Per the NYTimes, “Donald Trump Finds Ally in Delegate Selection System, Much to G.O.P.’s Chagrin”:
… Hoping to avoid a repeat of the messy fight for the Republican nomination in 2012, the party drew up a calendar and delegate-selection rules intended to allow a front-runner to wrap things up quickly.
Now, with Republicans voting in 11 states on Tuesday, the worst fears of the party’s establishment are coming true: Donald J. Trump could all but seal his path to the nomination in a case of unintended consequences for the party leadership, which vehemently opposes him.
“Trump has significant advantages, and that’s the way the system is designed,” said Joshua T. Putnam, a political science lecturer at the University of Georgia with an expertise in delegate selection. “It’s right in line with what the folks designing these rules wanted. It’s just not the candidate they preferred.”
As the calendar flips, March brings a whirlwind of states voting on the same days and in quick succession. By the middle of the month, 58 percent of the total delegates will have been awarded, and Mr. Trump could be unstoppable in getting the 1,237 needed to clinch the nomination.
With the exception of Texas, the home state of Senator Ted Cruz, recent polls show Mr. Trump leading in the so-called Super Tuesday states that vote this week, including Alabama, Georgia, Massachusetts and Virginia. Though Texas has the most delegates of states voting on Tuesday, 155, they all award delegates proportionally, so that Mr. Cruz will most likely have to share the haul…
Meanwhile, on our “mostly harmless sane” side of the aisle, the people at the top have stayed about as civil as politics ever gets. Despite a fake NYTimes article “widely circulated on social media”, that includes my own senior senator, as reported in Politico:
Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are battling it out in Massachusetts ahead of the March 1 primary here — and the state’s most important endorsement, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, is still sitting on the sidelines of the debate, watching and waiting for her moment of maximum leverage.
Even as Clinton turns Massachusetts — a predominantly white, progressive New England state that should be tailor-made for Sanders — into a battleground Super Tuesday state, the campaign has been quietly respectful of Warren’s desire to remain neutral.
In part, that’s because the progressive standard-bearer — and the only member of the state’s congressional delegation who has not endorsed Clinton — is expected to play the role of peacemaker in the Democratic Party at some point in the months leading up to the convention, sources familiar with Warren’s thinking said.
If Clinton wins enough delegates by the end of March to become the presumptive Democratic nominee, Warren is expected to negotiate hard before giving her support to Clinton. In doing so, she could play a critical role helping to bring young, enthusiastic Sanders supporters into her fold…
***********
Apart for stocking up on popcorn, and Pepto-Bismol, for this evening’s results-watching, what’s on the agenda for the day?
OzarkHillbilly
It’s times like these that I really miss Molly Ivins.
Patricia Kayden
Who are these mythical Republican leaders who hate Trump? When he wins their Party’s nomination, they will fully support him in his efforts to defeat Secretary Clinton. Let’s stop fooling ourselves.
PaulW
Poor Molly would have been writing every hour, not every day…
PaulW
@Patricia Kayden:
Agreed. if these Republican leaders really existed, they would have set up standards and barriers ages ago to ensure only their candidates run and not outside agitators beyond their control.
Oh, but then again, those same Republican leaders wouldn’t have stoked their voting base into a crazed mindset of racism and ignorance, the two things Trump has been using to gain all that support in the first place…
PaulW
That said, I hope to see everyone at the Florida Library Association conference this week.
OzarkHillbilly
George Kennedy- RIP
amk
“It’s right in line with what the folks designing these rules wanted. It’s just not the candidate they preferred.”
yet another typical rethugs’ knee jerk shoot from the hips stupid decision backfiring on them.
rikyrah
Good Morning ? , Everyone
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly: .
Molly would have written volumes on Rafael
Mustang Bobby
To quote myself this morning: “You can Feel the Bern or Stand with Hillary; hell, you can rally behind Teddy the Wonder Lizard for all I care. Just don’t let the bastards win.”
bystander
George Kennedy was perfection acting with Leslie Nielsen in the Naked Gun series. And menacing frail and beautiful Audrey Hepburn in Charade. He really could psycho it up.
While the repubs have Jeff Sessions, the “soul” of conservatism, to salve their post campaign wounds, the Dems have Elizabeth Warren. Seems fair.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@OzarkHillbilly: Interesting story on George Kennedy. He was in the army and a technical adviser on Sgt Bilko. Phil Silvers liked him so much he got him a part on the show, prompting him to leave the army and pursue acting. A few years later he wins the Academy Award for “Cool Hand Luke”
He had a nice career in supporting roles: The Dirty Dozen, Sons of Katie Elder, Airport, and of course The Naked Gun trilogy.
tybee
@OzarkHillbilly:
damn. another kennedy goes down.
BillinGlendaleCA
Back when I was a youngster(1966-67), about every couple of weeks, several days during that week we’d hear a loud low roar and the windows would rattle and the ground would shake. An earthquake(it was California)? No it was the testing of the Saturn V rocket engines at the North American Rockwell test facility about 10 miles away from us. I’ve been looking to do some hikes and get pictures of some of the old test sites(it’s still pretty remote). I was scouting out the trails in the area on teh Google Earth this evening.
raven
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Wiki says he was injured and had to leave the military?
Currants
Got at least 4 robo calls from The Rubot’s pac yesterday.
(Likely link fail. Inept tablet user error. )
Also have been hearing from Charlie Baker all week. Love how Repubs want Independents to do their work for them. can’t wait til today is over…and then November.
Amir Khalid
Some ninny at Salon is giving Elizabeth Warren “thanks for nothing” because she hurt the progressive agenda by choosing not to run for President in 2016.
Currants
@Currants: @Currants: sorry all. That link should go to Open Secrets’ page for Conservative Solutions SuperPAC.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Currants:
When you insert your links, you need to erase the
http://
that is pre-supplied in the box.Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: They have an endless supply of ninnies at Salon.
SFAW
@Patricia Kayden:
They’re off playing polo, astride rainbow unicorns.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: That could be really cool.
PurpleGirl
@tybee: Reading the Wikipedia entry for Mr. Kennedy, it seems he wasn’t a member of the Massachusetts Kennedy clan. He was born in NYC into a show business family. His father (an entertainer) died when he was four and his mother was a ballet dancer.
George Kennedy was 91; he had been living in an assisted living facility in Idaho. He died of lung cancer and had heart problems.
raven
@PurpleGirl: Check your snarkometer.
satby
Good morning! Another day, another winter weather advisory for freezing rain and snow. And my nasty cold or flu seems to be back. At least it’s going to be an interesting news day.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@raven: I imagine both things are true. He probably left the army due to injury and then decided to pursue acting as a second career. He definitely started out on Bilko – IMDB lists him appearing on 14 episodes over a 3 yr period.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Currants:
Link fixed: Open Secrets page.
