Ok then, Let's spell it out for Hillary "Democrats"

[berni_mccoy]

They are having a hard time with this concept.

If Hillary can't win independent voters she will not win the general election. Period.

She has unprecedented unfavorable ratings among independents, over 70%.

The Republicans so far have turned out 7 million more voters than those who have voted in the Democratic primary.

This is why Hillary polls so poorly against Trump, who has better favorability ratings with independents.

If Hillary wins the "Democratic" nomination, she will need every voter that voted in the Democratic primary and more than 50% of the independent electorate who wasn't able to vote in the primaries.

That's the math that Hillary fans don't want to talk about.

This is why comments like DWS "We don't need the independents" comment so damn stupid.

[cantbeserious]

1. This Revolt Has Been Building For Years - The DWS, DNC, DLC, Third-Way Has Only Themselves To Blame

eom

[Buzz Clik]

4. Yeah! They can only blame themselves for winning...

... and the whiny attitude of the losers.

[Scuba]

37. Winning?

We've lost a bunch of House seats, the Senate, 12 governorships and over 900 state seats while Debbie's been the Chair of the DNC.



And you call that "winning"???? Which side are you on?

[Buzz Clik]

48. Have you spoken with her?

[Scuba]

49. No answer to my question? Not surprising.

[Buzz Clik]

51. I don't vote for her. If you hate her so fucking much, call her on the phone.

[Scuba]

63. I don't hate her, but her past actions and her policies leave me cold.

[Buzz Clik]

66. Fine. If you choose to take no direct action, then quit expecting me/us to justify what she does.

[Scuba]

67. No one can justify what she does.

[Buzz Clik]

69. And it is so much fun complaining!

I'm done here. You can finish this off...

[Scuba]

70. Feel free to put me on ignore.

You can join all the other Hillary supporters with their heads in the sand.

[Buzz Clik]

71. Ok... one last comment, but this is relatively important.

My ignore list is huge, but I don't stuff people in there simply for being passionate about their beliefs or disagreeing with me, especially long-time posters.

My list consists entirely of those who will/should have their posting privileges revoked as soon as the primaries are complete (or whenever Skinner "calls it.&quot You don't seem inclined to cross that line.

[JimDandy]

113. Mine has every Clinton supporter...

There are so few of you here (15% of active member).

So I can give a shout-out to you all after the GE.

[Buzz Clik]

115. Can we assume that your ignore list just grew by one?

[GulfCoast66]

257. Well no wonder you think you are majority in the Party.

You ignore anyone who tells you the truth.

I guess I am on ignore now, despite the fact I am not really that much of a Hillary supporter. Believe it or not, there are some here who like both our candidates but are passionate about neither.

But I can read party rules, do math and will sure as hell vote for the Democratic Candidate.

[Rockyj]

256. Its obvious you never been in IRC Chat Room...

...your skin is so thin you wouldn't last 10 seconds.

[Buzz Clik]

260. You haven't a clue.

This board has rules, and we come here assuming the rules will be followed. Unfortunately, the rules were abandoned to an increasing degree during the Obama administration and totally suspended now. So, our little friends tap dance on the Terms of Service with great delight. In the absence of the rules, I take advantage of the Ignore feature -- reserved exclusively for those who violate the ToS.

As for my "thin skin", I would gladly rip you a brand new asshole, but not here. Care to adjourn to the Discussionist board or some other cesspool? Or not. I couldn't fucking care one way or another.

[Cal33]

139. The chances of speaking with DWS directly on the phone are very slim indeed. At best

one would be talking with some aide. Would speaking with an aide, who may not pass
on the message - especially if it's a negative one - be considered "direct action"?

[leftynyc]

79. We lost all those seats

because so many on the left stay home during the midterms - the numbers of those who sit out those midterms is an embarrassment. Don't pretend otherwise. Staying home because of a hissy fit doesn't interest me in the slightest.

[Scuba]

80. And wny did "so many on the left" stay home?

Because Debbie's supported candidates were so inspiring?

Jeezus, whatever happened to critical thinking?




.

[leftynyc]

86. Bullshit

It's out and out laziness and nothing more. Look at the groups that stay home during midterms - the answer is right there. Critical thinking, my ass.

[Scuba]

87. Give people a reason to vote and they will. Offer a pale imitation of the other party ...

... and they'll stay home.

You're being in denial does not change this fact.

[leftynyc]

89. Yawn

That you deny the laziness of the young to get off their asses and vote every year and not only when someone promises them a pony is not my problem. The numbers for the 18-29 voters during midterms are a fucking embarrassment.

[nadinbrzezinski]

93. Now blaming the young for ponies

At one point we used to call this something else on this site. That was over a decade ago.

.

By the way, it does start with an R and ends with thought

[Scuba]

96. None ever asked for ponies, that's just a meme from the right-wing of the Democratic Party.

Meanwhile, the party "leaders" offer recycled Republicans as candidates (think Charlie Christ) and policies that are virtually indistinguishable from the Republicans.

[leftynyc]

98. And if the young got off their asses

and voted in not just the midterms but the PRIMARIES for the midterms, you'd get better candidates. This is not rocket science.

[BlindTiresias]

135. If it isn't rocket science

Then maybe the Democratic party would have figured out a solution to it?

[leftynyc]

138. Don't put the onus on anyone

but yourselves. It's not up to the party to spoon feed you candidates. That's what primaries are for. Why don't you run?

[BlindTiresias]

142. Interesting mechanics

So the democratic party is not supposed to field issues and candidates that attract voters? Interesting. Are you from the DWS school of organizational management?

[leftynyc]

146. No - I'm from the

not expecting everyone else to do the work for me because I'm too lazy to do it myself organization management school. You think the GOP establishment enjoyed having the teabaggers take over their primaries?

[BlindTiresias]

149. Not following your argument.

The party is supposed to support issues and candidates that attract people, how does this interacting with some unknown group of people who are not running (much to your apparent consternation). It comes off as a logical non-sequitur to the actual issues of interaction between the population, the party, and how to get the former to vote for the latter.

[leftynyc]

153. Then you're not understanding

basic primary voting. The teabaggers were unhappy with the candidates the GOP establishment were putting forward so they put forward their own candidates - supported them with money, got their names and positions out there and most importantly got out and voted in the primaries for their preferred candidate. That's how all the teabaggers (89 of them) got into Congress. Are you saying we're not smart enough to do the same? Stop waiting for the establishment (who you obviously loathe) pick your candidates. Find your own, run yourself and take it from there.

[BlindTiresias]

154. Isn't that what Sanders is trying to do?

And look how "establishment" folks treated not just him, but all of his supporters.

There is your answer.

[leftynyc]

157. So your answer is to

throw up your hands and give up? You didn't get your way this time so fuck the process? What exactly has the establishment done to Bernie supporters? Thrown them out of the party? I swear the whining about not getting your way is boring me to tears. Stand up, brush yourself off and try again. It's what winners do.

[BlindTiresias]

162. I'm trying to explain the processes involved.

And you are projecting weird stuff on to me like whining, please stop.

I offered an explanation as to why 35 and under people are not interested and have lower motivation to vote, and your response was that they should support candidates they like or run themselves. They already have, and I think the results are clear to anyone who has eyes that can see both in terms of the DNC's response and the individual behavior of many people who support Hillary towards Bernie supporters which, once again, is clear to see on this forum and any other on the internet as well as interpersonal reactions.

If your response is for them to simply deal with it, you have simultaneously acknowledged the problems I have outlined while dismissing them, which brings you back to square one for why people are not motivated.

[Dragonfli]

266. "What exactly has the establishment done to Bernie supporters? Thrown them out of the party?"

YES! That is exactly what they did to me, (and thousands of others according to reports, let alone those that didn't report it to both their local, and State Board of elections here in NYS!)

I was a Registered Democrat (loyally voting party line ticket) since I first Registered to vote 37 years and some odd months ago. I voted in EVERY election since (with the exception of 2002 when I was in the hospital at the time, and would have voted absentee then as well, if it wasn't so fucking hard and full of red tape to vote absentee in NYS) I didn't know it was such a pain in the ass and found myself ill-equipped being mostly unconscious in a hospital bed at the time to mange it.

After 37 fucking years, the party switched my party affiliation to NPA without my consent or knowledge, not so much as a notification I was no longer a member of my party! it happened sometime around March, or possibly earlier it is hard to say for sure, because I did not find out about it until after several warnings on this site to check one's party affiliation after reports of affiliation purging were being made en massse in several States, first noticed on a large scale in Arizona.

I finally decided to check online after the reports became extremely common in closed primary states, I fully expected everything would be in order because for those 37 years I never had a problem voting in any of my NY primaries, even in non Presidential elections. But FUCK ME! everything was correct but my party affiliation, which was tampered with by someone, and since only Democrat "establishment" people have access to my Democratic credentials, I know damn well what happened!

NYS was rigged for Clinton!, NY was not the only State where these strange "clerical errors" or election fraud as I like to call it, have been reported to be happening.

And as far as your BS lectures go, I am very active politically! I even act with others beyond political voting, look into "push buffalo" sometime and learn what some good people are doing from the bottom up!

I know how, or at least have a theory as to how and why certain Democrats were pushed out of the party, Strange thing happened to me, three days after Sanders was locked out of his voter data for a day from a database held by the DLC machine along with other Democrat's supporter information.

I received the first of many Hillary Campaign emails, thanking me for my support. Two things were suspicious to me, one, how the fuck did they get my email address and my name? Second, why did the first correspondence after thanking me for my support, ask if I could send them another $20 or more if I could to continue my support. THE EXACT AMOUNT I DONATED TO SANDERS
[font size="1"; color="red"]*an important note, I do not twitter Facebook or do anything else that could have led to the mining of such information, and I never once donated to or contacted the Clinton campaign*[/font]

Coincidence? Kismet? The Collective Unconscious? Pure strange luck? I doubt it.


Yes, they kicked some Democrats out of the party, and your other nonsense, is pure nonsense, when you run a Republican lite against a Republican, 9 out of ten, the Republican will vote for the real one every time and the Democrat will see so little difference between two candidates that do not care about any of their issues to even bother choosing which grade of Republican to vote for and thus stay home.

In all those elections DWS ran as DNC Chair, it was blue dog lite Republicrats she ran consistently even starving out liberal Democrats when necessary to do so, with the expected results, maintaining her untarnished record as abject failure, you do not blame the voters for not voting for a shitty candidate, wait excuse me, That is exactly what your entire argument has been.

[WhiteTara]

185. It was Bernie's responsibility to educate his voters

He needed to explain the primary process...when to register, how to vote. He had 1000s if then at his rallies. Instead of just a standard stump speech, he needed to broaden his base by bringing in voters. That's what winners do. Trying to change the rules after all is said and done isn't.

[leftynyc]

272. My argument is simply

that the republican establishment not supporting their teabagging candidates didn't slow them down at all. They worked hard in the primaries, got the name out there, had a message that resonated and got themselves elected. You're complaining that your candidates can't get nominated and you're blaming the establishment. If the teabaggers can do it without establishment support, why can't the far left liberals?

[TM99]

249. Oh, so you are an arrogant

micro-manager who thinks he is always right, never makes mistakes, and any and all failures in his department are completely the fault of everyone else especially those lazy kids.

Yup, it totally shows in this thread.

[leftynyc]

278. I have zero

idea what you're babbling about which is actually okay because I don't care.

[TM99]

287. Yeah, I am not surprised.

You don't appear to be very bright.

[notadmblnd]

277. Bull, that's exactly what they're doing with Hillary

Spoon feeding those who've developed a taste for her crap- and those they're attempting to force feed by shoving it down our throats.

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. Alas that is why they are using the same memes

[Ohioblue22]

107. Keeping cons out of positions of power is voting for something

[Scuba]

112. You mean like Charlie Christ?

[Ohioblue22]

159. Is he a republicon?

[Scuba]

173. He was, until DWS recruited him to run for governor of Florida as a Democrat.

Is it any wonder he lost?

