I don't think it means that, necessarily. He might think that if he is perceived as angling for the nomination, it'll hurt him with party members who would resent a White Knight showing up to save the party despite not participating in the last year of wrangling, or with House Freedom Caucus members who think he's sabotaging Ted Cruz -- and who were only convinced to accept him as Speaker under duress.
Even now, it's not likely that the convention would nominate anybody who hadn't expressed interest hitherto. At this point, Ryan has a lot to lose by running, and not much to gain.
Ryan, remember, said that he absolutely, positively, would not become the Speaker of the House. (And also that he finished a marathon in eleven minutes or whatever.) He's not noted for his honesty.
I think Paul Ryan is the front-runner for 2020 vs. Hillary, but he's going to have a tough needle to thread in his role as Speaker of the House. To get the nomination, he'll need to be seen as not caving in to the Democrats. But he also needs to ensure that Congress actually accomplishes things, so he has a record to run on. And he'll need to do that using some portion of Democratic support, because his own party is filled with Death Eaters.
So, I think he's going to be looking for issues where he can move left without causing too much damage on his right flank - like with the poverty thing, for example, or family leave. This may make the first two years of the Hillary administration oddly constructive.
LB, assuming this means what you think it means, you seem to have much more faith in Paul Ryan's judgment and powers of prognostication than seems warranted.
Stated alternatively: who gives a fuck what Paul Ryan believes is likely to happen? He also thinks tax cuts for the rich are likely to supercharge the economy.
My name's Blurry Face and I care what Paul Ryan thinks.
I have been awaiting 'Continue to be disappointed by somebody old' swag for '16.
He's setting himself up to be forced kicking and screaming, against his will, into saving the GOP and being a big hero. The very last thing he wanted was to be a hero!
Actually, I just clicked through, and the very last protest does actually sound convincing.
"Antonin Scalia's dead all that's standing between a moderate Democrat and the White House is you and a real estate developer with small hands. What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?"
"Avert Fascism for a little longer -- Clinton 2016"
Long history in the US and elsewhere of refusing office as theater to make it look like it's being thrust on you. Not so much recently, admittedly.
11: Yes! Does anybody remember President Sherman?
There's nothing in the Constitution that days the vice president can't be a dog.
I think all Ryan's actions really imply is he's convinced that accepting the nomination at a contested convention is a losing move (and it almost certainly is). I kind of doubt he's playing an outside game here.
He wants it and he could win. It all comes down to how much of a bloodbath the GOP convention is. If he plays it just right he could emerge as the unifier who saved his party and go into the general with widespread media praise for his even handedness and leadership. Then the terrorist attack we all know is coming happens and the country looks to a big manly conservative over the milquetoast liberal. Done. Alternatively Clinton ends up embroiled in some scandal she can't get out of (real or manufactured, makes no difference) and he walks to the presidency.
Honestly it seems like any conventional Republican's best play is to let Trump have the nomination. This election is already lost. The only downside is the small risk of letting Trump actually become president, but when did Republicans become responsible?
I still think the "establishment" is going to try to shove the nomination of Kasich if they get the chance (which, to be clear, they probably won't). Polling out recently (state-by-state) shows Kasich could win against Clinton but that Trump and Cruz can't. I don't see how Ryan adds anything that Kasich doesn't in terms of the general election. Youth? Not being from Ohio? Support from confused Rand Paul voters?
I thought Pierce captured it pretty well: http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a43877/paul-ryan-house-leadership/
I still believe that Cruz is smart enough to be playing, even now, for 2020. But he has to Never Give In, since that's his brand, and Trump is such a loser that Cruz might unfortunately get the nomination this time.
"emptiest suit in American politics" (referring the the head of the RNC) is a real gem.
Paul is probably smart enough to know that swooping in to take the nomination from Trump or Cruz or any of the other 15 people who at least bothered to try for it would be a gigantic confirmation to all the "fuck the establishment" types that the Party really doesn't care what the people want.
I don't think choosing Ryan would be any worse than choosing Bush or Rubio, probably, but it would be equally pointless.
Bush 2016: I'm sorry I stuck with racist dog whistles instead of moving to open racism. Won't happen again.
There's nothing in the Constitution that days the vice president can't be a dog.
Sadly, there is. But -- take a wild trip into the imagination with me, because no one would seriously propose actually straight up ignoring the explicit language of the Constitution -- do you think we should calculate the nominee's age in dog years or calendar years?
It says "Person" not "Human." Though I grant that a 35 year-old dog might be hard to find.
Count me among the skeptics. Admittedly, Ryan's denial is pretty Shermanesque, but Sherman was talking in a time when Republican politicians were expected to adhere to some minimal standard of integrity. Things were different in the olden days.
