Current Affairs 2020 Democratic Primary

[Ruairi77]

Given turnout among young people, which is a large section of Bernie's support, was the lowest of any age demographic they either exist or his support is a lot smaller than people care to admit

like I said, I'm sure plenty of Sanders voters didnt come out for the GE but not because they thought Clinton and Trump were two sides of the same coin.
They didn't come out because the Clinton campaign didn't energize them, if it did anything, it probably alienated them.

Personally, my friends who were Clinton supporters were very disparaging of Sanders after the primaries and before the GE.
Sanders ran an idealistic campaign that energized people that had never been interested in politics before. The Clinton campaign targeted all Sanders supporters as 'Bernie bros' and out of touch socialist idealists. After the primary she picked Kaine as her running mate and put very little effort in to undoing the pejorative message her supporters had proliferated during the primary. It's not a surprise that so many young people were disillusioned.
Now they have the likes of AOC.

 

[BlueTX]

like I said, I'm sure plenty of Sanders voters didnt come out for the GE but not because they thought Clinton and Trump were two sides of the same coin.
They didn't come out because the Clinton campaign didn't energize them, if it did anything, it probably alienated them.

Personally, my friends who were Clinton supporters were very disparaging of Sanders after the primaries and before the GE.
Sanders ran an idealistic campaign that energized people that had never been interested in politics before. The Clinton campaign targeted all Sanders supporters as 'Bernie bros' and out of touch socialist idealists. After the primary she picked Kaine as her running mate and put very little effort in to undoing the pejorative message her supporters had proliferated during the primary. It's not a surprise that so many young people were disillusioned.
Now they have the likes of AOC.

Pennsylvania is an interesting case study. In 2012, Jill Stein got 20,000 votes in PA. In 2016, she got 50,000. In 2012 it is estimated (since PA doesn't give completely accurate write in totals) there were less than 15,000 write in votes and in 2016 there are estimates as high as 75,000 votes. I gotta think a YUGE chunk of those 2016 votes were from Sanders supporters.

That's not to say his supporters are the reason Clinton lost. She managed that on her own (with the help of an utterly arcane Electoral College system).

 

[abelard]

And there it is, the obligatory shot at Canada. And who are these prairie mall cops you refer to? Harper (born in Toronto and as far from dim-witted and hot-tempered as they come), or Andrew Scheer, (born in Ottawa and former Speaker of the House, again far from dim-witted or hot-tempered)? Once again, your ignorance of my country reveals itself to new depths. Thing are going badly for Trudeau because he's the dim-witted one who's in way over his head.

aw, petal

born in Toronto

born in Ottawa

lol that's a cute effort

Have you ever read even a single word about Harper? His temper is legendary. You'll be surprised to learn that the persona politicians cultivate on television often does not reflect who they really are.

He was at least intelligent, to be fair, but not wise, and also meglomaniacal, paranoid, and authoritarian. Just like a mall cop.

Scheer, on the other hand, makes even an oaf like Trudeau look like Aristotle.

But please, continue your vigil as Canada's self-appointed forum Batman, watchful protector of the dark alleys of the Current Affairs section, swooping in to defend Fair Maiden's honour from even the slightest of off-hand smart-ass passing remarks

 

[abelard]

How do you respond to claims that he's only running because of a belief in "his own divine personal right to be the president?"

Did you read the article I posted by notoriously misogynist elderly white male Republican propagandist Donna Brazille yet?

Sanders has been defending the same values and ideals for nearly 40 years, standing on principle despite constant media ridicule or dismissal and without so much as a prayer of winning meaningful power for 98% of his public career.

His credibility is unrivaled in American politics.

Clinton, on the other hand, devoted her career to raking in money hand-over-first from the inherited fortunes, investment banks and petty tyrants of the world, while triangulating via demagogic racism in a vain attempt to court proto-Trump supporters, and by working to gut the safety net beyond even the Republicans' wildest fever dreams. She championed both the Iraq War and financial deregulation, contributing to the worst foreign policy and economic catastrophes in sixty and eighty years respectively. And it has never so much as occurred to her that she should bear any responsibility or suffer any consequence for the misery caused by her procession of terrible decisions, which have done so much to pave the way for Trump.

