What happens when every candidate is unelectable?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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One proves to be the least unelectable. Then he or she is elected.
AG
Then we all commence to drinking heavily to survive the next four years with a shred of our sanity intact…
Er, you program the computers? Watching Uganda today.
Museveni is twenty years younger than Mugabe and Mugabe is still alive and running his fiefdom. So, doesn’t look like change is coming anytime soon for Uganda.
Curious to see if there arrives a time when everyone is so disgusted that NO ONE shows up to vote. Does even tribalism wear thin someday?
Sort of like the “what if they gave a war and nobody showed up to fight.” No, enough soldiers and voters can always be paid to show up to “do their duty.”
I truly don’t think the DEM elites get what a bitter taste the ’08 election left for many of the youngest eligible voters. Old people are more accustomed to getting more of the same regardless of who is elected President and find it easier to praise whatever small changes they hoped for that get enacted. Old people weren’t even that distressed by the disastrous GWB years until it hit their retirement accounts and home values. The couldn’t care less what bothers and disturbs young people and just want to them to shut up and grow up. At least that’s what they said back in ’68 when I was young. Never did listen to them.
That’s not entirely true. A lot of older voters switched their votes in 2006 due Katrina and the mess in Iraq. Of course, W’s silly attempt to use his 2004 “mandate” to enact the SS privatization that he conspicuously failed to mention during the election played a part too, but it failed in committee and wasn’t talked of again. I have to admit, though, I was kind of surprised (because I try to be an optimist) that an electorate that seemed to have somewhat woken up in 2006 basically went back to their old ways by 2010. I wonder if Democrats had failed to retake Congress in 2006, would anger at Republicans have boiled even hotter in 2008 when the financial crisis hit and wrecked the party for a generation like 1929? Or would it have been pretty much the same?
Anyway, that doesn’t undermine your point. When I talked to my mom this weekend, she mentioned how continually amazed she is at how proud people (that she meets) can be of their ignorance. They actively don’t want to know what’s it’s like for kids nowadays. They don’t want to know what it’s like for a raped woman to want to have an abortion and have society and her government calling her a murderer. They don’t want to know anything about Syrian refugees or how stringent and drawn out the process is before a refugee visa is approved, especially from the Middle East. They have their opinions and are proud to not allow facts to come anywhere near them so that they might change. It reminded me of Barbara Bush’s “beautiful mind” comment: why should she allow herself to be concerned by the dead coming home from Iraq; the war was righteous and good and to make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs. Millions of Americans simply nodded their heads at that comment.
Iraq was a mess by 2004 and not only did GWB prevail in his re-election but the GOP added seats in the House and Senate. Would like to think that GWB’s handling of Katrina effected the GOP in 2006, but it wasn’t apparent from the voting in states that were impacted by it. As GWB touched and than quickly backed off the SSI “third rail,” doubt that was a factor in 2006 either. The war dragging along for two more years probably was, but the GOP “sex scandals may have been a larger factor. Or maybe it was simply because people were tiring of the Bush antics and there were more Democrats that also appeared qualified that were running.
2008 was the “time for a change election” even before the actual crash on Wall St. Ordinary people didn’t need the crash to tell them that they weren’t doing so well. But the crash his some people that thought they were fine and shifted a two or three percent of the vote to DEMs. The thing is that the bailouts restored the well being of that 2-3%.
When you’re saying that voters went back to “their old ways,” you’re dismissing the fact that they voted in 2006 and 2008 and didn’t experience any positive improvements in their lives. They’ve been hurting for jobs or jobs with enough hours and enough pay since 2008. Those that lost their houses, see no future where they can get back to where they are. If that was the state of workers in 1940, FDR wouldn’t have been re-elected that year.
FDR got to 1940 by the stock market crashing in 1929, three years before FDR ran for President. The Republican Congress did nothing in 1930 leading to a Democratic Congress in 1931 which was stymied by Hoover. Three years of depression solidified the blame before FDR was elected, and Democrats had three years to consider what to do and how to do it (politically) once they had the White House and Congress. They then did many good things that made a difference and the difference between FDR being in charge and Hoover was striking enough that no one could deny it. In contrast, the Democrats won in 2006 because of general disgust with Republican governance, but not because the Republicans had torpedoed the economy (yet) and failed to respond effectively. The financial crisis hit in the middle of the 2008 election campaign; most of the campaign, both for Obama and all of the Congressional Democrats, wasn’t about responding to the Great Recession. It was, by necessity, pure reaction, not a sustained answer to ineffective Republican attempts to address the crisis. Politically speaking, you can’t really compare the two situations.
