Twirling towards freedom: the US election - New York primaries
April 19, 2016 9:00 AM Subscribe

In the endurance test that is the 2016 US presidential election, we finally come to New York State where all of the polling stations are now open. The state consists of not only the city famed for fine dining but also the mainly rural upstate region. There's a lot of delegates here; Ballotpedia has information about the Democratic and Republican allocations. Since last time, Paul said "Nope", GOP leaders said "Meh" followed by "Rules?", Washington Democrats had their own local endurance test, Virgin Islands Republicans had an unpleasant meeting, Bernie visited the Vatican, Hillary visited Staten Island (as did Donald), the Democratic candidates debated, Donald is figuring out West Virginia, Ted appears very conservative, and a grumpy John is aiming for second.

Recent news on voter ID laws, accessibility and suppression from Arizona, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, New York, Oregon and Wisconsin.

Delegate count trackers are available at 538, Associated Press and Bloomberg. PredictWise gives an increasing chance of a Democratic White House win, while Oddschecker shows the odds for Trump as Republican candidate solidifying, though Paddy Power currently thinks there won't be a first round result at their convention.

Meanwhile, POTUS is having good days and bad days.

Election threadopedia: most recent eight
April 11th - It's still only April: the US election drags ever onwards.
April 3rd - After this it's the midterms: April's US election primaries.
March 15th - Election 2016: Rubio and Kasich's last stand.
March 5th - Six candidates, eight days, eleven states: Election 2016 continues.
March 1st - Super Tuesday.
February 18th - Nevada and South Carolina.
February 9th - New Hampshire.
February 1st - Iowa.

Housekeeping. Current MetaTalk threads on the US election are here and here. A comment by Cortex on election thread commenting and one on moderator resources.

Post title inspiration.

posted by Wordshore (999 comments total) 32 users marked this as a favorite

thank you for the top-notch election posts, Wordshore

thank you in advance for keeping us from strangling each other, mods
posted by prize bull octorok at 9:03 AM on April 19, 2016 [29 favorites]

fine dining

Heh.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:04 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Don't know if the quote made it to the official channels but I clicked into C-Span just long enough to hear Mr Trump live espousing that, "WE WILL WIN SO MUCH YOU WILL BE BORED WITH WINNING, YOU'LL ASK ME TO STOP WINNING BUT WE WILL KEEP ON WINNING"

I for one welcome our winning overlords.
posted by sammyo at 9:05 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

(transcription from memory, which is a tad imprecise) but I definitely heard "bored of winning")
posted by sammyo at 9:06 AM on April 19, 2016

People IRL and on Facebook keep asking me who I voted for when they see the sticker. On the one hand I'm glad people are so engaged but like, gauche much?
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:07 AM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

yea that's tacky AF.
posted by zutalors! at 9:08 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Come on, showbiz_liz, how can we know which ones of us should be yelling at you for being wrong if you won't tell us which bad choice you made?
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:09 AM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

Given that the Virgin Islands fracas took place in a shooting range, I'm a little surprised there weren't any deaths. I supposed it's a relief that while emotional, the people involved are still kind of sane.
posted by happyroach at 9:13 AM on April 19, 2016

Looking forward to getting to the polls.
posted by one weird trick at 9:15 AM on April 19, 2016

Our rightful queen, Ms Samantha Bee, explores Kasich's campaign efforts in NY. God, that last line just nailed it.
posted by Ber at 9:20 AM on April 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

People IRL and on Facebook keep asking me who I voted for when they see the sticker. On the one hand I'm glad people are so engaged but like, gauche much?

The answer is always "America!"

I heard two New Yorkers mention bake sales at the polling stations: Is this a thing or were these two just unique?
posted by Atreides at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Decently long lines at my polling place in Brooklyn this morning. Was very surprised (and a little heartened) to see the polling place supervisor gently but firmly requesting that the poll workers distribute ballots a bit faster to get people in and out sooner (its not like it took anyone any time to fill out the ballot once they got one).

Got a good chuckle out of seeing Ben Carson's name on the sample ballot taped to the wall.

A final note - in the delegate election the instructions said to pick 7 delegates and there were only 6 names listed for delegates pledged to support sanders. is this some sort of weak ground game situation or am i missing something here?
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:21 AM on April 19, 2016

Vote Kenobi. He's our only hope.
posted by entropicamericana at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

The longer it takes prior to the national election for president, the more money it costs for naming delegates, and the longer it takes, the more money it takes, and the more money it takes, the more wealthy interests control the outcome
posted by Postroad at 9:22 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've often seen bake sales at elections, but there wasn't one today.
posted by zutalors! at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: while emotional, the people involved are still kind of sane.
posted by Gelatin at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Our rightful queen, Ms Samantha Bee, explores Kasich's campaign efforts in NY

"Goy-splaining." I love that.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, our local polling place (elementary school) pretty much always has a PTA bake sale attached on voting days.
posted by Etrigan at 9:25 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: Bakesales for Democracy.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:26 AM on April 19, 2016

Here we go again!
posted by agregoli at 9:27 AM on April 19, 2016

I would have bought the shit out of some banana bread this morning. No bake sale at my polling place, though. At least not at 6:45am.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:27 AM on April 19, 2016

People IRL and on Facebook keep asking me who I voted for when they see the sticker. On the one hand I'm glad people are so engaged but like, gauche much?

I'm a Tammany Democrat. We have to report who we voted for to get our free whiskey. Or whiskeys, depending on how often we voted.
posted by maxsparber at 9:27 AM on April 19, 2016 [41 favorites]

Autoplay video (FB) of someone who had to speak with a judge to get the right to vote.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Maybe if we raise a few trillion dollars through bake sales we can wipe out the national debt. One muffin at a time.
posted by AugustWest at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

At my location, where I've voted for five years, the first person wouldn't let me in because she said I had to go to some school a ways away. I insisted I always vote there, showed them my phone that listed my address and that address as the location. but they wouldn't let me in. I started to get upset, because I knew this was my place and the school, wherever it is, would just turn me away. Then the supervisor came over and showed the first worker that she wasn't lining up the address and district lines right. and they let me in. The supervisor asked the worker to be more careful, but gently.

I don't think it was anyone's "fault," just some confusion, but there wasn't a line at the time and it was just needlessly stupid. I hated having to make a fuss but if I didn't I wouldn't have been able to vote anywhere, because that school would have just sent me back to the original location.
posted by zutalors! at 9:28 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Meanwhile, Montana GOP trends towards apocalypse.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

In all my years of voting, I've never seen a bake sale, but if someone were having one near our polling place, I'd totally buy a doughnut for democracy!
posted by Sophie1 at 9:29 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

People IRL and on Facebook keep asking me who I voted for when they see the sticker. On the one hand I'm glad people are so engaged but like, gauche much?

Relevant Chappelle (nsfw)
posted by Vic Morrow's Personal Vietnam at 9:32 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I wish my polling place had a bake sale! Or stickers. Or less scary security people.
posted by pemberkins at 9:34 AM on April 19, 2016

Thinking about Montana and Republicans makes my head explode for some reason.

Great links, thank you!
posted by Melismata at 9:34 AM on April 19, 2016

Here in Indiana, early voting has started for the May 3 primary.
posted by Gelatin at 9:35 AM on April 19, 2016

No bake sale at my polling place, though. At least not at 6:45am.

I remember bake sales when going with my parents to the polls as a kid, but none in Baltimore or Philly.

I will bring a dozen doughnuts to eat in line next week. I am my own bake sale.

and obesity epidemic
posted by Anonymous at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2016

When asked, I always say I voted for Cthulhu because I don't believe in voting for the lesser evil.
posted by sotonohito at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

De Blasio Demands Explanation, as Decline in Registered Brooklyn Democrats Doubles
posted by Drinky Die at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2016

I don't think it was anyone's "fault," just some confusion, but there wasn't a line at the time and it was just needlessly stupid.

New York has always had shitty election procedures -- it's just never mattered that much, being late in the process and reliably Democratic.
posted by Etrigan at 9:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's always mattered to me, I vote in all the elections. Even the NY ones.
posted by zutalors! at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I mean, I'll blab about who I voted for all day if I feel like it. It isn't exactly a secret I voted for Sanders back in the Texas primaries.

But asking seems really rude and in your face, so I always have a smartass answer for that.
posted by sotonohito at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2016

33 Things I Hate About This Election, In No Particular Order
posted by dw at 9:40 AM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

I feel like there are two types of election problems - sloppiness/underfunding (like we're seeing in NY), and explicitly designed to suppress the vote (as in AZ).

I would hope voter displeasure results in some improvements in the first kind. I would hope legal action results in some improvements in the second kind.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:42 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

i had no idea it was a cowboy

whoops, wrong thread

whoops, actually, this election is a goddam cowboy, never mind
posted by pyramid termite at 9:43 AM on April 19, 2016 [19 favorites]

The mad king of New York: Why the Empire State lies at the heart of Donald Trump’s sinister appeal
posted by T.D. Strange at 9:44 AM on April 19, 2016

I just can't support forcing citizens to build a giant ray gun aimed at a planet I've never heard of. That's why Kodos got my vote.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:44 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I just can't support forcing citizens to build a giant ray gun aimed at a planet I've never heard of.

Low-information voters are the worst.
posted by Etrigan at 9:47 AM on April 19, 2016 [28 favorites]

My hardcore Bernie friends on FB are all freaking out about that voter roll purge.
posted by briank at 9:49 AM on April 19, 2016

Millions of New Yorkers Disenfranchised from Primaries Thanks to State's Restrictive Voting Laws [Democracy Now]

Maybe the most damning bit here:

This comes as a group of New Yorkers who saw their party affiliations mysteriously switched filed a lawsuit seeking to open the state’s closed primary so that they can cast a ballot.
posted by ryanshepard at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Searching for pictures of baking sales at polling stations led to this nice collection of varied polling stations during the 2014 midterms.
posted by Wordshore at 9:52 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Searching for pictures of baking sales at polling stations led to this nice collection of varied polling stations during the 2014 midterms.

Fun :)

Thanks for posting this, and for creating this FPP, Wordshore.
posted by zarq at 9:53 AM on April 19, 2016

And meanwhile they're jumping up and down about the lawsuit to open the primary. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRIMARY.

Just another reminder that elections have no rules, only people who complain the rules don't help them.
posted by dw at 9:53 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Both voting machines down in Brooklyn ny
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Election fatigue shouldn't keep you from recognizing the dark side of bernie.
posted by Dashy at 9:57 AM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Press question to Hillary: how many calories is that sundae you are eating?
posted by madamjujujive at 10:01 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Election fatigue shouldn't keep you from recognizing the dark side of bernie.

Hedge fund lawyer who defends hedge funds doesn't like bernie. Mind blown.
posted by Trochanter at 10:02 AM on April 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

And meanwhile they're jumping up and down about the lawsuit to open the primary. IN THE MIDDLE OF THE PRIMARY.

I don't understand what's going on with that. New York's voting rules weren't a secret. If they were concerned why didn't they launch the suit months ago? It's utterly bizarre to wait to the last possible moment to pick this fight.
posted by Sangermaine at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

oopsie, two political threads, I am confused!
posted by madamjujujive at 10:03 AM on April 19, 2016

De Blasio Demands Explanation, as Decline in Registered Brooklyn Democrats Doubles

It's my fault. I left Brooklyn last April for another state.
posted by Automocar at 10:07 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Brownies for Bernie!
posted by Kabanos at 10:08 AM on April 19, 2016

If they were concerned why didn't they launch the suit months ago? It's utterly bizarre to wait to the last possible moment to pick this fight.

Yeah, but electioneering says you don't play your card until your opponent is in the worst possible position to neutralize your card.
posted by dw at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2016

Checking in from Ithaca, the Sanders hotspot in upstate NY. My wife and I just voted, in and out in 5 minutes, a satisfying click and thunk from the Scantron as it ate our ballots. It's an utterly gorgeous spring day and that's democracy in the air...
posted by RedOrGreen at 10:09 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just a bit of (annoying, sexist) noise from the campaign trail: Hillary Clinton Couldn't Care Less About Calories in Her Ice Cream -- candidate stops at a local shop, someone asks her about calories because she's a woman. Would someone ask any of the other male candidates? No, because no talks to guys about calorie counts, unless they're a contestant on a weight-loss show. Maybe.
/Rant
posted by filthy light thief at 10:10 AM on April 19, 2016 [21 favorites]

Press question to Hillary: how many calories is that sundae you are eating?

Wow, I don't think even Chris Christie ever got a question like that and he experienced pretty much every other variety of fat shaming along the way.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:11 AM on April 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

the hot sauce in her bag kerfluffle was also annoying.
posted by zutalors! at 10:11 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wow, I don't think even Chris Christie ever got a question like that and he experienced pretty much every other variety of fat shaming along the way.

Yes, meanwhile Kasich is eating his way through the five boroughs.
posted by zutalors! at 10:12 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yes, meanwhile Kasich is eating his way through the five boroughs.

I can't decide if that will be a great or awful Food Network show.
posted by dw at 10:14 AM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

This comes as a group of New Yorkers who saw their party affiliations mysteriously switched filed a lawsuit

Nobody's party affiliation is mysteriously switched. If you don't reregister, vote, or get involved in the party for several years, they drop you from the rolls.
posted by corb at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

if we can keep him busy eating he won't have time to do any legislating. To the kitchens, NYC!
posted by zutalors! at 10:15 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Drinky Die: Wow, I don't think even Chris Christie ever got a question like that and he experienced pretty much every other variety of fat shaming along the way.

No, because we can now talk of fat-shaming and people understand that's a thing. It's harder to shout back "listen dick, that's a sexist question, because you would only ask that of a woman, so think of something important to ask or shut up."

(Bill's eating, however, was fair game, even before he was in office, but that was 1992)
posted by filthy light thief at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nobody's party affiliation is mysteriously switched. If you don't reregister, vote, or get involved in the party for several years, they drop you from the rolls.

This is not true.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wait, were people actually using the 'hot sauce in the bag' thing against her, instead of as a mark in her favor?
Who are these milk-tongued blandocrats and why hasn't society properly shunned them?
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:17 AM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

Nobody's party affiliation is mysteriously switched. If you don't reregister, vote, or get involved in the party for several years, they drop you from the rolls.

Not the case - I spoke with a friend this AM that has been a registered Democrat in NY for over a decade and has never changed his affiliation. And yet, the state's database of registered voters now lists him as "unaffiliated".

Anecdata, sure, but there is some voter suppression going on here - I'm confident of it.
posted by ryanshepard at 10:20 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Some people saw Sec. Clinton's Hot Sauce thing as pandering to Black voters.
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2016

Hot sauce? Is she Maoist or just revolutionary?
posted by sammyo at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

John Hodgman: Hillary Clinton for President
posted by madamjujujive at 10:21 AM on April 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

I haven't read through the whole thing so I can't vouch for the content but somebody rewrote Hamilton as Jeb! An American Disappointment.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:22 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

How many calories? "Enough to make it taste amazing," is the only proper response.

Trump apparently accuses Clinton of lying about her love of hot sauce, which goes back decades and jesus whothefuckcares, shut up Trump.

Ugh and also had to block another person on FB today, someone who is also in Texas where we have already voted, I no longer care about your pic for Dem candidate, for the love of god stop inserting yourself into any and all politics-related discussions screaming about how the other candidate is worse than Hitler.

Which is only to tell New Yorkers that even though you vote today, it won't end all your suffering.
posted by emjaybee at 10:23 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

but she does keep hot sauce in her bag. swag.
posted by zutalors! at 10:23 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I said many 2016election threads ago that I'll vote for Clinton in the general if my state is close for some reason. Various tactics and framing by her campaign and supporters have led me to seriously question that stance in recent months, but getting the pro-hot-sauce message out there was brilliant in terms of making her more relatable to me.

I wonder where her preferences lay regarding Scoville Heat units.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 10:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Beloozersky, Russia, 2007.
Two women selling drinks and snacks watch votes being cast in a polling station near Moscow. Many polling stations, especially in rural areas, continue the Soviet era tradition of selling cheap alcohol and food to encourage voters to come to the polls. Voters are taking part in regional government elections, which are being held in 14 of Russia's 86 regions.

Australia, 2015.
Cake sale at the Crows Nest Uniting Church polling station, NSW State election 2015.

Melrose, Massachusetts, 2012.
A girl holds a sign for a bake sale outside the elementary school where I voted this morning. She's bundled up because the temperature was only 30 degrees (-1 C).
posted by Wordshore at 10:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

| Election fatigue shouldn't keep you from recognizing the dark side of bernie.

Hedge fund lawyer who defends hedge funds doesn't like bernie. Mind blown.

Oh, hey, what’s the logical fallacy called where you attack the opponent's character for the purpose of deflecting their arguments?
posted by Dashy at 10:24 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Politics?
posted by Drinky Die at 10:25 AM on April 19, 2016 [21 favorites]

Wait, were people actually using the 'hot sauce in the bag' thing against her, instead of as a mark in her favor?

The logic goes something like:
HILLARY: I carry hot sauce in my bag.
SANDERS SUPPORTERS: THAT IS A BEYONCE LINE YOU PANDERER
MEDIA: She said it in 2014.
SUPPORTERS: Well...
MEDIA: And 2012.
SUPPORTERS: Uh...
MEDIA: And here's an interview with Katie Couric in 2008.
SUPPORTERS: WELL SHE WAS STILL PANDERING
MEDIA: Oh, and she had 100 bottles of Tabasco in the White House.
SUPPORTERS: SRSLY WHY ARE YOU NOT LISTENING? SHE IS A PANDERING PANDERER! WHY ARE YOU ALL SHILLS FOR HER?
MEDIA: Did she build a time machine or something?
SUPPORTERS: WE WOULDN'T PUT IT PAST HER AND HER WALL STREET BACKERS!
posted by dw at 10:26 AM on April 19, 2016 [62 favorites]

When she got the calories question she should have pulled the hot sauce out of her purse and put it on her sundae all like IDGAF
posted by resurrexit at 10:26 AM on April 19, 2016 [40 favorites]

I'd like to hope that one of the few silver linings to this interminable purgatory of a primary election season is that maybe it'll force some changes to shorten the damn thing.

The primaries are going to drag on for five bloody months. From February 1 (for the super special states who go first because they're so super special) until finally they'll drag to a close on June 14 (DC because black people have to go last)

And the debates, the ads, the whole mess started long before the first primaries. The first Republican debates took place in AUGUST of 2015. Ten months from the final primary.

And then the actual Presidential race gets going and won't be over until November.

I'm not even running and I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

If things could get just a bit compacted, maybe compress the primaries to just one month. Ideally I'd like to have all fifty states have their primaries on the same day, a couple of weeks before conventions, but that's probably completely impossible. But maybe after the nightmare hellscape of the current primaries the parties could find it in their hearts to at least squeeze a couple of months out of the system for the 2020 primaries?

I know it isn't likely to happen, everything else in the US election system was basically designed to subvert democracy and make the whole experience as awful and miserable as possible, and no one in power seems even slightly inclined to try and fix it. But sometimes I have a fantasy that maybe, possibly, things might get just a little bit better given how horribly painful and awful they are now.
posted by sotonohito at 10:27 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

To the hot sauce truthers: Hillary’s hot sauce long con: If Clinton is pandering with this latest food revelation, it’s the most impressive suck-up ever

So there are a couple of possibilities. One is that Hillary Clinton really does like hot sauce and carries it around with her so she can season her food. The other is that she’s been building an elaborate long con over hot sauce – because she’s been talking about it at least since 2008. A New York Times piece got at Clinton’s love of hot peppers, based on a “60 Minutes” interview:

“I eat a lot of hot peppers,” she told CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who had asked her how she maintains her stamina on the campaign trail. “I for some reason started doing that in 1992, and I swear by it. I think it keeps my metabolism revved up and keeps me healthy.”

Apparently she kept 100 bottles of hot sauce when she was in the White House. In 2012, she told Conde Nast Traveler about bringing red pepper and Tabasco on her trips as Secretary of State. And late last year, she and her staff talked about peppers and farm stands.
posted by madamjujujive at 10:29 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think she needs to chug habanero sauce straight from the bottle at the next debate, can we get a hashtag going
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Atom Eyes, they claimed she was pandering because it was a line from the chorus of "Formation". Clinton's been talking about her love for hot sauce since the early 90s, though. That's a pretty long pandering con.

That's nothing, she also faked liking the Yankees as a child just because she knew she was eventually going to run for Senate in New York! People pretty much assume she lies and panders about everything and is just an empty shell. I have issues with her honesty and integrity, but it seems like for some people they just don't believe in her basic humanity.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2016 [17 favorites]

Clearly Sec. Clinton uses tabasco to add a little zing to her Flavorless Protein Paste.
posted by Cookiebastard at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I feel really bad for Clinton. She has been too dorky by half her whole life and next thing she knows one of her habits is a line in a song by one of the biggest stars in the universe. I know that thrill. I liked Bojack Horseman when it first came out and all the critics were panning it and nobody knew about it, and that experience is so unique that I am humble-bragging about it over a year and a half later in a internet discussion about elections.
posted by Anonymous at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2016

I'd like to hope that one of the few silver linings to this interminable purgatory of a primary election season is that maybe it'll force some changes to shorten the damn thing.

It's not really any worse than it was in 2008 and we haven't changed anything since then. Clinton didn't concede until June 7th of that year after months of it being pretty obvious that she couldn't catch up with Obama's early delegate lead.
posted by octothorpe at 10:31 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I agree the campaign needs to be drastically shortened. But remember that does have knock-on effects. Sanders campaign would never have gotten off the ground without the long lead time between primaries. Obama would have had a much more difficult time as well.
posted by Justinian at 10:32 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Couple comments deleted. Please lay off the "Bernie supporters, they are the worst" thing, as we've been asking people to do for one hundred years now?
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:33 AM on April 19, 2016 [24 favorites]

sotonohito, unfortunately a long campaign season seems to be a direct effect of fixed election dates. In Westminster systems, while an election may be telegraphed, there's usually only ~6 weeks between "oh hey we're having an election" and election day. This is also further simplified by not making an election the same thing as selecting the leader of the party.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 10:33 AM on April 19, 2016

Here's Why the Hillary Clinton Hot Sauce Story Is Problematic for Women
posted by DynamiteToast at 10:34 AM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

I'm actually curious to know what impact Trump's 7/11 gaffe is going to have on his showing in New York City.

Re: Bake sales - I think that's more so the case if the polling place is in an elementary school.

Re: disenfranchisement- don't anybody talk to my friend in the Green Party about the impact of NYC not having open primaries. He's kind of bitter because he never predicted Bernie would have made it this far, and now he's all "dammit, the first time there's been a Democrat I actually would have voted for and I can't".

In closing: I kind of miss the old fashioned machines that had the big-ass lever and you logged your vote by pulling it. It made a really satisfying "kerTHUNK."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Hedge fund lawyer who defends hedge funds doesn't like bernie. Mind blown.

Oh, hey, what’s the logical fallacy called where you attack the opponent's character for the purpose of deflecting their arguments?

I see where you're coming from, however, if there's anything that will earn a near-instantaneous knee-jerk dismissal from me, it's a confessional essay about why some-person-I've-never-heard-of has decided—ever so reluctantly—to finally and definitively go on record as being a [INSERT CANDIDATE'S NAME HERE] supporter.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Obama would have had a much more difficult time as well.

Hillary would almost be over by now :(
posted by resurrexit at 10:36 AM on April 19, 2016

I had no idea there was a song referencing hot sauce in modern pop culture. Interesting lyrics, now that I have read up on it. Thanks for such tangents from the interminable mess of politics!
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 10:37 AM on April 19, 2016

If things could get just a bit compacted, maybe compress the primaries to just one month. Ideally I'd like to have all fifty states have their primaries on the same day, a couple of weeks before conventions, but that's probably completely impossible.

One argument for longer primaries (perhaps not this long) is that it gives candidates with low exposure going in time to prove themselves. Short, fast-moving primary processes tend to privilege candidates with high name recognition or close ties to party machines, PACs or other political force multipliers. I don't think Sanders would have made it as far as he has in terms of getting his message out and becoming a recognized part of the discourse this year (even Obama in 2008 might not have pulled it out) without the elongated primary being A Thing.

(Edit - Justinian beat me to it)

I mean, I get you on a gut level - I regularly get swamped by the same feeling of exhaustion. But then I go to work with a bunch of people who paid attention for a few weeks around the Tennessee primary and then stopped paying attention and won't "wake up" again until sometime in June, and I remember that this is something I'm willingly exposing myself to? Your life situation may differ, I deeply feel for people who work in media, for example, and fucking have to follow every little twist and turn.
posted by AdamCSnider at 10:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I can't really see any mechanism for shortening the primary system as they're all run by the individual states and the state's parties which the national party doesn't really doesn't really have any control over.
posted by octothorpe at 10:40 AM on April 19, 2016

I was in Buffalo on Sunday, and it was a lovely day, and lots of people were out on Elmwood enjoying the lovely Sunday, and there was a nice little Pro-Sanders/Anti-Trump parade which people could join in, "once you finish your coffee".

'Buffalo is Bern-ing', a sign read.

They seemed like a nice bunch.
posted by Capt. Renault at 10:41 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

The national party can refuse to recognize the delegates from any state which does not toe the line.
posted by Justinian at 10:41 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Press question to Hillary: how many calories is that sundae you are eating?

Meanwhile John "How am I going to get my mouth around this?" Pig-in-the-City Kasich has gorged himself in multiple campaign stops in this state and no one asked challenged him on it.
posted by zarq at 10:41 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Rep. Peter King offers a possibly compelling reason why you should consider casting a vote for Cruz
posted by madamjujujive at 10:44 AM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

Oh, hey, what’s the logical fallacy called where you attack the opponent's character for the purpose of deflecting their arguments?

What's the deal where:

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

I'm saying that woman is passing herself off as disinterested and she's not.
posted by Trochanter at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

wouldn't it be heartwarming if Kasich decided to drop out of the race and open a deli in the Bronx and forget about politics and devote his life to pickled vegetables and cured meats
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:45 AM on April 19, 2016 [29 favorites]

Cruz Spokesman: ‘Even The Insufferable John Kasich’ Managed to Win His Own State
posted by DynamiteToast at 10:46 AM on April 19, 2016

Rep. Peter King offers a possibly compelling reason why you should consider casting a vote for Cruz

I think this is worth setting up a shadow convention full of actors where Cruz wins the nomination just for Pete King, whatever the cost.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:49 AM on April 19, 2016

Justinian and AdamCSnider, I see what you're getting at, but I think your analyses are both suffering from status quo bias. If we had a national primary day, every insurgent / aspirational candidate would know from the outset that there's one chance to get it right, so their clock would start earlier, and "momentum" would be built more off of debate performances, direct appeals to voters, etc. and less about how many delegates they have from states that may or may not represent the electorate of the rest of the states they're campaigning in. These campaigns would also be easier to get off the ground because they wouldn't have to go into it knowing they had to sustain a campaign apparatus for so many months.

Maybe Sanders' specific case doesn't happen given his unique bio and reason for entering the race, but I feel like anti-establishment campaigns would actually be easier to get off the ground and sustain.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:49 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I've been pre-catastrophizing all the Republican stuff for so long that now all I can do is bask in curmudgeonly joy as the poop makes its first contact with the fan blades. Stuff like people discovering what John Kasich is really like. (Some MeFites have been saying "No, really, he's horrible." for months. I apologize for not fully appreciating your comments. Good Lord.) Also, the Virgin Islands stuff. Watch the video linked there. Multiply it by 1000 and I think you've got Cleveland.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:53 AM on April 19, 2016

So for a while we were dealing with compaction of the primary season, something the GOP pushed for because they felt getting a candidate quickly was the most beneficial thing. Meanwhile a bunch of states wanted to steal Iowa and New Hampshire's thunder, which drove the primary season kickoff from March through February and eventually into January.

And then came 2008. And 2008 offered something very compelling for the Dems (a long, long narrative that kept people's attention) while the GOP's great narrative ended early enough that McCain was fighting for media attention. Meanwhile, Michigan and Florida tried to cut in front of Iowa and got royally smacked down by both parties.

So, 2016. You have this belief that the long narrative is what you want, so the primaries got spread out more. And, admittedly, it has helped the GOP. The Dems, though, it's been a growing disaster because there's no way to settle this before the June primaries.

My opinion has been that we should either go to a regional primary system with roughly equal delegate blobs that rotate every 4 years, OR we just blow up the electoral college and go to a national primary and runoff like the French have where the parties can come up with their own crazy system for choosing their nominee for the primary. But both of those things are impossible. The former requires states to sit down, shut up, and give up some of their rights to set dates. The latter is a constitutional amendment.
posted by dw at 10:54 AM on April 19, 2016

How Every NYC TV Character Would Vote in the New York State Primary
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:03 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

What? In what world does Matt Murdock vote for Cruz?
posted by Justinian at 11:07 AM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Both voting machines down in Brooklyn ny

New Yorkers know that there is only one true voting machine--vast and mechanical and hideously, needlessly complex; operated by an inscrutable system of levers and gears, much like the political system it supported. Its loss is one of the great shames of our State's recent history. Hell, any three year old could have told you that.
posted by The Bellman at 11:08 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Kchunk-KCHUNK was indeed the sound of democracy in action for our generation. I figured there'd be tons of old machines for sale on ebay, but apparently not.
posted by phooky at 11:13 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

My least favorite derails in these political threads are far and away the 'Match each political candidate to a character from Game of Thrones, etc.', so I'm definitely looking forward to hearing everyone weigh in on each of these fictional New Yorkers' political leanings...
posted by DynamiteToast at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

How Every NYC TV Character Would Vote in the New York State Primary

I was like huh, pretty accurate, until it said Mindy Lahiri would vote for Trump. She's an OB/GYN of color, she's voting Hillary.

Also, I thought the Phoebe/Joey votes were accurate, but no way they would register for the parties or vote in primaries.
posted by zutalors! at 11:16 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'd like to see a "mini-primary" or first round consisting of small states with geographical / demographic diversity, followed maybe 3-4 weeks later by a national primary. So, say, a first-Tuesday-in-May primary held in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, followed by a national primary in the rest of the states on the first Tuesday in June.

That gives lesser-known candidates a fair shot in relatively inexpensive media markets with a strong tradition of retail politicking, and then everyone gets a month to analyze results from a good, relatively representative cross-section of the electorate, make their arguments and fight a nice big national primary.

The later dates do a few things: first, it gives us six more months to have our elected representatives actually doing their jobs (even outside the Garland nomination stupidity this year, it's becoming increasingly the case that Washington is only working in odd years and that is just stupid). And it's also dumb that crucial parts of the election season occur in mid-winter in New Hampshire and Iowa. It's just one more way to get lower participation in the democratic process and capture thereof by special interests, big money and nutjob ideologues, without the political class having to come right out and say that they're trying to pick their own electorate.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:16 AM on April 19, 2016

Not the case - I spoke with a friend this AM that has been a registered Democrat in NY for over a decade and has never changed his affiliation. And yet, the state's database of registered voters now lists him as "unaffiliated".

Those two facts may not be as contradictory as you think.

Let's make it less contentious and something I know a little more about. Let's say your friend registered as a Republican when he turned 18, in a mostly Republican district. He still thinks of himself as a Republican - after all, he's never changed his party affiliation! But at the same time, none of the Republican candidates have really excited him in recent years. They haven't horrified him enough to vote for a Democrat, but they've turned him off enough that he just stays home.

A few years later, the local GOP or the county election board notice that he hasn't voted in the last few elections. They send him a notice, which he picks up, sees it's from the local GOP, and says "Ugh, I don't have time for this." or "They've already got me" and doesn't open it. Which is a shame, because inside is listed the information that he's in danger of being dropped from the GOP rolls, since he hasn't voted or attended party meetings or really, done anything to show he's still with the party.

Since he's in a heavily Republican state, he doesn't bother voting for President. He knows the Republican will take his state, and he doesn't want to take time off work and travel to do it.

Having missed a presidential election - usually a marker of at least weak voter support - they drop his name from the rolls.

Now, this never used to happen twenty or thirty years ago - but that's because 30 years ago, especially with voting machines, it used to be thought of as your civic duty to vote, even if you didn't particularly like the candidates, even if you didn't know much about them, you would walk into the booth and reliably pull the lever, and the local party would see the ticks and say "Ah, there's our boy." But people are less engaged and think voting is less important, so they only vote if they care - and a lot are disengaged.

Now we come to: is this a travesty? Is this, in fact, even a problem?

Our fictional Republican gets excited and wants to vote for his candidate. But here is the question - is the party within its rights to say, "No, boyo. You haven't been here while we've been doing our boring committee meetings, or get out the vote, or dinner parties. Hell, you haven't even cast a ballot in ten years! We don't want you, and we definitely don't want you coming in from nowhere and overriding the votes of people who actually are involved and are real members of the party rather than paper tigers."
posted by corb at 11:19 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm glad to hear it because I'm midway through a nine-paragraph pastebin about how that list fundamentally misunderstands the character of Captain Holt

And Terry! Terry HATES Trump.
posted by mightygodking at 11:20 AM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

Favorited for "Twirling towards freedom".
posted by vibrotronica at 11:25 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

But here is the question - is the party within its rights to say, "No, boyo. You haven't been here while we've been doing our boring committee meetings, or get out the vote, or dinner parties. Hell, you haven't even cast a ballot in ten years! We don't want you, and we definitely don't want you coming in from nowhere and overriding the votes of people who actually are involved and are real members of the party rather than paper tigers."

No, because political parties are not allowed to disenfranchise citizens. It's also illogical for them to turn away potential voters.
posted by zarq at 11:30 AM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

Terry HATES Trump.

Terry votes for Clinton because of his daughters. Terry does everything because of his daughters.

Holt does not vote, because he finds it unseemly for a public official. But he tells Kevin that he's voting for Hillary and spends an hour standing inside the polling place to maintain the illusion. This has never fooled Kevin.

Boyle always goes to the polling station and is told he hasn't registered to vote, spends the rest of the day beating himself up for not registering, and then forgets to do it until the next election.
posted by Etrigan at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

New Yorkers know that there is only one true voting machine--vast and mechanical and hideously, needlessly complex; operated by an inscrutable system of levers and gears, much like the political system it supported. Its loss is one of the great shames of our State's recent history.

I have to chime in here, because I helped kill the lever voting machine in New York last year.

Lever voting machines are nice and nostalgic, yes. But also, they are as noted hideously complex. They do not produce an independent record, and therefore cannot be audited if a recount is called for.

They are also, and this is why I became involved, not accessible to people who use wheelchairs, to people who are blind, to people who are short, or to people who have other disabilities that make it difficult for them to manipulate the levers. Many, many people with disabilities were denied their right to vote independently and privately by lever voting machines.

The current system, in which there is one or (maybe) two accessible machines, turned off, somewhere in the corner, which the staff doesn't know how to operate, is not _much_ better, but getting rid of lever voting machines is a tiny bit of progress toward a truly equal, accessible voting system.

My fellow New Yorkers, when you go to vote today, I urge you to ask to use the accessible voting machine. The more people who use the accessible voting machine, the more pollworkers will become familiar with its use. You may have to wait for them to set it up for you. Think about that. They may make a big deal about your using it. Think about that, too.
posted by gauche at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2016 [49 favorites]

I'm glad for all the attention that is focused on the antidemocratic means both parties have used to attempt to nullify populist candidates, if only for the disenchantment with party politics that it induces.

The glee I've seen among some pundits on Twitter over the blatantly undemocratic NY state registration shenanigans makes it evident that it's about power, not enfranchisement in a representative system.

If you're laughing about people who've been shut out of the democratic process, you're cheering on disenfranchisement, and if your figleaf is "well, it's a private function held by a private party..." as though that's a meaningful distinction to an average voter, who has a lot of other concerns on their mind, I think you really need to go back and ask yourself what your principles are exactly, beyond fealty to a brand.
posted by turntraitor at 11:32 AM on April 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

Any updates on the court hearing on opening the NY primary? Seems to have vanished from all my news feeds.
posted by dw at 11:37 AM on April 19, 2016

I can't stand Clinton, but even for me, if she's actually carrying her preferred hot sauce around with her - well, it may be the only thing I've heard that helps to humanize her.

I still hope Bernie crushes her, however.
posted by ryanshepard at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Lever voting machines are nice and nostalgic, yes. But also, they are as noted hideously complex. They do not produce an independent record, and therefore cannot be audited if a recount is called for.

They are also, and this is why I became involved, not accessible to people who use wheelchairs, to people who are blind, to people who are short, or to people who have other disabilities that make it difficult for them to manipulate the levers. Many, many people with disabilities were denied their right to vote independently and privately by lever voting machines.

Okay, okay, fine. But the least they could do is have one great big lever that does nothing except make a loud, satisfying kerchunk noise, and they allow you to pull it when you pick up your "I Voted" sticker.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2016 [27 favorites]

What Are Kids Learning From This Presidential Election?
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

No, because political parties are not allowed to disenfranchise citizens.

But that's the thing, isn't it - they can. The party could decide to do away with the entire process and pull the name of the next Dem candidate out of a hat, if they wanted to.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

gauche, I happily cede my misplaced nostalgia to your unimpeded right to vote!

But if I can't properly miss the machine in the photo I linked to of my then three-year-old son pulling the Obama/Biden lever in 2008, at least permit me the luxury of missing the candidates.
posted by The Bellman at 11:39 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Okay, okay, fine. But the least they could do is have one great big lever that does nothing except make a loud, satisfying kerchunk noise, and they allow you to pull it when you pick up your "I Voted" sticker.

GENIUS
posted by zarq at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Any updates on the court hearing on opening the NY primary? Seems to have vanished from all my news feeds.

@JordanChariton seems to be covering it.
posted by figurant at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2016

corb: But here is the question - is the party within its rights to say, "No, boyo. You haven't been here while we've been doing our boring committee meetings, or get out the vote, or dinner parties. Hell, you haven't even cast a ballot in ten years! We don't want you, and we definitely don't want you coming in from nowhere and overriding the votes of people who actually are involved and are real members of the party rather than paper tigers."

Right. I see what you're saying but from my perspective (I self-identify as a Green but am currently registered as a Democrat since I want to be able to support the most progressive candidates within the Democratic Party at the primary stage, in the context of a city and state that is pretty dominated by the Democrats), it feels like the Dems (and also the Republicans, in red states) are trying to have it both ways.

They want to be considered the big-tent for (progressives / conservatives, respectively) when it comes to the general election: but they also want to lock you in to their party's process even when you feel like the rules and just overall candidate selection processes favor candidates that are going to be responsive to and representative of party elite positions and priorities. So it feels to me like if a party (in my case, the Democrats) are going to say that they want to be the only game in town for anyone to the left of Attila the Trump, they also need to respect that the people they want as constituents would like to have transparent, fair and democratic norms for candidate selection.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

But that's the thing, isn't it - they can. The party could decide to do away with the entire process and pull the name of the next Dem candidate out of a hat, if they wanted to.

As they used to, yes.

But that's not what corb was hypothesizing, which is what I was responding to. The parties are not allowed to turn away voters for arbitrary reasons.
posted by zarq at 11:41 AM on April 19, 2016

I've never voted lever machines. Oklahoma was already Scantron when I was taken to the polls to see my parents vote for Reagan. Colorado was also Scantron. Seattle was initially punch card, but they moved to Scantron after the 2000 fiasco. (I don't miss voting punch card; it was a PITA to line the ballot up and hit the right spot every time.)
posted by dw at 11:44 AM on April 19, 2016

If you're laughing about people who've been shut out of the democratic process, you're cheering on disenfranchisement, and if your figleaf is "well, it's a private function held by a private party..." as though that's a meaningful distinction to an average voter, who has a lot of other concerns on their mind, I think you really need to go back and ask yourself what your principles are exactly, beyond fealty to a brand.

I have some feelings that lead me to opinions about how the party system should not be baked into government and that public dollars shouldn't be used to provide the machinery for those parties to do their business. So my dream world is one where there's no way government interferes with a citizen's right to vote in those party choices because they're never involved with them.

To imply this makes me unprincipled is really shitty.
posted by phearlez at 11:46 AM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

The parties are not allowed to turn away voters for arbitrary reasons.

They are though, no? Under the current rules in NY, if people didn't sign a particular piece of paper by sometime in October they can't pull a Democratic ballot. That's basically an arbitrary roadblock. And in some of the states (Colorado, I think?) on the GOP side, the party decided to do away with meaningful elections for presidential delegates altogether in favor of a vote at some kind of party convention or gathering of party bigwigs. So functionally, you had to have been a party leader of some sort to be eligible to vote for who you wanted the GOP presidential nominee to be.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:47 AM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

My polling place doesn't have bake sales... (it's pictured in a recent nation story about WI!) But in 2008, in Racine, WI there was one.
posted by drezdn at 11:47 AM on April 19, 2016

But that's not what corb was hypothesizing, which is what I was responding to. The parties are not allowed to turn away voters for arbitrary reasons.

There's this huge difference between "what the parties are allowed to do" and "what the government is allowed to do", and I think that it's all getting compressed into one. The parties are allowed to say that they don't want you to be a member unless, for example, you pay dues. I was not allowed a vote at my local Republican meeting until I had paid my $20 dues to the party, for example. They don't generally do so - and often have very generous and forgiving rules for who they allow on their voter rolls - but any attempt at a democratic process is at their pleasure, rather than a requirement.

The government is not allowed to say "You have to pay money/jump on your head/dance in order to vote", because your federal and local vote in official government elections is a right. You don't have a Constitutionally granted right to vote in party elections in part because the Founders thought all parties were shitty and should be set on fire.
posted by corb at 11:48 AM on April 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

it feels to me like if a party (in my case, the Democrats) are going to say that they want to be the only game in town for anyone to the left of Attila the Trump, they also need to respect that the people they want as constituents would like to have transparent, fair and democratic norms for candidate selection

This is the problem with honestly both the Democrats and Republicans these days - they know they've got you. They know absolutely that they could stand up and say "We're just not going to let Bernie Sanders run. We already pulled Clinton's name out of a hat, this democratic process has been really funny but now we're done" and the vast majority of Democratic voters would still vote for Clinton because they want her to beat the Republican.

So at a certain point - the people they want as constituents would like to have transparent, democratic norms for candidate selection, but only to a point. Not enough to walk and leave and stop voting for the Party. Not enough to switch not just your temporary registration but your votes, your money, your time, and your attention to a third party. Because the Republicans function as a big enough boogeyman that the system works.

It's the same way with the Republicans. Honestly, Republican party elites chortle to themselves a little bit every time the leading Democrats hit on guns, abortion, and religious freedom. They love it. Because every time they do that, the party sends out emails saying "See what we're up against? Turn out your pockets, or mom, pop, and the American Way is going to be torn down by those monsters." And so the Republican party stays one big party, when really at this point it should be two.
posted by corb at 11:54 AM on April 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

But if I can't properly miss the machine in the photo I linked to of my then three-year-old son pulling the Obama/Biden lever in 2008, at least permit me the luxury of missing the candidates.

The Bellman: Oh absolutely. It is a sweet picture, too! Someday, perhaps he will understand how big a deal that vote was.
posted by gauche at 11:54 AM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

This is the problem with honestly both the Democrats and Republicans these days - they know they've got you. They know absolutely that they could stand up and say "We're just not going to let Bernie Sanders run. We already pulled Clinton's name out of a hat, this democratic process has been really funny but now we're done" and the vast majority of Democratic voters would still vote for Clinton because they want her to beat the Republican.

To be fair, the GOP was doing most of the heavy lifting in that process.
posted by Etrigan at 11:56 AM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

corb, while that's certainly true up to a point, in practice the parties are basically part of the government and that's where things get sticky.

Because yes, on one level they're private entities.

But on a much more important level well over 90% of all elected officials are part of one of the big two political parties. Which means that often the only meaningful input a voter has in their representation is at the primaries, and brings us back to the parties being, at the very least, quasi-governmental in nature.

It's like the difference between a private home and a business open to the public. Technically both are private property, but clearly there is an essential difference between the two and we can't apply the rules for private (home) property to private (open to the public business) property. Or at least we can't if we want to be reasonable.
posted by sotonohito at 11:58 AM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Could we actually engage on the merits of the hedge fund lawyer's argument? For the record, she never states that she was a Bernie supporter to begin with. However she really has a number of compelling arguments in there - it's honestly really well written and much better researched than most political articles I've seen. To dismiss it out of hand is unfair.

You actually got me to read that article. Before she gets into a long diatribe about how Bernie is a bad person, has a bad personality, etc. her substantive complaints are that he would have to raise taxes too high to pay for single payer and free college... which is more or less what I would expect a ~~Republican~~ hedge fund lawyer to say.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Her argument was partially that Bernie's plan is based on an extremely optimistic 5 percent growth.
posted by drezdn at 12:15 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

I admit that I am responding solely to the wording of the title:

What Are Kids Learning From This Presidential Election?

That there are a lot of "grownups" that need to grow up.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:18 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

And upon reading the article - that's actually sort of what the article is about too.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:19 PM on April 19, 2016

The early Sanders writing that she talks about later in the article reveals some Trump- Palin- or Paul-level of batshit crazy: sexual repression causes cancer.
posted by Dashy at 12:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

And on reading the "How would tv characters vote" article -

Det. John Munch: Bernie

Aw, Hell no - Munch would either vote for Jill Stein with the Green Party or would write in Screaming Lord Sutch.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Her argument was partially that Bernie's plan is based on an extremely optimistic 5 percent growth.

But the thing is that "single payer," at worst, just takes the money you (or your employer) would be paying to your health insurance company and and renames it as a "tax" and pays it to the government instead. And, pretty much everyone agrees that single payer, regardless of whether it is a bad idea for other reasons, would lower that total amount of money spent. Even if we don't have 5% growth, we won't be spending any more money under Bernies plan than without it... and quite likely a whole lot less.

Her argument is actually that because Bernie included the 5% in his plan, he's actually completely dishonest and very bad. Which is just tendentious.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:22 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

What Are Kids Learning From This Presidential Election?

That there are a lot of "grownups" that need to grow up.

When my niece was in Grade 4, I accompanied her class on a trip to the provincial legislature. After observing our MPPs at 'work,' the teacher asked the kids what they had learned. One kid went "they need a better teacher to make sure everyone gets a chance to talk" or words to that effect.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

long diatribe about how Bernie is a bad person

Why yes, although you glossed over it, I think his willingness to dump radioactive waste in a low-income Latino community, and so close to the border that Mexico protested, makes him a bad person and is incredibly relevant to how he would govern.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Which is only to tell New Yorkers that even though you vote today, it won't end all your suffering.

