neil young would have bashed the back of gingrich’s head with an acoustic guitar.
you have to remember; clemenza is talking about Neil Young ca. 1980
I’m not sure of the exact timeline, but I think Neil was still pretty lefty in 1980—I think the flirtation with Reagan comes five years later, when Old Ways came out.
yeah Reagan endorsement was ’84
the decay of pitch throughout that newt ad is just outstanding
ha!
Carrie Dann @CarrieNBCNews — Perry says he will be “head yell leader” for balanced budget amendment. #biographical
what’s this mean?!?
“head yell leader”?
It’s a cheerleading thing. A&M and all.
oh that is just pathetic.
“Give me a ‘Balanced’! Give me a ‘Budget’! Give me a...give me a...uh...”
“look at me on my lady pyramid”
head yell leader!
Lol.
Since the Iowa caucuses generally reward organization and passion, I suspect Paul will win them easily. That would likely propel him to a strong showing in libertarian New Hampshire. Somehow, I think Romney and the Republican establishment will find a way to defeat him in the vicious and expensive struggle that follows. But the dominant storyline at the Republican convention will be figuring out how to appease Paul sufficiently to ensure that he doesn’t launch a third party bid. And in so doing, the GOP will legitimize its isolationist wing in a way it hasn’t since 9/11.
of all the candidates, Paul seems the one most poised to go the third-party route, but I dunno how likely that really is—depends on how much money he has/can raise
of all the candidates, Paul seems the one most poised to go the third-party route
HI THERE!
nah he won’t do it, it won’t make him enough money
don’t kill my buzz.
Newt Gingrich Ideas @GingrichIdeas — Reduce length of the mile to improve fuel efficiency.
lol. newt gingrich would turn the white-house into an “idea machine”!
ThingsLikeThatHaveActuallyHappened @ TLTHAH — Change definition of unemployment to improve employment rate
Wolf Blitzer just finished a big interview with Gingrich. I caught the last 15 minutes and some earlier clips. He went after Paul pretty hard—after resisting the theoretical, said he wouldn’t vote for him if he were the nominee. He wants Romney to debate him for an hour in Iowa, no moderator. Newt wants to debate everyone. (Funniest part was when he said something like, “Herman Cain and I debated...”—yes, that was quite a spirited, contentious debate.) He bristled at what I thought was a pretty funny line from Romney—that not getting on the ballot in Virginia was less like Pearl Harbor and more like the Lucy episode in the chocolate factory. (Wolf’s got Romney on there tomorrow.)
lol Shakey remember when you were predicting that the Tea Party was going to splinter off? I totally thought a couple months ago that it would do that and coalesce around a Paul/Cain (or perhaps Cain/Paul) ticket...
We’re talking about a French-speaking Mormon vulture capitalist named Willard, who used to support abortion rights, gay rights, gun control, “amnesty” for undocumented immigrants, and combating climate change. He distanced himself from Reagan, attended Planned Parenthood fundraisers, and helped create the blueprint for the Affordable Care Act. He supported taxpayer-funded abortions and taxpayer-financed medical care for undocumented immigrants.
Given all of this, I thought there was no way Romney would coast through 2011 without facing brutal attack ads from his GOP rivals. But I was completely wrong — the attacks never came; Republican voters never heard about this record; and Romney appears well positioned to win the nomination.
i think the answer here is that the race was defined as romney and whomever-will-emerge-as-the-one-alternative-to-romney. while a dozen idiots and cranks were tearing at each other to be the “non-romney,” romney just coasted along, occassionally fanning the flames but mostly watching idiots and cranks exposed themselves as idiots and cranks. and now it’s just about too late. there isn’t time for a “non-romney” to emerge, and so the base is stuck. enjoy your nominee, republican party.
lol Shakey remember when you were predicting that the Tea Party was going to splinter off?
oh I think this is still a definite possibility, but Paul is not a Tea Partier
correct. he’s a racist libertarian.
