On the Republican side, at the very least, this may be the year for political scientists and analysts to try to forget everything that they think they know. But we still need to have some rational basis for what we’re saying, right? I mean, who can fault David Wasserman over at the Cook Political Report for using the presidential blowouts of 1964, 1972, and 1984 to try to guesstimate how a 2016 blowout might affect control of the House of Representatives? It’s as good a place to start as I can think of, so why not take a look?
Indeed, there’s nothing wrong with looking at the best precedents we have, and it can even be described as basic due diligence. But I think you have to go a little deeper than just looking at raw numbers.
To begin with, any scenario in which the Democratic Party enjoyed the benefit of the Solid South is simply not applicable to the present. The 1964 election, which came right on the heels of LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act, was pretty much the starting point of the realignment that over the next fifty years methodically flipped the South into a Republican stronghold. I’d argue that this process wasn’t really complete until the 2010 midterms, although the 2002 midterms wiped out a half dozen southern Democratic senators. It took decades for the South to stop voting for the Democratic Party on the state and local level. Even in the 1992 election where Clinton, despite some successes, lost most southern states, southern Democrats did quite well in the congressional elections. Today, this type of ticket-splitting is extremely rare.
By the time we get to the 1972 landslide, things are slightly more familiar, but it still basically holds true that the South chose Nixon for president and the Democrats in the down-ticket races. The corollary today would be the South voting uniformly for Hillary Clinton while returning almost all of their Republican senators and representatives to Congress. I don’t see that happening, although I can foresee Clinton winning a few southern states. Obama won Virginia and Florida twice, North Carolina once, and was within spitting distance in Georgia. It remains to be seen how the people of Arkansas feel about their royal family in our present climate, but I have my doubts that it will even be a competitive state.
Still, we’re talking about a hypothetical landslide election in which the Republicans nominate someone so divisive and controversial that they wind up losing supposedly safe red states. It’s probably true that in that kind of scenario, the House seats would tend to split. Senate seats would be more vulnerable, but I don’t see Richard Shelby losing in Alabama no matter how badly Trump or Cruz or Carson do at the top of the ticket.
The 1984 election seems almost modern compared to 1964 and 1972. At least the modern Democratic coalition was beginning to take form. But even in 1984 the Democrats still enjoyed a lot of stubborn southern support on the congressional level.
What’s more relevant today is the way party support has been split between urban/suburban and suburban/exurban/rural. This, in combination with aggressive (mainly Republican-controlled) gerrymandering, has resulted in very few true swing districts in Congress. It’s also resulted in a situation where the Democrats can win the overall congressional popular vote by a substantial margin and still not even come close to controlling House of Representatives.
It’s also interesting to see just persistent the disbelief is in the idea that Donald Trump might be the nominee. Wasserman refers to “the remoteness of a scenario in which Trump would face Hillary Clinton in a one-on-one contest.” Over at the Washington Examiner, Tim Carney assures us that Trump will lose Iowa, thereby become a “loser” himself, and wind up getting his butt handed to him in New Hampshire.
They could certainly be right, but I think they’re a little over-confident personally. I also think a landslide election is just as much of a possibility with Cruz as with Trump. And a brokered convention is a real wildcard. It could wind up preventing a landslide by cutting off the nomination of a Trump or a Cruz, but it could also be just the thing that makes a landslide possible. After all, this isn’t the year that the Republican base will tolerate having the Establishment step in and pick a nominee that they haven’t voted for.
But, it’s true. The House of Representatives is so firmly in the GOP’s hands, that even a landslide defeat on the presidential level might not be enough to wrench control away from them.
It wouldn’t hurt, though.
I heard estimates that the 2012 Democratic Party needed about a 7% popular vote advantage that year to reclaim the House. Which, while grossly undemocratic, would be eminently doable if that’s still the same for 2016. Passive and brute demographic shifts add about 1.5-2% more to the Democratic popular vote total assuming that the Democratic nominee does no better or worse than 2012 Obama. The problem is, of course, that the population growth will be largely in places where the Democratic Party already does very well.
