'16 Democratic Nomination Thread

[Lucky]

Bernie Sanders Is Currently Winning the Democratic Primary Race, and I’ll Prove It to You

Interesting read about something I have not seen mentioned here.

Not so interesting to me. Bernie is winning if you completely disregard early voting, because early voters don't know who Bernie is. There are no facts offered to support this conclusion, except the bold assertion that early voting occurs before the campaign season takes place in the given state. There are no facts offered to support this assertion. The whole argument is a house of cards.

One questionable assumption is that early voters would vote Bernie if they were more aware, but statistics prove that older voters vote early, and older voters tend to go for HRC. In other words, this article was five minutes I'll never get back.

[GwynnInTheHall]

I missed it. How did the DNC make the primaries unfair? (I'm a Bernie fan, too, but I haven't heard anything concrete in this regard.)

It wasn't the DNC alone, which is indeed complicit in hampering Sanders and aiding Clinton, it's also the media.

Specifically, the DNC, who's head, DWS has made no apologies for openly supporting Clinton has on several occasions shown a clear bias toward Clinton.

Their scheduling of debates at times and number that it limits viewership thus not allowing Sanders the opportunity to get his message out and confront Clinton on the issues.

Announcing Super delegates prior to the first debate, thus pretty much telling everyone, Sanders was starting in a hole.

The DNC fundraising chair has personally raised money for Clinton in violation of their supposed impartiaily.

Hillary has several campaign offices inside or conjoined to DNC offices making it look like the DNC supports HRC rather than Sanders.

The Data breach and Sanders suspension, conveniently announced again, pre debate and subsequently swept under the rug when Sanders asked for a collaborative investigation.


My Personal experience of the Nevada caucuses when the DNC chair kept re counting the delegates so many times that people on the Sanders side had to leave. The initial count was 99 (confirmed upon 4 recounts demanded by the Clinton rep), we then gained 3 undecideds as did the Clinton side and then upon the final official count, Sanders had 97 rather than the 102 because some of the caucus goers had to get back to work. The Clinton side retained everyone, that 5 person swing cost Bernie a delegate.

My boss's experience was even more egregious, they DNC chair split the room in two with one side sanders and the other Clinton, then proceeded to allow the undecideds to stand on the Clinton side, not only that they had the Sanders prescient rep help them with registration while the Clinton rep was talking to the undecideds unfettered (they are not supposed to talk to them until the designated time period)

Then there's the Media who has constantly tried to discourage voters from turning our for Sanders by calling primaries early for Clinton. Misrepresenting whats actually happening in the race and most obviously calling every debate in HRCs favor, which is bullshit.


This hasn't been a fair fight, people haven't been allowed the information and time to make an informed choice so they go with what they know, the Clinton name rather than weight the merits of both Bernie and Hillary and THEN decide.

Both the DNC and Mainstream media are complicit in this

[GwynnInTheHall]

Not so interesting to me. Bernie is winning if you completely disregard early voting, because early voters don't know who Bernie is. There are no facts offered to support this conclusion, except the bold assertion that early voting occurs before the campaign season takes place in the given state. There are no facts offered to support this assertion. The whole argument is a house of cards.

One questionable assumption is that early voters would vote Bernie if they were more aware, but statistics prove that older voters vote early, and older voters tend to go for HRC. In other words, this article was five minutes I'll never get back.

You seriously took nothing away from the fact that those voting day of rather than early ballots are voting Bernie over Clinton?

how can you say having all pertinent information on the candidates wouldn't have mad a difference in the voting?

maybe you should have spent 10 minutes reading it rather than 5........

[Lucky]

It wasn't the DNC alone, which is indeed complicit in hampering Sanders and aiding Clinton, it's also the media.

Specifically, the DNC, who's head, DWS has made no apologies for openly supporting Clinton has on several occasions shown a clear bias toward Clinton.

Their scheduling of debates at times and number that it limits viewership thus not allowing Sanders the opportunity to get his message out and confront Clinton on the issues.

Announcing Super delegates prior to the first debate, thus pretty much telling everyone, Sanders was starting in a hole.

The DNC fundraising chair has personally raised money for Clinton in violation of their supposed impartiaily.

Hillary has several campaign offices inside or conjoined to DNC offices making it look like the DNC supports HRC rather than Sanders.

The Data breach and Sanders suspension, conveniently announced again, pre debate and subsequently swept under the rug when Sanders asked for a collaborative investigation.


