Politico’s Gabriel DeBennedetti has a hot take on how Bernie lost New York:
Bernie Sanders had just arrived at the rally, and missed the incendiary remark entirely. Many on the senator’s campaign had never even heard of Dr. Paul Song, the speaker who had just commandeered news coverage of a massive Washington Square rally in New York by referring to “corporate Democratic whores.”
Nevertheless, by the next morning, the campaign was forced into full scramble mode. Cable coverage of the 27,000-person rally was eclipsed by reporting on the furor surrounding the comment, requiring a Sanders response. After first resisting an apology, the campaign settled on disavowing the remark with a tweet.
Another day, another lost news cycle.
In New York, Sanders finally hit the wall, his winning streak halted by a daily pummeling that forced him on the defensive and stopped his momentum cold. The tabloids dealt him punishing hit after punishing hit. The Democratic establishment, most of it in Hillary Clinton’s camp, piled on harder than the Sanders campaign expected. Caught up in one distraction after another – a quarrel over debate details, a back and forth with Clinton over her qualifications, a trip to the Vatican in the run-up to the election – Sanders never gained his footing or even came close to pulling off the upset victory he once predicted with frequency.
Just two weeks before, on the night of his victory in Wisconsin, everything seemed to be going Sanders’ way. He was flush with cash thanks to his energized small donors and he was riding a wave of momentum after posting six wins in the seven previous contests. His aides had just agreed to the finishing touches of a debate in New York — something Sanders himself wanted after the campaigns had initially agreed to hold it in Pennsylvania. His top staff viewed the increasingly sharp timbre and pitch of the race as confirmation that Clinton herself was frustrated with the direction of things.
Riveting. Exciting. Like describing a tense boxing match or playoff hockey or a… horse race. Except it’s all total bullshit. Here are the results from last night’s primary in New York:
She earned a million votes, 58%, and won 139 delegates
For good measure, here are the results from 2008:
Oddly enough, she earned a million votes, 58%, and won 139 delegates.
That seems remarkably consistent to me. Obviously, the Clinton coalition is different in 2016 and 2008, as her coalition this time around is much more robust demographically and more resembles the Obama coalition and the future of our party. So there are some differences. But, according to our intrepid Politico reporter, it was the remarks by Song and a few daily missteps that sank Bernie. Here’s the polling averages in New York for the last month to demonstrate how full of shit our Politico reporter is:
The red line approximates where Song’s remarks were made. How anyone could assert that things were going Sanders way, or that “momentum” was for Bernie and lost ebcause of day to day minutiae, or any of this, is simply beyond me. And this is the problem with our media coverage.
No one who actually pays attention thought Sanders had a chance in NY. Now yes, the Sanders campaign and their surrogates are paid to run out and say all sorts of shit to get out the vote and excite their voters, but that doesn’t mean our press has to pretend that it is true. This kind of hack reporting causes several problems.
1.) It pushes issues and demography to the side, making them secondary and often tertiary concerns, putting primacy on the day to day bullshit and faux “gaffes” that get people all het up but that don’t really swing the vote.
2.) It provides losing campaigns with irrational hope, and deflects from the general election issues that winning campaigns should focused on.
3.) It makes no mention of the ground game. I personally would like to see how many field offices each respective campaign had, and how much each campaign spent on GOTV and organizing versus media. I’d bet anything the Clinton team spent more on organizing and GOTV and the Sanders campaign just threw money at the media.
4.) It actively makes us dumber and forces us to look away from what matters and focus on horse race narratives instead of what matters.
Don’t believe the bullshit. The remaining primaries where Bernie could really make up ground are Connecticut, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and California. Clinton leads by 11 in CT, 21 in Maryland, 14 points in PA, and 10 points in CA.
Does anyone besides Jeff Weaver and the Bernie diehards on social media actually think those numbers are going to change dramatically? Me either. So don’t be distracted by bullshit horse race stories in the media. Vote for the person you think is best to be the Democratic nominee, and pay attention to the issues Bernie and Hillary are talking about and how they intend to approach them, and vote accordingly.
If team Obama based their campaign on “another day, another lost news cycle,” we’d be nearing the end of the second McCain/Palin term. It’s no way to run a campaign, and more important, it’s no way to run a country.
rikyrah
Kay,
Did you see this?
Kasich snaps at reporter who asks him about his single win
04/18/16 07:06 PM EDT
John Kasich apparently doesn’t like being asked why he’s only won a single state in the Republican presidential primary.
On Saturday, the Ohio governor — whose lone victory was in his home state — was talking up his chances when Demetri Sevastopulo, a reporter for the Financial Times, interrupted him
“Listen, at the end of the day I think the Republican Party wants to pick somebody who actually can win in the fall…” Kasich began.
“If you’ve only won Ohio…” Sevastopulo butted in.
“Can I finish?” Kasich said testily.
“If you answer the question,” Sevastopulo responded.
“I’m answering the question the way I want to answer it,” Kasich said. “You want to answer it?”
Kasich then snatched Sevastopulo’s voice recorder out of his hand and turned it toward him: “What do you think?”
“I think you should answer the question,” Sevastopulo said.
Mike J
I laughed especially hard at that bit about how the media is in the bag for Clinton.
rikyrah
It was never close in New York.
It just wasn’t.
Kazanir
This is a great fucking post John. Well done.
Richard Mayhew
One of the nice things about this primary cycle is it quickly identifies the innumerates and the true believers by seeing who cites Abramson of the Huffington Post or HaHa Goodman of Salon as electoral experts and reliable sources.
As soon as I see that, I disregard everything else that is being said by that person.
rikyrah
Keith Boykin @keithboykin
How Sanders supporters turned off some of the very New York Democrats it needed to win.
…………………
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
Sanders was never going to steal the Democratic presidential nomination. Even if he had gone into a contested convention with slightly more delegates, the Democratic superdelegates would have sided with the Democratic candidate who has supported the Democratic party and campaigned with and for the Democratic superdelegates.
I would say the exact same thing about Trump and the Republican presidential nomination except Trump has identified as a Republican for many years, and has done much to support Republican candidates. Additionally, he is rubbing Republican’s sweet spot with all of his appeals to authoritarianism. So they might not be proud of the way he is making them look on the outside, but they love the way he is making them feel on the inside, where it counts.
TG Chicago
I agree with what you say, Cole, but would add one thing to the end: pay attention to the other races on the ballot. The presidency is very important, but not to the exclusion of other offices.
Mike J
@rikyrah:
They’ve been doing that for months.
Thoroughly Pizzled
The media so desperately wishes that it were part of the narrative.
lonesomerobot
Funny thing is that where you see that Sanders line actually dip a little is in the April 6-7 range, right around when “unqualified” reared its ugly head. I think that hurt him more than any of the other stuff.
