US Politics: Sing us a song, you're the Tariff man

[Jace, Extat]

8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Wait, surely Draco is a Republican.

After all, he told Harry Potter he could help him meet the right people.

Not to be all Andy Rooney about it, but Draco did know the right people.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

4 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Not to be all Andy Rooney about it, but Draco did know the right people.

We all know you're a Slytherin. 

[Fragile Bird]

5 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Not to be all Andy Rooney about it, but Draco did know the right people.

Yessss, if you wanted to know Death Eaters. That's why he's a Republican!

[DMC]

6 hours ago, Trebla said:

Trump and Pence just met with Pelosi and Schumer in the Oval Office in full view of the press and it did not go well.

[tweet]

#TrumpShutdown is already trending on Twitter.

I love how usually the real battle of government shutdowns is avoiding blame attribution and directing responsibility towards your opposition.  Then there's Trump who's like "hold my beer!"

4 hours ago, lokisnow said:

O’Rourke notched his first victory over sanders, beating him in move ons meaningless straw poll. He also beat Biden (who came in second) meaning Beto “won” the poll, technically losing only to “undecided”

The most, and really only, interesting thing about those results is that "undecided" won.

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I really have a hard time seeing Amy get through the primaries. She has a great resume, is smart as hell and would make a fine president. However, she likely lacks the charisma necessary to attract undecided voters, and I think that will stand out with Harris and Booker on the stage.

Agreed entirely.

4 hours ago, Maithanet said:

A lot of people are going to be running in 2020, and she's one of the 5 or so candidates that check many of the boxes for me such that I want to get a better look at how she performs in a national campaign. 

What will be interesting to see is how they're gonna do debates.  Gotta assume they'll have to split it up into an A and B group like the GOP did in 2016, but where do you cut it off?  I suspect this will be a lot more contentious as Democratic activists are much more likely to whine about fairness.

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

The way the primary is set up with lots of big states having plenty of early voting, it is quite possible that second and third tier candidates will bank a large share of the votes even if most candidates drop out fairly quickly.  It feels like there's a VERY strong chance that no candidate wins the majority of pledged delegates.  Hopefully the "winner" will be relatively obvious in terms of votes recieved and states/delegates won.  If so, the convention won't have too much drama even if it is technically "brokered".  But it could also get really messy. 

The current calendar (definitely subject to change) is for CA, TX, VA, NC, MA, AL, OK, TN, VT on March 3rd.  That's 162 Electoral votes, or a little under 1/3rd of the country.  It's quite possible one candidate, let's call him "Joe", with good name recognition does pretty well that day against whatever 4-6 candidates are still left in the field after IA/NH/SC/NV, then he could get quite a lead.  But then if there's another candidate that, once the field actually thins out, does clearly better in the later debates and contests, then you could easily get in a position where candidate B, let's call her "Kamala", has fewer pledged delegates than Joe, but most of her supporters argue she actually won the 1v1 contest.  But if it shakes out like:

Joe - 40% of pledged delegates

Kamala - 37% of pledged delegates

everybody else - 23% of pledged delegates

Then what happens?  Do Superdelegates go with the "choice of the people?"  Are they even sure what that is?  Sounds like a recipe for a circular firing squad to me, and frankly, this isn't particularly far-fetched. 

This scenario is actually pretty similar to what happened in both 2008 and 2016 for the Dems - Hillary holding on too long in the former and Bernie in the latter.  I agree with Fez that brokered conventions are always fantasized by us political dorks but are extremely unlikely to actually happen.  Hell, in the four cycles I've participated in there's always been significant chatter about it on at least one side (Dems in 2004; GOP in the next three).  Now that the superdelegates can't vote on the first ballot, hopefully the media will stop using them as a red herring.  And it's incredibly hard to envision them not voting for whoever has the pledged delegate lead on the second ballot, even if that candidate doesn't have 50%.

2 hours ago, lokisnow said:

I agree I think name recognition means the field is already five-six candidates and the road to the nomination runs through the south and Super Tuesday.  If we had another week in the calendar, I’d suspect we will have fifteen+ candidates going into the Iowa caucuses but seven or fewer after South Carolina. Instead Nevada will have to act as a bellweather and may cause some candidates to bail before the Super Tuesday slaughter.

but with South Carolina voting on leap day Saturday, and Super Tuesday three days later, I don’t think South Carolina will winnow the field.

basically the strategy is: make a splash in Iowa or new hamphshire, try for a surge in Nevada you can ride to Super Tuesday, shrug at South Carolina, and go balls out on your own Super Tuesday strategy.

i expect Beto to win Iowa, sanders or Biden to take new hamphshire, Harris to win Nevada and   South Carolina to not matter, but it is probably leaning Beto Harris or booker

harris may well win California, and the above winners have to waste enormous resources to try to not to let her pile up a big lead there, Beto will take Texas and same as above, others are trying to deny him building a big lead in his home state. 

