Oh yeah, she’s smart the way papa Bush was. Expect a lot of underhanded shit (with complete deniability) happening behind the scenes if she makes it.
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Probably! Too many eye ess ess eyes involved, don’t trust it
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She’s a good politician. I’ll give her that. I don’t have to worry about her embarrassing herself, and this nation, on an international stage. I don’t have to worry about her saying she’s for something that would be considered a war crime. She’ll say the right things and do the types of things Obama has done. Her motives and integrity are suspect, IMHO, but … a vote for Hillary is a vote for a Obama Part II.
I think a big part of Clinton’s trust issue is class. For me, she just doesn’t get it in the way that her husband could. He grew up in normal and difficult circumstances, not as part of the ruling elite or even ruling-elite-adjacent. Apart from having a penis, he wasn’t entitled to rule.
This is all my personal perception of her manner and tactics, but I don’t see a root to her that’s relevant to governing this country.
Instead I see the condescension of Romney, the focus-grouped compassion of Kasich, a whiff of the underhanded ratfuckery of Cruz, the dog-whistling of Trump—in the same way back in the day and more leftward now—and no committment based on anything, as I said, relevant to governing a soveriegn people.
Clinton would be an excellent queen or Lord Protector (lady protector?) of a small mythical realm, but we need more than that.
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He’s not stupid enough to split the Democratic vote and guarantee a Republican win. If he loses the primary, he’ll either be Clinton’s VP or not involved in the general at all.
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I would like to see the House of Representatives return to a 1:350,000 representation ratio. That would mean it would be something around 2,000 members. K Street can herd 350 cats, lets see them herd 2,000.
I’ve always wanted 30,000 to a district, the Constitutional minimum. Half a million to a third of a million wouldn’t affect gerrymandering or the DC bubble. 11,000 reps meeting by teleconference from offices in their own districts would destroy K street forever and make local media and volunteers relevant. They could have a twice-annual conference when the sportball is out of town, force Senators to meet from offices in the state capital, and open up the Capital buildings as full-time museums. It’s about all those buildings are good for now.
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No, its not.
The idea that Bernie Sanders can’t win will naturally drive more votes towards Clinton, the idea that Sanders can’t win is the thing here.
I repeat, the idea that Sanders doesn’t have a chance is the thing on display, under attack and the thing refuted.
The upset is on media control of Sanders chances of winning.
I’m not debating politics, I’m talking the perception of reality as filtered through the lens of media and its effects on politics.
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Well stated. I am not a fan either.
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It’s a thought I had today while staring at the rain.
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Back during the second Bush era, the administration notified certain leaders in Congress that it was going to violate the Geneva Convention, under the proviso that these individuals were to tell no-one… The problem with this notification is that the Senate and the House are designed to operate through Committees, and not as mere proxies for the whim of the leadership. No disclosure; no committees; no oversight.
So your plan would have to would seem to be at odds with how legislative houses are supposed to work. Consider, for instance, the state of Wyoming. Wyoming has one representative-- no don’t bother looking him up. I’m sure she’s horrid.
But the people of Wyoming share interests with other rural, sparsely populated Western states, and it would be quite useful to Wyoming interests if that congressman could regularly discuss stuff with likeminded Californians, Idahoans, Coloradans, Oregonians, and so on–and indeed there is-- the house committee on natural resources-- which does horrible things that happen to be useful to this representative’s constituency.
That’s part of the point of the legislature-- to pool disparate knowledge and expertise into a semblance of rational policy. All that would be greatly hindered by your “Statehouses into voting booths/Capitol into a museum” proposal.
Plus, the whole notion of Congress being too connected to Washington is nonsense. Congress has three day work weeks. They then fly home for the weekends to meet with donors.
As for the death of K-Street, you’re naive. The Republicans n this country outright control so very many state governments. And they use this control to pass standardized legislation that, rather than being tailored to the needs of the individual states, is mind-numbingly standardized. This is because groups like ALEC write the bills-- the statehouses just pass them.
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Perceptions be damned. The reality is he isn’t winning. Small upsets like this, his lead in fundraising, scary Hillary stories, none of those things seem to be changing that. At best its allowing him to maintain the rough ratio of delegates and his overall percentage of the popular vote and number of states won. In most cases it looks like Hillary is gaining in small, but real ways, while piling on to her lead whenever Bernie doesn’t manage to pull it off. Pointing at things that are surprises to the media, or examples of shit polling or media failures and saying “see!” doesn’t change what the numbers actually are.
