The 2016 US Election (Part II)

[Flagg]

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

I'd love to, but it's hard to when one one side is denying reality. So I'll happily discuss Clinton v Trump, but I will not engage in fantasy and further discuss Sanders, because whether he or his supporters care to acknowledge it, everyone else has: he lost the primary, time to move on. But I won't mock them anymore, I'll just try and engage in discussion around them.

[Flagg]

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.

I could see a substantial "not Trump" faction unless the "a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for Hillary" meme catches on.

[Tsyroc]

I could see a substantial "not Trump" faction unless the "a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for Hillary" meme catches on.

I'm assuming my state is going to go it's usual way so I'll probably vote "Not Trump" and "Not Hillary" unless something changes that makes it looks like she has a chance in Arizona. If that is the case I will have to revisit my decision and go from there. Arizona is a winner take all state when it comes to the electoral college.

The county I live in is one of two, maybe three counties in Arizona that went to Obama last presidential election. I am a little curious how things are going to start looking statewide when we get to just the straight up presidential campaigns. Right now most of the people I interact with seem to be on the Bernie side or against Bernie style socialism and on the Trump side. I don't really know how things are if Bernie is completely out of the equation.

[Civil War Man]

I could see a substantial "not Trump" faction unless the "a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for Hillary" meme catches on.

It'll probably catch on about as well as the "a vote for anyone but Clinton is a vote for Trump" meme. Or the "a vote for anyone but the Democratic/Republican candidate is a vote for the Republican/Democratic candidate" that gets bandied about every single election year.

Regarding the post-convention bridge repairing (since, while it's still theoretically possible for Sanders to catch up, it would take something unprecedented to make that happen at this rate), I figure Hillary will do whatever she can to try to get the Bernie supporters on board with her. While the Clintons are the kinds of politicians who would hold a grudge, they are not the kinds of politicians who would sabotage their own chances in order to spite a rival, especially since this is pretty much Hillary's last chance to go down in history as the first female POTUS (or at least the first elected female POTUS depending on how you count Edith Wilson). I could see some of her surrogates potentially trying to keep those bridges burned, however, particularly if they consider Sanders gaining influence in the Democratic Party to be a bigger threat to their positions than Trump getting into the White House. If that does happen, any reconciliation would hinge on how hard Hillary leans on the holdouts to keep them in line.

[Flagg]

I could see a substantial "not Trump" faction unless the "a vote for anyone but Trump is a vote for Hillary" meme catches on.

It'll probably catch on about as well as the "a vote for anyone but Clinton is a vote for Trump" meme. Or the "a vote for anyone but the Democratic/Republican candidate is a vote for the Republican/Democratic candidate" that gets bandied about every single election year.

Regarding the post-convention bridge repairing (since, while it's still theoretically possible for Sanders to catch up, it would take something unprecedented to make that happen at this rate), I figure Hillary will do whatever she can to try to get the Bernie supporters on board with her. While the Clintons are the kinds of politicians who would hold a grudge, they are not the kinds of politicians who would sabotage their own chances in order to spite a rival, especially since this is pretty much Hillary's last chance to go down in history as the first female POTUS (or at least the first elected female POTUS depending on how you count Edith Wilson). I could see some of her surrogates potentially trying to keep those bridges burned, however, particularly if they consider Sanders gaining influence in the Democratic Party to be a bigger threat to their positions than Trump getting into the White House. If that does happen, any reconciliation would hinge on how hard Hillary leans on the holdouts to keep them in line.

Really anyone holding out at this point probably doesn't care about/is immune to/benefits from the Clinton backlash.

[Grumman]

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.

That's fucking stupid. Yes, foreign governments would love to know what our politicians are willing to do, but so would we. This is the same bullshit excuse that was being thrown around to accuse whistleblowers of treason for telling the American people what their government was doing with the power they had been given. Letting us know is more important than not letting China know.

[Ace Pace]

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.

That's fucking stupid. Yes, foreign governments would love to know what our politicians are willing to do, but so would we. This is the same bullshit excuse that was being thrown around to accuse whistleblowers of treason for telling the American people what their government was doing with the power they had been given. Letting us know is more important than not letting China know.

