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bailesu · 1 year ago

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Removing Biden = Guaranteed Trump Victory.

First off, all of Biden's raised campaign money can't be spent by a theoretical new candidate. Not unless it's Kamala Harris and the people yelling for a new candidate have already shown they don't want her.

Secondly, if Biden drops out, the result is a vicious fight at the convention that makes the Democratic party look like shit. There is no one who is prominent enough and who is eligible to run who can take his place if you've dismissed Kamala Harris.

And the delegates are all unpledged and free to go for whoever, so the result is inevitably a free-for all.

And the emerging candidate will not have the kind of stature Biden has or the degree of support. It will be someone the public barely knows or cares about.

Thirdly, if Kamala is dumped... which is what most of the people calling for Biden to go also want... it will mean pissing off a lot of women and blacks, so the Democratic party goes off a cliff.

The inevitable fruit of dumping Biden is a bitter fight so we can pick a candidate who won't have any money and pissing away Biden's organization and money.

I'm also unconvinced that Clooney has any clue what Biden is like on a consistent basis.

I put his opinion only slightly ahead of a random hobo.

“Clooney wrote of the “profound moment” the country is currently in, noting how just last month he hosted the “single largest fundraiser supporting any Democratic candidate ever, for President Biden’s re-election.” “I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote. “As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.” “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” he continued. “None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe “big F—ing deal” Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” Regarding the debate, in which the 81-year-old President stumbled continually, Clooney wrote that “our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw.” “We’re all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we’ve opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, who we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question,” he wrote.”

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George Clooney calls on Biden to drop out to “save democracy” — just weeks after hosting fundraiser

George Clooney has nothing to gain and everything to lose, by telling the truth right now. Politicians and their supporters hold grudges for eternity. He’s speaking up and saying this now, knowing exactly what the stakes are for him, and for our country.

This is what I’ve been wanting to know. This is what the campaign has been hiding from us: WE all saw that President Biden had a bad night. The question the demands an answer is: was it a bad night? Or has time and age caught up with the president? Are we going to believe our lying eyes, or clap louder?

We don’t vote for just a president; we vote for an administration. For the most part, this administration has been fantastic, more progressive than I ever dreamed, to say nothing of rebuilding a nation out of the wreckage of four years of Trump.

And all of that is going to be burned to ash if President Biden can’t mount an effective campaign to defeat fascism and its leader. Since the debate, the campaign has kept him behind teleprompters and away from unscripted interactions. That’s alarming, and a tacit admission that he can’t fight like he once did, that the person we saw at the debate is the person he is most of the time.

If we lose this election, America will be plunged into decades of authoritarian, theocratic, christian nationalist fascism. The stakes will never be higher, and President Biden and his team need to do what is best for the country.

We will not win this election by clapping louder and gaslighting ourselves. We need — this crisis demands — a candidate who can clearly and easily refute Trump’s lies, and simply and clearly explain to voters what the stakes of this election are. The 2020 Joe Biden could do that; the 2024 Joe Biden doesn’t seem to be capable of that, anymore, and that puts our entire nation and way of life at risk. George Clooney is telling us that he literally just saw, privately, what we all saw in public, and it was not a one-off. He also reveals that every single elected Democrat he talks to agrees with him, but they are too afraid to speak up. That’s horrifying, and I desperately hope it isn’t true.

But if George Clooney is telling us a hard truth, risking the wrath of countless powerful political players, and we should listen to him; not because he is rich and famous, but because he was literally in a room with President Biden and his supporters, and is now on the record that the President Biden we saw at the debate is not a guy with a cold or whatever, and now journalists can follow up with other people who were there to confirm or deny George Clooney’s observations.

These are tough questions that demand answers, now, because we are four months out and this shouldn’t be close, at all. America hates Trump, and he has lost every election since 2018 as a result.

President Biden and the Democrats need to run up huge margins in Michigan, Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, and Ohio, to overcome the inevitable MAGA fuckery. We need a candidate who is fifteen points ahead of Trump, not someone who has been in the margin of error for his entire presidency – which is fucking insane when you look at all of Trump’s felonies, judgments, impending trials, and all of his corrupt criminality that the SCOTUS MAGA Majority twisted itself into knots to protect.

This should be a landslide against Trump and MAGA. It’s close because the candidate running against him isn’t – likely can’t – be out there, every day, banging the podium and forcing a change in the narrative.

Did you see my governor after the debate disaster? He was on fire. That guy would destroy Trump in a debate. Vice President Harris would be laser focused on prosecuting the case against him. President Biden is the only candidate who Trump could drag into a fucking dick waving contest about golf scores when the fucking future of American Democracy is at stake. There is not a single other credible candidate who would take that bait. My god.

President Biden has done so much more than I ever thought possible. He doesn’t get credit for all his progressive achievements, for pulling America out of a economic calamity (caused by Trump and his allies), forgiving student debt, his appointments to the FCC, FTC, and other regulatory agencies that had been captured by industry during the Trump regime.

All of that will be wiped out in a matter of days, if Trump seizes power again.

George Clooney is warning us that President Biden doesn’t have the stamina and focus to win reelection and secure not just his legacy but the future of our country. He is saying out loud and as publicly as possible that we are not crazy, that we really did see what we saw.

This is DEFCON 1 for Democracy. This isn’t politics as usual. This is a moment of tremendous existential danger that only gets worse with each passing day. IF President Biden remains the candidate, I will vote for him, obviously. But I hope that he will fire everyone involved in preparing him for the debate, because they failed him, they failed America, and if Biden is going to take the fight to Trump and MAGA the way he needs to, it he needs a team who understand who they are fighting against, how to punch Trump in the nose, and what the stakes are.

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anexplanationofunfortunateevents · 5 years ago

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a post about the Democratic primary, which I did not enjoy writing

I haven’t talked about the Democratic primary here for a couple of reasons. I think that wrapping our minds about what Trump is doing in power – and what he and his backers did to get him that power – is a lot more important than any campaign tactic his eventual Democratic opponent can use, or even who the Democratic candidate is. I don’t even know who I’ll be voting for myself.

What I do know is that above all other issues, I’ll be voting on democratic values. That includes more conventional voting rights and election integrity issues that we’re used to discussing in American politics. It’s also about pounding the brakes on democratic backsliding at home, and giving institutional and moral support to people around the world who want the same. If we make enough progress on this issue, we can make enormous strides on other progressive priorities. If we don’t turn back this authoritarian tide, we will lose on everything else.

And on my #1 issue, I’ve developed serious concerns about Senator Bernie Sanders.

This is a long post because it’s an attempt to articulate an uncomfortable pattern which requires a lot of context, but I hope you’ll take the time to read it, so let me assure you of a few things it’s not:

Concerns about Sanders seem to be collapsed into “is he as extreme and irrational a leftist as Trump is a right-winger” or “is he too kooky to win an election.” I’m not doing either of those. There is an argument out there that Sanders is too far to the left on policy. I’m … really not the person to do that argument justice. There’s an argument that, whether or not you like his policies, he would have a harder time winning a national election in a year that Democrats cannot afford any more disadvantages. I think this election really is going to be won or lost by the voters choosing to accept or reject Trumpistani autocracy, but it’s entirely responsible to consider that kind of thing. I have a substantive concern about Bernie Sanders, not because I oppose progressives but because I am a progressive, and I don’t pretend to have any insight into how it might affect his chances of winning a general election.

I don’t care a whole lot about what Senator Sanders feels in his heart or whatever. I tend to think this is more about being misguided than malicious, but that’s not make or break for the pattern I’m trying to describe.

I’m not trying to endorse someone else by process of elimination; like I said, I haven’t decided yet who I’m voting for myself.

I’m old enough to remember four years ago when only a few nerds had ever heard of superdelegates. Superdelegates, or unpledged delegates, are party activists and officials who get to vote at the convention along with the pledged delegates who are assigned in the state primary contests. They’re the backup plan put in place after the clusterfuck of 1968. We also got better at avoiding clusterfucks after 1968, so they weren’t an issue. Until 2016, when Sanders decided they were an issue for him because he was going to lose the old-fashioned way, and “superdelegates” were a convenient boogeyman he could use to turn progressives against the Democratic party. Then his campaign successfully talked itself into believing that this conspiracy theory about superdelegates going against the voters, so they started arguing that the superdelegates should take the nomination away from the winner and give it to him. This was always a pipe dream, but it did inspire Sanders supporters to dox a bunch of counterrevolutionary elected officials and progressive activists. Remember, he’s a member of the Senate Democratic caucus, so he’s talking all this shit as a superdelegate.

The sore losering only helped Donald Trump and his Russian backers, but it was delegitimizing enough that the Democratic National Committee felt pressured to revamp the presidential nomination process. Thus, a “unity” committee was formed to placate the feelings of those who were implacably infuriated that the person with the most votes had won the nomination. (The Republicans, whose party processes had allowed an unqualified, unstable, ideologically unreliable foreign asset to take over, made no such alterations.) The big concession on superdelegates is that they don’t vote on the first ballot. If someone wins a majority, then they win the nomination. If nobody gets a majority, then there’s a second vote where the pledged delegates are released and the superdelegates also get a say.

Presumably because pro-Sanders activists were so instrumental in drafting the new rules, they were all set to start gaming those rules before voting began. In early January, when it was assumed that former Vice President Biden would win more delegates than anyone else but come up short of a majority, groups supporting Sanders floated the idea that Warren’s delegates should be ready to join Sanders, or vice versa. The reasoning was that a vote for Warren or Sanders should be considered a vote for what they considered the relatively progressive wing of the Democratic party, and therefore pooling the two candidate’s votes together would represent the will of the electorate. Six weeks later, with Sanders having eked out a plurality in a few early states – more delegates than anyone else, but nowhere near a majority, and losing the popular vote – he’s out here warning that it would be very, very bad for everybody if the person who wins the plurality isn’t guaranteed to win the nomination. If 66% of voters split between two “establishment” candidates, well, that 34% who voted for the “anti-establishment” Sanders better get their way, or the party gets it!1

Sanders representatives also insisted states be allowed to keep holding undemocratic caucuses – until he was outplayed in the Iowa delegate count, at which point they realized the establishment $hills had been right about voter suppression being bad.

Look, real talk, small-d democracy is about trying to do what the voters want. If Sanders stays exactly where he is in the polls – winning a plurality of delegates with only about 1/3 of the voters – he will be getting a lot less support than he did in 2016. When he lost by a whopping 12-point margin, despite being propped up by the Kremlin, the Koch brothers, and thousands of years of patriarchy. If these trends hold (and they might not!) Democratic voters, who are the voters most likely to support his policies, do not want him. So – and I’m editorializing a little bit in this final assessment – spare me.

America is a big country and the Democratic Party is a broad coalition. There are going to be good arguments for and against a lot of different ways to pick a presidential nominee, but a key part of doing it as fairly as possible is to choose the rules beforehand and then stick to them. Campaigns making the best case for their candidate isn’t a bad thing, and a politician being able to change their mind is a good thing. But Sanders whips his supporters up with sweeping claims about the legitimacy of the process – until the opposite claim looks like it might be advantageous to him, at which point his campaign completely reverses itself on whether or not the rules of the election are fair. This is not acceptable. We cannot be playing this game when we are trying to defend the legitimacy of democracy itself against the most powerful person in the world.

On its own, I’d find that frustrating. But once a frustration starts overlapping with a genuine national security issue, it stops being a frustration and starts being a serious concern.

Senator Sanders was informed a month before the Nevada caucuses that the Russian government was supporting his campaign. Again. We still don’t know what kind of support they were giving him, though it’s probably more or less what they were doing in 2016 – pushing propaganda and making it harder for people to have productive discussions about the primary. He didn’t say anything about it, except to obliquely reference Russian trolls when he was challenged on the debate stage about some of his supporters being abusive online. (We’ll come back to that one.)

When this story broke, as it clearly would, Sanders reacted by attacking the newspaper. He claimed that the briefing his campaign received was classified, which a) it is unlikely to have been properly classified, which he would’ve known if he’d tried to work out a way to go public and b) didn’t stop him from using some of that information to his advantage during a debate. His campaign went around crowing about these great victories where he squeaked out pluralities knowing that those victories were tainted by a foreign government helping him and/or sabotaging his competitors. (Meanwhile, these competitors were not even told that they were at risk.)