[Ohioblue22]

245. Iirc he left the GOP he wasn't co-opted

[Scuba]

246. No, the GOP left him but DWS took him in and ran him as a Democrat. That's a betrayal ...

... of the traditional principles of the Democratic Party.

[artislife]

94. I vote in all the elections, big and small

But I am now promoting a Berniecrat to defeat Patty Murray for WA state senator. The establishment DNC is losing long time, regular down ticket voters.

[artislife]

95. ...

http://www.philcornell4ussenate.org/

[leftynyc]

97. I have no idea how old you are

so I don't know if you're part of the age group I'm talking about. Assuming you are, if you get more of your friends to get off their asses and vote, then you'll get the candidates more to your liking. It's not rocket science.

[Rilgin]

184. Ridiculous backwards logic

If people stop going to a restaurant, the restaurant changes its recipes. If people go in droves it does not change its recipes on the theory that the people want something different. You have changed this relationship on its face. You seem to think that a restaurant who is popular sees that as proof that it is time to change its menu to something else.

If a radio station has a format. If it gets great ratings meaning people listen and tune in, it does not take that as evidence that the people listening want a format change. They take it as evidence that they want more of the same.

If democrats come out in droves for more conservative candidates, the party and political establishment will assume that they are offering the right candidates, not the wrong type candidates. If voters do not vote for a candidate, in real life, not in your imagination or logic, smart people think there is something wrong with their candidate, campaign, approach or party. They do not think its the voter unless they want to excuse their own politics being unpopular.

In our very real case, starting with the DLC, the political establishment decided that the fact that Bill Clinton won a GE presidential race that the path to democratic victories (meaning more voters) was triangulation and adapting republican lite policies and candidates.
At that time, the democrats had lost a series of presidential races so they changed the recipe for the candidate. Bill won his first term in a 3 person race (Ross Perot) without a majority of voters. However, the people behind him pushed through a meme that the Democratic Party had to change and pointed to Bill as proof. It is this change and meme that is being challenged in this election.

As pointed out this theory of selecting candidates has lost us democrats the house, senate and all the states and the white house during the bush years. Obama did not run as a moderate or centrist, he ran as a big change agent and people voted for him with enthusiasm in the first term and squeeked him by in the second. His governance was not from the left but from the center and DWS pushed conservative down ballot candidates and we then lose the house and senate. Obama's first term election where we won the presidency and the senate and house should tell us what recipes our democratic party should use to attract voters which is not corporate light. We should not use the type of candidates we put up in the midterm because we lost. If we had won the midterm, pundits, donors, lobbyists, the media, politicians, and political players would view that as proof that the voters want the Democratic Party to continue putting up moderate to conservative candidates. You are arguing the opposite.

This should be obvious. If people stop voting for a party, there is something wrong with the parties message and selection of candidates.

[leftynyc]

219. And here's the problem

Pres Obama did NOT run as a liberal. His supporters (I became one later) projected onto him their hopes of what he was and at the time I pointed out there was nothing in his rhetoric or record that would indicate he was a liberal savior. I was right. Just like the very second Bernie compromised on something, you would immediately throw him to the wolves. It's why I stopped listening to those who think they've found perfection. You haven't and you wont. This is NOT a liberal country - if that's not glaringly apparent by now, it sure should be. If you think a raging liberal can win in a purple district, you couldn't be more wrong. Politics is about compromise - it was a tough lesson for me to learn. Nobody pushes candidates down your throat - if you don't get involved at the recruiting level, you're partially to blame. After the primaries are done, you can't look at the candidate and think "but that's not what I want). By then it's too late.

[Rilgin]

248. Absolutely made up history.

Obama ran on hope and change and as a liberal. His policies were public option with no mandate health insurance. He ran for taxing the rich more and more banking regulation. He ran running on new energy policies favoring green energy. He ran on gun control criticizing Hillarys gun policies. He ran on no torture, trumpeting his anti iraq war vote and against foreign interventions. He trumpeted his history as a community activist rather than a corporate lawyer.

The fact that after being elected he appointed goldman sacks and monsanto executives is not how he ran. Hope and change was the main message in reversing the course of the Bush Administration to a liberal track. What you are referring to is the fact that like most politicians a lot of his promises were not totally specific (except his health plan). However, he never presented any corporate or conservative or moderate polices for the publics consideration. The only policies he actually spelled out were totally liberal and his whole campaign was based on liberal hope and change ABOLUTELY INTENTIONALLY. Liberals expected Obama to be liberal because that was how he ran and what he wanted us to believe. If he was not misrepresenting himself (to be nicer than saying lying) no one who came out to the millions of people marches would think he would adopt any conservative policies.

You are just making things up.

[leftynyc]

271. His RECORD showed

he wasnt' a liberal. That people got taken in by campaign rhetoric is an entirely different issue.

[Rilgin]

288. What happenned to the the concept of evolution so dear to Hillary?

I thought the meme was the Republicans prevented him from making all the liberal progress that he promised? You seem to be saying that he was just lying when he ran on liberal policies. For your direct information he was not my initial preferred candidate at first because I was not sure what he was. However, I actually had hopes for our future listening to him over time because he was running as a liberal and unlike you who seem to be able to look into a candidate's head, it is possible to have hope that a candidate is actually telling the truth about his or her plans for the future.

Now, what about your candidate. People here have been claiming she is a progressive and a great liberal defender of the Democratic Party. We say look at her record. Are you saying she is lying and all the liberal policies and positions she has taken or evolved to are mere emphty campaign rhetoric?

From your last post it looks like you are a defender and ok with a candidate lying while campaigning using empty lying rhetoric? Are you ok with this and is this how you view Hillary? In three years are you going to come on this or a similar site and say Its your fault that "you got taken in by (Hillary's) campaign rhetoric".

[artislife]

240. ^^^This.

[artislife]

239. We are off our asses

and we are voting. We just may not compromise our GE votes.

That means, we aren't with her.

[Duckhunter935]

160. Me too, all elections are important

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

284. Me too. Patty lost me when she endorsed Hillary.

[artislife]

285. And voted for the TPP. nt

[bkkyosemite]

104. It's because of the party's establishment connections that do not care about the Average

American so why would they vote.

[leftynyc]

126. LOL

Why would they vote in the primary that would decide the nominee? Are you really asking that question? How the fuck do you think the teabaggers got their candidates in the race?

[bkkyosemite]

212. The DNC's establishment has done nothing for the Average American they care only about

electing their clique of establishment candidates. They the Democrats/Independents did not vote because they were fed up with the establishment. You must have fucking misunderstood what I was talking about. LOL

[Marr]

122. Who exactly are 'the groups who stay home'?

I'd like to know exactly what you mean there, and why it's so unsurprising.

[leftynyc]

128. 18-29 year olds

Disgustingly lazy about the midterms. Especially when they're just whining about not having a candidate they want. That's what the primaries are for and they're even worse about voting in the primaries in midterm years. Is that clear enough for you? If there is anything to learn from the teabaggers, it's that you can overthrow establishment candidates if you turn our for primaries during midterms. It's not rocket science.

[Marr]

132. Well, young people don't respond to fear tactics the way old people do.

"We're not Republicans" won't work on young people the way it works on you. They need something to vote for, but our party establishment only offers them bogeymen to vote against. "They want to kill you-- we're just oblivious to you!". Inspirational stuff.

But really, my interpretation of it doesn't matter. If you lose, you employed a losing strategy, period. The party leadership has been consistently losing big for a long time.

[leftynyc]

136. What a bunch of crap

and nothing but pathetic excuses for people not taking their voting seriously when the perfect candidate doesn't exist. That's what primaries are for. Run yourself - there's nothing stopping you.

[Marr]

140. You're the one making excuses, not me.

If someone doesn't buy your product, it's on you to figure out why. You don't just sit there bawling about how stupid the customers are.

What's so hard to understand about that?

[leftynyc]

143. And sitting on your asses

whining about candidates you don't like when you wont even consider running yourself is so very helpful. It's bound to get you what you want. You want the party to spoonfeed you candidates rather than doing the work yourselves and you wonder why I call you lazy?

[BlindTiresias]

147. I think we have all seen what happens to people who defy the orthodoxy

This primary cycle. Odds are any progressive millennial will get the same treatment sanders and his supporters did.

How is that for youth outreach?

[leftynyc]

161. What has happened?

Who defied the orthodoxy and got punished? What exactly was the punishment? That your candidate lost? So did mine in 2008. I got over it and moved on. I didn't sit and whine one second about it.

[BlindTiresias]

163. Well, for a small example.

People like buzz klik screaming for the primary to be called so the purges can begin. That would likely leave a bad impression.

I won't get into the higher workings of the DNC or the extremely hostile attitude conservative democrats have towards some other groups.

[Marr]

158. You know, I'm not one of these young people you seem to hate so much.

So maybe tone down the 'get off my lawn' a bit. I'm 43, if you're curious.

For the record, I know plenty of people who do fit into that 18-29 demographic, and I'd bet cash money they're doing a hell of a lot more than you are. They volunteer, they work their asses off, and their prospects are nevertheless a lot dimmer than their parents' and grandparents' were at the same age. Frankly, it's those parents and grandparents who seem lazy and entitled to me-- not to mention arrogant.

[leftynyc]

165. Sigh

I don't hate young people (what a ridiculous thing to post). I'm condemning the whining, I'm condemning the being too lazy to find a candidate you like and working your ass off for them in off year elections and not having a hissy fit if they lose. And you can't just do that once - you have to do it every 2 years. My candidate lost in 2008 and I didn't whine about it. I've NEVER had my perfect candidate - not ever. And I doubt very much your pals are doing more than I am - I've been fighting for liberal causes and candidates for decades.

[BlindTiresias]

167. It comes off as hate to me too

Your tone is not fantastic, to be honest.

[leftynyc]

170. I save my hate for those

deserving - child molesters, rapists, terrorists. People who disagree with me don't even register on that scale. Sorry my tone isn't to your liking. Actually, not really sorry - I don't think you like what I'm saying but know I'm right so are now complaining about tone. Not interested.

[nadinbrzezinski]

174. Nah, you are projecting something ugly

On the bright side, you do not like the pushback to the git off my lawn attitude.

That said, knowing a tad of how the local dem party acts to progressives, I will say it...you sir or madam are full of shit. The Dem party does not like progressives except for Election Day

[leftynyc]

176. For the record, I'm a woman

This is your problem right here. You're talking about election day - the hard work comes LONG BEFORE ELECTION DAY. Hard work I don't see any so called progressives willing to do. I watched the teabaggers do it and you seem to think we're too stupid to learn their very effective lesson. You want people to support? Recruit them, support them with funds and make sure you get their name out there. If the teabaggers could do it without their establishment, so can we.

[nadinbrzezinski]

178. What part of the party does not want them except to shut up

And vote are you purposely missing? By the way, don't blame them when all you do is git off my lawn and call them names....


By the way, I know the party goes out of its way NOT TO ENDORSE PROGRESSIVES. when one makes it to the ballot there is no structural support for that candidate, since they are not showing proper orthodoxy. And in case you missed it progressives have been giving money in historic numbers to the progressive, and phone banking and precinct walking.

They are not going to forget this year anytime soon. Go on, continue to blame them. You Madame do it well.

[leftynyc]

213. I'm sorry you think

me expecting the younger crowd to work hard to get the candidates they want is blaming them for anything. Like I've pointed out already, the teabaggers have managed to put almost 100 of their members in congress - ALL without the help of their establishment who actively worked against them. If you think progressives are either unwilling or unable to mimic that success, I really don't know what to tell you.

[nadinbrzezinski]

220. Oh they may try

But people like you will continue to call them names

They are also getting further radicaluzed.

Oh and one last thing. You forgot the role of the Koch brothers with the tea party. It is not like they had zero unimportant support.