Voters didn’t give Democrats much of a chance to make big improvements under Obama, and when improvements were finally realized, voters take them for granted and don’t give the Democrats any credit. With W in charge from 2007 to 2009, there was little the Democratic Congress could do. The only opportunity voters gave for dramatic change was 2009-2010, and most of the time there was spent trying to (mostly successfully) avert absolute catastrophe.
Voters haven’t experienced “positive improvements” voting for Republicans, but that doesn’t seem to cost Republicans that dearly. And when voters do experience positive improvements, they don’t reward those who provided those benefits. In 2014, voters in Kentucky told pollsters that they liked Kynect, but didn’t lift a finger to protect it. Scott Walker’s Wisconsin has performed significantly worse than neighboring Minnesota, yet he was reelected with Republican legislative majorities. Kansas is an economic septic tank, yet they still reelected Brownback and Republican legislative majorities. Obama saved the economy in Ohio with the auto bailout, but Republicans have controlled the state government since 2010. There’s always an excuse not to vote for the nasty Democrats.
Maybe, but on housing, the WH was completely, utterly useless at best, and actively harmful at worst. Obama lobbied hard for TARP. If there’s an issue of policy where Clinton was superior to Obama, it was housing. And the housing crisis is why we still never truly recovered and have rather hummed along.
Further, Obama dare not push the boundaries with Treasury and Justice Dept in terms of going after those bankster fucks. I believe Sanders would.
FDR and other Democrats weren’t sitting around from 1929-1932 figuring out what they would do once FDR won in ’32. Al Smith and many DEM pols expected that he would get the ’32 nomination. FDR didn’t even have close relationships with many that he chose for his cabinet — and exception was Frances Perkins and he had to beg her after he won the election to come on board. He did have an uncanny ability to hire people with expertise and foresight. But as Keynesian economics was new and untested that had to make up the details as they went along — and not all of those details were that successful and Congress was always too cheap to properly fund programs.
You’re really dismissing the extraordinary breadth and depth of what FDR’s team did. How robust and long-lasting their banking regulations were — if one thinks that safe banking for ordinary Americans is a worthy role for government. But the list of all they accomplished and initiated is much too long to recite in a comment.
Republicans always sell the same old things — you’ll get wealthy because we’ll cut taxes for everybody, we’ll keep you save from the boogieman du jour (most of whom GOP pols create out of whole cloth), and an imaginary past of Americana when everybody was morally upright and happy. FDR DEMs offered socialism — though they dared not call it that — and ordinary people did prosper.
Not one DEM presidential nominee since 1972 has even bothered to focus on income/wealth inequality and disparity. They sell warmed over GOP mush with the bonus of something, something about social equality. Who has prospered financially since the great recession? Since income/wealth inequality has continued to explode, that should be an easy question to answer.
As the Republican Party sinks into depths of Know-Nothing racist religious fanaticism and laughable economic ideas, the Clinton Democrats look better and better, a voice for sanity. The old ideas of the ’60s, mixed government and equality for all, are compared to pol Pot and Josef Stalin, and the latest fad – Greece.
So the same people at the top have their control of the government and the increasingly monopolistic marketplace, while working people sink into increasing despair and blame their problems on “big spending Democrats in Congress increasing my taxes”.
Is there a way out? No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. Bernie is showing the way out, but his use of the term “Socialist” is equivalent to “Vampire” in the minds of the public. That’s why Socialist ideas are now cloaked as “Progressive” or “Liberal”. The word is toxic.
The word isn’t toxic. It’s just that the primary is serving as a useful reminder that many of these same liberals and neoliberals don’t really believe in social democracy.
Now we have David Plouffe and the rest of the Hillary gang using Republican lines of attack:
“Bernie Sanders is basically acting like Santa Claus, and people don’t like to be told what they can’t have.”
~David Plouffe
When FDR came to office the Democrats held 2/3 of the seats in Congress. A majority like that makes a difference.
Well, maybe those Democrats actually stood for something that people found worth voting for.
