.
I can think of many “representative” states in which Barack Obama would not have been as successful in 2008 as he was in Iowa. Just think history might have unfolded differently since it was the Iowa win that brought many Black voters off the sidelines and onto the Obama side of the campaign.
This would be an interesting topic for a non open thread sometime. Have the people who wish to ditch Iowa make their best arguments for how the primary system should operate. They should also need to include some thought to the unintended consequences of such a change.
henqiguai
@Mike J(#196):
Which may explain why Bernie’s campaign is using Cornell West for his black outreach and a rapper called Killer Mike.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Bartholomew:
You’re a straight white guy, I’m assuming. Must be nice to know that the many kinds of privilege you enjoy allows you to remain so pure and untainted.
Mnemosyne
@Joel:
@Darkrose:
Seriously, you guys, the culture is running away from the Republicans right now. First you have the enormous touchstone of “Hamilton.” The next Disney animated movie is an allegory about prejudice, and a pretty nuanced one (one big plot point depends on a character failing to understand intersectionality. Honest.)
The Republicans are fearmongering, but I don’t think it’s falling on receptive ears. It’s not their time.
henqiguai
@sukabi(#197):
Well, since Primaries and Caucuses are a private matter of the two political parties, they can effectively respond ‘go pound sand’.
Matt McIrvin
@Bartholomew: If Hillary is nominated, you’re seriously going to help throw the general election to the Republicans because she voted for the Iraq war in 2003? Most of these guys are promising many more wars.
Are you in a swing state?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@henqiguai:
As Propane Jane said in one of her tweets – it’s insulting that Bernie’s privilege can allow him to campaign with Killer Mike, while President Obama couldn’t. It’s a killer point.
Villago Delenda Est
@rikyrah: Those are the federal charges.
I think Harney County is going to hit them with a bunch more.
schrodinger's cat
@Paul in KY: By it you mean Glass-Steagall right? I agree, however its just a start not the end game.
boatboy_srq
@Iowa Old Lady: You snark way too well to be “wholesome”… ,-)
joes527
@Belafon:
You might suspect the same thing would be true about the about the mythical bernbros.
But, some random person on the internet declared: Bernie or bust, so …. TO THE FAINTING COUCH!
Gvg
Caucuses aren’t audit able unless they are pre designed to be and this one isn’t. An after action analysis is for redesigning the next one is and might be a good idea if it’s done within the state and doesn’t draw too much attention from outside because a large number of non Iowan viewers think the whole process is nuts, unfair, and shortchanged our own states. Too much negative attention from outsiders might cause Iowa to lose first in the nation status which they won’t like. Oh and that doesn’t have to be both parties. Learned in 2008 that some primaries and caucuses are on different dates for the 2 parties. The primary process is party controlled not state or Fed.
I prefer a primary.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@joes527:
Not mythical. I’ve seen them swarm on twitter into every single time line – it’s overlapping with the gamergate/red pill bullies, now with a new old white man avatar. I assume it’s a small subset of Bernie’s supporters, but it’s not mythical.
Frankensteinbeck
@Keith G:
That’s a really good argument. I’ll think about it.
TallPete
Amazing how so many commenters here complete miss the point. It’s not about finding a few missing votes for Sanders -who cares about a few delegates. No candidate “wins” a caucus state anyway. It’s about the fact that IA fights tooth-n-nail to retain it’s first Primary state status. Fine. Good for IA, but then both parties should demand they clean up their process. As I recall there was plenty of controversy in the R caucus last time around. It looks bad.
Belafon
@joes527: I suspect most supporters of either candidate will vote for the other person. On the other hand, the people who spend time on political blogs arguing Bernie or bust (or Clinton or bust) tend to be a bit more fanatical than the average population, which is why we argue with them.
Frankensteinbeck
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I was late in the thread you linked her tweets, so I don’t know if you saw: I was IMPRESSED. I think she nailed every point. I especially appreciated her pointing out why conservatives hate the federal government.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
I think both Trump and Sanders are getting pieces of the anxious white vote, and I think the most obnoxious GamerGate-style Bernie supporters are in that group. I know that all of us here are rational, politically involved voters, but there is definitely a group out there that would vote for either Trump or Sanders because they care about image, not policy.
joes527
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
So very analogous to those “PUMAS” who were really just republican ratfuckers all along.
Gamergate/red pill bullies aren’t voting D in the general no matter what. They are totally invested in pulling down Hillary, but if that should actually happen, they would drop Bernie in a second. The best possible outcome with that crew is that they won’t realize it is election day ’till it is a week or two past.
