Place your bets!
Today is the Caucus. Choose your win, place, and, if appropriate, show in the comments.
I don’t know about you, but I haven’t made a decent prediction yet this election cycle.
Jaybird
Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com
I’ve been wrong about freaking everything so far this cycle. For one, I thought that the Republicans would nominate a former governor. Can we tell the difference between “here’s what I think will happen” and “here’s what I want to happen” at this point?
Anyway:
Republicans:
1. Trump (by, like, one freaking point)
2. Cruz (I demand a recaucus!)
3. Rubio
Democrats:
1. Bernie
2. Clinton
3. That Other Guy I Forget Who He IsReport
Hillary is going to destroy Sanders. 70/30.
I think Cruz is going to pull it off at 29% to Trump with around 25% with Rubio at 17% or so. I expect Paul to surprise by beating Carson for fourth.
Huck will leave the race and endorse Trump.Report
You really think Hillary has the slut vote that locked up?
(by slut, we mean men who are thinking with other portions of anatomy rather than their heads)
… manipulating caucuses is a fine art, ain’t it?Report
It will be funny if, at the end of the day, the caucus is decided by little more than logistics, phone banks, and the team that shows up with more baked goods (“join us, we have cookies!”).
If that’s the case, yes. Hillary has a ground game machine that will chew through Bernie like John Kerry through Howard Dean.
And I imagine that Trump’s ground game sucks. SUCKS. He’d need Jeb Bush’s team to come in third. To come in fourth.
If everything made sense, that is.Report
Ground game’s important, but it’s as much made up of boobs as anything else.
Don’t discount the underdog’s ability to … motivate throngs of college students to show up wearing skimpily clad shirts and shorts in February.Report
Rs:
Cruz 28%
Trump 26%
Rubio 20%
The rest: who cares?
Ds:
Clinton 55%
Sanders 43%
Carcetti: 2%
The two things that could shake up the current narrative are:
1. Trump drops into third on the Republican side: Rubio probably gets a big wave of establishment support
2. Sanders wins: legitimates him as a candidate who can win and almost ensures he takes New Hampshire as wellReport
Sanders win is possible but not so earthshaking. He has to face Nevada and South Carolina after the first two states and he polls horribly there. The first two states are packed to the gills with white liberals, Sander’s strongest constituency; he can’t ride that to the nomination.Report
Plenty of places white/liberal enough to get Sanders votes… he just has to get there. Still, if Hillary decides to fight a bloody war, I don’t see Sanders getting the nomination. Proportional representation’s good that way.Report
He’s not getting the nomination if he just wins Iowa, New Hamshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and that family grouping of states Kimmie; he won’t even get close. There aren’t enough people there.Report
Obama ran up the score in places like Montana and Colorado… that long March of caucus states out west after Super Tuesday.
Caucus favors the determined and the devout, much more than primaries do — the caucus is such a lower turnout affair. Liberals love to turn out and vote, much more than the conservadems (please note: most of this is actually currently explainable by economics… I have no doubt that if the Conservadems had more childcare/money to not be working during the caucus, that they’d be out in force too).Report
Obama also punted on Michigan and Florida due to the cut of the delegate count. Clinton probably had the advantage in Michigan, but Obama would have won Florida if he thought it was worth it.
Clinton was, for all those intensive porpoises, mathematically eliminated pretty early in 2008, which then was the controlling factor in both side’s strategy running up to the final hail mary pass by Ickes to get Michigan & Florida back to full strength.Report
Yes, definitly, she was overconfident and wasn’t paying attention and her the mind meltingly idiotic Penn was running things and didn’t even fishing know how the various states apportioned their delegate counts. I see no indication, however, that she’s making the same error this go round.Report
I agree. That’s why Bernie has no chance, over the stretch.Report
Hillary won’t be conceding the caucus states to Sanders, you can be sure of that.Report
You can say many bad things about hillary (I’d say the same about GWB, for the same reason — that “virtue that isn’t” called loyalty), but she’s not making the same mistake twice.Report
Sanders will tighten the polling gap in later states naturally by improving his name recognition. Winning Iowa would maximize this benefit and suggest that he’s on the right side of the turnout battle.
