And as is continually mentioned, it's easy to focus on the flaws on her campaign while ignoring the Comey effect. Even if she had dealt with everything else perfectly, do you really think there anything she could have done to prevent or mitigate that.
Campaign in the states where she lost? It's no secret she campaigned more heavily in the South and didn't target the rust belt heavily.
Like...this isn't some kind of mass, national failure: it was overreach instead of playing a safe campaign. This is not to say the Comey stuff wasn't a contributing factor, but it is far far more likely people thought "Trump's telling us we'll get jobs while Democrats just think our votes are a given. Fuck them." as opposed to "MORE EMAIL SHIT!? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!"
I also wonder how many of those people actually know that Sanders 1. wasn't a Dem till he ran for president and 2. left the party as soon as the getting was good.
For all the times I've seen Clinton called a carpetbagger by her detractors, I always find it amusing that they don't hold similar ideas about Sanders.
I'm curious why the party label is so important. Do you think Joe Manchin (D-WV) is a better standard bearer for Democratic ideas than Bernie?
Do you think Joe Manchin (D-WV) is a better standard bearer for Democratic ideas than Bernie?
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
She spent the most time in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. So that's not super right either. Pennsylvania in particular fucks up a lot of arguments about this election.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
They're not true independents anyway. The vast majority are partisans who don't want to be called partisans because believing in things is passe.
An alternate graph reflects this:
But as long as people don't stand up and be counted in any party infrastructure, doesn't that doom the usefulness of party affiliation in all but fundraising? People want the choice of platform, just not all the baggage that comes with it.
We may be seeing more independent sidelines in primaries and diminished centralization of party power.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
It's not very complicated. Bernie supporters love him, Hillary supporters were mostly fine to happy with him, and he was never subjected to a national campaign so he got to keep the positive feelings people who only heard cursory bits of his message had.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
It's not very complicated. Bernie supporters love him, Hillary supporters were mostly fine to happy with him, and he was never subjected to a national campaign so he got to keep the positive feelings people who only heard cursory bits of his message had.
I think that is a simple part of a complicated model, and I need to wade back in history to see if popular primary losers do maintain popularity after an election, and for how long. It's tricky because Mrs. Clinton was the analogue from the last election, and I don't remember as well going back further.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
0
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
And as is continually mentioned, it's easy to focus on the flaws on her campaign while ignoring the Comey effect. Even if she had dealt with everything else perfectly, do you really think there anything she could have done to prevent or mitigate that.
Campaign in the states where she lost? It's no secret she campaigned more heavily in the South and didn't target the rust belt heavily.
Like...this isn't some kind of mass, national failure: it was overreach instead of playing a safe campaign. This is not to say the Comey stuff wasn't a contributing factor, but it is far far more likely people thought "Trump's telling us we'll get jobs while Democrats just think our votes are a given. Fuck them." as opposed to "MORE EMAIL SHIT!? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!"
Do you have data available from that time period that backs this showing that Clinton was going to lose?
Because polling takes time, and outside of hindsight, there's no way the Clinton camp were going to get accurate metrics when it takes just under a week for the polls to show the damage when Comey dropped his bombshell 10 days out with his retraction only coming a few days later.
Moreover, saying Clinton should have been playing it safe instead of going for the curbstomp only works, again, in hindsight. It also disregards that the very reason she was going for the Big W was to completely smother a neo-white-supremacist movement in its infancy.
0
Options
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
They're not true independents anyway. The vast majority are partisans who don't want to be called partisans because believing in things is passe.
An alternate graph reflects this:
But as long as people don't stand up and be counted in any party infrastructure, doesn't that doom the usefulness of party affiliation in all but fundraising? People want the choice of platform, just not all the baggage that comes with it.
We may be seeing more independent sidelines in primaries and diminished centralization of party power.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
I would argue this come back to what I said about motivating the base. A party, in theory, exists to centralize a national platform for and to elect politicians who will pursue and execute that platform. The people necessary to support that party's infrastructure often do so as employees, many of whom are probably more interested in their employment than in grand vision. But many others are there because they believe in the grand vision. Those people sign up because they are motivated. They volunteer, canvass, phone bank, work long hours for little personal gain, because they beleive in that vision.
If they perceive the party as abandoning that vision, or not living up to that vision, well, some of them don't show up. Others do, because they want to keep working to steer things back on course. But others become disillusioned. They don't come back. They may still vote, but because the party no longer serves their interests, they become detached from the political process.
