Hey Sanders supporters, before you get upset about our delegate system, here are the results of winner take all:
Clinton: 1647
Sanders: 732— Sarah Wood (@SarahWoodwriter) April 10, 2016
Clinton also has the popular vote by more than 2 million votes. Bernie isn't losing unfairly, Hillary is winning by A LOT.
— Sarah Wood (@SarahWoodwriter) April 10, 2016
Aaaand so ethics in political campaigning somehow turns into yet another testosterone-sweating jerkfest…
There are at least two things wrong with this. https://t.co/3dSNQODEqK pic.twitter.com/u1OuaoZbBe
— Philip Bump (@pbump) April 11, 2016
The NYTimes is very sad that “Ordinary Voters Feel Sidelined”:
… For decades, both major parties have used a somewhat convoluted process for picking their nominees, one that involves ordinary voters in only an indirect way. As Americans flock this year to outsider candidates, the kind most hindered by these rules, they are suddenly waking up to this reality. And their confusion and anger are adding another volatile element to an election being waged over questions of fairness and equality.
In Nashville a week ago, supporters of Donald J. Trump accused Republican leaders of trying to stack the state’s delegate slate with people who were anti-Trump. The Trump campaign posted the cellphone number of the state party chairman on Twitter, leading him to be inundated with calls. Several dozen people showed up at the meeting at which delegates were being named, banged on the windows and demanded to be let in…
Javier Morillo, a member of the Democratic National Committee and a superdelegate from Minnesota, said he discovered his email posted on a website called a “Superdelegate Hit List.” The list had an illustration of a donkey, the party’s symbol, with two crossbow arrows behind its head. “I was a little annoyed,” he said…
Whew, both sides! But let’s be honest — if (when) Trump supporters set up a “Hit List” with delegates’ home addresses, we’d quite righteously call them angry tools trying to gin up violence, particularly against women. At least we don’t (yet) have to deal with lifelong professional ratfvckers…
… Mr. Trump and his backers have been aggressive in criticizing the process, fanning fears that his delegates will be “stolen” at the convention, as they have put it. One of Mr. Trump’s longtime associates, Roger Stone, has made the rounds on conservative radio to urge people to demonstrate en masse at the national convention in Cleveland in July. “Don’t let the Big Steal go forward without massive protests,” he said the other day on a radio program with Alex Jones, a host who has indulged conspiracy theories about tragedies like the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Sandy Hook massacre. Mr. Stone has also threatened to post the hotel room numbers of delegates who switched their votes against Mr. Trump…
It seems a bit much to ask that Clinton not only needs to beat Sanders but needs to explain the math to his supporters.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 11, 2016
@joshtpm Media focus on super-delegates is preventing Sanders supporters from realizing he's being creamed in popular vote. Bad system!
— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) April 11, 2016
redshirt
Awaits Cole’s Bigfoot….
Anne Laurie
@redshirt: Why do you think I work the late shift? (/snark)
Blogmaster’s long since gone to bed, irregardless. Think of him as my beloved, if not always well-mannered, boss: I get to tweak him when he wanders in to dump one of his occasional not-always-well timed posts. I don’t get to stop him, but he doesn’t get to completely ignore me either. Friendly on both sides (as far as I can tell).
Partisancheese
It is sad to see a supposed grassroots blog turn into another megaphone for the establishment. I know you guys despise Daily Kos but Markos has turned into a Clinton shill this election, so maybe if you turned off your blinders you could welcome them back to being acceptable again. Haha who am I kidding, the epistemological closure is strong here.
NR
Is anyone else checking Redstate regularly these days? It’s pretty entertaining. They hate Trump way more than anybody on the left does.
redshirt
@Partisancheese: LOL.. You’re a special candidate!
redshirt
Gold
Anne Laurie
@Partisancheese: You do know, if it’s that painful for you to read us, you aren’t required to do so?
redshirt
Hello World
inventor
Will the Bernitariat finally acknowledge the obvious when Clinton wins NY?
dollared
@redshirt: The desperate fear that Bernie might beat Senator Clinton is like the aroma of good barbecue around here. The popular vote bullshit is pathetic. Shockingly dishonest. If you just took Bernie’s margin in a couple of caucus states and applied it against the total Dem voters in 2012 in those caucus states, that margin would instantly disappear. And here comes NY and California……..it’s 1968 without Sirhan Sirhan to protect Humphrey from Bobby Kennedy.
I get that there are some Clinton loyalists. And there are some people who think support for Sanders is some sort of patriarchal reaction. But here on BJ it’s mainly Democrats with Abused Democrat syndrome, who are convinced that if Sanders is nominated, the Republicans will steal the election because he’ll be painted as a communist and Those Scary Republicans Always Win and Barack was Right to Make Those $20Trillion in Tax Cuts for the Rich Permanent Because We Will Never Win.
And it’s always Anne’s late night shitshow shilling for Hillary where the dishonesty runs deepest…..