I still expect Clinton to show the Republicans what an establishment candidate is supposed to look like as she buries him under waves of fundraising, endorsements, and clockwork organization, but whatever chance he has of winning the nomination more or less requires that he win Iowa.Report
I agree entirely with your analysis except for the first sentence. He could easily win both of his early states and see little benefit for the later ones. Iowa and New Hampshire are simply unrepresentative of the majority of the country and especially unrepresentative of the majority of the Democratic Party’s national constituency.Report
Not bad on the Republican side, if I do say so myself.Report
Iowa: Clinton 51%, Sanders 48%, O
Mally 3%.
Republicans: I honestly have no idea. A Trump win or a Cruz win is interesting primarily in a “can the establishment hurt Cruz as much as they want to?” way but the big question is Rubio: If he finishes in the high teens or ekes out a second place finish then he’s probably going to win the nomination. If he gets low teens or single digits then all someone had better remove all sharp objects from Reince Priebus’s office and make sure he’s never alone in a room.
I’m predicting Cruz wins, a strong 2nd place for Rubio and Trump dissapoints with a third place finish just because I have never been convinced Trump is real.Report
The issue here is that O’Malley supporters are required to place their lot with HRC or Sanders if O’Malley goes lower than 5 percent. This could give HRC or Bernie a victory. iIrc O’Malley supporters go for Sanders more.Report
I’ll bet Clinton 53/Saunders 47.
Trump for the Republicans, more out of a sense of trollish irony than anything else.Report
Anyone putting real money on these bets?Report
Trump wins both the Democratic and Republican caucuses, finishing in first, second, and third in both. He also wins the caucuses of the Whigs, the Anti-Masonic Party and the Freemasons, the Federalists, the Democratic Socialists, the Communists (by repudiating the Democratic Socialists), and the Pizza Party (to which he brings the keg). When the dust settles in Iowa, in perhaps the greatest electoral feat in human history, Trump will have won the general election 10 months before it takes place and will have been inaugurated immediately. America will be great again by Thursday.Report
Four more beers! Four more beers!Report
I don’t often wish for an upvote button, but when I do, it’s for comments like this one.Report
It was really well done.Report
I didn’t even notice the pun, because I was distracted by the idea of more beer.Report
Well, on this, at least, we agree.Report
Such is the magic of Trump.Report
Trump wins yuge.
Trump 27
Cruise 21
Ruby Red (Unbelievable!)19
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DK8ednS0skQ
Hilz over Berno by 1 pt.Report
Trump 26
Cruz 25
Rubio 18
Carson 8
Bush 5
Paul 4
Huckabee 4
Kasich 3
Christie 3
Fiorina 2
Santorum 1
—–
Clinton 50
Sanders 47
Carcetti 2Report
I predict that Trump will get all of the votes, so many votes that the vote counters will get tired of counting the Trump votes.
He will win so many votes that Hilary and Bernie will lose some of theirs.
He will be named President tomorrow.
[Bookmarking for told-you-so rights]Report
Chris beat you to it, sorry buddy.Report
Dang, I saw that.
[Bookmarked to congratulate Chris on his awesome Trump prediction, if President Trump doesn’t turn the Internet into Read-only vehicle for his twitter account]Report
Wonder if one handwritten letter could take that out too?Report
This sounds pretty legit.Report
“He wins caucuses where he isn’t even on the ballot… He is… The most interesting Trump in the world!”Report
I’m taking Denver and the points.Report
Manning is a yuuuuuge luuuuser!Report
Thus, the points.Report
Democrats
1. Clinton
2. Sanders (he’ll lose by a bit here but run the table in New Hampshire)
3. Is there someone else running?
Republicans
1. Trump (but not by a lot)
2. Cruz
3. Rubio
Boring and safe, I know.Report
I think you are on the money with this @zacReport
Aaaand…looks like I was pretty close. Yay me!Report
Clinton over Sanders by at least 3 points.