This is really not equivalent because whistle-blowers are acting when the government is breaking the law, not when the interests it serves are debatable. The EU so far is the only organisation to publish the mission directive for negotiations that are currently relevant here.

[Civil War Man]

Really anyone holding out at this point probably doesn't care about/is immune to/benefits from the Clinton backlash.

Or are disaffected by the process (though that may fall under the not caring section), but that doesn't mean she should write them off. The whole "They're not going to vote for me, so fuck 'em" attitude certainly didn't do Mitt Romney any favors. Obama won by getting people who otherwise wouldn't have voted (or would have voted third party) on board with him, and it would be foolish for Clinton to not do the same thing.

On a similar note, Sanders' campaign has resulted in several liberal third parties losing members to the Democratic party.

"The Sanders campaign is absolutely destroying us."

Those are the words of California Green Party spokesman Mike Feinstein, who, in response to an inquiry from Mother Jones on Friday, visited the website of the California Secretary of State. He discovered, to his consternation, that his party has lost 30 percent of its members in the months since Sanders launched his presidential campaign. "I am apoplectically mad right now," Feinstein says. "I am so disgusted with this."

"They intentionally went after our voters because they are low-lying fruit on the issues," he adds, citing mailers the Sanders campaign sent to Green Party members.

The party's steep decline in registration—from nearly 110,000 voters in early 2015 to 78,000 now—represents a tiny fraction of California's 18 million registered voters. Yet it underscores how the Sanders campaign has made deep inroads into California's liberal electorate, tapping voters who may have never before considered voting for a Democrat.

California's other major leftist third party, the Peace and Freedom Party, has also seen a significant drop in registration since last year, losing about 7,000 voters, or 9 percent of its members.

"Most of the members of our Central Committee, and probably other registrants, like Bernie," says Debra Rieger, the Peace and Freedom Party's state chair. Two of the party's three presidential candidates are themselves socialists, and their policy positions aren't appreciably different from Sanders'. "We think it's great that Bernie has opened to door to talking about socialism, free education for everyone, open healthcare—all these things we've been advocating for years."

With Sanders and Hillary Clinton locked in a statistical dead heat in California, at least according to the polls, a Sanders victory here may hinge on his ability to mobilize even more of these ultra-left voters. But consolidating that fractious group is no easy task, even for a democratic socialist who regularly sounds the themes of the Occupy movement.

Consider that Occupy Oakland has not promoted any events featuring Bernie Sanders—not even his Monday visit to Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza, the site of the group's original occupation. Instead, last week, Occupy Oakland urged its 47,000 Twitter followers to attend a Friday afternoon Berkeley rally hosted by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

Stein attributes this support to her rejection of the Democratic Party and uncompromising stance on issues such as Palestinian rights. "Our campaign has liberty that Bernie Sanders does not because we are not on the leash of a corporate party sponsored by war profiteers and Wall Street banks," she told me. "Bernie has been restrained."

The Sanders campaign also faces a practical limitation: Democratic Party rules in California allow only registered Democrats, independents, and decline-to-state voters to participate in the party's primary. Greens and Peace and Freedom partiers who support Sanders would have had to re-register by May 23 to cast a ballot for him.

Stein bristles at the notion that her campaign could be a spoiler in the Clinton-Sanders race: "This is basically a propaganda campaign, a disinformation campaign," she says. "The reality is that the lesser of two evils is not a solution."

Sanders' supporters here have spent months responding to such arguments. Tom Gallagher, a former chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America, has represented the Sanders campaign in two debates with left-wing political parties in the Bay Area, with another planned for Saturday at a Berkeley pub. He wrote a book several years ago arguing that leftists should occupy the Democratic Party.

"To me, this is the most important campaign in 40 years," says Gallagher, a former Ralph Nader supporter who is now a Democratic Party delegate representing San Francisco. "If we want [socialism] in play in this country we've gotta be in the presidential election—that's when people think about big ideas."