He responded similarly to the Russian support he received in 2016. He failed to educate his supporters about the seriousness of the attack as it was happening. When asked later, he begrudgingly admitted to having known about it, falsely claimed to have tried to alert the Clinton campaign, and attempted to deflect criticism by literally blaming the victim. Admitting that he lost despite benefiting from the criminal sabotage of his opponent, rather than because he was the victim of some nefarious party establishment conspiracy, would have damaged the story he tells voters and been a blow to his ego.

Because he chose to deflect rather than face the issue, he has never dealt with the ways that the ways that the Russian attack probably did poison his movement. Nobody else has really wanted to deal with it either, so I’ll stipulate that this is my opinion, but I think it makes sense.

There is a qualitative difference between what Sanders tries to communicate to people and what his supporters do in response. I do not believe that Sanders wanted his supporters to vote for Trump, stay home, or discourage others from voting in 2016. I do not believe he wanted progressive organizers to be inundated with death threats. I do not think he wants people like anti-racist filmmaker Ava DuVernay or Parkland parent Fred Guttenberg to be swarmed with abuse online. I sincerely believe that if you hooked Sanders up to a lie detector, he would say that’s bad stuff and he doesn’t want any of it, and I am not inclined to be overly generous to Senator Sanders.

And yet it keeps happening, and it can’t just be blamed on Russian bots. Real people physically showed up in Philadelphia to heckle speakers at the convention in 2016. Abusive phone calls to perceived establishment enemies of Sanders really do slow down after he explicitly says he doesn’t want people to do that – which means that he dissuaded real people, who started down that ugly path because they thought it was what he wanted. There is an observable mismatch between what is being said and what is being heard. Something is jamming the signal.

Jamming the signal, incidentally, requires exactly the kind of stuff that troll farms do best. Post “edgy” guillotine memes and see who bites. Flood brutal criticism of mainstream Democrats with applause. When ostensible leftists use their independent platforms to spread disinformation or even just nastiness, toss a few coins in their Patreon – they don’t have to know they’re working for you, they just have to learn that pushing the envelope is profitable. Shout down even mild criticism by spamming it with garbage, so that skeptics withdraw or become defensive, while supporters internalize the idea that abuse is an acceptable response to dissent. Work hard enough to desensitize a campaign to that kind of behavior, and you might even get it to put a bunch of spiteful trolls in charge.

This is a theory, but I think it is the most likely theory. I certainly think it’s more persuasive than the alternatives, which are “those intelligence and disinformation professionals have spent the last few years shouting into the void and having no discernible effects on target populations, and also, all these people who say they’ve been hit with the exact type of toxicity that disinformation effort seems designed to provoke are actually all hallucinating and/or lying because the unbelievers of The Establishment(TM) are all conspiring to take Bernie down” and “this Russia thing is a fake news Democrat deep state witch hunt.”

I’m not saying I think Bernie Sanders is a Russian asset. I’m saying that the Russians seem to think he’s an asset to them.

The Sanders campaign has a complicated problem on its hands, and I don’t know what they should do about it. But it isn’t enough for Sanders to say “I don’t care who Putin is supporting.” It is his job as a United States senator who swore an oath to protect and defend the constitution to care about who Putin is supporting. It is his job as a presidential candidate to care enough to ask why Putin is supporting him. Even if he doesn’t care morally, he has to care politically, because plenty of voters care, and if he can’t give us an explanation we’re going to start trying to figure it out for ourselves.

Which makes it time to stop ducking the ugly question: why is Senator Sanders useful to people who are against everything he stands for?

Maybe, as the press and the Bloomberg campaign seem to think, whoever’s designing this strategy thinks Sanders is the most likely to lose to Trump, so of course they prefer him over the stronger competition. I hope they’re right. It would certainly be comforting to think that Trump’s Russian backers think we’re going to have a free and fair election based on how voters feel about the nominees, because it would mean they’re not relying on their ability to hack state boards of elections. And it would be comforting because the other possibilities get pretty depressing. Unfortunately, the Kremlin whisperers putting out this comforting explanation were also quite certain that the Russian government was just trying to cause chaos and didn’t have a preferred candidate in 2016 (they did), the Russian government only supported Trump because they hated Hillary Clinton (she’s not running and they’re still at it), that the propaganda campaign couldn’t have had an impact (it did), that the Russian government would never have attacked actual voting infrastructure because norms or whatever (lol) …. the mind-readers turn out to be big on the wishful thinking, is what I’m saying here.

Maybe it’s just a narrow convergence of policy. Sanders was one of only a small handful of legislators who voted against the Magnitsky sanctions that the Russian government is desperate to overturn. He failed to support further sanctions on Russia for the 2016 election interference – again, interference which helped his campaign. He’s called for neutralizing NATO against Russian aggression by letting Russia join. From the Russian government’s perspective, that’s as good as destroying it like Trump has been trying to help them do. Maybe those things are enough. I think those are bad positions and he should have to explain them. But he seems less committed to those things than Trump, who’s spent three years failing to deliver.

If four years of the Trump show have taught us anything, it’s that you can’t just write off the tinfoil hat conspiracy stuff; you have to acknowledge it and explain why it’s unlikely. So yes, it is theoretically possible that Russian intelligence believes they have some leverage over Sanders, either to manipulate him or to kneecap him at a moment they think is most advantageous to Trump. That doesn’t mean Senator Sanders has done anything wrong. It just means that there’s a bit of footage from when he visited the Soviet Union back in the day, and they might think they can use it to make a damaging deep fake. Personally, I think that’s pretty unlikely to be the motive here, because the cost-benefit analysis seems pretty thin, but we’re just trying to take a clear-eyed inventory about what’s possible.

A few hours after the Post broke the news about the Russian efforts to help him, his official Twitter account posted this:

I've got news for the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.

If you’ve been paying a bit of attention to Sanders you’re probably not too startled by that comment, which is exactly the problem. In a few short words, it boosts some of the most insidious narratives that pro-Trump propagandists have also been pushing over the past few years. It’s framed as a belligerent defiance of “party establishments” - AKA, those same American institutions that we know our adversaries want to destroy. It sets up a nihilistic false equivalence between the Democratic and Republican parties. In this little story, it’s Sanders up against shadowy forces and their conspiracy against him – he’s the real victim here, but also the center of the universe. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

This tweet may or may not have been in direct response to the Washington Post’s breaking the story about Russian intelligence helping his campaign again, but the timing sure looks like a great American newspaper was being lumped in with the big, spooky “establishment” trying to “stop” Sanders. (A week and a half later, he’s still sore at the Post about something.) That, too, would fit a disturbing pattern of Sanders world’s relationship with critical press, or even with criticism in general. While all this was going on, there was a Daily Beast story about the kind of alarming behavior that seems to keep happening in pro-Sanders circles. A low-level staffer was running a gross Twitter feed that reflected badly on the campaign. The campaign responded to the story by taking out the trash, but supporters responded to the story by swarming the reporter and sharing pictures of his home address. This wasn’t surprising. If you dip into Democratic-leaning podcasts or cable news shows, it’s really common to hear people preface any criticism of Sanders with a semi-jokey “don’t yell at me on Twitter, guys!” or respond to someone else’s criticism with a rueful “RIP your menchies [Twitter inbox].” Journalists and political commentators know to expect disproportionate retribution when they criticize the Dear Leader. (Sound like anyone else the Russian troll farms like?)

Maybe you’re the kind of person who likes to give the benefit of the doubt. Couldn’t all that be #ActuallyAboutEthicsInJournalism? I suppose a good test would be: what’s the response to negative feedback from a group of people, not just an individual who can be intimidated? And the answer is: conspiracy! Paid Protesters! Fake news, folks! That is not progressive, it is not healthy for our politics, and it’s exactly the kind of behavior that autocratic regimes around the world are always trying to normalize. Democrats, and all other small-d democrats, cannot start rewarding it.

That’s the context for this: Sanders has a long track record of defending authoritarian governments which call themselves socialist, communist, or otherwise leftist. Of course, authoritarian governments are more like gangster kleptocracies than “socialism” as Sanders sees it, but he just keeps rejecting opportunities to walk it back.

Too many progressive commentators with platforms have shrugged this off as some kooky Cold War thing that the media is blowing out of proportion, but it’s not just uptight Wall Street Journal opinion writers pushing back. A lot of Americans are Americans because their families ran for their lives from exactly these regimes. Five years of Latin American immigrants being Donald Trump’s favorite target, now we’re going to make people who fled Castro’s Cuba or Chavez’s Venezuela eat this shit sandwich? Mayor Pete Buttigieg was the first openly gay person running for the US presidency; was he supposed to add a bit in his stump speech about whether a dubious “literacy program” would help him in a concentration camp? The world is a complicated place where American leaders have to make hard decisions and don’t always get to work with nice people. That’s no excuse to be casual about rubbing salt in raw wounds.

I haven’t spent the past three years angry that Donald Trump fluffs up dictators because I’m looking for excuses to hate Donald Trump. Really, I’m good there. I’m angry about it because democracies are good and dictatorships are bad. When the American president is clear on that point, it really can make the lift just a little bit lighter for activists and freedom fighters and oppressed people doing the hard work of citizenship all over the world; when the American president fails to speak that truth, their work gets a little bit harder. I think their work is hard enough already.

You know that cliché about “Mussolini made the trains run on time”? It’s fascist propaganda. “Sure he locked up dissidents and inspired Hitler, but Infrastructure Week was a real success!” And he fucking didn’t even, because of course he didn’t, he was busy murdering everyone who could burst his narcissistic bubble. The Italian fascist regime polished up a few tourist-friendly routes and boasted to privileged visitors about how the trains were running on time. Then those visitors would go home with an innocuous sound bite to sanitize a brutal regime. Look, Prince Mohammad is letting women drive [and imprisoning the activists who made that a winning issue for him]! Sure, Putin is a heavy-handed old KGB guy, but he’s cracking down on corruption [as an excuse to imprison critics]. I’m not defending Castro, but hey, literacy program. Look, I’ve been to the Soviet Union, the bread lines didn’t look too bad on my guided tour!

Maybe the big money donors behind this Russian intelligence super PAC think Sanders will be susceptible to manipulation by their authoritarian regime because he keeps saying that he’s susceptible to manipulation by authoritarian regimes.

When someone seeking the United States presidency says that? Believe them.

I’m not saying Sanders is an aspiring dictator like Trump. I mean, I could be wrong, but that’s not my concern. A lot of politics is made up of civic habits. If we validate these tactics, we make bad habits that soften us up for a smart, focused Trump to come along in four or eight years. We can’t afford leadership that doesn’t understand, on a gut level, why those bad habits are dangerous.2

I’m not saying he’s the only flawed candidate on this issue, but he troubles me more than any candidate with even a slim path to the nomination. Representative Tulsi Gabbard is an exponentially more dangerous character – or at least she would be, if she somehow pulled ahead of “none of the above.” I have serious issues with former NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg; I’m less concerned about those issues because people can criticize Bloomberg without anyone mocking them for having been raped.

Because I think democracy is the most important issue on the ballot, I’m not going to mislead you with false equivalence. Sanders would not be as bad on Trump on these issues. He would not be stacking the courts with right-wing judges who are overtly hostile to voting rights, he doesn’t stand to rake in cash by cozying up to autocratic regimes, and an administration which pays lip service to democratic values is preferable to an administration which is overtly hostile to them. A vote to reduce harm can be cast with a clear conscience. It’s still the primary, though, so we have the chance to cast a general election vote for real improvement rather than damage control.

If I haven’t convinced you of anything, fair enough. If I have convinced you that this pattern is serious enough to consider as you’re voting in this primary … this isn’t one of those posts where I try to wrap up with a concrete suggestion about something you can do, for obvious reasons. I have a suggestion about voting tactically, though. Primary delegates are awarded proportionately to every candidate who makes it over what’s called a viability threshold. Basically, a candidate who gets 15% of the vote wins something like 15% of the state’s delegates, while a candidate who gets 14% gets zero. A vote for someone with 3% support is a vote for whoever wins the state, whether you like that person or not. Check FiveThirtyEight to see which candidates are polling above 15% (preferably above 20% to get outside the margin of error) and then choose your favorite of those candidates.

