Trump’s general election outreach to Hispanic voters began yesterday with an address to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference delivered from TrumpForce One:
There’s a distinct student council election vibe to it — the speech is all outlandish promises with nary a clue on how to accomplish them: We’re gonna make the cafeteria serve free pizza and ice cream every day and abolish pop quizzes!
Trump did utter one truth in the speech: “The world is laughing at us right now.”
Yes, I’m quite sure they are.
ETA: BC in Illinois in comments below points out that Hillary Clinton sent a video to the same organization:
She also managed to capture her remarks in landscape!
rk
He needs a cigar in his tiny hand and a woman sitting on his lap to complete the image of a B grade movie villain.
satby
Nervous laughter, mixed with terror.
liberal
Unfortunately Trump’s doing relatively well in recent polls. Of course it’s not over until the fat lady sings, but it brings to mind two things: Hillary is a poor retail politician, and RBG is a self-centered fool.
Gimlet
@rk:
Perhaps he should be petting a white long-haired cat.
rikyrah
Good Morning ☺, Everyone ?
rikyrah
One of the most gratifying pieces of knowledge that I have is that the Spanish language media has been covering Trump exactly the way that the MSM SHOULD be covering him.
rikyrah
@liberal:
Willard got 27% of the Latino vote. Trump had an approval rating in the LOW double digits with Latinos. Where does he make up the gap?
Punchy
@liberal: who’s RBG?
The Thin Black Duke
@rikyrah: In liberal’s world (“that word doesn’t mean what you think it means”), non-white male voters don’t exist. Yes, I know that right-wing nutjobs believe this, but it’s depressing when people supposedly on our side suffer this delusion.
magurakurin
@liberal:
Your concern is noted. But “in recent polls” is a pretty vague term. These polls don’t look real good for Trump. But it will be a fight every step of the way, no doubt.
magurakurin
@Punchy: I wondered that,too.
Just One More Canuck
You’ve got to laugh just to keep yourself from crying
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’ll say it again: If Trump was a Dem mole assigned to torpedo the GOP, what would he be doing differently?
He’s driven out every other candidate with a chance of broad appeal (such as they were) and now he’s alienating everyone but the frothing angry white male fanatics.
debbie
@Punchy:
My guess is Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Baud
@liberal:
There’s an open seat now. If our side doesn’t care enough about the Supreme Court to GOTV, then why should we waste any breath criticizing RBG?
satby
@Punchy: @magurakurin: Notorious RBG he means.
Elizabelle
Paul Krugman talks some of the more nervous among us down: The G.O.P. Is Not America, Clinton Is Not Rubio. Blogpost from last week.
The wired for Republicans mainstream press has not noticed this — or won’t accurately inform us, if they have. But courage, people.
Professor Krugman:
Emperor Trump has even less clothes than the usual Republican nominee. That he’s gotten as far as he has — all that free airtime and wasted column space — is attributable to our media overlords, panting after the bucks.
I have more faith in American voters, and in Democrats mobilizing to turn out their voters.
satby
@Baud: and This to. In fact, there should be huge demonstrations now about the dysfunction keeping the Senate from doing their jobs, but hell if there is.
And I am glad she’s stayed on.
PsiFighter37
I read that Trump has less than 100 campaign staff, whereas Clinton has over 700 (and likely to grow into the general election). There is zero way that Trump can win an election by doing nothing to get votes. If anyone thinks that the Trump campaign is going to invest in any kind of ground game (or even ad campaigns), they will be surprised. Trump has always tried to do things on the cheap (hence why he owns really old aircraft). He’s going to be in for a rude surprise.
MattF
@magurakurin: Also, the horse race narrative is the one that gets hits and eyeballs. And it’s common practice to ‘correct’ raw polling data. One should note that these reservations work both ways– it all means that the actual margin of error is larger than anyone admits.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Elizabelle:
Another thing Hillary will be able to go after Trump for is his tax returns. Will the press really be able to let that double standard slide? I’m guessing there’s a lot of interest in the press to see them too, since it would provide days of gossipy fodder for their 24/7 need to fill air time, and Trump’s so thin skinned about it, I think probing that sore spot will make him look even more unqualified if that’s even possible.
D58826
@Baud: And to further expand the point if
had retired why would the GOP have behaved any differently than it is now. While replacing RBG would not have tipped the court left like Garland will, Obama still would have picked a younger person that along with a possible additional vacancy (which happened with the timely passing of Nino) which would have tipped the court’s balance.
Turtle would just have dreamed up a different excuse. I think at the time the assumption was that the GOP would follow the rule book that has been used for 200+ years and twist, scream, moan and groan but wind up approving the nominee.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
More importantly, can you recommend a place to stay in Barcelona?
debbie
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
With his series of bankruptcies, she should also tie Trump to the big banks and how he’s gamed that system to achieve his “success.”
I came across this disturbing news yesterday Seems like Wall Street is getting back into the mortgage business. Déja vu all over again.
Schlemazel Khan
@liberal:
Since some people either missed the dozens of times it has been mentioned here or choose to ignore them I will take this opportunity to once again point out that there were polls showing Willard ahead of Obama at this point in 2012.
Also too, all of ’em Katie: The only poll showing Drumpf winning is from Rasmussen who are notorious for being wildly inaccurate in favor of the GOP until very close to election day when they start to correct to hid their game and those that FAUX News run.
There should be some tightening at this point as the #NeverDrumpf clowns come home to the GOP daddy like good little boys and girls. We still need to work the fall but lets stop pretending that Hillary is going down in a ball of flames simply because of a couple of polls
D58826
@satby: And to pivot off that point. Bernie has argued that he will overcome GOP opposition to his program by mobilizing grassroots million person marches to scare the GOP into being reasonable. So here is the challenge – organize one or more million person marches in DC, at a time when his supporters are anxious to show that they are in it for the long term and not just an ego trip for Bernie. The purpose of the marches would be to bring pressure on the GOP to confirm Garland. If Bernie and his supporters can do that then it will go a good way toward validating his ‘revolution’. They would have succeed in actually effecting policy rather than just complaining that the system is rigged for the sole purpose of screwing Bernie.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Have I missed seeing her, or has Jane Sanders completely disappeared from my TV since the Burlington College news broke?
satby
@Baud: I was there for work in 2011 and stayed at the HiltonDiagonal Mar, but it’s pricey. Nice location though, I could walk or take the train to everything.
Baud
@satby: Thanks. I’ve been looking at Hilton properties, but they are pricey in Barcelona, as you said.
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: The only way I can figure he makes up the gap is by convincing white, mostly male Obama voters who personally dislike Hillary Clinton to stay home or vote third-party. But since that only gets him half the gain that he gets from someone actually voting for him, it needs to be a lot of them.
BillinGlendaleCA
@PsiFighter37: Trump thinks he can run for President via Twitter and free media, it’s worked so far. I agree, don’t think it’ll work in the general.
satby
@D58826: That’s a great idea. He won’t, and that’s too bad.
Elizabelle
@Baud: All of them, Katie. To use one of your favorite responses.
Probably. Staying at the Generator Hostel here; also stayed at their Copenhagen property. They’re well run and very stylish. Albeit, still a dorm situation, kinda. But way cool fellow travelers.
Generator is opening properties in Miami and Salt Lake City next. Look out, US.
Got to talk with AT&T about my iPhone being a brick, after that, out to look at some more gorgeousness here. Yesterday was brilliant blue skies. Today, a little cloudier, but — hey.
BGinCHI
Nothing says “I can really identify with immigrants struggling to work and raise their families” like a carefully worded message from your gigantic private jet.
So much empathy.
TS
The media has no desire to see Trump fail – they continue to allow him to “phone it in” as with the above address to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. Most politicians actually attend a conference to give an address. The media is content to report on Trump’s videos and phone calls. There is NO feedback from the audience when they are listening to a phone or watching a video. Trump will not be queried on his taxes – the first question from the media – he hangs up the phone.
Bernie tried to change the rules and failed – Trump just walks all over them.
satby
@Baud: I was very spoiled on my companies dime.
sm*t cl*de
On the other hand, we are laughing at the Onion less, because it seems so boring in comparison with reality.
msdc
@The Thin Black Duke:
I would take the name “liberal” about as seriously as “myiq2xu.”
sm*t cl*de
@Elizabelle:
The carpets in the hallways can be sticky on occasions, IIRC, as they are catering to the youts. But still a good bargain for accommodation.
There are student hostels in Barcelona that take in causal visitors during student vacations, which is good for visiting in August / September, but not so much at other times.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: When we went there several years ago we stayed at the Hotel Majestic on Passeig de Gracia. Pretty expensive, but, man, it was good. Maybe the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in anywhere.
Schlemazel Khan
@PsiFighter37:
I think he is counting on the Republican party to cover that for him. This would be the place the #NeverDrumpf people could actually do some real damage to Benito so that is a wait and see. The MN Republican party has been making noises about how to not help Drumpf and how to ‘give a pass’ to office seekers not wanting to support the loser. If that sort of movement takes hold around the country he is toast before he even begins. My guess is there are plenty of goopers that will work for him but if some of the key ones do not the whole operation will be less efficient, more chaotic and a real benefit to us in November.
“Smart Republicans” are already looking forward to running against President Clinton in 2020 and a Democratic Senate. They are gaming out how to make 2018 look like 2010 and how to continue the crap they have pulled on BHO to prevent real change so they can use that as a weapon in 2020.
Anya
@liberal: The Republicans are coming home to their vulgarian candidate while the Democrats are still in a primary mood. The polls right now are useless. I’ll start to worry around September/October if they’re still like this.
satby
@Elizabelle: actually was looking for Baud and found this: 10 best hostels in Barcelona
Baud
@Elizabelle:
Probably not the best option for sociopaths like me, but thanks.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: When the wife and I went to Paris, we stay at the Hilton(make your own joke).
Ohio Mom
You have to watch it until toward the end, when he drops the paper he’s reading from and you see it is a short list in a very large font: he can’t remember his established half-dozen talking points without a written list in front of him? Shades of Sarah Palin’s crib notes on her hand.
Really, you can tell his heart isn’t in it by the tired tone in his voice — unless he’s purposefully trying to dial his usual bellicosity down? He seems very ill at ease.
And what terrible optics, giving a speech from literally on high. Is he sending a message to his base that, “Hey, you know I have to do this but I’m letting you know I’m not at all sincere.” On one level, that is the only thing that makes sense to me. Otherwise, if you were rooting for him, you’d have to admit this video is a total fail.
Schlemazel Khan
@msdc:
You think ‘liberal’ may soon be speaking of Drumpfs unlimited corporate cash and brinks trucks with faulty transmissions?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
C’mon, man. I’m not president yet.
Elizabelle
@satby: Thank you! Looks great. I see a likely candidate for my next move, in event “student host family housing” does not come through. (Which I’d be great with. A single room. Maybe even a dog in the family…)
This is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. I am loving my first trip to Spain.
satby
@Baud: what about this option?
Guess who wants to go back but is also on a budget?