But then the math and geography favors Beto over Harris, unless Biden can stop him, as he will probably sweep Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and North Carolina and probably lose to Biden in Virginia. Sanders wins Vermont of course and warren maybe wins Massachusetts, but seems like the candidate least likely to win their home state.

First of all, the field is always winnowed before Super Tuesday.  Second, holy unfounded assumptions Batman!  I agree with Maith that you're vastly overestimating Beto's strength in the south.  The interesting thing will be if both Harris and Booker are still alive by Super Tuesday.  Their opponents should hope they are so they can split the black vote, which is pretty decisive in almost any southern Dem primary these days.

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Bill Clinton won in the South for very similar reasons, even though he didn't have the name recognition of others. 

Name ID is important and all but Bill Clinton won in the south because he was the only southern candidate and the media bought in to his "great" NH performance in which gave himself his own nickname like a douche.

[lokisnow]

 

30 minutes ago, DMC said:

I love how usually the real battle of government shutdowns is avoiding blame attribution and directing responsibility towards your opposition.  Then there's Trump who's like "hold my beer!"

The most, and really only, interesting thing about those results is that "undecided" won.

Agreed entirely.

What will be interesting to see is how they're gonna do debates.  Gotta assume they'll have to split it up into an A and B group like the GOP did in 2016, but where do you cut it off?  I suspect this will be a lot more contentious as Democratic activists are much more likely to whine about fairness.

This scenario is actually pretty similar to what happened in both 2008 and 2016 for the Dems - Hillary holding on too long in the former and Bernie in the latter.  I agree with Fez that brokered conventions are always fantasized by us political dorks but are extremely unlikely to actually happen.  Hell, in the four cycles I've participated in there's always been significant chatter about it on at least one side (Dems in 2004; GOP in the next three).  Now that the superdelegates can't vote on the first ballot, hopefully the media will stop using them as a red herring.  And it's incredibly hard to envision them not voting for whoever has the pledged delegate lead on the second ballot, even if that candidate doesn't have 50%.

First of all, the field is always winnowed before Super Tuesday.  Second, holy unfounded assumptions Batman!  I agree with Maith that you're vastly overestimating Beto's strength in the south.  The interesting thing will be if both Harris and Booker are still alive by Super Tuesday.  Their opponents should hope they are so they can split the black vote, which is pretty decisive in almost any southern Dem primary these days.

Name ID is important and all but Bill Clinton won in the south because he was the only southern candidate and the media bought in to his "great" NH performance in which gave himself his own nickname like a douche.

I agree that winnowing will happen, I would be surprised if there are more than 12 realistic candidates, going into Iowa.

Given the schedule I’d think the winnowing will happen after each of the first three states, clearing a fair amount of the field of the also rans. And then we will see only one or two drop outs after Super Tuesday and Midwest Tuesday respectively. It’s possible because of early voting a lot of people stay in until after Midwest Tuesday and then there’s a huge wave of drop outs, because they’ll have already banked votes.

harris will definitely be around for Super Tuesday because her strategy will be to win NV and ride that momentum to a massive delegate lead from a CA win. Given CA is so early there is zero chance she drops out even with a fourth or fifth place finish in Iowa and NH. On the other hand, Booker will absolutely be in more danger of being winnowed because he’s got almost no geographic path to the nomination given the current schedule. He will be focusing on SC and TN and AL, and hoping not to split them with Harris, but he’s a still a yankee banker (so to speak), so we will see how well that plays in those states, I don’t think he’s going to be a slam dunk cultural match there. Booker probably is going to also still be around by Super Tuesday, (unless his internals in SC are abysmal after the first three forcing a pre SC dropout), simply because Super Tuesday is only three days after the SC primary.

in terms of staffing I think the advantage there is to those that invoke a lot passion, Beto, Harris, sanders, they’ll all have robust campaigns in all of the states competing, none of them will be hobbled by running only an Iowa or only a NH campaign.

[Kalbear]

I think there's another bit of calculus to consider. 

