The 2016 US Election (Part II)

[Napoleon the Clown]

Unless Hillary manages to landslide California to an insane extent, it'll go to a contested convention, at which point superdelegates can decide it. Superdelegates have made noise about how they plan to vote. They have not voted. If the primary is already decided I guess we can skip November's election and ask who people plan to vote for between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, then declare that person the winner.

But duplicity is standard operating procedure in politics and journalism. Make it sound like it's 100% for-sure, that no supers are going to go turncoat. There may be enough supers that consider Hillary to be too toxic to the extremely vital independent vote, or that they don't feel comfortable with the perceived risk of indictment. None of these things are terribly likely, of course. But Hillary has not received the necessary number of votes.

The Soups have been a part of the primary mix for the last thirty years. Obama won the nomination back in 2008 with Superdelegate support, and nobody made a peep about it back then, apart from Clintonite dead-enders. And everyone basically ignored them, not that they were too numerous in the first place.

You seem to think that a Superdelegate announcing their support doesn't reflect how they'll vote in July. This is puzzling. A superdelegate announcing their support is different from you announcing what you want to have for breakfast; it is not terribly succeptible to change, and there are actual consequences if you do. You seem to think that the Soups will jump ship, while offering literally no reason why they'd do so. Nor, for that matter, any particular reason why they'd vote for a guy who has spent the last year calling them corrupt overlords of a broken system and all the rest.

This sentence sums up my puzzlement with you:

Superdelegates have made noise about how they plan to vote. They have not voted.

The Presidential election is November 8th, but the electoral college won't actually cast their votes until December 14th. But we can say pretty fucking reliably who will be President on November 8th, can't we?

I don't care how "toxic" Clinton is, might be, or will become. The superdelegates in the Democratic Party are not going to betray the first woman to win the Democratic nomination. Stop being so goddamn delusional.

There have been superdelegates that said they would vote for Hillary that changed their support to Bernie. There have been superdelegates that have changed their support to Hillary. Shockingly, they're capable of changing their votes. To say that it's done and over with before a single superdelegate has actually cast a vote and pledged delegates putting neither across the finish line is akin to asking people how they're going to vote instead of actually having them vote.

It'd be fucking amazing if a meaningful number flipped. It would be inspiring of awe. It would be historic, most likely. But it can happen. It's factually incorrect to say that Hillary has received the necessary number of votes because that literally has not happened yet. She cannot win until the superdelegates have voted, unless her current pledged count is suddenly enough to cross the finish line.

Of course, the narrative from day one has been "Hillary is inevitable, just lie back and enjoy it."

[Terralthra]

::eyeroll::

It is at roughly this point 8 years ago when, adding together pledged delegates and superdelegates who had made their intended vote clear, then-Senator Obama was declared the presumptive nominee, having enough combined delegates to clinch the nomination on the first vote. Then-Senator Clinton, having until then pledged she would fight on to the convention, took a few days after the final primaries in South Dakota and Montana before conceding the primary the following Saturday, 7 June, 2008, and announcing she'd endorse then-Senator Obama in the general election.

With the final few elections taking place today, I fully expect that without truly titanic victories, Sen. Sanders will be looking down the barrel of quite similar math. Much like then-Senator Clinton, he probably won't concede immediately, but will within a week or two. If California turns out in massive numbers for Sen. Sanders, closing the pledged delegate gap - unlikely, but possible - he may not, but a close race - even a Sanders victory - doesn't close the delegate gap enough to make a convincing argument. I expect by this time next week or the week after, the primary will be officially over.

The Presidential election is November 8th, but the electoral college won't actually cast their votes until December 14th. But we can say pretty fucking reliably who will be President on November 8th, can't we?

Well, the electoral college delegates are required by law to vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in those states on the first EC vote (barring Maine, which splits their EC votes under certain circumstances). Superdelegates, by definition, can vote for whomever they damn well please. The situations are not comparable, as you doubtless knew when you wrote that stupid analogy.

[The Romulan Republic]

That seems fairly reasonable, for the most part.