Thoroughly Pizzled
“Momentum” should only be used by physicists.
The Thin Black Duke
@Mike J: “Oh, yeah? Who are you gonna believe? Me or your lyin’ eyes?”
Major Major Major Major
It would be the first term of the Palin/Cruz administration, but other than that, spot on.
rikyrah
Rep. Elijah Cummings endorses Will Jawando in Md. congressional primary
By Bill Turque April 18
Maryland District 8 Democratic congressional candidate Will Jawando has landed the endorsement of Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), whose robo-call will be going to over 40,000 households later this week.
Cummings says that Jawando, a former Hill staffer, is “the best candidate to get things done in Congress.” He credits Jawando for helping to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Act for equal pay while he was an Obama White House aide.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@rikyrah: Not Kay, and I did not. We are both (on this I feel comfortable speaking for her) are unsurprised, except perhaps that it hasn’t happened more often.
Kasich is a sanctimonious, thin-skinned, nasty IGMFY-style, bitter old man. And about as moderate as I am the doppelganger of Penelope Cruz. Perhaps less so, since she and I are both women.
MattF
@Thoroughly Pizzled: And you should only use the word ‘entropy’ if you can also quote the value of Boltzmann’s constant.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT, but too good
The headline undersells the way she went up one side of his head, down the other, and around again.
schrodinger's cat
@MattF: And pontificate about quantum mechanics if you know Planck’s constant.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
The self-righteousness of Bernie supporters will be their undoing. Sadly, Sanders is feeding some of this, in his time- and resource- wasting crap about “disenfranchisement” and “voter suppression.”
rikyrah
hmmmmmmm
A black professor offers advice ‘For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood’
By Emma Brown
April 20 at 8:00 AM
Christopher Emdin says he wasn’t trying to alienate anyone with the title of his new book: “For White Folks Who Teach in the Hood … and the Rest of Y’all Too.”
But he did want to start a conversation that he knew wouldn’t be entirely comfortable. A conversation about the failures of well-meaning teachers whose approach to education – in Emdin’s view – often does more harm than good for their black and Latino students.
He also wanted to give those teachers concrete tools to do better. So he wrote a book that is part cultural criticism and part how-to guide, not just for white teachers but for teachers of any race whose students’ backgrounds differ from their own.
dollared
So I guess Obama should have quit the race immediately after New York, and his continued participation caused the complete collapse of the Democratic Party and the election of president McCain, who then promptly invaded Iran and then WWIII started and we’re all dead. Right?
Oh, and anything Obama or any of his surrogates said or did after that point was a sexist attack on the World’s Most Qualified Woman (R)? Right?
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Thoroughly Pizzled: And optics as well, along with those who make high end glass (lenses and scopes). Probably some other scientists who deal with light, also, too. My brain’s underfueled this week.
/pedant
Miss Bianca
@Thoroughly Pizzled: Heh heh.
Thoroughly Pizzled
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I was worried about Kasich because the media loves nothing more than a manly “moderate” Republican, but his naked sexism and unforced errors have me more confident about beating him should he get the nomination.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You know, I got turned off by her rabid “Draft-Warren-For-President” breathless fan base, but I gotta say that the more I see of her in action, the more I like her. Real, solid legislator and leader, and blunt into the bargain.
@Thoroughly Pizzled: To say nothing of his outreach efforts to potential Jewish voters..my personal fave facepalm in the “unforced errors” camp.
Brachiator
@schrodinger’s cat:
Do pirate physicists make captives walk the Planck?
dollared
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):@rikyrah: Sweet. Actually, I respect that he has figured out that it sucks to lose. Now maybe he’ll figure out that he needs to take up a new sport. You know, maybe get someone to appoint him President of Kent State or something like that.
msdc
One thing I will give the Politico piece – and it’s a very small thing – if you compare the final numbers in the RCP chart to the primary results, Clinton picked up almost all the undecided voters, which could reflect Sanders’ struggles with the media.
Then again, it could also reflect Clinton having a much better turnout operation, or holding 10 rallies across NYC while Sanders was recovering from jet lag and having a Very Serious Roundtable with professional radical (and grim reaper for all causes he hops onto) Cornel West. Or it could just point to problems with polling. Agreed about all the problems with horse-race coverage – 538 seem to be the only people who understand that elections are primarily about demographics and turnout.
JMG
John, every word you wrote was true, but consider it from the sap Politico reporter’s point of view. If people stop thinking about elections in those specious terms and points of view, he’s out of a job and Politico’s out of business.
Not that that would be a bad thing.
Major Major Major Major
@dollared: Yeah, because he was totally down by an insurmountable
almost 30020 delegates!Alex.S
I believe they spent about the same on field offices. The last time I checked, Sanders had slightly more paid campaign workers across the country (like 20-30 more out of 900 or so). Sanders did outspend Hillary by a 2-1 ratio on media.
Hillary might have had the offices in place earlier in the campaign process.
MattF
@Brachiator: Instead of going ARRRRR, we go AITCHBARRRRRR.
Tilda Swinton's Bald Cap
@dollared: He doesn’t need to drop out, but he does need to fire Jeff “Comic book Guy” Weaver or tell him to STFU.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: that’s going on my “to-read” list…
Dog Dawg Damn
@dollared: WTF is this meme going around that Obama = Sanders in 2008.
Obama had an insurmountable delegate lead. Something Sanders has *never* had. Why would someone with an insurmountable delegate lead withdraw from the race?
Were these Bernie people even alive in 2008?
For the ones that were, I’m wondering why they weren’t energized at all during that election but find this one so damn fascinating. Perhaps the two candidates that year “didn’t speak to them”. Wonder why….
Jim, Foolish Literalist
…. and what’s with the goy-splaining? I think someone said he’s recently gotten more intensely religious? so as Samantha Bee put it, he fan-fictioned Jesus into “the Passover”, after lecturing Talmudic scholars on prophets. (Politico has a good, short video mash-up of Bee and Colbert, but for some reason I can’t paste it. I blame Ven de Hei)
Major Major Major Major
@Dog Dawg Damn:
In addition to what you’re insinuating, keep in mind that a lot of them were twelve.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
It might be simpler to just sit down and watch “To Sir, With Love.”
Kay
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):
“Get over it”. He’s all charm, that guy.
This made me laugh, from Twitter, just because it’s so delightfully childish:
We’re all 7th graders at heart :)
I also heard a GOP delegate say last night (on tv) that the real reason Kasich can’t be nominated is immigration, which rings MUCH more true to me than all this vague bullshit about “tone” and Medicaid. Immigration is yet another red line they can’t cross in the GOP.
dollared
@Major Major Major Major: Of course it’s absurd. Just like demanding that Sanders quit is absurd. Duh.
