Monday Open Thread [3.28.16]
CALIFORNIA—LA Times–Trump 36, Cruz 35, Kasich 14
CALIFORNIA—LA Times–Clinton 47, Sanders 36
CALIFORNIA—LA Times–Clinton 59, Trump 28 | Clinton 54, Kasich 35 | Clinton 59, Cruz 31
To be the nominee, Bernie needs to win California 75-25. He won’t. And Jason will be eating his dumb post from this morning.
David Axelrod says we are witnessing the implosion of the Republican Party: “The normal pattern of GOP nominating contests for the past two decades is that the party endures heated primary fights between populist, evangelical and center-right candidates, only to settle on the leading establishment choice. No more.”
“Having stoked anti-Obama fever in order to score midterm victories at the polls and then failed to deliver on pledges to derail major elements of the President’s agenda, the party elite now finds itself overrun by a wave of outrage and discontent.”
It’s not an implosion. It is merely chickens returning home to roost, or its karma, whatever ironic metaphor you want you to use. The GOP created a monster, and now the monster is taking over the GOP.
LOL, and as if on cue, Donald Trump blasted reports that Sen. Ted Cruz will pick up extra delegates in Louisiana weeks after the state’s primary. Said Trump: “What’s going on in the Republican Party is a disgrace.”
Harry Enten says Sanders overperforms in Caucauses, and he doesn’t gain momentum from his caucus wins, and he is about to run out of caucuses to win.
The problem for the Sanders campaign is that there are only two caucuses left on the Democratic primary calendar. […]
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: How do we know that Sanders’s big wins this week aren’t a sign that something more fundamental about the Democratic race has changed? We don’t, necessarily. But look at the calendar: Sanders also outperformed his delegate targets in Colorado, Kansas and Maine earlier this month, and he still went on to suffer big losses on March 15. And that was after his shocking Michigan victory. Moreover, Sanders greatly underperformed his delegate targets last Tuesday in Arizona, which held a primary and has a more diverse electorate.
Most likely, Sanders will need to find another way to make up ground on Clinton in the delegate race. Wyoming (April 9) and North Dakota (June 7) are the only remaining stateside caucuses. The rest of the stateside races are primaries. Sanders has exceeded his delegate targets in just three stateside primaries. He’s matched them in three and underperformed in 15. Given that Sanders is still so far behind in the delegate count, he needs to outperform his delegate targets by a lot.
How likely is that? Well, he’s behind by about 6 percentage points in Wisconsin, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted polling average. That’s not a huge deficit, and it wouldn’t shock me if Sanders won Wisconsin given that the black population there is below 10 percent. (To match his delegate target in Wisconsin, he needs a net gain of 10 delegates there.) Sanders, though, will likely have more difficulty in later primaries in April, such as Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania, where African Americans make up more than 10 percent of the state’s population.
Sanders had a strong week, and this has been a crazy year in politics. But there’s nothing in the recent results to suggest that the overall trajectory of the Democratic race has changed. Clinton was and is a prohibitive favorite to win the nomination.
From Julian Zelizer’s “Is Sanders doing Clinton a favor?” at CNN Politics: “In the long run, Sanders may turn out to have been one of the best things to have happened to Clinton’s campaign…Assuming that she does win the nomination, Clinton will emerge as a much stronger candidate and her campaign operation will be in a better position for the fall, thanks to Sanders’ insurgency. Unlike divisive primaries that hurt a political party — such as Sen. Ted Kennedy’s challenge to President Jimmy Carter in 1980 or, most likely, the internecine battle that is ravaging the GOP this year — the Democrats will benefit as a result of the past few months.”
But Joan Walsh argues, also at The Nation, that Sanders can’t win without broadening his base of support beyond white working-class voters. Translation: he needs to win old voters and black voters. He is not and thus will not win the nomination.
