[worry]

So Sarah Palin was supposed to be at a Trump rally today. Her husband Todd got into a serious snowmobile accident, so she had to cancel. Trump proceeds (I won't say 'decides' since it's off the cuff, seemingly) to make fun of Todd during his speech even in the midst of trying to praise the Palins:



Not the worst thing in the world, but he has no filter, and isn't interested in one even when it means just being human (as opposed to more usual anti-PC smokescreen). I'm sure Trump will defend this as a mis-worded compliment to Sarah and Todd both, rather than deliberate insensitivity, but I think past behavior bears out that enjoys saying whatever tickles his fancy no matter how boorish. The thought occurred to him on the fly, he got a kick out of it, said it, and then pivoted to Sarah over Todd, all in a moment. Not so far from:



Edit: Also he called Chris Christie an absentee governor *while* Christie was on stage with him.

This post has been edited by Zoolanderis Derake: 14 March 2016 - 11:56 PM

[Illuyankas]

To be fair Christie was wishing his very hardest to be absent from that stage.

[EmperorMagus]

Illuyankas, on 15 March 2016 - 03:35 AM, said:

To be fair Christie was wishing his very hardest to be absent from that stage.

Christie beside Trump reminds me of


for some reason.

[Terez]

Rubio is out, having lost Florida to Trump.

Florida and NC also called for Hillary.

[bubba]

EmperorMagus, on 15 March 2016 - 04:37 AM, said:

Illuyankas, on 15 March 2016 - 03:35 AM, said:

To be fair Christie was wishing his very hardest to be absent from that stage.

Christie beside Trump reminds me of


for some reason.

 12821540_10100420899990399_6572121486684051634_n.jpg (63.44K)
Number of downloads: 0

[Terez]

Tonight was a sad night for American democracy. The big winners of the night were, by a very big margin, the two most unpopular candidates in the race. You could say Kasich was a big winner too, but Ohio is the only state he has managed to win, and he is its governor.

[Terez]

Vengeance, on 13 March 2016 - 10:20 PM, said:

My wife knows several people who helped shut down trumps rally. I think that trumps camp figured that the rally would be shut down. Chicago is not very red at all so the people going to the rally wouldn't be from the city.

This might not be much compared to the Dem side, but it's more than enough people for a Trump rally. I realize many attendees probably came from outside the city, but that's true for any big rally.

[Illuyankas]

Two most unpopular? But Cruz lost- oh wait, you mean the person with the 93% matching voting record to Sanders who isn't going to roll back everything the Republicans have stated they will happened to win more states than their immediate rival, and this means they're unpopular? I might even think you were ever so slightly incredibly biased for Sanders!

Seriously though, the sheer amount of vitriol spewed forth against HClinton online in general (eg not in this thread or by its posters) is a little sickening, and I just hope that if* she wins the primary that everyone votes for her in the general, cause not voting - out of disappointment, spite or plain indifference - literally is a vote for the Republicans. I probably harp on this point a lot but it's important.



*one of the biggest results of Bernie's campaign is that this stopped being a 100% guaranteed 'when'

[Tiste Simeon]

Yeah I have seen (mainly on Reddit so not to be taken as indicative of the state of Sanders' campaign at all but still...) quite a few "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..." type posts. I don't quite understand that mindset...

Also, and I know this is late in the thread, but can someone explain delegates & primaries vs the convention for me? Is it the case that the primaries and caucuses are votes which turn into delegates (representatives?) Who then pledge to support the nomination of the person who was voted for? Can the delegates change their mind between now and the convention? So Hilary could in theory win a bunch more States than Sanders and then lose out on the actual nomination?

[Obdigore]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Yeah I have seen (mainly on Reddit so not to be taken as indicative of the state of Sanders' campaign at all but still...) quite a few "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..." type posts. I don't quite understand that mindset...

Also, and I know this is late in the thread, but can someone explain delegates & primaries vs the convention for me? Is it the case that the primaries and caucuses are votes which turn into delegates (representatives?) Who then pledge to support the nomination of the person who was voted for? Can the delegates change their mind between now and the convention? So Hilary could in theory win a bunch more States than Sanders and then lose out on the actual nomination?

So the Delegates are supposed to be a proportional representation of the voter base, so that the parties can choose the most liked candidate to be their primary candidate. Yes, the convention is where the delegates actually vote so that the parties can select their candidate, but in this age of near-instant communication, it is slowly becoming just another place to give a political speech, as almost every time (except for maybe this time, for the GOP) the candidate is selected in advance and there hasn't been a brokered convention.