Donald Trump signed a statement saying he'd support the eventual Republican nominee. Only dopes took that seriously, and now that he's planning to renege, absolutely nobody thinks his commitment is an issue.
Ryan may or may not want the nomination. But his actions are entirely consistent with the behavior of a politician who wants the nomination. He absolutely can't be seen today as someone who is trying to game the system to get the nomination.
A precondition to a Ryan nomination was always a cataclysmic blowup at the Republican Convention and various prominent people begging him to step in and save the day. He needed to convincingly deny any interest in the job in order to maintain his viability as a draftee.
And if it comes to that, it'll be a one-day story that nobody will care about. He'll be able to quite convincingly say, "I needed to step in to save the Party."
Are 14/26/27 referring to this, or just great minds thinking alike?
In double checking the text of the Constitution, I noticed for the first time that oaths can be affirmed instead of sworn. Makes complete sense, I just never thought about it.
Here are the barriers to being president I believe will be broken before an avowed atheist can get elected:
African-American man (even with a weird Muslim-y name)
White woman (as long as she's a neo-liberal hawk)
Mormon
Latino man
Jew (either sex)
African-American woman
African-American man with dark skin
Latina
African-American woman with dark skin
Openly gay woman
Openly gay man
Asian-American
Pacific Islander
Trans FTM
Trans MTF
Atheist, or even a theist who would forgo "so help me God."
29: I never saw that before. I'm still thinking of Gus. Not that I'd suggest a mule could be president. That would be silly.
It says "Person" not "Human."
Good point. I assumed they were synonyms, but I forgot that a corporation is a person.
Being an atheist does not mean you automatically make a big stink about phrases like "so help me God".
35 year old dogs are few and far between. However, African Grey Parrots can live to be 70 odd and will learn to repeat whatever you say to them often enough, a faculty which I would have thought made them ideal Republican candidate material.
30: You left out
Cannibal
Clone
Zombie
Alien (that is from another planet)
then maybe atheist.
33: No stink necessary, just that the candidate is known to be an atheist. Someone who would swear a religious oath or say "god bless America" the requisite 8 million times is trying to pass.
Can a dog be a legal person?
On Ryan, I also imagine he's trying to hedge his bets. If he doesn't get in a position to be nominated, in retrospect for future years it looks like he was being the bigger man. If elites and the bare-majority anti-Trump contingent of the GOP pull together to unite around him (highly unlikely), their ability to make it seem like he's being forced with the greatest reluctance to accept the help will be correlated with their actual strength as a movement.
36: But that kind of passing is pretty common in running for president. Presidents from Christian denominations that forbid swearing (as in an swearing an oath, not in telling somebody to go fuck themselves) have usually sworn instead of affirmed.
Do atheist criminal defendants who testify in their own trials not swear on the Bible? If they don't, they must be either really committed or very poorly represented.
I haven't been paying that much attention to this, but I don't remember that Ryan has said anything much negative about Trump (especially not in comparison to his 2012 running mate). I got the impression he was trying hard not to alienate Trump's supporters, thinking this could position him well for 2020, as the Republican establishment figure that Trump supporters don't hate.
What awful things as Ryan said about Romney?
It says "Person" not "Human."
I'm thinking a Cruz / Monsanto ticket would have an absolute lock on the Pure Evil vote.
That would never happen because they usually try to balance the ticket.
It says "Person" not "Human."
I can't remember where I read the discussion of the fact that, in our stories, not all Persons are Humans and not all Humans are Persons. So for example Treebeard, C-3PO and Speaker-to-Animals are obviously Persons, but not Humans; a zombie would be a Human but not a Person. And it's interesting that non-Human Persons are very often friendly, but non-Person Humans are almost invariably creepy and unpleasant.
The comparison to the Cruz-Monsanto ticket is clear.
45: Cruz-Monsanto is balanced, therefore, by having a non-Human Person and a non-Person Human.
I'm with the other people here who think that Ryan is setting himself up for 2020, when the Republican party really does have as good of a shot winning the Presidency as they're going to get for a while.
He's already been out there in the news talking about a New! Bipartisan! Responsible! Politics that understands that Both Sides! need to come together and abandon partisan bickering and so on, which sets himself up nicely for a return-to-sanity-but-not-to-sane-policies-wink-wink run in 2020, after what will almost certainly be a mass freakout of crazy for the next four years.
37.2: Right. Ryan has done nothing to limit his options here.
What could Ryan do that would convince you he wasn't running in 2016?
46 -- I hate myself for perpetuating this stupidity, but the Constitution says "persons" and thus there's no reason why Apple, Inc. can't be President.
You should also hate yourself for being pwned by 32.
52: He could shoot himself in the face.
52: Today? Nothing.
