SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[FireNexus]

You know, I think the age and health of all the candidates (including the incumbent) will either come under serious scrutiny or result in them being medically unable to continue in the very near future. That most of the major candidates/nominees are 70+ and mostly have heart disease as a pandemic that all but exclusively kills people over 70 and especially with heart disease is about to explode is really major and nobody is discussing it.

What happens if Bernie, Biden, Bloomberg and Trump are all intubated by mid-April? That’s a bizarrely real possibility right now.

[The Romulan Republic]

You know, I think the age and health of all the candidates (including the incumbent) will either come under serious scrutiny or result in them being medically unable to continue in the very near future. That most of the major candidates/nominees are 70+ and mostly have heart disease as a pandemic that all but exclusively kills people over 70 and especially with heart disease is about to explode is really major and nobody is discussing it.

What happens if Bernie, Biden, Bloomberg and Trump are all intubated by mid-April? That’s a bizarrely real possibility right now.

Its a real possibility, unfortunately.

If they survive, business continues as usual. If not... I guess we get Elizabeth Warren vs Mike Pence?

I don't think its going to really damage a candidate's electability if they get sick from a pandemic millions of people are getting sick from, though. Hell, if just one candidate got it, and then recovered (because these people can actually afford the best medical care), then I could even see them getting a boost in terms of sympathy votes.


I do see a pandemic having some unusual effects on campaigning. Off the top of my head:

-If it gets bad enough, I can see many campaigns cancelling public rallies. Except Trump, who will insist everything is under control and keep rallying his Brownshirts. This means Trump is able to more effectively campaign due to his complete lack of moral scruples, but also means his voting base suffers a perceptibly higher death rate.

-The conventions might be cancelled, or at least limited in scale. In a really serious pandemic, it might be best to have the convention conducted over phones/the internet, rather than actually physically gathering in a convention hall. The Democrats should be planning for this possibility now.

-Pandemic fears may drive down voter turnout in late primaries (so primary turnout should not necessarily be taken as a guide for voter enthusiasm and engagement in the general). Mail voting likely becomes a lot more popular.

[The Romulan Republic]

Fortunately, some people are sounding the warning about the effects coronavirus could have on the election:

https://wired.com/story/opinion-coronav ... ed-a-plan/

Imagine it's Election Day 2020, but with a dark twist: As millions leave their homes and stand in long lines at crowded polling stations, officials urge them to don protective masks and gloves, and to bring their own ballot-marking pencils to the polls so they don't have to share writing utensils with strangers. And as the polls close at night, reports emerge that turnout has reached historic lows, from a mix of voter apathy and fears of catching the deadly new virus that's been spreading silently and closing schools and houses of worship in major cities across the country.

This scene isn't a prediction of what might happen in some dystopian future. It’s what just unfolded in Iran, where elections proceeded on Friday in the face of a growing Covid-19 outbreak that the country is struggling to contain. Some reports put turnout in Tehran at 40 percent, down from over 60 percent four years ago. Many voters headed to the polls wearing face masks.

The Iranian elections should serve as a warning to Americans of what could happen here in November, should the coronavirus gain a foothold on our soil. Unfortunately, an American outbreak looks more likely by the day.

Public health experts are ringing increasingly severe alarms. On Friday, the CDC called the virus a "tremendous public health threat" and warned of the probability of eventual human-to-human transmission in the US. Two days later, the CDC updated its guidance for what to expect next from the outbreak, warning that person-to-person transmission is “likely” to occur in America, and suggesting that hospitals may become “overwhelmed” and that “critical infrastructure, such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and transportation industry may also be affected.” This means it's time for Americans to begin to think through how to pull off a national election against the backdrop of a pandemic that would surely see voter turnout significantly suppressed, especially in dense urban areas and among vulnerable populations.

The alternative could very well be a vicious fight over whether to postpone the 2020 elections. Politicians representing the most rural voters would likely push to go ahead. Representatives of larger, denser, harder hit population centers would call for a delay over concerns that a mix of fear of further spread, illness, and quarantines—either officially recommended or self-imposed—will decimate turnout in their districts. Whether the election goes ahead despite the outbreak or it’s postponed until the crisis is over, the losing side could have a reasonable case that the results are illegitimate, and we could end up in uncharted constitutional territory if one party refuses to accept the results.

Our state-by-state patchwork of election laws and locally managed voting infrastructure leave us few options for a centrally coordinated response to the pandemic threat. Under US law, individual states are largely responsible for carrying out elections with little federal support or oversight. As such, there isn't even much in the way of academic literature around the impact of disasters on our elections, much less actual planning for what to do if and when catastrophe strikes on election day.

September 11 and Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy are examples of disasters that disrupted elections, but it's difficult to draw lessons from them because each had a limited, localized impact and was handled by state and local authorities as a one-off event.

A 2014 report from the National Association of Secretaries of State Task Force on Emergency Preparedness for Elections found that, of the 37 states that responded to its survey, only 12 "had laws dealing with the postponement of an election, and only 11 states required contingency planning for elections." Most states responded that they could fall back on some combination of existing early voting, vote-by-mail, and absentee ballot options in an emergency.

There is no national plan for what to do about the election if a coronavirus outbreak puts our cities on lockdown and fills our hospitals in November. But that doesn't mean there isn’t a straightforward fix.

The answer is to take the vote-by-mail option that operates as a backup for the in-person polling in most states and prepare it to become the primary means of voting in November. This will require the states to both print the necessary additional ballots and to distribute them in a timely manner to registered voters. They’d need to step up their game swiftly: In the 2016 election, only about 24 percent of voters cast ballots by mail (either vote-by-mail or absentee). Only three states—Oregon, Washington, and Colorado—had all of their ballots cast by mail, while another six had over half their votes cast as absentee ballots. In all, 25 states have at least some form of vote-by-mail option, but in most of them it’s a limited option.

Congress cannot mandate that the states prepare to carry out the November elections entirely via mail-in ballots, any more than they could mandate the nationwide transition to electronic voting in the early 2000s. But as with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, which threw money at the states to make a four-year switch to e-voting, if Congress acts quickly it can help the states cover the cost of a major vote-by-mail rollout. It’s reasonable to hope that we can move to vote-by-mail in just a few months, because unlike the e-voting transition, vote-by-mail just involves scaling up the the states’ existing absentee ballot systems and not deploying an entirely new suite of technologies.

A national, congressionally funded transition to vote-by-mail, modeled on the earlier transition to e-voting, would not only prepare the US to hold safe and fair elections no matter how ugly a possible pandemic gets, but once in place it would also protect against future disruptions to elections from wildfires, floods, hurricanes, terrorist attacks, and other disasters natural and man-made.

Furthermore, mail-in paper ballots aren't vulnerable to the same kinds of cybershenanigans that election security experts are currently fretting about for 2020. Unlike the purely electronic ballots of a paperless e-voting machine, mail-in ballots come with a built-in paper trail, so that the results can be verified via random audits.

We can prepare our state election systems for the increasing likelihood of a widespread Covid-19 outbreak on American soil, but we don't have much time. In a conference call on Friday, the CDC's Nancy Messonnier warned that Americans may see similar lockdown and quarantine measures to those taken in China, with the closure of schools and businesses a real possibility. Congress must act now to fund a vote-by-mail transition, and state election officials must begin making plans to implement it. If we don’t quickly harden our election infrastructure against the imminent threat of coronavirus, we risk electoral chaos and a crisis of governance on a scale that our foreign adversaries couldn’t even dream of instigating via even the most sophisticated electronic election-meddling efforts.

