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[mainiac]

a socialist-liberal party (possibly descended from Jill Stein)

I think that Tim Canova is closer to organizing a mainstream socialist party then Jill Stein.  Ralph Nadar's corpse is closer and Nadar isn't even dead yet.

[PTTG??]

It should be interesting -- albeit terrifying -- to see the inverse of "the party decides." That is to say, as moderate and committed-moderate republicans leave the party, the extreme right and mentally-deficient republicans are going to become a larger portion of the party. I think it's already happened to a great extent; if you look on /r/asktrumpsupporters, the occasional reasonable response has faded away and the only people who remain are hardcore Trump supporters who outright agree with Trump's greatest hits -- the people who think he won the debate.

I think the debate did a good job of separating the chaff from the wheat. And we're now seeing the death spiral of [greater furor]>[failure]>[moderates leaving]>[greater furor] in full swing.

[mainiac]

mentally-deficient

Well that is quite uncalled for.

[PTTG??]

mentally-deficient

Well that is quite uncalled for.

Keep in mind, I'm talking about people who are specifically pro-Trump. I can forgive someone who isn't sure which side to vote against, but holy crap it's surprising shameful that there are people who see Trump as admirable.

[mainiac]

I think it just exposes a very common mode of thinking.  Everyone has warts on their bodies but it's only the naked people whose warts we see.

[RedKing]

Even assuming Clinton manages to defeat Trump, Bernie Sanders probably lost democrats a couple Senate seats this year.  Bernie Sanders probably lost democrats ten house seats these years.

Oh, I would love to hear the tortured logic underlying this statement. Next, you can tell me how Sanders is also responsible for the thinning of the ozone layer, male-pattern baldness, and the cancellation of Firefly.

Down ticket races suffer a drag from the top of the ticket.  Every time Clinton's numbers go down, so do Senate Democratic candidates.  We dont have as much data on house races but it seems reasonable to suppose the same happens.

It's not logic.  It's empirical observation.

I.e. "I feel like blaming Sanders for something, so I'm going to throw out an extremely weak causal chain and pull some numbers out of my ass".

You're positing the following:

A) Clinton's weak numbers are due to the efforts of one Sen. Bernard Sanders, rather than any of her own weaknesses (because we all know Her Divine Radiance (PBUH) *has* no weaknesses).
B) Clinton's polling dips directly impact down-ballot races to a measurable degree which is equal or larger than other factors intrinsic to each race.

But you have no evidence to indicate either is true, and certainly not to the degree that you can measure it and come up with a number of races that can be blamed on Sanders.


On point A: Sanders has been nothing but a cheerleader for Hillary since the convention. Bernie didn't give her pneumonia (OR DID HE?? DUH DUH DUHHHHH!) and he certainly didn't botch the handling of the PR around it. Bernie didn't parse her words for her regarding her email server, in fact he declined to attack her on it during the primary. At this point, the statute of limitations has run out on blaming any new polling dips on Bernie. And as was pointed out, she's been unpopular with a lot of people for a long time now. Many probably like myself, who had no problem with her as Sec. of State, but as soon as she resigned and the rumors began swirling of a Presidential run, were like "Oh fuck plz no no no", because it didn't take a mystic to foresee the metric ton of baggage she would bring into the race, deserved or not.

On point B: Down-ballot pressure is a thing, but it's not easy to quantify. And in this cycle, I'd say Trump is exhibiting more downballot pressure than Clinton is. Look here in NC -- you have a two-term incumbent GOP Senator with no real scandals or glaring weaknesses, who was so expected to win in a cakewalk that the Dems didn't even field a major candidate -- having previously thrown Erskine Bowles and Sec. of State Elaine Marshall at him, and now Deborah Ross is averaging a point ahead of Burr, despite most people not knowing a damn thing about her.

If I were to rank the factors affecting this race, I'd say (from weakest to strongest) it's:

1. Hillary Clinton as Democratic nominee
2. Burr's lack of...anything in 12 years to point to as a major accomplishment.
3. Trump as GOP nominee
4. The fact that the GOP governor and GOP legislature are about as popular as a canker sore right now with all but the diehard bigot wing of the Republican Party.