I mean, okay, he could give a speech on the importance of dealing with global warming and the benefits of passing Gang-of-Eight-style immigration reform. But short of that, nothing.
54 But does Sir Kraab have a law degree? 53 is some free legal advice there.
56: Right. I can't think of any way he could be more convincing at denying any interest in running in 2016 without also killing any shot he might have in 2020.
58: Yeah, that's the problem with 55, too.
"As I demonstrated in 2016, my commitment to the Second Amendment is unwavering. I felt so fondly of guns I couldn't resist trying one on myself. I stand before you as the only person seeking the Republican nomination who has done this."
"I was cleaning my gun and, as you all know, checking to see that the chamber is empty is for liberals."
there's no reason why Apple, Inc. can't be President.
Is Apple a natural born citizen?
"Unlike Ted Cruz, I believe so strongly in my marriage that I shot myself in the face to make sure no woman would want to tempt me away from my wife."
Poll question: Would you be more or less likely to support someone who shot Paul Ryan in the face?
That's more bipartisan than my suggestions.
I really like this, even though I disagree with the author about what constitutes a contested convention: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-abramson/a-contested-democratic-convention_b_9672328.html
Ted Cruz thinks people don't have a right to "stimulate their genitals." I was his college roommate. This would be a new belief of his
https://twitter.com/clmazin/status/720259227067920385
67: I love me some Bernie, but superdelegates are the last refuge of a scoundrel.
If they are the last refuge of the scoundrel, who are they the first refuge of? Hillary has been using her endorsements as part of an inevitability narrative from the start. I don't expect to win but I think we should be allowed to make the argument for why they should support Bernie.
64: Now, I'm not usually a single-issue voter...
I really don't see any problem at all with making sure that people who are doing the work of maintaining the party get a bigger voice in the nominee. That's really what this is because the super delegates are mostly people that were selected by people who show up to vote year after year.
67 seems to be putting far too little weight on "She will win the popular vote this primary cycle". That is and should be a very big factor.
73- Sanders has been gaining strength relative to HRC for the whole campaign, I think it should count for something if by the end most Democrats wish they had voted for him.
What? That he runs a campaign that takes too long to get off the ground?
I don't see how you could be serious with that comment. In case you were HRC has been running for president since 2006 and the MSM has been following the first they ignore you playbook with regard to Sanders. Is it really his fault most people didn't already know who he is?
Given that he didn't join the Democratic Party until 2015, yes, I think it is his fault that most voters in the Democratic primary didn't know who he is.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it's fair to say that if Bernie'd had any idea how popular he'd be, he would have run his campaign in 2015 very differently. He was running to send a message for a long time.
Maybe I skimmed over this when it came up here previously, but it seems Sandersites, as in 67, are now saying the majority needed by Clinton is of all delegates, not just all pledged delegates. That seems like moving goalposts, no? Especially since the new "50%" is 59% of all delegates winnable in elections. I can't imagine Sanders hitting that mark in any plausible AU.
79- I'm curious what you think he would have done differently?
81- I definitely don't speak for Sanders supporters generally. I also don't agree with that article on what a contested convention is, as I said in 67. I do think that since it now seems clear that Superdelagates will have the power to decide the election that it is OK to try to make arguments/appeals directed at them.
79: I continue to think that he still is.
83: That seems reasonable. And would probably be more successful if it was put that way instead of calling the system unfair.
83: I don't disagree with this. I'm just noting that pretending that "Clinton won the popular vote in the primaries" is a minor factor is ridiculous, as are the claims that her popular vote wins should be discounted because they came in red states or states that voted early. I mean, would you seriously find those arguments credible if Sanders were winning the popular vote and that fact was being discounted for those reasons?
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Achievement (?) unlocked: argument on company mailing list with company lawyer over whether the Contracts Clause applies to the federal government.
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86- I don't think it will be minor assuming it turns out to be true in the end that she wins a strong majority of the votes cast. I don't think it is certain to end up that way. He is now tying her in national pols and expected to do relatively well in most of the upcoming states, so that number could change substantially.
Not especially credible and I wasn't impressed with it when it was being made in 2008 either.
I'm probably going to quit arguing for Bernie if he loses in New York. I've been thinking that for a while now. But I still believe that the better Bernie does the better the future looks for all of us.
I'm going to keep arguing for Bernie until my Republican BIL has a stroke.
I don't find the popular vote argument any more convincing than I did back when Clinton supporters used it in 2008.
I can easily imagine a primary system where that would matter. If we had basically the same system as now only every state apportioned delegates through the same process the delegate winner could still be different from the popular vote winner, because delegates are assigned through all kinds of crazy rules that have nothing to do with the population. But instead we have a system where the kinds of contests vary wildly according to how many people even can vote in them, let alone how many do.* And at that point the popular vote number is more or less meaningless.
