US Politics - Turtles crawl, the constipation sensation that's gripping the nation.

[GrimTuesday]

6 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Yeah, I think Warren was the only other candidate who actually had a good debate.

Honestly it is a real shame that she hasn't been running like this the whole time. When she started equivocating on M4A and got away from what made her popular, namely eviscerating bankers and other corporate toadies is exactly when her campaign started stalling out.

[Fez]

Christ, Sanders really is going to be the nominee. And he's going to get crushed by Trump I fear (though considering his jump in approvals, Trump may be the favorite against any of them right now). Stuff like just out-and-out saying he supports a fracking ban; Trump's campaign will run that 24/7 on TVs on PA.

Bloomberg was shockingly bad. He used to be fine at the debating, not nearly as wooden in his NYC mayoral election debates. This was just pathetic. His only hope is that not many people see/pay attention to the debate, which is possible. The last debate had ratings far below the previous ones, so I wonder how many normal voters are actually watching anymore.

[Lollygag]

Bloomberg's dead lizard eyes are just creepy. He weirdly looks more human when he's talking about money. Instead of making excuses, he'd do better to just admit that he's a rich asshole but he can and has grown. Being an asshole is why people think he can beat Trump and it's "authentic" or whatever which seems to be popular these days. Saying those non-disclosures were mutual agreements to keep things quiet was just insulting.

At this point, I'd like to see two (more?) non-Sanders candidates agree to form a coalition to combine delegates and get the nom. Not sure anything like this is even possible. Get the vibe that's what the NYT (Warren/Klobuchar) and the Nevada paper (Biden/Klobuchar) are low-key suggesting. Get Yang on board as a WH advisor or whatever to get his people.

Agree that who debates Trump doesn't matter as much as we think. Think anyone on stage can manage ok as long as they don't let Trump troll them off-message, show fight and if they expose his lies in a way the Fox News set can't deny which will require a strong strategist. This is especially important on the economy. It's Obama's recovery and economy. Trump gets credit for not crashing it - except he only did so by blowing up the deficit even more and with corporate socialism which is a great line from Sanders.

One bright side to a long primary is that Trump doesn't know who he'll be up against which has to drive him nuts.

 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Trump gets credit for not crashing it - except he only did so by blowing up the deficit even more and with corporate socialism which is a great line from Sanders.

That screed from Sanders was his best line of the night in my opinion, and if he starts deploying that more often, I think it'll assuage a lot of the fears of voting for a scary socialist, when the corporate wealthy are already getting billions in corporate welfare.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

Yeah, I think the corporate socialism response had a great test run tonight against Bloomberg, and not only did it play well, but Bloomberg's responses about how it was ok for him to be so obscenely wealthy because he worked hard really landed with a thud. 

[Durckad]

Warren was in absolute top form tonight. At first, it felt like desperation, but then she gutted Bloomberg. Yeah, Knives Out Warren is best Warren. Too bad she's probably dead in the water right now, but hopefully she takes some of that momentum from Klobuchar and at least goes somewhere with it. 

Sanders was... fine. He was Sanders. You get what you get here. Honestly, while he hasn't delivered an absolute dud of a debate (that I've seen), he hasn't knocked one out of the park yet.

Biden seems to age 5 years for every debate that passes. What happened to the guy that hammered a weaselly Paul Ryan into the ground?

Buttigieg is smart, articulate, and charismatic and speaks in vague platitudes. He would be the perfect politician. I want to disagree with the fact that he's probably the Smiler deep down, but I just... can't do it.

I've never been impressed with Klobuchar before and I wasn't again tonight. She's absolutely... okay.

And Bloomberg... well, contrary to popular opinion, I don't think he was a complete disaster, but why did he think this was a good idea? Did he think he could go on stage and make everyone else look better? He had one or two decent moments, but otherwise, he looked totally unprepared. I mean, that was his best response to the NDA question? THAT?! Seriously, the worst, most pathetic answer ever. He had to have known that the others would be coming at him over that. Also, Bloomie's line about being the only one to run a business on the stage and the resulting silence was golden.

Bust seriously, I support Bloomie continuing on just so he can be a decent punching bag for Warren and Sanders. At least, that is putting his money to good use.

