It was 11 months of Dems standing in diners explaining how they could win back these counties with 30,000 people or so, followed by a month of Julián Castro saying the whole process was slanted.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 28, 2019
… Because the Very Serious People are realizing, once again, that giving Iowa its current front-runner importance is actually stupid and counter-productive. But right now, we’re all stuck with it!
Latest from the AP, “Iowa swung fiercely to Trump. Will it swing back in 2020?”
… In 2008, its voters propelled Barack Obama to the White House, as an overwhelmingly white state validated the candidacy of the first black president. A year later, Iowa’s Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage, adding a voice of Midwestern sensibility to a national shift in public sentiment. In 2012, Iowa backed Obama again.
All that change proved too much, too fast, and it came as the Great Recession punished agricultural areas, shook the foundations of rural life and stoked a roiling sense of grievance.
By 2016, Donald Trump easily defeated Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Republicans were in control of the governor’s mansion and state legislature and held all but one U.S. House seat. For the first time since 1980, both U.S. Senate seats were in GOP hands.
What happened? Voters were slow to embrace Obama’s signature health care law. The recession depleted college-educated voters as a share of the rural population, and Republicans successfully painted Democrats’ as the party of coastal elites.
Those forces combined for a swift Republican resurgence and helped create a wide lane for Trump…
TL;DR (to my jaundiced eye): Aging, low-info white voters were easily misled by Repub grifters into choosing the latest ooh, shiny! “populist” because the local agricorp bankrupted their town and abandoned it. Then the Walmart closed, so they have to drive an hour to pick up groceries. And also, their ungrateful kids never come back to visit any more, preferring the Godless sodoms of Des Moines or Chicago.
… But now, as Democrats turn their focus to Iowa’s kickoff caucuses that begin the process of selecting Trump’s challenger, could the state be showing furtive signs of swinging back? Caucus turnout will provide some early measures of Democratic enthusiasm, and of what kind of candidate Iowa’s Democratic voters — who have a good record of picking the Democratic nominee — believe has the best chance against Trump.
If Iowa’s rightward swing has stalled, it could be a foreboding sign for Trump in other upper Midwestern states he carried by much smaller margins and would need to win again…
Iowa’s metropolitan areas, some of the fastest growing in the country over the past two decades, have given birth to a new political front where Democrats saw gains in 2018…There are also signs Iowa Democrats have shaken some of the apathy that helped Trump and hobbled Clinton in Iowa in 2016.
Democratic turnout in 2018 leaped from the previous midterm in 2014 from 57% to 68%, according to the Iowa Secretary of State. Republican turnout, which is typically higher, also rose, but by a smaller margin.
Overall turnout in Iowa, as in more reliably Democratic-voting presidential states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, was down in 2016, due mostly to a downturn in Democratic participation.
“The trend was down, across the board,” said Ann Selzer, who has conducted The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll for more than 25 years. “So it doesn’t take much to create a Democratic victory in these upper Midwestern states.”
“I think the success in the midterms kind of made people on the Democratic side believe that ‘we can do it,’” Selzer said…
Increasing Democratic voter turnout is unabashedly A Good Thing, and I applaud Iowa caucus-goers for their efforts towards this end.
But come 2021 — assuming we survive that long — I’m still in favor of breaking the IA/NH deathgrip on how America’s presidential candidates are chosen.
Baud
Agree completely.
NotMax
Open thread?
Mostly for the cat people – creepy or cute?
OzarkHillbilly
Oh fuck, who cares?
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Set a bunch loose in a senior center and see what happens.
Elizabelle
I hope this is the last year we ever see the Iowa caucuses. Enough already. And no more first in the nation.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
The second law of politicodynamics:
A trend will continue in the same direction until it is used as the basis for a prediction.
:)
Patricia Kayden
geg6
Nothing could improve our nominating process more than not having IA and NH as the first contests. NV and SC are much more representative of our base than the two whitest places in America.
And I sure wish my state’s primary could be moved up a bit in the calendar. Most of the time, it’s all over by late April.
geg6
@Elizabelle:
Yes, I forgot to mention my detestation of caucuses. Totally unrepresentative and should not be allowed. Period. Let alone have the honor of being first in the nation. Such bullshit.