Maybe the suffering caused by political rants on the internet, but it will/should DEFINITELY end the suffering of the never ending stream of GOTV phone calls ive been getting for the past 10 days.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 12:24 PM on April 19, 2016

The early Sanders writing

This has about as much relevance to the election as Hillary's high school stint as a Goldwater Girl.
posted by Atom Eyes at 12:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

Like I understand that it can be proved with game theory that First Past The Post elections lead inevitably to a two party system. Okay, but what the US founders tried to do was enshrine a first past the post electoral system and keep the government entirely independent of political parties. So formal laws about primaries, etc. So does that combination, the inevitable two party system which officially doesn't exist and therefore is governed only by unwritten rules -- does that inevitably lead to something?

Ummm I don't think political systems are fully reducible to game theory because history is not reducible to mathematics.

Also, it's not clear to me that formally democratic systems ultimately iterate to some sort of ideal peaceful deliberative representative government.

I don't think history inevitably leads anywhere. (Well actually I do but that's a function of my theological beliefs.) Secularly, though, I think you have to be a communist or a Huntington-style end-of-History-ist to believe that there is a natural equilibrium that politics naturally tends to.

The closest thing to a stable poltical state is probably the ancient Egyptians. Not super democratic, as far as I recall....
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:28 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Like I understand that it can be proved with game theory that First Past The Post elections lead inevitably to a two party system. Okay, but what the US founders tried to do was enshrine a first past the post electoral system and keep the government entirely independent of political parties. So formal laws about primaries, etc.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. The "US founders" didn't have formal laws about primaries. The Constitution is silent as to parties. Washington didn't like the idea of political parties, but that was his opinion, not law. Primaries as we think of them didn't begin to exist until over a century after the nation was founded, during the Progressive Era.

Ummm I don't think political systems are fully reducible to game theory because history is not reducible to mathematics.

I believe they're referring to Duverger's Law, which holds that plurality elections in single-member districts tend to produce two-party systems.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:29 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

When my niece was in Grade 4, I accompanied her class on a trip to the provincial legislature. After observing our MPPs at 'work,' the teacher asked the kids what they had learned. One kid went "they need a better teacher to make sure everyone gets a chance to talk" or words to that effect.

To be fair, the Canadian system does literally involve having as head of state an elderly lady who lives in a castle across the sea
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:32 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

I believe they're referring to Duverger's Law, which holds that plurality elections in single-member districts tend to produce two-party systems.

Are there any other countries other than the US and UK which use FPTP voting? With a sample size of 2, it seems like FPTP empirically leads to two-party systems...
posted by ennui.bz at 12:33 PM on April 19, 2016

Canada is FPTP. There are vague movements afoot to change it. Won't happen, unfortunately.

To be fair, the Canadian system does literally involve having as head of state an elderly lady who lives in a castle across the sea

Pish tosh, she only lives in the castle on weekends. During the week it's a palace.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

To be fair, the Canadian system does literally involve having as head of state an elderly lady who lives in a castle across the sea

And it has produced this. It is empirically proven that you are missing out.
posted by saturday_morning at 12:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I believe they're referring to Duverger's Law, which holds that plurality elections in single-member districts tend to produce two-party systems.

Sure, all things being equal this is an accurate statement. History indicates, however, that things are subject to change on occasion.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2016

Are there any other countries other than the US and UK which use FPTP voting?

45 countries use FPTP exclusively, another 11 use it in combo with some other system.
posted by davros42 at 12:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Canada and the UK are... not great evidence for Duverger's Law.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:38 PM on April 19, 2016

google bloc quebecois

google NDP

google LibDem

google SNP

google all of northern ireland
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

People commenting on Duverger's Law might want to read the linked Wiki article, since it directly addresses all of these questions and comments, including the helpful suggestion to Google regional parties in various countries.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:39 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I feel like there's some interesting mathematical theorem here. Like I understand that it can be proved with game theory that First Past The Post elections lead inevitably to a two party system. Okay, but what the US founders tried to do was enshrine a first past the post electoral system and keep the government entirely independent of political parties. So formal laws about primaries, etc. So does that combination, the inevitable two party system which officially doesn't exist and therefore is governed only by unwritten rules -- does that inevitably lead to something? To brokered conventions every few years? To corruption? Or to increasingly official de facto roles for the parties in government and increasingly democratic party participation processes? I feel like there's a thesis in this for someone. Like we should be able to make some kind of computer model.

You know what I've been thinking about a lot, this election, is basketball. (Any sport would work for this analogy really, but I don't know anything about any other sport but basketball...)

So basketball was invented by a gym teacher who nailed some peach baskets on some poles because he thought it would be a fun way for his students to exercise. And then people kept playing it, and they worked out some more complex rules and smoothed out the biggest problems, and then it got popular enough that leagues formed, and then professional leagues, and now it's this huge thing that millions upon millions of people are invested in.

But as people kept playing the game, individuals gradually figured out ways they could work within the rules of the system to gain an advantage that was never intended - or even really conceived of - when the game was invented. The most obvious one? It turns out that it really, really helps to be super tall. If you stack a team with tall players, you'll gain a serious advantage. If that had been forseen when the game was first invented, maybe they would have tried to figure out some rule that would reduce that advantage, but they didn't. So somebody figured that out... and then everyone else figured it out, too... and then this happened.

But like I said, player height is only the most obvious example. There are countless other examples, in this and any other sport, of some smart person figuring out a clever way to make the arbitrary rules of the game work to their advantage. The response is always either to change the rules, or, more often, for everybody else to adopt the same clever fix as well. And then you wind up with a situation where if you're under like six and a half feet tall, you might as well not even bother trying to play at the pro level at all.

The Constitution is a bunch of kids tossing balls into a peach basket nailed to a pole, and the modern primary process is a bunch of seven foot tall NBA point guards.

Not sure what the hell to do about it, though.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [21 favorites]

Canada is, actually. At the federal level there are functionally only two parties (which Layton might have changed, had he lived to the most recent election). Provincially, it varies. Ontario more or less rotates through the three major parties, other provinces tend to flip back and forth. Municipally, parties are largely irrelevant.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2016

I agreed a lot with the How I Became Anti Bernie article. Especially as at the beginning, in February even, I thought I would be voting for him. And I'm not a hedge fund manager, though I may in other ways be demographically unsuitable to the revolution.

I actually don't think single-payer is good policy for the US for a number of reasons, but arguing that single-payer is too expensive is just totally wrong-headed. The 5% number doesn't impact the cost of the program at all, just how the taxes are distributed. There are lots of reasons to be opposed to Bernie, but the cost of single-payer really can't be one of them.

Also, I don't think free college solves the sorts of problems it's sold as solving, but it just isn't that expensive. Compared to the things the US government wastes money on, it's just not a big deal.

This has about as much relevance to the election as Hillary's high school stint as a Goldwater Girl.

If Bernie were proposing cutting cancer funding at the NIH or instituting mandatory Reichian sex therapy in the schools that would be one thing (actually, the sex therapy would probably be, on balance, better than what kids get now but...) but Bernie's writings on this don't seem to impact any of his policies at all. On the other hand, Hillary being a Goldwater girl fits directly into the sorts of market-oriented, business friendly politics she is selling.
posted by ennui.bz at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The "US founders" didn't have formal laws about primaries

That's what I meant to say, "no formal laws about primaries". I am the queen of typos. I just think, okay, with no formal laws we've evolved this whole primary system anyway. Is that because "smoke filled rooms" is an unsustainable model for entities that play such a huge role in the government long term? People won't vote for a candidate they didn't help select, ultimately? Or could it have gone the other way -- if one party decided to go back to smoke filled rooms, but only one party, what would happen?
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:41 PM on April 19, 2016

On the other hand, Hillary being a Goldwater girl fits directly into the sorts of market-oriented, business friendly politics she is selling.

She was in high school.
posted by zutalors! at 12:43 PM on April 19, 2016 [27 favorites]

Canada and the UK are... not great evidence for Duverger's Law.

Is not UK politics dominated by the Tories vs. Labour? Also, using the Liberal Party as an argument against the "law" seems a little out-of-date...
posted by ennui.bz at 12:44 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah when I was in high school I was flirting with Libertarianism, and I hope to god no one's still holding that against me. And for me that was only 10 years ago!
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

when I was in high school I was pro life for a little bit freshman year.
posted by zutalors! at 12:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Bernie's conclusion, at age 30, that sexual repression causes cancer speaks directly to his reasoning faculties and his ability to think critically.

I don't want him to get anywhere near to a place where he can impact NIH funding or FDA policies on, say, vaccines.
posted by Dashy at 12:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

(And that's leaving his depictions of rape fantasies aside)
posted by Dashy at 12:48 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

My point is not that Duverger's law isn't a thing in theory. The point is that in the real world, there are too many confounding variables to make it particularly helpful in terms of explaining, predicting or controlling things. So, sure, if you handwave Quebec and the NDP, Canada looks like a pretty stable two-party system. The only problem is that Canada continues to contain Quebec and the NDP.
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:53 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Elizabeth Warren was a Republican well into her adult years, but we don't talk about that. And yet Hillary being a Goldwater Girl is part of some long-term Manchurian Candidate neo-liberal crypto-fascist thing.

Purity tests are for high school kids in the 1990s, not for political parties.
posted by dw at 12:54 PM on April 19, 2016 [36 favorites]

My candidate's positions 30 years are irrelevant and ancient history.
Your candidate's positions 30 years ago are determinative, telling, and frankly disturbing.
posted by 0xFCAF at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [32 favorites]

If its fair game to judge people's thinking of 40 years ago against the knowledge of today, then everyone is going to have a Bad Time.
posted by Slackermagee at 12:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I mean, don't ask me who I voted for the first time I could vote for president.
posted by dw at 12:56 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bernie's conclusion, at age 30, that sexual repression causes cancer speaks directly to his reasoning faculties and his ability to think critically.

Seems more rational than voting for the Iraq invasion to me.

Has his work during any of that time reflected an anti-science bias?

Some of the anti-nuclear stuff and support for GMO labels definitely worries me on that point.
posted by Drinky Die at 12:57 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

No; as we all know, Sanders has been wildly ineffective in Congress. Glad you mentioned it: that is the main reason he is not qualified to be president.

His reasoning abilities and opinions as a fully developed 30-year-old matter.
posted by Dashy at 12:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Let's move on, everyone's made their points on this.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Political parties started here because the loser didn't want to be Vice President.
posted by clavdivs at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

What? In what world does Matt Murdock vote for Cruz?
It makes more sense that he is with Foggy for Bernie (just look at their law firm's client demographics and their policy on fee collection), but I guess the list writer is stressing his Catholic faith.
posted by linux at 12:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some of the anti-nuclear stuff

Ha, me too. I don't understand why people who on the one hand are like "if we don't deal with this crisis right now we will literally destroy the planet" are also like "we can't use this relatively cheap, safe if properly used power source because ONE TIME CHERNOBYL".
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

It makes more sense that he is with Foggy for Bernie (just look at their law firm's client demographics and their policy on fee collection), but I guess the list writer is stressing his Catholic faith.

Still doesn't make sense. Catholics don't like Cruz, Evangelical Protestants do. Matt is clearly far into the liberal side of Catholicism anyway.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:01 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I assume Murdock likes Cruz because they're both pro-torture.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

And I don't understand why people who are skeptical about nuclear power are mocked when we still haven't figured out what to do with the waste yet.
posted by entropicamericana at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Wikipedia says Ted Cruz is Southern Baptist.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:05 PM on April 19, 2016

So, sure, if you handwave Quebec and the NDP, Canada looks like a pretty stable two-party system. The only problem is that Canada continues to contain Quebec and the NDP.

Hi so actual Canadian here. Federally, Canada is a stable two-party system, with a rotating crew of HMLO. (Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition). The Bloc has no traction outside Quebec and can never form a federal government. The NDP is highly unlikely to ever form a federal government.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:07 PM on April 19, 2016

Yeah but if the choice is between "we aren't sure where to bury this radioactive waste" and "we are going to destroy the damn planet", then I am on team Radioactive Waste.
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

I assume Murdock likes Cruz because they're both pro-torture.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:04 PM on 4/19

No the explanation is much simpler: lizard people.
posted by nathan_teske at 1:08 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

No the explanation is much simpler: ~~lizard people.~~ Skrulls.
posted by Sangermaine at 1:11 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

I just think, okay, with no formal laws we've evolved this whole primary system anyway. Is that because "smoke filled rooms" is an unsustainable model for entities that play such a huge role in the government long term? People won't vote for a candidate they didn't help select, ultimately?

Primaries were legally forced upon the parties by the State, though their application to presidential elections has always been more contingent than for lower offices. Parties didn't evolve them; they were put into place as an anti-party measure.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:13 PM on April 19, 2016

Parties didn't evolve them; they were put into place as an anti-party measure.

Have you got a link? Wikipedia's got this version:

"The impetus for national adoption of the binding primary election was the chaotic 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vice President Hubert Humphrey secured the nomination despite not winning a single primary under his own name. After this, a Democratic National Committee-commissioned panel led by Senator George McGovern – the McGovern–Fraser Commission – recommended that states adopt new rules to assure wider participation. A large number of states, faced with the need to conform to more detailed rules for the selection of national delegates, chose a presidential primary as an easier way to come into compliance with the new national Democratic Party rules. The result was that many more future delegates would be selected by a state presidential primary. The Republicans also adopted many more state presidential primaries."

(emphasis mine.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:22 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Bloc has no traction outside Quebec and can never form a federal government.

Well, they could. With the current seat allotment, if you give them all 78 seats in Quebec, throw 30 of the remaining 260 to the Greens, and split the rest evenly between the three main parties you can get a razor-thin plurality for the Bloc. Not that this would ever happen, but it's fun to think about.

I'm pleased to see this derail into non-American politics in an American political thread, since it's such a nice reversal of the usual dynamic.
posted by figurant at 1:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Parties didn't evolve them; they were put into place as an anti-party measure.

Have you got a link?

It is too plain for argument, and it is not contested here, that the State may limit each political party to one candidate for each office on the ballot and may insist that intraparty competition be settled before the general election by primary election or by party convention.

posted by Etrigan at 1:28 PM on April 19, 2016

"or by party convention"? Okay but looking over the link, it seems like after Texas Republican and Democratic parties were voluntarily doing primaries, Texas decided to require that smaller parties do them too, if they got above a certain voter threshold? But like, the Colorado Republican party chose not to have a binding primary this year (just a non-binding caucus) so clearly it is still at the whim of the party in other states... I wonder if the Texas law is exactly the kind of "inevitable" outcome I was wondering about, though... You try to set up your First Past the Post voting system with no parties, and then rules about party politics end up getting written into law anyway.
posted by OnceUponATime at 1:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

throw 30 of the remaining 260 to the Greens

Yeah, that's where it falls apart. So long as the NDP dominates BC and the Liberals dominate Ontario, that ain't happening.

Mind you, the BQ almost got pulled into a coalition once upon a time.
posted by dw at 1:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

They are though, no? Under the current rules in NY, if people didn't sign a particular piece of paper by sometime in October they can't pull a Democratic ballot. That's basically an arbitrary roadblock.

Okay, let's run through some corrections.

1) It's an arbitrary deadline. A deadline is not a roadblock in the way you are defining it here. You might as well complain that primaries are only allowed for a day in each state. After all, if they were six months long, everyone would be able to participate.

The difference between a deadline and a roadblock here is that it's perfectly possible for anyone to meet the deadline. They simply have to be responsible about it.

2) The deadline is state law. It's not a Democratic party rule.

3) It applies to all political parties, not just the Democratic party.

4) It only applies to previously registered voters who want to switch party affiliations or change their addresses. People who were registering to vote for the first time in New York (eg. never registered before, just moved to NY or are turning 18,) had until March 25th (by postmark) to mail in their applications. The deadline was March 30th for the Board of Elections to receive it.

The October deadline to switch party affiliations or change address has been in place for decades. Possibly more than two generations of New Yorkers. I've lived here over 30 years and can't remember the last time it sparked controversy. Personally, I suspect that the reason it's so early is way back in the dark ages of the twentieth century, the registration process was not computerized. To make sure that people were able to vote who had moved or changed their affiliation, paperwork had to be filed early to make sure it was properly processed. A very reasonable argument can be made that the date should now be moved closer to the date of the primary, because registration now happens much more rapidly in the digital age. But no, the October date isn't some nefarious plot, for fuck's sake. It's simply a relic of an earlier time.

Want to change it? Lobby your state representatives.
posted by zarq at 1:40 PM on April 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

from The Nation, about the anti-Trump protests at his rally in Buffalo: Hate Is Not Welcome Here
posted by everybody had matching towels at 1:42 PM on April 19, 2016

Also, if you happen to move within New York State and didn't change your address, you still get to vote and your vote still counts. You can vote in any polling place or in a Board of Elections office, anywhere in New York State simply because you're registered as a voter with the state. Simply fill out a provisional ballot and hand it in. That's what people are doing today who moved after the October deadline.
posted by zarq at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2016

As for atomic power, I can see both why people would be puzzled over the general anti-atomic stance from a lot of environmentalists, and the reasoning behind the anti-atomic stance.

It's hardly just that Chernobyl (and Three Mile Island, and Fukushima) happened once. Its the problem that in the USA dealing with the waste hasn't been sorted yet and for political reasons seems unlikely to be sorted anytime in the near future.

Plus, much as I'm an advocate of atomic power, it isn't quite as safe and harmless as those of us on the pro-atomic side often like to claim. There may be a good argument to be made that a Chernobyl of Fukushima level event every 25 years is an acceptable price to pay for cutting global warming, but that's a very different argument from the argument that atomic power is safe.

Also, I'll bet that if we start a massive atomic buildup (which, again, I do favor) the rate of accidents would increase. People just aren't able to maintain the sort of proper paranoid/scared/hypercautious measures it takes to be truly safe with atomic power over a period of decades. We get comfortable with the danger and start taking it for granted.

And finally there's the problem that the best land for extracting fissionables is, surprise, typically in land that indigenous people have been forced into after they were kicked out of all the good land. Which means the sort of massive uranium mining we're talking about engaging in will involve, yet again, evicting native people from land us white people solemnly swore would be theirs forever.

So yes, atomic power is a good way to avoid the problems of global warming. But it is a solution that comes with a lot of problems of its own. Some social, some political, and some simply physical. Storing spent fuel safely for hundreds of thousands of years is a non-trivial problem.
posted by sotonohito at 1:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

We won't make it as a species hundreds of thousands of years if things don't change, however.
posted by agregoli at 2:00 PM on April 19, 2016

is a good way to avoid the problems of global warming. But it is a solution that comes with a lot of problems of its own. Some social, some political, and some simply physical

The truly scary thing is, I think you can say that for pretty much all the potential solutions.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:01 PM on April 19, 2016

Looks like the hearing on provisional ballots has been delayed until the plaintiffs serve every NY county. I'd guess the primary will stay closed unless you're voting provisionally.
posted by dw at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2016

Have you got a link?

No. I was talking about the creation of primaries at all, back in the early 1900s, not the presidential system which indeed dates to 1972 with more party cooperation in the process (after they'd adapted to the state-level primaries put in place earlier).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:05 PM on April 19, 2016

I'm enjoying flicking between this thread and the Guardian's live blog of the New York primaries.
posted by Wordshore at 2:06 PM on April 19, 2016

I feel like there are two types of election problems - sloppiness/underfunding (like we're seeing in NY), and explicitly designed to suppress the vote (as in AZ).

My new york friends certainly seem to believe it's the latter going on there. Several of them received forms showing them as registered republicans when they've been democrats since they were 18, tried to correct the error, and received more republican forms. Some received bullshit "well things change" responses when they tried to deal with it in person.

This seems to have not been an isolated incident, and none of them ever saw it happen before.
posted by emptythought at 2:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

And I don't understand why people who are skeptical about nuclear power are mocked when we still haven't figured out what to do with the waste yet.

Well, we could always just spray it directly into the atmosphere and oceans, like we do with waste from other types of power plants.

I get the arguments against nuclear but on balance, I'm not convinced by them. I think the positives far outweigh the negatives, and I think nuclear has a role to play alongside renewables in a future less reliant on coal and oil and natural gas.
posted by showbiz_liz at 2:08 PM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

Yeah, corruption in NY? Hahahahohoheee (latest example).
posted by Melismata at 2:09 PM on April 19, 2016

But who is doing the suppression? The implication seems to be that the DNC/Clinton is doing it to keep Bernie down, but all polls have shown Clinton projected to win by wide margins. Clinton doesn't need to suppress voters to win. If anything it benefits Bernie to limit the number of voters. Bernie is framed as the "populist candidate", but that's demonstrably untrue, at least in NY. Clinton is the popular choice going in to the primary.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:09 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

This seems to have not been an isolated incident, and none of them ever saw it happen before.

But from what I'm hearing, it's pretty universally fucked up. People on all sides are discovering their registrations are having problems.

Never ascribe to malice what be explained by a completely fucked up and underfunded system.
posted by dw at 2:11 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Yes, Bernie with his immense network of people within the DNC he's abstained from for decades, is totally going to be the less-tinfoil-hat answer.

It will probably be another mishmash of mistakes brought to us by the That Guy In The Office We All Work Hard to Make Up For's in each county.

Edit: Bah, too late by a few comments then.
posted by Slackermagee at 2:13 PM on April 19, 2016

I wasn't trying to say or imply anything at all is going on in NY, and if there was certainly not that Bernie is behind it. Just that the accusations coming from the Sanders camp simply don't make sense. If there are problems going on they're hurting Clinton too, and in some ways even more than Sanders.
posted by Sangermaine at 2:18 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ever since that one state where the polls were off by like 30 points (because they have a weird law that precludes pollsters from calling cell phones) I have been hearing a certain contingent of Sanders fans insist that the polls saying Clinton will take NY can't possibly be right. Like, I mean, I guess we'll see, but come on.

Internal polling (that is, the polling data available to the candidates) is generally considered much better than publicly available polling. Sanders has been saying for some time that he expects to win New York--not just "do well" but win--and Clinton has not been particularly vocal about her chances. According to Rachel Maddow last night, that suggests that both candidates may believe Sanders has a better chance than the public polls indicate. In short: whoever you support, it's probably worth voting.
posted by The Bellman at 2:19 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Internal polling (that is, the polling data available to the candidates) is generally considered much better than publicly available polling.

Didn't what happened to Romney, and Rove subsequently and hilariously embarrassing himself live on CNN, show that to be false? That in fact internal polling can badly mislead a campaign by creating an information bubble?
posted by Sangermaine at 2:23 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Ever since that one state where the polls were off by like 30 points (because they have a weird law that precludes pollsters from calling cell phones) I have been hearing a certain contingent of Sanders fans insist that the polls saying Clinton will take NY can't possibly be right.

I have a sinking feeling in my gut that after (if) Hillary wraps up the nomination, you will see a not-insignificant number of Sanders supporters give themselves completely over to wild conspiracy theories about how the election was outright stolen from him. A Bernie Truther movement, if you will.
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:23 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

Other problems with nuclear power: it's intensely centralized -- so a nice choice for big power plant companies who don't like the distributed and hard to monopolize nature of solar energy. Solar leans to reverse metering, which is a radically democratizing approach to power generatin.

It's very expensive, perhaps more expensive than solar right now, and costs have always been underestimated (even disregarding long term waste disposal which isn't even being attempted).

And nuclear waste is a huge security risk that terrorists are already trying to exploit.
posted by msalt at 2:26 PM on April 19, 2016

Internal polling (that is, the polling data available to the candidates) is generally considered much better than publicly available polling.

When public polls conducted by independent organizations clash with the internal polls released by campaigns, the public polls usually prove more reliable.
posted by zarq at 2:28 PM on April 19, 2016

I'm confused about how the conspiracy would have worked. Would they have profiled people who were likely to be Bernie voters? Somehow tracked them to find out who they supported? It seems like a very elaborate conspiracy.

I'm also seeing an increasingly conspiratorial tone among posts by random Facebook friends.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:29 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ever since that one state where the polls were off by like 30 points

Well, that was Michigan, and as it was pointed out, if they were using 2008 numbers to base their polling, that would have thrown their numbers WAY off since Michigan was one of the states who were stripped of their delegates before voting happened.

As Sam Wang pointed out, the polling has been very accurate. There's little reason to think that Hillary won't win; the question is margin. The lowest margin in any poll was 6 points; all the others have averaged 13 points with 4 to 5 points MoE.

If Sanders DOES win, it would be an even bigger shock than Michigan.
posted by dw at 2:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, Senator Claire McCaskill, who is currently an outside bet/choice to be the Democratic VP pick, met some optometrists today.
posted by Wordshore at 2:32 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Didn't what happened to Romney, and Rove subsequently and hilariously embarrassing himself live on CNN, show that to be false? That in fact internal polling can badly mislead a campaign by creating an information bubble?

Yes, absolutely. My understanding, though, is that in this cycle (as opposed to 2012) both Clinton and Sanders have better resources than the public polls. For example, as a number of pundits have pointed out, Hillary's loss in Michigan was a huge upset given the public polling and a shock to everyone--except Hillary. It's pretty clear she knew she wasn't going to win and she wasn't even in the state when the results came in. Huffpost and Maddow have both reported that her campaign saw the shift in internal polling before the loss.

Anyway I'm by no means an expert in this, obviously, it's just what I hear from the various (lefty) news media I consume.
posted by The Bellman at 2:34 PM on April 19, 2016

On the subject of Duverger's Law and regional parties in the Anglosphere, one wonders what would have happened if both the Democrats and the Republicans agreed to let the South do its own thing, with the Dixiecrats became essentially a one party monopoly in the south, and the GOP stayed the party of Rockefeller and Eisenhower. So you get a two-party national system with one very regressive (but regional-only) half-party.
posted by Apocryphon at 2:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jamelle Bouie: There Is No Bernie Sanders Movement. Almost every modern Democratic primary has had a progressive insurgency. Bernie’s isn’t anything new. But it can be.

Charles Pierce: Is Bernie Sanders Really Finished? Better question: Are the lessons of his campaign already lost?
posted by homunculus at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm getting a serious Amy Sedaris in Strangers with Candy vibe from Claire McCaskill's twitter profile pic.
posted by [expletive deleted] at 2:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile, Bernie has quietly broken his promise to release more tax returns. (Saturday's release was just the parts of his 2014 return that he failed to make public earlier.)

He's now way out on an island of non-transparency about his finances. Romney and Trump are the only major recent candidates I know of who have not released more than 1 year of taxes. (Hillary has released her last 29 years.)

His 2014 taxes are atypical, since he knew he was running for president before the year started, and his wife was no longer working (after being forced to resign due to misrepresenting donations in order to get a loan for the college she was president of).
posted by msalt at 3:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

What could be in his returns that are so scary? Dude doesn't make enough money for lots of shenanigans.
posted by Justinian at 3:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

What could be in his returns that are so scary? Dude doesn't make enough money for lots of shenanigans.

The same scary things that could be in Hillary's speeches to Goldman. That is, nothing at all, but a bunch of little things for people to nag about and demand investigations for, wasting everyone's time. But you won't know until it's released, so in the meantime Hillary promised Goldman she'd sell all liberals into indentured servitude, while Bernie stashed Jane's money in the Caymans with the help of Mossack Fonseca.

(At some point are people going to realize this game is the same damn one the GOP has played with the Clintons for the last 25 years? "Oh, well, I'm sure if you release ALL your documents we can prove you didn't do it.")
posted by dw at 3:14 PM on April 19, 2016 [12 favorites]

Releasing transcripts of speeches is not a thing though. Can you name any other candidate who has done that? Bernie released one single speech of the many he's made (while a video of one of her Goldman Sachs talks is on youtube).

But releasing tax returns has been standard for decades. Bernie has made such a big deal about corruption and financial shenanigans that any scandals would probably hurt him more. Here are some things likely to be illuminated by his tax returns:

-- he paid his wife and stepdaughter campaign funds to work on his election campaigns in 2002 and 2004 ($30,000 and $65,000 respectively). Jane Sanders was the "media ad buyer" and got her money in commissions. In the 1980s, he hired her to a paid position in Burlington city government.

-- Bernie put both his houses in his wife's name, not his own for some reason, even the one in Washington where he works and she doesn't. We know this because he didn't list them on his financial disclosure forms but deducted $50,000 in mortgage payments on their joint returns in 2014. We didn't know that until Saturday when he released the rest of his 2014 return.

-- maybe Jane Sanders has financial ties to the developer Eric Farrell who ended up with the 23-acre parcel she bought on behalf of her college, using sketchy financial statements? He's currently developing housing on it, to the dismay of some Burlington progressives.

Hard to know. But it's weird to not release returns, and he lied the other day when he said he'd release them.
posted by msalt at 3:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Maybe some investments or jobs that would be embarrassing in light of his positioning himself as Mr. Anti-Wall Street/Establishment?
posted by Sangermaine at 3:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

If a month goes by after the Brooklyn debate without Sanders releasing any other tax returns, I will accept your statement that he lied about releasing them. It hasn't been that long.

SANDERS: Wolf, the answer is, you know, what we have always done in my family is, Jane does them. And she's been out on the campaign trail. We will get them out. We'll get them out very shortly. It's not a big deal.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 3:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am struggling with some of this new Bernie information. I was on the fence for a while and then settled into supporting Hillary, but still feeling very positive about Bernie and happy to vote for him in the general.

But this...

he bought into the idea that repression causes cancer, and illustrated that through a hypothetical in which he argued that if some nice young boy “has an old bitch for a teacher (and there are a lot of them)…” who tells him what to do, the boy will repress his feelings; a lifetime of repression will give him prostate cancer.

In writing, in his 30s, as an adult... it's just not a nice way to talk about women (or educators). It's kind of repugnant. And it bothers me a lot that he doesn't seem to have done any kind of teshuva (consideration, explanation, apology) on it. And kind of worse, I worry that it's the kind of thing that if he *does* make it to the general, will actually attract the support of sexist, right-er wing voters on both sides of the aisle. That's disturbing. And then he does seem to care a lot about the concerns of the constituency that elects him (e.g. gun issues), and that's concerning too.

But mostly, ugh. 32 years old and calling women teachers 'bitches' who boss boys around.
posted by Salamandrous at 3:54 PM on April 19, 2016 [19 favorites]

Releasing the transcripts of speeches is definitely a thing. Mitt Romney had his speeches released during the last presidential election. Hopefully no one from the Carter family was present and taping during any of Hillary's speeches to Goldman Sachs.
posted by Balna Watya at 3:57 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The stark way Romney's different messaging to his financial supporters was revealed really did set the stage for this. It hasn't been an issue in the past because it hasn't been proved so bluntly that politicians say different things behind closed doors before. I mean, we all know it, but there is a difference after you have actually witnessed it word for word.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:01 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

I'm confused about how the conspiracy would have worked. Would they have profiled people who were likely to be Bernie voters? Somehow tracked them to find out who they supported?

Good heavens, no. It's simply impossible to have any idea how certain demographic groups will vote. That's why voter ID laws are 100% constitutional and politics-neutral.
posted by indubitable at 4:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Under 29s were 16% of the turnout. That works for HRC.
posted by Trochanter at 4:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

All the Sanders people are saying on my FB that Hillary "bought" the NY primary. That doesn't make any sense.
posted by zutalors! at 4:06 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Releasing transcripts of speeches is not a thing though

It should be. A candidate can't simultaneously claim they'll be hard on Wall Street while refusing to allow voters to evaluate the content of $250k speeches given to Wall Street. The refusal to release the transcripts until the other candidates release their transcripts is blatant evasion -- Clinton knows that Ted Cruz and Donald Trump don't give a shit and that Sanders might have gotten a mug for giving a pep talk during a public radio pledge drive.

And Bernie should release his taxes. Hopefully declaring that NPR mug.
posted by nathan_teske at 4:06 PM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

Maybe some investments or jobs that would be embarrassing in light of his positioning himself as Mr. Anti-Wall Street/Establishment?

Yes, I can't remember the source but I read an analysis somewhere that concluded Bernie lost a lot of money in 2008 in stock funds he held (based on his financial disclosure). It was a lot of standard IRA type funds IIRC, Vanguard and that sort of thing.

A likely suspect for shenanigans is Jane Sanders' management of Burlington College. The arguable scandal was rabble-roused by this article in the right-wing biased Washington Free Beacon, so big grain of salt, but it checks out in at least one form I looked up, the college's 2012 form 990 (which is hosted by ProPublica).

In schedule L, part IV (p2), they list two "Business Transactions Involving Interested Persons." The first is $43,000 paid to a resort in the Caribbean owned by the son of board member Jonathan Leopold, who was Bernie's treasurer as mayor of Burlington. The money was for students to stay at the resport. The second is $138,571 paid to the Vermont Woodworking School, a for-profit school owned by Carina Driscoll, Bernie's stepdaughter and Jane's daughter.

Jane Sanders set up both arrangements, and they both stopped after she resigned.
posted by msalt at 4:06 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yea those Jane Sanders stories are really sketchy. She's super incompetent at a minimum.
posted by zutalors! at 4:09 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

whoa, good thing Jane Sanders isn't running for president, that could be really damaging.
posted by indubitable at 4:11 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

It could be damaging anyway, if Sanders makes it to the general.
posted by zutalors! at 4:12 PM on April 19, 2016

Not like this Bill Clinton guy is a saint either. People who live with glass spouses shouldn't throw stones
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:13 PM on April 19, 2016 [33 favorites]

no one's throwing anything, but it's relevant that Jane Sanders seems to have a sketchy past. Clinton hasn't touched it but in the general it would be a topic. It's weird to sort of intimate that we can't discuss it.
posted by zutalors! at 4:15 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just wanted to say "glass spouses" tbh
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:16 PM on April 19, 2016 [44 favorites]

zutalors you do realize you could swap out "Hillary Clinton" for "Jane Sanders" and have a republican attack line from 1991, right?
posted by nathan_teske at 4:18 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think that's his point. Republican attack lines for 2016? One of the arguments for not nominating Clinton has been past sketchiness. It seems relevant if Sanders also has sketchiness even if we think its stupid.
posted by Justinian at 4:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Did anyone see Barney Frank lose it on Lawrence O'Donnell last night?

Choice quotes from Barney Frank: (no transcript posted yet)

"Lawrence, what are the rules for interrupting!"
"Lawrence, why did you ask me a question I can't answer!?"

The whole segment is good but if you start at approx 6:20 you'll get the gist. I thought that O'Donnell's final statement was great too.

The segment is on MSNBC.com but I was unable to timestamp it on there but it is obviously much better quality.
posted by futz at 4:20 PM on April 19, 2016

I don't know what you think I'm arguing. It'll be a topic in the general, I'm not inventing that by myself. It was a Republican attack line in 1991 against Hillary, it'll be one against Jane in 2016. I'm not saying that's awesome, it just is a thing.
posted by zutalors! at 4:21 PM on April 19, 2016

whoa, good thing Jane Sanders isn't running for president, that could be really damaging.

I think paying his wife and her daughter out of campaign funds reflects directly on Bernie. (Jane and Bernie share money, of course.) And I'm pretty sure a lot of people who like his reformer's zeal will be dismayed to find out about it.
posted by msalt at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

This is the first time in nearly 10 years that they actually had "I voted" stickers left at the polling place when I went in tonight, and so I got all excited that I finally got one.

That is all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:29 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

We voted tonight at our local place in Queens: a school cafeteria. Start to finish: 11 minutes. Half of which was spent letting my daughter read the entire ballot and answering her questions. It was a totally painless experience. No crowd. No line. No broken machines. No issues at check in. They had at least five different translators on hand that I could see. Everyone was friendly and even happy to see my kids. :)
posted by zarq at 4:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Hopefully no one from the Carter family was present and taping during any of Hillary's speeches to Goldman Sachs.

Actually, James Carter wasn't physically there. He found the video online and got in contact with the waitperson that actually filmed it. Small bit of pedantism, but it does bring up my point that if there was something in the speeches that would torpedo Clinton, why hasn't it leaked yet? The speeches weren't done at an intimate fundraising soiree with maybe a few dozen people. Each speech probably had at least hundreds of attendees in the room. And since the megabanks are international corporations with many branch offices, it's even possible some of these events were livecast to thousands more.

It feels almost conspiratorial that the literally thousands that have been at the speeches over the years are all really good at keeping secrets and also super loyal to their employers and/or to Hillary Clinton.
posted by FJT at 4:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think the "glass spouses" line is funny irrespective of accuracy and would have also said it if I'd thought of it

but I am supposed to be writing my prelim and am desperate for validation
posted by Anonymous at 4:41 PM on April 19, 2016

But the stickers fell off within minutes! It made my toddler really sad.

Who knew toddlers were so clued in about symbolism?
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:44 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Our primary election in NY has been a national embarrassment.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2016

You're doing great, schroedinger. We're all rooting for you.
posted by Drinky Die at 4:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

And Bernie should release his taxes. Hopefully declaring that NPR mug.

At the donation level it takes to get a mug these days, I'm sure he has to.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

ugh I was working on a presentation on Super Tuesday and stayed up till 3 AM to finish it. Bonus: presentation has been pushed back and still hasn't happened yet.
posted by zutalors! at 4:48 PM on April 19, 2016

The next election post better have "glass spouses" somewhere in the title.
posted by dw at 4:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

we did have picture perfect weather in NYC today, so hopefully that helped turnout.
posted by zutalors! at 4:50 PM on April 19, 2016

ugh I was working on a presentation on Super Tuesday and stayed up till 3 AM to finish it. Bonus: presentation has been pushed back and still hasn't happened yet.

Now that's the metaphor of the cycle.
posted by tivalasvegas at 4:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

haha! indeed. In fact, I'm refreshing some images on the presentation tonight. Maybe I'll add hot sauce in a bag, or a bird on a podium...
posted by zutalors! at 4:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Glass Spouses would be a decent band name.
posted by drezdn at 4:54 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also a long-lost Salinger short story.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:56 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

A Mad Men episode title.
posted by zutalors! at 4:56 PM on April 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

Grisham novel.
posted by kyp at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

You know, my biggest disappointment out of New York is that Hillary didn't challenge Bernie to a buffalo wings eating contest.
posted by dw at 4:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

You're doing great, schroedinger. We're all rooting for you.

I think if I give my prelim committee a printout of the various election threads with my comments highlighted it will definitely work as a stand in for a research proposal centered around studying intrinsically disordered proteins with single molecule spectroscopy techniques

They're . . . basically the same?
posted by Anonymous at 5:00 PM on April 19, 2016

You know, my biggest disappointment out of New York is that Hillary didn't challenge Bernie to a buffalo wings eating contest.

Kasich had already won it.
posted by drezdn at 5:02 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

I think it would be a bad look for Bernie to be seen eating birds after putting a bird on it in Portland.
posted by zutalors! at 5:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Man Chris Matthews is SO FIRED UP RN
posted by zutalors! at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2016

it's fine, he just has to put a napkin on his head and the voters won't be able to see him
posted by prize bull octorok at 5:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

dw: "The next election post better have "glass spouses" somewhere in the title."

If we still had the IMG tag, you could use the Billy Joel album cover.
posted by Chrysostom at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Man Chris Matthews is SO FIRED UP RN

Earlier -

Chris Matthews: "GAY TALESE! GAY TALESE IS HERE! WHAT DO YOU THINK?"
Gay Talese: "I don't know why you invited me on this show, I don't know anything about politics!"
Chris Matthews: "Yes you do! You follow them for fun..."
Gay Talese: "I don't follow them for fun! I don't write about them! What the hell."

(paraphrased)
posted by sallybrown at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

Regarding the article on how TV characters would vote, I was dumbfounded by the notion that How I Met Your Mother's Robin Scherbatsky would vote for Cruz... but then I remembered that they're both Canadian!
posted by carmicha at 5:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The next election post better have "glass spouses" somewhere in the title.

If we still had the IMG tag, you could use the Billy Joel album cover.

Trump should call Delilah and dedicate this to Lee Atwater and the GOP base.

Remember how I found you there
Alone in your electric chair
I told you dirty jokes until you smiled
You were lonely for a man
I said "Take me as I am"
'Cause you might enjoy some madness for awhile

Now think of all the years you tried to
Find someone to satisfy you
I might be as crazy as you say
If I'm crazy then it's true
That it's all because of you
And you wouldn't want me any other way

You may be right
I may be crazy
But it just may be a lunatic you're looking for
It's too late to fight
It's too late to change me
You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right

posted by sallybrown at 5:17 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Oh my goodness sallybrown you just transported me to my late 70s Long Island high school days in a most intense way. Thanks?
posted by Lyme Drop at 5:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

she has variable height, her nasty centrist pandering knows no bounds
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

This smacks of desperation and is frankly embarrassing:

Sanders Yiddish ads blast 'wicked' Netanyahu, rightwing Zionists
[...]
Yiddish flyers distributed by a pro-Sanders group and bearing the official logo of the Sanders campaign, have targeted this niche audience by emphasizing the Vermont Senator’s disapproval of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Some of the flyers even employ the Hebrew curse “may the name of the wicked rot” in regards to Israel’s Prime Minister.

“Some self-interested haredi figures have attacked the Democratic candidate for president, Bernie Sanders, calling on [the Jewish public] not to vote for him. The real reason [for their opposition] is because Sanders refuses to bow down to radical right-wing Zionists, and because he does not agree with the radical policies of Netanyahu, may the name of the wicked rot”.

If I were eligible to vote, this secretive, condescending, pandering message would be enough to make me hold my nose and vote for Hillary.
posted by Joe in Australia at 5:27 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

DA Arthur Branch doesn't go for Trump, and neither does Fin Tutuola. Branch was a Yale-educated former law professor who identifies as a federalist. His preferred guy is out, so he's in for Cruz now. And Fin is an African-American guy who loves his gay son and works well with women--he doesn't usually vote, but some of the people in the squad have been talking about that Bernie guy, and he's at least curious. And Munch thinks Bernie is bought and paid for, and hasn't voted in decades.

I might have spent too much time in the L&O universe.
posted by box at 5:32 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I was wondering today how tall HRC is, because she seems very wee behind some of the podiums on the campaign trail. Probably 5'5" ish though?
posted by zutalors! at 5:35 PM on April 19, 2016

I might have spent too much time in the L&O universe.

No such thing.

I think they had Stabler voting for Cruz? I don't think he would like police patrolling Muslim neighborhoods, at least not after A TALK with Olivia, so I think he would vote Kasich.
posted by zutalors! at 5:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fun mystery! Somebody on one of the Reddit election threads asked how tall Hillary Clinton is, because Google couldn't give them a straight answer. They're right! The internet has no idea how tall she is! Estimates range from 5'0" to 5'7"! Maybe the MetaFilter brain trust can crack this case while we wait for official results to roll in

Jay Mathews of the Washington Post says that in 2008, when he wrote this article, he asked Clinton's staff directly and they said she was 5'5. He's been unable to trace more recent press reports that put her at 5'7 back to anything coming directly from her or her people. He reached out to them in 2015 and didn't hear back, at least by the time he published his article.

She looks taller than 5'5 to me. I read this blog by Sady Doyle arguing that people overestimate her size, so maybe I'm just doing that.

Either way - and I don't mean this as a negative thing or a positive thing - this is such a classic Clinton thing. People spending time trying to figure out something that matters not at all because the candidate has stayed mum on it. There's no reason she shouldn't tell people her height; there's no reason we should care; but here we are speculating.
posted by sallybrown at 5:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also Kathleen Stabler would be all I HATE YOU DAD if he voted Cruz.
posted by zutalors! at 5:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Duh, guys, the numbers vary because her height depends on how many corpses of her enemies shes standing on.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

If figured she had rocket-skate shoes from her time with the Legion.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I like the corpses of her enemies explanation, but I'm going to go with women's height being hard to guess because heels.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think that doesn't make sense - people at different heights have different proportions.
posted by zutalors! at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2016

tonycpsu: "Duh, guys, the numbers vary because her height depends on how many corpses of her enemies shes standing on."

Which explains why the estimates are increasing! It all fits!
posted by Chrysostom at 5:44 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

The Law & Order Universe

Det. Lennie Briscoe: Hillary
Det. Mike Logan: Kasich
Det. Olivia Benson: Hillary
Det. Elliot Stabler: Kasich
Capt. Donald Cragen: Abstaining
Det. Phil Cerreta: Trump
Lt. Anita Van Buren: Hillary
Det. Rey Curtis: Cruz
Det. Ed Green: Bernie
Det. John Munch: Bernie
Det. Fin Tutuola: Trump
Det. Robert Goren: Hillary
Det. Alexandra Eames: Hillary
ADA Ron Carver: Hillary
DA Jack McCoy: Hillary
ADA Abbie Carmichael: Kasich
ADA Serena Southerlyn: Hillary
ADA Connie Rubirosa: Hillary
ADA Michael Cutter: Kasich
DA Nora Lewin: Hillary
DA Arthur Branch: Trump
ADA Alex Cabot: Hillary
ADA Casey Novak: Hillary
ADA Rafael Barba: Hillary

Mostly solid picks. So many people unmentioned. Who does Ben Stone go for? What about George Huang and Elizabeth Olivet and Emil Skoda? Is Adam Schiff still alive?
posted by box at 5:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Am i the only nerd who checks my party affiliation every year?
posted by zutalors! at 5:56 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

zutalors!, I check before every primary and special election as well as the general.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 5:57 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Am i the only nerd who checks my party affiliation every year?

I definitely do. I switch it from Democratic to Independent depending on desire to vote in primaries and PA has a 30 day before the election deadline. I would be pissed if I couldn't vote Democratic because I forgot to check, especially because switching to Independent is like...pointless symbolism for myself.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

NBC called New York for Trump the instant the polls closed.
posted by Justinian at 6:00 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yup, AP has also called it for Trump with 0% reporting. Must be a landslide.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:02 PM on April 19, 2016

switching to Independent is like...pointless symbolism for myself.

Respect.
posted by Trochanter at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2016

I've met Hillary, and shook her hand. I'm 5'4" and she was only a few inches taller than me. Plus she was probably wearing heels, and I was not. Of course, this was like 20 years ago, so I may be misremembering things.
posted by Biblio at 6:03 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Just turned on Fox News. Megan Kelly is on and they are talking about Kasich maybe coming in second. You poor, poor, Fox News folks.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2016

Yet again Chris Matthews is SO FIRED UP

I miss Tim Russert.
posted by zutalors! at 6:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Keeping it close in NY folks! 54% 48%
posted by Trochanter at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2016

I knew Trump was going to take it and it yet the only way to sum up my feelings right now is:

:(
posted by sallybrown at 6:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

MSNBC are talking about how much it sucks that there's construction in Times Square? It's like a parody of NY media navelgazing
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's 49 of 15,067 precincts. I wouldn't read much into it!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Chris Mathews just compared the train from NYC to Washington to the Wild Wild West. Um...no. I mean the food/drink car can get a little hairy on Friday post-work, but apart from that it's fairly delightful. And I've ridden the (yes, nicer and faster) trains of Japan and Europe, so it's not like I'm some train rube.
posted by sallybrown at 6:09 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's 49 of 15,067 precincts. I wouldn't read much into it!