TLDR, Warren won. Give her the presidential belt of freedom and liberty or whatever the fuck they get for winning these things.

[karaddin]

Actually watching this one now, and Klobuchar's comment about "nominating a woman would stop sexism online"...did she look at the internet during Obama's presidency??? I can promise her it didn't stop racism online.

[Lollygag]

I haven't taken a close look at the Senate against the Pres race because I assumed MA and VT had D governors and MN may not matter given Klobuchar's struggled until recently. Turns out I was completely upside down on that.

MA and VT have R governors while MN has a D governor. Klobuchar won't affect the Senate because the D gov took office Jan 2019 with a 4 year term. MA's R gov has a 4 year term and he was re-elected in 2018. VT has 2 year terms and this year is a new election. This fall will be the R gov's 3 term. No term limits there.

So my question is are there laws in these states to appoint the same party as the vacated candidate or are they free to appoint their own party which gives the Rs a stronger Senate majority in the case of Warren and Sanders (if the R gov wins again)? It's been reported that some people are voting against Senators if it's a seat loss. This is maybe a reason Warren's struggled? Bernie's hard-core supporters won't care, but he's not been able to reproduce the numbers he got in 2016.

[Varysblackfyre321]

2 hours ago, Fez said:

Christ, Sanders really is going to be the nominee. And he's going to get crushed by Trump I fear (though considering his jump in approvals, Trump may be the favorite against any of them right now). Stuff like just out-and-out saying he supports a fracking ban; Trump's campaign will run that 24/7 on TVs on PA.

Bloomberg was shockingly bad. He used to be fine at the debating, not nearly as wooden in his NYC mayoral election debates. This was just pathetic. His only hope is that not many people see/pay attention to the debate, which is possible. The last debate had ratings far below the previous ones, so I wonder how many normal voters are actually watching anymore.

Yes, Trump’s chance of getting a second term are strong regardless of the opponent.  
Though I do think Sanders losing-and costing them democrats even more-greater than other candidates. 
The man is a demagogue needlessly uncompromising to an unreasonable degree, so obsessed with his own left-wing purity that winning isn’t an issue for him.

Also, Florida is dead to him.

Imagine how Cuban-Americans will respond seeing videos of him talking good on Castro. 

1 hour ago, karaddin said:

Actually watching this one now, and Klobuchar's comment about "nominating a woman would stop sexism online"...did she look at the internet during Obama's presidency??? I can promise her it didn't stop racism online.

Because all men always immediately start respecting women the second a women gets authority above them lol. 
 

[Ran]

23 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Imagine how Cuban-Americans will respond seeing videos of him talking good on Castro. 

Doesn't really bother me.

Those who it would substantially bother were far and away voting Trump anyways.

That said, I hear he pushed his "ban fracking" point and that's going to really hurt in states like Pennsylvania. Not good. The reality of Sanders as a senator was that he would talk very aspirationally and then compromise pragmatically, and I doubt it's any different on fracking -- he'd no doubt settle quite happily for a carbon tax -- but this isn't what people whose livelihood depends on fracking are going to think about; they'll just know he wants to ban what they do.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

6 hours ago, The Great Unwashed said:

 

Also, every single candidate but Sanders completely fumbled the contested convention question. I feel pretty safe saying that Democrats will give short-shrift to any whiff of backroom dealings in this election.

Obviously I very much want Sanders to be the nominee, but I think a lot depends on the specifics, both to my personal opinion and to how I think the media will cover it. If he's is at like 45% of pledged delegates and the superdelegates just hand it to someone else within reach on the second ballot that would be really, really bad. But if he's at like 35%... why have proportional allocation of delegates if we're supposed to just hand the nomination to the plurality winner? It might be frustrating to me personally and any involvement of superdelegates will be gross, but otherwise I like the fact that the Democrats have a proportional system in place and I think it's fair game to use it. 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

But if he's at like 35%... why have proportional allocation of delegates if we're supposed to just hand the nomination to the plurality winner?

That's exactly right. Sanders is the only one who fumbled the question, IMO, because he's nakedly reversing his position from 2016 now that he's the front runner. Everyone else is allowing for the scenario where a weak plurality does not really represent the will of the majority.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Elizabeth Warren wants to ban fracking too. I guess if you want a non-progressive it would come back to Bloomberg.

