Chaos, anxiety and uncertainty loom ahead of Monday's Iowa Caucus.

First - in an unprecedented development - the Des Moines Register scrapped its final Iowa Poll before Monday's caucuses because of fears it was tainted:

https://www.axios.com/iowa-2020-poll-not-released-des-moines-register-caeea162-0861-47d9-a4d9-107725c81dfc.html

Next, The Democratic Majority for Israel SuperPac (a pro-Israeli government Pac) has spent $650,000 in ad-buy in Iowa in an attempt to takedown Sanders by bringing up his heart-attack (of all things):

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/28/pac-heart-attack-ad-bernie-sanders-108239

The ad:
https://youtu.be/F1xVJI2uf1c

Featured in the ad: a former Kamala staffer and Foreign Policy Establishment stalwarts who have dominated both parties

Finally - Kerry was overheard (apparently there's audio) speaking of his potential bid for a 2020 run, echoing fear of the Sanders ascent:

"Sitting in the lobby restaurant of the Renaissance Savery hotel, Kerry was overheard by an NBC News analyst saying "maybe I'm f---ing deluding myself here" and explaining that in order to run, he'd have to step down from the board of Bank of America and give up his ability to make paid speeches. Kerry said donors like venture capitalist Doug Hickey would have to "raise a couple of million," adding that such donors "now have the reality of Bernie.""

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/john-kerry-overheard-discussing-possible-2020-bid-amid-concern-sanders-n1128476

As for the polls - it seems to have shown Biden & Sanders as the two most likely victors out of Iowa - but given its unique Caucus - the results are unpredictable.

But if Sanders emerges out of Iowa with a strong showing - and takes New Hampshire (which seems to be a clear victory) - it will be very difficult to thwart his momentum given the strength of campaign resources, grass-roots energy, and infrastructure.

He is leading in California - top-tier in Nevada - and is even closing the gap (along with Steyer of all people) on Biden in South Carolina, who no longer holds a commanding, wide-margin advantage there.

In short: After a year of speculation, spin, and polling bonanza - we now get to see what actually is taking place on the ground.

Some asked whether the Biden front-runner status was actually legitimate - or if it was a pierceable veneer. We are about to find out.

John Kerry doesn't seem to be confident.

->

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/02/berniesanders-campaigniowa-results-110318

Rivals warn Sanders campaign plans to game Iowa results
Fueling the rising anxiety is a change to how the caucuses will report their results in 2020.


Sen. Bernie Sanders addresses a campaign rally Saturday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. | M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico

By NATASHA KORECKI

02/02/2020 07:32 AM EST


CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Rival campaigns are sounding the alarm that Bernie Sanders could be planning to claim victory on Monday night — before the caucuses are concluded.

It’s a move, they say, that could have a significant effect on the outcome.



Sanders and his team have made clear their intention to tout the results of the first round of caucus voting Monday, even though the Iowa Democratic Party stresses that the only number that matters is the final delegate count.

Aides with two top-tier campaigns told POLITICO they worry the Sanders campaign or other pro-Sanders forces — which will be receiving unofficial precinct results from allies in real time — will disseminate that information through social media or publicly claim victory after the first vote, an act that could distort the eventual results in a variety of ways.

A claim of victory after the first vote could encourage supporters of weaker candidates to leave the caucuses early without realigning with another candidate. Or it could create an artificial bandwagon effect by encouraging some caucus-goers to jump to Sanders’ side under the belief that he will be the victor.

Either scenario stands to hurt the campaigns that are more reliant than Sanders on the realignment round that happens after the first preference vote is cast. During realignment, supporters of candidates who failed to hit a 15 percent threshold in the first vote are freed up to switch to another candidate.

“I think if any campaign is going to be thinking of ways to game this, or to claim victory or to claim something, then I think it’s in poor spirit and poor form of the Iowa caucuses.”

- Brenda Kole, an Iowa campaign veteran

Fueling the rising anxiety is a change to how the Iowa caucuses report their results in 2020. The party will, for the first time, disclose the results from the first two rounds of voting and the allotment of what are known as ‘state delegate equivalents.’ Major news organizations, including the Associated Press, have said they would declare the winner based on that final delegate count.



“We have had private, ongoing conversations with multiple campaigns to ensure caucus integrity and voter protections are upheld. It is critical that no campaign undercut this democratic process with self-serving election interference,” a Biden campaign official said in a statement to POLITICO. “And the press should certainly not gratify any dishonest attempt to distort the process before it is finished.”

The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

In previous caucus years, the Iowa Democratic Party has only provided the delegate counts. But this year, the party plans to release results of the first preference vote, a second realignment vote and the final delegate count, all at the same time.

The Sanders campaign has not said if it will publicize the first round totals before the state party releases its official results, only that it believes the first round vote totals are an accurate indicator of who won the caucuses.

The distrust between the campaigns is another reminder that the ghosts of 2016, when a rift between party traditionalists and Sanders loyalists fractured the party, still linger in the run-up to 2020.

“I think if any campaign is going to be thinking of ways to game this, or to claim victory or to claim something, then I think it’s in poor spirit and poor form of the Iowa caucuses,” said Brenda Kole, an Iowa campaign veteran volunteering with the party on Monday and unaffiliated with any 2020 Democratic campaign. “From what I know, the Iowa Democratic Party is having discussions with the leaders of these campaigns, with the national media and with other influencers to say: ‘Hey, the numbers are all coming in to the IDP, we are responsible for the accounting and reporting of the final raw number total and the final state delegate equivalencies.”

“Everybody is playing by one set of rules except for Bernie,” said an aide with one of the competing campaigns. “They don’t really care if they disrupt it. They hate the Democratic Party. They hated them from four years ago, and they hate them now.”

But some Democratic officials say the Sanders campaign has given no indication it holds any animus toward the party. At a Sioux City rally last week, Sanders invited Troy Price, chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, backstage where the two had a discussion in advance of the caucuses.




The changes to caucus rules were put into place to help address the problems that haunted the 2016 Iowa contest, where Hillary Clinton won a narrow victory — 49.8 percent to Sanders’ 49.6 percent.

Sanders supporters challenged the legitimacy of the results, exposing an archaic system that made it difficult to even count heads, much less provide for an accurate recount.



As part of the Democratic National Committee’s post-2016 review, Sanders’ allies worked to open up the caucus process in Iowa, requiring the state Democratic Party to provide the initial raw vote, the realigned vote and state delegate equivalents.

Some Biden supporters claimed a demonstration staged in the Biden Des Moines campaign office last week — where about 30 demonstrators with a progressive group that backed Sanders, entered the offices and refused to leave — signaled the potential for disruptions at caucus sites on Monday.

“There are going to be tempers, I’m sure people are going to get wound up, they always do. But I hope that they understand that they have a responsibility not just to their candidate but to the country and to our state,” former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, who has endorsed Biden, said of the prospect of disruptive behavior on caucus night. “I hope they understand that, then hopefully they’ll be more restrained and not, basically, emulate Trump.”

Steven Shepard contributed to this report.

for years.


.00000003 precincts reporting that George W. Bush has beaten....

who declared victory prematurely before they actually knew what the outcome would be:

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/hillary-all-declares-victory-iowa-too-close-call

-->

"Rivals warn Sanders campaign plans to game Iowa results"

Later in the article it says

"The Sanders campaign did not respond to a request for comment."

Which is odd given how easy it is to deny it if they are not going to game the results.

Chris Matthews compared Bernie's run to McGovern's

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/481186-chris-matthews-expresses-worries-democrats-need-to-find-candidate-who-can-beat

if you were in trouble. Even Joe Scarborough had to push back on the madness.

But yea - to the point: You're referencing speculation from "rivals" that Bernie is going to try and "job" the Iowa Caucus. Well - according to their logic/standards - Clinton *did* try and job the Iowa Caucus in 2016.

-->

>if you were in trouble. Even Joe Scarborough had to push
>back on the madness.
>
>But yea - to the point: You're referencing speculation from
>"rivals" that Bernie is going to try and "job" the Iowa
>Caucus. Well - according to their logic/standards - Clinton
>*did* try and job the Iowa Caucus in 2016.
>


lol you keep going back to Clinton, but I'm asking about Bernie. Why no comment from the Bern camp when they could end all speculation from rivals with a statement ?

Your report was super vague - but hope it was informative for you.

-->

smh

Dude has no shame. None.

>
>Dude has no shame. None.
>
>
>


You called it in the post below.

"Dude doesn't address points, moves goal posts, something something post-partisan, but what about Clinton."


over and over and over

Party bigwigs: Trust us, the grown-ups. Sanders can't win and will doom the party.

Also party bigwigs: You guys like John Kerry, right?

They basically experimented with a myriad of candidates before getting to this point. First Beto was supposed to be the one - then Kamala had all the juice. When that didn't work, they tried to Obama baptize Mayor Pete. They even begrudgingly settled on Warren. And all the while - they always had Biden to fall back on if nothing else worked.

Now that none of the aforementioned seem to work - I think Kerry's desperation signals just flat out frustration with their inability to present a candidate more compelling to voters than Sanders.

-->

serious question.

who is this clandestine and diabolical 'they'?

all the candidates have a varied range of voters, party endorsers, political/financial allies, etc.

aka a primary.

a lot of those folks (including the majority of biden voters) have bernie as their 2nd favorite option.

'they' werent cycling between candidates simply as handpicked foils to bernie. but you were. simply because they werent bernie.

kamala and castro went the hardest at *biden*. nobody in the biden camp accused them of being anti-biden plants/proxies.

in fact...most of these candidates launched their strongest attacks at candidates other than bernie. kinda weird for a group of supposedly anointed anti-bernie candidates to be largely unfocused on bernie right?

plus if anti-bernie forces were in some grand conspiracy to stop bernie...you think they would have chosen to run 20 candidates? lol.

But for you to still deny that Dem power brokers are doing everything they can to thwart Bernie's momentum is pretty peculiar my G.

You'd have to be a magnificent coincidence theorist to believe that Bernie is just another candidate who has been regarded as and treated equitably by Dem power brokers.

-->

some people suffer from the same 'us vs them' binary sorting that bernie supporters like you do.

the idea that there was some unified caucus just hopping from candidate to candidate based on their potential to beat bernie is asinine.

but it makes perfect sense if you view one candidate (who has been in congress for 30 years and voted reliably democrat 98% of the time) as some political outsider and *everyone else* as 'the establishment'.

the supporters of every other top dem candidate (excluding yang) overwhelmingly pledge to support the eventual dem nominee. even if its bernie. almost *half* of bernie supporters arent committed to doing the same.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPAzHgTWAAA2p5M?format=png&name=small

so who exactly has the bias? are you gonna call *them* out? cuz the bernie folks are clearly a lot more anti-everyone-else than everyone else is anti-bernie.

>some people suffer from the same 'us vs them' binary sorting
>that bernie supporters like you do.

The irony of that is rich - considering that Bernie's very presence in politics is a contradiction to the binary left-right sorting of partisan politics that you seem intent on framing these discussions in. Sanders is uniquely positioned to be able diagnose the problems in both parties - and he's done so in a way that resonates with the majority of Americans who did not identify as partisans.

Of course, those (like yourself) whose primary oath is to the Democratic Party will not be keen to see a perceived outsider try and institute reform. It's a very human reflexive response - but also one that serves to protect the long-established interests in the party infrastructure. The reason that there's been a fairly strong effort to diminish Sanders (from party power wielders) is because they know that a Sanders Administration would put an end to much of the gravy-train, business as usual order of the day.

And simply calling out the fact that both political Establishments have sold out the people and have enabled special interests to take control of our politics is not "suffering from binary sorting" - that's simply calling out corruption.

>the supporters of every other top dem candidate (excluding
>yang) overwhelmingly pledge to support the eventual dem
>nominee. even if its bernie. almost *half* of bernie
>supporters arent committed to doing the same.
>
>https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPAzHgTWAAA2p5M?format=png&name=small

You keep bringing up this speculative point - yet failed to address the hard facts. Bernie voters didn't abandon the eventual nominee in 2016 at some unprecedented rate. In fact, more Bernie voters voted for Clinton in 2016 than did Clinton voters who voted for McCain in 2008.

So the more reliable data is on what has actually occurred via actual votes - not small sample-size querying of the most ardent supporters of a particular candidate.




-->

"he's done so in a way that resonates with the majority of Americans who did not identify as partisans."

>"he's done so in a way that resonates with the majority of
>Americans who did not identify as partisans."
>


-->

i wasnt even registered to vote as a democrat until 2016...when i switched my party affiliation from indie to democrat just to vote for *sanders* in the primary lol.

vex stop making claims of shit you have no idea about (and are usually proven to be flat out wrong). its getting annoying.

and how does bernies presence contradict left-right partisan politics? he has voted with dems almost 100% of the time...is the furthest left politician in the race...and least likely equipped to appeal to moderate or center-right voters. do you think he can pull in a boarder coalition than obama? cuz lol if so.

and bernie has only been the primary sponsor of 7 laws in his entire 30 year history in congress. and 3 of those were for naming post offices or commemorating days.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPRidvVWAAIFMra?format=jpg&name=900x900

booker and warren have have virtually the same amount of primarily sponsored laws passed...in 1/4 the time as bernie.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EPQQ_K_U4AA2Eqi?format=jpg&name=small

how do you consider someone like qualified to institute wide-ranging reform when he has no record of getting his legislative priorities passed through congress (unless youre pushing for post office title reform lol).

if a 'moderate' candidate had that same track record...bernie folks wouldnt be calling them 'uniquely positioned' to do anything. they would be calling them ineffective and part of the problem.

i mean...liz created an entire pro-consumer agency before she even got to congress. bernie hasnt even created a vanity congressional caucus lol.

bernie isnt an outsider. hes a sideliner. a congressional heckler booing people who have actually used their political capital and put some legislative skin in the game. hes liberal rand paul. its easy to criticize all the players when you havent actually suited up and ran an offense.


>You keep bringing up this speculative point - yet failed to
>address the hard facts. Bernie voters didn't abandon the
>eventual nominee in 2016 at some unprecedented rate. In fact,
>more Bernie voters voted for Clinton in 2016 than did Clinton
>voters who voted for McCain in 2008.

i assume you meant obama (eventual same-party nominee) instead of mccain.

firstly the behavior youre trying to quantify is extremely 'speculative' and based on estimates that largely hinge upon actions that cant be validated (even more volatile than generic exit polling).

there have been estimates anywhere from 6% to 15% to 25% of sanders voters going for trump. but for some reason people have only hung on to the highest 25% figure estimated for clinton-mccain voters.

but clinton had over 4 million more votes in 2008 than bernie did in 2016. her primary voters were also much more likely to vote in the general (whereas more sanders voters stayed home). so the proportion of primary-general voters who switched sides is gonna be greater either way. if you take into account the people who switched *and* the people who abstained...itd be much more relevant/representative.

Honest question.

Dude doesn't address points, moves goal posts, something something post-partisan, but what about Clinton.

And he acts like this entire thing (politics) is his freshman poli-sci summer elective.


I get as frustrated with the Dem party as much as anybody, and even I roll my eyes at his bullshit.

Dude really thinks Bernie transcends partisan politics. In Amerikkka. In 2020.

I mean, he can't admit that Bloomberg being in the race- no matter how fucked up it is- is actually a benefit to Bernie by splitting the moderate vote. There is no debate there. None. Its objective fact...and he won't cop to it.


I see you guys go back and forth still and I just shake my head. Might as well write "establishment...clinton...post-partisan..." on the wall and debate that.

>Dude really thinks Bernie transcends partisan politics. In
>Amerikkka. In 2020.

Not all of us are able to rock with a revolutionary candidate as bold as Amy Klobuchar.

Please - lead us Stadiq!


-->

Reeq most noticeably obviously because they have it out on this board often.

Cause on more than one occasion Reeq has provided receipts of prior posts to show that Vex is blatantly wrong about, for example, "never criticizing" Biden, or establishment Dems, etc. that sort of stuff.

Then in like the very next post, within days and sometimes hours ! Vex comes back and makes the same exact claim against him lol.

Then he has the audacity to call into question *Reeq's* objectivity.

It's wild. Cause other than these exchanges I tend to agree with a lot of Vex's positions and general political ideologies.

>Cause on more than one occasion Reeq has provided receipts of
>prior posts to show that Vex is blatantly wrong about, for
>example, "never criticizing" Biden, or establishment Dems,
>etc. that sort of stuff.

My claim was that Reeq's analysis is disproportionately targeted against Sanders and his supporters - not that he never criticizes anyone else, ever. He clearly has talked about virtually every candidate in this process - but if you look at his post count, for every 1 post criticizing Biden (or someone else) - there are at least 5 posts going at Sanders.

And that's perfectly ok. It's fine to criticize Sanders the most if you feel his candidacy warrants it. But you then don't get to act like you're an equal-opportunity critic who calls everyone out in equitable fashion.


-->

thats what youre crusading against.

that i criticize him too much compared to other candidates.

You have to understand that for me personally - I have worked with two campaigns in the past 4 years that have been lambasted and ostracized by party power brokers. Having been in early primary states for these campaigns, what I've observed from the party infrastructure is very real bias (and I can share many examples) - so I am extra inclined to push back against claims that the party has more or less acted as a neutral arbiter/official. My actual experience with the party on the ground has taught me just the opposite.

-->

i actually wanted everyone like clinton, donna b, debbie w-s to fade into bolivian (c) iron mike. at the very least to give the impression that the shit they did was unacceptable and there was no chance of it happening again going forward because the party was turning the corner. i didnt want bernie to run again either just because i knew his association with 2020 would inevitably drag 2016 along with it.

even tho i think sanders supporters go overboard with the persecution conspiracies sometimes...the mainstream party isnt doing enough to allay their fears and olive branch the whole situation. shit like the dccc blacklist, clinton repeatedly popping up to trash sanders and/or his supporters, etc is completely counterproductive and only serves to keep those wounds open. its really idiotic for anyone who claims to want to unify the party and defeat trump/repubs.

we (on here, twitter, etc) can all fight it out if we want to. our leaders should actually start displaying some leadership tho.

And I have to check some fellow supporters (and myself at times) for going too far with it -- but I also recognize that it's a very human response to have after being wronged.

It'd be different if there was an actual apology and acknowledgement of wrongdoing - and then a demonstrated change in behavior. But there's really been none of that. At the bare minimum - there should be just a heightened emphasis on fairness and neutrality.

I'm certainly not interested in constantly re-litigating 2016 (even though it was never actually litigated in the first place) - but when you see people like Hillary herself re-opening the wounds - and not being checked at all by party leaders - and then you see the Dem Super Pac commercials singling out Sanders as if he's the opponent (and not Trump) - it's very hard to just hold one's tongue and act like everything is above board and fair.

>we (on here, twitter, etc) can all fight it out if we want to.
> our leaders should actually start displaying some leadership
>tho.

Fam when I look at some of the people in leadership positions who are supposed to be bringing us together to defeat Trump - it's hard to have a lot of faith.


-->

but we have like 6 more months of this potentially worsening up into the convention.

i just hope the results are non-controversial and people accept them without a bunch of fuckery. if bernie is set to win...i hope the party doesnt do some blatant dumb shit as a hail mary to try to block him. if someone else is set to win...i hope bernie folks acknowledge they were a better candidate.

honestly...solely on the issues/candidates...this primary is relatively non-confrontational and less bitter than dems in 2008 or even repubs in 2016. i mean...in 2008 they basically said obama might be a foreigner and had a good chance to get assassinated lmaooo (crazy to think back on it). and in 2016...repubs were talking about dicks and wives...one candidate refused to attend the convention in his own state (governor) and another candidate basically just went there to tell everyone to conscientiously vote for someone other than their own nominee lol.

I actually think there are multiple candidates who can defeat Trump in the race. The one thing that could mess it up is to unnecessarily incite controversy by trying to reach an outcome that isn’t consistent with the will of the primary voters.

