Election 2016

Shrapnel · Post by **Shrapnel** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 8:40 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:Bah, our election here in PA was exciting enough to have a crime

So did the dude say why he decided not to show up?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:37 pm

He was trying to hustle a buck as a jitney driver. There's also some friend-of-a-friend gossip going around locally that he was desperate enough for money he could have taken a bribe as an attempt to suppress voter turnout at that location........but that seems unlikely as no voters were actually turned away due to his actions, thus any speculated briber would not have gotten their money's worth.

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Nov 04, 2015 10:30 pm

Eikre wrote:Oh, fuck's sake... Yesterday was elections, how the fuck did I not remember that? How the fuck did nobody remind me of that? If I caught sight of just one "I voted" sticker or a Google doodle or anything I woulda been at the elementary school in a goddamned flash.

Hopefully you're not in Kentucky since they got extra screwed by their gubernatorial election during the low voter turnout.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 4:01 pm

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/sta ... 2016-elec/

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Thu Nov 05, 2015 8:57 pm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... some-votes

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 2:40 pm

Steve Benen on the Maddowblog does a good job of illuminating just how flagrantly post-truth the last Republican debate was.

At another point last night, Gerard Baker, the editor in chief of the Wall Street Journal, reminded Carly Fiorina, “In seven years under President Obama, the U.S. has added an average of 107,000 jobs a month. Under President Clinton, the economy added about 240,000 jobs a month. Under George W. Bush, it was only 13,000 a month. If you win the nomination, you’ll probably be facing a Democrat named Clinton. How are you going to respond to the claim that Democratic presidents are better at creating jobs than Republicans?”

If anything, Baker’s numbers were tilted in the GOP’s favor, since Obama’s totals are dragged down by including the early months of his presidency, when the economy was in free fall. Nevertheless, the point is accurate – since World War II, more jobs are created under Democratic presidents than Republicans – prompting Fiorina to reply, “Yes, problems have gotten much worse under Democrats.”

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:25 pm

They don't even respect the audience enough to come up with convincing lies, apparently.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Nov 11, 2015 6:29 pm

name_here wrote:They don't even respect the audience enough to come up with convincing lies, apparently.

Why bother? They applaud loudly when they hear the lies they want.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 5:57 pm

I may have been wrong this whole time. I've been thinking that Jeb Bush is a truly terrible campaigner, but what if he's actually a really successful absurdist comedian.

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:16 pm

I actually predicted him to be the nominee, in the earliest days. It looks like I'm going to have to eat crow on that, but I still have a faint hope that all the frontrunners will implode once reality catches up with them.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:18 pm

So my union just officially endorsed Hillary Clinton

I not surprised that they did this, but I am surprised that the did so this early into the campaign. I would have thought they would have waited until the votes from a couple of primaries were actually before giving up on Sanders's longshot.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:39 pm

Schleiermacher wrote:I actually predicted him to be the nominee, in the earliest days. It looks like I'm going to have to eat crow on that, but I still have a faint hope that all the frontrunners will implode once reality catches up with them.

If the frontrunners implode, the lunatic support will mostly go to Ted Cruz, who is my current pick to be the nominee. Bush is basically done due to bafflingly poor performance, Rubio looks like the establishment pick.

Post by **fbmf** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:41 pm

Schleiermacher wrote:I actually predicted him to be the nominee, in the earliest days. It looks like I'm going to have to eat crow on that, but I still have a faint hope that all the frontrunners will implode once reality catches up with them.

I'll go ahead and call Rubio now, with Kasich coming in second. Like you, I'm calling a Trump* and Carson implosion.

Game On,
fbmf

* - In the back of my mind, I'm still hoping the right wing conspiracy theory is true, and Trump is a Clinton plant in the Republican party. I know, I know. But it would be EPIC.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Tue Nov 17, 2015 8:45 pm

It's still a long way to Berlin. The vast majority of endorsements aren't in, and yet Bush is leading; Bush still has the money and the lowest burn rate. He hasn't won the popularity contests yet, so he's probably going to have to piss away a lot more money than he wants to until the primary. But in every way except the class president election, Bush is still the serious Republican candidate.

Morat · Post by **Morat** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:11 am

Kasich is doomed. The media has proclaimed him to be the reasonable moderate one, he's going down like Jon Huntsman. The base does not want someone labeled as a moderate, even though he's at least as far right as e.g. Jeb!

I think Carson is going down, simply because his campaign structure looks like a grift and not at all like an actual campaign, and there are plenty of other evangelical darlings. Bush is appealing to the money men and establishment, but not at all appealing to the actual base. He's got a lot of endorsements, but mostly from back when he was the inevitable candidate, before he demonstrated that Dubya was actually the smarter brother. I'm not even going to bother dismissing the nothing candidates like Fiorina and Graham.

