ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Set me on fire:
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PoliGAF 2015-2016 |OT3| If someone named PhoenixDark leaves your party, call the cops
- Thread starter Diablos
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Yeah, ENDA has 60 votes in the Senate. Heller, Hatch, Murkowski, Flake, and Collins would vote for it (in this scenario McCain is not in the senate lololol dreams), and I imagine others like Moore Capito and a few surprises might go for it.
User 463088
Banned
Set me on fire:
In her defense, as an American, I always yearn for something big, masculine and strong.
What a fucking load of horse shit
Mrs. Manky
Banned
Aaron Strife
Banned
My hope is if Democrats ever got the trifecta again they would just get rid of the filibuster. I think certain procedures (SCOTUS appointments, Constitutional amendments, veto overrides/impeachment convictions etc.) should have higher thresholds, those are delegated to the Senate for a reason, but day-to-day legislation shouldn't require 60 votes. Like come on that's bullshit. Even with a GOP majority I'd support that on principle (Dem president would serve as a check & balance, and if the GOP won the presidency as well... well, we dug our own grave on that one!).
Ideal Dem president/Congressional agenda would include:
- Full undoing of the sequester
- Minimum wage increase, as you mentioned
- Obamacare expansion (public option, an option for those whose states didn't expand Medicaid, extend Medicare to ages 55-64)
- Social Security reform ("reform" here meaning lifting the payroll tax cap and expanding benefits, no COLA shenanigans)
- Restoring and strengthening Voting Rights Act (including some checks against gerrymandering and voter ID, if legally possible)
- Restoring and strengthening McCain-Feingold (within legal limitations under conservative SCOTUS, if the Court balance flips then ban SuperPACs)
- Employee Free Choice Act (bring the unions back)
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act
- Immigration reform (the 2013 bill would be fine)
- Gun control (ditto)
- Universal pre-K
- Student loan/tuition reform (Hillary's plan seems pretty solid, just throw in Obama's free community college)
- Billions in funding pumped into renovating schools and roads, including high-speed railway (American Jobs Act pt 2?)
- Cap & trade legislation
- Now that Obama mentions it - wage insurance
- Repeal the Hyde amendment
Whew I think that's it.
This is far more succinct and less wishlist-y. Although I would also add immigration reform, what better way to thank the 80+% Hispanic vote she's going to get against Trump.adam387 said:
Manmademan
Member
Oh I can, and I do. There's no defending this. I'm not sure I would call the most recent article "backpedaling" but it does come out and blatantly admit what many people have been accusing nate of for months since the whole Trump narrative started.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-some-gop-candidates-arent-taking-the-fight-to-trump/
"We at fivethirtyeight bought into the 'party decides' theory despite what the numbers told us."
This wasn't rooted in any kind of numerical or statistical analysis, but an ideological belief that the republican base and leadership are more rational and competent than they actually are. Nate's assumptions about whether Trump's support was 'real' revolved entirely around this belief, and the longer the campaign went on the more ridiculous the justifications got. We were told repeatedly that Trump was herman cain 2.0, his support was ephemeral, and voters would inevitably flock to whichever establishment candidate had the most money. We literally had a site based around how numbers matter telling us that 'numbers don't matter'. Until Trump declined and then they did again.
nate needed a WEEK IN IOWA to figure out that most of the people running are doing this out of self interest? It just occurred to him *two weeks before primaries started*? Anyone casually paying attention to the race was aware of this. Carson and Huckabee in particular have no realistic chance of being president, but are in it to sell books and leverage their way into media deals. Many of the remainder (Fiorina, Santorum, Christie, Rubio) are doing it to raise their national profile and cash in on speaking engagements later. Maybe a run at a gubernatorial office in the case of Rubio. The only people who ACTUALLY seem to be in this to win the nomination from the start were Cruz, Bush, and Rand Paul.
We've known this has been a problem specifically with the republican party since Palin (and Huckabee to a lesser extent) became a conservative media celebrity out of the 2008 failed run. The subsequent 2012 primary was FULL of self interested jackasses in it for the money, and not "the good of the party." When a run is personally profitable, candidates are going to do what's good for them and tell the RNC to get bent. This is why where are 3 candidates running for the democratic nomination, and damn near 15 for the GOP.
"The party" had no control over the clown car in 2012 and doesn't have any more control over it in 2016. The Party can't control House Republicans long enough to pass it's own legislation, and that problem has been going on for years. Ask Boehner about it sometime.