Let’s hope there is none of that at play 6 months from now - because while I think multiple candidates can defeat Trump - the margin for error is small.


-->

>My claim was that Reeq's analysis is disproportionately
>targeted against Sanders and his supporters - not that he
>never criticizes anyone else, ever. He clearly has talked
>about virtually every candidate in this process - but if you
>look at his post count, for every 1 post criticizing Biden (or
>someone else) - there are at least 5 posts going at Sanders.

Cause if not you're just hurling out baseless accusations, and that was the entire point of my post. That you've done this before, been proven wrong, *admitted* you were wrong, then went about making the same exact baseless accusations like minutes later.

It's really weird. And calls into question *your* objectivity, which is already really flimsy re: Bernie.

>Cause if not you're just hurling out baseless accusations, and
>that was the entire point of my post. That you've done this
>before, been proven wrong, *admitted* you were wrong, then
>went about making the same exact baseless accusations like
>minutes later.

I'm certainly not incapable of being wrong. As you pointed out, I admitted I was wrong about Reeq's analysis in 2016. But are you saying that he critiques other candidates as frequently as he's critiqued Sanders and his supporters in the past year?

>It's really weird. And calls into question *your* objectivity,
>which is already really flimsy re: Bernie.

Oh, I'll be the first to say that I'm not objective when it comes to Sanders. I'm a very vocal supporter of Sanders and am biased towards his candidacy, for sure.

Alike, I just wish others would admit their biases.


-->

>I'm certainly not incapable of being wrong. As you pointed
>out, I admitted I was wrong about Reeq's analysis in 2016.
>But are you saying that he critiques other candidates as
>frequently as he's critiqued Sanders and his supporters in the
>past year?

... critical and equally complimentary of every candidate. So I fundamentally reject the premise of your question right off the bat. Because even if he or anyone else *were* more often critical of Sanders than they were other candidates, that alone doesn't necessarily mean that their analysis isn't objective.

But I'll humor you anyway: no, I'm not saying he critiques other candidates as frequently as he's critiqued Sanders. Nor am I saying the opposite. I'm saying that I'm not sure who he critiques more - and neither do you - because I didn't go and thoroughly analyze his post data to determine if that's actually true. And neither did you. And again, that was my point.


>>It's really weird. And calls into question *your*
>objectivity,
>>which is already really flimsy re: Bernie.
>
>Oh, I'll be the first to say that I'm not objective when it
>comes to Sanders. I'm a very vocal supporter of Sanders and
>am biased towards his candidacy, for sure.
>
>Alike, I just wish others would admit their biases.

... which brings me to this. You have a tendency to get defensive anytime anyone criticizes Sanders about anything. So your accusations of anti-Sanders bias, as proven time and time again with evidence, have more to do with *your* own bias *for* Sanders than it does anyone else's bias against him. It clearly taints your ability to properly interpret the things you read because all of your responses have a built-in, pro-Bernie agenda before you even type the first word.

So asking others to "admit their biases" is disingenuous, especially after you've been taken to task more than once - with evidence - over your inaccurate assessments of their "biases"

Here's the main point here: If you're assessing the current Democratic party and its problems - and the disproportionate amount of your criticism is aimed at Bernie Sanders - then yea I'm questioning not just your objectivity, but your ability to diagnose what's actually happening within the party.

>But I'll humor you anyway: no, I'm not saying he critiques
>other candidates as frequently as he's critiqued Sanders. Nor
>am I saying the opposite. I'm saying that I'm not sure who he
>critiques more - and neither do you - because I didn't go and
>thoroughly analyze his post data to determine if that's
>actually true. And neither did you. And again, that was my
>point.

Eh ok. It's not really hard to get a grasp on what the regular posters here post - but I suppose we all can just claim the objective high-ground if your stance is basically, "well we don't really know what everyone posts - and neither do you."

>So asking others to "admit their biases" is disingenuous,
>especially after you've been taken to task more than once -
>with evidence - over your inaccurate assessments of their
>"biases"

You just claimed that you don't "thoroughly analyze post data" - but now all of a sudden you can account for "multiple" instances of a poster being taken to task - "with evidence"? Lol. So apparently you do actually analyze post data that thoroughly? Which is it?

But I'll play the game. Please cite these multiple examples of being taken to task as per your above statement.


-->

>Eh ok. It's not really hard to get a grasp on what the
>regular posters here post - but I suppose we all can just
>claim the objective high-ground if your stance is basically,
>"well we don't really know what everyone posts - and neither
>do you."

You're right, it's not really hard to grasp what regular posters on here post about. So I'm comfortable in my assessment that your bias is blinding you since so many others have obviously noticed it, too, and called you on it. In this very post even.


>You just claimed that you don't "thoroughly analyze post data"
> - but now all of a sudden you can account for "multiple"
>instances of a poster being taken to task - "with evidence"?
>Lol. So apparently you do actually analyze post data that
>thoroughly? Which is it?
>
>But I'll play the game. Please cite these multiple examples of
>being taken to task as per your above statement.

There's a big difference between: "for every 1 anti-dem post, he makes 5 anti-Bernie posts" (<--you), and highlighting the fact that you've been taken to task "more than once" (my actual words, I didn't say "multiple" so that's an interesting usage of quotes there) - which you've admitted to ! - due to your own biases (<--me). "More than once" could mean, y'know, twice. And you've already admitted to the main instance I'm referring to. So no I won't go find the other example(s) right now, but if I happen to come upon it I'll be sure to come back and link you to it.

Let’s not make everything into an argument - which tends to be the case too often here.

We should also realize that when discussing politics - we are in the arena of opinion - and often strongly held opinion. As such, many are far more interested in scoring points than they are engaging productively - and we all are guilty of going after a poster/perspective simply because we disagree with the offered opinion in question.

So when you refer to the same group of people here who tend to always disagree with one’s politics (as if that’s somehow proof of something) - it’s tough to make a serious claim of objectivity.

Re: multiple vs. more than once. But stepped away from my computer before I did. My B.

But anyway, "let's not make everything into an argument" was kinda why I stepped in in the first place. Your constant declarations that others are too hard on Bernie are not only typically untrue but they're wholly unproductive. You've said it yourself many times, we're all on the same team here so we all (myself included) need to be more careful about pointing fingers in the wrong directions.

i just assume i criticize sanders more in terms of total posts. simply cuz i discuss him more (hes more relevant than other candidates in the convos we have).

but if we did a positive/negative post ratio analysis or some shit...i dont think ive ever said a single positive thing about bloomberg. just trashed him. i almost universally trash biden now outside of detailing his polling/appeal to *other* voters. and i pretty much dismissed mayor pete as a lost cause once he made his 'heel turn'.

you know whats weird..we have thinkpieces about voters of other candidates who have jumped ship. but nobody ever talks about (or attempts to dissect) disaffected sanders voters who left the fold for one reason or another.

like nobody is asking why a candidate with the same level of name id as trump...a national party infrastructure carried over from the previous election...and a massive fundraising advantage...isnt the undisputed front runner vs a bunch of national newcomers and someone who was overwhelmingly rejected the last 2 times he ran for president.

... if someone were *actually* crazy enough to analyze post data, there's probably a lot of people who have more anti-Bernie posts than anti-dem party posts in terms of pure volume. But it's more nuanced than that, because I think most of us, if not all of us, are in agreement that the dem party is a mess and has a lot of inherent internal issues. But not everyone's in total agreement about Bernie in terms of his chances in 2020, so naturally there'd be more posts from a lot of people about him because there's more to discuss/parse out.


>i just assume i criticize sanders more in terms of total
>posts. simply cuz i discuss him more (hes more relevant than
>other candidates in the convos we have).
>
>but if we did a positive/negative post ratio analysis or some
>shit...i dont think ive ever said a single positive thing
>about bloomberg. just trashed him. i almost universally
>trash biden now outside of detailing his polling/appeal to
>*other* voters. and i pretty much dismissed mayor pete as a
>lost cause once he made his 'heel turn'.
>
>you know whats weird..we have thinkpieces about voters of
>other candidates who have jumped ship. but nobody ever talks
>about (or attempts to dissect) disaffected sanders voters who
>left the fold for one reason or another.
>
>like nobody is asking why a candidate with the same level of
>name id as trump...a national party infrastructure carried
>over from the previous election...and a massive fundraising
>advantage...isnt the undisputed front runner vs a bunch of
>national newcomers and someone who was overwhelmingly rejected
>the last 2 times he ran for president.

>Cause if not you're just hurling out baseless accusations, and
>that was the entire point of my post. That you've done this
>before, been proven wrong, *admitted* you were wrong, then
>went about making the same exact baseless accusations like
>minutes later.
>


He wanted to prove your point was true by providing an example.

>He wanted to prove your point was true by providing an
>example.

2016 GOP: Donald Trump can't be real, he can't get the nomination.

2016 GOP voters: -keep picking Trump-

2016 GOP: welp, might as well run him in the general

2020 Dems: ANYONE BUT BERNIE

2020 Dem voters: TBD

2020 Dems: ANYONE BUT BERNIE, ANYONE BUT BERNIE, WE'LL EVEN BRING JOHN KERRY BACK. ANYONE BUT BERNIE


it's funny how the GOP eventually tolerated Trump even though they greatly disliked him (in public)

Dems are getting desperate over Bernie getting the nom. And no votes have even been cast yet. already changing rules, putting stonewallers in place.

It's their own motherfuckin fault if 1968 happens again.

how about howard dean?

tim kaine?

I don't think there is/was some sinister plan to take down Bernie or Liz.

I do think that many clearly underestimated Bernie.


But also, the moderate candidates have not been very good. Just straight up.

Weekend at Bidens is actually doing a lot better than I thought it would, but he's still a mess.

Pete clearly wasn't ready for the big leagues.

Kamala should have picked a lane and been consistent.

Booker should have been more bold (somehow) to breakthrough.

Beto never seemed to have a purpose until gun control, and then it was too late and he probably took that too far for America.


I don't think this is a sign of there not being a "plan" to stop Bernie, just that other candidates are pretty poor when you think about it.

Even if I was a moderate, I couldn't get excited about any of those folks I don't think.


The Bloomberg thing is weird. He is only helping Bernie at this point.

I still think Bloomberg is using the Dems right now. If Bernie is the nom, I think stop and frisk runs 3rd party. I hope I'm wrong, but that's the only thing that makes sense.


Whats funny though? I think the Dems created the Bernie monster by not running an actual primary in 2016. If Liz, Booker, Biden etc run in 2016, I think Bernie is probably Ron Paul status at best. Just a fringe dude that many people ignore outside of like 10%.

But because he was the only one willing to actually primary Hillary, who was already disliked, a lot of people listened.

They (meaning all the Dems who were good soldiers and sat out in 2016) gave Bernie a chance to be heard and taken seriously.

>Whats funny though? I think the Dems created the Bernie
>monster by not running an actual primary in 2016. If Liz,
>Booker, Biden etc run in 2016, I think Bernie is probably Ron
>Paul status at best. Just a fringe dude that many people
>ignore outside of like 10%.

and we all know why they didn't run an actual primary. the goal was to crown Hillary after Obama's time was up. before Bernie got in there, Hillary's "competition" was a row of also-rans. It didn't help that the Obama promises were not even kept (partly due to the GOP losing their entire shit about him being elected), and some situations actually were made worse.

Regardless of that, both Biden and Warren should have run in 2016. Maybe even Booker. then it would have been a real fight. Now we've had 3 years of Trump and political shifts that makes Bernie not only no longer a novelty, but a possible front runner.

of course, they could have tried to position someone to be a true Obama successor.

>of course, they could have tried to position someone to be a
>true Obama successor.

Aside from the blatant and egregious field clearing to pave a way for Clinton - they failed to capitalize on the momentum that was built up from Obama's tenure. Obama had his faults, but he did plant some Progressive seeds that could've been capitalized on by a true successor. Clinton was a step looking backwards at what's already been (and often been a failure) instead of instituting real succession planning for the party.


-->

>I don't think there is/was some sinister plan to take down
>Bernie

I notice nobody ever comments on this https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/politics/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html

has anyone participated in one?

based on polling bernie and biden would get the most votes on the first round right? then after that it might get unpredictable. i would guess amy's would be the biggest voters that would need to realign after the first round. i could see that splitting roughly 50% warren and then 25% biden and pete.

biden, bernie, warren and pete are the only ones getting delegates in iowa right?

what time should we expect the results to come in?

Iowa has always been laden with administrative issues - and it'll be even more complicated this year with turnout expected to be higher than ever.

I doubt that there will be enough voter registration forms. The lines will be egregiously long. It'll be cold, many elder voters will be waiting in the cold for hours. The caucus itself will be chaotic. There probably won’t be enough preference cards for caucus-goers to fill in their favorite presidential contenders. There are new "realignment" rules in play that will likely anger voters across the board.

There will be miscounts/poor reporting - and multiple campaigns will try to claim victory before we actually know what the final results will be.

>what time should we expect the results to come in?

Results should start coming in by 7 pm - and will go well into the morning before we get a sense of things.


-->

that the final results wont be an accurate reflection of voters?

and used to spin narratives - in every direction.

The way the Iowa Caucus is set up allows for multiple interpretations of the results (particularly with such a varied field like this).

I think there'll be several takeaways:

(1) I think Pete is the clear darkhorse here. He has invested a lot in Iowa and it's his best shot at an early win - he should do well (top 3). If he doesn't do well, his campaign will likely flare out - and fast. He's not positioned to do all that well in New Hampshire, will do poorly in South Carolina - and will not win Nevada or California. He needs Iowa more than any other top candidate.

(2) Sanders has the clear momentum - but will see if he gets enough support on the ground in Iowa to claim a decisive victory. I think he'll have a strong showing in Iowa, but just how strong remains to be seen. That said, the pressure isn't really on him to win Iowa - he just needs to do well, because he's strongly positioned to win New Hampshire and will have real momentum continuing into Super Tuesday

(3) Biden has a lot at stake in Iowa. If he does poorly (4th place finish) - I think his campaign goes into panic, donors (the ones that are left) will jettison ship, and after he loses big in New Hampshire - his stock will continue to plummet even in South Carolina. All along, I've thought Biden's strength as a front-runner was a farce. Now we'll see

(4) Warren needs a strong Iowa showing as well - but she will be able to stick around for a while as she seems to be in a pretty sturdy 3rd place in a lot of states. That said, she will have to pull off some wins somewhere - and I don't really see where she can do that right now.

(5) Very curious to see where the Yang/Tulsi anti-Establishment votes start to ferry over to. All indications seem to point to Yang/Tulsi voters going to Bernie - which would be a very significant bump for him in the polls - particularly in the early states while the other top candidates remain in the race.


-->

i expected some trouble but not this.

i feel like i need to apologize to amy, she actually has a fighting chance.

how did basically all polls have biden polling so high?

and with the added realignment rule change - felt it would be an even bigger debacle than it was in previous primaries.

But what I didn't expect is an app named "Shadow" (lol @ the name btw) would insert itself into this debacle, malfunction, and feature associations with Pete/Hillary for America and Establishment stalwarts lol.

I mean, at this point this is just like a Netflix Original Series script playing out.

>i expected some trouble but not this.
>
>i feel like i need to apologize to amy, she actually has a
>fighting chance.

Amy was always going to do fairly well in Iowa. Baby Boomer Midwesterners tend to love her - and there's a real attraction to moderates in Iowa at the moment - which is also why Pete did well.

But both Pete and Amy had regional advantages given their home-base.

>how did basically all polls have biden polling so high?

I've been calling out the Biden polls for a year now. Always thought they were a facade. His abysmal finish in Iowa is devastating, but not surprising to me.


-->

this aint the 1800s no more.

Enjoy the new "realignment" rules this year lol.
-->

Ionno wtf is going on with these caucuses... I’ll just wait til it’s over.

It just doesn't feel like a serious/official thing. Feels almost like it's for play

I'd put my hand back up and try to get counted three or four times.

connection?

America has imported more warlord theocracy from Afghanistan than it has exported democracy.

I’ll try to find it later today. Pretty fascinating investigative reporting.
-->

I was hoping there was a story in rolling stone or something

America has imported more warlord theocracy from Afghanistan than it has exported democracy.

On MSNBC - Dr. Jason Johnson just tried to come for Nina Turner by trying to check her when she referred to Michael Bloomberg as an "oligarch."

For Mr. Johnson: Here's the literal definition of an oligarch:

"Oligarch: a very rich business leader with a great deal of political influence." Source: Oxford Dictionary

So - how is Bloomberg *not* an oligarch by its very definition?

Not sure why Johnson got so offended by Turner referencing Bloomberg as an oligarch and felt the need to play such fervent defense.

-->

https://www.thedailybeast.com/msnbc-panel-flips-out-after-bernie-sanders-adviser-nina-turner-calls-bloomberg-an-oligarch

Also noteworthy: the average age of the Iowa Democratic Caucus voter seems be significantly lower than in previous cycles - which is very bad news for Biden.

-->

thats a great sign for dems if true and prolly the most important takeaway.

the delegate awarding system is too complicated to me (and even more complicated with the new method) so im not even sure what the candidate tallies will actually tell us.

but overall turnout will tell us a lot about how we should fare in the state in november.

on par with 2016 and not the massive turnout in 2008.

https://twitter.com/aseitzwald/status/1224541132631281665

theres also been a big decline in people who say theyre attending a caucus for the 1st time.

https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/1224521988003246080

these are big warning signs.

https://media.giphy.com/media/FPKpAtj49ixIk/giphy.gif

grow up and run a real primary.

is largely negative. it sounds like the caucus setup might actually dissuade people from participating in politics.

i wouldnt be surprised if this was the last time dems did this shit.

silver lining: the iowa caucuses prolly killed the iowa caucuses.

or an I tripping?

She sounds like she got bad news from early results.

Her lone celebrity endorsement, is from her dad.
He’s a celebrity because—he’s her dad.

>Her lone celebrity endorsement, is from her dad.
>He’s a celebrity because—he’s her dad.

i thought it was a pretty smart move on her part to get out in front of the cameras during the downtime and get some national coverage.

is proving to be the case.

0% in and it's almost midnight?

This isn't good.


-->

Depending on an app they never used before.

Dumb asses.

Biden looks like shit. His wife looks miserable.

white people and their damn 'tradition'.

-->

https://twitter.com/markos/status/1224547487400120320

https://twitter.com/DanteAtkins/status/1224544654386962432

flashback to 2017 sanders team on unity commission:
https://twitter.com/jjz1600/status/936028159329423360
https://twitter.com/OurRevolution/status/939531145234079745
https://twitter.com/NomikiKonst/status/901168408863141893
https://twitter.com/NomikiKonst/status/901912687461982208
https://twitter.com/janekleeb/status/924659910088056832


fyi im not sure how tom perez could 'vow to keep' caucuses when he wasnt on the unity commission that ultimately decided the rules:
https://democrats.org/unity-reform-commission-members/

That would certainly be a new and novel argument lol.

>fyi im not sure how tom perez could 'vow to keep' caucuses
>when he wasnt on the unity commission that ultimately decided
>the rules:
>https://democrats.org/unity-reform-commission-members/

When Perez was campaigning for his post in 2017, he got the Iowa delegation to switch its support to him after pledging to protect Iowa’s Caucus and FIN status.

-->

https://twitter.com/CBSNews/status/1224562105480892417
——-
.@edokeefe points out that the delay in #IowaCaucuses results comes from new rules that were intended to add more transparency after the 2016 race: "What is happening tonight is exactly what Bernie Sanders asked for"
——-

not only did team sanders fight to keep caucuses...they fought to install the new process that completely ratfucked the reporting of the results.

aint even in power yet and already looking like the sloppy administering of government services in a socialist nation (lol jk but somebody is gonna use that talking point).

Nah fam - this is on Iowa and Iowa alone.

#NotLikeThis
-->

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

I can’t believe this dude has a legit shot.