Larime
@inventor: Hell no. He may be over 2m votes behind, but he’s WINNING, DAMNIT!
Anne Laurie
@dollared:
Goddess forbid it should ever come to that, but from all evidence, the nutball stalking his Candidate of Wrongness would be way more likely to come after the one who’s been a target of conspiracy theorists since the 1980s. Fortunately, the Secret Service has gotten a lot more practice since 1968 — including too much during the last 7 years. So if you’re hoping for a Sirhan (or more likely an Arthur Bremer, trying to wing Bernie because there’s too much security around Trump) you are liable to be disappointed.
dollared
@redshirt: Oh, and for the record, I think Clinton will survive the scare and become a pretty good president. And then this blog will switch to explaining why she had to sign TPP and she had to agree to cut food stamps and increase the defense budget because the Republicans are meaner after they crushed in the 2018 midterms, because 200Million Americans correctly identify that the Dems will always compromise away the interests of the 60%.
dollared
@Anne Laurie: Um, what do you think I hope for? Other than a bit less shilling from you?
Davebo
@dollared:
Aren’t you just precious!
John D.
@dollared:
Well, sure, up until you apply *her* margin of victory in all the other states to the vastly larger general electorate turnout. Then it goes right back to Clinton winning by a lot.
Do you really think that there is any correlation between a primary, when partisan voters are asked to rank their preference between similar candidates, and a general election, where everyone is asked to choose between two strongly differentiated competitors?
(Hint: There isn’t.)
When you fall into the death spiral of constructing ever-more-elaborate models to explain how, in juuuuust the right light, your guy is actually winning, you should probably take a step back for a while. There’s a reason why caucuses have the kinds of margins of victory you’re seeing, and why, oddly enough, you never see that kind of margin in the general. It has to do with small sample sizes. Just under 1.8 million WA residents voted for Obama in 2012. 230 thousand voted in the caucus. Do you seriously think 72-27 is attainable in the general, when Obama crushed Romney and yet could only win 56-41?
Stop being a fool.
dollared
@John D.: Thanks for pointing out how deeply dishonest the 2M number is, for exactly the same reasons you just recounted. You couldn’t help it.
dogwood
It’s embarrassing to see people make ridiculous arguments about the fundamental math in this race, concocting conspiracy theories to justify the nonsense. Republicans put ideology above intellectual integrity all the time. Watching Democrats do it is just sad.
Anne Laurie
@dollared:
Maximum drama, for minimum effort.
I don’t like people babbling about assassination attempts because it makes them feel like Jason Bourne, or that guy Keifer Sutherland plays on 24.
Larime
New Bernie Trolls! Wheee!
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: He doesn’t have the legislature behind him. Some of us just recognize that he has no way to implement what he is proposing. http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-endorsement-primary/. And so tired of my progressive cred being questioned. We aren’t electing a dictator. He can’t just will laws into existence. And what Democratic legislator is going to be failing over themselves to enact this ambitious agenda, especially after he has pretty much called them, and the whole party, corrupt? Flying unicorns are more probable. I suggest you get the koolaid tested. This whole Bernie thing is getting embarrassing, if not dangerous, considering the other side is fielding Trump and Cruz.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: And don’t get me started on the irony (or whatever) of using the power and reach of the Democratic Party to bash the power and reach of the Democratic Party.
Larime
@Sande in St Louis: Bernie and his supporters are allowed to call anyone any name they like, and we’re all expected to vote for/with him anyway. Call him or his supporters names and they’ll take their ball and go home. Follow the rules, yo!
dollared
@Anne Laurie: And I did not babble about an assassination attempt. I was pointing out an historical fact, that the late run of large Democratic primaries can produce a late surge for one or more candidates. Sirhan was the thing that stopped RFK from being the candidate with the most momentum heading into Chicago.
Work on your reading comprehension, rather than imagining that all Bernie supporters are irrational, as you have for months now. Yeah, that Robert Reich, nothing he says makes any sense…..
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Did you know that when Roosevelt was running for office in 1932, the Senate had a Republican majority? So I guess we shouldn’t have voted for him – he wasn’t a dictator, it was inconceivable that any of his proposals would get past a Republican Senate, plus all those blue dogs in the south. Much less that horribly conservative Supreme Court.
That’s my point – the BJ groupthink really assumes that nothing will ever change. The Blog of Permanent Defense.
piratedan
knew I should have bookmarked cleek’s mute button thingy….