The noise that comes from them is just that: noise.
Peale
@EconWatcher: It depends, really. Its like one of those “family gathering” movies where everything seems to be tense and fine until someone brings up that grievance and the truce is broken. All we had to do was get through a meal, say goodbye to the corpse that brought us together, and then go back home. Maybe we’d start to move on and understand the importance of family again or reengage with the true meaning of Christmas or something. But the positive happy or somewhat bittersweet ending isn’t going to happen. Because Aunt Millie had to have a little bourbon and speak the truth. It’s not really concern trolling…its behaving like soused aunt Millie that’s a problem.
The Iraq vote happened in 2003. We aren’t going to get over the fact that a lot of Democrats who are still in positions of authority favored that war and voted for it as did a majority of Americans at the time.
Obama worked out fine in 2008 because he could be free from the taint of the 2003 betrayal and eventually appealed to the other members of his eventual coalition who had been reluctant to back an unknown at first. But you have to remember there were a lot of primary voters in 2008 who voted for Hillary which kind of indicates that “The Iraq War Vote” didn’t matter to them. Most of those voters still exist. They did vote for Obama but not because he was “clean” of the War vote.
Maybe we should all just go with Bernie because I doubt he voted for the Iraq invasion. But this issue is going to come up again and again until the last of the living democrat officeholders from 2004 die off.
A vote for Hillary in 2016 is not, however, a vote in favor of the war in 2003.
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Their antics have gained the attention of The Guardian and the BBC.
Definitely not mythical. Their percentage of Sanders supporters is questionable, their existence is not.
FlipYrWhig
@Keith G:
Has that been true other than for Obama ’08? I guess it depends on who gets to be called an insurgent candidate. But I’m also not sure what would make IA a particularly apt test-bed for an insurgent campaign. Usually the thing Iowans and New Hampshirites say about their states is that you have to do retail politics well. Do insurgent candidates do retail politics well? I don’t know about that. Bernie Sanders for one seems to be more of a rally-at-the-podium guy than a handshake/backslap/selfie guy.
Matt McIrvin
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Salon also regularly publishes articles by Bernie-or-bust people arguing that progressives should throw the election with a Hillary nom, and they get a lot of attention every time. Was this happening with the PUMAs as early as the Iowa caucus? I guess every four years somebody has to write the chin-stroking article about how it would be counterintuitively better to lose this election, which is a related genre.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I did see your comment. I think she’s really sorted things out for me – clarified my thinking. Socialism will never be acceptable to racists, ever, and white liberals need to internalize that, and face it. Really face it.
gwangung
@Cacti:
Nor is the lack of engagement of the Sanders campaign with the black community. I think the impulse to be defensive about it, as opposed to vowing to fix it, is damaging.
Lynn Dee
I don’t know that I find Bernie supporters annoying. But I am beginning to find Bernie annoying.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: I don’t know about the match between Sanders supporters and the anxious white vote, though. The most vocal Sanders supporters I know are relatively affluent lifelong liberals who are excited about the idea that someone is out there swinging a big stick against corporations, banks, and billionaires instead of being triangulating and pro-corporate like Hillary Clinton, who they didn’t like in 2008 and didn’t like in 1996. That’s also the “buyer’s remorse” crowd who thinks Obama stabbed them in the back under the bus and negotiated against himself. Other segments of the Sanders vote–like people much younger than that–may well have different thought processes.
Mnemosyne
Also, too, here’s a quote from Chernow’s book that I think helps explain our cultural moment (even though it was written a decade ago):
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
I’ve thought the Trump and Sanders campaigns have been opposite sides of the same coin for a while now. Populist campaigns speaking to the lost status anxiety of white people. The primary difference is that Sanders isn’t an overt bigot like Trump.
However, the longest standing complaint of minority voters re: Bernie seems to be that he speaks more forcefully and listens more attentively to the concerns of white voters.
gwangung
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Oh, just picked up on her. Some very good points about race and how some aspects elude from the majority, even with the best intentions.
boatboy_srq
@Keith G: @Frankensteinbeck: The trouble with Iowa is that the Dems are left-of-center and the Rethugs are b#tsh!t-crazy. End result of the caucuses there so often looks like 1936 Spain. The trouble with replacing it, is replacing it with which state? South Carolina is off-the-charts whacko, New Hampshire hasn’t had a good run of late, Maine (of the “As Maine goes, so goes the nation” fame) derped up LePage twice now,… there are very few states where both Dems and Repubs have a decent shot at evaluating both parties and picking decent candidates, and far too many opportunities for selecting DINOs on one side and genuine fascists on the other.