As for the GOP, I can’t decide — an utter flameout from Trump due to lack of a ground game OR a fairly solid (+5 or so) victory based entirely on the fact that his supporters seem pretty solid and angry, and angry people show up to complain in person.Report
Oddly, I don’t care whether Trump or Cruz wins, I just want Rubio to do badly, like 9% badly would make my week. Or if God(ess?) loves me if he places behind Carson, oh please oh please!Report
Don’t know what level you put EmailGate as a potential threat to the chances of your preferred nominee, but the further from zero-threat you place it, along with other hazards – major terrorist attack, economic catastrophe, assassination, aliens landing, Trump as Mule, etc. – the more you might want to hedge your bets and less you might want to favor “the most beatable because most obviously beyond consideration to people like me.”
In the words of GHWB, or Dana Carvey as GHWB, “Wouldn’t be prudent!”Report
Trump as The Mule is a tragically under-done metaphor this election.Report
If Trump is the Mule, does that make OurTod Hari Seldon?Report
Nope. Tod has been predicting Trump for some time and Seldon famously didn’t see The Mule coming. The psychohistorians are the political science everybody.Report
{{Has he? I recall a couple-few comments/posts explicitly saying Trump will NOT be the nominee…}}Report
Yes, it was to this I was referring in my analogy.Report
Tod didn’t have it exactly right, but The Party Belongs To Trumpism Now has been his song for quite a while and he did not see Trump in particular as a passing manifestation of the party’s ills (which was the most common view) but an important thing in itself (and one without a clear end).Report
This was what he wrote in August:
He doesn’t say in the OP that he’s really worried that Trump is going to win, but that’s definitely where he was headed: That the comfortable order would simply not re-establish itself. Which it hasn’t. There is still time for it to do so, but even assuming it does it wasn’t supposed to take this long. That’s something every psychohistorian knew.Report
Well, not a lot hinges on this issue, but the reason I remember him repeatedly saying that Trump will NOT!! be the nominee and will be done by next Tuesday!!! is because I teased him about it just as repeatedly.Report
I think that was his stance… until it wasn’t anymore. Which seemed to me to be the case back around August.Report
A flip-flopper, eh? 🙂
{{Also, I think he held that view later than August. I’d have to look for corraboration, acourse, but I’d say he held that view at least into early November, which is when my internal “tease meter” last registers a direct hit.}}
Alsotoo: is there a record of his actually saying that Trump WILL win? I’ve not read that.Report
He might have held that view later on, I’m not sure. But he was, by that point, accounting for the possibility of it happening in a way that Seldon never accounted for The Mule. When other people were arguing that Trump would come and go without much significance, Tod was saying from the start that Trump was significant (nomination or no).
Which, to take it back to The Mule, is very different. Seldon never accounted for The Mule at all. It was completely out of nowhere. Meanwhile, Trump fit like a glove into Tod’s view of the trajectory of events and the party.
So I think Tod fairly escapes the Seldon label.
Whether Trump actually gets the nomination or not isn’t of the utmost significance. Trump still hasn’t gotten the nomination and probably won’t get it. To go back to Asimov… even The Mule failed (ultimately).Report
Well, this is getting a bit silly, so I’ll end it with this. Tod never considered Trump’s nomination seriously (he pretty consistently said that Trump wouldn’t get it), but he DID argue that for the significance of Trump. But, unfortunately, along a strange trajectory. Here’s a post from the time-frame you’re referring to – August 27 – in which Tod says Trump won’t get the nom. (“He will not even be the Republican nominee”), in which he diagnosed Trumpism as follows:
What Trump’s candidacy has shown is that all that base really wants is someone to shout, act outraged, make fun of people who have more money/power/education than they have, and spout politically incorrect wisecracks about women and minorities on live television and Twitter.
