Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

The 2016 US General Election

Collapse
This topic is closed.
X
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Originally posted by DOR View Post
    Delegates*, thus far
    _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Iowa _ New Hampshire
    Bernie Sanders _ _ 21 _ _ _ _ _ _ 13
    Hillary Clinton _ _ 22 _ _ _ _ _ _ _7
    Martin O’Malley _ _0 _ _ _ _ _ _ _0

    Donald Trump _ _ _ 7_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 9
    Ted Cruz _ _ _ _ _ _ 8 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0
    Mario Rubio _ _ _ _ 7 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0
    Ben Carson _ _ _ _ _3 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0
    John Kasich _ _ _ _0 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3
    Rand Paul _ _ _ _ _ 1 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 0

    *excluding super delegates
    When you add in the super delegates HRC has 10x the delegates at present compared to Bernie and even ended up with more delegates than Sanders in NH. We could see a Democrat Party revolt or suppressed vote on election day if this isn't reformed.

    Comment


    • GVChamp,

      “Just so I am clear, you're asking for industries where US regulatory standards are higher than European standards?”
      That is correct.

      Here’s the World Bank’s analysis of how doing business in the US compares to elsewhere:
      http://www.doingbusiness.org/reports...ountry/USA.pdf

      The US is said to be 82.15% (yeah, yeah) of the way to a perfect score; Germany is 79.87% there. Six procedures (5.6 days) to start a business, vs. 9 (10.5 days) in Germany. 4.4 procedures (15.2 days) to register property (including IPR), vs. 5 and 39 days. Very strong legal property rights, access to credit, etc.

      Germany isn't "Europe," but it's an interesting proxy.

      = = = = =

      Zraver,

      I haven’t seen a list of where the super delegate votes are falling, just aggregate figures.

      Oh, and voter suppression isn't useful for the Democrats.
      Trust me?
      I'm an economist!

      Comment


      • The Next Round

        Feb 20: Nevada (D), South Carolina (R)
        Feb 23: Nevada (R)
        Feb 27: South Carolina (D)
        Mar 1: Super Tuesday
        Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado (c),
        Georgia, Massachusetts, Minnesota (c),
        Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont,
        Virginia, Wyoming (R, c)

        (D) Democrats only
        (R) Republicans only
        (c) caucus
        Trust me?
        I'm an economist!

        Comment


        • Originally posted by zraver View Post
          When you add in the super delegates HRC has 10x the delegates at present compared to Bernie and even ended up with more delegates than Sanders in NH. We could see a Democrat Party revolt or suppressed vote on election day if this isn't reformed.
          No, we won't. Its bad enough dealing with dickhead left wing Australians who don't know shit about this stuff without you piling on Z. None of these superdelegates have to vote for Clinton even if they have said they would. They only make up 15% of the total Dem delegates and close to half of them are currently holding elected office. There won't be any 'revolt' or 'suppressed vote'.

          This system has been around 30 years & people suddenly discover it now because the supporters of a guy who is going to lose the nomination fight seem to spend more time talking about that than about why he should win.
          sigpic

          Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

          Comment


          • Well, he's been a damn sight more accurate than the usual suspects so far...

            ~Long, long ago - August 12th last year, in fact - I wrote:

            The integrity of a nation's borders and the privilege of its citizenship is certainly a "truly conservative" principle. More practically for this election, it may be the one on which all the others depend... And, as Ann Coulter says to the other candidates, if you don't like Trump, steal his issue.

            According to exit polls, in New Hampshire on Tuesday night, two out of three GOP voters favor Trump's proposed temporary ban on all Muslim immigration - despite the universal reaction from the massed ranks of the politico-media class that this time he'd really gone too far. In other words, as I said all those months ago, it's the old Broadway saw: Nobody likes it but the public.

            The only reason any pollster is even asking this question is because Donald Trump proposed it. As those numbers suggest, any of Trump's rivals could have helped themselves by "stealing his issue". And yet no other candidate has gone anywhere near it - or anything like it. Perhaps one reason why American elections have the lowest voter participation rate of almost any developed nation is because the political class mostly seems to be talking about its own peculiar preoccupations. Consider this astute observation by Steve Sailer:

            American citizens have turned in large numbers to old-white-guy candidates like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. For all their differences, both give the impression that they are running for president of the United States, not president of Davos.

            I live in northern New Hampshire, where every town that isn't a ski resort is dead. They were pleasant, sleepy places in genteel decline 20 years ago. Now they're hollowed out by heroin and meth, and offering no economic opportunity beyond casual shifts at the KwikkiKrap. And when you listen to the Dems they're worried about micro-aggressions and transphobia and when you listen to Congressional Republicans they're talking about the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The two-party one-party state has nothing to say to tens of millions of Americans.

