The New Hampshire Primary |Feb 9|: Live Free or Die
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neurosisxeno
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So the skinny on the system is that superdelegates are what we refer to as unpledged delegates. They are not required to "vote" for the candidate they are chosen to represent by the electorate, and can move their support around before the final vote is cast. This vote occurs at the Democratic National Convention (and alternatively at the RNC for Republicans), and determines who the party nominates to represent them in the November election.
Why do superdelegates exist? To avoid what is known as a brokered convention, a convention in which no single candidate has a majority of delegates. The superdelegates usually only come into play when a race is exceedingly close, and are the parties deciding factor. If there's a brokered convention, it makes the party look bad, and can lead to weird crap like a candidate who got literally no votes in primaries/caucuses throwing in his hat at the last minute and completely screwing up the system (the last 2 episodes of season 6 of the West Wing have this occur).
Because tentatively speaking, they don't really matter. Hillary was in a similar situation in 2008 at this point, where she had a massive lead on Obama among superdelegates, but he started to strip away her support as time went on and eventually got enough that by the DNC he was the front runner. The correct assessment at the time is "Pledged Delegates' because that refers to delegates who's support was acquired via votes--and Sanders leads by a thin margin in that category.
googleplex
Member
You can't honesty belive this the first part.
As for the second part. Yeah its been a cake walk for her so have. Nothing easier the being grilled for 18 hours straight by wackjobs in Congress about trumped up charges.
Black Republican
Member
the average household income in NH is roughly $66k?
well damn
well damn
cheezcake
Member
TIL the average household income in the US is $52k... jesus
Bernie running against 2 billionaires definitely would make for an interesting narrative in that scenario.
Trump definitely couldn't brag about his immense wealth when someone who had ten times his net worth was running.
You Know Nothing
Member
Is it really true? He plans to raise taxes to cover his healthcare plans, significantly so. That system change could be scary enough for many middle class Democrats who might vote Republican just because they will promise them lower taxes and higher paycheck.
teruterubozu
Member
Living in Maine next door this is about right from my anecdotal experience. I see tons of Sanders and Trump bumper stickers, but no Hillary.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
Let's ask the guys who ran against Reagan how solid the Dem base was.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_Democrat
Paying higher taxes but supposedly (I really need to look into his numbers) getting free healthcare will make people think harder about that especially after a full decade of rapidly increasing costs.
This doesn't really make any sense though because even though the taxes would be higher, the net income of those families would go up due to their health care costs lowering dramatically
It's like people see a higher tax number and freak out without understanding the full change
This was created by Kogod at American University which has strong ties to KPMG, an international tax and accounting firm recently caught in a scandal for brokering tax haven deals with multi-national conglomerates. Of course they have a strong grasp of the reality of working lower and middle class Americans!According to The Wall Street Journal we're all rich and reality be damned.
That really, really isn't how people think or work at all. You are removing the choice from them, both in terms of their healthcare options and control of their own money, on a promise that something provided by government will be cheaper and better.
I'm all in favour of single payer healthcare - I'm from the Uk and think that the NHS is one of our greatest achievements. But Bernies plan is absolutely insane for the USA, and will be utterly, *utterly* toxic in a general election environment. His core supporters will vote for him, but he will lose the centre ground and moderate democrats who you need to win a general election.
I think Kirblar said it best - in politics, when your opponent gives up the centre ground you don't run from it - you seize it, and guarantee a big victory.
Bam Bam Baklava
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RubberJohnny
Banned
I don't believe you're actually from the UK if you think single-payer eliminates choice - you know you can still go private with BUPA rather than the NHS if you want, right?
Could you explain why you theorise that single-payer would be "absolutely insane" for the USA? (...apart from the question of being able to elect someone who propounds it, or getting it passed, I mean.)
I've heard empty cries of "350 million people!!!!" but what's the actual substantive argument there?
brainchild
Banned
It can be argued that Sanders is underestimating how much his plan will cost in taxes, but that does not negate the net positive savings for the average US citizen if such a plan was implemented.
Furthermore, the disparity in agreeableness between the Democrats and Republicans on the issues is so large that even if some of the dems didn't like the tax hike, Sanders would be seen as the lesser of two evils when facing off against the eventual Republican nominee, so I really don't see Hillary's supporters going anywhere.
I'm reading shit like this a lot... Really scares me.
Maybe Trump does have a shot in the national election.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Are you surprised at how high or how low?
brainchild
Banned
Thankfully, we have no Reagan equivalent on the Republican side of this election season, no matter how hard the GOP tries to assimilate him.
neurosisxeno
Member
Wouldn't it also save employers money thus allowing them to potentially raise wages? Unless I'm mistaken companies that provide benefits tend to spend a crap load of money per employee every year on Health Insurance.
shinra-bansho
Member
brainchild
Banned
Potentially, yes, among other things.
