is telling him to vote for Bernie.

And so we get a racist, sexist, pig, which makes mindsets like that as enablers of those view points

capable of operating a computer.

I just wanted to comment that in light of all the exhortations to the electors to "vote their conscience," it's kind of funny how folks got their knickers in a twist when somebody's conscience-based vote didn't jibe with what they wanted it to be.

harm.

as opposed to rational, outcome-based voting to be rather self-indulgent. That's why I was so annoyed with the Green Party people who'd happily vote for a useless dingbat like Jill Stein because their ever-so-superior and moral conscience wouldn't allow them to vote for an "establishment" candidate. I say to such people, f*ck your delicate conscience; your vote does nothing but ensure a lousy outcome.

good.

People are sayibg vote their conscience, as lo g as that means in a way that poster agrees with.

Isn't it the same with your post about doing no harm?

I would assume the fellow here thinks he's doing no harm (and he really isn't... but if it were me i wouldn't be fucking around like that: it's in poor taste. He should have voted for whom he pledged).

about how the few faithless electors might vote I have never seen anyone credible suggesting that the necessary number of Trump electors would switch their vote to Clinton and give her the election outright. All I have seen is that some might vote for a sane republican (yes, those do still exist). The hope being that enough Trump electors might defect to deprive him of a majority and then it would go to the House for a vote, where they pick from the top 5 EC vote getters.

If we are going to talk about rational, outcome based, voting I think that ensuring the House has plenty to pick from is critical to preventing DT from winning. I cannot imagine a plausible scenario where the current House would give the presidency to Clinton (or Sanders for that matter). I can see them possibly giving the presidency to another republican who is not DT, an outcome that would at least preserve the Republic long enough to have another election.

If electors have coordinated an effort to stop DT it means they are not giving it to Clinton either. I've contacted my electors and they are fanatics. To dissuade them from voting for trump would required a guarantee that Clinton would not walk away the winner. So if the goal is to stop DT from bringing on Armageddon then Voting for a sane republican makes at least as much sense as voting for Clinton, if not more.

Voting for Sanders in the EC, obviously, is just foolish.

The concept is to stop Trump from becoming President. The concept was never to hand Sanders his second monumental loss in a row.

electors being faithless. So far Trump has not lost one as far as I know while at least 7 or so Clinton electors have at least tried to vote for someone other than her.

Correction - looks like 2 TX electors went from Trump to Kaisich and Ron Paul.

That makes total sense.

The disingenuousness of this "Democratic" elector is jarring.

Why is it that dissenters are ALWAYS on the Democratic side, never on the Republican side?

I'm all for Bernie in 2020.

Hasn't Bernie already switched back to independent?

Would he really re-switch again (with a straight face) for another run?

Or become a permanent member of the Democratic party.

member of the Democratic party, if he intends to run as a democrat again.

....and was pretty churlish about it. He and his supporters can see how far their $27 donations get them in 2020 without any help from us corrupt old Democrats and our Party.

Really? You're still rooting for Bernie?

Of course you are.

Derek Lane
‏@dereklane09

As Bernie's Caucus Director for the state of Maine, I condemn David Bright and his attempt to overrule the will of Maine voters. #mepolitics

Do our nominees have to be before we stop trying to vote for jerky?
Sanders near 80
joe near 80
Hillary 75.

Nononononono.
Our last 2 winners were guys under 46 brimming with vitality......

none of the three you mention will be an option in 2020.

nor will HRC - get over it.

you maybe want to trying reading first, accusing later.

Last edited Tue Dec 20, 2016, 09:09 AM - Edit history (1)

sorry but your post reeks of being smug and elite.

I don't think age will stop him.

they will pick Kamala Harris or Martin O'Malley or some new shiny other person over Sanders.

But Hillary and Bernie completely sucked up all the oxygen.

Still, people forget that O'Malley had been talked about as a future president as far back as 2000 when he was Mayor of Baltimore.

I suspect that he won't run again.

Harris might very well run. She would be interesting.

best guess is one of the following: K Gillibrand, A Cuomo, K Harris, G Newsom, M o'malley, J Castro, T Ryan.

(Cuomo was my first choice in 2016. Obviously I didn't vote for him because he didn't run. He might not be the most progressive guy on the planet but he has a track record of working across the aisle and getting shit done. However I don't think he wants the job. Also we need someone who is charismatic and he's got the charisma of a paper bag.)

However, to win in 2020 we need to get someone that is not from the northeast or west coast (the 3 Democratic presidents in my lifetime were from the South or Midwest).

I'm thinking a guy like John Hickenlooper (soon to be termed out) or Roy Cooper (see how he does first) for the top of the ticket and Amy Klobuchar for VP (I think we need a woman as VP before we'll elect one as President).