Narrative and momentum were supposed to save us from Trump and drastically change things for Bernie about 20 times over by now. Unfortunately they seem to be late to the party, if they’ll show up at all. There’s a chance that the results in Michigan do represent some sort of systemic under representation of Bernie in the polls, a massive uptick in support for him, or a combination of the two (probably more likely). But I don’t know how much I buy that. Large misses by media analysts and polls have been pretty pervasive so far this year. A bunch of times Bernie’s support and performance has been undersold. But the same is true for Hillary. Often when there’s a limited number of polls for a given state, or a lack of quality polls. And over on the GOP side things have been an even bigger mess. It makes it hard to draw conclusions from these sorts of “upsets”. We can probably assume that Bernie will continue to do better as we move into more Northern, Midwestern, and Coastal states. Particularly when those states are whiter and more rural. Because that’s pretty inline with what we’ve seen from actual voting so far. But if Bernie’s wins continue to look like Michigan. The exception rather than the rule, tight margins leading to spit or near split delegate counts. Then he’s not going to close the gap, none the less take the lead. He needs big states, and he needs higher margin wins. And he needs that to happen soon.
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I think he’s going to show up at the convention with about 40% of the delegates (not counting the ‘super’ ones).
I’d like to think it’ll influence Clinton, but it won’t. She’ll be tacking back to the centre as soon as she can.
Nate Silver reckons Sanders might actually win more states, but he’ll lose on delegates. Clinton will win the way she lost last time. And if she wins the popular vote, fair enough. She is a Democrat, after all, while Sanders isn’t, really (which is why I like him).
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Winning isn’t everything!
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Oh, I agree. And Sanders has always been about a larger change at all levels. I’m really delighted with how well he’s doing.
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I didn’t describe much about how it would work, so your skepticism isn’t unwarranted. Committee work would be by teleconference as well, and it would be up to regional media and wider electronic communities to work out regional synchronicites. Open sessions and hearings would be open, both electronically and to a gallery of the public at the district office observing their representative while they work.
As far as ALEC goes, it’s effective but got that way through obscurity and a ridiculous amount of money. If instead of being centered in DC and the few state capitals being targeted for action at any one time, they had to target 200-700 times the localities, their travel budget would explode, they’d have to target much smaller amounts of representation, or they’d scale back to indirect kinds of marketing.
At any rate, they couldn’t target a dozen upscale bars and a few offices to keep the tame congresscritters in DC in check while having a few dozen offices in state capitals.
Mostly there’d be greatly improved access to our reps, reps could hold down real jobs while on recess (and work 5 days a week while in session), and locals could more easily contribute useful time rather than campaign cash.
The value of reps to donors would be lessened, of course, by more than a factor of ten. Their campaign expenses would be less, so the value of donors lessens, too. One rep could, with some volunteer help, knock on every single door in their district every year.
These factors greatly change the numbers and point the states in a better direction, too. It bears thinking through on many levels, noting the fundamental changes to the way things currently disfunction.
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If Bernie has a purpose, I’d say that’s it. As far as the question of what he does with all those campaign funds if he doesn’t win the nom I’m hoping that’s his answer. Keep pushing the DNC to the left and bring that debate and whatever “movement” there might be in this whole thing to the states and down ballot races. Trump and the GOP’s slapstick act could give a legitimate opportunity to press into the conservative lock on many state and county governments. As well as their advantage in the house. That’s where his revolution comes from in the mid and long term. It won’t mysteriously materialize in less that a year in a top down fashion.
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You’re leaving out the concept of momentum. It’s not just a buzzword. It means that when a candidate has positive gains, then subsequent races can pile on even more gains at an accelerating rate that was unexpected. Both candidates have been searching for it. Will the Michigan results be enough to start catapulting him? Don’t know yet. Bernie wins when there’s high turnout. If he can inspire higher turnout, then he can capture the momentum. If the people aren’t inspired to get out, then he won’t and HRC wins even without momentum.
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Fuck that.
If he doesn’t win, & I srsly doubt VP is his cup of tea in a right-of-centre White House or that Clinton wants him there showing her up by being himself, he should take himself and his funds & have a go at making a third party a real thing in the USA. Build on that momentum he’s got that way. Which btw is a far more effective manner of getting a party that is dragged to the right constantly to forward progressive initiatives.
It works elsewhere, it isn’t as though the Liberals up here are actually Liberal, they just get their hands shoved about by a liberal portion of the electorate regularly.
Time is right, people are casting about wildly for some alternative to choosing which bowl of shit to eat.
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There are some big prizes still ahead. If Bernie can tap into more of those big states’ voters and get them to turn out, he might reverse the tide. You know what’s sick? Trump’s success is probably helping him because people are so disgusted.
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I’ll back it if he does it. I would love to have a real viable third option that wasn’t just some cranks with 1 half baked idea.
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