I would argue this happened for both parties in this past election cycle. In the case of the Republicans, the disillusioned base came back with a vengeance, and wrested control away from the party leadership and paid employees to put their man on the throne. Some were turned off by this usurpation, but enough were inspired and impassioned enough to contribute anyway and the Republicans did modestly better than previous years. With the Democrats, however, the leadership asserted its control successfully and then failed to properly cultivate volunteers vital to the infrastructure. The disillusioned people who should have formed its backbone didn't turn up to help out, or turned up and found their efforts stymied and left in frustration. And many of those people simply chose not to vote.
And here we are. A race between two candidates that had tepid support and high unavailability ratings came down to who could motivate the base more. Sure, some outside factors played a role, but the race was close from the beginning. The lesson we should take from this?
In my option, it's "stick to your ideological guns." Go for your platform full throttle and you will get your base behind you, and you will crush the opposition so long as your base is bigger.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
0
Options
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
You'll find the huge numbers of reliable Democratic voters who are themselves registered as independents really, really don't care about this.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
So he should have anticipated the Democratic leadership would try to sabotage his campaign? I'm pretty cynical about the party and I didn't see that one coming.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
So he should have anticipated the Democratic leadership would try to sabotage his campaign? I'm pretty cynical about the party and I didn't see that one coming.
they didn't sabotage his campaign. You're literally just repeating Trump talking points.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
So he should have anticipated the Democratic leadership would try to sabotage his campaign? I'm pretty cynical about the party and I didn't see that one coming.
This did not happen, Wikileaks' bullshit hype to the contrary.
Self-righteousness is incompatible with coalition building.
Meh. She can't be seen as having any actual political power, or the whole thing ends up where we are now again. If she wants to advise, great. But she never votes on or heads anything internal ever again.
Why? Because she and her entire party was slandered as being corrupt by her primary opponent?
If so, it speaks primarily to the reason so many of us are pissed at Sanders. The rift in the party would either be wafer-thin or wouldn't exist at all if Bernie had tempered his rhetoric responsibly.
So now, as a result of that, Clinton should accept the position of continued whipping-girl due to Bernie's malfeasance, while he gets to continue to spout off about whatever he well pleases?
This thing isn't going to go away until one of two things happen- either Clinton admits that it was all a setup to shut Bernie down (which is bullshit), or Bernie admits he done messed up- which would infuriate his base assuming they even believed he wasn't being leaned on by the DNC cabal.
Just want to point out here: That Rift existed well before the primary. The Sanders vs. Clinton fight can be seen as a microcosm of the conflict between the harder-left wing/progressive wing of the party vs. the DLC/Third Way Wing.
It's an intraparty conflict that's been happening ever since the DLC wing took the reigns as the Party's major driving force. Acting as though Sanders was the cause misjudges a long-running idealogical feud within the party that's finally coming to a head, particularly after the DLC wing was weakened in Obama's win.
I'd say this began when Truman had his thugs slash Wallace's tires, cut the mic cable, and then flip the breakers while saying that the convention was over, but, yeah, same thing.
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
It may seem more important, but it's not. One more person voting with the Dems is great but not as valuable as that person making all Dems more popular by promoting the party. Especially because this isn't a choice Bernie has to make--visibly joining the party wouldn't prevent him from voting exactly the same way he has before. Just because he's doing something that's good doesn't mean he couldn't be doing more.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining separate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
A party is just a group of people working together for political purposes. If Bernie wants to change the party he can join it and become one of those people and bring his progressive friends and fans along. The Democrats are not a monolithic institution; decisions are made by those who show up. Bernie and the left wing of the party can take it over if they want, but I guess they're mad it's just not being handed to them?
0
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
So he should have anticipated the Democratic leadership would try to sabotage his campaign? I'm pretty cynical about the party and I didn't see that one coming.
THIS SHIT AGAIN?!
You didn't see it coming because it_never_happened you silly goose.
But for some mystical reason it keeps getting brought up in these threads and elsewhere. I wonder where this idea first came from and who kept/ keeps pushing it. It's a mystery that will never be solved!
edit- @Bobkins Flymo this is my proof to you that both sides of this argument are not the same. Because this crap keep getting brought up.
@ Everyone else in the thread defending Sanders, this is why I will always take issue with him, because the bullshit fire he started hasn't gone out yet. And yet some people actually want him to take over reigns of the party while wondering why the rest of us take issue with that notion.
No-Quarter on
+13
Options
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
Meh. She can't be seen as having any actual political power, or the whole thing ends up where we are now again. If she wants to advise, great. But she never votes on or heads anything internal ever again.
Why? Because she and her entire party was slandered as being corrupt by her primary opponent?
If so, it speaks primarily to the reason so many of us are pissed at Sanders. The rift in the party would either be wafer-thin or wouldn't exist at all if Bernie had tempered his rhetoric responsibly.
