" they all crowded round it, panting, and asking, `But who has won?'"
February 3, 2020 7:57 AM   Subscribe

Today, Iowa, the first state in the 2020 US Presidential Primary, will determine its delegates to the primary conventions. With the Republicans uniting around Trump, the Democratic challenger is yet to be determined...

Iowa has 41 delegates, delegated proportionally with a 15% floor. Iowa uses a caucus, where Democratic party members get together by precinct to debate, argue, cajole, and stand around to determine how their precinct will apportion its support. The Iowa caucuses, explained.

There are significant criticisms of the caucus system: The Iowa caucuses have a big accessibility problem - "The caucuses have a low turnout rate. Accessibility is a big reason."
Abolish the undemocratic Iowa caucuses - "Iowa should not be first for the presidential nominating process. Simply put, our first-in-the nation status privileges the voices of Iowans who are over 90 percent white. Additionally, the bad weather and the drawn-out process of the caucuses means the voices of disabled people, low-income, third-shift workers and parents of young kids are not included."
The Iowa Caucuses Are a Democracy Disaster
Why the Iowa caucuses matter - "It’s because people believe they do."

RESULTS (and a guide to understanding):
Des Moines Register
NPR
Washington Post

Iowa Will Have 4 Sets of Results. Here’s How The Times Will Declare a Winner.

Why the Iowa Caucus Could Have Three Winners This Year - "But the disclosure of two vote tallies and one delegate count on the night of the Feb. 3 caucuses — a move made to inject more transparency into the caucus process — is threatening to muddle the narrative coming out of Iowa. Depending on how the numbers are interpreted, there’s a scenario in which more than one candidate could claim a “win.”"

How Iowa’s Three Different Votes Could Affect Who ‘Wins’
Essentially, then, rural votes are likely to give candidates more bang for the buck in terms of state delegate equivalents. Candidates whose voters are mostly concentrated in liberal, highly populous counties are liable to underperform, conversely. There are various estimates out there as to who this is liable to help or hurt. But my read on the evidence is that Warren and to a lesser extent Sanders are likely to be hurt by it. Warren’s vote is mostly concentrated in upscale suburbs, and Sanders is hoping for big turnout surges in counties with a lot of young voters. Conversely, Klobuchar and Buttigieg have put a lot of emphasis on covering Iowa’s entire map and could benefit from this process. So could Biden, whose voters should be older, more working-class and more rural. To repeat, none of this is reflected in our model, which stops at the final alignment stage.
Iowa Caucus 2020: What to Watch For and When to Expect Results
Seven Democratic candidates are mounting competitive campaigns in Iowa. They are Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusets, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former tech executive Andrew Yang and former hedge fund investor Tom Steyer.
posted by the man of twists and turns (2245 comments total) 43 users marked this as a favorite
 
good luck iowa we're all counting on you
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:18 AM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


At long last, we'll hear from that most woefully underrepresented of demographics: midwestern white people without significant disabilities, young children, weird work hours, or low wages. Truly, a triumph of the democratic spirit.

Anyway, I hope Biden caucuses poorly enough that he decides to pack it in, as the spectre of him losing the general to the orange menace is keeping me up nights.
posted by Mayor West at 8:25 AM on February 3, 2020 [75 favorites]


I hate that I have to caucus tonight. I just want to vote in a normal primary system. If it was super sane, it would be ranked choice voting. And yeah, it is a trainwreck for anyone who can't stand/sit around for fuuuuuuuuucking hours.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:28 AM on February 3, 2020 [27 favorites]


There’s no earthly way that Biden packs it in after Iowa and NH given how strong he is in the South. It’d be political malpractice. That result wouldn’t help him by any means, but it would still signal a tough fight ahead for all sides.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:28 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


This is now my tenth presidential election since I've been able to vote and I thought the primary system was screwed up in 1984 and here we are in 2020 and Iowa and New Hampshire still get to be the gatekeepers for the entire country's presidential nomination choice.
posted by octothorpe at 8:28 AM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


I already thought caucuses were bad, but the process of realignment with the 15% floor (2nd link after the break) really amplifies the spoiler effect.

If Warren and Sanders are both doing pretty strongly (my hope/expectation), and hit 15%, then they're locked in, and they can't pool to beat Biden if they're looking individually weak.

I thought the advertised upside of the caucus was to allow people to reach more of a consensus? Not to lock in discord?
posted by explosion at 8:30 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Biden is still leading in national polls and does best versus Trump in general election polls for what it’s worth at this point (caveat: not a lot). He’s not dropping out any time soon.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:30 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Former Deadspinner Drew Magary's angry piece from early January deserves a mention here along with the other critical shots at the absurdly undemocratic Iowa garbage:

Fuck Iowa

The last six Democratic candidates to win these caucuses all went on to secure the nomination, with Obama’s surprise victory there 12 years ago forever cementing its importance to Democratic Party strategists who, coincidentally, tend to be 12 years behind the curve on every goddamn thing.

Meanwhile, do you know who the last three Republican winners of the Iowa caucuses were, all in years where the nomination was up for grabs? Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, and Ted Cruz. Three complete puds. Even among its fellow red states, Iowa has no real pull. And yet, we have to humor Iowa, home to the most nakedly racist congressman alive (and that’s saying a lot!), yet again.
posted by mediareport at 8:31 AM on February 3, 2020 [43 favorites]


Anyway, I hope Biden caucuses poorly enough that he decides to pack it in, as the spectre of him losing the general to the orange menace is keeping me up nights.

Yeah, that'll never happen. I fully expect him to come out of Iowa in the number one spot.

Really, with Iowa and NH, the point is to determine the top choices going into Super Tuesday. I don't see any huge shake-ups there, it's obviously going to be Biden, Sanders, and Warren in the top three. The results to look at, IMO, are: 1) which of the also-rans will perform poorly enough to drop out, and 2) the position of Sanders and Warren relative to Biden. The best result is that Biden wins by only a tight margin. I'd love to see somebody beat him, but it's fucking Iowa. Not gonna happen.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


This, from the "accessibility problem" link, is also damning:

Just 15.7 percent of Iowa’s voting-eligible population participated in the caucuses in 2016 — a fraction of the 52 percent of New Hampshire voters who turned out a week later for that state’s primary. Even during Iowa’s record-setting turnout of the 2008 elections, it was still just 16.1 percent.
posted by mediareport at 8:34 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


The thing is, a Democratic primary in Iowa looks very different from a Republican primary in Iowa. The Iowa GOP is rabid and produces people like Steve King. The state's Democratic party is a much closer proxy for the general electorate.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:37 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


I just don't see how anyone could possibly believe your third sentence.
posted by mediareport at 8:37 AM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


used to be i wanted obama to tell his idiot vp to pack it in (i believe the phrase i would use most often is “collect yr boy”) but then i found out that the only legitimate american president of the 21st century is apparently most terrified of sanders getting the nomination and long story short last night i dreamed obama surprise-endorsed bloomberg of all people right before the start of the caucuses and let me tell you i was deeply relieved to find out it was just a dream hopefully
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:38 AM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


I found out that the only legitimate American president of the 21st century is apparently most terrified of Sanders getting the nomination

Where did you find that out?
posted by octothorpe at 8:44 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


I fully expect him to come out of Iowa in the number one spot.
Who the fuck knows what's going to happen, but I'm not seeing a ton of support for Biden. If I had to predict, I would say that Sanders gets the most delegates but not an overwhelming victory, but I'm glad I don't have to predict. The only thing I'm willing to predict is that my precinct is going to be a shit-show.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:45 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


I am just so ready to go campaign and vote for whoever the nominee is. I want to upgrade from plutonium-grade nightmare to regular-disappointing-politician dream.
posted by sallybrown at 8:47 AM on February 3, 2020 [20 favorites]


I don't expect Bloomberg to gain traction, but if he does, I hope he takes the lesson that he gained followers by going hard for environmentalism and public services and by attacking regressive Republicans. If he soft-pedals at all, he's just another milquetoast white guy.

Then again, my slim hope for Trump was that he'd attempt to burnish his reputation by pushing M4A under the "Trumpcare" brand. I somehow thought his hatred of Obama would potentially lead to him trying to one-up Obama instead of undo Obama.

I gotta stop having hopes.
posted by explosion at 8:47 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


> The thing is, a Democratic primary in Iowa looks very different from a Republican primary in Iowa. The Iowa GOP is rabid and produces people like Steve King. The state's Democratic party is a much closer proxy for the general electorate.

> I just don't see how anyone could possibly believe your third sentence.

Let's say you're out bowling some random Tuesday night. You're a very bad bowler, though. So bad that you actually let go of the ball on the backswing, it flies off and hits some dude sitting behind you square in the chest. After you check that he's OK, make your apologies and buy him a beer, you try again. This time the ball bounces out of your lane and into the next lane's gutter.

That second ball came much closer to a strike than the first ball, right?
posted by at by at 8:49 AM on February 3, 2020 [15 favorites]


I found out that the only legitimate American president of the 21st century is apparently most terrified of Sanders getting the nomination
Where did you find that out?

Establishment Dems aren't exactly in love with the party moving further left. Obama was at least circumspect in his critique, while Hilary openly picked a fight with Sanders. I don't know what the party establishment is going to do if it looks like Sanders is going to get the nod, but I don't think they're going to let it happen without a fight.
posted by Mayor West at 8:51 AM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


>> i found out that the only legitimate american president of the 21st century is apparently most terrified of sanders getting the nomination

> Where did you find that out?

here. you can get more recent articles by googling “obama hates sanders.”
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:54 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Obama was at least circumspect in his critique,

His quotes seem pretty mild and it's a pretty big jump to conclude from them that he's "terrified of Sanders".
posted by octothorpe at 8:56 AM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


During an Amy Klobuchar rally yesterday on CSPAN (CSPAN video 1hr31min, not really worth watching, just proof of claim made) it was stated that all caucus sites have been made ready for disability access. (It was of note because the woman responsible, Catherine Chris, has endorsed Sen. Klobuchar).
posted by phoque at 8:58 AM on February 3, 2020


here. you can get more recent articles by googling “obama hates sanders.”

I mean it might be true that that's pretty flimsy reporting there.
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


it was stated that all caucus sites have been made ready for disability access
I mean, I guess, in the sense that they're all wheelchair accessible. But there are a lot of different kinds of disabilities, some of which could prevent a person from getting there at all or from staying for the multiple hours the caucuses will take. During ordinary elections, those people can vote via absentee ballot, which is not possible during caucuses. They're a disability-access nightmare, and no amount of wheelchair accessibility or sign-language interpreters can change that.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:15 AM on February 3, 2020 [33 favorites]


If you're in Iowa, triple check your caucus location this afternoon. I've been text banking for Sanders and there have been some location changes over the weekend.
posted by Beardman at 9:17 AM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


Apparently the location changes are due to anticipating a really high turnout and more space needed, which is good. Hope everyone finds their location and has as good a caucus possible given the obscene time investment/other logistical challenges.
posted by windbox at 9:22 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Every four years the entire nation loves to peer at us like we're some kind of sociological petri dish and critique and criticize us and the process here, all the while couching it in stories about casseroles and a sort of "aww shucks look at the cute Iowans" tone. The new york times, who couldn't care less about Iowa at any other time, suddenly has lots to say about us.

There are lots of problems with the Iowa caucus, but many of the criticisms are from people who have never stepped foot in this state. Accessibility is a huge issue, but anyone who has been to a small town caucus knows that these things happen in communities where everyone knows each other and people help other people so that people can caucus. Businesses close, ad hoc childcare is formed, satellite locations are held in nursing homes and retirement centers. People help each other. People who don't live here and only think about us every four years don't know that not only are we pretty progressive on disability issues but we also care about each other and help our neighbors. We tried really hard this year to allow people to call in, and we were shot down by the dnc.

Iowa is super white, no doubt. Okay, so which state should go first? California is the most diverse state in the nation. But the size and media market cost of California would mean that candidates with less money would never have a shot to build a campaign. Is that more democratic? I don't know. Iowa is small, rural, and cheap and allows for candidates with less name ID and money to build a grassroots coalition. Staggered primaries are important because it strengthens campaigns and provides opportunities for candidates who don't have tons of money out of the gate. A one day primary or California first primary would favor the Bloombergs and Bidens.

I actually live in a really diverse neighborhood. I know my neighbors. Many of them are immigrants who care deeply about the future of the nation (yes we are a white state, but there are also 160+ languages spoken here and we have a small but important immigrant population). We're all going to the high school auditorium tonight. We'll catch up and complain about the snow plowing. We'll sing some songs. We'll talk about the issues we care about. We'll talk about how problematic the caucuses are. We'll eat some pretzels. I'm looking forward to it.
posted by Lutoslawski at 9:23 AM on February 3, 2020 [56 favorites]


> People who don't live here and only think about us every four years don't know that not only are we pretty progressive on disability issues but we also care about each other and help our neighbors.

I also live in a community and care about my friends and neighbors -- these qualities are not limited to small towns -- but caucusing with a toddler sucked, and caucusing with a kid with special needs sucked, and helping my elderly, blind, walker-using neighbor caucus sucked.

We don't have caucuses this year and I'm so glad. There is absolutely no way they can be considered democratic.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [35 favorites]


explosion: "I already thought caucuses were bad, but the process of realignment with the 15% floor (2nd link after the break) really amplifies the spoiler effect."

Note that 15% is the (Democratic) requirement for state-wide delegates everywhere not just in caucus states.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Okay, so which state should go first?

I mean, the argument you made is less for Iowa to go first and more for a big and expensive state like California and Texas not to go first. If a small state with cheaper media buys is the key, then I don't see why we don't just take all the small, cheap-ad states and put them all in a hat and randomly draw one that goes first every four years. It's more fair, because at least Idaho or West Virginia will have a chance to matter in a primary season.
posted by FJT at 9:35 AM on February 3, 2020 [20 favorites]


Lutoslawski: "Iowa is super white, no doubt. Okay, so which state should go first? California is the most diverse state in the nation. But the size and media market cost of California would mean that candidates with less money would never have a shot to build a campaign. Is that more democratic? I don't know. Iowa is small, rural, and cheap and allows for candidates with less name ID and money to build a grassroots coalition. Staggered primaries are important because it strengthens campaigns and provides opportunities for candidates who don't have tons of money out of the gate. A one day primary or California first primary would favor the Bloombergs and Bidens."

Delaware is also small, and is 21% African-American.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:36 AM on February 3, 2020 [24 favorites]


Okay, so which state should go first?

A small, diverse state with a strong Democratic tradition - this is Maryland’s time to shine!
posted by sallybrown at 9:37 AM on February 3, 2020 [22 favorites]


Reminder that we could see up to three candidates declaring victory - initial numbers, numbers post-realignment, delegate equivalents.

The last is the way it's historically been reported.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:39 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


. . . these things happen in communities where everyone knows each other and people help other people so that people can caucus. Businesses close, ad hoc childcare is formed, satellite locations are held in nursing homes and retirement centers. People help each other. People who don't live here and only think about us every four years don't know that not only are we pretty progressive on disability issues but we also care about each other and help our neighbors.

This must be one of my pet peeves because I respond to these kinds of statements a lot around here, but what you've described are human values, not Iowa values, not rural values. They do not differentiate Iowa from the rest of the voting states or urban Lagos or rural Canada. They are not a valid response to legitimate structural criticism.
posted by Think_Long at 9:42 AM on February 3, 2020 [64 favorites]


Okay, so which state should go first?

Have the first primaries - elections, not caucuses; no amount of accessibility will prevent immunocompromised people from getting the flu from people attending because it's today with no other option - happen in a handful of states at once, in different regions. Have them rotate from election to election, so all campaigning doesn't always get done in the same areas.

Split the nation into 7 regions of 7-9 states each (including the protectorates); have 3 the first week from different regions, 4 the next from the other regions; alternate until all states have voted. Next election, rotate: every state moves up one slot on the schedule.

The only reason for not having a system like that, is to reduce democratic participation by making it easy for candidates to focus on a fraction of voters who have disproportionate influence. (Kinda like caucuses, really. Whether or not people with disabilities can attend, a lot of them will not be able to influence other voters. Caucuses overwhelmingly privilege those with good social skills and high crowd tolerances.)

"But we can't have California go first! That would disrupt everything!" Over 10% of the country lives in California; what's wrong with us having occasional first say in who's running it? Put CA, TX, and NY on the schedule at once, and 1/4 of the nation's interests are covered.

(Not actually suggesting that. But it's not innately more biased than "let's start with the 30th most populous state.")

...I expect caucuses won't go away until after the first major plague outbreak can be traced to one.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 9:44 AM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


I loved the NYT's effort today to reframe the non-representativeness of Iowa: "Iowa Population Aptly Reflects Graying of American Economy". They of course changed it online to something less garbage ("The Graying of the American Economy Is on Display in Iowa") but the efforts to bend over backwards to find some silver lining in this manifestly egregious violation of basic democratic norms recur every four years.

What's a bit more unusual this year, I think, is that Iowa has traditionally somewhat benefitted the centrist/establishment side of the party, so the critiques from that side have tended to be a bit more muted. Upstarts have definitely won, but it's often been a surprise. This is an odd year where, as of fairly recently, the upstart is the (slight) favorite, so there seems to be more elite-level critique of the process than one sometimes sees.

[Which, on preview, I guess is a more mild version of the comment immediately preceding...]
posted by chortly at 9:53 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


There are lots of problems with the Iowa caucus, but many of the criticisms are from people who have never stepped foot in this state. Accessibility is a huge issue, but anyone who has been to a small town caucus knows that these things happen in communities where everyone knows each other and people help other people so that people can caucus. Businesses close, ad hoc childcare is formed, satellite locations are held in nursing homes and retirement centers.
Yeah, I think this is bullshit. I think this is the Hallmark Card version of Iowa, not the real thing. (And I live here and am volunteering to help run my caucus tonight.) For one thing, not everyone in Iowa lives in an idyllic small town, and the problems with the caucuses disproportionately affect urban precincts, especially in Des Moines and Johnson County. I personally know people who can't caucus because they have to work tonight. I personally know people who aren't going because they couldn't find appropriate childcare. The fancy retirement communities have satellite caucuses, but Ecumenical Towers, an apartment building for low-income seniors in the middle of Iowa City, didn't get an application in early enough and doesn't have a satellite caucus. There are real problems, and they affect my friends and neighbors, and I'm a little sick of people minimizing them because it's cool to be first in the nation or because they think, not necessarily correctly, that an anti-democratic process helps their preferred candidate.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:00 AM on February 3, 2020 [50 favorites]


A small, diverse state with a strong Democratic tradition - this is Maryland’s time to shine!
100%! And to prevent the "well, we'll just move our primary earlier" - just make the rule MD will primary on the earliest primary/caucus day any other state has. Iowa can still have their silly tradition, but then you can have some other states with other methods/people to give a fully picture.
posted by mincus at 10:01 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


New Hampshire state law is that its primary is seven days before any other one, so prepare for Thunderdome.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:03 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


@brianneDMR: "We’re here at the Ottumwa satellite precinct, which is the first Iowa precinct to caucus today. They’ll kick off at noon. So far there is a group of Ethiopian immigrants here who work at the local pork processing plant in the evenings. They like Bernie Sanders."
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:03 AM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


There are some out of state satellite caucus locations. I admit that I don't know their start times.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:05 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


New Hampshire state law is that its primary is seven days before any other one

What happens if another state adopts the same law? Do you get the political version of the 23 million-dollar used book?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:06 AM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


New Hampshire state law is that its primary is seven days before any other one, so prepare for Thunderdome.
A great example case that we need more time paradox laws on the books!
posted by mincus at 10:06 AM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


Fast thread!

Obamaworld's twitter reactions to the "Obama will try to stop/ speak out against Sanders" stories are incredulous. (It reminds me of their reaction to the Trumpian story of Obama people leaving hateful notes to their successors; to believe either story you kind of have to live in a different epistemic world).

Reminder that we could see up to three candidates declaring victory - initial numbers, numbers post-realignment, delegate equivalents.

I wish we could just get away from the whole narrative frame of "winning a state" when it comes to Dems and their proportionally-allocated delegates.

Sanders is going to kick his ass, which is why there is so much focus on Iowa caucuses being illegitimate.

Anyone assuming Biden will win Iowa is ignoring the polls; Sanders is doing better there. It's very easy to simultaneously believe (I know, because I'm doing it right now) that Sanders is good, Sanders will do well in the Iowa caucus, caucuses are bad, and Iowa going first is bad. Sanders' goodness and good performance in the Iowa caucus would be... um, a not good reason... to ignore the general problems with caucuses and Iowa going first.

None of this is to say that Iowa's caucus should be ignored this time around, any more than everybody sane's rightful grousing about the electoral college means that an election already held should be overturned. Rather, as far as I'm concerned, the discussion of the demerits of caucuses and Iowa going first is about what we want the process to look like next time around, or whenever we have a chance to change things for the better.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 10:07 AM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


If anyone has good recommendations for journalists in Iowa whose Twitter feeds are worth keeping an eye on tonight, I would love to read them!
posted by sallybrown at 10:09 AM on February 3, 2020


New Hampshire state law is that its primary is seven days before any other one

Also, what prevents another state that wants to be earlier than NH to say that their method of choosing candidates is not a primary, but something else? Like they could either go the lazy route and just call it a "shmimary" or actually modify a primary enough to meet some legal threshold to be called something different?
posted by FJT at 10:10 AM on February 3, 2020


This year my wife is going and I'm staying at home with the kid, because there is no way I'm subjecting my four year old to that kind of experience. This will be her first caucus, as she is a transplant from another state. I've warned her to expect to be there for a long time. I wish we had a primary instead.

That said, I'm looking forward to the day that my phone stops ringing and buzzing for unsolicited campaign messages. The political season is too long here.
posted by TrialByMedia at 10:11 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Bernie's gonna win Iowa. It's not going to mean that much outside of narrative, though. Let's see what things are looking like mid-March.
posted by azpenguin at 10:14 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


FJT: "Also, what prevents another state that wants to be earlier than NH to say that their method of choosing candidates is not a primary, but something else? Like they could either go the lazy route and just call it a "shmimary" or actually modify a primary enough to meet some legal threshold to be called something different?"

Great question. It's at the discretion of the New Hampshire Secretary of State. He's been in office for a billion years and is zealous in his guardianship of NH's first in the nation status. Some of Iowa's caution at trying to improve access, etc. to the caucuses is for fear of setting off a war with NH.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:15 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Bernie will win Iowa's caucus. Whoever finishes second will be anointed by the establishment as the Great Anyone-But-Bernie Hope, up until the moment that their support fades in another set of states and a new Great Anyone-But-Bernie Hope is named.

This is not to suggest that a Bernie nomination is inevitable; that is still very much up in the air. But do expect opposition to continue for months while the flag-bearer of that opposition slowly mutates.
posted by delfin at 10:22 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Not sure I understand people in this thread saying they know who's going to win. The latest average polling shows Sanders with a slight lead but it's close enough that it could easily be any one of the top four.
posted by octothorpe at 10:22 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


I get the argument that small states should go first, and you probably want a state that's a decent microcosm of the country.

To put some numbers on this, there are rankings of states from NPR and 538 (Geoffrey Skelley) and 538 again (Jed Kolko). Everyone seems to end up with Illinois as the most representative state, but if you believe in the whole starting-with-a-small-state thing that doesn't work well

People keep coming back to Delaware, but my parents are moving to Delaware and I don't want them to be subjected to the traveling media circus every four years. (Also, more seriously, Delaware is beholden to so many corporate interests that that seems like a bad idea.) I vote for Rhode Island to go first.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:24 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


What happens if another state adopts the same law? Do you get the political version of the 23 million-dollar used book?

I think so. I vaguely remember there being some suspicion that the 2008 Iowa caucus would end up in December 2007. Or maybe it was the 2012 Iowa caucus in 2011. (In both of those years the Iowa caucus was on January 3.)

This is basically ungooglable right now though.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:27 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Not sure I understand people in this thread saying they know who's going to win. The latest average polling shows Sanders with a slight lead but it's close enough that it could easily be any one of the top four.
A wildcard is that all the polls are statewide, but that's not how caucuses work. It's by precinct, which is kind of like the electoral college in that some precincts have more weight than others. A big open question, I think, is whether Bernie's support is mostly in urban precincts, which are underrepresented, or whether he has relatively-strong support in small-town and rural areas. And I think that's anyone's guess, because the polling doesn't get to that level of granularity.

We genuinely don't know what's going to happen tonight, and anyone who tells you differently is either trying to sell something or doesn't know what they're talking about.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:29 AM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


Presumably, the DNC would need to threaten to strip a state of delegates, like happened in 2007.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:29 AM on February 3, 2020


What’s the rationale for not just doing all the primaries on the same day?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:31 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


The argument for Iowa and New Hampshire is basically that they're small enough that you can make an impact by, like, giving speeches in high-school gyms, whereas if you have a national primary, then it will all come down to advertising, and that means that whoever has the most money will win. I don't know that I totally buy it, but that's the argument.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


With the understanding that independent voters are largely a myth these days, and that both parties are largely working to get out the vote (or suppress the opponent's, in one party's case):

The first primary should not be in a state that most closely represents the US. The first primary should be in a state where the registered Democratic voters most closely represent the registered Democratic voters in the US.

Stop trying to find crossover appeal. Start working to find the candidate who energizes and motivates Democratic voters.
posted by explosion at 10:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


What you’d need to change it is to have some candidates go to the convention with a bunch of delegates and push for structural changes to the process (including denying delegates to states that break the rules).

This would be high-risk, as candidates wouldn’t want to offend Iowa or New Hampshire if they want to run again. So it’d probably only work if a lot of the candidates happened to be old and/or very interested in shaking up the system.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:34 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


I've love to see something like 5 primary days each election year with 10 states randomly picked each time. Do them once every two or maybe three weeks beginning in February.
posted by octothorpe at 10:36 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


You can definitely oversell the "there are no crossover voters" thing. The Democratic governors of Kansas, Louisiana, and Kentucky, and the Republican governors of Massachusetts and Maryland would have some views, I think.

(Yes, there are special reasons for all of those! We have a crazy person as president right now, that's a special reason, too.)
posted by Chrysostom at 10:37 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


I like the randomization idea in theory. But who's going to oversee the randomization? Does the FEC even do anything any more?
posted by madcaptenor at 10:39 AM on February 3, 2020


Some state that is convinced its primary results don't notably influence the final ballot (...like California, sigh) might set its primary date to "one year before the election" to reduce the ridiculous effect of all the campaigning going on in the last few weeks, and reduce the incumbent advantage.

What’s the rationale for not just doing all the primaries on the same day?

Originally, probably the hassles of counting and managing the election. Sure, we do it for the presidential all on one day, but it's easier on everyone if it's staggered.

Otherwise, campaign limitations - if you want candidates to visit and hear from people in many states, you need to give them time for that. Otherwise, they may focus all their attention only on very large states. (Which, ahem, is not an undemocratic approach. But it does create a certain bias.)

Additionally, media circus! If they all happen at once, there's no bonus drama about who's winning/losing, and what a runner-up will need to do to take first place, and so on. There may be some actual advantage to this that I'm not noticing because I'm pretty damn cynical about the whole thing right now.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:40 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


FEC would have zero to do with this. How a party selects its nominee is basically up to them, as long as they don't break any obvious laws.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:40 AM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


I admit that I don't know their start times.
The (inexplicable) one in Tblisi is already over, but apparently they're not reporting the result until tonight.

Someone asked who to follow on Twitter. I would go with Iowa Starting Line and Bleeding Heartland.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:42 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


How the party selects candidates may be up to the DNC/RNC, but when a state holds its primary is apparently a matter of state law? I suppose the DNC/RNC could demand changes and refuse delegates from states that fail to change their laws, though.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:43 AM on February 3, 2020


Yes.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:43 AM on February 3, 2020


Spreading out the primaries reminds me of that trick when you’re trying to pick between two restaurants, so you flip a coin, and it helps you clarify whether you want to go to the winning place or the losing place. Each new state can reflect on the current alignment and decide whether they need to do some adjusting to the prior state’s decision.
posted by sallybrown at 10:44 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


FEC would have zero to do with this. How a party selects its nominee is basically up to them, as long as they don't break any obvious laws.

That's true. I retract the literal content of my previous comment. But the spirit still stands - can you imagine if we had had this in 2016? Sanders supporters would have been all over claiming that the order of the states had been rigged against Bernie.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:45 AM on February 3, 2020


Sanders is going to kick his ass, which is why there is so much focus on Iowa caucuses being illegitimate.

Come on. People have been complaining about Iowa's disparity from the D coalition for years and were doing so loudly this year when it was Biden and Warren leading the polls.

And while Bernie may in fact kick his ass, the polling average shows basically a tossup, so let's not assume things that might just feed an unrealistic grievance later.
posted by chris24 at 10:47 AM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


Worthwhile Nate Cohn thread on why the process converting votes to delegate equivalents could penalize Warren/Sanders.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:50 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


The description of the rules sounds like calvinball. 15% floor for 41 delegates, if your choice isn’t chosen you.. choose again? What day? When? Dangit I shouldn’t have to click on the links for this.
posted by Yowser at 10:50 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


As for the idea that the Democrats should pick a calendar that prioritizes states where the Democrats are typical Democrats - see Geoffrey Skelley's list based on data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study for a first pass at that.

The problem here is that if the Democrats do that, presumably the Republicans would too, and you'd end up with two different calendars. So every state would have to hold two primaries instead of one, which would end up costing the states more, and I'm not sure they'd go along.
posted by madcaptenor at 10:52 AM on February 3, 2020


But... the Democrats and Republicans already have different calendars?
posted by Justinian at 10:53 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


It actually used to be worse - if your county delegates didn't go to the state convention for some reason, they were thrown out.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:53 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think there's some benefit to this idea. Why not have all this energy, money and time spent in a state that matters in the general.

Harold Pollack
Think of how much more valuable it would have been had Democratic candidates expended the same effort, met the same numbers of voters, and built the same infrastructures in Michigan and Florida instead of Iowa and New Hampshire.
posted by chris24 at 10:56 AM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


If anyone wants more on NH's role in all this, NHPR's been running a podcast, Stranglehold. Iowa Public Radio also has Caucus Land, and yes, there was a cross-over episode.

The NHPR podcast features a heartbreaking/fantastic moment when a bunch of students of color from Virginia Commonwealth University directly question the NH Secretary of State about the lack of diversity and then they realize that they've heard his answer before because it's the same one he trots out every time and that they had heard on an earlier episode of the podcast their professor made them listen to.

I'm ready to attest to the small state advantage here in NH. You can, in fact, actually meet with and see and talk to the candidates first hand and ask uncomfortable questions if you make the effort and get out to see them early enough. (It's harder later in the process when the crowds get bigger and things gets more scripted.)

But the diversity issue is too big to ignore at this point, so I'm all for passing the torch to Delaware or Maryland or Illinois or a rotation system or something.
posted by damayanti at 10:58 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Well, New Hampshire is now purple. And Iowa was, until recently, blue. There's been a lot of rapid change in political geography recently.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:59 AM on February 3, 2020


But... the Democrats and Republicans already have different calendars?

That's true. I'm not sure how different they are - I've been unable to find anybody that lines up the two calendars side by side, and I'm trying to pretend I'm getting work done at work. (If I did this in a spreadsheet nobody would be all that suspicious...)
posted by madcaptenor at 10:59 AM on February 3, 2020


Here's the dates of everything, if that helps.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:01 AM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


2020 Election Calendar, including primaries/caucus dates, both on a calendar and lined up side by side.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 11:01 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


(The 270towin calendar is color-coded: purple is both, red is R blue is D)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:03 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Organize the primaries like a reality show would, in order from smallest to largest population, chunked into groups where each group has more delegates than all the groups before it, so that:

1) early media buys would be relatively cheap and in-person contact easier, giving you the largest and most confusing possible number of early candidates,
2) candidates would have an incentive to visit and campaign in every state, and
3) it stretches out the uncertainty and suspense as long as possible, so national media can promote each new round of primaries as This Set Of Primaries Could Change Everything, which would be good for ratings.

/mostly joking
posted by Spathe Cadet at 11:03 AM on February 3, 2020


If we organize the primaries like a reality show, will we end up with a reality show personality as President?
posted by madcaptenor at 11:05 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


It is strange seeing major media outlets pump the message that Iowa results should be ignored ahead of this particular Democratic primary. I can't imagine why that talking point would be disseminated at this time. Why in the world would someone prime the news cycle that way? Weird.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:12 AM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


Organize the primaries like a reality show would, in order from smallest to largest population, chunked into groups where each group has more delegates than all the groups before it:

You might be mostly joking, but I wasn't when I wrote about this approach. Game-show scheduling makes it so that every state has *some* say.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:14 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


If anyone has good recommendations for journalists in Iowa whose Twitter feeds are worth keeping an eye on tonight, I would love to read them!
posted by sallybrown

Lyz Lenz @lyzl
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:20 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


If we organize the primaries like a reality show, will we end up with a reality show personality as President?

That would be an unimaginable nightmare.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:25 AM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Come on. People have been complaining about Iowa's disparity from the D coalition for years and were doing so loudly this year when it was Biden and Warren leading the polls.

I've been hearing the exact same complaints about caucuses vs. primaries since I was in AP Government in the late 90s, and it was pretty clear even then that it was an old, calcified debate.

Which obviously means that the Democratic Anti-Sanders Conspiracy has been plotting against him for decades before his 2016 run was so much as a twinkle in anyone's eye, probably since before he even became a Senator. One must applaud The Conspiracy's incredible foresight, if nothing else.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:29 AM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


The American people are smart enough to choose leaders based on their qualifications, policies, and temperament, rather than their ability to create exciting televisual drama. I'm sure we'd be fine.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 11:30 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


To be fair to ifdsnn, her original statement doesn't necessarily hinge on when the argument started- just its current prominence.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:32 AM on February 3, 2020


I've been a political junkie since Dukakis did not in fact rock us. I have literally never seen a major news outlet tell its viewers to ignore any part of the primary process.

Maybe it's an old debate in political wonk circles, but this is in fact the first time I know of that the sentiment is going mainstream.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:33 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


I have literally never seen a major news outlet tell its viewers to ignore any part of the primary process

Sanders looks like he's going to win Iowa, and the corporate media hates his left-wing politics, so they're trying to diminish his anticipated victory. That's obviously what's happening here.

(Of course, as discussed above, nobody actually knows the future outcome of the Iowa caucuses. But people have hunches based on recent polls + ground game + general zeitgeist.)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:38 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Have you guys noticed that it has become impossible to tell if someone is saying something ironically or not?
posted by Justinian at 11:40 AM on February 3, 2020 [21 favorites]


Have you guys noticed that it has become impossible to tell if someone is saying something ironically or not?

No, I haven't noticed that.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:40 AM on February 3, 2020 [50 favorites]


The Iowa caucus has sucked since at least 2004 when I did my first one. But I am but a humble Boy Detective so my loudly bitching about it has not made national news.

My still spicy prediction is that Yang will surprise.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:44 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Which major media outlet has said to ignore the outcome of Iowa?
posted by octothorpe at 11:44 AM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Found this on the Slack thread. Yeah that's dumb and silly because you can ignore the outcome but there are delegates allocated and you can't ignore them. They're going to vote in the convention no matter what.
posted by octothorpe at 11:49 AM on February 3, 2020


It is strange seeing major media outlets pump the message that Iowa results should be ignored ahead of this particular Democratic primary.

The major media outfits that have sent an army of people to Iowa? The same media outlets with constant countdown clocks on screen encouraging people to tune into special coverage that begins before the caucuses even start? The same media outlets that have put out a gazillion Iowa polls and done everything possible to attract as much attention as possible?

Not everything is a conspiracy. Claiming that everything is rigged diminishes your power when something really and truly is unfair and deserves to be called out, but it also has a corrosive effect on democracy by discouraging people from participating in the process.
posted by zachlipton at 11:49 AM on February 3, 2020 [18 favorites]


To be fair to ifdsnn, her original statement doesn't necessarily hinge on when the argument started- just its current prominence.

People arguing about the importance of the Iowa caucus on the day of the Iowa caucus seems pretty reasonable.
posted by Etrigan at 11:50 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I wish I could explain to people and they'd remember that people get paid to write random, stupid shit on the internet and that a lot of people are constantly trying to peddle their "hot takes" for clicks.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:51 AM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


the corporate media hates his left-wing politics

Maybe to some degree, but I think they're also just so far up their own asses in pursuit of ratings that they dog whomever might be the top candidate so that it appears to be more of a horse-race.
posted by explosion at 11:52 AM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


Which major media outlet has said to ignore the outcome of Iowa?

If the message is either "ignore the results" or "the results are going to be illegitimate", then Bloomberg, NYTimes, The Hill (ugh), WaPo, Politico, you name it.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:52 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


ok, I name Washington Post. Example?
posted by Justinian at 11:53 AM on February 3, 2020


I have literally never seen a major news outlet tell its viewers to ignore any part of the primary process.

I'm not sure there's a lot of this going on, but one thing is the D coalition has moved away from the demographics of Iowa to a much more diverse, multi-ethnic and urban electorate, so it makes sense it's more of an issue today.
posted by chris24 at 11:54 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Just drop the links on us already. I am not seeing it on the NYT website.

The Hill is not a real news organization. They just repost other people's work lightly edited. If this changed, someone just let me know and I'll take it back.

Anyway, Lyz Lenz, local hero, has been saying how stupid the caucus is forever.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 11:54 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


> This year my wife is going and I'm staying at home with the kid, because there is no way I'm subjecting my four year old to that kind of experience.

But I have heard repeatedly that everyone in Iowa gets babysitters for caucuses. (What the babysitters do about caucusing is not explained.)
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:54 AM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


The caucus sucks, has always sucked, there's another active thread about it sucking massively - would it be possible maybe to agree that whoever wins it will have done so partially in spite of it sucking AND partially as a function of it sucking - just like everyone else who has ever won it - based on their own specific campaign caucus strategy that they will have had to develop solely to win the caucus in it's current circumstances?
posted by windbox at 11:56 AM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Some nice schadenfreude while we wait for tonight's results (video within):

“I think he’s gonna win big tonight.”

The Bernie surge has Chris Matthews on the verge of tears. It’s okay, Chris.
— Samuel D. Finkelstein II (@CANCEL_SAM)
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:57 AM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


The only examples I have seen, such as this NYT _opinion_ piece are people arguing that we give too much weight to completely unrepresentative IA and NH (which is inarguably true) and we should change that in the future.

Apparently changing something in 2024 or 2028 is an attempt to rig the 2020 primary?
posted by Justinian at 11:57 AM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


ok, I name Washington Post. Example?
Here, right off the bat.

Just drop the links on us already. I am not seeing it on the NYT website.
Here.

Is this that "sealioning" thing I keep hearing about?
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:57 AM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


The WaPo example is exactly like the NYT one: correctly pointing out that IA and NH are not representative of the country much less the Democratic party and we should change their importance? This isn't only reasonable it's inarguable. I don't see how one can possibly argue that changing something in the future hurts Sanders today.
posted by Justinian at 11:59 AM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


ok, I name Washington Post. Example?
Here, right off the bat.

You should probably read past the headline on that one, because it just answers its own question ("What good are the Iowa caucuses anyway?") by detailing the lower-tier candidates' chances and probable paths past Iowa.
posted by Etrigan at 12:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Here, right off the bat.

Jennifer Rubin, Republican, arguing for future change

Just drop the links on us already. I am not seeing it on the NYT website.
Here.

Arguing for 2024 change
posted by chris24 at 12:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


The WaPo example is exactly like the NYT one: correctly pointing out that IA and NH are not representative of the country much less the Democratic party and we should change their importance? This isn't only reasonable it's inarguable. I don't see how one can possibly argue that changing something in the future hurts Sanders today.

Because priming and framing are functions of all news media. The message is loud and clear: "please don't take any success today as an indicator that the winner is not an outsider who can't win".
posted by FakeFreyja at 12:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


No, the argument is that caucuses are unfair and the states are unrepresentative. As has been argued for years.
posted by chris24 at 12:03 PM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


Of Course Bernie Can Win.

I guess the NYT is framing and priming that Sanders can win?
posted by Justinian at 12:03 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


The message is loud and clear

If you've decided to hear that, that's certainly a decision you can make.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:03 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


> Former Deadspinner Drew Magary's angry piece from early January deserves a mention here along with the other critical shots at the absurdly undemocratic Iowa garbage:

Also from Magary: The Hater's Guides To:

Joe Biden

Mike Bloomberg

Pete Buttigieg

Amy Klobuchar

Bernie Sanders

Elizabeth Warren
posted by tonycpsu at 12:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


But I have heard repeatedly that everyone in Iowa gets babysitters for caucuses. (What the babysitters do about caucusing is not explained.)

The Warren campaign is using "volunteer-led" child care; I suspect a lot of the volunteers are from out of state. (Cannot confirm.)
posted by madcaptenor at 12:05 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Alice in Wonderland reference in the title: A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale.
posted by bitslayer at 12:07 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


From 2016...

Quartz: Iowa and New Hampshire wield too much influence. The US needs a national primary

Think Progress: Ban The Iowa Caucus

Politico: How Iowa Hijacked Our Democracy

---

Can we stop thinking this is new now?
posted by chris24 at 12:07 PM on February 3, 2020 [12 favorites]


The message is loud and clear: "please don't take any success today as an indicator that the winner is not an outsider who can't win".

I just read both of the opinion pieces you linked to, FakeFreyja, and I haven’t managed to find what you hear so clearly. Could you point me toward any particular passage that I might have missed?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 12:07 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Because priming and framing are functions of all news media. The message is loud and clear: "please don't take any success today as an indicator that the winner is not an outsider who can't win".

Is there an acceptable way that someone can discuss the issues with the Iowa caucuses, given that they're the same issues everyone has had with them for many years, that you wouldn't view as an attempt to rig the process against Bernie Sanders? Because I'm not understanding how, by the standard you've set out, anyone is allowed to say anything negative about the very obvious longstanding problems with the process and demographics that you won't perceive as a loud and clear attack on one candidate.
posted by zachlipton at 12:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [16 favorites]


The first four caucus and primary states don’t look like America. Combined, they get closer.
None of the four states fully reflect America, and the least representative two go first. Taken together, though, the unique qualities of each mean several key blocs of voters get at least one opportunity to have an outsized role in the early nomination process.
Ceterum autem censeo Trump delenda est
posted by kirkaracha at 12:09 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


But I have heard repeatedly that everyone in Iowa gets babysitters for caucuses. (What the babysitters do about caucusing is not explained.)

I don't know about Iowa specifically, but here in Michigan, a lot of babysitting is done by women who are too young to vote but old enough to have a cell phone.
posted by Etrigan at 12:10 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I've argued that IA and NV should go on the same "first caucus" day, followed by NH and SC on a "first primary" day. That would still be problematic but would be a lot better than what we have now.

Of course as pointed out above some laws would have to be changed since IA and NH have actual, honest to god laws to protect their oh so special snowflake feefees.
posted by Justinian at 12:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


I suspect a lot of the volunteers are from out of state. (Cannot confirm.)
Local high-school students is what I've heard.
I don't know about Iowa specifically, but here in Michigan, a lot of babysitting is done by women who are too young to vote but old enough to have a cell phone.
Teenagers, non-citizens, and sometimes the grandparents if they're independents or Republicans. (There's a Republican caucus but not really any reason to bother this year, unless you want to make an anti-Trump statement, which most Republicans don't.) I know some people who are bringing their kids, which is brave. I've got a bag packed with snacks and art supplies for any grumpy kids I happen upon at the caucus site I'm helping to run.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 12:13 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


(What the babysitters do about caucusing is not explained.)

By Iowa tradition, teenagers who are ineligible to participate in the caucus volunteer to babysit for their neighbors and relatives. For free, even, if the parents don't have money to pay for a babysitter (or say they don't).

Occasionally, parents take advantage, and use this unusual freedom to go out dancing and drinking after the caucus, which is known (datedly) as "discoalitioning." (The parents who do this are sometimes "drunkenstituents." Next-day absenteeism from work is "partisanskip." Iowans love portmanteau words.) The rise of social media has made it more difficult to do this without getting caught, so it doesn't happen as much as it used to.

It's surprising that this doesn't show up in more articles about the caucus; it's a really big part of the culture.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 12:19 PM on February 3, 2020 [36 favorites]


Thanks to ArbitraryAndCapricious and Spathe Cadet for pointing out that teenagers can, and do, babysit. I have a kid; she's almost two; all our regular babysitters are of voting age so I forgot that not all babysitters are.

I live in Georgia. We have primaries here. We have other methods of voter suppression. One of these days my kid is going to get investigated because I let her have my "I'm a Georgia voter" sticker.
posted by madcaptenor at 12:24 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


It's surprising that this doesn't show up in more articles about the caucus; it's a really big part of the culture.

What, and take away ink from yet another story about how Trump voters are sticking with Trump?
posted by Etrigan at 12:25 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


At the beginning of August, the NFL holds the first preseason game. It's in what is basically a glorified high school stadium, and since most of the actual starting players sit out or only play one series, it's not exactly high quality football. But... it's football, and a lot of fans watch a quarter or so of it to get a "hit" after the long offseason.

This is what the Iowa caucuses feel like for me. Hey, it doesn't mean a ton as far as getting an actual lead in delegates (with 41 delegates awarded proportionally, no one's going to jump out to a meaningful lead), and the caucus system is a mess and hard to follow for us in other states. Some candidates don't even bother with putting up a fight in the state. But hey! It's the first hit of the primary season. We'll have some actual results to talk about and debate and quibble over for a few days.
posted by azpenguin at 12:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Thanks to ArbitraryAndCapricious and Spathe Cadet for pointing out that teenagers can, and do, babysit. I have a kid; she's almost two; all our regular babysitters are of voting age so I forgot that not all babysitters are.

I apologize; my comment obviously did not read the way it was imagined. I'm killing time until the caucus begins, I'm mildly anxious about how the caucus is going to go, and the combination is making me a little loopy.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 12:28 PM on February 3, 2020


azpenguin: The problem with that analogy is that a preseason football game has virtually no effect on the regular season while the Iowa results have major and far-reaching effects on the rest of the primary season.
posted by Justinian at 12:29 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Pork Plant Workers Turn Out for Sanders in First Caucus in Iowa by Akela Lacy, Ryan Grim

Just over two dozen workers gathered at the headquarters of the local United Food and Commercial Workers, with 14 casting their votes for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. One attendee cast their vote for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
...
While the Ottumwa caucus was the first in the state, the first Iowa caucus was actually held in Tbilisi, Georgia. The results of that three-person caucus will be announced on Monday night.
posted by phoque at 12:34 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Excluded from caucusing:
* Emergency services personnel
* Hospital staff
* Teachers
* Police
* Bus drivers
* Utilities staff/operators
* ? (no doubt others)

While it's true that everyone who has to work on Caucus Day can't caucus, theoretically, a business could shut down to allow everyone to be involved. But there are several categories of workers that don't have that option - any person who takes the day off to caucus is going to be replaced by someone else who doesn't get to vote.

Making the day a state holiday would fix some of that, but only some. I'd love to see some articles about which groups of people are excluded from participation like this.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 12:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


Re: establishment Dems being "terrified of Sanders":

Former Secretary of State John Kerry...was overheard Sunday on the phone at a Des Moines hotel explaining what he would have to do to enter the presidential race amid "the possibility of Bernie Sanders taking down the Democratic Party — down whole."

Not just "I don't think Bernie can win" or "Bernie's policies aren't resonating with voters" or anything like that. No, he said a Sanders win would be "taking down the Democratic Party - down whole."

Kerry's denied that the overheard convo contained anything close to him deciding he'd enter the race, and says he absolutely is not thinking about that, but he hasn't denied the "taking down the party" comment, and the mindset is revealing. I call worrying that Sanders will completely destroy the Democratic Party the same as being "terrified of Sanders," yes.

I find it fascinating that so many centrist Dems attack Sanders supporters for their hesitance in early polls to commit to support any other nominee, but suspect the vast majority of those centrists would themselves jump ship out of voting Democratic if Sanders, against all odds and organized centrist Dem attempts to foil him, wins the nod. Funny how that's not allowed to cut both ways.
posted by mediareport at 12:45 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Re: the primary calendar, I'm sure someone has proposed something similar to this at some point and my google-fu just can't find it, but a solution that seems fair and practical to me would be to sort the primaries by the number of delegates and distribute them into those N groups in a serpentine order. Every year, the groups rotate positions an N-week primary cycle.

Five groups seems like a good number for election cycles that repeat every four years so that each group cycles through the presidential / mid-term / off years, and I think most Americans can get behind a much shorter primary cycle. If not, then they could be held every two or three weeks.

Based on current delegate numbers, the groups would be as follows: 
Group 1      Group 2      Group 3      Group 4      Group 5
CA           NY           TX           FL           PA
NC           MI           NJ           OH           IL
GA           VA           MD           MA           WA
CO           MO           MN           IN           WI
AZ           TN           OR           CT           SC
IA           PR           AL           KY           LA
KS           OK           NV           MS           NM
RI           WV           NE           UT           AR
NH           ME           HI           DE           ID
AK           SD           VT           MT           DC
ND           WY           DemsAbroad   Guam         USVI
                                       NMI          AS
The groups will change over time as delegate counts change, but eyeballing things here, it seems like this will to a much better result even if there's some shifting. The advantages I see are as follows:

1. Each state gets a chance to be "first".

2. No state gets outsized impoertance by being the "only" state or one of a handful early in the process.

3. Complaints about rural / low population / ideologically homogeneous states dominating the early calendar are explicitly addressed. California is obviously going to be a big prize in the first group, but if the liberal candidate wins CA and the more centrist candidate wins NC and GA, and several of the other states in the group, the race will still be tight.

4. One of the main reasons people point to for our existing system is that it lets lesser-funded candidates build up some wins and bootstrap their campaign. Setting aside whether this ought to be a goal of the primary system or not, this could definitely happen under this system. A 6th place campaign with little money probably isn't winning California, but maybe they can place 4th there, 2nd in NC, and maybe bag a win or two in one of RI or NH, and suddenly they've got some significant buzz.

The main disadvantage I see is that it's hard to compete in 10-11 elections on a single day given the amount of resources these campaigns put into their ground game, so campaigns will be encouraged to ignore some states, but campaigns already make these tactical decisions about where to allocate their resources in the current setup, so it doesn't seem like any particular states will be disadvantaged. Iowans and New Nampshirites might not like that the attention to their state will be scaled down to match their mathematical proportion of the delegates available that day, but I still see the campaigns trying to get first place finishes in those smaller states just so they can put wins on the board.

This is a pipe dream, of course, but thinking about this for 20-ish minutes has taken my mind off of everything else in politics, so I'll take it.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:47 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Every four years the entire nation loves to peer at us like we're some kind of sociological petri dish and critique and criticize us and the process here

Stop demanding that your state goes first forever and ever, amen, and we'll stop peering and criticizing so much. That's a promise.
posted by mediareport at 12:50 PM on February 3, 2020 [25 favorites]


Teachers? Isn’t the caucus at night?

(I am immensely grateful that we, and by we I mean you, the people who post these threads, let us get to where people are actually voting before we all yell about the primaries. As contentious as this might get, at least things are actually happening; Twitter’s been melting down for like 2 months now at the slightest provocation.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:50 PM on February 3, 2020


but suspect the vast majority of those centrists would themselves jump ship out of voting Democratic if Sanders, against all odds and organized centrist Dem attempts to foil him, wins the nod. Funny how that's not allowed to cut both ways

The actual data does not support this in any way. The supporters least likely to vote for other nominees are Yang's followed by Sander's. The most likely are Warren's, with Biden close to Warren.
posted by Justinian at 12:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


I should note: the supporters who say they are least likely. It's quite possible people would come around before the election but after the primary.
posted by Justinian at 12:54 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


The actual data does not support this in any way.

You're right, of course, but I don't like this as an early polling question at all, to be honest; I think many, many Sanders supporters currently telling pollsters they wouldn't vote for, say, Warren will indeed come around if it's her vs. Trump. I actually have a harder time imagining folks like Neera Tanden coming around to support Sanders if he's the eventual nominee, but I'd be extremely happy to be proven wrong on that.
posted by mediareport at 1:00 PM on February 3, 2020


For reference, this is the poll that Justinian is referencing: only 53% of surveyed Sanders voters say they definitely plan to vote for a Democrat in the general election if their guy doesn't win. Yang is the only one with a lower percentage, at 50%, and then the next lowest is Bloomberg at 78%.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:02 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


You're right, of course, but I don't like this as an early polling question at all, to be honest

Dude, you're the one who brought it up! You don't get to reject it when the reality doesn't fit your fucking worldview!
posted by tobascodagama at 1:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


Stop demanding that your state goes first forever and ever, amen, and we'll stop peering and criticizing so much. That's a promise.

Iowa going first in the caucus/primary season is not the fault of any of the Iowans in this conversation. I personally would stick some other state in first place in a heartbeat, if I could.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 1:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


So that makes 22% of Bloomberg voters consistent with their guy, a Bush-endorsing Republican.
posted by Beardman at 1:05 PM on February 3, 2020


It's possible I pay too much attention because I didn't even have to look up the numbers to remember the order out of that Emerson poll. It's not even the top line "who will you vote for" question! I shouldn't know that off the top of my head.

I should get a hobby.
posted by Justinian at 1:07 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


I think a hobby got you first.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Dude, you're the one who brought it up!

Technically, it was John Kerry who brought it up in this particular instance, if the reporting is accurate.
posted by Etrigan at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


@PFTompkins: I am sorry but the Iowa caucus is meaningless to me and the results should routinely be discounted. These are people who were tricked by a conman into buying band uniforms for children who couldn’t even play instruments.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [24 favorites]


You're right, of course, but I don't like this as an early polling question at all, to be honest; I think many, many Sanders supporters currently telling pollsters they wouldn't vote for, say, Warren will indeed come around if it's her vs. Trump.

What I'd like to see is how many regular voters will vote for another candidate if Sanders doesn't win, and of those how many are regular Democratic voters. My suspicion is that the majority of regular voters who regularly vote Democratic will vote for the Democratic candidate, and the majority of Sanders voters who won't are either drawn to the polls by Sanders or usually vote third party. If someone doesn't usually care enough to vote and wants to vote for Sanders, I am not unduly surprised or indeed upset if they decline to vote for anyone else.
posted by Frowner at 1:09 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


It seems to me that, given the ability of non-viable (<15%) voting groups to reassign their vote, polling Clinton vs Sanders was vastly more simple than polling Bennet vs Biden vs Bloomberg vs Buttigieg vs Gabbard vs Klobuchar vs Patrick vs Sanders vs Steyer vs Warren vs Yang vs Unaffiliated. Even if we know people's first choice, it's very hard to know the final result.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


In fairness to the DNC (god I hate writing that), their trepidation regarding a Sanders nomination is not unreasonable.

He pledged to join the party in 2016, he in fact did not (his 2022 Senator campaign is independent). It really opens them up to a free-rider problem if outsiders can use DNC resources without actually being Democrats.

It could happen from the left, but also from the right. They're walking a really tight rope where they need to rein Sanders in and enforce the rules without appearing anti-democratic (small D). If Sanders wins the nomination (and especially if he wins the presidency), there's a whole Pandora's Box opened up.

Sanders has been my number two (behind only Warren), but this sort of "end justifies the means" Bernie exceptionalism is a good portion of the reason why he's behind Warren in my mind.
posted by explosion at 1:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [33 favorites]


You don't get to reject it when the reality doesn't fit your fucking worldview!

I'd seen the poll in Justinian's link this morning; it was all over centrist Twitter, I assure you. There was another one just last week that put the number of Sanders supporters who'd vote for another candidate at 70%, for what it's worth. I'll continue to be particularly skeptical of the accuracy of this question so far out from the convention, and agree with Justinian that "It's quite possible people would come around before the election but after the primary."
posted by mediareport at 1:39 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Take a deep breath, folks. It's gonna be a long year and we have to live with each other.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 1:58 PM on February 3, 2020 [32 favorites]


Right, I don't think there's any chance that roughly half of Sanders' supporters don't vote for the Democratic candidate in the general. But there's no reason to think that the more moderate Democratic candidate's supporters are less likely to support the eventual nominee regardless of who that is when the only actual data we have is to the contrary.

Note that Gabbard was not included in the poll since she's no longer in the race but from what I've read her supporters would have been even less likely than Yang supporters to go for the Democratic nominee.

(I had a "present" joke to make what with Gabbard's impeachment vote but it did not perform well among test audiences so I axed it.)
posted by Justinian at 2:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Maybe to some degree, but I think they're also just so far up their own asses in pursuit of ratings that they dog whomever might be the top candidate so that it appears to be more of a horse-race.

Cry havoc and let slip the hogs of the DNC!

Whatever farm animal of war, Lana!
posted by axiom at 2:03 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


'You basically are nothing': the Americans shut out of the Iowa caucuses (Guardian)
Hundreds of thousands of Iowans are barred from the Iowa caucus because of physical and legal barriers
Iowans are barred from voting for life once they commit a felony, and people can’t vote even if they committed a crime decades ago. The state’s policy, one of the strictest in the country, means more than 42,000 Iowans out of prison won’t have a say in choosing a presidential candidate. Almost 10% of the black voting-age population can’t vote because of a felony conviction. [...]

Since 2016, advocates have been pushing the Iowa Democratic party to address obstacles like transportation, navigating crowded spaces and seating that people with disabilities face to caucusing. The party has introduced some solutions – like allowing some groups to hold satellite caucuses in their homes or accessible locales.

“We’ve made it easier for Iowans to request accommodations, get in the room faster, and caucus at a site that’s more convenient to them,” said Mandy McClure, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic party, in a statement. “Expanding participation has been at the heart of all of these changes.”

But many advocates say the party’s approach has been abysmal, noting that a staffer handling disability outreach wasn’t hired until January.

“Because there’s such a lack of understanding about this constituency, not only in the Democratic party, but just systematically, there’s a reticence to engage in the process of making spaces more inclusive and accessible,” said Reyma McDeid, executive director of the Central Iowa Center for Independent Living. “The thought is, ‘it’s going to be confusing, it’s going to be expensive. It’s going to be time consuming. Let’s just put this off.’”
posted by katra at 2:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


The reason the “Sanders isn’t a real D Democrat” hasn’t been gaining traction is that throughout the Reagan years Warren was a Republican. The ability for outsiders to join the Democratic Party is a feature, not a bug.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 2:31 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


I'm off to go set up the caucus. Pray for us, everyone!
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:36 PM on February 3, 2020 [24 favorites]


The reason the “Sanders isn’t a real D Democrat” hasn’t been gaining traction is that throughout the Reagan years Warren was a Republican

It would also be a weird tack for a party that, despite all evidence to the contrary, still maintains that it is desirable or even possible to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to craft policy.

(Or, as Joe Biden recently put it: shameless obstructionism by the GOP during the impeachment trial hasn't "shaken his faith" in being able to work with Republicans in the future.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:45 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Warren being a republican until 1996, more than a decade before she ever ran for elected office, is not quite analogous to Sanders situation, where he ran and served as a democratic socialist/independent until he wanted to run for president, and as recently as 2018 rejected the democratic label when he ran again as a democratic socialist for senate.

If this race were down to Warren and Sanders, maybe this would become a significant issue, but I think the real reason it hasn't been anyone's focus is that not even democrats care too much about loyalty to the democratic party.
posted by skewed at 2:48 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


Why the Iowa Caucuses Are Biased Against Your Candidate
No intelligible theory of democracy would recommend an institution this arbitrary or complex. The Iowa caucuses are therefore inherently unfair. Meanwhile, the peculiar conditions surrounding this year’s iteration of the event have provided the Democratic field with a panoply of novel causes for complaint. And since the fight over how the media will interpret tonight’s results is at least as important as the results themselves, every campaign is already preparing an alibi for its defeat.

So, for all you Bernie Bros, Liz Lads, Joe Schmos, Klob Slobs, or Pete Freaks looking for a ready-made rationalization for your hero’s potential loss this evening, here’s a quick rundown of how tonight’s event unduly disadvantages each major Democratic candidate.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:49 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


It shouldn't be threatening or surprising to say that Sanders isn't a big D Democrat. He isn't. He's said he isn't. He regularly aligns with Democrats and regularly seeks the nomination of the Democratic Party but he has historically then run and been elected as an independent. If he wins nomination as a Democrat for president he'll of course run as a Democrat due to the procedural ballot requirements across the US. In that sense he'll be one, but his intentions are not built around the Democratic Party as an institution nor has he claimed they are. There are plenty of valid interpretations of this, but to point out he's not a Democrat in the same way as the other candidates is factual on its face. For most there will be pros and cons associated with this observation.

His approach is actually fairly common here in Vermont politics where some candidates treat party nominations a bit like endorsements; secured to demonstrate support and to eliminate the possibility of another candidate with too similar values splitting the election day votes, but not the label upon which the candidate runs. It is understandable that this doesn't always make sense to folks in other places with different electoral rules and traditions, but that is the background he comes from.

It doesn't change the calculus that the Democratic Party voters get to choose the candidate they most support, and then the nation as a whole gets a choice between that individual and Trump. Any burning of bridges or salting of earth is ill-advised. We need to connect with our neighbors.

Personally, I think the reason that Sanders not being a real D Democrat has little traction is that most voters are a lot more concerned with positions, personalities and outcomes than they are with internal party politics. He's qualified to run and now members of the party get to decide if they like him enough to support, pretty simple.
posted by meinvt at 2:51 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


The reason the “Sanders isn’t a real D Democrat” hasn’t been gaining traction is that throughout the Reagan years Warren was a Republican. The ability for outsiders to join the Democratic Party is a feature, not a bug.

Be sure to notify us when Sanders joins the Democratic Party.
posted by JackFlash at 2:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Since we were fixing the primary process in this thread as well, my whimsical suggestion is that the order be established such that the states that were closest in popular vote margin the prior election go earliest. This will encourage engagement by candidates and voters so that hopefully they can all get a clearer picture what they are actually voting for and it won't be such a struggle. Also, that way we are more likely to boost the candidate that will appeal to those voters.

Yes, this would put Vermont about dead last in the primary process. But, we already more or less are, and have resigned ourselves to recognition that people would be even less interested in our views than they are in Iowa or New Hampshire.
posted by meinvt at 2:57 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Tom Perez Stacks the DNC Deck Against Progressives -- A rogues' gallery of influence-peddlers and insider power brokers will run the party's powerful convention committees. (Daniel Boguslaw for New Republic, January 28, 2020)
Ahead of the first major test for the Democratic presidential field next week in Iowa, Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez has selected his nominees (tweet) for the 2020 Democratic National Convention committees. These nominees, confirmed by the DNC’s executive committee, will serve as the overseers for July’s convention in Milwaukee. Their mandate will include managing the convention’s rulemaking procedures, resolving disputes over delegate credentialing, and codifying the Democratic Party platform. Taken as a whole, these handlers wield tremendous power in shaping both the official party line and the logistics of selecting the Democratic presidential nominee, to say nothing of the way they will influence the course charted by a potential Democratic president.

Thus far, the Democratic presidential primary has been defined by Joe Biden’s bid to appeal to the center and his deep ties to the DNC’s core; the progressive push by the Warren/Sanders contingent, who are viewed as party outsiders; and the smattering of lesser lights jockeying for a position somewhere in between. Perez’s appointments, however, suggest that he would prefer to resolve this ongoing tumult by leaving little room for actualizing the leftward pull (The Atlantic) that the progressive left flank of the party has coaxed out of its colleagues through concessions—such as the cautious exploration, among moderates (Washington Post), of health care policies that are billed as effective alternatives to Medicare for All.
[Note: I don't know enough about any of the statements or individuals to weigh whether this is an accurate summary or not, but it appears well-informed.]
posted by filthy light thief at 2:59 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


On the spectrum of "are they Democrats?" we have Sanders and Lieberman on opposite ends.

Would that every case of "ehhh, are they a dem?" turned out like Sanders.
posted by Slackermagee at 3:02 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


I don't know enough about any of the statements or individuals to weigh whether this is an accurate summary or not

It's rife with various perceived slights against Bernie Sanders, some more factual than others. If you click through a few of the links it's pretty easy to figure out that some of the criticisms are lazy hot takes from place like The Hill, and some of them are totally substantive.

Overall, it's a not-unsurprising list of semi-powerful, somewhat-influential democrats, many of whom are affiliated with the previous administration. Some are actively shitty, most would be boring centrists if the center of US politics hadn't shifted so far to the right. But that word is tossed around so much by a certain subset of Bernie supporters that it's sorta hard to take seriously.
posted by aspersioncast at 3:16 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


In 2004 Bloomberg endorsed Bush over Kerry. The DNC has now decided that individual donations no longer matter to get a place on the debate stage, if you have a billion fucking dollars. (YouTube video 3hrs42minutes but clipped to Michael Moore explaining it that way at 1hr28min and takes a couple minutes).

Since the Sanders campaign makes all their own ads in house they can roll new ones almost everyday. "Suddenly we have the Democratic establishment very nervous about this campaign ... we are their worst nightmare" Sen. Sanders admitting to the charge. feat. Jack White ... cause Bernie rallies are rock concerts.
posted by phoque at 3:16 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Be sure to notify us when Sanders joins the Democratic Party.

Bernie Sanders signs DNC loyalty pledge: 'I am a member of the Democratic Party' (NBC News, Mar. 5, 2019)
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., has formally declared himself a member of the Democratic Party as he seeks its presidential nomination in 2020, abiding by new Democratic National Committee rules.
posted by katra at 3:17 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


One can find me on this website defending Hillary Clinton in 2008 and then again in 2016. I'm tired of our forever wars and I'm not alone. I don't trust anyone but Bernie to even *try* to stop them and I'm not alone. I'm voting for Bernie for the first time in 2020, and I'm not alone.

I don't really inhabit these threads, but that's where I stand. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
posted by Kwine at 3:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [25 favorites]


The convention committees are the ultimate in inside politics; asking for "outsiders" to be on convention committees is almost by definition non-sensical.

Note, however, that although the article implies otherwise they are mostly important for making sure things run smoothly and formulating the platform and not for picking the actual nominee. And the platform is basically worth the paper its printed on.
posted by Justinian at 3:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Be sure to notify us when Sanders joins the Democratic Party.

No one can join the Democratic Party. It’s not a membership organization.
posted by Automocar at 3:29 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Cornel West definitely thinks people are equal: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, for instance. For which I lack the will to forgive him.
posted by Justinian at 3:39 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


Bernie Sanders signs DNC loyalty pledge: 'I am a member of the Democratic Party'

He has to do that to participate in the debates and primaries. He did it last time too. And he declared himself not a Democrat again literally within minutes of losing the nomination votes standing on the floor at the Democratic convention. He didn't even wait for Clinton's acceptance speech before declaring himself not a Democrat. It's his bitterness and victimization that I find off putting.
posted by JackFlash at 3:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Vote for whoever you want in the primaries. Either the Democratic nominee or Donald Trump will be elected president in the general election. I'm going to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:50 PM on February 3, 2020 [16 favorites]


Not being a Democrat is a major strength, not a weakness.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 3:51 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


You can have legitimate policy disagreements with Sanders, that I can get. But when it comes to character, the other candidates are just so bad. Warren lied about being a POC for decades, Biden sexually harasses women in public, and Klobuchar is abusive as hell. I kinda wish that’s where the debates went but democratic voters do actually care about policy.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 3:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


He has to do that to participate in the debates and primaries. He did it last time too. And he declared himself not a Democrat again literally within minutes of losing the nomination votes standing on the floor at the Democratic convention.

I don't get why this is such a problem. Would people have preferred it if Sanders had decided to run this year as an independent or third party candidate instead of a 'fake' Democrat? Because that almost certainly would have guaranteed a trump reelection.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:56 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


The convention committees are the ultimate in inside politics; asking for "outsiders" to be on convention committees is almost by definition non-sensical.

Surely there are long-time Democratic *insiders* with deep experience in the party's workings who also whole-heartedly endorse progressive policies like national single-payer healthcare that are widely popular among the Democratic Party base. Why are so few of those being chosen for elevation by Perez?

I suppose someone could argue that progressive party insiders don't exist in significant enough numbers to become visible to those who choose these positions, and that only conservative Democrats working to halt progress towards Medicare for All have the skills to do this work, but...talk about non-sensical.

You may say the platform committee doesn't matter, but if that's the case, why can't it be written by folks who support progressive policies that would disproportionately help the poorest members of the party? Policies a majority of the Democratic base wants to see implemented?
posted by mediareport at 3:59 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


You can have legitimate policy disagreements with Sanders, that I can get. But when it comes to character, the other candidates are just so bad. Warren lied about being a POC for decades...

Puhleez, as mentioned above that's not at all what happened. And acting like Bernie has none of the character flaws like the others is bullshit. His constant centering of white men and selling out the thousands of people killed by guns each year to vote with the NRA weigh much more on my mind as serious character flaws than Warren believing a family story.
posted by chris24 at 4:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [26 favorites]


I’m guessing that the point was that Cornel West has historically questionable judgement, and is therefore not the greatest authority to be appealing to.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:28 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Sanders dominating the polls with non-white voters and his NRA rating literally tells an opposite story but yes sure let's continue to do the "Bernie is a toxic white male gun lover who isn't even a democrat" song as long as we're going to play all the completely fucking boring old hits
posted by windbox at 4:35 PM on February 3, 2020 [24 favorites]


Would people have preferred it if Sanders had decided to run this year as an independent or third party candidate instead of a 'fake' Democrat?

No, we'd prefer it if he properly joined the Democratic Party. If he understood that despite its flaws, it's good for him to join, and that he's not above it. If he demonstrated a basic understanding of the free rider problem.

I really, really, really like Sanders for his policy perspectives. I really dislike his "the ends justify the means" way of doing what he wants. I don't like it when he pulls this shit with the DNC (even though fuck 'em) and I don't like it when he takes the Joe Rogan endorsement, throwing queer folks and PoC under the bus.

As I've said before, he's my number two, he's far and away better than most of the candidates, but being able to accept criticism is a strength, not a weakness, and it's something he's bad at, and his supporters echo this.

If we need a progressive Trump to beat Trump, so be it. But he really does have that cult of personality vibe going, and it bugs me. But of course, I'll be voting for him in the general if he gets the nod.
posted by explosion at 4:38 PM on February 3, 2020 [17 favorites]


ifds,sn9, you see a real leader and an important thinker, and others see a man that loudly endorsed obvious-kremlin-stooge Jill Stein over the “neoliberal disaster” Hillary Clinton. If bringing him up wasn’t an appeal to authority, I guess I’m unclear about why he’s relevant to the discussion?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:39 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


Hell yeah we're up to the bitter sniping part of the evening! Who wants to argue with me about Tulsi?
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 4:41 PM on February 3, 2020 [17 favorites]


He voted against the Brady Bill five times. And he doesn't dominate in polls with POC, Biden leads with them. So...
posted by chris24 at 4:44 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Cornel West said he would take a bullet for Bernie. (YouTube video 1hr15min clipped to Dr.West quote). But not in the heart, that is for his mother, then he points to the Bernie zone near by. So Dr. West is capable assigning different value. Then Phillip Agnew joked he would take a rubber bullet for Bernie perhaps showing better judgment. The whole video (Soul Of The Democratic Party: With Dr Cornel West, Michael Brooks, Esha Krishnaswamy, Philip Agnew) was a really interesting discussion about the dynamics at play for the party and why we are seeing certain reactions.

Biden lying about his civil rights record, again, will likely crater his campaign. That is why he flamed out before.
2 truths and 31 lies Joe Biden has told about his work in the Civil Rights Movement by Shaun King, long article with lots of video clips.


The NYTimes asked Sanders
MC: Now what about your campaign staff? What percentage is women at this point?

The NYTimes did a fact check and found. As of May, the Sanders campaign staff was 71 percent female, according to The Wall Street Journal. The staff is majority nonwhite; 47 percent of members are white and nearly 10 percent are black.
posted by phoque at 4:52 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Biden lying about his civil rights record, again, will likely crater his campaign.

Biden may not win, but people have been predicting his campaign would crater 17 of the last 0 times.
posted by Justinian at 4:54 PM on February 3, 2020


I'm saying Biden when down in flames in his 2 previous campaigns for President for lying about his record. The tactic doesn't get stronger the third time you do it.
posted by phoque at 5:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm trying really hard to be productive in my comments about the Democratic candidates. But it boggles my mind how I see over and over again criticism on things like Warren lying about her ancestry. But apparently Bernie defending the use of n-word in his book is fine. And so is comparing workers to black slaves.
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 5:05 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


Hi! Actual Iowan here. Posting from my caucus location, even! You’re right, the importance of the Iowa caucus makes no sense. Neither does the Electoral College.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the national attention and do my best to not elect an asshat.

PS - Elizabeth Warren for president because 45 consecutive penises in a row turned out to be exactly one too many.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:06 PM on February 3, 2020 [36 favorites]


From Monmouth's January 22 poll, Biden has greater nonwhite support than Sanders: 34 vs 26.

Same day, CNN national poll: Sanders with greater support among non-white voters, 30% to Biden's 27%.

These narratives adjust all the time but Sanders has been gaining on Biden among people of color in recent weeks. Here's one from January 28 in Nevada: Biden at 24%, Sanders at 22%, among women of color. Within the poll's margin of error.
posted by mediareport at 5:06 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


I hope you Iowa Mefites are having fun, but not TOO much fun... At one Des Moines precinct tonight, an attendee brought in a concealed bottle of wine, dropped it, and it shattered everywhere

Drunk History in action!
posted by sallybrown at 5:09 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


if all of you warren fans and sanders fans want to unite in hatred of someone, i will gladly deliver my “mom and dad are both great we don’t have to choose between them maybe they’ll end up forced into a coalition at the convention warren/sanders sanders/warren!” speech over and over again until y’all wanna murder me
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:10 PM on February 3, 2020 [23 favorites]


Wow, this thread so far is a great illustration of perfect being the enemy of good. Holy shit.
posted by LooseFilter at 5:15 PM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


The best thing I did to keep feeling positive about all the candidates was to de-engage with Twitter and other places where supporters/surrogates fight with each other. There is a lot of antsy energy and worry that’s been building up since 2016 and combined with the distancing of social media, it can really bring out the inner bully in all of us.

I’ve been heartened listening to the radio coverage tonight and hearing interviews from the caucus where all different candidates’ supporters are not merely open to voting for any Dem nominee, but actually enthusiastic.
posted by sallybrown at 5:16 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


no the Internet only exists so we can yell at people who aren’t here because they’re in a gym somewhere to vote for and/or against Bernie
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:16 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


I just want you all to know that the candidate you support is a bad person and that you are a bad person for supporting them, the end
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 5:19 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


this might be the last chance i get to type this so i’m going to take this opportunity to say:

k l o b m e n t u m

no wait:

<marquee>k l o b m e n t u m</marquee>
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:24 PM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


It would be good if there was a 2nd 'discuss bernie sanders' thread. Just, you know, this time without someone from the finance industry threadsitting for like fifty replies, as well as seemingly endless accusations of bernie supporters being primarily white bros, which, I hope by now, has been proven false.

Unless this happens, you're going to see every primary-related thread for the near future devolve into low-effort arguments over sanders. I'm shaking my head at some of these comments, but responding to them would take the thread further and further away from discussing the topic: the Iowa primary
posted by davedave at 5:38 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


so who misses the megathreads?
posted by Ahmad Khani at 5:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [27 favorites]


It’s Klobberin’ Time
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 5:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [17 favorites]


It's 2020, can we stop equating genitals to gender identity
posted by lesser weasel at 5:46 PM on February 3, 2020 [12 favorites]


> It would be good if there was a 2nd 'discuss bernie sanders' thread. Just, you know, this time without someone

get with the program the new person to hate is me, the namby-pamby “both warren and sanders are great!” guy.

did you know: both warren and sanders are great! so excellent! maybe we don’t have to choose! omg omg squeee uwu!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:47 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


>get with the program the new person to hate is me, the namby-pamby “both warren and sanders are great!” guy.

>did you know: both warren and sanders are great! so excellent! maybe we don’t have to choose! omg omg squeee uwu!

I don't really dislike--let alone hate--any posters on this site, even when it comes to politics, least of all someone who likes the two candidates I also like.

Sorry if my post came across as high strung or upset. Waiting for the results is sending my anxiety levels through the roof, and taking it out on you all is bad and uncool. I'll bow out for the night.
posted by davedave at 5:55 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


> I don't really dislike--let alone hate--any posters on this site [...] I'll bow out for the night


ugh if there’s one thing i hate it’s a quitter
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:57 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


People who don't have cable can watch CNN's Iowa results live coverage for free, without a cable authentication, here. If you prefer C-SPAN, its results coverage starts at 9:30pm EST here, again without authentication required. This CNET article claims CBS is also allowing streaming without cable authentication here, but the video has stayed stuck while loading for me for a while now.
posted by mediareport at 5:57 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


note that watching the caucus process in action may eliminate whatever residual faith in the process you had remaining
posted by Justinian at 5:59 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


so who misses the megathreads?

Oh god, yes, so much. I’m constantly missing stuff. This thread isn’t in the politics sidebar and of course not in my recent activity so I though nobody was talking about Iowa until I found this thread five minutes ago.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 6:00 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


note that watching the caucus process in action may eliminate whatever residual faith in the process you had remaining

I was just gonna say... *laughs*
posted by mediareport at 6:01 PM on February 3, 2020


no one knows any results yet but someone on reddit has observed that there’s more hot biden supporters than they expected, like, they knew biden would get a few supporters but who would have thought that any of them would be hot?

just wanted to share that with all of you you’re welcome
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


I think Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon is drunk. Not a criticism, I'm enjoying it.
posted by AdamCSnider at 6:03 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


bfd, everybody knows all iowans are hot
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


> more hot biden supporters than they expected
This is the hard-hitting journalism I yearn for.
posted by notpace at 6:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


the hawtguy state
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


there’s more hot biden supporters

Like "Arrested Development hot cop" hot or like "dripping with sweat" hot?
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:04 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


> I think Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon is drunk. Not a criticism, I'm enjoying it.

god i wish.

another reddit update: some yang supporters won’t admit that their candidate didn’t meet the threshold. they’re just standing in their yang corner, refusing to move to a viable candidate, throwing little rick & morty szechuan sauce hissy fits.

(thus ends tonight’s episode of “thomas pynchon talks about reddit”)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:07 PM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


Or hot under their collar?
posted by postel's law at 6:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


oh god, Yang as the Rick&Morty candidate fits perfectly and is not something I had seen before.
posted by Justinian at 6:10 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


throwing little rick & morty szechuan sauce hissy fits

A perfect characterization, enthusiastic golf clap from over here.
posted by LooseFilter at 6:25 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


both warren and sanders are great! so excellent!

Let them fight.

Seriously, I don't think anyone was doing any favors by letting Biden and Sanders just coast for the longest time. It just created this aura that they could not be attacked.
posted by FJT at 6:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


no one knows any results yet but someone on reddit has observed that there’s more hot biden supporters than they expected

Are they 80? My caucus site (suburban Johnson county - Democratic stronghold) split 3 ways between Buttigieg, Sanders & Warren. The non-viable Biden contingent was almost exclusively comprised of retirees.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


some yang supporters won’t admit that their candidate didn’t meet the threshold

I'm a yeller on the threshold
And I'm waiting at the door
And I'm stuck here in the causus
I don't want to wait no more
posted by kirkaracha at 6:32 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Report from rural Johnson County (town pop.: low 4 digits, generally purple but in very blue county, total of 4 delegates to award):

School cafeteria, two tables each for: Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Steyer, Yang, Biden, Warren, Sanders.

Bloomberg, Gabbard, and Bennet were not represented at all.

Klobuchar: generally middle-aged and older, mostly female.
Buttigieg: younger, mostly but not entirely male.
Steyer: almost empty but with a couple older guys. I think no women?
Yang: difficult to tell because there were a couple volunteers from Massachusetts in "MATH" caps (which is a thing I just found out about tonight) and it was tough to tell who was actually a voter.
Biden: older, skewed very male. Dude claiming to be a personal friend of Biden's, from Delaware, was also present as a volunteer, which sucked because there was no microphone being used by the guy running the actual meeting and Biden's friend wouldn't shut the fuck up.
Warren: near-equal male/female, slight lean toward older but fairly balanced.
Sanders: mostly very young but with a significant minority of very old; near-equal gender balance but with a slight lean toward male.

113 people present, viability threshold was 17.

first round, after the undecideds picked somebody:
Klobuchar: 18
Buttigieg: 22
Steyer: 7
Yang: 2
Biden: 8
Warren: 18
Sanders: 38

after realignment:
Klobuchar: 22 (picked up 4)
Buttigieg: 25 (picked up 3)
Warren: 24 (picked up 6)
Sanders: 38 (unchanged)
uncommitted / refused to realign: 4

Each of the 4 viable candidates received 1 delegate. Overall: good night to be supporting Klobuchar; may or may not have been disappointing to the Sanders fans, depending on how many delegates they felt they deserved to get. Fairly quick process if you were in the group of a viable candidate after the first vote: I stayed to see the realignment, but could have gone home about 45 minutes after it officially started.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


If anything, it's felt like Buttigieg was allowed to coast. Aside from maybe one week where people were serious about his consulting work, he's just been allowed to be a Republican front-runner in a Democratic field. His husband posted glamour shots taken in a Holocaust memorial, and people just...forgot.
posted by explosion at 7:01 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Update from liberal stronghold Johnson County: woah this is running more smoothly than I expected. After first alignment, only Warren and Sanders are viable, with Warren slightly ahead. Not sure how that will change on realignment. I think the Buttigieg and Klobuchar people are trying to strike some sort of deal to make one of them viable. Biden wasn't even close.

Be curious to hear how things are going in other parts of the state.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Pete Buttigieg is the worst.

If only the pragmatist donor class had rallied around Booker or Harris or Gillibrand rather than a slimy test-tube wide-eyed false unity candidate, we would be so much better off.
posted by Gadarene at 7:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


If people are strategically refusing to realign to any candidate (as opposed to just wanting to go home) is there a reason other than trying to keep candidates they don’t like from picking up delegates?

I’ve been surprised by the groups of Yang/Klobuchar/Buttigieg supporters banding together as unaligned rather than at least some splitting off to Warren. It seems like her unity strategy might not be working the way it needs to.
posted by sallybrown at 7:14 PM on February 3, 2020


> rather than a slimy test-tube wide-eyed false unity candidate

i mean and bracketing off the wide-eyed sliminess and the false unity stuff there is nothing in the dude’s resume to suggest that he’d be any good whatsoever at the actual work of being president. that’s the thing that bugs me the most.

well okay and also: mckinsey.

i guess buttigieg bugs me.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:15 PM on February 3, 2020 [13 favorites]


I've been in the Warren camp but like her and Bernie about equally, for different reasons. Even if someone like Klobuchar or Buttigieg ends up as the nominee (unlikely), I'll still count my blessings, although less enthusiastically. Biden is about the only one I'd feel super let down about.

As always, it's hard to keep the candidate and their supporters separate. Some of my pro-Bernie friends online have nothing but s*** to give to the other candidates, and keep going on about various anti-Bernie conspiracies, which can be a real turnoff when unproven. There's overlap with people I know who maintain that 9/11 was an inside job so ... yeesh.

I've been very liberal all my life and open to replacing our garbage system with something better, but suddenly if I support anyone but Bernie I'm a corporate apologist and the world is dooooooooomed. It's pretty insulting, but I suppose I'm still paying off my karma debt from voting for Nader in my foolish youth. Learn from me: both sides are not the same. Do not do what I did!
posted by freecellwizard at 7:16 PM on February 3, 2020 [20 favorites]


I think sometimes people are just bummed that their candidate wasn't viable, and they can't really think through who their second choice would be. And I think there may be some people here for whom both Sanders and Warren are unacceptable, so if they can't strike a deal with another moderate, then they'd rather just sit it out. On the other hand, there are a lot of Democrats who really don't like Sanders, so I think in this instance Warren might pick up some anyone-but-Bernie people on realignment, even if they're not really fans.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Buttigiegmentum?
posted by Justinian at 7:24 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Pod Save America team is in Iowa and interviewing random people, and there are so many views on the street that idk what's going to happen. They even talked to a few reasonable-seeming people who said if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump. I have no idea how to explain that, but there you go.

It's definitely hard to get pumped up for a certain person and then quietly switch without complaint. So I don't blame people, but I have had uncharacteristically harsh attacks from pretty close friends.
posted by freecellwizard at 7:25 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


> Cory Booker may have dropped out, but he won a state delegate at a caucus at Drake University in a protest move by Yang, Klobuchar & Biden supporters.

<img src=“drake.jpg”
alt=“drake rejecting: viable candidates
drake approving: cory booker”/>
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


They even talked to a few reasonable-seeming people who said if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump.

I truly do not understand how one gets from one to the other. Incredible mental gymnastics; surely an absence of logical thought making processes.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 7:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


They even talked to a few reasonable-seeming people who said if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump. I have no idea how to explain that, but there you go.

Sour grapes. If you could ask them four months from now who they're voting for, after the sting of their favored Dem candidate losing has faded, they'd likely say they're voting for whichever Dem is the nominee. People say a lot of things they don't mean when their blood is up. Adults only act like adults on average, not all the time.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:29 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Iowa results delayed by technical glitches with their newfangled app-based reporting system. WHO COULD HAVE FORESEEN SUCH A THING.
posted by Rhaomi at 7:32 PM on February 3, 2020 [18 favorites]


how could they possibly think that thing was a good idea.
posted by Justinian at 7:34 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


High drama, you guys. Klobuchar is viable on realignment! Still waiting on delegate counts.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:38 PM on February 3, 2020


I still don't get how this caucus thing works.

It's to disenfranchise people, right? That's why it's so fucked up?
posted by Yowser at 7:39 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


They even talked to a few reasonable-seeming people who said if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump.

Eh, some of those folks are probably just insulated and safe from whoever wins. Other than maybe seeing their taxes go up or down a bit, I think for them it's just mostly wanting to be on the winning team. I think this is similar to how some Obama-Trump voters think.
posted by FJT at 7:40 PM on February 3, 2020


It's sort of weird to me that anybody participating in the caucus wouldn't have a "if my candidate is nonviable" second choice ready to go, given the chaotic nature of the process and the unclear polling leading up to the event. I felt like I was being kind of irresponsible for not having a third choice already in mind.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 7:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Nobody gets how it works. It's one of those quirky, charming Iowa things, like butter cows, except with more disenfranchisement.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:41 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Interesting point from Twitter:

I'm really feeling uncomfortable with all of this imagery (on TV as well) identifying whom individual voters support. The Iowa caucus was never democratic, but in the facial recognition age it is now verging on dangerous.

On a similar note, Lisa Lerer at the NYT live update page has this:

I spoke to a woman who was driven to her caucus site by a friend supporting Sanders, so she felt pressure to back him. This is public voting.

Such a truly dumb system.
posted by mediareport at 7:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [17 favorites]


I hope this fiasco lets us finally re-assess the value of this archaic anti-democratic ridiculousness. No matter which candidate wins.
posted by Justinian at 7:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


Final delegate tally: 5 for Warren, 5 for Bernie, 2 for Klobuchar. Holy fuck, I may be home by 11.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:44 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


Good on you guys for not giving any to Buttigieg, AAC.
posted by Justinian at 7:46 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


I hope this fiasco lets us finally re-assess the value of this archaic anti-democratic ridiculousness. No matter which candidate wins.

Spoiler alert: it absolutely will not.

(Even assuming, because I'm feeling optimistic, the continued existence of the republic.)
posted by Gadarene at 7:50 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


They even talked to a few reasonable-seeming people who said if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump.

If they say that, at this late date over three years into Trump's hellish administration, then it doesn't matter how "reasonable seeming" they are. They are FOOLS.
posted by JHarris at 7:50 PM on February 3, 2020 [17 favorites]


> Good on you guys for not giving any to Buttigieg, AAC.

not gonna lie justinian and i tend to agree on basically no controversial matter whatsoever and so the fact that we’re both like “buttigieg is the literal worst” is i think strong evidence that buttigieg is indeed the literal worst.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:52 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


While just participating in a caucus has an unnecessarily high bar, the realignment part is actually *good*. In a normal primary, where you just get to vote once, if your candidate doesn't meet the threshold, sorry, sucks to be you- your vote is wasted in the sense that it will not affect delegate counts. But with realignment, you can at least try to affect the delegate count towards your second choice. It's the physical in-person musical-chairs version of Instant-Runoff Voting.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:54 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


not gonna lie justinian and i tend to agree on basically no controversial matter whatsoever and so the fact that we’re both like “buttigieg is the literal worst” is i think strong evidence that buttigieg is indeed the literal worst.

I was just thinking this exact thing.
posted by Gadarene at 7:55 PM on February 3, 2020


Buttigieg 2020: Uniting Americans of all races, genders, and creeds!*

*against mayo pete
posted by Justinian at 7:57 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


Word on Twitter is a precinct captain at a church basement caucus in Altoona mispronounced Buttigieg's name, so the whole caucus has been cancelled out of an abundance of caution. /s
posted by Rhaomi at 7:59 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


The Wall Street Journal has apparently un-paywalled some of its Iowa coverage, so you can read this article from last week about the decisions the state Dems made with the new app:

Douglas Jones, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Iowa, who has studied election security, called the idea a “security nightmare,” and said that cellphones were difficult to protect against the range of possible threats....

The Iowa Democratic Party has declined to disclose some details about the app, such as the vendor that made it, saying that doing so could inadvertently help potential cyber attackers.

Some security experts took issue with that approach. “The argument the party is using is effective at preventing public oversight, but it’s not effective at protecting against” cyber threats, said Mr. Jones...

Both Democrats and Republicans in Iowa used an app from Microsoft Corp. in 2016. The company said it helped the parties report 95% of their precinct results in about four hours.

So, security concerns about using personal smartphones aside, the previous app seems to have worked fine. Maybe that's why they're not telling anyone who made the new one.

[eta: now it's paywalled for me, sorry]
posted by mediareport at 7:59 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


10:43 PM: Quality control checks delay caucus results, Iowa Democrats say (WaPo)
Nearly three hours after Iowans began caucusing, there are still no official results from the Iowa Democratic Party.

“We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the IDP is reporting out three data sets for the first time. What we know right now is that around 25% of precincts have reported, and early data indicates turnout is on pace for 2016,” Iowa Democratic Party spokeswoman Mandy McClure said in a statement. [...]

It was unclear how much new technology factored into the delay. Earlier Monday, there were reports some precinct chairs were struggling to use a new app to send results to the state party. Precinct chairs can still report results the traditional way, using a hotline.
NYT: "Many precinct chairs across the state abandoned the new app that was built to help tabulate and report results as users struggled to log in. They opted instead to use the telephone hotline to report, which can also slow down the reporting of results."
posted by katra at 8:05 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


quality control checks sounds like what you tell your boss when you screwed the pooch and are desperately working to salvage the situation before he finds out what happened
posted by Justinian at 8:08 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Democratic campaign: "It's clear that something has gone wrong". (CNN)

Well, this is just a boffo kick-off to the primaries!
posted by lkc at 8:10 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


CNN has not reported on the Muslim Community Org Caucus nor the Spanish Language Caucus. Anyone surprised?
Anyway, only Bernie was viable at both.

Breaking:
The final count from the Muslim Community Organization, one of the five mosques serving as a caucus site for the first time in the history of the #IowaCaucuses
- Sanders 115
- Yang 2 (no viability)
- Buttigieg 2 (no viability)
- Warren 1
- Every one else 0
posted by mediareport at 8:10 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


Spoiler alert: it absolutely will not.

The inability to satisfy the hunger for instant results and analysis might.
posted by atoxyl at 8:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Democratic campaign: "It's clear that something has gone wrong". (CNN)

It's an anonymous quote from some annoyed campaign staffer, irresponsibly amplified by CNN. Meh.
posted by tivalasvegas at 8:12 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


lmao, CNN was live with a precinct captain who had been on hold on the backup reporting hotline the Dems had set up for over an hour. The hotline picked up mid-interview, so the guy apologizes he has to cut the interview short. Then Wolf Blitzer breaks in and asks if they can listen in to him reporting the results. The captain says fine, returns to his phone, and... they had hung up on him.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:13 PM on February 3, 2020 [12 favorites]


Iowa Dems say 'quality checks' holding up vote reporting (Politico)
The results delay came after anecdotal reports from precinct caucus chairs early Monday who said they were having issues with their caucus night reporting apps. The app, developed by the Democratic Party, helps the chairs do the math to help figure out which candidates will meet the viability thresholds Monday night. And it’s a tool to feed the ultimate results to the party in real-time.

Patty Judge, who will run a caucus in Monroe County, said she was unable to figure out how to use hers. Linda Nelson, in Pottawattamie County, said the same this afternoon: “I’m still struggling.” In Polk County, county Democratic Party chair Sean Bagniewski said only about 20 percent of the chairs will actually be able to use it.

“We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point," Bagniewski said.
posted by katra at 8:16 PM on February 3, 2020


Sour grapes. If you could ask them four months from now who they're voting for, after the sting of their favored Dem candidate losing has faded, they'd likely say they're voting for whichever Dem is the nominee. People say a lot of things they don't mean when their blood is up. Adults only act like adults on average, not all the time.

I mean, I’d like to believe that, but we have evidence from 2016 that there was a non-negligible group of Obama-turned-Trump voters, who just couldn’t get on board with uppity wimmen folk sensible pantsuits, and so voted for the literal antichrist instead. People contain multitudes, and sometimes cling so desperately to shreds of their identities that they’re willing to vote for the leopards-eating-faces party even when they know their faces are on the buffet table.

Hell, I’m as “vote blue no matter what” as you can get, and it’d even take me a little bit of psyching up to vote for Biden or Buttigieg in the general. I’ll probably come around to it, but damned if it wouldn’t sting like hell to have to go out and stump for retrograde racist grandpa or Mayo Pete.
posted by Mayor West at 8:17 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


“We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point," Bagniewski said.

2020, everybody!

MetaFilter: We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point
posted by Mayor West at 8:20 PM on February 3, 2020 [18 favorites]


Hell, I’m as “vote blue no matter what” as you can get, and it’d even take me a little bit of psyching up to vote for Biden or Buttigieg in the general. I’ll probably come around to it, but damned if it wouldn’t sting like hell to have to go out and stump for retrograde racist grandpa or Mayo Pete.

Yeah - everyone says it, until they don't, and then a lot of them probably come around again by the time of the general election but not quite all of them.
posted by atoxyl at 8:21 PM on February 3, 2020


Video of the madcap sad trombone hilarity Rhaomi just described.
posted by mediareport at 8:23 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Yesterday's Pod Save had various primary caucus interviews, and notably 2 of the 3 Yang voters were Yang or Trump all the way.
posted by Marticus at 8:23 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Just as an FYI, Bernie's people planned for this and developed their own app for logging results. Assuming the precinct captains are inputting information, Bernie's camp should have accurate numbers even if no one else does.

This is the data Bernie's precinct captains have been collecting through their own app. They should be able to use this data to pinpoint any "irregularities" in the data reported by the party. The campaign has been very proactive about a possible situation like this
posted by mediareport at 8:29 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


> Yesterday's Pod Save had various primary caucus interviews, and notably 2 of the 3 Yang voters were Yang or Trump all the way.

that gave me a little bit of a heart attack. i hope that number doesn’t meaningfully reflect the attitudes of the average nationwide yang gang member. i think i’ve been unconsciously thinking of those guys as future low-information sanders voters...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:30 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


“We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point,"

Yeah, I think we're all way ahead of you there, buddy.
posted by FJT at 8:31 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


“We’re telling everyone to phone it in at this point,"

Yeah, I think we're all way ahead of you there, buddy.


This is me for the last 3 years.
posted by Marticus at 8:32 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


IIRC the nexus of Yang support was in 4chan trolls who had boosted Trump in '16, so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of his people said that.

Also, awkward: Biden and Warren come out to speak at the same time.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Oh wow, that makes me wonder if Yang-Trump is a thing because the one Yang fan I know voted Trump and has made it clear he will never vote Biden, Warren, or Sanders (unclear if he knows about the other candidates). I guess it's not THAT surprising, wasn't Yang's early support from alt-right trolls?
posted by Anonymous at 8:33 PM on February 3, 2020


NYT: "“This is not a hack,” Iowa Democratic Party says, adding that results were delayed because of a “reporting issue.”
“We found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results,” said Mandy McClure, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party. “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report. This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion. The underlying data and paper trail is sound and will simply take time to further report the results.”
posted by katra at 8:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


or what Rhaomi said
posted by Anonymous at 8:34 PM on February 3, 2020


i think i’ve been unconsciously thinking of those guys as future low-information sanders voters

I mean half of them are 4chan guys, so...

(I think they do actually represent a group that could split to any of the outsider-y candidates, though, inclusive of Bernie)
posted by atoxyl at 8:34 PM on February 3, 2020


I believe them that there is no hack. I do not for a second believe them that the app didn't crash.
posted by Justinian at 8:35 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Iowa Democratic HQ staring at this on their screens panicking over how to cover it up.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:37 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Kinda shitty of CNN to run Klobuchar uninterrupted, Biden uninterrupted, but then cut off the beginning of Warren's speech AND the end so they can deliver... no new news.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [22 favorites]


The app seems like a completely terrible idea, but I have no idea how reporting worked in the past. Anyway, my sense is that tonight was really epically bad for Biden, but maybe that just reflects the random people I'm hearing from.

I can't believe that the fucking app is going to end up being the story, because to me the story is that my caucus ran so vastly much more smoothly than things did in 2016. But we might just have had a particularly organized chair.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


This is the data Bernie's precinct captains have been collecting through their own app.

If I was a game theorist, the fact that they have their own app, and therefore have their own totals, and have not leaked them, suggests that they may not have won. On the other hand, maybe they just have good team discipline.
posted by chortly at 8:45 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I have no idea how reporting worked in the past.

From that WSJ article I linked earlier:

Both Democrats and Republicans in Iowa used an app from Microsoft Corp in 2016. The company said it helped the parties report 95% of their precinct results in about four hours.
posted by mediareport at 8:45 PM on February 3, 2020


Making the caucuses even more of a clusterfuck? There’s an app for that!
posted by azpenguin at 8:46 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Biden is apparently saying that the app failure calls the whole result into question. LOL, you sore loser.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:46 PM on February 3, 2020 [18 favorites]


Iowa Democratic HQ staring at this on their screens panicking over how to cover it up.

What does this mean? What does yellow signify? And why are the numbers from Saturday? Help?
posted by Mothlight at 8:47 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Anyway, my sense is that tonight was really epically bad for Biden, but maybe that just reflects the random people I'm hearing from.

Guardian: "Joe Biden’s campaign has sent a fiery letter to the Iowa Democratic Party, saying the app and the back-up phone system meant to convey results have “failed.” [...] The candidate’s general counsel said the campaign looked forward to hearing “full explanations” on how the reporting got derailed.
“In the meantime,” the letter concludes, “we are on to New Hampshire, on the road to the most important election of our lifetimes.”
posted by katra at 8:48 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Have they tried rebooting the caucus, or checking that it's plugged in?

And don't worry. If all else fails, we can always downgrade to Caucus '16.
posted by FJT at 8:48 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Mothlight: "What does this mean? What does yellow signify? And why are the numbers from Saturday? Help?"

It's one of the better 2016 memes: every time there's a big election night, somebody photoshops a map where sadsack Jeb! Bush comes out of nowhere to win 100% of the vote.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:51 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Lol yup, there it is. A progressive winning means there was obviously some mistake, or goodness me, something fishy going on!

Enjoy this preview of November.
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:51 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


The Iowa Democratic Party is saying that they have somewhere around 35% of the results in, but need to verify them. Surely at least some precincts are cross-checked by now. Why wouldn't data be coming out at this point, even if slowly?
posted by meinvt at 8:53 PM on February 3, 2020


In some ways, it's honestly kind of impressive that our election system is so stupid in so many variegated ways (and that our political system is so jam-packed full of audaciously bad actors) that every cycle can bring a totally new way for things to completely break down and lead to mass confusion and total disarray.
posted by Copronymus at 8:54 PM on February 3, 2020 [15 favorites]


If I was a game theorist, the fact that they have their own app, and therefore have their own totals, and have not leaked them, suggests that they may not have won. On the other hand, maybe they just have good team discipline.

I’m seeing leaked numbers on twitter from the sanders camp that has him way ahead of everyone else.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:55 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


The thing is, this go round there are cards that record every attendee's choice, and we can double-check the app and make sure everything is right. So we might not know the results right away, but it's not like the results are illegitimate. But it's a good way to spin a humiliating defeat.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:55 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


This is a horrible night for the Democratic Party in a million different ways no matter who ends up “winning”.
posted by eagles123 at 9:05 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


I’m seeing leaked numbers on twitter from the sanders camp that has him way ahead of everyone else.

For the final results? I didn't see anybody who seemed serious about it yet.
posted by atoxyl at 9:07 PM on February 3, 2020


Not sure how this is such a disaster for Ds. Final results have often gone into the next days and that was when they were tracking one set of numbers not three. Yes, it's been slow and TV people are upset they don't have numbers, but nobody will care about this in a month. Trump will have done a million terrible things and a tech issue won't matter
posted by chris24 at 9:11 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Lots of people posted their favorable precinct results of course.
posted by atoxyl at 9:12 PM on February 3, 2020


Trump will have done a million terrible things and yet the media will remain fixated on democratic party stumbles.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 9:13 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


CNN relaying concerns from Warren aides that their campaign hotline was deluged with reports of precinct captains not following the rules and making mistakes in the caucus math...
posted by Rhaomi at 9:20 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


It sounds like turnout was less than expected. Plus, the party doesn’t seem to be coalescing around a front runner. Instead, it looks like quite the opposite. On top of that, the delay looks bad because it’s unexpected. Counting votes into the night because of a close race is one thing; completely delaying any results except two percent of the vote is another. It just looks bad, and it will undoubtedly sow hard feelings. I hope I am wrong.
posted by eagles123 at 9:21 PM on February 3, 2020


Guardian: Iowa results may not come out tonight, Democratic source tells the Hill
posted by katra at 9:22 PM on February 3, 2020


Buttigieg: "Iowa, you have shocked the nation..."

you're right about that, bud

"...because by all indications, we will go on to New Hampshire victorious!"

wut.
posted by Rhaomi at 9:24 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


The campaigns know the approximate numbers from reporting back from their own precinct captains.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm actually kinda fine with it being a bit of a clusterfuck cuz I don't think caucuses or Iowa are very representative nor should have much influence so if this minimizes that, then good.
posted by chris24 at 9:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


okay wait I’m trying to figure out what’s going on: the official app or whatever crashed and so the official count is super slow garbage but also the sanders team has its own count? or is the sanders count an Internet nonsense myth? or is nothing real and truth itself a lie?

ps now i am drunk.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [12 favorites]


CNN relaying concerns from Warren aides that their campaign hotline was deluged with reports of precinct captains not following the rules and making mistakes in the caucus math...
Interesting. My sense is that a lot of people in my precinct thought that Warren got screwed, because she had a fair number more people than Bernie but ended up with the same number of delegates. But I think that caucus math is just weird, and it wasn't a mistake or a conspiracy.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:27 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


Counting votes into the night because of a close race is one thing; completely delaying any results except two percent of the vote is another. It just looks bad, and it will undoubtedly sow hard feelings. I hope I am wrong.

Hard feelings by who?
posted by PMdixon at 9:29 PM on February 3, 2020


In call with campaigns, Iowa state party officials struggle to explain why results are delayed (WaPo)
In a call with the campaigns earlier this evening, the Iowa Democratic Party struggled to explain why Iowa caucus results have not been released. According to two sources with information about the call, the party would not say why it was not releasing any information, and struggled to explain what issues had caused the considerable delay.

According to sources, the party said that 35 percent of precincts had successfully reported their numbers to the state party. In earlier statements, state party officials said they were working to confirm precinct results. On the call with campaigns, they would not say whether it had verified even one precinct.

“It’s just a total mess and no timeline for when it becomes clearer,” a source affiliated with one campaign said.

On the call, when campaign aides pressed for a release time on the results, the IDP hung up.
posted by katra at 9:31 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


but also the sanders team has its own count?

I've seen reports from Warren supporters that her team had their own app as well. Kind of makes sense that smart campaigns would develop a quick way to check in with their people at each precinct to verify the official count. I'm not any kind of app developer, but that doesn't seem too difficult. Or you could just use chat/Slack/whatever.
posted by mediareport at 9:32 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


@TomScocca: Turns out that last Des Moines Register poll nailed it

posted by grandiloquiet at 9:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


One potential positive out of this is that Democratic Party officials get so pissed at Iowa for fucking this up so obviously that they start stripping its privileges and make it have a normal election on Super Tuesday.
posted by Copronymus at 9:37 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Waiting for CNN to cut Pete's fake victory speech short for no reason like they did Warren's... waiting... waiting..........
posted by Rhaomi at 9:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [6 favorites]


Democratic voters - we pledge to vote for any Democrat who wins

Iowa - we don't know who won
posted by Joey Michaels at 9:41 PM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


So, uh, what other state has a caucus and how do their results get reported and surely they wouldn't have hired the same vendor and oh no—

@nicoleperlroth: The app being used tonight was cobbled together in the past two months after a previous reporting scheme - which involved caucus goers calling their votes in over the phone- was scrapped for security reasons. The app was never vetted by DHS, never tested at scale, and NV is......slated to use a similar app for its caucus in a few weeks. Fun times.

