Super Tuesday Open Thread

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

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109 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    All it took was some light spring cleaning:

    Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    I voted for Warren. I regret nothing.Report

    • Doctor Jay in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Likewise. I’m a bit surprised to hear of some of the people that are supporting Bernie, as in, “Wow, I never thought of Jaybird as a guy who would vote for Bernie”. But that, I guess, is what Bernie’s campaign is about.

      I think Warren should stay in the race as long as possible in case of strange contingencies:

      1. Bernie has another heart attack which is more serious and can’t be hidden.
      2. Bernie gets Covid 19 and is laid up.
      3. Biden gets Covid-19 and is laid up.

      She’s younger to begin with, and women of that age are generally a bit healthier than men.Report

    • North in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I looked at Amy on my ballot then sighed and voted for Biden. If only the ol fella wasn’t so old.Report

  3. I’ll vote after work, as usual.

    We had a fun mixup where my wife tried to mail my daughter (who’s away for a few months on an extended internship) her absentee ballot, but mailed daughter’s ballot in wife’s return envelope, neatly fouling both of them.Report

  4. Jaybird says:

    James Comey endorses Biden:

    Report

  5. Michael Cain says:

    I’ll bring my question from the other thread over here: Can Biden win anything in the West or NE urban corridor? I would worry about a candidate who is not the most popular anywhere in the regions that are the core of the party’s presidential and senatorial power. (I mailed my ballot for Warren early last week and have no regrets about it.)Report

    • This was being kicked around on Twitter as well. The reverse of this question is also valid — can Bernie win in the south and swing-states, which he will have to do to win in the general if he gets the nomination.Report

    • North in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Hmmm that’s an interesting question but I am scratching my head over it. Do we think Trump is in danger of flipping New York, a New England State or California? I mean I suppose I can see Colorado since it’s technically a really blue purple state. But if Joe is a weaker in traditional Democratic strongholds but is stronger in the mid west swing states and the southeast? That’s a deal the Democratic Party would probably want to take all day long. More electoral votes at a cost of a lower popular vote lead? Umm deal?Report

    • Brent F in reply to Michael Cain says:

      My understanding is that primary strength doesn’t really much correlate with the general. Which makes sense, they are two very different electorates.

      In any event, running up the score in the NE and coastal West rather than elsewhere where it was actually needed was exactly H. Clinton’s problem.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Okay. Biden’s easy. Start with the 2016 election map.

      Then twiddle the so-called “faithless” electors back to the real candidates. Sorry, Bernie Sanders, Colin Powell, Faith Spotted Eagle, Ron Paul, and John Kasich!

      I don’t know whether we want to fiddle with Maine, or not.

      Okay. That’s our starting state. Now we can fiddle about.

      Biden wins WI, MI, and PA! Hurray! He now has 278 votes. Let’s go home.

      Wait… the Beto guns thing. Let’s give Trump NH back. Well, Biden now has 274 votes. Good enough. Let’s go home.

      No problem.

      Unless Wisconsin goes back at which point we just say “well, give Biden Arizona” and we’re back to a good state.Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Michael Cain says:

      Biden polls a lot better in the Blue Wall states that Trump got than Warren or the other Democratic candidates. I think he can get a lot of mid-Western states like Illinois, Michigan, and Minnesota. He is a good choice for heavy African-American states.Report

  6. DensityDuck says:

    Someone On Twitter Said: the voters were really just waiting to vote for Not Bernie, and the primary season thus far was about determining who Not Bernie was going to be. Looks like it’s Biden.Report

  7. LeeEsq says:

    I voted for Biden. The fact that nobody believes him to be savior and that he will be an ordinary President is something that I think will be enormously psychologically healthy for the public.

    What I’ve noticed is that Warren fans and Sanders fans are basically mirror images of each other. They all dearly love their choice and can’t quite get why their preferred candidate is not doing well with primary voters. Many White Warren supporters, people I know in real life, are still doing the “Biden is a racist schtick but African-Americans are supporting him because they are pragmatic and know white people are racists/misogynists and deep down they really want to support Warren.” I’ve been arguing with them all day that African-Americans support Biden because they like him and believe he will be a fine President and that no white liberal is going to convince African-Americans that Biden, Obama’s loyal VP, is a secret racist.