Appealing to the superdelegates is important too, and it's clear at this point that no one has the numbers to win without them. But that would be true in most races and I really doubt enough of them are comfortable changing the result that we'd have gotten from the pledged delegates. The only thing that makes me wonder is the extent to which the Clinton campaign/press have been reporting superdelegate support as if it were pledged which could make superdelegates feel more comfortable overturning a close loss, because it wouldn't be obvious they'd done that.
I'm not remotely convinced by the argument in that article though, it just looks like fancy statistics mongering.
*It's not even a primary/caucus difference, though that's a big thing. Changing to a primary that only allowed people to vote in person rather than well before the fact could have switched Arizona to Sanders. (I suspect not - but it would have been a lot closer, and one of the reasons Clinton performs so much better in primaries is that in a lot of them people have been sending in votes through the primary campaign, including before Sanders had gotten any serious attention/support.)
90: won't arguing for Hillary Clinton do just as well on that front?
92: No, he hates her too, but he's a Chamber-of-Commerce type who saves most of his vitriol for Sanders.
I don't know that anyone says the candidates and their supporters should not be allowed to make arguments to superdelegates. Except, you know, that running down Clinton helps Republicans, if Clinton ends up the nominee. Which has always been likely.
It's pretty funny to hear the Sanders people talking about his smashing victories in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, obviously very different in kind from Clinton's wins in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.
I don't think it will be minor assuming it turns out to be true in the end that she wins a strong majority of the votes cast. I don't think it is certain to end up that way.
If you forecast the best possible Sanders outcome and get him an honest-to-God majority of pledged delegates--an outcome that Sanders' campaign manager has explicitly rejected as implausible--he would still end up about half a million votes behind.
But sure, in your AU where he wins all remaining contests 60-40, he'd have a majority of both delegates and votes and nobody would be arguing about superdelegates.
40: Atheists don't ever behave in a way that leads to a (legitimate) criminal indictment. ;)
In one of the books of Vidal's Burr trilogy, I recall a passage in which there was some outcry when NYC appointed a Jewish hangman, objectors being troubled by the prospect of a Jew's hanging a Christian. In response, he asked, sotto voce, "What kind of a Christian is it that would need to be hanged?"
And yeah, freaking out for months about Clinton's totally unfair reliance on superdelegates does, in fact, make you ridiculous hypocrites for turning around and saying that it's obviously fair for Sanders to rely on superdelegates.
My favorite part is that so many Bernie fans on FB are completely unaware that Sanders has always been allied with superdelegates, and so continue to vent about how their existence is unfair, when in fact they have become central to Sanders' plan for the nomination.
That reflects a poor understanding of the role of mercy in Christianity.
98 to 96.last.
Or maybe just a Calvinist.
it's clear at this point that no one has the numbers to win without them
This is not a true statement, of course. What you mean, and what could be true, is that no one has the numbers to win despite them.
The assumption among people who weren't throwing temper tantrums about superdelegates in January and February has always been that the majority of them would go with whoever won the primary. After all, that's exactly what happened the last time there was a contested primary. So if Bernie wants the superdelegates, he just has to do what Obama did, which was to win enough primaries and caucuses. But apparently popular revolution, the kind that's going to so utterly overwhelm DC that Republicans start voting for democratic socialism, doesn't actually include getting enough votes even in a system that's rigged to favor Bernie Sanders. I guess "popular revolution" now means "noisy minority".
It's not even a primary/caucus difference, though that's a big thing. Changing to a primary that only allowed people to vote in person rather than well before the fact could have switched Arizona to Sanders.
This is awfully rich, considering that Sanders outperforms his overall numbers by about 10 points in caucus states. But sure, let's just make bald assertions that run counter to well-established facts, why not? After all, flipping AZ would basically give Sanders a 300 delegate lead, so it's important to fixate on it.
I really can't take the willful innumeracy any longer.
It seems very, very unlike that Sanders will be able to convince the superdelegates to vote for him if Clinton wins a majority of pledged delegates.
That said, you know what, he's welcome to make the case, and if he does convince them that would mean something to me.* But I agree with Moby Hick in 85, if that's the strategy be upfront about it being a long-shot, rather than arguing that there's something unfair about the fact that Clinton is leading in pledged delegates.
* Personally I would be more likely to believe that indicated that the superdelegates had some private reason for believing that Clinton was problematic than that they were convinced by the arguments in that article, but it
I should say, I had the same, "you've got to be kidding" reaction that JRoth has the first time I heard that Sanders was going to try to woo superdelegates, even if Clinton has a majority of pledged delegates. It seemed like a long shot strategy that has a higher likelihood of pissing people off than actually succeeding.
