US politics - sometimes political jokes get elected

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The $political $ $cienti$t$? 

Yeah that's right, I'm rolling in the dough thanks to this choice of career path.  Gonna make it rain with my monthly stipend bitches!!!

[Guest]

It's deliciously ironic that we were just discussing whether Sanders would be more, or as, likely as other candidates to claim victory upon the release of partial results, and the botched vote in Iowa assures us that whomever is in the lead upon the release of results will do precisely that.

[Fez]

36 minutes ago, Darryk said:

Because he's the only candidate who has donated to the DNC, and he ends up being the only candidate benefiting from a rule change.

But I accept it could just be his willingness to donate to anyone and everything that gives a chance of beating Trump.

Admittedly, as Andrew Yang says, the change seems tailor-made to get him into the debates, but it's not clear whether he actually wants that. Personally I can't see how he would not want the opportunity to talk about how crazy he thinks Bernie's ideas are, and give voters a chance to put a face to his name.  Either way he apparently called legalizing marijuana “perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done” so I hope he doesn't get much more traction.

One, sometimes, often in fact, a coincidence is simply that. No grand conspiracy, or "convenience."

Two,  I'm not sure exactly where Bloomberg stands on legalization anymore; he's done a lot of backpeddling on the issue the past couple months. Which, maybe if he was in a debate, someone would challenge him on. However, as someone who works in drug policy, I can tell you that while there continues to be a lively debate on whether marijuana legalization is a good idea or not; it is pretty widely accepted, even among the policy folks who support legalization, that the way states have been legalizing has been incredibly stupid. I've literally written papers on the topic.

States are getting basically every aspect of regulation wrong, they are not accomplishing any stated goals beyond legalization itself, and they are not even considering alternative ways of doing things. Want to use legalization as a way to raise revenue? Not happening. As a form of redistributive justice? Not happening. To undercut blackmarket sellers? Barely happening. To reduce rates teenage use? Not happening.

To be clear, there's no evidence of legalization doing bad things. The point is that states so far have missed a pretty big opportunity to use it to do good things.

[Guest]

Results - 62% reporting

Buttigieg

Sanders

Warren 

Biden 

The initial results look really bad for Biden.

[DMC]

Yeah, looks like Buttigieg, Sanders, and even Warren all have legit gripes for this debacle.  Biden's the only one who benefitted from its quelling of influence.

[Freshwater Spartan]

Nice work Mayor Pete!

[Ran]

Yeah, the Biden camp is surely pleased by the chaos that is unlikely to give anyone much of a bounce or early anointment as "the one to beat." Biden's national numbers are strong and that's going to tell.

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Results - 62% reporting

Buttigieg

Sanders

Warren 

Biden 

The initial results look really bad for Biden.

They do, although Buttigieg winning kinda undercuts Sanders and Warren too. 

HOWEVER, the big issue is how representative are these precincts? If they aren't, almost any of them could still take first place depending on how much they are.

Also, Klobuchar has to be disappointed with how this turned out; Biden apparently went weak but the moderates went to Buttigeig instead of her. Barring a shock top-3 finish in New Hampshire I don't see her lasting much longer.

[Guest]

Do we have any idea of when the remaining precincts are expected to report? Also, does anyone have a map of precincts reporting? The NYT map hasn't updated yet.

[DMC]

Based on 538's updates, looks like Sanders is probably gonna win the first metric but is neck-and-neck with Pete in the second (the "final alignment" and delegate apportion are very likely to be the same).  He's indeed doing better in the initial vote, or "first alignment", then Buttigieg was the one picking people up on the second go-round.  Squares with the reporting yesterday.  (Gotta say I feel so bad for all those correspondents that had to fill time wandering around gyms/convention halls/etc. last night, especially in heels.)

[Darryk]

It would be a pretty big upset for Buttigieg to take it, and he'd surely replace Biden as the leading candidate among the "moderate" wing, which would be an impressive feat considering his lack of name recognition.

[SpaceChampion]

I have a Warren-supporting friend proclaiming sexism is why she lost, and that's the only reason.

