So, Joe Biden couldn’t pull the trigger. I understand. I have no right to ask more of the man. I wish he’d been able to make a different decision, but I’m sure he made the right one.
So, all the action now is between Sanders and Clinton. I’m reminded of something that I probably should look up but won’t. There was a point in 2008 right after Clinton had finally conceded that Obama gathered together his troops in his Chicago campaign headquarters. He told them that they’d done a fantastic job and thanked them profusely, but then he got real with them.
I’m paraphrasing here from memory, but what he basically said was that now that they won the nomination they had just acquired a massive burden. They absolutely had to win or everything they’d been fighting for would be destroyed.
I hope Clinton’s team is getting much the same message today.
Yeah, I know that Sanders is running pretty strong and is going to give her a run for her money, but it’s still a huge longshot campaign. And, I’d point out, that Sanders’ supporters need to internalize the same message. It isn’t going to do anything positive to win the nomination and lose the election. So, they need to figure out how a Vermont Socialist is going to sell in Middle America. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but unless they come up with a convincing explanation, countless Democrats who are more sympathetic to their candidate than the Clintons are going to stick with the Clintons.
Frankly, they’ll be making the prudent choice.
Though I’m a Bernie supporter, Biden’s thinly veiled shots at Clinton really pissed me off. Just go away, Joe.
Joe made the right decision, one seemingly based on a rational look at the political terrain. I just wish he’d get more rational about the folly of true Democrats dealing with the current crop of extremist non-compromise Republicans. We went through the Obama Naive Years in his first term, trying to reason with them, and it got Obama and us nowhere except dangerously close to the cliff on more social services cuts.
Anyway, a Biden candidacy greatly risked badly splitting the party going into a probable brokered convention. He might well have drawn enough Hillary voters to deny her the nom yet not make it a majority for any of the 3. Would have meant most likely the Dems would have gone limping into the general, possibly against a rejuvenated Jeb!, having had his exclamation point restored.
You don’t have to reason with them. You just put the best policies out there, and let the American people, using its innate sense of what’s fair and just, demand their execution.
You can’t stop an idea whose time has come. When the people lead, the leaders follow.
Sanders’s pep talk to his team should also be about the general election and coattails. The sooner his organization gets in position to deliver both, the better his chances in the primary and the general election.
Both of the remaining Democratic campaigns should know the numbers that they have to deliver and being minimalists about those numbers shortchanges their ability to deliver once elected.
The Clinton campaign has the tendency to be so tight and overcontrolled that they choke like my Cubbies.
Both campaigns taking the rhetoric to Alabama cannot hurt. But they need organizations there as well.
Bernie has been talking about it some. It’s not helped when Biden is praising Darth Cheney and saying the GOP is not the enemy. They are the enemy, even if they’re just the conduits for the interests Biden shilled for his whole Senatorial career.
As someone in middle America who is totally sold on Sanders, time to go out and volunteer. Midwest repre-fucking-sent.
Who will save us from the living hell of a Clinton administration now?
Trump???
Win/lose at best.
She appears to be the PermaGov’s fix pick this time around….on the DemRat side, anyway.
So far.
We gotta deal wid it. Rumours of the neolib demise have been vastly overstated.
Unless Bush III wins a fixed convention…always a possibility…she’s our next preznit. Trump has strayed too far into forbidden waters…regarding 9/11 just for starters, also how easily bought-and-sold our pols really are…for the controllers to let him anywhere near the White House. He’d be a loose cannon on a sinking ship. They will not stop at anything to prevent his candidacy. Watch. At worst HRC would willingly bail until the ship of state either rights itself or sinks.
Watch.
AG
Here is the talk that Obama gave to his campaign staff after winning the nomination.
Skip to 9 minute mark.
“If we had lost Iowa, that would have been okay. But, since we won (the nomination) we no longer have any choice. We HAVE TO WIN.”
I suppose it’s prudent if you narrowly focus on winning the general election in 2016. It looks pretty reckless to me in every other way, though, to nominate a candidate who is unlikely to govern well once elected. Will her supporters stay with her once she commits ground troops to the next hopeless Middle East conflict? Will they stay with her when she responds to the next bubble bust with timid half-measures that won’t offend her donor list? Is there any chance of all for the Dems to win a 4th consecutive presidential election in 2020, when the composition of legislatures get set in advance of redistricting?
When the Whigs cracked up in the 1850s, few saw that the Democrats would soon follow suit. I see eerie parallels unfolding now.
After Somalia and Iraq, Hillary’s not sending ground troops. Bombings quite possibly; ground troops no.
Hillary will do what Wall Street tells her to do, that’s the bottom line. Where Wall Street doesn’t care, maybe some good things will happen, otherwise probably not so much.
When Hillary was Senator she represented her state – NY – that has a large financial services sector. I’m not sure why people think she would be a tool of Wall Street as President.
Her Wall Street Policy Proposals don’t sound like she’s going to roll over and happily do their bidding to me. YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
This
She last ran for office in 2008 and the individual breakdown ends there.
Look at the FEC site for the current numbers for her.
Start Here. Click on the “Itemized Individual Contributions” link ($63M so far). Sort as desired (e.g. Amount lists 12 people who have given the $5400 maximum; Employer has lots of blank entries, so I’m not sure how useful that is).
Looking at the CSV export, there are 13 people who list “Citi” as their employer, 10 who list “Citibank”, 15 who list “Citigroup”. There are over 84,000 donors listed. I don’t think ~ 40 donations from Citibank shows that she’s in their pocket.
Similarly for any other banks you can find.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
So all that corruption doesn’t matter because it happened in the past? Right…
And anyways all of their money is probably now being dumped anonymously into post Citizen’s United Super pacs and other “independent” activities.
Tom Sullivan nails it.
Turn out large for the down-ticket, reduce split tickets, and take the top spot. At this moment in history, that is what is required to break the Republican stranglehold.
The Democratic establishment must have some reason for not wanting to win. It might upset all of the post-political employment opportunities. Widespread primary challenges in the Democratic Party that could fire up local areas all over again seem to be what’s needed to shake up the arrogant and much-too-comfortable.
Too bad that the behavior of campaigns has made so many talented people too cynical and too scared to run. And has so deformed political discourse that issues cannot surface in a tractable way.
The experiment in democracy supposedly started in the 1780s seems to be at a moment of evaluation in which the pragmatists are saying “Democracy does not work. Your choices are between aristocracy/oligarchy/plutocracy or democratic tyranny.” Or both at the same time. The quality of discourse that I am getting from my GOP friends are Facebook photos asking Hillary supporters to “slap yourself silly for being an idiot.” And these are adults sending this mess. Not surprising but indicative of how dysfunctional we have become.