Ultraviolet Thunder
I’m hoping that a few things will turn the MSM more reasonable on Trump. For one thing the standard he’s going to be compared against in the general election will not be the GOP but the populace at large. Also his thin skin will get him in trouble with more than Megyn Kelly when they start asking him difficult questions and he pushes back. And they will want to know about his business deals, his taxes, as noted above, and his previous marriages. That’s all interesting to their audiences, and not flattering to him.
I have no expectation that the media will cover his policies or plans for governance. No clicks or views in that boring stuff. But they’ll pry, he’ll get defensive, and that’s the story.
Baud
@satby: I would consider that for an extended stay, but I’m only going to be there one night, unfortunately.
msdc
@Schlemazel Khan: Maybe, but only out of the deepest Concern.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
That’s Trump’s “serious” tone, like when he spoke at AIPAC. The illness at ease is proof that his real nature is to be a blowhard.
msdc
@Baud: The el Jardi in the Barri Gotic/Ramblas area is a good, modestly priced hotel in the heart of the city.
Anya
@Elizabelle:
Exactly. People who say Trump is “authentic” or he’s “connecting with the American people” think so little of the American people. Fiorina was correct when she called Trump “Kim Kardashian of politics.” He gets a lot of attention but that doesn’t mean people like him or admire him. He’s a carnival barker and that’s why he gets a lot of attention but that won’t translate into votes. I am confident that the Clinton campaign is run by smart people who’ll exploit every erratic weakness and show him for the clown he is. Americans will not vote for him, unless they’re blinded by partisanship, hatred of the other or plain dumb. And all those demographics are already on his side.
Baud
@msdc: Thanks. That might work.
lollipopguild
Trump goes to the NRA convention and promises to get rid of Gun-free zones. I am surprised he did not promise to force everyone in the country to join the NRA. He has made so many promises like this that no one can keep track of all of them.
satby
@Baud: Try Hotwire then, looks like some decent deals scattered among the higher priced stuff.
JMG
Today’s Washington Post poll showing Trump with slight lead among registered voters, 46-44 (he trails among all adults), includes the following nugget. 58% of voters polled think Trump is unqualified to be President. 14% of that group will vote for him anyway. So about 7-8% percent of voters are willing to burn it all down if their tribe can sit atop the ashes. How many of those are embittered Sanders votes I have no idea. Trump’s ONLY positive in the poll is the belief he’ll change politics. Perhaps instead of trying to tie Trump around the Reoublicans’ necks, it would be better to tie them around his.
D58826
Huffington has another lead story on dems in disarray. At this point it still may be a lot of hot air but one thing that does seem to be happening is that the feud between DSW and Bernie is getting personal. I’m not taking sides in the argument but at this point a personal; feud is going to be a lot harder to patch over than an argument over the finer points of bank regulation. Getting lost in all of this is regardless of who wins the nomination and who wins in Nov., DWS term as DNC chair ends in Jan. 2017. It is an inside the beltway argument taken to the power of infinity. I rather suspect that until Bernie made her an issue, most of the democratic primary voters could not have picked her out of a one person police line up, even after she forgot to take off her ‘Hi I’m DWS’ lapel sticker.
I would think most of the non-political junkie folks that have/will vote in the primary are more concerned about jobs, healthcare, etc than they are about whither Debbie has had he thumb on the scale for Hillary. And yes she probably has to some extent. In mid-2015 when many of these decisions were made, Bernie was barely a blip on anyone’s radar. And the DNC, Debbie included, had a strong interest ‘greasing the skids’ for Hillary. They did not want a democratic clown car and didn’t want to distract the public from enjoying the GOP show for a second presidential cycle in a row.
If that is putting your thumb on the scale, then so be it. Is it corrupt or anti-Bernie. No it’s hardball politics 101.
msdc
@Baud: I hope so! It’s wedged in between two very pretty squares with some decent cafes. Not very accessible by car, but it’s a short walk from Las Ramblas and the Metro. Enjoy your trip!
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: We’ve stayed at the Hesperia Metropol and liked it.
Betty Cracker
@D58826: Agreed — it is pointless, potentially damaging and wasteful. In one of the recent Hilbot vs. BernieBro donnybrook threads, one of our new Bernie-or-Buster commenters approvingly raised the possibility that Sanders will make the ouster of DWS a condition for his support for Clinton. If he does that, it will be incontrovertible proof that all that talk about a political revolution was a bunch of hooey and that it really is all about Sanders’ ego.
PsiFighter37
@JMG: This country deserves what it gets coming to it if it elects an out-and-out idiot like Trump. This election should be the equivalent of the 2002 French presidential election (when Chirac blew out Le Pen 81-19), but because Republicans are so goddamn craven when it comes to seeking power, it will be way, way closer.
Oldgold
I watched HC on Meet the Press this morning. She was excellent.
She’s got this.
vtr
Trump sounds like he’s being held hostage and has been handed a script, which he reads without even trying to sound sincere. You know, a standard Trump presentation.
NotMax
What, no taco bowl?
No carefully placed bottle of Dos Equis?
Cabezas will roll for those omissions.
Baud
@Iowa Old Lady: Thanks.
Uncle Cosmo
@satby: I wonder if the Hotel Toledanno is still in business. Been 22 years since I & the Significant-Ex stayed there. The price was fair & you couldn’t beat the location, at the top of Las Ramblas ~20m from the Placa de Catalunya & a Bus Turistic stop.
D58826
@Schlemazel Khan:
This is what drives me up the wall with all of the Bernie folks and the democratic party is hopeless corrupt and must be burned down and replaced.
Like it or not the GOP gets a vote in what happens in the political system. Like it or not the constitution has a lot of veto points built into it by design. Like it or not one of those veto points gives a disproportionate share of power to the small states, which are mostly red states today. Like it or not a party bent on obstruction has any number of places to throw sand in the gears. And like it or not since 1950 there have been only a handful of years where the stars align and the democrats control the white house, a filibuster proof majority in the senate , and control the house. Like it or not I don’t think the democrats have ever had a veto proof majority in Congress when there is a republican in the white House. And like it or not the political stars since 1968 have given us a SCOTUS that is increasing functioning as an arm of the GOP.
There is NOTHING. I repeat Nothing that Bernie (and neither can Hillary) can do to change those realities in the short run. And there is little that he can do in the long run unless there are some titanic shifts in the political landscape. The map favors the democrats in the Senate in 2016 but it goes back to favoring the GOP in 2018. Since the class of 2014 will be up for re-election in 2020 I suspect that the GOP would hold an edge that year as well. The House will remain GOP until 2022. Without a major political re-alignment at the state level the GOP will control how Congressional districts are reapportioned using the 2020 census. If that is the case then GOP control of the house thru 2030 is very likely.
These are the current political realities. Are they immutable – no of course not. But it is going to be a long hard pull to change them (baring some catastrophic event like the Great depression or WWII). And burning down the democratic party w/o having an strong national replacement will just make the job harder.
Baud
@Oldgold: Meet the Press means Chuck Todd, right? Good to hear she was excellent.
BC in Illinois
@Ohio Mom:
Two points. First, Hillary Clinton also sent a video to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBeAeNm25BU
Second, I tried to find more about both messages. As of 8:00 this morning, there were 4,068 articles (in Google News) about the Trump message. There were 42 articles about Clinton’s message.
magurakurin
@Baud:
I stayed in the Hotel Soho last year. It was nice and not very expensive, but not outright cheap. 60 or 70 euro a night, I seem to remember. It was close enough to walk to the Ramblas. But don’t eat anyway on the Ramblas and hold onto your bag tightly. Also, book your tickets for the Sagrada Familia before hand online. You can pick your time, pay and then just show your ticket on your phone when you show up at your time slot. No lines at all. One place I remember eating that was nice was Taverna del Bisbe It was right next to the Cathedral in a very touristy area, but the food was good and the prices were very reasonable. Another decent place I remember was a little restaurant named Alaska. Also reasonable and pretty good.
Baud
@magurakurin: Thank you.
bystander
@Baud: Have you considered VRBO? We have had good luck with them, although in Paris we used another agency that a friend recommended. I like the convenience of a hotel, especially in a foreign city, but there’s a lot to be said for living sort of like a native, besides saving money.
Anya
Can someone explain to me what is Sanders doing with all the money he raised? Why does he have less than $6 million in cash? In every concerning way, the Sanders campaign reminds me of Clinton’s 07/08 campaign.
Frankensteinbeck
@Schlemazel Khan:
I am happy to say that the anti-Hillary commenters are down to the ones who have never had any role on this blog but bitching about Democrats, and Kropadope. Kropadope thinks Hillary deliberately ‘sabotaged’ health care reform in the 90s, so I’m not sure dialog is possible there.
@D58826:
Maybe I know this because I get so many paranoid Sanders supporters screeds on my feeds, but at this point DWS is a dog whistle. When Sanders complains about her, what his fans hear is the he won the primary and the system was rigged to steal it from him. I still consider it a huge improvement from his previous pissing in the tent, and let’s face it – nobody likes DWS.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: At a certain level, I find it more than a little disturbing that a person who, over the length of a long political career during which he has done absolutely nothing** for the Democratic party, is now demanding to have a say in how the Dem party conducts it’s business. Something fundamentally wrong with a person who thinks that is reasonable.
**and yes, Bernis has voted with Dems on many occasions, so what? There are any # of Republicans who have voted with Dems on occasion too.
Davis X. Machina
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
There’s an AP US History truism that great presidents want to do something, and mediocre — or worse — presidents want to be somebody.
Trump seems to be the Platonic form of the second kind. He doesn’t seem to have any policy dimension at all.
Trump just now on Fox & Friends: “I don’t want to have guns in classrooms. Though in some cases teachers should have guns in classrooms.”
“Whatevs” isn’t much of a campaign slogan.
gene108
@Ultraviolet Thunder:
The MSM glossed over or totally ignored Bush, Jr’s business failings, and allowed him to run as the “CEO President”. They also ignored issues about his sketchy national guard service, and turned in one of their own, in 2004, for bringing it up.
Plus by 2000, he could spoke in semi-coherent sentences, which was passed off as folksie charm of a regular guy you’d want to have a beer with.
I expect Trump to get the same pass, unless Hillary can hit him hard enough to shake the MSM into noticing.
That’s what Obama did in 2012 with Romney, Team Obama started attacking Romney in the Spring of 2012 and set the tone for the narrative the MSM used.
Baud
@Anya:
I think he spends a lot on ads.
BillinGlendaleCA
@D58826: Neither party wanted a clown car, and both instituted measures to avoid that, but the GOP has an abundance of clowns. Did I mention that clowns frighten me?
Elizabelle
@Anya: I’m thinking a lot of voters are in, or closer to, the precariat** than in previous years. Lose that job in your 40s or 50s, and you are shafted, in too many cases. The middle class has been gutted. Do you turn the keys over to a proven clown and serial bankrupt in that situation (if you’re not already a Republican partisan or aligned with their “ideas”)?
I don’t think that you do. Not as much distance to fall, and good government can make a HUGE difference in peoples’ lives.
**per wiki: (and most of you probably already know the term, so apologies for redundancy here):
Am wondering if dead Scalia, and the awful decisions that he no longer render, might occur to some folks. It’s like a foot is off our necks. Maybe even non-political junkies will notice.