We have a center right and far right parties. Physics does abhor a vacuum, so does politics

[leftynyc]

222. What the fuck do you care

if they call you names? I have much better things to focus on than wringing my hands because my perfect candidate has yet to make an appearance.

[nadinbrzezinski]

224. You call voters names

And then blame them. Marketing is not a subject you understand. Suffice it to say...people like you are making the democratic brand even less palatable

[leftynyc]

225. That you care one whit

what I or any other anonymous person says here is entirely your problem. I'm not here to sway anyone - that's not my job. You support one candidate and I support another. That's ALL that is happening here but you want to turn it into something bigger - like I represent anyone other than myself. I don't and don't want to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

229. Actually I do not care what you specifically do

but this vibe you are projecting is generalized to the actual party.

Hey, it is consistent with the realignment. The democratic party wants progressives out so hard that they will get their wish. Alas they still need them for the moment. Once you get the influx of moderate republicans to go from a trickle to a flood, one to two cycles, you really can dispense with the hated left. And yes, YOU DO HATE IT.

[Dragonfli]

267. Nadin, check out this link, I think you will be among those that understand it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1280188788

[nadinbrzezinski]

274. Thanks. So true

[BlindTiresias]

179. Its an expression

It means structurally the DNC does not give a crap about progressive/leftists until they need their vote.

Also the progressive wing is one of the most active segments of the party. Get a grip.

[leftynyc]

215. If they're the most active

segments, they'll get the candidates they want. It's that simple. The gop establishment HATES the teabaggers, that didn't stop them from getting elected because they're "base" did the hard work themselves. We should be able to mimic and improve on their success - we're smarter.

[BlindTiresias]

250. Not necessarily true

Read: progressive rollback for the last several decades.

Things are much more structurally complex than the simple input-> output of field candidates -> get elected.

And no we are not necessarily smarter, the modern right wing ideology is one of the most successful "movements" of all time, effectively undoing the progressive movement within a generation.

[BlindTiresias]

182. I'm not complaining

What happens to your public perception by way of your actions is entirely on you and for you to manage as you see fit. I am explaining why your comments, whether you think so or otherwise, are being interpreted in the way they are.

Feel free to disregard it, but I would advise not acting mystified as to why young people are so put off when you serve as a microcosm for behaviors that they do not appreciate and will turn them off. Once again, your choice.

[Marr]

169. Uh-huh.

I'm sure it was very hard to watch Hillary fail in 2008 after working so hard to write a check and lick a stamp. You could really teach these young people a thing or two about struggle, I'll bet.

[leftynyc]

172. Spare me the bullshit

Try phonebanking every single weekend. Try hitting Harlem, East New York and the South Bronx to sign up voters. Did your special little snowflakes do anything like that or did they just show up at rallies (which seems to be all they're doing because they sure aren't voting in great numbers)?

[Marr]

180. As a matter of fact, they did more than you describe.

The millennials I know, I met doing those same things-- only they really worked at it, consistently showed up, even organized the operations themselves.

And frankly, I don't believe your claims of what you did. I'll bet you showed up a few times (if at all), did a half ass job, and clocked out early-- just like every other person I've ever seen who whined about 'lazy young people'.

[WhiteTara]

188. That's great. Most the people I see working elections

and voter registration drives are all gray haired. A young person might come once or twice, but the consistent workers were all much older. So glad to hear there are some 18-29 year olds working for democracy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

197. That is became the youth are not doing this besides you

They are doing it separate from you. And from what I understand, at least locally, is due to the very cold, if not outright icy shoulder from the gray haired types.

Chew on that one for a second...the party is not just splitting along ideological lines, but also age lines. And to be brutally honest, I cannot blame them either.

[leftynyc]

216. Shrug

You seem to think you have the power to hurt my feelings by not believing and mocking me. I quite literally couldn't care less.

[Marr]

237. Great.

I'm not phased by your insults, either. You began them, by the way, so if you need a boost down from that cross just let me know.

[leftynyc]

270. I don't do the martyr routine

And the "you started it" sounds so very adult. Can I pat you on the head?

[BlindTiresias]

166. I'm 31

I have a graduate degree and am involved in government, still no sign of relief in the future and the aggressively arrogant and narcissistic attitude of the older conservative democrats is infuriating to me and basically everyone in my age cohort who I know.

Getting called lazy whiners from the day you can vote until now, which constitutes basically the entire adult life of most millenials, while you are structurally trapped and are struggling is an experience that cannot be adequately described by words.

[Marr]

175. I can imagine.

They called us 'slackers' when I was in my 20's-- and they're still just sitting on their wrinkled asses and ranting about lazy young people, like they grew up in the fucking Old West or something.

To make it worse, so many of the people labeling millennials 'lazy, whiny', etc. now are *my* age. Your generation has it much worse than we had it in terms of debt scams and employment opportunities, and this 'I got mine' attitude is sickening.

[BlindTiresias]

145. No they are basically correct

35 and under crowd are immune to same same fear and panic and have also cultivated a strong sense of hidden pessimism so they are not subject to the same tactics.

All political strategies do have a useful half-life, I really. Nothing stays effective forever.

[leftynyc]

148. More crap excuses

for being too lazy to get off your asses and find a candidate to run, support them financially and with your votes. The teabaggers gave lessons in this and you're ignoring it. That's not my problem and fear has nothing to do with it. Find a candidate you like and support them or run yourself. Whining about it is getting you nowhere.

[BlindTiresias]

150. Uh, people did

Very recently. Look at the response.

Actually, look directly at the party's response and the source of your anger will become clear

[frylock]

200. The laziness is in your line of reasoning.

You're blaming consumers because they won't buy your shitty product.

[-none]

210. There it is.

And it could almost fit on a bumper sticker too.

Of the people I know, almost everyone, Left or Right leaning, prefer Bernie Sanders over Hillary. They all want someone honest and trustworthy. Hillary has too much baggage to qualify.

[trudyco]

294. I voted for my dem senator during the midterms

and he lost. I asked the Hillary person who came by to try to talk me into voting for her what happened at the midterms. It was eerie that out of a house of 4 (3 dem, 1 independent) voters I was specifically singled out for this fellow to try to persuade me.... but anyway, he said that the county next to mine didn't have people turn out. He was really disgusted with those lazy voters.

Honestly I almost didn't vote (for the first time) myself. It's because Obama disappointed me. He did reduce the troops in two stupid wars, bring back the economy 1/2 way (he won't admit the jobs are not the same and there aren't as many) got some of the rich tax breaks to go away partially, etc. But then there were the TPP talks, Keystone Pipeline, not bringing back our privacy, not prosecuting banksters and breaking up banks and not bringing back glass-Steagall, Watered down Healthcare (though it was something), not stopping the bleeding of jobs overseas, not stopping the merger of mega companies and especially he promoted Fracking. We have open space here paid by taxes and now they are vulnerable to Fracking. This is due to our democratic Governor toeing the Obama line. My neighborhood is democratic territory and people don't want Fracking. They want huge investments in renewable electricity and electrical cars, not frackcrap in the air and water and more global warming fodder.

So I'm not surprised people didn't vote. There is some... not so much laziness as that midterm elections don't get the media attention so there are some people who leave midterms off the radar... but there is quite a bit of disenchantment, too. Obama promised a lot more than he delivered. And he started turning to the right as soon as he got into office. Maybe it was the price he had to pay to get his healthcare. IDK. He was such an amazing speaker, very inspiring. I still like him. I just feel so defeated. 8 years of Shrub and Rove and Cheney was exhausting. We had such high hopes when Obama came into office. It's not surprising other people felt there was no difference between the Republicans and Democrats so they didn't bother to vote. I was almost one of them.

[Andy823]

116. Maybe it's because

Ever election year the republicans try and convince as many people as they can who are not republicans, to stay home and not vote, or as in presidential election years, to NOT vote if one specific candied does not win the nomination, sadly it seems to be working. They come on line with right wing trolls, they put out ads that help the weaker candidates in the Democratic party, who go on to lose, and yes, sometimes a candidate on the Democratic side is not as inspiring as they could be, but anyone who takes the time to really do some "critical" thinking will come up with the fact that there is NO republican that will be better than the worst Democrat, and sitting home on ones ass only helps republicans.

[nadinbrzezinski]

181. This year your party is doing that and doing a great job at it

Even better than the elephants.

[nadinbrzezinski]

83. Ah so inspiring blame the left for not showing up

But tell them repeteadly they are not needed. Guess what will happen? The left will stay home. Your future as a center right party is in attracting the chamber of commerce types (that is already happening incidentally). But stop blaming people for sitting it out when you recruit center right politicians.

[leftynyc]

88. I'm waiting for one

supporter of Bernie to provide the quote from Hillary or anyone associated with her campaign (not some pundit on CNN) who said you weren't needed. Nobody has been able to provide that. Want to give it a whirl?

[nadinbrzezinski]

90. DWS did and has been posted a few times

And you guys and gals keep telling the left and independents they are not needed as well. So as far as this site is concerned you keep reinforcing it. Incidentally I think more than a few will comply and sit it out, or vote for a third party. It is not like you will not blame them anyway.


By the way, I fully agree with her. Your party can close every fucking primary as far as I am concerned, but you pick up the tab for the cost of the election. And don't be too shocked if indies continue to grow, and both national parties continue to shrink. It is the realignment we are in the middle off. I personally do not expect to see the safety net survive, not when we have a center right and a far right party.

And by the way, I report on this shit. I don't support a particular candidate. But you are not helping. You still need the left to win...one, two more cycles, you can dispense with them

[leftynyc]

91. So you can't

provide the quote. Not from Hillary nor from anyone in her campaign. Noted.

[nadinbrzezinski]

92. It has been posted

She said it on MSNBC air yesterday. You can use the google as far as I am concerned

[leftynyc]

99. Then you should have no problem

finding it. I'll wait.

[nadinbrzezinski]

101. You can use the google I ain't playing whatever game you are playing

But I do expect you to blame the voters. It is currently party MO.

For the record, the other side does this too

[leftynyc]

102. I can't find it

That's why I'm asking for those so sure it exists to post it. And none of you can. Imagine my surprise.

[nadinbrzezinski]

103. Your google search skills are your issue

Not mine. It's been OPs here. So that is your issue

[zappaman]

198. I hope your candidate, Bernie Sanders, has a great showing today.

Would be nice.

[Dragonfli]

268. Nadin doesn't endorse candidates, everybody knows this, she does critique certain tactics and idiocy

She also does so in non-partisan way, you assume much, while knowing little. She has to report on both parties in her job, and keeps any personal candidate preferences private and close to the vest in order to maintain journalistic integrity.

Good form would call for an apology on your part.

[bvar22]

218. You can't support your claim.

"The Left" showed up, voted, and did most of the heavy lifting in 2010.
Progressive Candidates "WON". Blue Dogs and Dinos LOST.
It was the mushy "Centrists" and Conservative Democrats who were too lazy to vote.
Here are the stats:

[font size=3]Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?[/font]

"You know what I'm talking about. The claim that a bunch of liberals were so pissed off at Obama that they stayed home and this caused the 2010 rout. It's pervasive. I won't link to examples because it comes up so regularly I see no point singling anyone out.

So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.

Here's what CNN found in the 2010 House exit poll, when respondents were asked for their ideology, note the number in brackets which indicates the proportion of the respondents who picked that option:


Liberal (20%)
D - 90%
R - 8%
Other - 2%

Moderate (38%)
D - 55%
R - 42%
Other - 3%

Conservative (42%)
D - 13%
R - 84%
Other - 3%

<snip>

Wherein is this great liberal(/progressive) sulkfest in lieu of voting? Liberals voted. They voted for Democrats. I don't know how many held their noses while doing so, but they damn well did so, at least according to the most reliable evidence we have of such things.