            Trump won because he put real-world issues on the table. Nobody needs to be told that he "isn't a real Republican". That's the point of Trump. The Republican base loathes the Republican leadership far more than they love the vessel they've chosen to express their loathing.

            There are contrasting approaches on offer: John Kasich wants to bring everyone together; Ted Cruz says he can bring back "Reagan Democrats", although I'd love to know what that term means in 2016 other than nonagenarian FDR voters; and Trump is promising to blow up the party. In New Hampshire, it's not hard to see why that last option won.

            ~Did Marco Rubio really destroy himself in that debate? Or is it the case that, after a week of fawning profiles post-Iowa, there aren't really a lot of takers for him beyond that 11 per cent fifth-place finish? More than Trump, Kasich, Cruz or even Bush, Marco Rubio policy-wise is offering the same old same old. I doubt there are enough takers for that to win the nomination this season. As for his promise of "a new American century", I said a few weeks ago:

            In 1980, Jimmy Carter's "malaise" was an aberration - a half-decade blip in three decades of post-war US prosperity that had enabled Americans with high school educations to lead middle-class lives in a three-bedroom house on a nice-sized lot in an agreeable neighborhood. In 2015, for many Americans, "malaise" is not a blip, but a permanent feature of life that has squeezed them out of the middle class. They're not in the mood for bromides about second American centuries: They'd like what's left of their own lifespan to be less worse.

            The New Hampshire results bear that out.

            ~Carly Fiorina, the Great Emasculator, is out. She was impressive in debates, if somewhat severe in mien - which undoubtedly is part of why primary voters never warmed up to her. On the other hand, given the way the media treat more genial Republican women like Sarah Palin, you can see why Mrs Fiorina preferred to stick with deadly seriousness. Her brutal dissections of Hillary will be missed.

            ~On the leftie side the sewer that is the Democrat Party organizing apparatus may yet save Mrs Clinton. Bernie crushed her by 22 points, but the machine hacks nevertheless delivered up more delegates to Hillary because she's sewn up the "super-delegates". Facing a grassroots revolt, the party elders have declared they don't need no steenkin' grassroots. This is likely to get problematic if he keeps winning states but she keeps getting the delegates.

            Hillary's real problem is that she's running on biography, and no one gives a crap. The consultants always say candidates need a "compelling personal story". Really? Trump doesn't have one, nor does Sanders, aside from occasional glimpses of his Soviet honeymoon, etc. No one cares about Kasich being the son of a mailman or Rubio being the son of a bartender. But whatever the opposite of a "compelling personal story" is, Hillary is it. Everything she has "accomplished" derives from the two central facts of her life:

            1) She got married...

            2) ...to a serial adulterer.

            She was the first First Lady to be turned publicly into the First Doormat. And, because of that, Democrats felt sorry enough for her to give her a Senate seat in a state she'd never lived in. She accomplished nothing as senator but felt she was owed the presidency. This time Democrats felt that was a consolation prize too far and went for a more glamorous and seductive rival. This time the consolation prize was responsibility for America's foreign relations. Again she accomplished nothing: She traveled while the world burned. Everywhere is worse than it was in 2008: Iraq, Libya, Syria... Afterwards, she joined her husband in massively enriching herself by giving six- and seven-figure speeches to those who understand that, while you can never really own a Clinton, you can put down a deposit for services to be rendered. She became a senator, a presidential candidate, a secretary of state because she was Mrs William Jefferson Clinton - and her sense of entitlement was such that she never felt obligated to make anything of the job other than using it as a springboard for personal enrichment.

            And even then it need not have mattered had her campaign had a rationale other than her curious belief that somehow she's entitled to be president.

            By contrast, Bernie is all policy. Lunatic policy to be sure, but policy nevertheless. Hillary is nothing but "I'll never stop fighting for you". She has no platform. Nothing. Its vapidity is encapsulated by her pledge to the young voters who have abandoned her all but totally - that even though they aren't there for her she will always be there for them. You can almost hear the snorts of derision in response.
            She'll always be there: That's the problem.
            He's in Oz at the moment. I'd almost be tempted to jump the ditch for a listen but it's hard to get a good cup of coffee in The Back Paddock.
            In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

            Leibniz

            Comment


            • Last night Scott Pelley went with Sanders back to where he grew up in Brooklyn. Watching that gave me some insight as the where he is coming from and why. His comment about kids making their own rules reminded me of when we used to choose up sides back in 1959 through 1965 as a kid.

              BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- After his resounding victory in the New Hampshire Democratic primary, we wanted to know more about Bernie Sanders. He served four terms as mayor of Burlington, Vermont, eight terms in the U.S. House and was elected to the Senate in 2006.

              But he grew up in Brooklyn, the son of poor Jewish immigrants from Poland. On Wednesday, Sanders took "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley on a tour of his old neighborhood.