Tripod
@D58826:
She only needs 90 delegates. That will be 20-something after VI and PR. It’s is over the minute NJ polls close on the 7th. I don’t know why the Bernie camp has it in their heads that CA is pertinent to the outcome. They’ve run out of unicorn farts, and caucus states, the FEC filings are a hot mess and they are clearly worried about BC blow back.
Time to transition to damage control (somewhere I’d never expected the Sanders campaign to be), and get some shit sorted out.
Fred Wertham, Jr.
@debbie: I thought he meant Justice Red Blue Green.
NotMax
Open Thread, so –
Luis Estrada is my new fave amongst contemporary directors.
His deftness at edgy, cynical social message comedy, just skirting the boundaries of farce, while maintaining a lightness of tone is a crash lesson in fllm making.
Only two flix of his currently on Netflix, but check ’em out.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@OzarkHillbilly:
This what worries me. When inevitably the ‘hard uphill climb’ to the nomination becomes a dead end and he has to concede, how much good will he do HRC or other Democrats? Why should he try? He has no investment in the Democratic Party and no motivation to put out any effort to help. There’s no longer anything in it for him. If he wanted to help get Democrats elected he could have started a long time ago, and didn’t.
Elizabelle
@Baud: When are you coming to Barcelona?
Are there absentee voters you are tracking down?
Tripod
@Baud:
Traditional media buys. For all the revolutionary market placement, it was a very staid, traditional campaign, circa 1988.
Baud
@bystander: Haven’t used them, but that sort of thing didn’t seem to make sense for one night.
Randy P
Re: Barcelona. We were there in 2000, I can’t remember the name of the hotel but it was extremely nice, best hotel of our trip. Part of the reason we cancelled any further short hops and remained in Barcelona for the rest of our European time.
I know it wasn’t far from the Old City (where Sagrada Familia is) because I remember this conversation illustrating a cultural gap between Americans and Europeans:
“Can you get to the Old City by train?”
“Yes, but why would you? It’s only 2 km.”
“OK, but there is a train that will get us there.”
“Yes, but it’s only 2 km”.
I don’t mind long walks and do make an effort to do walking in cities, but my default setting is still public transportation while Europeans (we’ve had this conversation in other countries) is to walk.
I love the rhythm of the Spanish day. At 10 pm the streets are full of people walking, talking and sampling tapas.
Edit to add: We are into less-crowded tourist destinations. So instead of Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, we went to the older Catedral (can’t remember the whole name). And we had a wonderful day in the Music Museum. I was aware of the composer Granados who had tragically died in a ship explosion after his US concert, but I didn’t realize he was a Catalonian till we turned a corner and ran into a whole room dedicated to him.
Betty Cracker
@BC in Illinois: Thanks for that link — updated the OP to include it. I’m not surprised Trump’s version is getting so much more attention; it’s a train wreck.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: I’m thinking that a BJ meet-up in Spain is starting to sound like an awesome plan…
PsiFighter37
@gene108: This is what worries me a little bit – that the Democrats are being a bit too polite in their attacks on Trump. Every single day, someone should be out there doing what Elizabeth Warren had been doing on Twitter. Really attack him on every single level – his failings as a businessman, his philandering, his lack of transparency, his xenophobia, his lack of any real core conviction outside of being a racist, and so on. Trump is not a polite person, and if Democrats really hammer at him day in and day out, the message will stick – and he will crack, because he has such a thin skin. It didn’t work for Rubio because he was so crass about it, but a united party that bangs the drum loud and proud about how stupid Trump is should be able to throttle him hard come November.
JMG
If there is a President Trump, odds are he’ll just rubber-stamp all economic/budget legislation passed by the Republican Congress. This won’t be popular, so he will be forced to assuage still-angry white people by quadrupling down on visible anti- “immigrant” (nonwhite people) measures or by belligerence in foreign policy or both.
People say they want change until they get it.
Frankensteinbeck
@Elizabelle:
I think very few political junkies are starting to realize the fundamental change in the system that Scalia’s death caused, and none of us grasp it’s extent. For 40 years, the Supreme Court chipping away at liberal everything has been the assumed background. We barely even see the big cases anymore. It became ‘normal.’ Now it’s over. When McConnell caves, Garland is seated, and it becomes an actively liberal court – we have no precedent to know what that’s like, anymore.
MattF
@Fred Wertham, Jr.: Everyone ignores Justice CYMK.
Tripod
@Frankensteinbeck:
THANKS OBAMA!
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I’m going for the Latino vote.
Doug R
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s all about those magical unicorn pony voters, the “Independents”. They claim no affiliation, yet the vast majority are former Republicans ashamed to admit their voting history. No surprise they’d break for the Republican nominee when Democrats are still fighting, they are basically lemmings. Yes, I mean real lemmings who blindly follow instinct and will go to the edge of a cliff and STOP, only to be shoved from behind by the countless others that don’t see the edge. Our base is not these flighty pinheads, it’s the Obama coalition which pollsters and Bernistas and the rest of society like to ignore.
Oldgold
So, the BS revolution has devolved down to getting rid of Debbie?
Actually, that is not accurate. Long ago it berned down to being about Bernie.
MattF
This should be required reading for editors, reporters, and headline writers.
gogol's wife
@PsiFighter37:
It’s too early for that.
But I HATE the NYTimes Sunday magazine. Hillary was depicted as a little toy soldier in a cover article about what a “hawk” she is. Trump this week appears in a hail of red-white-and-blue confetti, no text, just a celebratory image. I assume that many Ochses and Sulzbergers are rolling in their graves.
Tripod
LOL on the aspect ratio. Trump is a dumbass.
msdc
@Frankensteinbeck:
Kropadope also thinks Ed Markey is insufficiently liberal (because he was too mean to the nice Republican running against him) so, you know, Kropadope.
cmorenc
@rikyrah:
Unfortunately, Latinos are disproportionately concentrated in states that are already democratic-leaning, with the exception of Texas (where in another two to four presidential election cycles they could tip Texas from red to purple to blue) but not yet. If they decisively leaned democratic in Florida, they could also help tip a close election – the problem is that the Florida Latino composition is still divided by the strong GOP lean of older Cuban exiles (a very different Latino constituency than those of Mexican or other central American origin). Granted the younger Cuban-Americans are drifting away politically from their elders – but there’s enough elders (who turn out to vote much more reliably) that the Florida Latino vote is much less monolithic than in other states.
Betty Cracker
@OzarkHillbilly: Around here, we tend to speak of the split in the Democratic Party in terms of incrementalists against revolutionaries, pragmatists vs. idealists, etc. The point is we share the same goals, generally speaking, but disagree on the best way to get there. It’s not an insignificant split: Sanders got about 40% of the vote.
Sanders raised some really important issues and found an eager audience for a reason, and there’s a chance to bring those folks more firmly into the tent and work toward their goals, which again, we mostly all share. I think it would be right and proper for the Democratic Party to let the Sanders faction have a voice in forming the platform. That’s what I hope he’s angling for, but this petty bullshit about DWS makes me wonder.
ETA: Shorter — what Oldgold said…
Elizabelle
@gogol’s wife: Yeah, I noticed that too. It’s even worse in the NYT International print edition. Enormous top of the page illustration of Trump giving a thumbs up. Blurb pulled out, to effect of “even his deal-making ability won’t get past a gridlocked Congress.”
Making it sound like he’s a good dealmaker, and, again, Washington insiders are the problem.
Who edits this shit, anyway?
magurakurin
@Miss Bianca: I would maybe pick Ronda.
magurakurin
@Betty Cracker: It’s beyond petty. She has already said she is done in January. And sort of her last act seems to be axing the caucus system. She spoke out against it last week, saying the party should do away with the caucuses altogether. Why Bernie is making a big deal of how he would “fire” someone who has already quit is mind boggling to say the least. He’s a putz.
Anya
@Elizabelle: Great point. I think politicians need to learn to explain to the general voters how these things affect their lives. The supreme court seat has to be about more than overturning Roe v. Wade. I know a woman’s right to choose is an important part of the role of the court but so is income inequality, environment, social justice and protecting rights of the individual against corporations. This is what Obama said when he opposed Judge Roberts nomination:
Senator Obama correctly assessed Judge Roberts. I just wish the American people understood how decisions of the Supreme Court can affect every aspect of the life of every American.
martian
Does anybody here know if Jane Sanders is actually a paid member of the Sanders campaign? I swear I’m not trying to tip this over into a flame thread, I was just wondering if anyone here knew right off before I got to spelunking the Internet.
OldDave
@MattF:
Slow Golf Clap
PsiFighter37
@cmorenc: This is why I hope Democrats are out there doing huge voter registration drives AND making sure people have all the necessary bullshit ID requirements to make sure people can get through these hoops to vote.
We win this election, we take back SCOTUS, all these laws get struck down as unconstitutional, and the GOP will never have a chance to win again. They can only win if less people vote.
Iowa Old Lady
@cmorenc:
I’ll take that, though, if it secures those states. Those are EC votes in the bank.
What’s your sense of Florida? Have enough older Cubans died for there to be a change?
Baud
@magurakurin:
Good to hear.
schrodinger's cat
@cmorenc: Trump is turning off a lot of voters besides Latino immigrants. Most immigrants and their progeny have no illusions about Trump in particular or Republican party in general.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
Wrong continent. If you are going to Spain, you have to court thew Hispanic vote.
**only getting do pedantic because my Hispanic wife is so pedantic on this point
ETA: Latino is a term often used to refer to people with cultural ties to Latin America and people of nationalities within the bounds of Latin America, in contrast to Hispanic which is a demonym that includes Iberians and other speakers of the Spanish language as well as Brazilians and Latinos
Keith G
If Hispanic voters turned out at the same rate as African-American (or even older White) voters, this contest would be on its way to being over. Unfortunately, that is not the case.
One thing that Trump shares with Sanders is that essential parts of their messages ring true with many, many voters. They are both saying things that should have been core parts of establishment Democratic rhetoric for at least a decade, and actually even longer. This is one of the reasons why many see this, or wish this to be, a change election. And that might end up giving some tailwind to Trump.
I hope that sometime soon I may feel better about this election.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: presidenting is hard
Baud
@Keith G:
The essential part of Trump’s message is white fascism.
Doug R
@OzarkHillbilly: He’s in Catalonia, must be looking for the “Independent” vote.
CarolDuhart2
@cmorenc: Things are changing in Fla re Hispanics. A lot of people from Puerto Rico, Mexico and other parts of Latin America have come there in recent years. Obama won Florida because he won Central Florida due to non-Cuban Hispanics. Even Puerto Ricans who are already American citizens feel that Republicans aren’t exactly acting in their interest.
Iowa Old Lady
@Keith G: This article from The Hill should help you feel better. It says Moody’s analytics predict a Clinton win by about the same margin Obama won in 2012.
Miss Bianca
@magurakurin: Works for me!
satby
@Uncle Cosmo: It’s still there! Pretty good reviews too.
