Why is everyone talking only of a Republican brokered convention?
(I listened to some NPR today and I have concluded the peeps there are outraged that Hillary hasn’t sewn this thing up yet. Actually it’s more like they are in denial. To hear them you would think Bernie nothing more than a horsefly constantly annoying Hillary but never causing any damage.
Anyhow, she cannot beat Donald. People who thought that never in a million years would vote for Donald Trump will do so only because the alternative is a person deeply entrenched in the Washington power establishment and not trusted by a majority of Americans. Not because she is a woman and not because they were fooled by a right wing conspiracy.
Hundreds of thousands of these college educated moderates and liberals will say to themselves when they vote, “You know, screw them. We need to blow the whole thing up. Let Trump be a clown. That will teach them all lesson.”
It also could help the Dems take back congress next go around. President Hillary will just strengthen the Republican congress. Guarantee Rush and Fox and make money for next four years recycling same shit they have been saying since 1992.
Question: How many Clintonesque scandals have the Obamas given us? Answer: None
Question: How many Clintonesque scandals have the Clintons given us?
(Do I put in a number for Clinton scandals? I really don’t wish to start counting. Plus leaving it alone makes it rhetorical and you get my point.)
That’s the Hillary problem,. It’s not her problem it’s our problem.
Will anyone tell her?
Yes we can talk about her super delegates. How many will she need? Looking more and more like she will need them all. Civil war could break out on the floor.
And just how committed are these super delegates? Aren’t they like state reps and county commissioners? People who stick by their promises? Bahaha.
Will a Hillary/Bernie ticket do it?
No, no it won’t.
Will a Bernie/Hillary ticket do it?
Who knows? Most likely nobody will trust Hillary and think she already has Sanders assassination planned before the inauguration.
Bernie/Liz Warren ticket? Could win;
Liz Warren/Bernie ticket? Definitely beat Trump; and
Liz Warren debating Donald Trump would get Super Bowl ratings.
Someone has to tell Hillary she can’t win.
mike_cote says
The BFFs. Just threw up in my mouth a little!
JimC says
Objectively, she can win. The X factor in this election is what the independents do. I think a lot of them will skip it, not wanting to vote for either candidate.
But THIS is a real and serious risk. We are seeing it happen in Republican primaries.
That type of dynamic could be at play in the general. I’m not criticizing her in saying this; it’s just a fact that she has high negatives.
All this said, he hasn’t won yet. Cruz might take second in Florida (second to Trump), which would finish Rubio off. Right now Trump is the GOP’s problem. I think she’d win if the election were held today.
kirth says
I do think that “blow the whole thing up” is already a major part of the reasons for Trump’s support. The people who vote for him don’t think their past votes gained them anything, so why not? This is why I don’t think Clinton is strong against him. She perfectly represents the political establishment that Trump voters are rejecting. They are not going to be swayed by her powerful arguments or extensive resume. They want to blow her power base up. If she has to rely on superdelegates to win the D nomination, it’s really going to alienate some Sanders supporters who might have reluctantly voted for her, especially given the spin-based attacks she’s been launching at him recently.
johnk says
Clinton is kicking ass on state delegates, not including super delegates. Clinton’s lead surpasses Obama’s. Sanders is exceeding “expectations” not winning. It was an upset victory in MI, when he won by just under 2%, the delegate haul was nominal, on the same day Clintion won MS by 60%, blowing the doors off in delegates. Sanders is so far behind in state delegates (NOT super-delegates) that he has to win EVERY remaining state by 15%.
So let’s be very clear with this super-delegate bullshit. NOT A FACTOR.
Second point, both Clinton and Sanders have spun half-truths about each other. Both are guilty. the crap out out of Sanders mouth make me cringe just as much as when it comes out out Clinton’s. If you have an issue with it then look at your candidate and think why it’s fine when he does it.
listen, people were really pissed 8 years ago too, everyone came together at the end. Primary time is when everyone is butthurt about everything.
kirth says
Clinton is winning big in states that have not produced any electoral votes for a Democrat in decades. Everywhere else, not so much.
Christopher says
…their input doesn’t count for as much? By that standard only blue states should send delegates to the Dem convention and only red states to the GOP convention, with maybe a handful of swing states with the privilege of sending to both. That would make for even greater polarization. I would think we would WANT candidates who can play on the other party’s turf.
centralmassdad says
I had been under the impression that the primary rules were rejiggered after 2008 to prevent “front loaded” primaries, and to move a lot of southern states up into March, which would have the effect of shifting African American voters earlier into the process, before the nominee was a fait accompli.
I suppose that whatever rules there are, the candidate that is losing will complain about the rules.
What’s odd is that the Sanders campiagn has focused effort only on certain states– Mass, NH, Mich, etc– where he might do well. My sister reported that there wasn’t much Sanders campaign at all in Georgia, even in the “college town” part of Atlanta where she lives. But because the delegates are awarded proportionately, he splits the delegates (or nearly so) when he does well, and gets crushed in all these other states.
Then the media report the Michigan as a big win, but don’t notice that in reality he scored a run in the top of the inning, and gave up 10 in the bottom of the inning, and didn’t have a very good inning.