At least they didn't call it right out of the gate.
posted by Trochanter at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

So I am Facebook-connected with an uncle whose political opinions have taken A Turn in recent years. He just posted a link to an article from Investors Daily with the title: "Bernie Sanders Thinks The Wealthy Are Greedy -But They're Generous."

....

I will not fight with family on Facebook I will not fight with family in Facebook I will not fight with family in Facebook I will not fight with family on Facebook I will not fight with family on Facebook I will not fight with family on Facebook....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Looks like all the (not very many) precincts reporting so far are in NYC, for what it's worth. Currently 60/40 Clinton.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:10 PM on April 19, 2016

I thought Chris Matthews' point about infrastructure was fine. As has been mentioned a lot, New York finally matters for voting. We're usually some football for 9/11 or "media." We need infrastructure fixes. It's not an unserious topic.
posted by zutalors! at 6:12 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: I've ridden the trains of Japan and Europe, so it's not like I'm some train rube.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:13 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

They've called it for Trump already. ?
posted by eyesontheroad at 6:15 PM on April 19, 2016

So what are the current odds that Sanders suspends his campaign if he loses tonight? Considering that he's likely to need to average 58% of the primary voters moving forward it doesn't seem like he has much of a chance and his spoiler effect seems to be rapidly diminishing. I'm just trying to figure out when he chooses to suspend (and endorse) as a way of achieving the maximum possible concessions. It seems like his stock was higher a few weeks ago and the betting markets are moving against him so he's got a point of diminishing returns in terms of achieving policy concessions.
posted by vuron at 6:15 PM on April 19, 2016

Probably 0. He said he was going to the convention and all Americans deserve the chance to vote for their preferred candidate.
posted by dame at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

I don't think he's going to suspend no matter what.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:17 PM on April 19, 2016

So what are the current odds that Sanders suspends his campaign if he loses tonight?

Less likely than Hillary winning the nomination. He has no reason to suspend and he's loaded with cash. Plus he can ride the "NY was stolen from us" narrative for a couple weeks.
posted by dw at 6:18 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I really can't wait to read this election's version of Game Change. Hopefully not from a post-apocolyptical hellhole. Although I'm not sure Emperor Donald would allow its publication.
posted by sallybrown at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

TERRY JEFFORDS WOULD NOT VOTE FOR DONALD FUCKING TRUMP I HAVE BEEN MAD ALL DAY

TERRY HATES RACISM AND MISOGYNY THIS IS SUCH AN INJUSTICE OH MY GOD

i don't even care who wins im so mad
posted by poffin boffin at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [20 favorites]

I, for one, am keeping my resentment strictly rational.
posted by dame at 6:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

No he's not winning in the exit polls and it's not entirely clear whether the exit polls are measuring actual registered voters or whether it's inflated by people presumable casting provisional ballots.

Benchmark Politics has this being a pretty easy victory so the truth is probably somewhere in between the CNN exit polls and BMP's predictions.
posted by vuron at 6:24 PM on April 19, 2016

So far the only place where Trump isn't ahead is Manhattan. This is going to make me hate New York, right? I don't want to hate New York. I like New York!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:25 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Before any New York blowouts tonight, the locale that has given Trump his biggest win was in far Southwestern coal-belt Virginia with 69.7%. Ironically that location, Buchanan County, is named for the worst US president ever.
posted by peeedro at 6:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Well I mean, Trump is competing against Ted Cruz and John Kasich. Who you you choose if you had to choose one? Winning can mean "least bad"
posted by Elementary Penguin at 6:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I can really do without Brian Williams making jokes about Republicans asking for asylum when their frontrunner is powering his insane candidacy on extreme xenophobia and anti-immigration sentiment.
posted by sallybrown at 6:27 PM on April 19, 2016

I'm not defending Kashich, who is horrifying, but he seems like a different level of horrifying than either Trump or Cruz, both of whom may actually be Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:28 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Four Horsemen: Trump is War, Cruz is Pestilence, Kasich is Misogyny, the other one is...Carson? Carson can be Incoherence. I'm pretty sure that's one of the horsemen.
posted by emjaybee at 6:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't know what New Yorker is going to vote for a candidate who bashes New York. And Republican voters are more likely to be born and bred than Democrats.
posted by zutalors! at 6:31 PM on April 19, 2016

God, watching Trump walk down the winner's carpet to "New York, New York" is enough to turn my stomach permanently. This is terrifying. People reading this in the future - this election was scary as shit.
posted by sallybrown at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2016 [24 favorites]

There's some question over whether the exit polls are including provisional ballot voters. If they are, that says Hillary won, but it was within the 10 point margin that Bernie could claim a "moral victory" and "momentum" from.

Hillary is creeping back towards 60% now as upstate ballots come in. 55% was what the polls said.
posted by dw at 6:33 PM on April 19, 2016

Anyone need a drink? Have they called either side yet?
posted by vrakatar at 6:34 PM on April 19, 2016

God, watching Trump walk down the winner's carpet to "New York, New York" is enough to turn my stomach permanently. This is terrifying. People reading this in the future - this election was scary as shit.

His daughter (Tiffanie?) doing duck lips behind him.
posted by zutalors! at 6:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

All of my R family in upstate NY voted for Trump. My aunt even went to a Trump rally apparently. UGH. At least he wasn't their first/original choice but ughhhhhhhh.

In sum, NY is a land of contrasts.
posted by melissasaurus at 6:36 PM on April 19, 2016

STATEN ISLAND WHY
posted by corb at 6:39 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Have you ever been to Staten Island?
posted by peeedro at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Considering that he's likely to need to average 58% of the primary voters moving forward it doesn't seem like he has much of a chance and his spoiler effect seems to be rapidly diminishing.

Setting aside for a moment the term "spoiler effect" (which seems particularly absurd in an election that's been surprisingly contested at times), the electoral pressure from the Sanders campaign has yanked Clinton sharply to the left and is a huge victory for people who care about the issue positions that she's moved towards. For these people, Sanders suspending his campaign would only give Clinton the opportunity to backslide even earlier than she inevitably will for the general campaign anyway.
posted by threeants at 6:41 PM on April 19, 2016 [9 favorites]

NBC has called New York for Hillary.
posted by dw at 6:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Are you really surprised that Staten Island and Long Island are going to be totally in the bag for Trump?

NY was always a guaranteed Trump win it's mainly about hoping that he can be stopped from getting his delegate total.
posted by vuron at 6:43 PM on April 19, 2016

Never forget that NYC is home to the NY Post, a vile racist right-wing rag. Somebody is reading it. And then there's the rest of the state. I'm not surprised Trump won.
posted by Mavri at 6:44 PM on April 19, 2016

Oh, and remember that Bernie has a number of states he can win and win handily between now and the June 7 CA/NJ Big Finish. Plus, there's a 3 week gap between KY/OR and Puerto Rico and then the CA/NJ/etc.

There's no reason for him to bow out before California. He might even win CA, even if it won't matter in the end.
posted by dw at 6:45 PM on April 19, 2016

I'm brown and I've seen a lot of people giving me some scary side eye in the last few months as they read the Post. That's some of what is happening when people say they're more scared of Trump than Cruz.
posted by zutalors! at 6:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

So the current projections are that Clinton will win 57%-43% and net about 40 delegate tonight. Can we please put this nomination process to bed now because the thought of a couple more months of the zombie Sanders campaign is just depressing.
posted by vuron at 6:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Now NYT and ABC have called it for Hillary.
posted by dw at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2016

Per my Twitter feed, Trump is beating Cruz 14 to 8 in the Bronx. That's 14 votes to 8 votes. It's true that Trump is ahead in the Bronx, but it's also true that there aren't a ton of Republicans there.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:47 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

CNN as well.
posted by zarq at 6:48 PM on April 19, 2016

And Huffpo
posted by Trochanter at 6:48 PM on April 19, 2016

The Board of Elections then confirmed that more than 120,000 voters have been dropped from the rolls in Brooklyn alone since November.

De Blasio said City Hall has received word of entire city blocks and buildings full of voters that were purged from the voting lists. He said the Brooklyn office of the Board of Elections should be removed from the process.
posted by futz at 6:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm really confused by being mad at NY Republicans for voting Trump but thrilled for them for not voting Cruz.

And Kasich got some good meals in.
posted by zutalors! at 6:50 PM on April 19, 2016

Cruz is looking pretty solid in Ulster county with his 7 to 4 lead over Trump
posted by vuron at 6:50 PM on April 19, 2016

I really hate that news agencies are "calling" states which do not in fact assign their delegates on a winner-takes-all basis. It's garbage, news coverage of elections is just garbage, and this process is just way too important to be left in the hands of these garbage people.
posted by tobascodagama at 6:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [26 favorites]

It sort of bothers me that one of the main themes of the Clinton campaign is basically "hard-nosed pragmatism 4 lyfe, idealists fuck off" yet Sanders' campaign is expected to lay off its strategic, effective pressure to influence the Democratic Party's Overton window the very moment electoral victory seems out of reach, because reasons.
posted by threeants at 6:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [30 favorites]

I really hate that news agencies are "calling" states which do not in fact assign their delegates on a winner-takes-all basis.

they've been doing that all along, though. Hence Bernie winning all those states the last few weeks. They do it to both candidates.
posted by zutalors! at 6:53 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

There's already an audit in place as of 9pm in New York.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 6:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Watching CSPAN and they're only talking about Trump. Are there any other good feeds that don't require a cable TV account to log into?
posted by octothorpe at 6:56 PM on April 19, 2016

Regarding the various calls to drop out after this loss, in last week's debate Sanders seemed to almost get Clinton to support $15 and as well as lifting the social security cap. So I'd say his supporters are unlikely to want him to leave the campaign any time soon.
posted by chortly at 6:57 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

strategic, effective pressure to influence the Democratic Party's Overton window

It would be cool if the Sanders campaign was doing this but uh have you been around for the last couple of weeks
posted by theodolite at 6:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

If Sanders wants to stick exclusively to policy issues he can stay in until the convention.
posted by one_bean at 6:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hillary just dropped under 60%. Tompkins County (Ithaca) still hasn't reported. I think she's going to stay in double digits in MoV, but it'll be close.
posted by dw at 7:01 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Electoral victory was out of reach on Super Tuesday though, what we've seen since then has just been a slow motion exercise in futility as Sanders continues to spend massive sums of money on a quixotic attempt to gain the nomination. The logical knots that Tad Devine and company have tied themselves into with the rhetoric , i.e. Caucuses are bad until they are good for our candidate, that super-delegates are bad but they should totally come over to our side. It's created a level of antipathy towards a candidate that I typically agree with on issues but who just seems completely incapable of creating a narrative beyond "Hillary is totally in bed with the banksters" which honestly doesn't seem to be a compelling narrative outside of some narrow demographic ranges.
posted by vuron at 7:02 PM on April 19, 2016 [16 favorites]

strategic, effective pressure to influence the Democratic Party's Overton window

It would be cool if the Sanders campaign was doing this but uh have you been around for the last couple of weeks

Yeah, they've moved to "sold her soul to the devil" "not qualified" etc.
posted by zutalors! at 7:02 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

It would be cool if the Sanders campaign was doing this but uh have you been around for the last couple of weeks

I don't know what you're referring to. (Not being glib here...I actually just don't know what you're referring to.)
posted by threeants at 7:03 PM on April 19, 2016

The overall vibe seems to have shifted from "here's why I should be president" to "here's why she shouldn't be president." A lot of that is coming from supporters, but not all of it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [15 favorites]

"sold her soul to the devil"

Huh, guess I haven't really been paying attention.

Jeff Weaver says it every night on MSNBC.
posted by zutalors! at 7:12 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The overall vibe seems to have shifted from "here's why I should be president" to "here's why she shouldn't be president." A lot of that is coming from supporters, but not all of it.

Yes, some amount of people voting in the Democratic primary think Clinton shouldn't be president. Pressure from these people is moving/holding Clinton leftward for as long as they have political leverage through the primary process.
posted by threeants at 7:13 PM on April 19, 2016

How does attacking Clinton's qualifications and character move her to the left?
posted by theodolite at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

My point ("but not all of it") is that Sanders himself should not be doing it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Does anyone know whether this sort of thing is commonplace?

Yeah, exit polls are inaccurate or misleading all the time. They're a nice, exciting piece of immediate information, but they're subject to a margin of error and unreliability because of sampling techniques and various kinds of response bias. They're also unweighted: the demographic mix of the people who respond isn't adjusted to expectations of the composition of the electorate. So if the select group of Latinos who happened to respond to a given exit poll say they voted for Clinton, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're accurately representative of all Latinos who voted.
posted by zarq at 7:15 PM on April 19, 2016

We've heard repeatedly that negative campaigns are not successful, and Sanders' campaign is super negative right now.
posted by zutalors! at 7:16 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

I'm struggling to think of a reason why exit polls are a good idea (for anyone but news media). Are they meant to be a sort of coalmine canary for vote tampering, or something?
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:17 PM on April 19, 2016

I actually think the evidence suggests that negative campaigns are successful, although Sanders isn't a good example of that. I also think there are huge differences in the perceptions of people who are active on the internet and people who aren't. I don't think this campaign feels nearly as nasty to many people who aren't as digitally engaged as most of us are.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:18 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Someone's predictions today are stats tomorrow.
posted by vrakatar at 7:19 PM on April 19, 2016

I don't think this campaign feels nearly as nasty to many people who aren't as digitally engaged as most of us are.

Man, I hope not
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:20 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

How does attacking Clinton's qualifications and character move her to the left?

The comments I am aware of from Bernie Sanders calling Clinton's qualifications and character into dispute relate to substantive decisions she made as a Senator and/or Secretary of State. Thus generating pressure for Clinton to align herself with policies that will prevent these types of decisions from being made in the same types of ways in the future.

I am also not positing that every single thing the Sanders campaign has ever done is purely strategic; that would be silly.
posted by threeants at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

I'm amused by this tweet from Nate Cohn To be fair to Bernie: Clinton is basically only winning in the southern part of New York. Which is a nice call-out of the rhetoric about Clinton only winning Confederate states coming from Sanders' campaign.
posted by vuron at 7:21 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

Maybe it should be nasty. Maybe there's a lot of shit going on that's just awful.

Here's what you've got.
posted by Trochanter at 7:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Are you really surprised that Staten Island and Long Island are going to be totally in the bag for Trump?

I mean, yes. There's huge Irish and Italian Catholic swaths that I expected to vote for Cruz, hipper areas I would expect to go Kasich...but just really, fuck, come on! I know you're like 80% white, but that doesn't mean you need to go 80% for Trump!
posted by corb at 7:25 PM on April 19, 2016

Maybe it should be nasty. Maybe there's a lot of shit going on that's just awful.

Maybe you're right. Doesn't change the fact that Clinton, despite a truly amazing showing from Sanders, has been mathematically guaranteed to be the nominee for at least a month, and there is no benefit to himself or the country in trying to go super negative on her now. Maybe there would have been six months ago...
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

If you're watching the Democratic campaign day-in day-out, then yes, not only has there been a tone change in the last few weeks, there's also a real sense of dread from how much is getting thrown around.

I think, though, it is fairly confined to the media, to Facebook, and to other places political types hang about. For the average Jo/Joe watching their TV, it doesn't trickle down.

*Caution: Sports Analogy*

The Bernie campaign seems to be playing like this is the last 2 minutes of the basketball game -- foul at every chance and make Hillary win it at the line. Problem is, Hillary's up by almost 20, there are 8 minutes to go, and seriously, this isn't good basketball we're watching. Eventually they will get the message and let the clock run, but we still have 8 minutes to go, so it'll be a while.
posted by dw at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2016 [15 favorites]

There's huge Irish and Italian Catholic swaths that I expected to vote for Cruz

Nooooo. Those are voters who like a Romney type. Trump is closer to that than Cruz.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:27 PM on April 19, 2016

Hillary mentioned equal pay again, women's rights again, minority rights again. I mean talk about consistent.

Sorry, this is important to me, I don't feel like waiting my turn anymore. I'm tired of having my values and interests erased because people have decided only corporate people or low information morons want to vote HRC.
posted by zutalors! at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [37 favorites]

Yeah, I think that Cruz appeals to evangelicals, not white ethnic Catholics. And all that crap about New York Values couldn't have helped him in NYC and environs either.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

there is no benefit to himself or the country in trying to go super negative on her now.

counterpoint: if you were one of the 374 Americans who voted to embark on a for-profit invasion that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold human misery, and your penalty is simply to have that fact thrown in your face every single day of your life, you've gotten off scot-free
posted by threeants at 7:32 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

What if you're one of the millions of Americans who will suffer if the Republican nominee gets elected?
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:33 PM on April 19, 2016 [21 favorites]

Well Clinton is going full out General Election mode in this speech, pretty much just flat out starting to campaign against Trump and the Republicans instead of focusing on Sanders which is a good move because it presents a very powerful narrative that Hillary is inevitable not just for the nomination but for the General Election.
posted by vuron at 7:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

NY is at 70% reporting now and Clinton is still sitting above 58%. Pretty convincing victory.
posted by Justinian at 7:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, you are right on vuron. This is the right time for it, she is going to power over him in PA too. She's swinging knock out punches now.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

counterpoint: if you were one of the 374 Americans who voted to embark on a for-profit invasion that led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and untold human misery, and your penalty is simply to have that fact thrown in your face every single day of your life, you've gotten off scot-free

Either Clinton or Trump/Cruz will be the next president, and I'm legitimately worried that Sanders going negative will hurt Clinton, which worst case scenario would not only result in a Trump or Cruz presidency but would also tar the name of progressivism for the next 25+ years, so ok I'm a little concerned
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

Thus generating pressure for Clinton to align herself with policies that will prevent these types of decisions from being made in the same types of ways in the future.

It didn't work that way at all. Questioning her qualifications just made it seem Sanders was using a sexist attack that career women often face: That they aren't qualified compared to their male counterparts, even when they well exceed such qualifications. It completely backfired, and days later he had to make nice and say what he said months ago: that he does consider her up to the task of being president.

And here's something that you didn't mention: In the last debate, when Sanders sticks to the issue, like $15/hr, it actually gets talked about instead of going after something nebulous and mushy like whether Clinton's qualified or a true progressive.
posted by FJT at 7:35 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

I know it's kind of reductive to view this site as one big monolith of opinion, but I can't reconcile the general disdain for Neoliberalism (that other thread) with these Hilary Clinton apologetics.

Every day that Sanders remains in the race and in the public eye is a small victory for leftists. Remember the debate when two Presidential candidates were referring to the Israel situation as a fucking occupation? Or support for a Federal $15 minimum wage? Or open condemnation of the military industrial complex? Did anyone see that coming?

As much as his supporters are reddit-bro assholes, this Overton-window shifting is all because of the loud, public voice of Bernie Sanders.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 7:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [31 favorites]

I don't think you need to be that worried, showbiz_liz. Crushing your opponent is good for a politician. Sanders going too negative will only backlash on him at this point.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

And here's something that you didn't mention: In the last debate, when Sanders sticks to the issue, like $15/hr, it actually gets talked about instead of going after something nebulous and mushy like whether Clinton's qualified or a true progressive.

Also this. I voted for Sanders because what he believes align with what I believe, but that doesn't mean I want him to tear down the only other Dem candidate. I want to hear him talk about how to get us OUT of this shithole version of political discourse, not participate in it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

Sanders going negative will hurt Clinton

He gave Republicans a nice soundbite with "Clinton is unqualified"
posted by zutalors! at 7:37 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Clinton using her platform to pull Bernie to the left on gun control
posted by one_bean at 7:38 PM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

This is the right time for it, she is going to power over him in PA too.

Maryland also. Mid-Atlantic will come through for her.

That was an excellent speech.
posted by sallybrown at 7:38 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think she was the first one to go with the personal touch, mentioning specific people like the Sandy Hook teacher.
posted by zutalors! at 7:40 PM on April 19, 2016

Rural upstate New York is the power base of its Republican party. Long Island, NYC and its boroughs are more left wing, more Democratic and much more progressive than the rest of the state. Sanders took a bunch of counties upstate, but lost NYC and Long Island. He lost a couple of urban upstate counties/cities that traditionally vote Dem, too: Syracuse (Onondaga) and Rochester (Monroe). He's currently winning Erie (Buffalo) by 2/10ths of a percentage point. He also is currently losing Rockland county, which has the largest Jewish population of any US county, by some 20 percent.

Fascinating.
posted by zarq at 7:40 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Basically I want to hear Sanders talk about a lot of things, none of which are Hillary Clinton, and every second he spends talking about her is a second he isn't spending talking about the policies I want to hear him talk about. He only has so much more time in this campaign and I think he should be using it to talk about the things that inspired people to vote for him in the first place.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [41 favorites]

What if you're one of the millions of Americans who will suffer if the Republican nominee gets elected?

I would posit that chasing after an eternal fractal of lessers-of-both-evils is not a way to live right or to build a good society. At the very least, expecting to exonerate someone for a moral crime as staggering as the Iraq War, for the benefit of the next struggle, is heinous math that I'm not willing to do. However, this is why I am not a Democrat so YMMV.
posted by threeants at 7:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The maps are really fun to look at because Trump is winning stuff like Rangel's CD but the total number of Republican voters is like 5k whereas the total number of Democrats is like 140k in that same district.

So what's happening is that Sanders is more or less generating a Republican Governor map that probably looks similar to what Pataki would generally generate and Hillary is winning a typical Democratic map with insane majorities in NYC.
posted by vuron at 7:43 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's looking like Cruz will end the night shut out of New York. Wow.
posted by dw at 7:44 PM on April 19, 2016

I just can't believe how much weight Hillary Clinton has to carry for the Iraq War right now. I'm ma d at her for voting for it too, but I'm much more angry with Bush Cheney etc and our general racist jingoistic idiocy that pushed us into that conflict.

Also Sanders supports the drone program, so if he's the nominee he'll have that blood on his hands. All Presidents do. Sanders just hasn't had to deal with it yet.
posted by zutalors! at 7:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [28 favorites]

I would posit that chasing after an eternal fractal of lessers-of-both-evils is not a way to live right or to build a good society.

It totally isn't, but for now, it kinda looks as if we're stuck with it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I would posit that chasing after an eternal fractal of lessers-of-both-evils is not a way to live right or to build a good society.

This is a very privileged way to look at the situation. People will die if their healthcare and reproductive rights are taken away for four, eight, etc years.
posted by zutalors! at 7:46 PM on April 19, 2016 [37 favorites]

I said: He also is currently losing Rockland county, which has the largest Jewish population of any US county, by some 20 percent.

Thinking about it... I may be wrong about it having the largest Jewish population of any US county.
posted by zarq at 7:49 PM on April 19, 2016

Hoover sucked.
posted by uosuaq at 7:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Jeff Weaver was just on expounding on the Sanders' superdelegate strategy. Given it follows Tad Devine's bit last night it's clear they accept Clinton will have a significant lead in pledged delegates at the end of the process. I'm not sure if they actually want the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters or if they are just talking about the superdelegate strategy as justification to stay in the race. The latter I hope.
posted by Justinian at 7:51 PM on April 19, 2016

I hold each one of the other 373 people responsible as well, but they're not running for president.
posted by threeants at 7:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't know if anyone who's ever experienced true evil would say that.

Lesser of two evils, a couple atomic bombs or a ground invasion? That's the kind of question evil is made out of.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:53 PM on April 19, 2016

Susan B Anthony's grave stone today.
posted by octothorpe at 7:54 PM on April 19, 2016 [31 favorites]

You know, if Bernie kept Jeff Weaver out of the media it would do SO MUCH to calm the waters.
posted by dw at 7:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

I know it's kind of reductive to view this site as one big monolith of opinion, but I can't reconcile the general disdain for Neoliberalism (that other thread) with these Hilary Clinton apologetics.

I mean I have general disdain for neoliberalism but I guess I'm one of those "Hillary Clinton apolegetics." I'm not sure why that's so hard to understand though. I attended a Bernie rally at the very beginning, here in MA, and went in enthusiastic because I agreed with his viewpoints, and came away unimpressed because he didn't seem to have much substance beyond the rhetoric. It seems clear that he's had a long time in office with very little to show for it in terms of actual policy changes. In a parliamentary democracy, he seems like he would be the ideal guy to have in Opposition, to hold the Government's feet to the fire a bit, but it's not clear he would be good at actually moving policies in a leftward direction. I don't see a huge political revolution happening without a lot of support and funding for other Democrats in downticket races, and it seems clear that he has disdain for the whole process and is only an opportunistic Democrat. This might be a plus to other people, but to me it's not. I happen to think the Democratic party is clearly better than the Republican party, and that if you think they're equivalent, you're not paying attention or are very privileged.

Finally, I appreciate the fact that Hillary has been a tireless campaigner for women's rights and family issues - these are things that are very close to my heart, and I would prefer a President who has these issues at the core of her campaign rather than as an afterthought. Sanders' comments at age 32 regarding women aren't particularly reassuring either about the sincerity of his concern for women's rights. In that respect I would actually say Hillary is the more leftist candidate.
posted by peacheater at 7:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [33 favorites]

Hilary is carrying weight for the Iraq War from leftists. Leftists have already expended a decade of energy in condemning Bush/Cheney and the "general racist jingoistic idiocy" that led to it.

It is not unreasonable to condemn an ostensible progressive for repeatedly hawkish tendencies. Sanders should not be exempt from that condemnation but he has far less blood on his hands. We are talking about someone who supported an old-fashioned undemocratic coup in Honduras!

It's like a conservative saying "Bush/Cheney have born enough of the burden for the Iraq War! What about Hilary?"
posted by R.F.Simpson at 7:56 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Who was the last president to not intervene militarily in some capacity (whether "advisors" or air strikes or ground troops)?

Great question. Ford maybe? Carter loses because of the failed Iran hostage rescue. Wait nope, Ford had the Magaguez Incident.
posted by msalt at 7:56 PM on April 19, 2016

Well, I've made my voting decision.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jeff Weaver and Tad Devine are some deeply clueless idiots or the shittiest spinmeisters on the planet.

When do you think they'll realize that continually talking about voter fraud and then going "lol the popular vote and pledged delegate totals totes don't matter, the General Election Head-to-Head polling is the only thing that matters" is deeply off-putting to the prospective voters that Sanders needs to be courting now?

Are they just conceding the fact that he simply cannot catch Clinton without a wholesale shift of superdelegates into his camp after he's spent like a whole year talking shit about Democrats?
posted by vuron at 7:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Hilary is carrying weight for the Iraq War from leftists. Leftists have already expended a decade of energy in condemning Bush/Cheney and the "general racist jingoistic idiocy" that led to it.

Yeah, I'm tired of getting chucked out of the left because I support Hillary this election. I protested that war. I supported Dean because he was against it. I supported Obama because he was against it. HRC has said she should have been against it, she was not the only person who voted for it, I have other priorities that I think she will support at this time (healthcare, equal pay, minority rights) that Bernie barely or never mentions because he is talking about war and banks.

Just because people are NeverHillary doesn't mean they have a lock on progressive politics.
posted by zutalors! at 7:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [36 favorites]

I.... wouldn't phrase it like that. But yes, they're now conceding the fact that Clinton will win both the popular vote and the pledged delegate total.
posted by Justinian at 8:00 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

You quoted my phrase "a discursive blackout" in your comment, so please don't portray what I was saying as something different literally one line below.

There has been a ton of cherry picking parts of comments in the recent threads. A lot of good faith seems to have disappeared and it is very discouraging.
posted by futz at 8:02 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

Yeah, I know a lot of conservative Catholics and I don't really know ANY who are voting for Cruz. Mostly they've been protest voting for Kasich or skipping the primary and intend to vote Dem in the general. They find Cruz's stance on immigration unconscionable, and while plenty don't agree with it, committed Catholics are pretty clear at this point on that the Church's teachings on economics and the environment are wildly incompatible with the GOP and you can't pretend it's less important than sexual morality issues at this point. Plus Catholics culturally tend to find Cruz's style of evangelicalism personally distasteful/uncomfortable/show-offy, so even if they could deal with him on the issues, there's a real discomfort with his mode of presentation w/r/t faith.

All that said, Catholics qqua Catholics aren't a significant swing vote. They vote the same as their socioeconomic peers. But if you're talking about Catholics who take their Catholicism seriously in their voting (a small, small group), the conservative ones are not voting Cruz.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:04 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

The graceful thing to do if you have no reasonable path to victory and you aren't capable of generating a contested convention is to bow out and start spending that warchest on down-ballot races that progressives can actually win. Sanders will get to make a cool speech at the convention and get some issues pushed onto the party platform but he has no reasonable shot at winning the nomination now but those millions in donations could be instrumental in pushing some down ballot progressives to victory.
posted by vuron at 8:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm not trying to tell you who to vote for, I'm just saying that glossing over Hilary's neocon bonafides is a progressive mistake. Just like it would be to gloss over Bernie's gun record. Hillary should hammer Bernie on Guns. Bernie should hammer Hillary on money and war.

Personally, I think this whole mess is going to be good for the left.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 8:06 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, dammit, that Susan B Anthony gravestone picture just made me cry. Way to spring it on a lady unprepared!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 8:08 PM on April 19, 2016 [24 favorites]

I wish Weaver hadn't said that Hillary had made a deal with the devil. He didn't say that she sold her soul although it is close enough. And he doesn't say it every night on msnbc as mentioned above.

Chris Matthews said that Weaver said "sold her soul'.

/pedantic
posted by futz at 8:08 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

So how bout this? With New York, the share of remaining bindable delegates that Trump needs (for 1237 bound) will drop from 67% to 62-63%. That's pretty dramatic.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2016

Sanders' comments at age 32 regarding women aren't particularly reassuring either about the sincerity of his concern for women's rights.

peacheater, I don't remember reading about this. What were his comments?
posted by torticat at 8:09 PM on April 19, 2016

I wish Sanders and his campaign folks would acknowledge this is a critical year and the time has come to aim to win every possible down ballot race, not keep making damaging and unfounded claims about the certain and highly qualified nominee. You know, if you want a revolution, fight for the right side.
posted by bearwife at 8:12 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Folks, especially zutalors!, please stop picking at each other's rhetoric and going after each other. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is a lot like the 2007-2008 primary campaign, only less contentious. In that one, Mark Penn kept trying to imply Obama had sold drugs and kept bringing up his cocaine use. It pretty much went downhill from there, and the contentious primary I think resulted in a more active, involved Dem electorate. I think this idea anybody should drop out because the odds are against them is both counterproductive and just wrong. I know there's a sense that Sanders should be satisfied and let Clinton pivot to the right for the general election, I just think that is a horrible, horrible idea. The best opposition to incipient fascism isn't mild, centrist technocracy.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:13 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

zarq: "Thinking about it... I may be wrong about it having the largest Jewish population of any US county."

I couldn't find anything freely available on county breakdowns, but it looks like the most Jewish congressional district is NY-10 ("The district contains the southern portion of Morningside Heights, the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the west side of Midtown Manhattan, the west side of Lower Manhattan including Greenwich Village and the Financial District and parts of Brooklyn, including Borough Park.").
posted by Chrysostom at 8:14 PM on April 19, 2016

One thing I've been wondering about: Who was the last president to not intervene militarily in some capacity (whether "advisors" or air strikes or ground troops)? ... Hoover, perhaps?

Sandino, for whom the Sandinistas named themselves, was fighting Hoover's troops.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:14 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Jeff Weaver explains how Bernie can still win via the delegate math.

I don't think I haven't seen UK style spin doctoring in the US before.
posted by dw at 8:14 PM on April 19, 2016

peacheater, I don't remember reading about this. What were his comments?

This is from this Medium article that was linked earlier.
I went back and read several of Sanders’ writings from the 70s. I realize these are from quite a few years ago. However, he was in his early 30s when he wrote them. And I found them to be pathetic — not just poor and embarrassing writing you might expect from an oversexed sophomoric boy, but very limited, reductive, lazy thinking. He bought into the idea that repression causes cancer, and illustrated that through a hypothetical in which he argued that if some nice young boy “has an old bitch for a teacher (and there are a lot of them)…” who tells him what to do, the boy will repress his feelings; a lifetime of repression will give him prostate cancer. Why do I care about this idiotic piece he wrote at the age of 32? I’ll tell you why. He assumed that the supposedly repression-causing behavior came from women telling boys what to do — he could have picked a male teacher to be the one instilling discipline in his hypothetical — but he assumed years of specifically female teachers would cause boys to repress themselves and lead to prostate cancer. And he had no problem referring to them as “bitch.” He wasn’t 16 when he wrote this.
He was 32.

And also:
Sanders also wrote about the dangers of sexual repression in other ways, including through a hypothetical about based around women’s supposedly fantasizing about being “raped simultaneously by three men” and men fantasizing about raping women. Yuck. He also wrote that because girls reach puberty by 13, they ought to be sexually active as teenagers.
posted by peacheater at 8:14 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

That was 42 years ago. People change. I certainly hope he has changed. Many of Hillary's views have changed significantly through the years. Especially in recent years.
posted by futz at 8:19 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I really hate that news agencies are "calling" states which do not in fact assign their delegates on a winner-takes-all basis.

they've been doing that all along, though. Hence Bernie winning all those states the last few weeks. They do it to both candidates.

I know the thread has moved on, but I just want to point out that the other thing I hate about this garbage fucking primary is the way that any kind of statement whatsoever, no matter how neutral, is inevitably parsed as some kind of full-throated endorsement of somebody or other.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:21 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

Who was the last president to not intervene militarily in some capacity (whether "advisors" or air strikes or ground troops)?

I think the last and only one is William Henry Harrison.
posted by FJT at 8:21 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

There might be some good points in that Medium article, but it reads like propaganda, and googling the author doesn't do a thing to dispel that impression. So I'll suspend judgment for now.
posted by uosuaq at 8:22 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Here's my experience using the Ballot Marking Device today with a wildly out of calibration touch screen. Click on the other candidate to cast your vote!

Most voters in NY use pen to mark their ballot and that is all the BMD replaces. After going through the screens on the BMD, it prints marks on the paper ballot and the voter can verify their choices before casting it at the ballot box. This is a much better system than the unaccountable Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems from Diebold / ES&S .

The BMD machines are required by ADA/HAVA and the poll site coordinator called the ADA hotline to get it fixed. The procedure is a real throwback to the 1990s era Palm Pilot "click on the cross hair in the center, now this cross hair in the corner, now this one, ...". When i was an election worked I figured out how to do it since it happened several times per day sometimes.
posted by autopilot at 8:23 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure people change. But I'm trying to imagine my husband or my father saying that at that age and I simply can't. And my husband is younger than 32. Neither of them would ever use the word bitch for one thing. If that was the only thing, it would be one thing, it's just that it seems all of a piece with the fact that his main focus in his campaign has been on banks.
posted by peacheater at 8:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

That medium article is absolute garbage. Anti Bernie? I may be voting for Bernie but I'm not Anti-Hillary and anyone who is needs to wake up to the realities of U.S. politics.

However, if those claims about his early writings are legitimate, (how would one go about finding those documents?) then that is cause for progressive anger and condemnation.

If progressivism is not intersectional, then it is fascism.
posted by R.F.Simpson at 8:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

One thing I've been wondering about: Who was the last president to not intervene militarily in some capacity (whether "advisors" or air strikes or ground troops)?

Hoover, perhaps?

American troops occupied Haiti during his Presidency, according to this link (more details here). He was not the one who put the troops there, though. That was Wilson, which would knock out Coolidge and Harding as contenders also, if you view this as military intervention.

Taft sent troops to Nicaragua. Teddy Roosevelt doesn't qualify and neither does McKinley, nor Cleveland. Harrison sent Marines to Hawaii before it was part of the US, among other things.

I haven't found any info about military intervention by Chester A. Arthur, so he may be the winner.

(This is very much not my subject, so apologies for any errors.)

Great question.
posted by sallybrown at 8:27 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

He bought into the idea that repression causes cancer

Does frequent ejaculation help ward off prostate cancer?

Marc Garnick, M.D., Editor in Chief of Harvard Medical School’s Annual Report on Prostate Diseases, says:

Two relatively large studies of this question, reported in 2003 and 2004, yielded good news for sexually active men: high ejaculation frequency seemed to protect against prostate cancer.

As part of Harvard’s Health Professionals Follow-up Study, 29,342 men between the ages of 46 and 81 reported their average number of ejaculations per month in young adulthood (ages 20–29), in mid-life (ages 40–49), and in the most recent year. Ejaculations included sexual intercourse, nocturnal emissions, and masturbation. Study participants also provided comprehensive health and lifestyle data every two years from 1992 to 2000. The scientists found that men who ejaculated 21 or more times a month enjoyed a 33% lower risk of prostate cancer compared with men who reported four to seven ejaculations a month throughout their lifetimes.

An Australian study of 2,338 men came to a similar conclusion. In all, men who averaged 4.6 to seven ejaculations a week were 36% less likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer before the age of 70 than men who ejaculated less than 2.3 times a week on average.

posted by Rumple at 8:28 PM on April 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think the last and only one is William Henry Harrison.

If he'd just hung on for five more days...
posted by dw at 8:28 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I don't expect anything but spin from campaign emails, but tonight's missive from Bernie's campaign has a distinct Baghdad Bob vibe to it:

We didn’t get the victory we had hoped for this evening, but what’s important is that it looks like we’re going to win a lot more delegates in New York than any state that voted or caucused before tonight.

Yes, thanks for the math lesson -- ~42% of 247 is, in fact, larger than 55% of 14. On the other hand, I thought the goal was to, you know, win more delegates than your opponent.

So what does that mean? Five important states vote one week from tonight, with more delegates at stake than Hillary Clinton led by coming into tonight. And if we do well next Tuesday, we remain in a position to take the pledged delegate lead when almost 700 delegates are up for grabs on June 7.

Wait, so you're telling me that if Bernie wins every single delegate in the next five contests, he'll be ahead? Well, that changes everything!
posted by tonycpsu at 8:30 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

Well, here's what happens when a popular vote can be overruled. Damn you, superdelegates.
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I haven't found any info about military intervention by Chester A. Arthur, so he may be the winner.

Sadly, no, we landed troops in Egypt in 1882.
posted by dw at 8:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think the last and only one is William Henry Harrison.

That is truly...wow.
posted by sallybrown at 8:31 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rumple, read the quote more carefully - he's not talking about repressing one's urge to masturbate, but about repression of boys' feelings due to female teachers who are 'bitches'.
posted by peacheater at 8:34 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Democratic race is over, there's really not much point in arguing about it anymore. Unless something huge happens like Clinton dying or getting indicted, she's won.

The only questions that remain are:

1. How will Sanders handle the denouement? His camp, as noted above, is starting to get ugly. It's not just his more enthusiastic supporters that are shouting conspiracy and fraud and Hillary being evil, the campaign itself is fanning the flames.

2. Will Trump win the nomination outright? If not, will he gather enough delegates to convince the convention to give it to him?
posted by Sangermaine at 8:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I don't think any President in office during any sort of Indian expulsion gets a pass.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:36 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

I couldn't find anything freely available on county breakdowns, but it looks like the most Jewish congressional district is NY-10

Ah! Thank you!
posted by zarq at 8:37 PM on April 19, 2016

peacheater -- *phew* I was worried for a second....
posted by Rumple at 8:38 PM on April 19, 2016

It's not our fault that you choose to live in a state that schedules your primaries past the point in which the election can be meaningfully shifted one way or another. Hell when was the last time NY was relevant in a democratic nomination process?

Nobody is saying you shouldn't vote for Sanders but we are saying that he has no shot of winning the nomination and continuing to beg for donations and spending crazy sums of money on media buys in states he cannot possibly win is a poor use of resources.
posted by vuron at 8:39 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think Sanders should stay in it.
posted by zutalors! at 8:40 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

2. Will Trump win the nomination outright? If not, will he gather enough delegates to convince the convention to give it to him?

It's still a pretty steep path to an outright victory for him, I think. He'll need over 60% of the remaining delegates, and he'll probably never do as well again as he did tonight.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:41 PM on April 19, 2016

Also, dammit, that Susan B Anthony gravestone picture just made me cry.

Same here. I clicked not knowing what to expect, and all of a sudden all the blood rushed to my face. This is apparently the source photographer. Powerful image regardless.
posted by cashman at 8:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

TImeline of US Military Interventions

It's actually hard to find any more than 2 years apart, though there is 1934-1940, oddly.
posted by Rumple at 8:42 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think he should stay in all the way to the convention, I just want him to stop dragging Clinton and start dragging the people I REALLY hate
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:43 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

Isolationism was pretty big at that point.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:43 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

@HeerJeet: Here's New York values for you: Ted Cruz is losing to Ben Carson in some districts.
posted by figurant at 8:44 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Also, dammit, that Susan B Anthony gravestone picture just made me cry.

Someone posted this on a friend's Facebook and some guy immediately rushed in to mansplain that this is defacement and HE would never PRESUME to do such a thing, for shame
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

So, with 91% reporting, GOP delegates are projected as:

Trump 90
Kasich 5
Cruz 0

This...does not seem to have been a super night for the #NoTrump folks.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:45 PM on April 19, 2016 [7 favorites]

This is so smart. I should move to one of the better states, not the shitty one that doesnt matter. ah! this republic is so good

Look, reality is reality. There really isn't any point in pretending your vote matters, because it doesn't at this point. This isn't an insult or an attack, just a statement of fact. It may be unpleasant to read but it's the truth. You can vote for Sanders, but it will make no difference in the nomination race.

I'm not sure why you want people to act as if this weren't so. It helps no one. I know what this is like: I grew up a Democrat in Texas. Whatever I wanted or felt, I knew my state was always going to vote for the Republican in the Presidential race. I live in NY now. My vote almost never matters because most races are resolved by the time they reach here, this year being a bizarre fluke.

That reality doesn't change by denying it.
posted by Sangermaine at 8:47 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bernie flew home to Vermont from PA tonight.

"I miss Vermont," Sanders said, "and we need to get recharged and take a day off."

posted by sallybrown at 8:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Another third place victory for Cruz! Glorious third place victory!

(I miss Marco Rubio).
posted by Justinian at 8:49 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

if you sing the song you will feel better
posted by poffin boffin at 8:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

The 'repression leads to cancer' stuff came from Sanders reading Wilhelm Reich, according to Mother Jones. As an aside, Reich's orgone accumulator led to a wonderful song.

Here is the 'old bitch of a teacher' essay.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 8:51 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

Having the #NoTrump folks be utterly dependent on the success of two completely uncharismatic chuckle-fucks is where they went wrong. Cruz is not really seen as being better than Trump in terms of General Election election match-ups and Kasich seems to be more or less basing his entire campaign on the idea that he can potentially win a single battleground state.

When Ruboto crashed and burned they basically lost any shot of developing a coherent #nottrump candidate. Kind of sad that Ruboto managed to knock-off Vice Principal Bush because in theory he could've been a decent #nottrump consensus pick but the 2 jokers remaining have absolutely no chance of blocking Trump from hitting his required delegate totals after getting crushed tonight.
posted by vuron at 8:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

You think you got it bad? I'm in "First Tuesday in June Primary" California... the last time we mattered for anything in a Presidential Campaign was when Bobby Kennedy was shot after his victory speech.

Still, it's nice to have somebody else on the ballot when the presumptive winner isn't one of your favorite people... but when the only other somebody on the ballot is ALSO not one of your favorite people... sigh. Still, we got a couple of juicy more-local races to vote on, including one with a retiring congresswoman where her seat is seriously in danger of going from D to R... over my dead body. (Checks blood pressure - yeah, it's possible)
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I feel for people who are in NJ, who come work in NYC and then have to wait forever after us to vote. It's kind of ridiculous.
posted by zutalors! at 8:54 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

California voted on Super Tuesday in 2008
posted by one_bean at 8:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ughhhh whyyyyyy duffell!
posted by sallybrown at 8:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

The results are almost all in (98%) and its Clinton by 15%, Trump by 35%(!).
posted by Justinian at 8:57 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here's my experience using the Ballot Marking Device today with a wildly out of calibration touch screen. Click on the other candidate to cast your vote!

This is insanity. You're voting for like, one of a few choices right? Or are these all the downticket primaries at the same time? Either way though, pencils and paper aren't difficult, these aren't the numbers you'd have in a general, just make CNN wait ten minutes while you count... oh.

Also it's late but like, neither Clinton nor Sanders are particularly dumb or imperceptive people.

Clinton knows it's over, Sanders knows it's over. Still, he can keep sending a really strong message to the right wing of the party that there are a lot of people that care about certain issues. If he concedes the right way and helps unify as much of the party as possible, he's buying those issues onto the party platform. The closer to the the peak of his relevance he gets before he drops out, the more likely he can deliver the left wing by forcing compromises. I think? Him staying in also gives her cover to shift views leftward--as she's already been doing!--without as much accusation of flip-flopping as might happen if she went faster. I dunno. I just don't think Sanders is as delusional as Romney's campaign was, and he could be aiming to say "You agree to XYZ, I drop out, unified party crushes Trump." I dunno.

Just popping in here to say that if you imagine the sentence "Ted Cruz licked his lips" before every Cruz quote, every article you read on the 2016 election is like 10000x worse.

I cannot even formulate a response awful enough, Trump said, wiping off the jelly.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:00 PM on April 19, 2016

I know a lot of people who worked on the Sanders campaign and am bummed for them.
posted by zutalors! at 9:01 PM on April 19, 2016

My Facebook feed right now is mostly sadness. I think for most the inevitable is starting to set in.

New York has got to fix its system, tho.
posted by dw at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2016

They should make people vote based upon when their state joined the union. The original thirteen colonies vote on the first week and then add a couple of the states the next week until Hawaii and Alaska get to vote last of the states and then all the territories that will never get representation as can go like DC, Guam, Puerto Rico.

Yeah the South should probably have to go after Nevada and before Nebraska based upon their seceding from the Union but this is really no more or less silly than privileging Iowa and New Hampshire over any other state in terms of dominating the nomination process.
posted by vuron at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't care if Sanders stays in. His goals are great and can only improve the platform. I care that he starts turning his attention and that of his supporters towards spending on D's down ballot and laying off the baseless attacks on Clinton. How about ripping into Trump and Cruz instead? If he wants to achieve the goals he and Clinton share, now is the time to pivot that way.