Sanders decided to run again only after careful deliberation, because there is nobody else advocating his policy agenda. He would undoubtedly have stood aside were AOC and others who share his supporters' values even legally old enough to take on the mantel. He clearly has great respect for Warren, but their politics differ in a number of important ways, thus he is running to provide primary voters with meaningful policy choices. And of course, should Warren or anyone else win intsead, he will spare no effort in supporting them, just as he did for Clinton to far greater effect than she herself could manage, and even as she consoled herself by pouting about his having the temerity to interfere with her stage-managed coronation.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

like I said, I'm sure plenty of Sanders voters didnt come out for the GE but not because they thought Clinton and Trump were two sides of the same coin.
They didn't come out because the Clinton campaign didn't energize them, if it did anything, it probably alienated them.

Personally, my friends who were Clinton supporters were very disparaging of Sanders after the primaries and before the GE.
Sanders ran an idealistic campaign that energized people that had never been interested in politics before. The Clinton campaign targeted all Sanders supporters as 'Bernie bros' and out of touch socialist idealists. After the primary she picked Kaine as her running mate and put very little effort in to undoing the pejorative message her supporters had proliferated during the primary. It's not a surprise that so many young people were disillusioned.
Now they have the likes of AOC.

I think the one legitimate argument that Clinton supporters have re: Bernie is that some of his campaign's attacks on her were pretty rough for a primary, and probably impacted her ability to turn people out in the general (even more than it would have been just from her history) - and possibly even pushed some to Trump, given that he was (on the face of it) running on a similar sort of "give everyone a fair shake" message as Bernie.

I'd hope that the candidates this cycle will have learned from that, and will rein in the negative messaging. At the end of the day, whoever comes through this Primary needs to not be so badly damaged that they are like the walking wounded going up against Trump.

 

[abelard]

To be clear: the Bernie supporters of legend who voted for Trump were NOT lifelong Democrats throwing a hissy fit over Clinton; they were people who would otherwise never in a hundred years have voted Democrat, never in a million years have voted for Hillary, and most likely, never otherwise have voted at all, but who signed up/switched parties specifically and only because for the first time in living memory, Sanders (and indeed Trump) offered something different.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

To be clear: the Bernie supporters of legend who voted for Trump were NOT lifelong Democrats throwing a hissy fit over Clinton; they were people who would otherwise never in a hundred years have voted Democrat, never in a million years have voted for Hillary, and most likely, never otherwise have voted at all, but who signed up/switched parties specifically and only because for the first time in living memory, Sanders (and indeed Trump) offered something different.

any data to back up that sweeping statement? (Since I'm pretty sure I've read polling in the dim and distant past that showed a fair few of the Obama-Trump voters to have been Bernie supporters in the Dem primary?)

EDIT - also Bernie supporters who stayed home were likely a bigger problem than those who voted for Trump

 

[abelard]

any data to back up that sweeping statement? (Since I'm pretty sure I've read polling in the dim and distant past that showed a fair few of the Obama-Trump voters to have been Bernie supporters in the Dem primary?)

EDIT - also Bernie supporters who stayed home were likely a bigger problem than those who voted for Trump

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/GDF6Z0/RK0ONG&version=4.0

From a summary:
Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That is according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people. (For perspective, a run-of-the-mill survey measuring Trump's job approval right now has a sample of 800 to 1,500.)

Political science professor Brian Schaffner of University of Massachusetts, Amherst tweeted the data on Wednesday.

Schaffner's numbers show that after a bitter Democratic primary, more than 1 in 10 of those who voted in the primaries for the very progressive Sanders ended up voting for the Republican in the general election, rather than for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

What drove those voters to Trump? Schaffner dug into that, as well. What it wasn't was trade, an issue where Sanders was closer to Trump's philosophy than Clinton's. At least, the issue of trade didn't seem to have that much of an impact.

Party seems to have had something to do with it — Sanders-Trump voters were much less likely than Sanders-Clinton or Sanders-third party voters to have been Democrats. Likewise, approval of President Barack Obama appears to be related — Sanders-Trump voters approved of Obama much less than other Sanders primary voters.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

https://dataverse.harvard.edu/file.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/GDF6Z0/RK0ONG&version=4.0

From a summary:
Fully 12 percent of people who voted for Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries voted for President Trump in the general election. That is according to the data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study — a massive election survey of around 50,000 people. (For perspective, a run-of-the-mill survey measuring Trump's job approval right now has a sample of 800 to 1,500.)