As you noted, Clinton continued to remain in the race until well after the final primary votes. So I don't see why there's such outrage from some Clinton supporters over Sanders doing likewise.

Oh, right, a sense of entitlement and hypocrisy.

However, I must also point out that today is not, in fact, the final primary. That honour goes to DC, on June 14th. And Sanders has said that he feels everyone should have a chance to vote before its over, and I respect that.

So the soonest that I would demand that Sanders concede would be the night of June 14th., and since campaigns take time to wind down, I'd be willing to give him a grace period until the end of June before complaining about him still running.

However, short of clear evidence of an imminent Clinton indictment or Sanders taking the lead in pledged delegates, he should not continue into July in my opinion. Certainly not to the convention floor.

Unfortunately, I suspect that he will. Its one point of disagreement that I do have with him.

[The Romulan Republic]

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capita ... ntil-after

Update, 4:35pm ET, June 6: Following IBT's story, Donald Trump's campaign demanded that the State Department release Clinton's TPP-related emails. The Trump campaign referred to Clinton as "the outsourcing candidate" and said she was intent on "ramming TPP down the throats of the American people." Read IBT's story about Trump's statement here.

Original story: Trade is a hot issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. But correspondence from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department aides about a controversial 12-nation trade deal will not be available for public review — at least not until after the election. The Obama administration abruptly blocked the release of Clinton’s State Department correspondence about the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), after first saying it expected to produce the emails this spring.

The decision came in response to International Business Times' open records request for correspondence between Clinton’s State Department office and the United States Trade Representative. The request, which was submitted in July 2015, specifically asked for all such correspondence that made reference to the TPP.

The State Department originally said it estimated the request would be completed by April 2016. Last week the agency said it had completed the search process for the correspondence but also said it was delaying the completion of the request until late November 2016 — weeks after the presidential election. The delay was issued in the same week the Obama administration filed a court motion to try to kill a lawsuit aimed at forcing the federal government to more quickly comply with open records requests for Clinton-era State Department documents.

Clinton’s shifting positions on the TPP have been a source of controversy during the campaign: She repeatedly promoted the deal as secretary of state but then in 2015 said, "I did not work on TPP," even though some leaked State Department cables show that her agency was involved in diplomatic discussions about the pact. Under pressure from her Democratic primary opponent, Bernie Sanders, Clinton announced in October that she now opposes the deal — and has disputed that she ever fully backed it in the first place.

Disgusting.

God forbid that voters have access to this information.

Makes me wonder what's in those emails that they don't want voters to know, and what will happen if Clinton is the nominee and someone leaks them during the general election.

[Ace Pace]

http://www.ibtimes.com/political-capita ... ntil-after
Disgusting.

God forbid that voters have access to this information.

Makes me wonder what's in those emails that they don't want voters to know, and what will happen if Clinton is the nominee and someone leaks them during the general election.

This comes up every so often online. Negotiation emails are state secrets for a reason. They lay out negotiating postures, what nations are willing to give and what their red lines are. This is the sort of information that foreign governments would love to get their hands on. It's completely absurd to publish still relevant policy documents.

[The Romulan Republic]

It doesn't strike you as the least bit fishy that the emails were previously supposed to be available this spring, but its now suddenly been pushed back until after the election, at a time when Clinton is almost sure to be the nominee?

[Flagg]

I see Bernie supporters are "feeling the burn" on their asses. Cheer up guys, he can go back to being irrelevant but loud in the Senate!

[The Romulan Republic]

Should have expected petty gloating from you.

Anyhow, Sanders was never irrelevant in the Senate. You know he was nicknamed "The Amendment King"?

And his clout will likely only have increased compared to when this primary began, regardless of said primary's outcome.

[Flagg]

Are you suggesting that the super delegates are somehow more obligated to stand behind Clinton regardless of circumstances (such as indictment, general election electability, pledged delegate count, or popular vote) simply because she is a woman? That she is somehow more entitled to the nomination on the basis of her gender (with the accompanying implication that anyone who doesn't support her is sexist)?