    I don’t know why Warren fans and Sanders fans are having such a hard time dealing with Biden’s popularity among African-Americans. He has been developing close ties to the African-American community since he started his political career as a young man. During the 1980s he was a fierce opponent of Reagan’s friendly policies towards South Africa and called the Apartheid regime murderous, yet white college educated liberals can’t stand the man and believe he is really a neo-Confederate despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s frustrating that so many educated people can be so dense on this subject.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Part of Warren’s problem is the whole issue of compromising.

      Biden is the safe, centrist, middle-of-the-road, establishment candidate.
      Bernie is the pie-in-the-sky, I think everybody should have health care and live without college debt candidate.

      Warren is liberaller than Biden but not as socialist as Bernie (or, put another way, more pragmatic than Bernie but less of a sellout than Biden) and that can make the Bernie fans have fun by asking “oh, please pick the people that you don’t want to have health care!” and Biden fans can ask Warren about how much the woke outreach like the Black Womxn For endorsement helped.

      Bernie can run on the never compromising thing. Biden can run on the pragmatic thing.

      You can’t run on only being able to compromise a little, on things that don’t matter.Report

      • Brent F in reply to Jaybird says:

        Well, she could have done quite well if one of the two imploded and then she picked up the pieces.

        I think Warren had a plan and it was reasonable but it didn’t work if both front runners got into the race and stayed strong. This is a problem for her, but it was the same problem the rest of the field had, that everyone’s path to victory was Biden croaking and the old bastard refused to keel over for them.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Brent F says:

          She’d make a fine VP choice for Biden, I imagine. She’s doing well in the “attack dog” role against Bloomy.

          The only problem is that she’d sew up the Northeast which is one of the two areas that needs no sewing whatsoever.Report

          • Stephan Cooper in reply to Jaybird says:

            Biden’s VP is a special job. Its needs to be someone that potential supporters can be at least a little bit excited about voting for 4 years from now, whereas given her age this is Warren’s probable only kick at President before elderstateswomaning in the SenateReport

      • LeeEsq in reply to Jaybird says:

        Warren was attempting to Bernie Sanders for smart people. Its why her campaign never got off. She and Sanders had roughly the same ultimate outcomes they were going for but Warren would talk about monosopoly power while Bernie Sanders talked about bosses keep your wages low and exploiting you the max. Her entire “I have a plan” for it personal appealed to people who want a wonk President. So if you see yourself as smart and progressive, Warren seemed more natural as a choice than Sanders. Sanders had more of a gut level emotional appeal.Report

        • Chip Daniels in reply to LeeEsq says:

          As a Warrenista, this sounds about right, as is the observation that the difference for most Dems is just a minor quibble over who we pick to vote out Trump.

          I was in a car riding to a meeting today and heard a radio ad for Pete Knight, the Republican who is running in CA-25 and it was amazing to hear how ferociously he clung to Trump; in 30 seconds they managed to say 5 times how he voted with Trump 100% of the time.

          It just validates my sense that this election is really a referendum on Trump, for both parties. There aren’t really any issues or persuadable middles or canny positions, just a simple binary of whether you want more of this, or a change.Report

    • James K in reply to LeeEsq says:

      That’s my favourite thing about Biden. He’s not seen as a great saviour, there aren’t hordes of deranged Biden stans, he’s just a guy and hopefully that will result in people treating him like a president and not some kind of priest-king.Report

      • Brent F in reply to James K says:

        As a foriegner, i don’t have much of a horse in this race even if I follow it closely.

        But there is an appeal for me with you guys putting Biden in the White House because it seems to me you’re likely to be 20% less amped up and strung out on your own nonsense for a few years. That would be nice for the world in general.Report

        • PD Shaw in reply to Brent F says:

          This sounds like a challenge.Report

        • James K in reply to Brent F says:

          I’m not an American either, I’d just like to not have every news cycle filled up with whatever surreal nonsense the President is spewing forth today.

          Plus, government should be boring. Politics being interesting is a sign something has gone horribly wrong.Report

          • Brent F in reply to James K says:

            “Plus, government should be boring. Politics being interesting is a sign something has gone horribly wrong.”

            This is basically my country’s motto and its served us well when we could follow its advice.Report

          • Murali in reply to James K says:

            You know that Biden is liable to have his foot in his mouth constantly right? The question with Biden is whether it ever leaves his mouth. The news cycle will be filled with surreal nonsense the president says even if Biden wins.Report

      • LeeEsq in reply to James K says:

        Exactly.Report

  8. George Turner says:

    Wow. So much energy an enthusiasm in this thread. It’s like when you have too much to drink at the Shady Acres Retirement Home fall dance, notice that all the hot staffers have already left, and realize you’re going to end up drunkenly hitting on one of the residents.