@lhfang: Three different sources say a firm called "Shadow" developed the Iowa Dem caucus app. They haven't responded to comment, neither has Iowa Dem Party. The firm was paid by both Nevada & Iowa Democratic Party, disclosures show. Also by Mayor Pete's campaign. Nevada Dem federal account paid Shadow $58k in August, Iowa Dems state account paid Shadow $63,183 in two payments over Nov & Dec, suggesting app wasn't developed until just months ago? Both caucus states. Shadow is a spin-off from PACRONYM, a new Dem dark money/superPAC hybrid.

Yes, the app developer is literally named "Shadow" and worked for NV as well. And if you're wondering why I'm constantly skeptical of the 8 billion "we're going to win this time WITH TECHNOLOGY" firms that sprout up like weeds, this is why.

but also the sanders team has its own count?

Every (reasonably organized) campaign has their own count, because they have their own systems to get numbers from their own precinct captains and check them against the official results from the state party (and flag up any discrepancies to investigate them). There's no real mystery here, and all the campaigns should have a decent idea what the unofficial results are at this point.
posted by zachlipton at 9:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [15 favorites]


okay i’m pretty sure “nothing is real truth is a lie” is the answer to my question upthread
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:43 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Wait, $120k to develop this app over two months? I have no idea how complex this particular app is, but 2 months turn around for any piece of software is quite fast (and $120k is about 6-7 devs' worth of hours over that period). I'm not at all surprised it doesn't work.
posted by axiom at 9:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


My best guess is that this is all user error due to inadequate training and poorly designed or non-intuitive user interface.
posted by JackFlash at 9:53 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


So Buttigieg (I love that his name is in autocorrect) just declared victory. Biden and Warren are complaining and calling the manager. Sanders had a speech, but I haven’t heard much more from him. His supporters online are demoralized as far as I can tell.

From the votes that were counted, it looks like Sanders, Warren Buttigieg in that order ... which is close to the DMR polls? But only 2 percent of the votes were counted.

Clusterfuck.
posted by eagles123 at 9:53 PM on February 3, 2020


welp
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:55 PM on February 3, 2020


Ryan Cooper, National Correspondent for The Week: "a hearty thanks to Barack Obama for dumping Islamophobic oppo on Keith Ellison so disciplined organizational mastermind Tom Perez could run the DNC"
posted by Apocryphon at 9:58 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


The DNC is not the Iowa Democratic Party
posted by zachlipton at 10:00 PM on February 3, 2020 [10 favorites]


okay time to get to sleep uh everyone just pretend i said the stuff about bourgeois electoral politics that one such as me generally says in this sort of situation
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:00 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


Ryan Cooper is apparently very stupid.

The DNC does not organize or run the Iowa Caucus.
posted by Justinian at 10:00 PM on February 3, 2020 [9 favorites]


HEARTBREAKING: The moment Wolf Blitzer reminded John King his beloved Magic Wall is just 99 counties of grey
posted by Rhaomi at 10:13 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


after a previous reporting scheme - which involved caucus goers calling their votes in over the phone- was scrapped for security reasons.

Again, per the WSJ last week: in 2016, Iowa caucus results for both parties were reported using a Microsoft-created app that Microsoft folks said let them report 95% of the precincts within 4 hours. I have no idea how that compared to the 2012 caucuses and before, which were reported by phone. Here's an MS comms guy on Twitter saying things went smoothly:

We had a great partnership with the Iowa political parties in 2016, but we are not part of the caucuses this year and have not been involved in building or supporting their app.

So, we have no idea why the 2016 app was scrapped in favor of this new app, and we don't know what "security reasons" surrounding the use of phones had arisen in 2012 or 2016 that would somehow be lessened by a new app downloaded to every precinct captain's personal cellphone.
posted by mediareport at 10:15 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Declaring yourself victorious in an absence of evidence is absolutely a douchey move, but if Buttigieg didn't either win or come close enough that he can pretend he it was a rounding error, he's out in the next few weeks anyway. He's going to eat shit no matter what in South Carolina, and quite possibly in Nevada and New Hampshire, too, so he'd be going into Super Tuesday in 4th place with no plausible path to victory. Being hounded about making up results tonight only accelerates that timeline slightly. Or maybe he did win, in which case everyone will forget about this by the end of the week.
posted by Copronymus at 10:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


CEO of the company that owns Shadow, Tara McGowan: "MAYOR PETE IS RUNNING 😍😍😍"

Good lord, this is a mess
posted by lesser weasel at 10:18 PM on February 3, 2020 [12 favorites]


Tom Perez who led the DNC for the biggest midterm victory in modern American history? That "unorganized" Tom Perez?
posted by chris24 at 10:19 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


Buttigieg . . I dunno. It all just seems very suspect. He declares victory despite there being no results. I'm seeing things that say his campaign has paid Shadow along with the Iowa and Nevada Dem parties and his campaign was responsible for suspending the poll this weekend . . . I mean I always joke that I don't like him because he reminds me of grade grubbing Tracy Flick, but if I remember correctly, Tracy Flick was a victim of electoral shenanigans... not uncomfortably close to them . . .
posted by flamk at 10:20 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


At the very least, this is a chance to take the Iowa caucus’ inability to launch the primaries without shooting the entire party in the foot (because this was a solid chance for *whoever* to come out strong with positive momentum that now no-one will have), to push for starting the primaries in a more diverse state than Iowa.

If the polls in, say North Carolina (just a random state out of the hat) got the focus that Iowa has had for the last several months, maybe Harris, Booker, and Castro might still be in the race.

Or, as a friend pointed out, another option is to do groups of states. I’d love to have a rotating lottery system where there are ten primary days, with five states selected from various regions that actually represent the country (say, Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Southwest, and mountain/pacific). Just as an example, have the first round be North Carolina, Michigan, Washington, Connecticut, and, day, New Mexico. This level of fuckup, this is an opportunity to do better.
posted by Ghidorah at 10:20 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


"We gotta get a voting app for the caucuses, people"

"Ooh, ooh, I know this programming company, it's called Shifty"
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:21 PM on February 3, 2020 [15 favorites]


Lee Fang has the receipt for the Buttigeig campaign's $42,500 payments to Shadow in July. Fang just deleted a tweet stating "only one current presidential campaign, Pete Buttigieg, pays the technology company that builds the app to count the caucus votes," so maybe he found more.
posted by mediareport at 10:22 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Sanders campaign just released its internal counts.

Sanders: 29.66%/298 delegates
Buttigieg: 24.59%/268 delegates
Warren: 21.24%/192 delegates
Biden: 12.37%/157 delegates
Klobuchar: 11.00%/114 delegates
posted by Copronymus at 10:23 PM on February 3, 2020 [4 favorites]


flamk: "his campaign was responsible for suspending the poll this weekend "

Ann Selzer was responsible for not releasing the poll this past weekend.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:25 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Campaigns playing the "let's just do it and be legends" card and dropping internal numbers now, which seems like a terrible idea. I can't imagine a better way to rile up conspiracies than releasing unofficial results, and these aren't even good results, thanks to factors like "represent the results of nearly 40% of precincts in Iowa" (Sanders) and "from the 77% of reported precincts, we're doing 8 points better than our projections" (Pete), which are giant clues that these numbers are less likely to be accurate than the pre-caucus polls, when they're not just chosen selectively.
posted by zachlipton at 10:26 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


Oh, I guess that's only 40% of the precincts, so there's definitely some room for movement.
posted by Copronymus at 10:26 PM on February 3, 2020


My guess is it’s in response to Buttigieg declaring victory.
posted by eagles123 at 10:29 PM on February 3, 2020


well we have two victories so far, and I feel like Biden's complaint letter sort of amounts to a defeat...
posted by atoxyl at 10:32 PM on February 3, 2020


Ann Selzer was responsible for not releasing the poll this past weekend
Literally as I was typing that out, I knew someone would correct me by saying it was Ann Selzer. So, yes, it wasn't LITERALLY Buttigieg's campaign, but unless I'm totally crazy, I'm pretty sure it was Buttigieg's campaign, tipped by a supporter working on the polling, who raised concerns.
posted by flamk at 10:32 PM on February 3, 2020


The major campaigns should *at least* know their rough numbers anywhere they stayed viable. So I find this partial enumeration stuff highly self-serving. Don't pay any attention.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Biden's statement was basically "pay no attention to the fact that we fuckin cratered harder than the Hindenburg, the results are unreliable!"
posted by Justinian at 10:35 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


I'm pretty sure it was Buttigieg's campaign, tipped by a supporter working on the polling, who raised concerns.


They did! And I think it's pretty reasonable to contact a pollster when you're hearing that your candidate isn't being listed as a choice.

The decision not to release was Selzer's. And notably one criticized by other pollsters.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:35 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


From what I understand, a caller for the poll enlarged the font on their screen, which cut off the last name on the list, which was randomized for each call. A caller who wanted to vote for Buttigieg called and complained.
posted by eagles123 at 10:36 PM on February 3, 2020


honestly I am super okay with Biden's run collapsing instantly more or less no matter which results you look at

Sanders seemingly leading the pack is just the cherry on top
posted by DoctorFedora at 10:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


dropping the 40% totals doesn't seem like a great move but I'm not sure I buy that Pete's statement is on much firmer ground
posted by atoxyl at 10:40 PM on February 3, 2020


Lol I'm not going to scream "conspiracy" but the fact that this has all the trappings of a conspiracy to such a cartoonish extent is straight up comical. Like maybe some shit just fucked up and it's embarrassing and shitty for all involved. But also the app company is called "Shadow" for chrissake, if that were in a movie about a rigged election you'd roll your eyes at it being too on the nose. Talk about meat for the fuckin wolves man!

I do feel seriously awful for the huge turnout of first time voters, first time volunteers, first time disillusioned folks who decided to for once get involved in the process. To them, this is what it all nets out to apparently - at best, just absurdly gross incompetence and no real answers
posted by windbox at 10:40 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


this really is some Florida 2000 shit
posted by atoxyl at 10:41 PM on February 3, 2020 [11 favorites]


The decision not to release was Selzer's.

Was it? Or was it the DMR and CNNs? This isn't snark, I am unsure.
posted by Justinian at 10:41 PM on February 3, 2020


Yeah, Pete's 8% better than our projections so we win seems hooey
posted by chris24 at 10:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


guys, you can't rig a process where the numbers are all public, which these apparently are. People know what the numbers are they just haven't been properly tallied yet.
posted by Justinian at 10:42 PM on February 3, 2020 [14 favorites]


that's assuming that there was a mechanism in place for properly counting the folks who left after their candidate was viable in the first round. If there was not, I withdraw that comment. But surely there was... surely...
posted by Justinian at 10:43 PM on February 3, 2020


This was all done in public with witnesses and written records, not just by IDP but the candidates. We will get real numbers, there's no conspiracy, just a fuck up. The old adage never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. Especially with volunteers.
posted by chris24 at 10:44 PM on February 3, 2020 [19 favorites]


Yeah, I don’t understand dropping just 40%, but then again, 40 percent is a whole lot more than two percent ... and nothing, which is what the Buttigieg campaign was going on. From the same Twitter thread as the Sanders numbers, the Buttegeig campaign says they are “8 percent ahead of their projections” and were “viable in 83 precincts”. I have no basis for comparison to know how good or bad that might be for them.

As for Biden, I think him cratering means you are going to see a whole lot of Bloomberg.

I just have a bad feeling about going against Trump in November no matter who wins.
posted by eagles123 at 10:47 PM on February 3, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sludge published a look at the money behind Acronym/Pacronym, the folks who own Shadow, Inc., back in November.
posted by mediareport at 10:52 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mouth-breathers on Twitter, to paraphrase: If Democrats can't handle a caucus, how can they handle healthcare reform. LOL!

Looking forward to this being the mainstream media's talking point from here to November.
posted by klanawa at 10:52 PM on February 3, 2020 [7 favorites]


Just shoot back that Trump almost started WW3 with Iran over fuck all?

I need to go to bed.
posted by eagles123 at 10:56 PM on February 3, 2020 [2 favorites]


posted by the man of twists and turns

This is all your fault!
posted by EmGeeJay at 10:57 PM on February 3, 2020


@brianneDMR:
Troy Price: We expect to have numbers to report later today. We want to emphasize this is a reporting issue. It’s not a hack or an intrusion. It’s why we have a paper trail. We are validating every piece of data against our paper trail.
(Price is the chair of the Iowa Democratic Party)
posted by Chrysostom at 11:12 PM on February 3, 2020 [3 favorites]


Looking forward to this being the mainstream media's talking point from here to November.

Yeah, that’s the disheartening thing for me. There are just so many obvious things (for each candidate) they could/will get hammered on. But screwing up this badly, this monumentally on something that should have been a simple “this state chose this person, and that’s it, that’s not just shitting the bed, it’s doing it in a really large dormitory full of grade school level jerks that will never, ever let you forget it. The amount of self-inflicted dumb on the behalf of the Democratic Party has always been unnerving at best.
posted by Ghidorah at 11:22 PM on February 3, 2020 [8 favorites]


Of course, the problem is the system itself. Those of us in other countries are looking at the US and thinking, WHAT. THE FUCK. ARE YOU DOING? I'm not sure Kim Jong-un could think up a more cunning way to fuck up something as simple as counting (or not counting, as it were) votes.
posted by klanawa at 11:33 PM on February 3, 2020 [5 favorites]


The Iowa debacle will be mostly forgotten a month from now. Even by twitter trolls and the lazy pundits. Definitely forgotten by the time of the convention.

I really hope that’s the case. It just feels like anyone approaching the world with any sort of earnest intent gets crucified for any small mistake they’ve ever made, while those intent on personal gain at all costs, who regularly cross the bright lines marking acceptable behavior from not, criminal acts from decency, they just keep on going. Trump time only seems to absolve trumpishness. For all those outside the bubble, it feels like everything always counts forever.

But yes, the DNC could, theoretically pull their heads out of their butts and astound is with a series of incredible competent actions that make all of this fade from memory, just as the sun could rise in the north, and Trump could give a humane, humble, and gracious address tonight.
posted by Ghidorah at 12:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


It's kind of amazing how Buttigieg's campaign sinks a poll right before the caucus, then the app his campaign secretly funded completely breaks, then he declares victory without any results released, and now his campaign is tweeting precinct result sheets with math that doesn't add up and without bothering to obfuscate the login PINs on those sheets, allowing anyone who cares to do so to log in and alter the digital results. There's a paper trail, and that's what's being recounted now, but this seems almost purposeful to cast as much doubt on the results as possible.
posted by kafziel at 12:48 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


And apparently the founder/CEO of Acronym (which owns the Shadow, Inc. that developed the caucus app) gushed about Buttigieg's campaign launch and is married to one of his strategists. I was always skeptical of the conspiratorial thinking around the DNC in '16, but the Sanders people are going to have a field day with this one, and rightly so -- these big-money groups just feel so incestuous.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:00 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Those same facts are equally explained by: they complained because a supporter was polled and was understandably miffed the candidate's name wasn't mentioned; his campaign hired a company that provides some text messaging and data pipeline apps for campaigns; declaring victory seems useful; those are the precinct result sheets and any math that doesn't add up is part of why we have this problem; the state party printed the PINs on the sheets; "anyone who cares to do so" doesn't have a copy of the app.

This is all horrible enough without, well, purposefully trying to cast as much doubt on the results as possible. Hundreds of thousands of people, including volunteers representing the campaigns, were at the caucuses and heard the results announced for themselves, and those results were recorded on paper and signed by the the campaign reps. How does it help to make this into more of a conspiracy?

I hope the state party can release a full set of the caucus math worksheets along with results later today, because transparency is the only thing that has any hope of saving this.
posted by zachlipton at 1:11 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


I like the precinct that aligned to 116 votes for Sanders, 82 for Warren, and 73 for Buttigieg - after a 111/68/47 split in the first alignment - and gave each of them 2 delegates.
posted by kafziel at 1:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh, or the one that rounded 3.2 up to 4, against the explicit instructions of the worksheet, when it meant Buttigieg got an extra delegate. That's Buttigieg's Iowa comms director tweeting that out, without blurring or obscuring the PIN. Lots of those on his timeline.
posted by kafziel at 1:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Wait, $120k to develop this app over two months? I have no idea how complex this particular app is, but 2 months turn around for any piece of software is quite fast (and $120k is about 6-7 devs' worth of hours over that period). I'm not at all surprised it doesn't work

I agree and for something so high profile, using it for the first time is a recipe for disaster. The app probably is fine btw - my guess is the infrastructure for it is where the problem lies.
posted by awfurby at 1:18 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I like the precinct that aligned to 116 votes for Sanders, 82 for Warren, and 73 for Buttigieg - after a 111/68/47 split in the first alignment - and gave each of them 2 delegates.

I shouldn't do math past 1am, but by my count (you can see the process on the worksheet here), the twitter thread shows 285 total voters and six delegates to assign at that precinct. Assuming the 116/82/73 split for the second alignment is accurate and they're accurately reporting the second alignment as it happened (and the campaign volunteers present could have objected if that didn't happen; the numbers look like they were all written on big poster-sized pieces of paper), that's (116 * 6) / 285 = 2.44; (82 * 6) / 285 = 1.72; (73 * 6) / 285 = 1.53. All of those round to 2 delegates each according to the rounding rules. Dumb? Sure, but not fraud.

Oh, or the one that rounded 3.2 up to 4, against the explicit instructions of the worksheet, when it meant Buttigieg got an extra delegate. That's Buttigieg's Iowa comms director tweeting that out, without blurring or obscuring the PIN. Lots of those on his timeline.

The rounding rules (see page 14) are more complicated than what's printed on the worksheet. If they followed the instructions on the worksheet there, that precinct would be Warren-2, Klobuchar-2, Buttigieg-3. But the precinct is supposed to have 8 delegates based on, ugh—a complicated formula involving past turnout I think. So they have to have a procedure to deal with the case where the rounding rules produce a result that doesn't match the number of delegates the precinct is supposed to be awarding.

So in that case, they had 7 out of 8 delegates assigned, and followed the rule: "An additional delegate will be awarded to the group with the highest decimal below 0.5 (the group with the decimal below 0.5 but closest to it)." It looks like that was Pete in this case, and so he ended up with 4 delegates there. Klobuchar already benefited from rounding up 1.7 to 2, and Warren was farther away from reaching another delegate than Buttigieg was.

The PIN situation is a total mess.

We can argue the whole system is really damn terrible, and there are just truckloads of evidence to support that argument right now, including the entire comment I'm writing here, but that's an argument for a whole different system, not a Pete Buttigieg conspiracy.
posted by zachlipton at 1:50 AM on February 4, 2020 [22 favorites]


Shadow, Inc ? Just when you think the writers couldn’t have gone any more crazy...
posted by azpenguin at 2:23 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I shouldn't do math past 1am, but by my count (you can see the process on the worksheet here), the twitter thread shows 285 total voters and six delegates to assign at that precinct. Assuming the 116/82/73 split for the second alignment is accurate and they're accurately reporting the second alignment as it happened (and the campaign volunteers present could have objected if that didn't happen; the numbers look like they were all written on big poster-sized pieces of paper), that's (116 * 6) / 285 = 2.44; (82 * 6) / 285 = 1.72; (73 * 6) / 285 = 1.53. All of those round to 2 delegates each according to the rounding rules. Dumb? Sure, but not fraud.

116+82+73=271, not 285.
posted by kafziel at 2:24 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


285 total participants which led to 271 left after the second realignment (not everyone realigns to a viable candidate). As the worksheet indicates (that's an example of a worksheet for a different precinct to show the process), the denominator for delegate assignment is the "total number of eligible caucus attendees," not the number of attendees left when you're all done. So it's possible to change the results by showing up, voting for nobody, and walking out the door.

I hate everything about this system.
posted by zachlipton at 2:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


286 total participants.

One way or another, the numbers don't work.
posted by kafziel at 2:46 AM on February 4, 2020


> "116+82+73=271, not 285."
> "So it's possible to change the results by showing up, voting for nobody, and walking out the door."

I will note, though, that even if it were based on 271, it would still have ended up being a 2/2/2 split -- that would have meant a split of 2.57, 1.82, 1.62. It would go 3/2/2, but since there are only 6 delegates, a delegate would be subtracted from "the preference group with the lowest decimal above 0.5 (the group with the decimal above 0.5 but closest to it)", although a group cannot lose its only delegate. That's 2.57, so a 2/2/2 split).

It also would have been a 2/2/2 split based on 286 participants.
posted by kyrademon at 2:49 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


We can argue the whole system is really damn terrible, and there are just truckloads of evidence to support that argument right now

Earlier in the thread we were told that arguing the system is terrible was a way to a deprecate Sanders' victory. Now apparently it turns out the system really is terrible and the system being terrible is a way to prevent a Sanders victory. I'm starting to think... well, you know.
posted by Justinian at 2:50 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


Now apparently it turns out the system really is terrible and the system being terrible is a way to prevent a Sanders victory. I'm starting to think... well, you know.

Don't caucuses tend to favour Sanders over straight primaries?
posted by PenDevil at 2:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


yes, yes they do. The Sanders camp were the folks who pushed hard to maintain the caucus states after the 2016 primary. Most folks wanted to get rid of them.
posted by Justinian at 3:02 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


Good morning. What the fuck.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [23 favorites]


The funny thing is that I think the best guess is still that Bernie won this thing, but it's not stopping his supporters from going into conspiracy theory overdrive. It's bizarre.

And yes, caucuses are terrible. They were terrible yesterday when the Bernie people loved them.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 3:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


Best guess I've seen is that Sanders probably won at least one of the three reported metrics but that Buttigieg may well have won the state-delegate-equivalents (SDEs). If you think that sounds stupid and made up and ridiculous, well, you would be right.

Also, I am having a really hard time not just spamming "THE DNC DOES NOT RUN THE IOWA CAUCUS" in response to every blowhard on twitter / reddit / wherever talking about how the DNC has rigged and/or incompetently screwed the pooch in the caucus. Just stahp, people, it makes you look silly.
posted by Justinian at 3:27 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Wow, did not expect to wake up to...whatever the hell all this is. The only reliable rule for following US politics is to expect the dumbest fucking result possible.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 3:27 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


Complaining about the DNC screwing up the Iowa Caucus is akin to congratulating the state of Kansas for its Super Bowl victory. Don't be like Trump, online people.
posted by Justinian at 3:29 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


Damn. Now they're saying Tuesday at the earliest. **TUESDAY**
posted by sotonohito at 3:39 AM on February 4, 2020


I will gladly stipulate that it looks like someone in Story County Precinct 1-1 miscounted the first alignment supporters of one of the candidates, likely a nonviable candidate, by a single person, which I suspect happens fairly frequently in a process that involves hand counting the number of handwritten cards held by people who assemble in corners of gymnasiums and community centers. That particular vote doesn't appear to be material here no matter how you want to look at it, even ignoring rounding, let alone the myriad of factors that have enormous impact on turnout (Iowa's lifetime felony disenfranchisement, accessibility, transit, childcare, and so on).

My hunch is that kind of thing is a big part of the reason all of this has happened. Take a look at an older version of the caucus worksheet (I think that's from 2012, which wasn't exactly much of a race). The first round wasn't reported at all, and many of the potential types of errors are invisible. If someone didn't catch it in the room during the caucus (and campaigns have volunteers who do that), nobody ever knew. But the new form this year, created to allow transparency and the reporting of all the different types of results we were supposed to get, goes into enough detail to reveal stuff like "someone's counting was off by 1." The caucuses have always been error-prone, and the good news/bad news situation about collecting more data is that you'll probably catch more errors. So if now you know that the first alignment total doesn't exactly match the eligible attendee total, when that was the kind of thing nobody reported before, it's not clear to me that the party was prepared to deal with that. Primary states have always known a precinct can't report more votes than ballots cast, even if they're just off by one, which is all of a sudden the kind of problem Iowa has now that they're reporting first alignment numbers this year.

My point here is not to play gotcha, but that there are thousands of people upset on twitter that blatant error, if not outright fraud, has occurred in results that seem normal, largely because this system is arcane at best and can easily produce counterintuitive outcomes at the precinct level, and that turns what's already a really really bad moment for our democracy into an increasingly scary one.
posted by zachlipton at 3:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


The funny thing is that I think the best guess is still that Bernie won this thing, but it's not stopping his supporters from going into conspiracy theory overdrive. It's bizarre.


Or, they are just expecting the media from the victory, and being denied the earned media is a separate issue from the actual Iowa process / result. The "Iowa bounce" is its own thing in the 538 model, so I guess no one gets an Iowa bounce? Buttgieg took the gamble on being wrong , just to get that earned media. Usually it s the Sanders people who are that media savvy.

And it s hard to argue with earned media, since it basically installed the current reality tv situation we have.

The upside to this being that Iowa loses its spot next time? I hope? So, it s fair to rib the DNC a bit, to push them to change things.
posted by eustatic at 3:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


If Iowa loses its privileged spot, that would be great for future elections.

In the grand scheme of things, though, I am personally happy to wait 24 hours to get an accurate vote count.

I only wish that were the expectation to begin with. So we could have our vote day, then go to bed like reasonable people, and then tune in to the news the following afternoon to get the official results.

You know, like civilized people who actually had some control over our instant-gratification impulses.
posted by darkstar at 3:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


This feels like such a bad omen for a process where we need everything to go right over the next ten months. >__<
posted by sallybrown at 3:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


If Iowa loses its privileged spot, that would be great for future elections.

Careful what you wish for. The whole point of the primary system is to identify the candidate who is most electable in a national election. Yes, that person must play to the party faithful, but the goal is to come out of it with someone with wider appeal.

Moving the primary to a tried and true blue state may simply reinforce their popularity within the party, not necessarily the nation.
posted by tgrundke at 4:09 AM on February 4, 2020


Paper ballots, hand counted and auditable, are the way this should be done, with a realistic prediction of how long it will take to tally them. Better to have a longer tally time than risk a....well, let's hope it's a fuck up.

And you know who really ought to be worried? Not Sanders so much as mainstream Democrats. They need the youth vote and the left vote to win in November. As long as there's a fair, transparent, auditable process, most people will pull together around the Democratic candidate even if it's not their preferred person. If there's inexplicable, unauditable skullduggery, people will assume the worst and while not all of them will stay home, some will...and if something goes wrong in another state where Sanders seems likely to win, then more will, and more.

I have to say, this is not inspiring me with confidence. If they fix things and have their data widely available and it's broadly in line with such other data as we have, fine, it was an unfortunate mistake, I myself have made unfortunate mistakes with numbers and computers. But I'm not feeling at all good about it.

Such feelings often get framed as "ooh, you're just paranoid that people don't like Bernie" and no, I'm not paranoid that people don't like Bernie. I'm worried that the upper reaches of the Democratic party - not mefites, but the people who pal around with the GOP socially and have lots of money - would rather ratfuck their own party than elect a social democrat because of their own material interests. The social democrat need not be Bernie; if she were a forty-five year old Latina from New Mexico with an Ivy League degree and the dulcet tones of Elizabeth Warren, I don't think that this would somehow win over very wealthy people into voting against their class interests.
posted by Frowner at 4:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [39 favorites]


Caucus story
Sam Seder at the Majority Report (YouTube video 3hr58min but clipped to story at 3hr20min) was following the proceedings last night and getting call back from Iowa.

A precinct captain named Shaun called in and said that at his precinct Bernie wasn't viable so they went to Warren. The Klobuchar, Buttigieg and Biden people realigned to Buttigieg. But then everyone left. So Shaun got elected to be one of the two delegates and isn't sure which candidate he is supposed to represent so will likely try to support Bernie. Then he suggested the U.N might need to get involved. Both funny and disturbing.
posted by phoque at 4:13 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


Swamp.io
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:17 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I mean, the app is just the reporting mechanism. Counts and computations were also written down on paper, and everyone wrote down their preferences on cards, which were collected and saved. But yes, definitely, there is a shadowy Shadow conspiracy. That is definitely the best explanation for what’s going on.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Maybe another silver lining of this would be a bigger step back from buying into Silicon Valley-esque hype about tech that takes the place of reliable processes that didn’t need to be changed. With this Shadow stuff, I would have thought the national Dem Party would have regulated these tools more and not left it up to the state orgs to select (or get conned by) vendors.
posted by sallybrown at 4:22 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


And I mean, we probably made some mistakes, because you try hand-counting 850 people packed in a junior high school gym. Again: not a conspiracy. Just an antiquated system that was designed for small towns with small populations where everyone knew each other, not for cities and suburbs.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 4:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


To elaborate, I don’t think Shadow is a con in the sense of it not functioning in good conditions, or being some devious Mayor Pete conspiracy. More that a bunch of well-connected white guys in nice blazers fed the Iowa Dems and who knows who else some story about how Shadow is going to make the caucus run like silk, while name dropping Obama alums, and how the old ways of reporting just aren’t good enough now that we have these perfect tech tools. Lots of beautiful fancy charts in the pitch presentation and no apparent thought to precincts that happen in old middle school gyms with shitty wireless connections.
posted by sallybrown at 4:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [26 favorites]


The end result is that we're getting traceable paper votes, from a process where precinct totals can also be checked by the campaigns because there were no secret ballots, so yeah, I'm going with Hanlon's Razor.

Also, this means the first clear result of the primaries will be New Hampshire, where Sanders is all but guaranteed to stomp everyone.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Max Blumenthal:
The same corporate Democratic hacks who've been warning us for three years that Russia aims to undermine confidence in our elections have done just that. They exploited Russiagate to rustle up money for the scammy digital "voter protection" tech that wrecked #IowaCaucuses.
1:28 AM · Feb 4, 2020

Matt Karp:
It's too bad Bernie doesn't get a clear "win" tonight. But the story here may be even better for him: Biden demands a recount, Pete claims victory at 0% reporting, chaos everywhere.

The institutional Dem Party is a mess. Only someone from the outside can get the job done in 2020
1:01 AM · Feb 4, 2020

Nikola:
So let's recap.

First, Pete Buttigieg stops Iowa polls from being published.
Then, with 111 votes for Bernie and 47 for Pete, they both receive 2 delegates at a caucus.
Now, he funded the app that was supposed to track the caucus but ended up crashing, delaying the results.
12:32 AM · Feb 4, 2020
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 4:32 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


First, Pete Buttigieg stops Iowa polls from being published.
Then, with 111 votes for Bernie and 47 for Pete, they both receive 2 delegates at a caucus.

I agree Pete sucks but I don't think he magically made stupid convoluted caucus delegate math work in his favor
posted by windbox at 4:37 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


...he's still obviously a CIA asset tho
posted by windbox at 4:47 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Caucus decision story two, both Warren and Sanders were viable. The Yang, Pete, Amy and Tom people pulled a name out of a hat to decide their support. (Can be found in the clip posted above, it was literally the next call).
posted by phoque at 4:48 AM on February 4, 2020


The delegate math isn't just a problem with the caucus system; it's a problem with all the primaries. Someone who gets 111 votes should get 111 "points" and someone who gets 47 votes should get 47 -- although, sure, throw in a cutoff and IRV if you want.

But instead in every primary they elect a smaller number of delegates who have to be calculated according to vote percentages in a throwback to the horse-and-buggy days that's as stupid as the Electoral College. But at least the Electoral College is baked into the Constitution and incredibly difficult to change. The Democratic Party could make a more sensible system with a wave of their hands at any time.

Have a convention if you want, but make the delegates at the convention ceremonial positions representing some number of votes. Why is this hard?
posted by kyrademon at 4:49 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


(And I can think of several ways you could do that and still have a brokered convention if you needed one.)
posted by kyrademon at 4:52 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Democratic Party needs international election observers.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 4:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Federal Election Commission site shows that the Gillibrand and Biden campaigns also paid money to Shadow Inc last summer.
posted by mediareport at 4:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Every single campaign that is serious should have been maintaining their own tally. I say this because it is trivial to do so: you have the volunteer for your campaign at each caucus site text the numbers back to homebase. Given this, how exactly would any kind of large scale conspiracy to publish false results to screw Bernie/hype Buttigieg/mess up 538 models (?) / promote "Democrats in disarray" stories/etc be able to be carried out without all but one of the campaigns screaming about it?
posted by PMdixon at 4:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I honestly want to know how the shadowy Shadow conspiracy is supposed to work. Because I was a counter at my caucus tonight, and here's how it worked.

1. As they entered the precinct, all registered voters signed in. New voters registered and then signed in.

2. Once the caucus started, every participant was handed a card. The cards were numbered, so we knew how many we handed out. We could cross-tabulate this number with the number of people who signed in. We told people that they could not leave without returning their cards. (We had to station someone at the door to catch people who left early and make sure that they marked their cards to say that they weren't caucusing for anyone.)

3. Everyone got int their preference groups. All of the viable campaigns sent precinct captains to organize this process. The precinct captains counted how many people were in their group. Everyone wrote down their first choice on the front of their card.

2. A counter went and counted the group. If the group was viable, the counter collected their cards.

3. The caucus chair told each precinct captain the count for their group. If there was a discrepancy between the official count and the precinct captain's count, they resolved it, either by recounting or by counting cards (or both). Once the precinct captain agreed with the count, we moved on.

4. The first counts got recorded on a form. Also, at that point anyone in a viable group could go home.

5. Realignment! Everyone who had been in a non-viable group moved to a viable group and wrote down their second choice on the back of their card. Precinct captains counted these people. The counter counted them. We resolved any discrepancies before moving on. Everything got recorded on the form.

6. Math! Someone did the complicated math to figure out how many delegates everyone got. Each campaign sent someone to observe and to do their own calculations if they wanted to. Delegate total got announced and recorded on the form.

7. Reporting. This invovled the app and was a clusterfuck. I finished cleaning up and putting away all the tables and chairs before it was done, and I went home. For all I know, the caucus chair and secretary are still trying to report. But they've got the form and the cards and the sign-in sheets, which all of the campaigns, including Bernie's, had a chance to observe and dispute all along the way, and which they can still check. So I don't understand how this conspiracy was supposed to work, even if Mayo Pete has his nefarious hands all over the app.

For what it's worth, I talked with the precinct captain for Bernie in my precinct tonight, and we were both like "this is a dumb way to do this. We should just have a primary." Because it is a dumb way to do it, and we should just have a primary. But you know, I have been saying this for four years, and Bernie stans have told me I was just being a neo-liberal shill, because they thought this dumb way of doing things was good for Bernie.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [53 favorites]


I think this is really more a story of the DNC's incompetent grifting, corruption, incestuous contracting, and neoliberal fantasia about improving civics through the magic of apps.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 5:02 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Broke: Telling coal miners to learn to code

Woke: Telling digital execs who insist they've designed a better way to run elections to learn to code
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


Jesus Christ. The app failure is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. It delayed the reporting, and that's all. If there was a major failure, then it was elsewhere. People are fixating on the app because they want instant results and because fixating on apps is a thing we do now.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


Like, folks know that knowing the results 30 seconds after all the precincts close is not actually a key principle of democracy right?
posted by PMdixon at 5:07 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


Weren't we all calling for intervention when the Bolivia election results were delayed?

*using "we" very broadly
posted by Chaffinch at 5:09 AM on February 4, 2020


Unsurprisingly, CNN has declared that the real winner of the Iowa Democratic caucus is Trump.
posted by tivalasvegas at 5:10 AM on February 4, 2020


On the plus side, we have 49 more states to hear from, and at _least_ 20 of them, maybe 25-ish might run smoothly.
posted by delfin at 5:11 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Weren't we all calling for intervention when the Bolivia election results were delayed?
Yes, we definitely invade countries if they don't have election results 12 hours after the polls open.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:17 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Weren't we all calling for intervention when the Bolivia election results were delayed?

Is mayor Pete the mayor of Iowa?
posted by PMdixon at 5:18 AM on February 4, 2020


Yes, we definitely invade countries if they don't have election results 12 hours after the polls open.

And those can have hundreds of thousands, even millions of ballots to certify. Which is nothing compared to the insurmountable problem of tabulating *checks notes* scattered groups of a couple of hundred people who are hand-counted at each site
posted by delfin at 5:22 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Greg Shill (U of Iowa):
Folks, it would be exceptionally difficult to rig the #IowaCaucuses results. You literally write your name, address, and candidate on a card and sign it, and they keep it until the Democratic convention. It’s going to be okay.
posted by chris24 at 5:22 AM on February 4, 2020 [23 favorites]


Like, folks know that knowing the results 30 seconds after all the precincts close is not actually a key principle of democracy right?

Ireland doesn't even start counting until 9 am the morning after voting day, and it can take several days to complete some constituencies. (Hand-counting PR-STV ballots can be complicated.) There was a brief foray into using electronic voting (I got to use one!), but it was generally decided that secure voting was more important than instant results.
posted by scorbet at 5:24 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


We're gonna wait weeks for CA, so one day for Iowa isn't so bad.
posted by chris24 at 5:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Christ, what a casserole.


they complained because a [supposed] supporter was polled and was [allegedly] understandably miffed the candidate's name [maybe] wasn't mentioned;

Unless I missed something, there is no recording of the polling call, and no proof that the candidate's name was omitted from it. If I'm wrong, well OK. If I'm not wrong, pulling the whole poll on the basis of one partisan's complaint seems like an extreme reaction.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:37 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I don't know much about caucusing, Iowa, or the sausage-making details of yesterday's event, but I did remember that in many past election years there is always some problem with declaring some kind of result, and that the result is often not revealed until later the next day (at the earliest.) It feels to me like many candidates' fans are hyping the apparent delay in reporting.
posted by Harry Caul at 5:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I can’t help but think if whoever was the decision-maker on hiring this app had just spent a few minutes asking a few typical caucus volunteers how they’d want to report results, they would have just spent a fraction of the money instead on hiring people to answer phones on caucus night and entering results in an Excel spreadsheet.
posted by sallybrown at 5:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Before the Iowa reporting snafu, y'all did a lot to make me feel better about the world and better about being on this site. I'm a Democrat who's committed to voting any candidate who wins the nomination and against Trump. I've been feeling like I'm part of a small, despised minority of people that participate in US political threads.

The thread started off with the usual tirades about how terrible and diabolically evil various Democratic candidates are. But then there was a lot of push-back against that. And freecellwizard mentioned Iowans they'd heard interviewed saying "if Warren or Sanders was the nominee they might vote for Trump." A lot you condemned that attitude. That meant a lot to me – I guess I'm not in such teeny minority on MetaFilter after all.
posted by nangar at 5:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


People were anticipating issues in Bolivia for months because Evo Morales was clearly pushing himself for running a third (really his fourth), which was only allowed in the first place because the supreme court overturned the will of the people. I don't think there are any similarities between that and this caucus, except maybe people were anticipating issues with the caucus because caucuses are confusing.
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 5:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


look if you don't think the web of connections between pete and the shadow app is, at the very least, a little bit fucking weird, if not outright suspicious, that's fine, but please don't insinuate we're all paranoid crazy people for giving that whole thing a little bit of side eye. the app was developed by people who have publicly supported his campaign, and he has financially supported their company. whether or not there's some conspiracy there doesn't really matter because the stench of impropriety is all over it - we should not be allowing this sort of thing to happen and it should be disqualifying for pete that it DID happen, regardless of whether or not it actually affected the election at all. it's a perfect example of the kind of backroom dealing and glad-handing that has made people deeply, deeply suspicious of the democratic party.
posted by JimBennett at 5:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [21 favorites]


> Both Democrats and Republicans in Iowa used an app from Microsoft Corp. in 2016. The company said it helped the parties report 95% of their precinct results in about four hours.

and also:

> Wait, $120k to develop this app over two months? I have no idea how complex this particular app is, but 2 months turn around for any piece of software is quite fast (and $120k is about 6-7 devs' worth of hours over that period). I'm not at all surprised it doesn't work.

okay so if you look at how cheap this trashy app was you'll start to do the math on how minuscule the kickbacks must have been and then you'll get this extra layer of anger w/r/t how much damage a few twits caused while scrambling after what is (in the broader scheme of things) basically pocket change.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


I know doing so won't lessen the general view that delegate math is weird and inscrutable, but is there a good reason why they don't use Huntington-Hill, which is a pretty mainstream apportionment technique, instead of what sounds like a really bewildering variant of Vinton's method?
posted by jackbishop at 5:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


how much damage a few individual twits caused

People keep saying things like this, and I legitimately don't understand what meaningful damage is supposed to have been caused besides to media outlets' projected viewership numbers and I don't think anyone here cares about that. Can you please ELI5 what damage to whom you think has been caused?
posted by PMdixon at 5:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I just want to thank ArbitraryAndCapricious for taking the time to share their first hand experience here.
posted by anastasiav at 5:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


> Can you please ELI5 what damage to whom you think has been caused?

you know what is super fun what's super fun is that media coverage that would have been about the democratic party candidates is instead about how lol the iowa democratic party can't do a caucus right lololol the iowa democratic party has one job lololol dems suck lolol.

and like yes the national news media is blisteringly deliberately stupid and kind of fascist-leaning on the whole and will go with a "lololol dems in disarray" storyline without provocation but also: good lord don't feed those beasts red meat for no reason.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [23 favorites]


The predictable fuck-ups and the disregard for propriety are bad here too.

Like, if you asked literally any US mefite with any interest in elections, we would all say that this is a critically important election season, we need back-up plans for our back-up plans, the appearance of chaos would be very bad and because this is a very contentious process, it must be absolutely above reproach. Anyone would say, "gee, no, an app underwritten by few of the candidates is a bad idea because it gives an appearance of impropriety, let's do this another way".

At this point, even if everything resolves in a transparent, acceptable way, there's been one huge mess among the Democrats. This is, like, taking a big chunk out of the party's resilience and reputation. Another will be a disaster - and yet, another could happen, right? The geniuses who thought that this app was a brilliant, well-named idea will probably fuck something else up down the road.

It gives you a lot of pause because it feels like the people at the top do not actually value democracy and have terrible political instincts.
posted by Frowner at 6:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [79 favorites]


Frowner 4 President
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:06 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


Another will be a disaster - and yet, another could happen, right? The geniuses who thought that this app was a brilliant, well-named idea will probably fuck something else up down the road.

The app is apparently going to be used in Nevada as well.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 6:11 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


OK so is the concern that in November people will
be making decisions informed by their impressions of the logistics of the Iowa caucus?
posted by PMdixon at 6:11 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight:
Maybe there will eventually be a decent-sized Iowa bounce despite all of this. But there’s a good chance that the candidates who did well in Iowa get screwed, and the candidates who did poorly there get a mulligan. To repeat: There’s very little importance in a mathematical sense to who wins 41 delegates. Iowa is all about the media narrative it produces and all about momentum, and that momentum, whoever wins, is likely to have been blunted.

Who might this help?
I hate the implications and I hope this is all just a random fuck-up.
posted by hat_eater at 6:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Folks, in 2012 it took Rs over two weeks to declare a winner in Iowa after they initially named the wrong winner election night.

We will survive. Hopefully caucuses and Iowa’s first in the nation status won’t.
posted by chris24 at 6:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


Iowa journalist Lyz Lenz was mentioned early in this thread; here's her now-prescient January 28 look at the confusing, at times absurd changes made to this year's caucus. She correctly predicted a mess:

The Iowa Caucuses Are Going to Be a F*cking Nightmare.

One example:

2. There is also a new viability threshold, and that threshold is 15%. If you gather into a corner for a candidate and the group has 15% of attendees at your meeting site, you no longer get to move. This is a huge change from the previous years when an individual or group could move during alignment. This is also going to be a problem because many seasoned caucusgoers like to align as “undecided” before switching to their second choice. If this happens, “undecided” (who is polling at 45%) could win delegates if people align “undecided” and that group is viable. A friend of mine is so mad about this rule that she’s considering realigning even if her first group is viable.

Lenz knows a lot more than I do, but I did raise an eyebrow at her quick characterization of the Sanders campaign's 2016 caucus criticisms as a "giant baby tantrum." There were very legit criticisms of that process made by many non-Sanders folks (here's the Des Moines Register, e.g., on inconsistent counts and the need for a complete audit). I've seen more than one conservative Dem this morning laying much, if not all, of their blame for last night at the feet of Sanders' 2016 complaints, which seems very odd. So I'm curious to learn from folks on the ground in Iowa how many of the confusing changes Lyz Lenz discusses in her piece were driven by Sanders supporters. I'm also not sure that doing an official first count (which I'm guessing *was* driven by Sanders folks?) was such a horrible idea, but am happy to defer to folks who've been following this more closely.

(And yeah, if anyone wants a look at why the Sanders campaign is so hypocritically in favor of inherently un-democratic caucuses, here are a couple of links from 2016 that go into detail. The 2nd chart in the Vox link is so, so damning about how caucuses reduce turnout.)
posted by mediareport at 6:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


if anyone wants a look at why the Sanders campaign is so hypocritically in favor of inherently un-democratic caucuses

Is "because they believe they benefit from them" too boring an answer?
posted by PMdixon at 6:15 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Aside from the counting/reporting disaster - which is a disaster no matter how you spin it - one take away for me from all the polling and last night is that Iowa really seems to be slipping away from the Democrats. It seems like overall primary turnout was flat with 2016 at best, which is bad if you are relying on new voters to win the general like Sanders. None of the candidates were beating Trump in head to head polls.

It seems like so long ago Obama won the state.
posted by eagles123 at 6:15 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


The thing is I can't say CNN and the other legacy media are wrong to be going all lulz the Dems can't even run a primary. Because this whole thing is preposterous, arcane, archaic, blatantly and horrifyingly anti-democratic and exclusionary, has muddled absurd results, AND there is the stench of corruption over it even if it turns out there is no actual corruption.

Add to that the righteous anger at lilly white corn subsidy addicted Iowa getting to pick our nominee for the rest of us lesser people and you've got a perfect environment for everyone to come away with the feeling both that their candidate was cheated and that the Democrats can't find their ass with both hands and a bloody map.

And no, I dont think there is anything privileged or is evil millinials demanding impossible things in expecting results that are both quick and accurate. This isn't rocket surgery and if it wasnt for our rural overlords clinging to an inherently bad and unfair system that was dumb even back in the bad old days we'd have near instant reporting and accurate results instead of this godawful mess.

Especially in today's environment where people are justifiably concerned about the Democratic establishment cheating (hi changing the rules so Bloomberg can be part of the debates) having this sort of shitshow is so bad I can't think of a way to make it worse that doesn't involve the Democrats just totally abandoning the process and annointing Biden in a literal back room filled with cigar smoke.

CNN isn't wrong. The Dems are in disarray, they are demonstrating utter incompetence, and in an environment where we need to be perfectly clean they've managed to come across as corrupt.
posted by sotonohito at 6:17 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Trump won Iowa by 10 points. We are crushing him if it’s close. So no, we don’t need Iowa. And yes, it’s changed, but states do. Virginia is now blue, etc., so it works both ways.
posted by chris24 at 6:18 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Folks, in 2012 it took Rs over two weeks to declare a winner in Iowa after they initially named the wrong winner election night.
Ok, thanks! My memory has this as well.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yeah, it seems like the future of the party is in Georgia and Texas. We're probably a few elections early for that though.
posted by eagles123 at 6:22 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Folks, in 2012 it took Rs 2 weeks to declare a winner in Iowa after they initially named the wrong winner election night.

Which makes Iowa 3 for 3 in screwing up the last 3 presidential caucuses. They need to stop going first.

Is "because they believe they benefit from them" too boring an answer?

I posted those articles because they go into *why* the Sanders campaign believes they benefit from them. There's good info there.
posted by mediareport at 6:24 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


> they complained because a [supposed] supporter was polled and was [allegedly] understandably miffed the candidate's name [maybe] wasn't mentioned

Selzer, the company who conducted the poll, looked into the complaint and found out that one of the call center employees had enlarged the font size on their computer which would have lopped off the name of the last candidate off the list. Since the pollster looked into it and confirmed that this happened, we can drop the "supposed", "allegedly" stuff.
posted by nangar at 6:26 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


I posted those articles because they go into *why* the Sanders campaign believes they benefit from them

Can you help me find what you're talking about? I see plenty about why caucuses are bad, I don't even see a statement about how much more likely a Sanders voter is to be able to attend a caucus than one for Clinton (in 2016).
posted by PMdixon at 6:28 AM on February 4, 2020


> OK so is the concern that in November people will be making decisions informed by their impressions of the logistics of the Iowa caucus?

the concern is that large-scale public incompetence produced as a result of a set of intersecting petty grifts and just general fuck-aroundery is both a bad look and also a bad thing. this is not what a party genuinely interested in picking up every single vote does.

and you know what, you're like "scoff! how could this influence a vote nine months from now!" but i point to how close the 2016 general election vote was in the decisive states. if one person out of 100,000 goes to the polls thinking "hey remember how iowa couldn't run a caucus right?", that might actually matter.

and also more generally speaking, what's the old maxim? "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves?" this is a pretty nasty indicator that no one is taking care of the pennies.

like sheesh it's super cool, totally okay if the party can't report results election night. get that out in the press early, don't give people the expectation they'll have instant results, give a reason why we won't get instant results. but get that storyline out early. like, three weeks ago early. don't just cross your fingers and hope the janky grift-derived vote reporting app works on its first test then go all "shruggie!" when it doesn't.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:29 AM on February 4, 2020 [26 favorites]


We have mobile games with 3d physics engines that track the complex actions of millions of players in real time and we can't build an app that tracks and tally preferences and final votes for 250k people in 1600 locations?
posted by jasondigitized at 6:29 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


People, we don’t need to reflexively defend every single fuckup the Democratic Party makes. This isn’t dailykos.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [21 favorites]


"It gives you a lot of pause because it feels like the people at the top do not actually value democracy and have terrible political instincts"

This seems like a pretty accurate summation of the careers of Pete Buttigieg, Hillary Clinton, and various other "mainstream" Dems.
posted by kevinbelt at 6:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


if one person out of 100,000 goes to the polls thinking "hey remember how iowa couldn't run a caucus right?", that might actually matter.

OK. And promulgating conspiracy theories doesn't also carry this risk arguably much more strongly?
posted by PMdixon at 6:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


i haven't seen anyone "promulgating conspiracy theories" this morning, that was all happening last night when things were a lot murkier. what i have seen is people pointing out the sort of genuine fuckups and strange backdoor connections that have defined the modern democratic party.
posted by JimBennett at 6:33 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


> We have mobile games with 3d physics engines that track the complex actions of millions of players in real time and we can't build an app that tracks and tally preferences and winners for 250k people in 1600 locations?

writing a platform to coördinate that sort of thing is actually pretty difficult, especially when you can't assume that the users know how to, like, computer. which is why you should spend more than two dumb months developing it. ughhhh. this situation's combination of features:
  • tech optimist snake oil sold by and to people who don't actually know what makes tech hard
  • low-level grift by political professionals
  • the sheer existence of pete buttigieg
is carefully calibrated to drive me all the way up the wall. i think i've got to de-Internet for the day...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


People, we don’t need to reflexively defend every single fuckup the Democratic Party makes. This isn’t dailykos.

I'm personally just really sick of people who tend to shout CONSPIRACY!! at the top of their lungs every time something gets fucked up or just simply doesn't go their candidates way.

@JimBennett Twitter is full of conspiracy theories this morning, including #MayorCheat and #BernieWasRobbed (robbed of what? nobody has results). Some of this is likely troll farms, but it is certainly making it a lot harder for people using actual facts and rational thought to make themselves heard.
posted by anastasiav at 6:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


While I understand the urge to think bad conspiratorial thoughts when something like this happens, there are completely rational innocuous explanations that depend not on crazy theories and skullduggery, but the very human qualities of incompetence, unfamiliarity and imperfection. And jumping to conclusions and spreading rumors does nothing but damage democracy when the other party is intentionally trying to wreck it. Trump, Uday and Qusay have been doing nothing but pushing the rigged line to divide us and undermine faith in elections. And the people who aren’t pushing it are saying things like this:
Erick Erickson: I don’t think Iowa sabotaged the caucus to hurt Bernie Sanders. But I really hope a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters think that.
And I despise Pete, but I don’t get the blame on him. He paid a developer for a program just like many other of the candidates and other D politicians had. Should the CEO have publicly expressed his political opinion? Probably not helpful when he has multiple candidates as clients, but with a known and public paper trail, I doubt nefarious.

And of course the media is pushing the Dems in Disarray agenda. They’re pissed they lost their big news event last night. And a rift in the party gives them something to cover. Like with the R agenda, we can push back and resist the media agenda.
posted by chris24 at 6:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


going to disengage here because the things some people would consider "completely rational innocuous explanations" are, to me, "inexcusable fuck ups"
posted by JimBennett at 6:38 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


The Challenger explosion had an innocuous explanation, didn’t make it not a fuckup. But whatever.
posted by chris24 at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2020 [19 favorites]


OK so is the concern that in November people will be making decisions informed by their impressions of the logistics of the Iowa caucus?

When there is an appearance of impropriety, you have to spend a lot of time explaining what actually happened. That explanation may or may not be convincing to your hearers. Instead of talking up your party or your candidate or doing voter turnout, you need to spend time explaining why X is actually not corrupt. If X is merely a very bad idea, you also need to say, "well, it's not actually corrupt, it's just dumb, be sure to vote in November".

The appearance of impropriety wastes time and energy and makes it harder to promote your candidate.

The Democrats are already at a big disadvantage because a lot of people feel that hey, the Democrats aren't doing much to help the average person and are doing a lot to help the average billionaire. "You're already a bit skeptical of us, but here is why this extremely dodgy looking thing was a mistake and not a sign of actual dishonesty" is not the way to turn people out at the polls.

~~
I add that 2016 was a perfect storm of failures. The lesson I think people should take from it is that everyone needs to tighten up their game. "But [this other group of people] fucked things up, so it doesn't matter that I did a half-assed job" is not good enough. If one of the big bad things of 2016 hadn't happened - even one - Trump probably wouldn't have won. "It isn't very important that this got screwed up" is absolutely unacceptable in 2020.
posted by Frowner at 6:39 AM on February 4, 2020 [39 favorites]


and like okay anything that keeps buttigieg alive without actually driving a stake all the way through the heart of the biden campaign is ultimately a good thing in "what helps my favored candidates" terms. biden's still going to do pretty well on super tuesday no matter what, so the best situation for the decent people — warren and sanders — is that we have for now a gradually waxing buttigieg and a gradually waning biden. (thereby ensuring that neither of them becomes properly gibbous).

but also bracketing off "favored candidates" altogether, as we should: this fuckup should be taken seriously and pretending it is not a fuckup is the opposite of taking it seriously.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


2016 was a perfect storm of failures.
2020 already looking around for someone to hold it's beer
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 6:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


I'm the most likely person to call Quiz Show on this whole thing, and even I'm not there yet.

However, I do think people acting befuddled about how this shitshow could hurt anyone are being intentionally obtuse. Let's say one person absolutely dominated in Iowa yesterday. The new today could have been "PERSON sweeps Iowa, expected frontrunner got stomped", giving X person a lot of momentum. Maybe people start reevaluating how electable the supposed obvious choice actually is. Instead, it is "Who Knows What Happened Yesterday? Let's Announce It Two Weeks from Now When No One Is Paying Attention."

No it's not a conspiracy theory. But let's not pretend that this didn't help certain people and hurt others, and those people are exactly who you would expect.
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:44 AM on February 4, 2020 [39 favorites]


If there’s anything that is going to unite all the delegates at the democratic national convention, it’ll be that they’re tired of giving special preference to Iowa and New Hampshire every 4 years. On the 538 pod, Galen Druke (who had a short pod series on primary history) said “Failure breeds change.”
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:46 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


People, we don’t need to reflexively defend every single fuckup the Democratic Party makes.

I'm not defending any fuckups. The app was dumb and unnecessary and at the very least a bunch of election volunteers had a really shitty night because of it and given the way things go these days I'm sure someone's going to get death threats. There's a lot of room between that and claiming that somehow this means Buttegieg has stolen it and that this hands the election to Trump. To the first, it's both trivial for campaigns to do an accurate tracking themselves. To the second: Most people don't start paying attention to the presidential campaigns until after the conventions, as I have generally understood it. We are unrepresentative in our level of engagement with the process. Most people do not think about politics, parties, and elections the way people in this thread do.

Of course the app was dumb. It would have been dumb even if it had worked seemlessly because it's blatantly the brain child of someone who doesn't know how to reason about what to use software for, which to me says it's a boomer's brainchild: this millennial would never have suggested a fucking app. But to go from there to the idea that the results are being rigged, as multiple people in this thread have asserted, is profoundly unnecessary and unhelpful.
posted by PMdixon at 6:47 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Nate Silver, who is very good a this sort of thing: Iowa might have screwed up the whole nomination process

Who won so far? Biden. He has the most to gain from this.
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 6:48 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


On the 538 pod, Galen Druke (who had a short pod series on primary history) said “Failure breeds change.”

Tell that to the Democratic Party
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:48 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Let's say one person absolutely dominated in Iowa yesterday.

From all indications, that's exactly what did not happen.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:51 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


Literally the first episode was about how we even have primaries to actually vote for president because of the 1968 convention.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:51 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Statement from Iowa Democratic Party chair Troy Price this morning:

[intro paragraph: we had a hard job]

We have every indication that our systems were secure and there was not a cyber security intrusion. In preparation for the caucuses, our systems were tested by independent cybersecurity consultants.

As precinct caucus results started coming in, the IDP ran them through an accuracy and quality check. It became clear that there were inconsistencies with the reports. The underlying cause of these inconsistencies was not immediately clear, and required investigation, which took time.

As this investigation unfolded, IDP staff activated pre-planned backup measures and entered data manually. This took longer than expected.

As part of our investigation, we determined with certainty that the underlying data collected via the app was sound. While the app was recording data accurately, it was reporting out only partial data. We have determined that this was due to a coding issue in the reporting system. This issue was identified and fixed. The application’s reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately.

Because of the required paper documentation, we have been able to verify that the data recorded in the app and used to calculate State Delegate Equivalents is valid and accurate. Precinct level results are still being reported to the IDP. While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld.
posted by mediareport at 6:52 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


Democrats: Bernie should not be allowed to run because he’s not Loyal to The Party
Also Democrats: We burnted down the house again but dont worry we gave Mitch Mcconnell the keys to our car in exchange.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [22 favorites]


is carefully calibrated to drive me all the way up the wall. i think i've got to de-Internet for the day

same, but append "reflexive defense of incompetence because it has (d) after its name" to your list
posted by entropicamericana at 6:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Iowa might have screwed up the whole nomination process

It didn’t screw it up, it changed it. And arguably for the better since Iowa and a caucus should never have had so much influence anyway.
posted by chris24 at 6:54 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


However, I do think people acting befuddled about how this shitshow could hurt anyone are being intentionally obtuse. Let's say one person absolutely dominated in Iowa yesterday. The new today could have been "PERSON sweeps Iowa, expected frontrunner got stomped", giving X person a lot of momentum.

i mean, that's true, but that's just accepting that 91% White Iowa's cemented status as "first in the nation" is the valid and correct way to do things, which there's been a lot of debate about, for years. Some candidate getting to tout their result in another state before the Iowa results are announced is not an inherently negative thing.
posted by Roommate at 6:54 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Brian Klaas (WaPo):
The US is 61% white. In Iowa, it’s 86%. It’s 91% in New Hampshire.

1 in 5 Americans is Hispanic/Latino. In Iowa, it’s 1 in 16. It’s 1 in 27 in NH.

1 in 7 Americans is Black. In Iowa, it’s 1 in 26. And 1 in 62 in NH.

The primary/caucus system should be reformed for 2024.
posted by chris24 at 6:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [23 favorites]


"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat."

— Will Rogers
posted by kirkaracha at 6:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


A CNN reporter listened in on the conference call between the campaigns and party heads this morning:

When Price was pressed by the Warren campaign about what percentage of info the party currently has, Price said he would “get back to you on that info” because “we are still gathering information as we are speaking.” (3/5)

The most direct criticism came from Jeff Weaver, senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’ campaign. When Price responded to his concern saying there were "reporting issues," Weaver called the response "bogus" and suggested "the whole process has been a fraud for 100 years.” (4/5)
posted by mediareport at 7:00 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I mean, Iowa has 6 electoral college votes, and is in Central Time. So not a deciding amount or first over the bar for any party in any election.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:01 AM on February 4, 2020


The Financial Times with some more information on Acronym and Shadow. Multiple alums from Facebook, Kiva, and the Clinton 2016 campaign:
The Iowa Democratic party spent a total of $63,183 with Shadow in November and December last year, according to state campaign expenditure reports. . . . Acronym was founded in March 2017 by Tara McGowan, a former journalist turned digital marketer in the Democrats’ 2016 presidential campaign. Its board members include David Plouffe, head of President Obama’s 2008 election campaign and a former Uber executive who now works at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. . . .

The Washington-based organisation has recruited several Facebook engineers and also won the backing of the social network’s former head of product Chris Cox. . . . Shadow is led by chief executive Gerard Niemira, who previously led technology and operations at Acronym, according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, he had worked on Mrs Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, building digital tools for supporters and field organisers. He joined the Clinton campaign after several years at Kiva.org, a non-profit that facilitates peer-to-peer loans to people in developing countries. Mr Niemira co-founded Groundbase in December 2016 with another alumnus of Kiva and the Clinton campaign, Krista Davis, who is now Shadow’s chief technology officer.
posted by sallybrown at 7:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


god I hate apps*

*I make apps for a living
posted by gwint at 7:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [35 favorites]


Running an election event of any kind seems inherently complicated. Running them Iowa-caucus-fashion compounds the complications tremendously.

A public event like this really needs professionals to make it work - confident on-site organizers with top-shelf public speaking skills who acquired total mastery of the process through uniform training, handouts/table tents with easily-read instructions for what to do, the same instructions projected onto a big screen, countdown timers clearly visible.

I write this from Waterloo, Iowa, where my site last night had none of these things. Poor acoustics in the school cafeteria. Seniors struggling to navigate stairs. Lots of first-time caucus-goers who were confused, just as many long-time caucusers who were also confused. At one point there was a coin-flip? No idea why.

One older man at my table filled out his card incorrectly, so the site organizer tracked him down to say his vote wouldn't count, but then refused to give him a new one until our precinct captain got testy with him. Our group had exactly *one* person to spare for viability, so it felt like it was all hinging on her advocacy. It was nuts.

One thing I'm sick of is seeing fb friends in fading, homogeneous sub-hamlets crowing about how it all worked fine except for the app crashing. Also my frenemy who lives for DRAMA! loving the scrum of the caucus and saying that poor turnout among minorities, second-shifters, single moms etc was a problem of them "not caring enough to make the effort."

If anything, the experience of this fiasco getting worse and worse every time has convinced me that I needed to be active in the local party. I spent the time between viability counts asking everyone I could find, there has to be a better way, right? And they all said yes.
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [43 favorites]


Let's say I was a betting person... Where could I go to put money on no results at all (from IA, NH, or NV) being released until the after the SC primary?
posted by FakeFreyja at 7:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Apps are no excuse for poor design and execution of business processes.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Apps are no excuse for poor design and execution of business processes.

Apps are poor design and execution of business processes.
posted by PMdixon at 7:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Nate Silver, from Iowa Might Have Screwed Up The Whole Nomination Process:
Maybe there will eventually be a decent-sized Iowa bounce despite all of this. But there’s a good chance that the candidates who did well in Iowa get screwed, and the candidates who did poorly there get a mulligan. To repeat: There’s very little importance in a mathematical sense to who wins 41 delegates. Iowa is all about the media narrative it produces and all about momentum, and that momentum, whoever wins, is likely to have been blunted.
(h/t chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position )
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:08 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


More seriously, there is nothing wrong with using apps (or more generally, computer programs) to help with crucial infrastructure-- that is of course done all the time. It's just that the bar is much higher in those instances and therefore the development process must be treated completely differently than your average tech startup.

With that said, using an app for voting is the worst idea ever and should die in a fire. Paper ballots, hand counted, records saved. Anything else is garbage.
posted by gwint at 7:09 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


I'm not defending the fuckup. I've been predicting it would be a fuckup since the last fuckup four years ago. I'm saying that it wasn't a conspiracy, that the conspiracy theories make literally no sense, and that you have to be either ignorant or acting in bad faith to claim it was a conspiracy. And I understand that it is a point of faith for the left in the US that you have no personal responsibility for anything, that you can just spew whatever the fuck you feel like without paying any attention to the truth, and if it hurts someone you can blame the DNC or Hillary Clinton or whatever. But although this was inarguably a fuckup, the appearance of impropriety is coming from people, including people right here in this very discussion, who are spewing ignorant conspiracy theories without making an effort to figure out whether they make any sense. And you need to take some responsibility for your behavior, because the stakes are too fucking high, and we cannot afford to mess up this time. All of us, wherever we stand on the non-Trump political spectrum, need to take some responsibility for not spreading crap that is going to spread division and hurt the eventually nominee. (And keep in mind that the eventual nominee may well be Bernie Sanders, and if so then we are all going to have to work together to elect Bernie Sanders, and people who aren't fans of him are also going to have to resist the urge to spew dumb things on social media.)

The solution to this is for Iowa to have a primary. That will mean that Iowa won't go first, and that's also a solution to some problems. Maybe the Bernie people will be ok with that now that Bernie seems to be making some inroads outside of lily white states like Iowa and New Hampshire. Because seriously, you guys: this is a stupid system. You need to trust those of us who live here when we tell you it's a stupid system.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [41 favorites]


Relevant, from Dictionary.com:
blamestorming [ bleym-stawr-ming ]

noun
a discussion or meeting for the purpose of assigning blame.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:13 AM on February 4, 2020


Let's say I was a betting person... Where could I go to put money on no results at all (from IA, NH, or NV) being released until the after the SC primary?

I will take that bet right now, but not for money. If that happens, I will agree that there is a conspiracy against Sanders. If that doesn't happen, you have to stop arguing there is a conspiracy against Sanders. *spits in and and sticks it out*
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:14 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


> "bfd, everybody knows all iowans are hot"

However, they can be cold as their falling thermometers in December if you ask about their weather in July.
posted by kyrademon at 7:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


We're gonna wait weeks for CA, so one day for Iowa isn't so bad.

CA is a Super Tuesday state this year though.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:16 AM on February 4, 2020


Yeah, SC is 25 days from now.
posted by Chrysostom at 7:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


There is not a conspiracy against Sanders. The Iowa Democratic party is way too clunky to make a conspiracy happen. So is the DNC.
posted by all about eevee at 7:17 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


I will take that bet right now, but not for money. If that happens, I will agree that there is a conspiracy against Sanders. If that doesn't happen, you have to stop arguing there is a conspiracy against Sanders. *spits in and and sticks it out*

I will also take that bet on those terms.
posted by PMdixon at 7:18 AM on February 4, 2020


The Challenger explosion had an innocuous explanation

The ultimate finding of the Rogers Commission was that at least two of NASA's contractors had known about the "innocuous" problem for roughly a decade and had broken multiple rules and regulations in not reporting it correctly (or really at all), combined with a number of problems at NASA around ignoring safety measures related to launch protocol. Maybe not the best analogy here.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:19 AM on February 4, 2020 [25 favorites]


The Iowa Democratic party is way too clunky to make a conspiracy happen. So is the DNC.

As national current events tell us, extreme stupidity and incompetence make conspiracies impossible.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Should the CEO have publicly expressed his political opinion? Probably not helpful when he has multiple candidates as clients

The CEO of Acronym is a woman, Tara McGowan. Here is something of a puff piece about her from September, with interesting detail about Acronym's odd structure, her strategies, and her history that paints McGowan as a new, disruptive major player:

Its staff has grown from five to 38 and it has quickly become one of the go-to digital organizing forces for everyone from Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List to Everytown for Gun Safety and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. And her organization’s weekly newsletter, For What It’s Worth, is becoming a must-read thanks to its smart (and illustration-heavy) look at how the 2020 campaigns are spending money online...

While the Democratic presidential candidates duke it out in the primaries, McGowan is focusing Acronym’s efforts on registering voters in Florida, Georgia, Texas and Arizona and also investing in state legislative seats in Virginia, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin and beyond...

Her model is seen by some as a threat to traditional consultants:

While the numbers are impressive, what could upend Washington politics entirely is the structure of her organization. Unlike most digital strategists, her operation is what the IRS classifies as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit — meaning a majority of its funds must be used to promote “social welfare.” And yet, Acronym has a web of for-profit companies beneath it: a campaign consulting firm (Lockwood Strategy), a political tech company with a peer-to-peer texting product (Shadow) and a media company investing in local left-leaning outlets (FWIW Media). In the works is an apparel arm (Rogue Swag) that would be the first major liberal answer to conservative companies that skirt campaign finance laws by selling politically branded clothing over Facebook and elsewhere — spreading political messaging without having to report the spending.

It means the nonprofit Acronym is able to raise money, invest in for-profit companies to advance progressive aims and then return any profits back into its mission. “People don’t understand why I am creating a model that I can’t get very rich off of. Because I don’t own the companies; the (c)(4) does,” she says. And that’s a huge threat to political consultants’ bank accounts...

Privately, Washington consultants gripe that her nonprofit umbrella model is duplicitous because she could still be paying herself exorbitant amounts through the private companies beneath it. “It’s not a surprise that others on the left are uncomfortable about the disruption,” says Eric Wilson, a Republican political strategist who blogs about digital tactics at LearnTestOptimize.com. An Acronym spokesman declined to reveal McGowan’s salary but confirmed she does not own any equity in the for-profit companies.

McGowan has also advocated for building in-house digital teams at her previous stops, another blow to consultants that could foster distrust. “As Tara has demonstrated at Priorities USA — much to my dismay — you get the better results and more efficiency bringing your buying in-house,” Wilson says. “She’s also exposing many of the less effective advertising tactics on the left.” Chaudhary agrees: “We have to evolve or die. … [She] is asking the right questions and forcing the Democratic Industrial Complex to change.”
posted by mediareport at 7:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


But let's not pretend that this didn't help certain people and hurt others, and those people are exactly who you would expect.

It lessened the damage to Biden, but I think the centrist vs left damage otherwise is a wash or possibly more harmful to the centrists.

1) Bernie was anticipated to win and if he does, it’s not looking like it’ll be a big win. So he’d have just met expectations. Yes, a plus but not a huge surprise. And if it’s basically a tie with Pete or a loss, then he would’ve come away a neutral or even an overall negative impact.

2) Pete was not anticipated to win and overachieved even if he doesn’t win. Even a close second would’ve been huge for him so I think he clearly suffered the most.

3) The results between the top three - Bernie, Pete and Liz - are close and no one had a huge number - all in the 20s - so the victory bump with close results and a large field was always gonna be muted.

4) By the field not winnowing and Klobuchar staying in, it arguably helps Sanders by keeping multiple centrists in the race to split votes and steal from Biden. So yes Biden is helped by the clusterfuck drowning out his abysmal showing, but Klo staying in is arguably more damaging long term. And this also helps technocrat Bloomberg whose supposed effectiveness suddenly looks attractive to some, which also hurts Biden. As does the hate for the DNC/establishment which Biden is an avatar for.
posted by chris24 at 7:23 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


Nate Silver, from Iowa Might Have Screwed Up The Whole Nomination Process:

Even taking his modeling as inspired by actual precognition, if you scroll down to the chart giving the comparison of pre-caucus and without the caucus at all, I have a hard time calling those differences dramatic. It changed the rank ordering of exactly 0 rows in that table.
posted by PMdixon at 7:26 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Naomi Klein has a great, sober take on this from a leftist perspective:

1. Bernie is the national frontrunner and there is no reason for this debacle to slow him down.

2. Our campaign expands when it focusses on the issues that matter most to people and harnesses the loving power of #NotMeUs.

3. Yes, what happened was unfair to Bernie but it was unfair to other candidates who had a good night as well. Nobody likes a victim so DO NOT let that become the mood of this campaign.

4. Also: don’t say the DNC "flushed people's work in Iowa down the toilet" (con't)

If we honestly believe we are building a movement, not just an electoral campaign, then the relationships we forge, and the political education we do along the way, is never wasted. It’s all part of building power, which we badly need no matter what happens. Nothing is wasted.

5. The person last night helped most is named Michael Bloomberg. He will use this debacle to feed his narrative that his obscene wealth proves he is more competent than government, the same insidious pitch Trump made. His plan is to buy the nomination at a brokered convention...

6. We need to be laser focussed on stopping him the only way possible: an overwhelming number of delegates, as well as good relationships with other campaigns who understand that threat...

7. The organizers and volunteers in Iowa who worked their asses off for months have a right to feel angry, heart-broken and demoralized today. So let’s take good care of each other, it’s what movements do. And it's going to be a long fight.

8. And when I say the other campaigns that understand the Bloomberg threat, I obviously know that most campaigns will be more than happy to be bought and play along. That's why we need alliances with whoever isn't open to that.

9. Finally: we need to fight for every delegate we rightfully won late night. And I have no doubt the campaign will do that.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:28 AM on February 4, 2020 [40 favorites]


I haven't had time to read all the replies here, but with my software hat on, let me address a few points about how you would design an app like the one provided by Shadow. Given the time available, ~3 years, it is borderline criminal to not have a secure, functioning, highly available app for something like this.

User Interface
Any competent UI/UX person or team could easily knock out a clean, streamlined,and intuitive interface for this type of app. And they could easily do it in 3 months, let alone 3 years. No wheels need to be reinvented, there are plenty of really great frameworks out there that would solve the vast majority of the setup time, leaving the designers plenty of room to focus on usability.

-Encryption in Transit goes here, via standard HTTPS-

The API and Data Storage
Developing a layer to interface between the UI and the backend datastore would be really, really simple in this case. Since it's a single-purpose, closed-use (ie, no external/mixed callers), you could go the easiest route and surface just a few functional routes for the various actions the UI is performing.

-Encryption at Rest goes here, using AES-256 or whatever in your database(s), object storage, etc-

Infrastructure
Using either AWS or Azure, you could trivially spin up a highly available, scalable infrastructure that would easily handle the needs of the app. Even the fallback, call-in scenario could have been handled with something like AWS Connect. This layer would also be where the application authentication stuff would sit, and this is a trivial problem to solve at this point with easy and robust out-of-the-box solutions. Additionally, all the API/storage layer traffic would be within an internal network behind a firewall. Any databases used would not be directly accessible at all.

With proper encryption, signing, hashing, etc you could even get the entire result set off-loaded to something like AWS Snowball so the election officials could have a "physical" copy of the electronic data. You might be able to rig up something clever with cloud printing through the app, too, for an actual physical copy, though that would require more work that probably everything else combined.

---

Anyway, I don't know what sort of folks Shadow hires to architect their software, but I suspect they may need to improve their hiring standards. If the app really did fail in as many ways as described in the reports I've seen, it's reflective of truly mind-boggling incompetence.

I can't stress enough how... un-novel this whole concept is at this point. AWS has a whole thing just for State and Local elections. Azure has something similar. So does Google Cloud. Point being, Shadow seems to have really, really dropped the ball here if even half of what we're hearing is true. Given the results, or lack thereof, so far, it seems likely they dropped several balls along the way.

It's kind of infuriating.

Disclaimer: I don't work for AWS, but it's the cloud provider I'm most familiar with, so I used their products in most of my examples.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:34 AM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


I think if you ranked in order of importance what you'd want in a technology for counting votes, it might look like:

1. Accuracy
2. Transparency
3. Accessibility
4. Speed in reporting

And if then you were reviewing what technology to use, a low tech solution over a high tech one would seem obvious.
posted by gwint at 7:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


ArbitraryAndCapricious I don't really think the appearance of impropriety comes from evil leftists with no concern for truth. It comes from the fact that Shadow was paid for by a candidate who, though we don't have official results yet, has declared himself to be the winner.

That isnt a good look. That's why we call it APPEARANCE of impropriety. Probably Buttigig didn't cheat. But thats the point, it should never have been a question at all. He should have kept his money out of the counting. The wiff of conspiracy here is not due to the left being bad, it is 100% due to centrists acting in a way that gives tge appearance of impropriety.

Plus the fact that calling it an honest fuck up when everyone has known for decades that the caucus system is a wretched mistake isn't really proper. Many decades ago when the caucus system was first shown to be utterly miserable and without any benefits at all it was an honest fuck up. Today? After literally dozens of examples of Iowa's system being a total and abject failure? That isn't an honest fuck up anymore. It's malicious.
posted by sotonohito at 7:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


Bernie is the one who pushed for these rules and the continuation of caucuses. It’s incredibly disingenuous to act like this is purely a malicious act by Democrats.
posted by chris24 at 7:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


In this very thread there is someone who said that saying caucuses were undemocratic was a scheme to de legitimize Bernie.
posted by PMdixon at 7:46 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


I also don’t get this Pete might’ve cheated stuff. He was buying services from a vendor providing election services to candidates. As other candidates did.

And I despise Pete.
posted by chris24 at 7:47 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


There is no way for Shadow to have changed the results, so the fact that Buttigieg (and a lot of other candidates) have hired Shadow is not relevant. Every time you repeat that "suspicious fact," you make it more likely that Trump wins. Every time you say that Buttigieg "probably" didn't cheat, you suggest that there's a chance that he did, even though nobody can explain to me how this conspiracy is even possible. It's irresponsible, and I think you should stop.
Plus the fact that calling it an honest fuck up when everyone has known for decades that the caucus system is a wretched mistake isn't really proper.
Oh dearie me, I would certainly not want to be accused of being improper. But I've spent four years saying the caucuses were a travesty and being called all sorts of names by Bernie people who defended a classist, sexist, ableist system because they thought it their candidate benefited from it. So you're going to have to spare me if I don't give a flying fuck whether you think that I'm proper.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:49 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


I don't think Pete cheated, but it was sleazy as heck to claim victory in absence of counts. Especially when he didn't come close to winning by anyone's reckoning.
posted by FakeFreyja at 7:49 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


I think the electronic woes got everyone's attention because everyone expected instant results. But it sounds like (unless I missed something) despite them, the votes can still be faithfully counted.

Less democratic, I think, are the non-uniformities that were baked into how groups of votes translated into delegates*. These non-uniformities would exist even in a paper system, Shadow or not. Going from the (incomplete) Bernie numbers posted upthread, Warren lost 29 delegates compared to a purely proportional allocation, and Bernie lost 10. Buttigieg gained 10 and Biden gained 28. Klobuchar, ever the centrist, picked up everyone else's rounding errors and gained 0.5.

*These non-uniformities are the result of voting system vagaries that I don't have time to get into but it boils down to trying to hammer an IRV-shaped peg into a "precinct summability" hole. Were it not for the electronic woes, a precinct-summable system would be able to provide (projected) results *faster* than a centrally-tabulated IRV system.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:50 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


> And if then you were reviewing what technology to use, a low tech solution over a high tech one would seem obvious.

In the past, 100% agree. I think we're at a stage now where it's realistic to have a hybrid approach. Something that leverages technology while also providing physical outputs and allowing for auditing.

The problem is we keep allowing biased or potentially biased entities to handle it and we don't seem to examine why their efforts seem to be consistently bad. Setting aside corruption, they are just incompetent as well. Think Diebold. They make very secure ATMs and similar devices but totally fubar'd their voting solution. We need to look at what technology can do, not just how it's been used by potentially bad-faith actors in the past.

Frankly, voting should be on par with national defense and should be funded and treated with the same level of security in mind. As long as you kept the software FOSS, but with fine-grained auditing, testing, etc, it's not actually a difficult problem to solve with regards to the complexity of the data IO. We're not modeling proteins or black hole mergers here.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:52 AM on February 4, 2020


I don't think Pete cheated, but it was sleazy as heck to claim victory in absence of counts. Especially when he didn't come close to winning by anyone's reckoning.

On CNN this morning he claimed a victory on momentum. The victory of having the most momentum. I think this is a sign that he's confident he's in 2nd or 3rd and totally trounced Biden.

So in the end, seeing Biden lose, even to the smug faced gnawing and roiling pit of ambition known as Buttigieg, is a net positive here.
posted by dis_integration at 7:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


I don't think Pete cheated, but it was sleazy as heck to claim victory in absence of counts.

You know what I think is sleazy? Making arguments couched in personal ignorance that people are dealing in bad faith.
posted by PMdixon at 7:56 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Especially when he didn't come close to winning by anyone's reckoning.

it’s actually probably going to be pretty close.

Dave Wasserman
Based on Sanders/Buttigieg memos, there’s virtually no question Sanders won the most caucus support in terms of *initial* preference.

The race for final preference seems closer but leans Sanders; the race for most SDEs closer yet.

—-

Nate Cohn
I'm inclined to agree. But if Buttigieg is closer on first alignment, it could easily be from outlying, rural, older precincts where the campaigns would be less likely to have data
posted by chris24 at 7:56 AM on February 4, 2020


Fixing bread prices is pretty sleazy.
posted by Yowser at 7:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


> There is no way for Shadow to have changed the results

I'd like to point out that this is not the only way to cheat in an election. With the disclaimer that I have no personal knowledge of or insight to Mayor Buttigieg's motivations, possible involvement, etc. Occam's Razor would suggest he has no involvement and I'm fine with that until evidence exists to the contrary.

The biggest takeaway is that whoever won, they lost a pretty big media spotlight and victory speech opportunity. Corollary to that, the candidates who didn't do as well they wanted can point to the clusterfuck and insist on their continuing viability. This is a pretty awful result no matter who you support.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 7:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


Strangely, the only attacks against the integrity of the election itself from an official campaign source are from the Biden campaign. The Sanders people just seem to want the results released. The rest are either trying to declare victory or spin the results in the most advantageous way for them - which is understandable.

Really, last night hurt Warren the worst, because she put the most resources into Iowa and needed to bounce of a victory to plausibly move polls elsewhere. We’ll see if Buttigieg actually won or not; if he did, then he doesn’t get the positive press he needs to maybe make him viable outside Iowa and New Hampshire. If he didn’t, he’s probably dead man walking anyway in campaign terms.

If Biden really did as bad as he appears, not releasing the results mitigates that damage to his campaign. If Sanders really won, he’s hurt by not having to positive press of a victory.

My bet: Its coming down to Sanders, Biden, and probably Bloomberg. And we’re definitely getting a brokered (not sure if that’s the right term) convention. I think that might have happened regardless of what happened in Iowa though.
posted by eagles123 at 7:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]



On CNN this morning he claimed a victory on momentum.


This is not what he said yesterday.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


People are always claiming victory in Iowa based on beating expectations. Rubio came in third in 2016 and basically claimed victory. Klobuchar came out first and gave a de facto victory speech and she’ll be fifth. It’s politics, though i agree he’s sleazy.
posted by chris24 at 7:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Damn. Now they're saying Tuesday at the earliest. **TUESDAY**

Wow, a whole extra day. I swear if people didn't feel like information should travel at the speed of Twitter, this wouldn't be such a big deal.
posted by schoolgirl report at 8:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


It seems to me that this situation is leading all the campaigns to be the most The Thing That They Are. So at least that's instructive?

Anyway, in my day we waited for paper ballots to be hand-tabulated and we liked it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 8:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Oh cool so some #resistance liberals on twitter are blaming Russian bots for the backlash against Buttigieg. The mind boggles.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Man, where's Harper Reed when you need him?
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:03 AM on February 4, 2020


People, just wait until 2020 comes down to AZ and the mail-in ballots and Trump’s lead and victory diminishes every day as they count more votes that trend D.
posted by chris24 at 8:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I claim victory over this thread based on character count.
posted by eagles123 at 8:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


I despise Pete, but I don’t get the blame on him. He paid a developer for a program just like many other of the candidates and other D politicians had.

The problem, not with Pete but in general, is that it shouldn't be possible for me to send money to someone who is also going to be involved in determining the results of an election that I'm running in. I shouldn't be able to give them my business and they shouldn't be able to accept it. The local Iowa Democratic party was responsible for preventing it, the DNC was responsible for making sure they prevented it, and when it comes to general elections the FEC and the state election commissions are responsible for preventing it.

Whether it's this small-scale bullshit, or national elections run on closed-source, unauditable electronic voting machines made by corporations with who knows what financial entanglements - it needs to be prevented. A huge amount of attention and effort needs to be put into preventing it.

I'm not that old, so I've only been waiting for that attention and effort to materialize since Diebold.
posted by trig at 8:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [24 favorites]


> People, just wait until 2020 comes down to AZ

Oh lord, please don't rely on my state. Yeah, my neighbor has a Yang sign but don't expect AZ to turn purple quite yet. Though, you can count on 4 mail-in ballots for the Democratic candidate from my house.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:09 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


FWIW, no, it probably shouldn't be called a brokered convention, because the party bosses who could deliver delegates in bargains - the literal "brokers" - don't really exist anymore. If it has multiple realistic candidates fighting it out in Milwaukee, it would be a contested convention.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:10 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Damn. Now they're saying Tuesday at the earliest. **TUESDAY**

Isn't today Tuesday?
posted by madcaptenor at 8:10 AM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


"Point being, Shadow seems to have really, really dropped the ball here"

Tech startup over-promises and under-delivers. I feel like I've heard this story before. Oh, that's because I work for a software company that over-promises and under-delivers. Is that redundant?
posted by kevinbelt at 8:11 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Damn. Now they're saying Tuesday at the earliest. **TUESDAY**
Isn't today Tuesday?

Ok, um, how do I explain this concisely? This is Tuesdays...and also July.

And sometimes it’s never.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:13 AM on February 4, 2020 [24 favorites]


So this started with Iowa people complaining that the crappy app wasn't working, morphed into media people complaining that they weren't going to get their results on time, and is resulting in everyone feeling like something sketchy is happening because the way caucuses apportion delegates feels like a scam.

The Democratic Party should push for primaries in a every state and apportion the state points based off statewide results. And then, at every possible opportunity, Dems should remind the country that they've decided to ensure that our party leaders are chosen democratically and will seek to do the same for the presidency of the United States. Remember that year that Republicans were quietly furious over the "Republicans' war on women" messaging? Like that, but for democracy, until we have an electoral system that stops undermining the will of the voters.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Rank choice voting everywhere. Problem solved.
posted by asteria at 8:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


It’s pretty darn close. Though I wish they’d stop releasing numbers and just wait for the results. And by they I mostly mean Pete since Bernie released his in response to Pete jumping the gun.

Nate Silver:
Buttigieg has now released a more detailed statement and is claiming to have won 28% of SDE's based on ~75% of the vote. That compares to Sanders's statement claiming 28.6% of SDE's based on ~40% of the vote.
posted by chris24 at 8:25 AM on February 4, 2020


Though I wish they’d stop releasing numbers and just wait for the results.

Idk to the extent all it does is make Buttigieg look like a dumbass I'm all for it.
posted by PMdixon at 8:27 AM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


The most direct criticism came from Jeff Weaver, senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’ campaign. When Price responded to his concern saying there were "reporting issues," Weaver called the response "bogus" and suggested "the whole process has been a fraud for 100 years.”

Bernie needs to rein that shit in. There's no excuse for a campaign manager spouting tinfoil-hattery in a serious discussion about what went wrong. It turns me off that this is so prevalent among Bernie's online supporters, but at the heart of the campaign? A pro would wait until the facts come out before saying something like that.
posted by freecellwizard at 8:27 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


I am with Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin here. I work in software professionally and this kind of stuff is worked on day in and day out in software companies.

Designing an app for an older generation? That's a persona, and any competent UX team would LOVE to tackle this problem. We bring people into our lab and track eye movement and use electromyography to see when people are confused. We put them behind two way mirrors and ask them to perform tasks. If there is a confusing click path, we find out quickly and design around it iteratively until we get it right.

Stakes are high? Things like HIPAA, Fedramp, GDPR, SOX, PCI-DSS, etc. exist for a reason. Leading software companies don't get to enter markets like Banking and Healthcare without having bulletproof software to be compliant.

Bad or no internet connection? Solved.
A million concurrent users? Solved.
Authentication? Solved
Auditing? Solved
Monitoring and alerting when things go wrong? Solved

If we can build Fortnite, Vanguard.com, and WhatsApp with 57 engineers, we can build an app to CRUD votes and report on the results. If the people building the app didn't study Idempotence and all the other things a Tier 1 software engineer understands, they are not qualified to be writing the code for something this high stakes.
posted by jasondigitized at 8:28 AM on February 4, 2020 [17 favorites]


I am trying to focus on Not Biden. I have a deep, deep lack of enthusiasm for Buttigieg, but he's not as awful as Biden, and at least it seems clear that Biden didn't win. Biden's campaign has been frankly terrifying, not just for its content but because he can't seem to stop being inappropriate with women even when it's so intensely, obviously detrimental. It's gross and it it just fucking terrifying whether it implies that he is confident that that electorate supports his gross behavior or whether it implies that he just has zero self-control and zero political instincts.
posted by Frowner at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


Bernie needs to rein that shit in.

Yep, and official Biden position last night that the numbers couldn’t be trusted was bullshit too. We’re in a crisis of democracy and them fanning those flames to take a little heat off their abysmal showing is despicable and borderline disqualifying in my opinion.
posted by chris24 at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


> Solved.

Just to reiterate jasondigitized's point, this cannot be stressed enough with regards to the app. Everything it needs to do has been solved, many times over, in rock solid ways. Getting it wrong can really only point to a level of incompetence that would almost need to be orchestrated. It looks worse from there, the more cynical you get.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 8:34 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Every time you repeat that "suspicious fact," you make it more likely that Trump wins. Every time you say that Buttigieg "probably" didn't cheat, you suggest that there's a chance that he did, even though nobody can explain to me how this conspiracy is even possible.

if talking about the fact that "mayor pete gave money to the people who make an app involved with getting mayor pete elected president" is a problem, maybe we should blame mayor pete for that.
posted by JimBennett at 8:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [21 favorites]


You sound like the NYT.
posted by PMdixon at 8:37 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Pete paid for a product designed for politicians and elections and marketed and used by the D party and other D candidates and he’s terrible for it.

I guess.
posted by chris24 at 8:38 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Oh lord, please don't rely on my state. Yeah, my neighbor has a Yang sign but don't expect AZ to turn purple quite yet. Though, you can count on 4 mail-in ballots for the Democratic candidate from my house.

Haven't seen any Yang support at all here in Tucson. Down here I see more Bernie and Warren signs and stickers than anything. (And 2 Dem ballots coming from our place.)
posted by azpenguin at 8:40 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Pete paid for a product designed for politicians and elections and marketed and used by the D party and other D candidates and he’s terrible for it.

I guess.

there is such a clear conflict of interest here. blame pete, blame shadow, blame our election laws, whoever, it's fucked.
posted by JimBennett at 8:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


I took Weaver to mean that the problems have existed for a long time so they shouldn’t use them as an excuse not to release the results. No tinfoil needed. The only campaign questioning the integrity of the results is Biden.

Also, we’re not getting the results today. Calling it. Hope I’m wrong.
posted by eagles123 at 8:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


It was a phone call to the democratic party organization and people have been shitting on the caucus process in here for like dozens of comments! Rein what in!

"fraud," said by an official campaign adviser, is a little different than randos on the internet.
posted by PMdixon at 8:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Everything it needs to do has been solved, many times over, in rock solid ways.

Another problem is so much of the necessary labor of caucuses is done by volunteers, and these volunteers are disproportionately older people, lots of whom have been doing this for many years in set ways. And anyone who’s spent time corralling volunteers knows you are wise to get their buy-in on how the process will be run, because they are the ones who are going to be running it (for free!). It sounds like at least some of the precinct volunteers never had any intention of using the app even if it hadn’t broken because they preferred to call in their results instead.
posted by sallybrown at 8:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also, we’re not getting the results today. Calling it. Hope I’m wrong.

Can you help me understand why you're "calling it"? What leads you to believe that and what do you think that implies?
posted by PMdixon at 8:44 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm less than pleased to see Jeff Weaver quotes already - He was responsible for some horrible divisive messaging last time around (remember the "lock out" of the Sanders campaign from the DNC database, amongst other things) and I was really hoping we weren't going to see him this time around.
posted by MysticMCJ at 8:45 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Just a gut feeling. If whatever is causing the delay were an easy fix, I think the results would be out by now.
posted by eagles123 at 8:49 AM on February 4, 2020


At this point accuracy is more important than speed. It has to be bulletproof when it comes out or we’re really fucked. Take the time to get it right.
posted by chris24 at 8:50 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Pete paid for a product designed for politicians and elections and marketed and used by the D party and other D candidates and he’s terrible for it.

Here’s a short twitter thread pointing out that the CEO of the company that owns the app is a Pete supporter, is anti-Bernie and in fact is married to one of Pete’s staffers.

Whether or not you think that “no smoke without fire” is justified here, surely you can at least see that there’s a reasonable perception of smoke so far.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 8:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [31 favorites]


surely you can at least see that there’s a reasonable perception of smoke so far.

This is a cheap rhetorical tactic.
posted by PMdixon at 8:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I’d have much more worry about smoke if it wasn’t an app just reporting public, witnessed and written records that all still exist.
posted by chris24 at 8:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


This is a cheap rhetorical tactic.

sure it is
posted by JimBennett at 8:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


What exactly was the CEO's evil plan? To lie about numbers that literally hundreds and thousands of people are independent witnesses to? Does that seem like a very good plan?
posted by PMdixon at 8:56 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Again it’s disingenuous for any Sanders person to complain about the unfairness of the Iowa caucuses when they’re the ones who pushed for these rules and have totally embraced caucuses as good for them politically.
posted by chris24 at 8:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Like most people I've known, I don't really pay any attention before the results from Super Tuesdays. Maybe Super should be Super First Tuesdays? Regional/national results seem like a better beginning.
posted by Harry Caul at 8:58 AM on February 4, 2020


This is a cheap rhetorical tactic.

I’d have much more worry about smoke if it wasn’t an app just reporting public, witnessed and written records that all still exist.

You don’t have to believe that the final results will be inaccurate - or even that this was anything more than a cockup - to understand why this looks terrible.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 8:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


CNN’s Abby Phillip says “Spoke to Iowa State Senator Pam Jochum who chaired her precinct in Dubuque last night. A week before the caucus, she kept getting errors trying to download the app and couldn't get anyone at the state party to help her troubleshoot so she decided to call in her results.”

I hope there are serious discussions in Nevada right now about how to replace their plan to use this app with a different solution.
posted by sallybrown at 8:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


You don’t have to believe that the final results will be inaccurate - or even that this was anything more than a cockup - to understand why this looks terrible.

this is really the heart of it. i don't think people in this thread really understand how much every day, normal people fucking do not trust or like the democratic party. this shit stinks and poisons the well.
posted by JimBennett at 9:00 AM on February 4, 2020 [21 favorites]


You don’t have to believe that the final results will be inaccurate - or even that this was anything more than a cockup - to understand why this looks terrible.

"terrible" is wonderfully vague, isn't it? You don't have to make any actual claims about the world at all, just unfalsifiable assertions about how things look, never mind to who.
posted by PMdixon at 9:00 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


It looks horrible for the same reason the NYT constantly saying the Clinton Foundation had the appearance of impropriety when there was actually nothing going on. The fact that someone can spin a conspiracy theory doesn’t make it so.
posted by chris24 at 9:01 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


you two should google "optics" it's kind of an important part of politics
posted by JimBennett at 9:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


I think it bears repeating that changing votes/results is not the only way to manipulate elections. Simple sabotage to create chaos and suspicion can be just as important, particularly at key momentum points. To reiterate again, I'm not saying that's what happened here, it's probably just a confluence of poor planning, hyper-media attention, short attention spans, and a clunky, out-dated caucus system. The potential effects remains the same, however.
posted by Godspeed.You!Black.Emperor.Penguin at 9:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Also, it's pretty fucking hilarious that I'm basically being accused of being a shill for the DNC. Go back and look at my posting history. I am a fully paid up member of the "electoral politics cannot save us because even if the Democratic party tried to take sufficient action on either fascism or climate change it would splinter before it came anywhere close" club. I'm just not interested in conspiracy theories that people aren't even willing to fill in the details of.
posted by PMdixon at 9:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Buttigieg says Democrats must 'galvanize,' not 'polarize' voters

So we are....batteries?
posted by srboisvert at 9:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Yes, optics. The bastion of people without facts on their side.
posted by chris24 at 9:06 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


> What exactly was the CEO's evil plan? To lie about numbers that literally hundreds and thousands of people are independent witnesses to? Does that seem like a very good plan?

honestly i wish people would not take the “what is the evil plan of the evil planners is it this thing that doesn’t work no it is not therefore no evil plan” thing.

there are plausible ways that the position of power within the reporting app system held by buttigieg could be leveraged. for example:
  • is buttigieg leading on the night of the caucus? release results! buttigieg wins the news cycle!
  • is buttigieg not leading on the night of the caucus? smokebomb! buttigieg gets to announce a momentum win and a critical news cycle that could belong to someone else now belongs to no one
like, i don’t think this is what happened, but if people are like “nothing could have happened!11!!1!l” they are spouting their own variety of nonsense.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:07 AM on February 4, 2020 [25 favorites]


Again it’s disingenuous for any Sanders person to complain about the unfairness of the Iowa caucuses when they’re the ones who pushed for these rules and have totally embraced caucuses as good for them politically.

I agree with a lot of what you've posted, chris24, and your last phrase above is dead on, but I asked above about how many of the new rules can be attributed to Sanders' campaign and didn't get any response, so maybe you know: which of the new rules are ones that Sanders folks "pushed for"? As I mentioned, I'd guess the one requiring an official count of the first round is something they wanted (and sounds reasonable, given what happened in 2016), but do you know of others?
posted by mediareport at 9:07 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Buttigieg if not leading was very close and hugely overperforming. This hurt him more than anyone.
posted by chris24 at 9:08 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


"terrible" is wonderfully vague, isn't it? You don't have to make any actual claims about the world at all, just unfalsifiable assertions about how things look, never mind to who.

Claims about the world being made = Pete’s supporters own the app at the heart of the debacle; Pete benefitted from a raised media profile by declaring victory during the chaos.

Assertions about how things look = If you don’t like my interpretation of how people perceive the above, you’re welcome to your own. My filter bubble suggests that I’m not alone in thinking that this turn of events doesn’t reflect particularly well on Pete.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:09 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


That Pete has done work for the CIA is a conspiracy theory I’m totally down for. :)
posted by chris24 at 9:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


It looks horrible for the same reason the NYT constantly saying the Clinton Foundation had the appearance of impropriety when there was actually nothing going on.

Especially because at the same time David Farenthold was documenting that Trump was running his foundation like a personal piggy bank. The goal is defeating Trump.
posted by Gelatin at 9:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


In re optics:

Remember how much optics played a role in 2016. Remember all the email stuff right before the election. Remember that mefites in general were not swayed in our votes (whether or not we liked Hilary Clinton), but that all the "but her emails, we should elect Trump" stuff did material damage because in a very large country quite a lot of people are not Very Online and Very Committed In Their Votes.

Several candidates should not be paying for an app used in tabulating general election results. It requires explanation and it is guaranteed to disturb and alienate at least some voters. It is also easy to weaponize.

A candidate with a fucking ounce of common sense would have avoided doing this, even leaving aside the ethical thing. Either he has no common sense, he's not paying attention to what his staff does or else his head is so big that he thinks whatever his campaign does is right. All of these things give anyone pause.

When politicians do dumb, unnecessary shit that makes them look bad, it tells you that they made bad decisions. This is relevant.
posted by Frowner at 9:13 AM on February 4, 2020 [56 favorites]


Whether or not you think that “no smoke without fire” is justified here, surely you can at least see that there’s a reasonable perception of smoke so far.

Except.....Iowa was Mayo Pete's best damn chance at getting any momentum at all and he was expected to outperform his overall position in the national polls because of the lack diversity in Iowa demographics (and it appears he legitimately did particularly with the screwy rounding math of the caucuses).

So the app failure kills whatever momentum and cred he would have had coming out of Iowa and I don't see how it really could have enhanced it much if it was some nefarious rigging scheme.

I mean I can see Democratic party political consultants screwing up like this because they are political keystone cops...but it really doesn't make any strategic sense at all. If Buttigiege was going to cheat it should be in one of the diverse primaries where he would really need help to keep from getting drowned.

So where others see smoke I mostly see the sickly sweet vape fumes of manufactured controversy.
posted by srboisvert at 9:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


When politicians do dumb, unnecessary shit that makes them look bad, it tells you that they made bad decisions. This is relevant.

When have they ever not, tho? Seriously, is there any large window of time where the vast majority of politicians and party structures have not made gross unforced errors?
posted by PMdixon at 9:16 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I want to say more about this. This whole thing really was run and pushed by the kind of people who constantly shit on democracy and populism, who constantly think that everyone who went to Harvard is better than you and me, and Mayor Pete's involvement just feels "right" for that reason.

Reminder that it's only been a couple days since the DNC, with no real explanation, changed the rules to let a billionaire, white, supposedly not-Republican-anymore man, that by all appearances is trying to buy his way into the primary, onto the debate stages after multiple PoC and women were punished and excluded from the race, mostly for the crime of not having enough financial support.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:20 AM on February 4, 2020 [36 favorites]


A good tweet: “The conspiracy theories are more comforting than the reality of pervasive elite incompetence and institutional rot that actually explains what's going on.”
posted by sallybrown at 9:21 AM on February 4, 2020 [44 favorites]


Tom Perez announced in November that they would be changing the rules once voting started with a good probability that it would move to a polls only criteria. Then they did that as planned. And after Warren surrogates and Klobuchar said he should be in so they can defend themselves and attack him. This is overblown. The donor criteria was designed for people who had grassroots support but no polling to get in and it worked. No one was excluded due to donors. But moving to actual voting preference at some point makes sense and when someone is polling at 10% in an election when the leader is only at 25%, it’s hard to argue they don’t belong.
posted by chris24 at 9:23 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


NEWS: Iowa Democratic Party chairman Troy Price tells campaigns that they plan to release results from the Iowa caucuses by 4pm CT today.
posted by persona at 9:25 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


A good tweet: “The conspiracy theories are more comforting than the reality of pervasive elite incompetence and institutional rot that actually explains what's going on.”

one of the good things about twitter is when someone sums up something you've been trying to express for hours into a single sentence
posted by JimBennett at 9:25 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


“ It sounds like at least some of the precinct volunteers never had any intention of using the app”

I work specifically in software implementation, and this too is - well, not “solved”, but a problem that has a well-developed and accepted set of best practice solutions. Every enterprise software company should expect end users to actively resist adoption of new programs, and extensively train its customer-facing staff to deal with this resistance (including pressuring the client’s decision-makers to acknowledge the potential problem). Even my company does this, and we’re as dysfunctional as it gets. I’m biased of course, but to me there’s no clearer sign that they’re only in it for the money.
posted by kevinbelt at 9:26 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


, but to me there’s no clearer sign that they’re only in it for the money.

What else would they be in it for?
posted by PMdixon at 9:28 AM on February 4, 2020


Looks like my gut feeling was wrong!
posted by eagles123 at 9:28 AM on February 4, 2020


A joke from Austan Goolsbee: “If only this had been on the blockchain”
posted by sallybrown at 9:28 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


NYTimes blog: "The Iowa Democratic Party plans to release 'the majority of results' [from the Caucus] at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time."

good news, the babysitter is returning the majority of the baby
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [22 favorites]


Mixed feelings about this bit:

The cybersecurity wing of the Department of Homeland Security recently offered to do some security testing on the app but the Iowa Democratic Party declined the outreach, according to people familiar with the matter. DHS declined to comment on the app, referring questions to the Iowa Democratic Party. After being sent multiple requests for comment, a spokeswoman for the Iowa Democratic Party said that she was checking about this and would circle back.

Not sure any Dem in 2020 should trust Trump's DHS to test anything for them, let alone a voting app. I can understand why they'd look to test elsewhere, which they say, anyway, that they did.

(Also that meme of Buttigieg smiling under the Bush II "Mission Accomplished" banner cracks me up.)
posted by mediareport at 9:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Clusterfuck alert: they are releasing “the majority of results that we have,” but only saying it will be more than 50%.

Just wait until it’s complete!
posted by sallybrown at 9:34 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


Tom Perez announced in November that they would be changing the rules once voting started with a good probability that it would move to a polls only criteria. Then they did that as planned. And after Warren surrogates and Klobuchar said he should be in so they can defend themselves and attack him.

That's not an explanation, that's complicity.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


@ Ruby Cramer
On a call with Democratic campaigns happening now, Iowa Democratic Chair Troy Price says his team has "worked through the night and this is our plan to share with you now."

IDP will release the "majority of the results that we have by 4 p.m.," Price says. On the call, Price estimates that the release will reflect about 50% of precincts. There is some concern among campaigns that people will then take that as the "final number."
Ye gods
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Who could have predicted that shoehorning a rushed app into a voting process with almost zero secrecy, where virtual ties are broken by a literal coin toss and where you can openly cajole people into how they vote would end up such a dismal failure?
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 9:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Could this finally be Paul Tsongas' year
posted by riverlife at 9:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


By Super Tuesday, this is all going to be a faint memory.
posted by SansPoint at 9:38 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


This is because the Iowa people are desperate to salvage their first-in-the-nation snowflakery and get numbers out before New Hampshire, right? There's no good excuse for dropping half the votes like that.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:39 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I feel like five years of bullshit machines working to undermine faith in elections doesn't create the right environment to implement a Sweet New App for Democracy. Caucuses are bullshit anyway, but oof.

On the other hand, I am 100% here for the Democratic party telling the nonstop news industry to go jump up its own ass while the results are properly counted in a reasonable time. Would've been great if that had been the plan in the first place.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 9:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


From the NYT, a hint that the DNC can indeed take a share of the blame here:

The party decided to use the app only after another proposal for reporting votes — which entailed having caucus participants call in their votes over the phone — was abandoned, on the advice of Democratic National Committee officials, according to David Jefferson, a board member of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.
posted by mediareport at 9:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


On the call, Price estimates that the release will reflect about 50% of precincts.

Well that sure seems like putting water on a grease fire.
posted by PMdixon at 9:42 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


"What else would they be in it for?"

