“Whatever we deserve, that’s what we’re going to get” — Ben Carson on the next president, on Fox just now
— Benjamin Armbruster (@benjaminja) February 9, 2016
Terrifying, but quite possibly accurate. https://t.co/yPbos4DKkT
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 9, 2016
Apart from all that, what’s on the agenda for the day?
It'll be amazing if this election comes down to old white guy from Queens vs old white guy from Brooklyn, both advocating 1930s-era policies
— David Roth Singerman (@singsingsolo) February 10, 2016
Not sure how anyone can listen to Trump & Sanders state their policies and think their voters could support each other.
— Tony Fratto (@TonyFratto) February 10, 2016
Most voters don't have opinions about policies. They have feelings about issues. https://t.co/jPiVciTela
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) February 10, 2016
@TonyFratto Wrong. Some want Sander/Trump for policy but would take the other just to burn down the establishment.
— Robert Wall (@robert_wall) February 10, 2016
Probably a banal point, but I'm struck by how many young Bernie organizers I've met today got activated by the Occupy movement.
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 9, 2016
Friend in Africa regarding the American election: "Doesn't it feel like the only way this ends is in a coup?"
— Rukmini Callimachi (@rcallimachi) February 9, 2016
So who’s going to win the Trump-Sanders election?
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 9, 2016
Bloomberg https://t.co/xIxbe9ikzl
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) February 9, 2016
Important:
Delegate counts
Iowa
Clinton 27 Sanders 21#NHPrimary
Clinton 13 Sanders 13— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) February 10, 2016
I really want Massachusetts to build a wall and make New Hampshire pay for it.
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 10, 2016
Mustang Bobby
Trump: “We’re gonna make America so great, you’re gonna be so happy…” unless, of course, you’re black, Latino, a woman, or gay. Then all bets are off.
JPL
@Mustang Bobby: I’m shocked that Trump is on track to become the nominee of the Republican Party.
satby
Snow day today for the schools, yesterday we took an unofficial one and the girls went sledding for the first time ever. That lasted only 1/2 an hour, but they had fun.
OzarkHillbilly
So after all the hype and hooyah we have 74 committed delegates with thousands more to come, Hillary is slightly ahead (not counting super delegates) but her campaign is finished?
Where’s my crack pipe?
Baud
@JPL: Why?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: She should quit for the good of the country.
Baud
Remember when that magazine would only cover Trump in the entertainment section. Good times.
JPL
@Baud: Because I’m naive.
@satby: That sounds like fun. The streets are covered with a layer of snow, so it’s slippery out. As soon as the sun comes up, it will melt. Certainly, not enough accumulation to sled on.
MomSense
Apparently Rove’s super pac American Crossroads spent 4.3 million running ads against Clinton in Iowa (FEC numbers aren’t in for NH yet) repeating Sanders’ lines against her. Hmmm.
Major Major Major Major
It’s very short, but the newest chapter on my Fish Story is here
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
I’m so behind. I better get reading. How have you been feeling?
Baud
Watch Jeb! come back and win it all at the end of the day.
Major Major Major Major
@MomSense: Much much better, thanks for asking. After stopping a couple of bad meds and switching to some other ones I got, I would say, ten times better. Just got to work out the logistics of life now, I suppose. Divorce, eviction, etc., but it’s all looking up oddly enough.
Zinsky
@Baud: I predicted to my wife in 2013 that Jeb Bush would run for president and probably win in 2016. I still don’t think it is out of the realm of possibility. Never underestimate the treachery or underhandedness of the Bush crime family.
MomSense
@Major Major Major Major:
Really happy to hear you are feeling better but wow you have to deal with some big stresses. I know what it’s like though to realize that being healthy is more important than the rest and you will be able to do what needs to be done if you feel strong. Sending toughness, resourcefulness and some hugs your way.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
This is so wrong. Sanders voters are constructive. Trump’s voters are destructive. One group is animated to make college free. The other is animated to kick out brown people.
That’s why Sanders himself is grossly wrong when he says he can win over Trump’s voters. They would rather starve then share a slice of the pie with blacks and browns.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
@MomSense:
I’ll appropriate MomSense’s comment since she’s more eloquent than I am.
Mustang Bobby
@OzarkHillbilly: This is good news for John McCain.
MomSense
Woah, not sure what happened but in the middle of my comment I had some matrix like stuff happen and somehow it went back to my post in progress which posted twice with no way to edit. I’m not going to try to bend spoons with my mind now, but that was weird.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Major Major Major Major:
Ah the comma, a fiend to all. One of my favorite headlines from a checkout counter magazine
hmmmmmmmmmmmmm perhaps, commas, are, not, so, evil
Glad to hear things are looking up. Seems like a lot of shit to deal with & health issues can easily take the fight out of a person when it is needed for so many other battles.
amk
@Baud:
35 mil. 4th place. #jebmentum baybee.
satby
@MomSense: @Major Major Major Major: What Momsense says! Take care of yourself, there will be better times ahead! More virtual hugs!
raven
Bernie knows the bank is open!
http://www.cbsnews.com/live/video/bernie-sanders-plays-basketball-on-nh-primary-day/
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@JPL: You know why you’re in shock – cuz you’re a good person. A good person can’t fathom something so ugly.
For the past 35 years, beginning with Reagan, the republican base has been fed steadily increased concentrations of hate to the point where Trump’s naked racism and nativism was inevitable.
satby
@JPL: the combination of lake effect snow plus normal winter weather has predictions of 1-2 inches an hour with whiteout conditions happening suddenly. So not a day to send school buses out. Ours won’t be melting for a while, so more sledding will be possible as soon as it’s safe to drive. It’s funny that as the days get longer and spring is in sight we get some of the worst weather of the winter!
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Too true. I thankfully don’t have that problem.
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Commas divide us.
Baud
@amk: Since Trump and Cruz don’t count, that’s really second place.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I believe he was talking about people who say they would support Trump or Sanders. The only connection between the 2 candidates is the belief that they would blow up the establishment so the conclusion to draw is that people who say they would vote for either is that they are so angry at the way things are they can’t think straight – GOOD JOB GOP!
I wonder how angry they could get if one of them were elected. The President is not king & there are so many things they can’t do. Expectations for Obama were too high imagine what expectations would be with Trump or Sanders. But it confirms my opinion from years ago that if we stayed on the course set by the GOP in the 90s we would end up with a raging demagogue leading us to hell. Trump is that guy & Bernie would be the last stop on the road to him. Bernie can’t make college free or get single payer because there is no way the GOP will let those things happen. Trump could easily get WWIII out of the goopers.
Matt McIrvin
I think most of the “Trump or Sanders” people are basically Trump people who are vaguely Sanders-curious, not Sanders fans who will vote for Trump if disappointed. Some of them may be crossing over to vote for Sanders just to destroy Hillary Clinton.
satby
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
And this is why this election is so much more frightening than previous ones for me. Yes, I have memories of the rancor of the 60s, but the hate wasn’t as publicly acceptable or reported positively by media; revulsion against the worst of it helped the civil rights era. Now the media helps promote the normalization of racism.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Hillary’s big mistake was promising NH voters free fur coats made from 101 dalmatians.
That was a little tone deaf.
Baud
I wonder if Trump is the nominee, the GOP will try to secretly try to sabotage him in hopes of being in a stronger position in 2020. I can easily see Cruz doing that.
BillinGlendaleCA
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: More like 52 years, starting with Goldwater.
BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: What is this “snow” you speak of, it was 94 degrees here.
JPL
@Baud: Cruz would sabotage his own family, if he thought it would help him win.
@Major Major Major Major: What Mom Sense said. Please take care.
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: Followed by George Wallace and Richard Nixon in ’68. Both were the preamble to Reagan and the “take our country back” movement, and they got their mojo from Fr. Coughlin and Charles A. Lindbergh in the 1930’s.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby: I’m reading “Nixonland” now.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: I have that on audiobook. Haven’t started it yet.
Matt McIrvin
Anyway. My hunch is that Sanders-Trump may be a bigger Democratic win than Clinton-Trump, but Trump has a larger probability of winning Sanders-Bloomberg-Trump than Clinton-Bloomberg-Trump. And a Sanders nomination is the most likely scenario for Bloomberg to drop his little poison pill.
Unless somebody gently takes the guy aside and explains to him that he’d be stabbing a Brooklyn-born Jew in the back to hand the election to a fucking Nazi.
(How this whole thing became such a New York City subway Series is baffling in itself.)
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Steve Schmidt is openly comparing Lil’ Marco to Dan Quayle.
It’s one thing for our side to say it, but when they’re saying it, it means he’s permanently disqualified.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Cruz would do that just because he can.
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: The election of Reagan in 1980 was when I started buying the green label Jack Daniel’s. Cheaper, but needed more of it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Hard to predict. Both Sanders and Trump as nominees have no historical precedents.
Sherparick
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Well he dreams that he can disabuse them of what he considers “their false consciousness” about their tribal identity.
It is interesting to read that twitter stream of both conservative and liberal media elites and see how out touch they are with how the hurting and angry most of the country is after 35 years of “neoliberalism” to use a European left term that Naomi Klein adopted. I saw this Pew survey on the web last month that shows that outside the coastal cities and the counties benefiting from the fracking boom, most counties saw their medium income drop the last 15 years. http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2016/01/22/fewer-manufacturing-jobs-housing-bust-haunt-many-us-counties
So I would tell Tony Fratto that perhaps ideas from the 1930s are back in fashion because most people in the U.S. are experiencing an insecurity and depressed conditions very close to the 1930s.
As a result there are a lot of angry pissed off people in places like Maine, for instance. Enough to elect an asshole like Paul LePage Governor of Maine twice (and in Maine, there are not really enough Black people for them to the “Other,” it is their down and out white neighbors that these people are pissed off at). Ditto for Wisconsin and Scott Walker and Brownback in Kansas. Because their policies are absolutely awful and destructive. But close to 50% of the population likes ot that way because they feel they are going down and want to take someone with them.
OzarkHillbilly
Texas prosecutor officially disbarred for sending innocent man to death row
I didn’t think that was possible.
Major Major Major Major
I also saved a woman’s life with the Heimlich last week, she was choking on an olive and I just walked over and did it and made sure she was OK and sat down.
Yay
Baud
@Sherparick: That doesn’t bode well for us.
@OzarkHillbilly:
That 4.1% number is horribly high.