The problem with Trump is that there's not that much time left for him to implode (with the holiday interruption to campaigns) before the actual primaries start. And if he's still hanging on but not winning in February, the man is egotistical enough to run third party. Rubio isn't doing great, but he is at least gaining support. OTOH, he's squishy on immigration, which could doom him. Cruz is a long shot, but the race is so fractured he could end up as a compromise candidate.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 12:51 pm

Morat wrote: The problem with Trump is that there's not that much time left for him to implode (with the holiday interruption to campaigns) before the actual primaries start. And if he's still hanging on but not winning in February, the man is egotistical enough to run third party.

That would be wonderful to see.

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 1:10 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
Morat wrote: The problem with Trump is that there's not that much time left for him to implode (with the holiday interruption to campaigns) before the actual primaries start. And if he's still hanging on but not winning in February, the man is egotistical enough to run third party.
That would be wonderful to see.

On the one hand, this would do a lot to prevent the absolute worst case scenario.

On the other hand, it might depress voter turnout because of a perceived lack of urgency, and hand Republicans control of the legislature.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 2:05 pm

RadiantPhoenix wrote:
RobbyPants wrote:
Morat wrote: The problem with Trump is that there's not that much time left for him to implode (with the holiday interruption to campaigns) before the actual primaries start. And if he's still hanging on but not winning in February, the man is egotistical enough to run third party.
That would be wonderful to see.
On the one hand, this would do a lot to prevent the absolute worst case scenario.

On the other hand, it might depress voter turnout because of a perceived lack of urgency, and hand Republicans control of the legislature.

Democrats are not going to take back the House in 2016. Republicans are not going to hit 60 in the Senate in 2016. Democrats are not going to take back the house in 2018. Republicans are not going to hit 60 in the senate in 2018. The census in 2020 is not going to change anything. Democrats are not going to be able to take back enough state governments to unrig the House, so you can expect this pattern to continue through at least the entirety of the next president's tenure.

If we see a functional legislature during the next two presidential terms, it will be because that president packed the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court just fucking mandated nonpartisan redistricting of the entire country on some flimsy pretext.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 6:40 pm

DSMatticus wrote:If we see a functional legislature during the next two presidential terms, it will be because that president packed the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court just fucking mandated nonpartisan redistricting of the entire country on some flimsy pretext.

I don't think even your longshot hypothetical is possible. I think the more plausible longshot is that we see a few relevant states mandating algorithmic redistricting through ballot initiatives (like Ohio's recent dealio) or state Supreme Court decisions. (My fingers are crossed that results of this month's judicial election here in PA might make this possible).

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Nov 18, 2015 8:07 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/18/us/po ... -race.html

...and then there were 14.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 10:45 am

DSMatticus wrote:Democrats are not going to take back the House in 2016. Republicans are not going to hit 60 in the Senate in 2016. Democrats are not going to take back the house in 2018. Republicans are not going to hit 60 in the senate in 2018. The census in 2020 is not going to change anything. Democrats are not going to be able to take back enough state governments to unrig the House, so you can expect this pattern to continue through at least the entirety of the next president's tenure.

A few points of order.

1.) I agree that the Democratic Party (short of a catastrophic implosion of the GOP, which I'm not ruling out at this time) will not be able to win the House in 2016 or 2020... especially if they continue to run the Clinton-Obama playbook of social liberalism and economic centrism.

To do so, the Democratic Party needs to find a way to turn out their less hardy voters (poorer people, younger people, Latinos/Asians) or shave off a portion of the white working class. And I don't think that HRC is up to the task of doing either. As stated earlier I think that full-throatedly embracing social liberalism and economic leftism, like in the New Deal Coalition days, would do the trick... but I don't think Sanders would be the best standard-bearer. But hey, he's at least trying to break the logjam, which is more than I can say for Clinton.

It's why I was pulling for O'Malley before he got slammed with the double-whammy of the Baltimore riots and his successor losing the 2014 Maryland governor's race.

2.) Ironically, the Democratic Party has a better shot of capturing the House in 2018 and 2020 (and capturing enough state houses to change the dynamics of Congressional districting) if they lose the Presidency in 2016. Of course, that would mean a Republican President, so talk about your Pyrrhic victories.

3.) The Republican Party could plausibly get to 60 seats in 2018. If the Democratic Party underperforms in 2016 (say, only picking up 2-5 Senate seats) a wave similar to that of 2010 or 2014 would get them there. Remember, the Democratic Party overperformed in 2012 in addition to having a lot more seats to defend then and now than the GOP.

