Why (or why not) to vote for Hillary Clinton

wrath
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khepra, if what you say is true and Clinton supporters are more likely to switch to Sanders if he wins the nomination than the other way around, then anyone for whom electing Democrats in 2016 is the most important thing should obviously hope that Sanders wins the nomination.

The comparisons to 2008 are imprecise, as Obama won the pledged delegates (and the popular vote count included two large states that were disqualified). Speaking as someone who supported Clinton early in that campaign, I was not at all disappointed in the outcome, though partly that is because I went off HRC when her people started spreading the birther nonsense and running fearmongering TV ads.

Finally, please, enough already with the attacks on caucuses. If you have concrete evidence that caucuses do a bad job of representing the opinions of the Democratic voters in their states, please share it with the state party leaders, as they’re the ones who have the power to change this approach. Or do you think these leaders - who are mainly Clinton supporters - have nefarious reasons of their own for sticking with a system that went against their choice other than their belief that it does the best job of representing their members?

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Hillary Clinton supporters understand what is at stake in this upcoming fall presidential general election. It seems to me that anyone who is genuinely concerned about the social, cultural and political direction of America will vote for whoever wins the democratic presidential nomination.

Both Hillary and Bernie by far :open_mouth: are the better choices over any of the remaining sexist, homophobic, discriminatory, racist, bigoted and religiously oppressive republican presidential candidates.

I am aware of the Florida and Michigan primaries in 2008. The DNC eventually decided to restore partial delegates to the two penalized states. Also exit polling showed Hillary would have won both primaries even if the two primaries were contested under normal circumstances.

The fact is that at this point in the 2016 democratic presidential nomination process, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton has amased 225 plus more elected delegates and 2 and 1/2 million more popular votes than Bernie Sanders. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/democratic_delegate_count.html
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/election-2016/delegate-targets/democrats/

No one in the Hillary Clinton campaign or her supporters are complaining about caucus states. However it is a fact that caucus elections only represent a ridiculously small portion of a states voting electorate.

Bernie Sanders, his campaign and supporters are the ones fixated about super delegates. Everyone knew the rules going into the democratic presidential nomination process; and were aware of the rules regarding elected delegates and super delegates.

Bernie has super delegates who support him from Arizona, Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio and Massachusetts all states won by Hillary. Bernie Sanders has super delegates who support him from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, the District of Columbia and West Virginia–and those states are yet to hold their primaries.

Not all, but some Bernie Sanders supporters need to quit threatening super delegates with political retaliation for not supporting Bernie. If Bernie keeps winning, garners more elected delegates and takes the lead in the popular vote—then the needed super delegates will have no choice but to switch their support to Bernie, just like they did for then senator Barack Obama in 2008.

Wisconsin with its large number of independents voting in a open primary; has the makings for another victory for Bernie. However at this point winning elected delegates is just as important for Hillary.

Remember that in 2008 then senator Barack Obama won Wisconsin by 17 points, yet only won 10 more elected delegates than Hillary Clinton. If Bernie is going to make serious headway in his attempt to catch Hillary in elected delegates, he needs a “HUGH” ! :scream: win on Tuesday.

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[quote=“khepra, post:352, topic:72574”]
No one in the Hillary Clinton campaign or her supporters are complaining about caucus states. However it is a fact that caucus elections only represent a ridiculously small portion of a states voting electorate.[/quote]
You just did it again! Look, either the caucuses do a good job of determining the state party membership’s preference, or they don’t. If the latter, then give the evidence of that to the people who can change the system. If the former, there is simply no need to mention them, they are irrelevant to every aspect of this thread.

The key words being “at this point.” Again, let’s assume that your purpose of the thread was to give reasons to vote for Clinton, and not just to predict the outcome. The fact that she is well ahead right now is not a good argument for people in NYC or CA to vote for her, though I understand that some people (Charlie Sheen fans? Trump fans?) do irrationally like to vote for the person they perceive as winning.

Well, if the superdelegates plan to do this, then they should just say so, rather than insult the electorate in their states. The “threats” will stop, and everyone can be pals again.

Then, since a nontrivial fraction of Sanders supporters are apparently not willing to vote for Clinton under any circumstances, her supporters in the remaining states should vote for Sanders.

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In response to your post about superdelagates ignoring the will of the people of their state.

Here is a interesting link with excerpts from a 538 article, about superdelegates and the popular vote.

Bernie Sanders’s supporters are fond of the hypothesis that Democratic superdelegates, the elected leaders and party officials who currently support Hillary Clinton by a lopsided-doesn’t-even-begin-to-describe-it 469 to 31, are going to bow to the “will of the people” if Sanders ends up winning more pledged delegates than Clinton by June.

There’s just one hiccup in this logic: Sanders fans seem to be conflating the pledged delegate count and the “will of the voters,” when in fact the two are far from interchangeable.

Sanders’s reliance on extremely low-turnout caucus states has meant the pledged delegate count overstates his share of votes. To date, Sanders has captured 46 percent of Democrats’ pledged delegates but just 42 percent of raw votes. So even if Sanders were to draw even in pledged delegates by June — which is extremely unlikely — Clinton could be able to persuade superdelegates to stick with her by pointing to her popular vote lead.

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Which simply demonstrates that popular vote is a poor metric nationwide when every state does it differently. Caucus/Primary, Open/Closed, early voting/no early voting.

