Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:28 am
brian wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:41 am Now I'm not talking about you (degen) here so keep that in mind, but people can't have it both ways.

Either the Democrats have their fingers on the scales to nominate the person they want (Hillary) or it's a process where anyone can get the nomination regardless of how outside the party mainstream they are (Bernie). If it's the former, then Avenatti doesn't have a chance in hell. If it's the latter, I never want to hear a single fucking soul bitch about 2016 ever again.
I don't get your last sentence. In 2016, one big problem was the Democrats DID put their finger on the scale, but tried to pretend like they didn't. Without that, there's a very good chance Bernie would have beaten Hillary for the nomination. There's no telling for sure what the election would have looked like if it were Bernie vs. Trump, but considering how close it was for Hillary, I think Bernie would have won, since he had much greater appeal among younger voters and the middle-America folks who went for Trump.
I thought I was pretty clear that I didn't believe it was completely the latter either but that it was probably close to somewhere between the two scenarios. I was just making the point that anyone who thinks Avenatti has a chance in hell to get the nomination has to put aside any and all complaints about the national political parties executing their preferences for party insiders. Hell, the Republicans did the same things to try and deny Trump the nomination, but all their maneuvering didn't work because the GOP base wanted an avatar for their racism and all their vile impulses.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Granted it might be better for this leadership to avoid any semblance of leading, but isn't there a huge difference between managing the process (avoiding a celebrity and/or someone like Avenatti) and hand-picking their favorite member of the inner circle? Seeing what happened with Trump shouldn't be considered the blueprint going forward.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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It sounds like you're saying that folks who wanted the party to have a fair, unbiased nomination process hold some blame for how 2016 turned out.

Me, I think the parties should be able to tilt the scales if they want - it's their party after all - but they should be transparent about it. Don't do this huge, drawn-out nomination process through all the states if you've already picked your party's nominee.

Whether that would be better or worse for actually winning the subsequent election is debatable. My belief is you'll get a stronger candidate if you let the voters decide. But, that's how the Republicans got Trump, so that's obviously not the ideal way either.

[Update - this was a reply to Brian, not MrD]
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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The problem is the Dems don't focus on electability or policy or anything like that. You don't need to look further than NJ right now to see they'd rather risk dying with their person than assure winning with someone who isn't pledged.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:28 am
brian wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:41 am Now I'm not talking about you (degen) here so keep that in mind, but people can't have it both ways.

Either the Democrats have their fingers on the scales to nominate the person they want (Hillary) or it's a process where anyone can get the nomination regardless of how outside the party mainstream they are (Bernie). If it's the former, then Avenatti doesn't have a chance in hell. If it's the latter, I never want to hear a single fucking soul bitch about 2016 ever again.
I don't get your last sentence. In 2016, one big problem was the Democrats DID put their finger on the scale, but tried to pretend like they didn't. Without that, there's a very good chance Bernie would have beaten Hillary for the nomination. There's no telling for sure what the election would have looked like if it were Bernie vs. Trump, but considering how close it was for Hillary, I think Bernie would have won, since he had much greater appeal among younger voters and the middle-America folks who went for Trump.
Apologies for dredging up old stuff, but what is your basis for that bolded sentence? Didn't Hillary decisively beat Bernie in most of the Democratic primaries? As I recall it, Bernie won a few primaries in the Northeast, and also did well in several caucuses. But Hillary won the popular vote among Democrats handily and had a big delegate advantage even apart from superdelegates.

What am I missing?
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Steve of phpBB wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:12 pm
Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:28 am
brian wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:41 am Now I'm not talking about you (degen) here so keep that in mind, but people can't have it both ways.

Either the Democrats have their fingers on the scales to nominate the person they want (Hillary) or it's a process where anyone can get the nomination regardless of how outside the party mainstream they are (Bernie). If it's the former, then Avenatti doesn't have a chance in hell. If it's the latter, I never want to hear a single fucking soul bitch about 2016 ever again.
I don't get your last sentence. In 2016, one big problem was the Democrats DID put their finger on the scale, but tried to pretend like they didn't. Without that, there's a very good chance Bernie would have beaten Hillary for the nomination. There's no telling for sure what the election would have looked like if it were Bernie vs. Trump, but considering how close it was for Hillary, I think Bernie would have won, since he had much greater appeal among younger voters and the middle-America folks who went for Trump.
Apologies for dredging up old stuff, but what is your basis for that bolded sentence? Didn't Hillary decisively beat Bernie in most of the Democratic primaries? As I recall it, Bernie won a few primaries in the Northeast, and also did well in several caucuses. But Hillary won the popular vote among Democrats handily and had a big delegate advantage even apart from superdelegates.

What am I missing?
Yeah, there's a bit of a revisionist aspect that's crept into the discussion.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-mete ... ve-won-ev/

Even if the Super Delegates were bound to the popular vote, Bernie would not have won.