Aleta
Good article by Laurence Tribe on The Scalia Myth, and about the future of our republic.
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: They’re doing environmental remediation on the site now, so I want to get some pics before they tear it all down. I don’t want to spend too much time near there, there was quite a bit of chemical toxicity there as well as a partial nuclear meltdown(Experimental Sodium Reactor).
Elliott
@OzarkHillbilly: yeah, why does God hate us so?
PurpleGirl
@BillinGlendaleCA: That sounds really cool. I remember that as a kid I used to watch every rocket launch on TV that I could. Even waking up early to see them. My parents thought I was crazy to do so but I found rocket launches incredibly fun and I’d join the count-down. Not sure at what point I stopped watching them but I really enjoyed them.
OzarkHillbilly
@Amir Khalid: EW to Salon ninny: “Oh, I’m sorry, I guess you’ll have to find a different Messiah to fix all that is wrong in your world.”
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Tonight’s Poll Closing Times
7:00 PM Eastern:
Georgia
Virginia
Vermont
8:00 PM Eastern:
Alabama
Massachusetts
Oklahoma
Texas
Tennessee
8:30 PM Eastern:
Arkansas
9:00 PM Eastern:
Minnesota
Colorado
American Samoa begins their caucus at 2:00 PM Eastern.
Aleta
@satby: Got a feeling you do this already, but hot water bottle or heat packs on the chest/sinuses/anywhere are wondrous.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@PaulW:
She would have died from exhaustion!
BillinGlendaleCA
@PurpleGirl: I also had a lot of interest in the space program. In addition to feeling the engine test, many of my friends’ dads worked at the companies that produced the rockets. My dad worked for DOD on the early cruise missiles.
SFAW
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
That’s “The critical American Samoa caucus begins …” to YOU, you FSM-damned Canuck!
Go back to Canadia!
SFAW
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
But what a way to go?
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
Lets be honest, these guys know that Trump has already damaged the GOP brand and strongly suspect that he is going to get his ass handed to him in November. They don’t hate his thoughts, they hate that he says what they believe out loud and has demonstrated that a majority of Republicans are not fit for human habitation. There should be a monkey island where they could go to fling poo at each other.
They hate Trump for what he is doing to their precious.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@PurpleGirl:
I remember watching Sheppard’s launch at school & Glenn’s at a friends house instead of going to religious training (they used to let us out every Wed early if our parents had signed us up with one of the local churches for indoctrination). I was madly in love with the space program & some images are burned into my brain, launches particularly. I watched everything up till the end of Apollo. The STS was a joke & never really interested me, maybe I was too old to dream by then but I didn’t see it getting us to the stars & it sure as hell didn’t. I am still a huge fan of manned space flight despite my time working at KSC for NASA
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
This is David Yost, the Ohio auditor.
He’s a “moderate” but he’s also ambitious and self-promoting. He’ll probably run for governor but they will have a crowded field. They all seem to be running for governor on the R side.
NonyNony
@Amir Khalid: For some reason, idiot progressives/liberals/leftists who don’t understand how our government works and place no value on having good leaders in the Senate and House piss me off almost as much as conservatives do. Warren is a great Senator, and we need her in there pushing for us more than we need her as an executive signing legislation, appointing judges, juggling the various departments, and enacting foreign policy.
It’s like they refuse to understand what each job is, and think the president is a king or a dictator who can get their way just by being elected, and that misunderstanding of government and how our electorate works by people I consider allies is just so infuriating.
BruceFromOhio
Hats off to Sens Warren, Sanders, SoS Clinton, to maintaining a sane, civil face. I honestly do not care who takes the banner of the Dems, I am ecstatic to have any and all of these folks as the successors to PBO, and as a bulwark against the two-bit soulless ratfuck criminals driving the country into the wall. A Sanders/Clinton or Clinton/Sanders ticket with Warren on the cabinet or carrying the banner in the Senate just defrosts my nasty old cynical heart.
@NonyNony: This times sixteen jillion.
@Mustang Bobby: And this, also, too.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): I wonder if part of the problem is USA does not build anything big anymore.
Except wars.
We’ve gone from putting a man on the moon to having a bunch of old cranks who don’t believe in science or in paying anything for the common good.
Betty Cracker
@satby: Feel better! This nasty cold that’s going around seems to be a two-parter.
Elizabelle
@BillinGlendaleCA: That would have been cool. Few years back, could hear the roar in Long Beach from McDonnell Douglas jet engines being tested, miles and miles away.
But a Saturn V. Wow.
Look forward to seeing your pictures.
OzarkHillbilly
@BillinGlendaleCA: Back in the day when I was into it, I really liked taking pics of old abandoned places. Back when they were getting ready to put the Weldon Springs processing plant on the Super Fund list, I got into some of the old buildings on the site and took some really cool pics. Probably got more than a few rads but they were worth it… or would be if I still had the pics.
Currants
@Steeplejack (phone): Thx. I’m used to doing it on my laptop. Got am iPad for birthday and am so far not a savvy user……
BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle:
These two things are connected.
BruceFromOhio
THE SAMOSA IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE DUMPLING MEETS PURE INNOVATION
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Washington Post (Most Read Stories)
Most Read
1. In 1927, Donald Trump’s father was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens
2. Chris Christie is now ruined
3. For first time in 10 years, Justice Clarence Thomas asks questions during an argument
4. If the Oscars were all about diversity, why the crude Asian joke?
5. These new Trump poll numbers should absolutely terrify Republicans
So much for “the strongest field in a generation!”
BillinGlendaleCA
@OzarkHillbilly: They’ve had tours of the site, but I don’t know if/when they’re going to have another one, so I’m look at locations that I can hike to that would have a view. I’ve got a 50-200mm lens that should give me a close enough shot if I can get within a mile or so. There’s one location that’s east of the lab that should afford me a view of the site of the meltdown, though I’m not sure about the rocket testing facilities. I’ll probably do that first since it’s a shorter hike and there’s some really cool rock formations in that area. The other one would involve about a 10 mile r/t hike, though with not a lot of steep hills. Both locations are in National Park Service administered land.