    *I have never done anything remotely like that, but I couldn’t think of a more appropriate (or inappropriate) way to describe the amount of reluctant “settling” that seems to be going on. In contrast, most GOP folks will go to the polls feeling like they’re waltzing up to the unlimited shrimp and lobster bar with Melania on one arm and Ivanka on the other. This would be a complete reversal of the enthusiasm gap when the choice was McStain or RINO Romney vs. Obama the Mellifluous Light Bringer.Report

    • North in reply to George Turner says:

      Heh, funny, that’s kindof how I envision your average Maga supporter too: delirious with food poisoning from Trump brand shrimp and lobster (obviously well past its prime) and hallucinating about having an immigrant woman on one arm and her stepdaughter on the other while inveigling about immigrants and repeatedly telling themselves that Trump just patted their backsides because he liked their tush and it’s purely coincidence that their wallet isn’t in their back pocket anymore.Report

      • George Turner in reply to North says:

        If anyone is missing their wallet, Bernie must be working the crowd.

        Classic Bernie meme: “If I have $1 dollar, and you have $20 dollars, I have $21 dollars.”

        The Trump folks are highly enthused, and will stand in line all day by the tens of thousands just to attend one of his vast stadium rallies – where about 25% in attendance are registered Democrats.

        And perhaps the biggest evidence of the amount of enthusiasm came yesterday, when Ivanka changed her party affiliation to Republican! Trump has flipped Ivanka, so it’s all over for Democrats.Report

        • North in reply to George Turner says:

          Oh yes, Trump has cleared the “my wife will vote for me” bar. Truly an impressive accomplishment.Report

          • George Turner in reply to North says:

            Not his wife, his kids! I don’t think even the great Ronaldus Magnus managed to do that. Ivanka was a lifelong Democrat, darling of New York fashion circles, and close friend of Chelsea Clinton. It wouldn’t surprise me if Chelsea ends up voting for Trump, too, especially considering how much her mom despises Bernie and lacks respect for Biden.Report

            • North in reply to George Turner says:

              Well when you’re bilking as much cash out of them as Ivanka does it seems only fair that she wear their sticker.Report

              • CJColucci in reply to North says:

                The enthusiasm gap is overrated. An enthusiastic voter’s vote counts for exactly as much as a “he’ll do” voter’s vote. Enthusiasm matters only if it affects turnout. However meh the Dems feel about Biden, or whoever else is the eventual nominee, they are very enthusiastic about getting rid of Trump. For all the enthusiasm I see at Trump rallies, I see no evidence that this isn’t just the same folks who voted for him in 2016. Unless there is a bunch of Trump enthusiasts who, for some reason, didn’t come out and vote for him in 2016, enthusiasm just makes votes louder, not more numerous.Report

              • North in reply to CJColucci says:

                True, but that isn’t very funny. Especially if you’re a right winger desperately groping for consolation as their prospect of getting to run against a shouty old socialist diminishes.Report

              • Jaybird in reply to CJColucci says:

                I’m not certain that it’s overrated given how underrated it was in 2016.

                If the goal is to point out that Biden won the Popular Vote, I think that the enthusiasm gap is rated appropriately.

                If that’s *NOT* the goal…Report

  9. Brent F says:

    Looks like Biden takes Virginia in a landslide. Sanders of course gets his home state. Nobody else past the 15% threshold.Report

    • North in reply to Brent F says:

      Nothing enormously surprising so far though I expected Virginia to, maybe, be a little closer.
      Oh, and no delegates for Bloomberg in Virginia. Mmmmmm delicious!Report

      • Brent F in reply to North says:

        If the first two states are indicative of the wider trend, they suggests Biden’s going to have another good night, Sanders does well enough to meet expectations and the field is taking a drubbing.Report

        • North in reply to Brent F says:

          Sanders needs to do better than meet expectations. With the center consolidating he needs a big delegate lead from California because he could face a long slog in the states to come.Report

          • Brent F in reply to North says:

            Biden is having a week. Having a relationship with Jim Clyburn was a heck of a card to play at the time he played it.Report

            • PD Shaw in reply to Brent F says:

              Early voting seems to be bounding Biden’s good week. He is expected to do well where early voting is less important.

