Super Tuesday

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, March 2nd, 2016 - 30 comments
Categories: us politics - Tags: , , , ,

Voting has begun – it’s on! By the end of the process one candidate in each party (i.e. Trump and probably Clinton but don’t give up on Sanders) will have huge momentum towards nomination. Strange days indeed.

From RNZ:

Super Tuesday voting under way

About a dozen states are casting votes for candidates from either the Republican or Democratic parties or both in a contest seen as make-or-break for the hopefuls.

Donald Trump leads the Republican field and Hillary Clinton is ahead in the Democratic race.

The first Super Tuesday polls opened in Virginia at 6am local time (midnight NZT). There have been earlier votes in four states. ….

30 comments on “Super Tuesday ”

  1. Lanthanide 1

    Sanders has no chance – he never really did.

  2. There is something perversely fascinating watching the Republican Party civil war get underway.

    I think Trump will take it, but Rubio and Cruz will ensure it is not the clean sweep he is looking for. Starting to wonder if these guys will be each others running mates should one or the other win the nomination.

    As for the Democrats, sadly I think Hillary will win, but Bernie will scare her.

  3. Pasupial 4

    These fivethirtyeight super guides are handy, in getting a grip on which states are; caucused versus primary & proportional vs winner takes most. I particularly like the delegate targets needed to achieve overall majority (plus the demographic based vote-share benchmark for the democrats; as the delegate target only includes pledged delegates and not superdelegates):

    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/super-tuesday-preview-democratic-presidential-election-2016/
    http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/super-tuesday-preview-republican-presidential-election-2016/

    It’s more amusing with a Drumpfinator!

  4. joe90 5

    Why the GOP establishment is worried.

    Both of the remaining Democratic candidates for president easily top Republican front-runner Donald Trump in hypothetical general election match-ups, according to a new CNN/ORC Poll.

    But Hillary Clinton, who is well ahead in the Democratic race for the presidency, would likely face a stronger challenge should Florida Sen. Marco Rubio or Texas Sen. Ted Cruz capture the Republican nomination for president.

    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/01/politics/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-poll/

  5. katipo 6

    An interesting Vox article on the appeal of the Don

    The rise of American authoritarianism.
    A niche group of political scientists may have uncovered what’s driving Donald Trump’s ascent. What they found has implications that go well beyond 2016….

    http://www.vox.com/2016/3/1/11127424/trump-authoritarianism

  6. weka 7

    Whatever happens with Sanders today (or this election) let’s not forget that there are bigger fish to fry, and he is part of a larger and longer movement than the battle with Clinton. What he has done already is a game changer and it’s something that can be built on. The times they are a changing.

    • Olwyn 7.1

      +100 Weka – we need to remember that we are in it for the long haul, and that the Sanders campaign has made a solid advance for the movement, whether or not he ends up beating Clinton.

  7. Sabine 8

    and history is repeating
    and humans are still dumb as

    http://www.buzzfeed.com/tasneemnashrulla/heres-why-this-educated-liberal-couple-are-considering-votin#.mreOJzxVe8

    “Quote: That leaves The Donald, really a moderate in wolf’s garb, who would owe nothing to either party and might strike deals, for instance on tax reform.
    Yes, we could be like the good citizens who voted for a “tameable” Hitler in 1933 to get things back on track. But the alternatives look worse.” Quote

    there seems to be a lot of Chamberlains around.

  8. John G 9

    When I talk about politics with my kids, I tell them we are living in the 1950’s and that hopefully the 60’s are just around the corner.

    • alwyn 9.1

      If you are talking about American politics you are really scaring me.
      In the US in the 50s there was a President who actually knew what war was like and was determined to avoid getting into one. When Britain and France invaded Egypt for example he slapped them down very, very hard and forced their withdrawal.

      Then in the 60s there was Kennedy, who tried to invade Cuba while not letting the invaders win. After that he got into the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and into Vietnam. Meanwhile he and his brother tried to arrange the assassination of Castro.
      After him there was Johnson who really wound things up in Vietnam. Got up to half a million men in the end. They then had Nixon. Need I say more?

      If we are going from a peaceful 50s to a mad 60s, God help us.
      Do you actually remember anything about the 50s and 60s?

      • joe90 9.1.1

        Scary days ahead be it Cruz or Trump.

        It is easy to poke fun at many of Trump’s foreign-policy notions—the promises to “take” Iraq’s oil, to extract a kind of imperial “tribute” from U.S. military allies like South Korea, his eagerness to emulate the Great Wall of China along the border with Mexico, and his embrace of old-style strongmen like Vladimir Putin. But many of these views would have found favor in pre-World War II—and even, in some cases, 19th century—America.

        […]

        Trump’s populism, divisiveness and friendliness toward dictators is also reminiscent of Charles Lindbergh, once an American hero, who led the isolationist America First movement. In some areas, Trump’s views go back even further, to 19th-century high-tariff protectionism and every-country-for-itself mercantilism.

        http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-foreign-policy-213546

    • Jones 9.2

      I reckon it’s more like the end of the 20’s/beginning of the 30’s… politically & economically.

    • Phil 9.3

      Or, you know, you could tell them it’s 2016 and they have to make choices based on the reality of today?

  9. Sanders is in the same league as the late Norman Thomas and Eugene Debs both would have served the people of USA well ,but Socialism scares the gullible American public .

    • Colonial Viper 10.1

      No, it seems that the American public is finding socialism more acceptable than it has in decades.

      However the Democratic Super Delegates and Clinton’s corporate paymasters seem properly scared of it.

      • Jones 10.1.1

        And as a result the Democratic Party is nakedly displaying just how undemocratic it actually is.

  10. joe90 11

    Clinton and Cruz take Texas.

    http://apps.bostonglobe.com/election-results/2016/primary/democratic/texas/?p1=BG_election_SwitchToDem

    Media Matters

    ‎@mmfa

    Ted Cruz’s watch party is being hosted by a right-wing radio host who refers to black people as “jungle animals”: http://mm4a.org/1XYumzM

    https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/704850557857619968

    edit: this too

    http://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/delegate-count-tracker

  11. Colonial Viper 12

    I doubt Cruz will get over 50% in Texas.

    Which means that a fair chunk of the very many Texas delegates will go to second placed Trump.

  12. Chooky 13

    Super Tuesday: Turning point of road to White house LIVE UPDATES

    https://www.rt.com/usa/334082-super-tuesday-consecutive-voting/

  13. The Chairman 14

    There’s still hope for Sanders

    https://youtu.be/PdWd0wV44mk

    • Pasupial 14.1

      Sanders isn’t quite as bad off as the Washington posts suggests (thanks TRP for that link btw, the constant resizing and animations on the Guardian made their front page almost unusable during the reporting). The current delegate count is; Clinton 1034, Sanders 408 – but that includes superdelegates. Pledged delegate totals are; C 596, S 399, this piece has a good summary:

      http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

      Really, Sanders only chance now is that some spectacular lapse by (or character assassintion on) Clinton destroys her credibility before too many more votes are cast.