Is there a politics thread? Guess I'm making one

[metroid composite]

So...a few things recently I found interesting.

First, the DNC chair on democratic superdelegates who don't represent any voters said this:

Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists.

Um >_>

Meanwhile, this has been going on for months, but only really surfaced now--I was under the impression that Obama really hadn't done much on campaign finance reform...but it turns out that's not true; he did stop the Democrats from having a PAC for the democrat party:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/dnc-allowing-donations-from-federal-lobbyists-and-pacs/2016/02/12/22b1c38c-d196-11e5-88cd-753e80cd29ad_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_dnc-1100am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Aaaand the DNC is already breaking Obama's reform before he even leaves office.

[Hunter Sopko]

There are a few reasons it works this way.

Before 1968 for the Democratic Party,  not every state had a primary election, and other states' delegates were determined solely by party leaders in those states. This went catastrophically wrong in the 1968 convention, a clusterfuck that went so bad in so many ways the DNC is still barred from having the convention in Chicago. When the Dems reformed their nomination system after the 1968 Convention (and again to fine tune things), party leaders still wanted, ostensibly, a check on preventing demagogues and party radicals/outcasts (Think Trump and Cruz) from having a lock on the nomination based solely on populist appeal. A cynic would say they usually just end up as a tool of the establishment because A) this is why the '68 Convention ended up being so bad, and B) as you noticed, it can be used against genuine grass-roots candidates of good intentions as well, but B is fairly rare (and if you consider Bernie Sanders truly grassroots, I have a bridge I could sell you). On average, superdelegates do align with the primary winners, and even when they don't, candidates have prevailed over Superdelegate blocks as well. A candidate winning solely on superdelegates...

In all honesty, it's as much so party leaders can still feel like they're wearing big boy pants too, I'll grant. But politics~

The Republicans have them too, but they have much stricter rules on who they can cast their vote for in general (In both parties, the rules vary from state to state).

In theory I'm for them. Checks and balances and all. I'm sure the Republicans would love to have this sort of check on Trump and Cruz. But as with anything, they can be misused, to embarrassing effect. Can't throw the baby out with the bathwater though...

I've never been the biggest Hillary fan, but the Hillary/Bernie fight is starting to scare me. I'm leaning Bernie atm, but supporters are going at each other like it's a Republican primary, buying into Bernie's candidacy like it was American Idol and not a reasoned political discourse. We can't let that happen. If Sanders ends up losing, I have a real fear supporters would end up staying home on Election Day. Sort of unfounded, I grant, but I'm a worrier.

[superaielman]

Both parties are facing large populist rebellions at the moment. For the dems, if the youth vote sits at home on election day because of discontent with Hillary, that would hurt badly. That said both parties should be sweating about it.  Ted Cruz is not electable, and yet he's doing the best by far of the non Trump nominees. It's possible Kaisch could sneak in and get the nomination, but he's underfunded and not well liked by the base.  What a mess.

I'm voting for Gary Johnson myself unless Trump wins the nomination.

[Captain K]

I think if Sanders wins the Democratic nod then he'll win the election too.  Republicans will tolerate an old white man on the Dem side over the jokes they have running.  But if Hillary wins, it's going to be a real tossup.

[metroid composite]

Both parties are facing large populist rebellions at the moment.

Yeah, the anti-establishment movement is quite interesting to me.  At first I dismissed them as idiots...hearing about independents in New Hampshire who were interested in either Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders...but then I actually read something written by someone who jumped from being a Trump supporter to a Sanders supporter, and it weirdly made some sense.

Basically, on the R side, Trump is the only one not controlled by a Super PAC.  He doesn't answer to the Koch brothers.  He's spoken out against Citizens United.  He openly mocks people for receiving money from the Koch brothers.

So this kind of independent just believes that politicians are horrible corrupt people, at which point Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both seem like ways of breaking the system.

Of course, Donald Trump is essentially a Neo-Nazi, and lots of people even on the republican side will always vote against him in a general election because of this.  So...it's going to be hard for the republicans to really use that anti-establishment energy without hitting an anti-Nazi brick wall.

