U.S. Politics: 22 Trillion Problems But An Unsecured Border Ain’t One

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

That seems unfair. She pretty brazenly stabbed him in the front.

Fair point 

Jokes aside though, I do wonder if the people who were early to dogpile on him risk losing Minnesota. Democrats here are still pretty bitter about the affair.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 hours ago, DMC said:

Yes, this is what I mean by "disqualifying," which I should have..qualified because it can mean a number of things.  I was not referring to still voting for that candidate against Trump in the general.  I assume pretty much everyone here will do/advocate that.  However, what I mean by disqualifying here is, well exactly what you said - refusing to support someone, even eventually, in a primary because they were a prosecutor. 

It seems odd that Harris is getting a lot of heat for being a prosecutor while Klobuchar isn’t, especially when you compare their records. Amy was significantly more harsh, though to be fair this city was once called Murderapolis. I wonder what’s different about the two?

Just some food for thought…..

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

On the flip side, sometimes narratives get baked in pretty soon that can be hard to overcome. For instance, while NH may not have much to offer Sanders in terms of lessons, I know he will do well there just by its proximity to Vermont.

First off, I'm not sure how much the "native son" aspect matters anymore, especially as pertaining to proximity.  Good example of this is Dick Gephardt.  In 1988, he ran and easily won the Iowa caucus, being from neighboring Missouri.  In 2004, he planned another run and was thought to be formidable early on - Nancy Pelosi endorsed him (!) - but he came in fourth in Iowa. 

Second, regarding the Sanders example, that's why NH will be less impactful this cycle.  If him AND Warren are still kicking come NH, it's expected they'll do well.  Anyone that could manage second, or maybe even third, could potentially claim victory a la Bubba in 1992 (obviously this is dependent on polling and expectations).

12 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Iowa being a caucus state also guarantees him a strong showing.

No, it does not.  Bernie outperformed Hillary in caucus states, yes, but so did Obama.  Hillary was particularly bad at caucus states.  In 2008, it was because of her campaign staff.  I wasn't as involved in 2016, but another aspect was because of the simple fact fewer people tend to be "strong" Hillary supporters compared to most other candidates.  That's an outlier though.  I don't think Sanders has any particular advantage in caucus states this time around.  At least at the moment.

[IheartIheartTesla]

He has a dedicated (near fanatic in some cases) group of followers, and benefits from fragmentation. In my opinion he will do very well in Iowa, but we'll have to wait and see.

As for proximity, 538 seemed to think that for NH in specific candidates from neighboring states did well - Tsongas, Kerry, Sanders and Romney were the examples they gave,  But if you throw in Warren into the mix, that does complicate the narrative.

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

He has a dedicated (near fanatic in some cases) group of followers, and benefits from fragmentation. In my opinion he will do very well in Iowa, but we'll have to wait and see.

He does, but I don't see how that specifically translates to Iowa, or most other states.  Bernie Sanders didn't especially crack the code on caucuses, he just had a weak opponent, in that regard.  Hopefully that won't be the case this time.

33 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

As for proximity, 538 seemed to think that for NH in specific candidates from neighboring states did well - Tsongas, Kerry, Sanders and Romney were the examples they gave,  But if you throw in Warren into the mix, that does complicate the narrative.

The historical examples are more plentiful that that regarding native sons.  My point is this mitigates the expectations game.  So Bernie winning won't mean as much, if he's still competitive overall.  Same goes for Warren.  In that way, NH is compromised to some extent whereas Iowa looks like a much more open field.

[Guest]

I agree with @IheartIheartTesla that Sanders could very well benefit from fragmentation with such a large Democratic primary field, especially if there end up being a large number of well-funded, viable candidates come Iowa caucus time.

Sanders has a head-start on all current and potential candidates in that he already has a campaign infrastructure in place in all 50 states, while the others will have to go about building theirs. He's already crushing fundraising numbers, raising $5.9 million in the first 24 hours after his announcement from 225k individual donors.

And in a large field, I could easily imagine a scenario where Sanders gains a lot of momentum with wins in Iowa, NH and Nevada, then accepts a close 3rd place finish in South Carolina. After that comes Super Tuesday where I can see his campaign focusing on close 2nd or 3rd place finishes in places like California, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia and Massachusetts, so as to not fall too far behind in the delegate count, before swinging back to more favorable territory in the Rust Belt, the Midwest and the West. I think most of the top-tier candidates (Harris, Booker, Biden, O'Rourke - if he decides to run, Sanders, probably Klobuchar, and Warren, maybe) will have sufficient campaign funding to continue to Super Tuesday without a win, but after Super Tuesday, the only candidates I could see with the funding to continue their campaign even if they're winless are Sanders, Harris, Biden and maybe Booker and O'Rourke, although since Massachusetts, Texas and California all vote on Super Tuesday, you'd expect O'Rourke to win Texas, Harris win California and Warren win Massachusetts, which would extend all of their campaigns. And I think a larger pool of candidates benefits Sanders the same way a large 2016 Republican field benefitted Trump (with the caveat being that Democrats' proportional allocation of delegates may mitigate the "Trump effect" in large primary fields). The delegate allocation, however, won't much affect the media horse-race narrative of wins.