FridayNext
I only lived in New Hampshire for a couple of years a decade ago, but I think I am on firm ground when I state that New Hampshire would LOVE to build, and pay, for a wall to keep Massholes out. Assuming there was a built in drive up window to continue selling them cheap liquor.
But maybe things have changed.
EconWatcher
@OzarkHillbilly:
Last time I checked, suborning perjury was a crime. But I’m probably just dreaming to hope that prosecutor will be prosceuted.
I spent four years working on a pro bono death penalty habeas case in Texas. The prosecutor got the death penalty by quoting the bible to the East Texas jury to tell them it was their Christian duty to impose the death penalty. I was shocked out of my mind, but the local Texas lawyer I was working with told me, “They do it all the time.” I looked into it. She was right.
Forget it, Jake. It’s Texas.
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
They’ve also been fed a vision of messianic Christianity. If you could bear to listen to John Kasich last night, who took his 2nd place win as a divine sign, you heard him proclaim his campaign as the Way to the Light. He urged his listeners to slow down, look their neighbors in the eye, and hug them. By gum, Beaver Cleaver-Land was just around the corner!
The only difference between Kasich and Cruz is Cruz is slimy, underhanded, and dishonest, while Kasich is a well-meaning but bumbling Puritan. Trump’s not the threat her; it’s Kasich and Cruz who pose the real danger to the country.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: That is just the proven innocent. We all know the real number is much higher.
lol chikinburd
@Major Major Major Major: Yay
debbie
@Baud:
How could they not sabotage themselves doing this? They would need to commit another 8 years of total obstructionism. Who, other than the GOP’s top officials, would advocate for this?
Major Major Major Major
@lol chikinburd: i believe her reaction was *shudder* *thanks, i guess* *shudder* *finish tea* *leave*
your reaction is much classier.
msdc
@OzarkHillbilly: I’ve seen other tallies that give Sanders a slight edge in New Hampshire delegates, but it’s kind of amazing that Clinton was able to keep it as close as she did considering the blowout in the popular vote. Suggests that this time she’s running the Obama-style campaign (which I guess is what happens when you hire Robby Mook). As in 2008, it’ll probably be a while before anybody notices that she’s taking the steps she needs to sew up the nomination.
Baud
@debbie:
It’s not really different from those in the left who advocate throwing an election in order to be able to run against the GOP next time around. The GOP can say Trump was an Obama- created outlier. By the time 2020 rolls around, the Dems will have held the White House for 12 years. And the GOP will bank on people being tired of Clinton’s faux scandals or Bernie’s democratic socialism.
OzarkHillbilly
@EconWatcher:
Yeah, I know. I’m just shocked that the Texas Bar has standards so high. I mean, in Texas executing the innocent is a job requirement for the Governor.
Matt McIrvin
@Sherparick:
And yet, LePage constantly uses blatantly racist rhetoric. I think mythical black people can be scarier than ones that actually exist.
Matt McIrvin
@FridayNext: Half the people in the state wouldn’t be able to get to work.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I see the Republicans gradually convincing themselves that Trump isn’t so bad and they can fall in line behind him. A dominant theme being “at least he’s not Ted Cruz”.
JPL
Luckovich’s cartoon today highlights a few historic quotes.
I’m watching the Funny or Die movie about Trump. It’s frightening.
satby
@BillinGlendaleCA: predicted high here will be 17. I’m planning on a day of baking cookies (for the girls) and making soap (you know who you are ;). Nice, cozy WARM activities.
Baud
@satby: I can handle cold but not cold wind.
satby
@JPL: I keep waiting for someone to do a mashup of Trump and Mussolini. They have such close facial smirks it would be both funny and frightening.
FridayNext
@Matt McIrvin:
As I recall those aren’t REAL New Hampshirians anyway. They could just move back to their side of the wall where they should have stayed.
Did I mention I lived in the North New Hampshire? That’s probably a relevant detail.
satby
@Baud: we have the wind, that’s giving us the whiteout conditions. No driving today for me, I am a wimp on ice.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@satby: You’ve said some things that made me wonder if you have a webserver/sysadmin background. If so, LibraryThing is looking for a remote sysadmin.
They’re also looking for a social media person in Maine.
satby
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Long ago sysadmin. Thanks, I will check it out!
Edited to say autocorrect is killing me today.
Chyron HR
@msdc: No, when Obama won more delegates it was because he campaigned smart. If Hillary gets more delegates it’s because Iago Rosenberg Schultz has rigged the election.
Technocrat
@Sherparick:
Maybe all we need is a global war that destroys every economy but ours. And maybe stop using the Internet so much.
Snark aside, in my opinion there’s no political solution to our current economic situation. American labor will never again successfully compete with cheaper labor in developing countries. Small business can’t successfully compete with the economy of scale large corporations can achieve. The bar of what skills are “valuable” keeps increasing. Hell, I’m a computer programmer and I struggle to keep up-to-date.
The endgame is Basic Income, but the road there is going to be bumpy.
Iowa Old Lady
Would Bloomberg do better than that economist who thought he was well known because lots of people had seen his Ted Talks? What’s his name? Lawrence something.
Matt McIrvin
@FridayNext: An extremely relevant detail!
I live in Massachusetts three miles from the border. On the other side is Trump country. (Actually, on this side is to a significant degree Trump country as well.)
Matt McIrvin
@Iowa Old Lady: Not as a primary candidate. My nightmare is that a No Labels-type could make headway among the comfortable, educated-professional, NPR-listening crowd if the Democratic candidate comes across to them as a scary dyspeptic radical. Obama was really good at keeping them in the coalition.
FlipYrWhig
Did Donald Trump say in his victory speech that despite what the statistics may say he thinks there’s 42% unemployment?
gvg
@OzarkHillbilly: Did any story say why the prosecutor did it? He already had the guilty guy convicted. why was he trying for Graves too?
David *Rafael* Koch
Per JPL:
Johnny Depp dead on impersonation of Donald Trump
Iowa Old Lady
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t know whether Trump said it, but I’ve heard Rs say it before. They take the labor market non-participation number, which is something like 90 million, and confuse it with an unemployment number, ignoring all the kiddies, retirees, disabled, stay at home parents, students, etc.
JPL
@FlipYrWhig: I didn’t hear it, but that is what was reported. Truth be know, he is going to deport 10 million, and needs to make up for that number. Think about those children who have been lazing around.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Since I was able to once again stand without crutches, I’ve been doing a lot of baking too. My wife complains I’m making her fat, and then she takes another cookie/slice of bread/brownie/corn bread/ka’ak/ etc Today it’s another loaf of bread from the refrigerated dough I whipped up last week, some crackers (haven’t decided which yet) and dog biscuits too if I have the time.
Sucks to be her.
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: OOOhhhh. I was wondering what he was possibly referring to, but maybe that’s what it was. I thought maybe he was thinking about Mitt Romney’s 47% who don’t pay taxes.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
debbie
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Glenn Beck and minions spent 3 hours yesterday slamming Trump for echoing the p-word used by his supporter. I cannot wait to hear them bemoaning Cruz’s poor showing in NH.
Iowa Old Lady
@FlipYrWhig: The labor market non-participation rate is projected to rise no matter what the next president does because baby boomers will be retiring. Count on hearing people moan about it because they don’t understand it.
John D.
@msdc:
Given that there are only 24 pledged delegates from the primary, they have to be including superdelegates.
The breakdown from last night is 15-9, which mirrors the vote percentages fairly well (Numbers here), but she’s got 6 of the 8 superdelegates in her camp already, which means that NH is currently a tie. Strange to think that she could wind up with more NH delegates at the convention than Sanders.
Make no mistake, Sanders waxed her last night in the primary. But it shows just how powerful her lead in superdelegates *is*. If he has to beat her by 20 in one of his most favorable states just to TIE the delegate count, he has an extremely difficult road ahead of him to the nomination.
C.V. Danes
@Technocrat:
Well, according to Thomas Piketty, that’s pretty much the only way to temporarily break the back of entrenched capital. Burn it all down and rebuild.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Not after Trump repeals child labor laws.
FlipYrWhig
@Iowa Old Lady: Yep, and it will lurk as one of those zombie facts (like the “47% pay no [income] taxes” thing) that justifies to Republicans their impression that the whole country is about to be overtaken by the lazy and shiftless.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
See Maine 2014 as exhibit A. I share your worry although it’s not my primary worry.
OzarkHillbilly
@gvg: The prosecutor still insists the man is guilty as found by a court of law. In his mind, as in so many others, actual innocence or guilt are beside the point.
EZSmirkzz
Deep Thought
I wonder if any Republican candidates will be interviewed on the morning news programs.
C.V. Danes
@OzarkHillbilly: Her campaign is far from finished.
AnonPhenom
@Iowa Old Lady:
Billionaires are a very diverse demographic. They need at least 3 political parties to represent their interests.
Matt McIrvin
@Iowa Old Lady: Or they cite John Williams’ ShadowStats, which uses a number that basically seems to track U6 at 50% higher until Obama enters office, then rockets up because Obama. Though even that is way lower than 40%.
Most of these measures indicate that unemployment is worse now than it was at the worst point of the recession in 2009. You’d think people would be able to recognize that this is wrong just by looking around and considering their personal situation. I became unemployed in 2009 and it was scary; there were just almost no jobs out there, and a large fraction of everyone I knew was unemployed too. It’s not like that now! But maybe people don’t remember, or maybe they’re in stricken places where things really have gotten worse.
FlipYrWhig
@AnonPhenom: Hey now, “billionaire” is a pejorative among their people. They prefer to be called “persons with billions.”
PurpleGirl
I found it funny that Trump said something against “special interests” and politicians making deals. Who in NYC real estate has had more deals made as a special interest than Trump?
ETA: Why do they keep saying Sanders was born in Brooklyn? How long has it been since he lived in the City? How old was he when he left?
C.V. Danes
@John D.:
My sense is the the superdelegates will follow the popular vote in order to prevent drama at the convention.
Amir Khalid
@John D.:
That’s exactly what a number of delegate-counters in the Juicitariat have been saying. The reaction from a few Bernistas has been that superdelegates shouldn’t count, because they aren’t committed to the candidate like pledged delegates are. I’d be curious to know what the rules are regarding when a superdelegate may change candidates.