So now, as a result of that, Clinton should accept the position of continued whipping-girl due to Bernie's malfeasance, while he gets to continue to spout off about whatever he well pleases?
This thing isn't going to go away until one of two things happen- either Clinton admits that it was all a setup to shut Bernie down (which is bullshit), or Bernie admits he done messed up- which would infuriate his base assuming they even believed he wasn't being leaned on by the DNC cabal.
Just want to point out here: That Rift existed well before the primary. The Sanders vs. Clinton fight can be seen as a microcosm of the conflict between the harder-left wing/progressive wing of the party vs. the DLC/Third Way Wing.
It's an intraparty conflict that's been happening ever since the DLC wing took the reigns as the Party's major driving force. Acting as though Sanders was the cause misjudges a long-running idealogical feud within the party that's finally coming to a head, particularly after the DLC wing was weakened in Obama's win.
I'd say this began when Truman had his thugs slash Wallace's tires, cut the mic cable, and then flip the breakers while saying that the convention was over, but, yeah, same thing.
Bernie Sanders is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat. He caucuses with the Democrats, he shares funds with the Democrats, he campaigns for Democrats. He's just also an old man with a penchant for grandstanding, memories of his wing of the party being marginalized, and high enough approval ratings among his constituents that no one else in the party can really tell him what to do.
He is, coincidentally, not going to change and yet still is viewed more positively by the American people than the party proper. So maybe we can all be pragmatic about this and just embrace it.
Bernie Sanders is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat. He caucuses with the Democrats, he shares funds with the Democrats, he campaigns for Democrats. He's just also an old man with a penchant for grandstanding, memories of his wing of the party being marginalized, and high enough approval ratings among his constituents that no one else in the party can really tell him what to do.
He is, coincidentally, not going to change and yet still is viewed more positively by the American people than the party proper. So maybe we can all be pragmatic about this and just embrace it.
Which is all well and good until he started feeding Donald fucking Trump talking points
Yes, he said that. And it was as much bullshit then as it is now. This was the point when I flipped from Sanders to Clinton, and it only got worse from there.
Bernie Sanders is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat. He caucuses with the Democrats, he shares funds with the Democrats, he campaigns for Democrats. He's just also an old man with a penchant for grandstanding, memories of his wing of the party being marginalized, and high enough approval ratings among his constituents that no one else in the party can really tell him what to do.
He is, coincidentally, not going to change and yet still is viewed more positively by the American people than the party proper. So maybe we can all be pragmatic about this and just embrace it.
I'm grumpy about it but it's not going to seriously affect my generally okay views of him. It's just very irksome for someone officially outside the party to be criticizing the Democrats and what I hear is: "you guys should reform the party."
And should he say: "we should reform the party" that just rings really hollow to me. Yes, we should. GET IN IT AND LET'S GO.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
He didn't seem to think the party was so compromised when he needed access to their voter data and organizational power. He wants all the good from the Democratic Party when he wants to run for President or when he doesn't want to face a Democratic challenger for his Senate seat and the party obliges him. But then he also wants to keep the party at arms length and say how corrupt they all are.
Others have pointed out the lie about the party working against him in the primary. But really think about what you're saying for a minute. The DNC allowed Sanders to enter the primary as a Democrat...only to then work against him. It's rediculous, why wouldn't they have just told him no to begin with and let him toil in obscurity with Vermin Supreme and Jill Stein?
What action did the party take against Sanders, specifically?
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
It's not very complicated. Bernie supporters love him, Hillary supporters were mostly fine to happy with him, and he was never subjected to a national campaign so he got to keep the positive feelings people who only heard cursory bits of his message had.
As someone who was bullied into supporting Hillary, no. Bernie supporters loved him, Hillary supporters who actually supported Hillary were okay with him, and people resigned to Hillary fucking hated him for having the audacity to believe that this wretched country could be improved until the Baby Boomers died off.
Like, there's an entire brigade of people who supported Bernie's policies, thought that he'd give the party over to the DLC for a generation upon losing, and then had to watch as Hillary slam-dunked it into the fucking trash.
Bernie Sanders is, for all intents and purposes, a Democrat. He caucuses with the Democrats, he shares funds with the Democrats, he campaigns for Democrats. He's just also an old man with a penchant for grandstanding, memories of his wing of the party being marginalized, and high enough approval ratings among his constituents that no one else in the party can really tell him what to do.
He is, coincidentally, not going to change and yet still is viewed more positively by the American people than the party proper. So maybe we can all be pragmatic about this and just embrace it.