Seriously, a large faction of those Democrats in 1932 were southern Jim Crow Democrats. Given a choice between letting their white people starve while choking on their racism or everybody gets to eat, they would have chosen the former (knowing full well that their hungry voters agreed with that decision). Really put FDR in a box — and it’s why the “New Deal” was shamefully not as equitable and robust as it could have been. Democrats and liberals always tend to think that if they manage to give white people a taste of what can be that they’ll go for the whole meal. For example, Medicare was supposed to be the first step in UHC. Medicaid was to provide a more secure revenue stream for all the various state and local government and private charity medical services. Didn’t work out that way did it? (US governments spend as much, as a percentage of GDP, on medical care as other countries do in providing UHC. Difference is that in the US it’s not universal and all those government dollars only cover half the national medical costs.)
The Joint Chiefs of Staff get together and decide which one will run a Military Dictatorship. See they are getting very tired of watching this insanity of these politicians. While they send soldiers to do battle to protect this country.
Opps sorry kinda tired this is a twist of the “Seven Days In May”.
The US is good at electing the unelectable. We’ll choose one and whine a lot.
heh… agreed. I dibs first in line to whine!
Flawed analysis.
Clinton’s, Bernie’s, Cruz’s, Rubio’s, Kasich’s and the rest of them … it doesn’t matter what the NATIONAL ratings are. It matters what the PURPLE ratings are.
Rubio’s ratings in AL are higher than Clinton’s. So what? In what universe would Jesus Christ running as a Democrat win AL?
Alternatively, HRC’s ratings in MA are higher than Rubio. Is there anyone who thinks Rubio has a chance at MA??? If so, I’d like some of what you are smoking.
Any way you cut the mustard, for ANY R candidate the minimum electoral college total for Democrats is 247. The road to 270 is a short one … if you are a democrat.
Not all are equally unelectable. That would assume a more or less equal balance of EC votes and that is just not the case.
And YES, before AG and everyone else starts screaming, I KNOW that means the D’s have to turn out. I just don’t believe in being chicken little.
I think it’s better to use 538’s tool
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-swing-the-election/
If Trump is the nominee and wins non-college-educated whites up the scoreboard, and if Clinton has Obama’s 2012 showing (or worse)…he very well could win.
His negatives makes this unthinkable, but he’s just too much of a wildcard.
A problem for Hillary is that the path she chose to get the nomination is almost the opposite of what she’ll need in the general. The olds that will vote for Attila the Hun over Clinton exceeds the old that will vote for her. Those that are between the ages of 45 and 65 are more apt to split 50/50 or slightly in favor of the GOP than for Clinton. So, she’ll need younger voters. The ones she’s been dissing left and right.
Is she calculating on Afro-American women making up the lack of millennials in a general? Cause Trump’s turn towards isolationism might attract them.
The liberaltarians who like Trump and Sanders equally will mostly stay home and smirk. They aren’t the voting type.
Hispanics might or might not be impressed with Castro. Don’t know what it takes to get them voting in the numbers that they could.
Her math may be on the level of Rove’s. However, Clinton SOP for general elections is to throw AAs under the bus and to attract all those lovely white voters. Might see her reprise her Annie Oakley guise as well. But AAs are very forgiving and understanding that it’s just an election strategy on her part and they’ll still show up for her.
Not to pick on you specifically, but I’m constantly seeing people describe a false dichotomy between minorities and millenials. Millenials are less white than preceding generations, and there’s no sign that this trend will abate.
Good point!
I was kinda assuming that a significant amount of Bernie’s minority voters WERE millennials.
Is that wrong?
There is, but it’s not as stark as among whites. White millenials he is running away with it that they’re in different leagues altogether — think 85-15. He’s winning Latinx millenials by like 60-35. He’s losing AA millenials, but by ~20 or so (as opposed to 50-60 points of AA’s overall).
Don’t have time to find links, but that is where polling is atm. Sanders is losing Texas by 10-11 atm.
Well I’m certainly in that “dissed” category, in a swing state, and will probably vote for her in the GE. But so far the truth that young people don’t (generally) vote is true. So even if Bernie was hoping for them, they’re not coming at the needed numbers (although the ones who are it’s the largest gap of any category). I guess you’d need to do the math and figure out what percent the youth vote is by the categories given, and adjust appropriately. I don’t think they’d push Trump over. It has to be the 45-50’s…the Reagan children. My parents. He has to drive their vote margins up big to win.