D58826
@Betty Cracker: I’m beginning to tilt in the direction of ego. It might not have started out that way, but as time went on I think he began to drink his own kool-aid. He seems to think his is the man on the white horse to save us all
D58826
@martian: My understanding from an earlier threat is she is a paid advisor. Therefore fair game to criticize as opposed to being just a spousal unit which is generally off limits (unless it’s Michelle of course).
martian
@magurakurin: I’ll swim against the tide and say I’m sorry to hear that caucuses might go the way of the dodo. Maybe I have an irrational, romantic attachment to that idea of community discussion and neighbors persuading neighbors, but I feel like they’re also a way for outsider candidates to make a mark. Fundamentally undemocratic in practice because so many people are limited from participation, I understand that, but there are a lot of undemocratic quirks about our system of government that are there to allow smaller players, smaller states to punch above their weight and get their interests heard and considered.
D58826
@Anya: In short the Roberts court comforts the comfortable and afflicts the afflicted. Not sure if HL Menchin really said that or just Gene Kelly in ‘Inherit the wind’
Tripod
@Betty Cracker:
Bullshit.
The Maoists kicked the crap out of the Trotskyites. I refuse to allow the reactionary running dogs of the bourgeoisie to define the terms of the revolution. It flows from the American underclass, not the hardhat rough trade fantasies of David Sirota, Naomi Klein and Billmon.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker:
And I have no problem with that. Take note, when I said he
I was referring to his demands on how primaries are run. As far as I am concerned, Bernie can just STFU about how Dems run their primaries. Their primary system is set up for Democratic candidates, not Independent blowhards trying to hijack their party for his own **now** apparently egotistical reasons.
**i say ‘now’ because i believe he got into this for the right reasons, and is staying in it for the wrong reasons
D58826
@magurakurin: She didn’t even ‘quit’. Her term is up in Jan. 2017. Not sure who appoints the next one. Obama picked DWS so a POTUS Hillary/Bernie would probably do the same in 2017. Not sure who would do it if there is a POTUS Trump.
JPL
OT.. but since we are talking about Trump, I thought I’d share this twitter feed It’s New York Times on this day headlines. in 1935. Hitler pledges respect for Versailles, suggests limiting arms.
martian
@D58826: I saw where Cole referenced it, and I had been wondering. Wouldn’t that be unprecedented, though? I’ve never heard of another candidate’s spouse taking a check. Maybe it’s bourgeois of me to find that unseemly.
magurakurin
@D58826: You are correct.
Miss Bianca
@martian: I’m with you to the extent that I actually enjoy caucusing, for the same reasons you describe. That being said, I can also understand the criticisms people are levelling against them.
Anonymous At Work
Any transcripts of either out there?
PaulWartenberg2016
@PsiFighter37:
Sadly, he has gotten away with campaigning with little organization and staffing. The media has pretty much been carrying his water for him, giving him near-constant attention and focus, phone-in interviews that the media really shouldn’t be giving him, and other favors. We’re talking about a media that still views the Democratic party as second-class, and that views Hillary AND Bernie with personal contempt.
we are facing a media juggernaut more than a political one, but it’s still one that must be stopped at all hazards. A Trump presidency threatens this nation with racism, ineptitude, and corruption on scales far worse than any other Presidency in our history.
D58826
@BC in Illinois: But But the media is in the Tank for Hillary. snark alert
Iowa Old Lady
@D58826: In theory, the DNC picks their chair. The DNC is made up of party chairs and vice-chairs from each state.
Uncle Cosmo
@Miss Bianca: I vote for Prague instead. I have friends & a bed waiting for me there & it’s better positioned for side trips into the Balkans to color in most of the rest of my Yerpeen map. In case yinz wuss out.
I’ve explored the town thoroughly over the last decade, & IMHO anyone who hasn’t been needs to get there before the Jet A-1 runs out & you have to paddle across the Pond.
Tripod
@martian:
Reactionary solutions are usually the worst option. Plus the idea of reform seems to flow from the dumb notion that the nomination process is a semi-final round, and played by the same rule set as the general. This isn’t the NFL you fuckwits.
FlipYrWhig
@Betty Cracker: It long ago became a process argument rather than one about any other issue, like, say, poverty or climate change. The most charitable reading possible is that Team Sanders’s devotion to the process argument is for the purpose of making sure that the _next_ insurgent candidate has a fair shake. I guess that matters to some degree. But the emphasis all along on campaign finance and influence peddling has struck me as very strange, when there was an opportunity to focus instead on, you know, helping people who are hurting. As I’ve said before, I don’t particularly give a rip who a candidate takes money from if the end result is better for the public good, and as we’ve seen from North Carolina’s bathroom bill and the response to it, sometimes elites and rich business interests are on the right side and everyday locals are malignant.
Miss Bianca
@Tripod:
Sorry, but Monty Python has ruined that sort of rhetoric for me forever…
PaulWartenberg2016
@cmorenc:
There are polling signs that Texas could flip this year to Blue because of the Hispanic vote.
Georgia is also on the fence right now, with their growing Hispanic population. Arizona could flip, and Colorado could stay Blue despite signs of it turning Red. The real shocker will be Utah: Mormons REALLY don’t like Trump, both for his obscene life-style and over his anti-immigrant hater rhetoric.
Mississippi has shown some polls where Trump could lose there. Missouri as well.
But one voting bloc we really need to keep track of is the women’s vote: it’s the largest bloc of voters across all 50 states, period, and their distaste/hate for Trump could be the real game-breaker.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
And unfortunately, it rings true with many, many voters.
Miss Bianca
@Uncle Cosmo: I have a good friend in Prague as well, and i’ve never been there (course, I’ve never been to Spain either). OK, I’ll go for Prague!
martian
@Miss Bianca: Yes, I’ve read your comments about it with great (and jealous) interest. No caucuses where I live. People aren’t wrong in the criticisms, but I think what we’d be losing if they’re abolished gets swept aside in the aggravation about the idiosyncrasies of the process. And why in the world would Bernie, or any Berner, want them abolished? Might as well follow that up with declaring that only winner take all primaries are fair and let people get started on the alt-histories where Obama never made it out of the Senate, much less Bernie.
OzarkHillbilly
@PaulWartenberg2016:
No fvckin way. I know my people and they hate that woman with the heat of a thousand dying suns. They would literally vote for Satan himself before allowing her to win.
Citizen Scientist
You guys, I’m panicking. This morning, Chuck Todd told me that “Democrats are deeply divided”. What are we gonna do?
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady: Would they be leaning blue without the Latino vote?
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
My youngest daughter (the hardworking, smart one) has so internalized the Bernie or Bust messaging that she blew up lunch yesterday over my vote for Hillary (she asked, I answered). We were blasted with uber left talking points on everything from our careers to our privilege, were lambasted with a slam of everything that the wingnut Wurlitzer has spun about the woman for the last 25 years. Didn’t even argue back – she was so enraged that it wouldn’t make a dent, so we actually had to close down the ticket and leave the restaurant.
Of course, this is the kid I keep in a better apartment than I ever had, that gets international travel, food, tuition, Internet, electric and food on my dime, so I found myself really despising the scowling gravel-voice shitmouth accented poorly dressed and uncoiffed asshole (and his campaign) for creating these impressions in younger voters.
Fuck Bernie.
JPL
@Citizen Scientist: Unite..
On MTP, the round table talked about the Hillary’s use of the word risk. She needs to point out that Trump’s own words, would cause dangers to the economy. He talks about constraining Wall Street abuses, but wants to get rid of Dodd-Frank.
D58826
@martian: Aside fro the optics, I can’t see a Mamie Eisenhower or Pat Nixon on the campaign payroll but as you roll forward to a Barbara Bush and Michelle I can. Times and the spousal units role in a campaign are changing. s long as her official role is spelled out when she give an interview and no ‘how dare you attack the wife’ when she catches flack for what she has said or done, the I’m fine with it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: My son is a Bernie guy. He has never asked but I suspect he already knows I voted for Hillary, what is more I suspect he knows why, and that they will be the same reasons he votes for her in Nov.
Iowa Old Lady
@D58826: I think Latino votes are crucial everywhere whether they tip a red state blue or keep a blue one secure. Thank god for the diverse Democratic electorate. They may save us white people from our own stupidity.
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Oh man, that’s tough. Did she give you your nym?
Miss Bianca
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Ouch. The temptation to point all that stuff out to her must have been strong indeed. I admire your restraint. I now have real sympathy for the exasperation my parents, who really were what people accuse HRC of being – namely country club Republicans – must have been feeling when I yapped my hard-lefty talking points at them (why is it always in restaurants that this shit goes down, I wonder). I was the total definition of the “Grosse Pointe Marxist” as a youth. Didn’t mean I was wrong, necessarily, in what I was saying, but it must have sounded really naive, if not infuriating, to them, for precisely the same reasons.
El Caganer
@Citizen Scientist: And the question remains, how much chuck could a todd upchuck if a chuck todd upchucked chuck? Sure, there’s a chance The Donald could win the election. There’s also a chance that The Singularity will occur during rush hour tomorrow morning. Much more likely that HRC will crush the Republicans, see them driven before her, and hear the lamentations of their women.
D58826
@OzarkHillbilly:
That would certainly create a conflict since one key point of CDR is she IS Satan.
Baud
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: I can’t even fathom. As sad and angry as I am that people vote for Republicans, I can’t imagine becoming enraged by someone telling me they vote Republican.
Just One More Canuck
@Miss Bianca: there you go, bringing class into it again
debbie
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class:
My dad and I used to get into it over Vietnam. My brothers are still amazed at some of the things I said and names I called him, without getting hit. The only thing that would shut me up was his asking whether or not I really wanted to go to Boston for school at his expense. Later, after Nixon’s speech about the secret invasion of Cambodia, he pulled me aside and told me we no longer needed to speak of Vietnam, and I knew he’d seen the light.
D58826
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: Hang in there. A little drying behind the ears and a couple of speed bumps in life that you can’t cushion helps to cure the problem.
PaulWartenberg2016
Having watched both videos, my impressions:
1) Trump looks to be reading off of a script someone else just handed to him, and is doing this in-flight en route to some other thing, and is only giving this recorded speech as a last-minute thing. As though he couldn’t be bothered to get something set up and staged properly.
His speech itself is a rambling set of vague promises, with no focus objectives worth sharing or highlighting.
2) Hillary and her crew took the time and effort to set up a recording. She is looking directly into the camera, focused on YOU the audience rather than sitting behind a desk distracted by twenty other things. Her speech has specific points of topic, and uses a lot of “we” and “our,” as an attempt to SHARE the objectives of her campaign. She could just as easily be reading from a script herself, but the way she’s giving the speech and presenting herself, she’s doing it as though she means every word she’s saying.
There is a world of difference between these two candidates. Trump is disinterested and distant. Hillary is focused and connecting.
I’m with her.
Lamh36
story of election cycle when it’s all over will likely be told in a few words “how fucked up will white voters be”
rikyrah
Jamelle Bouie ✔ @jbouie
If Trump wins on the strength of an unprecedented surge of white voters it will be a world historical “f— you” to America’s nonwhites.