ETA: Also something else space related: the ISS video feed (http://www.n2yo.com/space-station/).
amk
@Amir Khalid:
heh, at least she had 3 years before the loony left turned on her unlike the kenyan who had only two years.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Elizabelle:
The space program became a giant welfare program. Key Congressman got centers located in their districts as it was the only way to get the bastards to fund NASA (many of those bastards were Dixicrats). Instead of focusing on science many of the people I worked with were only interested in their petty career. We lost lives because of people who should have been asking “You want fries with that?” instead of working on the space program.
One of the good guys died this past week, one of the two guys that tried to stop the Challenger launch. He spent his old age wracked with guilt because his courage failed him when the entire burden of the shuttle program was laid on him & he didn’t stop the launch. NASA needs more like him & fewer like the bastards who were told what would happen but dodged the responsibility and let people die. I have seen some of those bastards get teary eyed about the result but I their actions did not indicate they took any blame or tried to do things differently/
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: Didn’t read, but looked at list of the other “most read” Salon articles.
Salon is certainly precious today. And not in a good way.
PurpleGirl
At some point early in the space program, the original seven astronauts were to be in NYC for a parade. They were driving them into Manhattan on the Grand Central Parkway to the Triborough Bridge. We lived two blocks from the Grand Central and there was an overpass on my street. So I stayed home from school that day and went to stand on the overpass to watch the motorcade pass below us. They were in a convertible with the top down. So cool.
Baud
It’s do or die day for Baud! American Samoa is my firewall.
Elizabelle
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor): Thank you for explaining.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@bystander:
He was a great psycho – but for my money, my favorite two psycho villains of older movies were Telly Savalas in “The Dirty Dozen” and Robert Mitchum in the original “Cape Fear”. You just knew that Savalas’ character was completely unhinged, and that Mitchum was calculatingly, psychotically evil.
debbie
@Kay:
Probably because they’ve run out of jobs to swap.
Baud
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Yet both would make better presidents than anyone currently running in the GOP field.
barbequebob
@SFAW:
I lived in American Samoa for 3 years. They love being a part of USA. It provides a quality of life far superior to that of their relatives in the eastern half of the archipelago, in the independent nation of Samoa, as well as ability to move to mainland USA.
debbie
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
Don’t forget Henry Fonda in How the West Was Won. A total psycho.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: of course it is – it’s surrounded by water.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@barbequebob: yeah, it’s big recruiting ground for the college football and the NFL
It used to be nicknamed Baud! Island.
Now it’s called Football Island.
amk
sam bee: you built that dems and moderates.
Iowa Old Lady
@PaulW: You make me want to come to the Florida Library Conference.
sherparick
One advantage of the Conservative Movement, particularly its Theocratic Wing, over the much less organized liberals and progressives, is they way they organized and became a force in every election from school boards, county supervisors, state legislatures, and of course Congress. A surprising number of liberals and progressives apparently believe in the “Green Lantern” theory of the Presidency. They believe that if they make the right person President, and that person really uses their will power, then everything they want can be done. Perhaps this is the result of the collapse of civics education in America (or people just sleeping through the class. The U.S. does not work like that.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Morning all.
It’s a beautiful crisp morning here in NoVA. The weather won’t be a problem with the turnout here. J is a huge Bernie fan but dreads him losing and has the feeling that is happening. I’m going with History’s Greatest Monster, so we’ll be canceling each other out.
Whatever happens today, I don’t see us not being united after the Convention.
Get out there and vote for your choice, but let’s not burn down the bridges between ourselves.
Cheers,
Scott.
TheBuhJaysus
I’ve gotta say I’m looking forward to Trump’s victory speech were he says winning is byootiful and that he loves everybody, especially the morons, the dumber the better.
There’s been plenty of laugh out loud moments so far this election season, but Trump’s thanking of willfully ignorant last week was almost heart-warming.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: While the one of the nicest guys in the world Mitchum could just ooze cold calculating evil on screen. The Night of the Hunter is right up there with, and to me anyway even above, Cape Fear. Not just a scary movie, it was absolutely terrifying.
Jeffro
@Patricia Kayden:
Fooling ourselves? Oh, you mean we should dispel with the fiction that…
lol
Popcorn and Pepto-Bismol today indeed!
Matt McIrvin
@Schlemazel (parmesan rancor):
Correct, but, frankly, this is how spending happens in the United States. Right now, there’s relatively little pork-barrel spending going on, but it means nothing gets done at all. (SLS/Orion keeps soldiering on, though, despite being really questionable in terms of what its actual mission is.)
Keith G
Texas polls open in 30 min. That gives me time for a leisurely 2 mi. stroll to Houston’s Lamar HS.
Eight years ago, when the polls opened for the primary, I was the 20th person in a line that was at 70 and quickly growing. When I went back for the precinct caucus when the polls closed, there were 200+ of us meeting to decide on our ideas for the Democratic Platform and choosing delegates to the district convention some two weeks later.
Edited to note, Though HRC won the state, Obama was the clear winner in our precinct caucus. We Obama folks were exceeding gracious in victory.
Jeffro
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Beautiful morning here in NoVA – check
Going with History’s Greatest Monster today – check
United Dems (whether by April or by July) – check, check, check. Looking forward to seeing Clinton, Sanders, and Obama up on that stage together in Philly…should be a nice contrast to Cleveland!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Well, Michum definitely was fond of a doobie. That right there puts him light years ahead of the clown car.
Matt McIrvin
@TheBuhJaysus: “I love the poorly educated!” was actually one of the more honorable things Trump has said. Other things being equal, I could get behind a candidate who had that as a slogan, because somebody needs to stick up for the poorly educated. Of course, the trouble is that he values them for their ignorance, which is the wrong motivation.
Iowa Old Lady
@amk: Sam Bee is brilliant! And she’s right. 2010 was the election that mattered most. Thanks for the link.
sherparick
Nancy LeTourneau has a good post up on why African Americans went so big for Hillary and Sanders’ campaign rather tone death “class” argument that also attacks a man, President Obama, who they consider heroic. They are also scared to death that a Neo-Confederate Republican in the White House (it would not matter which of the four current Republican wins), with Neo-Confederate Congress, and Neo-Confederate Tea Party State Governments would mean a return of de facto Jim Crow segregation and the loss of their right to vote and protection from state and extra-state violence. http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2016_02/assessing_the_threats_we_face059763.php#disqus_thread
Matt McIrvin
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: In real life, I haven’t encountered any Democrats who turn Clinton vs. Sanders into a screaming match. We all agree that we’d happily support either of them.
It’s all online. I have Facebook/G+ friends who I suspect are going to melt down in sad and ugly ways when it looks like we have a nominee, and if it gets too much I might have to stop following them.