It’s pretty disheartening that the HRC camp has pretty much given up on trying to win the House (because that would require retooling the campaign’s demographic appeal, which is apparently undesirable to them for several reasons) and instead is trying to get us to believe that two years of nominating USSC justices will be the most we can expect from her. Both because that really sets us up for disaster in 2016-2020 and also because winning the House was a pretty doable goal before the ideological tenor of her campaign solidified.
Just another reason to vote for Sanders, I suppose.
It’s much easier to pass the DLC agenda with a Republican House. We are seeing that now with the Pelosi-Ryan negotiations. She can agree to any crap and just say that she had to to keep the government running.
Beauhmont and maythirteenth, why don’t you Hillary shills go back to DKOS? You are fine examples of Her Putridness’ dirty campaign.
gee…not a vote has been cast and already you’re wallowing in bitterness and hatred at the death of your delusions.
I don’t get it.
Winning the House was never doable in any normal sense of that word.
Certainly not with the formula of social liberalism + economic centrism. And of course it would’ve too late for 2012 Obama to do so after the (mostly unavoidable) disillusionment of his first term.
I still think that winning the House is doable without relying on a GOP implosion. But it would require going beyond the Dukakis-BC-Gore-Kerry-Obama-HRC playbook. It’s also probably too late for HRC to credibly pivot, but I think that Sanders or even O’Malley has a good opening — assuming that they aren’t blocked by the minority of the Democratic Party that doesn’t like economic liberalism.
It is a painful time. Sanders could provide some help to the vanishing middle class but he faces strong opposition from the very so called progressive people he hopes to help as well as the DNC and the HRC camp. So Hillary wins bc we need the Court appointments. What a revolting situation, someone said.
I can’t help but think the republicans are so nuts in part bc they don’t really care if they win or not. They are pretty near certain they will control the House and except for the supreme court appointments there is not much Hillary can do, even if she wanted to (which I sincerely doubt).
The key diffetence is that the GOP voters win either way. If we win, their lives get better, if they win its boots on our necks which they get off on. Thats why they dont care.
A new WBUR poll of New Hampshire Republicans was released this morning.
Carson is toast.
Only if he gets no delegates out of New Hampshire. In a brokered convention, marginal candidates with delegates have something to bargain with. He’s likely not the nominee, unless there is some weird stalemate, but he can be a kingmaker that sets the tone of the party.
The continued financial support of marginal candidates seems to look like some of the establishment candidates see a strategic path to victory through a brokered convention that wears down the extremists. The extremists have be used to a candidate locking up the nomination before the convention and don’t have the institutional memory of brokered conventions and the strategies played there. Older establishment types remember. And billionaires can buy some of that experience from others who have studied brokered convention tactics.
I’ll laugh my ass off it black voters leave HRC to vote for Carson. Maybe THAT will finally put a stake in her heart.
Your first comment in this subthread was correct. Carson is toast. AAs voters will never be tested in a Clinton v. Carson GE, but if they were, they wouldn’t abandon Clinton for Carson.
Carson’s political naivete allowed him to believe that he was an authentic contender and that his rise in polling wouldn’t lead to media vetting that could expose him for the lying fraud that he is. Had he plunked along in a second tier grouping, he would have been able to float through the primary process and would have had something to sell to one of the other candidates and the party. As it is, he’ll end up as an asterisk.
After all the batshit insane lies Ben Carson has told about President Obama’s record, and the preposterous attacks the bad Doctor has made on Barack’s character, African-Americans are going to vote en mass for him in the general election? Not likely at all.
But, as mentioned here, Ben won’t be the nominee, so we won’t have to run the experiment.
It would be interesting to see what the current House situation actually is.
How many seats are Democrats forfeiting by not running a candidate?
Side issue: In how many states can the Working Families Party get on the ballot? In 2008 and 2012, for example, the Working Families Party co-listed the Democratic candidates in some districts (SC-03 was one). The turnout for the Democratic candidate was sufficient to continue Democratic certification on the ballot. For how many states, did that tactic also return the ability of the Working Families Party to get on the ballot? This becomes relevant when the Democratic Party is unwilling to soil their brand with a candidate affiliated with Bernie Sanders in a Republican-majority PVI state.
