America....

[faul]

Sir Faul neglects to mention the issues of having DNC campaign chairs, or ex campaign members, as talking heads on the cable news networks. The relationship between the cable news and the DNC/GOP in terms of working with them to help (the word collusion might be more apt than help) the DNC/GOP nominate people who they would like to see nominated is certainly a problem. Fox News went very hard against Trump at the beginning, and for an incredibly long time the media were saying that Bernie had no chance and wasn't a serious candidate. Now I'm sure you're aware of the self fulfilling prophecy issue, and that you are able to understand that when even NPR news was saying that Bernie had no chance for a very long time that that fact could influence people's vote, or people who might have voted for Bernie but didn't. Not to mention the hacked e-mails of the DNC showed that the apparatus was very much more concerned with keeping Hillary as the top dog than with what the will of left leaning people want.

Sir Faul generally sticks to the quantifiable. This is reachy, overarching stuff that has less to do specifically with the DNC than how the media covers and influences our elections. It's also pretty interesting that we're now discussing hacked emails with no regard for how that might have actually tempered Clinton's magins. even in the primaries where she won by a substantial margin.

And yes, I know that Hillary got more votes than Bernie did.

Great, then we're done here.

I also know that many of the minority groups who overwhelmingly voted for her might not have understood that Super Predator Hillary most likely would have done little to nothing for those communities while Bernie appears to be willing to try to help, as can be seen by people like Cornel West supporting Bernie over Hillary. The largely uneducated minority groups in that way are not dissimilar from the salt of the earth conservatives who vote against their own interests due to not having the necessary information or educational foundation.

Or not! Look, I'm as big fan as any of being patronizing to people who vote against their own interests if enough legislative history backs it up. In this case, it does not. Writing off, for instance, the 75% of African-Americans who voted for Clinton over Sanders is presumptuous at best (again, given their comparable legislative histories outside of quoting reliable sources like Priebus for cute nicknames like Superpredator Clinton) and comparing that to rural voters voting against their own interest is a false dichotomy. There are enough pieces written about why minorities went from Clinton over Sanders that I don't feel like I have to belabor this point. Not that it matters, since, as you said, they still voted for Clinton.

We also have a problem on the nominee process anyways. You have so many states at the beginning of the process that don't even vote democrat. And the type of democrat who would vote for Hillary in Alabama (or whichever else one of those irrelevant states that is so early in the process), might not be similar enough to the type of independent who might throw their lot in with the democrats in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, etc. The minority groups in the southern states who you pointed out overwhelmingly voted for Clinton are also the same votes that don't matter in terms of the general election due to so many of them being in southern states. The states that get to start off the process and allow for certain types of candidates to get leads are not necessarily the types of candidates who would do well to win key swing states or get out the base to vote, even though a lot of the base have wasted votes due to democrats largely being piled up in cities.

I actually agree with some of this, but the demographic split of votes don't really back any of this up and the idea of discounting votes in primaries based off location is, frankly, asinine and hilariously "undemocratic" by the standards of the person I was responding. It'd also disenfranchise a massive amount of southern Democrats (read: the overwhelming majority of black people in this countr). Like I said earlier, without actively going out of your way to skew the methodology against Clinton (thereby giving up on the "HERRRR UNDEMOCRATIC PROCESS!!!!"), there's no scenario where she would have lost to Sanders.

I don't think downplaying the super delegate count's impact on people's belief that a candidate has a chance of winning, especially when so many people do not understand how the political process works, even those who might vote in primaries or caucuses is particularly helpful either.

Yes, because all those people "who don't understand the political process" are just SO focused on superdelegates that, on average, I'm sure they could point one out, let alone their actual opinions.

You keep using 2008 as an example of it not mattering but all I have to say in regards to that is: Thanks Obama.

Whatever that means.

[Paj]

You 'guests' are as bad as Voices of the Wheel posting.

[arkaza]

As the winds blew across the Caralain Grass, as they oft do at the beginning of the first chapter after the prelude, the world was in disarray. The breeze gently shuffled spring into the air, as it had done in times past and times even before that. It was the beginning of the end of the beginning of the end as the wheel spins and has spun in times now and yet begun.