<snip>

Still the claim that petulant liberals punished Obama to their own detriment is repeated so often with such certitude, I thought I would request to see the proof of it, because I don't see it, in the most obvious place it would appear if it were there, the proportion and voting of actual liberals in comparable elections. If you have some more complex explanation of how it really happened, I would like to see it, because all I see is the proportion of the voting population calling themselves "conservatives" grew tremendously at expense of those calling themselves "moderates." Either a bunch of moderates became conservatives, or moderates stayed home, or a lot of conservatives who usually stay home came out. Or some combination of those things. Yet any of those explanations would be tremendously at odds with the "blame the progressives" explanation.

So what am I missing, or am I missing nothing, and this is just becoming that rarest of creatures, a "zombie lie" of the left?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/8/5/1003805/-

There it is.
If you have some stats that refute it, lets see them.

[timmymoff]

253. Uninspiring candidates breed contempt

[LondonReign2]

289. False. I'm so fucking tired of this lie you conservadems like to trot out

to absolve yourself of blame. To paraphrase, It's the Independents, Stupid.

http://graphics.wsj.com/exit-polls-2014/
Ideology: Liberals were 23% of the vote in 2014, up from 20% in 2010.

http://www.thirdway.org/third-ways-take/the-impact-of-moderate-voters-on-the-2014-midterms
There is no doubt that moderate voters were crucial to the outcome in 2014, and though Democrats won them 53% to 44% overall, it wasn’t sufficient (in fact, they did 2 points worse with moderates than in the 2010 wave).

Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout
“So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.”

http://blogforarizona.net/do-progressives-even-sit-out-elections-the-numbers-say-no/
“As you can see, Democrats did slightly better with liberals in 2010 than in 2006. Had there really been a collective we’re-sitting-out-the-election-to-spite-Obama pout going on, then there should have been a sharp drop in the liberal participation percentage. Yet notice the 9% drop in moderate voter participation and the concomitant 10% increase in conservative turnout. Republicans were pumped for that election but their turnout tends to be higher in midterms anyway. Millions of moderate voters either flipped to conservative or stayed home in 2010.”

“As you can see, all the Democratic groups dropped, but the liberal Democrats dropped least of all”

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/11/08/44348/the-return-of-the-obama-coalition/
Ideology. Liberals were 25 percent of voters in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. Since 1992 the percent of liberals among presidential voters has varied in a narrow band between 20 percent and 22 percent, so the figure for this year is quite unusual. Conservatives, at 35 percent, were up one point from the 2008 level, but down a massive 7 points since 2010.
Ideology. Obama received less support in 2012 from all ideology groups, though the drop-offs were not particularly sharp in any group. He received 86 percent support from liberals (89 percent in 2008), 56 percent from moderates (60 percent in 2008), and 17 percent from conservatives (20 percent in 2008).

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739
Democrats and Republicans were at parity in self-identification nationally, 36-36 percent, a return to the close division seen in years before 2008, when it broke dramatically in the Democrats' favor, 40-33 percent.
Swing-voting independents who, as usual, made the difference, favored Republicans for House by a thumping 16 points, 55-39 percent. Compare that to Obama's 8-point win among independents in 2008. It was the Republicans' biggest win among independents in exit polls dating to 1982 (by two points. The GOP won independents by 14 points in 1994, the last time they took control of the House.)

[Peace Patriot]

306. Paleeze! You shit on Leftists for 30 years and expect them to vote for you?

Money, money, money, that's what's going on with our elections, and the point of Money is to demoralize, discourage and disenfranchise those who don't have it, who are faceless peons and robot workers, discardable at retirement, to those who do have it. And our Democratic leaders want to be just like those who do have it, and kiss up to them all day long to get the money to serve them, and to impress them that have it with their awesome "revolving door" skills, so they make lots and lots and lots of money after their stints as 'public servants.'

We know how it works. We just hadn't figured out how to bust you, until Bernie Sanders came along.

It's been a pretty high gold brick wall, getting new bricks plastered on every day, and, you know--you know very well--how difficult it is to participate in this brick laying, when we're taking care of our elderly parents, cuz they can't live on Social Security, or trying to take care of our kids, while working 2 and 3 shit jobs just to feed our families, and don't even have time to figure out medical insurance, and fill out all the forms, cuz it's so fucking complicated and we get screwed ten ways against the middle anyway, and then there's the parents' meds and those skyrocketing costs, and got to figure it all out all over again, and then the car breaks down again, and "upward mobility" is gone, gone, GONE from the horizon, and some asshole wants us to vote them a permanent vacation at golf courses and cocktail parties among the uber rich?!

You want to know why people don't vote? A, they get nothing whatsoever, and, increasingly, LESS than nothing, for doing so, and B, they don't have any fucking TIME!

Time is a luxury they DON'T have. And that is by fucking design of the corporate system, and you can't tell me otherwise, because I see it every day: time sucked out of peoples' lives by the very system you want them to vote for.

Take your fucking Reaganism and Ayn Randism and stuff it! You don't belong here! You don't belong in the Democratic Party!

Goddamn, I am so sick of these latte Democrats! We might as well be talking about "how hard it is to get good help these days"!

[BlindTiresias]

131. Pathetic dodge.

[libdem4life]

202. Huh? Now we have to hunt down these losers

and listen to their bloviating? I think not.

[puffy socks]

189. Again the answer is...

... the whiny attitude. "
Progressive voters keep stepping on their own feet with the stupid purism and expectations of instant gratification without even giving the Dems enough power to legislate just some of the things you want.

Thats what we just witnessed for not only Obama's two terms but for at least the past 30 years.
Politicians don't just fall into office, they are elected. As long as purest progressives keep dividing the left wing into the Green party and the Marijuana Party and the Socialist Democrat party and the Socialist Party and the Communist Party we will not ever have a super majority made up of the best Progressive available. They need to stop "voting their consciences" on individual issues and helping to continue the status quo, and "vote their consciences" on the big picture.
Divided we fall. We cannot take control of our government divided.Period.

The strange thing is many want to form yet another party, which is just another division, yet at the same demonstrating the need for a party (unity, team).
This is why it is so hard to get things changed quickly enmasse. Progressives are their own worst enemy.

[Scuba]

190. ...

"If the Democratic Party would fight as hard for the Working Class as the Republican Party fights for the Ruling Class, the Republicans would be a powerless minority party within a few election cycles.

The Democratic Party knows this, the Republican Party knows this, the Ruling Class knows this- and they've been astonishingly successful at making sure the Working Class never learns this. ~ Anonymous

[puffy socks]

193. The Dems DID fight for us!

One of the most productive Congress' om history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/111th_United_States_Congress

And then the Progressives who didnt get instant gratification, who wete painfully aware of the kinds of sabotage, dirty tricks and corporate media propaganda lobbed continually at Obama and Dems by the GOP, Progressives sold them out and walked away in 2010, a census year.

[Scuba]

209. Really? What did the 2009 Congress do for voting rights and election integrity?

How about enriching Social Security?

How about enacting Medicare for All?

How about filibustering Bush's wars and tax cuts?

How about protecting pensions?

How about protecting unions?


Remind me how the Dems fought for these things, because I've forgotten and so has Google.

[puffy socks]

214. Oh I see

More instant gratification and demands that every issue be resolved is ridiculous. No person on earth could meet those expectations.
Go look at the legislation passed

And filibusters initiated.
Just recently,
Dems filibustered keystone pipeline
The Iran bill and legislation halting the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the United States, after it passed the house.

Look up Dem filibusters 2006 alone and the Gang of 14

Oh and theyve been fighting to increase minimum wage for years while Ultra Progressives stab them in the back

From the Bush yrs..
Raising the minimum wage
"On January 23, forty-three Republicans blocked an attempt to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 over two-years"

[Scuba]

217. In 2009, Democrats in DC had an opportunity to protect our elections and voting rights.

They passed.

Kinda like Florida 2000 never happened.

Kinda like Ohio 2004 never happened.



No, I'm not expecting instant gratification, nor that all those things would get passed. But I'm damned well expecting elected Democrats to fight for them.

Please show me where Dems proposed any of the things I cited but lost because of Republican obstructionism. And for those things you cited above that were blocked, please show me where Dems took the fight to the public, threatened to withhold support for Republican initiatives, or did anything besides roll over and play dead.

[puffy socks]

233. Nice attempt at pidgeon holing.

Hoping you could narrow it down to an issue and a specific year you foolishly believed Dems hadnt fought for voting rights....
proving you (as I suspect most Sanders supporters ) havent really looked at what Dems have been doing for the past 30 years.


2002 McCain/ Feingold Act


The Universal Right to Vote by Mail Act introduced on January 5, 2007 during the 110th congress by Susan Davis.

The bill was again introduced by Rep. Susan Davis on March 19, 2009. It had 50 co-sponsors and cleared the the House Administration Committee on June 10.

Campaign Committee, outlined Apr 2010 and introduced June 2010, H.R.5175
Congressional Democrats file legislation to update the Voting Rights Act
http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/24/politics/voting-rights-act-democrats-file-bill/

Tom Udall introduces legislation on Campaign Finance Reform in 2013
http://www.tomudall.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1329


And again in 2015


“Today was a historic day for campaign finance reform, with more than half of the Senate voting on a constitutional amendment to make it clear that the American people have the right to regulate campaign finance,” declared Senator Tom Udall, the New Mexico Democrat who in June proposed his amendment to address some of the worst results of the Supreme Court’s interventions in with the recent Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission decisions, as well as the 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo.

[Scuba]

235. But it didn't pass, despite Dems having a super-majority in the Senate in 2009 with ...

... a majority in the House and the White House. But it didn't pass, there was no public fight. The Dems rolled over and played dead.

[LondonReign2]

291. False. More conservadem lies

Thanks for clarifying that you aren't a progressive though. BTW, the non-progressive party? They are called Republicans.

http://graphics.wsj.com/exit-polls-2014/
Ideology: Liberals were 23% of the vote in 2014, up from 20% in 2010.
http://www.thirdway.org/third-ways-take/the-impact-of-moderate-voters-on-the-2014-midterms
There is no doubt that moderate voters were crucial to the outcome in 2014, and though Democrats won them 53% to 44% overall, it wasn’t sufficient (in fact, they did 2 points worse with moderates than in the 2010 wave).

Did liberals really stay home and cause the 2010 rout?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/06/1003805/-Did-liberals-really-stay-home-and-cause-the-2010-rout
“So I went back to the exit polls and the picture I see shows nothing like that. If you are a proponent of this claim, I challenge you for empirical proof that some set of activist liberals "took their ball and went home" or whatever metaphor you prefer to make Obama's leftward critics appear childish and immature. Inside, the evidence I found that shows this just ain't so.”

http://blogforarizona.net/do-progressives-even-sit-out-elections-the-numbers-say-no/
“As you can see, Democrats did slightly better with liberals in 2010 than in 2006. Had there really been a collective we’re-sitting-out-the-election-to-spite-Obama pout going on, then there should have been a sharp drop in the liberal participation percentage. Yet notice the 9% drop in moderate voter participation and the concomitant 10% increase in conservative turnout. Republicans were pumped for that election but their turnout tends to be higher in midterms anyway. Millions of moderate voters either flipped to conservative or stayed home in 2010.”

“As you can see, all the Democratic groups dropped, but the liberal Democrats dropped least of all”

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/news/2012/11/08/44348/the-return-of-the-obama-coalition/
Ideology. Liberals were 25 percent of voters in 2012, up from 22 percent in 2008. Since 1992 the percent of liberals among presidential voters has varied in a narrow band between 20 percent and 22 percent, so the figure for this year is quite unusual. Conservatives, at 35 percent, were up one point from the 2008 level, but down a massive 7 points since 2010.

Ideology. Obama received less support in 2012 from all ideology groups, though the drop-offs were not particularly sharp in any group. He received 86 percent support from liberals (89 percent in 2008), 56 percent from moderates (60 percent in 2008), and 17 percent from conservatives (20 percent in 2008).