PST
The word “momentum” always belongs in quotation marks when used in politics (or sports, for that matter). Using physics analogies is a recipe for lazy thinking. In this case, it implicitly embodies a theory that one victory helps cause the next, without pausing to consider whether or why that might be true in the case under consideration. I suspect that in the early going a relative unknown just getting traction (oops! We all do it) might find that the publicity of success engenders more success. But in a long slog like this one with a couple of familiar faces I truly doubt it. Anyone looking at the whole schedule could predict states where Bernie would have a relative advantage and states where Hillary would. No one formalized this better than Nate Silver, where he and his crew rated everyone’s progress not directly against one another but against where they needed to be given the happenstance of primary dates. The true surprises (Michigan, perhaps, or a couple of big margins on each side) have been few and far between. Seven in a row for Bernie was not a big surprise. It was the schedule playing out predictably, not “momentum.”
Ryan
Political is full of shit with few exceptions.
dollared
@Dog Dawg Damn: Of course it’s absurd. Just like demanding that Sanders quit is absurd. Duh.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dollared: You should go argue with some people who are saying that.
schrodinger's cat
@PST: Should we ask them whether the momentum is linear or angular?
Bob In Portland
Looks like you won, Cole. It looks like the second-most despised candidate will be running against the most-despised candidate. That should do wonders for the down ticket races. Four more years of energy wars, and wealth inequality will continue to grow. Portland yesterday broke the old temperature record by ten degrees.
I presume you are on the right iceberg.
Mike J
@dollared: In 2008, the NY primary was on Super Tuesday. Much earlier in the process, and really where Obama started to become a serious threat. He lost New York but won a dozen other elections that day, and won more delegates for the day,
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Seconded. Most I’ve seen here is “maybe town it down a little.” Which I happen to agree with. And before anybody jumps in, yes, I think Hillary should have toned it down in 2008, too. I also happen to think this time is different.
japa21
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: To give dollared some credit, there have been maybe two or three commenters here that have said Sanders should just quit now. The vast majority have said they don’t mind his continuing, just so long as he starts getting back to issues and avoids the personal attacks, like Clinton did in 2008 when it was obvious there was no path to victory.
japa21
@Bob In Portland: Boy Putin must really be upset. He was so hoping Sanders would win and give him free rein to do whatever he wants.
dollared
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Are you suggesting I’m not in the right place? Are you reading impaired or memory impaired?
Calouste
@Dog Dawg Damn: Obama ran against Hillary Clinton. Sanders runs against Hillary Clinton. One thing is the same, so according to the Bernie cargo-cult, everything is the same, including Sanders being slated to win the current primaries.
WarMunchkin
@dollared: I don’t think Sanders should drop out, he should just adjust his campaign to go back into issue mode rather than win at all costs mode. The argument they make is that if Sanders steadily chips away at Hillary until her unfavorability drops more and more on the left and she becomes toxic, he could make the argument for super delegates to throw their support to Sanders and override pledged delegates.
Their strategy doesn’t take into account that that’s a gamble, and they’d have to figure out that there’s a risk-reward for their policy goals, which is to say that, if they spend a primary doing everything they can to make Clinton toxic and she still wins the primary, she’s in worse shape for the general and could lose to Trump, which is a You Get Nothing! You Lose! moment for social democracy policy objectives.
And also that it’s frankly immoral. Hillary has committed politics, not bribery. (Cue someone telling me they’re the same thing).
Also, NY’s primary in 2008 was earlier in the race. I remember because I submitted my absentee ballot for Obama in January.
@Bob In Portland: HRC actually did talk about climate change, unabashedly, in her speech last night. The crowd went deafeningly wild.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: she oughta put her foot up the ass of whichever aide threw out the “Fuck Bernie” chum
also
I was thinking Shirley Chisolm would’ve been my choice, but I wonder if that would be “too partisan” since she was a Dem. Rosa Parks would be another good choice from more recent times. Not that I begrudge Ms Tubman the honors. And maybe if they went with someone more recent the ‘wingers would all start screaming to put Reagan on the new three dollar bill
rikyrah
Hamilton – the Musical, saved Hamilton on that $10 bill…..LOL
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@dollared: I was thinking you were maybe nap-impaired
lonesomerobot
@dollared: I’m a Bernie supporter, and this stuff you’ve written right here doesn’t really follow. 2008 was a different year. Different calendar of contests where Obama already had a lead and could look ahead and see that he still was going to come out ahead.
Bernie’s mistakes have cost him — he got in the race too late and after he got in, and ramped it up too late, meaning he couldn’t compete in all those Southern states where he got swamped. I know, he probably didn’t have the money that early in the process to ramp up faster. Despite the semantics argument I know you will give me, the ‘unqualified’ rant was a mistake, and one they doubled down on. You can look at the chart in this post. From the point he starts that, his support in the polls drops 5 points over the next 4 days. It took the whole week before the primary to just gain back 4 of those points.
Right now, I’m proud of how much he’s accomplished. He’s gotten much farther than I thought he would, but I am not in favor of a contested convention. I guess if you were really cynical you could hope for an indictment before then.
Notwithstanding, from August until November (and beyond, probably) I’m sure we’ll get a new “revelation” about once a week from some GOP official about how Hillary is about to be indicted any day now! Which is the kind of thing that worries me about a Hillary Clinton presidency. I think things will, unfortunately, get very ugly and we could see levels of misogyny heretofore unexplored in the midst of an American presidential campaign. Or even, if you can believe it, worse if she wins the presidency. But that won’t stop me from voting for her, because those people on the other side are the purest form of asshole and any one of them in the Oval Office is a disaster for us all.
Lastly, the fact is politics ain’t beanbag and in the last two weeks, we’ve seen which campaign is better at it. That isn’t exactly an argument in favor of Hillary Clinton, but it is a statement about the reality of American politics, and how you win.
Mike J
@Calouste:
From listening to Sanders you’d think he’s running against Obama. Repeal and replace!
Bostondreams
@Bob In Portland:
Yeah, because Sanders and his supporters do so well with ‘downticket races’ that they get ultra-conservatives elected to the Court.
Grumpy Code Monkey
The last few elections have been very instructive, in ways earlier elections haven’t been.
2008: It’s all about the delegates.
2012: No, the polls aren’t skewed.
2016: Enthusiasm and passion aren’t a substitute for votes. Oh, and it’s the party that selects the nominee, not the plebs.
Oh, and the other lesson – make sure your delegates are your delegates; many, if not most, of Trump’s delegates are actually Cruz supporters, and if Trump doesn’t take the first ballot, he’s done.
