Elections 2016 Super Saturday to March 14th Primary Thread

[Lead]

Forum blew up from that. Not surprising.

 

[speakhandsforme]

I don't get the absolutist approach in primaries when the delegates are proportional: it makes no sense. A 51-49 win and a 49-51 loss is the difference of a delegate or two in a raise to quadruple digits.

 

[second sight]

Rubio is free falling. Honest question to gopers . . . does the foam party thing h5irt him? Who put that out there? My hunch days Cruz. It'd be par for the course.

I haven't seen that anywhere but here, nobody has mentioned it anywhere

 

[second sight]

Lead salad, why is your name a different color?

 

[in the]

 

[Sycho Sid]

I haven't seen that anywhere but here, nobody has mentioned it anywhere

Agreed. (Wow, there is a first time for everything).

Lead's name means he is a mod. Though I imagine just for the WR.

 

[Lead]

Lead salad, why is your name a different color?

As mentioned, it's a mod and for wr since I don't really use the other places

 

[Lead]

Maine Democratic and Puerto Rico Republican races are today (Sunday). I figure there is little reason to make a new thread for it.

 

[K1levelgrappler]

lmfao

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

It is soooooo dishonest to suggest that Sanders is looking to turn the U.S. so ridiculously to the left as to be comparable to the old Soviets.

Completely ridiculous.

 

[Gandhi]

I think a portion of the party brought it on themselves and their largely loosing credit or trying to save face now. I think if you look at the media even from 2008 to now, it's a large change. Talk radio has far more sensible options like Hewitt (although I think he's pretty much just a neo-con). Fox has had to try to shift a little bit but altogether they are just going to lose more and more power as their audience dies off. There also are far more independent conservative pundits. What I'm saying is there is much more dialogue and less consolidation of power with any media source. This will be the first step to reversing things.

I'd also say the state of the democratic party isn't something I'd bet on either for success. It's very hard to think of where it will be in 10 years because I don't know a name that will be around. They pretty much have a lot of chips on Castro and that's about it.

The Democratic Party has the equivalent of "first world problems". Who had heard of Obama 9 years prior? This R issue is massive dates back to the southern strategy, Fox has just made big dime of off it, but it all come down to appealing to identity and the regressive side of the cultural wars to support an unbalanced fiscal policy. I cannot think of another western country where the Conservative party is hostage to this core group of angry white men with strong streaks of religion and identity mixed in.

As far as supporting the dems, you seem Bernieesk in your approach to banking, is it social issues that bother you?

 

[Gandhi]

I was just commenting to a friend that the best possible option right now (for conservatives) is for the GOP to manage to retain some influence in the legislature while "splitting" the party. Lancing the boil now is necessary. It's going to get worse, and this is as good an opportunity as they'll get.

What no one seems to be answering is how does the R party maintain voter relevancy if the lance away their largest but shrinking but most damaging demographic?

Maybe that group has to go back to being largely ignored like in the rest of the western world. Getting from A to B will be hard.

 

[Fawlty]

Sad to see such a great champion become a shill.

 

[in the]

It is soooooo dishonest to suggest that Sanders is looking to turn the U.S. so ridiculously to the left as to be comparable to the old Soviets.

Completely ridiculous.

He's looking at things in too much of a black and white approach, though I do think there's value in cautioning a voluminous Socialist approach. I know Bernie is a bit different than that but I also have a few socialist friends who are in perpetual autofellatio over the prospect of implementing broad socialist policies. So I'm torn on what he's saying. Given that he saw the shitty side of socialism (in that he actually has experience living in a socialist country), I'm inclined to understand his situation/experience, even if he's not perfectly representing Bernie's stance. When talking about socialism, it's best to be hesitant, even if a few socialist-type programs (most notably social security) work in the broader context of a capitalist system.

Edit - here's a pretty typical post from my socialist friends who support Bernie.

 

[Lead]

The Democratic Party has the equivalent of "first world problems". Who had heard of Obama 9 years prior? This R issue is massive dates back to the southern strategy, Fox has just made big dime of off it, but it all come down to appealing to identity and the regressive side of the cultural wars to support an unbalanced fiscal policy. I cannot think of another western country where the Conservative party is hostage to this core group of angry white men with strong streaks of religion and identity mixed in.

As far as supporting the dems, you seem Bernieesk in your approach to banking, is it social issues that bother you?

