[Abyss]

Slow Ben, on 01 February 2020 - 11:56 PM, said:

Lady Bliss, on 01 February 2020 - 10:18 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 01 February 2020 - 08:31 PM, said:

It's broken record bullshit anyway. Every election or when things don't go a certain segments way (usually rich, privileged entertainment biz folks) they threaten to move to Canada, but never do. It's all histrionics to make people feel better I guess. More Canadians come to America than the other way around (and usually the of worst them). Please take Bieber back, STAT.

Don’t be a hater. I’m just planning for contingency in case Trump gets 4 more years and the US continues to go to shit under a Trump rule.

I don’t think I can adequately express the horror of the thought of 4 more years of this....

Brace yourself.

[EmperorMagus]

Lady Bliss, on 01 February 2020 - 10:18 PM, said:

Malankazooie, on 01 February 2020 - 08:31 PM, said:

It's broken record bullshit anyway. Every election or when things don't go a certain segments way (usually rich, privileged entertainment biz folks) they threaten to move to Canada, but never do. It's all histrionics to make people feel better I guess. More Canadians come to America than the other way around (and usually the of worst them). Please take Bieber back, STAT.

Don't be a hater. I'm just planning for contingency in case Trump gets 4 more years and the US continues to go to shit under a Trump rule.

Work permits are far easier to arrange. The level of bullshit IRCC makes people go through to prove their relationships are 'genuine and not entered into for immigration purposes' is difficult to imagine.

[Malankazooie]

Well, you may need a friend to help you hold onto your butts over the next few days. Monday = Iowa Caucus | Tuesday = Trump will give State of the Union address | Wednesday = Vote to acquit Trump.

Whooboy, that SoU speech by Trump and the looks on the faces as the camera jumps around is going to be one for the ages. It's going to get super awkwaaaaaard!

[Aptorian]

How long until the democrats decide who their candidate is? Do they continue till summer or people run out of money?

[Malankazooie]

It's made official at the Democratic National Convention, which is mid July. I suspect up until June there will still be a few individuals dooking it out. If memory serves, during 2016, didn't Hillary and Bernie claw and nail up until the convention? IIRC, there was a lot of controversy around it. Dems would be smart to get to the business of identifying the person, and coalesce around him or her and have a solid platform ready to battle Trump.

[Terez]

I don’t remember the details but some delegates were in dispute and with populist candidates there is always talk of revolution by faithless delegate and it happens to various degrees. Ron Paul did it. Bernie didn’t have anywhere close to enough uncontested delegates to pull it off and I don’t remember exactly how it went at the convention because it didn’t matter and I didn’t really care.

P.S. I think I voted in the Republican primary for Ron Paul in 2008, in MS. Obama was always going to win MS easily and I was always going to vote for him in November (I wanted him as soon as he announced) so I voted populist in the primary. I might have done it in 2012 too; I don’t remember.

This post has been edited by Terez: 02 February 2020 - 07:39 PM

[Cause]

I was reading about faithless delegates the other day! How on earth can that be a thing. I realize it’s rare but it should not be possible, never mind I legal, it should just not be actually possible for the elector you not vote according to the electorate mandate.

[Terez]

As Republicans love to say, we are a Republic, not a democracy. The US Constitution itself is full of deliberately anti-democratic stipulations.

[Kanese S's]

Terez, on 02 February 2020 - 07:57 PM, said:

As Republicans love to say, we are a Republic, not a democracy. The US Constitution itself is full of deliberately anti-democratic stipulations.

A Republic is a form of representative democracy.

[Terez]

Well yes, but Cause was obviously coming at this from a purely democratic perspective. Primary/caucus delegates are representatives in a sense and representatives don’t always do what voters want. It’s not all that different from the electoral college where you can have faithless electors.

[Obdigore]

Cause, on 02 February 2020 - 07:50 PM, said:

I was reading about faithless delegates the other day! How on earth can that be a thing. I realize it’s rare but it should not be possible, never mind I legal, it should just not be actually possible for the elector you not vote according to the electorate mandate.

Because this document written hundreds of years ago is held sacred by some people, and thus it cannot be changed.

It's stupid and silly, but it is an answer to your question.

[Terez]

Party primary guidelines aren't even mentioned in the Constitution. Elections are explicitly left up to the states, and the rules for primaries are constantly changing.

[Terez]

Iowa results are taking forever, but one thing that seems clear from the on-the-ground reporting is that Biden is doing a lot worse than expected. Everyone else, about as expected based on recent polling.

[QuickTidal]

I thought the results were meant to be in for Iowa last night....what's going on? Shenanigans?

[Terez]

It's doubtful since there is a solid paper trail. They're just doing lots of double- and triple-checking so we don't have a disaster like 2012 again.

They changed the process this year to make it more transparent. Part of that is reporting individual vote counts in addition to the county delegates that were always reported before. Another part of that is reporting both the first alignment results and the second (final) alignment results. How that works: everyone shows up, goes to the camp of the candidate they prefer. That's the first alignment. Every candidate has a viability threshold, though, and if your candidate does not meet that threshold, you can go join another camp. That's the second alignment. If your first alignment choice was viable, you can turn in your caucus card and go home, but if not, you have to stay for the second alignment or give up your vote. You can also choose to stay to try to recruit non-viable candidates' voters to your camp. In past years, they have only reported delegate counts, and the individual vote counts and alignment numbers were a mystery.