-->

if i wasnt worried that nazi roundups might start at some point while i wasnt paying...id prolly take off politics until after the convention.

The app failed? Backup system failed?

lol. At a time when confidence in our election integrity is on the downward slope - this is the last thing we needed.

-->

https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1224564406027157505
-----
Pete Buttigieg seems to be declaring victory even though we don't have any official results from the #IowaCaucuses.

"Tonight an improbable hope became an undeniable reality...By all indications, we are going onto New Hampshire victorious."
-----

i assume all campaigns have precinct level results/data since theyre publicly counting 'votes' in the tens. he might still be bullshitting though.

iono.

either way...dude could do real well in these super white early states and get completely blown out once the states with them neegras and essays hit.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1224550106462138368
-----
Big WIN for us in Iowa tonight. Thank you!
-----


never seen a human being so thirsty for applause.

-->

from reply 82


https://twitter.com/markos/status/1224547487400120320

https://twitter.com/DanteAtkins/status/1224544654386962432

flashback to 2017 sanders team on unity commission:
https://twitter.com/jjz1600/status/936028159329423360
https://twitter.com/OurRevolution/status/939531145234079745
https://twitter.com/NomikiKonst/status/901168408863141893
https://twitter.com/NomikiKonst/status/901912687461982208
https://twitter.com/janekleeb/status/924659910088056832


The majority white red state going first is bad enough, The Bern made it worse.

-->

This is an unforgivable sin in primary politics. You can’t be First In Nation and fail *this* badly at administrating the results.

This should be the death of the Iowa Caucus as FIN status.
-->

Yikes! You can’t make this up.

Via NYT:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/31/us/politics/iowa-caucuses-hacking-security.html

In November, Iowa’s Democratic and Republican Parties teamed up with the Defending Digital Democracy Project at Harvard to run a drill of worst-case scenarios. The event, led by Robby Mook, the campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Eric Rosenbach, a former chief of staff at the Pentagon, featured a fire drill of sorts, designed by future Defense Department officers.

“We ran them through the ringer and pushed them really hard,” Mr. Mook said. “Some were much better at managing technical issues, and some were better managing information operations and disinformation, misinformation and communicating with the public. So I think they really learned from each other, and they created some best practices for each other.”

Lol. Great job Robby.



-->

good move.

Unfortunately for him, NYT, WashPost and many others reported on his involvement pretty regularly over the last week. So he can’t act like he knows nothing about this.

NBC just revealed that the app is called “Shadow” and that the results were supposed to be downloaded to the personal cell phones of Iowa party officials (gee that’s not suspect at all lol).

Oh, and this company lists Hillary for America and the DNC as its clients.

This could get real ugly, fast.

Fam this is the *last* thing we needed to set off the primary.

-->

spooky.

the iowa dem party has stated its not a tech issue with the app. just the way people manually reported using the app (aka human error).

https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1224557799247622145

after the conspiracy/disinfo you originally posted about robby mook being the ceo of the app firm was dispelled...that prolly shoulda been a cue for everyone to pump the brakes...not dig deeper and reach further for a new plot line.

And not sure what you’re referring to with the “conspiracy” claims.

Even NBC found the circumstances suspicious and worthy of further investigation.

But sure - let’s just move on and act like nothing went awry here? That’s helpful.
-->

he is not.

thats a conspiracy.

you rightfully wiped that clean from your reply and now youre already on to some other loose insinuations of foul play.

all of the actual votes/tallies were recorded on paper with all the campaigns as witnesses. the app was just for reporting those results to the state party.

just take a deep breath, slow down, hit the dugout, get some sleep, and wait for all the facts to come out.

this election is running you ragged. relax (c) aaron rodgers

And the details on who is behind the app is even worse than I thought - that’s why I waited until more details could be gathered.

You’d see that if you could hold on for a second without rushing to debunk before someone can finish a post lol.

Mook isn’t the CEO of the app company - but he did help to run cyber security audits in Iowa’s system.

Relax bro. Nothing wrong with trying to gather facts and looking into one of the biggest debacles in modern electoral history.

That an app was used to collect a few thousand data points is like me building a robot to make my bed. They could have used any number of already existing messaging apps out there.

So why did they use this one? That question needs to be answered (even if you don’t care to look into it).

you ok fam?

thats a new one.

-->

there is no version of bernie not winning that you would think is legitimate. if he comes out 2nd or lower we already know what it will be from you and it won't matter how many pieces of paper they have


www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

That’s a fact.

-->

did around klobuchar numbers.

bernies campaign released their internal result from 40% of reporting precincts (take from that what you will). shows bernie-pete-liz 1-2-3.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EP6TWckX4AEnLCA?format=jpg&name=900x900

...that needs to be focusing its efforts in restoring the provisions of the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act, combating the bullshit the GOP has been perpetrating since 2008, they instead build "apps" to face an "international interference" propagandist fairytale and cause CONFUSION OVER A FUCKIN CAUCUS.

Count the votes, stop the "innovation". Jesus Christ.
Motherfuckers forgot to how to count JUST because of concern trolling over the outcome.

My guess, once this shakes out is that the results will be:

Sanders in front, followed by Warren and Pete. Many internal reports seemed to be pointing to that.

The big story was that Biden fell BIG TIME and was found "not viable" in many a precinct. That's one thing that seems to be consistent across the board.

This is a joke.

Much like motherfuckers like Jason Johnson and the like on TV trying to talk about how Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who owns a fucking media outlet with his name attached and basically bought his way into a presidential election for concern troll reason, ISN'T A FUCKING OLIGARCH!

Nigga needed to show how much more that PhD was worth over a black woman who was telling the truth.

A MOTHERFUCKIN' EMBARASSMENT.

Black people out here are acting a fuckin' fool over this too.

There's nothing wrong with Iowa being #1. Clearly it just needs to be a primary, is all. After THIS fuckup. All this concern trolling is happening now because the one in front doesn't align with their myopic view.

Sick of this shit. Tired of this church.

it's always somebody's fuck up cousin who couldn't get a do-nothing job on wall street.


these things are inherently fucked. it's never conspiracy (and the people at the local levels are usually hard working competent folks) but at the state level? it's going to be all nepotism ignorance and a fair dash of corruption, that's how it works

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

and also-rans for the most part. a few new faces got in the state group the last go-around. then you get to the general, and you have to deal with the robber barons elected by the people in rural areas that were swindled, whose main game is to cheat.


(that's why the "Russia" story is BS ... this set up has been around for years)

That's why to win, you have to have someone who understands the above and will find ways to subvert it. Obama did that in '08 and as such the machines noted above decided to take away all of the tools they used (ACORN, aggressive pursuit of so-called "voter fraud", etc)

We constantly cry about Russia and other boogeymen and we can’t even run a transparent and efficient election in a First In The Nation state?

Lol. The world is laughing at us - and they should be.
-->

but literally everyone who knows anything has referenced the way different states voting systems are set up, in terms of how difficult it would be to directly manipulate results.

if you are so poorly informed that this is not something that's been clear to you then that is your issue.

you are a stupid motherfucker.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

We always appreciate your powerful insights, RJ.


-->

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

even tho they will all try.

I really hope this is the end of Iowa starting the primaries. Not sure how many more of these I will witness but this isn’t democracy.

Who the fuck has all night to sit around a gym or farm shelter.

probably came in second but really close to bernie so thats definitely a win for pete.

warren did okay, slightly better than expected but she should be placing 1st or 2nd so its kind of an L.

bernie has to be satisfied.

if biden did this bad then maybe america won.

but isn’t really a WIN as in declaring victory.

doesn’t really matter now. The whole thing feels tainted.

The final polling data ahead of the caucus is not released due to inconsistencies

and the final caucus tallies are also withheld

But...the system is completely fair, these are just coincidences, and have nothing to do with Bern polling #1 recently

Leading in the precincts that did report

and Biden getting dragged

Right?

one guy phoned into MSNBC from a precinct and said he was on hold for 2.5 hours trying to give his results.

Also heard someone on MSNBC say Bernie had 171 votes or people and Booty J had half that and they both received 2 delegates.

I have no idea how this caucus shit works but it sure seems much easier to game the results than one man one vote.

Biggest frustration tho is no results all night long. How in tf?

SMH

Don’t mind me, I’m just mad at myself for tuning in and actually giving af when I told myself not to give in.

I’m a sucker for election result coverage.

I live right next door and every few years, the people that cross the river from Council Bluffs for a night in the city start talking about how much they dread this time of year. It's always a huge mess. Remember 2012 (I wouldn't blame you if you didn't!)? Rick Santorum narrowly beat Mitt Romney, and Romney barely beat Rand Paul, but at the time the caucus results were such a mess that Romney was able to campaign that he'd won Iowa for nearly TWO WEEKS before Iowa's results were officially registered, by which time Romney had essentially convinced the country he was already the nominee.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election_in_Iowa#Republican_caucuses

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/02/04/iowa-second-caucus-debacle-eight-years/