I wouldnt count him out at this point, debates have less of an impact than they used to in the past. The first Romney Obama debate comes to mind where the latter was woefully unprepared, but he still won in the end. Trump did terrible in his debates, and he still won....everywhere.

Lets see how it goes in Super Tuesday, which is 2 weeks away (2 lifetimes according to the time dilation principles of politics)

[Rippounet]

9 hours ago, Triskele said:

You're drunk because you're playing some US Presidential debate drinking game, right?

"Drink every time your favorite candidate raises their hand."

Fun fact: the French left-wing media is starting to say Buttigieg is another Macron.

It's not a compliment.

[Ran]

22 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Elizabeth Warren wants to ban fracking too. I guess if you want a non-progressive it would come back to Bloomberg.

Biden and Buttigieg aren't for a ban.

Warren's political instincts are not what I hoped they'd be.

[DMC]

I didn't watch the debate - I don't think it matters much - but skimming over the reaction here, it gives credence to Silver's point in the latest 538 snap chat.  Sanders is the plain frontrunner and has a better than 50% chance at getting the nomination.  That's been the case since last Tuesday/Wednesday, but the media doesn't seem to like talking about it.  And if the Nevada polls are at least somewhat accurate - which it's important to point out they are very unreliable so who the fuck knows - I'd say he's gonna have about a 70% probability at getting the nomination come Sunday morning.

Bloomberg is a nice narrative for the media, and I'm hardly surprised he underperformed once he actually had to start acting like a traditional politician.  But he remains a long shot.  OTOH, he's also a great foil for Sanders to focus on.

[IheartIheartTesla]

35 minutes ago, Ran said:

Biden and Buttigieg aren't for a ban.

Warren's political instincts are not what I hoped they'd be.

I'm counting them out because the former's support is collapsing and the latter because he will hit his ceiling in the diverse states. Bloomberg may yet survive.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Re: fracking ban - 

Is that seriously the mentality?  That we can't actually stop a terrible practice because it'll cost votes?  So we just never do anything about it?  Slowly phase it out and hope no one notices?  Wtf.  It's not like most of the people who work in that industry have the job title Fracker.  They're welders and mechanics and engineers and truck drivers and most of them can likely find employment, eventually, in an industry that isn't poisoning drinking water.  A lot of people travel from out of state for this kind of work, and it's not even clear that communities near wells are going to do well in the long term - there could well be a boomtown effect 

And this isn't going to get better over time - any candidate who wants to address this problem is going to have to at least slow or limit fracking, if shale gas extraction continues to grow this tiger-by-the-tail effect is only going to be magnified when it affects more people a d more jobs.  

The answer is to baby people and lie to them and say "yeah keep your fracking job don't worry" and then either kick this shitcan down the road for posterity to deal with or lie to them all and regulate or ban after an election?  

The environmental effects of fracking are fucking terrible and it's insane that as clean drinking water becomes increasingly scarce that we continue to poison ourselves for some errrr ma gerrrd jerrrbs!!!! Because it's going to piss off Pennsylvania?  Deal with this shit now.

 

[Gaston de Foix]

6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

The answer is to baby people and lie to them and say "yeah keep your fracking job don't worry" and then either kick this shitcan down the road for posterity to deal with or lie to them all and regulate or ban after an election?  

You can't govern if you don't win.  John McCain made a point of saying those jobs are never coming back in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan etc.  He got his ass handed to him.  Trump ran by telling people what they wanted to hear.  He won.  Picking a fight over fracking is foolishness on steroids.  Dems need PA in order to control the Presidency.  They should want to take back Toomey's seat in 2022.  You can regulate fracking, aggressively, through the EPA.  But don't talk about outlawing it when in truth Congress will never ever do so and it is political suicide. 

[Fez]

Fracking is terrible, it should absolutely be banned. But the lesson that Democrats never learn, that Republicans learned ages ago, is that you don't need to run on everything you want to do. If its not popular, don't talk about it! Just do it when you're in power! And then, next election, when you're attacked over it, ignore the conversation and talk about other stuff instead.