[Terez]

amphibian, on 09 April 2016 - 07:11 PM, said:

EmperorMagus, on 08 April 2016 - 07:42 PM, said:

Terez, on 08 April 2016 - 03:17 PM, said:

If he could run against Bernie, I'd still vote for Bernie.

Oh absolutely. He was talking about how the super-predator comment supported #blacklivesmatter, fucking disgusting.
But he knows how to play a crowd, and people go crazy when he talks.

The black community in the 90s wanted that crime bill and related concepts. That's why the Clintons have such strong credibility with the older black voters.

Now, we realize that crime/prison setup was a disaster, but to Bill and to a lesser degree, Hillary, that legislation is one of the times they came through for the black community. Bill doesn't fully realize that the younger black voters are not the same as the older ones he had such strong ties with.

It's not that he doesn't fully realize it; it's that until now they have been able to dismiss younger black voters—younger and poorer, I should say. The Clintons attract older and younger middle class black voters. Problem is, older middle class people of all races are finding that their children can't make it into the middle class, and this is particularly dramatic among racial minorities and especially black communities. The Bernie phenomenon isn't just any old manifestation of youthful idealism; it's also a manifestation of the consequences of austerity as it is practiced in the modern global economy: austerity for working people and largesse for those with the most capital (which creates public debt).

So with these last several states the Clintons are seeing a level of rejection that they didn't quite expect, though in a way everyone else saw it coming. Hillary probably thought that her wins in Ohio and Florida were signs that she wouldn't lose too badly in the Western states. After those results, she probably didn't expect Bernie to be able to match what she did in the Deep South, and she probably thought she had a good chance of winning Wisconsin. And she probably hoped that she'd maintain her Deep South margins with black voters.

All that said, again, Bernie has a hard road ahead and evidence suggests that political momentum isn't actually a thing. If he wins NY by a margin similar to Wisconsin, he's got a shot at this, because he's probably stronger in CA. (Not that worry is representative. There are CA people on another forum I go to, two in particular; one is a Hillary pragmatist and the other is an independent type who I suspect is on the Bernie train; she hasn't been posting much lately so I have to guess based on her past posts.) But NY seems like a long shot at this point? I haven't been paying much attention to polls since the pollsters started juking the stats after Michigan. Too much noise.

PS: Check out how many counties in Wyoming went 50-50. Bernie won the state, closest margin in a while: 56-44.

This post has been edited by Terez: 10 April 2016 - 01:52 AM

[Tiste Simeon]

Bernie Sanders wins Missouri after all.

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand the way the system over there works...

[Andorion]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

Bernie Sanders wins Missouri after all.

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand the way the system over there works...

I read that link. I did not understand it.

Does nobody think this system needs to be reformed?

[Terez]

Andorion, on 11 April 2016 - 09:05 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

Bernie Sanders wins Missouri after all.

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand the way the system over there works...

I read that link. I did not understand it.

Does nobody think this system needs to be reformed?

Lots of people think it needs to be reformed. Reform is never easy, though, and too few people are paying attention to push this kind of reform through. Or, reform happens all the time, but it happens at the whims of party leadership. They change the rules all the time.

As for understanding, it's actually pretty simple. In caucus states (as opposed to states that hole primaries), after the caucusing is done people stick around at their precinct to elect delegates to their county convention. These are elected proportionally based on the caucus vote. At the county convention, sometimes delegates who were elected at their precincts don't show up, so when the county convention delegates are counted, sometimes the proportion changes. At this point, it's no longer based on the caucus vote; it's simply a matter of elected delegates showing up. This happens again at the state convention, and sometimes at the national convention.

In primary states, national convention delegates are basically elected directly so there's little chance that the votes will change except in cases of brokered conventions.

[Andorion]

Terez, on 11 April 2016 - 12:23 PM, said:

Andorion, on 11 April 2016 - 09:05 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 08:19 AM, said:

Bernie Sanders wins Missouri after all.

Just when I thought I was beginning to understand the way the system over there works...

I read that link. I did not understand it.