New York Times: “As the Republican Party collapses on itself, conservative leaders struggling to explain Mr. Trump’s appeal have largely seized on his unique qualities as a candidate: his larger-than-life persona, his ability to dominate the airwaves, his tough-sounding if unrealistic policy proposals. Others ascribe Mr. Trump’s rise to the xenophobia and racism of Americans angry over their declining power.”
“But the story is also one of a party elite that abandoned its most faithful voters, blue-collar white Americans, who faced economic pain and uncertainty over the past decade as the party’s donors, lawmakers and lobbyists prospered. From mobile home parks in Florida and factory towns in Michigan, to Virginia’s coal country, where as many as one in five adults live on Social Security disability payments, disenchanted Republican voters lost faith in the agenda of their party’s leaders.”
David Atkins states that if Sanders demands concessions, it should be cabinet appointments (not for himself, obviously):
Realistically, the greatest difference between a Sanders and Clinton presidency would be in cabinet appointments. Sanders would doubtless appoint more Keynesian, less finance-sector-friendly officials at Treasury, and at Justice he would appoint those more willing to aggressively prosecute white collar, financial and environmental crimes. If Sanders could extract concessions from Clinton on those fronts, then he would in theory accomplish de facto most of what he could practically do differently as president.
And those concessions alone would be ample justification and rationale for his insurgent campaign, while doing little to no damage to Clinton’s prospects against the Republican nominee in the fall.
I know Berniebros do not deal in reality (read Jason’s piece this morning), so starting off a paragraph with “realistically” is perhaps asking too much.
Secretary of State John Kerry warned that the Republican presidential campaign raises awkward questions abroad about the reliability of the United States, Yahoo News reports.
Said Kerry: “They cannot believe it. I think it is fair to say that they’re shocked. They don’t know where it’s taking the United States of America.”
He added: “It upsets people’s sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability, and to some degree I must say to you, some of the questions, the way they’re posed to me, it’s clear to me that what’s happening is an embarrassment to our country.”
Right wing organizations have been working overtime to spread dissension about Clinton. Liberals who fall for this shit need to get a grip.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) March 28, 2016
Bernie, on the other hand, has much broader appeal. He's winning with every shade of white, and every age group under 30.
— Tom Hilton (@TVHilton) March 23, 2016
Flow Chart by Chris Lay added by Jason330 because it is the best thing ever:
“Right wing organizations have been working overtime to spread dissension about Clinton. Liberals who fall for this shit need to get a grip.”
It’s not too hard to tell the difference between smears from the right and authentic policy dissension on the left.
“When is Jesus coming back?”
I think we can all agree that the flow chart is the best thing ever.
Yeah, that flow chart is simply awesome. Question: Do you really see me that way? Because, given that chart, you must.
DD, On the one hand, you suggest Sanders’ candidacy is good for Clinton… on the other hand, you insult his supporters (who are the reason he has a candidacy) as dumb and sexist. Too much cognitive dissonance.
Out of curiosity, what you do you call the millions of young women supporting Sanders?… Other than hell-bound gender traitors, of course.
I call them women supporting Sanders. No more, no less. But people seem to think their sex is important. Why? I’d go with their age being the dominant factor, but this seems to be a big talking point among Sanders’ supporters and I don’t really understand the point of holding up women and minorities supporting Sanders. (Okay, I actually do understand the politics behind it. It’s countering a weakness. However, we’d be better off discussing/addressing that weakness. But maybe that’s just me.)
that comment wasn’t directed at you, pandora. I call them women supporting Sanders’ as well. But some need a cute name for their “enemy” and since “berniebro” implies that you have to be male to support Sanders, I was wondering what the people who use that term (people who arent you) do in that scenario.
Ya know how I’m not that ass-hat Sanders supporter you are talking about when you talk about the few ass-hats? You arent the “kind of Clinton” supporter I am EVER talking about when I bring it up.
Their age is a dominant factor how? (i agree.. and i know why I think it is)
Obviously being younger seems to make people more inclined to support Sanders. why do you think that is? that is not a trap question. You are someone who always has thoughtful opinions, and unless a group is totally undeserving of respect (we all know who i’m talking about), you don’t try to minimize people’s ideas.