And then people check the delegate count, see that Clinton is way ahead and cruising, and think “this doesn’t jive with the Michigan win and the momentum articles I just read” and then conclude “Its the awful superdelegates!”
No it isn’t. The problem is that the Sanders campiagn either didn’t understand how the primaries work, or never intended to campaign to win the nomination at all.
merrimackguy says
He ran as a lark and never envisioned both catching fire and raising a boatload of money. I can’t believe how much money he has for where he is in the process (vs typically everyone blows most of their money by March). It would be a good strategy if he was closer.
He should have better operations even in states he can’t win so at least he can pick up a few delegates.
What’s he going to do with the rest of the money when she’s at 51%?
kirth says
No, I did not. I was responding to the assertion that “Clinton is kicking ass on state delegates.” So far that’s true, but unless voting patterns change in the South, it isn’t going to translate into electoral votes.
HR's Kevin says
One could argue that bringing out the Democratic vote in those states might very well increase the chances that we can win back some House/Senate seats in some of those states.
jconway says
And because I agree with JimC and Ernie that this will be an incredibly close and difficult election for Hillary to win. Far more difficult than the majority of liberals seem to appreciate, and far from the cakewalk they are salivating at.
Trump is one of the few politicians I’ve seen regularly flip flop and lie about the issues and get away with it. He will do so again in the general. The pro life and anti gay stances will shift to “personally opposed but”, the anti immigration rhetoric will be softened and couched in terms of the trade deficit. He will focus on fighting special interests and getting money out of politics.
He is remaking a new electoral map, seriously putting the industrial Midwest which has largely been a Democratic bulwark into play. He won’t spend any resources in places like Colorado and Nevada where Latino turnout will be insurmountable for him, allowing him to focus on those rust belt states. There will be some weeks where he is within 5 points in places like Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York forcing Team Clinton to waste money there.
There is a challenge and an opportunity. The culture war, as I’ve long been arguing here, is over and even Falwell saw the writing on the wall. The new culture war will sadly be fought over racial identity and the remaining crumbs left to the American worker. It’s up to us to forge a racially inclusive pro worker politics, and we have to do it stat.
Christopher says
…but lucky for us that does not describe either remaining Dem candidate. The state-by-state polls at the moment show comparable numbers vis-a-vis Trump. The Dem convention won’t be brokered because with only two candidates one is guaranteed to go in with a majority and HRC specifically still looks good for a majority of even just the pledged delegates. The question about Clintonesque scandals should really read, “How many Clintonesque scandals have been ginned up by the VRWC aided and abetted by the purists on the left?” Everything else is just your fact-free assertions pulled out of your sleeve.
bob-gardner says
that I first saw in about 1993. It reads “I don’t like President Clinton . . . or her husband.”
That’s it. A lot of people don’t like the idea of a woman who wants to be president.
Ernie’s concern that we would be making a tragic mistake to nominate a Washington insider sounds a little silly after his “Bububu Biden” post of about 10 days ago.
jconway says
I don’t think the scandals matter as much to voters anymore, and my gut tells
me she’s more electable than the guy CNN showed praising Fidel last night. The red baiting is starting to trickle and it will get worse in the general, especially since he’s never been tested at that level before.
That said, I think Ernie makes substantial criticisms of her lack of vision and the haughty tone that liberals here and around the country are dismissing the Trump phenomenon as an exclusively racist flash in the pan rather than the realigning moment it actually is. This realignment offers is a golden opportunity to finally move past the culture war be relitigate the wage a campaign in economic fairness and social inclusion. Focusing on social inclusion while defending the economic status quo is a potentially fatal misreading of the justifiably angry electorate turning to outsiders instead of the biggest insider in the history of presidential politics.
Christopher says
…anyone who thinks HRC either lacks vision or defends the economic status quo is clearly not paying attention.
lodger says
but read the comments at KOS. The Sander’s supporters there in large part will not vote for Sec Clinton should she be nominated. I’ve seen the same sentiment elsewhere. At Reddit in the “progressive” subreddit I keep reading that people will cross-over and vote for Mr Trump if Sec Clinton wins the nomination.
Years ago when I was suffering from a breakup, a wise woman told me “never try to use logic to figure out emotions”. I think her advice applies to this election. Emotions are ruling the electorate.
hoyapaul says
If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard someone claim that X will happen because tons of people on Reddit, or Kos, or some other part of the Internet believe X, I’d be a wealthy man.
It’s hard to predict the future, particularly in this wacky election cycle. But better than counting Reddit comments are actual, representative, scientific polls done by reputable organizations. The horse-race numbers in general election polls this far from November are are not helpful, but they can give insight about what party members think about their nominees. The recent Washington Post-ABC poll, like most other polls, indicates that Democrats will have less trouble than Republicans unifying their party.
The ABC poll, for example, indicates that if it’s Trump v. Clinton, only 9% of Democrats would vote for Trump, while 14% of Republicans would vote for Hillary. Given that this was taken during a heated primary battle, those numbers will likely decrease as we get closer to November and look like they typically do — about 5-8% of registered voters crossing party lines to vote for the opposite party.