So I'm not sure that it's a good move by the Sanders campaign. But, thinking about it, I'm happy to say that if they can pull it off then more power to them.
But, thinking about it, I'm happy to say that if they can pull it off then more power to them.
Ugh. At least she used a knife on me.
I realize that's a throw-away joke, but it's kind of remarkable in terms of the gender issues involved in the campaign.
The implication is presumably that Clinton's status as front-runner makes her a pseudo-male but that if Sanders was able to convince the superdelegates to overturn the primary results that would (pseudo-)emasculate Clinton?
his smashing victories in Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming, obviously very different in kind from Clinton's wins in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia
No. I've been won over. So am going with the big swing states as the best measure. Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Maybe add North Carolina.
This is awfully rich, considering that Sanders outperforms his overall numbers by about 10 points in caucus states. But sure, let's just make bald assertions that run counter to well-established facts, why not? After all, flipping AZ would basically give Sanders a 300 delegate lead, so it's important to fixate on it.
In Arizona, Clinton won the 297,000 early votes by a 61.5 percent to 36.1 percent margin (25.4 points). In live voting, as a calculator and the official results reveal, Sanders won Arizona on Election Day by 3.5 points: 50.0 percent to 46.5 percent.
That's what I was talking about, prick. There was a massive number of early voters, which went really massively for Clinton.
Also what I actually fucking said there was that that sort of thing is why the popular vote argument isn't really that great, because different systems don't give you commensurable results and that the difference was big enough that that sort of thing was true. So no I'm not arguing that Sanders was somehow robbed, because if I'd meant that I would have said it.
97- Don't think of it as hypocrisy. Instead congratulate yourself on having done a good job persuading us that superdelegates legitimately deserve their power.
We have six superdelegates: 4 DNC members, the gov, and one senator. People shpuldn't make the Trump mistake of treating any delegates, but especially superdelegates, as points on a scoreboard. The Gov, and our senior senator, have interests, both short term and long. I don't know who the DNC members are. I bet, though, that they are not the kinds of people for whom the HRC corruption argument, the need for complete revolution in our system, and assertions about how little importance to put on fundraising for other candidates would particularly ring.
I'm not saying Sanders can't find a way to convince these people that it's in their best short and long term interest to support him. But the pitch is going to have to be directed at them, not at the kinds of people I see on Facebook touting Sanders.
Honestly, everything I watch in the Republican primary convinces me that superdelegates are the best idea since closed primaries.
The College Democrats at my undergrad school had a very open election for officers and the Republicans packed the meeting and elected their own members as officers of the Democrats.
I'm still unclear on why we need primaries at all. AFAICT every other democracy does without them and does OK. If we were going to do it, we should just have one goddamn national primary day election and nominate the candidates by popular vote.
(Ok, I looked them up. All 4 are senior people in the state party. Some Sanders folks are making a big deal right now about how the party is corruptly, albeit not illegally, funneling money to Clinton. I'm sure the very people who approved the arrangement are persuaded by the need to sweep people like themselves aside.
There may well be a pitch to make to them. Maybe someone is even trying to make it . . .)
If we were going to do it, we should just have one goddamn national primary day election and nominate the candidates by popular vote.
That's a terrible idea; it would make the fundraising "invisible primary" even more important.
Locally, we need a primary. There is no functional* Republican Party so no other chance to vote (meaningfully).
* Not even taking the 2016 national primary as a comparison is the local Republican Party functional. My favorite part is when the guy who won their primary moved to Israel before the general election.
To be clear, he didn't withdraw from the race and move to Israel. He won the primary and then, without telling anybody, moved to Israel on such short notice that the move must have been the in cards before the primary. The local paper formerly more concerned with Whitewater noticed that he had sold his house.
He promised to come back if he won.
The reason we have/need primaries is that without really big changes to our system by the time general election shows up there are only two possible candidates, and that's about as close to show-democracy as you can get. A system that can have more than two parties effectively competing would be great, and in that case a pre-election election would be stupid. But that's not the one we do have.
OT: Pennsylvania gets legal medical marijuana.
I'm going to stick with beer until the law goes into effect. I think chronic ankle pain should qualify.
I appreciate 108.
Here is a serious thought I had yesterday: I've long argued that superdelegates do, in fact, make sense as the embodiment of the party to which they have devoted their careers*. Further, I've noted (I assume here) that, in a world with open primaries and costless party switching, it makes even more sense (in a winner-take-all state--which I know only exists on the other side--rat-fucking party switchers could literally throw the entire nomination to a candidate who is not, in fact, acceptable to a majority of party members). But the new, serious thought is that, given the tendencies of the recent Republican Party, open primaries really do represent a danger to Democrats. In practice, it seems impossible for enough fake-Dems to throw a nationwide primary (although a statewide one is more possible), but IMO we leave ourselves vulnerable if we limit our concerns to things that have been previously unthinkable. If it's a norm, not a law, the GOP will happily ignore it.