Many activists agree. The web page of Occupy San Francisco has promoted Sanders events, and Bay Area for Bernie has signed up several former Occupy people as volunteers. Among them is Sierra Madre, the moderator of its Facebook page, who was at the 2011 Occupy Oakland protest where police seriously wounded a protester with a teargas canister. "These folks don't hate the Democratic Party as much as they hate what it has become," Madre says. "They see that they have the chance to change it to make it more populist, more working class, and there are seizing that opportunity by voting for Bernie."

Sanders has said he will use his delegates to push for changes at the Democratic National Convention. Among other things, he wants it to move to fully open primaries in every state, which would enable members of third parties to cast ballots for Democrats without re-registering.

Gallagher argues that voting for Sanders in the primary isn't necessarily a vote for the two-party system. "There is a real option now," he says. "Argue over November later."

Reiger of the Peace and Freedom Party expects that her missing members will come back after the general election—and possibly bring along some new ones. "The Democrats will never allow [Sanders] to be president," she says, "but we will be very happy to welcome those people into our ranks."

If Clinton really wants to win decisively in November, it would be smart for her to try to come to some sort of arrangement with the progressive wing so she can capitalize on what Sanders is starting.

[bilateralrope]

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.

This Libertarian party ?

Libertarian Party Chairman Hopeful Strips on Stage — and on C-SPAN

A candidate for chairman of the Libertarian Party stripped off his clothes on live TV before dropping out of the race at the party's national convention Sunday in Orlando, Florida.

James Weeks — a self-described "liberty activist" from Michigan and a large, bearded man — was supporting the vice presidential campaign of Derrick Grayson when he said "I figured we could use a little bit of fun," started leading the convention in clapping and began taking off his suit, shirt and tie while dancing, according to video of the convention broadcast by C-SPAN.

Cheers and claps soon gave way to coots, catcalls and boos. Weeks then said, "I'm sorry; that was a dare," and said he was abandoning his own campaign for party chairman.

The political newspaper The Hill reported that several delegates complained about the display and that at least one sought to revoke Weeks' party membership.

On his website for an earlier campaign for sheriff of Livingston County, Michigan, Weeks writes that he has "dedicated his life to achieving a free society, free from an omnipotent state that seems to wish to squeeze every last drop of freedom out of our lives."

It wasn't as though the convention wasn't unusual enough. In a rarity in modern U.S. politics, the convention was contested and had to go to a second ballot before the Libertarians nominated former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson and former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld as its presidential ticket.

[The Romulan Republic]

I've seen some Sanders supporters talk about going to the Libertarians (my own brother is one, I think), but I think they'll pull more people from the Republicans.

Speaking of:

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-el ... nt-n587416

Excerpt from the article:

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has received his first un-endorsement as the firestorm expands over his racially-focused attacks on a federal judge.

Sen. Mark Kirk, Republican of Illinois, released a statement Tuesday saying that Trump lacks "the temperament" necessary for the Oval Office.

"After much consideration, I have concluded that Donald Trump has not demonstrated the temperament necessary to assume the greatest office in the world," Kirk said in a statement.

Hah, took you this long to figure it out?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ron ... 0682deb7e5?

Michael Reagan, a son of former President Ronald Reagan, tweeted Monday that he won’t vote for Donald Trump and doesn’t think his late father would have supported the presumptive GOP nominee.

Reagan said he wouldn’t vote for Trump in the California primary on Tuesday. He followed that tweet with another that said that if his father were alive today, this would likely be the first time he wouldn’t back his party’s presidential candidate. Ronald Reagan, who remains one of history’s most popular Republican politicians, was president from 1981 to 1989. He died in 2004.



The backlash against Reagan’s comments came swiftly. In a message to a Twitter user’s criticism, Reagan called Trump “an embarrassment.“

Today’s Republican Party, Reagan tweeted, isn’t the same as when his father were alive. “My father would be saying I didn’t leave the GOP the GOP left me,” he tweeted in response to another critical comment.

Michael Reagan is the president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation, which celebrates his father’s accomplishments and advocates for issues he supported.

Edits: Fixed link.