The Democratic establishment must have some reason for not wanting to win. It might upset all of the post-political employment opportunities. Widespread primary challenges in the Democratic Party that could fire up local areas all over again seem to be what’s needed to shake up the arrogant and much-too-comfortable.
You nailed it. Post-political employment. Just look at Plouffe and Jay Carney!! Of course there are many more, they’re just the most known, probably. Look at the DSCC and DCCC always trying to undermine progressive candidates.
I don’t think there is any establishment plot to prevent potentially winning candidates from emerging.
I will note this, however. At the Charlotte Convention I went to a number of events for state and local officials. It was full of city counselors, state reps.
The talk was about Citizens United, and the role of money. And this is where Citizens United will be felt over the longer term. Sanders, Biden and HRC are old. Where is the young blood in the Democratic Party? Where are the State AG’s ready to run for Senate? Hell, in Florida, where Obama has won twice, the Democrats have won 3 state wide elections since 2000. THREE!
The problem is money at even the State Rep level, and the problem that creates in finding candidates for the House and the Senate.
I have no idea how to fix it, and I certainly heard no one in Charlotte with a good idea either.
Where is the young blood in the Democratic Party?
This is where party leadership, principally from those in top elected positions, with clear messaging trickles down. It inspires like-minded potential individuals to run for office. Not so difficult for young Republicans over the past twenty odd years because the message isn’t complicated — god, gays, guns, terrorists, and hate on liberals. Once the “new” Democrats dumped the New Deal, jumped on the “anti-crime” bandwagon, and embraced the MIC, they were left to run on personality and not being mean to women. Weak tea.
I go to a Democratic Party event in Florida and it is a bunch of old people. There were a lot of people who worked for Obama in ’08 that were young, but at a party event it is people over 50.
Obama inspired a ton of people, but the subsequent loss in ’10 has left the generation dispirited I think.
Maybe Hillary can inspire young women to run, but this is a hell of a problem with no obvious solution.
One problem is that what animates likely candidates (Educated, relatively successful) are social issues and issues of war and peace. The economy isn’t what drives their identification as Democrats.
…The economy isn’t what drives their identification as Democrats.
Not that well educated then as one of the US economic drivers is the military arms and equipment industry.
What social issues don’t contain an economic component? We’re still having this huge debate over health insurance covering contraceptives, but if women had pay equity and earned a decent wage, they could buy their own damn contraceptives. Young minority males with jobs wouldn’t be hanging out as sitting ducks for LEOs. Etc.
Maybe Hillary can inspire young women to run, …
Other than female spouses and children of successful politicians, why would she inspire any other young woman? It’s not as if there aren’t successful women politicians that have won without family connections or wealth and they may have inspired younger women, but the process is slow, in part because women do have to make more work/home/life trade offs.
The majority of the women I know, age and party irrelevant, think having a woman president is a BIG deal. I know a lot of policy geeks have trouble with her, but don’t deny that her election would be historical, and that will count in the voting.
I don’t do identity politics. For those women that think a woman POTUS would be such a BIG deal, where were they in 1984 and 2008 when there were a women VP nominees?
(My very white mother voted for Shirley Chisholm in the 1972 DEM primary and for the rest of her life claimed it was the only vote she ever proudly cast.)
Policy geeks? How much of a policy geek does one have to be to oppose wars, income/wealth inequality, and legalized inequality? This country could have saved itself a lot of strife and money if we’d legalized marijuana decades ago (and no, I don’t smoke pot and don’t like it at all). And in the year 2015, Clinton is still “evolving” on that issue, very very slowly.
VP just isn’t as excited as President, and in ’08, the candidate was a obvious moron. Just because we think having a woman will matter, doesn’t mean we stop thinking because of it.
And I believe you underestimate how little attention most Americans pay to politics. As for as the majority of us are concerned, the Dems are the party of fewer wars and less inequality. If that is what one wants, vote for Dems. Beyond that, people vote for who they like. Fortunately, both are leading candidates are currently well liked.
Being an senior citizen with a girlfriend I get to hang out with lots of senior women. A year ago the women in our social circle were all on the Clinton bandwagon. Now they’re excited about Sanders. While there are always people who will follow identity politics, I am pleasantly surprised that as fervent as some of these women sounded a year ago that most are willing to examine issues and the candidates’ positions and go from there.
Yes, a lot of women are quite taken with Bernie. But that doesn’t mean they won’t be excited about voting for Hillary if she is the candidate. Many of us see this as positive either way.
I’ve said this before. Every Democrat deserves real choices on the ballot in a primary if we are a functioning democracy. And every voter deserves to have the opportunity to vote for a Democrat for each office on the ballot if we are a true two-party system. For well less than a half of the population, neither of those things are true. In too many places, Republicans win by default. And the party establishment likes that because they don’t have to raise as much money, recruit as many candidates, ….or something.
The day that the Democrats do a full-court press of Republicans geographically and up and down the ballot, we break some of the hold that special interests have on government–until Democrats too start carrying water for them.
Honestly, the problem at the lower level isn’t one of choosing between two candidates, but rather finding one decent one of any ideology.
I was on the executive committee for a while in the Party. Candidate recruitment is HARD. I think until you actually start to think of running yourself you don’t realize that the very idea is daunting. When I ran I kind of hit a wall – how exactly do I do this? – And I am talking about a race inside the Party. It meant cold calling people and asking for their support. It met counting votes – and maybe this sounds easy – until you actually try it.
When I was involved in trying to get people to run they would show initial interest, but then they would ask about money (the GOP had so much more) and help (the evangelical churches are an IMMENSE help to first time politicians who need organizational help) and they would decide not to run.
Add on top of this gerrymandered districts and I don’t have an answer. We need LEADERS who INSPIRE people. I don’t know how many former Eugene McCarthy people I have met in my political life. He INSPIRED people, and many are still active nearly 50 years later. Obama inspired people more than any other Democrat of my lifetime.
But we can’t seem to translate that into candidates.
This is a serious problem. Teaching people how to run isn’t something Dems do very well, though this is something the DNC does help with. Consider, in Florida, a state we carried in 2012, the best we could do was a has been former GOP governor with ethical problems.
For those with no money or pre-existing connections and a moribund political party, it’s beyond extremely difficult to run for office. It’s why we should have respect for those that take on the challenge and support those we would like to represent us as much as possible with time and money. More often than not, a first run for office doesn’t succeed. It didn’t for Barbara Boxer — and everybody I knew voted for her. As we did four years later and were surprised when she won.
I can’t tell you how much easier it is for some member of a Mega Church to run. They have a built in social network that they can leverage.
A reason why leftie Democrats have to spend more years building a base before running for the lowliest of offices.