At this point, I’d like to see less analysis of why it can’t be done and more on how, in spite of the traditional analysis, one can get it done.
Given the predictions, I’d like to see a thorough discussion about why campaigns matter in the era of polarization and gerrymandering.
Maybe that’s just my impatience with politics as usual in an election in which the policy consequences of the vote are looming toward gigantic folly.
The chance of a brokered convention is near zero – and proof pundits never think very carefully. After March 6th most states are winner take all.
Trump loses when polled in a two way contest. The establishment will clear the field to keep a 3 way race from lasting long enough to let Trump build an insurmountable delegate lead.
Anything can happen – over confidence in political predictions is a sign you don’t know politics, after all.
Actually winner-take-all primaries allot only 16%of convention delegates. There are a number of additional states that have hybrid allocation, but generally a candidate has to win 50%+ of the total vote to benefit.
The Establishment can’t clear the field because most of the top candidates aren’t Establishment. If Carson and Cruz stay in and get 10% each on average it’s almost impossible for the Establishment candidate to get a majority of delegates.
That’s wrong.
After super Tuesday on March 1, there 1,546 delegates still to be elected (Out of a total of 2,472). Of those, roughly 900 will be selected by winner take all in the state or winner take all by Congressional District.
On March 17th alone 272 delegates will be selected in winner take all contests in Florida, Illinois, Missouri and Ohio.
I seriously doubt the race lasts much past that.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1r5tO3BMcuEfjceRUcdu2IV6gmFaFKABFVdvqT9WCEvY/edit#gid=3708825
29
Illinois is not winner-take-all; it’s winner-take-all by Congressional District. Missouri is only winner-take-all if somebody gets 50%.
WTA by Congressional District doesn’t work the same as WTA; unless somebody has a large lead (about 20%) you’ll see a fair number of districts go to candidates other than the leader. It’s not proportional, true, but you’ll still get a decent delegate scatter.
Also primary races don’t have identical votes in every state. In an even mildly competitive race some states will go for one candidate and some for the other.
50% is going to be hard because this is not going to get down to a 2-person race. Carson is a grifter; every day in is more books sold and more speaking fees later. He’ll never quit. Trump and Cruz currently have good shots and neither of them will quit. The establishment will keep somebody in the race, just to have influence over the nominee and platform, if nothing else. So that’s likely at least 4 candidates with significant vote totals all the way to the end. I can certainly see some of the others hanging on too.
I don’t know how reliable the Cook Report is, but they put the number of competitive races. Just enough to swing the House, so the Democrats would have to win all of them.
Of course, another possibility would be that the Republicans keep control of the House, but the election breaks the back of their coalition. You were already talking about this sort of thing during the whole Boehner debacle. The Republicans can’t pick a Speaker, reality sets in, and a minority of Republican breaks off and starts collaborating with the Democrats.
And then you go back to those competitive races, and you ask under which conditions it would be safe (or at least a pretty good bet) for Republicans to break with their party. And one condition would be that they have as much to fear from the general electorate as from Republican primary voters.
Erratum: They put the number of competitive races at 31.
Thing is, that has actually happened in the past. There have been wave elections when all of the tossups swing in one direction.
Cook is very reliable.
A very smart guy I knew in politics said one of the most common errors is a “failure of imagination”. One example is the blowout turnout in Iowa in 2008 – which no one say coming (no, Selzer wasn’t close in projecting turnout)
I remember on this blog in 2010 when we lost the House and many of us were close to being despondent. To comfort ourselves in our moment of sorrow we asked the question what we would do if someone suddenly died and left us in charge. Discussion of that question produced an avalanche of progressive comments. My thinking was that we should find and support real progressive candidates running on local progressive issues to cut across party lines to defeat these Republican idiots. My first obstacle would of course be the Blue Dog Democratic Establishment making my idea just as much wishful thinking as the rest of that progressive festival.
Two things have happened that I could not imagine back then. First is that in 2016 the Republican base would support someone so toxic that most except the truly crazy of that group would feel uncomfortable. Second is a national positive true progressive Democratic candidate capable of energizing Democrats, Republicans and Independents who have given up on our political process because there was simply nothing to vote for believing they’re all the same.
