Written By:
Mike Smith - Date published:
10:10 pm, March 3rd, 2016 - 73 comments
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The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy.We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on preferences of the population which do not seem entirely rational nor serving their longer interests. ...
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Sanders’ “rent a crowd” must be giving the Washington DC troughers nightmares
Yep. Even if he loses, he wins and we do too.
https://www.facebook.com/carl.davidson.7773/posts/10153631959838821
Speaking of Clinton’s history, this doesn’t look good:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/in-clinton-email-investigation-justice-department-grants-immunity-to-former-state-department-staffer/2016/03/02/e421e39e-e0a0-11e5-9c36-e1902f6b6571_story.html?wpisrc=al_alert-COMBO-politics%252Bnation
The FBI can investigate all they like but on the eve of a once in a generation opportunity to influence the judiciary the Obama justice department ain’t going to indict.
joe90
There doesn’t have to be an indictment for Clinton’s campaign to be concerned about what Pagliano information coughed up to get personal immunity. Also; when it comes to raking Trump over the coals about his “Trump University” (and other scams), Clinton’s own criminal investigation will give him an easy out.
like horse racing, politics is not a level playing field and as well backed as Bernie is the *trainers* will milkshake Hillary
That’s the most words I’ve read in the comments without vitriol or conspiracy I was compelled to acknowledge the occasion.
Unfortunately the few dozen super delegates in Clinton’s New York crowd have more voting power in the rigged Democratic primaries than the 50,000 people at Sander’s Michigan rally.
I have heard this “rigged” accusation a fair bit from the CDS (Clinton Derangement Syndrome) crowd so I looked into it. The Democrat system is weighted to give the winner an advantage. They came up with the system voluntarily, to avoid the mess the Republican process is. Everyone knows the rules. It is hardly “rigged”, unless you are a moron who can’t tell the difference.
Sort of like the Labour leadership voting structure?
Similar concept but not quite the same
Exactly. The Democrats are up-front about the role of Super Delegates. They don’t hide behind the union vote.
😛
The Super Delegates have an influence, but it’s not absolute. It operates within about a +/-8% range of 50%.
In other words if Sanders was over 58% of the ordinary delegates, the Super’s would make no difference.
Also there is the very real consideration that the Supers are NOT actually tied to vote either way. It is entirely possible for them to switch to Sanders en-mass if they come to believe that is the best strategic decision for the Party.
The nice thing is that Sanders supporters will get behind Hillary. Over in the Republican party, if Trump wins, there’s no guarantee that conservatives will vote for him, let alone support him.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2016/mar/03/campaign-updates-us-presidential-election-2016-gop-debate-romney-trump-clinton
Many conservatives will get behind Hillary if Trump wins. It’s not so easy to see the same happening if it were Bernie vs Trump.
I’m not sure about the ‘#neverTrump’ people on the right Lanth. It’s early days yet and they think they can still stop him. If they don’t and he gets the nom, and picks a running mate the blowhards can say will ‘guide him’, they’ll get on board.
Mitt Romney doesn’t share your sentiment.
Right now he is saying stuff, sure.
‘It’s terrible Trump is terrible really awful he;s a conman who couldn’t beat Clinton, Clinton will beat him and It’s very important we nominate someone who can beat Clinton’
Obvs that’s not a quote, but it’s a paraphrase of the argument I heard.
the thing I’m listening for is:
‘Trump would be worse than Clinton and if we nominate him, I will vote for Clinton and suggest you do likewise for the sake of our Republic’
That’s true. Given the tone of his speech, I do find it slightly surprising that he didn’t say that.
Possibly, yet the polling data on one-on-one match ups suggests, if anyhting, that the overall effect of nominating Sanders over Clinton would be to increase the chance that Trump would be defeated. (That recent CNN/ORC poll linked to on Ad’s post yesterday.)
538 says that those sorts of polls this early in the election cycle, for the general election, are pretty much worthless at predicting anything.
