.
Nice potted history of “upset” conventions, from Politico‘s Jeff Greenfield — “Can GOP Elites Really Turn Back the Clock in Cleveland?”:
There was a telling exchange on CNBC’s Squawk Box last month that provided the single best bit of insight into the central conflict that will likely embroil the Republicans when they gather in Cleveland in July. Co-anchor Becky Quick suggested to Republican National Committeeman Curly Haugland that there would be deep anger if the leading vote-and-delegate winner—likely to be Donald Trump–were somehow denied the nomination after failing to get the necessary 1,237 delegates on the first ballot.
Haugland calmly responded: “The media has created the perception that the voters choose the nomination. That’s the conflict here.” But what about the democratic process? Quick asked. Replied Haugland: “Political parties choose their nominees, not the voters.”
True, it used to be that way. But the problem that the GOP establishment faces is that hasn’t been that way since four decades ago, when the modern era of primaries and caucuses really began and voters took the initiative away from the denizens of the smoke-filled room. And now Republican elders who are desperately trying to derail Trump are openly contemplating going back to the old ways, handing the nomination to someone who never spent a day on the campaign trail, never tried to persuade single voter, and was simply delivered the nomination by an arena full of anonymous delegates. Somehow, the establishment thinks, it can instruct all those millions of Republican voters who came out for Trump and Cruz and Kasich to fall in line behind, say, Speaker Paul Ryan.
This is the nostrum being proposed to save the Republican Party. The greater likelihood is that it will blow the party up, triggering everything from brawls over rules and credentials, to post-convention efforts to launch a third party or write in campaign, to guerrilla wars at the state and local level, with primaries and party purges threatening anyone who embraced the “party will decide!” philosophy…
Supplementary reading, also from Politico — “An Oral History of the GOP’s Last Open Convention”:
… We tend to think of modern party conventions as staid, choreographed affairs, but not the 1976 convention, which was an electric party confab that drew gavel-to-gavel coverage on the networks. That year, Republicans entered the convention torn between incumbent Gerald Ford and conservative crusader Ronald Reagan—and the 20 attendees interviewed for this article, from then-Senator Bob Dole to Reagan adviser John Sears to Trump consigliere Roger Stone, remember a turbulent series of events, some never-before-reported.
“It was riotous,” says Craig Shirley, the author and historian who chronicled Reagan’s 1976 campaign in his book. “It went on for hours, and there were melees in the hall.”…
The list of those present at the chaos reads like a who’s who of the Republican Party. Dole, Ed Meese and Haley Barbour, not to mention John Kasich and his 2016 strategists Charlie Black and Stu Spencer were all in the Kemper Arena over those four wild days in 1976. Trump also recently hired 1976 veteran Paul Manafort, who helped lead the Ford floor operations, to lead his delegate operation in Cleveland. And many of them see Kansas City as a case study of how events could transpire in Cleveland this summer…
***********
Apart from snark about proverbial elephants who never forget, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Baud
We always hear about 1968, but I’m learning about 1976 only this year. The bias against us has a long pedigree.
I will believe that Republicans won’t rally against our nominee when I see it.
Mustang Bobby
Fun fact: It took 46 ballots to nominate Democrat Woodrow Wilson in 1912. But the GOP was even more divided when Teddy Roosevelt bolted to form the Bull Moose Party and Taft lost re-election to Wilson.
geg6
What I’m looking forward to is how this may possibly fatally damage ol’ ZEGS for eternity. He’s already measuring for Oval Office draperies, writing editorials extolling his own bipartisanship and deep empathy for the unwashed masses and having not-so-secret meetings with the Kochs. He completely convinced that he is going to be, not just the white knight riding in to save the GOP from the Trumpenhorde but the heir to Ronald Reagan’s crown. Having him be the catalyst that makes the 2016 GOP convention the functional equivalent to the 1968 DNC makes my heart go pittypat.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: This sounds more like 1968, if they pick someone that didn’t run in the primaries like the Granny Starver. Both Ford and St. Ronnie ran in the primaries, HHH in 1968 didn’t.
OzarkHillbilly
More circular firing squads:
ETA: more quote:
Schlafly participated in Monday’s phone meeting. She claimed in her statement that she was “muted” from the meeting after she objected, an allegation Smith vehemently denied.
“(T)he attendees purported to pass several motions to wrest control of the organization from me,” Schlafly alleged in her statement. “They are attempting to seize access to our bank accounts, to terminate employees, and … to control the bank accounts and all of Eagle Forum.”
For days leading up to the meeting, Schlafly and Martin have been releasing apparently coordinated messages on Facebook, Twitter and email, alleging a planned “hostile takeover” of Eagle Forum by six of its 11 board members — a group Martin, in one missive, dubbed the “Gang of 6.”
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Those old timey conventions really were where a lot of the coalition building occured. Party platforms were more important and the nominee was almost secondary.
Until FDR’s second term, the D nominee needed a 2/3 majority of delegates to win. It was how the South exercised veto power.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA: Good point.
geg6
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, that’s just delicious. Love to see that old hag get pushed out by her undoubtedly just-as-venal daughter.
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: Walter Lord in his book The Good Years gives a blow-by-blow description of the 1912 convention. It was held in Baltimore at the end of June in a building that of course had no air conditioning. It must have been ripe in more ways than one.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Remind me to tell you about my experience in Miami, 72.
Mustang Bobby
@raven: OMG… we could have met up then. I was here… or there.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Here a good article from 1974 about Scott Camil and the Gainesville 8 written by David Harris.
rikyrah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?.
Balconesfault
The angsting over what might happen at the GOP Convention is all kabuki. Cleveland will be filled with Cruz supporters elected at their state conventions to be “Trump delegates”. As soon as they’re released from that commitment Cruz will win in a landslide.
Loviatar
I wrote this yesterday, updated to add; So, whats the plan if the Bernistas decide to stage their own floor fight?
—–
One of the things I’m trying to teach my son is; expect the best, but plan for the worst.
In 2008, Hillary Clinton a Democratic party member for 30+ years lost the democratic nomination for president. Her and her supporters, also long time democratic party members immediately pivoted and supported the Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
In 2016, Bernie Sanders a Democratic party member for less than a year (April 30, 2015) is likely to lose the democratic nomination for president. Will he and his supporters, most of whom are not long time democratic party members immediately pivot and support the Democratic nominee?
—–
So, whats the plan if they don’t?
Keith P.
@OzarkHillbilly: Tis a glorious time to be alive.
EconWatcher
@geg6:
In fairness, you’ve got to have some sympathy for this Anne Cori (whom I’d never heard of before). She was raised by Phyllis Schlafly. There aren’t enough shrinks in Vienna to tackle the issues she must have.
Mustang Bobby
@EconWatcher: Her brother is as gay as pink shoes, but he loves his mother. I hear he’s opening a motel out west…
The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016
@Loviatar:
When the alternative is Presdient Trump, President Cruz, or President Ryan?
EconWatcher
How badly do you suppose Chris Christie wishes now that he hadn’t endorsed Trump? I was surprised at the time, but I thought he must know something I don’t about Trump’s imminent acceptance by the powers-that-be in Republican circles. Looks like he didn’t. Trump probably won’t end up with the nomination (although it will be an epic bloodbath), and poor Christie is not only disqualified for any public office, but probably will be shunned from even the most meager crumbs of wingnut welfare.
I hear those legal temp places are hiring document reviwers–probably at least $12 an hour….
PaulWartenberg2016
“But I saved you” said the dying woman.
“I know,” said the snake, “but I’m still a snake.”
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: Gee, Phyllis, betrayed by your own kind.
I know how you feel, you grasping screeching harridan.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I blame Obama.
NotMax
Herding chattel.
Iowa Old Lady
I had no idea the 1976 convention was so contentious and I was plenty old enough to be aware, though I did have a baby that year so I was deeply sleep deprived. If I’m not too atypical, then when we’re thinking about how R and/or D voters will react to their candidate, we need to recall that most of them are paying very little attention right now.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: In this case, he probably can take the credit.
Loviatar
@The Sheriff Endorses Baud 2016:
Remember most of the Bernistas are either Independent or new to the Democratic party voters. In 2008, most of Hillary Clinton’s supporters were long time party members who even though they were bitterly disappointed (myself included) still had a sense of loyalty to the Democratic party. You and many others on this site seem to be assuming that the Bernistas will have the same sense of loyalty or as you state a sense of fear of a President Trump.
I hope your assumptions are correct, but what if they’re not loyal or more likely just don’t give a fuck once their candidate loses the nomination, whats plan B?
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: I’d like to run that motherfucker over with my F-250.
