2016 US Presidential Election Thread IX

[Irvine511]

If there are so many independents just jonesing to Feel The Bern, how has Hillary won more open primaries?

Logic would tell you that if there are so many independent BernieBros just comping at the bit to cast their vote that he'd dominate any open primary.

I guess I just don't understand math.

This is like how U2 didn't sell out all those shows that they sold out in 2014.

 

[trojanchick99]

Trump is talking about Vince Foster and murder.

That sounds like the shakeup of the system the Trumpsters say they want!

It's really is the '90s again. Time to get out my baby doll dress and doc martens.

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[anitram]

I was in the US this past weekend, we went out to join my husband who was in Boston at the time. He is an economist who spends much of his time in the US and says that the most surprising thing to him is that even educated people who are in finance and with whom he interacts daily seem to be very negative about the US economy and outlook. And he is going around telling them what a great situation the US is in at the moment, in terms of economic growth and outlook and they look at him like he's grown a second head. But it's kind of indicative of how when a certain meme is repeated so many times people start to buy into it. The whole "Make America Great Again" slogan is pure genius, because it is simple (and simple-minded), effective, and has perpetuated this lie that things are dire.

 

[cobl04]

I thought Make America Great Again was less about the economy and more about just masturbating over American pride.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

That's what I masturbate to 9 out of 10 times.

 

[Oregoropa]

It's really is the '90s again. Time to get out my baby doll dress and doc martens.

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Then we better camp out overnight in the mall with the Saved by the Bell crew to get Zoo TV tickets. Which is awesome.


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[Irvine511]

I thought Make America Great Again was less about the economy and more about just masturbating over American pride.

it's also subtly racist. the minorities are in charge now. we want to go back to whiter times.

 

[anitram]

I thought Make America Great Again was less about the economy and more about just masturbating over American pride.

It kind of all goes back to the economy.

If you're lower middle class and white and live in some midwestern dumpy town with poisoned water and haven't gotten a raise and have a crappy job, your life sucks compared to that of your parents. Then Trump tells you that the jobs are being taken by Mexican rapists and Chinese communist children who make things in factories for a lot cheaper. Companies that have moved abroad have profited greatly but you and your country haven't, not really, so that America is being "shown up" by more intelligent Asians who devalue their money in order to defeat you in the free trade markets which have been foisted upon you by unscrupulous Washington politicians who get kickbacks from said Asians. So because America is not the economic force it once was, that allows manly men like Putin to wag their dick around while wrestling bears naked on the Ukrainian border. Not to mention those corrupt raghead Arabs controlling the global price of oil, they're in cahoots with the Liberals at home who want to protect moss and moose instead of drilling, baby, drilling so poor America can't rely on liquid gold under Sarah Palin's house.

Hence the need to make America great again.

Now this may sound funny but I think we laugh at millions of people who think along these lines at our own peril.

 

[Hewson]

That's what I masturbate to 9 out of 10 times.

The other 1 time is

Spoiler

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

He's just so dreamy

 

[Oregoropa]

Are you fantasizing they are Lucifer's Hands?


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[corianderstem]

Clearly this discussion belongs here:

http://www.u2interference.com/forum...ground-u2-tracks-during-sexy-time-220142.html

That's not a complaint, it's a request that it be added to that thread as well.

 

[dazzledbylight]

Trump is talking about Vince Foster and murder.

That sounds like the shakeup of the system the Trumpsters say they want!

Oh geez , that, too again? Beat the dead horse, Trump, will ya.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

If there are so many independents just jonesing to Feel The Bern, how has Hillary won more open primaries?

Logic would tell you that if there are so many independent BernieBros just comping at the bit to cast their vote that he'd dominate any open primary.

I guess I just don't understand math.

You really don't because like that other poster you're making the assumption that a ton of independents voting for Bernie in a given state means he would win handily when the vast majority of voters in the Democratic primaries are registered Democrats. Bernie running can lead to, say, 20% of voters in an open primary being independents because they're voting for him and then still lose the state by a considerable margin as Clinton tended to school him with Democrats.