[Guest]

Considering that Biden is unlikely to do better than third in New Hampshire, and Sanders is already nipping at his heels in Nevada, will South Carolina be enough to staunch the bleeding for Biden?

I imagine Buttigieg will consolidate the voters for moderates like Klobuchar, Bennett, etc., and maybe will deflate Bloomberg's growing numbers somewhat, but I have a feeling that he won't necessarily pull a lot of support from Biden voters.

If Biden's support collapses, I imagine Warren and Bloomberg benefit the most. Warren definitely appears to have over performed and can probably build on some momentum, but likely needs to focus on pulling support from Biden voters instead of going after Sanders supporters. Sanders' performance showed he's definitely a viable candidate going forward.

[karaddin]

7 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Buttigeig's staffer's wife?

I saw the details last night, but can't seem to find them again today so that part might have been bs. Definitely not the CEO of Shadow at least.

7 hours ago, DMC said:

Yeah, this is the most absurd blowback from the problems.  Expected, but still pathetic.  If the DNC was going to "rig" the results, this is, like, literally the worst way to do so conceptually.  If you're going to be corrupt, you don't give political media an entire night when they're expecting results to instead get entirely pissed off at you, scrutinize your organization and how you fucked up it is, may be corrupt, etc.  

Yeah if I was trying to interpret it as a conspiracy it would be be one by an individual candidate rather than by the DNC. The same candidate that seems to have done remarkably well in this contest.

I doing actually think it's a conspiracy though, just that it looks terrible which really isn't what they need right now. How on earth did he think it was a good idea to claim victory with none of the results released? Even if it turns out true, that's a terrible idea.

[GrimTuesday]

God I hate these electoral college type system. Bernie's lead is slim as far as the popular vote, but you should never lose in terms delegates when you win the popular vote, and before anyone accuses me of saying that because Bernie might get screwed on that, this has been my position since I was 10 and learned about the 2000 election.

That said, if I had to pick a moderate to come out looking strong it would 100% be Pete. Not only does he have a weaker record, but he suuuuuuuuuucks with black voters. I think once Biden and the Obama nostalgia stops sucking the air out of the room, African Americans are going to go to Bernie over Pete.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

A national primary (day) would be my ideal solution, yes.  Make it a national holiday too.  Figure that's the best you can do with federalism constraints.

I agree with shrinking the process, but just having one day could have unintended consequences. A front runner could win without much of a contest, and inversely I can easily see this leading to a contested convention. Perhaps it would be better to have four to six primary dates based on regions, with like two weeks separating them.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

Aren't about a third of the primaries closed?  And only another third allow independents? 

I believe it's been changed now to a later date, but in NY in 2016 you had to register by Oct 2015 to participate in your parties primary.  

This country needs so much voting reform, between the all-over-the-place primary system and voter disenfranchisement.  Leaving all this shit up to the states has been pretty shit.

 

Yes that's right and more were in 2016. The ignoring of facts comes from people who can't even read about recent history and perform an analysis.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

41 minutes ago, Ran said:

Yeah, the Biden camp is surely pleased by the chaos that is unlikely to give anyone much of a bounce or early anointment as "the one to beat." Biden's national numbers are strong and that's going to tell.

That’s probably the worst result possible, especially when you consider some of the ongoing conversations in this thread.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

22 minutes ago, Darryk said:

It would be a pretty big upset for Buttigieg to take it, and he'd surely replace Biden as the leading candidate among the "moderate" wing, which would be an impressive feat considering his lack of name recognition.

And his lack of morals, character, and relatability.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

44 minutes ago, Fez said:

Also, Klobuchar has to be disappointed with how this turned out; Biden apparently went weak but the moderates went to Buttigeig instead of her. Barring a shock top-3 finish in New Hampshire I don't see her lasting much longer.

I expected her to have a better showing based on the coverage last night. Her crowds were pretty consistently packed.

All that said, I agree she’s out if nothing changes in NH. And yet still, that’s pretty damn impressive for her considering I thought she’d be out after the first few debates. At best.