Kay
@Loviatar:
If Clinton’s primary voters are “long time Democratic voters” and Sanders’ are not, isn’t that just the “sporadic” or “disaffected” or “loosely attached” voter group that she would have faced anyway? If the theory is they will only support Bernie Sanders because they’re not Democrats then they’re not really D primary voters and she would have had to turn them out somehow in the general Sanders or no Sanders. If they aren’t Democrats then they are not the D base and hopefully she wasn’t relying upon them.
EconWatcher
@Loviatar:
Plan B is total self-destruction of the Republican Party, and it seems to be going swimmingly…. I’m one of the notorious anti-Hillaries on this site, but I’m not seeing any likely scenarios that would have her lose the general at this point.
Kirbster
@Iowa Old Lady: I am currently reading Kitty Kelley’s unauthorized biography of Nancy Reagan. She really was the power behind the throne. If Nancy Davis had been more successful as a movie actress, she might never have given a fading B-lister like Ronald Reagan a second glance, and the Republican party would be very different than it is today.
Joel
Trump will probably win:
90+ delegates in NY (Kasich might pull off a CD, maybe two).
15+ delegates in RI
25+ delegates in CT
16+ delegates in DE
23+ delegates in MD (Kasich again plays spoiler here, around DC).
51= delegates in NJ
28+ delegates in WV
PA is hard to game because of the unbound delegates, but Trump will crush the popular vote here; a “fair” allocation probably has him winning all ~70 delegates.
I don’t know how he’ll perform in Washington and Oregon, but he’s going to win some delegates there (even if Cruz probably wins those states based on the fundamentalist vote). Trump might win a a few delegates in other places, but nothing significant.
No matter what, it’s going to come down to California. The state is split by district. The little margins are going to matter. Those unbound delegates in PA are going to matter. Winning pockets in WA and OR are going to matter.
Sam Wang has Trump at 66% to win the nomination outright. That feels about right. Predictwise has him at 56%.
OzarkHillbilly
@Loviatar: What’s plan ‘B’? Buy [email protected]
Kay
@Loviatar:
But she would have had to reach that group anyway. I don’t know that I buy the loyal/not loyal theory (other than for young people, who are just too young to vote Party) but if I did my assumption would be they wouldn’t have come out in the primary at all if there had been no Sanders.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Baud: Yup.
Based on the NYTimes graph, Trump will have the numbers he needs on June 7 and nobody else is even close. Unless things change (and why should they?) Trump will be the nominee no matter how much the “wise men” scream about how horrible it is that the unwashed Teabagger masses are destroying the party.
Hey, it keeps us from talking about the SCOTUS and Garland, so working as designed. And the GOP House failing to produce a budget. Amirite?
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Loviatar:
Plan B is to chill out. If the worst happens, we’ll adjust.
Princess
It is going to be Trump/Cruz for the GOP. Cruz is going to agree to support Trump, probably before the convention, in exchange for being VP nominee and first in line for the presidential nomination after Trump crashes and burns. The party will accept it because it keeps the two largest factions inside the tent together and doesn’t destroy the down-ballot. It is the only possible solution for them right now and anything else is wishful thinking on their part.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: See? Driving has exposed you to such evil that now you want to run them over!
Joel
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: One thing is for certain; Trump is about to start on a roll (the next six states will almost certainly be his).
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Amd here I thought we were the bad influence.
Loviatar
So far it seems OzarkHillbilly has the most realistic plan B. Everyone else seems to be counting on the Republican party to fuck up.
Betty Cracker
@Loviatar:
Do we have any data on this? I realize Sanders gets the overwhelming majority of younger voters per exit polling and does better in states that have open primaries, which supports that point, but I’ve never seen detailed info.
My non-scientific spidey sense is that many of the folks who say they will sit out the general election or vote Green are Green voters anyway, so screw them. It will be important to get the youngs to turn out if Clinton wins, and I think Sanders will help in that effort, as will the specter of whichever walking horror show emerges from the GOP convention.
I also think the historic nature of Clinton’s candidacy as a vote motivator is highly underrated. Overall, I like our chances. I’m not complacent, and I agree planning and hard work is needed. But I like our chances.
Cermet
I don’t pay attention to wingnuts running at the mouth about “selecting” the nominee; the thug party would let themselves go down in flames for the Presidential election rather than get crushed in the Senate and badly hurt in the House – and that happens if they piss off the tRump segment of the voters who then sit out. tRump, if he has the majority of delegates, will be given the nomination by super delegates – period. Those Senators/House members know which side of the toast is buttered … or many of them will be toast! They will not cut their own throats (and lose out on that gravy train) just to spite tRump and besides, they hate cruz-boy with a level of white heat.
Aimai
@rikyrah: your good mornings! Always lift my mood and start the day off right!
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: I know a number of loyal Dem voters who are Bernie fans. They all plan to vote Hillary if/when she wins.
Aimai
@Kay: yes they wouldnt have come put at all because an uncontested primary is not exciting and everyone saves their energy gor the general and then gorgets to vote then too. Off year elections and midterms have the same quality for the party in power.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Well, we are the people her parents warned her about.
Marc
@Betty Cracker: The only people talking about things like Sanders not supporting the nominee are worried Clinton supporters, not the candidate himself. Antagonizing the Sanders voters (so they sit out the election), or not motivating them, is a bigger danger than having them refuse to participate because he didn’t win the nomination; they skew young, and younger voters have lower turnout and lower engagement.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
So do I. I also met the other local group, the really young people who are new voters. They were at the Dem booth at the county fair but not OF the Dem booth :)
I just think it’s a pretty practical base v non-base analysis. If she can’t turn out non-base “sporadic” voters then she’ll work really hard to get the base numbers up. They all brag about “bringing in new voters” because that offers two routes for winning rather than one- 1. turn out the base in higher numbers, 2. base plus non-base. It isn’t about dissing the base. It’s about having more options. They can literally take the base for granted, and not surprisingly, they do!
If she only has option 1. then it’s a base D election.
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet:
source
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Yep. GOTV.
Cermet
@OzarkHillbilly: Then tRump wins easy, no? As (if he is) the leader in votes/delegates would he not then, most benefit from such a rule?
Betty Cracker
@Marc: We’ve reached an inflection point in the primary, so people are losing their shit on all sides. I’m confident Sanders will support Clinton if she wins and will work hard to turn out his voters. He’s no Nader.
Emma
@Marc:
… you mean those lovely people who call us tools for the Fascist establishment, thick as bricks, Hillary whores, etc. etc.?
Look. Me, I’m only hoping that the internet swamps aren’t a real representation of what’s out there.
WereBear
@Kirbster: And if Nancy’s stepfather hadn’t been a well connected, well off, Republican…
I’m deep in the new Caro book in his LBJ biography series, and it is amazing how small things loom large in history.
OzarkHillbilly
….
(and yes, that last part is not real)
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Can’t we just shoot the virus dead with our guns?
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet: That is my reading of it. Don’t see how it could harm him anyway.
Iowa Old Lady
@Kirbster: Don’t tantalize me with fantasies like that!
Matt McIrvin
@Loviatar:
Sanders currently has the support of 45% of likely Democratic voters. They can’t mostly be HA Goodman-style post-party diehards who are ready to blow it all up. There just aren’t that many of those people (where were they in 2008, or 2012? Primary turnout isn’t massively up). I think most of them are just Democrats who just prefer Sanders to Clinton as a primary candidate.
The person I wonder about is Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver. I think he might actually want to blow it all up. Is Sanders going to let him? Or do we have a shakeup of some sort in the period between California and the convention?
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Hmmmm…. What’s the 2nd Amendment for anyway? Ooopps wait a minute, shooting ni**ers, sp!cs, and lieberals. Silly me.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Joel: I have an old friend in Ohio who is really, really pissed off about politics. He was at Trump’s rally in Dayton. He’s not going to change his mind anytime soon, and he’s not going to just roll over if the PTB try to prevent Trump from getting the nomination. There are lots and lots of people like him out there.
If the GOP were smart, they’d stop all this talk about “stopping Trump” and imposing someone else as the nominee. That will piss off lots of their motivated voters. They should recognize that no matter who their nominee is, they’re likely to lose very badly in November. They should treat this as the beginning of a national “rebuilding” year and concentrate on trying to run the tables in the states (where they can usually operate under the radar of the national press). Will they? Who knows…
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who hopes that Hillary’s team is simulating all the various possibilities and doing its best to run the table and have long coat-tails in the fall. She may (like Obama) only have a couple of years to really move the ball forward.)
Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian
May I humbly request some Twitter followers? I’m under doctor’s orders to increase my social media presence. You won’t regret it! Thank you, dearest Juicers!
@Snarkworth
Baud
@Snarkworth, short-fingered Bulgarian:
Dr. Kevorkian?