Unfortunately, the chances of a nation-wide push to fund mail ballots by November making it through Moscow Mitch's Senate is about the same as the chance of me winning the lottery- without having bought a ticket.

Its disturbing to note that at least some states have "postpone the election" as an option, because I'm very much afraid that if his poll numbers fall, Trump will seize on that as the "solution". We held an election even in the middle of a civil war, and we should hold this one as scheduled, even in a pandemic.

Another option, and not a particularly democratic one, seems to be "Just count the early votes/mail in votes, and decide the election on that basis". So, vote early and by mail if possible (that's good practice to do regardless of how your state handles a pandemic).

[FireNexus]

My thinking is mostly that if they get hospitalized, they may be forced to drop out. Because they can’t campaign with a machine doing their breathing, they may literally die, the frailty of their age is going to be under the focus it should have been months ago, and even if they recover they will be weakened for possibly the rest of their lives.

Nobody will hold getting sick against them. They will just be suddenly forced to contend with their age, which should have been a bigger issue all along. Fuck, even if they don’t get sick it may tank them once elderly people start dropping dead.

[The Romulan Republic]

My thinking is mostly that if they get hospitalized, they may be forced to drop out. Because they can’t campaign with a machine doing their breathing, they may literally die, the frailty of their age is going to be under the focus it should have been months ago, and even if they recover they will be weakened for possibly the rest of their lives.

Nobody will hold getting sick against them. They will just be suddenly forced to contend with their age, which should have been a bigger issue all along. Fuck, even if they don’t get sick it may tank them once elderly people start dropping dead.

So I take it you're endorsing Buttigieg, given he's the only young person left in the race?

Yeah, if a candidate is seriously ill for an extended period of time, practicality might force them to drop out.

I honestly don't think Trump would, though, unless he literally died. His ego wouldn't allow it, and he knows he's going to jail once he's out of the Presidency. He'd just have surrogates out campaigning for him, and probably spreading rumours that he was actually poisoned by the Deep State.

[The Romulan Republic]

Heh, that could be Buttigieg's new campaign slogan:

Buttigieg 2020: Young enough to survive the Coronavirus!

[FireNexus]

So I take it you're endorsing Buttigieg, given he's the only young person left in the race?

I’d still vote for Bernie Sanders over Buttigieg, if it came down to the two of them. And we all know how I feel about Bernie Sanders, and how much more hostile those feelings have gotten in light of recent news.

The very fact that Pete Buttigieg thinks he should be President with his resume is more disqualifying than literally anything about any other Democratic candidate who is not a possible member of a cult. If everybody else drops, I’d vote for Klobuchar, prob. She’s under 60, so not at high risk, and is actually qualified even if she’s not my choice.

[FireNexus]

Heh, that could be Buttigieg's new campaign slogan:

Buttigieg 2020: Young enough to survive the Coronavirus!

This is just going to be another debate conflict between Petey and Senator Klobuchar.

[The Romulan Republic]

I mean, I don't like Buttigieg at all, but I do sometimes think that the experience issue is overplayed, with candidates in general.

I'll remind everyone that Abraham Lincoln, a man I would contend was America's greatest President by a mile, had never held any office higher than one-term Congressman prior to becoming President.

[FireNexus]

I mean, I don't like Buttigieg at all, but I do sometimes think that the experience issue is overplayed, with candidates in general.

I'll remind everyone that Abraham Lincoln, a man I would contend was America's greatest President by a mile, had never held any office higher than one-term Congressman prior to becoming President.

You have a point, but Petey’s experience is not just limited. His record as mayor was shitty as hell. In fact, the big moment where he burst onto the national stage was eloquently taking responsibility for fucking up his job so badly that people literally died. Still, all other things being equal, the person who has held multiple offices of increasing responsibility that require doing complex politics should be the favorite over the small town mayor.

Abraham Lincoln was inexperienced, but he had the big advantage that almost all of the people who would make things politically difficult for him went and add their own country. I’m not saying having to fight a civil war made things easy, but it did takeaway the primary impediment to him being an effective executive.

[The Romulan Republic]

I mean, I don't like Buttigieg at all, but I do sometimes think that the experience issue is overplayed, with candidates in general.

I'll remind everyone that Abraham Lincoln, a man I would contend was America's greatest President by a mile, had never held any office higher than one-term Congressman prior to becoming President.

You have a point, but Petey’s experience is not just limited. His record as mayor was shitty as hell. In fact, the big moment where he burst onto the national stage was eloquently taking responsibility for fucking up his job so badly that people literally died. Still, all other things being equal, the person who has held multiple offices of increasing responsibility that require doing complex politics should be the favorite over the small town mayor.

True, his record as mayor leaves a lot to be desired. But that's just having a shitty record, not a lack of one. Plenty of old and experienced candidates have the same problem.

Abraham Lincoln was inexperienced, but he had the big advantage that almost all of the people who would make things politically difficult for him went and add their own country. I’m not saying having to fight a civil war made things easy, but it did takeaway the primary impediment to him being an effective executive.

Actually, there was considerable opposition to the war, demands for a negotiated peace, even seditious incitement of desertions, etc, throughout the North during Lincoln's presidency. Not to mention shit like the New York City draft riots, or the assassin that ultimately killed him. Even within his own party there were divisions, for example, about how fast and far to push on abolishing slavery, how harshly to punish the South when the war was over (which blew up after his death during the Johnson Presidency).

Where the war did help clear his way was that he could claim for himself exceptionally broad executive powers (suspending habeus corpus, the draft, declaring war without waiting for Congress's approval, the Emancipation proclamation, etc.), under the banner of military necessity. He pushed the limits of the Constitution, but due to the crisis, was largely upheld by the courts in having done so.

[Mr Bean]

I mean, I don't like Buttigieg at all, but I do sometimes think that the experience issue is overplayed, with candidates in general.

I'll remind everyone that Abraham Lincoln, a man I would contend was America's greatest President by a mile, had never held any office higher than one-term Congressman prior to becoming President.

*snip

Abraham Lincoln was inexperienced, but he had the big advantage that almost all of the people who would make things politically difficult for him went and add their own country. I’m not saying having to fight a civil war made things easy, but it did takeaway the primary impediment to him being an effective executive.

Look into the history of General McClellan who soured on him and began fighting Lincoln even before he lost his position or Salmon P. Chase who served as his Secretary of the Treasury but was involved with intrigue after intrigue of hoping to take down President Lincoln to become the Republican nominee in 1864. True most of his Democratic opposite was gone but there's nothing so dangerous as an ambitious "friend". Lincoln main claim to kindness from history is his administration was mostly a war administration and he was not alive to govern in a peace time. Many of his actions in war might have been investigated and his reputation would be far different were his Presidency to have lasted another three years. Instead he goes down judged only on the war and the few short weeks between his election, the south seceding and Fort Sumter starting the war until it's end and his assassination shortly after.

[The Romulan Republic]

Looks like at least some superdelegates are so wrapped up in their Sandersphobia that they're willing to torpedo the party by taking the nomination from him in a brokered convention:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/27/politics/ber ... index.html

(CNN)Some national and state Democratic party leaders concerned about Sen. Bernie Sanders' candidacy are willing to risk a messy, brokered national convention this summer, which could be potentially damaging to the party, to prevent the self-described Democratic socialist from becoming the nominee, The New York Times reported.

Of the 93 superdelegates the Times interviewed, a majority expressed an "overwhelming opposition" to naming Sanders the party's nominee if he wins a plurality of pledged delegates before the Democratic National Convention in July.