PaulWartenberg
it needs to be a 50-state all-at-once midyear primary, no one state deserves to go before the other 49.
The office of the Presidency does not represent one state or one district, the office represents the whole nation. EVERY voter in both parties should have a say at the same time who should represent their party for that office.
If Iowa goes before Georgia, that’s wrong. If California goes before Mississippi, that’s wrong. If Florida goes before Wyoming, WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING LETTING CRAZY FLORIDA VOTERS GO FIRST. Ahem.
Make it a hard law that no campaigning or fundraising takes place before January 2nd of the election year. Use the months up to May for all candidates to campaign across all 50 states (at least one visit per state). Hold the primary vote the Friday and Saturday before Memorial Day. Make it a rule that no primary can count until a solid majority of registered/available voters have voted (I am SICK of seeing 24 percent turnout for in-party votes on both sides!). Add a None of the Above if you have to, to scare the parties into running sensible candidates (otherwise in a None of the Above plurality win they have to start over and ban all failed candidates from re-running).
This is the way.
The Dangerman
@trollhattan:
From downstairs:
Poly is a great place to go to school and has (or had, at least) a fine track program. I had classes with at least two Olympic Track athletes there (Simon Arkell and Meredith Rainey). The facilities are outstanding (the gym is new since my time; it was good then and just sick now).
ETA: Well, to be clear, neither Simon not Meredith were on the Poly Team; they were there in training for their respective National Orgs.
Tom Levenson
@NotMax: Unnecessary.
Betty Cracker
Florida should be the first in the nation state. Yes, large media market, but it’s a perfect microcosm of America: young, old, diverse, white, coastal, rural — but most of all: insanely fickle. (Plus, I could get in on the grift with a birding-politics combo glamping scheme.)
raven
@The Dangerman: I see they still have the Mt Sac Relay! http://www.mtsacrelays.com/
debbie
No one state, not even California, should have the power to sway the nomination. I like the idea of regional primaries, and I’d like a national primary even better.
Anne Laurie
@Patricia Kayden: Stephens is getting a lot of pushback on twitter even from other Jews, explaining how terrible his arguments are!
My favorite so far:
Suzanne
Yes.
I really struggle with the whole strain of thinking encapsulated by the “[XYZ PLACE] shouldn’t get to tell us here in [ABC PLACE] how to live!” type of statements. Because, as it stands, that is indeed what happens: someone tells someone else how to live.
Redshift
I particularly “liked” this bit:
Apparently the Great Recession punished agricultural areas after Iowa voted for Obama in 2012!
A nice reminder that to be a successful pundit, you don’t even have to come up with a narrative where time only moves forward…
James E Powell
I don’t believe they were misled at all. What was the quote of the year in 2016? “This guy says what I’m thinking!” I’m sure there are many good people in Iowa, but there aren’t nearly enough of them to make the state worth the money in 2020.
The Dangerman
@raven:
Not sure about that relay, but when I was around, there was a fairly prestigious Decathlon meet there. Met Dan and Dave (I forget their last names). And Rafer Johnson (cool, as a UCLA person) and Bruce Jenner (when he was Bruce).
Suzanne
And, if said student studies architecture, they may get recruited by yours truly. We do a lot of recruiting there.
Major Major Major Major
So excited for the voting to finally start…
raven
@The Dangerman: I was part of a “Sports Mangament” school here in Georgia and Rafer Johnson was the keynote at our banquet!
debbie
@Anne Laurie:
What kind of warped thinking must a person have to think crap like that is okay to say out loud?
OzarkHillbilly
OT: Just got off the phone with an old Arkansas caving buddy who recently underwent a triple bypass. I haven’t seen him in a while, and I surely do miss him. Thought about going down for new years, but we don’t do Xmas so NY is when we get together with sons, daughters, and spouses. Kinda nice that he called me. I told him if we don’t start planning a get together I will never finish planning a get together.
I have another caver friend who suffers from SAD and wants to head for NOLA and a visit with my youngest. Maybe we should combine the 2.
raven
@The Dangerman: I think “Relays” is the title of the entire event.