1A good argument for this particular system is that it gives candidates two chances to prove that they can build a coalition, because that is something Democratic presidents need to do. You can win an outright majority going into the convention, which requires satisfying a lot of diverse groups of people. If nobody can do that, then the convention gives you another shot to show you can win people over. If you have a plurality then you have a head start. If you can’t get from a plurality to a majority, you probably shouldn’t be nominated, because you would be a shitty president.

2The topic of this post is democracy, not politics, so I don’t want to go too far into it, but I do want to shoot down the bullshit counterargument: “oh, blah blah, knife to a gun fight, Democrats are wimpy little girly-men who always play by the rules, Republicans are big strong daddies who understand power, blah blah.” Guys? Guys. You’re not going to out-shitpost the Republicans; they have unlimited money flowing into sophisticated propaganda machines. You’re not going to out-bully the fascists as a means to an end; bullying is the end for them and they have a lot more practice at it than we do. You don’t get into a pissing match with a drunk. IDGAF about sinking to their level, it’s about refusing to fight on their turf. We’re not going to win their game on their terms.

#democracy #voting rights #bernie sanders #election 2020 #democratic party

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socialistexan · 5 years ago

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Ok as someone that like barely understands the bizarre process that the democratic primaries allocate votes, how is that in new Hampshire despite winning like by like 4% Bernie gets the same number of delegates, but in Iowa losing by less than 0.1% he gets two less than Buttgieg? Like obviously that's absurd but what's the stated rationale behind that?

Okay, if you're okay from a bit of a long post, I'll try my best to explain this.

Short answer is that delegates are allocated like the electoral college, individual districts give delegates and then the state gives at large delegates for overall vote, too. Winning districts is actually more important than winning overall when it comes to delegates.

Okay, so first things first, caucuses are run by the state party, primaries are run by DNC, so that may account for some of the disparity. Iowa, in general, is just a wacky state and that's why their caucus is the way it is and always has been. Primaries like New Hampshire are different.

Delegates* are allocated in two ways: overall state popular vote, and the vote in each Congressional district. So, in New Hampshire, each district got 8 delegates, the state at large got 5, and party leaders got 3 (which btw are not the unpledge super delegates, of which there are 9). You need to get 15% at any of those levels to get delegates, and with only 3 candidates getting over that hump, there's less room to allocate and small percentage differences matter less.

So, while, yes, Bernie did win the popular vote in both Iowa and New Hampshire, Buttigieg did well enough in the individual districts to pick up delegates and keep it even. There are so few delegates since NH is a small state, so a percentage that close is basically a tie as far as DNC delegates are concerned.

In Iowa, Buttigieg dominated the rural districts and kept it close enough in the cities, so he got more delegates even though the vote was actually closer. Iowa's system favors rural areas (there's a cap for delegates so some cities exceed the population cap but stay at the same number of delegates), thus Buttigieg gets the win.

Anyway, if you don't want to get into the weeds on primary day, just watch the overall state totals, the delegate count shouldn't stray too far from that.

*or delegate estimates, in Iowa's case, since they actually have a separate state convention to where the state delegates (those SDE's you saw on election night) meet and then they choose the delegates to the DNC. That's how in 2012 there were actually three separate winners, Rick Santorum won on the actual caucus night, Mitt Romney was picked by the state delegates (Santorum had dropped out by that point), but at the national convention, Ron Paul actually got the most delegates to pick him, because the delegates to the national convention don't actually have to vote based how their state voted. So Paul technically won Iowa in 2012. Iowa is wacky.

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nevertrulyset · 5 years ago

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It's Super Tuesday! I hope all of you of voting age in the participating States are voting today. My state doesn't hold primary elections until March 24th this year, but today is going to shed light on the direction the U.S. is headed. Unfortunately, the DNC allows unpledged delegates from each state to attend the national convention and alter the results if they don't like the candidate their state has voted for. That means EVERYONE WHO CAN VOTE SHOULD VOTE. For example, if your state has 105 pledged delegates who are all representing votes for Bernie Sanders, the 15 unpledged delegates who align themselves with Joe Biden cannot overrule the people's decision. But even if you don't care to get into all of that, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO VOTE! EXERCISE IT! YOUR OPINION MATTERS!

#politics #primary election #super tuesday #delegates #the DNC is corrupt #but we can still make positive change happen

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milwaukeestories · 5 years ago

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Brooklyn sits in a wheelchair, behind a fold-out table, to welcome volunteers to the Bernie Sanders Dubuque field office the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses, the first leg of the Democratic nomination process. Buses and caravans of volunteers are coming in from all over the Midwest — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and even Ohio — and not one of them gets by without Brooklyn kindly asking “sign in please, don’t forget to sign in.”

Brooklyn came to Dubuque in October after being seriously injured in a home invasion, landing at a Dubuque shelter not far from where we are standing. After a few interactions with Bernie folks, Brooklyn found her way into the campaign office. It was the efforts of staffers to reach out on a human level, Brooklyn said, and the kindness they showed that influenced her decision to stay. Since December she’s been a mainstay at the campaign headquarters.

“I was crying for about thirty minutes this morning,” Brooklyn said Thursday morning, over the phone. “I don’t want all our hard work to be for nothing.”

In a startling move, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez called for a site-by-site recount Thursday afternoon, just as a Bernie Sanders became apparent after an unprecedented three-day delay in reporting caucus results. The announcement, which comes as about three percent of the voting data has yet to be released, casts even more doubt on an already dubious process.

Late Monday night, after nearly two percent of results came in, the Iowa Democratic Party announced that no more results would be reported that night in order to verify results. In the wake of this announcement, with more than 98 percent of the results yet to be tallied, Pete Buttigieg declared victory. Tuesday night, the Iowa Democrats released 64 percent of the vote, which showed Sanders with a slight edge in votes and tied with Buttigieg in pledged delegates. However, pundits focused coverage on Pete’s two percent lead in State Delegate Equivalents (SDEs).

One of the measures used to calculate pledged delegates, SDEs are, in and of themselves, meaningless.

Even as late as Wednesday morning, the New York Times predicted, based on SDEs, that a Pete victory was all but guaranteed. However, as more and more precinct data came in, Sanders’ vote lead widened and folks began to draw attention to reporting inconsistencies in a number of precincts, where Sanders should have received more delegates or Pete should have received less. The errors were corrected, contributing to the Sanders surge.

The New York Times was caught with its pants down on this one.

By Wednesday, the New York Times predictor had gone dead so the company could “evaluate how it is processing the results of satellite caucuses.” These gatherings, hosted in other states, or at different times, were incorporated for the first time this year to include voters that weren’t able to attend a regular caucus because of work shift or location. The Sanders campaign made a distinct effort to turn folks out to these caucuses.

At the time of Perez’s announcement, Bernie is ahead by 2,500 votes, has 547 SDEs to Pete’s 550, and both have 11 pledged delegates, the measure that ultimately determines the nominee. With about two percent yet to be reported, the Sanders has claimed victory. The DNC has not said whether it will release the remaining data before a recount.

Folks on twitter noted that the staggered rollout allowed Buttigieg to grab headlines and dominate coverage, as some pundits criticized Sanders for not performing as well as expected. Many Sanders supporters were already skeptical of the process after emails and other documents verified the DNC had influenced the 2016 primary in favor of Hillary Clinton, who lost to Donald Trump in an election that featured the two most unpopular presidential candidates in U.S. history.

Just recently, there have been reports of party insiders attempting to change convention rules to allow superdelegates — often party elites who can vote for any candidate they like — to vote on the first ballot, shielding the party from the potential controversy of a second vote that overturns the will of the people. As former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in 2016, “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.”

Likewise, Sanders is largely ignored by establishment news corporations, despite regularly drawing large crowds and polling well nationally, particularly with youth of color. Regardless, his campaign — which stands on a platform that prioritizes environmental, economic and racial justice — is drawing the attention of folks who feel left out of the process.

The idea that we should be able to access medical care if we are sick, go to school if we’d like and support our families without working ourselves to death, is not controversial among working people. In fact, in my experience, it has been unifying.

Brooklyn, in the campaign office.

Shawn hadn’t planned to caucus but was open and said he would look into Bernie further.

Mary caucused for Bernie!

I was encouraged to speak with folks who’d committed to caucus for Bernie, and to bring others along. In a few cases, I was blessed to share this message of solidarity with folks who had not yet heard. I listened to people as they shared, and they listened to me. For a moment, we were present with each other.

“This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember, we will never be defeated.”

Many of us distrust the political system, and politicians, in general. And, as the Iowa Caucuses have revealed, this distrust is well-deserved. But I trust you. And, I trust Bernie Sanders.

So, let us not lose sight of ourselves. Let us not forget ― this is about relationships. This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember this, we will never be defeated.

We shall overcome.

“When I came here, I was broken,” said Brooklyn. “You all helped put me back together.”

“Free at last, Free at last, Thank God almighty we are free at last.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

This is a people’s campaign, not a for-profit endeavor; this is not politics-as-usual ― this is a movement. And, as long as we remember this, we will never be defeated. #NotMeUs #WeWillWin Brooklyn sits in a wheelchair, behind a fold-out table, to welcome volunteers to the Bernie Sanders Dubuque field office the weekend before the Iowa Caucuses, the first leg of the Democratic nomination process.

#NotMeUs #WeWillWin #Bernie Sanders #Democratic National Committee #Democratic primary #DNC #economic justice #environmental justice #Green New Deal #Iowa Caucuses #Justice #Medicare for All #Racial Justice #Solidarity #Tom Perez

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emblem-333 · 6 years ago

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Who’ll Be Bernie Sanders’ Running Mate?

If nominated Bernie Sanders would act as a pallet cleanser for the big tent Democratic Party currently made up of poor, middle, working, upper, and professional class. While their Republican counterparts since the 1960’s have relied on disaffected white voters in the south, obvious vitriol for POCs. Regardless of how vile the Southern Strategy is, you can not deny it’s been a winner for the GOP. Sanders, a Democratic Socialist senator from the state of Vermont, doesn’t appeal to the wealthier brackets of voters. His call for raising taxes to facilitate his tentpole policies, like Medicare-For-All, Free College, and the Green New Deal, make the professional class uneasy. For those wishing for moderate reform and not a revolution, they flock to Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren after all of the Joe Biden alternatives faded off into obscurity.

We are beyond the stage of the race where we can say “It’s early.” It is no longer early. Though not a single state has voted you can assume the three names that’ll cling to relevancy until the Democrats convene in Milwaukee in July of 2020 is Biden, Sanders, and Warren. Thought to be hopefuls like California senator Kamala Harris saw her campaign disintegrated after Hawaii’s representative Tulsi Gabbard shined a bright light on Harris’ dark history as attorney general.

"I'm concerned about this record of senator Harris. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana," Gabbard said at the debate.

She continues, "She blocked evidence that would have freed an innocent man from death row. She kept people in prison beyond their sentences to use them as cheap labor for the state of California, and she fought to keep cash bail system in place that impacts poor people in the worst kind of way."

The attack came out of nowhere. Neither candidate appeared to have any crossover with one another. Gabbard supporters are few, mostly online. Harris’ base is made up of rich, white liberals left over from the previous election when they unilaterally supported Hillary Clinton. In the previous debate Harris appeared to have launched herself into the top tier of candidates after boldly going after Vice President Biden for his opposition to school integration via bussing. Now most of Harris supporters are in the pocket of Warren. Meanwhile, Gabbard’s campaign failed to qualify for the third debate and looks ready to saunter off and exit stage left. Gabbard is an interesting character, one with many flaws and also great convictions. It is unclear whether the future for her is bright, dark or merely dim like most failed presidential candidates.

Sanders recently enjoyed a quiet post debate bump in the polls currently he is tied for first with Biden in the crucial primary state of California (voting March 3rd) at 26 percent apiece — senator Harris sitting pathetically fourth with 6 percent. While Biden stumbles and speaks incoherently just about everything, Warren dithers on the core tenants of the progressive movement, Sanders stands strong as the flag bearer of the elixirs that might cure this decaying body of an empire we call the United States.