Think of it as an anti-gay party suddenly having a pro-gay politician, leading to a ton of gays voting in the primary that weren't part of the process beforehand. You wouldn't suddenly expect that politician to win just because he's bringing in so many new people to the fold as most of the primary voters are still going to be lifelong members of that party.

Sanders's non-affiliated voters is certainly a sizable group, but it's nowhere close to being enough to tip the scales. Three million voters (a fair estimate) isn't going to be enough to close the gap when you're losing by like eight million among Democrats alone. But it is enough to make a huge difference in the general election landscape (millions of independents voting for Sanders is huge considering Obama won the popular vote by like five million votes last time), hence why the Democratic party just made huge concessions today in its platform to Bernie Sanders, the first time ever for a losing candidate. They would not have done that if most of his support were coming from Democrats that they could count on in November regardless.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

But there are millions of them. MILLIONS.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

But there are millions of them. MILLIONS.

The Hidden Importance Of The Sanders Voter | FiveThirtyEight


"There’s a key twist, though, in tracking how Sanders voters are affecting Clinton’s general election prospects. Unless you break out the numbers for Sanders voters specifically, as YouGov does, you may miss their importance.

That’s because a lot of Sanders voters don’t identify as Democrats. Exit polls have been conducted in 27 primary and caucus states so far, and Clinton has won among voters who identify as Democrats in all but Vermont, New Hampshire and Wisconsin (where she tied Sanders). But she’s won self-identified independents only in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi. (I keep using that term “self-identified” because the exit poll asks voters how they “usually think of” themselves — Democrat, Republican or independent. A voter’s self-identification may differ from her party registration, and some states do not have party registration at all.)"



24% of Democratic primary voters have been self-identified independents. That comes out to 5.6 million voters just if you add the current cumulative Bernie/Clinton vote totals together (which don't even take into account caucuses because they don't have voter totals). Sanders has won this group by 31 points.

100 - 31 = 69. 69/2 = 34.5. 34.5 + 31 = 64.5% of Independents for Sanders compared to 35.5% for Clinton.

64.5% of 5.6 million = 3.6 million voters.

And again, that doesn't count the caucuses. You are now looking at Sanders probably finishing this primary season with nearly the same amount of non-Democrats as the margin that Obama won the general election by in 2012.


Also, if Sanders had won every single one of those voters, he would still trail Clinton by roughly a million votes. 5.6 million independents already voting is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not enough to overcome the fact that 3/4 of the voters are Democrats. Clinton clobbers him 63.5 to 36.5 among those voters. That's huge and explains why having all of these independent voters isn't enough to overcome that. Clinton is beating him by about six million voters among just Democrats.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

For fun, let's try this exercise on for size. Turnout dropped 3.3% from 2008 to 2012 and resulted in an increase in the popular vote share for the Republican candidate of 1.5%. Romney still lost the popular vote to Obama by 3.9%.

So, for Trump to win the popular vote (and just considering him a "generic" Republican candidate rather than going into his negatives), he would need turnout to drop by about 8.8% from the 2012 level alone. That would mean turnout would be at only 46.1% which would be insanely low for a Presidential election year.

Why is this number of 46.1% turnout fair? Because I'm figuring that the continued "loss" for Republicans every four years due to new young liberals and more Republicans dying off is baked into the difference from 2008 to 2012. I know, apples and oranges in terms of candidates and America's situation, etc. But that's a fair way to go about things if you're just considering the Republican to get those sort of votes regardless.

Now, turnout can certainly drop from that 54.9% mark last time. Clinton has high unfavorables and is no Obama while Trump isn't well liked either. Meanwhile, voter ID laws are certainly going to help lower the totals (and mostly harm Democratic leaning voters).

The real risk would be Trump's favorability being high enough within his own party that he gets the McCain/Romney share while Clinton's unfavorables drastically lower the overall turnout total. Then things could be close.

But where it stands now? Trump's been regularly earning 42% of the vote in polling. McCain got 45.7% in the election and Romney received 47.2%. Sounds about right.

But if Democratic turnout were to drop off significantly since Clinton is no Obama, you can start seeing Trump edge up to 43% and 44% and so forth...that share of the pie suddenly becomes larger when one side doesn't bother to vote.