FlipYrWhig
@Lynn Dee: I would like to know what other Senators (and their staffs) have to say about what it’s like to work with him. I get a little bit of a Glenn Greenwald vibe from him, like he would get impatient very quickly when people persist in disagreeing with him even after he’s explained what he thinks and why.
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
I think the Trump/Sanders overlap voters are a microscopically small demographic. I think the voters who value their belief that they’re independents so much they SAY they’d vote for either are a tiny group just big enough you can find them for anecdotes. Anybody who votes for Trump has to be able to make peace with the open white supremacy that is his most publicly visible trait. Not much crossover there.
@joes527:
I agree with this completely, and never thought the ‘take my ball and go home’ crowd were Bernie’s base. He picked them up, but they’re a tiny unrepresentative fringe.
A study of MRAs recently uncovered one single thing that surprised me. They’re 90% 17-20. I thought they’d lean way older. Other than that, it was what you’d expect: Overwhelmingly Republican, against rights for everyone except straight white cismen.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@gwangung:
I hate the word intersectionality – it sounds so liberal artsy sociology class 101 – but when it comes to race and class that’s what it is, and it’s hard to untangle from the white perspective. I’m white, but once you see how race trumps (!!!) class every time, it can’t be unseen.
SatanicPanic
Someone notify the Des Moines register, Iowa Caucus is over, no one has to care about them for another 3 1/2 years.
ETA- added moar snark
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: The coin tosses were for really, really local caucuses involving small numbers of people, that were ties (or effectively ties). That doesn’t necessarily indicate that the state caucus as a whole was a tie. Clinton would probably end up with more national delegates even if she’d lost them all.
Mnemosyne
@joes527:
This is one of those moments when I can tell you’re a white dude, because you apparently have never met a sexist white guy who votes Democrat. Or, more likely, you didn’t realize they thought that way when you talked to them.
I’ve been a woman and a Democrat for a long time. I’ve met them both online and IRL. They exist.
And then we get into the racist/liberal overlap, which is its own fuckedupedness and brings in both men and women …
gwangung
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: It’s hard even for non-white people, sometimes. It took me seeing a white progressive friend of mine just prattling on about racial matters without a clue on how privileged and narrow he was.
El Caganer
@boatboy_srq: Pennsylvania might work, though we’re a pretty odd lot here.
Paul in KY
@Mike J: Gore & his team did run a mediocre campaign. If Shrum is running Sander’s campaign, that’s not good, IMO.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
oh FFS.
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Ruemara was talking about this, too, the other day, but out here in California we have a lot of what I’ve been calling NIMBY Liberals. They’re all in favor of equality, as long as it never affects them. They’re fine with their little Emma having non-white friends, as long as none of them get into the college they wanted Emma to attend. They’re fine with having non-white colleagues and subordinates, but they can’t handle having a non-white boss.
I see a lot of those same people supporting Sanders. The danger isn’t that they’ll vote for Trump, but they might stay home.
MomSense
I have caucused in my state and I’m not seeing how it is possible to audit a caucus after the fact. That the result was so close doesn’t really matter since the process is to determine delegates. This is not a one vote = one delegate situation.
It sounds to me like the Sanders campaign didn’t do enough advance work to thoroughly understand the rules and to make sure their volunteers were adequately trained. They had plenty of time to prepare.The revolution will not be disciplined?
FlipYrWhig
@Paul in KY: Not Shrum, Tad Devine. BTW, if Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager had been involved in the Viktor Yanukovych campaigns, I feel like we’d be hearing a lot about it.
chopper
@MomSense:
this story sounds vaguely familiar. if only i could put my finger on it…
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
Jump on the bandwagon or get run over by it. When was the last time they did a Broadway performance on the Grammys?
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
Right. We have our own bigots, but they won’t vote for an OVERT white supremacist with an R after his name. Say they’re thinking about it, yeah.
Cheap Jim, formerly Cheap Jim
@kc: OK, I read it. Seems like they’re talking about notes taken by the caucus workers. But why would there be any discrepancy? If you wanted to hijack a vote, wouldn’t you make sure you didn’t write anything correct down?