NR
@Larime:
Coming from the side that’s been calling Bernie supporters racists for the last three months, this is pretty hilarious.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared:
Not saying all Bernie supporters are irrational, but you all sure know how to make friends and influence people, for sure. “Hillary lies. Bernie never.” “Hillary takes corporate donations. All Bernie’s donations are from the common people.” And on and on, such that the narrative becomes the Evil vs the Pure. Criminy, I so could use what you are smoking, & maybe I could fly too. Plus, this country obviously needs some math lessons, cause Americans are failing at understanding the numbers. Tirade over.
dollared
@NR: Oh, and you forgot, Bernie supporters are also sexist. By definition.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: OMG. You are seriously comparing Roosevelt to Sanders? Forget it – I am speechless.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Uh, Sande, you do realize that you just listed a whole bunch of things I never said. You can search BJ, I’ve been commenting frequently the last month. I’m not a passionate Sanders supporter. I’m a passionate supporter of his platform and I don’t think Senator Clinton is. But you just attributed to me a whole bunch of things I never said. At some point that should cause you to rethink whether your conclusions about Sanders supporters might be just a teeny bit overgeneralized, noncomprehending and inaccurate.
Sande in St Louis
@Sande in St Louis: Just going to take my obviously faux progressive credentials, and meekly await the miracle. The trauma of being a Democrat has apparently affected me more than my limited self-awareness can comprehend.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: You know what, maybe instead of going to your fainting couch, you could actually engage with the facts presented.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Reading comprehension, it’s a thing. I didn’t attribute any assertion to you, was merely pointing out the tone of the Sanders campaign. Totally understand that you cannot be responsible for all its tentacles, but Sanders is doing nothing to stay on the high road.
dogwood
@dollared:
I think the RFK assassination was one of Hillary’s arguments in 08 too. The Sanders people are essentially operating just like she did 8 years ago. Ignore the math, bitch about the system being rigged, overpay mediocre operatives …… I stopped listening to her excuses by this time 4 years ago.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Oh, you got me, left a mark. I’ll continue on in my fact free universe.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Tsk-tsk..
*hangs head in abject disappointment*
@dollared
The comparison goes beyond distasteful, far into the territory of repellent.
Damien
Look, at the end of the day, Clinton is ahead in pledged delegates, super delegates, and the popular vote; she is ahead in proportional reality and winner-take-all fantasy; she is ahead by double digits heading into New York, and she’s ahead in the mythical “enthusiasm” according to recent polls. Not to mention she seems to be ahead in actually knowing what the fuck she’s talking about day-to-day.
Honest to fucking Christ already, unless the Starman comes down and blows our minds, Bernie won’t be the nominee, and to argue differently pretty much makes you sound like this guy:
Bernie supporters can’t do math
dollared
@dogwood: not so much Sirhan but the late surge thing, yes. Except that she got crushed. If Bernie gets crushed in CA then it really should be over, except for negotiations over the platform.
dogwood
Meant to say I stopped listening to Hillary’s excuses by this time 8 years ago, not 4.
Anne Laurie
@dogwood:
It was a terrible reference for her to make, and she had the sense to walk it back eventually. HRC learned a lot about what not to do during the 2008 campaign, and if Sanders — or his aides — had any sense, they’d have made notes about her missteps then and not had to replicate them.
You know that old saw about education being what you get when you read the fine print, and experience being what you get when you don’t? HRC was smart enough, and young enough (barely) to use her 2008 experience and campaign much more intelligently in 2016. But Sanders is too monomaniacal, or too proud, to see where others have made mistakes, and he will not be young enough to try again in 4 or 8 years, regardless of who wins in November.
dollared
@NotMax: And again, Anne, the comparison to what? As I have now said four times, the point is that in the primary system of the last 50 years, including 1968, a large number of delegates remain in play until California. And I am pointing out that the best example of that is RFK’s late success and how it threatened Humphrey. (And there is a sad reason why we never saw that play out. I know. I was alive and listening to the radio that night.)
If you are repelled by somebody pointing out to you that California is late and important, you’ll have to explain it to us.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: More like NY. Math after that is grim. And just why would any super delegate support Sanders after he used the Democratic Party as a johnny come lately to bash them, their supporters, their donors and every other mechanism the Party utilizes to consolidate power? Why are the Senators of the Democratic Party (those who know him best, one would imagine) so overwhelmingly throwing their support to Clinton? Who here, really, is failing to consider the facts?
dogwood
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe she learned a lesson, or maybe she hasn’t been put in a desperate situation this time. What I do know is she set the precedent for this hanging on crap that Bernie is now embracing.
dogwood
@Anne Laurie:
Maybe she learned a lesson, or maybe she hasn’t been put in a desperate situation this time. What I do know is she set the precedent for this hanging on crap that Bernie is now embracing.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: If he loses NY and CA, agreed. If he wins them, then they need to fall in line because he has the votes, and because if the donors really do call the tune for the Democrats, then he is right and the Dems are corrupt and incapable of representing American working families. Again, maybe you think the last 40 years have been great for working families. You’re in St. Louis, I would think you’ve seen some things that would question whether things have been great.