Also if anyone is a strong supporter of Sanders, they will be politically motivated to say they would vote for Sanders vs Trump, but that they would vote for Trump and not Clinton.
Fair enough about the early polling.
So then the arguments become ones based on assumptions and trying to work out which assumptions make more sense in relation to the general political context.
On that basis, I’d still argue that there is a good chance that Sanders may well outperform Clinton in a runoff with Trump. That’s because Sanders – as even liberal and right wing commenters have suggested – appears to be tapping a similar disillusionment with establishment politics.
On the assumption that Clinton-backing liberals would not vote for Trump (or simply not vote) in order to spite Sanders, that may well mean that Sanders could ‘steal’ a few percent of Trump’s supporters – e.g., working class conservatives who are suspicious of establishment politics, corporations, ‘big money’, etc. and so had been supporting Trump who they perceived to be ‘independent’ of all of that.
Also, I think you overestimate the extent to which Republican supporters who are currently supportive of Trump’s rivals such as Cruz and Rubio find Trump a no-go zone. Unlike Republican grandees like Romney I suspect that the worldview of Cruz and Rubio supporters is far closer to the worldview they perceive Trump has than the worldview of Hillary Clinton.
In fact, I’ve heard the odd ‘vox pop’ during the primaries where Republican voters have talked about how they were tossing up between Cruz and Trump.
The East Coast patrician Republican worldview (represented by people like Romney) is not in the ascendancy in the Republican party voter base. That’s why the Republican elite is now in this position of openly splitting the party for the sake of their own dominance.
They are up against a populist insurgency. And populism actually has a strong history in US politics.
538 has been trying to gauge Trumps popularity.
There are 3 salient points they’ve found so far:
1. People who vote Trump have typically made up their mind a long time ago. People who make up their mind in the few days before or day of voting are going for Rubio / Trump at a much higher rate than they go for Trump. This suggests Trump has a large floor of support, but also that he may have a low ceiling.
2. When asking for second-preference, Rubio and Cruz get a lot more of the votes than Trump does.
3. Trump has largely gotten around the 35% mark in the Super Tuesday vote, another indication that he may have a ceiling on support. In their model for how each candidate can reach the nomination, Trump is only running at 113% of his required delegate count right now – they thought anything around 250 delegates on ST would have been ‘not great’ for Trump and he only got 263.
Also interesting points. Thanks.
I think you meant “Rubio/Cruz …”?
The question for November seems wide open, then.
If the ‘late deciders’ are going for Cruz/Rubio rather than Trump the question remains whether that is because they would never go anywhere near Trump (even if they had to vote Democrat or not vote in order not to vote for him) and so were only tossing up between Cruz and Rubio (or one of the other candidates) as part of their late decision making or, alternatively, that Trump was still a live option for them up until polling day/week.
Interesting stuff.
Given the other point further down the thread that only 49% of those exit-polled in Republican primaries would be supportive of Trump, it suggests that they’re actively deciding against Trump.
I think the main thing if Trump wins the nomination, is that we’re in unchartered waters. He’s not a politician, and he would be the first non-politician to win the nomination of the 2 parties. He’s also a demagogue, an obvious racist and a self-aggrandizing pathological liar etc.
It’s quite possible that he could win on a wave of high-turnout from those who are fed-up with the establishment, but equally he could lose with a lot of republican voters staying home, or switching to Hillary.
Whatever people do though the basic maths on the clock is running out
http://www.vox.com/2016/3/3/11159470/republican-disaster
Goes into detail, but takeaway is that to stop Trump the GOP now needs to deny him a majority at the convention. To do that, Rubio needs to win Florida (99 delgates winner takes all). For him to win, Kasich and Cruz need to tell their voters in Florida to vote Rubio.
Same story for Kasich in Ohio, etc.
But they aren’t doing that.
Have you got polling data to back that up? I honestly hope you are right as I agree she will probably be the nominee. However all the polls I have seen reported recently show her as performing far worse than Bernie in 1v1’s with all the possible Republican candidates.