What’s interesting to me is that “young” today is now much older than it was when I was young. “Never trust anyone over the age of 30” wasn’t just some cutesy saying back then. It was true. The young didn’t have the numbers on their side. Now they do and I’m not sure they quite get that for the first time, they do have the power if they would choose to use it.
One thing to remember is that the young people turning out for Bernie are his biggest partisans. In other words, getting the less motivated out to vote would not have the same impact on his overall margin (although they would probably still lean in his direction).
The low turnout concerns me, especially in conjunction with Trump’s effect on the Republican primary. But it’s important to remember that Clinton (or much less likely, Sanders) needs 2012 numbers, not 2008.
In what way exactly has Hillary Clinton been dissing young voters?
Forgive me. I assumed readers here stay current on the news and you know, remember some of it. Do your own research, but “BernieBros,” “Bimbos chasing BernieBros,” and “BernieBros just want free stuff” are blatant attacks on young people.
You know that shit is just standard issue internet nonsense, right?
Did we not learn from the PUMAs?
I don’t know where the “BernieBros” crap came from — and am willing to concede that it could have come from any anti-Sanders internet faction, but it was picked up by Clinton supporters. The other two, rephrased for brevity, came out of Steinem’s and Hillary’s mouths. So, not internet crap at all.
also, dws and albrihgt’s statements,
Ya know, I keep hearing about these thousands and millions of high school grads and drop outs that are miraculously going to appear.
Where the fuck were they under Nixon? Reagan? Poppy? Shrub?
What, did they the black guy so much they couldn’t stand the idea of McCain and Romney?
I call bullshit. I don’t think they will vote any more this time than the last 10 times I’ve watched an election.
They did in 1976. A total of 32% of the electorate was age 18-29
How they voted:
Age 18-21 (total 9%)- birth years 1955-58: 49-D /51-R
Age 22-29 (total 23%)- birth years 1947-54: 56-D /44-R
(the younger the Boomer that more they voted Republican)
That percentage dropped to 17% in 1996 and remained flat until 2008 when it increased to 18% and 2012 when it increased to 19% (AAs possibly account for much of that increase). It has also become more reliably DEM in the last three election cycles instead of bouncing back and forth. 66% went for Obama in ’08. Only 60% did so in 2012 (which is why the increase in young voters in ’12 can’t possibly be attributed exclusively to AAs). My point is that at no point from 1976 through 2004 did the <29 year old voters favor a DEM by anything close to 60%.
Ok, and MY point is that they are NOT an “October Surprise”. If they are going to turn out, THEY ALREADY HAVE. This isn’t something new and scary. The sky is not falling.
Scalia chooses.
I think wonkette today had a post about some lawyer in Colorado who suggested (it’s unclear but think this person was serious) that dead Scalia could still have a “vote” on the SC. So, yeah, why have Scalia also be the deciding POTUS “vote”???
Break out the Ouiji boards!
they are serious; say it’s clear how he’d rule on various matters. new level of strict constructionism
Heh heh. Just because someone isn’t aware they’re wearing the big shoes and the rubber nose, they still are, y’know.
Steve was right. Somebody unelectable wins.
Pretty sure that’s what happened in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1988, and in 2000 it was somebody unelectable didn’t even get elected and still won. May the best unelectable candidate prevail!
OMG did I just say when all the candidates are unelectable a Republican wins? (Because too much unelectability drives down turnout.) I hope not.
Make America Grate Again
When did the grating stop? Did I get stoned and miss it??
I refuse to read anything that Steve M writes. I remember when he wrote here for a while. He’s the most negative, pessimistic, doom-and-gloom supposed progessive blogger around…and that’s saying something. I bet the guy is clinically depressed. What good does his kind of writing do? Discourage other progressives. No thanks.
Put Billmon in that category, too. Charles Pierce to a lesser extent. It’s all pessimism all the time. Can’t stand them.
The 2016 presidential race is anybody’s guess. However, the Republicans are certainly electable at the state level. According to Punditfact, since the 2008 elections, Democrats have lost 11 governorships, 13 U.S. Senate seats, 69 House seats, and 913 state legislative seats and 30 state legislative chambers.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jan/25/cokie-roberts/have-democrats-lost-900-se
ats-state-legislatures-o/
If I were to judge on emphasis, I’d say the DNC doesn’t have a real big problem with that outcome.