And this whole bullshit about loyalty and bashing. Such bullshit. He has been a loyal partner to the Democratic party for 40 years. His voting with the party is comparable to Clinton or Biden. He does say that the Corporate Dems pay too much attention to their donors and cater to their interests. Do you think that is wrong? Honestly? So what is your point? YOu don’t ever want it to get better?
dogwood
Sorry folks.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Uh, after the 1968 convention, super delegates were implemented, so you are comparing apples to oranges. Today cannot play out like 1968 convention. Sorry, just not going to happen.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Nate Silver has NY, Pennsylvania, and two others at over 90% probability for Clinton. I suppose we could unskew the polls? How’s that work, President Romney?
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: I don’t want it to get better? Just because I don’t think Sanders can make it better? Truly weak sauce you are serving up tonight.
dogwood
@dollared:
What’s with this NY and California stuff? What if he loses NY, Penn. Md , and several others long before Ca.?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@dollared: Is California going to be important? Maybe. But what percentage do you expect Sanders to get there? Right now, he needs almost 57% of the remaining pledged delegates to get a majority, and there are a lot of closed primaries between now and June 7th, and there’s a pretty good chance that the percentage that he needs will go up. What makes you think he can get better than 60% of the vote in California?
NotMax
@dollared
Having been there (as I was) and still deeming it without freight to entertain and propose fantasies about assassination is egregious.
Done with you. Bloviate away, shall cheerfully scroll past from now on.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Nice. How did Nate do in Michigan? Got that all fixed now, does he? Perhaps. But Anne told us tonight that all SAnders supporters were innumerate idiots pursuing a mathematically, totally hopeless path because things are 100% decided because Hillary won so many votes in Mississippi. And that is bullshit.
dollared
@NotMax: And you’re a liar or incapable of processing English if you think I was proposing an assassination. Reread.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: Sam Wang has it at Clinton > 95% currently, but believers got to believe I guess.
I’l never forget the Kinky Friedman campaigner that wanted me to bet her that Kinky would win the Governorship of Texas, the night before the election. I couldn’t take the bet – would have been taking candy from a baby, I most certainly would have deserved the lowest level of hell. (Metaphorically speaking.)
dollared
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Yup, I think the odds are well less than 50%. But Anne’s post above was mocking Sanders supporters for even suggesting that it wasn’t over tonight, because of all those votes in Mississippi. And that is bullshit.
Mai.naem.mobile
I remember calling Hillarys office in some late primary state in 08(N.Dakota??) and arguing with what sounded like a young female volunteer. I was telling her Hills needed to give it up because the math just wasn’t there and she would just not see it. It wasn’t because I was some big Obama supporter, I just wanted to concentrate on Obama getting elected.I also remember being in denial for a few days after the Dean scream in 04 but I moved past the bargaining,depression to acceptance pretty fast. I feel bad for the Bernie supporters but not Bernie himself. All this adulation has gone to his head. Happened to Nader and would have happened to Dean if he had lasted longer.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Yup, you really don’t think we can do anything about inequality or our totally overblown health care system, or our totally out of control military involvements and expenditures,, or our totally anti-labor and anti-environment trade regime. Because you support the candidate that is promising to do NOTHING about them, except make them grow bad more slowly.
It’s her platform.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Sigh. Masters in mathematics here, and yes until Clinton reaches the targeted number (and even after), there are any number of things that could happen, including (unlikely, but not probability zero) that all the oxygen molecules in the room Clinton was sleeping in would gather in one far corner and then poof, Sanders is the nom. But that is not what you are arguing. So yeah, Sam Wang doesn’t have the number all the way to 100%, but close enough his headline is “No path for Sanders, but it is a long one.”
Cacti
@Partisancheese:
Bernfeeler tears taste so yummy and sweet.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@dollared: Are votes in Mississippi worth less or something?
Cacti
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
They only count for 3/5 of a vote.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Yes. I don’t see it much differently. But that isn’t what Anne posted above. She posted that not only is it over already (using tweets of totally counterfactual winner take all situations and fallacious discussions of popular vote totals that have been debunked for weeks), but that Sanders supporters are innumerate idiots. Which is, as you mathematicians would likely say, dishonest and disrespectful. And really unnecessary.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Lordy, sounding like a Trump spiel. “Only Bernie has the secret to solving racism, inequality, trade, war, … Reject Bernie forevermore the future is bleak.” Way too much demogoguery and way too little details, but that’s just me.
dollared
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: They are worth exactly the same as votes in Washington or the other caucus states, if you’re willing to stop being dishonest and enlarge the Washington count by the ratio between 2016 caucus attendance and 2012 votes for Obama in WA.
It’s only if you can summon the integrity. Up to you. Jeet Heer is having a problem with it.
dogwood
@dollared:
The main focus of the post is that the Sanders people are bitching about the fact that his string of wins aren’t moving the numbers the way they want them to, so proportional allocation of delegates is rigged. The numbers are very clear; if all the states were winner-take-all, he’d be much further behind than he is now. So essentially what Sanders wants is proportional allocation when he loses, and winner-take-all when he wins.
Amir Khalid
I’ve been away a few days — under the weather. So how did that Bernie to the Vatican thing play out? Is he still going, and spending all that time away from the campaign in a crucial state? Is he aware that he’s not getting to meet the Pope?