Nate isn't dumb enough to not know this- this is a deliberate choice to ignore it on his part due to ideological bias. Nate has some kind of need to believe the base and party are more rational than they actually are. This isn't exclusive to him personally- plenty of moderate republicans and conservatives will put themselves through all kinds of logical contortions to avoid admitting that their base and party is as racist and ignorant as democrats have been saying it is for years.
and still, he hasn't let go of the theory:
uh, no. the answer is not complicated at all. No one is running negative ads against Trump because negative ads don't work. Bush has been spending millions on negative ads against Trump and has only gone down in the polls. For better or worse Trump and his positions are far, far too well known by the general public for television advertising to dislodge it in any meaningful sense at this point. Trump is the anti-immigrant, anti-muslim candidate who will make america great again by kicking them all the fuck out and banning any more from coming in, and a plurality of the base LOVES this- enough to win the nomination, barring a disaster.
Running more negative ads (to say exactly what that the public isn't aware of, I have no idea) is pointless. There isn't a vast swath of moderate republicans out there who "just don't know" what kind of candidate Trump is. Everyone knows. The debates are breaking viewership records left and right and clips run nonstop on social media. But some people desperately need to believe that the Party is still composed of otherwise rational republicans in the vein of Bob Dole, H.W. Bush, etc who just aren't paying attention right now and are the REAL voters who will turn out on primary election day.
It isn't, and 538 will stay joke tier until nate gets over it.
Can Fiorina drop out of the race already? Trying to compare Hillary to El Chapo, attacking Hillary's marriage at the debate, the outright desperation is getting too much. Same interview as the Chapo remarks she tries to spin Cruz and Trump as "insiders". Only Carly can save us from all these Washington insiders, she's not tainted by Washington since she lost the last election she ran.
RustyNails
Member
When Trump used to cite polls to prove that he is the frontrunner I used to think typical Trump hubris. But the more I think about it, the more it seemed like a strategic move. He used it repeatedly to create the narrative to his electorate that he's not a flash in the pan. His base bought it. Media kept repeatedly showing him saying he's leading polls, which in turn fueled his support and his durable lead. Like everything about Trump, it's all about projecting.From Trump's Twitter
Make graphic design great again!
Does it matter?
Third Strike
Member
I wasn't politically savvy during the Bush years, but did Democrats strawman Bush as hard as Republicans have been doing with Obama and Hillary?
The weird thing about it is how they use Obama and Hillary interchangeably.
Manmademan
Member
nowhere close. It's easier for republicans to get away with it, because the conservative media won't a foul when they do it, and they can dismiss everyone else as "liberal media" out to smear them if they do.
Where's that poster who got upset the other day when I said sexism is playing a role in attacking Hillary?Set me on fire:
Manmademan
Member
amazing that anyone would try to deny it, it's as obvious as racism playing a role in obama attacks.
I don't know why they call it "dog whistle" politics when everyone can hear it perfectly fine- the target audience just pretends they can't.
Roland_Gunner
Member
If the Dems somehow do get a majority in both chambers they should kill the filibuster and go HAM for two years. Pass electoral reform that requires vote by mail, re-instate the VRA pre-screening requirements, etc. Then ride out the Republicans getting the House back in 2018 and hope for better results on the state level.
OrangeGrayBlue
Member
I think to some extent he's fumbling into strategies that are working and we're conveying it as part of a master plan after the fact. Capitalizing on xenophobia was, I think, a calculated and smart move for him. But the fact that he shouts down other candidates and wins the exchange, for instance, doesn't make him a masterful politician, it makes him a guy who likes to yell in an election season hungry for someone who will do so. I'd attribute a lot of Trump's success to being in the right place at the right time more so than secretly being a masterful politician. The credit I would actually attribute to him is knowing what generates headlines, a solid use of social media and seeing more clearly than other candidates how rabid the base has become. The rest is the result of a poor pool of candidates and a base that's exhausted of typical stump speeches from Politicians®. All these candidates have to do is be more racist and more xenophobic than he is to steal his thunder, but they bought into the kool aid that the base wasn't actually this hateful and nationalistic. They are, and Trump is the only one with nothing to lose who will appease them.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Continuing my lengthy, rambly post from earlier about how Dems would need to do on the generic ballot to win, in 2012 each House Democrat would have needed an extra 6.2% putting the generic ballot at a 7.4% lead overall. When handicapping them with the three seats gained from FL/VA redistricting, they would just need an extra 5.4%, for a generic ballot lead of 6.6%.