Now, you can make the Butterfly Effect argument (momentum gathered with a tighter race down the stretch), but to say there was a very good chance is not supported by the delegate count on any level.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Yeah, it hinges on the belief the party was only ever going to nominate one person so the process was never even able to play itself out.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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mister d wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:35 pm Yeah, it hinges on the belief the party was only ever going to nominate one person so the process was never even able to play itself out.
That cuts both ways though. Bernie got a lot more oxygen even before a single vote was cast in the process because of how small the field was and because he was in effect the "anti-Hillary". In a more crowded field with some people like Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and some others, it's entirely possible he would have been done before Super Tuesday.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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That's fair.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Steve of phpBB wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 12:12 pm
Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:28 am
brian wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 11:41 am Now I'm not talking about you (degen) here so keep that in mind, but people can't have it both ways.

Either the Democrats have their fingers on the scales to nominate the person they want (Hillary) or it's a process where anyone can get the nomination regardless of how outside the party mainstream they are (Bernie). If it's the former, then Avenatti doesn't have a chance in hell. If it's the latter, I never want to hear a single fucking soul bitch about 2016 ever again.
I don't get your last sentence. In 2016, one big problem was the Democrats DID put their finger on the scale, but tried to pretend like they didn't. Without that, there's a very good chance Bernie would have beaten Hillary for the nomination. There's no telling for sure what the election would have looked like if it were Bernie vs. Trump, but considering how close it was for Hillary, I think Bernie would have won, since he had much greater appeal among younger voters and the middle-America folks who went for Trump.
Apologies for dredging up old stuff, but what is your basis for that bolded sentence? Didn't Hillary decisively beat Bernie in most of the Democratic primaries? As I recall it, Bernie won a few primaries in the Northeast, and also did well in several caucuses. But Hillary won the popular vote among Democrats handily and had a big delegate advantage even apart from superdelegates.

What am I missing?
My basis was my probably-faulty memory. And I didn't say he WOULD have won, but that he'd have had a very good chance. That politifact article completely ignored the fact that it was largely reported that Hillary had locked up those superdelegates very early in the primary. As I recall, due to that, she "confirmed' the nomination with quite a few states left in play. But historically, once one candidate becomes a clear leader or winner, they start getting nearly all the votes. Did that not happen in this primary? I thought it did.

My reasoning is that if more people truly believed that Bernie had a chance for a longer period of time - and if the party hadn't so clearly made it evident who they wanted as their nominee - Bernie had a very good chance of beating Hillary.

That said, I don't follow this stuff as closely as some of you, so I could have some stuff wrong.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:50 pm But historically, once one candidate becomes a clear leader or winner, they start getting nearly all the votes. Did that not happen in this primary? I thought it did.

My reasoning is that if more people truly believed that Bernie had a chance for a longer period of time - and if the party hadn't so clearly made it evident who they wanted as their nominee - Bernie had a very good chance of beating Hillary.
It very much did. He was very much gathering support as the races went along. The superdelegates came out in favor of Hillary very early. Bernie literally came from nowhere...his "rally" stating he was running had maybe 100 people..so I'm not sure that there's "blame" as Hilary was the choice when literally no other Democrat was part of the race. There was a reason behind the superdelegate declarations but as the race progressed it became more apparent that she wasn't the shoe in that they thought she was.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenni ... cb58f1877c

This is kind of weird piece, because he's kind of reporting something and clearly opining on it, too.

It's also really unclear what would happen if the 10th Circuit decides against Kavanaugh here.

I'm also really surprised this isn't getting more attention.

Searching around, lots of very thin articles. Only one of them answered the So what? question... He could be suspended, but that seems really unlikely. As you guys know, only Congress can actually remove him.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Rush2112 wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 11:40 pm
Shirley wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 7:50 pm But historically, once one candidate becomes a clear leader or winner, they start getting nearly all the votes. Did that not happen in this primary? I thought it did.

My reasoning is that if more people truly believed that Bernie had a chance for a longer period of time - and if the party hadn't so clearly made it evident who they wanted as their nominee - Bernie had a very good chance of beating Hillary.
It very much did. He was very much gathering support as the races went along. The superdelegates came out in favor of Hillary very early. Bernie literally came from nowhere...his "rally" stating he was running had maybe 100 people..so I'm not sure that there's "blame" as Hilary was the choice when literally no other Democrat was part of the race. There was a reason behind the superdelegate declarations but as the race progressed it became more apparent that she wasn't the shoe in that they thought she was.
He got support in caucuses. When there were primaries, especially in the south, he lost. He may have been gathering support on Twitter, but as the NY Governor primary showed us, Twitter does not reflect the electorate.

And of course, after O'Malley dropped out, and it was down to Hillary and Bernie, literally no other Democrat but Hillary was part of the race.
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Those southern primaries were very early in the cycle, in fact, the earliest they'd ever been. While Sanders had done well in Iowa and won NH he still didn't have the name recognition, or the ability to get his name and message out.

He won a number of primaries out west as well as the upper midwest, so stating he only won caucuses is incorrect.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Rush2112 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 2:41 pm Those southern primaries were very early in the cycle, in fact, the earliest they'd ever been. While Sanders had done well in Iowa and won NH he still didn't have the name recognition, or the ability to get his name and message out.