Ron Paul Newsletter @RP_Newsletter — Here’s Ron Paul giving a special, handwritten discount on the newsletters he never read or managed: http://twitpic.com/7xe4ze -RPN
and whether or not any of the remaining candidates have the necessary pull/finances/hatred of the GOP will be the big question. whatever happens, it’s abundantly clear that the GOP convention will entail some kind of reckoning with the Tea Party wing, and it isn’t going to be pretty.
you think so? i think the non-romneys have f—d things up so badly that romney will coast to the nomination (unless gingrich somehow recovers).
what’s the scenario — aside from the possibility that newt catches fire in, say, south carolina and florida — in which that “reckoning” have to take place at the convention?
Obama caught in bed with a white boy.
oh stop
that happened last year, and it’s old news already
Romney will totally coast to the nomination, but he is going to have to bend over backwards to appease the actual members of his party and that’s what I’m predicting won’t be pretty. I don’t think there’s going to be a floor-fight at the convention, there’s going to be a lot of Tea Party dog-whistling and platform-packing and shameless attempts to appease the base while at the same time nominating roboRomney
assuming romney has the delegates to take the nomination at the time of the convention, how could there be a floor-fight?
i’m sure i knew this at one point, but age has dimmed my memories.
Alright: Obama in bed with Mark Ruffalo.
Lol
i.e., couldn’t romney just smile and say to the tea-party, “that’s it, screwballs, i’m the only one left. go swivel on this (points middle finger skyward)”?
btw if romney did say that i’d totally vote for him.
he could also send me $5 cash. either/or.
The uglier the Republican convention gets, the better I will like it.
assuming romney has the delegates to take the nomination at the time of the convention, how could there be a floor-fight?
like I said, I don’t think there will be a floor-fight, it won’t get that far
but there will still be huge chunks of the party that don’t want to vote for him
Floor fights won’t happen in 21st century America.
like I said, I don’t think there will be a floor-fight, it won’t get that far
then romney could smile at them with his robot smile and say “f—k off” with his robot voice!
and i would love him for it.
but that’s not going to happen, because romney has apparently decided it’s in his best interest to appear stupid and pandering:
A few weeks ago, Mitt Romney abruptly changed his main campaign message. Before that point, he had been lambasting President Obama as a likable failure, well intentioned but sadly unable to revive the economy. When asked if Obama was a socialist, Romney would deny it outright, insisting he was merely in “over his head.” But starting December 7, Romney began to paint Obama as a sinister radical who had not failed, but had succeeded all too well, in transforming the basic nature of America.
At the time, I thought Romney’s sudden switch was a response to Newt Gingrich’s sudden (and apparently short-lived) challenge from the right, positioning himself to speak more directly to the fears of a freaked-out Republican electorate. But I now think Romney’s campaign has concluded that his old campaign message wasn’t strong enough for the general election. Conservative columnist Kimberly Strassel has a column passing on research findings from American Crossroads, a Republican independent expenditure group. Crossroads surveyed a large number of swing voters and concluded that they couldn’t beat Obama merely by portraying him as having failed:
“To lock down voters in the middle, Republicans are going to have to convince them that Obama isn’t just a flawed and ineffective leader, but that he has an agenda and motivations that they don’t share,” says Steven Law, president and CEO of Crossroads
Strassel presents these findings as advice that Romney needs to take. But I think it’s pretty obvious that Romney has already taken it. His tone toward Obama has grown harsher, and he is now openly (and falsely) calling Obama a socialist who is promoting total economic equality. I’m actually pretty skeptical of this research – the political middle clearly seems to be voters who like Obama but blame him for the poor economy without having a strong ideological understanding of why the economy has failed. But, whatever its merits, this seems to be the strategy Romney has embraced.
The tension between the previous version of Romney and the newest model sprang to the fore when he visited the Wall Street Journal editorial board for a weekend interview. In it, Romney carefully presented himself as an ideologue rather than a technocrat:
“(Romney) concludes with even more force, ‘America doesn’t need a manager. America needs a leader. The president is failing not just because he’s a poor manager. It’s because he doesn’t know where to lead.’”
