If We're Starting Over, Bernie Goes Too

    In the "lessons learned" department, we seem to be going through major soul-searching for how the party should reinvent itself, with some major finger pointing that the Clinton campaign didn't learn from its mistakes (or "doesn't think they made any"). Fair enough, maybe still clinging to a crushing near-win, maybe just unable to adapt to modern techniques of politicking. History will be the judge.

    But if we're going to wipe the slate clean of "the Clinton Dynasty" as they never quite became, the same should be done with the Bernie crew (along with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson, but they don't belong to us...). Here's why.

    First, Bernie was a *worse* purveyor of data-driven nonsense than Hillary. We saw Hillary's national numbers go through 37% drops and climbs over 3 cycles of 1-2 months duration (so the total margin went from 70%+ to tied and back again). With this backdrop, and the subsequent discrediting of most polls as inaccurate from the Nov 8 results, it's rather astonishing that Bernie is back claiming that numbers 6 months before the election, before he'd even squared off with Trump one time, showed that he would have won. Presumably Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush thought so once upon a time too. We're dealing in self-delusional pseudo-science here.

    Second, Bernie's big reason for staying in the race to the end in California was that he was going to take the state in a yuuuuge way, and then that not all the votes had been counted and it was rigged and he'd catch up in the end. Well, he did pretty well, but still lost by 400,000 or so votes, BUT IT DIDN'T MATTER, for the same reason it doesn't matter that Hillary will dominate the still uncounted 4 million votes in California now - it's winner-take-all, however liberal. Bernie was much weaker in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Nevada. Hillary even beat Trump in New Hampshire, one of Bernie's in-the-pocket state, but her odds were better in Arizona. Sure, Bernie skimmed Michigan (17,000 votes) like Trump did (12-13,000), and romped in Wisconsin - but got walloped in Ohio and PA and Arizona. And on and on. (yes, Washington and New York add to the popular vote too! feel the power! but he only got 1/3 of Virginia - he would have got hammered)

    Third, much of what Trump succeeded on was already vetted by Bernie and/or his followers. Bernie made a big deal in July of waiting to see if Hillary would be "indicted" by the FBI. Asking Trump if he'd concede brought up ironic thoughts of Bernie looking to be the savior if Hillary were led away in chains. "Lock her up!"??? Invented here.

    Fourth, those union voters. Deserves a whole paragraph to itself. People are mystified why unions didn't get out the vote. Well, once upon a time... Hillary locked up (bad phrase, but...) 9/10ths of the union vote straight out of the gate, since she has decades-long cred with this community. (As I noted before, she wouldn't have let Rahm diss Arkansas for pushing the union label; she would have been much stronger than Obama when the unions were fighting for their lives in Wisconsin). What happened? Bernie started convincing union members that Hillary was "elitist", that she only cared about the top echelon, and not about the rank-and-file. Fair enough, if true - but then Bernie's only significant union backer, a nurse's union, had its own non-transparent vote, couldn't tell you what the exact breakdown was or who received the ballots, but "Hillary lost". And what were the core issues for a nurses union? Fracking, the Keystone pipeline, global warming... a whole slew of fav liberal issues that had nothing to do with their professional duties and concerns. So folks are trying to figure out why the unions didn't turn out the vote? Bernie's team drove them away.

    Fifth, those Stein/Johnson voters. Supposedly the reason why Hillary lost was the concerns of the white rural voter. So what did Stein and Johnson and McKibben and Deborah Parker occupy themselves with the last 2 months before the "most important election in our lifetime" ™ ? The Dakota pipeline. That's right, white rural and suburban Americans are more concerned about whether a pipeline goes across Indian land somewhere in the barren Dakota landscape than unemployment, trade deals, Wall Street, pussygate, anything in the whole fucking universe except for a bizarre protest out in the middle of nowhere.... Cornel West quit the party 2 weeks after writing the platform to join Jill Stein's support team, and rather tha pushing something useful like poverty support in 2012 or retaking the streets against police brutality towards blacks, he just kinda... disappeared. Okay, James Zogby full-throatedly still backed Hillary after losing the Nov 8 winning position of "condemning Israel". Keith Ellison was a good advocate. But 3 given favors proved to be regular putzes.