OzarkHillbilly
@FlipYrWhig:
Sometimes it feels like they are right about that. Seems to me the rich keep getting richer without ever having to actually doing anything like real work
Peale
@C.V. Danes: yep. In the end, she has to win primaries. If she can’t do that and Sanders does, there’s no point in holding primaries. But it’s too soon for that.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin: I think the general sense is that opportunities for advancement are drying up, good paying jobs with good benefits are being replaced by low paying jobs with no benefits, the retirement situation is starting to look dire, and people are just generally feeling stuck.
Elizabelle
Good morning all. New Hampster is behind us. Awrright!
@Sherparick: Terrific comment re economic/social insecurity. But I quibble with the last line:
Maybe true for — what? 27% of the population, if that? But isn’t it also ignorance and not thinking? People who have been spoonfed — OK, stuffed like a goose — on Fox News and rightwing nuttery for years, may not have the cognitive skills and awareness to think through how we got to this state of affairs, and how to get out of it.
Maybe somewhat people who don’t want to see — or who see and do not want to admit — how wrong they were, and how foolish to persist for so long?
That’s certainly the dig they hurl at us. So, look at that projection for what it’s worth.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@debbie: All the racist things he’s said about the President and the First Lady and he’s crying over the p-word – what a fool.
Brachiator
As crazy as this primary season has been, I kinda love it that the GOP and the Democrats are singing the same song.
Say now baby, I’m the rank outsider,
You can be my partner in crime.
AnonPhenom
@FlipYrWhig:
…’cause if there is a President Sanders, Steny will be playing Che to Shumer’s Fidel… or do I have that backwards?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: am I too old for you and your wife to adopt? Asking for a friend.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone :)
msdc
@John D.: No, I’m talking about the pledged delegates (allocated by vote). To be down just six delegates after a 22-point blowout (and a net of four delegates after Iowa) suggests Clinton is mitigating her losses really well. If you add in the superdelegates, as you say, Clinton manages a tie in the state she lost (and a win in the state she tied, and both in what should be two of Sanders’s best states). She’s playing the delegate game Obama played to his victory in 2008.
Matt McIrvin
@C.V. Danes: That’s correct and fair, but it still shouldn’t convince people that true unemployment is 42%. I guess I should be listening to the music rather than the words.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Heh. We don’t have much, but we eat well.
D58826
I guess I will start to feel the Bern when the politicians elected with the help of Occupy wall street start to endorse Bernie. I’m sure there are a lot of Bernie supports among the progressives in the House who replaced those hated blue dog democrats in 2010 and and 2014.
Oh wait……
I guess I’m just old and cynical but after living thru the McCarthy era, the Ike is a communist per the John Birch society, the House Un-american Activities Committee (read liberal activities) and the cold war against the Union of soviet ‘socialist’ republics I just have a hard time envisioning a GOP attack add campaign that doesn’t just repeat ‘he is a socialist’. And that will be a hill way to high for Bernie to climb. While he may spend the campaign talking about various issue the standard response from the GOP/faux news will be ‘but he is a socialist’ And no further explanation will be needed. Romney received 47 % of the vote in 2012. He was probably right that 47% of the electorate would go for Obama even though his moochers logic was totally wrong. If the vote breaks down that way in November all the GOP has to due is convince a bit over half of the undecided vote that Bernie is a dangerous socialist. I don’t think that will be real hard to do. Of course they will try and slime HRC as well. They did after all convince a lot of people that John Kerry was a traitor and a coward but the case against Bernie will be a lot easier to make. After all he is a self declared socialist. They just have to show a campaign sticker from his last Senate campaign. There are many flavors of socialism but the differences will not fit well on a bumper sticker or 30 second sound bit.
Germy
Fox News Cuts Away From Kasich To Cover Rubio
http://crooksandliars.com/2016/02/fox-news-cuts-away-kasich-cover-rubio
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid:
They can change anytime they like
ThresherK
@AnonPhenom: Well, if Bernie is Che, then I know who our Peron is: “All of ’em, Katie!”, i.e. almost any Republican you can name.
(For those of you who might not remember Evita, there is a narrative character, Che, who opined on the entire proceedings to the audience.)
OzarkHillbilly
Wow. This election has really gone to the pigs. What do ya wanna bet he was a Trump voter?
Joel
@MomSense: Makes sense, but I can’t find any evidence of that right now. Any chance you have a link? Would appreciate it.
John D.
@msdc: I’m … not quite sure how to respond.
She lost the popular vote 59.96% to 38.37% (currently). Apportioning the delegates 15-9 is a 62.5%-37.5% ratio, which is as close to the actual vote as you can get (though it ‘s allocated 8 per congressional district and 8 statewide). There’s no real “mitigating” in the pledged delegates.
For others who asked, the superdelegates can easily change their minds up until the convention, but many of these PLEO and DNC members are actually very close to the Clintons personally, as you would expect for someone who has been active in the party for decades. Most of them are vanishingly unlikely to change their votes from her.
rikyrah
Jonathan Capehart ✔ @CapehartJ
While you were sleeping, DOJ released this: “The Ferguson City Council has attempted to unilaterally amend the negotiated agreement.” 1/3
Jonathan Capehart ✔ @CapehartJ
DOJ: “Their vote to do so creates an unnecessary delay in the essential work to bring constitutional policing to the city….” 2/3
Jonathan Capehart ✔ @CapehartJ
DOJ: “will take necessary legal actions to ensure Ferguson’s policing and court practices comply w Constitution/relevant federal laws.” 3/3
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Iowa Old Lady: Bloomberg is such a dead fish (maybe he’s a warm funny guy in private) , I can’t imagine him doing even the most minimal campaigning, much less doing it well– I can’t remember anything about him campaigning during his three terms. Didn’t he just kind of say “Here I am, trust me” when Rudi was done, then run as an incumbent?
I think a lot of people would love to run as no-labels candidates on Bloomberg’s checkbook– Scarborough has never pretended to be subtle about it– but I don’t think he wants to be anyone’s angel investor. Huntsman’s a billionaire, or from a billionaire family, but maybe the old man won’t sign off on the expenses.
rikyrah
AlGiordano @AlGiordano
Why Democratic turnout is underperforming GOP turnout may be the most important question to answer today.
AlGiordano @AlGiordano
The roughly 250,000 voters in NH Democratic primary underperformed from the 280,000 in 2008 even with the influx of Ron Paul Independents.
AlGiordano @AlGiordano
GOP turnout in NH however increased from 2008’s 234,000 to about 290,000 even with the exodus of libertarians. Who are these new voters?
AlGiordano @AlGiordano
Lower turnout is even more of an alarm button for Democrats considering that we’re only talking about white voters so far in Iowa and NH.
AlGiordano @AlGiordano
The numbers show that even among white Democrats a significant part of “base” feels neither inspired by Sanders nor Clinton.
NotMax
It’s a new day, by jingo(ism).
OzarkHillbilly
@rikyrah: Because spending a bunch of money on lawyers in a case you are sure to lose is a great way to mitigate the costs of implementation of the agreement. Then again, maybe they are just banking on a Trump victory in November.
Just One More Canuck
@Amir Khalid:Wikipedia has a rundown of the superdelegates who have committed thus far (as of November) – just over half have pledged thus far – the list shows 355 for Clinton, 14 for Sanders and 8 for O’Malley. It is not Clinton’s fault that she has been able to secure these delegates and Sanders hasn’t, If the Bernistas want to argue that the superdelegates shouldn’t count, that is an argument for the 2020 nomination process. By getting into the race, Sanders agreed to these rules and his supporters need to live with it.
I saw no superdelegates pledged to Baud
Baud/Bill the Cat 2016
rikyrah
Benen’s morning comments about Thirsty Marco:
BWA HA HA A HA HA H HA HA HA HA HA HA
bemused
@debbie:
That’s rich coming from Beck who may be a bit envious of Trump getting away with being an obnoxious shock jock who gets away with it on tv.
I think it was Beltane who said on earlier thread Trump supporters really like Trump yelling FU at everyone else but them. That’s about all that exists in those empty heads.
Steve in the ATL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Concur. Bloomberg has zero appeal outside of Manhattan, and he wore out his welcome with a lot of people there.
Germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I saw this great comment about Bloomberg on LGM:
Dr. Ronnie James, DO says:
January 23, 2016 at 12:49 pm
… I’m not even sure Bloomberg could be a spoiler. Although he was able to grin-and-bear-it quite a bit in his earlier years, Bloomberg is allergic to people, and his time in office completely eroded his tolerance for the commoners to a nub. His campaigning skills are, I am not exaggerating, even worse than Jeb! 2016. His personal likability is Cruzian, minus the somewhat sympathetic response Cruz engenders from being a try-hard. He has no natural constituencies now besides wealthy Manhattanites and delusional Friedman/ Matt Miller types. If the wider electorate comes into contact with him, the revulsion would be almost anaphylactic.
Also: pretending he could be a spoiler just feeds his ego and encourages him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: that said, a tote-baggery No Labels candidate– “entitlement reform”, and mouthing all the comforting platitudes about non-$$ issues– could really fuck things up.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: Hmm, that’s an interesting set of observations — and it really doesn’t suggest that we’re seeing the makings of a leftward-shifting POLITICAL REVOLUTION, does it?
NotMax
@Germy
He’s not going to run (if he did, he’d end up the Fred Thompson of 2016). Making noises about running gets publicity (and eyeballs/clicks on his sites), but I just don’t see the proposal ever advancing beyond pot stirring.
Gin & Tonic
@bemused: Probably mentioned earlier, but the NY Daily News front page today summarizes it thusly: “Clown comes back to life with N.H. win as mindless zombies turn out in droves.”
rikyrah
I can’t stand Teenbeat-On-The-Potomac…
but, this headline was too good to pass up:
GOP establishment stares into the abyss
After Trump’s big win and Rubio’s collapse, Republican Party elites suddenly find themselves without a horse to ride.
By Alex Isenstadt
02/10/16 05:13 AM EST
MANCHESTER N.H. – For the establishment wing of the Republican Party, the picture just keeps getting bleaker.
Far from winnowing the crowded field of mainstream GOP contenders and allowing it to unify around a standard-bearer, New Hampshire thrust it further into chaos. Marco Rubio, after taking steps last week to coalesce the backing of the party’s upper echelons, saw his momentum halted in the state, which punished him for delivering an overly scripted debate performance.