Voters will have to judge the quality of that vision, and how it compares with President Obama’s. But there’s no doubt it’s a contrast with Mr. Romney’s visit to our offices in 2007, which became legendary for its appeal to technocratic virtue.
In that meeting the candidate began by declaring “I love data” and kept on extolling data, even “wallowing in data,” as a way to reform both business and government. He said he’d bring in management consultants to turn around the government, mentioning McKinsey, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group. Mr. Romney seemed to elevate the power of positive technocratic thinking to a governing philosophy.
So it is also notable that now Mr. Romney describes the core failure of Mr. Obama’s economic agenda as faith in “a wise group of governmental bureaucrats” rather than political and economic freedom.
Romney’s problem is that he is, as Jodi Kantor’s New York Times profile shows, a technocrat at heart. He approaches public policy from a data-driven standpoint, searching for solutions that do the most to increase human welfare. This inevitably estranges him from the conservative tradition, which in its essence is a philosophical belief in limited government that holds firm regardless of empirical effects.
It was Romney’s technocratic inclinations that caused him to look at a problem like health care and wind up embracing essentially the same solution that the Obama administration did, which is why conservatives distrust him. The irony is that Romney approaches campaigning the way he approaches governing, obeying the data above all else. If the data tell him to start wildly accusing Obama of abolishing all economic inequality, then that is what he will do.
if romney goes this route he is a remarkable dum-dum.
No byline—that’s Chait, right?
that post is totally the kind of thing I was alluding to—to secure the base, Romney is going to have to do a lot of unpalatable shit, including talking and acting like a moron
i didn’t realize he’d already started doing that (and almost a month ago!)
chait, yeah.
I think the whole key to this election rests here. This is the gateway that will, in time, reveal all.
thought you were going to rickroll me there.
You’ve been 9–9–9’ed, my friend.
Sam Stein @samsteinhp — just in: Perry Files Federal Court Challenge to Virginia Ballot Access Rules
is it a pro-se filing, written in crayon?
to secure the base, Romney is going to have to do a lot of unpalatable shit, including talking and acting like a moron
What, you think he’s been quoting Montesquieu for the last six months?
okay an even BIGGER moron
I’ll repeat something I’ve said many times: I expect Romney will have lots of wiggle-room in a general because a) voters in the middle who he needs will cut him slack for appeasing a base they consider crazy, b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway, and c) by then (if not already), Romney will be long past the point where outrage over him changing his mind on something or contradicting himself will barely even register.
b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway
the question is will they be driving their friends to the polls to vote for him (hint: the answer is no)
I’ll repeat something I’ve said many times: I expect Romney will have lots of wiggle-room in a general because a) voters in the middle who he needs will cut him slack for appeasing a base they consider crazy, b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway, and c) by then (if not already), Romney will be long past the point where outrage over him changing his mind on something or contradicting himself will barely even register.
yes this is all true and why i think romney will win 47 — 48 states and by a popular margin of 70% — 30% it’s all over a new conservative era is about to dawn
by a popular margin of 70% — 30%
hahaha waht
you think 80% — 20%?
okay okay you’ve convinced me.
If Republicans dislike Romney enough, they have a chance to do away with him in the next two or three months—and when Gingrich was surging, I thought that’s what they were indeed finally going to do. But if they nominate him, then I assume that means the majority of them, enthusiastically or otherwise, have decided they can abide by him as president.
abide by /= vote for
Do you really believe those numbers, Daniel? If I were a wagering kind of guy, I would wager a large amount on the proposition that no candidate will exceed 55% of the vote (I’m tempted to make it 53) or 350 electoral votes.
You’re dividing the base into those who will reluctantly vote for Romney and those who’ll need to be cajoled and driven to the polls. Maybe—I just think of it as one homogeneous base, and that most of them will vote for the Republican nominee.
One thing I do know: if Romney becomes president, I’m going to start hanging around NRO and have fun enjoying all the right-wing Morbiuses mercilessly pummeling Romney day in and day out in the comments section.
