2016 US Presidential Election Thread - VII

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2016 US Presidential Thread - VII

Ehhh. I goofed up the nomenclature by not including 'Election' in Title. Feel free to ignore and start fresh or carry-on. My Polish GOP brain hath failed me.


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So let me see if I understand this...

Sanders this weekend beat Clinton in all 3 states,
82%-18% in Alaska, 70%-30% in Hawai'i and 73%-27% in Washington, yet the majority of the Super delegates from those 3 states have pledged to Hillary.

Yeah, politicians work for the people...sure.
 
Sanders update!


Clinton is at 108% of the delegates she needs to be on track to win the majority of pledged delegates.

Sander is at 92% of the delegates he needs to be on track to win the majority of pledged delegates.


Thanks to his blowout wins this Saturday, Sanders is now only 93 delegates behind the pace he needs to ultimately capture the nomination and there's well over 2,000 delegates still to come. God only knows how big the uproar will be if Sanders ends up winning the hearts of the voters and ends up losing the nomination because a couple hundred party big-wigs feel they should get to choose the next President. It would absolutely break my heart to see the Democratic party ignore the voters which would lead to...

1) Wasting everyone's time and money since the voters had no actual say in who got to be their nominee.

2) Disenfranchising younger and independent voters that could have been with the party for decades in order to please older voters that will mostly be gone from this planet in about fifteen years.

3) Choosing a candidate that consistently performs far, far worse in head-to-head match-ups with the potential Republican nominees, both in state and national polling. Why on earth would they want to usurp the voters and go with a proven weaker candidate with the highest negative rating this cycle (other than Trump) is beyond me...


Until then, Sanders still has a tough uphill climb, particularly with Pennsylvania and New York, so it's quite the longshot. But at this point, we'd all bee foolish to count him out.
 
So let me see if I understand this...

Sanders this weekend beat Clinton in all 3 states,
82%-18% in Alaska, 70%-30% in Hawai'i and 73%-27% in Washington, yet the majority of the Super delegates from those 3 states have pledged to Hillary.

Yeah, politicians work for the people...sure.

The way we elect our president is completely fucked up in every way. The primary system is ridiculous, and don't even get me started on the electoral college.
 
The Secret Service just did the GOP a huge favor. That would have been the death of the misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment as a foundational pier of their platform.

The government just saved the village of idiots.


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So Australia's biggest political troll just endorsed the US's biggest political troll: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...of-former-australian-labor-leader-mark-latham

For those of you who aren't Kieran or Cobbler, probably the lowest of Latham's many low moments is when he derided Rosie Batty, a woman who came to prominence after she harnessed her grief at her ex murdering her son to become a domestic violence campaigner. So he's in good company with Rapin' Donald.
 
So Australia's biggest political troll just endorsed the US's biggest political troll: Donald Trump wins backing of former Australian Labor leader Mark Latham | US news | The Guardian

For those of you who aren't Kieran or Cobbler, probably the lowest of Latham's many low moments is when he derided Rosie Batty, a woman who came to prominence after she harnessed her grief at her ex murdering her son to become a domestic violence campaigner. So he's in good company with Rapin' Donald.

Every time you think you've hit rock bottom with Mark Latham, the floor drops away once more. There is no bottom.
 
Translated into a US context, this is like the equivalent of John Kerry (vaguely, insert any losing Democrat nominee for President) deciding that every Democrat candidate is awful and endorsing one of the more extreme Republicans. This is probably not a great comparison, as Latham is not a politician anymore, but I hope it helps to understand just how ridiculous this is.
 
Ok I'll imagine him as Michael Dukakis or Strom Thurmond. i know they're completely different people but i don't give a shit anyways.
 
The analogy isn't great, but I tend to think of Mark Latham as similar to Hitchens in some ways, a nominal leftist who steadily drifted the other way and never stopped and eventually fell off the map. Albeit for very different reasons; in Latham's case it's some sort of toxic brew of macho culture as it relates to (what he perceives as) working class authenticity or something. Never mind that Latho's actual politics in his heyday were pure 'Third Way' Blair/Clintonism.

Australia has a proud tradition of feral ex-Laborites. Billy Hughes, Joe Lyons, Bill Hayden, Peter Walsh, Latho.
 
Actually, translated into a US context, this is (a little bit) like the ideological trajectory of someone like Charlton Heston. Except he was never a politician, albeit a visible public figure at various points.
 
2016 US Presidential Thread - VII

So let me see if I understand this...

Sanders this weekend beat Clinton in all 3 states,
82%-18% in Alaska, 70%-30% in Hawai'i and 73%-27% in Washington, yet the majority of the Super delegates from those 3 states have pledged to Hillary.

Yeah, politicians work for the people...sure.


I have no doubt that the supers will line up being Sanders if he ends up with a majority of the pledged delegates. To call the supers "pledged" at this point is simply wrong. They've indicated whom they'll vote for, but they have every right to change. We saw this in 2008.