              For me the elections are a dynamic process that should reflect a shared moment of decision. But I suppose the other argument is that such temporal fluctuations are given too much significance without early voting.Report

  10. North says:

    Hmmm here’s something interesting. 538 seems to think there may be a gender gap between Biden and Sanders; that women voters generally favor Biden more and men generally favor Bernie more. That is very interesting if true.Report

  11. Brent F says:

    North Carolina mirror image of Virginia.Report

  12. George Turner says:

    There are several races where Sanders would have beat Biden except Warren split the left-wing progressive vote (angry Bernie Bros will likely dismiss the effect of Bloomberg pulling votes from Biden, on which several hypothetical Bernie victories would depend). It will be interesting to see if they talk smack about Warren being a tool of the establishment, rigging the victory for Biden and dooming any chance of “revolution” because of her own “selfish narcissism.” The usual Bernie trolls will probably become even more insufferable, especially because they’ll have a valid point and lots of articles to back it up. ^_^Report

  13. North says:

    They’re forecasting Biden is going to win Minnesota (my vote tipped it over, naturally) and he’s running better in New England than I expected. Biden’s having a good night but Texas is not going his direction right now and California and Colorado are probably Bernie’s. Looks like a Biden win on Tuesday but not a landslide win yet? A real comeback for the Party Decides narrative.Report

  14. Jaybird says:

    Okay. So the question has stopped being “will Bernie be able to gather 1991 delegates?” and has started being “will Biden be able to gather 1991 delegates?”

    Before the convention, I mean.

    There are two elections that I think are vaguely notable. The first that came to mind was 2004. One of the comments that stuck with me was “Fell in love with Dean. Married Kerry. Woke up with Bush.”

    The second election that strikes me as notable is 2016.

    But Biden is no Clinton.Report

    • George Turner in reply to Jaybird says:

      Well, just ignore how Trump and Barr will be sending Biden to prison over the Ukraine business (which the Trump side won’t talk about until Biden has secured the nomination). The odds that Biden, who can’t stop himself from sniffing young women’s hair, will survive this pandemic are virtually zero. If one infected ginger crosses his path, it’s all over for the Democrats, and there’s a lot of gingers out there.

      Yeah, the Trump folks are having a wild amount of fun this season because Trump will essentially be running unopposed. ^_^Report

      • North in reply to George Turner says:

        Trump and Barr could, theoretically, try to do that. Then when Biden’s Veep wins in a landslide they’d probably return the favor- only they wouldn’t be throwing Trump and Barr in prison for made up reasons.Report

  15. Saul Degraw says:

    This is probably true but it gives me the sads:

    https://www.vox.com/2020/3/3/21162527/what-happened-to-elizabeth-warrenReport

    • George Turner in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      Well, by my early estimation, if Warren had dropped out and her supporters had switched to Bernie, Sanders would have won 9 of tonight’s 14 contests instead of just 5. (I haven’t calculated how the delegate count would’ve shifted because I’m not motivated enough to go through how delegates are assigned, but that shift would probably be even larger).

      But Warren wasn’t willing to make some kind of agreement with the party, or with Bernie supporters, and understandably so given her people’s long and sad history treaties and deals with the white man.Report

    • InMD in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      I don’t think it should give you the sads Saul but it is a lesson. If the professional/upper middle class wants to get some of Warren’s concepts (some of which I agree are good) into actual policy then we need to learn to make common cause with actual working class people. The big scam thats been pulled for the last 40 years has been to align that class with the ultra rich, and pretend that we are the same as them as long as we adopt the same tastes and affectations. Since 2008 we’ve learned the hard way that the ultra rich can buy their way out of anything while we lack similar liquidity.

      Further it shows that elite activists are not actually representative, regardless of their racial or other identity characteristics or wherever they came from. At the end of the day they are effectively of the same class. They give the illusion of outreach but it’s just talking to ourselves.Report

      • Philip H in reply to InMD says:

        For all his folksy demeanor Joe Biden doesn’t align with working class people either. He’s a neoliberal through and through economically, and that’s a big part of how we got the current President in the first place.Report

        • InMD in reply to Philip H says:

          This is true but he at least knows how to play the part on TV. Far more importantly though he is part of an establishment that actually made the case in the early 90s for the policy approach (neoliberalism, call it what you will) that is breaking down all over the West. Even in the information age there is enormous inertia anchoring it and for good or ill huge swathes of the country aren’t really plugged in. Their priority is getting to the next paycheck, making the rent or mortgage payment, having groceries to get through the week, etc.