The establishment lane is now more crowded than ever, with Rubio, Jeb Bush, and New Hampshire runner-up John Kasich heading for a brutal fight in South Carolina – a state known for its rough-and-tumble political culture. Chris Christie, who was also competing for establishment support, is reassessing his campaign’s future.
All of this, many in the mainstream wing of the GOP worry, is excellent news for one man: Donald Trump.
C.V. Danes
@Matt McIrvin: I think you have to look at the demographic. For black youth, 42% unemployment is probably about right.
bemused
@Gin & Tonic:
I saw that, snicker.
FlipYrWhig
@rikyrah: The idea that any human being has ever seen Marco Rubio as presidential timber, up to and including Marco Rubio’s mother, is astonishing to me. He’s a little shit who’d do a lousy job running Pledge Week.
Immanentize
@EconWatcher:
Good on you for that work! Which case? I worked on post-conviction capital cases for a dozen years in Texas. My favorite story from East Texas was when (roughly), during a competency hearing before trial, the Texas psych expert testified that the defendant “heard voices, saw burning images in the sky, and told the expert that he was directed by God to act.” Nonetheless, the expert said the defendant was competent to stand trial. The incredulous defense attorney on cross asked “He hears voices, has visions and does what God tell him and that’s normal behavior?”
“It is in East Texas” was the reply.
I have the friggin transcript.
WereBear
@Major Major Major Major: Sounds like you are getting rid of things that weren’t working for you. Wishing you the best of fresh starts!
msdc
@John D.: Let me put it this way, then: after finishing two of Sanders’s best states, Clinton is down exactly 4 out of the 4,051 pledged delegates. That’s before you count her massive lead among unpledged delegates.
Obama won in 2008 by running the table in the states where the demographics favored him and keeping the delegate count close in the states where they favored Clinton. So far, Clinton seems to have learned from her loss. And a candidate who can combine his disciplined delegate-counting strategy with her support among party leaders will be very tough for any challenger to beat.
msdc
@rikyrah:
Rubio still has time to retool for his new “3-5-7-9-out” strategy.
Immanentize
Domo arigato, Marco Rubotio
C.V. Danes
@Just One More Canuck:
Indeed. But if Bernie were somehow to win the popular delegate count, for Hillary to win by superdelegate fiat would merely entrench the idea of her as the establishment candidate, selected by the party bosses over the will of the popular vote. Note sure how that would play out in a general election with a strong antiestablishment theme.
MomSense
@FlipYrWhig:
Exactly what I said after turnout in Iowa and NH was below 2008.
magurakurin
@msdc: Sanders is -10 and Clinton +10 on the Cook Political Report Scorecard. It’s a pretty useful tool, I think. If Sanders turns things around in Nevada, and there is some stirring that he might, then this becomes a race. But the road map still looks like a Clinton nomination right now.
magurakurin
I had assumed that Reid wasn’t endorsing because of his position in the Senate. But it actually has to do with him wanting to get people to caucus and drive up registration for the Senate and House races in November. Reid is a pretty cagey guy.
Redshift
Grouchy comment for the morning: gee, guys, maybe if you hadn’t decided you were too pure for partisan politics, you could have been less screwed the past few years!
Grumble, grumble, grumble, kids today.
Matt McIrvin
@C.V. Danes: Trump’s core demographic is middle-aged and older white people, though.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: I suspect that for these kids, the fact that Sanders never identified as a Democrat is a positive.
Rand Careaga
@satby: From your lips to the FSM’s pasta shell-likes.
Paul in KY
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I bet if you were going to eat a people/dog casserole, Rachel Ray could whip up a fine one!
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly: new meaning to pork barrel politics.
Germy
Has anyone else noticed Trump using the Beatles’ song “Revolution” at his rallies?
WTF? Like Reagan’s people, I guess Trump’s staff doesn’t actually listen to… you know, the lyrics.
“But if you want money for people with minds that hate. /All I can tell you is brother you have to wait” … “But when you talk about destruction …”etc.
Dmbeaster
@MomSense:
In the end, always just a ratfvucker.
Kathleen
@satby: I’m old and pathetic and want the Ozark family to adopt me. I’ll happily consume all baked goods.
Paul in KY
@Baud: There’s a famous story (which is probably untrue) about a latin sentence sent to the jailers of Edward II.
Put the comma in one spot and it basically says “Don’t kill Edward, it would be a not good deed” and if you put the comma in another location, it says “It would be a good deed to kill Edward”.
The person who sent it had no commas in that sentence. They supposedly wanted Edward dead & some plausible 14th century deniability.
Redshift
@C.V. Danes:
If Bernie gets a strong majority of delegates, the super delegates will switch. They’re not suicidal. If he gets a narrow majority, they’ll exercise their judgment about who they think is best, which is why they are delegates. If they put Hillary over the top, no one will care but some Bernie die-hards and media looking for “Democrats in disarray” stories, any more than they care if one candidate gets more elected delegates than their popular vote share through clever strategy (hint: Barack Obama.)
Either way, the outcome isn’t going to be decided in smoke-filled rooms.
msdc
@magurakurin: Interesting link, thanks.
Marc
I really hope that the Clinton campaign is reassessing what they do, rather than making the sort of excuses for a massive defeat that I’m seeing here. The goal of the primary season is to show that the candidates can run a competent campaign, not to blame voters or to make excuses for losses. New Hampshire voters revived Bill Clintons candidacy in 1992, and they revived Hillary Clintons candidacy in 2008. They’re not strangers, Clinton tried hard, and it didn’t take. Losing by 20+ points is a real marker of concern. Superdelegates are a measure of the fact that the Democratic establishment massively prefers Clinton, but there is absolutely no way that they will over-rule whomever wins the majority of the primary and caucus delegates.
FYI – the Democratic turnout in New Hampshire is a non-issue; there was a hyper-competitive race on the Republican side, which always drives up turnout on that side and suppresses it on the other side in a state where anyone can vote in either primary.
In terms of dismissing Sanders by pointing to upcoming state polls: we saw the same story about a firewall in 2008 and that didn’t hold. They will need to do better.
In my book, Sanders is being carried by strong enthusiasm among young voters and we really want Clinton to harness that, not squash it, if she is the nominee. Raising doubts about his electability is reasonable, insulting his supporters is not, and Clinton needs a more coherent message of her own if she is going to be a successful candidate. Electability would be a stronger issue if Clinton wasn’t doing such a poor job of campaigning – by all rights she should be demolishing a self-proclaimed socialist in the polls.
Frankensteinbeck
Jeebers. Sanders winning New Hampshire is like Romney winning Mississippi. Everybody knew it would happen, it would be a blowout, and it means fuck-all to the rest of the election. And Sanders losing Iowa is like Romney losing Kentucky. This rush to pretend New Hampshire represents the national race is goofy. He’s still losing, guys. Badly.
@Matt McIrvin:
I think they’re like ‘Independents’ who are actually the most partisan voters of all. Americans love to lie about their political stance.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I would argue they’ve been fed steadily increasing minority visibility and the media was supplying an existing market.
@Sherparick:
The whitest states can be racist as Hell. There only needs to be one black person if he’s president. We’re not even within ‘visible on the horizon’ distance of Great Depression conditions. A lack of shanty towns is a clue, there. And Europe the last 15 years has been going through… wait for it… an increase in visibility of unpopular minorities! Germans really hate Greeks. The French really hate Muslims. There is certainly economic pressure, but pretending it’s driving the racism increase is putting the cart before the horse. Racism flourishes in periods and demographics that are economically secure.
magurakurin
@Redshift: And we’re really only having these discussions at all because Super Tuesday is March 1st instead of February 1st. It may well be that Sanders will get momentum from his win in New Hampshire, but it still is the luck of the draw if does. This week will be telling. If the needle doesn’t move for him, it is really just waiting for the clock to strike midnight.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: HA!
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: That takes quick thinking!
Frankensteinbeck
@magurakurin:
I confess, I didn’t expect a momentum theme from one state. It’s what Sanders needs. So you’re right, now that he’s got it, we need to see if it does any good.
FlipYrWhig
@Marc:
It’s a concern when the raison d’etre of the Sanders campaign is that he’s going to galvanize a bevy of new voters that forces the establishment to take note, and then it doesn’t happen, no? Or if it’s happening but it’s also a wash on net because the new voters just replace old voters who are turned off (not necessarily by Sanders but by anything), that would be good for the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party but really, really bad for the chances of a Democrat winning the presidency: younger more liberal voters becoming a larger part but of a smaller pie.
nutella
Returning to something from last night’s thread, Nate Dawg said
I have a question.
I can see how many would lump Trump and Sanders together as non-establishment. (I don’t because a guy who’s been in the US congress for 25 years is VERY much in the establishment, but I can see why some think so.)
I can also understand seeing Sanders as authentic. He’s certainly been very consistent in his positions and he conveys strong conviction when he speaks.
But Trump authentic? What the hell is that? He’s such a big obvious faker in everything he says and does. Can anyone explain how the idea that Trump is authentic comes from?
NotMax
@magurakurin
Hoping Sanders hangs on at least through April.
Why?
Coverage of a one person race is much more muted and sporadic than when the contest is otherwise, becoming primarily reports of reaction to attacks from the other side, which keeps such attacks the center of the story. Clinton as anything other than a punching bag would be rendered nearly invisible to the public via the mass media until the convention. Her style/campaign does not strike this observer as leaning to springing (much less successfully exploiting) headline grabbing bombshells for months on end, especially when faced with a trio or foursome of R targets still in the running.
Once it is determined who the R nominee will be – something almost sure to take place much later than is customary, then and only then the Clinton vs. X coverage will take hold.
Barbara
@Matt McIrvin: Well, Maine, like Vermont and New Hampshire, is seeing an epidemic of heroin use arising out of opioid addiction. The heroin pipeline ends in Maine, but usually starts somewhere else along the East Coast, e.g., New York City. So LePage seems to be dog whistling about the (presumptively black) drug dealers coming into Maine and spoiling the fine young people who would otherwise be . . . ???? Yeah, LePage doesn’t know either.
My sister in law lives in Portland. I briefly considered the prospect of packing it in and moving there, and then I read about people who moved to Portland from New York City only to see their teenage kids doing opioids like many of the local kids. There were also other reasons not to move, but I had never thought much about what, exactly, makes kids at risk of becoming drug abusers in a place like Portland. Going there as a visitor is totally different. And yes, I grew up in the 70s and knew lots and lots of people who used recreational drugs, all the way through college and graduate school. I knew only a few people who abused opiates of any variety, which in those days usually meant heroin, and now, those are the drugs of choice.