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2010-midterms-political-price-economic-pain/story?id=12041739
Democrats and Republicans were at parity in self-identification nationally, 36-36 percent, a return to the close division seen in years before 2008, when it broke dramatically in the Democrats' favor, 40-33 percent.
Swing-voting independents who, as usual, made the difference, favored Republicans for House by a thumping 16 points, 55-39 percent. Compare that to Obama's 8-point win among independents in 2008. It was the Republicans' biggest win among independents in exit polls dating to 1982 (by two points. The GOP won independents by 14 points in 1994, the last time they took control of the House.)

[puffy socks]

292. yeah right...

In 2008, for instance, 57.1% of the voting-age population cast ballots — the highest level in four decades — as Barack Obama became the first African American elected president. But two years later only 36.9% voted in the midterm election that put the House back in Republican hands. For Obama’s re-election in 2012, turnout rebounded to 53.7%.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/24/voter-turnout-always-drops-off-for-midterm-elections-but-why/

[LondonReign2]

298. Your link does not make your lie true

You tried, as conservadems often do, to blame the losses on the false premise that liberals stayed home. In fact, the links I provided prove that isn't true. Yes, fewer people vote in mid-terms, but the percentage of liberals voting drops the least.

Liberals are the most reliable voting block, but that doesn't stop conservatives from trying to blame them anyway. tell a lie often enough and people will believe it, eh?

[puffy socks]

299. Sorry

The liberal site I was on at the time had lots of people stating that they did not vote in 2010 to punish Obama for not starting with the single-payer healthcare plan

And the numbers back that up so try as you might to blame all politicians and anybody but yourself it's people continuing to vote their individual consciences and not being able to build a team of that keeps liberals out of power.
And now we have progressive purity tests from the Sandrs crowd
Bernie Sanders' campaign was about honesty and integrity and so many of his supporters are anything but honest I have any integrity. y'all blew it for him. He might've been a lot better if his supporters instead really concentrated on the issues and come up with a viable answers on how to work these things out instead of just calling us names and posting ridiculous edited videos when questioned about it

[LondonReign2]

300. You continue to lie in the face of the data

Your "lots of people" is nothing more than anecdotal mush.

You continue to lie that "the numbers back that up", a flat out falsehood as proven by the links in my post. Liberals are the most reliable voters, its the mushy middle you lose. Just keep telling these lies though, eh?

I am not surprised you no longer consider yourself a liberal. Liberals like to tell the truth, but you've embraced telling the lie over and over again.

[puffy socks]

302. That's why I pulled out the pew research

It shows the numbers liberals did not come out in the boat young people did not come out and vote in either 2010 or 2014 that's a fact

[LondonReign2]

303. Nope

You're spinning the same old lie, Carl. Liberals made up a higher percentage in the mid-terms than in the generals.

Facts: Liberals like them, others not so much.

[puffy socks]

304. Here you go, honey...

A recent paper by Brown University researcher Brian Knight seeks to evaluate that surge-and-decline theory, as well as two competing explanations of why the president’s party nearly always loses seats at the midterms: a “presidential penalty,” or general preference among midterm voters for expressing dissatisfaction with the president’s performance or ensuring that his party doesn’t control all the levers of government, and recurring shifts in voter ideology between presidential and midterm elections. Knight concluded that while all three factors contribute to what he calls the “midterm gap,” the presidential penalty has the most impact.

In any event, if 2014 follows the trend Democrats are almost certain to lose seats in the House and Senate this November, and many pollsters predict as much. As Knight notes, since 1842 the President’s party has lost seats in 40 of 43 midterms — the exceptions being 1934, 1998 and 2002. (Whether Republicans will pick up enough Senate seats to take control of that chamber is a much closer question.) And as Campbell concluded in his paper, “For the congressional candidates of the president’s party, the return to normalcy at the midterm represents a loss.”

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/24/voter-turnout-always-drops-off-for-midterm-elections-but-why/



Voter turnout data for United States
The table below shows the statistics from recent elections in United States. The data has been verified where possible. You can click on any cell to see when the data was last reviewed.

Voter Participation Rates

2014 42.50%
2012 64.44%
2010 48.59%
2008 64.36%

http://www.idea.int/vt/countryview.cfm?CountryCode=US



Enjoy your day!

[LondonReign2]

305. Well pumpkin, you don't seem to understand data

You're arguing one thing (liberals don't show up to vote) and using data that shows another thing (voting percentages go down in mid-terms). Perhaps you failed logic class?

Have a spectacular day little darlin'.

[Dragonfli]

269. .

[Silver_Witch]

301. Exactly!

Winning means putting more people in office not less!

[northernsouthern]

251. Lol, that is funny...

...because you completely missed the point of the post calling out HRC fans for not realizing the indepedants are needed, because more republicans voted. But hey keep bragging about how you one candidate that rigged the election against basically two others is getting more votes than a guy in a race with almost three times more people running.

[leveymg]

47. They lose, over and over again, DWS and the others still keep their cushy jobs.

Last edited Tue May 3, 2016, 09:36 AM - Edit history (1)

Their job, as they see it, is to make and keep the Democratic Party corporate RW -- and to maintain power, themselves -- even if that means they lose every election. Makes no difference to them.

[cantbeserious]

52. Crony Establishment Capitalism

eom

[senz]

117. ^^^ This ^^^

Their contempt for any whiff of independence from within the American people is telling.

They want to control us.

[Enthusiast]

273. I have considered alternative reasons they have kept DWS in power. None of them good.

The big one is scary. But I'm afraid it is true. Maintaining a Republican majority massively favors the corporate agenda. Makes you go, "Hmmmm."

[Renew Deal]

2. DWS didn't say what you said she said. You keep making stuff up.

Thanks for the concern.

[Buzz Clik]

5. +1

[berni_mccoy]

6. Stick your head in the sand

[Renew Deal]

9. Tell the truth

Get a direct quote.

[berni_mccoy]

14. Prove me wrong

[Renew Deal]

19. Prove your point

You've been lying about this for two days.

[berni_mccoy]

22. I did. You have countered with nothing but empty statements that I'm wrong

You're doing it wrong

[Renew Deal]

24. No you didn't. You made up that quote.

She didn't say it or anything like it. It's a lie.

[berni_mccoy]

29. Her actual words are worse. Of course I paraphrased but for those interested

"If it were up to me, I'd exclude independents" - DWS exact quote

[Renew Deal]

35. Close enough

Because she never said we didn't need them. And most Democrats would probably agree with her. She also said it was her personal opinion and that the states decide.

[CentralMass]

38. Not this Democrat. Why would either party not what to include and to attract independent voters ?

[berni_mccoy]

40. Yep she said as the leader of the DNC that if it were up to her

She'd exclude them. Plain and simple. Not only does that say we don't need independents but we don't WANT THEM.

[Renew Deal]

45. You just acknowledged she didn't say that and now you're saying it again?

[Qutzupalotl]

223. If it were up to her, she'd exclude people she needs and wants.

Makes sense to me.

[WhiteTara]

186. From Primaries. nt

[pacalo]

264. Berni McCoy is not making it up, Renew...

http://usuncut.com/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-primaries/

If it were up to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, America’s largest bloc of voters wouldn’t be able to vote in any Democratic primaries.

Wasserman Schultz said in an interview on Bloomberg Politics’ “All Due Respect” on Monday that she would prefer all Democratic primaries to be closed to anyone who is not a member of the party, which would mean millions of voters would effectively have had their voices silenced during the primary and caucus process.

“I believe that the party’s nominee should be chosen — this is Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s opinion — that the party’s nominee should be chosen by members of the party,” Schultz said.

[Dem2]

81. Logical Fallacy

You lose.

[stonecutter357]

111. Stick your head in the sand.

[Kelvin Mace]

57. She said she didn't need independents picking the Democratic nominee

Which leaves it to the Dems, specifically the Vichy Dem wing of the party who are putting their thumb on the scale to pick the weaker candidate for the general.

So yeah, no matter how you parse it, it was a stupid thing to say, never mind a stupid tactic.

Also, should HRC get elected, she will immediately face GOP moves to impeach, and a never ending onslaught against her. DWS has told the only people who might have her back, "Piss off, we don't need you!".

I was told the Clintons were supposed to be politically astute, apparently arrogance is what passes for astuteness in the Dem leadership these days.

[The Second Stone]

242. The OP is mentally unhinged and a huge liar

divorced from reality and off in Trotsky-land.

[Buzz Clik]

3. The "Democratic" candidate for the "Democrats" is losing by 300 delegates.

He is an Independent.
They are unregistered, unaffiliated, or Independents.
And none of them get to tell me whether or not I'm a Democrat.

But I get to tell you that I'm going for the century mark on my Ignore list. You're 93. I'll clear the list when Skinner calls it.

Till we meet again...

[berni_mccoy]

8. Deny the reality of the real problem at your own peril

[Renew Deal]

11. Your concern is duly noted

[Buzz Clik]

12. ..

[NCTraveler]

7. Time to stop the hypotheticals that have no basis in reality.

It's Clinton vs Trump. What do the polls you love so much and talk about as if they don't change say about that.

You are also blatantly lying about DWS. I say that as someone who has absolutely no love for her.

[berni_mccoy]

10. Reality is Hillary is the most unfavorable candidate in history

[Renew Deal]

13. I'm glad you like her so much

10. Reality is Hillary is the most I liked candidate in history

[NCTraveler]

15. Nice deflection. Nt

[berni_mccoy]

18. Finally an admission you're wrong

[NCTraveler]

28. I did no such thing.

Though there is no doubt I have been wrong before.

In these polls you love so much, how does Clinton do head to head against Trump?

[berni_mccoy]

30. When your response is to say "DEFLECTION!!1!1"

When it's completely on point, then it's an admission that you're full of shit

[NCTraveler]

32. You went full on deflection.

Do these polls you love so much show Clinton beating Trump?

I'm so glad I don't have to argue from your side. What are the 1's and exclamation points in your reply for? You went from deflection to projection.

[berni_mccoy]

41. I mentioned her unfavorability in my OP and I backed it up

When you challenged my point. Totally not a deflection and you totally conceded the point.

[NCTraveler]

46. Do the polls you love so much show her beating Trump? nt.

[leftynyc]

84. You called her the most

unpopular IN HISTORY. CLEARLY that's a lie as Trumps's are higher than hers. So you're LYING all over place and putting words into other's mouths. Why should anyone listen to what you have to say in light of that?

[redstateblues]

64. That's not true either

[JudyM]

75. Look at the argument, NCTraveler, though... it is about who can best defeat tRump, can you address

that issue, specifically? Putting aside all snark and deflection and everything if you would, I'm interested to know whether you see the OP's point...

[bettyellen]

183. I am sure you know it is expected that SBS unfavorables will plunge once anyone runs negative....

against him. That is a pretty important factor here, Judy.

[JudyM]

187. That is not the issue... same as anyone, but his negatives are minuscule in relation to hers.

[bettyellen]

192. What the entire electorate will see as SBS's negatives have not been put out there. The better

candidates are known, their favorability plunges. There are going to be a lot of things that you and I do not mind about Sanders that the rest of the country just will not abide. Hillary's negatives have been thrown directly in her face at every debate. SBS got a small taste of it at the Univision debate but that is about it.

With his weak support from Dems- how many less votes he is getting than Hillary of Donald- he is a bigger risk.

[JudyM]

194. Most of her margin over him is, like it or not, as a practical matter, not going to help in the GE.

Simple geography.

[bettyellen]

195. She is winning the swing states. He is winning tiny empty red states- and that means nothing.

Like it or not- Clinton's demographics are what we need to win in Nov. SBS made an error being so late to create coalitions.

[coyote]

16. Don't worry...Clinton supporters say they have this

I think they are in for a helluva surprise in November.

[Cobalt Violet]

58. unfortuantly that's what it will take.

They're so blind to how disliked and scandal ridden she is. It's only going to get worse between now and November.