“The Mt. SAC Relays are an annual track and field festival held primarily at Hilmer Lodge Stadium on the Mt. San Antonio College campus in Walnut, California. The Relays are held in mid-April each year [1] since the first edition held on April 24-25, 1959. The meet was started by Mt. San Antonio College track coach Hilmer Lodge, and flourished under his direction until his retirement in 1963.[2] The meet attracts all levels and disciplines of the sport of Track and Field. They claim to have had as many as 9,000 competitors participate in a single year.[3] Because of the stature of the meet, the stadium and most meet literature contains the phrase “Where the world’s best athletes compete”
I remember them from when my old man was the track coach at Cal Hi in Whittier in the early 60’s.
The Dangerman
Why is LSU’s Qb still playing? If he gets hurt, the LSU Coach has some explaining to do.
As it is, there are some OU Defensive Coaches that should be, 1, fired, and, 2, given Uber fare home back to Norman.
Amir Khalid
@NotMax:
This cat person (or should I say cat’s person) finds it neither creepy nor cute. And, indeed, not very interesting either: the product concept is just a feline Aibo.
Villago Delenda Est
The “very serious people” need to be corralled up and put on a one-way rocketship to the Sun.
Ohio Mom
@ Paul W: I certainly don’t like the Iowa-NH juggernaut, and I wouldn’t claim to have any special insight on how to create a fairer primary schedule, but the absolutely last thing I’d want to see is all the primaries on the same day.
Underdogs would have no chance to build up any steam, and the well-funded candidates would have the advantage of being able to afford 50 campaigns at once.
I’m still digesting Kay’s news that the Bloomberg campaign contacted her, in some small town hardly anyone has ever heard of, in the wilds of northwest Ohio, to ask if she wanted to work for her campaign.
I’m learning a lot about our candidates during this protracted process. I don’t think my final choice would be as considered and informed with a greatly shortened primary season.
raven
@raven: Here’s a shot with him!
raven
@The Dangerman: End of the quarter. The Sooners were never going to be able to stick with LSU, Georgia is looking a lot better now.
Villago Delenda Est
@Anne Laurie: Stephens is Jewish? He passes for asshole WASP to me. Like Brooks.
debbie
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yammering all the way!
The Dangerman
@raven:
I recall him being a cool Dude (Bruin, of course!); I don’t recall much about Jenner (he didn’t talk very much as I recall). Dan and Dave were competing so didn’t interact with them much.
lollipopguild
@The Dangerman: Burrow is a once every ten years QB with a very talented supporting cast. Oklahoma won the Big 12 which really was not that tuff of a conference this year.
Anne Laurie
@debbie:
Stephens is gonna keep doubling down as long as his prole readers have the unmitigated gall to keep disagreeing with him!!!
Also, I suspect… It’s hard to come up with new column topics on a regular basis. Many columnists, including ones I respect, have confessed to having one or more ‘go to’ opinions that can be relied upon, when all else fails.
As a mundane example, on this blog, saying something nasty about a certain presidential candidate with the initials BS is *always* good for a high-volume response from commenters, not all of them new trolls! It doesn’t mean there isn’t fresh news about that candidate — or that the front-pager in question doesn’t despise him — but, like that can of chili in the back of the pantry, when all else fails, it’s there.
Cheryl Rofer
This is a test. The site seems to particularly hate my posting as a commenter rather than a front-pager
ETA: First time this has happened
Omnes Omnibus
@PaulWartenberg: Sure, great, if we are burning everything down and starting from scratch.
raven
@The Dangerman: He was very nice, chair of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness at the time.
Anne Laurie
Remember, his defense during the Great Bedbug Conflict was that comparing him to an insect was targeted anti-semitism (even tho the person who posted the first tweet was also Jewish).
Villago Delenda Est
This is totally OT, but was touched on in the last thread.
How do we know that the morans of Trumplandia have fingered the correct whistleblower? The name is supposed to be protected by law, but this would not stop the vile scum of The Washington Examiner from just putting a name out and claiming this is the whistleblower, which Donald’s “war room” (aka the shithole that is Brad Parscale) would then retweet. Endangering someone who may not even be the person in question. The fact that the known attorneys for this guy are concerned is an indication that they indeed have the right person, but given the fluidity of reality that is what minions of Donald swim in who can tell?
