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On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I definitely agree with you that Tim Kaine was a pretty bad pick
You know, here's the odd thing: pretty much everyone agrees after the election agrees that Kaine wasn't a good choice. Throughout the election, though, it didn't really even see much mention. I definitely expressed my disapproval of the man more than once, but few people were really willing to agree that he was a bad choice.
I guess the issue here is that no one really expected Clinton to lose and so it was sort of a moot point who it was, and an afterthought.
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On December 12 2016 12:44 kwizach wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 12:26 Nevuk wrote:On December 12 2016 11:46 kwizach wrote:On December 12 2016 11:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 12 2016 11:23 LegalLord wrote:
The world got punked when people decided they couldn't risk having a racist sexist xenophobe in office and had to pick the most electable possible opponent just to make sure they couldn't possibly lose. The progressives would just have to get a few scraps and be glad they got something in return for getting behind said hyper-electable leader. I get the satire, but I don't necessarily agree with the idea that Hillary was the worst that the Democrats could have fielded. Bernie may have done better and Biden probably would have won if he had run, but Hillary beat everyone in the primary and she even won the popular vote. It's not like she got rolled over in some sort of landslide. Not only that, but the idea that HRC won the primary first and foremost because she was seen as more electable than Sanders is simply false and something I already debunked earlier in the thread. It may not have been the primary reason anyone gave for voting for her, but it was by far the primary defense used by her supporters when Sanders was brought up. The defense was used to such an incredible extent that I feel that significant mockery of that argument is deserved when she lost to literally the least electable candidate of all time besides herself. On paper (aside from her scandals) she was very electable. In reality, she was flat out boring, which is a massive crime in the US political system. As DarkPlasmaBall said, this wasn't my experience at all. Spontaneous arguments from the Clinton camp focused on her experience, her pragmatism, her policy knowledge, her ability to get things done, etc. It is the Sanders campaign, and in fact Sanders himself, who tried to persuade voters and superdelegates to vote for him instead of HRC because of polls showing him with bigger leads over Donald Trump. That was indeed one of the arguments put forward by individuals and outlets supporting Sanders, and I saw Clinton supporters reply to that argument more so than initiate electability claims. In any case, I was addressing the claim that people voted for her because she was more electable, and it was clearly not one of the primary reasons.
I think that's a really good point. I have nothing against Bernie supporters making that argument, but they were definitely the ones who more frequently made that argument rather than Hillary supporters. (Both camps made plenty of other arguments too, of course.)
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In all fairness, back then we didn't know that DNC leaks would happen and that the emails would end quite badly. It was still a bad bet but not as bad as it would have been in July.
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On December 12 2016 12:50 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I definitely agree with you that Tim Kaine was a pretty bad pick You know, here's the odd thing: pretty much everyone agrees after the election agrees that Kaine wasn't a good choice. Throughout the election, though, it didn't really even see much mention. I definitely expressed my disapproval of the man more than once, but few people were really willing to agree that he was a bad choice. I guess the issue here is that no one really expected Clinton to lose and so it was sort of a moot point who it was, and an afterthought.
I had definitely voiced my concern about Tim Kaine as a pick as well; I have nothing against the guy, but pairing up the not-cool-mom-who-wants-to-be-the-cool-mom with the dad-who-is-the-king-of-dad-jokes was a pretty sad and unenthusiastic pairing. It seemed clear to me that Kaine was picked because he was the kind of guy who wouldn't get in the way or steal the limelight from Clinton. I was hoping for a liberal/ not-super-establishment firebrand runningmate like Bernie or Liz Warren to help unify the anti-establishment liberals and draw crowds. I think those would have been smarter and more strategic picks.
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On December 12 2016 12:36 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 12:26 Nevuk wrote:On December 12 2016 11:46 kwizach wrote:On December 12 2016 11:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 12 2016 11:23 LegalLord wrote:
The world got punked when people decided they couldn't risk having a racist sexist xenophobe in office and had to pick the most electable possible opponent just to make sure they couldn't possibly lose. The progressives would just have to get a few scraps and be glad they got something in return for getting behind said hyper-electable leader. I get the satire, but I don't necessarily agree with the idea that Hillary was the worst that the Democrats could have fielded. Bernie may have done better and Biden probably would have won if he had run, but Hillary beat everyone in the primary and she even won the popular vote. It's not like she got rolled over in some sort of landslide. Not only that, but the idea that HRC won the primary first and foremost because she was seen as more electable than Sanders is simply false and something I already debunked earlier in the thread. It may not have been the primary reason anyone gave for voting for her, but it was by far the primary defense used by her supporters when Sanders was brought up. The defense was used to such an incredible extent that I feel that significant mockery of that argument is deserved when she lost to literally the least electable candidate of all time besides herself. On paper (aside from her scandals) she was very electable. In reality, she was flat out boring, which is a massive crime in the US political system. Wait, what? Are you saying that during the primary, it was commonplace for Clinton supporters to make the argument to Bernie supporters that Bernie supporters shouldn't vote for him during the primary- and that they should instead vote for Hillary during the primary- because Bernie couldn't possibly win the general election? That's news to me; all my experiences with Hillary supporters during the primary made arguments based on substantive policy and experience/ qualifications when trying to convince me to vote for her over Bernie. They didn't convince me in the primary, but they were sensible enough arguments that made me happy to vote for her in the general election. But yeah, she's obviously a lot more boring than Bernie fwiw.