That said, I'm disinclined to take strong victories in a handful of Sanders-friendly states and extrapolate them too far forward.

But the race is close enough to have me slightly worried. I very strongly do not want Sanders to be the nominee.


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oh well Sanders was the nominee or even politician I have wanted for my entire life; you know, someone who care about ordinary citizens and democracy. He's sane and knows what actually benefits people; I am expecting that if US goes liberal, sufficient number of people in my country might follow that example (happened in Bush era in 2000s, when politicians started saying going Iraq or deregulations are good idea).
 
I agree that the supers will line up behind Sanders if he wins in pledged delegates. I was worried that a few holdouts for the Clinton camp could tilt the balance in her favor, but that actually can't happen because Sanders winning the pledged delegate count would mean he would just need to win a bare majority (or even less depending on his pledged delegate lead) of superdelegates in order to clinch the nomination.

So, people's fears are unfounded unless there really are about 300 a-hole superdelegates that will refuse to budge and vote for Clinton regardless. Then we have a problem.

My take is pretty simple. You win the pledged delegate count by a single delegate and you're the nominee. End of. We can talk about needing to change the nominee if something happens by the time of the convention when we get there. But as it stands, the right and fair way is for the democratic process to be honored and for the winner to be the person who amasses more support from the voters.
 
And if it does come down to it, the DNC will ultimately just remove the powers of the superdelegates if they have to. There's virtually no upside to Clinton becoming the nominee by promising jobs and goodies to a bunch of supers. It leaves the party with the crappier candidate based on polling and the one with more emotional baggage in exchange for disenfranchising the majority of the voters. Not going to happen.

If they do let it happen, it really could destroy Clinton's chances in the general. You'd have to be crazy to think most of the Sanders supporters are going to get in line behind her if she outright steals the nomination. There's nothing more frustrating in this world than telling someone they'll get something and then yanking out the rug at the last minute. Millions of people will have every reason to feel betrayed.
 
I have no doubt that the supers will line up being Sanders if he ends up with a majority of the pledged delegates. To call the supers "pledged" at this point is simply wrong. They've indicated whom they'll vote for, but they have every right to change. We saw this in 2008.

That said, I'm disinclined to take strong victories in a handful of Sanders-friendly states and extrapolate them too far forward.

But the race is close enough to have me slightly worried. I very strongly do not want Sanders to be the nominee.


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I had an argument about this on a different forum. Could you imagine the rage from the independent and middle left democrats who feel as though supers took away their nomination? It would be urging them to vote for Trump.
 
I had an argument about this on a different forum. Could you imagine the rage from the independent and middle left democrats who feel as though supers took away their nomination? It would be urging them to vote for Trump.


I completely understand that these voters would feel betrayal, but I don't understand how any of these voters would be urged to vote for Trump?! It would be a complete dismissal of everything these voters stood for just 5 min prior. Do we believe these voters to be that uninformed or that petty? I would hope not.


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I completely understand that these voters would feel betrayal, but I don't understand how any of these voters would be urged to vote for Trump?! It would be a complete dismissal of everything these voters stood for just 5 min prior. Do we believe these voters to be that uninformed or that petty? I would hope not.


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Bernie Sanders has a sizable constituency of independent and turncoat voters just like Trump. Lots of his supporters like him for being "an outsider," "not part of the system," etc. etc.

The majority of them? Absolutely not. Enough to throw an election? Absolutely.

I feel like there's this notion that every Republican voter is a dumbass and every Democrat voter can't possibly be nearly as stupid. It wouldn't be a "complete dismissal" as you say. You overestimate the competence of many voters in general. Regardless of party or affiliation. The appeal of a Sanders candidacy shares a handful of characteristics of a Trump candidacy, and those characteristics are ripe for the picking right now.

No, I don't think they're very alike. Of course not. Just felt I'd toss that out there before this get misinterprets.
 
Bernie Sanders has a sizable constituency of independent and turncoat voters just like Trump. Lots of his supporters like him for being "an outsider," "not part of the system," etc. etc.

The majority of them? Absolutely not. Enough to throw an election? Absolutely.

I feel like there's this notion that every Republican voter is a dumbass and every Democrat voter can't possibly be nearly as stupid. It wouldn't be a "complete dismissal" as you say. You overestimate the competence of many voters in general. Regardless of party or affiliation.


Not at all. I know plenty of very intelligent Republicans(and they are appalled at their current party), and I know there are plenty of mindless Democrats. Are all Republicans stupid? No. Are all Trump supporters? Yes. I know; a very bold and dismissive statement, but there has never been a candidate in recent history where the writing on the wall has been clearer.

This idea of having an outsider is extremely appealing! I get that. But the idea that any outsider will do is dangerous. The notion that all "outsiders" are interchangeable is silly. Will Trump have some crossover? Sure. Enough to make a difference? No.

And if I'm wrong and somehow those on one side are suddenly attracted to authoritarianism, then this society gets what they deserve and fuck us for we've failed miserably.


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