[Flagg]

Really anyone holding out at this point probably doesn't care about/is immune to/benefits from the Clinton backlash.

Or are disaffected by the process (though that may fall under the not caring section), but that doesn't mean she should write them off. The whole "They're not going to vote for me, so fuck 'em" attitude certainly didn't do Mitt Romney any favors. Obama won by getting people who otherwise wouldn't have voted (or would have voted third party) on board with him, and it would be foolish for Clinton to not do the same thing.

No, I'm talking about Clinton going after them with reprisals. I agree, you never don't ask for votes. Many times just asking for someone's vote makes all the difference.

[The Romulan Republic]

New Jersey called for Clinton, unsurprisingly. She's apparently in the high 50s. Narrower than I thought it'd be.

Unfortunately, she also appears to be way ahead in New Mexico, but as far as I've heard, it hasn't been called.

Haven't heard anything yet on the other races.

[maraxus2]

AP gives the checkmark to Clinton in New Jersey. 23% of the vote in as of posting and currently leading Sanders by nearly 20 points.
Link

Clinton also leading in New Mexico, although only Albuquerque is in, and only 1/10th of the precincts (3% overall). Currently leading by 26 points.

Link

Clinton also leading in South Dakota. 17% in, holding steady with a 10 point lead. I'd be surprised if she won here, but there are still a lot of sioux falls precincts outstanding.

Link

Trump crushing everywhere, as expected. Projected to win New Jersey with 80% of the vote.

[maraxus2]

Bernie taking a commanding lead in the ND Caucus, as expected. Currently leading Clinton by 30 points with 30% of the vote in.

Link

Clinton's margin in SD dipped to 9 points with 40% of the vote in. Sioux Falls precincts have been reversed and none of them are in yet.

Clinton up 53-27 in NM with 21% of the vote in.

[Flagg]

North Dakota, where empathy for the land goes to die.

[Mr Bean]

So to check, Bernie Sanders needed about 65% wins in every state tonight to pull ahead of Secretary Clinton. As he's average 40% losses in three of the four states he only needs a 88% win in California to make up the difference.

[Borgholio]

Just did my part and cast a ballot for Bernie. I know he is unlikely to win the overall primary but I wanted to show my support anyways. But holy shit, we had 34...THIRTY FOUR candidates for one open US Senate seat. I spent an hour at lunch researching just that one contest...and there were 15 others on the ballot too! Sometimes it seems like it would be much easier if I was a drone who voted according to the number of campaign signs I saw on the side of the road. But no, I have to be an educated voter. Lousy brain.

[Gaidin]

So to check, Bernie Sanders needed about 65% wins in every state tonight to pull ahead of Secretary Clinton. As he's average 40% losses in three of the four states he only needs a 88% win in California to make up the difference.

That might be about right for napkin math. If not about above the line given what California is actually worth and what most of the others are worth.

[Flagg]

So to check, Bernie Sanders needed about 65% wins in every state tonight to pull ahead of Secretary Clinton. As he's average 40% losses in three of the four states he only needs a 88% win in California to make up the difference.

A meteor could drop out of the sky and land on LA, vaporizing results. Then he'd only lose CA by 70%...

[Civil War Man]

Really anyone holding out at this point probably doesn't care about/is immune to/benefits from the Clinton backlash.

Or are disaffected by the process (though that may fall under the not caring section), but that doesn't mean she should write them off. The whole "They're not going to vote for me, so fuck 'em" attitude certainly didn't do Mitt Romney any favors. Obama won by getting people who otherwise wouldn't have voted (or would have voted third party) on board with him, and it would be foolish for Clinton to not do the same thing.

No, I'm talking about Clinton going after them with reprisals. I agree, you never don't ask for votes. Many times just asking for someone's vote makes all the difference.

Ah, yeah. Didn't quite get what you were responding to in the original reply. My bad.

Anyway, as I said, based on what I've seen of the candidates, I don't think Hillary would attempt any reprisals, even if she doesn't particularly like Bernie. She's in this race to win, whatever it takes. And she doesn't just want to beat Trump, she wants to humiliate him. And if that involves making a deal with Bernie to get him to be her hype man in exchange for her backing some of his pet projects, she'd take it.