Does nobody think this system needs to be reformed?

Lots of people think it needs to be reformed. Reform is never easy, though, and too few people are paying attention to push this kind of reform through. Or, reform happens all the time, but it happens at the whims of party leadership. They change the rules all the time.

As for understanding, it's actually pretty simple. In caucus states (as opposed to states that hole primaries), after the caucusing is done people stick around at their precinct to elect delegates to their county convention. These are elected proportionally based on the caucus vote. At the county convention, sometimes delegates who were elected at their precincts don't show up, so when the county convention delegates are counted, sometimes the proportion changes. At this point, it's no longer based on the caucus vote; it's simply a matter of elected delegates showing up. This happens again at the state convention, and sometimes at the national convention.

In primary states, national convention delegates are basically elected directly so there's little chance that the votes will change except in cases of brokered conventions.

This delegates not showing up seems extremely whimsical to me. Can their presence or absence be influenced?

[Terez]

Probably. I'm not sure it's necessarily that, though. Every now and then you get reporting on delegates who actually changed their mind about who they wanted to support. It's probably illegal to pay them off, though, and I'm not sure any campaign would take the risk. In order to buy off enough delegates to make a difference, you'd have to let hundreds of people in on the secret and risk exposure. If it does happen, it's probably not at the county conventions or even the state convention.

[Tiste Simeon]

Terez, on 11 April 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Probably. I'm not sure it's necessarily that, though. Every now and then you get reporting on delegates who actually changed their mind about who they wanted to support. It's probably illegal to pay them off, though, and I'm not sure any campaign would take the risk. In order to buy off enough delegates to make a difference, you'd have to let hundreds of people in on the secret and risk exposure. If it does happen, it's probably not at the county conventions or even the state convention.

So basically, Hillary has to hope that the people who were going to vote for her bother to show up? I guess your suggestion that they changed their minds is the only reasonable reason to not show up...

[Tiste Simeon]

Also, what's going on in Colorado? I know /r/The_Donald is getting very angry about people not being allowed to vote or something?

[Terez]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 05:32 PM, said:

Terez, on 11 April 2016 - 04:06 PM, said:

Probably. I'm not sure it's necessarily that, though. Every now and then you get reporting on delegates who actually changed their mind about who they wanted to support. It's probably illegal to pay them off, though, and I'm not sure any campaign would take the risk. In order to buy off enough delegates to make a difference, you'd have to let hundreds of people in on the secret and risk exposure. If it does happen, it's probably not at the county conventions or even the state convention.

So basically, Hillary has to hope that the people who were going to vote for her bother to show up? I guess your suggestion that they changed their minds is the only reasonable reason to not show up...

Yeah, I dunno. Bernie's people might have followed the practice of the Ron Paul campaign in getting potential delegates to caucus for Hillary in precincts that were large enough that it wouldn't affect the delegate count for that precinct. Then they switch to Bernie at the convention. I don't think Bernie is as dedicated to this strategy as Paul was, but it's another possibility.

[Terez]

Tiste Simeon, on 11 April 2016 - 05:52 PM, said:

Also, what's going on in Colorado? I know /r/The_Donald is getting very angry about people not being allowed to vote or something?

There are a few caucus states where the state party decides to skip the pretense of democracy and just elect delegates at their county and state conventions. The process is the same as in caucus states (Colorado had a caucus for the Democrats; Bernie won) except without the actual caucus. So Trump is pissed because he didn't win a single delegate, but it's not like he had no control over the situation whatsoever. He just decided to ignore Colorado, and his campaign was stupidly disorganized. 538 sums it up here:

http://fivethirtyeig...oking-colorado/

[Terez]

Turns out the Missouri thing is not even a thing. MO is a primary state and the district delegates don't affect the delegate totals decided by the election.

I wondered why I had first heard about this here; a friend of mine in Kansas City MO filled me in on the details.

[Mentalist]

Tiste's link provided a neat chart with how many delegates are at stake in each state. How many "major" states are there left, beyond NY and CA?