Both parties have flubbed this thing up in the past eight years because it's a stupid, out-dated system that has no place in modern society.


~~~~~~~~~
"This is the streets, and I am the trap." � Jay Bilas
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/archive/contributor/517
Hip Hop Handbook: http://tinyurl.com/ll4kzz

but we’ve been waiting 4 years for this and it’s a terrible way to start an election cycle.

Now maybe HOP voters were saying the same thing in 2012 but I ain’t them so I didn’t care.

Right now, this really looks like the DNC is trying to protect Biden from an embarrassing loss and stop Bernie from giving a victory speech. Even if neither of these are true the stories are writing themselves.

Bottom line the media, the GOP, folks who aren't engaged, and even folks who are engaged but aren't into the mechanics of who does what for the party are all going to say "the Dem party fucked up" and "Dems can't run an election" and "Dems bought an app that didn't work from a company called SHADOW" and "Dems didn't security test the software"

And they are all right.


This isn't even touching the conspiracy theories out there surrounding Bernie and Pete's relationship with the app company, etc.


The BEST version is Democrat incompetence/contradiction/heads up their own asses

Folks have been waiting a year for this. Be ready. Be over-prepared.

Splitting hairs over the DNC vs state party responsibilities isn't going to win anyone over.

Not to mention, I find it hard that the DNC isn't involved at all when it is so important. If they aren't, maybe they should be.


Not a good look either way, man.

...Democrats look so bad right now ..it's clear they don't want progressives like Bernie or Warren in charge.

Ranked-choice voting just gives people more ways to game the rules.

• Tara McGowan is the CEO of Acronym. She's a Pete Buttigieg supporter, worked for Obama, and is married to Michael Halle, a strategist for Pete
• Michael Halle ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 battleground strategy
• Acronym invested in Shadow Inc.
• Gerard Niemira (Shadow CEO), Krista Davis (Shadow CTO), James Hickey (Shadow COO), Ahna Rao (Shadow Product Manager) are all former Hillary for America staff
• Shadow Inc. developed an app that was used at the Iowa Caucus and will be used by the Nevada Caucus
• The Iowa Democratic Party, Nevada Democratic Party, and Pete For America all gave money to Shadow Inc.
• Pete Buttigieg is the only candidate to fund this app
• Greta Carnes, the former Senior Director of Organizing at Acronym is now a National Organizing Director at Pete for America. She's from South Bend, Indiana.
• Shadow Inc. follows Democratic Majority for Israel, which launched attack ads against Bernie Sanders

Oh, and Pete happened to be the only candidate who declared victory last night lol.

Coincidence theorists are out in full force today.

Yea - nothing to see here guys. Onto New Hampshire!
-->

....The DNC is fucking cancer

DiBlasio must be mighty jealous.

Looking through FEC disclosures right now.

What a shitshow.
-->

Didn't HRC do that in 2016 too...claimed victory while they were still tallying...?

>Didn't HRC do that in 2016 too...claimed victory while they
>were still tallying...?

She sure did.

-->

unbelievable

DNC Ridaz got their work cut out for them today

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-04/clinton-campaign-vets-behind-2020-iowa-caucus-app-snafu

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1) Fuck Mayor Pete for declaring victory with no official results, that’s dangerous and something Trump would do

2) I hope this disaster leads to the end of caucusing, because it is silly, and this disaster proves why.

Pete: Hold my Zima


Fuck that guy.


A Caucus is always a shit show. Starting in Iowa makes less sense by the minute too.

Then all of the confusion caused by the Dems trying to get cute and use an app (wonder how much money they wasted on that??)...


Then to top if off, I gotta watch that smug walking 12 dollar hair cut in his big brothers suit declare victory?


The best version of this story is that the Iowa Dem party wasted a bunch of money on an app AND isn't competent enough to have a paper back up system that could be tallied in a couple hours. What a terrible fucking look.

Thats the BEST version. That the Democratic party is incompetent.

Oh, and from what I gather, turnout was a lot lower than expected. Fucking yikes.

No matter who you support, this is awful.**


** I suppose its less awful if you are somehow a Biden supporter, because all of this overshadowed the fact that the "most electable Democrat" who is going to appeal to centrist whites in the midwest wasn't viable in a ton of precincts. In Iowa.

not sure who or what to believe anymore...

America has imported more warlord theocracy from Afghanistan than it has exported democracy.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Lol.

If the consultant candidate actually won, no one is going to believe it.

If Bernie won, it looks like they robbed him of a victory speech.


Same if Warren did better than expected.


And Biden's night is being swept under the rug.


Why didn't they take the money they spent on the app and hire people who actually can run an event like this?


We've all been waiting on Iowa for a fucking year...how were they not ready?

And the Iowa Dem party hung up on their own conference call?

**Edit**

Oh, and how are you the party of "secure elections/ no Russia meddling/ we need paper backups!/ etc" AND THEN go out and buy an app...AND don't have it tested?

How??

Even if this isn't a security thing...you went out, bought an app, and didn't get it fucking security tested??

How???

You're literally in the middle the motherfuckers senate trial for messing with the election. You didn't protect your own?

How will that look in November?

The people who came in a got the healthcare.gov site fixed were ABSOLUTE SUPERSTARS and very much not the norm.

This seems a like a failure in project management / changing requirements late in the process to me.

I've DEFINITELY BEEN THERE.

I'm not in software development, so I will defer to you (and ask for a job?).


But...my thing is-

1) The party has been making the case for safe and fair elections since 2016. Rightfully so. Don't leave any room- not an inch- to make yourselves look like hypocrites. Test that shit.

2) Have a backup plan that can be accomplished in some hours, not "50% of the results by 5" or whatever

IOWA been fucking up for decades lol

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

As someone involved in software (business analyst, qa engineer, technical writer) since the mid 1990s and can assure that shit like this happens ALL THE TIME.

And in at least 75% of cases it is brought on by the customer continually changing requirements and testing getting compressed in the schedule.

And by compressed I mean "1 month for testing" to "1 week for testing" to "1 day for testing."

You know, non-testing folks never understand any of this shit, why would you??

...cool resume, but low tech is the way to go when it comes to elections.

what we are saying is using an app this unstable for an election like this isn’t normal.

It may cost them their first state status.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Please do continue.

-->

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

and Trump is actually getting a boost in polls

right as he starts banning African nations from traveling to the US.

SMH

https://twitter.com/awzurcher/status/1224533900946485250?s=20

seriously coin toss?

dude made his name posting/streaming hoaxes, misrepresented pics/videos, flat out fake shit, etc.

https://twitter.com/livposting/status/1224575659017691136?s=21

LMAO!!

And for what reason? Did he think this was a flex?

Only 62% reporting so far...
Buttigieg 362.637
Sanders 337.887
Warren 246.18
Biden 210.344
Klobuchar 169.694
Yang 14.273
Steyer 3.761
Uncommitted 2.077 https://results.thecaucuses.org/

>Only 62% reporting so far...
>Buttigieg 362.637
>Sanders 337.887
>Warren 246.18
>Biden 210.344
>Klobuchar 169.694
>Yang 14.273
>Steyer 3.761
>Uncommitted 2.077 https://results.thecaucuses.org/



A 38 year old navy reservist and the mayor of a small town in Indiana? (Small compared to where I live - San Diego.)

Seems light on experience to me. Seems like his Harvard and Oxford education are liegit tho.

I'll vote for him vs Trump ANY DAY.

(But no one this young has even been voted president - seems like it may be a liability.)

interesting to read the updates on 538. updates on analyzing the data, not on actual new numbers.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/iowa-caucus-2020-election-live/

>Only 62% reporting so far...
>Buttigieg 362.637
>Sanders 337.887
>Warren 246.18
>Biden 210.344
>Klobuchar 169.694
>Yang 14.273
>Steyer 3.761
>Uncommitted 2.077 https://results.thecaucuses.org/

No wonder ok Bernie was going at Pete, he knew the Bern is falling short.

do you know how complicated that is? of course they couldn't make it work.

it's not a conspiracy to be dumb as hell

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/us/politics/iowa-caucus-shadow-app.html

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Every single part of this rollout is wrong.

you would accidentally get one part of it right, just because you're not a complete fucking moron like these motherfuckers

at every goddamn step they chose failure

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

they were using some BOOTLEG NOT-TESTFLIGHT SYSTEM

of course none of it worked

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

can't tell if you are actually pointing out reasonable Democratic technical incompetence or being sarcastic right now

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Claim: "It'll be a mess. Iowa has always been laden with administrative issues - and it'll be even more complicated this year. The caucus itself will be chaotic. There are new "realignment" rules in play that will likely anger voters across the board."

Definitely true.

Claim: "There will be miscounts/poor reporting - and multiple campaigns will try to claim victory before we actually know what the final results will be."

Mostly true. Pete was the only one who definitively declared victory (prematurely) - and we still don't know what the final results are more than 24 hours later!

Claim: "I think Pete is the clear darkhorse here. He has invested a lot in Iowa and it's his best shot at an early win - he should do well. He needs Iowa more than any other top candidate."

Facts. Although I didn't know just how *much* he invested (to the tune of nearly $50k to Shadow Inc. lol)

Claim: "Sanders has the clear momentum - but will see if he gets enough support on the ground in Iowa to claim a decisive victory. I think he'll have a strong showing in Iowa, but just how strong remains to be seen. That said, the pressure isn't really on him to win Iowa - he just needs to do well, because he's strongly positioned to win New Hampshire and will have real momentum continuing into Super Tuesday."

The question of whether his ground game was as strong as it seemed to be was answered: It was. He also got a lot of realignment votes (was the second preference for ~26% of voters, that led the field (barely edging out Pete). That was a surprise.

Claim: "Biden has a lot at stake in Iowa. If he does poorly (4th place finish) - I think his campaign goes into panic, donors (the ones that are left) will jettison ship, and after he loses big in New Hampshire - his stock will continue to plummet even in South Carolina. All along, I've thought Biden's strength as a front-runner was a farce. Now we'll see."

Lol yep. Looks like he'll even finish 4th as mentioned. Dude might really be finished, already. I called out Biden's polling from the jump (have receipts), and always thought it was manufactured. I had to listen for an entire year to many here (and in my every day life) talk about Biden's "strength" - and then you'd go to a Biden event and feel the most deflated, empty vibe of all the top-tier candidates lol. The polls have never reflected his reality on the ground.

Claim: "Warren needs a strong Iowa showing as well - but she will be able to stick around for a while as she seems to be in a pretty sturdy 3rd place in a lot of states. That said, she will have to pull off some wins somewhere - and I don't really see where she can do that right now."

She finished a sturdy third place - and will likely repeat that 2nd/3rd/4th place finish in the next few states. Slow and steady will have to be her recipe - but she needs to get some W's on the board.

I like pulling the receipts. Will predict NH as well to see how I score.

-->

That Juan Guaidó cameo tho lol.

Such balls

He pointed out that she's not really that radical and in Venezuela she'd be considered a social democrat.

I mean, fuck the CIA, especially fuck the Democrats that backed this dumb coup, and fuck their unemployed puppet king Guiado himself, but that was actually pretty funny.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/10/venezuelas-two-presidents-collide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lShcc8B-96E

-->

One's early 30s, one is 40 this year.

Both will do what idiots do - not vote unless it's a candidate that get's their pussies wet.

Country is legit doomed.

...together, or else we're all fucked.

RJCC is right: This shit wasn't rigged, the app is just a piece of shit. You would have to try to make it jankier. The company tried to develop it and implement it on the cheap, and everyone is shocked, yes, SHOCKED that it was a disaster.

If there's one thing that Drumf's team was good at in 2016, it was their digital advertising/messaging. If whoever runs in the general isn't pumping a lot of resources into that area, then it's going to be a long summer/fall.

This is where Bloomberg and Steyer should really be putting their copious amounts money to help out whichever candidate runs in the general.

advantage under Obama but lost it during the 2016 Hillary campaign. Now we are desperately trying to get it back from a Trump machine that has loads of cash and is apparently much more efficient.

Umm..... help us, Bloomberg? *takes scalding hot shower*

...about the 2012 Election, and how inept Romney's team was at the digital stuff. About how their apps were useless and didn't work, and how far Obama's team was outpacing them.

I believe it was in the same article that they talked to the head of Obama's digital team, and he said (and I'm paraphrasing here) that if the Democrats were still hiring him in 2020 or even 2016, they were in deep trouble, because of have fast the landscape is changing. I REALLY hope the Democratic candidates heed that.

the conspiracy theories are so easy to reach for bc everyone becomes an expert one headline at a time lol

...and not any candidate that's running a legit campaign. Statewide organizations cut corners, hire the lowest bidder, take care of the good ol' boys, etc. Whoever gets the nomination will hopefully have more sense.

the DNC literally told them "DON'T USE THIS APP"

but because state organizations are run by whatever local dumbfuck has some money and a connection, guess what happened

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Legit armed Trump with a narrative that Dems are just incompetent in controlling a process they fully managed, and is leaning into the Russia narrative on the day of his SOTU address before he ultimately gets acquitted from impeachment.

Fucked around a got a triple double. Themocrats should be ashamed.

Really makes me believe the Dems are in on this shit and don’t really want to get this dude out of office.

She ripped up the speech tho. Great theatrics.

That's not a conspiracy. It's actually worse. It means the people who are leading the party and telling you that this is the most important election of our lifetime don't actually believe it. Or, rather, don't believe it to the extent that they're willing prioritize a transparent and smooth election process that chooses the best candidate over say, the party operating as a permanent jobs program for people who interned for the right congressman when they were in undergraduate.

They're not in smokey backrooms pre-ordaining a candidate because that would require actual principles. Instead, they're just completely fine with a monumental fuck-up because they suffer nothing from the Trump administration and will gleefully pursue their desire for wealth and power at the detriment of basic human necessities for working people.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/05/angry-democrats-unload-operative-over-iowa-caucus-results-110807

The divisive Democratic operative behind Shadow, the app that broke Iowa

Tara McGowan, a former Obama campaign aide who founded the digital-first Democratic outfit ACRONYM, was already a controversial figure before the Iowa caucus mess.

By MAGGIE SEVERNS

02/05/2020 09:49 AM EST

Democratic operatives have found a target for their anger and frustration over Iowa’s botched caucus results — Tara McGowan, the political strategist whose company is directly tied to the troublesome vote-reporting app at the center of the chaos.

Even before the Iowa mess, McGowan, a former journalist and Barack Obama campaign aide, was both one of the Democratic Party’s most in-demand leaders this cycle — and also one of its most divisive.

But her role in boosting the suddenly infamous Shadow, the developer of the app that played a central role in Iowa’s technical meltdown, has surfaced a new level of angst over the digital empire she has built.

While McGowan has received praise for founding and serving as CEO of the digital-first Democratic outfit ACRONYM, a nonprofit organization that aims to spend a massive $75 million on digital ads combatting President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, she’s also received blowback.

In particular, her group’s sprawling and opaque structure has frustrated fellow Democrats, with some arguing that ACRONYM’s “company-within-a-company” collection of progressive news sites, consulting services, and experimental merchandise vendors lacks transparency regarding its payments to consultants and staff, obscuring potential conflicts of interest or governance issues.

They point to the mix of for-profit entities under the nonprofit parent company as especially problematic.

“People are really frustrated and skeptical about the structure that Tara has created,” said one Democratic operative, who did not want to be quoted for risk of alienation. “There’s a nonprofit and then there are for-profits below it, like a nesting doll. It’s moving money around in a way that’s unclear to people.”

Other critics acknowledge that McGowan is a talented messenger — but argue she revved up her donors on the idea that her fellow Democrats were not doing enough while getting clobbered by Trump online in order to launch ACRONYM’s $75 million anti-Trump digital program, and then has been slow to spend the money she pledged to bring to the fight.

To them, Shadow’s failure in Iowa was not shocking, nor was the way ACRONYM sought to distance itself from the organization in the wake of the caucuses.

In a tweet on Tuesday, McGowan called Shadow an “independent company ACRONYM invested in.”

“We don’t have any information beyond the public statements the IDP has put out + like all of you, eagerly await learning what happened and who won the IA caucus,” McGowan wrote, referencing the Iowa Democratic Party. In a statement posted on Twitter, ACRONYM said it was “not a technology company” and had “not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party, Presidential campaigns, or the Democratic National Committee.”

But ACRONYM trumpeted the group in 2018, and Shadow staffers work in the same offices as ACRONYM, according to a person familiar with the group.

“It’s the cover-up that f---ing kills you. The idea that was out there saying no one has any idea who was involved with this. You’re telling me she had no idea the firm she launched was being hired to run this project?” said one longtime Washington Democratic operative.

Critics of ACRONYM declined to speak on the record because they are concerned about maintaining party unity, and retribution from the group’s donors. Allies declined to speak on the record to POLITICO, too, saying they didn’t want to become a part of the online firestorm surrounding Shadow. McGowan is a talented operative who has rapidly built a powerful organization and who helped the party in 2018, they said.

“From my perspective, she’s been able to raise a lot of funds and help state legislative races,” said one Democrat familiar with McGowan’s work.

Shadow’s failure in Iowa has fed skepticism of the increasingly popular venture-style approach to Democratic infrastructure that ACRONYM reflects. The organization, which has ties to big Silicon Valley donors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, is busting norms in Democratic politics. But while some Democrats see such risk-taking as being absolutely necessary in order for the party to win elections, others argue it has no place playing a role during a high-stakes caucus night.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska state Democratic Party and a critic of big-money investment in Democratic data infrastructure, said she would “never” consider using an app with funding from Silicon Valley to help Nebraska select delegates or with other processes.

“My bottom line as party chair is we should not be using electronic voting for any elections at the party level or for candidates,” Kleeb said. “It's just not an accessible form of voting and having your voice heard for older voters or for people with different disabilities, visual disabilities.”

McGowan, who is in her mid-30s, directed digital strategy at Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC aiding Hillary Clinton during her 2016 White House campaign. But McGowan clashed with Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil over how to approach digital advertising, which had become a major part of the election for the first time in 2016.

Despite both running major anti-Trump Democratic groups, the two have had virtually no relationship since McGowan left Priorities USA after the 2016 election, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

McGowan launched ACRONYM after Trump’s election as a “digital-first political organization" with the goal of electing progressive Democrats, mostly in state legislative races. The group quickly attracted attention, especially in Silicon Valley, from newly galvanized major donors including LinkedIn’s Hoffman, who was wading into politics and looking for projects to disrupt the Democratic status quo. (Hoffman and other donors in his network “took a chance” on ACRONYM, McGowan told POLITICO in 2019.)

More recently, longtime Democratic donors Steven Spielberg and Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg cut six-figure checks to the checks to the group’s affiliated super PAC, PACRONYM.

McGowan created ACRONYM as a 501(c)(4), an increasingly common type of political nonprofit. But then she did something highly unusual: She began buying and forming new, for-profit companies affiliated with ACRONYM but still separate from it.

Those for-profits include Shadow, which ACRONYM launched in January 2019 after spending nearly $1 million to acquire a peer-to-peer texting company called Groundbase that provided the underlying technology, according to information shared with POLITICO at the time. McGowan is also raising $25 million for a liberal local news network, Courier Newsroom, that will generate left-leaning political news content and then pay to have the content placed favorably in people’s Facebook feeds.

McGowan’s own digital consulting company, Lockwood Strategy, also received $1 million in payments from ACRONYM’s PAC during the fall of 2018, disclosures show, for work marked as “Digital Ad Buy.”

Proponents of McGowan’s approach say Democrats need to be willing to experiment and move quickly, investing in projects like Shadow and Courier Newsroom, if they want to match Trump’s prowess online.

But skeptics in the Democratic Party are unsure why Shadow or Courier Newsroom are being run as separate, for-profit companies, which shields them from even the minimal transparency that ACRONYM is subject to. When ACRONYM files mandatory tax disclosures, it must reveal top employees’ salaries, payments to its biggest consultants and provide assurances that the ACRONYM empire’s different arms aren’t paying the same people multiple salaries — basic assurances to the nonprofit’s donors.

“Everything may be perfectly above board here. Then again, it may not be,” said nonprofit attorney Marcus Owens, a partner at Loeb & Loeb. For example, a nonprofit like ACRONYM may want to maintain a for-profit company so it can offer shares in the company to top employees, Owens said. It will be possible to discern some more information about ACRONYM’s relationship with the companies when more tax filings for the group are publicly available, Owens said.

Kyle Tharp, spokesperson for ACRONYM, did not answer questions POLITICO posed about ACRONYM’s structure.

ACRONYM ballooned in 2019, thanks in part to new support from David Plouffe, Obama’s celebrated 2008 campaign manager and former senior vice president at Uber. Plouffe joined the group’s board in the fall of 2019. In November, ACRONYM announced it would spend $75 million on digital advertising to counter Trump’s online spending onslaught.

Three months later, that deluge of spending has barely begun, despite McGowan’s public urgency: ACRONYM spent only $781,000 on advertising on Facebook and Google since the start of November, according to the tracking firm Advertising Analytics. (It has likely spent some money other place online, but Google and Facebook are major hubs for political advertising.)

ACRONYM had also announced last year it would spend $1 million on digital ads focused on impeaching Trump, but with its total spending at less than $1 million, it’s not clear if that spending fully materialized.

Tharp, the ACRONYM spokesperson, said in an email that ACRONYM has spent “spent several million dollars since July 2019 across Facebook, Google, Hulu” under various campaign and brand names.

On Monday, Shadow was one part of a caucus meltdown that could have ramifications for years to come on Iowa’s first-in-the-nation status. Precinct captains reported issues logging into Shadow, and the Iowa Democratic Party said a "coding issue" was to blame for the technical woes.

By Tuesday, Shadow had issued an apology, tweeting, "We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last night’s Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers.”