After running and losing a seat on the country board of supervisors, Boxer spent the next three years building a local base and didn’t run again until the fourth year when there was an open seat on the board. Won re-election and after six years on the board ran for US Rep.
Matthew Yglesias as Vox Democrats are in denial. Their party is actually in deep trouble.
(I’d say the smugness began in 1992 with the “eight years for Bill and then eight years for Hill” ditty. — Odd considering that Clinton won that election with only 43% of the vote.– And over fourteen since leaving office, party elites are still working to get that third term and nobody seems to know/remember that the first two weren’t different from what GHWB would have delivered.)
There was a lot of hubris after ’08. People talking about the demographic trends and how the GOP was doomed. I still hear it: I think some Dems are in denial about how close ’12 was.
Remember the GOP after the ’04 election? “The permanent Republican majority!” It’s the 50/50 seesaw.
I love the qualification “winning” candidates. In some districts, any rational candidate being able to capitalize on a stumble or a trend becomes “winning”. I think that the idea that one can spot talent in advance is a delusion of the managerial classes.
Sometimes reasonability, affability, and persistence wins out over talent. And too often “talent” means pleasing the local party bosses to the exclusion of working for people. When personal favors dominate public interest, eventually the public catches on.
I’m going to quibble with you somewhat. I consider “reasonability, affability, and persistence” as components of talent. Local party bosses are too often like the boss that prefers those that kiss his/her butt than the ones with talent, smarts, education, experience, and skills. Those gatekeepers do a disservice to voters.
Not that voters are all that astute in evaluating candidates. They fall easily for glib and usually cheap promises from a pretty face or smooth talker. OTOH, a majority of voters didn’t fall for Romney — but embarrassingly to me, a majority of white voters did. I may understand what pushes the right buttons of most white folks, but I don’t much like them.
billmon:
I’m going with a twofer or threefer. But doubt Joe was in on it — sweet nothings we want to hear are powerful.
yeah it’s all about me. in fact i am and will be a big Bernie supporter until it becomes clear that he might actually win the nomination. it’s that effing serious this time.
…clearly woe is upon me, that and i think kos was right about that white-liberal-college-educated-plateau that will still be there whether or not i personally feel the bern.
This is gonna shake a few trees for sure. The point of Biden until now has been “Joe can come in and pull in folks that are repelled by HRC”. That’s gone, and that is gonna change the dynamic.
I still am skeptical about HRC.
Bern is looking better and better.
The Democratic Party will not allow Bernie Sanders to become the nominee. That’s the long and short of it. No way. And this is going to tear the Democratic Party deeply and from end to end. What a put on about Joe Biden, already. Enough is enough.
Again speaking as a Bernie supporter, that’s a pile of crap. Clinton is very popular among all democrats, including self-identified progressives. The people who will actually take their ball and go home don’t amount to a bucket of warm piss.
Steve LaBonne, You may be right and you may be wrong. Time wil tell. I can hardly think that Clinton is, as you put it, ‘very popular’. The Sanders supporters will vote for Clinton but the wound will not easily heal because she’ll continue to go down the cosy path of corporate sycophancy. Can you imagine?: the family of a possible president Hillary Clinton of the USA will be running a so-called foundation which is involved in every facet of the US government she will be meant to oversee. How can she possibly separate the strands in her public and private life?
Who cares what you think? There are actual poll results.
I stand corrected.
Boston Herald headline:
Translation:
Which cabinet position?
Hmmmm…lemme see now…
Hmmmm…
Not SecState.
Something domestic.
Like…like Treasury!!! The Senator from MBNA at Treasury!!! A fox in charge of the henhouse!!!
Perfect!!!
Watch.
AG
Secretary of Defense — although Secretary of Treasury certainly would “reassure Wall Street” (as the media puts it).
Ambassador to China
Secreatary of Health and Human Services (in charge of BFDs)
Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (you really think that would be a demotion?) – there’s your fox in the henhouse.
Amb at Large, portfolio The World. What Carter wanted to be for Clinton until he went rogue coming back from that NK trip.
Dunno about SecDef. Seems like a lot of boring insidery bureaucratic work, unless Hillary or Joe had some major structural or policy proposal to implement.
Whatever…a cushy job, a sinecure, a reward for long, fruitful and obedient service to the controllers.
Bet on it.
AG
P.S. From a long-lost article by Gore Vidal, retold in my own words. Close enough for jazz, as we survivors of the musical culture wars are apt to say.
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This is a paraphrase of something Gore Vidal once wrote. (It is apparently not online…I have searched for it a number of times…or I would post a link. I read it as a young man and it sunk home. Deep home.)
Vidal came from old political money/political power…his grandfather was Senator Thomas E. Gore (Gore. Ring any bells? It’s a small, small world…) from Oklahoma and his father was connected w/FDR. As a fairly young man…Vidal was a successful author before he was 20…he was invited to lunch at David Rockefeller’s mansion somewhere deep in the New York woods. He was flown out in a helicopter, seated at a sumptuous table laden w/only the finest wines and food, and being a very political and idealistic young man himself, talked politics w/Mr. Rockefeller for some time.
Apparently at the end of the meal Rockefeller decided that he had not made his point sufficiently and said “Gore, I trust you found this meal to your satisfaction?” Vidal answered that it was indeed perhaps the best meal he had ever eaten. Rockefeller then answered “You must understand…I hired someone to cook this meal. That is what politicians do. They cook the meal that they are hired to cook.”
Now that is realpolitik.
Believe it.
AG
Gore Vidal We The People interview in 1996:
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Scott.
I miss Vidal, but a major oops in that quote. They bought Arkansas, not West Virginia, for Winthrop. Still cheap and at the time an easier sell than WV would have been.
In the original it was definitely David Rockefeller, not Nelson. That I remember quite clearly because I thought “Well…that makes sense. The inside guy takes care of the inside business while the outside guy…Nelson…plays politics.”
Like dat.
Poetic license on Vidal’s part?
Or maybe just age.
Who knows?
Not me.
AG
Whoa. So whoever wins the primary then has to win the -general-?
If only there were some preliminary contest between potential candidates, to determine which one campaigned better.
Billionaire Carl Icahn launches $150 million super PAC – POLITICO
Yeah, that oughta do it.
Treasury Secretary Icahn. Now there’s a scary thought.
An echo of Hoover’s Treasury Sec — Mellon — but less knowledge/skill in banking. Although Hoover was smarter and a more decent man than Trump is.
Denial: If Sanders can win IA/NH he can beat Hillary
Anger: Clinton will change nothing, is to the right of Obama, and is more likely that Obama to be dragged into yet another ME war. The blogs are full of people screaming “It’s over”.