My Personal experience of the Nevada caucuses when the DNC chair kept re counting the delegates so many times that people on the Sanders side had to leave. The initial count was 99 (confirmed upon 4 recounts demanded by the Clinton rep), we then gained 3 undecideds as did the Clinton side and then upon the final official count, Sanders had 97 rather than the 102 because some of the caucus goers had to get back to work. The Clinton side retained everyone, that 5 person swing cost Bernie a delegate.

My boss's experience was even more egregious, they DNC chair split the room in two with one side sanders and the other Clinton, then proceeded to allow the undecideds to stand on the Clinton side, not only that they had the Sanders prescient rep help them with registration while the Clinton rep was talking to the undecideds unfettered (they are not supposed to talk to them until the designated time period)

Then there's the Media who has constantly tried to discourage voters from turning our for Sanders by calling primaries early for Clinton. Misrepresenting whats actually happening in the race and most obviously calling every debate in HRCs favor, which is bullshit.


This hasn't been a fair fight, people haven't been allowed the information and time to make an informed choice so they go with what they know, the Clinton name rather than weight the merits of both Bernie and Hillary and THEN decide.

Both the DNC and Mainstream media are complicit in this

One problem is that Nevada quit holding primaries and started holding a caucus. That's not the DNC's fault, it's the state party. A caucus will always find a way to screw somebody over.

The DNC is supposed to be neutral, but that doesn't keep them from coming to the defense of one of their candidates, as the DNC did when the GOP got after HRC. If they take after our guy, I will expect DWS to push back.

I agree that the debate scheduling has been screwy and probably favored HRC.

Not sure what you mean about announcing superdelegates. They indicated their preferences, and that is news. Should the media have kept it a secret? As the media constantly points out, they can always change their minds, as they did in 2008.

Don't know much about the campaign offices or the data breach, but I'm not sure how they made the primaries unfair. Seem to show favoritism toward HRC, though.

Your personal experiences are not something I can question.

As for calling primaries early and thereby discouraging Bernie supporters from voting, my understanding was that the networks do not call these primaries until the polls have closed. I remember when they called them earlier, but there was a big stink over a few elections, so they changed their procedure to wait until all votes have been cast. Anyone remember this?

As for winning debates, this will always be a subjective matter. I usually like the guy who says the things that I agree with. We should keep in mind, though, that HRC has much more experience in Presidential debates, based upon her campaign against Obama in 2008. He was very tough, but she held her own.

[Lucky]

You seriously took nothing away from the fact that those voting day of rather than early ballots are voting Bernie over Clinton?

how can you say having all pertinent information on the candidates wouldn't have mad a difference in the voting?

maybe you should have spent 10 minutes reading it rather than 5........

Demographics, Doig. Early voters are older. Day of election voters are younger. Bernie does better with younger voters. These are statistical facts. I take away more from facts than I do bare supposition.

How do you know they didn't have the pertinent information? You don't know. When was the early voting period for the states in question? You don't know. When did the Bernie campaign efforts start for those states? You don't know. The article assumed before the latter began. But you don't know.

I think I gleaned a lot more from the article in five than you did in however long you spent.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Demographics, Doig. Early voters are older. Day of election voters are younger. Bernie does better with younger voters. These are statistical facts. I take away more from facts than I do bare supposition.

How do you know they didn't have the pertinent information? You don't know. When was the early voting period for the states in question? You don't know. When did the Bernie campaign efforts start for those states? You don't know. The article assumed before the latter began. But you don't know.

I think I gleaned a lot more from the article in five than you did in however long you spent.

No I think your years as a Judge have made you more inclined to only use verifiable information when rendering your decisions as I suppose was your job. We both know that there's far more to things and that some of these factors you cannot back statistically.

Am I making a supposition regarding people not having the information the needed prior to voting? Every bit as much as the supposition you're making that they did and that all old people vote for Hillary.

I'm not going to say you haven't got a handle on this entire issue, I'm just going to say i have a better one.

By your own admission there are things you're not quite familiar with regarding my concerns with the process.

Again, my intent is not to diminish your take on this as I do appreciate your input even when we trade jabs.

I'll leave you with an exchange between 2 characters in a movie which sums um how I feel about my takes (going back to explaining my mindset)

Right in the middle there, at the part where I'm always wrong. Which I don't understand, because when I assume I'm right, and it turns out my assumption is correct, how is that wrong?

When you make a decision without all the facts, and you *happen* to be right, you got lucky.

Well, I get lucky a lot.

I get lucky a lot.

[Lucky]

Yeah, I understand. And I respect that. I also respect that you always want to be fair to both sides of the equation.