The cloaked and hooded, husk of a man (who cared not about the Caralain Grass, nor was anywhere close to it for the rest of the tale) stumbled wearily over the marble threshold and quickly searched for a seat to his liking. Snaking his fingers under his hood he rubbed his bloodshot eyes. His work had become tiring. Long hours staring into the light of his work. The concealment of the hood gave him comfort. The cloth was worn from trudging through the weavings of the forest, for his journey was perilous and best kept by the shadows.

This was a much quieter and cleanlier spot than usual, with all the appointments set for a weary traveller. It was not more than a fortnight gone that he was sleeping under a bridge, sometimes being taken for a troll by passing children. They rediculed him and threw rocks and sneers. In their ignorance they could not see the importance of his duty. The little scamps in their poorly cobbled together attire would never be able to have his knowledge, honed over the course of six years, to see what the world was, and what was best for them. He, however, saw! Glorious visions of harmony and song. The cloaked man snapped back to reality, for his job was never done.

He sat down on the rough, but comfortable, bench and produced a strange box from a black velvety satchell. The top was carefully pried from the bottom and the strange light glimmered as it always did, a shining symbol of his great undertaking. Strange runes were embossed on tiny cubes that covered the underside of the bottom lid, barely decipherable in the dim glow lighting the inside of his cowl. He took a wiry finger and poked at them one at a time.

G... u.... e... s......t

[faul]

Whatever, the guy may have been hiding behind a guest account, but he wasn't totally blinkered and was making substantive, not trolly posts. Not sure why he felt the need to hide behind a random guest account. Not that I regret firetrucking with him by posting as fakenews a few times.

Anyways:

While yes, I don't know of any sources that have done analysis on how much the media telling people who and who aren't serious candidates can impact the voting turnout for various candidates, it's pretty evident if someone has studied psychology or behavioral economics, or any field that deals with human decision making really that although it must just be a hypothesis that this type of behavior would influence voting margins, it's at the very least somewhat common sense if you have an understanding of those fields. I can't say with certainty due to the lack of analysis being done on that that I'm aware of, but I'm fairly certain that it has a non-zero impact and perhaps an even bigger impact than many would guess.

The problem isn't that you're fundamentally wrong, it's more that crafting a narrative with dynamics at that level is like trying to use the butterfly effect to rationalize why you got out of bed an hour later than you meant to. Without specific evidence or line of inquiry, it's really a largely rhetorical argument that doesn't affirm anything and is generally too broad to also poke holes in. Not super persuasive.

While Hillary is not Bill, Bill's presidency didn't exactly have positive impacts on the black communities. After all, he did make changes to the welfare system that hurt many blacks, as well as being harsher on crime that disproportionately hurt the black communities. While this doesn't guarantee Hillary would behave in the same manner, some of her past words, such as the super predator comments, I think allow for reasonable people to assume that Bernie would have the higher odds of actually helping that community. Many black intellectuals were siding with Bernie (at least ones who weren't already working with the DNC or with Hillary) which is why I do think many of the normal black voting democrats voted against their own interest in this case.

I have to wonder here -- does Clinton have to be "bad' for African-Americans for Sanders to be arguably marginally better? It's problematic because neither candidate is really "bad" compared to the status quo. I'm just going to ignore that you ignored Clinton's own voting record as a Senator and policy record as SoS to compare her to Bill for some reason. If I had to speculate, the largest factor, more than likely, was actually Barack Obama's endorsement of Clinton.

Going with the premise that Clinton lost the "educated minority" (not true, but let's go with it), that's not a bloc that doesn't turn out or switches voters spitefully anyways. I sincerely doubt Coates or West or any of those guys wrote in Bernie, voted Stein, voted Trump, or didn't show up for the generals when Sanders lost.