Bargaining: We should focus on down ballot races, that way we can push Clinton to the left when she wins.
Depression: There is no real hope for significant progressive change in the near future. Clintons don’t get pushed left. Her unfavorables are high – she doesn’t run particularly well in state polling against some GOP candidates.
Acceptance: Well, at least we will protect the Supreme Court.
The top of the ticket drives down ballot results (see 2008). Clinton is an establishment politician at a time when the establishment is unpopular outside of the Democratic Party. She is a terrible fit for the times.
Terrible perhaps, but adaptable, at least on DP. So, an adaptable possibly acceptable fit for the times. Like those double-knit polyester leisure suits of the 70s.
Now, if the left were only organized to move her leftward on FP. But no such luck. It’s like our concerns on a global level begin and end with global warming and we applaud ourselves for it.
Remember:
There are 13 months until the actual election.
Repeat it as many times as you need to.
The top of the ticket drives down ballot results (see 2008).
Sometimes. Not sure 2008 is such a good example because it was GWB and the GOP that facilitated major gains for DEMs in 2006 and Pelosi’s House delivered on promises made in 2006 that didn’t have smooth sailing through the Senate combined with the financial meltdown that contributed to more Congressional gains in 2008.
We might have to go back to 1980 to see a Presidential candidate that had significant coattails. Twelve Senate seat gain and flipped the majority and large number of House seat losses but GOP remained in the minority. Why that election stands out for me is that the electorate was unsettled early on. Had the hostages been released, Carter might have gotten a second term.
There is another factor which encourages me. Compared to 2012, we expect a boost from demographics (about 2%) and a boost from not facing racism directly (perhaps 3%). But there’s also an effect recently where we do worse in Presidential re-elections (2012, 2004) than in open Presidential choice elections (2008,2000). A crude line would indicate another boost of 3% or so.
All those effects combined are a boost of 8% compared to 2012 – which as Boo pointed out some time ago, is more than the 7% swing we need to take the House back even in the face of Republican gerrymandering. Generally, I’d expect state gerrymanders to be comparable to the House gerrymanders so that sort of swing should cause a lot of them to fail as well.
So we do have a reasonable shot at cleaning up downticket problems, for a 2-year period, anyway, without any coattail effect from the Presidential candidate (unless you consider the open choice effect as a kind of coattail). Of course this requires we actually run candidates, etc., and it does seem we’ve got the wrong party leadership to take advantage of this situation.
Another point is that there seems to be a lot of “wait til 2020 when it will be better” attitude in dealing with the downticket issue. But, if I’m right about the Presidential choice effect, 2016 is likely to be a better election for us than 2020. Especially considering how important a successful first term for any Dem president would be, 2016 is likely a very important election for us at all levels, not just the Presidency.
That’s a wonderfully optimistic analysis. It doesn’t take into account the tide that runs against the party that’s been holding the presidency for eight years. I think we have the inside track to hold the White House, a great shot at the Senate and an outside shot at taking back the House.
I’m satisfied with Clinton as the nominee. Not because I adore her. In her, I see a very accomplished woman but also someone willing to play games and skirt the truth. I do not consider her a true friend but I believe she’ll play the part adequately. And I feel that holding the presidency right now is of such supreme importance, I want to run whomever is most likely to hold it. Sanders would be a huge risk. At the end of the day, if elected, I don’t think it likely he’d accomplish a whole lot more than Clinton.
I don’t think there’s much of a 2-term tide, at least not anymore. There have been a number of turnovers after two terms, but they’re usually associated with some kind of major problem – the Vietnam War, Watergate, and the Great Recession. There certainly was no such effect in 1988. You could argue about 2000, but I think you have to go back to 1960 to see a reasonably clear “2-term” effect. Particularly in view of the extreme polarization lately, I don’t see it and don’t expect it.
To realize a demographic boost is dependent on enthusiasm. Where that plays out the most is among younger voters and identity voters, both of which we saw in 2008. Younger voters are enthusiastic for Sanders and not Clinton. Don’t expect the same level of AA voter participation in 2016 but the DEM nominee can reasonably expect 90+% of the AA vote and participation, except in states that have successfully disenfranchised AA voters, should remain high. As to racism costing Obama 3%, that seems too high to me. Expect that to be wash with sexism if Clinton is the nominee and anti-Semitism if Sanders is the nominee.
A back of the envelope 8% advantage for Democrats in 2016 neglects to include the third-term hurdle. Jeb? could easily be the GOP’s Dukakis and I have no idea what they’d do with Trump as their nominee.
As for down-ticket races, we had a preview of how they would run with Clinton at the top of the ticket in 2014 because the candidate selection and campaigns were pure Clinton style. Trash the left and hug the right.
The Democratic Party is poorly positioned for 2016 even with a WH win. And with a second President Clinton have no reason to think that 2018 will be different from 1994 and 2010. So, we do need to consider a two election cycle — 2016 and 2018. To think of 2020 now is way to far in the future to entertain.
African-American and Hispanic turnout in 2016 has been goosed by the attacks on voting rights and by the GOP’s take-no-prisoners attitude to getting white bigoted voters hyped up.
It is not turnout that will be the problem, it will be all of the time-proven tactics for reducing minority voting. Election site shenanigans and false publicity and the usual BS can trip up new voters.
Yes, thoughts about how to win 2018, some idea of progressive candidates, training, and setting up using 2016 as a field school ought to be going on right now among some progressives somewhere, right? Are they? Will progressives learn to play the electoral side of the game again or will they perpetually be stuck in movemental politics alone. At some point movements have to translate to institutions or their agendas collapse.
We’re told that in life success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. (Although being born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth does seem to greatly reduce the perspiration required and no inspiration is necessary.) However, in politics for those without money and pre-exsiting connections, the inspiration has to come at the front end.
Having now been in existence for a decade, how many trained and inspired politicians has DFA facilitated in getting elected? Howard Dean is now on the Clinton bandwagon; so, he’s no longer inspiring anyone.
Emily’s List has existed for thirty years and abortion rights are as threatened and less available than they were in 1985.
Movements political and grassroots require an organizing principle that’s not easily co-opted or disappeared. Can be institutional (unions), cultural (legalized drugs), or a leader, and preferably utilizing an existing structural base. But it must be specific and identifiable and not bogged down with nuance, complexity, etc. Something or someones to push it forward and attract others that want to participate.
The Liberal party in Canada went from virtually nothing in 2011 to a massive win this week. Is the party different or better than they were four years ago? Probably not. The Conservatives won in 2011 with less than 40% of the vote. The difference is a new party leader — perhaps not even a very good leader — but he’s attractive, has some charisma, and a big name. Down here what does the Democratic Party have? DWS. And that was Obama’s doing.