I'm grumpy about it but it's not going to seriously affect my generally okay views of him. It's just very irksome for someone officially outside the party to be criticizing the Democrats and what I hear is: "you guys should reform the party."
And should he say: "we should reform the party" that just rings really hollow to me. Yes, we should. GET IN IT AND LET'S GO.
It's part of his personal brand, built up over a career spanning decades in which he has consistently positioned himself as a democratic socialist. I mean, Sanders first appeared on my radar when he held his 8 hour marathon anti-tax cut speech on the Senate floor. And the sum total of what I knew about him at the time was roughly 1) he did that, and 2) he got elected to the American Senate as a self-described socialist. And I thought: whoa. This guy is legit.
That's the point, and it worked well.
If I believed that retaining his independent affiliation was doing any measurable damage to left-wing politics in America, I would still probably want him to get rid of it. But I don't think that. And so it doesn't strike me that there's really a reason to change it.
What action did the party take against Sanders, specifically?
Allowing joint fundraising through the Hillary Victory Fund was the most obvious. Added to that is the complete lack money being distributed to state parties despite assurances they would get help.
Between the creation of the victory fund in September and the end of last month, the fund had brought in $142 million, the lion’s share of which — 44 percent — has wound up in the coffers of the DNC ($24.4 million) and Hillary for America ($37.6 million), according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC reports filed this month. By comparison, the analysis found that the state parties have kept less than $800,000 of all the cash brought in by the committee — or only 0.56 percent.
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
0
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
Doubly so once he started talking shit about the organization that was propping up his Senate campaigns and giving him chairmanships for years- including a seat as superdelegate (those things he ranted and railed about as being oh so undemocratic during the primary) during the 2008 election when he was calling on Clinton to suspend her campaign in favor of Obama due to her not having a path to victory.
0
Options
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
Doubly so once he started talking shit about the organization that was propping up his Senate campaigns and giving him chairmanships for years- including a seat as superdelegate (those things he ranted and railed about as being oh so undemocratic during the primary) during the 2008 election when he was calling on Clinton to suspend her campaign in favor of Obama due to her not having a path to victory.
Ah, so, the Democratic party had no internal effort to counter Sander's campaign, but if it did it would have been totally A-OK because fuck him for being an independent, right?
They're not true independents anyway. The vast majority are partisans who don't want to be called partisans because believing in things is passe.
An alternate graph reflects this:
But as long as people don't stand up and be counted in any party infrastructure, doesn't that doom the usefulness of party affiliation in all but fundraising? People want the choice of platform, just not all the baggage that comes with it.
We may be seeing more independent sidelines in primaries and diminished centralization of party power.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
I would argue this come back to what I said about motivating the base. A party, in theory, exists to centralize a national platform for and to elect politicians who will pursue and execute that platform. The people necessary to support that party's infrastructure often do so as employees, many of whom are probably more interested in their employment than in grand vision. But many others are there because they believe in the grand vision. Those people sign up because they are motivated. They volunteer, canvass, phone bank, work long hours for little personal gain, because they beleive in that vision.
If they perceive the party as abandoning that vision, or not living up to that vision, well, some of them don't show up. Others do, because they want to keep working to steer things back on course. But others become disillusioned. They don't come back. They may still vote, but because the party no longer serves their interests, they become detached from the political process.
I would argue this happened for both parties in this past election cycle. In the case of the Republicans, the disillusioned base came back with a vengeance, and wrested control away from the party leadership and paid employees to put their man on the throne. Some were turned off by this usurpation, but enough were inspired and impassioned enough to contribute anyway and the Republicans did modestly better than previous years. With the Democrats, however, the leadership asserted its control successfully and then failed to properly cultivate volunteers vital to the infrastructure. The disillusioned people who should have formed its backbone didn't turn up to help out, or turned up and found their efforts stymied and left in frustration. And many of those people simply chose not to vote.
And here we are. A race between two candidates that had tepid support and high unavailability ratings came down to who could motivate the base more. Sure, some outside factors played a role, but the race was close from the beginning. The lesson we should take from this?
In my option, it's "stick to your ideological guns." Go for your platform full throttle and you will get your base behind you, and you will crush the opposition so long as your base is bigger.
I feel like that explains congressional election trends more than presidential. Presidential elections are cyclical unless there's a war on, so either the attention span of a party taps out after 8 years, or 8 years is the longest you can hold onto your base ... as president.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
So you're reacting with great umbrage at the idea party leadership tried to sabotage Sanders' campaign. And you're also fine with saying they actively tried to get Clinton nominated.
Do you see any inconsistency in holding both positions?