Peter Porcupine says
It is all the unenrolled and usually non-voting people who are ginned up about this.
I admit, at the start, I thought the poll numbers were some kind of ‘Jay Walking’ phenomenon where people were responding to a familiar name but would never vote for a Trump, because they don’t vote anyways. Joke is on me.
Polls are crap predictors in this Brave New World.
centralmassdad says
Mr. Trump is quite loathed by those unenrolled and independent voters.
One thing I think we have learned is that polling in the primaries is a very rough science because the voting population is small, because there can be so many candidates, and because the whole thing is months-long.
I am not yet prepared to toss it all out with respect to November in order to go with gut feelings, as if I am Bill Kristol or Karl Rove. I do, however, expect that the difficulty of primary polling will be the reason to argue that polls are wrong come October– this year’s version of the “weighting” argument of 2012.
Worse, polls of the general election taken now are stupid and pointless. If they were right, my kids would be on a class trip today to the Dukakis and Kerry Presidential Libraries.
As an antidote to all of that, I remind people: when you worry about the reliability of general election polls in August, September, and November, just remember that Kristol and Rove are wrong.
lodger says
Nor did I claim anything would happen because of what I had read. I was pointing out that making predictions in this environment is impossible. As far as the polls go, they’ve not been accurate lately and going back to the last congressional races, they totally missed the predicting Republican success. Just recently the pollsters also had HRC way up in Michigan-that they got it wrong became the big story.
I won’t try to use logic to predict the emotions of the electorate.
kirth says
Like the ones that had Clinton winning Michigan by double digits? They may be actual and scientific, but they aren’t doing too well at predicting outcomes.
hoyapaul says
they’ve done quote well at predicting outcomes, even during this election cycle. Looking at the one case of polling being way off this cycle and casting doubt on the entire enterprise of scientific polling (perhaps in favor of “gut sense” or Reddit comments?) is like saying: “did you see that Lakers-Golden State game a few days ago? This proves that everyone who said Golden State was a great team are totally wrong!”
Christopher says
Overall you are right of course, and my background has taught me to trust polls, but as a Clinton supporter after getting burned (“berned”?) in Michigan I look at her double-digit leads in 3/15 states and can only think – let’s hope so.
kirth says
You seem to have forgotten Colorado, where Sanders was predicted to lose by 28 points, but won by 18. There are more. Here is a complete accounting of contests so far.Clinton is doing better than predicted, too — in the South. As I keep pointing out, that wouldn’t help her much in the general.
nopolitician says
Remember, we have an electoral college. It won’t matter in Massachusetts whether someone on the fence votes for Trump or Clinton – a democrat is a solid lock in this state.
Ohio is another story, and Trump’s main message has been about trade. There are plenty of people who do not like what our trade agreements from NAFTA forward have done to them, their communities, and the future of their children. They see shuttered factories, they see towns that have died, and the response they get from the establishment is “economists agree, free trade is great for this country, there’s nothing you can do”.
They can vote for Trump, and very likely will given the choice between Hillary Clinton, who is on the same page as the establishment, or Donald Trump, who is obviously crazy, more than a little racist, but keeps hammering home the point that he wants to bring those jobs back.
Hillary Clinton can’t even bring herself to say that she wants to bring the jobs back, so the implication is that she doesn’t want to. She is part of the crowd that sold those jobs out so that their box fan costs $20 instead of $40, so their washing machine costs $800 instead of $1000.
Free trade may be good, on average, for this country, but that is a little like saying that, on average, I am one of the millionaires in the room when it is just me and Bill Gates.
Christopher says
The inaccuracies really bug me. She was not a player on NAFTA, she voted against CAFTA, and she has come out against TPP. She clearly wants people to have jobs, though maybe we do need to acknowledge that THOSE jobs aren’t coming back. If free trade is in fact, on average, good for the country (and I am among those who believes it is), then that is precisely what Presidents should want – the greatest good for the greatest number.
nopolitician says
Clinton supported NAFTA, but later changed her mind. She did not support CAFTA, but she initially was in favor of TPP and then changed her mind when pushed by Sanders. Overall, Hillary Clinton is on record as generally supporting free trade deals but has said that she thinks they should not harm US workers – something that never happens.
I personally don’t agree with the reigning Democratic philosophy on jobs lost to trade. The general response is “you’ll just have to gain a skill or go to college, and if you can’t do that, well, too bad”. I’m sure that on average, free trade has helped this country, but it is helping the big players and hurting the small players. The local guy who can make crafty toys isn’t gaining access to China’s market, but his large competitors are using China to drive him out of business with lower prices.
I think that Democrats should at least acknowledge that the free trade was pursued too quickly, far quicker than people and communities had time to react.
Next, there should be an acknowledgement that the federal government provided virtually no support to states or communities to react to all the lost jobs and shattered communities.
Next, there should be an acknowledgement that our country is not necessarily better off or stronger when we have lost so much manufacturing capacity.
I have never heard Democrats say that kind of stuff. They are very pro-free-trade, and ignore the consequences.