Cacti
@Mnemosyne:
The problem I see most often from white Bernfeelers, and even from Bernie himself is the assumption that they speak from a universalist perspective, rather than a white racial one. White is the default setting by which all things American are measured. Consequently, this particular part of privilege gives white speakers a sincere but false sense of objectivity in any policy discussion, coupled with the equally false belief that only the minority speaker speaks from a racial/ethnic perspective.
chopper
@Mnemosyne:
OMG! seriously?? well jesus titty-fucking christ, the culture really is “running away from the republican party” and this musical proves it!
now we just have to figure out how “FODMAPs” fit into this and we’re golden.
Tim C.
@Cacti: This realization was one of my “wakeup/change in self-identity moments” in my life. I’m unwilling to throw down labels and accusations at anyone who is arguing for their candidate on the Democratic side as I think we are in meta-meta-meta-supporter woo land already. But I will agree that I have to have this conversation with my mother all the time. She’s not a bad person, but her own middle-class-white-everyone-is-like-me lens is… sometimes difficult.
Paul in KY
@schrodinger’s cat: Glass-Steagal was what I meant. Agree also there needs to be more done, but I would like to see that one reinstated.
chopper
@Cacti:
this^this.
LanceThruster
A big FU from me to the commenter here who talked about ‘pointing and laughing’ at those questioning the integrity of the process.
Paul in KY
@joes527: Notice young Bartholomew has not posted any more comments.
Cacti
@Tim C.:
Same here.
It wasn’t until I was well into adulthood that I had my “OMG, I’ve been doing this my whole life” moment of awareness.
Paul in KY
@FlipYrWhig: His wiki page does not inspire confidence, unless we’re trying to elect a PM somewhere.
Mnemosyne
@chopper:
Hey, if you get motivated by wallowing in despair, have at it, but a lot of Democrats (including me) are much more motivated by the idea that things will get better if we act, not that they’ll get worse if we don’t.
Frankensteinbeck
@Cacti:
I was raised in 80s South Carolina, and then Kentucky, so I’ve known all my life I’ve had to fight the pervasive background racism that I was poisoned with. It took Obama’s election and the absolute fucking freakout of ‘White America’ for me to wake up to just how bad and widely spread racism is in America. I’ve gotten a good look at how bigotry, especially race based, especially anti-black bigotry underpins the whole Republican movement. Trump’s candidacy is only a surprise in that I wasn’t sure how long it would take a presidential candidate to drop the dog whistles.
Matt McIrvin
@Frankensteinbeck: I think there are lot of Trump voters who will say they are Sanders-curious, but they probably won’t actually vote for a Democrat. Kind of like the way Rachel Maddow will tell you she’d support Kasich if you put a gun to her head and ordered her to pick a Republican.
Bobby Thomson
@amk: Judge Stark once wrote a note recommending that the primary dates be randomly assigned through federal regulation.
geg6
@Bartholomew:
Did you vote for Kerry? If you did, you’re not the purity pony you pretend you are. Would you have voted Biden?
Bernie voted to protect gun manufacturers from any liability for their product. Those guns have killed thousands and thousands of people, maimed thousands and thousands more and torn families apart. And yet, you plan to vote for him.
You say you can’t vote for Hillary because of her Iraq vote, yet you don’t seem to care that Hillary would never make that same mistake twice or that, perhaps because of you and people who think like you, we will end up with a president and congress from the party that wants to start a war with Iran.
You need to re-think your priorities. Because the one you claim is most important does not actually seem to me to be most important to you. It sounds to me like you just don’t like Hillary and are looking for a reason to sound like you are making a logical choice.
geg6
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not okay with it. Did this person vote for Kerry? Did this person vote for Biden as VP? If so, they are lying about being completely principled about this. This is the excuse they all give when they want to sound like their Hillary hate is really just principled and a rational thing based on the Iraq vote. It’s not 99.99% of the time.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: Ernst?
Paul in KY
@geg6: I think ‘Bartholomew’ is just a drive-by asshole or a Repub jerk doin some trollin.
geg6
@joes527:
This is just bullshit. Do you think that the only people supporting Hillary this time around are the same people who supported her in 2008? I hate to break your bubble, but I was an Obot from very, very early on. A rabid one, who worked her ass off in 2008 to beat Hillary for months and months.
But now I support Hillary. And I will work hard to try to get her the nomination. But I will have no problem pulling the lever for Bernie if, by some miracle, he wins the nomination. I won’t do it very enthusiastically nor with the expectation that he will win. But I’d still crawl over shards of glass to do it.