Of course, we’d be naive to believe Sanders merely winning the plurality of the pledged delegates warrants his nomination. If neither candidate crosses the 1,885 delegates voting goes to a second round where a plethora of unpledged delegates, dubbed “Superdelegets” get to play a key, if not the biggest role in naming a nominee. If Sanders manages to wrangle the nomination from the cold, near-dead hands of Neolibalism virtually nobody would want to be anywhere near his campaign either out of not agreeing on political ideology or the common consensus of the party insiders that his campaign his doomed for historic failure. The ghost of George McGovern still looms large inside the psyche of many Democrats while the losers who posed themselves as moderates (Carter, Dukakis, Mondale, Gore, Kerry, H. Clinton) rarely get mentioned.

Usually, a running mate is chosen as a political strategy. Sometimes the candidate is from a swing state. Tim Kaine was from Virginia and didn’t bring much to the table other than he could potentially deliver the state to Clinton. But seeing as political realignment is a certainty in a Sanders vs Trump general election, it’s safe to assume Bernie, given his advanced age, will pick someone who is ready to succeed his movement if tragedy were to befall him.

The question is who? Most Democrats are conservatives on many issues, and shamefully act as Warhawks when they believe it to be politically expedite. Youngsters like Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg are diametrically opposed to Sanders’ in ideology. So is Harris.

Many believe Sanders’ running mate is likely to be Warren. The 2nd most progressive member of the United States Senate. The problem using this label as a benchmark is it’s pretty low. Warren is a fine, upstanding senator of a state susceptible to turning red when a seat is open. Scott Brown upset Martha Coakley for the vacant Ted Kennedy senate seat in 2010. Governor Charlie Baker trounced challenger Jay Gonzalez in his re-election bid. Right now right-wing Democrat Joe Kennedy owns up to $1.75 million worth of stock in oil and gas companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron is challenging one of the Green New Deal’s strongest advocates in junior senator Ed Markey. Massachusetts is a relatively liberal state, but unknowingly flirts with neoliberalism daily. Warren needs to remain in the Senate not just to preserve the seat, but as a vote for Sanders’ agenda.

Warren is also problematic for her poor political instincts, her DNA fiasco and pledge to take corporate donor money once the primary is over.

Going down the list though you are hard pressed to find better alternatives.

Jim McGovern, 59 (MA-02, Worcester)

Rashida Tlaib,43 (MI-13, Detroit)

Tulsi Gabbard, 38 (HI-02, Honolulu)

Elizabeth Warren, 70 (MA senator)

Mike Capuano, 67 (MA-7, former)

Ed Markey, 73 (MA - State Senator)

Russ Feingold, 66 (WI - Senate)

Ben Jealous, 46 (Gub. Candidate Maryland)

Jamie Raskin, 56 (MD -8 rep.)

None of these names fuel the lust young people have for the complete upheaval of America’s capitalistic society. But the Democrats of the New Deal generation are either in their seventies or too young to run for President. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York is the only self-identifying socialist politician and she legally cannot run until 2028. If elected to serve two terms Sanders would only preside the Oval Office until 2025 leaving a gigantic window of opportunity for neoliberalism to shuffle back into the Democratic Party and retake it.

It is truly a fascinating quandary what the second era of “BernieCrats” would look like, if the first one is legitimized in Sanders ascension to the presidency. Perhaps Gabbard will have molded herself into the complete progressive package people want to see in a potential successor. As of now, Gabbard stands as one of the most dovish voices in a political system overwrought with bloodthirsty ghouls. That’s not to see she is always against military intervention. Gabbard’s language specifically states she is against “regime change war” not total American conquest to facilitate the empire. Her ties to the right-wing leader of India Narendra Modi, while a member of the Gujarat Legislative Assembly he is thought to be complicit in the killing of nearly 2,000 people (790 Muslims) in the 2002 Gujarat riots. Gabbard’s remained silent on the issue and appears to have tied herself to Modi.

Other issues is her unwillingness to come out in favor of abolishing private insurance. In her defense, every candidate (including Warren) quiver at the idea of cutting the Goliath that is the healthcare industry down to size.

Massachusetts Representative Jim McGovern is a lot like Gabbard without the baggage. McGovern is also better on the issue of immigration. Gabbard says we need to have stricter border laws. McGovern voted against various legislative efforts to restrict immigration. A vocal critic of the Iraq War, McGovern was one of the few dissenting votes, and pushed then-president Obama to provide a draw-down plan in Afghanistan.

The issue with Gabbard is it is potentially too soon to anoint her the successor to Sanders’ movement. If fortunate to serve eight-years The reign of Sanders could reshape the image of how conservative Democrats present themselves to survive in the new political climate. Harry S. Truman was a conservative southern Democrats known for union-busting before the reign of Franklin Roosevelt forced him to pivot to a moderate New Dealer to secure re-election. Perhaps after some time has passed Gabbard will join AOC as a fellow crusader for the Green New Deal, legislation Gabbard hasn’t said she supports. On the other hand, Gabbard did propose the “Off Fossil Fuels Act” and stood with Water Protectors at Standing Rock. There’s an activist inside her at war with her inner conservatism.

Noticeable omissions are Massachusetts representative Ayanna Presley, and president of Our Revolution Nina Turner. Pressley, once a Clintonite who dismissed Sanders’ ambitious plans as unrealistic found herself in a primary with entrenched progressive incumbent Mike Capuano winning solely on the fact she was a fresh face in a time when people believed leadership was getting too stagnant. But Pressley is no friend to fellow Justice Democrat Ilhan Omar. Pressley cast her vote in favor of Resolution 246, which condemns the Palestinian call for global solidarity in the form of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS).

Turner is a fire breathing progressive, a wonderful surrogate for Sanders and spokeswoman for his movement. Truly a fantastic organizer I don’t know if Sanders is smart to “promote” Turner to V.P when having her remain leader of Our Revolution or appointing her as his Chief of Staff would more than suffice.

Representative Rashida Tlaib is an under the radar candidate sure to galvanize an already energized base. Talib is an advocate for Medicare-For-All, the minimum wage to be raised to $18 to $20 an hour, and is for the complete abolishment of the Immigration Customs Enforcement agency. She is relatively young and inexperienced. I don’t know how’d she fare on the national stage.

Former president of the NAACP and previous Maryland Gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous is widely known amongst progressive circles online and is highly regarded. As an organizer Jealous helped register over 370,000 voters to the polls for the 2012 presidential election.

In his bid for the governorship many labor and progressive groups issued early endorsements of Jealous, including the American Postal Workers Union (APWU-Maryland), Communications Workers of America (CWA), National Nurses United, the Maryland State Education Association, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), UNITE-HERE, Democracy for America, Friends of the Earth Action, the Maryland Working Families Party, Our Revolution and Progressive Maryland.

Jealous won his party’s nomination running on a platform that included free college tuition, legalized marijuana, universal health care, and a $15 minimum wage. A small caveat is Jealous shrunk when an analyst for Circa News described him as a democratic socialist, referring to himself as a “venture capitalist.” Many progressives are hung up on Warren describing herself as a “capitalist to her bones” is the initial source for many Berners reluctance to switch their support.

The drawback to picking Jealous is he potentially can win the governorship in 2022. Jealous came in a respectable second to popular incumbent Larry Hogan 55 to 43 percent. Hogan is ineligible to run for a third term leaving Jealous in prime position to win the next time. Progressives will need to infect the legislative body with as many antibodies possible to pass a progressive agenda. If the political landscape looks different in 2024 or 2028 then progressives can afford to pluck repression liable to Republicans or Neoliberals.

If Markey is defeated by Kennedy in his primary then Sanders might as well call the 73-year-old and see if he isn’t ready to retire. Markey is more progressive than Warren. Markey is the biggest cheerleader besides Sanders for AOC’s Green New Deal. He is possibly the best candidate to assume the role of president of Sanders is unable to complete his term for whatever reason.

Plus, you wouldn’t have to worry about losing a progressive vote with Markey as it is sadly likely Kennedy will unseat him. Kennedy is outspending him under the table and leads already by double-digits. Massachusetts Neoliberals are very good at their jobs: stopping progressives.

#bernie2020 #bernie sanders #alexandria ocasio cortez #Ed Markey #2020 election #running mates #free coinage of silver #sailboatstudios

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livingcorner · 4 years ago

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Superdelegate

An automatic pistol, unengaged Delegate to the US Democratic Party Presidential Convention This article is about superdelegates in general. For a list of 2020 democratic superdelegates, see list of 2020 Democratic Party automatic delegates In american politics, a superdelegate is an unpledged delegate to the democratic National Convention who is seated mechanically and chooses for …

Superdelegate Read More »

source https://livingcorner.com.au/what-is-the-difference-between-a-delegate-and-a-superdelegate-1637176387/

#livingcornernews

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theliberaltony · 7 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

micah (Micah Cohen, politics editor): We’re here to talk about superdelegates!!!!!!

Everyone’s favorite subject, right?

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Extremely 2016 up in here.

micah: (This is my least favorite topic.)

clare.malone: I can’t imagine why. It’s so sexy, and the debate is totally based in facts about what happened during 2016.

micah:

OK, so Democrats over the weekend curtailed the power of superdelegates a bit by changing the party’s nominating rules.

Here, from friend-of-the-site Josh Putnam at Frontloading HQ, is a description of the new system:

1. If a candidate wins 50 percent of the pledged delegates plus one during or by the end of primary season, then the superdelegates are barred from the first ballot. 2. If a candidate wins 50 percent of all of the delegates (including superdelegates) plus one, then the superdelegate opt-in is triggered and that faction of delegates can participate in the first (and only) round of voting. 3. If no candidate wins a majority of either pledged or all delegates during or by the end of primary season, then superdelegates are barred from the first round and allowed in to vote in the second round to break the stalemate.

Can someone give us a topline “what this means”?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): It means that superdelegates can’t override the voters if someone gets 50 percent + 1 of pledged delegates.

It also means they could be hugely influential in the case of a multiballot convention, which is probably the more important case.

And it probably makes a multiballot convention more likely by not allowing superdelegates to be used as tiebreakers.

clare.malone: I think what they’re trying to do is mitigate the notion during the primary contest that “elites” have outsized weight.

We should note here that Hillary Clinton won more pledged delegates in 2016 than Bernie Sanders.

micah: Yeah, how much of this is PR vs. actually limiting the influence of superdelegates?

natesilver: Like so many other institutions, they’re catering to their critics and fighting the last war.

Like, I’m not even sure how I feel about superdelegates. I just think this is done for maybe the wrong reasons? And that the more interesting lessons were actually in the GOP primary in 2016?

clare.malone: I don’t know — it seems like a fair reaction in many ways.

I don’t think it’s bad to mitigate concerns that people in your base might have about stifling voter representation.

natesilver: Let’s say the pledged delegate allocation after everyone has voted is: Elizabeth Warren 40 percent, Joe Biden 30 percent, Cory Booker 20 percent, and 10 percent scattered among various other candidates who have since dropped out. Under the previous system, superdelegates would weigh in for Warren — who clearly is the most popular choice — and give her a majority on the first ballot.

Under the new system, the superdelegates don’t get to vote on the first ballot. Instead, they wait until the second ballot, when most of the pledged delegates become unpledged.

And there could be a lot more chaos here: Maybe Booker agrees to run as Biden’s VP, for instance.

clare.malone: Devil’s advocate: Why is it chaos? And even if it is chaos, why is it bad?