Black Republican
Member
Hope Jeb's bro has major pull in South Carolina, gonna need it
I think single payer will work great - it's the best model. I think *this* way of getting it is insane. It's not how the USA works at all, simply in terms of governance and politics. Anyone thinking that by electing Bernie you get one step closer to single payer has not paid attention to the last 30 years of USA history. change needs to be incremental - the same happened to social security and other welfare programs, and that's how we get from the ACa to single payer.
It might not pack arenas or excite very liberal voters but it's how you get stuff done through your system of government. Obama has a supermajority in the senate and a majority in the house, on the back of a commanding win at the presidential level, and still the ACA wasn't everything we wanted.
It's also not helped by the fact that so far despite talk of a revolution Sander's doesn't seem inclined to be helping down ticket candidates at all.
In theory, yes. However it is somewhat difficult for Sanders' supporters to marry the idea that we can trust corporations to pass on the additional profit to their rank-and-file employees when his whole campaign is predicated on the idea that they won't.
You can argue that right now a tight labor market would actually cause companies to drive up wages if labor costs dropped, but again that is a Republican free market capitalism argument that doesn't fit well into Sanders' narrative.
Moreover, if you accept that idea, then you should be ecstatic about Republican calls to significantly cut the business tax rate, which would hugely increase corporate profits, because that potentially allows them to raise wages, right? And it's probably not even a zero-sum game with corporate taxes, because companies like Apple have billions parked overseas.
thehypocrite
Member
I read it on Hillary's voice.
Given my entire family works in the NhS and healthcare, yes I am fairly familiar with it.
But Sander's plan is quite clear - millions of people lose their coverage and their taxes will go up to pay for single payer. Now you and I know that in the long run it will be better for the country and people as a whole - but doing it this way guarantees it won't ever happen, and will be an utterly toxic message in a general election. It's hard enough raising taxes in European countries that have stronger social welfare nets. Trying to explain to the general American population that their taxes will directly be going up to pay for a massive expansion of government services is just... Insane.
I keep using that word because I cannot think of any other way to describe how bad that idea is. This idea that everyone will support Bernies plans if you just explain them enough goes against everything we've seen in American politics for the last 50 years.
Not very clear what it means. He was projected to win, albeit not that high. The question how he does in more diverse states still stands.
Hope Jeb's bro has major pull in South Carolina, gonna need it
He was foolish to think a man named "Bush" would ever get near the White House again.
dapperbandit
Banned
This pic is so great
Like a Crucifix to a Vampire
I was proud of Rubio taking the blame last night, rolling with it.
I'm watching NBC this morning and he is on and he is now blaming the media for the loss because they covered his horrible performance at the debate, saying it wasn't him that caused the loss, but instead the media for covering what he did Saturday night.
Level of respect for him almost to zero now, ugh.
I'm watching NBC this morning and he is on and he is now blaming the media for the loss because they covered his horrible performance at the debate, saying it wasn't him that caused the loss, but instead the media for covering what he did Saturday night.
Level of respect for him almost to zero now, ugh.
This argument doesn't seem very convincing to me, even if I try to imagine myself as a Bernie voter. So Bernie's value is either a conversation about Demovratic socialism in which he gets nothing done legislatively, or as a finger wagger as the country burns down around him where he also gets nothing done legislatively? How happy do you think the country is going to be with socialism once they blame the socialist for the economic collapse as he proceeds to yell "i told you so" over and over and during interviews can say "I always said this would happen, why if you guys just listened to me..."?
To say nothing of the fact that this entire scenario relies on the gamble that the economy even collapses during his term. Lots of what ifs before just to have a man who you feel would be better equipped to turn around and say he's not a hypocrite, I guess?
It's not defeatist at all. It's more like a strategist who knows how to actually win the battle, whereas some underfunded and understaffed general wants to just rush headlong into overwhelming forces. There is plenty of evidence that drastic change happens very rarely in American politics, especially since the end of the civil rights era. When it does happen, you can see it coming clearly. The last major change was that gay marriage was made legal everywhere, and that didn't even occur legislatively and we all saw it coming years ago. Anyone can see the landscape and tell Bernie is not inspiring that sort of change, no matter how many young folk his supporters thinks he's getting. Democratic primary turnout hasn't even been good at all.
So barring some catastrophe that nobody can foresee right now, we know that it's not happening.
Idealists are sometimes incapable of being realistic. For example, Bernie supporters keep trying to get Bernie supporters on board by telling how his radical plans can fundamentally change the country for the better. Not one Bernie supporter has ever, not once, figured out a solution to how any of his shit gets passed. Neither has Bernie Sanders either. Because he can't. So all this trouble is over someone who can't even pass legislation. How realistic are our goals again? My goals is Supreme Court nominations that are liberal, and therefore ensuring we have the candidate most likely to win in the GE. An attainable goal.