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
Just to be clear, it wasn’t to ask if I want to work for his campaign. It was did I (me and all the other people I assume he sent this email to) know people who want to be paid organizers for his campaign. You know this I’m sure, but there are “lists”- they get them all different ways, and the lists are of people who have been involved in the past or are formally connected to the local D Party. He got or bought a list with me on it.
As of this year I took an actual position with the county party – I got elected but only by like 25 people because I just happened to be there the night there was a coup and I was the “establishment” coup-stopper :)
WaterGirl
@raven: hey raven, there were a zillion links in your comment, so it went into moderation. Fixed now.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Do it brah, you may have read my bit about my buddy from my time in Korea who died last week. It turns out his association with the group of us was the high point of his life for the last few years.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I don’t defend the Iowa caucuses. I couldn’t participate most of the time I was there because I worked 90 miles from where I was registered and wasn’t home on caucus night. That given, I have to say 2008 was one of the most memorable nights of my life. I was aware of being part of history.
It’d be interesting to see how one of other possibilities worked out
raven
@WaterGirl: I’m having trouble with the link function but I ain’t no whiner.
Baud
Geaux Myles!
raven
@Baud: Are you of the coon ass persuasion?
WaterGirl
@raven: I know you’re not a whiner, but if you’re having a problem, it’s likely that someone else is too, and a link problem should be totally fixable.
What’s up with the link function? Did it work before but not now? Problem in Visual mode, Text mode, or both? Can you describe what’s happening? or not happening!
WaterGirl
@raven:
I am reading from the bottom up, so I have no idea what that means. :-)
Baud
@raven: ? ? ?
raven
@WaterGirl: I highlight the text, click the link icon, enter the url in the pop up window
raven
@raven: I did it there but no link is evident. Often I just hit edit and paste the raw url in,
https://www.nola.com/
raven
@WaterGirl: Socioeconomic factors appear to influence how Cajuns are likely to view the term: working-class Cajuns tend to regard the word “coonass” as a badge of ethnic pride, whereas middle- and upper-class Cajuns are more likely to regard the term as insulting or degrading, even when used by fellow Cajuns in reference to themselves.[1]:138 (In sociolinguistics, this type of behavior is termed covert prestige.) Despite an effort by Cajun activists to stamp out the term, it can be found on T-shirts, hats, and bumper stickers throughout Acadiana, the 22-parish Cajun homeland in south Louisiana.[1]:138 The term is also used by some of Cajun descent in nearby East Texas and Mississippi.
WaterGirl
@raven: I want to link to the Chicago Bears. I always make sure I have a space or an X or something after what I want to link to, even if the link is the last thing in my comment. So it looks like this before I highlight Chicago Bears to add the link.
Chicago Bears x
joel hanes
I’m an expatriate Iowan.
I’m writing this from my Mom’s house in Iowa.
IMHO, “populism” is handwaving, a just-so story.
IMHO, the 10% swing in Iowa from Obama to Trump was primarily because of the open, stolen Supreme Court seat, and evangelicals voting for the Republican because this was sold to them as their last, best chance to do God’s work by taking down Roe vs Wade. (Iowa Right To Life single issue voters are numerous and burn with religious zeal.)
It is depressing to contemplate that they may get what they voted for.
Kay
That’s the email. I’m not a county chair, so they got the list they’re using somewhere or other. It’s unusual to put a field organizer in every county for a primary. Obama is the only other one I’m aware of who has done it. We only have about 8000 Democrats in this county.
WaterGirl
raven: I want to link to the Chicago Bears. I always make sure I have a space or an X or something after what I want to link to, even if the link is the last thing in my comment. So it looks like this after I highlight Chicago Bears to add the link. Then I would delete the X, but I left it in for context.
Chicago Bears x
Baud
@Kay: Do it! You can be our woman on the inside.
WaterGirl
@raven: First step:
Second step:
After I click the arrow to Apply, I move my cursor out into the white space and tap my trackpad.
Then I would normally remove the X but I left it for context.
Does that help at all? (I guess it’s obvious that I am in visual mode).
