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US Election: To NY and Beyond


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3 hours ago, Ormond said:

I don't get from the above why you seem to be arguing against my position. If it is not the Democrats' job to get Republicans out of their messes, surely it is also not their job to make the Republicans' mess even bigger. The parties should stay out of each others' primaries.

Does that include not saying anything negative about the other prospective nominees? For example, Hillary Clinton has flat-out called Trump unsuitable--is that unethical? Should she remain silent on the GOP primary until a nominee emerges? 

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So lot's of poll results from the weekend and the trend is pretty consistent. Clinton and Trump should do very well tomorrow. 

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

Also, three different polls had Obama's job approval over 50% which should help Clinton in the fall.

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Thought this was a good article on one of the reasons Sanders failed - and where future progressives might succeed.

Quote

 

"Poor people don't vote," he said in an interview with Meet the Press on Sunday. "It's just a fact."

He's right. It is a fact, and it's an important truth of American politics. But he didn't appear to recognize the implications. The fact that poor people don't vote, including for Bernie Sanders, proves that his campaign's theory of winning hasn't worked for them. Politically speaking, Sanders has identified the importance of the fact that "poor people don't vote" — but he's not going to be the one to make them do it.

 

If progressives want to win, and win big, and get big changes instead of incremental ones, the biggest thing that they can do is not support progressive candidates or donate money to their causes - it's to get poor people to vote. Whether it be by the national registration act that Clinton recently proposed (similar to the Oregon act that does basically the same thing) or striking down various poll blockers or killing all caucuses and closed primaries - or, the big one, getting mandatory voting out there - this will change the electorate math and the general feel of policies more than possibly anything.

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Onto tomorrow's democratic contests!

The 538 NY prediction was about as spot on as they could get; they expected Clinton +13 and got Clinton +15. 

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1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Thought this was a good article on one of the reasons Sanders failed - and where future progressives might succeed.

If progressives want to win, and win big, and get big changes instead of incremental ones, the biggest thing that they can do is not support progressive candidates or donate money to their causes - it's to get poor people to vote. Whether it be by the national registration act that Clinton recently proposed (similar to the Oregon act that does basically the same thing) or striking down various poll blockers or killing all caucuses and closed primaries - or, the big one, getting mandatory voting out there - this will change the electorate math and the general feel of policies more than possibly anything.

Hmm...I'd like to believe this, but part of me wonders if lots of poor people might not vote just like their richer counterparts, i.e., not always in their economic best interest. Some might prioritize stopping abortion over, say, increases to food stamps, or whatever. Can we be sure that poor people will vote progressive?

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1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

Hmm...I'd like to believe this, but part of me wonders if lots of poor people might not vote just like their richer counterparts, i.e., not always in their economic best interest. Some might prioritize stopping abortion over, say, increases to food stamps, or whatever. Can we be sure that poor people will vote progressive?

On economic policies they almost certainly will. On other policies they almost certainly won't, and there's a fair amount of evidence that they wouldn't be great voting on candidates in low-information situations. 

In general, however, they'll statistically vote more progressively.

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4 hours ago, Kalbear said:

On economic policies they almost certainly will. On other policies they almost certainly won't, and there's a fair amount of evidence that they wouldn't be great voting on candidates in low-information situations. 

In general, however, they'll statistically vote more progressively.

I hope so. I am totally behind encouraging more voter participation, largely because I suspect public policy would be fairer if 85% of Americans voted.

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8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Thought this was a good article on one of the reasons Sanders failed - and where future progressives might succeed.

If progressives want to win, and win big, and get big changes instead of incremental ones, the biggest thing that they can do is not support progressive candidates or donate money to their causes - it's to get poor people to vote. Whether it be by the national registration act that Clinton recently proposed (similar to the Oregon act that does basically the same thing) or striking down various poll blockers or killing all caucuses and closed primaries - or, the big one, getting mandatory voting out there - this will change the electorate math and the general feel of policies more than possibly anything.

The other thing with Sanders comment is, of course, that he lost poor people as a demographic anyway afaik.

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5 hours ago, Kalbear said:

On economic policies they almost certainly will. On other policies they almost certainly won't, and there's a fair amount of evidence that they wouldn't be great voting on candidates in low-information situations. 

In general, however, they'll statistically vote more progressively.

Will they? I don't know, I question how much polling of intentions match up to actual voting behaviour on these kind of things.

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I wonder if it's necessarily true that poor people not voting hurt Sanders. I mean, his big support was among youth and the educated. From what I've seen, "traditional" poor Democrats tended to back Clinton.

As for what can be done about it... I'd also suggest a crackdown on gerrymandering, and greater federal oversight of election procedures, to prevent disenfranchisement. The overall difficulty is that so much of US politics is delineated along social issues, rather than class, especially with the gutting of unions. No-one could accuse Mississippi or West Virginia of being wealthy, yet both have gone Republican on social issues.

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3 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

As for what can be done about it... I'd also suggest a crackdown on gerrymandering, and greater federal oversight of election procedures, to prevent disenfranchisement. The overall difficulty is that so much of US politics is delineated along social issues, rather than class, especially with the gutting of unions. No-one could accuse Mississippi or West Virginia of being wealthy, yet both have gone Republican on social issues.

I'm guessing that race is at least partially responsible for that. Programs like Social Security and Medicare, which are perceived to benefit white people, are usually safe from conservative voters, but similar subsidies (food stamps, AFDC*, Medicaid, etc.) which are often perceived to be directed mostly at PoC, tend to go on the chopping block. 

*If I'm not mistaken, AFDC was at one time set up so that white single mothers were more likely to be considered eligible for benefits than black women in the same circumstances. That changed in the 60s, and, lo and behold, the government started pressuring recipients to find work, be responsible, name the fathers of their children, whatever.

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538's Rhode Island prediction seems way off-base. I wouldn't be surprised if Sanders does win the state, but I would be shocked if it was by nearly that much.

My predictions are:

Pennsylvania: Clinton +12, Trump +25

Maryland: Clinton +30, Trump +20

Delaware: Clinton +20, Trump +20

Connecticut: Clinton +7, Trump +25

Rhode Island: Clinton +1, Trump +20

Basically, on the Republican side, I think its real hard to know the exact margin (3-way races are fun!) but Trump should get blowouts of various sizes everywhere.

On the Democratic side, I expect Clinton blowouts in Maryland and Delaware. I think Clinton will get a comfortable win in Pennsylvania, but I still can't quite believe she'll do even better there than she did in New York; even though that's what the polls currently say. I think she'll have a pretty close but solid win in Connecticut; a combination of the NYC suburbs not liking Sanders and some people voting on the gun control issue. Rhode Island I think is basically a coin flip, but I think she'll eek out just like she did in Massachusetts.

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On Monday, April 25, 2016 at 8:46 AM, Fez said:

I guess my thinking is that it seems kinda late to be getting upset about it now. I thought after 2008 most politically aware people knew this was a thing that happened and that anyone who disliked it enough to stop donating would've done so back then.

I never donated to the Missouri senate race and the other examples you gave were of Republicans who I would never donate to anyway.

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The margin doesn't really matter anymore on the Democratic side. I think Clinton will win at least four out of the five states tonight and take home around 55% of the delegates up for grabs. But even if you give both campaigns 50% of the delegates, Sanders would need to take home 76% of the remaining delegates (pledge and super) to win the nomination. It's over, and frankly it has been for some time. 

On the Republican side, Trump is ahead in every poll I've seen, and I think it's safe to say he will have a big night. The new Cruz/Kasich alliance seems like it will be too little too late, and sadly, a contested convention looks less likely than it did a month ago. One can still hope though.

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16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

On economic policies they almost certainly will. On other policies they almost certainly won't, and there's a fair amount of evidence that they wouldn't be great voting on candidates in low-information situations. 

In general, however, they'll statistically vote more progressively.

Poor/uneducated white voters are Trump's biggest supporters.

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20 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

Does that include not saying anything negative about the other prospective nominees? For example, Hillary Clinton has flat-out called Trump unsuitable--is that unethical? Should she remain silent on the GOP primary until a nominee emerges?

Did she say or imply "therefore, Republican voters should vote for Cruz or Kasich"?

Making a comment like that is not at all the same thing as running a "dog whistle" ad.

People can say whatever they want. Paying money to produce and run an ad is on a different ethical level. If that weren't so, there wouldn't be a greater ethical problem with the wealthy spending huge sums in favor of their candidates vs. them just publicly saying who they support. And most Americans seem to think there is a big difference between those two things.

 

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31 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I never donated to the Missouri senate race and the other examples you gave were of Republicans who I would never donate to anyway.

That was all post-2008 examples that I thought of off the top of my head. 2008 was when both sides tried interferring with the other's presidential primary. Did you donate to any major presidential candidate after March 2008? 

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

The margin doesn't really matter anymore on the Democratic side. I think Clinton will win at least four out of the five states tonight and take home around 55% of the delegates up for grabs. But even if you give both campaigns 50% of the delegates, Sanders would need to take home 76% of the remaining delegates (pledge and super) to win the nomination. It's over, and frankly it has been for some time. 

On the Republican side, Trump is ahead in every poll I've seen, and I think it's safe to say he will have a big night. The new Cruz/Kasich alliance seems like it will be too little too late, and sadly, a contested convention looks less likely than it did a month ago. One can still hope though.

Don't give up the hope! If the Republican Convention is 1/10th as stupid as it was in

Spoiler

House of Cards

I cannot imagine missing it play out live.

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1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Did she say or imply "therefore, Republican voters should vote for Cruz or Kasich"?

Making a comment like that is not at all the same thing as running a "dog whistle" ad.

People can say whatever they want. Paying money to produce and run an ad is on a different ethical level. If that weren't so, there wouldn't be a greater ethical problem with the wealthy spending huge sums in favor of their candidates vs. them just publicly saying who they support. And most Americans seem to think there is a big difference between those two things.

I'll leave it to Hillary Clinton to say just what she was implying. 

As to what Americans think, just because they don't like the amount of money poured into elections doesn't mean they'd have a problem with candidates influencing the primaries of other parties. It would be interesting to see a good poll on that. 

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12 hours ago, Shryke said:

The other thing with Sanders comment is, of course, that he lost poor people as a demographic anyway afaik.

I guess that economic variable might be tricky. If you look closer at it, you will imho find the following: 

First most of the poor are  three things: first they are (to a larger degree) non-white, second they are mainly from the south and finally they are probably less educated (at least the majority).

Sanders failed to make inroads among the black voters in the south. They went to Clinton. I am somewhat curious how the non-black poor vote split. Next question would be if those remaining votes are really leaning liberal/Democrat, I would not bet my money on it. 

Getting the poor to vote would favor the Democrats as a whole imo. But mainly because they tend to be black. 

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