2020 Democratic Party primary thread

[Jaguar]

So who was watching Port Charlotte, Florida on CNN? Iowans are allowed to vote from satellite locations.

 

[Tellenbach]

Hillary Clinton blames 2016 loss on Bernie Sanders supporters

"He was in Congress for years," she said. "He had one senator support him. Nobody likes him. Nobody wants to work with him. He got nothing done. He was a career politician. It's all just baloney, and I feel so bad that people got sucked into it."

It's strange seeing one big-name Democrat attack another personally like this; I don't recall anything like this since Gary Hart's candidacy.

Come on Bernie; are you going to just take this without defending yourself?

 

[rav3n]

Whomever takes the Democratic primary except for Gabbard, has my support. 2016 should have taught people the lesson of divisiveness since Trump's the result of all the infighting. Even reddit's smartened up and has been removing government sponsored Russian intelligence agents who are attempting to influence public opinion for 2020.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Whomever takes the Democratic primary except for Gabbard, has my support. 2016 should have taught people the lesson of divisiveness since Trump's the result of all the infighting. Even reddit's smartened up and has been removing government sponsored Russian intelligence agents who are attempting to influence public opinion for 2020.

I will vote for whoever the nominee is.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Buttigieg and Bernie are neck and neck now. Biden is fourth place. I'm liking this so far.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Will a celebratory beer be in order?

 

[Virtual ghost]

So these are elections without results ?

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Lol, what a total disaster for the Democrats.... first they can't do a decent impeachment and then they screw up opening night of the season!

Poor Iowa! You had one job.....

I am going there next week and I suspect the people might still be ashamed of this one. It is even worse than blowing the Super Bowl with a 10 point lead with less than 10 minutes to go.....

Can New Hampshire screw up more? I know Nevada will, as it was awful in 2016 and now they are using a "new app" to do the reporting......

This was almost as bad as the Obamacare website rollout....

 

[Virtual ghost]

The voting should probably be repeated. At this point there is no way to be certain about results, especially since caucus is chaotic by definition.


Plus all of this is excellent for anti-establishment forces. This provides far more in narrative than even a strong victory would.

 

[Maou]

Leave it to a bunch of Boomers to fuck up an app, and an election process.

 

[Virtual ghost]

Still nothing ?

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Russian trolls strike again

Tech firm started by Clinton campaign veterans is linked to Iowa caucus reporting debacle - Los Angeles Times

Oh wait

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Last night, I was looking at preliminary data from the AP posted on the NYTimes website. In the final vote (which I assume is the same as "final alignment"), Bernie was slightly behind Buttigieg for a while, before coming out ahead by about 2 percentage points. They took the results down as the jolly caucus race continued on through the night (can't say I blame them for that).

It is true that I will vote for the nominee. However, if the final results end up being different from that AP data, I'd need a very good explanation as to why that would be so. The case will be made that Trump needs to be replaced because he doesn't respect democratic values (don't think we've been as good at that as we like to pretend, but that's a different story). I certainly agree that Trump does not respect democratic values. However, if it's shown indisputably that the Democratic party doesn't have respect for these values, either, I'm not sure it's a case that they should be making.

I think a good way for the Democratic party to show it's support for democratic values would be to push the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact hard. (I should note that legislation is pending in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. While some states might not sign on, it could make a significant difference, unless there's some bullshit court ruling that it's "unconstitutional.") If each state had been part of that in 2016, Clinton would be President. I find it beyond frustrating that instead of talking about that, people like failed presidential candidate John Kerry (and he was a popular vote loser, too, not just a case of getting screwed over by the electoral college) are placing more energy trying to stop Sanders.

At the moment, it's unclear to which lengths they will go.

Will they prove indisputably that they have as much respect for the will of the people as the Republican party, or will they stick to media attack dogs and fundraising efforts and so forth? I hope that they won't make the mistake of undermining democratic values while publicly claiming that they are alarmed by the erosion of such values. That would be a losing strategy for them. It would hand Trump the White House. While I would vote for the nominee anyway, lots of other people would probably stay home.

I know some people are probably thinking that this sounds like paranoid conspiracy bullshit, but let's do a thought experiment. Suppose it was a general election, and there were early data suggesting Buttigieg winning the electoral voting. Then there's a long delay because of "quality control issues" particularly in states where the process is controlled by the Republican party due to some new app being used. Then, finally, Trump comes out ahead, and there's no clear explanation of what happened there. What do you think you would make of that?

 

[Jaguar]

Still nothing ?

I could not believe what I was watching on TV. It was fucking chaos. All I can say is, I'm glad I don't live in Iowa.

 

[Jaguar]

Zinger.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1224546051941683202

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Zinger.

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1224546051941683202

Pretty funny for an oligarch.

By the way, apparently people consider that offensive, but this is the definition Google gave me:

(especially in Russia) a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence.

I suppose the question hinges on whether or not Bloomberg has a lot of political influence. Given that they changed the rules so he could participate in debates, I'd say he qualifies.

 

[rav3n]

Meh, the conspiracy theories can shove themselves where the sun don't shine. The results will be released in a few hours.

 

[Jaguar]

I'm no fan of coin-tossing for delegates.

Iowa officially has its first caucus-deciding coin flips of the year

Pretty funny

I know.

 

[Jaguar]

More than 50% of the results to be released at 5 PM Eastern.

Fuck me. Iowa, you suck. Will you be throwing out the rest or coin-tossing?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Meh, the conspiracy theories can shove themselves where the sun don't shine. The results will be released in a few hours.

More than 50% of the results to be released at 5 PM Eastern.

Fuck me. Iowa, you suck. Will you be throwing out the rest or coin-tossing?

Well, there is evidently quite a paper trail. I'm not going to go out and automatically yell "fix" if Buttigieg or Biden (god help us all) wins. But I am going to look for plausible explanations as to why it would be different from the AP data I saw last night. If I can find one, I'll accept it. The problem is that many prominent figures in the Democratic party have made their disdain for one of the candidates obvious. They've done this quite publically. Given that, scrutiny might be warranted. Do they care more about stopping Sanders than they do about democratic values? That still remains to be seen. I hope not, especially since that approach would guarantee Trump's re-election.

If a Buttigieg or Biden win looks legit to me, I will certainly defend the results against accusations of rigging and help others to do so even if I don't support the candidate.

If I seem paranoid, please remember that my first election was a year after the media propped up a false narrative about Iraqi WMDs based on paltry evidence. That experience colors the way I approach politics and the media coverage thereof. It predates Trump and "Fake News" by more than a decade.