Anyway, with the paper trail and the documentation, we should be able to count on the results. They're just worried about reporting something that later ends up being wrong. That happened with the Republicans in 2012: they reported Romney as the winner, but then a few weeks later they announced that Santorum actually won it. Then Ron Paul managed to win it at the convention by stealing delegates. That was part of his strategy: getting his people in delegate spots for other candidates so they could switch votes at the convention.

[Obdigore]

QuickTidal, on 04 February 2020 - 02:06 PM, said:

I thought the results were meant to be in for Iowa last night....what's going on? Shenanigans?

The process is new, and they apparently tried using an app that crashed, so they are manually recording then counting votes.

I'm not really sure why each station has their own delegates, or why a coin flip is the 'correct' method to determine who gets delegates if 2 candidates both have a 'share'. Seems pretty odd to me.

It really feels like they are trying to replicate the presidential election results without addressing the issues in that election.

Edit - To be clear, this is run by the Iowa Democratic Party, not the national one. And it sure reeks of unprofessional/unprepared people trying to be on the main stage. I have no idea why we don't just start with Super Tuesday. Why do IA, NH, and NC go first, and are so important? That seems... odd.

I can say that Biden appears to be doing terribly, and it looks like Klobuchar and Buttigieg are splitting the old white vote. Buttigieg somehow polls worse among minorities than Biden, and none of those three candidates are going to get anyone who doesn't normally vote to do so. I'm happy Gabbard is non-existant. I'd really like the race to be between Warren and Sanders, but we got captain oligarch, Bloomberg, spending a ton of money to try and buy his way into the race, because he is afraid of the economic policies of Warren and Sanders.

I'd also suggest that Buttigieg did better in Iowa then he would in a general, since it's his home state, which is an expected thing.

All of these numbers are from polls before the Caucaus, be they internal candidate numbers or polled by 3rd parties, because we have like 1.7% reporting in any real numbers, by my last check.

This post has been edited by Obdigore: 04 February 2020 - 03:06 PM

[Terez]

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

Buttigieg somehow polls worse among minorities than Biden

Last I checked, Biden was the #1 choice among minorities, so I'm not sure what's going on with this comparison. Black voters in particular tend to favor the candidate they think is safest in the general election, and this time around, that's Biden, though of course that can change drastically as the primaries go on. I expect Biden to win South Carolina. Buttigieg has like zero black supporters.

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

I'd also suggest that Buttigieg did better in Iowa then he would in a general, since it's his home state, which is an expected thing.

Buttigieg is from Indiana. I don't think he has ever lived in Iowa. He just campaigned really hard there because he knew it was his best chance of showing viability in the early states.

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

All of these numbers are from polls before the Caucaus, be they internal candidate numbers or polled by 3rd parties, because we have like 1.7% reporting in any real numbers, by my last check.

Official reporting, yes. There has been quite a bit of precinct level reporting by journalists and campaigns. In many cases, precinct numbers were announced on national TV, and I saw several camera zooms on the note pads they used to tally the numbers. This process is super-transparent, especially in the bigger precincts (which is where most of the votes come from). Expect similar recordings with smartphones from smaller precincts. It would be very difficult to rig this process, yet people are going crazy online about the app used to report results to the party HQ.

[Obdigore]

Terez, on 04 February 2020 - 03:05 PM, said:

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

Buttigieg somehow polls worse among minorities than Biden

Last I checked, Biden was the #1 choice among minorities, so I'm not sure what's going on with this comparison. Black voters in particular tend to favor the candidate they think is safest in the general election, and this time around, that's Biden, though of course that can change drastically as the primaries go on. I expect Biden to win South Carolina. Buttigieg has like zero black supporters.

Yes. It's funny how Buttigieg is somehow suctioning all of Bidens older, white voters, but isn't speaking to any minorities at all. I was attempting to say that they are both incomplete candidates, for different reasons.

Quote

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

I'd also suggest that Buttigieg did better in Iowa then he would in a general, since it's his home state, which is an expected thing.

Buttigieg is from Indiana. I don't think he has ever lived in Iowa. He just campaigned really hard there because he knew it was his best chance of showing viability in the early states.

You know, I'm from the Midwest, and I still get these shitty fly-over states confused. I'll leave it for completeness.

Quote

Obdigore, on 04 February 2020 - 02:58 PM, said:

All of these numbers are from polls before the Caucaus, be they internal candidate numbers or polled by 3rd parties, because we have like 1.7% reporting in any real numbers, by my last check.

Quote

Official reporting, yes. There has been quite a bit of precinct level reporting by journalists and campaigns. In many cases, precinct numbers were announced on national TV, and I saw several camera zooms on the note pads they used to tally the numbers. This process is super-transparent, especially in the bigger precincts (which is where most of the votes come from). Expect similar recordings with smartphones from smaller precincts. It would be very difficult to rig this process, yet people are going crazy online about the app used to report results to the party HQ.

Although it is odd, I'm not putting on my tin foil hat. I'm just saying the numbers I'm drawing my conclusions from aren't the official numbers, since we don't have those.

[Terez]

Fair enough. I join you in celebrating Biden's pathetic showing in the numbers we've seen so far.

[QuickTidal]

Terez, on 04 February 2020 - 03:13 PM, said:

Fair enough. I join you in celebrating Biden's pathetic showing in the numbers we've seen so far.

This is the bigger story to me. Biden's poor showing will hopefully destroy his campaign, as it should. Old man needs to sit down.

Which has the added effect of Trump and the GOP throwing all in (regarding Ukraine) to try to illegally kneecap a political opponent who hopefully won't even get the nomination anyways. The irony is palpable.