It’s kind of remarkable how much Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s maps of support overlap with each other. Both of them added Arizona to their winning columns last night, and both of them got slaughtered in Utah. Clinton was slaughtered in Idaho, too, much like Trump was crushed there on March 8th.
Clinton actually had a pretty bad showing yesterday. It doesn’t look good to be losing 20%-80% in Utah and 21%-78% in Idaho. The margins were so big that they more than wiped out her advantage in Arizona and allowed Sanders to net way more delegates than expected. It was a repeat of 2008, when Obama’s advantage in Idaho erased Hillary’s gains in the much more delegate-rich (and expensive) New Jersey.
But it doesn’t really matter. Sanders is still behind by more than 300 delegates, not including the supers. She already has the nomination locked up. The reason last night was important for Sanders is that no one can look at those results and tell him that he should just get out. A candidate who’s still winning states with 80% of the votes against the presumptive nominee has the right to take his case to the convention, and that’s what I expect Sanders to do.
I hope he does just that.
I’m sure you are right. When he couldn’t win Illinois or Ohio, it was over. If his message doesn’t appeal in the industrial rustbelt, it can’t win nationally. Like Michigan, IL and OH stand to lose the most from Hillary’s economic agenda. What good it will do, I don’t know. It will give Hillary her triumph, her chance to crow over the bloody corpse of the New Deal. but then, I guess Bernie doesn’t just want to slink away like a whipped dog.
The Democratic party is finished. It is strange that the last shred of FDR’s platform lies in the Tea Party.
Clinton won Illinois, yes, but only by 35,000 votes (1.8%). That’s hardly impressive.
She won Missouri by slightly over 1,500 votes (.2%).
She lost Michigan by 18,500 votes (1.5%).
Delegates are awarded proportionally, so those states were basically ties.
Ohio, where Clinton won by almost 14 points, is the only rust belt state that really demonstrates your thesis, and I’m still not sure why it came out that way.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, given where they were at the start of the campaign, the huge disparity of name recognition, official support, etc., a small win or small loss for Sanders demonstrates his strength, whereas a small loss or small win for Clinton demonstrates her weakness.
Precisely.
Thank you.
AG
A comparison of OH and MI:
Male % of voters: OH 44% and MI 45%
Men ratio HRC/Sanders: OH 48%/51% and MI 44%/55%
Women ratio HRC/Sanders: OH 63%/36% and MI 51%/45%
Age 18-29 ratio HRC/Sanders: OH 19%/81% and MI 19%/81%
% of 18-29 voters: OH 15% and MI 19%
Age 30-44 ratio HRC/Sanders: OH 46%/54% and MI 47%/53%
% of 30-44 voters: OH 22% and MI 26%
AA vote – % and ratio – OH 20% and 71%/29% and MI 21% and 68%/32%.
So … turnout in Ohio skewed significantly older than in Michigan. 62% of the Dem electorate were 45 and older. Where were the younger Democrats, especially women, in Ohio?
And a lot higher ratio of women to men in Ohio than in MI.
So it seems more older Democrats, especially women, made the big difference.
Ironically, 17-year olds were for the first time permitted to vote in the Ohio primary, if they will be 18 before the fall election.
http://fox8.com/2016/03/11/judge-rules-17-year-olds-can-vote-in-ohio-presidential-primary/
OK Marie, that describes what happened in OH. But it doesn’t explain why.
Always good to start with the what before trying to sort out the possible whys. That first step is often skipped over by partisans in both parties.
One possible why is that OH has been more stable since ’08 than other “purple” or “blue” states.
Male % of voters: ’08 – 41% and ’16 – 44%
Men HRC : ’08 – 50% and ’16 – 48%
Women HRC: ’08 – 57% and ’16 – 63%
% of 18-29 voters: ’08 – 16% and ’16 – 15%
% of 30-44 voters: ’08 – 28% and ’16 – 22%.
The youngest age bracket in OH was only a point lower than in ’08. The over half of the age 30-44 with its higher ’08 participation rate is now in the >45 age bracket and they did show up this year. Those that have moved into the 30-37 age bracket haven’t changed.
No breakdown by age or race for HRC and Obama. But remember that HRC won the state 53% to 45% in ’08 and unlike MA, race figured into her ’08 OH win. The ’08 primary was considered “hot” when it got to OH. Turnout was 2.3 million. Less than half this time. As in TX, HRC didn’t come close to getting the same number of votes this time as she did in ’08. Factor in the ’08 AA from Obama to HRC in ’16 and she did even worse in holding onto her ’08 base voters in OH.
The only percentages that are surprising to me is the increased percentage of male voters in ’16 and that HRC would lose two points among that demographic.
This is the one state where I would say that the reduced DEM primary voter engagement and voter participation is not a good sign for the DEM nominee in the general election.
If we could just get rid of them!
Or, failing that, prevent them from voting!
Here are the recent results of the Democrats Abroad primary, another blow-out for Bernie. Not bad for someone whose campaign has been blacked out.
“Sanders beat Clinton 69 to 31 percent in a year of record turnout for American Democratic voters living overseas. More than 34,000 people participated, a 50 percent jump from 2008. Sanders picked up 9 pledged delegates to Clinton’s 4.”
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/21/471308455/bernie-sanders-won-democrats-abroad-but-who-are-they
In Israel, Sanders beat Clinton 60 percent to 39 percent.
oops — meant my second comment below to respond to your comment.
While trying to be completely rational, I suspect that IA was fixed for HRC when she fell short. (If not, why did the IA DEM refuse to release the numbers at the request of the DMR? The Polk county was “hinky” the night the caucuses and that was repeated when the delegates met for the second round of the process.) I still can’t wrap my head around why the pattern among voters under the age of 45 was so dramatically different in MA from other states where Bernie has done well. More like VA, although even there he did better among 18-29 year old voters.
IL still seems worth revisiting to me. Chicago proper was “hinky,” but perhaps they “stole” more votes than were needed to give HRC a win and she had it without any last minute shenanigans.
Your comment is strangely defeatist. Sanders has done much, much better than anyone could possibly have expected. He has proven that a candidate with the same message and a broader demographic appeal has the potential to win the nomination, and that’s a whole new ballgame.