As they say, "all politics is local". And in this race, local/state effects are trumping (pun intended) the national race. Even progs and indies who might still be sore about Sanders or generally distrustful of Hillary Clinton (PBUH) aren't going to suddenly vote for Burr, because they're unconnected.


I could potentially see an effect in Debbie Wasserman-Schultz's race. If she loses that, could be worth looking at exit polls to see if the whole DNC-Sanders dustup was a factor in voters' decisions (and I assume pollsters will explicitly ask that). Outside of that one House race, you're gonna have to do better than "I feel like this should be true, so it's true".


I'll even help you -- Harry Enten over at 538 has a regresson analysis that argues there is a correlation on Senate races. Although I think he's overstating the effect, and the slope is not 1:1, nor is correlation causation. Easy enough to say "Hillary and the Dem senator are both doing badly in Idaho, because it's fucking Idaho."

House races are probably far more insulated from down-ballot effects thanks to gerrymandering.

In the vast majority of those races, the party of the winning candidate is all but decided before anyone even files to run. Ballotpedia predicts that only 24 of the 435 House races (5.7 percent) will be truly competitive in the general election.

I think it's beyond a stretch to say that Sanders is going to cost the Democrats 40% of the available seats up for play.

[mainiac]

A) Clinton's weak numbers are due to the efforts of one Sen. Bernard Sanders, rather than any of her own weaknesses (because we all know Her Divine Radiance (PBUH) *has* no weaknesses).

And once again you exaggerate my points.  If you wonder why my attitude towards you has changed, this is the reason.

A year ago you made no objections to the idea, very common at the time, that Bush, Trump or Bushes unpopularity would have a negative effect on down ticket races.
A year ago you made no objections to the idea, very common at the time, that a long bitter primary dispute would leave the republican nominee less popular.

It's has the feeling of dealing with a climate change denier or a hardcore economic libertarian.  You show disrespect at every turn by insisting that I provide proof for things that are considered non-controversial after reframing them to things they are not.  Sure things that are considered non-controversial are proven wrong sometimes but the people who do so are aware of the fact that they are making a radical suggestion.  Look at the way I reacted when people objected to the idea that Jill Stein was not a respectable figure, I acknowledge that it was a unusual freaking idea and offered some unusual freaking evidence to provide it.

If you wish to argue the extent of the damage there is room to do so but I think the extent is clear.  We are getting close to election day and progressives are still repeating conspiracy theories.  The race was longer then any non-competative race has been.  Bernie Sanders to his last gasp of campaigning stressed TPP, an electoral liability for Clinton.  Donald Trump uses lines of attack about mistreatment of the Sanders campaign.  The DNC chairperson resigned in disgrace solely because Sanders wanted it (when other democrats wanted her quietly removed).  The extent of this behavior is greater then in any primary campaign in decades so it is reasonable to expect that the effect is as great as a negative primary campaign can be.

[Max™]

Sanders gave Clinton's campaign political pneumonia.

She did bring Climate change up during the debate.

Never said she didn't said she's been doing it less and less.

Has she? I mean, if she wanted to pander to CC skeptics and the oil industry, she could just not have done it. Anyone who cares about it will already not vote Trump.

I'll toss out a data point: I'd sooner vote to tie Trump in a bag, hurl the bag into a dumpster, and hurl the dumpster into the Sun than vote for him, and in many ways I'm too skeptical for the normal skeptics. I dislike when people support what should be a matter of science to be likely or unlikely (or worse true/false, implying a level of proof which isn't available) strictly due to political affiliation. There are lots of people who hold that position because of the box they tick when they vote, but it is far from a monolithic bloc, and it is not even on the list of reasons I consider when looking at a candidate, unless said candidate was trying to remove the political influence on the field.

I couldn't listen to him after seeing how he looked, but it occurs to me that if he was honest he'd point out that despite the general consensus that Clinton is a liar and dishonest and untrustworthy, she's not the one you should be doubting when we have someone who might be lying if he says the sky is blue. How truthful do you think she seems compared to the incumbent president?

....after seeing how he looked? That's...I can not understand how you would not listen to someone just based of their appearance...

