U.S. Election - Onward to New Hampshire

[The Anti-Targ]

3 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

And there's even more recent history to un-learn from. Although many try to revise the facts to excuse the decision in retrospect, almost no one now disagrees that invading Iraq was the wrong choice, and has led to disaster. And almost everyone contextualizes it as a 9-11 hangover.

And yet we see people gleeful at the prospect of another decision made in the wake of some other tragedy. It's like we know we make terrible life choices when we're drunk, we look back and say 'yeah, bad decision, but I WAS drunk at the time' and happily plan the next bender.

Tony Blair still thinks it was the right thing to do. But I think it's something he has to keep telling himself because basically it destroys his whole legacy if he admits he was fooled into making such an egregious mistake. He really should have had serious second thoughts when the Tories all backed him in his march to war.

[Shryke]

Rubio currently losing to JEB!

Damn son, time to ice up.

[James Arryn]

3 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Tony Blair still thinks it was the right thing to do. But I think it's something he has to keep telling himself because basically it destroys his whole legacy if he admits he was fooled into making such an egregious mistake. He really should have had serious second thoughts when the Tories all backed him in his march to war.

Yeah, and Hitchens never gave up the ghost unto death, but as you say, they're personally vested in that argument.

 

edit: to be fair, I think Hitchens slightly tweaked his position into more 'right decision made by wrong people for wrong reasons' rather than just filibuster.

[The Anti-Targ]

60/39 for Sanders. That's a big won.

[karaddin]

I wouldn't be surprised if Rubio is done now, although he won't be dropping out yet.  Defying belief Jeb! might actually end up the establishment candidate, since it looks down to him and Kasich if Rubio is out and Christie just doesn't get traction.

[The Anti-Targ]

Lol on the CNN election centre page it has the gender breakdown for each candidate. Under Huckabee is has n/a for men and under Santorum it's n/a for women. That reads like men were prohibited from voting for Huckabee and women were prohibited from voting for Santorum. :-D The table has 0% figures so what does n/a mean if it doesn't mean no one voted for the candidate?

[OnionAhaiReborn]

8 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

60/39 for Sanders. That's a big won.

yuuuuge!

[Darzin]

3 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

yuuuuge!

+1

[The Anti-Targ]

5 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

yuuuuge!

And that's proof that Bernie and the Don are the same person.

[TrackerNeil]

28 minutes ago, karaddin said:

I wouldn't be surprised if Rubio is done now, although he won't be dropping out yet.  Defying belief Jeb! might actually end up the establishment candidate, since it looks down to him and Kasich if Rubio is out and Christie just doesn't get traction.

This is absolutely delicious. Kasich, Bush and Rubio all have the knives out for each other, while Grandpa Munster and Pol Pot the Clown work their way towards the nomination. Makes sense, from a certain point of view; whichever of the three is left standing will hope to inherit the mantle of Establishment Candidate and command all the power of the GOP. (That's what they're telling themselves, anyway.)

I say: Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!

EDITED TO ADD: All along I've been saying that Trump has no real chance to win the nomination, but it occurs to me that if any other candidate came in second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire (way first) and had been leading in South Carolina since Labor Day, I'd say we're looking at a potential nominee. So clearly I underestimated the willingness of Republican voters to elect a reality-show star to the White House.

[Ormond]

25 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Lol on the CNN election centre page it has the gender breakdown for each candidate. Under Huckabee is has n/a for men and under Santorum it's n/a for women. That reads like men were prohibited from voting for Huckabee and women were prohibited from voting for Santorum. :-D The table has 0% figures so what does n/a mean if it doesn't mean no one voted for the candidate?

They are rounding the %'s to the closest whole number so Huckabee and Santorum really didn't get no votes, just less the 0.5% of the total.

[Shryke]

12 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

This is absolutely delicious. Kasich, Bush and Rubio all have the knives out for each other, while Grandpa Munster and Pol Pot the Clown work their way towards the nomination. Makes sense, from a certain point of view; whichever of the three is left standing will hope to inherit the mantle of Establishment Candidate and command all the power of the GOP. (That's what they're telling themselves, anyway.)

I say: Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!

EDITED TO ADD: All along I've been saying that Trump has no real chance to win the nomination, but it occurs to me that if any other candidate came in second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire (way first) and had been leading in South Carolina since Labor Day, I'd say we're looking at a potential nominee. So clearly I underestimated the willingness of Republican voters to elect a reality-show star to the White House.