Calouste
Talking about Politico making shit up: Hillary Clinton Aide Tells Journalist: F**k Bernie Sanders
Of course, in classic Politico style: “Reflecting on Clinton’s double-digit victory, the anonymous senior aide told Politico: “We kicked ass tonight,” adding, “I hope this convinces Bernie to tone it down. If not, fuck him.”
Yeah right, a campaign reporter for a large political website doesn’t know all the senior aides of one of the leading candidates by name. Like we believe that. Clinton should tell Politico to name names, in which case she will address the issue, or GTFO. And Politico won’t be able to name a name, because I’m fairly sure that no one in the Clinton campaign goes by the name of “My Ass”.
cokane
a brilliant and necessary takedown of the perverse nature of horse race political journalism
Brachiator
@MattF:
So said the famous pirate physicist Black Body.
mike in dc
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Can we get Nat Turner on the 100, John Brown on the 10 and William T. Sherman on the next dollar coin?
cleek
it seems odd that Sanders’ flip-the-supers plan requires all those Clinton supporters to do exactly what so many Sanders supporters loudly and proudly refuse to do: vote for whoever the Dem nominee is. and, they’d expect it to happen even after completely discounting the votes of many millions of people who voted for Clinton.
good luck with that.
MattF
@lonesomerobot: About the ‘Hillary is about to be indicted’… one reason it’s gone quiet is that every media talking head that’s touted it has gotten burned badly. So, that’s discouraged them, a bit. And add to that, the comic relief of being someone who believes anything Tom DeLay says.
lonesomerobot
@Bostondreams: OK that’s been debunked numerous times, please don’t buy into that bull
cleek
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
true! and also, Clinton’s supporters are more enthusiastic. http://www.gallup.com/poll/190343/trump-clinton-supporters-lead-enthusiasm.aspx
Calouste
@lonesomerobot:
Sanders had pulled in $13 million by June 30 and $40 million by September 30, the latter more than any of the GOP candidates. It wasn’t like he lacked cash early on.
lonesomerobot
@MattF: Yes, well my point is that it will be one of many attacks we will certainly almost never hear the end of from the GOP with a Hillary Clinton nominee/president.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That queer old thing?
Brachiator
@lonesomerobot:
This is much like saying that people were afraid to vote for Obama because it might unleash torrents of racism. Life is tough. Obama was up to it. Clinton will be up to it. By the way, if Bernie became the nominee and were elected, he would be up to any antisemitism unleashed.
Exactamundo.
ruemara
Hot takes from people who know jack are worth about as much as the NY Post, but less entertaining. And I’d use the Post for a pet to shit on, as that’s it’s natural purpose.
Bob In Portland
@Bostondreams: Where do you think her first new war will be?
lonesomerobot
@Calouste: Right, but Super Tuesday was a huge geographical area of states and we’re talking about a campaign that doesn’t have the help SuperPACs and is also doing things like paying their interns $12/hr. They chose the states they thought they could win, to the exclusion of the others, and he got swamped in those others. Regardless of the money factor, the larger point was how slowly they seemed to ramp up the campaign and get into other areas. He was never a good fit for the South region, but not losing as badly might have made a workable difference.
Elie
@PST:
The underlying structure of these contests also played a role. Open primaries and caucuses favored Bernie by attracting republicans and independents to vote for him and the smaller focused effort to get a highly motivated minority of people out for the caucuses. In small states like Idaho and Wyoming, we are talking about 20-30 people in some districts swaying the results for Bernie. The rounding methodology necessary to award delegates in some caucus states over rewarded Bernie by zeroing out votes for Hillary. (I saw that happen in person and it pissed me off to no end). The only problem this really presented was that Bernie believed his own smoke and didn’t retain his internal balance and skepticism. That needless and egocentric trip to the Vatican to me reflected his having drunk his own Kool-Aid and took an already tired candidate across several time zones for a 15 minute speech and a brief hallway meeting with a pope representing a religion that really holds women in low status. Juice just was not worth the squeeze but we saw his character — and that is what all of this is all about to me. We run ’em long and hard so we can see who we got.
lonesomerobot
@Brachiator: I don’t deny those points at all. I know the attacks will come from that side no matter what. As I meant to say, those aren’t reasons to not vote for someone.
Bob In Portland
@japa21: Where do you think her first new war will be?
Brachiator
@Bob In Portland:
In the windmills of your mind.
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Stop making homophobic comments, Bob.
Mike J
@Calouste: Even if some unnamed senior aid said those things, I didn’t really see anything worth objecting to. Some won’t like the use of colorful anglo-saxon phrases, but the message remains the same. Hillary has won, go ahead and campaign, but don’t try to tear the party apart. If he does, the Clinton campaign will have to respond, and they’ve been incredibly restrained so far.
Elie
@Bob In Portland:
I expect she will be “tested” pretty quickly by Mr. Putin or the Chinese. I think she will be up for it and prepared. Who knows what the future will bring? Would you just want her to never use military power no matter what the circumstance and say that up front?
Ridnik Chrome
Perusing 538 I was quite pleased to see that Ted Cruz did not win a single delegate in my adopted home state. How do you like those New York values, Ted?
Cacti
I guess we know the value of Rosario Dawson’s endorsement in the Bronx.
Negative 40 points.
Bostondreams
@Bob In Portland:
Who knows? Maybe Russia, with your good friend Putin the Anti-Fascist. Let’s hope.
lonesomerobot
@Elie: Whatever she does, I hope she doesn’t call it “Smart Power”
Every time I hear that phrase it just sounds to me like, “kind of what Neocons would do, but — you know — smart.”
Bostondreams
@lonesomerobot:
Please feel free to provide the debunking.
Cacti
@Elie:
Only Vladimir Putin gets Bob’s blessing to use military power.
mike in dc
At least the horse race narrative maintains some level of casual public interest in the Democratic campaign. “This thing is over” probably doesn’t get anyone off the couch to vote in upcoming primaries.
sam
I think people in new york don’t care about “carpetbagger” accusations, because SO MANY people who live in NY originally came from somewhere else, be it somewhere else in the US or somewhere else in the world. So they (we) embrace Clinton as one of our own, who very ably represented us for 8 years as our Senator and has continued to keep NY as her home base for the subsequent 8 years (despite the jobs that keep her traveling 90% of the time).
You leave New York? You leave some of your cred as a New Yorker behind.
And I say ALL of this as someone who grew up in the NYC suburbs, moved to the city as soon as I was able, with a father who grew up in the Gun Hill housing project in the South Bronx and wants nothing more than to spend as much time as possible at his “country house” in the Berkshires. It’s OK to get tired of the city. But you definitely lose street cred when you’re spending your weekends repainting adirondack chairs and trying to keep the feral rabbits out of your kale and spinach garden (I’m not being sarcastic or exaggerating – these are both activities that I have spent actual time doing with my Dad and stepmom).