As one who (I think) shares Daniel’s absurdist sense of humour, I think he’s just having fun there.
personally I’m betting on the 80%—20% Ron Paul landslide
I was kidding. I do think Romney will win, tho.
Of interest to wild gossipy political horserace fiends:
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/2011/12/paul-maintains-his-lead.html
No uptick or backlash backlash for Newt. “But Paul’s candidacy looks like it’s going to attract an unusual number of younger voters to the caucus this year, and with those under 45 he has a 35–11 advantage on Romney.” Paul’s anti-war stand notwithstanding, I don’t totally get this—wouldn’t younger voters be the ones most bothered by the newsletters?
they like that he’s the realest poster candidate that this board election has ever seen
The newsletter thing just came up and maybe they therefore accept Paul’s ridiculous defense on the subject
Once you’re sufficiently starry-eyed about somebody, I guess you’re willing to overlook anything. (Oh wait, that’s my guy.)
Yeah. For instance, I still think Rick Perry is dreamy.
I just can’t quit you, Rick Perry.
I feel somewhat the same about Buddy Roemer.
maybe we need a separate thread for ‘who are your GOP friends/family/acquaintances gonna vote for’
but the only dude my birther pal (who lives in san francisco!) mentioned a while ago was perry, with regret that he’d shit the bed. never any mention of mitt. curious what he thinks of newt, but i am still friends with him because this only comes up when we’re hammered.
at any rate he’s certain that any GOP candidate couldn’t possibly “do more harm to america” than obama. i’ve no idea what that means and it would be too depressing to ask.
I can’t even ask that question, without getting into a conversation that will make me cringe.
Yesterdays comment: “Obama is really stupid, as in not bright at all. He just let all those terrorists out of Guantanamo, and they can now plot against us. He is a stupid man.”
(Say this in your best Admiral Stockdale voice): Gridlock!
So far all the talk that Romney’s more or less past his problems—Gingrich is fading fast, it’s just him and Paul now, and Paul can’t survive much scrutiny—he still hasn’t really solved that 20–25% problem, has he? I think it will go away eventually. I just continue to be surprised that it’s so persistent.
According to fivethirtyeight, Newt Gingrich, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry are all “projected to receive between 11 and 14 percent of the vote in Iowa”. Gobsmacking! The idea that Bachmann, Santorum and Perry are all above 10% just floors me.
Also, in other news from that link, Gingrich still holds commanding polling leads in SC and FL, which are far more important than Iowa in terms of the eventual nomination.
btw, if I were Perry, I’d retire to N********d and use my leftover campaign cash to start the Mary Kay franchise to end all Mary Kay franchises.
- “b) most of the GOP base will reluctantly vote for him anyway”
Vote for him, yes. Prolly 85% of conservatives are sufficiently anti-Obama that they will VOTE for the Republican nominee no matter who he/she/it is. (The other 10% have crankish reasons why they won’t accept this or that apostate.)
But will that 85% donate? Organize? Volunteer? Work the phones? Do get-out-the-vote stuff? My guess is that no, they mostly will not.
In 2008, conservatives were disappointed with McCain as the nominee. They held their noses and voted for him, but they weren’t happy. Of course some were happy about Palin, and most knew that they definitely didn’t want Obama, but that didn’t extend to happiness about McCain. And he lost badly.
So now we see two possibilities: one, the mainstream GOP contrives to nominate Romney. Conservatives will vote for him, but not organize and volunteer for him. And their antipathy toward the mainstream and GOP leadership can only increase; they will (understandably) continue to feel that when they support the milquetoast mainstream, they just get hosed.
Possibility two: on the off-chance that a not-Romney is nominated, it will be someone acceptable to that wacky fringe. Which means unacceptable to the middle, and the dynamic is reversed: then it’s the middle who will hold their noses and vote, but not bust their butts to pull (say) Gingrich across the finish line.