Yeah, that exact argument. It was a very common experience for me to read in the wild. It was so absurd of an argument as to be surreal, to be honest. (It wasn't on this site, more on reddit and other places where moderation is less frequent).
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On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I don't really see a reason to buy into that conspiracy, sorry :/
Why not? Given that only two democrats one democrat plus Bernie ran against Hillary and that the DNC showed favoritism for Hillary, you really think that it's just a conspiracy theory?
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Is everyone forgetting Hillary made the "I'm more electable" argument herself at the Flint debate (pretty big stage)?
That prompted a lot of her supporters to make the same argument. Also, it's not so much the "electable" argument as EVERYONE dismissing Bernie having a chance in the first place.
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On December 12 2016 13:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
Is everyone forgetting Hillary made the "I'm more electable" argument herself at the Flint debate (pretty big stage)?
That prompted a lot of her supporters to make the same argument. Also, it's not so much the "electable" argument as EVERYONE dismissing Bernie having a chance in the first place.
I got that same feeling whenever I did hear Bernie mentioned on the MSM. People were just being so abrasively dismissive. Just as they did with Trump. Hell, it reminded me of some (BBC? I think British at any rate) documentary I saw on the political opposition in Russia. They were complaining about being cast aside, underfunded, not getting any airtime in the media or being dismissed when they did... All the same complaints as Bernie. At least they're not getting murdered anymore, I guess.
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On December 12 2016 13:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
Is everyone forgetting Hillary made the "I'm more electable" argument herself at the Flint debate (pretty big stage)?
That prompted a lot of her supporters to make the same argument. Also, it's not so much the "electable" argument as EVERYONE dismissing Bernie having a chance in the first place.
Sanders was already making the argument much earlier than the debate in Flint, but we seem to be remembering the debate differently since it's actually Sanders who said the following:
SANDERS: I’ll tell you something, this is my right arm. I’m prepared to give — no, I shouldn’t say that. I would love to run against Donald Trump, and I’ll tell you why. For a start, but almost — not all, but almost every poll has shown that Sanders versus Trump does a lot better than Clinton versus Trump. Right here in Michigan there was a poll done, I think yesterday, or today, had me beating Trump in Michigan by 22 points.
SANDERS: Secretary Clinton beat him as well, but not by so much. And, that’s true nationally, and in many other states.
Clinton's argument when answering Cooper's question was about having received more votes thus far than Trump and any other presidential candidate, and about building a large coalition.
Anyway, the initial point was that people did not primarily vote for HRC because she was seen as more electable. I don't have anything else to add on that topic.
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On December 12 2016 13:01 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I don't really see a reason to buy into that conspiracy, sorry :/ Why not? Given that only two democrats one democrat plus Bernie ran against Hillary and that the DNC showed favoritism for Hillary, you really think that it's just a conspiracy theory?
I believe Joe Biden's reason for not running (the death of his son), and there were 6 Democratic candidates who ran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Candidates
I think that unless you have more evidence besides "Biden's speech was really good though", I'm not going to be able to buy into the idea you're proposing.
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Bernie Sanders is a Democrat in all but name. He wasn't part of "the Democratic establishment" but he was absolutely definitely a Democrat by voting record, ideology, and political alignment in general. The Vermont Democrats gave him their nomination for Senate but he declined it. I think it disingenuous to say he isn't a Democrat unless you think being part of the DNC is what it means to "be a Democrat."
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On December 12 2016 13:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 13:01 xDaunt wrote:On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I don't really see a reason to buy into that conspiracy, sorry :/ Why not? Given that only two democrats one democrat plus Bernie ran against Hillary and that the DNC showed favoritism for Hillary, you really think that it's just a conspiracy theory? I believe Joe Biden's reason for not running (the death of his son), and there were 6 Democratic candidates who ran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Candidates I think that unless you have more evidence besides "Biden's speech was really good though", I'm not going to be able to buy into the idea you're proposing.
Ah yes, I forgot about them. They were like the equivalent of a bunch of Ben Carsons running.
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I think people were and are generally overstating how big the ideological difference between Clinton and Sanders is. The narrative of authentic left-winger vs neocon is very exciting and all but Clinton always was one of the most liberal Democrats around and Sanders would probably not have brought about single payer healthcare and free colleges if he would have ended up in office against a Republican congress, so the actual room for left-wing politics was limited anyway.
This whole story that was created I think really has hurt the Democrats. All Republicans turned out for Trump in the end, from Libertarian to crazy Evangelical to Conservative although Trump is non of those things. The Liberal-Left really needs to consolidate.
