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US Election Thread - Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa


karaddin

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41 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Where the hell do you get this shit from? DWS banned any candidate from participating in an unsanctioned debate. 

MSNBC announced that they would hold an unsanctioned debate on February 4, which the Sanders campaign said he would not participate in because it was not sanctioned by the DNC, and the Sanders campaign feared, rightly in my opinion, would lead to punishment by the DNC. 

Here is DWS' statement about the unsanctioned MSNBC debate.

 

Here is the Clinton campaign's response to the unsanctioned debate:

 

 
 
It wasn't until just a few days ago that the DNC announced it would sanction further debates and Clinton took the exact same stance as the Sanders camp: that they're not going to participate in an unsanctioned debate. How you could put any of that on Sanders is beyond me.

Uh no. Clinton agreed to do the debate and so did O'Malley. All they said was that they'd come if everyone else did. Sanders refused unless his conditions were met. And those conditions were not just "It must be sanctioned", but also included a bunch of other shit. And then when the other candidates agreed to that, he demanded more conditions.

Your attempt to say they took the same stance is just flat out wrong. Even your own post shows it. Clinton's condition is that the candidates all agree to come. That's what her statement actually says. If everyone comes, the debate will get sanctioned one way or the other. Sanders' condition was that the debate be sanctioned and even more on top of that. And then when Clinton agreed to 3 more, he added even more conditions after that.

Sanders has been dicking around on this issue for over a week now. He was the only one holding out and demanding multiple sets of conditions be met or he walks. He's the only one who turned this into a negotiation. The other two were more then happy to show up as long as everyone came.

Sanders fear that he would be punished for attending the debate is horseshit. Cause all the candidates were going already. The DNC is not going to sanction all the candidates. (this, fyi, is what Clinton's statement actually says which you are completely misreading).

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I think there's been some weirdness on both sides. Sanders seems to have required that Clinton agree to debates right now - in March, April and May - as a condition for doing this debate in February. Clinton appears to not have pushed very hard for more debates until fairly recently, which makes strategic sense. 

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2 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

He just needs to win NH and the conversation goes back to where it was- he has the clearest path to the nomination. His national numbers will bump back up. If he loses NH, his support will have been proven to be largely illusory and he's cooked, his numbers will plummet.


 

2 hours ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

He just needs to win NH and the conversation goes back to where it was- he has the clearest path to the nomination. His national numbers will bump back up. If he loses NH, his support will have been proven to be largely illusory and he's cooked, his numbers will plummet.

True, but it matters because it will mostly likely hurt him in NH.

 

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Given how the caucuses work - where you have groups of people at roll calls and meetings and various agreements at the actual center - good luck getting anything that would resemble a recount. 

The democratic party is really fucking up here. Yes, they should release whatever they have, but they should have been bulletproof anyway. The last thing the party needs is a scandal about voting being screwed up. 

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You can just send letters to your neighboorhood to shame people into taking part in primaries. Just ask DisTrusTed. :')

 

Anyway, Rand Paul and lil' Ricky dropped out. Not that surprisingly, but I thought Paul would stick around for NH at least.

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It's bizarre to me that the Iowa Democratic Party won't allow the results to be audited, given the closeness of the results.  If this story catches on, it's going to be hard to continue justifying keeping the data secret without coming off like they have something to hide.  

If they had immediately agreed to make the data public and allowed people to double check the results, there wouldn't be any accusations that the party is trying to sandbag Sanders even if an audit showed that Sanders won.  They could have believably asserted that any errors were unintentional.  

Now, after holding out, if the data is eventually released and show that Sanders won, it's going to look horrendous, like they were trying to fix the election.  If this is the case, I can't imagine that they will ever willingly show the data, unless they can somehow scrub it clean.  If the data does actually show that Clinton won, what's the harm in letting people confirm the data?  Why the delay?  The longer they take to share the data, the shadier they look.

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13 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

It's bizarre to me that the Iowa Democratic Party won't allow the results to be audited, given the closeness of the results.  If this story catches on, it's going to be hard to continue justifying keeping the data secret without coming off like they have something to hide.

If they had immediately agreed to make the data public and allowed people to double check the results, there wouldn't be any accusations that the party is trying to sandbag Sanders even if an audit showed that Sanders won.  They could have believably asserted that any errors were unintentional.

Now, after holding out, if the data is eventually released and show that Sanders won, it's going to look horrendous, like they were trying to fix the election.  If this is the case, I can't imagine that they will ever willingly show the data, unless they can somehow scrub it clean.  If the data does actually show that Clinton won, what's the harm in letting people confirm the data?  Why the delay?  The longer they take to share the data, the shadier they look.

What it's likely going to show is that Sanders got more total votes, while Clinton narrowly won more caucusus. Kinda like 2000 election on a much smaller scale.

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10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

What it's likely going to show is that Sanders got more total votes, while Clinton narrowly won more caucusus. Kinda like 2000 election on a much smaller scale.

If that's what the data actually shows, that's fine.  Clinton still won the state.  I don't think keeping that type of data hidden is worth the cost of undermining the legitimacy of the results.

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Could be trouble for Cruz. Carson wants revenge for the dirty tricks in Iowa. This could prevent Cruz from gaining Carson's voters as he hoped to do when Carson dropped out.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/ben-carson-where-is-he-218724

The fury of Ben Carson

The candidate and his flailing campaign look consumed with one thing: Making Ted Cruz pay for 'dirty tricks' in Iowa.

 

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8 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Could be trouble for Cruz. Carson wants revenge for the dirty tricks in Iowa. This could prevent Cruz from gaining Carson's voters as he hoped to do when Carson dropped out.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/ben-carson-where-is-he-218724

The fury of Ben Carson

The candidate and his flailing campaign look consumed with one thing: Making Ted Cruz pay for 'dirty tricks' in Iowa.