It doesn't matter a ton as next week will truly put paid to any route to the nomination for Sanders, but it will give him heft to act selflessly now.
posted by bearwife at 9:03 PM on April 19, 2016 [22 favorites]

Did Bernie give a concession speech?
posted by sallybrown at 9:06 PM on April 19, 2016

Wow, did Ted Cruz kick everyone's dog in Greene County? He got 1.9% of the vote there. Out of about 3400 votes, only 64 people voted for him!

Seriously, that's way below his performance across the state, and in all the counties surrounding Greene County.
posted by FJT at 9:07 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Did Bernie give a concession speech?

Not this time around. I think candidates mostly only give concession speeches for the first 2-3 contests. After that you risk looking like a loser.
posted by Justinian at 9:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

With all the attention he's been getting because of NeverTrump, its easy to forget that almost everyone really, really hates Cruz, even most Republicans. This is the guy about whom Sen. Lindsey Graham said, ""If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you". Less than two months ago.

The amazing thing isn't Cruz's low percentages, it's that anyone can even hold their noses to vote for him at all.
posted by Sangermaine at 9:12 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

CBS News Exit Poll

Interesting stat: Despite the "Bernie or Bust" mutterings, only 14% said they'd absolutely not vote for Hillary. 18% said they would not vote for Bernie.
posted by dw at 9:13 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Or are these all the downticket primaries at the same time?

Annoyingly, this was just the presidential primary in NY. There are not one but two more primaries scheduled for later on different dates; one for US House and Senate races and the last for state-level races.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:14 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sanders made kind of a low key statement. A good one.
posted by zutalors! at 9:15 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I think some folks may get a little too wrapped up with inside-baseball, campaign minutiae, Twitter, TV punditry, etc. All of that stuff affects a very small segment of the population. This is not due to any of that -- it's due to a platform of about 6 things, repeated over and over. All of which may be hopelessly idealistic -- but it has already succeeded in moving Clinton leftward on wages, trade, social security, climate, and other issues, and has infected millions of young voters with leftwing ideals that will shape decades of voting to come. It's been a good run, but as someone who thought he had effectively lost since around mid-February (and never thought he had much of a chance), it's really been more about persuasion and nudges than about winning against a prohibitive favorite. Hopefully they'll be able to get a couple more leftward nudges in before wrapping it up, and hopefully they can transition the movement towards something like a Tea Party of the left -- a radical party within the party that continues long after the leader is gone. I have my doubts about that last bit succeeding, but it's been a very effective campaign nevertheless. Even if it disappears as thoroughly as Occupy did, like Occupy it changed the discourse pretty profoundly, and perhaps made the party a bit more aware of just how far left its youth have swung.
posted by chortly at 9:27 PM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

I wonder if Chris Matthews is going to get any sleep at all? Still so fired up.
posted by zutalors! at 9:50 PM on April 19, 2016

Kiese Laymon (Facebook post):

We all know that Bernie Sanders lacked moral imagination and will necessary to fight the 1994 crime bill. He gave a speech about why it was destructive but necessary and signed it. Others gave speeches about why it was destructive and refused to sign it. Twenty years later, he lacked the moral imagination and will necessary to stand on a stage across from Hillary Clinton and call her an American hawk with the bloodiest of hands and an architect of the economic war on black mothers and children. That lack of moral imagination and will created a politician capable of obsessing over Wall Street greed while neglecting engineered black American poverty. He never effectively tied Clinton, the polished American politician, to her many economic crimes against black Americans and war crimes against black and brown poor worldwide. And the entire time he wasn't doing this, his followers were acting as if his critics were wrong. This ain't about Bernie. It's about a desperate left willing to ignore the blindspots of politicians who ignore the lives of poor black and brown folk in the United States and worldwide. Quiet as it's kept, if Bernie had an abundance of moral imagination and will, I doubt he would have even a quarter of the support he has now.

posted by bardophile at 9:55 PM on April 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

New York City Comptroller To Audit Board Of Election Due To Hundreds Of Thousands Of Polling Problems

(You've got to read the whole article. Very fucked up)

Why did 60,000 people receive notices to vote that didn’t have the primary date? Why were people told they were in the wrong polling place time and time again?”

At one polling site at Carlton and Atlantic avenues in Brooklyn, the site coordinator didn’t even bother to show up and it took about an hour-and-a-half to find a replacement so the poll could open.

Television and radio contributor John Burnett took to Twitter to voice his complaints, saying that in Harlem he was told there were no GOP ballots available.

The most common complaint was voters being told they weren’t registered, followed by being told they were not registered with a political party, and the denial of affidavit ballots when requested.

Other complaints included lack of privacy, accessibility issues, unclear instruction, and the availability of only blue pens when ballots state they must be marked in black.

And this infuriating statement:

“The problems were on par with other years, but more media attention has been paid to this primary because of the candidates,” the board said.

Michael Ryan, the board’s executive director, told CBS2’s Valerie Castro that most of the problems were anecdotal.

“Either it was a relatively minor problem that was resolved, or it was a problem that didn’t exist in the first place. And on top of that, there was quite a bit of lack of understanding on the part of voters with respect to New York’s closed primary system,” Ryan explained.

Ryan told WCBS 880 placed some of the blame on errors by voters.

“A certain amount of this does come down to voter responsibility. You can’t impart information on an audience that is not hungry for it,” Ryan told WCBS 880. “So folks who are going about their lives, and if they’re not paying attention to the process until the last minute and they just go to the poll site without doing any further investigation, they’re doing themselves a disservice and they’re doing a disservice to the other folks who might be inconvenienced because they’re coming to the poll site to vote and the process is being slowed down by people who shouldn’t be there in the first place.”

I hope he just lost his job. None of this is his fault, it is the idiot voters.
posted by futz at 9:58 PM on April 19, 2016 [10 favorites]

One thing I hadn't thought of since I've pushed the superdelegates aside in my head: If you take the endorsements as they are, Hillary will end tonight needing around 425 delegates to get to 2338. That would mean she could probably "clinch the nomination" May 17 with Oregon and Kentucky.

Better to win the pledged delegate majority, obviously. But I would expect that will be the media narrative.
posted by dw at 10:00 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

At my polling place, I had the paper and the email that said it was my
Voting place and they still thought I needed to go elsewhere.

I'm about as high information as a ny voter can get and I almost couldn't vote because mistakes.
posted by zutalors! at 10:05 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I am all for educating people about voting, and making it a smoother, easier process, but I have seen so much outrage tonight from white people over the fact that you have to register in advance to vote in a party's primary in NY.

I wish I saw even a shadow of that outrage over the actual, concerted governmental machinations to suppress black voting through voter ID laws.
posted by pocketfullofrye at 10:10 PM on April 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

I am all for educating people about voting, and making it a smoother, easier process, but I have seen so much outrage tonight from white people over the fact that you have to register in advance to vote in a party's primary in NY.

Never mind that in NY you had to register absurdly early for your party to vote in the primary, but this is not the thing that most voters are mad about. At least 3 people I know were long term democrats--some for years but were unable to vote because they were removed from the party without their consent. There was general chaos in my district because polling stations were closed or people had been reassigned without their knowledge. And upstate, the polls didn't open until 12, which limited the time people had to address these problems and still be able to vote.

It's not about a bunch of unaffiliated and independent voters wanting to vote for Bernie. It's about registered long-term democrats being unable to cast a vote in their party's primaries.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 10:19 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

Registered voters participating in the 2016 Democratic primary:
MN: 6%
CO: 4.5%
WA: 7.5%
NY: 15%

Early registration and poorly trained poll workers still beat the shit out of caucuses
posted by one_bean at 10:24 PM on April 19, 2016 [14 favorites]

With all of this nonsense about physical voting I think they really should give online voting a chance.

The obvious jumpstart for it: lots of Americans have registered for the Affordable Care Act website, and followed a bunch of authentication steps to register. Libraries and other organizations are already helping people access the site even if they don't have a computer or computer skills. Why not try a pilot online voting program based on this?

Yes, I work in computer security for a living and I know this could be a shitstorm. But then again, look what in-person voting has become.
posted by mmoncur at 10:26 PM on April 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

The obvious jumpstart for it: lots of Americans have registered for the Affordable Care Act website, and followed a bunch of authentication steps to register.... Why not try a pilot online voting program based on this?

A government program which registers every Obamacare enrollee as a voter? I love this, because I can imagine conservatives losing their shit so epically it looks like they just opened the Ark of the Covenant.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 10:48 PM on April 19, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'll admit that was my thinking too. But realistically, they could expand the site to allow registering/authenticating/voting even if you weren't interested in Evil Obama Communist Muslim Healthcare.
posted by mmoncur at 11:03 PM on April 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Robert Reich (Facebook post):

Reading through many of your comments about today's New York primary, I want to urge that Bernie supporters tone down negative characterizations of Hillary, and Hillary supporters do the same with regard to Bernie. I know both candidates personally. Both are thoughtful and dedicated people who care deeply about this nation. Either of them would be a thousand times better president than any of the Republican candidates. But we will need to join together to ensure one of them becomes president. It's important we not jeopardize that future joint effort through excessive divisiveness now.
What do you think?

The comments in response are one deep well of bitterness.
posted by dougzilla at 11:52 PM on April 19, 2016 [11 favorites]

A government program which registers every Obamacare enrollee as a voter?

Oregon now automatically registers everyone who gets or renews their drivers' license. You can opt out, or choose any party or stay independent.

This would be a great program for Bernie and Hillary to both champion. I'm hard pressed to imagine how Republicans could even oppose it with a straight face. Why not? All your ID is verified on the spot, and they have your current address.

Thousands and thousands of new voters were registered in just the first couple of weeks. (It started at the beginning of this year.)
posted by msalt at 11:59 PM on April 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

WA doesn't have a real primary. We have a (shitty) caucus. The "primary" is a meaningless beauty pageant thing two months after the caucus.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 12:20 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm so tired of 'Muslim' being a slur.
posted by bardophile at 12:22 AM on April 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

This would be a great program for Bernie and Hillary to both champion.

Clinton has been championing the idea since last summer. It's part of her platform.
posted by Anonymous at 1:31 AM on April 20, 2016

I'm so tired of 'Muslim' being a slur.

If that was addressed to my comment, I wasn't using it as one, but mocking those who have used it against Obama. But I realize that dragging that out for comedy isn't great, and I do apologize.
posted by mmoncur at 1:46 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Like the Monty Python parrot, the Bernie Sanders campaign is no more. It has ceased to be. Its metabolic processes are now history. It’s kicked the bucket and shuffled off its mortal coil ...

To the Sanders supporters who have already pressed send on their tweets, comments and emails: I know. It doesn’t matter. Numbers, facts, delegates, convention rules, logic, reason, actual votes, party unity: none of it matters.

In reality, winning never really mattered to Bernie Sanders. The exercise of power was never the point, even if it became a self-delusional diversion along the way.

Clinton triumphs; Sanders slumps. Now the real contest can begin (Richard Wolffe, Guardian).
posted by Sonny Jim at 1:48 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bernie Sanders Revolutionary Roots were Nurtured in 60's Vermont (NYT)

[Sanders] wrote some articles about health, including one in which he cited studies claiming that cancer could be caused by psychological factors such as unresolved hostility toward one's mother, a tendency to bury aggression beneath a "facade of pleasantness" and having too few orgasms.

"Sexual adjustment seemed to be very poor in those with cancer of the cervix," he wrote, quoting a study in a journal called Psychosomatic Medicine.

Bernie Sanders’ Long History With Alternative Medicine (Time Magazine)

Sanders believed that cultural forces were driving Americans to illness and that sexual repression caused cancer. “The manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether or not she will develope (sic) breast cancer, among other things,” Sanders wrote. ... As a presidential candidate, Sanders has not specifically repudiated his old views on sexual repression and cancer. ...

At the [1988] event, he [Sanders] went on to suggest that cancer is caused by mental distress, echoing his views from the 1960s. He pointed to Nora Astorga, a Sandanista politician who visited Burlington in 1987 and later died of cervical cancer. Sanders proposed that Astorga’s cancer was caused by grief from her experiences in the war in Nicaragua.

“I have my own feelings about what causes cancer and the psychosomatic aspects of cancer,” Sanders said. “One wonders if the war did not claim another victim of another person who couldn’t deal with her tremendous grief and suffering that’s going on in her own country.” ...

Sanders has relied on unspecified alternative therapies himself, he told a Vermont reporter in 1996. And his medical views have made it into his agenda in a watered-down form. He’s sponsored several on alternative health themes in Vermont, including one in 1996 and another in 2010.

“More and more people are not simply content to go to a doctor’s office, get a diagnosis and take a pill,” Sanders said in prepared remarks at an alternative medicine conference in Vermont in 2010, according to his Senate website. “They want to know what the cause of their medical problem is and how, when possible, it can be best alleviated through natural, non-invasive or non-pharmaceutical means. ...

“I would classify [Bernie] as a huge supporter of alternative therapies and natural medicine,” said Michael Stadtmauer, a naturopathic doctor in Montpelier who attended an alternative health conference with Sanders in 2010. “In Vermont we have a general friendliness toward [alternative medicine] that doesn’t exist in other states.”

posted by msalt at 1:55 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

mmoncur, I didn't think you meant it as one. But yes, your parody was a reminder of how many people use it that way seriously.
posted by bardophile at 1:55 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

In reality, winning never really mattered to Bernie Sanders. The exercise of power was never the point, even if it became a self-delusional diversion along the way.

I hope that's not the case, because if it is he's sure wasted a lot of people's time and money.

I started out thinking that Sanders, while imperfect, was (a) at least not a grandiose tumor with fascist leanings; and (b) wouldn't inflict 4/8 years of More of the Same on the USA. Now I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that Hillary would be better than Sanders: she may be beholden to banks and big business; she may spin faster than a weather-vane in storm season; she may have a murky set of backers and financiers ... but at least she's not an old guy shouting at clouds. She can appoint people who aren't immediate embarrassments. She can read up on issues before an interview and sound as if she knows what she's talking about. She doesn't just make stupid shit up. Sanders, unfortunately, does.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:09 AM on April 20, 2016 [11 favorites]

CITY TO CRUZ: DROP DEAD
posted by Devonian at 2:39 AM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't think this campaign feels nearly as nasty to many people who aren't as digitally engaged as most of us are.

Yeah. Also, fair number of voters tune in around the time of their own state primary and then turn their attention to other things until the general (or at least the convention). I feel like there's something of a bubble forming around the Twitter/Facebook crowd whose analysis of how the country is dealing with the election is very self-referential.

I think this idea anybody should drop out because the odds are against them is both counterproductive and just wrong.

He's not going to drop out - that's something he's been clear on from day one. And I don't think that his continued presence significantly hurts Clinton's general run (which seems pretty much assured at this point) anyway. People have been talking about how he's spending money that could be spent elsewhere, but Clinton's got a hell of a warchest herself and the floodgates of the general haven't even opened yet. The people who are continuing to give money to Sanders at this stage do so because they want his voice to be heard, it would be odd for him to just shrug that off.
posted by AdamCSnider at 2:59 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

rainydayfilms, you got me curious, so I went and read the article too. Wow, in some ways it's worse than I imagined. My mother is a big fan of alternative therapies and woo in general, and it reminds me of conversations with her where she insists that there must be some reason that so-and-so got cancer. It's a variant of the just-world fallacy, where if you carefully guard against all bad things, no bad things can happen to you. And that's not even touching the strange sexual/Freudian explanations that Sanders seems to have bought. He also seemed to think that there is a such a thing as a "cancer personality". The article is also incredibly mom-blaming - "It means very bluntly, that the manner in which you bring up your daughter with regard to sexual attitudes may very well determine whether he or she will develop breast cancer, among other things." He also unironically uses the term "frigid women".
posted by peacheater at 4:09 AM on April 20, 2016 [12 favorites]

The odds have changed somewhat this morning (or, the night before).

On the Republican side, Donald is significantly more of a favorite (roughly 0.5/1) with Ted given less of a chance (2.5/1) and the rest - John (10/1), Paul (40/1), Marco(!) (80/1) and Mitt (100/1) - as remote through very remote chances.

On the Democratic side, the bookies have it as, well, as good as over barring a major upset or black swan event. Hillary is 0.04/1 - and some bookies are quoting as short as 0.01/1 - with Bernie at around 10/1 and Joe at 40/1.

For the eventual winner in November, the odds are around 0.4/1 for Hillary, 4/1 for Donald, and the rest much further back.

Oh, and if you are staggeringly reckless, then Ladbrokes offer "enticing" odds of 500/1 - in other words put twenty on to win (LOL; nope) ten thousand - on Donald Trump being the Democratic VP choice. Though seriously, in terms of value I wouldn't even waste a pound/dollar on that even if offered odds of 10,000/1, and if I had a strange compulsion to totally dispose of a pound/dollar in this manner then the local food bank could make far better use of it.
posted by Wordshore at 4:57 AM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

I don't see these 70s Sanders pop-psychology pieces as "seriously unhinged", they didn't spring up out of a void. Wilhelm Reich's work, which he was exploring in that essay, drew connections between cancer and the disturbed flow of sexual energy, 'repression' if you will. That may be an abhorrent idea to some of you, but was pretty tame in contrast with a lot of other ideas floated in the 1970s.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 5:26 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Seriously unhinged to me would be burning all of Dr Reich's books in the 1950s and throwing him in prison for daring to espouse alternative views on medicine.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 5:30 AM on April 20, 2016

A hippy bum in the early 70s (who at age 32 had never held down a real job) believed in hippy medical woo and wrote some stupid shit for an obscure hippy magazine. Well, that sure is embarrassing for him forty years later when he's trying to run a serious campaign for president. But it's not like he wrote it as a senator, and even if he had, you'd be weighing it against some far more 'embarrassing' senatorial errors of judgement.
posted by moorooka at 5:30 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Here is the 'old bitch of a teacher' essay.

Wow. That is one if the most unhinged pieces of writing I have ever read.

and
The article is also incredibly mom-blaming .... He also unironically uses the term "frigid women".

Not just that, but he also pivots at the end of four (long, rambling) columns about these medical "studies" of women (troubling/questionable enough on their own) to ask "So what does this mean to YOU?" And his answer is that boys are being repressed by bitchy teachers and may be getting cancer as a result. Boys--who had not been studied in the quoted research at all.

Truly truly bizarre. And I do understand the "people change" argument and "it was a different time"--it definitely was--but WOW. My eyebrows were about up to my hairline while reading that entire thing.
posted by torticat at 5:36 AM on April 20, 2016 [13 favorites]

When I attempted to register on healthcare.com, they were unable to create an account for me because they couldn't find me using a major credit reporting company. This was partially due to the fact that I had spent the previous few years using credit as little as possible and paying cash/direct pay as much as possible (including for my used car), and partially due to some sort of weird incompetence, since I had sold a house almost 7 years earlier, and there should have been some mortgage payments under my name, not to mention regular bills that I pay.

If we predicated voting on a system like that, that people who avoid paying for things with credit cards as much as possible, who don't have mortgages or car payments, or exist on a cash basis would be screwed. I ended up buying insurance directly from a company, but voting is a single vendor situation. I would much rather tie signing up to the act of submitting taxes (which even the poorest of the poor do at a federal level) or getting a driver's license/identity card/passport, which are universal acts that don't rely on private problematic money-centric organizations.
posted by julen at 5:37 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know how all of you managed to be oh so serious and adult by your early 30s, but I'm in my 40s and still don't see these qualities in many people, my parents included.

Since we're talking about candidates' ancient actions, I've been hesitant to link to any stories about Clinton and the 12-year old she attacked in order to defend a child rapist, but surely The Daily Beast is not a right-wing attack rag?

I realize that she didn't choose to defend him, but that story oddly reminds me of Republican attacks on Clinton.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 5:45 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sanders himself says that his radical past is relevant experience: he makes much of the fact that he marched with Dr. King and was involved in civil rights protests. If that part of his ancient history is relevant, then I don't know why we should disregard his subsequent embrace of casual misogyny and anti-scientific woo. And yes, they have a context. But so does the anti-vax movement. So does GamerGate. Pretty much everything anyone does has a historical context, and that's not really an excuse.

I also think it's sort of silly for Sanders supporters to threaten to talk about Hillary's ancient history if people bring up Sanders's past. It's not like they've been silent or are going to be silent about that stuff. It's an implied threat, and it's an empty implied threat, because Sanders's supporters already went nuclear months ago.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:59 AM on April 20, 2016 [14 favorites]

Ok, so Clinton's experience is off the table but Sanders' is on the table.

Rather eponysterical imo.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 6:01 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

When I attempted to register on healthcare.com, they were unable to create an account for me because they couldn't find me using a major credit reporting company

Probably a typo, but it seems worth double-checking that it was really healthcare.gov you were trying to register on? The .com site looks to be an insurance agency with a webpage set up specifically to profit off of being confused with the government site. (Plus, I'm pretty sure the government site can ID you using IRS/SSN info and wouldn't be using a credit score at all.)
posted by nobody at 6:01 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Who on earth is arguing that Clinton's experience is off the table? People on this site have been hammering away on Clinton's experience for months. Clinton's experience is clearly on the table. And if everything she's ever done is fair game, as it clearly is, then so are the things that he wrote as an adult.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:06 AM on April 20, 2016 [15 favorites]

Interesting stat: Despite the "Bernie or Bust" mutterings, only 14% said they'd absolutely not vote for Hillary. 18% said they would not vote for Bernie.

And those numbers will get lower once the general starts. The 2008 primaries were more vicious than this one, and even with the so-called "PUMAs" only ~10% or less actually followed through.
posted by zombieflanders at 6:08 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

ArbitraryAndCapricious, I misunderstood, and so I don't know what you're talking about when you say, " to threaten to talk about Hillary's ancient history if people bring up Sanders' past". If you're talking about my mention of that 1970s law case, I didn't threaten, I went ahead and put it out there (rightly or wrongly).

Or is there something else?
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 6:12 AM on April 20, 2016

probably a typo, but it seems worth double-checking that it was really healthcare.gov you were trying to register on?

It was healthcare.gov. Ugh. I shouldn't comment so early in the morning. I also called the 1-800 line, after 7 days of trying to make the website work, and that didn't work either. I notice that now I could use my tax info to register (it wasn't an option at initial rollout, it seems), which is sensible and makes me happier about the whole thing.
posted by julen at 6:13 AM on April 20, 2016

Kirth Gerson: "Come on, you can do better than that."

Assumes facts not in evidence.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:18 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Can we have separate threads for the Democratic and Republican races, now that one is over and the conversation re Hillary v. Bernie is going to necessarily be pointless, endlessly repetitive squabbling for three months?
posted by skewed at 6:18 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

now that one is over

We're taking this thread to the convention!
posted by bardophile at 6:20 AM on April 20, 2016 [18 favorites]

Some photogalleries of yesterday and last night. n.b. there's some overlap/duplication in photos across these. Also, there are many other, mostly online newspaper, websites with galleries but have linked to those that don't have too many ads, popups, autoplays of Donald speaking, or multiple question quizzes you have to answer in order to see the content.

The Los Angeles Times has a mixture of large photos.

Buffalo news pictures of voting, voters and rallies.

Pressconnects pictures of voting in Binghamtom

CBS New York pictures from Hillary's rally after the polls closed.

The Chicago Tribune has a set of full screen pictures.

UticaOD have pictures of people voting in, not surprisingly, Utica.
posted by Wordshore at 6:22 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I wonder how the next president will approach Cuba and what plans the Obama administration has in place already. I've only gathered a little excitement about this rapprochement this year, but it's something I felt was necessary for a just hemisphere for decades.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 6:23 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can we have separate threads for the Democratic and Republican races, now that one is over

I'd argue they're both over. Yes, the GOP side has a lot of trickeration left, but Trump is now tracking to win a majority of the pledged delegates, and he has a lot of favorable ground left.
posted by dw at 6:28 AM on April 20, 2016

I found this surprising back when I read it: Hillary Clinton Secretly Pushed Cuba Deal for Years (in spite of pushback from the Obama Admin). And here's Sanders on Cuba, also supportive of ending the travel restrictions and the embargo.

I refuse to even google what Trump thinks about Cuba...
posted by sallybrown at 6:29 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Honestly the echo chamber regarding Sanders campaign is ridiculous. Any facts that present a reason why Sanders is effectively eliminated are seen as "a false media narrative" created by "millionaires and billionaires" and anything even partially positive is seen as absolute and incontrovertible such as the exit polls predicting a 4 point Clinton win. I think campaigns have to present an optimistic front at times especially during negative news cycles but the level of delusion that seems to be front and center in comments like Weaver and Devine and even Sanders tends to make me angry. At a certain point in time I think when you are asking for donations from various groups including groups that really don't have a lot of cash to throw around you have to be realistic about the opportunities of success or you risk generating a lot of disillusionment about the electoral process when your campaign sputters out.
posted by vuron at 6:29 AM on April 20, 2016 [12 favorites]

I don't know how all of you managed to be oh so serious and adult by your early 30s, but I'm in my 40s and still don't see these qualities in many people

That article was not a joke. "Oh so serious and adult" doesn't come into it. The writer's assumptions about half the population do.

I'm in my forties too and am painfully aware of how much I had wrong about the world when I was in my early 30s. Live and learn. Still I find that article shocking coming from someone who was a progressive/self-described radical at the time.

I'd vote for Sanders if he were the candidate. Also fwiw I found the story about Hillary's laughing while talking about her defense of the child rapist troubling as well when I heard it. But there's no question about Clinton's lifelong commitment to the welfare of children and women--which means that while the story about her is disturbing, it's also incongruous/anomalous. This thing from Sanders is different. It was not off-the-cuff; it was a researched and reported piece with a thought-out conclusion. I don't assume Sanders holds the same opinions today, but I can still find it sickening to read and very strange.
posted by torticat at 6:31 AM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

I don't think there's a ton of controversy on Cuba. My sense is that a lot of Republicans were quietly on board with normalizing relations with Cuba, as long as they didn't have to be the ones to do it.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:31 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Rep. Peter King offers a possibly compelling reason why you should consider casting a vote for Cruz

The fun part of this is that Peter King believes Creationism should be taught in public schools. But the headlines on this story are a great example of evolution in action:

Politico: Peter King: I hate Ted Cruz and I voted for John Kasich

Crooks and Liars: Rep Peter King: 'I Think I'd Take Cyanide If Ted Cruz Got The Nomination'

USA Today: Rep. Peter King: 'I'll take cyanide' if Ted Cruz wins GOP nomination

New York Post: Peter King will kill himself if Ted Cruz clinches nomination
posted by zarq at 6:33 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Thank you, sallybrown. Clinton's role in thawing Cuba relations was unknown to me and among her most significant accomplishments from my perspective. I can see why that would be incendiary to various Republican factions and I'm somewhat surprised that I haven't heard it mentioned in the past year. In my fantasy world, Floridians did know this and roundly rebuked the anti-Cuba emigrant families who had a stranglehold on politics for decades by selecting Clinton in their primary.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 6:37 AM on April 20, 2016

Pressconnects pictures of voting in Binghamtom

That first photo is darling. Seriously, like a perfect capture of early-adulthood ennui.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:40 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Over the past several months, Donald J. Trump has crisscrossed the country making dozens of campaign stops in places like Sioux City, Iowa, and Jackson, Miss., often in his sleek Cessna jet. There is just one hitch: The plane’s registration is expired."

Wonder how long we have before he starts complaining that the FAA is out to get him.
posted by zarq at 6:55 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

One of my personal silver linings from this primary: The movement to replace caucuses with primaries in Colorado continues to build momentum.

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers plan to introduce legislation this week that would end Colorado’s precinct caucus system and switch the state back to a Presidential primary.

Sources from both parties in Colorado’s House of Representatives confirmed to 9NEWS plans to unveil the measure at a Thursday press conference.

Supporters plan to include a method for the state’s unaffiliated voters to participate, though details on how this would work were still being finalized.

posted by audi alteram partem at 7:16 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

The plane’s registration is expired.

"The Trump campaign has paid a company that Mr. Trump owns more than $3 million for campaign-related travel since he announced his candidacy."

'Self-funded campaign' my English posterior.
posted by Wordshore at 7:21 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'd argue they're both over. Yes, the GOP side has a lot of trickeration left, but Trump is now tracking to win a majority of the pledged delegates, and he has a lot of favorable ground left.

That's not really accurate. He COULD win an outright majority of pledged delegates, but it's still not a sure thing by any means, whereas Clinton would basically have to get hit by a meteor at this point.

Though Mr. Trump is in a strong position, his path to winning enough delegates to secure the Republican nomination is not assured. Breaching the 1,237-delegate threshold requires him to maintain the same level of voter support in the contests ahead. If the dynamics of the race shift against him even slightly, he will fall short. Mr. Cruz and Gov. John Kasich of Ohio will try to earn enough delegates between them to deny Mr. Trump a majority and force the convention to undertake a second ballot. At that point, anything can happen.
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:21 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ok, so I'm torn here, and not just between my baser desires and my better inclinations, but I think between two legitimate if conflicting thoughts.

Donald Trump won't get a victory on the first ballot. As others have noted he'll have to do at least as well (if not better) in every remaining state to get to the magic 1,237 delegates needed and that's so far from likely that we might as well just not consider it.

So the Republicans have a brokered convention. As a political geek I'm squeeing at the possibility, and as a Democrat I'm enjoying the prospect of some chaos and bitterness alienating Republican voters in the general.

My moral dilemma here is violence.

There's a fair likelihood that Trump's supporters will engage in actual violence if he doesn't win, possibly including gunfire given how heavily armed so many of them are. And Trump's deputies have very broadly hinted at violence directed specifically at delegates who don't vote Trump. Roger Stone, for example, has stated that he knows the hotel room numbers for delegates with a wink, a nudge, and a suspiciously specific denial that he ever told anyone to go to those rooms and, I quote him here, "kick the shit out of them"

On the one hand the prospect of Trump actually winning by violent means is truly terrifying and looks horrifyingly like the start of a genuinely Fascist march to power.

On the other hand, America has been disturbingly tolerant of violence from the right for decades, and I can't help but think that thwarted violence at the Republican Convention might (finally) be enough to shake up the establishment enough that the problem gets addressed and maybe even solved a little.

I don't know whether to hope for pro-Trump violence at the Republican convention in hopes that despite being very bad it might have a benefit in the long term, or hope there isn't pro-Trump violence just on general principles and the fact that political violence is a very bad thing.

Plus, of course, there's the Trumpshirts out there directly threatening to kill any anti-Trump protesters who get uppity, and that scares me a great deal. They're taking the Libertarian path of framing their planned violence against protesters as "defensive", rather than just openly planning to murder anti-Trump protesters, but still.
posted by sotonohito at 7:34 AM on April 20, 2016 [8 favorites]

I saw some people on FB who were shocked that Trump won NY the primary, which makes me think that people are really just not paying any attention.
posted by zutalors! at 7:35 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

I was shocked to learn there are 43 people on my street, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, who voted Republican.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:36 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Since we're talking about candidates' ancient actions, I've been hesitant to link to any stories about Clinton and the 12-year old she attacked in order to defend a child rapist...

She was appointed to be the defense attorney for an accused rapist, and did her job. He pled guilty to a lesser charge. It's not surprising that the victim in the case was upset at the defense attorney, or that years later Hillary would talk shop about the case. But you'll notice she did not continue to defend accused sex criminals.

My mom is a lawyer and similarly had one sex crimes defendant very early in her career when she was desperate for any client. She was sickened by the experience and never did that again.

..., but surely The Daily Beast is not a right-wing attack rag?

The Daily Beast was mostly quoting the Washington Free Beacon, which is in fact a right-wing attack rag, so in this case they were in fact pretty much acting in that role.
posted by msalt at 7:38 AM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

I'm not shocked that people on the UWS would vote Kasich. I mean, annoyed but not shocked.
posted by zutalors! at 7:39 AM on April 20, 2016

I'm not shocked that people on the UWS would vote Kasich. I mean, annoyed but not shocked.

Except that Trump won my district.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 7:40 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

ok, back to shocked.
posted by zutalors! at 7:40 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't know whether to hope for pro-Trump violence at the Republican convention in hopes that despite being very bad it might have a benefit in the long term, or hope there isn't pro-Trump violence just on general principles and the fact that political violence is a very bad thing.

Hope for no violence. Hope for peace. Hoping for or tolerating or enacting violence as a means to an end (even an important one like justice, for instance) can only possibly be justified if the violence is the only means to achieving that goal. We can keep Trump out of the presidency and stem his toxic influence on our culture without people getting hurt. We have better means at our disposal.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:47 AM on April 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

The closer Trump is to 1237, the easier it will be for him to grease enough of the 200 unpledged delegates to clinch the nomination on the first round. Indeed, if he doesn't, his goose is probably cooked, because dozens of his pledged delegates will instantly flip to Cruz. He has every incentive to move heaven & earth to get those unpledged delegates on his side for the first dance, unless he suddenly decides he'd rather not be the nominee.
posted by GameDesignerBen at 7:48 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

My fears for violence in the Trump-doesn't-win scenario are not so much for Republicans delegates as for the kids/spouses that might be with them, and for the people working at the hotels and convention centers where gun-totin' types might burst in and start firing. Especially if those folks are not-white, which raises their odds of being "accidentally" shot a lot higher.

I feel the schadenfreude, but mass violence always has collateral damage.
posted by emjaybee at 8:10 AM on April 20, 2016 [8 favorites]

Since we're talking about candidates' ancient actions, I've been hesitant to link to any stories about Clinton and the 12-year old she attacked in order to defend a child rapist...

This type of attitude is the reason we have zero public defenders on the Supreme Court, which is part of the reason we are experiencing such a crushing crisis in public defense.

Everyone is entitled to a defense. Even child rapists. And I refuse to hedge by saying "alleged child rapists" either - no, actual child rapists also deserve a defense. Which is, of course, not at all equivalent to saying "child rapists should not be convicted."

It's a human right. If you say "well the most terrible criminals shouldn't get it but everyone ELSE should," you're making the precise argument that created Guantanamo Bay.
posted by showbiz_liz at 8:19 AM on April 20, 2016 [56 favorites]

Ted whines. Elizabeth is unimpressed.
posted by Wordshore at 8:23 AM on April 20, 2016 [9 favorites]

I've been rather conflicted about that child rapist defense story. Everyone should have a vigorous defense against criminal charges and it speaks well of Clinton that she rose to the challenge. I'm still bothered by what I've read about the case and how she handled the victim.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 8:27 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Ted whines. Elizabeth is unimpressed.

Well, that was pretty glorious! Warren is great and one of my heroes.

But that site? It's like the Berniebro version of Blue Nation Review. And I say that as a strong Sanders person.
posted by CincyBlues at 8:40 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I refuse to even google what Trump thinks about Cuba...

I'd assume he'd be money-hungry enough to normalize relations with them crazy fast in order to get American businesses, especially his own, into the island. He'd do a Nixon goes to China thing, with huge megacorps following him into Havana.
posted by Apocryphon at 8:40 AM on April 20, 2016

ok, back to shocked.

I know you know this, but for the larger group: the Upper West Side is a white, liberal stronghold, with pockets of very wealthy people. Apartments in that neighborhood sell and rent at higher rates than full-sized homes in much of the rest of the country. Clinton did receive more in donations from the UWS than Trump has raised nationwide. However, politically-speaking, Trump's more liberal than Kasich or Cruz. So Republicans who live there would probably feel more comfortable with him on the issues than the other two.
posted by zarq at 8:45 AM on April 20, 2016

Welp, either way the general election goes, these "Not my president" bumperstickers I'm printing up are gonna sell like gangbusters.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:46 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm still bothered by what I've read about the case and how she handled the victim.

Yeah, it wasn't that she defended the guy, it was that her tactics were very questionable by today's standards, and then that she laughed about a part of the case while discussing it later. I looked into it after my daughter (Bernie supporter) pointed me to the story, as I assumed things must have been taken out of context. From what I could tell, they weren't. It's pretty strange. Again, though, I take that in the context of her whole record on women and children and have to kinda let it go.

...as I will let the whole issue go now. It's true both stories are ancient history.
posted by torticat at 8:50 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, now we're back to the whole problem with how sexual assault and rape are handled in our judicial system.

Clearly the accused deserves defense, and I would never object to someone simply for defending an accused rapist.

Problem is that in the USA defense of a man accused of rape or sexual assault generally centers around attacking the alleged victim and trying to convince the jury to acquit based not on any actual innocence of the accused, but on the grounds that the victim wasn't a perfect victim, that she had a past history of being (gasp, horror) a human with a sex life, that the victim was really a slut so she had it coming, that the victim was dressed like a slut so she had it coming, that the victim once had consensual sex with someone so therefore she had it coming.

And an argument can be made that as long as it is legal to "defend" an accused rapist by tearing down the victim then a defense attorney actually has an obligation to do just that. I think it's an awful argument, but it exists.

As for Clinton specifically, I can't really hold it much against her. She did what lawyers do when defending accused rapists. I hate that, I hate that situation, I think it should be illegal. But it is legal, and so defense attorneys, including Clinton, do it.
posted by sotonohito at 9:01 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Everyone is entitled to a defense. Even child rapists. And I refuse to hedge by saying "alleged child rapists" either - no, actual child rapists also deserve a defense. Which is, of course, not at all equivalent to saying "child rapists should not be convicted."

It's a human right. If you say "well the most terrible criminals shouldn't get it but everyone ELSE should," you're making the precise argument that created Guantanamo Bay.

Amen. I'm always reminded of this exchange from A Man For All Seasons:

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law! More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that! More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

posted by [expletive deleted] at 9:02 AM on April 20, 2016 [21 favorites]

Congratulations to the lone Republican in Park Slope 🎉
posted by Chrysostom at 9:13 AM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

I think that is actually my abuela. Now I know her vote! If we all get put in camps I'm bringing this up at barbed wire family Thanksgiving.
posted by corb at 9:24 AM on April 20, 2016 [19 favorites]

Amen. I'm always reminded of this exchange from A Man For All Seasons:

And the obvious parallel:

Matthew 25:45
"He will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
posted by phearlez at 9:26 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's hilarious, corb. Last year I voted in an election at which I was the first voter to cast a ballot at my polling place, and it briefly occurred to me that there wouldn't be much of a secret ballot if I were the only person to vote. It turned out that a couple of other people showed up, and I think that one person voted for the other candidate, so my electoral privacy is safe.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:34 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I was a Democrat in Lancaster County, PA and you definitely could have fit all the people voting in the primary at our polling place in a living room.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:39 AM on April 20, 2016

I'm not understanding the latest trending outrage on the NY primary. Sanders supporters are saying that something is wrong because he won most counties but lost the state. But the counties he won have MUCH lower populations than the ones Clinton won.

He won Allegheny County by 500 votes with a total of around 1200 votes. But Clinton won Manhattan by almost 90,000 votes with a total of 180,000! And the surrounding counties she won by 30, 50,000. It's like the same thing that happens across the country. The map shows Sanders colors over this huge swath of land, people say the fix is in because he's winning, but like, you need people to win, not actual land mass. Is this a tactic or ignorance or am I missing some real injustice?
posted by zutalors! at 9:46 AM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

Congratulations to the lone Republican in Park Slope

Those are the returns for a tiny electoral district that consists of one city block with a handful of residences on it, not for all of Park Slope.
posted by ultraviolet catastrophe at 9:49 AM on April 20, 2016

He won Allegheny County by 500 votes with a total of around 1200 votes.

Pedantry: the New York county is Allegany. The Pennsylvania county is Allegheny.

The Maryland county is also Allegany.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:51 AM on April 20, 2016

Ignorance I presume, aided and abetted by misleading cartographic choices.
posted by tivalasvegas at 9:52 AM on April 20, 2016

Pedantry: the New York county is Allegany

Sorry! You are correct. That was some muscle memory working there!
posted by zutalors! at 9:52 AM on April 20, 2016

Donald Trump won't get a victory on the first ballot. As others have noted he'll have to do at least as well (if not better) in every remaining state to get to the magic 1,237 delegates needed and that's so far from likely that we might as well just not consider it.

Fivethirtyeight shows that he needed 58 delegates from NY to be on target (overall) to get 1,237. That's based on their demographic models of each state that has voted and will vote. He won 90. Based on all previous votes, he was only at 91% of the way to 1,237 going into Tuesday's primary, but he's now 95% of the way. That was a dominant performance in his home state. The issue is that Republican delegate allocations aren't linear - in a lot of states the difference between getting 40% of the vote and 50% of the vote isn't the difference between 40% and 50% of the delegates. His dominant performance last night was a huge win for him getting to 1,237.

Sam Wang is even more sanguine. Before Tuesday, he was putting Trump's chances of getting to 1,237 at 64%. At that point, he was expecting Trump to get 86 delegates in NY.

Those four delegates he picked up above Wang's expectation may end up being really huge. 1,237 is a magic number, but it's probably not the magic number. If he gets 1,236, he's going to find one uncommitted to vote for him. Probably true for if he's at 1,235. And 1,234. What if he gets to 1,200? Can he find 37 to support him? Can he find 100? We don't really know where that line is, but every delegate closer to 1,237 he gets, the more likely it is he gets the nomination on the first ballot. Wang says it all comes down to Indiana. I'd bet that if Trump wins the other NE states like he did NY, we will not get to see a contested convention.
posted by one_bean at 9:54 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

What do Bernie and the Republicans have in common that makes them both more popular in rural areas? I fear that it's something to do with race, because they're also both more popular in white and northern states. Maybe something to do with this analysis of open cities vs closed cities which offers a more understandable picture of why urban and rural populations feel differently about immigrants besides racism? Does it also explain why these populations would feel differently about Big Banks, etc?
posted by OnceUponATime at 9:54 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

On the CDs/counties won issue: someone should do one of those maps distorted by population that were done in the last couple of presidentials.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:55 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

What do Bernie and the Republicans have in common that makes them both more popular in rural areas? I fear that it's something to do with race, because they're also both more popular in white and northern states.

My first guess would be low blackness (which isn't the same thing as high whiteness; ie Hawaii).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:01 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Why you shouldn’t measure Bernie Sanders’s success by how many counties he won
posted by zutalors! at 10:22 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I believe it is safe to say that rural areas are generally both whiter and angrier. Both Trump and Sanders have big appeal to whiter, angrier people, per the surveys I've seen.

I am at a complete loss to understand how geographic size can be of real political significance, though. People vote, acres don't.
posted by bearwife at 10:22 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think people maybe just don't understand how population is distributed in the state of New York. Which is puzzling, but there it is.
posted by zutalors! at 10:24 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think that part of it may be that Sanders comes from a rural state, and he speaks rural better than Clinton does. For instance, his stance on guns resonates with rural people, for whom gun politics has a lot of symbolic weight. It's not just about guns: it's about understanding and valuing their way of life.

I know a lot of people who support Bernie in a normal, non-fanatical way, and they don't strike me as hugely angry, for what it's worth.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:31 AM on April 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

Both Trump and Sanders have big appeal to whiter, angrier people...

Yeah, but why? I guess trade policy? They are both against big trade agreements. (Which is not unrelated to being against immigration, since either way, it's about "cheap labor that could replace me" in the minds of many people.)

Or is it not about policy at all, just identity and personality? If Hilary Clinton were an angry white guy, would she be doing well in these places, with the same policies and priorities she has in real life?
posted by OnceUponATime at 10:32 AM on April 20, 2016

What do Bernie and the Republicans have in common that makes them both more popular in rural areas?

I don't think it's what Bernie has in common with Republicans (though maybe part of it is the gun issue). I think it's the issues where he and Clinton diverge, particularly for NY. A major issue for leftists upstate is fracking (the state banned fracking about a year ago and a few local communities banned it as well). There also a large native american population upstate and Bernie has been better on issues that have mattered to that population. A lot of the leftists upstate are also 1960s hippies just like Bernie who possibly left larger cities where they grew up for a more rural and off the grid lifestyle. Whereas a lot of folks downstate followed the typical corporate ladder definition of success and are less naturally suspicious of close ties to big business (though most folks I know in NYC voted Bernie).

The "he won more counties" narrative is, I think, a combo of (a) trying to find a reason to not feel bad that your candidate lost and (b) a continuation of the upstate/downstate divide that always plagues NY politics. There is a general sense upstate that downstate's corporate fat cats exploit upstate's resources for their financial gain; there is a general sense downstate that the downstate economy keeps upstate afloat. The two regions have very little in common and really should be two different states.
posted by melissasaurus at 10:33 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yeah, but why?

Both of their campaign platforms are "You're being screwed over."
posted by zarq at 10:35 AM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

As a different Clinton once said, it's the economy, stupid.

If you've been left behind by a supposed recovery, it makes perfect sense to go for the candidate whose economic rhetoric includes fixing that gap as a priority.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:35 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I know a lot of people who support Bernie in a normal, non-fanatical way, and they don't strike me as hugely angry, for what it's worth.

Me, too, especially among people who were already Democrats who just think Bernie is a better candidate than Clinton. It's more independents/right leaning people who are angry about Hillary.
posted by zutalors! at 10:36 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

The "he won more counties" narrative is, I think, a combo of (a) trying to find a reason to not feel bad that your candidate lost and (b) a continuation of the upstate/downstate divide that always plagues NY politics.

I personally am also seeing a lot of it from Sanders-voting NYC residents (mostly transplants) who haven't ever been to upstate New York and have no idea just how rural and sparsely populated it mostly is.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:37 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm up in the gigantic St. Lawrence county and I think the total number of voters was about 15,000 yesterday.

I'm really curious about someone at the polls yesterday. He was complaining loudly on the phone to some election official about the fact that he was a registered Dem but "they" wouldn't give him a GOP ballot for the vote. I wanted to stick around to see if he left in a huff or if he took a Dem ballot after all. I'd guess he was a Trump supporter given how the voting demographics went, but would he have cast a ballot for Sanders instead? Economics and Gun rights drive a lot of the voting decisions in the district I was voting in.
posted by saffry at 10:39 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

people think westchester is upstate new york, what do you expect.
posted by poffin boffin at 10:39 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

> "Based on all previous votes, he was only at 91% of the way to 1,237 going into Tuesday's primary, but he's now 95% of the way."

To be clear, he was not at 91% of total delegates he needs, but 91% of the number they thought he needed to have at that point to be on track for making at least 1,237 pledged delegates by the end of the primary cycle. He is now at 95% of what they judged his current delegates target to be.

So he's still behind the goal, and now needs to win 58% of the remaining pledged delegates to get a majority.