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Well, disrespectful is rich, after you just claimed I was against progress, just because I refuse to drink the koolaid, but sure go there. I am disrespectful.
And yes, it is over. For all practical purposes and planning for the future, it is over.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Tell me what Secretary Clinton proposes to do to solve the fundamental imbalances in our country. I’m all ears. I would love for her to stand up right now and say “I will never ever sign TPP.” But she won’t. How does St. Louis look and feel compared to 30 years ago? I can tell you how much poorer Wisconsin is.
Cacti
@dollared:
Why in the world would anyone make that leap of logic?
cokane
Seems weird and un-democratic to white wash away a non-representative component of the Dem primary. I mean, try to defend it directly if you must, and there are some arguments out there for it, but don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. It isn’t relevant in this one election, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym
@dollared:
I’m not willing to do that, because it’s absurd. It assumes that the population that did vote in the caucuses is identical to the population that didn’t in terms of which candidate they would vote for. Sanders consistently does better in places where they make it harder to vote in the primaries, kind of like Republicans. I don’t see any reason to give him extra credit for that.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: I just cannot even see the world as simply as you do. My world isn’t black and white – in fact, there is very little black and white. It is mostly intermingling shades of grey. TPP is to Bernie as “The Wall” is to Trump. It is going to take so much unrelenting work & blood & sweat & tears to undo all the injustice and damage. PBO started us on the correct path, but there is no savior coming that is going to make our struggle vanish. I sincerely believe that Clinton, flawed as she is, flawed as we are, is the best option to take up that struggle. You disagree. But stop denigrating my enthusiastic desire to take on this struggle for progress, just because I am not buying the rhetoric emanating from your chosen nominee. What you have flung my way has made me really question if you are up for the challenges ahead, even should the unthinkable occur, and Bernie becomes President.
dogwood
@dollared:
And it appears Wisconsin will continue to get poorer no matter who’s in the White House.
Sande in St Louis
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I always wonder why Sander’s camp doesn’t acknowledge that some of the numbers in the open primaries are GOP voters trying to play their only hand, considering the cards they have been left with.
J R in WV
@dollared:
If you think Hillary Clinton plans to be a anti-labor, anti-environment, anti-equality, anti-healthcare, Imperialist war-monger like Ghengis Khan, perhaps you have slipped into this universe from some other universe with a very different Hillary Clinton.
The Clinton in this universe appears to have 90% of the black support, something not likely for someone who is anti-equality. She appears willing to use military force more like a scalpel than a bludgeon, against evildoers. I gotta stop with these bulleted lists of H. Clinton’s evil plans to fail, because there are way too many for me to deal with individually. She isn’t evil, and your picture of her as totally evil (or completely incompetent to deal with a positive agenda in the face of obstruction from Republicans) seems totally unmoored from reality.
Sande in St Louis
@cokane: Since when is a Party run purely democratically? Should we rewrite the rules & risk what we see happening in the GOP? The Party has a valid interest in preserving its brand and resources and not letting them get usurped by just anyone. Yeah, I am okay with their thumb on the scale, especially when you consider what we see occurring at this moment in time, to the GOP.
dogwood
@Sande in St Louis:
His campaign is being run by hacks, so Bernie might actually believe he is winning.
Peter
@dollared:
@dollared:
Why on earth would anyone ever do that? It doesn’t make sense as a thing to do. Far fewer people vote in primaries than in general elections.
dollared
@Peter: Because people are fallaciously using that 2M vote margin for Hillary as if it were a mandate. And you just explained why that is bullshit – because the vote totals in primaries are meaningless, especially when in many states you have caucuses.
dogwood
@Peter:
I you count the democrats who didn’t vote or caucus, then Bernie is winning.
Sande in St Louis
And Anne, may I congratulate you on a title that is so apropos? I apologize for my part in the realization of said post title. But hell will have no fury equal to mine, if all this silliness should result in any of the possibilities from the GOP being elected President.
It has became so bad, I kinda think we might consider checking the water supply.
dogwood
@Sande in St Louis:
I don’t know how old you are, but both party’s nominating process is more democratic than it was 50 years ago.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: Weaver.
Guess I shouldn’t be so harsh – after all, soon as it’s called, the money dries up, and they have no Party left to fall back on.
It will be like a doomsday religion, one minute after midnight.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: Truly agree there, but undeniable, after 1968, the super delegates were implemented. It is definitely a “modified” democracy, & I see no problem with that. See previous argument.
joel hanes
Holy Ned, I’ll be glad when the primaries are over.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: 58 or 59, kinda stopped keeping track.
dollared
@J R in WV: She’s not evil. She might even be a liberal. But she long ago stopped pursuing liberal goals and switched to trying to woo corporate power into agreeing to neoliberal solutions that hurt the middle class, but just a bit less than a Republican would.