[brooklynite]

17. Since we don't have a national election, what States will she lose?

[thesquanderer]

309. I guess I'd say that anything that isn't in the "Solid D" column would be considered at some risk...

...based on the listing at this site

http://cookpolitical.com/presidential/charts/scorecard

[brooklynite]

311. Cook Political: the people that gave us "The Numbers Favor Hillary Clinton Over Trump"

http://cookpolitical.com/story/9599

[thesquanderer]

312. Correct. So what's the issue?

Yes, that's the article that goes with the map I linked to. The numbers DO favor Hillary. If you give her the Solid D, Likely D, and the Lean D columns, she gets 304 EV. All I'm saying is that "likely" and "lean" have some risk of going the other way, otherwise they would be in the "solid" column. So we should not take them for granted.

[NurseJackie]

20. Quick! Get the smelling salts!

[yourpaljoey]

21. How can anyone argue with that? She will be shredded

[Renew Deal]

25. How about with the truth. The quote is made up.

[Firebrand Gary]

23. What were your hopes for posting this?

You got ZERO Hillary supporters to come around to your way of thinking. We could both play this game you know?

If Bernie can't win African American voters he will not win the general election. Period.

If Bernie can't win democrat voters he will not win in the general election. Period.

If Bernie can't win Hispanic voters he will not win in the general election. Period.

If Bernie can't win LGBT voters he will not win in the general election. Period.

If Bernie can't win female voters he will not win in the general election. Period.

You always like to point the finger, but you never account for your candidates own weaknesses. You don't get to assume the these voting blocs will automatically come to your candidate, if you're going to use that argument, we will assume that indy's will flock to us as well. The difference between our candidates, what perceived negatives that Hillary has are all already on the table. Bernie's are still in his closet and the HRC campaign has been incredibly generous in leaving those bones alone, where as Trump will not be.

[Renew Deal]

26. But we're supposed to pick thup less popular second place guy.

Duh

[Ed Suspicious]

31. Bernie can win all those voting blocs with time and exposure.

Clinton only looks worse to Indies the more they get to know her.

[Renew Deal]

36. He's had both and it's not happening.

[Firebrand Gary]

39. Nice try.

You're being disingenuous. Hillary deserves the same treatment to earn the independent vote, she's running against an Independent-which naturally favors him. You also disregarded what I wrote about Bernie's skeleton's. We both know that his numbers would fall like bricks in water, luckily for him he will not get that scrutiny. He get's to build a movement without having his character called into question.

[redstateblues]

65. Bernie got less votes than Trump

The media has kept Bernie propped up for months-they like that $ that Bernie keeps giving them. Bernie has worn voters out with his one note campaign

[frylock]

203. So more people are coming out to vote for Republicans, specifically, Trump.

And you're boasting about that?

[dana_b]

109. You don't think that Democrats would vote for Bernie if he wins the nomination?

Really? Or women? Or ANY of them actually. Would they all run to Trump or not vote?

Sorry - I'm not seeing what you see at ALL!

[pdsimdars]

137. They are so blind they seem to have lost the ability to think.

[mikehiggins]

177. Bernie's skeletons. Such as? eom

[Kip Humphrey]

228. We revealed the degree to which Hillarians will sell their souls to defend the indefensible in DWS.

It has been very insightful and, yet again, ironically humorous.

[sufrommich]

27. What is the demographics of Trump voters again?

I notice that's always overlooked in these warnings,why is that?

[Betty Karlson]

33. all true,

and all ignored by Debbie and the other DINOs.

[democrank]

34. As far as Wasserman Schultz is concerned

I think of a scenario where the aristocrats meet behind closed doors to discuss the fact that someone new....not quite up to their standards....requested permission to move into the village.

[Progressive dog]

42. There is a reason that independents don't have a party of their own

and don't have their own candidates. Democrats won four of the last six Presidential elections without letting independents vote in all the primaries. In fact, NY state, with a closed primary, voted for all six of the Democratic candidates. Fifty percent of voters in NY are registered Democrats.
BTW: DWS did not say "we don't need independents" so next time try to spell it out correctly.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. Because

Dr. Larry J. Sabato is the founder and director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. He is also the University Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, and has had visiting appointments at Oxford University and Cambridge University in Great Britain. A Rhodes Scholar, he received his doctorate from Oxford, and he is the author or editor of two dozen books on American politics.

Prof. Sabato directs the Center for Politics’ Crystal Ball website, a leader in accurately predicting elections since its inception. In 2004, the Crystal Ball notched a 99 percent accuracy rate in predicting all races for House, Senate, Governor and each state’s Electoral College outcome. In 2006, the Pew Research Center and the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Project for Excellence in Journalism recognized the Crystal Ball as the leader in the field of political predictors, noting that the site “came closer than any other of the top ten potential predictors this cycle.”
In 2008, the Crystal Ball came within one electoral vote of the exact tally in the Electoral College, while also correctly picking the result of every single gubernatorial and Senate race across the country. In 2010, the Crystal Ball was the first to forecast a solid Republican takeover of the House. While others were predicting a Romney victory in 2012, the Crystal Ball forecast a substantial Obama margin in the Electoral College, and ultimately missed just two states. The Crystal Ball had a combined 97% accuracy rate in forecasting the Electoral College, Senate, House and gubernatorial contests.
Earlier this year, the Crystal Ball won a “Beast Best” award from The Daily Beast as one of the top political sites on the web.
In 2013 Prof. Sabato won an Emmy award for the television documentary Out of Order, which he produced to highlight the dysfunctional U.S. Senate. In 2014, Prof. Sabato won a second Emmy award for the PBS documentary The Kennedy Half-Century, which covers the life, assassination, and lasting legacy of President John F. Kennedy.
In October 2013, Prof. Sabato and the Center for Politics unveiled the Kennedy Half Century project. The project consisted of a New York Times bestselling book, The Kennedy Half-Century PBS documentary, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) available on Coursera and iTunes U, an app with the complete recordings and transcripts from Dealey Plaza on 11/22/63, and a website (www.thekennedyhalfcentury.com).
Prof. Sabato is also very active on social media. His Twitter feed (@LarrySabato) was named by Time Magazine as one of the 140 best Twitter feeds of 2014.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/staff_sabato.html

[tabasco]

100. Please note the 100 electoral votes indicated as "leaning D"

and understand how quickly that can change.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

106. Lots of things are theoretically possible. That's why they establish odds and HRC is a 1-3 favorite.

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner

[thesquanderer]

310. Odds six months out, like polls, cannot be accepted as totally reliable.

In fact, the odds are, in part, based on those same kinds of "untrustworthy" polls that tell us that Sanders beats Trump more decisively than Hillary does.

[auntpurl]

44. Primary voting patterns do not reflect GE voting patterns

The Republicans have 3 (and began with even more) contenders in the race; the Dems have two, and Hillary was widely expected to win many of the southern states. That depresses voting. There is no reason to believe we will have fewer voters in the GE; in fact, with Trump likely to get the nomination, that will bring all sorts of voters out in droves to vote against him.

I can't think how many times Bernie supporters on DU have asserted some "truth" that relies on primary voting patterns predicting GE voting patterns, which is demonstrably not true. This is a basic fact of how elections work, along with the idea of sample ballots, closed primaries, and needing to register to vote in a primary. Things that most voters understand because they've been through an election before.

[Tarc]

50. I'd dearly like to know what these sports of threads hope to acomplish?

Is there still hope that you're going to woo the superdelegates away from Hillary at convention time?

[FreakinDJ]

53. "Dumb Ass Debbie" is no stranger to losing elections for Democrats

[JoePhilly]

54. More ranting.

[Skwmom]

55. Hillary has a problem with Democrats.

[yallerdawg]

56. No problem letting "independents" and Republicans...

pick the Democratic nominee?

Open primaries?

I crossover every chance I get to pick the worst (my "best for Democrats&quot Republican Party candidates.

I voted for Alabama's Gov. Bentley in the first term primary runoff a few years ago! Now what a gift to the Alabama Democratic Party! You should have seen the other two rightwing evils!

DWS is well aware of the mischief and havoc open primaries can create in the nominating process. In fact, the primary purpose of superdelegates is to offset potentially disastrous voting!

If our party nominated an independent self-described socialist, we'd be looking at this again:

[IamMab]

59. You don't speak for all independents. Stop playing already.

These childish tactics aren't going to win you any support, and pretending to how more influence than you actually do isn't going to accomplish anything other than embarrassing you even further.

[rock]

60. We have prepared an offer for you: please read

[RufusTFirefly]

73. Haha! Great analogy! Glad you were the one who made it.

If I had compared Hillary to Michael Corleone, I would've been alerted on for sure.

[rock]

74. Yep

Even Corleone can be more sensible than BSers. I appreciate you support.

[JimDandy]

121. Corleone is certainly more corrupt.

That's the analogy you set up with Clinton, your candidate.

If the shoe fits...

Deal with it.

[rock]

155. It doesn't

Thanks.

[Hydra]

254. Isn't is amazing? They're getting more honest by the day. n/t

[senz]

205. Thanks for confirming the ugliness we've long suspected.

It fits so well with your candidate.

I now think we have every right to do whatever we can to stop the atrocity from occurring.

[rock]

207. Whne I called myself ugly, I didn't think that any body needed confirmation

In any case I suggest you go vote. That's the way we do it in a Democracy. Now if you would only learn the other rules.

[NCTraveler]

61. It's clear Sanders doesn't have the enthusiasm of Obama.

"The Republicans so far have turned out 7 million more voters than those who have voted in the Democratic primary"

The lack of enthusiasm at the polls for him has really made our numbers look down. It would be much better if he was able to excite as many people to vote as Clinton.

[Gothmog]

62. Democrats would be insane to nominate Bernie Sanders

Sanders is not a viable general election candidate and would do poorly in a general election matchup. The silly match polls used by Sanders are worthless. Dana Milbank has some good comments on general election match up polls https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/democrats-would-be-insane-to-nominate-bernie-sanders/2016/01/26/0590e624-c472-11e5-a4aa-f25866ba0dc6_story.html?hpid=hp_opinions-for-wide-side_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Sanders and his supporters boast of polls showing him, on average, matching up slightly better against Trump than Clinton does. But those matchups are misleading: Opponents have been attacking and defining Clinton for a quarter- century, but nobody has really gone to work yet on demonizing Sanders.

Watching Sanders at Monday night’s Democratic presidential forum in Des Moines, I imagined how Trump — or another Republican nominee — would disembowel the relatively unknown Vermonter.

The first questioner from the audience asked Sanders to explain why he embraces the “socialist” label and requested that Sanders define it “so that it doesn’t concern the rest of us citizens.”

Sanders, explaining that much of what he proposes is happening in Scandinavia and Germany (a concept that itself alarms Americans who don’t want to be like socialized Europe), answered vaguely: “Creating a government that works for all of us, not just a handful of people on the top — that’s my definition of democratic socialism.”

But that’s not how Republicans will define socialism — and they’ll have the dictionary on their side. They’ll portray Sanders as one who wants the government to own and control major industries and the means of production and distribution of goods. They’ll say he wants to take away private property. That wouldn’t be fair, but it would be easy. Socialists don’t win national elections in the United States .

Sanders on Monday night also admitted he would seek massive tax increases — “one of the biggest tax hikes in history,” as moderator Chris Cuomo put it — to expand Medicare to all. Sanders, this time making a comparison with Britain and France, allowed that “hypothetically, you’re going to pay $5,000 more in taxes,” and declared, “W e will raise taxes, yes we will.” He said this would be offset by lower health-insurance premiums and protested that “it’s demagogic to say, oh, you’re paying more in taxes.”

Well, yes — and Trump is a demagogue.

Sanders also made clear he would be happy to identify Democrats as the party of big government and of wealth redistribution. When Cuomo said Sanders seemed to be saying he would grow government “bigger than ever,” Sanders didn’t quarrel, saying, “P eople want to criticize me, okay,” and “F ine, if that’s the criticism, I accept it.”

Sanders accepts it, but are Democrats ready to accept ownership of socialism, massive tax increases and a dramatic expansion of government? If so, they will lose.