And the Nevada Democratic Party, which has also paid Shadow, preemptively announced that it would not use the app.

“NV Dems can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada on February 22nd. We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus,” state party chairman William McCurdy II said in a statement.

>That's not a conspiracy. It's actually worse. It means the
>people who are leading the party and telling you that this is
>the most important election of our lifetime don't actually
>believe it. Or, rather, don't believe it to the extent that
>they're willing prioritize a transparent and smooth election
>process that chooses the best candidate over say, the party
>operating as a permanent jobs program for people who interned
>for the right congressman when they were in undergraduate.

Right. If you're actually looking at the established facts here, it would take an extraordinary amount of coincidental naivete to not throw a flag on any of it, and just dismiss it as benign incompetence and unrelated coincidences.

And you're right - this is basically a small group of self-serving insiders who circlejerk each other and feel entitled to steer the party as they see fit, one $21,250 micro pay-for-play payment at a time:

https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&committee_id=C00697441&recipient_name=Shadow&two_year_transaction_period=2020

Listening to faux techies like Mook talk about how this process was put through "rigorous testing" and that they had established "best practices" in Iowa to prevent malfunction is absolute comic gold right now.

This was a monumental failure by the Iowa Dems (which now has required the DNC to get involved). Another unforced error undermining equity in the primary process.

It's hilarious to see all of those associated with Shadow Inc. try and walk back their associations. Those responsible should be called out and held accountable for this debacle.


--s

It's blatantly false, you've done it multiple posts now, and the disinfo makes it harder to read your concerns as valid criticism as opposed to some half-baked anti-Pete conspiracy theory lol.

Like, in #108 you said:

• Pete Buttigieg is the only candidate to fund this app

Then here again, you post:

>https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&committee_id=C00697441&recipient_name=Shadow&two_year_transaction_period=2020
>

In reality, like 3 campaigns used Shadow product/services:

https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&recipient_name=Shadow&two_year_transaction_period=2020

including 1 candidate that has since left the race, and another candidate who fared MUCH worse in IA. (edit, if you filter for 'Presidential' under Spender Committee Type, it limits to disbursements from the 3 2020 candidates specifically).

Given the filtering done in the link you originally posted, you obviously know how to navigate around in that data... so it really just looks like you're intentionally omitting other candidates' involvement. Kinda wack

That's my only issue with the concerns you've been raising.



>
>Right. If you're actually looking at the established facts
>here, it would take an extraordinary amount of coincidental
>naivete to not throw a flag on any of it, and just dismiss it
>as benign incompetence and unrelated coincidences.
>
>And you're right - this is basically a small group of
>self-serving insiders who circlejerk each other and feel
>entitled to steer the party as they see fit, one $21,250 micro
>pay-for-play payment at a time:
>
>https://www.fec.gov/data/disbursements/?data_type=processed&committee_id=C00697441&recipient_name=Shadow&two_year_transaction_period=2020
>

as I was going through the FEC disclosures. As mentioned - Biden was the only other (active) candidate to render payment to Shadow Inc. - and it was a small payment in comparison to Pete's $42,500 payment.

>In reality, like 3 campaigns used Shadow product/services:

not "like" 3 campaigns. Let's be specific: Gillibrand was also a client (who is irrelevant here as she had no stake in Iowa).

It was Pete & Biden (and that was mentioned above). But there's a reason why the focus is more on Pete: Pete For America made larger payments, Shadow Inc.'s org-chart features Pete supporters, and he's the one who claimed victory with 0% of the vote in. There's nothing wrong with pointing out these facts, even if it triggers you to cry "conspiracy theory" for no reason.

This isn't hard.



-->

literally filtered exclusively for Pete's campaign lol


>as I was going through the FEC disclosures. As mentioned -
>Biden was the only other (active) candidate to render payment
>to Shadow Inc. - and it was a small payment in comparison to
>Pete's $42,500 payment.
>
>>In reality, like 3 campaigns used Shadow product/services:
>
>not "like" 3 campaigns. Let's be specific: Gillibrand was
>also a client (who is irrelevant here as she had no stake in
>Iowa).

>It was Pete & Biden (and that was mentioned above).


Oh ok, well I just don't vibe with your logic then. Because if there *was* some conspiracy between Shadow and certain campaigns (which I don't necessarily think there was), then the fact that Gillibrand eventually left the race before voting occurred wouldn't exonerate imo. Their disbursements occurred roughly around the same time (quarter?).

OR, it's possible those campaigns could have just been paying to use Shadow normally for other things at that time since they were building out their operations, like engagement/subscription services or what have you. I'm not a forensic accountant lol.

All I'm trying to say is: if I was trying to make the points you're making about corruption, there'd be no reason to omit other campaigns' disbursements... unless I was trying to push a *specific* narrative about Pete *shrug*

Also, re: the claimed victory issue... I'm sorry what was trending on twitter after IA #BernieWon or #PeteWon?? Lol. Besides, the fact that the first ever openly gay presidential candidate in US history, who also happens to be the youngest, who's been the recipient of so much skepticism about his electability... did well in IA was in fact victorious, sorry lol. EVEN if he placed 2nd or 3rd, which he was explicitly asked in media appearances the next day. It's hilarious how blinded some of the left is by raging hatred for this man that an obvious nuance like this is suddenly super controversial to acknowledge. lol


and he's the one who claimed victory with 0%
>of the vote in.

does not mean we are jumping to conclusions and engaging in "conspiracy" - we all should want to understand what happened in Iowa - and engaging in fact-finding is helpful.

Given that the app was such a failure - we should want to find out everything we can about the app, its developers, those funding it/using its services - and why it was used in Iowa. These are absolutely fair questions to ask.

>All I'm trying to say is: if I was trying to make the points
>you're making about corruption, there'd be no reason to omit
>other campaigns' disbursements... unless I was trying to push
>a *specific* narrative about Pete *shrug*

Again - what point about "corruption" am I trying to make? I haven't come to any conclusions here other than looking at the facts - which detail questionable associations with Shadow Inc. as it pertains to candidate favoritism.

>Also, re: the claimed victory issue... I'm sorry what was
>trending on twitter after IA #BernieWon or #PeteWon?? Lol.

Since when does Twitter overrule real life? Pete is the one who claimed victory - and he was (and has been) widely reported as the candidate who has won (or at least the candidate who is winning) Iowa. This is not in dispute.

>Besides, the fact that the first ever openly gay presidential
>candidate in US history, who also happens to be the youngest,
>who's been the recipient of so much skepticism about his
>electability... did well in IA was in fact victorious, sorry
>lol. EVEN if he placed 2nd or 3rd, which he was explicitly
>asked in media appearances the next day. It's hilarious how
>blinded some of the left is by raging hatred for this man that
>an obvious nuance like this is suddenly super controversial to
>acknowledge. lol

So a couple things: Pete was always positioned to do well in Iowa. Most polls had him in the top 3 (although few if any actually tracked him as winning Iowa). Also, if anyone's campaign might be hurt the most because of this gross incompetence out of Iowa - you could make the argument it would be Pete's. If he does indeed earn a legitimate victory in Iowa - he will have been robbed of the signature crowning moment and the immediate momentum of such an impressive victory. He needs Iowa arguably more than any other candidate (as it's hard to find another state he could win on the board right now).

This isn't about "hating Pete" - it's about understanding what exactly happened in Iowa. A lot of the facts have revealed associations with Shadow Inc. & Pete for America. As such, we should look into them.

Let's also not act brand new: If an app (named Revolution Inc.) was used in Iowa in similar fashion, with significant Bernie for America payments to it - and it was revealed that Jeff Weaver was the CEO, and Nina Turner was the COO of the company that developed the app - and then Sanders declared premature victory (with 0% of the vote in) - and there was an issue of app error codes and inconsistencies with the results, I'm sure you wouldn't just be glossing over this like, "oh come on! Nothing to see here!" lol.




-->

>That's not a conspiracy. It's actually worse. It means the
>people who are leading the party and telling you that this is
>the most important election of our lifetime don't actually
>believe it. Or, rather, don't believe it to the extent that
>they're willing prioritize a transparent and smooth election
>process that chooses the best candidate over say, the party
>operating as a permanent jobs program for people who interned
>for the right congressman when they were in undergraduate.


^^^^


>They're not in smokey backrooms pre-ordaining a candidate
>because that would require actual principles. Instead, they're
>just completely fine with a monumental fuck-up because they
>suffer nothing from the Trump administration and will
>gleefully pursue their desire for wealth and power at the
>detriment of basic human necessities for working people.

The results are delayed by a couple days. Boo hoo. It's a sickness of the political-media culture that anyone even cares about the Iowa Caucus.

It extends the meme of HealthCare.gov, undermining any argument we might try to make about restoring competence to the WH. That's the only unalloyed negative I see in all this.

But apart from that:

Hopefully it'll kill the very idea of caucuses, which are deeply undemocratic and anachronistic.

It'll likely kill Iowa's "first in the nation" status, at least for Democratic primaries, which is good because Iowa is completely unrepresentative of the party or of the general electorate.

It'll definitely hold off any rush to online voting, which would open us up to dystopian scenarios where election results themselves would be subject to hacking. More to the point: it gives a clear example of the importance of a paper trail behind every vote (or caucus), which might have otherwise come increasingly into question as new generations of electronic voting booths are developed.

No candidate got a clean media narrative out of it, which is a good thing because the number of delegates actually chosen in Iowa is negligible.

No candidate got to make a big victory speech and mug for "momentum," again a good thing because the Iowa caucus is completely unrepresentative and "momentum" is just a euphemism for the peculiar way that the media narratives push the base-level popularity contest in one direction or another.

I think the Iowa Caucus got what it deserved.

he did claim to win before results were released. when we got some results it barely backed up his claim. assuming the numbers are accurate, he got an even bigger boost than if everything was released in a timely manner.

if the results stands i think the biggest take away is that bernie might actually be the front runner. maybe this is just a blip for biden and he bounces back. maybe this is more than one big win for pete and he does keep getting good results. the one thing we know is that sanders is solid.

If he'd ended with the Biden-level numbers everyone expected, he might be out of the race by now.

And I actually don't mind the way he just went out and declared victory. Each of the campaigns had pretty good data on how they, themselves, were doing (less so on how each other was doing), through direct communication with their caucus managers. So the Buttigieg campaign at least knew that they had massively outpaced expectations, which is really all they needed to say it was a fantastic night for them. I might even be coming around to seeing him as a candidate, though I still don't think he's likely to survive the next few events, even with the bump he'll inevitably get.

Bernie Bros will claim victory, and it's probably no surprise that I don't think that's deserved. In fact, after Bernie gets the big win everyone expects out of New Hampshire people will be asking why he isn't just anointed the nominee. But Iowa was always gonna go well for him. The caucus process is almost designed to favor a candidate like Bernie. The fact that he, with all his advantages, coming in with what looked like a huge polling lead, and with relatively-low turnout which amplifies his caucus advantage, appears to have ended up behind the 38-year-old mayor of South Bend Indiana, really should make people question where his upside really is. People have been talking like this was a 2-way race, but Biden clearly didn't stand in the way of a big Bernie win. The fact that even when Biden is essentially out of the picture, Bernie still can't become the alternative frontrunner that the #2 from the previous cycle would normally be, should be a subject of concern for Bernie.

As for Biden, I'm not gonna pretend it wasn't a shitty night for his campaign (though it doesn't look like he'll end all that far behind Warren, and Warren's showing wasn't bad at all). But again, we shouldn't be surprised. Caucuses are bad for moderates, bad for "insiders", bad for people with a lot of support from older voters, bad for people with a lot of support from poorer voters. If he can still win SC, he's still in the race. This is especially true if he can put in a better showing in Nevada (another caucus state, but the labor machines are big there, a few of which are behind him; and Harry Reid, to the extent he's involved, would probably help him); and if he can eke out a second-place showing in New Hampshire. IIRC, Bill Clinton's "comeback kid" event was a second-place showing in NH after an unexpectedly bad showing in Iowa.

I know Iowa ain’t shit and it’s on to the next but it’s still a bad look and if he doesn’t get his sh it together he could be out much sooner than expected. I honestly thought he would be the nominee.

Not sure if a strong showing in SC will be enough. Hell, if he keeps losing like this voters may jump ship by the time he gets to Iowa.

My coworker asked me if Biden will suffer among Black voters in SC and I really want to say he won’t suffer but I’m not sure. It’s Bernie’s second time around, people are familiar with his name down here. Wouldn’t be surprised if Bernie is stronger in SC than polls indicate.

I may be wishing tho..

I’m a little shocked by Pete but he is from Indiana and that’s pretty close to home.

>I think the Iowa Caucus got what it deserved.



-->

.

https://twitter.com/disruptionary/status/1224877963528851456?s=20

and 2020 brought out a higher percentage of 17-29 year olds than Obama https://twitter.com/AliMortell/status/1225119175372419074

Are voters noticing how tired and dry Biden is looking these days? He doesn’t look like he has any fight in him.

You would think Biden is the one who had a heart attack

not sure how his sex life is relevant to the election.

He may not win SC - but he'll do well. Biden once had a purported gigantic 30-point lead in SC - now it's a tight race with Sanders (and even Steyer) closing the gap:

https://www.changeresearch.com/post/south-carolina-post-and-courier-january-poll

Sanders will win New Hampshire & California, he'll perform very well in Nevada (if not win there as well), is doing better than expected in Texas (closing the gap on Biden there as well), and is best positioned to win in states featuring diverse populations (namely Latinx, Black, and young demographics).

The conventional wisdom was that Biden was the front-runner and had the ability to rally the broader electorate - but that position looks awfully flimsy after his performance in Iowa.

The question is really this: Can he earn enough delegates and achieve a large enough margin to avoid a brokered convention?

Let's hope so (or let's hope somebody else is able to win outright before Milwaukee). A brokered convention won't be good for anyone - namely those interested in defeating Trump.

-->

when it comes to viewing how Biden is trending with Black voters. That’s why I’m anxious to see SC play out.

If Biden doesn’t have the big win it’s a wrap for him going forward.

While I wasn’t his biggest fan I really thought Biden would be around for a while. SC will tell us a lot about Biden.

>https://twitter.com/AliMortell/status/1225119175372419074

This does not show that turnout was higher this cycle among young people. It shows (to the extent that we take the entrance polls seriously) that a higher percentage of the people who caucused was 17-29. Given that A LOT fewer people caucused than in 2008, and a slightly smaller number of people caucused than in 2016, the turnout among young people was probably a bit down from either of those cycles.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

They provide momentum going forward. Pete got all of that because of how it went down and he's much better off now because of it.

So a potential rigging doesnt have to alter final vote tallies to be effective. It just has to set the initial impression and cause 4 or 5 days worth of confusion, at which point NH becomes the focus and the final correction on IA gets lost/ignored.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

https://i.redd.it/p8u5gphg6af41.jpg

Antoninus: "I bring a message from your master, Marcus Licinius Crassus, Commander of Italy, by command of his most merciful excellency your lives shall be spared. Slaves you were and slaves you remain but the terrible penalty of crucifixion shall be set aside on the single condition that you identify the body or the living person of the fucking human garbage that Bernie Sanders calls supporters."

"I'm fucking human garbage"

"I'm fucking human garbage!"

"I'm fucking human garbage"

*crowd shouting over one another"

"I'm fucking human garbage!"

and so timely w/ Kirk Douglas' passing

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There's video if you click through.

https://twitter.com/kerubin_ho/status/1225203090053308422

kerubin_ho
@kerubin_ho

159 people from the Karen, Karenni, Chin, Mon, Shan, and Rakhine refugee communities from Myanmar came to caucus at the Karen Baptist Church in DSM. All 159 caucused for Bernie, winning all 9 county delegates. It was the first vote/caucus for over 95% of them. #iowacaucuses

Thanks for sharing -- truly inspiring story. I'm connected with the refugee community in my state and it's been heart-warming to hear their advocacy for Senator Sanders.

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These aren't some rubes. Refugees have their eyes wide fucking open about American politics and they know that a Sanders presidency isn't going to change everything overnight. But a massive, international movement of working people in solidarity with each other is our best chance to make something good and live freely with each other.

Pictures in the link. This is the Sanders coalition. Regular people who feel left behind by the political process and see this campaign as an opportunity to assert themselves on terms that actually address their material needs.

https://theintercept.com/2020/02/03/iowa-first-caucus-satellite-pork-plant-workers/

PORK PLANT WORKERS TURN OUT FOR SANDERS IN FIRST CAUCUS IN IOWA
Akela Lacy, Ryan Grim
February 3 2020, 1:40 p.m.

THE FIRST CAUCUS in Iowa was held at noon at a union hall in Ottumwa, about an hour and a half from Des Moines, where meatpackers and other workers unable to vote in the evening’s official caucuses were given the chance to cast ballots at a satellite caucus.

Just over a dozen workers gathered at the headquarters of the local United Food and Commercial Workers, with 14 casting their votes for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. One attendee cast their vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Satellite caucuses will continue to be held at union halls, senior centers, and universities throughout the afternoon, leading up to the regularly scheduled caucuses on Monday evening at 7 p.m. central time.

The caucus in Ottumwa, population 24,550, on the banks of the Des Moines River, will net Sanders four delegates for their congressional district, according to caucus chair Frank Flanders, the political director for the UFCW Local 230. The Warren supporter said she would not realign, meaning that her vote effectively won’t count toward anything.

The turnout for Sanders among union members reflects the campaign’s strategy of mobilizing nontraditional voters. Many of the Ottumwa meatpackers are immigrants, largely of Ethiopian origin or descent — not the corn-fed farmers typically associated in the popular imagination with the Iowa caucuses.

Phillip Cross, a 67-year-old defatter at the JBS pork plant and a first-time caucuser who showed up for Sanders, said it was a decision his union made. “Local 230 pretty much decided that it was Bernie Sanders,” he told The Intercept. Asked whether he was worried about Sanders’ electability, Cross brushed off the idea. “From 2016, it will tell you, anyone is capable of winning,” he said, saying he liked Sanders’s goals of equal pay regardless of gender and universal healthcare. “I like a lot of his goals. … He believes everybody deserves to be taken care of when they’re sick. He’s just being pretty much what everybody else really dreams about.”

While the Ottumwa caucus was the first in the state, the first Iowa caucus was actually held in Tbilisi, Georgia. The results of that three-person caucus will be announced on Monday night.

Iowa polls have shown an extraordinarily close and volatile race, with Sanders capturing late momentum heading into the caucus. A number of recent polls showed Sanders consistently surging in the days leading up to Iowa, followed by a slew of stories on how Democratic Party stalwarts are strategizing and spending to keep Sanders from winning the nomination.

Their argument centers on the question of electability and the idea that Sanders is not equipped to beat President Donald Trump. Sanders does lead Trump in a handful of polls when they’re competing head to head, and in polls in which he’s behind the president, he performs fairly close to the center’s idea of electability: former Vice President Joe Biden or former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Warren performs similarly to Sanders. On Sunday, the Sanders campaign released an ad highlighting his ability to defeat Trump in the general election.

The center’s attempts to derail Sanders’s nationwide surge have seemed to backfire. Outside political action committees spent big to back Biden and Buttigieg, and a Democratic pro-Israel group with deep ties to the far-right Israel lobby group, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee spent on the first ads attacking Sanders by name just last week. Hillary Clinton launched another attack on Sanders in a podcast interview. The attacks only boosted Sanders’s war chest: His campaign raised $1.3 million in a day after the attack ads ran in Iowa.

States that hold caucuses instead of primaries use the process to elect state delegate equivalents. Iowa’s 41 pledged delegates will vote at the state party convention in June. The number of state delegates for each candidate determines how many national convention delegates they get; those national delegates vote in July at the party’s national convention in Milwaukee.

None of the backlash to Sanders’s rise comes as a surprise. He faced a similar battle against Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in 2016, struggling to beat her superdelegate count in multiple states where he won the popular vote comfortably. That included Washington state, where he won close to 73 percent of the vote; Colorado, where he won 59 percent of the vote; New Hampshire; Kansas; and Maine. “If I win a state with 70 percent of the vote, you know what? I think I am entitled to those superdelegates,” Sanders said.

The Democratic National Committee attempted to address those concerns with a historic rule change in 2018, stripping superdelegates of the power to vote on the first ballot at the national convention, something critics said allowed a small group of powerful party figures to override the will of voters.

For all the fanfare around the first-in-the-nation caucus, Iowa accounts for only around 1 percent of the total national delegates who will determine the party’s nominee in July. Candidates have faced increased pressure this cycle to denounce what critics say is an arbitrary order that unfairly centers majority white voters in an increasingly diverse nation. But the event is largely seen as setting the pace of the coming months, as a number of states hold their caucuses in the coming weeks.

Follow The Intercept and subscribe to Intercepted for more in-depth coverage of the Iowa caucuses.

Update: February 3, 2:35 p.m.
This piece has been updated with details about the delegate count and an interview.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-post-iowa-primary-forecast-is-up-and-bidens-chances-are-down/

real election interference was taking place:

https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1225272553255645184
-----
SCOOP: Trump supporters flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders Wednesday. w/@jeneps

https://t.co/AMlFNKf1F4
-----

for some reason...there isnt the same appetite to call this out as there was to come up with far ranging conspiracy theories about some shitty app.

It shouldn’t be this easy to disrupt election results.

crank calls? Really?

i dont remember if i saw this late last night or this morning for the first time.