What I would really like to see this time around is, after everyone declares and before debates start, the candidates all put out some kind of statement saying that despite whoever wins, the others pledge to offer their full assistance to the winner to defeat Trump in the general.

[Maithanet]

NH seems to make a point of not choosing whoever they "ought" to choose, and almost always not backing whoever won Iowa.  In 2008 Obama was polling way ahead in NH, but when he won Iowa, he (almost inexplicably) came up way short of his polling results, even though Iowa was only a few days before and Obama had been getting nothing but positive press.  In 2016 Clinton was the overwhelming favorite to win the nomination, so of course New Hampshire had to pick someone else, and Sanders was the only option.

So basically, whoever looks like on paper that they ought to win New Hampshire, expect them to lose. 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

And I think a larger pool of candidates benefits Sanders the same way a large 2016 Republican field benefitted Trump (with the caveat being that Democrats' proportional allocation of delegates may mitigate the "Trump effect" in large primary fields).

Another thing I think people should remember is that Democrats polled say they really value "electability" and are laser focused on beating Trump.  This is similar to where things were in 2004, and as a result, the Democratic field coalesced very fast around a "winner".  I think something similar could easily happen this time around.  While it's possible that a lot of candidates would still have the money to remain in the race post-Super Tuesday, I think that second tier candidates are going to see their support absolutely collapse if they are struggling to win states.  So I think that the winnowing down to 2 or 3 candidates is going to happen very fast.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

The reverse will happen to Sanders. The large pool of candidates will hurt him, not help him, especially when you consider that there are a lot of like-minded individuals who actually want to help the party. Sanders will not be the nominee outright and he has no chance of coming out of a brokered convention.

[Fez]

7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Another thing I think people should remember is that Democrats polled say they really value "electability" and are laser focused on beating Trump.  This is similar to where things were in 2004, and as a result, the Democratic field coalesced very fast around a "winner".  I think something similar could easily happen this time around.  While it's possible that a lot of candidates would still have the money to remain in the race post-Super Tuesday, I think that second tier candidates are going to see their support absolutely collapse if they are struggling to win states.  So I think that the winnowing down to 2 or 3 candidates is going to happen very fast.

Super Tuesday is such a diverse group of states next year though that I could see there being more winners then usual. I absolutely agree there will be winnowing, but I could see there still being 4 or 5 candidates standing come mid-March next year. Especially since California is part of Super Tuesday now and will award a whole bunch of candidates a number of delegates that will overwhelm whatever is won from NH and IA.

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

I agree with @IheartIheartTesla that Sanders could very well benefit from fragmentation with such a large Democratic primary field, especially if there end up being a large number of well-funded, viable candidates come Iowa caucus time.

I don't think this is a valid assumption.  People are overrating his performance in 2016.  He got so much support because, yeah, a lot of people didn't like Hillary.  But what was his coalition?  Young voters and white educated liberals, mostly.  Talk about the most fickle primary constituency ever.  Both those groups have tons of other options this time.  Sanders has been polling ~15-17 percent.  It might jump to 20 with the announcement, but I doubt it ever gets higher than 25 which...

25 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

And in a large field, I could easily imagine a scenario where Sanders gains a lot of momentum with wins in Iowa, NH and Nevada [...]

...Makes this all sound very premature.  I mean, in general, it's really overthinking things at this point.  But Sanders winning Iowa, NH, and Nevada?  Heh.  Believe that when I see it.  As I intimated earlier, Bernie isn't going to have much of a fundraising advantage against his top competitors.  They're all gonna raise enough money to be fine.  Pundits and others overrate fundraising to a certain extent.  Is it necessary?  Absolutely.  But once you get to a certain point - which Harris, Beto, Booker and Biden if he runs will almost certainly reach - then there's clear diminishing returns.  Fairly rapidly, in fact.

25 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

What I would really like to see this time around is, after everyone declares and before debates start, the candidates all put out some kind of statement saying that despite whoever wins, the others pledge to offer their full assistance to the winner to defeat Trump in the general.

This type of loyalty pledge is commonly asked during debates.  And is usually easily unanimous.  Except in Trump's case, of course.  I don't see why anyone should do it before the debates, but whatever.

24 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

NH seems to make a point of not choosing whoever they "ought" to choose, and almost always not backing whoever won Iowa.

Aye, was gonna mention that but didn't want to belabor the point.  They're like the hipsters of primaries.

19 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

This is similar to where things were in 2004, and as a result, the Democratic field coalesced very fast around a "winner".  I think something similar could easily happen this time around.  While it's possible that a lot of candidates would still have the money to remain in the race post-Super Tuesday

I think there will be a consensus favorite as a result of Super Tuesday, yes.  I don't care how big the field gets.