We are now headed for an election that is more of a nose holding contest that will suppress votes on both sides with Republicans holding their nose to vote for a truly nuts reality TV star and Democrats holding their nose to vote for the champion of Democratic Blue Dogs. Blue Dogs generally lose because if you lean Republican, you will choose a real Republican.
If Bernie can increase the margin by peeling off the layer of not quite so crazy Republicans and Independents along with Democrats emerging from a long DNC induced sleep, all bets are off. Pick Hillary and its just starving dogs fighting over a diminishing pile of scraps.
Not if you’re in the upper-middle class — or aspire to be. If your single take-home income is in the 80K or so range, 2011-present wasn’t too bad for you unless you had the misfortune to be an older software engineer or work in the fossil fuel extraction industry outside of R&D*.
Since most of the non-social media punditry, even on the left, is upper-middle class it’s not really surprising that we continually get clueless articles and bromides about how the economy’s about to turn the corner anytime soon and people will come around to Obamacare. I mean, I love Kevin Drum and Ed Kilgore to pieces and I still want to throw a cream pie at them when they writes stuff like that.
What you say is more than true. What I will enjoy the most will be when the Democratic Corporatist have to hold their nose to vote for someone who will attack their corporatist interests that keeps the economy rigged, after all, we can’t have Republican nominations to the USSC.
The scraps I was referring to was the voters both parties must court from an angry electorate.
I openly fantasize about many of these soi-disant liberal Democrats displaying their hypocrisy for all the world to see when they decide that voting for Bernie is a bridge too far and retreat to the Rubio/Bush/Christie camp after feeling the long-forgotten breath of economic competition of their neck — and decide that, just this once, they’ll make that devil’s deal with the GOP.
Then they spend the rest of their miserable careers explaining why they did such a thing when they spent so much time beforehand excoriating the brocialists for putting so much of an emphasis on economics.
Might still be a few left around that did that over forty years ago and in the process destroyed the principles of the party and gave the GOP power they would never have gotten on their own in the subsequent years.
>>What I will enjoy the most will be when the Democratic Corporatist have to hold their nose to vote for someone who will attack their corporatist interests
ya right, do you really think they’ll do what they incessantly tell us to do? none chance. It’ll be 1972 again, when the Democratic establishment voted for Nixon.
So you think if it was between Trump and Bernie the Democratic Establishment would vote for Trump, in a landslide. Really?
If history is any guide …
And Trump claims to know how to do really huuge deals.
You must have an even lower opinion of the Democratic Establishment than I do.
Only the controlling faction. They weren’t exactly boo-hooing after GWB was selected.
I have a pretty low opinion of the Democratic Party establishment, but it’s not that low.
Here’s the thing about McGovern being stabbed in the back: like it or not, a huge portion (I’d say supermajority, but it’s hard to get cross tabs on voting electorates before 1988) of the Democratic base was indifferent to it. Obviously the New Left and the paleoliberal democratic socialists weren’t okay with it, but, you know. Not a majority even at the height of their power. Though I’d sweat blood to get a Job Guarantee, even then it was viewed as a kooky experimental scheme by the Democratic rank and file and evidence of how out-of-touch they were (with the upper-middle class).
Trump is despised up and down the street by all segments of the Democratic Party, including the establishment. Same goes for pretty much every Republican candidate except for maybe Kasich. Any Democrat that was complicit would get absolutely killed in the media and then in the polls. I’m sure a lot of these selfish bastards wouldn’t mind rolling the dice with fascism if it meant protecting their bank accounts, but unless they were planning to cash out then and there there’s no way their career would survive supporting the most unpopular Republican figure in the Democratic Party since… what? Watergate Nixon?
You’re assuming that Trump is the nominee. Could be Cruz or Rubio. Remember, we are speaking of a general election scenario where Sanders is the nominee and Clinton lost. Do you seriously think that Clinton would be more magnanimous than HHH was?