So based on 2012 and 2014 results that gives us a range of 6.6-7.4, which averages out to... Oh boy, 7%! So that's what it would take to make House control a tossup. Of course, those extra votes wouldn't be spread around evenly, and different seats are competitive between different cycles (as incumbents in close seats get entrenched, or close seats that were previously safe for the incumbent open up or the incumbent gets involved in a scandal etc.), so it would be at best a 50/50 proposition.
Play this game with the 2010 results and Democrats would have had 222 seats with a tied generic ballot. The D+1.2 result they achieved in 2012 would have given them an extra three seats. Minimum for a House majority: R+1.2. Redistricting cost the Democrats 22-24 seats, which is almost the majority in and of itself.
So based on 2012 and 2014 results that gives us a range of 6.6-7.4, which averages out to... Oh boy, 7%! So that's what it would take to make House control a tossup. Of course, those extra votes wouldn't be spread around evenly, and different seats are competitive between different cycles (as incumbents in close seats get entrenched, or close seats that were previously safe for the incumbent open up or the incumbent gets involved in a scandal etc.), so it would be at best a 50/50 proposition.
Play this game with the 2010 results and Democrats would have had 222 seats with a tied generic ballot. The D+1.2 result they achieved in 2012 would have given them an extra three seats. Minimum for a House majority: R+1.2. Redistricting cost the Democrats 22-24 seats, which is almost the majority in and of itself.
Third Strike
Member
How about rescheduling Marijuana? Seems like there are even some Republicans that support the move. Drug reform would do wonders for this country, especially for minorities.
Yellowtail
Member
The WSJ's editorial page has also come out in defense of Trump over Cruz. And Murdoch is singing the former's praises on Twitter.
It really looks like the establishment increasingly prefers Trump to Cruz. Just how bad is Cruz in private?
Aaron Strife
Banned
Sure! It's hard to include everything.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
"The Party Decides" is based on statistics. They found that party endorsements had a strong predictive effect of how well a candidate would do in a presidential nomination.
The problem with "The Party Decides" isn't the statistics, it's actually the theoretical underpinnings. The theory gives no evidence of any mechanisms that could explain how endorsements could have a casual effect. That made the theory highly questionable from the start, but Political Science in general can be hard for presidential elections.
Basically, "reg delegates endorsements money polls controls" gave a really high t-score and coefficient for endorsements, but the theory itself couldn't explain why, making using it for predictive proposes highly questionable if the assumptions for why endorsements were predictive were bad.
The problem with "The Party Decides" isn't the statistics, it's actually the theoretical underpinnings. The theory gives no evidence of any mechanisms that could explain how endorsements could have a casual effect. That made the theory highly questionable from the start, but Political Science in general can be hard for presidential elections.
Basically, "reg delegates endorsements money polls controls" gave a really high t-score and coefficient for endorsements, but the theory itself couldn't explain why, making using it for predictive proposes highly questionable if the assumptions for why endorsements were predictive were bad.
Manmademan
Member
with what kind of sample size? exactly. a very, very small one. And looking at statistics in a vacuum while ignoring the circumstances around it is less than useless. The party itself has been in disarray since 2010, when the Tea Party hijacked the primary process. Moderate republicans have been scared to death of it and forced to run right even in local elections ever since. Arguing that "the party decided" in 2012 isn't exactly accurate either- as the party didn't want Mitt Romney either- they were courting the likes of Chris Christie up until the last minute.
also a good point, as "well, exactly HOW will the party decide" was always met with hand waving and vague platitudes. it was never explained WHAT someone could do to take out Trump, only that someone would figure something out eventually and the rest would sort itself out. Likewise, "why isn't anyone running negative ads" runs into the same problem.
What could you POSSIBLY say about Trump that would change someone's opinion of him? His life has been an open book for decades. opposition research is useless. This might work on Generic Politician who Joe Sixpack has never heard of, but not for Trump.
Yellowtail
Member
Hillary successfully pulling Bernie to the left.
Aaron Strife
Banned
Too bad we couldn't gerrymander them out.
Fun fact: Under the 2002-2012 maps, Democrats held every seat in New York at least once except for Peter King's district. After 2008 they held all but 2, and Kathy Hochul picked up the remaining one in a 2011 special election.
Lol flip-flopper.Yellowtail said:
I'm really considering switching my vote to Hillary. I feel like her plans are more grounded. Bernie's single-payer/free college plans sound great in theory, but the numbers as he's presented them don't add up and I don't think he's going to announce "Yes I will totally raise taxes by a trillion dollars" anytime soon.