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: And how exactly does it make sense to cut off funding to the CDC to study the Zika virus? Republicans are straight up dumb — and dangerous.
NotMax
As part of what is under discussion is 1976, put in mind of a long read (worthwhile, bookmark it for when you have the time) about the events leading to the nomination for veep of Fritz Efaw at the ’76 Dem convention.
Amir Khalid
In other words: Fuck the base. This is our party.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: to repeat:
Just being snarky and parodying the GOP stance on gun studies.
MattF
@Princess: Der Trump should be… cautious… about naming Cruz as his running mate.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
But when does Sanders realize he’s lost? It could only be after the convention. Jeff Weaver is now saying the Sanders campaign won’t cooperate at the convention as long as Clinton comes in with less than 2,383 pledged delegates, a supermajority of the pledged delegates that is basically impossible at this point. Meanwhile, Sanders’ national polling support keeps increasing; if it passes Clinton’s they could use it as justification that they morally deserve to win with a superdelegate flip.
We’ve been gloating about Cleveland, but it’s possible that Trump will either eke out a majority or suddenly fold to Cruz late in the game, Cleveland becomes a coronation and our convention is the one that collapses into chaos, not because the outcome is ever in doubt, but because the scene is riven by protests and acrimony from Sanders people who think they should be winning and the nomination is somehow being stolen from them. The media go crazy with Democrats In Disarray and the people become convinced they can’t even run away with what should be a gimme election.
pamelabrown53
@MattF:
Trump and Cruz would make an interesting “team” since neither one of them are team players.
Good Morning, Balloon Juice!
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Patricia Kayden:
Because having the zika virus might increase the demand for abortions and the GOP nutbags would rather has thousands of dead or deeply damaged babies born than conceed one inch on abortion
Ignorance is strength. They did it with the CDC on gun violence so this is not new
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: We’ve seen this movie before. This is the Sanders’ campaign’s last stand, and they know it, so they’re ratcheting up the “never say die” rhetoric. If Sanders gets clobbered in New York and Pennsylvania and basically loses up and down the Eastern Seaboard and the campaign is still talking about taking the fight to the convention, I’ll start to worry. But I don’t think what we’re seeing now is anything new.
The Golux
Fun fact: Manafort’s grandfather founded one of the biggest demolition companies in Connecticut, which makes the cartoon particularly apt.
geg6
@EconWatcher:
Chris Christie is one of the worst gamblers I’ve ever seen.
Chris
@EconWatcher:
I thought he just wanted to be one of the first on the bandwagon.
lihtox
@NotMax: Arguments like that are misandristic, and treat men as if they were babies: babyproof the house, manproof the society. Maybe it’s time for them to expect more from their male citizens, and treat them with some freaking dignity. (That they need to treat their female citizens with dignity too goes without saying.)
singfoom
Good morning Balloon Juice. Some nice civil disobedience at the Capitol this morning. Cenk from the Young Turks one of the arrested. I hope they keep this up. NPR Article on Democracy Spring protest
Anecdata, but all the Bernie fans I know will not sit out if HRC is the nom, hopefully the convention isn’t too unruly.
Doug R
They were coming off Watergate in 1976. I think they recovered though to rule the White House for 12 years. Even then Clinton only got 43% of the vote.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear:
“New”?
Chris
@singfoom:
Don’t they both have something like a seventy or eighty percent approval rating among Democratic voters? I always thought the amount of hate from Sanders/Clinton supporters against Clinton/Sanders was way overestimated, based on the assumption that politics junkies like us are representative of the voter base.
MattF
@EconWatcher: The ridiculous magnitude of Christie’s ambition has always been obvious. Smart and combative but with a specific weakness– he’s the one, after all, who gave the keynote speech at the 2012 R convention that was all about himself. The question has always been whether this weakness was fatal. Now we now all know that his ambition was, in fact, unmanageable and fatal. Bye bye Chris.
Anya
@Loviatar: I think We’re still in the fervent stage of the primary. No one wants to talk about the possibility of their candidate losing so they’re ratcheting up the vitriol as part of scaring the other side by implying that the house will burn down if their candidate doesn’t win. Once Clinton has a clear win, the great majority of Sanders supporters will support the dem nominee. I don’t see a floor fight or any fight happening. That won’t stop the media from trying to create one.
lihtox
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe, but that could also just be campaign bluffing: he doesn’t want his supporters to stop voting because they think he can’t win. If Hillary has the majority of pledged delegates at the end of primary season, then I suspect Hillary and Bernie will get together and make some sort of deal to smooth things over. Bernie doesn’t seem that petty to me. Plus, it would be to his benefit to help rally the Democrats in November so that they can take back the Senate, which would make him chair of the Senate Budget Committee.
dmsilev
@Matt McIrvin: I think the Sanders campaign is blowing smoke. If primary season ends with Clinton holding on to a lead of say 200 pledged delegates (i.e. the next 8 weeks are a net neutral), the media is immediately going to start treating her as the presumptive nominee, the odds of any of her super delegates flipping will be essentially zero, etc. What could Sanders and his team possibly do to flip that? If he tried, the first thing that would happen would be Obama giving a Hillary endorsement speech that included some not-so-subtle “Sanders, stand down” language, and given the President’s popularity within the Democratic Party, that would probably be enough.
Princess
I think a non-negligible number of the loudest Sanders supporters are former Ron Paul people. Most of the rest will vote for the nominee eventually.
Uncle Cosmo
@Mustang Bobby: FTR that building (the Fifth Regiment Armory) still stands at the corner of Howard & Preston Sts. across from the State Office Complex. I’ve been in it a couple of times, the last (IIRC) for an Irish festival, & frankly the place has always been a monstrosity for any purpose that involves large crowds needing to hear or breathe.
Gin & Tonic
@Princess:
Bingo!
Marc
@Emma: They’re definitely not, thank God.
D58826
@Loviatar: Move to Canada before President Cruz is sworn at, I mean in. :-) :-)
HRA
Last night Bernie Sanders packed in 8,500 at his rally in the University of Buffalo arena while 4,000 stood outside not being able to get in. He was late for about 20 minutes while he spoke to those who could not get in. Family reported the crowd was young, in between and old. The enthusiasm was unlike any they have ever seen.
I detect all kinds of suppositions being used for the Bernie voters. I have no idea how anyone can believe these voters will be happy to vote for HRC for the general after what has been happening during the primaries. Wyoming is the latest one where he wins and gets less delegates. Arizona admits there was something wrong and can do nothing about it now. Iowa flipped cards for delegates. These examples are only a drop in a bucket so to speak. You really expect Bernie supporters to flock to HRC?
sigaba
@Cermet: Republicans don’t have superdelegates. Or rather, they have like 10- the chair of the convention gets one and each member of the RNC does, but that’s it.
singfoom
@Chris:
Well, I agree with that. I’ll just say that for myself and the fellow Bernie supporters I know are older (30s/40s) than some of his more fervent supporters. Regardless, I have to push back against the assertion of all us Bernfeelers wanting to burn it down if he doesn’t get the nom because that’s a bullshit narrative to me.
I think the current drama of the “stealing” narratives about the delegates is really people coming to grips that he can’t really win mathematically. I was also very disheartened after the NYDN interview where I feel like he flubbed the answer about Wall Street prosecutions, where I felt I could have given a better answer.
So now I just wait for shoes to drop and for this goddamn primary season to be over so we can move on to the real work instead of having more pie fights.
All I care about now is that once the nom is decided, we GOTV like nobody’s business, hopefully getting a slim margin back in the Senate. (And yes, for those that will point it out, Bernie’s done a piss poor job of helping downticket Dems….acknowledged)
Cheers
rikyrah
Um, is there a reason why Betty Cracker is in green?
I thought it was because she’s a FrontPager, but then so is Kay, and Kay doesn’t have any special coloring.
rikyrah
I’m still at the point where I simply don’t believe that they will take the nomination away from the person with the most votes. It’s so utterly undemocratic……
I just can’t.
bystander
@OzarkHillbilly: I hate Schlafly’s guts. If only this peabrain infighting would precipitate a massive myocardial infarction, Tuesday would turn from rainy to sunshiny for me.
sigaba
@HRA:
What exactly has been “happening during the primaries” that would alienate Bernie’s voters? HRC has been a class-act as far as I can tell.
Look, on this question of Sanders’s voters and a Plan B, we have to just commit to do our best and to simply let the process play out. If Sanders voters refuse to vote for Clinton, that’s a shame, but we can’t very well give the nomination to Sanders, notwithstanding him losing the primary, just because some of his supporters are more flaky and demanding.
Plan B is we pick the person who wins the primaries and we run for president.