In 2017 and beyond, we need to get some young blood in our downticket races so we can build a bench.

records in politics.

shorter is better in this case. Think of Obama in 08.

Who is our 16 shining star? One speech took him from a little known state senator to a household name.

Where is that state senator today?

and were much more open to seeing our stars than we are now. there are several stars, we just need a slightly darker sky to see them and as it turns out, the sky will get pretty dark in jan.

And I also think the nation's priorities and mindset will be way different than they are today. We are going to need people who can break through the media bullshit and stand up for us.

That Michelle Obama will change her mind and decide to run in 2020. She could get the job done!

Much like this time

I just don't know.

And he'll get even less of the vote share than this time round as there will be more democrats to siphon off support

A brimming with vitality Barack Obama soundly trounced wizened old McCain in a big blue landslide giving us both houses of congress. Let's do that again.

It's disgusting that our party doesn't have a deep bench of people who even want to run for the office of president. While the other side has so many they even needed to have undercard debates during their primaries. Republicans are tripping over themselves to run for President.

How about electing thirteen year olds....? New blood. Fresh ideas. Idealistic.

Or simply pretend your own arbitrary limits are supported by objective evidence and rational thought.

My guess is you'll opt for number two while calling it anything other than what it is.

So much political ignorance

I don't think there should be an EC, but since there is one, and he's an elector, he's done nothing wrong.

who cares more about his idol than he does about the country. So, fuck him. We could be frog-marching to the gulags soon, and nitwits like him will still be smug about "expressing themselves" with their votes.

BOBers: Ratfuckers until the last.

A torrent of insults like that will just make it happen more often.

Work on those people skills. It'll help in 2018.

and they can face the consequences next time they try to hijack the party. No more spoilers.

Sanders has to be flat out embarrassed.

A constant source of constant embarrassment for him. Glad to see some close to him agree.

and if by chance a miracle occurred today, and 37 other Electoral College voters for Hillary, and she is one vote short of the White House, a Bernie or Bust zealot will once again cost Democrats the White House. Enough of your protests votes.

All this is just wishful thinking. If more than 10 change their votes I'll be amazed. I like the idea of whittling down Trump's EC win but I have no illusions that the outcome will be changed.

Yes, by all means, deliberately increase Donald Trump's electoral voter margin, and what better place to start than a state like Maine with apportioned EC votes? If there are enough of these blue state flips then Trump can credibly lay claim to that landslide he keeps bragging about. Who cares that Hillary won the popular vote in that state and nationwide as well? She still got 2 out of 4 Maine EV's. Who's to complain? So what the heck, let's go big on this and knock her down a few notches in the EC!



A HAIL TRUMP! moment if there ever was one (not sarcasm).

delegates in a landslide.

Useless.

Ugh, the entitlement does him and his revolution no favors at all.

David Bright's vote could be the difference that prevents her from having a majority of electoral votes, thus preventing her from becoming president and sending the decision to the House if Trump didn't get the majority of electoral votes either. I'm just speculating that enough of them would change their vote from Trump to Hillary, but it could theoretically happen.

Unless he somehow already knows how all the electors are voting, I don't understand how he can assert, "Hillary Clinton will not become President."

The message that'll be remember will be that while HRC won the popular vote, her electors were less behind her than tRump's were.

Oh fcuk me!

Namely the Bernie holdouts.

If not for the Clinton campaign's collusion with DWS and the DNC, Sanders would be president elect and Trump's campaign would still be a bad joke. Instead, the DNC gave us president elect Trump, Trump's cabinet of white nationalist rich people, Trump's kids who will end up monetizing their family connections beyond any last shred of decency, and Trump's coming remake of the Supreme Court. No amount of memory bleach will change that.

Sanders would be president-elect? Where did you pull that one from?

...and arenas back when Senator Clinton was convincing wealthy establishment elites that she was inevitable at $5000 per plate fund raisers.

And Hillary still got 3 million more votes than him.

Your assumption that filling stadiums equals winning elections is absurd

and ENTHUSIASTICALLY VOTED FOR HER are all rich coastal elites amirite?

Because she held a dinner to make money to plunge dough into her campaign coffers and to help democrats down ballot.

The logic of it all..

sanders could ONLY win caucuses.

Enjoy the next four years. I'm sure she'll make America great again. Oh, wait....

Obviously we disagree about what Senator Sanders might have been if the DNC hadn't worked so hard to undermine his campaign and anoint The Inevitable One, but one thing we can know for sure is that Senator Clinton was demonstrably not the best candidate to run against a populist Republican. As oberliner notes up thread, the two candidates filling sports arenas were Trump and Sanders. There is a clue in there somewhere, I think.

What drew voters to Trump in large numbers? I'm sure it was his uplifting message of hope and love for all - since we're going on "who can fill stadiums" logic. All that matters is a populist message to rile people up , even if the person spouting it is full of BS.