If Sanders ends up losing, I have a real fear supporters would end up staying home on Election Day. Sort of unfounded, I grant, but I'm a worrier.

Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party.  (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).

On the flip side, Hillary will definitely change her tune a bit in a general election.  Right now, it benefits her to not energize the base--low voter turnouts are good for her in the primary.  It's best for her not to get people too interested right now.  If it gets to the general election, though, the roles are going to be reversed, and she will want to energize the base.

I think she beats unelectable people (Trump/Cruz).  Last poll I saw had her getting spanked by Rubio (but this was before Rubio did a complete faceplant in the debates).

[Luther Lansfeld]

The problem with analyzing Sanders as a viable general election candidate is that the negative ad machinery of the Republican party has barely targeted Bernie, and I'd like to be able to go to the future and see polls if that is the case. Also, Bernie just won like the third whitest state in the union in a party that is dominated by high-turnout minorities. Once/if Bernie makes significant inroads in minority communities, then we can have a more serious debate about him actually winning the nomination.

[Cmdr_King]

If Bernie can pull respectable numbers in South Carolina (not necessarily win, but above 45% say) then maybe he's got a shot, but I'm not seeing it.

In general my sense before results started coming in was that the mood of the country was pretty done with old white dudes, and expected a Rubio vs Clinton general election.  That doesn't seem to be set in stone, although Rubio pulling off an unforced error or three played a role, but I definitely still get that sense from most people in the age group below us. 

Really though there's not a good solution: Sanders says lots of things I like, yeah, but I don't think the country is there for any sort of progressive agenda and probably won't be for a good 10 years.  If Elizabeth Warren or someone else ran on a really similar platform in 2024 I think they'd run away with it, but as is a candidate like Bernie would never get a damn thing past congress and everyone kinda knows it.  As as noted Old White Dude IS a bit of a liability I think, even if my gut overrated how much of one.  Same time, Clinton's just a politician through and through and while that's better than a neo nazi or a sociopath, another 4-8 years of Obama with slightly more hawkishness does make me a bit sad.  Her sheer baggage also makes me leery of her in the general election although generally I don't think it'll come up because the Republicans are basically melting down as a coherent party right now.

Still it's been... an interesting thing to follow I'll admit.  I just expect disappointment no matter the outcome.

[Fenrir]

The problem with analyzing Sanders as a viable general election candidate is that the negative ad machinery of the Republican party has barely targeted Bernie, and I'd like to be able to go to the future and see polls if that is the case.

Watch Republicans destroy Bernie Sanders with this attack ad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XsWkwakVlA

[metroid composite]

http://www.kvia.com/news/breaking-surpreme-court-justice-scalia-dies-during-hunting-trip-in-marfa/37981652

[superaielman]

Well, that certainly will be an interesting nomination process.

[Hunter Sopko]

Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party.  (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).

Well, to be honest, most political science research suggests most Independents are in name only. Studies of the GSS (General Social Survey) and NES (National Election Survey) over the long term have mostly found that people who identify as Independent tend to vote only for one party or the other. IIRC it was something like 40-50% of I's almost always vote Democrat, and 15-20% of I's almost always vote Republican, leaving a fairly small amount of real Independents. I forget what the age distribution was, I'd have to dig through and find my notes from my Political Statistics and Research Design classes. These kinds of studies were done mostly to try to explain why there's been a surge in people identifying as Independents. Seems like it's mostly cause it's the cool thing to do, or anti-label.

Which is kind of funny when apolitical people choose it, because Independents end up on BOTH party's call/mailing lists, and are usually badgered more often than party members.

[Dhyerwolf]

I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans. If there are notably more Democratic leaning Independents, then the key to Democrats winning is getting an inspirational candidate. Both Hillary and Bernie can fit that, but only Bernie can fit it for policy reasons.