OldDave
@debbie:
You mean Once Upon A Time in the West? I had the surreal experience of waking up in ICU after a long surgery to find that Sergio Leone classic playing on the TV. “Oh, a Henry Fonda western. This should be fun.” said my soon to be horrified, somewhat anesthetized brain.
PurpleGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: The one picture I really remember Mitchum in is Heaven Knows Mr. Allison. Deborah Kerr was a Catholic nun and Mitchum a US Marine, they are stranded together on a Japanese held island in the South Pacific during WWII. He wasn’t a particularly scary character but he was cynical and hard-bitten. He made a very strong impression on this child watching the movie on TV.
p.a.
@PurpleGirl: My Army cousin worked at a Nike site. I remember the tour: MPs doing guard dog demos, a visit to a control room (lights and buttons!) but don’t remember seeing a missle or silo.
Also too, remember hearing sonic booms?
Once flounder fishing on Quincy bay (3 or 4 guys, 16′ rented dory, case of Gansett & ounce of dope- good times) the boat began shaking for no apparent reason, a weird howl, and the SST appeared, taking off from Logan. (Not up to speed for a boom, but the fucking power it generated…)
Elizabelle
@amk: Good writing, but I can’t watch the rhino again. Too early in the day.
She made her points well, and in entertaining fashion.
Although: 2016 is an enormously important election. Supreme Court, peeps.
debbie
@OldDave:
You’re right, sorry. Too early here.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: I can’t watch right now, but I agree about 2010. We blew it.
Elizabelle
Feeling the Robert Mitchum love. He was marvelous. Cape Fear, Night of the Hunter, good in anything.
@OldDave: Still have never seen Once upon a Time all the way through. It’s hard to take in one sitting. Bit too much brutality to subject one’s self to. Although Henry Fonda with those (serial) killer blue eyes.
OzarkHillbilly
Hey Ladies, if you needed another reason to disassociate yourself from anyone who even consider voting for the Trumpster, here it is:
from an opinion piece on how Trump disrespects veterans. I thought the misogyny was far worse.
TheBuhJaysus
@Matt McIrvin:
“The poorly educated” that was it. They watched ” the Apprentice” and now they’re turning out to vote.
I realize more and more that the Donald has a lot of love to give…
Gin & Tonic
@Matt McIrvin: Thanks, Senator Hruska.
Lurking Canadian
I don’t know that I believe Warren is deliberately planning to play “peacemaker” in exchange for her support. That seems too Machiavellian to match her style.
However, my hat is off to whoever came up with the idea that she should. It is a great symbolic way to bury any remaining rancor from the primary campaign.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t understand why there’s so much fear around this disagreement. I get that we all have to rally around the candidate but it’s reaching the point where we can’t even have a primary without immediate calls to stop fighting and pull for the team. My God, if the coalition is this fragile maybe it should reorganize in some more resilient version. Bernie Sanders and a couple of thousand people on Facebook or Twitter was never an existential threat to the Democratic Party establishment. They’ll survive. They’re winning. They were always winning.
Democrats in down ticket races would better spend their time figuring out how to ally themselves with his supporters because he has a list of of what looks like several million people who are engaged enough to donate in all 50 states. Bernie Sanders is a good “problem” to have.
amk
John Fugelsang
Bush-Romney-Trump. Are there any rich kids who dodged Nam (but still supported sending poor kids) the GOP would consider NOT nominating?
Retweets 378 Likes 500
OzarkHillbilly
@PurpleGirl: Oh Dog, a classic. I haven’t thought of that one in a long time. To the Netflix queue I go.
PurpleGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you. Very succinct and to the point. You said it much better than I could have and I was trying to form a comment about Roman Hruska and G. Harold Carswell. The comment in my head just got too long.
Lee
This proves without a doubt that The Onion has a time machine
Elizabelle
Got a text msg on my cell last night from an actual Bernie volunteer, telling me where I voted and hours. Texted her back with thanks and she responded.
Impressed. Did not tell her I had already voted for HRC, but impressed at Bernie’s ground game there. (Northern VA)
Keith G
Reading Inside the Clinton Team’s Plan to Defeat Donald Trump
raven
@Keith G: Linky no workee
raven
@PurpleGirl: He was a Guadalcanal Marine.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Sanders is running what I think are very effective ads in Ohio. A lot. They run a lot. They’re not “about” Bernie Sanders- they’re about income inequality and campaign finance reform. Those are two issues that are included in the stated goals of the Democratic Party and Ohio will soon be flooded with GOP issue ads from their 5000 PACs and lobbying groups. This is an objectively good thing, these ads.. Is it a list of all Democratic or liberal issues in ranked priority? No. But that was never the measure of an “ally”.
Keith G
@raven: Yeah, that link is from the New York Times mobile app. For some reason I couldn’t get the correct link to transfer. Sorry about that. I’ve tried several times its not having it.
But it is the lead story on the Times site this morning.
satby
@Aleta: Thanks! Just got back from driving the girls to school in the freezing rain, everything was ice-covered. Curling up with a hot pack sounds like it will go great with my drowsy cold medicines.
bystander
@OldDave: No, “Debbie” disliked anyone pulling attention away from her. “Debbie” wasn’t in any spaghetti Westerns but she was in “How the West…” with Fonda.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Thanks Betty!
Chyron HR
@PurpleGirl:
“And that was the story of how I spat on Alan Shepard.”
Elizabelle
@Keith G:
Here’s Keith’s Link. Inside the Clinton Team’s Plan to Defeat Donald Trump
Co-author is Amy Chozick, and I find her kind of slimey, so have not read article yet.
raven
@Keith G: go tit
Tripod
Predictions?
Sanders Vermont, Oklahoma and Minnesota. Clinton everywhere else, and by large margins – enough to put the delegate count out of reach.
For all the huzzah about Sanders February fundraising haul – where the hell did they spend it??
FlipYrWhig
@sherparick:
I think the longing is more that if they elect the right person president it will show that there are so many people like them in America that they’ll no longer be able to be ignored. And I think one person who believes in this rather strongly is Bernie Sanders.
@Kay: If the campaign finance reform piece is Bernie Sanders’s legacy to Democratic politics, as in something that keeps coming up, the way the no-tax pledge works on the Republican side, that would be a positive development. Personally I find it to be a peculiar emphasis. But the people it resonates with really, really care.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Wiki says not so.
raven
@raven: oops
Kay
@Tripod:
They’re spending it on what are essentially Democratic and liberal issue ads in states like Ohio. Which is nice, because Ohio will be flooded with conservative and Republican issue ads by June. It will be up the nominee to see if she can benefit from that investment, because she supports the same things.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I meant in the movie.