9:43 AM – 22 May 2016
Baud
@Lamh36: Right. If we have to lose, I’m glad it’ll be to Trump. He puts the lie to so many things.
martian
@Tripod: Agreed. Also, this urge I see to smooth processes out into the seemingly straightforward, one person-one vote, winner take all – I’m sure I’m not going to put this right – seems to ignore complicated justice in favour of unyielding law. Straightforward majority rule is superficially fair but almost inevitably oppressive if you are not part of the majority.
PaulWartenberg2016
@Citizen Scientist:
We’re gonna vote Democrat. That’s what.
debbie
@Baud:
Depends on how and what they say. I was very peaceable with the GOP members of my family until Obama came along and they started with the mindless ranting and lies. We don’t discuss politics any more.
gogol's wife
@El Caganer:
And more importantly, their men.
I hope you’re right, God, I hope you’re right.
Iowa Old Lady
@PaulWartenberg2016: She also tailored her remarks to her audience.
ETA: Lest it be unclear, I think that’s a good thing. It’s what a speaker is supposed to do. She showed she knew who they were and what they were concerned about.
gogol's wife
@debbie:
I tend to stay calm with RWNJs, like the former mayor of our town who started screaming at me at a neighbor’s barbecue (during the 2012 campaign) about how Obama had tripled the national debt or some such. It’s the Bernie people around here who keep smugly talking about how Trump is going to win — they enrage me and I lose control.
Baud
@martian:
Neither of those things is technically the problem with the primary process or caucuses. The problems are the hurdles to Democratic voters being able to vote, especially in caucus states.
@debbie: Agree. I don’t tolerate people lying to me and then acting like I need to take them seriously.
D58826
@FlipYrWhig:
And a lot of the process that is in place today is the result of the post 1968 ‘clean with gene’ reformers sticking around and working within the system. I remember there was some talk of burn it down but cooler heads prevailed. Obama seemed to have worked the process pretty well in 2008. He managed to beat the establishment favorite the self same Hillary. Maybe Bernie and his team just aren’t very good at this. And whatever reforms are put in place after the election, some electoral loser will complain about them in the future
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly:
You know, there’s an argument to be made that in voting for Trump, they would be. According to at least one medieval vision of the Antichrist, the AC himself is a more-or-less deluded dupe of the Devil – convinced he’s really a savior, and unaware of where his powers actually come from till too late.
Of course, now that I think of it, that could describe another presidential contestant as well…at least the “convinced he’s a savior” part…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@El Caganer: One of my Concerns, as a helpless pessimist rather than a Concern Troll, is that Clinton wins an overwhelming EC majority but with the help of Johnson/Weld and a few others, gets less than fifty percent of the popular vote. It won’t be swept under the rug like it was for Dumbya. Not that she wouldn’t take the White House, but there would be a constant refrain from the Chuck Todds that “President Clinton should remember always that more than half the country wanted someone else…”
Baud
@D58826: I eagerly await the day when independents allowed to vote in the Dem primary give the nomination to the centrist candidate who will take on all those liberal special interest groups.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Meh. That would suck, but better than the other way around.
scav
@Lamh36: It wouldn’t exactly be that friendly a message to to the nation’s Cognizant-Americans either (albeit, they’re a step or two down on the probable explicit hit-list).
D58826
@Iowa Old Lady:
What makes that ‘a problem’ today is the internet and social media. In the old newsprint days the local Philly reporter wrote an article on her speech In Phila. and the local Pittsburg reporter wrote one about her speech in Pittsburg. In Philly she praised the IGles to the sky and in Pittsburgh she talked about her love forthe Steel Curtain. And in the Twin Cities it was the purple people eaters. None of the stories ever made it outside of the city where the speech was given. With the internet we can now spend the day talking about the kind of mustard that Obama put on his hot dog in Flyspeck Wisc,
Iowa Old Lady
There have been several Iowa caucus nights when I was out of town for work and couldn’t participate, which I think is a problem. On the plus side, Iowa allows you to change your party registration at the door. I’ve never waited in line more than 15 minutes to get in, and the ones I’ve been to never last more than 2 hours.
I personally would prefer a closed primary, but I can live with a variety of election forms because I think that’s possible they allow candidates with different strengths and advantages to get some purchase somewhere.
The Other Chuck
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Who cares. Clinton could take 90% of the popular vote and the Chuck Fucking Todds of the world would still say the Republicans have the real mandate. I can’t even be made to care what these fuckwits dribble out of their pieholes anymore. God willing, cable news will follow newspapers into irrelevance.
Heliopause
Oh, I kinda doubt they’re laughing, not even nervously.
Pollster
RCP
There’s a Klown Kar party in this cycle all right. It’s the Dems. Think how pathetic they must be to possibly lose to DONALD FUCKING TRUMP. Think how pathetic they are that it’s even remotely close. Helluva candidate you’ve got at the top of the ticket there.
D58826
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They would just have to dust off the news stories from 1992. Bill won with a plurality of the popular vote. I think it happened in 96 as well. I remember seeing somewhere in the past few days that Obama is the first democratic president since FDR to win two terms with an absolute majority of the popular vote. But if Hillary won all 50 states and Trump only got his wives to vote for him the beltway media would spin it as Hillary ecks out a narrow win but no mandate.
Tripod
@Baud:
One of the odder beats of the Sanders campaign is how it’s vested in pre-McGovern ideas of how the nomination process, and party organization, are structured and work.
martian
@D58826: “How dare you attack the wife” is still happening, though. I hear what you’re saying, but if anybody could justify a paycheck for all the work, it would be the candidate, right? And they don’t take (obvious) pay checks because that turns campaigning into a grift. Spouses benefit from marital income, so paying your spouse from donations is hardly a half-step difference from paying yourself. Jane Sanders won’t be earning a check from any other campaign from any other candidate ever, most likely, because this is not her business. This is purely a grace and favour position she’s granted – if it’s actually true that she’s getting paid – by virtue of being married to Bernie. That gets too close to grifting for my tastes.
Oldgold
On MtP she knocked 2 answers out if the park.
Todd: are you concerned about Trump’s attacks on your husband’s 8 years in office?
HC: what part of peace and prosperity are you critical of? followed my a long and accurate recitation of his accomplishments.
Todd: Trump has a theme, make America great again, can you encapsulate yours?
HC: Gave a cogent and persuasive answer earring the phrase together we can. Just excellent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Iowa Old Lady: I don’t know the legality and the ins-and-outs, but my understanding is that parties pay for, and decide the rules for, caucuses, so it seems to me they could do caucus-by-mail or on line that would be a lot more fair, if maybe less fun (I gather there are people who find the current caucus system fun– I can’t imagine).
@Heliopause: yeah, obviously we should have gone with the guy who lost even though no one could actually run against him. Cause Trump and the Republicans would have been just as worried about the tender feelings of college students and aging hippies and treated Bernie! with kid gloves.
scav
What a man. Because as it becomes clearer he’s going to lose to one woman, he switches to a different, lower-ranking one, as though he absolutely has to take at least one official democratic female’s scalp to maintain his rights, dignity and pride.
Chyron HR
@Heliopause:
And yet somehow your favored primary candidate mysteriously failed to capture the hearts and minds of the Democratic party.
D58826
@martian: As long as when she gives an interview and is identified as a campaign adviser and talks policy/campaign issues (paid or not) she is fair game. If she wants to appear on morning joe and talk about her killer cheese cake recipe, then she is off limits.
starscream
I always knew Trump would get to to at least 46%, I just didn’t think it would be this fast. Republicans really have no principles at all other than fucking us over.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Has any of the national media gone after that Burlington College clusterfuck, or asked St. Bernie about it? The amount of vetting those two have avoided until now is mind blowing. Jane won’t answer questions, and St. Bernard runs away every time he’s asked something other than about being cheated by the rules he can’t seem to understand. No wonder Bernie’s campaign has blown through so much cash with Jane being an advisor to his campaign. She needs to be kept away from cookie jars, and explain what’s in their tax returns. What a couple of grifting frauds.
The Lodger
@Uncle Cosmo: My son spent a week in Prague last summer and it’s not hard to get around the area without knowing any Czech. Plus it’s beautiful.
D58826
@starscream: Paint the GOP elephant on the fire plug outside my house and it would get 46% of the vote. I suspect the same is true of the telephone pole across the way with the donkey tied up to it would get 46% of the democratic vote . The fight is over that 8 % left. Whither they are really independents or swing voters or what ever the pollsters can try and figure out.
amk
Almost all of the babbling bern bots here have said one time or another that they are not voting for Hillary. So, they are either trump trolling ratfuckers or puma 2016 version. So, why engage them?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@D58826: I think the media has only gotten worse since the nineties. The Chuck Todd generation not only hews to a Broderist both-sidesism, they’ve embraced Republican ideas about taxes and the safety net to a degree old school Roosevelt/Kennedy Democrats like Mark Shields and Sam Donaldson (and I say that with deep skepticism about both) never would have
ETA:@starscream: Republicans really have no principles at all other than fucking us over.
It has been darkly amusing to see the genuine confusion as Paul Ryan types slowly realize that cutting Medicare and the capital gains tax rate aren’t really even popular with the people who have been voting for them for the last twenty-plus years.
ThresherK
Latest BernieBro FB “whodat” source I never heard of before: USADailyPolitics.
The pull quote refers to the Democrat Party.
Where do they find these nobodies?
Tim C.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Nope, and they won’t. Media knows it’s over, and Hillary won’t bring it up unless she absolutely has to. Non-obsessive-don’t-read-blogs Bernie supporters need an easy path back and she wants to give it to them. All of the College/Tax Return/NRA/Etc stuff will be saved as a “Nuclear” option if Bernie tries to blow up the party, which I still think is really really unlikely.
Heliopause
Hypothetically, let’s say the trend continues and the poll averages are Trump +5 by convention time. That would present the Dem Supers with an interesting dilemma.
Tripod
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
His campaign is toast, so why bother. It won’t surprise me if the locals turn on them on down the line. Bad form, bad optics.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Tim C.:
I would think the media would enjoy poking around that shit. It blows my mind when I think about if this story was about either Clinton, when the candidate’s spouse’s main campaign promise is free college. Given that Sanders losing campaign’s lack of cash is due to their over reliance on ad buys, and that Jane’s position in Bernie’s past campaigns historically has been receiving commissions for ad buys, it would also trigger some finger pointing speculation among the Berniebots. They’re so far up his ass, it’s scary. Wake the fuck up, Bernie chumps.
ruemara
@Anya: grift. Tad Devine’s consultancy pay was about $900k a quarter; a very tiny media consultancy that has raised everyone’s grift alert sensors has be clearing about $10 mil for ad buys. In short, Mr. No Fatcats, was paying fatcats through the nose. And still is.
Tripod
@Heliopause:
So, hypothetically, if we extended the nomination process out to infinity, Bernie Sanders still won’t be the Democratic Party nominee, so what’s your fucking point?
President Romney had a couple of good runs in the national aggregate. It looked for sure that Obama’s number was up….
Ramping Up
Guess who’s leading the polls now? That’s right–TRUMP.
Trump now +0.5 in RCP average–so much for the Democrat dreams of a Hillary landslide. She’s sinking–and been sinking for a while now.