However --

1) There are a number of winner-take-all or winner-take-most states left in the Republican primaries, making it comparatively easier for a Republican frontrunner to make that kind of target, since he can do it with far less than 58% of the vote,

2) He overperformed compared to his polling in New York, which may be a sign he will continue to do so in the mid-Atlantic Northeast in general -- and there's a lot of delegate-rich states left there, which could get him back on track, and

2) As has been pointed out, if he ends up not that far shy of 1237, he still probably wins it on the first ballot, because there are a limited number of unpledged delegates on the Republican side and he'll surely get some of them.

So, it's still far from guaranteed that he'll win the nomination of the first ballot, which he quite likely has to in order to win at all, but his chances look a lot better than they did Monday.
posted by kyrademon at 10:39 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

people think westchester is upstate new york, what do you expect.

This is what I learned from reading the Uncanny X-Men. Are you saying Chris Claremont lied to me?!
posted by entropicamericana at 10:42 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I personally am also seeing a lot of it from Sanders-voting NYC residents (mostly transplants) who haven't ever been to upstate New York and have no idea just how rural and sparsely populated it mostly is.

That's just sad. This is a beautiful state. They should get out of the city more. Stay at a bed and breakfast. Commune with nature (that hasn't been artificially sculpted into a park.) Live a little.
posted by zarq at 10:48 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

It's important to remember that unpledged delegates may be unpledged only in name. Cruz has strong ground game, especially with delegates selected via convention or appointment.
posted by corb at 10:48 AM on April 20, 2016

The closer Trump gets to 1237, the harder it will be for the GOP to overturn the will of the people. If Cruz backstabs Trump when Trump is only a handful of delegates away from 1237, he may break the party far worse than Trump getting the nomination.

Kasich and Rubio both know they're the power brokers. I figure one of them will cut a deal with Trump.
posted by dw at 10:57 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

That's just sad. This is a beautiful state. They should get out of the city more. Stay at a bed and breakfast. Commune with nature (that hasn't been artificially sculpted into a park.) Live a little.

Well, the whole "most of us have no car and haven't driven one in years" thing is an issue there BUT yeah I agree with the basic sentiment
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:59 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

That's just sad. This is a beautiful state. They should get out of the city more. Stay at a bed and breakfast. Commune with nature (that hasn't been artificially sculpted into a park.) Live a little.

Funny thing is I've never been to NYC, but I've been upstate -- Finger Lakes, Cooperstown. And it is beautiful, rural, and yet not as lonesome and empty as, say, eastern Washington.

If the Bernie people in Greenpoint haven't been upstate, they need to get out of town. I say the same to Seattle people whose exposure to East Of The Mountains is Leavenworth. There's some amazing country out there.
posted by dw at 11:06 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you like baseball at all, you really should visit Cooperstown. There are lots of problems with the Hall of Fame, but it's still pretty cool.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:06 AM on April 20, 2016

it is kind of stressful being the only visible minority around in some picturesque little b&b town. at least i have the minimal defense of opening my mouth and sounding like some 90 year old lady named sadie krupnik from flatbush.
posted by poffin boffin at 11:07 AM on April 20, 2016 [12 favorites]

If Hilary Clinton were an angry white guy, would she be doing well in these places, with the same policies and priorities she has in real life?

Don't have time to look it up but I believe women are over-represented in cities (esp. NYC) and men in rural areas. So, maybe yeah.
posted by msalt at 11:09 AM on April 20, 2016

Yeah, but why? [do Trump and Sanders appeal to angry whites]

Trump is easy. It's not like Republicans have much appeal outside of anglos and some white-latinos these days. And Trump is directly and straightforwardly offering white-people identity politics in a way that other candidates have better taste than to do.

I expect the answer for Sanders/Clinton is reversed; not what amazing appeal does Sanders have for white people but rather why has he bounced off of African-American voters so hard when anglos are split down the middle? And, no data, I expect the answer is that Clinton has spent decades with black people and leaders and talking to black people and leaders and otherwise building connections that Sanders didn't, so it's harder to trust him. Which is why, I expect, Sanders' share of delegates correlates really well no so much with the percent white in a state as with the percent non-black.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:10 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Kasich and Rubio both know they're the power brokers. I figure one of them will cut a deal with Trump.

Plausible. Kasich is the clear favorite now across the bookies to be the Republican VP pick. There's a logic there; Kasich brings his delegates to the table, and also the possibility of Ohio's 18 electoral college votes in November.
posted by Wordshore at 11:12 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

To be clear, he was not at 91% of total delegates he needs, but 91% of the number they thought he needed to have at that point to be on track for making at least 1,237 pledged delegates by the end of the primary cycle.

Thank you for stating that much more clearly and concisely than I was able to!
posted by one_bean at 11:12 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Note: there are just as many people upstate who have never been to NYC. If you live in Buffalo, for example, that's a $150-$250 plane ticket, a 10hr ride on a train (which usually turns into 12+hrs), or a 7-8 hr drive (with expensive tolls); not to mention the cost of a hotel when you arrive.

I know so many people who grew up in western NY and have never been to NYC. Or, went once, a while back, on a school trip or a very-big-deal family vacation. I know a bunch of people in NYC who have been to the Hudson Valley or maybe a small town along the Vermont border, but have never been to Niagara Falls or the Finger Lakes.

It's a big state with a lot of people who can't afford vacations.
posted by melissasaurus at 11:13 AM on April 20, 2016 [8 favorites]

The "Bernie won more counties" is like the the Obama-McCain county map Republicans waved around after 2008. Look at ALL THAT RED LAND! OBAMA ISN'T THE PRESIDENT OF THE REAL UNITED STATES!

But as bearwife said, Land doesn't vote. It's a nice visual representation for Bernie, but ultimately, Hillary won votes from people.
posted by dw at 11:13 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Jacobin: The South Still Has Something to Say — No political revolution in the United States can succeed without the South.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:15 AM on April 20, 2016

It's a fair point, and Cruz can't offer Kasich veep without deeply offending his core constituency that is creating that strong ground game, so less to offer.
posted by corb at 11:16 AM on April 20, 2016

The only way I've heard Bernie people say anything about the counties is in the context of: "You've got to win the cities."
posted by Trochanter at 11:17 AM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

If land could vote, it would be like EVERYONE GET OUT except Native Americans.
posted by zutalors! at 11:18 AM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Sanders, like a lot of white male liberal types, is positively fixated on class and economics. And class and economics are certainly important. But Sanders and others like him are fixated in a way that sees class and money as the only real issue of any import, and any other issue, any other focus, any other problem, either as a subset of the One True Problem, or a distraction.

So Sanders did very poorly when dealing with the problems of systemic racism and sexism, not because he's deliberately a racist or sexist, but because he just doesn't see them as problems worth addressing or spending time on. How can people be so silly as to talk about Black Lives Matter when the bankers are screwing us all?!

This, of course, is a near platonic example of systemic racism. And black people have been told that their problems aren't real problems, aren't problems we can afford to talk about now, aren't problems that deserve or need any solution, for so long that I'm amazed more black people aren't screaming at the well intentioned white liberals who keep pushing them to the back of the bus.

Clinton has problems with racial justice too, look at how badly she handled all the people who pointed out how utterly evil and wretched her husband's crime bill was. But overall she does better than Sanders because unlike Sanders she isn't subscribing to a worldview that elevates matters of class and economy above all others and tends to get impatient with the fools who bring up other issues that are mere distractions from the One True Issue.
posted by sotonohito at 11:20 AM on April 20, 2016 [11 favorites]

So, it's still far from guaranteed that he'll win the nomination of the first ballot, which he quite likely has to in order to win at all, but his chances look a lot better than they did Monday.

Some of those target numbers 538 has for upcoming states strike me as low for Trump and high for Cruz. Like PA's 71 delegates which they have him at 40 for a target. I'd wager he's going to do better than that there. I think he'll out-perform their 17 out of 38 for Maryland too.
posted by phearlez at 11:23 AM on April 20, 2016

poffin boffin: "it is kind of stressful being the only visible minority around in some picturesque little b&b town."

That's true, and I didn't even think of that. Sorry to be privelege-y.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:24 AM on April 20, 2016

That's just sad. This is a beautiful state. They should get out of the city more. Stay at a bed and breakfast. Commune with nature (that hasn't been artificially sculpted into a park.) Live a little.

I've only traveled through upstate New York once, sadly too briefly, and really enjoyed it. Oddly (or, perhaps not due to TV culture), many fellow English people are unaware that New York city only occupies a small extreme corner of the state and most of the rest is very rural. I asked a few recently what they though lay north of New York city, emphasizing the "city" aspect, and the answers were Canada, Maine, and the, quote, "state where maple syrup is the parallel currency?"

Hence also the wording in the post, to point out the contrast. I'm from a rural part of England - my childhood home is a dot on this picture - which often gets lumped in with either Birmingham (30 miles to the north) or London (90 miles to the southeast), to the eternal annoyance of folk.
posted by Wordshore at 11:24 AM on April 20, 2016

Sanders reminds me of Abe from Mad Men - completely focused on the Vietnam war, corporate corruption, etc (hated advertising) but couldn't connect with Peggy on feminism. It doesn't map completely but I just always see that dynamic.
posted by zutalors! at 11:25 AM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

So Sanders did very poorly when dealing with the problems of systemic racism and sexism, not because he's deliberately a racist or sexist, but because he just doesn't see them as problems worth addressing or spending time on. How can people be so silly as to talk about Black Lives Matter when the bankers are screwing us all?!

I would disagree. I think Sanders DOES care about systemic racism and sexism. But his framing is that racism and sexism are fundamentally economic problems, and economic equality is a more effective solution than dismantling institutional racism.

It's not that Sanders doesn't agree with Black Lives Matter. I mean, look at his campaign's reaction to the Seattle protests -- they got a coordinator and doubled down on their planks having to do with racism and sexism. But, ultimately, they do not see the intersectional framing of Hillary is using to be the right framing.

That is where Bernie and I depart. Economic justice is important, I absolutely agree. But I don't think economic justice is the sole or primary prescription for social justice issues. It's too simple a framing for long-standing burning issues of race, gender, and sexual identity.
posted by dw at 11:29 AM on April 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

Which is why, I expect, Sanders' share of delegates correlates really well no so much with the percent white in a state as with the percent non-black.

Here, I made you a picture. But I eated it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 11:33 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sanders, like a lot of white male liberal types, is positively fixated on class and economics. And class and economics are certainly important. But Sanders and others like him are fixated in a way that sees class and money as the only real issue of any import, and any other issue, any other focus, any other problem, either as a subset of the One True Problem, or a distraction.

I think your comment is a disingenuous characterization of Sanders' positions. There are a lot "others like him" who believe that social justice cannot be achieved under the current form of capitalism. This is not to say that feminism or racial justice are unimportant or secondary concerns to these folks but that they view trying to achieve gender and racial equality as impossible under capitalism as currently structured in the US -- that any attempt to fix these systemic injustices through the fatally flawed capitalist system is akin to "old man shouts at cloud."

This is not to say that either side is more correct. This is a chicken-egg problem. There are those who think you can fix the egg without changing the chicken and those who think you must change the chicken to fix the egg.

There are people who are steadfastly committed to social justice who view capitalism/oligarchy as currently-existing in the US as an absolute barrier to that justice.
posted by melissasaurus at 11:34 AM on April 20, 2016 [16 favorites]

The problem is that outside of limited areas on the Internet the number of Americans willing to undergo the massive upheaval that results from abandoning a political and economic system are vanishingly small. That's the problem with revolution, there is no guarantee that your side will win and even less certainty that the replacement system will be better than the other one. Meanwhile a lot of people suffer.
posted by vuron at 11:44 AM on April 20, 2016 [8 favorites]

I would disagree. I think Sanders DOES care about systemic racism and sexism. But his framing is that racism and sexism are fundamentally economic problems, and economic equality is a more effective solution than dismantling institutional racism.

“You’re intersectional enough, Bernie.”
posted by Going To Maine at 11:46 AM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, the whole "most of us have no car and haven't driven one in years" thing is an issue there BUT yeah I agree with the basic sentiment

Oh, sure.

I know for some folks it will be one, but lack of a car doesn't necessarily have to be a barrier. I didn't learn to drive until my 30's, but did take a train upstate or to CT every once in a great while, when I really needed to escape.
posted by zarq at 11:50 AM on April 20, 2016

I know a bunch of people in NYC who have been to the Hudson Valley or maybe a small town along the Vermont border, but have never been to Niagara Falls or the Finger Lakes.

It's a big state with a lot of people who can't afford vacations.

Very true.
posted by zarq at 11:53 AM on April 20, 2016

Did not mean to trigger the "Why don't black people like Sanders" conversation again... I think we've discussed that a lot already. I just want to know how other Democrats can do more to appeal to rural white people who are otherwise likely to vote Republican or not vote at all.

Because there's been talk about how Democrats have to win more down-ticket / state level races, and rural people get an outsized say in those. ("Acres don't vote"... except in the sense that rural states get electoral votes out of proportion to their populations... And get as many senators as urban states do... And have a governor and state government apiece, making laws for however many people live there... And rural areas get congressional representatives out of proportion to their populations... Etc.)

So I'm genuinely wondering what it would take for Democrats to start winning these places. Anti-gun-control + anti-big-trade-agreements? If Bernie kept those positions but also wanted to limit immigration, would he then win over a bunch of Trump voters? Are there other issues that could appeal to these people which would be more palatable to the Democrats' more... cosmopolitan base? Other ways of addressing their concerns about losing their jobs to "Others" who are willing to work for less (or willing to work for the same amount but bring more skills to the table for that amount, which I think is the worry that "higher minimum wage" wouldn't solve...) Or does it just take finding a bunch of angry white guys to run for these positions? Because that actually sounds much easier, if unfair.

Or another way to look at it is, are there any policies consistent with progressive goals, which we might be able to get Republican lawmakers representing these places on board with? Policies that would be popular with their constituents, so that the Republicans wouldn't feel the need to oppose them or risk losing their jobs?

What are the Bernie Sanders policies that are resonating in these areas? If Bernie isn't the nominee, can Hillary run on those in the general and mute the opposition from those areas, and maybe even successfully push them through Congress if elected?
posted by OnceUponATime at 11:56 AM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I'm trying to understand what this amazing ground game Cruz has actually is, given that the usual formulation is good ground game = more votes. 14.5% of the vote and 0 delegates does not indicate a particularly good ground game to me.

Okay, so let's look at total results so far. 544 delegates to Trump's 846. Nope, still not seeing any evidence of this awesome ground game.

Cruz has no game. It's over unless there are shenanigans at the convention, which I believe les eminences grises in the RNC actually understand would be a bad idea.

You know who had a good ground game? Obama. Clinton (soon to be known as Clinton the First). GWB, even, had a decent ground game--although his legal game was, as history shows, better.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:05 PM on April 20, 2016

(Not to be coy, by "cosmopolitan base" I mean "people of color, immigrants and the recent descendants of immigrants, people with higher education, people in cities." But I also kind of mean "People who aren't racists." But I want to sort of acknowledge that poorly educated, lower income, rural white people are disadvantaged in a lot of ways. Their white privilege may not totally outweigh the other ways people like this are relatively unprivileged. Many of these people are not doing so well. And if they're racist, it's not just because living in the country makes you like, an inherently bad person. It's because they're human and humans are kind of racist in general, and become more so when they live in small homogeneous communities and feel threatened by people from outside those communities and worried about their own futures. I genuinely want to know how we can help these people without catering to the racist elements within these communities. Okay, I've probably unpacked that ellipsis enough now.)
posted by OnceUponATime at 12:08 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cruz's whole thing isn't a strong ground game. It's a strong grasp of insidery rules-lawyering.
posted by showbiz_liz at 12:09 PM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

What are the Bernie Sanders policies that are resonating in these areas?

You probably should be thinking of this less in policy terms and more in identity terms. We won't know until later, but I expect that a fair number of Sanders voters aren't particularly knowledgeable about his policy stances but instead are voting a liberal identity that they won't ascribe to Clinton. I haven't looked at this in forever but AFAIK for most voters issue positions are stuff they use to rationalize decisions they've already made on other grounds (but, not following it, the consensus could have changed).
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:09 PM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I just want to know how other Democrats can do more to appeal to rural white people who are otherwise likely to vote Republican or not vote at all.

I think it's wrong to look at the NY vote and conclude that the upstate Bernie voters would have otherwise voted Republican. There are some, for sure. But most of these people I'd put in the Nader/Stein bucket rather than the Republican bucket. I don't want to say they're to the left of Clinton (to avoid the spiral of "is she left wing or not"), but they are certainly more interested in grassroots-based movements and underdogs than whatever Clinton has going on. There's huge distrust of the political machine in upstate NY - from both Rs and Ds. There's also a huge distrust of wealth among many upstate dems - sort of the reverse prosperity gospel: if you have money, you must have done something untoward to get it. If you're a prosperity gospel person (wealth=god thinks you're awesome), you're probably going for Trump. If you're a reverse-prosperity-gospel person (wealth=you most likely did some shady stuff), then you're probably going for Bernie. If you don't make those kinds of connections between wealth and character, you're probably more predisposed to like Clinton.

On the R side: Most of my relatives upstate voted for Trump. He wasn't their first choice, and I think the vote would have looked VERY different if it happened earlier in the race. Namely, I think Carson and Kasich would have done much better. From what I've heard, people liked Kasich better (there's a lot of similarity between Ohio and WNY) policy-wise but think he has no chance and want to vote for who they think can beat Clinton -- meaning not just the candidate Clinton, but the Clinton political machine. It's not even about issues - they think Trump is the only one nasty enough and rich enough to combat her massive political power.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:10 PM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Sanders reminds me of Abe from Mad Men - completely focused on the Vietnam war, corporate corruption, etc (hated advertising) but couldn't connect with Peggy on feminism.

This is legitimately silly. Sanders is more liberal or as liberal as HRC on many issues that involve women's rights.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 12:13 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yea upstate/rural NY includes Ithaca, Hudson, Woodstock, the Bard College/Vassar area, Saratoga (which went pretty big for Bernie in one map I saw). Lots of Bernie Democrats/liberals who wouldn't have voted Republican.
posted by zutalors! at 12:14 PM on April 20, 2016

I think step one to win some of those voters is Democrats not seeming so condescending to people who don't currently support them. Even in MeFi threads we see it. Policy positions matter a bit, but people get dug in when they feel they aren't being treated with respect and no policy in the world is going to change that.
posted by downtohisturtles at 12:17 PM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

r317, that was following an earlier thread on how Sanders is more focused on some liberal topics than others, focusing on identity politics as a class issue more than anything else...it's not silly at all.

I also said it doesn't map completely. But I do think there is a type of white liberal guy who frames things in that way, and Abe was one of them and I do know some Sanders supporters who fit that description.
posted by zutalors! at 12:17 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

It would be cool if while talking about trends we could not totally erase the black women who support Bernie. We exist.
posted by dame at 12:20 PM on April 20, 2016 [20 favorites]

I feel like maybe the whole thing about Sanders seeing racism and sexism as economic/class issues is, perhaps, doing that thing a lot of us are trying to do w/r/t caring about effects not beliefs? Like, I don't care if someone is homophobic on the inside, I care about their actual actions. When it comes to racism and sexism, a lot (but not all) of the effects are pretty starkly economic. There may be an argument (which I don't wholly agree with) that addressing things on an economic basis could give more power to marginalized people, which accelerates society's improvement on the more bedrock issues.

I don't entirely agree with that argument because that leaves a lot of queer people, and especially trans people, still left out in the cold.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 12:25 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

On the CDs/counties won issue: someone should do one of those maps distorted by population that were done in the last couple of presidentials.

This is late, but here's one
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:28 PM on April 20, 2016

Well, Tom Tomorrow has pretty much summed up every MeFi Election Thread.
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:37 PM on April 20, 2016 [24 favorites]

that cartoon is the truest thing I've seen all cycle
posted by tivalasvegas at 12:42 PM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

I think that may be true, fffm.

For me, as an actual black lady who works in a field full of not-the-most-enlightened but ostensibly liberal white guys: I care more about economics because I fail to see what a politician can do at this point to help the problems I run into, i.e., not being taken seriously and not being given the same support for success that the trail of mediocre dudes is given. So really I would like the social economic support to take the chances to create companies where I and women like me can succeed. I would like to see that opportunity afforded structurally to everyone.

(I would secondarily like someone who is not an authoritarian/establishmentarian and will therefore not support the destruction of community leaders. This may be related to all the Panther docs I have been watching lately.)

But really, I want to see people free to make good work because I don't see how else to actually achieve equality. I don't know if this POV is my own privilege or the result of my up-close experience with the power of being able to save up and table-flip, but that is why personally to me economics is more important than identity in terms of what the government can do. With the cash shored up, the culture can be assaulted.
posted by dame at 12:50 PM on April 20, 2016 [20 favorites]

I think step one to win some of those voters is Democrats not seeming so condescending to people who don't currently support them.

THIS THIS THIS

The endless, endless condescension towards the South by people on the Left (which was happening long before the Sanders campaign's canard) has to stop. Hell, that's all I hear when I go back to Oklahoma, how I must "look down on them all" because I'm one of those coastal elites.

And it's not a bad state at all. And 35% of the populace voted for Obama in '12. But the attitude that because it's conservatives in leadership therefore they are horrid, stupid people we should kick out of the union... no.

We have got to stop writing off entire states. Say what you will about the Kochs or Adelson, but most everyone in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is good people just trying to get by. Just like everyone in Park Slope.
posted by dw at 12:56 PM on April 20, 2016 [15 favorites]

On the upstate Dem distrust of party insiders (esp those from downstate), it's important to also note the recent-ish arrest of Sheldon Silver - the downstate Dem speaker of the NYS assembly - on corruption charges. A Quinnipiac poll from earlier this month shows that: "A total of 86 percent of [all] New York voters say government corruption is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem..." and from a poll last June: "All elected officials in Albany should be voted out of office so new officials can start with a clean slate, [all] voters say 55 - 28 percent. No party, gender, age or regional group thinks New York State elected officials are capable of ending political corruption in Albany. "
posted by melissasaurus at 12:58 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Oh god yes also Albany is a total garbage fire.
posted by dame at 1:08 PM on April 20, 2016

I guess I don't really understand upstate NY at all, because we never have candidates do well simultaneously in socialist Ithaca and the surrounding rural Republican areas. For example, our congresscritter is the horrific Tom Reed, who has no problems with bad mouthing the largest employer in his district, since it's a university. But for what it's worth, Sanders beat Clinton in Tompkins county by 9298 votes to 5625 (62.3% to Bernie), and won surrounding counties by similar margins too.

Maybe it's a party registration thing - most voters here are registered Democrats (unless they're Greens or Socialists) while the surrounding counties are Republican dominated with a handful of much more liberal registered Democrats?

>> ... get out of the city more. Stay at a bed and breakfast. Commune with nature (that hasn't been artificially sculpted into a park.) Live a little.

> "most of us have no car and haven't driven one in years" thing is an issue there BUT yeah I agree with the basic sentiment.

Well this is hardly the thread for it, but if you so desire, you could take the luxury campus-to-campus shuttle from Cornell's outpost in NYC out to Ithaca. I'd even host fellow MeFites!
posted by RedOrGreen at 1:19 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Haha, dw. I'm from Tulsa too. There are some good liberals there.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:24 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I guess I don't really understand upstate NY at all

But they do steam a good ham up there!
posted by FJT at 1:34 PM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

I fell in teenage love in upstate NY once.

Which is to say I have mixed feelings about its existence.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:35 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

they do steam a good ham up there!

it's an Albany term.
posted by zutalors! at 1:36 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

The beaver represents the "Sensible Democrat" who believes that sensible means basically doing whatever the Republicans want. The penguin is basically the author's avatar in the comic.
posted by sotonohito at 1:42 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I'm trying to understand what this amazing ground game Cruz has actually is, given that the usual formulation is good ground game = more votes.

By good ground game, I mean that in many states, ostensible Trump delegates are already pledged to vote Cruz the instant they are unbound.

How many delegates are true Cruz supporters matters deeply, especially if Robert's Rules is unleashed at convention. They could vote to unbind ALL the delegates, on the first ballot, if they wanted to.
posted by corb at 1:44 PM on April 20, 2016

Which brings us right back to "it's totally okay to change all the rules the moment the rules don't benefit TPTB" which is about as undemocratic as you can get. So.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:46 PM on April 20, 2016

Also, that's not what 'ground game' means anywhere at all but w.e
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 1:47 PM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

I fell in teenage love in upstate NY once.

the Tina Belcher song writes itself
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:49 PM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I am getting the sense that you and I are the only people here who are still grossed out by that sort of activity if it happens to Trump, fffm. I ain't gonna lose any sleep over it - particularly not any emotional torment Trump suffers - but it seems massively anti-populace.
posted by phearlez at 2:03 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'll take it a step further: it is disenfranchising the (racist, misogynist, low-information, jerkface mc poopyheads) people who voted for Trump in the primaries.

Which is not a position I'd expect anyone who claims a love for the Constitution, or indeed who has sworn an oath to uphold said Constitution, to espouse. And yes, I understand that this is not literally a government-sponsored election, so let's not bother with that derail; it boils down to rules-lawyering without understanding the point behind the rules, which is: denying someone their vote is flat out wrong, no matter how atrocious what they are voting for is.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:07 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

25-30 years ago, when my body was more supple and I actually thought that sleeping in a tent was fun, I camped a number of times in the Lewey Lake/Indian Lake area of the Adirondacks. Beautiful and lots of fun canoeing around. Lots of black bears and coy-dogs, too!

This is just me, but I think that folks ought to simply give more credit to Clinton and her long association with the black community. Any suggestions that allow folks to infer that Sanders, personally, doesn't care about the black community is mistaken. Plenty of proof for this rather mild hypothesis.

That economic politics seem more important than identity politics to some people has a lot to do with how the Democratic party has changed over the last 40 years. Don't forget that a lot of the ferment of the 60s was based on (a variety of flavors of) socialist analysis which is primarily economic. Sanders certainly fits into that mold (as do I.) Yet, at that same time, there was a great awakening of social and identity politics, too, beyond the Civil Rights movement. And rightly so. Even the Reich-ian and other woo stuff that people here were hammering Sanders with comes out of the crazy 60s. As I have said before in previous threads, and I think this campaign is bearing out, there is a strong need for the Democratic party to do better at integrating it's former New Deal orientation and the more recent identity coalition which has been its focus the past few decades. Others may disagree, but it's my belief that in order for the Democratic party to become less reactionary and more of the powerhouse that it once was, then the DLC-centrist-triangulationist (and at least partly corporativistly corrupt) focus of the party will have to be stamped down and replaced by a more positive message that affirms the moral basis of both identity politics (which the party is good at today) and economic issues--which the party has pretty much sold common folks down the river on. Need 'em both to be more than just a foil to the Republican party.

This is just an observation from an older man, but after reading through all these threads I have found myself, time and time again, kind of shaking my head in mild sadness. It's understandable because many of you younger folks live in the results and thus it's familiar water to some of you but the deindustrialization of this nation was such a devastating process to the working and middle classes that the scars are still living on. In some respects, it's "history" to younger folks. And you have accommodated yourselves better than some of us older folks who lived the process which truly wrecked this nation. The subsequent post-industrial financialization of the economy is at the heart of why we have so much inequality.

Shortly after Hurricane Katrina I went down to Pascagoula MS with a group of folks from my mother's church. Basically helping folks with teardown-rebuilding of homes. Real eye-opener, that was. Not only the home of super-asshole Trent Lott, but also home to an important shipyard. Which, even if one factored out the tremendous damage from the hurricane, looked like a mere shell of it's former importance to the community. And while the people down there were surprisingly upbeat given the circumstances, I also noticed that there is a more reserved caution about change in general. When I think back on that and others experiences I have had in the south, I'm not really surprised that Clinton is more appealing to many people and that Sanders might seem to be a carpetbagger (if perhaps a benevolent one.) But it's the shipyard that sticks with me. Partly because I'm a Navy veteran, and partly because I'm able to superimpose, like the recent vogue in photography one sees here and there on the internet, a "then and now" picture of how things used to be and how they are now.

This is not mere nostalgia. To me, these observations represent an empirical ground from which to urge a newer and better restoration of economic opportunity for folks. We need to reindustrialize, people need to earn a reasonable living making things in the productive economy--learning trades, being engineers, etc... . It can happen and it should happen. And many younger folks who see no future if there aren't some seriously "revolutionary" changes in how we function as a society are starting to get it. Good old man Bernie Sanders, finger-pointy and all, because he hearkens back to better economic days, is the tip of a new approach to remedying the mess we find ourselves in. He's ahead of his time. And if history plays out in a favorable fashion for both the US and our influence in the world, the DLC triangulists are having their last hurrah. I know many of you will poo-poo these ideas now, but in a couple of decades--if we survive them--feel free to tip a beer and thank all the Sanders supporters who began the process of getting this ball rolling back in the right direction again.
posted by CincyBlues at 2:25 PM on April 20, 2016 [19 favorites]

it boils down to rules-lawyering without understanding the point behind the rules, which is: denying someone their vote is flat out wrong, no matter how atrocious what they are voting for is.

Wait, leaving aside the private/public for a minute, you read the Constitution and got the idea that it was written specifically to ensure every citizen got a vote? At a time when you could only vote if you were white, twenty-one, male, and owned property?
posted by corb at 2:27 PM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Still missing the point there, corb.

You are advocating for disenfranchising however many hundreds of thousands/millions of people voted for Trump. Reverse the situation: Cruz is the frontrunner and people believe that he would be a disaster. Would it be okay to disenfranchise everyone who had voted for him in the primaries?
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 2:31 PM on April 20, 2016

The matter is definitely not going to be settled by an arm-wrestling match in here between you two, so let's just drop it mutually and move on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:32 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

The matter is definitely not going to be settled by an arm-wrestling match in here between you two

$5 says at least one delegate vote at the GOP convention will, in fact, be decided by an arm-wrestling match or some other feat of strength
posted by prize bull octorok at 2:41 PM on April 20, 2016 [10 favorites]

There is definitely some hypocrisy involved in the party that talks a big game on the sanctity and integrity of the vote using back-room tactics to throw away the votes of millions of primary voters because they don't like the result. It's not a question of constitutionality per se -- obviously these private organizations can do what they want -- and quite frankly, anything that increases the chance of people rising up against the two-party system is a good thing in my book -- but this will certainly increase my already sky-high levels of eye-rolling the next time I hear a conservative complain about voter fraud.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:41 PM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

I guess I don't really understand upstate NY at all, because we never have candidates do well simultaneously in socialist Ithaca and the surrounding rural Republican areas.

Yeah, I think the switch in, say, Seneca County from overwhelmingly pro-Clinton in 2008 (72-26) vs slightly more pro-Bernie in 2016 (53-27) is interesting (Seneca isn't exactly a "rural Republican area" since the county as a whole voted for Obama in '08 and '12, but on the ground it feels like it is). One issue my lefty friends in that county are concerned with is the fight over gas storage under Seneca Lake. I know that has caused some realignment in local political factions. But the same swing (70ish% for Clinton in 2008 to ~45ish% support in 2016) happened in a lot of the upstate counties, so it can't just be that alone. I'd really like to hear from the folks upstate who voted for Clinton in 2008 but Bernie in 2016 - what caused the shift? I'm hoping someone writes a decent article about it (without a pro-either-candidate lens), that goes beyond just simple demographics.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:43 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

From the Trump campaign: "Our projections call for us to accumulate over 1400 delegates and thus a first ballot nomination win in Cleveland." Gotta love the power of positive thinking.
posted by peeedro at 2:50 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I feel like, after multiple political threads, we need to create a page we can refer people to every time some rathole argument comes up.

* What's the argument for Hillary being a liberal?
* What's the argument for Hillary being a moderate Republican?
* Did Bernie really say that crap about cancer being caused by repression?
* Is Bernie really a Democrat?

etc. etc. etc.

Because it does feel like a merry-go-round now.
posted by dw at 3:00 PM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

(Not sure if others are really as interested in the "What do Bernie and Trump have in common" question as I am, but just in case, I got some feedback from a semi-rural friend who sees them both as attractive options because "They don't take money from billionaires and corporations," (which I think is something that appeals to Bernie's urban fans too) but also because "They don't bullshit" (which I think maybe is more of a cultural thing in more rural areas? Tact is over-rated?) So that can join "anti-NAFTA" "relatively pro-gun," and "You're being screwed over" messaging on the list of stuff they have in common. That stuff plus the fact that Bernie "speaks rural / respects rural communities" is maybe enough to explain the appeal, and stuff that other candidates, if not Hillary, could emulate to pick up votes downticket? Maybe? Though I'm not sure I want them too...)
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:26 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

* What's the argument for Hillary being a liberal?
* What's the argument for Hillary being a moderate Republican?
* Did Bernie really say that crap about cancer being caused by repression?
* Is Bernie really a Democrat?

And notably, that's pretty much all that's been discussed in this thread so far, as far as I can tell. That and long discursive debates about when it is or is not acceptable to talk about things that happened 40 years ago and whether it depends on which candidate did it, when it is or is not acceptable to talk about spouses and whether it depends on which candidate's spouse, Clinton supporters are like this but no Bernie supporters are like this, is Sanders an asshole for not dropping out yet or just too dumb to understand math, clickbait titled links after the mods have asked us about 400,000,000,000x to stop posting fucking clickbait titled links, and all around enough condescension and ill will towards anyone who disagrees to kill a goddamn horse. Essentially no discussion of the candidates' policies. To be fair the discussion about NY state demographics is promising though - thanks for that guys. And some of the TV character endorsements were amusing.

It's getting pretty sad how much heat and how little light there is in these threads anymore. Thank you to the mods for dealing with this disaster - seriously want to give you all nice gifts or at least strong booze or something, god knows you've earned it.
posted by cobra_high_tigers at 3:34 PM on April 20, 2016 [9 favorites]

I hope it's not ageist but I cringe at what they are putting their bodies through

For some reason, reading that I started imagining a what-if where both Martin O'Malley and Paul Ryan becoming nominees and going through an 80s style training montage in preparation for the general election.
posted by FJT at 3:36 PM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

why you think Frank Underwood had that rowing machine
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:38 PM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

Sexual tension, obviously.
posted by Etrigan at 3:41 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think the issue of how to appeal to more rural and/or blue collar voters is very interesting and worth pursuing.

For policy, libertarian ideas in general (but raise minimum wage -- maybe with rural/city splits -- and pro-union). Oppose government monitoring and NSA spying in general, net neutrality. encryption etc. a la Ron Wyden. Marijuana legalization, which you can (factually) tie into de-prisoning and racial justice as well as farming, artisan food/edible production, compassion for the sick AND lower taxes.

Small scale, decentralized anti-corporate and DIY ideas e.g. reverse metering for solar energy. people who build their own airplanes, ham radio types, etc. There are lots of tinkerers who feel opporessed by government regulations, help 'em out. On nuclear energy, remove the legal limit on liability and require long term storage then say "go for it."

Higher speed limits on highways, all day.

Oppose the federalist laws that stop people from doing things like labeling GMOs, restricting them in the local county, require those disclaimers on non-GBH milk, etc. It saddens me but anti-flouride and anti-vaccine would probably be effective (and also in hipster places like Portland). Equal funding for acupuncture, alternative medicine etc.

Candidate identity is just as important. BE FUN, do active sporty stuff (but not upper class stuff like windsurfing, more like bowling and water skiing). Shoot guns (which is in fact fun). Non-politician non-establishment background, grew up rural, impressive job (like Ben Carson). Be funny. Hunter/fly fisher. Sports fan. Just avoid every stereoptype of big city elites. Love Game of Thrones. Speak bluntly (but of course never make a gaffe).

Big campaign for universal automatic voter registration (through DMV) and hammer anyone who pushes restrictions.
posted by msalt at 5:54 PM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Oh! And police reform! The goddamn gubmint stormtroopers is an issue that unites inner city and deep rural. Just saw that Nebraska eliminated civil forfeiture -- that's a good example. Remove DAs from charging police misconduct.
posted by msalt at 5:59 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Remove DAs from charging police misconduct.

I think the DAs have done a pretty job at doing that themselves.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:04 PM on April 20, 2016 [6 favorites]

Acupuncture? GMOs? Game of Thrones? Net neutrality? You know different rural people than I do, msalt. The ones I know are more about faith healing than acupuncture, and think "organic farming" means "growing crops for the benefit of insects." They would never watch something as "filthy" as Game of Thrones, but they are watching Fuller House on Netflix.

The issues that resonate for these people are like "Support our troops" (many are or have been in the military, or have family who are) and support for homeschooling, and jobs for people displaced by closing factories. Their farms are subject to capital gains and inheritance and property taxes which are hard to pay in years where they aren't bringing in much cash, which is partly why they are so anti-tax and find themselves identifying with rich investors. They also identify strongly with their churches.

... Okay yes, I'm talking about rural Republicans not rural Democrats, but they must have some things in common. I guess the tinkerer thing sounds familiar, at least.
posted by OnceUponATime at 6:29 PM on April 20, 2016 [5 favorites]

Huh. Is that a serious list, msalt? I am not claiming any expertise, but those aren't the issues that seem to move rural voters in my state!

I would hammer away on infrastructure: repairing and maintaining roads and bridges; making sure that everyone has access to technology. (I don't think that most people are moved by net neutrality or encryption, and in my state a lot of rural voters are still waiting for reasonable internet access.) Jobs are a big issue: making sure that there's economic opportunity for young people who want to stay in the places where they grew up. In 2012, Mitt Romney put out ads attacking subsidies for wind energy, and everyone was kind of baffled, because wind energy is a rural economic development issue here and it's popular among potential Republican voters.

I also think it's worth pointing out that "not big city" is not the same as rural. I bet a lot of those voters live in small and medium-sized towns, rather than truly rural areas.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:33 PM on April 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I will never forgive Obama for getting advance screenings of Game of Thrones. Never.
posted by Justinian at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I feel like "infrastructure projects" would be a big seller with rural voters around here. Failure to maintain our national infrastructure hits rural areas particularly had because they rely on those connections. A national project to lay out high-speed internet like we once did with phones and electricity. Road upgrades (which also provide a lot of employment). Rail upgrades. Electrical grid upgrades. And then (in the statehouses), financial support to modernize education in rural areas -- upgrade the buildings, right-size them to communities, provide 21st-century telecommunications to them so kids can take APs by videoconference -- that would all be huge.

And considerably more sensible Ag policy just, like, all around. And the federal government used to do a much better job placing large installations -- USDA labs, military bases, etc. -- out in the boondocks. The massive domination of NoVa by federal facilities and contractors has really wrecked that, and it's a loss. It's a loss because those are good jobs and good economic engines; it's a loss because it keeps talent in far-flung communities; it's a loss because it ties the country closer together when the government's work is done all across it instead of just inside the Beltway. It's a loss because it's hella cheaper to run a food testing lab in Ankeny, Iowa, than in Bethesda. It's also a problem because (studies and commentators suggest) it increases lobbying and concentration of lobbyists when you concentrate all the jobs and money in the DC area. A candidate who committed to redistributing the federal government's workforce and agencies across the country would probably be pretty popular.

On preview, jinx with ArbitraryAndCapricious
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:40 PM on April 20, 2016 [14 favorites]

I wish the Flint indictments had come down before the last couple of debates. Hopefully it will come up during the domestic policy debate for the general. Clinton will shred Trump and his fellow deregulation tax-cutters.
posted by Justinian at 6:43 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Someone mentioned above that one reason upstaters love Bernie is because of his anti-fracking stance and this is SO true. I'm living in Brooklyn right now but I'm from Ulster county and fracking is a Big Deal up there. I was watching a debate with some NYC friends recently and was yelling at the screen about fracking and nobody else in the room knew what the hell I was so worked up about.
posted by silverstatue at 7:12 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

I ought to have mentioned that more or less side by side with the deindustrialization of the nation, there were a series of farm crises which more or less crippled family farming. So, rural MeFites, is there any chance that some form of family-based farming can make a comeback? Have we gone too far down that road to make this at least somewhat viable? And if not, are there light industries or other ventures that can take up the slack, maybe repopulate some of the ghost towns out there? I know that here in KY there are several proposals to get broadband moved out into the less populated areas, sort of like the rural electrification projects of the 1930s. But you can only build so many low wage call centers, which seems to be part of the solution (with mixed success) in eastern Kentucky.
posted by CincyBlues at 7:19 PM on April 20, 2016

Eyebrows McGee, I'm an employee of USDA's in-house research arm. I'm 100% behind the idea of increasing funding for ag research. I've had several good candidates turn down positions because they don't want to work in suburban Maryland. However, the truth is that my agency is slowly dying because of the federal budget disaster. My observation is that there's not much support out there for increasing our budget, even in Stoneville, MS.
posted by wintermind at 7:23 PM on April 20, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just in case this hasn't been posted yet: Bernie busts bubbles
posted by CincyBlues at 8:23 PM on April 20, 2016 [9 favorites]

$5 says at least one delegate vote at the GOP convention will, in fact, be decided by an arm-wrestling match or some other feat of strength.

Combine that with the inevitable airing of grievances, and we're looking at the world's biggest Festivus.
posted by Banknote of the year at 8:30 PM on April 20, 2016 [7 favorites]

In my largely rural state of Kansas, there's been some interesting developments recently. Some of Governor Brownback's long time supporters in the legislature have decided to stab him in the back and push for a rollback of the tax cuts-- tax cuts which essentially ended income taxes on the very wealthy. This is interesting to me on a few different levels. First of all, the wealthy suburbs, like Johnson County (suburb of KC), are now feeling the pain. There's been deep cuts to education across the board. The suburbanites are finally noticing they weren't excluded and their highly prized schools are going down quickly. Their great road system (always a source of pride compared to the pothole hell across the state line) is becoming indistinguishable from what's in Missouri.

The Rural areas and towns, like mine, are also noticing their schools' decline and they're terrified of possible school district consolidation. District consolidation would mean many small towns would lose their local K-12 and the kids would have to get bused 20-30 minutes away. My town has around 700 people and, while it's not growing, it does have a healthy mix of old and young families. The latter will put up with 20-30 minute commutes to decent jobs in exchange for their kids living in a safe place where they can walk to school. For the people here, this largely makes up for the lack of many amenities. Killing the local school will kill my town. Even the God & Guns voters here are starting to wake up to the dire possibilities of losing their town, or seeing their kids lose opportunities because the local schools can no longer offer technology or art classes.

On top of all of this is a huge sword suspended in the air by a thread. The Kansas Supreme Court has ordered the state public schools to be closed for the 2016-7 school year if the legislature does not provide sufficient funding. In response, the legislature is pushing a plan to make it easier to impeach judges, and outside groups have started campaigning against the justices facing re-election this year.

So the (mostly) low information voters are starting to get angry, and the legislators are realizing they can't make it go away with another defunding of PP, yelling at gay/trans people, and finding new places to let people take their guns. That shit isn't working any more. I don't know how this new dissent from Republicans will play with the Kochs and their superpac Americans for Prosperity. In the 2012 and 2014 elections, AfP spent quite a bit on pushing radical Republican candidates, and ensuring Brownback's re-election despite his deep unpopularity. I'm not sure how the rebel legislators will balance angry voters with the possibility of being primaried from the Right by a new batch of well-funded candidates. Not to mention these legislators will be turning their back on their own (formerly) large pile of cash from outside groups. Angry voters vs. Piles of cash. Who will win?

So, it's pure chaos here. Outside of schools and roads, there's not much call in my area for other infrastructure projects. There are some small towns which are investing in local broadband. My own town just had some fiber laid to the schools, thanks to an outside grant, and the plan is to offer it to the public in a couple of years.
posted by honestcoyote at 8:52 PM on April 20, 2016 [16 favorites]

You know different rural people than I do, msalt.
I also think it's worth pointing out that "not big city" is not the same as rural. I bet a lot of those voters live in small and medium-sized towns, rather than truly rural areas.

You're right, this is absolutely true. My experience is with people across the inland west in small towns that have occasional comedy gigs, places like Bozeman & Glasgow MT, Winnemucca NV, Orofino ID, Lakeview OR, etc.. Sorry if it was ignorant to conflate those folks with rural people, though I think a lot of people will readily drive 20-30 miles for a show (or groceries).

Yes, a lot of churchy people but politicians have that pretty well covered. Home school, sure which fits into the anti-government, vaguely libertarian ethos. Pro-military, absolutely (but not incompatible with being war skeptical. People know war is hell.)

A national project to lay out high-speed internet like we once did with phones and electricity.

Absolutely. Ding ding ding! Role for federal government, crying need, no way in hell free market will cover it.

I'm looking for issues that work across the urban/ ~~rural~~ small town divide, using Bernie's undeniable success as a template. Maybe I'm off-base, just spit-balling here.

Drug treatment seems like a good cross-demographic issue too. "Don't jail people, treat them."
posted by msalt at 9:02 PM on April 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

It's getting pretty sad how much heat and how little light there is in these threads anymore.

Well, last election thread I tried to start a serious discussion about the merits of Limberbutt McCubbins versus upstart challenger Deez Nuts, but nobody was having it.
posted by Anonymous at 11:39 PM on April 20, 2016

And if not, are there light industries or other ventures that can take up the slack, maybe repopulate some of the ghost towns out there?

If there is a candidate for Prez who has insight into how to shore up economies that used to depend on family farming, it's Sanders. Vermont in my childhood was all about small dairy farms. There are still some small farms, but their numbers have dropped enormously. In 1947, there were over 11,000 farms in the state, but by 2008, there were only a tenth that many. There has been some consolidation of farms, but most of them are out of production. I have a lot of relatives in VT. 30 years ago, they were all full-time dairy farmers. Today, a couple of them farm part-time. They mostly still live on the land, but they make their livings doing a variety of other things. Here's what the BLS says everyone is doing; it looks like only 3% of the labor force is still farming.

The evaporation of farm employment probably goes a long way to explain Sanders' history of supporting what little industry there is in the state, even when it's defense industry.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:29 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, last election thread I tried to start a serious discussion about the merits of Limberbutt McCubbins...

Sorry, schroedinger, but every time you bring that up it just devolves into an endless debate about whether the cat is alive or not when we open the box.
posted by mmoncur at 2:58 AM on April 21, 2016 [12 favorites]

Yeah, I'd say the fundamental way in which rural people really are being screwed over is in the fact that they can't really make a living from farming anymore (but many families still own farms, which become a significant tax liability) and the factory jobs which started to replace farming as an income stream for many people as the US industrialized are now gone as well.

There is literally no way for people in many areas to make a living without selling their land and moving to the cities (or joining the military)... which is what a lot of young people have done, leaving those who can't for various reasons (particularly older people) even more cut off.