Gin & Tonic
@PurpleGirl: I knew this was one place where I wouldn’t have to explain my reference.
Gin & Tonic
@Tripod: I see a Sanders ad on my teevee every five minutes (Mass media market.)
raven
@Gin & Tonic: In Georgia too.
FlipYrWhig
@Tripod: So will Rachel Maddow talk for 17 consecutive minutes tonight about the Oklahoma primary, then?
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: DOH!
Betty Cracker
@raven: Also in Florida. Always the same ad.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: I wasn’t clear and she didn’t care anyway!
currants
@Steeplejack (phone): THANK YOU.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
death hug?
OzarkHillbilly
Don’t worry Bernie fans, if Sanders loses the Dem nomination, Jesse Ventura is going to ride to the rescue.
Applejinx
@Elizabelle: Interesting article. It does reveal a weakness, though, which I guarantee Trump will use to the fullest.
They’re assuming he will still be in primary mode. I’d bet (pitifully small amounts of) money that should Trump run against Clinton, he’ll drop all that like a hot rock and accuse Hillary of being a corporate/Wall Street whore.
Possibly even in those words, insisting things like ‘you take the money, and the middle class gets fucked’. Escalation of the ‘shocking’, and straight at the point of greatest weakness: he will make a case that he would know because he moves in the same circles, buys the same influences. He’ll call her the worst of the lot.
This is dangerous. It doesn’t even have to be true to be damaging, and the trouble is we depend on Clinton to not leave herself too open to that charge. If it wasn’t for Bernie she would have NO preparation for that angle of attack at all.
I guarantee, this is what Trump would do. He’s not stupid about making his attacks damaging, he’s not shy about going ‘shocking’ if it can make his point memorable, and he’s got to be salivating at the chance. I see the Clinton people preparing to run against him on race and social justice and love and caring, and those things are not a defense against what Trump’s going to be saying. If anything, it makes the protestations of love and caring seem like the worst sort of pandering, betrayal waiting to happen.
Somebody make the Clinton people listen to this, even if they’ve not got a clear strategy on it. They can’t assume Trump will remain in primary mode. Unlike so many of the Republicans, he’s not that kind of stupid.
O. Felix Culpa
I saw a bumper sticker yesterday: “I think, therefore I’m Republican.” An endangered species, if true.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Okay, but I want you to understand why this approach bugs me. One the one hand you’re telling me Democrats meed a long game and liberals need to promote their ideas but it’s also all about “results”, which are baby steps. In the next breath you’re telling me unless it gets immediate results it’s worthless. What happened to baby steps?
That isn’t how organizing works. I hear “greem lantern theory of the Presidency” all the time but this is the “green lantern theory of organizing”. There is no way to make an issue important without doing something. You have these people in a kind of trap. “Show us RESULTS! but also don’t fail and don’t try anything unless it gets RESULTS”. I mean. Jesus. It’s not that they can’t win in this scenario we’ve set up. It’s that there’s no tolerance for losing. They will LOSE before they win. They might not ever win! That’s a possibility!
How are we all going to run for “dogcatcher” if the worst thing one can possibly do is try and lose? There will be a lot of lost dogcatcher races in a “long game”. In this scenario everyone has to win, immediately, or every effort is a “waste” and even damaging! That isn’t a “long game”. It’s a risk averse “short game” that focuses exclusively on the Presidency. That’s fine, but lets be clear that this is a very mixed message. Is it “long game” where there will be wins and losses or is it short game where we tolerate no risk? You can’t have both.
raven
@Kay: I got whiplash from that post!
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Is the “you” in the preamble me, or a more general you? I honestly couldn’t give two shits about campaign finance reform, which strikes me as a nice thing that has zero to do with any of the reasons why politics in America is the way it is. So if that’s what Bernie Sanders and his team want to care about, have at it.
Germy
The Onion: ‘I’m Trump All The Way,’ Says Man Who Will Die From Mishandling Fireworks Months Before Election
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
There are no accidents.
JMG
@Applejinx: I am not sure that line of attack will do Trump as much good as you think. It is a serve that allows for returns based on his own business record, The list of people he’s screwed via bankruptcy and who have or are suing him (including some members of his golf courses!) is a long one and they’d make for good ads.
Kay
@raven:
Income inequality and campaign finance should be an issue that wins races, but no one can try to make it an issue, because it isn’t an issue that wins races.
“Results!” but no efforts that fail, because that’s not “results!” it’s just an effort. I don’t know how they get from A (trying) to B (results) without trying. One comes before the other.
FlipYrWhig
@raven: Which, mine? If it wasn’t clear, what I meant was that the Bernie Sanders theory of change seems to be all about the people rising up to demand things, so if there are enough of those people to elect Bernie Sanders, that’s evidence of a wholly different constellation of voters than anyone thought, which means that a representative and responsive government should do different things to please them. But I don’t think there _are_ enough of those people to that, and on top of that I think that if the people somehow did elect Bernie Sanders that wouldn’t make the other elected officials any more responsive to the desires of the people who elected Bernie Sanders. The whole point of the contemporary Republican Party is to say a hearty “fuck you” to the kinds of people who would manage to elect Bernie Sanders, and dare you to throw them out.
raven
@FlipYrWhig: Youj= don’t see the “Kay” in the post?
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
It’s just I saw the same thing with Occupy. “let me know when they get results!” Okay, but it’s an organizing effort. 99% of those aren’t going to flip Congress in a cycle. That’s what the long game is- it’s long.
Republicans didn’t change the estate tax to the death tax in 15 minutes. They said it over and over and over and over, and then they won and changed the laws.
raven
@Kay: I was joking.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: How are income inequality and campaign finance even the same issue? Of the two, I’d MUCH MUCH rather have income inequality being talked about. Campaign finance is like a branch of an explanation of an underlying condition that sustains income inequality. I think it’s a bizarre hobbyhorse for the world that faces us in 2016.
FlipYrWhig
@raven: Kay was responding to me so I thought you were chiming in with her critique of my earlier post, which had two parts and thus might have produced whiplash. Sorry if that wasn’t the case.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Have I ever said that there’s something wrong with that? And the Bernie Sanders campaign isn’t really an organizing effort, it’s a campaign to win the Democratic nomination. It makes more sense as an organizing effort. I’m not sure its organizing efforts are particularly well-placed issue by issue, but it’s not my campaign and they’ve done far better with raising the prominence of their issues than I would have expected.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
There don’t have to be enough of them to “elect Bernie Sanders”. 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 million people who care about things the Democratic Party purports to care about are enough to make it worthwhile, because “worthwhile” doesn’t mean “win a national race”.