Gelfling545
@Loviatar: as far as I can tell, it’s hoping that 51% of Americans are not completely insane.
singfoom
@HRA:
So, everybody’s got opinions and who knows how fucking accurate they are. I’m one Bernie supporter that will gladly vote for HRC come November and I’m pretty resigned to it. Am I excited about it? No, not really. Mrs. Singfoom is excited about HRC and that’s fine. I do know that if all the Sanders supporters stay home and put that our country regresses. It’s upsetting that politics isn’t JUST idealism but the actual hard work of coalition and consensus building.
Listen, the primary has rules. You play the game by the rules of the game. I understand working the refs is part of the game, but absent some HUGE proof that something nefarious has gone down, it just sounds like sour grapes. I would hope that people who support Bernie keep their eyes on the prize of November. Yes, the lesser evil bullshit is draining and it’s be great to bust out of that paradigm, but not voting is a vote for the greater evil in my humble opinion.
And we’ve seen what the Rs want to do, with shit in North Carolina, the economic devastation in Kansas, the irresponsible handling of infrastructure in Michigan, it goes on and on. Staying home in November doesn’t make things any better. Feeling pure doesn’t elect people who will continue progress. I do hope that people don’t take their balls and go home in November.
Poopyman
@bystander: Sorry to disappoint you, but the woman lives on bile. This shit just makes her day.
bystander
@Gin & Tonic: @Betty Cracker:
Thus fulfilling the prophecy:
Of course, what you do with that evil after you’re in contact is up to you.
Anya
@HRA: Whenever I read a comment like this I think the person saying this must not have been alive in 2008 or was living under a rock.
How do you know a campaign is losing? They talk about fraud and how their candidate is being cheated or they refuse to accept reality. Here’s an example from 2008. See if you can spot the similarities: Clinton Camp Flaming Her Supporter’s Sense that Obama’s Win Is Unfair?
xian
@PaulWartenberg2016: trump likes this story too and somewhat like cruz reading green eggs and ham seems unaware of irony.
bystander
@Poopyman: Of course, you’re right. She proved that when she got metaphorically spat upon when she was unjustly given an honorary degree from Wash U.
Matt McIrvin
@Princess:
Some I know were Jill Stein 2012 supporters, and will probably go back to Stein if Sanders doesn’t get the nomination. And some are the kind of people who spend most election cycles lecturing everyone about how voting is a scam.
Alain the site fixer
blockquote citation test
japa21
@Anya: Plus, the things he is talking about are either according to long time rules or out of the control of the Clinton campaign.
Specially, the Arizona kerfuffle. The problems there were in one county, created by the GOP leadership of the county and, if anything, hurt Clinton more than Sanders as the longest lines were in areas where Clinton had strong support.
One of my biggest disappointments in Sanders came after Arizona, where he not only did not condemn the negative statements coming out from his supporters about fraud, but actually encouraged it.
And your comment is spot on.
Uncle Cosmo
@Iowa Old Lady: It was interesting enough for Richard Reeves to write an entire book about it called, logically enough, Convention. I had a rescued ex-library copy on my shelf for many years; it may still be in a box somewhere.
I do still have on the American History shelf Jules Witcover’s Marathon: The Pursuit of the Presidency 1972-1976 but it allots the RNC <30 p out of ~600.
Hoodie
@Anya: The Sanders campaign is somewhere between anger and bargaining right now, and it seems likely they’ll move on to depression after NY and PA based on current polling.
HRA
@sigaba:
I doubt any Sanders voter expects the nomination to be given to him. I am sure they understand he has to win it. Still, I have been told it has not exactly been a level playing field from the beginning by many Democrats. Would you be as surprised to know many I spoke to have not chosen a candidate to support?
Although your adjectives of flaky and demanding are mild in comparison to others I have read, it does no good to alienate those you seek help from to give your candidate a victory.
RaflW
That Toles cartoon is pretty much exactly what I expect from Trump in the coming months. Reince was an utter fool to get Trump to sign the pledge (though it is now reneged by him and the other two semi-finalists for Miss Congeniality). Had the pledge not been in place throughout the early contests, one might have been able to make broader claims about legitimacy of Trump, but they threw that away with the transparently cancellable charade.
I hope the damn thing does blow up in Ohio. But I suspect Trump has a bankruptcy plan in place for Cleveland that will, as usual, leave him whole and the edifice in a smoking ruin (a la the Taj in Atlantic City).
Princess
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, I’ll buy that there are a good number of inveterate Jill Stein supporters in the mix too. I just think that the Ron Paul supporters are the loud and obnoxious ones. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
I have many more Berner than Hillarista friends (as opposed to random fans one encounters on the internet). I can’t think of one who won’t vote for the nominee eventually.
bystander
We have a couple of friends visiting in late July. I was debating whether to go down to the Hamilton box office to see if I could get a couple of singles. So, I tried Ticketmaster just to see what might pop up. Nada, nothing, nichts, rien.
BUT Ticketmaster now also features a “re-sale” (new word for “scalping”) column where, miraculously, tickets are available. The last row of the top balcony for only $625 per ticket. Isn’t it odd that so many people bought tickets but then realized they had to go to Billy’s grade school open house?
Gin & Tonic
In other news, more NC HB2 fallout.
MattF
@RaflW: Priebus was good at dealing with donors and media– dealing with actual Republican politicians and actual Republican voters, not so much. I’m guessing that his background doesn’t include psychopathology.
msb
People, Phyllis Schlafly is far from my favourite person, but can we knock off the gendered slurs, such as “hag” and “harridan”? I hate the harm she’s done, not the body or the clothes (or even the accessories) she wore while doing it.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@HRA:
According to Al Giordano’s reporting, half the interviewed attendees outside the Sanders rally in Brooklyn hadn’t registered to vote.
Soylent Green
@bystander: I met Schlafly in 1970, when she visited my alma mater, also hers (Washington U. in St. Louis) to debate Gloria Steinem on the subject of women’s rights. In those days Schlafly’s views came straight from the John Birch Society playbook. As I recall her position on feminism was that it was a communist plot.
sigaba
@HRA: Only a fool refuses to vote because of hurt feelings. It’s not about ME needing the support of Bernie voters, it’s about Hillary needing their support. Or even more to the point, what do you as a voter need? In places like Kansas and Oklahoma people vote themselves into poverty and a polluted hellscape, mostly because they’re convinced Democrats look down on them and call them names. These are not good reasons upon which to make voting decisions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I thought they split the delegates evenly?
I’ve read that the actual number of voters was either just under 7,000, or just over 5,000. Obama got about 60,000 votes in WY in 2012. Similar proportions, IIRC, in WA and HI, just about 10% of 2012 Dem voters showed up to caucus. Bernie’s “landslides” in caucus states seem to come from a comparatively small number of voters. Small sample, but I suspect a case could be made that, above and beyond her significant lead in the number of votes– well over two million, Clinton’s delegates from primaries represent an even larger number of actual people than Sanders’ caucus delegates. Of course a lot of those are from the South, which Bernie seems to think should count for less because “conservative”. This does not apply to Wyoming, Alaska, Utah or Idaho. Curiouser and curiouser.
Steeplejack
@Alain the site fixer:
If you are looking for a fix, I would suggest editing the “Basic HTML Tips” to remove the reference to
<blockquote cite>rather than trying to make it actually work. We don’t need it, and it would lead to huge pieces of text all tagged as a single hyperlink. Ugh.HRA
@Anya:
Hmmm 2008? I was working for, supporting and donating to the Obama campaign as soon as he entered the race. I remember a lot more then what you used as an example of the Clinton campaign.
I believe I did not use the word “losing”.
Alain the site fixer
@rikyrah: Kay hasn’t asked me for a color and Betty, John, Anne Laurie, and Adam Silverman have. .
scav
@Gin & Tonic: Ahh, there’s my pleasant news for the morning. I can run for a bit on that.
Germy Shoemangler
“Post Trump Presidencies” – Luckovich cartoon:
http://www.gocomics.com/mikeluckovich/2016/04/06
Alain the site fixer
@Steeplejack: Did That, thanks! I saw your comment in another thread. Also removed since that seems to be wacky. Now the instructions should be accurate for commenters.
C. Isaac
I… just watched a lifelong (neocon) Republican get told to ‘go back to the left where you belong, RINO’ by a Trump supporter. Followed by ‘the Trump GOP is well rid of you’.
I didn’t know who to point and laugh at hardest.
