Bernie by 6K.

Written By: - Date published: 4:54 pm, February 7th, 2020 - 35 comments
Categories: Bernie Sanders, elections, the praiseworthy and the pitiful, us politics - Tags: , ,

So finally we have a winner of the popular vote in the Iowa caucus. The 6000 margin for Bernie Sanders in the title may go up a little, or may come down a little, but the recanvassing of Iowa that DNC Chairperson Tom Perez is calling for the Iowa Democratic Party to conduct won’t change the basic outcome – Bernie Sanders won Iowa.

Both Sanders and Buttigeig will each get about 11 delegates towards the required total of 1886 delegates needed to secure the Democratic Party nomination.

If I can hearken back to the analogy I used on a previous post – it might look like sizable chunks of the US establishment rushed down a beach to throw rocks and sand on top of a sand castle only for the incoming wave to wash everything away.

But put aside the fact that Pete Buttigieg’s campaign paid $40k to “Shadow Inc”, the company that provided the dodgy app used in Iowa. And put aside the fact the parent company of “Shadow Inc” is a company called ACRONYM that’s packed with ex – Clinton operatives. Also put aside the fact that McGowan, the head of ACRONYM, is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist with the Buttigieg campaign. And you know what else might as well be put aside? Put aside the fact that Pete Buttigieg announced victory in Iowa in spite of the fact that no results had been announced.

In other words, let’s put the first part of the fracas down to incompetence. And let’s put Buttegieg’s premature victory announcement down to raw and somewhat cynical politics. Where does that leave us?

Well, that leaves us with a very bizarre situation of an Iowa Democratic Party drip feeding cherry picked results and media reporting on those partial results, that clearly shpowed Sanders leading in the popular vote, as a win for Pete Buttigieg. They did this by concentrating on the state delegate equivalent totals (sde’s) that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Primary process.

Here’s Bernie Sanders’ explanation. (go to 16min 50 sec)

So now the focus moves to New Hampshire. Pete Bettigieg has risen in New Hampshire polling, but probably only because every day media declared him the winner off the back of a new subset of results that they chose to present in a particular way.

I dare say Sanders would have received a similar triple bump had media focused on the popular vote. But whatever…Biden is done and dusted and Buttigieg’s current visibility amounts to no more than the blip from a shooting star.

Oh. And now Nate Silver – no fan of Bernie Sanders – is predicting that Sanders will more or less clean up on Super Tuesday. So I really hope that any volunteer working for the Sanders campaign takes absolutely nothing for granted, ignores what Nate Silver is saying, and fights for every vote as though they are trailing by double digits.

The reason I say that is because anyone who thinks the US establishment will take the prospect of a Sanders Presidency lying down is a fool. Here’s a hyper link to an interview that offers an insight of the mentality of liberals who oppose Sanders. All stops and then some will be pulled out to prevent Sanders being the Presidential nominee or President, even if that means backing a second term of Trump as a few prominent liberal media pundits have said. And the world needs a Sanders’ Presidency. Desperately.

As of right now we (humanity) are cratering into god knows what on the climate change front. Now, I’m not saying a Sanders Presidency will make everything all right again. It won’t. But both the Democratic Party establishment and the Republican Party posit China as an adversary instead of as a necessary ally to get the world moved away from fossil and other carbon creating sources of energy.

As Mark Blyth has pointed out, when China and the US and Europe move on climate, then the world moves on climate. It’s that simple. And of course, that ‘simple’ involves China, the US and Europe working alongside each other – not creating bogey men of one another.

And then there’s the fact that what happens in the US ripples to the rest of the Anglosphere. And here it gets selfish and points to some of the reasons why the current US election matters to people on the left.

I really never want to hear any fool of a politician say that neo-liberalism is just ‘what happens’ to people, as Jacinda Ardern did in an interview with Guyon Espiner just before the last NZ election. I want vacuous clowns of her ilk to fuck off and never be heard from again. And I never want to hear it insinuated that poor people are just too costly a problem to deal with; that housing will come to the homeless by way of some trickle down; that instances of poor physical and/or mental health are just unfortunate personal tragedies unfolding in a vacuum.

It almost doesn’t matter what angle we look at the world from these days – we need to turn on a dime. Bernie Sanders, if he assumes one of the most powerful political positions in the world today, may or may not be able to help that happen. But certainly, no one else is on the horizon who could even remotely approach by way of helping that possibility be realised.