did this just get discovered?

The only reason it was able to happen was because Iowa fucked up and people started posting sheets and taking photos like HS kids.

This is like complaining about a fire alarm at a hotel before the big game.

>This is like complaining about a fire alarm at a hotel before
>the big game.

Basically. Blaming some 4chan trolls for the internal failures of the Democratic Party means that the party is more vulnerable to interference than we ever would've imagined lol.

-->

Who knew?

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https://features.desmoinesregister.com/news/politics/iowa-caucuses-results-alignment/

CANDIDATE DELEGATE
EQUIVALENTS PERCENT FIRST ALIGNMENT PERCENT FINAL ALIGNMENT PERCENT
Pete Buttigieg 550 26.2% 36,718 21.3% 42,235 25.0%
Bernie Sanders 547 26.1% 42,672 24.7% 44,753 26.5%

Sanders has been sweeping the satellite caucuses and has continued to close the gap as the reports still - 3 days later - continue to trickle in.

Notable: Sanders won both the first alignment and the final re-alignment - showing that he was the second choice for more voters than was initially thought by many commentators.

Both Sanders & Buttigieg will likely leave Iowa with the same amount of delegates - but Pete certainly got a boost going into New Hampshire as the purported winner. His poll numbers are up in NH (though he still trails Sanders by a significant margin), fund-raising is up, and the moderate wing has started to rally to him and abandon other candidates (namely Biden & Klobuchar) - all by-products of the perception of him as the "victorious" one in Iowa, according to him.

But did he actually win Iowa? It's egregious that we still don't know -- and despite the claims that the results have been wholly "accurate" - inconsistencies and errors remain:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/06/upshot/iowa-caucuses-errors-results.html




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-->

Doesn’t matter if he actually won IMO. He fucked up the Biden money.

most votes in both rounds which is all that *should* matter.

none of this shit is even significant in the long run outside of narrative framing.

we talked about it in one of those earlier dem primary polls. the amount of importance placed on ia and nh is so stupid...especially given todays electoral landscape.

My thing is, I get that it's super tempting to look at IA as a popular vote if it suits a candidate (in this case, Bernie), but that does a disservice to the rural population... for whom the 'delegate equivalents' are supposed to help even the scale, right??

Like, this is starting to remind me of HRC v. 45 discussions re: the electoral college (a system which, ironically, we all know Buttigieg is a vocal critic of even though his campaign clearly(smartly?) strategized to use such math to his advantage to pick up rural delegates in IA). I mean look at the (current) IA map:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQBaZmSVUAAa_t1?format=jpg&name=large

All that yellow is Buttigieg. No one learning about this race for the first time would be surprised to hear that the candidate who won all those yellow counties was deemed the (delegate) "winner".

I'm not advocating against popular vote counts, I do see their importance and they may even be my preference. But if it's not even the way the rules are set up... I guess I don't really see the point in focusing on it? Although, as you say, IA's currency here is the narrative boost.

Other thing is, the way people/media are talking about the 2nd realignment is very strange to me. There's honestly more meaning in looking at the difference between the candidates' 1st alignments and 2nd alignments:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EQGvNfLX0AIwx19?format=jpg&name=medium

as opposed to rank ordering each candidate's 2nd alignment results (if IA isn't going to use a popular vote, than rank ordering only makes sense for the 1st imo). Like in the alignment link above, the gains for the top 4 candidates were:

Buttigieg +5517
Sanders +2081
Warren +2305
Biden -2648

^By this measure, I would view Buttigieg as having "won" the 2nd alignment given that he dominated as voters preferred 2nd choice in precincts where a preferred candidate wasn't viable (more than Sanders and Warren *combined*). In fact Sanders was a distant 3rd place behind Pete in 2nd realigment, ending up with a good 2nd alignment tally only because he was a strong 1st pick.

So ya. Whatever I guess. At this point, recanvass or not, I'm just looking at IA as a statistical tie and moving on. Nobody swept it or even came close. And if the percentages stayed similar to this throughout the primary (with different candidates "winning" depending on the region), things will almost certainly lead to a brokered convention, as I'm suspecting. But I *do* think Buttigieg's ability to win rural and suburban areas and appeal to voters of broad political orientations (vs. Sanders' ability to turn out young urban voters and minority communities that represent small percentages of the US population) is something to think about when one considers:

https://i.insider.com/583c8ee3ba6eb620008b6738?

Both strategies are important and give the warm fuzzies, but one has stronger implications both electorally and mathematically imho.

>I'm not advocating against popular vote counts, I do see their
>importance and they may even be my preference. But if it's not
>even the way the rules are set up... I guess I don't really
>see the point in focusing on it?

So it's fair to say that you've pushed back against the continued reminders that Clinton won the popular vote and have resisted calls to reform the electoral college?

-->

>
>> I do see
>their
>>importance and they may even be my preference.


Nice try tho :)

Liberal technocrats, three days later: We regret to inform you that democracy has been hacked by the Jerky Boys

are not "liberal technocrats."

And if you really want the state to seize the means of production you're putting a lot more faith in people's abilities than any liberal technocrat does.

>Liberal technocrats, three days later: We regret to inform
>you that democracy has been hacked by the Jerky Boys

Maybe it was a tag-team hack this year between Dunston in an Iowa basement and Wladimir in a Kiev hostel. Be AFRAID.


-->

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/buttigieg-sanders-neck-neck-iowa-nearly-all-votes-reported-n1131261?fbclid=IwAR27AowYwNmQ2l6zA4BcNvbkNxpn50Jsso2YkpgTCZ4hAXegbtCllZ0ot8o

When even the Chair doesn't have faith in the results? Yikes.

-->

and why announce that on twitter?

supposedly the idp was blindsided by this.
https://twitter.com/jeffzeleny/status/1225472426894647296

why not just get together with the idp and come up with a plan and *then* announce it?

all this for a relatively meaningless number of delegates in a state where the top 2 candidates will be in a virtual tie regardless.

trump is doing an authoritarian victory lap to celebrate being unshackled from any real accountability and the leaders of our party are bumbling around like a monkey fucking a football.

Trump is laughing at us.

>
>all this for a relatively meaningless number of delegates in a
>state where the top 2 candidates will be in a virtual tie
>regardless.


At this point, the party needs to just move the f*ck on. Even putting aside announcing it via twitter tough guy, it just doesn't seem worth it to add fuel to the fire here.

Not to mention...to do it as Bernie was gaining on Pete?...its like they WANT people to believe the conspiracies.

Learn your lessons and move on to the next one.


>
>trump is doing an authoritarian victory lap to celebrate being
>unshackled from any real accountability and the leaders of our
>party are bumbling around like a monkey fucking a football.

Right. I don't know if there is precedent for a party chair to quit in the middle of a cycle, but a part of me really wonders if Perez is cut out for this. I could be off, just seems like he's the type of dude who will galaxy brain a loss from the clutches of victory.

I'd take Dean's screaming ass back.

wtf did he think he was doing there? lol.

im sorry. tom perez could be a brilliant organizational leader and great tactician. but everything about him publicly projects weakness and incompetence.

now the idp is basically rebuffing his authority to call a recanvass.
https://twitter.com/brianneDMR/status/1225489437494251520

>wtf did he think he was doing there? lol.
>
>im sorry. tom perez could be a brilliant organizational
>leader and great tactician. but everything about him publicly
>projects weakness and incompetence.
>
>now the idp is basically rebuffing his authority to call a
>recanvass.
>https://twitter.com/brianneDMR/status/1225489437494251520

Ouch. Definitely going to take the cool out of his walk today.


I'll defer to you on his ability to organize, etc because I honestly don't know enough about him. Just seems like he'd be a better candidate for something rather than this- maybe it is just the weakness he projects.

It sucks, but you probably want someone running the DNC who may or may not have helped hide a body at some point. Especially when you look at how the other side plays it.

Trumpolini and the GOP are doing a victory lap for being above the law, and Perez is impersonating an internet tough guy demanding the spreadshpeets be rechecked...and he doesn't even have the authority to do so.

And, as you pointed out, for what? Iowa is about the next day/week bounce. Its over.

until they became Sanders bogeymen.

They don't do anything that any of us needs to care about.

And now it feeds pointless and destructive media narratives when people who were never supposed to be political leaders are treated like political leaders.

nobody cared about the head of dnc until 2016 and wasserman-schultz.

its a mundane administrative position but now its become an ideological flashpoint.

>nobody cared about the head of dnc until 2016 and
>wasserman-schultz.

And rightfully so. Nobody should really care about the head of the DNC. It's akin to a referee in a prize-fight. They should largely be invisible, simply there to ensure a fair fight.

The only reason to care about a boxing (or a DNC) official is when there's an occurrence of impropriety and/or clear bias, which was demonstrated in 2016 - which is really the only reason people care at all.

And in that context, they should care.



-->

over the race.

The DNC is, to Bernie, what the "deep state" is to Trump.

https://twitter.com/TomPerez/status/1225479350461632523
-----
A recanvass is a review of the worksheets from each caucus site to ensure accuracy.

The IDP will continue to report results.
-----

The IDP is not the DNC.

Keep that in mind, Bernie Bros, as you're connecting pieces of string all around your corkboards.

https://twitter.com/badler/status/1225503553202118657
https://twitter.com/badler/status/1225503746110709760
https://twitter.com/badler/status/1225504016160956416

receipts:
https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13364831&mode=full#13365114

and how sde's are being awarded. something the bernie campaign might have gamed or at least benefited from (they specifically targeted these satellite sites).

https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1225494446206279686
https://twitter.com/tylerpager/status/1225494859085119490

https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299448974249985
https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299512568274950
https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299570441228288
https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299683318300673
https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299725630550017
https://twitter.com/spinons/status/1225299759239442432

this shit is too complicated for me so ima prolly bow out at this point. let these caucuses die a necessary death. itll be better for elections in the future (assuming we still have them).

with Maine already looking at the front door. And they're talking about online caucuses now? Just die already.

i think for just absentees and military right now. but even still.

i dont see how anyone can watch elections unfold the last 3 years and still be like 'lets make them even less secure and more fuckupable'.

i have no idea why we cant just do pen and paper like the less corrupt western democracies.

Black Hawk County lead official had to take to social media to explain how their totals were significantly different than the state party's results, and was frustrated as to why his results hadn't been reported (even days after their tally was complete).

Also, has anyone explained how in the world Deval Patrick (who didn't even campaign in Iowa) was suddenly getting 5, even 6%? lol.

This is going to require a thorough audit and analysis as to exactly what went wrong - and why.

-->

>This is going to require a thorough audit and analysis as to
>exactly what went wrong - and why.

both in the party infrastructure and in the primary process itself.

The Iowa Caucus should go extinct after this week. If Iowa still gets to retain its FIN status - it should shift to a simple primary system. I'd also push for Nevada, South Carolina, Iowa & New Hampshire to vote on the same day - which would feature both geographic and demographic diversity in a bundled FIN vote.

-->

>I'd also push for Nevada, South
>Carolina, Iowa & New Hampshire to vote on the same day - which
>would feature both geographic and demographic diversity in a
>bundled FIN vote.

such a relatively inconsequential and unrepresentative state like iowa shouldnt have the type gravity/influence it does by being the singularly first state.

im ok with tradition. but once that tradition works *against* the party (like the percentage of 1st time caucus goers dropping from year to year) then it defeats the purpose.

the amount of time and money people have to spend there starting like a year in advance...only to be forgotten in the next week...is ridiculous.

“While I fully acknowledge that the reporting circumstances on Monday night were unacceptable, we owe it to the thousands of Iowa Democratic volunteers and caucusgoers to remain focused on collecting and reviewing incoming results.

Throughout the collection of records of results, the IDP identified inconsistencies in the data and used our redundant paper records to promptly correct those errors. This is an ongoing process in close coordination with precinct chairs, and we are working diligently to report the final 54 precincts to get as close to final reporting as possible.

Going forward, we are fully committed to the integrity of the preferences expressed by dedicated, passionate, and fervent Iowa Democrats. This caucus opened new opportunities for accessibility that were never available before – including over 1,500 caucusgoers attending satellite caucuses in senior living centers, Mosques, and overseas, and first-of-their-kind Spanish language and hand sign sites. This process will not be complete until we honor them.

Since the beginning of the process, we have taken unprecedented steps to gather redundant reports to ensure accuracy of all underlying data. The IDP is nearing completion in collecting redundant materials from all 1,756 precincts, including hand-collecting materials from all 99 counties which are securely stored in Des Moines.

Should any presidential campaign in compliance with the Iowa Delegate Selection Plan request a recanvass, the IDP is prepared. In such a circumstance, the IDP will audit the paper records of report, as provided by the precinct chairs and signed by representatives of presidential campaigns. This is the official record of the Iowa Democratic caucus, and we are committed to ensuring the results accurately reflect the preference of Iowans.”

The Iowa Democratic Party has 48 hours to respond to a valid, written, request for recanvass. Any request for recanvass must include the scope and credible explanation of the reasons of the request.

-->

https://twitter.com/KatrinaNation/status/1225434519643316225
-----
Tulsi Gabbard in New Hampshire/ Gabbard’s emphasis on transforming US foreign policy gives her campaign an appeal that cuts across party lines—and defies traditional definitions of left and right. via @thenation

https://t.co/ImSABNdxBJ
-----

homegirl got 15 total votes in iowa (less than bloomberg who wasnt even officially on the ballot) and theyre talking about her appeal that cuts across party lines lol.

Tulsi abandoned Iowa - just like Patrick. Yet somehow Patrick magically was getting significant results in Iowa (although apparently that was in error now lol).

But Tulsi will likely finish top 5 in NH - and I'd expect for her to make a decision shortly after N.H. as to who she'll support in this primary.


-->

>But Tulsi will likely finish top 5 in NH - and I'd expect for
>her to make a decision shortly after N.H. as to who she'll
>support in this primary.

But admittedly it would take a pretty remarkable surge to overtake Amy. So top 6.

-->

Top 6? Didn't you even watch the fucking Chris Rock film???


Top 6?

I think I'll take it all the way to the convention...

She certainly did better than Kamala & Beto - who y'all syced for months.

Question for the Bloomberg boys: How's he doing?
-->

they consistently polled better than her and raised more money. and they will both have a political career when this is all over.

they dropped out when they figured they didnt have a shot at winning (like most serious politicians).

tulsi just stuck around longer because she doesnt care about actually winning. and she trashed her political career in the process.

Kamala & Beto had all the advantages (from both donors, the party itself, and public perception) - yet they both flamed out unceremoniously. Kamala even claimed she couldn't afford to continue (financially) when other teams ran superior campaigns with a fraction of her budget.

Also - both Beto and (especially) Kamala were regarded as front-runners (by even you yourself) - yet never came even close to living up to the bill.

With regards to where the candidates were charted to perform at the onset, there's no doubt that both Kamala & Beto got out-performed by lesser names and opening acts.

>tulsi just stuck around longer because she doesnt care about
>actually winning. and she trashed her political career in the
>process.

We'll see about that. Your predictions do not age well, so excuse me if I don't put much stock in this one either.

-->

yang gang been mad quiet since those results started rolling out.

might be one of the bright spots of the iowa caucus.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/06/yang-fires-dozens-of-staffers-after-iowa-debacle-111611

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

Mellencamp is going to deliver that "lawnmower dads with 23 year old daughters named Madisyn who can't find the right balance between ironic and sincere when they sing 'Jack and Diane' at karaoke with their boyfriend who is an aspiring professional gamer" demographic.

And I got like 1/3 of the way writing that terrible joke until I realized that it was probably real and we're all going to die.

https://twitter.com/johnmellencamp/status/1225102646857650184

John Mellencamp
@johnmellencamp

I was born in a Small Town. And I live in a Small Town. But the reality is, Small Town America is disappearing. And
@MikeBloomberg will fight for them. https://youtu.be/0uNLM8Hxas0 via
@YouTube

#mikebloomberg #johnmellencamp #smalltown

WHEN HAS BLOOMBERG EVER FOUGHT FOR 'THE LITTLE GUY' NOT NAMED MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

Where the FUCK did this endorsement come from? Why is The Coug throwing his hat into this now? Did they pay him off?

Bruce Springsteen clearly wasn't available for that coveted #smalltown endorsement. I bet you he's a fucking human garbage Bernie Bro.

>Bruce Springsteen clearly wasn't available for that coveted
>#smalltown endorsement. I bet you he's a fucking human garbage
>Bernie Bro.

"Fucking human garbage Bernie Bro Springsteen has been calling women 'little girl' in songs for over forty years and writing fascist patriotic anthems like 'Born in the USA' which Ronald Reagan used on the campaign trail"

This part awoke my inner Commie Che

"Some who are wealthy will call me a traitor to my class. But that’s what they called Franklin and Theodore Roosevelt. Like them, I’ll wear the label as a badge of honor — and I’ll use the new tax revenue, an estimated $5 trillion over 10 years, to invest in America in ways that reduce inequality, strengthen the middle class and restore faith in the promise of the American dream."

but then here:

"That is what leadership is all about: bringing people in both parties together to get results. Over my 12 years as mayor,"

LET ME STOP YOU RIGHT THERE YOU BILLIONAIRE FUCCBOI

Wow. I really hated reading that.

He seems to me the administratively competent, polite fascist that Trump has been foreshadowing. He participates in the proper liberal gestures while absolutely squeezing the life out of poor and working people and any real working class movement. And he owns his own media company. That does political reporting. And which announced alongside his candidacy that they didn't intend to investigate any of the democratic candidates, including their boss, Michael Bloomberg.

I'd be curious to hear him explain how he envisions the job of "president" in a way that doesn't also describe "feudal lord."

Absolutely fuck this monster.

Let's put the myth of the 'Good Billionaire' to bed, number one.

Number two, as soon as Bloomberg came out apologizing for stop and frisk OUT OF NOWHERE I knew this vague 'thinking of running' was going to solidify into a real campaign. The problem is that the public has turned against the practice and general sentiment has been against it for a few years now. To come out and apologize for instituting and enforcing stop and frisk so far after it became unpopular, to hit the right notes, apologize in the right communities, and look so earnest in doing so, all to expressly place himself within the current socio-political sphere of today's Democratic party is really some sociopath shit.

>He seems to me the administratively competent, polite fascist
>that Trump has been foreshadowing. He participates in the
>proper liberal gestures while absolutely squeezing the life
>out of poor and working people and any real working class
>movement. And he owns his own media company. That does
>political reporting. And which announced alongside his
>candidacy that they didn't intend to investigate any of the
>democratic candidates, including their boss, Michael
>Bloomberg.
>

>Number two, as soon as Bloomberg came out apologizing for stop
>and frisk OUT OF NOWHERE I knew this vague 'thinking of
>running' was going to solidify into a real campaign. The
>problem is that the public has turned against the practice and
>general sentiment has been against it for a few years now. To
>come out and apologize for instituting and enforcing stop and
>frisk so far after it became unpopular, to hit the right
>notes, apologize in the right communities, and look so earnest
>in doing so, all to expressly place himself within the current
>socio-political sphere of today's Democratic party is really
>some sociopath shit.

Shocking that people aren't more afraid of him.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

https://youtu.be/c-KPPNwh6FM

Lol I’m dying.

Patrick? Maybe this is how he got to be featured in the CNN town hall tonight despite being rock bottom in the polls?

This is ugly.

-->

after coming in even with a 38 year old small-town mayor in a low-turnout caucus.

Nah, not Trumpy at all!


Also, when is he gonna bring all that votah turnout he keeps promising? Isn't the idea that he'd bring out masses of new voters supposed to be the ENTIRE argument for his political strength? And now he's claiming a 'decisive victory' over a 6000 vote lead in one particular measure of the popular vote?

https://media.tenor.com/images/107f7a7e224abcad6e8141bfc17d0e84/tenor.gif

have a lot to do with whether there is an incumbent POTUS or not? couldn't find comprehensive numbers quickly but 2008 was a record setter, 2012 down, 2016 set records and 2020 has been down. having both parties going at it would, i think, drum up participation all around

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-high-in-the-2016-primary-season-but-just-short-of-2008-record/

Overall primary turnout was high in 2016, because the Republican turnout was way up. Donald Trump was doing the thing that Sanders has never succeeded at doing.

But Dem turnout in '16 only significantly beat '96 (Clinton reelection, obviously turnout was low), '00 (Gore v Bradley; I voted Bradley but the race didn't last long), and '04 (The nomination when we HAD to beat George W Bush. So there's an encouraging parallel.)

We only have one contest so far this cycle, but in that one we're down even from 2016.

>https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/10/turnout-was-high-in-the-2016-primary-season-but-just-short-of-2008-record/
>
>Overall primary turnout was high in 2016, because the
>Republican turnout was way up. Donald Trump was doing the
>thing that Sanders has never succeeded at doing.
>

i appreciate the figures. but be cautious reading too much into turnout tea leaves. seems to me trump hit them with obama 08 level hype, sorta thing hillary was never going to do coming off 8 years of president obama. sanders hasn't been in obama 08 or trump 16 position before: coming off 8 years of 'the bad guy in charge'.

It's an excuse for when he loses. "Turns out people weren't mad enough about Donald Trump. The voters failed to give me the high turnout that I promised I'd deliver."

If the central argument for his campaign is that he'll ignite 'massive voter turnout,' and repeatedly fails to even reach high voter turnout, then he has no argument.

Like I can hear your keyboard keys slamming through my speakers.
I'm starting to not believe you when you say you'd vote for him if he was the nominee lol

We're fucked at a time when we can least afford it. It's not a happy situation. Is Pete Buttigieg gonna be the guy we put up against Donald Trump? He seems to be the best politician we have left. There's a campaign slogan.

We're fucked, in part, because of the cannibalistic behavior that Sanders has built his entire persona around.

The only argument Sanders has ever made about how he could win a general election is that he'd excite a huge number of first-time voters. But he's never done it. He's winning with the first-time voters, but he's not significantly increasing their numbers. He never has, but it's still his argument. People talk like he's a phenomenon because he has so many small-dollar donors. But the actual number of distinct donors is negligible compared to the number of voters you need in a general election. I'm offended, in part, by the basic innumeracy that we have to exhibit to take him seriously.