I don't generally watch youtubers rant anyways, but yeah, I wasn't interested after seeing him.

Give me a transcript and I'm fine

Yup, I scrolled down and looked to see if there was any sort of summary or link or whatnot, there wasn't, I'm not turning the volume up for some guy unless there are kittens on screen or he's gorgeous in some way, like Akio's voice, or Tennant in general.

[RedKing]

A) Clinton's weak numbers are due to the efforts of one Sen. Bernard Sanders, rather than any of her own weaknesses (because we all know Her Divine Radiance (PBUH) *has* no weaknesses).

And once again you exaggerate my points.  If you wonder why my attitude towards you has changed, this is the reason.

I exaggerate your devotion to Hillary Clinton, because it's almost farcical. I don't feel that I'm exaggerating your argument here.
If you're going to pin down-ballot races on Clinton's popularity, and pin Clinton's popularity on Sanders to the point of being able to blame him in a direct, causal fashion for those races, then it follows that you have to be ignoring any other factors affecting Clinton's popularity. Otherwise, the argument falls apart.

A year ago you made no objections to the idea, very common at the time, that Bush, Trump or Bushes unpopularity would have a negative effect on down ticket races.

I don't object to the idea, but it's an issue of scale. As I stated in my analysis of the NC Senate race, Trump probably has a bigger effect on the race than Clinton, but ultimately it's the state GOP that has shit the bed on this one.

A year ago you made no objections to the idea, very common at the time, that a long bitter primary dispute would leave the republican nominee less popular.

One would expect this, and yet it's been disproven, else Trump should be polling way lower than he is. To your earlier point about message discipline, GOP'pers are coming around to Trump because that's what Republicans do. They've always been the party with better internal discipline, as one would expect from the party of "law and order". Democrats have always been more fractious and prone to shooting themselves in the foot -- it's one of the myriad reasons I refuse to join them. The fact that Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee is another reason that they've fallen in line behind Trump. Just as, if the Democrats had chosen someone incredibly distasteful to many Democrats (we'll set aside for the moment whether Hillary fits that description) the fact that they'd be running against Donald J. Trump would be enough to get many to fall in line. As they are doing now.

I'm not saying that a "socialist" like Sanders wouldn't scare Republicans into voting for Trump as well, or that any Democratic candidate wouldn't be painted as the next coming of Lucifer incarnate. But HRC makes the job just too damn easy for GOP propagandists.

It's has the feeling of dealing with a climate change denier or a hardcore economic libertarian.  You show disrespect at every turn by insisting that I provide proof for things that are considered non-controversial after reframing them to things they are not.  Sure things that are considered non-controversial are proven wrong sometimes but the people who do so are aware of the fact that they are making a radical suggestion.

I rarely ask for proof for any of your assertions, but this one is so patently weak that I pretty much have to say [citation needed].

If you wish to argue the extent of the damage there is room to do so but I think the extent is clear.  We are getting close to election day and progressives are still repeating conspiracy theories.  The race was longer then any non-competative race has been.  Bernie Sanders to his last gasp of campaigning stressed TPP, an electoral liability for Clinton.

Oh no, how dare he take difference with her on an issue that he strongly believed in, which could come back to bite her in the general election! It's almost as if Jeb Bush had attacked Trump for being a bully, or John Kasich had attacked Trump for being alienating to Hispanics and other minorities!

If you're mad with Sanders, it's that he violated the gentleman's code within the party of "primary campaigns should be a slap fight where you don't seriously land a blow on the eventual nominee".

Donald Trump uses lines of attack about mistreatment of the Sanders campaign.  The DNC chairperson resigned in disgrace solely because Sanders wanted it (when other democrats wanted her quietly removed).  The extent of this behavior is greater then in any primary campaign in decades so it is reasonable to expect that the effect is as great as a negative primary campaign can be.

This sentiment borders on Penn State fans upset that people disclosed abuse allegations because it "hurt the image of the school". You and I may differ on whether the DNC was unfair in their treatment of Sanders' campaign, but blaming his campaign for Trump using that as a line of attack is just....wow.

[Max™]

The best quote I saw was "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line."