    And it must be mentioned that what Bernie brought to the table himself didn't clarify things a lot. He ran against Obamacare, pushing his own idealistic unreachable "single payer health care", despite the public's antipathy to what they'd been given the prior 6 years (and leading into the disaster when Obama had to announce 25% increases just 2 weeks before election day). Free education may have resonated with millennials, but it doubtlessly provoked envy and scorn among working class voters who didn't have the luxury of 4 years to fuck off in school, "free" or not.

    And then there's his contribution to the black vote - after designating southern votes as useless, it's pretty amazing that Georgia and North Carolina and Florida were in play as much as they were, especially after state officials' successful efforts to marginalize and restrict black voting by closing up to 85% of polling places, kicking blacks off the voting rolls, threatening to show up and challenge minority voters, along with the chaos of the recent hurricane.

    Everybody's asking the Clinton team to go through a learning experience, to examine all their mistakes. Fair enough - Bill and others have noted the inability to provide a succinct visionary message instead of long-winded policy and GOTV tactics and reliance on big data over the human touch. But where's the Bernie team's come-to-Jesus moment, their facing the realities of what they've sown, what they've reaped. A 74-year-old geezer has declared a 69-year-old geezer out of touch for millennials. But at the end of the day, American voters were voting *more* conservatism - and all Bernie was offering was a yuuuge push to the left. Great for human touch, awful for getting elected in America, at least between the coasts. Some perverse souls are even suggesting that Hillary needed to be tested more, as if getting beat up would have made her a better candidate and HELPED THE PARTY PULL A HAT TRICK.

    That's right, boys and girls - once upon a time we dreamed of down-ticket successes. And what's needed for that? Money. And a pivot. But for every dollar raised, Hillary was put $2 in the hole with scorn. Yes, fundraising is hard, and it's nice not to have to suck up to the big money guys. But reality check - a convinced Facebook supporter put up $25 million. Soros put up another $25 million. Bloomberg split his money between Republican and Democratic gun safety candidates, but it largely helped. And she outraised those millions of $2700 contributors - and of course had a pretty respectable small donor showing. But meanwhile Trump got free advertising, and the post-Citizens United money bomb - originally intended to kill off Hillary in 2008 - got its late moment tsunami in the last 2 weeks as well. What was Bernie's position? "Money is bad". Well not if spent on Michigan and Wisconsin and more Hispanic GOTV in Florida and Arizona.

    To be fair, Bernie did campaign for Hillary in the Rust Belt states. I'm glad he came out at the end of September, early October - but it was way late, long long long after the convention. And he lost half of his followers in the process after he finally endorsed her, making us wonder how much was even with him and how much was just the normal far left politics that threw their support behind Bradley, Nader and whoever else they see as throwing a stinkbomb into the works.

    In case you think I'm being a curmudgeon, I'm all for bringing Michael Moore back into our leadership and accepted Democratic political figures. How he got sidelined, I don't quite know (ok, I have my guesses), but he's always a useful figure to have in the film and ideas world. Not perfect, but always helpful, earnest, an ally.

    [note: expect a number of updates

    oh crap - like Bernie's "it was all rigged" that was a perfect setup for Trump and excused Wikileaks drip-by-drip storm that exposed amazingly NOTHING (imagine if someone went through *your* emails and blogposts line by line), along with this clarifying article from Eichenwald (poor taste Nazi jokes here =>  ) which finally explains among other issues that the DNC is a relatively minor, defanged, pithy organization that begs for its supper and influences little - can you tell the difference between the DNC and DCCC? Thought not. What about the ethics of stealing emails and then slowly leaking vs a traditional dump? Yep, a major gap in modern ethics - from those on the left, from the media, from almost everyone.]

    ETA - even the "voting your uterus/vagina" meme got us marginally immune to hearing about the pussy from candidates in "pussygate" - once a movement's reduced to anatomy, might as well grab the "tiger" and run with it, no? Special callout to Susan Sarandon here, but there were many many others. So much for grrrrl power.

    Bernie released only one year of taxes - Donald trumped him with 0. Fair is fair, no?

    As I noted in the News, over 50% of Cubans are still against rapprochement with Castro. Think that endeared Florida Hispanics to Obama and Hillary and increased her turnout? Did you ever stop and think about it before?

