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PoliGAF 2016 |OT8| No, Donald. You don't.

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royalan said:
I have to say that I'm very impressed with how Bernie and his campaign have been responding to this mess today.

Bernie acknowledged that this confirmed what he's been saying all along (I think that's bullshit, but its what his supporters need to hear). But he and his surrogates have been very good at keeping the ire focused on DWS and emphasizing that need for unity under Clinton. MSNBC almost doesn't seem to know how to respond, they keep fishing for more attack lines.

Good job, Bernie!
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Bernie's statement was perfect....except for the last line but I'll take it anyway. I'm going to get shit for this statement, but I think Bernie's campaign needs to be a little less...generous with the "make the party for working people" line. It's getting REALLY close to Hillary's "hard working people" line from 2008. And I don't like it.

Officerrob said:
It's giving the media a narrative to push though, Chuck Todd is doing it right now
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True enough. But I still don't think this was a new appointment. It may have been. And I could be 100% wrong. The problems the emails brought to light were not the direct result of DWS actions. She is sacrificed because she is the chair of the DNC. Saying she's going to have an honorary role is a big nothing.
 
Gotchaye said:
So you say that the DNC shouldn't play favorites, that they played favorites, and that they weren't against Sanders for arbitrary reasons but because it was in their interest to be against him. This seems to me to be exactly what the Sanders people are unhappy about. They think that the DNC should be neutral in something like the way that the federal and state governments running elections and the committee on presidential debates should be neutral between Clinton and Trump, even though Trump wants to destroy the country. Or substitute a hypothetical Ted Cruz campaign if you want someone who's more openly about destroying the institutions that are in a position to be fair or unfair towards him. It'd be a problem if a state moved polling places around to try to maximize Clinton's vote share. People working for the government have an obligation to act (in their official capacities) as if they don't have a stake in the outcome even though Cruz has promised to fire them if elected. Or, like, it'd be absolutely terrible if the police in many states did something in their official capacity to try to get Trump elected because they see Clinton as a threat.
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In what ways did the DNC "play favorites"?

Because Chuck Todd just asked Jeff Weaver that direct question, and the only two things he could come up with were:

1) The debate schedule. (Eh...maybe. I still think Hillary's a much better debater than Bernie, and those debates didn't really help him. But the schedule was shit)

2) Being locked out of their data over the hacking incident. (Sorry buddy, but the Sanders campaign deserved that).

But if those are the only two examples of the DNC playing favorites, then sorry but this is a bunch of bull. Especially when you weigh it against the concessions the DNC granted Bernie.

This is an issue of optics; not the Sanders campaign actually being mistreated.
 
Officerrob said:
But it didn't need to be done at all. If the RNC/Trump campaign was being cute and stupid like this, we would call them out
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I actually think they had to do it to get her out. She seems to not have wanted to go. Because she's probably an egotist.
 
royalan said:
In what ways did the DNC "play favorites"?

Because Chuck Todd just asked Jeff Weaver that direct question, and the only to things he could come up with were:

1) The debate schedule. (Eh...maybe. I still think Hillary's a much better debater than Bernie, and those debates didn't really help him. But the schedule was shit)

2) Being locked out of their data over the hacking incident. (Sorry buddy, but the Sanders campaign deserved that).

But if those are the only two examples of the DNC playing favorites, then sorry but this is a bunch of bull. Especially when you weigh it against the concessions the DNC granted Bernie.

This is an issue of optics; not the Sanders campaign actually being mistreated.
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Honestly I don't know. I'm not invested in defending that proposition. The debate schedule was the only thing that came to mind. I took pigeon to be explicitly granting that they did, and then he seems pretty clearly to be defending the DNC playing favorites as long as they're doing so because Sanders doesn't like them.
 
Gotchaye said:
So you say that the DNC shouldn't play favorites, that they played favorites, and that they weren't against Sanders for arbitrary reasons but because it was in their interest to be against him.
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I'm saying they were against Sanders because Sanders chose to be against them, and against the group he was trying to take over. I think that is somewhat distinct from just being in their interest.