Do you think that ANYONE that is pro labor would sit on the Wal Mart board? Do you think that anybody who favors postal banking would court Wall Street as she has? Have you looked at her record?
She really likes working people and poor people. She just doesn’t do anything to make their lives better. And by publicly opposing Bernie’s agenda (cough college costs, cough, health care costs), she makes clear that progress will be very limited under her administration, and she in fact refuses to put forth a vision that aggressively makes life better for working people.
Prove to me I’m wrong. Show me where she’s promised to veto TPP. Show me where she’s promised card check for labor unions. Show me where she’s promised to cut DoD 20%. Show me where she’s promised to break up the banks and reinstate Glass Steagall. Show me where she’s proposed to lift the cap on SS. Show me where she’s promised to make college affordable for every qualified child.
I’ll wait. Take your time.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: Ah, but wait, aren’t all the HillShills saying that Bernie so rich from his million small contributions, that he is evil for not sharing it with the party leadership that opposes him?
Wouldn’t it be horrible if we didn’t actually NEED Goldman Sach’s money to win?
dogwood
@Sande in St Louis:
I don’t have a problem either. Neither of the parties are government agencies. People who aren’t registered Republicans or Democrats have no constitutional right to choose who they nominate for any office.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Green Lanternism, in the wild! Promise? Just how much power do you think the President of the United States has? We aren’t electing a dictator, no matter what Trump thinks.
This is where you lose the serious folks. If she “promised” all you are demanding, I’d being calling foul myself. Where’s my waders, cause my sneakers ain’t up to the task.
dogwood
@dollared:
Bernie had no problem taking money from Hillary for his 2006 Senate campaign. So I presume his aversion to filthy lucre is a recent thing, not some long standing cause.
Sande in St Louis
@dollared: Just who do you think our opposition is? This election is way too important to take a knife to a gun fight.
Sure, get money out of politics, but that requires the Supreme Court, and a Republican President will guarantee the money isn’t moving.
But heavens, surely you are not asking for unilateral disarmament in the middle of a war?
dogwood
@Sande in St Louis:
I have no doubt that if he were to win the nomination, Bernie would expect Clinton and Obama to raise money for him.
Central Planning
A report from the local gym:
One of the republican nut jobs claims he switched parties back in October so he could vote for Bernie in the NY primary. “Anything to stop Hillary” he said and the fact that his republican primary vote wouldn’t really count anyway (knowing NYS would go for Hillary in the general)
Another one at the gym said he could never vote for Cruz because he lied about Carson dropping out of the race at the Iowa caucuses. For some reason he can’t forgive that.
They are all out of their minds.
Origuy
By the way, California’s primary will not be completely open. The Democratic Party has chosen to hold a “modified-closed” primary, where nonpartisan (“decline-to-state” or “no party preference”, are the terms used) voters may vote. The Republican Party has chosen to have a closed primary; only those registered as Republican voters can cast a vote for President. This may come as a surprise to a lot of people who want to vote for Trump or Bernie. It may also surprise people who register for the first time, don’t want to state a preference, and tick the box labeled “American Independent Party”. They’ll only get to vote for some RWNJs too far out to be in the GOP.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: Look at the campaign disclosures – he still isn’t above filthy lucre. Not that I blame him, but don’t be claiming no purity on that point, when we at least still have some disclosure in the system & it is there in black and white. (Trump is pulling that bogus argument also. Keep finding parallels between the two, Think Cruz ran against the banks, in his first Senate run, using a bank loan from Goldman Sachs that he didn’t report.)
Cannot tell you how many supporters believe, sincerely, that 100% of his donations are from the common folks. Wish I had a dollar for every dollar where that just isn’t true.
raven
@dogwood: Thank you Mornin Joe.
Sande in St Louis
@dogwood: And I have no doubt that they would come through; as both are pragmatic and committed to the Party.
Still chaps my ass that Bernie disparages the power and money and legitimacy of the the Democratic party, when, if any one of those elements were not at his disposal, his message would be left echoing in the Vermont woods.
dogwood
@raven:
What?
raven
@dogwood: Your ant-Hillary screed could be taken directly from him and that skank Mika.
Peter
@dollared: As far as the primary is concerned, using the 2M voters number as a mandate makes a lot of sense, though, because the numbers involved all come from the same contest. It doesn’t include caucus states but guess what, caucuses aren’t a measure of the popular vote. You don’t just get to arbitrarily multiply the number of caucus-goers by the number of voters in a much larger contest just because it produces the results you like.
dogwood
What anti-Hillary screed are you talking about?
dogwood
@Peter:
I think dollared is long gone. Wouldn’t answer my question about why it was ok for Bernie to take Hillary’s money for his Senate campaign .
raven
@raven: Oh sorry, I misfired at you thinking I read dollared . Many apologies.
dogwood
No problem. But I wouldn’t be Morning Joe anyway, I’d be skank Mika. I cringe when I see words like that.