As for the Not-Romneys, the Gingrich surge is the Cain surge is the Perry surge is the Bachmann surge. It’s all the same people casting about for an acceptable not-Romney. Again, 85% of that crowd will coalesce around the eventual nominee—as far as voting is concerned.
So you have a lose-lose situation for the GOP, and that recipe continues to look delicious for Democrats.
(I think I meant the other 15%—math r not me)
Puffin, in spite of what I believe to be your essentially correct analysis of the republican side of the pending prez election, I think it will still be a very close race, because enthusiasm for Obama among liberals is rather tepid also, and the electoral college slants the prez race heavily toward small-population states, which tend to be more rural and republican. We’re still gioing to see this race pivot on Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, with a few small states like NH tossed in for spice, if it gets razor thin.
imo the states that’re gonna matter most in ’12 are gonna be the historically red ones that Obama “flipped” by inspiring the indifferent, who won’t be as inspired this time
nah that’s generally not how it works. those were the cherry on top but it’s very unlikely that obama would win them if a race where he doesn’t win ohio and pennsylvania—and if he wins ohio he’s probably already won. unless dynamics have seriously shifted over the last 4 years.
In 2008, conservatives were disappointed with McCain as the nominee. They held their noses and voted for him, but they weren’t happy. Of course some were happy about Palin, and most knew that they definitely didn’t want Obama, but that didn’t extend to happiness about McCain. And he lost badly.
2012 isn’t 2008; romney isn’t mccain.
xp to myself
that said he won virginia w/ a bigger margin than ohio or florida and that might be ‘safer’ than either of those at this point. dunno, I’m not optimistic about florida.
obama’s campaign manager sounds confident. about florida, he says the best way to view florida is not to have to win it (then if you do, “great!”). we’ll see.
polls say romney/rubio beats obama/biden in florida. but that advantage evaporates if it’s obama/HRC.
chances of obama/hrc ticket are almost nil, unless biden fronts an ultra-credible excuse for not rejoining the ticket—like liver cancer, for example.
I dunno, if it polls well and they’re struggling, why not? it’s a gimmick but what isn’t?
heard someone say it’s a strategy under consideration, depending on how things are unfolding next year.
the easy move would be for HRC and biden to trade jobs. no loss of respect/credibility there.
“someone” being richard nixon, who spoke to me in a dream.
i think joe biden would make a pretty bad secretary of state
yes
appalling actually
You can get away with his interjections when your office is the constitutionally useless vice presidency, not as SOS.
basically if the gop has an embarrassing primary season, romney wins but struggles and comes out looking pretty weak—why take any risk? even if this polls well, it’d be a risk on some level.
but if romney has (more or less) a clean victory / a GOP mandate, comes out w/ a lot of momentum, obama’s a few points behind...why not pull the type of stunt that the media totally eats up? clinton makes it ‘obama 2.0’ and gives the campaign a fresh media narrative. gives a lot of people a reason to start paying attention again. would kill in the debates and could go full force attack dog.
(i really don’t like this kind of fantasy-team speculation but) that kind of personnel move look like a huge admission of weakness, esp if there is no immediate health- or scandal-related reason to get rid of biden. plus i wonder if obama and hrc still personally don’t like each other at all. if it is true that obama is not close to many people and trusts very few it seems unlikely that a relationship like that would be sacrificed.
clinton makes it ‘obama 2.0’ and gives the campaign a fresh media narrative.
ok now you sound like gabbneb
I remember in ’08, with a month or two to go—around the time McCain had pulled even—Limbaugh or Hannity or someone started speculating furiously that plans were underway for Biden to intentionally self-destruct so they’d have an excuse to put Hillary in. In the context of Biden’s gift for unintentional gaffes, it was fun trying to imagine how spectacular an intentional one would be.
http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/the-era-of-the-ron-paul-newsletters-isnt-even-past/
What I find interesting is how much the discussion is focused on the past-ness of these newsletters. The newsletters stopped with their racist, bigoted and survivalist themes by the mid-1990s, and people are now debating how much they should reflect on both Ron Paul and libertarianism. Whatever the results of that debate, they represent an era now over – Dave Weigel and Julian Sanchez argued that “the best refutation of the old approach is not the absence of race-baiting rhetoric from its progenitors, but the success of the 2008 Ron Paul phenomenon.” But if you strip away the ugliness and just focus on the underlying political strategy and the coalition it hoped to bring into existence, the newsletters have not only survived but they form the core of the Tea Party movement.