FlipYrWhig
@Frankensteinbeck: I don’t really understand the “momentum” theory. Ted Cruz won Iowa and had zero “momentum.” Why does one Sanders victory produce another Sanders victory? It seems like it _should_ work, and to a degree it explains Obama winning over South Carolina skeptics by showing that the black candidate wasn’t _just_ a black candidate, but I really don’t know how trustworthy “momentum” is as an explanation. Seems more likely that as bottom-feeder candidates drop out the top tier candidates pick up their supporters, rather than that there’s a flock of converts from one top tier candidate to another due to “momentum.”
FlipYrWhig
@nutella: Trump gets the tag “authentic” because he’s unrehearsed and uses bad words. See also “unfiltered.”
Frankensteinbeck
@nutella:
He doesn’t hide his racism in dog whistles. That is what ‘saying what everyone else is afraid to say’ means. Nobody’s afraid to say there’s too much money in politics. The theme comes up often, which is why we have campaign finance laws. It’s just not usually a big winner.
Frankensteinbeck
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s the only theory Sanders has got.
magurakurin
@NotMax:
I’m pretty sure he will. For one, he might do much better than expected on Super Tuesday and make it an even closer race. But even if it plays out as expected, and Clinton runs the table through March, she still won’t have enough delegates to clinch the win. If she does succeeded in running up the score she’ll make it nearly mathematically impossible for Sanders to catch her, but not theoretically impossible (ie. he runs the table in all the states that follow, or the superdelegates switch to him, etc.) I think Sanders will be competitive all the way to California, where he will probably do well, but not enough to overcome the Clinton lead.
But, he might actually win, too. It’s certainly possible. I just don’t think it will happen.
Paul in KY
@Germy: In the song, John was presumably writing about left-wing types he ran into at parties, etc.
Barbara
@Marc: Well, I think Clinton is doing a good job of campaigning and I think she has held fire on Sanders for the reasons that you alluded to. She doesn’t want to alienate his supporters. She (and I think everyone else including me) wants people to become involved and to have a reason to become involved. Also, I am intrigued by the prospect that some people who might have voted for her instead voted R-Kasich (in particular) because they loathe Trump and Cruz. She was behind Sanders for quite a long time in NH — it’s possible that people thought they might be able to make a bigger difference voting R. I don’t follow NH that closely but it does have that unique feature that is not present in most other states. I think in Virginia you can do this as well, but we don’t make the same kind of fetish about being presidential primaries that they do in NH.
Sherparick
@Iowa Old Lady: Bloomberg would be the candidate of the socially liberal 1%. He has his friend Mortimer Zuckerman believe in activist U.S. intervention in Middle East to protect Israel and the Saudis. On taxes he is fine with Republican Tax policy and favors the deregulation of Wall Street. Yes, he would love to repeal the 2d Amendment, so you can imagine how many Red State Republican voters he will get (like <1%). He would tax sodas and fatty foods (again they will just love the policies in the Red States. He is pro-immigration which may draw Hispanics, especially those who would be inclined to vote Republican but for their anti-immigrant position and he would likely draw Jewish voters who would lean Democratic around the country to vote for him, especially those who would be more pro-business and find themselves uncomfortable with a Democratic Party that Sanders has transformed even if he does not get the nomination. What I find funny about the stories is how they show the vote splitting by total popular vote, and of course the key is what the Electoral College would like no matter who got the plurality of the vote if Bloomberg runs and says takes 15% of the popular vote. If Trump runs against Clinton or Sanders, I estimate that he would slice 5 to 10% off the Republican Vote and about 10 to 15% off the Democratic vote in most states. Looking at the margins of the Red States in 2012, I still expect them all to go Red. With the reduced Democratic vote, I expect they would probably be joined by Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, New Hampshire, and possibly New Jersey and Connecticut. Trump, even if he comes in second in the popular vote, would have an Electoral College Landslide.
And once Trump was in the Presidency, what inner inhibition exists within this man, inhibitions that even Richard Nixon had, that would prevent him from effecting a Coup d'Etat and make himself a dictator? I don't think there are any and it would all depend on senior military officers and individuals like the FBI Director to frustrate it.
A coup by President or military has been the fate of the Presidential/Congress systems throughout the Americas and the reason the Founders did not want a standing military to go with their Presidential system. We may soon find out what the "Man in the High Castle" is like in real life.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig: or unhinged
glory b
@satby: Same here. Check out your local version of Neighborhood Legal Services. They may be able to save you from the eviction ( as a former employee of the Housing Authority, I can attest to that).
Barbara
@Marc: Just a postscript: I don’t know why she doesn’t take more credit for her role in establishing SCHIP, which benefits a huge number of people, especially children. It was incremental reform but it significantly expanded Medicaid and made medical care a lot more accessible to many who need it most. Nationally, 40% of childbirth deliveries are covered through Medicaid/SCHIP. It’s around 50% in California and 70+% in Louisiana, which is usually the highest.
OzarkHillbilly
@nutella: Delusion?
nutella
@Frankensteinbeck:
He is authentically racist and sexist, for sure. But other than that he’s such an obvious faker and liar that must mean that being authentically bigoted is more attractive to many people than everything about every other issue. Depressing if true.
WereBear
Good point. If “social1st” is so darned radioactive, why isn’t it working yet?
Frankensteinbeck
@nutella:
That is exactly what it means, and yes, it’s depressing and even scary.
Paul in KY
@Sherparick: Remember, the Electoral College only comes into play if Bloomberg actually wins states. He can get 15%, but if he wins no states, he gets no electoral votes.
Frankensteinbeck
@WereBear:
+15 to +20 isn’t ‘demolishing him in the polls’?
gogol's wife
@NotMax:
I hope you’re right.
WereBear
@Barbara: I have been reading persuasive articles that point the finger at pharm companies pushing the prescribing of such drugs as OxyContin, which is then stolen from medicine cabinets by the desperate, who then turn to heroin when they can’t get oxy.
Because something drives the ups and downs of drugs, and despite the Prohibitionist and the Drug Warriors, it is usually market forces.
Paul in KY
@satby: I thought our fine Major Major Major Major had recently received a 7 figure check. Was that not true or was he looking at someone else’s check?
Or does he have to evict someone & is dreading it?
Sherparick
Professor Mark Thoma of “Economists View” explains to the elite why 90% of the country, whether right wing or left wing, is not to thrill with the economy they have created the last 35 years or the plan to throw Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid out the window.
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/02/09/Why-Working-Class-Choosing-Trump-and-Sanders
P.S. The only thing wrong in Professor Thoma’s piece is his thinking that the 1% (or at least the Koch brothers and Bloomberg part it) would not think of the old, disabled, and children as moochers for receiving these Government benefits. But they do. They want everyone in the work force competing for jobs. And if you can’t work, “…then to die quickly,” as Ebenezer Scrooge so well put it, “and decrease the surplus population.”
Frankensteinbeck
@Paul in KY:
I think Sherpatrick’s idea is that Bloomberg spoilers a lot of states that Democrats normally win, giving them to the Republican.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Sherparick: Military will never permit it. Founding Fathers did a good job with that, set it up with four competing services so that there would be neither a military nor civilian coup d’etat that could succeed. Plus I suspect he’s just in it for the glory. His current job is much better. Pays more, lots less work.
rdldot
I haven’t read thru this post but has anyone found the vote totals for NH? I’m looking for the actual votes, not the delegate/percentage. So far I haven’t found that in any of the so-called ‘news’ organizations. Not easy to get just facts…
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: Because these first two states have disproportionate numbers of college-educated proud white liberals, maybe? The Sanders argument is that proud liberals (and/or young people, who may already be inside that same circle on the Venn diagram) are looming as a force that no one tries hard enough to tap. What happens in states where the local Democrats don’t have the same critical mass of proud liberals?
Now the debate that’s going to get super snippy will be when the Sanders crowd says that Clinton’s winning South Carolina doesn’t mean anything because no Democrat will carry the state in November, while at least Sanders has been winning states where Democrats are competitive. Then the pundits are going to zero in on places like Virginia and North Carolina to make predictions about how the D primary results are indicators for the general election.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@satby: Driftglass is your man. E.g. No Labels gets the hero they deserve.
Cheers,
Scott.
D58826
@nutella: It’s also easy to be ‘authentic’ when you are a back bencher from a small homogeneous state with an inexpensive media market and an emphasis on retail politics. It’s also easy when your state isn’t home to major players in the economy. Sure you can criticize Hillary or Schumer for being the senator from Wall Street but the folks who live in New York and work on wall street are constituents. Congress folks do have an obligation to look after the interests of their constituents. But even authentic Bernie had no problem voting for f-35 funding since it affects job s in his state. And all of the folks who lose their jobs in the health insurance industry once we have single payer may wonder about his authenticity. Politics is messy, it involves compromise and being willing to work with folks on narrow points of common interest even if you disagree on everything else. Teddy Kennedy supposedly had the chance to work with Tricky Dick on universal health care and passed on it. He later said he regretted the missed opportunity even though he hated everything else that Nixon stood for. Politicians have always tailored their stump speech for the audience. It’s just in the pre-internet days what was said in Vegas tended to stay in Vegas. Today if you called your 2nd grade teacher back in 1960 a rat fink some one will find it in a google search
NotMax
@rdldot
Here ya go. D – R.
Of course, can always check out the government site of the particular state as well.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY:
No, the scenario here isn’t Bloomberg winning states, it’s Bloomberg splitting the Democratic vote and flipping states from the Democrat to Trump. He could do that with just a few percent of the vote.
Paul in KY
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you for pointing that out. Should read a bit closer.
Edit: Thanks to Matt also.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@WereBear: BIL got into a bad car accident in South America. Had issues with opiates before. Was stunned to find that aside from the morphine that they gave him post-surgery, they didn’t use them. At all. Said the stuff he got killed the pain just fine. Also said basically at that point he realized just what a gigantic conspiracy US pharma companies are engaged in.
Also, I can never think about the “drug problem” again without remembering a quote from “No Country For Old Men” (the book, not the movie):
– Worst thing is, they’re selling dope to schoolkids
– I can think of something worse
– What’s that?