No, you blithering idiot. I'm suggesting that they're not going to switch their vote from the first woman to win the nomination. Especially not to someone who has, by all accounts save yours, lost the election. They're not going to do it because this is a historic event, and she's going to win.

This is a point so obvious that I didn't think anyone could misinterpret it. I can't tell if you're really dumb or really good at trolling. Either way, good job sweetpea.

He's too dumb to be good at trolling, but like a clock being right twice a day, sometimes his idiocy leads to good trolling.

[Flagg]

Should have expected petty gloating from you.

Anyhow, Sanders was never irrelevant in the Senate. You know he was nicknamed "The Amendment King"?

And his clout will likely only have increased compared to when this primary began, regardless of said primary's outcome.

But I thought it wasn't over, he's still in it, he's got the Oval Office drapes all measured?

[Tanasinn]

Laugh while you can, hillshill, you're gonna be singing a different tune when millions of Americans choose not to vote.

[NeoGoomba]

You know, early in the primary, I was a very strong supporter of Sanders. I still agree with a lot of his political views, and would have liked the primary to have played out differently, but the longer this has gone on, the more annoyed I got at his campaign. It seemed like he was trying to run some kind of Scorched Earth campaign within the Democratic Party, taking what he could and then trashing the rest. I mean, I guess that goes along with his whole "political revolution" tagline, but you cannot reform a government simply by gutting one political party and trying to remold it in your own image, especially not a government as entrenched and convoluted as the US Government. Just what the hell kind of support did he think he would get from Congress by spitting in the face of the Party he was using to get elected? (Although I didn't mind him dropping his Independent status and running Democrat, it was his only viable option as going Third-Party is, sadly, a futile act) He seems like a very smart person who was able to identify some/most problems within the Government, but one who doesn't have the wherewithal to realistically solve them other than simply shouting about how bad they are.

He did far better than anyone ever expected, but he's got to know when to quit. If he keeps on going, he's going to lose whatever capital with the American public he's garnered so far. His petulant old man attitude of "We're going to flip the convention no matter what rarrrgh!" just sounds deluded, desperate, and grating considering HE LOST THE NOMINATION BY MILLIONS OF VOTES. Plus, he knew the Devil he was dealing with when he chose to join the Democrats. He should have realized he'd be placed within a system that had a narrative that did not favor him at all. Him signing up with the Democrats extremely late then pissing and moaning about the way they do things just reeks of selfishness.

If he's serious about actually being President he should gracefully bow out, then run as an Independent for the next election (if he's still going strong physically). He's a known quantity now to the nation. He's got no need to piggyback off of a political party he holds in such contempt any more.

[The Romulan Republic]

You know, early in the primary, I was a very strong supporter of Sanders. I still agree with a lot of his political views, and would have liked the primary to have played out differently, but the longer this has gone on, the more annoyed I got at his campaign. It seemed like he was trying to run some kind of Scorched Earth campaign within the Democratic Party, taking what he could and then trashing the rest. I mean, I guess that goes along with his whole "political revolution" tagline, but you cannot reform a government simply by gutting one political party and trying to remold it in your own image, especially not a government as entrenched and convoluted as the US Government. Just what the hell kind of support did he think he would get from Congress by spitting in the face of the Party he was using to get elected? (Although I didn't mind him dropping his Independent status and running Democrat, it was his only viable option as going Third-Party is, sadly, a futile act) He seems like a very smart person who was able to identify some/most problems within the Government, but one who doesn't have the wherewithal to realistically solve them other than simply shouting about how bad they are.

The idea that Sanders is trying to destroy the Democratic Party is a partisan smear.

His campaign have been very clear that if he loses the nomination, he will remain a Democrat and endorse Clinton, and he has made it very clear repeatedly that one of his top priorities is for the Democrats to best Trump.

He wants to push the party Leftward, yes. That's not a bad thing.