You can’t draw any useful conclusions from data that mixed.

Incidentally, Clinton beat Obama in the popular vote in 2008.

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I may disagree with your opinion, but I respect your opinion.

You stated that the popular vote is a “poor” metric", well I am astonished :astonished:

I believe that if Bernie Sanders was leading Hillary Clinton by 2 1/2 million popular votes in the democratic presidential nomination process, many Bernie supporters would consider the popular vote a “good” or even “excellent” metric for how superdelegates should vote.

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Your cynicism is noted. :wink:

I think the popular vote in each state is a good metric - and I wouldn’t mind the statewide results being used as a guide by superdelegates (although, as has been discussed, the entire point of superdelegates is to allow the popular vote to be overruled when the party doesn’t think the result is likely to lead to success in the general election). I don’t think you can fairly compare raw numbers across states, and I’m sure you’re aware of that.

For example: There are about 1.7 million democratic voters in both Georgia and Washington, going by the 2012 election results.

In the primaries, Clinton won Georgia easily (71:28), Sanders won Washington easily (73:27). Almost a mirror image.

But in the popular vote, Clinton won by over 300000 votes in Georgia, whereas Sanders won by only just over 10000 in Washington, because caucus turnout is so much lower than primary. You can’t compare apples with oranges.

Here’s something that’s interesting.

Pasted image1029×495 21.7 KB

If this continues, Clinton will get the nomination (and if she does, fair enough, well done) but could well be polling below Sanders by the time she does. Which may not bode well for her General election chances. Brace yourself for this being the argument used as to why the superdelegates should vote for Sanders at the Convention :slight_smile:

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I am in favor of state’s rights

is an ambiguous statement.

I am in favor of the state’s rights to expand on the rights guaranteed to individuals under the Federal Constitution

is less so.

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Polling this far out in a general election is meaningless, Dukakis was ahead of Reagan, Dewey was ahead of Truman, Kerry was ahead of Bush…etc…etc…etc…and they all lost.

I don’t think anyone in the Clinton campaign is worried about running against any republican. They have not been vetted yet, and voters focus on the history of candidates in the general election.

An example,

John Kasich will not be the republican nominee, he leads both Bernie and Hillary in polling at this point, but his record in Ohio has not been vetted on a national stage.

Kasich is the poster child for: not supporting a pathway to citizenship for immigrants, engaging in voter suppression and repression, trying to destroy and defund Planned Parenthood, being anti-abortion, the lack of women and paying women less in his administration, attempting to destroy the collective bargaining rights of union workers–including the police and firefighters,

…being anti-teacher, using his religion as the reason for his political actions and governing, being anti-same-sex marriage and adoption–his record on the economy is overblown, because Ohio has benefited from the auto bailout, 17 or 18 small businesses tax breaks from the Obama administration, new discoveries in fracking in Ohio etc…etc…which democratic interventions were responsible for. This is just the beginning on Kasich and his record.

Kasich will not be the republican nominee, but as Hillary has stated about all the republican nominees, Kasich is just like Trump and all the other potential republican presidential candidates.

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You mean unless it favors Clinton, where you will then cite it?

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Paul_Ryan--113th_Congress--.png1112×1341 1.27 MB

Thanks for your Support!

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Paul Ryan was no help to Mitt Romney in 2012. Romney-Paul lost Wisconsin, the home state of Paul Ryan. Vice-President Biden kicked the so-called “intellectual” of the Republican Party’s a** in the 2012 Vice-Presidential debate.

Paul Ryan is just like Donald Trump and all other republicans. Remenber it was Paul Ryan who championed Charles Murray a man who claims blacks are intellectually inferior to whites and suffer from being socially irresponsible.

“Paul” (P.R.) Ryan has as much chance of being elected president as Rand (R.P.) “Paul.”

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But he is Speaker of the House. He doesn’t need to be President to continue to do damage.

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One major problem for Bernie is that despite the record amount of money his campaign has raised, he has not financially helped virtually any down ticket democrats, who are fighting to win elections in 2016.

Hillary has raised millions of dollars for down ticket democrats running for office in 2016.

Why should any superdelegate support a democratic primary presidential candidate who has not cared or shown any willingness to support them?

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365

That is certainly true.

The one thing Paul Ryan is excellent at is obstruction and opposition to any legislation that will help America, especially if democrats–and specifically if President Obama supports that legislation.

He has only been Speaker of the House for a short period of time, yet his history and appointment to his current position are the reasons why Paul Ryan has no chance of ever winning the office of President of the United States.

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Don’t care? Again, I’m not a Democrat.

Because it is the will of the people in their state?

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Yeah, but I think we like Sanders because he isn’t really a Democrat. I can understand why Democrat party insiders wouldn’t like that so much.

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Don’t care? Again, I’m not a Democrat.

I don’t want to put too fine a point on this, because I haven’t commented on this site for long, but in my old district in Texas, HRC is supporting one of the strongest advocates for my reproductive freedom and my children’s education, Lloyd Doggett. I wouldn’t describe myself as a lifelong Democrat or anything, but I also find it hard to dismiss the importance of downballot elections when I have watched women’s clinics shut down around me.

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Bernie is running for the democratic presidential nomination.

370

I think you might be replying to the wrong person.

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