– Schoolkids buy it.
singfoom
@rdldot: Here’s a link from the AP: New Hampshire results
D58826
@WereBear: My uninformed guess would be that for the progressive activists in the primary, esp. the younger ones, it is a lot less radioactive than among the general population. The activists in the SF bay area might make the distinction between Bernie the social democrat and Joe Stalin the communist/socialist but the much larger general election population in the central valley/Orange county/military heavy San Diego will not. And for the younger generation they just don’t have the lived memory of the cold war and McCarthyism. I remember when Eisenhower was called a pinko/fellow traveler by the reactionary right.
JPL
@Matt McIrvin: Bloomberg could also take votes from Repubs in some blue states. I actually think he can win Connecticut. I’m not sure what other states he could take though.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@C.V. Danes: Didn’t HRC claim that she got more votes from voters than BHO? That probably includes FL and MI (who were kicked out for going out of order, IIRC), I assume. I don’t think there are hard-and-fast rules about what SuperDelegates will do. (I could be wrong, of course.)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who has no time to check at the moment.)
japa21
Three observations:
Sanders did well, pretty much right where he was expected to be. I am skeptical that he will gain any momentum out of it, but will withhold any predictions at this time.
Clinton made a very gracious concession speech last night. It was obvious she knew she was going to lose and probably by about what she lost by. It is also obvious she realizes she needs to do better with the younger constituency. She specifically came out and said she still has a lot of work to do in convincing them to vote for her. But she wasn’t condescending to them. She said that she wants them to know, whether they vote for her or not, she is still on their side.
Rubio apologized to his supporters for his poor debate performance. This of course sets him up in a difficult situation. He can continue to be robotic, which gives the other candidates ammunition to use against him, or he can try to be more spontaneous, which will allow people to see just how shallow he really is. Either way, I think his ship has sailed.
OzarkHillbilly
@CONGRATULATIONS!: The founding Fathers did not create 4 competing services. There was an army and a navy. The Marines were actually a part of the Navy. Technically, they still are. The Air Force came into existence post WW II.
magurakurin
@rdldot: wapo has it 143,000 for Sanders and 91,000 for Clinton. They dont talk about those numbers because its hard to drive a Clinton is imploding narrative by saying out of 234,000 souls in tiny New Hampshire, 52,000 like Bernie more than Hillary
rikyrah
About Writing While Loving Blackness and Hurting White Feelings
Awesomely Luvvie — February 10, 2016
Are you mad about this title? Keep reading. You’re probably the main one that needs to read this.
It has been an interesting 5 days, since Beyonce dropped her Formation video and broke the internet. People (me included) have not been able to stop talking about it, and it has spurred a gajillion thinkpieces. Most folks love it and have been vocal about it but the critiques have poured in too. Then she performed at the Superbowl, had her dancers dressed as Black Panthers and everyone lost their collective minds.
Beyonce’s unapologetic Blackness has heartened those of us who see ourselves in her, and it has offended some people who don’t think she represents them. There have been oceans of white tears for folks to swim in since it happened.
On the night of the Superbowl, I received an email from a woman who reads my blog. What she thought was her passing on some advice to me was really her being Den Mother of Hurt White Feelings.
henqiguai
@Technocrat(#70):
Wait, are you a Mack Reynolds fan?
Barbara
@WereBear: Yes, pharm companies, but the FDA totally dropped the ball in approving Oxycontin. Now, if you read any mainstream article about possible solutions to the overdose epidemic, like controlling the prescribing of opioids, people who (claim to) have chronic pain flood the comments section with comments that range from desperation regarding their own needs to what sounds to me to be gleeful indifference at the deaths of addicts, who only deserve what they had coming to them and are doing society a favor by dying young. In other words, it’s really hard to see how to reverse this train, but it is being slowly reversed by state laws that at least limit the most extreme opportunities to abuse these drugs (doctor shopping and selling what you don’t need to others). But paradoxically, it’s the newfound scarcity of prescription opioids, which are now more expensive, that has made heroin, which is now very cheap, such a scourge. But at the heart of it all is the receptivity of the economically hard pressed to more dangerous drugs. It kind of frosts me that the DEA has been able to so effectively stymie the study of medical marijuana. I don’t think marijuana is harmless, but it’s a heck of a lot less harmful than heroin.
singfoom
@WereBear: @D58826: Any thought to the idea that the dreaded “socialist” label has been watered down by the constant use of it as a “Something that we don’t like that helps non rich people” by the RWNJs for the last 25 years?
When everything that Obama did led to him being called a socialist or his policies being labelled as socialist, I think people might have socialism fatigue at this point.
D58826, I think you’re right that it’ll be fine for those who understand the nuance of socialism vs. democratic socialist, but I think that one can make the argument that given our economic situation (i.e. the new gilded age), some socialistic policies are on order.
I think you’re definitely right generationally. Those who lived through the cold wars more warm periods in the 50s/60s will probably be effectively afraid of the dread S word.
Generation X / Millenials, I don’t think they’re quite affected in the same way.
rikyrah
Why Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Deserve the Black Vote
From the crime bill to welfare reform, policies Bill Clinton enacted—and Hillary Clinton supported—decimated black America.
By Michelle AlexanderTODAY 6:00 AM
Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.
And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again.
Matt McIrvin
@JPL: I’ve been assuming that guns are such an absolute issue with Republican voters that there’s no way Bloomberg could get any. But I guess he could make some inroads with people who are mostly Republican over money.
D58826
@Redshift: All those kids would have been nice if they had voted in 2010 and 2014. The political landscape both nationally and locally would be very different. Instead of the 2016 election being about protecting the Obama and FDR legacy it could be about expanding it. Obamacare isn’t perfect so in 2016 HRC could be talking improvements rather than elect me or it gets repealed..
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Will mention, though, that I just don’t see why any Democratic voter would vote for Bloomberg over Hillary or Bernie. Fricking Nader was sorta identified as a ‘Left Winger’ back then, so I see how some of our ‘Purity Pony’ voters stupidly went with him. Bloomberg is a Libertarian/plutocrat.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Why don’t they ever write that Sanders voted for most of this legislation right along with the rest of Congress? He does not have clean hands here, and unlike Clinton, he actually had the opportunity to vote the other way. These sorts of measures just aren’t the things that Sanders worries about. I don’t understand how he can’t see that these things are at least secondary causes of income inequality for many people, but instead, he seems to be focused on those things that affect income inequality for the majority. I like Sanders but I think he has lots of blind spots.
gene108
There’s a local NPR show (Phily area) Radio Times I was listening to this morning. A die hard Sanders supporter called in and said if Sanders was not the nominee, he would vote for Trump over Hillary, but he would vote for Hillary over the other Koch-backed candidates. He liked the fact Trump hasn’t taken any Wall Street or Koch Brothers money. He sounded white and middle aged, at least..
I don’t get people like that.
Matt McIrvin
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Nuclear weapons are a force multiplier here. If a President is willing to nuke a couple of American cities to make an example, all he needs is a small group of loyalists within the Air Force, whose officer corps is probably the most wingnutty segment of the US military.
raven
@rikyrah: And think of all the links you’ll have when Trump wins.
C.V. Danes
@nutella:
Sanders believes in the fundamentals of our system of democracy, but believes that it has been perverted by the establishment. Sweep out the establishment, and the system returns to order.
Trump thinks the system itself is broken. Trump believes that the president should just be able to do whatever he wants, ceo style, which in my opinion would cause a hugh constitutional crisis should he get elected.
magurakurin
@gene108:
That guy is probably a WWE fan. Trump is in the WWE Hall of Fame. He is playing the rubes just the way Vince taught him.
Brachiator
@japa21:
Good point on Clinton’s being straight to the point here.
It’s too early to say whether Baby Rubio can really change his campaign style. And I think there are more GOP debates scheduled, right?
It’s only the second primary, and there is not enough data to predict what will happen next. I think Christie spent a lot of time in New Hampshire, but did not seem to get much for his efforts.That’s got to have him worried. Jeb and the others are hanging on, hoping that they will be hot in South Carolina.
NotMax
Internet affectionally comes through.
OzarkHillbilly
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I almost forgot about the Coast Guard.
nastybrutishntall
@Major Major Major Major: You go, girl / boy!
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: I’m pretty sure I know the people who would do it. They’re people with a fair bit of money and education who consider themselves above partisan politics. Many have well-paying technical jobs. They consider themselves independent, but usually vote Democratic because they think the Republicans are a bunch of nuts. They think labor unions are a bunch of thugs. Their attitudes are technocratic; they believe everything would be OK if you just got the smartest guys in the country together to set aside their differences and hash things out. A centrist promising to break the stale and icky two-party system would be really appealing.
Barbara
@C.V. Danes: What I don’t get about Sanders is how you can look at our history and see the present as abnormal. I think we are in outlier territory along the spectrum right now mostly because of gerrymandering, but the divide that has made socially progressive legislation the exception rather than the rule has been present since at least the 1820s when people were fighting over the Missouri Compromise and the First Bank of the United States. It sucks in a lot of ways, but it’s hard to look at any major turning point in our history and not see that progress has come from a combination of people with vision working with master tacticians like LBJ.
C.V. Danes
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
The superdelegates will do what they think is right for the party, which may not be what’s right for the people. That’s the rub.
Iowa Old Lady
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: She ignored any caucus “votes,” ie done by counting heads rather than ballots, which annoyed the hell out of me. But in NV, for instance, she won more caucus votes and Obama got more delegates. The Obama team concentrated on delegates from Day 1.
Brachiator
@C.V. Danes:
I haven’t seen any evidence that Trump has ever read the Constitution or much cares what’s in it.
If Trump wins, the Republicans in Congress might obstruct him much as they obstructed Obama. The irony would be too delicious.
rikyrah
but, this is who they are. they have always been this messy. they are always running to the press to try and convince the MSM how important they are to Camp Clinton.
and, if she wins…these same muthaphuckas will be leaking to the press like a sieve.
BECAUSE THIS IS WHO SHE HAS AROUND HER.
It was never ‘JUST HILLARY’.
A lot of the trepidation about her is WHO IS AROUND HER.
they are not trustworthy.
Dan PfeifferVerified account
@danpfeiffer
The “Clinton Allies” who continually say dumb things to the press is one of bigger burdens her campaign bears
Gimlet
NYTs
Senator Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton among nearly every demographic group in the Democratic New Hampshire primary, according to exit polls.
He carried majorities of both men and women. He won among those with and without college degrees. He won among gun owners and non-gun owners. He beat Mrs. Clinton among previous primary voters and those participating for the first time. And he ran ahead among both moderates and liberals.