People have perhaps forgotten what this country used to be. I can remember going to factories on field trips as a kid. I can remember the pride in hearing people who told me what they made in their job. Now, the very idea of a factory existing in a community is one that inspires anxiety, because people are simply waiting for that factory to move overseas. A factory in the USA is now seen as a dinosaur or a unicorn, something that shouldn’t exist. People view products made in the USA as needlessly expensive. USA labor is seen as a liability because “it just makes your products more expensive”. It seems like our entire business community is devoted to trying to replace US labor.
That is what Trump and Sanders are tapping into – the fact that our companies have unleashed the power of the US consumer economy AGAINST them.
scott12mass says
There are also instances where items used in the production of weapons in this country were dependent on Chinese manufacturers for parts. That should never happen.
SomervilleTom says
I encourage you to dig a little deeper to find out WHY this is the case.
You are sort-of correct. Weapons contractors are supposed to separate “commodity” from “strategic” components. The latter are supposed to be produced only by US manufacturers (although even that raises the question of what “produced by” actually means given the complexity of an international supply chain). The argument was that commodities have multiple suppliers and are significantly less expensive. So the claim was that no one nation could threaten the supply chain and the overall cost of the systems could be minimized. The reality is, as you say, very different. The Chinese dominate the “component” market.
I remind you that this is all driven by a political dogma that asserts several things simultaneously (in arbitrary order):
1. We must have the strongest military in human history. There is NO upper limit to desired military superiority.
2. The “free market” is always best. We must never impose evil “regulations” on suppliers.
3. Unlimited corporate profits, especially for defense contractors, are necessary to keep America strong.
4. We must NEVER raise taxes, not for anything.
Our dependence on components from offshore suppliers is a necessary and obvious consequence of these articles of dogma.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, our vulnerability to such things is FAR more grave than this. One weakness that we don’t like to discuss that we no no longer have a workforce capable of DESIGNING the hardware that our weapons demand. We are flying aircraft that are dependent on hardware systems designed by US engineers in the 1970s. The US no longer has enough domestic hardware engineers who are able to recreate or replace those systems.
We have disinvested in education, especially in hard science, for decades. Our workforce now reflects that disinvestment. There was a time when US technical proficiency absolutely dominated the world, by pretty much any measure. That time is long past.
Our decades-long clueless crush on GOP lies and empty promises has left us barefoot and pregnant. Slashing taxes did NOT create prosperity and jobs, it merely enriched the already wealthy. Our chest-thumping about keeping America “strong” was mostly perfume and lipstick unsuccessfully attempting to cover the reality of how we destroyed American superiority in order to maximize profits for Dick Cheney and his family business (Halliburton, chief beneficiary of the 2003 Iraq invasion).
We discarded the teachings and experiences of generations of hardworking Republicans and Democrats who came before us in order to chase the nirvana promised by Ronald Reagan and the entire GOP cabal who followed him. We forgot that Alex Keaton (in “Family Ties”) and Archie Bunker were COMIC characters, and instead turned them into icons of American culture.
We’ve spent more than thirty years destroying the foundations of America. It will take much more than one President to rebuild what has been lost.
scott12mass says
have been asleep at the wheel on this subject. The GOP hasn’t been the only party in charge since Reagan. When I was working one of my jobs was to oversee the inspection of material coming from China and it was a “strategic” component. But it wasn’t produced anywhere in this country.
SomervilleTom says
I described a political dogma based on lies and promoted by the GOP. Sadly, too many Democrats have embraced the dogma, and so too many Democratic leaders have participated in the resulting dismemberment of our culture.
What portion of items marked “Made in USA” do you think are actually MADE here?
Let me pose a more difficult question. If you are responsible for keeping a weapons system operational — for example, ensuring that a nuclear warhead is not unintentionally armed — and you must choose between a component that actually WORKS and a component that is offered at higher cost and with measurably lower reliability (choose your metric — “infant mortality”, MTBF, whatever), which do you choose?
The conservative dogma that I decry originated with the GOP and is aggressively promoted by it even today. We are harvesting the bitter harvest of that dogma of lies and ignorance.
jconway says
And make them know she is on their side. Polls show the majority of voters haven’t got the message you have.
Christopher says
It’s on voters to pay attention too. Otherwise they sound like the kids I teach when I give directions (often both orally and writing on the board) about turning in their work and not two minutes later one will invariably ask, “What do I do when I’m done?”
Peter Porcupine says
You are inside a bubble talking to other wonky bubble denizens. This has little to do with John and Mary showing up at the polls for the first time in years.
Sinclair Lewis wrote a book once called, “It Can’t Happen Here”. See if your library even bothers to stock a copy anymore, because, well, you know, it can’t happen here.
centralmassdad says
never exactly Mr. Subtle, is he? He writes about Big Things that the sociology professors love to discuss, but no one reads him because the novels actually aren’t very good. Not unlike Ayn Rand– the characters suddenly and routinely stop to give us a five or six page speech to make sure that we are getting the point in EXACTLY the way intended. Zzzz.
Peter Porcupine says
..his books are on point, aren’t they?