35 comments on “Bernie by 6K. ”

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  1. Muttonbird 1
    7 February 2020 at 7:56 pm

    But the commenter known as James assured us that Sanders lost and the candidate of choice for the right wing, Pete Buttigeig, won thereby generally crushing socialist aspirations.

    Disclaimer: I neither know nor care about the US and their elections. They are all mad gun-slingers as far as I'm concerned.

  2. Nic the NZer 2
    7 February 2020 at 8:12 pm

    There are some obvious reasons why the iowa caucus process produces a state equivalent winner with a lower vote share than another candidate.

    First each caucus has a whole number of delegates. These are distributed proportionally by candidate for each caucus but rounding can result in a discrepancy of up to half a caucus result here (in the event of a tie by a one delegate caucus, ties are usually broken by coin toss).

    Second these delegates are weighted by democratic votes in the last presidential and gubernatorial election. So if the prior democratic representatives didn't go down well in a caucus region inside iowa then their caucus counts less next time round. It seems likely a lot of the pro Hilary parts of iowa strongly went for Buttigieg giving him a boost.

  3. georgecom 3
    7 February 2020 at 8:20 pm

    if Americans who voted to "drain the swamp" and to "take on the establishment" actually want someone who will dig the drains and take on the 1% ers and vested interests, they will vote for Sanders. If they simply want to be duped and gulliable, they will vote for the corrupt guy

  4. barry 4
    7 February 2020 at 9:25 pm

    It probably comes down to a race between Buttigieg & Sanders, with Biden support going to Buttigieg, and Warren's support spread more. With Bloomberg as a spoiler if it looks like Sanders will win.

  5. McFlock 5
    7 February 2020 at 11:30 pm

    I mean, it could always be that some of the team behind the previous successful primaries campaign leveraged their democrat contacts to shill a shitty app, and then leveraged their experience (and, yes, maybe contacts in some of the current campaign teams) to get essentially campaign chump change in exchange for what they already supplied the democrat caucuses (maybe with some "analyses" thrown in on top), and Buttigieg' team thought they had cleaned up the junk data enough to claim victory while the DNC held everything until they got accurate data for each caucus…

  6. xanthe 6
    7 February 2020 at 11:53 pm

    Those damn Russians again , now they are at it in the democratic primaries

  7. SPC 7
    8 February 2020 at 12:48 am

    Biden fades, then Bettigieg fades and then either Biden revives or they move to Bloomberg to stop Sanders. If necessary, and if she is still in the race, they would even go to Warren.

  8. Phil 8
    10 February 2020 at 10:03 am

    won’t change the basic outcome – Bernie Sanders won Iowa.

    Bernie went from 24.8% of 1st vote to 26.6% at the final vote. That should be deeply alarming to Sanders supporters for two reasons.

    1) very few people chose sanders as their second option when the unviable candidate options dropped away. That's a really bad sign for his chances of building a majority coalition down the stretch as the field inevitably narrows.

    2) In 2016 Sanders basically split the Iowa vote 50:50 with Clinton, and had 45%-ish of the total primary vote. He's now sitting at mid-low 20's. Over the last four years he has allowed the movement he started to atrophy and whither to half it's original size.

    • Bill 8.1
      10 February 2020 at 12:33 pm

      In 2016 Sanders basically split the Iowa vote 50:50 with Clinton, and had 45%-ish of the total primary vote.

      Where did you get the tallies from Phil? My clear understanding is that the number of votes cast for each candidate were not published in 2016. Maybe you're suggesting that the raw vote can be "reverse engineered" with a high degree of accuracy from some take on delegate counts, even though delegate count and vote percentage do not necessarily line up (as explained by the Vox piece I've provided for you and Andre below)?

      • Phil 8.1.1
        10 February 2020 at 1:32 pm

        Yeah, the 50:50 in 2016 was SDEs. 1st- & realignment- popular vote totals were not published. Nevertheless it's entirely reasonable to infer that Sanders has dropped from somewhere around 50% of the primary vote 4 years ago in Iowa to 26% now.

  9. Phil 9
    10 February 2020 at 10:34 am

    media reporting on those partial results, that clearly showed Sanders leading in the popular vote, as a win for Pete Buttigieg. They did this by concentrating on the state delegate equivalent totals (sde’s) that have nothing whatsoever to do with the Primary process

    That's straight up false. SDE's are used to determine the allocations within the Iowa delegation going to the national convention in Milwaukee in July. They're more important to the final delegate count and victory prospects of any particular candidate than the Iowa popular vote.