I look at Sanders as a polite Trump. Only has one note. Plays only the hits at rallies. Simplistic, extremish positions. Plenty of people hate him. Plenty love him.
I.e. wholesome Donald Trump.

Around this time in 2016 Trump was tearing the Republican party in half. He was turning off "moderate Republicans". There were big name Republican never Trumpers.
If that wasn't cannibalistic, I don't know what is. And he won. So inter party chaos doesn't bother me.

I think Sanders' big personality is a valuable asset at a time like this. Someone loud and wrong but speaks with passion and conviction. I don't think a policy wonk (Pete or Warren) can win in this current environment. People will come around if they need to, just like they did for Trump. I hope.

I don't love him, but I think he's a tool that has a decent chance to get the job done.

Sanders can exploit people's reflexive (and I think justified) distrust of billionaires.

Trump can exploit people's reflexive racism and xenophobia.

Which of those wins out?

Sanders has promised to upset the US health care system in precisely the ways Republicans (falsely) claimed Obama would. And that disinformation over health care basically cut off Obama's ability to make any laws at year 2.

Trump has found a way to run on Obamacare (without the name), even while he's actively trying to dismantle it. A candidate who was running on preserving Obamacare might be able to call him out on it. A candidate who's running on the platform even Trump knows is too dangerous, could not.

On issue after issue after issue, what Sanders promises, Trump can exceed.

Maybe there's no such thing as a candidate who could beat Trump. I don't know. But I've never found an argument for Sanders the least bit convincing, against a real Republican, or against a fascist like Trump.

politicians overpromise, it's what they do.

The problem is that he doesn't overpromise as well as Trump does. The premise we're discussing here is one where Sanders tries to campaign like Trump. My point is he's not a good enough liar to win with that strategy. Nobody is, so I don't think that should be anyone's strategy.

institutional scorn for decades and people generally like him. you want your perfect wonk demographics-in-the-palm-of-his-hand candidate? or you want bernie vs trump. you are caught up in the weeds. he's the guy.

On one hand, I could see either/both of them going the Beto route.


Then again, Amy is still there so Sherrod probably would be.


Mitch had some heat from the statue thing, can give a good speech, and kind of looks like the Commish. Hell, that last point has to be worth 2 or 3 polling points.

I have to believe he or at last his people are looking at Pete thinking "this fucking guy?!?"


Curious if you still think Pete isn't a serious candidate? Do you think surrogates could help him in areas?

Probably because I'm losing hope in Biden and Warren (not that I've fully given up on either).

I haven't watched many of Pete's speeches, but he seems almost as skilled at the practice as Obama was. That's not the only thing Obama brought to the table, of course, but it was such a crucial skill for Obama, and one that contrasts so well with Trump, that we really should keep it in mind. With Biden the best I could say is "he's not so bad when he has a teleprompter." Bernie's a good speaker if you already like him. I can report that he's almost as grating as Trump is if you don't like him.

And Pete does bring some other factors to the table. Youth really could be a good thing (it will definitely help him in the primary, not as certain in a general against a professional bully). The idea of a gay president will be exciting to many (and infuriating to many, so that might be a wild card). The fact that he served in the military (just reserve, but he did go to Afghanistan) is a plus for a lot of voters (though he will be swiftboated). And while he doesn't have much political experience, he is highly educated and highly competent. A Rhodes Scholar. If he's open to expert advice, which he seems to be, I think he could be a really good president.

Still, it's really far from the ordinary to jump from small-town mayor to president. And the fact that he's not been on the scene means we have no idea what unexpected things might come up. I highly doubt he initially thought of this run as anything other than a way to raise his profile, maybe set the stage for runs in 4 or 8 years, maybe a cabinet appointment, maybe a VP spot. He honestly might have thought "Joe Biden will need someone young on his ticket." I think a lot of Dem senators and governors will be kicking themselves if we settle on the 38 year old. Then again, Kamala gave it a run, Gillibrand, Booker, Castro. There's no reason to think necessarily that Brown or Landrieu or any other obvious name would have a better chance of catching on than them. And I doubt either one of them thought either Biden or Sanders was unbeatable. They could have jumped in at the stage when Deval Patrick did (and who knows, maybe he can find some traction in the states he's been running in). Maybe the whispers about skeletons might be right. I'm sure by now all the people who've bowed out are seething over every little strategic blunder -- if they'd stuck around longer we might have been able to come around to them.

At this point I'm not thinking "no dem can win." Really what I'm thinking is "at this point it's Trump's race to lose." If the next recession finally arrives, then any Dem would win. If "the fever breaks" and a few people who voted for Trump finally start seeing through his bullshit, then any Dem would win. And if Dem GE turnout happens to come like it did in 2018, and if Trump isn't able to excite the kind of turnout that he did in 2016, then any Dem would win decisively and we might even (briefly) hold the senate. As far as Dem strategy, I think the only way to do that is obamacare obamacare obamacare. Relentless reminders that preexisting conditions are covered now because of democrats, and that whatever he says, Trump is actively working to end that. Pete (or Biden, if he's up to it) seems like the best one to make that case.

>Probably because I'm losing hope in Biden and Warren (not
>that I've fully given up on either).
>
>I haven't watched many of Pete's speeches, but he seems almost
>as skilled at the practice as Obama was. That's not the only
>thing Obama brought to the table, of course, but it was such a
>crucial skill for Obama, and one that contrasts so well with
>Trump, that we really should keep it in mind.

I don't think he is touching Obama on speeches, but in interviews he comes across calm, intelligent, etc. And I do agree that having a candidate who contrasts with Trump would better than just our version of him.

I like Bernie, but I can wee why people wouldn't. While I personally really like the idea of Bernie calling him a spoiled brat to his face, I'm not sure how the yelling and stuff would play.

Pete has also mastered working Christianity into things. I think its fake as shit but people could fall for it.


>
>And Pete does bring some other factors to the table. Youth
>really could be a good thing (it will definitely help him in
>the primary, not as certain in a general against a
>professional bully). The idea of a gay president will be
>exciting to many (and infuriating to many, so that might be a
>wild card). The fact that he served in the military (just
>reserve, but he did go to Afghanistan) is a plus for a lot of
>voters (though he will be swiftboated). And while he doesn't
>have much political experience, he is highly educated and
>highly competent. A Rhodes Scholar. If he's open to expert
>advice, which he seems to be, I think he could be a really
>good president.

I think his inexperience is actually a perk these days. I know you disagree, but I think America loves an outsider. I'm mostly thinking about his chances of winning, I'm not even pondering a Pete presidency.

But saying vague shit like "We need to change Washington" plays.

I also wonder how Trump bullying a vet would play, but then again he gets away with fucking everything.

I do worry about the gay thing- not just for his chances but for his own sake, honestly. I could see that getting really ugly.

My biggest worry about his chances (again, I'm only talking about Pete winning. Some around here will read this and think I'm a Pete fan. I'm not....just thinking about winning)

is I have my doubts that he could enlist enough lets just say moderates to make up for people who WOULD be turned off by his wine cave candidacy, his sexuality, his lack of experience, and whatever dirt they dig up.

In other words, I'm worried it would all add up to a loss.

Because I'm bored and like to armchair this shit, who do you see as a VEEP for him?



>
>Still, it's really far from the ordinary to jump from
>small-town mayor to president. And the fact that he's not been
>on the scene means we have no idea what unexpected things
>might come up. I highly doubt he initially thought of this run
>as anything other than a way to raise his profile, maybe set
>the stage for runs in 4 or 8 years, maybe a cabinet
>appointment, maybe a VP spot. He honestly might have thought
>"Joe Biden will need someone young on his ticket." I think a
>lot of Dem senators and governors will be kicking themselves
>if we settle on the 38 year old. Then again, Kamala gave it a
>run, Gillibrand, Booker, Castro. There's no reason to think
>necessarily that Brown or Landrieu or any other obvious name
>would have a better chance of catching on than them.

I don't think he did either, I think he had his eyes set on VP.

Anyway, that's why I bring up a guy like Mitch because Pete catching on like he has seems random as hell to me.

When I compare his rise to Booker's fall, I think white privilege plays a huge part of course. But I also think Dem's thirst for a midwestern candidate also plays a part, which is why I wonder if Mitch could have caught on due to being from the south, being an "oustider", and giving a great speech.

(and again, I'm just brainstorming people's chances of winning and he was on CNN the other night)

And I
>doubt either one of them thought either Biden or Sanders was
>unbeatable. They could have jumped in at the stage when Deval
>Patrick did (and who knows, maybe he can find some traction in
>the states he's been running in). Maybe the whispers about
>skeletons might be right. I'm sure by now all the people
>who've bowed out are seething over every little strategic
>blunder -- if they'd stuck around longer we might have been
>able to come around to them.

Right. It really is odd how quickly some of them faded, but Pete lived on.

>
>At this point I'm not thinking "no dem can win." Really what
>I'm thinking is "at this point it's Trump's race to lose." If
>the next recession finally arrives, then any Dem would win. If
>"the fever breaks" and a few people who voted for Trump
>finally start seeing through his bullshit, then any Dem would
>win. And if Dem GE turnout happens to come like it did in
>2018, and if Trump isn't able to excite the kind of turnout
>that he did in 2016, then any Dem would win decisively and we
>might even (briefly) hold the senate. As far as Dem strategy,
>I think the only way to do that is obamacare obamacare
>obamacare. Relentless reminders that preexisting conditions
>are covered now because of democrats, and that whatever he
>says, Trump is actively working to end that. Pete (or Biden,
>if he's up to it) seems like the best one to make that case.
>

I've never hoped for a recession in my life until now.

>I look at Sanders as a polite Trump. Only has one note. Plays
>only the hits at rallies. Simplistic, extremish positions.
>Plenty of people hate him. Plenty love him.
>I.e. wholesome Donald Trump.
>
>Around this time in 2016 Trump was tearing the Republican
>party in half. He was turning off "moderate Republicans".
>There were big name Republican never Trumpers.
>If that wasn't cannibalistic, I don't know what is. And he
>won. So inter party chaos doesn't bother me.

Republicans are far more loyal and show up to the booth no matter what.


>
>I think Sanders' big personality is a valuable asset at a time
>like this. Someone loud and wrong but speaks with passion and
>conviction. I don't think a policy wonk (Pete or Warren) can
>win in this current environment. People will come around if
>they need to, just like they did for Trump. I hope.

I don't know about this either. I imagine there could be "loud and wrong" fatigue.

This isn't just a Bernie criticism. One of the many reasons I think Biden would be a bad candidate is his style/gaffes/etc.

I agree the Dem candidate needs passion, but I am really skeptical of how effective two old dudes yelling at each other can be for us. Folks will probably just get fed up and stay the fuck home.

I caught boy wonder on Colbert. I can see the appeal on a superficial level. He's a calm, smart dude, who kind of sort of a little bit talks like Obama.

If I didn't know anything about his record, his campaign, or anything- I'd look at him as a breath of fresh air.

This isn't an endorsement of Pete as the candidate, because I can't stand him honestly. But if I try to be objective, I can see the appeal on a superficial level.


>
>I don't love him, but I think he's a tool that has a decent
>chance to get the job done.

I'm a much bigger fan of Bernie than Strav, and I would guess you. I just can't picture him winning the general.

>The only argument Sanders has ever made about how he could win
>a general election is that he'd excite a huge number of
>first-time voters. But he's never done it. He's winning with
>the first-time voters, but he's not significantly increasing
>their numbers. He never has, but it's still his argument.
>People talk like he's a phenomenon because he has so many
>small-dollar donors. But the actual number of distinct donors
>is negligible compared to the number of voters you need in a
>general election. I'm offended, in part, by the basic
>innumeracy that we have to exhibit to take him seriously.
>

innumeracy? and then you run that analysis? ha. charitably, you were mailing it in a bit there, no? pretending 1 distinct donor = 1 vote and no more! is a bit dense

>pretending 1 distinct
>donor = 1 vote and no more! is a bit dense

Did you see me say anywhere that he needs as many donors as he needs votes? That would indeed be a stupid argument.

What I DID say was that one number is *negligible* when compared to the other. Negligible, meaning: you can't use one to reliably estimate the other.

If you want to get slightly more technical about it, the deeper problem is that the conversion would rely on a large multiplier, which is highly uncertain and varies a lot from one candidate to another. Just because the donor number is 'big' (by some arbitrary standard unrelated to votes), does not mean that his eventual vote number is 'big' (by a totally different, and much higher standard). The former, while big, is negligible compared to the latter. The argument that lots of donors implies lots of voters, is unsound.

By now we have plenty of empirical data on what the multiplier is for Sanders. We've seen him raise money from historically large numbers of donors for five years now, and we still haven't seen him get the high voter numbers he's promised in a primary or a caucus. In pundit language: he hasn't been able to turn his donors into votes, something Barack Obama succeeded at and Pete Buttigieg might be succeeding at (we have too little data on Buttigieg to know for sure). In the case of the Iowa caucus (admittedly a bizarre system, but one that actually favors a fervent supporter base), Bernie's multiplier really might have been of order 1, and that should be terrifying.

He's a symbol of most of the Democratic party's worst and most self-defeating instincts.

Attacking supporters of other candidates at every opportunity, constant smearing, name-calling (never-ending "Bernie Bro" rants), self-serving grand-standing and threats of voting 3rd party (you said you'll vote Bloomberg over Sanders if Bloom runs as an Independent) to stop the nominee even if it means re-electing Trump.

Wildly, a second Trump term seems peculiarly more palatable for you than a Sanders nomination.

You've become the ultimate Bernie Bro.

-->

>Attacking supporters of other candidates at every
>opportunity,

I never said we shouldn't attack bad or destructive candidates.

>constant smearing,

Just Bernie. I have mixed feelings about everybody else and I've made that pretty clear.

>name-calling (never-ending
>"Bernie Bro" rants),

I only started the "Bernie Bro" thing very recently, and only because the contingent of strongest Bernie supporters here (you, reaction, Bignick, SP1200, Walleye I guess) really do tick all the boxes, and behaved in the way we'd expect Bros to behave in the Sanders/Warren dustup.

>self-serving grand-standing

Wait, which one of us was it who made a long post cherry-picking facts to claim clairvoyance on how the Iowa Caucus would turn out?

>and threats
>of voting 3rd party (you said you'll vote Bloomberg over
>Sanders if Bloom runs as an Independent) to stop the nominee
>even if it means re-electing Trump.

I did not say if it means reelecting Trump. Would it constitute grandstanding for me to quote myself? "That is, if the third-party Bloomberg started beating Bernie in the general election polls, which I assume he would."

In that scenario, Sanders becomes the spoiler, not Bloomberg.

>Wildly, a second Trump term seems peculiarly more palatable
>for you than a Sanders nomination.

Maybe you're projecting here. In historical terms, a failed Sanders presidency is more damaging for the progressive movement than a failed Trump presidency. But that's the kind of if-if-if thinking that the Bernie Bros indulge in. We don't live in historical terms. In the here and now, Trump needs to be removed. Period. And *that* is the fundamental reason I don't like Sanders. He's the least-equipped person to do that.

>You've become the ultimate Bernie Bro.

Did I accidentally say at some point that Elizabeth Warren, who actually did the academic research that formalized much of modern progressive economic thought, should drop out of the race so that her voters can go over to Bernie Sanders, as if she co-opted her life's work from him? I don't think I did that. If so, I apologize.

>I never said we shouldn't attack bad or destructive
>candidates.

Of course, you are the arbiter of who is "bad" and "destructive" - especially because your predictions have been predictive only in one way: they're predictably wrong. So I'm glad you're actually reading predictions from analysts who are more accurate in their forecasts.

>>constant smearing,
>
>Just Bernie.

Gosh, that's equitable.

In historical terms, a failed
>Sanders presidency is more damaging for the progressive
>movement than a failed Trump presidency.

Only in the world where someone is fortunate enough to not have to deal with the consequences of a second Trump presidency. Perhaps you do not suffer any immediate consequences of this Administration, but many don't have the luxury to take such an abstract position to where they convince themselves a Trump re-election may actually be *better* for them than a Sanders administration.

But please tell us more about this crystal ball that you use to where you just *know* how irreversibly damaging a Sanders administration would be.

>>You've become the ultimate Bernie Bro.
>
>Did I accidentally say at some point that Elizabeth Warren,
>who actually did the academic research that formalized much of
>modern progressive economic thought, should drop out of the
>race so that her voters can go over to Bernie Sanders, as if
>she co-opted her life's work from him?

Nobody else did that either, but nice try. However, in retrospect, a time is coming where Warren may have to make that decision. Perhaps you can e-mail her local field director and make the case as to why she needs to coalesce with Bloomberg now to top Bernie because he's "more dangerous to the Progressive movement than Trump", according to our Bloomberg Boy over here. Please let me know how that goes.


-->

>
>>I never said we shouldn't attack bad or destructive
>>candidates.
>
>Of course, you are the arbiter of who is "bad" and
>"destructive"

Yes, when I'm deciding who to criticize, I make a decision about who I think is "bad" or "destructive." Do you ask me who you're allowed to criticize?

>- especially because your predictions have been
>predictive only in one way: they're predictably wrong. So I'm
>glad you're actually reading predictions from analysts who are
>more accurate in their forecasts.
>
>>>constant smearing,
>>
>>Just Bernie.
>
>Gosh, that's equitable.

No it isn't, and that's the point. Am I supposed to pretend that all candidates deserve the same amount of criticism? Are you really gonna go with the "Fox News: Fair and Balanced" argument? When's the last time you "smeared" Bernie or Tulsi?

Those of us who might seem to criticize Bernie more than others do it because we think he's earned more criticism than others. Maybe because he's "worse" in some way, maybe just because the stakes are higher for him. You disagree. Good for you. You're welcome to make your case. It's not my fault that you're not very good at it.

>In historical terms, a failed
>>Sanders presidency is more damaging for the progressive
>>movement than a failed Trump presidency.
>
>Only in the world where someone is fortunate enough to not
>have to deal with the consequences of a second Trump
>presidency.

Yeah, that's what it said in the rest of the paragraph that you chopped off. You really think you can misdirect me about precisely what I JUST said?

>But please tell us more about this crystal ball that you use
>to where you just *know* how irreversibly damaging a Sanders
>administration would be.

Oh, thanks for the interest, but I talk about that all the time! Also, I just found out that I'm supposed to criticize all the candidates equally. I really need to get to work on Michael Bennet!

>>>You've become the ultimate Bernie Bro.
>>
>>Did I accidentally say at some point that Elizabeth Warren,
>>who actually did the academic research that formalized much
>of
>>modern progressive economic thought, should drop out of the
>>race so that her voters can go over to Bernie Sanders, as if
>>she co-opted her life's work from him?
>
>Nobody else did that either, but nice try. However, in
>retrospect, a time is coming where Warren may have to make
>that decision.

What makes you think she'd want her supporters to go over to Sanders? What makes you think she'd trust him to co-opt her ideas? Yes, they're both "progressives," but Warren is an academic, while Sanders didn't even like going to school and now rants about the "elites" like an openly anti-intellectual Republican. Maybe Warren's more interested in having her supporters go over to, I dunno, Pete.

But MAYBE, maybe there's more to why she's running than just the fact that certain people say she sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders. Maybe she's her own candidate, making decisions based on her own movement, which is NOT Bernie's movement or anybody else's.

Hope your tireless mission to sow division in the primary and make character assessments of people on the internet you don't know works out for you.

-->

>I only started the "Bernie Bro" thing very recently, and only
>because the contingent of strongest Bernie supporters here
>(you, reaction, Bignick, SP1200, Walleye I guess) really do
>tick all the boxes, and behaved in the way we'd expect Bros to
>behave in the Sanders/Warren dustup.

I've never made any argument personal with you, not like this.

(that's what the "I guess" was for)

I honestly think there's more to how you think about these things than there is to someone like Vex or reaction. And I'm not always sure what to make of the other guys, because they're not as vocal.

So yeah, I apologize on that.

Still, is "Bernie Bro" such a stinging epithet? The way we all talk to each other around here, a cliche like that is hurting people's feelings?

You "make it personal" about me on a regular basis. It goes with the territory. We all know each other and we critique each other. That's just how it works in these threads of 10 or 20 people making 400 posts.

>You "make it personal" about me on a regular basis.

You're using "Bernie Bro" here as a way to smuggle in accusations of racism and sexism. I'm perfectly happy to be called out when I need to un-fuck my language, so just dropping that in there without pointing to some specific offense is fucked up. I've been posting here for twenty years and I know a number of people on this board personally, so stuff like that matters to a degree. If you're going to try and slide in accusations of sexism and racism from some posts about politics on a message board, you should have to show your work.

>>You "make it personal" about me on a regular basis.

https://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=4&topic_id=13362000&mesg_id=13362000&page=3#13362156

Implying that I'm generally an elitist (which I am, but you meant it as a criticism). And the thing about the "unsettling feeling" around the same time that you were repeatedly arguing that only psychopaths think they're qualified to be president.

But yes, I edited and added an apology.

I also honestly never meant to imply (even to the extent that I'd call you a Bernie Bro, which I hedged from the original post) that Bernie Bros are always racist or sexist. Bros are bros in a whole variety of ways. I've always seen it more as a statement of cultishness than anything else. I've accused Vex of sexism specifically, but he quite honestly earned that.

I knew I'd articulated that poorly at the time. When you said that, you identified a feeling I'd had before (for a far stupider reason, for a far better candidate) which was along the lines of:

"I'm pretty sure that (candidate) isn't even as qualified to be president as I am, and I'm sure as hell not qualified to be president."

That's the feeling I understood as disquieting. Like, what if I woke up and were suddenly president? I would rightfully freak out because that seems like a complete disaster and now this (candidate) is in there going "elect me!"

>I also honestly never meant to imply (even to the extent that
>I'd call you a Bernie Bro, which I hedged from the original
>post) that Bernie Bros are always racist or sexist.

Fair enough.