The Democratic Party is run in most county’s by about 20 people who actually show up for the boring County Committee and Town Committee meetings.
And they are dreadful. Boring.
In most places if you show up with 40 people to a Democratic Party Meeting (excepting State Conventions) you will take over the Party.
But the movement people never show up – and then wonder why the Party is what it is. The Tea Party people NEVER make that mistake.
I suspect that Republicans have a higher tolerance for boring meetings than Democrats.
Sexism with Clinton? Possible, but there is if anything a boost to Democratic women (i.e. more gains with Republican women than losses with Democratic men). With Sanders I’m much more worried about an anti-Socialist vote than an antisemitic one, because Socialist is even lower than atheist on the “would never vote for” polls (and both are much worse than Jewish).
There are a lot of people very enthusiastic about Clinton. I sure argued with enough of them last time. She may be behind in the millennials, but she’s ahead in other groups. She’s got a great platform and it would be fantastic for the country if we could get even a significant part of it enacted. I think Dem voters will realize how great a functional Clinton presidency would be and get very enthusiastic when they tune into the election around September 2016.
I take it that you don’t have much interaction with Republican or conservative women. I’ve been known to lose it with such women when they say stupid, irrationally insulting, or sexist crap about Clinton that they believe justifies their loathing of her. And their men aren’t any better.
I’m still stuck on anger. A majority of DEM primary voters in 2008 said no to Clinton even if the only viable alternative was a young, relatively inexperienced (more electoral political experience in his own right than Clinton), AA man with an ethnic name. At least he is smart and charismatic and unlike Clinton not tone-deaf. Now here we are all over again; only the odds are even longer because the DNC chair isn’t impartial, the party elites aren’t divided, and the big money is exclusively hers this time.
I wasn’t longing for another Biden run because there isn’t that much difference between him and Clinton. But it ticks me off that the decks were cleared for her and there’s a large void of younger talent in the DEM party. So, we go with the only one with the gumption, talent and experience that can challenge her even if he’s a decade or two older than what we’d prefer.
It does no good to dream of an imagined ideal. Barring some Bernie miracle, Clinton is who we’ve got and we’ve got to get behind her. The alternative is too horrible to contemplate.
Do get weary of being told not to dream or not to be idealistic. I’m actually quite pragmatic.
Election night 1968 — the only words that roamed around my brain were “however will we survive four years of Nixon.” More than four years seemed impossible. We survived. Not well. The real nightmares came later and we didn’t even see the worst of those in real time.
We’re now over three months away from the Iowa caucus — why the hell do I have to get in line with a woman that I don’t support? She and her husband have demonstrated poor judgment again and again in real time. Their world views are outdated and they weren’t even close to being hip in the 1990s.
Why should I reward someone for facilitating wars and destruction and income/wealth inequality? And hasn’t a clue how to do otherwise. Sorry for being so “idealistic,” but those are my top issues.
I think, and I suspect most people also think, that one should support the person s/he thinks is the best candidate in the primary. Nothing wrong with that – that’s the way it should work.
I think we all should remember, though, that progress is always incremental. Look at how things were in January 2001 compared to January 2002. It’s very easy for progress to be rolled back at the cost of many lives and huge amounts of money.
The choice isn’t between Hillary and some ideal candidate. (I know you’re not arguing that.) The choice is between whoever wins the Democratic nomination (presumably Hillary, but it’s still very early), and the Teabaggers.
Even the “moderate, sensible” Republicans (or so the MSM tells us) would be a disaster. Consider what Paul Ryan wants to do:
Yes. Advocate for your candidate and your issues. But when November 8, 2016 rolls around, remember the big picture. Vote Team D.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
But when November 8, 2016 rolls around, remember the big picture. Vote Team D.
It’s statements/injunctions like that from partisan Democrats that I find offensive. After the prior sentence that then reads like a patronizing pat on the head for a wayward child. It also led partisan Democrats not only to disrespect Nader 2000 voters but to trash them for years. (Yes, I voted for Gore, but recognized that Nader’s critique of Clinton/Gore was valid and therefore, I respected those who made a different choice in voting than I did. In fact, I’ve never voted third party or for a Republican, but have never foreclosed voting for a third party candidate.)
No offense was intended. I’m not as eloquent as you.
But the thoughts behind the writing are sincere.
My early voting history is not something I’m proud of. My first vote was for John Anderson. Then I voted Libertarian. Then I voted for Perot. I thought having a decent 3rd party in the US was important.
I’ve never voted Republican for President.
In 2000 I voted for Nader. (Living in Virginia – it didn’t matter.) I didn’t buy into the his “both parties are the same” mantra, but, again, I thought having a 3rd party was important.
Thus far, third parties have been spoilers if they’ve had any impact at all. Or they push policies that are ultimately counter-productive (like Perot’s deficit mania that we’re still suffering with).
Maybe in the greater scheme of things, not voting Team D in California in November 2016 won’t matter. Maybe you’ll feel better if Hillary is the nominee and you honestly can’t vote for her. That’s fine. But I can’t think that way anymore. Not after what W and the Teabaggers have done to this country.
Things aren’t going to get better until Democrats have more power. I think we should try to make that happen sooner rather than later. If that means voting for Hillary, who manages to somehow defeat all her rivals even with her flaws, then I’m fine with that.
YMMV. 🙂
Cheers,
Scott.
Ah, not a partisan DEM, but a convert.
I would very much like it if we had a viable third party — left, right and center — and perhaps one day we will. In the interim, I have to vote for both the party and the individual candidate and choose not to vote for parties and candidates that only seem to exist to run someone for POTUS every four years.
If I lived in Richmond, CA, I’d vote for McLauglin although the Green party there hasn’t been able to build on her success. SF in 2003, would have voted for Matt Gonzalez.
The John Anderson campaign is historically interesting. Suckered in a lot of voters with the unfairness of not qualifying for federal matching funds unless he received X% of the vote and a lot of authentic liberal/lefties endorsed him. His more socially liberal than Carter face was effective. And it masked the reality that his campaign was a planned GOP spoiler operation to defeat Carter.
Libertarianism is appealingly seductive for a few days. Or until one recognizes that that certain goods and services should be for all.
Perot, the proverbial stopped clock. Although can’t recall if he was right twice a day or only once. Bill Clinton would never have been my choice for the nominee, but he was saying some of the right things in the GE — like several trillion dollars in new debt and little of it had been spent on infrastructure (which had been underfunded since 1980 when Carter attempted to use that in his campaign). Plus with a Democratic Congress he should have done okay. Then he promptly lost that Congress. GHWB with a Democratic Congress would have been better than Clinton with a GOP Congress.