Hillary could yes, it would be more probable that Bernie wins a bunch of states and then Hillary wins the nomination because of the Superdelegates, which is something I don't think the GOP has.

[Nevyn]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Also, and I know this is late in the thread, but can someone explain delegates & primaries vs the convention for me? Is it the case that the primaries and caucuses are votes which turn into delegates (representatives?) Who then pledge to support the nomination of the person who was voted for? Can the delegates change their mind between now and the convention? So Hilary could in theory win a bunch more States than Sanders and then lose out on the actual nomination?

Every state party sets the rules for their primary.

Those rules determine whether it is a primary (typical election) or caucus. They also determine how the voting results determine the delegates. So some states give ALL the delegates to the state for the winner, some give a few to second or third, and some try to do it more or less proportionally according to vote results.

A delegate is assigned a specific candidate. When they go to the convention, they are required to support the candidate they are assigned on the first ballot. So if you get more than half of the delegates out of the primaries, you just win. But you need more than half to win, and if no one has it, they keep having votes until someone gets more than half. And after that, anyone can vote for anyone. That is where the Trump talk comes in. If Trump has less than half of the delegates, in theory all the non-Trump delegates or even defecting Trump delegates can back someone else, even someone that had not run to date.

For the democrats it is even more complicated because they have 'superdelegates', party elders and such who get a vote of their own at the convention independent of primary results. These are overwhelmingly for Hillary, which is why even though Bernie has done ok in primaries, he is getting close to being a dead duck.

[QuickTidal]

Terez, on 16 March 2016 - 05:25 AM, said:

Tonight was a sad night for American democracy. The big winners of the night were, by a very big margin, the two most unpopular candidates in the race. You could say Kasich was a big winner too, but Ohio is the only state he has managed to win, and he is its governor.

How is Hillary unpopular? And further, doesn't her popularity speak to her winning all those states and pretty much securing the primary?

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Yeah I have seen (mainly on Reddit so not to be taken as indicative of the state of Sanders' campaign at all but still...) quite a few "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..." type posts. I don't quite understand that mindset...

I saw that in places as well, the best response to it that I saw was from a fantasy author (Sam Sykes) who tweeted something like:

People saying "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..."

is pretty much like saying, "Well, McDonalds is out of McNuggets, so I'm going to eat 20 scorpions"

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 16 March 2016 - 02:11 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Obdigore, on 16 March 2016 - 01:51 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Yeah I have seen (mainly on Reddit so not to be taken as indicative of the state of Sanders' campaign at all but still...) quite a few "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..." type posts. I don't quite understand that mindset...

Also, and I know this is late in the thread, but can someone explain delegates & primaries vs the convention for me? Is it the case that the primaries and caucuses are votes which turn into delegates (representatives?) Who then pledge to support the nomination of the person who was voted for? Can the delegates change their mind between now and the convention? So Hilary could in theory win a bunch more States than Sanders and then lose out on the actual nomination?

So the Delegates are supposed to be a proportional representation of the voter base, so that the parties can choose the most liked candidate to be their primary candidate. Yes, the convention is where the delegates actually vote so that the parties can select their candidate, but in this age of near-instant communication, it is slowly becoming just another place to give a political speech, as almost every time (except for maybe this time, for the GOP) the candidate is selected in advance and there hasn't been a brokered convention.

Hillary could yes, it would be more probable that Bernie wins a bunch of states and then Hillary wins the nomination because of the Superdelegates, which is something I don't think the GOP has.

Nevyn, on 16 March 2016 - 02:07 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Also, and I know this is late in the thread, but can someone explain delegates & primaries vs the convention for me? Is it the case that the primaries and caucuses are votes which turn into delegates (representatives?) Who then pledge to support the nomination of the person who was voted for? Can the delegates change their mind between now and the convention? So Hilary could in theory win a bunch more States than Sanders and then lose out on the actual nomination?

Every state party sets the rules for their primary.

Those rules determine whether it is a primary (typical election) or caucus. They also determine how the voting results determine the delegates. So some states give ALL the delegates to the state for the winner, some give a few to second or third, and some try to do it more or less proportionally according to vote results.

A delegate is assigned a specific candidate. When they go to the convention, they are required to support the candidate they are assigned on the first ballot. So if you get more than half of the delegates out of the primaries, you just win. But you need more than half to win, and if no one has it, they keep having votes until someone gets more than half. And after that, anyone can vote for anyone. That is where the Trump talk comes in. If Trump has less than half of the delegates, in theory all the non-Trump delegates or even defecting Trump delegates can back someone else, even someone that had not run to date.