It’s not too hard to tell the difference between smears from the right and authentic policy dissension on the left.
True. It’s a shame, though, that there isn’t as much “policy dissension” from the left as there is Clinton Derangement Syndrome.
Kevin Drum starts the bill of particulars, using Matt Taibbi’s piece in RS as a starter.
I have yet to see anyone make a sound, logical case for how Sanders’ campaign translates into more votes from likely voters for Clinton.
Re the chart: The first question is, Is shit broken? If yes, you get Trump, Cruz or Sanders. If no, you get Clinton or Kasich.
The intention of the chart is comic, so this is naturally reductive, but essentially accurate. Clinton is expressly running as the continuation of the Obama years, and I think there is merit in that position. However, it suggests that the changes required are tweaks, not rebuilds. Clearly the Sanders campaign is the one that offers changes beyond tweaks.
Just admit the obvious, DD: You are not a progressive or a liberal first, you are a Democrat first. A whore is a whore, no matter what he calls himself, and whether on not he has a heart of gold.
“I have yet to see anyone make a sound, logical case for how Sanders’ campaign translates into more votes from likely voters for Clinton.”
Ah, triangulation. Last refuge of the timid.
Politicians have to be timid. Voters don’t.
AAA, you are exhibit A (aa) to every negative argument against Sanders and his supporters.
Yeah, I’m not laughing. The chart demonstrates priorities only – and I’ve had this discussion before. I have multiple priorities, but if you go to the link above you might see why Bernie supporters on that thread concern me. I actually couldn’t believe – especially for a party that desperately needs women and minorities to win, ’cause white men and young people won’t cut it – what I was reading and how dismissive commenters were about social issues – that didn’t impact them one little bit.
So yeah, your linked to chart bothered me. It put me in a place where only my gender (or men who agree women are people) determined my vote.
Imagine if the choice read: Think income inequality is the most important issue that matters and we’ve spent too much time on social issues = Bernie supporter. You’d be okay with that description of you? Because that’s how that chart portrayed me. Nuance matters.
Clinton Derangement Syndrome? I think you mean Death to Traitorious Democrat Syndrome — as in, stop trying to pretend the Clintons are Democrats. They destroyed the party of the people in order to save it for themselves.
Meanwhile, on a far more interesting topic:
What’s happening in Georgia and North Carolina is amazing. Not the fact that their legislatures passed bigoted laws — that’s what Southern legislatures do — but the swift reaction, not from activists but from corporate America. The sucking sound of businesses and conventioneers pulling out of North Carolina was so loud that the governor of Georgia vetoed that state’s legalized bigotry.
I can see the South being marginalized by the private sector if its atavistic voters don’t change their behavior. It should be interesting to see if it does.
Social issues is how the ruling elite keeps the middle-class peons satisfied while their money is sucked away. And that’s an accurate description of me. I don’t see why you’re so easily mollified with a little equality for people who should have had it long ago. Is that what incrementalism means to you?
Pandora, I get your point, but I took the “are women people?” question as one intended to point out the misogyny on the right. In other words, there is no reason to vote for Kasich unless you don’t agree that women are people.
@ben: And you can go fuck yourself, too. I don’t support Sanders. I support his agenda.
I get that, J. I’m more focused on the first point – that I would agree that sh*t ain’t broken. It’s the path it puts me on that bothers me. Believe it, or not, Bernie and his supporters aren’t the only ones who agree with that statement. Where we differ is the solutions on how to fix it.
I’ve said many times that I’m for moving the ball down the field. I simply don’t think Bernie has a solution. He definitely has a strong campaign message, but I just don’t see how he accomplishes his campaign promises – and given that a large number of Bernie supporters are angry with Obama, I shudder to think how they’ll respond to President Sanders. Far too many of them (NOT ALL) embrace Bernie’s anger. Fair enough, and anger is needed. I just worry, given the political reality of Congress, what happens when he doesn’t accomplish any of his sweeping promises. Anger isn’t governing.