Match up polls are worthless because these polls do not measure what would happen to Sanders in a general election where Sanders is very vulnerable to negative ads.

The OP analysis is only meaningful if Sanders is a viable general election candidate which most Democrats do not believe

[ChisolmTrailDem]

265. Dana Milbank: blah blah blah blah blah ... Derp! ... blah blah blah... fart.

[Bettie]

68. They tell us constantly that they don't need

nearly half the Dems too.

All of us who voted for Sanders in our respective primaries are neither needed nor wanted.

They also don't need independents.

[Jester Messiah]

76. To quote Upton Sinclair

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Some don't want to understand, and some are paid not to. Either way...

[EndElectoral]

118. Love me some Upton

[KittyWampus]

77. You seem to have a hard time with the concept Sanders has NEVER been vetted

and would be politically DOA the second he was nominated.

His entire history is a political goldmine for Republicans.

And he's thin-skinned and totally unable to answer any questions in depth.

He can't talk to a crowd and can only do rallies.

AND he doesn't know how to correct the direction of his campaign when it makes a mistake.

[99Forever]

78. Being the accommodating sort of fellow I am...

...having been told that Clinton Incorporated neither wants or needs my support or vote. I am happy to comply with those wishes.

[leftynyc]

85. Can you link me to the quote

by whoever you're talking about that said they didn't want or need your vote. I've yet to find someone who can actually provide one. Want to give it a shot?

[senz]

120. Here's your goddamn link --

http://usuncut.com/politics/debbie-wasserman-schultz-primaries/

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Would Exclude Independents from Voting in Primaries

If it were up to DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, America’s largest bloc of voters wouldn’t be able to vote in any Democratic primaries.

Wasserman Schultz said in an interview on Bloomberg Politics’ “All Due Respect” on Monday that she would prefer all Democratic primaries to be closed to anyone who is not a member of the party, which would mean millions of voters would effectively have had their voices silenced during the primary and caucus process.

“I believe that the party’s nominee should be chosen — this is Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s opinion — that the party’s nominee should be chosen by members of the party,” Schultz said.

She also said that “we should not have independents or Republicans playing games” before one of the anchors cuts her off with the question of “crossover appeal” in terms of determining how viable a candidate truly is in the general election.

Wasserman Schultz’s statements are revealing, as most of Bernie Sanders’ victories in the 2016 primaries and caucuses have been in open or semi-closed primaries, in which independent voters are allowed to cast Democratic ballots.

... and there's more ...

[leftynyc]

123. Just as I suspected

This was about the PRIMARIES. I'm sorry you think republicans should be able to ratfuck our primaries but I disagree strongly. There is NOTHING in that GODDAMN quote that says independents weren't needed for the general. So I'm still waiting for the quote you all insist is there. I'll keep waiting.

[senz]

125. Independents are not Republicans.

You ought to know that.

And of course Democrats can't control how anyone votes in the General.

[leftynyc]

129. So what?

You let independents vote, you're letting republicans vote also and I don't want them having one ounce of say in who our candidate is. This isn't rocket science.

[senz]

134. Explain your reasoning.

Aren't there lists of registered Republicans, registered Independents, and registered Democrats?

[leftynyc]

141. I'm not sure what you're asking

Moving from closed to open primaries allows republicans to vote in our primaries (I'm talking about NY and our rules). Or are you saying registered Independents should be able to fuck with either parties primaries? How about the unaffiliated?

[senz]

164. Hm. Something's wrong with the system.

I can understand what you're saying.

Something has gone very wrong.

When ossified Party officials can decide way in advance whom they will support in the primary and not leave the process completely open and available to party members who prefer a different candidate, then the party is thwarting its members. That not only runs counter to the principles on which this country was founded, but it is also destined to kill the party. It's like death by strangulation.

Our party was overtaken by Blue Dog Dems years ago and now it has left no room for any but the official party line. Bernie Sanders is everything Democrats used to be and Hillary is everything Republicans used to be. The genuine liberal/progressive voice -- the American left, itself -- has been pushed out of the process.

Something's gotta give. It's big, and it's coming.

[leftynyc]

168. Ah - I see one of the problems right here

your quote

When ossified Party officials can decide way in advance whom they will support in the primary and not leave the process completely open and available to party members who prefer a different candidate

PARTY MEMBERS

My candidate didn't win in 2008 - although she was much closer in pledged delegates than Bernie is now and actually WON the popular vote over then Sen Obama. I didn't whine about it, I didn't quit the party over it. I sucked it up and voted for the better candidate in the general (a no brainer both times).

I watched the teabaggers take over the GOP with zero input from their establishment - in fact their establishment fought them every step of the way. But 89 of them are now in congress. Are you saying we're too stupid or lazy to learn how to do the same? I will never think NY should have open primaries so we'll just have to agree to disagree on that concept.

[senz]

191. There's a difference -- in both your scenarios.

First scenario. The differences between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in 2008 were not deeply ideological. They were primarily personal differences -- character, mainly. (If I go into details, you'll get pissed, so let's just leave it at that.)

The differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are deeply and fundamentally ideological. There are also serious personal (character) issues, but the push behind the Bernie movement is propelled by rebellion against the direction the country has taken since Reagan -- i.e. the corporate takeover of America which has created conditions that are antithetical to a comfortable, sustainable middle class as well as to the basic principles of democracy.

Second scenario. Teabaggers are primarily the product of rightwing propaganda that has channeled discomfort with societal and economic changes into social fear and scapegoating; there is very little intellect in it, it is essentially a controlled form of mass hysteria. It is partly based in reality but mostly imagination. It's very dangerous. It's also, if you have a liberal heart, sad.

In other words, the teabagger phenomenon is the Republican Frankenstein's monster; it's their own creation turned against them.

I'm getting tired, but I hope this is enough to help you understand the difference between the two situations.

[frylock]

204. What's my motivation to participate in a GE that I had no voice in?

[leftynyc]

221. I would think

not getting another Scalia on the court would be enough for anyone who cares about women's rights, minority rights, voting rights, the environment and a dozen other issues important to me. The federal bench (which includes the circuit courts) are where all the REAL decisions are made. This is my issue - nothing else comes close to the federal bench. Everything else is secondary.

[Adrahil]

82. At the end of teh day, you have to convince DEMOCRATS that you're the best candidate.

Uncle Bernie has failed to do that.

[senz]

171. The Party elite were "ready for Hillary" long before she announced her candidacy.

They had shut out yellow dog Democrats ages ago. Finally it's coming to a head.

They think they're winning now but they are moving toward a dead end. It can't last.

[dana_b]

108. they ignore us, they don't want us to vote in the primaries

we want "ponies" and all that shit or evidently we're all right wingers who want Trump , but then they want us to vote for the crap candidate that they shove down EVERYONE'S throat in the GE??

Nah... they can do just FINE without us, apparently.

[Autumn]

110. I thought it was a very liberating comment. I don't know about anyone else but it's a package deal

If I am not welcome in her house to help select who represents me, I'm not voting for whomever the democrats select.

[senz]

124. Lifelong Democrat here. They have sold out the people

and they sure as hell can't tell me what to do.

[frylock]

206. Word up.

[NurseJackie]

114. Reasonable "Independents" will rally behind Hillary. The "HillaryHaters" will not. We don't care ...

This is why comments like DWS "We don't need the independents" comment so damn stupid.

... about the HillaryHaters, nor do we need them.

The Republicans so far have turned out 7 million more voters than those who have voted in the Democratic primary.

Yet Hillary still leads the pack in total votes and Bernie is behind Trump in total votes.

(Did I sound like a RWer *that* time? )

[EndElectoral]

119. They are completely in denial

[leeroysphitz]

127. "We don't need the independents" Um yeah... Good luck with THAT.

Swinging the independents is how elections are won in this country.

[tonyt53]

130. Most of these new voters behind Bernie wouldn't show up in Nov anyway

By then, their interest will be some place else. What you have no concept of is that people over 50 vote reliably. And those numbers are far beyond those of Bernie-ites.

[senz]

211. Lots of us "Bernie-ites" are over 50

and very reliable voters.

[HassleCat]

133. Classic primary behavior.

Primaries are regarded as being for the regular, the faithful, the "true" party members. Primary campaigns play to their wishes, their issues, their emotions. Then the winning candidates run away from everything they said and did to attract the primary voters. Trump is the interesting factor here. I'm pretty sure Clinton will turn right as soon as she secures the nomination. Trump? Maybe he will not moderate his tone or his opinions. He is a real wild card, as well as a wild man. He could end up to the left of Clinton on some issues. That would give us some trouble.

[Garrett78]

144. Obama lost the independent vote in 2012.

And he lost it in nearly every swing state--by double digits in the crucial state of Ohio, in fact. Yet he won Ohio and he won re-election in a landslide.

Of course Clinton will get some "independents" to vote for her. Millions. And millions of others won't vote for her, such as Tea Party members (about half of whom self-identify as "independent&quot .

If Sanders can't beat Clinton and is only remotely close thanks to caucuses, why would anyone think he's more likely than Clinton to win in the general election? And before you say it, hypothetical general election match-up polls mean nothing at this juncture (if they did, Dukakis would have become POTUS).

If Clinton is a "shitty" candidate, doesn't that make Sanders a shittier candidate?

[apnu]

151. Where are the facts coming from to back up these claimes?

If Hillary can't win independent voters she will not win the general election. Period.

She has unprecedented unfavorable ratings among independents, over 70%.

The Republicans so far have turned out 7 million more voters than those who have voted in the Democratic primary.

This is why Hillary polls so poorly against Trump, who has better favorability ratings with independents.

Sources please.

[Agnosticsherbet]

152. In the General Election, with Clinton v. Trump, I trust independents to look at their choices

and choose in their best interests.

The Primary and the General Election are very different elections in their purpose and in their electorate.

Now, if an independent looks at the choices and chooses Trump, they want a racist, antisemitic, sexist, bigoted, white supremacist, 1 percenter as their President. No Democrat would their votes anyway.

[The Second Stone]

156. Let's spell it out for the anti-democrats

Hillary has millions of more votes than Bernie. She has hundreds of more delegates. This is a democracy, not a Trotskyite socialist dictatorship. Clinton has the democratic nomination sown up, as does Trump with the Republican nomination. One of them will prevail in November. The winner will be president. Sanders will not be the winner, or even on the ballot in November.

Those of us who have voted for the candidate who has the clear majority are ready to move on and face the challenged of beating back the racists, sexist, fascist unexperienced and unqualified Trump. Not all the Sanders supporters want to stop the racist, sexist, fascist and unexperienced and unqualified Trump. They are not obliged to in a free country. They can in fact spend the rest of their lives whining about how a democracy made a majority vote for someone other than Bernie Sanders. They can do that long after Bernie Sanders has retired and eventually dies.

[senz]

201. What we have now is not democracy.

When the people's choices are constrained by party elites and when the people's access to information is controlled by a corporate media, we do not have democracy.

The only reason Bernie Sanders has been able to so effectively challenge an all sewed-up nomination is through internet, social media and word of mouth by those who are still able to think for themselves.

This has been an outbreak of democracy flourishing like the weeds that comes up through cracks in cement.

The movement against corporate control over our government was brewing long before Bernie came along to light the fire (feel the bern) among the people, and your hopes for Bernie's retirement and death will not kill that spirit.

The only way the establishment's beastly candidates can hope to maintain control over the people would be through totalitarianism. And even that would eventually fail.

[The Second Stone]

231. The majority of the Democratic Party rank and file are quite happy

with the prospect of nominating Hillary Clinton. That it happens to coincide with the "elites" or "establishment" is not a disqualification if the majority are happy with it. And in the Democratic Party, by a margin of several million, the people have voted for Hillary Clinton.

That you poo-poo this as elites in favor of a candidate who has garnered a minority of the votes is fundamentally anti-Democratic. But it is Trotskyite. A form of authoritarian socialism of which Bernie Sanders was once a proud member, which he has never disavowed, and which many of his followers are knowingly following, and others are unknowingly following.