"Education" is usually polticians' solution to "we can't get jobs," but it doesn't matter how much education you've got if there just literally are no jobs in your area.
posted by OnceUponATime at 3:59 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]

So, I live in the Appalachians in one of the most economically depressed counties in TN. My work is funded by Dartmouth College, and croudfunding before that. I was reading the secret shame of the middle class thread yesterday and feeling so lucky that I've mostly avoided those problems.

One of my sisters lives not far from here in VA. Grows all her own food organically and treats it all as a series of biology experiments. Writes books which are sold mostly in Tractor Supply stores and online. Sells products online to backyard chicken enthusiasts.

Another sister lives in the Appalachian part of NC. Is a doctor and coordinates the rural health system of the county.

We're all three doing pretty well here in rural america, and education is undoubtedly the common thread. We all attended colleges up north, toward the ivy league end of the spectrum. And for 2/3 of us, internet access is the other common thread making it possible to make a living outside the cities. Education, internet access, and a low cost of living can be a potent combination.
posted by joeyh at 4:45 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]

The story of political influence from suffering farmers is overblown. Farmers and their families make up less than 2% of the U.S. population. Even in a "rural agricultural" state like Kansas, farming accounts for barely 5% of state GDP.

A lot of the political influence of farmers comes from nostalgic non-farmers.
posted by JackFlash at 6:34 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Or people who used to be, or are descended from farmers?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:55 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

One way to bridge that divide would be to tax properties based on whether they are income producing or not, not based on an assessment of what they would be worth to someone who was producing income on it. It's important to understand that "losing the family farm" is a deep source of terror and shame to people even if no one has farmed there for three generations.
posted by corb at 6:56 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Even in a "rural agricultural" state like Kansas, farming accounts for barely 5% of state GDP.

Sorry, but that's the whole point. Sure, farming is only 5% of GDP. So nobody is making a living from it anymore. You're right. Not a lot of full time farmers out there. But there are still people who grew up on farms, whose families own farms that don't make any money, etc. Farming used to be a huge part of the economy and now it's not anymore, and neither is the manufacturing which replaced it. So what do the people who are not farmers anymore do? I think a lot of people, when they hear "Make America Great Again" hear it as "Make Our Small Towns Great Again." As a promise to bring back the manufacturing jobs, and somehow make small towns as economically vibrant as they once were.

I don't know how to help, exactly. I just feel like Democrats don't talk to/about these people very much, but Bernie somehow resonated, and maybe there's a lesson there.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:02 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

The farmer population hasn't exceeded 10% for more than half a century -- a couple of generations. How long must the government defer to out dated nostalgia. There is also a lot of nostalgia among Republicans for 1950s segregation. The farm population is 97% white, which might account for other political correlations.
posted by JackFlash at 7:18 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]

The farmer population hasn't exceeded 10% for more than half a century

Half a century ago many of those people were working in factories, though. So they had an income.
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:24 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Farming has long been dying in this country -- there's no money in it for the small farmer and hasn't been for years, and the younger generation wants no part of it. The decline of ranching in Texas correlated with the explosion of Dallas and Houston's populations (during a 1950s drought).

The death of farming is a good thing -- we're not an agrarian society anymore but an information one -- but it's also a really bad thing given the American system is built on Jefferson's framing of an agrarian society. I mean, other than the whole "where does your food come from and who is growing it and who is picking it" problem.
posted by dw at 7:49 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

"There have been very few complaints the way it is. People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. There has been so little trouble."
posted by box at 7:57 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Curt Schilling would disagree with you, box. The fallout couldn't have happened to a nicer asshole either.
posted by Talez at 8:11 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's a weird tendency here, though, to equate "doesn't live in a major metropolitan area" with "farmer." People in non-metro areas also work in things like food processing, manufacturing, long-distance truck-driving, etc.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:14 AM on April 21, 2016 [6 favorites]

I was just listening earlier to PRI's The World from April 1st and in a discussion of China that followed a story about how the Chinese government declared April Fool's jokes to not comport with socialist values, a guest expert mentioned that one objection she'd encountered among Chinese citizens against moving away from an authoritarian system was that if they had democracy then farmers might vote.
posted by XMLicious at 8:39 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Clinton is considering picking another woman as VP, signaling Elizabeth Warren (who appears to not have ruled herself out).

There are a number of reasons why it would be a bad idea (#1 to me is the (temporary) diminishing of Warren's power), but the thought of an all-female ticket makes me want to cackle in Trump's face.
posted by sallybrown at 8:45 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]

That'd be a really bold move and I dig it.
posted by prize bull octorok at 8:51 AM on April 21, 2016

This seems to me to be a deal-breaker:

The Republican governor of Massachusetts, Charlie Baker, would get to pick Warren’s replacement until a special election is held, which could take 145 to 160 days. Hillary will be reluctant to do anything that could stop Democrats from re-taking the Senate and undermine her ability to push an ambitious agenda during her first 100 days.

She'd be better for Treasury Secretary anyway.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:52 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]

This WaPo article from yesterday mentions Warren recently meeting with John "the truth is out there" Podesta.
posted by sallybrown at 8:52 AM on April 21, 2016

Warren for VP wouldn't be a sop to progressives. it would be an attempt at regulatory capture.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 9:06 AM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

The timing of the Warren speculation suggests to me it's a trial balloon designed more to make Clinton seem more appealing to Sanders leaners than an actual possibility. It makes no sense on any level at all. If you believe Clinton is going to govern as a centrist / conservative Democrat, she wouldn't want someone so far to the left out there underining her message, and if you believe she'll govern farther to the left, there's no way she'd want to take out of her strongest allies to be replaced by a Republican. Plus, it doesn't help her win any states she wouldn't otherwise be winning.

Zero chance of it happening, and only a very tiny chance that anyone involved including the two principals is considering it as a serious possibility.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 AM on April 21, 2016 [8 favorites]

Maybe Amy Klobuchar if she wants a woman?
posted by Chrysostom at 9:12 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Task force will help Clinton supporters push back on online harassment and thank superdelegates

Correct The Record will invest more than $1 million into Barrier Breakers 2016 activities, including the more than tripling of its digital operation to engage in online messaging both for Secretary Clinton and to push back against attackers on social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and Instagram.
posted by Trochanter at 9:18 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Maybe Amy Klobuchar if she wants a woman?

OMG yes (and not just because I have a small bet at extremely long odds on Amy being POTUS one day). Amy was also great in the Library of Congress hearing yesterday on c-span, amongst many other things.

But a Clinton/Klobuchar, or my God a Clinton/Warren vs Trump/Kasich presidential election. Wow; just, wow. Can you imagine the sheer tsunami of misogyny swamping various websites, comment sections, and social media such as Twitter? Let alone Labor Day family gatherings when your very angry, very right-wing uncle feels the need to spew his opinions after a bud or three.
posted by Wordshore at 9:20 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've always thought of Klobuchar as more of a SCOTUS short-lister than VP pick myself. She'd be fine in the VP job, but it seems like a waste of her talent, honestly.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:25 AM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

(I'm glad I'm not the only person who watched the Library of Congress hearing on C-SPAN yesterday.)
posted by box at 9:32 AM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's a weird tendency here, though, to equate "doesn't live in a major metropolitan area" with "farmer." People in non-metro areas also work in things like food processing, manufacturing, long-distance truck-driving, etc.

Also there are a fair number of people who don't live in major metro areas who live in... minor metro areas!
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:32 AM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

(I'm glad I'm not the only person who watched the Library of Congress hearing on C-SPAN yesterday.)

Yay! The librarian-twitterverse were pretty much on it yesterday.

Amy Klobuchar at the Library of Congress hearing.
posted by Wordshore at 9:44 AM on April 21, 2016

"Unexpectedly, in the bombastic, testosterone-fueled presidential election of 2016, Hillary Clinton is the last true hawk left in the race."
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:07 PM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

Further to the rural/suburban/urban split discussed above, I came across this Mother Jones article discussing the crossover between Zephyr Teachout and Bernie Sanders in NY. Teachout is running for congress in the 19th district and previously ran against Cuomo in the Democratic primary for governor in 2014. Clinton won 54% of the 19th district in the 2008 primary against Obama, but Bernie beat Clinton 60-40 on Tuesday. In the article, Teachout discusses the "chickenization" of the country:

a system pioneered by agricultural giants such as Tyson, in which local contract farmers agree to standardize their practices on behalf of big poultry companies that keep most of the profits. [...]

She considers consolidation a major problem in the 19th district, a largely rural swath of upstate New York that covers all or parts of 11 counties, from the Catskills to the Hudson. Many of the dairy farms in the district contract with just one company, Dean Foods. Teachout refers to this as a "crisis of concentration of power," and one of her campaign promises is to toughen anti-trust laws in a way that gives "the farmer of the middle" more autonomy in how they run their operations.

The article also touches on the need for broadband access in rural areas, fracking, geothermal energy, and the difference in gun control philosophy between rural Dems and the usually-urban-based establishment. I don't think Clinton can (or should) pivot to the right on guns, but there's definitely room for her to stake a claim on broadband access and geothermal in the general election. I also think she could shed some of the corporate crony perception by creating stronger anti-fracking messaging and taking a tough anti-trust stance. The anti-trust angle could pick up some of the anti-free-trade folks (many of whom are really anti big business) without having to actually take an anti-free-trade position.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:27 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

isn't fracking support largely driven by foreign policy? i guess maybe i just assumed that. but if so, it seems reasonable to think she's been supporting (pushing) it?
posted by andrewcooke at 2:56 PM on April 21, 2016

isn't fracking support largely driven by foreign policy?

In the way that locally extracted energy means less dependence on foreign oil.
posted by Talez at 3:23 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

and driving the price collapse, which is pretty much economic warfare against other providers with less diverse economies.
posted by andrewcooke at 3:45 PM on April 21, 2016

Maybe Amy Klobuchar if she wants a woman?

Amy Klobuchar for TIME’s 100 Most Influential People: “Hillary Clinton”
posted by Going To Maine at 3:45 PM on April 21, 2016

(It should go without saying that the TIME list seems to be garbage hagiography that will make everyone mad, but I find the connection interesting.)
posted by Going To Maine at 3:52 PM on April 21, 2016

Camille Paglia: Enough with the Hillary cult: Her admirers ignore reality, dream of worshipping a queen

Wonkette: Can You Hack Up Words As Stupid As Camille Paglia? A Contest!
posted by happyroach at 3:56 PM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

The best thing about a Camille Paglia article is that the ad hominems practically write themselves. No heavy lifting required by the reader!
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:35 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Donald Trump Says Transgender People Should Use the Bathroom They Want
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:39 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

Donald Trump, frantically paddling to the center to get away from the far right.

My Lord, I think he may actually want to win this thing.
posted by dw at 5:16 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

My assumption has been that trans issues are essentially only a concern to people who would be guaranteed Democratic votes. I don’t think the position would cost him votes, but would it really peel off these folks? Or am I markedly misunderstanding the appeal of trans issues? (Quite possible.)
posted by Going To Maine at 5:21 PM on April 21, 2016

I would note that Elizabeth Warren has been critical of both Hillary and Bernie, and she got some flak when she didn't endorse either candidate before the Massachusetts primary. Naming Warren would be a gamble that the Democrats can collect the extra Senate seat.

Patty Murray would be another good option, but she's up for re-election this year, and that would lead to some weirdness in Washington if she were on the ballot twice. Plus the governor is on shaky grounds for re-election.
posted by dw at 5:22 PM on April 21, 2016

Clinton is considering picking another woman as VP, signaling Elizabeth Warren (who appears to not have ruled herself out).

I'd rather have Warren in her current role in the Senate. I'd also rather Clinton help Warren by pressuring Debbie Wasserman Schultz to stop helping the GOP and payday lenders attack on Warren and the CFPB.
posted by homunculus at 6:03 PM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

Please keep Warren in the Senate. She's way more useful there and would be wasted as VP.
posted by octothorpe at 7:55 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

Bill Clinton Blames Millennials For Anger, Economy, Congress
If only the youth had voted in 2010, everything would be different.

“If all the young people who claim to be disillusioned now had voted in 2010, we wouldn’t have lost the Congress, and we’d probably have our incomes back,” he said.
posted by futz at 8:07 PM on April 21, 2016

“If all the young people who claim to be disillusioned now had voted in 2010, we wouldn’t have lost the Congress, and we’d probably have our incomes back,” he said.

You're not wrong,William, you're just an asshole.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:13 PM on April 21, 2016 [11 favorites]

As the HuffPost notes, people in their early twenties today weren’t eligible to vote in 2010.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:24 PM on April 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

I know plenty of people in their early 30s who claim to be disillusioned.
posted by zutalors! at 8:26 PM on April 21, 2016 [4 favorites]

> Just saw that Nebraska eliminated civil forfeiture

Civil Forfeiture Is a National Epidemic. Nebraska Is Trying to Fix It. A good day for the Cornhuskers—and the Constitution.
posted by homunculus at 8:28 PM on April 21, 2016 [3 favorites]

Biden Looks Back, Aspirations Intact

He remains neutral in the battle between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, but not between their campaign styles. He’ll take Mr. Sanders’s aspirational approach over Mrs. Clinton’s caution any day.

“I like the idea of saying, ‘We can do much more,’ because we can,” Mr. Biden said in an interview on the Washington-to-Wilmington, Del., Amtrak train he has ridden throughout four decades in national politics.

“I don’t think any Democrat’s ever won saying, ‘We can’t think that big — we ought to really downsize here because it’s not realistic,’ ” he said in a mocking tone. “C’mon man, this is the Democratic Party! I’m not part of the party that says, ‘Well, we can’t do it.’ ”

...“The clarion call for our generation is not ‘it’s our turn,’ ” Mr. Biden said in announcing his first presidential bid, in 1987. Disdaining “smooth, antiseptic and passionless” leadership, he insisted then, “We must rekindle the fire of idealism in this country.”

posted by futz at 8:37 PM on April 21, 2016 [7 favorites]

NYC Board of Elections official suspended without pay, pending an internal investigation, following Primary voting issues in Brooklyn
posted by futz at 8:47 PM on April 21, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh my fucking LOL they straight up announce they're flooding the comments with paid shills? Hillary learned some of Obama's 11-dimensional chess or something?
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 9:54 PM on April 21, 2016 [1 favorite]

hehehe, coke heads (a BLR of Bernie and Hillary)
posted by numaner at 10:08 PM on April 21, 2016

There was a brouhaha for five minutes because the Bernie campaign was looking for interns to essentially astroturf. He's paid Twitter to trend hashtags. and staffers have imitated union workers. Anyone pretending like this isn't the same gross shit done by every candidate is fooling themselves.
posted by Anonymous at 10:50 PM on April 21, 2016

That's true, but David Brock's campaign is so disastrously stupid that I literally wonder if he is more of a double agent than a convert. No intelligent person could think that calling a press conference to announce that you're going to spend a million arguing with random people on the internet would help.

Could they?
posted by msalt at 12:10 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

NYC Board of Elections official suspended without pay, pending an internal investigation, following Primary voting issues in Brooklyn

Suspended immediately without pay, and likely fired at next meeting. Wow. Googling her I found two notable items.

-This page lists her as the "Republican Commissioner" for the NY State Board of Election's Overseas and Military Services office. But I can't tell if that means she is Republican, representing that party, or if she's just the election official you contact if you want to change registration for a Republican.

- She bought a rundown brownstone on the upper West Side in 1976 for $5,000. After complaints from neighbors that she let it crumble, she sold it in 2014 for $6.6 million.
posted by msalt at 12:19 AM on April 22, 2016

Secretive group of Hollywood conservatives suddenly dissolves
The announcement by the Friends of Abe fueled speculation that infighting over Donald Trump’s candidacy had drained commitment

The Friends of Abe has acted as a clandestine club for Hollywood conservatives for more than a decade, hosting secret events where they could vent rightwing views and hear speeches from visiting Tea Party luminaries.

But on Thursday the organisation – which counts Jon Voight, Jerry Bruckheimer and Kelsey Grammer among its 1,500 members – made an abrupt announcement: it was dissolving.

posted by XMLicious at 12:54 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Silver lining?
posted by bardophile at 1:22 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

msalt: -This page lists her as the "Republican Commissioner" for the NY State Board of Election's Overseas and Military Services office. But I can't tell if that means she is Republican, representing that party, or if she's just the election official you contact if you want to change registration for a Republican.

It means she represents the Republican party, so she's registered as one. You don't have to contact specific election officials to change your registration. You just fill out a form and it happens automatically. That form is submitted to to the Board of Elections.

Background: There is a Board of Elections in each of the 62 counties in New York State. Each is run by representatives from the two major parties, in a bipartisan commission. So there is a Democratic Commissioner and a Republican Commissioner. They are in charge of registering (and maintaining registration records for) voters, conducting elections (primaries, general and special elections,) canvassing their results and certifying winners.
posted by zarq at 6:28 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Some statistics:

19.75 million people living in New York State.
Statewide: 11.7 million registered voters. (pdf)
Registered Democrats: 5.7 million
Registered Republicans: 2.7 million
Registered Independents: 475,566
Registered, but no affiliation (left the field blank): 2.48 million.
posted by zarq at 6:34 AM on April 22, 2016

Secretive group of Hollywood conservatives suddenly dissolves

From the link: Boreing, a director and producer, put a positive gloss on the announcement, saying the initial hunger for fellowship had prompted the group to build an expensive website, rent offices and hire staff, including lawyers and accountants

How astoundingly Republican of them!

It really is infuriating how the people in this little clubhouse clearly think they're the new victims of McCarthyesque repression, when really they're still the ones hankering for social control. You're not in danger, guys, people just think you're dicks.

Also, when on Earth are modern Republicans gonna stop exhuming the corpse of Abraham Lincoln, a man with whom they share almost no values in common?
posted by showbiz_liz at 6:42 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hillary PAC Spends $1 Million to ‘Correct’ Commenters on Reddit and Facebook

Citing “lessons learned from online engagement with ‘Bernie Bros,’” a pro-Hillary Clinton Super PAC is pledging to spend $1 million to “push back against” users on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram.

Correct the Record’s “Barrier Breakers” project boasts in a press release that it has already “addressed more than 5,000 people that have personally attacked Hillary Clinton on Twitter.” The PAC released this on Thursday.

As you can imagine, reddit is freaking out about this.
posted by DynamiteToast at 6:56 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

That'll end well.
posted by zarq at 6:59 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Also, congrats to the mods for helping us keep it civil enough that the PAC didn't feel the need to visit us on Metafilter! Although if we're a little short on revenue now would be a good time to get mean so Hillary's PAC will make a few accounts...
posted by DynamiteToast at 6:59 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Little bit playing Devil's Advocate here, but I'm not so sure that spending money to pay shills to argue on Reddit isn't a good use of campaign spending these days. I mean yeah, you could use that to buy TV ads instead. But 1) who watches ads on TV anymore? I'm unusual among my friends in that I watch most of my TV on a TV via satellite dish rather than a computer screen via internet, and even I DVR everything and fast forward the commercials. And 2) even if you do see the TV ads, if the message they are selling contradicts what you read on social media / discussion sites that morning, are you going to be open to that message, or are you going to write it off as a bunch of lies?

Social media / internet discussion is where it's at for forming and changing opinions these days. But it does make me uncomfortable that there's no distinction between "advertising" and "editorial content" such as it is, in comments sections. I wonder if there's a way around that, a way for sites to allow campaign staffers to comment and argue, but designate the account as being associated with the campaign, so people can take that into account. Like "You're just a paid shill!" "Uh, yeah? That's why my username has this asterisk next to it? But that doesn't change the fact that Ted Cruz is not a lizard person, and in fact has been medically documented to be a mammal."

Though enforcement would be really hard. And campaigns have volunteers as well as paid staffers. Do we have a problem with this is if it's done, even without being marked as "from the campaign," by volunteers?
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:31 AM on April 22, 2016

Do we have a problem with this is if it's done, even without being marked as "from the campaign," by volunteers?

Without disclosing that it's being done by someone for a campaign? Yes. That's fraud. It's completely, totally unethical. People who do that are not representing themselves honestly to the public.

I'm a publicist. Bias, credibility and disclosure is a huge, huge deal in my industry. Rightfully so. See: astroturfing for more.
posted by zarq at 7:40 AM on April 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Remember when Putin hired a troll army to scold critics of Russia in comment sections and everyone agreed that it was fascist and totally unacceptable?
posted by indubitable at 7:47 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Meanwhile on Facebook, commenter says he can't wait to vote out Jim McDermott for his support of Hillary as a super-delegate.

Except Jim McDermott is retiring this term.

Um.
posted by dw at 7:47 AM on April 22, 2016

"Do we have a problem with this is if it's done by volunteers?" "Without disclosing that it's being done by someone for a campaign? Yes."

But if they're volunteering for the campaign, it's presumably because they sincerely believe in the candidate. So if they go on the internet and argue in support of the candidate, they are expressing their genuinely held beliefs. And if they are not being paid to do it, how are they different from every other fan of the candidate who is arguing on the internet? What's fraudulent about it?

... I guess it's the fact that they aren't really a part of the community? Probably it would be okay for a campaign volunteer to argue on behalf of their candidate on Metafilter if they'd been hanging out on Metafilter since long before the campaign and planned to stick around long after?

That would be an even harder rule to enforce, but maybe it could be done. If you want to comment on political threads in campaign season, your account must be at least 6 months old and you must have commented on at least four non political threads first?
posted by OnceUponATime at 7:48 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I would still expect that even if a long time Metafilter member was commenting on the race and working for a campaign, they should mention clearly and frequently that they are working for the campaign. Bias is bias.
posted by downtohisturtles at 7:56 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

But if they're volunteering for the campaign

Why do you figure they're volunteers? The article I posted said they're spending $1 million for this, and you couldn't pay me to argue with eggs on twitter or assholes over on r/The_Donald...
posted by DynamiteToast at 7:58 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

But if they're volunteering for the campaign, it's presumably because they sincerely believe in the candidate. So if they go on the internet and argue in support of the candidate, they are expressing their genuinely beliefs. And if they are not being paid to do it, how are they different from every other fan of the candidate who is arguing on the internet? What's fraudulent about it?

Depends on the circumstances and what they are doing. My personal feeling is, they're probably too close to the source. We have no idea if they're representing themselves to us honestly. Whether or not they're receiving compensation from a campaign, etc. Or if they're quietly being fed things to post online by a campaign's communications department.

However, the "bias" line is usually drawn at some form of compensation. Asking people to voluntarily attend a rally is fine. Paying them to do so is not. The article asks if feeding volunteers counts as compensation. A good question. Assume they're posting to MeFi. If their $5 account is paid for by the campaign, is that compensation? I'd argue that it is.

I have no idea how this would be enforced. You can't force people to represent themselves honestly online. If that could be done, shows like Catfish wouldn't exist.
posted by zarq at 8:01 AM on April 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Why do you figure they're volunteers?

No, this story isn't about volunteers. But it's just occurred to me that this isn't going to stop, and will probably spread.

So going forward, how is the internet going to deal with this phenomenon of campaigns operating in comments sections? "If you're only saying this stuff because you've been paid to say it, you're a fraud and your account will be canceled if we find out" is one thing (though how are you gonna know?) But if "paid" is the only standard, it's a really easy one to get around, because there are plenty of people willing to work for campaigns for free. Seems like an important question.
posted by OnceUponATime at 8:06 AM on April 22, 2016

The future of social media manipulation isn't paid shills, it's bots. We've pretty much got the tech today to make a bot that comes close enough to passing the Turing test (at least for brief online interactions in specific subjects rather than general conversation) that very soon now we'll be seeing swarms of them, all trying to guide conversations their way, urge us to shut out and shun targeted people, etc.

Imagine a thousand Tay's, not spouting racist /b/ crap, but much less bluntly advocating for position X, or politician Y, or (worse) hinting broadly that person A is a bad person, stirring up smoke and fumes against company B, whatever.

All with a posting history, all with distinct enough personalities that they aren't immediately identifiable as bots. All it costs is a net connection, a bit of programming, and a touch of server time. In a few years even a hobbyist will be able to field one or two to harass a person, and I'll bet that given a few million it'd be possible to build political opinion bots to swarm twitter, facebook, reddit, even metafilter, and steer the conversation.
posted by sotonohito at 8:12 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

It's interesting: my local Democratic party is all about letters to the editor. I am constantly getting emails asking me to send letters to the editor of the local paper extolling the virtues of various candidates. I don't do it, because I'm not sure it's a good use of my time, but it's clearly been an important tactic for them for a long time. It seems like asking volunteers to comment on social media is kind of an extension of that, although I agree that hiring people to do that is probably a different beast ethically. And of course, letters to the editor are signed with people's real names, so there's more transparency, especially in a relatively small community where people know who the party activists are.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:13 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile on Facebook, commenter says he can't wait to vote out Jim McDermott for his support of Hillary as a super-delegate.
Except Jim McDermott is retiring this term.
Um.

Are you surprised that a Facebook commenter is an idiot, or what is your point?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:19 AM on April 22, 2016

So going forward, how is the internet going to deal with this phenomenon of campaigns operating in comments sections? "If you're only saying this stuff because you've been paid to say it, you're a fraud and your account will be canceled if we find out" is one thing (though how are you gonna know?) But if "paid" is the only standard, it's a really easy one to get around, because there are plenty of people willing to work for campaigns for free. Seems like an important question.

Well, it's really whether or not the campaign is directing the volunteers in any way. Not just that they're paid. Astroturfing is the false impression of a groundswell of naturally developing excitement which is really artificially manufactured. It gives an appearance of widespread support that doesn't actually exist.

We can drill down in this idea: Where and how is this all happening? If the campaign is supplying internet access and a computer or internet-connected device to volunteers who do the work, then that could also be considered a form of compensation and/or direction. It's a rabbit hole.

You can't really control this in a website's comment section. But we can work to teach people where to see bias. Educate them. This will help them discern where people (volunteers and otherwise) are being misleadingly one-sided. I've spoken about Fox News' tactics on mefi before. They ask leading questions and use biased language to create specific impressions in the minds of their audience. You can see similar tactics being used by supporters of both Democratic candidates in our election threads. People who are unrelenting shills for one candidate or another show their bias over time. Every slight against the candidate they oppose is BIG NEWS and A MAJOR SCANDAL and a REASON NOT TO VOTE but they brush off criticism of their candidate as no big deal and by the way, look at how horrible the other candidate is -- let's deflect bad news by making it about the other person. In some cases hyperbolically. These patterns become very obvious over time.

Teach people to recognize when the sources they get their news from aren't being objective. Teach them that there are tools like factcheck.org which will help them tell truth from fiction. Help them realize when they're being told what they want to hear, to reinforce their own assumptions.

That's the best way to counter bias. It's not as sexy as banning or labeling people who are paid to cheer on their team and boo the other. But in the long run, when people themselves reject bias it's more effective.
posted by zarq at 8:23 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

> I am constantly getting emails asking me to send letters to the editor of the local paper extolling the virtues of various candidates...

I'd wonder if their goal isn't getting the letter in the paper, but rather your changing your view of your own role from passive to more active.
posted by benito.strauss at 8:25 AM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

The Letters to the Editor (and the subsequent comments below) in my hometown paper are an absolute cesspool of bigotry, racism, childish insults, etc. It makes Youtube and Reddit look respectable. And you see the same names sending letter after letter year after year shouting into the ether about the things they think are wrong with world. Why a party would want to get anywhere near that nonsense I can't imagine. Perhaps some papers do it better.
posted by downtohisturtles at 8:38 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Astroturfing is the false impression of a groundswell of naturally developing excitement which is really artificially manufactured.

But is it astroturfing? There's a Slate article with anecdotes about how some women are deliberately keeping quiet about their support for Clinton, because they assume they were somehow in the minority. I think it's possible that some people might also keep their support secret online for the same reason or maybe because they don't want to deal with harassment.
posted by FJT at 8:42 AM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'd wonder if their goal isn't getting the letter in the paper, but rather your changing your view of your own role from passive to more active.

Given the literally hundreds of hours that I've volunteered during each of the past couple of elections, I'm thinking no.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:44 AM on April 22, 2016

Are you surprised that a Facebook commenter is an idiot, or what is your point?

I'm surprised that he's not the only one. McDermott's feed is people insisting they'll never vote for him again, or that Hillary is getting him a cushy lobbying job (he's older than Bernie!), or that he's some sort of shill (he's further left on DW-NOMINATE than Bernie! He pushed for single payer in 1993 and 2009!)
posted by dw at 8:45 AM on April 22, 2016

Little bit playing Devil's Advocate here, but I'm not so sure that spending money to pay shills to argue on Reddit isn't a good use of campaign spending these days.

Yeah, I agree. I had a random thought the other day about Hillary doing an AMA. It might be a disaster, but it might also be a good idea. It'll look presidential, since Obama set the precedent for online engagement. It might be good for the youth vote. It's kind of a good publicity stunt too, because it's kind of like her going right into the lion's den in a way. And she could say something about online harassment beforehand, so if any assholes do show up, it'll just reflect badly on them. Plus, she might as well use her Reddit account anyways.
posted by FJT at 8:59 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

downtohisturtles: "The Letters to the Editor (and the subsequent comments below) in my hometown paper are an absolute cesspool of bigotry, racism, childish insults, etc."

Fun anecdote: I wrote a physical letter to the editor at my local newspaper in the late 90s. This columnist was dropping usual right-wing nonsense, but he stated something that was blatantly, objectively false, so I wrote in correcting that. I got several letters and at least phone call saying that I was a horrible person, a communist, etc., etc. So those people were definitely always out there.

A few months later, the columnist got fired for plagiarism, which was satisfying.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:12 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

"So Bernie Sanders, not me, said she is not qualified. So now I’m going to say, 'She’s not qualified.' OK?" Trump said.

Mission accomplished, Bernie campaign.
posted by dw at 9:27 AM on April 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Boy Trump sure got lucky that Sanders gave him the opening to attack Clinton without sullying his good name, otherwise how would he have found a way to call her unqualified?
posted by DynamiteToast at 9:34 AM on April 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Mission accomplished, Bernie campaign.

You know, it was George Bush who dubbed Reagan's policies Voodoo Economics. When people from the same party run against each other, they criticize each other, and this is not something Sanders invented.
posted by maxsparber at 9:34 AM on April 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Boy Trump sure got lucky that Sanders gave him the opening to attack Clinton without sullying his good name, otherwise how would he have found a way to call her unqualified?

At a time when Trump is actively trying to tone down his rhetoric (with an assist from his servants in the media) it certainly doesn't help that he can now pass off the "unqualified" remarks as something a Democrat said.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:44 AM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Dynamite Toast: Boy Trump sure got lucky that Sanders gave him the opening to attack Clinton without sullying his good name, otherwise how would he have found a way to call her unqualified?

"He said it, and I agree with him" deflects criticism of him for attacking her in a way that him saying it alone would not. He also doesn't have to justify the statement with reasons, since they've already been made for him. Note that the article quotes the original statement by Sanders as well. And frankly, since half the country probably thinks Trump is something of a lunatic, the fact that Sanders said it first gives him a bit of credibility. The implication: He's not the only one who thinks she isn't qualified. So does her respected colleague.

Would he have attacked Clinton without Sanders? Sure. Will he take as much heat for me-too'ing as if he'd done it alone? Nope. Sanders paved the way.

maxsparber: When people from the same party run against each other, they criticize each other, and this is not something Sanders invented.

Of course not. But when it happens, we do ourselves a disservice by pretending it didn't, or that it could have a deleterious effect.
posted by zarq at 9:44 AM on April 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

NYTimes: Donald Trump to Reshape Image, New Campaign Chief Tells G.O.P.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:47 AM on April 22, 2016

Well, as far as I can tell, Sanders never actually said she was unqualified either. His criticism was wrapped up in a larger critique, not based on, say, career qualifications, but based on political decisions she has made:

"When you voted for the war in Iraq, the most disastrous foreign policy blunder in the history of America, you might want to question your qualifications. When you voted for trade agreements that cost millions of Americans decent paying jobs, and the American people might want to wonder about your qualifications. When you're spending an enormous amount of time raising money for your super PAC from some of the wealthiest people in this country, and from some of the most outrageous special interests ... Are you qualified to be president of the United States when you're raising millions of dollars from Wall Street whose greed and recklessness helped destroy our economy?"

And it was based on his experience with the Clinton campaign, which he felt had explicitly set out to question his qualifications.

The fact that Trump could mine this for a more simplistic criticism of Clinton isn't surprising, but, I mean, Clinton's response to the question of Sander's qualifications was a shrugging "he has done his homework," and she has offered more pointed criticisms that Trump could certainly have seized on if Sanders had been the front-runner.
posted by maxsparber at 9:52 AM on April 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

I only hope Trump keeps up this "she's unqualified" line of attack well into the general election campaign. How fun is it going to be watching Hillary absolutely eviscerate him during a debate by throwing it right back in his face?
posted by Atom Eyes at 9:52 AM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Well, as far as I can tell, Sanders never actually said she was unqualified either.

And Obama never said she was unlikeable, either.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:56 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, as far as I can tell, Sanders never actually said she was unqualified either. His criticism was wrapped up in a larger critique, not based on, say, career qualifications, but based on political decisions she has made:

No, what he said repeatedly was that she was not qualified because in his opinion she has experience but not the judgment to be President. He said the phrase over and over again in television appearances.
"Well let me, let me just say in response to Secretary Clinton: I don't believe that she is qualified if she is, if she is, through her super PAC, taking tens of millions of dollars in special interest funds," he said. "I don't think you are qualified if you get $15 million from Wall Street through your super PAC."

Sanders pivoted to her record on foreign policy, saying, "I don't think you are qualified if you have voted for the disastrous war in Iraq. I don't think you are qualified if you've supported virtually every disastrous trade agreement, which has cost us millions of decent-paying jobs. I don't think you are qualified if you supported the Panama free trade agreement, something I very strongly opposed and which, as all of you know, has allowed corporations and wealthy people all over the world to avoid paying their taxes to their countries.
Emphasis mine. That's five times in less than a minute.
posted by zarq at 10:02 AM on April 22, 2016 [11 favorites]

Again, it was his response to his sense that the Clinton campaign was engaged in a concerted attempt to undermine his qualifications, which Clinton had not expressed outright, but had repeatedly been weirdly cagey on.

But it's beside the point, which is we shouldn't expect Sanders to withhold his criticism out of fear that Trump will use it. If you feel his criticism is unfair or sexist, that's fine, but in the primaries we do not hold our tongues because the other party will misuse what we say. Nobody ever has, and we should not expect Sanders to be unique in doing so.
posted by maxsparber at 10:08 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh wait, I missed one from the same speech in Philadelphia:
But perhaps his most forceful blow — and certainly newest for a candidate who is known for rarely straying from his normal stump speech — came on the subject of the controversial “Panama Papers” and its relation to the Panama Free Trade Agreement.

“I don’t think that you are qualified if you supported the Panama Free Trade Agreement! Something I very strongly opposed and which, as all of you know has allowed corporations and wealthy people all over the world to avoid paying their taxes to their countries,” Sanders concluded.

In the immediate aftermath of his remarks, it remained unclear exactly when he believes Clinton called him “not qualified” to be president.
So let's say six times in less than a minute.
posted by zarq at 10:09 AM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Donald Trump Says Transgender People Should Use the Bathroom They Want
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:39 PM on April 21

Donald Trump, frantically paddling to the center to get away from the far right.

My Lord, I think he may actually want to win this thing.
posted by dw at 5:16 PM on April 21

Reena Flores at CBS: “Donald Trump amends stance on North Carolina transgender bathroom law”
posted by Going To Maine at 10:09 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think it would have been clearer if he had said "she is disqualified" rather than "she is unqualified", to me that is closer to what he was getting at and doesn't come with the sexist baggage that the phrasing "unqualified" does.

That being said, Trump's being able to use Sen. Sanders as cover is not going to shift any votes. If anything, I would think that Sec. Clinton could use this to frame herself as the reasonable centrist candidate, etc.
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:09 AM on April 22, 2016

I just don't see how saying someone's unqualified based on their past actions is out of line. Even within the party. If he said she was unqualified because of simply who she was or a lack of political experience or something that's one thing. But this is pointing to specific policies that would disqualify her to some people. That's perfectly reasonable.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:11 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

That being said, Trump's being able to use Sen. Sanders as cover is not going to shift any votes.

Disagree. This is Trump's trial balloon to see if he can take a big wet bite out of Sanders' hemorrhaging support base. If it works, he'll probably be combing through every one of Sanders' greatest hits to use in the general election.
posted by FJT at 10:12 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

Given the talk about paid internet arguing shills, I feel it incumbent upon me to mention that I am with the Cruz campaign, receive zero money, and expect zero actual Mefites to vote for Cruz.
posted by corb at 10:27 AM on April 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Surely you expect one to vote for Cruz?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:28 AM on April 22, 2016 [8 favorites]

Nobody ever has, and we should not expect Sanders to be unique in doing so.

Here's the thing, though -- Sanders himself made painstaking effort to make the campaign about the issues, turning down many other opportunities to go negative (the most notable being the bit about the emails, but there were plenty of others.) If anyone set Bernie up to be the candidate who didn't resort to cheap shots, it was Bernie himself.

The remarks questioning her qualification for the office were a significant deviation from his issues-based approach, and more of a "politics as usual" move. I strongly doubt that it was a calculated move to question her qualification, but the timing, later in the campaign season when he needed to take bigger risks to get back in the race, certainly lent itself to being appropriated by the opposition party candidates.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:29 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

This is Trump's trial balloon to see if he can take a big wet bite out of Sanders' hemorrhaging support base.

It is the way he's tried out other attacks in the past. For example, before he went full in on attacking the Jeb and W with the "he didn't keep us safe on 9/11" he made statements with a similar construction; using "some people say..." or "these experts think..." as a way of putting the idea out there while retaining some deniability if it doesn't work.
posted by peeedro at 10:34 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

derail deleted
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 10:37 AM on April 22, 2016

Sheryl Gay Stolberg: Virginia Governor Restoring Voting Rights to Felons

Professor A. E. Dick Howard of the University of Virginia School of Law, who was the principal draftsman of a revised Constitution adopted by Virginia in 1971, agreed, and said the governor had “ample authority.” But Professor Howard, who advised Mr. McAuliffe on the issue, said the move might well be challenged in court. The most likely argument, he said, is that the governor cannot restore voting rights to an entire class of people all at once.

“I’m assuming that the complaint will be that he has to act one pardon at a time, one person at a time, that he’s not permitted to act wholesale,” Professor Howard said. “I think the language of the Constitution and the theory of the pardoning power all point to the same conclusion — that he can.”

Virginia’s Constitution has prohibited felons from voting since the Civil War; the restrictions were expanded in 1902, as part of a package that included poll taxes and literacy tests.

In researching the provisions, advisers to the governor turned up a 1906 report quoting Carter Glass, a Virginia state senator (and later, a member of Congress who was an author of the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act that regulated banks) as saying they would “eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than five years, so that no single county of the Commonwealth will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government.”

posted by zombieflanders at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2016 [9 favorites]

I don't think it's a good idea for a candidate of any party to say "if I can't be the next [Party] president, no one in the running should be." But then, Sanders is not actually a Democrat, I guess...
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:38 AM on April 22, 2016

And he never said anything like that, did he?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:42 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

I think "x isn't qualified to be President" and "x should not be president" are similar enough statements.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:43 AM on April 22, 2016

showbiz_liz: "I think "x isn't qualified to be President" and "x should not be president" are similar enough statements."

"Isn't qualified" is a subset of "should not be."
posted by Chrysostom at 10:49 AM on April 22, 2016

Weaver says Sanders is a Democrat for life now

Which, cool. Sounds like foreshadowing of endorsement and unity. Cool cool cool. He's still banging the anti-Clinton drum in PA, so the rhetoric hasn't changed yet, but I'll take it as a good sign for the future.
posted by prize bull octorok at 10:51 AM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

But it's beside the point, which is we shouldn't expect Sanders to withhold his criticism out of fear that Trump will use it. If you feel his criticism is unfair or sexist, that's fine, but in the primaries we do not hold our tongues because the other party will misuse what we say. Nobody ever has, and we should not expect Sanders to be unique in doing so.

I want to be absolutely clear here that I did not say anything about whether or not Sanders should be withholding criticism of Clinton. I am trying to make sure everyone's facts are straight, and pointing out that we should be able to discuss possible effects of Republicans taking up Sanders' previous attacks on Clinton.
posted by zarq at 10:51 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

The Virginia felons thing... wow. I think if Gov. McAuliffe gets nothing else done during his term, this will have been a victory.
posted by indubitable at 10:54 AM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Mission accomplished, Bernie campaign.

"Your candidate paved the way for Trump" is the call for unity this election needs.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:55 AM on April 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

What happened to Hillary's "already tested under fire" schtick?
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 10:56 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

Wow, 199 days before the election and already the left is being blamed for a right-wing victory.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Wow, 199 days before the election and already the left is being blamed for a right-wing victory.

That happened many months ago, from both campaigns. But the notion that the most passionate Bernie supporters represent "the left" assumes facts not in evidence.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:05 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

No one's blaming the Left for losing.

I'm blaming the Sanders campaign for letting Bernie say something stupid and pointless that reinforces a long-term right-wing talking point. It's not going to lose Hillary the election, but why the hell did you open that door?
posted by dw at 11:18 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

For some people, using a super PAC or voting for the Iraq war are things that "disqualify" a candidate (in the sense that they will not vote for that person). Just like there are people who will not vote for someone who is pro-choice or someone who voted against the Brady Bill or or or.

There are things about Clinton that are dealbreakers for some people. Just like there are for every candidate. Listing your opponent's past or current positions isn't some heinous new thing in a political campaign. I also think it's pretty clear from the context of his remarks that he meant "disqualified" due to her political positions and financing structure and not "unqualified" due to a weak resume. Anyone who thinks Trump has more resume-type qualifications than Clinton is not someone who would have voted for Clinton anyway.

There are many of Sanders' positions that Clinton criticized strongly as well - and she should. If he were the presumptive nominee, I'm sure Trump would be dropping Clinton quotes right now instead ("even Hillary Clinton supports late term abortion restrictions!"). And it wouldn't be surprising for Clinton to drop some Cruz statement against Trump ("even Ted Cruz, the Zodiac Killer, thinks Trump is dangerous!"). None of this feels out of the ordinary for political campaigns.
posted by melissasaurus at 11:25 AM on April 22, 2016 [10 favorites]

Maybe it's just what politicians do when they are competing.
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 11:26 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

There's a vast gulf between "my opponent is unqualified full stop" and "my opponent is unqualified if opponent does/supports this bad policy".
posted by Radiophonic Oddity at 11:29 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

If I had to guess, i'd say it's almost like he's running a campaign against her

There's more than one way to campaign against someone, though. And especially at this point in the proceedings, I just can't understand why Sanders would use this specific type of tactic. It seems counterproductive.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:30 AM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

The Clinton campaign flagged it, Sen. Sanders walked it back, time to move on.
posted by tivalasvegas at 11:36 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

And let's remember -- it didn't help Bernie. His support fell in NY at a moment he needed to be going the other way. Look how it depresses after April 6. Going negative was costly to his campaign.
posted by dw at 11:36 AM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

It's like the Sanders campaign doesn't realize there are consequences to this at all. How long before Trump employs "Democratic Whores" and is like "well the Sanders people said it, so it must be okay!". Or just drops the "Democratic" part and just says it outright? It's happened before with another sexist term, except used against Ted Cruz.
posted by FJT at 11:46 AM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

You don't have to be a Democratic partisan to want the various elements of the left to work together even when they have legit policy disagreements. I couldn't give less of a fuck about the Democratic Party as an institution, but this People's Front of Judea crap just keeps happening and as a person who would absolutely love for most of Sanders' proposed policies to become law, it's depressing.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:48 AM on April 22, 2016 [16 favorites]

The GOP was all about the 11th Commandment, something they held to in spirit if not always practice in the post-Reagan years.

There's a reason the Democrats are associated (or were until the Tea Party imploded the GOP) with the phrase "circular firing squad." The GOP's party discipline meant they could hold the line while taking advantage of the Democratic brawling. And it killed the Democrats in elections, repeatedly.
posted by dw at 11:59 AM on April 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

How long before the progressive cause is simply referred to as "free everything" by the Republicans and they say "well Clinton said it, so it must be okay!"? Doesn't she realize criticizing others on the left has consequences?
posted by XMLicious at 12:02 PM on April 22, 2016 [7 favorites]

Maybe Democratic partisans are more inclined to care about protecting the party's image and all that and don't want to risk anything in case it might benefit the other party. Those are probably the people wanting Sanders to change his "tone" or even bow out before the race is over. Then there are people on the left that happen to vote for Democrats a lot of the time, but don't really care about the party itself and see nothing wrong with pointing out whatever issues your opponent has because they feel they are legitimate issues to discuss.

Maybe some Democratic partisans simply want a Democrat to take the White House and would like to also see a Democratic Congress and Senate. Because the Republicans do not seem to give a flying wallenda about women, minorities and non-wealthy Americans. Or governing. Except to try and strip 13 million Americans of their health insurance, allow the slaughter of school children by gun violence to continue unabated, prevent millions of gay men and women from being allowed to marry the people they love, and barring women from control over their own bodies.

So personally, I find the infighting frustrating. That doesn't mean that candidates shouldn't defend themselves or discuss issues that matter. But I would very much like to see a Democratic primary campaign that wasn't nasty. Wasn't ugly. That's simply not required to win the nomination.
posted by zarq at 12:04 PM on April 22, 2016 [12 favorites]

Doesn't she realize criticizing others on the left has consequences?

Yeah, if Sanders stuck to criticizing her on the issues, you'd have a point. But in the leadup to New York, his campaign and his surrogates have thrown in some sexist jabs along with their legitimate disagreement with her on issues. So much for his promise of running a clean campaign.
posted by FJT at 12:15 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

There's a reason the Democrats are associated (or were until the Tea Party imploded the GOP) with the phrase "circular firing squad." The GOP's party discipline meant they could hold the line while taking advantage of the Democratic brawling. And it killed the Democrats in elections, repeatedly.

And now the GOP has Trump and the Tea Party. There are a TON of people in the GOP who are really mad about the decades of "fall in line" messaging. People who feel like they did their duty and lined up and voted for the anointed candidate and were given nothing in return. People who feel used. And gleefully enjoyed watching Trump take down each of his establishment opponents -- even though they didn't want him to be the nominee. Seriously, I think there's a big chunk of the GOP who would have paid to see Trump just stand on the stage and insult Bush/Rubio/Cruz without running for president. The 11th commandment is more of a short term containment strategy than a long term party sustainability platform.