While knowing full well there is still a lot of work to do, (and for, now not considering prison reform a social issue.. although it is) Is it fair to say that “we” are winning on social issues.. and if not “winning, at least incrementally moving in the right direction? (which is apparently the preferred method of victory)
Does anyone feel the same about economic justice? (that we are incrementally moving in the right direction, that is) I dont. I think we are incrementally moving in the wrong direction. I think everyone here who identifies as a “democrat” (or something similar) would agree and has actually made that argument at one point or another to decry GOP /CarperDemocrat policies.
This idea that it is “social justice VS economic justice you must choose!” is friggin toxic. why not both? Why not make economic equality matter AS MUCH as any other kind of equality. How is it sexist/racist/___ist to feel that way? Because some interenet meme equated it to “alllivesmatter”?
The problem with Democratic incrementalism is that any gains are reversed and driven even further back by cyclical returns to Republican control. Republicans don’t believe in incrementalism. Democrats need to make hay while the sun shines and not hunker down in a defensive crouch until the next Republican administration takes power.
“…what happens when he doesn’t accomplish any of his sweeping promises. ”
I’d rather compromise from Bernie’s position than from Hillary’s.
“This idea that it is “social justice VS economic justice you must choose!” is friggin toxic. why not both?”
Because if you have two priorities, you have no priorities. It is, first and foremost, a singular noun. If you have two priorities, which takes priority?
“Is it fair to say that “we” are winning on social issues.. and if not “winning, at least incrementally moving in the right direction? (which is apparently the preferred method of victory)”
To this I would submit the vast number of actual laws passed on women’s reproductive rights. Other than voting to appeal Obamacare the GOP agenda against women is just as horrible as their views on income inequality. And, Ben, I asked the very same question in that thread I linked to. I said in that thread, “I have also said (many times, but which you ignore so you can make up something else I’ve “said”) that I agree 100% with Sanders’ economic platform but would like him to expand it.” Which is exactly the same thing you’re saying, Ben. We win!
Oh wow. If you have two priorities you have no priorities? I have two children so by that standard I couldn’t have two priorities. Kidding, sort of.
But when I see things like AAA’s comment above I get chills down my spine. If we can only have one priority then any (social) issue below that priority could be on the chopping block? Or ignored? Or held back? Tell me how this only one priority works.
Hillary’s priorities will be revealed first by her VP pick, and then by her Cabinet and staff picks.
I failed to consider what is happening in places like Texas and I’m sorry. Ground is being lost.
To puck’s point.. that is a case where one side is trying to take huge strides and you cant fight those tanks with cavalry…. so to speak. Major battles need to be fought and won, and I think a lot of people are sick of waiting. Perhaps RowvWade left too much room for interpretation… or at least too much maneuverability for some truly evil jackasses. Why wouldnt we want to make some vast, sweeping, and irreversible changes?
AAA is wrong and I can only hope he represents the tiny fraction I think he does. He’s like that Obama supporter who though they just had to vote once and it would all be sunshine and rainbows. Obama made no such promises… Sanders makes no such promises like the ones AAA seems to be supporting.
“This idea that it is “social justice VS economic justice you must choose!” is friggin toxic. why not both?
I see Bernie and Hillary as about even on social justice, therefore I can base my support on economic issues without sacrificing social justice.
pandora: fixing economic inequality will help everyone (ok, the 99 percent). change on social issues without fixing economic inequality would leave in place an unacceptable system for everybody (again, excluding the 1 percent). besides, democrats are already winning on social issues.
Only social issues that are governed nationally. Where states are still allowed to call their own, bigoted shots, it comes down to what party is in control… i.e million’s of women (and men) are being put at risk so the GOP can assert their control over women’s bodies.
“Hillary’s priorities will be revealed first by her VP pick, and then by her Cabinet and staff picks.”