Both Clinton and Obama waited until 2008 to run, even though both were considered reasonable alternatives. Dems may (rightly) be fearful of beating an incumbent, and don't want to waste their shot. My suspicion is that this will narrow things down somewhat naturally if someone thinks they'll be better off (and are young enough) to go later. I'm not sure it'll work that way for Beto, but I could see someone like Harris or Booker waiting. 

The other thing is that it's been a long time since Dems had a lot of candidates run at any given time. They were the big leaders back in the 70s (with 16 candidates!) but since then I think the most they've had was 7 official ones, and I think that as much as people joke about it, Dems are a bit better at coordinating and figuring out about who should run and not. 

[DMC]

14 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

I agree that winnowing will happen, I would be surprised if there are more than 12 realistic candidates, going into Iowa.

Given the schedule I’d think the winnowing will happen after each of the first three states, clearing a fair amount of the field of the also rans. And then we will see only one or two drop outs after Super Tuesday and Midwest Tuesday respectively. It’s possible because of early voting a lot of people stay in until after Midwest Tuesday and then there’s a huge wave of drop outs, because they’ll have already banked votes.

Yeah I pretty much agree with all this - 12 sounds like a good estimate for how many candidates will be left by Iowa, and then there will be further winnowing, probably to 5-6, by Super Tuesday (or perhaps even after Nevada and before SC as you seem to suggest).  And then, looking at the calendar, there should be a clear leader by "Midwest" Tuesday, although I could see people trying to find the money to stay in for a vain hope in Florida/Illinois/Arizona the following week.

19 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

harris will definitely be around for Super Tuesday because her strategy will be to win NV and ride that momentum to a massive delegate lead from a CA win. Given CA is so early there is zero chance she drops out even with a fourth or fifth place finish in Iowa and NH.

Agreed.  If she's smart she'll work hard to overperform in either Iowa or NH so the media gives her love a la Clinton and "the comeback kid" I just mentioned.  She could really garner a lot of momentum then, and she might benefit from Nevada coming before SC - if she does get a clear win in the former that could tilt the latter her way even if Booker is still around.  I also agree in terms of liking Harris' chances over Booker's and the latter's fundamental problems.

7 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Both Clinton and Obama waited until 2008 to run, even though both were considered reasonable alternatives. Dems may (rightly) be fearful of beating an incumbent, and don't want to waste their shot. My suspicion is that this will narrow things down somewhat naturally if someone thinks they'll be better off (and are young enough) to go later. I'm not sure it'll work that way for Beto, but I could see someone like Harris or Booker waiting. 

If recent history has taught us anything it's that waiting is basically never a good idea.  I do think electability will be a focal point though.  At least I hope so.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The other thing is that it's been a long time since Dems had a lot of candidates run at any given time. They were the big leaders back in the 70s (with 16 candidates!) but since then I think the most they've had was 7 official ones, and I think that as much as people joke about it, Dems are a bit better at coordinating and figuring out about who should run and not. 

Totally agree - I think the Dems are actually better at the invisible primary than the Republicans at this point (although this is a fairly recent development).  Patrick dropping out is likely an example of that - wouldn't be surprised if Obama suggested he shouldn't run.  OTOH, while the 2004 Dem primary may not have had so many candidates (I think they had about 7-8), it did get pretty ridiculous with the whole "here's a general that we think can win even though he has no political experience at all and is horrible on television (Wesley Clark)."  That's definitely a caution about focusing too much on electability, as is Kerry for that matter.

[lokisnow]

The two that will stay in for a vain hope at Illinois and Florida are the two oldest, Biden and sanders. If both perform badly that is the most likely date they drop out leaving a race of only front runners.

thats also the day that Harris could really turn the table on Beto and seize an insurmountable lead. If she takes Illinois and Florida, both of which she has plausible paths to victory in, particularly if Biden is unusually strong in either/both states and that denies Beto a lot of Biden choices.

it will be really interesting down the stretch which candidate is the top second choice of most people, that can sometimes change the race dynamics in really unexpected ways.

 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, lokisnow said:

The two that will stay in for a vain hope at Illinois and Florida are the two oldest, Biden and sanders.

I'm still not entirely sure Biden is running.  With his history I'll wait until he actually announces.  And even if he is, Biden's not the type to stay in for a vain hope - if he's eating it I suspect he'd much rather get attention for endorsing someone else.  Bernie, though, yeah.

4 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

thats also the day that Harris could really turn the table on Beto and seize an insurmountable lead. If she takes Illinois and Florida, both of which she has plausible paths to victory in, particularly if Biden is unusually strong in either/both states and that denies Beto a lot of Biden choices.