But where is that candidate? Elizabeth Warren has all but endorsed Hillary, leading me to believe that her anti-bank crusade is a sham. Why are the Republican candidates so much younger than the Democratic? Institutional arthritis. The Democratic party lost the youth vote with the Vietnam war. The rebellion in the ranks over that war lost them the older vote. In desperation, they turned Republican-lite and found victory. This is good for the professionals as they rake in their speaking fees, and are cut in on special deals like Hilliary’s one day excursion into commodities trading, but it leaves the voters as hapless dupes. Most have turned away from politics and don’t vote at all. Others cling to old party labels that are now meaningless. Voting for the (D) or the (R) is as meaningless as supporting the Bears or the Packers. The fans are passionate but, in the end, it means nothing except to the club owners, the players, and the media, all of whom are millionaires. They play the millionaires game to avoid thinking about their crumbling lives and the dissolution of the United states into a vassal of China and Saudi Arabia.
Voice — that candidate will have to come from the pool of Americans that are today <45 years old. More likely <40 years old. Over the past three decades the DEM party has systematically ousted those to the left of the DLC and ignored those that managed to get elected so that they languish with no power or opportunity for some. It was pure desperation on the part of Schumer to recruit Rep Sherrod Brown for the US Senate. (Schumer may have expected Brown to lose but he wouldn’t have been as much of an embarrassment as Hackett. Alas, Brown has demonstrated that even the good ones among older pols can be had by TPTB.)
However, it’s going to require a far more resolve from younger Americans than what Boomers ever possessed. And that’s the tallest order of all.
So, this argumentation has it that Sherrod Brown’s recruitment by the DSCC is proof that the DSCC under Schumer’s leadership corruptly denies the will of Democratic Party voters in favor of Wall Street-loving DINOs. That makes sense…
Oh, and apparently Senator Brown, still clearly one of the most liberal Senators, way out in front as a leader in the fight to reject the TPP, has been co-opted and has abandoned his supporters and constituents.
Bizarre.
One reason the Republican candidates are younger than the Democratic ones is, the Democrats don’t have the Conservatives’ idiotic “anybody can be president as long as they have the right cowboy attitude” fantasy.
The situation of a Reagan or a George W. Bush taking the oval office (regardless of ideology; a figurehead with a good television affect) is appalling to Democrats; it would never happen, because we don’t have their ridiculous mistrust of all cultural hierarchies that make them regard a University of Chicago Law School professor and editor of the Harvard Law review “less qualified” than an Alaskan beauty pageant contestant.
So, by the time a Democrat is on a national ticket, he or she has, you know, built up a legitimate resume (which, to Republican voters, is something so far off their radar they don’t even know what I’m talking about — all they can see is “business” “success” represented by a lot of gold plating and bimbos).
That proposition has never been tested.
Reagan and GWB had more years in high elective office when they ran for POTUS than Obama had in ’08. Oprah may have been as acceptable to DEMs a few years ago as Trump is to the GOP. It’s just the most talented in TV, movies, and the arts that are liberals are more successful in their chosen career than those that are conservative.
What’s happened is that the GOP old guard aged out sooner than the “New DEM” old guard because the latter came later. One reason that DEMs have been losing SEN seats of late is that the DEM candidates have been older. Did fine in HI and NM with young, liberal nominees.
For the past 15 years the Clintons have stifled the development of young candidates who might not support or would be likely to provide competition.
Elizabeth Warren has by no means “all but endorsed Hillary.” In fact she’s the only female Democratic senator who has NOT endorsed her. And I’m sure she is not going to as long as Sanders is still in the race.
Shhhhhhh! You’re interrupting the narrative.
Really? Then the e-mail I got from her via Emily’s List touting Hillary and asking me to donate to Hillary must have been a fake.
Emily’s list endorsed HRC almost a year ago. Did Warren sign a letter that was sent out by Emily’s list endorsing HRC?
They quoted her. I don’t have the e-mail. I marked it as trash and marked Emily’s list as SPAM. I did the same to NARAL because of their endorsement.
Easy to quote Warren and package it with an appeal for HRC or even Sanders. Bloggers do that day in and day out as they advocate for either of the candidates. Sanders supporters are on somewhat firmer ground because of Warren’s principle mission — taking on Wall St. However, Warren herself has chosen not to interfere in the primary with an endorsement. Those that suggest otherwise are spinmeisters and best ignored.
Personally, I view all the “gotta have a women POTUS” advocates as stuck in the 1970s. (Might explain why their pitch isn’t resonating with younger women.) It did have validity, perhaps a lot of validity, back then when constructed as “gotta elect women to public office” because there were so few. “We” settled for Sandra Day O’Connor on the SC because as a woman she wouldn’t sit with the rabid anti-choice Justices. However, the price was that she sat with them on all their other draconian rulings that hurt men and women. Trading off less hollowing out of “Roe” for more hollowing out of other aspects of our lives was a bad bargain. By reducing feminism and feminists to a single high profile issue, it first demonstrated how little women would settle for: a woman that doesn’t oppose choice. Second, it signaled that the defeat of the ERA had been accepted by feminists. Third, feminism moved into an insular women only arena. Finally, electing women to public office took hold well enough within the public consciousness that an Ernst, a Bachmann, et al. were difficult to defeat.
Now these “old bats” can’t even wrap their minds around how damaging it is for the future of women in public office by championing a legacy candidate who achieved her status through her spouse. Who was a crap POTUS wrt much of what feminism had stood for. Among the old guard, white feminists Barbara Ehrenreich is one of the few that hasn’t lost that. (Neither did Molly Ivins.) All these feminist institutions that once had a genuine reason for existing have become sclerotic and that may be the beginning of their demise.
Well said and so true. I bet these “old bats” in denial also have a very comfortable lifestyle and don’t have to use coupons at the grocery store, either.
It’s a club — sorority sisters from the “right” colleges/universities (mostly private but prestigious public ones will do), if not born upper middle to upper class, rapidly upwardly mobile through the jobs and/or spouses that the “right” education opens doors to. It’s not that they don’t care about feminist legal and economic policies, but in practice it has become trickle-down after they once got theirs and the standard for “theirs” has increased over the years and the trickle-down has been slowed down to the occasional drip.
Not strange at all considering how quickly and easily all mobilizations from the left have been defeated since 1968. This latest one is the strongest ever since the early-mid 1930s, but so too is the DEM Party’s ability to crush it stronger than ever.