All this BEFORE the Super PAC money spigots get turned on!
#TOOCLOSE2CALL
Come January 2017, we will control all the levers of the federal government and the vast majority of the states. All ALEC has to do is write the bills and they’ll be signed off on by Trump–and SCOTUS will be rock-ribbed right-wing for the next two generations. We will finally get rid of what’s left of the New Deal and Great Society.
Berliner2
@liberal: Clinton is an excellent retail politician. What do you think she was doing while Bernie was doing his stadium rallies for travelling rock fans?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: J is pretty much the same way with me right now. It took something like 9 months the last time she was this enraged about politics for her to climb down. Here’s hoping you don’t had to wait that long for things to return to a more normal state with your daughter…
:-(
I’m thinking we have a great chance this year. We just need to not get too distracted by this internal party politics stuff and keep our eyes on the big picture.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Heliopause: No, it wouldn’t. Because any super delegate who seriously imagines, polls or no polls, that Bernie Sanders would be the better candidate against Trump, considering his liabilities both personal and political, would have to have so many rocks in his/her head we could hear them rattling in the Rockies. Without a majority of pledged delegates on his side, they are not going to go for Bernie Sanders. And Sanders is not going to get a majority of pledged delegates. Have another cup of coffee and wake up.
Ramping Up
@Berliner2:
Yeah, so excellent she’s now down to Trump.
Hillary is a hilariously weak general election candidate. You fools cleared the bench for her and now she’s sinking your party like a rock.
Heliopause
@Heliopause:
Under such a scenario my best guess is that they would vote HRC anyway. Next most likely is that they look for a “game changer” VP pick to boost her popularity. Third most likely is that they abstain en masse and try to draft somebody like Biden. Least likely is that they switch to Bernie.
PsiFighter37
@Heliopause: a) That won’t happen, because Bernie will have conceded by then (despite his current idiocy), and b) doing something like that would hand the election to Trump. Actually reversing the will of the voters would simply lead to electoral ruin, which is why superdelegates would never overturn the person leading the delegate count.
Frankly, I think the polls are going to be far off the mark. There is zero chance that, with the current demographic breakdown, that Trump should be even close. The only voters he has a shot of increasing the vote share with is white men. He is going to lose every other demographic by far wider margins than Romney did in 2012. Hispanics, Asians, and other minorities are going to join African-Americans in voting 85%+ for Hillary. The gender gap is going to explode in Trump’s face, especially single women.
Given we know this is going to be true – there is zero way Hispanics come close to giving Trump the 27% of their vote that Romney got – I simply don’t see the math adding up, unless there are that many aggrieved white guys in the Rust Belt and the Upper Midwest.
Cat48
I just don’t like Bernie anymore : (. Latino Decisions just did a poll in April and Trump was getting around 18% in CO, FL, and NV. Obama & Hillary are in the high 60’s in all three states.
Also, Norm Ornstein wrote an oped for the nyt & said the polls right now were not accurate and a lot of them are too white. They need more POC, per Ornstein.
Ramping Up
@Cat48:
UNSKEWED POLLS! Lol.
Oldgold
My kids feel the bern. Yada yada about free college. Say what? “You got free college on money I earned during the Clinton Administration.” Ha, the sour look on their faces was worth their mother putting me on a diet of peanut butter sandwiches for a week over that “uncalled for smart-ass remark!”
GOVCHRIS1988
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: On your dime huh? Is she still on your dime? Because I know some parents that would have yanked that dime after that lil stunt she pulled. I don’t give a damn how smart she thinks she is, she did something really stupid there. I had disagreements in 2008 with my parents over Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama but never did I ever bring it to that level. Maybe it was because I knew that either one would be preferable to the Republican candidate. I hate to say this, but my generation has been coddled too much and maybe needs a turn at hard knocks in order to get the poles out of their Goddamn self righteous asses.
ruemara
You know what’s funny. There already was a winning insurgent candidate. Barack Obama. If Bernie Sanders fails to do it, and he has, that’s because he’s a lesser person not because primaries and caucuses are unfair. So, miss me with this bs. Get rid of caucuses, have closed primaries, automatic voter registration and early voting
different-church-lady
What, no taco bowl?
Ramping Up
@PsiFighter37:
The missing white voters theory–look it up.
Bottom line is people are fucking sick of PC and SJWs, and its going to show in the polls
ruemara
@Heliopause: your candidate lost, can’t figure out his key populist issues, acts like a bird is a sign from above, stalked the Pope for a photo-op, berned through $200 mil in donations, thinks the white working class is the end all and be all, discusses people of color like his only experience is Good Times reruns and white guy drum circle parodies. Have a stadium of seats.
magurakurin
@ruemara: vote by mail like Oregon. I want that everywhere.
And when all this is over in November the butcher bill will come for the Sanders. I have seen some articles talking about possible investigations into the college. Something is in those returns but now really isnt the time. Much bigger fish to fry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Always amazes me that everyone from Tom DeLay in the 90s to John McCain under Obama to now He, Trump trot out this line without knowing that they’re right, just constantly misunderstanding who the target of the that international laughter is.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@ruemara:
I think, like a lot of mediocre white guys, he looked at Obama’s successes at not only running two winning campaigns but of governing, and thought “how hard could it be?” Of course he didn’t have the balls to primary Obama himself after calling for it (he “calls for” a lot of shit, btw), and then decided, after Hillary announced, he’d have a better chance against the girl. That’s why his focus has been on the process as being unfair, because he simply can’t wrap his mind around the fact that he’s being beaten fair and square by the candidate that is following Obama’s blueprint, and his shock, anger and frustration is showing. It’s not a good look.
Uncle Cosmo
@The Lodger: I’ve been over most of the immediate area in detail, hit Kutna Hora, Brno & Olomouc (Prague in miniature) by rail, & spent a week with 3 of my friends driving around the CR in a Renault 6-speed manual SW: Cesky Budejovice (home of the real Bud, megaparsecs better than the horse urine that owns the name here), Cesky Krumlov, Tabor, Hluboka, Telc, Karlovy Vary, Melnik, Plzen…about day 5 we whined Not another castle! The only problem was the Czech zero-tolerance DWI law – the designated driver couldn’t enjoy the excellent beer at all.
Tim C.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Oh, I get your point, and I’ve gone from Bernie-sympathetic to the opinion, he’s the worst kind of fraud, the kind that doesn’t understand he’s a fraud in many ways. But he isn’t winning. He’s got exactly two choices: Do a deal to save face and actually get something for his efforts or blow things up. Clinton sees no advantage to bringing that up, the media I don’t pretend to really understand, but it’s not to any candidate’s advantage to bring it up. Trump wants the Ds divided as much as possible, Clinton needs to make peace and it’s Bernie’s mess.
Uncle Cosmo
@Cramping Up bka Ripe2Rot: “The missing white voters fairy tale” (NB: FTFY) doesn’t even “rise” to the level of an hypothesis. Like your whole persona, it’s bullshit.
WaterGirl
@Baud: @satby: Did I miss something? Is Baud joining Elizabelle in Barcelona?
Amir Khalid
@srv:
It must be such pronouncements that keep people from rating Jack Nicklaus as an knowledgeable person about politics.
CarolDuhart2
@Ramping Up: Missing white voters? If they didn’t come out to vote against Obama both times, they don’t exist. What would they think would happen that hasn’t already happened with Obama? She’s running to continue Obama, not radically change things,
One more thing. Voter distribution is important. Getting more voters in Oklahoma to vote for Trump isn’t important.
bemused
@magurakurin:
There could be a catch if the rightwing succeeded in privatizing USPS with their companies running it who then would separate out the mail-in ballots and mess with the votes.
I know, I know, that’s pretty farfetched and a bit paranoid but I wouldn’t put it past them to try.
Surreal American
@Uncle Cosmo:
It’s not even wrong.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Tim C.:
If he makes “blow things up” noises, that might be the time for someone with some pull high up in the Justice Dept. to explain to him and Jane how their choices re the federal investigation into bank fraud boil down to doing things the easy way or the hard way.
ETA: Jane Sanders seems to have gone AWOL from TV. LOL.
El Caganer
@ruemara: I like the President’s idea of making Election Day a holiday, too.
aimai
@Tripod: They thought California was big because it is big, and because the sheer number of delegates would be so imposing if their dreams of late momentum had proved correct. Most people really don’t understand any math, let alone THE math of an election. I think the most fervent Bernie supporters simply discounted the liklihood that Bernie would take some, but not enough, of California’s delegates. They really believed that he would win on the level of all the delegates.Like everyone in California would slap their foreheads and shout “hey! I could vote for BERNIE!” and he would win 100 percent of the primary vote and get 100 percent of the delegates. I don’t mean that anyone thought that exactly, but that people are so fuzzy about this election and the delegate selection process that I think they felt that.
Keith P.
It sounds like Donald cribbed Pedro’s speech from Napolean Dynamite, where he promises your wildest dreams will come true if he’s elected.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ramping Up:
Sigh. I know I shouldn’t engage, I know that, but….
Would you please explain, very clearly and precisely, exactly why you want to get rid of ND and GS programs?
Clear.
Precise.
Specific.
Ramping Up
@CarolDuhart2:
The missing white voters aren’t in Oklahoma–southern white voters turned out in 2008 and 2012. It’s white voters in the rustbelt–Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan etc that stayed home.
And not just white men–but married white women. (Single white women vote democrat because they want the taxpayer to play surrogate father for their children–google “Dads vs Cads”, the government allows them to choose the cads without consequence).
Cacti
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
The Nevada Democratic delegation has already fired a warning shot across the bow of the SS Bernie.
They just elected Harry Reid to lead them at the national convention in Philadelphia, after the BernieBro riot in Vegas.
WaterGirl
@MattF: In case no one else has responded yet, that was pretty funny.
Jack the Second
I had a dream the other day that Trump’s persona is actually a stage persona, a la Colbert, and he is in fact a liberal plant.
At the RNC instead of an acceptance speech, he’ll have a declination speech where he calls out everyone for supporting such a blatantly racist, sexist, no-nothing persona, explain that while he actually isn’t as horrible as he appears on TV, they all are, tell them he doesn’t give a fuck which amoral asshole they pick to replace him, drops the mike, and walks away, leaving the convention in the chaos we all hoped for when it looked like it might still be contested.
gwangung
@D58826:
Wouldn’t those grassroots people be A LOT more useful to elect progressive politicians NOW?
I mean…what happened in Wisconsin, anyway?
Ramping Up
@SiubhanDuinne:
They’re (1) fiscally unsustainable and (2) sap self-reliance and promote dependency. They also break up two parent households because now Dad is replaced by Daddy Government (aka the taxpayer, google “dads vs cads”).
Schlemazel Khan
@D58826:
Very well said & too true. I am not sure how we get to a clearer view of reality for more people, Democrats ans those other idiots
Ramping Up
New Deal style liberalism also saps innovation–look at what Austin did to Uber.
Democrats are running on 1930s and 1960s policies in a 21st Century globalized world.
FDR, as PJ O’Rourke once said, deserves “the wheelchair ramp to hell”.
