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5th February 2020, 04:35 PM | #201 |
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WTF is wrong with Iowans.
turnout wasn't that great at all. Pretty average-above average compared to prior elections since the 2000s. I hope we aren't in for an ugly surprise in the general. |
5th February 2020, 04:42 PM | #202 |
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I heard someone on a podcast suggest Maryland as the first state. Really, and primary (not caucus - that system keeps too many people from participating) state with a more representative population would do. Florida or New York could do well, although they may be a bit too populous. NY, in particular, has a decent share of blak, hispanic, *and* Jewish voters, as well as a decent rural section outside of major cities. And they've apparently changed their voting laws so you no longer need to change registration months in advance (don't know for sure, though).
ETA, perhaps Cali and a a midwest state join in, to help balance things out geographically? |
5th February 2020, 04:47 PM | #203 |
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On second though, not sure about the one day idea, but I think we really, really, need to shorten the process.
At one time, people did begin serious campaigning until the November before the election year. The campaign starting two freaking years before the actual election is destructive; if nothing else a lot of people get just plain sick of it and suffer burnout at the exact time they should start paying attention. ANd I think a lot of good potential candidates shy away because they don't want to spend two years in media hell. The primary system is not perfect, but it's better then a system like the UK were pretty much a few Party big shots make all the decisions. |
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5th February 2020, 05:03 PM | #204 |
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I generally prefer solutions which can be nudged into existence, and this is one of them. DNC could reward states who award delegates on "Super Tuesday" and penalize those who run their process earlier, weighing based on how many weeks earlier.
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6th February 2020, 12:16 AM | #205 |
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nearly 97 percent of precincts have reported their results.
Man this is a tight final quarter. Pete Buttigieg 550 votes - 26.22% Bernie Sanders 547 votes - 26.07% according to Iowa public radio |
6th February 2020, 01:12 AM | #206 |
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Read the exchange above. You took a completely benign and non-judgmental statement of fact and, for some reason known only to you, turned it into a ************* in a tea cup.
Why did I post it? Because, as I've already explained twice, your initial post declared that the (Iowa) caucus is not "our" (meaning Republican) voting system when, in fact, it is. If you cannot understand something that simple, then I can't help you. I'm done discussing this with you because it's just not worth it. |
6th February 2020, 01:51 AM | #207 |
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Still not 100%, but getting close (man, this is taking forever; even doing it all manually, I can't understand why it's still not done).
Here's that link again so folks don't have to go back to previous pages for it: https://features.desmoinesregister.c...lts-alignment/ The above numbers are actually SDEs, not raw votes. Bernie is ahead in the raw votes. |
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6th February 2020, 01:53 AM | #208 |
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First off, we don't have a President, and we don't vote for the PM, so there's not really an equivalent.
The voting for leader of the main parties tends to come down to getting support from enough MPs (you are after all supposed to be leading them, so their support is pretty crucial, see Corbyn) then going to the membership. It's not really down to party big wigs and backroom deals anymore. Hasn't been for several years. |
6th February 2020, 05:44 AM | #209 |
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I'm not ready to ring the "low turnout" alarm bell yet.
Caucuses are by their very design a pain to attend. You have to block off large amounts of time, deal with this rowdy crowd, and make your voting intentions very public. It's practically designed to depress turnout. I think primaries will be a much better indication of whether or not turnout is depressed. Primaries are much more similar voting conditions to the general election. |
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6th February 2020, 06:11 AM | #210 |
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6th February 2020, 06:44 AM | #211 |
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Only if you think lukewarm turnout is something to be surprised by. I'm not.
"Vote Burnout" is the one thing the fanatics on both sides find impossible to factor in and it most certainly exists. Not everyone can feed on political drama forever in that way that keeps Twitter and the 24 Hour News Cycle feed. |
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6th February 2020, 07:02 AM | #212 |
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6th February 2020, 07:40 AM | #213 |
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I also think (maybe hope?) that democrats will be more motivated to vote against Trump than for any of the current leaders.
The only candidates I would have a hard time voting for would be touchy feely Biden or GOP Bloomberg. So, I may have showed up in Iowa just to make sure Biden didn't do well, or I may have stayed home trusting that Biden wouldn't do well. It's a toss up. But November is not. Maybe that is just me. I hope not. |
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6th February 2020, 07:41 AM | #214 |
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Suffering is not a punishment not a fruit of sin, it is a gift of God. He allows us to share in His suffering and to make up for the sins of the world. -Mother Teresa If I had a pet panda I would name it Snowflake. |
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6th February 2020, 10:39 AM | #215 |
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6th February 2020, 12:20 PM | #216 |
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"DNC chair calls for a recanvass in Iowa as chaos ensues"
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/polit...lts/index.html |
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6th February 2020, 12:28 PM | #217 |
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And this is the problem with formalized decision making of almost any type, it leaves the people who are obsessed with a particular solution instead of focusing on fixing the problem with an in-proportionate amount of the "voice."
This is something I try to impress upon people. If the nuts and bolts of the decision aren't important to you, you still have to make our voice heard if the outcome is important to you or the decision is going to be made only by people obsessed with how, not the what. Now I know this is... difficult with how the two political parties play their game, and I doubt this is by accident. |
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6th February 2020, 12:39 PM | #218 |
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See, I would've shown up to vote for Biden because he's the most electable candidate in the general election IMO. I think Sanders and Warren have only a 50/50 chance against Trump, and thats if someone like Bloomberg or Howard Schultz doesn't decide to run independently, then its game over, 4 more years of Trump thanks for playing. My actual preferred candidate would be Buttigieg, not sold on his electability though.