About damn time he saw the light on that vote, there was no good reason for him to have voted the way he originally did.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Nate in general seems really bad at identification of causality. There was this statistical model he made where he predicted polls based on media attention and net favorability:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-boom-or-trump-bubble/
Where he seems to think that media attention CAUSES people to vote more for a candidate without seeming to contemplate that he's reversing causality and that the media covers a candidate more when more people are interested in that candidate. The model has horrible endogeneity and there are easy instruments to use to calculate the actual casual effect, but Nate just does a super simple regression...
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-boom-or-trump-bubble/
Where he seems to think that media attention CAUSES people to vote more for a candidate without seeming to contemplate that he's reversing causality and that the media covers a candidate more when more people are interested in that candidate. The model has horrible endogeneity and there are easy instruments to use to calculate the actual casual effect, but Nate just does a super simple regression...
User 463088
Banned
I eagerly await the Bernsplaining on this one.
You know, other than he was 100% totally and unequivocally wrong in his initial support of the Bill. Because we all know that can never be the case.
And_Gignac
Member
Of course there was. He is a career politician and Vermont is high on gun ownership (while having the lowest murder by gun rate in the country). He had to represent the particular scenario of his electorate if he wanted to keep his job.
Probably the Iran deal being unpopular with key demographics she wants to appeal in Iowa, heh.
She read Maureen Dowd's editorial.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
She wants Eli Lake's vote *Takes ten shots of whiskey*
So he's trading his values for pragmatism, eh?
You could try and make a thread, I suppose. Don't know if many outside of PoliGAF would shell out though.
No, I suppose not, but I might do it for House/Senate/Governor races, and maybe some key state house and senate races.
Indeed. Though a lot more than her have been threatening to use them over the past several weeks.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/irans-missile-tests-are-spurring-calls-from-congress-for-more-sanctions/2016/01/07/ce8582d8-b54a-11e5-a76a-0b5145e8679a_story.html
It's all a dick measuring contest of course. Iran feels it should be allowed to do its thing here and now since they dismantled their nuclear program and thus aren't "technically" in violation of the UN treaty. America and some of her allies see it the other way. Iran ramps up production in defiance because they think they're getting screwed again and I guess here we are.
And_Gignac
Member
Probably regaining them now that he can free himself from the particular context of his previous electorate.
I dont personally hold Sanders on the idealistic pedestal most of his supporters do.
User 463088
Banned
So... he's flip flopping.Probably regaining them now that he can free himself from the particular context of his previous electorate.
I dont personally hold Sanders on the idealistic pedestal most of his supporters do.
I've been saying for months - the republican donar base will be contributing to Hilary if Cruz wins the nomination. He is utterly, without question, the most loathed person in republican leadership circles. It's hard to overstate how much they dislike him, but 'wouldn't piss on him if he were on fire' is a good place to start.
There have been stories leaking from the senate, house and republican backers for two years now about how repellant Cruz is. People who are happy to sit down and eat with some of the most outright bigoted people in the USA hate him. He's honestly that bad a person.
User 463088
Banned
But in an ideologically pure, consistently liberal way , of course.
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
Just like Hillary I'm sure.
RustyNails
Member
So what happens when he says he will raise middle-class taxes to pay for medicare for all?Probably regaining them now that he can free himself from the particular context of his previous electorate.
I dont personally hold Sanders on the idealistic pedestal most of his supporters do.
User 463088
Banned
Naw, she does it because she's a neoliberal, corporate shrill. Like, Goldman tells her what her positions are 30 days in advance. Then they program them into her AI subroutines. I'm pretty sure that's how it works.
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
I don't know why Bernie doesn't phrase it as you'll be using some of the money you're already paying for health insurance toward taxes that cover medicare for all.
User 463088
Banned
Because people don't trust government to save them money. People don't trust government for anything, but they definitely don't trust the government when it says "Trust me. Give me your money I'll help you spend less." It's a perception problem, and Bernie is ill equipped to solve it.
We've got Hillary on record as saying no new taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 and Bernie is promising increased taxes on everyone...albeit it to pay for programs that would benefit everyone. Doesn't matter, though. People don't mind spending other people's taxes, but they sure as hell won't help him spend theirs.
Edit: And, just for the record, I don't have a problem with him flipping his position because he was 100% wrong on that initially. Changing positions in light of new evidence is a smart thing to do.
Actually, I think I've heard him say that in the past actually? But you know this country has an aversion for taxes like it's nobody's business. And since he's promised none of his other proposals will raise taxes on the middle class, it's not an excuse that would work.
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