US Politics Mega-thread - Page 3763

On May 08 2016 01:09 Mohdoo wrote:


If he was ahead 300 delegates, do you think this situation would be different?

On May 08 2016 01:12 GreenHorizons wrote:


Not following the relevance of this, but yes.

On May 08 2016 01:33 Mercy13 wrote:


Since you are so in favor of a democratic primary, I suppose you're going to argue against using the caucus format in the next election cycle?

Requiring people to hang out listening to speeches for hours before allowing them to vote strikes me as pretty undemocratic...

This is really depressing: Sanders claiming that there will be a contested convention, and suggesting that the nomination fight was rigged. Can someone tell Bernie that he’s in the process of blowing his own chance for a positive legacy?

Here’s how the narrative could have run: although he fell short of actually getting the nomination, Sanders did far better than expected, giving him and his movement a good claim to have a big say in the Democratic agenda for 2016 and perhaps setting the movement up as the party’s future. But to take that position — to turn defeat in the primary into a moral victory — he would have had to accept the will of the voters with grace.

What we’re getting instead is an epic descent into whining. He dismissed Clinton victories driven by black voters as products of the conservative Deep South; he suggested that his defeat in New York was unfair because it was a closed primary (you can argue this case either way, but requiring that you identify as a Democrat to choose the Democratic nominee is hardly voter suppression — arguably caucuses are much further from a democratic process); then, with the big loss in the mid-Atlantic primaries,he has turned to a sort of fact-free complaint that any process under which Bernie Sanders loses is ipso facto unfair, and superdelegates should choose him despite a 3 million vote deficit.

At this point it’s as if Sanders is determined to validate everything liberal skeptics have been saying all along about his unwillingness to face reality — and all of it for, maybe, a few weeks of additional fundraising, at the expense of any future credibility and goodwill. Isn’t there anyone who can tell him to stop before it’s too late?

On May 08 2016 01:45 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Really nice piece of writing by Krugman about the downfall of Sanders campaign:


source

At that point, Sandernistas are sabotaging the chances to see any of Sanders idea becoming mainstream (which we need really badly because most of them are really good), and all they are working for is negative campaigning against Clinton that will simply benefit Trump. Useful idiocy, again. Sad.

On May 08 2016 01:49 oneofthem wrote:
not whining because we are winning

On May 08 2016 01:43 GreenHorizons wrote:


I've long complained about the caucus process. I think it does have some benefits (some people do come to be convinced one way or the other), but the way they are done is ridiculous. I forget which state, but on the Republican side they had a sort of blended system that I think could be a satisfactory compromise. Basically it's a primary where there is also the ability to have conversations. You give a path for people to vote quickly (shouldn't take more than 30 minutes) and another path where people can go through the "persuasion room" or whatever you want to call it.

Caucuses do allow people to get to know potential delegates too, so presumably that "persuasion room" would be full of people who want to be delegates.

Caucuses vary pretty widely by state so you may be referring to a particular caucus, but in most cases, people only needed to listen to speeches if they wanted to vote on the people speaking.

I think our election system desperately needs to be overhauled, that includes the caucus process. I'd be in favor of having a basic national set of rules though that provided some sense of continuity, so that changing states didn't mean you also had to learn an entirely new way of participating in the presidential primaries.

On May 08 2016 01:48 GreenHorizons wrote:


I agree, the whining about Bernie and his supporters is quite sad.

On May 08 2016 01:59 oneofthem wrote:
trump's america

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/

On May 08 2016 02:01 LegalLord wrote:

Does that actually have anything to do with Trump, or are we trying to make one man's off-hand comment notable?

On May 08 2016 02:01 LegalLord wrote:

Does that actually have anything to do with Trump, or are we trying to make one man's off-hand comment notable?

On May 08 2016 01:55 Mercy13 wrote:


Fair enough. Personally I'd support a closed primary system that allows same day registration, plus better infrastructure so people don't have to spend all day waiting in line.

I think it's important to note though that the caucus system, which is pretty undemocratic, benefits insurgent candidates with small numbers of highly committed supporters, such as Sanders.

If he was really committed to having a more democratic primary he would have spoken about this in addition to his other (occasionally valid) complaints about how the system helped Hillary win in some ways.

I don't blame him for this because he wants to win, I just wish he wouldn't try to pretend that he's democracy's true champion against the evil establishment when he has also benefited from anti-democratic processes.