          Someone needs to go make the case for a new approach in the language they understand and Warren has proven she is not that person. I gave Saul a hard time on the other thread for using the term ‘Latinx’, a word that Hispanic people largely reject but which is increasingly considered the appropriate way to describe them by the educated upper middle class. It’s a great example of why running this stuff through a bunch of weirdo activist types is not real outreach to the people who matter. It makes you sound crazy and out of touch, and identifies you as someone who doesn’t actually understand their workaday problems. Why would they ever trust someone like that who wants to rock their boat, especially when they already don’t have a lot of room for error in their lives?Report

  16. George Turner says:

    I was just projecting some numbers based on the percentage of delegates already won in each state (since I’m not going to look up how they all get assigned), and extrapolating those same ratios to each state’s total number of delegates.

    I project the night’s delegate haul is going to be roughly close to:

    636 Sanders
    563 Biden
    80 Bloomberg
    59 Warren

    That’s not the big Biden victory that pundits had been assuming earlier in the night, and that looks perfectly set up for a brokered convention where the super delegates will weigh in on the second round, and that of course denies Bernie the nomination.

    Early tonight Donna Brazille responded to some political hosts discussing the possibility of a brokered convention, and she started hollering “Just shut the fish up! Just shut the fish up!” and going on from there about how they should just shut the fish up. It was quite entertaining.Report

    • George Turner in reply to George Turner says:

      Toss those numbers. I think they’re state level delegates. The number do confirm that Bernie eked out a victory in winning California though, and combined with Biden’s poor performance in the three earlier states, Bernie is set to have a lead going into the convention.

      The real embarrassment of the night was Warren coming in third in her home state of Massachusetts. Al Gore lost his home state, in the general, but at least he didn’t place third in the primaries. I’m sure Warren has profited handsomely off her run, and made a proud stand for fake-Native Americans, but so far she’s only managed to deny Democrats a clean convention choice between two old racist and sexist white men. That is intersectional wokeness in a nutshell.Report

      • DensityDuck in reply to George Turner says:

        “The real embarrassment of the night was Warren coming in third in her home state of Massachusetts.”

        Here’s the thing: Even the people voting for Warren don’t think it’s because she’d win. They figured that Biden’s gonna get the nomination, and that all he has to do to beat Trump is not die before November, and they want to Send A Message, so they’re voting for Warren.

        Because the election is a sure thing. Everyone knows what’s gonna happen. Your votes don’t matter, so just vote the crazy/stupid choice to Send A Message.Report

  17. Philip H says:

    While the race seems to have come down to two old white men (gah), its clear that Democrats are rejecting the path of actual winning. Hunter Biden will be subpoena’d shortly for a “trumped up” (pun intended) investigation in the Senate (Ron Johnson has said so) and his alleged corruption and his dad’s complicity is now going to be a campaign issue (though since there’s no there there we will never see actual indictments). Biden will continue to inspire precisely no one and the 45% who didn’t vote last time will not vote this time. Thus George’s great dream will come true and we will get 4 more years of MAGA – leading to all sorts of unconstitutional shenanigans that cement Republican control through authoritarian dictatorship.

    And yes, I expect to be held to these words come November. No, I don’t see the data changing this outcome.Report

    • North in reply to Philip H says:

      Bernie’s candidacy and his case for being more strongly electable than Trump was based on the premise that he could inspire higher turnout among young voters and non-voters on the left wing of the political spectrum to offset any losses he’d suffer for his own eclectic background and his radical promises.
      He couldn’t do it. In every state now the youth vote and the new voters that would form his revolution didn’t show up. He couldn’t do it in Iowa and New Hampshire where he had months to prepare and nearly limitless cash. He couldn’t do it in the super Tuesday states, some of which were ripe territory for his Revolution.
      What possible reason would the party have for choosing a man who couldn’t produce the rabbit out of his hat as he promised? That is the path of winning?

      Yes, Trump and the GOP will trump (heh) up some charges in the Senate. We’ll have to hope the media learned their lesson from last time. Also these charges are massively more vacuous and baseless than the ones Clinton faced, nor will Trump have a GOP house to help push them. And Joe is old and definitely far from rock steady.