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Creepy.
Ohio Mom
Oh god, I heard that “Jews are super achievers” thing my whole life. Even in my youth, before I’d ever heard the word ”chauvinism,” I knew that’s what it was.
The same people also assured me that we would always be in danger from antisemites (a view I once thought wildly exaggerated but am sadly reconsidering).
All in all, part of a very parochial world view. At this point in my life, looking back, I’m reminded of sports team enthusiasts, who can tell you why their beloved team is THE best.
But it’s one thing when it’s your uncle boring you at a family event and another thing to publish such inanity on the editorial pages of the Newspaper of Record.
raven
@WaterGirl: thx, I’m not sure I wasn’t doing it that way but, after years of faculty support, I realize it is almost always operator error.
Kay
I think Bloomberg is a Republican, but I do think Democrats should spend less on ads and more on field organizers, partly because you need a actual on the ground human beings if you actually intend to conduct voter protections efforts. I think these two things can be combined easily.
I would hire one per street in Milwaukee. My God, these people are swimming in cash and an organizer costs about 40k a year. Hire thousands. Train them in election rules and laws along with campaiging. Go forth! Hire an army.
If Michael Bloomberg forces his competitors to hire more local organizers I will thank him.
WaterGirl
@raven: You had more than 7 links so went into moderation again. Not complaining, just explaining. Tweets these days are over the top with links, spending them as if they were water!
WaterGirl
@raven: Try it again, and if it doesn’t work and I’ll go in and look at the code in your comment.
Baud
@Kay: Good point.
Kay
@Baud:
Ha! I make more as a cranky lawyer than as a cranky organizer. Plus, I refuse to reward Republicans for their atrocious behavior by Democrats nominating a moderate Republican. Outrageous. Heads they win, tails we lose.
He may be onto something with this “hiring affordable local human beings” approach though. He is, after all, a bidnessman.
Ruckus
@PaulWartenberg:
I like.
We are supposed to be equal. CA used to vote towards the end and the state with the most people often counted not at all. Land shouldn’t get to vote but then we have 2 senators from every state and some states have far fewer people than Los Angeles county. That isn’t all bad because the people in say WO would have almost no voice whatsoever. But it is one country and people can choose where to live in it. And few of them pick some states. That’s not a fault of the people who choose not to live there, rather it’s that the state isn’t attractive enough for one reason or another for people to desire to move there.
So another thing that needs to change is the number of representatives. That number needs to increase so that the number of people represented is as equal as can be made every census. So the smallest population state would have one and every other rep would have approximately the same. Couldn’t obviously be an exact number but something reasonable close besides 200% more.
raven
@WaterGirl: Well I assure you I didn’t put 7 links in anywhere.
raven
@WaterGirl: Illini
Baud
@Kay:
He’s also spending a ton on ads, so I think he’s just burning money on anything and everything.
Kay
@Baud:
Here’s what I’m wondering. The rest of them are working on getting their delegates – the caucuses for that are in January- so what does Bloomberg do about that? Just skip that whole thing? You COULD- you would be relying on winning some primaries and then delegates would switch to you, but I don’t understand his plan here.
Baud
@Kay: I don’t know. I haven’t paid attention to him since I assumed he’s going nowhere.
WaterGirl
@raven: Of course not! They come that way these days. They were peppered throughout.
You could select the whole thing and hit the eraser, which removes all the formatting, but then none of the links in there would be links anymore. Depends on whether you care about the text or you want it to be clickable.
WaterGirl
@raven: Hey, it worked!
raven
@WaterGirl: Why would you put a link in you didn’t want to be clickable?
raven
OK, kickoff of the “teams who played nobody bowl”!
Kay
@Baud:
It’s weird though. If it were just a Steyer ads + plus babble at debates thing I would think “eccentric billionaire- yawn” but organizers are a commitment. He thinks he’s serious.
WaterGirl
This comment of yours from 55 has all sorts of links that I don’t know if you would care about.
@raven: I’m sure wherever you copied that from cared, but why would you care if someone could click the [1] or “sociolinguistics”, the state of Louisiana, etc. I imagined you were sharing the information with Baud but wouldn’t necessary care if any of those things were clickable from Balloon Juice. Maybe I was wrong.