    Bernie condemned "superpredator" as a "racist" term during the primaries, but here he is back when he voted for the crime bill:

    It is my firm belief that clearly, there are people in our society who are horribly violent, who are deeply sick and sociopathic, and clearly these people must be put behind bars in order to protect society from them.

    but the damage was done a significant portion of black males are reluctant to vote for her, and every bit counts.

    Did Bernie's anti-coal/anti-fossil fuel message win over W. Va voters, or were they just sending a protest message to Obama?  (along with Hillary's misquote over coal) and who would they have voted for in November, a no regulations guy or an anti-coal guy?

    And here's Bernie backer Susan Sarandon back in May speculating over Hillary having "Health Issues". Boy, what a pain the ass she's been. The left lines 'em up, the right knocks 'em down. Thanks, guys. Trump just has to follow your lead. But if you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose. That's what bothers me about this supposed movement - it's based on much of nothing.

    Comments

    Peracles, I think the takeaway from this election is that we need fresh faces and capable t.v. performers.

    Trump made this election about the identity of the homeland, emotional landscape, which eclipses just about everything else. It will take new approaches to attack this regime. I think the old guard can perhaps stall this administration here and there, but stump appeal is a whole other game.


    NNNNOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

    That's the lesson we always keep wanting to have learned. Trump won *reality TV + Twitter* and *not fresh faces*, and may I say *hypnotism and clever subliminal persuasion*. Trump and co. know how to depress the vote, keep turnout down, wear down the opposition, keep his name headlining no matter how awful. Read Mike Lux, see Digby's article on the new lout Filipino Duterte as another Trump.


    Fresh faces as in fresh dem candidates.

    Good article


    I get why you are angry that this contingent gets to act like everything is okay despite not doing everything they could to resist Trump. 

    On the other hand, any new Democratic party needs to bring this group inside.

    What is the alternative?


    Let me get this straight - we need to bring the fresh Bernie contingent inside while the Clinton faction (which I suppose includes me, white, male, middle aged, handsome, and apparently very trendy right now) needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

    Hillary fans need to consider heavily why they narrowly lost this election, but Bernie fans we'll just cater to and let them educate us as to the true direction of the future, even though they lost badly and still don't understand why.

    It's not just that they didn't fight Trump - it's that they're a variety of things including unfocused, delusional, largely deceptive in key matters, but worst unlikely to win a serious election with any serious numbers anytime soon. A coalition between groups, as I thought we were attempting, sure. But kneecapping Hillary and then expecting the keys to the flat cause she was "unwinnable" and a "damaged candidate from the start"? Fuck that.


    I second your Fuck that. If they cannot move beyond that talking point then they won't be much help anyway.
    I do hope they get beyond that.
     


    Bernie's upset Trump reneged on "draining the swamp", just as he got snookered with Trump's "pull my finger" on a private debate between the 2 of them the week before the California primary. Who was the untrustworthy one(s) in this election - Hillary? After she and the DNC had given him how many more debates to soothe his "it's rigged" chant?

    In news elsewhere, the left's new "Tea Party" is lining up to attack... (drum roll please)... THE DEMOCRATS!!!

    “Our big goal is to support primary challenges against those Democrats who negotiate with Donald Trump,” said the organizer, Waleed Shahid, a veteran of Bernie Sanders’ campaign

    Yes, they didn't have enough dragging Hillary down, they're going to try to primary anyone they see as not pure enough, who gives Donald quarter. You'd think we could have a Tea Party that helped our people GET ELECTED or working out that elusive message for the marginalized rural white voter, but that would be too sensible. And since they've never had the slightest success against Republicans, they're returning to their comfort zone, doing what they do best.

     


    Bernie supporters are short-sighted. Trump,will get Congress to approve infrastructure projects by cutting taxes to "pay" for the projects. Democrats who oppose infrastructure projects will be accused of blocking job creation. There will have to be some form of compromise by Democrats.

    Bernie supporters should note that Progress Democratic candidates were defeated. There was no large scale clamor that elected Progressives. Overall Democratic ideas are better, but require explanation. The media is in the entertainment business not the explanation business, so they have a harder time with messaging.