Puck – Remember when Markell picked that GOP functionary Rochford to be his COS?
*chills*
http://delawareliberal.net//2008/11/10/markell-picks-pompous-ass-for-cos/
It’s comments like anonymous’ that cause me concern. I’m with Ben. We can prioritize income inequality AND social issues – which, as Ben points out, are losing at state levels. Those are very real laws being passed.
But not in our state. You can’t fix laws in a state you can’t vote in.
you can if you control the SCOTUS and the house, senate, and presidency… which is what the GOP angling for… and stands a chance of accomplishing.
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien.
The best is the enemy of good.
Voltaire
Oft times progressives remind me of Puritans with their zeal.
“I have two children so by that standard I couldn’t have two priorities. Kidding, sort of.”
How often are your two priorities in conflict? It’s not a problem until they are. With children, it might never happen that you have to sacrifice one’s interests to the other’s. But in politics it happens quite frequently.
Example: In the early days of Obama’s presidency, he had to choose the issue(s) on which he would expend his political capital. He had no choice about the stimulus, so that expended a bunch of it, and he spent the rest on Obamacare. Those were the priorities, in that order, even though he didn’t really have much choice about the first one. That’s what constitutes the bulk of his legacy — avoiding a depression and starting toward universal health care.
If you’ll recall, our incrementalist president (and the former first lady poised to succeed him) were NOT out in front of social issues. Society changed while they lagged behind, especially on same-sex marriage. So we really didn’t need their participation to gain that equality — they were too timid and incrementalist to take the lead.
You know what’s happening in the states that’s getting no attention either here or the national press? The GOP theories of how economics works are exploding in their faces, and hardly anybody is covering it as the destruction of their evil, selfish fictions about how an economy works. Kansas, Louisiana, Ohio — all are imploding because, not in spite of, their economic moves, yet nationally nobody is calling the idiots left standing in the GOP on why they swear such fealty to such an obviously bankrupt set of ideas.
That’s because it’s not a priority.
Oft times… lol
@Ben: Your position rests on the assumption that Clinton is the only Democrat who could win the general election. I believe that either Democrat will win. Indeed, the entire Clinton team is sold on, and is selling, the notion that only she can win. I think they’re about equally electable. I think she would make a better functioning president that he would. But I find her positions on issues barely better than the GOP positions.
The Supreme Court’s power over women’s bodies will be gone soon. I’m more concerned with corporate “citizens” controlling us all, which shows no signs of abating under any of the candidates except Sanders.
@Dave: The best is the enemy of the mediocre, too, which is more the issue here.
aaa…. how? my opinion has nothing to do with who I think will win…. in fact, I have recently become certain that either will win ( i was honestly on the fence about Sanders until this weekend…. and I impatiently await an explanation as to why that doesn’t matter) And what positions are you talking about? It is GOP platform to close the boarders, round up Muslims, take away health care for millions, make members of the LGBTQ community second class citizens, and reduce women to baby-farms. How are ANY of Clinton’s positions like that?
If your preference for Hillary isn’t based on electability, then why her? I don’t think a single plank of either her platform or Bernie’s will be enacted, because I don’t think the election will change the strategy of the obstructionists in Congress. A significant slice of the Republicans are not willing to compromise to save their own skins.
” It is GOP platform to close the boarders, round up Muslims, take away health care for millions, make members of the LGBTQ community second class citizens, and reduce women to baby-farms. How are ANY of Clinton’s positions like that?”
The misdirection plays certainly have worked on you.
You must have missed my comment calling attention to what is happening in North Carolina in the wake of that law being signed: National organizations are falling over each other to distance themselves from the state. As on same-sex marriage, our “leaders” aren’t the ones forcing change — the people are. Corporations call them “customers,” and they have learned that such folks are ready and willing to turn their dissatisfaction on companies that align themselves with what are now unpopular positions. The backlash was so quick and severe that the Georgia governor vetoed that state’s latest piece of cro-magnon legislation.