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The large pool of candidates will hurt him, not help him, especially when you consider that there are a lot of like-minded individuals who actually want to help the party.

Obviously this too.

6 minutes ago, Fez said:

Especially since California is part of Super Tuesday now and will award a whole bunch of candidates a number of delegates that will overwhelm whatever is won from NH and IA.

I think this is you getting too inside baseball.  The delegate count matters, but not nearly as much as the narrative.  Will there be 4-5 candidates that have at least some delegate count that could technically be viable after Super Tuesday?  Sure, that's certainly possible, maybe even likely.  But there will be a winnowing that boils down to 1-3 candidates in the eyes of the media.  And you can bet they'll rank em.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Additionally to what DMC, if Biden runs, he starts in the lead, boxing Sanders out, and if he doesn’t run, his supporters will go to candidates not named Sanders. Every poll I’ve seen has his support between a quarter and a third, and those people will flock to Harris, Booker, Beto, Brown and Klobuchar. Sanders had his moment, and changed the trajectory of the party (or at least sped that change up), but he is not going to be the nominee.

[Guest]

49 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Another thing I think people should remember is that Democrats polled say they really value "electability" and are laser focused on beating Trump.  This is similar to where things were in 2004, and as a result, the Democratic field coalesced very fast around a "winner".  I think something similar could easily happen this time around.  While it's possible that a lot of candidates would still have the money to remain in the race post-Super Tuesday, I think that second tier candidates are going to see their support absolutely collapse if they are struggling to win states.  So I think that the winnowing down to 2 or 3 candidates is going to happen very fast.

I think the environment is much different now than it was in 2004, and online small donor fundraising has really changed the game. Also, I think that the definition of electability has changed for Democratic voters.

And I agree that 2nd tier candidates will collapse after Super Tuesday, but I think the pool of 1st tier candidates is larger than just 2 or 3, and as long as they can keep their fundraising going past Super Tuesday you can't count them out.

[IheartIheartTesla]

In the Iowa poll I saw, Biden was the 1st and 2nd choice for a near majority of voters (32+18), but the 2nd choice 2nd choice(s) were split rather evenly between Sanders, Warren and Beto, followed by Booker and Harris. It would be nice to redo these polls when we have an official list of candidates (and throughout the country) rather than a wish list.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

In the Iowa poll I saw, Biden was the 1st and 2nd choice for a near majority of voters (32+18), but the 2nd choice 2nd choice(s) were split rather evenly between Sanders, Warren and Beto, followed by Booker and Harris.

In the last Iowa poll I saw, Harris was beating Sanders for second.  If you've seen one more recent please link me.

[Guest]

Sorry, double post.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

No one is asking the important question:  for the candidates who have not yet been assigned, who will spoof them on SNL?

 

More seriously, all of this is waaaaaayyyyy premature.  I do think the next few months will give those with the benefit of elected office a lot of huge (but potentially risky) ways to get more name recognition.

[Fez]

37 minutes ago, DMC said:

I think this is you getting too inside baseball.  The delegate count matters, but not nearly as much as the narrative.  Will there be 4-5 candidates that have at least some delegate count that could technically be viable after Super Tuesday?  Sure, that's certainly possible, maybe even likely.  But there will be a winnowing that boils down to 1-3 candidates in the eyes of the media.  And you can bet they'll rank em.

Perhaps, we'll see soon enough (well, actually, not nearly soon enough, I'm 100% on board with Biden when he says the primary season is too long and there's no need for candidates to declare this early). It depends on how attached donors become to their chosen candidates and whether they stick around longer then expected. If a candidate who didn't win anything but has a big money-bomb donation drive after Super Tuesday citing success in delegates won, that'll blow up any media narrative about how their campaign is finished. And I think a few of the candidates, especially Sanders, could pull that off.

Also, because Super Tuesday has states that play well to specific candidates that may otherwise be tier 2 if things go badly for them, I'm specifically of MA for Warren, AL for Booker (he made a lot of friends down there campaigning for Doug Jones), CA for Harris, and VT for Sanders, the four of them could point to wins there as reason to hang around even if it's a different group of 3 or 4 candidates that has won everything else. I think Harris and Sanders are tier 1 already (though obviously a lot can change over a year) so that helps narrow things down, but Warren and Booker may not be.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

9 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

No one is asking the important question:  for the candidates who have not yet been assigned, who will spoof them on SNL?

Former cast member Maya Rudolph returns as Harris.

Media Lurker who steals all of our ideas from the NFL thread, get on it!  

(Leave the reanimated corpse of Bradley Beal to us though. That is strictly ours!)

[Mexal]

This was quick given Barr was just confirmed 5 days ago and Mueller still has a Grand Jury open plus a grand jury fight with a foreign corporation that is currently sitting within the SCOTUS. This is why trust is so important. Looks dodgy but maybe it's been the plan all along and anything else ongoing will be passed off to US Attorneys offices.