This strange new world confuses me.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@C. Isaac: On the television?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Also, I read through a Sanders subreddit from a few weeks ago, and the lamenting and hair pulling about the lack of planning and coordination of volunteers from Sanders HQ was really quite telling. A couple of commenters had organized for Obama’s 2012 campaign, and commented on the comparisons between how Obama did it, and Clinton’s ground game, and Sanders’ apparent inability or carelessness to do it makes me wonder what the fuck they’re doing with all of that money. I got in a back and forth with a Sanders supporter yesterday about how undemocratic the closed NY primary was because “how could millions of people have known they wanted to vote for Bernie 6 months ago?” This is why Sanders has committed political malpractice by relying on white kids – a notoriously well known unreliable and apparently uninformed voting group – for any kind of “revolution” without trying to form the rest of the coalition. It’s bullshit, and if he didn’t know it, he should have. Nothing to learn from Obama, I guess. If he could do it, how hard could it be?
C. Isaac
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, here in the office at work.
Gin & Tonic
@Alain the site fixer: I’d like my comments to be in lime green, please, for obvious reasons.
MattF
@Alain the site fixer: About the ‘insert link’ button– I always have to remove the text that’s in the box that comes up because the dragged-to-desktop links I want to insert already have the http prefix on them. Is this just an OS X thing? Or am I doing something stupid again?
Mike J
@Anya:
Today’s 18 year olds were 10 then. They weren’t living under a rock, they were just more concerned with pokemon at the time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Said it before, I’ll say it again: Sanders didn’t start to take his own candidacy as more than a message movement until some time around the end of 2015, but, in his own mind, and from what I’ve seen egged on by the equally fanatical Weaver and the (I’d be three month’s mortgage payments) personally bitter and vindictive Devine, it didn’t take him long to go from seeing President Sanders as a longshot possibility to historical destiny and, of course, moral necessity. Everything the PUMAs and the ‘wingers said in ’08 about Obama believing he was The One seems to have come to pass in the fevered dreams of St Bernard of Willsee.
ETA: @C. Isaac: ah, just hoping for a youtube of seeing someone ‘respectable’ like Danielle Pletka or Chuck Lane shut down hard by a goober from the fringes of CPAC
John D
@Loviatar:
So, if polling is anywhere close to accurate, Clinton will have more than 2026 pledged delegates after CA. At that point, all the arguments about “winning” go out the window. Weaver can yell, and shout, and stamp his feet, but if Clinton reaches 2026 pledged delegates, she has the nomination on the first ballot, and there is no floor fight. It doesn’t matter if they WANT a floor fight at that point.
Now, that doesn’t preclude hurt feelings, and GBCW nonsense, but with a minority of pledged delegates and a minority of votes, on what basis can Sanders and his supporters reasonably claim that the nomination should be his? The vast majority of them will come around and vote for Clinton in November.
The floor fight comes if the polling is off and Sanders manages to get to 2026 pledged. Plan B for that scenario is … murky.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I didn’t ask for the special coloring because I don’t post now so while *technically* a FP’er I don’t think I rank because I don’t do the work the other FP’ers do :)
I follow my own ideas about proper “rankings” and rules since there are no rules on this blog.
I thought I would do OH-centric posts after June when the Dem race settles out.
I hate this primary. Trump doesn’t even interest me the way he apparently interests cable audiences. I don’t think big, braggy blowhards are at all unusual and I have to see John Kasich all the time..ugh.
Mike J
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And yet he got over 8000 at a rally at the U. This is why people say turnout at rallies are not reliable indicators. Going to a rally is not being active in politics. Volunteering is nice, and even helpful, but voting is the single most important part of political involvement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I PROTEST!
I’d love to heard your sense of the Senate race and how you think the Garland situation is playing out– I have a sense that it makes Portman a little nervous, but that may be confirmation bias. And I would vote for a Clinton-Sanders-free down ticket thread with reports from people on the ground.
Emma
@msb: IIRC, harridan, from the old French haridelle (old mare), has always meant an unpleasant, scolding, belligerent old woman. Which applies, I think.
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Jeff Weaver is this cycle’s Mark Penn.
He is odious and destructive.
Matt McIrvin
@Princess: The Sanders fans I know in real life are all going to vote for the nominee, no question. They’re not dead-enders, they’re liberal Democrats who are expressing specific policy preferences by supporting Sanders, and are used to not always having their candidate win.
Online, I know several who are definitely not going to vote for Clinton, but for one reason or another, they don’t habitually vote for Democrats anyway. They’re inveterate third-party voters or non-voters who have been temporarily brought in by Bernie.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I’ll amend to say I was enjoying the GOP distress until I realized all it means is I have to listen to many more GOP pundits than usual and these horrible candidates for months and months. Kasich is a fraud and Trump is an ignorant blowhard and Ted Cruz is just repulsive. I realize I don’t care what happens to their Party.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s how it’s seen by Sanders supporters too. A lot of these are the kids who got participation trophies and played video games through the last wave election and don’t know anything about anything, have a new old white guy mythical magical avatar on social media to share, created a mythical villain in Hillary as part of their political COSPLAY, now want what they want and feel entitled to get it, but haven’t a clue about how to translate aspirations into effective politics. Either does Sanders. I don’t trust Sanders to do the right thing when the time comes, at all. At all.
Steeplejack
@MattF:
No, it’s a general thing (across all Balloon juice versions). I have gotten in the habit of making sure to overwrite the presupplied
httpprefix when I put in my link (which usually has the prefix already attached).Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, it’s true. They do the daily work. I like orange as a color, so just keep that in mind.
I’m going to a (small) Sherrod event on the 22nd and the OH Senate race interests me so I’ll “cover” that if I find out anything interesting. Brown is blunt so I think if I ask him good questions he will answer them. He has worked with Portman on currency manipulation- they did that part of the TPP add-ons negotiations together so he might be reluctant to screw with that relationship, which seems to be productive.We’ll see.
I went to an event with Frances Strickland (Ted Strickland’s wife) but that was really about the OH Supreme Court races so she just led us in a song. Not as bizarre as it sounds- she plays the guitar. She appeared with Carol King during Obama’s first race.
*Not “with” Frances Strickland, BTW. I went and Strickland was one of the speakers.
I have to figure out how to turn comments “on” but I will! :)
Culture of Truth
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: I actually agree that New Yorkers should be able to register closer to election day, but the caucuses are much worse, shutting out voters without the time or physical ability to participate.
bemused
@C. Isaac:
Hilarious. Did you lol or keep it to yourself?
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: She’s probably still deciding on a color.
Steeplejack
@C. Isaac:
Your office must be a joy to work in.
Miss Bianca
@msb: Seconded. I hate gendered slurs, even for people whom I consider richly deserving of my scorn and ridicule, such Phyllis Schlafly and Sarah Palin.
C. Isaac
@bemused:
There was a lot of bemused smirking.
@Steeplejack:
Well, considering that it’s closing and shipping out of country in July, everyone’s caught between not giving a rat’s behind and being utterly stressed out.
japa21
I think Clinton supporters do Bernie supporters a disservice by labeling them all as young kids. There are a lot of older Sanders supporters who like the things he has to say. My 39 year old son supports Sanders, though he is hardly as cantankerous as some we see on this blog. He will definitely vote for Clinton, as will 95% (at least) of the post 25 year olds who support Sanders.
Personally, at least to this point, I have been pleased to see that Sanders has developed a significant enough following to stay in the race, because I think a lot of what he has to say is important (even if a lot of it is pie in the sky). It is important that long term goals be kept in front of us, even if many realize they are not attainable in the near future. It keeps reminding us of what can be if we keep moving forward.
If Bernie stops going deep into the negative campaigning style he has adopted, things will work out fine.
J R in WV
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
You all are forgetting that the party apparatchiks will be having meetings deep into the night as the Rules committee that makes the rules for selecting a nominee and the Credentials committee that certifies who are “real Republican” delegates and who are just people who won a meaningless electoral game in their home states, but are not now real delegates, having been decertified and not granted credentials by the all important Credentials committee.
So the Republicans CAN take the nomination away from anyone they – the late night committee members who are the beating heart of the Republican Party machine – want to take it away from. By picking alternate delegates and making brand new Republican Rules for nominating a Party’s Dear Leader!
I’m so hoping they do. And that there are several hundred delegates who are decertified milling around outside the Secret Service barrier around the actual hall where the Actual Delegates are going to impose whoever they decide in their late night committee meetings is the next ruler of the Republican Party.
This may be one for the ages! I watched the 1968 Democratic convention with horror, I’m sure there will be some who watch this Republican convention with horror, we’ll see if we do or not.
The Democratic party may get some state houses and state legislatures back this fall ~!!~
ETA to fix some issues.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Culture of Truth:
Caucuses are terrible, and why they favored Sanders supporters. Mass. where I live has a closed primary, with a registration window that closes 20 days prior, and favors Clinton who is supported by registered Democrats. Ever since I’ve been old enough to vote, the first thing I do when I move is register to vote, but the accusations made by the Sanders supporter about NY was that when it’s pointed out to them that it’s on them if they don’t register to vote, we’re Hillary anti-democratic Establishment sell outs. Seriously, just like Sanders does, there’s always someone else to vilify and blame for the way things are and have been. It’s ridiculous.
bemused
@C. Isaac:
I hope this wasn’t a regular thing on the job but at least it’s got to be a lot more fun when two crazy conservatives are bitterly attacking each other than going after liberals.