LBJ? He’s a perfect illustration of how government promotes dependency. He said his goal was to “keep those n*ggers voting Democrat for the next 200 years”.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
That is a venue for talking heads; for the knowledgeable, not so much.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
See his feed if you want the charts and numbers and such like pointy-head stuff
grrljock
@Baud: Adding to Barcelona suggestions, based on my experience being there late 2014, any decent place close to the Metro will be fine. The Metro is convenient and offers great weekly/monthly passes. In terms of sightseeing, get advance online tickets whenever possible, especially for La Sagrada Familia and Parc Güell. The Barri Gòtic is a great place to explore and get lost in. La Rambla is very touristy, but worth going yo just to explore side streets off it.
Cacti
Why does anyone bother speaking to the latest iteration of “unlimited corporate cash”?
Tim C.
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: According to TPM and Bloomberg, he’s also making back-channel noises to people that he is in fact going to go for a soft landing once all the primaries are done. TPM also had some good reminders of just how crazy things got in May 2008 between Clinton and Obama.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-05-20/sanders-defiant-on-the-stump-quietly-reassures-democrats-on-unity
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/eight-years-ago
Schlemazel Khan
@Frankensteinbeck:
I expect that one troll will be here regularly reminding us that Drumpf has unlimited access to the cash from corporations and malfunctioning brinks trucks. My fear is that the others may just be quiet & still not get that the President is just 1/4 of a 4 part triptych and those other 2 branches, particularly the bifurcated one, are at least as critical.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Cacti:
That’s awesome. The convention will also proceed with Barney Frank as the rules committee chair, who will make sure that nothing like Nevada will happen on the floor there. Barney was my Congressman for many years and I’ve been to his town halls, where he was regularly dealing with LaRouchies. He takes no shit from anyone and has St. Bernard’s number, and has for 25 years.
aimai
@Heliopause: I really don’t get this kind of crappy thinking. I see it all the time from Bernie Sanders people. The measure of your candidate, or the fight, is not how easy it is for her to “put away” the competition. The measure of your candidate is how hard she fights a hard battle to put away a strong competitor. Trump is a strong competitor. No one but Bernie’s idiots thinks that Trump doesn’t have a good shot–not just because he’s a strong competitor but because his voters are absolute shit heads and he perfectly represents their interests. If Hillary wins–whether by a squeaker or by a million miles–it says nothing at all about her as a candidate and everything about this shitty country and how stupid and racist a large minority of this country is. Against American White Resentment and Racism the god’s themselves contend in vain.
CarolDuhart2
You do know that those programs are now a safety net for the working poor?
BTW, those folks (if they even exist) didn’t come out against Obama. If Ronmey,, who would at least be committed to some of the policies they favor, couldn’t get them to come off the couch, would Trump?: Wild-card Trump who’s already all over the place
isn’t also interesting is the assumption that these missing white voters are Republican? Aren’t there any hidden Democrats or apoliticals in that group? Maybe there’s a few socialists or even Nazis there, for whom there really is nobody to vote for at all.
Ramping Up
@Schlemazel Khan:
SCOTUS will be reliably Republican for generations to come, and Congress is “in the bag” for the GOP already. Especially the House.
IN. THE. BAG!
And that’s not even counting state governments.
The GOP this year is the master of all it surveys…
Betty Cracker
@FlipYrWhig:
That’s an interesting take. I’m for getting money out of politics because it gives the rich a louder voice than the rest of us, which undermines democracy IMO, but you’re absolutely correct to point out that the elites and business interests aren’t always on the wrong side of issues and that the little guy isn’t always pure — far from it.
Ruckus
@magurakurin:
You are too kind.
Marc McKenzie
@liberal: And you’re a fucking idiot.
Cat48
@Cacti:
Bernie has his staff on TV everyday to ensure viewers there was no violence in Las Vegas. They don’t want anyone bringing up the threatening texts & phone calls. They want an apology from DWS bc she mentioned violence & the calls. Good Luck!
Tim C.
@CarolDuhart2: This is what I call the GOP “Eating your own poop” threshold. Even with the GOP at it’s maximal height in 2005, they couldn’t do it. John Roberts saved them in 2012 with his ACA decision. The smart ones on the other side understand the way to win is a slow steady change toward poverty. Throwing millions of sick and elderly under the bus all at once is still a bad idea.
Cacti
@Cat48:
No luck necessary.
The subtext in the NV delegation’s choice of Reid is: “That’s a nice committee assignment you’ve got there, Bern. Be a shame if something happened to it.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Betty Cracker: I would never want to minimize the influence of money in politics (ALEC is a good example that’s probably off the broader public’s radar, and I can only assume that the widely despised (including by Obama) DWS is in her job because of fund-raising), but from guns to abortion to gay rights to budget brinksmanship to infrastructure spending to immigration, there are lots of issues where Bernie!’s Boogeymen are not the problem. It was a hedge fund manager and his cronies (Singer?) who were largely credited with getting same-sex marriage pass in NY state, and “Wall Street” and solid Republican majorities couldn’t get Dumbya’s social security scheme passed in 2005 and ’06
Schlemazel Khan
@Amir Khalid:
Come on now! Who could have a clearer picture of the voting public & political theory than a 90 year old millionaire golf course designer?
Elie
BTW, I am very late to the thread but attended the 42nd District Democratic Convention in WA state yesterday. Very impressive! The Bernie folks were relatively well behaved with only a little shouting but no personal intimidation. One asshole held up a large poster board in front as Susan DelBene, Congresswoman from our district spoke. She is a super delegate and HIllary supporter. No one booed his childish theatric but it was duly noted. Darcy Burner who represented Bernie gave a nice rambling speech that DID end by emphasizing how important it was to come together at the end to defeat Trump, so that was good. According to our lead, the Hillary and Bernie folks have been meeting and talking regularly, so I am glad for that…
I was very impressed with our Clinton leadership team who took care of things and kept us focused and coached (“always be polite to all Bernie Supporters” — turn the other check.. If things seem to be escalating, text one of us) We all had each others text numbers and Olivia checked in frequently, was there for all activities of the entire group and led us during the national convention delegate selection process. We were pampered with a nice breakfast of coffee and various goodies, snacks and given a nice lunch during our deliberations. We were given signs, pens, anything that we needed. VERY impressive… No one taking anything for granted. I feel great! Invigorated! Though I was not selected for the national delegate, I was truly impressed with the people in our caucus for Hillary… Smart, diverse, accomplished and caring folks from our Congressional District. I would be proud to be represented by any of them…. We had engineers from Boeing, Indian businessman (who won national delegate), a woman whose mom was pregnant with her and was at Tianamen Square during the Chinese rebellion, an LGBT businesswoman from a very conservative town (Lynden where Trump spoke recently), nurses, doctors, Hi tech industry wonks — amazing DIVERSITY — black, white, philipino, Asians, LGBT, males, females —
The State convention is next… want to go to see these people again but its expensive and all about the platform for 3 days. Not sure I can groove with that for 3 days but might go for 1 or 2. All in all however it was great!
Schlemazel Khan
@Marc McKenzie:
Liberal appears to be a compatriot of ramping 2 unlimited corporate brinks trucks and deserves the same same respect and consideration.
tazj
Another dose of reality via Eric Boehlert’s twitter feed:
YouGovUS/CBSNews Poll for Ohio
Clinton 44%
Trump 39%
Benchmark politics has taken Ohio out of neutral territory on their electoral map. Yes. it’s still very early.
There was a Back to the Future marathon on VH1 this weekend, I can’t be the only one who sees the character of Biff and immediately thinks of Donald Trump.
CarolDuhart2
One theory I’ve had and heard for years: one of the big levers for Civil Rights change was the fact that business was now becoming national and international. Bill’s Grocery could be intimidated by local yahoos: Bill’s Supermarket Chain in several states and around the world could not be intimidated so quickly.
martian
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I remember McCain polling strong around this time and the massive flaming freak out from Obama supporters about how Hillary needed to drop out and clear the way before she selfishly threw the election to the Republicans. I volunteered for Obama and making contact with live, on the street voters was a tonic for me and the antidote to the Internet brain fever the end of that primary season brought on. Hillary bore the mark of the Beast if you were an Obot then, but people at large seemed very happy with both their choices and spoke almost fondly to me of Hillary as they happily took my Obama campaign lit. It was lovely. The Internet and social media are such shit funnels.
ThresherK
@Schlemazel Khan: He’s only (sic) in his mid-70s. The piece I saw on CBS alluded to how the USA is basically saturated with golf couses (my phrasing), and his design firm is building much more in places that have enough kleptocrats to add the need for trophy courses with his name on them (my phrasing).
Think of how Qatar got the World Cup, and the vibe about where golf is growing is sorta something like that. My take is that it’s much less about the Man in the Grey Flannel Suit in the US 60 years ago, and the Japanese salarymen from the 80s.
Miss Bianca
@Elie: yay, sounds like a great experience! Thanks for the report!
ETA: btw, our CO state library jobline was listing a library position opening in Whatcom County…what’s it like up there?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup, and I think Twitter is the bubonic plague, or Stephen King’s SuperFlu, to regular old Internet brain fever.
Ruckus
@Chyron HR:
And yet somehow your favored primary candidate mysteriously failed to capture the hearts and minds of the Democratic party.
Really, wasn’t that a complaint that everyone isn’t exactly like me me me me me and what is wrong with them?
Cat48
@Elie:
That sounds great. I’m glad everything went normally. After Las Vegas, hard to know what to expect.
Ruckus
@starscream:
Was ever thus.
Go back and listen to Buckley or Joe McCarthy or Nixon or………… They don’t talk in policies that help, if they talk at all in policies, it’s in those that restricts/harms others. They are not inclusive, they are exclusive.
joel hanes
@PsiFighter37:
Every single day, someone should be out there [attacking Trump]
fearless prediction :
This will happen after the Dem nomination is officially determined, and will not really hit stride until after the convention.
Every week that the Dems hold their fire, more weak Republicans line up behind The Donald. This is to the Dems advantage: once the artillery barrage commences, it’ll tend to take those idiots down along with the primary target.
In other words, hitting hard and when the time is ripe may tend to help the Democratic effort down-ballot, and may allow the Rs to further deepen the fractures that currently divide their party.
OldDave
@tazj:
There may be a reason for that.
aimai
@Elie: Thanks for a fascinating report!
Amir Khalid
@martian:
Hillary’s own take (h/t: TPM) is that Bernie has every right to end his campaign however he chooses. She would obviously prefer he end it sooner rather than later, but she chose not to say that.
aimai
@CarolDuhart2: What? Nazis don’t have someone to vote for? The American Nazis are expllcitly supporting Trump. They are ecstatic with him.
tazj
@OldDave: That’s funny. I really didn’t know that.
Elie
@Miss Bianca:
It is physically beautiful with a lot of mellow, pretty sophisticated people on one hand, but small town qualities on the other… Its a college town (western wa u)…. good cinema and arts community — lots of readers! :-)
Barbara
@Baud: I stayed at the hotel Duquesa (Duchess) and it was not especially cheap but it had a rooftop pool which made it special.