He did far better than anyone ever expected, but he's got to know when to quit. If he keeps on going, he's going to lose whatever capital with the American public he's garnered so far. His petulant old man attitude of "We're going to flip the convention no matter what rarrrgh!" just sounds deluded, desperate, and grating considering HE LOST THE NOMINATION BY MILLIONS OF VOTES.

It is technically inaccurate to say that Sanders lost, past tense, because it is still technically possible (albeit extremely unlikely), for him to take the lead.

I also respect his view that everyone should get a chance to vote before its over, and feel that constitutes sufficient justification to stay in at least through the final primary on June 14th.

The "old man" line as an insult is just agism.

Plus, he knew the Devil he was dealing with when he chose to join the Democrats. He should have realized he'd be placed within a system that had a narrative that did not favor him at all. Him signing up with the Democrats extremely late then pissing and moaning about the way they do things just reeks of selfishness.

"Extremely late"?

He signed up with the Democrats a while back. If you mean he only did so when running for their nomination, sure.

But since where is there a rule that you must be a life long Democrat to have an opinion on the party?

If he's serious about actually being President he should gracefully bow out, then run as an Independent for the next election (if he's still going strong physically). He's a known quantity now to the nation. He's got no need to piggyback off of a political party he holds in such contempt any more.

I don't see him having a viable independent run. It just doesn't happen.

But yes, I'd like to see him gracefully bow out if he doesn't get a majority of pledged delegates- after June 14th.

[The Romulan Republic]

Laugh while you can, hillshill, you're gonna be singing a different tune when millions of Americans choose not to vote.

You know you're basically predicting/hoping for/gloating over the possibility of Dickless Donald, a xenophobic, authoritarian man child with zero experience, becoming President?

I don't like Clinton, but I would never wish President Trump on the world to spite her.

[Flagg]

Laugh while you can, hillshill, you're gonna be singing a different tune when millions of Americans choose not to vote.

So it will be like every single other US election? I also love how you call me "Hillshill" despite my numerous statements to the fact that I dislike her quite a lot. But lets not allow facts to get in the way of your loser tantrum.

[Flagg]

It is technically inaccurate to say that Sanders lost, past tense, because it is still technically possible (albeit extremely unlikely), for him to take the lead.

The delusions of a manchild trapped in the delusions of a childmans brain. You know what's more possible? For the Dali Llama to die by getting hit by orbital debris reentering the atmosphere.

[Tanasinn]

Sorry to burn your strawman, but i'm not emotionally invested in this election. What I'm doing is pointing out that the Clinton campaign has done nothing but shit on Sanders backers and use dogwhistles to accuse them of sexism. This is going to stop being funny for anyone but Trumpets when the general rolls around and Sanders backers are still mad.

[NeoGoomba]

The idea that Sanders is trying to destroy the Democratic Party is a partisan smear.

Or you can watch as he actually rails against the party that he has only been a member of since 2015. He doesn't like the way they do seemingly anything, which is a fair point. But he trashes members of the Democratic Party just as much as he does members of the Republican Party, which is just fucking stupid when he's trying to curry their favor for their nomination of him for their own party.

His campaign have been very clear that if he loses the nomination, he will remain a Democrat and endorse Clinton, and he has made it very clear repeatedly that one of his top priorities is for the Democrats to best Trump.

He's also basically ransomed his support to her, saying he would back her would be if she met a bunch of his demands. Not exactly a glowing recommendation. I'm also pretty sure he hasn't yet publicly told his supporters to do the same thing.

He wants to push the party Leftward, yes. That's not a bad thing.

Good thing I never said anything about that being a bad thing, I guess.

It is technically inaccurate to say that Sanders lost, past tense, because it is still technically possible (albeit extremely unlikely), for him to take the lead.

That is grasping at straws and you and everyone else knows it. He can only do it by flipping superdelegates. So lets say he does that. Guess what? He wasn't democratically nominated, because the majority of the Democratic Party voted for Clinton. And I hate to admit it, because I really, really, really, fucking REALLY despise the Clintons.

The "old man" line as an insult is just agism.