Are you arguing that it actually leads to back-room deals negating its supposed goal of democratizing the process?

natesilver: I’m saying that requiring an outright majority on the first ballot — no superdelegates to push a candidate who’s close to a majority over the top — coupled with Democrats’ extremely proportional delegate allocations — is a recipe for chaos

The chances of the nomination not being resolved on the first ballot are about 50 percent, maybe a little higher.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): I agree with that. I actually think under the previous system, Warren (or Sanders) was guaranteed to win in a scenario where she (or he) had the most delegates. That is less true now. The previous system gave superdelegates lots of power in theory. But in practice, supers were already bending to the will of the voters. Some superdelegates who originally backed Hillary Clinton flipped to Barack Obama in the latter stages of the 2008 Democratic primary, for example, once it became clear that he would win the most pledged delegates. That ensured that he got the majority of all delegates at the end.

clare.malone: I’ve decided to argue from the angle of the rules-changers. Aren’t you guys infantilizing the voters a bit? Yes, the process might be messier than in previous years, but on a second-round ballot where people are unpledged, you basically get to see a bit of a caucus happen among delegates. Maybe that sort of parliamentary way of doing things is healthy for the party.

Maybe what voters want is to see the process thrashed out, to see a second ballot!

micah: Woo!

natesilver: Maybe! But it goes against the stated aims of the reforms.

perry: And the changes don’t seem like a great advantage for the Sanders people, who pushed for them.

clare.malone: Well, the party is very different than it was in 2016.

So maybe the “center” or the “establishment” candidate will be closer to where Sanders is and it won’t matter … and the voters will be there too.

natesilver: I agree that it’s hard to predict who these changes will benefit. And, of course, there’s a long history of changes that were made with the best of intentions backfiring.

Democrats saw the train wreck that was the Republican nomination process in 2016 and decided to do nothing to prevent something similar happening to them, even though it looks like they could easily also have a 17-candidate field or thereabouts in 2020.

micah: So, using Nate’s hypothetical above — “Warren 40 percent, Biden 30 percent, Booker 20 percent, and 10 percent scattered among various other candidates” — doesn’t this come down to whether you think Warren winning a plurality means she should get the nomination or whether you think Warren not winning a majority means she shouldn’t get the nomination?

natesilver: I think Warren’s probably getting the nomination either way IN THOSE SCENARIOS , but she’s definitely at more risk under the new system.

clare.malone: Maybe it’s a healthier process for a party that has actual divisions.

natesilver: Now, maybe there are some cases where the opposite is true. If you have a case where it’s Kamala Harris 51 percent, Joe Biden 48 percent, Martin O’Malley 1 percent of the pledged delegates — Harris is now guaranteed the nomination, whereas supers could have pushed it to Biden before.

But if it’s Harris 49 percent, Biden 46 percent, O’Malley 5 percent, she’s not.

clare.malone: It’s basically just more of a wild-card system.

(As a side note, as a journalist, I look forward to the potential drama.)

natesilver: What saved the Republicans from a contested convention of their own in 2016 was the fact that a lot of their primaries, especially toward the end stages, were winner-take-all or winner-take-most. That allowed Donald Trump to build up some real momentum in the last one-third or so of the primary calendar.

Without that, the GOP would probably have still gotten Trump anyway — he was clearly the choice of the plurality of voters — but only after an extremely chaotic convention.

perry: I don’t think the big goal (stopping supers from overturning the plurality of the pledged delegates) is necessarily best served by these particular reforms. That said, on the broader question of whether superdelegates SHOULD be able overturn the plurality of pledged delegates, I think there is a case for superdelegates to have that power. I’m not completely sure superdelegates should be disempowered, even though I agree with arguments that the will of the people should be respected and am generally for giving voters more power. The last two years (so Trump) have suggested that maybe party elders should play a bigger role, not necessarily in pushing for a different person ideologically, but maybe a president who abides by general norms. (For example, I think Ted Cruz would be as conservative as Trump, but perhaps less erratic and able to condemn white nationalist rallies.) I’m not sure if, say, Michael Avenatti has a chance of winning the Democratic nomination in 2020, but I bet a lot of Democratic Party elders are not excited at that prospect–and would like to have the power to stop it.

In other words, maybe the elites should have more power?

micah: I’m a secret believer in that.

clare.malone: Why? To prevent chaos?

micah: Because the mob can be dangerous.

clare.malone: Why are you guys harping on that?

I think there’s something to be said about a cathartic political process.

Voters have watched their nominations be manufactured behind the scenes. What’s wrong with radical transparency?

Yes, it might bring a couple of rounds of voting, I concede that. But you haven’t convinced me why that’s bad in the end? As long as there’s civility among the actors, which I think you could engineer, it’s not a terrible scenario.

natesilver: The expectation among voters is that the most popular nominee will get the nomination.

Granted, there are different ways of defining “most popular.”

clare.malone: Which would likely be reflected in the contested convention votes. Right?

Norms have been less broken on the Democratic side of things, so I don’t think that’s an unreasonable expectation.

natesilver: Maybe? But the more ballots you go, the more divorced you become from the delegates’ original preferences.

We knew on the GOP side, for example, that many delegates personally didn’t back Trump and were big risks to turn on him in the event of multiple ballots even though they were bound to him on the first ballot.

A better-organized campaign will exert more control over the delegate selection process and be better at whipping delegates.

perry: I guess I view these rules as being a diss to the superdelegates. The supers themselves read them that way too.

clare.malone: That’s the point, though. They’re meant to diss. It’s the mood of the party’s hoi polloi.

perry: If Sanders or another candidate who is anti-superdelegates does not win a majority of pledged delegates during the primary, he should be worried. I wonder if the supers, on the second ballot, are even more unbound under this new system, compared to the old one. They could say, “You [Sanders’ supporters] said you wanted a system in which a majority of pledged delegates means you win. You didn’t get a majority. We get to intervene now. These are your rules. We are following them and we will now choose who WE want.”

micah: OK, let’s try it this way: Would these rules, had they been in place, have altered any past Democratic nominations?

Would Clinton have had a better chance in 2008?

perry: This is where I would like to do a more careful analysis.

But, yes, my instinct is that Clinton would have had a better chance to win on a second ballot in this new system. The superdelegates would have no role in the first ballot, but I think their role is enhanced in a second one.

natesilver: There are some primaries, such as in 1984 and 2008, where the nomination process would have been messier, although maybe it would have produced the same nominee.

clare.malone: I smell an assignment …

And then some fan fic about the alternate political universes.

natesilver: Yeah. My thing is that you want a system where someone can win on the first ballot with less than a majority, but with a reasonably clear plurality. Because it’s very common for the top candidate to have something like 35 percent to 45 percent of the overall votes in the primary.

There are two ways to achieve that: either through superdelegates or through winner-take-all/winner-take-most rules.

The Democrats have neither one of those now.

clare.malone: Maybe this is finally a concession to the big tent party that they have. And in the ensuing rounds of ballot negotiation, maybe you have compromises on who gets VP — like, a Warren paired with a more centrist person — we’ll see who comes along over the next couple of years.

micah: IDK, maybe I agree with Clare: Democracy is messy, so maybe it should look messy.

perry: I think those changes might be good (the ones Clare laid out). The idea that the convention picks the vp. But they give the elites more power.

Sanders does not want the party to pick his vp.

clare.malone: Well, that’s the concession he has to pay to be more of a player.

People have sold their souls for much less. A compromise VP when you’re the presidential nominee of a party in semi-shock therapy ain’t bad.

natesilver: One simple reform they could have considered is to give the nomination to whomever wins the plurality of delegates. Except in a few weird states, that’s how our electoral system works: Plurality takes all.

micah: Or: National popular vote. Simple. One day of voting. Highest vote-getter takes all.

perry: Can we jump back to the broader context?

The reason I am open to elites having more power is because Trump is different in terms of democratic norms, etc. I think Sanders would be better than Avenatti in terms of following those norms.

And the voters might blow it.

If we have weak parties and strong partisanship, do we want to weaken the parties further?

I’m not usually an elitist, but are we sure the voters are doing a great job?

clare.malone: This feels like the old argument against direct election of U.S. senators.

It basically comes down to the age-old question: Do we trust the vox populi?

micah: No.

clare.malone: Haha, so now you’ve switched teams!

micah: lol

Just kidding.

Do you?

How much “republic” do you want in your democratic republic?

clare.malone: I’m still arguing team small-d democracy.

natesilver: There’s also the question of whether ranked-choice voting would produce a different result. Like, suppose that Avenatti was the plurality front-runner with 20 percent of the vote. But most of the other 80 percent who didn’t vote for him didn’t like him.

clare.malone: I think you’ve got to have some faith in the voters.

perry: I want to.

natesilver: Although the GOP doesn’t have superdelegates per se, the fact that the party made relatively feeble efforts to stop Trump is also relevant here. It suggests the norm toward letting voters decide is quite strong.

And the stronger that norm is, the less dangerous that superdelegates are.

micah: I think Perry said this earlier, but I do think there’s a chance this empowers supers because it will erode that norm on the second ballot.

perry: Yeah, that is what I was hinting at — particularly if it’s something like Sanders 44 percent and Harris or Booker or Julian Castro (a non-white candidate) at 41.

natesilver: THEY’RE GOING TO STEAL THE NOMINATION FROM AVENATTI

clare.malone: I mean, he’s got his Vogue story in place.

Next comes the chummy Ellen interview.

perry: FiveThirtyEight contributor Seth Masket wrote that there was a big racial divide at the DNC meeting where this change was adopted, namely that some prominent black officials are opposed to the changes.

The Congressional Black Caucus, for example, likes the power of superdelegates in the current system. (Members of Congress are superdelegates, of course.)

clare.malone: Donna Brazile was making the argument that the DNC was trying to disenfranchise them.

micah: Why do you think there’s a racial divide?

perry: Because there is a big racial divide among party elites about Sanders.

Sanders did well among young black voters. But I suspect that he has very little support among black superdelegates.

natesilver: And there’s also the question of: What if in a close race, you had one Democrat with a plurality of votes/delegates but very little support among black or Hispanic Democrats.

You could argue that’s a case where supers should intervene. I’m not sure I like that argument, but you could make it.

Although, again, in any type of plurality scenario, the supers get to intervene anyway.

micah: How about this for a compromise: Have superdelegates but only let elected officials be them.

natesilver: Many/most of them are elected officials anyway?

clare.malone: Yeah.

micah: Not all, though.

perry: Most superdelegates are DNC members, according to the Pew Research Center, not members of Congress. But some of those DNC members might be elected officials at the local level.

micah: BAM!

clare.malone: I love that one of the subcategories of superdelegates is “distinguished party leaders.” Lol.

natesilver: How about: Let the nowcast decide in the event that no one gets the plurality?

perry: Nate Silver picks which candidate is most electable.

natesilver: Hahaha

hahahahaha

perry: If we pitched this idea to Democratic voters, that Nate picks the candidate or the DNC picks, they would probably go with Nate. I’m serious. I don’t think most Democrats trust the party that much.

natesilver: But see the most electable candidate would be the one with the most popular support.

clare.malone: O’Malley’s gonna make a comeback in that case.

micah: If all the supers were elected officials, it would still have a tinge of small-d democracy. It’s a good middle ground!

perry: That seems right to me. They would be accountable.

That’s the problem with the DNC — people don’t necessarily know who those people are.

natesilver: How about if there’s no majority through the delegate system, there’s a national 50-state referendum where everyone votes again?

That would obviously be cost/logistically prohibitive.

In some very real ways, though, polls could become very important under that scenario. For example, it was probably important in 2008 that Obama never fell behind Clinton in national polls, or at least not for sustained periods, when going through all the Jeremiah Wright stuff, etc.

perry: I’m going to play the Micah role here, because I was curious what Nate’s and Clare’s thoughts were about the caucus changes.

micah: Yeah, let’s close on that. Can someone give me a summary of the caucus changes please?

natesilver: My understanding is that caucuses now need to include a means for people to participate off-site — e.g., through absentee ballots.

perry: Right.

clare.malone: I think it’s probably a shift toward the right kind of “small d democracy” change I’ve been talking about. There are lots of good arguments that say caucuses mean that a lot of people who do shift work can’t vote.

natesilver: Caucuses tend to favor candidates whose supporters are (1) more enthusiastic and (2) better organized. I’m not sure that necessarily maps cleanly onto a left-right scale, and it can be fairly idiosyncratic from election to election who does better in caucuses.

clare.malone: Caucuses tend to favor insurgents, it’s fair to say.

natesilver: They didn’t in the GOP, though.

clare.malone: On the Democratic side they have, right?

natesilver: Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz (OK, Cruz is sort of an insurgent) did better in caucuses, and Trump struggled in them.