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
Hey, Racism Up:
The first time you tried to spew poll numbers, back when Jeb! was your love object, you were not just wrong, but fucking wrong. You either couldn’t read the polling figures from RCP which you quoted, or were lying, or both. I’m figuring both.
Whyn’t you go hang with your soulmates at Stormfront? I’m sure they’ll believe your bullshit.
Ramping Up
@SFAW:
Go to RCP. Trump is up in the latest ABC poll, and within the margin of error in the NBC/WSJ poll.
RCP average is now Trump +0.5. Go see for yourself.
Getting nervous yet about PRESIDENT TRUMP?
Hillary sucks as a candidate, and not even Bill can save you now–he’s just an aging, weak, cardiac cripple.
SFAW
@Schlemazel Khan:
“liberal” has his own style, and to my mind [sic], more of an asshole than Racism Up. And of course, not as invested in shilling for
Jeb?RubioCruzTrumpf.Barbara
@Randy P: Two other less well traveled places are the museum of the city and the maritime museum. These were both really interesting and fun for kids as well if you have those in tow.
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
Fuck off, racist moron.
You are innumerate and a liar, so why would I bother going to a Rasmussen-lite aggregator?
Now, why don’t you toddle off and give a Gruss to your Freunde.
D58826
@Betty Cracker: There is always going to be money in politics. Somebody has to pay the folks who run the party/elections on a day to day basis. Now Citizens united should be reversed and there has to be a better way to fund the elections but money will always be there. Even community organized Obama admitted \that as an office holder he spent more time with the elites and money folks than he did with the regular folks.
satby
@Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class: yep, that’s pretty much what my son did too. And was unable to even discuss anything rationally, with Hillary’s corruption figuring prominently in his rant.
Thanks Bernie. He’s like the Fox news of the millennials.
smith
@Miss Bianca: I visit Bellingham fairly often (my son lives there) and I second everything Elie says about it. Seems to be a really nice place to live, and reasonably close to both Seattle and Vancouver when you want some urban excitement.
Ramping Up
@SFAW:
ABC and WSJ polls are Rasmussen now? Lol.
All you can do is shriek “RACIST!” It is your entire general election strategy and its going to go down in flames. People are tired of PC, SJWs, and obese third wave feminists with lesbo haircuts.
Barbara
@cmorenc: Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and in a really fabulous year, Arizona and North Carolina, and in a blow the doors off the house year, Georgia. All with a signifcant and increasing Latino vote.
Ramping Up
@Barbara:
Look at the delusions. You think you’ll win North Carolina, meanwhile, Trump is quietly taking Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin out of the blue column.
Your side went way too far on the culture wars and now you’re feeling the backlash coming. This will be the anti-PC, anti-SJW “redpill” election. Trump is the perfect foil for your PC bullshit.
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
Fuck off, racist moron.
WSJ is a Rupert op, so who cares.
And, no, I don’t bother calling Trump a racist — that’s reserved for you. Which you have proved to be true.
So, in closing: fuck off, racist moron.
Ramping Up
@SFAW:
NBC and ABC news are both right wing plants. Suuuuuure. Whatever helps you sleep at night, sweetie.
Traditional America is striking back this year against those who hate it.
D58826
I made this suggestion earlier today upthread and only got one response and that was a positive one. Since then I have been thinking about it so would like to put it out there again with a bit more detail. Maybe the Bernie’s bros were sleeping in.
Bernie has said over and over that he is leading a grassroots revolution that will move the democratic party and hopefully the political landscape in Washington. One of the grassroots tools he will use are million person marches on Washington to scare any recalcitrant, usually GOOPER, politician into acting on Bernie’s agenda.
So here was my idea. Bernie and his supporters lead a million person march to force the GOP to confirm Judge Garland. Over 70% of the public wants the Senate to hold hearings and a vote. Even a small majority of the GOP wants that.
I even have a suggested date there is a 3day holiday weekend coming up in July. What better way to fire the first shot of the Bernie revolution than the 4th of July weekend. If that is to short a time frame than how about July 14th – Basille day. Can’t get more revolutionary than that and it honors our oldest ally France. If the logistics prevent a million person march in D.C. then split it 4 ways – 250k in DC, 250k in front of Turtles office in Kentucky, 250k in front of Grassley’s office in Iowa, and 250k in front of Paul Ryan’s office in Wisc. I realize that the House has no part in the SCOTUS confirmation process but its just a little head up that your next Paul.
This seems like it has all upsides and no downsides. I suspect more than a few Hillbots would march. It will demonstrate that the progressive grass roots can organize big and have an mediate impact on policy in Washington. If it forces the GOP to vote to confirm and and the vote is successful, before a single vote is cast in November, the legal landscape will have tilted in a liberal/progressive direction. It will also send a message to the GOP and Hillary, assuming that she hasn’t already heard it, that there is a new kid in town and he won’t sit quietly in the corner.
So all in all a winning situation for Bernie, the progressives, and the democrats.
How about it Bernie? Even if you aren’t the nominee you can go down in history as the democratic socialist who got Garland confirmed. Liberal and progressives will remember that ever 1st Monday in October.
SenyorDave
@srv: Do you mean this Jack Niclaus?
In early July, while touring one of his courses near Vancouver, British Columbia, Nicklaus was asked by a Vancouver Province reporter about the paucity of blacks in golf. Nicklaus responded by saying “blacks have different muscles that react in different ways.”He also said he didn’t “buy” that he and other players could have taken stronger action in helping end discrimination in golf.
So he’s got the white mail country club vote. Big shock there.
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
If that were true, “Traditional America” would have already beaten the crap out of you.
Oh, you think you love America, because you’re a shill/whore for Rethugs? Guess again, anti-American racist moron — supporting those treasonous bastards is not in the same plane of reality as loving America.
Ramping Up
@SFAW:
You hate the historic, traditional majority in America so much you’re trying to import new voters to disposses them.
SFAW
@SenyorDave:
And Chuck Murray
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
Fuck off, lying racist moron.
Your racism is palpable, even if you don’t write “nigger” in here. But I eagerly await your “states’ rights” commentary.
D58826
@SenyorDave: Oh FSM. basketball hoops are a lot easier to find in the inner city than golf courses (even miniature golf courses). Tiger Wood had the advantage, that since his Dad was retired military, he could use the nearby base course. His nickname Tiger was in honor of a Vietnamese soldier that his dad served with and was a friend of.
Ramping Up
@SFAW:
Prove I’m racist, where’s your evidence?
bemused
@Elie:
Very impressive group of people in the delegate selection you described at the convention. I shudder to think of the makeup of Republicans striving to be delegates.
Elie
@bemused:
Yes… what would be the most creepy is that many if not most would superficially appear normal. They might even have some diversity… Its a mental attitude and view of the world that is primal and black and white. You are for me or against me…
Origuy
One thing I remember about Barcelona is the people coming out of the cathedral on Sunday and dancing the Sardana, the Catalan national dance. There was a band set up and people did a simple circle dance while Catalan flags waved. They weren’t doing it for tourists; it’s what they’ve always done. Except when Franco suppressed Catalan language and culture.
SFAW
@Ramping Up:
It was proved back when you were Right2Rise, for which you got banned.
J R in WV
@D58826:
Pittsburgh had an “h” on the end, if it’s the one in SE PA.
No offense, just sayin’
D58826
@J R in WV: none taken. Just was an honor student at the thunder thumbs school of keypunching.
Surreal American
@SFAW:
It was proved 4 years ago when the same troll was shilling for Romney: Called Obama a Mulatto Wonder.
martian
@D58826: Bernie is already on record as declaring Garland insufficiently progressive, though, isn’t he? I know he’s said that he would ask Obama to withdraw Garland’s nomination – after clinching the nom or after sweeping to his general election victory, I don’t recall. Bernie doesn’t want Garland confirmed, so, I wouldn’t look for Bernie to lead that fight. But I’m very curious to see where Bernie does go with things since, historically, he has not seen movement building as his role.
@Elie: Thank you so much for the inside view. It’s reassuring to hear that the Clinton team was handling things so professionally, and I hope the relative lack of friction means the primary passions are ebbing. I’m glad it was a good experience for you.
D58826
@martian: And that is a big part of the problem with Bernie. First of all very few people are up to his standards. Second he seems to have a very short time line. Get Garland on the court now. That gives the left a 5-4 split, even if he doesn’t believe in all of Bernie’s pink unicorns. Third waiting till Jan. and hoping for a democratic WH may be dangerous. Better fill the seat now than wait on the unknown. He is playing Turtles game. Fourth whither it is Hillarty or Bernie inthe WH in 2017, with three justices 77 or older it’s almost a certainty that another slot will open up.
And finally and I think most importantly does Bernie think that the GOP will confirm his far more liberal choice than the much more centrist Garland? Bernie seems to push a dream world where the GOP has no vote on what happens. Unless the democrats hit 60 votes in the Senate, any SCOTUS candidate that meets Bernie’s criteria will be deader than last week’s fish when the name arrives on capital hill. Heck he might lose a couple of the democrats from more redish states.
My suggestion was part trolling, part snark and part put up or shut up. Are the Bernie Bros willing to compromise on an issue that would seem like a win for everyone in both the Hillary and Bernie camps. Or would Bernie prefer that President Trump appoint Nino’s son to the court to fill his father’s seat in order to maintain his own purity.
Maybe the Bernie Bros, who have remained silent so far, can explain why they are willing to risk giving that seat to a Trump appointee, since they seem convinced that Hillary can’t win.
Peter
@Betty Cracker: Sanders can write the whole platform himself, as far as I’m concerned, if it’ll just make him go away.
Davis X. Machina
Why yes — this would be in the post-Revolutionary period, so all bets would be off, because everything will have changed. That’s how revolutions work.
D58826
@Davis X. Machina: so all bets would be off
Zaph
Shouldn’t that be TrumpFarce One?
martian
@D58826: I’m on board with put up or shut up so far as Bernie is concerned. After all, he’ll have more time to organize marches as Senator Sanders than he would as President Sanders, so, go for it. I love marches. I even like the puppet people and drum circles. Bernie doesn’t seem to get fussed over Republican obstructionism like holding up Garland’s nomination, though, especially if it suits his aims from the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. What was it that he was imagining pressuring Mitch McConnell for anyway? Just his agenda on the whole? Arguments over the grinding minutia of legislative sausage making aren’t the sort of thing that lend themselves to the grand themes you need for a march, in my opinion.
D58826
@martian: He is playing Turtles game. By demanding that he pre-certify Obama’s choice what is the difference in what Turtle is doing.?
Of course somebody does have to ,make the sausages and hotdogs for the food vendors.
Socraticsilence
@D58826:
Or hell, if he wants a scalp go get one- take out DWS we’d be a better party for it.
D58826
She will be gone from the DNC in Jan. 2017 when her term expires. IT looks like a couple of 6ths graders arguing over who’s daddy is stronger. Its beneath a candidate running for the office of President.
SFAW
@Surreal American:
Missed that one. Doesn’t surprise me, however.
“Traditional (white) American majority” indeed. Not a dog whistle, a freakin’ air horn.