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Ridnik Chrome: That was not unexpected, but awesome all the same. Here’s hoping Cruz does equally well in PA and MD.
Calouste
@lonesomerobot: There was at least one SuperPac helping Sanders by airing an anti-Clinton ad: Karl Rove’s American Crossroads
Other than that, I’m sorry, but what you are listing are weak excuses. Winning in some states while getting swamped in others is a pretty bad strategy when delegates are allocated proportionally. The Sanders campaign just didn’t have a plan on how to win if the opportunity presented itself, and so they squandered it.
Elie
@lonesomerobot:
I would add that besides the “unqualified” statements that Bernie kept repeating, was his own sorry performance before the NYDN editorial board. He ucked that up all on his own. His over response to Clinton about her perceived judgement of that performance came because he knew it was crap. This whole series of events and his reaction let me know, if I had any doubt before, that he was temperamentally unsuitable and that he truly just was not fundamentally prepared to articulate a plan around his own core campaign themes. Nobody did that to him, but him. And then we had that little hoo-ha about the tax returns that he fudged by releasing the one he had released already rather than the new one as promised. Mr. Bernie has real problems and most of them are not about his opponent. Character always shows in a long national campaign and that is why I like the way the US runs its campaigns. We need the time and its a pretty good sifter of the wheat from the chaff ….
D58826
The news that every one has been waiting for – Rancid Pebus has announced that the GOP is considering scheduling more cage matches, I mean debates before the convention.
Popcorn futures just shot up 200%
msdc
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Tell that to the GOP.
John D
@Bob In Portland:
Wow, so Cruz is running against Trump in the general? Damn, talk about an October Surprise!
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
Co Op City went 76% to 24% Hillary – the largest voting gap in the state.
Elie
@lonesomerobot:
Yeah, but I don’t care what she calls it as long as she is smart — like her predecessor…..
lonesomerobot
@Bostondreams: My pleasure. From someone who knows Wisconsin politics.
Also, Kloppenburg was vastly outspent by Bradley and her supporters.
Sanders also touted Kloppenburg at his rallies in Wisconsin. I personally watched him do it in a video of one of them.
I could do more, but I hope that’s enough. Just please, let’s deal in facts and not waste time with this carping nonsense.
Cacti
@Elie:
Then there was the weird and kind of stalker-ish trip to the Vatican that made Sanders look like a provincial rather than a statesman.
dmsilev
@MattF:
1.
In the proper system of units of course.
lonesomerobot
@Calouste: I’m not sure how your comment is much different than mine. Mistakes were made. That’s what I’m saying.
And although correct about the Karl Rove thing, certainly not anything he could count on or have even the tiniest control over. He can’t even tell them not to do it.
Ultimately I’m not here to argue or do the your candidate sux/mine rox thing. I’m a Sanders supporter but I’m pretty much at peace with how things have turned out. I’m certainly not on the Bernie or Bust train.
Calouste
@Elie:
Actually he promised (during the last debate) to release the one he had already released before, 2014. The only thing that he released in April 15 were the schedules to the main form that had already been out in the open for months. It’s Carly Fiorina levels of blatant lying.
Donut
@Bob In Portland:
You might have an actual argument to make if Bernie could, you know, articulate how he’s actually gonna put a stop to each and every one of those bad things you listed.
I mean, come on, dude. Bernie articulates a progressive vision like no one else, but he can’t make any of that shit come to a halt. No one person or president can do it, and it certainly won’t happen because we have a great ideological spokesman.
We have had a mastermind in the Oval Office for seven years now, probably the most liberal president ever, ideologically, and he can’t get all that shit done – and it is not because the GOP
is racist and reflexively oppositional. That happens to be true and it has been, well, less than helpful, but that shit goes undone because a president can only control so much. At least Bernie’s opponent has some, you know, practical first hand knowledge of that, having been married to a president and all.
I know it looks to you like it sucks that a centrist Dem will be the nominee but when your guy can’t put forth numbers and plans that actually make sense, why should I vote for him?
This is coming from someone who has listened to and admired Sanders for years, BTW. I just can’t picture him having the temperament and stamina and policy chops to do the job. A lot of my fellow New Yorkers agree. Sorry if that is disappointing for you. I’ll make a note of it.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@PST: “Momentum” is nonsense, but I think “bandwagon” has some salience, at least sometimes. It’s not so much a factor in the Democratic race this year, but you do see it in Trump’s success on the Republican side. I saw the most explicit statement of bandwagon effect when a woman in Texas told a reporter, “Well I would really like to vote for Ted Cruz, but it looks like Trump is going to win so I guess I’ll vote for him.”
People don’t like to vote for losers. That’s why in the 2012 election we instructed canvassers to say something along the lines of, “I’ve been talking to a lot of your neighbors and they are really excited about voting for the Obama/Biden team! I know you’re a voter (‘a voter’, not ‘you vote.’ Identify it as who they are, not something they may do), so can we count on your vote [this week (for early voting)] or [on Tuesday]?
People want to hook up with a winner, and they want to affiliate with some version of their tribe.
lonesomerobot
@Cacti: um, can we clear up that Pope thing right now, maybe?
So that would be not “stalking” so much as being invited to meet. And look, the thing is done, and for a good week Hillary supporters I interacted with were almost taunting, “so… when’s he going to meet the Pope??” And then he did, and somehow the goalposts were moved and it was stalking or something. Seriously, give it a rest. If this happens to Hillary, every one of her supporters would be celebrating it.
david10
@lonesomerobot: Actually, in all reality, you know, this is really the truth, not just an opinion off the internet, Sanders had both more people on the ground and outspent Clinton on media throughout the south, particularly South Carolina. So can we stop with the meme that Sanders couldn’t or didn’t compete.
Bob In Portland
@Brachiator: I’ll take that as you saying there will be no more wars under Hillary.
Elie
@Calouste:
It really does make you wonder why, doesn’t it? For this guy who has been flapping his lips about “corruption” and abuse of financial power, to not be able to be clean and upfront about his own finances is revealing of something about his character… And some of the excuses his wife gave were just pretty — stupid — like not being able to print their return — To me it just sounded like stuff the Republicans do and spoke of a person whose core narcissism does not allow him to see himself as like other people. He will always be better and therefore has permission to do anything he wants and have it be “good”. The word for that is “entitled”. I am thrilled that he will be nowhere near the White House — I think he could be very scary guy if in power… I do not say that lightly.
lonesomerobot
@david10: That’s not true for South Carolina, as you can see here. Looking up some of the other states now.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: The Republican poobahs don’t like him. They hate his guts.