Anyway, if I thought superdelegates were otherwise pernicious, I wouldn't favor them solely for this far-fetched reason, but in fact I think they make sense, and this scenario makes me value them all the more.
*exact number and composition is another issue, but I think the concept is sound
And, actually, all four were elected to their positions at our state convention last summer Delegates to which are drawn from the county party committees.
The Democratic party can be brought into a revolutionary mode, but it cannot be either a one-off or top down process. A serious movement of serious people willing to devote serious time and attention is the sine qua non.
On swearing oaths. Quakers aren't exactly atheists, or weren't, but they were opposed to swearing oaths. Haven't we had Quaker elected officials?
Nixon. And probably some better ones.
Are there any presidential systems without primaries? I mean, they'd be pointless in parliamentary systems*, so you need to look at other systems that more closely resemble the US one.
*although wasn't the Labour selection of Jeremy Piven or whoever in some sort of caucus-like venue?
126: See, this is what happens when the President won't swear an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.
Nixon swore, at his inauguration and on those tapes.
There was a massive number of early voters, which went really massively for Clinton.
Perhaps Sanders won on Primary Day because the majority of Clinton supporters had already voted.
Prick.
126: Wikipedia says Hoover. Hoover was not the president we needed in the Depression, but he did good work saving people from starvation.
He was from Iowa. How did he know Europeans didn't want to starve?
I assume 101.2 is heavy sarcasm, since flipping Arizona's delegate counts for Clinton and Sanders would give him around 9 extra delegates (http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/ ). Also, of course, the assumption that if Arizona banned early voting all the early-voting Clinton supporters would just not bother to vote rather than show up on election day is pretty rich.
You know who else planned ways to distribute food to hungry Germans?
127 I don't see why it would necessarily be any different in a parliamentary system. Two different members of the NDP want to represent Port Alberni in the next parliament: either the party hierarchy picks who gets to be on the ballot, or the voters of Port Alberni do.
We vote over a 30 period. Obviously, older and more diligent people vote early. And once you've voted, campaigns stop calling you or knocking on your door.
Turnout is way higher among people who get a ballot in the mail, rather than going to a polling place, so we make a big push in the early spring to get people on the mail in voting list.
And once you've voted, campaigns stop calling you or knocking on your door.
That why I now vote on my way into work instead of when I get home.
Since this is the primary thread, I've been wanting to link the Ezra Kein's article about media bias in the Democratic primary. Given all of the discussion about Vox, it seemed like a fairly open discussion of what he, EK, thinks about the campaign.
The past few days offered good examples of all these dynamics. But they also spoke to deeper realities -- realities that we don't often discuss -- about the way the media covers all presidential candidates, and how the models that shape media narratives are often invisible to the public.
Jesus Christ, that had nothing to do with complaining that the vote was unfair or something ridiculous.
Different systems would end up with different vote totals, and not just differences between primaries and caucuses, which you remember as the fucking point I was making when I said that about Arizona. Having all the votes taken on the same day in a primary versus having extensive early voting could also make a big difference. And those numbers from Arizona are a good indication that it genuinely could be a big difference because there were big differences between early and that-day voters.
I wasn't fucking complaining about unfair voting practices or saying he ought to have won the state. If that was what I was trying for I wouldn't have said I thought he wouldn't have won even if it had been same day voting.
If you vote by mail, how would I buy a cupcake as I vote?
Seems to me the key difference isn't parliamentary vs. presidential, though that might matter, but first past the post vs. proportional representation. If you have PR the need for primaries is much less because the disaffected faction of a party just splits and forms a new party and can win some fraction of the government. But forming successful parties is much harder to do in a first past the post system. For example, I expect there are many (boroughs? ridings? I forget the word for "district") in the UK where the key issue is who the Tory or Labor candidate is -- because they are assured to win no matter what. So the need for primaries in the US but not in the UK doesn't seem obvious to me.
To the extent you have presidential systems, they can't have PR, so presidential vs. non-presidential systems would matter. But I don't know that any other country with a presidential system has party primaries. France doesn't. I don't think Chile and Argentina do. I don't know of any others.
France doesn't have presidential primaries but they have two rounds of voting if the first doesn't get a majority.
And, in any case, the argument for needing primaries even in the United States, with a two-party system and first past the post voting, seems weak. Here are the two alternatives:
(a)a bare 51% majority of the party's primary electorate (say, for the major political parties, something like 20% of the population, max) votes for a person to be that party's nominee for president, he is the party's nominee, and then the general electorate votes on that candidate;
(b) the party's leaders, who are themselves almost entirely either elected officials or representatives of important party constituencies, nominate someone, who is then voted for or not in the general election.