I think the Democratic party would do better to meet people where they're at. Acknowledge that some people might not be Clinton supporters, but are otherwise "good Democrats" and mobilize those people to downticket races and issue-based campaigns -- without forcing them to support Clinton. If the party said to me: "Hey, we get that you can't support Clinton because she supports the death penalty. There are going to be some policy disagreements within a coalition this big, and we think that's a good thing. We're sorry we won't see you at the next Clinton rally, but [here are some candidates in your local area that need your support] or [Fight for 15 is organizing a walkout in your neighborhood next Monday and could use your support] ..."

Allow people to help on the issues where they agree without shunning them on points where they disagree. I would have said the same thing if Bernie were the presumptive nominee, e.g., I wouldn't expect people to stop pushing for gun control or to pledge support for Bernie if they think his gun voting record is a disqualifier. We need to make space for the disagreements not just stifle any hint of dissent.
posted by melissasaurus at 12:18 PM on April 22, 2016 [18 favorites]

We need to make space for the disagreements not just stifle any hint of dissent.

That's what Clinton has been doing for the last two or three victory speeches. Since she's the frontrunner, she's been pushing unity and saying that though she hopes they will vote for her, she knows that Sanders' supporters have disagreements with her.
posted by FJT at 12:32 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

How long before the progressive cause is simply referred to as "free everything" by the Republicans and they say “well Clinton said it, so it must be okay!”? Doesn't she realize criticizing others on the left has consequences?

Maybe it’s me, but I find it impossible to imagine a Republican justifying their own stance by saying that it aligns with Clinton’s on anything. They would be immediately eviscerated.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:35 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

corb: Given the talk about paid internet arguing shills, I feel it incumbent upon me to mention that I am with the Cruz campaign, receive zero money, and expect zero actual Mefites to vote for Cruz.

Damn, I'm a sucker for the soft sell. You almost had me there for a second.
posted by msalt at 1:16 PM on April 22, 2016 [4 favorites]

Yeah, if Sanders stuck to criticizing her on the issues, you'd have a point. But in the leadup to New York, his campaign and his surrogates have thrown in some sexist jabs...

If things Sanders didn't say himself magically retroactively erase the relevance to "hurting the cause" arguments of a quote from Clinton back in February then I'd mention sexist and racist things that she personally has said herself in the past, etc., rinse and repeat. No matter how hard you try you aren't going to prove that Sanders invented sexism or that he uniquely benefits from sexism itself or things like that in general being politically leveraged to the detriment of good causes, particularly when he's being compared to a member of the Clinton dynasty.

And when you pull back to an even bigger picture she's willing to leverage things like stepping in line behind W. starting wars for her political advantage. If Sanders saying slightly ambiguously-worded things about that disqualifying her which Republicans like Trump will twist to their advantage (when they readily twist unambiguous statements and, like, facts anyways) it's a very miniscule and acceptable price to pay for keeping at the forefront of the public mind what we're actually buying into by putting Clinton at the helm of the nation. I have no doubt that Clinton will volunteer far larger sacrifices from other people to fulfill her political objectives before we even arrive at the general election much less during her future in office.
posted by XMLicious at 1:16 PM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Virginia’s Constitution has prohibited felons from voting since the Civil War; the restrictions were expanded in 1902, as part of a package that included poll taxes and literacy tests.

I wonder if this might be an opening to get the 1902 expansion declared unconstitutional under the US Equal Protection clause?
posted by msalt at 1:17 PM on April 22, 2016

Maybe it’s me, but I find it impossible to imagine a Republican justifying their own stance by saying that it aligns with Clinton’s on anything. They would be immediately eviscerated.

No Republican is going to have any problem whatsoever with demonstrating Clinton to be hypocritical using her own words against her.
posted by XMLicious at 1:20 PM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

melissasaurus for DNC chair
posted by tivalasvegas at 1:26 PM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

No Republican is going to have any problem whatsoever with demonstrating Clinton to be hypocritical using her own words against her.

Oh, that’s a given. That’s a case that doesn’t have to be made. I more meant that no Republican would ever end up aligning themselves against the left by citing Clinton as a source. There will be no “This is bad! Even Clinton says X about Y!” There might be “Clinton has cozied up to Y after saying X about it!”
posted by Going To Maine at 1:32 PM on April 22, 2016

Here's the thing, though -- Sanders himself made painstaking effort to make the campaign about the issues, turning down many other opportunities to go negative

Well, maybe officially? But for the last six months I've been hearing over and over the same attacks on Clinton's history, ethics, personality, etc.. My suspicion is the Sanders campaign was trying to find a clever way to do negative campaigning without making Sanders look bad.

That's why my reaction, to the Clinton campaign paying for posters was "Oh, so the Clinton campaign is the one that admits to doing it."
posted by happyroach at 1:37 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

it's a very miniscule and acceptable price to pay for keeping at the forefront of the public mind what we're actually buying into by putting Clinton at the helm of the nation.

That's the problem. Because I don't think saying those things is even needed or wanted to keep the real issues in the public mind. "ambiguously-worded" sexist and racist things are still sexist and racist and should not be said in the first place.

Also, of course Sanders uniquely benefits from sexism in this campaign, why does it have to be proved?
posted by FJT at 1:57 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

"Every nation needs to know who it is and what its collective story is. I wonder if the current U.S. malaise has something to do with the way we have lost touch with our own national poets, or even a common sense of who they might be.

Oh, David, David, David.

Only you could return from Cuba with the takeaway that we need to restore the literary canon.

please never stop being you
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:47 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

But is it astroturfing? There's a Slate article with anecdotes about how some women are deliberately keeping quiet about their support for Clinton, because they assume they were somehow in the minority. I think it's possible that some people might also keep their support secret online for the same reason or maybe because they don't want to deal with harassment.

Thanks for sharing this article, it hit home for me strongly! I am definitely socially surrounded by vocal Sanders supporters and I was a bit ashamed by how cowed I felt about being even mildly public of my support (when I decided) for Clinton (though I eventually was), and surprised by how relieved I've been in cases when mentioning it (in appropriate context, sometimes when directly asked, almost never first brought up by me) has not ended badly.

I liked this part of the article a lot:

But I think there might be something else at work as well: an optical illusion that the candidate with the most white male support had the most support, period. I had let myself mistake the loudest people for The People.

I’m not trying to deny that the Sanders coalition is diverse or to erase the many passionate women and men of color who supported him. But the fact remains that according to exit polls, Clinton won every racial and gender demographic except white men. And somehow, I’d become convinced that, in my own backyard, their preferences were far more widespread than they really are.
posted by Salamandrous at 2:59 PM on April 22, 2016 [19 favorites]

Every nation needs to know who it is and what its collective story is. I wonder if the current U.S. malaise has something to do with the way we have lost touch with our own national poets, or even a common sense of who they might be.

Indeed, if only there was some guy writing lyrically about America's national history and character, somebody to ask the question, "who tells your story?" But we cannot even imagine who might have a shot at fitting the bill.
posted by prize bull octorok at 3:00 PM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

YOU ARE THE WORST, BURR.
posted by corb at 3:07 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

so is it just me or w/ what Reince Priebus or Prince Rebus or whatever his name is does it seem like the GOP is starting to shrug and say "okay, Trump then"

Surely there is an Adventure Time character named Rebus Prince. Surely.

Oh, David, David, David.

At times like this, I enjoy remembering that two of Obama’s favorite columnists are David Brooks and Thomas Friedman.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:09 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Huh. Yeah. I hear that. The most obnoxious parts of Obama are exactly when he's channeling one of those two people.

This... this makes a lot of sense.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:12 PM on April 22, 2016

"Ambiguously-worded" sexist and racist things are still sexist and racist and should not be said in the first place.

And the fact that a Republican like Trump can use a particular quote to promote sexism or racism doesn't make the original quote sexist or racist.

This outrage over Sanders supposedly having taught Trump the secret of making fire and consequently throwing all of feminism under the bus just shows how disqualifying all of the things he listed actually are, all of which involve throwing groups of people under the bus for political ends.

If saying something that Republicans end up using rhetorically makes the speaker of the original statement accountable for what the Republicans did with it, what kind of blame do you get for voting as a U.S. Senator for preemptive war or for the Patriot Act or for renewing it?

The willingness to give Clinton a pass on all of these things during the primary shows just how necessary it is to not elide them and be awake and ready to oppose similar stuff even if we all support Clinton in the general election (which I personally am willing to) and she becomes President.
posted by XMLicious at 3:15 PM on April 22, 2016 [3 favorites]

The willingness to give Clinton a pass on all of these things during the primary shows just how necessary it is to not elide them

Whose willingness? Clinton supporters? I mean, by definition, people who support their candidate are willing to give their candidate a pass 'on all of these things'. Similarly, some people who voted Sanders in the primary were presumably more willing to give him a pass on certain things than I was, in the context of this particular election here and now.

It's kind of a truism that 'people who support a candidate give their candidate a pass on things that people who don't support their candidate are not.' I'm not sure what the fact that Clinton's primary supporters support Clinton in the primaries has to do with opposing similar stuff (which stuff now?) in the general election?
posted by Salamandrous at 4:00 PM on April 22, 2016

To me, supporting a candidate qualifies as something of a confirmation bias on the part of the supporter. Which is fine, as I guess you gotta believe in something. Each candidate has baggage and it seems many people like a particular candidate not because of what they say, but what the supporter is willing to tolerate.

Of course, there is a downside to openly supporting someone. Whether you are wrong or right about a candidate, someone on the intertubes will disagree, call you a Nazi and photoshop a toothbrush mustache on that picture of you as a 3rd grade kid.

And for the record, I am A-OK with Bernie not combing his hair since 1976.
posted by lampshade at 4:40 PM on April 22, 2016 [1 favorite]

If Hillary isn't qualified, then I literally don't know a single politician who is.

Sounds about right to me.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 4:47 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Hillary Clinton has a lot of experience. That doesn't necessarily mean she's qualified. What Sanders was talking about as disqualifying was her judgement. As Senator, she voted for the AUMF, which wound up being an OK for Bush to make war on Iraq, just as lots of us expected. As SoS, she actively pushed for intervention in Libya. These are not minor gaffes; for me and others, they show a disqualifying readiness to ruin innocent people's lives for little or no gain. I have seen what war does to innocent people, and it's an abomination. It should be literally the last resort of a government with no other choice. Clinton obviously does not share that view.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:59 PM on April 22, 2016 [5 favorites]

And the fact that a Republican like Trump can use a particular quote to promote sexism or racism doesn't make the original quote sexist or racist.

*sigh* You realize that at this point doubling down is making it look even worse? You're probably better off at this point dropping it and trying to find another issue.
posted by happyroach at 5:01 PM on April 22, 2016 [6 favorites]

Boosted by Bernie Sanders email, congressional candidate Lucy Flores raises $428,000 in April
posted by futz at 6:02 PM on April 22, 2016 [13 favorites]

I'm mostly willing to give Clinton a pass on Libya. At least the initial parts of our intervention there. If I had been in her position, I probably would have made the same call. I suspect many of us here would have too.

Most have forgotten now, but at that stage of the Libyan rebellion, Gaddafi was sending an army to Benghazi. The rebels didn't have any hope of stopping him. He was threatening to sack the city when his army arrived. Considering Gaddafi's past atrocities and human rights violations, most were taking this threat seriously. But at that moment, his forces were in the open desert. Not in a city and not surrounded by civilians. Was a perfect setup for "clean" airstrikes and his forces could be easily stopped before it reached Benghazi.

In addition to the pressure of saving the city, Clinton had to deal with what her husband's decisions of 20 years before. Not intervening in Rwanda and Bosnia until the massacres had already occurred. I've heard that weighs heavily on Bill and probably does for Hillary too.

So she did her part to make sure there wasn't another massacre. Maybe the later clusterfucks can be partially laid at her feet. I haven't followed that as closely as I should. But I can't fault her for urging the President to stop Gaddafi's army before a city was leveled.
posted by honestcoyote at 6:06 PM on April 22, 2016 [14 favorites]

If I had been in her position, I probably would have made the same call. I suspect many of us here would have too

As I recall from the Libya thread at the time, there was quite a lot of support for intervention. For exactly the reason you mention; people were afraid of a massacre at the hands of government forces.

I didn't find that convincing and argued intervention was a mistake. But I don't believe I was in the majority. One would hope the Secretary of State would have better judgment than a bunch of random internet comments but still.
posted by Justinian at 7:53 PM on April 22, 2016

This is a campaign. Everything either side says against the other can be used by the Republicans. Every time Sanders calls Clinton "unqulalified," whether he means anything sexist by it or not, it can be used by actually sexist Republicans in their attacks on Clinton. And every time Clinton calls Sanders an unrealistic idealist who wants to give everyone free stuff, that can be used by the Republicans to attack Democrats up and down the ticket for being bleeding-heart idealists. That's the way campaigns work, and there's no avoiding it. The solution isn't to suppress all criticism in a primary in order to avoid generating fodder, because that is impossible, would do no good, and does genuine harm during the primary in suppressing genuine debate within the left. The solution is to accept that the Republicans will use stuff to support their misogynist, patriarchal arguments that liberals are soft idealists, regardless of what we do, and ignore it. They will make those argument anyways, and absolutely no Republican-leaning independent will be swayed any the more because of a footnote that Sanders or Clinton also said it. The solution to the Judean People's Front problem isn't to yell all the louder for the other side to lay off -- it's to unilaterally lay off yourself. Because it doesn't matter a fig. We screamed at each other in 2008, 2004, 2000, etc, and it didn't make a damn bit of difference in the general, because both sides pull together after the primary is over. All that matters is that we have a good debate about the primary candidates -- and optimistically, their actual policies -- during this rare quadrennial opportunity to actually debate the direction of the left in America. And whenever it ends, whether soon or in July, that will be soon enough for the candidate and the rest of us to get to work winning the actual contest.
posted by chortly at 8:44 PM on April 22, 2016 [11 favorites]

I didn't find that convincing and argued intervention was a mistake. But I don't believe I was in the majority. One would hope the Secretary of State would have better judgment than a bunch of random internet comments but still.

The fiction being trumpeted by the Sanders campaign -- and I do mean trumpeted, with disturbingly invariable wording -- is that Clinton is a "warmonger" who "started a war in Libya." As if Libya was a bucolic socialist workers paradise until she just up and got EVIL on it one day for shits and giggles. The US didn't even lead the 19-nation NATO force (that would be France and England, which had a little grudge about an airplane).

War was raging, Gadaffi's army was headed toward the last rebel town that had IIRC a million civilians crowded into it. I'd be curious to hear what better outcome you though Gadaffi completing that offensive would have brought about, but the big picture narrative here is ridiculous.

The chaos in Libya is not the result of a 7-month no-fly zone and bombing campaign. It's the result of 42 years of dictatorial rule that systematically destroyed any independent institutions in Libyan society.
posted by msalt at 9:51 PM on April 22, 2016 [19 favorites]

One would hope the Secretary of State would have better judgment than a bunch of random internet comments but still.

This is a weirdly dismissive phrasing; it seems to imply that the basis of Clinton’s and the administration’s choice must have been somewhere contained within that thread and was, therefore, shoddy. I find it easy to believe that folks in any particular thread on this site will voice support for something that -from 10,000 feet, at least- looks a lot like an adopted policy; there are only so many high-level choices that tend to seem possible in a particular situation. I find it much more tenuous to assume that a random thread would accurately capture or explicate the inputs and reasoning behind those decisions.
posted by Going To Maine at 11:17 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have an issue with her Libya story as well as her Bosnian one. After Libya she said, "we came, we saw, he died."

What a terrible choice of words to convey to the rest of the world.
posted by futz at 11:26 PM on April 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

I have an issue with her Libya story as well as her Bosnian one. After Libya she said, "we came, we saw, he died."

Looked this up, because I was curious. That’s definitely the way it was played in a few outlets. However, it seems -going by this ancient Democratic Underground post and the actual clips (pre-, the moment)- that this was her response to a comment by the interviewer about how she had been receiving so many unconfirmed reports of his death and that Libya was the land of unconfirmed reports. So this wasn’t some official statement on US actions- it was a crack about the vagueness of the reports they’d been getting back.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:58 AM on April 23, 2016 [7 favorites]

Everything a Secretary of State says in public is "some official statement," especially if it's said in a context such as that one

WRT the implications of "everybody was on board with it," that wasn't the case.

Her conviction would be critical in persuading Mr. Obama to join allies in bombing Colonel Qaddafi’s forces. In fact, Mr. Obama’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, would later say that in a “51-49” decision, it was Mrs. Clinton’s support that put the ambivalent president over the line.

Gates's meaning is that half the President's advisors opposed intervention, and Clinton sold it to him. Those advisors were not badly-informed "random internet" commenters. This one is hers.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:52 AM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Everything a Secretary of State says in public is "some official statement," especially if it's said in a context such as that one

Sure. It was an official statement that they'd been getting lots of unverified reports about Qaddafi's death.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:35 AM on April 23, 2016

One would hope the Secretary of State would have better judgment than a bunch of random internet comments but still.

Interesting. I wonder if that same argument would hold if we were talking about Powell and Iraq instead of Clinton and Libya.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 7:01 AM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

So reporters are already just so bored with Hillary and who knows what nonsense they're going to have to come up with just to stay interested.
posted by octothorpe at 8:57 AM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I don't particularly like Hillary Clinton but my dislike is a kiddie pool next to the Olympic swimming pool of fury at a political environment and media that seems determined to treat her like an uppity woman who needs to get back in her place.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:11 AM on April 23, 2016 [25 favorites]

I feel dumber after reading that article.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:17 AM on April 23, 2016

A few comments deleted; maybe skip the balls references? That's a super boring derail we don't need.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:56 AM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Interesting. I wonder if that same argument would hold if we were talking about Powell and Iraq instead of Clinton and Libya.

I don't know. I do know this, though. A fair number of the Democrats who took Powell to task back then for a really shitty Republican foreign policy are expending a lot of energy making excuses for the Democratic foreign policy establishment, whose foreign policy is also pretty shitty.

Let's just spend a little less effort killing foreign folks, that's all I ask. If for no other reason than to remove a bit of the hypocrisy regarding advocating for gun laws in the US while selling a shit ton of weapons to bad actors overseas.
posted by CincyBlues at 10:51 AM on April 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

The situation in Libya was a hell of a lot more complicated than "killing foreign folks". That seems to be equating our intervention there with Iraq or Afghanistan, and it simply isn't true. It's so bizarre to read these comments and remember what things were like during the Arab Spring. The entire region was exploding. It seemed like pro-democracy forces might finally be getting the upper hand everywhere. Libya--locked down Libya, the North Korea of the Middle East--had a revolution going! And then Qaddafi forces were barreling down and were about to massacre a whole city. It felt like our moral obligation to intervene. In fact, initially in the aftermath it seemed like it was a great idea--do you remember the people in the streets dancing with USAmerican flags? In LIBYA?! There was an incredible outpouring of goodwill towards us.

I think the non-intervention folks are acting like this was such an easy decision, like the current violence was a foregone conclusion. It wasn't. Libya really seemed like the first chance to support to be the 100% honest-to-God good guys in the region. The people arguing against it were basically saying "they'll never get their shit together, they'll either die by Qaddafi or through civil war unless we're willing to keep putting money in."

Well, we weren't willing to keep putting the money in. Especially after Benghazi. And it fell apart. Personally--I think had we taken a stronger supporting role there it could have been different. It wasn't like Iraq or Afghanistan, where there was no existing armed movement or organized opposition. But it would have required the long term commitment of troops and money that the public and Obama were wholly adverse to providing in the wake of the prior decade.

What is the story of non-intervention? The best case scenario--Qaddafi still in power, God knows how many dead. The worst case scenario--what we're seeing in Syria. In both situations: more fuel for the narrative that the US never supports real efforts for self determination and democracy in the Middle East.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don't.

I find the willingness of the Sanders camp to shit on her for this to be ironic, given they're essentially chastising her for not being pragmatic enough--while simultaneously deriding her domestic policy for being excessively pragmatic and cynical.

I won't sit her and pretend I know the answers. But it's real frustrating to watch all these Johnny-come-latelys pile in and pretend like the answers were obvious.
posted by Anonymous at 11:55 AM on April 23, 2016

... they're essentially chastising her for not being pragmatic enough-...

No, they're pointing out that she was wrong. Because as you yourself point out,
The people arguing against it were basically saying "they'll never get their shit together, they'll either die by Qaddafi or through civil war unless we're willing to keep putting money in."
And they were right.

"Humanitarian intervention" was only half right, and it wasn't the good half.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:53 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

An interesting rumination on this from the editors of n+1: “Bernie’s World: What does a left foreign policy look like?”
posted by Going To Maine at 1:02 PM on April 23, 2016

My Frustrating Day as an NYC Poll Worker
posted by bardophile at 1:08 PM on April 23, 2016

"Humanitarian intervention" was only half right, and it wasn't the good half.

Excellent work cherry-picking one sentence from an entire post whose overall point was that it was a complex situation that lacked--and still lacks--clear answers.
posted by Anonymous at 1:37 PM on April 23, 2016

I've seen a lot of people on Reddit and Facebook trying to spin a conspiracy over the fact that the Brooklyn elections official who removed 120,000 Democratic voters from the rolls, also bought a brownstone for $5,000 in 1967 and sold it two years ago for $6 million -- to (gasp!) the daughter of a Hillary Clinton supporter! It turns out that the purchaser (Dana Lowey Luttway) is a famous house flipper who made $22 million in 2014 selling two similar brownstones, also on the Upper West Side.

Information is still limited, but I've read that the election official -- Diane Haslett-Rudiano -- "skipped one of the steps meant to stop the system from purging eligible voters" in the process. Since she is the Republican official for that district, and her Democratic colleague has not been disciplined, I'm guessing that she was supposed to get her Dem. counterpart to sign off on removing any voters from the list but just went ahead and did it unilaterally. That would explain her immediate, relatively decisive punishment (suspended without pay and reportedly she'll be fired as early as Tuesday, the next time the board meets).
posted by msalt at 2:18 PM on April 23, 2016

This Jacobin piece on "Fortress Liberalism" by historian Matt Karp was linked in the last election thread. I found myself agreeing with much of the piece, but Erik Loomis' response at LGM summarizes some of my reservations about Karp's thesis:

I guess I am torn about this piece. In some ways, Karp is correct. Change does require mass mobilization and those uncomfortable with protest politics like Jonathan Chait simply don’t understand how large-scale change happens. [...]

But Karp either doesn’t recognize or doesn’t respond to two obvious rejoinders. First, all of those mass actions were outside of the electoral system. [...] Truman, LBJ, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, any of these presidents were reticent to do much of anything for social and economic justice unless they were pushed. It seems to me that Karp makes the classic mistake of thinking that a president can lead a social movement. I think that is an error. That’s no reason not to vote for Sanders. I am voting for him on Tuesday. But if we think that change happens primarily through electing the right savior, then the inevitable disappointment will result when that individual can’t create that change.

That gets to the second point which is that Karp really doesn’t want to deal with the gerrymandering issue. The reality is that there is simply no reason for most Republicans to care what Democratic president is in power. They aren’t scared because they are gerrymandered into safe districts. They have to care about being primaried from the right. That situation isn’t inevitably stable, but it’s very real. So while Karp talks about how recalcitrant legislators had to be cajoled into supporting reform of the past, he is avoiding the real differences between the past and present on this issue while playing up the different political realities in other forms. It’s not a dishonest argument, but it is a dodge.

posted by tonycpsu at 2:36 PM on April 23, 2016 [4 favorites]

From the same article:

It’s not that voters should support a “fortress liberalism,” if that is what we want to call Hillary Clinton’s worldview. It’s that we should a) recognize that any president is going to need outside pressure to accomplish anything, b) that no president will ever save us, and therefore , c) the need for mass action will quite likely be just as necessary and just as effective (or not, depending on the level of mass action) under a Sanders presidency as it is under a Clinton presidency.

The reason people emphasize the amount of money Clinton has raised for down-ticket elections isn't out of a deep, abiding love for the DNC, but because it represents an understanding that much of the current conservative trend in policies--including the dominance of the GOP in Congress--is driven at the state level. If you are agitating for revolution, but not simultaneously pushing for people to vote in local elections and fundraising for said local elections, it means you either don't understand what the powers of the President are or you're being disingenuous.

The Kloppenburg-Bradley race in Wisconsin was pretty emblematic of this issue. Something like 15% of Sanders supporters voted Bradley or didn't know who they voted for; that was the case for 4% of Clinton voters. Bradley represents bog-standard Tea Party conservatism, appointed by Walker. If you can't get your supporters to vote against that and you're promising a progressive revolution, that represents a serious issue with communication.
posted by Anonymous at 3:05 PM on April 23, 2016

As a Wisconsinite and moderate leftist, I was tremendously disappointed in the state supreme court case, but I'm a little wary of denouncing sanders voters for not being as educated or motivated in down-ticket races; they're obviously hugely important, but frankly, I suspect a lot of the voters are newer to being involved in politics. There's also, I think, a certain amount of WI-specific pessimism about the state government - when I talked to a couple of state assembly candidates last election, both danced around the bulwark they would face in the body, and that's because you can't honestly, as a progressive in the assembly, promise to get anything done.

The discrepancy between Sanders and Clinton supporters in that election is dismaying and interesting, but frankly, the liberal-progressive-leftist coalition just needs more people and needs more kinds of people. It makes sense, in retrospect, that a lot of Sanders supporters aren't as invested in Democratic party candidates because he's an insurgent candidate. While it would have been vastly better if those Sanders voters had been better with the rest of the ballot, it's incumbent on we who are already active to incorporate the viewpoint of folks who are not already with us 100% strategically. We should not expect this to be a comfortable process.
posted by The Gaffer at 3:57 PM on April 23, 2016

the amount of money Clinton has raised for down-ticket elections

Just so we're all clear, what this is talking about is the perhaps 6.5%-7% of the expenditures of the Hillary Victory Fund that have been split between 32 state Democratic parties, who theoretically instead of just hanging on to these little bits of money or spending them on expenses related to the presidential nomination process might spend it on local elections. (Though obviously from above comments I guess the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, listed on Open Secrets as the top non-Clinton-campaign-non-DNC recipient getting several times as much as most other state parties, did pass some of it along?)

As reported by WaPo in February the vast majority has gone to the Clinton campaign, contractors working for the Clinton campaign, and the DNC. From Politico earlier in the week:

The fund comprises Clinton’s presidential campaign committee, as well as the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees. As a result, it can accept checks as large as $358,000 per person — a total determined by the maximum donation to each of its component committees ($5,400 to the Clinton campaign, $33,400 to the DNC and $10,000 to each of the state parties).

The idea is that the committee will help the state parties raise money for their general election efforts, an area where Clinton’s allies argue that her insurgent rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Bernie Sanders has done little. Sanders has a joint fundraising committee, as well, but it has been relatively inactive.

Yet, during the first three months of the year, the $2 million transferred by the Hillary Victory Fund to various state party committees paled in comparison to the $9.5 million it transferred to Clinton’s campaign committee or the $3.5 million it transferred to the DNC.

And the Hillary Victory Fund also spent $6.7 million on online ads that mostly looked like Clinton campaign ads, as well as $5.5 million on direct marketing. Both expenses seem intended at least in part to help Clinton build a small donor base, an area in which Sanders has far outpaced her.

FEC reports filed Friday showed that Clinton’s campaign and joint fundraising committee received a total of $1.8 million in checks bundled by lobbyists, including Tony Podesta (the brother of her campaign chairman John Podesta), former Sen. Mary Landrieu and energy lobbyist Ankit Nitin Desai.

Note that for example the participation of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin alone is responsible for nearly twice as much of the eligible maximum donation of an individual donor as is the participation of the Clinton campaign is. Or for example, if the $60m+ of total receipts listed on Open Secrets were just evenly distributed among the members of the fund that party (who again is by far the top recipient of all state parties) it would have received a bit less than $2 million, eight or more times what it's listed as having received so far.

The reason the fund can take such large contributions is the result of the Citizens United and McCutcheon v. FEC Supreme Court decisions. The impression I get from trying to read about it is that a Joint Fundraising Committee like this is something that's normally formed and operated by the party nominee or if earlier by an incumbent President. Clinton formed it last year so that large donors could max out their donations both for calendar year 2015 and 2016.

If the above bit about the normal circumstances under which a JFC like this if formed is true I have to concede that it's an absolute masterstroke of propaganda and turd-polishing that the Clinton campaign has managed to get yet another instance of her being anointed by the establishment, while simultaneously leveraging for herself the new unlimited-money-in-politics fallout of recent conservative control of SCOTUS, perceived as "Hillary cares so much and gives so selflessly to the overall progressive cause."

Whether you support Clinton or Sanders this round, this issue is important if you might ever in the future support someone other than the presidential candidate chosen by the Democratic party establishment.
posted by XMLicious at 5:21 PM on April 23, 2016 [10 favorites]

Appreciate the comments, schroedinger. I just happen to think that what you and others describe is essentially a naive fantasy. We could talk about NATO out-of-area deployments. We could talk about the multitude of ways the US has bullied itself around the world since well, the 1870s, but particularly the end of the Cold War--both in the military and economic spheres. We could talk about the real litmus for our attitude towards authoritarian dictators. We have a preference for puppets that pull their own strings and if they don't do that, or when they stop, then they become "evil-doers." Diem, the Shah, Noriega, etc... Hell, even leaders of halfway decent qualities get a death grip from the US if their interests don't coincide with ours: Mossadegh, Lumumba, Allende, and more. Of course, the authoritarian countries who line up with American interests get a free pass. (If it's Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, it's beheading day! Or pick any other day of the week.)

We could talk about the reasons why the Non-Aligned Movement came into being. We could talk about how British and French geopolitics have created the mess that it the Middle East today with Sykes-Picot and how the US has been dragged into stupid interventions as a result. We could talk about how the West's impudence around the funding of the Aswan dam forced Nasser into the Soviet's orbit and how it lead to the Suez Crisis. We could even talk about how Eisenhower pretty wisely shut down Brits (and our own Dulles crew) and kept that crisis from getting even worse.

We could even talk about how ignorant I am, even though my views on foreign policy were shaped long before the Sanders campaign came into existence. We could talk about whether or not I have any valid reasons for my uneasiness about a candidate who gave a nice big bear hug to that war criminal Henry Kissinger.

We could also talk about our moral intervention into Libya. Like the Blumenthal emails, or the reasons why the French wanted to intervene, or just who the dissidents were and where they got their support from. We could even talk about the ethnic cleansing of sub-Saharan blacks done by those same rebels. Or Tawergha. Or why Qaddafi was a bad guy, then a good guy, then again a bad guy. Or why Clinton turned history into farce with her paraphrase of Caesar's Commentaries (which in itself was a propaganda document.)

But I don't want to talk about these things. At least not here. One thing I've discovered in these threads is that some members of Team Clinton have a propensity to bend over backwards to defend Clinton no matter what. It's almost like this were a game without any real world repercussions. And, of course, it isn't a game. Least of all to those poor innocents who have died as a result of all these moral interventions.

And let me mention the kid who started at my workplace about a month ago. He occasionally wears an Iraqi Freedom hat. He also has a TBI and suffers from headaches. You know what he told me the other night? He said that he's having trouble with the VA both on the medical front as well as on establishing his eligibility for a partial disability. He also said that if he does get a windfall of some kind via back pay, and after discussions with his wife, he intends to donate a decent chunk of it to his fellow troopers suffering from worse TBIs than his.

So, yeah, anyhow, let's kill fewer foreign folks. That's my uninformed opinion and I'm sticking to it.
posted by CincyBlues at 5:30 PM on April 23, 2016 [13 favorites]

But I don't want to talk about these things. At least not here. One thing I've discovered in these threads is that some members of Team Clinton have a propensity to bend over backwards to defend Clinton no matter what.

Probably because, no matter what, the Presidential election is going to be between a Democrat named Clinton and a Republican. At the end of the day, whatever her foreign policy, Clinton is better than anyone the clown car is putting up.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:39 PM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

See what I mean?
posted by CincyBlues at 5:41 PM on April 23, 2016 [8 favorites]

Am I incorrect? Sanders winning at this point is beyond unlikely. The choices are going to be Clinton for sure vs Trump probably. And while yes she's made mistakes--including voting for the Iraq war, yes--she's not an avowed racist, she's not anti-abortion, she's not anti-trans, she's not anti-queer, she's not anti-healthcare, etc etc etc.

Is any of that incorrect? I'm not bending over backwards to give her a pass, I'm looking with absolute horror at what a Trump or a Cruz would do. I fear for the future of minority rights given the likely pool of people they'd put on SCOTUS.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 5:47 PM on April 23, 2016 [11 favorites]

We're supposed to not do the "candidate X supporters are like THIS" thing.
posted by prize bull octorok at 5:48 PM on April 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

Rein it in and consider how bored your kindly moderator is of reading the same six points about the difference between Clinton and Sanders across a dozen threads and thousands of comments.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:51 PM on April 23, 2016 [26 favorites]

I've been wondering what happens to the Senate in a Clinton-Trump matchup. Are enough Republicans turned off by Trump to flip the Senate or do they show up for the downballot races and just vote third party in the White House race? I hope 538 or Sam Wang start looking at the Senate in more detail soon, the primary stuff is mostly rehash at this point.
posted by Justinian at 6:04 PM on April 23, 2016

I am not really sure how dropping various historical facts about the region makes "kill less foreign folks" any less of a simplification of the problems the US was struggling with when Libya was under Qaddafi during the Arab Spring. Especially when you are citing things other countries did. Yes, a lot of the internicene conflict we see in the Middle East and many regions of Africa are a direct result of Western colonialist intervention. You can argue that it provides context--but exactly how does that context help people who end up slaughtered decades later when the affected countries are destroying themselves from within? Does understanding that context change the exact political situation Libya was in then, or the exact relationship we had with it at that moment?

Look, if you want to argue for total non-intervention, then fine, that's a stance. But framing that as "kill less foreign folks" explicitly claims it as a moral imperative, rather than a specific foreign policy strategy. That is pretty damn mendacious, given often non-interventionist strategies lead to things like Rwanda.

I am not a war hawk by any means. I am simply someone whose study of the politics of the region has led her to conclude that the Libya issue was a hell of a lot more complicated than the black/white stance that you seem to want to frame it as.
posted by Anonymous at 6:09 PM on April 23, 2016

I hope 538 or Sam Wang start looking at the Senate in more detail soon, the primary stuff is mostly rehash at this point.

Ha, the 538 people brought this up in one of their recent podcasts. They said they expected the primary contests to be over by now and their focus to switch on the Senate/House races--but as primaries aren't over, that's what they've been looking at.
posted by Anonymous at 6:12 PM on April 23, 2016

Anecdotal of course, but I know quite a few life-long Republicans who are despondent about Trump being the nominee and don't like Hillary for all the stereotypical reasons but will probably vote for her out of desperation.
posted by octothorpe at 6:27 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

My Conservative Republican brother-in-law seems very depressed about what is going on. He was happy at the beginning when Trump was trolling liberals and putting on a sideshow. But it's not funny anymore.
posted by zarq at 6:41 PM on April 23, 2016

We could talk about the multitude of ways the US has bullied itself around the world since well, the 1870s

1850s and 1860s too

exactly how does that context help people who end up slaughtered decades later when the affected countries are destroying themselves from within? Does understanding that context change the exact political situation Libya was in then, or the exact relationship we had with it at that moment?

I don't know enough about the details of Libya to talk specifics, but the reason this context and history is significant is that it's astronomically unlikely in any given military action that the United States is bombing or invading out of the goodness of its heart or for the benefit of those being bombed and invaded.

I think the same skepticism should be applied to the invasion of Afghanistan, which Sanders voted for. His campaign disclaims that vote as "in favor of sending troops to Afghanistan in a symbolic debate after the engagement had already begun" but it seems to me there were probably symbolic reasons to object. I'm not clear it was even legal under international law (not being a lawyer of any sort myself) - a sovereign member of the UN being invaded by other UN members? I thought there's something in the UN Charter prohibiting that.

Still it has seemed to me that Sanders is a far better bet for opposing militarism than Clinton, who as I pointed out in a previous election thread does not seem to have met a war she didn't like since Vietnam and speaks highly of Henry Kissinger. We need to remember that if she goes on to become President when opportunities for military action arise, as they inevitably will.
posted by XMLicious at 6:41 PM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

He was happy at the beginning when Trump was trolling liberals and putting on a sideshow. But it's not funny anymore.

Same thing here with several conservative family members. The barely muted laughs they had a few months back with Trump being Trump have given way to some seriously worried looks and muttering.

For the sake of family peace, I don't rub it in. Otherwise it going to be that horrible-thanksgiving-dinner-fight for the next 6 months.
posted by lampshade at 7:25 PM on April 23, 2016 [3 favorites]

My family is Reagan Republicans. My wife's family is Reagan Republicans. And they have no idea what they're going to do.

I asked my arch-conservative mother and brother, straight up, who they were supporting, Trump or Cruz. "None of the above. I mean, we'll vote Not Hillary, but..." and they trailed off. They hate Hillary. But the idea of a Trump/Cruz presidency scares the crap out of them. They live in Oklahoma and they have seen the damage Mary Fallin has done... Cruz would be her as president. Trump, OTOH, well, there are a lot of people down there who'd like to see DC burn. But most people need their Social Security and disability and Medicare, and when you ask them what they'll do when Trump burns Washington to the ground and those checks aren't coming... they blanch.

If there were a time a third party candidate could pull through and win, it would be this year. But it would have to be the right person that could appeal to the middle of the road Republicans and centrist Democrats. Or, perhaps, far left Democrats and disillusioned independents. But that's exactly the sort of profile Donald Trump is fitting....
posted by dw at 7:51 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

My feeling is that most of the Republicans will come around to Trump. They're already starting the "Trump has been playing a character, now he's going to be a Real Boy" narrative in the media. Between that and the Republicans who will show up to support someone down ballot and punch the "R" on page one, I think Republican turnout will still be something to worry about.
posted by mmoncur at 8:01 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

Y'know, the more I think about it, I wonder if by forming a joint fund which the party nominee normally would, maxing out all of the donors by using the increased limits from the DNC and state parties participating, but spending the money on herself during the primary, Clinton has actually done the opposite of what's claimed—jeopardized adequate funding of down-ticket races by prematurely depleting the nationwide large-donor base if Republicans haven't also done something equivalent.

In previous years, would these large donors have maxed out contributions to an individual candidate in a state and also given the higher allowed donation to the state party as a conduit to spending on that race? Because if that's the case, even if in the past the SCOTUS-struck-down aggregate limits meant that the donation to the party would have just been party limit minus candidate limit, this time those maxed-out donors can no longer give any more to the state parties and can only give directly to the state candidate the smallest limit.

One other thing that has confused me while reading about this during the past month or so is that the main Open Secrets page for Joint Fundraising Committees says that the JFC doesn't change the maximum contribution limits between any particular donor and any of the participating entities. As you can see in the quote above, the Clinton campaign's fraction of the maximum contribution to the fund is 5400/358000≅1.5% but the fraction of total receipts that have already gone directly to her campaign are 9.5m/33m≅28.8%; so is the campaign effectively "borrowing" from expected future donations to the fund in addition to arranging its "expenses" to be beneficial to her? So that future donations to the fund have to bring statistics down before the end of 2016 to a point where the average amount per HVF donor going to the Hillary campaign over the entire year is $5400 or something like that, else limits will have been exceeded?

I suppose you could make an educated guess about whether that's the case by knowing the total number of donors (if there are so many donors that the average going to the campaign is already less than $5400) but I don't see that number on Open Secrets or in the FEC filing.
posted by XMLicious at 9:25 PM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

It is looking more and more like a Clinton/Trump contest, so what's the most effective way for Clinton to attack Trump in a general election? I think a Trump pivot to the center is going to be much more effective than most people think, and also that the GOP Nevertrumpers will fizzle out and fall in line. And if the Trump general election campaign is anything like the Trump primary campaign, it's not going to have traditional weaknesses.

Clinton has already staked out positions that generally nullify a lot of Left enthusiasm -- on corporate funding of political campaigns, fracking, universal education and healthcare, compromise positions or at least a willingness to compromise on wall street regulations, abortion, the minimum wage -- so how does a business-friendly socially-liberal campaign attack a proto-fascist?
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:43 PM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

One thing she should do is hammer him on the racism. With the exception of some tentative comments by Jeb!, the GOP hasn't hit him on it because they need the racist vote. But he is on camera saying all these things, that's some good commercials right there. He cant pivot away from what he said a few months ago (I mean he can try, but it's right there in all his speeches).
posted by thefoxgod at 10:00 PM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

so how does a business-friendly socially-liberal campaign attack a proto-fascist?

Change her last name to Blinton and wear Groucho glasses in public.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:05 PM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have to tell you, most of the people I know in Pakistan don't think there's more than a slight shade of difference in how many people get killed based on who occupies the White House. The rhythms of US foreign policy do vary, but they remain in service of US imperialism. My vote is usually decided on domestic policy; I have basically given up hope on foreign policy. Pakistanis killed by drones are just as dead.
posted by bardophile at 10:17 PM on April 23, 2016 [6 favorites]

Pakistan is not the be all and end all of US foreign policy. And given that many Americans do care about foreign policy, if the new left wants to win they need some good ideas.

That said, are the Pakistanis you know connected to the government? Because that would be interesting, and I imagine that government perspective differs from that of the person on the street.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:26 PM on April 23, 2016

It is looking more and more like a Clinton/Trump contest, so what's the most effective way for Clinton to attack Trump in a general election?

She should not say a word about him. She should focus on issues 100% and never mention him by name or even say "My opponent says x".

Meanwhile, a PAC should spend millions of dollars on ads that simply show footage of Trump being Trump.

This is because Trump can change positions on a dime to avoid criticism and it doesn't seem to hurt him, and he can mock anything she says about him. For the sensible conservatives and the undecided leftish voters, there is nothing she can do that hurts him more than endless footage of his racist and violent rants when he's trying to act like the "So Presidential I'm boring" guy.

She should try to schedule as many debates as possible, and during the debate she should ignore Trump completely and say sensible things about her positions. If Trump doesn't agree to the debate, she should do the same exact thing while standing next to an empty podium.
posted by mmoncur at 10:33 PM on April 23, 2016 [13 favorites]

Meanwhile, a PAC should spend millions of dollars on ads that simply show footage of Trump being Trump."

I think this commercial is devastating.
posted by Justinian at 10:48 PM on April 23, 2016 [2 favorites]

Pakistan is not the be all and end all of US foreign policy. And given that many Americans do care about foreign policy, if the new left wants to win they need some good ideas.

bardophile never suggested any such thing. I read her comment as just an observation. How many of us in the US personally know someone in top level government? I find your interpretation odd. Of course she can speak for herself and perhaps I am wrong.
posted by futz at 10:50 PM on April 23, 2016 [5 favorites]

Shit, I just realized something. I have been excited about the possibility of two things this election: (1) A contested GOP convention, and (2) a Clinton v. Trump debate. But the thing is, a contested convention is only contested if it goes past the first ballot--and if it goes past the first ballot, Trump will almost certainly lose and Clinton v. Trump is an impossibility. My election fantasies are mutually exclusive. I'll either get to see a contested convention, or I'll get to watch Trump shit himself with rage during a live debate when presented with a woman openly challenging his ideas.

This is an extreme bummer. It's like I've been put in front of an adorable puppy and a teeny floofy kitten and I'm being told I'm only allowed to pet one. It just isn't fair.
posted by Anonymous at 12:12 AM on April 24, 2016

I think Trump is gonna squeak in at just over 1237.
posted by Justinian at 12:20 AM on April 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Pakistan is not the be all and end all of US foreign policy.

I didn't mean to suggest that it was. I was offering one perspective from some of the people who have been on the significant receiving end of US foreign policy. I have no idea whether people in Syria, Nigeria, Colombia, or indeed any other part of the world share this view.

And given that many Americans do care about foreign policy,

Sure. I care about foreign policy, too, but I don't weigh it heavily in my vote for POTUS. Other people should continue to make their own judgment call on that.

if the new left wants to win they need some good ideas.

That's true. Also, killing fewer innocents would be a good thing in and of itself.

That said, are the Pakistanis you know connected to the government?

When you say "connected to the government," I'm not sure what you mean. Elected members of the national assembly? Elected members of provincial governments? Bureaucrats? Military officers? Intelligence personnel?

Because that would be interesting,

Good to know that Pakistani opinion is only interesting if it's coming from the government.

and I imagine that government perspective differs from that of the person on the street.

Thanks for enlightening me. You might also want to consider imagining that government perspective is not a monolith, that the perspective of the person on the street is not a monolith, and that one new idea for the new American left is to stop condescending to the left of the global South.
posted by bardophile at 2:43 AM on April 24, 2016 [21 favorites]

This "Obama Doctrine" thread only got 63 comments, which is nothing compared to these election threads... but in terms of understanding American foreign policy and where it comes from, across different presidential administrations and different parties, the linked article is super interesting and helpful, I think.

It underlines the ways in which Obama's foreign policy was almost as different as it could be... and the fact that it couldn't really be all that different, because there is this strong consensus among experts about where American national interests lie.

I am still confused about where this consensus comes from. I fear both this orthodoxy in the form of Clinton and its opposite in the form of Trump (who has no use for "experts" and doesn't pretend to care about anyone outside the US, so would be unmoved by the idea of humanitarian wars...) I like Sanders' rhetoric but worry that it comes from his "outsider" status, that once he knew what these insiders know, he might do the same things (or depart from the script as far as Obama has, but no further.) He gives me the impression that he doesn't know much more than I do about the details of all the international conflicts in the world, and the agendas of all these other countries and leaders. I want to hear criticisms of Clinton's policies from people whose expertise is as deep as hers, criticisms that are full of facts, details, names.

"Kill fewer foreigners" is a fantastic general principle, don't get me wrong. I don't want the US to be the bad guy... But I vaguely understand that foreigners often kill each other too, and that the people who are dying often plead for the US to intevene. I don't know that making it a policy to say no to this pleading counts as being the good guy either.

Basically I'm both deeply concerned and deeply confused about US foreign policy, and none of the candidates is setting my mind at ease.
posted by OnceUponATime at 4:03 AM on April 24, 2016 [7 favorites]

The desperate scramble for Bernie's secret weapon
"The fate of Sanders' golden catalog of donors and volunteers — his email list — is the talk of the Democratic Party."
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:16 AM on April 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

I think this commercial is devastating.

For the people who vote for Trump this is a feature not a bug.
posted by Talez at 6:39 AM on April 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I don't want the US to be the bad guy...