    • Andre 9.1
      10 February 2020 at 10:57 am

      The assertion that SDEs are irrelevant apparently comes from Bernie spinning like a top starting at 16:50 in the OP linked video.

      I'll leave it to readers to ponder the wisdom of taking any pollie's spin at face value, no matter how hard someone may be crushing on that pollie.

    • Bill 9.2
      10 February 2020 at 12:24 pm

      There are three different category of delegate. See if you can figure which category of delegate is relevant to the primary process. (hint : it's the national delegates – y'know, the ones that go to the Democratic National Convention)

      https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/21083701/iowa-caucuses-results-delegates-math

      • Each individual precinct caucus will elect a certain preset number of county convention delegates to go to one of the 99 county conventions in Iowa. Each county gets to determine the size of its convention. (So, for example, Story County and Pottawattamie County have similarly sized populations, but the former will have 200 county convention delegates and the latter will have 400.) There will be 11,402 county delegates overall.
      • Each county also has a preset number of state delegates it will be able to send to the Iowa Democratic convention. And the number of state delegates a county gets depends on how many votes its attendees cast for the Democratic nominees in the most recent gubernatorial and presidential race, averaged. (So, for example, Story and Pottawattamie counties have similarly sized populations, but Story had more Democratic voters, so it gets 83 state delegates and Pottawattamie gets 48.) There will be 2,107 state delegates overall.
      • And all of that is entirely different from the national delegates we’re accustomed to seeing in presidential primary results. These are the delegates Iowa will send to the Democratic National Convention. This year, it will send 41 pledged delegates (who are bound to support to specific candidates based on the caucus results).
      • McFlock 9.2.1
        10 February 2020 at 12:48 pm

        These are the delegates Iowa will send to the Democratic National Convention.

        So how are the national delegates who are sent to the National Convention themselves actually selected? Because from my reading it seems that those 41 national delegates are selected by the state delegates.

        • Phil 9.2.1.1
          10 February 2020 at 1:05 pm

          Your reading is correct.

        • Bill 9.2.1.2
          10 February 2020 at 9:39 pm

          The number is already determined. And the supporters they are delegates for is already determined. Whether it's Jo, Harry, Flo or Tom who is the delegate for "candidate x"…yeah, that bit's to be decided by that candidates state delegates…who also still have to be chosen.

          I guess (just guessing mind) that niether you nor Andre were among those who claimed some degree of illegitimacy in Trump's Presidency "because popular vote", aye?

          • McFlock 9.2.1.2.1
            10 February 2020 at 10:19 pm

            Except, reading Iowa Dems' rules, you'll have noticed that the sortof-STV system they run at the local level also runs at the state convention, and neither Biden nor Klobuchar reached 15% so the state delegates can transfer their votes to any of the other candidates. So the win/loss isn't as written in stone as you suggest. The of course you will also have noted passages like:

            Iowa law does not require that presidential electors vote according to the state’s popular vote outcome, however, each candidate for Democratic Presidential Elector shall certify in writing to the State Party Chair that they will vote for the election of the Democratic Presidential and Vice Presidential nominees.

            SDEs are very important.

            DNC Iowan electors have latitude on where their vote ends up, so which specific people get that role is important.

            First round results at local caucus level? As useful as tits on a bull.

      • Andre 9.2.2
        10 February 2020 at 12:54 pm

        And what is the allocation of national delegates coming out of the Iowa caucuses?

        The Iowa Democratic Party is currently reporting it as 14 to Buttigieg, 12 to Sanders, 8 to Warren, 6 to Biden, and 1 to Klobuchar, which is their entire allocation of 41 pledges delegates for the national convention. Although as I understand it, those numbers are still provisional as there are still some reviews going on.

        There's a bit more detail below on how the allocations were calculated out, which shows the importance of the SDEs, and the utter irrelevance of the first round vote:

        http://www.thegreenpapers.com/P20/IA-D#0203

        But in any case, 14 pledged delegates to Buttigieg vs 12 pledged delegates for Sanders certainly looks like a win to Buttigieg. By most people's definition of win, anyways.

        • Bill 9.2.2.1
          10 February 2020 at 9:46 pm

          Andre. If a candidate fails to get 15% in the first round, there is no second round for that candidate. So…the first round ain't exactly irrelevant.