Yeah if that calendar I linked ends up accurate I think winning both Illinois and Florida would clinch it for any candidate, figuratively.

6 minutes ago, lokisnow said:

it will be really interesting down the stretch which candidate is the top second choice of most people, that can sometimes change the race dynamics in really unexpected ways.

In January 2016 I helped work on an MTurk poll of the GOP primary with an advisor and a few cohorts.  We found that while Trump had a small lead among first-choices, he was very strong as a second choice and consequently performed really well in the head-to-head matchups we asked.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I think there's another bit of calculus to consider. 

Both Clinton and Obama waited until 2008 to run, even though both were considered reasonable alternatives. Dems may (rightly) be fearful of beating an incumbent, and don't want to waste their shot. My suspicion is that this will narrow things down somewhat naturally if someone thinks they'll be better off (and are young enough) to go later. I'm not sure it'll work that way for Beto, but I could see someone like Harris or Booker waiting. 

The other thing is that it's been a long time since Dems had a lot of candidates run at any given time. They were the big leaders back in the 70s (with 16 candidates!) but since then I think the most they've had was 7 official ones, and I think that as much as people joke about it, Dems are a bit better at coordinating and figuring out about who should run and not. 

Obama was not a viable candidate in 2004. He only became nationally prominent once he became a senator and that was in 2004. Not sure Clinton would have been too viable in 2004 either. Even though she had 4 years as a senator under her belt, she still would have suffered from "inexperience" claims in both the primaries and the election. And sexist as it is having the stink of "inexperience" on you hurts women much more than men. And of course there would also be the added attack of her still coat-tailing on Bill. I think if she got the nomination in 2008 she probably would have won. Obama should have been her vice (if that alternative history could be played out), and Obama probably would have walked into the White House in 2016, albeit probably only for one term. 4 terms straight of a single party holding the White House is pretty rare, and unprecedented post WW2.

[DMC]

9 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Obama was not a viable candidate in 2004. He only became nationally prominent once he became a senator and that was in 2004. Not sure Clinton would have been too viable in 2004 either.

Well, Obama was still a state senator in 2004 and wasn't on anybody's map until the convention speech, so yeah.  But as for Hillary, she totally would've been viable in 2004.  Edwards came in second and had a whole 2 years more Senate experience than her.  She should have run, and if she did I think she would've probably got the nomination.  As for 2008, there was a substantial faction among Democratic activists that felt Obama was the superior candidate to Hillary both substantially and in terms of electability.  Still proud to be part of that.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Not that I think that Kerry is going to run (even though there've been rumors), but if one were to compare just Kerry v. Biden why is Biden considered the more intriguing candidate? 

Because Biden still hasn't been the nominee before.  And yes, as you suggested, Biden is perceived to appeal more to the Obama-Trump voters whereas Kerry's public perception is pretty much cemented as a Massachusetts liberal.

[DanteGabriel]

35 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Not that I think that Kerry is going to run (even though there've been rumors), but if one were to compare just Kerry v. Biden why is Biden considered the more intriguing candidate?  They've both run and not become POTUS albeit in different ways.  Age is roughly the same.   Experience aplenty for both.  Is the main difference that Kerry has the wine and cheese thing and Biden has the Scranton thing?  Kerry would seem to be less gaffe-prone though he did once say thank you Michigan while in Ohio in a year in which Ohio was the most important state.  

Biden got eight years of image rehabilitation as Obama's VP. The buddy comedy memes featuring them are a big differentiator from Kerry.

[DMC]

Pretty sure since like Jackson or Jefferson (if you even want to count those), the only successful retread nominee was Nixon.  You could count Cleveland but at least he won once before.  And Nixon took Vietnam and two Kennedys getting shot to happen.

[Gorn]

16 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Interesting UCLA study of Latino voters in 2018.

It shows a mixed bag for Democrats with regard to Latino voters.  In California, Arizona and Texas, Latino participation is increasing faster than non-Latinos, and this probably put Democrats over the top for the AZ senate race as well as numerous House races.  There's reason to expect that as the Latino population in AZ and TX continues to expand, those voters will turn those states purple, and that change may happen soon. 

The bad news is that in FL and GA, the same cannot be said.  In spite of increasing Latino populations in both states, there was no real correlation between % of Latino voters in a district and an increase in voter participation vs 2014 in Florida.  In addition, exit polls in Florida and Georgia showed that Nelson, Gillum and Abrams all won Latino voters statewide by ~10 points, which is frankly, terrible - far below the nationwide average.  Given how close all of those races were, there's every reason to think that this shortfall in Latino voters made the difference between winning and losing.  Democrats need to do some real outreach to Latino communities in FL and GA to make sure they are included in the overall Democratic message ahead of 2020. 