+6
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
Doubly so once he started talking shit about the organization that was propping up his Senate campaigns and giving him chairmanships for years- including a seat as superdelegate (those things he ranted and railed about as being oh so undemocratic during the primary) during the 2008 election when he was calling on Clinton to suspend her campaign in favor of Obama due to her not having a path to victory.
Ah, so, the Democratic party had no internal effort to counter Sander's campaign, but if it did it would have been totally A-OK because fuck him for being an independent, right?
They wouldn't have fucked him so much as never let him run in the first place.
Sanders fucked himself once he started biting the hand that fed him because he couldn't handle the fact that he was losing, so it's no wonder they got combative with him.
I mean let's just look what Bernie's people did in the Nevada caucus up to and including the threats Roberta Lange got. To say nothing of Bernie's response being outright victim blaming:
Him staying in the race absolutely made the party platform better than it would have been otherwise.
Yes let's look at all the good that platform is doing what with having no control of any branch of government.
At best a pyrrhic victory.
Just a few pages ago people were pointing at the platform as What the Dems Definitely Stand For. So is that what they stand for? Or is it just a bunch of words on a page that people don't want to back up?
Hillary's "Popular Vote Win" is the ultimate Asterisk on the end of "But she still, along with her party, lost across the board" and yet we're hearing this "Well Bernie's primary votes weren't real" and "the platform doesn't matter (but hillary ran on the MOST PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM EVER)".
Do the asterisks matter or not? Does the platform matter or not?
The consequences of bernie's push were uselessly extreme.
In order to get a marginally more leftward platform he painted the entire democratic party as corrupt corporate whores. Essentially doing the Republican's work to impune the character of not just hillary, but all democrats, and subsequently anyone willing to defend them. In order to get a more leftward platform, he did just about everything he could to make sure that platform would never be enacted.
Again pyrrhic victory.
You can complain about the fact that I'm laying some blame at the feet of bernie sanders, but don't try to tell me he accomplished anything of worth because the only thing he can even try to spin as a positive result of his massive incompetence was only able to be spun as positive if we had won. Without us having got the W his "accomplishments" are completely worth less. Most especially because all he succeeded in doing is giving credence to the idea that such a progressive platform is, apparently, not a winning one.
Yeah man, if only he had dropped out of the race before she hired a magic bean salesman for her chief strategist, or before she had to defund the state parties, or picked a right to work governor for vice president, or decided to elevate trump, or tried to divide Trump from Republicans, or ran a personality focused campaign, or...
It's everyone else's incompetence, but never her own, that brought her down apparently.
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
So you're reacting with great umbrage at the idea party leadership tried to sabotage Sanders' campaign. And you're also fine with saying they actively tried to get Clinton nominated.
Do you see any inconsistency in holding both positions?
No, I'm saying you're living in a goosey conspiracy-filled fantasy world whereyou seem to think that 1. the DNC shadow cabal screwed over Sanders when it reality he just lost and that 2. you can't seem to comprehend why they DNC (which, I hate to break it to you, is not some neutral body) might take umbrage from a candidate (who just so happened couldn't be bothered to even formally join the party until he realized he couldn't make it as an Independent) talking shit about how their fundraising methods were bullshit while Bernie himself was using that money to fund his campaigns.
Notice how none of the other regular Bernie defenders are jumping in here to agree with your point that the primary contest was rigged or that Bernie was actively sabotaged by the DNC?
What action did the party take against Sanders, specifically?
Allowing joint fundraising through the Hillary Victory Fund was the most obvious. Added to that is the complete lack money being distributed to state parties despite assurances they would get help.
Between the creation of the victory fund in September and the end of last month, the fund had brought in $142 million, the lion’s share of which — 44 percent — has wound up in the coffers of the DNC ($24.4 million) and Hillary for America ($37.6 million), according to a POLITICO analysis of FEC reports filed this month. By comparison, the analysis found that the state parties have kept less than $800,000 of all the cash brought in by the committee — or only 0.56 percent.
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
How are either of these things actions against the Sanders campaign?
+2
Options
FakefauxCóiste BodharDriving John McCain to meet some Iraqis who'd very much like to make his acquaintanceRegistered Userregular
They're not true independents anyway. The vast majority are partisans who don't want to be called partisans because believing in things is passe.
An alternate graph reflects this:
But as long as people don't stand up and be counted in any party infrastructure, doesn't that doom the usefulness of party affiliation in all but fundraising? People want the choice of platform, just not all the baggage that comes with it.
We may be seeing more independent sidelines in primaries and diminished centralization of party power.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
I would argue this come back to what I said about motivating the base. A party, in theory, exists to centralize a national platform for and to elect politicians who will pursue and execute that platform. The people necessary to support that party's infrastructure often do so as employees, many of whom are probably more interested in their employment than in grand vision. But many others are there because they believe in the grand vision. Those people sign up because they are motivated. They volunteer, canvass, phone bank, work long hours for little personal gain, because they beleive in that vision.
