U.S. Election - Onward to New Hampshire

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, Triskan said:

Eh, sort of.  But he was also saying that everyone should be covered.

 

OK, this is a very premature comment, but I think Christie may have seriously wounded Rubio.  Rubio responded in the worst possiblway by doing just what Christie was accusing him of.  It's like he exposed the fraud.

That was pretty telling, meanwhile I want to get more of Kasich. He's basically the only one up there capable of communicating a coherent thought, though Jeb! has been surprisingly lively tonight.

[Dr. Pepper]

And what a bizarre definition of torture.  "organs and guts" or whatever he said. 

[Dr. Pepper]

6 minutes ago, Triskan said:

I think he was actually referring to a technical definition that says something like "feelings akin to organ failure.".  Man, am I coming to Cruz's defense on creepiness?

That makes more sense.  For some reason I thought he was trying to claim that medieval drawing and quartering type shit was the definition of torture. 

[Stan the Man Baratheon]

Good to see a solid high energy performance from Trump. Hoping for a Trump/Rubio ticket. They haven't been attacking each other as fiercely as other candidates have attacked them. Rubio will definitely help Trump shoring up the minority votes in the general election.  

[Jace, Extat]

Kasich just looked entirely lost with his response to Trump's wandering 'the police are great!' rant. I got what he was going for, but he tried too hard to make it sound like he'd already experienced some great success in police-citizen relations.

[TrackerNeil]

6 hours ago, zelticgar said:

Just curious about whether looking at the age cap for benefits is a separate discussion to extending benefits? For example is there any appetite within the democratic party to increase the age of eligibility? I know the GOP has talked about this for awhile.

I would most definitely oppose any move to raise the eligibility age for Social Security. That's a good idea for accountants and lawyers, maybe, but it work out very well for waitresses, truck drivers and construction workers. 

[Red Hermit]

7 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I would most definitely oppose any move to raise the eligibility age for Social Security. That's a good idea for accountants and lawyers, maybe, but it work out very well for waitresses, truck drivers and construction workers. 

 

Agreed.  A safety net should help people based on their needs, not their date of birth as many entitlement reformers would like.

[A Prince of Dorne]

Loved Rubio getting called out by Christie big time. Governors > Senators 

[A Prince of Dorne]

2 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I see Donald's tactic of shit talking everyone else rather than answering questions has not changed. Meanwhile Kasich might be the most reasonable person on the stage.

Reasonable people don't last long in the farce that is the United States electoral process 

[lokisnow]

Very good. Cutting Social Security benefits is completely dead as an idea in the Democratic party. The Republican party completely owns this loathsome idea.  

Hillary Clinton Pledges Not To Cut Social Security Benefits

Progressive groups applauded the move, but Sanders isn't as impressed.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-pledges-not-to-cut-social-security_us_56b630dfe4b04f9b57d9d482?utm_hp_ref=politics

I wouldn't say dead. Fez, for example is an enthusiastic advocate of slashing holes in the safety net, especially social security. And all of Clintons future staff of democrats will be like Fez and will advocate relentlessly and incessantly to slash the safety net systematically.

So Clinton can be against it, but literally every staffer she hires will be extremely in favor of it. Fucking Washington DC people has nothing but contempt for the rest of the country and the voters.

Shit. Reading this back a few hours later, what I wrote as a relatively silly and facetious comment about inside joke about fezs support for chained cpi now I see it could be read as incredibly mean and grim. Sorry if this was taken in any less than light hearted way!

[TrackerNeil]

This from Mark Joseph Stern sheds some light on Bernie Sanders and his gay rights record.

[TrackerNeil]

29 minutes ago, Triskan said:

Some of the online commentary supports my argument that Christie absolutely savaged Rubio.   Not sure who else we could call the winner tonight.  I thought Cruz actually did well but for the issue with Carson which I find difficult to evaluate.  Do Cruz voters care if he's full of shit?  Does he actually gain support for apologizing?

It was fun to see Christie swinging at Rubio, but does anyone really care about experience? Barack Obama didn't have nearly as much experience as John McCain, but we know who won that fight. I never got the feeling that Palin's main liability was lack of experience; it was the fact that she repeatedly humiliated herself in interviews and her speeches read like a madman's recipe for fruitcake. I am sure there are some voters who place experience high on the priority list, but I don't see many people saying, "I was going to vote Republican but given how inexperienced Rubio is, I'd better go with the Democrat. Or just stay home." 