JimC says
The Plat Against America is a wonderful book, better than its premise would suggest.
I often want to make reference to its line about “Koshering Lindbergh for the goyim,” but I worry that people won’t get it. Christie tried to kosher Trump for the GOP. It didn’t work, because Christie lacks gravitas (really wish I knew the Hebrew or Yiddish term here).
Christie also lacks a constituency, so there’s that too. His only constituency was the DC press, and they left him.
johntmay says
Apart from “the continuation of Barack Obama” and then the usual nods to pay equity for women, abortion rights, GLBT…..
Christopher says
A country where all people regardless of background who work hard and play by the rules have an opportunity to get ahead rather than fall behind.
jconway says
I largely agree with that Clintonian formulation personally, but too many white working class voters playing by the rules are being left behind. And the see a Democratic Party indifferent to their plight while welcoming a demographic they feel is breaking the rules with open arms. And too many institutions that support our party from banks, to trial lawyers to hospitals and colleges are breaking the rules with impunity without a peep of outrage from our presumptive nominee.
Again, look beyond our bubble. As a center left policy wonk I believe Clinton is best prepared to be president, I have since the first debate. It’s why I back you and others when debating the Sanders crowd. But the Sanders crowd is entirely right that she is missing the boat by a mile on the basic premise of this election and what it will be fought for. She is also failing to take advantage of its promise.
JimC says
It’s just inadequate, and always has been.
“Work hard and play by the rules” — Whose rules? How hard?
I want to shout freedom, sound my barbaric yawp, crank my records, waste time on blogs …
Christopher says
…and believe me, I’m one of those who often feels that way given my seemingly very negative credentials to success correlation, doesn’t mean that it was the goal of the party. What is someone like me going to do – trust the REPUBLICANS of all people to make it better? We KNOW they favor a certain class and are much less concerned with the middle and working classes. I remember Bill Clinton campaigning on the “forgotten middle class” and I for one remember the 90s as a decade where he at least did not forget.
jconway says
He isn’t peddling the same old discredited free market dogma. He has stolen our signature economic issues from fair trade, to supporting labor, supporting single payer, and an iron clad commitment to maintain entitlements.
Hillary is far more likely to make a 47% gaffe on video, maybe she told Goldman she’d ‘reform entitlements’, maybe she told another group of donors that the TPP opposition was strictly rhetorical. Maybe she didn’t, but the fact that my speculation is reality based on this front should trouble all of us.
Not to mention Trump paid her to attend his wedding and donated to her campaigns in the past, makes it pretty damn hard for her to argue he is Hitler reincarnated when she is cashing his checks and making appearances at his private events.
JimC says
Remember the alternative, JTM. Not the Sanders alternative, the GOP one.
That said, if your point is “The Democratic vision needs work,” I am right with you.
greginlowell says
For what it is worth, current polls are showing Trump with very high unfavorability ratings among the general electorate, including independent voters. His negative polling is the highest of any possible nominee since they started keeping track. The numbers are substantially higher than Hillary’s.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-really-unpopular-with-general-election-voters/
jconway says
Those favorability numbers are in isolation of one another. I mean hell, I generally disapprove of Hillary Clinton as a person but respect her as a candidate and will be voting for her against Trump in the fall. Especially because I am convinced Massachusetts will be closer this year.
But when it’s head to head people will be voting for the lesser of two evils, and I don’t want us to be in a position where our candidate is the candidate of Wall Street and status quo in a year the electorate is rabidly angry and voting for radical alternatives. No reason Hillary can’t reinvent herself as that candidate, no evidence yet that she has bothered to try.
Mullaley540 says
It is Sanders who is unelectable in a nationwide general election. Democrats only win nationwide general elections when white liberals are joined by minority voters who overcome GOP voter suppression and actually vote. Of the two, only HRC has demonstrated an ability to get black and hispanic voters to vote.
Face it. There just aren’t enough white liberals (Sanders’ coalition) to win a general election.
jconway says
If Sanders won the Democratic nomination and faced Trump in a general he would carry the black and Latino vote, probably by larger numbers. Using your argument Hillary was unelectable against McCain since she lost blacks to Obama. Don’t trade in fallacies here.
Now in relation to Hillary within the dynamic of a primary he is totally getting crushed, but that’s not indicative of a general election trend especially against a bigot like Trump.
doubleman says
Because certain groups prefer a candidate in a primary does not mean that a challenger will lose that support in a general. Clinton performs very well among core Democratic constituencies and those same groups have very high favorable ratings for Sanders. They know and like Clinton more, though. There is no evidence that Sanders will repel these voters in a general if he were to win the nomination. If he was a southern racist, that might be the case, but of course he is not.
Do you really think large groups of black and hispanic voters going to stay home or vote for Trump?
There likely aren’t enough supporters for Sanders to win the nomination, but that doesn’t mean those who did not support his candidacy in the primary would not in the general.
Democrats can win general elections when they win all the blue states and perform well in a handful of swing states which may include – Colorado, Ohio, NH, PA, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
Peter Porcupine says
Who else is hurt more by sanctuary cities and lax illegal immigration enforcement than unemployed black men?