              After N.H. win, Bernie Sanders looks ahead

              "So, most of the kids lived in the apartment houses. I grew up in that one," Sanders pointed out. "Good friends across the street. It was my mothers dream to get out of the apartment and get a home of her own, but she died young and she never achieved that dream."

              "How old was your mother when she passed away?" Pelley asked.

              Sanders replied, "46."

              He was 19 years old at the time.

              "How did that affect you?" Pelley asked.

              After a pause, Sanders answered simply, "Significantly. Significantly."

              Later, Sanders explained, "Not having enough money was a cause of constant tension, and when you are five or six years of age and your parents are yelling at each other, it's, you know -- you think back on it now, you know -- it's traumatic and it's hard."


              Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, right, takes "CBS Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley on a tour of his childhood neighborhood on February 10, 2016 in Brooklyn, New York.
              CBS News

              Sanders said he spent a lot of his time playing with other children, with little supervision from adults, which he says taught him about democracy.

              "The games were all determined not by adult cultures but kids themselves," Sanders said. "We would choose up a team -- there was no other person dictating anything, we worked out our own rules. It was a very interesting way to grow up."
              http://www.cbsnews.com/news/campaign...k-to-brooklyn/

              Comment


              • An Open Letter to Millennials: Bernie Sanders Will Break Your Heart

                Let's turn the clock back to 2008. Millions of young people were swooning over Barack Obama, a hip, cool, black first-term Senator from Illinois who, in his bid for the presidency, tantalized them with visions of hope and change. For his infectious optimism and promises of a new, united America he was rewarded with a resounding victory over his Republican opponent John McCain: 365-173 electoral votes and 53%-46% of the popular vote.

                But leading up to that historic win, the Democratic primary was a real slug fest. While Obama took about 15% more delegates than rival Hillary Clinton, it was Clinton who won the popular vote. It was a truly ugly battle. I can't begin to tell you how many verbal brawls I got into with rabid Obamacon friends who were so drunk on the Kool-aid that they could neither understand or accept my support of Hillary.

                Wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, they leaped head-first into the Obama pool while at the same time drowning in their Hillary vitriol. And their hostility towards her, and those who supported her, grew with each stirring Obama speech. The more he became this transformational political figure, the more she became a tired, shrill symbol of the past.

                But the years passed and the hope and change soon turned into anger and disappointment. The progressives bristled at Obama's stand on marriage equality. That the rich got richer. That he was too militaristic. That he caved too quickly and easily to Republicans on the budget and key elements of his healthcare proposal. While the right called him a socialist, the left accused him of being too conservative. He broke their hearts.

                Which brings us to Bernie Sanders. The new cool kid in school. The one who inexplicably excites you millennials, and whom you believe transcends politics, despite his establishment credentials as a 25-year Washington insider. You love him. Yet you hate Hillary despite the fact that for decades she's been a passionate supporter of myriad progressive causes including marriage equality, paid family leave, a woman's right to choose, universal pre-kindergarten, universal healthcare and gun control.

                And that "Bern" you've been "feeling" has made you quite nasty. The social media smear campaign against Clinton has become so toxic and sexist that Sanders himself had to tell the bullies to back off this week.

                I get your "anti-establishment" fervor, and I can certainly appreciate your passion and idealistic view of the world at this early stage in your voting life. But I'm baffled by your enthusiastic support of a shrill, fairly dull, wonkish 74-year-old white-haired Jewish socialist from Vermont with a grating Brooklyn accent... (full disclosure: I'm a NY Jew)... who rants about income-redistribution, breaking up banks and free health care and college education for all. To borrow from my (also Jew) pal Dave, Sanders is that loud curmudgeonly uncle that you hope doesn't corner you on Passover to ask why you're dating a non-Jew, don't have children yet or chose art over medicine.

                I hate to burst your bubble, but Bernie Sanders will never win a general election to become president of the United States. And it's highly unlikely that, after an expected victory in his neighboring state of New Hampshire Tuesday, he'll have any meaningful nomination juice. But if he did ever make it to the Oval Office he'd break your heart just as Obama did. He'll either cave under Republican pressure and/or shift to the center to compromise. And his "progressiveness" will quickly start to look like, well, the behavior of every other career politician who has to play the dirty game of politics. Link
                __________________________________

                This is exactly what I've been saying since Day One: Whether it's Obama or Trump or Sanders, the masses of idiots that just so sure that "their guy" will make things right...I just can't believe that people are so easily deluded, time after time after time.
                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                Comment


                • I'm a registered democrat. I am voting for Bernie because he's old, white, and a man. I don't want a woman in the White House and I sure as hell don't want someone with a Hispanic surname.
                  "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                    I'm a registered democrat. I am voting for Bernie because he's old, white, and a man. I don't want a woman in the White House and I sure as hell don't want someone with a Hispanic surname.
                    Oh the irony lol. That's the other thing I've been chortling about since Day One: All these liberals and their Great White Hope.
                    “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
                      Oh the irony lol. That's the other thing I've been chortling about since Day One: All these liberals and their Great White Hope.
                      Even funnier, he's an old white guy who can't buy a vote from non-white voters. Most of his supporters seem to have had an irony bypass, so they can't see how funny this all is after years of taking aim at the inability of the GOP to do the same. The cherry on top is borrowing GOP excuses about the media being to blame. Too funny.
                      sigpic

                      Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Parihaka View Post
                        Well, he's been a damn sight more accurate than the usual suspects so far...
                        Parihaka,

                        Can we please raise the game around here?