The vast majority also predicted that no candidate would secure the party's nomination during the primaries and that there will be a brokered convention, the Times reported.

Only nine superdelegates the Times spoke to supported Sanders becoming the nominee if he's short of a majority at the convention but holds the most delegate votes.

In order to win the nomination, a Democratic candidate needs 1,991 pledged delegate votes, which they earn during the primaries and caucuses.

Under rules passed in 2018, if there is no majority winner, pledged delegates and superdelegates would then vote on a second ballot at the Democratic National Convention, and more if needed, until one candidate consolidates a majority of the delegates. There are about 770 superdelegates.

The second ballot vote could lead to a potentially contentious floor fight, given that all delegates become unpledged after the first vote.

The Times report comes as the party is torn between nominating a moderate or progressive candidate who they feel can best take on President Donald Trump. The superdelegates who spoke to the Times shows the growing anxiety establishment Democrats feel in having Sanders as their nominee.

The party leaders interviewed by the Times were concerned that Sanders would lose to Trump in the general election and hurt down ballot races in swing states, the newspaper reported.

CNN reported Thursday that vulnerable House members are growing fearful that the Vermont senator will cost them their seats in the general election in the fall if he's the nominee at the top of the ticket.

The Times reported that Democrats have suggested to Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who decided against running for president, to fight for the nomination at a brokered convention or urged former President Barack Obama to negotiate a truce.

Ahead of the critical Super Tuesday contests, Sanders is leading in the delegate count over the seven other Democratic candidates still in the race. Sanders has argued that the candidate with the most delegates, if they can't achieve a majority, should be declared the nominee -- a different stance from 2016.

Facing off against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 primary, Sanders railed against the superdelegate process and encouraged them to consider swinging the contest in his favor. Clinton went on to win a majority of superdelegates and clinch the nomination.

During a CNN town hall on Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren said she'd be ready for a convention floor battle if none of the Democratic candidates reaches a delegate majority during the primaries.

She argued that Sanders can't change the rules, "now that he thinks there's an advantage for him."

Ahead of the critical Super Tuesday contests, Sanders is leading in the delegate count over the seven other Democratic candidates still in the race.

Previously, superdelegates were able to vote on the first ballot for the party's presidential nominee, backing whichever candidate for the nomination they chose.

Under current party rules, which were changed in 2018, only pledged delegates would vote on the first ballot.

The last Democratic convention to go beyond the first ballot was in 1952.

CNN's Adam Levy, Gregory Krieg and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.

Given that such a divisive action would virtually guarantee a crushing loss to Trump, this amounts to a decision to pick Trump over their own party's nominee.

The good news is that unless the party outright changes its convention rules mid-primary to disenfranchise pledged delegates (and their doesn't seem much appetite to do that, at least not yet), then a brokered convention would also allow pledged delegates to vote for whoever they wanted on the second round. And some (particularly Warren delegates, I'd imagine) might go to Sanders. So if he's close, he might still be able to scrape a win, by pulling in some delegates from other campaigns (along with a minority of superdelegates). It helps that Bernie's support tends to be highly loyal, while he's the second choice for a lot of other people (at least among primary voters).

But its pretty fucking disgraceful that for at least some Democrats, the strategy now appears to be "keep Sanders from winning a majority, force a brokered convention, and then hand the nomination to a Centrist against the wishes of most of our voters", even when they have to know that this would rip the party in two and likely ensure Trump's win. Anyone advocating this course of action should hand in their party membership, now.

[The Romulan Republic]

Pelosi says she'd be comfortable with a Sanders nomination:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/27/politics/nan ... index.html

Washington (CNN)House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Thursday that she will support Sen. Bernie Sanders if he wins the Democratic presidential nomination as the Vermont senator builds momentum heading into a crucial slate of primaries.

The establishment of the Democratic Party has been nervous over the self-described democratic socialist's strong performances in the first three contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. With talk of a potential convention fight over the nomination looming, and senior party figures like James Carville and Rahm Emanuel sounding the alarm, Pelosi sought to pour cold water on rumors of dissension within the Capitol Hill wing of the party.

"Whoever our nominee is we will support, with respect for his or her positions," Pelosi said when asked about Sanders during a news conference Thursday.

Pelosi's message was simple: "Unity, unity, unity"

While Pelosi was unwavering in voicing her support for the eventual Democratic nominee, she has otherwise remained on the sidelines of the primary race.

Pelosi had earlier told reporters Wednesday that she is comfortable with Sanders being the Democratic nominee and she isn't concerned his nomination will cause Democrats to lose the majority.

However, other members of the House do not share Pelosi's confidence.

Sanders' recent surge in polls has caused some House Democrats to become weary that Sanders, with his far-left policy proposals, will cost them their seats, as CNN recently reported.

The New York Times reported that some national and state Democratic party leaders are even willing to risk a messy, brokered national convention, potentially damaging to the party, to prevent the Sanders from becoming the nominee.

Rep. Joe Cunningham, a freshman Democrat in a formerly Republican South Carolina district, told a local newspaper that his state "doesn't want socialism." Cunningham has not endorsed a candidate in the race.

Former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg highlighted the concerns over Sanders' effect on down-ballot races during Tuesday's presidential debate in South Carolina.

"If you want to keep the House in Democratic hands, you might want to check with the people who actually turned the House blue -- 40 Democrats who are not running on your platform. ... They are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can," said Buttigieg to Sanders.

My respect for Pelosi's gone up a bit. Looks like someone is actually serious about party unity to beat Trump, or at least has the sense not to voice her objections in public.

[The Romulan Republic]

More details on what a Sanders administration might do:

Sanders campaign is considering the idea of beginning his Presidency with a 300 billion Federal jobs guarantee:

https://reuters.com/article/us-usa-elec ... SKCN20L2GT

Some of the higher price tag items Sanders has proposed, such as the elimination of $1.7 trillion in student debt, could be enacted and actually boost the economy, while ambitious environment or healthcare programs would need to be rolled out more deliberately to match what the economy could absorb without inflation, Stephanie Kelton, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York state, said earlier this week.

“I like very much the idea of getting a (jobs) safeguard in place right away because, like most people, I worry about what happens when the next downturn comes,” Kelton said on the sidelines of a National Association for Business Economics meeting.

Kelton, who has been Sanders’ senior economic adviser since his unsuccessful 2016 presidential bid, emphasized she was speaking on her own behalf about how some of her economic ideas might be implemented, and not for the U.S. senator’s campaign.

But Sanders’ ideas have raised questions and criticisms about how his proposals would be financed. Though Kelton’s role in a possible Sanders’ administration is uncertain, her advocacy of the controversial Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) brand of economics could offer clues about how that large an agenda might be implemented.

MMT hinges on the belief that nations like the United States that issue their own currencies and do not borrow in foreign denominations need not limit government spending based on tax revenues or annual budget deficits, but rather by whether the spending produces inflation.

Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, has promised a sweeping transformation of the U.S. economy if he wrests the keys to the White House from President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election.

Kelton estimates the jobs guarantee would increase the federal deficit by about 1.5% of gross domestic product while ensuring the elusive goal of full employment. The U.S. deficit currently stands at 4.5% of GDP.

Such a proposal is not a novel idea in U.S. history or even the current presidential race. Government employment programs were used to ease the sting of the Great Depression, and have been more recently proposed by Democratic presidential candidates including Senator Elizabeth Warren.

But Sanders has made it a centerpiece of his agenda.

A jobs guarantee would, Kelton said, form an ultimate economic backstop that ensures full employment even in a recession and would expand federal spending just as private sector incomes ebbed.