Paul in KY
@Major Major Major Major: Agree. She would have offed him somehow by now.
Elie
@lonesomerobot:
Please listen to yourself. This is not about the circumstances of how he finally got to meet the pope, but the whole unreal decision making to make this such a big deal — right before a must have election! This is about decision making and prioritization — about using scarce resources appropriately – meaning his own strength and energy to go 4 times zones away in the middle of an intense campaign . Its like going for a big party the night before your bar exam.. who does that? This is his decision making under stress and it was a tell. It doesn’t matter if and when he met the pope. Why — WHY — was this a priority — the whole thing? Its like he got easily distracted by a shinny thing and went off after it, dropping other more important things…
Cacti
@lonesomerobot:
I would say I’m sorry that operation Panderfex Maximus was a complete dud for the Sanders campaign, but I’d be lying. I was happy that the NY primary was where he consistently showed himself as not ready for prime time.
Emma
@lonesomerobot: Did you see the Pope’s comment? No? As in “no, it has nothing to do with politics, we just ran into each other and said hello.”
And I’m still waiting my 3-4 weeks and see how many of those Cardinals get “promoted.”
Hungry Joe
Whenever I hear about something in Politico or another outlet of its ilk I think of Frank Zappa’s description of rock journalism:
“People who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
gex
I also note that the delegate allocation rules for NY gave him 3 more delegates than straight up proportional allocation would.
The Democrats are corrupt!!!
J.
Speaking of “making shit up for clicks,” I made a table showing the state-by -state vote totals for Hillary and Bernie a little while back, which I update after each primary or caucus. Here’s the latest version, which includes the New York Democratic primary results. After yesterday, Hillary leads Bernie by nearly 2.6 million votes.
gratuitous
“Well, the Creampuffs have certainly come out on fire here in the fourth quarter, reeling off a 12-2 run on the Behemoths. With nine minutes to go in the game, the score is now Behemoths 97, Creampuffs 70.”
RaflW
I hadn’t known about this classy detail. But Sanders lost for much broader reasons, so of course Politico is full of it.
And I appreciate the 2008 data for comparison.
Immanentize
@Bob In Portland:
War on Structural Poverty?
War Against Police Brutality and Impunity?
War on Costly Higher Education?
War on Climate Denialism?
War on Unequal Pay?
I think she might start a LOT of wars.
Soylent Green
@Bob In Portland: Portland yesterday broke the old temperature record by ten degrees.
lonesomerobot
@Cacti:
@Emma:
What, exactly, is the Pope supposed to say? Look, it’s a story in the New York Times. I have no idea if the trip helped him or hurt him, but I can look at the chart right here in this post and see that about the time the whole Pope thing started happening (April 8) is where his numbers in NY bottom out and start heading in a positive direction again. It changed the conversation from ‘unqualified’ and the NY Daily News interview, to a large degree.
I’m think two things could be happening simultaneously in this whole Pope scenario: 1) There’s a political calculation, right or wrong, that doing this is sort of a Hail Mary for the New York campaign; and, 2) He’s a 74 year-old man in the midst of what is likely the last campaign of his life, he has an opportunity to be a part of a Vatican conference that happens to dovetail quite neatly into his going-on-30-year message of income inequality, and maybe — just maybe — meet the Pope, which still happens to be a great honor to many people, unless I’m completely out of touch with where society is on that right now. And it also happens to be the first Pope in an extremely long time (ever?) that has actually looked and acted leftwards on some important progressive issues, something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. I just don’t see it as the entirely cynical ploy that you do, I guess. And at this point, does it matter?
I also think you are mistaking me for someone who wants to be your adversary. I’m not. Obviously, this has been a trying campaign and some harsh words have been said on both sides. But please can we back off the acrimony at least a little bit because in the end, we’re going to need to help one another. I’m not BernieBro, I’m not Bernie or Bust, I’m just someone who really wanted the most progressive (in my view) candidate to win in a year when we might be running against the most unpopular candidate the GOP has put forward in 50 years. And please let’s not have an argument about that also.
Thanks, and peace.
Immanentize
@lonesomerobot:
I think this is very true and does not make me comfortable with his candidacy.
Calouste
@Elie: I think that the tax returns will show that despite railing against the 1%, the Sander family was actually part of that 1% for a number of years. Bernie got $172,000 for his Senate job, Jane got $160,000 from her job, Bernie got social security and a small pension from the city of Burlington, and they had at least one rental property. That adds up to close to $400,000 per year. And of course a lot of their money seems to be in investment funds that don’t pay any dividends, so they don’t have to pay tax on them until they take money out. It’s all above board, just not entirely consistent with the image of the Sanders campaign.
Applejinx
@japa21: Latest fundraiser from Bernie (obviously with my many $10 contributions I get the latest): Not one tiny itty bitty thing about being cheated. But, instead, and I quote:
The parts of this which I see as ‘coming together to win the general even though Clinton gets the nom’ are,
“because each is a statement of support for the values we share”
“and as a way of saying you will never stop fighting for the ideas”
This is how you begin turning a campaign of VERY WORKED UP revolutionaries towards engaging with the process and trusting the process (something Bernie workers on up the chain of command kept telling us when I worked in a field office, apparently fuckin’ Weaver didn’t get the memo) and getting their concerns represented in a coalition platform that doesn’t ignore them.
I donated another $10 recently, just before NY, but I could easily see helping him carry on… IF this represents his new direction. It’s more consistent with the early campaign and it’s a change in tone. I guess I can’t be sure of it until I see more of it (and maybe the ritual sacking of his campaign managers? They endanger the platform). There was also the full text of his initial email—dated April 30, 2015. It’s been not quite a year.
Hell of a ride, folks. Hell of a ride. Who knew?
lonesomerobot
@Immanentize: I would have preferred Elizabeth Warren truth be told. And, I wasn’t exactly saying I think he’s on death’s door. He does have a brother that’s 10 years his senior and still in good health, so that’s something to look at in favor of some genetic evidence of longevity in the Sanders line.
I was alluding to the notion that Sanders might well know or at least suspect he’s going to lose this thing, and I don’t expect him to run for another Senate term in 2014. Although I sure could be wrong about that. Maybe he just keeps on keepin’ on. And that’s a fine thing, too. Maybe he primaries Hillary again in 2020. Heh.