Bernie Sanders has now identified millions of people in all 50 states who care about issues the Democratic Party says they care about. That is a good thing and it’s practically risk-free! It comes at very little cost. Just take the gift instead of rejecting it because it isn’t big enough.
Kirbster
I just got home from voting. In my little Massachusetts town, We all vote in the Community Center gym. Our ballots are color-coded by party affiliation (or lack thereof). As I saw people with Republicans ballots, I just had to remind myself that these people are not monsters, they’re just voting for one.
There was nothing much on the rest of the ballot except to approve or disapprove of the 35-person committee that runs the town. Our current Democratic congressman has no primary challenger. Exit polling was done by kids from the local high school as a project for their government class. I am heartened that the high school has a class about government. They probably know more about how the government works than 90% of the electorate.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
As you know I disagree. I don’t think anything that polls at 70% agin is a “bizarre hobbyhorse” and that’s where Citizens polls. “Campaign finance” is proxy for “capture and corruption”- it isn’t about the statutory factors governing donations.
That’s what Donald Trump is talking about when he says he’s self-funded. That’s what they’re cheering.
Doug R
Got the Drumpfinator extension for Chrome. It works.
Redshift
Steady stream of voters here at my precinct in Northern Virginia today. I’m feeling pretty good about it. I chatted with my Republican counterpart about our preferences. He declined to specify other than “not the current frontrunner,” and further joked that it will be a historic election, because unless things change, we’ll either have the first woman president, the first Jewish president, or the first insane president. :-)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ed Rollins (celebrity campaign manager) was declared persona non grata when he (IIRC) ditched Bush for Perot. Michael Steele has said he gets the cold shoulder from Republicans (why, I don’t really get, he’s a rhetorically loyal media hack, and how is he worse for them than Preibus?). I wonder if Christie really did himself some long term damage.
(I don’t get the “like milk” thing, I guess it’s related to the attached movie clip I don’t recognize)
Keith G
@Applejinx: I just cast my primary vote for the person who will become the next president of the United States. I do believe that you are correct in that she is going to have a much more difficult time attaining that position than any of us could even imagine. If Trump is the nominee for the other side. It will even be a tougher time and I believe some of your ideas are correct. Some, but not all.
JlAssuming today unfolds as many have indicated, I hope that there are wise people in the Sanders Campaign who will begin seriously planning an exit strategy that is very helpful both to his legacy and to the success of candidate Hillary Clinton. And assuming that the primaries in middle March unfold the way we think they will, I hope that then Bernie Sanders steps aside and begins the process of reuniting an invigorated Democratic Party.
Donald J Trump is a skillful (and worse, lucky) demagogue operating at a time of discontent. He will have a certain amount of wind in his sails. He would be underestimated at our greatest peril.
JMG
I have appointments this morning, and since our local polling place here in Mass. is an elementary school, voting between 7:45 and 9 a.m. is insane. I was up early so I went as soon as polls opened at 7. I was voter number 58 at 7:10. That’s pretty good even for this high turnout town.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I don’t know what you think I’m rejecting. I have pleaded for something very similar (not that I have any mechanism to do anything like this): to put someone from the Bernie Sanders campaign in charge of a liberal-Democratic turnout machine. And if Democrats care about the influence of various nefarious entities, and want to hear candidates talking about them, great. It doesn’t particularly resonate with me. (BTW, I’m glad that Bernie Sanders doesn’t say “special interests,” which to me is a meaningless phrase that Democrats use to mean things like corporations and the NRA but Republicans _also_ use to mean things like teachers and people of color. At least Bernie Sanders names the interests in question whose influence he deplores.)
FlipYrWhig
@Redshift:
It’ll be a triumph for neurodiversity!
FlipYrWhig
@Kay:
In a way yes, in a way no. I think with Trump it’s supposed to be the reason why he doesn’t have to be “politically correct.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Redshift: do you know Newtown, in King and Queen County?
He knew he was talking to a reporter, he gave his name. He figured it was okay to talk like this because he was talking to a fellow white guy (Igor Bobic of HuffPo). I’m still surprised by stuff like this. I know I shouldn’t be.
and as always when somebody complains about Obama raising their taxes, I wanna say: Show me your returns.
Grumpy Code Monkey
How the hell could Trump remind anyone of Perry? Far be it from me to defend Goodhair, but he’s not the complete bullshit artist that Trump is. And, you know, good hair.
Did my civic duty on the way in. Cast my vote for Clinton, because I honestly think she’d be better at the job of managing the executive better than Sanders. Voted yes on all Democratic referenda (living wage, equal pay for equal work, immigration reform, allow public universities to opt out of open carry on campus, etc.).
Not a US Senate year for us, alas.
Davebo
@Keith G: River Oaks Elitist!!!
;0)
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Keith G: Doing the same but not at Lamar (I am in West U). Does it make me a bad person to vote for trump?* Really want to vote against cruz.
*I am 100% voting D in the general.
Old Dan and Little Anne
@O. Felix Culpa: My wife told me yesterday she saw what appeared to be a homemade bumper sticker of duct tape that simply read, Trump. Unfuckingbelievable.
japa21
I think the thing about long term, trying, failing and whatnot is that long term basically means moving from the bottom up, like the GOP did. Rhetorically, they spoke about things at the national level, but seldom tried to put the most basic things into actual policy at the top.
Instead, they instead they focused on building a crop of folks at the local level, moved them slowly up the ladder and now, specially at the state level, are implementing things. And because they were talking the talk, found receptive ground.
Here’s the thing. If they had tried hard at a national level from the beginning, they would have failed and set their cause back for quite a while. If Obama had pushed for the public option and refused to accept anything that didn’t include it, nothing would have passed and it is unlikely anything further would happen for quite a while.
So it really is a case of looking for the incremental, but keeping up the rhetoric while building a strong base at the local level. The problem is that many on the left do get discouraged if they don’t see results right away and give up and walk away. It is hard to do the base building on the local level with that kind of mindset.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
What would Republicans do with 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 million engaged people who supported one or more of their issues? I don’t think they would insist on “results” as the price of entry into a political “marketplace of ideas”, because that’s a really high bar to jump over before even trying and trying comes before results anyway.
srv
Hillary firebombs the DoJ. Who to blame… Hillary or Obama?
Time to get Congress involved.