Sanders is a proper leader in the sense that he’s better at not giving into defeatism than many of his supporters.
There is no potential. His defeat has proven that you can’t beat City Hall.
It was worth one last try.
Sanders has weaknesses as a candidate that are not intrinsic to his position.
It’s hard to prove a negative, and I don’t think you’ve proven yours. 🙂
Sanders has weaknesses as a candidate…
This gets claimed again and again without any definition as to the “weaknesses” in the abstract much less in comparison with the other options. The only objective one is his age — but Clinton and Trump aren’t spring chickens. And if we were to compare the rigors of being on the campaign trail among those three, Sanders has been more active and less protected with down and recovery time than the other two.
Stack of HRC’s inherent weaknesses against Sanders and she’s much weaker. Add in their political positions for this moment in time, and she’s even weaker.
Vague and easy claims like “Sanders has weaknesses” that get repeated are picked up by voters and it ends up getting incorporated into the decision to vote for HRC even when they prefer Sanders. That’s how propaganda works in stealth forms.
Marie… I respect your knowledge and your research and your comments here, but somehow I think you have a blind spot where Sanders is concerned. And yes, I agree that HRC has her own weaknesses, and we’ll never get to know if they’re greater or smaller than Sanders’ weaknesses in a general election because we can’t run the election both ways. 🙂
I didn’t think it needed to be stated – Bernie Sanders is a 74-year-old atheist or agnostic guy with an old-fashioned northeastern accent from an overwhelmingly white northeastern state, he calls himself a democratic socialist, and he just got around to joining the Democratic Party within the last year. Not everyone in the Democratic coalition is open to his us-vs-them rhetoric, and he’s not flexible about adapting that rhetoric to different audiences (and yes, his consistency is also a strength).
Given all this, his successes to date are nothing short of amazing. I have deep respect for what he’s accomplished.
We all have different experiences talking to friends and family… mine is that even consistent Democratic voters who don’t like Hillary Clinton have not been able to make the leap to supporting Sanders. I confess I haven’t pushed friends and family members on why they don’t support Sanders – is it a first-impression thing, his own demographic profile, the socialist label, his rhetoric? What’s the gap? But there it is.
Last time I looked HRC was white and Social Security age. But not male and not a Jew. I think those are the “problems”.
My blind spot? (Yeah, I also had one of those in ’07 when partisan DEMs said that Obama couldn’t win the nomination and even if he could that he’d lose the GE because he’s black.)
CW would say that a DEM candidate that:
would die in Iowa if not sooner. How long did Joementum last (and that was without several of those “ickey” bits you list for Sanders)?
If Sanders were the same age as HRC and the same man he is and with the same record (couldn’t be exactly the same man because those six years when he came of age before HRC did inform who he is) and the impediments to his campaign were exactly the same ones that have existed for him in this election, he would have won in those states where he fell just a bit short.
Seems to me you might be a bit blind to the moment. Just as many were blind to the moment in ’08. But hey, guess a further breakdown of the POTUS legacy wall will be a great thing because it worked so well the last two times when the wall was only half as high. By 2024 we should all be ready for another Bush and “moments” will cease to exist for presidential elections.
That made me laugh. I strongly supported Obama in ’07, and I think Sanders has been amazing this year.
Bernie’s been Bernie this year. It’s the “moment” component that has been building since 2000. Twice what it was in ’08 (unfortunately Ferraro did speak a truth that year even if in her construction it was a racist comment).
So far the moment is losing. Mostly to the institutional DEM power. Not that Bernie’s age isn’t a factor; it’s just a weak one in comparison to all the others that have been against him. And for all we know Bernie could like John Paul Stevens who retired at age 90 instead of like his colleagues Rhenquist and Scalia who died with their robes still on at age 81 and 79.
Bernie has a reason to live. He’s fighting for “us”, as he always has. He doesn’t need a sign to tell us that either. LOL
There’s one self-made poster for Bernie — His face and text reading:
That assumes that Trump and Cruz aren’t sociopaths because true sociopaths can beat a polygraph.
Bernie Sanders grew up in Brooklyn and he sounds like it, as he should. Had Senator Sanders wanted to work in TV/radio, he would have had to make some changes. That particular field prefers a more “Midwestern” accent–which I call a non-accent. (Chicago is more of an exception.)
https://www.quora.com/What-is-Bernie-Sanderss-accent
Interesting that Clinton does poorly in so many places where people have to actually show up and “stand with her.” (It wasn’t HRC voters in any great numbers in AZ that stood in line for five hours to vote.) In several large states, that she won in ’08, fewer people are “with her” than last time around. But I’m sure they’ll all be enthusiastic about voting for her come November.
Fascinating that one of the principle beneficiaries on the New Deal policies, Labor, was the first to bolt to the GOP. Now forty odd years on, those folks are sitting around perplexed as to why things have worked out less well for them. Today, two other major beneficiaries of New Deal policies (and I include all of those through LBJ), older women/retirees and AAs, bolting from the New Deal. Don’t expect they’ll “get it” any faster than white working class men have — which so far appears to be never.
It is interesting. Observing same phenomena.
Vis Labor bolting to the GOP, I am reminded of that great Paul Schrader film, “Blue Collar,” with Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor & Yephet Kotto. Examines how Unions start pitting the working class against each other for the gain of the bosses.
I think of it often. I think a lot of Unionists went GOP due to Identity politics, and it certainly seems to be the same issue for Clinton voters. From what I’ve heard on the radio, older AAs seem to believe that the Clintons (both) will “protect” them. The need for protection for AAs is more than understandable, and likely Clinton would be better for them than, say, Trump or Cruz. But better than Sanders? Doubtful.
Identity politics and reflexive voting is what I see happening over and over. I am constantly treated to conversations from pretty smart and well educated people that highlight how extremely ignorant they are about how politics really works in the USA. They don’t get it. They simply don’t get it. And, of course, that’s by design.
Of course, Clinton also carries name recognition, and again, that counts for a lot in our country. Of course, it can also work against you, as it did with JEB.
Once upon a time, identity politics meant African Americans registering as Republicans: after all, Lincoln, the great emancipator was a Republican. A discussion of the trend in African American party affiliation may be found here. The shift away from an even split began when Harry Truman pushed civil rights legislation.