Kelton said her research shows that cancelling the $1.7 trillion in federal student debt would be a net boost to the economy.

Trillions of dollars would need to be allocated to pay for ambitious parts of the Sanders agenda such as the Medicare For All proposal to provide health insurance for all Americans based on the existing government-run program for those 65 and older, a climate-friendly Green New Deal or an infrastructure building program.

Those programs would need to be rolled out more deliberately and designed by teams of experts across federal agencies to match what could be spent in any given year without causing a worrying jump in inflation, she said.

The Sanders campaign had no comment when asked about Kelton’s possible role in a Sanders White House. The campaign’s website promises “a stable job that pays a living wage” to everyone in America who can work, highlighting health care, infrastructure, and childhood education jobs.

Sanders also does not overtly advocate MMT, and some aspects of it clash with his progressive rhetoric. As an intellectual notion, for example, higher deficits could be just as easily used to underwrite tax cuts as a Green New Deal, a fact Kelton has said here makes Trump seem perhaps an unwitting adherent.

Critics, including Republicans as well as moderate Democrats, view MMT as a pie-in-the-sky set of ideas that would require huge tax hikes and ultimately lead to higher interest rates that would damage the economy.

In a 2019 op-ed in the Washington Post, former U.S. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said MMT was “fallacious at multiple levels” and was being pushed by “fringe economists.”

It is likely Republicans, who currently control the U.S. Senate, would reject most if not all of any MMT-driven agenda.

In the wake of Sanders’ recent victories in the New Hampshire and Nevada nominating contests and strong showing in the Iowa caucuses, some Democrats have voiced concerns that independents and moderate Republicans will be scared by the prospect of a sharp left turn, jeopardizing Democrats’ control of the U.S. House of Representatives as well as their White House hopes.

Sanders, who has vowed to make the wealthy and corporations assume a greater financial burden, has acknowledged that taxes will go up to pay for his proposals, but he so far has refused to say by how much.

Some of his rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden and former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, have criticized Sanders for failing to lay out the costs and brandished his proposals as a gift to Republicans in November.

Slideshow (3 Images)
“I can tell you exactly how it all adds up. It adds up to four more years of Donald Trump,” Buttigieg said during a Democratic candidates debate on Wednesday. The next state nominating contest takes place on Saturday in South Carolina.

TECHNOCRATIC REVOLUTION
In her appearance at the National Association for Business Economics this week, Kelton outlined what would amount to a technocratic revolution if MMT were to inform federal spending. Lawmakers and officials would closely calibrate federal budgets to spend as much as possible while keeping inflation at bay, attack bottlenecks in specific markets if needed, and use interventions more akin to wartime to engineer the economy away from fossil fuels.

Kelton envisions key changes to the budgeting for government programs so lawmakers no longer fight one battle over how much to spend on a program and another over how to fund it.

“Budgets should be aimed at solving problems,” she said, summing up how an MMT approach could be put into practice. “Write a budget with the intent of improving public well-being.”

For more ambitious programs, “operationalizing” MMT would involve analyzing how large amounts of spending could be rolled out without causing prices to surge, she said.

MMT does not worry about government deficits. But it does see inflation as a constraint, if money is spent so fast in an economy or market that it drives up prices.

Kelton acknowledged the need for a dose of caution on that front, given the low level of U.S. unemployment, currently at 3.6%.

She cited the estimates of other economists that show there still might be perhaps $500 billion of immediate “fiscal space” available.

But if the aim is to spend “a couple of trillion on a Green New Deal or infrastructure, somebody better be getting this right, especially when the margin of error is not big,” she said.

He is also considering moving the US embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv instead of Jerusalem:

https://aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/sand ... 33559.html

Its also been mentioned that he is likely to reverse Trump's policy and become the first US President in over 40 years to declare Israeli settlements illegal:

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/25/be ... iddle-east

Going to be fun hearing the constant accusations of anti-Semitism against the first-ever Jewish Presidential nominee for a major party.

[The Romulan Republic]

Looks like Biden, not Sanders, has gotten a boost in South Carolina post-Nevada. Correspondingly, the odds of a contested convention on fivethirtyeight have shot up to 49%, while Bernie's chances of gaining a majority before the convention have dropped to under 1 in 3.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/el ... -carolina/

After former Vice President Joe Biden finished second in the Nevada caucuses, someone at his post-election speech shouted out, “Comeback kid!” It seemed like an odd claim at the time — Biden finished more than 26 percentage points behind Sen. Bernie Sanders (going by county delegates). But based on the latest polls, Biden may indeed be experiencing a comeback in South Carolina, which votes on Saturday.

As Nevada went to the polls last Saturday, the FiveThirtyEight forecast considered Sanders the slight front-runner in South Carolina, with a 1 in 2 (46 percent) chance of winning it. It gave Biden a 2 in 5 (40 percent) chance. Since then, in a reminder of how fluid primaries can be, Biden’s chances have skyrocketed. As of Thursday at 5:38 p.m. Eastern (), Biden has a 14 in 15 (94 percent) chance of winning the Palmetto State, while Sanders’s odds are down to 1 in 20 (5 percent).

The first hint of Biden’s comeback came two days ago: Biden had only a small lead on Sanders in our South Carolina forecast at the time, but the first survey conducted entirely after Nevada, from Public Policy Polling, showed Biden up 15 points. At that point, the poll was an outlier. Well, not anymore. Since Wednesday, we’ve gotten six new polls of South Carolina, most of which have given Biden commanding leads.

On behalf of the Charleston Post and Courier, Change Research polled the Palmetto State from Feb. 23 to 27 and found Biden with 28 percent, Sanders with 24 percent, Tom Steyer with 16 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren with 12 percent, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 11 percent, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard with 5 percent and Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 4 percent. However, Change Research has had big house effects this election cycle — their polls have tended to underestimate Biden and overestimate several other candidates, including Sanders, relative to other polls. Once adjusted for house effects by our model, this poll is actually more suggestive of a 12-point Biden lead (specifically, Biden 32 percent, Sanders 20 percent, Steyer 16 percent, Warren 9 percent, Buttigieg 7 percent).
An Emerson College poll dated Feb. 26-27 gave Biden a strong lead over Sanders — and it was an even better poll for Biden considering Emerson’s Sanders-friendly house effect. The poll’s raw toplines were Biden 41 percent, Sanders 25 percent, Buttigieg and Steyer 11 percent each, Klobuchar 6 percent, Warren 5 percent and Gabbard 2 percent. But adjusted for house effects, the poll was more like Biden 40 percent, Sanders 20 percent.

A Feb. 26 poll by Starboard Communications, a South Carolina political firm, gave Biden a huge lead: He had 40 percent support, Steyer had 12 percent, Sanders had 11 percent, Warren and Buttigieg had 9 percent each, Klobuchar had 6 percent and Gabbard had 2 percent. Stripping away the poll’s house effects only slightly reduces the size of that lead: Biden 38 percent, Sanders 13 percent.
A Monmouth University poll conducted Feb. 23-25 put Biden at 36 percent, Sanders at 16 percent, Steyer at 15 percent, Warren at 8 percent, Buttigieg at 6 percent, Klobuchar at 4 percent and Gabbard at 1 percent. A top-notch pollster, Monmouth has no significant house effects, so this was a good poll for Biden, pure and simple.
According to a Clemson University poll from Feb. 17-25, Biden had 35 percent support, Steyer 17 percent, Sanders 13 percent, Buttigieg and Warren 8 percent each, Klobuchar 4 percent and Gabbard 2 percent. This poll also did not need to be significantly adjusted for house effects.