Kay
@japa21:
But they might look at it the other way. They might look at it as they don’t get any support from the institutional Democratic Party because the institutional Democratic Party doesn’t prioritize their issues and actually would rather run things from the top instead of a having a loud and fractious faction at the bottom.
That is what a lot of them think.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: I don’t know where you’ve gotten this impression that I’m trying to shut down Bernie Sanders because of something about “results,” which you keep putting in quotation marks, even though I haven’t used the word once.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Is it that hard to join local chapters of the Democratic Party and push them in the direction they think the party should go? I mean, that’s the thing about institutions: they don’t want to change unless they’re pushed. So, you know, go push.
Kay
@japa21:
I’m just wary of the “establishment” (for lack of a better word- I don’t mean it derogatory) looking at activists who share their views and finding fault with them. If Democrats don’t have a local grass roots base that sticks with it, shouldn’t there be some accountability from leadership on that? “Leadership lacks hard working locals” just seems like a loser to me.
Applejinx
@Kay: That’s the truth. The hope is that we can change or at least moderate that.
Germy
Nice idea to run for local elections, build a solid base, then work up to state level and then national elections. In theory it should work. “Turn the red states blue!” But we’ll need some hardy souls:
Beaumont, Texas police have arrested a white male suspected of shooting out the glass doors at the campaign headquarters of Jefferson County Sheriff candidate Zena Stephens while yelling “F*ck the n****rs,” 12News is reporting.
According to Stephens, a former chief deputy who announced her run for sheriff last year, she was standing outside her headquarters with a group of people when a white male in a white Jeep pulled up and shouted at them before opening fire.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/fck-the-nrs-texas-man-arrested-for-shooting-at-campaign-hq-of-black-woman-running-for-sheriff/
Of course this won’t happen every time, but whoever runs will surely get death threats, hate mail, vandalism, etc.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Do they not have a local grass roots base, or is their local grass roots base not “activists”? I’m not a joiner, OK, I have no idea. But it looks to me like if I wanted to be involved in a county-level Democratic Party group I’d be pretty influential pretty quickly because there ain’t that many people even showing up.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t know- I’m not the best person to ask because my local Democratic organization is nearly exclusively focused on economic issues. There’s no daylight between Sanders focus and my local group. They wouldn’t have to push these people at all. They’re already there. Do they represent all Democrats?. No.
They will mostly vote for Clinton- we have what is to me a surprising number of Sanders supporters so I would say “60/40 Clinton”. Which is actually fine, because I’m told again and again these issues are a focus of her campaign too.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Fantastic, Christie asked about his previous critiques of Trump, “I was running against him then!”
I tend to think Christie’s done in electoral politics, and now his only chance of a major appointment, at least in the near term, is President Trump. Still funny to see a media darling exposed (again) as a major fraud.
amk
@Kay:
well, pols aren’t gonna go where they know for sure there are no votes. why should they? they neither have the time nor the inclination.
Joel
@amk: the data doesn’t support your conclusion.
Kay
@amk:
I don’t know, amk. The Republican Party manages to carefully nurture any and all allied groups who share one or more of their goals. I’m not sure when we adopted this “show me the data!” approach but it doesn’t seem to be working, state and local, and actually comes off as really cynical, so we might want to reassess.
Is efficiency the goal? That’s a job description, not an organizing principle for a voluntary association or entity. They don’t, actually, work for the Democratic Party. It’s the other way around.
Bobby Thomson
@Patricia Kayden: this. It’s all kabuki. Reoublicans look at his new voters and drool. They pretend not to like him so he keeps his street cred.
Eric U.
@sherparick: The emphasis on the presidency among a lot of progressives makes me want to scream I saw somewhere that Sander’s campaign is full of people from the Occupy movement. That’s great, as far as it goes, but what about the Occupy movement suggests starting at the top is the best way to go. Right now, all the damage is being done by republicans in lower level offices.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: If the goal is to get an insurgent primary candidate elected, it seems fair to be skeptical that there are enough insurgents to get said candidate elected. If the goal is for the insurgent candidate to raise issues that current and future candidates should air and continue to address by validating that there is a widespread belief that those issues are important, fantastic. In the latter case my only skepticism is personal, not institutional, and has nothing to do with What Democrats Should Do.
Germy
@Eric U.:
And what made it easier for those repubs to take lower level offices was twenty-plus years of the Ailes/Murdoch media empire acting as “advance man” (someone who sneaks into town before the circus arrives and hangs posters on every tree and phone pole.)
Repub base: “Look, maw… teh circus is coming to town!”
The lower-level repub office seekers parrot what the locals have been hearing night and day on their car radios and on their TVs, and campaigning is a breeze.
FlipYrWhig
@Eric U.: I feel like it’s a shame that an Occupy-like effort needs to be all mixed up in a candidate running for a high office, because it makes for a mismatch between ends and means, but I’m not sure anything else would suffice to keep the issue campaign in the spotlight.
japa21
@Kay: Oh, I agree with you. But really, if you look at the GOP, the “establishment” found fault with a lot of the base for several years, to the point of excluding the religious right from participating in its convention. But that didn’t keep the base from organizing and eventually taking over the party.
And that is where the changes take place. Revolution doesn’t start at the top, it starts at the bottom. And that is where the left has had problems. And not only the left but the establishment. The Dems are very top heavy, the right is anchored in its base.
Calouste
@Tripod: Someone here mentioned that Sanders had about ten times as many field offices and paid campaign workers in South Carolina as Clinton. He still lost by 47%. I guess it was a gamble he had to take, but it didn’t pay off.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Eric U.: I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Kay
@Calouste:
I wouldn’t focus to much on the “paid campaign workers” if I were the Clinton campaign. Sanders pays interns and others. That could account for the disparity in those numbers.
Miss Bianca
@PaulW: @Iowa Old Lady:
Many of my colleagues are at a big trade show in Las Vegas. But I’d rather be at the Florida Library Association conference. I miss libraryland. Except, of course, I’d be missing the caucus tonight. Should be interesting.
Oh, and IOL? I have now started on Lois McMaster Bujold. That’s what I’d be doing today if I didn’t have to work – reading. As it fell out, “A Civil Campaign” was the first one I could lay hands on, and I love it so far – except, of course, I realize to my dismay that I’m ALREADY feeling compelled to put it down, go back and read the WHOLE FREAKING SAGA up to that point. And I never follow *any* series any more except for re-reads of the Aubreyiad. I blame you. And Obama.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
What I see as this contradiction runs all through the Democratic Party. Every 2 years we attempt to get a candidate to run for the US House. It’s hard, because they are going to lose.