Most days, not many of us know what we’re going to have for lunch or dinner tomorrow, but we figure out something when that time comes. After 1972 and until 2002, I never concerned myself with Democratic presidential nominations. I had no voice in the matter. Then I got really angry about all the lousy nominees I’d had no choice but to vote for and they mostly lost anyway. And when they didn’t, they voted with Republicans (DOMA, etc. 1990s) and the last straw for me was the IWR. If little ole me could figure out in real time that Saddam didn’t have any WMD that were going to come and get us, I damn well expect DEM politicians to figure that out as well. (It was as if none of them had even yet figured out that Daddy Bush and Reagan had lied the country into wars.) Oh, and the Democratic Party had approached the 2002 midterms with the same lameass strategy they’d been using since 1994 and were fixing to do the same thing in 2004. At that time, the bloggers couldn’t even read the damn pre-election polls either. (Silver has helped out some since then, but not many bloggers have improved much.)
The prospect of Clinton as the nominee depresses me. We desperately need radical changes to undo all the harm that’s been done to ordinary folks over the past forty years. She and her associates are part of the problem.
I’m going to devote some of my time and energy to getting people on the left worked up about moving our leaders in a more enlightened and progressive direction on FP. We’re heading into dangerous times, and even someone as smart as Obama doesn’t seem to recognize his stupidly stubborn neocon policies wrt Russia and Syria and Ukraine are going to get us deeper into another nasty cold war, not to mention the missed opportunity to join forces with the Russkies on destroying ISIS.
Hillary has shown she’s capable of listening on DP and moving in our direction when enough people spoke out. But near silence by the left on FP I fear is going to give her room to remain hawkish.
When pols aren’t pressured to change with the risk of losing the prize they seek, they remain in the safe zone. Right now there’s no risk to her to largely follow the mostly neocon Obama mindset. If that situation holds, I suspect we’re looking at an upcoming hot war, against a country that does have wmd’s.
On FP, I don’t think in terms of left or fight but rational v. irrational. With the rational being based on our domestic governmental principles. The problem is that nutjobs have promoted principles abroad that we don’t embrace. Doesn’t mean we have to foment wars against countries and peoples that support or tolerate monarchies or dictatorships, either religious or secular, in their countries, but does mean that we can criticize such regimes. We destroy our own credibility when we foment coups or wars against legitimately elected governments — Iran, Vietnam, Chile to name but three — and then support the replacement monarchy or dictatorship. It makes us hypocrites to do that and then expect the world to respect our sovereign territory.
Hillary is capable of changing her language to conform with whatever opinion is popular at the moment. Watch what they have done along with what they said at the time and not what they say today if one wants a guide to what they will do tomorrow. Also, Clinton’s Wall St. buddies know what they can expect from her and they’re smart enough to be able to read her so-called left shift on DP is nothing but campaign rhetoric.
Would be helpful if Americans stopped acting like Charlie Brown when Lucy holds the football.
Hard not to associate the right, these days especially, as irrational. Particularly wrt our FP. And it’s just appalling to see someone as often rational as Obama adhere to an irrational rightist attitude on these FP issues.
And, sadly, the left seems satisfied so long as we’re not sending over ground troops. Bombing and droning doesn’t seem to rouse them, nor rejection by this admin of a perfectly sensible proposal by Putin to work together. I think we’ll rue the day we didn’t accept Vlad’s offer to go after ISIS together.
As for Hillary, if nominated and elected, and if she reverts to 1990s attitudes wrt Wall St and income inequality issues, she will have a very unpopular one-and-done presidency, with a major portion of her party in serious revolt. I doubt if she will be doing such a 180 on domestic issues, treating them as mere campaign rhetoric. You don’t work that hard and long at getting nominated and elected just to fritter it away by turning your back on the people who put you there.
I suspect you aren’t happy with Biden’s decision today, as it would have hurt Hillary had he gotten in. Not a good day for you, understand. But Hillary isn’t stupid. Her FP, that’s another matter.
As believe that I made several comments stating that IMO the whole Biden brouhaha was pathetic and that he’d be a fool to jump in. So, not getting where you “suspect” that I was unhappy with his decision.
Hillary has never left the 1990s. Who do you think gave her the big bucks to run in 2000 and 2008 and is doing so again this year? Who do you think funds the Clinton library and charity?
No the “left” isn’t satisfied as long as we don’t send in ground troops. It does satisfy center-right Democrats and center-left Republicans. They are the ones that get all warm and fuzzy seeing displays of US military might. Just wish they, along with the right that loves war, would pay for this shit and leave we lefties to spend our money on more constructive endeavors.
I don’t agree with this at all, though I confess I am guessing here.
The entire lesson the Clintons have drawn from their own history, going back to running Texas for McGovern, is that politically there is more danger being a dove than a hawk. I have little doubt that this was behind her support of the AUMF.
She doesn’t agree with us on FP – though she will make noises to win our support. But in a crunch, when the establishment is screaming for intervention, she is far less likely to resist than even Obama was.
I’m not sure we’re in disagreement as I clearly stated above, when the left is only minimally heard on FP matters, it leaves a wide default space on the center-right for pols to occupy. Center-right/neocon is about all the opinion on FP that is heard in the MSM.
And when a woman is seeking the presidency for the Dems, she’s doubly inclined to seek the safe default space, for fear of being perceived as weak and soft.
Last time the left was fairly vocal on FP matters, protesting the imminent Iraq War in 2003, we had only a minimal media infrastructure to carry our voices, while the right and MSM overwhelmed us. But in the early 80s, when the media wasn’t so skewed rightward, the anti-nuke/freeze movement saw success in getting the Raven admin to back down from its brinkmanship attitudes.
Before that, arguably the organized, vocal VN War protesters helped shorten the war. They at least got war criminal LBJ out of office.
As for 1972, I doubt that was the Clintons’ takeaway. By summer of that year, Nixon had withdrawn the last combat units. No one was being drafted and shipped over; the lottery was in effect, with few chosen. Nixon had effectively removed VN as a campaign issue. Perhaps the Clintons took away more of a general “strong and wrong beats weak and right” ideology-based lesson as the liberal McG ran a terrible campaign.
GHWB with a Democratic Congress would have been better than Clinton with a GOP Congress.
Boy, have we seen that again and again and again.
There is still scant evidence that a majority or plurality electorate is ready to support candiates for President and Congress who will make radical changes happen in oor Federal governance.
I think you would agree with me that even if our preferred candidate, Bernie Sanders, were able to win the White House, he will not have a Congress which will allow him to pass a radical agenda. And that is NOT because the DNCC and DSC undercuts progressive candidates. It is because we have an anxious electorate which fears change, despite the unhappiness they express with American politics and politicians when polled.
Sanders could make some good moves with executive actions as Obama has done, and could appoint superior Cabimet officials.