I took him to task back in August for proposing this view, and it’s possible that THAT is the totality of significance Tod attributes to Trump’s candidacy currently. But if so I think he’s an outlier, and – to your point – misdiagnosed the significance of Trump back then.
But look, there’s nothing wrong with a person changing their mind. And nothing hinges on any of this.Report
You seem to be attaching a lot of importance on Tod believing that Trump won’t win the nomination and Trump winning the nomination.
I’m assuming that Trump does not win the nomination. Merely that he wrecked the process just as The Mule wrecked the expected order of galactic events.Report
No, I’m attaching importance to your words – that Tod has been predicting Trump for some time. He hasn’t. Either electorally or politically.Report
Alrighty. I think Tod’s writing from August holds up remarkably well. Especially compared to what else was being written at the time.
So if I’m looking for a Seldon, he isn’t it.Report
Forgetting the thing about Seldon, I strenuously disagree. So let’s agree to disagree, yeah?Report
FTR I remain unconvinced that Trump will be the nominee, strongly unconvinced though I have doubts that I didn’t have before.Report
I put his odds at about 25%, maybe 30%. Which would have seemed crazy in August. Beyond crazy.Report
I’m a sell at those numbers. I’d put his chances at 15% on my generous moments. That is up a lot from where I did have him. Honestly I’d like to be wrong on the matter. As I noted below as a partisan I’d consider Trump one of the least awful GOP wins the Presidency outcomes (and also the least likely).Report
Yeah, you’ve been constant on that prediction. We’ll see if you’re right!!
{{I’m hoping he gets it, but I can’t make a prediction. This is a GOP primary, afterall.}}Report
Well, I hate being right.Report
Don’t know what level you put EmailGate as a potential threat to the chances of your preferred nominee,
I think she’ll receive a severe beating about the head and shoulders about it, but that all on its own won’t sway voters, in my view (since we all fully expect the GOP to attack her over any-and-everything they can lay their PAC money on). The question, to me, is how well she handles the attacks, and she’s got a pretty poor track record at playing that type of game. And that’s especially the case given some of her on-record remarks about it.
Personally, sitting here right now, I don’t see how it doesn’t hurt her chances.Report
She came through the hearings on the matter with flying colors. It all depends on what/if that can find anything a lot more concrete than what they’ve found so far.Report
Which requires first there being something the GOP Congressmen in charge of the hearing didn’t see, unless we assume absolute incompetence.
They got it all, did they not? What’s going on now is FIOA requests to the public at large, as I understand it.Report
Morat,
Unfortunately, that’s wrong. Stickiness exists irrespective of the facts (and in this case the facts are slowly compiling…) and is only dispelled by playing that weird political game Reagan (for example) was so good at. Dude was Teflon.Report
Well, it’ll all be part of the grand marketing roll out come general time, but I’d be surprised if it hasn’t played a role already by tipping undecideds in Bernie’s direction. I know that in my own case it’s a knock against her.Report
Hell it’s a knock against her for me too. I’m not crazy and while I’m fond of Clinton I don’t adore her.Report
Yes. The Mule. That’s exactly who Trump is.
We went from knowing that it was going to be Bush vs. Hillary to not knowing *ANYTHING*.
I guess, tonight, we find out if Asimov put his thumb on the scale by having Seldon win anyway.Report
The problem is that, among the big three, their “chance of winning the general election” and “how much of a disaster would they be in office” is proportional.
Rubio is highest in all three, Trump lowest. At least among the top contenders.
Even Kasich (not disaster, no chance) and Bush (mediocre, mediocre) fit the pattern.
Carson (big disaster, no chance) is the outlier.Report
Heh. Nice analysis.
One quibble: I think Cruz would be the biggest disaster in the history of the known universe, including fictional ones.Report
I think that, in isolation, Cruz would be. I just get the feeling that Rubio is, while not really all that much less extreme, much better at getting people to go along with him, and better able to pick the fights he knows he can win while not looking bad for avoiding the fights he can’t.