Calouste
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Me neither. The man is lying like a bog-standard Republican about something as straightforward as his tax returns, why should we trust him on anything else?
PaulWartenberg2016
People, in the good news category, Beverly Cleary turns 100 years old today.
Who remembers reading her books? I do. I read both Henry Huggins AND the Ramona series.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Calouste:
Exactly. Meeting the pope, the tax returns, the “unqualified” remarks, his backwards misreading of the Panama Treaty – I’m not sure how on top of anything he is now, except a big ego and a big pile of money that has to get spent.
Miss Bianca
@PaulWartenberg2016: Oh, this is good news! She just keeps chugging along! Loved Henry Huggins, Ramona and Beezus, Mitch and Amy, Otis Spofford…also loved her YA “girly” books, particularly “Sister of the Bride”, even tho’ they have probably dated a little more than her kids’ books. Happy 100th, Beverley Cleary!
rikyrah
@Kay:
Ok Kay, but I consider you a FPer.
Chris
@japa21:
And by assuming that their youth is automatically grounds for dismissing them. But whatever.
VFX Lurker
@HRA:
The pragmatic Bernie supporters will quietly vote for HRC, and most have already said so on Facebook and on this blog.
I am not sure about the privileged Bernie supporters who would prefer a Republican president over Hillary. On Facebook, they’re talking about a progressive phoenix rising from the ashes of a Republican presidency. I do not know how to reach them.
Chris
@J R in WV:
I’m hoping they do, because I could totally see Trump being so affronted he runs on a third party platform. For him, that really is the perfect ending to the campaign. He won’t win, and therefore he doesn’t have to bother with the four or eight years of actual governing, but he leaves an indelible mark by completely derailing a major party’s presidential campaign and sticking it to those who mocked him and tried to deny him his right. And he can go on telling himself and his supporters forever that he totally would’ve won hands down and become a great president, if only those scheming backstabbers hadn’t stolen the election from him.
Joel
@HRA: Clinton has somewhere between 56-58% of the votes and 54% of the delegates. Do you have something substantive to add, or are you just a troll?
Joel
@sigaba: Something like 53 of PA delegates are unbound; that’s not exactly a superdelegate but they will probably serve a similar purpose this year.
Paul in KY
@Kay: You truly are a woman of the people!
Shana
@WereBear: Is volume 5 out? I can’t see anything online about it. So praying he stays healthy long enough to finish the series. He’s in his 70s I believe.
John D
@Joel: 21 PA delegates are unpledged PLEO. Every other delegate is pledged and bound by the results of the primary. Your information seems to be incorrect. From TGP:
Kay
@rikyrah:
I heard a rumor they’re doing some kind of “field hearing” on voting rights soon. “Field hearings” are when Senators go to states and hold (informal) hearings. I thought the field hearing they held in the Cleveland fed cthouse in 2012 on voting rights was completely great and fascinating, so if they do it again I’ll go. They put the local voting rights activists in the jury box and then arrayed the (state) GOP people who were pushing restrictive voter laws at a table.
I liked it because it was like the voting rights activists were the jury. I hope it was done like that deliberately by Senate Dems, but even it wasn’t it was great to see.
The jury were not pleased with those witnesses, I will tell you :)
scav
@VFX Lurker: There have always been a burn it down and the great phoenix pumpkin brigade, they’ve just usually gone full other-party. So the invisible sub-sub-population now under discussion as being of critical “flocking” power are the formerly reliable deems now passionate pumpkin believers. Do their desires trump all other concerns in a broad-based effort to win as many disparate sub-sub populations (aka idiosyncratic people) as possible?
Matt McIrvin
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I’m tired of this “participation trophy” slam on the young’uns. The kids I know are harder workers and less apathetic than my generation ever was. If they’re upset about being denied something it’s because they know that the deck is stacked against them anyway. And they’re aware of what a participation trophy signifies.
The loudest Sanders-or-nobody irredentists I know are actually over 40. Some are over 65: old radical boomers who never trusted party politics and see Sanders as one of their own.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m seeing the swarming of anyone not on team Bernie on twitter and reddit. They’re young and overwhelmingly male. I’m tired of being told that they’re not really important or significant in the Sanders campaign.
Brachiator
@japa21:
There are some interesting trends in the recent Filed poll of California Democrat voters, including a significant generational tilt towards Sanders.
And as far as California is concerned, I don’t know why anyone would discount independents and declare that somehow the California “base” is more pure or committed. A vote is a vote. And at the end of the day, when the general election rolls around, you want all the votes you can get for the Democratic nominee, whoever that person might be.
ETA: the age gap between Clinton and Sanders supporters is more like the age gap between Obama and Romney supporters in 2012. In the general election, mainly old white men voted for Romney.
Gin & Tonic
@Shana: Caro is 80, and as far as I know, aware of actuarial tables.
Brachiator
in my most recent comment I meant to say:
ETA: the age gap between Clinton and Sanders supporters is more like the age gap between Obama and Romney supporters in 2012. In the general election, in California, mainly old white men voted for Romney.
Couldn’t get back into it to edit for some reason.
Bobby Thomson
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Armstrong Williams would have fit in well with the Sanders grifters. Just sayin’.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Forget it. Whatever the younger generation is at any particular time is always supposed to be spoiled, entitled, soft, privileged, ungrateful, badly in need of a stern finger-waggling lecture in lieu of the spankings their parents should’ve given them, and just generally ruining the world. “Damn kids get off my lawn” is a meme for a reason.
bystander
@Soylent Green: Class of 72 but I spent 70-71 in Strasbourg, so I missed that. I loved WU but decided to hate it after giving her the degree.
Betty Cracker
@Chris: Lord, yes. I remember hearing the same about us X-holes back in the day…
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not a Baby Boomer and I’m happy to admit that plenty of shit happened on their watch, but “We Didn’t Start The Fire” is probably somewhere in my top ten favorite songs for a reason.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Chris:
There is a happy medium between old fogeyism and realistic, and CLAP HARDER left wing nutbaggery, and between hopefulness and delusion. Just sayin’.
starscream
I’m a millennial pretty in the tank for Clinton. Sanders officially lost me the day of the “you can’t be a moderate and a progressive” nonsense, when it became clear the guy has no intention of building a big, inclusive party to get stuff done.
I’ll always be proud that, in a massively important election (2008), Democrats put their faith in a minority like myself. That’s the kind of party I want to be a part of. Bernie would rather have a purity test that he himself has failed many times (F-35’s, guns, Martha’s vineyard donors, etc).
D58826
@Gin & Tonic: According to the local rag, as many as 30k hotel room nights have been lost due to conventions bailing out. An additional 89k are at risk as the organizers are having second thoughts about coming to NC.
D58826
@Chris: If I remember my ancient history Socrates had a problem with the kids on his lawn also. :-). In spite of the predictions, the boomer turned out reasonably (and no they are not perfect) well and so will today’s kids. Just take some time to dry behind the ears.
gvg
Eh my 70+ parents and 40+ sister are Sanders supporters. Sis was an active Democrat but she bought the Greenwald coolaide and has been mad at the Democrats since. I haven’t heard my parents reasons but its probably economic justice. they always cared about that. I suspect they haven’t picked up all the internet evidence of how legally serious racism is right now with jail terms, because I know they care about that issue too. For various reasons having to do with other family fights I just don’t want to get into it while the nomination fight is still going on. Don’t get too dismissive and fool yourself they are all youngs. From what I have seen, that is not the case.
gwangung
@starscream:
Yeah, his failure to build a solid coalition is disappointing. There are POCs and women involved as his voters, but the polling of actual voters still shows a substantial gap among most POCs.
That’s probably a key tactical failure, and it’s irksome to see him double down on that by the way his dismissed the South.
J R in WV
@Kay:
I usually don’t pay much attention to the Republicans, but this year seems special, in that I suspect Trump is going to pull something very showily destructive if he doesn’t win outright, and I suspect the rules and credentials committees will attempt to do some tinkering that , if the numbers are close, might lean Trump away from the nomination.
I haven’t watched a Republican convention, ever, but this year it may be quite a sideshow.
If it is a sideshow-quality event, perhaps we liberal Democrats will have a chance to do some good down-ticket, even in gerrymandered states. Hope springs eternal!!