When you say that Trump is despised by all segments of the DP, you’re overlooking the fact that many in the top-top elite segment are more familiar with Trump than the RWNJs are with Trump. There is overlap in the circles the “top-top” and Trump travel in. Sanders isn’t their kind of people.
Why Hasn’t Bill Clinton Resigned from Trump National Golf Club – Westchester?
Who cares what the top-top elites personally feel? The point is that they won’t get away with siding with a Republican over Sanders for the Presidential election.
McGovern was not super-popular among the rank-and-file Democrats. He barely won the 1972 primary and his support was concentrated in cities and the western half of the nation. What’s more, the Republican and Democratic Parties weren’t as ideologically and culturally apart then as they are now.
Likewise, the post-Obama Democratic Party can get away with stabbing a social democrat in the back to support a New Democrat. At the end of the day, HRC will still stand up for social liberalism and there’s a significant segment of the Democratic party rank-and-file who will put up with the economic centrism as long as that caveat is fulfilled.
Stabbing a social democrat in the back to support someone who’s anti-gay rights, anti-women’s rights, and of course openly ethnocentrist will have everyone turning on them. Not just because it would personally offend the non-top top’s politics but because even if they were willing to sell-out in abstract their careers as Demsphere opinion leaders would be finished. Erza Klein and Nate Silver telling their Dem supporters to support Rubio and/or to take it easy on the DNC despite their backstabbing would find their careers over within months. Even if you really think that the Democratic opinion and political leaders are that slimy, the only way they’d do something like that is if they’re monumentally stupid or they’re getting the mother of all payouts. And there are a handful of Dems right now that could cash in after the stab in the back — but the vast majority of influential Dems live at the pre-2009 Al Franken or even Paul Krugman level and wouldn’t gain much from selling out.
He barely won the 1972 primary…
You think Sanders will do much better than barely win the primary?
Nixon won by exploiting racism in this country. Instead of Muslims he went after “commies.” And he didn’t like Latinos or Jews either. He expanded the Vietnam War to include more of SE Asia and hoped to get us back there and “win.” Overthrew Allende. He didn’t much care about domestic policies but had the evangelicals been a powerful political force in his time, he would have been right there with them on whatever disgusting crap they were pushing for. And let’s not overlook that the long term goal of the GOP has always been to undo the New Deal legislation and social programs.
The history books may leave the impression that there wasn’t much of a divide between Nixon and FDR Democrats, but there was. Just because there are some issues today weren’t dividing lines between DEM and Repubs back then, doesn’t mean that there were real and significant dividing lines back then.
Sanders is running a strategy to engage low-turnout/high raw-numbers demographics. I don’t, however, expect him to win a slow and grinding victory. With the kind of strategy he’s running versus the kind of strategy HRC’s running, I expect him to get crushed or dominate HRC in the first month, with little room in between. If you go by conventional wisdom and current demographic engagement, it looks like the latter, but the youth vote — especially in primaries — has been extremely swingy in the 21st century.
Nixon was pure evil, no question. I’d call him one of the most evil Presidents we’ve ever had, but he’s facing some really stiff competition (Jackson, Polk, Buchanan, Johnson, Cleveland, McKinley, Reagan, W. Bush) so I’ll just say he’s a total bastard.
But nonetheless, you’re looking at that period through the eyes a New Lefter, i.e. someone who thinks that America and Americans had the ability to be reasoned and inspired into a better tomorrow — without the use of cajoling or Sophie’s Choices. Having Hoover murder black activists with his secret police force? Assassinating Puerto Rican separatists? Bombing Cambodia for no reason other than spite? All of that other evil shit you mentioned? This is what the average American thought of that: “Yeah, yeah, sure, but what about my meat prices, waaaaaahhhh!!! Goddamn hippies and their long hair.“
you’re looking at that period through the eyes a New Lefter, i.e. someone who thinks that America and Americans had the ability to be reasoned and inspired into a better tomorrow
I’m not a “New Lefter,” whatever that is. Nor do I have any illusions about the intelligence and kindness of Americans. Please stop defining me by your opinions/conjectures/etc about lefties which are mostly far off the mark.