Is this a serious question?
posted by kevinbelt at 9:46 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Yes, actually. Why would you expect a tech company of any stripe to give a shit, in practice, about anything besides money?
posted by PMdixon at 9:47 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


A little thing I like to call "class interests."
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:48 AM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


I mean honestly why would you expect anyone of any stripe to give a shit about anything besides money?

Bloomberg 2020!
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 9:49 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


A little thing I like to call "class interests."

Which class interests do you think align with the CEO of a tech company?
posted by PMdixon at 9:49 AM on February 4, 2020


Which class interests do you think align with the CEO of a tech company?

Is this a serious question?
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:50 AM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


Did anyone hear the NPR interview this morning with a precinct leader who said everything went great? Her take was basically:

* We're smart, so we made sure our reporting guy downloaded the app well in advance and did the training to be sure we knew how to use it.
* We think probably a lot of other precincts didn't do that and tried to download the app and submit the results at the last minute.

That plus a lack of load testing would explain a lot. The phone stuff is obviously that they assumed everyone would use the app, so they didn't have the bandwidth to cover everyone abandoning the app and calling in at once.

If you think this is surprising or evidence of total incompetence, here's a story: Microsoft Teams (the main worldwide office comms app besides Slack) had a multi-hour outage yesterday because someone forgot to renew a security certificate. Once that happened, the rush of everyone signing in and out a million times to see if it was fixed presumably made it worse. During that time, probably millions of workers had to cancel meetings, couldn't communicate, and couldn't access important files easily. So a huge software company with many thousands of engineers still makes epic fuckups. It's the nature of the beast. Not good, but true. In conclusion, centralization + automation is a land of contrasts.
posted by freecellwizard at 9:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [24 favorites]


No, it's me saying that for the CEO of shadow class interests and money are basically indistinguishable. Your phrasing implied there was some meaningful difference in the actions motivated by the two and I am now explicitly asking you what sequence of events you are suggesting occurred.
posted by PMdixon at 9:53 AM on February 4, 2020


This is insane. 50%? Why even bother?
posted by eagles123 at 9:54 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Look, I'm neither a Bernie fan nor a conspiracy monger.

Appearance of impropriety is a real thing. And when you are in a situation, like an election, where you need everything to be as utterly squeaky clean and aboveboard as possible (especially if you hope to contrast yourself with the corruption of Trump), avoiding even the faintest, slightest, hint of appearance of impropriety is critical.

Buttigieg failed to do that. The Iowa Democratic Party failed to do that.

It does not matter if Buttigieg giving money to the Shadow company [1] is not actually cheating. It does not matter if the Shadow company can't actually alter the results. It does not matter how loudly you say it's totally normal for this sort of incestuous relationship to exist and in fact that makes it seem worse. It **MATTERS** that it looks like Buttigieg is trying to cheat.

Under no circumstances at all should he, or any candidate, have any business dealings, donations, or any other relationship of any sort with the company that developed Shadow. That it happened at all is evidence that the DNC and the candidates are either fools or malicious and either way they need to be replaced if possible and harshly reprimanded if not.

It does not matter if this was somehow all totally honest. The mere fact that you need to explain that it's honest means there was a massive failure.

And hell no we should not just accept that the Democratic Party is made up of buffoons who can't do anything right. What the hell sort of excuse is that? Can you even imagine how that looks to the average lazy voter? "Vote for us, we're not evil, we're just incompetent!" is not a winning slogan.

Anyone who is pretending that appearance of impropriety is an evil conspiracy theory from the evil left needs to reevaluate things. Think about how we'd be guffawing and meme-ing and making insinuations of massive corruption if this had been the Republicans instead of the Democrats. Now do you get why it doesn't matter if there's a conspiracy there or not or even if what happened is totally legal and even "normal" (insofar as total incompetence and an actively malicious sytem can be called normal)? All that matters, the only thing that matters, is that to the average politically uninvolved person this looks like corruption and it gives them an excuse to go for the lazy "meh, they're all corrupt" excuse for not caring about Trump's corruption.

[1] And jesus fuck what committee of out of touch twits came up with a name that sounds like something straight out of a conspiracy theory website? How could anyone approve of that name and claim to have the expertise necessary to be involved in politics?
posted by sotonohito at 9:54 AM on February 4, 2020 [65 favorites]


As Warren had the least to do with the issues that caused this hot mess as she neither had support from the app creator that fucked this all up nor from the Unity Reform Commission that championed wildly undemocratic caucuses and the stupid decision to include vote tallies that makes Warren the default winner of last night.

Congrats, Senator Warren.
posted by asteria at 9:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


And hell no we should not just accept that the Democratic Party is made up of buffoons who can't do anything right. What the hell sort of excuse is that?

It is a fact that is ~true in the present. I invite you to work to change it, but you will have a hard time changing things without being honest about the status quo.
posted by PMdixon at 9:58 AM on February 4, 2020


No, it's me saying that for the CEO of shadow class interests and money are basically indistinguishable. Your phrasing implied there was some meaningful difference in the actions motivated by the two and I am now explicitly asking you what sequence of events you are suggesting occurred.

Class interests go beyond money, e.g. a CEO of a tech company not particularly caring whether their app for counting votes actually quickly and reliably counts them, because a strong, reliable democratic infrastructure doesn't serve their class interests quite as well as mass disillusion and perception of disenfranchisement does.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Class interests go beyond money, e.g. a CEO of a tech company not particularly caring whether their app for counting votes actually quickly and reliably counts them, because a strong, reliable democratic infrastructure doesn't serve their class interests quite as well as mass disillusion and perception of disenfranchisement does.

Yeah but shoddy work is also cheaper. Also, the perception of disenfranchisement probably starts with the fact that there is indeed massive disenfranchisement, e.g. felons in the states that do that. Agreeing that in general, the capital controlling class is more interested in power than money per se, what extra explanatory power does that provide here?
posted by PMdixon at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2020


how can Iowa possibly deny the media their horse race bullshit, we had so many useless white men lined up to divine entrails today
posted by benzenedream at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


A tech CEO's individual interest is to acquire money. A tech CEO's class interest is to ensure that money continues to be the most reliable source of power.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


I fail to see how releasing only a portion of the results won’t at least give the appearance of impropriety. Losing candidates can claim the portion released were purposely selected to benefit the winning candidates. I can already see this starting elsewhere.
posted by eagles123 at 10:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Yeah I interpret the partial release as a panicky move to try and get people to stop yelling at them that won't work.
posted by PMdixon at 10:05 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Nevada Democratic Party is saying they've dropped Shadow/Acronym/etc for their caucus.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:06 AM on February 4, 2020 [38 favorites]


And jesus fuck what committee of out of touch twits came up with a name that sounds like something straight out of a conspiracy theory website? How could anyone approve of that name and claim to have the expertise necessary to be involved in politics?

Seriously. It takes some effort to come up with names that sound worse than "Shadow" and aren't just synonyms for "corrupt."
posted by Spathe Cadet at 10:07 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Agree about the partial release being a very bad idea. I'm as impatient for results as anyone, but nope. Releasing half the data is vastly worse than not releasing any of it for another day or three.
posted by sotonohito at 10:09 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Was Fraud Guarantee unavailable? Wait, I'm being informed...
posted by chris24 at 10:10 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


So I was at a caucus where they had some problems (Alexandra Petri, Washington Post)
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:12 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


We have discussed how eponysterical both the title and the name of the OP are, right?
posted by asteria at 10:17 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Wow, ZeusHumms, thanks for that. What a fucking clown show. Iowa: this is not cute. This is not folksy. This is not the heartland speaking. This is not community in action.

Your system is a complete disaster. Stop it.
posted by mediareport at 10:20 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


So I was at a caucus where they had some problems

I actually thought I knew how bad it was before reading that piece, and I was so breathtakingly wrong.
posted by penduluum at 10:22 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Yesterday is was "the Iowa caucus is terrible, it's white people, the results don't represent America."

Today it is "we need these results right now. They are important for momentum."

The food is terrible -- and such small portions.
posted by JackFlash at 10:27 AM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


Why aren't people more suspicious of Russian involvement? I'm not saying it is, but as conspiracy theories go, this is a proven conspiracy for the previous election. They could have inserted something into the app, they could have figured a way to make its download or upload difficult or jammed.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 10:31 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


The new rules being a hot mess were a much bigger problem than the app.
posted by AndrewInDC at 10:33 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Why aren't people more suspicious of Russian involvement?

Because it adds literally nothing to do so and no one has presented any evidence of such as opposed to garden variety corporate graft+incompetence?
posted by PMdixon at 10:34 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


lol this is mind meltingly dumb

As dumb as not getting sarcasm? But yeah, the app was stupid and so was the Unity Reform commission and the decision to keep caucuses. Reality agrees with me.
posted by asteria at 10:34 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


> From the NYT, a hint that the DNC can indeed take a share of the blame here:

After Iowa, Heads Should Roll
In my fantasy, heads roll immediately. The Iowa Democratic Party chair resigns today. So does the head of the DNC, Tom Perez. Someone genuinely smart and reassuring gets Perez's job -- I'm thinking Stacey Abrams. [...]

Democrats should demonstrate that they know this was a failure and that they're taking the job seriously. And while I realize that resignations will lead to a lot of "Democrats in Disarray" headlines, putting people in charge who care about competence (and who radiate a sense of caring about competence) would do a lot to dispel the impression that Democrats are woolly-headed bumblers who shouldn't be allowed to run a lemonade stand (which is precisely what the president of the United States is saying this morning, and for once I can't blame him, because Democrats have this coming). [...]

I mention Abrams, but there are probably subordinates somewhere in the system who are super-competent and long-suffering and would never be considered for the top position because they spend their time mastering the job rather than grabbing for the brass ring. Who was warning the loudest that this debacle was coming? Hire that person. I bet it's someone you'd never consider for a prestige gig, and I bet she'd do a much better job.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


Is there some nice ELI5 version of wtf happened? I log on this morning thinking, "I'll check the results - did Bernie sweep? Are we stuck in a four-way tie? Was there a surprise upset?" and instead it's "OH NOES DISASTER FOR THE DEMOCRATS" which seems to be... results may take more than 12 hours to be certain? Plus a shady tech company something app something superpac money?
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 10:35 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


The food is terrible -- and such small portions.

The results can be terrible, non-representative, and born from a deeply flawed and outdated process AND STILL very important for momentum for [candidate]. People will still be talking about the results, even if they're the result of a screwed-up method, and that talking is important in the early stages of a campaign. Just as we can decry that optics isn't substance, we can be honest about the importance of optics.

I mean, the food can be bad in quality and a bad value in terms of portion size at the same time, too, for what that's worth.
posted by penduluum at 10:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Why aren't people more suspicious of Russian involvement?

Pretty sure the Russians didn't force the IDP to ignore staffers reporting problems with the app beforehand or to make galaxy-brain decisions about releasing the results.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:37 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


This looks like a fair coin toss awarding Buttigieg delegates
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:39 AM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


And real talk: Putin could have coded the app by hand and installed it via malware on every single precinct captain's device, and this would still be almost entirely an institutional fuckup.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:40 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Was/am amused at the various media meltdowns yesterday and today when the precious, precious numbers did not appear in a timely fashion.
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


This looks like a fair coin toss awarding Buttigieg delegates

Like for example I think we can all agree that flipping coins should be 0% of the process of allocating delegates in a functioning democracy AND YET if you're going to flip coins, you definitely shouldn't do it like this here extremely bullshit coin flip
posted by penduluum at 10:45 AM on February 4, 2020 [26 favorites]


Whatever's going on has to be a much bigger problem then the app, there's no way they would only be able to release partial results a full day later if it were just that the tabulation app had failed. You could just hand courier all the results in on paper and still have had complete results by this morning.

I think what's happened is that the preference cards and additional reporting of the vote totals for first and final alignment are showing results for a bunch of caucus sites that would be impossible unless the caucus didn't follow the rules in conducting the alignments. There's other evidence for this, such as the Alexandra Petri story above. This has probably been going on in caucus states for ever, given how confusing the rules are, and collecting the new data is just making it impossible to sweep under the rug.

If that is the case, there could be months of litigation and politicking before official results are released. There's form for this kind of thing - the '12 Iowa Republican caucuses had three different winners announced over a couple of months.

Hopefully this is the end of the caucus system. I support Bernie, but pushing to keep the caucuses was the wrong call.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 10:54 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Nate Cohn of the NYT is suggesting that we may never see all of the results or that the results that are released won’t be free of inconsistencies. It sounds like part of the problem might be figuring out what to do with counts that were corrupted because people left early and/or didn’t understand the rules. Such is not unexpected when trying to reconcile three sets of numbers.
posted by eagles123 at 10:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Give me the imgtag i promise I wont break anything
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:03 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I missed this amidst yesterday's chaos, but apparently the infamous cancelled Des Moines Register poll showed Bernie in the lead:

Sanders 22%
Warren 18%
Buttigieg 16%
Biden 13%
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:04 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nevada is no longer planning to use the Shadow Inc app. Maybe they could switch to Plague Inc? At least it gives you results by location.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 11:07 AM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


Dan Pfeiffer talks about how to fix the broken primary. In short, statewide winner-take-all IRV, using last election's win margin to order the calendar.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:10 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


A number of polls had Sanders in the lead, that's why expectations were high for him. And, counterintuitively, why this delay may be helpful to him. He did well, but Buttigieg would have been the night's big story for overperforming.

Now Sanders can go on to a likely comfortable win in NH, and a win or close 2nd in NV without a possible IA disappointment story dogging him.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:14 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


The funny thing is that I think the best guess is still that Bernie won this thing, but it's not stopping his supporters from going into conspiracy theory overdrive. It's bizarre.

The biggest conspiracy theory is that this was meant to sabotage his moment in the spotlight. That's pretty much the main thing Iowa is good for, and you have to understand that a big narrative among Sanders people is that certain people in the party wish his campaign didn't exist, and that Sanders people wanted this to be an opportunity to send an unignorable message about his viability. So even if the parsimonious explanation is that the Dems contracted the computer stuff out to somebody's buddy who fucked it up - not really a brand new way for them to fuck it up - it's a little on the nose symbolically.

I have a hard time seeing how you're gonna pin this on Pete, though, since conventional wisdom was that he was counting on Iowa more than anybody. If the actual results are probably Bernie and Pete top two, separated by a hair, and Joe with an underwhelming fourth or third, this outcome is probably less than ideal for both Bernie and Pete and a bullet dodged for Joe?
posted by atoxyl at 11:15 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


It sounds like part of the problem might be figuring out what to do with counts that were corrupted because people left

Leaving early does not "corrupt the results". If someone supported a viable candidate, then they don't need to stick around for the realignment. Their vote counts.

If someone chose to leave before their vote could be realigned, well that's what a caucus is about -- showing up. It doesn't indicate corruption. It just indicates the weakness of a caucus system that relies on large commitments of personal time. That's not corruption.

It's why candidates like Sanders prefer caucuses. He can get a disproportionate number of his young and intense supporters to show up and dedicate large amounts of time.
posted by JackFlash at 11:15 AM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


Look at the Unity Reform Commission.

Can someone explain why we're supposed to pretend Sanders won anything?
posted by asteria at 11:26 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I wonder if I can get some sweet techbro VC money? Here, let me whip up a DNC-friendly caucusing app:

bidenVotes = getVotes(biden)
buttiVotes = getVotes(butti)
sandeVotes = (getVotes(sande) / 2)
warreVotes = (getVotes(warre) / 2)
klobuVotes = random.randint(0, bidenVotes / 2)

winnerlist = [bidenVotes, buttiVotes, sandeVotes, warreVotes, klobuVotes]

if max.list(winnerlist) = bidenVotes:
reportwinner.biden
elif max.list(winnerlist) = buttiVotes:
reportwinner.butti
else:
reportcountingerror()

(joking)
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:28 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Can someone explain why we're supposed to pretend Sanders won anything?

The reason for that is, he came first place in the caucus yesterday.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:29 AM on February 4, 2020 [24 favorites]


and you have to understand that a big narrative among Sanders people is that certain people in the party wish his campaign didn't exist
I thought it was pretty non-controversial that a great many people in the Democratic Party leadership were decided Sanders non-fans. I mean, Clinton herself felt the need to made a public statement that no one liked him.

It doesn't really seem conspiratorial to say that some people in the Party want his campaign to just go away.
posted by sotonohito at 11:30 AM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


The reason for that is, that he came first place in the caucus yesterday.

According to what? Are you from the future? Because all I see are his internals which sorry, but no way will I believe those. And even the IDP says they don't have the results and likely never will.

See, this is the issue. Here in this thread there's a group of Sanders supporters who seem very certain their dude won and want everyone else to act as if that was the objective truth. But it's not. Moreover, given that youth turnout was low, turnout in general was low, and the ground games Buttigieg and Warren had it's very possible one or both of them overperformed and could have been in first or even a tie.

I thought it was pretty non-controversial that a great many people in the Democratic Party leadership were decided Sanders non-fans. I mean, Clinton herself felt the need to made a public statement that no one liked him.

Yeah, they're called Clinton people. You can tell it's them because they keep leaking shit to the press which if you remember the Clinton years is their m.o. There are Obama people who don't like Warren. A lot of people probably don't like Biden or newer people like Buttigieg.
posted by asteria at 11:36 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yeah same where is this evidence where Sanders explicitly says he "prefers caucuses" or "pushed for" caucuses. Someone show me this. He was part of a reform commission that acknowledged the existence of caucuses and the role they play and the commission sought to improve their accessibility and transparency. The commission did not outright abolish caucuses but I can't find any evidence where this was a thing that was discussed or ever on the table to be "pushed back" on, unless I'm not finding something. Also not finding any of the other candidates doing anything to try and reform the democratic nominating process.
posted by windbox at 11:39 AM on February 4, 2020


According to what? Are you from the future? Because all I see are his internals which sorry, but no way will I believe those. And even the IDP says they don't have the results and likely never will.

Sounds like... a....

conspiracy theory!?!?
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:39 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Nevada is no longer planning to use the Shadow Inc app. Maybe they could switch to Plague Inc? At least it gives you results by location.

Pestilence 2.0 has a better user interface.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:41 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I see this thread is reaching the inevitable "argue about Bernie Sanders" stage....

He most likely won yesterday based on the polling and what we know of the results. And yes, the uncertainty does hurt him in the he won't get a clear media narrative to demonstrate his viability in later primaries/caucuses.

Then again, this hurts Pete too because his strategy was to use wins or strong finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire to build a national campaign in a similar manner to what Obama was able to do.

Warren and Klobbuchar are similarly hurt. At this point, the only candidates competitive nationally were/are Sanders, Bjden, and possibly Bloomberg. Everyone else needed the Iowa bump that even Nate S builds into his model.

Last night kind of hurt everyone.
posted by eagles123 at 11:43 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Ok can someone link me to something that demonstrates that Sanders (or his campaign, I'm not picky) is (1) responsible for caucuses continuing to exist or (2) "prefer[s] caucuses"?

I think it's fair enough to say a lot of Sanders supporters liked the idea of the Iowa Caucuses, in the short term, just because they thought it was a good opportunity for the campaign.

Look at the Unity Reform Commission

Most of these seem to be reasonable changes to modernize the caucuses, though? If you're going to frame this as a pro-caucus move, I think it's "by addressing concerns about caucuses, maybe they can be saved?" I have seen people trying to blame this caucus cock-up directly on the changes (which Sanders supported) and that seems as premature as any of the other finger-pointing.
posted by atoxyl at 11:45 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Warren is not up there with Buttigieg in the results, that seems fairly clear at this point.

According to what? The last results the AP/Dkos tracker had are with 2% reporting had it Bernie in 1st, Warren in 2nd, and Buttigieg in 3rd. NYT had similar numbers last night.

conspiracy theory!?!?

That implies forethought and coordination. I have seen nothing to suggest the IDP is capable of either.

Most of these seem to be reasonable changes to modernize the caucuses, though?

Why keep caucuses at all?
posted by asteria at 11:45 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I thought Hillary said she didn't like Sanders purposely to boost his numbers, myself.
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:45 AM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


The biggest problem for Democrats wasn’t the vote count (Politico)
For more than a year, Democrats have been preparing for high turnout in 2020, powered by an electorate juiced by rage against President Donald Trump. But in their first test of the year, early data suggested Tuesday that turnout was “on pace for 2016,” the Iowa Democratic Party said, far below levels many observers predicted.

In other words: Democrats were counting on Barack Obama-levels of enthusiasm. They got Hillary Clinton numbers, instead. [...] The turnout statistics are not final and were referenced only briefly, tucked into an Iowa Democratic Party statement about the reporting fiasco just as it began swirling out of control. [...]

If that number holds, turnout will run only to about 170,000 people, well below the 240,000 who participated in the caucuses in 2008.

“It’s an enthusiasm gap,” said Michael Ceraso, who worked for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign and was Pete Buttigieg’s New Hampshire director before leaving the campaign last year.
posted by katra at 11:46 AM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Per CNN just now, Biden campaign reportedly mulling seeking court injunction to halt this afternoon’s partial release of Iowa results.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:46 AM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Honestly? Fair.
posted by asteria at 11:48 AM on February 4, 2020


Trump should be pretty happy too.

Regarding Biden, given his underperformance in Iowa, you have to wonder about the validity of his polling in other places. Not to mention his fundraising problems and Bloomberg literally hiring away his campaign staff from what I heard.
posted by eagles123 at 11:48 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


How on earth does seeking an injunction help him? That seems like a Streisand effect situation: the story becomes that Biden got an injunction, presumably because the results were so terrible for him that he couldn't afford to have anyone see them.

I have yet to talk to anyone in whose precinct Biden was viable.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:51 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


Let's please remember that a lot of what's going on in this thread mirrors the Republican playbook:

1) I don't like person or org. X
2) Some imagined or appearance-based malfeasance from X seems like a Thing They Would Do based on my subjective opinion
3) Spread on social media and hope that it sticks
4) refuse to accept rational explanations because They're All Against Us

Imagine there's a trial about the thing. You need to have facts and evidence to prove your case. It's possible to make the accusation first and go find facts later, but that's how we got:

Burisma
Swift Boat
Benghazi
Whitewater
the Clinton impeachment

etc. So I guess I wish we wouldn't do that, especially when we are all trying to get rid of Trump.
posted by freecellwizard at 11:51 AM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


If that number holds, turnout will run only to about 170,000 people, well below the 240,000 who participated in the caucuses in 2008.

But there wasn't a 1/3 drop in the Democratic general turnout in 2016 vs 2008, so is it really obvious that there's a generalizable relationship there to make predictions from?
posted by PMdixon at 11:52 AM on February 4, 2020


Honestly? Fair.

... and likely false.
posted by multics at 11:52 AM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


It doesn't really seem conspiratorial to say that some people in the Party want his campaign to just go away.

I didn't mean to imply it was. I think this is the reality that drives the impulse to be conspiratorial about incidents that could realistically be attributed to incompetence.
posted by atoxyl at 11:52 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


The aggregated polls showed Sanders in #1 position in Iowa before the caucus. Sanders supporters are making a small leap to claim that he came in first in the caucus before the real results have been released, but only a small one.

Perversely, Sanders' leading position meant that he was unlikely to get much of a bounce from a good showing in Iowa. Everyone expected him to do well already- there isn't anything in what we see so far to say that he exceeded expectations. So the fact that Iowa is a logistical and technical muddle and look there's a State of the Union and an impeachment vote isn't going to hurt him. Rather, this is really bad for Buttigieg and Warren, who both really needed the bounce.

(Edited to remove fake news)

On another note, so far I can only find one article in which a Sanders appointee to the Unity Reform Commission spoke in favor of keeping the Iowa caucuses.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 11:53 AM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


... and likely false.

Good lord CNN is a shitshow.

And yeah, Biden is even worse than mayor Pete.
posted by PMdixon at 11:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sanders supporters are making a small leap to claim that he came in first in the caucus before the real results have been released, but only a small one.
It's not a small leap, because caucuses don't count raw numbers. They count delegates, which are decided by precinct, with some precincts getting more weight than others. It's really plausible that a lot more people supported Bernie than Buttigieg last night but that Buttigieg still got more delegates. And Warren is definitely going to under-perform on delegates, because of the way that her support is concentrated geographically.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 11:55 AM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


Dan Pfeiffer talks about how to fix the broken primary. In short, statewide winner-take-all IRV, using last election's win margin to order the calendar.

This sounds good, actually. I really like the part where the first primaries are the most contested states from the previous election. If we're going to dump a bunch of money and attention somewhere, we might a well try to get some general election benefit from it. I don't think the nation benefits from politicians -- or journalists --spending 18 months sneaking off to Iowa every 4 year cycle. (Swing states change up more than people realize; it wouldn't just be an endless cycle of Ohio and Florida.)
posted by grandiloquiet at 11:56 AM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


I think we can agree this is great news for John McCain.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:57 AM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


I'm feeling the Joementum myself.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:58 AM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Jeb!
posted by PMdixon at 11:59 AM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


ArbitraryAndCapricious: "It's not a small leap, because caucuses don't count raw numbers. They count delegates, which are decided by precinct, with some precincts getting more weight than others."

While this is literally true, the fact is that the small disparity of delegates here are unlikely to actually matter if we somehow end up in a floor fight at the convention. If Sanders won the first and second alignment of votes, that's a strong argument that he was the most popular, whether or not the delegate arcana worked against him.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:02 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


The aggregated polls showed Sanders in #1 position in Iowa before the caucus.

Remind me who lead in the polls before the 2016 Iowa Caucus and what happened there? If this had happened then, would Bernie have accepted it as a loss? So why do Buttigieg and Warren need to do that?

And the whole reason there was a Unity Reform Commission was because one candidate couldn't do what Obama did 8 years prior against a stronger HRC.
posted by asteria at 12:03 PM on February 4, 2020


Please clap.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:03 PM on February 4, 2020 [19 favorites]


No, the NYT didn't. Before they pulled those numbers, they had Buttigieg with a slight lead over Sanders,

The last numbers I saw at 11:50 CST had Bernie with 1800~ votes, Warren with 1600~, and Pete with 1000~. It was with less than 2%. The Dkos/AP numbers which are still up show something similar.

Don't argue with me with what I saw.
posted by asteria at 12:07 PM on February 4, 2020


asteria I'd left the tab open on my computer before I went to bed. I checked it when I woke up and saw the same thing before I refreshed the page to find out the results were pulled.
posted by SansPoint at 12:10 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm still going to vote in the general for whichever Democrat ultimately gets the nod. Christ, but this is a shit show - because of the actual event itself, and the reactions to the event itself, and the reactions to the reactions of the event itself, etc. It's like a giant stone was dropped in the cesspool and the ripples of waste are splashing against the walls forever.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:14 PM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Iowa primary polls have historically been wrong by 10-15 points. The DMR poll was wrong about the Republicans in 2012 and 2016.

I agree that Bernie probably got the most first round selections, but I wouldn't use the polls as evidence he won.
posted by chris24 at 12:17 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm of the contrarian opinion this is going to mostly get forgotten by the time November gets here.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:33 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


I'm of the contrarian opinion this is going to mostly get forgotten by the time November gets here.

I think that is kind of the point.
posted by FakeFreyja at 12:35 PM on February 4, 2020


The other thing I think we can all agree on -- other than this being good news for John McCain -- is that the thread title just gets funnier and funnier the longer this goes on.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:43 PM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Usually Alexandra Petri columns are satire, and this one is labeled "opinion" but I can't tell if it is satire or not. Maybe that is it's own indictment, but I wish someone had specified [Real|Fake] when linking to it / talking about it.
posted by RedOrGreen at 12:46 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


This strikes me as the #1 most self-sabotaging thing the Biden campaign could do:
Per CNN just now, Biden campaign reportedly mulling seeking court injunction to halt this afternoon’s partial release of Iowa results.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:47 PM on February 4, 2020


But the OP's name gets more and more suspicious. What does he know?
posted by asteria at 12:48 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Let A Thousand Shenanigans Shenanigate!
posted by Harry Caul at 12:48 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Usually Alexandra Petri columns are satire, and this one is labeled "opinion" but I can't tell if it is satire or not.

Judging by her Twitter account, it's real.
posted by penduluum at 12:49 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


This strikes me as the #1 most self-sabotaging thing the Biden campaign could do:

To quote multics...

... and likely false.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:49 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


This strikes me as the #1 most self-sabotaging thing the Biden campaign could do:

CNN has already retracted the story.
posted by PMdixon at 12:50 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yes, my apologies.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:52 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Jesus that was poor fucking reporting on CNN's part. Like maybe a single phone call to verify before throwing that particular bomb.
posted by FakeFreyja at 12:53 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


I miss Kamala Harris.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 12:55 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


If I were Kamala or anyone else who dropped out because of Iowa, I'd be PISSED.
posted by asteria at 12:56 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Who Needs the Russians? Don’t blame shadowy foreign hackers for the chaos in Iowa. Blame Shadow’s caucus app. The Atlantic, Zeynep Tufekci, Feb 4, 2020:
...
If Shadow had opened up the app to experts, they likely would have found many bugs, and the app would have been much stronger as a result. But even that process would not have made the app secure. An app that is downloaded onto the phones of thousands of precinct officials across Iowa—with varying degrees of phone security and different operating systems—cannot be fully protected against Russian or any other hackers. Underground “hacks” for sale allow remote attackers to infiltrate phones, especially ones without the latest system updates, as is the case for many Android phones. Creating a more hardened phone network is possible, but that would require issuing secure phones to every official, and providing training and technical support. There is no indication that any of that was done here.

But why bother hacking the system? Anything developed this rapidly that has not been properly stress-tested—and is being used in the wild by thousands of people at the same time—is likely to crash the first time it is deployed. This has happened before, to Orca, Mitt Romney’s Election Day app, which was supposed to help volunteers get voters to the polls, but instead was overwhelmed by traffic and stopped working, leaving thousands of fuming voters without rides. It happened in 2008 to Barack Obama’s app, dubbed Houdini, which also crashed on Election Day. It happened to HealthCare.gov—the website that was launched to help people find coverage under the Affordable Care Act, but that failed so badly, it took a team of people from Silicon Valley who quickly and voluntarily left their much cushier jobs and worked seven-day weeks for months to fix it.
...
Like Hanlon’s razor, new (and inadequately tested) apps don't have a safety handle. Even a few drops of blood on the sink are a bad sign.
posted by cenoxo at 12:57 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


I would have loved to hear Tulsi Gabbard's speech last night.

"I am suing the state of Iowa and also Hillary Clinton for some reason. But we can win this! In the meantime, let's show the world our unity by acknowledging Russia's land claims in Ukraine and several other unannounced regions."
posted by FakeFreyja at 12:59 PM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


Worth noting is that Bloomberg spent a lot of money to help reelect miserable Trump bootlicker Pat Toomey to the Senate in a race where he beat a good Democratic candidate by only two points. That was in 2016

How about the DNC adopt a rule where no one who has endorsed or donated to any Republican can be a candidate? Or at least keep them out of the debates

We hear a lot about Sanders not being a Democrat, and thats mostly fair. But so far I've seen very little about Bloomberg ratfucking us in Pennsylvania two years ago.
posted by sotonohito at 1:01 PM on February 4, 2020 [24 favorites]


WaPo, Conspiracy theories about Iowa only help one campaign: Trump’s
But there is a dark logic to Team Trump’s instant amplification of conspiracy theories surrounding the Iowa caucuses, and it’s one that should give pause to any supporters of the Democratic candidates. Simply put, Trumpworld is pushing the “rigged Democratic primary” narrative with no evidence because conspiracy theories disempower those who believe them. And Trump’s team wants to disempower its opposition and erode their trust in the process so that they don't participate.

This is precisely how conspiracy theories debilitate those who accept them: They offload blame for problems onto shadowy cabals and thus prevent people from rationally overcoming those problems. As one more intellectually honest pundit on the right noted, “I don’t think Iowa sabotaged the caucus to hurt Bernie Sanders. But I really hope a lot of Bernie Sanders supporters think that.”
...
The Vermont progressive’s campaign has staked its success on turning out non-voters to the polls. However, these are precisely the people who are most alienated from the political process, and many of them already do not believe that their vote matters. It’s hard to imagine a more self-defeating strategy than to tell them that they are right, and that no matter what they do, the big bad Democratic establishment will dictate the outcome.
posted by zachlipton at 1:02 PM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


She dropped out because of Iowa? It seems like she dropped out because she didn't have enough money.

And because she was polling in the mid single digits...
posted by Justinian at 1:06 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


And because she was polling in the mid single digits...

So is Buttigieg.

And to the extent that Harris couldn't raise enough money because donors didn't think she would have a strong showing in early primaries....
posted by Gadarene at 1:11 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


re: harris:
  • the money men weren't every going to converge behind her because she's a woman of color from california
  • the insurgent left wasn't ever going to converge behind her because of the kamala is a cop meme. well also because she's a cop but mostly it's the meme that did her in.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:13 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


And because she was polling in the mid single digits...

So is Buttigieg.

Lord, give me the confidence of a mediocre white guy.
posted by Etrigan at 1:14 PM on February 4, 2020 [29 favorites]


the money men weren't every going to converge behind her because she's a woman of color from california

And the fact that this was the perception of Democratic donors, in 2020, makes me want to weep.

Fuck the rich.
posted by Gadarene at 1:22 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I sure didn't expect my state to continue to be in the news on February 4.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 1:23 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Have you ever been to a caucus? I've caucused in Maine a bunch of times. 1st round count would result in X delegates. People talk, representatives of candidates give very short talks, people get to re-shuffle. I have re-shuffled my choice to make the delegate tally work better, cause sometimes your candidate is already going to get N delegates, and you can help Candidate B get another delegate.

That Precinct
111 Sanders/ 68 Warren/47 Buttigieg (226) split in the first alignment
It looks like there are some misc other votes in round 1, and they made new choices, because there are 45 more votes in round 2.
116 Sanders/ 82 Warren /73 Buttigieg (271) in the 2nd alignment
42.8% (2.57 delegates) Sanders/ 30.3%(1.82 delegates) Warren /26.9% (1.62 delegates) Buttigieg
Very much the way electoral college voting generates weird tallies, the math here gives a surprising but accurate result.

I liked caucusing; it's good to meet neighbors talk about candidates, decide who wants to go to the convention. In Maine, the convention delegations should be 50:50 women/men. People want to go to the convention but bail, if you want to be a delegate, you almost certainly can be. 4 years ago, the caucus in Portland was just too huge to function, which is great because participation, but not actually good. The Dems decided, at the convention I think, that it was time to move to a primary. Maine now has Ranked Choice Voting, which is nifty so far.
posted by theora55 at 1:23 PM on February 4, 2020


Jesus that was poor fucking reporting on CNN's part.

So uncharacteristic! They are so widely-regarded for their scrupulously accurate coverage of breaking news!
posted by nickmark at 1:29 PM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign has released its own Iowa caucus results, which show the Vermont senator with “a comfortable lead” with 60% of the vote in.

The campaign said their results reflect data sent to it by “precinct captains around the state.”

The Sanders campaign results, which, again, they say reflect 60% of the votes, show:

First round
Sanders 29.08%
Buttigieg 21.63%
Warren 19.51%
Klobuchar 12.27%
Biden 12.04%

After realignment
Sanders 29.4%
Buttigieg 24.87%
Warren 20.65%
Biden 12.92%
Klobuchar 11.18%
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2020/feb/04/democratic-race-iowa-caucus-shambles-as-results-are-delayed-live-coverage
I'll be surprised if the official numbers, when released, differ significantly from the numbers released by Senator Sanders.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 1:33 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Why aren't people more suspicious of Russian involvement?

I am not suspicious of Russian involvement, for the simple reason that (as we have noted) this total fuckup is very easily and convincingly explained without conspiracy theories. However, to the extent that this total fuckup also serves to sow disunity and distrust of electoral outcomes among Americans in general (that is to say: to a great extent), I am also quite sure that Mr. Putin is enjoying his popcorn at the moment.
posted by nickmark at 1:34 PM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


I'll be surprised if the official numbers, when released, differ significantly from the numbers released by Senator Sanders.

Although, we might expect Sanders to do worst where he doesn't have numbers. Perhaps he had no staff at a location (because they expected to do poorly there) and/or was not first-round viable.
posted by Chrysostom at 1:38 PM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


Right, releasing 60% of the results showing you with a lead is meaningless without knowing from where those results are obtained. Those results may well be accurate for those locations but still misrepresent the state as a whole.

I bet even JEB! could have shown himself overperforming by picking his best 60% of locations. Overperforming to maybe 4th place!
posted by Justinian at 1:54 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Everyone blaming Russia, Buttigieg, or whoever... never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
posted by SansPoint at 1:59 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


@samstein:
62% reporting, per CNN
Pete 26.9
Sanders 25.1
Warren 18.3
Biden 15.6
And I'll append from other sources:
KLOBUCHAR 12.6
YANG 1.1%

Those are apparently based on state delegate equivalents, not the other measures that are supposed to be released. And there's no reason to think the 62% are necessarily representative.

@mattdpearce: the other 38% of precincts are currently running away in the arms of the Hamburglar
posted by zachlipton at 2:05 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Overheard: “If they want to make this fun, Iowa Dems should release the caucus results about 15 minutes into the State of the Union.” @GeorgeTakei

genius
posted by theora55 at 2:06 PM on February 4, 2020 [15 favorites]


@samstein:
POPULAR VOTE with 62%
Sanders 28,220
Pete 27,030
Warren 22,254
Biden 14,176
NYT is waiting for precinct-level data to feed it into the needle model.
posted by zachlipton at 2:08 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I never noticed how few likes Mayor Pete gets on his posts. He pretended to win the Iowa caucus last night and only got 15k, which might sound like a lot but some random teenager is gonna post “mustard low key the best condiment in the game rn” and break 500,000

- @maplecocaine, 44.8k likes thus far.
posted by kafziel at 2:08 PM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


I'm not sure they are "meaningless" but yes, I agree Chrysostom, is certainly a function on the number of captains reporting and how many stations they represent.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:09 PM on February 4, 2020


WaPo has Results
Candidate Pct. Votes
Sanders 26.3 % 28,220
Buttigieg 25.1 27,030
Warren 20.7 22,254
Biden 13.2 14,176
Klobuchar 12.4 13,357
Total votes from 62% of precincts 107,496
posted by theora55 at 2:09 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Guardian: These results represent 62% of precincts.
Here’s a breakdown:

Pete Buttigieg: 26.9%

Bernie Sanders: 25.1%

Elizabeth Warren: 18.3%

Joe Biden: 15.6%

The results could change after the remaining 38% of results are announced.
posted by katra at 2:11 PM on February 4, 2020


My hunch is that Bernie's 60% is unrepresentative in the sense that it's precincts with enough Bernie support to merit having a precinct captain, and the party's 60% is unrepresentative in that it's precincts that are small enough that there are unlikely to be discrepancies between cards handed out and cards collected. And those probably work in opposite directions.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:12 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Well this is normal.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:12 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Happy sixty-twosday everyone
posted by theodolite at 2:13 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Unless the remaining 38% precincts have some huge surprise in store, I'm pleased to have been so wrong about Biden, although unfortunately his performance wasn't bad enough that he won't hold on until at least Super Tuesday. That's fine by me from a "split the centrist vote" angle, but not fine from a "fuck Joe Biden" angle.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:13 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


2020 is off to a slow start.
posted by Yowser at 2:13 PM on February 4, 2020


Considering how the decision-making has been at every single point on this saga, I'm half expecting they'll dole out the remaining 38% by releasing the results of one precinct per day and really draw this out as long as possible.
posted by Copronymus at 2:15 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


From the chatter last night, it sounded like there was a possibility Sanders might win the popular vote but Buttigeig might win or at least tie on delegates. It looks like this is being born out. Extremely poor showing by Biden with way.
posted by eagles123 at 2:17 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Like many here, I am pulling for either Sanders or Warren to be the nominee.

And I am thrilled at Biden's poor performance at the caucus thus far.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:19 PM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


So, the Guardian and WaPo both claim to have results from 62% of precincts but have Sanders/Buttigieg's positions and percentages almost exactly reversed. Or am I insane?
posted by freecellwizard at 2:26 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Ok, so how does WaPo and Guardian have Sanders and Buttigieg almost exactly swapped?
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:27 PM on February 4, 2020


The only reasonable take is that Sanders and Buttigieg tied, which is a bit of an overperformance from Pete but unless he picks up some actual support from non-white people won't matter in the long run, that Warren ran a quite strong third, and that Biden limped in barely over the humiliation limit.

But lots of people looking for some grievances as usual.

The most aggrieved party, fwiw, deserves to be Buttigieg rather than Sanders/Warren/Biden.
posted by Justinian at 2:27 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Jinx NSAID!
posted by freecellwizard at 2:27 PM on February 4, 2020


Like Buttigieg's path such as it is required a strong post-IA bounce to get him support in places like SC. And this is taking away from that. Sanders is gonna crush it in NH so he needs it less. So if anything, the democrats are rigging it against Pete Buttigieg.
posted by Justinian at 2:28 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


One set of numbers is the state delegates percentage and the other is the popular vote.

It seems to me that these IDP results square with the ones the Sanders campaign was releasing. As the precincts come in Bernie's lead will grow slowly in the votes, but because of the weighting we will see Pete stay slightly ahead or even in delegates. This is the result of all those precincts where you are rounding delegates up and down.
posted by Regal Ox Inigo at 2:29 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


then The Klob dangerously/excitingly close to Biden

Not "The Klob," The Klob.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:30 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's pronounced "Klob".
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:31 PM on February 4, 2020


Klobmentum. Klobucharmentum? Klobu... oh bother.
posted by Justinian at 2:32 PM on February 4, 2020


Dan Pfeiffer talks about how to fix the broken primary.

I'm not sure winner-take-all is the best option, but statewide rather than district allocation of delegates might be. A sliding percent-based cutoff combined with ranked voting would allow for more than one candidate to get delegates without endless back-and-forth clutter.

(Sliding percent: First round, anyone who didn't make 15% is dropped; those votes get allocated to people's 2nd choice. Next round: anyone who didn't make 20% is cut; allocate those to 3rd choices. Next is 25%, and that's where you stop, except you keep going through fourth-fifth-whatever as you reallocate from the candidates who've already been excluded. You could theoretically wind up with three almost equal candidates, but most likely, you'll have two if it's hotly contested and one if it's not.)

(Spitballing here; this isn't carefully thought-out theory. We know what we have is broken; how-to-fix is going to need some brainstorming, because if we had any "X would fix the problems!" answers, we'd be using them.)
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 2:33 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Guardian: "Although Pete Buttigieg leads the caucus results, Bernie Sanders is leading the popular vote count, at 28,220 over Buttigieg’s 27,030.
Elizabeth Warren collected 22,254 votes and Joe Biden has 14,176, with 62% of precincts reporting.

The popular vote represents the raw data not converted into state delegate equivalents."
and the previous post was updated:
Pete Buttigieg: 26.9% of the state delegates

Bernie Sanders: 25.1%

Elizabeth Warren: 18.3%

Joe Biden: 15.6%

Amy Klobuchar: 12.6%
posted by katra at 2:34 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


So let's see, after some rounding... carry the one... Alright that's 17 delegates to Buttigieg, 8 to Biden, and also several other candidates may receive various levels of support.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:35 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


There are 3 sets of values, depending on if you report initial alignment, post-viability alignment, or delegate equivalents. 
NAME  FIRST FINAL S.D.E.
Buttigieg 21%	25%	27%
Sanders	24	26	25
Warren	19	21	18
Biden	15	13	16
Klobuchar 13	12	13
Yang	5	1	1
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:36 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Klobmentum. Klobucharmentum? Klobu... oh bother.

Klobucharformance. Klobucharspicacity. Klobucharrent times voltage equals POWER
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:36 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


In 2016 Hillary beat Bernie 49.8-49.6% in SDE’s, which is all they reported; it’s quite likely Bernie would’ve won the popular vote.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:38 PM on February 4, 2020


For what it's worth, my co-worker and I just looked at what percentage of every county is recorded in the IDP results, and it looks like there are more missing precincts in rural counties.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 2:40 PM on February 4, 2020


If this is how fast we're going to eat our own, I can't see any chance we're going to beat Trump in the general.
posted by No One Ever Does at 2:40 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


In 2016 Hillary beat Bernie 49.8-49.6% in SDE’s, which is all they reported; it’s quite likely Bernie would’ve won the popular vote.

Oh irony of ironies.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:40 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


it’s quite likely Bernie would’ve won the popular vote

Right, reporting the popular vote helps Sanders. They didn't have to do that. This is the first time they will. If they'd stuck to simply reporting SDEs, Buttigieg would appear the winner.

He is the one being most negatively affected by the mishaps, screwups, and rule changes... not Bernie Sanders.
posted by Justinian at 2:40 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Democracy is messy.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 2:41 PM on February 4, 2020


Klobberin' time!
posted by kirkaracha at 2:42 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


That turnout issue really is worrying. I hope it's some weird quirk of the makeup of Iowa caucus-goers, because it does seem like a big part of the Dem strategy this election, especially for the candidates on the left, is the appearance of a liberal/progressive tidal wave of voters. It does not bode well.
posted by the legendary esquilax at 2:43 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Can someone post the JD Power and Associates numbers? Thanks. I hear Sanders won for best towing in a mid-size truck. Exciting times.
posted by Don.Kinsayder at 2:44 PM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


If this is how fast we're going to eat our own, I can't see any chance we're going to beat Trump in the general.

Buttigieg is not our own.
posted by Gadarene at 2:45 PM on February 4, 2020 [39 favorites]


@ericgeller: “Everyone's talking about the app issues, but the phone line failure is important too. This was supposed to be the safe fallback option for anyone struggling with or uninterested in the app. Instead it seems to have tanked.“
posted by lazugod at 2:46 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Buttigieg is not our own.

Thanks for the example, I guess.
posted by No One Ever Does at 2:47 PM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


This is a bit reading between the lines regarding Bernie and caucuses, but in 2016 he spent a lot more effort criticizing closed primaries than criticizing caucuses (see this Vox article for instance).
posted by chernoffhoeffding at 2:47 PM on February 4, 2020


Can someone post the JD Power and Associates numbers? Thanks. I hear Sanders won for best towing in a mid-size truck. Exciting times.

You're gonna want to wait till Truck Month is over to get a more representative estimate.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:48 PM on February 4, 2020 [8 favorites]


For what it's worth, my co-worker and I just looked at what percentage of every county is recorded in the IDP results, and it looks like there are more missing precincts in rural counties.

You can't call an election with only 62% of precincts reporting, so no one should be surprised if things change. Or even if they don't! However 62% is not a representative sample.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:48 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


From Greg Nog’s link to Inside Acronym’s disastrous foray... article:
...
Launched ahead of the 2018 midterms, Acronym was described initially as a “digital-first startup” (in the words of Axios), co-founded by McGowan and Michael Dubin, the founder of the men’s grooming company Dollar Shave Club whom you might recognize from their ads. McGowan, who previously worked as the digital director of the Obama and Clinton-affiliated Super PAC Priorities USA Action, was able to bring in money for Acronym’s affiliated political action committee Pacronym from a variety of well-known wealthy Democratic funders, including the billionaires George Soros and Marsha Laufer.
...
Let slip the Devil’s name and the Republicans cry CONSPIRACY! It will encourage their hand-wavium dismissal of anything Acronym does and anyone who uses them.
posted by cenoxo at 2:50 PM on February 4, 2020


This is a bit reading between the lines regarding Bernie and caucuses, but in 2016 he spent a lot more effort criticizing closed primaries than criticizing caucuses

Yes. Closed primaries reward party ties. Caucuses reward enthusiasm and organization.

Though as Sanders is finding out that's a double edged sword since enthusiasm isn't exactly the same as organization, and the Sanders team apparently emphasized the former while Mayo Pete the latter.
posted by Justinian at 2:50 PM on February 4, 2020


However 62% is not a representative sample.

Not necessarily a representative sample. They haven't actually said how this set of results came about or whether its representative, AFIAK.
posted by Justinian at 2:51 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nate Cohn at the NYT doesn't seem to think the outstanding counties favor either candidate except possibly Polk for Sanders.
posted by eagles123 at 2:53 PM on February 4, 2020


the phone line failure is important too. This was supposed to be the safe fallback option for anyone struggling with or uninterested in the app. Instead it seems to have tanked

I wonder if it was one of those things where they thought they had (say) three phone lines as backups but really just had the same line rented three times through umpty-ump layers of resellers and different companies and leasing arrangements and TotallyNotShady, LLC.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 2:55 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Based on...? It seems likely that people just like Pete

Buttigieg's field organization in Iowa was very strong.

538 takes a look.

Note that Buttigieg has the most field offices of any candidate with 33, while Sanders limps in with 21. Sanders was relying on enthusiasm, Pete went with organization.
posted by Justinian at 2:56 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


You do need at least some of both, though, since Biden had 28 offices and barely scraped by in 4th.
posted by Justinian at 2:57 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I just have a hard time taking seriously a dude who polls 2% among black voters in a democratic primary. Probably a failure of imagination on my part.
posted by Justinian at 3:02 PM on February 4, 2020 [26 favorites]


The Nevada Democratic Party says it's getting a new app. It might be tricky getting something secure, stable, and effective in just a few weeks, but I think we can all agree that any solution to the problem is going to be great as long as it's still centered on apps.
posted by Copronymus at 3:02 PM on February 4, 2020 [26 favorites]


Buttigieg is not our own.
Thanks for the example, I guess.

New strides in equality! Now we can get CIA-backed regime change, right here at home!
posted by CrystalDave at 3:06 PM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


Pete has a good grasp of "political speak" and is a strong debater. He got the best of Warren in several exchanges. I could see a certain kind of person finding him appealing.

Unfortunately for him, he also is absolutely loathed by large swaths of millennial Democrats. And I mean loathed in a visceral way even Hillary Clinton wasn't.

He'd get crushed by Trump in the general, and I will be interested to see whether Pete's Iowa performance moves the needle for him outside Iowa and New Hampshire.
posted by eagles123 at 3:07 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


The Nevada Democratic Party says it's getting a new app.

Let's solve the problem by doing the problem again but this time with added haste and chaos
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:08 PM on February 4, 2020 [21 favorites]


Can't wait to see how well Caucusr, the new app from SmokeFilledRoom, inc. performs
posted by MysticMCJ at 3:10 PM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


I just have a hard time taking seriously a dude who polls 2% among black voters in a democratic primary. Probably a failure of imagination on my part.

Which is exactly why Biden is still viable regardless of how he does in Iowa and New Hampshire. As of January 30, Biden was favored by 36% of black voters. Sanders is a distant second at 13%, and no other candidate is in double digits.

Sanders is improving with people of color (and leading among Hispanic voters, 30% to Biden's 22%), but Biden's dominance among black voters is going to make him hard to beat.

Now that my top three choices are out of the race, I'm not sure I even care anymore, but there we are.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 3:13 PM on February 4, 2020


Really glad I just quit my job to launch a caucus-app startup. Wish me luck, everyone!
posted by tobascodagama at 3:14 PM on February 4, 2020 [18 favorites]


This was never going to be easy yall. Deep breaths. It’s only going to get worse.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:14 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


Was Turnout a Problem in Iowa?
One thing I noticed in all the caucus coverage last night was that universally people were saying they were happy to support any of the candidates in November.

We’ve all seen that Democrats consistently and overwhelmingly say their first priority is a candidate who can beat President Trump. Certainly Sanders especially but also Warren have very enthusiastic supporters. But my sense at least is that Democrats are mainly champing at the bit to get a chance at voting out President Trump. You see this in poll after poll – not just the toplines but the internal measures of Democratic enthusiasm and focus.

I feel confident about this because I expected there to be normal turnout for just this reason. It didn’t make sense to me that commentators expected 2008 type results rather than 2016 type results. For most Democrats the first, second and probably third priority is ending President Trump’s presidency. By that measure, this level of turnout strikes me as unsurprising and not worrisome.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:15 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


Really glad I just quit my job to launch a caucus-app startup. Wish me luck, everyone!

This is your moment!
posted by atoxyl at 3:15 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Eagles123 - is there good polling data to support this? I’m not doubting you - just wondering if you can link to it. I’m a millennial democrat with a lot of millennial democrat friends and in my world, everyone seems to be pretty open-minded about the top four or five candidates, including Pete.
posted by Fritzle at 3:15 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Q: What did the Pink Panther say when he heard the news about the Iowa caucuses?
A: bad app
     bad app
     bad app, bad app, bad app, bad app, bad aaapppp!
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:23 PM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


“We Needed Weird Things to Happen—And They Keep Happening”: Inside Bloomberg’s Strategy After the Iowa Meltdown
Catastrophic Democratic chaos benefits the billionaire former mayor, whose gargantuan campaign and vast spending is already remaking the race. The question for next month is: Can he win actual votes?
Ceterum autem censeo Trump delenda est
posted by kirkaracha at 3:24 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm posting from a tablet, so I apologize for not being able to link, but in Iowa and New Hampshire he tends to do better only than Biden among the "big 4" Democratic candidates ( Sanders, Warren, Biden, Butteguig), and then only by just a little bit.

Outside Iowa and New Hampshire his support is so low that it's almost unfair because his overall support is dwarfed by other candidates. Still, he trails even Andrew Yang among 18-29 based on the latest California poll on 538 for example.

Sorry again I can't post links. You can just go to 538 though and click on the crosstabs to see though.
posted by eagles123 at 3:30 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


DNC Offers Startup $500 Million To Develop Pencil That Can Accurately Record Election Results (🧅)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:43 PM on February 4, 2020 [12 favorites]


At some point you have to admit the Democratic establishment is more about being a work program for a certain kind of mediocre and connected person than it is about winning political campaigns
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 3:46 PM on February 4, 2020 [41 favorites]


The fact that Iowa decided not only to invent the incredibly awful and ill thought out caucus system, but then to compound the foolishness by recreating the Electoral College with all its antidemocratic potential for making everyone feel cheated is all the evidence anyone needs to conclude that the leaders of Iowa at the time were making extensive use of potent recreational pharmaceuticals when they invented that clusterfuck.

That it continues today is strong evidence that corn is a mental hazard.
posted by sotonohito at 3:49 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: this whole debacle isn't the DNC's doing, right? Isn't it the Iowa Democratic Party's fault? I could have sworn I read that up there (waves hand vaguely in the direction of up-thread) but SO MANY people on social media are saying it's all the DNC's fault that I'm doubting myself now and I just NEED HELP.
posted by cooker girl at 3:50 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


At some point you have to admit the Democratic establishment is more about being a work program for a certain kind of mediocre and connected person than it is about winning political campaigns

Yes, and this is probably the main reason they hate Sanders so much; he's not interested in hiring from their tiny, incestuous pool of idiotic consultants.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 3:52 PM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: this whole debacle isn't the DNC's doing, right?
> From the NYT, a hint that the DNC can indeed take a share of the blame here:

The party decided to use the app only after another proposal for reporting votes — which entailed having caucus participants call in their votes over the phone — was abandoned, on the advice of Democratic National Committee officials, according to David Jefferson, a board member of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization.

posted by tonycpsu at 3:52 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


At some point you have to admit the Democratic establishment is more about being a work program for a certain kind of mediocre and connected person than it is about winning political campaigns

Well yes and no. The party is moving left, but the confounding factor is we have 25 years of figures in line who believe it is "their turn". And they are all terrible.
posted by FakeFreyja at 3:54 PM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


And, more generally speaking, it's hard to believe that a state Democratic party would be able to operate completely free of input from and accountability to the DNC. The DNC *is* the party.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:54 PM on February 4, 2020


Iowa didn’t invent caucusing; they just kept it after its accidental state-specific benefits became apparent.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:55 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


From the NYT, a hint that the DNC can indeed take a share of the blame here:

Okay, okay...but a share of the blame isn't the whole blame, right? It was the IDP that decided to use the app in the first place? I'm sorry if I seem dense but honestly, the flak from social media is really feeling like gaslighting! I thought I had a handle on what happened but now I'm just so super confused! So I'm trying to talk it out in my head, and I really appreciate the feedback.
posted by cooker girl at 3:58 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


That turnout issue really is worrying.

I wonder if a lot of voters are just waiting to vote against Trump. Not that they think all the Dem candidates are the same or even like them all, but that they decided they’ll vote for whoever the D nominee is and are tuning out of the primary.
posted by sallybrown at 4:03 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


WaPo: Total votes from 62% of precincts 134,725
Candidate Pct. SDEs Del.

Pete Buttigieg 26.9 % 36,264 —
Bernie Sanders 25.1 33,788 —
Elizabeth Warren 18.3 24,618 —
Joe Biden 15.6 21,034 —
Amy Klobuchar 12.6 16,969 —
Andrew Yang 1.1 1,427 —
Tom Steyer 0.3 376 —
Michael Bloomberg 0.0 13 —
Tulsi Gabbard 0.0 0 —
Michael Bennet 0.0 0 —
Deval Patrick 0.0 0 —
Other 0.0 28 —
Uncommitted 0.2 208 —
posted by katra at 4:07 PM on February 4, 2020


> Okay, okay...but a share of the blame isn't the whole blame, right?

Failure's an orphan, so I don't think we'll get reliable answer to this question in the near future as various groups try to pin the blame on others. But as important as this election is, and as important as Iowa regrettably is in that election, the DNC should have been proactive in ensuring that things went smoothly. That they didn't is an indictment of their leadership, regardless of who else may share the blame once the after action report is filed.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:15 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I wonder if a lot of voters are just waiting to vote against Trump. Not that they think all the Dem candidates are the same or even like them all, but that they decided they’ll vote for whoever the D nominee is and are tuning out of the primary.

Tbh this is me. I know who I support, I’ve given what I can for where my life is right now, and now it’s basically a mental health necessity to check the fuck out. Some people are more responsible for the necessity of that than others, but in the end result is the same.

I cannot fucking imagine caucusing in this environment. Just...no.
posted by schadenfrau at 4:19 PM on February 4, 2020 [20 favorites]


the DNC should have been proactive in ensuring that things went smoothly.

That's a lot easier to say than to see done, though? How do they ensure things go smoothly in a process for which they are only tangentially involved?

If you want to argue the DNC should more directly centralize control of the primary process I might even agree with you but I think we can both agree had they done that before 2020 it would have set off a firestorm of opposition by both state parties and the... uh, less DNC friendly... candidate(s).
posted by Justinian at 4:28 PM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


I cannot fucking imagine caucusing in this environment. Just...no.

I caucused in Maine in 2016 (we now have a primary) and my enduring memory of it is a) standing in line FOREVER because of the abnormally high turnout, and b) being relentlessly heckled by the Bernie supporters nearby for supporting Hilary.

So yeah, I'm pretty darn involved but would not do that again voluntarily unless I felt I HAD to.
posted by anastasiav at 4:31 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


Things become a lot clearer when you accept that incompetence is the default state of the human condition.
posted by Marticus at 4:37 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


Things become a lot clearer when you accept that incompetence is the default state of the human condition.

Numerous human nations have functional electoral systems.
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:39 PM on February 4, 2020 [25 favorites]


More on the Shadow debacle from the Verge. Apparently the app was distributed, at least on Android, using the free tier of a testing platform that is limited to 200 users and deletes app data after 30 days.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 4:40 PM on February 4, 2020 [14 favorites]


The Iowa Democratic Party decided to hire Shadow to make this vote reporting app, then rolled it out without adequately testing it or making sure their precinct chairs knew how to use it. They own this. None of these were the Democratic National Committee's decisions.
posted by nangar at 4:44 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


The narrative involving the Unity Reform Commission that claims Bernie's push for rules changes after the 2016 debacle is the primary reason we saw such confusion in this year's caucus makes no sense.

Here's the makeup of the 21-person Unity Reform Commission, announced in April 2017, seven months before its final report:

9 members chosen by Hillary Clinton
3 members chosen by Tom Perez
7 members chosen by Bernie Sanders
The chairperson, chosen by Hillary Clinton
The vice-chairperson, chosen by Bernie Sanders

I'm happy to be told there's more to the story that I've missed - a late coup on the commission or whatever - but I find it difficult to believe that a minority of Sanders folks in the group charged with creating new rules was able to steamroll a larger group of Perez and Clinton appointees and get their way in such a manner that blame for the last night's confusion falls solely on the Sanders camp. Barring more info about what went down on the commission, I see quotes like "What is happening tonight is exactly what Bernie Sanders asked for" (in a CBS tweet, among many other places) and wonder, "How? How did he ram through changes Perez and Clinton appointees didn't want on a committee on which his appointees were a clear minority?"

asteria, is there anything you can add here?

(Btw, "debacle" in the first sentence is not my word; it's from the Des Moines Register right after it happened. Here's their angry editorial from February 3, 2016)
posted by mediareport at 4:54 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


> If you want to argue the DNC should more directly centralize control of the primary process I might even agree with you but I think we can both agree had they done that before 2020 it would have set off a firestorm of opposition by both state parties and the... uh, less DNC friendly... candidate(s).

Leadership means not being scared that an independent flying a Democratic flag of convenience and his supporters might freak out if you do things to protect the interests of your party. The status quo certainly isn't working out for any of the candidates right now, suggesting this stuff isn't zero-sum, and everyone involved can lose.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:56 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


More on the Shadow debacle from the Verge. Apparently the app was distributed, at least on Android, using the free tier of a testing platform that is limited to 200 users and deletes app data after 30 days.

Multiple programmers I follow on social media flipped out when they saw the iOS version of Shadow had been distributed via TestFlight.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:56 PM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


They distributed the Android version as a sideloaded APK too, and naturally volunteers freaked the hell out when they got the resulting security warnings and noped out of the process, because come on, what volunteer precinct chair says yes to "this type of file can harm your device?" And that's assuming the install wasn't blocked by their settings (as it should be) or other security restrictions on their phone.

I don't know if this was all too rushed to get it into app stores, but trying to distribute the app unofficially is just such an obviously bad idea.
posted by zachlipton at 5:08 PM on February 4, 2020 [16 favorites]


The specific chain of decision-making that led to Shadow being used seems to involve a number of extremely bad decisions by both the Iowa party and by the DNC. The party megadonors who funded Shadow and Acronym and gave them the credibility to sell themselves to Iowa and Nevada have responsibility too.

Anybody who has ever been involved in a large-scale technology roll-out, on being told the basic facts that have come to light today about the app being developed in a couple of months and then deployed sideloaded with no testing or end user training, would be able to tell that the project couldn't succeed.

Nobody from any of the responsible party leadership, at any level, raised a red flag. Even today party insiders will only comment to the press anonymously because they don't want to lose work or make enemies. The whole party is infested with thousands of these consultant-class Lyle Lanleys who coast from failure to failure on the strength of their friendships with party elders and fundraisers. Somehow 2016 wasn't enough of a wake-up call to run them all out, maybe this will be.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 5:13 PM on February 4, 2020 [23 favorites]


So Iowa sends these delegates to their state convention; are they bound? If their candidate leaves the race, are those delegates free to choose another candidate?
posted by theora55 at 5:20 PM on February 4, 2020


Why not distribute devices with the app installed properly?

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:24 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


So this is a bit of a Luddite question, but if one were to develop a platform to do this type of counting, why wouldn't you just use a mobile-friendly website with a secure login? Does 'app' just sound cool to directors and that's what they go with? Or are they more secure from . . . hacking? I thought we had largely moved past the single-use app fad.
posted by Think_Long at 5:33 PM on February 4, 2020 [7 favorites]


(I say that based on his "reporting" regarding the Douma chemical attack in Syria. See the lengthy conversations between Higgins from Bellingcat and Blumenthal and his apologists.)
posted by Ahmad Khani at 5:34 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


also god DAMN do I miss Maroon 5 in these dark days
posted by Think_Long at 5:35 PM on February 4, 2020 [19 favorites]


Ok can someone link me to something that demonstrates that Sanders (or his campaign, I'm not picky) is (1) responsible for caucuses continuing to exist or (2) "prefer[s] caucuses"?

I can maybe help with #2. I linked a couple of articles from 2016 earlier in the thread, but here's one again, from FiveThirtyEight on March 27, 2016, Bernie Sanders Continues To Dominate Caucuses, But He’s About To Run Out Of Them:

Sanders has outperformed his targets in 11 states. Just three of those states held primaries (Illinois, Oklahoma and Vermont), and one of those three (Vermont) is Sanders’s home state. The other eight were caucuses.

This is the primary, obvious driver behind the "Sanders likes caucuses" stuff. You probably already know this but the general wisdom is that caucuses tend to attract more excited (fanatic?) voters, who show up and stay til the end, and Sanders' base includes a lot of those. I agree that it would be nice to see some evidence of Sanders folks working to keep caucuses in the face of a push among establishment Democrats to eliminate them, but I haven't seen that kind of push against caucuses coming from many Dems so I'm not sure why Sanders is being blamed for caucuses remaining on the calendar. Establishment Dems seem to like them just fine.

A perhaps less obvious secondary point: Caucuses tend to happen in states with fewer voters of color, and in the 2016 race Sanders struggled to attract those voters over Hillary (he's improved on that this time, mostly among young voters of color, where he routinely leads Biden).

For what it's worth, a side note: the second chart in this 2016 Vox article about much lower turnout rates in caucuses vs. primaries seems to me fairly conclusive. Sanders may or may not be actively working to keep caucuses (I'd love to know), but if he's not actively working to *eliminate* them (I'd love to know that too), then I think much of his talk about democratizing the vote is hypocritical. I guess that means I'm with you in looking for evidence either way, and agree we haven't really seen much yet.
posted by mediareport at 5:35 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Nate Cohen at the NYT is saying Sanders is most likely to win the popular vote, Pete is most likely to win the SDE, and both are likely to split pledged delegates based on the NYT model.
posted by eagles123 at 5:42 PM on February 4, 2020


So Iowa sends these delegates to their state convention; are they bound? If their candidate leaves the race, are those delegates free to choose another candidate?
Nope, they're bound through the Democratic National Convention. (I think that if there's still no winner after a certain point at the national convention, they get unbound, but it's really, really unlikely to happen.) In the event that uncommitted delegates get selected, which has happened, they're also bound to uncommitted.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 5:48 PM on February 4, 2020


@ryangrim: "The Iowa results do not include the satellite caucuses, the irregular ones set up for workers, students and the elderly, which Sanders organized for and dominated."
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:08 PM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


this whole debacle isn't the DNC's doing, right?

The bizarre and confusing new rules were very much the DNC's doing; the entire point of the DNC's Unity Reform Commission was to centralize standards for Iowa and other caucus states. It was a committee formed to create rules Iowa would then be forced to follow, although Iowans were part of the decision-making. Here's an article from December 2017, after the Commission released its final set of recommendations:

Reform commission members and national party leaders predicted the changes, which affect other caucus-holding states as well as Iowa, would increase voter participation, bring transparency to the nominating process and bolster grassroots activism — particularly in rural and Republican-leaning places. At the outset of the meeting on Friday, DNC Chairman Tom Perez called the caucus reforms “game-changing.”

Iowa had to follow the new rules, which came out of a DNC-led process.

(Also, that article links to this one, which has quotes from mainstream Obama, Biden and Clinton strategists who clearly said the party needed to get rid of caucuses entirely.)
posted by mediareport at 6:19 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


And, more generally speaking, it's hard to believe that a state Democratic party would be able to operate completely free of input from and accountability to the DNC. The DNC *is* the party.

The DNC isn't the party. There is no "The Party."

American parties might be best thought of as collections of organizations with broadly similar goals, sometimes beholden to or responsible to each other in limited ways. The most you can say about the DNC is that it's the "head" organization for Democrats doing stuff related to presidential elections, and it runs the convention. It doesn't get to be the boss of the DCCC or DSCC. It doesn't even get to be the boss of the IA Democratic Party except in its capacity as the organization running the delegate selection mechanism for the 2020 convention.*

And almost certainly in an assortment of other ways that boil down to money with strings attached
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:27 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


To be clear, national party organizations have played a heavy role in funding and developing the institutionalization and professionalization of state parties, so lots of state parties now look pretty similar to the parties the national organizations might like to see
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:29 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


There is no "The Party."

Huh. If that's the case, maybe that explains why the GOP seems to be a couple steps ahead. I mean, having a clear leadership that says "here are our platforms, this is what you agree with to be a member of the party" vs a bunch of disparate groups that may or may not agree with you and go along, making their own rules as they go.

I mean, at the very least, that might explain why, say, Manchin hasn't been told to get the fuck out of the party, if there really is no actual party leadership, but honesty, that just sounds like another reason the Democrats always seem like a clownshow.

God, I hate writing these things and saying these things. I'm a lifelong dem, and have voted dem in every election I've had the chance to. I'd just like the party to be less of a shitshow.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:33 PM on February 4, 2020 [9 favorites]


that's the case, maybe that explains why the GOP seems to be a couple steps ahead.

To the best of my knowledge this is ~equally true of the GOP.
posted by PMdixon at 6:36 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Think_Long Does 'app' just sound cool to directors and that's what they go with? Or are they more secure from . . . hacking?

Depending on how it was written, and given the facts available it seems that the so-called "developers" of Shadow couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag, an app could be more secure than a website.

But yes, given that none of this is really secret or anonymous, there's really no reason why a web form with a login and some fields to enter the data couldn't have done just as well. I suspect it was mostly that they think apps are wikked kewl and what all the kids these days want.

At heart it's basically just a spreadsheet. In theory they could have used a shared Google spreadsheet, it wouldn't have been a great idea but it would have worked better and quite possibly been more secure than their app. Depending on how they coded the app they could have made it vastly less secure than a shared Google spreadsheet. What authentication methods did they use to verify that only the actual precinct chair had permission to upload data? What encryption did they use on data in transit and data at rest? We don't know, but given the demonstrated incompetence of Acronym I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they transmitted everything in clear and had no accountability at all.
posted by sotonohito at 6:44 PM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


If that's the case, then, from the deepest part of my soul, all I can say is

Buh?!

That's an unbelievably dumb way to do things. I mean, sure, having a strong head of the party with bright lines about what's good and what's not might, say, splinter parties, but:

1) you'd have parties where you know that the person your voting for stands for the things the party stands for (fuck the Blue Dogs, seriously)

2) it could lead to the death of the two party system, so it'd never happen, but imagine a world where, say, you have an actual, sustainable hard left party, and a (hopefully smaller every year) centrist party. I mean, sure, you'd probably also have a real, extant Tea Party, because the sensible GOP would have told those lunatics to fuck off years ago (yes, I know, I said sensible GOP). It could be glorious! (It would not be glorious. It would be, at best, the Knesset, with coalitions beholden to tiny extremist parties)

3) It will never happen because both parties will do what they think is best to hold onto power. For the GOP, that seems to clearly be to bend to the will of the most extreme members of the party. For the (leadership of the) Dems, it seems to be to become the GOP. So that's nice.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:48 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


> The DNC isn't the party. There is no "The Party."

Nonsense. The DNC is the governing body for the party. Any authority ceded to state organizations can be reclaimed any time the DNC believes that those organizations aren't acting in the best interest of the party. Later in your comment, you correctly note the many levers the DNC has to influence those organizations, and <NeilPeart> Choosing not to use those levers is still a choice. </NeilPeart>
posted by tonycpsu at 7:06 PM on February 4, 2020 [2 favorites]


If that's the case, maybe that explains why the GOP seems to be a couple steps ahead.

It's at least as true for them as it is for the Democrats. I'd have to check in with people who are more firmly enmeshed in parties work than I am -- I end up teaching undergrads about this, but come at it more or less exclusively from legislative parties -- but if anything, the GOP has it worse. Various odious billionaire fuckwits have what look a lot like their own parallel organizational structures that can do an awful lot of the same things as official GOP organizations, and then there's Fox News.

That's an unbelievably dumb way to do things.

One of the things that's hardest to get across to people not in and from the US is how stunningly weak American parties are. The other one is that the health care system really will just let you die untreated if you can't pay.

It will never happen because both parties will do what they think is best to hold onto power.

Some of this is probably historical accident from how mass parties happened to be formed in the US in the 1820s thru 1840s or so -- there was buildup and connection between local cliques and national organizations with state parties remaining very weak -- but an *awful* lot of the overall weakness of American parties is a direct result of laws put into place to weaken and limit parties.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:09 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


The DNC is the governing body for the party.

Watch what happens when the DNC tells the dtrip or DSCC what to do or who to support.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 7:12 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Polling locations can have inconsistent or poor cellular or WiFi service and you also can’t determine the level connectivity that any given precinct captain or poll worker will have on their personal device. a properly made app would allow you to enter data, cache it, and then sync it to your reporting backend whenever you re-establish a connection.
posted by bl1nk at 7:19 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


One of the things that's hardest to get across to people not in and from the US is how stunningly weak American parties are.

Federalism!
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:20 PM on February 4, 2020


> Watch what happens when the DNC tells the dtrip or DSCC what to do or who to support.

Right, because those orgs do their own fundraising. The state parties need DNC money to exist.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:23 PM on February 4, 2020


Faulty Iowa App Was Part of Push to Restore Democrats’ Digital Edge
The faulty smartphone app behind the chaotic aftermath of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses was the work of a little-known company called Shadow Inc. that was founded by veterans of Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful presidential campaign, and whose previous work was marked by a string of failures, including a near bankruptcy.

The app grew out of a broader push by Democrats, backed by tens of millions of dollars in donor money, to match the Republicans’ prowess in digital advertising and organizing after the 2016 election. Much of the energy and investment have gone into enterprises that are intended to both boost the Democrats’ digital game and turn a profit, like Shadow.
Womp womp.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:26 PM on February 4, 2020


Lengthy thread from @rabble about political tech and why this sort of thing is going to continue to be a weakness of campaigns, and what needs to change:

"If you want to understand what happened with Shadow and the failure of the Iowa Caucus app you have to understand how electoral campaign tech work is done and funded. Let me tell you a story to make sense of it.

The caucus app is firebase / react app built by one senior engineer who’s not done mobile apps and a bunch of folks who were very recent code academy graduates who as of a couple months ago worked as a prep cook for Starbucks and receptionist at Regus.

They messed up, but here’s the thing, shadow is a company which came out of of the collapse of another electoral tech company, Groundbase (getgroundgame.com) which has some well known folks in the campaign tech space.

***

This was a quick tool which was put together without sufficient funding. See, building tech is expensive. We can see from the budgets that the Iowa Democratic Party only paid $60k to shadow, and the Nevada party paid $58k.

It might feel like a lot, but it really isn’t given how much this stuff costs to build. It’s why the app wasn’t well tested or scaled well. The team was a few enthusiastic recent code school grads and one experienced engineer. This was their side project they built to get funding

There is no way they could succeed. The problem is structural, the way we’re funding campaign tech is wrong. We need it to be based on open source technology, we need a community of companies, parties, and third party groups funding it. It needs to have funding between cycles."
posted by oneirodynia at 7:30 PM on February 4, 2020 [11 favorites]


If you think the DNC has power, I would direct you to a fun little three part Reply All series recently about Alabama.

Because they do not.

They. Do. Not. The STATE party doesn't even have power.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:34 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


Someone please correct me if I'm wrong: this whole debacle isn't the DNC's doing, right? Isn't it the Iowa Democratic Party's fault? I could have sworn I read that up there (waves hand vaguely in the direction of up-thread) but SO MANY people on social media are saying it's all the DNC's fault that I'm doubting myself now and I just NEED HELP.

The National DNC did not directly fund the Shadow app, no, according to FEC filings. The Buttigieg campaign paid them $42,500 in two installments of $21,250; the Biden campaign paid them $1225; the Gillibrand campaign paid them $37,400, across six installments; the Wisconsin Democratic Party paid them $3750; the Texas Democratic Party paid them $250; the Nevada Democratic Party paid them $58,000; a DNC Super PAC called For The Future paid them $10,643.25 over three installments. But the National DNC itself did not.

Curiously, the Iowa Democratic Party has not paid them, according to their FEC filings. Wonder why the app was deployed. Maybe someone's just late with their paperwork.
posted by kafziel at 7:37 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm not inclined to blame the devs. Below a certain price point, 'you get what you pay for' is the rule in dev. I'm thinking the committee that paid for this did not put out an RFP or do any other sort of diligence on price/capability/risk.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:39 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Paying that little for a mission-critical app which has to work the first time it is widely deployed is like buying the $1.99 gas station sushi 6 hours before your wedding and YOLOing it.
posted by Justinian at 7:49 PM on February 4, 2020 [31 favorites]


> Curiously, the Iowa Democratic Party has not paid them, according to their FEC filings. Wonder why the app was deployed. Maybe someone's just late with their paperwork.

Or maybe the Democrats are adopting Trump's policy of stiffing contractors.
posted by tonycpsu at 7:57 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I would encourage people to remember this New York Times article from last year.
The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California; Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.
posted by kafziel at 8:12 PM on February 4, 2020 [10 favorites]


...sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but what were Gillibrand and Buttigieg paying Shadow for?
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:26 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


I would encourage people to remember this New York Times article from last year.

I remember it, I'm just not quite clear on how it applies to the current situation specifically. Apart from Buttigieg being mentioned.
posted by Justinian at 8:29 PM on February 4, 2020


...sorry if this has been addressed elsewhere, but what were Gillibrand and Buttigieg paying Shadow for?

Shadow's main business isn't (assuming the company has a future now) a caucus results app; it's technology tools to help political campaigns. They have an email/text messaging platform and a more ambitious idea called Lightrail, which is meant to be more of an IFTTT/Yahoo Pipes type of tool for campaigns to manage data flows and triggers between services, something that would be super useful to a lot of campaigns if it really works. Both the Biden and Buttigieg campaigns apparently used their text messaging service at some point, as did some state parties; I'm not sure we know exactly what the Gillibrand campaign was paying them for. But the campaigns weren't paying them for the caucus app; they were paying for other services.
posted by zachlipton at 8:41 PM on February 4, 2020 [13 favorites]


Speaking of which,

@dnvolz: MORE WARNINGS IGNORED: Bob Lord, the DNC’s cybersecurity chief, also directly urged Iowa Dems to drop plans to use the Shadow app, an overture that was ignored, according to people familiar with the matter.
posted by zachlipton at 8:47 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


The matter of What To Do About Bernie and the larger imperative of party unity has, for example, hovered over a series of previously undisclosed Democratic dinners in New York and Washington organized by the longtime party financier Bernard Schwartz. The gatherings have included scores from the moderate or center-left wing of the party, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California; Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader; former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia; Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., himself a presidential candidate; and the president of the Center for American Progress, Neera Tanden.

He didn't come out of nowhere. He's been groomed by the people who don't want to see things fundamentally change.

And they are ruining us.
posted by Gadarene at 8:54 PM on February 4, 2020 [22 favorites]


I would assume that any statements attributed to "people familiar with the matter" are actually coming from "people with a vested interest in blaming the matter on other people" until proven otherwise.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:59 PM on February 4, 2020 [3 favorites]


A few more results have been released, bringing it up to 71%, although it's a little hard to tell what's going on with that website. I clicked on a few counties and the results had changed substantially. Anyway, they still have Buttigieg with a small lead on Sanders, then a big jump down to Warren and Biden, then Klobuchar.
posted by Copronymus at 9:02 PM on February 4, 2020 [1 favorite]


Guardian: More Iowa results released
Joe Biden is facing the risk of not winning any delegates from Iowa. The former vice president needs to remain above 15% to be awarded delegates, and he’s currently flirting with that threshold.
Guardian: "According to the AP, which [has] assigned 24 of the 41 pledged delegates based on the results reported so far [62%], 10 would go to Buttigieg, 10 to Sanders and 4 to Elizabeth Warren."
posted by katra at 9:19 PM on February 4, 2020 [5 favorites]


If only the old man will listen to what the world is telling him. Biden can check out.
posted by valkane at 9:26 PM on February 4, 2020 [4 favorites]


I'm pretty sure Biden is the kinda candidate where the staff is driving the campaign, and the candidate is following behind.
posted by valkane at 9:38 PM on February 4, 2020


The ghost of Edmund Muskie hovers just above Des Moines.
posted by pracowity at 10:06 PM on February 4, 2020 [6 favorites]


That coin toss thing is an absolute joke. Saw a video earlier today of a guy tossing it into his hand, half-catching it in his fist and picking it out, turning it to heads and declaring a Pete delegate. And I thought the UK's election system was bad.
posted by Chaffinch at 12:55 AM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


I saw that same video. I mean, if you’re really making a coin flip part of your electoral process, shouldn’t part of the training for the polling staff be “how to flip a frickin coin”?!
posted by Ghidorah at 2:29 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


We make fun of Trump for tossing it up and letting it land on the ground at that one game, but y'know, there's really no way to grift that.
posted by kafziel at 2:59 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


One interpretation of these results is that the Republican Ukranian extortion campaign to smear Biden worked.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 3:30 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Apparently the app was distributed, at least on Android, using the free tier of a testing platform that is limited to 200 users...

Wow. Just....wow. if you haven't read the Verge article, it's quite a treat. This wasn't just a bug that was missed; it was a constant stream of dumb, cheap, professionally negligent decisions like this:

the app was distributed using the TestFairy platform’s free tier and not its enterprise one. That means Shadow didn’t even pony up for the TestFairy plan that comes with single sign-on authentication, unlimited data retention, and end-to-end encryption. Instead, it looks like the company used the version of TestFairy anyone can try for free, which deletes any app data after 30 days and limits the number of test users that can access the app to 200.
posted by mediareport at 4:36 AM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


This is pretty bad for Biden. He could come out of Iowa with barely any delegates, or even none. Since the basis of his electibality argument is a claim that he can win over white swing voters in the Midwest, a failure to convince even white Democrats in Iowa to vote for him is making his electability claims seem less credible.

The other candidates were hoping to capitalize on this, and still are, but the delay in reporting the results muddles the 'Biden lost badly in Iowa' message the other leading candidates needed voters to hear. Still, if this is followed by another failure in New Hampshire, it could be really bad for him.
posted by nangar at 4:43 AM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


My choice for president among those still viable is Elizabeth Warren. However, I live in terror that the United States will once again select the least qualified man over the most qualified woman. I live in terror of another four years of Trump.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 5:56 AM on February 5, 2020 [23 favorites]


select the least qualified man over the most qualified woman


That’s not an irrational fear. We just saw it happen in Iowa.
posted by darkstar at 6:01 AM on February 5, 2020 [21 favorites]


If Trump's smear campaign against Biden worked then he has accomplished at least one good thing in his time in office.

I disagree with his criminal methods, but the outcome is unquestionably good both for America and the Democratic Party.

Personally I doubt Biden's failure was due to Trump's extorsion of Ukraine. Biden is a miserable failure, pathological liar, and unelectable scumbag all on his own. But if Trump did help bring him down then yay Trump.
posted by sotonohito at 6:26 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


So is that the talking point for today? Biden would have won if not for the evil Trump machinations?
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:31 AM on February 5, 2020


People I've talked to have said that they didn't caucus for Biden because he doesn't seem up to the job. A lot of people blame it on his age, but I think he's always been like that, and people have just forgotten. But he has a weird, creepy vibe, and his behavior is kind of off. He seems to have poor impulse control, and he's weirdly handsy. You have to remember: Iowans get to see these people, and Iowans often don't vote purely on ideology.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:34 AM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


Yeah, living here it was painfully obvious to me that the enthusiasm for Biden was NOWHERE that I could see. And I interact with a wide cross section of people, I think, that is beyond white, middle-class. Though since I am in the capital and surrounding area, I thought maybe I was missing all the rural vote somehow.

But nah, I wasn't.

Oh and it wasn't any Ukraine nonsense. It was just that all the older people were SUPER SUPER SUPER SUPER into Pete. Young people went the other way. Like the Pete love... was... intense.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 6:40 AM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


I doubt that Biden's failure was due to the Ukraine campaign. Biden is out of touch with most Democratic voters. But I don't doubt that it could have hurt him the way that Big Lies always work, maybe knocked off five points, one in twenty.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:45 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


With respect to what the role of the DNC should be and how state parties would react to centralization that would reduce their own autonomy, I'm not sure that needs to be an issue. Right now it seems the state parties tell the DNC how they plan to run their elections, the DNC might make suggestions, and the state parties can ignore them if they like.

One alternative is that the state parties tell the DNC how they plan to run their elections, and the DNC says "okay, now let's make sure your plan, that you picked, is foolproof and tamperproof" with guidelines and schedules the states have to abide by for testing and implementing their plans. Those guidelines are mandatory. Funding required for testing and oversight by professionals is supplied.

I mean, it's an election, it doesn't make any sense to say "we'll leave it up to local committees and volunteers and hopefully they'll do a good job". Centralization doesn't have to mean an absence of local decision-making; it can mean local decision-making with a strong layer of oversight to ensure functionality.

And again, beyond the issue of functionality there's the issue of preventing possible corruption. Which includes issues like who can be hired to do which things and what their financial entanglements are allowed to be. If the DNC shouldn't hold ultimate responsibility for overseeing that, then who should?
posted by trig at 6:51 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


My guess is that Biden's likely moderate/establishment supporters picked Pete as a younger, more energetic alternative who checks a lot of the same boxes. That and if you visualize a Biden/Trump debate and a Pete/Trump debate, it seems super obvious that Pete would do better and be less likely to have old man rage like when Biden called the Iowa voter a liar and yelled at him.
posted by freecellwizard at 6:57 AM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


I'm not trying to be glib and I might in fact be missing something glaringly obvious here but would primaries instead of caucuses, and paper ballots counted by hand over apps/EVMs, be at all more exact and less prone to security breaches and glitches, however much longer they take to count? I'm not a voting expert but it feels sometimes like we sacrificed ballot security and accuracy for speed of results.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:01 AM on February 5, 2020


I have a retired relative who really, really likes Pete because she feels like he's really smart. I also feel like she's actively looking for younger candidates. I think this is a bit underestimated among Democratic boomers - my father is also pretty worried about the age thing, although he likes Bernie but says he's too old to do the job. I think one reason Pete is getting a boost from older voters is that he's young, and older voters have been listening to all that "let's not elect another old person, old people are overrepresented in government" stuff.

As a queer person, I feel really torn ["not like this" gif] because electing a creepy centrist is not my goal for queer politics. At the same time, I mean, I grew up with boomers, and I have to hand it to at least some of them - it's real ethical and political movement to vote for an openly gay candidate like it's no big deal. That is not something that a lot of Pete voters would have done twenty years ago.

And again, on the one hand representation doesn't actually put food on the table and also Pete isn't exactly going to stand up for actually-existing, non-rich, gender non-conforming gay people. But I think about Weimar and the early USSR a lot (maybe not especially deeply, but at least often) and I think about how the limited GLBTQ acceptance of those societies was just totally rolled back and vanished almost without a trace. But I really think that if a lot of retirement-age people are willing to vote for a gay candidate - even a bland, centrist, gender-conforming, etc etc candidate - the likelihood of a total Weimar-style rollback feels like it's gone way, way down.
posted by Frowner at 7:08 AM on February 5, 2020 [33 favorites]


I think one reason Pete is getting a boost from older voters is that he's young, and older voters have been listening to all that "let's not elect another old person, old people are overrepresented in government" stuff.
I think it's that, but I also think that older people have a realistic sense of their own limitations. My parents are extremely active for their age, and my dad is still working, but when I talk to them they're like "there is no way I could do that job at this point in my life." And they're younger than Bernie. I think that "age is just a number" is not as convincing when you're dealing with the reality of aging.
My guess is that Biden's likely moderate/establishment supporters picked Pete as a younger, more energetic alternative who checks a lot of the same boxes.
Yep, I think that's right. Also, Iowans love an Eagle Scout, and Mayor Pete has that vibe. (Was he an Eagle Scout? He must have been an Eagle Scout.) I think that Klobuchar could have been that person, but people are worried about sexism/ are sexist, plus I don't think she's ever going to recover from that story about eating salad with a comb. I don't know why none of the other endless parade of white guys have taken off, but poor Michael Bennet is not getting any traction.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:11 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Was he an Eagle Scout?

He was an actual eagle.
posted by pracowity at 7:18 AM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


If we want this to be a Sanders/Buttigieg race rather than a Sanders/Biden race I'm in for that. Let's just get it down to 2 people pre-Super Tuesday so that we dont have a brokered convention.
posted by Justinian at 7:19 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


If we want this to be a Sanders/Buttigieg race rather than a Sanders/Biden race I'm in for that. Let's just get it down to 2 people pre-Super Tuesday so that we dont have a brokered convention.

This suggestion makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs. Warren is not, and should not be, going anywhere, and she is manifestly the best candidate who would make the best president by a significant margin. If she drops out, we are fucked for years, because Sanders does not have the executive temperament to usher in the fundamental structural change that is needed and Buttigieg doesn't have a soul.

Can we not start positioning it like Sanders and Buttigieg being the last two standing would be not only a good outcome but something we should be hoping happens sooner rather than later?
posted by Gadarene at 7:28 AM on February 5, 2020 [64 favorites]


I will spoil something for everyone. It's not actually that hard to become an eagle scout. I mean if I can do it as a callow youth, the bar is low.

But society does seem to appreciate it.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 7:28 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


Was he an Eagle Scout?

It's not in his Wikipedia bio, which tells me that there is approximately a 0% chance that he was.
posted by Etrigan at 7:31 AM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


Aya Hirano, France uses only paper ballots in their elections. When the polls close, the election workers open the ballot boxes, dump out the ballots, count out the first 100 ballots and call the media with the preliminary results. Then they keep going till they've counted all the ballots they have the final results. It's extremely secure, and the preliminary results are usually available within 20 minutes or so after the polls close and are very accurate, within 1% or so. French ballots are also designed to be easy to count and unambiguous, though the design uses more paper.

So, yeah, there are better ways to do this, and low-tech doesn't doesn't have to be slow.
posted by nangar at 7:41 AM on February 5, 2020 [23 favorites]


The Iowa caucus smartphone app disaster, explained (Sara Morrison, recode/Vox)
It’s unclear so far why the phone center had so much trouble responding to the calls. Some precinct chairs even tried taking photos of their results and hand-delivering them to Iowa Democratic Party headquarters in Des Moines, and even then they weren’t able to get through to party officials.
Hand delivering?
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:47 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


> Warren is not, and should not be, going anywhere, and she is manifestly the best candidate who would make the best president by a significant margin. If she drops out, we are fucked for years, because Sanders does not have the executive temperament to usher in the fundamental structural change that is needed

as i was walking along the beach with thomas pynchon, renowned author of gravity's rainbow, across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life. for each scene, i noticed two sets of footprints in the sand, one belonging to me and one to thomas pynchon. i noticed that at many times along the path of my life, especially at the very lowest and saddest times, there was only one set of footprints. i asked thomas pynchon about it. "thomas pynchon, you said once i decided to read your critically acclaimed but famously difficult novels, you'd walk with me all the way. but i noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life, there was only one set of footprints. i don't understand why, when i needed you the most, you would leave me."

and it was then that thomas pynchon told me: when you saw only one set of footprints... it was then that warren and sanders supporters were talking shit about each others' candidates on the Internet. and look i wanted to hang out with you on the beach more often but i absolutely will not stand by when supporters of one of the two best candidates pretend that the other best candidate is bad. i will not abide it.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:56 AM on February 5, 2020 [64 favorites]


So, if there’s anything good to come from the Iowa Caucus and also the strongest defense for why they in fact important, I think Biden’s weak showing is exhibit “A”.

IMO, Biden wasn’t harmed by the Ukraine allegations — almost all caucus goers recognized it was a bullshit smear campaign. Rather, I think Biden was harmed by his inability to understand that Trump isn’t an aberration to how the GOP normally operates but rather the natural product of 50 years of increasingly anti-democratic attitudes and policy choices in the pursuit of power.

I’m really having a hard time explaining Buttigieg’s finish, though. His messaging strikes me as cynical and lacking in actual substance. Like, sure, I believe he is left-of-center but I don’t get a sense of an animating principle to his campaign other than raw ambition.

In that respect, he reminds me of Bill Clinton, who famously tried to “triangulate” his policies so they were maximally acceptable to the public. Which, yes, made him a very effective president but I think also led to some decisions that led to incredibly poor outcomes (3 strikes, welfare reform, a focus on “reducing” government) in the long term.

This has to do with - I think - the fact that Buttigieg and Clinton are/were products of the current system. They’ve been rewarded by its inequities and are therefore blind to how those structures that rewarded them harm others. When Buttigieg is triangulating what position to take, I honestly think he is incapable of questioning the fundamental premises upon which he makes a decision and, therefore, triangulates based on the wrong accepted conditions.

Anecdotally, the people I know who were caucusing for Buttigieg are all well educated academic and medical professionals. There is probably a lot of affinity to his story and similar biases that made him attractive.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:00 AM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


but we were just about to convince someone this time!
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:01 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


and it was then that thomas pynchon told me: when you saw only one set of footprints... it was then that warren and sanders supporters were talking shit about each others' candidates on the Internet. and look i wanted to hang out with you on the beach more often but i absolutely will not stand by when supporters of one of the two best candidates pretend that the other best candidate is bad. i will not abide it.

I don't think he's bad; he's by far my next-most preferred candidate after Warren now that Castro and Inslee are out.

I just don't think he'll be a very effective president in terms of management style, persuading the persuadable, and getting shit done.
posted by Gadarene at 8:04 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Saying we would be fucked for years sounds like you do think he's bad to me. Just a note for next time when calibrating the old hyperbole meter.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:07 AM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


I think it's that, but I also think that older people have a realistic sense of their own limitations. My parents are extremely active for their age, and my dad is still working, but when I talk to them they're like "there is no way I could do that job at this point in my life." And they're younger than Bernie. I think that "age is just a number" is not as convincing when you're dealing with the reality of aging.

I'm only 55 but am already feeling my limitations and I agree with your parents. There's no way that I'm comfortable with a president in their late 70s and am even a little queasy about Warren's age. I'm not happy about Mayor Pete for a raft of reasons but I wish we had more choices left of candidates in their prime.
posted by octothorpe at 8:17 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


It's hard for me to imagine either Sanders or Warren getting any big legislation done without 60 seats in the Senate, so it'd be mostly about how well they'd appoint judges (I see no reason to favor either), run the administrative state (Warren seems more pragmatic, I'd lean toward her on this, but maybe that's a bias), and conduct foreign policy (I don't really have a solid feel for this but again my potentially biased view is that Warren is a less volatile person, and more inclined to accommodate nuance). So that sounds like mostly a wash . . . Unless Sanders supporters who feel like he can create a wave election are right (which I doubt, but I'd also admit I find it even less likely that Warren could do that). At this point I'm almost inclined to hope Sanders gets the nomination just so we can see whether or not his supporters were right that he's part of a movement, otherwise they'll be bitter about it for decades. If he gets the nom, I think I'm just going to just live with equal amounts of hope and fear for what his administration can be.
posted by skewed at 8:18 AM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


For what it's worth, I don't think any Democrat who made it to the presidency would get much done. Well unless they are Biden or Buttigeig, in which case they will be serving up a Republican agenda anyway.

I think this election is about jerking the reins of the nation hard to the left and making the case that, yes, a government should have more functions than handing money to international businesses and military contractors. And those functions should benefit everyone.
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:20 AM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


Saying we would be fucked for years sounds like you do think he's bad to me. Just a note for next time when calibrating the old hyperbole meter.

Honestly, we'll be fucked for years even if Warren somehow becomes president. Things are too far gone and the present power structure too entrenched and insulated, the populace too epistemically shuttered, for radical change really to be a possibility in this country.

But the degree of fuckage with President Warren would, I believe, be smaller than the degree of fuckage with President Sanders...even if the degree of fuckage with President Sanders would be far less in turn than with President Buttigieg or than with (obviously) a second term of the current nightmare.

I think Warren and Sanders both identify many fundamental structural problems with American capitalism, the wealth gap, and corrupt influences in Washington. I think Warren would be better at addressing those problems. I think she still probably would largely fail, because there are too many people with hands at the levers of power whose livelihoods or psyches depend upon those problems proliferating, but I think she has a better shot. And I need to have some measure of hope, so that's where it goes.

Sanders would not actively make the situation worse. If and when Warren does drop out, he would have my full and unwavering support. But I think she'd make a better president.
posted by Gadarene at 8:25 AM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


please everyone knock it off there’s a guy on a beach who needs me
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:25 AM on February 5, 2020 [21 favorites]


As much as we talk about the presidency, the Senate is what matters. A Democratic president with a Democratic Senate can pull the country left. Trump with a Democratic Senate will either learn restraint (ha!) or be removed from office.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:27 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Oh, and Sanders doesn't support eliminating the filibuster, so that right there makes him a far less attractive choice to me, given the structural fuckery of the Senate and the bad faith evil of Republicans.
posted by Gadarene at 8:27 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Many republicans support eliminating the filibuster as well; it's a double-edged sword without a definitive "this is the correct answer to fixing the senate". It's not a thing that is automatically good or bad.
posted by windbox at 8:34 AM on February 5, 2020


That said the definitive correct answer to fixing the senate is just abolishing the fucking senate
posted by windbox at 8:35 AM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


Oh, and Sanders doesn't support eliminating the filibuster, so that right there makes him a far less attractive choice to me, given the structural fuckery of the Senate and the bad faith evil of Republicans.

Seriously? This is the thing that bothers me post-April 15th, 2016. Bernie doesn't even have the support of his "own" "party" after giving it the giant middle finger but he thinks he can command the respect and attention of 10 Republicans on top?

If Trump is delusional about how he's helped poor people, Bernie is just as delusional about how he's going to help poor people.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:40 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


That said the definitive correct answer to fixing the senate is just abolishing the fucking senate

If the Senate had been set as one senator per 350,000 people with a minimum of two instead of two per state we wouldn't be in this fuckery. The union could have grown into full representation. I know hindsight is 20/20 but I blame Hamilton.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:43 AM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


Many republicans support eliminating the filibuster as well; it's a double-edged sword without a definitive "this is the correct answer to fixing the senate". It's not a thing that is automatically good or bad.

Strongly disagree. There is no plausible path in the foreseeable future for a filibuster-proof Democratic majority in the Senate. It will literally be impossible to achieve anything substantively legislatively in terms of advancing progressive goals with the filibuster in place...and substantive progressive legislation is crucial during this time of national crisis on so many fronts, because the courts are lost and the executive and the administrative state can't do it all unilaterally. Sanders's reconciliation "solution" is not sufficient.

Would the elimination of the filibuster help Republicans also in certain conceivable scenarios? Sure. But they're helped right now. The status quo causes, and will continue to cause, unnecessary suffering and hardship for millions upon millions. Removing the filibuster is one of the only straightforward avenues towards trying to change it.
posted by Gadarene at 8:45 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


The Senate cannot be abolished. It is literally the only thing in the Constitution that cannot be changed.

We'd have to chuck out the Constitution and start again. Which no doubt many people here would be ok with but if you think amending the Constitution is hard just wait until you try replacing it!
posted by Justinian at 8:45 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


note for pedants: it could be changed to either more, but still equal, Senators per state (which doesn't help at all) or with unanimous consent of the states to abolish it which is equivalent to replacing the Constitution.
posted by Justinian at 8:47 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Man, I feel like a broken record, repeating the same things from 2016. I like Bernie. I want him in the Senate. I don't understand his presidential ambitions. No fucking way he'll ever get elected. I just. Don't. Fucking. Get it. Nothing about him adds up.
There were a lot of good candidates, here, this time. Regardless who's left, I do know that I see one candidate I believe in, at this point. It sure as hell isn't Mayo Pete.
We're left with a bleak field, from a bunch of people who looked really good. Biden needs to drop out ASAP. Go out and raise hell about the curruption at home, and support the candidate. This is like a distilled version of 1988.
So.
Despite concerns about age, of which I have a few, there's only one candidate who's got a chance of doing something good, and not just acting as a bandage. Tear some shit up. It'll hurt some. But in the long run, it'll be worth it.
posted by rp at 8:50 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think Pete has support because he is young, white and very bland as a return to "normalcy" and "civility". He makes people feel good and not have to confront anything ever again. His messaging is on point for this.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:53 AM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


note for pedants: it could be changed to either more, but still equal, Senators per state (which doesn't help at all) or with unanimous consent of the states to abolish it which is equivalent to replacing the Constitution.

I know history doesn't repeat but it does rhyme. The Spartans had a Gerousia who spent the latter half of their empire saying no to any sort of social advancement similar to today's GOP's idea of governance basically being against whatever liberals are in favor of. Sparta ended up a withered husk of itself as the wealth became ever more concentrated in the hands of the elite that held all of the political power. Eventually it was just sacked and conquered.

No state has survived if they didn't address wealth concentration. Not one. We're going to have to do something.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:53 AM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


windbox: "That said the definitive correct answer to fixing the senate is just abolishing the fucking senate"

Unfortunately, that would have to be approved by the very states that would lose their disproportionate power. There's no way that the small population states are going to approve an amendment for that.
posted by octothorpe at 8:54 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


*bangs gavel*

This thread is now for discussing how many states to make Texas and California.

Let us never speak ill of how incompetent Iowa democratic leadership is again. We did our best, okay? And our best is... not good! But hey, we're all heart and we're going to win regionals then go to state and try our best there too.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 8:56 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Meanwhile respected Democratic thinker and influencer James Carville is very concerned that Sanders or Warren might win.
posted by sotonohito at 8:56 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Make DC and PR states and boom, you've got four more senate seats that will never vote Republican.
posted by octothorpe at 8:58 AM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


We absolutely should throw the Constitution out and start completely over, it's badly designed and leads to exactly the sorts of long-term structural problems that can be papered over with "bipartisanship" but once you get any sort of polarization the entire thing collapses, as is slowly happening now. Can't wait until we get to the "all at once" part.
posted by Automocar at 8:59 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Make DC and PR states and boom, you've got four more senate seats that will never vote Republican.

This should genuinely happen asap. It won't, but it should.
posted by Gadarene at 9:01 AM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


If either Bernie or Warren actually manage to get elected it will only be because of mandate level movement of Americans voting for sweeping change. I think Bernie is more likely to keep his word to make those changes but either way the level of work required to keep either of them from backsliding into inertia will be heroic and involve every activist and twitter loudmouth yelling at them from dawn til dusk for 4-8 years so we don’t end up in another obama jetski party film.

At some point, whichever one of them is behind should drop out. That point is not now. But it is coming. And the conversation will not be pretty. But let’s try to remember that it could, as of this moment, have occurred either way, and let’s give eachother grace as best we can.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:07 AM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Oh, and Sanders doesn't support eliminating the filibuster, so that right there makes him a far less attractive choice to me, given the structural fuckery of the Senate and the bad faith evil of Republicans.

His position on this point is that whether or not there is a filibuster, the Vice President can overrule the Senate parliamentarian once there are 50 votes for a bill. The functional difference between that and formally eliminating the filibuster is pretty close to zero.
posted by Copronymus at 9:09 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


We absolutely should throw the Constitution out and start completely over, it's badly designed and leads to exactly the sorts of long-term structural problems that can be papered over with "bipartisanship" but once you get any sort of polarization the entire thing collapses, as is slowly happening now. Can't wait until we get to the "all at once" part.

Exactly. Two party system at work. If the US was MMP in its representation instead of FPTP the country would look completely different. Parties would be forced to do more wheeling and dealing in terms of each individual issue rather than having a straight binary choice and being forced to go along with that side's stance on said choice.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:14 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Take drugs for instance. If we had MMP we'd have the left in favor of weed legalization and the right wouldn't be unified. The authoritarian right would be howling no, the moderate right would be ambivalent, and the libertarians would be crossing the floor to vote with the left.

Today? The right is entirely beholden to who's driving the car, in this case, the authoritarian right.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:19 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


What's interesting about the U.S. Constitution is that is was designed with an absence of political parties in mind. I don't blame them, exactly... political science didn't really exist in the 18th Century. But you're going to get parties in any form of representative democracy, and the only way the American system has worked is by a high degree of interparty consensus. When that has broken down, we've gotten a lot of bad stuff happening, because there's literally no way to relieve the tension within the framework of the document. This is why there have been military coups in like every other country with a constitution based on the U.S. one.
posted by Automocar at 9:19 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


His position on this point is that whether or not there is a filibuster, the Vice President can overrule the Senate parliamentarian once there are 50 votes for a bill. The functional difference between that and formally eliminating the filibuster is pretty close to zero.

My understanding is that this -- there being virtually no functional difference between the approaches -- is untrue. Here is one take on why. Here is another.
posted by Gadarene at 9:22 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


My understanding is that this -- there being virtually no functional difference between the approaches -- is untrue. Here is one take on why. Here is another.

The Vice President has pretty broad powers in the area of Senate procedure, and there's nothing that says this has to be limited to budget reconciliation. Nelson Rockefeller tried to break a filibuster in the 70s by just refusing to recognize the senators who were filibustering and moving on to the vote, and other Senators admitted that he had the power to do that, even as they were outraged. In the end, I don't think anyone, in the Senate or outside of it, has a definitive grasp of the combination of obscure rules and unwritten norms that might apply here, so it's really a matter of what people in the Senate will accept as true and what the people who have to implement the results of a vote will accept as valid. Getting 50 Senators to commit to ending the filibuster is one way to do that. Installing a Vice President who will commit to enacting your policy program via enforcement of their procedural powers may well be another. Which is more realistic is up for debate.
posted by Copronymus at 9:43 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


At some point, whichever one of them is behind should drop out. That point is not now. But it is coming. And the conversation will not be pretty. But let’s try to remember that it could, as of this moment, have occurred either way, and let’s give eachother grace as best we can.

This is something I've thought a bit about... maybe too much. I'm probably getting out ahead of my skis.

Warren is in the weaker position, and so I think she'll drop out first. Warren has been very clear that she believes the party must be united. This makes me believe that when she does drop out, she will not endorse anyone until they've already secured the party nomination. The time between Warren dropping out and the convention will be a vulnerable time, because bots will have a ready-made conflict to amplify: Warren's followers will trust that she will use her endorsement as a vehicle for building party unity, while it seems likely that some others will believe her failure to endorse Sanders immediately upon dropping out means that she was never a true progressive.