It's not even a little bit obvious to me that option (a) is more democratic than (b). In both (a) and (b) you don't have the "people" choosing a candidate,you just have some small subset of people picking a party's candidate (and of course the way we actually do it is far crazier, with caucuses and bizarre state by state rules, etc.) Why is it democratically important to let that portion of the electorate that is affiliated with a party pick its general election candidate through a vote, instead of some coalition of elected officials and senior people within the party? In some ways, having actual politicians and interest groups pick the nominee for the general election might give you a more representative result for the "party." At the very least, the answer is not obvious or intuitively clear.
The point about local areas where the party primary election is the only actually contested election is important, but if you got rid of a primary system you'd no longer have uncontested general elections in cities like Pittsburgh. Instead, you'd have local parties that ran competitive races while being different from the national parties. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
Sanders has been gaining strength relative to HRC for the whole campaign, I think it should count for something if by the end most Democrats wish they had voted for him.
After all the primaries are done, but before the convention we poll all who had voted in the Democratic primary and give them a do over. Uh huh. How many mulligans primaries should there be? Or, we could just stick with the votes they cast. Mine was for Sanders.
Mind was for "INSERT INTO primary_outcome
VALUES (DIEBOLD_pick1, DIEBOLD_pick2, DIEBOLD_pick3,...);"
Boo to elections, especially this one.
The Hastert filings are way more entertaining.
The filing also said Hastert "deeply regrets" another alleged incident with a different wrestler -- identified only as Individual A -- during a massage in a motel room but questioned whether it rose to the level of sexual abuse.
"While undoubtedly many would consider this episode as described by Individual A, consisting as a groin rub for a groin pull and a massage, to be misconduct, we are not so certain that the incident qualifies as sexual misconduct, especially for a coach and trainer 43 years ago," his lawyers wrote.
There 70s were pretty fucked up, but not that fucked up.
In other words, they had groins in ways we could understand.
consisting as a groin rub for a groin pull and a massage
I dunno, sounds like a pretty fair trade to me.
138: It's sort of an odd article in that if you dig down he's just saying "yes but also against other people too". And I don't think "the media has a narrative and it sticks to it pretty firmly and in ways that can look like bias when the narrative diverges dramatically from reality" is something that people accusing the media of bias have missed either.
What I did find really interesting (and sad) is that his bit on Donald Trump makes clear what the conventional wisdom about Trump is, and is probably going to keep being unless he somehow gets elected president.
The candidate who seems to have benefited most from press coverage this year is also the one the press is most biased against: Donald Trump. I've heard very smart observers argue that Trump proves it matters less how you're covered than that you're covered, and he's figured out a loophole by which he can get almost unlimited quantities of coverage so long as he's comfortable with that coverage being overwhelmingly hostile.The 'very smart observers' bit really made me wince because this is a really bad understanding of what happened with Trump - but it is one that fits very neatly with the conventional wisdom you get from pundits. The reason Trump actually did well (and why certain people cough-ahem-cough were able to predict that success early on) is that the people he wanted to appeal to didn't think that that coverage was actually that bad. Or, more accurately, the fact that it was hostile didn't matter except to the extent that it confirmed their weird persecution complexes. The hostile coverage mostly took the form of repeating over and over what he'd said. And to a sane person that looks really negative, because what he said was horrific. But he was marketing himself to people who agreed with that stuff. And they loved seeing it on the front page over and over again.
Well, 12 years from now it will all end with Trump offing himself in his Fuhrerbunker, so it's not really anything to worry about. Unless they clone him.
Corbyn was elected in what was essentially a closed primary, as has every Tory leader since ... Major? Hague? London Mayoral candidates are typically chosen in some kind of primary-esque system.
Although those systems have two gates: one you have to be an MP already and two you have to have some support from the parliamentary party.
France has run-off elections, which kinda replicate primaries in some ways. Also an explicit primary in the Parti Socialiste.
As far as "but the primary is the real election in Chicago" --- well, so? If the voters are happy with a Democrat selected by a party committee, why is that any less legitimate than a Democrat selected by a primary? Democrats might see primaries as a way to appear more legitimate and therefore embed support, but as a body of people putting forward a candidate, how they chose the candidate should really be up to the parties concerned.
I mean, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Majority Leader of the Senate are purely internally elected positions, even though arguably being House Speaker for five years is way more powerful in the long run than being a losing nominee for the Presidency once. So why should Presidential nominees be selected by a primary, but not Speakers?
I'm fairly certain that replacing the primary with selection by a central committee would split the local Democratic Party or revive the Republican Party in the city. I'm not sure which, but I don't think either would be good for the party at a state level.