Republicans fill the legs and the judiciary in the states.
That is where the big abuses are taking place. Down to municipal level.
Chaos & anarchy – kinda like Michael Lang’s expectation for Woodstock back in the olden days.
What else can you expect?
OT:
tee hee hee
tee hee hee
GOP to Kasich: Get out
Allies of Marco Rubio want him to step aside for their candidate.
By Kyle Cheney
02/22/16 06:39 PM EST
Updated 02/23/16 01:37 AM EST
FAIRFAX, Va. — The Republican establishment has a message for John Kasich: get out, and get out of Marco Rubio’s way.
A string of elected officials, GOP insiders and prominent donors officially threw their support behind Rubio on Monday, calling him their last chance to take down Donald Trump. Their statements had another common theme. Some explicitly called for Kasich to quit, while others sent the same message by saying the Ohio governor’s ongoing presence is holding Rubio back.
“If at some point John were to decide not to go forward with his campaign, Marco would be the primary beneficiary of that decision,” former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty told POLITICO after his official Rubio endorsement. “It’s not for me or anyone else to say when John should stay in or get out but … John’s decision to stay in or get out could have a marked impact on the race.”
This is not what Kasich had in mind: He had hoped that if he could be the last governor standing, his record and experience would persuade party power brokers to unite behind him in a challenge to Trump and Ted Cruz. Pushing that point, Kasich’s campaign issued a statement after Jeb Bush dropped out declaring Kasich winner of the “governor’s bracket.”
Kasich’s theory proved true: Bush’s demise did precipitate a unifying push within the establishment — toward Rubio.
In the race to be Trump’s sole rival, Cruz’s cash matters
02/22/16 12:56 PM
By Steve Benen
………………………………………
With Donald Trump having already cruised in New Hampshire and South Carolina, it’s difficult to see him as anything but the current frontrunner. The question is who’ll be his principal rival as the field narrows and the race enters the next phase.
Rubio, pointing to the Republican establishment’s gushing affections, believes he’s the one for the job. Cruz, meanwhile, points to his actual performances in the early nominating contests – he won Iowa, defeated Rubio in New Hampshire, and is one of only two candidates to finish in the top three in each of the contests thus far – while making the case for himself.
This is bound to go on for a while, but don’t overlook the significance of campaign financing. The New York Times has a good piece on this today.
A seven-month, $220 million surge of spending on behalf of mainstream Republican candidates has yielded a primary battle dominated by Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, two candidates reviled by most of the party’s leading donors.
Now, as they approach a pivotal and expensive stage of the campaign, the two insurgent candidates – who have won the first three contests – appear to be in the best position financially to compete in the 11 states that will vote on Super Tuesday, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday.
For all the Rubio hype, Cruz raised $7.6 million in January – the best showing of any Republican candidate, and nearly $3 million more than the Florida senator – and the Texan began the month with $13.6 million in cash on hand, which is also the strongest showing in the GOP field.
Ted Cruz and Donald Trump Head Toward Super Tuesday With G.O.P.’s Deepest Pockets
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and SARAH COHEN
FEB. 21, 2016
A seven-month, $220 million surge of spending on behalf of mainstream Republican candidates has yielded a primary battle dominated by Donald J. Trump and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, two candidates reviled by most of the party’s leading donors.
Now, as they approach a pivotal and expensive stage of the campaign, the two insurgent candidates — who have won the first three contests — appear to be in the best position financially to compete in the 11 states that will vote on Super Tuesday, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission on Saturday.
Mr. Cruz is the best financed candidate in the Republican race, beginning February with $13.6 million in cash on hand. Mr. Trump, a billionaire, has raised millions of dollars from small donors and lent himself millions more, including nearly $5 million in January. He paid out more than $11.5 million that month, the most sustained spending of his presidential bid so far.
It depends on how many candidates are in the general election. If there are three or even four strong candidates, states jigger their electoral college delegations or it goes to the House for resolution. Or the Supreme Court, now at 4-4 in some analyses, gets another chance to be a king-maker to “avoid chaos”.
If there are only two, whoever wins the electoral college — no matter how “unelectable” is elected.