While Mr. Sanders bested her among all age groups younger than 45, the two candidates polled evenly among voters aged 45 to 64. And Mrs. Clinton won the support of voters 65 and older. And, though Mrs. Clinton lost nearly every income group, she did carry voters in families earning over $200,000 per year.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@amk:
FiveThirtyEight gives him a whopping 5% chance to win Florida (vs. Trump’s 58%).
If the GOP wants a nominee other than Trump, then everybody but Cruz needs to drop out, right now, before Stupor Tuesday, and all their supporters need to throw in behind Cruz. Some poor schlub with the RNC has to call up the Bush campaign and tell Jeb that, for the good of the party, he’s done.
We’ll let Jeb tell Bar.
Otherwise, Trump will be the nominee.
I didn’t believe it would get this far; I thought surely that Trump would flame out back in September. I was sure that national polls wouldn’t translate into primary results. But the son of a bitch is actually winning votes where it matters.
Which I’m just fine with, personally; I’ll take Candidate Trump over everybody else, and if worst came to absolute worst, I could live with President Trump (as opposed to President Cruz).
The Golux
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
I’d like to point out how important the commas are in this sentence:
Matt McIrvin
@Brachiator:
Ha, ha, no. I think the moment Trump is the nominee apparent, Republicans will all fall in line. They like winning more than anything.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Matt McIrvin: 1. The thing about the AF officer corps is bullshit. Somewhat true of Academy grads, but over 95% of the AF office corps didn’t go and have never been within a thousand miles of the Academy. 2. All four branches (not the Coast Guard, I HOPE) have nukes and the ability to deliver them.
Your scenario is not ever going to happen.
C.V. Danes
@Barbara:
The divide that made socially progressive legislation the exception rather than the rule has existed since before the ink was drying on the Constitution. The aberration was the period after WWII, when most of the old capital in Europe was destroyed and people in the U.S. still had strong memories of the Depression.
People forget that Socialism, and to some extent Communism and Anarchy were somewhat strong political movements in this country at one time, mostly in response to the strong hold that entrenched capital had on government(s). I have a feeling that those days may come back if things don’t change and the middle class decline continues.
Matt McIrvin
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
I think a lot of us would be in personal danger under President Trump; he will at the very least try for Putin-style crushing of the opposition, and he’s actively promised cattle-car ethnic cleansing.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: The US Coast Guard, interestingly, is not under the Department of Defense, but rather under the Department of Commerce.
Gin & Tonic
@Gimlet: Do you ever find yourself wondering just why there’s a “link” button right above the comment box?
Frankensteinbeck
@rikyrah:
The people who say asshole things like ragging on Obama and commit unforced errors like stealing data for Bernie are actually on stage with him or in his campaign staff.
@Gimlet:
She must have won some demographic in Iowa, since she won one of Bernie’s best states. She must be winning some demographic elsewhere, since she’s thumping him in the polls.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I lived those days in the trenches — but they did not start with Clinton, they started with Reagan and Bush. It wasn’t Clinton’s people who referred to kids as super predators, it was Meese and Ashcroft. I hated a lot Bill did, but he didn’t do the things that Michele says he did, Reagan and Bush did. It wasn’t Clinton that created crack disparity laws, or freak outs about crack babies. it was Bush 1 and congress. Look at the Omnibus Crime Act of 1988 (Kennedy’s compromise baby) and weep. It was/is a lot more complicated than Prof. Alexander implies. I was there — in Miami. I was there in Roxbury. I was there in Texas.
And to blame Hilary for all of Bill’s work and positions is just plain. It is wrong but has been the burden of un-penised spouses forever.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Aren’t they now part of Homeland Security?
(Hate, hate, hate that name.)
Calouste
@gene108: That’s a well known phenomenon in Europe, where a lot of the vote of right-wing extremist parties comes from disappointed labour (social-democratic) party voters. They both appeal to the white working class, and promise to improve their relative standing. Labour by actually making life better for them and most everybody else, the neo-fascists by making life worse for the outgroup-du-jour. The first approach is of course a lot more complex than the second, and lots of people like less complexity.
Kropadope
@Barbara: The article does, in fact, point this out.
I didn’t read it so the article didn’t say it. /Glenn”Barbara”Beck
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Grumpy Code Monkey: I’ll say this: Trump’s business interests REQUIRE a working, prosperous economy geared towards the interests and bank accounts of the middle class. Policies that shoot most of the wealth to his class doesn’t do him fuck-all of good, in fact it hurts his bottom line quite a bit. So while Pervert Hairpiece scares the shit out of me, I will grudgingly admit that the he is the only GOP candidate whose interests align even a little bit with mine.
If Cruz wins I’m moving to Tijuana, assuming he has not had it nuked already.
D58826
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Maybe or maybe not. IIRC there was some concern, and babysitting by the Sect of defense, during the Nixon impeachment hearings about how the military would react. They were very supportive of nixon both because of shared political outlook and Nixon got the POWs back home. There was some concern that at least some in the military would do something stupid.
So I would not write the possibility off even though it is probably a remote one where Trump is concerned.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: Theyve bounced around quite a bit. You’re right, they are nowpart of DHS. In the 20th century they were variously part of Commerce, Treasury, and Transportation. Yet they have a .mil domain.
Here’s a useful history.
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: In wartime I think it transfers over to DOD. And wasn’t it at one time called the Revenue service. Original purpose was to stop smuggling, etc and not air/sea rescue.
Barbara
@C.V. Danes: I guess it depends on what you mean by somewhat. Yes, certainly, I assume you are talking about the first few decades of the 1900s (anarchy) and then the 1930s for communism, with socialism spanning both those periods. Neither of these took hold because both of the Roosevelts (mostly) were able to move Congress in a more progressive direction. In addition, it’s important to recall that no European country other than Russia had a true, people driven revolution — although England, in particular, saw a lot of labor strife. I have been reading “To Hell and Back” by Ian Kershaw and it pays much attention to the trajectory of social progress in Europe and how it differed from Russia.
Barbara
@Kropadope: I don’t feel the need to click through every link posted here. Calling people names appears to be the MO of Sanders supporters. So persuasive!
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Actually, no, the “Revenue Marine”. from the wiki link above:
but that changed
Either way, a weird start for an “armed service”.
Frankensteinbeck
@Barbara:
Not that this is relevant, but alas, China did. Not only a people-driven revolution, but Mao was definitely committed to his revolutionary communist ideology. What a clusterfuck that became.
sigaba
@Matt McIrvin: I seem to recall a certain Florida-sized chunk of electoral votes going to George W. Bush in 2000, and his margin over Gore (even excluding butterfly ballotry) was less than the number of people who voted for one Ralph Nader.
Kropadope
@Barbara: Making false assertions about things, particularly things they didn’t read or research, seems to be the MO of Clinton supporters.
Gin & Tonic
@D58826: It was transferred to the Department of the Navy for a time during WWI and WWII, then back to Treasury. DoD wasn’t created until 1947, I think.
Anyway, their history is in the link I posted above.
glory b
@satby: Yep, I can handle the cold and the wind, but I wimp out on ice big time.
Bobby Thomson
@Grumpy Code Monkey: why do people assume the RNC prefers Shutdown Cruz?
Cruz protects Trump’s flank precisely because he is even more unacceptable. Plus none of the governors can beat Trump and Rubio is a nincompoop.
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: Your right DOD didn’t come in to being till what 1946-47. Just used to thinking military=dod these days
OzarkHillbilly
@Kropadope: No Bernie supporter would ever do such a thing.
CONGRATULATIONS!
You Sanders/Clinton fanbois/girls are cracking me up. Bitching about which kind of premium steak is the best, while the other side is offering up tire rims and anthrax for dinner.
I don’t give a shit which one of them wins just so long as they win the general. A GOP presidency at this point in history will be the end of this nation.
Bobby Thomson
@Iowa Old Lady: I’m pretty sure she will come out ahead on delegates, but she could use a popular vote beauty contest win for morale. Nevada is notoriously difficult to poll because so many people work second shift.
Kropadope
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s become a constant, perpetual thing with Clinton supporters on Balloon Juice. There’s a clique of people on here who wouldn’t recognize a fact if it slapped them in the face.
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope:
Well this went off to the races quickly. I thought the point was supposed to be that Bill + Hillary Clinton were especially bad for black people, except that Bernie Sanders was worse for black people than Hillary because he actually voted for something that she wasn’t in a position to do anything more than talk about, but that doesn’t count because of the Iraq war and bank deregulation? How about, you know, guns? I hear that that’s had wee effect on black America.
glory b
@D58826: I know it’s politico but:
There was an article there that spoke about Sanders long history of saying disparaging things about democrats, and said he’s probably on record trashing them more than republicans.
I’m seeing the repubs and the media saying to Dems, “Well your party standard bearer said “________” about you/about Dems a few years ago, what’s your response?” Or to Bernie, “But __ months/years ago, you said “____” about Dems, isn’t this change to the party insincere?” The oppo ads write themselves.
I wonder if there’s such a thing as reverse coattails.
Nate Dawg
@Kropadope: Yes, I was told last night that her being unable to break 40% in NH, and losing among nearly all cohorts, was GREAT NEWS FOR HILLARY CLINTON!!!!!!!
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: No USAF officer who has control of nuclear weapons is going to obey an order to nuke any American city. Gary, East St. Louis, San Francisco, Sedona…none of them.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Sound like stoner Libertarians, to me.
Kropadope
@FlipYrWhig: I haven’t looked into Bernie’s role with respect to the crime bill, though I still intend to, and there is an important debate that needs to be had about guns.\
But my complaint about Barbara’s comment isn’t about any of that. It’s about the way that Clinton partisans are aggressively creating and pushing false narratives in this primary race. “All Bernie’s supporters are assholes, all Bernie offers is pie in the sky with no plausible policies, Bernie’s a sexist because he doesn’t like the tone of the gun debate.”
In this case it was “no one is talking about this vote Bernie took.” She made that comment in response to someone posting an article where that vote was, in fact, discussed. Maybe you don’t like the way the author prioritizes issues facing the black community, but that doesn’t change the fact that this vote is discussed in the article.
When called on this, Barbara says “I can’t read every article someone posts.” If you don’t read it, don’t make assertions about it’s content. Simple.