As basically everyone here can tell from my facebook page, I'm 100% behind Bernie Sanders this election. I feel that if he manages to get the Democratic nomination, he will have beaten a far tougher foe than anyone the the Republican side has to offer. As such, winning the primary will show his electability. I think Hillary would have a harder time. Hillary's base is the Democrats who always vote. Bernie's vote is progressives and Independents (which generally need to be given reason to vote). She's spent the last month pissing progressives off and the right HATES her so much. Her supporters like to say that she's been attacked for 20 years and still standing, except her favorable numbers are pretty bad. Hillary Clinton will throw as much mud as Republicans, so facing her in the primary is a good way to get a taste of what Republicans will try (except that Hillary can attack from so many other angles than Republicans can). In the last month, Hillary's camp has tried:

--Sanders will take away your healthcare (Hillary herself, Chelsea herself, then Hillary again)
--Red-Baiting (Claire McCaskill, who effectively wrote Republican advertising. The RNCC used exactly what McCaskill said two weeks later)
-->As an aside, red-baiting would work a lot better if 1. Sanders was a Communist 2. The Republicans hadn't spent the last 8 years screaming about how Obama was a Socialist
--Sanders is racist (David Brock, who is worth discussing because yes, Hillary works with the man that smeared Anita Hill)
--Sanders has a gender issue (Madeleine Albright, Gloria Steinem)
--Whatever they can throw at the wall (Whenever Bill Clinton speaks. He's tried sexism, racism and a few other baffling things)

All of these have backfired badly, and have definitely helped Sanders more than anything else. Hillary's real strength is that she has more consolidated power and money than any other candidate on both sides of race. Considering how many institutional advantages she has, it is amazing that Sanders has as much chance as he does. If you asked me 6 months ago, I was for Sanders but thought he maybe had a 10-15% chance of winning the nomination. I would put that around 30-35% now.

I could write a litany on why Bernie over Hillary (I'll vote for her in the general though, barring her winning due to super delegates), but it basically boils down to this:
--She's shown no real commitment to fighting climate change, which is my number 1 issue. She spent her time as SOS pushing fracking onto countries that didn't want it and takes lots of money from the energy industry.
--She's devoted to a foreign policy strategy that has been failing the US for the last 60 years (since Iran in 1953). You would think that Iraq was a lesson, but it didn't stop Clinton from massive mistakes in Libya...Syria...Honduras...Colombia...Bulgaria.
--I believe that she's actually fully supportive of the TPP.
--I believe that she cares no more than Obama did to actually do something about Wall Street.
--She's either a horrible manager or completely incapable of learning (foreign policy implies the second). Internal emails showed that her campaign in 2008 was an absolute disaster. In 2008, she dipped into racism, sexism and bad overt attacks (If you don't know, Obama's camp believes that the birth certificate stuff started with Clinton). They all failed and basically guaranteed near the end that she wasn't going to win. Eight year later...she is trying literally the same exact tactics. As I noted above, she tried to make it seem like Bernie was going to take away healthcare and it backfired. Right after that, Chelsea tried the same thing and it backfired even worse. And yet...she just tried it again this week.

Any area where she has strengths, Bernie generally does too. I'm definitely not worried about "White Old Man" fatigue syndrome because Bernie will be filling a pretty major first as well: he'll be the first Jewish President. There's been a lot of indication that Bernie has gained a lot of support among Hispanics and Asians. I think he will keep Nevada competitive. He's now polling around 39% in aggregate averaged polls in SC, so 45% isn't too far off. Two months ago he was trailing Clinton by 40 in SC, now he's averaging 20.

On the R side, the only one that scares me at all is Kasich, and that's only because he knows how to hide how dangerous his plans are (He's Scott Walker who able to be nearly as toxic without drawing the heavy fire). The flip side is that Kasich is the one that will inspire the base the least.

A lot of Sanders policies aren't that far out because a lot of them are returning to what we had. I would note CK, that his policies tend to be very popular individually (as are most Democrat's policies). The problem Democrats has is packaging together cohesive strategies. If Democrats run to the right, they lose (Republicans beat fake-Republicans).

[SnowFire]

I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans.