On the good news side of things, the candidates who are campaigning on creating the most radical changes, by far, are the Republicans. This accrues well for the next election for our Democratic candidates.
The legislation passed and signed from 1995 through 2000 was the most radical we’ve seen since the 1993. So, take your claim that a majority or plurality of the public balks at radical change to some naif that will buy it.
Bernie is hardly “bench”. Although enough Bern-enthusiasm might bring forth down-ticket attempts that through dumb luck succeed and provide some bench for the future-averse Democrats.
And there is the possibility that Hillary might light a fire under some of the younger generation. And encourage some people to run in this cycle.
We don’t have to get behind her until after SuperTuesday and at least enough Democratic voters decide.
Good primaries are hard fought and leave few personal animosities, allowing the party to unite. Bad primaries are primarily about personal obstruction because of past conflicts and slights.
Ditto.
Completely.
you should see what I;m seeing of ppl who really really do not want Hillary, voted for Obama – multiple demographics [I travel a lot], really really oppose Hillary. imo we’re f**’d
I got the impression that Joe was going to jump into the last 15 months of this admin to really do two things: make Hillary & Bernie the best candidates they can be and also reinforce the Obama legacy as one that really made a difference. He’ll be front and center with a big booming voice on his favorite issues, donkey pull the Rep along while also adding cancer to his list.
Hillary and Bernie aren’t going to be candidates for the next fifteen months. If it goes all the way to a convention floor fight, that will only be nine months. And the DEM establishment guys all want Sanders out as early as possible because he’s not one of them.
It’s not Clinton nor Sanders job to “reinforce the Obama/Biden legacy.” Both have already stated areas where they disagree with; although on TPP, Clinton will shift back the Obama’s position before she actually has do to anything, and maybe before then if expedient for electoral politics. While he disagree with much of it, Sanders does give Obama props for steps taken in the right direction.
I think you’re misunderstanding me. Biden has two agendas. To drive his favorite projects until the day he’s walks out of office (including cancer, which is a BIG deal) with all his might and political capital and then to push all Dems to campaign proudly on Obama and his legacy, and that includes Hillary.
He’s just warming up for what he can do on the sidelines.
I guess I’m happy for Joe personally – at his age, I fear that a campaign for president would take too much out of him. I also think he’s too old to be president.
Sadly, I think the same is true for Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
I had high hopes for O’Malley, but he missed his moment, and I have to say that he didn’t impress me all that much at the debate.
I neither like nor trust Hillary Clinton, and I have grave concerns about her foreign policy, so she won’t get my vote in the primary.
I guess that leaves me voting for Bernie.
Feeling pretty sad at the moment, I really hoped that Biden would run.
I figured as much. I just couldn’t see a reason for Biden to enter the race, minus HRC imploding. I mean, if you want an actual liberal, there’s Sanders. If you want a center-right Democrat aka an establishment candidate, there’s HRC. Biden is, like HRC but less electable.
I quadrupled a few bucks over on PredictIt, betting against the people who listen to the news media, lol.
Excerpts from David Talbot’s The Devil’s Chessboard. (This is knock your sock’s off stuff that has further whetted my desire to scrape up the money to buy it.
JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored in 1961 France: Part 1
JFK Assassination Plot Mirrored in France: Part 2
Talbot Mother Jones’ interview: You Think the NSA Is Bad? Meet Former CIA Director Allen Dulles.
I’m in the middle of it now. To the rise of Richard Nixon through a night meeting with Dulles, Dulles, Herter, and …about continuing to pursue the Hiss case in Congress. Even though some of the Hiss information could well have tainted Foster Dulles as well. A defensive attack.
Well worth it so far. After Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, Stephen Budiansky, The Bloody Shirt: Terrorism after Appomattox, and Michael Bellesiles, 1877: America’s Year of Living Violently, this almost comes in sequence, missing only Stephen Kinzer, The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War.
In the middle of the book? Oh, I’m envious.
I like Kinzer but for whatever reason The Brothers … didn’t intrigue me enough to put it at the top of my must read list.
The Devil’s Chessboard is on order at my library and already has a wait list of over a year.
Talbot’s Brothers has consistently appeared among assassination researchers’ Most Important Books on the case. There were quite a few eye-opening things inside, facts I hadn’t known and I’ve read dozens of books on the case. He really was able to land some hard-to-get inside interviews. Credible author too as he had a prior track record as a Kennedy critic.
I’m looking forward to his take on Dulles, not only about possibly being the main player behind the events of Dallas (and conveniently ending up on the Warren Commn), but also to see how far he takes things wrt Dulles’ activities running the OSS in Switzerland at the end of WWII, when so many Nazis escaped through the Ratline. And will he connect Dulles the way author Gerrard Williams did (Grey Wolf) in Dulles engineering a deal to allow Hitler, Eva, Bohrmann and others to flee to SA?
Do you recommend Talbot’s “Brothers?” Didn’t have much interest in reading another take on the Kennedy’s.
Long been interesting to me that Allen Dulles hasn’t been viewed as the most likely central character in the assassination. Pull any thread and he pops up within one to three degrees of separation.
Absolutely recommend it. Can do so even as I recall the 5% of the book, mostly non-essential, I had strong disagreement with.
As for Dulles and the CIA, most of the focus over the years has been on a few players who were officially connected with the Agency at the time of Dallas, people like Dick Helms and the western hemisphere director of operations, the guy who may have been directly manipulating Oswald, David Atlee Phillips (read the book The Last Investigation, by Gaeton Fonzi). Also Clay Shaw and George DeMohrenschildt, CIA agents or contract agents. William Harvey too, a veteran Agency spook with a mean, bad rep who hated JFK.
But I gather Talbot says Dulles never really left the Agency after Kennedy fired him. And didn’t take kindly to being fired from what he probably considered his company. I hope to start reading next week.
After posting my comment I went and read Talbot’s review of the Thom Hartmann book (which I haven’t read and don’t intend to read). I like Talbot’s clear writing and dismissal of Hartmann’s dot connecting, with ample use of adding imaginary dots. Interesting about the reported plot to kill JFK in Tampa, but my take is that that and the Chicago “plot” were fakes. Nothing there but characters that a blind person would find suspicious.
Now, George DeMohrenschildt probably did play a role, but not one that he was aware of in real time and possibly not how it played into the assassination. He really was the only person that got along with Oswald.
Well, at least you rightly dismissed the awful Hartmann book (though listed as co-author, he admits the other guy did most of the heavy lifting). For most people probably who bought it and tried to slog through it, it likely ended up as a rather expensive $30 doorstop.