I think that’s mostly true.

In 1988, Jesse Jackson struggled in caucuses early on but then started to do quite well in them. It can be quirky.

Also, a lot of states have abandoned caucuses of their own volition and switched to primaries.

perry: So is this a big change?

natesilver: It’s not big in the sense that the Democrats didn’t have that many caucuses anyway, and they were mostly in small-population states.

However, there are often big differences between who does well in caucuses and who does well in primaries.

Without caucuses, Clinton might have won in 2008.

Without caucuses, Sanders wouldn’t have lasted nearly as long.

If the GOP had more caucuses, they might not have chosen Trump.

micah: To wrap, does anyone want to say whether all these changes help or hurt any specific potential 2020 candidates?

Or do we really just have no clue?

clare.malone: I think you have to wait and see what their support/activist system is like.

natesilver: Yeah, we’re at the stage where there are 15 billiard balls on the table and it’s hard to know what everything will look like after the break.

Again, my

take is just that it’s a bad idea to have neither superdelegates nor winner-take-all/most rules. Especially in a year without a clear front-runner.

micah: OK, to sum up, it seems like the best take is: These changes could have big unforeseen and unintended consequences — or maybe not. And to cap us off, I asked Julia (who has studied this a lot) to give us her take …

julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I’m more ambivalent about the superdelegate change than a lot of political scientists, many of whom are generally opposed to them. This is mainly because I think parties need to think about how they can regain legitimacy, and if supers are left out of the first ballot but can legitimately come in in the case of a deadlocked convention, that’s a good thing.

Acknowledging the possibility that the nomination might not be wrapped up by the convention and that that could be something other than a total crisis is in my view a good thing. The emphasis on party elites unifying around a single candidate early in the nomination — in either party — hampers competition within the party and potentially prevents voters from having real power in the nomination process.. At the same time, my understanding is that none of the rules change anything about how elected officials can make their preferences known during and before the primary season (so people who are superdelegates can still endorse someone ,even if that endorsement is not effectively a delegate vote in this new process), and that will rightly be seen by some in (for lack of a better term) the Bernie camp as attempting to tip the scales in favor of more establishment candidates. If you could actually have a competitive convention without it being seen as a giant disaster, then elites wouldn’t need to head that off by endorsing early.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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statetalks · 4 years ago

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How Many Republicans Voted For Obama In 2008

Bush Ties In The 12 Biggest States

Election 2008: Republican Mistakes Help Obama Victory

In 2004, the 69,323,699 votes cast in the 12 biggest states divided almost equally:

34,784,178 votes were for Kerry, and

34,539,521 votes were for Bush.

Kerrys slender 244,657-vote margin of victory in the 12 biggest states was about one-third of one percent of the 69,323,699 votes cast in those states .

Kerry received 50.2% of the popular vote from the 12 biggest states, and Bush received 49.8%.

Having fought Kerry to a near-tie in the 12 biggest states, Bush then won the 39 smallest jurisdictions by a margin of 3,256,828 votes , thereby ending up with a margin of victory of 3,012,171 in the national popular vote.

Table 9.33 shows the popular vote for Senator John Kerry and President George W. Bush in the 2004 election in the 12 biggest states. Column 4 shows Bushs percentage of the two-party vote. Columns 5 and 6 show the Republican and Democratic margins, respectively, for each state. Columns 7 and 8 show the Republican and Democratic electoral votes, respectively, for each state.

Table 9.33 Results of the 2004 election in the 12 biggest states

State

214

Appendix HH presents the 2012 two-party presidential vote for all 50 states and the District of Columbia in alphabetical order. See table 9.45 for the presidential vote for Barack Obama , Mitt Romney , Gary Johnson , Jill Stein , and the other 22 minor-party and independent candidates who were on the ballot in 2012 in at least one state.

Exit Polls: How Obama Won

Barack Obama, who will be the nations first African-American president, won the largest share of white support of any Democrat in a two-man race since 1976 amid a backdrop of economic anxiety unseen in at least a quarter-century, according to exit polls by The Associated Press and the major television networks.

Obama became the first Democrat to also win a majority since Jimmy Carter with the near-unanimous backing of blacks and the overwhelming support of youth as well as significant inroads with white men and strong support among Hispanics and educated voters.

The Illinois senator won 43 percent of white voters, 4 percentage points below Carters performance in 1976 and equal to what Bill Clinton won in the three-man race of 1996. Republican John McCain won 55 percent of the white vote.

Fully 96 percent of black voters supported Obama and constituted 13 percent of the electorate, a 2-percentage-point rise in their national turnout. As in past years, black women turned out at a higher rate than black men.

A stunning 54 percent of young white voters supported Obama, compared with 44 percent who went for McCain, the senator from Arizona. In the past three decades, no Democratic presidential nominee has won more than 45 percent of young whites.

See Also

The best party is a Hollywood party

It also appears youth turnout rose 1 point since 2004, to constitute 18 percent of the electorate.

Electoral History Of Barack Obama

This article is part of a series about

This is the electoral history of Barack Obama. Obama served as the 44th president of the United States and as a United States senator from Illinois .

A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996 representing the 13th district, which covered much of the Chicago South Side. In 2000, Obama ran an unsuccessful campaign for Illinois’s 1st congressional district against four-term incumbentBobby Rush. In 2004, Obama campaigned for the U.S. Senate, participating in the first Senate election in which both major party candidates were African American, the other being Alan Keyes. Obama won the election, gaining a seat previously held by a Republican.

In 2008, Obama entered the Democratic primaries for the U.S. presidential election. Numerous candidates entered initially, but over time the field narrowed down to Obama and Senator Hillary Clinton from New York. The contest was highly competitive between the two, with neither being able to reach a majority of delegates without the addition of unpledged delegates. Eventually, Clinton ended her campaign, endorsing Obama for the nomination, prompting his victory. He went on to face Senator John McCain from Arizona as the Republican nominee, defeating him with 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173.

Fact Check: Clarifying The Comparison Between Popular Vote And Counties Won In The 2020 Election

9 Min Read

Posts circulating on social media point to the number of counties won and number of votes cast for President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden in the Nov. 3 U.S. election, suggesting that disparities in those numbers are evidence of fraud or election irregularity. This is misleading. Given counties vary widely in population size, so does the number of votes cast per county.

Examples are visible here , here . Most iterations include a screenshot of a tweet by conservative activist Charlie Kirk dated Dec. 20, 2020 here , which has been retweeted over 48,400 times as of the publishing of this fact check .

The post reads: Barack Obama: 69,000,000 votes 873 counties. Donald Trump: 75,000,000 votes 2,497 counties. Joe Biden: 81,000,000 votes 477 counties …And were not allowed to question his victory.

Some posts with this claim referring to voter fraud or election irregularities read: Its a mathematical impossibility!!!! Let me make it even more plain. THERE ARE NOT 81 MILLION PEOPLE IN THOSE 477 COUNTIES!!! , Wake up people! This is the integrity of our United States elections. Its not about Democrat or Republican. Its about Americans future and current Corruption!!! and You dont have to be good at math to see the fraud.

In 2008, Obama did obtain 69,498,516 votes, 52.93% of the popular vote , while only winning 28% of the counties .

Reelection And Political Gridlock

Discontent over Democratic President Obamas Affordable Care Act helped the Republicans capture the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 midterm elections. It also helped spawn the Tea Party, a conservative movement that emerged from the right wing of the Republican Party and pulled the traditional conservative base further to the right. The Tea Party, which was strongly opposed to abortion, gun control, and immigration, focused primarily on limiting government spending and the size of the federal government.

Obama won reelection in 2012, but the Republicans retained their hold on the House of Representatives, and the Democratic majority in the Senate grew razor-thin. Political bickering and intractable Republican resistanceincluding a 70% increase in filibusters over the 1980s, a refusal to allow a vote on some legislation, and the glacial pace at which the Senate confirmed the Presidents judicial nominationscreated political gridlock in Washington, interfering with Obamas ability to secure any important legislative victories.

In Big Shift Latino Vote Was Heavily For Obama

Nov. 6, 2008

Latino voters shifted in huge numbers away from the Republicans to vote for Senator Barack Obama in the presidential election, exit polls show, providing the votes that gave him unexpectedly large margins of victory in three battleground states: Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.

Mr. Obamas pull on Latino voters also extended to Florida, where a majority of them voted for a Democratic presidential nominee for the first time since at least 1988, when exit polls were first conducted in the state.

In a year when turnout among many groups surged nationwide, the number of Latinos who went to the polls increased by nearly 25 percent over 2004, with sharp rises among naturalized immigrants and young, first-time voters, according to a study by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. Hispanic support for the Democratic nominee increased by 14 points over all compared with 2004, the biggest shift toward the Democrats by any voter group.

For the first time, Latino voters emerged as a mobilized Democratic voting bloc in states across the country, Latino officials said.

They really delivered, said Efrain Escobedo, director of civic engagement at the Latino officials association, a bipartisan group that ran voter registration drives across the country. This is an electorate that now understands the importance of voting, and they made a significant shift in the political landscape.

Barack Obama: Campaigns And Elections

Obamas election to the Senate instantly made him the highest-ranking African American officeholder in the country and, along with the excitement generated by his convention speech and his books , placed him high on the roster of prospective Democratic presidential candidates in 2008. After spending a low-profile first year in office focusing on solidifying his base in Illinois and traveling abroad to buttress his foreign policy credentials as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Obama spent much of 2006 speaking to audiences around the country and mulling whether to run for president. According to annual National Journal evaluations of senators’ legislative voting records, Obama ranked as the first, tenth, or sixteenth most liberal member of the Senate, depending on the year.

From February through early June, Obama and Clinton battled fiercely through the remaining primaries and caucuses. Overall, Clinton won twenty primaries to Obamas nineteen, including victories in most of the large states, notably California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Both candidates were bidding to become historic firststhe first African American president or the first woman president.

Midterm Election of 2010

The 2012 Election

Midterm Election of 2014

Postscript on the 2016 Election

President Obama And The White Vote No Problem

In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, there was much talk that President Obama could be headed to a historically poor showing among white voters, a result that could jeopardize his ability to win the overall popular vote.

And, while Obama did lose white voters by 20 points to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney he still won a clear popular vote victory — with a majority of his total vote nationwide coming from white voters.

Take a look at this chart — from the wizards in the Post’s polling unit — that shows the percentage of white voters supporting the Democratic candidate all the way back to 1972.

Obama’s 39 percent showing among white voters matched the percentage that Bill Clinton received in 1992 — albeit it in a competitive three-way race — and exceeded the percentage of the white vote earned by Walter Mondale in 1984, Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George McGovern in 1972.

And, Obama’s showing among white voters mattered less than did Mondale’s or Carter’s because the white vote accounted for significantly less of the overall electorate in 2012 than it did in either 1984 or 1980. In fact, the white vote as a percentage of the overall electorate has declined in every election since 1992.

In the end, President Obama’s “problem” with the white vote wound up being less than advertised — and certainly less problematic to his political prospects than Mitt Romney’s 44-point loss among Hispanic voters.

The General Election: Key Dates

Obama On Election Day

September 26: First presidential debate, in Oxford, Miss., on the campus of the University of Mississippi, moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS.

October 2: Vice presidential debate, in St. Louis, Mo., on the campus of Washington University, moderated by Gwen Ifill of PBS.

October 7: Second presidential debate, in Nashville, Tenn., on the campus of Belmont University, moderated by Tom Brokaw of NBC.

October 15: Third presidential debate, in Hempstead, N.Y., on the campus of Hofstra University, moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS.

November 4: Election Day

December 15: Electors meet to cast electoral votes

January 8, 2009: Electoral votes are counted in the U.S. Congress

January 20: Inauguration of Barack Obama

Plenty Of White Bigots Will Vote For Barack Obama On Tuesday There Are Some Things They Fear More Than Black People

Sean Quinn, of the polling site FiveThirtyEight, respected for its obsessiveness and eerie prescience, recently posted a hair-raising story about a pair of Barack Obama supporters. Quinn seems ready to verify its source, but only after the election. At any rate, it goes like this: A man canvassing for Obama in western Pennsylvania asks a housewife which candidate she intends to vote for. She yells to her husband to find out. From the interior of the house, he calls back, “We’re voting for the nigger!” At which point the housewife turns to the canvasser and calmly repeats her husband’s declaration.