To go back to the media portrayal of the democratic party's nomination process, the many news organizations who would show the super delegate count (sometimes not even making the distinction that the total behind Hillary included super delegates) as being behind Clinton very early in the process was incredibly misleading to how the system works. For example, if Bernie actually did begin to win more states, and had more of the popular vote than Clinton, it's not unreasonable to assume that many of those super delegates would then change their vote to side with Bernie. So the very act of portraying super delegate votes in the very beginning of the process, when they really tend to go to whoever is winning at the end, is misleading and can impact voter behavior. Once again, I don't know of any site that analysed this but as I already mentioned if you understand human decision making processes this is fairly evident.

Those are projections you're referring to and all projections, to some degree or another, have some sort of impact like that. I really don't know what to do for you if you have a problem with that.

Just that using Obama as an example that super delegates aren't problematic is a bit missing the point due to him being one of the more elegant orators who has run for president anytime recently (especially coming off a Bush presidency).

I never said superdelegates aren't problematic, I said they're something every candidate has to deal with if they are "outsiders" or unknown quantities and they're. I don't understand the point about Obama being an elegant orator. It's true, but it's like saying "if Bernie was better at communicating his ideas or energizing bases, he would have won", which basically says the system isn't rigged. You can call it unfair or an uphill battle, but the whole "collusion! rigged! insurmountable!" nonsense is based outside of any kind of nuance.

[ecthus]

I never said superdelegates aren't problematic, I said they're something every candidate has to deal with if they are "outsiders" or unknown quantities and they're. I don't understand the point about Obama being an elegant orator. It's true, but it's like saying "if Bernie was better at communicating his ideas or energizing bases, he would have won", which basically says the system isn't rigged. You can call it unfair or an uphill battle, but the whole "collusion! rigged! insurmountable!" nonsense is based outside of any kind of nuance.

Besides that, I don't know that anyone would say Clinton is a better orator than Sanders, at least in terms of charisma, passion, and polemics--besides his tendency to repeat the same lines he's repeated for the last 30 years.

[arkaza]

Trump was never the real threat, it was always Bernie. He got a nice new house as a consolaruin/shadup prize, though!

[faul]

Lo firetrucking L.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... f8a02139d2

McCarthy: There’s…there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and
Trump…[laughter]…swear to God.
Ryan: This is an off the record…[laughter]…NO LEAKS…[laughter]…alright?!
[Laughter]
Ryan: This is how we know we’re a real family here.
Scalise: That’s how you know that we’re tight.
[Laughter]
Ryan: What’s said in the family stays in the family.

Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the House Republican Conference participated in the June 15 conversation, said: “It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that he thought candidate Trump was on the Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned about that leaking.”

When initially asked to comment on the exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”

After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership, said: “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that Donald Trump or any of our members were being paid by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and leadership team have repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s interference in our election, and the House continues to investigate that activity.”

Just smoke and jokes, bro!

[sauin]

I'll start by pointing out that I explicitly referred to trump as a candidate, and not as the president,

And I'll point out candidate Trump was very obviously the same firetrucking person as President Trump.

Not when it comes to collusion with republican donors.

but other than that I thank you for your response that roughly boils down to "I think the other side are worse".

Also, would you really be making this post about the flaws in the Democratic Primary process if Clinton beat Bernie and then won?

Yes. Please do not presume my position for me. And thank you for dodging the point.

You're welcome -- I figured it was a worthy response to a pretty standard "Bernie lost, the process is broken! Ignore 2008 plz".

At no point did I ever say "ignore 2008", Bernie would likely still have lost if the process wasn't broken, however the end does not justify the means. The DNC's blatant collusion with one of the candidates should be seen as a warning sign of mounting problems with internal processes. That you're unwilling to even admit to these failings in the democrat's system merely ensures that they will continue to propagate.

I also did mention how your whining about the validity of the Democratic primaries seems to be largely predicated on Sanders losing "because superdelegates" completely ignored the following: A list follows .

Once again see above, I happily state that clinton would have won without superdelegates. That doesnt mean that superdelegates are a good thing.

Do you actually believe Bernie Sanders wasn't given at least a "fair go"? I'm not even sure the Sanders campaign thinks they were not.