[Terez]

Tiste's link was dodgy. The NYT has a very helpful list of the schedule with available delegates for each party, starting with states that have already voted. The upcoming states are in a separate list below.

http://www.nytimes.c...nd-results.html

[Mentalist]

Terez, on 11 April 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

Tiste's link was dodgy. The NYT has a very helpful list of the schedule with available delegates for each party, starting with states that have already voted. The upcoming states are in a separate list below.

http://www.nytimes.c...nd-results.html

Hmm. thanks. For Dems, in MO (Montana?) both have 34 delegates, but Hillary declared winner. Is that based on popular vote results, or just anti-Sanders bias?

It also looks that if Hillary can take California she'll basically clinch the nomination.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 11 April 2016 - 08:07 PM

[Tiste Simeon]

Sorry I don't mean to provide dodgy links! I generally see a lot on r/all and occasionally bring it here where I know my questions won't be lost in the crowd.

Thanks for answering all my ignorance!

Edit I read that 538 article it made a lot of sense and explained a lot that the nice chaps at The_Donald have failed to mention so far...

Also at the bottom they had some forecasts for California. Doesn't look good for Sanders - Polls Plus had him at 9% or something...

This post has been edited by Tiste Simeon: 11 April 2016 - 10:02 PM

[Terez]

No worries Tiste; I just wanted to make sure everyone was aware.

Mentalist, on 11 April 2016 - 08:06 PM, said:

Terez, on 11 April 2016 - 06:45 PM, said:

Tiste's link was dodgy. The NYT has a very helpful list of the schedule with available delegates for each party, starting with states that have already voted. The upcoming states are in a separate list below.

http://www.nytimes.c...nd-results.html

Hmm. thanks. For Dems, in MO (Montana?) both have 34 delegates, but Hillary declared winner. Is that based on popular vote results, or just anti-Sanders bias?

It also looks that if Hillary can take California she'll basically clinch the nomination.

Tiste's article was dodgy because it was bad reporting; I didn't look at their delegate counts. Just figured I'd link a relatively trustworthy source with all the relevant numbers. Bernie did not in fact flip MO as I described, but he did flip Nevada's largest county that way, and he could potentially flip the state.

As for CA, Hillary doesn't need to win CA to clinch the nomination; she just needs to keep the margins close. Bernie needs to win it by a very good margin.

[Terez]

I didn't watch the Democratic debate because I was worried it was going to be excessively negative, and from the comments I've seen on it I'm glad I didn't watch it. I already voted; all I can do is wait this thing out.

[worry]

It was distinctly more negative than the previous in terms of crosstalk and trying to nail each other's records, but of course also more substantive by far than the R debates. I doubt there was anything new to learn about either of them. Bernie did push her on the $15 thing, and she equivocated by conflating Fight For 15 the organization with an actual endorsement of $15 min wage. He did get her to say if congress put a $15 wage bill in front of her she'd sign it. And then she kinda nailed him on guns, which he had to minimize a bit. They did bring up Palestine and abortion, which was new, but I don't think their answers were at all surprising. I wouldn't say it ever got "ugly" between them -- it was at worst still just two old people arguing with slightly raised voices.

[HoosierDaddy]

Oponn Relationship, on 16 April 2016 - 03:43 AM, said:

It was distinctly more negative than the previous in terms of crosstalk and trying to nail each other's records, but of course also more substantive by far than the R debates. I doubt there was anything new to learn about either of them. Bernie did push her on the $15 thing, and she equivocated by conflating Fight For 15 the organization with an actual endorsement of $15 min wage. He did get her to say if congress put a $15 wage bill in front of her she'd sign it. And then she kinda nailed him on guns, which he had to minimize a bit. They did bring up Palestine and abortion, which was new, but I don't think their answers were at all surprising. I wouldn't say it ever got "ugly" between them -- it was at worst still just two old people arguing with slightly raised voices.

I thought my Thanksgiving was original. Hacks.

Indiana Primary being important again 2 times in 8 years ftw! Lol.

[QuickTidal]

Tangential, but funny.