Labor is bolting to the GOP? Give me the long litany of Unions who are endorsing lots of Republicans these days; apparently you know them. The only ones that have done so with great frequency in recent decades have been police and prison guard Unions, and they’re the pariahs of our Movement, broadly hated and affiliated with very few Labor Councils.
LOL. Oh my God, people have no idea what they’re talking about here. It’s just wild, angry flailing about at moments like this.
Unions almost always endorse Democrats, except for the ones you mentioned. (If prison guards are members of AFSCME, that union endorses Democrats.) Teamsters endorsed Obama both times, but endorsed Reagan and Poppy Bush. Teamsters have not endorsed anyone this election since some Democrats have been pro-TPP, etc.
I want to mention that because Union Internationals endorse a Democrat, that does not mean all their members will vote for a Democrat. There’s an important distinction. Sometimes the Union leaders are seen as “the establishment” and members do not necessarily fall in line.
Agreed.
I’m trying to square your comments with an article recently in the New York Times about the Clinton campaign depending upon older folks to be volunteers.
A dearth of young volunteers, perhaps?
Reading comprehension:
“Show up” as in showing up at the polls and caucuses. She does fine with the RTD voters that only have to lift a pen for a few minutes in the comfort of their recliners.
Campaign volunteers are a separate issue. The local and state party volunteers have long been older and dominated by people that have plenty of free time. (Gee wonder who that could be?) That’s a component of the institutional part of the parties and of course that would be the happiest volunteer hunting ground for HRC.
“It wasn’t HRC voters in any great numbers in AZ that stood in line for five hours to vote.”
No, it wasn’t, but she didn’t do poorly in AZ.
Still, the tally for the day was Sanders, 67 — Clinton, 51.
Weren’t the biggest lines in Maricopa County? Clinton won 58-39 there.
Honestly, I thought Sanders would do better in Pima County, and he didn’t. Did well along the northern border (unsurprising given his results in Utah).
I voted by mail in (in the Phoenix suburbs) and it was very fast, easy, and convenient – I am on a permanent vote by mail list.
Just watching the returns come in, HRC won the early vote really big. It looked to me like Bernie won marginally with the people who stood in line – HRC margin was over 80,000 early (which was the early voters), gradually dropped to under 78,000 later.
If I am remembering correctly – maybe – I was contacted several years ago by the Democratic Party and asked if I wanted to be on the permanent vote by mail list.
So, maybe, people standing in line were more likely to be independents – which we know Bernie does better with independents.
Messed up, AZ is a closed primary.
But the point sort of still holds – the people in line were largely either new voters or people who changed their registration.
Much easier to rig a mail vote. Even easier than slipping PROMs in and out of voting machines. The wrong ballots are just “lost in the mail” or substitute by the “correct” ballots. The most important thing is who does the counting and how open is it.
This is a fact that DEMs have been in denial about for some time. Would undermine their efforts to make voting so cheap and easy that in their minds would seal the fate of Republicans being permanent losers.
I’ll agree that a five hour wait like Arizona is unacceptable. And Adams County not printing 100% of the ballots as required by law to “save money”. What miniscule portion of the county’s budget is being saved?
Wait times should be no longer than fifteen minutes. Many voters have small children with them or are disabled. Even fifteen minutes is eternity. One of our judges brought a box of suckers to placate whiny children.
However, it would be easier to decide how much equipment to send to each precinct if turnouts didn’t vary so much. One time I served as judge for a primary election for local offices (school board, library board, township committeeman, etc). We had 32 voters all day. And some of them left when they found out they had to declare their party affiliation.
I know literacy tests and such were used to disenfranchise African-Americans, but there should be some way to ensure that voters at least know basic facts.
What happened in AZ is widely seen as a fiasco, completely unacceptable, and an investigation is being demanded.
http://usuncut.com/news/arizona-polling-disaster/
http://usuncut.com/politics/bernie-blasts-arizona-voting-disaster-calls-the-fiasco-a-disgrace/
More information on AZ primary disaster:
http://usuncut.com/politics/5-examples-voter-suppression-arizona-primary/
Why does anyone have to declare an affiliation with any party as a condition of voting in any election? Not a requirement in all states and seems to work fine in them. For that matter why should pre-election registration exist at all except for those that want to receive by mail a mail-in/absentee ballot?
Why? Because political parties are organizations that are run by their members. They have histories and traditions and rules. People who are not members shouldn’t expect to be able to participate in a party primary or caucus.
Not if the state is running and paying for the primaries. Then the ballots belong to the people and not some special members only club.
Interesting that caucuses, that are managed and paid for by the member political parties, are for the most part more open to all than the state run primaries.
What all this registration and closed primary business seems to foster is a greater likelihood that the nominees will be closer to lesser or greater evil than what might otherwise occur. For example, 1964 with completely open primaries would have pitted LBJ against Rockefeller.
You are arguing for a two stage election process. I go along with that and I think there would be much much more participation. But the primary election IS a party function where parties choose their candidates. I’m not historian enough to cite the origin of the caucus, but I’d like to see them eliminated. They are neither fish nor fowl. Only elites or the unemployed can afford to take the time to attend. The rules are labyrinthine.
In the olden days, candidates were chosen by state conventions. The attendees were party functionaries like township committeemen, county committeemen, aldermen, and a bevy of elected officials. This made it hard for reformers to break in and resulted in decisions made in the proverbial smoke-filled room. It’s amazing that we got Presidents like Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln out of that system.
I don’t remember High school US History (does it still exist?) well enough to be certain and I’m too lazy to google for it, but I believe that primaries came out of the late 19th century Progressive movement and resulted in the two Roosevelts. Can’t have that happening any more, can we?
No, I’m not arguing for any more than a primary and general election. The top two in a primary that move on to the general election has some merit. As does simply choosing the ballot of whatever party one wishes to “affiliate” with for that day. The down side to that is cross-party ratf*king if there is no doubt as to the nominee of one’s generally preferred party or political orientation. That wouldn’t even be a problem if organized ratf*king were prohibited because individual voters on their own are barely motivated at all to show up and vote for their preferred candidate.
At the presidential level, there were hardly any voter primaries until the mid-twentieth century and the first one that can be clearly identified as the people’s choice would be ’64 — Goldwater, but there still weren’t many primaries.