The point is, America did not care about the things that you mentioned then. So bringing up Nixon as an example of the establishment not paying a price for irritating their constituents is mistaken. Except for inflation, gas prices, an overly long winddown of Vietnam, and Watergate no one outside of leftist circles (and definitely New Left, rather than paleoliberal circles) really cared about all of that evil shit Nixon did between 1968 and 1972. You’re trying to get pre-dream Scrooge to care about orphans in workhouses — not saying that it’s not something to care about, just that Scrooge isn’t going to give a rat’s ass about orphan suffering when it comes time to decide what to donate to.
It’s not like now, where the Democratic Party openly stabbing a national candidate in the back to enable a Republican who supported, say, dismantling gay rights would completely end the careers of everyone involved. People react more strongly to culture war issues and the amount of polarization between the parties makes an opposition victory more a priori unacceptable.
The crux, IMO, of why we’re in disagreement is that
you’re bogged down in specific differences between 1972 and today; whereas, I consider potential historical echoes that can lead to a similar outcome but all the specifics will differ. For example, in the lead up to the Iraq War, the best word that I could come up with as a forewarning of the folly this country was about to embark on was “quagmire.” The supporters of the war rejected any corollary to Vietnam because none of the specifics were the same. Yet, here we are 13 years later, $4 trillion poorer, conflict/combat expanded to other countries in the region, and continuing freakouts over Muslims that replaced freakouts over “gooks” and “commies” of the last big war disaster.
Would DEM elites/power brokers reject Sanders as the nominee in the same ways they did McGovern? Of course not. McGovern’s challenge to what the DEM party stood for in 1972 was different from Sanders’ challenge today, and McGovern’s challenge may have been less threatening than Sanders’ today even though the political principles and values of the two men are very much alike. Today, the “war and more war” folks still cross party lines. Does it matter that there aren’t any “peace” folks in the GOP and there are fewer “war and more war” folks among Democrats? So far, it appears that it doesn’t since “peace” folk DEMs have been silent since the election of Obama and a majority of DEMs are backing a warhawk candidate.
Why did a majority of DEMs back McGovern over HHH in 1972? Three reasons. HHH could never bring himself to fully reject the insanity of the Vietnam War and the policies that had led to engaging in it. General election do-overs hadn’t produced a different result in 1948 or 1956; so, why would we expect that it would in 1972? While HHH had been a good man for most of his political career, the 1964-72 years had chipped away at his inherent goodness and health. He appeared older than his 60 years and was in fact dead by the time he was 66.
Why did Al Gore not wipe out the obviously less qualified and more or less stupid GWB? Everybody has their own a pet hypothesis, generally in line with their political biases and none that can be proven. The one thing about which there can be no doubt is that Bill Clinton didn’t want to leave the WH.
Do you seriously think that Clinton would be more magnanimous than HHH was?”
Well, gosh, we have actual history as a guide here, perhaps a more reliable guide than your feelings. Here’s Hillary after losing the nomination to Obama in 2008:
Watch beginning at 6:30 in the first video and 4:00 in the second video if you care to have a solid answer to your question.
Sorry to interrupt all the Hillary hating over here. Please proceed.
The big money in ’08 was split between Obama and Clinton, the AA vote that the Clintons have always counted on had abandoned her, and there weren’t significant policy differences between the two (even though Obama supporters thought there might be and he was merely running a clever campaign). Add in that the ’08 general election (barring a black swan) had been decided in ’07. So, at the end of the day she had nothing to gain and much to lose by not supporting Obama.
But what really makes your “evidence” in this case shit is that the DEM nomination was settled months before she conceded. And her team did a bunch of nasty crap to keep her going and hurt Obama.
