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Also interesting to note is that the updated process instituted in response to complaints about the 2016 caucus is the only reason that people were able to catch any of this. There is every reason to assume that the 2016 caucus was just as much of a rigged shitshow, but they had a system in place to let them cover it up.
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Note that the Berniecrat strategy for both the primary and the general is “win by a sufficient margin that any attempt at rigging the election is either (a) too subtle to overcome the margin, or (b) so blatant that it is obvious to the public”.
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It’s one of the many strategies, stay tuned to that Bernie channel.
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Then Buttigieg should go after Sander’s love of Venezuela, but that will probably just excite his supporters.
Not sure where you got that. He has publicly called Maduro a dictator. Not wanting to starve their people with an economic blockade is not the same as “love,” it’s just basic humanity.
He does like Morales a lot ( from Bolivia, not Venezuela), but, despite US propaganda to the contrary, Morales is nothing like Maduro, and his governance of Bolivia was an amazing success story.
If I’m giving your honesty the benefit of the doubt, I would think that maybe that’s what’s got you confused.
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Good. Now we can move on to primaries that are actually meaningful.
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Don’t worry, once Sanders is clearly identified as a frontrunner there will be massive red-baiting
mixed with a little antisemitism, two flavors that always go well together
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Oh this one was too, mainly because they went first. The results therefore resonate in all sorts of ways.
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Whereas, in contrast…
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Alright. That doesn’t match with my understanding of human behaviour. But we’ve been back and forth a bunch of this so I’ll just leave it at that.
It’s one thing to have more money than the other candidates, it’s another thing to have that money come in from people who gave you $19. Those people will give you another $5. It’s like you have a bottomless well of cash. It’s the difference between people giving you money as an investment in your presidency vs. people giving you money because they believe in you.
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Yeah it’s why much of the Democratic fundraising apparatus is switching to small donors. They have this non profit data and fundraising organization with an app and web platform that’s apparently become the number one source of funding top to bottom.
Basically if you have one big donor that gives $2800, he can’t give you more. But if you have 2800 people who give you a dollar, you can get another $2800 next week.
Obama was the first major Democrat to do that as a big portion of his fundraising operations. But Sanders proved it could straight up replace traditional fundraising as the major source of money.
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It is probably all academic at this point. Unless there is some kind of miraculous turnaround for Biden at Super Tuesday, I don’t see a clear path forward for any candidate except Sanders.
Hey Vlad,
Congrats on the great hack job with the Iowa caucus. Hilarious!
Best, Donny
Tovarisch Donny,
Had nothing to do with it. The Democrats can hack themselves much better than my guys can!
Thanks anyway, Vlad
Exactly. When you see one, just one, cock-up that works in Bernie’s favor, then it might be okay to turn down the paranoia dial a click or two
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Biden’s big magic trick is his support among older blacks. And Super Tuesday is perhaps the biggest, and definitely the earliest crack at those groups. Though Nevada is big for Hispanics.
Sanders has finally been gaining support among non-whites. Especially Hispanics, but this far that seems to have been hurting Warren. Part of what stopped her slow steady climb in polling was Sanders beating her to the punch on Hispanics.
That’s what’s sort of meaningless about Iowa. It not that winning there means nothing, however slight the win. It’s that Iowa doesn’t include most of the most important demographics in the Democratic coalition and it’s such a small place it doesn’t meaningfully contribute to taking the nomination on raw numbers.
And about a quarter of votes that aren’t technically votes there doesn’t really show much in the way of deep support. For wither Buttigieg or Sanders.
Sanders has an easier run for the next few contests. New Hampshire is his home market, and primary voters there tend to be quite left wing. Nevada is a caucus and it’s Hispanic heavy. But Super Tuesday is a block of high population states, lots of delegates, most of which Biden had had a consistent pilling advantage.
So Sanders could have a serious opportunity for that whole momentum thing depending on how things shake out. But Super Tuesday could shut it down.
Biden’s got issues. If he can’t do well enough yo cobble together something like a plausible delegate lead before Super Tuesday it’ll affect his performance there. Though I’m not sure which states do the proportional delegate thing this year. He likely needs to come in at least 2nd, or preferably win at least one contest before Super Tuesday.
If he wet farts his way along and under performs on Super Tuesday, we likely get a continued mess.
But broadly the nomination is still wide open at this point. That’s why no one dropped after Iowa, even people who got a 10th of a percent of votes and are shitting the bed polling wise. Like Gabbard. Bloomberg isn’t even contesting anything till Super Tuesday. Which suddenly seems less dumb.
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That’s what I thought. If Biden just does 3-4 points better than Sanders on Super Tuesday then the 11 delegates from Iowa are hardly going to matter. We can’t judge who is going to win a five-game basketball series from the first basket.
When I heard that I thought it sounded weird. But there are like 4000 delegates and Iowa is 30 of them. It almost feels like, if you don’t think you can do well there, it’s better not to be on the ballot so no one can say you lost. The psychology is a hell of a lot more important than the numbers at this stage.
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Anyone who’s ever tried skipping Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada has cratered bad. And North Carolina is in there two, I always just assume it’s a Super Tuesday state for some reason.
That’ll could be Big for Biden.
Bloomberg’s approach only really makes a lick of sense if either the next 3 contests are as much of a wash as Iowa. With no one candidate getting close to a majority of votes, or the 4 of them are such a mix of inconsistency that there’s no one in the lead. Or if both Biden and Buttigieg face plant from here on out.
The math works in theory but by Super Tuesday the all important media focus and band wagon effects are already set.
Basically Bloomberg either needs a disaster or a Hail Mary. It’s like a weird academic “well in theory you could…” idea that comes up from time to time.
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So I understand that’s the conventional wisdom on the matter. And I’m not saying I’m smarter than that or that I’ve got some alternate better theory. It’s just that conventional wisdom around elections appears to suck. So while I think Bloomberg is going to crash and burn (because Bloomberg is a shit candidate that no one who isn’t rich likes), if Bloomberg ends up instead proving that you can just buy the nomination on Super Tuesday for half a billion dollars, I’m not exactly going to have my mind blown.
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Oh yeah I think it could happen. I just think you’d need some luke warm oatmeal between now and then to make it work.
Probably would help if you weren’t Mike Bloomberg too.