What's helping Trump right now is there's no clear alternative.

The Ruboto emerged after Iowa by media narrative fiat but quickly shot himself in the face 4 times at the debate and shit the bed in NH. So now no one important is gonna drop out and throw their support behind him now and so the churn of wannabe-Romneys continues.

[Bonesy]

Where once again, they are late to the party.

[Kalbear]

60/39 for Sanders. That's a big won.

It's about what was expected, perhaps a bit higher but not crazily so. 538 had Sanders with a 99% chance to win with 58% of the vote, iirc.

It does mean it'll likely be a long campaign. And if Sanders can use the money he's getting and taking away from Clinton to get some leverage in South Carolina that'll be yuuge. I'm pretty skeptical, especially given how Sanders record on gun control resonates poorly with nonwhites. That'll be a potentially nasty hammer.

[Shryke]

4 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Where once again, they are late to the party.

??

Clinton had positions on these kind of issues before Sanders did (which is why back in the summer Sanders was taking some knocks from black activists).

And of course especially on guns Sanders has had to recently change his positions because what plays in Vermont does not play well with the larger Democratic base these days.

[Shryke]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's about what was expected, perhaps a bit higher but not crazily so. 538 had Sanders with a 99% chance to win with 58% of the vote, iirc.

It does mean it'll likely be a long campaign. And if Sanders can use the money he's getting and taking away from Clinton to get some leverage in South Carolina that'll be yuuge. I'm pretty skeptical, especially given how Sanders record on gun control resonates poorly with nonwhites. That'll be a potentially nasty hammer.

Eh, not really. If he can leverage the next 11 or so days of press coverage into real gains in SC and Nevada, then yes. But if the fundamentals don't change he'll lose momentum from Nevada and SC and go into Super Tuesday on the defensive and that may be it.

I would suspect that this has been Clinton's plan here. Mitigate loses as best you can in Iowa and NH and ride it out till Nevada, get 2 wins and secure the lead on Super Tuesday.

[Bonesy]

Well Shryke, since you cherry picked the least important part of the post I was replying to, let me be more specific.

Criminal justice system. Why you ignored that is baffling.

[lokisnow]

I wouldn't be surprised if Rubio is done now, although he won't be dropping out yet.  Defying belief Jeb! might actually end up the establishment candidate, since it looks down to him and Kasich if Rubio is out and Christie just doesn't get traction.

This is absolutely delicious. Kasich, Bush and Rubio all have the knives out for each other, while Grandpa Munster and Pol Pot the Clown work their way towards the nomination. Makes sense, from a certain point of view; whichever of the three is left standing will hope to inherit the mantle of Establishment Candidate and command all the power of the GOP. (That's what they're telling themselves, anyway.)

I say: Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!

EDITED TO ADD: All along I've been saying that Trump has no real chance to win the nomination, but it occurs to me that if any other candidate came in second in Iowa, first in New Hampshire (way first) and had been leading in South Carolina since Labor Day, I'd say we're looking at a potential nominee. So clearly I underestimated the willingness of Republican voters to elect a reality-show star to the White House.

Math showing how in a four way race, 30% of the vote is enough to secure 50% of the total delegates awarded by the end of Super Tuesday.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/02/09/new-hampshire-vote-counting-thread/

TLDR if there are at least four candidates in the race going into Super Tuesday, then trump will likely earn an insurmountable lead and it will not matter if it becomes a two or three man race after Super Tuesday.

[Shryke]

27 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Well Shryke, since you cherry picked the least important part of the post I was replying to, let me be more specific.

Criminal justice system. Why you ignored that is baffling.

What about it?

Your post had almost nothing to it so I'm not sure how one can "cherry pick" given you said literally 9 words.

[lokisnow]

 

Math showing how in a four way race, 30% of the vote is enough to secure 50% of the total delegates awarded by the end of Super Tuesday.

http://election.princeton.edu/2016/02/09/new-hampshire-vote-counting-thread/

TLDR if there are at least four candidates in the race going into Super Tuesday, then trump will likely earn an insurmountable lead and it will not matter if it becomes a two or three man race after Super Tuesday. The so-called Establishment really needed to coalesce around one guy to take on Trump.  Whoops.

Right, also, sites like 538, Vox, huff po, etc have a financial incentive in not reporting this sort of story as election year traffic is massively bigger than any other years and the revenue can subsidize operations til the next election.