I too would encourage you to post, as your insights into local politics, even local far away from your homestead, are always welcome and interesting. And you should definitely request a color, lavender, violet, green, pale red for the buckeyes, maybe. Whatever, take care.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: One of the stupidest newspaper editorials I’ve ever read was one written around the time of the 1991 Gulf War speculating that Saddam Hussein was raised by modern liberals who didn’t spank him enough.
Brachiator
@gwangung:
Again, the California numbers for Sanders are kinda interesting. Here’s how it lays out for the major ethnic groups.
African Americans, 25%
Latinos, 42%
Asian Americans, 44%
Among Latinos, 69 percent of his supporters are younger than age 40
I am surprised that the Latino and Asian American support is as strong as it is. And instead of whining about not doing well in the South, Sanders should have crafted a stronger message to African American voters.
ETA: Source, California Field Poll
Cermet
If Sanders won the nomination, and then the general, his Presidency would be DOA in the House and zero would be accomplished – we might not regain the Senate since the thugs would come out like blow fly’s from a dead carcass. Can Hillary get some bills pasted through the thug House? I think yes; also, a SC nomination or two (please die Thomas) would be doable. Sanders? Not a chance.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Brachiator:
It really surprised me that he didn’t – maybe he couldn’t, or didn’t really think it mattered. I suspect more and more that it’s the latter – he’s sure he’s right that income inequality is the root of all evil and that racism is what he calls a distraction, which of course it is when you’re old white guy Bernie Sanders from whitest white Vermont for the last 50 years. Everyone likes to say he pulled Clinton left, but Clinton in the race really exposed his white male privileged left flank in this racist as fuck country.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cermet: I think if Sanders were to win the nomination, the sound of champagne corks would be heard in GOP Senate and House campaign offices all around the country. I think they lose their Trump-drag if they can run ads about “Socialist Bernie Sanders…”
Brachiator
@Cermet:
Both Sanders or Clinton will be faced with similar GOP obstructionism. Both will have to push their agenda hard and also try to help rally the Democrats to mid-term election victories to break through the girdlock. HRC may have more support upfront from other Democrats, but I don’t know that she would have that strong an advantage over Sanders.
Brachiator
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I think you distort what Sanders has actually said to some degree. But the larger point is that he was relatively new to black voters and other groups, and he needed to do more to connect his vision to the hopes and aspirations of other people. He did not do this well or convincingly. He still keeps falling back harder on his main points. And here you may be right in your point that he doesn’t seem to be able to vary his message, either because he is persistent or stubborn.
White privilege just means “benefits from racism,” and this applies to Clinton as much as it does to Sanders.
mclaren
@Balconesfault:
Unbelievable tripe.
Utter twaddle, complete codswallop. The GOP (Gay Older Pedophiles) face a Catch-22 — if they squeeze Cruz in, the Trump supporters will scream foul and bolt the party, depressing turnout and hurting all the Republican candidates downticket. If on the other hand Trump gets nominated because he arrives with an overwhelming number of delegates, but not quite enough to get the nomination, then the Republican party splits and many millions of loyal conservatives will vote for a Democrat for the first time in their lives to stop Trump from ozzing into the White House.
Either way, the Republican party gets blown up. And if it’s neither of the above?
If the Republican party elites force an outsider who never ran in a primary in as the nominee, the entire party will explode and you’ll have riots in the streets.
I am loving this election year.
mclaren
@Cermet:
Let’s try that the other way:
If Hillarywon the nomination, and then the general, her Presidency would be DOA in the House and zero would be accomplished – we might not regain the Senate since the thugs would come out like blow fly’s [sic] from a dead carcass [because of their fanatical 25 years of rabid hatred of her].
And exactly how would Hillary get a bill through a Republican-dominated Freedom-Caucus-enslaved House?
Apparently by magic. She’ll click her ruby slippers together and wave her magic wand, and the Republicans who have despised her and tried to destroy her for 25 years will eagerly do an about-face and pass her bills.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
The Hillary supporters find themselves mired in magical thinking. They have settled upon the Underpants Gnome Theory of the American presidency:
[step 1] Elect Hillary
[step 2] Collect underpants…
[step 3] ??????
[step 4] And a progressive agenda gets enacted!
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@J R in WV: Yeah, those are potential issues, but I don’t think they’ll actually happen. Someone “special” needs to want the job, and Ryan doesn’t..
Who would they give the nomination to? Who would be willing to take it who was sensible enough to think that it was a good career move? There are enough insane people trying to get it already – they don’t need to blow up the party to take that route. ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
mclaren
@gwangung:
Hillary has got a 25 year lead on Sanders. Nobody paid much attention to Sanders until he made his presidential run this year. By contrast, Hillary has been wired in right at the center of Washington D.C. since 1992. Bill Clinton, a major power player as an ex-president, has been endlessly helpful to Hillary’s campaign.
Frankly, I’m amazed that Sanders has done as well as he has. He came out of nowhere and got a grand total of 20 seconds of mainstream media coverage until a few months ago. Compare that with Hillary Clinton as a household name appearing on TV weekly in her role as Secretary of State.
Yes, Bernie hasn’t built a grand coalition, because he hasn’t had a highly visible platform as Secretary of State to do it from, he doesn’t have a spouse who is a former president to help him out with all the insider-the-Beltway connections, and he hasn’t spent 25 years rotating between the White House and the Senate.
So let’s not spend too much time slamming Sanders for his failings. No human being could have built the kind of coalition you suggest given the complete marginalization to which Sanders has been subjected.
mclaren
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
More bad logic resulting from polling bias.
People keep bitching about Sanders suporters on Facebook. It’s not representative of the general electorate because Facebook is a self-selecting and entirely different demographic. Ditto the complaints about Sanders tweets. People who tweet are very tiny and peculiar self-selected demographic niche.
If you pay attention to twitter or Facebook, you are in effect participating in a very badly skewed poll, because only people on twitter and on Facebook are aware of what’s going on there. That’s a huge bias.
Twitter messages from Sanders supporters tell us nothing about the general election. Facebook messages from Sanders supporters tell us nothing about the general election.
Twitter and Facebook and the rest of those social media are all noise. Ignore ’em. Polls show that the Sanders supporters will vote for Hillary if she’s the nominee, and vice versa.
gwangung
That’s an excuse. And it’s a lazy one, at that. You can do better than that. And Sanders can do better than that.
Princess
@mclaren: If only he could have spent the last twenty-five years somewhere where there were African American progressives working to create change so he could have worked with them and built long-standing coalitions of mutual help like Hillary did. Oh, wait.
Jeffro
People:
– Kaisch is calling Trump AND Cruz “a path to darkness”
– Rubio is STILL holding out hope (and holding on to his delegates)
– GOP Senators are openly talking about not attending their. own. convention.
– Trump, Cruz, even Ryan as the nom is not gonna save their party.
Let’s not get so wrapped up in Clinton vs Sanders stuff, seriously – they are about 98-99% in agreement on the issues, and whoever wins the Dem nomination is going to clean the GOP nominee’s clock. Period. They’re also going to face ridiculous levels of opposition from whatever’s left of the GOP no matter who it is, too. Doesn’t matter – we still need a Dem in there.
We already voted here in VA, so I’m done even worrying about it – just give me a nominee and let’s get to work making sure exactly none of these GOP clowns gets anywhere near the White House.
japa21
@Jeffro: I think many people look at what is happening to the GOP at the presidential level and feeling gleeful. And I think the GOP is quite happy with people doing that because it leaves the undercards pretty much ignored and that is where the GOP does its damage. What happens at the state level can be far more damaging than what happens at the Federal level and we ignore that at our peril.
And that is where the work needs to be done.
mclaren
@Jeffro:
Thank you for that tiny dose of sanity and reality.
We now return to the regularly scheduled Hillbot grudge match. None of which matters a damn, because Hillary will probably be the nominee and she’s gong to wipe out whomever the Republicans nominate by a landslide.
mclaren
@gwangung:
No, that’s a fact. Bernie Sanders ran as an Independent. Bernie Sanders got elected as an independent. Exactly how do you suggest that Bernie access the money and party infrastructure of the Democratic party to build this magical coalition when Sanders wasn’t even part of Democratic party until the last 6 months?
Americans love to play the game of “blaming the victim,” but in this case, you’re talking it wayyyyyyyyy too far. Sanders gets shut out of national politics because he’s an independent without a power base who doesn’t have an ex-president spouse to rely on to help him…then he gets condemned because he doesn’t build a national coalition.
The sheer absurdity of your argument is breath-taking.