Sorry, couldn’t help myself on that last one. (and before anyone jumps on me, no, I wouldn’t support that, unless the first Hillary term had been an unmitigated disaster… and even in that scenario I would hope for Elizabeth Warren, as I’ve already said!)
grandpa john
@Elie: @Elie: Yes just another of many telling instances of poor judgement that makes him totally unfit for being president or any other high government jjob
Turgidson
Indeed. Obama’s lack of concern for what braindead “centrists” like Ron “Severe Dementia” Fournier think of his actions is one of the things I find most endearing. I would allow that his administration’s lack of attention or effectiveness in generating the media coverage it wants has been a weakness at certain points, especially in the first two years. But the fact that they’re not letting news cycle stupidity and fickle pundits’ fee-fees guide their decisions is an overwhelming point in their favor overall.
Immanentize
@lonesomerobot: Senator Warren is my Senior Senator! I think a very large number of people would have preferred her over Bernie and Hillary — I would have! She will be suffering from the age issue herself in four years. But, having had the opportunity to get to know her some as a law professor, I really believe her when she says she wants to accomplish stuff in the Senate. Look — they already put her on the leadership team and she can wow ’em in Muskogee as well as Boston. And she is a prodigious fund raiser. I can see her becoming the first woman Senate Majority Leader….
lonesomerobot
@Elie: Now that you’ve gotten that out of your system, let’s look ahead to the general election. As I mentioned before, ultimately you will prefer to have support from “Mr. Bernie”.
dogwood
@dollared:
In ’08 the New York primary was part of Super Tuesday in early February so your comment is ridiculous.
Linnaeus
@Immanentize:
I like Warren a lot, too, but I also think she’s most effective in the Senate. We need more liberals there, not fewer.
Applejinx
@lonesomerobot:
What do you mean ‘if’, kemosabe? ;)
I hear from another poster upthread that her crowd went nuts when she mentioned climate change. That’s how it’s done: if you want issues supported, make them applause lines for her and not damp squibs. Clinton is more malleable than Bernie would ever be. Since it’s a given she’ll win because her political machine is strong and the Republicans are demoralized and collapsing, it’s time to prod her into being the most amazing liberal ever: there is no political downside to this now. It’s do-able.
Formerly disgruntled Clinton supporter
Very nice post by John Hodgman on why he voted for Hillary…
Brachiator
@Bob In Portland:
I can’t predict the future. Neither can you. But you seem intent on getting agitated over what you think might happen.
feebog
As I have said for the last month, this race was over on March 15. Yes, Bernie pulled off a big surprise win in MI, which Hillary promptly countered with a 5 state sweep on Super Tuesday, pushing her lead up to around 300 delegates. It was an insurmountable lead then, and with NY yesterday pus 5 NE/Atlantic states next Tuesday, it will once again be an insurmountable 300 delegate lead going into the last 6 weeks of the campaign. I really hope he drops out after next week. This talk about swaying super delegates is just embarrassing and lame.
Elie
@lonesomerobot:
Absolutely hope that we do. And lets get this straight: if he had been the candidate, I would have worked for and voted for him… I think we all learn from discussing candidate strengths and weaknesses. I am fully aware of Hillary’s but they are not that she is just a wall street whore warmonger. I was very disappointed that Bernie’s campaign was associated with such slurs and that the showering her motorcade with 1000 dollar bills was allowed to happen. But lets move forward. I do not think that that part of Bernie’s campaign I would want to emulate in the future.
lonesomerobot
@Applejinx: re: ‘if’ — It’s a long time until November. We don’t even know who the GOP nominee is yet. They could still pull a fast one and throw a Paul Ryan in there. Yes, I know what he said, but the day I believe what a Republican politician says is the day someone has pried the brain from my cold, dead body; and yes, I know, party destruction, etc., etc., but I still think voting against Hillary could be a strong motivating factor… plus there are so many other possible freaky variables this year… You may recall that Jesse Ventura said he’d run if neither Sanders nor Trump got a nomination. That’s crazy talk, right? This year, I don’t even know what to think, but a Ventura would seem to make a natural home for most Trumpeters and a fair amount of Berniacs, even. I made a list of possibilities (even remote) as of right now. I don’t count Kasich as a possibility:
Clinton/Trump
Clinton/Cruz
Clinton/Cruz/Ventura
Clinton/Cruz/Sanders (if things in Philly get redonk, which I hope they don’t)
Clinton/Trump/Sanders (same as above)
Clinton/Cruz/Sanders/Trump (panic mode – America gets the blue screen of death)
Actually a possible outcome in that last scenario is President Paul Ryan if no candidate gets the electoral votes necessary. Ugh.
And I agree with the stuff about pushing for the most amazing liberal ever.
Aqualad08
@dollared:
New York held their 2008 primary on Super Tuesday. By the end of the night, he was only down 20 pledged delegates with 11 races in mid-February that looked very favorable to him (which he also won, btw). How is this analogous to a guy down 240 pledged delegates facing five contests next week, four of which he’s down in the polls by double digits and MUCH MUCH later in the process?
You try soooo hard to make Bernie the Neo-Obama, but he’s just not…
lonesomerobot
@Elie: Right on. Campaigns get ugly. I don’t blame Hillary Clinton’s campaign for some of the actions of her supporters, just as I don’t blame Bernie’s for the actions of his supporters. And as you may recall, Hillary’s campaign in 2008 had a few instances that could be diplomatically called not her best moments. The passion of liberals, when it comes to the future of this country, is strong. And for the most part, that’s a good thing. We just need to put the target on the fascists now.
Tripod
Good post John.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: The windmills of that particular mind are missing a few sails.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m a little appalled at the mistake my senior Senator made in her comment. As EVERYONE knows, the proper conjugation (so to speak), especially when dealing with whiners from the Party of Personal Responsibility, is “Boo fucking hoo, [asshole].” (The “asshole” part being optional, of course.)
But outside of that — well, actually, even including that — her string of tweets was pretty awesome.
Elie
@lonesomerobot:
But you know, she learned! You had to dig back to 2008… This contest in 2016 she has been pretty careful and her campaign has not been associated with any shenanigans like that.
You can’t keep giving him a pass… either he does not know what is happening in his campaign or he doesn’t care. Showering someone’s motorcade with dollar bills and calling her whore (in your own party!) is pretty out there and should have been immediately renounced, people fired who allowed it and apologies expressed. He didn’t.
Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter
@Paul in KY: Trump will win on the second ballot at the convention if he doesn’t already have a majority. He’ll do some kind of mea culpa in accepting the nomination (probably use the line that he’s a street kid from New York and doesn’t know nothing bout no political correctness) and 95% of the party will fall in line.
When Trump loses in the general badly, the next few weeks after that are going to be like a weekend party hangover with the some of the sentient ones asking what in the hell everyone was thinking to run Trump. Trump’s uneducated white lower middle class base will slip away quietly whistling innocently – they’ll be harder to find than one of those truly deranged Clinton supporters after Obama was elected. After a brief period of mourning, the smart ones will realize they lost because they didn’t run a true conservative and didn’t give the voters a real conservative choice and then we’re off to the races again.
dollared
@Immanentize: After her husband led
The war on Crime?