But alas New Mexico goes pretty much last, so we have no real choice in the nomination. Although, this year who knows? |
6th February 2020, 12:45 PM | #219 |
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6th February 2020, 12:51 PM | #220 |
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6th February 2020, 12:59 PM | #221 |
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6th February 2020, 01:00 PM | #222 |
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Bloomberg wasn't registered in Iowa (Instead, he is saving his resources for some of the bigger primaries later on). So any 'votes' he got there were the equivalent of write-ins. (Not sure how exactly those would be handled in a caucus situation, but given the general screw-ups I suspect it wouldn't be easy.) So its not surprising he got so few votes.
I've also seen at least one pundit claim Iowa might have been good for Bloomberg... he wasn't registered there so his loss is understandable, and after the problems they had, he can step in and say "You need someone who is competent... vote Bloomberg". https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/04/opini...son/index.html |
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6th February 2020, 09:15 PM | #224 |
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Perhaps an important outcome of the chaos in Iowa is that people will realize that it's not all that important and in the end is about divvying up all of 41 delegates. Woohoo, Pete and Bernie each got 11. They're in!
How often has the winner of the Iowa democratic caucus actually won the nomination? Iowa got "big" after Jimmy Carter had a surprisingly strong showing. But since then, has it ever propelled anyone anywhere? |
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6th February 2020, 09:33 PM | #225 |
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6th February 2020, 10:07 PM | #226 |
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I don't think he's concentrating on the big states so much as he's pouring money into states where he can get on the ballot. I seem him on the air pretty regularly in Arizona, and I hardly ever watch TV, so I assume he's carpet-bombing the state.
The London bookies already have him ahead of Biden and Buttigieg, at about 21% to win the nomination. Right now 538 has "other" (anybody except Sanders, Biden, Buttigieg and Warren) at 1%. That seems low. Steyer's double-digit percentages in four recent polls of South Carolina show what money can buy and Bloomberg has a lot more money than Steyer. |
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6th February 2020, 10:55 PM | #227 |
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Kerry in '04 and Obama in '08. Clinton won it in '16 but the margin was so narrow that the story became her under-performance.
The real issue is that the media give glowing treatment to the winners and talk about what went wrong for the losers for the next week. And that has a measurable effect on the upcoming contests. Biden dodged the bad news for a few days but his campaign definitely looks like it's taking on water. |
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6th February 2020, 11:34 PM | #228 |
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He seems to be in *all* of the later states, really - his strategy seems to be (have Iowa and NH, maybe even SC. After Super Tuesday, every state you go to, I'm already there".
He's one of my bottom-tier candidates, since he's also annoyingly authoritarian, although still better than the idiot currently in the WH. |
7th February 2020, 12:22 AM | #229 |
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DEL
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7th February 2020, 12:49 AM | #230 |
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Now at 99.9%, a single precinct missing. Bernie 26.6% raw votes (562 SDE), MayorCheat 25.0% raw votes (564 SDE). Someone should do the math on those last percentages. Bernie must have done stellar there. Stinks to high heaven like delaying specific results so that they can claim that Bernie didn't win for a bit longer. |
7th February 2020, 04:58 AM | #231 |
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7th February 2020, 07:40 AM | #232 |
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7th February 2020, 08:08 AM | #233 |
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Buttigieg is now surging in NH polling:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/...new-hampshire/ (Boston Globe's website is paywalled, national review is quoting it) |
7th February 2020, 08:38 AM | #234 |
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Because neither of them want the job, obviously. What do you have to offer a guy who has already found their vocation in life, and become independently wealthy pursuing that vocation?
Incidentally, what to make of someone whose vocation is politics, and becomes independently wealthy pursuing it? |
7th February 2020, 09:34 AM | #235 |
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7th February 2020, 09:36 AM | #236 |
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I wonder if Sanders is worried about that at all.
After all, given the dedication of his support base, he should have his greatest strength in caucuses (where time commitments are a significant issue), as opposed to primaries (where it would favor candidates with broader but less dedicated support). And having probably the best name recognition, he should have been a clear winner. Instead, he's almost tied. (And no, this is not a prediction that Sanders will lose, either the nomination or the general election. Just some idle speculation.) |
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7th February 2020, 09:42 AM | #237 |
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In my opinion, that is a very good thing. I would love to have a centrist Dem to vote for who isn't a million years old. I know I am not alone.
I doubt Sanders is all that worried. He and Mayor Pete aren't competing with one another yet. If Warren drops out, then maybe Sanders will start eyeing the Buttigeg vote. I also think that Pete almost certainly benefited from being a lot of peoples second choice, which isn't an advantage in the primaries, unless Biden and/or Warren drop out. |
7th February 2020, 10:04 AM | #238 |
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Still missing that one precinct. But https://results.thecaucuses.org/ has 100%. SDE: MayorCheat: 564.012 Sanders: 562.497 So on top of whatever bizarre mechanism leads to those "SDE" units, there's some very lucky rounding involved to keep the impression that MayorCheat at least won in that category. |
7th February 2020, 10:11 AM | #239 |
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I skimmed the thread and did a search and didn't see this; apologies if it's repeated elsewhere. At least some of the chaos was caused by the tools at 4chan.
4chan trolls tied up caucus hotline to disrupt results reporting
Quote:
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7th February 2020, 10:18 AM | #240 |
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Out of curiosity, do you have a thread going in the relevant subforum wherein you show that Pete cheats?
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