Who else is more pissed off over illegal border jumpers getting immediate parity with those whose parents went through the hoops of legal immigration?
And while you use ‘racist’ as a portmanteau term for any ethnic discrimination, Trump has nothing but nice things to say about blacks and legal Hispanic residents – it’s Middle Eastern men and ISIS that he condemns the most, and why wouldn’t blacks and Hispanics be on board with that?
centralmassdad says
That’s two too many usages of “portmanteau” on this site today; I now have sprained eyeballs from all the rolling.
Speculating that minorities are going to desert the Democrats to Trump, because of immigration, seems outright Rove level delusion to me.
The non-minority portions of the party might be more at risk, assuming that portion of Dem voters (not Dem party members who vote in primaries, but Dem voters who vote in November). We might find out because both Dems now seem to be in a flat out sprint to the left on immigration, which might wind up cementing it at THE issue of the summer and fall.
hoyapaul says
It’s true that Democrats may lose some non-minority voters to Trump, particularly white working-class independents who usually have lower rates of political participation. It’s still a real question of how many of this group will actually shift, which is why I think Trump has such a wide range of possible outcomes in the general election, from a narrow victory to getting blown out.
But the idea of black and Latino voters voting for Trump in any significant way is highly unlikely, to say the least. Let’s just say that racial minorities in the U.S. and elsewhere have good reason to be skeptical/scared of right-wing populist ideas.
Mark L. Bail says
In no way is the word “racist” a portmanteau word.
portmanteau: a word or morpheme whose form and meaning are derived from a blending of two or more distinct forms (as smog from smoke and fog)
SomervilleTom says
We use “racist” to describe discrimination based on race. Mr. Trump’s public statements are chock full of racist statements. What’s next, will you claim that he can’t be racist because some his best friends are black?
Let’s please stay grounded in the reality of our common language and facts.
Mullaley540 says
By GOP design, voters in predominantly minority and urban districts must wait in long lines to vote. Sanders has NEVER shown the ability to get blacks and Hispanics to actually stay in line and vote for him. And his pathetic attempts at minority voter outreach (more like repellant) in the Presidential primaries doesn’t engender much hope for them to stay in line for Sanders in a fall election.
(And, labelling a comment stupid belies more about yourself than I.)
Christopher says
Yes, these groups have largely chosen to go the other way in a primary, but especially if the GOP nominee is Trump I am confident they will support either Dem nominee as overwhelmingly as they generally have lately. I’ve also been hearing that many legal Latino residents who haven’t gotten around to it yet are trying to get citizenship in order so they can vote in November.
centralmassdad says
Maybe he will have his victory speech at an abandoned Market Basket.
I suppose this could be true, but only if you really ignore numbers, by simply stating that both Clinton and Trump are unpopular. That just ignores that while Clinton has a popularity problem, Trump has a huge one, by an order of magnitude.
Put another way, even though the Democratic turnout has been lower than the GOP, more people have voted for Clinton than they have for Trump. He has not gotten more than high 30s % in any of the GOP primaries, which means he isn’t even that popular among Republicans.
I think it is just that spring of an election year is panic season.
Christopher says
…but I think the rest still holds, though in keeping with the theme of this campaign one of your phrases should read, “Trump has a HUUUUGE one”!:)
centralmassdad says
He has broken 40 in Nevada (a wierd caucus), Alabama, Massachusetts and Hawaii (where there arent any Republicans). His big victory in Michigan had him at 36.
I think most of the GOP primary voters do not like him at all, and he is benefiting from all of the candidates there, as pointed out by David.
The favorability thing indicates that he is not just unpopular, but loathed among the independents that move states like FL OH MI. Is a big divide on immigration enough to overcome that? That would be an awfully tall order.
Mark L. Bail says
it makes a cloudy day sunny. As much as I love Ernie, he’s been one of the worst prognosticators on BMG. This post obsesses with Clinton’s negatives to the point that it puts everything else in the background. The general election is a zero sum game. What buoys Clinton will harm Trump and vice versa. The ratio of Clinton’s approval and disapproval ratings are only important in relation to Trump.
And the Donald’s negatives high among Republicans, higher among the general population, and very high with loyal Democrats. We may have our defectors, but they have a very good chance of being offset or outnumbered by Republicans who dislike Trump.
Republicans either love or hate Trump. Forty percent of Republican Primary voters listed him as their top choice. Ten percent listed him as their second choice. That’s 50 percent that strongly favor him. The only other primary voters who had strong feelings about him were the 21% who listed him as their last choice.
Trump’s unfavorability is at 62.5%. Clintons is 53.4%. Sanders unfavorability is at 38.2% with no one having attacked him on a national level. (See HuffPollster) Hillary’s disapproval ratings are time-tested. They are unlikely to go down. Trump is still in the honeymoon phase. No one has figured out how to attack him. He also has to get through a court case this summer. He’s got plenty of time to convince the middle of the electorate that he’s as reckless and dangerous as we believe him to be.