Basically, he’d be 90% as bad, but 150% as effective at getting bad implemented.Report
Oh you must have missed this discussion I’ve had before. If I was informed that one of the current slate of GOP candidates would be elected President of the US of A and I had to pick who it would be I’d select Trump in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even hesitate.
He’d be embarrassing, ineffective and would fight with his own party about as much as he’d fight with mine. From my point of view that’d all be a good thing. I have no expectations that he could do a particularly material amount of harm to the country. His abilities to act in domestic policy would be hamstrung by a potentially hostile congress/senate and on foreign policy where he isn’t utterly incoherent he’s flat out dovish and isolationist.
Now “emailgate” is a tempest in a teacup as far as I can see. There’s a lot of angel on the head of pin debating going on about how atrocious or how inane it may be. The consensus seems to be that the Hillary hunters have a snowballs chance in hell of bringing actual charges against her and now that the media has maumau’d the matter to death I get the vibe that it’d take something on the level of actual charges to get anyone in the electorate who isn’t already dead set against HRC to pay the matter much more mind. So on a venal election level I am not particularly concerned though I grant that the uncomfortable part of the whole mess is the question of what unknown unknowns remain lurking in the wings.Report
I think this is a very short-sighted way of looking at it. If Trump becomes president, he becomes the leader of the party. Everything changes and realigns. As tempting as it might seem to say that “There’s really not that much daylight between Romney’s GOP and a Trump GOP” … I don’t think that’s even a little bit true.
Now, in the event that this occurs, from a political standpoint I become a Democrat so it becomes Someone Else’s Problem… except its not because one of the two parties is the National Front. That’s… not a good thing. Even if one thinks “Oh, it’s okay because the Democrats will always be winning then” relies on facts not in evidence.
A worst case scenario for this country is that as whites become a minority they start voting in solidarity like one. A Trump nomination – and worse yet, a Trump presidency – brings that possibility considerably closer to reality.
A lot of the giddiness at the prospect of a Trump nomination seems to assume that his support base will shrink over time because they’re so yesterday. I don’t see any particular reason to believe that’s actually true past an election or two. Even as things stand, the easiest way for Romney to have won in 2012 would have not been through the Hispanic vote or the black vote, but a rather modest increase in the white vote.Report
I’m not viewing this in the sweeping manner I think you’re ascribing to me. I’m simply looking at it in simple practical matters. Of all the GOP candidates the one least likely to simply rubberstamp decisions the GOP congress makes… is Trump. The one most likely to get very little done and least likely to roll back policies I support or enact policies I despise… is Trump. And certainly if he’s nominated the one most likely to lose in the General is Trump or Bush and I’d certainly love for Jeb! to get the nod but I’m trying to be plausibly realistic.
As to what Trump would do to the GOP and conservatives in general? It’s not really my problem, you’re spot on there. But they’ve been rank poison and cynicism since at least 2004 on. I’d rather they wear it rather than try and hide it under the standard GOP fan dance.Report
Be careful what you wish for. A party that tries to walk a line with the darkness is not the same as a party that embraces it.
Trump is more likely to lose in 2016 than any other candidate, but if the party goes Full Trump, that party will win eventually. And that party will make Dubya’s look good by comparison.
Everyone assumes that a reformed GOP trying to come out of the darkness is one that aspires to increase its share of Hispanics and such by softening their social views. There is a much darker path, that past the short term seems no less likely to me to succeed.Report
Ahh I gotcha. Yes there is that danger but I trump as more Dukakis than Hitler.Report
Seems foolhardy to me.