The people I would think would be more likely to attempt reprisals is someone like Wasserman-Schultz. There's a decent chance she could lose her spot as DNC chair at least as a result of Bernie's campaign, possibly even her seat in Congress since Bernie's backing her primary opponent. To her, an ascendant Democratic Senator Sanders would be a bigger threat to her career prospects than a President Trump.

[Flagg]

She should lose her job, and not just over Sanders. She's not done much for the party. She's ditched the 50 state strategy that got us both houses of congress, and this sounds sexist (it's my assessment not my personal opinion of her), but on TV she comes off as an abrasive Miami bitch shooting off canned sound bytes. She should not be the face of the Democratic Party. Someone who takes it down 3 notches and makes actual intelligent arguments like Sandra Fluke should be.

But that said, it's over. Clinton's crushing it in California, won MN, fork meet Sanders, insert.

[Gaidin]

To note, one might not want to pair her DNC spot and her congress seat in the same sentence as one doesn't exactly require the other insofar as I know.

[Mr Bean]

To note, one might not want to pair her DNC spot and her congress seat in the same sentence as one doesn't exactly require the other insofar as I know.

Without a power based it's kind of hard to argue you deserve the DNC chair job if you don't even keep your own chair. Howard Dean is a good example of someone who lost his run and turned it into something greater but DWS is just an insider with the right friends.... friends who have a hard time arguing she's a second Dean after over four years of abject failure and now she's lost her seat as well.

[Gaidin]

To note, one might not want to pair her DNC spot and her congress seat in the same sentence as one doesn't exactly require the other insofar as I know.

Without a power based it's kind of hard to argue you deserve the DNC chair job if you don't even keep your own chair. Howard Dean is a good example of someone who lost his run and turned it into something greater but DWS is just an insider with the right friends.... friends who have a hard time arguing she's a second Dean after over four years of abject failure and now she's lost her seat as well.

The Republicans have been doing it for years. Hell they're doing it now. But they're a different party. It's a position. Now. I grant you you lose that power however you gain it, goodbye. But the DNC is not the Elected Congress. At least, I don't think. They might have different rules than those across the aisle. Is all I was trying to say. So meh.

[The Romulan Republic]

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

I'd love to, but it's hard to when one one side is denying reality. So I'll happily discuss Clinton v Trump, but I will not engage in fantasy and further discuss Sanders, because whether he or his supporters care to acknowledge it, everyone else has: he lost the primary, time to move on. But I won't mock them anymore, I'll just try and engage in discussion around them.

Sanders will remain a relevant factor in the election regardless of tonight's outcome. He still wields substantial influence and has numerous supporters who Clinton needs. His main relevance now, however, is likely to be as a voice for progressive principles at the convention, and as a prominent ally of Hillary Clinton, should Clinton be wise enough to embrace him as such. But refusing to discuss him under any circumstances comes across as just a petty attempt to marginalize him.

And it is simply a fact that super delegates did not, and do not, count yet, and at the time I posted it, Clinton had not won a majority of pledged delegates and Sanders still had a significant, if small, chance of doing so in theory. I am not sure when facts became delusions here, but I'd guess it was around the time that the mainstream decided to dismiss Sanders.

I will also note that, while not all of the votes are counted, it appears that Clinton may surpass even the most optimistic recent polling that I saw for California. The margin is wide enough that I doubt Sanders would have won regardless, but I do believe that yesterday's grand lie had an effect on turnout.

However, be that as it may, it appears that as of tonight, Clinton has indeed won a majority of pledged delegates, so it is now reasonable to say that Hillary Clinton is the presumptive nominee. I do support Bernie remaining in, as per his position on giving everyone a chance to have their vote counted, through June 14th., but I hope that he will concede gracefully at that point and focus on unity against Trump and the Republicans.

And I am certainly glad that we are on track to have, for the first time, a female nominee of a major party. If one good thing comes out of this election, it will be the further erosion of the historical barriers to being a viable candidate.

Now its time to focus on beating Dickless.