Gotchaye said:
This seems to me to be exactly what the Sanders people are unhappy about. They think that the DNC should be neutral in something like the way that the federal and state governments running elections and the committee on presidential debates should be neutral between Clinton and Trump, even though Trump wants to destroy the country.
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I am unconvinced that this is actually sensible. If Trump actually came out and said "I actually want to kill everybody in Kentucky," do you think the Kentucky state government would be evenhanded in planning the election process? Do you think they should be? If your argument is yes then I think we're actually back to whether democracy is good in itself or because it promotes liberal values. I don't see any particular value in having an open-handed debate on whether I should be killed.

Obviously Bernie was not quite so dramatic but he did more or less explicitly suggest he would remove most of the people and much of the structure of the DNC. That's what being anti-establishment means.

Gotchaye said:
I think this is just the "can the parties determine their own rules because they're private organizations or are they severely constrained by their role in our democratic system?" issue again.
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Maybe so. I think my position on that is still the same, so makes sense my position here coheres.

Gotchaye said:
And then the obvious response to "Doesn't it seem fair that the candidate that works harder and spends more time preparing should have a better chance of winning? Isn't that how we want life to work?" is just that, no, when we're talking about high elected office we're much more interested in giving the job to the person who will be best for the country rather than to the person who is in some sense most deserving, and the point of having "fair" elections is to give the people a chance to weigh in on that.
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Wait, you're conflating a bunch of things here. I'm responding to the question of what "fairness" is, not what the goal of our electoral process is.

I would agree with Crocodile that the system seems to do a pretty good job of testing the skills that are actually required for being an effective president, so I don't see a problem on that front. Whether the system is "fair" is a very different issue.
 
Officerrob said:
But it didn't need to be done at all. If the RNC/Trump campaign was being cute and stupid like this, we would call them out
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Eh. no. If this is a new appointment. it was done to make DWS feel good about herself. She needed her ego stroked a bit. So, who cares.

As to the Trump campaign doing it, I mean...eh. I don't think it's cute or stupid. It's making the best of a bad situation. DWS was with Hillary yesterday. In 2008. she was one of her strongest supporters. Hillary's a loyal person.
 
Y2Kev said:
I actually think they had to do it to get her out. She seems to not have wanted to go. Because she's probably an egotist.
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It's being spun as DWS took care of Clinton in the primaries, and now Clinton is taking care of DWS. That looks bad. If she wouldn't go, Obama needed to drop the hammer
 
GoldenEye 007 said:
What is honorary chair?
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BTb7E3g.jpg
 
Officerrob said:
It's being spun as DWS took care of Clinton in the primaries, and now Clinton is taking care of DWS. That looks bad. If she wouldn't go, Obama needed to drop the hammer
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I think they wanted to avoid a possible worse narrative that the president of the united states had to step in to try and fix this mess.

I dont know, I think the Hilly camp should be harsher with the Debbie mess. Do they think doing so undermines the legitimacy of Clinton´s victory? It shouldnt, Bernie would have lost regardless.

Not giving any ammo to Trump should be the priority.
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Well, they are friends and I don't think they wanted to completely throw her under the bus. I do think they could have come out a little stronger on the religion emails and denounced them. You also have to realize that she is running for reelection and the party's nominee trashing her would have done real damage to her campaign.
 
Gotchaye said:
Sure, that's plausible, but the question seems to me to be whether that means that the Democratic Party as an organization and people employed by it (in their official capacity) should try to help Clinton win, and that doesn't follow from them believing Clinton to be the better candidate for them. As I pointed out, we pretty much all believe that in a pretty similar-looking election - the general election - we believe that the people running the election should absolutely not be using their positions to help one candidate.

I took pigeon to be granting that that was what happened and defending it, without confronting head on the reasons why people might think the DNC should be neutral. Like I said, it's the "can the parties determine their own rules because they're private organizations or are they severely constrained by their role in our democratic system?" issue. The one that comes up when we're talking about whether the parties have an obligation to open their primaries to independent voters.
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I think it's clear that Hillary had many structural advantages in the race, and I assume most Bernie supporters complaining about fairness more or less sweep all those up. For example, she had the overwhelming support of superdelegates very early in the process, she had commanding control of fundraising, she had excellent pipelines to the media, and threats to her candidacy were encouraged not to run. I'd agree that the debate schedule was clearly set up to benefit her as well. Also, frankly, I think it's clear that many DNC members and employees de facto supported Hillary and wanted her campaign to win, and it doesn't seem unreasonable to assume that that played out in small ways that aren't visible to us.