I'd say Europe resembles the current state of the party right now with a xenophobic populist. The difference with Europe I would think is they put economic issues to the side so if anything, they focus more on culture identity than the U.S. Version of conservatism. You are right though about the fiscal problem the party had had for years. It's now a party of Reagan instead of Eisenhower and it will be destructive so long as it clings to unaffordable military budgets and an unacceptable that there can be good spending in government for long term investment like infrastructure.

Social issues tend to bother me for both parties. I'm pro gay marriage, anti NSA for privacy, closer to prolife which may be one of the hard points in siding with dems. My biggest problem with the dem party on social issues is I don't think they base anything on broad rights. I wish they would run on a more libertarian platform like people claim they do. I also have a problem with the beginning premise I see sometimes with the dems. I think for regulations, it's always an emotional argument that never considers costs and it's what leaves them out of touch with the people. They don't care if prices rise if they control things. Some politicians split from this. I think this has been somewhere Obama truly ha focused on the people rather than the party with how he embraced the shale gas boom. This was a guy who was saying we needed to get use to Europe level gas prices but when the opportunity came that wasn't necessarily popular with his base to give households more from their paycheck, he took it and accepted it was a decent stepping stone to coal and other energies.

For banking, obviously Bernie is appealing but this is a cross issue topic as Rubio and Fiorina mentioned the same thing this 2016 cycle and Huntmans mentioned it more than once in 2012. You usually see the line by who has been on Washington longer and who hasn't, so less so with party.

If I had to narrow down my priorities, I care about being fiscally conscious, hesitant with infringing on people's rights/ personal lives/ and long term oriented with spending. Neither party is doing a good job at this right now. Just one is running on it and it's starting to fall flat for the BS it is.

 

[gspieler]

Except that USSR was an oligarchy(ironically, so is the current US). The type of system Bernie is advocating is much more like western-Euro social democracies, i.e. basically what we have now, only with a functional social safety net, a working class that lives above the poverty line, and actual checks on corporate power/influence. Equating that with Soviet-style communism is asinine IMO.

 

[Lead]

I don't get the absolutist approach in primaries when the delegates are proportional: it makes no sense. A 51-49 win and a 49-51 loss is the difference of a delegate or two in a raise to quadruple digits.

Most of the proportional states have a rule if you get over 50, you get all the delegates. It's somewhat a hybrid to the later winner take all states. Most of these are the early states so the system acknowledges early on in the race (to about Super Tuesday or so), there are going to be multiple candidates splitting into each others votes so as long as there isn't a commanding frontrunner (over 50), the delegates should get split up. Near the end, these rules fade out as they expect the race to narrow down. More pressure should develop for it to become a two man race. This doesn't seem like it will happen though as the three anti-Trump canidates think they can collect more votes separately then if a few of them drop out. I somewhat agree with this. I saw an article though that showed if Kasich had dropped out, it would be 300-200-200 Trump, Cruz, Rubio vs. 330 240 110 30 Trump Cruz Rubio Kasich. That's a big swing and you can see it results in 10% less delegates for Trump.

Kasich May Have Cut Off Rubio’s Path To The Nomination

 

[wandiswar]

He's looking at things in too much of a black and white approach, though I do think there's value in cautioning a voluminous Socialist approach. I know Bernie is a bit different than that but I also have a few socialist friends who are in perpetual autofellatio over the prospect of implementing broad socialist policies. So I'm torn on what he's saying. Given that he saw the shitty side of socialism (in that he actually has experience living in a socialist country), I'm inclined to understand his situation/experience, even if he's not perfectly representing Bernie's stance. When talking about socialism, it's best to be hesitant, even if a few socialist-type programs (most notably social security) work in the broader context of a capitalist system.

Edit - here's a pretty typical post from my socialist friends who support Bernie.

Once you southern folk start speaking English properly, I'll start taking you guys seriously.

 

[in the]

Once you southern folk start speaking English properly, I'll start taking you guys seriously.

You're not even a good troll.

 

[in the]

Except that USSR was an oligarchy(ironically, so is the current US). The type of system Bernie is advocating is much more like western-Euro social democracies, i.e. basically what we have now, only with a functional social safety net, a working class that lives above the poverty line, and actual checks on corporate power/influence. Equating that with Soviet-style communism is asinine IMO.

If Bernie's plan is to lock us in a game that is playing out in western European countries, then I want no part in it.

You're right that it's not Soviet-style communism, but it's closer to that paradigm than what we have today. I'm hesitant to move more in that direction.