Political science professor Brian Schaffner of University of Massachusetts, Amherst tweeted the data on Wednesday.

Schaffner's numbers show that after a bitter Democratic primary, more than 1 in 10 of those who voted in the primaries for the very progressive Sanders ended up voting for the Republican in the general election, rather than for the Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton.

What drove those voters to Trump? Schaffner dug into that, as well. What it wasn't was trade, an issue where Sanders was closer to Trump's philosophy than Clinton's. At least, the issue of trade didn't seem to have that much of an impact.

Party seems to have had something to do with it — Sanders-Trump voters were much less likely than Sanders-Clinton or Sanders-third party voters to have been Democrats. Likewise, approval of President Barack Obama appears to be related — Sanders-Trump voters approved of Obama much less than other Sanders primary voters.

I'll confess this is an area where my knowledge of voting rules etc is a bit spotty... but can anyone vote in a Primary, or do you have to be registered with the party in question?

 

[abelard]

I'll confess this is an area where my knowledge of voting rules etc is a bit spotty... but can anyone vote in a Primary, or do you have to be registered with the party in question?

Generally yes, but Primaries and Caucuses are very different. And each state runs them in slightly different ways. Thus, in New York for example, the DNC, by now seriously alarmed by the wave of support for Sanders, worked behind the scenes through means above-board and otherwise to make it all but impossible for new members to join, particularly in New York City - one of the countless examples of the party squandering its long-term interests to tilt the scales for Hillary.

American democracy is like Britain before the Reform Acts. It is like one of those Cuban cars from the 1950, which still runs not by observing the laws of physics, but through decades of accumulated spit, polish, rubber bands, moonbeams, prayers, and hundreds of overlapping and ingenious short-term emergency fixes.

The country is physically incapable of upholding the basic principle of 'one person one vote.' It depends on at least 35% of eligible voters staying home. The 2018 midterms, for instance, witnessed a historic surge in turnout to 60% - well below the normal rate for legislative elections in just about any other democracy. And even that virtually broke the system, with widespread technical failures and voters in hundreds of places made to wait for hours.

The fact that liberals responded not with outrage but instead like the horse in Animal Farm, selfie-ing up the internet with pictures of themselves plodding through queues, as though enduring blatant corruption was a patriotic act, goes some way to explaining how it all became such mess to begin with.

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Generally yes, but Primaries and Caucuses are very different. And each state runs them in slightly different ways. Thus, in New York for example, the DNC, by now seriously alarmed by the wave of support for Sanders, worked behind the scenes through means above-board and otherwise to make it all but impossible for new members to join, particularly in New York City - one of the countless examples of the party squandering its long-term interests to tilt the scales for Hillary.

American democracy is like Britain before the Reform Acts. It is like one of those Cuban cars from the 1950, which still runs not by observing the laws of physics, but through decades of accumulated spit, polish, rubber bands, moonbeams, prayers, and hundreds of overlapping and ingenious short-term emergency fixes.

The country is physically incapable of upholding the basic principle of 'one person one vote.' It depends on at least 35% of eligible voters staying home. The 2018 midterms, for instance, witnessed a historic surge in turnout to 60% - well below the normal rate for legislative elections in just about any other democracy. And even that virtually broke the system, with widespread technical failures and voters in hundreds of places made to wait for hours.

The fact that liberals responded not with outrage but instead like the horse in Animal Farm, selfie-ing up the internet with pictures of themselves plodding through queues, as though enduring blatant corruption was a patriotic act, goes some way to explaining how it all became such mess to begin with.

sorry, it wasn't clear - when you said "generally yes" - is that a yes to needing to be registered?

 

[Ruairi77]

sorry, it wasn't clear - when you said "generally yes" - is that a yes to needing to be registered?

Differs from state to state. In Mass, I’m not registered to either party so on primary day I have to choose between a dem or gop ballot. Other states, you have to be registered.

 

[LinekersLegs]

Add another to the list of runners

 

[DanEFC92]

Add another to the list of runners

Never heard of him ha

 

[BirkenheadBlue]

Add another to the list of runners

I don’t get the logic behind some of these people running.