For the democrats it is even more complicated because they have 'superdelegates', party elders and such who get a vote of their own at the convention independent of primary results. These are overwhelmingly for Hillary, which is why even though Bernie has done ok in primaries, he is getting close to being a dead duck.

Thanks, that makes sense. A Brokered Convention is where there isn't a clear enough winner then?

[Nevyn]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Thanks, that makes sense. A Brokered Convention is where there isn't a clear enough winner then?

Yes. A brokered convention is one decided by delegates on successive ballots, rather than voters.

They are normally pretty rare, because usually once a frontrunner has a big enough lead, everyone else stops running and they sweep through the final states and get enough delegates for the first ballot. There is normally a lot of pressure on people trailing to drop out so the party can seem unified behind a leader. But this time, the frontrunner for the republicans is a disaster, and even the second place guy very polarizing, so the race is likely to continue for some time. It will be very interesting to see where Kasich's numbers go now that Rubio is out.

This post has been edited by Nevyn: 16 March 2016 - 03:00 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Nevyn, on 16 March 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Thanks, that makes sense. A Brokered Convention is where there isn't a clear enough winner then?

Yes. A brokered convention is one decided by delegates on successive ballots, rather than voters.

They are normally pretty rare, because usually once a frontrunner has a big enough lead, everyone else stops running and they sweep through the final states and get enough delegates for the first ballot. There is normally a lot of pressure on people trailing to drop out so the party can seem unified behind a leader. But this time, the frontrunner for the republicans is a disaster, and even the second place guy very polarizing, so the race is likely to continue for some time. It will be very interesting to see where Kasich's numbers go now that Rubio is out.

Sorry for all the questions, but is there one possible for the Dems too? I read somewhere that the race is very far from over, and the states ahead are more favourable to someone like Sanders... Could end up being very close as they reach the convention...

[Rhand]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 01:39 PM, said:

Yeah I have seen (mainly on Reddit so not to be taken as indicative of the state of Sanders' campaign at all but still...) quite a few "Well, Sanders isn't going to win and I hate Hilary so I'm voting Trump..." type posts. I don't quite understand that mindset...

Because those voting for Sanders want change. With both Hilary and Trump there will be no change, but at least with Trump it will blow up in everybody's faces in a few months/years and make it much more likely to have an even bigger action/revolution (if you want to call the Sanders campaign a revolution) next elections.
With Hilary in charge, it will remain the slow poisonous death that it is now already, largely unnoticed by mainstream America and with possibly no change next elections around.

[Nevyn]

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

Nevyn, on 16 March 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Thanks, that makes sense. A Brokered Convention is where there isn't a clear enough winner then?

Yes. A brokered convention is one decided by delegates on successive ballots, rather than voters.

They are normally pretty rare, because usually once a frontrunner has a big enough lead, everyone else stops running and they sweep through the final states and get enough delegates for the first ballot. There is normally a lot of pressure on people trailing to drop out so the party can seem unified behind a leader. But this time, the frontrunner for the republicans is a disaster, and even the second place guy very polarizing, so the race is likely to continue for some time. It will be very interesting to see where Kasich's numbers go now that Rubio is out.

Sorry for all the questions, but is there one possible for the Dems too? I read somewhere that the race is very far from over, and the states ahead are more favourable to someone like Sanders... Could end up being very close as they reach the convention...

It is far less likely for the democrats. Technically possible but it would require a massive momentum shift to standards where he started sweeping primaries.

The republicans have had a wider field for longer (you don't lose your delegates when you drop out), and still have 3 viable candidates. Trump is ahead by a mile and still has less than half the delegates given out so far.

On top of that, the Democrats have the superdelegates, who I mentioned earlier. They are committed to no one but often tell people who they will be supporting, and they are overwhelmingly for Clinton. So Sanders needs to not only catch up in regular delegates, but pull so far ahead in them that he either swings some superdelegates or outcounts them.

[Terez]

Illuyankas, on 16 March 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

Two most unpopular? But Cruz lost-

Cruz and Hillary tend to run neck and neck in overall favorability ratings. They're both incredibly unpopular. Trump is worse. The fact that those are three out of the four top performers in this cycle is not anywhere near normal.