[Bonesy]

Does anyone really care about experience?

Of course not. Unless you are the Clinton campaign. Because, correct or not, that's only one of the NON-STOP MANTRAS OF SAID CAMPAIGN.

Is this real life?

[Commodore]

1 hour ago, Triskan said:

 I thought Cruz actually did well but for the issue with Carson which I find difficult to evaluate.  Do Cruz voters care if he's full of shit?  Does he actually gain support for apologizing?

has to be the dumbest scandal of the campaign

- the CNN clip the Cruz team cited that night is quite damning (which is why CNN never shows it in their "fact check")

- not a single voter has been identified that switched their vote away from Carson on caucus night because of this

- Cruz apologized to Carson privately and publicly

- unlike Cruz's frugal campaign, Carson is running a scam campaign that burns through all its money either paying staffers or in the course of raising even more money

- Carson has no chance and will drop out soon, and everyone knows it. He's barely campaigning in NH

[lokisnow]

Free from the headline / click chasing spinning by five thirty eight and Vox, what does the actual data show? (since Nate silver this election is ignoring data and instead reporting the election and spinning the data based on his gut feelings and faulty priors of recent successful prognostication.

The data shows this, post Iowa:

In aggregated data, Hillary Clinton has gotten approximately a 6-point bounce in New Hampshire. The median margin was Sanders +21.5% in 4 surveys conducted January 26-30. This narrowed to Sanders +15.5% in 6 surveys conducted February 2-5.

A daily tracking poll from U.Mass. Lowell shows even more narrowing. On February 1 it showed Sanders +31%, which by February 6th narrowed to Sanders +14%, a 17 percentage point change in Clinton’s favor.

In national surveys, Clinton went from a median of Clinton +12% (4 polls, January 22-February 1) to Clinton +16% (3 polls, February 2-4). This is noisy data, but the median change is a national 4-point bounce for Clinton. It is possible there was little change in either direction (see confidence intervals below).

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/02/06/the-post-iowa-bounce-goes-to-hillary-clinton/

[The Marquis de Leech]

2 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

It was fun to see Christie swinging at Rubio, but does anyone really care about experience? Barack Obama didn't have nearly as much experience as John McCain, but we know who won that fight. 

And in any case, simply being experienced doesn't necessarily mean a successful Presidency. Just ask James Buchanan or Richard Nixon.

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, A Prince of Dorne said:

Reasonable people don't last long in the farce that is the United States electoral process 

Well, I've been doing some research on Kasich and I no longer find him at all appealing. In the crowd he's with, maybe. But he's very anti-union, pro-privatized prisons, and anti-planned parenthood.

Among various other issues, those are just the most time-effective to communicate.

And that's why we don't vote based on debates.

[Martell Spy]

Quote

But part of the point about Christie savaging Rubio isn't about experience.  It's that he shows very little thinking and just repeats himself.  Christie attacked him on this, and Rubio responded by repeating the very same line that generated the attack.  It looked devastating to me from an optics perspective.

 

Yep, looks like you're right, that's the headline. Although to the right of this story was an ad telling me Rubio dominated the debate, so maybe I'm wrong. LOL.

Rubio chokes
The Florida senator went into Saturday night’s GOP debate with momentum. He ended it as a viral glitch sensation.
 

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/gop-debate-rubio-chris-christie-fight-218873

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

9 hours ago, Red Hermit said:

 

Agreed.  A safety net should help people based on their needs, not their date of birth as many entitlement reformers would like.

Interesting, and what does that subjective standard do to with the equal protection clauses of the 5th and 14th amendments?  

What if the attorney and accountant Tracker mentions have spent their whole carerres doing pro-bono work for the less fortunate but had the potential to make big money?  Should they be pushed to late retirement like other professionals because they had the potential to make big money or should they be judged on their actual incomes?

[TrackerNeil]

9 hours ago, Triskan said:

But part of the point about Christie savaging Rubio isn't about experience.  It's that he shows very little thinking and just repeats himself.  Christie attacked him on this, and Rubio responded by repeating the very same line that generated the attack.  It looked devastating to me from an optics perspective.

Oh, totally, but I get the feeling most voters aren't going to be swayed by this, although IMO they should. Remember that multiple-choice Mitt had gone back and forth on abortion, the individual mandate, other things, but ultimately most Republican voters didn't care and voted for him anyway.