The movement is called “Bernie or Bust,” and it means just that:
If Sen. Bernard Sanders of Vermont loses the Democratic presidential nomination, a group of his supporters will either write in his name in the general election or consider casting their ballot for a Republican.
The one thing they certainly won’t do: Vote for Hillary Clinton.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/1/hillary-clinton-cant-count-on-bernie-sanders-suppo/
while the establishment is busy making sure they get an acceptable candidate into the Oval Office the mood that has supported Bernie may well turn the House and Senate on their heads a wee way down the track…so it may all be for nought
That reminds me of the PUMAs who refused to support Obama in 08 after he defeated their Candidiate, Hillary, in the primaries and thus handing the Whitehouse to President McCain.
It comes back to the undemocratic voting structure of the Democratic Party.
Yeah, it’s quite easy to make up those sorts of movements at the moment.
But when it comes the 1st of November, and there’s a looming Trump presidency on the horizon, they’ll stick with the devil they know and vote Clinton.
Those supporting Sanders are generally supporting his anti establishment stance, thus most would rather support Trump opposed to letting Clinton in.
Except there’s a reasonable chance that the next president is going to appoint 2 SCOTUS judges, and letting Trump do the appointment is hardly going to help those who are supporting Sanders.
As Trump is also anti establishment, I don’t see why not. It’s still better than allowing Clinton to call the shots.
Because Trump wouldn’t be appointing “anti-establishment” SCOTUS judges (whatever that would even be). He’d appoint conservatives who would only give stronger powers to corporations and crack down even further on civil liberties.
That goes against his anti establishment stance.
Moreover, Clinton is expected do similar. She is part of the establishment.
If she becomes the Party nomination, she will split the Democratic vote, thus most likely cost them the election.
🙄
Trump’s already basically said he’s going to throw the First Amendment out the window. That’s free speech, freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble peacefully gone right there, if he gets enough justices on side.
Citation, thanks.
Haven’t you been paying any attention to what Trump has actually been saying?
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/26/trump-pledges-curb-press-freedom-libel-laws-first-amendment
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/14/who_needs_a_constitution_anyway_donald_trump_sets_the_first_amendment_on_fire/
How many do you need?
Yes, I have been paying attention thanks, thus I questioned your extreme assertion.
“Trump pledged if elected president to “open up our libel laws so when [newspapers] write purposely negative stories … we can sue them “
That’s not putting an end to free speech. The truth will remain a defense.
Moreover, considering the negative reports about him, one can see where he is coming from.
You’re confusing “negative” with “untrue”.
The truth will remain a defense.
Yes, because independent media outlets can totes afford more lawyers.
Trump can’t overturn the constitution, or it’s amendments.
He can try and pass laws that go against the constitution; they might be enforcible for a short period of time, but the SCOTUS will make short work of that.
There’s quite a lot of latitude in how the Supreme Court can choose to interpret the Constitution.
For instance, the Second Amendment was not widely considered to guarantee an individual right to weapons until Heller 2008.
Corporations were not held to have the same rights to free speech as individuals, until Citizens United.
As Scalia showed (with assistance), there’s considerable opportunity for the Supreme Court to radically change what the effective meaning actually is, without going to the extent of a Constitutional Amendment.
The last ruling on freedom of the press by the SCOTUS in 1964 was a unanimous 9-0 ruling.
Any new ruling to support the sort of things Trump is saying would need to reverse that previous SCOTUS decision. That seems very unlikely.
There’s a difference between finding a new angle on a particular question that hasn’t been addressed before. That’s quite different to reversing a ruling that the court previously made on the same (or almost the same) question.
Those supporting Sanders are generally supporting his anti establishment stance, thus most would rather support Trump opposed to letting Clinton in.
This is arguably the most untrue thing ever written in a comment on The Standard.