      But he’s simply a lower risk choice than Bernie.Report

    • DensityDuck in reply to Philip H says:

      ” leading to all sorts of unconstitutional shenanigans that cement Republican control through authoritarian dictatorship.”

      people said exactly this same thing through eight years of George W Bush and eight years of Barack H Obama

      get the fugg over itReport

      • Philip H in reply to DensityDuck says:

        Neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Obama took to the stage to say they should get a free third term because of investigations or impeachment. Neither did Mr. Clinton when he was impeached. Throughout modern history authoritarians have ALWAYS plaid off such statements as joke initially, but they have also ALWAYS floated those ideas publicly in speeches before actually doing them. And the President has done a lot of rhetorical work to delegitimize the media and the courts, never mind Mitch McConnell’s preference for confirming judges over actually legislating.

        So yeah, its just talk . . .until it isnt.Report

  18. North says:

    I think this sums up Tuesday best. The BSDI all sides are equally radical snake oil peddlers were the real losers yesterday.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/regular-democrats-are-just-fine-establishment/607417/Report

  19. LTL FTC says:

    So there was a hashtag going around Twitter late last night in which Warren supporters were supposed to share their jobs to prove how they’re salt of the earth, non-elite types. There were some people whose parents were truck drivers or factory workers, but one after the other:

    “Now I’m a TV writer”
    “I’m a university administrator…”
    “I work in communications”
    “I’m an activist”

    These aren’t jobs that disqualify you from having an opinion, but they are jobs that punch way above their weight in terms of dictating the cultural zeitgeist. Warren, and all the silly culture war stuff she picked up from her loudest supporters, was all just an elite affectation that looked bigger than it was.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to LTL FTC says:

      Maybe. But people like you describe are a big part of the Dem coalition, especially after Trump won the nomination in 2016. Since then college educated voters have shifted radically towards the Democratic party. Being a writer, administrator, communications are just regular jobs that college educated types typically have. The one ding, I suppose, is the person who works as an activist. I mean, get a real job, yo. 🙂Report

      • InMD in reply to Stillwater says:

        It’s the coalition building that counts and that’s where I think the disconnect is. This type of person (which being honest probably covers most people on this site, at least demographically) has a megaphone but instead of using it to build solidarity we mostly talk amongst ourselves. Certainly that’s the case online and in media.Report

        • Stillwater in reply to InMD says:

          I completely agree. And to LTL’s point, Warren herself didn’t do much to develop a broader coalition (not because she didn’t try, of course).Report

  20. Chip Daniels says:

    I’m still a Warrenista and will be for as long as she continues, but I’m not unhappy with the results.

    If the rest of my party prefers Biden I will shake my head in bewilderment but happily cast my vote for him in November.Report

  21. Jaybird says:

    Cenk has opinions:

    Report

    • Brandon Berg in reply to Jaybird says:

      “And now here we go, an establishment candidate that is far worse with mental feh…uh, his mental feh, uh faculties under question…”

      Well, that was infelicitous timing.Report

  22. Aaron David says:

    538 puts the line at 3 in 5 for no one to get enough delegates prior to the convention. 61% (Biden getting enough at 3 in 10 as second place chance.)

    No one is putting up numbers on dumpster or tire fires in Milwaukee this year.

    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Aaron David says:

      Was that before or after Bloomberg suspended his campaign?

      Not too long ago Nate had Bernie as the odds on favorite to win the nomination outright as a I recall. Hell, the prevailing conventional wisdom prior to SC was that Bernie was a juggernaught who could not be stopped. Then, suddenly!, Pete and Amy drop out! Now, even Warren is considering suspending her campaign. Nate’s doing his job, but he knows *better than anyone* that his “predictions” don’t mean doody until the field stabilizes.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to Stillwater says:

        If you click on it, you can see that, yes indeedy he had Bernie to win it. Well, up ’til Super-Duper tuesday. This was right after, but I am not sure about Bloombers suspension, before or after. I am guessing not as he still lists him.Report

    • North in reply to Aaron David says:

      Nate goes where the polls tell him and things have been moving really fast which limits the predictive power of his polling. With Bloomberg dropping out I’d say the odds of a contested convention are dwindling.Report

      • InMD in reply to North says:

        They absolutely are. And I think we will watch Bernie have to smirk at his own ‘most votes should take it’ stance at the convention.

        Then we can all be entertained by two boomers in apparent mental decline battling it out for the imperial throne. Should be a good diversion before the NFL season starts to really get interesting.Report

  23. Urusigh says:

    So, correct me if I’m wrong:

    The Democrats are the “Party of Youth and Diversity” whereas Republicans are the “Party of Old, White, Racists” or at least such seems to be a foundational assumption of the DNC, the MSM, and left-leaning commenters in general.