Ah, racism. It’s always a step ahead of us. Even before the majority of Democrats decided that Obama was electable despite being the first openly black presidential candidate, pollsters began gradually raising the level of speculation about the tide of bigotry that might overwhelm white voters once they got into that private little booth and faced the prospect of pulling a lever that suddenly seemed to read “Some Black Dude.”

If you got to a white neighborhood in the suburbs and ask them, “How would you feel about a large black man kicking your door in,” they would say, “That doesn’t sound good to me… But if you say, “Your house is on fire, and the firefighter happens to be black,” it’s a different situation.

Who Really Voted In 2016

The national story

Exit polls indicated that the voting electorate in 2016 was 71 percent white, 12 percent black, 11 percent Latino, and 7 percent Asian or other race. Compared to 2012, the share of white voters dropped by a percentage point, as did the share of black voters. The vote share of Latinos increased by a point and the vote share of Asians and all other racial minorities increased by 2 points.

Our estimates tell a significantly different story about the racial/ethnic distribution of voters. The most salient difference here is that the exit polls underestimated the share of white voters and overestimated the share of voters of color. Our estimate is that 73.7 percent of voters were white , 8.9 percent were Latino , and 5.5 percent were Asian or other race . However, our figures agree with the exit polls on the percent of black voters .

As for shifts from 2012, our data show that the white vote share declined by only 0.3 percentage points in 2016. We found that the black vote share declined by 1.1 points, which mirrors the exit poll results, while the Latino vote share increased by 0.9 points and the vote share of Asians or other races increased by 0.5 points. So, other than shifts in the black vote share, we generally found less change in the racial/ethnic structure of the voting electorate between the two elections.

The story in the states

Well start with the trio of Rust Belt statesMichigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsinthat were decisive to Trumps victory.

How Biden Won: Ramping Up The Base And Expanding Margins In The Suburbs

The other reason, though, is Trump, who remains one of the most polarizing figures in American political history. Lots of people turned out for and against him.

Democrats have now won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. A Republican hasn’t won it since George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004.

And yet, Democrats have only won the presidency in five of those elections because of the Electoral College. Democrats are concentrated on the coasts and in cities, making it harder to win the White House than their popular vote margins might suggest.

In fact, in this election, Biden won the national popular vote by some 6 million votes so far, more than double Hillary Clinton’s margin over Trump four years ago. But just 44,000 votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin separated Biden and Trump from a tie in the Electoral College.

Michael Brown And Ferguson

Michael Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was shot and killed on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, by Darren Wilson, a 28-year-old white Ferguson police officer. The disputed circumstances of the shooting of the unarmed man sparked existing tensions in the predominantly black city, where protests and civil unrest erupted. The events received considerable attention in the U.S. and elsewhere, attracted protesters from outside the region, and sparked a vigorous debate in the United States about the relationship between law enforcement officers and African Americans, the militarization of the police, and the Use of Force Doctrine in Missouri and nationwide. Continued activism expanded the issues to include modern-day debtors prisons, for-profit policing, and school segregation.

As the details of the original shooting emerged, police established curfews and deployed riot squads to maintain order. Peaceful protests were met with police militarization, and some areas of the city turned violent. The unrest continued on November 24, 2014, after a grand jury did not indict Officer Wilson.

Notable Expressions And Phrases

Yes We Can: Obama’s campaign slogan

That one: McCain’s reference to Obama during the 2nd debate.

Lipstick on a pig: Obama used this phrase to insinuate that any changes that McCain was advocating from the policies of George W. Bush would only be slight modifications of Bush’s policies but the underlying policies would be the same, and in Obama’s opinion, bad. Some called it sexist, claiming it was a reference to Sarah Palin, who cracked a joke during the Republican convention that the only difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is lipstick.

Attempts To Change Or Repeal

Read Ballotpedia’s fact check »

The Affordable Care Act was subject to a number of lawsuits challenging some of its provisions, such as the individual mandate and the requirement to cover contraception. Four of these lawsuits were heard by the United States Supreme Court, resulting in changes to the law and how it was enforced. In addition, since the law’s enactment, lawmakers in Congress have introduced and considered legislation to modify or repeal parts or all of the Affordable Care Act. Finally, between 2010 and 2012, voters in eight states considered ballot measures related to the law. This section summarizes the lawsuits, legislation, and state ballot measures that attempted to change, repeal, or impact enforcement of parts of the law.

United States V Windsor

United States v. Windsor was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court held that restricting U.S. federal interpretation of marriage and spouse to apply only to heterosexual unions, by Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act , is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.

Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer , a same-sex couple residing in New York, were lawfully married in Toronto, Canada, in 2007. The state of New York had recognized the marriage beginning in 2008 following a court decision. Spyer died in 2009, leaving her entire estate to Windsor; however, when Windsor sought to claim the federal estate tax exemption for surviving spouses, she was barred from doing so by Section 3 of DOMA, which provided that the term spouse only applied to marriages between a man and woman. The Internal Revenue Service found that the exemption did not apply to same-sex marriages, denied Windsors claim, and compelled her to pay $363,053 in estate taxes.

Overturning DOMA: Photo of gay rights advocates gathered on the steps of the United States Supreme Court building on the morning of June 26, 2013, hours before the court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act.

Inside Obamas Sweeping Victory

How Obama Won: Election 2012 Breakdown

Barack Obama captured the White House on the strength of a substantial electoral shift toward the Democratic Party and by winning a number of key groups in the middle of the electorate. Overall, 39% of voters were Democrats while 32% were Republicans a dramatic shift from 2004 when the electorate was evenly divided. The Democratic advantage in Election Day party identification was significantly larger than in either of Bill Clintons victories.

While moderates have favored the Democratic candidate in each of the past five elections, Barack Obama gained the support of more voters in the ideological middle than did either John Kerry or Al Gore before him. He won at least half the votes of independents , suburban voters , Catholics , and other key swing groups in the electorate.

Without a doubt, the overwhelming backing of younger voters was a critical factor in Obamas victory, according to an analysis of National Election Pool exit polls that were provided by National Public Radio. Obama drew two-thirds of the vote among those younger than age 30. This age group was Kerrys strongest four years ago, but he drew a much narrower 54% majority.

Obamas expanded support did not extend to all age groups, however. In particular, McCain won the support of voters age 65 and older by a 53%-to-45% margin, slightly larger than Bushs 52%-to-47% margin four years ago. Notably, Al Gore narrowly won this age group in 2000 .

How Many Republicans Voted For Obamacare

The Affordable Care Act, also called Obamacare, received no Republican votes in either the Senate or the House of Representatives when it was passed in 2009. In the Senate, the bill was passed with a total of 60 votes, or 58 Democratic Party votes and 2 Independent Party votes. The House passed the legislation with 219 Democratic votes.

The Affordable Care Act received 39 votes against it in the Senate, all from Republicans. One senator abstained from voting. In the House, the ACA received 212 votes against it, with 34 coming from the Democratic Party and 178 from the Republican Party. There were enough votes for the ACA in the Senate to prevent an attempt to filibuster the bill, while the House vote required a simple majority.

The ACA originated in the Senate, though both the House and Senate were working on versions of a health care bill at the same time. Democrats in the House of Representatives were initially unhappy with the ACA, as they had expected some ability to negotiate additional changes before its passage. Since Republicans in the Senate were threatening to filibuster any bill they did not fully support, and Democrats no longer had enough seats to override the filibuster, no changes could be made. Since any changes to the legislation by the House would require it to be re-evaluated in the Senate, the original version was passed in 2009 on condition that it would be amended by a subsequent bill.

Kennedy Edges Out Nixon

In a very close election, John F. Kennedy edged out Richard Nixon by a mere 112,827 votes. Though Nixon won more states , Kennedy triumphed in Electoral College votes . This was, in part, a result of political strategy: Nixon campaigned in all 50 states, while Kennedy focused on swing states.

This election also featured the first televised debate, in which Nixons famously waxy, sweating face likely docked him public support.

Get A Compelling Long Read And Must

To say the Republican presidential primary has become interesting would be a gross understatement. With three different winners in the first three contestsan unprecedented situationeveryone is asking why the frontrunners keep falling and why the GOP base cannot unite behind a leader.

Well, hold on to your seat, because heres a big question: Would you believe that both Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 primary? And after they became disenfranchised by the Republican Party for moving too far Left, they decided to do the only logical thing: become Democrats? And in addition, does it blow your mind that besides voting for the Big O, they took out their frustrations over a too-liberal GOP by financially supporting the most far-left Democrats in the entire Congress?

Seem far-fetched? Well, it isand it isnt.

No, of course, Romney and Gingrich didnt switch parties, vote for Obama or support liberal Democrats. If either had, it would, without question, be lunacy for any element of the Republican Party to endorse them. To many in the GOP, Obama is not just a political adversary but the Devil Incarnate who must be defeated at all costs. So running someone against Obama who had previously supported him would be a surefire recipe for disaster.

Enter the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania.

A) Became a Democrat because the GOP wasnt conservative enough.

C) Voted for Barack Obama in 2008.

Brilliant.

******

source https://www.patriotsnet.com/how-many-republicans-voted-for-obama-in-2008/

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perfectirishgifts · 5 years ago

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Trumpocalypse Now?

New Post has been published on https://perfectirishgifts.com/trumpocalypse-now/

Trumpocalypse Now?

President Trump addressing supporters during an October campaign appearance in Tampa. Will there be … [] another Florida Trump rally on Inauguration Day, kicking off a 2024 run? (Photo: Paul Hennessy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

My New Year’s resolutions include this one: no longer greeting the day by seeing what’s making news on The Drudge Report – one of 2020’s more intriguing media stories being why that site went from Trump enabler to Trump disabler.

Today’s a good example of the need for a Drudge cleanse: a screaming headline about Rush Limbaugh suggesting a culture war that may lead to secession coupled with a story about America’s Republican Party “driving itself mad.”

I thought we were done with secession talk after some disgruntled Texans flirted with the idea following Barack Obama’s re-election and some spoiled-sport Californians threatened the same if Trump were to be granted a second term.

But it seems I was wrong.

A Texas state representative plans to introduce a bill that would start the ball rolling on a “Texit” voter referendum. Meanwhile, out west, a pro-independence group recently was granted permission to gather signatures to qualify a “Calexit” state ballot vote (better that than trying to sell the Golden State – in its tarnished state, fetching maybe pennies on the dollar).

File secession talk under “believe it when you see it.” Constitutional law prevents American states from leaving the union. Besides, Democratic-friendly California soon will have one of its own in the Oval Office. Then again, perhaps a Biden White House would like to bid adieu to the Lone Star State and hello to Lone Star Nation. Eliminate Texas’ estimated 41 electoral votes from the next two presidential elections and Republicans will have a hard time regaining the White House.

For now, the more salient matter is the future of the Republican Party. That consists of two questions: how do GOP hopefuls plan to campaign in 2024, and will Donald Trump be included in the mix?

Predicting the future is another item to add to the resolutions list: too many of us who traffic in politics and punditry too easily give in to the temptation to state with certainty what lies ahead when in fact we’re speculating based on trends, history, polling data and personal bias (here’s a good example from last year: a column assuring us that Joe Biden’s not electable, but Elizabeth Warren is).

Of the Republicans at this point seemingly angling for their party’s nomination, here are a few themes: Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley rails against Big Tech, “corporatists” and “war enthusiasts”; Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton is no fan of China (he wants to revoke its MFN status); former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (also a former governor of early-primary South Carolina) lashes out at AOC, the House “squad” and a lack of civility in public discourse.

That’s all fine and swell – three would-be candidates coopting different parts of Trump-brand populism. But what if Trump decides to “make America great again” . . . yet again?

If certain news report are to be believed, Trump is mulling an Inaugural Day spectacular of his own – a Florida political rally opposite Biden’s moment in the sun. Furthermore, the story goes, Trump will announce a 2024 re-election bid.