What strange mythologies are held by worthwhile people sometimes. Look, here’s the facts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries,_2008
“Obama received enough superdelegate endorsements on June 3 to claim that he had secured the simple majority of delegates necessary to win the nomination, and Clinton conceded the nomination four days later.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/03/AR2008060304268_4.html?sid=ST2008060
203207
This detailed history shows that Obama did not draw into a statistically significant lead until Feb. 5th, but that the primary race was far, far from over even then. Perhaps you believe you know more than the Obama campaign did at the time, but here was their view in the months after Super Tuesday:
“As the pledged-delegate count moved inexorably toward the winning number, Obama advisers worried about what they called the “danger zone.” The fear was that a loss in Pennsylvania (April 22nd) would be followed by big losses in Indiana, West Virginia (both May 6th), Kentucky (May 20th) and Puerto Rico (June 1st), capped by revotes in Michigan and Florida that would push Clinton into an indisputable lead in the total popular vote, a clear lead in the polls and an avalanche of superdelegates pouring her way.”
This is documented in the Wikipedia compilation of primary events:
“On April 22, Clinton scored a convincing win in Pennsylvania. However, on May 6, Obama surprised many observers by winning North Carolina by almost 15 percentage points, effectively erasing Clinton’s gains in Pennsylvania. Clinton won by only 1 point in Indiana. With Obama now leading by 164 pledged delegates and with only 217 pledged delegates left to be decided in the remaining contests, many pundits declared that the primary was effectively over. Obama gave an election night speech that looked forward to the general election campaign against McCain. The pace of superdelegate endorsements increased. On May 10, Obama’s superdelegate total surpassed Clinton’s for the first time in the race, making the math increasingly difficult for a Clinton win.
Clinton vowed to continue campaigning, and won convincingly in primaries in West Virginia on May 13, and Kentucky on May 20 where Appalachian voters strongly preferred her over Obama. However, Obama was able to clear a victory in Oregon on May 20, which allowed him to clinch the majority of pledged delegates. Obama gave a speech in Des Moines, Iowa, the state that propelled his candidacy, in which he stated, “You have put us within reach of the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America.”
Clinton advisers said they would appeal to the DNC’s Rules & Bylaws Committee to have the Michigan and Florida delegations seated. However, even under the most favorable seating arrangement, she would not have been able to take a lead in pledged delegates and would have had to rely on superdelegates to win the nomination. On May 31, the rules committee accepted the Michigan state party’s 69-59 distribution of pledged delegates and restored half votes to Florida’s and Michigan’s delegations. This resulted in a net gain for Clinton of 24 pledged delegates. Obama remained significantly ahead, with a lead of 137 pledged delegates before the Puerto Rico primary on June 1.“
Regarding your declamation of the “nasty crap” the Clinton campaign committed during this period, let’s conclude with a rewatching of the videos, a concession that Hillary did not take the primary fight to the Convention despite the historically tight Delegate margin, and a reconsideration of the fact that President Obama nominated Hillary as his Secretary of State. He personally did not consider her campaign actions beyond the pale, and her campaign actions did not prevent the Obama campaign from gaining a smashing general election victory.
I’m sure you’ll come up with something in response, but it would be pleasant to have that response reckon with these facts.
that’s largely horse-hockey.
As I detailed at the time, Obama effectively secured the nomination before the Pennsylvania primary took place. Sure, there was the remotest of chances that Florida and Michigan would go against him, but that was never a real threat. Clinton could have won ever primary after Mississippi and not have any chance of winning the nomination w/o Michigan and Florida.
Here’s a recap from early May.
The Obama campaign was in a superb position after Super Tuesday. But we’re not depending on spin from the Clinton campaign; the Obama campaign assumed that the campaign would not be over until May, a few weeks before she conceded.
What bothers me about claims that the Clinton campaign and Hillary herself engaged in a bad faith effort by fighting as long as they did is that it suggests that there are many historical precedents for candidates in her position to abandon their campaign. That doesn’t appear true to me. It appears that it would have been ahistorical for a candidate in Hillary’s delegate and popular vote position, and financial and organizational strength, to abandon their campaign before she did.
Whatever.
She had one reason to stay in, and only one.
Denial.
They call is “suspending” your campaign for a reason. If some dirt had come out on Obama, she could have been available.
She was done after Super Tuesday.
OT: uh huh
uh huh
Because he’s not speaking to a SLIVER of the GOP. He’s in the heart and soul of the GOP. THIS is the GOP voter.