If they perceive the party as abandoning that vision, or not living up to that vision, well, some of them don't show up. Others do, because they want to keep working to steer things back on course. But others become disillusioned. They don't come back. They may still vote, but because the party no longer serves their interests, they become detached from the political process.
I would argue this happened for both parties in this past election cycle. In the case of the Republicans, the disillusioned base came back with a vengeance, and wrested control away from the party leadership and paid employees to put their man on the throne. Some were turned off by this usurpation, but enough were inspired and impassioned enough to contribute anyway and the Republicans did modestly better than previous years. With the Democrats, however, the leadership asserted its control successfully and then failed to properly cultivate volunteers vital to the infrastructure. The disillusioned people who should have formed its backbone didn't turn up to help out, or turned up and found their efforts stymied and left in frustration. And many of those people simply chose not to vote.
And here we are. A race between two candidates that had tepid support and high unavailability ratings came down to who could motivate the base more. Sure, some outside factors played a role, but the race was close from the beginning. The lesson we should take from this?
In my option, it's "stick to your ideological guns." Go for your platform full throttle and you will get your base behind you, and you will crush the opposition so long as your base is bigger.
I feel like that explains congressional election trends more than presidential. Presidential elections are cyclical unless there's a war on, so either the attention span of a party taps out after 8 years, or 8 years is the longest you can hold onto your base ... as president.
Presidential races do have a bunch of other factors to account for, it's true; wars, recessions, scandals, etc. But it's not like voter disillusionment is a non factor. If the base was more motivated midterms would be a much smaller problem for the Democrats, which would make it easier for their presidents, when they get elected, to carry out their policy goals which makes re-election somewhat easier and enhances the good name of the party.
It's also a little weird that a living Democratic president has not been able to successfully hand off the seat to another Democratic president since 1857. Every other time since the sitting democrat died in office, was assassinated, or handed the seat to a Republican. That is a really shitty track record.
Posts
Like...this isn't some kind of mass, national failure: it was overreach instead of playing a safe campaign. This is not to say the Comey stuff wasn't a contributing factor, but it is far far more likely people thought "Trump's telling us we'll get jobs while Democrats just think our votes are a given. Fuck them." as opposed to "MORE EMAIL SHIT!? THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!"
Your question is a distraction honestly. Manchin doesn't share every idea with all his other party members, but he flies the flag of the Democrats which means he supports that party getting into power and implementing its ideas, broadly.
If Bernie wants to be a standard bearer for Democratic ideas, why isn't he actually flying the Democratic flag? That's the point here. The answer is he doesn't want to be a standard bearer or a participant, he wants to call shots while remaining some sort of "outsider" beholden to no one.
I wish he would get in the party.
An alternate graph reflects this:
But as long as people don't stand up and be counted in any party infrastructure, doesn't that doom the usefulness of party affiliation in all but fundraising? People want the choice of platform, just not all the baggage that comes with it.
We may be seeing more independent sidelines in primaries and diminished centralization of party power.
Topic point: I am trying to find explanations of Mr. Sanders' apparent post-election popularity. I also submit the theory that not being a member of the Democratic party may have helped more than hurt in the Democratic primary.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's not very complicated. Bernie supporters love him, Hillary supporters were mostly fine to happy with him, and he was never subjected to a national campaign so he got to keep the positive feelings people who only heard cursory bits of his message had.
I think that is a simple part of a complicated model, and I need to wade back in history to see if popular primary losers do maintain popularity after an election, and for how long. It's tricky because Mrs. Clinton was the analogue from the last election, and I don't remember as well going back further.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Do you have data available from that time period that backs this showing that Clinton was going to lose?
Because polling takes time, and outside of hindsight, there's no way the Clinton camp were going to get accurate metrics when it takes just under a week for the polls to show the damage when Comey dropped his bombshell 10 days out with his retraction only coming a few days later.
Moreover, saying Clinton should have been playing it safe instead of going for the curbstomp only works, again, in hindsight. It also disregards that the very reason she was going for the Big W was to completely smother a neo-white-supremacist movement in its infancy.
I would argue this come back to what I said about motivating the base. A party, in theory, exists to centralize a national platform for and to elect politicians who will pursue and execute that platform. The people necessary to support that party's infrastructure often do so as employees, many of whom are probably more interested in their employment than in grand vision. But many others are there because they believe in the grand vision. Those people sign up because they are motivated. They volunteer, canvass, phone bank, work long hours for little personal gain, because they beleive in that vision.