I believe that as has been demonstrated by (mostly leaked) reports that the DNC intentionally developed the structure of their primaries to give hillary the best chance at winning. This can be seen through their refusal to share data with the Sanders campaign, their intentional distribution of polling sites to negatively impact demographics that are more likely to be supporters of Sanders, and their internal referencing to Hillary as their presidential nominee from (If I remember correctly) nearly a year before the first ballot was cast.

I'd say that a "fair go" implies a fair playing field. The Democrat primaries were not.

Conversely the very structure of the democrat primaries exists to ensure that the "right" candidate is picked.

...completely reflecting the "very structure" of our general electoral process. Theoretically, anyways, as we see now.

I certainly do agree that your general election structure was almost entirely designed to ensure that the "right" candidate is picked, however as has been demonstrated that design is somewhat flawed. Conversely the superdelegate structure was implemented entirely to grant a disproportionate amount of voting power to a small number of individuals. The original 1981 white paper suggested 30% of the vote should be given to these superdelegates. This was considered undemocratic and set at 14%, by 2008 this number had crept back up to 20%.

Given that the margin of the vote has been less than 20% since John Kerry, you've happily ceded the balance of power to this body.

Again, unless you have the memory of a gold fish, you can remember at least one candidate that took on the obvious DNC favorite and won not too long ago.

Which one are we talking about here? Obama? Nearly 600 superdelegates to Hillary's 200? And please, don't resort to ad hominem, keep this discussion civil.

Nobody's claiming the process isn't flawed - "undemocratic" is just a facile argument that's great for people who are under some kind of impression that our system is a pure democracy at any level or definition. There are plenty of flaws in the process, they're just not as responsible for Sanders losing as you'd probably like to think.

Once again, I have stated that Sanders would likely have lost either way, however your justification of "there are plenty of flaws, but don't worry about it" utterly fails to achieve anything towards fixing said flaws.

[faul]

Not when it comes to collusion with republican donors.

Incorrect (Peter Thiel, Bob McNair, Bernard Marcus, the list goes on - what you meant may have been "less"), but going with your argument for half a second, doesn't that beg the question of whether or not the electorate's perceptions of not "colluding" with donors = incorruptibility is even worthwhile for consideration? Maybe some of the responsibility is in the people who looked at Candidate Trump and thought this? And again, if at any point you looked at Donald Trump and thought "incorruptible", you're a firetrucking moron; at some point some responsibility needs to go on the voters.

Yes. Please do not presume my position for me. And thank you for dodging the point.

Eh, it was a rhetorical question. I'd already made up my mind that you probably wouldn't have. Made a presumption.

At no point did I ever say "ignore 2008", Bernie would likely still have lost if the process wasn't broken, however the end does not justify the means.

Sure, and I bet you also tell yourself "you vote your conscience". Or more likely "I'm colluding with my conscience for this one".

The DNC's blatant collusion with one of the candidates should be seen as a warning sign of mounting problems with internal processes. That you're unwilling to even admit to these failings in the democrat's system merely ensures that they will continue to propagate.

Oh we've gone to "blatant collusion". Again, internal signs of *what*? Let's see. We've got a better candidate winning out with the same process in 2008, and then we have a worse candidate losing in 2016 when, and they probably wouldn't have won anyways, no matter which goalposts you move. But as you restated over and over, you know that. The Democratic electorate chose Clinton. Clinton won. What firetrucking warning signs are you going on and on about?

I believe that as has been demonstrated by (mostly leaked) reports that the DNC intentionally developed the structure of their primaries to give hillary the best chance at winning. This can be seen through their refusal to share data with the Sanders campaign, their intentional distribution of polling sites to negatively impact demographics that are more likely to be supporters of Sanders, and their internal referencing to Hillary as their presidential nominee from (If I remember correctly) nearly a year before the first ballot was cast.

I'd say that a "fair go" implies a fair playing field. The Democrat primaries were not.

No, you're confusing "fair playing field" with "even playing field". One is me and ten of my friends vs. you and ten of your friends in a game of pick up football. Uneven is when you've got Tom Brady quarterbacking for you. We've still got a fair shot, but victory seems unlikely. The distinction is a big one. Part and parcel with being an outsider is that you don't necessarily have the entire apparatus of a party at your disposal from the get-go. Not even Sanders was super shocked the DNC rank and file grumbled about him or had Clinton as their candidate of choice.