Finally, a Feb. 23-24 survey by East Carolina University yielded the following results, which were mostly unaffected by house effects: Biden 31 percent, Sanders 23 percent, Steyer 20 percent, Warren 8 percent, Buttigieg 6 percent, Gabbard and Klobuchar 2 percent each. Interestingly, though, this poll wasn’t any better for Biden than ECU’s South Carolina poll from two weeks ago, which gave him an 8-point lead.

It’s tempting to chalk up Biden’s comeback to his performance in Tuesday’s debate or his Wednesday endorsement by Rep. Jim Clyburn, who carries a lot of weight in South Carolina Democratic politics. But in reality, the polls above were mostly conducted before either of those two events. Instead, the dividing line seems to be the Nevada caucuses. In six South Carolina polls conducted between New Hampshire1 and Nevada, Biden averaged 26 percent and Sanders averaged 22 percent. In the six polls conducted entirely since Nevada,2 Biden has averaged 35 percent and Sanders has averaged 20 percent.

It’s certainly odd that Biden, and not Sanders, would have gotten a bump out of a state where Sanders won nearly twice as many raw votes, but that’s what it looks like. Perhaps it is the manifestation of establishment backlash against the suddenly-real prospect of Sanders becoming the nominee.

And accordingly, that prospect is now getting less likely again. As FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver wrote earlier today, Biden winning South Carolina — especially by a big margin — would put him in good position to win, or at least net many delegates from, the many Southern states that vote just three days later, on Super Tuesday. That could set the table for a drawn-out nomination fight between Sanders and Biden — one that could even lead to a contested convention.

Indeed, in our overall primary forecast, the chance that no one receives a majority of pledged delegates after all states and territories have voted is up near its all-time high of 1 in 2 (49 percent)! But although his outlook has worsened, Sanders retains decent odds to win a delegate majority: 1 in 3, or 32 percent. For instance, he’s still a better bet than Biden, although the former vice president’s chances are up to 1 in 6 (16 percent).

And increasingly, it is looking like those are the only three realistic outcomes of the 2020 primary calendar: All other candidates, including former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have a 2 percent chance or less.

Jesus, do that many people really want to have a contested convention that'll practically hand the election to Trump on a platter?

Hopefully they're underpolling Sanders again.

Edit: Then again, I know at least one of those recent polls was very heavily polling older voters. Odds are that certain news outlets are deliberately polling heavily anti-Sanders demographics (read: old people) more, in order to create a false impression of a sudden Biden surge in the hopes that illusion will become reality.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The chances of any candidate getting seriously ill really aren't all that much higher than they are any other election cycle, even before controlling for access to better healthcare. Coronavirus isn't any more deadly than the seasonal flu, after all. Sure, the probability of a candidate getting sick is higher than usual given how virulent coronavirus is, but even with their age it isn't terribly likely to see any of them get seriously ill by it.

Interestingly, so far as I can tell historically, there has never been a major pandemic during a presidential election cycle before. The closest would be the 1968 H3N2 pandemic, but although that began in July of 1968 the US didn't have any cases until December, after the election. In fact, I believe the only major pandemic during any US election cycle was the 1918 Spanish flu, which was raging during the midterms that year. I can't find any numbers on voter turnout that year, but there is probably a relationship between that flu epidemic and woman's suffrage.

[Darth Yan]

Okay. If 538 is right and things go EXACTLY the way the average will poll Bernie will end up with about 1550-1605 votes. Of course I'm pretty certain that candidates are going to drop out. Warren and Steyer I'm pretty sure will endorse Bernie, which might help him.

March and April are critical months though. If by some miracle Bernie wrests Minnesota away from Klobacher I think we be certain she'll drop out, same thing if he wins Massachusetts (Rubio dropped out when he lost Florida).

Either way I'm certain it's going to boil down to Bernie vs Biden if he has a last minute surge. If Bloomberg stays in it might help Bernie ironically enough.

[The Romulan Republic]

The chances of any candidate getting seriously ill really aren't all that much higher than they are any other election cycle, even before controlling for access to better healthcare. Coronavirus isn't any more deadly than the seasonal flu, after all. Sure, the probability of a candidate getting sick is higher than usual given how virulent coronavirus is, but even with their age it isn't terribly likely to see any of them get seriously ill by it.

Interestingly, so far as I can tell historically, there has never been a major pandemic during a presidential election cycle before. The closest would be the 1968 H3N2 pandemic, but although that began in July of 1968 the US didn't have any cases until December, after the election. In fact, I believe the only major pandemic during any US election cycle was the 1918 Spanish flu, which was raging during the midterms that year. I can't find any numbers on voter turnout that year, but there is probably a relationship between that flu epidemic and woman's suffrage.

Actually, coronavirus is significantly more deadly than the average flu:

https://theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/ ... face-masks

Claim: ‘It is no more dangerous than winter flu’
Many individuals who get coronavirus will experience nothing worse than seasonal flu symptoms, but the overall profile of the disease, including its mortality rate, looks more serious. At the start of an outbreak the apparent mortality rate can be an overestimate if a lot of mild cases are being missed. But this week, a WHO expert suggested that this has not been the case with Covid-19. Bruce Aylward, who led an international mission to China to learn about the virus and the country’s response, said the evidence did not suggest that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. If borne out by further testing, this could mean that current estimates of a roughly 1% fatality rate are accurate. This would make Covid-19 about 10 times more deadly than seasonal flu, which is estimated to kill between 290,000 and 650,000 people a year globally.

Claim: ‘It only kills the elderly, so younger people can relax’
Most people who are not elderly and do not have underlying health conditions will not become critically ill from Covid-19. But the illness still has a higher chance of leading to serious respiratory symptoms than seasonal flu and there are other at-risk groups – health workers, for instance, are more vulnerable because they are likely to have higher exposure to the virus. The actions that young, healthy people take, including reporting symptoms and following quarantine instructions, will have an important role in protecting the most vulnerable in society and in shaping the overall trajectory of the outbreak.

Claim: ‘Face masks don’t work’
Wearing a face mask is not an iron clad guarantee that you won’t get sick – viruses can also transmit through the eyes and tiny viral particles, known as aerosols, can still penetrate masks. However, masks are effective at capturing droplets, which is the main transmission route of coronavirus, and some studies have estimated a roughly five-fold protection versus no barrier. If you are likely to be in close contact with someone infected, a mask cuts the chance of the disease being passed on. If you’re just walking around town and not in close contact with others, wearing a mask is unlikely to make any difference.

Claim: ‘You need to be with an infected person for 10 minutes’
For flu, some hospital guidelines define exposure as being within six feet of an infected person who sneezes or coughs for 10 minutes or longer. However, it is possible to be infected with shorter interactions or even by picking the virus up from contaminated surfaces, although this is thought to be a less common route of transmission.

Claim: ‘A vaccine could be ready within a few months’
Scientists were quick out of the gates in beginning development of a vaccine for the new coronavirus, helped by the early release of the genetic sequence by Chinese researchers. The development of a viable vaccine continues apace, with several teams now testing candidates in animal experiments. However, the incremental trials required before a commercial vaccine could be rolled out are still a lengthy undertaking – and an essential one to ensure that even rare side-effects are spotted. A commercially available vaccine within a year would be quick.

Claim: ‘If a pandemic is declared, there is nothing more we can do to stop the spread’
A pandemic is defined as worldwide spread of a new disease – but the exact threshold for declaring one is quite vague. In practice, the actions being taken would not change whether or not a pandemic is declared. Containment measures are not simply about eliminating the disease altogether. Delaying the onset of an outbreak or decreasing the peak is crucial in allowing health systems to cope with a sudden influx of patients.