And if this is your attitude when our institutions are under threat, if this is what you are most passionate about - that your dude didn't win - it is worst kind of narcissism imaginable.

If the fact that the levers of government will be controlled by racists, misogynists and nihilists doesn't whip up your anger as much as your guy not winning the primaries tells me why we are clueless - because that resentment is shared by millions of other clueless voters with their #jillnothill and bernieorbust nonsense.

It was the same nonsense in 2000 . This was the thinking: " If a politician's views don't perfectly align with mine, even if we agree on 75% of issues, they should be rejected" - the height of ridiculousness. And just the sort of thinking that blinds you to the flaws of the candidate you prefer. And caught up in all this is losing sight of what the damn point should have been this year : defeating conservatives - cry me a river if your preferred candidate lost. If the situation were reversed and Bernie enjoyed clout this year, I'd vote for him in a heartbeat understanding what was at stake. I wish I could use more diplomatic language but it seems we need a damn roadmap..

"Nothing infuriates me more than when progressives’ political goals are poorly prioritized. If the top goal for progressives right now in today’s political climate is not, Keep Conservatives Out Of Office, then their strategy is fundamentally flawed. I don’t care what stopgap methods have to be employed. I don’t care if the candidate you elect only votes with you 80% of the time. I don’t care if you think there is a better candidate out there you wished had run or had won the primary. I don’t fucking care. If your actions are not guided by the goal of keeping conservatives out of office, you are part of the problem which makes you culpable for the consequences. "

And I don't need to list the effects of leftist obstinacy in 2000 , and now the left has almost no leverage, and we'll likely lose the filibuster, and certainly the Supreme Court .. but none of this matters, it's all secondary , and crapping on candidates I don't like is still a worthwhile effort because the DNC didn't choose the guy *I want* /sarcasm.

PUMA08 had even more cause to be pissed and they were told to get with the program. If you don't like how the DNC selects its nominee, push for change from within, but prioritize what's important for the moment and the point this year was to defeat Conservatives.

OK.

I will admit to a bit of "we told you so." You can't say the writing wasn't pretty clearly on the wall at the time. Polls showed that Sanders would do better against Trump and that a Clinton nomination would likely lead to a Trump presidency. All the crowing in the world about "Sanders lost the primaries" will not change the outcome. Sanders supporters said it at the time: Senator Clinton's narrow primary victory depended upon states that she could never carry in the GE and the support of super delegates pledged to the Democratic party establishment. And it relied upon the DNC manipulating the primary process itself to undermine Sanders' campaign. Even then, it was pretty obvious that the electorate wasn't excited about the party establishment in either party. Sanders was filling stadiums, while Clinton was filling campaign coffers and rubbing elbows with well heeled party elites.

Now DUers are clinging to fantasies. She won! The faithless electors will revolt!

The simple truth is that the Democratic party ran the wrong candidate in this election. We told you so.

which polls?

I don't care about some poll or the other or "We Told You So" - I cannot use "We Told You So" to buy me a Decent Supreme Court Judge okay?

It doesn't matter who woulda coulda shoulda - that is water under the bridge. The point was what to do after it was clear Clinton would have won: We had a simple objective:

SPANK THE GOP and we couldn't even do that. I saw it for myself - a whole year of the Dem Candidate dealing with attacks not just from the GOP but from among the left, which contributed to her being falsely equivocated with Donald Trump . A whole year of plain stupid dumbass shit-fer-brains arguments from progressives about the "establishment" - and who was the establishment? what did these genius progressives miss about attacking the "establishment" in a democrat incumbent year? No i haven't the time for it.


Progressives did the work of the GOP for them. Progressives have only themselves to blame. Spare me the polls. Clinton won the primaries. A house divided cannot stand and we were divided over stupid lame shit but it was all worth it.. because "We Told You So"..

We never loved her enough.

And if that is your take away from my post you keep proving my point.

IT IS ABOUT STRATEGY.

Who is the person most likely to continue the progressive agenda - it was Hillary Clinton. If the nominee was Sanders - we get behind Sanders. If it was *EDIT* O Malley ( I type too fast) we get behind him.

It is strategy , not personality. There is no such thing as the perfect candidate. You vote for who advances your interests, period.

And yes, the Left is FOREVER Clueless and has been for decades. Conservatism should have been the garbage bin of history by now.

Your bias is almost as obvious as your lack of evidence supporting your prophecies.

That gross inconsistency is why voters aren't feeling a lot of passion for this party these days.

Need to fix that.

I'm characterizing the general arguments made around here. When talk is about the primary, Sanders is to blame. His loss is laid directly at his feet. OTOH, when it comes to the general, Clinton's loss is characterized as the result of media bias, FBI abuse of power, damage done by Sanders in the primary, and Russian interference. Her loss is excused. Both are mischaracterizations, so both are fair game.