Oh fuck off, he's 74. And it's spelled "ageism".

"Extremely late"?

He signed up with the Democrats a while back.

Yeah, if by "a while back" you mean less than a year ago in 2015. When he was already angling for the nomination, not out of some sudden shock of brotherhood with the Democrats. And hey, since you decided to casually ignore the part where I said it, I'll say it again; I've got no problem with him doing it. It was his only shot, really, and he had to do it. My point is that to join and then all but immediately start demanding changes (or suing them!!) to the way it handles its internal business is petty. When you're such a latecomer to the party and everyone knows you only put the "D" next to your name for exposure for a Presidential run, it's pretty obvious how high in esteem you hold them.

I don't see him having a viable independent run. It just doesn't happen.

Isn't that the same defeatist drivel Sanders is fighting against? He needed the Democrats to get his name out there because, to the vast majority of Americans, he was an unknown. He isn't any longer. He's changed the game. And all those independent/undecided/disenfranchised voters who really dig his style but couldn't vote for him in the Democratic primary? They're free to prop him back up again in four years, this time unencumbered by all the nonsense within the Primary system.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sorry to burn your strawman, but i'm not emotionally invested in this election. What I'm doing is pointing out that the Clinton campaign has done nothing but shit on Sanders backers and use dogwhistles to accuse them of sexism. This is going to stop being funny for anyone but Trumpets when the general rolls around and Sanders backers are still mad.

You know, in 2008, a lot of Clinton supporters said they wouldn't vote for Obama. They mostly came 'round, and they weren't facing a choice between Obama and Trump.

Its a long time until the general election. A lot could happen. And maybe some Sanders supporters will refuse to see reason. But I think you are projecting your own (detestable) wishful thinking here somewhat.

[The Romulan Republic]

It is technically inaccurate to say that Sanders lost, past tense, because it is still technically possible (albeit extremely unlikely), for him to take the lead.

The delusions of a manchild trapped in the delusions of a childmans brain. You know what's more possible? For the Dali Llama to die by getting hit by orbital debris reentering the atmosphere.

Me: State an objective fact.

You: Stream of insults.

Business as usual, troll.

[Tanasinn]

But I think you are projecting your own (detestable) wishful thinking here somewhat.

I'm sorry, but do you have an argument that doesn't rely on magical psychic powers to know what someone else is thinking better than them?

This high handed shit is exactly what I'm talking about.

[Flagg]

Sorry to burn your strawman, but i'm not emotionally invested in this election. What I'm doing is pointing out that the Clinton campaign has done nothing but shit on Sanders backers and use dogwhistles to accuse them of sexism. This is going to stop being funny for anyone but Trumpets when the general rolls around and Sanders backers are still mad.

To be fair, any time I've accused Sanders backers of having an innate hatred of Hillary Clinton (I don't like her myself), I'm immediately accused of accusing them of being sexist despite not mentioning she's a female aside from her first name.

[Flagg]

It is technically inaccurate to say that Sanders lost, past tense, because it is still technically possible (albeit extremely unlikely), for him to take the lead.

The delusions of a manchild trapped in the delusions of a childmans brain. You know what's more possible? For the Dali Llama to die by getting hit by orbital debris reentering the atmosphere.

Me: State an objective fact.

You: Stream of insults.

Business as usual, troll.

Me: Statement of reality.

You: A Doctor Zaius impression from the part of Planet of the apes when Cornelius is telling him unadorned facts and he closes his eyes and puts his fingers in his ears.

Me: Mocking you because I hate every ape I see, from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z!

[Dalton]

How about we cut the shit and get back to substantive discussion.

[Tsyroc]

I've been hearing that the Libertarian party will have a president/vp ticket on the ballot in all 50 states.

Right now their big push is to get enough support, 15% I think, to be included in the presidential debates when those start happening.

So far from what I've seen/read, the Libertarian candidates might be a good "Not Trump" vote for people who lean Republican. I'm not sure how they fair on the "Not Hillary" side of things, or on their own merits for that matter.