Sanders has been a member of Congress and/or Senate for the last 25 years. Sanders’ supporters are overwhelmingly white, young, and (most importantly) liberal – they’re socially aware and hold almost zero opinions consistent with Trump (TPP being the one notable exception).
Exit polls of candidate satisfaction (i.e. “Would you be satisfied if candidate X was the democrat nominee) show that supporters of Both Clinton and Sanders would be about 75% supportive of the other candidate. These results are in line with the ’08 results for Clinton and Obama. On the other hand, only 49% of republicans would be satisfied with Trump as the GOP nominee.
“This is arguably the most untrue thing ever written in a comment on The Standard”
Rubbish.
From his funding structure to his stance on Wall Street. Sanders is largely considered the anti establishment nominee on the left.
You missed the second part of your statement:
“thus most would rather support Trump opposed to letting Clinton in.”
Sanders is clearly much more anti-establishment than Clinton – she’s practically the definition.
But your next clause is, as Phil says, arguably the most untrue thing written in a comment on The Standard.
Yes, Sanders is clearly much more anti-establishment than Clinton, which is why a number support him. Therefore, most (of the those that support his anti establishment stance) would have little problem voting for Trump opposed to Clinton.
A Guardian survey found only 7% of Sanders supporters would vote for Trump over Clinton, so much for “most” of them doing so as you claimed.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/13/bernie-sanders-supporters-consider-donald-trump-no-hillary-clinton
“ On the other hand, only 49% of republicans would be satisfied with Trump as the GOP nominee.”
That’s interesting – though as Lanthanide said earlier when I was quoting current polling, it may not be at all indicative of voting behaviour in November.
Do you have any links to those exit polls? Genuinely interested to read more about them.
“That’s interesting – though as Lanthanide said earlier when I was quoting current polling, it may not be at all indicative of voting behaviour in November.”
538 specifically addressed the question of “head to head polls between candidates of each party in the general election”.
That’s not the same as “who is your preferred nominee”.
The main difference is time: the general election is many months away, and the majority of the American public just aren’t interested in it. But the primaries are underway right now, so anyone who is interested in the primary, is likely to give an indicative answer to that question.
Remember that primaries are typically attended by the political geeks; I’m mostly just guessing here but I’d suspect less than 2 million Americans are involved in any of the primaries at all. Asking questions to people who *have just voted* is very different than trying to poll random Americans and whom they might theoretically vote for in November. And if your sample is politically active voters, then as I noted before those who support Sanders over Clinton have a political motive to lie to the pollster and said they’d vote for Trump over Clinton in order to make her numbers look bad and thereby give additional support to Sanders.
“supporting his anti establishment stance”
Do they really think he’s going to be anti establishment if he’s ever appointed to the white house?
No matter what Trump says now, if he were to become president, he wouldn’t be the one making any important decisions. The President is a figurehead, put in place to give the masses a ‘face’ in charge.
TC
Presented with the choice of Clinton or Trump, I’d expect them to support Clinton, if only to keep the far worse option (Trump) out of the white house.
I’m loving my “make Donald Drumpf again” extension. This person you’re talking about just doesn’t exist in a way that makes me angry anymore.
Me too!
Why the rush to ratify the TPPA in NZ – if it may never be ratified in the USA?
And if the TPPA is not ratified in the USA – is that not the end of it?
https://berniesanders.com/press-release/hillary-clinton-outsourcer-in-chief/
Hillary Clinton: Outsourcer-in-Chief
MARCH 3, 2016
BURLINGTON, Vt. – U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Manager Jeff Weaver on Wednesday released the following statement in response to Secretary Clinton’s comments on trade at a rally in New York City:
“At a rally on Wednesday former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told those gathered, ‘Don’t let anybody tell you we can’t make anything in America anymore.’
“What she failed to tell the audience is that she has been a consistent advocate of the job-killing trade deals that have contributed to the loss of nearly 60,000 factories in the United States and almost 5 million manufacturing jobs over the last 15 years.