Examples are easy enough to find on just the first page of the Postmortem.

1. DNC was accused that they only sponsored 6 debates in order to impede Bernie, but this was true of 2008 & 2004 when Bernie was not running too

These debates went up to 9 because Sanders wanted them,, more than in the last 30 years.

2. Other evidence of rigging comes from emails in MAY, by which time Bernie had already lost.

http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044

You don't get to pick and choose when losses are meaningful and when they aren't. A loss is a loss in politics.

P.S. As to your "more than in the last 30 years," comment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_presidential_debates_and_forums,_2008

that doesn't mean they did not interfere later. one action is not dependent on the other action.

also, you are conflating DNC organized debates with other debates and fora. there were many organized outside the DNC in 2016 and 2008.

Either the DNC interference/media bias mattered in the primary race as much as the Russian interference/media bias mattered in the general race, or both are irrelevant. You can't have it both ways, and demanding such makes it clear why the party keeps failing to win votes.

they didnt leak anyone emails, they didn't hack into anything, they didnt create fake news sites, they didnt create paid trolls on twitter.

There is not one shred of evidence of "collusion" in the hacked DNC emails. No 'smoking guns'

You would know that if you actually read the emails in context rather than relying on Wiki's tortuous spin and cherry-picked quotes of innocuous emails from folks bitching about Jeff Weaver being a jerk (he is).

Putin/Wiki false spin and regurgitation of that bullshit spin from Democrat-hating bloggers looking to cash in and make money off of BoB's.

Please. That's just ridiculous. Do you really believe that Debbie Wasserman Schultz quit the chair of the DNC in disgrace because Assange/Putin? Really?

and she did not want to cause more distraction.

While BoB's were the target audience, I'm surprised someone as intelligent as you fell for it.

Explain how exactly the DNC sending a few emails caused millions of more people to vote for Clinton? Be specific.

Sanders lost the primary because more voters wanted Clinton.

But if you want to claim that Sanders would have won based on his performance in the primary, explain how he would have overcome his weakness with Hispanic and black voters? If you're going to claim the good of the Sanders campaign, you don't get to discount the bad and remain intellectually honest.

In states that would go to Trump in the GE.

I don't have to explain diddly. Clinton was demonstrably the wrong candidate. That is clear. She was beaten by the most unfit republican candidate in our lifetimes. Why do you keep clinging to fantasies that suggest otherwise?

Sure, there will always be questions about whether Sanders could win the GE or not-- but there are no such doubts about Senator Clinton. She failed to overcome a man with the worst possible prospects, the least fit candidate for the presidency in U.S. history. Her unsuitability is absolutely manifest. It is unquestionable, except perhaps among the conspiracy minded.

So knowing what we know now about Senator Clinton's failure in the general election, why keep insisting she was a better democratic party candidate than Sanders might have been? I think Sanders would have crushed Trump. Of course, we'll never know. But we do know that Senator Clinton wasn't inevitable after all.

So any notion that Senator Clinton somehow "won" the election is just plain fantasy. I'll believe it when she's inaugurated. She did win more popularity contest votes than Trump did, that's true, but it's also true that bar is the lowest standard ever in American electoral history, and she still won't be inevitable tomorrow, despite Trumps historic unfitness for office. Those "3 million votes" mean nothing. The Constitution is pretty clear on that.

Why are democrats so adamant about living in a political fantasy world? Senator Clinton chundered. She cratered and brought down all hope of progressive democratic reform with her. The DNC that insisted she was The Inevitable One destroyed democratic hopes for at least four years. That is the reality.

The party establishment needs to understand that. It needs its nose rubbed in it until it gets it-- every presidential election since Bill Clinton's term has been a repudiation of establishment politics. The democratic party has not run a successful party insider since (while Barack Obama has redefined what establishment politics means-- much the same way Bill Clinton did, BTW--he was a dark horse candidate when he announced his run in 2007). Obama's campaign message, hope and change, was built upon a foundation of electoral mistrust of establishment insiders. That disdain for establishment politics has been a defining characteristic of 21st century America, so far. It transcends parties.

And if the likes of you have your way the left movement in the US is doomed. This notion we have to move the left to the middle and pander to the rural whites is crazypants.

There is no question about that. Much of what you have stated is complete bunk. That which isn't simply levels the field considering Sanders disturbing theft of campaign data. The party treated him with such kid gloves as did Clinton. Nothing but favor after favor, holding back what they had on the career politician Sanders, and in return he dove deep into breaking rules and theft and thrashing out uncontrollably.

Sanders wouldn't have gotten five percent of the vote had Clinton and the DNC not treated him with such respect. Respect he returned by stealing and cheating.

Or is that hypocrisy?