HRC better fucking hope that those USSC appointments come in the first two years.

4.) While the demographics currently favor HRC, a bad 2016 Presidency (i.e. an ill-advised war or an economic crisis) can completely undo that for 2020. Obama lost 14% of black male youths 18-29 to Romney in 2012 and 11% of white youths (after winning a majority of them in 2008) so it's not out of the question that a less retarded GOP/failtrain Democratic Party can completely lose the advantage Democrats got with Asians/Latinos and the youth during the Obama administration. So... don't count that 2020 chicken before it is hatched.

2, 3, and 4 are why I was seriously advocating taking a dive in 2016 before Donald "Fascist" Trump stormed to the front of the pack near the beginning of this thread. I don't intend to go back to my original opinion anytime soon, but nonetheless a HRC win would more than likely make the next 4-8 years feel like a death march and damage control rather than any hope for progress.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 1:39 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote: 2.) Ironically, the Democratic Party has a better shot of capturing the House in 2018 and 2020 (and capturing enough state houses to change the dynamics of Congressional districting) if they lose the Presidency in 2016. Of course, that would mean a Republican President, so talk about your Pyrrhic victories.

You really seem to love advocating throwing the 2016 presidential election to help long term prospects. The problem is, there is no reason to actually believe that losing short term would yield any long-term gain.

The only given is... a short term loss. And it's a pretty big one, really.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 2:06 pm

It is like breaking your foot to throw a race hoping you'll win the next race in a sweet wheelchair.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 3:41 pm

Democrats are not going to take back the House and Republicans are not going to hit the magical 60 in the senate. It's just not going to happen. There is nothing short of a fucking miracle - an actual miracle on par with frog rain and blood rivers, not any of this namby pamby metaphorical bullshit - one way or the other that will make that happen. The U.S. federal legislature is fucked until either the courts or the people unfuck it or the Republican party implodes outright. Political foresight is a very limited thing, but if you pull out your magical crystal ball it will read "the U.S. federal legislature is fucked" right up until it turns to static. I asked Bob the Builder if he thought we could fix it, and he called me a fucking moron and started beating me in the head with a wrench. There is no tactical voting decision you can make that will change the fuckedness of the legislature. Nothing "clever" you do with any ballot in the foreseeable future will make a single bit of difference regarding the state of the U.S. legislature.

But if you put a Republican in the white house, then you're gambling with a Republican stacked Supreme Court and it doesn't even fucking matter anymore. The Republicans would not need the legislature to fulfill their legislative goals, because their legislative goals are across the board "destroy existing laws and revoke existing civil liberties." The ACA is fucking gone. Abortion is fucking gone. Gay marriage is a toss-up. Countless regulatory agencies are fucking gone in practice if not in name. Net neutrality - insofar as it exists at all - is fucking dead, welcome to Nu Cable. And odds are good that there will be a significant increase in "light" election rigging a la voter purges, understaffed polling places, and blatantly deliberate misinformation spread to voters from both official and unofficial sources, because what are you gonna do about it, whine to the courts? They barely give a shit now.

Democracy and sanity are on defense for the next decade. Things aren't going to get appreciably better, but they can get a fuckton worse really god damn fast.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Thu Nov 19, 2015 5:09 pm

I want to emphasize what DSM is saying about the Supreme Court.

If a single republican president is elected before the deaths of Scalia and Kennedy then right away Scalia and Kennedy are replace with with Scalia 3.0 and Scalia 4.0 both of whom are under 60. If go forbid Ginsburg dies during the republican presidents term, she is replaced with Scalia 5.0. The thing where republicans appoint not literally the shittiest most horrible monsters they can find is long dead. Roberts is currently being criticized for being as bad as Kennedy and Stevens in abandoning his Republican masters for the crime of admitting that the ACA is actually constitutional but in a way that drastically limited the effects of the law and breeds resentment amongst those that should benefit, instead of breeding resentment against the republicans for judicial activism.

They now will refuse to appoint semi-sane competent justices, and will stick to the only workable strategy, appointing the craziest assholes they can find.

A Court with three Scalias, Thomas, and Alito is a court that will destroy the concept of democracy so fast that the shockwaves will ripple their way to legislative elections such that demoncrats receive 75% of the votes and get 48% of the seats until minorities stop voting when they realize they are actually in the jim crow south again, as they are arrested by police totally freed of even the semblance of due process.

I don't fucking care if a Republican victory in 2016 guaranteed a Democratic sweep in 2020. That 2020 sweep would be helpless, because they could pass single payer healthcare and basic income and they would both be found unconstitutional under the "traditional opposition to socialism principle" that the scalia babies would make up on the spot.