The second that person enters, the entire “show me the data!” and “results!” faction here locally will complain that the candidate isn’t good enough, the campaign sucks, the numbers just aren’t there– Jesus Christ, it’s like pitching something to accountants. I’m not stupid. I don’t need a stern lecture from the savvy. It isn’t “unicorns”. It’s the nature of the thing. Effort counts. Effort is very much the point.
Do you see how I might think this is a contradiction to the oft-stated complaint that we have no grass roots?
The Lodger
@PaulW: @Iowa Old Lady: Florida Library Conference sounds like the worst football ever.
chopper
@OzarkHillbilly:
that’s a hell of a nervous breakdown.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Running a noble quixotic symbolic failure-likely Overton Window campaign and running to poach a narrow victory are two very different tasks, and it seems like the answer to people who only understand the latter is to sock them with the former. If they don’t get it, outvote them. If you can’t outvote them, oh well, there’s probably a reason for that.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
And I’m not picking on you, although I am IN FACT picking on just you :)
I don’t know what results Sanders will have. He doesn’t either. It’s standard practice in organizing to exaggerate support as a way of building support. It’s not about “proving” or “disproving”
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
But why can’t they have that? Why can’t some Sanders supporters see it as movement-building and some Sanders supporters be waiting for a miracle?
Why can’t we just give that to them? It’s their time and money and we actually do support what they promote.
Paul in KY
@bystander: He was pretty good in Cool Hand Luke, too.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Because the Sanders supporters I deal with in real life are a smug pack of dicks eagerly repeating bullshit about Hillary Clinton to egg each other on, and clamoring that other liberals are liberal-ing incorrectly? Maybe that’s just me.
bjacques
I know I’ve seen this movie before: “Wild In The Streets” (1968). media icon candidate comes from outside the system, sails into the White House on the resentment of teenagers not yet old enough to vote (age was still 21) and the help of opportunist Senator Hal Holbrook who gets the voting age lowered to 15. Hijunks ensue. Everyone over 35 gets sent to a re-education camp and dosed with LSD (in the movie this is a *bad*thing) and it more or less ends well for everyone else…or does it?
It’s basically happening now, but about 50 years too late (like the Stephen Vincent Benet story about Napoleon being born 20 years too early). A lot of Drumpf’s followers would have been young angry back then but now they’re old (or old at heart) and angry. Frost got in because half the electorate was under 25 and they all voted for him (and not Nixon). Drumpf has the opportunists jumping on board–and more March Violets on the way–but he doesn’t have the untapped demographic; his base are already registered and active, as we knew too well in 2010 and 2014 (and odd years too). He won’t get in, and that’s a shame, because the LSD might do his base some good, and it would be covered under Medicare, for which, of course, they are eligible.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
I haven’t seen that here. I have seen the both the Sanders supporters and the Clinton supporters dishing out insults and over-generalizing as to the make-up of each side’s groups.
Robert Sneddon
@Miss Bianca: It helps if you read some of the previous books and get an idea how Miles became the hyperenergetic overachieving neurotic dwarf he is, trying to introduce his would-be fiancee to his mother at That Dinner Party.
Lois described “A Civil Campaign” as her Georgette Heyer book.
Nate Dawg
@bjacques:
Might wanna give them *anti*-psychotics.
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: Here to a degree, my Facebook feed for definite.
LesBonnesFemmes
@Kay: This. I’m for Hillary but I would like to see some of Bernie’s stuff on the platform. I want to see some of that young enthusiasm travel to Hillary’s camp.
Brachiator
I am totally relaxed and looking forward to Super Tuesday results. I am enjoying the fact that the Republicans are more flummoxed as primary season continues, and their love hate relationship with Trump makes them crazier. I look forward to more bantamweight sniping from Little Rubio, and more sleazy dirty tricks from the Terrible Cruz.
I don’t care how Clinton or Sanders does. Both have weakness. But I will enthusiastically support whoever becomes the nominee.
Anyone who thinks that Elizabeth Warren is important to the primary race severely overestimates her importance and significance. And I don’t see her being able to rally younger voters nationally or even in her home state.
Maybe I’ll rent a movie to watch later tonight. Or go see Deadpool again. I’m enjoying how this movie is upsetting some who hoped for superhero movie fatigue to set in, only to see an R rated version break new ground.
Carl Nyberg
Who was the GOP “good option” in 2016 cycle?
Rubio?
Kasich?
LesBonnesFemmes
@FlipYrWhig: Yes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FlipYrWhig: You mean like St Bernard himself starting pissing matches about who is and isn’t a “real Progressive”? Or baiting HRC about the Goldman Sachs speeches?
Paul in KY
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Goldman Sachs is a point worth mentioning. Hillary will have to give some better/realer answers than what I’ve heard so far…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Paul in KY: Yes she will. I suspect she knows that. Bernie Sanders being an asshole and singing from Chuck Todd’s hymnal doesn’t help the situation.
Luthe
@Miss Bianca: While A Civil Campaign is amusing enough on its own, knowing the backstory for all the plots, sub-plots, sub-sub-plots, major characters, minor characters, and characters-not-appearing-in-this-story turns it from “amusing” to “fucking hilarious.” It is truly incredible how well-crafted that book is.
jl
What’s the difference between a fake and a real NYT political analysis piece? I need some help on that.
What is with this ‘Warrens’ Ghost’ stuff? She is OK, right?
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Miss Bianca:
*villainous chuckle*
Caught another one!
Seriously, though, Bujold is superb. ACC is one of my favorites in the series.
And just think, after the Vorkosigans, you can try the Chalion books!
Paul in KY
Have to give a shoutout to Mr. Danziger. The ‘Jax’ light over the pool table was a nice touch.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Robert Sneddon: No, no, that’s for the re-read, picking up all the things she missed on the first dash through. Little details like Green Silk Rooms.
Miss Bianca
@Robert Sneddon: @Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: @Luthe:
Moooaan…
Yes, that’s what I need right now…MORE stuff to read!
I started with ACC because of the Heyer connection…actually Bujold captured my heart from the beginning by dedicating the book to “Georgette, Jane (Austen), Charlotte (Bronte) and Dorothy (Sayers)”. How could I resist?
Robert Sneddon
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: and The Couch.
Emma
@Miss Bianca: You must read the whole thing. The book right before that one, Komarr, is an ass kicker. And the newest one, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen is a marvel of “what children don’t know about their parents.”
Oh yes, read the whole thing. The set piece when Cordelia ends the Barrayaran civil war is worth it.
Robert Sneddon
@Emma: With one word.
“Shopping”.