This study is utterly meaningless, because it oversimplifies things. It lumps Mexican-Americans (which are predominant in California and western states) and Cuban-Americans (which are predominant in Florida) into a single "Latino" category, while ignoring the huge differences in political priorities and voting history of these groups, and then attempts to make an overarching conclusion from it.

[OldGimletEye]

On 12/10/2018 at 9:01 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

Of course there's no way he's actually genuine about wanting to work together to get things done.

Yeah, its kind of like a Stag Hunt sort of situation, which if I recall correctly has two Nash equilibrium. One equilibrium is cooperation, while the the other is non cooperation. Which equilibrium obtains depends upon each party having the correct set of beliefs about what the other party will do.

And there is no reason for Democrats to believe that Republicans will cooperate or are genuine about "working together" (and according their best response is non-cooperation). And "Beltway Centrist" types who love "bi-partisanship" should understand that is not reasonable for them to expect Democrats to believe that the Republicans are remotely genuine, at this juncture, about "working together".

At some point, Charlie Brown has got to learn that Lucy ain't going to hold the football.
Or as expressed by one great mind, "'Fool me once, shame on ... shame on you. Fool me... You can't get fooled again!'"

[Mexal]

10 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I think there's another bit of calculus to consider. 

Both Clinton and Obama waited until 2008 to run, even though both were considered reasonable alternatives. Dems may (rightly) be fearful of beating an incumbent, and don't want to waste their shot. My suspicion is that this will narrow things down somewhat naturally if someone thinks they'll be better off (and are young enough) to go later. I'm not sure it'll work that way for Beto, but I could see someone like Harris or Booker waiting. 

The other thing is that it's been a long time since Dems had a lot of candidates run at any given time. They were the big leaders back in the 70s (with 16 candidates!) but since then I think the most they've had was 7 official ones, and I think that as much as people joke about it, Dems are a bit better at coordinating and figuring out about who should run and not. 

Neither Harris nor Booker will wait. Trump, incumbent or not, is beatable in their eyes, based on 2018, based on his low approval rating and based on all his scandals. Both of them are already hitting Iowa and NH and signaling they're going to run.

[Martell Spy]

Some comedy. Ah, so all it will take is lawyers, guns, and money.

Biden Should Run on a Unity Ticket With Romney
It could totally work. Here’s how.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/11/biden-2020-running-mate-romney-222861

Quote

 

Now here’s what Biden should do next: Pick a Republican running mate in a “trans-party” third-party run for the White House.

Should Trump run again, this could be a “break-the-glass” moment for many Americans, creating an opening for a radical departure from our malfunctioning two-party political system. By injecting some ideological innovation into the process, we can break the hidebound precedents of two narrow parties running their ceremonious and illogical nominating process to select a candidate.

 

Quote

with the right candidates, these legal and logistical hurdles are surmountable. All it takes is lawyering and money.

 

[Maithanet]

10 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I think if she got the nomination in 2008 she probably would have won. Obama should have been her vice (if that alternative history could be played out), and Obama probably would have walked into the White House in 2016, albeit probably only for one term. 4 terms straight of a single party holding the White House is pretty rare, and unprecedented post WW2.

Not that it matters, but 2008 was a supercharged year for Democrats, there's no way McCain beats Clinton.  However, in a theoretical Clinton/Obama ticket, I think that they lose in 2012 to Romney (or possibly a different opponent) with how bad the economy still was in 2012.  2008 Obama crushed it on easy mode, but 2012 was a really challenging election (probably more difficult than 2016 for Dems) and I don't think Clinton could have pulled it off.

9 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

Biden got eight years of image rehabilitation as Obama's VP. The buddy comedy memes featuring them are a big differentiator from Kerry.

Definitely this.  That's also why I think that Biden has a real chance of winning a lot of the african american vote -  he is associated strongly with Obama and African Americans have been more establishment friendly than most Democratic primary voters (ie picking Clinton over Sanders in 2016). 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Oh man, a Biden-Romney ticket. That would excite exactly 0 people (well, maybe 1 person, the writer of that fever-dream inspired article). I mean, I have already committed to voting for a progressive in the primaries and whatever lukewarm candidate the Democrats throw up in 2020, but this combination of bland and blander is really too milquetoast for me. I could go on, but I've run out of synonyms for boring.