He won a number of primaries out west as well as the upper midwest, so stating he only won caucuses is incorrect.
And yet none of it matters because there was no scenario where he was ever going to win the nomination short of maybe some fantastical scenario where there was a national primary in June 2016 or something. That's the dumbest thing about the DNC expressing a preference for Clinton because it truly didn't matter.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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It isn't the "dumbest thing" voter apathy because someone is supposed to win has altered a lot of races. The SuperDelegate lead altered the Democratic nomination (Hillary probably still would have won, but you never know) and it altered the general election as well. We thought Hillary was going to crush, people don't vote, we have fucking Trump.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Rush2112 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:08 pm It isn't the "dumbest thing" voter apathy because someone is supposed to win has altered a lot of races. The SuperDelegate lead altered the Democratic nomination (Hillary probably still would have won, but you never know) and it altered the general election as well. We thought Hillary was going to crush, people don't vote, we have fucking Trump.
I dunno. People were paying so little attention that they didn't even know Bernie Sanders was in the race - but they knew that Superdelegates (1) existed, and (2) had thrown in for Hillary?
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Rush2112 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:08 pm It isn't the "dumbest thing" voter apathy because someone is supposed to win has altered a lot of races. The SuperDelegate lead altered the Democratic nomination (Hillary probably still would have won, but you never know) and it altered the general election as well. We thought Hillary was going to crush, people don't vote, we have fucking Trump.
Voter antipathy is a definite issue to be sure and played some role in where we are now, but I think too much has been made of it in both the Dem primary and the general election in 2016. Clinton got more popular votes than anyone in American history other than Barack Obama. The campaign definitely made mistakes as far as taking MI/WI/PA for granted, but generally speaking turnout was pretty damn good. The problem remains the problem since the 60s frankly and isn't a Hillary-specific issue, but how do you convince a jaded electorate to turn out and vote? The GOP ties to sow the seeds of discontent specifically to depress vote engagement. On some level, Democrats need to be prepared to engage a two-decade Marshall Plan to continue to drive turnout not just in national elections, but gubernatorial, municipal, etc. I don't really see that happening -- it seems to mostly get left to third parties to do it.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Maybe we should start a Democratic Presidential Primaries thread instead of using the Kavanaugh thread for this discussion.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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Steve of phpBB wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:14 pm ote]

I dunno. People were paying so little attention that they didn't even know Bernie Sanders was in the race - but they knew that Superdelegates (1) existed, and (2) had thrown in for Hillary?
Not what I said, nor what happened. Once Bernie showed that he was in the race there all of a sudden a lot more mentions of the SuperDelegates that Hillary had already gathered. Even though in actual delegates Bernie was very very much in the race even though Hillary was shown to have this huge lead.

----

Apathy is only part of it. the inability to vote is another.

More people voted for Hillary than anyone in history because California has almost twice as many people in the state then votes FDR got in the election of '32. As for turnout, it was the lowest it had been since the 90s. Almost 20 million fewer people voted in 2018 than did in 2008.
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Re: Bart O’Kavanaugh hearings and inevitable confirmation

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brian wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:19 pm
Rush2112 wrote: Fri Oct 12, 2018 3:08 pm It isn't the "dumbest thing" voter apathy because someone is supposed to win has altered a lot of races. The SuperDelegate lead altered the Democratic nomination (Hillary probably still would have won, but you never know) and it altered the general election as well. We thought Hillary was going to crush, people don't vote, we have fucking Trump.
The problem remains the problem since the 60s frankly and isn't a Hillary-specific issue, but how do you convince a jaded electorate to turn out and vote? The GOP ties to sow the seeds of discontent specifically to depress vote engagement. On some level, Democrats need to be prepared to engage a two-decade Marshall Plan to continue to drive turnout not just in national elections, but gubernatorial, municipal, etc. I don't really see that happening -- it seems to mostly get left to third parties to do it.
I think the short answer is that the Democratic Party needs to give jaded or disaffected voters a reason to believe that their lives will be meaningfully improved by Democratic victories. Once you get to a certain level of economic stability -- i.e., making enough money that you're paying income tax -- it's easy to see that national politics and public policy debates can affect your life. But there are also tens of millions of potential voters -- mostly the young and the poor -- who have a much more difficult time seeing how voting matters. Shortly after the 2016 election, the NY Times sent a reporter into inner city Milwaukee to ask a bunch of (mostly black, low-income) non-voters there if they regretted not voting for Clinton. And the overwhelming answer was, "No." What these people kept coming back to is that they didn't see how their neighborhoods or economic outlook improved in any meaningful during the Obama Presidency and doubted things would get any better regardless of if Trump or Clinton won. Part of this is that the Reagan years scared most Democrats from ever talking about helping the poor, because Reagan so dastardly (but effectively) convinced people that the poor are undeserving and morally bankrupt. That's why politicians like Clinton or even Warren constantly frame their economic ideas in terms of helping "the middle class" but almost never talk about helping "the poor." But the whole reason that it's called the middle class is because there are a whole bunch of people who are below it on the socioeconomic spectrum. Give those people a concrete reason to vote, and fight against GOP vote-suppression efforts, and the Democrats' electoral prospects will improve dramatically.
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