Illuyankas, on 16 March 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

oh wait, you mean the person with the 93% matching voting record to Sanders

The voting record does not really tell the story. 90%+ of Democrats vote together on whatever makes it to a vote; at that point all the important haggling has already been done. I'm much more concerned about Hillary's record as Secretary of State and the fact that she's likely to put Wall St. people in important positions like Treasury and Justice, and that's just the tip of the iceberg; we'll have financiers and corporatists at every level of the administration and the judiciary. She'll probably back down on the TPP and approve yet another disastrous trade deal. She's probably just as likely to start another disastrous war as Trump. She'll probably ruin what we have going on in Iran because she's paranoid about looking weak on foreign policy, much more so than Obama.

Illuyankas, on 16 March 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

who isn't going to roll back everything the Republicans have stated they will happened to win more states than their immediate rival, and this means they're unpopular?

Favorability ratings are cross-party. Hillary is popular with Democratic party loyalists, the type who come out to vote in primary elections (which is less than 10% of the voting-age population, sometimes drastically less). With the rest of the country, she's one of the most unpopular candidates of all time. That's why general election matchup averages show her losing to every candidate but Trump (and Bernie's margin against Trump has always been more comfortable). Many of the people who did vote for Hillary did so reluctantly and only because they thought (against all evidence) that she had the best chance of beating Trump. And that's probably why Bill Clinton encouraged Trump to run.

Illuyankas, on 16 March 2016 - 11:31 AM, said:

Seriously though, the sheer amount of vitriol spewed forth against HClinton online in general (eg not in this thread or by its posters) is a little sickening, and I just hope that if* she wins the primary that everyone votes for her in the general, cause not voting - out of disappointment, spite or plain indifference - literally is a vote for the Republicans. I probably harp on this point a lot but it's important.

I will vote, but I probably won't vote for her. It's hard to imagine a scenario in which I would do so. It doesn't matter much because I don't live in a swing state, but I'm not going to settle for a candidate who embodies government corruption just because the base of the party thinks it's her turn to be president. If I lived in a swing state I would think about it more, but I might not vote for her even then.

I have been looking at Jill Stein for a few weeks now; she's an option. Lots of Republicans are looking at other options, some at Gary Johnson, the Libertarian. Some are considering Hillary, a totally different group of Republicans than those who would consider voting for Bernie, and odd as it seems, some Bernie people are looking at Trump.

I'm not anywhere close to that group, but I can understand why that group exists. Both Bernie and Trump are anti-establishment, anti-corruption candidates; both have taken positions against stupid wars and stupid trade deals, something few in either party are willing to do. That lack of meaningful choices frustrates people. I happen to believe that Bernie is the only one of the two who takes these positions honestly, and he does it without appealing to the worst in people. To me, that difference is yuge, but others don't see Trump as dishonest and they don't care about his hatefulness.

It could get very interesting from here; we haven't had a decent third party showing since 1992 when Ross Perot campaigned against both Bill Clinton and George HW Bush, almost entirely because both the Democrat and the Republican favored NAFTA, so there was popular demand for an alternative. Perot was actually winning in the polls at one point before he dropped out, around 40% in a 3-way race, and he dropped out because he was being threatened by some mysterious interested party. People laugh at him for these days for that, and for the giant sucking sound, but at the time people took him very seriously. If he had won, he could have changed the face of American politics, but by the time he got back in the race, his credibility had suffered.

You can blame third-party voters for Trump if he wins, if you want. Or you could blame Bill Clinton. Or McKay Coppins. Or, the people who actually cast ballots for Trump.

As for being biased toward Bernie, you can go back to the date of the first Democratic debate this cycle and you'll see a person very reluctant to get on the Bernie train. He has always been a weak candidate. He's principled and has a long record of concentrating on the fundamental problems in our democracy, but he's a terrible debater and generally not very good at articulating his ideas. I was one of those people who was pretty familiar with Bernie before he decided to run for president; he has always been a regular visitor to MSNBC and he was on a lot during the OWS protests, which is probably when I first got to know him. He has always been a marginal old kook; the fact that he has done so well against Hillary says a lot about Hillary's popularity.

I was resigned to Hillary for a very brief period which ended with the first Democratic debate, when she reminded me why I don't like her and don't trust her and probably never will. Bernie also reminded me in that debate why I would have preferred Elizabeth Warren by a mile, among the anti-corruption progressives. I gave up on the Democratic race altogether at that point, but I was eventually able to accept Bernie's premise that the revolution wasn't about him. I was swayed in part because a number of friends whose opinions I respect were on board.