Ksmiami
@Bartholomew: Then thanks on behalf of the millions of people who will be pushed further to the brink with unwanted pregnancies, low wages and no healthcare under GOP control. Not to mention the country was in a very different place post 2001 and Democrats were facing down a wurlitzer of rt wing media painting them as doves. No candidate is perfect, but the platform matters more. I mean have you listened to the other side? The GOP offers nothing but death and destruction to anyone not in the 1%. And I speak from a place of privilege, but I refuse to condemn America to rt wing destruction cause a candidate didn’t listen to all my concerns. Jesus WTF?
catclub
@Cacti:
This finally came through a little bit more for me in an interview with the Imam of a mosque in Iowa.
“I just want to live my life and not always have to explain myself to whomever I run across. It is exhausting.”
This is what I never have to do. Explain myself.
Lynn Dee
@FlipYrWhig:
My take too. I agree with much of what he says, but I find I just don’t want to hear it from him. He seems so self-righteous and utterly without a sense of humor. I’ve never thought “good sense of humor” was something I looked for in a candidate, and I don’t want to start now! But Sanders just seems like a bookkeeper in a green eyeshade who’s been looking at the numbers for waaaayyyyy too long. I find it helpful to avoid listening to him, and just read what he says. Goes much better.
chopper
@catclub:
or, as louis c.k. puts it, “i’m a white male. you can’t even hurt my feelings.”
Lynn Dee
@geg6:
That’s me too. I was and still am an enthusiastic Obama supporter. I admire him tremendously and look forward to hearing what he does after he leaves office. Now I support Clinton. With less enthusiasm, I must admit, and I do agree with much of what Sanders says. I’ll vote for whichever of them gets the nomination, but I will vote for Clinton in the primary.
Lynn Dee
@joes527:
You’re absolutely wrong about that. I support Clinton but will vote for whoever gets the nomination. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell I would vote for a Republican or a 3rd party candidate, nor will I sit the election out. There’s much to protect, much that could be lost, and hopefully a lot that can be done.
Lynn Dee
@rikyrah:
Do you know how the coin tosses worked? There were apparently 12-13 coin tosses, of which each won about 1/2. (Only the Clinton wins got much airplay “for some reason.”) What’s more, the coin tosses were in precincts with an odd number of local delegates — where the candidates tied exactly, they flipped for that one “odd” delegate. Finally, the delegates we’re talking about are not from the 1,400 or so “state delegate equivalents,” but rather from the 11,000 or so local delegates who will go to the state convention in the spring and vote for the state delegates who will go to the national convention next summer.
LanceThruster
http://thestockmasters.com/files/u1/officer-barbrady.jpg
tones
@magurakurin:
I think you are both missing the point…
Bernie and supporters never say he is going to do these things -everyone knows they are impossible.
The thing is this, if he can get a coalition like Obama had of grass roots support, then UNLIKE Obama he / we could keep the pressure on through those same people.
For example, for the last 10 years or so whenever the American people are polled as 70+% wanting something – we still don’t even get so much as lip service for it.
Imagine now that if President Bernie went on TV to explain the all out corruption, said “we are going to try and stop this with your support” and then floods congress with email, letters and phone calls [like say 2 or 3 million of them on any given issue] then it will be much harder for them to completely ignore it.
No one says Bernie will be able to stop them it is Bernie that says we the people can unite and put an end to this nonsense.
Respectfully,
NotoriousJRT
@Hillary Rettig:
This question can appear legitimate but its answer has no real meaning to anyone w/ common sense. Concern trolling. The paper might have been better off making this challenge a year ago. Just my opinion.
NotoriousJRT
@Hillary Rettig:
You are the one who made the throw away (I guess) comment about Sanders’ supporters in your post.
different-church-lady
I know how this ends: Tom Brady gets suspended for another four games.
different-church-lady
@FlipYrWhig:
The difference, of course, being that Bernie would probably not just make shit up.
amused
@tones: Bless your heart!
Paul in KY
@different-church-lady: I wish!
Bartholomew
@Mnemosyne: “I’m actually okay with the people who can’t vote for Hillary based on her Iraq vote. That’s a valid reason, and people who still feel that way should say that’s why they can’t vote for her.”
Thank you, Mnemosyne, I appreciate your respect. I don’t know how we can support public servants that defy their supporters, though I realize others aren’t seeing it this way.
@singfoom: “So, I’m a Bernie supporter and all I can say in response is that I think you should vote for the D that wins the nomination.”
Thank you, singfoom … I would agree in almost any normal situation I can think of. This is why I’m (hopefully quietly) explaining my situation, because things aren’t normal imo.