Until recently, you had to sit out an election in Illinois to switch parties. i.e. if you voted in the 2000 (R) primary, you cannot switch to (D) without skipping the 2002 primary (yes, it doesn’t matter if it’s Presidential or Gubernatorial), then in 2004 you could vote in the (D) primary but couldn’t switch back to (R) until 2008, provided that you skipped 2006, else you had to wait until 2010. This had two functions, it discouraged the ratfucking you refer to AND it discouraged participation in the Green, Libertarian and other minor parties. Illinois primary is now open in that each election you can take either ballot. I suspect, but do not know, that some court ruled the old system unconstitutional because it required you to skip an election. IMHO, a requirement that you have to formally switch six months ahead of time would be good. You would have the right to vote in every election but would have to pre-declare your party change to discourage fake switches. Since we vote in March, if you are going to switch, you should know by the previous October. Now that I think more about it, just requiring a switch before January would probably suffice.
I like simple unless there’s a mighty good reason to justify something more complex that comes with associated costs and burdens.
What’s wrong with an honor system for voters? Same day registration should be fine. Let’s use a hypothetical. Say I live in a district that reliably votes 55/45% GOP in presidential elections and there hasn’t been a DEM or third party candidate that’s been more than marginally acceptable for a few decades. On the GOP side, the nutters outweigh the somewhat sane folks; so, the nutter candidate wins the primary and the general and has been the incumbent for some time. Then one year, she/he is challenged in the primary by a candidate that’s as good or better than what’s on offer on the DEM side and is the best hope to oust the nutter. Since that office represents me as well as the nutters, why shouldn’t I have a say in the matter?
To that very point…Texas will still have Louie Gohmert.
IL has always had an open primary, not sure what you’re talking about, in fact in 2010 some reps tried and failed to close it
If by forever you mean six years, then yes.
http://www.sj-r.com/article/20100908/NEWS/309089924
BTW, they still mark a record with which ballot you took, which you would know if you had voted last week.
I think we’re defining open differently. You’ve always been able to vote for either party’s slate in any primary. You’ve never had to sit out an election to switch. In 2010, they actually tried to close the primary, meaning that you would actually have to register as a Democrat or Republican previous to the election.
That effort failed
from the second link
Under § 73(d) of the Illinois Election Code, a person is prohibited from voting in the primary election of a political party if he has voted in the primary of any other party within the preceding 23 months.
It was open in the sense that you could declare as you voted, but that vote bound you until you sat out an election.
That’s a 1973 case, I couldn’t find evidence that primaries were ever closed like this but I guess you were able to so thanks.
I don’t know when it changed but it’s not the case now and not the case since I’ve been voting which is since 2002. I know that’s not the longest time frame but I can’t find when the rules changed.
I’ve been voting since 1966 and it definitely was the case back then. I moved out of state in 1973 and came back in 1981. I’ve been registered (D) since I came back. At least once since I came back I wanted to vote in the Green primary but couldn’t because I had voted (D) in the last primary election.
There was a California case in 2000 challenging rules that required the voters to sit out elections. Perhaps that’s what caused the IL change.
Quinn was a reformer and I supported him, but he turned out to be a lousy administrator.
Forever?
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/414/51/case.html
Yeah, uh huh. That’s what I heard when people paid their 3 quid to register with Labour.
Labour ordered to vet members who apply to join party amid fears ‘entryists’ signing up to vote for Jeremy Corbyn
OH NO! We CANNOT have that. Dirty outside agitators!
I disagree about voter manipulation in vote-by-mail, as someone who enthusiastically took advantage of the system in Washington State. Really, it’s great.
But let’s entertain those concerns. What if you could provide people with the ability to just look up their ballots after the election? It wouldn’t be hard, although the encryption would have to be excellent.
But what good would that do without eliminating the secret ballot, which might not be a bad idea.
Caucuses eliminate the secret ballot. We know people who will not participate because they don’t want to share their preference with another family member, neighbor, employer or employee. It opens voters to intimidation.
Heard a talk by our county’s clerk and recorder about voting by mail, which is statewide in Colorado. She said it eliminated many problems with registration (name changes, change of address, etc.) and was completely reliable and trustworthy. They scan the signature which is placed across the flap of the envelope and keep files of those scanned signatures. They have only a handful of ballots that come back with questionable signatures and they contact each and every person. Sometimes it’s an illness or surgery that causes a change. Occasionally a parent signs for a college student who hasn’t gotten home in time. They deal with each one, and make a case by case decision. There are no significant fraud problems.
You are talking about fraud by the voters. I’m talking about fraud by the counters.
fraud by the counters…
Where voter fraud has always taken place. Not in the booth.
Isn’t there a systemic use of “rotten boroughs” in the delegate apportioning,too? On the national AND the state level.
BooMan, Bernie Sanders has long made it clear that he’s going all the way to the final stop in Philadelphia. Your approval or disapproval is irrelevant. I have great respect for you and your blog—especially the commenters hold my attention—but sometimes you get my goat with some pontificating. The magic of Sanders is that he does what he says. We’re not used that to that anymore. May he stay in just to tarnish the Clintons until their light has been completely extinguished. Mrs. Clinton wil then be like a black hole sitting on the chair behind the desk in the Oval Office, that’s if Mr. Trump doesn’t beat her to it, which he will, I suppose.
Your words would truly be a great consolation if Trump is inaugurated next January 20.
Could you please explain your statement. He won’t be in need of consolation by then.
Obviously it’s all Bernie’s fault:
As of today —
Sanders favorable 50.8%. unfavorable, 39.4%
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/bernie-sanders-favorable-rating
Clinton favorable 40.7%, unfavorable, 54.0%
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/hillary-clinton-favorable-rating
Trump favorable 32% Unfavorable 61.6%
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/donald-trump-favorable-rating
Cruz favorable 32.9% Unfavorable 50.7%
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/ted-cruz-favorable-rating
Think about this for a minute — Clinton’s unfavorables are higher than Cruz’s.
Nate Silver: “Bernie Sanders is the only candidate in either party with a net-positive favorability rating.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/1/18/1471588/-Nate-Bernie-Sanders-is-the-only-candidate-in-either
-party-with-a-net-positive-favorability-rating
But somehow if Sanders were to run against Trump or Cruz, everything would suddenly reverse, right?