I probably do rely in most every case on verifiably information. I'm not sure I realized that until you pointed that out. I'll try to be more aware of that, and of the other ways of knowing things and making decisions.

The only difference I have with your last post is the young/old thing. That's not a supposition on my part. Polling, including exit polling, has shown that Bernie gets a huge portion of the young vote, while HRC gets almost as huge a portion of the old vote. I don't know why the split is as extreme as it is. Well, I can actually see why Bernie would draw so well among the young. They are still idealistic (like we are). Anyway, the "experts" rely upon those huge splits, along with the propensity of older voters to vote early and younger voters to vote on the day of the election to explain why HRC is so strong in early voting.

Always good to swap posts with you.

[chancellor]

[QUOTE=Lucky;249327]
As for calling primaries early and thereby discouraging Bernie supporters from voting, my understanding was that the networks do not call these primaries until the polls have closed. I remember when they called them earlier, but there was a big stink over a few elections, so they changed their procedure to wait until all votes have been cast. Anyone remember this?[\QUOTE]

I do. The stations have only called elections now once voting has closed. If results are obvious, it might be two seconds after voting has closed, but in fairness to the TV stations, they've been much better about close elections.

Your point about demographics is most valid. Nate Silver agrees.

[Hornsby]

As for calling primaries early and thereby discouraging Bernie supporters from voting, my understanding was that the networks do not call these primaries until the polls have closed. I remember when they called them earlier, but there was a big stink over a few elections, so they changed their procedure to wait until all votes have been cast. Anyone remember this?

Yeah, I recall this as well, a lot of it came from Florida and the 2000 election, where pretty much all of the networks made wrong calls on the result. Not to mention some of the calls were made before the polls closed in the panhandle of the state, which is a Central time zone. There was much speculation that calling the election before the polls closed there deterred voters from casting ballots in the incredibly close race.

I think that they still call the Presidential race when there's simply not any doubt who's won...once you get past 270, and there's no possible way for those results to be reversed, it's a done deal.

As far as facts are concerned, what you say about older voters is indisputable. ALL the research available hold up Lucky's point.

The pivot has been made to the GOP, and in particular Trump, which is as it should be. All reasonable people should want to stop the GOP in it tracks with so many SUPCO vacancies available.

[chancellor]

Again, Hillary has 2.5 million more votes in the primary process than does Bernie. It would be an absolutely travesty if Bernie was somehow leading in any meaningful way. (He's not.) The people have spoken, even if it's not what I would personally want.

Despite our political disagreements, this is one reason why I respect your opinion so much.

[GwynnInTheHall]

Again, Hillary has 2.5 million more votes in the primary process than does Bernie. It would be an absolutely travesty if Bernie was somehow leading in any meaningful way. (He's not.) The people have spoken, even if it's not what I would personally want.

The point I'm trying to make is that those 2.5 million votes could easily have been swayed by the issues I've listed.

[GwynnInTheHall]

[QUOTE=chancellor;249349]

As for calling primaries early and thereby discouraging Bernie supporters from voting, my understanding was that the networks do not call these primaries until the polls have closed. I remember when they called them earlier, but there was a big stink over a few elections, so they changed their procedure to wait until all votes have been cast. Anyone remember this?[\QUOTE]

I do. The stations have only called elections now once voting has closed. If results are obvious, it might be two seconds after voting has closed, but in fairness to the TV stations, they've been much better about close elections.

Your point about demographics is most valid. Nate Silver agrees.

There are far more media outlets today than just the networks.

Watch next Tuesday and before polls close, surf the net and see just how many sources have called states prior to polls closing.

Demographis are fine, but my point again is, how many could have gone Sanders way if this weren't being, IMO, swayed--

[Fresno Bob]

why does any state do a caucus instead of an actual vote, seems like shinnaigans to me

[chancellor]

why does any state do a caucus instead of an actual vote, seems like shinnaigans to me

Well, it prevents the other shenanigans of crossover voting. There's arguments for either, but it does seem to just be the lesser of two evils

[dslaw]

why does any state do a caucus instead of an actual vote, seems like shinnaigans to me

In UT the governor (who is Republican) wanted to budget money to hold primary elections this year. The state senate (90% Republican) wanted a caucus and shot it down. So the parties had to fund the election instead of the state which resulted in fewer polling places and reduced turnout. By doing this the incumbents can get 'their' people to show up and they have a bigger influence on the voting total. I don't think it is right but that is why it is done, at least here.

My polling place was about 10 miles from my house, not a big deal. But it was the only one in the county which is 7,000 square miles. I don't think people in Wendover drove 90 miles to vote.