@Cacti: Bigger things are at stake in a national election than your personal feelings, special snowflake.
There are no larger stakes on this earth than preventing corporatist war in my view. The “special snowflake” business is the leftist insult monkey poo flinging thing that I’d like to get away from. I could lay down a few in response to you too, so I understand the impulse.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:“You’re a straight white guy, I’m assuming. Must be nice to know that the many kinds of privilege you enjoy allows you to remain so pure and untainted.”
Coster, you are wrong in your assumptions. The key here is how you immediately used your made-up opinion to convince yourself of your righteousness in attacking me: THAT is also what the Righties do, which is why I don’t wish to take part in a Left/Right mirror image of each other; it’s self-annihilating.
@Matt McIrvin:If Hillary is nominated, you’re seriously going to help throw the general election to the Republicans because she voted for the Iraq war in 2003? Most of these guys are promising many more wars.
I will not ever vote for any politician that votes for war against my strenuous objection, and I am unsure of why you think the ‘next time’ it will be different. But you know, maybe there IS some talk or speech that Senator Clinton made to address her anti-war supporters that she abandoned and let be slagged on her behalf. Maybe this heartfelt effort is why so many Democratic supporters are now so reassured, and if this is the case, I am VERY willing to listen and try to see what others see and get in line.
I am serious. I’d be willing to hear any attempt at reconciliation the Senator made with her anti-war supporters after she joined our enemies while under fire. I am under the unhappy impression that she (and many others) are simply assuming my support due to fear of Bad Cop, and so I am gently informing the best political group I know of about this error in judgement.
@Paul in KY:“Notice young Bartholomew has not posted any more comments.”
I’m not young, I’m rather old actually. I can’t sit and comment all day, I am interested in responses though. I’m trying to follow up now.
@geg6: “Did you vote for Kerry? If you did, you’re not the purity pony you pretend you are. … Bernie voted to protect gun manufacturers from any liability for their product. … And yet, you plan to vote for him. … Hillary would never make that same mistake twice or that, perhaps because of you and people who think like you, we will end up with a president and congress from the party that wants to start a war with Iran.”
I never claimed to be a “purity pony” thanks. I was told Ralph Nader was responsible for the war with Iraq, for this exact same reason of not agreeing with folks like you, so it’s a known tactic at this point. Lefties are just a mirror-image of the righties, sorry to state reality to a spectrum player, but there it is. Personally, I hold officials who vote for war responsible, unlike you. Sadly, geg, you are an example of someone who I’ve read and liked. I am sorry to have made you upset.
Paul in Kentucky @geg6: I think ‘Bartholomew’ is just a drive-by asshole or a Repub jerk doin some trollin.
Your thoughts are in error, Paul. You included ‘geg’ to initiate the pattern of affixing a label preparatory to gang attack. In a few more poo flings, I’ll get irritated enough to start flaming and then the monkey show will reconvene. You don’t seem intelligent enough to realize this whole shit-show parade isn’t working (and yes I do feel a hint of irritation. Keep flingin’).
@Ksmiami:Then thanks on behalf of the millions of people who will be pushed further to the brink with unwanted pregnancies, low wages and no healthcare under GOP control. … I mean have you listened to the other side? The GOP offers nothing but death and destruction to anyone not in the 1%. And I speak from a place of privilege, but I refuse to condemn America to rt wing destruction cause a candidate didn’t listen to all my concerns. Jesus WTF?
Thank you for attempting dialog, Ksmiami, I appreciate it. I am committed to trying to explain my position, if others will hear it. I’m not a low-info voter, I share your concerns against the new Axis Right on home soil, and I’m standing up for my country whether you see it or not. I am hardly privileged, Ksmiami, if that is your guess. And a candidate not listening to my concerns got upwards of 1/2 million people killed in Iraq, and counting. Before that vote, there was no way to truly know whether Senator Clinton would abandon her base to support an illegal imperial war, but now I know so I will not vote for her. Frankly I’m unhappy at the Democratic followers who are setting things up to force me into what I will not do, but I would guess that’s clear at this point.
* * * *
OKAY. I hope I followed up with folks who commented. I will say that, maybe, the problem *both sides* seems to have is dealing with a liberal who means it … but since liberalism is the principle of human rights, I find it strange to have to argue issues of basic values with supposedly liberal folks.
But anyway, I’m not a troll and I’m not going to demean folks here. I respect the passion and shared values as espoused. If I can contribute without upsetting others and myself, I will, thanks.