Polls don’t win elections, however, campaigns do. And Trump has no organization. He’s done well without one, but unless he’s proving that a ground game isn’t necessary, he’ll be at a disadvantage. And the GOP may not provide much help. The GOP Establishment hates him. I listened to a podcast with David Axelrod interviewing Lindsay Graham. I’ve never really liked Graham, but he is intelligent and thoughtful. He kept saying that the GOP can handle losing an election, but it can’t survive if it gives up is (conservative) soul. I don’t think he’s supporting Trump. Even if Trump still has to get through the convention without the Republicans doing something to his candidacy, he’ll want their money and need their support.
When all is said and done, I think moderate voters–the unconservative unenrolleds–and the business interests will want a sane, predictable candidate. Trump’s negatives and their potential to get worse outweigh Clinton’s negatives.
merrimackguy says
My wife would vote for most Republicans. Not Trump (or Cruz for that matter). She’s okay with Hillary. I might blank it, depending on what Trump does going forward.
I think Trump will draw voters outside of the process, though.
Still a lot of time for this too play out.
johntmay says
General Election: Trump vs. Clinton Clinton +6.3
General Election: Trump vs. Sanders Sanders +10
But to watch any of the “Liberal Media”, you’d never know this.
Pro Tip, the media is not liberal, it’s corporate.
jconway says
And since we don’t have a national popular election, they are besides the point. I agree with Hoyapaul up thread that Trump could be blown out or eek out a narrow win. His floor is potentially catastrophically low, especially for dragging downballot races along with him, but he also has a better opportunity to win with his coalition than any of the other Republican nominees have with theirs at this point.
Trump is way more electable than Cruz ever was, and has proven himself to be a far better candidate than Rubio, who’s career is effectively over. Kasich is more electable, but he was never going to be nominated by his party’s base. So Trump is oddly in the sweet spot where he is the Republican most likely to win over crossover votes while winning over the base.
It’s a race to the 64 electoral votes in the rust belt and he could also be competitive in Florida. He will tactically surrender the southwest swing states to Clinton. But make no mistake, if he can carry OH, PA, WI and MI he’s the next president. Even if he loses the popular vote and even if Clinton gets record Latino and minority turnout. There are not enough non-white voters in those states for her to take them for granted. And she is at present.
Christopher says
…that Clinton is taking anybody’s vote for granted? She certainly claims she is not and that is not the sense I get from the campaign. I also still have a hard time believing Trump is more likely to get crossover votes than Clinton. In fact he has probably already hit his ceiling and he hasn’t even faced the general electorate yet.
johntmay says
Her campaign ignored the city of Franklin, population 32,000 and one polling location. An ideal place to campaign. Not one person there from her campaign. She lost to Sanders, by the way.
For what it’s worth, Martha Coakley did the same thing two years ago.
Christopher says
…are you suggesting it would have been a great place to do visibility on primary day? I wouldn’t have done that either, but campaigns have their reasons for who and where they target. You shouldn’t take it personally if it’s not your neighborhood. Also, in MA, I believe a lot of the campaigning was grassroots initiated as opposed to NH where the campaign opened all those offices and initiated the organization. Maybe Franklin didn’t have the local people that other places did.
jconway says
As an active registered Democratic IL absentee voter I’ve been contacted by the Sanders campaign along with two primary campaigns for the US Senate. Duckworth and Sanders hit up my sister in law too. Nobody from Clinton. Sanders has the only organization on her campus registering students and campaigning.
The Times article on her strategy seems to be the ‘demographics is destiny’ argument, she will run as the sane moderate alternative to Trump and win on the strength of minority turnout and independent and Republican defection. There seem to be far more defections from the Democratic side to Trump, not just in Massachusetts which should already be cause for concern but also in Michigan. Sanders and Trump cleaned house with whites under 250k, Clinton’s support mirrors Rubio’s on the other end of that spectrum for whites and with solid Latino and black majorities added into it.
She can’t afford to lose a single one of those Midwestern states and I’m convinced Trump is in a far better position than the last two Republican nominees or any of his primary competitors to win there. Doesn’t mean I think it will happen, but it’s definitely not something to underestimate or avoid preparing for which Team Clinton totally is.
Christopher says
Campaigns make strategic decisions all the time based on resources, “triage” for lack of a better term, etc. Illinois won’t go for Trump – the Chicago machine can make sure of that even without canvassing the cemeteries:) I think it makes more sense to say that a campaign is targeting X rather than abandoning Y. BTW, is it just me or have you been awfully pessimistic about this whole thing?
jconway says
Trump will win IL btw on the primary side, and he is all but certain to be the GOP nominee at this point. Wouldn’t surprise me if it exceeds Democratic turnout.
And I was referring to her contest with Sanders, which is still a live one by the way, even if his window of victory is tiny indeed and growing tinier by the day. But she should be fighting for my vote and not just assuming I’m with her because I am a registered Democrat.
I haven’t been pessimistic, I am assailing the group think that thinks all Hillary has to do is say Trump is a racist and she wins the election. This hasn’t worked! It won’t work in the general election. 20,000 voters is a huge number. If those voters left the Democrats in MA to join my party it would be a story and we would welcome every single one. My job would be basically over, or we could just shift fully into candidate mode.