    I'm liking these post-game analyses PP. But a few caveats:

    On the money point - Clinton outraised Trump 2 to 1 (including super pacs) 

    http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/

    Fat lot of good that did her. 

    The scorn for her dependence on big-money donors comes from the same place that was part of what attracted the GOP working class base to Trump. Bernie showed that you can go far with mainly small donations. 

    As for your general line about Bernie's attacks being responsible for giving her such a bad rep, it doesn't hold water. People didn't suddenly become suspicious of Clinton after Bernie started getting air time. Here is how her disapproval ratings evolved.

    And the notion that all these lefties wouldn't have developed doubts about Clinton if they hadn't been misled and seduced by Bernie's animal magnetism, I don' t even know what to do with that. His popularity came from giving voice to what those people already believed, not because they were ready to line up behind whatever their adoring leader might say. 


    Bernie never learned how to build a diverse audience.


    Sure. You think that had something to do with issues  with his policy platform? Honestly curious as to your take. 

    I took that as as a sign of Hillary's particular strength being with, say, older women and minorities. Not a sign of Bernie's weakness. Just as Obama's large majorities among blacks in '08 wasn't a sign that Hillary had a weakness there. They would have backed her enthusiastically if she had won the nomination.


    Bernie's weakness IMO, is that he wanted promised things that could never, ever be accomplished in the current environment, even if he had been effective at coalition building or getting things done in his Senate career, which he wasn't.  All of the early pro-Hillary people always knew that.

    His other weakness as far as electability is his "video trail" in Cuba and South America, which would have been exploited relentlessly by Trump. Imagine the rallies with SOCIALIST chanted over and over again!  Never mind that Trump is playing footsie with the biggest communist they have heard of. Trump is an expert at one thing:  He knows how to lie just the right way for his audience.  He probably could even get past any lie-detector test (even Dr. Phil's)


    Wasn't even aware of the video trail thing. But the same was said of Obama and Reverend Wright and his consorting with Terrorists. Some politicians are just better at not letting dubious charges stick. Hillary, for all her virtues and strengths and merit, was just pretty bad at it, maybe because she's faced it for 30 years, maybe because the electorate leans towards misogyny. I don' t know. But to claim that any other candidate would end up as badly slimed and unpopular isn't that plausible to me.

    I never really understood the line about Bernie's policy platform being unrealistic, and impossible to pass. If it's a reference to the GOP's congressional majority, then everything in Hillary's platform would have been impossible to pass as well. All out opposition is the GOP's general MO and there is no reason to think they would jump, say, at a 12 dollar minimum wage but balk at 15 dollars. If it's a reference to convincing dems not to obstruct his agenda, well, winning elections on a policy platform is the best way to convince elected dems to go along. And if they still promise not to, despite the popular majority of a general election win, then they have some explaining to do - why oppose an agenda endorsed by popular vote? So the talk of calling him 'unrealistic' just amounts to saying they don't like his policies without giving any reason why. Which reflects badly on them. 

     


    Hillary, unlike Bernie, was a coalition-builder in all of her endeavors.  She didn't want to tear down the ACA in favor of getting Universal Health Care.  She wanted to improve on it by getting "government option" policies in place, with an eye to eventually getting to Universal Health care.  She wasn't unrealistic enough to promise "Free College for All" because she knew it was a pipe dream, so she developed a way to pay for free college for those in public institutions with a means test to go with it.

    The fact is that Hillary would have been the most progressive President ever.  Bernie would have been more progressive.  The difference is that Hillary would have accomplished much more than Bernie because she knows how to get things done and he doesn't.

    Oh, and that video trail I mentioned shows a young Bernie disparaging America and capitalism.  It would have been on every CNN program and many others, especially FOX.  He would have been dead in the water.  Probably only Susan Sarandon would have voted for him.


    Take the obvious one - Single Payer - why were we even discussing? America largely *HATES* Obamacare through 8 years/25 years of propaganda, despite the millions enjoying it. The Republicans *LOVE* running against it.

    In the debates Chris Matthews presented yet again as Social Security and Medicare "running out of money", which is as patently absurd as saying the US Defense Department will "run out of money", or moreso, because Social Security/Medicare has money coming in that covers a surplus, later maybe a small deficit - while Defense is simply an expense. But conservatives keep spouting the mantra even though it's patently untrue.