There is a sense in which this is not terribly consequential, because at that point Warren won't be a candidate anymore, but that doesn't mean that people won't care, any more than people stopped caring about 2016. And so it will be another vehicle for generating intra-party conflict.

While I try to avoid mind-reading and overconfident predictions, I do feel unusually confident that this is how things will turn out. And I hope that we can be patient with one another if/when it does.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:45 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I was inspired and confused by the distribution of the votes in Iowa (at least as reported on the Today show this morning). Sanders and Warren, the two more progressive candidates, had a higher combined percentage than the two more centrist candidates combined (Buttigieg and Biden), but Buttigieg came in first.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:51 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Buttigieg came in first in SDEs because of Iowa's mini electoral college like system where rural people count more than urban people. (Places with higher turnout also get more SDEs AFAIK but those two things are correlated). All Iowans are equal but some Iowans are more equal than others.
posted by Justinian at 10:17 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


At some point, whichever one of them is behind should drop out. That point is not now

This sentiment, paired with the multiple threads in the Sanders subreddit full of people declaring themselves Bernie or bust because he’s been “cheated again” and getting upvoted for doing it, makes me want to gauge my eyes out same as above. Especially with the conspiracy encouragement coming from Jeff Weaver.

Like that is...literally an abusive relationship dynamic. So very serious posts that pretend these are equivalent options are one of the reasons I have to mostly check out for my mental health.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:19 AM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


It's become quite obvious that Sanders could literally be accepting the nomination at the convention and if the balloon drop is delayed 7 seconds by a mechanical malfunction it will be seen as a conspiracy to rig the election against Bernie.
posted by Justinian at 10:23 AM on February 5, 2020 [26 favorites]


Last time around Bernie got about 60% of the vote in New Hampshire. This time he’s projected for somewhere in the 30’s, which is still enough to win the primary, but nowhere near enough to win the nomination.

Nobody is running away with this until somebody’s pulling up numbers over 50%. If you can rack up delegates in the meantime, you should definitely keep running.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:32 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


When there was a huge amount of support for Bernie during the 2016 primary that evaporated and did not move to Hillary it was easy to believe, well, they supported a progressive candidate and don't see her as one, and unfortunately maybe some of those Bernie-or-Bust-ers didn't realize how close the race was going to be with Trump and how badly their enthusiasm and efforts and votes were still needed.

I have been wondering a lot recently if Bernie's supporters will move to Liz if she wins the nomination this time around. Or even if she and Pete become the front-runners in a close primary. There can not possibly be enough policy difference between them to justify a mass abandonment by his supporters this time, right?
posted by jermsplan at 10:48 AM on February 5, 2020


I've already seen the "Warren used to be a republican" meme on my leftist social media, so I'm... skeptical :/
posted by nakedmolerats at 10:53 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


I have been wondering a lot recently if Bernie's supporters will move to Liz if she wins the nomination this time around. Or even if she and Pete become the front-runners in a close primary. There can not possibly be enough policy difference between them to justify a mass abandonment by his supporters this time, right?

You would hope! But, for example, one of the hosts of Chapo Trap House just tweeted this today:

"I won’t vote for anyone but Bernie in the general, can’t say what the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to my show will do, but I’m only speaking for myself. Just something to consider."
posted by Roommate at 10:59 AM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Yeah, that sounds like something the Chapo fucks would say.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:04 AM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


It's obviously not a joke at all, come the fuck on.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:11 AM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


‘Vote for my guy or the country gets fascism’ is a good distillation of why many folks have issues with Sandersdom.
posted by chris24 at 11:12 AM on February 5, 2020 [22 favorites]


I think it's great to vote as progressive as possible in the primaries. Even if the progressive candidate doesn't get the nomination it can pull the eventual nominee to the left on some positions.

In the general, though, the Democratic nominee is going to have policies that are closer to progressive than the Republican nominee will be. Even if you think of them as the lesser of two evils, they're still slightly less evil.

In 2016 Hillary Clinton ran on the most progressive platform in the history of the Democratic Party thanks to Bernie Sanders pressure/influence. Progressives should've voted for Clinton. Many of them didn't.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:13 AM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


“Do what I want or I’m leaving you to get killed by the other guy” is...if you don’t see how that’s an abusive dynamic, I don’t think I can help you

then it would be bizarre to cite it as a reason not to vote for Sanders

I see
posted by schadenfrau at 11:13 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


If there's one thing the output of American action media (especially in the 80's) has emphasized, it's that when someone's taken hostages & is using the threat of harming them to exert their will the only ethical response is to
SHOOT THE HOSTAGE
posted by CrystalDave at 11:14 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


This is like...all of Biden's campaign

There is an obvious difference between arguing you’re the best person to beat Trump and saying if you don’t vote for my guy, I’m taking my ball and going home.
posted by chris24 at 11:15 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


This is like...all of Biden's campaign

Yeah, which is the whole fucking beef I have with the Chapo crowd. They act like their shit doesn't stink. No, it's a bad fucking look and shitty fucking politics no matter who you are.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:15 AM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


He’s not joking. His show is not funny, at all, unless you’re 100% on board with their content and strategy. Chapo Trap House, more than any other single thing, has really shot my “Bernie or Bust” radar into overdrive and has soured me on the more aggressive elements of the Bernie coalition.
posted by macrowave at 11:16 AM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


I have been wondering a lot recently if Bernie's supporters will move to Liz if she wins the nomination this time around.

Liz will not win the nomination so Bernie's supporters will likely not be facing that decision. I'm not saying that because I don't like her, I do think she's fantastic so don't take this as some kind of Warren vitriol. And I sure as hell am not some kind of super-predictor as I would never have predicted Pete performing so well in Iowa. So please skip if you don't care to see some dipshit on the internet do some armchair game theorizing and pure speculation

All that said: I'd be willing to bet good money on the fact that Warren isn't going to win a single one of the first four primary states. The funds are drying up, she's already cancelling ad buys in NV and SC and in a few weeks may need to make a decision about whether to drop out before super Tuesday, especially if the consecutive primary L's hit her polling in MA hard enough to lessen her chances of a lock-in win there. She has a senate re-election in 2021 and I don't think she'd risk losing her own home state if the risk looked big enough.

Sanders ain't a shoe-in by any means but I think as far as the two progressive candidates go he stands a larger chance right now of at least staying competitive in these early contests, maybe even winning a couple, and gaining a unified progressive coalition to start slaying centrists. He also stands to activate a sizeable portion of the 100+ million people who do not normally vote, as he polls the best among non-voter demographics (younger, non-white, working class, less educated) out of any of the candidates.

So if anyone hates Pete and Joe and wants to see them lose, I'm not saying everyone HAS TO line up with Bernie and unify right the fuck now or anything but just like, I don't know, maybe start preparing yourself emotionally for the prospect of it? For soon we might all be bernie bros, bernie bros united against Trump.
posted by windbox at 11:16 AM on February 5, 2020 [15 favorites]


I wonder if we could call up Musk to see about clean energy derived from anti-progressive salt? I have a feeling it could be very productive every couple years from now on.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:17 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


He’s not fucking joking. He’s expressing a fairly common opinion among Bernie supporters.

And again, Biden saying he’s the best candidate to beat Trump is worlds away from saying you better vote Bernie or I’ll sit on the sidelines and won’t help defeat Trump.
posted by chris24 at 11:17 AM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Therapist: Bernie Bro isn't real, he can't hurt you.

Bernie Bro: "I won’t vote for anyone but Bernie in the general, can’t say what the hundreds of thousands of people who listen to my show will do, but I’m only speaking for myself. Just something to consider."
posted by tobascodagama at 11:19 AM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Eric Levitz, New York: The Iowa Caucus Results Suggest We’re in for a Long, Strange Primary
As for Sanders himself, his showing in Iowa looks good, if not quite great. The senator’s lead in the popular vote narrowed over Buttigieg after realignment, which spotlights his campaign’s main challenge: While the size and vitality of his core-supporter base is unrivaled, Sanders remains a relatively unpopular second choice among the backers of every other candidate save Warren. Meanwhile, the ostensible failure of his campaign to drastically increase voter turnout or mobilize an exceptionally high number of first-time caucusgoers does not bode well for his prospects of remaking the electorate in other states. In Iowa, Sanders’s team had months to concentrate its resources on a limited playing field. It reportedly knocked on over 100,000 doors. If this was insufficient to significantly increase turnout among disaffected anti-Establishment voters, it’s hard to see the campaign achieving such turnout when it needs to spread its cash and staff more thinly across the country.

But Buttigieg’s strong showing and Biden’s weak one go a way toward mitigating these challenges. The more crowded the field remains, the higher the probability that Sanders’s high floor of support will be sufficient to win the primary. If current polling holds up, the Vermont senator is poised for a comfortable win in New Hampshire with competitive showings in Nevada and South Carolina. If his campaign can persuade Warren supporters to rally behind the front-running progressive — and thus bump his floor of support up to 30 percent instead of 20 — he should be in contention for a long time to come.
Scott Lemieux, LGM: The Post-Iowa State of the Race
I think this is right. On the one hand, Iowa cuts strongly against the always implausible theory that Sanders can just mobilize a large number of nonvoters who are alienated from the process because mainstream politicians aren’t offering policies that are left-wing enough. There’s never been any evidence that a significant such block of voters exists. Bernie is going to need the votes of a significant votes of normie Democrats to win the nomination and the vast majority of them to win a general election. A lot of members of the Bernie Extended Cinematic Universe don’t seem to understand this — and indeed the “non-voters in West Virginia want MOAR SOCIALISM fantasy” seems primarily a way of squaring the “how can we win the Democratic nomination without working with those icky shitlibs” circle — and it’s unclear how much this thinking exists in the Sanders campaign itself. As Levitz says, the fact that he’s alienated a lot of ’16 Hillary voters makes him vulnerable to a theoretical moderate unity candidate.

Having said that, Bernie also seems pretty clearly to be the favorite right now. Biden’s collapse in the Iowa polls does nothing to dissuade me from my conviction that he’s unusually weak for a nominal frontrunner, and his case is so tied to perceptions of electability he can’t afford many more underwhelming performances.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:20 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I wonder if we could call up Musk to see about clean energy derived from anti-progressive salt?

Who the ever loving FUCK is anti-progressive here?
posted by tobascodagama at 11:21 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I will say that going to the reddit page for any candidate you don't support is likely to be unpleasant.

I support Bernie, and Bernie subreddits are unpleasant. So much purity test nonsense filled with outrage clickbait that has the same effect as active measures, whether or not it actually is. The subreddits remind me more than anything of the Tea Party with a different underlying ethos - certainly a morally superior ethos, but on top of that is all anger and paranoia about impure allies, or karma farming off of that impulse. And it bleeds outside of Sanders subreddits into r/politics. The Reddit and Twitter bubble is not the full picture of Sanders' base of support but it's influential and importantly it feeds directly into media horse race bullshit, and makes it really hard to comfortably be a supporter.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:21 AM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


if you are under the impression that Bernie's base is just entirely rude people on twitter and podcast hosts threatening not to vote you need to consider logging off, this is brain poisoning
posted by windbox at 11:21 AM on February 5, 2020 [28 favorites]


If only primary season could have started around now like it would in a remotely sane system, Castro/Booker/Harris/Gillibrand would still have money, Warren wouldn't be running out of it, and we'd all be so much better off.

It's so hard not to feel despair about the state of the country.
posted by Gadarene at 11:24 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


Nobody says that's his entire base. People are just pointing out --accurately -- that those guys are in his base and Bernie wants them there. Which shows a severe failing of judgment, or at best a really shitty opportunism. See also: Joe Rogan.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:24 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


if you are under the impression that Bernie's base is just entirely rude people on twitter and podcast hosts threatening not to vote you need to consider logging off, this is brain poisoning

Of course it’s not, but Sandersdom is also not devoid of a not insignificant minority of Bros and horseshoe theory assholes that a lot of Sanders folks like to pretend or assert don’t exist.
posted by chris24 at 11:24 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Motes and fucking planks, I swear to fucking god.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:25 AM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Except Will Menaker isn't some random douchebro on Reddit -- he's a major figure in the Sandersphere who not only reflects the sentiment of the Extremely Online activist base, but is in a position to influence that sentiment with a single tweet. The stuff that happens online doesn't exist in a vacuum -- it percolates into the volunteer base, and then into the more persuadable members of the coalition who may never see the tweet but will hear their coworker or someone knocking on their door saying the same shit.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:25 AM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


The funds are drying up, she's already cancelling ad buys in NV and SC and in a few weeks may need to make a decision about whether to drop out before super Tuesday

New Hampshire is less than a week away. Super Tuesday is less than 4 weeks away. Why on earth would a candidate run for a whole year only to drop out after like 3 weeks of actual voting?

Also Warren isn’t up again until 2024.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:28 AM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


if you are under the impression that Bernie's base is just entirely rude people on twitter and podcast hosts threatening not to vote you need to consider logging off, this is brain poisoning

As a part of Bernie's base I think it's a big mistake to give the loud dickheads among us a free pass to paint the rest of us in their image, it's kind of on the rest of us to call them out instead of getting upset that everyone on the outside is turned off by shitty behavior done in our name that we just let slide.

It's the fucking missing stair problem, it's immoral to just accept it when you're aware of it.
posted by jason_steakums at 11:30 AM on February 5, 2020 [44 favorites]


Ah, the Sanders-supporters-are-nazis strategy from 2016. Like slipping into a comfortable old pair of pants. I wonder where the 30% of non-white voters supporting him fall into it.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:31 AM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


CrystalDave: "If there's one thing the output of American action media (especially in the 80's) has emphasized, it's that when someone's taken hostages & is using the threat of harming them to exert their will the only ethical response is to
SHOOT THE HOSTAGE
"

Okay, but what does that mean in this situation? Non "Bernie or Die" people are the hostage? American democracy is the hostage? What? And what does shooting it mean?

[Also, that line is from Speed, which was released in 1994]
posted by Chrysostom at 11:31 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


It's the fucking missing stair problem, it's immoral to just accept it when you're aware of it.

No, see, missing stairs are fine if the stair is our guy, and only a class traitor would bring it up.
posted by tobascodagama at 11:33 AM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


Every presidential election, leftists are told they have to hold their noses and vote for the moderate candidate the party has selected, because the alternative is a reactionary republican. Now that a leftist is the leading nominee, Menaker is having fun twisting this dynamic to the left's benefit. I can't imagine being that mad about this.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:44 AM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


NYT:
Candidate Total S.D.E.s* Pct. Pledged delegates
Pete Buttigieg 442 26.9% 11
Bernie Sanders 414 25.2 11
Elizabeth Warren 299 18.2 5
Joseph R. Biden Jr. 257 15.6 0
Amy Klobuchar 206 12.5 0

75% reporting (1,320 of 1,765 precincts)

*Candidate totals are state delegate equivalents, which are derived from caucus vote tallies and determine the number of pledged delegates each candidate receives.
posted by katra at 11:48 AM on February 5, 2020


[Warren is] already cancelling ad buys in NV and SC

Do you have a source for this?
posted by mediareport at 11:49 AM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Surely this has been posted in this thread already..? At any rate, the question of how many of a particular candidates' supporters will then go on to support another nominee has been asked and answered.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:49 AM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I've been watching people say for the past three years they'll vote for anyone except Sanders. "I won't vote for another white man", blatantly erasing his jewishness. Is that not the same?
posted by kafziel at 11:51 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Mod note: Y'all please remember that the electoral system is not going to be solved if we have just the right kind of fight in here, and redirect this stuff-is-complicated-and-shitty energy into something other than this thread. We need to bring it down a couple notches in here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:53 AM on February 5, 2020 [15 favorites]


I had to shout at my dad, who hopes for Biden/Harris, for an hour over breakfast this weekend to get him agree to vote for whomever the Democratic candidate is. I don't feel I should have to do the same with my Ride or Die Sanders supporting brother in law.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:53 AM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


Who said he had to denounce and apologize. People were saying that hopefully Sanderites would support a nominee with much of the same views and someone posted the tweet as an unfortunate counter example.
posted by chris24 at 11:59 AM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


what does that mean in this situation? Non "Bernie or Die" people are the hostage? American democracy is the hostage? What? And what does shooting it mean?
Admittedly I'm not entirely sure, there's a lot of this behavior going on on all sides.

You have the above Chapo "If my candidate isn't the candidate I prefer Trump" statement (which, given his past statements supporting sexual assault among other things, means it doesn't sound like any sort of joke to me)

You have the Biden-style "I'm the unity candidate, so if you don't support me you're supporting Trump" statements

You have, as has been astutely pointed out many times, a long history of the DNC leaning on "what, are you going to vote for the Republican?" and then running as far-right of a candidate as they think they can get away with

At this point it seems like everybody sees this as a no-cost action with the bonus of being ready in the hot seat if things fall apart because "I told them if they didn't line up behind me we'd get Trump", and there's no Solomon's Baby style "Whoever cares most about things not falling further apart wins because they're most willing to give up Their Way" outcome here.

And there's room to try parsing out the subtle differences (As seen above, endless layers of "they did it to us, so it's alright that I do it to them", "one or none" vs. "anybody but this one person, please", etc), and I really have no room to advocate people who have been materially harmed by various candidates vote for them anyhow,

but I'm tired of this being the only outcome/question, and I'm tired of "We would have won if you had just followed me, so I'm blameless in this outcome".
posted by CrystalDave at 11:59 AM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Biden saying he’s the best candidate to beat Trump is worlds away from saying you better vote Bernie or I’ll sit on the sidelines and won’t help defeat Trump.

A higher percentage of 2016 Sanders primary voters (74%) voted for Clinton in the general election than 2008 Clinton primary voters voted for Obama (70%); also, a higher percentage of 2008 Clinton voters voted for McCain (25%) than 2016 Sanders voters voted for Trump (13%, which is the same percentage as 2012 Obama voters who voted for Trump in 2016). It's super frustrating to keep hearing the same tired and stupid arguments. But hey, if that's the best use of your energy, go ahead.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:00 PM on February 5, 2020 [27 favorites]


If we could maybe pivot briefly back to the topic of this thread, what the fuck is happening that it's now Wednesday afternoon and we're still only at 75% of the Iowa results? We've learned a lot about the Shadow debacle, but that should have at worst delayed things overnight till they got all the paper.

Why has nobody from either the IDP or DNC explained in any detail why they still haven't released all the results, or what the timeline for the rest is? They need to explain exactly what happened, what measures have been and are being taken to get a complete count, why they've taken so long, and what the timeline is for completion. The lack of transparency deepens the cloud over the whole system, and makes it easier and easier to believe that the party is putting its finger on the scales.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 12:01 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


2008 isn’t 2016 or 2020, and McCain isn’t Trump, and we have polling that shows Biden and Warren supporters will support the nominee in much higher numbers than Sanders’.
posted by chris24 at 12:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I say this without taking a position on it, but many of the Bernie-or-bust voters wouldn't have voted for the Democratic candidate anyway. They aren't lost or misled Democrats; they're people who would not have voted at all or would have voted third party because they don't think that the Democrats, as a party, meaningfully improve on the Republicans. I think that metafilter, which skews liberal, is not always familiar with such activist left as there is in the US - many people don't vote in national elections, for reasons which are not in fact totally easy to dismiss. Many of those people see a possibility of transformative change through Sanders and they're voting this time.

I don't think that most serious devotees of Chapo Trap House would be out door-knocking for BlueNoMatterWho if only they hadn't been misled by a podcast.

I cannot stress enough that the best way to win the presidency is not in fact to worry about the very small percentage of the left who don't vote on principle but to activate the much larger number of people who don't vote because they feel unheard, feel uninformed, can't get to the polls, have their voter registration fucked with, have their polling place closed, etc etc.

People who are firmly committed to the Way of Chapo Trap House are very few. When I talk to, like, such of the Young Left as I personally know, most of them don't know what it is, because not everyone is very online. Some people listen to it. Everyone I've met who is Sanders-or-bust isn't really a regular voter anyway.

Me, I'm voting for the CDC and the EPA if I can't vote for Sanders.

~~
On another note: closing the detention camps and dismantling ICE are really important to me. Based on the Obama years, I don't think anyone at all likely to win the presidency except Sanders will do this. When I think of voting in someone who either won't care or will be unwilling to brute force the executive orders needed to close the camps, I feel sick and angry. It is this more than anything which gives me a lot of sympathy for Bernie-or-bust types.
posted by Frowner at 12:04 PM on February 5, 2020 [41 favorites]


2016 Sanders voters voted for Trump (13%, which is the same percentage as 2012 Obama voters who voted for Trump in 2016)

Obama was much more centrist than Sanders, the question is why isn't the Sanders number much less?
posted by PenDevil at 12:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


I feel like it's the Sanders supporters who are always on the defense in these threads, but I would like to know why the Warren supporters haven't switched over to him yet. If, as they always say, the two candidates are nearly identical on policy, why not support the more electorally viable of the two? Sanders is currently the leader of the primary. Why are they trying to split the progressive vote? Their purity politics are going to get us a centrist who will lose to Trump.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 12:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


2008 isn’t 2016 or 2020, and McCain isn’t Trump, and we have polling that shows Biden and Warren supporters will support the nominee in much higher numbers than Sanders’.


And a primary isn't a general election, and someone voting for a specific candidate because of agreement on certain issues isn't guaranteed to vote for another candidate with different (and in many cases potentially more right-wing) policies. Personally I plan to vote for whoever the Democratic nominee is, like I have in every election since I've been able to vote, for the simple reason that if Trump wins a second term, America is effectively over. I'm enough of a pragmatist not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But I also respect the right of people to vote their conscience, wherever that may guide them (which is kind of the whole point of democracy, I thought); if someone decides to vote for a third party or not vote because their favoired candidate didn't win the nomination, then that's their right (I could wish they'd do otherwise, but bullying, haranguing and insulting aren't going to make them change their minds).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:09 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I feel like it's the Sanders supporters who are always on the defense in these threads,

Being defensive and being on the defense are not precisely the same thing.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Which Warren supporters are saying Bernie should drop out? The question has been about supporting whoever eventually becomes the nominee. Why should anyone in the top three and within 8% drop out after one vote?
posted by chris24 at 12:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


I don't understand how they're choosing what to release. I checked on Winneshiek County, the county where I went to college. The Des Moines Register results page, which has the statewide 75% complete figure that folks are referencing above, shows Winneshiek County as 73% complete. However, the Winneshiek County Dems released the full county results (PDF) to the media this morning. Results for the county's 11 precincts all fit on a single page (albeit with some odd formatting choices), so it's not like we're dealing with large quantities of data.
posted by bassooner at 12:11 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


I would like to know why the Warren supporters haven't switched over to him yet.

We just had the first primary vote 2 days ago. It's a bit early. Personally, I'll continue splitting my small donations between the Warren and Sanders campaigns (which is why I'd love to know where windbox got their info that Warren is "already cancelling ad buys" in Nevada and South Carolina - I'd like to maximize my meager impact).
posted by mediareport at 12:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


> The question has been about supporting whoever eventually becomes the nominee.

Precisely. The minute Warren drops out, I will be Feeling the Bern. Whether it's a result of careless thinking or an attempt to misrepresent the facts, this conflation of Sanders supporters who say they won't support any one else and Warren supporters who aren't giving up after one disappointing result is regrettable.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


And Warren's results weren't that bad. She outperformed her polls, finished a reasonable third in a contest where the saying has always been "there's three tickets out of Iowa", was a top gainer on realignment and is getting a decent amount of delegates.

That said, she probably needs a first or second in NH.
posted by chris24 at 12:21 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Bernie is getting fewer votes this time around than he did last time.

If this goes to the convention, my Super Tuesday Warren vote and her delegates still have value, even if she finishes third.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:21 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


The other reason nobody is talking about Warren and dropping out is literally 0% of her supporters polled said they wouldn't support whoever the nominee was.
posted by chris24 at 12:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


My partner and I both voted Sanders in the primary. We live in NY, so when it came to the general, I voted Clinton, and they wrote in Sanders.

Four years later, we're far more radical than we were. They've moved from being a firm Bernie supporter who was a huge fan of everything about him to believing that Bernie Sanders is just acceptable. They've embrace full-blown leftist anarchism and will never consider voting for anyone that isn't Bernie Sanders and someone to the left of him.

I've shifted from being a liberal to a social democrat to a full-blown socialist. I want a full worker-owned economy and worker-owned government. Sanders will help transition to that, and so I support him, but I want more in the future. I'm probably more pragmatic ("compromised" to the uncharitable), but there's no one else in the Democratic primary that can shift us away—even slightly—from capitalism and ruin.

It's socialism or barbarism, folks. The cave entrance has collapsed. They only way out is through this.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 12:26 PM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


Bernie is getting fewer votes this time around than he did last time.

There were only 3 major candidates - Clinton, Sanders and O'Malley - in the race at that time. Of course Sanders will be getting fewer votes this time.
posted by mediareport at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


a higher percentage of 2008 Clinton voters voted for McCain

That's great news! For John McCain!
posted by kirkaracha at 12:28 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh, god, I humbly apologize for causing this derail. I had literally just seen that tweet when I came here and read jermsplan's comment and thought it was relevant. I wish I could take it back.

So, back to the topic at hand: Seriously, yes, this slow trickle of results (from 71% yesterday to only 75% today) is obnoxious and enraging. WTF is going on in Iowa?
posted by Roommate at 12:29 PM on February 5, 2020


Results for the county's 11 precincts all fit on a single page (albeit with some odd formatting choices), so it's not like we're dealing with large quantities of data.

This is the thing that's completely wild to me. Supposedly everyone running these caucuses has paper documents verifying the results for every precinct, but they still can't find a way to tabulate the results? This isn't even that big of an election. Iowa has over 3 million people and only 170,000 of them even caucused. You probably could have sent election officials to the house of everyone who participated by now to ask them what they did on Monday.

I don't think this is evidence of rigging, but I do think it's evidence that the people running this were brutally incompetent and seemingly have spent the last 36 hours uselessly panicking and making pretty much everyone who cares about the results of this election angry.
posted by Copronymus at 12:31 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


On the caucus itself, there are two big effects:
1) Joe Biden has lost his magic. He said "vote for me if you want to win" and he didn't. Even more, he's not expected to win the next two states. If someone's main selling point is they win, and they don't, their voters flee.
2) Buttigieg (maybe) won, but it doesn't matter. Everyone thinks he's a rat that jumped the gun, his path to victory in any of the next several states is non-existent, and he's just not enough to hold down the anti-progressive faction.

Other candidates:
1) Sanders is in a great position. He's expected to do very well next week and NV looks good for him. While the rest of his opponents are disorganized, he's going to deliver victories—and victories are addicting to voters.
2) Warren is down but not out. She didn't bomb, but she's not doing great. Unless she runs out of money, she'll probably keep slicing off 15% here and there. If she stays in, she'll be a third. Her main point will be to deliver her delegates to a different candidate.
3) No one cares about Bloomberg. To become the nominee, you have to get delegates. Bloomberg is a theoretical candidate that has nothing, especially if a mortally-wounded Biden candidacy continues to limp forward.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 12:32 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Honestly conflating people who support Bernie Sanders with “Bernie Bros” and amplifying Sanders supporters on Twitter who are mean to other people as emblematic of all Sanders supporters is fucking racist bullshit. The Sanders coalition is full of POC. Don’t erase them
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [25 favorites]


Thank you, MisantropicPainforest.

It seems a few here are hellbent on rehashing already refuted arguments.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 12:36 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don't think she should drop out, at all, but what you're saying doesn't make a lot of sense except in an "I think Sanders should drop out because his supporters are dicks" kind of way which, cool, I hear that, but I hope you realize that it doesn't actually make that much sense strategically

Where the fuck have I said Sanders should drop out. I said Sanders has some supporters who are Bernie or Bust and that isn't helpful.
posted by chris24 at 12:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Not what I think I said and definitely not my intention.
posted by chris24 at 12:42 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Getting Donald Trump away from the levers of power is the #1 concern of this election. If the case for that hasn't been self-evident over the past four years (since the moment he rode down that cursed escalator) then I don't know what to tell you.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:45 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


I've said in the past that people have the right to vote for whomever they wish, but that needs to come with acknowledgement of what that accomplishes. In this case, saying it is your primary candidate or nobody is actively telling those who have suffered under Trump's leadership that you do not give a shit.

For a primary, you should absolutely be voting for your preferred candidate - but if they don't make it, you are stuck with the candidate who did.

Voting against someone instead of for someone may not be ideal and may even come with distaste - but when it comes to Trump and the further slide to the authoritarian right and the empowerment of overt white nationalism, complacency is complicity. It may not be a comfortable truth, but is absolutely the case right now. Stating that you won't vote for anyone else - especially when ANY of them would mark the end of Trump's era and more positive leadership - is implicit support of Trump. It was one thing before he was in the office, but now we absolutely know what the nation looks like with him in charge. Ask yourself if you could have easily done anything to stop Trump if you would have... voting for your non-preferred candidate in the general is one of those cases.

I'd like to point to the recent election in KY where Matt Bevin, the former governor and a die-hard Trumpist, one of the trumpiest of all, was ousted just barely by Andy Beshear- the most generically neutral candidate possible to the point that I cannot tell you anything about him other than he's the son of a former Governor. Many on the left were beyond frustrated when he ended up being the chosen candidate, much of that directed at the local Democratic party - It's not unlike what you see with a lot of us who have expressed frustrations at the nation-wide Democratic organizations. The campaign wasn't so much pro-beshear as it was anti-bevin.

That vote was decided by a very very slim margin, much of it by people who certainly had distaste for Beshear. Because of it, Kentucky is going to be indisputably in better shape than it would be otherwise. There certainly isn't any chance of them becoming a socialist paradise or anything even more than right of center for a long time, but people are not actively being hurt and the state is not actively being destroyed anymore. Bevin was literally destroying the state- both as an institution, and environmentally.

Beshear may not be a socialist, but with him in the office, the structures that offer the most socialized benefits to the residents will not only remain intact, but may even be re-established. It doesn't have to be full-blown socialism to see the results of socialized benefits and structures.
posted by MysticMCJ at 12:46 PM on February 5, 2020 [40 favorites]


> Honestly conflating people who support Bernie Sanders with “Bernie Bros” and amplifying Sanders supporters on Twitter who are mean to other people as emblematic of all Sanders supporters is fucking racist bullshit. The Sanders coalition is full of POC. Don’t erase them

Occurrences of the phrase "Bernie Bro" in this thread:

Pull quote from an obviously satirical NYMag piece on why your favorite candidate sucks.

Apparent Bernie supporter calling for unity between factions of the left.

Comment referring to a Chapo host's divisive Bernie-or-bust rhetoric, applying that term specifically to that one individual, not any other Sanders supporters.

Your comment asking for people to stop conflating when nobody has actually been conflating.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:51 PM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


Voting against someone instead of for someone may not be ideal and may even come with distaste - but when it comes to Trump and the further slide to the authoritarian right and the empowerment of overt white nationalism, complacency is complicity. It may not be a comfortable truth, but is absolutely the case right now. Stating that you won't vote for anyone else - especially when ANY of them would mark the end of Trump's era and more positive leadership - is implicit support of Trump. It was one thing before he was in the office, but now we absolutely know what the nation looks like with him in charge. Ask yourself if you could have easily done anything to stop Trump if you would have... voting for your non-preferred candidate in the general is one of those cases.

Exactly. It's like standing at the helm of the Titanic and proclaiming you won't steer away from the iceberg because you're not satisfied with the selection of colors that adorn the deck chairs.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


I told you to go with the teal, Kyle.
posted by kirkaracha at 12:56 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I told you to go with the teal, Kyle.

The Democratic electorate just had to go with Lapis Lazuli. If only it was Sky Blue maybe they could have won.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:59 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm voting for the Democratic candidate, even if it's the pretend-to-be-Dem-for-presidential-election-purposes guy... the same guy I think ought to have dropped out after his heart attack in October. If Sanders had done that, and thrown to Warren, his less-reasonable supporters might have an easier time following his lead in the months that followed.
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:59 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Iowa caucuses did one thing right: Require paper ballots (Herbert Lin, The Conversation)
[…] the results, ultimately, will be clear and undisputed because, amid everything they did wrong, the Iowa Democratic Party did one thing right: It required that votes be counted on paper, and then tallied electronically. To those of us who study cybersecurity carefully, that’s crucial.

With that paper trail, the Democrats – and the nation as a whole – will be able to regard this event as a case study in how to recover from a poorly run election. In this case, outside hackers do not appear to responsible – rather, the election was “hacked” by a bad software development and testing process.

Eventually, the party will be able to reassemble the pieces of what happened at caucuses around the state and determine who won. Without the paper trail, there would never be any clarity – just a whole lot of doubt.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


Ask yourself if you could have easily done anything to stop Trump if you would have... voting for your non-preferred candidate in the general is one of those cases.

The troll is: doesn't this apply to the primary then? If the only way to drag these terrible, but unfortunately countless, Bernie-or-busters along and secure victory is to have Bernie win, shouldn't everyone just agree to vote for him? Isn't that the pragmatic thing to do?

It's a childish taunt. "Oh, I'm a such-and-such, am I? Fine I'll act like a such-and-such." (Regardless of whether they were called a such-and-such first or acted like a such-and-such first) And then, regardless if the threat is sincere or not, they get their desired outcome of people getting tied up in knots about it.
posted by Regal Ox Inigo at 1:14 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


I’m sorry but there’s a lot of weird anti-Sanders stuff going thru this thread right now and it’s kind of astonishing to see, and I don’t know the age makeup of y’all who are commenting but a lot of my cohort (millennials and Gen Z, and quite a bit of Gen X and still quite a bit of boomers!!!) are EXTREMELY pushing for Bernie to win, and we aren’t podcast hosts, we aren’t part of the “dirtbag left”, we aren’t super big on twitter, we’re just fucking regular people. My fucking parents, who are leaving the country because of Trump, who are in their 70’s, are huge Bernie fans for fucks sake.

A large contingent of Bernie’s base is online, they are younger, they have and make stupid inside jokes, and they are vociferously angry. These should be good things in most cases. A lot of women who are feminists, a lot of trans-women, a lot of WoC, PoC, are huge Bernie fans. Do not erase them. I’ve seen nonstop a ton of women talk about how disgusted they are that people expect them to vote for Warren just because she’s a woman. Don’t erase them. I’ve seen a lot of people (especially gay trans-women, of all people) make “un-PC jokes” and get viciously attacked for it (calling Pete a “fake gay”). The ppl attacking them aren’t other Bernie fans, let me tell you that.

A fucking huge contingent of people want Bernie and his platform to be the future. People are talking about this shit as if Pete blew Bernie out in Iowa. He fucking didn’t. Bernie has a loud and vocal online consortium of voters, but that ain’t everyone, and to sit here and say “well they should be quiet bc they’re making everyone else look bad!!” is fucking ridiculous.

Pete’s a guy who worked at McKinsey literally studying how to make the world look the way he thinks it should look like, in line with McKinsey’s non-stop fascistic makeover of “democratic corporations” (see the thread on here about it) and ppl want to talk about lesser of two evils? Pete’s a fascist Republican running a clever campaign as a Democrat and banking on his “I’m gay” credentials to get him in power. Warren is a great antidote to him, as she wants to retain the capitalistic element of the nation, but wants to dial back on this corporate management culture and give workers back some control.

If Pete wins the nom I’m sorry, I most likely will not be voting (I actually won’t be in country so it may not even matter). He’s a liar, nonstop. He’s always been a lying rat, and I’ll be damned if I get tricked by that shit.

Warren, I’ll vote for her 100%, even if I don’t 100% believe in her views. Wanna know why? Because at least Warren has guts and integrity and has lived up to her views and isn’t weasly about it, even when it’s come down to her old views. She’s a capitalist, she admits it, she use to be a Republican, whatever.

For what it’s worth, I voted for Hillary, even though I vociferously disagreed with a ton of her views leading up to even when she adopted Bernie’s platform (because I did not believe her to actually go through with pushing much of it through in office), and I’ve defended Hillary on here hundreds of times. For me and a lot of my generation, it really is “Bernie or bust”, especially in an election filled with billionaire oligarchs and filthy rats.

Signed,


A young person who is very scared of the future.
posted by gucci mane at 1:15 PM on February 5, 2020 [38 favorites]


NYT: Texas officials say Super Tuesday results may be delayed.
Though the state is not using a new app to record results or planning to understaff help lines, the Texas Democratic Party said that the secretary of state informed them that some presidential primary results could be delayed on election night on Super Tuesday.

The state party said that officials from the Texas secretary of state informed them in a meeting in January that a complex formula to award delegates based on votes in State Senate districts could delay delegate results on Super Tuesday, March 3. [...] With 228 delegates to award, any delay in Texas could throw a new batch of uncertainty on the most critical night of the presidential primary. The Texas secretary of state’s office did not respond to emails and voice messages requesting comment.
This is Hell
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


I’m sorry but there’s a lot of weird anti-Sanders stuff going thru this thread right now and it’s kind of astonishing to see,

Expect a lot more of it in the next few weeks. The Twitter talking points are swirling so you'll hear the same old nonsense coming from all the Very Online usual suspects.

Just ignore it, it's not actually a widespread authentic sentiment.
posted by FakeFreyja at 1:19 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


even if it's the pretend-to-be-Dem-for-presidential-election-purposes guy... the same guy I think ought to have dropped out after his heart attack

Bloomberg had a heart attack?
posted by soundguy99 at 1:23 PM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


MetaFilter's politics threads are definitely the most consistently anti-Sanders internet discussion group I frequent, and it's very weird to me.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [17 favorites]


(I actually won’t be in country so it may not even matter)

Trump has access to the nuclear codes. I hope your country is out of range.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:26 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


Buttigieg had a heart attack?
posted by box at 1:27 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


On another note: closing the detention camps and dismantling ICE are really important to me. Based on the Obama years, I don't think anyone at all likely to win the presidency except Sanders will do this. When I think of voting in someone who either won't care or will be unwilling to brute force the executive orders needed to close the camps, I feel sick and angry. It is this more than anything which gives me a lot of sympathy for Bernie-or-bust types.

But for me, this is what gives me less sympathy, like zero sympathy. Yes, it makes me angry that voting for any Democrat is not enough here, that these policies have done enormous harm under both Republican and Democratic administrations, and that it's going to take more work and activism to try to achieve a more just system no matter who I vote for. But no matter who wins the Democratic nomination, the election this November is going consist of a vote between Stephen Miller's immigration policy and, you know, not that. They're not the same. A centrist Democrat is not morally equivalent to Trump.

The Obama years brought DACA and the attempt at DAPA and the immigration enforcement priorities. They also brought many deportations and the continued terror of ICE. Both are true. Is there a single immigration activist in this country who wouldn't prefer to go back to the Obama years right now? And then go right back to using every lever of power they can to push that administration to do better and call out the abuses?

And if you're in the brightest of bright blue state and can't bear the personal responsibility of bubbling in the oval next to the name of someone whose government will do something awful in your name (that's every candidate, but whatever), well then you do you, but the very least you can do in that situation is not poison the well for everyone else.
posted by zachlipton at 1:28 PM on February 5, 2020 [19 favorites]


The Twitter talking points are swirling so you'll hear the same old nonsense coming from all the Very Online usual suspects. Just ignore it, it's not actually a widespread authentic sentiment.

Oh FFS Sanders is my second choice. That doesn't mean he or his supporters are immune to criticism.
posted by chris24 at 1:31 PM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


Bloomberg had heart surgery 20 years ago; Buttigieg hasn't got a heart.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:31 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Nate Cohn with NYT is now is now saying that the latest batch of results appears to be incorrectly reporting Sanders votes to Patrick and Steyer. What the hell is happening in Iowa?
posted by strangely stunted trees at 1:33 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Ah, cool, this will surely improve everyone's opinion of the credibility of even the already official results. I think it got caught initially because someone was wondering how Deval Patrick was above Yang in delegates, and it turns out the answer is that someone in the IDP is just putting things in the wrong boxes in the official results tally.

This combined with the numerous reports of people who worked on the caucuses trying to get the IDP to accept their tallies and being rebuffed is just mind-meltingly fucking infuriating.
posted by Copronymus at 1:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


I would like to know why the Warren supporters haven't switched over to him yet.

Why are you so eager to dance on her campaign's grave? There's been exactly one primary in a small state; can you just let this play out for the next few months? If and when Warren officially drops out, I'll make my decision on who to support based on who else is left in the race at that time.
posted by octothorpe at 1:36 PM on February 5, 2020 [25 favorites]


I also saw a map this morning showing that the districts left out of that early 62% release were mostly areas that Bernie was projected to win.

I would really like to know why all these mistakes and delays seem to specifically damage the Sanders campaign.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:38 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I’ve seen nonstop a ton of women talk about how disgusted they are that people expect them to vote for Warren just because she’s a woman.

Who are these people who claim that folks should vote for Warren just because she’s a woman? Where is this coming from? I don’t see it in the campaign itself.

(Sorry to cherry-pick from a much longer comment full of many other agreeable points: I’m just wondering about this particular issue.)
posted by macrowave at 1:38 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


This thread is a masterclass in sealioning
posted by Ahmad Khani at 1:40 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


> The troll is: doesn't this apply to the primary then?

You are correct, that is trolling.
posted by MysticMCJ at 1:41 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Nate Cohn with NYT is now is now saying that the latest batch of results appears to be incorrectly reporting Sanders votes to Patrick and Steyer. What the hell is happening in Iowa?

The IDP now says: "There will be a minor correction to the last batch of results and we will be pushing an update momentarily."

I realize they've got issues, but the lack of transparency and their inability to explain what the heck is going on has been a disaster.
posted by zachlipton at 1:44 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I would really like to know why all these mistakes and delays seem to specifically damage the Sanders campaign.

I don't like that implication. It's just a long (but coincidental) series of unprecedented coincidences that very coincidentally harm one specific candidate exclusively. Coincidentally.
posted by FakeFreyja at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


This was the last straw that pushed me from thinking it was just incompetence to actually believing there's intentional manipulation going on.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:46 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


This was the last straw that pushed me from thinking it was just incompetence to actually believing there's intentional manipulation going on.

A continued display of incompetence from demonstrably incompetent people has led you to conclude that what's happening is not incompetence?
posted by zachlipton at 1:49 PM on February 5, 2020 [17 favorites]


Troy Price and Tom Perez need to resign, today. Even if this is just incompetence rather than something more nefarious, which is getting harder and harder to believe, it's at the point where there needs to be leadership accountability. The DNC owns this too, especially after stepping in to "take over" the counting today.

The DNC should bring in independent forensic auditors to review both the results and all of the breakdowns in the process, and release the findings publicly.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 1:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


A continued display of incompetence from demonstrably incompetent people has led you to conclude that what's happening is not incompetence?

At this point it's naive to NOT think there's something intentionally shady going on here.

I mean, is there ANYTHING that you wouldn't excuse away like this?

I guess I'm just a loony conspiracy theorist though!
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


They just gotta keep fucking up the election results until the OAS declares the results invalid, Iowa's democracy hopelessly corrupted, and sets it up as a soft landing spot for Guaido.
posted by Copronymus at 1:53 PM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


A continued display of incompetence from demonstrably incompetent people has led you to conclude that what's happening is not incompetence?

I think it's not the display of incompetence, but rather that said incompetence only breaks one way. It's not like "whoops, votes for all candidates equally were being misreported". Just one. Multiple times in multiple areas.
posted by FakeFreyja at 1:54 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


David Shuster @DavidShuster
Initially wasn’t inclined to believe the Iowa dem party deliberately sabotaged #caucus numbers to sandbag @BernieSanders. But day 3, the party is still at 71% results? WTF? This is moving well past “innocent mistakes with the app” and into something deliberate + disgusting.
9:39 AM · Feb 5, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
2.2K Retweets 8.1K Likes
posted by Ahmad Khani at 1:55 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


They just gotta keep fucking up the election results until the OAS declares the results invalid, Iowa's democracy hopelessly corrupted, and sets it up as a soft landing spot for Guaido.

For real though: if this primary were an election in a center-left Latin American country, most of the Democratic Party establishment would already be recognizing Adolf McCIA as its rightful leader
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:56 PM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


The Obama years brought DACA and the attempt at DAPA and the immigration enforcement priorities. They also brought many deportations and the continued terror of ICE. Both are true. Is there a single immigration activist in this country who wouldn't prefer to go back to the Obama years right now? And then go right back to using every lever of power they can to push that administration to do better and call out the abuses?

But we're not going back to the Obama years. We're stuck in the Trump years and - although this isn't how I'm thinking in terms of voting - you could pretty easily say that electing a Democrat who does nothing to fix the current situation isn't actually an improvement and may be a worsening, since it will convince people who don't pay much attention that things must be better, because Democrat.

I think this is probably wrong, but just how much incremental change you can get through activism if you elect Biden or Bloomberg is not clear to me. And then if you have a Democrat who doesn't dismantle the camps they're all ready for the next GOP fascist.

But something is really wrong with this country, you know? We really should not have it be the norm that you're some kind of weasel if you object to voting for people who make you morally sick.
posted by Frowner at 1:57 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


It's amazing how different people read the same conversation. I see almost zero really anti-Bernie comments in this whole long thread. The point being made is that some Sanders supporters (like the Chapo Trap House guy) are saying it's Bernie or Bust and seem the most intent on tearing down the other candidates, so in doing so they are setting us up for another 4 years of Trump. Which, YMMV, seems like a shot to your own head. Is Mayor Pete or Bloomberg going to usher in fully automated luxury gay space communism? No. Are they going to give FUCKING RUSH LIMBAUGH the presidential medal of freedom? Also no.

I'm a Warren supporter and totally happy to vote Bernie if she drops out or falls way behind. It's a full month till my primary though. I mentioned upthread that I voted for Nader in 2000 because I was like "fuck centrism" and I used to get really defensive about it, but you know what? I fucked up in the heat of youth. And today if we get a centrist candidate, I will vote for that person. If I don't, I'm saying I think the only way out of the system is a socialist revolution outside the political system. Which would be great in a lot of ways. But the chance of that happening is about 0.000000001% in this country.
posted by freecellwizard at 1:59 PM on February 5, 2020 [19 favorites]



If this was a fix, then it was an incredibly incompetent fix. The flaming dumpster has taken flight, and is headed straight for that mountain over there.
posted by johnny jenga at 1:59 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm not a Sanders supporter at this time, and I'm not generally a conspiracy theorist, but I do want to point out that Incompetence and Corruption Aren't Mutually Exclusive.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:00 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


Folks, it's clear that Bernie is the best candidate in this race, and he's the most ideologically pure. That's why we should stop bickering and just follow his advice: Vote For Warren.
posted by explosion at 2:01 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Yeah, too bad she didn't run at that time and instead waited for him to pave the way first so she could try and jump on the bandwagon he started.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


> Then what is constantly criticizing someone for bringing voters into the anti-Trump camp who otherwise wouldn't be there?

Something that I haven't done or said and generally a bad idea? I think that we aren't all having the same conversation.
posted by MysticMCJ at 2:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Folks, it's clear that Bernie is the best candidate in this race, and he's the most ideologically pure. That's why we should stop bickering and just follow his advice: Vote For Warren.

Kind of weird to immediate jump to suggesting Warren should settle for vice president, which is the context of that video? I think it might be too early to give up the shot at the big chair.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:04 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Yeah, too bad she didn't run at that time and instead waited for him to pave the way first so she could try and jump on the bandwagon he started.

Ah yes, women are always followers pulling on the man's coattails.
posted by chris24 at 2:05 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Ah yes, women are always followers pulling on the man's coattails.

Don't be a jerk, I'm referring to the fact that in 2015 before starting his campaign, Sanders asked Warren to run as the progressive alternative to Clinton. She declined, so he ran.

You know, that was REALLY shitty to try and insinuate I'm being a misogynist for pointing this out. It's the kind of disingenuous weaponization of social justice language to try and smear your political opponents that is far too prevalent in this race.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [17 favorites]


so she could try and jump on the bandwagon he started.

Yeah, you're not gonna change my mind on your intent with this.
posted by chris24 at 2:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


It would not be at all surprising to me that someone tried to rig the Iowa caucus and ended up bungling it so badly the entire process broke down.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 2:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Yeah, not gonna change my mind on your intent with this.

In 2015 Sanders asked Warren to run in his place. She didn't, so he ran. His campaign was surprisingly successful, and sparked an enormous revitalization of the left, including the renewed popularity of the DSA and the election of AOC.

In this primary, Sanders is attempting to ride the wave he started. So are Warren, Yang, Williamson, Gabbard, and (for some reason), Steyer.

But OK, read me in the most uncharitable way possible if you're gonna be a jerk about it.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:14 PM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


you could pretty easily say that electing a Democrat who does nothing to fix the current situation

That Democrat presumably also will have zero chance of starting a nuclear war over a Twitter beef, which matters.
posted by PMdixon at 2:16 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


Chris Schwartz, Black Hawk County Supervisor (a Sanders supporter):

The state party is now being forced to walk back their error of giving @BernieSanders delegates to @DevalPatrick who received zero votes in Black Hawk County. Press can dm me.

Just for clarity's sake, here are the numbers that the IDP is saying now require a "minor correction":

Caucus vote as reported by the Black Hawk County Supervisor:
Sanders 2,149
Buttigieg - 1,578

Caucus vote as just reported by the Iowa Democratic Party:
Sanders - 1638
Buttigieg - 1588

That's not a minor correction.
posted by mediareport at 2:17 PM on February 5, 2020 [18 favorites]


This debacle may be a good trial run for what is likely to happen in November the day after the election. I expect to see the same vicious electoral fog of war descend in multiple states; it seems bad actors don't need to hack the voting, just create enough of a perception of foul play to trigger a barely-latent insanity in the respective campaigns and voting blocs. Iowa demonstrates that the bar for creating that insanity is very low. I'd say it makes me more concerned, but I'm not sure I can get any more concerned after three years of this shit.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 2:19 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Mod note: I'm gonna need everybody to go ahead and go back to their respective corners and hit pause on this whole dynamic. MetaFilter is not the battleground on which this election, let alone past ones, is going to be fought and I need folks to keep that in sight and behave accordingly. The way today has gone in here is a good reminder of why the megathread process was so draining and unsustainable, and as the primary season proceeds it's going to be really important that everybody makes an effort to not conflate "I have thoughts and feelings about politics", which is fine and valid, with a broad license to make these discussions a wrestling match over those thoughts and feelings.

Tracking the actual details and content of the Iowa situation is great. Going to mat with or taking shots at one another or making the conversation a referendum on whatever shitty thing someone else somewhere else said is not. Please refocus or take a step back if that doesn't feel possible.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [49 favorites]


Can you imagine what Super Tuesday is going to be like? Especially with Texas upfront saying weeks in advance they're not going to release the results in a timely manner?
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:22 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


In the "corrected" results Buttigieg, Steyer, and Yang are still recieving too many votes
posted by mediareport at 2:24 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Once I vote I don’t see any more comments telling me how to vote in the primaries, right? Is that how this works?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:27 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Per the above tweet, the errors in the "corrected count" are:

Sanders -24
Buttigeig +10
Warren -9
Biden -6
Klobuchar -114
Steyer +16
Yang +10
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:28 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also, Warren lost 9 votes, somehow, between the caucus report and the IDP release.
posted by mediareport at 2:29 PM on February 5, 2020


Once I vote I don’t see any more comments telling me how to vote in the primaries, right? Is that how this works?

Correct. At that point, you start getting the comments telling you how you should have voted.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:32 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


On the plus side, you get to tell everyone that they are some manner of -ist for voting differently than you did.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


In another powerful blow for the credibility of this process from the IDP side, apparently if news organizations had accepted today's updated results as valid, it almost certainly would have triggered them to call the election for Buttigieg.

I don't recommend thinking too long about living through the 2000 Florida un-call again but with everyone already fired up and on Twitter yelling about it, because it did not do great things for my psyche.
posted by Copronymus at 2:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


People who are firmly committed to the Way of Chapo Trap House are very few

On their most recent show CTH estimated that about a third of the out-of-state volunteers for Bernie in Iowa were CTH listeners. (The hosts of the show were in Iowa themselves and did a live show shortly before the caucus.) They get over $150,000 per month from their subscribers. It may have started as a niche online left-wing politics/comedy podcast, but it's getting much more influential.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 2:47 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


The flipping of votes between Patrick and Sanders, along with other changes from original precinct counts, is happening elsewhere, too:

Across Iowa, across multiple data dumps, the official results consistently under/miscount Bernie and Warren votes.
posted by mediareport at 2:51 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think people who will travel long distances to do primary-level political organizing is a pretty small subset of people. And those doing it specifically for Sanders is an even smaller subset. And then an estimate of 30% of those are even listeners. And I imagine a smaller subset of THAT are serious listeners, rather than those who just have it in their rotation.
posted by FakeFreyja at 2:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


They get over $150,000 per month from their subscribers. It may have started as a niche online left-wing politics/comedy podcast, but it's getting much more influential.

Yes, but the distinction I was trying to make was between people who might, eg, listen to the podcast and people who will uncritically do what CTH tells them because CTH says it - "firmly committed to the Way of Chapo Trap House". I don't think there are a lot of people who listen to CTH who were thinking "gee, I guess I'll have to suck it up and vote for X because of [reasons]" who were suddenly convinced to stay home if they can't vote for Sanders merely because they're puppets of CTH. I think there's a perception that a few influencers among the Bernie Bros are just pied-pipering away a bunch of nice young people who would otherwise suck it up and vote for Buttegieg and that is factually wrong and IMO kinda rude.
posted by Frowner at 3:02 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Hi! Actual Iowan, here! As you can see upthread, I participated in the caucus Monday night. I also, as luck has it, have a coworker whose brother is head of legislative services for the the Democrats in the Iowa House of Representatives. As a result, he’s pretty tuned in to party happenings in Des Moines.

1. The state party knew the app shit the bed early Monday night. They then panicked and waited three hours before fessing up the the press and candidates. Lots of jokes in my office about spending three hours jiggling the charger cable and/or rebooting the phone, hoping that this time the app will finally work.
2. The Iowa Democratic Party, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the only results they will release are physically counted and verified ballots. Thus, precinct reports and county summaries aren’t considered “good enough”. They have to verify they have physically counted their ballots. So, are those numbers the Black Hawk County supervisor is tweeting the verified ballot counts or their initial canvas?
3. The Iowa Democratic Party has 18 paid staffers. To cover 99 counties. The reality is the caucus is run largely by volunteers. The quality and speed of the official count depends on those volunteers and as badly as you and I want answers right now, dammit! they still have job and family obligations to tend to.

Please tone it down on the conspiracy theories—there is neither the time, resources, or inclination to put the fix in for your candidate. As to why the state party went all in on an unproven app without maintaining former reporting systems as a backup is beyond me but I’m going to guess lack of resources in the form of time or money (see #3, above) played a strong factor.

Is this the death of the Iowa Caucus and/or its status as first in the nation?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honestly, I’m fine, either way.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 3:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [45 favorites]


All this shit just scares me. I feel like our basic institutions are breaking down. Where do we go from here?

And I’m sorry, but Buttegeig scares me too. At least with Biden he just seems like your run of the mill corrupt dumbass. Buttegeig is crazy smart, and I truly have no idea what he believes beyond attaining power at any cost. Certainly, his actions against anyone who wasn’t a (probably white) property developer or police officer in South Bend has isn’t encouraging.

Still, I get the feeling he’d get destroyed by Trump.
posted by eagles123 at 3:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


The flipping of votes between Patrick and Sanders, along with other changes from original precinct counts, is happening elsewhere, too:


If this is a conspiracy it's a very bad one given that they're publishing the results for everyone to see.

I wish that guy expanded the field of view, because that could either be flipping--or it could be the data for that block got shifted one column over. It would be interesting to see if all the results for the candidates in that block were shifted or whether it was just for those four candidates--because the former sounds like a data entry error to me. We can't check now because it's already been corrected.
posted by Anonymous at 3:13 PM on February 5, 2020


Certainly, his actions against anyone who wasn’t a (probably white) property developer or police officer in South Bend has isn’t encouraging.

Yeah, that's the other piece. Let's assume that a bunch of centrist hacks pull this off and he's the nominee and we are all in the position of saying "okay, let's all vote for the guy who has actively been racist and actively sustained police brutality in the city where he was mayor". I mean, it's that kind of thing that is so gross and awful and do I really have the sheer face it would take to urge, for instance, Black voters to vote for someone who literally supports police brutality against Black people? That's really the kind of thing that a lot of this comes down to because of the nature of our political class. And I can see the logic of saying to people "if you have to choose between being punched in the face and being knifed in the stomach you choose the face" but it just starts to eat away at you after a while.

If it's not Sanders, what if it's him or Bloomberg? Like, I don't feel good about this at all, and I feel so ungood about it that it will be very hard for me to make myself do it, never mind whoop it up to get others to.
posted by Frowner at 3:15 PM on February 5, 2020 [20 favorites]


Yeah, we haven’t even reckoned with Bloomberg yet. He drew more people to his kickoff event in Philly then I think even Biden did. The guy is just basically brute forcing the primary with TV ad buys and throwing money at campaign staffers.

Regarding the vote irregularities, it could very well be the case that Sanders and Warren are more likely to have errors occur against them because they did better in areas with larger populations that were therefore harder to count.

Edit: I still have a bad feeling about the vote though. Can’t shake it.
posted by eagles123 at 3:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Also I think we should remember that sometimes if we're surrounded by people who all have approximately the same outlook it is really easy to ramp each other up around a single train of thought. Everyone gets each other more and more worked up, and then an opinion like "Buttigieg seems smarmy" escalates to "Buttigieg is an evil genius bent on destroying all that is good in the world" or "these caucuses are poorly run" becomes "these caucuses are being run by people trying to play three-dimensional chess in order to undermine my preferred candidate". Sometimes it is a good idea to turn off the computer, put down the phone, and go for a walk.
posted by Anonymous at 3:21 PM on February 5, 2020


And to be clear: I am not a Buttigieg fan. I just don't think he's worse than Trump.
posted by Anonymous at 3:23 PM on February 5, 2020


The Iowa Democratic Party, in its infinite wisdom, decided that the only results they will release are physically counted and verified ballots. Thus, precinct reports and county summaries aren’t considered “good enough”. They have to verify they have physically counted their ballots.

What makes the above less soothing than it otherwise might be is the tremendous confusion we've seen reported about how the preference cards have been handled (we can't call them ballots, Iowa columnist Lyn Lenz has pointed out, because New Hampshire will get very mad). They were handed out, marked, handed in, counted, then handed back out to each person to re-vote, then handed back in again....

Scroll down to the section titled, "Democrats not enthused about 'card games' at caucus" in this collection of caucus reports from the Iowa City paper to get a sense of just how mangled and unclear the ballot counting was *at the precincts*, let alone a day or two later after they'd been delivered to central HQ.

Such an awful, awful, stupid, stupid system.

(For the record, I'm squarely in the "chaos and incompetence" camp, with a possible sprinkling of "occasional bad actor taking advantage of the chaos and incompetence to massage things a bit.")
posted by mediareport at 3:30 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


> Yeah, that's the other piece. Let's assume that a bunch of centrist hacks pull this off and he's the nominee and we are all in the position of saying "okay, let's all vote for the guy who has actively been racist and actively sustained police brutality in the city where he was mayor". I mean, it's that kind of thing that is so gross and awful and do I really have the sheer face it would take to urge, for instance, Black voters to vote for someone who literally supports police brutality against Black people?

Let me first stipulate: fuck Mayo Pete. Other than Tulsi he's the worst option. Worse than Bloomberg, worse than Biden.

With that said, there's kind of an exponential leap between Pete's badness on policing and Trump's pervasive, multi-pronged assault on all people of color. It's a much more nuanced argument to make to voters, but at the same time, with something like 8% support among Black voters, I don't feel like you'll have to do much convincing in the first place. Will Buttigieg motivate Black voters to volunteer the way a Sanders, Warren, or even Biden would? I don't think so. But there is a world of difference between Buttigieg's passive indifference toward suffering and Trump's active pursuit to maximize it.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:35 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


With that said, there's kind of an exponential leap between Pete's badness on policing and Trump's pervasive, multi-pronged assault on all people of color. It's a much more nuanced argument to make to voters

It's getting increasingly harder to nuance the "if you don't vote for the We'll Let You Die Party's candidate then the We'll Kill You Party will gain even more power" argument.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:39 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


Lamenting the regrettable choice between bad and worse doesn't change the distance between the two. Maybe in the next reboot of the simulation, we can include a "no two party system" patch.
posted by tonycpsu at 3:42 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


The nuclear arsenal doesn't have a lot of nuance to it, and it genuinely confuses me that it's typically left out of these conversations.
posted by PMdixon at 3:43 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


We're stuck in the Trump years and - although this isn't how I'm thinking in terms of voting - you could pretty easily say that electing a Democrat who does nothing to fix the current situation isn't actually an improvement and may be a worsening, since it will convince people who don't pay much attention that things must be better, because Democrat. I think this is probably wrong, but just how much incremental change you can get through activism if you elect Biden or Bloomberg is not clear to me. And then if you have a Democrat who doesn't dismantle the camps they're all ready for the next GOP fascist.

This is accelerationism (and I totally grant it's not how you're thinking). The argument boils down to "it's better that Stephen Miller is in charge of immigration in this country because at least more people are mad about it now. Maybe if it gets really really bad, people will be mad enough and will somehow make it stop." And I haven't heard any full-time immigration activists/people directly in harm's way make anything remotely resembling that argument, presumably because "we'll let the fascist get even more powerful and then we'll fight him" isn't just terrible strategy; it leaves an awful lot more vulnerable people trampled in the meantime. Perhaps "at least more people care now" is a thin silver lining on the present awful situation, sure, but that's not an argument against even bland centrist incrementalism. The parties are not both the same.
posted by zachlipton at 3:48 PM on February 5, 2020 [14 favorites]


A lot of people would probably be more motivated to vote for the merely "bad" option if it cared whether they (or 75% of the planet) live or die.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Still, I get the feeling he’d get destroyed by Trump.

I’m very much of the “not Pete, please, dear god” sort, for many, many reasons (the racism in the SBPD and his response to it coming to light is just one thing that should have been instantly disqualifying, and that it wasn’t tells you a good deal about his base), but dear lord, have we all forgotten what happened last time we ran smart, yet smarmy/smartest-guy-in-the-room against dumb? And Gore could have actually been decent (though it prob would have been 4-8 more years of Clinton GOP-lite, at least with some sort of green tinge). Pete against Trump would be a massacre. There’s the perception that people voted for Bush because they thought the smart guy was bullying the doofy likeable guy. Now it’s people voting for the asshole because they like seeing the taunts they used in grade school validated because they’re coming from the president. Running teachers pet against the rich class bully is a fucking disaster waiting to happen. There’s very little more unifying to large parts of the American population more unifying than hating the smart guy who shows off how smart he is.

And yeah, to me, the only way to fight off the bullying bullshit is earnestness and passion, which Pete lacks utterly, and Warren and Sanders have. Anyone but Trump, but lord don’t let it be Pete.
posted by Ghidorah at 3:53 PM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


And to be clear: I am not a Buttigieg fan. I just don't think he's worse than Trump.

I dunno, I kind of like the guy's ideas.
posted by FakeFreyja at 4:01 PM on February 5, 2020


A lot of people would probably be more motivated to vote for the merely "bad" option if it cared whether they (or 75% of the planet) live or die.

Honesty, I don't know what action I'm supposed to take based on this line of argument. The candidates are who they are. It would be extremely difficult to change them at this point in time, so we make the choices we make of what's in front of us. If this election is lost, there is unlikely to be any opportunity to do anything meaningful in 2024 so it's not even like it's advice that can be taken on board for next time. Who are you trying to persuade to do what with these statements?

Moreover, they are who they are because the immoral status quo fetishists who are a plurality of the voting public want them that way. Yes, the electorate is a nightmare of white supremacy. What do you want anyone to do about it? This is America. That's why I'm actively planning to leave it.
posted by PMdixon at 4:01 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


538 turned their model back on.
Chances of winning the required majority of delegates:
Sanders 37%
No one 27%
Biden 21%
Warren 10%
Buttigieg 6%
Somebody else 0.6%
posted by Huffy Puffy at 4:02 PM on February 5, 2020


Responding to something I caught way upthread. Sanders is certainly not the only candidate who would put an end to the abuses of ICE etc. Warren would come down on ICE like a fucking thunderbolt. And she has a plan for structural change that is badly needed.
posted by prefpara at 4:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [26 favorites]


I mean, is there ANYTHING that you wouldn't excuse away like this?

Speaking for myself, some actual evidence of wrongdoing would be nice? As opposed to the kind of thing that happens in every single election but usually doesn't matter, and which will be corrected in a matter of hours.

It's a weird conspiracy which is evil and powerful enough to try to cheat in the nominating process of one of the two major parties of the most powerful country on earth while simultaneously being so incompetent and weak that they do so in a way which is guaranteed to last only hours and have no impact on anything but to piss off anyone who catches them.

Seriously, we have a paper trail. Nobody is stupid enough to rig the non-paper-trail results when they know they will be caught in hours or even minutes.
posted by Justinian at 4:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


As opposed to the kind of thing that happens in every single election but usually doesn't matter, and which will be corrected in a matter of hours.

I have an impression that this is the first time being invested in the blow by blow of an election for a lot of people who therefore don't know how messy normal looks. I could be wrong.
posted by PMdixon at 4:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


With all due respect, I don’t have the means to leave the United States. Neither do my friends and family. So I’m sorry if I haven’t achieved a sufficient level of emotional detachment to appreciate the inevitable sausage making of politics.
posted by eagles123 at 4:14 PM on February 5, 2020 [6 favorites]


Again, Rs named the wrong winner in Iowa in 2012 and took over two weeks to figure out who really won. And they named the establishment favorite the winner when it was really an upstart and yet it was just human error, not a conspiracy.
posted by chris24 at 4:14 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Take a closer look at that Press-Citizen article about the sloppy way the preference cards were handled in the precincts. I mean, look at this mess and then imagine trying to recreate what happened two days later:

Counting cards was a problem...Volunteers struggled to count the preference cards. The caucus took nearly three hours due to counting delays. “There were some misunderstandings on how to deal with the second alignment,” said Ed Cranston, Johnson County Democratic Party chair and chair of the precinct. When asked why volunteers struggled to count the cards, Cranston, visibly exhausted, said he wasn’t sure: “It’s hard to say,” he said. “It’s hard to say.”

===
Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were the only viable candidates in the precinct. Warren and Sanders preference cards remained with the precinct chairs. Everyone else’s were passed back out. Phil Tyne received a pile of 115 preference cards back — Buttigieg was just six cards short of validating...Because Buttigieg wasn’t viable in the first alignment, Tyne had to pass back out all 115 cards to their 115 owners.

===
But over at camp Buttigieg, as they waited for the cards to get passed out, some thought that as long as they marked Buttigieg as their first pick, their vote would carry to the second. Some of the original 115 had left the precinct.

===
On the other side of the room, Earle Stellwagen, 86, found his 1st preference, Joe Biden, wasn’t viable. He was considering Warren, hoping for more Biden converts, but he said he didn’t have the time to think to hard about it since, he was too busy trying to find where his card went.

“The Biden person has it, but I don’t know where the Biden person is. I’m trying to get it back and vote a second time,” Stellwagen said.

Seriously, read that section of the Press-Citizen article. You'll get a better sense of just how incredibly stupid, vague and loose the Iowa caucus vote was in many precincts, and how difficult it will be for the IDP to match the initially reported totals, even with something of a paper trail. There was *so* much confusion at precincts about how cards were supposed to work. You really don't need conspiracy theories to explain why the recount is going so poorly: the system is a joke and the IDP is scrambling to make it look less hilariously dumb. The "official" counts *will* be off because the initial counts were often very sloppily done. It's the nature of the Iowa process, and it sucks.
posted by mediareport at 4:18 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


So I’m sorry if I haven’t achieved a sufficient level of emotional detachment to appreciate the inevitable sausage making of politics.

How about I rephrase it this way: What's unambiguously happened and will in future is going to be hard enough to emotionally weather that I can't imagine being able to survive interpreting every fuckup in the primary process as an intentional nefarious act.
posted by PMdixon at 4:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I’m not saying there is a conspiracy either. I even posted up thread an innocent explanation for everything. Its just that goddamn they are doing everything they can to sketch me out.

I’m not sure I like the implications of the innocent scenario either as portents of where we are going.

In the long run I’m with you about where I think everything ultimately ends up. I just like to hold out a little hope to keep from going insane.
posted by eagles123 at 4:27 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


538 turned their model back on.
Chances of winning the required majority of delegates:
. . .
No one 27%
. . .

Ahhhhhhhh *heartburn intensifies*
posted by sallybrown at 4:30 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


And I can see the logic of saying to people "if you have to choose between being punched in the face and being knifed in the stomach you choose the face" but it just starts to eat away at you after a while.

It's getting increasingly harder to nuance the "if you don't vote for the We'll Let You Die Party's candidate then the We'll Kill You Party will gain even more power" argument.

Deary me. Eating away? Difficult to nuance? Shit. Those are actual problems compared to the additional people who might, you know, die if the worse person gets voted in.

I am the furtherest person who needs to give a fuck about the petty and grand squabbles of this country alike. I have a foreign passport, I have the resources to leave if things become a shitshow, I have connections to rebuild my family's lives where I would end up. Even with that level of privilege that I have to check, even I at least know that you show up and you pull the lever for the person who's not a fucking fascist. Even the French get this shit right.

Votez escroc, pas facho!
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [11 favorites]


I’m not sure I like the implications of the innocent scenario either

Yeah, I actively hate the implications of the innocent scenario. There's been some thoughtful pushback online to the "never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence and stupidity" stuff, mainly because malice fucking *loves* it when there's lots of stupidity and incompetence around, but in this case the incompetence seems to me more than rich enough to explain the data we're seeing.

I do very much look forward to a detailed explanation of the Sanders-Patrick Switch bug, whatever it was, which is quite a different issue than the clearly idiotic preference card count issues.
posted by mediareport at 4:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Again, innocent incompetence is completely plausible. But if that incompetence consistently harms specific people, and has to date only helped another specific person, it becomes harder to believe that incompetence is innocent. Like run of the mill fuckups would scramble numbers, not create a single direction funnel across an entire state.
posted by FakeFreyja at 4:36 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Seriously--do we know that it was just those two who have been affected?
posted by Anonymous at 4:42 PM on February 5, 2020


Like I said earlier, "occasional bad actor taking advantage of the chaos and incompetence to massage things" is definitely on the table. That the vote changes never seem to go in Sanders' favor is good evidence there are some of those folks involved, yes.
posted by mediareport at 4:43 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Do we know none of the errors went in his favor? Or is it just that those are the ones making it on Twitter?
posted by Anonymous at 4:44 PM on February 5, 2020


Speaking for myself, some actual evidence of wrongdoing would be nice? As opposed to the kind of thing that happens in every single election but usually doesn't matter, and which will be corrected in a matter of hours.

It's a weird conspiracy which is evil and powerful enough to try to cheat in the nominating process of one of the two major parties of the most powerful country on earth while simultaneously being so incompetent and weak that they do so in a way which is guaranteed to last only hours and have no impact on anything but to piss off anyone who catches them.

Seriously, we have a paper trail. Nobody is stupid enough to rig the non-paper-trail results when they know they will be caught in hours or even minutes.

I mean, come on.

This "trust the system" cheerleading is getting a little tiresome.
posted by kafziel at 4:44 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mod note: One deleted. Please rein in the large-scale hypotheticals about civil war, etc.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 4:45 PM on February 5, 2020


But if that incompetence consistently harms specific people, and has to date only helped another specific person,

But what you're ignoring and have never really grappled with is that the single person who has been most harmed by the fuckup in Iowa is not Sanders, it is Pete Buttigieg.
posted by Justinian at 4:46 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


Tell me you can watch that guy rig a coin toss in Buttigieg's favour, and then tell me there isn't more fuckery afoot.
posted by Yowser at 4:46 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


And like, if someone is accidentally pasting results one column over, and the people on either side of you get nothing, then it's going to look like you got nothing every time. Again: I would REALLY like to have seen the entire slate of candidates for that error, instead of just the screenshot of those four.
posted by Anonymous at 4:46 PM on February 5, 2020


Do we know none of the errors went in his favor? Or is it just that those are the ones making it on Twitter?

Fair point; I don't know that. We do know that the biggest errors that have been reported to date (yes, on Twitter, from folks who've been close to the ground throughout) all go against Sanders.

I'll retract the "good evidence" part until further confirmation.
posted by mediareport at 4:48 PM on February 5, 2020


the single person who has been most harmed by the fuckup in Iowa is not Sanders, it is Pete Buttigieg.

If you have the full, final vote count, that's fabulous news! If you don't, how do you know who's been most harmed?
posted by mediareport at 4:51 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


not agreeing with you is not like not admitting a fact, it's just not agreeing with you

Can we just post this as the mandatory first comment in every politics-related thread from now on?
posted by AdamCSnider at 4:53 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


This "trust the system" cheerleading is getting a little tiresome.

So is the conspiracy theorizing.
posted by chris24 at 4:56 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


If you have the full, final vote count, that's fabulous news! If you don't, how do you know who's been most harmed?

Because the person most harmed isn't necessarily the person who gets the most votes, it's the person who most overperformed relative to expectations and simultaneously the person who needed the media narrative of that overperformance in order to make his candidacy viable. Buttigieg needs a big bounce from Iowa and NH in order to replace Biden as the more moderate candidate. Sanders... doesn't need anything. Unless Warren pulls a rabbit out of like twelve hats simultaneously in New Hampshire she isn't going to pass Sanders, and he's gonna kick ass in delegates there.

The narrative out of IA if the count had been completed quickly would be "PETE BUTTIGIEG HAS THE BIG MO". It doesn't matter if he finished 2 SDEs ahead of Sanders or 2 SDEs behind Sanders for that to have happened, it should be obvious to anyone who has spent 5 minutes following politics that would have been the media narrative. And now thats all gone.

Sanders doesn't need IA, Buttigieg did. That's it.
posted by Justinian at 4:58 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


I just keep visualizing a bully in a classroom hitting a kid in the back of the head with wadded up paper balls over and over, saying "whoops sorry" every time. The kid tries to get help from the teacher, but they laugh and dismiss the kid, saying "little Dwayne has apologized, I'm sure it was just 47 innocent mistakes in a row."
posted by FakeFreyja at 5:01 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Tell me you can watch that guy rig a coin toss in Buttigieg's favour, and then tell me there isn't more fuckery afoot.

Are you talking about this video? That looks like an awkward teenage boy being an awkward teenage boy, not some Mayor Pete henchman stealing a delegate from Klobuchar (that’s who the toss was between, not Pete and Bernie). The tweets below say “The coin-flipper was a student from Florida who came with his dad to Iowa to get an up-close look at the caucuses. He was picked by the precinct managers because he was an ‘impartial observer.’ Afterward he told me he was a bit nervous and caught the coin between his fingers. He said he’d have to practice more next time.”

The fuckery here is (a) that any coin toss is involved, and (b) that a group of people were like “aw cute a town visitor, he can decide our delegate thing!”
posted by sallybrown at 5:05 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


Sanders... doesn't need anything.

This take - that a clear Sanders win in Iowa would not have benefited his campaign immensely - is just so bizarre to me that I have to leave it there. I agree to disagree.
posted by mediareport at 5:05 PM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


If there are going to be conspiracy theories about Iowa, I don’t get why more of them aren’t about the candidate who unmistakably benefited from obscuring the results—Biden!
posted by sallybrown at 5:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


A clear Sanders win in Iowa would have benefited him but it's obvious that he didn't get a clear win? It's a complete counterfactual. The only question is whether he lost on SDEs or basically tied Buttigieg.
posted by Justinian at 5:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


If there are going to be conspiracy theories about Iowa, I don’t get why more of them aren’t about the candidate who unmistakably benefited from obscuring the results—Biden!

They've been and gone. Biden was going to file suit to stop the Iowa results from being released at one point on right wing Twitter. Didn't gain any traction upon the caucus results turning into an omnishambles.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:08 PM on February 5, 2020


Nothing is obvious yet, we don't even have 100% of the precincts reporting in officially.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


You don't need 100% reporting to know what the results will essentially look like? The NYT link to the projections is around and, yes, it's obvious that Sanders didn't get a "clear win". It is almost certain he had the most first-round people and very likely that Buttigieg got the most SDEs because of the way Iowa privileges certain areas. But even the absolute best case scenario for Sanders is that he and Buttigieg are in a virtual tie for SDEs.
posted by Justinian at 5:12 PM on February 5, 2020


The narrative out of IA if the count had been completed quickly would be "PETE BUTTIGIEG HAS THE BIG MO"

In 2016 Hillary Clinton won by "the closest margin in the history of the contest: 49.8% to 49.6% (Clinton collected 700.47 state delegate equivalents to Sanders' 696.92, a difference of one quarter of a percentage point)." She got 23 delegates and he got 21. She ended up with 2,842 delegates to his 1,865. It's insane that a small victory in a small state that results in a small fraction of the delegates needed to win is such a big deal.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:12 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


NYT Iowa results. 86% in and Buttigieg leads in SDEs 512-488. They give Buttigieg a greater than 95% to win.
posted by Justinian at 5:15 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Man, the amount of motivated reasoning and flat-out shitty logic in this thread is really bumming me out. I come to MetaFilter because it isn’t a cesspool of shitty online behavior and toxic conspiracies.

So, y’know. Knock it the fuck off.

No, don’t “just trust the system”. Trust that there’s barely a system to begin with and the people trying their level best to deal with it are up to their goddamned eyeballs. Your suspicions and thinly-sourced accusations aren’t fucking helping.

That article from the Press-Citizen describes a caucus that looked nothing like the one I attended. We were told to hold on to our ballots preference cards until we left. Then, and only then, were we to turn it into our candidate delegate. Which doesn’t speak to conspiracy or skullduggery — it speaks to inconsistent understanding of the rules.

Frankly, my experience was the smoothest since I caucused as a Republican in 1996 (boy, was I dumb). If anything, this year has shown me that caucuses are definitively the wrong process for every state in the union.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:17 PM on February 5, 2020 [22 favorites]


A Mayo Pete victory will certainly unify the other candidates for an immediate joint legal action.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:20 PM on February 5, 2020


Based on Nate Silvers model on 538, it looks like biggest beneficiary of the Iowa the result was “nobody”.
posted by eagles123 at 5:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also, for everyone out there fretting about a Buttigieg nomination, I think the best outcome is for Sanders and Warren to both stay in and force a negotiated convention. In that case, Buttigieg would win a plurality but Sanders/Warren could jointly control a majority of delegates.

The fact is, unlike the GOP, the Democrats are a coalition party with a diversity of groups and ideas comprising a broad spectrum from the political center to card-carrying leftists. The best candidate is the person who can excite the greatest number of people—how we find another Obama is kind of beyond me.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:29 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


I think there's a good chance Sanders wins a plurality. The question is whether they give him the nomination if he does. I suppose it depends on the size of his plurality... but not doing so would be a good way to, shall we say, not win.
posted by Justinian at 5:30 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Based on Nate Silvers model on 538, it looks like biggest beneficiary of the Iowa the result was “nobody”.

That’s honestly not a bad thing. I think a contested convention would be a good thing.*

*As long as it doesn’t devolve into some of the nonsense seen up thread.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


There seems to have been a lot of coin tosses (and one instance of pulling names out of a hat) with no apparent pattern favoring one particular candidate, so far as I can tell.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:34 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


The question is whether they give him the nomination if he does.

Nobody will win the nomination with a plurality. Only a majority will do the trick. If Sanders goes into the convention with a plurality of delegates, he better figure out how to make friends with the other candidates right quick.

That goes for all of his supporters, too.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 5:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


So many of these are in high school gyms that they could have played HORSE for the tie delegates instead.
posted by sallybrown at 5:37 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


It's very, very possible that Sanders + Warren go in with a majority when combined. Maybe sending her some more 🐍 will help convince her to give Sanders her peeps.
posted by Justinian at 5:44 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think if any of the candidates were to win a plurality but the party were to nominate someone else then the Democrats would lose big in November. That’s just reality.
posted by eagles123 at 5:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


92% reporting, Buttigieg 531.7, Sanders 513.1, Difference of 18 SDE
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:50 PM on February 5, 2020


That means Sanders closed the gap by about 6 SDEs in going from 86% to 92% reported. He may narrow it even further. But he won't close it completely and if by some miracle he did it would be essentially a tie, and that's been obvious for some time!
posted by Justinian at 6:00 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Looking at the moves between First and Final allocation, it sure looks to me like there were a lot of Yang --> Buttigieg voters. That's... something.
posted by Justinian at 6:09 PM on February 5, 2020


@ryangrim: "With 92% in, Sanders leads the popular vote and trails delegates by 18, which means satellites could indeed put him over the top"
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:15 PM on February 5, 2020


Satellites aren't included yet? (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻ freakin iowa.

It's going to be quite close if thats true, but it does help Sanders' chances. (There are 41 total SDEs from satellites AFAIK).
posted by Justinian at 6:19 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


James Payne @Banalization
They fucking misreported my precinct. Bernie won 2 delegates in Polk County - Des Moines Precinct 14 in Merle Hay and we fought like hell for them. And @iowademocrats put one of our SDEs in Warren's column but correctly reported vote. #IowaCaucusDisaster #iowacaucus #iowa
3:27 PM · Feb 5, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
2K Retweets 4.7K Likes
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


HI! I SEE YOUR TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRATIC CONSPIRACIES! WOULD YOU ALSO LIKE:

HILLARY'S EMAILS

DNC PAYING RUSSIANS

VINCE FOSTER

BERNIE WOULD HAVE WON

OTHER
posted by happyroach at 6:28 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


Why should we trust that the SDEs as reported are reliable, given all the fuckups so far?
posted by Gadarene at 6:29 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Depends on what you mean by reliable. They aren't exact, clearly, but as you can see they are being checked and fixed in real time by an army of both volunteers and experts. So they are getting more reliable with every hour.
posted by Justinian at 6:31 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


From what I understand there was something of a movement by the Yang Gangers to caucus with candidates other than Bernie because they thought it would help Yang down the road by hurting Bernie. It wasn’t a universal sentiment, but it was a thing.
posted by eagles123 at 6:32 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Looking at the moves between First and Final allocation, it sure looks to me like there were a lot of Yang --> Buttigieg voters. That's... something.
Someone in my precinct went from Klobuchar to Bernie. People are weird.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 6:33 PM on February 5, 2020


There are 41 total SDEs from satellites AFAIK

Correct
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:34 PM on February 5, 2020


HI! I SEE YOUR TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRATIC CONSPIRACIES!

A STRANGE GAME.
THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS
NOT TO PLAY.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:35 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Someone in my precinct went from Klobuchar to Bernie. People are weird.

There were also a lot of people reallocated from Steyer in the second round and a lot of those going to Buttigieg would at least make some sense. But like you say, people are weird.
posted by Justinian at 6:38 PM on February 5, 2020


I remember talking to a guy in 2016 who was trying to decide whether to register as a Republican to vote for Chris Christie or to register as a Democrat to vote for Bernie Sanders. His reasoning was that he liked the executive experience both had (mayor and governor).
posted by eagles123 at 6:39 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


I can see Bernie and Amy both appealing to someone who likes a gruff vibe. (Fans of Oscar the Grouch unite.) Whereas Yang, Pete, and Warren have more of a high-strung vibration going. (That’s what Marianne would say...)
posted by sallybrown at 6:47 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Steve Kornacki thinks it possible Sanders will gain 10-20 more SDEs from satellites. As noted Buttigieg leads currently by 18.
posted by Justinian at 6:49 PM on February 5, 2020


Interesting. My impulse is to think that turnout was probably higher in the satellites at nursing homes and retirement communities than at the ones at more Bernie-friendly locations, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the old folks split the vote more than the other satellites.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:03 PM on February 5, 2020


What an absolute clusterfuck. I can't believe the Iowa Democrats would fuck this up this bad, especially since four years ago we had the least legitimate US presidential election in modern memory.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [7 favorites]


Have you ever met the Iowa Democrats? Probably not, but I have, and I am not at all surprised.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 7:30 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Thread. We found #RoundingErrors in 30% of the precinct math worksheets that we examined from the #IowaCaucus. Each "rounding error" gave one extra delegate to a candidate, over 50% of the time the extra delegate went to @PeteButtigieg.

The #RoundingErrors could lead to a significant number of delegates. They were in 30% of the precincts we examined. If 30% of 1678 precincts have an extra delegate assigned this way, it could be approximately 500 delegates. Buttigieg is currently leading Sanders by 18 delegates

https://twitter.com/LuluFriesdat/status/1225256764649680898

(photo evidence included)
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:52 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Lecture me more about how I need to respect the sanctity of this election and how this is totally normal and happens all the time and this must be the first election I've ever paid attention to and please can't I just calm down and be soothed so the adults can talk just stop with all the conspiracy theories really this just effects every candidate in exactly the same way in fact really it's bad for pete that he's getting all these extra fake delegates
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:54 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


96% reporting, Buttigieg lead down to 16 SDE
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:57 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


If Democrats need a conspiracy to go after, why not the whole Shadow/ACRONYM/Lockwood grift constellation behind this whole fuckin' mess?
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:03 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


The person posting that has no idea how the rounding rules work. Zach Lipton has an earlier post if I remember right on the quirks on how they round and how it works since they only have a fixed number of delegates to assign.

So yeah, this is totally normal and you're passing on an incorrect conspiracy theory
posted by chris24 at 8:05 PM on February 5, 2020 [16 favorites]


How sure are we about those rounding errors? I think there was discussion earlier about how delegates are allocated that don't necessarily jibe with regular rounding rules.

(On preview chris24 beat me to it)
posted by sporkwort at 8:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Whoops, that does look like a shady tweet I passed on, my bad. Someone I trust sent it my way but I guess I should have verified.

I stand by my anti-lecturing sentiments though.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:09 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


Wow, that "rounding error" thing is some garbage reporting. The tweets say that they found rounding errors in 30% of the worksheets they saw, but the article says that they only saw 18 worksheets, pictures of which were posted on Twitter. There were "rounding errors" in five of them. But they weren't actually errors: they were instances in which the rounded numbers added up one short of the number of delegates that the caucus had been assigned. The person claiming conspiracy admits that she has no idea what was supposed to happen in that case, because she hasn't seen the rules (which are complicated.) My hunch is that there were no errors. There's just some irresponsible "reporter" looking for a scandal, and a lot of gullible people who will fall for anything that confirms their assumptions.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:10 PM on February 5, 2020 [12 favorites]


Given the experience the Republicans had with their Iowa caucus in 2012, plus countless examples of low-bid (or no-bid?) software going horribly on rollout (Healthcare.gov, anyone?), something like this seemed almost inevitable in retrospect. The DNC's own cybersecurity chief warned the Iowa Democrats to just drop the app, but they did not.

In addition to what I think are some misplaced assumptions that this outcome was what anyone wanted, people everywhere are misinterpreting this in ways I'm a bit frustrated by. A certain XKCD comic about the dangers of electronic voting is getting posted repeatedly around Twitter, and I don't think it applies here at all. None of the caucus data is stored solely electronically, which is when voting systems become truly risky; there's a paper trail (albeit one that is also kind of a mess thanks to the messiness of caucuses). This is a bit more like if CNN had a fancy new graphic to display election results, and it was horribly screwed up on rollout. That's a reporting problem, not an election problem. They just feel the same because there's no such thing as local news and politics occupies our collective brainspace. In 2012, nobody cared about Santorum vs whoever, but this week, we are all Iowans.

A further fallacy, I think, is the confusion of what we see in real time with the actual state of the data. This happened a lot in 2018, and Republicans jumped on it, using language to suggest that later-counted votes in some races were somehow inherently "later", like someone rushing to catch up in a race after someone else crossed the finish line. In this case, anyone who sees a great big fiasco and concludes skullduggery is probably not enough of a conspiracy theorist, because actual election tampering usuully looks identical to a legitimate election, not like a circus. The problem with purely-electronic systems (which this was not) is that hacking could leave almost no trace. It could have happened in Ohio in 2004 and no one would know because there'd be nothing to give news about. Meanwhile, in this situation, the raw data is all there. If the previously-applied math is in fact wonky, there are months left to fix it.

Fun fact from Wikipedia: "Because Iowa had a complex process of precinct caucuses, county conventions, district conventions, and a state convention, they chose to start early." In other words, it wasn't supposed to be the Big First Bellweather, but rather We Won't Know For Months So Let's Start Now.

A third major pet peeve I have, a framing that every new source also buys into, is that someone can "win" a state this year, the way they can in the general with the electoral college. That's not possible here because of the proportionality (unless it's a sweep of 100%). Getting slight majority of a state is actually meaningless, despite the traditions of "victory" and "concession" speeches.

I do really wish the DNC could flex muscles on this... but I'm not sure how they would, and I also don't know how that would satisfy certain corners. By definition, any solution would be "the DNC" getting its fingers everywhere, meddling, etc.

What we need is a ground-up reworking of the entire system. (My quick proposal: exactly four regional primaries, each covering an area of about one-quarter the population of American Democrats, rotating placement every cycle, each lasting exactly two weeks of extended voting, and using an approval method where voters can support as many candidates as they wish. Delegates are assigned in direct proportion to the subset of total votes cast for any candidate who recieved at least 15% of votes.)

But that's not going to happen basically ever, and if this ends the triple stupidness of a caucus in a small unrepresentative state having the first contest, that's plenty of a win.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 8:12 PM on February 5, 2020 [13 favorites]


Thanks for the corrections, caucus rules are so inscrutable. If we get lucky then maybe this whole mess will lead to the end of them.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:19 PM on February 5, 2020


Bloomberg, Trump Fans Flooded Iowa Caucus Hotline, Democrats Say
Supporters of President Donald Trump flooded a hotline used by Iowa precinct chairs to report Democratic caucus results after the telephone number was posted online, worsening delays in the statewide tally, a top state Democrat told party leaders on a conference call Wednesday night.

According to two participants on the call, Ken Sagar, a state Democratic central committee member, was among those answering the hotline on caucus night and said people called in and expressed support for Trump. The phone number became public after people posted photos of caucus paperwork that included the hotline number, one of the people on the call said.
posted by zachlipton at 8:23 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Yeah, well, I'm with you on the caucuses, but you could also do your part by trying to become an even slightly-critical consumer of social media. You do not need to share everything you read. You can take five minutes to verify it before you pass it on.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:24 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


I do not think it is in any way ok. This bullshit is now all over my Twitter feed. Nobody is going to read the correction that she posts tomorrow. They're just going to internalize the message that the whole thing is rigged and there's some kind of conspiracy, and this is not evidence of a conspiracy. (It's evidence of a stupid, overly complicated system, but we already knew that.) You need to stop doing this. I don't care that you're sorry. Just cut it the fuck out.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:36 PM on February 5, 2020 [9 favorites]


Oh interesting a Bloomberg article about Trump. How completely interesting.

In other news a fly reports about a juicy turd
posted by weed donkey at 8:39 PM on February 5, 2020


That may be, but they don't seem to stop folks from simply moving on to the next bit of misinformation? Like ok the rounding thing turned out to be BS but, this, this one is the real deal!
posted by Justinian at 8:47 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


(Also thinking about a lot of studies that show that corrections --- if they happen --- actually do successfully counteract misinformation)
I think the studies actually show exactly the opposite: corrections just repeat the original claim, and they make people more likely to remember the original claim, rather than the rebuttal.

I get that it's hard, but we need to figure out how not to do this, because I promise you that there are lots of bad actors figuring out how to weaponize the impulse to repeat stuff that sounds true and confirms our bad impressions of each other, whether it's stuff about Bernie Bros or stuff about the Democrats rigging elections or whatever.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 8:50 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


97% reporting, Buttigieg leads by less than 4 SDE
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:07 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


I know that everyone thinks this caucus is just about Biden vs Sanders or whatever, but it's not. It's about selecting over 11,000 county delegates for 99 county Democratic conventions in March and over 2000 state delegates for the state Democratic convention in April. And out of all this you get 41 delegates to the national Democratic convention in July.

Everyone is always talking about getting citizens directly involved in their local government and this is how it is done. It's not as simple as showing up for 15 minutes and ticking a box and leaving. Here you pick your county delegates and they pick the state delegates and then they pick the national delegates. Lots of direct participation all the way from the county to state levels. This is direct democracy, up close and personal. And it's messy.

You might cut them a little slack. Your national fetishes aren't the whole story.
posted by JackFlash at 9:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [10 favorites]


Given that the only thing that "matters" is the national delegates each candidate generates, the fastidious tracking of SDEs and overall vote % is just to buttress the "winner!" narrative of either Sanders or Buttegieg, right?
posted by nicolas léonard sadi carnot at 9:09 PM on February 5, 2020


For anyone who takes issue with my position that what matters out of Iowa is the narrative rather than extremely insignificant minutiae, consider how wrapped up we are in whether one candidate finishes 4 SDEs ahead or 4 SDEs behind another candidate. Which will translate into... nothing. There is no difference except the narrative.
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


(right, nlsc)
posted by Justinian at 9:13 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


3 Days of a NH tracking poll post-IA.

tl;dr - LOL BIDEN
posted by Justinian at 9:20 PM on February 5, 2020 [3 favorites]


NYT report that a few of the precinct captains used snailmail to send in their results:

Because a few precinct chairs dropped their worksheets into traditional mailboxes, they would not be counted until they were delivered. “We are in the process of waiting for the mail to arrive,” Mr. Price said. “Those final precincts may take a little bit for us to get those sheets.”

Also, this:

Someone needs to do a story on the economic impact it would have on Iowa if and when they take away the first-in-the-nation caucuses. Not just directly spending money on ads/campaigns/hotels/events either. Like the ethanol lobby suddenly losing one of its biggest cards
posted by mediareport at 9:21 PM on February 5, 2020


Well, it looks like Pete already is getting a polling bounce in New Hampshire. It looks like he's mainly eating in Biden's support. Looking at the crosstabs, it looks like there are still a lot of New Hampshire voters who are undecided.
posted by eagles123 at 9:22 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Considering that a contested convention is an actual possibility, it's more likely than it's even been in my lifetime that delegate swings in amounts <5 may eventually be meaningful, but I wouldn't say it's likely by any means, since the raw totals here are still in the thousands.
posted by Copronymus at 9:25 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Cedar Rapids paper The Gazette runs an in-house editorial: "Iowa caucuses have proved unworkable." The editors can't quite bring themselves to the next statement that obviously follows - "we need to dump the caucuses and move to a primary voting system" - but, hey, it's a start.
posted by mediareport at 9:33 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's still not clear if Buttigieg or Sanders will end up with more SDEs and we're over 97% reported.

This tweet from before the caucuses indicates that this isn't an accident. Sanders' team was pushing people to the satellite caucus sites hard, and everyone else was ignoring them. So contrary to earlier it wouldn't take a miracle for Sanders to catch up... just very smart, tactical voting.

Smart, tactical voting: if it is good enough for Sanders, it's good enough for us.
posted by Justinian at 9:45 PM on February 5, 2020 [8 favorites]


Look at the comments to that tweet. Everyone responding in the last hour with awesome gifs. That dude is an hero.
posted by Justinian at 9:47 PM on February 5, 2020 [2 favorites]


Reading about how the Sanders campaign focused on getting overlooked groups into the satellite caucuses really puts me in mind of Obama's 2008 campaign. Big name staffers who write books and make TV appearances tend to be almost painfully uninterested in this kind of nuts-and-bolts stuff. Famously, Mark Penn was reportedly completely unaware that Democratic Party primaries are allocated proportionately instead of winner-take-all until well into primary strategizing. If you take the process seriously, though, and try to rack up small advantages where you can, they often add up in a big way by the end, especially against campaigns that are completely ignoring them.

There's a long and storied tradition of candidates slouching their way to a vague sense of inevitability through high name recognition. Biden's campaign this time is a great example, but JEB! last time around was just as bad about it. If this stupid primary process has any value at all, it's in weeding out those campaigns at least some of the time, and in giving a leg up to staffs who can do simple stuff like read the rules of the contest and execute a relatively simple plan, which are apparently beyond a shocking number of professional political operatives.
posted by Copronymus at 10:04 PM on February 5, 2020 [19 favorites]


The NYT needle was not taking into account the satellite caucuses which accounts for the >95% confusion! It seems to have been removed!

Perhaps the last two days will have done us a double service by driving a stake into the heart of two of history's greatest mistakes: the Iowa Caucus and the NYT Needle.
posted by Justinian at 10:17 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


ruh roh, Taniel here makes the case that the IDP is miscalculating the SDEs from the caucus sites in a way that is beneficial to Sanders (rigging the primary for Bernie!). If that turns out to be the case it will likely be corrected and result in some delegates moving out of the Sanders column tomorrow.
posted by Justinian at 10:26 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Ha.

Muslims helping give the Jewish candidate the final boost to victory in Iowa is a helluva storyline to kickoff primary election season 2020
posted by mediareport at 11:00 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


A clear Sanders win in Iowa would have benefited him but it's obvious that he didn't get a clear win? It's a complete counterfactual. The only question is whether he lost on SDEs or basically tied Buttigieg.
posted by Justinian at 5:07 PM on February 5 [1 favorite +] [!]

What do SDE's matter? If the delegates are the same and one candidate won the popular vote, isn't that candidate the winner?
posted by eustatic at 11:08 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Historically, and this year, the media basically universally uses SDEs. (There was one exception someone mentioned but I can't remember who it was... WSJ maybe?). They are gonna call whichever candidate gets more SDEs the winner even though it is now clear that Sanders had the most votes.

If you think we should be using one person, one vote, toss this SDE and weird multilevel delegate crap in the dustbin of history then I'm right there with you.

(This is the first year they report anything but SDEs AFAIK, which was a change pushed by the Sanders camp after 2016. )
posted by Justinian at 11:12 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yeah it looks like Sanders and Buttigieg both had some good organization which didn't show up in the raw number of field offices.
posted by Justinian at 11:19 PM on February 5, 2020 [1 favorite]


Note that Buttigieg has the most field offices of any candidate with 33, while Sanders limps in with 21. Sanders was relying on enthusiasm, Pete went with organization.

Yeah it looks like Sanders and Buttigieg both had some good organization which didn't show up in the raw number of field offices.

What a difference 24 hours makes, huh.
posted by kafziel at 11:44 PM on February 5, 2020 [5 favorites]


This is what expanding the electorate looks like:. "Stand up if you're a first time voter!"
posted by windbox at 11:49 PM on February 5, 2020 [4 favorites]


If he gets the nom, I think I'm just going to just live with equal amounts of hope and fear for what his administration can be.

Even though all the other followups to this comment have passed me by, it's an excuse to say something I want to say - I absolutely worry about what will happen if either Sanders or Warren wins, in the sense that I know they can only do so much, and they get stuck with the bag for things that happened on Trump's watch, and I don't want to see leftward momentum peter out as a result. But you know, winning and risking future losses is a hell of a lot better than not winning at all. And between those two candidates, who both are going to be constrained by our awful Senate, whose failures are both going to be cast as failures of "the left," I gotta go with the one whose last campaign played a huge role in paving the way for other lefty candidates, the one who says things that I've wanted somebody in the political mainstream to say for years, the one who sends the message that the younger generations of Dem voters - and god knows I've voted for a million of them - are so hungry for something different that we will take the guy who seems preserved in amber because we know he's the furthest thing from another third way doofus.
posted by atoxyl at 1:04 AM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


I'm still not sure I know who "won Iowa" at this point but - get fucked bread-prices-boy, and good night.
posted by atoxyl at 1:08 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm not immune to occasional worries about Sanders' ability to win the general, either, but when I think about each other candidate in turn not one makes me worry any less.
posted by atoxyl at 1:12 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


What a difference 24 hours makes, huh.

Yep, generally when presented with new evidence it makes one re-evaluate one's priors. Like when Sanders votes all get tallied properly I assume folks will re-evaluate their rigged narrative.
posted by Justinian at 1:16 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


> 3 Days of a NH tracking poll post-IA.

tl;dr - LOL BIDEN

joe. pete. you've got a little under 30% of the vote between you. what you have to do now is figure out how to split that vote exactly evenly. alright? exactly. evenly. you need to both finish just a hair under 15%. do you think you could do that for me, guys?
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:14 AM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


My three year old at dinner last nite: Dada, does Bernie Sanders like.....fishsticks????

Me: Yes he does my son. Yes. He. Does.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:10 AM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


Perhaps the last two days will have done us a double service by driving a stake into the heart of two of history's greatest mistakes: the Iowa Caucus and the NYT Needle.

Well, the needle is back! But guess who's favored now:

@Nate_Cohn: "with satellite caucuses accounted for, we think the race is a tossup with Bernie's [sic] favored very narrowly"

Funny how Sanders actually has a chance when his votes are actually counted; who woulda thought? That 99% Buttigieg prediction doesn't look so good now! At least Cohn has the decency to profusely apologize for the fuck-up.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:19 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Chanting: img tag img tag img tag
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:38 AM on February 6, 2020


My reaction to the fact that the first results of a process that will take months overall are going to come out a couple of days later than expected:

Oh. OK.

My reaction to the fact that the results are effectively a tie between two candidates:

Oh. So it's a tie, then.

Exactly why the media and the voting populace both appear to be treating this as a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE MELTDOWN SCENARIO continues to elude me.
posted by kyrademon at 3:47 AM on February 6, 2020 [29 favorites]


Especially since as mentioned earlier, the modern easy CA primary mail in system is going to take WEEKS to count. With much more actual delegate impact obviously.
posted by chris24 at 4:21 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Woke up this morning and the Fact Squad had torn apart my apartment and left a fine along with a 500 page explainer on information literacy, damn.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 4:36 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


*Ding-Dong*
"Why, Perry the Platypus, how surprising for you to stop by. I'm just making popcorn, why don't you step over this way--
"...into my pop-trap! Haha!
"Anyway, I suppose I'll tell you about my latest invention. As you know, my brother Roger Doofenshmirtz is the mayor of Danville, and my hatred of him has led me to a lifelong interest in electoral politics. As I'm sure you also know, the president is elected via an overly-complicated process involving electoral votes instead of people, between a pair of candidates nominated via an overly-complicated process involving a nominating convention filled with delegates, who in turn get chosen by like 50 different overly-complicated state voting systems. The first one is called a 'caucus', and it's in Iowa tonight for some reason! The people of Iowa all go and walk around and also fill out paper sheets that may or may not match where they've walked to, and then late at night, the elderly volunteers who run the caucus send in three kinds of voting information using an app that they haven't practiced with before! What they don't know, is that the app will fail, causing chaos to the entire process! And--
"Don't roll your eyes at me, Perry the Platypus, I haven't started telling you about my evil plan yet. This is their regular process. I know!
"Anyway, at some point, even later in the night, the volunteers will try to call in the three kinds of voting information, and somebody in Des Moines will try to tabulate the returns, and this is where I come in!
"BEHOLD, THE ANTI-TABULATINATOR!!
"As you can see, this device has two functions. The first one randomly jams landline telephones in and around Des Moines, Iowa, leading to difficulty in reporting results.
"The second one introduces translation errors into Microsoft Excel's copy-and-paste function, causing votes that should go to the leader in the precinct results to instead be allocated to me, Heinz Doofenshmirtz! The resulting state delegate equivalents will translate into enough national delegates to allow me to take over THE ENTIRE TRI-STATE AREA!!"
[scuffle]
"Perry the Platypus, how did you escape! What are you doing! No, don't set the destination to Deval Patrick, that'll cause the Anti-Tabulatinator to explode!"
[explodes]
"CURSE YOU, PERRY THE PLATYPUS!!"
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:05 AM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


David Atkins:
Increasingly seeing "Republicans want him to win" as a reason to attack Bernie and say he can't win the general.

Wrong.

The GOP wanted Obama in 08. Dems wanted Trump in 16.

Each side is famously stupid about who is electable on their own side, and beatable on the other.
posted by chris24 at 5:23 AM on February 6, 2020 [32 favorites]


(My kids just finished bingeing Phineas and Ferb and I have to applaud this comment by Huffy Puffy - the scriptwriters couldn't have done it better.)
posted by RedOrGreen at 5:39 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sorry to bring up something from 100 comments ago, but I wasn't able to post last night...

Automocar (or anyone else more knowledgeable about this than I am), re: your comment on the Constitution, the two-party system and collapse/coups, would you mind expounding or pointing me to more in-depth writing on the subject? It's something I've been wondering about in far vaguer terms but haven't been able to put into words, and my Google skills are failing me:

[...]the only way the American system has worked is by a high degree of interparty consensus. When that has broken down, we've gotten a lot of bad stuff happening, because there's literally no way to relieve the tension within the framework of the document. This is why there have been military coups in like every other country with a constitution based on the U.S. one.
posted by peakes at 5:45 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sounds like Acronym/Shadow/Globex/InsertEvilNameHere head honcho Tara McGowan isn't so anti-Trump that she won't borrow his strategies of self-dealing and blaming others when things explode (via):

@ryangrim
Her nonprofit does run digital ads, but used her for-profit consulting firm Lockwood to place those ads, taking a chunk off the top
Investors Rush to Downplay Ties to Firm Behind Iowa Clusterf*ck
One top Democratic operative noted that ACRONYM had publicly reported that they were going to launch $1 million of impeachment-related ads. But as of January 29, Advertising Analytics had shown them spending just $186,000, with their affiliate PACronym having spent $38,000.
‘We Feel Really Terrible,’ Says CEO Whose App Roiled Iowa Caucus
“The app was sound and good,” Niemira said. “All the data that was produced by calculations performed by the app was correct. It did the job it was supposed to do, which is help precinct chairs in the field do the math correctly. The problem was caused by a bug in the code that transmits results data into the state party’s data warehouse.” That transmission bug, he said, “had catastrophic impact.”
Atrios puts it best: "It was a very good app. The calculator function worked! Fucking grifters."
posted by tonycpsu at 5:58 AM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


Lol. It was sound and good other than the catastrophic bug. Genius!
posted by chris24 at 6:05 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


would you mind expounding or pointing me to more in-depth writing on the subject?