It is much less deadly than, say, the avian flu (which IIRC had around a 60% mortality rate), but in a sense that makes it worse- because while the bird flu would have been utterly catastrophic, even apocalyptic if it spread as readily as coronavirus, it didn't- because people were obviously sick and often dead before they could transmit it to a lot of people.

Whereas Coronavirus can be contagious without even showing symptoms, so it hits that sweet spot of being deadly enough to kill a lot of people, but not so deadly that its easily contained. That's why its such a big deal.

Okay. If 538 is right and things go EXACTLY the way the average will poll Bernie will end up with about 1550-1605 votes. Of course I'm pretty certain that candidates are going to drop out. Warren and Steyer I'm pretty sure will endorse Bernie, which might help him.

March and April are critical months though. If by some miracle Bernie wrests Minnesota away from Klobacher I think we be certain she'll drop out, same thing if he wins Massachusetts (Rubio dropped out when he lost Florida).

Either way I'm certain it's going to boil down to Bernie vs Biden if he has a last minute surge. If Bloomberg stays in it might help Bernie ironically enough.

Fivethirtyeight has contested convention way in the lead as the most likely outcome now. Which would be insanely divisive no matter the outcome, and probably hand Trump the win, unless coronavirus/ensuing recession really fucks things up for him. So I really, really hope they're wrong about those odds, or that we get lucky and avoid it (they still give Sanders nearly one in three odds of winning a majority of pledged delegates).

Agreed that Klobuchar and Warren are likely out if they lose their home states (as its hard to imagine them losing there and winning anywhere else). Warren dropping out will help Bernie consolidate the progressive wing, yeah. Hope Warren, Steyer, and Yang will all endorse Bernie (Yang doesn't seem that progressive to me, UBI aside, but his base has a fair amount of overlap with Sanders').

A lot of media is playing up South Carolina as pretty much the make or break moment for the entire primary, either Biden is defeated utterly (true) or rises triumphant (doubtful- even a strong win in SC isn't going to change the fact that Sanders dominated all the other early states, and probably won't change the fact that he is on track to win several states, including California, on Super Tuesday). I expect they're doing this because the polls show Biden winning SC right now, and they're already getting their ducks in a row to proclaim Biden the front-runner, Bernie's streak over, and break out the old "white Bernie Bros" narrative, as though Nevada never happened (seriously, saw an article saying SC was a test of whether Sanders could broaden his base, as though Nevada didn't already prove that he could).

Anyhoo, here's an (admittedly speculative) map of how a Sanders vs Trump race might go:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/27/politics/san ... index.html



Its certainly too close for comfort, with 260 safe or leans R electoral votes, 248 safe or leans D, and the race likely hinging on the (frequently R-leaning) Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I do wonder though if they might be underrating Sanders' odds in Arizona, given his success with Latino voters in Nevada, and the fact that he polls more strongly with Latinos than any other Democratic candidate right now. Turning out that demographic is going to be absolutely key to any hope of swinging Arizona.

If you move Arizona into the tossup column, Sanders would have to win two of three tossup states to win. But of course a lot can change between now and election day, for good or ill.

Edit: It also occurs to me that coronavirus might end up helping the Democrats in a way besides hurting Trump's stock market numbers. Namely, that if there is low turnout at polling stations due to fears of transmission (or even polling stations closed in at least some states), mail ballots are going to become absolutely vital to the outcome. IIRC, it was mail ballots from overseas that put the Democrats over the top in Arizona in 2018, for the Senate race. Overseas voters tend to be more Left-leaning- aside from military members, but at least in 2016, Sanders was the most popular Democratic candidate with the armed forces as well.

Not the way I'd want to win, obviously, but I can easily imagine a scenario where due to coronavirus, mail/absentee ballots take on disproportionate importance, and that plays to the Democrats' favor.

Of course, Trump has already tried to make it harder to mail in absentee ballots, and Republicans have tried to keep them from being counted in close races. Expect to see more of that. As an overseas voter and member of Democrats Abroad, I'll be watching this very closely.

[The Romulan Republic]

Holy shit.

The Democratic Party's vice chairs in California and Texas, the two biggest Super Tuesday states, are paid employees of the Bloomberg campaign. Both are superdelegates, and one of them is also one of two Bloomberg campaign staff on the DNC's rules committee, which is, among other things, tasked with recommending changes to convention rules:

https://commondreams.org/news/2020/02/2 ... ratic-vice

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, hired party vice chairs in Texas and California to work on his campaign just before the states prepare to vote in the presidential primaries on March 3—a move that drew charges from progessives of an attempt buy influence from party elites.

"This does seem to fit a longstanding pattern of Bloomberg using his billions to help generate support among political elites," Campaign Legal Center federal reform program director Brendan Fischer told The Intercept.

Intercept reporter Akela Lacy broke the news Friday morning.

Bloomberg hired the vice chairs of the Texas and California Democratic parties, because, why not https://t.co/vrNc5WybhI

— Akela Lacy (@akela_lacy) February 28, 2020
"The Democratic Party has a problem," said Jewish Currents writer Joshua Leifer of the reporting.

Texas Democratic Party vice chair Carla Brailey and California State Democratic Party vice chair Alexandra Rooker were hired in December and January, respectively, as senior advisors to the Bloomberg campaign.

According to Lacy's reporting:

Both Brailey and Rooker are superdelegates who will likely vote for the Democratic presidential nominee at the party’s national convention this summer. Hiring the leadership of a state party doesn't appear to break any campaign laws.

The apparent legality of the move—despite what was broadly seen as a clear example of corruption—befuddled observers.

"It boggles my mind that this doesn't seem to break any rules," tweeted Lacy's Intercept colleague Alex Emmons.

Bloomberg's hiring of the two vice chairs also struck observers as problematic because of the possibility of a brokered convention in Milwaukee this July which would allow superdelegates to vote from the second round on, giving the unelected party elites an outsized say in the ultimate nominee.

As Lacy reported:

Rooker is one of two members of Bloomberg's campaign staff who also sits on the Democratic National Committee's rules committee, which recommends rules for the convention, the convention agenda, the convention's permanent officers, amendments to the party's charter, and other resolutions. In November, the month he entered the presidential race, Bloomberg gave $320,000 to the DNC, his first contributions to the committee since 1998. (He was a registered Republican from 2001 to 2007, after which he became an independent. He registered as a Democrat in 2018.) He also donated $10,000 to the Texas Democratic Party, where Brailey has been vice chair since June 2018, as well as $10,000 to the California Democratic Party. Brailey, Rooker, and the Bloomberg campaign did not respond to requests for comment on their hiring.

Rumblings of the possiblity party leaders could deliver the nomination to someone other than Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the current frontrunner, if Sanders does not have a clear majority of delegates has sparked outrage from progressives.

"The will of the people should prevail," Sanders said on February 19 at a debate in Las Vegas. "The person who has the most votes should become the nominee."

The optics of superdelegates on the Bloomberg payroll, no matter what the outcome of the convention, raised concerns for progressives. Journalist Michael Tracey referred to an apparent misstatement by Bloomberg during a debate February 25 where the billionaire appeared to almost say he "bought" members of Congress.

"Remember when Bloomberg slipped up at the debate this week and admitted that he has 'bought' Democrats?" said Tracey.

If Bloomberg enters the convention with superdelegates like Brailey and Rooker on his staff, that could wreak havoc on the entire process, said Voter Participation Center communications director Aaron Huertas.