I certainly do agree that your general election structure was almost entirely designed to ensure that the "right" candidate is picked, however as has been demonstrated that design is somewhat flawed. Conversely the superdelegate structure was implemented entirely to grant a disproportionate amount of voting power to a small number of individuals. The original 1981 white paper suggested 30% of the vote should be given to these superdelegates. This was considered undemocratic and set at 14%, by 2008 this number had crept back up to 20%.

Still doesn't explain why you want "a more pure" Democratic representation (rather than the current form which actually lines up pretty well with our theme of representative democracy) when it doesn't actually end up mattering that much.

Which one are we talking about here? Obama? Nearly 600 superdelegates to Hillary's 200? And please, don't resort to ad hominem, keep this discussion civil.

Yeah, that one -- you know, when Obama was pretty clearly not the more established Democrat with the DNC. And no, I've been downright gentle.

[sauin]

And again, if at any point you looked at Donald Trump and thought "incorruptible", you're a firetrucking moron; at some point some responsibility needs to go on the voters.

I dont think people did look at trump and say "incorruptable" I would conjecture that they looked at trump, and at hillary and decided that who trump was in bed with was better in their opinion than who hillary was in bed with.

Oh we've gone to "blatant collusion". Again, internal signs of *what*?

As I have said twice already, the stacking of the DNC's electoral system in favour of those better influenced by their financial sponsors than by their actual voterbase.

We've got a better candidate winning out with the same process in 2008, and then we have a worse candidate losing in 2016 when, and they probably wouldn't have won anyways, no matter which goalposts you move. But as you restated over and over, you know that. The Democratic electorate chose Clinton. Clinton won. What firetrucking warning signs are you going on and on about?

And again, the end does not justify the means. If two ends are achieved via the same means, that does not demonstrate an equivalence of the means used.

No, you're confusing "fair playing field" with "even playing field". One is me and ten of my friends vs. you and ten of your friends in a game of pick up football. Uneven is when you've got Tom Brady quarterbacking for you. We've still got a fair shot, but victory seems unlikely. The distinction is a big one. Part and parcel with being an outsider is that you don't necessarily have the entire apparatus of a party at your disposal from the get-go. Not even Sanders was super shocked the DNC rank and file grumbled about him or had Clinton as their candidate of choice.

We arent discussing the fact that one team is more likely to beat the other, we're discussing the case where the team that was already going to win has also picked the referee (who has decided before the match has started who is going to win), and done their level best to prevent the other team's players from even arriving on the field. To me that is blatant collusion and corruption. And to see nothing wrong with it is to allow it to continue.

Still doesn't explain why you want "a more pure" Democratic representation (rather than the current form which actually lines up pretty well with our theme of representative democracy) when it doesn't actually end up mattering that much.

Once again, because as more and more of your elections are decided by a smaller and smaller group of people with more and more lobbyist interests. The less the human capital of America matters to your capitol.

Yeah, that one -- you know, when Obama was pretty clearly not the more established Democrat with the DNC. And no, I've been downright gentle.

Let's look at the numbers, obama got 2,272 delegates to hillary's 1,978. Obama won 562 superdelegates to Hillary's 211, or 72% of the superdelegate vote to Hillary's 27%. He won 1710 non-super delegates to hillary's 1767. Or 49% of the popular vote to Hillary's 51%. Obama won that purely off the superdelegates. He would have lost a popular vote. For someone less established with the DNC, they alone decided to swing that election to him in a purely non-democratic manner. Notice that being established with them does not necessarily mean that they favour you more than someone else.

So we now have two democratic primaries in a row in which the DNC has caused controvesy. One in which they decided to nominate the candidate that lost the popular vote (i.e. "against the wishes of the people") the other in which they effectively announced that their own electoral process was a farce and treated one of the candidates as the winner from day 0.

Arguments could be made that this behaviour was offputting to sanders supporters, I wont make them. What I will say is that so long as this attitude continues then I cannot be surprised at the rising rates of voter disillusionment when your vote doesnt matter in the face of the establishment.