                        It takes a special kind of misogynist to come up with the kind of crap you've reposted. If you believe this garbage, Sen. Clinton's marriage and her husband's private life are far and away more important than anything else. Watergate, Arkansas politics, the White House, the Senate and her tenure as Secretary of State all pale in significance to her refusal to hand the GOPers a victory by divorcing Bill.
                        Trust me?
                        I'm an economist!

                        Comment


                        • Are they still trying to sell that old lie that the Obama Administration has somehow disappointed people who voted for him? Are they still trying to pretend that there wasn't a concerted effort in the House and Senate to undermine the President of the United States, for purely partisan political reasons? Really?

                          Mr Obama's first move, within a week of taking office, was to sign an executive order requiring audits of government contracts, his first step against fraud and abuse. See: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press...nt-contracting. This was followed by the creation of a dedicated post focused on government operational efficiency. See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=99087765. And, another post to ensure strategic direction and efficiency in government's massive IT spending. See: https://cio.gov/.

                          What else? National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform? Check. Executive Order decreeing a review of all regulations and the removal of those deemed unnecessary; banning gifts from lobbyists to Executive Branch employees; bar to lobbyists working for agencies they had previously lobbied; and facilitating Freedom-of-Information-Act requests? Check, check and check again.

                          And, we haven't even begun to scratch the surface. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus package), complete with spending tracking service open to the public. Profitable TARP. Profitable GM bailout. Foreclosure restrictions to allow families to stay in their homes while working out repayment schedules. Increases minimum wage paid by federal contractors to $10.10/hour, paving the way for increases across the nation. Ended the media black-out on combat causalities.

                          More? Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, financial education programs under the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability, the first ever effort to combat family financial ignorance. Food safety regulations, college tuition tax credits, overtime pay protection regulations, ended “Don't Ask, Don't Tell;” established same-sex benefits for federal employees' partners, banned federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Janet Yellen, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan appointments. Stem cell research.

                          64 consecutive months of job growth. Unemployment below 5% for the first time in eight years. Two-thirds reduction in the federal deficit, from 9.8% of GDP to 2.9%. Russian strategic warhead reduction treaty.

                          Oh, and Obamacare ...
                          Trust me?
                          I'm an economist!

                          Comment


                          • whatever you think of the man, Obama's the most legislatively accomplished President since LBJ. now, obviously that's not enough-- and would never be enough-- for the "I'm liberal, not progressive" types, but Obama didn't just win on account of those folks alone.

                            speaking of Great White Hope, seems to me that's a problem the GOP has in spades, more so than the Dems. is there a GOP equivalent to Hillary, offering the party faithful nothing more than incrementalism? as far as I know, -all- of the contenders are offering nothing less than a complete change in how government operates.
                            There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                            Comment


                            • Since I typically like to hold politicians to the buzz they have generated, I would say that Obama has failed based on the expectation he had generated. I would also say that his priorities were lopsided. When he came to office, his priorities should have been jobs. Somehow it seems the priority shifted to Healthcare (also important, but could have come later).

                              The second term seems to have been just chugging along, lurching from this to that. His handling of ISIS from the start has been disappointing.

                              Having said that, I am also sure that we would have been in bigger soup if the McPALIN or Romney had been chosen. In all, he was the better choice, wish he had done more
                              "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" ~ Epicurus

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by DOR View Post
                                Are they still trying to sell that old lie that the Obama Administration has somehow disappointed people who voted for him? Are they still trying to pretend that there wasn't a concerted effort in the House and Senate to undermine the President of the United States, for purely partisan political reasons? Really?
                                Not a lie. Obama's most fervent supporters were and are disappointed with him. As Antimony said it "Obama has failed based on the expectation he had generated."

                                (Of course, that's not all on him...he's not entirely responsible for the slobbering mass-hero worship of 2008.)

                                While a Google search turns up dozens of articles from liberals lamenting all manner of reasons why, I think the overall malaise is summed up thusly: Barack Obama has failed to LEAD.

                                Basically he promised Hope and Change and instead brought More Of The Same.

                                And that's something that can't be thrown at the feet of the GOP.
                                “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

                                Comment

                                Working...
                                X