This is a very, VERY dangerous line of thought to have.  If there are more Democrats than Republicans, why do the Republicans keep stomping us at the state level?  Yes, polarization, gerrymandering natural & unnatural, lower voting rates in off-year election, etc.  You can make plenty of excuses, but I'd honestly be more inclined to think that things are a lot more equal than you'd expect - which gets even worse when many constituencies that once were split now favor Republicans (e.g. reliably voting middle class old people, which used to be a Dem-leaning constituency).  Heck, even in Dem "safe" states like Massachusetts, there was a Republican governor elected in 2014.  Sure, over an unusually horrible Dem candidate, but it can happen.

I do agree that regardless of the split between Dems & Republicans, rallying the base is one key to victory.  I am less sure that Bernie is the man to do this, though.  I'd have to hold my nose to vote for him in the same way that many hard-left types have to grudgingly vote for more centrist candidates.  Or, to put things another way, pretend that Cruz is the Republican nom.  Do you see the entire Republican party getting super-fired up and happily rallying around him?  No?  If not, you can safely assume there are Dems like me who'd vote for Sanders but not particularly happily, same as the I-guess-Cruz Republicans who wouldn't be super-enthusiastic for that kind of nom.

[Cmdr_King]

I've always figured the rough lines were actually 50% more-or-less republican, 40% more-or-less democrat, 10% genuine swing voters (people who figure that the White House and Capitol should always be under different parties, that the parties should alternate power, etc etc) or non-major party supporters, with about 5% of the 'party' voters being folks that usually vote that way but might go out of party for a candidate they strongly agree with here and there.  The major caveat here being only ~30% of Americans vote, and the larger percentage of the folks that are generally republicans politically also have no fucks to give outside their immediate lives and thus make up much more of that 70% that don't vote.

Dhyer: not sure what you mean, unless it's a facebook comment I kinda remember making but not to who. 

[Dhyerwolf]

I'm guessing the key to Independents is that they turn out to vote at a lower percentage. There are more Democrats than Republicans.

This is a very, VERY dangerous line of thought to have.  If there are more Democrats than Republicans, why do the Republicans keep stomping us at the state level?  Yes, polarization, gerrymandering natural & unnatural, lower voting rates in off-year election, etc.  You can make plenty of excuses, but I'd honestly be more inclined to think that things are a lot more equal than you'd expect - which gets even worse when many constituencies that once were split now favor Republicans (e.g. reliably voting middle class old people, which used to be a Dem-leaning constituency).  Heck, even in Dem "safe" states like Massachusetts, there was a Republican governor elected in 2014.  Sure, over an unusually horrible Dem candidate, but it can happen.

I do agree that regardless of the split between Dems & Republicans, rallying the base is one key to victory.  I am less sure that Bernie is the man to do this, though.  I'd have to hold my nose to vote for him in the same way that many hard-left types have to grudgingly vote for more centrist candidates.  Or, to put things another way, pretend that Cruz is the Republican nom.  Do you see the entire Republican party getting super-fired up and happily rallying around him?  No?  If not, you can safely assume there are Dems like me who'd vote for Sanders but not particularly happily, same as the I-guess-Cruz Republicans who wouldn't be super-enthusiastic for that kind of nom.

There are more Democrats than Republicans (although I believe both are at an all time low). Google's stock answer: 39% Independent, 32% Democrat, 23% Republican. Now, if more Independents are in fact Democrat leaning, then turn out the base+inspire I's is a really potent combination on a state or nationwide level.

The enthusiasm gap between Bernie and Hillary is pretty large in one major metric (number of people donating money) and most anecdotal points seem to agree with this. There's no way that Hillary will have more crossover appeal than Bernie. Use NH as an example: The 50/50 Dem split and 75/25 Indie split was correct. I think that a much higher percentage of Hillary's 50% of Democrats would vote for Bernie than Bernie's 75% of Independents.

CK, I meant the part where you were talking about the country not being ready for the progressive agenda. While Democrats suffered a bloodbath in 2014, there were 4 states that passed minimum wage increases: South Dakota, Alaska, Arkansas and Nebraska. Four of the reddest states passed a key part of progressive agenda. $15 an hour is polling around 63%, Marijuana legalization is at 58%, and even criminal justice reform is supported by the Koch's. As I noted, Democrats issue is that they don't trend left enough and thereby appear Republican lite. Multiple election cycles went through in Kentucky and none of the major Democrats there could even say that Kynect (72% approval rating in Kentucky) and Obamacare were the same thing. They lost by running to the right. Science supports that liberals respond more to hope and conservatives respond more to fear and yet most Democrats never put out a platform that can really inspire much hope beyond the same social issues that we've been teasing along for decades (or centuries).