Aimai
@dollared: sirhan Sirhan? Man. Thats ugly.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@dollared:
My problem IS his platform. It, like him, is total bullshit. His version of nirvana puts a torch to 30% of market value with more losses to value, wrecking the pensions and retirement savings of several tens of millions of people (many of whom are already retired and cannot work again), all because “the ‘system’ is like, totes bullshit, man, is all about money and needs to come down, you know”. There will be further market reductions after the first torching’s effects are felt, too. Then there are the immediate job losses in the health insurance industry – a million people between the industry proper and provider clerks, the majority being low to middle income earners – and no, they don’t just get to be the “single payer” employees, they’re spread out in cities all over the country, working for different companies, in different company cultures, hired under disparate hiring regimes and using different systems.
Ignorant fuckface Sanders offers up bumper sticker quotes about this stuff but hasn’t uttered a word about the cost of mitigation of all the economic location and personal disruption his stupid bullshit will cause. He’s being disingenuous or stupid (or likely both) on the consequences of his preferred policies, which is why I despise him.
Aimai
@dogwood: nobody objects to bernie hanging on. Its the ugliness of his increasingly futile campaign that pisses them off. I also wish people would stop blaming hrc’s past behaviour for bernies present choices. It might seem like Karma but its not. Bernie had two campaigns to model himself on and he chose Obamas. And he fucked it up. That is why he is choosing to argue momentum and all the other stuff. His is the xeno’s paradox of campaigns but he’s acting like the road, being infinitely long, is one in which he overtakes her. Perhaps eight years ago hrc and her supporters did not understand the primary math. I know i dodnt. But this year bernie and his voters ought to know better. That isnt hillarys fault from eight years ago.
Weaselone
@Aimai:
It’s Hillary’s fault only to the extent that if she had done it right 8 years ago, it might be vice president Obama smacking Bernie around in the primaries this year.
Bobby Thomson
@Partisancheese: who the fuck are you, other than someone who can’t count?
cleek
@Sande in St Louis:
proposed, not implemented.
they weren’t implemented until 84.
Bobby Thomson
@inventor: No. Weaver and Devine are not about to jeopardize their gravy train.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: the aroma around your bullshit is . . . less pleasantly organic than actual bullshit.
Racer X
@dollared: I was wondering when someone was going to point out the caucus vs popular vote flaw in the argument.
Bobby Thomson
@Damien: holy shit that analogy is perfect. He even makes some of the same arguments.
Bobby Thomson
@Mai.naem.mobile: if Barney Frank is right, Sanders has always been like this.
Sande in St Louis
@cleek: You are correct. Point stands, what worked in the 60’s isn’t available in 2016.
Bobby Thomson
@dollared: so if we assume Sanders got votes he didn’t he has more votes? Christ you’re an idiot. Anyway, the important number is the delta, not the total.
Joel
The Sanders camp is playing politics. They have to, because his chances at winning the nomination died a month ago.
The actual net difference (with caucus estimates) is probably 2.4 million votes.
Back of the envelope, if the primary delegate allocation was purely proportional, Clinton would have 57.7% of the delegates — 1387, for a net gain of 80 — and nothing would effectively change.
John D.
@dollared: What?
Those are real votes that she got over and above what Sanders got. All of the caucus states added together had fewer than 500 thousand votes, which means that she is winning the primary vote total by around 2.1-2.2 million votes so far. How am I showing how her numbers are dishonest?
Please just go away. Trolls just make my teeth itch.
dogwood
@Aimai:
I have no idea where you would get that Bernie chose Obama’s campaign as a model. I guess people who think Obama just threw his hat in the ring and played it by ear might see it that way. But Obama’s campaign was serious, purposeful, and as prepared as any I’ve ever seen. I see little of that in the Sanders campaign. Ugliness from candidates, democrats, that is, happens when a candidate and his or her supporters go increasingly negative because the path to the nomination is pretty much non-existent but the money is still coming in.
chopper
@dollared:
lol, you’re adorable. and it’s Secretary clinton, kiddo.
TallPete
Anne’s postings have become direct feeds from her Twitter account. Welcome to the Hillary ECHO ECHo ECho Echo echo chamber
Chyron HR
@TallPete:
The BernieBro’s Lament.
Ruckus
@Sande in St Louis:
Also the superdelegates were or are all elected democrats. That’s probably what is upsetting the Sanders side of the fence here. They can’t knock the party and expect the supers to just flock to their sides, that’s the whole point of them. When this started several commenters protested that Sanders was not a democrat and I always answered that he caucused with us and supported us and therefore it was OK. I see the error of my ways. This is exactly why the supers exist, to help create an organized, cohesive party, something that many of us have wanted it to be better at for a long time.
Ruckus
@Bobby Thomson:
Quoted for truth and for being very much worth seeing again.
rachel
QED, innumeracy and magical thinking are not the sole property of only one party.