 

[DaveC]

stop fucking whining

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Also, before people start coming in here just saying "exit polls are lies" or whatever other crap because it doesn't suit their narrative, I have one question for you. Why on earth is it so hard to believe that Sanders, a far-left candidate in 2016, has had 3.6 million non-Democrats vote for him when Ralph Nader, a far-left candidate in 2000 earned 2.9 million votes. Doesn't really take too much effort to figure out that there's always been a group of people on the far left that feel the Democrats don't suit their best interests. It's just that for the first time in recent history they've actually had a far-left contender to vote for within the party.

 

[PhilsFan]

You cited Nate Silver earlier, who has been getting his ass kicked since the beginning of primary season.

 

[BEAL]

Last week with John Oliver

https://youtu.be/_S2G8jhhUHg

Samantha Bee

https://youtu.be/nTnPCF9OWHM


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[BigMacPhisto]

You cited Nate Silver earlier, who has been getting his ass kicked since the beginning of primary season.

Yeah, but the math I just did above has nothing really to do with his opinions. It's merely the end result from the data in those polls. Either you think people are just lying and the amount of self-identified independents in the Democratic primary has been like 5% or less or the idea of millions of non-Democrats being brought into the fold by Sanders (something reiterated over and over by the media as fact) is certain truth.

Also, Nate Silver didn't fuck up anything statistically. The polling models have been fine this primary season. It was the conjecture about why Trump would eventually fail that ended up not coming to fruition. That's not data or science driven.

 

[Irvine511]

Nader voters should continue to apologize to each and every one of us each and every day.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Last week with John Oliver

https://youtu.be/_S2G8jhhUHg

The answer to me seems pretty damn obvious. One person, one vote. No superdelegates, no caucuses, no voting for delegates to presumably vote for your person at the convention.

I mean, the entire idea of having delegates is just like the Electoral College. The latter is basically because of slavery and the former is because the parties used to choose the candidates themselves. Neither serves a purpose in the modern day, nor would you need SuperDelegates to really stop a Lyndon LaRouche from winning the Democratic primary or whatever.

And it would probably be even smarter to just stop the state-by-state nonsense and have a single primary day for all parties in, say, early June. The candidates have months to ramp things up and then everybody in the country can vote on major issues, local officials and the one party they decide to choose to vote within. There could then be a runoff day a few weeks later for the top two candidates or that could be avoided entirely with Instant Runoff Voting.

In a world where there's the internet and quick spread of information, I really don't think the results would have been much different if we all just voted in June. Sanders would get like 45% or a bit more and lose to Clinton while Trump would win a plurality, etc.

 

[BigMacPhisto]

Nader voters should continue to apologize to each and every one of us each and every day.

Or Clinton/Gore should apologize for moving the party rightward and alienating those on the left along with the Clinton blowjobs that alienated the stupid.

 

[DaveC]

stop fucking whining

stop fucking whining

stop fucking whining

please

 

[cobl04]

You cited Nate Silver earlier, who has been getting his ass kicked since the beginning of primary season.

Really? What for? (genuine question)

I fucking love his site

 

[deep]

because he and his contributors let their bias creep into their projections and the articles they would cite and post, in 2008 he was more on the money, was credible, now just another asshat

 

[Axver]

Or Clinton/Gore should apologize for moving the party rightward and alienating those on the left along with the Clinton blowjobs that alienated the stupid.

I hope you enjoy voting indirectly for President Trump.

 

[Irvine511]

Or Clinton/Gore should apologize for moving the party rightward and alienating those on the left along with the Clinton blowjobs that alienated the stupid.

Or some of us could get over ourselves and vote like it matters. Because it does.

Minorities, women, and LGBT voters don't have the luxury of Jill Stein votes, or of inflating Sanders' ego whereby he, a soundly losing candidate, exacts petty demands lest he refuse to unite the party. Let's see if Sanders cares about defeating Trump, or if Sanders cares about Sanders. You want to splinter the left and erode Clinton support and then blame her? Was it what she was wearing? You want to mindlessly equivocate between Trump and Clinton as Jill Strin has done? Do you actually think the parties are the same? Would a President Gore have done what W did?

It only took 100,000 assholes in FL to give us the Bush nightmare.