What Ron Paul actually thinks of these newsletters is a bit of a mysterious, as he often dodges hard questions about them. It is clear that Ron Paul has, to use Dara Lind’s phrase, a “Libertarianism for White Dudes” problem. The ability to discriminate against a minority at one’s lunch counter is the core of freedom, but a woman’s ability to have some autonomy over what is going on in her uterus is incidental to liberty (Ron Paul has declared Right-to-Life is “the most important issue of our age”).
But I want to abstract away from both Ron Paul and the ugly tone and language in the newsletters. What was their political strategy? As Dave Weigel and Julian Sanchez dug up, there was a very clear path. According to Rothbard in 1992, they could gather disaffected working and middle class people by exposing an ”unholy alliance of ‘corporate liberal’ Big Business and media elites, who, through big government, have privileged and caused to rise up a parasitic Underclass, who, among them all, are looting and oppressing the bulk of the middle and working classes in America.”
Take white middle-class people and explain to them how the safety net is ok for them because they are part of the virtuous hardworking backbone of the country, but it’s a dangerous creation because people elite liberals will use it to create a mass, dangerous Other that don’t deserve to be part of it.
we don’t have an NRO thread so i’ll just put this here
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/286726/front-page-voyeurism-heather-mac-donald
i mean holy shit
[Approved commenter] Jenna
: 12/28/11 15:30
If American society has reached the point that a newspaper article about bad sex between two teenagers with autism is considered a human interest story and we feel compelled to defend the insensitive and disgusting journalist who wrote it, it doesn’t matter how bad the politicians in Washington are because we have far more serious problems.
I’m very fond of Jenna — she comments often and just as wittily.
The “Aspergians have sex” story
clinton makes it ‘obama 2.0’ and gives the campaign a fresh media narrative.
ok now you sound like gabbneb
ehh I’m not arguing it would change anything about obama, I’m arguing the media eats gimmicky shit up
I was Gabbnebbed last night on a different thread. It’s a ferocious accusation.
it’s really just the flipside of being morbzed
One of these days I plan to Clemenza somebody. I’m just not sure yet what that might entail.
You replaced him when he was banned. To be fair, though, he “crunches data” and such.
as opposed to making a reference to a 1876 election
One of these days I plan to Clemenza somebody. I’m just not sure yet what that might entail.
wild gossipy political horserace fiend
= enjoys politics...Guilty as charged, as I’ve said many times.
as opposed to making a reference to a 1876 election
― iatee, Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:01 PM
I don’t understand your problem with Rutherfraud Hayes.
u act like you’re ashamed of it. embrace ur inner clemenza. enjoy politics w/ pride xp
You replaced him when he was banned. To be fair, though, he “crunches data” and such.
― Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, December 28, 2011 4:00 PM (1 minute ago)
he blends it actually
lol that took me a second
Here I am during a march last year we held in honour of Mark Halperin:
lol
how is perry transformed
“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue. “Some powerful stories in that DVD.”
that kind of personnel move look like a huge admission of weakness, esp if there is no immediate health- or scandal-related reason to get rid of biden
Correct. Won’t happen absent the latter.
I like this clemenza fellow and his support for my boyfriend, Mark Halperin.
“I really started giving some thought about the issue of rape and incest,” Mr. Perry told a local pastor who had questioned whether he had changed his position on the issue. “Some powerful stories in that DVD.”
ha my friend went to a fire safety training day & the guy concluded by intoning “I’ve seen some powerful fires ...... on video”.
I think it will still be a very close race, because enthusiasm for Obama among liberals is rather tepid also.
Sure, but that’s relative to whether it’s support for him against Romney or against one of the more monstrous candidates, right? Romney’s current attempts to slap on some monster make-up aside.