But no, it has to be Hillary Clinton, because with no other candidate would we enjoy the glorious benefits that are Hillary Clinton.
Interestingly, the Hillary Clinton poll link shows that right around the time she announced her candidacy (April 12, 2015), her Unfavorables overtook her Favorables and they have continued to climb over time.
unfortunately that seems to be the HRC campaign’s only argument for electing her
Agreed. Better to bathe in the waters of progressive purity and let the Republicans run the entire federal government. Only after we are properly cleansed, will real progressive change occur. And with Republicans locking in majorities on the Supreme Court, you know it’ll happen easily. Why can’t all Dems see this?
all true progressives know this – there is no doubt
we all know that the best way to win elections is to lose them
Democrats who pass laws like Republicans and appoint bankers to regulate themselves are better?
Well, that’s what they’re going to do because Hillary Clinton can’t win against Trump. What am I supposed to do about that: give her an overhaul? Sanders will win if nominated. That’s why if she squeeze through somehow to the Oval Office she’ll have lost all her luster by then, drenched in her millions and having no where to turn except to the far right when Congress is overwhelmingly Republican because of inability to motivate voters, the lack of coattails. Wake up and face it. She’s taking the Democratic Party over a cliff. I’m not. If she’s progressive than I’m a monkey’s uncle: Nixon was more progressive!
President Obama said Nixon was more liberal than himself. If one argues that President Obama is more liberal than Hillary Clinton, then Nixon is more liberal than Clinton.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/197334-obama-nixon-was-more-liberal
I notice that you said ‘federal government’ and not ‘state government’. Very conspicuous.
Even beyond that, I don’t think you snarkers have noticed that the Democratic Party hasn’t been progressively pure in the way you’ve been snarking. And despite the ‘demographics are destiny!’ centrist security blanket the Democratic Party is bad Presidential election from being completely wiped out in federal government. Our rainy-day fund against conservative hegemony (the courts, Congress, state governments) is almost completely exhausted and the Presidency is literally our last stand — despite having ample opportunity to pad our margins.
Despite that, the serious, compromising, pragmatic people have decided to double-down on a strategy of leftism with issues unpopular/polarizing to the electorate at large (gun control, abortion rights) while pursuing the relative right consensus on issues that are even more unpopular/polarizing (trade, income inequality, immigration). And the Democratic Party standardbearer for this cocktail of dismotivating incrementalist status-quoism is a candidate who is the poster child of dismotivating incrementalist status-quoism. Why? Because a hodge-podge of policies that don’t motivate people who aren’t already Democratic partisans is apparently the best we can do despite the voters fucking telling us what they would like to see.
When is the so-called reality-based community going to admit that knee-jerk centrism that completely ignores electoral reality is a form of purity trolling? The delusional hypocrisy from these people would be bathetic if it wasn’t so frightening.
I wonder…what would happen at the convention if some major strike against HRC’s reputation and credibility…say an indictment for the emails fiasco (not necessarily “fair,” but politics [and politically-based corruption] is everywhere)…were to occur. Or…something worse. Say a physical breakdown.
What would happen.
Would the DNC people panic exactly the same way as have the RNC folks and try to foist a “centrist” candidate on the convention even though Sanders ran a more than respectable race and has polls showing him beating Trump?
My bet is that they would, and Biden would be drafted.
But…would the Sanders voters stand for that? The Trumpistas certainly wouldn’t.
Interesting times…
AG
I think you are right, Biden, “the Senator from Citibank”. Perfect. At least the bankers are struggling to keep control of the Republican Party. the Democratic Party is in the bag.
I second you: the Democratic Party would rather commit mass-reality-show suicide than let Bernie Sanders run off with their ball. What a bunch of freaking losers—or was Elizabeth Warren talking about someone else?
Interesting you should bring this up. In our household we have speculated about various convention scenarios, including those you mention.
Reading the AZ fiasco with Dems showing up to vote only to find themselves listed as Rep or I makes me wonder if her numbers will drop once the investigation sorts out.
That aside, looking at Trump’s night, I’m hopeful he’s hit his ceiling. And I’m sure Sen Warren will be using her ‘loser’ tag on Twitter with great glee.
Chances are pretty good here in WA state for Bernie to do well this weekend, it’s an interesting race.
I expect and hope that Sanders will continue his campaign and collect as many delegates as possible to continue to wield influence on Clinton and the Party rules and platform at the Convention.
Those who claim that Hillary has not moved her policy positions and emphases in this campaign leftward are sticking their fingers in their ears and wrapping a blindfold around their eyes. She’s to the right of Bernie, but she’s to the left of where she was in the 2008 campaign or earlier in this campaign.
As far as the Party goes, the fact that the national Democratic Party has placed a $15 minimum wage into the Party platform is among the signs that Sanders and the movement he is helping lead are having success.
What year does that actually happen? 2050? LOL
I agree with Sanders going all the way to Philly, which he’s said over and over he will do. However, I am utterly skeptical that HRC has REALLY moved a millimeter to the left of her stated, original positions. I don’t believe it. Clinton is saying whatever it takes to get elected. Period. The end.
Should she win the White House, she will reverse ANY and all leftish positions in less than a NY nanosecond. Count on it.
I don’t think so. I say a picosecond.
tee hee… well, time will tell. Just thinking about Obama. We’ll see.
Yeah, the only way she will get Sanders voters is if she’s as left-talking as he is – or more!
Of course she would tack right so hard after getting nominated we’ll all get whiplash.
Or she’ll get so spun out from remembering which where and when she lied last she’ll explode.
Or the FBI move in…
Gotta say, though, reading her comments to AIPAC left me sort of choking on them.
I mean, I get political expediency: to enact anything, ya gotta first achieve the position that makes that possible.
But when such expediency bumps up against clear moral principle (and this strikes me as such a case, given, e.g., the Israeli gov’t’s settlement policies, which are impossible for me to see as anything other than deliberate provocation and deliberate erection of obstacles to any eventual resolution), if expediency wins out, then Houston, we have a problem.
Personally, I’m sick of the rightwing Likud/NuttyYahoo Israeli gov’t essentially having veto power over US foreign policy (less so under Obama, and good on him for that; but Clinton sounds poised to reverse it).
So I found Clinton’s statements to AIPAC disturbing at best (tempted to make that “appalling”).