    So we can go at a populace screaming "$15 an hour", and one side will say "yay, great", and the other will say "socialism, business killer" and the other terms they've come up with. The Republicans are educating their base in their terminology - we're just tossing out benefits we think will attract, a list of freebies. Which one builds a long-term movement?

     


    Excellent point about educating their base in their terminology. I think you should expand on that in another post, lots of potential there for Dems to learn something new.


    Not sure I agree. Democrats have framed the debate on minimum wage with the terminology of a "living wage". It makes it harder to argue against. More generally economic policy debates are now universally framed around the question of inequality. That's a win for progressives too. Same for health care - no one argues against the goal of universal health care. Which is why the GOP finds itself unable to even formulate any position other than "not that version". 


    No one argues against Universal Health Care?  Medicare is as close as we can get to it and Ryan wants to end it next year. Did you hear Romney's recording?  "People expect food, shelter and Health care.l," as though that expectation were selfish. Most gopers see universal health care as an incursion of communism. 

    Are you really saying you haven't heard what they say abt health care?


    There's a reason they all say "repeal AND REPLACE" Obamacare. They recognize that they have to at least appear to solve the problem of those without health care coverage.


    Since it will be obvious from day one that they have replaced the OCA with one that doesn't provide preventive care such as contraceptives without co-pays, most likely will have life-time caps, and will very likely price those with pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, back issues, heart problems, diabetes, etc out of the market; I don't think they will achieve their goal of "appearing" to solve the problems of those without health care coverage.

    If those TEABAGGING seniors had to face vouchers they would not be so complaisant. But since the knee-capping of Medicare will only affect those younger than they, its copacetic.   They are the most selfish people anywhere in this world.  


    Black voters are pragmatic. Hillary was more honest about the obstruction she would face. Bernie was "pie in the sky". Ranting about millionaires and billionaires sounds good, but accomplishes nothing. Bernie was not believable. It was clear that the Republicans would crush a "Socialist". Bernie belittled black Southern voters when Hillary won primaries in the South. Hillary had better black spokespeople. Bernie said he had decades of support for black issues, but had few black people, even in Congress, who spoke up for him.

     


    I am really curious. Do you have any idea how or why 10%of the black vote went to trump?


    To be fair, winning blacks 88%-8% isn't really that bad. Would you ask why Obama won ONLY 93 %?


    Obama wasn't running against someone who called black people "the blacks," who kept them out of his apartments, and who denigrated them all through the campaign process.  It isn't the 90% who voted Democratic; I can't comprehend any blacks other than a self-loathing few voting for trump.  Your question seems quite odd.


    I just meant you can find 8% of ANY demographic that behaves oddly, has odd beliefs and values. What I find much harder to understand is 42% of women voting for someone so conspicuously and proudly a hater of women.


    The hate won them over.  That is all I can come up with.


    Some might have liked Trump as a successful star, some probably saw him as a protest vote from Dems taking them for granted, and a few other assorted reasons.


    Would the protest vote have been less if they thought he could actually win?

     


    After the Brexit vote, there were hundreds of Buyers' remorse stories in the British press: people who had voted in anger not thinking through the consequences with no expectation of the vote turning in their favor. Then there was the segment of the population that didn't regret their vote, but just wanted to embarrass the establishment and register their discontent - with no expectation or interest in whether Brexit would make anything better. Not seeing anything like those two phenomena in the US post election coverage. But who knows whether the coverage is complete or accurate. 


    Thanks. I think it's an important point going forward because we need to get a sense of where Trump's peak support is in terms of 2018 and beyond, assuming he lasts that long in the job. It's possible we haven't learned anything from this loss. It's also possible that we are over-estimating his long term constituency. He might be like the weekend guest who awakes to an empty house and a note on the kitchen counter on Monday morning---thanks, Don, great time, please set the alarm when you head out.


    8% went for Trump, 7% went for Romney. 6% went for Goldwater. They are hardcore Conservatives and Christian Fundamentalists. Clarence Thomas,  Dr. Ben Carson, Ken Blackwell and Sheriff David Clarke are examples.