The South is self-segregating. It wants to be a stratified society with various groups of untouchables — and in the process it is rendering itself untouchable to large entities with diverse customer bases.
They want to ban Muslims? So what? If they lose, do you think they’ll stop calling for the banning of Muslims? I don’t. And frankly, their nonstop whining about it affects me more than the Muslims do — just as their nonstop whining about abortion hasn’t prevented anybody I know from getting one.
At any rate, these “issues” are non-priority for me, because they are too narrowly focused (and yes, I have LGBT people in my family). I’m less interested in bringing all Americans up to our generally shitty level than I am in raising the level above the shit.
The important issues on which Hillary is only slightly different from the Bush-era GOP are on taxes (she wants to close a couple of specific loopholes but has not called for raising the capital gains rate or taxing hedge fund managers’ take as earnings instead of capital gains); the TPP, which I fully expect she will sign; and of course foreign policy, on which she is to the right of Obama. Furthermore, as many of her advisers date from her husband’s presidency, I expect she will abandon leftist positions whenever convenient for her re-election chances.
“just as their nonstop whining about abortion hasn’t prevented anybody I know from getting one.”
Yeah, that’s not true.
*Hmmm… are you basing this claim on people you know? That’s pretty narrow, but if that’s where you’re coming from then I guess you’re technically correct that you don’t know anyone prevented from having an abortion.
So Del Dem thinks, “I know Berniebros do not deal in reality (read Jason’s piece this morning)”
I think Del Dem is a plant.
Can you tell us what a Democrat should believe and support?
ya think I’m sucking up too much of your taxes with my SocSec? Those welfare recipients wasting money on fresh foods? Please, let us know.
And, tell us why HRC is loved by Jamie Dimon and his buds on Wall St?
Nope, I don’t know anyone, because most of the people I know can afford one, and it’s not hard to get one in Delaware. And I personally know dozens of women who have had them.
Do you personally know someone who couldn’t get an abortion? If so, was it for lack of funds or GOP-sponsored roadblocks? I don’t deny such people exist, but I refuse to prioritize their issue ahead of my own.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think the right to abortion is important. I just think it’s less important than regaining regulatory control of corporate America.
And I see no difference in the positions of the two Democrats on the abortion issue anyway, which is why I said that ben must be talking about electability, because otherwise supporting Bernie is the same as supporting Hillary.
The only issue on which this is arguably untrue is gun control, which I don’t care about anyway. I am more threatened by the police state than by illegally owned guns, and so am far more interested in police control than gun control.
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/03/matt-taibbi-case-against-hillary-weak
And yes, the fundamental rights of women are more important than unfocused chants.
@JM: Taibbi’s problems with her resemble, but are not identical to, mine, and I find the her-vs.-him format pointlessly restricting. I agree with everything Drum says, but so what? The hawkishness is the only practical point on which to oppose her, but my points go to governing philosophy and fealty to the financial system as well. Drum passes over Hillary’s history of soliciting campaign funds from Wall Street and refutes just Taibbi’s single example. Weak. But it does reveal your love of straw men.
My point is simple: Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining. Absent bad luck, I expect she will do just fine as president
Hillary’s incrementalism might win some gains for women and, we can hope, minorities. But I find most people backing Hillary are thinking defensively. She has reason to. Her supporters do not. The lesson of Obama was go big right away, because that’s the only time you’ll have a chance.
My personal voting choice for president is statistically meaningless, so all it does is express a personal preference; I choose to vote for the person whose overall position is closest to mine. In that light my choice is between Bernie and Jill Stein, as Hillary doesn’t need my vote anyway.
“And yes, the fundamental rights of women are more important than unfocused chants.”
A straw-structured statement no sane person would oppose — spoken like a politician, one might say. Should the mockery be taken as defensiveness because of proximity to existing financial power structures?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/28/hillary-clinton-honest-transparency-jill-abramson
There is indeed a set of Clinton Rules, wielded sloppily for over 24 years, including in this thread.