Now, if you really want something to dig in on me with, I'll tell you the manifestation of that "disquiet" that I had, which is much less legitimate than yours: Al Fucking Gore

Which is hilarious, because when the sea rises and boils and we're all loaded into ranches so Trump's sons can hunt us for sport, we'll probably look back on the 2000 election as the one that actually killed (simultaneously, even) American democracy and the environment. But Al Gore went to Vanderbilt Divinity School (which I turned down) to study the same thing that I did and apparently, was quite bad at it. My lizard brain in 2000 couldn't possibly get comfortable with:

-somebody who went to Divinity School becoming president
-somebody who did worse than me in Divinity School being president

Again, entirely stupid. But "disquieting" is what it was. Like the transitive property for elections: if I'm too stupid to be president and this guy tried the same thing as me and was somehow stupider, he cannot be president.

And to clear up one more point that I've apparently made poorly: I believe thinking you're qualified to be president is fine. It's a pretty spectral notion anyhow. What makes somebody a sociopath is wanting to be president at all. The sheer power of the United States over the lives of billions of people makes the statement "i should be in charge here" morally insane to me. That sentiment may also be worthy of scorn, but it isn't quite the same thing.

Many interesting points here, but I don't have time to reply in detail.

I think we understand each other better now.

Thanks for calling me out on it.

so now he is going scorched earth in 2020.

He's far from the only reason. And he's more a symptom than the cause. But I won't dispute your characterization.

in 2016.

Hell, even Trump's own internal pollsters thought so.

Probably the *only* candidate we could've run (out of Sanders, Clinton, Warren, Biden etc..) in 2016 that would lose to Trump was the one with historic unfavorables that was force-fed to us: Hillary Clinton

Not surprisingly, that's who Strav thought was the strongest candidate positioned to defeat Trump.


-->

and she got more votes.. lol.

I just thought she was so unlikable it was obvious it wasn’t going to be a slam dunk.

not even a layup.

but she ain’t practice at all the last few weeks before game time.

Edit: Added some more info I found interesting re: 2nd alignment and demographics

State Delegate Equivalents (Counts)
==========================
https://results.thecaucuses.org


State Delegate Equivalents (Percentages)
=========================

1) Buttigieg 26.2%
2) Sanders 26.1%
3) Warren 18.0%
4) Biden 15.8%
5) Klobuchar 12.3%


Electoral Map (light green is Buttigieg, light blue is Bernie)
==============
https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/iowa


Top 5 1st alignment (raw vote count) *source:https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/iowa
===================
1) Bernie Sanders 43,671
2) Pete Buttigieg 37,557
3) Elizabeth Warren 32,533
4) Joe Biden 26,384
5) Amy Klobuchar 22,469


Top 5 2nd alignment (raw vote gains) *source:https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/iowa
===================
Edit: I did this over because it turns out Biden did worse here than Steyer lol. Also, excluding anyone that received less than 1000 votes on 1st alignment (Gabbard, Bennet, Patrick) because their 2nd alignment losses would be a bit misleading in comparison to the others

1) Pete Buttigieg +5368
2) Elizabeth Warren +2238
3) Bernie Sanders +2155
4) Amy Klobuchar -1288
5) Tom Steyer -2670
6) Joe Biden -2693
7) Andrew Yang -7041


Pretty much a statistical tie, but Buttigieg did eek out with 0.1% more SDEs which is the relevant unit. Even if he hadn't tho: not a bad performance at all for a dude who started this effort with a staff of like 3-4 people (including himself and a childhood friend lol) and like near zero name id or war chest or mailing list or expansive donor network to start with. That's pretty cool. Will be interesting to see how future races pan out.



Edit: Found this article with some interesting demographic info:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/02/pete-buttigieg-iowa-win.html

Last week in Iowa, former Vice President Joe Biden explained why Democrats should nominate him for president. “Some things are just a self-evident contrast,” he told reporters, taking a dig at Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana. “I’ve gotten more than 8,600 votes in my life.”

That was a reference to the relatively small population of South Bend, where Buttigieg won his first election with fewer than 11,000 votes and his second with barely 8,500. Biden was raising a legitimate question: Why should Democrats entrust their nomination to the 38-year-old former mayor of a minor city? Why should they believe that Buttigieg, in a race against President Donald Trump, could perform as effectively as Biden?

On Monday night, Buttigieg answered that question. He crushed Biden in the Iowa caucuses. As of Wednesday morning, with more than 70 percent of precincts reporting, Sen. Bernie Sanders was narrowly leading the popular vote, thanks to big margins in left-leaning parts of the state. But Buttigieg, by assembling a broad coalition of progressives, moderates, suburbs, and small towns, was winning the “delegate equivalent” count—Iowa’s version of the Electoral College. Biden was clinging to fourth place, behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren and barely ahead of Sen. Amy Klobuchar, with fewer votes than Buttigieg won in his two elections in South Bend.

In the wake of this drubbing, it’s fair to ask Biden’s question in reverse: Is Buttigieg the stronger candidate? For Democrats seeking an electable nominee, is Buttigieg the safer bet?

There are reasons to be skeptical. Iowa is just one state. It’s Midwestern, like Buttigieg, and it’s very white. In raw numbers, Sanders won the most support at the caucuses, and he’s leading the polls in New Hampshire. Biden still leads the field in national surveys, and he has generally outperformed other Democrats in matchups against Trump. But the Iowa entrance polls and caucus results make a case for Buttigieg, not Biden, as the candidate who can fend off Sanders and take down Trump.

Several candidates, including Biden and Klobuchar, have promised to beat Trump by building a coalition that reaches beyond the left. But in Iowa, Buttigieg proved that he can put together that kind of coalition. He won decisively among caucusgoers who called themselves “somewhat liberal”—a segment that represented more than 40 percent of attendees—and he tied Biden for the lead among moderates. Among independents, he trailed Sanders but outpolled Biden. As of Wednesday morning, Buttigieg was winning 60 of Iowa’s 99 counties. Sanders had 18 counties. Biden had seven.

Buttigieg did well in nearly every demographic. He was the first choice among women and the second (behind Sanders) among men. He was the first choice among people ages 45 to 64, the second choice among those ages 30 to 44, and—contrary to expectations—the second choice among those ages 17 to 29. He came in first among caucusgoers who had college degrees and second among those who didn’t. He also performed better than expected among nonwhites. Sanders won that constituency easily, but Buttigieg, at 15 percent, led the pack of candidates who trailed behind.

On issue after issue, Buttigieg was either the favorite or second favorite candidate. Among caucusgoers who cared most about health care, he tied for the lead with Sanders. Among those who cared most about foreign policy, he came in second to Biden. Among those who focused on electability, he tied for the lead, drawing 24 percent to Biden’s 23 percent. Sanders got 31 percent of first-time caucusgoers, but Buttigieg was next with 25 percent. In precincts where supporters of marginal candidates had to disband and move to a second choice, the candidate they chose—twice as often as any other candidate—was Buttigieg. He won by being broadly acceptable.

Sanders did well, but he lost nearly half the people who had caucused for him in 2016. He also didn’t generate the extra turnout he had promised. And Biden grossly underperformed his polls, falling below 15 percent in many precincts—the threshold at which a candidate’s supporters have to disband—contrary to his advisers’ predictions. On most issues and among voters younger than 45, Biden came in fifth, behind Warren and Klobuchar.

Few Democrats are excited about Biden. Among caucusgoers who cared more about candidates’ positions than about electability, only 5 percent chose him. He’s been propped up by high name identification, endorsements, his association with former President Barack Obama, and a general feeling among Democratic voters that he stands the best chance of beating Trump. But if he can’t beat the former mayor of South Bend and two senators who were stuck in an impeachment trial, maybe he’s not the safe bet.

Update, Feb. 6, 2020, 1:30 p.m.: Since I published this piece, Iowa has released more results. Accordingly, we have changed the headline from “How Pete Won” to “How Pete Beat Joe.” Nothing in the article has been changed. As of this update, with 97 percent of precincts tabulated, Buttigieg had 26.2 percent of state delegate equivalents, Sanders 26.1, Warren 18.2, and Biden 15.8.

they both get 11 national delegates right?

like ive said, this tie is a "win" for pete. no one expected him to do this well.

i still think this results helps bernie the most, biden's fall (if it continues) definitely benefits bernie the most. i see him building momentum.

pete has a real chance to build momentum too.

give me a reason to be hopeful for warren though.

And it pains me to say that because I think she would be the best president and, with the right VP, be the best at uniting the left/Dems.

I don't know if there are any important endorsements out there that could give her a boost?

Honestly I think her campaign needs some consulting or some shit. Any ex Obama campaign people looking for a gig?

I'm nervous...

And anyone who doesn't want candidate Pete should be imo.


I think if this thing starts to look like Bernie vs Pete, you'll see a lot of Dems rally around Pete. Probably even Obama, which could certainly help his demos. And the media loves Pete too.

the news of her shrinking her ad buys is troubling. first real sign that she is starting to run out of money. i wanted to donate last night but im not sure i have much of a cushion to do so right now.

i really hope she finds a way to connect with people tonight.

They have no standing outside of Iowa as it pertains to the nomination.

Both Sanders & Buttigieg leave Iowa with 11 delegates. That's a tie.
But if there's any other meaningful stat to indicate who actually "won" - it would be pointing to the fact that Sanders won ~6,000 more votes in the Popular Vote. That's a significant amount of votes in a multi-candidate race in a smaller state (with relative low turnout) -where 5 candidates score in double digits.

Had this been a Primary (which the overwhelming majority of states are) - it'd be a decisive Sanders win.

-->

everybody knows im hard on bernie. but if hes gonna be our nominee (which is looking increasingly likely) then i want him to be the strongest nominee possible.

general disclaimer: this is only one state (with a volatile/exclusionary election format). it may end up being nothing or end up being something. but its worthy of discussion.

one of bernies strengths is supposed to be bringing out young and first-time voters. however the percentage of first-time caucusers fell *10%* from 2016.

https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/1224521988003246080
-----
Compared to previous years in Iowa, there has been a big dip in participants attending a Democratic caucus for the first time, @NBCNews Entrance Poll shows.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EP5gQi3XUAAeu55?format=jpg&name=small

https://t.co/fuRxJSQ6Cy
-----

another one of bernies strengths is supposed to be winning back those disaffacted obama/dem voters. but...

https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/status/1225778931686572032
-----
Iowa has more Obama-Obama-Trump counties than any other state -- 31 of its 99.

In the '16 caucuses, Clinton won 16 of them and Sanders won 15.

As of now, Buttigieg has won 21 of them, Sanders 7, Klobuchar 2 and Biden 1.
-----

so young voters or first time caucusers failed to come out in force for bernie (or anyone really) and p booty blew bernie out in those swing counties that dems want to get back in the blue column from the obama years.

head to head with p booty...

both of them spent nearly identical amounts of cash in iowa ($10.8 mil for bernie, $10.5 mil for pete)
https://s.abcnews.com/images/Politics/200203_abcnl_iowac_iowa_spending_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg
(lol @ steyer)

one of bernies strengths is supposed to be nabbing some of those small town and rural voters that 'establishment' dems traditionally cant pull. but bernie drew 28% liberal voters and only *11%* moderate/conservative. p booty drew a near even split with 20% liberal and 22% moderate/conservative.
https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2020_06/3214891/iowa_ideology_vcomp_a4937d57c9f14ff07a8c10c2692f205f.fit-760w.png

so bernie with national name id on par with biden/trump...and a carryover organization/infrastructure in the state from a 2016 prez run (where he tied clinton)...spent the same amount of money as the lesser known p booty...failed to produce a surge of young/first-time voters...lost handily in trump counties that previously voted for obama...and failed to appeal to mod/conserv voters at the level his closest competitor appealed to liberal voters.

iono fam.

if that young energy aint there...he aint winning back those deserting white working class voters he covets...and he isnt appealing to the broad ideological range of dem voters as much as p fucking booty lol...that doesnt concern anyone?

Because I've already made my opinion very well known, but it's a subject worthy of serious discussion.

to make me believe he would do great in the general if hes the nominee.

i thought bernie had other weaknesses. but if he aint even knocking down the things i thought were slam dunks for him...then we got some serious problems.

.

(1) Iowa & New Hampshire are among the two oldest states in the country. Sanders thrives in states with younger, more diverse populations (He dominates the under 35 vote both geographically and demographically). Large swaths of the "new-voter" electorate will come from states with younger populations

Iowa & NH are also both +90% white. Sanders dominated the non-white vote in Iowa (beat Biden in every metric), and has real advantages in states with low white populations.

All that being said, he *still* won Iowa (or at the very least tied) - despite it being far more designed for a candidate like Buttigieg, who has regional advantages (South Bend), features an essentially all-white support base, and appeals to older voters who are mostly moderate.

I actually think Iowa speaks to the strength of Sanders - not the weakness.

(2) Definitely some interesting and valid points on this enigmatic Obama-Trump voter. That's where Sanders will really need the help of the Democratic Party - to attract the Clinton-Kerry-Biden voter *and* still appeal to enough Independents to win some of those Obama-Trump voters back who the party lost in 2016.

But clearly - the Sanders strategy is to appeal more to disaffected voters, first-time voters, young voters, and non-traditional voters than it is to try and corral the center/center-right.

Given the changing generational/demographic dynamics of electorate in 2020 (Millennials now comprise as much of the electorate as Boomers) - I think that may be a wise bet. But we'll see.

The real test will be Super Tuesday - where we get a more aggregate picture of where the votes are trending based on a more representative sample-size of the country. But even before we get there, Sanders will likely be in the strongest position of them all after Iowa, NH, South Carolina & Nevada.




-->

>everybody knows im hard on bernie. but if hes gonna be our
>nominee (which is looking increasingly likely) then i want him
>to be the strongest nominee possible.
>
>general disclaimer: this is only one state (with a
>volatile/exclusionary election format). it may end up being
>nothing or end up being something. but its worthy of
>discussion.
>
>one of bernies strengths is supposed to be bringing out young
>and first-time voters. however the percentage of first-time
>caucusers fell *10%* from 2016.
>
>https://twitter.com/NBCPolitics/status/1224521988003246080
>-----

Damn, not a good sign.

>Compared to previous years in Iowa, there has been a big dip
>in participants attending a Democratic caucus for the first
>time, @NBCNews Entrance Poll shows.
>
>https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EP5gQi3XUAAeu55?format=jpg&name=small
>
>https://t.co/fuRxJSQ6Cy
>-----
>
>another one of bernies strengths is supposed to be winning
>back those disaffacted obama/dem voters. but...
>
>https://twitter.com/SteveKornacki/status/1225778931686572032
>-----
>Iowa has more Obama-Obama-Trump counties than any other state
>-- 31 of its 99.
>
>In the '16 caucuses, Clinton won 16 of them and Sanders won
>15.
>
>As of now, Buttigieg has won 21 of them, Sanders 7, Klobuchar
>2 and Biden 1.
>-----
>

What ? 7 damn

>so young voters or first time caucusers failed to come out in
>force for bernie (or anyone really) and p booty blew bernie
>out in those swing counties that dems want to get back in the
>blue column from the obama years.
>
>head to head with p booty...
>
>both of them spent nearly identical amounts of cash in iowa
>($10.8 mil for bernie, $10.5 mil for pete)
>https://s.abcnews.com/images/Politics/200203_abcnl_iowac_iowa_spending_hpMain_16x9_992.jpg
>(lol @ steyer)
>
>one of bernies strengths is supposed to be nabbing some of
>those small town and rural voters that 'establishment' dems
>traditionally cant pull. but bernie drew 28% liberal voters
>and only *11%* moderate/conservative. p booty drew a near
>even split with 20% liberal and 22% moderate/conservative.
>https://media4.s-nbcnews.com/j/newscms/2020_06/3214891/iowa_ideology_vcomp_a4937d57c9f14ff07a8c10c2692f205f.fit-760w.png
>

The Bern is getting beat on his own turf by a rookie.

>so bernie with national name id on par with biden/trump...and
>a carryover organization/infrastructure in the state from a
>2016 prez run (where he tied clinton)...spent the same amount
>of money as the lesser known p booty...failed to produce a
>surge of young/first-time voters...lost handily in trump
>counties that previously voted for obama...and failed to
>appeal to mod/conserv voters at the level his closest
>competitor appealed to liberal voters.
>
>iono fam.
>
>if that young energy aint there...he aint winning back those
>deserting white working class voters he covets...and he isnt
>appealing to the broad ideological range of dem voters as much
>as p fucking booty lol...that doesnt concern anyone?
>
>

That's bad sign. The rest of this race will be interesting.

Interesting that so many who - month after month - swore up and down that Biden was the strongest candidate - have already abandoned him after just one (poorly run) Caucus.

Lot of panic and uncertainty out there from those forever scrambling to identify the horse they want to bet on to top Sanders.

-->

Almost like people aren't focused on defeating Trump and more interested in a horse race and popularity contest.

>Almost like people aren't focused on defeating Trump

If the focus is on defeating Trump, backing Buttigieg (who hasn't performed as well as several other candidates against Trump in head-to-head polls) is going to carry the day?

Fascinating strategy.

-->

They want their guy to win, so they will often switch guys. (Ladies are guys in that last sentence.)

It's why the media focus is no counter productive.

We didn't Iowa "results" for 4 days and all that really change was people ability to brag about a win for a few days.

That's what people are butthurt about "Pete spoke too soon" or "Bernie was robbed of a speech." And being robbed of a speech definitely hurts when the voters will switch based on nothing but poll results (and not on policy positions of thinking about how the candidate will do against the incumbent.)

I'll vote for ANY of them in the general - but there's a large group of people (Bernie supporters I'm looking at you) who will vote ONLY for their guy. If Bernie isn't the candidate I fully expect at least 50% of Bernie people to vote for a dog or Jill stein or just stay home.

It's what the republicans are counting on.

At least that was the narrative a week ago. Wouldn’t they want Bernie to lose so people “stay home”

I’m starting to think voters will stay home regardless of who wins because they aren’t really hurting that much.

Trump is an ass but the bills are paid and their belly is full.

because they are stupid.

need to maximize the utilization to get my moneys worth.

Vote for Trump to maximize the utilization.

They want the least electable Democrat to be the nominee.

AND

They want the other candidate supporters to not ultimately support nominee.

And judging by the Bernie bros I've talked to IRL they won't vote for anyone except bernie. They call Biden SCUM, they say Pete is being paid off by billionaires, they say Hillary is trying to stop them, they say the Democratic Party is against them.

I think they are shitheads - but again, I will vote for Bernie if he's the nominee.

They will destroy Bernie in large areas by simply playing clips of Bernie saying he's a "democratic socialist."

Forget what Bernie means when he says it - and imagine the people who are terrified of socialism.

That's my prediction - we'll see what happens.

Pete is 38 and Gay - pretty easy to go after him too with the Goobers all over the country.

Biden is the toughest for them - but don't worry - the Bernie and Pete people (and the Yang and Gabbard folks) will spend more time trying to destroy him than the Republicans will.

the only thing the Trump obsessed media doesn't talk about is this https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/25/only-one-i-didnt-want-her-pick-secret-recording-trump-admits-fear-clinton-picking

You said the GOP wants to sow division in our party.

You also claim Bernie Bro’s won’t vote for anyone but Bernie.

So why in the fuck would the GOP want Bernie as the nominee? Bernie adds his loyal cult bro’s along with the rest of the Dems and it’s a wrap for Trump.

Unless you are suggesting Bernie getting the nomination means other Dems will stay home and not vote... which basically kills the Bernie Bro’s ain’t shit argument.
———
Now I can see how they would want Pete to win. That would sow division. Just seems like some of y’all can’t make a post without bringing up the Bro’s... lol.

https://twitter.com/mattklewis/status/1226496463749943297?s=21

1) >I'll vote for ANY of them in the general

2) >If Bernie isn't the candidate I fully expect at least 50% of Bernie people to vote for a dog or Jill stein or just stay home.

Uh. Then vote for Bernie.

>there's a large
>group of people (Bernie supporters I'm looking at you) who
>will vote ONLY for their guy. If Bernie isn't the candidate I
>fully expect at least 50% of Bernie people to vote for a dog
>or Jill stein or just stay home.

More Clinton supporters in 2008 voted for McCain (15%) than did Sanders voters in 2016 who voted for Trump (12%). Further, Gary Johnson siphoned more of the Trump vote off in 2016 (with 3% of the vote) than did Stein to the Clinton vote - as she only accrued 1% of the vote.

Sanders voters in 2016 supported the eventual nominee at a higher clip than did Clinton voters in 2008. So this notion that Sanders voters are all going to vote third-party, vote Trump - or not support the eventual nominee has become a myth which lacks actual statistical credence.


-->

and 1 for Klobberchar.

This is all modulo any recanvasses that the campaigns might request, though you'd think they would have requested it by now if they were planning on it.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/iowa-officially-gives-buttigieg-largest-delegate-count-followed-closely-sanders-n1132531

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/482267-sanders-campaign-to-request-partial-iowa-recanvass

The debacle never ends.

-->

and with good reason: There remains egregious errors, inconsistencies, and blatant conflicts of interest in the administration of the Caucus itself.

Here's what we know as of now:

*After Iowa inexplicably awarded the extra national delegates to Buttigieg, the Sanders campaign requested a partial recanvass: https://thehill.com/…/482267-sanders-campaign-to-request-pa…

*It was confirmed that the company that developed the app (Shadow Inc.) features former Hillary for America high-level staffers/managers - and some of them (including the CEO) have direct associations with Pete Buttigieg's campaign: https://www.nytimes.com/…/poli…/ap-us-election-2020-app.html

*The Black Hawk County Chair in Iowa had to publicly call foul on the Iowa Democratic Party for "mistakenly" awarding Sanders delegates to Deval Patrick - who didn't even campaign in Iowa: https://www.democracynow.org/…/iowa_caucuses_bernie_sanders…

*This is how much each of the active campaigns donated to Shadow, Inc. — the app-developer for the Iowa Caucus.
Buttigieg: $42,500
Biden: $1,225
Klobuchar: $0
Warren: $0
Sanders: $0

Source: http://FEC.gov

*Mayor Pete's campaign spent an additional ~$90k on various Dem PACs and nonprofits in Q4 of 2019, including to 14 local Iowa Dem Party committees (including Black Hawk County) and two NAACP chapters in Nevada: https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1226369469468921858…

*The IA State Party Chair (Troy Price) is the former IA Leader for Hillary's Campaign. Under his leaderhship, Iowa Democrats won’t correct errors on caucus tally sheets: https://www.chicagotribune.com/…/ct-nw-nyt-iowa-caucus-erro…

*Nevada was also tapped to use this faulty app (developed by Shadow, Inc.) in its Caucus. Despite the debacle in Iowa, The Nevada Democratic Party nonetheless has hired a paid Buttigieg organizer (Emily Goldman) to be their “Voter Protection Director”: https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1226607764727791621…

The conflicts of interest here are as clear as they could be - and there's been little effort to (a) correct the errors and inconsistencies in the Iowa Caucus; and (b) hold accountable the bad (and clearly biased) actors that have compromised the integrity of our elections.
-->