Calouste
@Amir Khalid: The plus side for Bernie going to the Vatican is that he will conveniently be out of the country on Tax Day, thereby avoiding questions about why he hasn’t asked his wife yet to look up where she left their tax returns.
Barbara
@dollared: Speaking for myself, I do not use it as a mandate. I use it as a corrective when I talk to people (not necessarily you) who seem to think that the pledged delegate count reflects some kind of thwarting of the people’s will. I have actually read comments at the NYT where people assume that Sanders has actually won more popular votes and it’s important to disabuse those people because they are wrong. They also frequently assume that Clinton’s pledged delegate lead includes the super delegates (and some news outlets are confusing them). The point is that Clinton is ahead by any quantifiable metric. Momentum is not a quantifiable metric.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Origuy: Been this way here in my fine state for quite a few years now. We were sold a bill of goods as the price for one Repub switching and voting to pass a state budget – this was back when Ahnold was Governor – and the GOP has had closed primaries ever since, and everyone else’s has to be open. Bunch of crap, really, but the GOP has so little importance in CA politics these days that nobody even cares enough to change it.
It’s nice to have balanced budgets, signed on time.
Whoever replaces Brown is going to be a catastrophe unless it’s Kamala Harris, so I’m going to enjoy a well-run state government while it lasts.
Ken
@dollared:
And if you square the margin and divide it by the total area of the state, remembering to weight states with an ‘M’ in the name by a factor of 1.2 because reasons, you find that the number expressed in Pyramid Inches is…
…meaningless in terms of the outcome of the race.
feebog
@Ruckus:
This. The real puzzler is why Bernie is getting any Super Delegates at all. Its like showing up at the ballpark and expecting seats right behind home plate for free.
Ken
@chopper:
BTW, how does the etiquette on that work? Is it the most-recent role, or some sort of perceived ranking?
Captain C
@feebog: And after you’ve been trashing the team while angling for the Manager job.
Rob
Hillary’s people simply don’t get us Bernie supporters. It’s not the math we dispute, nor her qualifications. It’s her integrity we question. She is a creature of Wall Street, a member of and an advocate for the ruling class. If she wins the nomination, so be it. I’m fine with that. Just don’t expect me to vote for her in the general.
Sande in St Louis
@Ruckus: All so very true. Sage sayings there.
Sande in St Louis
@Rob: Understatement of the year. Just. Do. Not. Get.
Chyron HR
@Rob:
Translation: When we complain about the math and Clinton’s qualifications, what we’re actually saying is that we hate her just because and nothing will change our minds.
msdc
@dollared:
“If you just count all the people who don’t vote, Bernie is totally winning this!”
dollared
@chopper: Wow, thank you. Can you show me the death certificate of the person who died and left you in charge of nomenclature?
dollared
@Barbara: That I get. That’s not what these guys, or Anne, is doing.
dollared
@msdc: Yup. You’re dishonest. Thanks for making it clear.
dollared
@Sande in St Louis: With you. I will write her a check, work for her, defend her, vote for her. Then just like you, I’ll hope that she turns into a progressive in office.
redshirt
@Rob: So it’s Sanders or Dystopia, then?
Betty Cracker
@Rob: We get it, already — you’re an idiot. Not for preferring Sanders in the primary, which is a perfectly respectable choice; rather for being a whiny-ass titty-baby who’d rather pout in the corner and help elect President Trump or Cruz instead of voting for the Democrat who has promised to preserve and extend President Obama’s achievements.
You, Rob, are a fool. A moron. A useful idiot of monsters. I totally get that because I used to be a fool, moron and useful idiot of monsters too: In 2000, I was one of the “not a dime’s worth of difference” chumps who voted for Nader.
Only I was a little less stupid and self-righteous than you are because at least back in 2000 there wasn’t an example in recent history that demonstrated to all but the most profoundly brain injured just how horrible the consequences of such self-indulgence can be. You have no such excuse.
Miss Bianca
@Ken: I believe the etiquette is to address her by her highest former title. I am not a Protocol Officer, however.
Nerull
@rachel:
Or one candidate. If the situation were reversed, the exact same people screaming about “MATH!!!” would be in full on denial mode.
I mean, it’s not like its happened before, 8 years ago or so. Nope. Hillary would never stay in a race she was likely to lose. And 50% of polled Hillary supporters would never declare they would never vote for the wining candidate. Because one side is always dictated by pure, unthinking logic, and the other side is always run by nutjobs. Of course, no one can agree on which is which…
fuckwit
I’m a full-on Bernie bot and I agree, it ain’t his night.
He moved the Overton Window. He gave a voice to the disenfranchisedd young people who are facing a nightmare of no jobs, ridiculous college debt, insane pressure and comptitiveness, and no future. That was noble and good.
As for actually winning, it’s over. Not gonna happen. Sad, but true.
Next time. Keep it up. A young Berniebot somewhere wil run for Congress. Or Mayor. Or better yet, State Assembly! Maybe a bunch will. .This has just begun.
The arc of history is long, and all that…