If you're starting out mountain climbing, you don't choose Mount Everest on your first goal. You choose a mountain more even with your amateur skill level. Maybe one day you'll scale Mount Everest, but it takes years of training to actually to be sure you can do it without dying. And then when you reach the mountain, it takes months of climate and altitude acclimation before you can even attempt the summit.
Ensuring we have a true socialist candidate who can also go into office and convince Congress to pass legislation in that agenda is Mt. Everest. To scale it, we need to change several things fundamental to the system at the moment. The earliest chance we have to do that is after the 2020 US Census. And that is the cold, hard reality we're dealing with.
And_Gignac
Member
Idealism is the motor of human progress. Every social movement that has ever accomplished anything revolutionary was "idealistic". That's how the human mind works.
But if Bernie were elected president and the economy crashed in the next 4 years, wouldn't people just blame the socialist president for it? If anything, that would forcibly shift the Democrats to the right since people would argue Bernie is sufficient evidence of socialism not working (if there is indeed another economic crash).
People don't look at the past for criticism, they like to criticize what's currently in front of them. And the POTUS is the easiest target for blame. So if a crash happened during a Sanders Administration, expect everyone to give him 100% blame.
Wasn't the narrative around the gay marriage movement how pragmatic they were, biding their time waiting for public opinion to shift before challenging laws in the courts? Had the same case gone to the Supreme Court ten years earlier when states were still passing traditional marriage laws with overwhelming majorities, they very well might have lost.
Maybe you don't consider that to be a revolutionary change, but eventually that sort of progress leads to a transformed society.
And without someone pragmatic to understand how to actually get the job done, the idealism will amount to nothing. Idealism by itself means nothing.
I have not heard a single specific substantive issue with Bernie's positions on race relations besides "Optics", or going after some niche corner of his supporters which he has already said unequivocally that he does not support and he does not want them supporting him. And then we've heard the rebuttal "too late", which means that A) You wanted him to chastise "Bernie bros" and then when he chastises Bernie bros, it B) didn't matter anyway. So that having been a total load of shit, what's the next thing you'd like to hear from the campaign just to dismiss once it happens?
Person 1: "Why aren't Black people feeling the BERN?"
Black Person: Well.....*gives several reasonable reasons*
Person 2: Bullshit!
repeat ad infinitium
Person A: "We need specifics!"
Person B: https://berniesanders.com/issues/racial-justice/
Person A: "Bullshit!"
If you don't like Bernie, that's fine - but what's not fine is this sinister undertone that anyone who supports Bernie is part of the problem, or can be conflated with what seems like a very noble Twitter war you let spill over into GAF on a daily basis. I say this as a guy who would like to see Bernie win but who knows he's most likely voting Hillary in the general.
edit: and I know I'm responding to an exchange last last night hundreds of posts later, and this might sound hostile (it's really not meant to be) but this is seriously the most annoying kind of discussion surrounding Bernie vs. Hillary - a complete shutdown of discussion revolving around this idea that you've explained your point of view and there's nothing left to be said. Maybe you're tired of repeating yourself, but that repetition isn't happening on GAF.
ShadowKingpin
Member
I can't take this post seriously.
Angry Fork
Member
It partly didn't occur for so long because "liberals" like Hillary were against gay marriage until grassroots pressure (the type supporting Sanders now) forced establishment dem politicians to bend to their will.
And you're ignoring the numbers if you think Bernie isn't getting the vote/support of young people. Over 80% compared to Hillary, 20-30 year old's don't like Hillary, just saying facts here.
Both Hillary and Sanders have an equal chance of getting nothing passed. I'm siding with the guy who will veto right wing legislation rather than the "liberal" who will pass it and act like it's progress.
Not only does Sanders have a better chance of defeating Trump than Hillary (because he appeals to independents and some republicans), but he is also likelier to inspire dems to vote in midterms. Bernie is the "pragmatic" choice if you care about winning, not Hillary.
The tea party/gop has proven this wrong over and over again.
brochiller
Member
To me the biggest issue with America is campaign finance. Nothing will change if the people in charge are our elections do not represent the interests of the American people. Hillary is the embodiment of that.
I don't think there is anything wrong with an idealistic candidate. Even if he can't get done everything he would like, at least the American people would let those in government know with their votes where they want this country to go. I have no doubt that he would have to make many compromises to get done what he wants, but I think he could bring us closer to that ideal than Hillary could.
Sirpopopop
Member
The tea party/gop's goal for the past 30 years was to paralyze government.
They've achieved that.
They've achieved that.
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