    This campaign season began with Dems bragging about “The Most Diverse Field in modern political history” based on the CNN standard of “# of candidates who are not white, male, and hetero (ironically, the prior record actually went to the 2016 Republican field). So, how well does that claim still hold up?

    Following the winnowing of Super Tuesday, Dems now have 3x hetero white men (Biden, Sanders, and Bloomburg) and one hetero white woman (Warren, still “persisting” even though she has no real path to the win). At the same point in 2016, the Reps had 3x hetero men (Trump, Cruz, Rubio), but 2x of those still count as “diverse” for being hispanic. Score: Dems 1, Reps 2. So, by the CNN standard republican primary voters actually seem to be LESS racist than Democrat primary voters. Amusingly, the Reps also win on youth by a LOT: Biden, Bloomberg, and Sanders are all years older than Trump and the 2016 Rep field.

    So, can we retire the claim that Dems are the “Party of Youth and Diversity” when Nov 2020 rolls around the the Dem candidate running in the general is a man even older and whiter than Donald Trump?Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Urusigh says:

      lol The Republican base, as measured by registered GOP voters, is shrinking. The only demographic where it’s made *gains* over the last 6 years is non-college educated white men.Report

      • Urusigh in reply to Stillwater says:

        Shrug. The numbers look pretty even to me: As of December 2019, Gallup polling found that 28% of Americans identified as Democrat, 28% identified as Republican, and 41% as Independent. The 20FEB2020 numbers are even better: The Gallup data also revealed a growing number of the public identifying as Republican, rising from 28% to 32%, and a marginal decrease in those who identified as Democrats and independents. Current favorability is harder to judge since most of the polling seem to be pre-impeachment, but even there Reps are looking pretty good on some key topics and the post impeachment polling generally shows a Trump bump, so these numbers may actually be a little low for us:
        Democratic Party (48%) rated more favorably than Republican Party (43%)
        Republicans hold six-percentage-point advantage on protecting the country
        Republicans also favored to keep country prosperous, 49% vs. 45%

        Even the voter registration numbers are more mixed than you imply, with Reps actually making the larger gains in some key locations for 2020: https://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-voter-registration-governor-president-2020-republicans-democrats.html Which is particularly interesting because of one fairly consistent oddity in voting patterns: Among Registered Voters, Republicans usually show up to vote at higher rates than Democrats do, so the gap in “likely voters” is typically much narrower than the gap in “registered voters”. That’s a particularly acute problem for you since the numbers from the primaries so far seem to show Trump pulling in ahistorically record turnout despite being an incumbent running effectively unopposed whereas Dem turnout in many states has been lower than 2008 levels, much less the high water mark of 2018. You can argue that you have plenty of voters sitting on the sidelines who simply don’t care “which” Dem faces Trump, but that cuts the other way also that Rep enthusiasm is only going to go up even further once Trump has an actual opponent.

        So long as our gains offset our losses or our ratio of gains/losses is still better than the Dems, we’re still competitive. It doesn’t much matter to me “which” demographic of US citizens gives us the win. After all, It’s not my party that claims that anything less than proportional identity representation is necessarily evidence of bias and hatred.

        “The only demographic where it’s made *gains* over the last 6 years is non-college educated white men.”

        Source? Trump won a higher percentage of minority votes than either of the previous GOP candidates and consistently polls above recent Rep norms with minorities, so it’s hard to argue that we haven’t made some gains outside of blue collar white men. Which demographic are Dems gaining with besides college educated white women? I’m not at all convinced that demographic swap isn’t actually in the Rep’s favor.Report

        • greginak in reply to Urusigh says:

          Um yeah trump did better with POC then the previous two nominees who ran against Obama who did far better with POC then everybody ever. Trump reverted to the mean.Report

          • Urusigh in reply to greginak says:

            Perhaps, but the comment I responded to specified “over the last 6 years” so those were the only elections within that frame. Though it is hard to establish a mean on this since 9/11 Bush and “1st Black President” Obama both had unique circumstances boosting them. You need to go back pretty far to get a decent number of generic matchups for your sample set. Still, given the 93% negative media coverage and unprecedented attempts to invalidate the election it’s impressive in it’s own way that he’s doing as well as he is.Report

            • greginak in reply to Urusigh says:

              Umm yeah…invalidate the election…..face plam. I’m sure R’s see a lot of negative coverage of trump….ugh….He has been unpopular since before the election.Report

    • North in reply to Urusigh says:

      Happy to correct you; you’re wrong.
      It’s a classic right wing misunderstanding that being the party of youth and diversity means a youth or a minority has to win every time. A bunch of youths and minorities ran, got their fair shake then eventually dropped out. So did a horde of old white men- and they often dropped out before the minorities or youth did.