Vituperative name calling the majority "elites" is an Orwellian use of language.

Your objection that the two major parties do not reorganize themselves to accommodate Trotskyist takeover of the majority rule in each party is laughable. The Republican elites very much did not want to nominate Trump (or Cruz), but at least they abide by majority decisions. That's more than can be said for the Trotskyites.

[senz]

234. You know perfectly well that by "elites" I mean elites, not rank and file.

Typical dishonest reply from a dishonest campaign.

Your red scare tactics betray a deeply rightwing politics as well as dishonesty.

[The Second Stone]

241. Your reply is divorced from reality and your original post

be expected from a Trotskyite. I gather you didn't expect to be called on your casual use of "elites" as smearing the majority for daring to exercise their vote in a way that does not meet with your authoritarian approval. Tough. This is America, and we abide by majority votes.

And I am not a right winger (you lie about that), I am an FDR Democrat. Your failure to accept majority votes demonstrates that you are a totalitarian. Like Trotsky. Sanders has lost, and it isn't close. He lost by millions of votes. You whine about it like a lazy loser, calling the winner names.

You whine about not being able to rearrange the rules of the political party to benefit a guy who only joined 8 months ago? Really? Do you know how freakin' stupid that sounds? And how dishonest it is?

[senz]

243. Bernie Sanders' socialism is pure FDR

Here is part of his talk on socialism at Georgetown University

[The Second Stone]

244. Pure in the sense that some of his followers

feel that the millions of voters who disagree with them should have their votes ignored.

The refusal of his followers to accept that the person with the fewest votes in the party must endorse and work with the person that got the most votes has nothing to do with purity. For those people, it's a narcissistic cult or personality.

We won, you lost. Congratulate us and join us, or go form your own "pure socialism" party.

[Pisces]

196. I know a few Repubs that will not be voting for Donald or anyone. I think there are

More of these than you understand. Very religious people are not voting for Donald. Many Repubilcan women are not voting for Donald. Good luck with your ridiculous theories. These are
Primary voters not general election voters that you are citing.

[BillZBubb]

279. You might want to check your sources on that. Trump has done well with evangelicals.

The religious right likes him. Republican women will fall in line and vote for him over Hillary.

Your anecdotal observations are meaningless.

[ContinentalOp]

199. hmm

If Hillary can't win independent voters she will not win the general election. Period.

Obama won without them in 2012

She has unprecedented unfavorable ratings among independents, over 70%.

Link?

The Republicans so far have turned out 7 million more voters than those who have voted in the Democratic primary.

That's on Sanders too. It's not any less of a problem for him than it is for Clinton.

This is why Hillary polls so poorly against Trump, who has better favorability ratings with independents.

Does she poll poorly against Trump? The polls I've seen show her winning.

If Hillary wins the "Democratic" nomination, she will need every voter that voted in the Democratic primary and more than 50% of the independent electorate who wasn't able to vote in the primaries.

You realize that not everybody votes in the primaries right? There are more voters than that.

[Ferd Berfel]

208. Excellent analysis!

Ignoring the reality of this is what will destroy the Party's chances of making any progress. I guess they would have to be Progressive to get this.

[Bill USA]

226. Let's spell it out for Bernie fans: HRC has won 12.2 miln votes, Trump: 10.1 miln, Bernie: 9.1 miln

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511891571

[smiley]

227. who needs independents

When we can hack the vote.

[doc03]

230. Bernie couldn't even win the Democratic votes

[bobthedrummer]

232. When you have the apparatchiks known as superdelegates, the vote suppression, etc you go crazy. n/t

It's Al From's Democratic Party..the rest of us just live here. The takeover. (madfloridian DU September 22, 2015)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10027191121

[Tommy_Carcetti]

236. Why are we assuming all "independents" are left-leaning?

People seem to think, for the purposes of discussing the Democratic primary, that anyone who is an independent must be some person who feels the Democratic party is not strong enough to the left to be affiliated with?

There are plenty of independent moderates, as well as independent conservatives.

[MyNameGoesHere]

238. Ok but what about "what da fuck are you" people?

I love your silly little quotes thingy

[Demsrule86]

247. She will be just fine

The faux Indies were always going to vote Trump not Bernie.

[Uncle Joe]

252. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, berni_mccoy.

[malokvale77]

255. "This is why comments like DWS "We don't need the independents" comment so damn stupid. "

Stupid is, as stupid does.

Hillary supporters will manage fine, whoever wins.

[BzaDem]

258. That's not accurate. Even Obama didn't need to win the independent vote in 2012.

First, many Democrats do not vote in the Democratic primary, and Clinton will get nearly all of those.

Second, presidential electorates tend to have more Democrats than Republicans. So Hillary does not need to win the independent vote. Indeed, Obama lost the independent vote by 5 points in 2012, and still won re-election handily. Many independents (though of course not all) are former Republicans who still typically vote Republican, but stopped identifying as such after growing disillusioned with GWB. We would not expect such a majority of such a skewed electorate to vote for the Democratic nominee if they aren't winning nationally by several points.

[berni_mccoy]

259. Lol. Obama won independents in 2008 by wide margin

And lost them by less than 5% in 2012, winning them in several swing states. Hillary is shaping up to lose them by double digits if she is the nominee.

[BzaDem]

261. What evidence do you have that she will lose independents by double digits?

Is it from a poll that also predicts she will win the general election? If so, why do you give it credence?

Other than two Rasmussen polls, the last 56 of 58 national polls show Clinton winning against Trump (by an average of 7 points). Some of those polls might show Clinton losing independents. But if those same polls show her winning the general, then that is likely caused by the pollster not pushing very hard for the voter to give the party they are leaning towards. As a result, many Republican leaners were included in the pool of independents.

The "unskewed polls" crowd got bit by this in 2012. They kept looking at polls showing Obama losing independents, ignoring the fact that those very same polls showed Obama winning overall. Sure enough, Obama won overall.

So if you want to argue that Clinton is weak among independents and that this actually matters, you need to look at polls that show Clinton losing both independents and overall. As I said, those are few and far between, because Clinton has a stubborn habbit of winning nearly all polls against Trump so far (usually by a lot).

[berni_mccoy]

262. In case you haven't noticed

Republican turnout is crushing Dem turnout, heading rapidly to a ten million voter turnout gap. Without winning independents by double digits we aren't going to be able to win the General Election.

[BzaDem]

263. I'm not sure how you get from "primary turnout gap" to "need to win independents by double digits"

Or frankly, a need to win a majority of independents at all.

The Republican primary was more contested than the Democratic primary. Hillary has held a consistent lead in pledged delegates since February, whereas the Republican primary has been a bit of a jump ball (at least as far as being unpredictable). In addition, the Republican party has been out of power for 8 years. It is not unsurprising in such circumstances for Republican turnout to exceed Democratic turnout.

Even if you don't agree with any of that, primary turnout simply does not correlate very well to general election results. It is occasionally a sign of something more, but typically is not. Democrats tend to have a turnout advantage in presidential elections, and the specter of a Trump presidency might even make the Democratic turnout advantage more pronounced than in previous years.

[onenote]

308. In case you haven't noticed, historically primary turnout is not a predictor of general election

results.

Looking at the last 11 election cycles, the party with higher primary turnout has lost 7 times and only won four.
Even if you take election years in which there is a strong, essentially unopposed incumbent in office (which would generally result in low turnout in the primaries for the incumbent's party), the result is basically a wash:



1976 - Ford was the incumbent, having succeeded Nixon upon the latter's resignation. Reagan mounted a strong primary challenge in what was essentially a two person race, with Ford getting the nod at the convention. On the Democratic side, the race was wide open with an extraordinary number of candidates. The top vote getter, Carter, did only slightly better than Ford in terms of popular vote, but the total Democratic turnout -- pumped up by the fact that Watergate had left the repub brand very badly damaged -- topped 15 million, compared to only around 10 million for the repubs. Carter, of course, won.

1980 - By 1980 Carter had become a fairly unpopular incumbent, with significant primary opposition (from Kennedy). The essentially two man race among the Democrats had higher turnout (17 million plus) than the three man repub race (Reagan, Bush and Anderson with 11.5 million votes) during primary season but Carter lost the GE.

1988 -- No incumbent -- Reagan was a relatively popular outgoing repub president (until just before the election his favorability levels had been fluctuating between 48 and 51 percent for the year). The primary turnout was much higher for Democrats (who had multiple candidates) than for the Repubs (who had basically a two person race between incumbent VP Bush and Dole), but the Democrats lost to Bush by a very large margin.

1992: -- I thought about putting this in category of an incumbent who was essentially unopposed. Bush was a not very popular incumbent president but he faced only moderate primary opposition from Buchanan. The Democrats had much higher primary turnout and won.

2000 -- No incumbent. President Clinton was a moderately popular outgoing Democratic president but carried some baggage. The incumbent VP (Gore) faced one serious primary opponent, Bradley, who was out of the race by March 9. The Republicans had higher turnout (with Bush challenged by McCain, who also was out of the race by March 9). The result: basically a tie (with Gore getting more popular votes despite the Democrats having lower primary turnout).

2008 -- No incumbent. Very unpopular outgoing repub president Bush. Higher primary numbers for Democrats, Democrats win.

In short no predictable pattern of results can be discerned based solely on primary turnout. Out of six races, the party with the higher primary turnout won three times, lost twice and had a split decision (in 2000 despite lower primary turnout the Democrats had more popular votes, but lost the electoral college thanks the Supreme Court). It is obvious that a number of variables influence the results, not just primary turnout. And the 2016 election arguably has the potential to resemble 1988 (with the repub and Democratic positions reversed).

Finally, I'm not sure why some Sanders supporters think that the lower turnout for Democrats means Clinton can't win, but somehow wouldn't mean the same thing for Sanders.

[Sparkly]

275. This is the primary.

That is the general.

They are two completely different scenarios.

[underthematrix]

276. You do realize there's no such thing as Hillary Democrats.

There are Democrats, Republicans, Independents and other party affiliations. All are eligible to vote in the general election in NOVEMBER 2016

[BillZBubb]

280. Not so. Of course there are Hillary Democrats.

They are the Democrats who support the center-right, corporatist, Third Way policies.

[underthematrix]

281. Really there are not Hillary Democrats

There are people who don't want to lose their healthcare, the social security, their freedom of religion, the right of women to make their own healthcare choices, the right of people to marry who they want.

[BillZBubb]

282. The people who are truly serious on those issues are not Hillary Democrats.

Hillary has always supported limitations on healthcare and laughed at Medicare for all, was interested in a "bargain" with republicans on Social Security, supported DOMA, opposed late term abortions and was willing to bargain with republicans on that, and had to "evolve" on gay marriage only after it had become a done deal.

Hillary Democrats have no problem with her weakness on those issues. They simply ignore them or deny them.

[underthematrix]

283. It's called compromise. Grown-ups do that. Toddlers

don't

[BillZBubb]

286. Cheap shot, but nice try. Like I said Hillary bots make excuses.

She didn't compromise on DOMA. She didn't compromise on the IWR. She didn't compromise on NAFTA. And laughing about single payer health care wasn't a compromise.

Furthermore, there are some things you never compromise on, such as fundamental rights. Hillary and her fans feel differently.

[pdsimdars]

290. unfortunately, they are unable to process that information. a sad day for democracy.

[Demsrule86]

293. minority voters are way more important than indies

indies can not be counted on to vote...minority voters who clearly dislike Berne are way more important. It does not matter. She won and he lost.

[B Calm]

295. Minority voters don't dislike Bernie, wtf!

[Demsrule86]

296. !.

They will not turn out for a candidate that basically said their votes don't matter and is trying to overturn the will of the voters. They will stay home and Trump wins. Thank God Bernie lost.

[B Calm]

297. WTF making up shit as you go.

[onenote]

307. Guess who else has an unprecedented unfavorable rating among indpendents: Trump

So what exactly is your point?