"Let's not play with fire," Huertas tweeted.

Legal or not, that is a stupifying level of corruption and conflict of interest.

Edit: See this shit here? This is why Sanders supporters tend not to trust any candidate who isn't Bernie Sanders. Its not because we're all crazy "Bernie Bros". Its because of shit like his opponents literally hiring DNC officials and superdelegates to work on their campaign.

[The Romulan Republic]

SC has reportedly been closing and relocating polling stations with minimal notice:

https://dailykos.com/stories/2020/2/28/ ... tle-notice

Precinct location consolidation not widely publicized — 131 polling places have been relocated. One-third of the polling locations in the largest county have been closed.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The “First in the South” Democratic primary will not have all of its precinct voting locations open on February 29. Despite the fact that South Carolina has an open primary and any registered voter can participate, the biggest county in the state has closed one-third of its polling locations.

Greenville County closed down 52 precincts; most of those precincts will be consolidated and some will be shifted into temporary locations, but instead of 151 polling locations, Greenville County will have only 118. Across the state, 131 precinct polling places will be relocated.

Consolidating polling stations is a regular occurrence in South Carolina, and Greenville has already planned to do it for the first four elections of this year. “We did that for January 7th, for January 21st, we did it for tomorrow’s election on the 29th and for a sheriff’s election on March 10,” County Executive Conway Belangia told the Prospect. “All of those [elections] being countywide.”

This precinct consolidation for the highest-profile 2020 election in South Carolina has not been publicized, however. Instead, the new voting location for residents is updated on the South Carolina Election Commission website. “They don’t tell people what’s been closed. They’ll tell you where to go,” said Brett Bursey, executive director of the South Carolina Progressive Network. Regular registered voters are unlikely to go online to confirm their polling location before every election.

prospect.org/...

From what I gather, this looks like something the state is doing, and often does, not the Democratic Party, but that will scarcely matter when the cries of "Crooked DNC Rigged Primary!" start.

Meanwhile, here's a breakdown of the possible results of SC tomorrow:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/28/politics/sou ... index.html

Washington (CNN)The final "early" vote of the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination fight happens on Saturday in South Carolina.

After Saturday, the campaign goes WAY national, with 14 states and American Samoa voting on Super Tuesday.

So what's going to happen? Here are my five most likely scenarios -- ranked.

5. Buttigieg overperforms: In Iowa and New Hampshire, the former South Bend, Indiana, mayor overperformed polls and expectations. (He won Iowa and placed a surprisingly strong second in New Hampshire.)

Could that happen again in South Carolina? Polling puts Pete Buttigieg in fourth, but there's absolutely a scenario where he passes wealthy businessman Tom Steyer as voters make final decisions.

Is a third place finish for Buttigieg good enough? Especially with Super Tuesday -- where he has no obvious wins waiting -- right over the horizon?

4. Sanders wins: If this happens, the race is essentially over. Not just for Joe Biden, who has to win in South Carolina. For everyone.

That's not to say that everyone not named "Bernie Sanders" will immediately drop out. They won't. But Sanders would springboard from a huge South Carolina upset into Super Tuesday just three days later -- and would likely build an insurmountable delegate lead.

He would have also shown an ability to win white voters (Iowa, New Hampshire), Hispanic voters (Nevada) and black voters (South Carolina). That would be curtains for everyone else.

3. Steyer underperforms: The "other" billionaire businessman in the Democratic race is currently running a solid third behind Biden and Sanders in South Carolina polling.

But Steyer's poor showing in the first three votes makes him an uncertain bet for South Carolina voters. Human nature suggests that people like to vote for someone they think can win -- and Steyer doesn't look like a winner (or even close) right now.

Do voters swayed by Steyer's long-running TV ad campaign in the state stay in his camp? Or do they go hunting for a candidate that looks more like a winner?

2. Biden wins by single-digits: Polling in the final days of the race here have been all over the place. They all show a Biden lead but disagree whether it is a big or small one.

While Biden would take any sort of victory in South Carolina -- he is done unless he wins -- there's no question that a single-digit victory is less than ideal.

If Sanders comes anywhere close to beating Biden in South Carolina, it would almost certainly soften any bounce for the former vice president heading into Super Tuesday.

1. Biden wins by double-digits: The former vice president has not only been ahead for months and months in the state but also has gone all out to win big here -- from spending New Hampshire primary night in South Carolina to his work to win the endorsement of Rep. Jim Clyburn.

A double-digit win for Biden would likely mean an absolutely dominant performance among the state's black community, which will comprise roughly 60% of the electorate tomorrow.

And that would bode well for Biden's chances on Tuesday, with a number of southern states -- Alabama., Virginia, North Carolina -- with major black populations set to vote.

Biden badly needs a jolt of momentum and a clear win in South Carolina would give it to him.

I'm praying for option four, however unlikely it now appears. We need this wrapped up now, before it devolves into a contested convention and blatant rigging.

[The Romulan Republic]

One thing is clear: a Biden win in SC, even if its by fifty points, isn't going to finish Sanders. He will win states on Super Tuesday. He will win a lot of delegates. Even a landslide loss in SC will still leave Sanders in a better position than he was in 2016 in numerous respects, as he will still have won two of the first four states (and the popular vote in three), as opposed to his single victory in NH, and will still be ahead in total delegates*. His opposition will also be more divided, and Sanders' support is nothing if not loyal, and his campaign nothing if not resilient.

All a Biden win in SC will do at this point is draw this shit out, weaken the party, and give Trump more time, more dirt, more money, more wedges to use against us. All in the hope of forcing a contested convention where a few people can choose the nomination, rather than the party's voters.


*FiveThirtyEight's current average forecast for SC pledged delegates gives Biden 32.7, Sanders 14.7, Buttigieg 1.2, and Warren .5 Rounding that to the nearest delegate, an "average" result in SC, combined with the current delegate tally, gives us:

Sanders: 60.
Biden: 48.
Buttigieg: 27.
Warren: 9.
Klobuchar: 7.

While I'm sure some Centrists will gleefully portray such an outcome as a triumphant Biden comeback and the end of Sanders' momentum, and claim that it proves Sanders can't diversify is support (ignoring Nevada and all the other proofs that he can), and quickly trot out all the old Bernie Bro narratives, the fact remains that even this very good result for Joe Biden leaves him trailing Sanders in actual delegates. It also doesn't change the fact that Biden is low on cash, does not have the presence in Super Tuesday states to take full advantage of such a boost in momentum, and that Sanders is seemingly running away with the lead now in both Texas and California.

So- SC doesn't mean Biden wins. It means it gets muddier, and lasts longer, and gets uglier. And that helps Donald Trump.

Edit: Unless, of course, some folks finally see sense and start dropping out, narrowing the field. I'm not holding my breath, but Warren dropping out could put Sanders over the top, while Klobuchar dropping out, or Buttigieg, would likely help Biden.

Honestly, I'd be okay with a one on one race with Biden at this point. While Sanders benefited early from the divided field, I don't think it does anyone any good now, except, again, Trump. A one-on-one race (against any opponent) is one I'm confident Sanders could have a fair shot in, and if he lost, at least we would likely go to the convention with a clear winner, and dodge the contested convention cluster fuck.