[Cmdr_King]

Ah.  Well, there's two main things.

1) The modern republican party isn't really conservatives, they're fucking crazy people.  At some point they stopped resembling a political party and started resembling an MRA rally.  While that doesn't represent the bulk of the base (orgodihopenotanyway), it does have the loudest voice in the party platform, and is the main reason I think we're seeing the utter meltdown Trump is causing over there.

which causes...

2) The bulk of the modern democratic party is not liberals, they're people who looked at the republicans and went "oh god".  While the overall tenor of the nation is drifting in a more progressive direction, the majority of the actual voting base for the party is these folks, and they're not there yet on someone as up-front progressive as Bernie.  So while there's some cause to fear that Clinton coming out on top would keep part of the base home, I suspect the same would be true for Sanders.  And that's setting aside that an actual progressive on the other side could be a tool to actually mobilize the conservative base, although that's much, much harder to predict.

I do think it's telling that a candidate like Sanders is putting up an actual showing this primary.  I think that is going to be a dominant force in politics in the foreseeable future.  I just don't think it's going to happen right now, this minute.

[superaielman]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/16/us/politics/left-leaning-economists-question-cost-of-bernie-sanderss-plans.html?smid=tw-share Paul Krugman isn't exactly Thomas Sowell.  I've been seeing comments critical of Sanders plans from the left leaning economists I follow (Justin Wolfers in particular)

[NotMiki]

Sanders' plans may not be economically feasible - in fact I'd guarantee they aren't - but I don't know that we need to make too much of that.  They're aspirational, and because they're outside the American mainstream they haven't been honed and vetted.  But all budget plans are like that, and the Republican pie-in-the-sky plans, universally giving the rich a tax break in order to supercharge the economy are equally fanciful, if not worse.

My issues with Sanders' plans is that a number of the taxes he targets require a scalpel rather than a meat cleaver (estate taxes in particular are legitimately delicate) but he wants meat cleaver numbers out of them.

[Luther Lansfeld]

As someone who largely doesn't care which one wins (I'm rooting for the best person for the general election), I am a little alarmed by Bernie's tentative relationship with reality at times. He had a Twitter post in December about the outrage of it being like 65 in D.C. and how that was proof of climate change. There is a pretty large array of evidence proving that climate change exists, but any particular temperature anomaly really doesn't. These comments can be damaging because they cast doubt onto the hard science.

[Pyro]

Sometimes it feels like dishonesty to get the point across to the uneducated public is a necessary evil.

Republicans always seem to be able to pull the "It's cold outside climate change isn't happening" card and it is incredibly frustrating that this honestly works on a lot of people. Maybe fighting dirty is a required counter-strategy. Not sure what you'd do to counter SNOWBALLS IN THE SENATE though.

As far as Bernie vs. Hillary goes,
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/5/10923304/bernie-sanders-general-election

I want a democrat to win the presidency. Neither will get major policy victories through congress, so I'd prefer the candidate have no illusions about how the process will go (grinding battle with Republicans, using every available political instrument). Most of the reporting I have read indicates that Hillary Clinton will stand a much better chance in the general election than Bernie Sanders.

[dunie]

Not unfounded, given that a lot of sanders support is coming from people not affiliated with a party.  (In New Hampshire, Bernie/Hillary was like...50-50 among democrats, and 75-25 among independents).

Well, to be honest, most political science research suggests most Independents are in name only. Studies of the GSS (General Social Survey) and NES (National Election Survey) over the long term have mostly found that people who identify as Independent tend to vote only for one party or the other.