“Hillary Clinton supported NAFTA. NAFTA cost 850,000 U.S. jobs. 43,000 jobs alone in Michigan. 35,000 jobs in Ohio. 35,000 in Illinois.
“Hillary Clinton supported Permanent Normalized Trade Relations with China. That deal cost the country 3.2 million jobs.
“The free trade agreement with Panama? Guess what, Hillary Clinton supported that one too.
“Now, American jobs are threatened by the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Hillary Clinton spoke favorably about the TPP 45 times. She called it the ‘Gold Standard.’ Now she says she ‘has reservations about it.’
“Tom Donohue, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and strong supporter of these job-crushing trade deals, is not worried about Clinton getting in the way of this deal. He said he knows that if she’s elected she’ll flip back to support it.
“Election year conversions won’t bring back American jobs. Bernie Sanders believes that the top priority of any trade deal should be to help American workers and he’s the only candidate who has consistently fought against job-killing trade deals.”
______________________________________
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate.
(The only 2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate who is actively opposed to the TPPA)
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/15/politics/45-times-secretary-clinton-pushed-the-trade-bill-she-now-opposes/
+100 Penny
On Super Tuesday, Clinton gained 3,564,892 votes. Sanders gained 2,293,273. Pictures may be worth a thousand words, but numbers are a different thing altogether and by any measure Sanders suffered a shellacking. I like Sanders, I would prefer him to gain the nomination, but we can’t ignore the 3:2 vote disadvantage he’s suffering.
yeah i like Bernie too but the numbers dont lie.
Also if you consider that Bernie is typically supported by the more affluent white voters (who would have time and resources to go to rallies), whereas Clinton has much stronger support amongst poor blacks…
There is also another potential angle to this.
If Trumps support continues to gather momentum, to the point where he is the overwhelming choice of voters on the right, what is to stop him refusing the Republican nomination and running as an independent?
He has the money and the backing of a lot of money but wouldn’t be beholden to anyone.
He wouldn’t run as an independent as long as he could be the Republican candidate.
The partys in the US should be thought more of as campaign machines. They have the staff, the technology and the experience to get out the vote and advertise for the candidate.
A better question is really – would the GOP machinery refuse to fully co-operate with Trump? How many key personnel would resign?
He’s already pretty good at selling his “not beholden to anyone” pitch even running within the Republican party.
The window for getting on the ballot nationwide as an independent for November is actually closing fairly soon. Although the deadlines generally aren’t until July or so, for each state there needs to be thousands of signatures collected and verified. Effectively the decision needs to be made probably by early April. It definitely can’t wait until after the convention.
I still think that Bernie will get the nomination and go on to be the next president of the USA – with Elizabeth Warren as his VP – now wouldn’t that be a dream outcome!
But, more importantly, even if he doesn’t, the rocks Bernie’s tossing into the political pool in America will create ripples which will circle the world and be felt even here in NZ.
There is light at the end of the tunnel – the unravelling of the neoliberal cobweb has begun!
The usual logic for VP is you pick a complement, both geographic and interests. Since Warren is from the Northeast and shares Sanders’ interests in inequality, healthcare, breaking up Wall St, by conventional wisdom she would be a poor choice. Someone from the western half or south of the US, with foreign policy cred would tick more of the usual boxes.
Yes, I am aware of the ‘conventional wisdom’ and really just raising an idea (or an ideal?).
More importantly, even if he loses, the rest of us stand to gain. A world-wide questioning of the neoliberal logic has begun!
It’s true – but if he’s defeated the defeat will be used to create a “but of course that wouldn’t work” meme before you could say “Blairism”.
The Trump shot taken with the crowd, the Clinton shot taken from behind the stage.
The pictures may say a lot, but they also lie.
You just fell for the usual tricks.
Trump? You’re confused. It’s a Sanders rally.
The Clinton shot can’t be from behind the stage, otherwise the audience are showing her their backs. The organisers are lighting the wrong end of the hall too.
But don’t believe your lying eyes, Clinton is clearly the most electable.