Trump strikes me as a Wild Card. So, we have to imagine tens of millions of our fellow citizens across the country voting for a Wild Card. We don’t know what his message and mandate would finally be, but we do know he’d be running as the nominee of a party that currently controls both the House and Senate and a majority of governorships and state houses. So, one temptation for him, or path of least resistance, might be to be enough of a “good Republican” and pass enough of their program to consolidate support, while choosing major, emotionally resonant elements of his platform to push for, keeping the True Trumpists behind him. The worse he did from his current supporters’ point of view, as in your favored scenario, the greater his temptation to focus on areas of executive responsibility – so, four years of a Wild Card Commander in Chief with building motivation to find a crisis not to waste. Maybe he’d be kept under control, but, even if he was hemmed in everywhere, the chances of a real crisis occurring would also remain. Even if we were luckier than in that scenario we deserved to be, it could still be a terrible four years for the country and not just this country – and then what?
I’m not in favor of a next four+ years that interesting politically. However, even though I do not rate any of the available nightmares as necessarily likely even in the unlikely event that he wins, or impossible if he doesn’t, I still rate the former as objectively more likely in the event of the latter. The day that the former conventional wisdom becomes conventional and wisdom again will be the day I will breathe a sigh of boring relief, and start looking for the next slouching beast.Report
Well yes but you’re conservative by inclination so you would not view the other candidates who have a 99-100% chance of simply rubber stamping whatever the House and Senate dream up with the horror I would. Compared to that, and taking into account their (with the exception of Ryan) collective inclination to have themselves an Iraq III I’d prefer to roll the dice with a Trump wild card presidency if I had to choose. When you factor that Trump is enormously more likely to crash and burn in the general than the alternatives rooting for him to prosper and sow further confusion in the degenerate ranks of the GOP is pretty slam dunk from my POV.Report
Well, let’s see:
1) Congressional Republicans had access to all of it, and spent 11 hours getting made to look like idiots over it. While you won’t go broke overestimating the intelligence of House Republicans, if there was a “there” there, they’d have used it gleefully rather than let themselves be made to look like idiots with nothing.
2) The public is inured, vaccinated if you will, against Clinton scandals because 30 years of “BIGGEST SCANDAL EVER” that went nowhere means nobody gives a flying f*ck anymore except Republicans. Boy who cried wolf. Seriously, she’s been accused of murder for Pete’s sake.
So I rate it low. There’s always going to be a Clinton scandal, because Republicans exist. Hillary could have an actual halo, a glowing endorsement by Jesus, and be followed by choirs of angels and the GOP would still insist she committed arson, treason, murder, and jaywalking.
The public, by and large, knows this. Claims of a Clinton scandal are geneally viewed with yawns of contempt, with one exception: The voters who would never, ever, ever, ever vote Democrat anyways. It is among that sub-group that you find people certain that this time, THIS TIME, the witch Hillary has finally been exposed. Sure, they’ve been wrong every other time for 30 years, but this is the gold ring fellows.
Remember: Bill Clinton got impeached, and his poll numbers improved and the GOP suffered massive electoral losses.Report
I think if there was something to emailgazigate even a stumbling idiot like darryl issa would have found it right? Not to mention the monomanical obsession of what 9 separate investigations?
Repeat after me. If the house and senate republicans could not actually find something there, maybe theres nothing thereReport
I honestly have no idea. Trump supporters are an enigma because they are usually non-voters. The question is whether Trump motivated them enough to show up and caucus. If not, I predict Rubio or a surprise victory for Kaisch because Cruz pushed everyone away with his mailer.
On the Democratic field the victory will be within the margin of error. HRC has the more likely caucus goers though.Report
Don’t predict Rubio Saul, oh God(ess?) my heart! I need a fainting couch.Report
1. Trump 30%
2. Cruz 27%
3. Carson 14%
4. Rubio 12%
1. Clinton 53%
2. Sanders 45%
3. O’Malley 2%Report
Meh,
http://blog.press.princeton.edu/2016/01/26/jason-brennan-our-relationship-to-democracy-is-nonconsensual/
“If you don’t vote or participate, your government will just impose rules, regulations, restrictions, benefits, and taxes upon you. Except in exceptional circumstances, the same outcome will occur regardless of how you vote or what policies you support.”Report
Oh, wait. This wasn’t about Super Bowl L.