Even seen as standard electoral pandering, this seems suspect, given that polling seems to suggest that majorities of American Jews land pretty consistently closer to Sanders’ position than to Clinton/AIPAC/NuttyYahoo’s.
I’ll say it. I was appalled. And aren’t the settlements contrary to various UN resolutions? Since when do we support giving the finger to the UN? Guess when it comes to Israel we pretty much have for some time. Or turned the other way.
“Since when do we support giving the finger to the UN?”
With the fall of communism in 1989, Bush Sr. and Bill Clinton held the principles of UN as a partner. When the US decided to go it alone in Kosovo and especially with the USSC decision on the Florida vote count to install Republican president George Bush in 2000, the US decided the global community would be better off in an unipolar world.
The UK with Tony Blair undermined the principles of war and peace with going to war in Iraq. Bush cemented the fate of the UN by appointing John Bolton as his ambassador to the UN. Barack Obama saw the advantage after the Libya UNSC resolution for intervention under R2P rule, however he and HRC violated the principle of sovereignty by removing Muammar Gaddafi. With hard-ball acting through UN Ambassadors Susan Rice and Samantha Power, president Obama decided to by-pass the UN very much similar to George Bush and go for regime change in Syria. Russia as one of the major powers after WWII with veto power, prevented unilateral action of the US and got Obama pissed-off. Punishment by harsh economic and financial sanctions for Russia after its stance on Ukraine and NATO’s push towards the border with Moscow. Obama uses the EU as his lap dog as he got immediate carte blanche when elected after the 8 years of disaster in foreign policy under George Bush.
With the change at the State Department in Obama’s second term, John Kerry recovered much of what was lost with HRC on US foreign policy. The hawks in the Pentagon and military establishment plus right-wing politics in US Congress will always decide for war and aggression instead of diplomacy and peace talks.
On Israel, the US is standing alone. Thanks for the courage of Bernie Sanders.
Hillary is in support of the Iran nuclear deal. I expect her to maintain that stance; she didn’t backtrack from that at AIPAC. If she does that, she is defying Israel’s desire to control our Middle East foreign policy on a most important issue going on in the region.
As to what I heard about the rest of her speech, it sounded like pandering, but it didn’t appear to represent her changing her positions re. Israel. She has an unbalanced view of the Palestinian issue; we knew that already.
“It’s kind of remarkable how much Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s maps of support overlap with each other.”
This should be a giant wakeup call for all Democrats who don’t want to see a President Trump. Both Trump and Clinton are moderate Conservatives with Hillary being the fake Republican. Once that Blue Dog mentality courtesy of Bill and the DLC entered the mainstream Democratic Establishment, they just don’t want to let it go. How has that worked out in the past?
Hillary’s big lead with pledged delegates in conservative states is building a false sense of security for Democrats whose main goal is mostly to not see a Republican in the White House, not that they particularly like Hillary. If you are one of those Democrats but not an ostrich Democrats putting your head in the sand in denial of the polls, you should worry. You should not only worry but do something about it before it’s too late.
“Trump beats Clinton in the two strongholds for the Democratic party: the West Coast & the North East… Let me repeat that: Trump beats Clinton in the most important Democratic states!”
A lot of voters are completely fed up with Establishment politics on both sides of the aisle with those voters becoming independent. The Democratic Establishment makes a big mistake to think these Independents can be had with a quick pivot right once the progressives have been dealt with in primary. The mistake is that many of these Independents turned Populist. This is why both Trump and Bernie beat Hillary with Independents. Trump does not beat Bernie with Independents. This is at least a third if not more of the general electorate. The Clinton Machine may give you false hope sheltered in conservative states but it won’t save you. Take heart because it’s not over just yet.
Reuters just released new 3/20 data for both candidates:
https:/medium.com@webconnoisseur/latest-reuters-data-shows-hillary-losing-to-trump-but-bernie-wins
-d322d691ce17#.edezcs5bk
if that’s supposed to be a link it doesn’t work.
If they’re saying Clinton is going to lose in the general in California, they’re not polling the same state I live in.
For some reason something happens when it goes from comment preview to what’s getting posted.
Google latest-reuters-data-shows-hillary-losing-to-trump-but-bernie-wins and it comes up first
thanks
He should stay in for as long as he wants – having him in theoretically forces HRC to organize throughout the country and toughens her as a candidate for the general.
Bernie Sanders’ staying in has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton except that he’s also running for president. If she’s the real thing, why does she need Sanders to get her up to speed. If so, I’d think she might do better to concede to him as the better candidate because he has nothing to learn from her about organizing and being tough (I wish he were a lot tougher with her, but you can’t have everything).
He should stay in for as long as he wants – having him in theoretically forces HRC to organize throughout the country and toughens her as a candidate for the general.
Will Hillary be able to get over the top(2382, or what ever the number is) with out Supers? Someone said today that there is a chance she doesn’t get there on pledged delegates alone. Sounds like maybe Sanders is trying to prove a point if that’s the case.
Is that number the majority with the supers, but without using supers? That seems like a pretty arbitrary criterion. The relevant question is whether she’ll win an outright majority of pledged delegates, and she’s on track for that.
I forget the exact number. But it’s just pledged delegates. Meaning if she came up short, the Supers would have to put her over. Will she still be on track if she loses California? There are apparently polls showing California tightening and the election there is still 45 days away or so.
I don’t buy it that big wins in Idaho and Utah are meaningful.
Sanders advertised and organized in both states. Clinton did not. Her campaign has decided it’s not worth their time and energy to try to get a few more delegates out of small white caucus states. Instead, they’re concentrating on big states, which they’re already likely to win.
Sanders can win a bunch more small caucus states and it’s meaningless to the final result, particularly since Clinton is going to dominate in the large, diverse states with closed primaries in the northeast.
In MI, OH, MO, nearly 1/3 of the black vote went to Sanders.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/5c20d2de6f7f4695860574a82f83c778/hillary-clinton-faces-new-challenge-
black-rust-belt-voters
In IL, he also got more than half of the Hispanic vote.
https:/www.reddit.com/r/Kossacks_for_Sanders/comments/4akkx5/shock_il_exit_poll_sanders_leading_his
panic
As for the so-called demise of the white Democratic voter, in 2012 56% of Democratic voters were white. I think anybody would consider that a pretty sizeable chunk of votes.