 

Hell hath no fury like a Carson scorned.

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5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Given how the caucuses work - where you have groups of people at roll calls and meetings and various agreements at the actual center - good luck getting anything that would resemble a recount. 

The democratic party is really fucking up here. Yes, they should release whatever they have, but they should have been bulletproof anyway. The last thing the party needs is a scandal about voting being screwed up. 

For the love of the Seven, yes. I don't want a bunch of PUMAs running around, promising to vote for Rubio or Cruz or whomever. That was tedious in 2008; today, it would be both tedious and repetitive.

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4 hours ago, Mudguard said:

It's bizarre to me that the Iowa Democratic Party won't allow the results to be audited, given the closeness of the results.  If this story catches on, it's going to be hard to continue justifying keeping the data secret without coming off like they have something to hide.  

If they had immediately agreed to make the data public and allowed people to double check the results, there wouldn't be any accusations that the party is trying to sandbag Sanders even if an audit showed that Sanders won.  They could have believably asserted that any errors were unintentional.  

Now, after holding out, if the data is eventually released and show that Sanders won, it's going to look horrendous, like they were trying to fix the election.  If this is the case, I can't imagine that they will ever willingly show the data, unless they can somehow scrub it clean.  If the data does actually show that Clinton won, what's the harm in letting people confirm the data?  Why the delay?  The longer they take to share the data, the shadier they look.

That seems more like a fuss being made by people who want to make a fuss than there being anything actually wrong going on. Ultimately no one won Iowa in any way that is meaningful to the final outcome of the primary race. So unless there is evidence that someone won by a significant margin and should have significantly more delegates than the other then there is really nothing to see here. And in some ways if the data does show that the race was close and the outcome fair then I would be inclined to dismiss the demands as mischievous and not worthy of a response.

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7 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That seems more like a fuss being made by people who want to make a fuss than there being anything actually wrong going on. Ultimately no one won Iowa in any way that is meaningful to the final outcome of the primary race. So unless there is evidence that someone won by a significant margin and should have significantly more delegates than the other then there is really nothing to see here. And in some ways if the data does show that the race was close and the outcome fair then I would be inclined to dismiss the demands as mischievous and not worthy of a response.

Totally agreed. If the point of this is just for someone to claim a title, let's let it go. It changes nothing and will serve only to fan a fire that's grown hot enough, in my view. 

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If there is something to be achieved from caucus-gate then it's that the actual caucus system is crazy and flawed and should be reformed, or better still eliminated in favour of the normal secret ballot voting process.

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3 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

If there is something to be achieved from caucus-gate then it's that the actual caucus system is crazy and flawed and should be reformed, or better still eliminated in favour of the normal secret ballot voting process.

That will not be happening.  They are well aware of how crazy and flaw it is, and it is part of the enjoyment.

Kind of surprise that what happen in 2012 with the Iowa Republican delegates backing Ron Paul though he did not get win the Caucus does not get discuss in demonstrating that the delegates are not obligated to follow the results.  It may of change, or the media just get collective amnesia and just forgot about these things.

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21 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

 

That seems more like a fuss being made by people who want to make a fuss than there being anything actually wrong going on. Ultimately no one won Iowa in any way that is meaningful to the final outcome of the primary race. So unless there is evidence that someone won by a significant margin and should have significantly more delegates than the other then there is really nothing to see here. And in some ways if the data does show that the race was close and the outcome fair then I would be inclined to dismiss the demands as mischievous and not worthy of a response.

Well, how do we know whether anything wrong was done without looking at the data?  If nothing wrong was done, why not simply allow access to the data?  That would clear everything up.

I have some questions regarding the impartiality of the Chairwoman of the Democratic Party of Iowa, Andrea McGuire, who has refused to look further into the results of the election. From an article in the Des Moines Register in 2014 about Clinton's new book, it's clear that McGuire is a huge Clinton supporter:

Quote

So after a historically close race where the candidates are separated by only 0.2%, McGuire immediately says that Clinton is the winner and that the results are final and then refuses to provide access the the data.  This doesn't pass the smell test.  Why not provide access to the data that confirms the results so that this is quickly put to bed?  Is it really a big deal to provide access to the data?

By refusing to be transparent with the data, they are only going to encourage this type of speculation, which hurts Clinton.  

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On 2/3/2016 at 0:18 PM, TerraPrime said:

And what could a Sanders presidency do about the issue of big, dark money in politics, that a Clinton's presidency can't?

RAFO, I guess.

Well, unlike a Clinton presidency, a Sanders one would actually be interested in doing something about it at all.

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After watching tonight's debate, I am of the opinion that there are two grownups in the the Democratic race.

The debate did not change my allegiance one iota. But it solidified my belief that the candidate opposing the Republican candidate will get my vote.

And while I may despise everything, I will not "hold my nose and vote for Clinton."

I'll proudly vote for the candidate least likely to fuck everything up.

Which is a sad state of affairs and why I'm feeling the Bern.

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4 hours ago, Mudguard said:

Well, how do we know whether anything wrong was done without looking at the data?  If nothing wrong was done, why not simply allow access to the data?  That would clear everything up.

As has already been said: what meaningful data is there that can be accessed about an in-person caucus? As I understand it, there are only various tallies that could be right or could be wrong, but there's no way of knowing for sure. You can't go back and check. Accessing that data doesn't clear anything up.

And, to echo the point made by Anti-Targ; what's the issue anyway? There's no suggestion that Sanders actually won by a clear and significant margin. It's just a question of whether a race that was effectively a tie was technically a Clinton victory by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount or a Sanders win by a wafer-thin, insignificant amount. That doesn't alter the basic narrative of the result - that there was little or nothing to pick between the candidates.

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