Here's what looks like a decent summary of why presidential systems are more prone to authoritarianism than parliamentary systems. (pdf)
posted by PMdixon at 6:08 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


u (or anyone else more knowledgeable about this than I am), re: your comment on the Constitution, the two-party system and collapse/coups,

This recent book is a good overview from academic political scientists for the general reader.

Presidential democracies based on the US constitution are very brittle and tend to collapse into dictatorships. The US has escaped this (so far), more or less, although I would argue we *did* have this collapse happen with the civil war, and then we returned to our constitutional system.

The question seems to be not: why do the other ones fall into dictatorships (non-Parliamentary democracies are incredibly prone to factionalism and deadlock, which encourages the rise of a leader who can "get things done" when nothing good is happening, and since they invest so much power in the President, s/he easily transforms into a dictator w/ military support). It's more: how is that that the US has not completely collapsed after so many years of factional gridlock?

(The founding fathers were not, in fact, so great)
posted by dis_integration at 6:13 AM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


More like Founding Fuckups, amirite?
posted by kirkaracha at 6:31 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Thank you, PMDixon and (the very appropriately named) dis_integration! Sorry once again for the derail.
posted by peakes at 6:32 AM on February 6, 2020


It's more: how is that that the US has not completely collapsed after so many years of factional gridlock?

Ezra Klein's recent book explores this, but from the observation that except for the Civil War, our factional gridlock has not been that bad . . at least until the last 20-30 years. Historically, the two parties shared endorsement of racism kept them not that different from each other culturally. Fast forward to a brief spotlight on 1964, . . then 20 years later the results of the GOP nearly completely taking on the mantle of white rage, racist and corrupt Southern govts, and the evangelicals culture wars writ large, and you've got the set up for our current gridlock. His argument is similar, observing how ready our system was for factionalism to lock it up, it's kind of a miracle it hadn't happened earlier.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Peakes, for a good political history follow on Twitter, check out Kevin Kruse who is a history professor at Princeton who specializes in politics. He’s also put together a list of other historians on Twitter.
posted by chris24 at 6:37 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


except for the Civil War, our factional gridlock has not been that bad .

I strongly reject this premise.

Even assuming Klein is ascribing the Antebellum deadlock of the 1840s-50s as part of the Civil War, the Gilded Age was also a period of factional paralysis that was only broken by the rise of a third party: The People's Party (aka Populists).
posted by absalom at 6:51 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


More like Founding Fuckups, amirite?

i would have gone with Founding Failsons
posted by entropicamericana at 6:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


Because this wasn’t a popular election. Just take a look at the rules.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 7:12 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Can anyone explain how Bernie is leading Buttigieg with regards to the popular vote, but Buttigieg is leading Bernie with regards to state delegate equivalents?

Iowa caucuses work in a way similar to the electoral college. Precincts are worth a certain amount of SDEs, and rural areas with low population get more SDE's relative to their population than urban areas. Buttigieg is doing really well in rural areas, post-realignment (mostly from people moving to him after Biden or Klobuchar were unviable).
posted by dis_integration at 7:12 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


Can anyone explain how Bernie is leading Buttigieg with regards to the popular vote, but Buttigieg is leading Bernie with regards to state delegate equivalents?
Just think of the 2016 electoral college v popular vote written in corn.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:15 AM on February 6, 2020 [17 favorites]


This is what kind of annoys me. Some people have such a persecution complex in these elections they're looking to prematurely seize on anything. Any mistake, any version, any anything that can be made to look even vaguely suspicious. Apparently we're fighting a mind share battle, trying to play to people's suspicions and sympathies without regard to what's actually happening. The end result is we get shitstorms about tweets like we've gotten upthread and misunderstandings/conspiracies/lies get to spread and do damage before the truth has a chance to get its proverbial pants on.

It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:28 AM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


Democratic primaries use proportional representation. The only thing that matters is the national delegate count. The media's focus on whether one candidate got slightly more votes than the other is embarrassing. They weren't electing the President of Iowa, they were electing delegates to decide on a nominee for America.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:44 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


Ady Barkan
This is all so hilariously meaningless. Bernie won the most votes, and they are each getting the same number of delegates to the national convention.

(The SDEs are an irrelevant intermediate step. They were only informative previously because the raw vote wasn't reported.)
posted by chris24 at 7:48 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Some people have such a persecution complex in these elections they're looking to prematurely seize on anything.

Yeah, a massive fuckup four years after the most illegitimate presidential election in modern memory that where it’s impact disadvantages the most leftist candidate that actually has a chance of winning is really NBD.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:50 AM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


This fuck-up disadvantages Buttigieg just as much as Sanders.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 7:51 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


The media's focus on whether one candidate got slightly more votes than the other is embarrassing.

Yeah, this gets me too. Who "won" Iowa in terms of getting the most votes (or delegates, or SDEs, or whatever) is, AFAICT, completely unimportant except inasmuch as the media has deemed it a Big Deal (and that becomes one of those self-fulfilling prophecies because the media moderate the message, so we have this vacuous "winning Iowa is important because the media reports on it, which they do because the media reports on important things" masturbation).

I get why overperforming or underperforming prior indicators is relevant, because that reflects the extent to which people will actually choose a candidate instead of just responding favorably to them in a poll, and this is the first chance we really get to see that, but the question of who got the most votes in Iowa seems like a not very illuminating one, particularly in a year where the answer to that question is likely to be within the margin or error anyways.
posted by jackbishop at 7:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


On the other hand, since Iowa is mainly notable for being the first barometer of how the campaigns translate into election results, and most primaries use raw vote totals rather than a mini-EC, if you're looking for "springboard" potential in the results rather than just the first entry in the delegate spreadsheet votes would seem to be the way to go.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:56 AM on February 6, 2020


It arguably helps Sanders long term.

1) Stepped on Pete’s performance and avoided any questions on whether Bernie underperformed expectations on vote and turnout, which you know all the media and establishment would’ve been focused on if he barely won/lost/basically tied.

2). Kept Klobuchar in the race which hurts Biden in NH.

3) Strengthened Pete for NH which hurts Biden.

4) The centrist who he’s tied with is the one who has no path past NH.

5) Biden’s team looked like asses with their reaction to it.

Yes Biden’s abysmal showing wasn’t as covered, but his polling is dropping already and moving to Pete and Bloomberg so people noticed. And he’s much more likely to finish 4th again in NH now, which will mean his 4th in Iowa will be brought back up repeatedly.
posted by chris24 at 7:58 AM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


I’ll add that it also helped him by focusing attention on him and Pete to the exclusion of Warren who had a pretty good night. The old “three tickets out of Iowa” cliche didn’t happen this year so he not only got the best result on the centrist side for him, it also pushed his only competition for the left out of the news.
posted by chris24 at 8:03 AM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


i think at this point the important thing isn’t who’s trying to fuck over who, because it’s a contest for the most powerful job in the world — of course everyone is going to try to fuck over everyone else, or at least everyone else who they don’t think they could end up in a convention-time coalition with.

chanting: warr-en san-ders! sand-ers warr-en! warr-en san-ders! sand-ers warr-en! warr-en san-ders! sand-ers warr-en!

and also it’s not terribly important who was most fucked over by the ineptitude of the media and the janky bustedness of the grift-derived caucus app.

what matters, i think, is which campaign is best at dealing with conscious attempts at fuckery, at fuckery derived from ineptitude, and from the shit-swirlie that results when ineptitude and fuckery are mixed together. whoever comes out on top is in a few short months going to be facing the emperor palpatine of ratfucking — someone who is nixon’s reanimated corpse, more or less, made more evil and more dumb through the reanimating process — while dealing with all of the malicious ineptitude the american media can muster. we want someone with a proven track record in weathering shitstorms aimed at them and generating shitstorms aimed at their opponents.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:15 AM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


Buggy Iowa Caucus App Is Buggy, Security Experts Say (Dell Cameron, Gizmodo)
The phone app at the center of the clown-shoe exercise in democracy known as the Iowa Caucuses was not only riddled with technical issues and potentially susceptible to being hacked, it appears to have been designed by a greenhorn programmer in the process of learning the code. That’s according to the analyses of several security experts who’ve now had time to rip the app apart and examine its guts.
Oh, joy.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:15 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


I suppose I'll grant that the relative disposition of the popular vote count vs. the delegate count only matters if you believe that people are more important than empty tracts of land.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:33 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


> it appears to have been designed by a greenhorn programmer in the process of learning the code.

But it's OK because the company feels really terrible about it.

Further quotes from the CEO from the above article: "“I’m really disappointed that some of our technology created an issue that made the caucus difficult"

That's basically the equivalent to "I'm sorry that you feel bad about what I said"
posted by MysticMCJ at 8:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


I am not a tech guy, but it strikes me that the app's intended use could have been easily accomplished through a secure, mobile version of Google Forms and two-factor identification. Am I wrong?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 8:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


You are not entirely wrong and that's often an exercise I play at work: "We're about to spend $100k and 2 months to build something I can do in an afternoon with $freeSaaSapp on my phone. Will our solution be any better?"

Usually our solution will cover the missing tiny problems that Google Sheets or whatever has that makes a custom solution worthwhile, but not always!
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 8:59 AM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


Given what I've heard about the timeline and money involved the low quality of the app is totally unsurprising. It just highlights that we need a new model -- any software that interacts with the public trust needs to be developed in an open source manner, deployments should be verifiable, and so on. What is trickling out in quotes and that Gizmodo interview sounds like the typical agency attitude to development. The sales people sold it, someone in staffing said shit, our senior people are busy, let's put this resource on it instead, and that resource was an intern. This is literally their business model so of course they don't see anything wrong with it and can only defend it from the perspective of wishing people were reacting differently. You need a different type of organization with a different type of motive to develop stuff this important.
posted by feloniousmonk at 9:02 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Fresh info from my co-workers brother:

On Monday night, the IDP had 50 lines and 35 volunteers set up to take phone calls. They fully expected they would have to take lots of results by phone. They didn’t have 50 computers, though, so when a precinct called in, it was written down on a form and then sent off to be input into their database. Yes, each precinct had a verification code they had to supply.

Calls took longer than in the past because of the amount of information they had to collect (# of participants, vote count by round for each candidate, final delegate count). In the past, they would only call in the delegate count and the rest of the information would be mailed in.

A significant number of calls were GOP trolls. The hotline number was shared on social media along with enough info so the trolls could string along the volunteers for 4-5 minutes before they would declare their allegiance to Trump and hang up. When it was clear what was happening, the state party did call in reinforcements to try and call precincts directly but with multiple printed lists going around some were getting called multiple times by different people and others didn’t get called at all. When they did reach some precinct chairs as late as 2 in the morning, those chairs had already dropped their caucus packet (with all the ballots preference cards) in the mail.

So, yeah. The app sucked. They didn’t have enough volunteers to handle the extra workload. They didn’t have computer systems in place. GOP fuckery.

It was a toxic brew, so chaos reigned.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:03 AM on February 6, 2020 [39 favorites]


The phone number to report Iowa caucus results was posted on 4chan on Monday night along with encouragement to “clog the lines”
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 9:08 AM on February 6, 2020 [14 favorites]


Just a reminder that not only do buggy electronic vote reporting systems suck, but all electronic voting systems suck because no conceivable computerized voting system can cast and count votes that meet the twin requirements of being both 'observable' and also not requiring specialized technical knowledge.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 9:08 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


A significant number of calls were GOP trolls. The hotline number was shared on social media along with enough info so the trolls could string along the volunteers for 4-5 minutes before they would declare their allegiance to Trump and hang up.

That really sucks. But why not ask for the verification code first?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:09 AM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


It was a toxic brew, so chaos reigned.
. . . will be the title of one in the endless line of books trying to capture our current political era, published in the next year.
posted by Harry Caul at 9:13 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


That really sucks. But why not ask for the verification code first?

I haven't seen the 4chan post in question, but presumably if they got the phone number they also got the verification code? And besides, the nature of a DDoS is that you can still fuck things up pretty badly even if it takes only 30 seconds to a minute (reckon they ask for the code right away but the caller pretends to be on a bad line or have a bunch of noise in the background so they need to repeat it a couple of times before it's clear they don't have the code) to reject a fake call.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:16 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


you know what though we need to be on the lookout for similar infosec fails from the republicans. if we can disrupt their systems, we must disrupt their systems.

(scandalous, i know, but this isn’t a game. it’s war. a weird william-gibsonian 21st century war that’s filtered through electoral systems and media systems — but war nonetheless. we need... well, you know what we need? we need a partisan-for-the-democrats bletchley park, is what we need.)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:20 AM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


The hotline number was shared on social media along with enough info

Snapshots of caucus forms were being posted on social media.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:22 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


That might explain why that precinct chair that was with Wolf Blitzer got hung up on so abruptly in that viral video from caucus night. When there was no one talking on the line, the call center worker probably guessed that it was a prank call and just hung up to get to the next call faster.

Knowing this now, that video is a bit less funny.
posted by FJT at 9:23 AM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


I'm wondering why the decision to have an app wasn't made earlier than 11/2019.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:25 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Snapshots of caucus forms were being posted on social media.

Oh right. I'd forgotten the posts from earlier about people (including Buttigieg's comms director) sharing photos of worksheets with the PIN right there for all to see.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:26 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


@TomPerez
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
Enough has been enough, Tom. Resign yesterday.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:27 AM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


Democratic primaries use proportional representation. The only thing that matters is the national delegate count. The media's focus on whether one candidate got slightly more votes than the other is embarrassing. They weren't electing the President of Iowa, they were electing delegates to decide on a nominee for America.

I mean it's not actually about Iowa's delegates, though. It's about the media circus around the first real event of the primary - which is also more of a show than a normal primary - providing candidates the chance to frame themselves. From that standpoint I'd say:

- nobody won, because we were all distracted by the shitshow

- Bernie and Pete both won, because one got to have his premature moment of victory and the other's supporters got really riled up (hopefully in the right way that they put money and effort into the campaign instead of getting too hung up on it)

- Joe Biden lost, which is good for everybody else, but he could have lost even harder had there not been so many distractions
posted by atoxyl at 9:28 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


FiveThirtyEight:In a stunning turn of events, Sen. Bernie Sanders is threatening to take the lead in the main measure of Iowa Democratic caucus results.

Tom Perez: Enough is enough... immediately begin a recanvass
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 9:30 AM on February 6, 2020 [18 favorites]


That really sucks. But why not ask for the verification code first?

Remember the part about not having 50 computers? They had to write the code down and if it looked/sounded right, the call would continue until the caller would give up the goods and declare their allegiance to Trump.

This is per my contact, who was one of the reinforcements called in. After a few calls, you could suss them out pretty quickly but just the fact that they got through meant legit callers had to wait that much longer.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:33 AM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


Who "won" Iowa in terms of getting the most votes (or delegates, or SDEs, or whatever) is, AFAICT, completely unimportant except inasmuch as the media has deemed it a Big Deal

Which is true, but is also like the gold-standard people saying "fiat currency is only money because you believe it is." Like, yes, fine, our financial system relies on our belief in things like the reliability of the US gov't to back its debts but whether or not that's a wise system, money is powerful and concentration of wealth is dangerous and I have to pay my mortgage. The fact that the media has deemed the Iowa caucus a big deal makes it an actual big deal, critical to the selection of a presidential candidate, an act with real-world consequences in a lot of people's lives, regardless of how that status as a big deal was originally established.

Meanwhile, Nate Cohn and the New York Times are reporting that there are irregularities and inconsistencies in the Iowa returns even outside of the trouble with The App, leading to the conclusions that "a perfect 'recount' of all the various preference cards may not be possible [...] since many of the caucuses may not have been properly conducted." Which, even though the way the Iowa caucuses are reported is a huge problem, is itself also a huge problem.
posted by penduluum at 9:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Meanwhile, Nate Cohn and the New York Times are reporting that there are irregularities and inconsistencies in the Iowa returns even outside of the trouble with The App, leading to the conclusions that "a perfect 'recount' of all the various preference cards may not be possible [...] since many of the caucuses may not have been properly conducted." Which, even though the way the Iowa caucuses are reported is a huge problem, is itself also a huge problem.

This is what I meant when I asked if the SDE numbers were reliable. I don't know why they're being treated as legitimate and being given bandwidth if the underlying process has been (in the data sense) corrupted.
posted by Gadarene at 9:38 AM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


> (scandalous, i know, but this isn’t a game. it’s war. a weird william-gibsonian 21st century war that’s filtered through electoral systems and media systems — but war nonetheless. we need... well, you know what we need? we need a partisan-for-the-democrats bletchley park, is what we need.)

You know what? No. This is chickenshit keyboard warrior rhetoric that assumes that we can only win if we stoop to their level. Our side doesn't believe in disenfranchisement, full stop. That's part of our brand. The more people who vote in a fair and honestly contested election, the more we win. Hacking their systems to alter results is what Putin and Trump do. It's not what we do, and it's something this lefty information security professional will never do for any amount of money.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:38 AM on February 6, 2020 [18 favorites]


I'm genuinely curious as to whether the "suspect" results are any more suspect than the norm... or if the caucus system is always farcically inexact but no one usually notices because we move onto New Hampshire without questioning the results.
posted by grandiloquiet at 9:46 AM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


It's probably slightly worse this year, because there were a number of procedural changes (like being able to leave if your candidate was viable on initial alignment). That said, there have probably always been screwups, they just weren't visible, because the vote totals were never tabulated in the past, just SDEs.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:49 AM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Sounds like part of the caucus system is a real-life version of ranked-choice voting.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:52 AM on February 6, 2020


Tom Perez: Enough is enough... immediately begin a recanvass

Holy shit, that's real?

Except for the fact that I don't believe there was a conspiracy against Sanders, I'm kind of wishing I took GCU Sweet and Full of Grace's bet above.
posted by penduluum at 9:53 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think it's partly that the rules changes this year were confusing (and the quality/ training of the volunteer chairs and secretaries varied a lot), partly that the caucuses were designed for pretty small groups and don't work very well when you have hundreds of people, and partly that there have probably always been irregularities, but the combination of the paper trail and the extra scrutiny means that everyone knows about them this year.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 9:55 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


FiveThirtyEight:In a stunning turn of events, Sen. Bernie Sanders is threatening to take the lead in the main measure of Iowa Democratic caucus results.

Tom Perez: Enough is enough... immediately begin a recanvass

Not only is it really, amazingly, horribly bad timing on Perez's part (I'm assuming good faith here), but no one seems to know wtf a "re-canvass" is:

@Taniel
At this point IDP should either:
(1) release results from precincts left, which they said they have, to not prolong uncertainty when Sanders is on brink.
(2) If they cannot do that, clearly explain why, & also why reported results fine.
Leaving it at this plus silence not viable.

what I mean is: Stopping results at 97% because there are errors (when we know there are already many errors in the reported results) doesn't work. Either you say reported results are not reliable & pull them, or you complete mess.

In either case, with very clear explanations.

I have sent a request for comment to @TomPerez
on what, if anything, he is saying about what should happen to the remaining 3% of precincts.

In any case, count stands at 97% for about 12 hours now. Clear-headed explanations needed.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:55 AM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


I think as Big Al has been updating us on so kindly, IDP was wholly unprepared for a backup plan after the app failed, doesn't seem to be admitting this immense fuck up and being transparent, instead leaving everyone in the dark to wait for their slow-going and potentially error-riddled results while their understaffed office/volunteers scramble to count.  

I don't believe conspiracies that the DNC or especially the IDP would willingly tank the entire Iowa caucus just to delegitimize results they happen to not like or something, but I can understand how many first-time voters in Iowa and across the country would believe that especially if they already hugely distrust the political process and double-especially as the gap where transparency re: "what exactly the fuck is happening" should be, happens to grow wider and wider, leaving room for wild speculation.  Infuriating.
posted by windbox at 9:58 AM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


Oh, wow, it gets better (by which I mean a whole lot worse):

@jeffzeleny
Boom. DNC Chair calling for full recanvass. What he doesn’t say is they DNC has been overseeing this process for the last 48 hours.
TRANSPARENCY!
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:02 AM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


Oh, it's even worse than that. Apparently Perez is targeting the satellite caucus sites, y'know, the ones that are in the 3% that could push Bernie to victory.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:11 AM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


The only result I'll accept as legitimate at this point is "We're going to add the presidential candidates to the June 2nd House/Senate/state primary."
posted by Etrigan at 10:12 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Wow, these Democrats sure are in disarray. This is the kind of royal cock-up that calls for bringing in some seasoned McKinsey management consultants.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:23 AM on February 6, 2020 [20 favorites]


Sanders declares victory in Iowa on the basis of the popular vote
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:25 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


[Grampa Simpson at typewriter GIF]
Dear Mr. Perez,
There are too many states these days.
Please eliminate three.
I am not a crackpot.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:26 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


This is bullshit. I don’t care what the motivation or reason is. They should have just released all the results. Stopping the info release just when it looks like Sanders “might” pull ahead and targeting areas that look like they are putting him over the top is unacceptable.
posted by eagles123 at 10:26 AM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


@samstein: Per DNC aide explaining what Chair Perez is calling for in Iowa: A recanvass is a hand audit of Caucus Math Worksheets and Reporting Forms to ensure that they were tallied and reported in the telephone intake sheets and caucus reporting application correctly.

That seems...so entirely sensible that I thought that's what they've been doing for the past two and a half days? We already know of a number of these types of errors in the reported results, so why haven't they been checking all of them already? Why are they even reporting erroneous results that haven't been checked?

The problem is that I'm not sure what you do when you recanvass and the math just doesn't work. There are errors on this paperwork that are obviously fixable, places where you can just correct the math, but there are other types of errors that occurred in the caucus rooms that don't really seem correctable at this point. For example:
No new voters are permitted to join the caucus after the first alignment. But in at least 70 precincts, more than 4 percent of the total, there are more tabulated total votes on final alignment than on first alignment.
I suspect that's the kind of thing that has always happened every year, but since this is the first time they've recorded and reported those numbers as part of a transparency initiative, this is the first time it's really been detectable. I don't know how you fix that now? Other worksheets show viable candidates losing votes in realignment, which wasn't supposed to be allowed under this year's rules, which also isn't really solvable at this point. Short of Etrigan's solution, there's not really any going back from that. And "we'll try to fix stuff the best we can" doesn't seem really consistent with an organized rules-based approach to counting votes.

And nobody seems to be able to figure out the IDP rules for allocating delegates based on satellite caucuses because the documents are poorly written and possibly inconsistent, so what do you even do with that?

I'm kind of with Paul Waldman though: @paulwaldman1: Here's the thing, though: AT THIS POINT, WHO CARES? The Iowa result only matters because we decide to make such a big deal out of it. So: Bernie and Pete did well, Warren did OK, Biden not so good. There. We're done.

Every vote should count, so obviously a recanvas to the best of their ability should happen in the background, but in terms of the almighty narrative, it seems like we should pretty much have it by now.
posted by zachlipton at 10:27 AM on February 6, 2020 [19 favorites]


I feel like releasing "100%" of the results and then beginning a process to correct errors, at least a few of which we already know exist, in a race close enough where those corrections could change the winner in what appears to be essentially a tie, would result in a riot at best.
posted by zachlipton at 10:30 AM on February 6, 2020


You say that like it's a bad thing. If transparency leads to conditions that cause people to riot, well...
posted by tonycpsu at 10:32 AM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


The DNC and IDP appear to be staggering/stumbling around aimlessly but somehow the trails of diarrhea dribbling out of their pant legs have thus far spelled out WE ARE RIGGI
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:33 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


adding... It's not clear to me that doing all this stuff in secret and expecting people to trust the results as they leak out piecemeal is going to stave off any such riots in the first place.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


I suspect that's the kind of thing that has always happened every year, but since this is the first time they've recorded and reported those numbers as part of a transparency initiative, this is the first time it's really been detectable.

somebody suggested this earlier - it's probably always been a mess, it's just easier to see that now

I feel like releasing "100%" of the results and then beginning a process to correct errors, at least a few of which we already know exist, in a race close enough where those corrections could change the winner in what appears to be essentially a tie, would result in a riot at best.

I don't really get this, though - the 96 percent of results don't have any fewer errors than the 100 percent. The technical winner could change either way and it feels more transparent to finish... whatever they're doing right now before the re-recount.

Realistically the delegate counts aren't going to change much anyway but they might as well be as careful as they are capable of being for that part. For "who won Iowa" in the public eye it's pretty much over anyway.
posted by atoxyl at 10:36 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I mean, at this point the casual observer is going to care about this for maybe one or two more days at most. And the Extremely Online Folks have already made up their mind.

*shrugs and moves on*
posted by tivalasvegas at 10:50 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


@brianneDMR
New statement from the @iowademocrats responding to @TomPerez
It seems to be pushing back on the idea that Perez can even request the recanvass. "Should any presidential campaign in compliance with the Iowa Delegate Selection Plan request a recanvass, the IDP is prepared."
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Iowa Democratic Party rejects Perez's authority to order a recanvass, saying that only the campaigns have standing to ask for one.
posted by strangely stunted trees at 10:54 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


> I mean, at this point the casual observer is going to care about this for maybe one or two more days at most.

I remember similar statements being made during the Peak Megatrhread era about the email security practices of Hillary Clinton.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:01 AM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


Now everyone is up in arms on Twitter because they think a recanvas means revote and the Democrats are trying to well you know the story by now.

Who needs Republicans when people supposedly on the same side as us will happily mistakenly kill public confidence in the party opposing fascists by a thousand cuts.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:01 AM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


No one is saying that. What they are saying is that it’s fucked to stop a process when 97% of results have been counted only to re do the process.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:17 AM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


From Bloomberg (the news site, not the candidate):
On Thursday morning, the Pete Buttigieg campaign called the Iowa Democratic Party to raise concerns about how the party was allocating state delegate equivalents from satellite caucuses, according to a person familiar with the call.

The campaign believes the party has not been abiding by the rules set out by the delegate selection plan, which has resulted in Bernie Sanders earning more delegates. The Buttigieg campaign declined to comment.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:19 AM on February 6, 2020


... the IDP is prepared.

I mean, this isn't a phrase I would use if I were representing the IDP right now. But ...
posted by Jonathan Livengood at 11:22 AM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


Buttigieg employing the "may I speak with your manager" strategy, an approach that is also particularly popular among his supporters.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:27 AM on February 6, 2020 [24 favorites]


On Thursday morning, the Pete Buttigieg campaign called the Iowa Democratic Party to raise concerns about how the party was allocating state delegate equivalents from satellite caucuses, according to a person familiar with the call.

Here's a rough explanation of that issue, which has emerged in the last 18 hours or so. Nate Cohn described it as "two sets of rules," which seems sort of right: there's arguably ambiguity depending on which IDP document you're looking at exactly as to how much weight to give the satellite caucuses based on turnout, whether the weighting for high turnout applies directly to the satellite caucus or indirectly by increasing the number of county delegates (yes, if you thought SDEs were fun, there are more levels). And it's entirely possible that the SDE winner hinges on how you resolve that ambiguity, so that's all great.
posted by zachlipton at 11:30 AM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm just glad that the DNC stepped in to drag this all out for at least another few days while also seemingly having no idea what they're doing. The most important thing in a situation like this is to be seen to be doing something, because otherwise everyone would get mad at you, unlike now, where everyone, from candidate to caucus-goer to IDP official to member of the media to casual observer on the Internet, sees Tom Perez calling for a recanvassing 3 days after a highly-contested election with still unreleased results and finds themselves trusting the process more, and yelling at other people less.
posted by Copronymus at 11:34 AM on February 6, 2020 [16 favorites]


I do think part of the reason you aren’t hearing more crowing from Republicans is because they remember their shitshow that was the 2016 GOP Iowa caucus. This is just inherent to the caucus process. If you’re distrustful of the Iowa results now, do you really think the other 15 states and territories that use caucuses will be more accurate/trustworthy? Part of the issue is people are only now seeing how the sausage gets made.

As clunky and imprecise as the caucuses may be, they are orders of magnitude better than the back room deals among the machine power players and patronage system that used to decide candidates. Which isn’t to say people should be grateful and shut up but rather have some perspective about present circumstances while working to make things better.

Finally, the anti-Bernie conspiracy theories need to stop because it just makes you look stupid. The Democrats are a coalition party representing a variety of people and viewpoints. The party simply can’t afford to alienate a constituency as large Bernie’s supporters by cheating him out of the nomination. Nor can they afford to cast centrists out to sea.

This means that candidates rarely tick all my wishlist boxes for the perfect politician. That’s OK! Unlike Trump, I’m not a narcissist who requires the world to cater my every whim. Instead, I support my candidates where I can and kindly push them where they can do better. And that’s how real progress is made.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 11:52 AM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


I linked the SDE rules problem for the satellite sites last night but it was the middle of the night so people maybe missed it.

But yeah, it's quite possible they've been giving Sanders' too many SDEs out of the satellite caucuses. So that needs to be resolved. But at least it does put paid to the idea that every mistake is to disadvantage Sanders. This one possibly was going to falsely give him the lead if it wasn't caught.

It is unclear how they will resolve the problem because of the possibly conflicting nature of the rules.

The solution going forward is obviously to ditch this crazy calvinball caucus crap.
posted by Justinian at 11:57 AM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


The solution going forward is obviously to ditch this crazy calvinball caucus crap.

If we must continue with this horserace of a primary, replace it with STV (CCP Grey as well).
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:02 PM on February 6, 2020


But yeah, it's quite possible they've been giving Sanders' too many SDEs out of the satellite caucuses. So that needs to be resolved. But at least it does put paid to the idea that every mistake is to disadvantage Sanders. This one possibly was going to falsely give him the lead if it wasn't caught

You go pretty quick from "it's quite possible" to "it puts paid to the idea" when it's not at all clear that the Buttigieg camp's interpretation of the rules should be the correct one.
posted by Gadarene at 12:04 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


Unfortunately the problem isn't necessarily how to interpret the rules, it's that there appears to be 2 sets of conflicting rules governing SDE allocation at the satellites and it's not clear which is the correct one. It's not even clear that there is a correct one. It's even possible this is unresolvable which means this is gonna be Schroedinger's Caucus.

Dave Wasserman sums up how we should all feel: I don’t see how a party that generally believes the person who wins the most votes should win the WH will continue to stand for a format where the person with the most supporters isn’t necessarily the “winner.”
posted by Justinian at 12:09 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


Unfortunately the problem isn't necessarily how to interpret the rules, it's that there appears to be 2 sets of conflicting rules governing SDE allocation at the satellites and it's not clear which is the correct one. It's not even clear that there is a correct one. It's even possible this is unresolvable which means this is gonna be Schroedinger's Caucus.

Right, that's sort of my point. If that's so, then it can't really be characterized as a mistake benefiting Sanders, and therefore it doesn't put paid to anything, nor would it be "falsely" giving him the lead. At most under that formulation, he benefitted from resolution/application of conflicting rules in one direction, while Buttigieg would benefit if the conflict was resolved in a different direction. Neither result is any more legitimate than the other, so there is no "mistake" that has disadvantaged Buttigieg.
posted by Gadarene at 12:13 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


From Bloomberg (the news site, not the candidate)

omg please fer the love of god no, not nine months of this disclaimer
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:15 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


At most under that formulation, he benefitted from resolution/application of conflicting rules in one direction, while Buttigieg would benefit if the conflict was resolved in a different direction. Neither result is any more legitimate than the other, so there is no "mistake" that has disadvantaged Buttigieg.

If conflicting rules were resolved in a way that disadvantaged Sanders, is your position that it wouldn't be taken as evidence of rigging against him? Because that position does not seem like a tenable one.
posted by Justinian at 12:17 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Here's an interesting vox interview with a professor in Iowa. One detail is that she thinks the caucus vs. primary switch isn't so important in Iowa because despite the demographic being 90% white, Iowa caucuses still turn out to be politically representative. But that's not what the main interview is about, and this is interesting reading her proposal to use time window state-level rotation system.
posted by polymodus at 12:24 PM on February 6, 2020


I would think the people who wrote the rules would be in the best position to interpret them, not people on Twitter or a self-interested campaign.
posted by eagles123 at 12:27 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


If conflicting rules were resolved in a way that disadvantaged Sanders, is your position that it wouldn't be taken as evidence of rigging against him? Because that position does not seem like a tenable one.

Taken by whom?

My issue is your characterization of the way the rules were applied as a "mistake." Mistake implies a right answer. If there was no right answer, it can't be a mistake to interpret a rule one way rather than the other, regardless of who it benefits. And yes, I would certainly say the same thing if the ex ante was reversed and Sanders was challenging instances where the rules had been applied the way Buttigieg is seeking.
posted by Gadarene at 12:29 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I am happy to change the wording from "mistake" to "interpreted the rules in the way which clearly significantly advantages the Sanders campaign when the other interpretation is also completely plausible". Which actually strengthens my position? Since if you're willing to literally cheat and rig the thing it seems like you'd be willing to, you know, make plausible rules interpretations which go against the guy you are rigging against.

The point is that the only rational interpretation for what's going on is that its a chaotic mess not aimed at any particular candidate, and there are things hurting one candidate and other things hurting different candidates.
posted by Justinian at 12:38 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm kind of with Paul Waldman though: @paulwaldman1: Here's the thing, though: AT THIS POINT, WHO CARES? The Iowa result only matters because we decide to make such a big deal out of it. So: Bernie and Pete did well, Warren did OK, Biden not so good. There. We're done.

I keep seeing this places and it's driving me up the wall. You can't ask people to stand in line to vote, or in this case to go through the byzantine caucus process, and then be like Eh, votes shmotes
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 12:40 PM on February 6, 2020 [16 favorites]


26 rotating primaries. each primary is nationwide. the primary you participate in is determined by the nth letter of your name, with n changing each election cycle.

rarer letters go first. under this system, people with names with lots of rare letters would be equivalent to residents of iowa.

yes i know, english-language-centric. throwing this out there as a mild provocation rather than anything serious. i guess if you were really doing it you'd do it based on digits in social security numbers or something like that
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:42 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


> The point is that the only rational interpretation for what's going on is that its a chaotic mess not aimed at any particular candidate, and there are things hurting one candidate and other things hurting different candidates.

but also let's add the proviso that the presence of chaotic messes within the system is a really bad thing, first because they increase uncertainty, but also secondly because chaotic messes can provide attack vectors for interested attackers. and also tools to cover up successful attacks.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:45 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Finally, the anti-Bernie conspiracy theories need to stop because it just makes you look stupid. The Democrats are a coalition party representing a variety of people and viewpoints. The party simply can’t afford to alienate a constituency as large Bernie’s supporters by cheating him out of the nomination. Nor can they afford to cast centrists out to sea.

one could argue, if one wanted to play this game - and i don’t - that by ignoring the obvious signs you are the one who “looks stupid” and that the democratic party apparatus has been pretty clear over the last four years that they don’t want bernie or his supporters. one could argue that at least. maybe we could instead not call each other stupid and just agree to disagree.
posted by JimBennett at 12:46 PM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


(and like let's assume that there are going to be people attacking via every possible attack vector, because the presidency of the united states is, well, a very valuable position.)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:49 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


also though the main thing i think when i read all this around-in-circles fighting over who's to blame for this chaotic mess, and who was hurt and who was helped by this chaotic mess, the main thing i think when i read all that is "wow, i really miss maroon 5."
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:51 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


The whole "it's ok, totally normal, don't be mad, and also you're crazy for thinking anything is wrong, and plus you sure wouldn't want to hurt the party would you?" shtick reminds me of the conversations here when the DNC went with Perez over Ellison. And you know what? I don't think this fiasco would have been half as bad if Ellison were in charge of the DNC.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 12:52 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


I am happy to change the wording from "mistake" to "interpreted the rules in the way which clearly significantly advantages the Sanders campaign when the other interpretation is also completely plausible". Which actually strengthens my position? Since if you're willing to literally cheat and rig the thing it seems like you'd be willing to, you know, make plausible rules interpretations which go against the guy you are rigging against.

The point is that the only rational interpretation for what's going on is that its a chaotic mess not aimed at any particular candidate, and there are things hurting one candidate and other things hurting different candidates.

I think there is a qualitative difference between certain types of disproportionately advantageous results that makes comparing them, grouping them, or making definitive inferences based on them a bit of a category error, but I will agree to disagree.

It is ridiculous to think, in this particular case given the way the Iowa caucuses are structured (caveat inserted because I have no confidence in electoral security against the Russians more generally), that someone or some group is out there "cheating and rigging" the whole process in favor of or against a particular candidate, yes. It is not ridiculous to think that there are certain cultural, institutional, narrative, and cognitive biases and predispositions against the leftmost candidates in particular by the party elite, the donor elite, and the media that can trickle down and, e.g., magnify responses and reactions to perceived disadvantageous outcomes in one direction and minimize them in the other. I also don't think it's ridiculous to believe that individual party officials could be, individually, influenced by these biases and predispositions such as to make, individually, small and localized decisions that trend against certain candidates and in favor of others and which in aggregate can have a measurable impact. That is not conspiracy theorizing, because it does not posit any sort of conspiracy. It's my attempt, with incomplete information, at a good faith recognition of human nature.

And now, with respect, I will bow out of further conversation about this topic.
posted by Gadarene at 12:59 PM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


The Intercept posted a mini-documentary about Sanders' outreach to the satellite caucuses.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 1:02 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I also don't think it's ridiculous to believe that individual party officials could be, individually, influenced by these biases and predispositions such as to make, individually, small and localized decisions that trend against certain candidates and in favor of others and which in aggregate can have a measurable impact.

Gadarene, that was a very well-phrased way of threading the either/or "conspiracy vs. chaos" dichotomy. Thanks.
posted by mediareport at 1:04 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


If reported results go from situation A, where Candidate X does well, to situation B, where he does not do well, that can be interpreted as nefarious and so can the reverse. That's what's so incredibly frustrating about the combination of very poor management, an inherently-too-complex system, and multiple factions of voters primed to perceive nefariousness. Even if there had been no app, we'd have wonky math, overseers misunderstanding the new rules, and participants leaving early or otherwise getting it wrong.

Regardless, if we have to pretend that somebody in some sense wanted all this to happen, then the conspiracy theory whereby this was about stealing somebody's thunder (presumably either Bernie's or Pete's) is the only one that makes sense. (So in universe A, the app/system works wonderfully and somebody gives a nice big speech at the expected time, but we live in universe B, where someone had the idea of preventing that by deploying a shitty untested app, an otherwise very rare event in our world.) By comparison, changing a few delegates from one person to the other would hardly be worth it, and if someone did it, it would more logically be done in stealth, not in chaos.

I think this Iowa debacle can be said to be the work of bad actors in the same way climate change is (though obviously the actors are far less bad and the effect is far less harmful). The mistaken conclusion is to consider a given hurricane in the Americas or wildfire in Australia and say "Aha, why did the Koch brothers want this house to burn down and that street to flood?"

Or even, in a larger sense, to perceive the changing climate as some kind of main priority in itself rather than a secondary effect of the greed and other foibles. (Yes, I'm aware of certain cryptofascist rich people who look forward to selling water out of their post-apocalypse domes or whatever, but that's nowhere near "the reason" the world started to warm all those decades ago.)

To sum up: They shouldn't have used an app, the app may have been a case of grift or something (but I'm not really seeing that either), they should have been better about explainaing and enforcing caucus rules, and they shouldn't even have a caucus to begin with. Undoing all that is going to take a heck of a lot of work.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 1:07 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's even possible this is unresolvable which means this is gonna be Schroedinger's Caucus.

The caucus process already involves coin-tossing, so fortunately there's a mechanism in place to determine which set of rules are actually in play...
posted by tobascodagama at 1:10 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


It’s important to get the count right, but we’re also talking about 1% of the total number of delegates to the convention. The main value of Iowa is the attention it brings, and that ship has sailed.

I feel like the first question at the Democratic debate (tomorrow!) should be either “Please explain how you won the Iowa caucus” or “Caucuses: threat or menace?”
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:12 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Based on the polling last night, Buttegeig experienced a bounce in New Hampshire. Even if the bounce wasn’t enough to allow him to pass Sanders (yet), it still hurt the other candidates, particularly Biden and a little Warren in terms of New Hampshire prospects. There is a reason Nate Silver builds an Iowa bounce into his model.

So, I don’t think you can plausibly say that the appearance of an Iowa victory and the way the media focuses on the SDEs as a metric doesn’t matter - even if it shouldn’t.
posted by eagles123 at 1:15 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


If the moderation we've seen at the debates thus far is any indication, the first question at the debate will probably be something like, "Senator Sanders, tell us why you can't rein in your supporters' crazy conspiracy theories," followed by, "Other candidates, tell us why Senator Sanders' wrong answer was wrong."
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:15 PM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


Your mention of a lack of confidence in election security raises a thought, Gadarene - say what you will about caucus insanity shitshows, they do seem like they'd be hard for Russians to hack.
posted by another_20_year_lurker at 1:16 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


As someone who lives in Florida (and didn't live that far away from it when the 2000 presidential election took place) I find it really unbecoming that folks are able to handwave 1% of the vote away as if it's NotABigDealTM when a documented, serious process can't accurately follow the will of the people.

I'm not a Bernie person, though I do like him, I'm voting for NotABowlOfDiarrheaAndShardsOfGlass in the upcoming election myself, and well, the dismissive/unconcerned look is, at best, a really weird flex.
posted by RolandOfEld at 1:18 PM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


Post-Iowa fallout:

Yang fires dozens of staffers after Iowa debacle

Women of color bolt Warren’s Nevada campaign in frustration
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 1:19 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


Your mention of a lack of confidence in election security raises a thought, Gadarene - say what you will about caucus insanity shitshows, they do seem like they'd be hard for Russians to hack.

Now picturing a guy in an ushanka outside an Iowa gym hastily putting up a hand-lettered sign with an arrow reading "Sanders supporter? Caucasus this way"
posted by Gadarene at 1:23 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


I don't know why people keep bringing up Russians and hacking when neither were involved in this fuck-up.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:26 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think it's germane because if this complicated process were replaced with a simple/standardized/national approach, there's the risk of increasing the voting system's overall vulnerability to threats such as hacking. Diversity has lots of benefits. One of them is that if some baddies figure out a point of failure in a voting system in the US, it won't affect _all_ of the voting systems in the US.

Proposed solutions to this kind of Iowa-fuckup aren't very mature, and so such risks are pretty theoretical at the moment. But nationally, we shouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
posted by another_20_year_lurker at 1:31 PM on February 6, 2020


Because Russia and election interference is just generally in the atmosphere these days?
posted by axiom at 1:33 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I would think the people who wrote the rules would be in the best position to interpret them, not people on Twitter or a self-interested campaign.

Even that is debatable. One danger in having ambiguously written rules is that the interpretation can essentially be retconned to favor the preferred candidate. Not that I think the rules were intentionally structured that way, but it inherently raises questions of bias. I'm not sure if there actually is a way out of this that can't reasonably be challenged by either Sanders or Buttigieg.

I'm starting to wonder if the most sensible solution at this point might be to throw the whole county delegate formulation away and just award delegates based on statewide popular vote. It's far from a perfect solution, but at least it would be harder to make an unfairness argument.
posted by parallellines at 1:34 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


But if there are two reasonable interpretations of the rule, then each candidate could argue they campaigned based on their favorable interpretation. It still leaves a stalemate.
posted by parallellines at 1:45 PM on February 6, 2020


personally i support the interpretation that awards the same amount of voting power to the immigrants, students, factory workers, and POC that made up the satellite caucuses that the rest of the citizens of Iowa got. anything else would be shameful.
posted by JimBennett at 1:57 PM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


That's the unfairness - it's not that Pete or Bernie would be unfairly favored, it's that the campaigns played by one set of rules but are judged by another.

But if they campaigned based on different interpretations of the rules, that will be true regardless of what happens. You still need a meaningful way forward that doesn't amount to sitting around wishing the rules were written better to start.
posted by parallellines at 2:04 PM on February 6, 2020


And then it turns out the manufacturer of the die received payments from the Biden campaign for unrelated services.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:10 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Seriously though, amyone asking us to have faith in a clearly broken, anti-democratic, process like the Iowa debacle, or really any other caucus, is either trolling us or at Marie Antonnette let them eat cake levels of contempt for us.

I hope it isn't too late for the other caucus states to abandon the horribly wrong and broken idea and have a primary instead. There is no possible way that if the nomination comes down to delegates from caucus states it can be accepted as legitimate. If it is too late to change those states should either voluntarily give up their delegates or have their deligates refused at thw convention. This bullshit has to end. Either drop the kiddie nonsense of caucuses or you don't get treated like a grown up state with a legitimate voice
posted by sotonohito at 2:18 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


I don't think this fiasco would have been half as bad if Ellison were in charge of the DNC.

Based on what? What would Ellison have done differently?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 2:18 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Maybe if Ellison ran the IDP.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:25 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


I thinl if the Democratic Party powers that be had let the left have even a tiny win of Ellison as chair it would have soothed a lot of ill feelings. But nope. Can't do that. The left must always be shown that they are hated and that the "big tent" is never big enough for them while always being big enough for right wingers like Manchin.

The left is paranoid because the Democratic Party leadership demonstrably hates us.
posted by sotonohito at 2:32 PM on February 6, 2020 [18 favorites]


The remaining caucuses are Nevada in 2 weeks, Wyoming on April 4, and four of the territories. And it is absolutely way too late to fundamentally change the method of choosing delegates for this time around. That’d be some pre-Voting Rights Act level shenanigans.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:34 PM on February 6, 2020


Such an unnecessarily stupid fucking system.
posted by Gadarene at 2:57 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


"The Democratic party is changing the caucus counts in order to screw over Bernie!"

*DNC chair calls for a recount*

"The Democratic party isn't accepting the original result in order to screw over Bernie!"

YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH
posted by Anonymous at 2:59 PM on February 6, 2020


YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH
posted by schroedinger

are we still doing eponysterical because
posted by The demon that lives in the air at 3:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [45 favorites]


I'm old enough that I remember the GOP pulling out all the stops to block Perez as Secretary of Labor because he was too far left
posted by Chrysostom at 3:06 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


Sander’s press conference is interesting because it gives his viewpoint regarding what happened in Iowa. He was surprisingly candid and analytical.
posted by eagles123 at 3:12 PM on February 6, 2020


I'm old enough that I remember the GOP pulling out all the stops to block Perez as Secretary of Labor because he was too far left

Ah yes, the notoriously good-faith GOP.

I didn't think there was any dispute that Perez is significantly more establishment centrist than Ellison.
posted by Gadarene at 3:27 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


@ZekeJMiller
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press is unable to declare a winner in Iowa’s 2020 Democratic caucuses.
Seems vanishingly unlikely that they'll ever declare one.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:34 PM on February 6, 2020



"The Democratic party is changing the caucus counts in order to screw over Bernie!"

*DNC chair calls for a recount*

"The Democratic party isn't accepting the original result in order to screw over Bernie!"

YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH

That's not what happened though? I think you can oppose a recount that was only called because they favored the black sheep candidate, then later oppose the mid-game rule change that was only demanded once the first fuckover failed.
posted by FakeFreyja at 3:37 PM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


"The Democratic party is changing the caucus counts in order to screw over Bernie!"

*DNC chair calls for a recount*

"The Democratic party isn't accepting the original result in order to screw over Bernie!"

YOU CAN'T HAVE BOTH

"The count, throughout the process, has been riddled with errors, predominantly (though not exclusively) pulling votes away from Sanders and/or giving votes to Buttigieg. This is changing the counts to screw over Bernie. By releasing an initial count showing a false lead for Buttigieg that has been dropping dramatically as more and more results have trickled in, and then stopping the count for a recanvass before the final results come in - when the count is practically a tie even before the many errors that are still visible in the official count and we know that the last 3% is strongly favoring Sanders - they are attempting to block oversight of the recanvass and release a final tally without scrutiny, the errors in which will then not be able to be called out by anyone in the public or media. This is denying the original, corrected result in order to screw over Bernie."

If you exercise even a modicum of awareness of the process, you can understand how two things can be bad in different ways.
posted by kafziel at 3:37 PM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


Big Tech opponent Bernie Sanders raises more money from Big Tech employees than anyone else

Sanders has raised more than twice as much money from big tech company employees as Buttigieg, although the latter performs better among "higher-dollar, executive-level donors in the tech industry." 2nd is Yang, then Warren.

All told, the new data shows how the rank and file at Big Tech companies are rallying behind some of the candidates who are the least friendly to Big Tech and to the current system of capitalism more broadly. Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, emerged in the last three months of the year as one of the campaign’s frontrunners and is now, for the first time, outraising other candidates with small donations from these tech employees and others.

(eta: some might find the headline misleading; the "anyone else" refers to the other candidates, not other industries)
posted by mediareport at 3:38 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


@Nate_Cohn
[S]ince we're not clear on the rules, we're not going to update the needle when additional results come in. Add the uncertainty about the tabulated vote, and it's a no brainer
Needle pointing straight into the Void
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:42 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


I think it’s getting to be time to close the book on this one.
posted by eagles123 at 3:46 PM on February 6, 2020


Looking forward to a normal debate that doesn’t entail everyone talking over each other and pretending to be shot by an arrow every time their opponent speaks.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:49 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Define “Fail” *a alligator bites off my index finger*
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:51 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


Big Tech opponent Bernie Sanders raises more money from Big Tech employees than anyone else

Sanders has raised more than twice as much money from big tech company employees as Buttigieg, although the latter performs better among "higher-dollar, executive-level donors in the tech industry." 2nd is Yang, then Warren.

All told, the new data shows how the rank and file at Big Tech companies are rallying behind some of the candidates who are the least friendly to Big Tech and to the current system of capitalism more broadly. Sanders, an avowed democratic socialist, emerged in the last three months of the year as one of the campaign’s frontrunners and is now, for the first time, outraising other candidates with small donations from these tech employees and others.

I love how this is presented as a gotcha, and not that workers support the guy who's gonna be good for workers, and bosses support the guy who's only gonna be good for bosses. It's like people want rights, or unions, or health care that isn't tethered to their employer not firing them, or silly things like that.
posted by kafziel at 3:53 PM on February 6, 2020 [28 favorites]


Iowans denied their constitutionally-guaranteed right to set the tone for the Democratic primary race. This aggression will not stand, man!
posted by tonycpsu at 3:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Isn't it fun how the latest swerve of all this is because a bunch of non-white first-time voters rallied behind Sanders, and Buttigieg is out here now to question how much their votes should matter?
posted by kafziel at 3:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [22 favorites]


I'm not sure if the man of twists and turns should have naming rights over every remaining primary thread or if they should be barred from ever titling a thread again.
posted by parallellines at 3:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [18 favorites]


I think that if we're honest we can agree that Sanders and to a lesser extent Warren will not only have to win, they will have to win despite a handicap exactly as large as every single error that can possibly happen in an election.
posted by FakeFreyja at 3:55 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


If you care to make a case for that assertion, I’m happy to take a look. In the meantime? Nah.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:06 PM on February 6, 2020


Exhibit A: Iowa

Exhibits B - ZZ: Coming soon
posted by FakeFreyja at 4:08 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


The left is paranoid because the Democratic Party leadership demonstrably hates us.


That seems like pretty circular logic. I mean what evidence do you have that the leadership hates you?
posted by octothorpe at 4:32 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


It's so frustrating to always have to explain the leftist perspective from first principles to people who aren't listening.

But here are a few examples off the top of my head:

-The oft-repeated incidents of the DNC favoring Clinton over Sanders throughout the 2016 primary

-DNC going with Tom Perez over Keith Ellison

-"Stop Sanders" meetings between DNC officials , Buttigieg, and others

-Former Obama advisors saying he's considering making a public statement against Bernie

-Hillary Clinton making CONSTANT public statements against Bernie

-Frequent anti-Sanders and anti-leftist rhetoric from party establishment people on Twitter and elsewhere

-Whatever this shit in Iowa is

And no, I'm not gonna fetch links for these because this argument has happened and will happen a thousand times on this site and I don't like being sealioned.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 4:44 PM on February 6, 2020 [20 favorites]


Bernie & Buttigieg are tied for first. Iowa will send 13 pledged delegates for each candidate to the National Convention. Warren will get 8, and Biden 6. Klobuchar will get Iowa's 41st pledged delegate. Buttigieg will drop out after failing to get any delegates from Nevada and South Carolina and getting creamed in Super Tuesday. Years later, he will still be be insisting that he actually won the Iowa caucuses if you look at the numbers at the right angle. There may very well be a contested convention. In that case, Amy Klobuchar will flip a coin to decide whether to tell her one delegate to vote for Biden or Warren on the second round.
posted by nangar at 4:45 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


It's so frustrating to always have to explain the leftist perspective from first principles to people who aren't listening

It seems like a giant stretch to look any of that and proclaim that the Democrats hate the left. It's a big tent party and there's going to be disagreements.
posted by octothorpe at 4:49 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


You're telling me you're alive and conscious and living in America in 2020 and you think the Democratic Party leadership likes Sanders as much as the other candidates and values a leftist agenda as much as a centrist third way agenda.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 4:51 PM on February 6, 2020 [25 favorites]


There may very well be a contested convention. In that case, Amy Klobuchar will flip a coin to decide whether to tell her one delegate to vote for Biden or Warren on the second round.

There's no way in hell Klobuchar would give that delegate to Elizabeth Warren.
posted by dis_integration at 4:52 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Apropos of nothing:
Clinton doubles down on Sanders criticism, warns that he's promising 'the moon'
When asked by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres if she wanted to address her prior remarks about the Vermont independent, Clinton noted that while she originally made them about a year and a half ago, "I have a pretty clear perspective about what it's going to take to win, and as I said earlier, that's what I think the key calculation for any voter has to be."

"You've got to be responsible for what you say, and what you say you're going to do," Clinton added. "We need to rebuild trust in our fellow Americans and in our institutions, and if you promise the moon and you can't deliver the moon, then that's going to be one more indicator of how, you know, we just can't trust each other."
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:55 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


She loves leftists!
posted by FakeFreyja at 4:57 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


The left is paranoid because the Democratic Party leadership demonstrably hates us.

The political left in the United States is that aunt that shows up day of the family reunion, complains about everything despite everything already being decided by consensus at the multiple planning meetings, complains how the world is against her and then grumpily sits in a chair and doesn't do anything the day of in some pseudointellectual effort to teach everyone else a lesson. Who would honestly like dealing with that? I don't even like the idea of dealing with that and I agree with the left on most things.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:59 PM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


From my Democratic Party Leadershipese to English dictionary:
The Moon. Noun. You not dying in the gutter of an easily treatable medical condition
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:00 PM on February 6, 2020 [28 favorites]


I have a pretty clear perspective about what it's going to take to win

Yeah, about that
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [22 favorites]


The political left in the United States is that aunt

Also the Bernie Bros are misogynistic
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:02 PM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


"You've got to be responsible for what you say, and what you say you're going to do," Clinton added. "We need to rebuild trust in our fellow Americans and in our institutions, and if you promise the moon and you can't deliver the moon, then that's going to be one more indicator of how, you know, we just can't trust each other."

Remember 2010 after it wasn't all hugs and puppies after Obama's election? I'm terrified that 2022 will be the exact same donkey slaughter and drive Democrats back into the wilderness away from progressivism.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:03 PM on February 6, 2020


In the Democrats hate the left column, let's not forget Obama's constant hippie punching and sneering comments about the "professional left".

Or the fact that the consultants who helped AOC win are blackballed by the Democratic establishment. Try to help a leftist win and the Democratic Party will try to ruin you.

The "big tent" is always big enough to include any right winger, but it has never been large enough to include the left.

I think of myself as rational and non-accelerationist, I'm absolutely going to vote for whoever wins the Democratic nomination and not only that I'll volunteer, canvass, and phone bank for them too. Even if it is, god help us, Biden.

But I can totally understand the mindset of the Chappo dickheads when they say they won't vote for anyone but Bernie. I don't agree with it, but I can sympathize and understand where they're coming from. Because for my entire life the Democratic Party has been characterized by a rush to the right and a vengeful repudiation of the left.

That builds up a great and vast pool of resentment, distrust, and anger on the left. "Vote for our right wing preference or the Nazis win and it's all your fault!" That's been the message since I've been politically aware.

I don't think it's even slightly controversial to say that the Democratic Party despises the left. They want our votes and our money, but otherwise they want us to STFU and go away. All compromise is always them demanding surrender from us so they can kowtow to slime like Manchin and Lieberman.

There's no risk of the Democrats being "driven" from progressivism, they hate it and want nothing to do with it.
posted by sotonohito at 5:04 PM on February 6, 2020 [32 favorites]


Listen if you think you can represent a nation on Earth without guaranteeing profits to the healthcare and finance sectors well my friend you are just promising the moon.
posted by FakeFreyja at 5:04 PM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


The political left in the United States is that aunt...

Actually speechless about this characterization, good god this is ignorant. Have you ever met a leftist? Sorry we don't like the state of the world and want to improve it? And you realize the supposedly do-nothing left are working our asses off propelling a socialist into the presidency right now?
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 5:06 PM on February 6, 2020 [25 favorites]


So, maybe this is a dumb question, but are caucuses originally by design supposed to be haphazard and convoluted when things get close because this forces a community of people to discuss, caucus again, and eventually reach a clear majority or consensus?
posted by FJT at 5:07 PM on February 6, 2020


If so, it worked great. Clarity clearly abounds. *the mist swallows me*
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:09 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


Mod note: People please stop having this same general argument over and over. If you have stuff to say about the caucuses go ahead.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 5:11 PM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


Im just here to vote for Batman.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:14 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


batman is a cop
posted by FakeFreyja at 5:21 PM on February 6, 2020 [16 favorites]


ABAB
posted by Marticus at 5:23 PM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


no no Batman is an Outsider
posted by benzenedream at 5:25 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


If the DNC was originally trying to screw over Sanders, then why were they doing it on a public website where everyone could see? And why would they hold a recanvass if they were fixing the original results? Do you really not see how that makes no sense?
posted by Anonymous at 5:28 PM on February 6, 2020


Wouldn't Batman be Bloomberg?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:28 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


> but are caucuses originally by design

caucuses weren’t designed. they grew. they’re a historical artifact built out of other historical artifacts. there is no rationality behind the design because there is no design, just a lot of contingencies layered on top of each other.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:35 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


That's not what happened though? I think you can oppose a recount that was only called because they favored the black sheep candidate, then later oppose the mid-game rule change that was only demanded once the first fuckover failed.

I mean, this is pretty obviously assuming the conclusion. If you take as an axiom that one candidate was screwed, then everything has to fit into that narrative?
posted by Justinian at 5:44 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


100% supposedly reporting, Buttigieg ahead by 1.5 SDE

Kinda doubt that these will be the final numbers.
posted by Rust Moranis at 5:46 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


The political left in the United States is that aunt that shows up day of the family reunion, complains about everything despite everything already being decided by consensus at the multiple planning meetings, complains how the world is against her and then grumpily sits in a chair and doesn't do anything the day of in some pseudointellectual effort to teach everyone else a lesson. Who would honestly like dealing with that? I don't even like the idea of dealing with that and I agree with the left on most things.

That aunt is the reason you weren't working a 12 hour shift on the day of the reunion.
posted by srboisvert at 5:49 PM on February 6, 2020 [29 favorites]


100% supposedly reporting, Buttigieg ahead by 1.5 SDE

Is there any word on how they decided to calculate the satellite caucuses?
posted by FakeFreyja at 5:51 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


and the prize for most apt sick burn goes to...

... srboisvert!

congratulations, srboisvert!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:53 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Is there any word on how they decided to calculate the satellite caucuses?

Maybe they got the kid from the viral video to flip another coin.

There is no way the posted numbers are accurate enough to declare a winner when the difference is only roughly 1.5 SDEs. It's literally unknowable unless they find a systemic error in one direction rather than continually finding random ones.

If Buttigieg were to declare himself a winner over 1.5 SDEs when he obviously lost the popular vote that would be... something.
posted by Justinian at 5:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


for values of “something” equal to “unsurprising”
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:59 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


Sanders and Buttigieg are getting the same number of national delegates, AFAIK, regardless of how the last handfull of SDEs play out. And the narrative is now fixed at "IOWA CAUCUS A BULLSHIT DISASTER OF FLAMING POO MISSILES" and nothing is going to change that, so I suggest we all just move on to New Hampshire to find out what fresh hell awaits.
posted by Justinian at 6:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [13 favorites]


@Nate_Cohn

With 100% counted, it's Buttigieg by a mere 1.5 SDE according to the IDP. It includes the satellite rule in favor of Sanders, worth >3 dels, but also dozens of irregular, inconsistent or impossible precincts in need of verification before a projection we might never get [...]

On quick examination, all of my 'favorite'--forgive me--possible/likely errors are still there
Welp I guess that's it then, good game, pack it up folks
posted by Rust Moranis at 6:03 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


That's probably the best anyone is going to get. On to NH I suppose!
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:07 PM on February 6, 2020


I note this is not even remotely unprecedented. We don't care here because it was the GOP, but the wrong candidate was declared the winner there from the GOP side in 2016 and it took a week to name the correct one (Santorum).

That's one reason some of us have been arguing that IA is an absolute disaster which needs to be destroyed well before 2020 and not because it helps/hurts any particular candidate(s).

When you screw up this badly twice in two elections you have to go. And not come back.
posted by Justinian at 6:08 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


sanderistas! warrenites! buttigians and klobberers! we must all unite to destroy the true enemy: the entire state of iowa! from sioux city to dubuque, everything must burn!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:16 PM on February 6, 2020 [17 favorites]


bugsbunnysawingoffiowa.gif
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:17 PM on February 6, 2020 [9 favorites]


I think at least two of the current Democratic candidates prove that relationship may have waned in the last thirty years.
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:37 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


You're all talking about the same thing. The relationship did wane, and Aunt/Uncle Whoever not being at the picnic is a metaphor for that waning, which probably involved neglect on both sides.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 6:41 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


So the real question now is whether the alternative to Sanders through Super Tuesday ends up being Buttigieg rather than as was assumed, Biden?

If you're solidly pro-Sanders I think you should be hoping for Buttigieg. Because if those are the obvious alternatives on Super Tuesday I'll be voting for Sanders, and if my demo is voting for Sanders he's gonna have a good primary.

Biden would be a tougher call (not because I like Biden that much but because he is polling so well against Trump). Though we'll see if that stays the case given his lame-ass performance in Iowa. He better bring it hard in South Carolina 'cause otherwise it's time to retire and enjoy his twilight years washing the ol' Camaro shirtless in the driveway.
posted by Justinian at 6:43 PM on February 6, 2020


Additionally, given the choice between Sanders and Buttigieg I think older AA voters may move to Sanders enough to give him the nomination while they may well stick with Biden all the way if he were to stay in. If Sanders can capture a sizable chunk of older African American voters he's basically on his way to the nomination.
posted by Justinian at 6:44 PM on February 6, 2020


Diamond Joe would probably be polling better.
posted by Marticus at 6:45 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


My cynicism says that Biden is becoming obstinate behind the scenes. I suspect the big wigs began the Pete gear switch around the time Joe started yelling at reporters.
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:46 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Well that sucked.

Buttigieg is a soulless ghoul that should be hated by any Canadian, not that we get a vote.
posted by Yowser at 6:47 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Amazingly, considering he's done this 3 times and is one of the more famous politicians alive, coming in 4th with around 15% of the vote is by far the best Biden has ever done in any national primary or caucus. I'm not saying it's time to count him out completely, but he's also someone who hasn't won a seriously contested election with his name at the top of the ballot since the 70s.
posted by Copronymus at 6:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I think The End of The Iowa Caucus may really be happening. Electoral Twitter is not holding back.

Nate Cohn: I suspect I can say this without crossing the line into opinion: this is the worst conceived and executed electoral contest I have ever seen

Nate Silver: Honestly Iowa should be the very last state to vote from now on.

Harry Enten: Iowa Democratic Caucuses Vote Count: *DUMPSTER FIRE GIF GOES HERE*.

I think it might be happening!
posted by Justinian at 6:56 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


That is by no means an exhaustive list.
posted by Justinian at 6:57 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


hypotheses about the reasons why metafilter has problems with this topic:
  1. the metafilter demographic has a massive, massive overlap with the warren demographic. we are on the whole disproportionately white, disproportionally relatively-well-off, and we’ve got a disproportionate number of advanced degrees. the modal mefite is an academic, a techie, a writer, or a middle manager.
  2. we are also by and large the demographic least boned by liberal capitalism. we’re on average positioned high enough in the social stratification system for the excesses of market allocation to be at worst a serious pain rather than a genuine threat to life and limb.
  3. because we’re in the small slice of the population that markets favor enough to give us livable lives, we have a harder time than most people at recognizing how liberalism has no broad base anymore. outside the bubble of the relatively-well-off, it is easier to see that the uneasy liberal compromise that existed from 1945 until the turn of the millennium is breaking down, has broken down, and that we're once more confronted with the choice between socialism and barbarism. and we are simply beside ourselves with angst and anxiety and denial over that.
  4. this angst and anxiety first flared up during the 2016 primaries. over the course of january to march of that year, the attitude here shifted hard against sanders. we were primed to make that shift because on the whole our class interests lead us toward liberalism. as a result, most of the sanders people left and never came back. the only ones who stayed were, well, the most eccentric and zany of the sanders supporters.
as a result of all of this, it is possible that this community will never be able to have a reasonable conversation about sanders. if there’s a way out, it probably requires either sanders doing something uncharacteristically godawful (causing everyone to split from him) or getting the nomination (causing everyone to rally around him).

i guess if i had to justify my mild preference for sanders over warren to this particular audience, i would observe that sanders is literally the only major presidential candidate in
memory to not seem like a boss. i can picture warren on the wrong side of a bargaining table. i can picture buttigieg and biden on the wrong side of a bargaining table — hell, i can’t picture either of them ever sitting on the right side of a bargaining table. sanders, though, seems like he’s always on the union side.

this is a genuinely irrational thing to base decisions on, though — all these people running for president are rich, all these people have other people working for them, all these people in one way or another are, well, management. it’s a matter of impression, a vague and nebulous thing.

(if i’m in more of a mixed environment, if i’m on sanders turf instead of warren turf, i talk about how if the revolution came while sanders was president, if (as happened in chile under allende) radical workers’ groups actually seized the means of production, he’d be on the side of the revolution. if it came while warren were president... i don’t know what she’d do. i suspect she’d defend property rights.)

but the revolution’s not coming so.

shrug. at this point we’re mostly just poking at dead embers, aren’t we? in this thread, and maybe in the broader world.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [57 favorites]


Maybe another factor is that too many people prefer to pretend they know the deep-down "secret reasons" behind their opponents' beliefs while insisting that their own opinions are perfectly rational, clear-sighted and should be taken at face value?
posted by AdamCSnider at 7:12 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


adam: i mean i don’t know if that’s a jab intended at me or what, but if it is i would note that i am pretty open about not being rational. if it’s not intended as a jab against me, apologies for getting defensive.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:13 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Reclusive novelist, that was an excellent comment, even if I’m eccentric and zany. I’ve long agreed with your assessment of why this topic always gets so heated here. Folks still out there believing in the meritocracy, you know?
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:14 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


>Reclusive novelist, that was an excellent comment, even if I’m eccentric and zany

i mean i type in (almost) all lower case and have been gradually accreting a thicker and thicker layer of oddball linguistic tics. i’m ride or die for team zany. i’m a ridiculous person.

(my novels are pretty good tho)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:16 PM on February 6, 2020 [11 favorites]


in this thread, and maybe in the broader world.

It's a great comment but I do think you're overestimating how much people here disagree with Sanders' politics rather than, well, other factors. Like the biggest, most volatile discussion in this thread is about whether the contest for the nomination is mostly fair or not, and that's completely orthogonal to actual questions of whether his policies are good.

In fact I would bet you'd find a lot more people here who dislike Buttigieg than Sanders.
posted by Justinian at 7:17 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


Funny thing is, I'm more of a Warren supporter. I like Sanders' harder leftism, but he's got a long and unpleasant history of brosocialism that treats issues other than class as annoying distractions. And he's older than Trump and statistically likely to die before his first term in office is up. I do freely admit to being not merely eccentric and zany but also probably further to the left than most here though I'm not really far left compared to some of my comrades in the DSA.

But let's move on to the hopefully less absurd, chaotic, and disaster filled New Hampshire primary. At least it's a primary, so with any luck even if the NH Democratic Party is even more incompetent and filled with brother in law deals than the Iowa Democratic Party at least they'd have to work harder to fuck it up.

Heck, the New Hampshire primary is a straight election, not even ranked choice or IRV. I'm not saying they can't screw it up, we're talking about the Democratic Party here screwing up simple things is their forte, but it'd be really difficult for it to be even a tenth as bad as Iowa's clusterfuck.

It'll also be more predictable and boring, Sanders is pretty much guaranteed to win and that makes it really a contest for second place. I'm hoping Warren, but I'm betting on Buttigieg. It's pretty obvious that Bidementum has vanished and Buttigieg is the new frontrunner for the triangulating centrist crowd. I'd vastly prefer they go with Klobuchar, but the triangulating centrist crowd has decided that women can't win so Buttigieg it is.
posted by sotonohito at 7:20 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


justinian: oh certainly, but also we don’t have community mass trauma about buttigieg the way we have community mass trauma about sanders & the 2016 primaries.

(i blame the megathreads. they were the center of gravity around here for too long, and they forced us to dwell on/pick at the socialist/liberal split more than we would have otherwise. i think this is me pleading that we don’t turn the 2020 election threads into de facto megathreads, though of course i’m doing that pleading in a thread that i’m, um, helping to turn into a de facto megathread.)
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:22 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


It'll also be more predictable and boring, Sanders is pretty much guaranteed to win

A Sanders victory in New Hampshire is far from guaranteed, in recent polls the lead appears to be narrowing. It will depend entirely on how quickly and successfully the "Winner Pete" manufactured consent can take hold.
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:26 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


but the revolution’s not coming so.

well, unless sanders loses the nomination.
posted by JimBennett at 7:29 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


the revolution’s not coming if sanders loses the nomination. the revolution’s not coming if sanders wins the nomination. the revolution’s not coming this decade, and that’s probably a good thing since right now the only group with the organization, size, and, um, equipment for revolution are the fascists and the less said about them the better. we’re stuck with bourgeois electoral politics and mid-level extra-parliamentary agitation and transitional programs for the foreseeable future.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:33 PM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


That wasn't very zany dude.
posted by kirkaracha at 7:34 PM on February 6, 2020 [14 favorites]


I think people notice disagreement with their own views more than they notice agreement. If somebody posts something that’s similar to what I think, I can just scroll along without it being a big deal; if it’s funny or informative I might throw a favorite. But if I see something I disagree with, or a take that challenges me, I notice it and I’m tempted to respond.

There are lots of Sanders people right here in this thread. There are lots of Warren people here. Maybe some Buttigieg folks, as a second or even a first choice. (And the one thing Iowa did successfully demonstrate, there just aren’t that many Biden voters).

You (for most values of “you”) might be outnumbered here, but it’s probably not by as much as you think.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:34 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


Statistically, Sanders has already won.

According to the 538 model, he’s got a 49% chance of securing the nomination. Biden has 20% - not impossible, but he is behind Sanders by a factor of 2.5.

Warren is 5%. Buttigieg is 3%

At this point, the nomination is Bernie’s to lose. Statistically, we should start ignoring Warren and Buttigieg, because they haven’t got a chance in hell anymore.
posted by weed donkey at 7:35 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


anyway. today’s my friday. i’m going to go play some board games and maybe, i dunno, drink a beer.

it’s been a pleasure, but, um, iowa’s over.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:35 PM on February 6, 2020


we’re stuck with bourgeois electoral politics and mid-level extra-parliamentary agitation and transitional programs for the foreseeable future.

In the foreseeable future Greenland will lose umpteen million pounds of ice, so I guess that's that
posted by Gadarene at 7:36 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


I am probably going to come off like a pollyanna here, but I am heartened by the Iowa results. I realize that Iowa is not representative of the country, but I think it's pretty exciting that 2 progressive candidates (Sanders & Warren) did so well combined. That indicates to me that there's a whole lot of Democrats who want to push the party left. I support Warren, I've been a big fan of hers since the motherflipping 1990s. Buttigieg leaves me cold. OBVIOUSLY obviously obviously I will vote for whoever is running against Trump, but I want more for our country than just "not Trump."
posted by stowaway at 7:38 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


A Sanders victory in New Hampshire is far from guaranteed, in recent polls the lead appears to be narrowing.

It looks roughly where its been, it's just that the range of his lead has varied greatly depending on pollster. Maybe it's on the low side of the previous range from the Monmouth poll that just released but that's hard to say. If we get a few more good polls before the day we can compare to previous numbers from the same pollsters.

What's definitely true is that Buttigieg has gained while Biden has declined.
posted by Justinian at 7:38 PM on February 6, 2020


In the foreseeable future Greenland will lose umpteen million pounds of ice, so I guess that's that

A planet capable of supporting human life, you say? What else do you want, the moon?
posted by Rust Moranis at 7:40 PM on February 6, 2020 [14 favorites]


Personally I am very, VERY glad that Biden seems to be flopping. I know he's not out yet, but if there is a center-right boot in this race it's looking like it's going to be Pete. I don't like the guy's politics but at least I can hold my nose and vote for him if need be.

And if God is merciful and generous to us, may we be blessed with a Sanders/Warren ticket.
posted by FakeFreyja at 7:46 PM on February 6, 2020 [8 favorites]


okay fine you sucked me in for one more. i just wanted to thank all my revolutionaries for making me feel like the bolsheviks circa april 1917.

comrades! we must bide our time!
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:54 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


Hey, I will say this about revolution, it will be very interesting to see what happens when climate change comes home to roost and, for the first time ever, every single country on earth is hit with capitalism's fail state at roughly the same time.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:59 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Warren Apologizes to 6 Women of Color Who Left Nevada Office (USNews & World Report, via AP, Feb. 6, 2020) Elizabeth Warren is apologizing to six women of color who left her presidential campaign office in Nevada before the state's caucuses because they felt marginalized and because their concerns weren't addressed by supervisors.
Well, that's certainly -- Politico reported that six women have left Warren's campaign office since November. Nevada holds its Democratic caucuses on Feb. 22.
DAMN IT.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


so we do this all over again in 5 days, right
posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:01 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


Must have been all those Liz Lads
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 8:03 PM on February 6, 2020 [7 favorites]


so we do this all over again in 5 days, right

Hell yeah, but then we get to grumble about which ballots go uncounted! Bring snacks.
posted by FakeFreyja at 8:05 PM on February 6, 2020


am always prepared with snacks, wine, grumblings
posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:06 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Amid irregularities, AP unable to declare winner in Iowa (AP)
“The Associated Press calls a race when there is a clear indication of a winner. Because of a tight margin between former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders and the irregularities in this year’s caucus process, it is not possible to determine a winner at this point,” said Sally Buzbee, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
posted by katra at 8:08 PM on February 6, 2020 [1 favorite]


Exclusive NH Tracking Poll: Pete Buttigieg Stays Hot, Ties Bernie Sanders For Lead
Bernie Sanders is holding steady at 24 percent, but Buttigieg is up four points over last night with 23 percent, a virtual tie in a survey with a margin of error of 4.4 percent.[...]

Mayor Pete’s gains don’t seem to be coming at the expense of Sanders, whose numbers haven’t changed much all week. Instead, Buttigieg seems to be attracting registered Democrats. And his biggest gains appear to be raided from key backers of Warren and Biden.

Among women, Warren is down four points from Wednesday night and Buttigieg is up six.

And among voters over 65, a core source of Biden backers, Buttigieg has doubled his support overnight, a 16 point jump.
What a fucking nightmare.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:16 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


but if there is a center-right boot in this race it's looking like it's going to be Pete.

Does it? I think with Iowa proving that Biden can actually bleed, the race to be the lead moderate is kind of open. And let's not forget Mike Bloomberg: Using his vast fortune to basically try to speedrun the election.
posted by FJT at 8:16 PM on February 6, 2020


Statistically, Sanders has already won.

According to the 538 model, he’s got a 49% chance of securing the nomination. Biden has 20% - not impossible, but he is behind Sanders by a factor of 2.5.

Warren is 5%. Buttigieg is 3%

At this point, the nomination is Bernie’s to lose. Statistically, we should start ignoring Warren and Buttigieg, because they haven’t got a chance in hell anymore.

Wow, no. Throttle back there, hoss.

Not only is that not what "statistically" means, Nate Silver hisownself points out on his primary forecast methodology page that 1) they've never really done this before for primaries, so it's to a large extent an experiment, and 2) "Our forecast is probabilistic. The degree of uncertainty in the primaries is high, and the process is path-dependent and nonlinear."

538 may have a good track record, but claiming that the nomination is "[Person's] To Lose" based on where things sit after only the first primary is counting chickens before the egg has been laid, much less hatched.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:18 PM on February 6, 2020 [24 favorites]


538 may have a good track record, but claiming that the nomination is "[Person's] To Lose" based on where things sit after only the first primary is counting chickens before the egg has been laid, much less hatched.

Not even the first primary.
posted by Gadarene at 8:21 PM on February 6, 2020


I’d like to remind people that 538 was one of the only models to suggest Trump could win, and that Nate Silver was widely piloried for it.

They have a very strong model. Don’t be a Sam Wang.
posted by weed donkey at 8:30 PM on February 6, 2020 [4 favorites]


> Statistically, Sanders has already won.

BROKE: Disenfranchising everyone who lives in a state that holds primaries after Super Tuesday by declaring a presumptive nominee based on squinting at the delegate and superdelegate counts.

WOKE: Disenfranchising everyone who lives in a state that holds primaries after the Iowa Caucuses by declaring a presumptive nominee based on a toy statistical model and reading some entrails from the most fucked up electoral event since Florida circa 2000.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:32 PM on February 6, 2020 [16 favorites]


A minor point that I realized looking at the 538 model: it currently places 47% odds on Sanders winning a majority of delegates prior to the convention. But it also places a 24% chance on no one. But in that eventuality someone still has to win, so unless you believe in ultimate DNC skulduggery, Sanders also has a decent chance of winning the nomination if he enters the convention with a non-majority plurality. So the 538 model is actually implying a significantly higher likelihood of Sanders winning the nomination, plausibly higher than 60% right now.

( That said, the whole thing is hokum, as the massive shift after the Iowa tie/debacle makes clear, so the reality is we don't know anything. Even apart from the technical issues in Iowa, it's already clear that they didn't correctly model the cascade effects of Biden and Buttigieg, and that's presuming that everything else in their ridiculously-complex model is correct. And even then, the reality is that any probability less than 90% is functionally equivalent to ‾\_(ツ)_/‾ )
posted by chortly at 8:46 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


Watching this pie fight and hoo boy it’s gonna be a long primary season. We’re only through Iowa, very few delegates are won, and yet the fighting is like the 2016 primary never ended. We have met the enemy and he is us.
posted by azpenguin at 9:05 PM on February 6, 2020 [6 favorites]


so we do this all over again in 5 days, right

The Aristocrats!
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:18 PM on February 6, 2020 [12 favorites]


I remember in the 2016 election, Nate Silver had Clinton at like a 75% chance of winning. So people read that to mean she statistically had it sown up. Nothing to worry about.

But that is not what it meant. It meant that in 75 out of 100 simulations, she won. In 25 out of a 100, she lost. She had more paths to victory; not a guarantee. I remember learning that lesson very clearly, because Nate said in order for Trump to win the election, he would have to win all of 7 very close states. And then I watched him win those close races, one by one through the evening.

Nate Silver is very good at this, it's true. But what his model says is, given the data that we have right now, Bernie has more likely paths to victory. But we have very little data, and a long way to go. Those numbers are going to be changing. A lot. It is nothing like Bernie has this sown up, call it a day. It's only Bernie is in a better position than the others right now.
posted by team lowkey at 10:08 PM on February 6, 2020 [15 favorites]


Ugh I hadnt seen that new NH tracking poll. Ugh. Not mayo pete.
posted by Justinian at 10:33 PM on February 6, 2020 [3 favorites]


I take zero comfort in Nate's model as a Sanders fan. Systems with as many parameters as this primary are much much more difficult to model than an election with only two or three people no matter how much you try bootstrap yourself with weightings ect.

Right now Buttigeig is doing well in New Hampshire by pulling exactly the people I thought he would from Biden. He's a fucking genius at the type of political language that dominated politics from the Reagan era to around 2014. That's why Boomers love him but he leaves his fellow millenials and gen z cold.

Still, I could also see him doing well with a certain type of wealthy young professional who isn't particularly politically engaged but knows they are suppose to hate Trump.

Personally he scares me more than Biden because a least Biden doesn't have a real base in the Democratic party beyond what he got from being Obama's vp. Buttegeig is surrounded by some of the worst and most corrupt people in Democratic politics, and they are mostly young like him. Unlike Biden, they will be around for awhile.

For myself, I find Buttegieg repulsive. He seems a pure Clinton style opportunist. I could see him doing all kinds of harmful things.

I can also see Buttegeig losing badly to Trump in the general. He "won" Iowa by winning rural counties where overall turnout was down in the primary. He's not going to magically flip rural areas from Trump in the general. At least Sanders won the popular vote by increasing turnout among young people - his base. Democrats will need to do that to reduce the turnout reductions in urban areas that partially cost Hillary the election.
posted by eagles123 at 11:10 PM on February 6, 2020 [14 favorites]


I can also see Buttigieg losing badly to Trump in the general.

I can't see him not losing badly. No chance at even the popular vote consolation prize.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:14 PM on February 6, 2020 [10 favorites]


Buttigieg is what happens when you let two 95% white states go first. That is not to say that it is what always happens, just that it makes it possible. Please let this be the end of both IA and NH's dominance in primary politics. They are basically tailor made states for him.

Hopefully he will single digit in South Carolina and the emperor will be revealed to have no clothes.
posted by Justinian at 11:30 PM on February 6, 2020 [5 favorites]


still gonna vote for him against Trump tho
posted by Justinian at 11:30 PM on February 6, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'd vote for Buttegeig against Trump then join the first protest movement that forms against him like in France.
posted by eagles123 at 12:15 AM on February 7, 2020 [19 favorites]


So the media and Pete have been trumpeting his "win" in Iowa for a week and he surges into a tie with Sanders in NH on the strength of that. Apparently CNN announced he won on air right before his CNN town hall. Neat trick.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:31 AM on February 7, 2020 [13 favorites]


There’s a Monmouth poll that shows Buttegeig unchanged but Sanders gaining since January. 1 day of that poll was conducted on the the third, though, so before the full caucus results were known.

Emerson also has a tracking poll which shows a smaller Buttegeig bump and more overall support for Sanders. It appears Emerson is sampling more younger voters than Monmouth or the Suffolk poll referenced in the tweet. Emerson tends to be more friendly to Sanders.

The Suffolk poll has about the same age distribution as the Monmouth poll, but I couldn’t find anything about the weighting Suffolk is using, if any, just raw numbers. Monmouth weights based on 2016 turnout per age.

All polls listed are highly rated by 538.

And f Pete.
posted by eagles123 at 3:18 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


Taniel is still over on Twitter collecting errors in the official count that are not being corrected. Many are the same ones the NYT found, and so far they are not being addressed by the IDP. We're seeing this happen in real time. The majority of errors favor Buttigieg.
posted by mediareport at 4:35 AM on February 7, 2020 [15 favorites]


And if God is merciful and generous to us, may we be blessed with a Sanders/Warren ticket.

God I hope not. I actually want to see a President Warren one day.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:19 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


In the foreseeable future Greenland will lose umpteen million pounds of ice

I read that as "Glen Greenwald will lose umpteen million pounds of ice..."
posted by Foosnark at 5:27 AM on February 7, 2020


In addition to ending the Iowa and New Hampshire dominance we also need the DNC to just get draconian about ending caucuses nationwide.

They need to announce that in 2024 states that use caucuses don't get delegates at the convention. Telling New Hampshire to change thair law and acceot a rotating primary schedule on penalty of losing their delegates would also be a really good idea but I doubt the DNC has the spine to do it

Frankly I dont see why they can't get rid of them in most other caucus states this year. The UK manages to have snap elections with 30 days of warning, the mechanism for elections is already present in all states, this isn't that difficult.

Really they could switch the day of the caucus if they had the willpower. Tell the people showing up to write their vote on a slip of paper, drop it into a lockbox, and hand count. Done.

But at the very least this chaotic and harmful mockery of a system needs to be abolished by 2024. The rule needs to be that your state can either have delgates at the 2024 convention or you can have a caucus, you can't have both.
posted by sotonohito at 5:37 AM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think Sanders-Abrams would be great. Warren is my first choice for prez but I wouldn't want her on the ticket as VP. A second older white northeasterner doesn't add much. And POC, particularly WOC, are the heart and soul of the Democratic party and it would be great if the VP spot reflected that.
posted by chris24 at 5:39 AM on February 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


I would love to see a Sanders/Abrams ticket. Given both Biden's and Sander's advanced ages, the VP nomination seems crucial for either. Not to wish either man ill health but we have to acknowledge that 80 is 80 and will need a VP who we can trust to take over if the worst happens.
posted by octothorpe at 5:46 AM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Sanders isn’t going to pick Abrams, I’m sorry. He’s committed enough to his ideological program that whoever it is will probably be someone from the socialist left. I just don’t see him picking a moderate. That would completely alienate his base and have the potential to defuse his movement if he were to die in office.

I could see him picking Nina Turner though.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 5:54 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


BTW, if anyone is interested in learning more about the discourse within the American left, their beliefs, their point of view on the Democratic Party, their predictions for the future of this race and their take on the news of the day, then I'd strongly recommend checking out a podcast episode or two. Podcasts are where the action is these days as far as the socialist discourse in the US.

Someone who isn't especially familiar with this world would probably be well served by the Current Affairs podcast, which is friendly, has hosts from diverse backgrounds, and does not assume an aggressive posture toward liberals.

As the primary gets going in earnest, and as the front runner comes from the left, hearing how the left talks to itself will help you stay informed and give you a better idea of what they're thinking and what kinds of decisions they will likely make.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:14 AM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


(Podcasts are where it's at, and if you haaaaaaate podcasts you will find yourself one very unhappy Frowner. There is nothing worse than having to listen to people talk and talk and talk to convey something that you could have read in five minutes, especially if they have annoying "charismatic" voices.)
posted by Frowner at 6:25 AM on February 7, 2020 [39 favorites]


Someone who isn't especially familiar with this world would probably be well served by the Current Affairs podcast, which is friendly, has hosts from diverse backgrounds, and does not assume an aggressive posture toward liberals.

I'm excited to check out this recommendation but ya gotta admit, the way this is phrased seems to imply "and then once you're more familiar with that world, you can check out all the aggressive unfriendly white dude podcasts!"
posted by showbiz_liz at 7:08 AM on February 7, 2020 [9 favorites]


Someone who isn't especially familiar with this world would probably be well served by the Current Affairs podcast, which is friendly, has hosts from diverse backgrounds, and does not assume an aggressive posture toward liberals.

If, on the other hand, you do want a left podcast with an aggressive posture towards liberals, Chapo Trap House is where it's at. Their Iowa-related episodes: before Iowa, live show in Iowa, post-election. (Also their subreddit has some dank Bernie memes.) All of the hosts are pretty active on Twitter, too.

Other media in Bernie-world: the Sanders campaign itself has a podcast, Hear The Bern. Rising is a Bernie-sympathetic newscast.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:10 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'm excited to check out this recommendation but ya gotta admit, the way this is phrased seems to imply "and then once you're more familiar with that world, you can check out all the aggressive unfriendly white dude podcasts!"

Well, those are certainly out there, and some of them are popular. But there are so many leftist podcasts right now that you could fill hours a day listening to friendly non-white non-dudes talk about socialism.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:11 AM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


I also really like the goofy, whimsical utopian socialist podcast Srsly Wrong, which I think of as the Sesame Street of the left.

Trillbilly Worker's Party is an awesome leftist podcast based in Appalachia, and I love hearing their perspective informed by their culture.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:20 AM on February 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


Funny how up thread when people were pointing out some of the shitty things pro-bernie podcasters were saying the response was “they don’t speak for us” but now that people are asking for sources for understanding the left its all... those podcasts that supposedly don’t speak for us.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 7:20 AM on February 7, 2020 [12 favorites]


Hear the Bern is *awesome* and Brianna Joy Grey is the absolute best. I would recommend it to anyone. Even if Bernie isn't your first choice. She does an amazing job of making it a non-white-dude podcast about left/socialist issues more than just a "Go Bernie" campaign podcast where they just cover Bernie and it's corny transparent campaign prop. The episode with Barbara Smith (of the Combahee River Collective) is enlightening. She even brings on people she disagrees with like Jon Favreau and they discuss/debate the divides among the US left - without arguing!

Highly recommended and not your typical piece of lazy "oh our campaign should do a podcast " boring election coverage - it's good on it's own as standalone left wing podcast media. REALLY good. I avoided it for a while but am really impressed by it.
posted by windbox at 7:24 AM on February 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


(Podcasts are where it's at, and if you haaaaaaate podcasts you will find yourself one very unhappy Frowner. There is nothing worse than having to listen to people talk and talk and talk to convey something that you could have read in five minutes,

And, for me, if it is just talk (as podcasts, obviously, are) I tune right out. I don't mean to. It just happens. It's why I hate talking to people on the phone, as well.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:24 AM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


Also, Jacobin's The Dig with Daniel Denvir is pretty good, IMO.
posted by pseudophile at 7:35 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


Funny how up thread when people were pointing out some of the shitty things pro-bernie podcasters were saying the response was “they don’t speak for us” but now that people are asking for sources for understanding the left its all... those podcasts that supposedly don’t speak for us.

We just had 5 recommendations for friendly leftist podcasts, and one recommendation for an unfriendly one (which is also wildly popular and not half as bad as its critics say it is), so I don't get what the problem really is here.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:47 AM on February 7, 2020 [12 favorites]


Here's the thing: no one gives a shit about podcasts and who is mean or nice on the internet. Bernie's coalition is full of POC and working class people. His attackers try and call Bernie's supporters racist and misogynistic or whatever, but that attack doesn't stick given who makes up his coalition. So what they do is focus on a what a small handful of white dudes do and say online, while ignoring the massive number of POC who are on the ground building support for Bernie. Its a really annoying tactic that is undergirded by the US' liberals penchant for caring about 'civility' more than caring about, say, bombing the fuck out of people.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:51 AM on February 7, 2020 [19 favorites]


Mod note: Folks, I think "can you recommend me some podcasts on topic x with qualities y and not-z" would work really well as an Ask in a way that would probably help divorce it from the everybody-on-edge weirdness of mixing it into this long complicated discussion and the attendant raw feelings and sniping that's coming with it. If someone would like to give that a go and we could let it drop in here at this point, that'd be good.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:52 AM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Funny how up thread when people were pointing out some of the shitty things pro-bernie podcasters were saying the response was “they don’t speak for us” but now that people are asking for sources for understanding the left its all... those podcasts that supposedly don’t speak for us.

You can listen to the show without necessarily adopting all of the hosts' views. It's possible, I promise. The hosts disagree about plenty of things among themselves. Hell, I listen to the Current Affairs podcast (and quite a few other left podcasts besides) even though some of their opinions (and preternaturally sunny disposition) I find off-putting.

But look, the only "shitty thing" (in your words) that one of the CTH hosts said quoted upthread was that he'll only vote for Bernie in the general election. This in the aftermath of what the NYT stat guy -- not CTH -- calls "the worst conceived and executed electoral contest I have ever seen." The more it seems as though the Democratic establishment and the media are willing to sabotage fair elections to torpedo Bernie, the less legitimacy these elections have and the harder it's going to be to get Bernie supporters (or anyone, really) to go along with the eventual outcome. You can yell for party unity all you want, but the more of these incompetence/corruption/conspiracy (whatever your analysis is) SNAFUs that happen, the more alienating it is to those whose favored candidate always seems to be on the short end of these supposedly randomly distributed foul-ups.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:59 AM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


Funny how up thread when people were pointing out some of the shitty things pro-bernie podcasters were saying the response was “they don’t speak for us” but now that people are asking for sources for understanding the left its all... those podcasts that supposedly don’t speak for us.

But there's a big difference between "I listen to this because it has some good stuff" and "this represents My Unchangeable Worldview and if they say it you can take it as read that I believe it". That's what I object to about this whole thing, the idea that the only reason I might engage with a podcast or a person is because I either already 100% agree with them or if I can see whether I 100% agree with them, after which I will either continue or drop them. I follow a bunch of tankies on twitter, for instance, not because I have great respect for Xi Jinping Thought (god, if I never hear more about Xi Jinping thought) but because they're thoughtful, informed people who have a wide range of information that I don't encounter elsewhere.

This is one reason I dislike the faux-intimacy of social media. Take Chapo Trap House, for instance. Those guys come across as total assholes to me, but you know what? They're not my friends. I'm not responsible for their affect. I can listen to the podcast and the mere fact of listening does not constitute an endorsement of the hosts.

The way we discuss social media, it's like I personally have to be morally responsible for the affect of Chapo Trap House if I listen to it, because there's this faux-intimate folksy nonsense going on. If someone is smart, brings interesting new information and has useful things to say but is also an asshole, even an asshole about Bernie online, I am not individually responsible for his behavior, nor am I implicated in it because I listen to his podcast. I might get sick of him and stop listening, but it's not because I myself am guilty of something.

Podcasters are not (with some local exceptions) my actual, literal friends. I can listen to their work without needing to think that they're sterling people I'd like to know better.
posted by Frowner at 8:02 AM on February 7, 2020 [22 favorites]


Trump lost the Iowa caucus to Ted Cruz in 2016 so I personally am not willing to put much statistical or otherwise stock in it for either party.

The last I read Buttigieg has less than 5% support among black voters so even if he wins NH too I ... don't see how he's going to make it out of the southern states no matter what momentum he gets?
posted by nakedmolerats at 8:09 AM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Right now, I am hoping for Warren. I feel concerned about Bernie because of his age. I would feel more comfortable throwing all of my support behind him as my first choice if I knew who his VP pick would be.
posted by all about eevee at 8:33 AM on February 7, 2020 [15 favorites]


A proposal.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:04 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


His attackers try and call Bernie's supporters racist and misogynistic or whatever, but that attack doesn't stick given who makes up his coalition. So what they do is focus on a what a small handful of white dudes do and say online, while ignoring the massive number of POC who are on the ground building support for Bernie. Its a really annoying tactic that is undergirded by the US' liberals penchant for caring about 'civility' more than caring about, say, bombing the fuck out of people.

This is so dishonest I have to respond.

It is normal and reasonable to focus on the people who abuse you, and we are justified in pointing out that people who tolerate that abusive behavior are themselves, to some degree, complicit. Being a woman doesn’t give you a pass on misogyny anymore than being a leftist does, and plenty of women and POC are, in fact, misogynist. Particularly for young women, there’s a lot to unpack, and most women feminists do go through phases of being like, “fuck, that thing I used to do or believe was really fucked up.” Using identity as a way to prove you can’t be a misogynist is so obviously stupid as to be dishonest. Anyway, you can believe whatever you want, but if in the end you tolerate misogynist abuse (for example) because it suits your goals, well...misogyny is as misogyny does.

But our main complaint isn’t about sanders’ coalition tolerating abuse, and it never was. It’s about how the sanders campaign and sanders himself tolerate and encourage some really fucked up behavior with really predictable results. This abusive behavior is really unique to the supporters of two candidates — Sanders and Trump — and there’s a reason for that.

That is not a complaint about civility. That goes to the heart of who the candidate is, and what his election or elevation would bring to the country. And your post is essentially a declaration that you believe all criticism of sanders along these lines to be dishonest, even though you admit the behavior exists. Just women making things up again, right? Either lying or crazy?

I mean, we have reached the point in the thread where Sanders supporters generally drive everyone else away. But this is just so phenomenally manipulative and misogynist. Like this is a really, really fucked up thing to say, and I genuinely hope you find a way to reflect on why that might be.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:17 AM on February 7, 2020 [23 favorites]


Speaking of Current Affairs, here's Nathan Robinson in the Guardian: The mess in the Iowa caucuses is a blow to American faith in democracy
With its lack of transparency or communication, the Iowa Democratic party seemed to be treating them with total contempt. It was as if they were saying: “You thought you had a democracy? Hah. Sorry, but the party is in charge, not you.” It was a depressing feeling of losing control, of feeling like unknown people in back rooms are the ones who get to determine what happens. Even if they aren’t determining the winner, they’re certainly determining whether the winner will get a triumphant media victory or have their win be a quiet non-story weeks after the fact.

For all those reasons, Iowa has been an ignominious start to the primary season, one that has Donald Trump laughing. People worked hard for a year, making call after call, knocking on doors in the snow. The least they deserved was a clear result. But the Iowa Democratic party’s failure to tabulate and release the vote on time was not just unfair to the people who had expended so much energy on the race. It was demoralizing in a very deep way, eroding people’s confidence in democratic institutions. By reinforcing the idea that democracy is a joke, the system is shady and rigged, it has done lasting damage to the country.
I Hated Bernie Bros Until I Loved And Lost One
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 9:19 AM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


Someone whose opinion I generally trusted and respected in 2016 told me re Bernie and Hillary that I needed to vote with "my heart and not my vagina." This was not a faceless straw man Berniebro online, this was someone I actually knew and liked.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:23 AM on February 7, 2020 [16 favorites]


And that is not to say I don't support Bernie's politics. I even agree that some of the straw man Berniebro hype is probably overhyped. But yes, real women are hearing and reporting real misogyny even from people they know.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:26 AM on February 7, 2020 [16 favorites]


That is not a complaint about civility. That goes to the heart of who the candidate is, and what his election or elevation would bring to the country.

Serious question, what harm do you predict Sanders' election or elevation would bring to women in this country? I really don't see misogyny playing any part in his agenda or tactics, and his policy proposals are truly intersectional in the sense that they would benefit women across all racial and class lines, with those who are the most oppressed seeing the most benefit.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:27 AM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


I mean, we have reached the point in the thread where Sanders supporters generally drive everyone else away.

We have also reached the point where Sanders haters are driving everyone else away.
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 9:28 AM on February 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


I... don't see anyone being driven away? The thread is still quite active despite the fact that we're in a lull between the Iowa mess and the NH results.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:49 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


Please tell me where I said anything suggesting that misogyny was ok or that women who experienced misogyny by visible Bernie supporters were making it up or anything of the sort. I’ll be waiting.

Instead ask yourself why the corporate media is so keen to conflate misogynistic Bernie supports with the whole movement but not willing to conflate misogynistic supporters of any other candidate with the whole movement.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:57 AM on February 7, 2020 [8 favorites]


What is a shame is that I would very much like to talk about the various candidates' merits without talking about words like "love" or "hate." Personally, I have never understood the attraction of Sanders as a candidate -- I agree with many of his positions, but based on his history and his personality, I can't imagine he'd be a very effective president. He strikes me as one of the "loyal opposition" types whose true talent (in my opinion) is being a thorn in the side of the establishment.

I have problems with each of the current top 5 candidates, and don't feel enthusiastic about any of them, for various reasons. I consider myself both a liberal and a progressive, and honestly don't understand when and how those words came to mean two different things. But I am going to have to support one of those 5 candidates in November, because any one of them is worlds better than Trump, regardless of their faults. So I would like to be able to engage in a reasonable discussion of their relative merits. Is that still happening anywhere?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 10:02 AM on February 7, 2020 [23 favorites]


Mod note: We're deep into "we've had this fight here a bunch of times before, go have it somewhere else instead if you need to have it" territory at this point on the Bernie candidacy and supporter and etc. pro vs. con vs. you vs. no you shit. This applies to everybody; I don't care if you're sure you're sufficiently right that it shouldn't apply to you. Take several steps back and do not keep getting into this "well no, you/they are the real problem" loop because it's fucking exhausting and everyone perpetuating it knows the whole branching set of arguments already.

If you want to have a space on MetaFilter to discuss Iowa/primary stuff, make the effort to not melt it down as soon as something gets up your shirt because we're not gonna do this for the next several months.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:06 AM on February 7, 2020 [28 favorites]


Can people stop saying the Iowa results are in? They literally are not. In fact, in.
posted by Yowser at 10:20 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


I have problems with each of the current top 5 candidates, and don't feel enthusiastic about any of them, for various reasons.

This is kind of where I am.

Partly because of that, I was and still am hoping for a quick and decisive primary season with one clear winner to cut short infighting and have more time to bring everyone together and for the rest of the American public to get to know the candidate more, whomever they are.
posted by FJT at 10:30 AM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


Can people stop saying the Iowa results are in? They literally are not. In fact, in.

Well, we're about 24 hours from the time when the IDP is officially going to throw up its hands and say "good enough" about whatever they have and declare that the final result, no matter how error-riddled, unless one of the campaigns wants to make them do a full recount/recanvass.
posted by Copronymus at 10:31 AM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


Show me another socialist that's running for president and I'll reconsider support.

At this point in time, I consider capitalism just as much of a scourge of humanity as sexism and racism, in part because it's inseparable from them. Socialism can be sexist, but capitalism is sexist by definition, using every division of humankind and exploiting it for the good of a few owners of property.

Perhaps this is because my early life was lived under the boot of capitalism with my family in a desperate struggle to survive the class warfare of the rich upon the poor, but I consider the deconstruction of the capitalist state and its replacement with a more humane and natural structure to be the only long-term solution to poverty and prejudice.

And everywhere I turn, all these candidates applaud this same system that brutalizes the poor, some far worse than my family endured. When I hear Warren talk about how she's a "capitalist to [her] bones," I grimace. When I hear Biden talk about how just mentioning that one is a socialist is a disqualifier, I feel sick. When I see Bloomberg, a literal billionaire who has stolen his vast wealth from millions of workers to use for his own comfort and aggrandizement, lecture the country about the positives of capitalism, I get angry. Why do they do this? Why do they applaud a system that is founded on the expropriation of the wealth from the rich to the poor? How can they do this and call themselves "democrats"—the force of the people?

Racism and sexism is roundly condemned by these folks (even if they don't always act on that condemnation). But why isn't capitalism? Why do they praise the very system that continues to maim and kill us?

I long for a day when we have multiple anti-capitalists running and I can look at the other qualities of candidates. I wish we could be so lucky. Until then, if we find racism and sexism hateful, we must also do the same with capitalism.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:48 AM on February 7, 2020 [23 favorites]


Mod note: So drop it meant drop it. I hate to throw y'all's typing away but also go reread previous and actually pump the brakes because I'm out of patience and not gonna let this spin back up one Okay But at a time.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:53 AM on February 7, 2020 [15 favorites]


is this the new kronstadt thread
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 11:02 AM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


Well, we're about 24 hours from the time when the IDP is officially going to throw up its hands and say "good enough" about whatever they have and declare that the final result, no matter how error-riddled, unless one of the campaigns wants to make them do a full recount/recanvass.

Good news, actually we're trapped in hell forever:
The Iowa Democratic Party announced on Friday that it was extending the time that campaigns have to call for a recanvass or recount of the Iowa caucuses, further drawing out the chaos that has consumed the state's caucus process.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:08 AM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


How much money do we need to donate to Tom Harkin to get him to run in 2024 and do the 1992 thing of getting everybody else to skip/ignore Iowa?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:09 AM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I am very happy Bernie won. I've been waiting to cheer and be joyful and share the love ... anyway ... Yeah! Bernie! Go Bernie Go! The time is now! (YouTube video 2min20sec, Bernie ad feat. Killer Mike bringing the thunder from an event they did at Bennett College in North Carolina (YouTube video 1hr8min (the whole event was great) but I linked to the rally cry at the end, cause it was good live too).

It was funny when a reporter asked Bernie, "Mayor Pete has been declaring a win for days now, why should people believe your victory speech?" Bernie smiled at the question then responded dryly "Because we got 6000 more votes than he did ;)". Yes Bernie used a wink as punctuation. (YouTube video 38min, Bernie gives a campaign update, but linked to the question and answer at 23min and lasts less than 30 sec).

Bernie exuding confidence and playfulness. Like at the end of the Iowa night. Bernie began listing the next states to win and realized he was on his way to doing the Howard Dean scream. He then leaned into the joke and stopped just short of the scream. It was pretty funny. (YouTube video 41min, but Sanders only spoke for about 10 minutes and most is just loading screen, but linked to 21min40sec, when the described event occurs).

Bernie I thought also looked very Presidential or got adjusted more than usual for his State of the Union rebuttal. He had a usual tie and suit but the tie was centered and it looked like he ironed his suit or had someone do it for the event ... reminds me of this clip of Obama in 2006 asking Bernie where he got his suit. "Right off the rack", was Bernie response (Twitter link with embedded video 2min13sec but the exchange happens in the first 30sec). All in all, good style game from team Sanders.

Something on the organizing side that Bernie is doing that I haven't seen from other campaigns is rallies done all in Spanish. (I don't speak the language so don't watch them all, but can understand enough to follow the broad stokes). AOC spoke at one and while highly fluent, it is more a second language for her which surprised me because I've found her English to have a bit of Spanish flavour by times. Then again I get the same thing where my English has a French flavour by times and my French an English flavour and if you don't use a language for a while you will search for words a bit more, not that you don't know them, they just need dusting off. Ads in Spanish Nuestro Futuro (YouTube video 30sec) highlight his son of an immigrant status and some of his fathers struggles. Even in Iowa, the Sanders campaign had their Spanish language literature, that isn't a simple translation, but tailored messaging. I think these are important (if small) decisions that show recognition rather than just pander or checking a box.