As far as superdelegates and who they should vote for goes, well, I think it's basically a Nietzschean will-to-power struggle at this point and that there's no real claim to a moral high ground that anyone can make for pressuring (or arguing against pressuring) superdelegates to vote any one way.
As for me, my standards for the Presidency have been lowered so much that I don't care that much any more who wins the Democratic nomination as long as they win in November, which I don't think either one will have much trouble doing. The populist rage is too powerful, and median-ish voters seem to be finally making the connection between the general shittification of America and fiscal austerity, so I think we'll be ok.
Also, there's this irritating presumption that a terrorist attack or recession will drive people to Trump, but I think it's more likely people flock to Hillary, who doesn't have to talk a big game because she's been close enough to the Presidency to be comfortable with actually having people killed.
Wouldn't have to be a stereotypical central committee - you could, for instance, have a largish "college" composed of representatives of key demographics and associated organisations, or whatever.
In reality, primaries aren't going anywhere because Americans expect them, but its fun to imagine alternatives.
The bike-lane death war would be fun. One side would have the numbers and the other side people who can walk up three flights of steps without wheezing.
Also, there's this irritating presumption that a terrorist attack or recession will drive people to Trump, but I think it's more likely people flock to Hillary, who doesn't have to talk a big game because she's been close enough to the Presidency to be comfortable with actually having people killed.
This is the main advantge of Cruz over Trump in the general election. Nobody wants Trump's finger on the nuclear button. Like every other Republican since 1970 Cruz would be able to do the whole "Wimpy Democrats can't keep us safe, now is not the time to ever do anything other than war, impeach President Gore because of 9/11" thing.
I'd bet the wheezers would win. Unintended effects of the ADA.
As an example of the idiocies* in the article linked in 107 (on early voting) look at the invocation of Ohio. Since the advent of early voting in Ohio, there have bee very predictable patterns of early versus late voters. With black, urban voters disproportionately represented in early voting.
Here is me on Erection Night 2012: Ohio, you have to go through this "U-shaped" curve--early big leads from Dem early voting gets when eroded when rural [and suburban] areas count faster, but then Dems come back when urban "day of" comes in
And from a study of early voting patterns in Cuyahoga Conty (Cleveland): Census tracts in Cuyahoga County, Ohio for which the Voting Age Population (VAP) is 80% ormore African American, contain less than 15% of the count y's total VAP; yet over 36% of all early in person (EIP) ballots that were cast countywide during the 2008 Presidential Election came from these areas.
*it is an interesting trend, but the author (who I think also wrote the "contested convention" piece) reveals himself to be a nitwit.
For instance in 2012, I think Romney may have won election Day votes in Ohio--or at least it was close, final margin was ~100K.
Here is me on Erection Night 2012
I know you're really into electoral statistics and stuff, but this sounds like you're getting a little too excited.
I already feel like the Democratic party doesn't represent me. Are you trying to make it worse?
165 That was a great night, a great post, and a great thread.
" For example, I expect there are many (boroughs? ridings? I forget the word for "district") in the UK where the key issue is who the Tory or Labor candidate is -- because they are assured to win no matter what. So the need for primaries in the US but not in the UK doesn't seem obvious to me."
Constituencies. And, yes, there are a lot of safe seats - not as many as in the US, though, because there isn't nearly as much gerrymandering going on. You can expect at least 100 seats to change hands (out of 625) in a normal election - 200 or more in a landslide. And who stands is up to the local constituency party, though obviously pressure can be applied from central office.
Another factor is that fundraising is generally done by the party for the party, not by and for the individual candidate.
Obviously, the big difference between 143 (a) and (b) is that in (a) the voters self-select, and there is at least the possibility of a movement.
The point about superdelegates, though, is that a movement has to absolutely swamp the polls. A near tie is not nearly good enough.
NMM to the Lucky Charms leprechaun. They finally got his lucky charms.
Soon to be buried under the green clovers.
So, contested convention- is the required number a majority of all delegates or a majority of delegates present? There have been stories about several blue-state endangered Republicans who are going to skip the convention entirely. Are they automatic delegates under the Republican party rules, and if so, when they don't show up does it mean there could be a stalemate where no one can reach the majority because some of the delegates aren't there?
My new favorite thing about the Trump visit is
Officer Facepalm.
Please someone stop me from responding to a fb post by a first cousin, once removed arguing that nazi's were really socialists. He is a friendly and earnest old man and I wanted to politely offer historical correction, but there is no universe in which that is not a giant mistake, right?
It's a smaller mistake than Nazism.
NMM to the Lucky Charms leprechaun.
I gotta be honest: this does not represent a real hardship for me.
Delicious terror: conservative CA-politics commentator saying if Trump is nominated he will drag between a third and a half of GOP state legislators down with him.