That reddit link won’t work, but try this, it’s better anyway:
http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/hispanic-vote-surfaces-in-illinois-primary/
Clinton stayed in LONG past when it was mathematically possible for her to beat Obama.
So, Bernie can stay.
Karma remains undefeated
Apparently Markos Moulitses didn’t get your message.
OK, so the Delegate selection process and establishment of Superdelegates in the Democratic Party POTUS process has been discussed on this and dozens of other threads recently. I think it’s important to read these histories from someone who knows her stuff:
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/23/471563611/the-mind-boggling-story-of-our-arcane-and-convoluted-primary
-politics
From the transcript:
…
“GROSS: Why was 1968 a turning point in the Democratic approach to primary politics?
KAMARCK: In 1968, the Democratic Party was the site of a significant anti-war movement. That movement coincided with the women’s movement, with civil rights movements, with a feeling that American politics needed to be more inclusive. And the anti-war protesters found that they could not win delegates to the ’68 convention. Even when their candidates – in that case, Gene McCarthy – were doing fairly well, they were cut out of the convention and cut out of delegate slots because the process for electing delegates did not depend on primaries. It wasn’t a very open process. And so the significant anti-war movement was really cut out of the ’68 convention and, as we saw, they were in the streets rioting during the ’68 convention. After that, the party said, all right, we have to do something about this, we have to open up a little bit more than we’ve been. And they created something called the McGovern-Fraser Commission, and the rules from that commission fundamentally reshaped the nominating system not just for the Democrats but for the Republicans as well.
…
GROSS: Now, we will talk about a brokered convention and what that would mean, but first I want to talk with you about superdelegates. It turns out you were on the commission that created superdelegates. You’ve served as a superdelegate. You’re still serving as a superdelegate for Hillary Clinton so you know how this process works. Like, what is – why were superdelegates created?
KAMARCK: When the process of nominating candidates moved to – on the Democratic side – moved to a completely open process where anybody who wanted to run for delegate could go to a county convention, bring a lot of friends and run for delegate. When that happened, it was – it had its positive aspects. We really opened up the Democratic Party. But at the highly contested 1980 convention between President Carter and Ted Kennedy, there was a lot of uncertainty and chaos, and one of the things people realized was that the leaders of the party – the governors, the senators and the Congressmen who also run on the same ticket as the presidential nominee were not there. They were not on the floor of the convention helping to lead and shape and discuss the future of the party. So in 1982, the Hunt Commission was formed, and what the Hunt Commission decided was that they needed to get these people back into the convention but under the new rules…
GROSS: In other words, to give party leadership a say in what was going on?
KAMARCK: Yeah, they needed to give the party leaders a say because under the new rules, a member of Congress was not going to go into a district convention and run against his constituents, right? It was just not something politically they were going to do. So in order to get them there, you basically made them automatic delegates to the convention, and in the years since 1984, they have never – and this I think is important – they have never changed the outcome of the public portion of the process. They have always gone along – whoever had the most delegates elected in primaries going into the convention, that’s also where the superdelegates went.
…
GROSS: This is FRESH AIR, and if you’re just joining us, we’re talking about primary politics, which is the title of the new book by my guest Elaine Kamarck. She teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of government.
She’s a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and she’s been a superdelegate. And she was on the commission that helped create superdelegates in the Democratic Party. Because of the superdelegates, you can virtually lose a primary in a state but walk away with more delegates.
KAMARCK: Yeah, but that’s kind of unusual. I mean, you’d have to – it has to be a kind of small – first, a small state. It has to be a small but very, very Democratic state, OK? I mean, that’s – that’s kind of a difficult scenario. I’m sure it could happen, but that’s sort of a difficult scenario.
The superdelegates in the Democratic Party are about 12 percent of the convention. In the Republican Party, all the Republican National Committee people are superdelegates. And they’re, I think, 5 or 6 percent of the convention. So the Republicans have superdelegates, too. They’re just smaller – a smaller number.
One of the things to kind of remember is that prior to 1968, every single nominating convention we had was composed of superdelegates. In other words, people got to go to the convention by virtue of their role in some leadership capacity, even if it was, you know, a county chairman.
People got to go to the convention because of their role in the party. And this business of superdelegates is, again, a kind of reflection of the fact that this is a funny system because it’s still a system that in the end is run by the political parties, not by the public.
GROSS: But the candidate convinces a superdelegate to side with them, right? I mean, the…
KAMARCK: Yeah, but remember…
GROSS: They’re not neutral in this.
KAMARCK: No, they’re not. Sometimes they stay neutral to the end. Sometimes they shift. In 2008, Hillary Clinton started out with most of the superdelegates. And as Obama won primaries and picked up public delegates, the superdelegates started to shift to Obama. And in the end, all the superdelegates voted for Obama. So, you know, the superdelegates simply are not bound by their state results. That doesn’t mean that they don’t pay attention to their state results.
I mean, if you’re a member of Congress and one candidate wins your congressional district overwhelmingly, you better have a good reason to go to the convention and vote for the candidate who lost your district ’cause some of your voters are going to say, huh, what are you doing?”
I’ll just summarize here by noting that these histories, explanations and definitions utterly refute much of what has been aggressively and disrespectfully asserted by many frequent commenters here.
Isn’t there a systemic use of “rotten boroughs” in the delegate apportioning,too? On the national AND the state level.
That last bit from Kamarck is enlightening. I wish Gross asked her about Minnesota, for one. Haha! Fat chance.
Huh. I’ve seen a lot of comments lately about how Sanders is a stronger general election candidate because his favorables are so high compared to everyone else’s. There’s a new poll out from CNN, and among the other findings is this:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/24/politics/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-cnn-poll-2016-election/index.htm
l
And this is before the right-wing propaganda apparatus has even begun to turn its howitzers on him.
Just one poll, need to see the cross-tabs, etc. etc. etc. Still….
He can run the table of small, white, rural, caucus states, but they no longer have the campaign funds to try and outspend her 3-4:1 (like they did in Michigan) to make something happen in a big primary state.
By June they’ll be totally reliant on free media and volunteer hours, and having to endlessly push back at oh, I didn’t know you were still actively campaigning.
Seems like a lot of headache to prove the candidate is a perfect fit for an electoral system full of Vermonts.