And what the hell, one more Bernie ad, Hope. (YouTube video 1min) The problems we face did not come down from the heavens. They are made by bad human decisions. And good human decisions can change them.
posted by phoque at 12:06 PM on February 7, 2020 [10 favorites]


“We’re losing our damn minds”: James Carville unloads on the Democratic Party
posted by Glinn at 12:37 PM on February 7, 2020


Honestly, I hope both the Sander and Buttigieg campaigns ask for a recanvass. As close as these results are, it would be malpractice not to.

But I do think it’s important to tamp down the rigging accusations. There is zero credible evidence that I’ve seen of rigging. Mistakes? Sure. Plenty. But those are fixable.

Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that there are more delegates available to your favored campaign from this caucus, if you play the cards right. If we assume that Pete and Bernie are the last two candidates standing, who gets the 15 delegates that are currently assigned to Warren, Biden and Klobuchar? When a candidate ends their campaign, they don’t lose the delegates they already earned — they can direct their delegates to support a candidate of their choosing. Do you think they’ll send them to a candidate that baselessly accused them of cheating?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 12:40 PM on February 7, 2020


I know we are way past this now but I wanted to correct somewhere above where I referred to the 2016 Iowa Caucus on the GOP side and I meant the 2012 Iowa Caucus on the GOP side. The one where they declared the wrong person the winner and it took a week to fix.
posted by Justinian at 12:42 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'll say here what I said on Twitter: Carville's not completely wrong in that diatribe, but he's also not seeing the contradictions in his own argument, which is important because they go to what's tripped up Democrats in red/purple states for a long time now. To wit, he talks about needing to focus on kitchen table issues like healthcare, childcare, etc, but then says "but not like that" on all of the leading candidates' healthcare education, etc. proposals, because those particular ideas won't fly in the states that decide control of the Senate. But is that because they're bad ideas for a general election, or because any kitchen table agenda from the Democrats would get the same "SOCIALISM!!1!1" treatment as MFA, free college, etc, because Republicans want to block anything that would help non-rich people and that's their playbook to do so? I posit: Option B.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:44 PM on February 7, 2020 [10 favorites]


James Carville unloads on the Democratic Party The Left
Sean Illing
Give me an example of what you mean by distractions.

James Carville
We have candidates on the debate stage talking about open borders and decriminalizing illegal immigration. They’re talking about doing away with nuclear energy and fracking. You’ve got Bernie Sanders talking about letting criminals and terrorists vote from jail cells. It doesn’t matter what you think about any of that, or if there are good arguments — talking about that is not how you win a national election. It’s not how you become a majoritarian party.[...]

Sean Illing
I wouldn’t endorse everything every Democrat is doing or saying, but are they really destroying the party? What does that even mean?

James Carville
Look, Bernie Sanders isn’t a Democrat. He’s never been a Democrat. He’s an ideologue. And I’ve been clear about this: If Bernie is the nominee, I’ll vote for him. No question. I’ll take an ideological fanatic over a career criminal any day. But he’s not a Democrat.

[...] Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness. I’m not here to debate the idea. What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this shit.
Etc, etc, etc. Utterly reptilian.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:47 PM on February 7, 2020 [17 favorites]


Oh, and also: The Democrats won the House in 2018 in large part by campaigning on healthcare without needing an affirmative healthcare agenda other than promising to stop Republicans from killing everybody who makes less than $150,000 a year. They didn't need a policy to show off, they were individual legislators running campaigns where nobody voting for them was under the impression that their House rep would be the one to dictate nationwide healthcare policy. You can't use the same playbook in a presidential race, and if the Dem tried then people like Carville would lay into them for just campaigning on "I'm not Trump" instead of giving voters a reason to get excited about them.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:47 PM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Honestly, I hope both the Sander and Buttigieg campaigns ask for a recanvass. As close as these results are, it would be malpractice not to.

In my fantasy, the Sanders and Buttigeig camps possibly support a recanvass, but also agree that there's no such thing as "winning Iowa" or any state.

(The problem with any one candidate saying that is they become a sore loser -- even a "winner" saying it has that effect when this race to "win" was so close and ambiguous, like they're just hedging against the possibility of "loss" after a recount. So in order to work, it would have to be a joint statement, ideally from every major campaign. And that's a prisoner's dilemma, because in saying "Stop talking about it like you have been" you're effectively telling off reporters everywhere, like Beto's "Member of the press, what the fuck?" without the cursing. Any one candidate who says "Of course it's a big important contest with only one winner!" then gets all the advantages that playing nice with the media can get.)
posted by InTheYear2017 at 12:48 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Etc, etc, etc. Utterly reptilian.

The thing about James Carville is that he's married to someone who thought the worst thing about the 2016 Trump campaign was his "high school antics." That he simultaneously believes we should have a laser focus on the African-American vote, and that it's horrible that anyone dare talk about the main reason they're regularly disenfranchised from participating in the so-called democratic process lest the Nazis get upset is par for the fucking course.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:55 PM on February 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


[...] Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness. I’m not here to debate the idea. What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this shit.

You know what. Fine. Whatever. No more paying student loans going forward, those that paid get a nice tax credit equivalent to how much they paid either in cash or in total paying off their student loans that can offset up to half their income in any given year. Let's just do that, yeah? Rich people who paid in cash don't get shit. People who paid three times their loan amount over 30 godforsaken years get half taxes for the rest of their lives.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:56 PM on February 7, 2020 [9 favorites]


Rooting for Sanders and I staunchly support moving the fuck on from Iowa and giving Pete the bullshit SDE win while we take the popular vote. We technically beat him by his own standards.
posted by windbox at 12:57 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


"Winning Iowa" is essentially about momentum. That's basically water over the dam at this point, the CW has moved on. The very slight difference in national delegates is not going to matter, even if the convention is contested.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:57 PM on February 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


Carville's rant is odd. He's not wrong about the Democratic party repeatedly shooting itself in the foot after the largely successful 2018 elections, but his ideas for how to remedy that problem seem kind of all over the place. It's like he's advocating for a populist takeover of the party, but with a liberal rather than leftist bent. But I think most of the people susceptible to that kind of persuasion took a hard tack to the right over a decade ago with the rise of the Tea Party.
posted by Atom Eyes at 1:05 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


i was going to say something about how carville represents an older and thankfully dying understanding of political life wherein people still uphold the tip-n-ronnie myth and wherein politics is a game and wherein a sort of breathless sports-coverage tone is desirable and wherein it's acceptable to (for example) marry an operative from the other side because it's just a game, because there's nothing serious about political party identity, because it's like you know a vikings fan getting married to a packers fan or whatever, it's funny.

but then i thought harder about it and i realized that the real main underlying thing that affects how james carville views the world is the fact that he is a total idiot. a real dum-dum.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:14 PM on February 7, 2020 [14 favorites]


I don't listen to podcasts and I think the question-situation is different for someone who wants to learn about something versus someone who is getting updated news, ideas, information.

I recommend books and articles because that's where I started, first because they are less passive an information source than audiovisual materials, and second because all of leftism is documented and largely derived from scholarship. Intellectual engagement in this way is also a left tradition, and so practicing that is a great way to get your feet wet rather than taking a more passive consumer/surveyor approach. The literature is vast and there's something for everyone.

The other thing that is helpful is college-level YouTube lectures on Marxism and related topics. These are done by philosophers, economists, sociologists, and othersl faculties in the arts and sciences.
posted by polymodus at 1:17 PM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


I do think that people vastly overestimate the electoral appeal of something like M4A.

Democrats got wiped out when they messed with the health care system and passed Obamacare. Republicans got wiped out when they messed with the health care system and sabotaged Obamacare and failed a full repeal by 1 vote, and now Democrats are once again trying to mess with the health care system and make huge changes.

Messing with the status quo is deeply unpopular to a lot of voters even if in the abstract the replacement seems like not a bad idea. That doesn't make sense. I acknowledge that doesn't make sense. But sometimes life is like that and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Should we do it anyway? Maybe so but let's not fool ourselves into thinking campaigning on making sweeping changes to stuff like health care is an advantage.
posted by Justinian at 1:18 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this shit.

Ahem. THE FUCK I DON'T!
posted by VTX at 1:22 PM on February 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


[...] Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness. I’m not here to debate the idea. What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this shit.

Here is Bernie responding to that exact point raised by a guy at a town hall a few months ago. (YouTube video 1hr14min but linked to the question and answer which was right at the end. I wondered if it was really a legitimate concern, but Bernie basically made the guy agree with him in less than 2 minutes, while still holding out that they disagree. Bernie knows the talking points and is good at not equivocating but taking them on without blinking).
posted by phoque at 1:26 PM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Should we do it anyway? Maybe so but let's not fool ourselves into thinking campaigning on making sweeping changes to stuff like health care is an advantage.

Could not disagree more. Guess that makes me a fool.
posted by Gadarene at 1:36 PM on February 7, 2020 [7 favorites]


Messing with the status quo is deeply unpopular to a lot of voters even if in the abstract the replacement seems like not a bad idea. That doesn't make sense. I acknowledge that doesn't make sense. But sometimes life is like that and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.

Should we do it anyway? Maybe so but let's not fool ourselves into thinking campaigning on making sweeping changes to stuff like health care is an advantage.

Just got back from the centrist rally. Amazing turnout. Thousands of people holding hands and chanting “Better things aren’t possible”
posted by Beware of the leopard at 1:43 PM on February 7, 2020 [23 favorites]


Could not disagree more. Guess that makes me a fool.

You could not disagree with which? That campaigning on a complete structural overhaul of things like health care is a disadvantage? Or that we maybe should do it anyway?

Because if its the former you have to explain why we got wiped out the last couple of times we did that.
posted by Justinian at 1:44 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Acknowledging that campaigning for major change often comes with political costs isn't the same thing as "better things aren't possible" and conflating the two means guaranteeing that you'll be blindsided when those costs come back to bite you, a la the 2010 House elections.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:51 PM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


exactly. Overhauling health care was possible in 2009/2010; we know because it happened. We also know it had groundshaking political costs. And the Dems knew that going in and voted for it with their eyes open because they felt it was the right thing to do.

Maybe that's true again but advocate with your eyes open.
posted by Justinian at 1:53 PM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


Carville is right in that you can't do anything if you can't win elections and get people in power.

But that's about the limit of how right he is in that interview.
posted by SansPoint at 2:02 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


You could not disagree with which? That campaigning on a complete structural overhaul of things like health care is a disadvantage? Or that we maybe should do it anyway?

Because if its the former you have to explain why we got wiped out the last couple of times we did that.

I'm sorry; this whole line of conversation has me shaking with rage and despair. I shouldn't have gotten involved in it.
posted by Gadarene at 2:04 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Overhauling health care was possible in 2009/2010; we know because it happened

We were promised universal health care and got a delayed, botched rollout of watered-down means-tested working-class-penalizing half-measures that, while technically somewhat reducing the number of uninsured citizens, did not directly address the fundamental issues.* If tens of millions of Americans still needlessly suffer and die from a lack of a decent health social safety net then the overhaul did not happen.

*this was still successfully attacked as socialism by conservatives, good thing we didn't try anything not initially proposed by Republicans
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:05 PM on February 7, 2020 [12 favorites]


But any party apparatus that can't successfully campaign on the issues presented in this thread should be deeply ashamed of itself. If you (the party, not you) don't try to change those things, if you don't feel urgency and shout the need for change of those things from the rooftops when you have the opportunity to do so, then you are a party for the elite, the wealthy, the powerful, and the status quo, and that is all you are.
posted by Gadarene at 2:09 PM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


The reasons the Democrats got wiped out in 2010 could fill a book, and I’m typing on an iPhone. I’ll just observe that the rule of thumb is generally that the president’s party loses seats in midterms. I’m sure you could list numerous reasons for each midterm loss. I suspect the nationalization our politics and gerrymandering partly explains the wilder swings in the house. Prior to the 90’s, you had a large swath of southern Dems who traced their allegiance back to the civil war and reflected a time when the parties were more regional coalitions and less ideologically polarized. Northern liberal republicans experienced a similar extinction.
posted by eagles123 at 2:12 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Before spending too much time on how Democrats should be campaigning and what issues to prioritize, I think you should read this first.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 2:20 PM on February 7, 2020


I think we’re mostly on the same page here as far as what kind of bill we’d want. And Bernie’s been through Health Care Backlash twice now (1994 and 2010, and they didn’t even get the bill through the Senate in 1994!), so he’s aware of the messaging challenges and the risks.

And, he’s not subtle. Anybody who votes for him at any point will have heard what he wants to do.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:22 PM on February 7, 2020


I also think that sometimes, you advocate for the policies that you think are right, because doing so is the right thing to do even if it makes your political career harder.

I think we all agree on this.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:33 PM on February 7, 2020


Howcome this "play it safe" rule only applies to Democrats? Campaigning on making sweeping changes to stuff got Trump into office, didn't it? (I mean, no, obviously: he got into office by cheating personally and by profiting from the cheating systems republicans have spent years carefully setting up.)

ANYBODY who runs against Trump can beat him if he is (somehow) prevented from cheating. NOBODY who runs against Trump can beat him if he is not prevented from cheating.

What with all the new disease challenges, we are going to need to make sweeping changes to stuff like healthcare in order to head off collapse. We are going to need to make sweeping changes to environmental and energy policy RIGHT NOW in order to prevent extinction.

If you just want to campaign on a chicken in every 401K like usual, fine, and I'll vote for you, but you had better turn out to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. If a Democrat wins, that person's administration will need to immediately kick it into gear on 1. votersuppression/gerrymandering/republicancheatinggenerally 2. global warming and 3. public health. Sweeping changes right away, or it won't matter who wins.

We don't really have a lot more time to dick around with ho-hum middle-of-the-road Democratic administrations like Clinton's and Obama's trading off with insane scorched earth robber baron Easter Islander administrations like Reagan's, Dubya's, and Trump's that burn through all the protective infrastructure and prevent new protective infrastructure from being built.
posted by Don Pepino at 2:37 PM on February 7, 2020 [16 favorites]


Because the conventional wisdom among the Dem party leadership and in the press is that the US is inherently a center-right country in the best of times and far-right in the worst of times. This has been the assumption for quite a long time now and everything is viewed through this prism.
posted by theory at 2:57 PM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Time 4 Revolution
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:20 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


on CNN today: What it's like to be swarmed by Sanders supporters
Narrator over a screenshot of a tweeted poop emoji: "Sanders opponents are told to eat this: poop."
No thumb on the scale here, no siree
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:23 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


The problem is not highlighting people acting badly, the problem is the people acting badly.
posted by Justinian at 3:24 PM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


The problem is not highlighting people acting badly, the problem is the people acting badly.

The only people who receive mean tweets are those poor souls who dare oppose the dreaded Bros and it's important for CNN to cover this while we operate child concentration camps.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:27 PM on February 7, 2020 [8 favorites]


while technically somewhat reducing the number of uninsured citizens,

What does this even mean, Rust? English is my first language and I can’t even hazard a guess as to what you’re trying to communicate. The number of uninsured is unequivocally lower than it was. In what way is this a technicality?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:29 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


One analysis you could make of Trump is that he is frequently and consistently framed as uniquely threatening to the status quo because he is not as capital-friendly as other presidents (either R or D).

Wait what? Trump, the guy who gave companies a giant sweetheart deal on the corporate tax rate that even Tim Cook blended the knee in fealty? That guy isn’t capital friendly? Does he have to give reacharounds to get to friendly?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 3:30 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


What does this even mean, Rust? English is my first language and I can’t even hazard a guess as to what you’re trying to communicate. The number of uninsured is pretty unequivocally lower than it was. In what way is this a technicality?

I'm saying that the percentage of people insured alone is a bad measurement of outcome, just like how Trump touts total jobs figures when most of those jobs are awful/temporary/part-time/ill-paying/etc. A lot of people's coverage still sucks and receiving decent health care is still often unaffordable/impossible for people who pay for insurance. And, of course, there are still many millions of people without any health care at all, shitty or no. Still a hundred million people held hostage by their employer with it. Etc.

People's lives have been saved by the ACA but that doesn't make it anywhere near sufficient.
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:35 PM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


Sure, even Obama didn't think it was sufficient. It was simply the best that could be accomplished with the rules and Congress at the time.
posted by Justinian at 3:38 PM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Ok, so no technicality and just a non sequitor. Carry on, I guess.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:38 PM on February 7, 2020


Is this the debate thread?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:41 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


No, this is abuse. You want the thread next door.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:48 PM on February 7, 2020 [32 favorites]


I think it is. Checkmate.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 3:56 PM on February 7, 2020 [2 favorites]


The problem is not highlighting people acting badly, the problem is the people acting badly.

People who watch Fox News believe that undocumented immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate amount of criminal activity.

This is false.

Fox News itself disavows any editorial responsibility for this, claiming "We report. You decide."

I don't think it absolves Fox News just because sometimes immigrants commit crimes.
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:20 PM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


I Am Pleased To Announce That I, Too, Won Iowa
Yes, the rumors that I started are true. I won Iowa, proving all the haters and naysayers and people who claimed that I am "not running for president" and "not even physically in the state" so wrong. How did I do it? Well, I'll tell you, whether you want to hear it or not.
...
Fun fact: having victory in your heart is the only way to enter most New England states. You show up in Vermont with second place in your heart and they will turn you away at the state line immediately. It's really remarkable that Susan Collins managed to scam her way into representing Maine as she ambles through every day with equivocation in her heart. But, as she's shown during the Trump administration, sometimes literally refusing to do or stand for anything is actually winning, too.

I do not know, nor will I ever know, who actually won the Iowa Caucus but let me clearly announce on this stage I have constructed out of empty Amazon.com boxes that I am deeply inspired by Buttigieg's power play and I will be incorporating actions like this into my every day life. This was like the opposite of "You can't fire me; I quit!" Former Mayor Pete was like "You can't hire me; I'm already in the Oval Office." Revolutionary! Efficient!
posted by kirkaracha at 4:30 PM on February 7, 2020 [6 favorites]


Carville has never been on our side.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 5:00 PM on February 7, 2020 [11 favorites]


I would actually love for people who have been following Sen.Warren's campaign more closely to post clips and stuff of her doing fun things. I know there isn't as much available. All the other campaigns only put out short bits or a few conferences and I have had to search more local media for coverage of their events, although now CSPAN has ramped up their coverage it is much better. I think Warren is great but haven't been able to follow her campaign as much because she isn't broadcasting it. At this point you need to go outside the media. I think she should hire a camera person to film her events and stream them and upload them.

I think Warren is actually well placed and I think she could easily go to the convention in second place. Because she has the second most people at her events and the only other campaign with energy and excitement in the room.

I was looking at some stuff on CSPAN. I forgot Pete Buttigieg ran to be chair of the DNC. He talked a good game but is wholly uninspiring. In one of the debates he claimed he was the model of intersectionality. I laughed for some reason, but maybe he is.
posted by phoque at 5:32 PM on February 7, 2020 [4 favorites]


I mean, "intersectionality" isn't supposed to refer to any person or kind of person. (It's more a way of thinking and/or a model of social systems, at least that's my understanding.) Arguably "diversity" was once such a term as well, but now we say an individual is "diverse" by not being a cishet white man. It's possible that "intersectional" is on the same path linguistically, because humans tend to try shoehorning newly learned words into concepts they think they already understand. Pete isn't the first to do this with buzzwords, and politicians are basically the last people on Earth I would hold that kind of thing against.
posted by InTheYear2017 at 5:44 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Is there a thread for the democratic debates?
posted by Ahmad Khani at 7:15 PM on February 7, 2020


Lol why bother? Klobuchar just keeps dominating em!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:46 PM on February 7, 2020 [5 favorites]


Iowa Caucus Demographics (NYT)

Nonwhite women
45% - Bernie
17% - Pete
12% - Warren
11% - Biden

All Nonwhite
39% - Bernie
17% - Biden
12% - Pete
11% - Warren

Women 18-44
43% - Bernie
24% - Warren
19% - Pete
5% - Biden

All 18-44
43% - Bernie
20% - Warren
19% - Pete
5% - Biden
posted by Ahmad Khani at 8:32 PM on February 7, 2020 [9 favorites]


“Buttigieg” is Indianan for “smarmy,” right?
posted by notyou at 9:18 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Indianan

Hoosier, please
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:04 PM on February 7, 2020 [1 favorite]


Hoosier Daddy
posted by kirkaracha at 11:14 PM on February 7, 2020 [3 favorites]


Pete is one particular model of limited intersectionality anyway.

You mean, he's gay? And....
posted by thelonius at 3:17 AM on February 8, 2020


Gay veteran Capitalist Midwestern White male.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:39 AM on February 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


With those demographics it’s appalling that CNN ran a report on TWELVE online Bernie supporters who made fun of Pete Buttigieg. One of those was a picture of Pete as a rat drawn by a young trans woman that had a whopping 22 likes. In the segment all the talk was of Bernie Bros. Those demos don’t look like Bros to me.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 4:50 AM on February 8, 2020 [12 favorites]


The tweet in question. A little more popular now, apparently. Did Yang and Bernie have rat memes in mind when they said "nibbling around the edges" onstage?

Also, bizarrely, Chris Matthews is evidently so scared of socialism that he thinks he will be executed if Bernie wins.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:28 AM on February 8, 2020 [7 favorites]


Here's a visualization of the alleged precinct errors. They disproportionately favor Buttigieg and disfavor Sanders.

Also notable that the impeachment trial kept Sanders (and others) away from Iowa at the time that Buttigieg was widely touring the state.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:13 AM on February 8, 2020 [10 favorites]


Pete’s answer about the record of the South Bend PD when he was mayor was bone chilling.
posted by eagles123 at 7:40 AM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Chris Matthews pulls in $5 million - each year - for his little shtick on MSNBC. I'm sure he would consider even the slightest tax increase as intolerable socialism. I doubt his interests align with most Americans.
posted by JackFlash at 8:45 AM on February 8, 2020 [8 favorites]


I know multiple people, including myself, who are alive today because of the ACA. I'm sorry our lives are mere technicalities to some of you and we weren't sacrificed at the altar of pure-healthcare-or-bust. In the future when considering political tactics I will try to correctly weigh the true value of a human life when pursuing a Glorious Revolution.
posted by Anonymous at 9:01 AM on February 8, 2020


I know multiple people, including myself, who are alive today because of the ACA. I'm sorry our lives are mere technicalities to some of you and we weren't sacrificed at the altar of pure-healthcare-or-bust.

I was uninsured before the ACA. I also benefited from it and will until my state GOP does away with the medicaid expansion. Tens of millions of people still have no health care at all, many millions more have insufficient care or are held hostage by their employers for still-subpar health care. Americans will die today from a lack of a sufficient social safety net. Interpreting "the ACA was woefully insufficient and true universal health care is the bare minimum" as "you are a human technicality who must be thrown into the Socialism Volcano" is a bad-faith reading.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:12 AM on February 8, 2020 [25 favorites]


Show me another socialist that's running for president and I'll reconsider support.

Being a socialist shouldn't prevent you from ultimately voting for a "capitalist" candidate promoting progressive policy. It shouldn't box you into a corner where you can't have dialogue with other people that label themselves capitalists. There's hardly anyone that is "socialist" or "capitalist" in an absolutist sense of the term.

Bernie's electability argument is dependent on building bridges, or in his words "having a large, diverse, and inclusive base of support". You can't do that if you're going to turn your back on dialogue and compromise in all instances. If we want healthcare and to fight global warming we should be talking about that instead of labels.
posted by xammerboy at 9:22 AM on February 8, 2020 [19 favorites]


Interpreting "the ACA was woefully insufficient and true universal health care is the bare minimum" as "you are a human technicality who must be thrown into the Socialism Volcano" is a bad-faith reading.

I agree that it was insufficient--but I also don't think it was meaningless. Obviously it would've been better for it to be Medicaid-For-All, no stops, but how would you have achieved it then? What would you have said to Joe Leiberman? And if he didn't budge--which he didn't--the argument here seems to be that it should've been all been thrown in the toilet. Acknowledging that it made a huge difference to a lot of people is not the same as saying it was enough. And the statements here seem to want to portray it as an abject failure when it simply was not.

You directly referred to the coverage that has saved human lives as "technically" something that works. I am not sure how to interpret other than you see these human lives as a technicality. Millions of people have had their lives improved by the ACA. The removal of the pre-existing condition refusals alone was a gamechanger. The Blue Wave was in part a reaction to the threat of the GOP taking it away. Acting like it did nothing for these people is not going to convince anyone that you are right.
posted by Anonymous at 10:42 AM on February 8, 2020


You can think Obama was a terrible president, but the fact remains he is one of the most beloved political figures of our time among the people you need to vote for your preferred candidate. Tearing him down is going to get you nowhere.
posted by Anonymous at 10:45 AM on February 8, 2020


20% of the parachutes worked and 80% failed.

Survivor 1: "These are woefully inadequate parachutes. The flattened bodies you see strewn across the landscape should be alive right now."

Survivor 2: "This is insulting and dehumanizing to everybody whose parachute worked. Not recognizing that this is better than no parachutes at all will get you nowhere electorally."
posted by Rust Moranis at 10:56 AM on February 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


Bernie is a big tent guy,

[thor-ishethough.jpg]

Isn't that sort of up to the socialists?

If our strawman thinks a fascist is better than a crook are they really against the fascists? It's voting. Strawman has two choices if Bernie doesn't win: someone they find distasteful or an authoritarian rapidly becoming more fascist. Mathematically, the vote against the fascists isn't found in "not playing". That just helps the fascist.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 10:59 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Enough. Please go have this same exchange a million times elsewhere.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 11:03 AM on February 8, 2020 [15 favorites]


Matthew Yglesias, Vox: The Democratic establishment is doing a really bad job of stopping Bernie Sanders
posted by tonycpsu at 11:29 AM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Matty’s whole take this year is “Bernies Going To Win But Thats Bad, Actually”. Hes really setting himself for maximum hippy punching no matter what happens I almost respect it.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:32 AM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Got a cite for "That's Bad, Actually"?
posted by tonycpsu at 11:34 AM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Matthew Yglesias, Vox: The Democratic establishment is doing a really bad job of stopping Bernie Sanders

He's kind right and kind of wrong. Yes, Republicans are trying to get Bernie the nom either by airtime or crossover voting. The thing is, the Democratic establishment moderates aren't splitting their votes no worse than the progressive wing is splitting between Bernie and Warren. Plus who gets elected ultimately comes down to who wins the most contests and picks up the most delegates which largely involves being popular with the rank and file.

I think people greatly overestimate just how much the Democratic establishment machine can put their thumb on the scale in affecting the grass roots.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 11:41 AM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


David Dayen, The American Prospect: Tom Perez Should Resign, Preferably Today
posted by tonycpsu at 11:48 AM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Far-left politics isn’t really a winning hand, but Sanders himself is an effective player who consistently outperforms the partisan fundamentals in his races
posted by Potomac Avenue at 11:56 AM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


> Far-left politics isn’t really a winning hand, but Sanders himself is an effective player who consistently outperforms the partisan fundamentals in his races

Ah, okay. I read "that's bad" as "that's bad policy" rather than "that's bad because he'll do poorly in the general election against Trump."
posted by tonycpsu at 11:58 AM on February 8, 2020


Well I also think Matty thinks its bad because hes an amoral wonk who is still dazzled by the tech industry but thats like just my opinion.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 12:06 PM on February 8, 2020 [8 favorites]


god i step out for a few hours and i come back and the conversation is about praxis all the sudden.

okay, if we're going to do this right we're going to have to brush up on our theories of ethics. the three big schools are:

virtue ethics. virtue ethics can be traced back to the usual suspects (you know, socrates, aristotle, those guys); the (very) short of it is that action is good if it is taken for good reason with good intent, you know, clear eyes, full heart, that sort of thing, and that habitually taking good action will make one a good person.

next up we have deontology, which can also be traced back to the usual suspects, but which is most often today associated with the philosophy of immanuel kant (there's a decent short explainer here). the root of the word "deontology" is the greek "deon," meaning "duty": one is taking proper action when one is doing one's duty. in the kantian formulation, a good action is one which one could "will to become a universal maxim"; i.e., an action is good if and only if the action would be good if deciding to take that action were a universal rule obeyed by everyone.

finally, and most controversially — even though to my eye in practical terms this is the ethical framework most of us actually use — we have consequentialism, which (surprisingly) doesn't go back to the usual suspects, but instead was first expounded by a certain florentine name of machiavelli. under consequentialism, what makes a good action isn't an action carried out by someone with good intent, and what makes something a good action isn't determined by whether it's in accordance with our duty to act as if our actions could become a universal maxim. instead, what determines whether an action is good is simply whether it leads to a good outcome. one popular strand of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which is sort of a brute-force version of consequentialism wherein we tally up the total happiness produced by a potential action, subtract the total misery, and then choose the action with the highest numerical value.

when we have these discussions about praxis — about how to use our various theories of the world to determine which political actions are best to take — it is necessary to first clear up which ethical framework we're operating under. often these conversations go something like this:

person 1: i am going to vote even for a capitalist monster because if the fascists get in by electoral politics i won't be able to live with myself
person 2: i am not going to vote for a capitalist monster because if i vote i'll be legitimizing the capitalist monster, how could you vote, you monster?
person 1: you are the monster! the fascists will get in because of you!
person 2: your participation in this sick system legitimizes it! that's why we're in this mess in the first place! don't blame me!

what's happening is one person is shouting "consequentialism!" and the other is shouting "virtue ethics with a dash of deontology on the side!" — and because these systems are incommensurable, there is very little productive that can come from this conversation.

thanks for reading! as a reward, have this picture of chidi anagonye dressed as a sexy mailman.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 12:08 PM on February 8, 2020 [19 favorites]


virtue ethics can be traced back to the usual suspects (you know, socrates, aristotle, those guys)

Yeah well who died and made Aristotle in charge of ethics?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:14 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Plato.
posted by sotonohito at 12:16 PM on February 8, 2020 [8 favorites]


Except nobody is saying to vote for a "capitalist monster", of course, as there are no "capitalist monsters" at the top of the Democratic field. There's a socialist, and then some social Democrats, and then there are some capitalists, but there's no "capitalist monster" until you get down to Bloomberg. And he's not near the monster that Trump is.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:19 PM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Hi, partial credit for pics of Chidi Anagonye but when I say "enough", that doesn't mean "please keep going, just diagnose the problem from the ancient Greeks forward."
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 12:22 PM on February 8, 2020 [13 favorites]


but there's no "capitalist monster" until you get down to Bloomberg. And he's not near the monster that Trump is.

Maybe that's why Elizabeth Warren is willing to take his money.
posted by kafziel at 12:22 PM on February 8, 2020


but there's no "capitalist monster" until you get down to Bloomberg.

I'd say you forgot about Tom Steyer but given his results so far one couldn't be blamed for it.

All I think when I see him is "with $100m we could have had the Senate"
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 12:23 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


Bernie is a big tent guy, for better or for worse. That’s distinct from his individual supporters though. His electoral strategy also really does not depend on people voting for other people.

Not me. Us.
posted by xammerboy at 12:37 PM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


finally, and most controversially

I was having a lovely conversation with Claire Danes' father-in-law and he had a very interesting perspective on this.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 12:53 PM on February 8, 2020 [1 favorite]


Matty’s dig at Medicare for All is stupid because all the plans have popular and unpopular elements if you look at them. People like the idea of eliminating pre-existing conditions under Obama/Romneycare type plans, but they hate the penalties and requirements to buy insurance that make them work.

People might like the idea of choice under public option style plans, but they probably wouldn’t like the high deductibles and penalties that go with those plans.

And Sanders has said both in debates and in policy statements that his plan would be funded through payroll tax increases. So the idea that there has been no funding mechanism articulated is ridiculous.

As for whether the tax increases would be enough to ensure the expanded Medicare program wouldn’t add to the deficit, that would depend largely upon health care costs and utilization going foreword. You can make projections based on what you know now, but there is no way to know for sure until you set it up.

The same is true of any other program, including Obamacare and the Pete/Biden plans. At least MFA can quite plausibly argue to have a stronger cost control mechanism than those programs.
posted by eagles123 at 1:07 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


People want nice things but they don't want to pay for them.

Except they already are paying more than they would be for better care, largely, and that's what we need to be able to communicate.

People are receptive to that. As the other thread says, everyone is effectively being taxed significantly for (overall inefficient and poor outcome) health care right now; it's just not going to the government. It's not a choice between paying and having nice things; it's a matter of recalibrating the framing.

Warren has tried to do this, and the media persists in occluding the issue.
posted by Gadarene at 2:41 PM on February 8, 2020 [10 favorites]


Taiwan’s single-payer success story — and its lessons for America
The system is mostly funded by payroll-based premiums, with contributions from workers and their employers, supplemented by more progressive income taxes and tobacco and lottery levies. Premiums have been raised twice in the past 18 years to cover the growing cost of the program. The most recent rate increase in 2010 moved the payroll income tax rate from 4.55 percent to 5.17, a 14 percent increase.
posted by FJT at 3:08 PM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Left Out (YouTube video 7min57sec)
First-time director and journalist Malaika Jabali travels around Milwaukee to ask Black residents--who are facing one of the worst economic crises in America's history-- if they think policies like Medicare for All or free college tuition are "too far left." She didn't have much luck.
posted by phoque at 3:19 PM on February 8, 2020 [4 favorites]


These links are all pretty interesting but I'm not sure precisely what they have to do with, well, Iowa.
posted by Justinian at 3:26 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


The most recent rate increase in 2010 moved the payroll income tax rate from 4.55 percent to 5.17, a 14 percent increase.

When I look at what I'm paying into Medicare and insurance premiums, that's already 7.6%. That's with my employer covering half my premium, which is arguably, salary that I'm not getting. So you could say it's more like 13.56%. And it assumes 0% of my federal tax and social security is paying for health care, which seems unlikely.

I'm also putting another 5.7% of my salary into an HSA, most of which is guaranteed to be burned through by next year's deductible just on prescription meds. And I also pay copays on top of that.

I'd love to be taxed for health care like in Taiwan.
posted by Foosnark at 3:45 PM on February 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


It is a short documentary that contrasts how the Midwest is talked about versus reality on the ground (for some communities) and Iowa is in the Midwest and Malaika is highlighting some of the voices that are often missing from a more mainstream view or discussion of the region.
posted by phoque at 3:45 PM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Thanks for that link, phoque. The working-class Midwesterners Malaika's interviewing are a lot like the working-class people I know, even though I live in VA, not WI. We're pretty different from the imaginary working-class people that exist in most pundits' and MeFites' heads.
posted by nangar at 4:41 PM on February 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


> We're pretty different from the imaginary working-class people that exist in most pundits' and MeFites' heads.

This is a really shitty snipe at the rest of the community, and has no basis in fact from what I can tell being an active participant of politics, labor, and healthcare-adjacent threads for many years here.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:16 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


This is a really shitty snipe at the rest of the community, and has no basis in fact from what I can tell being an active participant of politics, labor, and healthcare-adjacent threads for many years here.

Like a month ago, there was a pretty big MeTa about it.

People here love to crow about the evils of the "white working class", and RTNP did a pretty good teardown of why that keeps happening in this very thread.
posted by kafziel at 6:27 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


The *white* working class is, in fact, much of the problem. Not universally, but in terms of very visible demographic trends, the Scott Walker-ites in the Milwaukee suburbs are the reason why the wishes and voices of the people shown in that video are drowned out politically. That's what I mostly see MeFi-ites saying when they talk about the retograde and anti-progressive nature of the white working class.

Pundits are often doing a different thing, using "working class" to talk exclusively about the white working class, since that's where they think the important votes are. That's racist and cynical as fuck. But that's rarely a thing that people do here, in my experience.
posted by tonycpsu at 6:32 PM on February 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


If anyone is still following the Iowa news this thread is ostensibly based on, Taniel on twitter has been like a dog with a bone on the "messed up IDP results" front. From reading him closely it looks like Sanders may end up with a handful more SDEs than the IDP credits him with now and that may well be enough to give him a tiny edge when its all finished, though obviously we're still talking tenths of a percent.

He also regularly notes that none of his work should be taken as evidence of a systemic bias against any one candidate (because there isn't any such evidence) and that there are errors favoring and harming multiple candidates. So that's important to keep in mind.
posted by Justinian at 8:11 PM on February 8, 2020 [3 favorites]


Oh, he believes that some of the errors are at this point "unfixable" based on the known data, so there is no way to every get a 100% accurate read of voter intention.
posted by Justinian at 8:12 PM on February 8, 2020


well, a memo from the head of the IDP was leaked and he says that they cannot legally fix even obvious errors or some bullshit.
posted by Justinian at 8:43 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


@tripgabriel

Hello fellow IA caucus nerds. Tonight the IDP chair @troymprice sent an internal email that the party attorney says any re-examination of precinct results *cannot* change the results on caucus math worksheets, even if they are wrong.

Quoting the opinion of the IDP attorney: "The incorrect math on the Caucus Math Worksheets must not be changed to ensure the integrity of the process. Most importantly the Worksheet is the caucus chair and secretary's "certification" of the results as required by Iowa Code 43.4(2-3). It is the legal voting record of the caucus, like a ballot. "

"The IDP's role is to facilitate the caucus and tabulate the results. Any judgement of math miscalculations would insert personal opinion into the process by individuals not at the caucus and could change the agreed upon results. That action would be interfering with the caucus' expression of their preferences. There are various reasons that the worksheets have errors and may appear to not be accurate, however changing the math would change the information agreed upon And certified by the caucus goers. If campaigns want further recourse they will need to work all of the way through the process to a Recount where the Presidential Preference Cards are opened and counted."
checks out, all seems above-board, healthy democracy, stick a fork in it
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:44 PM on February 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


@Taniel

🚨 NEW SITUATION. There's now evidence that there are some precincts still fully missing from the IDP results. And that other precincts have been double counted.
posted by xammerboy at 8:49 PM on February 8, 2020 [5 favorites]


The absolute stones to just say "this obviously and clearly fucked election must not be unfucked to ensure the integrity of the process." We'll be sure to hear an awful lot of that argument in the coming months/years/decades
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:01 PM on February 8, 2020 [11 favorites]


This is obvious ass-covering peace-out Poochie-died-on-the-way-to-his-home-planet bullshit but I still urge people to take a look at Taniel's twitter where he strongly maintains that there is no evidence of the errors being systemically biased in any particular direction. He's done more on this topic than any 25 of us put together so has some authority on it.
posted by Justinian at 9:04 PM on February 8, 2020


Live shot of IDP chair Troy Price.
posted by Justinian at 9:06 PM on February 8, 2020


Quoting the opinion of the IDP attorney: "The incorrect math on the Caucus Math Worksheets must not be changed to ensure the integrity of the process. […]"

That's a doozy of a sentence, what does it mean.
posted by Joe in Australia at 9:15 PM on February 8, 2020 [8 favorites]


It means they had to destroy the village to save it.

(ok, what the lawyer is arguing is that the caucus math worksheets are legal documents and the IDP has no legal authority to modify them, akin to the IDP modifying actual ballots in a primary.)
posted by Justinian at 9:16 PM on February 8, 2020


I think any sane person would argue that the solution is to reject any obviously flawed caucus math worksheets and have correct ones re-submitted, which is what happens when a person fucks up their ballot. Or, if the fuckup is discovered in counting rather than in voting, the ballot must be discarded.

What doesn't happen is somebody writes "I vote for Mr. Buckethead seventy nine million times" on the write-in space and the counters throw up their hands and give the victory to Mr Buckethead by seventy eight million votes.
posted by Justinian at 9:19 PM on February 8, 2020 [6 favorites]


If we change the math, the results will be correct, and that would be bad
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 9:24 PM on February 8, 2020 [10 favorites]


They're protecting your right to vote. They're just equally protecting the right of the person who counts your vote to dismiss it.
posted by xammerboy at 9:52 PM on February 8, 2020 [2 favorites]


"We are prohibited from correcting obvious, undisputed math errors in the worksheets" has to be the final nail in the coffin of the caucus system. Once you stop even pretending to accurately aggregate the intentions of the participants, all you've constructed is the world's most complicated opinion poll. I shudder to think about what 2024 caucuses might look like if it turns out that incorrect and/or fraudulent submissions have to be accepted as submitted no matter what. You'd be lucky to merely have 4 septillion now-unchangeable votes for Ligma Balzac as every party's candidate.

I saw a tweet about how Nevada is pre-loading whatever non-Shadow app they picked onto iPads for every precinct, but I'm having a hard time getting worked up about it, because it seems almost impossible that any political selection process could possibly be as fucked as this has been. They actually could have people firing rocket launchers full of dildos this time and it would be a more reasonable process that better reflects the will of the voters.
posted by Copronymus at 10:58 PM on February 8, 2020 [14 favorites]


Wow. The IDP really *is* saying that a precinct can hand out 9 delegates when the rules say it's only supposed to have 5, just by writing it down and sending it in. Respecting the integrity of the process, sure, got it.
posted by mediareport at 3:37 AM on February 9, 2020 [13 favorites]


Kaleigh Rogers and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux at 538 have an article about what's going on in Nevada and what to expect. The upshot is we won't get results instantly and there will be some errors. (But at least we have advance warning this time.)

Nevada is also a state that's notoriously hard to poll. Pollsters usually undercount Hispanic voters who work in the tourist industry, and they often miss enough people to make a substantial difference in the results, so we could get some surprises.
posted by nangar at 4:34 AM on February 9, 2020


Don't be silly, Nevada isn't going to use an app. It's going to use a "tool."

Matt Taibbi: Yesterday’s Gone: Iowa Was Waterloo for Democrats
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:26 AM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


If Nevada polls undercount working class Hispanic voters, that’s very good fit Bernie and very bad for Buttegieg
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:32 AM on February 9, 2020


Whac-A-Moderate
Sanders’ is well positioned to play whac-a-moderate (apologies to terming Warren as a comparative “moderate”) until the very end, too. Sanders support in Iowa was halved from 2016 and it seems likely that he will not approach his 2016 60% victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday. It also seems unlikely that Sanders will gain more than his 2016 vote percentage in Nevada (47%). Perhaps, if he’s lucky, he’ll pull more than 25% in South Carolina and finally do better in a state than he did when he first started running for president 4 years ago. However, during this time, Biden, Buttigieg, Warren, and Klobuchar will not only be competing to divide the not-Sanders faction (which was 75% of Iowans) but also competing for the remaining dollars that are required to push their campaign organizations into a remotely competitive position for Super Tuesday.

Except, there are two candidates who don’t have to worry about money (Bloomberg and Steyer) both of whom have also poured hundreds of millions of dollars into advertising and staff in Super Tuesday states in an effort to pick up not-Sanders voters. The irony of the whac-a-moderate strategy is that Sanders’ continued momentum makes in more likely that one of two billionaires end up being the party nominee. A counterfactual might be to consider Warren in this race without Sanders – she would be able to energize the left without alienating the middle (of the Democratic Party which is still farther to the left than it has been in my lifetime).

The deeper irony is that the whac-a-moderate strategy in the Democratic party is more difficult given (relatively) proportional allocation of delegates [these rules vary a lot]. The likelihood that no candidate receives enough pledged delegates to receive the nomination on the first ballot is higher the longer Sanders plays whac-a-moderate. On the second ballot, of course, all bets are off and unpledged delegates can also vote. Given the continued criticism of the DNC by the Sanders campaign and vitriol toward the national organization from supporters, it seems unlikely that a brokered convention would produce a Sanders nomination.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:15 AM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sorry but any analysis that says Sanders’ support has “halved” based on vote totals in different elections with differing numbers of candidates is frankly stupid.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:56 AM on February 9, 2020 [7 favorites]


Sorry but any analysis that says Sanders’ support has “halved” based on vote totals in different elections with differing numbers of candidates is frankly stupid.

What? He had, what, 171*.495=~85K in the popular vote in 2016? He got 43K in 2010. So 42 thousand people who showed up for him in 2016 didn't show up for him this year. Like if he had the same ~85K people show up in 2020 he'd be at about the same delegate count as last year, right? Unless people who previously supported Bernie went to someone else. In which case he would have less support. Approximately half as many people showed up for him compared to the last time around.

Now if we had 350K people show up and Sanders still got 85K but a reduced delegate count, then yes, his support wouldn't have gone down.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 9:24 AM on February 9, 2020


The differing numbers of candidates is not some secret factor that the author forgot to consider -- it's specifically what they are addressing.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:44 AM on February 9, 2020


Bloomberg or another moderate winning the nomination in the manner suggested by the article would be the accelerationist option. It’s hilarious to me that anti- Sanders spaces like the Laywers Guns and Money political blog are warming to it.

I can’t think of anything that would be more validating to the most extreme Chapo infused worldview as what the article outlines occurring.

What’s more, Sanders would the always exist as a myth, a legend, something to be referenced as:”If only they’d listened.” None of the season inevitable disappointments that would come with success would occur.

It’s Kurt Cobain dying at the height of his popularity and artistic vitality versus decaying into late 90’s Billy Corgan.
posted by eagles123 at 11:27 AM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


because it seems almost impossible that any political selection process could possibly be as fucked as this has been

Remind me, we're not still doing the turn/curse/spit thing anymore, right?
posted by penduluum at 11:27 AM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


> Bloomberg or another moderate winning the nomination in the manner suggested by the article would be the accelerationist option. It’s hilarious to me that anti- Sanders spaces like the Laywers Guns and Money political blog are warming to it.

That is a preposterously bad faith reading of the post, which is describing the headwinds Sanders is facing, not cheering for an alternative. The idea that LGM is warming to Bloomberg or anti-Sanders in any respect is ludicrous -- Loomis is pro-Sanders, and I'm pretty sure every other front-pager has him behind Warren, and would immediately support him were she to exit the race.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:52 PM on February 9, 2020


(speaking of Billy Corgan) While the writer notes that Corgan used various phrases that are commonplace in the Conservative lexicon (as he slammed “fake news,” “Maoists,” and “left-leaning groupthink), he refused to be pigeon-holed with his political beliefs.
Pigeon currently staying at Trump Holetel.
posted by benzenedream at 12:57 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


At some point, if you give off an impression, you have to ask yourself why. I wasn’t responding to the post so much as the sentiment in the comment thread that accompanied it.
posted by eagles123 at 12:58 PM on February 9, 2020


> At some point, if you give off an impression, you have to ask yourself why.

This is a completely unfalsifiable accusation that can be levied at any content based solely on what you took away from reading it. If you're judging posts from the comments random posters make instead of the content, well, that's on you. I find it a lot more useful to engage with the links people post rather than reading into the perceived biases of the authors based on who shows up in their comment sections.
posted by tonycpsu at 1:05 PM on February 9, 2020


It was my honest impression yesterday based on reading the post and the comments. I don’t care how you or anybody else think that reflects on me.

I’m done with this side conversation. My overall point was that the scenario outlined would be bad validate the most paranoid readings of our political system.

And yeah, I’m not surprised about Corgan. Talented guy though.
posted by eagles123 at 1:11 PM on February 9, 2020


This is a completely unfalsifiable accusation that can be levied at any content based solely on what you took away from reading it.

Quoth Plautus on the subject, in Trinummus:

Megaronides: Every good man and woman ought to stay clear of blameworthy conduct or the suspicion of it.
Callicles: It's not possible to do both.
Meg.: Why not?
Cal.: You have to ask? Doing no wrong comes from my heart; but the suspicion of it lies in the heart of another. For instance, if I were to suspect you of having stolen the crown of the Capitoline Jupiter, and you didn't do it, but I wish to harbor suspicion, what can you do about it?

(Latin original here; my translation took only a few idiomatic liberties).
posted by jackbishop at 1:36 PM on February 9, 2020


And if God is merciful and generous to us, may we be blessed with a Sanders/Warren ticket.

God I hope not. I actually want to see a President Warren one day.

Given Sanders' previous heart attack, I'd give 50/50 odds she'd be president before the swearing in ceremony. But hey, Sanders' health is one of those things The Left Doesn't Talk About except to say It's NOT. A. PROBLEM.

(Kinda. Like how Aunt Jane always has a martini glass in hand, but still insists on driving back from family gatherings? Not. A. Problem.)
posted by happyroach at 2:01 PM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


Nevada has hired a new Voter Protection Expert ... from the Pete For America team.

is this mask off enough for you yet
posted by kafziel at 2:06 PM on February 9, 2020 [9 favorites]


"Buttigieg also has hired the Nevada Democratic Party’s former executive director, Travis Brock, to serve as his national director overseeing organizing for caucuses, including those in first-in-line Iowa and Nevada." (AP News, Sept. 26, 2019)
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:16 PM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


In looking up that article, tripped over: At Caucus 102, the Buttigieg campaign trains its volunteers in math. There’s homework, too. (Muscatine Journal, Jan. 13, 2020)

The event is run by the presidential campaign for Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind. With three weeks left before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucuses, all of the well-organized campaigns are holding sessions to train their volunteers in the art and science of the quirky caucus system. [...]

Buttigieg’s sessions feel like a college course, leaning into the candidate’s reputation as an Ivy League whiz kid. Caucus 102 is a lecture-style tutorial, complete with 18-page curriculum packets stuffed with info on civics (the presidential race), human psychology (how to convince undecided voters) and dreaded mathematics.

Caucus 102, which followed Caucus 100 and Caucus 101, was one of over 20 trainings recently held by the campaign across the state.

The Buttigieg campaign has a whole page devoted to “unusual scenarios” in which rounding errors or ties screw up the calculus. ...
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:22 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


This just in, member of local Democratic Party leadership supports a Democratic presidential candidate
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:23 PM on February 9, 2020 [4 favorites]


is this mask off enough for you yet

Maybe wait until we get a nevada thread to start telling us how nevada is rigged please.
posted by Justinian at 2:26 PM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


Yeah, nothing to discuss. Buttigieg organizer jumps to “Voter Protection Director” of the NV caucus days before the caucus and just happens to simultaneously scrub their web presence to conceal that fact; suuuuuper normal stuff here.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:30 PM on February 9, 2020 [9 favorites]


But hey, Sanders' health is one of those things The Left Doesn't Talk About except to say It's NOT. A. PROBLEM.

Biden's sundowning and multiple brain surgeries and exploding eyeballs of course being a prime topic of open and frank conversation among the moderates

Kinda like your drunk bad-driving aunt

misogynist bernie bros at it again
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:31 PM on February 9, 2020 [12 favorites]


Yeah, nothing to discuss. Buttigieg organizer jumps to “Voter Protection Director” of the NV caucus and just happens to simultaneously scrub their web presence to conceal that fact; suuuuuper normal stuff here.

That is, in fact, nothing to discuss in a thread about the Iowa Caucus, yes.
posted by Justinian at 2:31 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


You don’t think there’s any discussion that might span the two caucuses? Like, fallout from the IA caucus affecting strategy (and hires) in NV?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:35 PM on February 9, 2020


Mod note: We need to assume good faith here. If you think someone is not participating in good faith, that is a moderation problem and it needs to come straight to us. Thanks.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:44 PM on February 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


Anyone in the mood to make a post for the next state primary so we have an appropriate place to talk about Biden calling a young woman a lying dog-faced pony soldier to her face yesterday?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 2:46 PM on February 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


At this point I'm in the mood to post a MeTa asking how people would feel about a complete ban on U.S. politics posts.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:48 PM on February 9, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mod note: These are not megathreads, we need them to stay on topic, and we really need them not to descend into metaconversation. By all means let's take it to MetaTalk if there's stuff to talk about, but leave it out of this thread.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 2:49 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Buttigieg today: "The time has come for my party to get a lot more comfortable owning this issue... It’s not fashionable in progressive circles to talk too much about the debt."

Oh, cripes. This is really, really bad. This is probably the worst mistake Obama made in his eight years and part of the reason Trump made his way to the White House. It's terrible to see it coming back again.
posted by JackFlash at 3:04 PM on February 9, 2020 [21 favorites]


Yeah, my biggest fear about a Biden/Buttegeig/Klobuchar/Bloomberg style moderate winning is the resurfacing of the deficit debate. The pivot to deficit reduction by both parties after the initial stimulus had real life and death consequences for people.
posted by eagles123 at 3:07 PM on February 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


yeah, “accelerationist” is an obsolete term now that we’re neck-deep in the acceleration
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:20 PM on February 9, 2020 [14 favorites]


anti-accelerationism for americans is like anti-waterism for fish
posted by Rust Moranis at 3:29 PM on February 9, 2020


@jeffzeleny [CNN]
NEW: The @BernieSanders campaign plans to ask for a recanvass of some Iowa precincts before the Monday 1 pm deadline, @fshakir tells @ryanobles
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:28 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


Good. Count all the votes and count them accurately.

One of the lower tier candidates should have taken one for the team and demanded a full recanvass of all precincts. Steyer doesn't appear to be super busy. Or maybe Yang.
posted by Justinian at 5:09 PM on February 9, 2020 [2 favorites]


Not sure if this means anything since we will likely see more challenges in the future, but Iowa has officially given 14 delegates to Buttigieg and 12 delegates to Sanders.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 6:17 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


In what world does the essential tie they claim is the truth of it end up with Buttigieg receiving two extra delegates? How does 564-562 SDEs become 14 and 12?

LA County is sending early voters ballots without Sanders on them.
posted by kafziel at 10:04 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


In what world does the essential tie they claim is the truth of it end up with Buttigieg receiving two extra delegates? How does 564-562 SDEs become 14 and 12?
Iowa Democratic Caucus math is even more complicated than most people realize. The delegates from the precinct caucuses go on to the county caucuses, and delegates from the county caucuses go to district caucuses, and delegates from the district caucuses go to the state caucus, and delegates from the state caucus go to the Democratic National Convention. (It's like Electoral College math, raised to the fourth power.)

So along with individual votes mattering more at some caucuses than others (so Bernie had more individual voters than Pete at the precinct caucuses, but fewer "State Delegate Equivalents"), it's also the case that SDEs end up mattering more in some congressional districts than others, so that Pete can win 34% of the DNC delegates with only 26% of the precinct-level SDEs.
posted by mbrubeck at 10:20 PM on February 9, 2020 [3 favorites]


LA County, Iowa.
posted by Justinian at 10:21 PM on February 9, 2020


So, some people have ended up with the ballot for No Party Preference (NPP) voters, whether because they have declared NPP (and haven't requested a Dem. ballot, which the Democratic party allows them to), they updated their party preference too soon before ballots were sent out, or because of some screwup. These ballots don't have any presidential candidates listed on them—no Sanders, but also no Buttigieg, no Warren, no Biden…

This is either an unfortunate screwup, or just a consequence of how California's "modified" closed primary system for Presidential elections (in place since 2001) works. I'm not sure why this, where all Democratic candidates aren't on some ballots, is uniquely about Bernie Sanders.
posted by JiBB at 10:43 PM on February 9, 2020 [5 favorites]


Campaigns have been doing targeted outreach to CA voters who are registered NPP to tell them that they need to specifically request a Democratic ballot if they want to vote in the Democratic primary (I also think in every county, the elections department was supposed to send everyone in that category a postcard that explained the situation and asked if they wanted to request a partisan crossover ballot).

It's more of an issue now that so much of the state votes by mail (nearly 2/3rds last time) and there are around 5.3 million NPP voters in California. With in-person voting, you just request the ballot you want at the polling place. But to vote by mail, NPP voters have to get the right ballot somehow, and there will be a lot of surprises and last minute scrambling and provisional ballots so the results can take even longer. Great.
posted by zachlipton at 10:55 PM on February 9, 2020 [1 favorite]


LA County is sending early voters ballots without Sanders on them.

Or any of the other candidates...
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:06 AM on February 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


And barely anybody in the reply to that Twitter thread has realized that NPP means you have to ask for a partisan presidential primary ballot. They just think LA County is sending out presidential primary ballots without Bernie on them and that the Democratic Party is screwing him.

When I talk about:
The end result is we get shitstorms about tweets like we've gotten upthread and misunderstandings/conspiracies/lies get to spread and do damage before the truth has a chance to get its proverbial pants on.
This is exactly what I mean.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 1:11 AM on February 10, 2020 [17 favorites]


Looks like the originally linked conspiracy nonsense on twitter got deleted. Hooray I guess. ed: no, its back. Ah well.
posted by Justinian at 2:33 AM on February 10, 2020


These ballots don't have any presidential candidates listed on them

Are voters allowed to write in a presidential candidate?
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:47 AM on February 10, 2020


No party preference ballots do not vote in presidential primaries.
posted by Justinian at 3:01 AM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


Looks like the originally linked conspiracy nonsense on twitter got deleted. Hooray I guess. ed: no, its back. Ah well.

I've noticed in the last few weeks that Twitter messages that people link to sometimes just aren't there. And then they are! And then they're not.
posted by Foosnark at 7:10 AM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


@Taniel: 'an Iowa lawyer and former legal counsel to Governor Tom Vilsack, went on the record saying IDP's claim they can't fix basic math errors is NOT legally "plausible."... On the contrary, it could expose IDP to constitutional challenge.'
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:56 AM on February 10, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm reminded of check writing (or even more relevant: competitive bidding). You write out a number as numerals and you also write it as words. And, should the two disagree, the best interpretation of the words, even if somewhat unclear governs. Why? Because a single human being cannot reliably convey the same piece of information twice on the same piece of paper at all times, so there need to be rules about what to do when the two pieces of information say "$1,227" and "One Thosend Twoty Sevenish Dollars". In this case the number would likely be held to be 1,027.

It appears that the Iowa Caucus has established an opportunity for many many pieces of information on one piece of paper which guarantees there will be clerical errors. They then appear to have failed to establish a clear order of precedence of the information now available. Is it the certified result? The second round recorded votes? The second round recorded votes so long as the total does not exceed the total of first round voters (in accordance with the caucus rules)? The physical card turned in (even if one, some, many fewer are turned in than the totals suggest should exist? (Does no one believe a caucus goer didn't walk out with their card occasionally, not understanding the process?) What if a card is unmarked, what if marked only for a non-viable first round candidate but the official record shows that all individuals participated in re-alignment?

There's no way to write the rules now without making it political. And, apparently the press and public can't handle transparency on a process as messy as this. It's pretty absurd and does reinforce every stereotype of Dems favoring theory over practice and shooting themselves in the foot. In any case, I have no idea how a meaningful re-canvas will be resolved but hopefully the folks on the ground can engage in correcting this year without further escalating antagonism.
posted by meinvt at 12:14 PM on February 10, 2020 [4 favorites]


What's still unclear to me, and will probably remain unclear for a while as the parties involved all try to blame each other, is how much of this was a result of the "lanyards" coming in with their shitty apps and exposing dysfunction / fuzzy math / fraud that was already occurring in the Iowa caucuses vs. how much dysfunction / fuzzy math / fraud the lanyards and their shitty apps added to the process.

Part of the question has to do with which variables one chooses to hold constant: is the "Electoral College raised to the fourth power" aspect a feature or a bug? Acronym / Shadow / Globex weren't there to clean up or reform the caucuses, they were there to streamline their operation. But what if the way the caucuses theoretically ran in previous years was all a sham? Often, business process as described and documented are out of sync with business processes as practiced. What if this Calvinball was always the state of affairs? This doesn't make it any more acceptable that a bunch of conslutants decided to profit from the crisis, but it does kind of make think that this was a situation that was always going to end up being exploited by some set of bad actors, if not this particular set of bad actors.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:44 PM on February 10, 2020 [8 favorites]


So, that tweet links to this Bleeding Heartland article, which is not complimentary of the “sorry, cant fix math” opinion. Bleeding Heartland is probably the best outlet out there covering the Iowa Democrats in specific and progressive politics in general in the state. The lawyer whose opinion is in question messed up the legal challenge to a state house race that the GOP won by 9 votes, even though there were 29 absentee ballots uncounted.

If the fix is in, it’s the most incompetent, obvious and ham-fisted fix ever. Honestly, as an Iowan, the most embarrassing thing for me is how incompetent the IDP leadership looks right now.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 1:55 PM on February 10, 2020 [6 favorites]


The perfect metaphor for the Iowa debacle
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:11 PM on February 10, 2020 [5 favorites]


*cue Curb Your Enthusiasm music*
posted by Justinian at 3:41 PM on February 10, 2020


i kind of hope buttigieg wins dixville notch so that i can make a lot of obvious jokes about him announcing he’s won the state immediately after.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:31 PM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


i kind of hope buttigieg wins dixville notch

real lathe of heaven hours, thanks
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:45 PM on February 10, 2020


Actual Dixville Notch results:

GOP:
Bloomberg 1

Dem:
Pete 1
Bernie 1
Bloomberg 2

(Bloomberg was write-in)
posted by Chrysostom at 9:19 PM on February 10, 2020 [2 favorites]


there are at least three people in this strange and wonderful world who believe it is worth their time to stay up until midnight to vote for michael bloomberg.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 10:17 PM on February 10, 2020 [7 favorites]


My husband was living in New Hampshire when I met him and he is *delighted* by the Dixville Notch results. Bloomberg winning both slates while not being on the ballot and not running in the state is “the dumbest, most stubborn New Hampshire-y thing I have ever heard.”

I’m glad somebody is finding joy in this world.
posted by charmedimsure at 11:31 PM on February 10, 2020 [6 favorites]


I thought there weren't even going to be any Republican primaries?
posted by Joe in Australia at 12:22 AM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


New Hampshire has been running primaries for both parties since 1920 I think, they've delivered wake-up calls to a couple of incumbent presidents over the years, and they sure aren't stopping now.

Only Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina, Virginia have canceled their GOP votes. Everybody else is still doing it (Trump won Iowa), it's just that they won't be competitive so nobody cares.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 5:24 AM on February 11, 2020


BLOOMBERG??? God it's going to be a long year isn't it
posted by Automocar at 7:58 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


For a second, I thought the Bloomberg GOP vote meant someone was being mischievous about reminding everyone that Bloomberg is actually a Republican. But the dumbest explanation is that A True Republican Who Finds Trump Embarrassing but Can't Vote for Those Awful Democrats is intrigued by the Bloomberg campaign, so that's probably more likely.
posted by grandiloquiet at 8:06 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


There were only five voters in Dixville Notch.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:21 AM on February 11, 2020


“The smell of death thing is a little premature,” the senior Biden staffer said.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:52 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


“The smell of death thing is a little premature,” the senior Biden staffer said.

As Biden cancels his New Hampshire primary night party to head to South Carolina.
posted by Etrigan at 8:57 AM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


If Biden doesn't come in 3rd tonight his campaign is done.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:06 AM on February 11, 2020


Biden is not going to quit before South Carolina. The SC Democratic primary is majority African-American and, at least so far, that has been where he has shown the most strength.
posted by JackFlash at 9:17 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


He's not going to quit but he might be toast, if the polls showing his support leaking to Bloomberg after falling short of expectations in Iowa are accurate.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:24 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah, about that...

Sanders also leads among people of color (Black/Hispanic/Asian/other) in the Monmouth poll (v Jan 2020 poll). Biden dropped 14 ppts v last month
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 9:26 AM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


ZeusHumms: "There were only five voters in Dixville Notch."

There are only five *people* in Dixville Notch. My understanding of these three towns that vote at midnight as a stunt is they need to have 100% turnout to be permitted to close the poll immediately and report the vote totals.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sanders leads in POC but IIRC Biden leads in POC democratic voters in South Carolina--although it was close and that may have changed.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:38 AM on February 11, 2020


I do think it's interesting that Biden is completely blowing off Nevada and going straight to South Carolina. It's probably a good tactic, but it's still weird. "Hey I didn't do well in the first three votes, but vote for me anyway" is an odd message.
posted by Automocar at 9:58 AM on February 11, 2020


In at least the most recent Quinnipiac national poll, Biden still leads with African American responders at 27% with Bloomberg at 22% and Sanders in third at 19%
posted by octothorpe at 10:01 AM on February 11, 2020


"Hey I didn't do well in the first three votes, but vote for me anyway" is an odd message.

There was discussion about this on Pod Save American this past week, because on the one hand, saying that you're not going to worry about the first few contests because the demographics in those places are bad for you and they're not worth many delegates anyway makes sense *in theory,* but in practice, losing a bunch of early contests is really hard on the candidate and can really undermine support in a death-spiral-y kind of way. It's one of those strategies that makes lots of rational sense on paper but doesn't make emotional sense in practice to either the candidate/campaign or to the voters and therefore is super difficult to stick with (and maybe not advisable for that reason, anyway).
posted by rue72 at 10:05 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


In at least the most recent Quinnipiac national poll, Biden still leads with African American responders at 27% with Bloomberg at 22% and Sanders in third at 19%

That’s a lot closer than I had anticipated, and it’s not nearly the firewall we’d been assuming.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:06 AM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


The thing about Bloomberg is that he's apparently going with the exact opposite strategy from Biden, but with the same assumption that the early states are useless to him. Is it better to join in the contest knowing you're going to do poorly (Biden) or is it better to sit it out altogether and get zero delegates and seem like some mysterious ghost haunting the campaign rather than an actual candidate in it -- but at the same time not actually lose anywhere in the run-up to Super Tuesday (Bloomberg)?
posted by rue72 at 10:08 AM on February 11, 2020


It's especially dangerous for a candidate whose pitch is premised on being able to win support from a demographic that dominates the exact states he just lost. Seriously, it seems so weird to have a candidate seen as the "most electable" with Midwestern white people also rely on Southern black voters for his base in the primary.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 10:08 AM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


In at least the most recent Quinnipiac national poll, Biden still leads with African American responders at 27% with Bloomberg at 22% and Sanders in third at 19%

I'm skeptical of this poll because there's now way black support for Bloomberg, given his flat out racism, is on par with Biden and Sanders.

Anyway, the Monmouth national poll for POC has Biden at 20, Sanders at 28, and Bloomberg at 12.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:22 AM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Anyway, the Monmouth national poll for POC has Biden at 20, Sanders at 28, and Bloomberg at 12.


Can you link to that, having trouble finding that. In the future too, it would be helpful to always include links to the data that you're posting.
posted by octothorpe at 10:29 AM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's this poll, octothorpe.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:33 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


There's also the fact that if you don't live in NYC and aren't highly plugged in, you may not be particularly familiar with Bloomberg's background.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:35 AM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


And given how Bloomberg throws money around, I wouldn't be surprised if he had paid some of them off

I am...not a fan of Bloomberg but could we avoid starting conspiracy theories here? Election fraud is serious.

While I doubt that it was bribery, Bloomberg has shown a complete willingness to bruteforce electoral success by just blasting out money. It's obviously legal, but just shows how elections can be bought by some racist turd with a billion dollars.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 10:36 AM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


It's this poll, octothorpe.

Thanks, I had that open already but I was tripped up by the abbreviation "Hsp-Blk-Asn-Oth" which defied my attempts to search the page. That's much broader category than just African-American voters which is what Quinnipiac's poll was reporting on which might explain the discrepancy between the results.
posted by octothorpe at 10:42 AM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah, pollsters sometimes lump non-white voters into a single bucket. Obviously, this is problematic, and you shouldn't really do it if you have a reasonable sample size (it might be okay for an extremely white population like NH).
posted by Chrysostom at 10:50 AM on February 11, 2020


Biden does well among older AA voters, that's pretty much the extent of his alleged appeal to diversity. Everybody and their cousin started running with that to mean "Biden is the best candidate among POC," but it seems like that wheels are coming off that (Malarkey Express) bus. Sanders dominated among women of color and POC 18-44 in Iowa, and if that trend holds it means that the "conventional wisdom" around his appeal was basically driven by the Morning Joe/MTP numbnuts who claim that Bernie will personally drag them out into the streets to be publicly executed. And no, I'm not making that last part up.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 10:56 AM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Is this a general primaries thread now that Iowa is over?
posted by Gadarene at 12:19 PM on February 11, 2020


There's also the fact that if you don't live in NYC and aren't highly plugged in, you may not be particularly familiar with Bloomberg's background.

Journalists are doing the work to remind us.
posted by kafziel at 12:20 PM on February 11, 2020


Is this a general primaries thread now that Iowa is over?

This thread has another 21 days of life in it. If someone throws up a New Hampshire Primary thread, I expect discussion would move there, but we certainly can keep discussing the same issues continuing to play out. Primaries do not happen in vacuums.
posted by kafziel at 12:22 PM on February 11, 2020


Trump plunges into New Hampshire race, aiming to rattle Dems: "Advisers hoped that Secret Service moves in Manchester to secure the area for president would make it harder for Democratic candidates and their supporters to transverse the state’s largest city in the hours before the primary’s first votes are cast"
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 12:51 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh look, another impeachment-worthy offense. Is it Tuesday already?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 12:52 PM on February 11, 2020


Advisers hoped that Secret Service moves in Manchester to secure the area for president would make it harder for Democratic candidates and their supporters to transverse the state’s largest city in the hours before the primary’s first votes are cast

I guess the obvious question is: which city will he try and disrupt this way on Election Day to maximize the benefit to himself?
posted by mikepop at 12:56 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


Miami, if he’s smart.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:39 PM on February 11, 2020


We can only hope he's bought into his own nonsense enough to think that what he really needs to do is to block the illegal voting conspiracy in California.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:41 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Miami, if he’s smart.

So it won't be Miami.
posted by Foosnark at 2:06 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


Milwaukee, more likely.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:15 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


- There's also the fact that if you don't live in NYC and aren't highly plugged in, you may not be particularly familiar with Bloomberg's background

-- Journalists are doing the work to remind us

Anyone doing the work on Buttigieg, save the Root (see Michael Harriot's chat with Pete Buttigieg, from last fall), & maybe the Guardian?
posted by Iris Gambol at 2:23 PM on February 11, 2020


I guess the obvious question is: which city will he try and disrupt this way on Election Day to maximize the benefit to himself?

Why would he limit himself to just one?
posted by notyou at 2:29 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Well if you want to go full on down the rabbit hole on Buttigieg, listen to Chapo's latest. It's an ugly picture.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 2:31 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


TPM, Exhaustion and Impatience
I’ve supported Warren since the beginning, but I will say that I’m a lot more forgiving now of the other candidates’ flaws & faults (real or perceived) than I was 6 months ago. Klobuchar throws things at her staff? Well, there’s a sexual predator in the White House, and anyway my DC staffer days are long past, so I won’t be working for her. Buttigieg’s is a Millennial? Well, POTUS puts kids in cages and us Gen X’ers didn’t want the Presidency anyway; we’re too cool for it (I didn’t say all my reasons were good).

But as someone who has always been politically engaged, LOVES campaigns and worked in DC in the mid/late 90’s, it’s been shocking how much I just want to tune it all out; we can’t get to the general fast enough. The requisite primary dogma of pretending that Bernie or Mayor Pete or whoever is the problem right now feels like the ultimate red herring.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:04 PM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


I am 100% on board with Josh Marshall's reader's take.

Bernie's supporters are often awful? IDGAF anymore (though I wish they werent). Buttigieg is a tool of the moneyed class? IDGAF anymore (though I wish he wasn't). Biden is an out of touch relic? DGAF. Warren did something or other sub optimally? DGAF.

I don't care. Put 'em on the ballot, I will vote for 'em.
posted by Justinian at 4:11 PM on February 11, 2020 [12 favorites]


I would suggest if someone really feels that way it's probably best to simply tune out completely until the primaries are over. If you really DGAF who the nominee is, then what's the point of expending any more energy, mental or otherwise, on a process that doesn't matter to you?
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:26 PM on February 11, 2020 [13 favorites]


DGAF is a commonly stated opinion of most Democrats who aren't Sanders supporters. The latter group is the big asymmetry, the subset of Democrats who really do care who wins. The obvious solution would be for those who really don't care to just throw in with Sanders, especially now that he is the front-runner and that would be the quickest path to unity. But it seems the "don't care" folks often really mean "don't care as long as it's not Sanders," or at least "I'll support Sanders if I have to but I'm certainly not going to before I have to." And I say this as a Warren supporter.
posted by chortly at 4:28 PM on February 11, 2020 [14 favorites]


Pretty pissed at this framing from CNN in New Hampshire:

"Meanwhile, every single Elizabeth Warren voter that CNN talked to was a woman. Some of them stressed that it was important to support a woman. They also liked her plans for health care and student loans. "
posted by nakedmolerats at 4:32 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


not sure why anyone is still surprised at awful reporting ityol 2020 — msm is not your friend, no matter how much you wish it were
posted by entropicamericana at 4:43 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'll support Sanders if I have to but I'm certainly not going to before I have to.

That's me! I'm not sure why I would start backing Candidate A when I think Candidates B and C would be a better president and I believe they have a chance to win.

Only Iowa and New Hampshire have voted, and I think it's premature to say anyone's locked in until after Super Tuesday. It will take 1,990 of 3,979 pledged delegates to win the nomination. Iowa has 49 delegates; New Hampshire has 33. Super Tuesday will decide 1,344 delegates.
posted by kirkaracha at 5:12 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Entrepreneur Andrew Yang ends his bid for the presidency (ABCnews.com, 2/11/2020)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:13 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


> DGAF is a commonly stated opinion of most Democrats who aren't Sanders supporters.

At the very least, I think there are degrees of "DGAF" here. The enormous damage Trump does to America on a daily basis and his sheer awfulness as a human being might be creating a perception of "DGAF" that isn't really accurate. One can have a preference for one or more candidates and believe the differences are important enough to argue about, yet still understand that those differences don't add up to a fraction of the importance of removing him from office as soon as possible.

> The obvious solution would be for those who really don't care to just throw in with Sanders, especially now that he is the front-runner and that would be the quickest path to unity.

Trying to analyze the game theory implications of how supporting specific candidates now might be harming the chances of other candidates later is both premature and futile. If someone likes Klobuchar, they should (and will) support Klobuchar as long as they believe she is a viable candidate, then they should line up behind their second choice, and so on. The question is much different when someone already has the nomination mathematically locked up, but until then, it's not anyone's job to clear the way for the nominee, nor to constantly be reading the tea leaves about what might create the perception of unity in a media environment predisposed to "Democrats in disarray" narratives.

> But it seems the "don't care" folks often really mean "don't care as long as it's not Sanders," or at least "I'll support Sanders if I have to but I'm certainly not going to before I have to." And I say this as a Warren supporter.

I have yet to encounter, either in my personal life or my online travels, a Warren supporter who, when questioned, says anything but "I will support the Democratic nominee". Are the most passionate Warren supporters who have the biggest concerns about a Bernie presidency going to be phone banking for him with the passion they would for Warren? No, of course not -- but I would bet most will be more supportive of him than they would be for Biden or Mayo Pete, for example, simply because of the high degree of ideological overlap between these two septuagenarian New England Senators.

Yes, there are deep divisions between the camps, but given the political environment a Democratic president would be operating in, the amount of actual policy daylight between them that would end up getting enacted into law even in the best possible outcomes is, compared to the difference between one of those Democrats as president and a 2nd Trump term, minuscule. Not "DGAF" minuscule, but "narcissism of small differences" minuscule.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:13 PM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


There's also those who think "I'm fine with any of these candidates being President [at least as compared to Trump], but I think Candidate X has the best chance of winning". Again then it makes sense for them to support X if they seem viable, even though they would be fine with Y or Z being President.

I think true DGAF (no preference on candidate, no thoughts about who is more likely to win a general, etc) is rare, while DGAF in the "I will vote for anyone D for President" is quite common.
posted by thefoxgod at 5:18 PM on February 11, 2020 [8 favorites]


Dang, Yang!
posted by kirkaracha at 5:21 PM on February 11, 2020


Pretty pissed at this framing from CNN in New Hampshire

Yesterday's Washington Post piece, "Loving Elizabeth Warren means having a plan for when America breaks your heart," also has lousy framing, and a terrible lead-in, and the male Warren supporters quoted within it are a mixed bag: “Of course, I’m not voting for her because she’s a woman; I don’t even think of her as a woman,” another supporter chimes in a few minutes later, having overheard the earlier conversation, “I think of her as a candidate.”

Then this line-stander decides he doesn’t want to be quoted after all and shoos me away, but it’s a preposterous statement, right? It’s a preposterous, relatable, vexing statement. It’s impossible not to see Warren as a woman. Many of her policies were explicitly shaped by that identity, as she readily acknowledges. Is “not thinking of Warren as a woman” supposed to be a compliment?

Another excerpt, bolded for emphasis: A survey had come out a few days before, asking each candidate’s supporters whether, assuming their own first choice dropped out, they would vote for whoever was the Democratic nominee. Some supporters professed a my-guy-or-bust attitude — nearly half of the Yang Gang said they wouldn’t vote for another Democrat. But Warren’s supporters, more than anyone else, said they’d vote for whomever they needed to vote for.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:24 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Patrick and Bennett both have to be out after tonight, too, right? Combining their current vote totals and then doubling it still has them running comfortably behind "Other" for last place. They're barely outperforming Joe Walsh's numbers on the Republican side, and he already dropped out and is still in 4th in a primary with half the voters as the one they're in.
posted by Copronymus at 5:42 PM on February 11, 2020


Bennet has dropped out.
posted by mbrubeck at 5:44 PM on February 11, 2020


Anyone doing the work on Buttigieg, save the Root (see Michael Harriot's chat with Pete Buttigieg, from last fall), & maybe the Guardian?

I liked this piece from Current Affairs a few days ago - More About Pete: Why support someone who gives no reason to trust that he cares about anything other than his career?

Current Affairs is new to me but I like it so far. Unlike some other lefty news sites it looks and feels "respectable" enough to send to Your Moderate Aunt Who Doesn't Understand What People Have Against That Nice Young Gay Fellow.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:50 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Yang subreddit pays its respects.
posted by Copronymus at 5:52 PM on February 11, 2020


F
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:02 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


for failing at MATH?
that Yang Gang is ruthless
posted by Iris Gambol at 6:05 PM on February 11, 2020


Over 48% in:

Sanders 26.87%
Buttigieg 23.22%
Klobuchar 18.91%
Warren 9.64%
Biden 8.51%
Steyer 3.54%
Gabbard 3.21%
Yang 2.83%

Looks like Sanders is going to win again. This is very bad for Warren and Biden.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:08 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Neither Warren nor Biden will receive any delegates from New Hampshire.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:09 PM on February 11, 2020


Not sure what to make of the Klobucharge.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 6:10 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


My F was for Warren. ☹️
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:11 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


it's because It's Klobberin' Time.
posted by Justinian at 6:11 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Huffy Puffy: "Not sure what to make of the Klobucharge."

"That Bernie is too far left for me. But I'm not voting for this kid who looks like he's just out of high school! And Joe is too old. Hey, this lady looks good!"
posted by Chrysostom at 6:12 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Political Polls @PpollingNumbers
·
9m
Yang's Supporters' second choices are:

35% Sanders
12% Bloomberg
11% Warren

@MorningConsult National Poll
6:02 PM · Feb 11, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
posted by Ahmad Khani at 6:13 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


It seems very unlikely Warren can recover from this result, while Biden needs a decent result in Nevada and a very good result in South Carolina.
posted by Justinian at 6:13 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm very sad to see Warren doing so poorly. She's my preferred candidate by far. Unless she makes a major comeback somehow on Super Tuesday, I expect I'll be voting for Bernie in the WA primary on March 10th.

On the other hand, I'm happy to see Klobuchar gaining a little traction in the moderate lane. She's not my first or even second choice, but I'd be much happier to see her get the nomination than Buttigieg or Biden.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:16 PM on February 11, 2020 [21 favorites]


Not sure what to make of the Klobucharge.

Many voters have no coherent ideology or policy desires. They vote based on parasocial relationships they form with candidates: who has a cool dance step, who could they drink a beer with, who seems like a nice guy/girl. Even though sometimes people think of different "lanes" the candidates compete in (moderate, progressive, centrist), there are plenty of folks that will make their decision not based on those lanes. Folks who shift their support from Bernie to Bloomberg or Warren to Klobuchar. Makes no damn sense.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 6:17 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


Patrick has not dropped out yet, but (reading between the lines) will probably drop out of the race tomorrow morning.
posted by mbrubeck at 6:19 PM on February 11, 2020


i respect klobochar because, unlike ratboy, she is at least honest in her naked contempt for the public: "no, fuck you, you don't deserve healthcare, much less medicare for all. you'll get four more years of means-testing and earned income credits and you'll fucking like it"
posted by entropicamericana at 6:20 PM on February 11, 2020 [16 favorites]


👋🤓✊
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:27 PM on February 11, 2020


i respect klobochar because, unlike ratboy, she is at least honest in her naked contempt for the public

She's also naked in her contempt for him, which is a sentiment I do find highly relatable.
posted by Copronymus at 6:29 PM on February 11, 2020 [12 favorites]


"That Bernie is too far left for me. But I'm not voting for this kid who looks like he's just out of high school! And Joe is too old. Hey, this lady looks good!"

Right -- but inexplicably not talking about Warren. The refusal by so many centrists to acknowledge that their ideology plays a roll in their preferences seems almost as strong as the refusal by so many men to acknowledge the role of gender in their preferences.
posted by chortly at 6:30 PM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


k l o b m e n t u m

i can’t game this out well and i don’t know what to think and i can’t tell if the centrists are splintered enough and i don’t like that two centrists are above 15% right now and i don’t know what it’s going to look like when they get out of the white people states and what about bloomberg’s potential impact he’ll split the centrists more that’s good i think but also what if he takes the lead that would be a nightmare and i’m sad that warren is under 15% in a state she shouldn’t have been under 15% in and i dunno, i just dunno.

i wish there were more breathing room between sanders and buttigieg. that’s what i think. beyond that i dunno and i don’t like how much i dunno.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:35 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


We now return you to the end of James Joyce's Ulysses.
posted by Chrysostom at 6:55 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


klobmentum and his heart was going like mad and klobmentum i said klobmentum i will klobmentum.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:00 PM on February 11, 2020 [18 favorites]


I think a lot of people got cold feet on Warren simply because the media stopped covering her. They did the same thing to Sanders but he has a strong social media presence. It is sort of baffling Warren doesn't considering how well organized her campaign was early on.

I liked her because of her clear anti-Trump stance early on. I hope we see a Sanders/Warren ticket.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:03 PM on February 11, 2020 [8 favorites]


If Sanders gets the nomination, Warren is the last person I want to be his VP. I want her in the Senate drafting legislation.
posted by Uncle Ira at 7:07 PM on February 11, 2020 [7 favorites]


I love her, but VP would be a bad idea. The Democratic party should never again run an all-white ticket.

(Warren for Bernie's Secretary of Treasury or Labor)
posted by Chrysostom at 7:08 PM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


All I'm sayin' is I'm voting for Warren if she's still on the ballot when Illinois comes up, and she can take some delegates to the convention and throw them where she wants if she hasn't somehow snuck back up to the top because of people like me and I'll vote for whoever's left standing in Milwaukee.
posted by Reverend John at 7:11 PM on February 11, 2020 [10 favorites]


what about bloomberg’s potential impact he’ll split the centrists more that’s good i think but also what if he takes the lead that would be a nightmare
Look on the bright side: If Sanders does get the nomination, there's a good chance the common wisdom will be that it's thanks to Bloomberg.

The only pleasure I get out of politics these days is schadenfreude.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:13 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Also weird to see the vast majority of cable news pundits openly brainstorming on how to get Klobuchar/Buttigieg the nomination.I mean, I understand the corporate ownership of the media thing, but it's still surreal.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:15 PM on February 11, 2020 [17 favorites]


I'm solidly in the DGAF lane in the primary. If the very best big win happens, policy will be set by the rightmost senator to hit 50. Even if the senate and house somehow go D, everything gets ruined if Trump wins. Compared to that you need a micrometer to tell the difference between a Bernie and a Bloomberg.

It's a very uneasy DGAF, though, so I can't really tune out. If I had any clue who was electable, I'd back them, but my crystal ball is just completely black. With all the anti-Bernie talk lately I started thinking that maybe Bernie was a bad direction (specifically that "socialist" works as an attack if they label themselves that, and that M4A was poison for unions). However, I heard the Bernie camp's rebuttals, and now I don't know.

The general election needs to start 3 years ago, but if it doesn't start until summer we're completely screwed. My primary isn't until after Super Tuesday, so I'll just vote for whoever is closest to getting the nomination.
posted by netowl at 7:51 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Mayor Pete speaking rn - I assume to declare victory?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:53 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Amy Klobuchar is the thinking moderate Democrat’s electability candidate (Matthew Yglesias, Vox)
She has less baggage than Biden, and a real track record of winning Midwestern swing voters.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:00 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Bernie won. Meanwhile every network showing Mayor McCheat decrying purity tests. Gonna be a pretty long 18 months before Super Tuesday
posted by Potomac Avenue at 8:03 PM on February 11, 2020 [12 favorites]


Mayor Pete now giving another victory speech after not winning
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:06 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Amy Klobuchar is the thinking moderate Democrat’s electability candidate (Matthew Yglesias, Vox)

Moderate Democrats who believe in the concept of “electability” didn’t get that way by thinking.
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:06 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mayor Pete now giving another victory speech after not winning

Why not? It's free advertising for his campaign.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:07 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


That Matty piece sounds like a car review.

Anyway, I don’t think my mental health is gonna survive this year.

Sander’s coalition looks a lot different this time around.
posted by eagles123 at 8:09 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


If you actually follow Yglesias, he backs Bernie.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:17 PM on February 11, 2020


The most toxic Sanders supporters are crowing over Warren's result tonight, but what's happened for her the last few months (which many of them have gleefully perpetuated) is a bad omen for what's coming Sanders' way.

At the height of her surge, when she rivaled Biden nationally, the Dem establishment turned against her M4A plan in hopes of blunting her rise, so loathe were they to accept even a compromise progressive candidate. Sanders fans readily helped, calling her detailed and thoughtful plan "waffling" or "walking back her promises" even when it has the same end goal and is likely to accomplish more in less time than Sanders' broad-strokes strategy.

Then, the "women can't win" bullshit. CNN engineers a conflict between Warren and Sanders at the debate based on a year-old off-the-record dinner where Warren recounted a conversation she had with Sanders. I think nobody can truly know what was actually said, or who is being the most accurate in their recollection of it, but that didn't stop the Sanders trolls from calling her a snake and a backstabber and gaslighting many Warren supporters into thinking that she had somehow deliberately fabricated the whole thing to selfishly betray Sanders. (Plus a dollop of misogynistic arguments that Warren's heel-turn is due to her hiring staff from the Harris and Clinton campaigns).

Add in the under-reporting of her stronger-than-expected Iowa result -- including CNN literally cutting off the beginning and end of her caucus night speech for Joe Biden and Rick Santorum -- plus the media-driven surges for Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and especially Bloomberg, and you get to where we are now.

I think she still has a path, given her national infrastructure and the fractured state of the moderates. In fact, given the proportional primary system, Sanders' failure to grow his base/expand the electorate, and the reality that not all Warren voters are leftists, both of them staying in as long as they're viable maximizes the number of delegates under progressive control in the (increasingly likely) event of a contested convention. But here's the thing: if the most noxious Warren bashers get their way and she drops out early? The same playbook is going to be run against Sanders. Establishment politicos and media elites fearmongering over his candidacy, manufacturing baseless scandals, and hyping up anyone who looks like they can consolidate the moderate majority. And if we get to convention and it's a damaged Sanders with 35% of the delegates vs. an ascendant centrist coalition, they're going to regret demonizing and alienating a close ally with crossover appeal who could have helped ensure the nomination isn't bought (directly or indirectly) by billionaires. Because however that conflict plays out, it doesn't bode well for unity in the general -- or for resilience against similar bad-faith divide-and-conquer BS against whoever the Democratic nominee is.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:31 PM on February 11, 2020 [33 favorites]


Matty intersperses some interesting takes with some absolutely evil ones, such as the infamous garment factory worker comment that even Krugman called him out on.

I kid because I love.

Anyway, strap yourself in, it’s gonna be a crazy ride here on out. The Culinary Workers just declared war on Sanders in Nevada, and Bloomberg looms out there like Thanos.

Can Bloomberg buy himself an election? Can Harry Reid prop up Biden in Nevada? Will Pete/Amy be able to run campaigns in states that aren’t >80 percent white with vastly diminished resources (they put pretty much all they had into Iowa and New Hampshire). Will we see a repeat of Iowa in terms and of the caucus controversies?

A hell of a lot of questions.
posted by eagles123 at 8:36 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Potomac Avenue, please aim for more substantive comments and less noise.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:44 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


The most toxic Sanders supporters are crowing over Warren's result tonight, but what's happened for her the last few months (which many of them have gleefully perpetuated) is a bad omen for what's coming Sanders' way.

why not give the warren campaign credit for making all of those bad decisions instead of blaming them on the media? it was her campaign's decision to step back from her M4A plan when the media went after her for it instead of doubling down - and then her polling suffered. it was her campaign's decision to go to war with bernie, not CNN's, which also caused her to take a hit in the polls. i'm not saying the media hasn't had a hand in this, but the warren campaign has consistently been making gaffes - going all the way back to the DNA test that launched her campaign.

warren has spent a lot of time talking about how she's the "unity" candidate because she's brought in a lot of staffers from other campaigns that have shut down. maybe she shouldn't have hired a bunch of losers and listened to their advice? despite the DNA thing i think her campaign was being run much better six months ago than it is today. even her speech today came across as a completely different candidate than the one i supported as my second choice six months ago. for someone who's campaign is supposedly focused on policy, suddenly she's aligning herself with klobuchar instead of sanders? her strategy doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
posted by JimBennett at 9:21 PM on February 11, 2020 [14 favorites]


All Warren said was Klobuchar's showing disproved the myth that people won't vote for a woman. She didn't say she was ideologically aligning herself with Klobuchar.
posted by xammerboy at 9:35 PM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


Whatever Warren may have done wrong, Sanders really really needs her voters. He seems to have gotten almost none of the voters jumping ship from Biden despite 30% of them saying that Sanders was their second choice, and if he doesn't start wooing someone, he's going to stay at 25% while the center-left gradually consolidates. These people aren't going to be moved by his message, everyone has already seen it. He can't change that message, of course, but he sure can change the non-policy outreach strategies.
posted by chortly at 9:36 PM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


The same playbook is going to be run against Sanders. Establishment politicos and media elites fearmongering over his candidacy, manufacturing baseless scandals, and hyping up anyone who looks like they can consolidate the moderate majority.

I can think of a half-dozen attempted oppo drops on Sanders in as many weeks, not to mention everything else going back to 2016. I've undoubtedly paid more attention to his scandals than any other single candidate's, but I don't know how anybody figures he hasn't been exposed to that sort of scrutiny. We haven't seen how it all plays out for him in a general election context, but neither have we for anybody else.
posted by atoxyl at 9:37 PM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


I honestly don’t think Sanders has much control over the online people who turn politics into a sport. I was active on the old Neogaf forums back in 2016, and those were heavily pro-Hillary at the time. The Hillary partisans acted much like the snake emoji people do now ... until early November anyway. So it goes both ways.

The thing is, most people aren’t constantly online looking for a fight. Most Sanders supporters just donate and volunteer out of a mixture of fear and idealism. I’m sure the same is true of all candidates. It’s just that the e-warriors are always the most visible.
posted by eagles123 at 9:44 PM on February 11, 2020 [5 favorites]


It's not getting a lot of play because the horserace/narrative people have a Shiny New Thing to talk about, but, man, has Biden collapsed. Even just a month or two ago it seemed plausible that he could storm this whole thing and now he's not even got to 15% of the vote or higher than 4th place in either of the first two contests. I assume he's sticking around until at least South Carolina, so I guess maybe we'll see if he can put in a non-embarrassing performance in a state where a couple of the other top-tier candidates are likely to flop, but unless he absolutely dominates there, he'll be toast before even getting to Super Tuesday.

And all that time Trump and the Republicans spent complaining about his kid will have been for naught, too.
posted by Copronymus at 9:52 PM on February 11, 2020 [3 favorites]


Many Trump supporters are decent people, but his political power is driven by his base.
posted by xammerboy at 9:53 PM on February 11, 2020


Many Trump supporters are decent people, but his political power is driven by his base.

Seth Meyer right before the 2016 election:
[A lot of Americans] just don't love the two choices. I mean, do you pick someone who's under federal investigation for using a private email server, or do you pick someone who called Mexicans rapists, claimed the president was born in Kenya, proposed banning an entire religion from entering the US, mocked a disabled reporter, said John McCain wasn't a war hero because he was captured, attacked the parents of a fallen soldier, bragged about committing sexual assault, was accused by 12 women of committing sexual assault, said some of those women weren't attractive enough for him to sexually assault, said more countries should get nukes, said he'd force the military to commit war crimes, said a judge was biased because his parents were Mexican, said women should be punished for having abortions, incited violence at his rallies, called global warming a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese, called for his opponent to be jailed, declared bankruptcy six times, bragged about not paying income taxes, stiffed his contractors and employees, lost a billion dollars in one year, scammed customers at his fake university, bought a six foot tall painting of himself with money from his fake foundation, has a trial for fraud coming up in November, insulted an opponent's looks, insulted an opponent's wife's looks, and bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. How do you choose?
And that's before the nonstop cavalcade of corruption, nepotism, and crime every day since his inauguration. I'd love to hear more about people who are OK will all that being decent people.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:04 PM on February 11, 2020 [23 favorites]


> And all that time Trump and the Republicans spent complaining about his kid will have been for naught, too.

Sure, but the fact that he went through the public impeachment spectacle may actually increase the likelihood of a damaging "October surprise" against other frontrunners and/or the eventual nominee. Not that he had a lot of safety mechanisms enabled before, but the latest escalations into open threats, interfering with Stone's sentencing, etc. suggest that he won't have any qualms about using the full apparatus of the US intel community to find (or manufacture) whatever he needs to harm his opponents. And he no doubt has plenty of accomplices in place to do the finding and/or manufacturing.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:05 PM on February 11, 2020


All Warren said was Klobuchar's showing disproved the myth that people won't vote for a woman. She didn't say she was ideologically aligning herself with Klobuchar.

If you don't think that's a statement about Sanders, quadrupling down on the blatant lie she suddenly started trotting around a month ago, I'm really not sure what to tell you. And she didn't have to start peddling the complete gibberish that going from ~50% of the voters in a 2-person race to 30% of the vote in an 8-person race is a massive loss of support.
posted by kafziel at 10:18 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


Reuters reports the NH results: Pete Buttigieg finishes second in New Hampshire primary, Amy Klobuchar third - Edison Research.

Unclear who came in first. "Possibly a ghost?", says Nate Silver.
posted by kafziel at 10:19 PM on February 11, 2020 [19 favorites]


Sure, but the fact that he went through the public impeachment spectacle may actually increase the likelihood of a damaging "October surprise" against other frontrunners and/or the eventual nominee. Not that he had a lot of safety mechanisms enabled before, but the latest escalations into open threats, interfering with Stone's sentencing, etc. suggest that he won't have any qualms about using the full apparatus of the US intel community to find (or manufacture) whatever he needs to harm his opponents. And he no doubt has plenty of accomplices in place to do the finding and/or manufacturing.

Oh, I have no doubt that the burning issue of the fall will be the frequent updates on the FBI's comprehensive investigation into one of: Jane Sanders's management of Burlington College; Warren's college/job application paperwork; Buttigieg's military record; or Klobuchar's treatment of her staff. It's just funny that they spun the Hunter Biden stuff up so hard and it's almost certainly not going to matter whatsoever. And, hey, maybe the next set of Democrats who are in power will think twice before letting their kids take lavish sinecures in corruption hotspots.
posted by Copronymus at 10:19 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


I'd love to hear more about people who are OK will all that being decent people.

I just mean that I wouldn't apply the logic that a politician isn't responsible for their supporters behavior to Trump. I shouldn't have made any comment suggesting the two's supporters are at all the same. I think some of the behavior of some Sanders supporters simply comes with playing divisional politics. If you suggest that anything short of Medicare for All sells out universal healthcare, than some of your supporters are going to be really angry at people, rightly or wrongly, for proposing that solution. It comes with the brand of politics, to a degree.

By the way, I'm really angry at the Democratic establishment too. I see a lot of their behavior as collaborating with the Trump administration.
posted by xammerboy at 10:22 PM on February 11, 2020 [1 favorite]


If you don't think that's a statement about Sanders, quadrupling down on the blatant lie she suddenly started trotting around a month ago, I'm really not sure what to tell you.

I thought it was primarily about Warren trying to make lemonade from lemons. She is struggling, in part, against the belief that not enough people will vote for a woman. What is she supposed to do? She needs to campaign for herself.
posted by xammerboy at 10:26 PM on February 11, 2020 [11 favorites]


Unclear who came in first. "Possibly a ghost?", says Nate Silver.

The same Nate Silver who has repeatedly and publicly taken people to task tonight for not spotlighting Sanders' victory?
posted by Justinian at 10:28 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


I can think of a half-dozen attempted oppo drops on Sanders in as many weeks, not to mention everything else going back to 2016. I've undoubtedly paid more attention to his scandals than any other single candidate's, but I don't know how anybody figures he hasn't been exposed to that sort of scrutiny. We haven't seen how it all plays out for him in a general election context, but neither have we for anybody else.
CNN panel doing the whole #Bernie isnt vetted thing.

HE HAS BEEN VETTED.

More than any other Dem candidate.

If anyone would know, I would.

I spent all of 2016 doing it with a team of writers and researchers.

It's all out there already.
When PETER DAOU of all people is saying there's no oppo or vetting on Sanders that hasn't already been dug up, used, and proved worthless by Clinton, it's probably worth listening to him.
posted by kafziel at 10:32 PM on February 11, 2020 [10 favorites]


I don't think very many people think there's some weird secret stuff that might come out (I'm sure you can find some) but rather that things which aren't issues in the primary would be big issues in the general.
posted by Justinian at 10:51 PM on February 11, 2020 [2 favorites]


Mod note: Hello, friends, this is not a megathread, nor is it a place to rehash fights about Sanders that have been foughten to death. Please, for the sake of the mods' collective sanity, be cool.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:05 PM on February 11, 2020 [4 favorites]


Nevada's Culinary Union has issued a flyer ranking the Democratic candidates on important issues. It opposes the M4A plan supported by Sanders and Warren. It also describes Klobuchar as someone who would "work with unions on regulations about technology at work". The The Nevada Independent article provides some context:
The Culinary Union, which provides health insurance to 130,000 workers and their family members through a special trust fund, strongly opposes Medicare for all on the basis that it would eliminate the health insurance they have negotiated for over several decades. Health insurance provided by the Culinary Health Fund is considered to be some of the best in the state, and the union even opened a 60,000-square-foot state-of-the-art health clinic a couple of years ago for its members.
The Culinary Union has a lot of influence in Nevada Democratic politics. Their opposition to M4A could hurt Sanders and Warren a lot. The plug for Klobuchar is interesting.
posted by nangar at 11:31 PM on February 11, 2020


New Hampshire CNN Exit Polls, Hispanic voters:

Sanders 42%
Klobuchar 14%
Buttigieg 11%
Yang 9%
Biden/Gabbard 8%
Warren/Steyer 3%

Eyebrow-raising headed into NV.
posted by Rust Moranis at 11:46 PM on February 11, 2020 [6 favorites]


Sanders has been polling pretty well with Hispanic voters but given that something like 1 or 1.5% of people in NH are Hispanic it is probably not enough people to draw much of a conclusion from. Hell, they may have sampled a sizable fraction of the entire Hispanic electorate in the exits.
posted by Justinian at 12:02 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Reuters reports the NH results: Pete Buttigieg finishes second in New Hampshire primary, Amy Klobuchar third - Edison Research.

Unclear who came in first. "Possibly a ghost?", says Nate Silver.

Nate Silver is not pushing this particular spin.
posted by StarkRoads at 12:27 AM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


I'm disappointed with Warren's showing so far, and I hope she improves in the next few weeks--not least because I've already sent in my overseas voter ballot for the Colorado primary, and I really don't want her to possibly drop out before my vote for her gets counted. :/

(That being said, if she does drop out, I'll vote for whoever gets the eventual nomination. Obviously.)
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 3:28 AM on February 12, 2020 [6 favorites]


She’s an incredibly intelligent and fundamentally decent person with questionable political instincts.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:19 AM on February 12, 2020 [10 favorites]


so i've been on the "wait sanders and warren draw from different demographics they should both stay in and aim at a convention-time coalition because it's more plausible that the two of them combined could get 50%+1 than it is that either of them could get above 50% by themselves" tip for like forever, and i literally never once thought that the center-right candidates could be running the same sort of game. total blind spot.

anyway, if the center-right manages to do the "fan out during the primaries and come together at the convention" thing better than the center-left does, i am going to be so annoyed. if we end up with a surprise buttigieg/klob or bloomberg/buttigieg ticket, that will probably be the thing that gets me to unironically become the character i play on the Internet.

super bummed about warren not getting delegates out of new hampshire, y'all. super bummed. she's not even my #1 preferred candidate, but her doing well is necessary for the plan. the plan.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:25 AM on February 12, 2020 [15 favorites]


She’s an incredibly intelligent and fundamentally decent person with questionable political instincts.

I think that's it, yeah. The DNA test thing was an unforced error that made a lot of people question her judgment early on. And I think the nail in her campaign's coffin was when she was questioned about the cost of her M4A plan and her response was essentially (or was spun in the media as) "I'll have to get back to you on that." And even though she did in fact later put out a comprehensive plan, the perception has stuck that maybe her wide array of plans hadn't been thought through particularly well or deeply.

And she hasn't been able to capture the media's attention since the whole "wine cave" thing, which didn't land as well as it should have. Obviously, that's partially the media's fault, but she seems to have been spinning her wheels for a while. And she's probably still my favorite of the remaining candidates.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:26 AM on February 12, 2020 [10 favorites]


anyway, if the center-right manages to do the "fan out during the primaries and come together at the convention" thing better than the center-left does, i am going to be so annoyed. like, i think that's probably the thing that will trigger me unironically becoming the character i play on the internet.

Putting aside the fact that a brokered convention would be the worst possible outcome, why would you be angry if other candidates do exactly what you would like your preferred candidates to do? Isn't that a sign that maybe the whole plan is a bad idea?
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:31 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


it is in fact not! because the significant things are the actual political content of the candidates' position and the actual political impact of a given candidate or candidate winning. i would not be angry that the center-right had successfully used a totally valid and normal (but unexpected in the american political context) strategy to win. i would be angry because the center-right would have kept control of one of the two major parties at a time when the center-right ideology is a terrible idea.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:35 AM on February 12, 2020 [14 favorites]


Well, I hope for all our sakes that it doesn't happen by either set of candidates. I'm no Bernie fan, but I would rather have a decisive Sanders victory in the primary and a unified convention than gamesmanship by other candidates that results in a back-room deal that alienates and angers a significant number of the voters we need in November.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:41 AM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


Even if the senate and house somehow go D, everything gets ruined if Trump wins.

I'm out of the prediction business after 2016 but I am confident when I say this: if the Democrats gain control of the Senate, Trump will not be president. So don't worry about that scenario, at least.
posted by Automocar at 6:50 AM on February 12, 2020 [6 favorites]


She’s an incredibly intelligent and fundamentally decent person with questionable political instincts.

There's not a lot of overlap between the qualities that would make someone a good president and the qualities that make someone a good presidential candidate. See the Current Occupant for an example.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:54 AM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


New Hampshire primary turnout was good for Democrats — sort of (Katelyn Burns, Vox)
With no competitive Republican race, independent voters were free to focus on the large Democratic field.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:51 AM on February 12, 2020


Pedantry: It's not a brokered convention. The party power brokers don't exist anymore. If it happens, it will be a *contested* convention.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:23 AM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


after republicans have a chance to gain seats in the house and senate

This is where Warren disagrees with you. Warren believes (correctly, in my opinion) that the Senate map for 2022 is better for Democrats than 2020's and 2018's. That's why Warren can, in good faith, think she will have a better chance of passing something bigger after 2022. Look at the map; the blues are for the most part pretty solidly blue, and the reds less solidly red.

As a Warren supporter, I'm nearly certain she will not attain an outright delegate majority and fairly confident she will not be nominated. It is sad. Without a cardinal voting system like Approval or Score, "unity" candidates are vulnerable to a phenomenon called "center squeeze", where candidates to the left and right (relatively speaking; in this race, read it "left" and "center-left") get more first-choice preferences than a widely-liked candidate in between those lanes.

Have I mentioned Approval voting on this site before? I think I have :-P
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 8:28 AM on February 12, 2020 [12 favorites]


I Like Elizabeth Warren — Here’s Why I Think She Should Drop Out
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 8:54 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm a Bernie supporter, but people have reasonably described his plans to get things done as similarly magical.

There is something of a missing link with some of his supporters that bridges the gulf from conspiracy against Bernie by neo-liberals and the press, to a president who gets results dealing with those same people, which is something Warren would have to face as well of course, to mildly varying degree.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:06 AM on February 12, 2020


Scenes from 2016: "I like Bernie Sanders – Here's Why I think He Should Drop Out"
posted by tonycpsu at 9:06 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Greg Nog: She surged, in large part, due to her support for M4A! And then the Dem establishment and mass media acted like that - installing the kind of public health system that most first-world countries have - was some kind of radical fantasy.

The thing is that M4A, or "single-payer" in general, is not what "most first-world countries have". This is an extremely common misconception, but in other countries, private insurance usually exists to a non-trivial degree, and sometimes it dominates. The difference is just that everyone is guaranteed some kind of insurance and/or care, and that the insurance system is regulated to an inch of its life -- basically what the ACA tries to be, but to such as degree that healthcare can be considered "free" for most people under most circumstances.

I do think M4A is a fantastic idea and Warren has been my candidate for a good while. But it bugs me a bit that people treat every other model as not just unacceptable (which is a valid opinion) but unheard of. In most European countries (for instance), both the Sanders and Warren proposals would in fact be on the left, not the middle. Meanwhile, the other Democratic candidates' ideas would mostly be in the middle (as the status quo), not the right as is often assumed.

