US Elections: When Murder isn't Murder

[Bonesy]

Sanders still can't win. I'm so nuanced right now.

[Shryke]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

When it comes to their own self interests, democrats are the worst at showing up to vote for them. It is known.

Just the general trend of Democrats fucking up with a really important downticket race.

[The Marquis de Leech]

38 minutes ago, Bonesy said:

Sanders still can't win. I'm so nuanced right now.

Mathematically, he certainly can (and Wisconsin was about what he needed to stay alive). Problem is, the remaining states are less favourable, and where he needs to make big inroads on Clinton.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

7 hours ago, Astromech said:

Hey, those judicial candidates are non-partisan Even the ballot said so.

I hate electing Judges by popular vote.  It means they have to be political in an office where politics should be the last thing on their mind.

[TrackerNeil]

7 hours ago, Myshkin said:

It's funny, I turn on the news, or open one of my news aggregator apps and there are stories about Sanders every single day on every single outlet, but according to Sanders supporters there's a near total media blackout about him. I'm having a hard time reconciling these two things.

I know, right? The news media love a horse-race, and they've been reporting on Sanders that way since January, if not earlier. If Sanders is behind it's not IMO because of lack of attention. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

9 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Wisconsin was positive for Sanders, but in a "necessary, but not sufficient" sense. He still needs a solid win in New York - and that too is "necessary but not sufficient".

It also looks like Clinton missed her targets for securing the nomination without resorting to superdelegates.

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It also looks like Clinton missed her targets for securing the nomination without resorting to superdelegates.

Yes, but she is still way ahead of target and Bernie will need to win even bigger going forward to catch up (even without super-delegates): http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

15 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I think that it's certainly a consideration for who is best for the Democratic party. Especially now given how apparently cash-strapped the Dems are in local and state races, by comparison to the opponents. It doesn't need to be the only deciding factor, but it should certainly be a factor. 

But it is a deciding factor in many cases. And that's why you have several elected officials on both sides of the aisle spending massive sums of time fundraising rather than doing their actual jobs.

16 hours ago, Kalbear said:

And that said - Clinton has raised more money than Sanders. She's won more delegates than Sanders. She's had more votes than Sanders. She's been a loyal member of the party longer than Sanders. She has more endorsements than Sanders. She has more executive experience than Sanders. At some point the reason that the superdelegates support her has to be not particularly unclear. Yeah, she's raised money for the party and has done so for quite a while, but she's also done everything else she was supposed to do. If you're going to see this as a sign that this is corruption, you're probably not going to be swayed by any actual logic or facts to begin with. 

This gets to the heart of a major divide in the Democratic Party. Do you look at a broken system and maximize how to game it or do you reject it and try and fix it.

[IheartIheartTesla]

5 minutes ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

Yes, but she is still way ahead of target and Bernie will need to win even bigger going forward to catch up (even without super-delegates): http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

Yes, but the concept of superdelegates is stupid and is resulting in a longer primary season.

I look at 538 almost every day, no need to link me to it.

[Guest]

Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

Yes, but the concept of superdelegates is stupid and is resulting in a longer primary season.

I look at 538 almost every day, no need to link me to it.

Superdelegates are not stupid, they help avoid the disaster that the Republicans are likely to face in Cleveland.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Well, as I never tire of pointing out, without superdelegates Clinton would have clinched the nomination sometime in April for sure. And as other people never tire of pointing out, they have never actually gone against the 'will of the people', so they don't even serve any useful purpose.

The Republicans have their own arcane rules that can avoid a disaster, trust me. That might break up the party, but they will get their nominee if they choose to.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Well, as I never tire of pointing out, without superdelegates Clinton would have clinched the nomination sometime in April for sure. And as other people never tire of pointing out, they have never actually gone against the 'will of the people', so they don't even serve any useful purpose.

They are a contingency plan in case an awful General Election candidate wins a majority of pledged delegates. 

 

40 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It also looks like Clinton missed her targets for securing the nomination without resorting to superdelegates.

What are you talking about? I don't recall anyone saying she planned on securing the nomination by winning 2,383 pledged delegates. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Yes she does, otherwise there is always a chance that the primary fight will go right to the convention. We've had this conversation before.

And I think 'awful' general election candidate that has been chosen by many Democratic Party voters to be overturned by superdelegates lends itself to all kinds of philosophical questions.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

24 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Yes she does, otherwise there is always a chance that the primary fight will go right to the convention. We've had this conversation before.

And I think 'awful' general election candidate that has been chosen by many Democratic Party voters to be overturned by superdelegates lends itself to all kinds of philosophical questions.

You'd need to win 59% of the pledged delegates to win the nomination without a single Super Delegate. I don't think anyone has done that since the party changed the primary rules.

[Altherion]

1 hour ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

Yes, but she is still way ahead of target and Bernie will need to win even bigger going forward to catch up (even without super-delegates): http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

They made an updated version on March 30th. He's not actually that far off: he needed +16 in Wisconsin and got +13.5. He'll probably win Wyoming handily. The next test is New York -- if he loses that by 10 points (which is the best polling result he has had there up until now), it's over. If he wins by 10 points, he'll make up a lot of ground.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

35 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You'd need to win 59% of the pledged delegates to win the nomination without a single Super Delegate. I don't think anyone has done that since the party changed the primary rules.

Kerry and Gore both did.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Kerry and Gore both did.

Kerry did by a narrow margin (30 delegates), and it appears that on March 11th, 4 months before the convention, he had won enough delegates to win the nomination because the Super Delegates backed him in mass, so there wasn't much of a campaign after. I doubt he would have achieved that goal with a longer primary.

Gore definitely did. There wasn't much of a contest.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I think the Republicans still believe certain arcane rules in the process can save them from Trump (who I think most of us agree is an awful general election candidate) being the nominee. So yes, there are definitely ways to prevent such occurrences. The upshot of that however could be essentially a formal party split, since those 30-35% of Republicans wont take too kindly to their wishes being discarded.

Superdelegates havent really prevented awful candidates (Mondale is a prime example) from being nominated, so their presence is pointless, and even if they were to do so the downside of it could be a catastrophic loss of a large segment of the voters and/or a party split (unlikelier on the Democratic side, but you never know).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

Superdelegates havent really prevented awful candidates (Mondale is a prime example) from being nominated, 

To be fair, the plan was to prevent an awful insurgent (i.e. a McGovern), not an awful establishment figure like Mondale.

(And to be even more fair, by the time Mondale really did turn to custard - the tax increase promise and the Ferraro fiasco - it was too late for anyone to do anything. He'd been a perfectly OK Senator and Vice-President).

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Why are you so worked up over the Super Delegates? They're not the reason why HRC is winning.