The war on Welfare?
The war on unions?
And she led or supported, even within her limited scope under Obama:
war on Unions (WalMart and Free Trade Agreements under Obama edition)
The war on Latin American Democracy? (Honduras and Venezuela edition)
The war on Peace: (billions of arms sales everywhere edition)
The war in Libya
The drone war
Yeah, she’s definitely a liberal……
The war on Israeli and Jewish Moderates?
Mike J
@dollared: And Sanders led the war on six year olds with his treatment of Sandy Hook,
Uncle Cosmo
A bit of delegate math on the Thuglican side of the aisle, per the NYT 2016 Delegate Count & Primary Results page:
Kasich needs 1,090 more delegates to win on the 1st ballot: Unpossible.
Cruz needs 688 more delegates to win on the 1st ballot. Barely possible if stupidelegates are included, I spoze, but in effect unpossible.
Drumpf needs 392 more delegates for a 1st-ballot win, or 58.2% of the remaining pledged delegates. If next Tuesday he gets half the delegates from CT & RI, all from DE, 80% from MD, & the 17 pledged delegates from PA, that’s 88. NJ would add 51 for 139. Does anyone really think either Cruz or Kasich could beat him in CA? Add 80% of 172 = 137 for 276; 116 left to snag. Remaining states are IN (57), WTM; NE (36), SD (29), & MT (27), WTA; WV (34), OR (28), WA (44), & NM (24). If The Donald pulls no more than 30% of the delegates from the last 4 (or 39), that still gets him to within 77. So to deny him a 1st ballot nomination, he would have to be shut out in IN and lose outright at least one of NE/SD/MT.
Here’s a link to a pretty interesting NYT article from last Monday, which argues that the key state for Trump is in fact Indiana–& that because of the Hoosier Daddy’s state’s peculiarities, no one really know WTF is going on there.
Dan
@Mike J:
that’ll leave a mark.
dollared, as for Hillary’s Evil-est Foreign Policy ever: she was Obama’s SoS and enacting his FP vision. If you can’t vote for Clinton in the general because of what she did for Obama, were you able to bring yourself to vote for Obama in 2012?
Uncle Cosmo
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter:
You’re lucky I’m not a betting man, ‘cuz I’d take out a second mortgage to bet against the first part of that. At least 1/4 & more like 1/3 of Drumpf’s delegates will drop him as soon as the first ballot’s over–either they’re stealth Cruzers or GOPparatchiks.
retr2327
Damn, John, when I saw that fact-heavy analysis I had to check to see if R. Mayhew wrote it. Nice job.
Calouste
@lonesomerobot:
Nope. Congress must chose from the three candidates with the highest number of electoral votes.
John Cole
@retr2327: I can do numbers. Not as good as our numbers guys. But I can do them. I just assume (probably mistakenly), that most people aren’t innumerate morons so I stick to f-words.
NCSteve
@Richard Mayhew: The sheer level of innumeracy and magical thinking animating the online Berners has been enormously distressing to me in and of itself. We saw much the same thing coming from Hillary’s supporters in 2008, but not to the same degree and level of burning intensity.
Explain to them that every state where Hillary draws even or loses by a few is a loss for Bernie just makes them absolutely crazy. They talk about the number of states he’s won and the number of counties he won in New York as if that’s meaningful. They say “stuff happens” when you try to discuss the likelihood of a 30-40 point swing in the remaining states.
I honestly can’t tell whether NCLB or J.K. Rowling are more responsible, but the lack of even the most elementary critical thinking skills, much less math skills, is most distressing.
dollared
@Dan: Yup, and I’ll vote for Clinton in 2016. But Bernie’s foreign policy is much, much, much better, and another reason to vote for him.
dollared
@Mike J: No, Mike, he wasn’t in a position of leadership. It was a legislative tradeoff decision, not a foreign policy leadership decision. And of course, what you just said was uncalled for and irrational. But you’ve lost it over your dedication to the most venal Democrat ever to run for the Presidency.
VFX Lurker
@dollared:
Judging from the disorganization in his campaign…he still isn’t.
Greg
Heh, indeed.
nutella
Righteous rant about horse race reporting, John. It is funny that the vast majority of the comments are about … you guessed it … the horse race.
It’s so much easier for reporters to fill pages and airtime with the horse race. All they have to do is either idle speculation, solemn consideration of the effect of one candidate’s latest gaffe, or just making shit up.
It drove me nuts when they did that with the 2012 Republican candidates. They treated all of the clowns in the car as serious horses in the race. No one ever troubled to find out whether they were actual candidates or just posturing fools. As it turned out, Romney was the only candidate since he was the only one who bothered to have a state organization in every state.
Only one detail came out about this, almost certainly turned up by a blogger rather than an MSM reporter. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.) That’s when Gingrich couldn’t get on the ballot in Virginia, the state he lived in, because he hadn’t bothered to find out when the filing deadline was.
But no reporters could be bothered to find out if that was true of any of the other alleged candidates. To find out if a candidate had offices in every state, you’d have to make … OMG, 50 phone calls!
So it’s always the horse race, or some fictional version of the horse race, because that’s just so easy to ‘report’ on.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Uncle Cosmo: I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong once before. But we can bookmark this post and refer back to it after the fact.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
There’s no such thing as “momentum” in politics.
As Tip O’Neill said, “all politics is local”.
Take 2008: Obama won Iowa then lost NH. Hillary landed a surprise win in NH and then was routed in SC. Obama won 12 consecutive states then lost Ohio and Penn.
All politics is local.
Dan
@dollared:
well, I appreciate that those FP decisions would be dealbreakers in a primary for some people. Am relieved to hear that you’re consistent and will still vote for HRC in the general.
Paul in KY
@Just Some Fuckhead, Clinton Supporter: Conservatism can never fail, it can only be failed.
What will they say if the SOB wins (with some positions that are completely opposed to Republican orthodoxy)? God willing, we’ll never know.
strongest nerf gun in the world no
Ryan enjoys authoring trending news headlines and
entertainment topics. Efforts were stated in 2009 to enhance and simplify crafting,
that efforts were indeed welcome. Fotos do nerf And in the event
you have just gone by using a rigorous exercise of generating a choice
for your car which you bought you might see the huge selection of products
available as another mountain to climb.
This can accomplished which has a simple but well
considered paint job, and can head over to the extreme with elaborate lighting and chrome accessories.
Four of which tested one level each of an game which had 4 levels
to the entire 12 hour day.