And where does that leave the GOP? Pretty much where it was in 2015, with a slew of Republicans all claiming to be the party’s and heart and soul – each deciding the right blend of embracing and distancing themselves from Trump.

Could Trump win the Republican nomination? Sure, as long as the primary rules don’t change. And maybe that’s something for the Republic National Committee to consider: if it doesn’t want a third Trump November run, alter how the party allots delegates.

Let’s go back and look at how Trump became the GOP nominee in 2016, which was a combination of persistence, moving to the front of the pack early, and benefitting from a delegate-reward system that makes it difficult for those in the back of the pack to catch up to and surpass the leader.

To recap: Trump finished second in 2016’s Iowa caucuses, then surged in front after wins in New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada, followed by victories in seven of the 11 “Super Tuesday” states on the first Tuesday in March. Trump’s next surge came two weeks later, on March 15, when he finished first in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and North Carolina while losing only one big prize (Ohio). The race was effectively by the end of April, after Trump wins in New York, Pennsylvania. He wouldn’t lose any of the remaining 10 primaries.

A look at the delegate math shows the problem in trying to stop Trump’s momentum. Thanks to Republican “binding” rules, Trump’s delegate haul exceeded his popular support.

In 2016 Trump received 45% of the overall GOP primary vote, while earning 59% of the 2,472 delegates. By contrast, runner-up Ted Cruz received 25% of the overall primary vote and 22% of all delegates. The two finishers after that had more disproportionate numbers – Marco Rubio received 11% of the popular vote and 7% of delegates; John Kasich received almost 14% of the popular vote and just 6.5% of delegates.

While Trump didn’t swamp his rivals in individual contests, rarely receiving an outright majority of states’ popular votes, he kept adding his delegate haul. Trump received 44% of the vote in Florida’s primary, but ended up with all 99 delegates; in Illinois, he received 39% of the vote and 54 of 69 delegates; in Arizona, Trump received 46% of the vote and all 58 delegates; in New York and Pennsylvania, 59% and 57% of the two states’ popular vote translated to 148 of 166 delegates; in California’s anti-climactic primary (the vote coming a week after he’d clinched the nomination), Trump’s 75% performance meant all 172 delegates.

There’s an easy fix here, if the goal is to somehow derail the Trump Train in 2024: make the delegation allocation more reflective of the actual popular vote, and expand the pool of unpledged delegates (only 5% of the delegate pool in 2016).

Of course, such a “reform” comes at a price: the risk of alienating Trump supporters who’d see the change as a shot across the MAGA bow. Besides, adding more unpledged “superdelegates” would play into Trump victim messaging as it would reek of elitism and stacking the decking again the red-hat crowd.

And that’s the Republican conundrum for now – not so much a cause for convulsions as it is consternation. Unlike previous ousted incumbents, Trump is not a spent political force (this poll shows Trump as the frontrunner in a hypothetical 2024 primary field).

Past U.S. presidents, with the exception of Grover Cleveland, took their rejection in stride – exiting the political stage and staying in exile. There was no Hoover attempt at a comeback in 1936; no one sported “The Grin Will Win” buttons in 1984; George H.W. Bush, gracious man that he was, was done with partisan politics after his loss in 1992.

And therein lies the difference: Trump isn’t gracious, nor was he drubbed as were Hoover and Carter (neither incumbent clearing 41% of the popular vote; each carrying only six states).

A Trump second act? It sounds feasible.

Will anyone try to get in his way?

Follow me on Twitter: @billwhalenCA

From Policy in Perfectirishgifts

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xtruss · 5 years ago

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The U.S. Presidential Nominating Process

Every four years, U.S. presidential candidates compete in a series of state contests to gain their party’s nomination. The political process is one of the most complex and expensive in the world.

South Carolina holds its primary today. Here's what to know about the U.S. presidential nominating process—one of the most complex, lengthy, and expensive in the world.

— Backgrounder by Jonathan Masters and Gopal Ratnam

— January 13, 2020 | Council on Foreign Relations

Sen. Barack Obama waves to the crowd at the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

The presidential nominating process in the United States is one of the most complex, lengthy, and expensive in the world. Every four years, presidential candidates compete in a series of state contests during the winter and spring before the general election to gain their party’s nomination. At stake in each contest—either a primary or caucus—is a certain number of delegates, or individuals who represent their states at national party conventions. The candidate who accumulates the largest share of their party’s delegates during the monthslong process wins the nomination and a berth in the general election race.

Many presidential candidates begin campaigning informally in early-voting states such as Iowa and New Hampshire more than a year before their primary events. In 2020, the primary calendar kicks off on February 3, when both the Republican and Democratic Parties hold their Iowa caucuses. However, Republican Party leaders in several states have canceled their contests, citing the strength of President Donald J. Trump’s incumbent bid and the desire to save costs. The primary season ends at the national conventions this summer, when party delegates officially select their nominee. Since the parties made the process more transparent in the 1970s, presumptive nominees have often emerged much earlier, sometimes only after a few weeks of voting.

What is a Caucus?

Often held at school gyms, town halls, and other public venues, caucuses are local meetings that are financed and managed by the two major parties in which registered party members gather to discuss and express support for the various presidential candidates. The parties run their events a little differently. For instance, in Iowa in 2016, Republicans cast a secret ballot for their preferred candidate, while Democrats physically grouped themselves according to the candidate they supported and then took a tally. Democratic candidates must attract a minimum percentage of all the attendees to receive delegates. (Reformers in the 1970s introduced a viability threshold to weed out smaller, potentially divisive factions.)

Caucus participants are technically not choosing a presidential candidate, but rather choosing delegates who will represent them in voting for their candidate at the next convention level—county, congressional district, and state—where a similar process takes place. Delegates for the national convention are selected at the state and congressional district conventions.

The caucus system [PDF] did not develop to serve a modern presidential nomination process but arose in many jurisdictions simply to help the political parties organize at the local level. Parties in states such as Iowa, where caucuses are held every two years, still see the value in this grassroots system, even as most states have adopted primaries.

What is a Primary?

Unlike caucuses, primaries are conducted at regular polling stations, usually paid for by the state and run by state election officials. Voters generally cast a secret ballot for their preferred candidate.

Generally, there are two types of primaries: closed, in which only voters registered with the party holding the primary can participate; and open, in which voters are not required to be registered with the party holding the primary.

Prior to the 1970s, most states chose their delegates using caucuses, but after reforms were instituted in 1972 to make the nomination process more inclusive and transparent, most states adopted primaries.

In 2020, just a handful of states—Iowa, Kentucky, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming—and U.S. territories—American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands—are holding caucuses.

Why Have the Iowa Caucuses Become So Important?

A number of factors in the 1970s pushed the Iowa caucuses into the national political spotlight. First, the Democratic Party instituted reforms after its 1968 national convention in Chicago, where days of antiwar protests erupted into violence, to limit the power of party bosses and open the nomination process up to regular members. Among other things, new guidelines required state delegates to be selected within the year of the general election, which, for Iowa, meant bumping its caucuses in 1972 up from March or April, when they were typically held, to January, ahead of the New Hampshire primary. (The party needed the extra several weeks to print its rules and other caucus materials for attendees.)

Four years later, Jimmy Carter, then a little-known former governor of Georgia, took advantage of Iowa’s first-in-the-nation contest by using a surprise early win there as a springboard onto the national stage. He led a similar grassroots campaign in New Hampshire, where he notched another unexpected victory.

The strategic success of Carter’s campaign helped cement the special status of the two states in the presidential nomination process, even though the number of delegates at stake in each is relatively small. In 1980, the Democratic Party changed its rules to effectively preserve Iowa’s and New Hampshire’s early positions in the nomination process, and the Republican Party followed suit.

How Will the Delegate Process Work in 2020?

In recent decades, states have competed to hold primaries and caucuses earlier in the calendar—in a phenomenon known as front-loading—to draw the attention of candidates and the national media. However, the political parties have set rules in recent years to discourage front-loading and provide states that hold events later in the spring a greater role in the nomination process.

Both parties allow just four states to hold their delegate selection event in February: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. The remaining states and territories must wait to hold events until at least March 1. In recent election cycles, more than a dozen states have held events on this day, commonly referred to as Super Tuesday.

Additionally, the Republican Party requires states with contests before March 15 to award delegates on a proportional basis rather than the winner-takes-all method preferred by many state party officials.

Who are the Delegates?

Delegates are often party activists, local political leaders, or early supporters of a given candidate. Presidential campaigns court local and state politicians for their slate of delegates because they typically bring the support of their political constituencies. Delegates can also include members of a campaign’s steering committee or longtime active members of their local party organization.

How Do Candidates Win Delegates?

On the Democratic side, candidates are generally awarded delegates on a proportional basis. For instance, a candidate who receives one-third of the vote or support in a given primary or caucus receives roughly one-third of the delegates.

The rules on the Republican side are more varied. Some states award delegates on a proportional basis, some are winner-takes-all, while others use a hybrid system. In previous cycles, some events, including the Iowa caucus, awarded no delegates and were intended only to assess the preferences of the party faithful. Rule changes for 2016 forced states to scrap these nonbinding events, sometimes called “beauty contests.”

How is the Turnout For These Events?

Generally the turnout in caucuses tends to be lower than in primaries. In 2012, when only the Republican nomination was contested, 6.5 percent of all eligible voters in Iowa—but approximately 20 percent of registered Republicans—participated in the state’s caucuses. (This number was 16 percent in 2016, when both parties had competitive campaigns.) In comparison, the turnout in the New Hampshire primary was 31 percent. Turnout rates were roughly 70 percent for both states for the 2012 general election.

How Many Delegates are at Stake?

In 2020, a Democratic candidate must secure at least 2,376 out of 4,750 delegates to become the party’s nominee. The number of delegates allocated to each state takes into account the state’s Democratic vote in the previous three presidential elections and its assigned number of Electoral College votes.

A Republican candidate must secure at least 1,277 out of 2,552 delegates to win the party’s nomination. The Republican Party allocates each state ten delegates, plus three for each congressional district, and bonus delegates for states that contributed electoral votes to the party in the previous presidential election, as well those that elected Republicans to high offices.

What are Superdelegates?

Each party also reserves a certain number of delegate slots for its high-ranking officials, who generally are not bound (or are unpledged) to a specific candidate heading into the national convention (unlike pledged delegates). On the Republican side, these include the three members of each state’s national committee, representing less than 5 percent of the party’s total delegates in 2020.

On the Democratic side, superdelegates include not only members of the national committee, but all members of Congress and governors, former presidents and vice presidents, former leaders of the Senate and the House, and former chairs of the Democratic National Committee. This group represented about 15 percent of the party’s total delegates in 2016.

However, the Democratic Party significantly curtailed the power of superdelegates in 2018, responding to critics who said the system favored establishment candidates. In the 2020 race, superdelegates will for the first time be banned from voting in the first ballot at the national convention, only participating if there are additional rounds of voting.

What Role Can Independents Play?

Because independent voters are unaffiliated with any party, they do not as a group receive delegates or hold their own national nominating convention or meeting. However, many states hold so-called open primaries that allow independents to participate. And some states allow voters to switch their party affiliation the day before an election, so that independents could register as a Republican or Democrat if they support a specific candidate.

Third parties, like the Green Party, can pick delegates for their own conventions. But because third-party candidates rarely earn a large percentage of the primary vote, the candidates their delegates select tend to garner little national attention.

What Happens at the National Conventions?

In recent decades, the national conventions have been mostly ceremonial, simply ratifying the candidate who has secured the support of a majority of delegates. They are generally organized as media events to highlight the presidential and vice presidential nominees, party leaders, and rising stars. Over a period of three to four days, speeches and videos promoting the party’s message are interwoven with official business, including the appointment of committee members, and ratification of party rules, credentials, and policy platforms.

However, in the rare presidential election cycle in which a clear front-runner for either party does not emerge during the primary and caucus process, which last occurred in 1952, several rounds of voting at the national convention may be needed to crown a nominee. Pledged delegates are generally required to vote for a specific candidate in the first ballot—unpledged are not—but they may be allowed to vote for any candidate in subsequent ballots.

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