…………………
The Daily 202: Focus group shows why Donald Trump is not going anywhere
By James Hohmann
December 10
I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Frank Luntz. “There is no sign of them leaving. He has created or found the magic formula.”
“He” was Donald Trump. “They” were 29 voters from the D.C. metro area who either supported Trump, were considering it, or had once supported Trump and then cooled on the idea. It was not the first Luntz focus group with Trump voters, but over three hours in an Alexandria conference room Wednesday night, he found them hugging their candidate tighter than ever.
The 29 subjects were asked to pick a number between one and 10 to gauge the likelihood that they’d support Trump. At the start of the night, just 10 people said they were at nine or 10. After one hour of mostly negative questions about Trump, 16 said they were that likely to back him. After a barrage of negative ads, the number fell to 15 — and only because an attack on his business record was seen as a potential “killer” in a general election.
But nothing else dented the Republican front-runner. Asked what they liked about Trump, the subjects echoed what he’d said about himself. “He offers things that can’t be bought,” said a middle-aged man named Michael. “He’s not coming from these Monsantos, Kochs or Soros. He doesn’t have any skin he owes to anyone else.”
Asked about Trump’s proposal for a ban on Muslim immigration, 17 of the 29 in the focus group backed it. Several pushed back on the question to say that Trump has only proposed this as a temporary, short-term measure. Several cited the same dubious evidence that Trump does to argue that up to a quarter of Muslims around the world are radicalized.
One big problem for Trump’s opponents: establishment Republicans hold no sway whatsoever with his base. Asked who they’d back in a three-way election between Marco Rubio, Hillary Clinton and an independent Donald Trump, 19 of the 29 said they would still back Trump. When Ted Cruz was swapped into the question, 14 stuck with Trump. Only after being asked to imagine a scenario where that vote would ensure a Clinton victory did the support fall off.
https:/www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/12/10/the-daily-202-focus-group-shows-why-dona
ld-trump-is-not-going-anywhere
In the words of the immortal Dennis Green…
What with all the rain up here in the Northwest we’ve been having lots of landslides this last week.
So, how’s the drought looking up there?
Mike
Without defining and correctly projecting several variables, a trained monkey with a dart board may be as accurate as any of the guesses here.
Big question for me is how Trump, Cruz, and Rubio would appear in the general election cycle. Will Trump continue to be “barking mad?” Is it nuts to consider that with the nomination in his pocket that he limits his displays of “barking mad” to target Clinton and otherwise exhibits a faux statesmanship persona (his fans don’t actually care what he says.) Cruz “mad” but publicly controls his bark? Rubio “mad” but toned down?
Can Cruz beat Trump without matching him on “barking mad?” Once there, how far can he retreat from that for the general election?
A Clinton-Rubio (assuming he effectively dons a boring mask of sanity) general election would offer the fewest opportunities for flipping House GOP seats. Clinton-“barking mad” the most but only in Districts where the incumbent is also “barking mad” and the DEM opponent is a decent enough candidate but also a DINO. Doubt the DCCC can field much more than ten such candidates.
I’m really trying to understand the fact that Hillary Clinton is so loathed by most commenters on this blog. I could understand if Booman himself promoted that attitude, but pretty obviously he does not. So why the vitriol against Hillary Clinton?
I’m reflecting on the 2008 campaign. Here in Oregon for the first time in decades, our primary actually mattered. The candidates actually showed up. I took my then-12 year old kid out of school to see first Obama and then Clinton, as an exercise in practical civics. As I recall, although I decided to support Obama, it wasn’t because he had a particularly progressive platform. Hell, he didn’t have much of a platform at all, just a charismatic speaking style. It was Clinton who was much more specific in her comments. My decision came down to ONE POINT: Clinton’s refusal to admit that she fucked up in supporting the Iraq War. I still believe that if she had just made that admission, she would have become president.
As for the comments here equating Hillary Clinton supporters with the DLC: The most striking difference in the crowds at those 2008 Obama and Clinton rallies was demographics, in various ways, including class difference. Clinton’s crowd was distinctly older and more working class. So let me ask, how has she changed since 2008? In a way that would keep those same working class supporters from voting for her in 2016?
DLC is not = working class.