          Anyway. The things a cluster fuck and I'm sure there are questions that deserve answers that will be ignored by all and sundry in the mainstream.

          • Phil 9.2.2.1.1
            11 February 2020 at 2:40 pm

            I'm sure we will (soon? eventually?) get answers to those questions… and those answers will be actively ignored by people who would rather push conspiracy theories to justify why 'their' candidate didn't win the nomination.

            • adam 9.2.2.1.1.1
              11 February 2020 at 2:51 pm

              It's not a theory when the facts say a conspiracy has happened. If it was just mistakes, then they go all over the place, except they don't. They all go against Bernie.

              https://www.chicagotribune.com/election-2020/ct-nw-nyt-iowa-caucus-errors-20200209-vun7qmw54rdx5hitwm4zrg3m2m-story.html



              But yeah, call people tin foil hats. This shit show is beyond incompetence.

              • McFlock …
                11 February 2020 at 2:55 pm

                How does the crappy app "go against Bernie"?

                • adam …
                  12 February 2020 at 12:06 am

                  I'm guessing you did not watch video McFlock. If you did you'd have your answer.

                  • McFlock …
                    12 February 2020 at 12:25 am

                    lol

                    yeah, nah. thought you might actually understand your own link and give the cliff notes.

                    As it is, I wasted 11 minutes listening to some tool ranting about a jizzed app that can't change the results, getting bitchy that IDP didn't change forms on the fly (forms signed by other people no less) rather than letting it go through a formal review and appeals process, and getting his rocks off at his own self importance.

                    No wonder you like him.

                    • adam …
                      12 February 2020 at 11:56 pm

                      You Calling Kyle Kulinski 'some tool' is hilarious.

                      But that just the usual from people who have nothing, personal attacks.

                      Me I'm happy Bernie won. Good to have the left win, rather than corporate shills.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 February 2020 at 12:03 am

                      Funny how massive conspiracies orchestrated by the deep state and illuminati tend to fail dismally without so much as a ripple that they existed in the first place.

                      I guess they immediately surrendered when your youtube hero exposed them.

                    • adam …
                      13 February 2020 at 1:49 pm

                      WOW, you making shit up.

                      So have a nice day and enjoy the nice weather.

                      Be happy a left wing person won, rather than a corporate shill.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 February 2020 at 2:37 pm

                      yeah nah – "It's not a theory when the facts say a conspiracy has happened. If it was just mistakes, then they go all over the place, except they don't. They all go against Bernie."

                      Well, not even your video said they "all went against Bernie" (not that he provided any evidence for what he did say about the "errors"), and the "conspiracy" appears to have failed dismally without any evidence of ever having existed at all…

                    • adam …
                      13 February 2020 at 3:07 pm

                      " massive conspiracies orchestrated by the deep state and illuminati "

                      Is not making shit up. MMMM OK

                    • McFlock …
                      13 February 2020 at 4:32 pm

                      Sure, the sarc tag was missing, but googling "kyle kulinski deep state" suggests it's not much of an exagerration.

                      But regardless of the conspirators' identity, they obviously weren't the threat (or have the evidence of existence) youtube videos suggest.

                    • adam …
                      13 February 2020 at 8:14 pm

                      I'm pretty sure if we did a search of your real name we'd dig up something shitty in your past too.

                      It's not really helpful.

                      What about a search with Kyle Kulinski and justice democrats? Did that make you as angry as well? What to scream conspiracy theory!!?!

                      Or Kyle Kulinski wanting to remove money from politics – was that evil too – more conspiracy theory for you to bandy about?

                      None of are perfect, but some people have actually put their money where their mouth is. What is your youtube membership count? What have you done to promote social democracy on a scale that Kyle Kulinski has ?

                      To hack down people in this woke b.s manor is bullshit, and I think you know that.

                    • McFlock …
                      13 February 2020 at 9:02 pm

                      Dude, it was two years ago he ran that episode, and was in literally the first page of results. This isn't dredging up short instances from decades ago.
                      As for what I've done irl? Small cog in a small mill in a large machine. Never a primary author, usually hidden in "et al". But there's a decent publication list. That's my contribution – like a menu dégustation: small portions with so many helpings.

              • Phil …
                11 February 2020 at 3:56 pm

                There's literally nothing in that Tribune article to support your claim that all the errors go against Bernie.

  10. pat 10
    11 February 2020 at 3:04 pm

    There are two candidates that the money men fear…Warren and Sanders. Neither will be acceptable to them