The fact that most of you shrugged at this clear loss to the Trump phenomenon is really disconcerting. He has vastly outperformed Romney in every major swing state and even in Mitt’s homestate throughout these primaries, he looks like he will win NH, Hillary certainly didn’t look good up there. He is drawing in voters who haven’t been engaged before and he is already pivoting to a populist general election message that is less inflammatory. Paul Simmons is absolutely correct that there is an enthusiasm gap on our side, one that will be exacerbated once the inevitable happens and Bernie’s supporters scatter.
And Clinton, a plutocrats plutocrat, is not the person to be running this year. But she’s a more plausible President than her only primary alternative, but most voters don’t evaluate their president like we do Christopher. Foreign policy is my #1 issue and it’s barely cracking the top 5 this year. Voters are pissed off and they want to punish everyone in charge, Trump gives them a chance to punish Obama and Paul Ryan with a single vote. That’s powerful, and we underestimate it’s power at our peril.
Christopher says
I still say I haven’t actually seen it. Yes, I think Trump will win the IL primary. My money is also on Clinton on the Dem side. I do also think that Metro Chicago will keep IL in the Dem column this year like it does every year. I’m very hesitant to extrapolate a GOP primary phenomenon into general election predictions. BTW, if anyone is a plutocrat’s, plutocrat it’s Trump. He has yet to show he has any of, say, FDR’s betrayal of class attitude looking out for the less well off.
centralmassdad says
And if you’re right, you think that the issue that harms the Democratic ticket will be free trade agreements, and not what is shaping up to be a very, very broad difference on immigration?
The last debate convinced me that both Democratic campaigns are in a footrace to the left on immigration, while Trump at least appears to be hard-line anti-immigration, period. Even if he pivots, as he has said he will, everyone is going to remember all of his “wall” schtick.
jconway says
Most voters perceive themselves to be the victims of immigration. Most immigrants are not voters. In the long run, it absolutely makes sense for both parties to court this demographic and move on it, but for 2016 I don’t see it being a net winner for Democrats. Not enough to move TX, and Trump can surrender the southwestern purple states to double down on the Midwest where he is way more popular with swing voter than Romney. That’s where I perceive the problem.
So it’s the whole package. Elites in both parties want free trade, immigration reform, and a financial system that benefits them-I want one that benefits you. Trump gives he swing voter an opportunity to stick it to Obama and Paul Ryan with a single vote. That’s potentially powerful medicine for an electorate hurting like this one.
Potentially. He has clearly been winging it and doing well and there are a lot of variables at play that could alter it, a credible moderate or conservative third party run say by Romney or Jeb!. But Hillary is more likely to have a 47% moment than Trump. All his liabilities are known and out in the open, too many of hers remain hidden behind closed doors.
jconway says
I’m really asking all of us to leave our values at the door and critically examine how the electorate actually feels and looks, and that’s where I start to panic.
I am not advocating for Trump or his policies, just trying to play devils advocate so we really think hard about how we can win this fall. The last thing I want is a Trump presidency and I’m terrified he sensed where the wind is going better than his seemingly better on paper primary foes and our likely nominee.
Christopher says
…that once the conventions have adjourned and we start seeing polls the candidates and parties will recalibrate as necessary? I don’t think HRC or the DNC will roll over and play dead if they feel threatened in a state that should be ours. There is a part of the electorate that feels that way and they are already voting for Trump, but it’s a far cry from a majority. I still wish there were a way to figure out how many crossed over to vote for Trump to troll the GOP because I suspect it’s a lot. Frankly, given the economic indicators I’m not sure the feelings some express are all that justified either.
jconway says
Why vote for Trump to troll the GOP when you had such a competitive contest in our state on our side? Real voters don’t do that. I worked with a few high education voters acting like knuckleheads that voted for Santorum in Illinois in 2012 to troll Romney, but there was no primary on our side that year.
Christopher says
..but if you would be happy with either Dem candidate, but want to help blow up the GOP I could see it.
jconway says
A big weakness in my own analysis is the fact that Trump is a toxic commodity few will want to openly invest in and the typical GOP money apparatus will either sit the general out and some might even back Clinton. And his net worth has varied from a few billion to “merely” a few hundred million in liquid assets. You would need at least a billion to credibly self fund, even if the ballot access problem Bloomberg would’ve faced is mitigated by being the GOP nominee.
Christopher says
…but I agree with jconway about the relevance of national polls. In the primary season it is state by state on a rolling basis and given the Electoral College you need to poll state by state to get an accurate picture of the general as well. Frankly, I don’t understand why the media, liberal or otherwise, even bother with national polls of the presidential race. It sounds like they need something to report, but are too lazy to report on the actual details of various plans.
HR's Kevin says
Also, those numbers are averaged over the last several weeks and the trend appears to show the margin going up for both Hillary and Bernie, so it seems that likely that Trump’s recent behavior has been driving his negatives up to benefit of either Democrat.
methuenprogressive says
Well, I guess we’d better nominate Bernie!