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On December 12 2016 13:29 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 13:22 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On December 12 2016 13:01 xDaunt wrote:On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I don't really see a reason to buy into that conspiracy, sorry :/ Why not? Given that only two democrats one democrat plus Bernie ran against Hillary and that the DNC showed favoritism for Hillary, you really think that it's just a conspiracy theory? I believe Joe Biden's reason for not running (the death of his son), and there were 6 Democratic candidates who ran: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2016#Candidates I think that unless you have more evidence besides "Biden's speech was really good though", I'm not going to be able to buy into the idea you're proposing. Ah yes, I forgot about them. They were like the equivalent of a bunch of Ben Carsons running.
Even less important imo (iirc, Carson had decent support early on in the primary before everyone realized he was just sleepwalking); these other no-name Democrats were more like whoever was on the JV Republican debate stage with <1% support. But I'm not surprised at all that the establishment DNC supported the best known and most qualified establishment candidate.
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On December 12 2016 12:50 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 12 2016 12:30 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
I definitely agree with you that Tim Kaine was a pretty bad pick You know, here's the odd thing: pretty much everyone agrees after the election agrees that Kaine wasn't a good choice. Throughout the election, though, it didn't really even see much mention. I definitely expressed my disapproval of the man more than once, but few people were really willing to agree that he was a bad choice. I guess the issue here is that no one really expected Clinton to lose and so it was sort of a moot point who it was, and an afterthought.
Hey now. I went bananas when she picked Kaine. It should have been Sanders. He would have taken it and he would have been able to deliver Wisconsin. Clinton's message with Kaine wasn't capable of taking back the voters she lost to sanders in Wisconsin.
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On December 12 2016 13:32 Nyxisto wrote:
I think people were and are generally overstating how big the ideological difference between Clinton and Sanders is.
I agree. Both Clinton and Sanders said on many occasions- even on the debate stage- that they agree on far more than they disagree on. From time to time, Bernie and some advisors would even throw out high percentages (not that they were expected to quantify this) on just how much he agreed with certain plans and policies. One example:
"But his side downplayed the prospect for major clashes in Philadelphia, calling the platform a victory that reflects Sanders' influence on the party. "We got 80% of what we wanted in this platform," top Sanders policy adviser Warren Gunnels told CNN." ~ http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/10/politics/democratic-platform-bernie-sanders-hillary-clinton/
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The big differences between Sanders and Clinton happened to be on issues I kind of cared about most, including trade and general FP direction. That was pretty significant, IMO.
Social issues, let's just say other people care about those more than I do. I'd support them but it's not what makes or breaks my support of candidates.
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On December 12 2016 13:32 Nyxisto wrote:
I think people were and are generally overstating how big the ideological difference between Clinton and Sanders is. The narrative of authentic left-winger vs neocon is very exciting and all but Clinton always was one of the most liberal Democrats around and Sanders would probably not have brought about single payer healthcare and free colleges if he would have ended up in office against a Republican congress, so the actual room for left-wing politics was limited anyway.
This whole story that was created I think really has hurt the Democrats. All Republicans turned out for Trump in the end, from Libertarian to crazy Evangelical to Conservative although Trump is non of those things. The Liberal-Left really needs to consolidate.
Some days I hear that Clinton was one of the most moderate candidates they could've nominated. Today I hear from you she's one of the most liberal Democrats around. She obviously can't be both. They're both to the left of my conservatism, that's for sure. But I kind of want to wait and see if any of the Clinton-is-the-biggest-moderate voices resurface to say it. I remember that Podesta email about throwing a bone to the Bernie bros along the lines of 'we'll support minimum wage but that stops after election unity isn't necessary'. This is less for me about what she sold herself as--I saw both sides and it's a politician standard--and more about what kind of policies she'd really put her heart and soul (and corruption?) into.
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By the way, has Trump said anything recently about his position on H1-B visas? He has spoken out quite strongly against them in some debate in March and it broadly fits with both his anti-immigration program and his pick of Sessions. But it just doesn't seem to come up often.
I hope he does kill it; I'd really like to see the program end.
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On December 12 2016 13:32 Nyxisto wrote:
I think people were and are generally overstating how big the ideological difference between Clinton and Sanders is. The narrative of authentic left-winger vs neocon is very exciting and all but Clinton always was one of the most liberal Democrats around and Sanders would probably not have brought about single payer healthcare and free colleges if he would have ended up in office against a Republican congress, so the actual room for left-wing politics was limited anyway.
This whole story that was created I think really has hurt the Democrats. All Republicans turned out for Trump in the end, from Libertarian to crazy Evangelical to Conservative although Trump is non of those things. The Liberal-Left really needs to consolidate.
I was under the impression that Schumer had openly acknowledged that the establishment democrat strategy was a shift to the right. Strategically, to make it so that Republicans cover an even smaller amount of the voting population, and taking the left for granted because they can't really vote for anyone else anyway.
Either my information is incorrect (that very well may be the case, I'm going to look for it again later when I have time) or we can't really overstate the difference between a social democrat and the picture the democratic party had in mind.
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EPT