Per Wikipedia: Most European countries have systems of competing private health insurance companies, along with government regulation and subsidies for citizens who cannot afford health insurance premiums.[93]
posted by InTheYear2017 at 9:21 AM on February 12, 2020 [8 favorites]


The other thing to keep in mind is that most of the centrist Democratic strategies should, in theory, lead to M4All or nearly there over time. Biden's plan was a public option with a tax cut that would have virtually guaranteed almost everyone bought into that plan. It may not be my druthers, but that's pretty good and could easily lead to M4All.
posted by xammerboy at 9:32 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sanders is also the most strident anti-war candidate, and presidents matter a lot for foreign policy.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:43 AM on February 12, 2020 [14 favorites]


Most European countries have systems of competing private health insurance companies, along with government regulation and subsidies for citizens who cannot afford health insurance premiums.

In many of those countries the insurance is not so much for basic health care though. It is for what could loosely be considered "add-ons". They provide for things like private rooms, privately provided physiotherapy (important because physio is often under funded and overbooked while simultaneously being time critical for recovery), massage, queue jumping for scans and such. So they do compete but not so much with the basic health care provision but instead with each other in ancillary health markets. Likewise in Canada people have additional insurance for covering medications and areas of the health care that are not part of the basic provincial coverage but by and large there is not really a competing private health insurance market for core health treatment.
posted by srboisvert at 9:54 AM on February 12, 2020 [14 favorites]


And yet, Sanders supported the $1.5 trillion F-35 fighter jet program because it benefited Vermont. People are complicated.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:54 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh how far this country has drifted to the right. I always cackle at the Dem leadership critique of Sanders. As his stance, policies and ideas most resemble (as Chomsky has been pointing out for 5 years now) presidentially, Eisenhower.
The self described 'progressive conservative'.
If Sanders critics had to consider the nomination of an actual socialist candidate/agenda they would soil themselves immediately.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:22 AM on February 12, 2020 [9 favorites]


And yet, Sanders supported the $1.5 trillion F-35 fighter jet program because it benefited Vermont. People are complicated.

You realize that this is some right wing propaganda? Sanders did not support the F-35 program. That is simply false. However, the program was funded anyway, despite his opposition, way back in the 1990s under Clinton and the Republican congress.

Fast forward almost 20 years later and the F-35s were finally being deployed to replace the F-16s which were retired. Sanders said that if F-16s were going to be removed from Vermont, they should be replaced with F-35s. The F-35s were built. The F-16s were being retired.

That's quite different from saying that "Sanders supported the F-35 program".
posted by JackFlash at 10:33 AM on February 12, 2020 [15 favorites]


So she backed off on it, and her final plan is a multi-bill attempt at compromise that first offers a public option before hoping, three years later (after republicans have a chance to gain seats in the house and senate) that THEN all the deeply evil rightwingers in Congress will suddenly decide that providing for their poorest constituents is something they ought to do. It relies on the idea that all the Trump-supporting congresspeople are just going to magically decide to start compromising based on shared empathy.

The best realistic scenario for the Senate in 2020 -- assuming we sweep AZ/CO/NC/ME while losing Alabama -- is a 50-50 tie with a Dem VP tiebreaker. You'd need every single one with zero defections to back both M4A and the procedural jukes to avoid the filibuster. But a big chunk of Senate Dems don't support either, and trying to push it through anyway without the votes to pass it would be a disastrous waste of political capital. And sure, Sanders could try again with a scaled-back plan. But why start with a high-profile failure instead of building up a series of successes?

Warren's plan is ambitious verging on implausible, requiring a long multi-phase fight, multiple elections, and supporting heavy lifts like immigration reform. But at least it's not dead on arrival like the Sanders plan. It accomplishes significant good for regular people right away, unlike the protracted ACA rollout, and aims to build political support for further reforms that could help win back the swing Senate seats narrowly lost in 2016 that would be necessary to pass anything more sweeping than a public option.

It's difficult, but there are no shortcuts here. Warren's plan is more realistic than Sanders' handwaving about a deus ex populi uprising that will bully Congress into doing whatever he wants, and the way people characterize her strategy as cowardly or naive while trumpeting his magical thinking is pretty off-putting.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:47 AM on February 12, 2020 [18 favorites]


Warren's plan is more realistic than Sanders' handwaving about a deus ex populi uprising that will bully Congress into doing whatever he wants, and the way people characterize her strategy as cowardly or naive while trumpeting his magical thinking is pretty off-putting.

This isn't handwaving, this is his articulated theory of political change, which, ya know, has a decent amount of political support behind it. Building a movement for the ground up has made it so that a self-described socialist is the front runner to be the Democratic candidate for president. This was unthinkable not so long ago.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:11 AM on February 12, 2020 [13 favorites]


Steyer spent $1400 per vote in New Hampshire. I guess he has support in South Carolina but you have to wonder what the overall plan is there.
posted by chaz at 11:17 AM on February 12, 2020


Sanders ekes one out, but the revolution has yet to arrive
...it was hardly an overwhelming thumping by Bernie Sanders. Even counting for the fact that in 2016 he was in a two-person race, the comparison with his smashing victory over Hillary Clinton (22 points and 60 percent of the vote) and, as of late Tuesday night, his less-than-2-point squeaker over Buttigieg, is notable. Sanders dominated the state in 2016, winning every county. Buttigieg and Klobuchar ripped holes through that map everywhere, turning color-coded maps from 2016 that showed a Sanders rout into a patchwork of colors.

Perhaps more important, Sanders overpromised and underdelivered. He has premised his campaign on nothing less than sparking a political revolution in which disaffected and first-time voters — especially young ones — pour into American politics to carry him to the White House. It didn’t happen in Iowa, and it didn’t happen in New Hampshire.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:19 AM on February 12, 2020


She’s an incredibly intelligent and fundamentally decent person with questionable political instincts.

Certainly I've had the feeling her campaign isn't great at playing defense - going back to the DNA test and the website with preemptive responses to a series of smears I'd never heard until I read the website - to the extent that it was a concern for the general. There's arguably also an issue with timing and committing to offense - I think her chance to push hard to overtake Sanders might have been in her moment in the spotlight last year, not this January - but that's easier to say in hindsight. To be fair though I think she also runs into the problem that Sanders' base is fundamentally pretty committed, which leads her to try to play compromise candidate, which really doesn't peel away Bernie supporters because a significant part of his support is driven by those of us on the left wing of the party being fed up with the usual compromises. This overlaps with "questionable strategy" - and I sort of buy into the idea that some of the advisors she's picked up from other campaigns haven't helped - but there may also just not be a very wide lane open.

Also I think she was hoping to find a way to beat Bernie on some of his percieved 2016 weaknesses (i.e. mindshare with minority voters) and... hasn't, while he's been able to make some progress.
posted by atoxyl at 11:22 AM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


The 2020 Democratic presidential contest is about to turn into a math race
Two contests down, and here’s the pledged delegate scoreboard: Buttigieg 23, Sanders 21, Warren 8, Klobuchar 7, and Biden 6. No other candidate has received a single delegate.
...
Oh, and don’t forget the magic numbers.

The first is 1,991. That’s the majority of total pledged delegates it will take to win the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the Milwaukee convention.

The second (for now) is 2,376. That’s when the party’s 771 superdelegates get added to the mix for the second ballot and beyond, and that becomes your majority for all total delegates.
...
One final thing here: We don’t quite understand the rush to declare someone as the overall front-runner for the Dem nomination.

Two contests down, there is no front-runner. Bernie Sanders certainly seems like he has the best chance to secure a quarter or a third of the pledged delegates.

But he doesn’t have a path yet to secure a majority of the delegates. (See below for more on this.)
Ceterum autem censeo Trump delenda est
posted by kirkaracha at 11:22 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Sanders, whatever his other faults, realizes (as Trump does) that the feels and soundbites are more important to the general voter than detailed plans and implementation.
posted by benzenedream at 11:25 AM on February 12, 2020 [8 favorites]


> Sanders ekes one out, but the revolution has yet to arrive

Ugh, enough with this horse race coverage shit:
Perhaps more important, Sanders overpromised and underdelivered. He has premised his campaign on nothing less than sparking a political revolution in which disaffected and first-time voters — especially young ones — pour into American politics to carry him to the White House. It didn’t happen in Iowa, and it didn’t happen in New Hampshire.
TWO STATES AND NO REVOLUTION YET! SO BORING!
posted by tonycpsu at 11:25 AM on February 12, 2020 [13 favorites]


Even counting for the fact that in 2016 he was in a two-person race, the comparison with his smashing victory over Hillary Clinton (22 points and 60 percent of the vote)

That's a pretty big "[ac]counting for" - I don't think there was any plausible margin of victory which committed doubters wouldn't have responded to this way. On the other hand I don't think you can get around Pete's overperformance in the first two primaries - Bernie really has to count on him faceplanting in the next few, and needs eventually to pick up more of the fleeing Joe Biden vote because right now he certainly benefits from everybody else being split.
posted by atoxyl at 11:29 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Bernie's Super Tuesday edge (or whoever comes out ahead on Super Tuesday)
Some top Democrats tell Axios that if the split 2020 field persists through Super Tuesday, Bernie Sanders could build an insurmountable delegate lead while the moderates eat each other up.
...
  • Scenario #1​: Bernie's Super Tuesday vote share is five points ahead of the second candidate (say, 30% to 25%). Bernie would net 96 delegates more than the next-highest-performing candidate. At that point, it would be possible but difficult to overtake Sanders: To become the nominee, that survivor would need to beat Bernie by an average of 53% to 47% in in remaining contests.
  • Scenario #2:​ Bernie's Super Tuesday vote share is 10​ points ahead of the second candidate (say, 30% to 20%). Bernie would net 198 delegates more than the next-highest-performing candidate. Overtaking Sanders would be unlikely: The field would need to clear, the and survivor would need to win each remaining contest on average 55% to 45% over Bernie.
  • Scenario #3​: Bernie's Super Tuesday vote share is by 15 points ahead of the second candidate (say, 35% to 20%). Bernie would net 328 delegates more than the next-highest-performing candidate. The race would be all but over.
Ceterum autem censeo Trump delenda est
posted by kirkaracha at 11:31 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


TWO STATES AND NO REVOLUTION YET! SO BORING!

That's not what it's saying. It's pointing out that Sanders' theory of his path to victory is that he would greatly expand the electorate and bring out a lot of young and non-voters. But that clearly did not happen in the first two states. That doesn't mean he won't be the nominee or that if he's the nominee he won't win the election. But it means he'll have to do it the old fashioned way, with traditional voters and old folks. Not the fantasy land way where there is a tidal wave of new voters.
posted by Justinian at 11:31 AM on February 12, 2020 [6 favorites]


Or Scenario #4: No one's a clear frontrunner and we have to muddle through somehow.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:32 AM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I'm critical of the notion that any other candidate should drop out to help Bernie, but what Warren, Klobuchar, Biden, and the also-rans should definitely be doing, both for their own benefit and Bernie's, is hammering on Buttigieg relentlessly.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:32 AM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


> It's pointing out that Sanders' theory of his path to victory is that he would greatly expand the electorate and bring out a lot of young and non-voters. But that clearly did not happen in the first two states

Ah yes, where "clearly" is a 5 point swing in an exit poll with a 4 point margin of error comparing two elections where Bernie was a candidate.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:36 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Are you arguing that there has been or will indeed be a great expansion of the electorate for a Sanders candidacy, or just trying to poke holes in the evidence that there isn't? Because the data out of IA and NH could most optimistically for Sanders be interpreted that youth/non-voter turnout is flat over the last couple cycles. It's not like we aren't allowed to look at data not in the article.
posted by Justinian at 11:52 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Turnout is going to be different in a primary than a general, esp when the former are in extremely white states.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:55 AM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


A primary where he's up against 8 other candidates is very different from a general election, which is also very different from how the political landscape will be after he wins. There's no way you can reasonably extrapolate from the first two primaries any kind of serious evidence against his theory of change.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:57 AM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


> Are you arguing that there has been or will indeed be a great expansion of the electorate for a Sanders candidacy, or just trying to poke holes in the evidence that there isn't?

I'm not convinced either way of Sanders' theory of the youth vote carrying him to victory, but I'm certain that the data the author cites doesn't support a "nope, no revolution yet!" conclusion. If you want to bring different data into the discussion then that's fine, but the Politico piece reeks of an attempt to shit on a guy who just won a fiercely-contested state desipte another ideologically similar New Englander eating into some of his support.
posted by tonycpsu at 12:00 PM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


Youth turnout actually increased in Iowa even though turnout overall decreased from what I’ve read. New Hampshire was kind of the opposite: overall turnout increased but the proportion of the youth vote decreased. The proportional decrease may be related to the overall increase (more older voters coming out), but there also was an issue with a recently passed law requiring college students to register their cars. In addition, an article posted on here talked about demographic changes in the form of suburban/ex urbanites from Massachuttes moving to the south of the state. Indeed, but Buttegeig and Klobuchar seem to have done particularly well in those counties.

That being said, obviously you would need much higher turnout to pressure congress to pass something like M4A. However, I don’t think any of the more moderate plans have a chance either. Democrats in 2008-2009 had a much larger majority in the Senate than they would under even the most positive projections. Even then, they couldn’t get a bill with a meaningful public option passed. Quite frankly, I don’t think most of the candidates are serious with the plans they are putting forward.
posted by eagles123 at 12:13 PM on February 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


Right, that's exactly my point. Sanders currently has the best chance of anyone to win the nomination but it sure looks like he's doing it the same way everybody else is doing it! There's nothing wrong with that! It's actually kind of re-assuring that regular voters will vote for the guy, 'cause relying on people who are usually non-voters is... unreliable at best.

Youth turnout actually increased in Iowa even though turnout overall decreased from what I’ve read

My understanding is that youth turnout increased from 2016 (where Sanders was also a candidate) but decreased compared to 2008 (where Sanders was not a candidate). It's just that other turnout decreased more.
posted by Justinian at 12:23 PM on February 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


My understanding is that youth turnout increased from 2016 (where Sanders was also a candidate) but decreased compared to 2008 (where Sanders was not a candidate).

That’s the thing about generations of youth. In 8-12 years, they are 8-12 years older.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:52 PM on February 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


The key to beating Trump is selecting a candidate who gets people excited — is Sanders that guy? I hope so. I will say that I’ve had lifelong Democratic voters tell me they fear a Bernie presidency because they’ve swallowed the Right’s propaganda on socialism. The fact that the Iowa caucus attendance was more similar to 2016 than 2008 is really concerning to me. It is very clear to me that Bernie really, really connects with a segment of the voting public but I think his support of socialism is potentially as big a liability as Clinton’s perception of being entitled and corrupt. Trump and the GOP will run ad after ad comparing Bernie to Lenin and Castro. They will dig up statements he made about the Sandinistas in the 80s or the Bolivarian movement of the late 90s and early 2000s and point to the current problems in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

I hope someone on Bernie’s team is working on this because if he’s the nominee, “but socialism” will become the new “but her emails”. He would be well served to start educating voters about Eugene Debbs and quoting from Teddy Roosevelt to show how his politics tie into the fabric of this nation’s history.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 2:15 PM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


That’s the thing about generations of youth. In 8-12 years, they are 8-12 years older.

(I can't help but hear that in my head being read in Matthew McConaughey's voice.)

((Oh wait. Have I been That's the joke!ed?))
posted by Atom Eyes at 2:16 PM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Record Democratic turnout in New Hampshire
posted by rabbitrabbit at 2:19 PM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


The key to beating Trump is selecting a candidate who gets people excited — is Sanders that guy?

I mean... it's definitely not anyone *else* in the primary. Don't see any scenario where Biden, Bloomberg, Buttigieg or Klobuchar are driving a huge voter turnout. Establishment figures extraordinaire, extremely boring people telling everyone no, you cannot have nice things, they're too expensive! is not a great recipe for turnout.

And Warren, who I thought would be more energizing, has mostly failed to be exciting outside of highly educated people with professional jobs.

So if not Bernie, then who? Nobody else is left.
posted by dis_integration at 2:24 PM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


> Record Democratic turnout in New Hampshire

For anyone like me who instinctively thinks "but population growth" when they see turnout numbers reported this way: 
Year	Turnout	 Population	   Pct
2004	219,000	  1,293,000	16.94%
2008	285,000	  1,321,000	21.57%
2016	250,000	  1,342,000	18.63%
2020	297,000	  1,370,000	21.68%
Encouraging.
posted by tonycpsu at 2:27 PM on February 12, 2020 [14 favorites]


> So if not Bernie, then who? Nobody else is left.

i mean there's an inspirational transformative revolutionary politician who's not bernie and who is way better than bernie... but she won't be old enough to run for president until 2024.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:41 PM on February 12, 2020 [12 favorites]


it's probably a good thing that i'm not in charge of coming up with slogans for major politicians, because i doubt "sanders 2020: keeping the seat warm until aoc 2024" is as inspirational to other people as it is to me.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 2:43 PM on February 12, 2020 [14 favorites]


Democrats in 2008-2009 had a much larger majority in the Senate than they would under even the most positive projections. Even then, they couldn’t get a bill with a meaningful public option passed.

I don't want to open up that old argument, but nobody tried to get a public option passed. Despite his campaign promises, Obama took it off the table before he proposed any health care reform. So saying "they couldn’t" is begging the question.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:51 PM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


The key to beating Trump is selecting a candidate who gets people excited — is Sanders that guy? I hope so. I will say that I’ve had lifelong Democratic voters tell me they fear a Bernie presidency because they’ve swallowed the Right’s propaganda on socialism. The fact that the Iowa caucus attendance was more similar to 2016 than 2008 is really concerning to me. It is very clear to me that Bernie really, really connects with a segment of the voting public but I think his support of socialism is potentially as big a liability as Clinton’s perception of being entitled and corrupt. Trump and the GOP will run ad after ad comparing Bernie to Lenin and Castro. They will dig up statements he made about the Sandinistas in the 80s or the Bolivarian movement of the late 90s and early 2000s and point to the current problems in Nicaragua and Venezuela.

I hope someone on Bernie’s team is working on this because if he’s the nominee, “but socialism” will become the new “but her emails”. He would be well served to start educating voters about Eugene Debbs and quoting from Teddy Roosevelt to show how his politics tie into the fabric of this nation’s history.

Every Republican candidate has tried to paint every Democratic candidate as an evil socialist since at least the 80s. Every election in my memory, I've heard "rated most liberal member of congress" bandied about for whichever congressperson or senator was in the race. This is nothing.
posted by kafziel at 2:57 PM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


> I hope we begin to move on from needing to find sanctuary in charismatic political leaders in general, but good luck with that, I know.

i mean, we're apes. i get where you're coming from — if i could i'd dismantle the institutions of fame and celebrity altogether altogether — but until we can do that we're going to have to look for politicians who are charismatic rhetoricians as well as big-brained logicians or whatever.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 3:03 PM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Every Republican candidate has tried to paint every Democratic candidate as an evil socialist since at least the 80s. Every election in my memory, I've heard "rated most liberal member of congress" bandied about for whichever congressperson or senator was in the race. This is nothing.

The catch is that Sanders would be the first nominee to agree with Republicans that he's a socialist. Would that actually make those attacks more effective, or are we split between people who believe it every time and those who've tuned it out or don't see it as a negative? Unknowable at this point.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:09 PM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Most of what’s widely considered good and popular about the US government throughout the 20th century was made of actions that present day R’s will deride as “socialism” (and that’s when they’re being polite). The GOP is delusional, and we need to stop pretending otherwise.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:20 PM on February 12, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yet it must be said that the GOP has had great success in getting elected despite opposing popular policies.

That is not at all to say that opposing those policies will be the key to Dem success, just that calling the GOP delusional doesn't get us far.
posted by Chrysostom at 3:36 PM on February 12, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don't want to open up that old argument, but nobody tried to get a public option passed.

I don't know why this zombie idea never dies, but I guess it needs to be repeated again.

The Democrats had a public option. It was written into the House version of the ACA. There were hearings. It was printed out for review. It was passed in the House with a public option. You can read it yourself.

And then literally a two days before the vote in the Senate, Joe Lieberman, an Independent, changed his mind and said that he would not be the 60th vote unless the public option was stripped out. So it was stripped out and the Senate version passed.

And since the House version had to be the same, it was passed again also without the public option. Otherwise there would be no ACA at all.

So the idea that nobody tried to get a public option passed is flat false. Pelosi actually passed a version in the House with a public option. Lieberman prevented the same public option from passing in the Senate.

Oh, and by the way, "moderates" Murkowski and Collins declined to help the Democrats, so Lieberman held the decision in his hands alone.
posted by JackFlash at 3:43 PM on February 12, 2020 [35 favorites]


Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price to resign after caucus chaos

Requiem for Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:48 PM on February 12, 2020


don't know why this zombie idea never dies, but I guess it needs to be repeated again.

Thank you, JackFlash, I was having trouble formulating such a reasonable and even tempered reply. ACA wasn't like 50 years ago. It was less than a decade! People can't just rewrite the history of something so fresh in our minds.
posted by Justinian at 3:54 PM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Troy Price is a great man. He may have managed to do something that generations of people before him could not manage; destroy the Iowa Caucus and (long-term) therefore potentially break the stranglehold on politics of Big Corn subsidies and ethanol. Did he mean to? Not a bit. But still if he accomplishes all that a great man!
posted by Justinian at 3:58 PM on February 12, 2020 [8 favorites]


Democrats in 2008-2009 had a much larger majority in the Senate than they would under even the most positive projections

They had 58 senators plus two independents (Joe Lieberman and Bernie Sanders) from July 7 to August 25, 2009, and again from September 25, 2009, to February 4, 2010.
Technically Lieberman was elected by the Connecticut for Lieberman Party.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:02 PM on February 12, 2020 [1 favorite]


Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price to resign after caucus chaos

The sign falling off the podium broke him.
posted by kirkaracha at 4:04 PM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


Mod note: Folks, I know it all seems related but if we could please stop from re-litigating public option health care and focus on Iowa, that would be terrific.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:06 PM on February 12, 2020 [6 favorites]


Requiem for Elizabeth Warren’s Campaign:

In January, Warren tried to stage a comeback. First, she played the gender card. Who knows the exact manner in which her meeting with Sanders was leaked to the press? I suspect her campaign did it, and I suspect the conversation was more complicated than it was presented, but in any case, she attempted to take advantage of the leak by confirming it in its simplest CNN version. She then went on to campaign as a woman for president. This was a mistake. Voters were perfectly aware that she was a woman, and those who were going to support her entirely or primarily on that basis were going to do so without being reminded of the fact. The gender gap, as I used to say, is a two-way street. And in fact, what happened was that Warren’s polling remained stuck, Sanders’ went down temporarily, and Klobuchar’s began to go up.

This is super, fucking, shamefully misogynistic.
posted by nakedmolerats at 4:20 PM on February 12, 2020 [27 favorites]



Politics is not a game of chess, it's a substitute for war.

I think chess is actually also a substitute for war, at least that's its origin story.
posted by some loser at 4:33 PM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


I don't even see why Bloomberg has to run. He would save money by just sending his lawyers to the WH and offering Trump a billion dollars to resign by the end of the week. Now that would be a fun Trump to watch.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:56 PM on February 12, 2020 [11 favorites]


. I hope we see a Sanders/Warren ticket.

Sanders is 78. Warren is 70. Warren seems to be in good shape, but when Sanders gets excited it looks like he's about to have a stroke. Even Donald Trump, who may be showing signs of dementia, is only 73.

To put it another way, Sanders is older than the average age of all living Democratic presidents. That is, add the ages of Barack Obama (58), Bill Clinton (73), and Jimmy Carter (95), and divide by three: the answer is just over 75. Nobody under 26 is old enough to have voted for Obama. The last time Clinton ran was a quarter of a century ago. The last time Carter ran ... but that's not really relevant.

If the Democratic Party really wants an elder statesperson with all the compromises that come with extreme venerability: so be it. But for goodness' sakes, I hope in that case his running mate is young enough to be in good shape, if and when that should be necessary.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:49 PM on February 12, 2020 [5 favorites]


Why is it "moving on" to not care about basic leadership qualities like being inspirational, bold, and yes, charismatic?

Honestly the fact that the guy drawing these crowds of young people is Bernie Sanders should illustrate that there's some complexity to the concept anyway. He absolutely has a symbolic appeal but what he symbolizes is ideological integrity. I find him likeable on a personal level, but that's because guys like him are my uncles, I mean, I don't know that everybody gets that. It's not an Obama or even a Biden type charisma.

Obviously one reason people have so much hope for AOC is that she does have a little more of that classical star power while being directly representative of a younger generation of left-of-center voters.
posted by atoxyl at 7:01 PM on February 12, 2020 [6 favorites]


Mod note: Do. Not. Re-litigate. Obamacare.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:14 PM on February 12, 2020 [7 favorites]


Bernie Sanders only gets partial credit from the elite political media (Dan Froomkin, Press Watch)
Why does Sanders inspire such antipathy from elite journalists? ... Washington Post media writer Margaret Sullivan shared some profound observations Wednesday morning:
The subtext behind much of the disdain is a partly a deep-seated sentiment that Sanders, if nominated, has little chance of winning the general election. But it’s also partly — and more insidiously — that many journalists don’t identify easily with Sanders in the same way they do with, say, Warren or O’Rourke or Buttigieg.
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:22 PM on February 12, 2020 [2 favorites]


Gah, that TPM column on Warren. Discounting the concept of misogyny by pointing out that Vermont has two (2!) female senators, utterly ignoring the idea that, as a society, it's pretty clear that women are allowed to ascend to certain levels, but oh dear god, not leadership. He then continues to say

but each candidate has potential detractions (sex, age, sexuality, mental acuity, looks, past record, thin resume)

listing sex as a negative thing in the next goddamn paragraph. Mental acuity, past record, thin resume, these are things that aren't sexist, ageist, or, again, sexist, yet Judis just sort of lumps "being a woman" in with "obvious incipient senility" and "should be running for the GOP," blissfully unaware of the sexism inherent in their writing. Seriously, if you can't avoid embracing sexism as a valid point when considering a candidate, please don't try to claim that it isn't a factor. I mean, if you can't see it when you do it, how the fuck can you tell when it's there or not?!

And then

It highlighted the Harvard rather than the Oklahoma populist side of her, the superb university lecturer rather than the empathetic politician.

And here we get down to it. The problem with Warren is that she is too smart and knows stuff, and isn't being an aw shucks down home figure. Or, more bluntly, this guy has bought into the idea that intelligent women are bossy, and that for a woman to lead, they need to be mom-like.

Tl/dr Fuck that guy.
posted by Ghidorah at 7:34 PM on February 12, 2020 [24 favorites]


Same guy, same site, Oct. 7, 2019: Last Week, Warren May Have Won The Democratic Race
At the risk of appearing foolhardy several months hence, I want to say that in the last week, it has become very likely that Elizabeth Warren will win the Democratic nomination. A two-tier race, with Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders in the top tier, has become a race largely of Warren against herself.

Sanders — justifiably in my opinion, and I am of the same rough age — always faced questions about his age. These questions have been answered in the negative, sadly, by his recent heart attack. Voters will be right to doubt whether someone of Sanders’ age and medical history can handle one of the most stressful jobs on earth — especially, in Sanders’ case, because he would be coming into the job anew and face a hostile Washington and Wall Street. He needs to prepare for a graceful exit.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:09 PM on February 12, 2020


Discounting the concept of misogyny by pointing out that Vermont has two (2!) female senators

New Hampshire has two women Senators. Vermont has zero, and has never elected a woman to either house of Congress.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:18 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


(Thanks, Chrysostom, inarticulate rage messes with my geography and/or reading skills)
posted by Ghidorah at 2:54 AM on February 13, 2020


Bloomberg nabs three endorsements from Congressional Black Caucus amid stop and frisk controversy < The Hill
Georgia Rep. Lucy McBath endorses Mike Bloomberg’s presidential campaign < WaPo
Joy Reid on Michael Bloomberg < Twitter, MSNBC

The pragmatic push is on.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:25 AM on February 13, 2020 [2 favorites]


Bloomberg is buying a lot of radio ads in my (Super Tuesday, going to go R in the general) state. I think he'll surprise some folks, myself included.
posted by box at 5:17 AM on February 13, 2020


Bloomberg is also investing heavily in memes
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:28 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


from npb's link:
Memers involved with Meme 2020 include: @MyTherapistSays, @WhitePeopleHumor, @TheFunnyIntrovert, @KaleSalad, @Sonny5ideUp, @Tank.Sinatra, @ShitheadSteve, @adam.the.creator, @moistbudda, @MrsDowJones, @TrashCanPaul, @cohmedy, @NeatDad, @FourTwenty, @GolfersDoingThings, @DrGrayFang, @MiddleClassFancy and @DoYouEvenLift. Together, the collective has an audience of more than 60 million followers.
this is it. the time is now. the moment is here. this is what we invented cancel culture for. let's cancel the everliving fuck out of these fucking fuckers.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:41 AM on February 13, 2020 [15 favorites]


wouldn't be surprised if that's just a zoomer looking for a paycheck tbh.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:09 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


More on Bloomberg's unprecedented spending spree. Also it may be weakening downballot Democratic races by drawing so many people away from them and onto his campaign.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 7:18 AM on February 13, 2020 [4 favorites]


That was a very successful strategy for him in his mayoral races. Money as a cudgel. He’s the 14th richest person in the world.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:30 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


The 9th richest person in the world, actually, as of 2019, apparently…
posted by bitteschoen at 7:55 AM on February 13, 2020


Mr. Bloomberg is also apparently paying his staffers a living wage.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:08 AM on February 13, 2020 [2 favorites]


Paying his staffers well is a nice thing but it makes him no less of a billionaire trying to buy the presidency.
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:14 AM on February 13, 2020 [5 favorites]


Paying your staffers well now so that you can screw everyone later is actually a big savings and a standard disruptor tactic, like burning venture capital.
posted by Frowner at 8:18 AM on February 13, 2020 [25 favorites]


"What we really need is more money in politics" is quite a spicy take, but El Bloombito's record on paying his campaign workers is, to be charitable, rather mixed.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:26 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


Remember the time Bloomberg fired a guy from a $27k/year government job he'd held for six years for playing Solitaire during his lunch break?
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:36 AM on February 13, 2020 [3 favorites]


don't 👏 trust 👏 the 👏 rich
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:57 AM on February 13, 2020 [13 favorites]


Here are his actual words from 2015, so we don't forget:

95% of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description and Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities 15 to 25.

People say, 'Oh my God, you are arresting kids for marijuana who are all minorities.' Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, that's true. Why'd we do it? Because that's where all the crime is. And the way you should get the guns out of the kids' hands is throw them against the wall and frisk them.

And his statement that he eventually tried to reduce the practice? That's a lie.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:05 AM on February 13, 2020 [8 favorites]


Mr. Bloomberg is also apparently paying his staffers a living wage.

Which is ironic, given that he vetoed a living wage bill in 2012.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:08 AM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


The more I look at these Iowa numbers the more I think it's poor analysis to think we can say much of anything right now about the 2-3-4 positions until we hear from states with way more POC voters. Bernie has a good lead, but to declare 3/4 place dead and buried already is ridiculous from states with so few nonwhite voters they don't even bother breaking them down by age.
posted by nakedmolerats at 9:09 AM on February 13, 2020 [4 favorites]


One thing to keep in mind about New Hampshire is that an unusually large 40% of voters are undeclared independents, which means they could vote in either the Democratic or Republican primary.

Since Trump is unopposed, you could expect that at least some Republican independents voted in the Democratic primary to pick their favorite Democrat. This might explain some of Buttigieg's greater than expected turnout. These would be voters who aren't going to vote for the Democrat in the general election.

Lots of people advocate for open primaries. This is one reason why it is a bad idea.
posted by JackFlash at 9:41 AM on February 13, 2020 [6 favorites]


Bloomberg spends a lot of money that funds its way both directly and indirectly into the coffers of Democratic politicians and campaign workers (e.g. consultants, nonprofits). There was a recent interview on the Useful Idiots podcast that went into detail about the extent to which Bloomberg is basically trying to buy significant portions of the Democratic Party and thus the nomination.

It may very well work, but the backlash likely would destroy the Democrats and create a reaction that could explode in multiple unforeseen directions.
posted by eagles123 at 10:10 AM on February 13, 2020 [6 favorites]


Lots of people advocate for open primaries.

One of those people is Bernie Sanders.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 10:46 AM on February 13, 2020


Mr. Bloomberg is also apparently paying his staffers a living wage.

Which is ironic, given that he vetoed a living wage bill in 2012.

Not ironic at all. If the living wage bill passed, he'd have to spend slightly more to be able to brag about what a great and benificent rich guy he is.
posted by tobascodagama at 10:49 AM on February 13, 2020 [3 favorites]


Bernie has a good lead, but to declare 3/4 place dead and buried already is ridiculous from states with so few nonwhite voters they don't even bother breaking them down by age.

This is obviously the one thing Biden is counting on to revive his campaign. Has anyone ever recovered from that large a dip at the start of the primaries, though? I'm not sure and anyway keep in mind that polling (and the very small sample of results from nonwhite voters in IA and NH) also suggests that Sanders is basically the only other person in the top 5 for whom this can be expected to be a favorable situation.
posted by atoxyl at 10:58 AM on February 13, 2020


One of those people is Bernie Sanders.

It would serve him right if he is hoist with his on petard. That was back 2016. This time around the opposition party candidate, Trump, is running unopposed. That is not unusual. Around half the time one of the party's candidates is running unopposed.

That means that party's voters have little incentive to waste their primary vote on an unopposed candidate but a strong incentive to muck around in the other party's primary. In this case they might prefer Buttigieg over Sanders.

Trump himself was campaigning in New Hampshire to encourage people to sabotage the Democratic primary. Others, like worthless NeverTrumper Bill Kristol are encouraging Republicans to help select a Democratic candidate most palatable to worthless NeverTrumpers like Bill Kristol.

Why would any party want to allow people who have no intention of voting for their party's candidate be able to select their party's candidate?
posted by JackFlash at 11:06 AM on February 13, 2020 [8 favorites]


Eh. The states run primary elections, not the parties. If you’re going to have party registration at all, then I guess semi-open (no specifically cross-party voting in the primary) is the best bet. We don’t need to introduce more obstacles to letting people vote.

Tennessee doesn’t have party registration; you just walk in and they ask which primary you want to vote in.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:43 AM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Culinary Union has a lot of influence in Nevada Democratic politics. Their opposition to M4A could hurt Sanders and Warren a lot.

Rank and file Culinary 226 and UNITE Here members are spreading an open statement of support for Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All, as a revolt against leadership
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 12:17 PM on February 13, 2020 [23 favorites]


So she backed off on it, and her final plan is a multi-bill attempt at compromise that first offers a public option before hoping, three years later (after republicans have a chance to gain seats in the house and senate) that THEN all the deeply evil rightwingers in Congress will suddenly decide that providing for their poorest constituents is something they ought to do. It relies on the idea that all the Trump-supporting congresspeople are just going to magically decide to start compromising based on shared empathy.

See, I had the exact opposite reaction when she announced this. My one beef with Sanders is he keeps promising policy ideas that I can get behind, but that I don't think he personally has the capability to implement without a sea change in the legislature that I don't see happening this election. So he's going to be stuck for the first two years trying to fulfill a whole host of policies that he can't make progress on and then we get lackluster support in the midterms. Warren's plan if she were elected would mean a midterm fight and turning that midterm into a referendum on healthcare which the majority of Americans support even if the establishment does not.

As for her political decisions, trying to run any further left for her would be nonsense, she's got the ex-Republican baggage and books she's written with the intro recently changed to reflect her shiny new (not that new) progressive views. The only way she can beat Sanders from the left is if he dies of a heart attack. This is a similar problem with Hillary last go around where every time she tried to lean a little left she got flack from progressives who think he's the American presidential equivalent of Santa Claus, and she's the Queen of insincerity. I like Bernie's consistency, but I have zero trust in his ability to deliver. I know he'll fight, I just don't think a Sanders presidency would've been much different than a Clinton presidency domestically (I voted for Bernie in the primary because Clinton's rhetoric on foreign policy was ridiculously hawkish).

Warren may be in a position where she barely holds on in the polls but hits a brokered convention where Sanders comes in with a plurality but not a majority and she becomes the compromise everyone can live with. I think that would be a very bad outcome, but on the other hand, maybe she's just in it at this point to get offered the VP slot or a cabinet level position.

As a chronic disease sufferer, I have to say most of these healthcare policy options suck so far, but the status quo sucks even harder. We have to break the backs of private insurance companies to get out of this trap, but we also have to develop a culture that isn't so gung-ho about end-of-life interventions that we effectively torture everyone to death as expensively as possible.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:37 PM on February 13, 2020 [5 favorites]


I work in downtown Raleigh, NC and walk by the convention center every day. Big Bloomberg event today - the money has landed. At lunch I went to pick up my Valentine's Day stuff and there's a nice new campaign HQ open as well. Someone tried to give me a sticker and I said no thanks - he's not at the top of my list.
posted by freecellwizard at 12:39 PM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


Bloomberg is also investing heavily in memes

How can someone that rich be so bad with money? Not even the One True Meme could convince young Democratic voters to rally behind a boring old racist.
posted by FakeFreyja at 12:41 PM on February 13, 2020 [3 favorites]


On Bloomberg's racism (besides the call to police brutality (NPR, Feb. 11, 2020), noted above): Bloomberg once blamed end of ‘redlining’ for 2008 collapse (AP News, Feb. 13, 2020) At the height of the 2008 economic collapse, then-New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the elimination of a discriminatory housing practice known as “redlining” was responsible for instigating the meltdown. [...] Bloomberg’s redlining remarks are the latest instance of his past comments by him that have resurfaced in recent days that make him appear racially insensitive.

--

There's sexism, too: ‘I’d Do Her’: Mike Bloomberg and the Underbelly of #MeToo (The Atlantic, Sept. 19, 2018) Disparaging comments. Demeaning jokes. As the mogul reportedly considers a 2020 presidential run, it remains an open question whether his long-alleged history of undermining women will affect his chances. [...] The stories about Mike Bloomberg, though—stories, told through lawsuits and journalistic accounts, that involve allegations not of physical abuse but of more insidious manifestations of misogyny—ask broader questions about the ways electoral politics and basic morality will continue to tangle with each other as #MeToo marches onward.

Will the stories (many of which Bloomberg has publicly denied as the inventions of money-hungry opportunists) have any bearing on his potential presidential candidacy? Will the Americans (and specifically now, apparently, the Democrats) of the current moment consider allegations involving casual misogyny, on the personal level and at the institutional, to be politically disqualifying? Will they consider those claims, indeed, to be worth discussing at all? Or will they dismiss them as the predicable collateral of the thing Americans are conditioned, still, to value above all: the successful accumulation of power and wealth?
--
posted by Iris Gambol at 12:53 PM on February 13, 2020 [6 favorites]


How can someone that rich be so bad with money?

His net worth is something like $61.8 billion. "Investing heavily in memes" for him is probably like one of us sticking a quarter in a gumball machine.
posted by Foosnark at 12:58 PM on February 13, 2020 [23 favorites]


How can someone that rich be so bad with money?

It's not that he's bad with money, he's just so rich that he won't miss the paltry amount of it he's spending on this vanity project.
posted by tobascodagama at 12:59 PM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


Looks like the Nevada culinary workers union isn't endorsing anyone.
posted by cmfletcher at 1:09 PM on February 13, 2020 [6 favorites]


How can someone that rich be so bad with money?
That rich has nothing to do with performance. You're either in the club, or you're not. The club holds you up, success or failure. Once you're seen as past the bar, you're faultless. see: Jeffrey Epstein.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:09 PM on February 13, 2020 [4 favorites]


see: Jeffrey Epstein

Speaking of which, Bloomberg's name is also in Epstein's "little black book." And Bloomberg has been photographed with Ghislaine Maxwell. Just sayin.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 1:32 PM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


literally every time i read anything about ghislaine maxwell i feel like i've been thrown into an alternate universe with different rules than the ones we're used to. basically she seems more like a (particularly unpleasant) character in one of my novels and less like someone who exists in reality. and she sort of grants a patina of unwholesome fictionality to everyone she touches.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 1:42 PM on February 13, 2020 [11 favorites]


Bloomberg can spend $10,000,000 a day on ads and stuff between now and election day and probably still have more money on election day than he does now.
posted by Justinian at 2:37 PM on February 13, 2020 [7 favorites]


I just drove past a random house in my city with a Bloomberg sign in the upper window and a sign in the front yard. It’s spooky.

Anybody got any idea if Bloomberg is paying volunteers and how much? Asking for a friend....
posted by eagles123 at 3:00 PM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


Not "volunteers," but: Mike Bloomberg is Hiring So Many Operatives, Local and State Campaigns are Starving for Help (The Intercept, Feb. 13, 2020) Much of the focus on Bloomberg’s historic
[300 million+] spending spree has been on the TV ads he’s running in at least 29 states, helping boost him into the top tier in polls and driving up the price of air time for other candidates. Beyond pushing out his competitors, though, Bloomberg’s spending is having a shockingly disruptive effect on Democratic politics throughout the country: He is hiring armies of staffers and canvassers in nearly every state in the country at eye-popping salaries, poaching talent from other campaigns and progressive organizations that are now struggling to fill jobs. In just three months, the Bloomberg campaign has hired thousands of people to staff more than 125 offices around the country, the New York Times reported Thursday.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:19 PM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


Well the DNC has opened the velvet rope for Bloomberg to walk onto the debate stage now as well. Not sure how Booker and Harris feel about that.
posted by Harry Caul at 3:34 PM on February 13, 2020 [6 favorites]


Our mayor endorsed Bloomberg today. Last month I was made aware that the Bloomberg campaign had moved into town and was offering insanely good pay in a city where politics (on the street level, at least) doesn't pay shit. (Get yourself a job with the real estate development racket, though, and you're gold.) Bernie, who I support because I'm a better red than dead kinda dude, and who, in this major metropolitan area, has about as diverse a constituency as you'd like to see, is just now opening his first local field office.

I give it less than a month before a whole lotta folks around here are cheering on the not-so-former Republican plutocrat as our greatest hope against the once-upon-a-time Democratic shitheel that currently sits in the Oval Office. Money, of course, will be their argument as to why, or at least how, Bloomberg is best suited to defeat Trump, and those of us who question as to why picking a capitalist with a proven track record of racist, anti-labor behavior, instead of a candidate who's avowedly different in pretty much every way, is a good idea are gonna get treated like we're the assholes.

Maybe shit will shake out in unforeseen ways in the coming months, but if the Democrats decide that Bloomberg is their man, I don't hold out a lot of hope for a D victory. At least another candidate wouldn't reek of wealth and entitlement the way he does.
posted by heteronym at 4:02 PM on February 13, 2020 [12 favorites]


The frustrating part of that argument is that Bloomberg is already on record promising to spend whatever it takes to elect anyone who beats him in the primary, including Sanders and Warren. So at least in theory, everybody has that money to spend in the general.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:17 PM on February 13, 2020 [12 favorites]


Perhaps voting, especially in the U.S., is far more aspirational than anyone would like to closely examine.

Speaking of money, the Bloomberg campaign admitted it "exploited prison labor to make 2020 presidential campaign phone calls," (The Intercept, Dec. 24, 2019) and the Sanders-founded nonprofit Our Revolution is accused of campaign finance law violations (AP News, January 22, 2020): The watchdog group Common Cause filed a complaint [view at DocumentCloud.org] with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, alleging that Our Revolution, a political nonprofit organization founded by Bernie Sanders, violated campaign finance law by accepting donations in excess of federal limits while boosting his White House ambitions. The complaint comes after The Associated Press reported earlier this month ["Shadow group provides Sanders super PAC support he scorns," AP News, Jan. 7 2020] about the donations. [...] It’s far from clear if the FEC, which enforces campaign finance laws, will take action. After a recent resignation, the commission does not currently have enough members to legally meet.

For all the speculation over Warren/Warren campaign missteps after great polling indicators, it seems like there's a marked shift in media coverage after this announcement, even after taking debate performance into account: Elizabeth Warren is limiting donations from Big Tech executives (Axios, October 12, 2019) Elizabeth Warren's 2020 campaign will no longer accept contributions that exceed $200 from Big Tech and financial executives in an effort to keep big money out of politics, she announced Tuesday in a Medium post. [...] Between the lines: Warren is betting that shutting out big donors will attract sustained funding from grassroots donors and organizations. In the 3rd quarter, she raised $24.6 million after swearing off big money fundraisers. [Sen. Elizabeth Warren announces an end to high-dollar fundraisers for her presidential campaign (WaPo, Feb. 25, 2019)]

Then it's, What is happening to Elizabeth Warren? (CNN, Dec. 3, 2019): Less than two months ago, it looked as though Elizabeth Warren might just run away with the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. The Massachusetts senator had surged in Iowa and New Hampshire -- the two states that will lead off the nomination fight earlier next year -- and had pulled into a dead heat with former Vice President Joe Biden nationally. Then that Warren wave hit a wall. Starting right around mid-October, Warren's numbers not only stopped moving upward but also began trending down.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:15 PM on February 13, 2020 [1 favorite]


I give it less than a month before a whole lotta folks around here are cheering on the not-so-former Republican plutocrat as our greatest hope against the once-upon-a-time Democratic shitheel that currently sits in the Oval Office.

“Whole lotta folks” as in more than one person, and “around here” as in within the MeFi politics threads? By the ides of March? Name the stakes and I’ll eagerly take that wager.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 5:25 PM on February 13, 2020 [2 favorites]


Documents reveal DNC was 'intimately involved' in development of troubled Iowa caucus app (Yahoo News, Feb. 13, 2020) An unaffiliated Democratic operative in Iowa provided Yahoo News with a copy of the contract between Shadow and the Iowa Democratic Party. The contract, which was signed on Oct. 14, 2019, and refers to Shadow as the “Consultant,” specified that the company had to work with the DNC and provide the national party with access to its software for testing.

The contract also specifies that Shadow agrees to “provide DNC continual access to review the Consultant’s system configurations, security and system logs, system designs, data flow designs, security controls (preventative and detective), and operational plans for how the Consultant will use and run the Software for informational dissemination, pre-registration, tabulation, and reporting throughout the caucus process.”

An email provided to Yahoo News also appears to show that Seema Nanda, the CEO of the DNC, and Kat Atwater, the national party’s deputy chief technology officer, were involved in drafting the contract and requested the addition of the provision that gave them access to Shadow and the app. In the email, dated July 30, 2019, Atwater provided an IDP official with draft text for the provision detailing the DNC’s access to the app.

Sheesh. See the contract, email, & more at the link.
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:36 PM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


Has anyone ever recovered from that large a dip at the start of the primaries, though?

Bill Clinton had a very large dip in popularity towards the beginning, tanked Iowa, and took second in NH in 1992. I think that’s the worst any candidate has performed in the early states and still taken the nomination. Also, that year Iowa had a hometown hero in the primary so it was sort of a foregone conclusion. The next worst appears to have been McGovern and he still finished in 2nd in both IA and NH.
posted by en forme de poire at 6:30 PM on February 13, 2020 [4 favorites]


Clinton then took 4th (!) and 3rd in the next two contests and didn't win a state until March 3rd where he won only Georgia. So he won only one state out of the first 11! It was not a resounding start. Tsongas won 4 states and came in second in an additional 4 through that period.
posted by Justinian at 8:22 PM on February 13, 2020 [10 favorites]


Paul Tsongas

He was running to be President, not Santa Claus!
posted by thelonius at 4:43 AM on February 14, 2020


Bloomberg aired ads in the NH market that were an enthusiastic endorsement of him by Judge Judy.

For those who value her character judgements.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:51 AM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


Heard my first Bloomberg ad today on the radio at the gym. If Biden is out by the time PA's primary comes around, I'm afraid that it's not unlikely that Bloomberg could win here.
posted by octothorpe at 5:05 AM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


I’m from PA, and I could see Bloomberg winning there in the primary as well. He’d have to win at least one of PA or FL in the general because I see him getting crushed in the Midwest.

It is enraging that Bloomberg funded fucking Toomey in 2016, and now he is a possible front runner in the Democratic primary and basically buying off Democratic Party leaders across the country.
posted by eagles123 at 5:28 AM on February 14, 2020 [7 favorites]


The Democrats need youth and the left to win. If it's Bloomberg, a lot of people will stay home. Bloomberg can destroy the Democratic party and re-elect Trump but I don't think he can buy the presidency.

The thing is, everyone reaches a "the lesser of two evils is how much less evil again now" point. For me, I am by way of thinking that a billionaire buying the race through sheer force of money is where I draw the line. I cannot be having with Mr. Stop and Frisk as president.

I want Sanders because I believe that he will use executive powers immediately and broadly to undo what Trump has done - eg, close the camps, fix what Trump has done to immigration, etc. That's the bottom line for me. It would be nice if we were in an age where those things could be achieved by legislation, but if that were the case, we wouldn't have the problems to begin with. I don't want someone who will sit on their hands and wait for bipartisanship, and of course I don't want someone who wouldn't even really bother fixing most of what Trump has done.

And what does Bloomberg propose to do with his vast fortune while president? Trump has set the standard there and we'll end up with a CEO president manipulating the world to make more money for himself.

OLI GAR CH
posted by Frowner at 5:40 AM on February 14, 2020 [19 favorites]


I will not vote for Bloomberg in the general election . He's a vile man who unlike Trump would be an effective instead of bumbling authoritarian. He'll also sign the same bills Trump would. I mean he's ideologically essentially Dick Cheney and if we can't drum him out of the party then all is lost
posted by dis_integration at 5:54 AM on February 14, 2020 [7 favorites]


Another thought: There's a sizable minority of young-ish (let's say under about thirty) people who plausibly feel that they don't have much of a decent future - that their future consists of awful and precarious housing, low-paid and precarious work for a platform service, medical debt or death from a treatable problem....and of course, massive climate disasters every couple of years. Add on "death from a pandemic because the government doesn't want to save the surplus population or track diseases".

Now if I were still a young person, and I were thinking "maybe we can elect Bernie and then I can get health care and a union and perhaps we'll do something about climate change or at least mitigate the suffering it causes" and then in a fair, transparent election Bernie doesn't win, I'd be pretty upset and worried and it would deepen generational conflict, but on a normal trajectory of ordinary political struggle and protest . If there's a crooked election or if Bloomberg simply buys the thing, well, I would see my future really, really closed off and that's the sort of thing that gets people to start thinking about blowing shit up. If you take away the socialism, people are going to get really into the barbarism is all I'm saying.
posted by Frowner at 5:56 AM on February 14, 2020 [16 favorites]


i mean it’s not just that folx might start blowing shit up, it’s that we don’t have the organization we need to get serious about blowing shit up. I’d like to say that in that case people would start doing socialism socialism — angle to overthrow the corrupt institution of bourgeois electoral democracy / smash capital and its lapdog the state / etc etc etc, but also we don’t have organization and also our current rulers aren’t quite as incompetent as the czars were and also they have drones and tanks and sci-fi surveillance technology and also the fascists have more guns than we do and also even the best case scenario of all that is pretty damn grim.

if bloomberg gets the nomination it’s all done. everyone who can flee the country should, and hope that maybe a generation or two from now america will be worth coming back to.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 6:12 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


“Whole lotta folks” as in more than one person, and “around here” as in within the MeFi politics threads?
Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was talking about people I know in the flesh, not Metafilter.
posted by heteronym at 6:37 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


And yet, of course, most of us can't leave. Not that I fault anyone for leaving - if I won the lottery tomorrow I'd pack up my extended family and close friends and take us all away on those corrupt "you get a visa if you pay several hundred thousand dollars" schemes that most rich countries have. I sooth myself to sleep with that fantasy a lot of nights. (But then I'd really need to take my friends' extended family, right, and their friends, and eventually you run out of money....unless you're a billionaire, in which case you just buy the country.)

But yeah, if Bloomberg literally gets the nomination because of hiring so many people, buying memes, etc, that's a big sign that there is no future in electoral struggle. The billionaires will just overwhelm everyone who is at all a threat to them. (Bloomberg wouldn't be running if Sanders weren't getting traction; he wants to be president to advance the interests of the rich.)

~~
Also a sign of the vacuity and immorality of our political class, down to the lowliest worker. If you're the type of person who would be working for, eg, the Warren campaign or a medical nonprofit but Bloomberg just offered you more money, you have been running a sort of principles scam, where you let people believe that you have a set of definite values in order to succeed. Bloomberg ought to be a bridge too far for everyone, even people whose actual politics aren't that great, because he's very nakedly buying the election. If there's one thing that everyone not actually in the GOP should agree on, it's the extreme wealth should not enable you to enter a race at the last minute with no real political constituency and win it by the sheer weight of your money. Some vague commitment to democracy is necessary.
posted by Frowner at 6:39 AM on February 14, 2020 [17 favorites]


I will vote for Bloomberg in the general if I have to, because Trump, but man that would be disheartening. Proof that democracy is for sale and people are idiots.

Side note: This is why I argue against those who say we should have all the primaries on the same day. A nationwide primary benefits people like Bloomberg, who can flood the airwaves with ads and just outspend everyone else.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 6:53 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


. . if Bloomberg literally gets the nomination . . that's a big sign that there is no future in electoral struggle. The billionaires will just overwhelm everyone who is at all a threat to them.
Indeed, in the last few days this possibility has disheartened me a great deal. Bloomberg would probably be just as corrupt as Trump, but way more skilled at hiding the advantages he was garnering. Things would seem better, quieter (except for Trump's twitter tirades now and then), but behind the scenes more of the gutting of our democracy. Trump has hinted and threatened more than two terms, Bloomberg has actually done it as mayor of New York.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:08 AM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


The Democrats need youth and the left to win.

Why do people still believe this when the electoral college is in effect? This is a genuine question. Do you have electoral math to back this up?

There are only a handful of states that matter for the presidency, and they are not states dominated by either the left or the youth vote (which is still pretty abysmal). Bloomberg can win in those states. He can buy enough advertising to reach every single voter in the country, repeatedly. It's looking increasingly like he will. That those voters then vote for him...I mean, if that's what they want, that's what they want. But he can't buy actual votes. He still has to persuade people to vote for him. And I think people are freaking out because they're realizing he can actually do that, too. Which seems qualitatively different from being upset about, say, voter suppression.

Anyway, he's a racist, sexist, meglomaniac asshole who's smart enough to tone his bullshit down when it's practical for him, congress would hopefully be riding herd on him, and climate change is his priority. (Or at least, he recognizes it as a political priority; whether he'd actually do anything effective is another question.) It's utterly delusional to think the election of Mike Bloomberg would herald civil unrest when the alternative is fucking Trump, as though those would be equivalent crises. I'm actually...like that is...I mean, "offensive" doesn't really cover it.

If "the left" still decides to stay home and fucks congressional elections because they're throwing a tantrum about not being able to vote for someone who never breaks 30% of the primary vote, well, they will have fucked us all.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:22 AM on February 14, 2020 [9 favorites]


Bloomberg would probably be just as corrupt as Trump, but way more skilled at hiding the advantages he was garnering.

I mean, also yes. Worse, actually, because Bloomberg is lawful evil. He wouldn't just be lining his own pockets, he'd be putting structures in place to protect them forever.

I do think it's likely that he will come away with the nomination. More likely than people think. I also think the only way a Bloomberg presidency would be a truly dystopian disaster for democracy in the long term is if the left doesn't vote in congressional (especially Senate) elections.

Everything remains awful.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:28 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


If Michael Bloomberg manages to buy the presidency and further cement us within Gilded Age II, then let's be clear, it is not going to be the left's fault when the democratic party totally beefs it in congressional and senate elections. That's blaming the victim.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:30 AM on February 14, 2020 [16 favorites]


blaming the victim

Not if they sit out the election.

It's not fair. Literally none of this is fair. But someone who lashes out in a way that hurts others because they've been hurt is not any less responsible for the hurt they caused just because they were also hurt. That's not how being an adult works.

Sitting out this election, for any reason, is a choice with consequences for everyone. Let's be honest: withholding is the only way some people think they an inflict punishment. It's a vengeful, emotional reaction. Because if you actually care about anyone besides yourself, we all need to show up regardless of who gets the nomination. I'm not happy about it, either, but that's how it is. We need to show up. Unfortunately I think a number of people will be encouraged not to do that. They'll even see themselves as victims. But they won't be. They'll be the people who want to make sure everyone else hurts more than they do, and who think they're justified in doing so.

Double tragic bonus points to you if you can see how that line of reasoning -- I'm hurt, so I'm going to hurt you -- maps to personal relationships.
posted by schadenfrau at 7:42 AM on February 14, 2020 [16 favorites]


I'd probably hold my nose and vote for -- ugh -- Mayor Pete. I could probably even consider maybe pulling a level for Biden if he picked a really good VP.

Bloomberg can get fucked, though.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:42 AM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


I remember when a lot of people on both left and right sincerely believed that Trump wouldn't touch Social Security, wouldn't seek to get us into foreign wars, etc, because he told us that he wouldn't and that this meant that a Trump presidency would somehow be okay, or at least not as bad as popularly understood. It looks like we've moved over into believing that Michael Bloomberg will do something about climate change - against his interests and the interests of his class - because he put some pretty ads on the teevee, and this makes him better than Trump despite the misogyny, transphobia, stop and frisk, billionaire priorities, etc.

If Bloomberg wanted to do something about climate change, he's what, the ninth richest person in the world. He could do a lot more not as president than as president simply by throwing his money around and working on his godawful billionaire buddies.
posted by Frowner at 7:42 AM on February 14, 2020 [27 favorites]


And one might productively ask oneself just what the billionaire inventor of stop and frisk would do about climate change in any case. "Work barracks and gruel for the 95%, environmentally sound pleasure domes for the rest" is pretty much the ideal of the wealthy class and it wouldn't take much to make those environmentally sound.
posted by Frowner at 7:44 AM on February 14, 2020 [8 favorites]


If a billionaire with no serious constituency can enter the race late, forfeit the first few states, and STILL buy the election away from the first serious, viable leftist presidential candidate in many decades, then many of those who want to dismantle capitalism will take it as proof that capital accumulation has progressed to the point that any attempts to use electoral politics to effect anti-capitalist change will be instantly and effortlessly extinguished by any one random billionaire, just on a whim. Why would you expect the left to continue engaging in electoralism after that?

Trust me, if it's proven that the Democratic Party can be bought that cheaply then moralist liberal hostage taking isn't going to re-enfranchise people.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 7:44 AM on February 14, 2020 [17 favorites]


Has anyone ever recovered from that large a dip at the start of the primaries, though?

Bill Clinton had a very large dip in popularity towards the beginning, tanked Iowa, and took second in NH in 1992.

The sample size of "Successful Democratic nominees who have won a general election" is 2 over the past 40+ years, so maybe it's not really worthwhile to get bent out of shape over heuristics like this.
posted by schmod at 7:45 AM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


The sample size of "Successful Democratic nominees who have won a general election" is 2 over the past 40+ years
I think that's successful democratic nominees who haven't had their win stolen from them. And these thefts were 1. by Brooks Brothers bros and the Supreme Court in one case,
and 2. Russian interference with a msm assist in the other.

On the other hand, there's only been one Republican nominee who won the popular vote since 1989.

We may have been living in Gilded Age II longer than we thought.
posted by Harry Caul at 7:53 AM on February 14, 2020 [8 favorites]


michael bloomberg, bless his heart, does throw some of his pocket change into stopping climate change. that is a true fact about him and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

that said: i was planning on spending most of the summer in [undisclosed purple state] near [undisclosed location] knocking doors for (sanders, warren, whoever). if bloomberg gets the nomination i’ll be knocking doors for dsa-aligned candidates for lower offices instead. i completely respect the decision of anyone who decides to sit out the electoral game altogether... but if and only if they use the time they’ve thereby freed up to get involved in serious illegal conspiracies aimed at the violent overthrow of capitalism and the united states government.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 7:53 AM on February 14, 2020 [13 favorites]


The youth/left vote is important in PA to increase turnout in Philly/Lancaster/College towns/Pittsburgh to overcome Trumps dominance with older voters in rural and post industrial areas.

In Florida, it’s important to overcome the retirees and conservative white voters in the Northern part of the state.

Bloomberg might be able to do it in PA by winning over suburbanites around Philly/Pittsburgh mad about Trump. On the other hand, he might not.

There are no gurantees.
posted by eagles123 at 7:57 AM on February 14, 2020


and like right now we are catastrophizing, just a little. bloomberg is not polling great, sanders is in the lead everywhere, all is not yet lost.

capital hated trumpism until it got too big to stop, and they weren’t able to keep it from getting too big to stop. maybe sanders will get too big for capital to stop. maybe capital isn’t omnipotent. maybe socialism will win.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:01 AM on February 14, 2020 [13 favorites]


Let me be clear about something:

there's only one political faction threatening to withhold their votes if their guy isn't nominated, but they're NOT the hostage takers? That is your position?

I mean...you can't argue with someone who has abandoned all logic, so I'm out. This is one of the abusive dynamics I was talking about upthread.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:02 AM on February 14, 2020 [7 favorites]


if bloomberg gets the nomination i trust him to hire his own canvassers. they’ll be better at selling the bloomberg party line than i’ll be, that’s for sure.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:03 AM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


Bloomberg is terrible. I dearly hope he does not win the primary, and it's honestly too early to even be having this conversation
Now is actually the perfect time. Puts the issues on the table for all. Threatening holding a vote against Bloomberg can be an effective measure against getting him nominated. Them's politics, particularly during primary season.
posted by Harry Caul at 8:06 AM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


Threatening holding a vote against Bloomberg can be an effective measure against getting him nominated.

I mean, if the rule is literally that I must vote for any Democratic candidate as long as they are at least 1mm to the left of Trump, that's really barely voting at all, right? All that means is that as long as the GOP gets worse, so do the Democrats. This is not a new thought, but it's not a trivial problem, either.

Bloomberg this year, Zuckerberg or Bezos or someone later, and we'll all just pull the lever like conditioned rats. Eventually we'll be voting not to be assisted into suicide when we're too old to work and told that we should be grateful that we have the choice - after all, if we don't vote for the Let Me Live In A Gutter Til I Die A Natural Death party, the Soylent Green Once You Reach 65 party will win!
posted by Frowner at 8:13 AM on February 14, 2020 [21 favorites]


"You absolutely must, must vote for Trump's psychopath racist misogynist Republican billionaire golf buddy and fellow Epstein flight log cameo, otherwise you are at fault for all America's problems"

No. I will not vote for Trump's despicable friend who doesn't actually care if he loses to Trump and who ran solely to kneecap the left. I will not pretend that banning soda in the child concentration camps would be an improvement. I will be rooting for the rioters in Milwaukee.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:15 AM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


there's only one political faction threatening to withhold their votes if their guy isn't nominated

There are links in this very thread that demonstrate the falsity of that statement.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:19 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mod note: Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon, that's way too far, you know it's way too far, and if you won't cut it out with the violence, I will give you a day off.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:26 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Nate Silver last week:

Bloomberg fans seem excited by the possibility that the race could eventually come down to Bloomberg vs. Sanders. I agree that it could, that's not crazy. But I think Sanders would be a fairly heavy favorite in that race!

(responding to a tweet with poll data:
Fav/unfav among Dem voters (1/22 @MonmouthPoll):
Sanders: 72/24
Bloomberg: 48/31)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:29 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Just on a "practical solutions that we can probably never implement" kick: "Vote for the lesser of two evils" will always be a problem as long as there is no minimum percentage of citizens who vote needed to legitimate the election. In theory, if Peter Thiel, Mitch McConnell and Bernie Sanders were the only three people who voted and Trump got two votes, it would be a legit election as long as everyone stayed home "voluntarily".

If an election was not legitimate unless at least, oh, whatever, 80% of eligible voters voted, things would look a bit different because it wouldn't benefit anyone to drive people away from the polls and staying home would be a meaningful threat.
posted by Frowner at 8:32 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


Folks, I'm beginning to think it wasn't such a great idea to centralize so much power in the presidency, and then gradually erode the barriers and checks to be elected to such a position. And that's also not forget the open question of whether the further loosening of the few norms and guardrails on the office by the current administration will carry on into the next one.
posted by FJT at 8:33 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mike Bloomberg’s PAC spent $2.3 million on ads backing former GOP Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan in his successful re-election bid–right after the poisoning of Flint began. He also held a fundraiser for Snyder at his home, and praised his union-busting.

Vote for the guy who spent more money than you will ever have to ensure the accumulation of lead in the bodies of poor black children or you're part of the problem.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:33 AM on February 14, 2020 [15 favorites]


Honestly between Trump and Bloomberg, Trump might be the lesser of the two evils if only because he is so much stupider.

Years ago in this thread I made a joke about voting Bloomberg 2020 and I regret it! I regret everything!
posted by chuntered inelegantly from a sedentary position at 8:41 AM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


What is this thing where a group of people descend to viciously mock a straw man in a kind of...I guess mutually masturbatory exercise? Does it have a name yet? I feel like I see it all over the place online, but I don’t know if it’s been identified with a useful handle.

Anyway. Literally no one has defended Mike Bloomberg (unless you count RNTP’s inconvenient fact checking). He is a very bad person with a lot of money and definite authoritarian tendencies. I actually know this; I’m a New Yorker. He is not as bad as Trump. So if he’s the nominee against Trump, that doesn’t change your moral obligation to vote, especially in congressional races. If you’re in a safe blue state, write in whoever the fuck you want for President, but show the fuck up and vote down ballot. If you’re in one of the only states that matter for the presidential election, fuck yes you’re a selfish asshole if don’t vote for a literal shit sandwich over Trump. Do those things, then go on to organize and do whatever the hell else to help get us out of this dystopian hellhole, but do those things. Triage is a fucking thing. You get rid of the insane person who just last month almost got us into a war with Iran first. Then you deal with the rest.

This isn’t fucking rocket science. And if you believe in solidarity only so long as your preferred candidate wins, you don’t know what that word means.
posted by schadenfrau at 8:56 AM on February 14, 2020 [18 favorites]


I truly believe Bloomberg is running because he does not think any of the other candidates can beat Trump. I also believe that if Bloomberg doesn't win the nomination, he will support whoever does. He doesn't have a perfect record or a perfect history, but he is someone who learns from his mistakes (and not the same way Trump "learns" from his) and I think he's trying to do the right thing now.

I am speaking as a former New Yorker who lived in NW Queens during the 2006 blackout, which wasn't one of Bloomberg's finest moments.
posted by wondermouse at 8:59 AM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


He is a very bad person with a lot of money and definite authoritarian tendencies. I actually know this; I’m a New Yorker. He is not as bad as Trump.

He is too bad to vote for, period.

So if he’s the nominee against Trump, that doesn’t change your moral obligation to vote, especially in congressional races.

Nobody here said they wouldn't vote downballot.

He doesn't have a perfect record or a perfect history, but he is someone who learns from his mistakes (and not the same way Trump "learns" from his) and I think he's trying to do the right thing now.

I'm logging off for the day I think
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:03 AM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


Will I go home and throw up after voting, if forced to vote Bloomberg in November? Yes.

Will I do it anyway because I am a single-issue voter and that issue is climate because if our planet literally burns up none of the other bad shit matters anyway? Also yes.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 9:04 AM on February 14, 2020 [9 favorites]


I truly believe Bloomberg is running because he does not think any of the other candidates can beat Trump.

oh for chrissake, bloomberg is running because he thinks bernie can beat trump and he is afraid of losing his ill-gotten billions
posted by entropicamericana at 9:07 AM on February 14, 2020 [28 favorites]


Climate change is caused by capitalism and, as an uber-capitalist, there is no universe in which Bloomberg harms capitalism to the extent that would be required to fix climate change.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:09 AM on February 14, 2020 [17 favorites]


And I'm sorry, I will vote for downballot races if I believe it to be strategically worthwhile, but you can write 1,000 overlong, condescending screeds about the sacred institution of bourgeois electoral democracy and my moral obligation to prop up the democratic party with my vote no matter how naked their corruption or abysmal their intentions, but I am NOT going to vote for Bloomberg for president. Ever.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 9:21 AM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


I’d vote for Bloomberg too if he was the nominee, but I’m honestly not even sure why at this point. In the past, my policy has been to vote for the leftmost candidate in the primary and the general. That’s why I could support Bernie in the primary and vote for Clinton in the general in 16 without much thought.

This time around, I’d vote for Bloomberg, but I can’t summon the energy to lie to myself about whether he actually gives a fuck about any issues on the left. For instance, if cared about global warming, why would he support Republicans who would vote against any measures to combat it?

This is all ego and vanity. And, there is a more than good chance he’d get crushed by Trump anyway. No matter what anyone posts here, the left and young people would mostly stay home. There is nothing anyone can write in this space that would change that. Even among older people and “moderates”, Bloomberg is a guy who likes gun control and taxing soda - not exactly popular positions. He’d most likely get crushed by Trump in the general regardless of what polling says now.
posted by eagles123 at 9:22 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


bloomberg is running because he thinks bernie can beat trump

Remember, he said he wasn't running in March 2019, and that was after Bernie announced his own run in February. And he started making the motions to enter in late October/November, and that was before the recent Sanders surge. At that time there was no obvious sign that Sanders was breaking out yet. I think this doesn't really have to do with Sanders or Trump. I just think as a businessperson he sees an "opportunity" (in other words: various weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the democratic field and general election that he can take advantage of) and wants to increase his power and ego. That's it.
posted by FJT at 9:22 AM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


It baffles me that the Democratic establishment's favored plan is to have the 2020 general election be a race between two racist Republican oligarchs.
posted by splitpeasoup at 9:32 AM on February 14, 2020 [15 favorites]


Elizabeth Warren says Mike Bloomberg’s redlining comments disqualify him from being Democratic nominee < Boston Globe.
She gets it. Stop the oligarchs.
posted by Harry Caul at 9:34 AM on February 14, 2020 [25 favorites]


I will not vote for Trump's despicable friend who doesn't actually care if he loses to Trump and who ran solely to kneecap the left. I will not pretend that banning soda in the child concentration camps would be an improvement. I will be rooting for the rioters in Milwaukee

Did I miss a memo informing us that we can root for the rioters OR voter for the slightly lesser evil, but not both? There are only going to be two options in the presidential election; why not have some say in exactly what sort of struggle we’re going to be engaging in over the subsequent four years?
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:47 AM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


Tennessee has early voting, so Super Tuesday came early for me today. There were so many candidates that Ye Olde Touchscreen Voting Machine bumped Warren and everyone after her alphabetically onto page 2.

I also voted for General Sessions Court Clerk, because what we really needed was *2* primaries with a ton of candidates.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 10:47 AM on February 14, 2020


So, I got out after the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election. I only vote in federal elections out of principle, because foreign policy still affects me as an expat. Geographically, downballot for me is meaningless. In November 2016 I seriously considered paying a visit to the embassy to leave my passport, but was convinced otherwise by Americans I care about. But if Bloomberg buys himself the Democratic nomination, that may be the last straw. Why all these billionaires don't spend their money on GOTV or something meaningful I just don't understand.
posted by St. Oops at 10:50 AM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


You know what, I'd be eager to vote for Bloomberg.

He has a solid track record for carbon-free energy initiatives (Beyond Coal launched in 2016, and Beyond Carbon launched in 2019). Climate change is the issue I care most about.

I'll vote for whoever the dem nominee is, but the only two candidates I'm excited to vote for are Bloomberg or Mayor Pete.
posted by leslietron at 10:51 AM on February 14, 2020


There have been 40 sexual harassment and discrimination suits brought against Michael Bloomberg by 64 different women.

As a woman, I'm not voting for him. Period.
posted by kafziel at 10:52 AM on February 14, 2020 [21 favorites]


Mod note: I know people are het up about the election, but let's dial it back on calling people (potentially) assholes, and maybe don't turn this into a Bloomberg Y/N wrassling match. thanks.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:56 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Climate change is the issue I care most about.

Let me tell you about this cool new thing, maybe you've heard of it, The Green New Deal. The republicans and fossil fuel industry are more scared of it than any other climate legislation proposal by far, so you know it's got the juice. Specially formulated to not cause yellow vest protests too, by not putting the burden of it on the victims of climate crisis.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 10:59 AM on February 14, 2020 [8 favorites]


The logic of solidarity, unity, and pragmatism for the general election implies voting for the Democrat whoever they are. The logic of solidarity, unity and pragmatism for the primary implies voting for the most popular, least divisive, quickest-to-consolidate candidate right now. That person -- highest favorables, current front-runner, lacking opponents threatening to boycott the general -- is Sanders. Sure, yell at the Sanders folks for threatening to not vote for Bloomberg in the general. But in the meantime, any pragmatist worth their salt should be holding their nose and explicitly supporting the popular front-runner Sanders over the most divisive candidate Bloomberg.

If you want to support Buttigieg or Klobuchar instead, that's fine. You can prefer their policies, in which case it's totally reasonable to want them to come from the back of the pack and eke out a win. Or you can prefer them for pragmatic reasons, but in that case you need a pretty good explanation why, despite having far worse favorables and weaker head-to-head numbers, you think they can outperform Sanders in the general; and in addition, to explain how that pragmatic consideration outweighs the competing pragmatic desire to consolidate behind the front-runner and end the primary as soon as possible in order to focus on the general.

I personally hate pragmatic arguments because they are almost always based on unknowable empirical predictions, and therefore prefer that everyone just vote for who they like. But if we do go down the pragmatic road, the pragmatists have to realize that right now, most of the pragmatic arguments they were mustering against Sanders now operate in his favor.
posted by chortly at 11:06 AM on February 14, 2020 [11 favorites]


Let me tell you about this cool new thing, maybe you've heard of it, The Green New Deal.

I support the Green New Deal, though I think it also needs to include next-generation nuclear power. I don't think that Bernie Sanders is capable of implementing it. He's unable to compromise -- that's a fine trait for a Senator, but a deal-breaker for the presidency.
posted by leslietron at 11:11 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


It hasn't been a deal-breaker for any Republican president. They've just been doing whatever they want.
posted by kafziel at 11:16 AM on February 14, 2020 [15 favorites]


You know, I'm really sick of this "Vote Blue, No Matter Who" at this juncture. Bloomberg is horrific, and his presidency would be equally so. He would be worse than George W. Bush, so unless you're focusing on recruiting GWB Republicans into the Race, let people say that Bloomberg can burn in hell for the next several months. We'll assess worst case scenarios after that.

At that point, revolution might be a better antidote.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 11:22 AM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


I mean, if the rule is literally that I must vote for any Democratic candidate as long as they are at least 1mm to the left of Trump, that's really barely voting at all, right? All that means is that as long as the GOP gets worse, so do the Democrats. This is not a new thought, but it's not a trivial problem, either.

There's a paradox of lesser-evil voting - maybe some actual game theory, even? - which is that the moral case that an individual should always do it is pretty easy to make, because it appears to cost nothing but if every voter actually always did it, then politicians would have basically no accountability to voters. The easy response to that is "that's what primaries are for" - treating the Democratic party like a democratic centralist party, a little bit - but the most likely case in which Bloomberg is the nominee is arguably a case in which the ability of the primary system to determine a legitimate consensus candidate has broken down. It's just fundamentally going to be electoral chaos, and an implicit premise of Bloomberg's campaign is effectively that the die hards of the left wing don't matter or are eventually going to come along anyway. If that's wrong, maybe it's a little bit on each of those voters, but it's a lot on Bloomberg for butting his head into this thing thinking he's got the answer.

There's also something very "we have to destroy democracy to save it" about his candidacy, which is... not an appealing pitch.
posted by atoxyl at 11:27 AM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


You know, I'm really sick of this "Vote Blue, No Matter Who" at this juncture. Bloomberg is horrific, and his presidency would be equally so. He would be worse than George W. Bush, so unless you're focusing on recruiting GWB Republicans into the Race, let people say that Bloomberg can burn in hell for the next several months. We'll assess worst case scenarios after that.

Bloomberg is quite literally Trump, but more polite. And watching liberals cast aside all their puerile idpol arguments against Sanders to rally around the man running on a platform of being the Richest Whitest Man, supporting his blisteringly racist and sexist past and pretending that he's going to be any different from Trump in the White House, is just ... sad.

The Party is not a sacred entity. The Party is not owed votes. The Party needs to be worth voting for.
To me, the group of people with no real beliefs that demand you vote for them because they aren’t someone else is very inspiring - @MurderBryan on twitter.
posted by kafziel at 11:30 AM on February 14, 2020 [9 favorites]


Is there a specific political calculus that says the left would do better with Trump than with any Democratic candidate who is to the right of Sanders or, alternately, as far right as Bloomberg? For example, if Trump wins he will almost certainly end up replacing Ginsburg on the Supreme Court with another Kavanaugh, and I can't imagine any Democratic candidate, even Bloomberg, doing something that bad. Is there any specific good counterbalancing that bad thing?
posted by bright flowers at 11:33 AM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


If you need to get somebody you know on the left to vote for Bloomberg in the general, you should probably start saving those articles about people who got deported back to countries where they were tortured and killed. That might do the trick. And I would never defend not voting downballot - that's where a lot of action is for progressive political change, for one thing. But even in this election disaffected lefties are almost certainly going to be outnumbered by people who don't even bother to vote because they simply don't care or believe it makes a difference in their lives.
posted by atoxyl at 11:34 AM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


To put it into a pop culture way, even if Godzilla can stop Mecha Godzilla, you still have Godzilla to worry about afterwards.

And there's no guarantee that revolution can't be co-opted either.
posted by FJT at 11:36 AM on February 14, 2020


If you need to get somebody you know on the left to vote for Bloomberg in the general, you should probably start saving those articles about people who got deported back to countries where they were tortured and killed. That might do the trick. And I would never defend not voting downballot - that's where a lot of action is for progressive political change, for one thing. But even in this election disaffected lefties are almost certainly going to be outnumbered by people who don't even bother to vote because they simply don't care or believe it makes a difference in their lives.

Trump is deporting people at roughly 75% the rate that Obama was, even in his first term. And he ramped it up in his second.

All deportations are monstrous. Few if any on the Democratic slate will change that.
posted by kafziel at 11:36 AM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


Counterpoint: voting for a fascist like Bloomberg perpetuates a system that gave rise to Trump. Also I’m in a blue state.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:36 AM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


I don't even really disagree with the people who don't like Bloomberg. I felt uneasy as soon as he announced that he was running (which, if I remember correctly, happened soon after Warren tried to go into more detail about how her health care plan would be funded and a lot of the popular support for her suddenly vanished). But the whole Bloomberg thing is way more complicated than "billionaire doesn't want to pay higher taxes" or "he's a power hungry egomaniac."

People need to keep in mind that as horrible as Trump is, the economy is strong and unemployment is low. People who saw their retirement funds gutted during the recession have seen them bounce back at incredibly high levels since Trump took office. Whether or not that should be attributed to Trump or Obama is not something a lot of Americans would be up for debating- what they see is Trump is president now and their retirement savings look amazing. These are individuals who currently live comfortable lives, even if Trump himself makes them uncomfortable. And of course Trump will take all the credit for all that's good and blame Democrats for everything that's bad.

I think a lot of those people maybe haven't quite digested how fragile the country is right now. And I think a lot of them would be afraid to vote for a truly progressive candidate because of what it might mean to their future finances. I think that is why Bloomberg is running as opposed to just supporting one of the other candidates- because he thinks he can attract people like that away from Trump, and that Sanders and Warren would drive their votes to Trump.

Regardless of what happens, this is going to be really, really, really ugly.
posted by wondermouse at 11:54 AM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


But in the meantime, any pragmatist worth their salt should be holding their nose and explicitly supporting the popular front-runner Sanders over the most divisive candidate Bloomberg.

After two non-representational states have voted, Sanders has gotten the highest percentage of votes cast so far, with 26.1% to Buttigieg's 24.6%.

The Democratic primary isn't decided by popular vote, though, it's decided by delegates, and Buttigieg is the frontrunner by delegate count.

Buttigieg: 22
Sanders: 21
Warren: 8
Klobuchar: 7
Biden: 6

36 delegates are at stake in the Nevada caucuses on February 22 (with Sanders leading in polls), 54 in the South Carolina primary on February 29 (with Biden leading), and 1,344 on Super Tuesday (March 3). I think it's too early to talk about coalescing behind a frontrunner.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:56 AM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


To be honest, I always thought Bloomberg was running to protect his wealth & holdings.
posted by ZeusHumms at 12:02 PM on February 14, 2020 [7 favorites]


Also Bloomberg has 0 delegates and won’t even be on the ballot until Super Tuesday, which is 3 days after he receives 0 votes in South Carolina. He would have to win at the convention, and it seems unclear why he would win there rather than any of the actual Democratic politicians—some of them establishment figures, even—who are running.

At any rate, that wouldn’t happen until July, and we don’t have to pre-emptively worry about it now.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 12:03 PM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


I think it's too early to talk about coalescing behind a frontrunner.

I totally agree. I was mostly just pointing out the inconsistency of the pragmatists, who a few months ago were arguing in favor of coalescing around Biden on pragmatic, front-runner, most non-white-support, can-beat-Trump grounds, and now are saying "hold on, hold on, it's too early to make pragmatic arguments, let's wait and see." I very much support waiting and seeing, particularly if it means never having to hear another pragmatic argument for who to vote for based on polling data. Somehow, though, I doubt those arguments will remain in abeyance if, say, Bloomberg, Buttigieg or Klobuchar manage to take the lead in national polls or among non-white voters.
posted by chortly at 12:13 PM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


Based on polling, funding, and the votes already cast, the only candidates with a shot at capturing a plurality (not majority) of delegates are Sanders, Bloomberg, Biden, or Buttegeig.

Right now, Biden and Buttegeig are being kept afloat financially by superpac money. Buttegeig has yet to demonstrate he can attract voters other than elderly and/or relatively well off white people. Biden has yet to demonstrate his support in polls doesn’t evaporate the minute people actually vote.

In a race with this many participants it’s hard to say definitively how things will shake out, but I would say those are ”knowns” at this point.
posted by eagles123 at 12:29 PM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'd probably hold my nose and vote for -- ugh -- Mayor Pete.

I resent this name so much - as if he is on the same level as McCheese. The gall of it.
posted by thelonius at 12:34 PM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


People who saw their retirement funds gutted during the recession have seen them bounce back at incredibly high levels since Trump took office. Whether or not that should be attributed to Trump or Obama is not something a lot of Americans would be up for debating- what they see is Trump is president now and their retirement savings look amazing. These are individuals who currently live comfortable lives, even if Trump himself makes them uncomfortable.

On the other hand, I have no expectation that "amazing" retirement savings will keep me alive for long if something doesn't happen to fix health care, nor that retirement savings will mean much in the face of climate disaster.
posted by Foosnark at 12:46 PM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


wondermouse : I think a lot of those people maybe haven't quite digested how fragile the country is right now.

I agree. So far this term most of the crises have been relatively small ones of Trump's own making. He hasn't come face to face with anything serious that requires actual leadership yet, but of course there are so many things that could happen. I hope anyone considering a "none of the above" vote has considered some of those possibilities.

I care about a lot of things but the only thing that really matters to me is the climate, because it's an existential risk and me voting against it would be me saying that I don't think having civilization is worth the cost. I hope I never have to test how far I'd go to support that position, but Bloomberg doesn't even budge the needle on that for me. Yet I understand how the climate crisis can be taken advantage of by people who want to push through other horrible things. But what can I do? I'm not willing to give up on humanity yet, and we are out of time.
posted by bright flowers at 12:47 PM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


People need to keep in mind that as horrible as Trump is, the economy is strong and unemployment is low. People who saw their retirement funds gutted during the recession have seen them bounce back at incredibly high levels since Trump took office. Whether or not that should be attributed to Trump or Obama is not something a lot of Americans would be up for debating- what they see is Trump is president now and their retirement savings look amazing. These are individuals who currently live comfortable lives, even if Trump himself makes them uncomfortable. And of course Trump will take all the credit for all that's good and blame Democrats for everything that's bad.

Unemployment is low because a lot of people are working multiple bad jobs that are killing them. Most people do not have a big retirement fund to see it bounce back at high levels.

This is not what America looks like, and it's people like Bloomberg and Trump both who caused it.
posted by kafziel at 12:51 PM on February 14, 2020 [15 favorites]


Burhanistan, yes, I agree about Hurricane Maria being a serious crisis that Trump failed at. Thanks for pointing that out.
posted by bright flowers at 1:00 PM on February 14, 2020


oh for chrissake, bloomberg is running because he thinks bernie can beat trump and he is afraid of losing his ill-gotten billions

To be more accurate, he's afraid of losing like a couple of his ill-gotten billions. Probably not even one. Sanders is the indeed the most radical candidate in this race, but the token amount of wealth-redistribution he's proposing won't even put the tiniest of dents in the massive wealth of Bloomberg and his asshole golfing buddies. Doesn't stop them from being offended at the very idea, though.

I resent this name so much - as if he is on the same level as McCheese. The gall of it.

Mayor McCheese is ten times the leader that soulless, racist cop-lover is. Don't mention him in the same sentence.
posted by tobascodagama at 1:05 PM on February 14, 2020 [10 favorites]


In re deportation: Without wanting to make any excuses for anyone (the cousin of someone I know was deported by Obama, and he was virtually instantly killed by the gang he'd fled; I was drawn into immigrants' rights issues/activism in 2009) I think that there's a lot of misunderstanding of deportation stuff and therefore a misunderstanding of why immigration is an important issue in this election.

Obama's deportation numbers result from a change in how deportations are counted. His administration did increase the powers and budget of ICE and the DHS (including a lot of surveillance and Secure Communities stuff that will bite everyone, citizen and non-, in the future) , but not in the way that Trump has. Deportation numbers declined in the later years of the Obama administration and, as we know, DACA (deeply flawed as it is) was passed.

The Trump administration has radically increased the number of people detained and the length of time that they are held, hence the border camps. They have also excluded people from coming to the US (the "Muslim ban") which is a real, material, awful thing for people in my area because we have many Somali immigrants with family still in Somalia. The Trump administration has made legal crossing of the border into an incredibly fraught thing for any immigrant or non-citizen. Because of the "wait in Mexico" rules and the refusal of refugees, we have many people on our borders and in other bad situations who would normally have crossed here and begun to apply for asylum. They're fucking people over on DACA and stuff in ways that were not the case in the past. Churches, courts and public spaces are being patrolled by ICE much, much more aggressively than in the past.

This is all essentially theater intended to increase the climate of racist hatred in this country. By contrast, the Obama administration mostly wanted to keep this stuff under wraps - they wanted to do it, which was garbage, but they weren't doing it specifically to foment hatred.

As I've mentioned here before, I do immigration court observation a couple of times a month. Here, in Minnesota (pretty far from the Mexican border!) it is now very, very difficult to find a lawyer for an immigration case, especially a sliding scale or pro bono one, because they are all so busy. Judges have started cautioning detained people that they have to call and keep calling over and over again because a lot of places don't even have reliable messaging services, they're so slammed. (And these are not necessarily judges who I've observed to be fantastically humane and immigrant-first) People are getting multiple continuances to find a lawyer because they aren't getting it done the first time.

For a while, we were getting people who had been detained at the border (the Mexican border - in Minnesota!) three months previously. We sometimes get initial hearing where they process three or four people at once.

The current situation with detention camps, refusal of refugees, the "wait in Mexico" policy and the attacks on detainee rights is definitely worse than it was under Obama. There is a lot of very glib reporting about immigration by people who want to treat it as a gotcha against one side or another. Things are getting worse in a very ugly way that really impacts life in immigrant neighborhoods.
posted by Frowner at 1:07 PM on February 14, 2020 [39 favorites]


Can we please discuss the primaries without the "but what if the nominee is Bloomberg" fanfic? It's premature, fighty, and boring.
posted by medusa at 2:25 PM on February 14, 2020 [10 favorites]


Is it spiteful to imagine Bloomberg spending hundreds of millions of dollars of his own money to be elected...Vice President?
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:36 PM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


The prediction markets currently put Bloomberg at around 25% odds of winning (including, presumably, via a contest convention) and he's currently in third place in national polling, so it's hardly fanfic.
posted by chortly at 2:45 PM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


Yep, if Bloomberg winning is fanfic so is well over half this thread. Might as well shut it all down.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 3:32 PM on February 14, 2020


Is Bloomberg the Democrats’ Best Hope? (NYT, 02/13/2020) Readers offer conflicting answers and address the controversy over his stop-and-frisk policy.

"To the Editor:

"Re “Paging Michael Bloomberg,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Feb. 12):

"I am a Trump supporter, but the only Democrat I would vote for is Michael Bloomberg. The reasons for this are given quite nicely by Mr. Friedman. From my point of view Mr. Bloomberg is right on the social issues that Mr. Friedman cites, and most knowledgeable on business issues, budgets and how to run a major big organization like our government...."

Why ‘Stop and Frisk’ Hasn’t Arrested Bloomberg’s Rise (NY Mag, 02/13/2020) A Quinnipiac poll published on Monday found that the billionaire had leapfrogged Bernie Sanders among black Democrats, notching 22 percent support to Sanders’s 19 and Biden’s still field-leading 27. [...] MSNBC anchor Joy Reid similarly touted Bloomberg’s status as a former Republican official to convey his singular advantage in out-dueling the president. “If you want a Democrat to win, they have to know how to fight like a Republican,” she said on Tuesday. “[Bloomberg] is a Republican, or used to be anyway.”

Bloomberg storms to the center of the 2020 presidential fray (NBC News, 02/12/2020) [...] And Trump has to worry that he'll end up facing off against a more successful capitalist who beat Sanders and proved that the Democratic Party isn't the "socialist" summer camp that Trump likes to portray it as.

"Bloomberg could win the Trump campaign before Trump gets to," [Republican strategist Alex] Castellanos said.

------

I'd wondered how "Bloomberg drawing some of Trump's base" would be presented as a talking (selling) point. "I am a Trump supporter, but the only Democrat I would vote for is Michael Bloomberg," oh, GTFO, your trousers are ablaze. And that "major big organization like our government"-- ye gods, it's catching.
This is my dyspeptic face.
posted by Iris Gambol at 3:39 PM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


MSNBC anchor Joy Reid similarly touted Bloomberg’s status as a former Republican official to convey his singular advantage in out-dueling the president. “If you want a Democrat to win, they have to know how to fight like a Republican,” she said on Tuesday. “[Bloomberg] is a Republican, or used to be anyway.”

Joy Reid on who should lead the Democratic party: "I don't think it can be Bernie Sanders, because as we all know, he's not a Democrat."
Joy Reid on Bloomberg: "if you want a Democrat to win, you must vote for a Republican"
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:00 PM on February 14, 2020 [10 favorites]


Oh no, Joy Reid has been hacked yet again!
posted by Atom Eyes at 4:16 PM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


From one of those Bloomberg articles:

But while Harris has since dropped out and Klobuchar continues to flounder in the polls, neither of their struggles seems noticeably attributable to backlash against their zeal for imprisoning people.

You don't think it had anything to do with sinking Harris? I mean it was an issue in context of the image she was trying to present, but...
posted by atoxyl at 4:19 PM on February 14, 2020 [2 favorites]


“If you want a Democrat to win, they have to know how to fight like a Republican,” she said on Tuesday.

But the Republicans couldn't defeat Trump... Why would we fight like them?
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 4:24 PM on February 14, 2020 [11 favorites]


There's a quite low but non-zero chance Bloomer could be the nominee, but maybe let's wait until he gets at least one single delegate before crowning him as the Great Democratic Hope, NYT and Joy Reid?
posted by Justinian at 4:52 PM on February 14, 2020 [10 favorites]


Joy Reid earns about $1.5 million per year from MSNBC. I wouldn't be surprised if her interests align more closely with Bloomberg than Sanders.
posted by JackFlash at 5:56 PM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


Enngg maybe. Making $1.5 million per year sounds huge to us, because it is, but that's essentially no different than making $10k a year to someone like Mike Bloomberg.
posted by Justinian at 6:15 PM on February 14, 2020 [3 favorites]


I mean, not only is she paid that absurd level of wealth, but she gets it from the Bloombergs of the world in order to promote their interests.
posted by kafziel at 6:19 PM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


Mostly-official delegate count as of February 14 (1991 required to win nomination):
BUTTIGIEG 23
SANDERS 21
WARREN 8
KLOBUCHAR 7
BIDEN 6
GABBARD, BLOOMBERG, STEYER, JUSTINIAN, PUFFY, CHRYSOSTOM, CORTEX, JESSAMYN 0
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:00 PM on February 14, 2020 [7 favorites]


We've gone downhill either as Metafilter or as a country if quidnunc kid isn't a possible choice.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 7:18 PM on February 14, 2020 [26 favorites]


ive made a huge mistake
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:19 PM on February 14, 2020 [12 favorites]


So what happened with the Sanders campaign requesting a recount in Iowa? Did they officially do that? Did it happen? Or did the IDP just completely peace-out and call it a day?
posted by Justinian at 7:21 PM on February 14, 2020


Talking about Republicans for a moment, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is holding a fundraiser for Trump. Furious Oracle employees are demanding that Larry Ellison cancel his Trump fundraiser (Theodore Schleifer, Vox). 'Oracle employees say they “refuse to be complacent and complicit in Larry Ellison’s support of such a divisive person.”'
posted by ZeusHumms at 7:39 PM on February 14, 2020 [10 favorites]


Why ‘Stop and Frisk’ Hasn’t Arrested Bloomberg’s Rise (NY Mag, 02/13/2020) A Quinnipiac poll published on Monday found that the billionaire had leapfrogged Bernie Sanders among black Democrats, notching 22 percent support to Sanders’s 19 and Biden’s still field-leading 27.

You really should take these crosstab results with a grain of salt -- or maybe a whole shaker. They are statistically useless.

The Quinnipiac poll surveyed only 665 Democrats. That means that the resulting margin of error is 4%, but only for the full sample.

Out of that 665 of Democrats you might expect about 20%, or only 133 to be blacks. This sample size of 133 gives you a margin of error for blacks of about plus or minus 10%. That's a huge margin or error. In fact the margin of error is about half the size of the sample results.

So with a confidence of 95%, you would say:
Biden between 17% and 37%.
Bloomberg between 12% and 32%
Sanders between 9% and 29%

In other words, with this margin of error it is impossible to tell who has the most support from blacks with any reasonable confidence.

Always be careful of crosstab results because the sample sizes can be too small for significance.
posted by JackFlash at 7:42 PM on February 14, 2020 [5 favorites]


Well, Democrats seem to have dodged a bullet. Remember when some people, even here, were saying that Democrats needed to run a tough bulldog like Michael Avenatti, Stormy Daniels lawyer, for president?

Avenatti found guilty in Nike extortion trial. Oops.
posted by JackFlash at 8:27 PM on February 14, 2020 [4 favorites]


With new polls out after the NH primary, 538's national primary forecast put "contested convention" in the lead, followed by Bernie Sanders with 1 in 3 chance of winning a majority of delegates (article by Nathaniel Rakich).

A new poll of Nevada from the Las Vegas Review-Journal has Sanders 25%, Biden 18% and Warren 13%. They also found that 67% of Democrats in the state favored switching to a primary.
posted by nangar at 9:38 PM on February 14, 2020


The political junkie in me loves the idea of a contested convention.

The person who wants Trump to lose and the Democrats to retake the Senate is terrified of a contested convention.

I can think of nothing that would be worse for the Democratic Party's chances in November than a contested convention that would, inevitably, hand the nomination to a right winger like Bloomberg or Buttigieg. Especially if Sanders had the plurality of votes going in as seems likely.

The Democratic Party elites have decided that their top priority is keeping Sanders out of the White House, and, as a far distant second, beating Trump in the election. That's not a really good path for the Democrats to be taking.
posted by sotonohito at 9:47 PM on February 14, 2020 [6 favorites]


So what happened with the Sanders campaign requesting a recount in Iowa? Did they officially do that? Did it happen? Or did the IDP just completely peace-out and call it a day?

Yes, they officially did, requesting a recanvass of 25 precincts with demonstrable errors and reserving the right to request a full recount after. The IDP sat on that for most of a week - their chair did resign in shame this week, after all - but the recanvass is beginning on Sunday.
posted by kafziel at 9:49 PM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Democratic Party elites have decided that their top priority is keeping Sanders out of the White House, and, as a far distant second, beating Trump in the election. That's not a really good path for the Democrats to be taking.
On the heels of his victory in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, a Democratic grassroots group has launched a PAC called Beat Bernie 2020 in an effort to challenge Senator Bernie Sanders's rising profile.

The PAC's founders are choosing to remain anonymous due to a credible fear of threats and backlash from ardent Bernie supporters, a tactic they have become infamous for using ruthlessly on social media, especially Twitter. "Sharing any kind of criticism about Sanders is almost always met with intense harassment and bullying from Bernie-backing trolls, often with sexist and racist undertones," says one of the group's founders. "This is the same level of fear many Democrats feel when interacting with Trump supporters in MAGA hats, and while Bernie isn't directly responsible for the actions of his supporters, he also hasn't taken a serious effort to condemn this behavior," they continue to say.
posted by kafziel at 10:04 PM on February 14, 2020 [1 favorite]


Jesse Lehrich, Crooked Media, If You Can't Beat Bernie, Join Him.
I’m no fan of Bernie Sanders. Of the top-tier presidential candidates in the Democratic field, he would honestly be my last choice...But I’m not writing this to bash Bernie...The single most disastrous outcome for the party would be for Sanders to win a plurality of pledged delegates, only for Democratic power brokers to try to deny him the nomination at a contested convention.

I shudder to imagine the visceral outrage this would unleash among Bernie voters. It would legitimize their long-standing grievances against the Democratic establishment, and do lasting damage to the party at a time we can least afford it—even if the maneuver ultimately failed. Were it successful, the fallout would be even more dire. One has to assume that many of the millions who voted for him would clamor for him to run as an independent, declare war on the Democratic Party, and refuse to vote for whomever we put on the ticket. And their fury would be justified.
The whole article's worth reading.
posted by nangar at 12:13 AM on February 15, 2020 [7 favorites]


To be more accurate, he's afraid of losing like a couple of his ill-gotten billions. Probably not even one. Sanders is the indeed the most radical candidate in this race, but the token amount of wealth-redistribution he's proposing won't even put the tiniest of dents in the massive wealth of Bloomberg and his asshole golfing buddies. Doesn't stop them from being offended at the very idea, though.
I think the reason melts and rich people hate socialism so much is because if 4 years of Sanders Socialism improves things to the degree they fear then the next election campaign will be "do we really need billionaires?"

That's what terrifies him.
posted by fullerine at 1:16 AM on February 15, 2020 [11 favorites]


Here come the Centrists, with some question-begging attacks on Sanders:
The Democratic Majority for Israel Pac ran an anti-Sanders campaign in Iowa, the week before the state’s caucus, highlighting the Vermont senator’s supposed unelectability against Trump, despite polls showing Sanders leading the president nationally. A Quinnipiac study released on 10 February showed Sanders eight points ahead of Trump – the biggest margin of any candidate other than the billionaire media mogul Mike Bloomberg.

Alongside the argument that Sanders would lose to Trump, what is becoming a more prevalent line of attack is the supposed impact a Sanders nomination would wreak on down-ballot Democrats.

Moderate members of Congress, who support Sanders’ rivals, have lined up this week to paint a dystopian vision of a Sanders nomination.

“Elected officials across the country understand there will be down-ballot carnage to the Democratic party if we elect the wrong person,” Congressman Cedric Richmond, a co-chair of Biden’s campaign, told the New York Times.

Dina Titus, congresswoman from Nevada and another Biden backer, suggested that with Sanders as the nominee “you’re not going to take back the Senate”.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 5:53 AM on February 15, 2020


The single most disastrous outcome for the party would be for Sanders to win a plurality of pledged delegates, only for Democratic power brokers to try to deny him the nomination at a contested convention.

There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that if this happens, Trump wins. And yet all signs point to this being the Democratic establishments backup plan. They're really going to burn the party down to keep it from moving left
posted by dis_integration at 5:54 AM on February 15, 2020 [11 favorites]


Here's Tom Perez, flying his hypocrite flag:
"We made the rules, they were very transparent, they're very inclusive, and we can't change the rules midstream because there's a candidate that I wish were on but didn't make the debate stage," Perez told CNN.
*cough*Mike Bloomberg*cough*
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:12 AM on February 15, 2020 [9 favorites]


In 2008, Obama won a plurality of delegates. In the end, Clinton released her pledged delegates, and Obama won by acclamation. I think there are enough people in the Party leadership who want avoid a contested convention turning into a disaster to make this happen again. I certainly hope so.
posted by nangar at 6:48 AM on February 15, 2020


Obama was a centrist and the Democratic establishment's dream. Sanders, not so much.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:03 AM on February 15, 2020 [5 favorites]


There's contested, and there's contested. In 2008, in a ~2-candidate race, Obama had a majority by June and the convention was in August. They did have superdelegates back then so his majority was kind of fuzzy, but Clinton suspended her campaign and it was all resolved ahead of time.

If Bernie has like 45% of the delegates, he probably only needs to find 1 other candidate and they can put it together. If he has like 48%, he'll probably just win outright anyway.

If it's like 30-20-20-10-10-5-5...could go in any direction, but even there he'd just need to partner up with 1-2 other candidates.

Superdelegates ("Automatic delegates") show up on the second ballot. They're another 19.2% of the initial total (16% of the new total), and consist of:
- 30 distinguished party leaders (DPL), consisting of current and former presidents, current and former vice-presidents, former congressional leaders, and former DNC chairs [including Joe Biden]
- 236 Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives (including non-voting delegates from DC and territories)
- 48 Democratic members of the United States Senate (including Washington, DC shadow senators) and Bernie Sanders [and Warren and Klobuchar]
- 28 Democratic governors (including territorial governors and the Mayor of the District of Columbia).
- 438 other elected members (with 434 votes) from the Democratic National Committee (including the chairs and vice-chairs of each state's Democratic Party)

The other thing is that delegates become unpledged after the first ballot. You'd expect them to be loyal to their own candidate, since that's who picked them to come, or to follow some sort of instructions, but after like 2-3 ballots things could get weird. There aren't really brokers any more, and of course you're not allowed to actually fill rooms with smoke nowadays, either.

Then you have to do the whole thing over for a Vice President nominee, though you'd think they'd go with whatever deal they'd made by then.

The thing is, if everything settles down to a 2-candidate race, there's no reason for the other candidates to stick around. But if it's heading to a plurality, then there's a big incentive for everybody to stick around and pick up delegates to give them power at the convention, which just spreads out the vote more, making it self-fulfilling.

They used to all be this way. For a long time, Democrats required 2/3 to win. (But they weren't televised, either, and they didn't attempt to claim a popular mandate based on primary votes.)
posted by Huffy Puffy at 8:05 AM on February 15, 2020 [7 favorites]


The single most disastrous outcome for the party would be for Sanders to win a plurality of pledged delegates, only for Democratic power brokers to try to deny him the nomination at a contested convention.

Yet this was exactly the contention that Sanders tried to pull off in 2016. Even though Clinton had a large plurality of delegates earned in the primaries, Sanders refused to release his delegates for acclamation and instead insisted on a roll count and exhorted the superdelegates to overthrow the primary results to give him the nomination.

And literally 5 minutes after losing, in a snit, he declared himself once again not a Democrat.

And yes, the contested convention cost Clinton. Trump gave speeches every day telling disgruntled Sanders voters that Clinton had cheated them and they should not vote Democratic. Sanders manager Jeff Weaver kept putting out the story that Crooked Hillery had stolen the nomination, playing into the Trump claim.
posted by JackFlash at 8:40 AM on February 15, 2020 [15 favorites]


I don't remember the 2016 convention happening quite that way, but if it did, that just underscores the importance of the Sanders wing to the Democrat's future. The polling coming out of Texas and the polling showing Sanders's extraordinary strength with young voters generally and Latino voters further reinforces this importance. As policy priorities of both left and centrist wings of the Democratic party combine with demographic changes to erode Democratic strength in the midwest, flipping states like Texas becomes even more critical going forward.
posted by eagles123 at 8:55 AM on February 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


Please let's not relitigate 2016. Again.
posted by Lyme Drop at 8:56 AM on February 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


I would feel better about Sanders if he'd commit in advance to supporting whoever the Democratic nominee is, or at least that he'd support them if they would agree to certain concessions in their platform. Otherwise maybe he should just run as a third party, and people could decide how they felt about that, looking back at Perot in 1992 and Nader in 2000.
posted by bright flowers at 9:13 AM on February 15, 2020


Mod note: Couple comments deleted. So here we are, still, in the eternal time loop of same arguments about 2016 that we've been cursed to by some kind of ironic supernatural event probably involving a monkey. It's my fate to say, at this point (which is all points simultaneously): Please stop doing the thing.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 9:13 AM on February 15, 2020 [27 favorites]


Bloomberg, to an employee trying to find childcare, in the presence of a large group of employees: "It's a fucking baby! All it does is eat and shit! It doesn't know the difference between you and anything else! All you need is some black who doesn't even have to speak English to rescue it from a burning building!"

Love to see the groundwork already being laid for blaming Sanders when he loses to Trump.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:15 AM on February 15, 2020 [7 favorites]


we've been cursed to by some kind of ironic supernatural event probably involving a monkey

i always thought there was a tiff between crustaceans and primates...
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 9:43 AM on February 15, 2020


She should just stay in the woods.