[misko27]

The best quote I saw was "Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line."

You know I keep seeing that everywhere.

[WealthyRadish]

Fucking hell this world would be a better place if the DNC had just told Bernie he wasn't allowed into the debates because he wasn't a democrats.

You've said yourself that Sanders and Hillary were very close on most issues, and only differed significantly in emphasis and a few nuanced details (the debate question on foreign policy in Syria comes to mind). If the Democratic Party is a party committed first and foremost to the issues (and not just a party of power like the cynics say), why wouldn't they let him run on their ticket when his platform is so close? If the party ran closed primaries with only approved candidates, do you really think that the people attacking the party would be less inclined to do so?

You talk a lot about Sanders attacking Hillary; I know of examples where his campaign complained about favoritism and the failures of the Democratic primary system, and he criticized her voting record and use of super-PACs. But when it came to personal attacks, bullshit scandals like the email server, and the other sort of negative campaigning we normally see out of close contests, it was my impression that his campaign almost entirely abstained from those attacks on Hillary.

You now seem to be saying here:

And Sanders didn't just have bad discipline but he did it to a maximum extent.  It was obvious that he had lost by march.  He didn't quit.  He went even more negative.  So now Clinton is spending all her time fighting messages that Bernie fucking Sanders kept in the news which could have died half a year ago.  Clinton could be on the stump in North Carolina and Nevada right now, tying Burr and Heck to Trump.  She isn't.

that Sanders is responsible for Hillary having to fight off the pseudo-scandals like the email server. Were we watching the same primary?

What I'm really struggling to understand is how you can have so much vitriol towards Sanders, when things could've gone so much worse for Hillary. He was in a position to throw the election, continue running as an independent and give Trump what he needs to win. Instead he ran a mild campaign against Clinton until the primary ended, which he accepted and gave an endorsement. I agree that his attacks on the DNC were too severe, that DWS having to resign was pointless, but you can't honestly look at this as a bad result out of what was possible.

Would Hillary be having an easier time if she hadn't had a difficult race against Sanders? Most likely, but she'd have to be a lucky idiot to have predicted a Trump victory (of which she's obviously neither), meaning most of that campaign time in the primary would've been wasted attacking the wrong possible opponents. Is she a better candidate now than she was at the start of the democratic primary, thanks to having to defeat Sanders? Absolutely, in my opinion. There was a definite shift in her stated positions and emphasis on a number of issues as a direct result of that race, and she was made more aware of what a sizable share of her voters wanted.

[Max™]

I may agree with many of you here, and if I were able and you were in need I would not be averse to you crashing on my couch.

If you wanted to invite people over I'd need you to ask me about it, if you wanted to start running a business out of my house after I'd already been operating a business out of my home, I'd insist on approval over your activities.

If you then started complaining to others that I wasn't letting you run that business how you wished, I'd tell you to fuck off and get out of my house, and I'd be in the right for doing so.

If I let you stay anyways, and merely voiced my concerns, but then went along with it, that's on me.

If you then started to expand your actions to criticize my business, and my behavior, while promoting yourself, but I ended up in a situation where I was able to keep operating, but your outlet shut down, I'd think it was pretty cool if you'd come out and apologize for attacking me earlier after I helped you do your own thing, and I'd think it was pretty cool if you sent your customers to me instead of the walmart across the street.

it doesn't mean that you weren't attacking me while you were operating under my roof, using my infrastructure, and it doesn't make that cool.

The DNC could have rightfully told Sanders to fuck off at the start, but they didn't, they could have told him to play with certain goals in mind or get the fuck out, but they didn't.

Though, he didn't really owe the DNC anything, as he isn't one of them, but shitting in their bed and not cleaning up after himself was a dick move.

[PTTG??]

The purpose of political parties should not be to perpetuate themselves; it should be to find decent politicians that their voters approve of.  Berne did nothing that the average democratic primary candidate wouldn't. In the end he probably brought more liberals under the tent.

[Max™]

Did I forget to mention the people connected to my business, my suppliers and distribution network, and the harm done to them?

I got distracted and forgot that part, that the knock on effect to the congresscritters is the real shitty part.