But, yes, I agree that the discussion goes back to whether parties are private or public, and I still think they're clearly private.
 
brainchild said:
We already have an oligarchy. What I've suggested is a more representative democracy. The people determine the parties, the government would simply be putting it on paper.
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If America meets the definition of an oligarchy, then every country that has ever existed is an oligarchy.
 
Scottie Neil Hughes on CNN has certainly drank the KoolAid if she thinks that these emails will overshadow the DNc.

Oh look. They also have Cruz' mistress.
 
Speaking of tomorrow, I'm actually really excited for Astrid silva to speak. I think after the shitshow last week, putting a human face on the immigration situation and having a Dreamer speak will be a pretty powerful message
 
I see DWS is out which is a good thing. Sucks she was being stubborn if the reports are accurate. The thing about the honorary position though is a bit worrisome because I fear people will ignore the honorary part or fail to realize that needed to happen so she'd step down and there was no way she could be blacklist, etc.. This had to be handled diplomatically.

Does it seem like people are understanding that going by the reactions to this news? Or is that overshadowing her stepping down? Haven't had time to look around.
 
Effect said:
I see DWS is out which is a good thing. Sucks she was being stubborn if the reports are accurate. The thing about the honorary position though is a bit worrisome because I fear people will ignore the honorary part or fail to realize that needed to happen so she'd step down and there was no way she could be blacklist, etc.. This had to be handled diplomatically.

Does it seem like people are understanding that going by the reactions to this news?
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Nope, and everybody should have expected so
 
This isn't going to be popular....

But, I feel Bernie was given every single aspect of "fairness" (if we can quantify that as a thing) the he was entitled to by running for the nomination of a party he had been a member of for 30 seconds. This is a man who has called the Democratic party morally bankrupt. Who has said he would never, ever run as a Democrat. Hell, the man even admitted that he was only running as a Democrat because that was his only shot at getting his name out there.

He was welcome to run. We didn't make the rules any more difficult for him. We changed none of the requirements. He was invited to the debates. He was given time at party functions. He had access to the same resources that Hillary and Martin did.

A lot of those who are arguing that it should have been made "fair" for Bernie are really arguing "Change whatever rules are in place so he wins." It's not about making it "equal" it's the very logical position of making the system advantageous to your chosen candidate and outcome.

Bernie didn't do well with superdelegates? Get rid of them!
Bernie didn't do well in the south? Red states shouldn't count!
Bernie doesn't win registered democrats? Then everyone should be allowed to chose the nominee!
Caucuses are undemocratic and terrible, but Bernie wins them so it's fine!

I don't dislike Bernie. In fact, I think he's probably a pretty nice guy. His campaign was a dumpster fire, and his supporters deserved a lot better than what they got from Weaver, Divine and his campaign team. I welcome Bernie's supporters to the party. I think they managed to get a lot of the stuff they wanted on the platform. They got the opportunity to change the way Superdelegates are allocated. They got rid of DWS. Good on them!
 
Makai said:
If America meets the definition of an oligarchy, then every country that has ever existed is an oligarchy.
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That wouldn't exactly be an outrageous statement to make.

Did you think I had I much higher opinion of other historical or existing forms of government for some reason?
 
Iolo said:
Did someone release concentrated Diablos into the water supply?
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Pointing out a stupid unforced error is not diablosing. This isn't just crazy Bernie people on reddit and twiiter saying this looks like quid pro quo, the media went after it immediately. It's sloppy and comes off clueless as best
 
Literally the only people that are going to care about this are the Bernie busters after tomorrow.

The response from everyone associated with this was coordinated and says the same thing. The media will lose interest (Unlike the plagiarism story) because there's no disagreement anywhere by anyone. Bernie talking tomorrow is a freaking great thing because he'll endorse again, and then the media won't be able to clutch their pearls and wonder OMG what if Bernie goes CRUZ GUIS!?
 
pigeon said:
I am unconvinced that this is actually sensible. If Trump actually came out and said "I actually want to kill everybody in Kentucky," do you think the Kentucky state government would be evenhanded in planning the election process? Do you think they should be? If your argument is yes then I think we're actually back to whether democracy is good in itself or because it promotes liberal values. I don't see any particular value in having an open-handed debate on whether I should be killed.