I happily supported her in 2016 and she got jobbed by the Electoral College but that was her time.
And why would someone who won the popular vote for president want to run as vice president?
posted by kirkaracha at 11:03 AM on February 15, 2020 [8 favorites]


Somebody'd have to move:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves...."
posted by Huffy Puffy at 11:05 AM on February 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


That Bloomberg/Hillar story is MSNBC reporting on something originated by the Drudge Report.
posted by box at 11:17 AM on February 15, 2020 [2 favorites]


(not sure if something like this was posted and then deleted, so apologies in advance if that was the case)

Sanders has said multiple times that he will support the nominee. I've primarily seen him say it in clips from rallies on Twitter, which made it hard for me to find, but here's a quote from about a month ago: “Let me be very clear,” said Sanders (I-Vt.). “If any of the women on this stage or any of the men on this stage win the nomination — I hope that’s not the case, I hope it’s me — but if they do, I will do everything in my power to make sure that they are elected in order to defeat the most dangerous president in the history of our country.” (Washington Post)
posted by vakker at 11:47 AM on February 15, 2020 [19 favorites]


Rust Moranis, that WaPo Bloomberg article . . . . good god.
posted by Harry Caul at 11:59 AM on February 15, 2020 [4 favorites]


I know what you're thinking - "how did we find a candidate who is just as sexist as Donald Trump?" But he's five months younger than Bernard Sanders - happy birthday yesterday, Mike! - and I think we need some fresh blood in this race.
posted by atoxyl at 12:18 PM on February 15, 2020 [8 favorites]


Mod note: A few deleted; sorry, sarcastic misunderstanding doesn't always translate, let's rewind and skip it.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:01 PM on February 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


Mayor Pete, in California, on the road to Nevada: Queer activists disrupt Pete Buttigieg event in San Francisco: 'We deserve better' (The Guardian, 2/14/2020) “We need better, we deserve better,” Adiel Pollydore, a 26-year-old program director with Student Action who is black and queer, told the Guardian. “There’s a level of irony that this event costs hundreds of dollars to attend in the Mission, a historically Latinx and immigrant neighborhood. What does it say that this event is not accessible to the folks that live in the neighborhood where it’s being held?”

Tickets to the fundraiser started at $250. The Guardian received a ticket from a donor associated with the groups organizing the protests. Video, said activists being escorted out of Buttigieg event

Pete Buttigieg is Joe Biden without the black friends (The Guardian, 2/14/2020, opinion piece) [...] The implied contrast, of course, is Biden. Biden polls well with black voters, benefits from strong name recognition from the Obama years, and frequently visits South Carolina, often in the company of the African American congressman Jim Clyburn. While Biden’s political policies have often been terrible for black Americans, he is, on average, their most popular choice.

But Buttigieg straddles the worst of neoliberal worlds. He appeals to the Democratic party’s elite donors – alienating him from some working-class voters – without having done even the minimal and purely performative outreach to people of color expected of any Democratic candidate. Basically, he’s Biden without the black friends. [...]

Buttigieg’s success reveals both the abject uselessness of focusing on early states that don’t reflect the Democratic party’s diversity and the essential hollowness of his campaign. Like his political career, it allows him to collect accomplishments without much sense that he is particularly qualified.

'Earn it': Pete Buttigieg's plan to court communities of color (The Guardian, 2/15/2020) Despite Sacramento’s largely minority population, the crowd at Buttigieg’s town hall was predominantly white. So far, Buttigieg has spent much of his time in California connecting with wealthy donors in Silicon Valley and Hollywood. His courting of millionaires and billionaires, and in particular his lavish Napa wine cave fundraiser, have drawn sneers from some of his progressive competitors.

Now his campaign is reaching for more diverse crowds. Ahead of next week’s caucuses in Nevada, he’s on a whirlwind tour of the West, with Friday stops in San Francisco and Palo Alto, as well as Turlock, a Central Valley town where he is helping raise money to boost down-ballot Democrats. [...]

[A]head of this visit to Sacramento, Buttigieg’s campaign added 16 full-time campaign staffers. To lead his campaign efforts in California, Buttigieg has installed Cecilia Cabello, a former official in the Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration and Hillary Clinton’s deputy political director in the 2016 Democratic primary. Cabello, who has close ties to organized labor in California, having worked for a carpenters’ union, could help Buttigieg access the right networks to win over the state’s electorate.
posted by Iris Gambol at 1:10 PM on February 15, 2020 [3 favorites]


1. The time for Pete to really “earn” his cred with PoC, I humbly suspect, was back when he was given a little power as Mayor of South Bend. Not once he decides he needs a few of them to help him walk to the White House.

2. Bloomberg is going to become a greater threat to a Dem victory than disaffected Bernie supporters. Not only does he have an excruciating record of racism, sexism and Republican support, but at some point, the other Dem candidates are going to have to start calling Bloomberg out by name and pointing to his disqualifying record. Unfortunately, this will only happen after he has already gained a loyal following, and co-opted some of the very leaders, organizers and activists that will be needed to mobilize GOTV efforts in the General.
posted by darkstar at 2:52 PM on February 15, 2020 [15 favorites]


but at some point, the other Dem candidates are going to have to start calling Bloomberg out by name and pointing to his disqualifying record.

This is most likely to be Wednesday, when they're 'batin' in Vegas. Moreso if Bloomberg qualifies and shows up, but I'm sure they'll get plenty of shots in even if he's not there.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 3:25 PM on February 15, 2020


The debate lineup right now is Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Biden, and Klobuchar with Bloomberg needing 1 more qualifying poll to make it in.

The polling requirement has always struck me as weird in the sense that there is no way to know how many polls will be released in a given month. What if a bunch of the qualifying poll people take a break or something?
posted by Justinian at 6:37 PM on February 15, 2020


What if a bunch of the qualifying poll people take a break or something?

Bloomberg has enough money to buy his own poll if he needs it.
posted by JackFlash at 7:16 PM on February 15, 2020 [6 favorites]


What if a bunch of the qualifying poll people take a break or something?

Chrysostom gets a full night’s sleep.
posted by Etrigan at 7:42 PM on February 15, 2020 [16 favorites]


Michael Bloomberg Is Not Courting Black Voters. He’s Buying Name Recognition. (Julia Craven, Slate)
'Saturation is beating persuasion.'

[...] But Bloomberg’s advertisements chiefly send the message that Michael Bloomberg has the financial power to buy a lot of ads. “Black voters are concerned, No. 1, with who can beat Donald Trump. And when you look at Michael Bloomberg on his face, he’s a candidate who has the resources to go toe to toe,” said James. “That’s an attractive option for Black voters.”

Jarrod Loadholt, a Democratic strategist, hears from Black voters and elected officials across the South—including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama—that the Bloomberg ads are everywhere. And the themes of the ads appear to resonate in part because the former mayor, one of the two people on television the most, seems to hate Trump the most. Such messaging reflects the pragmatism of many Black voters.

“For most Democratic voters, I’d say that beating President Trump takes precedence over everything else, including problematic aspects of a candidate’s record or the perception that a candidate is ‘buying’ the election,” said Loadholt. “That’s not a value judgment; that’s an observation based on what I’m getting from Black, Southern voters and Black elected officials.”
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:25 PM on February 15, 2020 [1 favorite]


“It will do everything, including give you a blowjob. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”

Michael Bloomberg
posted by weed donkey at 1:01 AM on February 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


"[...] I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.”

Michael Bloomberg

Some characters have baggage. Michael Bloomberg has apparently spent his life aspiring to be an extra in one of those movies where people get on a crowded bus carrying baskets of bread, several children, flagons of retsina, live chickens, a pig, and, improbably, a donkey. Except in his case the donkey would be sporting an erection and an amorous attitude.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:33 AM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Looks like Steyer has stopped pretending to be Bernie's friend and is running negative ads against him.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:38 AM on February 16, 2020


Is being a billionaire a disqualifier for office? A key question as the corporate media force-feeds us the premise of a Bloomberg vs. Trump face-off in 2020 (Bob Hennelly, Salon)

Or, as Alternet retitled the article when they reposted it: "Wealth, sociopathy and presidency: Why corporate media is force-feeding us the premise of a Bloomberg vs. Trump face-off"
The media has consoled itself that Donald Trump's abusive gyrations are merely a function of his unique eccentric personality, without examining how a lifelong fixation on wealth could be the manifestation of a pathology. That pathology has had severe repercussions for the nation and the world.

It is very possible based on his behavior that Michael Bloomberg, who has accumulated tens of billions of dollars more than Trump, suffers the same pathology.

Could it be that vast wealth accumulation on the scale we are talking about is itself a manifestation of the malignant narcissism that's plaguing the current occupant of the White House?

"Really, in order to make that much money off of other people's labor by giving people less and taking more for yourself, you have to lose compassion for those other people to accumulate more and more," said Dr. Harriet Fraad, a psychotherapist and host of the podcast "Capitalism Hits Home: Faith, Family and America's Future." "What happens to billionaires is that they are no longer earning to buy this or that, have this or that, or even to be free of economic worry and anxiety. They are motivated to accumulate more and more for themselves, which becomes for them 'winning.'"

[...]

Ironically, it is the hyper-anxiety over "winning" that has so many voters, traumatized by the prospect of four more years of Trump, suspending their critical faculties and overlooking Bloomberg's very real electoral vulnerabilities.

They are reflexively turning to Bloomberg as a sure bet to beat the Don in November. As children lost in the forest of tyranny, they figure Mayor Mike will be their Daddy Warbucks, who will save them from the orange menace.

Hence, they push back when I raise the issue about Mike Bloomberg's failure to disclose his taxes for 12 years while he was Mayor and his cynical ploy of applying for a extension on his legally required Federal Election Commission disclosure forms until after Super Tuesday.
posted by ZeusHumms at 6:16 AM on February 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


Longread from WaPo on what went wrong in Iowa. Lays the blame squarely on Perez and the DNC.
posted by 6thsense at 6:24 AM on February 16, 2020 [6 favorites]


Longread from WaPo on what went wrong in Iowa. Lays the blame squarely on Perez and the DNC.

Did you actually read the article, because it says nothing of the sort.
posted by JackFlash at 8:21 AM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Who actually likes Bloomberg? Seriously, why does he have any sort of chance? Sanders and Warren have serious progressive cred, Biden has established longtime centrism, Buttigieg has a fresh face and a vague sense of excitement without actually threatening the mainstream, Klobuchar has.... well, I must admit I don't get what poltiical space Klobuchar occupies that someone else isn't exemplifying more effectively but she must be doing something right. But what does Bloomberg brings to the table that someone else --- someone who's actually, y'know, on the ballot in these early primaries --- doesn't do better? Want a mayor rather than a national politician? Go Buttigieg. Want an old hand who knows his way around the old-boy's club? Go Biden. Want a progressive, or a minority, or something else representative generally or social equality? Well, Bloomberg's not any of those things so it wouldn't be on your radar. Want "someone who can beat Trump"? Well, if you're up against a plutocrat* with a cult of personality and whose fans mostly like him because of how horrible he is, then putting up a plutocrat without a cult of personality and who is slightly less horrible of a human being is not a winning move. You're not going to win people who like that kind of thing because they've already got a better one, and the people who don't like that kind of thing, the natural opposition, and not going to be super fired up in support.


*AFAICT, Trump isn't actually rich, which would disqualify him from being an actual plutocrat. But he plays one on TV, and he believes what he sees on TV, and ergo he believes he is a plutocrat.
posted by jackbishop at 9:07 AM on February 16, 2020 [8 favorites]


Klobuchar has.... well, I must admit I don't get what poltiical space Klobuchar occupies that someone else isn't exemplifying more effectively but she must be doing something right

She's gaining from the defection of college-educated white women from Warren. Amy Klobuchar Is the Ultimate #GirlBoss
If Klobuchar continues to perform well with college-educated women, it’s because she represents their interests. She does so better than Warren, and far better than Bernie Sanders, who is beloved by lower-income voters with less higher education. Klobuchar wastes no time railing about billionaires or rigged systems, and why should she? The system worked for her, and it worked, mostly, for the professional-class women who are curious about her candidacy. They want Trump gone, they agree that things, defined as loosely as possible, could be better — but radical change is unnecessary. The case for Klobuchar is a defense of comfort.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 9:36 AM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


I'm not pro-Bloomberg in the primary but to me the appeal in a hypothetical general election of him vs Trump is obvious. He's like Trump except not as bad. It's like voting between getting punched in the nose 5 times or 10 times. It's a simple decision with no subtlety. You can't even stay at home and reasonably pretend it doesn't matter, because it does matter: it matters 5 punches worth.
posted by bright flowers at 9:38 AM on February 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


That’s a pretty scathing critique of Klobuchar and what she represents. Both are extremely qualified and impressive but it’s sad seeing Warren’s campaign implode and Klobuchar’s rise, and what that means for actual progressive policies.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:54 AM on February 16, 2020 [6 favorites]


I'm not sure how much we can generalize from one example, but I do have a Facebook contact who has started to talk up Bloomberg a bit. As near as I can tell, the appeal is simply that he is not Trump and he could beat Trump. This person liked Biden whose campaign appears to be collapsing, is deathly afraid of any left-of-center candidates, doesn't trust younger candidates like Buttigieg, and doesn't think a woman can win. I have given up trying to have discussions with this person.
posted by maurice at 9:59 AM on February 16, 2020 [6 favorites]


That’s a pretty scathing critique of Klobuchar and what she represents. Both are extremely qualified and impressive but it’s sad seeing Warren’s campaign implode and Klobuchar’s rise, and what that means for actual progressive policies.

FWIW, I'm voting Warren in the primary, but I think there's better roles for her in a Democratic administration, where she can get more stuff done. A cabinet seat if she doesn't want to sick with the Senate.
posted by mikelieman at 10:10 AM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


and what that means for actual progressive policies

This is my overall feeling about this primary season. Bloomberg’s apparent rise on the basis of mostly advertising has really driven this home for me. I do think the country is moving left, just not as fast as most of us on the left want it to, and that is an uncomfortable reality that people don’t seem to want to deal with. You can rail all you want about the establishment or whatever, but the establishment can’t make actual people vote a certain way. Right now more people are voting for “moderate” candidates than left-wing candidates, or however you want to define them. So while I would love some fucking socialized healthcare and overall humane policies and structural wealth redistribution and the rest, apparently we’re just not there yet.

The solution to this seems to be the usual: state level politics and organizing and diligently pushing the Overton window left on the national stage. That will take time. Cultural change always takes time. I have very little patience for people who want to burn it all down in the meantime.
posted by schadenfrau at 10:37 AM on February 16, 2020 [12 favorites]


Exit polls in New Hampshire showed a majority of voters favored M4A. Sanders routinely ranks as the second choice of most other candidates. It's an over simplification to view the Democratic primary as a race between a moderate block and a left wing block. I'm not saying there is not a hint of truth to that characterization, but there are other considerations voters have such as age, how much they like the canidates, and perceived electability.

Also, there is sheer name recognition. A lot of people probably don't know much about Bloomberg beyond what his ads say and that he is a rich former mayor of NYC.
posted by eagles123 at 10:53 AM on February 16, 2020 [8 favorites]


He's like Trump except not as bad.

I'm not sure that's true. He's just as racist if not more so (and has, prior to this campaign, had an opportunity to put his racism into disastrous practice). He's just as sexist. He's richer (which is probably not a good sign) and seemingly more savvy and capable (which is scary in terms of damage potential).

I kind of feel like Trump is like getting punched in the 5 times by someone really loathsome and despicable and crude, and Bloomberg is like getting punched in the face 5 times by someone just as loathsome but more articulate and in a better suit, but who knows something about boxing.
posted by Foosnark at 11:02 AM on February 16, 2020 [12 favorites]


AFAICT, Trump isn't actually rich, which would disqualify him from being an actual plutocrat. But he plays one on TV, and he believes what he sees on TV, and ergo he believes he is a plutocrat.

He may not have been rich before he became president but Trump's businesses have pulled in about half a billion in government and republican party spending since he took office. Then there is all the foreign influence bribing guests at Trump businesses.
posted by srboisvert at 11:16 AM on February 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


"Wealth, sociopathy and presidency: Why corporate media is force-feeding us the premise of a Bloomberg vs. Trump face-off"

I think a simpler explanation is that most corporate media operations would really like a big piece of a free-spending billionaire's ad buy.
posted by srboisvert at 11:19 AM on February 16, 2020 [9 favorites]


Lis Smith, Senior Communications Advisor for the Buttigieg campaign, is trending on twitter right now for doing digital blackface. She had been running a fake "Nigerian Buttigieg supporter" twitter account for months, and she just accidentally tweeted an official campaign tweet from it. Screenshots here.

Just some unbelievable tweets from that account.

And a few more.

Just look at the trend on Twitter, it is really something else.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 11:57 AM on February 16, 2020 [11 favorites]


Foosnark: It's hard to compare who they are as people because Trump is such a void as a person. He has no internal life or any strong opinions beyond his astounding self-centeredness. So in any "what do they think?" comparison, you can say something about Bloomberg but then with Trump you just get a does-not-compute.

If you look at actions though I cannot reasonably think Bloomberg would do worse in any area except in serving the financial interests of the capitalist class, due to him having basic competence. However racist or sexist he may personally be, I don't think he would spend time or political capital on performative cruelty like Trump does. But I'm prepared to be convinced otherwise. (Not a challenge to you or anything, just saying.)
posted by bright flowers at 11:59 AM on February 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


(By prepared to be convinced I mean, in general. I'm not specifically inviting people to link dump here and try to have it out with me personally.)
posted by bright flowers at 12:04 PM on February 16, 2020


The solution to this seems to be the usual: state level politics and organizing and diligently pushing the Overton window left on the national stage.

Counterpoint: the last 40 years. The Democratic Party establishment is making clear that it would prefer a second Trump term to any real movement leftward.

That will take time. Cultural change always takes time.

Counterpoint: history. Also we don't have time.

I have very little patience for people who want to burn it all down in the meantime.

It's all burning down right now.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:13 PM on February 16, 2020 [12 favorites]


You may remember Lis Smith from such organizations as the Independent Democrats Conference, which allowed Republicans to control the New York State senate and block progressive legislation until it was dissolved in 2018.
posted by eagles123 at 12:35 PM on February 16, 2020 [11 favorites]


Counterpoint: the last 40 years.

the story of the last 40 years is the right diligently implementing the state politics and organizing strategy I described to drag the country to the right. That is literally how we got here.
posted by schadenfrau at 12:59 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]


The Lis Smith story is according to Buzzfeed News, a load of BS.
posted by PenDevil at 1:00 PM on February 16, 2020 [4 favorites]


the story of the last 40 years is the right diligently implementing the state politics and organizing strategy I described to drag the country to the right. That is literally how we got here.

One difference is that the GOP is amenable to right-populism and reactionism up to and including fascism while the Democratic Party, even in the face of said fascism, refuses to budge left of Reagan economically. The Democratic Party can't bring itself to say unqualifiedly "everybody gets health care," but it can demand that we vote for the Republican 9th richest man in the world who wants to fingerprint food stamp recipients.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:11 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


That Buzzfeed article is so vague, would love to know how they actually confirmed that.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 1:12 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Yeah, that buzzfeed article is not how one debunks this sort of claim.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 1:18 PM on February 16, 2020 [2 favorites]


Do you need a ton of evidence to debunk a claim which doesn't have much evidence supporting it?
posted by Justinian at 2:56 PM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


That said, Lis Smith is awful and should go away and be awful outside of the public sphere.
posted by Justinian at 2:57 PM on February 16, 2020 [2 favorites]



Buzzfeed admittedly has a great track record to my knowledge so I am inclined to believe them although I'd really prefer them to be more explicit in their types of evidence that they collected.

(For the record, no, I will not be voting for Buttigieg in the primary in case anyone thinks that I'm an apologist for him).
posted by fizzix at 3:02 PM on February 16, 2020


The entire """debunking""" is "we talked to the guy over email and he promised he wasn't Lis Smith". There is quite a lot of evidence to support the conclusion.

This kind of sums it up.
posted by kafziel at 3:13 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Honestly, social media is beginning to feel like the advancement in military tactics that shifted from traditional battle lines to guerrilla tactics.

Traditional media outlets are arranged neatly. They have a well-structured order of battle. They send out information in regiments, and respond to attacks in the same way.

But social media engages in highly mobile raids, hit-and-run tactics, ambushes, sabotage.

It feels like traditional media is fighting against lies, half-truths and propaganda using 20th Century tactics, against a lighter, more mobile, more unconventional disinformation campaign.
posted by darkstar at 3:16 PM on February 16, 2020 [18 favorites]



Aric Toler of bellingcat, also confirms that that twitter account is not a Lis Smith burner. I've followed bellingcat for a while and also trust them. Amongst other things,
Aric came across a facebook profile of the person who he believes was behind the twitter account and also has the same avatar (which was uploaded onto facebook in 2017) as the twitter account.

Not sure how to express it,
I feel a little frustrated when I saw a few friends and allies on twitter originally share this , I know conservatives share even more lies in quantity and how blatant those lies and misinformation are, and that really frustrates me too (more than this)... thinking aloud, I think what frustrates me is that I'd hope that my friends wouldn't share things without having reasonable belief that it's true (not just because it's an easy dunk on mayo pete's staff, and that behavior that his staff doesn't heavily invest in coalition building or a political record as mayor on issues like racial justice that would endear people across the world, especially those from lesser developed countries, to share support for his campaign on twitter.
posted by fizzix at 3:51 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


People, including here, will double down on disinformation and when that becomes completely untenable they just move on without acknowledging it.
posted by Justinian at 4:02 PM on February 16, 2020 [14 favorites]


David Klion, the originator, has withdrawn his assertion and apologized.
posted by Justinian at 4:04 PM on February 16, 2020 [1 favorite]


He's not the originator. Lots and lots of people on twitter originally noticed this. He's also not apologizing for anything but spreading this without firm confirmation, but the confirmation is there.

The claim is that this is a perfectly ordinary Nigerian man who gets up and starts tweeting at 5pm West African time every day. Who announced he wasn't Lis Smith on twitter within a minute of her announcement. Who tweets exclusively about Pete Buttigieg, and Lis Smith, and nothing else. Who has instagram and facebook accounts under the same username, but with a different person's face on them and never a mention of Buttigieg. Who tweets constantly about South Bend mayoral politics but never once about the travel ban extending to Nigeria. Who uses the word "ain't" in a lot of his posts, which Lis Smith also used constantly right up until late 2017, when this account was created. And who was "just joking" when he tweeted as Lis Smith by accident, then deleted it, followed by his entire account.

You are quite right, people here will double down on misinformation all the time. Nothing suspicious at all about this. They found a picture of a man who doesn't match the profile pictures on either account, holding up a sign that says "I am not Lis Smith", that is definitely irrefutable proof and not something I could do right now on Fiverr. Someone desperate to delete all digital trace of himself, while also reaching out to a bunch of small news outlets to inform them that he's real, at 1am Nigerian time.
posted by kafziel at 4:28 PM on February 16, 2020 [5 favorites]


Dude in the photo with the sign certainly seems to be the same dude in the Insta/LinkedIn photos. He spent years in the US for schooling, which surely influenced his language and knowledge of/interest in us politics. I’m not really sure how you’d go about doing this “right now on Fiverr”, but I’d love to hear about it!
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 4:39 PM on February 16, 2020


.... you don't know how you can hire someone on Fiverr to make a sign and take a picture of themselves holding it? Pewdiepie burnt a multi-million dollar Disney contract doing that with an antisemitic message.
posted by kafziel at 4:50 PM on February 16, 2020


You’re correct, I have no idea how I’d use Fiverr to find the same guy whose photos were associated with the Insta/LinkedIn profiles and have them take a selfie with a sign. But I haven’t used Fiverr, so I guess I might be missing something? Again, I’d love to hear how you think this would work.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 5:10 PM on February 16, 2020


Ashley Feinberg has talked to the dude. Come on guys.
posted by Justinian at 5:10 PM on February 16, 2020 [8 favorites]


From Mother Jones: We Talked to the Man Behind That Nigerian Pete Buttigieg Fan Account. It’s Not Lis Smith.
posted by Justinian at 5:47 PM on February 16, 2020


After saying Keegan-Michael Key supports Buttigieg, the former mayor's campaign says the actor hasn't endorsed any candidate (by Donald Judd, CNN article).
posted by phoque at 5:50 PM on February 16, 2020 [3 favorites]


Sanders routinely ranks as the second choice of most other candidates. It's an over simplification to view the Democratic primary as a race between a moderate block and a left wing block.

Based on my experiences canvassing for Sanders in NH last weekend, this is true. I, an ideological Sanders supporter, was surprised and confused by the number of people who said they were still considering either Sanders or Buttigieg. The conclusion that my canvassing buddy and I came to is that most of these voters are not particularly ideological, primarily want a candidate that can beat Trump, and are looking to back a winner.

The "more people are voting for moderates" talking point doesn't add up because it is not a safe assumption that, i.e., all of the Klobuchar voters would have definitely voted for Buttigieg if she had not been in the race. Conversely, the strong Warren supporters that I met were some of the most hostile to Bernie. But maybe New Hampshire is just a land of contrasts.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 6:23 PM on February 16, 2020 [14 favorites]


The conclusion that my canvassing buddy and I came to is that most of these voters are not particularly ideological

This points to a presumption that most people who know much at all about ideology, issues, or actual political positions/policies make on a regular basis, that most people are like them (i.e., rational actors); but most Americans, even real smart ones, are culturally conditioned to respond to personality and (what they perceive to be) personal character. AFAICT, most voters don’t think ‘I’ll vote for the candidate who best aligns with my ideology’, they think some version of ‘I’ll vote for the person I like, and who can win for my side.’

My lifelong experience has been that, the more informed I become, the less I understand how most people make their choices, or what large-scale outcomes will result. Any predictions or predictive models based on any version of well-informed, rational behavior en masse, are built upon sand. Human beings are feeling creatures first, thinking ones second, and our current culture really lays into that.
posted by LooseFilter at 7:10 PM on February 16, 2020 [9 favorites]


Speaking of current popularity among Nigerians.
posted by Harry Caul at 2:30 AM on February 17, 2020


Politico yesterday with behind-the-scenes reports of chaos and confusion in Nevada, where they'll be using 2000 new iPads and Google Spreadsheet to calculate caucus math and report results centrally, apparently relying on insecure local Wi-Fi networks in some cases:

‘A complete disaster’: Fears grow over potential Nevada caucus malfunction

As usual with caucuses, the tech issues may be the least of the problem:

...a third volunteer warned that misunderstanding and a lack of training on how to tabulate first and second vote alignments could pose a greater threat to the process than the new tech elements injected into the process.
posted by mediareport at 3:10 AM on February 17, 2020


Does anyone know if the rules for adding up candidates' supporters and translating them into delegates are the same in Nevada as they were in Ohio, and if not, what the differences are?
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:49 AM on February 17, 2020


Bernie breaks out of the pack
Bernie Sanders is becoming harder to stop. Nevada is where his opponents are starting to realize it.

Advisers to three rival campaigns privately conceded over the weekend that the best anyone else could hope for here is second or third. Some of them gape at the crowd sizes at Sanders' events — like the swarm of supporters who accompanied Sanders, his fist raised, to an early caucus site in Las Vegas on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 8:02 AM on February 17, 2020 [6 favorites]


Bernie breaks out of the pack

' . . ." said Andres Ramirez, a Nevada-based Democratic strategist and former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Hispanic Caucus. “But the rest of the field is so fragmented, and he has his base locked, that he can continue winning just by holding onto his base.”


While Bloombergians call for their Trump-like-force to stop Trump, an actual politically Trump-like-force is winning in Nevada.
posted by Harry Caul at 9:10 AM on February 17, 2020


‘A complete disaster’: Fears grow over potential Nevada caucus malfunction

I don't have a lot of high expectations for 2020 but if the best thing that comes out of this is that we banish the stupid, antidemocratic caucus system and go with normal, count the votes primaries, well, at least something good happened.
posted by dis_integration at 9:56 AM on February 17, 2020 [2 favorites]


So having a base is Trump-like now?

Politically, yes. The constancy of the strength of Trump's polled base is the source of all his strength in the Republican party. It has been since the party realized it was happening before their very eyes. Committed, loud, polarized bases are the current successful tool of politics for the last 8+ years. It's a populist era.
posted by Harry Caul at 10:13 AM on February 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


Everyone knows exactly what they are doing when they call Sanders 'Trump-like', and then offer up some sort of explanation locating the similarities in a rather technical commonality to defend their claim. Its pretty gross behavior and I wish people wouldn't do it.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:51 AM on February 17, 2020 [14 favorites]


I'm actually a Sanders supporter for 8 years now.

A 'left populism' is described and desired for often as a tactic to defeat fascist movements politically, and I subscribe to the necessity of that approach. Thought I had qualified the 'Trump-like' well enough with 'politically'. Sorry for any offense or confusion it may have caused.
posted by Harry Caul at 11:21 AM on February 17, 2020 [10 favorites]


Bloomberg displayed profound ignorance in a speech at Oxford University’s Saïd business school in 2016.
“I could teach anybody, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer,” Bloomberg said.

“It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that. Then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job.

“Now comes the information economy [which is] fundamentally different because it’s built around replacing people with technology and the skill sets that you have to learn are how to think and analyze, and that is a whole degree level different. You have to have a different skill set, you have to have a lot more gray matter.”
Him, I'd let keep his necktie on at the lathe.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 12:08 PM on February 17, 2020 [18 favorites]


Bloomberg will absolutely crush it in the Midwest - like a lead balloon falling from a great height.
posted by eagles123 at 12:21 PM on February 17, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don't have a lot of high expectations for 2020 but if the best thing that comes out of this is that we banish the stupid, antidemocratic caucus system and go with normal, count the votes primaries, well, at least something good happened.

I know the popular narrative is to blame everything on the DNC, but the DNC has been actively trying to push caucus states into changing to primaries. In fact, 10 states this year are switching from caucus to primaries this year. The only two states left are Iowa and Nevada. This isn't the DNC's fault. Iowa and Nevada state parties have the autonomy to stubbornly cling to their nostalgic caucuses.

The only other remaining caucuses are in the small territories of Samoa, Mariana, Virgin Islands and Guam.

Although the DNC could not dictate to Iowa and Nevada to switch to primaries, they did put new restrictions on their caucuses. These were rules to provide more transparency into the convoluted delegate selection process, requiring them to show their work in the intermediate steps of math.

These new transparency requirements were in reaction to the near riot at the 2016 caucus in Nevada caused by unhappy Bernie Bros. You may recall there was a commotion and people picking up chairs and preparing to throw them on the stage. Senator Barbara Boxer said that she feared for her life. In response, Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver, in typical abuser refrain, said that Boxer had brought the violence on herself. So the DNC insisted on more transparency to stave off these attacks.

There has been a lot made out of the fact that DNC signatures appeared on the Iowa app contract. But the DNC was not the prime owner of the contract. That was the Iowa state party. The DNC did not select the contractor. That was the Iowa state party.

The Iowa state party had originally wanted to have some sort of virtual caucus with teleconferences using Skype or something like that, but the DNC vetoed it as being insecure. The Iowa party then asked to use an app just to record results and the DNC okayed that but required a clause in the contract to allow DNC representatives to audit the app for hacking security. The DNC was not responsible for the accuracy of the app, only its cybersecurity. The Iowa state party was responsible for accuracy.

Anyway, after next week you will have to find something else to complain about because there are no more state caucuses.
posted by JackFlash at 1:16 PM on February 17, 2020 [5 favorites]


Expect a lot of "Bernie is the Trump of the left" framing soon to discourage moderate Dems from voting. Let's just call them populists without encouraging that framing.

Trump is a populist Nazi oligarch fascist who wants to destroy the rule of law. Bernie is a democratic populist advocating for non-oligarchs.
posted by benzenedream at 1:20 PM on February 17, 2020 [18 favorites]


“It’s a process. You dig a hole, you put a seed in, you put dirt on top, add water, up comes the corn. You could learn that. Then we had 300 years of the industrial society. You put the piece of metal on the lathe, you turn the crank in the direction of the arrow and you can have a job.

Politics is the same thing. You get a platform, you put enough bullshit on it to choke a vulture then you sweeten it up with nice patronizing words and up comes the ballot and you're elected. Just watch me."
posted by pyramid termite at 4:00 PM on February 17, 2020 [4 favorites]


If only democrats had a candidate to vote for who wasn't popular
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:48 PM on February 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


It's an over simplification to view the Democratic primary as a race between a moderate block and a left wing block

I agree with this. Bernie's policies are very popular among democrats as a whole. Many Biden supporters have Bernie ranked #2. I think there is a class division more than anything in the democratic party.
posted by chaz at 7:13 PM on February 17, 2020 [1 favorite]


I think there is a class division more than anything in the democratic party.

Given Biden's strongest base of support, what do you think the class division looks like between Sanders and Biden supporters?
posted by Justinian at 7:51 PM on February 17, 2020


I am not a numbers guy or a wonk, but from what I've seen, Biden enjoys (enjoyed?) strong working-class support, and so does Bernie. If Biden drops out, I would expect that a decent chunk of his supporters would go to Bernie, and I also saw an early South Carolina poll that backed that up.

I would guess that if Warren dropped out, Buttigieg and others would benefit more than Bernie, even though Bernie's more closely aligned with Warren on policy.
posted by chaz at 9:01 PM on February 17, 2020


> I am not a numbers guy or a wonk, but from what I've seen, Biden enjoys (enjoyed?) strong working-class support, and so does Bernie. If Biden drops out, I would expect that a decent chunk of his supporters would go to Bernie, and I also saw an early South Carolina poll that backed that up.

I would guess that if Warren dropped out, Buttigieg and others would benefit more than Bernie, even though Bernie's more closely aligned with Warren on policy.

Turns out the numbers people and wonks have collected actual numbers:

A new national poll answers a critical question: Who is the second choice of Democratic voters?
Mapping out Quinnipiac’s data on second choices, we see how the liberal-moderate split plays out. (Circles are scaled to overall support; line width is scaled to the percentage of a candidate’s support shifting to the targeted candidate.) Sanders and Warren see much of their support go to each other as a second pick. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg’s support goes largely to Biden and former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg. Much of Sen. Amy Klobuchar’s (D-Minn.) support goes to Buttigieg as well.
Here's an updated version of the same poll with more current numbers: 
2b. (If candidate chosen q2) Who is your second choice?

                     DEMOCRATS/DEMOCRATIC LEANERS.......................
                            CANDIDATE OF CHOICE Q2......................
                     Tot    Biden  Sanders  Warren  Buttigieg  Bloomberg
 
Biden                15%     -     20%       8%     19%        33%
Sanders              11     19      -       33      11          4
Warren               16     13     37        -      26          7
Klobuchar             7     10      -        7      26          5
Gabbard               -      -      -        -       1          -
Buttigieg            13     17      7       25       -         21
Yang                  4      -     11        4       5          1
Bennet                -      -      -        -       -          1
Steyer                1      3      2        -       -          3
Patrick               1      -      -        4       -          -
Bloomberg             6     21      4        3       9          -
No first choice      12      -      -        -       -          -
SMONE ELSE(VOL)       1      -      -        -       1          4
DK/NA                13     17     18       14       2         21
posted by tonycpsu at 9:38 PM on February 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


Expect a lot of "Bernie is the Trump of the left" framing soon

The age is one of myriad of inanities, multifarious dumbnesses foisted upon the nation, and many are obvious and are easily named, but a subtle yet significant one is their obviousness. I have like premonitions of how the right will react the next time the left has a significant win. At this point Fox News isn't needed, in a real sense, just because we know how they'll act. They're essentially just a tape recorder hooked to a megaphone at this stage. The Voice of Deplorica.
posted by JHarris at 9:44 PM on February 17, 2020 [7 favorites]


Thanks tonycpsu!

Ihe first piece you linked, I think the infographic is confirming that among those earning less than $50k, Sanders/Biden overlap and so do the other candidates for those making more than $50k.

The biggest change since the last time I looked into this is the entrance of Bloomberg, who is getting a lot of Biden supporters' second choice votes.

Also, 6% of Sanders supporters would vote for a billionaire (Steyer + Bloomberg) if he drops out?!
posted by chaz at 10:00 PM on February 17, 2020


I got an actual polling call yesterday, and I answered. My area code is very much not where I live, and hasn't been for almost 20 years. But I answered, and we talked. They asked if I intended to vote in the primaries. Asked which candidates I held in "favorable/neutral/unfavorable" positions.
It was weird framing on the questions, not how I'd have phrased them. But I answered. My only favorable: Warren. My only unfavorable: Bloomberg.
I also was behind a bumper sticker this morning that read: Any Democrat 2020.
Make of that what you will.
posted by rp at 10:14 PM on February 17, 2020


6% of Sanders supporters would vote for a billionaire (Steyer + Bloomberg) if he drops out?!

Worth noting that there's a margin of error of ±3.8% on that, so 2% and 4% are essentially noise.
posted by frimble at 12:45 AM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


I can't believe there's two more weeks until Super Tuesday. I'm here in Mass and every time I go out and see TV playing, there's a Bloomberg ad. I just want it to be over already.
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 5:10 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Looks like Bloomberg qualified for the debate on Wednesday. He came in second in a just released national poll behind Sanders.
posted by eagles123 at 5:21 AM on February 18, 2020


Worth noting that there's a margin of error of ±3.8% on that, so 2% and 4% are essentially noise.

The 3.8 percentage points is for the whole sample of 665 Democrats-and-adjacent. Those responses are based on samples of about 75--100; the number of each candidate's supporters in the sample.

Margins of error aren't static; they vary in response to the reported percentage and are widest at 50%. Actual margins of error for a poll are usually complicated beasts that reflect specific sampling methods and reweighting schemes, but as a ballpark the margins of error for the frontrunners range from 4.5 percentage points (4% for Sanders supporters) to 11 percentage points (33% for Sanders supporters)

You'd be best off reading all those numbers as just "a widdle bit" or "some."
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:07 AM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


God, I hope every other candidate on the stage tomorrow spends the entire time attacking Bloomberg. The fact that he's even made it to that stage is a disgrace.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 6:11 AM on February 18, 2020 [16 favorites]


Looks like Bloomberg qualified for the debate on Wednesday. He came in second in a just released national poll behind Sanders.

"We made the rules, they were very transparent, they're very inclusive, and we can't change the rules midstream because there's a candidate I wish were on but didn't make the debate stage." Tom Perez, January 14th 2020.
posted by Harry Caul at 6:36 AM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


Given the option, I’d much rather let people see a version of Bloomberg that isn’t just the version he paid for in his commercials.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:05 AM on February 18, 2020 [11 favorites]


The power of saturation advertising. Someone at my gym in California asked me why Barack Obama chose Bloomberg over the rest of the field. (tweet by David Plouffe, Obama's 2008 campaign manager)
posted by Etrigan at 7:24 AM on February 18, 2020 [8 favorites]


Bloomberg in December, dismissing the content of the debates, then immediately predicting the party would change the rules so that he could be on stage, then ending with a narcissistic dodge by not answering a question about misconceptions about him . . by complimenting himself many, many, many times. Then relates that his father would be most proud of him for shaking hands with Rockefeller and Jacob Rothschild. < CBS Youtube
posted by Harry Caul at 8:18 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


I Watched 185 Mike Bloomberg Ads (Justin Peters, Slate)
"And I figured out what this weird, expensive, suddenly ubiquitous campaign is trying to do."

Over the course of the past two weeks I sat down and attempted to watch every single ad and ad-adjacent piece of video content that the Bloomberg campaign has released on its official YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Twitter account. (I only dipped my toes into Instagram, because I had to draw the line somewhere.) Then, after rejecting a few for redundancy, I ranked them from best to worst, based solely on my own idiosyncratic criteria. (I surely missed some, and I stopped trying to find new ones a few days ago, for sanity’s sake.) Why did I do this? Because I wanted to mainline the means by which a late primary entrant with unimaginable sums of money has become a possible Democratic frontrunner.
posted by ZeusHumms at 8:35 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


@NaomiAKlein
FYI: Trump is the state of emergency and Bloomberg is the Shock Doctrine. Don't fall for it.
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:24 AM on February 18, 2020 [11 favorites]


Can someone help me understand the data TonyCPU posted? I don't understand the first column named Tot (is that what percentage of respondents said that candidate is their first choice?), I'm not sure how to interpret the last row (DK/NA), and I'm also not sure why each candidate row doesn't add up to 100 (and adding in the DK/NA row doesn't seem to make it work either, so it's not that either I don't think?)
posted by jermsplan at 9:40 AM on February 18, 2020


Can someone help me understand the data TonyCPU posted? I don't understand the first column named Tot (is that what percentage of respondents said that candidate is their first choice?), I'm not sure how to interpret the last row (DK/NA), and I'm also not sure why each candidate row doesn't add up to 100 (and adding in the DK/NA row doesn't seem to make it work either, so it's not that either I don't think?)

The candidates across the top are the first choices, and the candidates down the left are the second choices. For instance, it's saying that Biden is the second choice for 20% of Sanders voters. Each column adds up to 100%. The Tot column is showing second choice preferences for all poll respondents.
posted by bassooner at 9:45 AM on February 18, 2020


I've been seeing non-stop Bloomberg ads on my FB feed and on Twitter as well. I mean EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I need to start flagging them as "I don't like this ad." This has been steady for probably the last two months. He's trying to put up a pretty front everywhere and I don't know that the debate will do very much to push him down absent a Lloyd Bentsen/Dan Quayle moment that goes viral.
posted by azpenguin at 9:48 AM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


Mainstream media pundits look to Mike Bloomberg as Democrats' anti-Bernie savior (Julie Hollar, Fair.org/Salon)
For many mainstream commentators, Bloomberg is the cure for Democrats — but the Times' Charles Blow is not on board [2/12/2020 OpEd]
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:56 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


I guess I can use the relative lack of Bloomberg ads that I've seen as proof that my various privacy / adbusting measures are working. I got one text from his campaign, and one ad via Instagram that pretended to be a customer feedback survey but was really an excuse to show me the ad and then ask how I felt about it (answer: pissed off).

(Free games on my phone show me ads every couple of minutes or so, but 80% of them are for other phone games, 10% for candies and 10% a printer ad in French.)

...on the other hand, I don't need to be personally bombarded with ads to be aware that said bombing is occurring, because people talk about it everywhere I go where people talk about politics. It's kind of like my experience with Game of Thrones, where I know the characters and theme song and basics of the plot simply by cultural osmosis.
posted by Foosnark at 10:32 AM on February 18, 2020


> @NaomiAKlein
FYI: Trump is the state of emergency and Bloomberg is the Shock Doctrine. Don't fall for it.

Klein is right, of course, but as this Twitter thread points out, it's a very good strategy to run passionately against a President who's very unpopular, and Bloomberg is doing it in an unapologetic and direct way that resonates with voters, while Democrats tend to prefer safer bank shot attacks on him that reinforce the themes of their policy agendas:
Because they have misread the results of the 2016 and 2018 elections, Democrats have largely convinced themsleves that these things - the sources of Trump’s overwhelming unpopularity and his greatest political liabilities - are off limits as political attacks.

Instead, they have focused on much more esoteric, less direct lines of attack, usually centered around policy. He wants to change health care laws. He’s too rich. He’s just another Republican. He’s leaving people behind, economically.

The reality is that these attacks are complicated, need a lot of explanation, aren’t always convincing, and simply do not have the immediate purchase that pointing out his obvious gross incompetence and flagrant criminality does.

People KNOW the president shouldn’t a grotesque clown pardoning his mob associates, tweeting out obscenities in misspelled tweets, unable to complete a sentence about policy. This is intuitive and obvious.

But Dems have convinced themselves it can’t be used to attack Trump.
Democrats have developed a long series of unconvincing rationales for this. They say “everyone knows” and that it’s “priced in.”

Can anyone think of a single other context in which politicians ignored their opponents’ greatest liabilities because “everyone knows” them?
Bloomberg, correctly in my view, sees an obvious villain, and sees positive value in unequivocally positioning himself not just against Trump's deportations, and not just against his looting of the treasury or his selling of American interests to the highest foreign bidder, but against Trump as a person.

Is it admirable or ideal to build a campaign against antipathy toward a specific villain or set of villains? No, it's not. That's how we got Trump in the first place. But you aren't going to reason voters out of something they didn't reason themselves into, and Bloomberg is reaping the rewards of a strategy that was there for the taking by any other candidate.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:49 AM on February 18, 2020 [6 favorites]


The candidates across the top are the first choices, and the candidates down the left are the second choices.

Ignore my earlier comment, which was reading that sideways. It's still the case that MOEs for each supported candidate will be way bigger than for the whole sample, and MOEs near zero percent will be smaller, but my math is no longer cromulent.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:49 AM on February 18, 2020


Of course, by being a vile racist authoritarian himself, Bloomberg winning the nomination runs the very real chance that he could lose the presidency.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:56 AM on February 18, 2020 [7 favorites]


No doubt, but that's no concern of his. We're the ones who will be fucked while he fucks off to a private island, or quite possibly, planet.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:57 AM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


Bloomberg is reaping the rewards of a strategy that was there for the taking by any other candidate.

To be fair, he can't run on his particularly Democratic-friendly policies, his record, or expanding health care coverage because that's not what he is about. All he has is (A) he's not Trump (...except in many of the ways that actually matter...) and (B) infinite truckloads of money.
posted by Foosnark at 11:01 AM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


Oh, I'm not giving him credit for discovering One Weird Trick to Beat Trump. But he'd have had a lot less impact if, in addition to those other strategies not being available, one or more Democrats who were already in the race were using it, depriving him of the opportunity to be seen as something new and different.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:03 AM on February 18, 2020


Trump was really publicly awful going into the 2016 election and he still won. Pointing out that he's still terrible as your main attack is a risky strategy since it already failed once. It would be great if someone could make it stick this time around, though.
posted by bright flowers at 11:04 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


> Trump was really publicly awful going into the 2016 election and he still won. Pointing out that he's still terrible as your main attack is a risky strategy since it already failed once.

I'm going to decline to relitigate the specifics of 2016, except to note that there's ample evidence that the anti-Trump ads were effective, just not enough to overcome her other liabilities, the Electoral College, vote suppression, out-of-control media narratives (EMAILS), and other structural factors working against Clinton.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:09 AM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


Something else that 2016 revealed though is that there are actually a lot of people, a whole lot, who are okay with Trump being terrible. I don't think we, or the DNC or Democratic campaigns, have really come to terms with that. I can understand the campaigns being hesitant to lean into it.
posted by bright flowers at 11:21 AM on February 18, 2020 [5 favorites]


At this point I agree with the increasing number of articles claiming there is no such thing as a swing voter. Maybe in the past, but not these days. I honestly can't believe there is anyone out there that is truly on the fence deciding between Donald J. Trump and any Democrat.

Because of that, I think that anti-Trump ads are going to be less effective. There's no convincing Trump voters to vote any other way. In the general election, the eventual Democratic candidate is not going to be running against Trump, they're going to be running against the couch.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:30 AM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


That misstates the case. I don't think Bloomberg is convincing Trump voters to vote for him in the Democratic primary. He's convincing Democrats to support him over other options.
posted by tonycpsu at 11:35 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Trump was really publicly awful going into the 2016 election and he still won. Pointing out that he's still terrible as your main attack is a risky strategy since it already failed once. It would be great if someone could make it stick this time around, though.

I don't think the Grotesque Asshole Who Says What All the Racists are Thinking act works for Bloomberg like it did for Trump. Trump spent 40 years building up that public image and ran as a nationally famous person. To the extent anyone outside of New York knows about Bloomberg at all, it's as the megarich soda tax and gun control guy. You can pull off the Trump thing with a large existing fanbase and a preexisting persona that wouldn't be out of character with your outbursts of bigotry, but Bloomberg has neither.
posted by Copronymus at 11:39 AM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


That misstates the case. I don't think Bloomberg is convincing Trump voters to vote for him in the Democratic primary. He's convincing Democrats to support him over other options.

Yeah, I just don't think that's going to be an effective strategy in the long term. I believe that this election is going to be about excitement, and no amount of "I can beat Trump" is going to rally the troops to vote for some stodgy old billionaire, especially in the primaries. I also think this is why Biden is stumbling - people seem to like voting for someone they like, not someone who feels like they're compromising with the Republicans before they're even nominated.
posted by FakeFreyja at 11:43 AM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Is it admirable or ideal to build a campaign against antipathy toward a specific villain or set of villains? No, it's not. That's how we got Trump in the first place. But you aren't going to reason voters out of something they didn't reason themselves into, and Bloomberg is reaping the rewards of a strategy that was there for the taking by any other candidate.

It seems like an important open question is whether Bloomberg's rise is due in any way to his message, or just to the sheer quantity of advertising.

One way to test this is to compare poll gains per dollar for Bloomberg and Steyer, since most of us agree that Steyer's ads are largely garbage and thus any effect for him is due to sheer quantity. One comparison might be South Carolina vs North Carolina. In SC, Steyer has spent $18.7 million and he is now at around 15-20%. I don't know per state spending for Bloomberg, but it's around $124 million for super-Tuesday states, so say in the ballpark of $10-15 million for NC including national advertising share, and he is now polling there at around 15%. Given that everything has a margin of error of around 50% for these back-of-the-envelope calculations, I'd say that they are basically getting pretty much the same bang for their buck: approximately 1 percentage point per million dollars spent in a state. So my feeling is that the burden of proof is on Bloomberg et al to show that there's anything in his rise that's due to the message rather than just the sheer quantity.
posted by chortly at 11:46 AM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


Copronymus: I'm not sure why you quoted me there but to be clear, I was referring to pointing out that Trump is terrible, not that Bloomberg should himself be terrible.
posted by bright flowers at 11:53 AM on February 18, 2020


I'm not sure why you quoted me there but to be clear, I was referring to pointing out that Trump is terrible, not that Bloomberg should himself be terrible.

Oops, sorry, I got what you said turned around in my head.
posted by Copronymus at 12:42 PM on February 18, 2020


Iowa (?recanvas) results were supposed to be released by a few hours ago today. The ol' Wait Until They Forget Iowa Ever Existed maneuver seems to be paying off.
posted by Rust Moranis at 12:47 PM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


I'm still searching for any story today about the fact a national poll is showing the first Democratic candidate to break 30%. Seems like a significant turning point, historically. Guess I'll keep searching.
posted by Harry Caul at 1:14 PM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Newsweek is reporting that Sanders has a double digit lead nationally. Bloomberg is is second place. This is great news for Sanders since my feeling is that Bloomberg’s high polling, like Bidens, won’t translate into votes. He’s a white dude and people know his name.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:21 PM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


It seems like an important open question is whether Bloomberg's rise is due in any way to his message, or just to the sheer quantity of advertising.

Elizabeth Spiers tweets that Bloomberg is doing what people who've only ever worked in politics don't understand the efficacy of: mediocre messaging at massive scale .

Amanda Marcotte explains why Team Trump is so excited to run against Bloomberg.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 1:23 PM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


Amanda Marcotte has a longer column today on how easily Trump can beat Bloomberg: If the Democrats nominate Mike Bloomberg, we're facing four more years of Trump (Salon)
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:30 PM on February 18, 2020 [3 favorites]


From Marcotte's 2/18 Salon column:
This is one of those situations where there's no need to engage in a false dichotomy pitting what's right against what's effective. There's no need for progressives to compromise their values by running someone as gross as Mike Bloomberg, and doing so would actually be counterproductive. Any candidate that runs against Trump will be subject to bad-faith accusations of racism and sexism, meant to demobilize the Democratic vote. But there's no need to make that easier by running someone who actually is both racist and sexist.
posted by ZeusHumms at 1:33 PM on February 18, 2020 [7 favorites]


I tend to think Bloomberg's standing in today's polls is the same kind of mirage as Biden's lead in older polls was. These are mediocre candidates with high name recognition and no passionate base of support. I think people who aren't particularly invested in the race and aren't following it closely tend to name this type of candidate when they're asked who they support in a poll because their names are the first to come to mind, but when the day of the primary comes this doesn't translate into actual votes.
posted by One Second Before Awakening at 2:01 PM on February 18, 2020 [5 favorites]


In a longer campaign Bloomberg's support would absolutely be a mirage, but I suspect that's exactly why he entered the way he did -- get the "hey, this new guy seems good" buzz to peak on or near Election Day, and by the time reality has a chance to settle in the Super Tuesday votes are already cast and you've got momentum working for you.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:12 PM on February 18, 2020 [5 favorites]


That plus gobs and gobs of money thrown around, is Bloomberg's campaigning method so far, re: his mayoral campaigns.
posted by Harry Caul at 2:15 PM on February 18, 2020


Bloomberg just surged to second in California.
posted by chaz at 2:42 PM on February 18, 2020


A newly uncovered video shows Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg in 2019 describing transgender people as “he, she, or it” and “some guy in a dress” who enters girls locker rooms — invoking a conservative cliché as he argued that transgender rights are toxic for presidential candidates trying to reach Middle America.

In 2019. We're really gonna do this, huh?
posted by Rust Moranis at 2:46 PM on February 18, 2020 [16 favorites]


Not Quite As Much Of A Bigot 2020
posted by medusa at 2:53 PM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


@Nate_Cohn
Buttigieg lead in Iowa appears to fall to a mere 0.08 SDEs after recanvass
Buttigieg 563.207
Sanders 563.127

Oh come on

@ajjaffe
News: Bernie Sanders' campaign plans to ask for a recount of the Iowa caucus results

Aaaand here we go again
posted by Rust Moranis at 4:37 PM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


The request is for a partial recount - 25 precincts, out of what, 1,600+? - where the Sanders campaign feel the margins are close enough to warrant it, Rust Moranis:

In its recanvass request, the Sanders campaign outlined 25 precincts and three satellite caucuses where it believes correcting faulty math could swing the delegate allocation in Sanders’ favor and deliver him, not Buttigieg, that final delegate. (AP News, Feb. 19, 2020)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:18 PM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


^apologies, missed edit window; dateline is today, Feb. 18, not 19 (I'm not an oracle)
posted by Iris Gambol at 5:35 PM on February 18, 2020


Oh yes, the big problem with the Iowa fuckup isn’t Tom Perez or the DNC, it’s the Sanders’ campaign’s attempts to make sure the result are right.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:37 PM on February 18, 2020 [4 favorites]


Every delegate counts.

Sanders isn’t my first choice, but I respect what his team is doing. Kudos to the Sanders team for fighting for each delegate, and incidentally, for helping make sure Iowa’s results are accurate.
posted by darkstar at 5:41 PM on February 18, 2020 [9 favorites]


where it believes correcting faulty math could swing the delegate allocation in Sanders’ favor and deliver him, not Buttigieg, that final delegate.

Am I the only one seeing this as an ego thing (from both Sanders and Buttgieg)? Wouldn't campaign money, volunteer time, paid staffer time, etc. be better used on.... THE 48 RACES STILL AHEAD? The nomination is no way ever going to be decided by one delegate from Iowa.

dear lord if it is, the relitigation will go on 50 years.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:41 PM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


Ego can’t be ruled out.

But that being said, “winning” Iowa not only gets you one more delegate, but also can help craft the narratives later. Buttigieg can say, right now, that he has won a state. If the delegate count flips, Sanders strips that away from him.

Or, more powerfully: “Sanders is 2 and 0“.
posted by darkstar at 5:48 PM on February 18, 2020 [10 favorites]


neglecting preview, I see a some people posted faster than me. I understand other's points about the caucus. When delegates are decided by the flip of a coin, though, it is hard to see how all votes are counted.

(not going to get into the primary vs. caucus debate. just not convinced the right results "matter" with all of the Iowa fuckery, as well as how delegates are apportioned. I'm going to bow out for a while, though.)
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:49 PM on February 18, 2020 [2 favorites]


Or, more powerfully: “Sanders is 2 and 0“.

Which, I really don't seeing matter past Super Tuesday where the narrative probably (IMO) definitely changes. So, it still seems like wasted resources to me.

Speaking of... I really do need to disengage to cook dinner. I hope all is well with all y'all.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 5:52 PM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


Oh yes, the big problem with the Iowa fuckup isn’t Tom Perez or the DNC, it’s the Sanders’ campaign’s attempts to make sure the result are right.

That's why the campaign has asked for recounts in strategic locations that might benefit Bernie...

I've already put my free bet on "contested convention, the party tears itself, one faction stays home and guarantees four more years of Trump".
posted by Your Childhood Pet Rock at 8:10 PM on February 18, 2020


A selected recount? How does that even work? If the argument is that all votes must be properly counted, why only count the precincts selected by the campaigns?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:44 PM on February 18, 2020


Some Bernie supporters thrive off the idea that Democrat institutions are out to get him. Keeping the recount alive feeds the narrative. In my opinion this will never stop. Even if Bernie becomes president.
posted by xammerboy at 10:04 PM on February 18, 2020 [1 favorite]


That's why the campaign has asked for recounts in strategic locations that might benefit Bernie...

Why the ominous ellipsis? Is behavior like that unique to the Bernie Sanders campaign? If you're going to engage in electoral politics, you're going to wind up doing things like this in a closely contested election. It's not unusual and I don't think it's too controversial to suggest that these sorts of tactics are more typically deployed by establishment politicians against upstart insurgent candidates, cf., the outcome of Tiffany Cabán's race for DA against Melinda Katz and the Queens County Democratic Party machine.

I guess I should add that I'm not thrilled by games like that either and that I'm speaking as a hard-ish left supporter of Bernie Sanders who is not entirely convinced that I wouldn't be better off spending the time and energy that I'm devoting to his campaign instead doing something like, eg., organzing tenant unions so that we can have a big ol' rent strike in a couple of years regardless of who winds up in the White House at the end of all this. But if you're going to play this game then, yeah, there's going to be some rules lawyering and appeals to the judge...it's all baked into the cake of bourgeois electoral democracy.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 10:15 PM on February 18, 2020 [7 favorites]


I can't help myself. I've got a Mike Bloomberg comment too. Part of the reason that I support Bernie is because I think that big ol' rent strike that I was just talking about will be more likely to have a positive, non-violent resolution under his administration.

I was at Zuccotti Park in 2011. I know exactly how Bloomberg would respond.
posted by GalaxieFiveHundred at 10:57 PM on February 18, 2020 [19 favorites]


I could definitely see Bloomberg repeating Reagan’s act of firing (and blacklisting for life) the air traffic controllers.
posted by darkstar at 12:11 AM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Bloomberg is, in essence, a slightly less crude Donald Trump with a D after his name. His politics are basically the same, his shitty billionairedom is basically the same. He's the sort of candidate that makes people wince at the Vote Blue No Matter Who line. Are we really going to go into 2020 facing the choice between a Democratic racist, pedophile, homophobic, autocratic, billionaire and a Republican racist, pedophile, homophobic, autocratic, billionaire?

I mean, sure, I guess I'd take the Democratic racist, pedophile, homophobic, autocratic, billionaire but it really does make all the Sanders of bust people seem a lot less unreasonable. At some point the choice between Trump and the closest thing to Trump that the Democrats can find becomes essentially meaningless.

Which is why the fact that the DNC seems hellbent on giving Bloomberg the nom is so infuriating. Are they really so hateful towards Sanders that they'd rather burn the party down than let him get the nom?
posted by sotonohito at 4:18 AM on February 19, 2020 [11 favorites]


The Democratic National Committee consists representatives of the state Democratic Party organizations and includes people who supported Sanders in 2016.
posted by nangar at 4:42 AM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


Are we really going to go into 2020 facing the choice between a Democratic racist, pedophile, homophobic, autocratic, billionaire and a Republican racist, pedophile, homophobic, autocratic, billionaire?

Which one is the Republican and which one is the Democrat again? I get confused so easily with these two.
posted by Harry Caul at 4:48 AM on February 19, 2020 [7 favorites]


bernie sanders is the only candidate polling above 15% in california.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 5:58 AM on February 19, 2020 [6 favorites]


he argued that transgender rights are toxic for presidential candidates trying to reach Middle America.

I didn't really need another reason to say I will never vote for Bloomberg, even against Trump, and yet there it is anyway.
posted by Foosnark at 6:10 AM on February 19, 2020 [5 favorites]


Which is why the fact that the DNC seems hellbent on giving Bloomberg the nom is so infuriating. Are they really so hateful towards Sanders that they'd rather burn the party down than let him get the nom?

In my head this is the big exorcism scene where the demon is forced to show itself before being thrown out. Right now, MIchael "No Due Process for Minorities" Bloomberg, the billionaire, hard-right, capital incarnate plutocrat is being pushed as the face of the Democratic Party. The guy who actually gives credence to the claim that there is no difference between R and D candidates. The mask is off.
posted by FakeFreyja at 6:44 AM on February 19, 2020 [6 favorites]


When Green Party voters said that there is no difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties, they're supposed to be wrong or exaggerating. Nominating Bloomberg would show that they exactly right, that we're okay with any number of terrible experiences and ideologies and stances as long as there's a different letter after their name.

Don't let this Bloomberg corrosion happen.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 6:50 AM on February 19, 2020 [8 favorites]


Mod note: A few deleted. We aren't doing megathreads anymore. We do not have the capacity to follow every single comment and try to keep threads close to the tiniest, barest semblance of not being a runaway train with the same stuff being posted over and over and over. We do not have the capacity to deal with hundreds of flags on every US politics post. The only way we can have US politics threads is if they stay basically on topic for a general main specific topic, and don't become an overarching POESTANYTHINGHEEEERELETITALLOUT thread. This is a post about the Iowa caucus; are you making a comment about the Iowa caucus or anything even vaguely related? Or are you just reposting the same things from the old megathreads that have been posted literally thousands of times. So many many thousands of times.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:51 AM on February 19, 2020 [20 favorites]


I listened to the last Pod Save America podcast. They spent a whole segment of the podcast talking about Sanders' supporters harassment of the Nevada Culinary Union leadership, and the nasty behavior of some of his supporters on Twitter. I was glad to hear them talk about this. This kind of behavior was incredibly destructive to Sanders' campaign last time around, and this time around it could cost us the election. In the short term, these kind attacks could cost Sanders votes in Nevada caususes.

Sanders and his campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, have of course condemned these attacks. But they need to do more than that if they want to win. The Sanders campaign needs to mobilize their supporters, who I know to be mostly decent people (because I've met a lot of them, and I was one in 2016), to get their asses on-line and combat the destructive self-appointed Sanders key-board warriors. They could have training and guidelines for their volunteers about how to counter this kind of stuff when they see it on Twitter or elsewhere on-line.
posted by nangar at 7:18 AM on February 19, 2020 [8 favorites]


This Psychological Concept Could Be Shaping the Presidential Election (Erika Weisz for Nautilus, Feb. 10, 2020)
ot too long ago, I briefly met Elizabeth Warren in a restaurant in Cambridge, near Harvard, where I’m now a postdoc in psychology. My dad and I saw the Massachusetts senator, a 2020 presidential candidate, walking in as we were walking out. “Give ’em hell,” my dad told the senator, harkening back to Harry Truman’s 1948 presidential campaign. She laughed. “That’s what I do!”

Last summer, in a New York Times article about Warren, a voter stated, “I love her enthusiasm. She’s smart, she’s very smart. I think she would make an amazing president,” before adding, “I’m worried about whether she can win.”1 The voter’s sentiment is reflected in a 2019 poll in which 74 percent of Democrats said they would be comfortable with a female president, yet only 33 percent of them thought their neighbors felt the same way.2

Last week in the Iowa caucus primary, Warren placed third behind Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Could Warren’s political fate in 2020 turn on voters who think she would make a great president choosing another candidate because they think that’s what their neighbors will do? I’m inclined to say yes because of a social psychological concept called pluralistic ignorance.

Pluralistic ignorance is a discrepancy between one’s privately held beliefs and public behavior. It occurs when people assume that the identical actions of themselves and others reflect different underlying states. The term has been in circulation for nearly 80 years, though more recent experiments have made it a focal point of social psychology.
1 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/15/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-2020-campaign.html
2 https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2019-06/daily-beast-gender-topline-2019-06-17-v2.pdf
posted by filthy light thief at 7:46 AM on February 19, 2020 [8 favorites]


I don’t know why we need psychological theories to explain why her campaign imploded: she lost the left when she waffles on M4A, there was a high level of distrust about her because her longtime Republican affiliation and her lying about her heritage, the left went to Sanders and the moderates went to Klobuchar and Buttigieg. I think the more interesting question is why some moderates went to Buttigieg and not Klobuchar.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:53 AM on February 19, 2020 [8 favorites]


In other words I think sexism’s role is actually pretty limited when it comes to why the Warren campaign failed but probably explains why people preferred a 30 something moderate who spouts platitudes and loses elections over someone who is by all accounts extremely competent and accomplished.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:55 AM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


The pluralistic ignorance concept reminds me of the discussion in C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" where the devil says that a desirable end goal, for evil, is for a group of people to all be at a point where they are aggressively arguing for what they think the other person wants, so they are not only disagreeing but also resenting each other. An example, not in the book, would be deciding with a friend where you want to eat, and you really want Thai and your friend really wants Italian, but out of excessive politeness and some self-righteousness, you end up arguing for Italian and your friend for Thai. Since you're both arguing from a position based on morality and not simple preference, neither of you back down, so you both end up going home angry without dinner. The way to avoid this is for each party to honestly and respectfully advocate for their own position.
posted by bright flowers at 8:19 AM on February 19, 2020 [5 favorites]


The way to avoid this is for each party to honestly and respectfully advocate for their own position.

I wonder how many voters choose, instead of the candidate that they want to win, the one they think everyone else is going to choose, because of a belief that a more decisive finish in the primary is somehow correlated to a stronger performance in the general election?

I feel like this is the sort of messed-up logic that mostly goes away under a RCV system.
posted by Foosnark at 8:47 AM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


> bernie sanders is the only candidate polling above 15% in california.

That's according to one PPIC poll of 573 likely voters, conducted February 7–17.

By contrast, a SurveyUSA poll of 520 likely voters, conducted February 13–16, had:
  • Bernie Sanders, 25%.
  • Mike Bloomberg, 21%.
  • Joe Biden, 15%.
  • Pete Buttigieg, 12%.
  • Elizabeth Warren, 9%.
  • Amy Klobuchar, 6%.
Both of these pollsters are fairly highly rated. The difference may be caused by sampling error in one or both polls, or it might reflect a genuine change in Bloomberg's standing from when the first poll started to the period of the second poll.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:06 AM on February 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


RCV can actually eliminate the most broadly-liked candidates early, if they are not enough people’s absolute first choice. Approval voting doesn’t do that, which is one of the reasons I like it better. It’s also simpler than RCV — you just select all the candidates you like instead of just one.
posted by en forme de poire at 9:43 AM on February 19, 2020 [3 favorites]


Two things:
1. Nevada has early voting; supposedly 70,000 ballots have been cast so far, vs. 84,000 total turnout in 2016. How early voting will work in a caucus I’m not sure; supposedly you can rank your candidates?
2. Elizabeth Warren yesterday: “It’s a shame Mike Bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. But at least now primary voters curious about how each candidate will take on Donald Trump can get a live demonstration of how we each take on an egomaniac billionaire.”
posted by Huffy Puffy at 2:42 PM on February 19, 2020 [10 favorites]


The explanation for one's personal dissatisfaction with Warren is distinct from Warren's decline in support overall. The story that Warren declined because of her M4A rollout is popular on the left, and I have no doubt that it explains some dissatisfaction with Warren on the left, but this story may take insufficient account of the data. Bernie, Buttigieg, and Biden all gained during Warren's decline- but Buttigieg and Biden together gained more than Bernie. This suggests that it may have been Warren's *right* flank of voters that was shearing off to other candidates, more than her left.
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 2:44 PM on February 19, 2020 [6 favorites]


That's exactly what I think happened - her left flank was unsatisfied with what they saw as a half-measure M4A, while the right flank got cold feet at seeing what they could previously rationalize as an aspirational goal laid out in black and white, and consistent with polling on M4A, Group 2 was bigger than Group 1.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 2:58 PM on February 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


How early voting will work in a caucus I’m not sure; supposedly you can rank your candidates?

The early voters' preferences will be given to each precinct chair so they'll have the early vote count in hand during the caucus on Saturday:

Here is where the unique part of early voting in a caucus comes in: Once all of the voting is finished, the ballot box is transported to a designated processing hub monitored by the state party, where the votes are scanned and stored.

Unlike Iowa, those results will be included in the total count for each voter's precinct during the caucus. For example: If a voter from a caucus site in Elko, Nevada, votes early, their preference will be counted as part of the total votes in their specific caucus site on Saturday.

According to the Nevada Democratic Party, the number and preference of early votes cast will be given to each precinct chair in paper and as part of a preloaded iPad on Saturday.
posted by mediareport at 3:02 PM on February 19, 2020


Given Warren's expertise fighting Wall Street corruption, Bloomberg should be the perfect adversary in the debate. I would hope she would take advantage of the opportunity to show off her talent. Someone, or all of them, need to take him down a peg.
posted by JackFlash at 3:11 PM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Agreed.

But, Nevada...

Who knows what they might do.
posted by Windopaene at 4:43 PM on February 19, 2020


So there's...nothing else that "Trump-like" connotes? Nothing involving racism, enthnonationalism, or anything?

I know this is late but Bloomberg is Trump-like in many of the bad ways (don't think I need to explain this) while Sanders is Trump-like in some of the good ways, if you're trying to win - a base of energetic and loyal supporters who aren't going anywhere, a populist "outsider" image, a track record of exceeding skeptics' expectations and rising above the party establishment's discomfort with him...
posted by atoxyl at 6:27 PM on February 19, 2020 [3 favorites]


Is there a thread with discussion of tonight's debate?
posted by medusa at 6:44 PM on February 19, 2020


Is there a thread with discussion of tonight's debate?

Klobuchar really, really hates Pete.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 7:06 PM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Watch Gladiator. You know that scene where Maximus utterly annihilates his enemies in like two and a half seconds and then turns to the crowd and yells "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?".

That's tonight and Warren.
posted by Justinian at 7:09 PM on February 19, 2020 [13 favorites]


Peter Buttigieg’s award-winning Profiles in Courage essay from 2000 about Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), complete with picture.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 7:36 PM on February 19, 2020 [3 favorites]


Klobuchar really, really hates Pete.

Klobster has a pure "where does this fucking guy get off?" hate for Pete. Every candidate assuredly also feels that way about Mike.
posted by atoxyl at 7:45 PM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Buttigieg is a swarmy pos. I'm sure his father is rolling in his grave.


All in for Sanders or Warren.
posted by Ahmad Khani at 7:57 PM on February 19, 2020 [10 favorites]


KLOBSTER
posted by JHarris at 8:23 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


That debate was painful.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:29 PM on February 19, 2020


My favorite part was when all but one of the candidates said that it'd be cool for the Democratic Party to tear itself apart in Milwaukee by not nominating the candidate who gets the most votes.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:32 PM on February 19, 2020 [12 favorites]


That's so funny! My favorite part was where the one candidate who would benefit from changing the rules to not require a majority said it'd be cool to change the rules so they wouldn't require a majority!
posted by kirkaracha at 8:53 PM on February 19, 2020 [4 favorites]


Know what's more important than the Democratic Party not destroying itself? The rules.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:55 PM on February 19, 2020 [7 favorites]


To be fair, he did think the rules were important when he called changing the rules to let Bloomberg into the debates was an "outrage".
posted by tonycpsu at 9:00 PM on February 19, 2020


Ok, we all like the idea that the person who wins the popular vote wins, but we're not talking about a 2 person race where the majority vote winner loses somehow. We're talking about a situation where there are a lot of candidates and whether or not a person who got 30-something % of the vote should win.
posted by jermsplan at 9:01 PM on February 19, 2020 [3 favorites]


Know what's more important than the Democratic Party not destroying itself? The rules.

After three years of Trump shredding the Constitution you're goddamn right the rules are important.

Entering a contest knowing the rules up front and then proposing to change them when it only benefits you is unsportsmanlike and dishonorable.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:06 PM on February 19, 2020 [1 favorite]


unsportsmanlike and dishonorable

Politics are about gaining and wielding political power for political ends*, for example to try to save your life, or to save the planet. It's not sports, or entertainment, or aesthetics.

*the right understands this
posted by Rust Moranis at 9:09 PM on February 19, 2020 [12 favorites]


If Bernie were the only candidate who could save our lives in this case, I think we'd all re-evaluate our firmly-held opinions on the sanctity of rules. Not everyone believes that, even among those who support Bernie. An 11th hour rule change to benefit a single candidate could weaken that candidate just as much as or more than a different candidate being nominated without achieving a plurality could weaken them. Speculating as to how that will play out is as futile and arrogant as trying to judge "electability".
posted by tonycpsu at 9:21 PM on February 19, 2020 [2 favorites]


I just watched Warren wipe the floor with a rich white man that will surely get twice the votes that she does. Don’t underestimate the role sexism is playing in this election.
posted by angrybear at 9:36 PM on February 19, 2020 [29 favorites]


The rules don't require that the lesser vote-getters band together in order to win at the convention, they just allow it. So the other candidates are free, if the wanted to, to support the plurality winner, without any rule change. So it's not really a question of sticking to the rules or following the process, but rather a question of, if the rules allow you to beat the plurality winner by banding together, will you do it. Sanders of course is totally wrong to imply he wouldn't do exactly that if it was him + Warren that made a majority, and he's also incorrect to imply that there's something anti-democratic about it, since it's both the way multi-party democracies around the world work, and it's the only way to produce results that are consistent with basic notions of fairness and majority opinion. But on the other hand, he is correct to imply that, if you are going to tout democracy, fairness, how other democracies work, and most of our fundamental beliefs about majority rule, then including super-delegates in the second round is a clear violation of all those principles. Coalitions are fine, but rules or no, super-delegates are a fundamental violation of basic democracy and something that no respectable parliament in the world would allow.
posted by chortly at 10:00 PM on February 19, 2020 [6 favorites]


after four fucking years of democrats complaining about hilary winning the popular vote but losing the election, if the same fucking party has the AUDACITY to give the nomination to someone other than the candidate with the most votes, even if they have only 48.8% of the total vote or whatever the fuck, there will be hell to pay. people will be LIVID. do not underestimate how fucking hypocritical this shit looks.
posted by JimBennett at 11:25 PM on February 19, 2020 [14 favorites]


I agree, but the problem is that we're not talking about 48.8% of the total vote. In a case like that I don't think there would even be discussion of not giving Sanders the nom.

The problem is we may well be looking at a situation where he gets 35% of the total vote, with Biden/Bloomer/Buttigieg/Klobs getting 60%. While it may well be absolutely vital as a practical matter of wanting to win the freaking election to give Sanders the nom anyway, it isn't at all clear that's the most ethical thing to do from a will-of-the-voters standpoint.
posted by Justinian at 12:22 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]


(That's also obviously a strong argument for ranked choice or other similar method of voting, since then you'd end up with somebody getting a majority or near majority.)
posted by Justinian at 12:25 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


We’ll see where everyone stands after most candidates do not pass the bar of 15% in California on Super Tuesday. 494 delegates there.
posted by Harry Caul at 2:30 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say whoever is the Democratic nominee must get a majority of the votes at the national convention. If nobody gets a majority of delegates, then the plurality winner will need to build a coalition to win. Or the other candidates could pool their votes to overcome the plurality winner.

There is nothing unfair about this. Building coalitions is how democracy should work. Unlike the GOP, the Democratic Party is a coalition of various groups with largely overlapping and occasionally diverging interests and priorities. This is it’s core strength.

“Democrats in disarray.” is a convenient line because it so often seems true. But it also misses a crucial point — good politics is, by its very nature, messy. The GOP has excellent discipline because their titular leader requires nothing less than goose stepping loyalty. I prefer my politics to be fascism-free, thanks.

As Rust Moranis correctly noted above, politics is about the exercise of power. Want power? Build a majority. The current shitshow is what happens when you abandon that simple rule.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:26 AM on February 20, 2020 [10 favorites]


Also, I think the Democrats would be well served to abandon the current primary system entirely. Change to an all ranked-choice primary contest with states voting in rotating order starting no more than 3 months before the convention.

That would give a better picture of who is the strongest candidate for the general election.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:31 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]


The reality is that if Sanders continues to do well but does not win a majority of delegates, and there is a brokered convention, and he is not selected as the candidate, then the democrats will have selected someone who didn't get the most votes to be the nominee, inevitably guaranteeing that whoever they pick won't be perceived as legitimate and all but handing the election to Trump.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 6:37 AM on February 20, 2020 [9 favorites]


That's according to one PPIC poll of 573 likely voters, conducted February 7–17.

By contrast, a SurveyUSA poll of 520 likely voters, conducted February 13–16, had...

So I don't honestly know how polls work, and I'm sure these two pollsters are well respected, but I just have a hard time imagining that talking to 500-600 people is a large-enough sample to get an accurate picture of the breakdown in a state where nearly 5.2 million Democrats voted in the last presidential primary.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:25 AM on February 20, 2020


Politics are about gaining and wielding political power for political ends*, for example to try to save your life, or to save the planet. It's not sports, or entertainment, or aesthetics.

Which is exactly why it's worth at least having a conversation about whether it is politically wise to nominate a candidate with the support of ~30% of Democrats, when two or more other candidates may be able to form a coalition behind a nominee who would have the support of more than 50% of the party.

For the record, I personally feel that it's probably better to go with the plurality winner, because the alternative brings up ugly stereotypes of smoke-filled rooms, rigged elections, and decisions made by anti-democratic party bosses, and will likely turn off a lot of base voters. And I say that as someone who does not want Bernie to be the nominee. Despite my personal opinions about Bernie, I think it's a better story heading into November for us to rally around him at the convention in a show of party unity than to waste time on an internecine fight that results in elevating a candidate who got fewer votes, even if I think that other candidate would otherwise have a better chance of beating Trump in the general election.

My point is that it's an important conversation to have, regardless of which candidates may or may not benefit from the outcome.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:33 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


Sanders: "I think it is a fair statement to say it would be very divisive... The convention would have to explain to the American people, hey, candidate X kind of got the most votes and won the most delegates in the primary process but we're not going to give him or her the nomination. I think that would be a very divisive moment for the Democratic party."

He should know. In 2016 Sanders was trying to get the superdelegates to overturn the will of the voters right on the floor of the convention. It was very divisive and may have helped contribute to Trump's victory.

You could give him the benefit of the doubt and say he learned a hard lesson or you could say he just wants to win.
posted by JackFlash at 7:34 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


He just wants to win. Which I, and many Sanders supporters, are 100% ok with. If that's what they got on him, great!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:38 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


> I just have a hard time imagining that talking to 500-600 people is a large-enough sample to get an accurate picture

It’s not perfect. When done correctly, it’s accurate to within four or five percentage points, 95% of the time. (The last bit is important: Even if there are no flaws in the poll’s methodology or execution, one in twenty polls will have a sampling error that’s more than the stated margin of error!)

This is the main reason you should never treat any single poll, especially one with a smallish sample like this, as anything more than weak evidence. This goes double for subsamples within the poll. (For example, I see people talking about support among black voters based on polls where the sample of black voters is tiny and the margin of error therefore huge.)
posted by mbrubeck at 7:52 AM on February 20, 2020 [6 favorites]


If nobody gets a majority of delegates, then the plurality winner will need to build a coalition to win. Or the other candidates could pool their votes to overcome the plurality winner.
There is nothing unfair about this. Building coalitions is how democracy should work. Unlike the GOP, the Democratic Party is a coalition of various groups with largely overlapping and occasionally diverging interests and priorities. This is it’s core strength.

Exactly. And that's how in 1952 we got President Adlai Stevenson.
posted by Harry Caul at 8:11 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


He just wants to win. Which I, and many Sanders supporters, are 100% ok with.

The Sanders supporters I know like to talk about the purity and consistency of his ideological stances.

This might just be sour grapes coming from someone who supports Warren over Bernie, but watching him change his mind about how to run a convention every time it looks like it will give him a better chance of winning? It doesn't make me like him better.
posted by box at 8:12 AM on February 20, 2020 [8 favorites]


I supported Sanders in 2016. I even defended him when he didn’t just roll over and endorse Clinton because I thought he earned the right to make some demands regarding party platform and priorities. I thought his bid to get superdelegates at the convention was tilting at windmills because, lol, they’re party loyalists and he had zero party support. Here in Iowa, he definitely has a contingency within the party. Partly because he built some of it 4 years ago and partly because leftists in this state recognize purity doesn’t get shit done. If you are anywhere left-of-center in this state, you have no choice but to make friends where you can.

I caucused for Warren this year and Sanders is my second choice with a steep drop in enthusiasm for third (one of the others is fine, I guess). Bloomberg is the one candidate who makes me fundamentally worried for the survival of the country if he ends up being the nominee.

The Nazis only got 37% of the vote in 1932. The other 5 parties could have defeated the Nazi agenda had they recognized there was more at stake than their individual interests. If you believe as I do that a second Trump presidency represents an existential threat to the republic, then now is not the time to shit on potential allies.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 8:26 AM on February 20, 2020 [15 favorites]


There was a great complicated orchestra of government shenanigans after several elections that brought Hitler to power. Papen and Hindenburg were finally responsible for allowing that.
posted by Harry Caul at 8:37 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


The Nazis only got 37% of the vote in 1932. The other 5 parties could have defeated the Nazi agenda had they recognized there was more at stake than their individual interests. If you believe as I do that a second Trump presidency represents an existential threat to the republic, then now is not the time to shit on potential allies.

I mean not to relitigate the 1932 primary but that didn't happen in a vacuum, and in hindsight if the Social Democrats wanted to prevent Nazism through an alliance with the hard left they should have not supported entering World War 1 and then not sent the Freikorps to kill the German communists.
posted by Rust Moranis at 8:42 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


And that's how in 1952 we got President Adlai Stevenson.

Well, that plus he was running against the guy who won World War II.
posted by Etrigan at 8:43 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


This might just be sour grapes coming from someone who supports Warren over Bernie, but watching him change his mind about how to run a convention every time it looks like it will give him a better chance of winning? It doesn't make me like him better.

I also support Warren over Sanders (and my heart is extra filled with love after her performance last night), but I think it's pretty easy to rationalize Bernie's stance here. Yeah, he suggested the superdelegates might overturn the popular vote in 2016, but they didn't, and you can interpret his stance now as "well, we went with the popular vote last time when I lost, so what was fair then is fair now." I don't begrudge him that, at least.
posted by skewed at 8:46 AM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]


The Nazis only got 37% of the vote in 1932. The other 5 parties could have defeated the Nazi agenda had they recognized there was more at stake than their individual interests.

For those playing at home, who are we calling Nazis now?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:15 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


and you can interpret his stance now as "well, we went with the popular vote last time when I lost, so what was fair then is fair now." I don't begrudge him that, at least.

The difference being that Hillary won a majority of the votes that assigned her delegates.

I don’t begrudge Sanders for trying, either — he was acting within the rules at that time. But the idea that a plurality should be good enough is unpersuasive to me. Get the votes or build the alliances but 50%+1 is the minimum standard.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 9:15 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


> The Nazis only got 37% of the vote in 1932.

lol. are you seriously godwin'ing Sanders with a "What it would mean to have a Jewish President" thread still on the front page?
posted by lkc at 9:23 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


Bury Me In One of Elizabeth Warren’s Withering Glares at Michael Bloomberg
Elizabeth Warren made it clear that her plan for last night’s debate included one bullet point: “reduce Bloomberg to a pile of salt like Lot’s wife,” which is very specific but turned out to be accurate.
...
Elizabeth Warren at Wednesday’s Democratic debate had big “What you’re not going to do...” energy. She stood there giving her best Dikembe Mutumbo impression. There was almost an indignation in the way she laser-focused on whether Bloomberg should be on the stage at all...Early on, she started taking down Michael Bloomberg using the billionaire kryptonite of “facts” and “things he’s said and done” and though she made it look as effortless as Maria teaching the Von Trapps the scales, I was at home straight up sweating.
...
I think the moment I truly left the physical realm to go live in that big Parasite basement in the sky was when Warren started talking about who the Dems on stage were up against and turned it into a reveal that would have made RuPaul explode into glitter. "I'd like to talk about who we're running against,” she said. “A billionaire who calls women 'fat broads' and 'horse-faced lesbians,' and, no, I'm not talking about Donald Trump.” Me, at home: “WHAT?!!!”

Warren continued, "I'm talking about Mayor Bloomberg." Me, at home: “OH SHIT!!!”

She said that and I jumped up and immediately called the police. I was like “hello, officer? Elizabeth Warren just pulled off Michael Bloomberg’s face like a Scooby-Doo villain mask.”
posted by kirkaracha at 9:32 AM on February 20, 2020 [13 favorites]


Well, that plus he was running against the guy who won World War II.
Georgy Zhukov?
posted by kirkaracha at 9:33 AM on February 20, 2020 [7 favorites]


I have hated everything about this primary season except that debate. What a brief moment of bloody joy.
posted by schadenfrau at 9:39 AM on February 20, 2020 [7 favorites]


You know, we do have polling information regarding who would win in head to head match ups between the Democratic candidates. Hint: It’s the guy who currently leads in the polls. Maybe that will change, who knows ...

Either way, having superdelegates and pledged delegates try to hash out a compromise candidate that in theory (their minds) is supposed to reflect the “will of voters”, as opposed to actual vote totals, is insane. It’s suicidal. In a census year no less. Both political parties are historically unpopular. This would just reinforce that mistrust.
posted by eagles123 at 9:55 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


Is there any indication that Warren got a bump coming out of last night's roast?
posted by Lyme Drop at 10:07 AM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


For those playing at home, who are we calling Nazis now?

lol. are you seriously godwin'ing Sanders

*sigh*

Trump is the fascist threat (the Nazi). The Democratic candidates represent the various factions of opposition (SPD, KPD, Center, BPP, etc.).
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:18 AM on February 20, 2020 [11 favorites]


There haven’t been any post debate polls released. Pollsters need at least a day, probably more like 2, to survey voters. The debate was just last night.

Plus, the Nevada primary is on Saturday, so they might wait to release until after that was concluded.
posted by eagles123 at 10:19 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


You know, we do have polling information regarding who would win in head to head match ups between the Democratic candidates. Hint: It’s the guy who currently leads in the polls. Maybe that will change, who knows ...

It's a little more complicated than that, if you're primarily considering nationwide polls. After all, the polls generally got it right in predicting that Hillary would beat Trump by about 3 points nationally.

For example, according to the RCP polling average, in Wisconsin (a state that is important to win for obvious reasons), Biden has a slight edge over Trump (45.7 to 45.0) but Trump has a slight edge over Sanders (46.0 to 45.3).
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 10:33 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


it's worth at least having a conversation about whether it is politically wise to nominate a candidate with the support of ~30% of Democrats, when two or more other candidates may be able to form a coalition behind a nominee who would have the support of more than 50% of the party.

If this is that conversation I'll just say the obvious which is that it's not just math. Everybody is afraid of 1972 but they didn't end up winning in 1968 either (and the desire to avoid that sort of debacle is why we have the primary process we have now).
posted by atoxyl at 10:36 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


We have state by state head to head data too. Either way, it’s better than a guess made by people in smokey rooms that would reek of self-interest and corruption.

That’s why it would be stupid, yes stupid, to go by anything other than delegates based on actual votes. No inferences from polls needed because, like you said, it’s complicated :-)
posted by eagles123 at 10:41 AM on February 20, 2020


large-enough sample to get an accurate picture of the breakdown in a state where nearly 5.2 million Democrats voted in the last presidential primary.

Others have given the tl-dr yes answer, but let me make explicit the underlying thing that is so counterintuitive: Apart from some unrealistic edge cases the size of the population being sampled (ie 5.2million) does not matter in terms of how big your sample size must be. That's right, 800ish people is big enough of a sample without regard to whether you are looking at a population of 100,000, 1million, or 100million, or 1 billion.

Reality is weird, yo.
posted by Justinian at 12:42 PM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]


(to phrase it slightly differently: the error bars depend on the size of the sample but not the size of the population!)
posted by Justinian at 12:43 PM on February 20, 2020


That’s not an artifact of reality that’s an artifact of a model—-if the sample size is 900 and the population size is 900, there are no error bars.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:48 PM on February 20, 2020


That's right, 800ish people is big enough of a sample without regard to whether you are looking at a population of 100,000, 1million, or 100million, or 1 billion.

By the same measure, be very wary of crosstabs in poll results claiming to represent the views of minorities like blacks or hispanics. A typical poll of 800 will have reasonable results for the whole population, but for the sub-populations, the same poll will likely have only a sample of less than 100. These sub-populations will have a margin of error of plus or minus 10% or 12%.

So when you see a news report comparing minority support for Sanders vs Biden, for example, it is probably garbage.
posted by JackFlash at 12:51 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


It was very divisive and may have helped contribute to Trump's victory.

[citation needed]
posted by JimBennett at 1:27 PM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


That’s not an artifact of reality that’s an artifact of a model—-if the sample size is 900 and the population size is 900, there are no error bars.

It's based on the model of sampling an infinite population... I'd assume? So the big assumptions are that one is able to get a random sample and that one has a basic handle on what the distribution looks like?

(Not remotely an expert on this, personally.)
posted by atoxyl at 1:59 PM on February 20, 2020


They're getting the band back together! Russia is looking to help Trump win in 2020, election security official told lawmakers CNN, NYT

"Last week's briefing, led by election security official Shelby Pierson and first reported by The New York Times, addressed the overall picture of Russia's efforts, including hacking, weaponizing social media and attacks on election infrastructure, one of the sources said.
The briefers said Russia does favor Trump, but that helping Trump wasn't the only thing they were trying to do as it was also designed to raise questions about the integrity of the elections process, the source added.
Trump became irate in a meeting with outgoing acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire last week for allowing the information about Russia's meddling efforts to be included in the briefing, a White House official said."
posted by Harry Caul at 4:13 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


Debate shows Bernie Sanders could win most votes but be denied nomination: The Vermont senator was alone in saying he would back whoever won a plurality of delegates – with others open to superdelegates tipping the balance for another candidate at the convention (The Guardian, 20 February 2020)
posted by Ahmad Khani at 4:17 PM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


if the sample size is 900 and the population size is 900, there are no error bars.

Right, but one edge case I referred to were where your sample size is relatively close to the population size. Just didn't want to bog it down too much. Nobody is going to commission a poll of 500 people out of a population of 600.
posted by Justinian at 4:26 PM on February 20, 2020


The Vermont senator was alone in saying he would back whoever won a plurality of delegates – with others open to superdelegates tipping the balance for another candidate at the convention

Someone needs to tell the sub-head writers at the Guardian that that's not how pluralities work. There can be a scenario where the candidate with an initial plurality does not end up winning even in a system without superdelegates, via a simple coalition between two candidates who individually don't have a majority but together do have a majority.
posted by tocts at 4:30 PM on February 20, 2020 [5 favorites]


Also, I know Bernie and his most outspoken supporters are picturing a scenario where he's got 40% of pledged delegates and is 15 points ahead of anybody else, but it's also possible that he'd end up with a plurality of 23%, ahead of Bloomberg and Biden at 21 and 19 and then the will of the voters looks a whole lot less certain.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:04 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]


Right, but one edge case I referred to were where your sample size is relatively close to the population size ... Nobody is going to commission a poll of 500 people out of a population of 600.

The Census Bureau does! They try to sample them all. And use sampling statistics to cover those they miss.
posted by JackFlash at 5:04 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]


As far as the "plurality" scenario goes, folks seem to think that ganging up against Bernie is the only rationale.

It's entirely possible for Bloomberg to pull ahead, or even Buttigieg.

As a Warren supporter with Sanders as my close second, I absolutely want Warren delegates to be allowed to form a coalition with Sanders.

Coalition building is a feature, not a bug. Giving the nomination to a candidate who manages to pull a plurality but is incapable of forming a coalition is a terrible idea. Additionally, it tells voters like me that a vote for Warren is a "spoiler" vote, which is awful. Let people vote for who they truly prefer, and allow coalitions to form if a clear front-runner doesn't emerge.
posted by explosion at 5:07 PM on February 20, 2020 [17 favorites]


The Census Bureau does! They try to sample them all. And use sampling statistics to cover those they miss.

*shakes fist angrily*
posted by Justinian at 5:27 PM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]


As far as the "plurality" scenario goes, folks seem to think that ganging up against Bernie is the only rationale.

This is a very hot take, but I think it's a similar phenomenon to the people who are already very angry about anyone who says they wouldn't vote for Bloomberg if it's him and Trump in the general. In both cases, you've gamed out a worst-case scenario where you get betrayed at the last minute by evildoers who you've always been suspicious of, and now you're very, very angry at those people for hypothetically betraying you in the future scenario that exists only in your imagination.

A contested convention would almost certainly be apocalyptically ugly no matter how it goes down, and I'm sure Bloomberg or Buttigieg would consider it an incredible feather in their cap to snatch a nomination out of the chaos, but we're months from any of that happening, and there are several scenarios in which it's completely impossible. Maybe after the results from Super Tuesday are tallied and we have some idea how the delegate totals might look at the convention, it makes sense to start drawing up battle lines, but that's a lot of elections from now. Any effort spent here in February getting worked up about shenanigans in July is diverted from winning delegates, and winning delegates is the easiest way to prevent any of this from going down at all.
posted by Copronymus at 5:57 PM on February 20, 2020 [6 favorites]


I can't believe Super Tuesday is in 12 days. We'll basically know how the race is shaking out in less than 2 weeks! (Because CA moved itself forward, more than 1/3 of all pledged delegates will have been awarded after Super Tuesday).
posted by Justinian at 6:21 PM on February 20, 2020


I just wish I could vote after Super Tuesday instead of ON Super Tuesday.

I'm pretty set on Bernie but maybe Warren but all of a sudden Klobster has surged ahead in the polls and I hadn't really considered that she might actually have a shot at the thing so I haven't really been paying enough attention.
posted by VTX at 6:36 PM on February 20, 2020


Analysts see 'blue wave' emerging in US cities ahead of election < AlJazeera

“ In large urban areas of the upper Midwest, a region that includes swing states Michigan and Wisconsin, for example, the number of people who said they were "certain" to vote in the upcoming presidential election rose by 10 percentage points to 67 percent compared with survey responses from 2015.

In smaller upper Midwest communities, the number of people similarly dedicated to voting rose by only about 1 point to 60 percent in that same four-year period.

Overall, the number of "certain" voters rose by 7 percentage points nationally from 2015 to 2019. It increased by more than that in the largest metropolitan areas, rising by 9 points in communities with between one million and five million people and 8 points in metros with at least five million people.”
posted by Harry Caul at 2:40 AM on February 21, 2020 [8 favorites]


“Coalition forming” is just going to look like corruption to the voters supporting the losing candidates. There is no amount of “well actkuaully” that is going to erase that perception.
posted by eagles123 at 3:47 AM on February 21, 2020


I think it might be a good idea to consider that this thread isn't really about Iowa anymore, and perhaps we should take a breather until Super Tuesday, with a new thread then.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:45 AM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


When it's time to make the Super Tuesday post, I suggest the title "I'll take the soup."
posted by box at 6:37 AM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]


“Coalition forming” is just going to look like corruption to the voters supporting the losing candidates. There is no amount of “well actkuaully” that is going to erase that perception.

But if it shook out to say Bloomberg 35, Sanders 30, Warren 25, I can't imagine non -Bloomberg supporters being fine with going with the plurality rather than seeking a majority consensus through coalition-building.

(eagles123 this isn't directed at you, you just reminded me I've been thinking about it:) In general I feel like I'm seeing a lot of opinions on what's fair or what's strategically proper that are more influenced by the specific candidate people support than literal fairness or propriety. For example my roommates are all-in for Sanders and are wishing Warren would drop out now "because she's not viable and will take support from Sanders," but if their numbers were precisely reversed I'm certain they would not be saying Sanders should drop out now.

That's not a dig on Sanders supporters specifically (I'm even on him and Warren personally) but I think it's something we should all keep in mind. If you're thinking "this isn't fair" when what's really behind that thinking is "this is likely to harm my preferred candidate(s)" then we're all gonna keep going in circles.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:08 AM on February 21, 2020 [14 favorites]


We have discussed how eponysterical both the title and the name of the OP are, right?

is that the thread title just gets funnier and funnier the longer this goes on.

I'm not sure if the man of twists and turns should have naming rights over every remaining primary thread or if they should be barred from ever titling a thread again.

This is all your fault!

So, Nevada tomorrow?
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:15 AM on February 21, 2020 [7 favorites]


@ShimonPro
CNN: The Nevada State Democratic Party is asking site leaders to sign non-disclosure agreements, according to one volunteer who had planned to help with Saturday’s caucuses but quit because he didn’t want to sign the document.

Lessons were learned from Iowa, but not the ones we were hoping for.
posted by Rust Moranis at 1:07 PM on February 21, 2020 [9 favorites]


I guess it depends on what they are asking them not to disclose -- for example passwords, phone numbers, names and addresses?
posted by JackFlash at 1:21 PM on February 21, 2020 [1 favorite]


ShowbizLiz: I see what you mean, and I think there is some truth to what you say. However, I still contend that even in the scenario you outlined the nominee would be substantially weakened, and presumably there would be a moderate group of voters who would feel aggrieved.

Also, for what it’s worth, I honestly can’t imagine the scenario you outline happening.
posted by eagles123 at 1:54 PM on February 21, 2020


Fear Nevada: if your election lasts for more 12 hours, please see a doctor.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:00 PM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


I guess it depends on what they are asking them not to disclose -- for example passwords, phone numbers, names and addresses?

It's going to be "accurate vote totals" and we all know that.
posted by kafziel at 2:58 PM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


That was supposed to be Dear Nevada before autocorrect.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 2:59 PM on February 21, 2020 [2 favorites]


It's going to be "accurate vote totals" and we all know that.

Daniel Nichanian, who became Internet Famous for having more accurate Iowa results than either the national or the state party, seems to agree:
Shocking. My colleague @CoatsandLinen & I talked to caucus leaders & county chairs in Iowa who told us IDP was wrong. Not what they'd reported.

How we know IDP is still not reporting real results from one precinct.

Now CNN finds NV trying to prevent such basic reporting.

And: in many cases the reason we knew results were just wrong was independent local reporting the day of caucus.

If Nevada's Dem Party is hindering basic ability to verify & crosscheck results—and they've already said they won't correct some mistakes—where does that leave us?
And if the leaked scans of the NDA that are going around on Twitter are accurate, just about the only thing the NDA doesn't cover is personally identifiable information, either of voters or staffers/volunteers.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:19 PM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]


It's a weird look for sure that national Democrat contenders Warren (go Liz!!) and Biden (of all people huh) are calling for Billionaireburg to release people from NDAs while Nevada Democrats are simultaneously attempting to pin their own people to them.

Will Maroon 5 be playing halftime on Super Tuesday cuz I kinda really miss 'em.
posted by riverlife at 5:19 PM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


And just before the Nevada caucuses we have this: Bernie Sanders briefed by US officials that Russia is trying to help his campaign.

So it will be super smooth sailing from here on out.
posted by schadenfrau at 5:47 PM on February 21, 2020


But if it shook out to say Bloomberg 35, Sanders 30, Warren 25

You gotta wonder, if it came to such a situation, who does Warren hate more?

As a disinterested party it would seem to me that everyone entered this contest with full awareness of the rules (or if ignorant, only through their own exceeding negligence) and if they want them changed such changes should only effect the next round.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 5:52 PM on February 21, 2020


Politics isn’t about rules it’s about power. I’d sanders wins 40% of the delegates and everyone else is around 20 or less, and the DNC picks someone else, that is going to cost them the election and destroy the parry.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 5:59 PM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]


sanders wins 40% of the delegates

Then he'd be in a great position to form some kind of coalition, he'd probably only have to find one other candidate he had a decent relationship with!
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 6:08 PM on February 21, 2020 [4 favorites]


I haven't seen this NDA yet, but NDAs are quite routine in volunteer organizations, including party organizations.

You want to prevent disclosure of passwords, security measures, donor lists, polling results, opposition research, debate prep, finances; all things that your opponents would love to get their hands. And in the caucuses, I would expect limitations on premature leaking of vote information or unofficial results.

These volunteer agreements generally include immunity from liability anyone speaking in confidence to a federal, state, or local government official, or to an attorney for the purpose of reporting or investigating a suspected violation of law.

The NDAs that Warren is talking about are those that contain a non-disparagement clause that prevents an employee from saying anything negative about their boss or company or disclosing the results of any mediation, arbitration agreement or out of court settlement. This is not something that I would expect to appear in a NDA for a volunteer job.
posted by JackFlash at 6:32 PM on February 21, 2020 [1 favorite]


and the DNC picks someone else,

You know that’s not how it works, right?
posted by Big Al 8000 at 7:29 PM on February 21, 2020 [2 favorites]


given her total 180 on sanders in the last month or two i don't know why people just assume warren would be willing to form a coalition with him. seems to me she's been pretty clear she doesn't want him to be the nominee.
posted by JimBennett at 7:44 PM on February 21, 2020 [2 favorites]


Well, of course not, she wants to be the nominee. Just like Sanders doesn't want her to be the nominee.

Nobody runs because they want somebody else to win! Even Bloomberg, I think, though for him probably tossing the nomination to his preferred candidate at the convention is a close second.
posted by Justinian at 7:52 PM on February 21, 2020 [8 favorites]


You know that’s not how it works, right?

A Person On Twitter a while back tweeted something like "Have you noticed that the people most likely to blame the DNC for stuff are also the people who least understand what the DNC actually does?". I think about that a lot.
posted by Justinian at 7:55 PM on February 21, 2020 [8 favorites]


Well, of course not, she wants to be the nominee. Just like Sanders doesn't want her to be the nominee.

we're specifically talking about this in the context of coalitions right now, please don't parrot entirely obvious points to me like i hadn't considered them.
posted by JimBennett at 8:02 PM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


i think 2016 through 2020 have made it abundantly clear what the dnc does
posted by entropicamericana at 8:29 PM on February 21, 2020 [5 favorites]


Mod note: No fights about Sanders or Warren, if you have a problem, flag it and move on. Thanks!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:55 PM on February 21, 2020


Warren reduced Bloomberg to rubble — but political media remains focused on stopping Bernie (Dan Froomkin, Press Watch/Salon)
Bloomberg and Sanders were both on the defensive, [many news] outlets insisted — under flat headlines and dull ledes.

And I didn't really understand why until I read the analysis by Washington Post "chief correspondent" Dan Balz, arguably the dean of the elite political press corps.

Balz didn't mention Bloomberg in his first paragraph. Instead, he wrote about the "sense of urgency that time is running out" for everyone in the Democratic field except Sanders.

These unsourced, unrebutted, passive-construction assertions by Balz, to my mind, are a window right into the thinking of the people running our top newsrooms:
Sanders's rise has raised fears that, if he were the nominee, his brand of democratic socialism could doom the party to defeat against President Trump, along with many candidates for House and Senate.

One measure of how rapidly things are changing is this: In barely a week, the question has shifted from whether Sanders has a ceiling, based on the fact that he managed just a quarter of the vote in both Iowa and New Hampshire, to whether he can be stopped.
That phrase — "the question has shifted" — is just horrific journalism.

Anyway, it all comes down to Bloomberg, Balz wrote:
Some Democrats see Bloomberg as the one candidate who could sell better in a general election, and there have been suggestions that the time is coming for the party to coalesce around him.
[...] What's unclear to me is how long the Dan Balz view of the Democratic political landscape will last. If Bloomberg's paid media can overwhelm the stench of his first debate outing, maybe it lasts a while. If Bloomberg can't pick himself up off the floor, then "the question is" who will be anointed the new Sanders alternative? And how badly will that skew the coverage?
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:49 PM on February 21, 2020 [3 favorites]


Progressives will doom the Democrats just like the pundits predicted Trump would doom the Republicans.

Pay no attention to the advertising funded classes -- of course they love Bloomberg, he's giving them all huge bonuses this year as long as they can keep him spending.
posted by benzenedream at 11:04 PM on February 21, 2020 [10 favorites]


'It could be a zoo': Nevada on edge as caucus day arrives
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:58 AM on February 22, 2020


Nevada Dems are apparently now ditching the Google forms as a reporting mechanism, according to the NYT:

Nevada Democrats, in a move to bolster the presidential caucuses and avoid Iowa-style chaos, said Friday that they would not rely on a Google form for reporting results and would instead use a traditional phone-based system — the way results had been reported for decades in caucus states. Precinct leaders will report results from Saturday’s caucuses to the state party through a dedicated phone hotline and by text message, rather than relying on a Google application intended to help volunteers and officials calculate delegates, according to a memo the state party circulated to the presidential campaigns.

The memo, from Alana Mounce, the state party’s executive director, made no mention of the Google Forms tool that volunteers have been instructed to use to calculate and input results. Instead, it informed the campaigns to expect caucus results to be transmitted through the state party’s telephone hotline by precinct leaders reading from caucus work sheets they have completed by hand. “The hotline report will be the primary source of the precinct caucus results reported on Caucus Day,” Ms. Mounce wrote.

The article confirms the NDA all volunteers are being required to sign, and also includes this precious tidbit:

Viability thresholds vary by precinct, but most are about 15 percent.

Caucuses are ridiculous and the party needs to immediately get rid of the last remaining ones.
posted by mediareport at 9:25 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


NDAs are quite routine

Do you have any examples from previous caucus years, in Nevada or otherwise, where NDAs were required of all volunteers? Because it's sure being reported as a new development this year in Nevada.
posted by mediareport at 9:28 AM on February 22, 2020 [3 favorites]


Nevada! Nevada!

The silver state!
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:07 AM on February 22, 2020 [2 favorites]


It doesn't actually matter that much now that Buttigieg has dropped out, his delegates will get re-apportioned, and the narrative around the caucuses has been completely set for weeks, but over the weekend, the IDP voted to certify provably incorrect results, with an entire precinct's votes just not counted at all and others that awarded an incorrect number of total delegates. It has not been a saga that was particularly encouraging for the viability of the caucus system or the competence and/or integrity of the people running it.
posted by Copronymus at 5:07 PM on March 1, 2020 [4 favorites]


« Older “I miss Maroon 5,” said literally nobody.   |   ...as if you’re seeing a kaleidoscope in black and... Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments