US Elections: When Murder isn't Murder

[Kalbear]

Quote

 I've asked again and again for evidence of this and none is forthcoming.

And as I said, it's because the only person who has that interpretation of what Frank said is you. 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Long time Clinton supporter and economic advisor puts out an unsubstantiated and fact-free hit piece against her primary opponent. Clinton supporters eat it up and act like these attacks were engraved in stone. News at 11.

Your link goes nowhere. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

Just now, Kalbear said:

And as I said, it's because the only person who has that interpretation of what Frank said is you. 

Ok. I'm confident that my "interpretation" is just a plain English understanding of what he clearly said, and that most who read it or observed this conversation will agree.

But since we can't come to terms even on that, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I'm satisfied I've made my point as well as I'm ever going to.

[Myshkin]

OAR it may to you make intuitive sense, but it doesn't make actual sense. You are starting from the false assumption that caucus goers (and presidential primary voters) are primarily motivated by political engagement, therefore they are likely the same politically engaged people who vote in the midterms. Caucus goers and presidential primary voters are primarily motivated by a specific presidential candidate, of which there are none in midterm election years. Further what separates caucus goers specifically from non caucus goers is not political engagement, but rather time constraints. In the end you are asking us to prove a negative, i.e. that caucus goers do not correlate with midterm voters. I contend the the onus is on you to prove that caucus goers do correlate with midterm voters. And, as stated above, I reject your contention that both groups are primarily motivated by political engagement and therefore are likely made up of the same people. 

As for Frank's comments, most of us read them as identifying two separate issues. I do however agree that Frank is identifying a certain group as a major source of the midterm problem. That certain group tends to be young and tends to cast protest votes. Young protest voters don't tend to turn out for midterm elections, and they also happen to be leaning heavily Sanders in this election. For evidence of this refer to Shryke's earlier comment about first time voters, most of whom are turning out for Sanders, and all of whom that are 20+ years of age absolutely must have skipped the 2014 midterms. 

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

The other take is that she is looking for a knockout punch for it and doesn't want any narrative otherwise. But yeah, the news is that she's spending considerable resources in New York making sure that it isn't a surprise or embarrassment. 

Sanders is as well, mind you. 

Yes. It also looks like the tide might be turning in Wisconsin. If Sanders can win that, even narrowly, it would help him in New York as he'd come into the latter with a fairly long victory streak (and it's a primary so the caucus vs. primary arguments should quiet down).

[OnionAhaiReborn]

4 minutes ago, Myshkin said:

OAR it may to you make intuitive sense, but it doesn't make actual sense. You are starting from the false assumption that caucus goers (and presidential primary voters) are primarily motivated by political engagement, therefore they are likely the same politically engaged people who vote in the midterms. Caucus goers and presidential primary voters are primarily motivated by a specific presidential candidate, of which there are none in midterm election years. Further what separates caucus goers specifically from non caucus goers is not political engagement, but rather time constraints. In the end you are asking us to prove a negative, i.e. that caucus goers do not correlate with midterm voters. I contend the the onus is on you to prove that caucus goers do correlate with midterm voters. And, as stated above, I reject your contention that both groups are primarily motivated by political engagement and therefore are likely made up of the same people. 

No. I'm not asking you to prove a negative, I'm explaining my positive reasoning that caucus goers turn out for midterms, and I call it intuitive- I'll grant that I haven't proven anything beyond that, but I think it is frankly so intuitively obvious that it would be uncontroversial but for this context. You make your own positive claims above that you do not prove (namely that caucus goers are motivated by political personality rather than general political engagement). Perhaps you think that's intuitively correct- I certainly do not, and I'll leave it to everyone else to decide for themselves. I'll agree to disagree on the motivation of caucus goers.

As for Frank's comments, most of us read them as identifying two separate issues. I do however agree that Frank is identifying a certain group as a major source of the midterm problem. That certain group tends to be young and tends to cast protest votes. Young protest voters don't tend to turn out for midterm elections, and they also happen to be leaning heavily Sanders in this election. For evidence of this refer to Shryke's earlier comment about first time voters, most of whom are turning out for Sanders, and all of whom that are 20+ years of age absolutely must have skipped the 2014 midterms.

But this is not evidence, it's assertion. You've provided no actual data. What is the actual share of Sanders voters that are first time voters over the age of twenty, and, of those, how many didn't vote before by choice and not because they were ineligible? How do you know this share of Sanders voters exceeds the share of Clinton voters that sat out the midterms?

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Long time Clinton supporter and economic advisor puts out an unsubstantiated and fact-free hit piece against her primary opponent. Clinton supporters eat it up and act like these attacks were engraved in stone. News at 11.

And you obviously REALLY didn't read the interview because calling it a hit piece is fucking hilariously wrong. It's a short interview where they talk about the election among like 4 to 5 other things.

[Altherion]

Here's an update on the fraud in the Arizona primary. It was sufficiently widespread that even the employees of the Arizona Secretary of State were affected.

[Myshkin]

11 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Oh come the fuck on, he compares Sanders to fucking Joe McCarthy during the interview for Chrissake. Someone didn't read the article, but it obviously wasn't me.

Um we've all read it. We've all been discussing it since the last thread. You're the only one calling it a hit piece. It's critical of Sanders for sure, but it's not a hit piece. The McCarthyite thing was a bit of hyperbole, something you seem quite familiar with, but in the end he backed it up by explaining that Sanders is using the McCarthy tactic of guilt by association to paint Clinton as corrupt. Which, you know, is true.

[mormont]

It seems to me that OAR is making the assumption that when Barney Frank refers to Sanders supporters, he (Frank) thinks they're an undifferentiated mass. All Sanders supporters turn out for caucuses, all Sanders supporters skipped the mid-terms. That doesn't seem a very credible interpretation to me. Reading the interview, it appears to me that Frank isn't saying that, nor would it make sense if he was. The numbers of people turning out to caucuses wouldn't really make a difference in midterm elections.

So I think he's referencing two different groups there, who we might refer to as committed Sanders supporters and casual Sanders supporters. There may be some overlap but that seems to me the only reasonable way to read the comments.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Oh come the fuck on, he compares Sanders to fucking Joe McCarthy during the interview for Chrissake. Someone didn't read the article, but it obviously wasn't me.

I was obviously you since, again, if it was a hit piece it wouldn't be about so many wide ranging subjects. Its' an interview. They discussed a bunch of stuff. You calling it a hit piece is just ignorance of what a hit piece is. Why is a supposed anti-Sanders hit piece going after Scalia and Romney and discussing the success of Dodd-Frank?

Your assertion here makes no fucking sense. It's an interview. They asked him about a bunch of recent stuff. Some of it was related to the election, some of it wasn't. When asked about Sanders he was critical, which shouldn't surprise you if you've read other comments by Democrats in Congress or people working for them and such. When asked about other stuff not related to Sanders he also criticized other people. Cause not everything is about Sanders and Sanders alone.

 

As for the McCarthy comment I must really assume here that you didn't read it since he literally explains what he means:

Quote

I mean, yes, McCarthyite in the sense that it’s guilt by association. 

ie - Sanders is not Joe McCarthy, he's just trying to tar Clinton via guilt by association

The charge that Sanders is playing the guilt-by-association game is entirely accurate. He's just being snarky with how he's saying it by calling it McCarthyite because it's Barney Frank and that's how Barney Frank has always talked. He's a snarky guy.

[Myshkin]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Yeah, I tend to characterize pieces that are long on criticism, short on substance and that bizarrely attempt to associate the target of the criticism with a reviled historical figure based on a ridiculously tenuous similarity as being a hit piece.

Frank asserts that Sanders has accomplished virtually nothing during his tenure in Congress, blames Sanders voters for the outcomes of the 2010 and 2014 elections, manages to insult Sanders' voters by comparing them to Tea Party voters, and then levels the McCarthy label at him because he maybe, kinda, sorta uses a rhetorical technique that may vaguely resemble one that McCarthy used, because McCarthy was so reviled for his guilt-by-association techniques and not so much for his desire to ruin the lives of people he suspected of holding to a particular ideology.

Boy if this is how you react when Barney Frank gets critical I can't imagine what your reaction is gonna be when the Republicans start publishing actual hit pieces. Take your faux outrage and go home, nobody's buying it.

[Shryke]

9 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Yeah, I tend to characterize pieces that are long on criticism, short on substance and that bizarrely attempt to associate the target of the criticism with a reviled historical figure based on a ridiculously tenuous similarity as being a hit piece.

Frank asserts that Sanders has accomplished virtually nothing during his tenure in Congress, blames Sanders voters for the outcomes of the 2010 and 2014 elections, manages to insult Sanders' voters by comparing them to Tea Party voters, and then levels the McCarthy label at him because he maybe, kinda, sorta uses a rhetorical technique that may vaguely resemble one that McCarthy used, because McCarthy was so reviled for his guilt-by-association techniques and not so much for his desire to ruin the lives of people he suspected of holding to a particular ideology.

Uh, McCarthy was reviled for his desire to ruin the lives of people he suspected of holding to a particular ideology which he determined based on their associations.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

It seems to me that OAR is making the assumption that when Barney Frank refers to Sanders supporters, he (Frank) thinks they're an undifferentiated mass. All Sanders supporters turn out for caucuses, all Sanders supporters skipped the mid-terms. That doesn't seem a very credible interpretation to me. Reading the interview, it appears to me that Frank isn't saying that, nor would it make sense if he was. The numbers of people turning out to caucuses wouldn't really make a difference in midterm elections.

So I think he's referencing two different groups there, who we might refer to as committed Sanders supporters and casual Sanders supporters. There may be some overlap but that seems to me the only reasonable way to read the comments.

Frank is accusing Sanders voters of being the type of voter that didn't turn up for the midterms (and, no, I'm not assuming he means literally all of them, which would be trivially easy to disprove.). He does it in harsh terms. This accusation has been made before in these threads, and Frank's comments were even presented here as having summarized discussions here neatly. Not a single person, certainly not Frank, has provided any evidence.

The rest of the discussion is obfuscation.

[mormont]

Clearly, some Sanders supporters didn't turn up in the midterms.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

2 minutes ago, mormont said:

Clearly, some Sanders supporters didn't turn up in the midterms.

As in, "at least one," yes, that seems overwhelmingly likely. In the same sense, some Clinton supporters didn't show. Some former O'Malley supporter didn't show.

If the charge is to have any value, if there is to be any valid reason for picking them out for attack as Frank and several here do, it needs to be shown that Sanders voters are in significant number, or are at least disproportionately more likely to be, this kind of voter. It has not.

[mormont]

Well, I don't have detailed analyses or anything, but I would point out that Sanders' campaign frequently boasts of bringing in supporters who don't usually participate in the process - or to put it another way, who don't usually vote - suggesting that they themselves believe that a larger proportion of their supporters failed to vote in the midterms than, say, Clinton supporters.

ETA - having said that, don't get me wrong: I'm absolutely not a fan of berating people for not having voted. I'm just saying, there is more than one type of Sanders supporter, and I'm sure Barney Frank spoke in that context.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

8 minutes ago, mormont said:

Well, I don't have detailed analyses or anything, but I would point out that Sanders' campaign frequently boasts of bringing in supporters who don't usually participate in the process - or to put it another way, who don't usually vote - suggesting that they themselves believe that a larger proportion of their supporters failed to vote in the midterms than, say, Clinton supporters.

 

Yet in response many people have pointed out that turnout is in fact down, and Sanders has failed to bring in a coalition of new voters to beat Clinton. Sanders' strength among new voters, such as it actually is, is down to the overlap between young and new voters.

ETA - having said that, don't get me wrong: I'm absolutely not a fan of berating people for not having voted. I'm just saying, there is more than one type of Sanders supporter, and I'm sure Barney Frank spoke in that context.

Of course there is! The context is that Frank didn't have a nice word to say about any of them, and decided to level the charge that they sat out the midterms and are therefore responsible for the state of Congress. What portion he was talking about, he doesn't say. Presumably he considers it a significant portion, if he thinks he's bothering to make a meaningful statement. It's possible he was just making a completely meaningless statement and talking about a handful. Of course, then he's guilty of focusing unfairly on Sanders supporters when clearly a handful of Clinton supporters will have not voted in the midterms either. The fact is that he made very pointed remarks, focusing specifically on Sanders voters. His charge is either meaningless or baseless. Take your pick.

[mormont]

22 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Yet in response many people have pointed out that turnout is in fact down, and Sanders has failed to bring in a coalition of new voters to beat Clinton. Sanders' strength among new voters, such as it actually is, is down to the overlap between young and new voters.

Yes, but that still means that the proportion of Sanders voters who didn't show up in the midterms is, by the Sanders campaign's own lights, higher than that of Clinton supporters. (Not all of those younger voters would have been too young, particularly if we're counting 'young' as going as high as late twenties: I'd guess over half could have voted in the 2010 mid-terms, and over 80% in 2014.)

So, I don't know if you'll count that as evidence, but it is at the very least a valid argument in favour of that point, I think.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

6 minutes ago, mormont said:

Yes, but that still means that the proportion of Sanders voters who didn't show up in the midterms is, by the Sanders campaign's own lights, higher than that of Clinton supporters. (Not all of those younger voters would have been too young, particularly if we're counting 'young' as going as high as late twenties: I'd guess over half could have voted in the 2010 mid-terms, and over 80% in 2014.)

So, I don't know if you'll count that as evidence, but it is at the very least a valid argument in favour of that point, I think.

I've already made clear that I think the Sanders campaign is wrong about this, no use appealing to its authority again.

Of course you can say 50% of young voters who turned out for Sanders could have voted in 2010, or 80% in 2014, but you haven't established what percentage of that group did not. You haven't even established how many first time voters have actually turned out this year, and what percentage were eligible for the first time vs just deciding to vote for the first time. This whole line of attack rests on assumptions. No, that decidedly does not count as evidence, and this is exactly the problem- many people (in this thread, and, of course, Barney Frank) are very comfortable leveling slurs against Sanders supporters without bothering to offer any evidence beyond circular arguments from their own assumptions.