    The money lesson is more complex. Trump got over a billion dollars worth of free advertising from network TV and online media, plus his Twitter outreach was tremendous. Without Hillary's extensive fundraising, she would have gotten trounced - even though Trump largely didn't have to spend on TV. The Republicans raised much less than in 2012 - and spent even much less. 

    But the advantage in official money is offset by the Republicans' advantage with SuperPACS. $200 million+ advantage.

    Bernie of course thinks any money is a bad idea, and it's funny that Alan Grayson (now discredited) commissioned a useless poll in October to show that Bernie would have won, even though it of course can't predict the amount of abuse Bernie would have taken in an actual campaign, and a question how he would have handled 3 debates. And *MOST* important is that Republicans once again showed that Republicans vote largely for Republicans, no matter what the issues are. There's probably only 5% of leeway in this, and the edge wouldn't go to a socialist in any case.

    As for the black vote, Bernie got trounced there vs. Hillary all across the South, and his numbers with Hispanics weren't that great - it would have been tough for him to force Trump to spend extra money. Hillary did remarkably well in Georgia, not bad in North Carolina, close in Florida. While in the primaries, Sanders lost Virginia by about 2/3 to 1/3 to Hillary.

    The female vote has a few complex issues to it, both in terms of Clinton & how Trump played it, the ability of Hillary to pull Trump out on misogyny, her being a female candidate pulling up a lot of celebrity support, but also the slurs used from Bill's infidelities and invented affairs and Hillary's supposed role in victim shaming, and the Republicans' seeming ability to just get-over-it, whatever it might even be. (they certainly wouldn't self-examine for a year if it meant losing an election - I'm not sure where the Democrats' capacity for self-defeating behavior comes from)


    I don't see the self-sabotaging you are talking about. 89% of dems voted Clinton and 90% of republicans voted Trump. Not a gaping difference that requires reams of explanation.

    As for Trump's *free advertisement, for long bouts the democrats were happy to cede the airspace and watch Trump supposedly self-implode live on tv and twitter 24 hours a day. And more generally, sure, the media covered Trump more, but they were almost to a man and woman virulently against Trump. Funny how that doesn't get counted as free advertisement. And as far as I saw, most of the coverage was sound bites of his worst incendiairy comments, like they were hand-picked by the democrats. 

    The democrats aren't well placed to complain all the coverage was about Trump when that is all they themselves wanted to talk about. 


    Self-sabotaging meaning killing the ability to attract a small number of independents and get those Dems to come out and vote and those other requirements for success. Jill & Gary pulled 5% of the vote in state after state. That was lethal by itself.


    I get that. I just don't think that, somehow, absent Bernie Sanders' campaign rhetoric, the Susan Sarandons and Viggo Mortensens of this world would have been supporting Hillary. 

    I think you're barking up the wrong tree. Not that I have any particularly bright ideas on this. 


    CBS' CEO noted that Trump,was good for business even thought Trump wasn't good for America

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/cbs-ceo-on-trump-campaign-it-may-not-be-g...


    If I may disagree on the power of Bernie's bad mouthing Hillary...

    Digging through my fading memory, throwing shit at Hillary goes back a ways. Certainly back to 92 (and I know they dug up dung from before then in those glorious "White Water" days.) Poor Hillary was out of fashion. They criticized her hair; Her dress was frumpy (none of that improved with time). And they damn well hatred that she was one of those smash mouth lawyers. When she took on children's health care rather than something like beautifying city dumps, things went down hill (no pun intended). The conservatives didn't like no uppity women (and still don't) and they beat that drum until the drum broke.

    Then she decided to stay in politics and became a Senator, and shit raineth from heaven as even the soot gods came out.

    On the short count she had AT LEAST 24 years of conservative bad press and was likely one of the least liked power women in the country. I had folks saying to me in 2014 (long before Bernie) that they would NEVER vote for Clinton.

    All this to say that I would bet the bad press offered by Bernie likely didn't make things much worse than they already were. The conservatives and their ad folks made multiple careers out of bashing Hillary, and bad rep repeated a thousand times over the course of decades creates a bias that even Mr. Clean couldn't fix.