Then the US needs a different set of "experts." I have not seen anything in the last 30 years of Mideastern follies that would convince me that Smedley Butler was wrong.

If Clinton winds up with my email, I will be deeply disappointed in the Sanders campaign. I hope they understand that I didn't let them use it so they could give it away to people I don't want to have it.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:29 AM on April 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

Why wouldn't Sanders share the email list with other Democrats?
posted by zutalors! at 9:12 AM on April 24, 2016

Because the people on it didn't want that?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:14 AM on April 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

then he should have run as an Independent, where you can have special rules that you want and not worry about helping the party. I think Sanders does want to help the party.
posted by zutalors! at 9:23 AM on April 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

This repeat Sanders donor won't be given a goddamn penny to Clinton's campaign. She doesn't need my money and she hasn't earned it anyway.
posted by an animate objects at 9:23 AM on April 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

In the Sanders campaign's privacy policy statement, the only clause that would allow sharing his email list with Clinton is this:

How We Share Your Personal Information

Though we make every effort to preserve your privacy, we may share Personal information as follows:
. . .
* With groups, causes, organizations, or candidates we believe have similar views, goals, and principles;

While it's not an enormous leap to say that the Clinton campaign is such an organization, I hope they don't make that leap. I managed to keep my email out of the DNC's hands while contributing to Obama's campaign. Getting their physical mailings is more than enough intrusion, thanks.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 9:24 AM on April 24, 2016

So you unsubscribe, delete the email, or set it up to go to your spam box, like you do with any number of other emails. I don't see anything all offensive about the Sanders campaign trying to salvage some good out of the campaign should it fall short of its goals in 2016, and whether every voter on Bernie's list believes it or not, I am quite certain he believes ensuring that Democrats retain control of the executive branch meets the standard for "similar views, goals, and principles."
posted by tonycpsu at 10:02 AM on April 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

So you unsubscribe, delete the email, or set it up to go to your spam box, like you do with any number of other emails. I don't see anything all offensive about the Sanders campaign trying to salvage some good out of the campaign should it fall short of its goals in 2016, and whether every voter on Bernie's list believes it or not, I am quite certain he believes ensuring that Democrats retain control of the executive branch meets the standard for "similar views, goals, and principles."

But we wouldn't be liberals if we didn't at least try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by petty infighting and circular firing squads.
posted by Talez at 10:21 AM on April 24, 2016 [20 favorites]

Sanders: Support for Clinton ‘totally dependent’ on how progressive her agenda is
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:09 PM on April 24, 2016

For the people who vote for Trump this is a feature not a bug.

Any interview you read with Trump voters where they're confronted with his horrible shit, they brush it off as "Oh, he's joking, he's trying to get a rise out of everyone, he's trolling, he doesn't mean it." Trump gets by because people thinks he's serious about the stuff they like and joking about the stuff they don't. His current supporters aren't going to change. But they're only 30-40% of the Republicans voting in the primaries. They people who haven't voted, he would get their vote by convincing them he's an OK guy--so you keep driving home that he's a piece of shit.
posted by Anonymous at 12:12 PM on April 24, 2016

It's important to remember that if Trump does get the delegates it'll be because the GOP uses winner-take-all or winner-take-most in the primaries, not because he won a majority of the votes or caucus delegates.

Again, this is where the proportional + super-delegates system would really help the GOP right now, even as it's rending the Democrats in this slow motion car crash of a nomination process.

As for support, Hillary is looking at hanging onto most of Bernie's supporters, perhaps >85%. Trump, OTOH, starts with Cruz/Kasich people far more skittish about supporting him.

If Hillary hangs onto her support and consolidates the moderates and social justice liberals attached to the Bernie part of the equation, she will likely win, barring Trump making inroads with the economic justice liberals. She's in a weird place -- where 1/3 of the electorate will never, ever vote for her, but this Trump guy they are struggling with getting behind.

Were Bernie to pull off the miracle and get the nomination, I don't think he'd have much trouble, either, even with the unknowns still lurking out there. He'd just need to figure out how to convince the moderates to vote and give him the majorities he needs in Congress.
posted by dw at 12:36 PM on April 24, 2016

Bernie Sanders' mailing list: how would Sanders supporters feel about using it for Senate and House races, governor races, etc.?
posted by msalt at 12:44 PM on April 24, 2016

Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. Here is the transcript. her interview starts about halfway down the page.

My read of it is that she wouldn't answer many of his questions and instead talked about the republicans. He eventually, of course, brought up the FBI email investigation and here are her responses:

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Yes, and I'm going to say it again, it's ludicrous to keep raising the -- the question of whether this plays out to an end -- an unfortunate end. She’s -- Hillary Clinton has released 55,000 pages of e-mails. She -- the -- it -- has provided the most transparency of -- of probably any previous presidential candidate in terms of the -- the conversations that she’s had as secretary of state, as a public official. It is completely available for perusal by the press and she was doing something and using private e-mail in the same way that previous secretaries of state have -- have done and that’s according to the policy that she was allowed to.

WALLACE: But, well, you -- well, well, well, you know that's not true. I mean Hillary -- nobody says that's true. Nobody --

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Other than the privates --

WALLACE: No -- no -- nobody --

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Other than the private server, right, with the exception --

WALLACE: Well, other than the private server is a big deal and nobody had 30,000 work e-mails on their private server or private e-mail, period. So, I mean, the comparisons to Colin Powell are -- I mean that's just not true, congresswoman.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: The compare -- you know, it certainly is true because Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry all used private e-mail to communicate with their staff. And Hillary Clinton --

WALLACE: Yes, and maybe -- maybe a dozen, not 30,000.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I -- I -- I'm not counting, but over the course of her -- of her term she used private e-mail and was allowed to use private e-mail. That's not in dispute. And she’s released 55,000 pages of e-mails. At the end of the day, this is a distraction because the American people are going to decide who they vote for, for president, based on who they believe is going to continue to move us forward and help everybody who wants to succeed have a fair shot to do so. And what they're not going to vote on is distractions like this one and they're certainly not going to choose any one of the Republican candidates who think that we should continue and go back to policies that focus on the wealthiest most fortunate Americans --

WALLACE: Right.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That -- that are extreme like Donald Trump suggesting that we're going to deport 11 million people --

WALLACE: All right, congresswoman --

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Or that we're going to ban an entire religion from coming into the country.

WALLACE: Congresswoman, we’re --

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: That's the choice.

--I wish that she had used her time to talk up the DEM candidates. And I do know that these talking head segments rarely ever answer the questions that they are asked because they only have a short amount of time to get in their talking ponts
posted by futz at 12:53 PM on April 24, 2016

CNN -- Trump: Oklahoma governor as VP is 'great' advice

And now every Okie I know is panicking she might be a heartbeat from the Presidency.
posted by dw at 1:09 PM on April 24, 2016

And now every Okie I know is panicking she might be a heartbeat from the Presidency.

Could be worse. Could be Brownback.
posted by Talez at 1:10 PM on April 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

Bernie Sanders' mailing list: how would Sanders supporters feel about using it for Senate and House races, governor races, etc.?

This is exactly the "political revolution" Sanders speaks of and I'll be disappointed if they don't keep me abreast of opportunities to support more meaningfully left candidates over the long term and coordinate with orgs like MoveOn and Democracy Now to similar effect.

I am wary of getting involved with the local party otherwise because I assume as many have pointed out in threads here they tend to favor insiders and elders whom I distrust to set a progressive course.
posted by an animate objects at 1:12 PM on April 24, 2016 [9 favorites]

> "... even as it's rending the Democrats ..."

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about here. Huh?
posted by kyrademon at 1:34 PM on April 24, 2016

--I wish that she had used her time to talk up the DEM candidates.

Well that's kind of the point of the whole e-mail "scandal". Keep Clinton's supporters havng to defend against the same old BS instead of doing productive campaigning.
posted by happyroach at 1:37 PM on April 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

But she had plenty of opportunities before the inevitable email question. She dodged those to bash the republicans
posted by futz at 1:41 PM on April 24, 2016

"Kill fewer foreigners" is a fantastic general principle, don't get me wrong.

It's too simple of a general principle though. In the instance of ISIS, Sanders essential position is to form a coalition of Middle Eastern (ME) Powers to wage war against them. To me, this sounds great for putting American soldiers out of danger, but you're just replacing them with the military of Saudi Arabia and other ME powers. Wouldn't that just result in foreigners killing each other on both sides then?

The only way that both "kill fewer foreigners" and Sanders' own ISIS position makes sense is if it's known that the Middle Eastern powers would never agree to leading a coalition, so basically the US keeps out of the conflict and the ISIS situation is kept on a low boil as much as possible.

And also, if the Middle Eastern powers are actually willing to do some heavy lifting in this area, wouldn't that mean we (US/Western powers) would have to continue (or start, in the case of Iran) arms sales to such powers?
posted by FJT at 1:45 PM on April 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've seen a lot of criticisms of US foreign policy, but our failure to sell distribute enough weaponry in the middle east is a new one. What do you have in mind?

One thing I think Sanders failed on in this area is to stick to his guns and articulate fully he point that global warming is an enormous national security threat. It is, but by backing off the point instead of doubling down and explaining the mechanisms, he ceded ground in the election and, more importantly, failed in his job of shifting the discourse. We should be talking about the secondary human consequences of global warming.
posted by The Gaffer at 1:50 PM on April 24, 2016 [5 favorites]

I've seen a lot of criticisms of US foreign policy, but our failure to sell distribute enough weaponry in the middle east is a new one. What do you have in mind?

I'm trying to think through what Sanders' position is, and what it would possibly mean. I honestly don't know the optimal solution. But I would guess some people probably would be unhappy with arms sales of any kind.

And I must add, I'm not against selling arms for self-defense. I have three generations of extended family in Taiwan, and seeing a few F-16s flying overhead the scenic eastern side of the island is a small price to pay to keep the status quo.
posted by FJT at 2:03 PM on April 24, 2016

i wonder what the polling says about climate change. because it is so wacky to me that nobody has gone after it in a hard core way. I mean fear sells, right, why isn’t the left all it’s time to say goodbye to FLORIDA WAKE THE FUCK UP or something along those lines.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that folks were trying to say that climate change was a worse theat than terrorism at one point. Unfortunately, that point was just before the Paris attacks.

More generally, climate change remains hard to go after because it doesn’t have guns or a specific bad guy.
posted by Going To Maine at 3:34 PM on April 24, 2016 [2 favorites]

Could be worse. Could be Brownback.

Except Fallin pushed through a royalty tax cut on oil and gas -- from 7.5% to 2.5% -- that blew a big hole in the budget. And THEN the price of oil cratered. Public schools are going to four-day weeks, OKC is laying off 200 teachers, and they've pretty much obliterated Medicaid.

Brownback really screwed up Kansas. But Fallin did far more damage far faster, thanks to Oklahoma letting itself become dependent on oil and gas again.
posted by dw at 4:33 PM on April 24, 2016 [3 favorites]

These ideological nitwits just run their states into the ground and get happily reelected. WHAT THE FUCK, BIBLE BELT?!?
posted by Talez at 4:57 PM on April 24, 2016 [4 favorites]

For Hillary Clinton, church offers a trusted comfort zone
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:12 PM on April 24, 2016

De Blasio team skirted campaign donation limits; investigators found 'willful and flagrant' violations 'warranting prosecution'

...Sugarman’s memo paints a picture of a coordinated effort by the mayor and his allies — dubbed interchangeably as “Team de Blasio” and “Team Coordinated” — to deliberately circumvent legal campaign donation limits in three upstate races in what turned out to be an unsuccessful effort to help Democrats win control of the state Senate in 2014.

The memo did not spell out exactly who could be charged. Deliberately evading campaign donation limits would constitute a felony.

...But Sugarman said there is evidence demonstrating that the de Blasio team coordinated its fundraising activities and intentionally solicited significantly higher-than-allowed contributions for three candidates — totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars — by having the checks sent to the two county committees and the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, which then quickly transferred the funds to the campaigns.

The move allowed the parties “to evade contribution limits and to disguise the true names of the contributors, conduct which may violate Election law,” she wrote.

The Gothamist:
"From my vantage point, everything was done legally and appropriately," the mayor said. Last week, the FBI announced an investigation of de Blasio's own 2013 mayoral campaign after backers of anti-carriage horse legislation were suspected of making oversize donations to Campaign for One New York.

All of this Days after he called for "major reforms" of New York City's Board of Elections

NYT:

The board’s report says that the fund-raising effort was run out of Mr. de Blasio’s City Hall and involved Emma Wolfe, his top political aide, and Ross Offinger, a fund-raiser for the mayor’s election campaign as well as the Campaign for One New York, a nonprofit created by Mr. de Blasio to support his agenda. The report also names several union officials and political consulting firms, including BerlinRosen, which has longstanding ties to the mayor.

It says that those people worked closely with the candidates and their campaigns in arranging for large donations to be made through the county and statewide committees, and then designated how the money would be spent. Some of the checks to the statewide committee included notations such as “Donation per Mayor,” the report said.

I wonder how deep or wide this goes? Given the multitude of issues with voting last week this is very concerning to me. Certainly not the actions of a Cautious Politician.
posted by futz at 6:04 PM on April 24, 2016 [6 favorites]

Fallin has completely destroyed education in Oklahoma. My mom has been a public school teacher in OK for years, but she finally gave in and decided to retire at the end of the school year. She just couldn't handle it anymore. And actually, with her retirement and the few bits of tutoring and piano lessons she'll continue doing, will be making more money annually than she would have if she continued teaching. This was after the whole mess of the state offering teachers a "raise" in exchange for giving up other benefits (which would have meant they actually earned less in real terms). And the rallies at the capitol where no one would even speak to the teachers, but they did vote for more education cuts the next day. Etc. Etc. It's bad.

Teachers are fighting back though. More of them are running for state offices than ever before (including my former history teacher - Vote Waldron!). But working past the existing conservative stranglehold won't be done overnight.
posted by downtohisturtles at 6:51 PM on April 24, 2016 [15 favorites]

Cruz and Kasich team up against Trump

This is a great idea and I think it will cause Trump to lose the primary as long as their time machine drops them off sometime around 3 months ago.
posted by mmoncur at 8:47 PM on April 24, 2016 [23 favorites]

The Nightly Show: Meet Donald Trump's Black Supporters (alt)

Including a Trump supporter who is Muslim. (From last month.)
posted by XMLicious at 10:25 PM on April 24, 2016 [1 favorite]

Leading Republicans send letters in support of pedophile Dennis Hastert
posted by jeffburdges at 1:05 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

My (uninformed, gut-instinct) prediction for tomorrow: Trump and Clinton are basically going to crush it; Clinton will increase her pledged delegate lead, and Trump will look more likely to reach an outright pledged delegate majority he has since before March 15.

If that proves to be the case, I think Cruz will need to win a pretty decisive victory in Indiana on May 3 for there to be any real chance of a contested convention.
posted by kyrademon at 2:51 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

In the last week, some Republicans have seemed to switch to preferring Trump to Cruz.
posted by drezdn at 6:11 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Watching Cruz on MSNBC.. It is like the humidity in Salt Lake City. You just feel gross.
posted by johnpowell at 8:04 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Josh Marshall thinks Trump is now basically unstoppable.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:05 AM on April 25, 2016

Cruz, Kasich campaign announce collaboration to deny Trump delegates

announced that Kasich would pull out of

ew

the Kasich team hoped to perform well

hope springs eternal

the national Republican gathering in July will evolve

what
posted by salix at 10:48 AM on April 25, 2016

Is this Cruz and Kasich thing a big deal? It feels like a big deal to me, but I don't know a whole lot about this sort of political game, and I'm surprised how little it's being discussed.
posted by meese at 11:10 AM on April 25, 2016

I've been thinking it's the only thing they can do to get the media to take a break from Trump and talk about them.
posted by peeedro at 11:20 AM on April 25, 2016

Just your daily reminder that Cruz is just as evil as Trump: Ted Cruz Launches Anti-Transgender Attack: It's Like Donald Trump Dressing Up as Hillary Clinton

"There is no greater evil than predators," Cruz said at a campaign event on Saturday. "If the law says that any man, if he chooses, can enter a women's restroom, a little girl's restroom, and stay there, and he cannot be removed because he simply says at that moment he feels like a woman, you're opening the door for predators."

At the same event in Indiana, the Republican presidential candidate took aim at front-runner Donald Trump, who initially said North Carolina's version of the law was "problematic" and that transgender people should be able to use the bathroom of their choice. (The real estate magnate has since backtracked.)

"You know the most interesting thing about Donald Trump embracing the PC police is it shows who he really is," Cruz said. "It shows that Donald Trump is a creature of the elite New York liberals."

This is after he reacted to Trump's original statement with this horribly transphobic ad, and when it was announced that the effects of HB2 may actually be killing people.
posted by zombieflanders at 11:20 AM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

Well, learning about the power of teamwork is always a big deal, meese. They'll still lose the nomination to Trump, of course, but I think these two lovable knuckleheads are going to find out that the real electoral victory is friendship.
posted by prize bull octorok at 11:24 AM on April 25, 2016 [14 favorites]

I, for one, am waiting for the government initiative where the FBI slaps ankle bracelets on all the male politicians talking about how it's ONLY GENDER SEGREGATION LAWS that keeps them from going into women's bathrooms to harass women, because they're the dudes I'm scared of. Not really worried about trans women who just want to pee in peace. VERY VERY worried about male politicians who a) want nobody to pee in peace and b) constantly talk about how excited they are to sneak into women's bathrooms and look at boobies. (Which leads me to important questions about how they think women pee, but whatever.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 11:24 AM on April 25, 2016 [20 favorites]

The Kasich-Cruz alliance sounds like it's not going to end well -- either it will fail miserably (which I think may be the truth given there's so little overlap between Kasich and Cruz supporters), or it will work and Cruz will then backstab Kasich.

Honestly, I wouldn't trust Cruz in any alliance. He's the worst sort of political slime weasel.
posted by dw at 11:30 AM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Cruz appears to believe -- genuinely, in his heart and brain -- that the delegates will flock to him once they're released from the vile Trump. That just amazes me.
posted by Etrigan at 11:32 AM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The Kasich-Cruz alliance is going to end up like when Cersei thought she could be buddies with the High Sparrow and his fanatics. Right guys? Guys?

Too much GoT?
posted by Justinian at 11:40 AM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

As for the Democrats tomorrow: Sanders will more than likely win Rhode Island, and Connecticut is looking like a tossup. Both won't matter if Hillary's +10 margin in PA and +25 margin in MD hold up. Hillary might be able to get her delegate lead back up to where it was coming out of AZ/ID/UT on March 22, essentially wiping all of Bernie's gains since then off the board.

Meanwhile, early polls in Indiana have Hillary leading just outside the MoE. It's an open primary, so this is Bernie's best chance to cut back into the delegate lead significantly. If he loses or draws, then it's probably time to start winding it up and cutting a deal with Hillary on support in exchange for major campaign planks.
posted by dw at 11:44 AM on April 25, 2016

Honestly, I wouldn't trust Cruz in any alliance. He's the worst sort of political slime weasel.

Let's face it. He's that guy that always rolled 20s on his neutral evil rogue from behind his own screen even though he wasn't the dungeon master. He's the type of guy that would argue that surprise when you ambush your own party members should grant you both crit and and an attack advantage.
posted by Talez at 11:48 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

> ... all the male politicians talking about how it's ONLY GENDER SEGREGATION LAWS that keeps them from going into women's bathrooms ....

It reminds me of the social phobias from the Reagan era, specifically those against drug use, and, surprisingly, homosexuality. You'd hear conservatives saying that if the government didn't prohibit it, people would just spend all their time doing drugs and not working, or being gay and not producing children. It seemed to reflect a world view where the universe was just filled to overflowing with lascivious temptation, and it was only the strong arm of the law that prevented John Q. Public from going all J.-K. Huysmans. I found it very perplexing.
posted by benito.strauss at 11:50 AM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

He's that guy that always rolled 20s on his neutral evil rogue from behind his own screen even though he wasn't the dungeon master.

So, he's a 2E guy. Interesting.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:28 PM on April 25, 2016

You'd hear conservatives saying that if the government didn't prohibit it, people would just spend all their time doing drugs and not working, or being gay and not producing children. It seemed to reflect a world view where the universe was just filled to overflowing with lascivious temptation, and it was only the strong arm of the law that prevented John Q. Public from going all J.-K. Huysmans. I found it very perplexing.

People tend to think that other people are like themselves.
posted by Etrigan at 12:36 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Cruz is the kind of guy who'd try to rules lawyer you out of a party wipe by citing some obscure bullshit from Unearthed Arcana, even though you're playing 2E

Trump is the guy who plays a paladin, insists he rolled the stats naturally, and stonewalls your arguments that his indiscriminate slaughter of kobolds and lying to NPCs is breaking alignment

Kasich plays a fighter with prerolled stats and just kind of goes along with things until this one time where he just cold murders an NPC that was supposed to be friendly and you all kind of wonder wtf is up with that guy under the surface

Sanders is a druid who spends half an hour talking the party out of raiding a wild animal den full of awesome treasure that you can see, it's right there, because that's what his character would do and he's not compromising his character's principles thank you very much

Clinton rolls a cleric because the party needed a healer and she's a team player gosh darn it and okay maybe she didn't actually have enough spell slots to cast that last Cure Light Wounds but are we really gonna call her on it?
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:41 PM on April 25, 2016 [8 favorites]

Sanders is a druid who spends half an hour talking the party out of raiding a wild animal den full of awesome treasure that you can see, it's right there, because that's what his character would do and he's not compromising his character's principles thank you very much

I see Sanders as the cleric bitching they're raiding this wild animal den when we all know the people of Overton are poor because of the money going to the dragon in that cave and SRSLY WHY ARE WE NOT GOING AFTER THE DRAGON LOOK I CAN LEAD THE TEAM WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE NEED A LARGER PARTY WE WILL GET PEOPLE AS WE GO AND AGAIN WE WILL GO IN THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR NOT THROUGH THAT BACK ENTRANCE BECAUSE THAT HALFLING WORKS FOR THE DRAGON CABAL

Clinton rolls a cleric because the party needed a healer and she's a team player gosh darn it and okay maybe she didn't actually have enough spell slots to cast that last Cure Light Wounds but are we really gonna call her on it?

On said party, Clinton manages to heal the party but gets criticized for not using her defense spells to help the party. When the dragon makes another pass she burns her mana on her defense spells but half the party is stunned and she gets criticized for not healing the party. Later, Bernie the Druid insists that Clinton The Cleric is unqualified for the role of medic. During the ensuing argument, Cruz backstabs everyone on "natural" 20s and then INSISTS he didn't break alignment THIS TIME come on I wouldn't do that but you know who would? points at Ben Carson, who is asleep at the table having been bored to death because no one asks the Bard to do jack.
posted by dw at 12:55 PM on April 25, 2016 [10 favorites]

meanwhile Marco Rubio, whose ill-conceived minmaxing strategy left him with high CHA but middling scores in his primary stats, got wiped out early in the campaign after an encounter with an ogre (who now follows the paladin around like a sad lapdog as the result of a well-played Charm Monster scroll), is in the other room playing Nintendo alone
posted by prize bull octorok at 1:04 PM on April 25, 2016 [11 favorites]

The Republican Study Committee - a conservative caucus of 170ish House GOP reps - released its policy positions on Friday. They embrace Cruz's call for abolishing the IRS (cue all tax professionals doing this), along with other expected things like preventing the lazy takers from hurting the real America's family values. Though the "Americans' First Amendment right to life" seems like new and sketchy phrasing -- is this going to be some new "what if the fetus is anti-abortion? protect the fetus's right to practice its religion" angle?

They also lump ending net neutrality into "Protecting the Constitution," call for criminal justice reform (but just for rich people who violate EPA regs), are against infrastructure projects that provide broadband internet, want to cut off funding for the National School Lunch Program, eliminate the NLRB, and many more really awesome great ideas.
posted by melissasaurus at 1:14 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Where does the Republican Study Committee stand on D&D editions?
posted by Chrysostom at 1:40 PM on April 25, 2016

Cruz appears to believe -- genuinely, in his heart and brain -- that the delegates will flock to him once they're released from the vile Trump. That just amazes me.

I wouldn't be so dismissive of it. This has not been getting a lot of play, but Cruz has been doing a ton of delegate schmoozing.

The humans who actually serve as national delegates are chosen by processes specific to each state. How those delegates are required to vote at the actual convention depends on each state; you can see a summary here. Basically, there are a few different categories, summarized below. Note: when we talk about ballots, we're talking about rounds of voting. If you don't hit majoriy (1237) in the first round (the first ballot), then you go to the second. If you still don't hit majority, then you go to the third, etc:

Unbound: Total free agent, can vote for whomever they want
First ballot: Must vote for whichever candidate "won" them during the primary on the first round of voting.
Second ballot: Must vote for bound candidate in first and second round.
Third ballot: Must vote for bound candidate through three rounds of voting.
Until release: Committed to a certain candidate until the candidate allows them to vote for someone else (this is what people mean when they say Rubio hasn't released his delegates).
Indefinitely: Binding rules are unclear. Maybe like "until release"?

Of course, there are additional complications. That list I linked of binding rules is more like a guess than anything set in stone. Once you start delving into each state's legalese-heavy bylaws things get a hell of a lot murkier. For example, North Carolina's bylaws are extremely vague and Ohio appears to have no binding rules at all. There may be no rules specifying what delegates are allowed to do after they're released/unbound (you can't assume they're allowed to vote for whomever), there may be unwritten traditions specific to that state's GOP, a rule could be made during the convention that influences how you vote.

However, the general takeaway from that list is that once you get past the first ballot a lot of delegates come into play--and that's where Cruz has been working behind the scenes.

See, like I said, the process for choosing national delegates in every state is specific to each state. These processes are often complex and multi-layered and swathed in Robert's Rules bullshit. Which means if you are a candidate who delights in rules-lawyering, has an eye for detail, is meticulously organized, and you're willing to work your ass off, you can use a combination of wonkery, schmoozing, and outright bribery to ensure the delegates going to the national convention will be voting for you as soon as they're no longer bound to the candidate who actually won their state. That's not even counting all the convention rules wars that go on leading up to and during the actual convention that you can use to swing things in your favor.

Trump has been winning states, but his ground and delegate-recruitment game has been largely shit. He didn't get a team together until relatively recently, and they're staffed with dudes who last did this shit decades ago. Cruz, being a hardworking student of pedantry, has been building a crackerjack team of rules nerds from Day 1. He appears to have an innate understanding of his fundamental repulsiveness and his political strategies are thus tailored accordingly. Dude has been ensuring Trump's delegates are sleeper agents; if the convention goes past the first ballot, Trump will almost certainly lose. This was why I was lamenting that a Trump-Clinton debate and contested convention were mutually exclusive. If the convention goes past the first ballot, Cruz has been doing his damnedest to ensure Trump won't make it to the general.

If you are delighted by battles that are won by the person who knows the most technicalities, then the GOP side of this election is ramping up to be a wild ride.
posted by Anonymous at 1:49 PM on April 25, 2016

Where does the Republican Study Committee stand on D&D editions?

Anything that advances PCs is a sop to "PC culture," natch. Therefore, the original 1974 rules must be followed except when applied to non-human characters, every character has the right to both bear arms and bear arms (except for owlbears), all al-Qadim and Dark Sun supplements are disallowed, and shapeshifters aren't allowed to be in the same party as "regular" characters.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:58 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

I even wonder a bit about the bound delegates on the first ballot. I mean, what are they bound by? They surely can't be carted off to jail if they simply refuse to vote for the candidate for whom they're bound -- this isn't a court of law.

If I'm officially a Trump-bound delegate but I cast my vote for NotTrump on the first ballot, who has standing to object? Who ultimately decides?

*makes popcorn*
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:01 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm pretty sure the RSC thinks that D&D is satanic
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:02 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

The NY Times says the Cruz-Kasich pact is already a flop, with Kasich still telling people to vote for him in Indiana and Cruz doing some downplaying on his own. It was an amateur move because it plays in Trump's favor, he has the media to spread his sore loser message for any primary that he can't win from here out.
posted by peeedro at 2:03 PM on April 25, 2016

So, nobody knows whether some of West Virginia's delegates are bound or unbound.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:06 PM on April 25, 2016

Once you start delving into each state's legalese-heavy bylaws things get a hell of a lot murkier.

This is a good point. Given how litigious Trump is, I'm guessing that if he doesn't get the nomination, there may be a massive legal battle over which delegates were allowed to take which actions at which time. If it were someone else, they would probably just threaten to sue and then settle for a VP or cabinet spot as a nod to their supporters. But with Trump, I don't think he'll be happy unless he's the nominee for President and I don't think he much cares about advancing his "causes" without him at the helm (since his main "cause" seems to be how awesome and presidential he is).

I think we're going to see a lot of more the GOP start to support Trump, at least behind the scenes. They'll figure they can control/block him in the same way they've been doing with Obama, on the areas where they disagree, but that he'll be willing to sign some of their right-wing bills that Obama/Clinton would have vetoed. Whoever else they pick will have some doubt (and litigation) hanging over their head as to legitimacy of their nomination. What if a court finds that the nomination process was irregular and that delegates did vote improperly/illegally? What if that happens after the convention but before November? What if it happens after November? The uncertainty about the legitimacy of the GOP nominee could become a huge issue for republicans -- in some ways aligning behind Trump for 4 years may not be the worst option for them.

(but the law and policy nerd in me would LOVE to read the briefs for those lawsuits)
posted by melissasaurus at 2:06 PM on April 25, 2016

Schroedinger is 100% correct on analysis. This is like the convention for rules lawyers and it is going to be a grand to-do.
posted by corb at 2:08 PM on April 25, 2016

Another repercussion of this Cruz-Kasich "Axis of Losers" is that Kasich is now no longer the very hot favorite to be the VP pick for the Republicans. While he is still the actual favorite with the bookies, his odds have been drifting and the odds of Chris Christie have been shortening.
posted by Wordshore at 2:09 PM on April 25, 2016

I even wonder a bit about the bound delegates on the first ballot. I mean, what are they bound by? They surely can't be carted off to jail if they simply refuse to vote for the candidate for whom they're bound -- this isn't a court of law.

They wouldn't be carted to jail, but their vote wouldn't be valid. Alternates are chosen along with the official delegates. If a delegate refused to adhere to the party bylaws of their state then their vote would be considered invalid and an alternate would step in.

If enough of one state's delegates refused to adhere to the rules, that state's party would probably have to hold an emergency election for a whole new slate of delegates. That would delay the convention further and really cause some uproar. Certainly the leading candidate would be doing everything they could to amass enough delegates without that state.

Those situations are highly unlikely, though. Delegates are generally picked by party loyalty. Trump delegates are the ones most likely to be party outsiders, but they're not going to refuse to vote for Trump.
posted by Anonymous at 2:11 PM on April 25, 2016

The NY Times says the Cruz-Kasich pact is already a flop, with Kasich still telling people to vote for him in Indiana and Cruz doing some downplaying on his own.

I don't know why the hell they even made that public. Totally shows their hand and then they look like dumbasses if it fails. Maybe they were trying to keep it secret, but someone caught wind and they decided to announce before a rogue reporter did.
posted by Anonymous at 2:16 PM on April 25, 2016

I feel like the courts might not want to touch this with a twenty-foot stick. The Republican Party is a private organization, is it not? Surely there is no question of public law when it comes to their internal decision-making processes, any more than I could go to the courts for relief if my supervisor made a decision I didn't like (unless I had some allegation of discrimination of a protected class or violation of labor law, etc.)?

on non-preview:

They wouldn't be carted to jail, but their vote wouldn't be valid. Alternates are chosen along with the official delegates. If a delegate refused to adhere to the party bylaws of their state then their vote would be considered invalid and an alternate would step in.

Right but who adjudicates the validity of a vote? Paul Ryan as the chair? Can such a faithless vote be appealed to the committee of the whole (i.e. all the delegates), and if so how would they actually vote?

Delegates are generally picked by party loyalty.

In the context of this convention, I imagine that the concept of "party loyalty" may be interpreted in quite a few different ways. To some extent that is the heart of the problems they will have in Cleveland: what does it mean to be loyal to "the party" at this point? Loyal to its ideals? Loyal to its goal of winning the White House? Loyal to the (base) electorate and to the person who's won a plurality of their votes? Loyal to the rules and regulations of the party?
posted by tivalasvegas at 2:17 PM on April 25, 2016 [2 favorites]

Delegates are generally picked by party loyalty.

I think a lot of what we're seeing right now is that there is no "party line" yet for this nomination. The establishment is kind of all over the place and the only thing they can settle on is "it would be great if it wasn't Trump or Cruz and if all the people who voted for Trump or Cruz were cool with that." If "the party" can't figure out a common narrative and strategy soon, party loyalty won't really help. Those delegates will vote for whatever is "best for the party," but with no unified voice telling them which action is "best for the party" they might not get enough votes for any particular strategy. [on preview, what tivalasvegas said]
posted by melissasaurus at 2:19 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Right but who adjudicates the validity of a vote? Paul Ryan as the chair? Can such a faithless vote be appealed to the committee of the whole (i.e. all the delegates), and if so how would they actually vote?

Now you are getting beyond my ken with the exact procedures--but delegates are coming along with their own party officials, and their own lawyers, you know? GOP officials on the state and national level are going to know how bound delegates are supposed to vote, and if they suddenly up and don't vote that way then eyebrows will be raised and the vote will be immediately contested. You're asking "what happens if the delegates don't follow the fundamental rules the party was built on" and the answer is "well, they don't get to play any more." If they held their ground and refused to move while the alternates were brought in, then I imagine security would haul them out.

In the context of this convention, I imagine that the concept of "party loyalty" may be interpreted in quite a few different ways.

When I say "party loyalty", I mean stuff like the length of time a person has participated in the party, level of involvement on the local and state level, and how much you trust them to follow the rules. People who are picked are generally invested in the party's success and won't make waves. Nobody wants to elect a delegate who's going to defy your state bylaws or set off a riot.
posted by Anonymous at 2:27 PM on April 25, 2016

I feel like the courts might not want to touch this with a twenty-foot stick. The Republican Party is a private organization, is it not? Surely there is no question of public law when it comes to their internal decision-making processes, any more than I could go to the courts for relief if my supervisor made a decision I didn't like (unless I had some allegation of discrimination of a protected class or violation of labor law, etc.)?

I don't know enough about this area of law, but I would imagine this would be some kind of civil action by the candidate/party members to enforce the bylaws of the party or interpret ambiguities in the bylaws or party procedures/contracts. I'm not thinking of lawsuits like Trump threatened over Louisiana - where he won by votes but Cruz got more delegates but where the party rules were supposedly followed. Or fraud for changing the nomination rules after people voted. I'm envisioning lawsuits over actions that contradict the stated rules or where the rules are unclear about e.g., whether a state's delegate is bound or unbound at the time of a given ballot. Akin to a contractual dispute or a shareholder derivative action.

I'm really not seeing a way out of this for the GOP other than trying to tame Trump or sacrificing the entire presidential race and concentrating on downballot races. I don't see Trump backing down, and the GOP can't afford to waste any time after the convention with infighting (even if a lawsuit is ultimately unsuccessful, it will take time and resources and dominate the narrative) - especially when many in the moderate wing of the party seem to be somewhat ok with the idea of voting for Clinton. It will also be interesting to see what happens to the party platform with so many Trump and Cruz folks at the convention.
posted by melissasaurus at 2:56 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Those points all make sense.

I guess from a high-level or philosophical perspective, I'm just fascinated/horrified by the interplay between technical rules, the theoretically democratic-ish principles underlying those rules, the will-to-power, the veiled threat of violence that is now the backdrop to this moment, and the interplay among all of those things.
posted by tivalasvegas at 3:19 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

WaPo: Bernie Sanders is profoundly changing how millennials think about politics, poll shows [here's a link to the poll itself]

While there are a bunch of interesting shifts noted in the article, I thought this was pretty shocking (and depending on where you sit politically, pretty awesome): "A narrow majority of respondents in Harvard's poll said they did not support capitalism." The polling director links this to "a lack of trust that young Americans have [that extends to] the very premise of how our country's organized."

The poll also looked at millennial attitudes about the GOP candidates:

Millennials' opinions of Donald Trump, by contrast, are decisively negative. Seventy-four percent said they view the Republican front-runner unfavorably, including 57 percent of young Republicans. By contrast, 52 percent of the poll's respondents viewed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) unfavorably, including just 30 percent of millennial Republicans. Among that group, 56 percent had a favorable view of Cruz.

posted by melissasaurus at 3:36 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

I guess from a high-level or philosophical perspective, I'm just fascinated/horrified by the interplay between technical rules, the theoretically democratic-ish principles underlying those rules, the will-to-power, the veiled threat of violence that is now the backdrop to this moment, and the interplay among all of those things.

I agree with you there. I was pretty horrified to find out that getting a law on the floor in Congress is not so much about the merits of the law itself as it is about (1) who has the best grasp of the technical bullshit in the thousands of pages of rules that run the House, and (2) whose allies are best positioned among various committees to take advantage of said technical bullshit.
posted by Anonymous at 3:38 PM on April 25, 2016

It's more that arguing about technical bullshit is the form that arguments about the merits take. Sort of like how logistics trains are how military conflicts happen to a first approximation..
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 3:56 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Third Parties: Local, State, National

The idea that Bernie supporters should leave the Democratic Party and vote for some left-leaning third party is ridiculous and would be disastrous for the very causes about which they care. Of course, those who are most likely to actually do that would not vote for the Democratic Party anyway except under very specific circumstances, i.e., an actual socialist tops the ticket, so they can be discounted from a political strategy perspective. The fear would be dragging actual Democrats to Jill Stein, as Sawant hopes. And Sawant’s call to build a real third party also just wouldn’t amount to anything. Sawant makes the critical error of blaming Sanders for running as a Democrat, then noting how successful he was running as a left-wing Democrat, then assuming that his viability would be equal or greater as a left-wing non-Democrat, which is of course ridiculous. Sanders has done so well precisely because he is running as a Democrat.

So let all that go, if you can. The essay is unconvincing and dangerous and the politics make no sense to build toward anything. But maybe there’s something here of value.

[...] If she and her Socialist Alternative people want to start a third party on the ground floor and work to take over city council positions and challenge terrible Democrats in various state legislatures, or even Congress in some cases, then I think that’s great. Providing an actual second party challenge from the left is something that has a lot of value. The dividing point between useful and terrible is the possibility of electing a Republican. That is almost always a disaster. That’s why her call for a national third party and for Sanders supporters to vote for Jill Stein needs to be rejected. But her running in Seattle? Sure, great. Bring some of your people to Providence

posted by tonycpsu at 4:10 PM on April 25, 2016 [5 favorites]

Oh, Kshama Sawant. A woman who can demand Bernie join her party that has, thus far, elected exactly one person to office... Kshama Sawant.

She is the downside to Seattle moving to city council districts -- so long as the 3rd is centered on Capitol Hill and so long as Capitol Hill is a bunch of white twentysomethings slumming it in "the hood," she'll always have a job, because the neighborhood won't give a damn that she's spending her time elsewhere and not representing her district.

Bernie running as a Democrat made the most sense -- only from the position he's in can he push Hillary leftward. Jill Stein can't do anything as the Green nominee, other than complain she gets no debate time. Whomever the Libertarian nominee is, even if they end up pulling some Never Trump people, will be in a similar position.
posted by dw at 4:35 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

oh god make it stop
posted by tonycpsu at 6:21 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

*There's* a hardy perennial column. These guy somehow never notice that actual third party candidates run every time, and they don't tend to get a lot of traction.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:24 PM on April 25, 2016 [1 favorite]

Arizona poll worker testifies incorrect ballots given to Democratic voters

A Maricopa County poll worker who was on duty during Arizona’s problematic presidential primary testified Monday that the computer system checking in voters would not allow her to give the correct ballots to 36 Democratic voters while she counted about 20 other voters that were listed in the wrong party...

...Post, an attorney, testified a machine she was using to check in voters at a Maricopa County location failed to give 36 people the proper ballot.

“Every single time it happened to me it was a Democratic voter who wasn’t able to access a Democratic ballot,” she said.

Another 22 people at her location were listed in the wrong party, she said. Her polling place also ran out of ballots for at least two congressional districts.

Alisa Wolfe, a resident of Pima County, testified her voter registration was improperly changed from Democrat to independent.

Wolfe said she was able to vote provisionally after speaking to the Pima County Recorder’s Office and being told the problem was a computer glitch.

Before testimony began, Assistant Attorney General James Driscoll-MacEachron attempted to have the legal action dismissed. Among other things, he claimed the primary doesn’t fall within the scope of what electors can challenge.
posted by futz at 6:39 PM on April 25, 2016

Clinton just pledged during her town hall with Rachel Maddow that she would do what Trudeau did and make her cabinet 50% female.

not that this matters because Prince is still dead so who cares about a dumb election
posted by sallybrown at 6:51 PM on April 25, 2016 [15 favorites]

I hope she pulls an RBG and makes it 100% women. Zombie Prince can come too.
posted by melissasaurus at 7:20 PM on April 25, 2016 [6 favorites]

tonycpsu: "oh god make it stop"

I love that whoever wrote that didn't even bother to look up in Wikipedia that Zuckerberg is only 31.
posted by octothorpe at 9:05 PM on April 25, 2016 [4 favorites]

Bernie has apparently never bothered to find out who John Fetterman is, even though the candidate for the senate seat for PA has endorsed him.
posted by octothorpe at 9:25 PM on April 25, 2016

oh god make it stop

"Let's get Zuckerberg to run for president!" Um. He's 31.

In other news, the latest USA Today poll says 13% of Sanders voters say they would vote for Trump over Clinton. I figure they're mostly independents, but srsly?
posted by dw at 11:50 PM on April 25, 2016 [3 favorites]

It is 6am in the eastern US states, so polling station are (hopefully) now open in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
posted by Wordshore at 2:59 AM on April 26, 2016

Maryland polls open at 7:00, I'm about to head over.
posted by wintermind at 3:30 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Polls here in PA opened at seven but I'm being lazy and not walking over until 8. I've never once seen it busy there so I I'm not expecting lines.
posted by octothorpe at 4:22 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Bah. Apologies for my "6am polls open everywhere" comment. Lazy (non)checking on my part.
posted by Wordshore at 4:26 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

I'm crossing my fingers so hard for Donna Edwards today. I like Van Hollen a lot! Great guy, great at his job! But it kills me a little to think of The Great Mikulski gone from the Senate and yet another dude taking her place.
posted by sallybrown at 5:09 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

No lines but as usual it took them five minutes to find my index card.
posted by octothorpe at 5:19 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

I was number 7 in line at my suburban Maryland polling place at 6:55. Doors opened promptly at 7:00, and everything went very smoothly. The only awkward moment was when two young men at the back of the line insisted on [verbally] sparring with each other about Bernie v. Hillary. I was in and out in precisely 10 minutes.
posted by wintermind at 5:22 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Voted here in PA-12:

* Pretty sparsely attended as of 9:00 or so.
* Guy running for GOP Delegate and a Trump backer handing out stuff outside.
* Poll workers were (as usual) slightly baffled that my wife and I don't have the same last name.
* You voted for candidate and separately for their backing delegates, even on the Dem ballot. * Sanders had six delegates available for six slots; Clinton had five plus an "alternate". I don't really know what that implies.

Oh, plus they didn't have stickers this time.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:03 AM on April 26, 2016 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the delegate thing was a little confusing because the Clinton and Sanders delegates were all interspersed.
posted by octothorpe at 7:16 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

Our electoral system is a disaster, part MCMXVIII: My PA polling place handles two different precincts, and the only indication is a tiny paper sign taped to the bottom of each table. Most people don't know which one they're in, so the usual process is people walking to the first one they see, some poll worker flips through index cards, and then sends them across the room. Having done it enough times I know which one to go to, but without fail I overhear some version of this happening while I'm there.

Yeah, the delegate thing is ridiculous. Nobody knows who these people are, so they might as well just call them "[Candidate] Bound Delegate [n]" and dispense with the charade.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:00 AM on April 26, 2016 [3 favorites]

Nobody knows who these people are, so they might as well just call them "[Candidate] Bound Delegate [n]" and dispense with the charade.

They aren't bound, are they?
posted by Etrigan at 8:06 AM on April 26, 2016

They say "committed to [candidate]". See a sample ballot here.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:10 AM on April 26, 2016

Before attacking Sanders on guns, Clinton was 'Annie Oakley'
which includes a link to this 2008 story:
Clinton Portrays Herself as a Pro-Gun Churchgoer
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 8:29 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

what a flip-flopper amirite
posted by defenestration at 8:38 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

cjelli: "The Democratic delegates are bound, the Republican ones are not."

Well, the 54 directly elected GOP delegates are not bound. 17 other delegates ARE bound (14 to statewide winner + 3 RNC delegates).

One refreshing thing I've learned this year is that, in contrast to normal procedure, the GOP electoral stuff is much more screwed up than the Democratic.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:39 AM on April 26, 2016

There is a new and fresh, mod-approved, US Election thread.
posted by Wordshore at 9:01 AM on April 26, 2016 [1 favorite]

b-b-b-but... I'm still twirling, and have not yet arrived at freedom.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 AM on April 26, 2016 [18 favorites]

This is Kang's Paradox, which is closely related to Zeno's Paradox but more twirly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:46 AM on April 26, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm pro gun and support (legal) hunters and was taught about guns as a child too . . . and I'm also in favor of some basic gun control measures, including background checks and allowing suits against gun manufacturers. I am missing what policy proposals regarding guns Clinton allegedly flip flopped on. And yes, I read both links.
posted by bearwife at 11:12 AM on April 26, 2016 [6 favorites]

Donald Trump Made Sexist Attacks Against Megyn Kelly A Trend
posted by jeffburdges at 7:58 AM on April 27, 2016

Just because this thread is where I heard the "Hillary Clinton was callous toward the victim in a case where she acted as an attorney for a suspected rapist" story... I want the record of this thread to also include the link to the Snopes page about that story.

WHAT'S TRUE: In 1975, young lawyer Hillary Clinton was requested as lawyer for the defense in a rape case involving a 12-year-old girl; Clinton reluctantly took on the case, successfully challenged mismanaged evidence, and entered a plea bargain for the defendant.

WHAT'S FALSE: Clinton laughed about the unreliable nature of polygraphs, not the case's outcome; Clinton did not volunteer to be the man's lawyer; Clinton did not claim the complainant fantasized about being raped by older men; the case did not go to trial.

posted by OnceUponATime at 3:58 PM on May 7, 2016 [6 favorites]

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April 19, 2016 9:00 AM Subscribe