If they perceive the party as abandoning that vision, or not living up to that vision, well, some of them don't show up. Others do, because they want to keep working to steer things back on course. But others become disillusioned. They don't come back. They may still vote, but because the party no longer serves their interests, they become detached from the political process.
I would argue this happened for both parties in this past election cycle. In the case of the Republicans, the disillusioned base came back with a vengeance, and wrested control away from the party leadership and paid employees to put their man on the throne. Some were turned off by this usurpation, but enough were inspired and impassioned enough to contribute anyway and the Republicans did modestly better than previous years. With the Democrats, however, the leadership asserted its control successfully and then failed to properly cultivate volunteers vital to the infrastructure. The disillusioned people who should have formed its backbone didn't turn up to help out, or turned up and found their efforts stymied and left in frustration. And many of those people simply chose not to vote.
And here we are. A race between two candidates that had tepid support and high unavailability ratings came down to who could motivate the base more. Sure, some outside factors played a role, but the race was close from the beginning. The lesson we should take from this?
In my option, it's "stick to your ideological guns." Go for your platform full throttle and you will get your base behind you, and you will crush the opposition so long as your base is bigger.
Bernie might not fly the flag, but his actual voting record and views more closely adhere to the party platform. That seems more important than the letter by his name, especially since he caucuses with us in a time of dwindling Democratic numbers in the legislature.
Or he believes the party is compromised with bought influence and does his best to help support the ideas he agrees with while remaining seperate from an establishment that actively worked against him in the primary when he did try to sign on to the team.
then he should have run for president as an independent
You'll find the huge numbers of reliable Democratic voters who are themselves registered as independents really, really don't care about this.
So he should have anticipated the Democratic leadership would try to sabotage his campaign? I'm pretty cynical about the party and I didn't see that one coming.
they didn't sabotage his campaign. You're literally just repeating Trump talking points.
This did not happen, Wikileaks' bullshit hype to the contrary.
I'd say this began when Truman had his thugs slash Wallace's tires, cut the mic cable, and then flip the breakers while saying that the convention was over, but, yeah, same thing.
He shot himself in the foot at the start line then bitched about the party making him limp.
It may seem more important, but it's not. One more person voting with the Dems is great but not as valuable as that person making all Dems more popular by promoting the party. Especially because this isn't a choice Bernie has to make--visibly joining the party wouldn't prevent him from voting exactly the same way he has before. Just because he's doing something that's good doesn't mean he couldn't be doing more.
A party is just a group of people working together for political purposes. If Bernie wants to change the party he can join it and become one of those people and bring his progressive friends and fans along. The Democrats are not a monolithic institution; decisions are made by those who show up. Bernie and the left wing of the party can take it over if they want, but I guess they're mad it's just not being handed to them?
THIS SHIT AGAIN?!
You didn't see it coming because it_never_happened you silly goose.
But for some mystical reason it keeps getting brought up in these threads and elsewhere. I wonder where this idea first came from and who kept/ keeps pushing it. It's a mystery that will never be solved!
edit- @Bobkins Flymo this is my proof to you that both sides of this argument are not the same. Because this crap keep getting brought up.
@ Everyone else in the thread defending Sanders, this is why I will always take issue with him, because the bullshit fire he started hasn't gone out yet. And yet some people actually want him to take over reigns of the party while wondering why the rest of us take issue with that notion.
The 1976 election is another popular choice.
He is, coincidentally, not going to change and yet still is viewed more positively by the American people than the party proper. So maybe we can all be pragmatic about this and just embrace it.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
Bernie Sanders accuses DNC of trying to 'sabotage' his campaign
Which is all well and good until he started feeding Donald fucking Trump talking points
Getting punished for literally stealing stuff is not sabotage.
Steam: adamjnet
Yes, he said that. And it was as much bullshit then as it is now. This was the point when I flipped from Sanders to Clinton, and it only got worse from there.
Did you read the article
They cut off his access because his staff was stealing files on Clinton's campaign
I'm grumpy about it but it's not going to seriously affect my generally okay views of him. It's just very irksome for someone officially outside the party to be criticizing the Democrats and what I hear is: "you guys should reform the party."
And should he say: "we should reform the party" that just rings really hollow to me. Yes, we should. GET IN IT AND LET'S GO.
He didn't seem to think the party was so compromised when he needed access to their voter data and organizational power. He wants all the good from the Democratic Party when he wants to run for President or when he doesn't want to face a Democratic challenger for his Senate seat and the party obliges him. But then he also wants to keep the party at arms length and say how corrupt they all are.