I predict that FiveThirtyEight’s projections from this morning will be within a 3% margin of error as to all three Democrats and any Republican projected at 5% or more.Report
The very best thing that could happen for Rubio, down the line in this year’s contests, is to finish clear of the field, but not win the nomination. That way, he’s in the the driver’s seat to beat Clinton in 2020.Report
Potentially, yeah, he’s young enough to do it but there are risks. If Clinton wins and the economy keeps putt-putting up to and past full employment the GOP could get branded as the party of war and ruin and that’d complicate his race in 2020 pretty badly. Also, let’s face it, Clinton would be an ideal opponent for him to face right here and now. It’s probably a safe bet that the Democrats will have a younger different candidate in 2020.Report
HRC one and done? Hmmn, hadn’t considered that. If she does get elected and does decide not to run for a second term, is it ok to hope that her announcement not to run again will be under a “Mission Accomplished” sign?
Those are a lot of variables to weigh on where to not cast my symbolic vote.Report
Well if Obama is the Democratic Regan that’d put Hillary in the Bush pere role that, as a dogged trench warfare pol, she is very well suited for.Report
Trump and Clinton win.
Trump is just a guess. This will be his first test of going from a candidate that someone tells a pollster they like to someone actually going to a booth and pulling a lever, or a bar, or a chad, or a cow teat, or whatever the hell it is people pull in Iowa.Report
It’s a caucus rather than a primary, so there is more pushing than pulling of anything.Report
People? Buttons? Envelopes? Heroin? Cows, over?Report
People push for their candidate. Especially o the Dem side, but also the GOP side.
The Dems vote by physical placement. Republicans by a secret ballot.
My father caucused for Obama in 2008. The process he talked about seems similar to Iowa on the Dem side. Republican process more like a primary, but you can campaign for your guy and it takes a lot longer.Report
ropesReport
My understanding of a caucus race is everyone runs in a circle until the whistle, like roller derby. So pushing of people, presumably.Report
Musical chairs. In a caucus, at least the Iowan version, supporters of each candidate walk around until the music — usually Lee Greenwood’s “Proud to be an American” or Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” in the Republican, and Billy Bragg’s rendition of “The Internationale” in the Democratic — stops, at which point they rush for the chairs. In each round there are enough chairs for each candidate less one, and whichever candidate’s supporter fails to sit in a chair is out. It can be quite dramatic when it’s down to too, and each primary year there are no shortage of ass injuries in later rounds.
In the rare case that two candidates’ supporters are judged to have sat in the same chair at the same time, the tie is resolved by AR-15s at ten paces (Republican) and rock paper scissors (Democratic).
In all, it seems an entirely fair way to choose a candidate for the President of the United States, though in previous years there has been some grumbling about the unfair timing of music stoppage.Report
I have Billy Bragg’s Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards on one of my spotify mixes… and its there only semi-ironically.
Man, I’ve been waiting *years* to trot that out in context and get some Ordinary Times street cred.Report
Well, we know what we’ll be listening to tonight at Trump’s inauguration ball, in between Whitesnake sets at least.Report
Republicans
Trump
Rubio
Cruz
Okay, it’s probably just wishful thinking that Cruz will come in less than second but that guy makes my skin crawl and I’d love to see him humiliated.
Democrats
Clinton (by a small margin)
Sanders
O’MalleyReport
Nice performance by Bernie (essentially a tie, within less than half a percentage point between him and Hillary), and Trump loses on the GOP side. It’s been a better evening than I expected.
I don’t Bernie as having as good a chance in the long run as he did a few weeks ago (some of his supporters being assholes has likely sabotaged him definitively with the non-white vote, reducing his chances of winning enough support), but the first two states are looking good. Ugh. With backers like that, who needs enemies?Report
He needed commanding wins in both of these states, team Hillary isn’t going to loose too much sleep over him unless things start shifting heavily in SC and Nevada and I’m skeptical that they will.Report