Kropadope
@Nate Dawg: Well, you have to admit that Hillary’s win in Iowa was way more decisive than Bernie’s win in New Hampshire.
C.V. Danes
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Either would be disasterous for this country and the world. And I mean that in full hyperbole. We’re talking WWIII, end of democracy level here.
John D.
@Nate Dawg: You were told that was what the polling had led us to believe was going to happen.
Which, y’know, is the truth.
I really wish the histrionics would cease. Sanders needed a big win in NH last night, and got it. Now he needs a big win in NV. And in SC. And on Super Tuesday. He needs to convince the superdelegates to abandon Clinton, or to get so many pledged delegates that the supers are immaterial.
Can you accept that those are not opinions, but statements of fact?
Clinton has an absolutely *enormous* lead right now, almost unprecedentedly so, due to the superdelegates. NH last night is a *tie* in delegate math if you factor in the 6 NH superdelegates already pledging to Clinton. For Sanders to overcome that, he needs to repeat 20 point victories in not one or two states, but DOZENS, and to get superdelegates to start endorsing HIM. So, what’s the path forward? I thinks Sanders *can* win this, and NH helped his case, but I still think he’s a massive underdog barring a total collapse by the Clinton campaign.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kropadope:
Hillary pulling a squeaker win in one of Sanders’ best states is more decisive than Sanders winning big in his best state, yes. Bernie winning NH isn’t good news for Hillary, it’s non-news that everyone who expects Hillary to win factored into their thinking long ago.
Kay
@Kropadope:
It’s just hard to believe when her “allies” are saying things like this:
I don’t know -if it isn’t true why are her “allies” saying it? I assume it’s to reassure donors, but why do the donors need reassurance?
They keep saying things like this:
That actually doesn’t make it better. It makes it worse, because it wasn’t due to planning or investment or a lack of “ground”. They had all those things. So what’s missing?
gene108
@Kropadope:
But he did vote for the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which is what underpinned the causes of the 2008 Financial Crisis.
Guess it doesn’t count for Bernie, but Hillary is responsible for Bush & Co.’s mishandling of Iraq.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Matt McIrvin
Any more so than under President Cruz?
@Bobby Thompson
Because right now he’s the only candidate who could catch Trump and potentially win against Clinton. I’m not saying it’s their preferred outcome, but it’s shaping up to be the likeliest scenario.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kay:
Who are these allies, exactly? Are they the same administration insiders who told us that Obama was going to announce Social Security cuts in his SOTU? I don’t even trust anonymous insider reports that tell me what I already know about Republicans anymore. It’s all ‘journalists’ telling you what they want to believe is true.
Another Holocene Human
@C.V. Danes: Where I am in the blue collar world people are flying out of shitty jobs into better ones. Hasn’t been like this since before the bubble burst. However, with inflation, real wages are lower for a lot of people. Saw some good numbers on the Fed stats that that may be changing. The overall systemic problem remains with two few hands holding too many magic beans.
Grumpy Code Monkey
@C.V. Danes:
I felt that way when W. won his second term, yet the Republic lurched on.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I feel like it’s one of two things- directed to donors to reassure them, or put out by someone in the campaign to defend their own work. I can’t be the only person who reads that and thinks “so they had planning and investment and ground operations- what does that leave?” Messaging and candidate, right?
glory b
@Kropadope: I’m black, I live in a black community, and I have problems with the way Michelle Alexander prioritizes.
I think “The New Jim Crow”s an important work, but I think we care waaaaay more about guns than the 1996 welfare reform bill or Hillary’s Iraq vote.
The Congressional Black Caucus asked for the crime bill, WE asked for the crime bill because, as I said before, we were scared.
I don’t believe for one minute that this was all a nefarious plot by Bill and his henchwoman Hillary to keep black peple down. There was lots of talk about the “super predators” and we were the ones who would be living with them, not white folks.
Coincidentally, I guess you all know about the theories that what prevented the super predators was the eliminatin of lots of lead in the environment.
Bernie voted for the gun lobby’s bills and the only response I’ve ever heard was “People in Vermont hunt.” Well, even if that’s the case, why vote to do away with roduct liability for them? Why vote to halt any research into preventing gun deaths?
For better or worse, Bill and Hillary have spent time with the members of the balck community for decades. I think she’s been forgiven for any role she had (as first lady??) in this. We asked elected officials to work for our vote, Hillary did.
Bernie just got here. NPR says he’s rolling out his push fo the black and hispanic vote today? What took him so long?
singfoom
@gene108: Yeah, as a Bernie supporter, I’ll cop to his voting for the CMFA as a bad bad thing that will come back to haunt him and is a rejoinder for HRC to use against him when arguing about who will be tough on Wall Street.
So it counts. Anybody who says it doesn’t isn’t looking at their guy with clear eyes.
That said, while the CMFA was part of the 2008 collapse, it’s just part of the story.
Cheers
FlipYrWhig
@Kropadope: Fine, and I can’t pick a fight with Michelle Freakin’ Alexander about race and criminal justice, but it’s serious sleight of hand by her (not you) to say that Clinton is bad for African Americans because of the crime bill (which Bernie voted for), the Iraq war and bank deregulation (which aren’t particularly racialized, not that they don’t have effects on African American America).
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: To me it doesn’t sound like reassurance at all but instead like someone newly on the outs with the campaign inner circle saying “Can you believe this stupid shit they’re about to try? ETA: I had a MUCH better idea!” Because that happened over and over and over again in 2008.
Elie
@Major Major Major Major:
That is a Yay! Saving a life is always Yay!
glory b
@Another Holocene Human: Geez, where might that be, and into what jobs?
MomSense
@Joel:
It was on politicsusa I can’t link because of my stupid thumbs and my smaht phone.
NR
@Just One More Canuck: Superdelegates are not “pledged” to anyone. They can change their votes at any time and we saw this happen quite a bit in 2008. All this talk of a Hillary “lead” among superdelegates is highly deceptive, since if Sanders wins the pledged delegates and the superdelegates pull a coup and install Hillary as the nominee, it will tear the Democratic party apart and guarantee a Republican win in November. I have trouble believing that even the Democratic establishment would be that stupid.
nutella
@Nate Dawg:
Hey, since you’re here now can you reply to my question in 163 @nutella ?
I am very interested to hear what your thinking is about authenticity.
Thanks.
John D.
@NR: You do realize that pledged delegates, just like superdelegates, are not bound to vote for the candidate they are nominally representing, right? Should we not talk about delegate leads at all?
NR
@Frankensteinbeck: Hillary losing by 20 points in a state she invested heavily in, and when she had the entire Democratic party establishment behind her, is news whether you like it or not.
NR
@John D.: That’s a disingenuous comparison and you know it. Pledged delegates are chosen with input from the campaigns and almost never change their votes. Compare that with the superdelegates in 2008.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Okay, but they said the same thing after Iowa- “ground saved her” or whatever. I said here for months that I thought she had strong Dem voter support going in. That’s what I believed. I’m wondering where that strong “organic” support is- support that doesn’t have to be driven by ads or elaborate turn out efforts.
J R in WV
@satby:
I was pretty scared when W Bush won re-election. That happened the night after my Dad died in Hospice care, around noon. I was dumbstruck. The Swift-boating of Senator Kerry, who won medals for actual combat, carrying a gun and killing the enemy… just so evil to lie like that. So many in the military win medals for just standing around in a combat zone, and Kerry got his for real heroic combat.
Fortunately, my brother, who had Bush 2004 bumper stickers on all his vehicles, didn’t say a word about the election that night. That was good of him. But 4 more years of stupid, all we needed.
satby
@glory b: Thanks, but I’m moving to Florida because my mom has dementia and needs a caregiver. So I’m selling my current house; selling short, but leaving under my own steam.I appreciate the thought though!
satby
@Paul in KY: I’m not sure what that was about, but it was kindly meant and that’s what matters. I suspect it refers to a comment on a different thread.
John D.
@NR: I’m sorry, I thought you were looking for an example of a “highly deceptive” comparison.
Saying that Clinton holds a massive lead in superdelegates is a statement of fact, not a deception. Yes, they can change their minds. No, they are not likely to do so unless the pledged delegates make their choice irrelevant. For that to happen, Sanders needs to win a large majority of the PLEDGED delegates in the upcoming caucuses and primaries.
Which, oddly enough, is exactly what I’ve been saying here, since before the Iowa caucus.
satby
@glory b: thank you.
J R in WV
@D58826:
Anybody else remember the “Impeach Earl Warren” billboards?
I asked my dad who Earl Warren is, and he said chief justice of the supreme court.
So I asked why to they want to impeach him? and he said it was complicated, but that those were a fringe group of a fringe group, and there was really no telling why any of them believed anything. Or words to that effect. My dad was a republican, but he knew who McCarthy was, and didn’t like him.
Once when I was in the US Navy, back in 1970, a small group of us were walking up between Waukegan IL and the Great Lakes Naval Station. We had been to a lake side nature preserve and were walking back “home” when it started to rain. We ran into a book store, which would usually tickle me no end.
So then, looking at the book titles, I realized pretty quickly that it was a John Birch Society book store, with titles about US Troops fighting with the Red Army in Russia back before WW II, and … well it’s hard to remember crazy stuff you saw once 45 years ago.
But what’s really weird is that there are apparently a lot of people who still believe that John Birch tripe, today. And all of them may vote for Trump… maybe. Hard to tell, really, what crazy people are going to do. That’s what is scary about them, after all.
J R in WV
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
I have come to suppose that W Shrub was ignorant, and maybe burned out from long-ago overindulgence, but not actively evil. Whereas Cruz is evil from top to bottom, stem to stern.
So the USA turned out to be able to survive having an inexperienced poltician at the helm, even with Darth at the wheel for 6 out of the 8 years. But if Darth was in command, as would be the case if Cruz wins out, I wonder if good people surrounding him would do any good. If he would allow good people near him.
Robert Sneddon
@J R in WV:
“Fighting with” as in “He was in a fight with Fred next door” or did the books refer to the US fighting alongside the Red Armyt? It’s not talked about much in American history books but the US was part of the international military effort against the Reds in the early part of the Russian Revolution and US troops did in fact fight the Red Army. It’s one of the reasons the Soviets were so paranoid about the big NATO presence in Europe after WWII.
Paul in KY
@satby: He had commented last year about some check I thought he had received ‘so that’s what a 7 figure check looks like’. Maybe it was a friend’s check & not his?