Others have pointed out the lie about the party working against him in the primary. But really think about what you're saying for a minute. The DNC allowed Sanders to enter the primary as a Democrat...only to then work against him. It's rediculous, why wouldn't they have just told him no to begin with and let him toil in obscurity with Vermin Supreme and Jill Stein?
What action did the party take against Sanders, specifically?
As someone who was bullied into supporting Hillary, no. Bernie supporters loved him, Hillary supporters who actually supported Hillary were okay with him, and people resigned to Hillary fucking hated him for having the audacity to believe that this wretched country could be improved until the Baby Boomers died off.
Like, there's an entire brigade of people who supported Bernie's policies, thought that he'd give the party over to the DLC for a generation upon losing, and then had to watch as Hillary slam-dunked it into the fucking trash.
As soon as Trump obviously going to nominated people's ideals should've taken a backseat to keeping that psychopath out of office.
It's part of his personal brand, built up over a career spanning decades in which he has consistently positioned himself as a democratic socialist. I mean, Sanders first appeared on my radar when he held his 8 hour marathon anti-tax cut speech on the Senate floor. And the sum total of what I knew about him at the time was roughly 1) he did that, and 2) he got elected to the American Senate as a self-described socialist. And I thought: whoa. This guy is legit.
That's the point, and it worked well.
If I believed that retaining his independent affiliation was doing any measurable damage to left-wing politics in America, I would still probably want him to get rid of it. But I don't think that. And so it doesn't strike me that there's really a reason to change it.
Allowing joint fundraising through the Hillary Victory Fund was the most obvious. Added to that is the complete lack money being distributed to state parties despite assurances they would get help.
Do you think the DNC was a neutral arbiter during the Democratic primary?
Why the hell would they be? Man, maybe it has something to do with it being a Democratic primary, for you know, Democrats and not Johnny-Come-Lately-Independents looking for a free ride on the gravy train.
Doubly so once he started talking shit about the organization that was propping up his Senate campaigns and giving him chairmanships for years- including a seat as superdelegate (those things he ranted and railed about as being oh so undemocratic during the primary) during the 2008 election when he was calling on Clinton to suspend her campaign in favor of Obama due to her not having a path to victory.
Ah, so, the Democratic party had no internal effort to counter Sander's campaign, but if it did it would have been totally A-OK because fuck him for being an independent, right?
I feel like that explains congressional election trends more than presidential. Presidential elections are cyclical unless there's a war on, so either the attention span of a party taps out after 8 years, or 8 years is the longest you can hold onto your base ... as president.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
So you're reacting with great umbrage at the idea party leadership tried to sabotage Sanders' campaign. And you're also fine with saying they actively tried to get Clinton nominated.
Do you see any inconsistency in holding both positions?
They wouldn't have fucked him so much as never let him run in the first place.
Sanders fucked himself once he started biting the hand that fed him because he couldn't handle the fact that he was losing, so it's no wonder they got combative with him.
I mean let's just look what Bernie's people did in the Nevada caucus up to and including the threats Roberta Lange got. To say nothing of Bernie's response being outright victim blaming:
Yeah man, if only he had dropped out of the race before she hired a magic bean salesman for her chief strategist, or before she had to defund the state parties, or picked a right to work governor for vice president, or decided to elevate trump, or tried to divide Trump from Republicans, or ran a personality focused campaign, or...
It's everyone else's incompetence, but never her own, that brought her down apparently.
No, I'm saying you're living in a goosey conspiracy-filled fantasy world whereyou seem to think that 1. the DNC shadow cabal screwed over Sanders when it reality he just lost and that 2. you can't seem to comprehend why they DNC (which, I hate to break it to you, is not some neutral body) might take umbrage from a candidate (who just so happened couldn't be bothered to even formally join the party until he realized he couldn't make it as an Independent) talking shit about how their fundraising methods were bullshit while Bernie himself was using that money to fund his campaigns.
Notice how none of the other regular Bernie defenders are jumping in here to agree with your point that the primary contest was rigged or that Bernie was actively sabotaged by the DNC?
There's a reason for that.
How are either of these things actions against the Sanders campaign?
Presidential races do have a bunch of other factors to account for, it's true; wars, recessions, scandals, etc. But it's not like voter disillusionment is a non factor. If the base was more motivated midterms would be a much smaller problem for the Democrats, which would make it easier for their presidents, when they get elected, to carry out their policy goals which makes re-election somewhat easier and enhances the good name of the party.
It's also a little weird that a living Democratic president has not been able to successfully hand off the seat to another Democratic president since 1857. Every other time since the sitting democrat died in office, was assassinated, or handed the seat to a Republican. That is a really shitty track record.