The “Aspergians have sex” story
actually i was surprised by the comments under this breathtakingly hateful NRO post. most were aghast at the poster’s condescending attitude toward aspies—or in heather mcd’s awful neologism “syndroids.” reliably a couple trolls like jenna let rip, another d-bag compared the autism epidemic to global warming lol/smh.
the corner has become totally dominated by trolling and appears to be un-moderated or edited these days.
i mean, jesus, even for a right-wing website that post was just monstrously insensitive. you’d think a bunch of professional christians like the nro editors would exercise a little uh empathy for people struggling w/autism.
For relaxing times...make it Santorum time.
Not on the couch, dammit!
RT @CNNExpress: @OccupyCaucus vowed to obstruct Paul’s Iowa office until RP promises to not close the EPA. #OccupyCaucus #RonPaul #iowacaucus
RP genocidal killer of Americans in the name of ‘liberty’
f it
lol
What a goofnugget.
is this shit even legal?
Primary elections for nominations within political parties are considered to be an internal affair of the party, so they have a much lower legal threshhold for pulling stupid shit like that. Think of the VA republicans as a bunch of shriners or masons and it becomes clearer just how idiotic their party rules can get without breaking any laws.
i keep seeing things like ‘iowa is a caucus not a primary, so anything is possible“. can someone explain to me what is different about a caucus (compared to what, a regular primary?) that makes this so?
In a primary election, the results are compiled statewide, so statistically speaking the local variations are smoothed out. As I understand it, with caucuses, each local caucus is a statistical unit, so local quirks and variations are preserved.
Another weirdness of caucuses is that attending a caucus requires a greater commitment of time and energy than going to a polling place, voting, and then going home. You have to come, then stay to the bitter end if you want to be sure of the outcome.
Don’t people also advocate for candidates at caucuses before the vote takes place?
I’m from a primary-holding state, so I’m sort of vague on all the odd bits about how to caucus.
primary is just a straight ballot vote; most GOP primaries are winner-take-all but that may have changed in a few places.
caucuses are more like a big meeting. people physically get together in a big room (a high school gym generally) and, at the appointed time, bunch together with the other supporters of their first choice.
if there aren’t enough people in a bunch, at that time, to meet the lower threshold %, then all those people have to choose someone else, and after another half-hour or so resort themselves for another count (or go home i guess). and that’s where the unpollable combo of secondary & tertiary preferences combined with local relationships and just lucky charisma or whatev comes into play.
i dunno what those lower % thresholds are btw. 5? 15? in small communities or if there is low turnout, there’s plenty of room to game this shit because the margins are so wacky. it’s also why organization matters, a network of folks to just be at these places and hopefully yak their way thru the night. and also why long-duration enthusiasms like ron paul’s core of fanatics can have a big effect over flash-in-the-pan polling leads like newt gingrich’s.
idk how many rounds they go through either. probably when there are no more candidacies left below the margin. we could probably go to wikipedia or sth right?
Surely sometimes the second or third choice for a voter whose first choice becomes unavailable is: fuck this, I’m leaving.
This was taken at last year’s Democratic caucus in Nevada. Look’s quite bizarre.
Yeah the caucus really seems to favor pauls campaign
is the pledge legally binding & enforcable, bc i think the best way to treat such a thing would be writing SURE DO! XOXO on the dotted line & then vote for the assholest as planned
lol my mom is a longtime democrat with no real ‘extreme’ or unorthodox or even notably leftist beliefs, but has a bizarre taste for single-digit outlier candidates.
i asked her in 08 if she was gonna caucus and she said she really liked joe biden (i know, right?) (i was fishing for her take on hrc vs obama vs born in a meal). so i was like, uh ok, who’s your second choice then? “bill richardson”.
then i recalled back in 88 when she had talked a whole crew of old people from the home she managed to go caucus for... bruce babbitt.
no real point to this story other than: caucuses are kind of fucked up and nobody ever explains wtf happens at them until like the night of.