I'm interested to learn more about the nuances about "Independent in name only." I identify as an Independent, but voting laws refuse my ability to vote in the very important closed primaries as such. I'm required to vote either Democrat or Republican. You have to give up your status otherwise, or parties extend unaffiliated invites to you. Many states in the South operate that way, but I'm sure the enforceability of "closed primaries" among states vary per knowledgeable staff/voters/local & state locations.

[SnowFire]

I actually half-agree with CK on this, which feels weird, but sure.  Basically the US is a somewhat conservative country, so if it feels like the Republicans are the right and the Democrats are the center and the left is empty, it's not because Big Corporations have bribed the Democratic Party officials to stray from their voters, it's that this is the way too many voters actually feel.  Bernie's candidacy is firing up the hard-left which is in many ways a good thing for America (move the Overton Window back a bit left, in the same way that the hardcore conservatives have been moving it right for the past decade), but I wouldn't overestimate the amount of Bernie-supporters in a general.

As I noted, Democrats issue is that they don't trend left enough and thereby appear Republican lite. Multiple election cycles went through in Kentucky and none of the major Democrats there could even say that Kynect (72% approval rating in Kentucky) and Obamacare were the same thing. They lost by running to the right.

Not sure if you meant in Kentucky specifically or in general, but I'm going to talk about Kentucky.  If there were a horde of secret hard-left Kentuckians who would have rallied behind a True Leftist and felt that Conway was too centrist, where the heck have they been?!  When have they ever showed up?  You'd think that there'd at least be, you know, Green Party mayors in Kentucky's big cities or something.  Or maybe an activist movement.  As is, if they exist, they've left Kentucky with a disaster (from a liberal perspective) in Bevin, possibly a Kentucky version of Rick Snyder.  If Kentucky was winnable this whole time for proper leftists but they just weren't inspired properly by hope to vote than I'm really annoyed at them.

Alternatively, the easier explanation is that Kentucky *really is* deeply conservative territory, and the Dems had to choose their method of execution: insincerely run to the right and be rightly suspected as not really being conservative, or run loud & proud liberal and lose a fair fight.  It's tough, but the answer is probably "a mix of both" and hope for long-term changes in the Dem's favor.  In other words, they lost because they were basically fated to lose short of a really horrific Republican nominee for governor, since it reflects the authentic slant of the Kentucky electorate.  Yes, it's incredibly frustrating that this means yes, people who liked Kynect ALSO voted Republican, bizarre as it sounds, but voters aren't consistent, and those who are may have priorities that don't reflect others.  Alas.

[Grefter]

I'm interested to learn more about the nuances about "Independent in name only." I identify as an Independent, but voting laws refuse my ability to vote in the very important closed primaries as such. I'm required to vote either Democrat or Republican. You have to give up your status otherwise, or parties extend unaffiliated invites to you. Many states in the South operate that way, but I'm sure the enforceability of "closed primaries" among states vary per knowledgeable staff/voters/local & state locations.

With the usual caveat of someone outside the US system looking in and not being super familiar, my understanding it is that is simply people that in the two party system will always vote one way, but for whatever reasons won't participate directly in the party system.

If you broaden out of such a rigid 2 party system I expect to see a greater shift in that kind of Independent becoming swing voters and also (with 0 supporting statistics) the dialogue around them to change.  Down here you don't really have that idea, just Labour Voters.  Your base that consistently votes for the party but don't actively participate.  My expectation (again with no stats) is that down here we have less active participation in party activities with much higher (due to legal requirements) voting rates and as such the discourse and patterns are different.

Again case in point more locally is voting trends in Canada where three parties with clout really shakes up voter behaviours.

[dunie]

Right, so I'm understanding that. I suppose my point, or where I'm directing questioning, is that "Independent in name only" erases the role that law plays in circumscribing "Independent in practice." I just googled Georgia and saw that their 2016 primary is open, but they most certainly have not always been that way. 13 states consistently have closed primaries; when people want to have a 1-person vote count locally, they're barred from it if they are Independent. Or, they vote democrat or republican for candidate nominations.

[Grefter]

Ahhhh you want much finer discussion thab I can have then (that outsider thing) since that is going to be a very state by state part by party thing.  It's an interesting point as well.