Hillary has maintained the status of frontrunner since she lost to Obama in '08. Her level of establishment support is the main reason why there were no viable contenders against her this year, except Bernie who never depended on the party for his own support (he wasn't even a member of it). He was brave enough to talk about primarying Obama in 2012; it's no surprise he emerged as the lone viable candidate against Hillary. But you have to keep in mind that Hillary's unpopularity is one of the main reasons we elected Obama in 2008.

[Terez]

Nevyn, on 16 March 2016 - 05:42 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 03:53 PM, said:

Nevyn, on 16 March 2016 - 03:00 PM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 16 March 2016 - 02:51 PM, said:

Thanks, that makes sense. A Brokered Convention is where there isn't a clear enough winner then?

Yes. A brokered convention is one decided by delegates on successive ballots, rather than voters.

They are normally pretty rare, because usually once a frontrunner has a big enough lead, everyone else stops running and they sweep through the final states and get enough delegates for the first ballot. There is normally a lot of pressure on people trailing to drop out so the party can seem unified behind a leader. But this time, the frontrunner for the republicans is a disaster, and even the second place guy very polarizing, so the race is likely to continue for some time. It will be very interesting to see where Kasich's numbers go now that Rubio is out.

Sorry for all the questions, but is there one possible for the Dems too? I read somewhere that the race is very far from over, and the states ahead are more favourable to someone like Sanders... Could end up being very close as they reach the convention...

It is far less likely for the democrats. Technically possible but it would require a massive momentum shift to standards where he started sweeping primaries.

The republicans have had a wider field for longer (you don't lose your delegates when you drop out), and still have 3 viable candidates. Trump is ahead by a mile and still has less than half the delegates given out so far.

On top of that, the Democrats have the superdelegates, who I mentioned earlier. They are committed to no one but often tell people who they will be supporting, and they are overwhelmingly for Clinton. So Sanders needs to not only catch up in regular delegates, but pull so far ahead in them that he either swings some superdelegates or outcounts them.

A brokered Democratic convention is a virtual impossibility. Mostly that's because it's a two-candidate race, and it's designed so that one or the other will get a majority of the delegates even in a perfectly even split. Partly it's because the superdelegates could make a majority if need be without being terribly undemocratic about it. I doubt it will get that close, though. Bernie's good states are upcoming, but he's not likely to overtake Hillary in pledged delegates.

It's actually getting more and more likely that Trump will win outright on the Republican side. With all these winner-take-all states coming up, it's going to be hard to prevent him from reaching the 1237 he needs to win. (The Democrats don't have winner-take-all states.)

[Illuyankas]

Quick replies:

Yeah Hillary's a lot less popular than when I last summed the polls so even with how (very, very) inaccurate they've been recently that is some cause for concern.

"Those facts aren't relevant, here's me telling you what I think she'll """probably""" do and also she's literally a glove puppet of Big Finance and the MIC and has no will of her own"

Projection that the majority of HClinton voters are doing so because they're idiots ('against all evidence') and not that, say, they believe she'll be better on minority rights or with dealing with Congress than Sanders; concluding polls 8 months out are ironclad truth (worrying, definitely, but not the death knell) and... wait a minute here, conspiracy theories??? "And that's probably why Bill Clinton encouraged Trump to run," what the fuck is this, going from calling Trump dishonest to believing an obvious lie only spread by his camp purely because it has a Clinton doing a Bad Thing?

I will be blaming America as a whole if he wins, don't worry. You guys are stuck in tactical voting because the alternative is literally the destruction of your government, your rights and your ability to vote the bastards out for another 10-20 years given what will happen in 2020 if Gerrymandering 2.0 gets underway. Vote for whoever you like whether or not you're in a swing state - I wouldn't pick Jill Stein with all that alternative medicine and shit stuff not being removed from the Greens - but just be cogniscent of the fact that your politicians have devolved to the point where one party is slightly corrupt and the other wants to burn your country to the ground, and us all with it. Yeah she's pretty bad at campaigning decisions and I'm finally around to not being worried as all hell if Bernie wins (still worried, but less so) but if she does get in, I would rather not a repeat of Kentucky (poor people voting for Bevan on the promise of getting rid of healthcare, then being shocked when he got rid of their healthcare), Louisiana, Kansas, or any other red state in current freefall.


Questionwise, how well do you think Sanders would be polling if he'd had HClinton's levels of Republican attacks and smears over the last 30 years?