Ruckus
@Kay:
That’s what I took from your first mention of the email. He thinks he should be president. I don’t but that’s just me. I don’t think, from what I’ve heard, that he was all that great as a mayor. And I doubt seriously that he’d be even a mediocre president. Yes of course probably better than the current squatter but still, not good. And just for the record I’d bet that I’d be a lot better than him. And you don’t want me, I can’t even remember how to tie a tie.
raven
@WaterGirl: That was not a link, I pasted the text in.
Anne Laurie
@Kay: Best I can make of Bloomberg’s plan: He is, before & above all else, a technocrat. Getting the mayoralty in the first place relied on a whole bunch of what scientists call irreproducible events — stuff like the World Series running to seven games that year, so his expensive tv ads gave him exposure his opponent couldn’t afford.
So, having finally decided that the math (for instance, his age) means he could run for president this year or never, Mike’s going with what he understands to work for him: throwing a boatload of money into his campaign, and letting the paid professionals do their best. (Another article I’ve been meaning to link in a post: He’s hiring capaign staff with the promise they’ll be paid, top dollar, through next November, whether or not he’s still in the race by then.)
He’s not good at retail campaigning, and he doesn’t like doing it. So he’s betting some couch change that, once again, a whole bunch of unpredictable events will handicap the other Democratic candidates while his paid staffers buy whatever votes are buyable. And even if he’s not on the ticket in November, the money he spends (again: lottery-ticket money, in his world) will go towards making Donald Trump even more miserable, which would be a net positive, cuz Mike don’t like the Donald and that feeling is reciprocated, but with extra envy of what a *real* billionaire can do.
Way I see it, Bloomberg understand he almost certainly won’t be the next President, but if he can get ‘first American Jewish President(ial candidate)’ added to his obituaries without expending anything of real value to him, why not take a gamble?
J R in WV
@raven:
As a life-long white guy from mostly white W VA I have to say I would have thought “coonass” was right there beside Ni***r as insulting or degrading. I was surprised that Cajun communities might not think that was an insult. Surely just Cajun would work for everyone?
But as a white guy from a mostly white area, I really don’t know a damned thing about those cultures down south… how would I?
JaySinWA
@raven: The stuff you pasted in had a number of links embedded with the text. You can see them if you mouse over them.The eraser would clean those out.
ETA the links were not your links, they were part of the original text.
J R in WV
@Ruckus:
Hell, I know three ways to tie a long tie, though I might have trouble with a bow-tie… Preacher-man showed me the biggest knot, the Windsor knot, just before a good friend’s wedding.
That knot is so big it could make Trump’s acre and a half of tie look OK. A short neck-tie can’t be tied with a Windsor knot.
And not that knowing several knots makes me more qualified to be in leadership — I don’t wear neckties at all, now that I’m
retarded, er, retired!!My Side of Town
I haven’t read the whole thread, in fact, none of it, but while I just got transferred to Yahoo makes me think this site is being attacked by russians, has made me forget what I wanted to say. So fuck you russians, you did your job.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
Last time I wore a tie or a suit was back around 2001, had to go to a funeral for a lady that worked for me in pro sports. Been to 5 funerals since, no one wore a suit to any of them. But this is California.
We had a Cajun onboard the DDG, the language he spoke was unlike anything else I’ve heard anywhere in the world. Nice guy but could be difficult to understand all the different word choices.
Jinchi
There’s something seriously wrong with a mind that equates visiting every county in Iowa with proof that you’ll represent everyone in the country.
Jinchi
Bernie already has him beat on the candidate front. It’s president or nothing for Bloomberg to win that bet.
@Anne Laurie:
Kosh III
We need major restructuring of our electoral system.
Abolish the Electoral College
Make voting mandatory like the Aussies.
Allow candidates to fund raise up to a per person limit ONLY from constituents in the jurisdiction: no NY money sent to AL etc and or public funding.
Regional primaries
Abolish voting in a precinct. Put voting booths downtown, at the airport, bus station, malls wherever.
Vote over the course of a weekend. Friday 1am to Sunday 11pm
and more as needed