It’s another voting Tuesday in America, let’s talk about it. Up for grab in this evenings primary contests are:
Michigan: 125 delegates
Washington: 89 delegates
Missouri: 68 delegates
Mississippi: 36 delegates
Idaho: 20 delegates
North Dakota: 14 delegates
You can follow a live stream here and discuss in the comments.
Andrew Donaldson
Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:
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on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in ChargeHave you spent much time in blue cities? Growing up near Detroit, I can say the Dems talk a great ga…
on Youngsters Make Merry at Evanston Country Club Christmas PartyHester Walrath (1898-1971) went on to attend Northwestern University, marry a businessman, and have…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024So the "CR" of 1500 pages, given to members 24 hours before the vote, and which did all kinds of thi…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024Do you not understand the irony of speaking positively about banning political parties in the same b…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024I suppose we could blame the townspeople for not showing up the umpteenth time the shepherd boy crie… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024A small backlash? If the election were held today they would be the 2nd biggest party in the Bundest…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024I have no idea why pointing out that Na.zis were elected legitimately is relevant to this discussion… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024No, I'm pointing out that you find 'Trump is Hitler' more absurd than 'These people are Na.zis', so…
on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024The local paper referenced this work, partially paid for by the feds, this morning. Some of the phas… on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024And I will, again, point you that you are the first to mention Hitler, You sure about that? Maybe re…
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on From The Wall Street Journal: How the White House Functioned With a Diminished Biden in Charge on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024 on Open Mic for the week of 12/16/2024
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I swear to God(ess?) I have whiplash from this primary. The laughter of the low attention/info voters should be accepted and embraced by political junkies like us as a valuable lesson. All the back and forth, all the drama and switchbacks and now the race is down to… … … Biden and Bernie with Bernie distantly trailing.
I take solace in knowing that no other political junkies saw through it either. Yeesh, you look at 538’s tracking model and those lines are fishing bonkers! Biden is 99% the odds on to get a majority now. Just a skant week ago it was No one and before that it was Bernie.
And now? Bernie’s best case outcome scenario is merely that he’ll close the gap enough to -try- to get a large plurality at the convention. Best. Case.
And if Biden gets what the polls say he’s gonna get? Bernie is toast.
2016 was A New Paradigm; 2020 seems to be the Party Decides strikes back; man I hope that means it’ll end with 2020 The Return of the Democrats.Report
Betting markets have their most likely option being Biden.
Their second most likely option being… CLINTON.
Episode IX was prophecy.Report
Clinton? Really?! Man, wish there was a way to short that!Report
So there is a still a chance for the vaunted juggernaut of the Bloomer/ Clinton ticket that was sure to win for 3 days!!!!!!Report
There is? Man I wish I could short that too!Report
Starting to see Michigan called for Biden. That would be devastating for Bernie.Report
He’s toast. In two weeks Joe! went from dead in the water to making a compelling argument that Bernie should drop out of the race. Unreal.Report
If Biden loses Michigan, he has no path to anything but trying to win on the second vote.
Which he won’t do.
So the question is… does he/should he stay in to leverage the platform or drop out for the good of democracy everywhere?Report
Well if Biden wins Michigan then odds are there won’t be a second vote; Biden could well get an outright delegate majority in round one. In fact 538 says it’s almost certain.Report
Then Biden has one job and one job only: “Vote for me. Vote for a return to normalcy. Vote for me for a return to sanity. Vote for me to make politics *BORING* again.”
And then he has to go back to being goofy (and punctuate goofiness with boringness).
And maybe Klobuchar for VP? Someone from the Midwest, anyway.Report
Man I would be delighted with Klobuchar for VP. She’d practically live in Wisconsin and rotate through the other Blue Wall states and that’d be a serious problem for Trump.
But don’t you think he should consider a more liberal woman VP? Not Warren, obviously, because she’d be replaced with a Republican and because she’d be far better for liberalism as a Lioness of the Senate but perhaps Stacy Abrams or Harris? But really the Veep subject probably deserves its own article.Report
Yes, the smart move would be to put a failed Dem candidate who polled 5th in her home state, lower than freakin’ Bloomberg, in as a running mate.
And Biden has just the mental acuity to do it!Report
She came in 5th because she stepped out of the race and instructed her own campaign apparatus to pull for Joe Biden. Yeesh.Report
She hadn’t polled above 5th since the 20th. Long before she was bought out.Report
the smart move would be to put a failed Dem candidate who polled 5th in her home state
Failing Amy Klobuchar is a Do Nothing Democrat who polls very badly! Sad!Report
Do-Nothing Democrats are my favorite kind!Report
Biden 2020: He Won’t Do Anything!Report
It’ll be a Biden/Clinton ticket, but he’ll conveniently fall down a flight of stairs on the way to his inauguration party, so he won’t even get sworn in. Then Hillary will take the podium and say “This tragedy was completely unexpected, and like you, I’m torn with grief!” Then she’ll whip out her twelve age inauguration speech that she worked on for two months.
But if I was a betting man, there’s a real possibility that Covid-19 will blow up the entire race, because all the remaining candidates are highly exposed and in their 70’s – except one. Tulsi is still in it, and plenty young enough to shake off the virus. Heck, she won’t even be exposed to it because she has no crowds. If all this happens prior to the convention, it’ll be interesting to see Buttigieg, Beto, Yang, and Klobuchar (who are also young) try to jump right back in, with Tulsi saying “But you failed to persist.”
Of course the GOP won’t have a problem because the line of imperial succession natural goes to Donald Trump Jr., who is only 44.Report
Biden over 50 percent in all states so far. Yang apparently endorsed Biden.Report
If there is a crueler master than Math, I don’t know what it would be.Report
Here’s a psyop from one of the RINOs at NRO:
I do think that if Biden doesn’t implode, he has Michigan in the bag thanks to Detroit.