As for the other matters and names, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss or assign to insignificance. Looked at in the larger pattern of facts and events unfolding pre-Dallas, there are pieces that fit the overall
I keep moving Dulles, Cabell, and possibly Bissell to the center position. Then consider the minimum number of associates required to do the field work. Info and roles compartmentalized. Not so many really.
I am sad. So sad. Hillary is a rotten, polarizing, uninspiring candidate.
I expect it will be her big accomplishment, to reduce Social Security benefits now so they may be reduced even further in another ten or fifteen years. Why is no one concerned about it? Obama tinkered with it for whatever reason. Clinton would love to enact Bowles / Simpson, just like Bill said at the convention in in 2012. Why the collective amnesia on this?
She’s likely going to do more good for the Republican agenda than George W. Bush did in the long run. I’m from Middle America and the prospect of Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination next year and likely becoming president is as scary as an actual Republican winning frankly.
So the Democrats are going to nominate Hillary.
The Republicans will nominate a moron.
I realize that the situation was not even a nanobit better when Biden considered running. However, now that he’s out the stark reality is setting in.
We are so fucked.
At least for the first time in years there is an English-speaking country where there is hope for the future – I mean our friends to the north, where the temps will be downright tropical a few decades from now given the policies of both major political parties in the US.
Not that the new Canadian government won’t do it’s part to assist in making their country a tropical paradise.
They can’t be worse than the government they replaced.
On the other hand, given that every “democracy” in the world ex-Iceland in basically beholden to the wealthy few, they can’t be much better either.
Biden is out so the only thing left is Hillary with the prediction that Bernie supporters will finally regain their sanity and get behind Hillary. Oh Really? What I can’t wait to see are all the “You heard it here first” comments when Bernie defeats Hillary for the nomination.
Coattails for Bernie will be difficult because of Hillary’s 2008 Campaign Co-chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz remains head of the DNC. How can you get coattails if progressives are blocked from running and debates are limited to prevent Bernie’s message from reaching a national audience especially in minority communities? How is it going to help the other Democrats running for office if the DNC makes people angry trying to tilt the primary to Hillary?
Pollsters and pundits (here) have decided Bernie’s message only appeals to white liberals. What about Independents disgusted with both political parties who are changing their registration to Democrat for the purpose of voting for Bernie in the primary? How about those who never registered with any party because there was never a candidate worth voting for until they heard Bernie’s message? These people are the army of voters Bernie will enlist when he becomes President Sanders to defeat the corporatist Democrats and Republicans. Raising turnout dramatically especially in off years is the only way Democrats will ever gain enough power to get the things we desperately need finally done. We didn’t get in this mess overnight and we won’t get out of it overnight. People will support making their lives better for themselves and their children, the reason Bernie’s issues already poll so high.
So it’s true that it takes big money to win elections and only Hillary has the big money. If that is true why is Jeb spending a fortune remaining at the bottom while Trump who is spending nothing is on top?
I can’t wait to hear the analysis when everything we’re told turns out to be wrong about both sides of the aisle.
“they need to figure out how a Vermont Socialist is going to sell in Middle America.”
Hey, you left out the Jewish part. With the Brooklyn accent.
Why — it’s impossible, you say! And yet, there it is. He’s selling just fine to middle America thus far.
Actually, Bernie is a much longer shot to beat Clinton than to beat Trump or anybody else the Republicans could put up. So I think your pessimism about him in the general is unwarranted. Winning the nomination is the trick. If he can do that, I wouldn’t worry too much about him winning the election.
I know it’s over a year until then, but that applies to your prognostications as well.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/30/politics/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-poll/
Oh, and as long as we’re in crystal ball mode …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/h-a-goodman/bernie-sanders-defeats-trump-by-a-wider-margin_b_8345156.h
tml
By the way, the media are all agog about a new poll that shows Clinton 4 points ahead of Sanders in New Hampshire, since he had been maintaining a strong lead there for a long time. This is a WBUR (Boston NPR) poll, with MassINC Polling Group.(MassINC is publisher of Commonwealth magazine).
Yet a Franklin Pierce University -Boston Herald poll announced 3 days ago showed no post-debate bounce for Hillary, and Sanders significantly more popular than Hillary among democrats.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/herald_bulldog/2015/10/franklin_pierce_heral
d_poll_no_debate_boost_for
It also found that “Clinton’s favorability in the latest New Hampshire poll released Monday is at 74 percent, down 6 points since August, while Sanders’s favorability has climbed 7 points since then to 83 percent.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/257307-poll-sanders-maintains-post-debate-lea
d-in-new-hampshire
Another post-debate poll, by Boston Globe/Suffolk University, found Clinton leading by 3 points in NH — but it was the only one out of eleven polls that put her in the lead. This new poll, giving her a 4-point lead, is definitely the outlyer.
So I don’t find it all that convincing.
Mustn’t overlook the fact that team Clinton dumped a few million on TV ads in NH and Iowa that aired around the time of the debate. More people would have seen those ads than watched the debate.
I don’t think these polls were limited to people who watched the debate, they were just NH Democratic voters.
So I’m not sure what you mean. Do you mean the ads has a momentary effect but it be a flash in the pan, or do you mean the heavy advertising is really effective?
Clearly the NH poll that’s gotten so much ballyhoo is the outlyer, with only one other out of 12 polls putting Clinton in the lead. It might POSSIBLY be picking up a trend before anyone else? Time will tell.
If TV political ads weren’t effective, no campaign would squander precious dollars on them.
The time-frame for the persistence of the effectiveness of such advertising is less clear. Generally, the power of heavy TV advertising early in a campaign wanes as election day approaches. However, the data-set for a strong candidate that starts early and continues to election day against a strong opponent with a solid ground game and hits the TV ad market hard in the last three weeks of the campaign may be non-existent.
Shouldn’t be surprising that with a one-two punch — MSM Clinton won the debate and heavy TV adverts — that Clinton’s NH poll numbers would improve among DEM voters (most of whom didn’t watch the debate and otherwise aren’t all that well informed).
but…he is ‘the smart one.’
…………
Jeb Bush Has Learned the Wrong Lessons from His Family Tradition
The struggling candidate ought to emulate his tremendously impressive father. Instead he is defending the lackluster legacy of his big brother.
CONOR FRIEDERSDORF 7:54 AM ET
Jeb Bush may be his own man, as he has repeatedly insisted to interviewers. But in his place, practically everyone would be influenced–even in spite of themselves–by knowledge of what their father and big brother did in similar situations, especially given that every likeness and reversal will prompt commentary. As voters weigh whether to entrust the presidency to a third member of the Bush family, it is proper to reflect on the legacies of George H.W. and George W. Bush.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/10/jeb-bush-has-learned-the-wrong-lessons-from-his-
family/411604/