    When democrats use republican attacks and lies to attack democratic candidates it hurts them more than the original republican attack. The attack is seen as more valid if it comes from another democrat.


    Trump would often reference Bernie, validating his complaints ("rigged") and then using his attacks.


    Oceankat, one aspect of electoral vote I han't appreciated earlier is the Electoral College's role as firewall. There's no reason to vote people do this task unless you expect them to do it. We have 1 month to flip. Here's Ani DeFranco. This is the exact kind of scenario to challenge.


    I've posted on this a couple of times. We can hope for a miracle but I don't expect one. The electors are carefully chosen and are party activists who are committed to the party. It's highly unlikely that 38 will change their vote. If they did it wouldn't be over, then the legal cases would begin. Most states require the electors to vote as their states voted. There is some legal analysis that claims those state laws are unconstitutional but legal scholars can only give their opinions. The Supreme Court is where the decisions are made. Four four split? It would certainly be an interesting show if it happened.


    Yes, she's been around and it's been there all along. But she had a 30% unfavorabile rating when she left State in early 2013.

    It's not the conservative bad press that bothers me - you can find as nasty or nastier (and unfair/untrue) stuff from Dan Froomkin or Glenn Greenwald or the supposedly gold standard WaPo or NYTimes with its eternally vicious MoDo and the campaign coverage staff.

    Bernie didn't get the bad press because they wanted a horse race, a real contest. His big beef was they weren't covering him enough - well wow, in a year when Trump sucked up all the oxygen, he had little money to start, his only real secret sauce at first was some larger pep rallies.

    And it bothers me that we elected her opponent in 2008, but we treat her stint at State as having full reign of foreign policy when she couldn't even appoint her own Deputy. She played team player, and to Obama's credit, he came back and campaigned for her much harder than I've ever seen him campaign for anyone besides himelf. Many of Bernie's (former?) followers don't understand the team - they think a party is just where you come and go as you please, no sacrifices, no commitments, no occasional distasteful compromises to get your main goals.


    Woah, they start Hillary's favorables graph in Dec 2015 after shes been smacked around for at least 8 months already (starting at 36% unfavorable the year before)

    I included money figures too, but I thin the PAC money is separate - plus Trump got free advertising each and every day, dominating the news cycle. If Bernie had trouble breaking through the news cycle against Hillary, how would he manage against a master of news dominance lile Trump?

    And getting played by Trump over the fake debate is just a hint of how he would have been putty in the hands of someone truly Machiavellian. Bitch about the DNC, but you can't claim theiir tactics were extremely hardball. Trump's and the Republicans would be. I don't think Bernie ever even earned a derisice nickname from Trump. It hadn't even begun.


    Woah, they start Hillary's favorables graph in Dec 2015 after shes been smacked around for at least 8 months already (starting at 36% unfavorable the year before)

    Interesting on the 36% number. I remember her shades-wearing hip-Hillary meme glory days in 2012 etc. My point on favorables evolution was just that Bernie's criticism didn't start getting any coverage before december '15.

    Notice how your Superpac numbers are much MUCH bigger than the bloomberg numbers I linked??


    And speaking of new faces, it's about time we threw off the myth of NAFTA since back before time itself - how's Kevin Drum from MotherJones say it?

    Trump almost has to do something, considering how central NAFTA was to his campaign. But in the real world, there's not much upside. The OECD estimates that NAFTA had essentially no effect on employment, and the International Trade Commission estimates that it had essentially no effect on wages. So withdrawing wouldn't do any good for all those working-class folks Trump appealed to, but it would cause plenty of upheaval for businesses that are tightly integrated with their Mexican supply chains.

    It would be horrid if America's left heard that their boogeyman was toothless, and will all that scorn and repudiation poured Bill & Hillary's way over 25 years, you'd think they'd be apologizing soon, no? Well, don't hold your breath. Bernie the non-Democrat has just been given a cherry Democratic leadership position, and all those canards that Hillary swatted away during the primaries will now become our gospel and official platform. (Fortunately Warren is also ascendant, and her grasp of the key details behind policy is much stronger and grounded in reality).


    huh.

    and here was me, kinda LIKING ole bern.

    but hell, if i'd 've known he was so powerful and all, i'd have liked hillary instead.

    hella likeable, ole hil.


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