(Now all he has to do is not implode?)Report
For some reason, Biden came out in support of the Green New Deal, which will be the nail in Detroit’s coffin. Wanting to take guns away from all the union workers, and then insultingly lying to their face about it, won’t help either.
The Green New Deal created a huge rust belt/oil patch problem for Democrats.Report
except there’s a ton of unused manufacturing capacity there . . . and skilled labor . . . who can build all the stuff the green new deal actually takes to make happen. Stuff like solar panels and mounts, or windmill vanes, or batteries for electric cars or heck road paving made from recycled milk cartons (which is a thing in Europe). As with anything the climate crisis and the green new deal actually offer economic possibilities – we just have to stop insisting that everything be as it was. Because it can’t be.Report
And what will they manufacture? All the wind turbine jobs that don’t exist keep getting promised to people in places like West Virginia. The solar panels are made in China because our environmental regulations make us non-competitive (making them is cheaper if you emit noxious fumes). Mounts for solar panels is a trivial economic sector, much like making window frames. We don’t need to make batteries for electric cars because almost nobody buys electric cars, and if they did our grid couldn’t power them because environmentalists won’t let us build fossil fuel or nuclear plants. And why on Earth would we want to repave our roads with milk cartons instead of pavement?
As one of AOC Green New Deal wonks mentioned, the Green New Deal has nothing to do with the environment. It’s just a program to push socialism.
Union workers know all this. They don’t drive Priuses and Teslas, they drive trucks.
That’s why the Green New Deal will make it much harder to for Democrats to take back Michigan.Report
Okay: turn Michigan back blue on the map:
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I’ve always worried that a Biden campaign would be like “Of course I’ll turn the midwest back blue” and take it for granted which would leave an opening. But the results in Michigan have allayed my fears a little. The man seems to have a decent connection to blue collar voters.Report
The man seems to have a decent connection to blue collar voters…
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A democrat winning the majority of Democratic votes in a democratic primary is not exactly earth shattering. He has to win other votes in the general election to, ya know, get elected.Report
I’ll just park this little truth bomb here:
Yep, pretty much all this.Report
Solid work there. I’ve been trying to talk some sense into some people on the twitters and reddit. Lots of people get it. But some are committed to an “ideal” or a personality more then making things better.Report
That’s some clever writing.Report
Yeah, I should’ve linked to the guy’s twitter account.
Here it is: Granite @oneminutecallReport
Do we know who this guy is? I mean in a general sense?
That thread just seems like a giant pile of confirmed priors.
And, since my priors are pretty different than a lot of folks here… a few of my spidey senses are tingling. I suppose it could just be the difference between being a simple HENRY and not making a “fuckton” of money, but I’m getting performance art vibe.
If I had to lay down a marker, it would be Betsy DeVos and Boats. Have we checked how many racoons are in the trechcoat?Report
Uh oh.
NEWS: Bernie Sanders will hold a press conference at 1pm per @ryanobles
in Burlington.
We may find out how the pissbabies react pretty dang soon!Report
Would he really drop out before the Sunday debate?!? Surely it’s just a “the fight goes on” press conference.Report
Apparently he’s staying in?
Originally I was going to say that my gut tells me Biden unopposed for the next 4 months might not be the boon people think it would be.
But now that he’s staying in, I’m thinking Bernie chewing on Biden for the next 4 months might not be the boon people think it would be.
So what do I know?
I suppose if Bernie were to stay in as part of a “movement” building scenario where he’s basically conceded defeat, but wanted to champion 2-3 items (that are more or less agreeable to the party at large) and “support but challenge” Biden, then I could see it being a boon. I’m not sure that’s how Bernie (or his faction/followers) operates.Report
Yeah, the fight goes on, color me unsurprised. But how much fight we talking about Bernie?Report
Abolish ICE, college debt relief, the Green New Deal.
Biden can repudiate Bernie as the Goldwater of the left.
And establish centrism (with some occasional wandering left) as the course of the country.Report
Well, sure, if I could control a Robot Bernie I’d have him champion the craziest of all his ideas and have Biden ROFL Stomp all over them.
But best I could imagine for Live Bernie was some realistic moderation of some of his best ideas to allow Biden to coopt one.Report
Yeah what Marchmaine said. If Bernie just pushes his policies hard then it’d be great for Biden. But if Bernie goes personal, attacks and starts going all #NeverBiden it could go really badly for Biden.
I was pretty sure Bernie was gonna be in it all the way to the convention. The only thing I don’t know is which Bernie we’re going to get for the next couple months.Report
If Bernie is the Goldwater of the left, the 2036 election is going to be epic.Report
I submit that if he were a bit younger, he’d feel more like William Jennings Bryan than Goldwater… if we’re playing that game.Report
AOC is the Reagan to Bernie’s Goldwater.
In your heart, you know I’m right.Report
Or the Wilson to Bernie’s Bryan.
America must make the world safe for Social Democracy.Report
That was a good thread. If you want to read the responses too…
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I’m a straight, white, christian, educated American male who makes a fuckton of money. Elections can’t even touch me. Fuck it, vote for Trump.
I’m certainly not a fan of the current administration, and I don’t give him credit for the economic performance of the last few years, but can we acknowledge the war on women and minorities that the more histrionic among us predicted back in November of 2016 never actually happened, and that the last three years have actually been pretty good for the vast majority of Americans, even those who are not straight, white, rich men?Report
Your daily moment of Zen:
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We managed to fob Penn off on the GOP? Thank agnostic Jebus!Report
and this is one of many reasons I don’t think Biden beats Trump. But what do I know, being a hard left Democrat living in mississippi.Report