Obviously Bernie was not quite so dramatic but he did more or less explicitly suggest he would remove most of the people and much of the structure of the DNC. That's what being anti-establishment means.
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I think it's probably important whether what the candidate is after is an atrocity. Like, sure, I agree that Kentucky should do what it can and then secede if the election goes the wrong way in the face of a candidate promising to kill everyone in Kentucky. But not if all the candidate wants to do is fire a bunch of government employees. The IRS shouldn't be shaking down donors to a candidate that promises to radically simplify the tax code and fire the IRS. The police shouldn't be declaring that polling places in places likely to go for Clinton are in danger of violent protest and so everyone who wants to vote there has to be strip searched, even though Clinton is much more sympathetic to police reform than Trump is. I definitely don't think that what Sanders wanted to do would have been so much worse than what Clinton will do that it justifies scorched-earth opposition. So if the DNC is obliged to be impartial in something like the way the federal government is, then "playing favorites" would be a big problem even though Sanders wants to do things to the DNC that the DNC doesn't want done.

Wait, you're conflating a bunch of things here. I'm responding to the question of what "fairness" is, not what the goal of our electoral process is.
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Oh, so you're arguing that it's not unfair to Sanders to advantage Clinton because Clinton is more personally deserving? I think the response goes similarly - the important kind of fairness here is not fairness to candidates but fairness to voters who support candidates. I expect that many Sanders supporters would eventually get here even if it's not where they start out. The idea would be that it is not fair to Sanders' supporters, who are largely members of the Democratic coalition and will vote for the Democratic nominee, etc., to disadvantage their choice just because Clinton is more personally deserving (obviously they would probably dispute this and say that she's not more personally deserving on account of being super-corrupt).
 
MSNBC just played a clip from undecided voters. There was this lady going in on Trump and they asked her why was she undecided. Her answer is she is not sure Hillary is any better.
 
adam387 said:
Literally the only people that are going to care about this are the Bernie busters after tomorrow.

The response from everyone associated with this was coordinated and says the same thing. The media will lose interest (Unlike the plagiarism story) because there's no disagreement anywhere by anyone. Bernie talking tomorrow is a freaking great thing because he'll endorse again, and then the media won't be able to clutch their pearls and wonder OMG what if Bernie goes CRUZ GUIS!?
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I don't think Bernie will do anything bad, what remains to be seen is what optics we'll get out of Bernie supporters on the floor and from protesters. Hell, you might have boos coming during Bernie's speech because he "abandoned the revolution".
 
Monday is gonna be amazing because this is all of the primetime speakers' biggest speech of their lives. Really excited to see Michelle after last week's events.
 
Gotchaye said:
Oh, so you're arguing that it's not unfair to Sanders to advantage Clinton because Clinton is more personally deserving? I think the response goes similarly - the important kind of fairness here is not fairness to candidates but fairness to voters who support candidates. I expect that many Sanders supporters would eventually get here even if it's not where they start out. The idea would be that it is not fair to Sanders' supporters, who are largely members of the Democratic coalition and will vote for the Democratic nominee, etc., to disadvantage their choice just because Clinton is more personally deserving (obviously they would probably dispute this and say that she's not more personally deserving on account of being super-corrupt).
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Hah, that's a pretty interesting counter. Hrm.
 
Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 3m3 minutes ago
Crooked Hillary Clinton was not at all loyal to the person in her rigged system that pushed her over the top, DWS. Too bad Bernie flamed out
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Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago
I always said that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was overrated. The Dems Convention is cracking up and Bernie is exhausted, no energy left!
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Seriously?
 
TheLaughingStock said:
Is Hughes drinking KoolAid or the folks claiming it'll blow over and deflecting?
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Let's see, should I listen to the Trump surrogate who yesterday complained that she didn't want a translator to understand the DNC, nor to brush up on her Dora the Explorer.

The answer is yes, absolutely, she is a voice worth listening to
 
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