      So yeah, it’s still the younger and more diverse party as opposed to the decaying moribund hulk that the GOP is with Trump helming it.

      I will grant you this though, Biden is more white than Trump- Trump is distinctly orange. Being the party of diversity I saw we should respect that Trump wants to identify as orange and give him that. We are civilized and tolerant after all.Report

      • Urusigh in reply to North says:

        “It’s a classic right wing misunderstanding that being the party of youth and diversity means a youth or a minority has to win every time.”

        Funny, you didn’t actually correct me. That would have required an argument and some facts to establish “why” you think I’m wrong, which you have neglected to provide. What you did assert is demonstrably wrong: That the outcome of a selection process MUST be proportionally representative of the starting demographics is most assuredly a LEFT WING position which the right wing routinely argues against. It’s your side that gets vehemently vocal when, for example, the demographics of award winners (or indeed, even just the demographics of award nominees) in any profession are not perfectly in line with the demographics of the profession as a whole (or sometimes worse, in line with total population demographics regardless of the profession’s demographics). Remember #OscarsSoWhite, the perpetual outrage over gender percentages in tech, and Nobel/Literary/etc awards? Heck, you guys still want 50/50 male/female in Congress and Fortune 500 CEO/boards even though the actual candidate pool for those positions consistently skews heavily male. When minorities/women don’t win, your side inevitably argues that by definition “they did not get a fair shake” “because structural oppression/racism/misogyny/etc”. I just find it hilarious that in a primary, where all voters are by definition Democrats, your results are still so “problematic” according to your own party’s standards. You are hoisted by your own petard.

        As for “decaying moribund hulk”? The purpose of a political party is to win offices, yes?
        Current Composition Republicans Democrats Other

        Legislators (7,383 total) 3,830 / 52% 3,430/ 46% 123 (Independent, Other or Vacant)
        Chambers (98 total) 59 / 60% 39 / 40%
        Legislatures (49 total) 29 / 59% 19 / 38% 1 divided legislature
        State Control (49 total) 21 / 43% 15 / 31% 13 divided states

        How interesting, looks more like The Incredible Hulk to me, Reps beat Dems in every row at the State level. We currently also hold the Presidency, the Senate, and are rapidly flipping the Judiciary at the national level. How about 2020′ s Presidential election? According to a POLITICO/Morning Consult survey released on Wednesday, 56 percent of voters expect the president to be reelected next year, including 85 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of independents. By comparison, more than a third of Democrats (35 percent) say the same.

        So, the party winning at every level and on track to keep winning is a “decaying moribund hulk”? What, pray tell, does that make the party losing to it?Report

  24. Urusigh says:

    So, correct me if I’m wrong:

    The Democrats are the “Party of Youth and Diversity” whereas Republicans are the “Party of Old, White, Racists” or at least such seems to be a foundational assumption of the DNC, the MSM, and left-leaning commenters in general.

    This campaign season began with Dems bragging about “The Most Diverse Field in modern political history” based on the CNN standard of “# of candidates who are not white, male, and hetero” (ironically, the prior record actually went to the 2016 Republican field). So, how well does that claim still hold up?

    Following the winnowing of Super Tuesday, Dems now have 3x hetero white men (Biden, Sanders, and Bloomburg) and one hetero white woman (Warren, still “persisting” even though she has no real path to the win). At the same point in 2016, the Reps had 3x hetero men (Trump, Cruz, Rubio), but 2x of those still count as “diverse” for being hispanic. Score: Dems 1, Reps 2. So, by the CNN standard republican primary voters actually seem to be LESS racist than Democrat primary voters. Amusingly, the Reps also win on youth by a LOT: Biden, Bloomberg, and Sanders are all years older than Trump and the 2016 Rep field.

    So, can we retire the claim that Dems are the “Party of Youth and Diversity” when Nov 2020 rolls around and the Dem candidate running in the general is a man even older and whiter than Donald Trump?Report