Brachiator
@mclaren:
Hillary or Sanders will face the same obstructionism problem. It ain’t got nuthin’ to do with magical thinking. The only small advantage will be whether the rest of the Democratic Party backs Sanders or Clinton.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@mclaren:
Imagine what he could have done for outreach if he’d only have had a ton of money to organize… oh, wait. right, he does. His messaging skills suck only slightly worse than his outreach skills and organizational skills. What has he been doing with all that money? What’s in those damn tax returns, anyway? Why does Tad Devine get paid $800K a month? For what, exactly?
mclaren
@Princess:
You are seriously suggesting that because Washington D.C. is located in a black enclave of an overwhelming white-dominated wealthy suburban region totally centered around government service and government contracting, Bernie Sanders should somehow have magically created an amazing national coaliition even though he’s an Independent without national party resources, without money, and without the ex-president spouse and monetary connections of the Democratic party that Hillary enjoyed…?
Hey…you use a computer to type your messages. Why aren’t you a PhD in computer science?
That’s about the level of logic you’re using here. Cut your losses and quit criticizing Sanders right now. You’re making yourself look ridiculous.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@D58826: Believed this for years. Turns out it was manufactured out of thin air in 1907, for a work of fiction if I’m recalling it correctly.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@mclaren: I don’t believe that Senator Sanders should have been allowed access to these things, because he’s not a Democrat. He’s one for convenience now, but he’s already pulled re-election papers for 2018 and his party affiliation is not “Democratic”.
He’s using the party as a free ride to money and glory, and he should be fucking grateful he was allowed to. If he wanted all the nice things the Democratic party could give him, he should have been a member of it.
mclaren
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You need to stop making a fool of yourself. It's only getting worse for you.
Yes, Sanders has a ton of money…since the start of his presidential campaign. It’s impossible to build a major coalition of the kind you’re talking about in a couple of months. The real world doesn’t work that way. Successful runs for the president typically build on years, if not decades, of careful organizing and coalition-building, aided by national party infrastructure and tons of money from a national party with chairpersons in all 50 states.
How many chairpersons does Sanders have to rely on as an Independent? Where is the national Independent party infrastructure that would help Sanders organize?
You’re making a fool of yourself.
Mounting the most successful run by a former Independent for the presidency in our lifetimes. What has be been doing with all that money? Blowing away all the pundits, shattering all the records, and racking up mind-boggling wins and vote totals for someone who came out of nowhere with no national party infrastructure behind him.
Presimably for helping run the most successful and astoundingly epoch-making run for president by an Independent since Teddy Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912. As for Sanders’ tax returns…that’s just lame McCarthy-style smear tactics. It’s on the level of asking “What’s in those e-mails on Hillary’s servers?” Nothing of any significance, that’s what.
Having lost all your credibility, I urge you to continue. It will only get worse for you as you flail and thrash like an insect stuck in yogurt, and given the vituperation and weakness of your claims, that’s a good thing.
mclaren
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
I think you’re exactly right. This illuminates the big contradiction at the heart of Bernie’s candidacy. He wants to be an outsider on policy…but he also wants to have the party infrastructure and money and national organization that comes from one of the two major political parties.
It’s an irreconcilable antinomy.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@mclaren:
So, what’s the money being spent on, if not on organizing volunteers who are dying to GOTV to make this run “epic” (LOL)? They want to know too, and are tired of writing checks and seeing Weaver shit talking on TV. Only Trump has been less forthcoming than Bernie on his taxes. Why?
Soylent Green
Yep. And now he wants the Democratic Party to install him as the party’s champion after a lifetime of refusing to join it, while also refusing to spend a dime on downticket races.
mclaren
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
You can examine the Sanders campaign’s financial records in detail. Move over to the side there with your crackpot conspiracy theory and join the queue of tin-foil-hat-wearing Republicans who claim that president Obama was teleported to Mars in the 1970s by the CIA.
(rolls eyes)
Ridnik Chrome
@mclaren:
I’m a Clinton supporter, but I don’t like the way a lot of people on my side have been condescending to Sanders and his supporters. They’re young, and yes, sometimes they behave childishly, but the Democratic Party could really use their energy and commitment going forward. We should be reaching out to them, not engaging in the kind of pointless hippie-punching that only hurts us in the long run.
mclaren
@Soylent Green:
I think your criticisms are entirely fair. That’s a real issue for the Sanders campaign. It may well be one of the biggest reasons why Hillary has been racking up bigger vote totals than Bernie has.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
mclaren
@Ridnik Chrome:
Thank you. Yes, I feel the same way. And I think you Hillary supporters will find that the Sanders people are going to stick with the Democratic party, vote for Hillary in the general election if she’s the nominee, and help continue to organize to re-take the state legislatures with Democratic majorities. This election has energized people of all ages (and Sanders deserves real credit for that), and with the incredible House obstructionism on the Supreme Court nomination, the stakes are high and everyone knows it. And I think all Democrats will do the right thing this time around.
Jeffro
@japa21:
After reading Jane Mayer’s DARK MONEY last month, I couldn’t agree more. The Kochs and similar GOP funders are beating a strategic retreat into the statehouses and flooding local/state races with unbelievable amounts of cash.
chopper
@mclaren:
as someone who works for the CIA’s “blog disruption team”, working hard to keep people like yourself from showing people The Truth(tm*), i have to laugh at this. everyone here knows it was alan keyes that we transported to mars and back. he came back…different.
*yes, we have the term trademarked. we’re the CIA, we can do this sort of thing.
Jeffro
@mclaren:
Not a problem, for all the good that it’ll do. LOL
People we’ve got a war to fight here this fall, not this spring and summer. Just cast your primary vote, let’s see how it all shakes out, and whoever the Dem nominee is, get behind him/her with everything you’ve got!
mclaren
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
If Hillary didn’t want to take this kind of shellacking, she should have avoided giving all those $600,000 speeches to a criminal fraud conspiracy misnamed Goldman Sachs that just got hit with a 5 billion dollar fine for helping orchestrate the economic collapse of 2009. She should have avoided supporting the TPP, and she should have avoided taking money from the same thugs and corporate thieves and defense contracting warmongers and murderers who donated equal amounts of money to the George W. Bush campaign.
Actions have consequences. If Hillary wants to rake in all that sweet sweet SuperPAC cash and all those delicious $600,000 fees from giving speeches to financial crime lords, she has got to accept the consequences. And I’m damn glad Bernie is turning up the heat. Because someone has to, and it sure won’t be the fawning cringing inside-the-Beltway media who bill and coo over war criminals like Henry Kissinger and invite mass murderers like Michael Ledeen and Paul Wolfowitz on the network Sunday morning politics shows to expound on the foreign policies America should be following today.
Feathers
@Brachiator: But if he had done that he would have been “just another Democrat” and there would be no BernieBros.
I say this as a New Englander whose always liked the man’s politics, but this campaign is opening up some seriously ugly. One of the problems is that while open racism is basically publicly unacceptable, misogyny isn’t. Don’t believe me? Turn on your radio for the morning drive time on any pop station. Wall to wall ugliness. They’ve tidied it up a bit by usually adding a woman to say “Hey guys, that’s not nice.” But it is pure ugliness poured out into the world.
BTW – caught a flick at the Harvard Film Archive this weekend. Charmed by how many of the men could be mistaken for Bernie when I took my glasses off.
Miss Bianca
@Feathers: completely o/t but I just wanted to say “thank you” for pointing out that “Fruit Punch Czar” blog post to me. Also, too, I think “Fruit Punch Czar” might have to be my new nym if I ever get tired of the current one. Or would it be “Fruit Punch Czarina”?
Feathers
@Miss Bianca: You’re welcome. I keep wanting to tell people about it, because it’s such a great concept, so it was good to have the thought while at the keyboard, so I could get it into my links bank as well.
I keep thinking that one of the worst things about education reform and the new model for higher ed is people choosing what job they want to have and then getting the education for it before discovering if it is something they have an aptitude for. So many jobs are about the personality type rather than any particular knowledge. We are doing a very bad job of sorting that out. Was talking with a friend who is a retired school principal. She said she despaired of getting people doing their practicum, after all their education was done, when it was clear that they had no classroom ability. She said one of the necessary traits for a teacher to have was for the students to be able to “read” their faces and be able to tell if the teacher was pleased or not with their behavior. She could coach other things, but without that baseline, everyone was going to end up unhappy. But no one was looking for that sort of thing before allowing people to go and get a very specialized teaching degree. She had one guy who hadn’t been able to get a good job out of college, so he had gone on to get his masters. And she had to tell him she would never hire him, even though on paper he was “perfect” for her school.
Gee, there was a reason for giving people a broad liberal arts education and then letting them sort out their career afterwards. I know so many bitter people who can’t find jobs in fields they are unsuited to, despite having “A DEGREE” in the field. A fairly large number of them are convinced that affirmative action programs are the only thing holding them back.
Joel
@John D: I’m referring to the Republicans.