On that note, Yang has urged other candidates to follow his lead and drop out:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/22/politics/and ... index.html

He also claimed (in response to being asked about rumours that Bloomberg's campaign had raised the possibility of offering Yang the VP slot) that multiple campaigns have reached out to him, offering him a role:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/27/politics/and ... index.html

[The Romulan Republic]

Food for thought:

mcal.com/opinion/ct-nyt-michelle-goldberg-putin-president-bernie-sanders-20200225-teyzryhderbddjqapmsd7mxjbe-story.html

On Friday, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had briefed Bernie Sanders that Russia was trying to boost his fortunes in the Democratic primary fight, as it did in 2016. It’s not hard to imagine Vladimir Putin’s motives.

Russia aims to cause chaos and division in liberal democracies and so has often supported both far-right and far-left figures; there’s a reason state-run Russian propaganda network RT hosted the American Green Party’s 2016 presidential debate.

Further, Russia’s investment in Donald Trump has paid off handsomely, and the country’s leaders evidently believe, just as many American pundits do, that Sanders would be Trump’s weakest opponent. “If Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, then Trump wins the White House,” a former adviser to ex-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told GQ’s Julia Ioffe.

But Russia doesn’t have any special insight into how American elections are going to play out, and right now, some polls show Sanders winning both the primary and the general. Like a lot of nervous liberals, I worry that these numbers won’t hold up. But if they do and Sanders becomes president, Putin may live to regret what his country did to build support for him.

Unlike Trump, Sanders would not be a stooge for Russia. Almost any Democratic president would represent a victory over the authoritarian kleptocracy Putin has sought to export all over the world. But Sanders has gone further than several of his rivals in defining his foreign policy in opposition to plundering autocrats.

This is important to keep in mind, because when it comes to Russia, a lot of people have sought to draw invidious comparisons between Trump and Sanders. Anti-Trump conservative Evan McMullin tweeted, “Bernie Sanders is the Democrats’ Donald Trump. Kremlin-backed. Moscow sympathizing.”

The Trump administration is even pretending, outrageously, that Russia prefers Sanders to the president. In a demagogic appearance on ABC News this weekend, Trump’s national security adviser claimed that Russia had an interest in seeing Sanders prevail in 2020: “Well, there are these reports that they want Bernie Sanders to get elected president. That’s no surprise. He honeymooned in Moscow.”

It’s certainly true that at times Sanders has been embarrassingly credulous about communist regimes. But Russia hasn’t been communist in decades, and it is Trump, not Sanders, who fawns over Putin and other despots, including Stalinist madman Kim Jong Un. Sanders, by contrast, believes that American foreign policy should be oriented around expanding democracy in the face of what he called “a new authoritarian axis.”

“There is currently a struggle of enormous consequence taking place in the United States and throughout the world,” Sanders said in a 2018 speech. “In it we see two competing visions. On one hand, we see a growing worldwide movement toward authoritarianism, oligarchy and kleptocracy. On the other side, we see a movement toward strengthening democracy, egalitarianism and economic, social, racial and environmental justice.”

Sanders isn’t a militarist, but he’s no isolationist, either. “If he was in office, and he actually pursued that foreign policy, that would be much to the detriment of Vladimir Putin,” said Max Bergmann, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and an Elizabeth Warren supporter who considers himself a Russia hawk.

It’s ironic: Throughout his career, Sanders has repeatedly excoriated American foreign policy, refusing to accede to the myth of America’s fundamental innocence. But in a race with Trump, he would represent American exceptionalism. “As the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, we have got to help lead the struggle to defend and expand a rules-based international order in which law, not might, makes right,” he said in 2017.

Putin, of course, is bent on subverting the rules-based international order. By most accounts, he’s less interested in cultivating faith in his own system than in destroying belief in alternatives. He aims to paint liberal democracy as nothing but an empty slogan papering over zero-sum contests for power.

In this project, Trump couldn’t better serve Putin’s interests if he were a conscious Russian asset. Under Trump, the U.S. has abandoned the pretense of backing democracy and human rights, meaning there are no longer any great powers that even pretend to put morality at the center of foreign affairs. The horror of this era isn’t just the emergence of an axis of authoritarianism, but the fact that there are so few allies to counter it.

If Sanders was elected president, that could change. His unlikely ascendance would be a blow against the corrosive cynicism in which authoritarianism thrives. America would be the country where young people of all races powered a campaign that proved stronger than plutocracy, stronger than nationalist demagogy, stronger than any of the tools that men like Putin have used to bring liberalism to its knees. To young idealists around the world, America would look — dare I say it — great again.

Building a multiracial social democracy is one of the great political challenges of our time. Few nations on Earth have figured out how to create, in heterogenous populations, the solidarity needed to sustain a robust public sphere. Putin has exploited this difficulty, stoking tribal fears in countries with changing demographics to make liberalism look like a form of social dissolution.

If enough Americans unite across racial lines to replace Trump with a Jewish socialist, it might mean that our country is figuring out how to transcend the illiberalism of our age. I still find it difficult to believe that Sanders can pull it off. But if he does, Putin won’t be pleased for long.

c.2020 The New York Times Company

Republicans have been urged to vote for Sanders in SC's open primary, presumably under the assumption that he will be the easiest to beat. Well, a lot of Democrats thought that about Trump as the nominee. It might be that this time, its the Republicans and the Kremlin biting off more than they can chew.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Actually, coronavirus is significantly more deadly than the average flu:

This article is factually inaccurate, actually amazingly so given The Guardian is usually pretty reliable (source: well, I work in global health and am actively studying this, and I regularly reference WHO reports on the subject).

First of all, the claim that the mortality rate is 1% is a bit misleading. Though it doesn't provide any context, I am guessing this is referring to the 0.7% mortality rate observed among cases with onset of symptoms after February 1. For a variety of reasons that I don't feel like spelling out right now, this isn't a reliable indicator of the overall rate (by comparison, the mortality rate observed among cases with onset of symptoms between January 1 and January 10 was 17.3%! That should be proof enough that looking at cohorts developing symptoms within a specific range of time can be misleading).

WHO estimates are putting the mortality rate for Covid-19 (based on all available data and adjusting for confounding factors) in the range of 2-3% mortality overall. Seasonal flu mortality rates, as you might expect, can be highly variable, ranging from as low as 0.1% to as high as 6-7%, but generally averages out in the vicinity of 2%. Covid-19 may end up being deadlier if it settles into the higher end of the range of current estimates, but it won't be by orders of magnitude. Again, the biggest threat with Covid-19 is that it is so virulent that it will infect large numbers of people and lead to large RAW numbers of deaths, but that doesn't on an individual level (in terms of you as an individual person getting sick with Covid-19 vs. influenza) significantly impact your odds of survival.

(Note: one of the things I hate most in global health research and reporting is the abuse of the term "rate". 1%, 2% ... these are not rates, by a strict definition of the word, they are percentages. A true "mortality rate" should be expressed as a function of person-time, for example, 95 deaths per 100,000 people per month, or something along those lines. The tradition of putting a % on the end and reporting it that way is terribly misleading, because the rate is so highly dependent on what you use as the denominator; for example, some sources will use the number of people in the population surveyed as the denominator, others will just use the number of people presumed to be exposed, others will just the number presumed to be infected, and so on. I've followed that convention for didactic purposes, but I think it is a very misleading way of presenting rate data. That's why if you just look at news articles reporting on the subject it can be very confusing, as you will see a variety of different numbers being reported as the "mortality rate" without providing you the context you need to actually compare them reasonably. Why it is important to dig into the scientific reports being released on the subject.)

[Knife]

The truth is, we don't know. Not enough information out of China that is reliable. What data we do have, does have it way more lethal than seasonal flu. Couple that with the ease in which it passes, latest I've seen is on infected patient infects 2 others, where seasonal flu's been in the 1.3's. But again, we don't have too much data.