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Democratic Debate (2 Viewers)

I have been saying Bernie is by far the better candidate for months.  Hillary is not appealing in any way.  But I do hope the Dems go with Hillary.  

 
squistion said:
Of course he is. And he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning the general election. As I have been saying all year, nominate him and the Democratic Party goes off a cliff in November, electoral and down ticket disaster for nominating a self described socialist.
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I don't think he'll get the nomination, but he's starting something that could pave the way for better things down the road.  As usual, Bernie is probably about 20 years ahead of the curve.  Another couple decades of the same ol' #### and people will be ready for the next Bernie Sanders.  It might not even take that long. 

 
squistion said:
Of course he is. And he doesn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning the general election. As I have been saying all year, nominate him and the Democratic Party goes off a cliff in November, electoral and down ticket disaster for nominating a self described socialist.
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Then you might as well turn out the lights, because he has a much better chance of getting elected than Clinton...

 
The strong  consensus among political experts, Republican operatives, and most Democrats is that Hillary Clinton is far more electable than Bernie Sanders. 

The strong consensus in this forum seems to be that Bernie Sanders is far more electable than Hillary Clinton. 

Im not going to offer an opinion on which thesis is correct as I am no longer certain. But I do want to note that one of the key arguments made by the pundits is that Bernie has not yet been subjected to any "anti-socialism" criticism of the sort that Republicans will throw at him and Hillary will not. 

 
timschochet said:
The strong  consensus among political experts, Republican operatives, and most Democrats is that Hillary Clinton is far more electable than Bernie Sanders. 

The strong consensus in this forum seems to be that Bernie Sanders is far more electable than Hillary Clinton.

Im not going to offer an opinion on which thesis is correct as I am no longer certain. But I do want to note that one of the key arguments made by the pundits is that Bernie has not yet been subjected to any "anti-socialism" criticism of the sort that Republicans will throw at him and Hillary will not.
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Links?

 
timschochet said:
The strong  consensus among political experts, Republican operatives, and most Democrats is that Hillary Clinton is far more electable than Bernie Sanders. 

The strong consensus in this forum seems to be that Bernie Sanders is far more electable than Hillary Clinton. 

Im not going to offer an opinion on which thesis is correct as I am no longer certain. But I do want to note that one of the key arguments made by the pundits is that Bernie has not yet been subjected to any "anti-socialism" criticism of the sort that Republicans will throw at him and Hillary will not. 
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Hillary tested those waters and made the correct decision not to continue.  It didn't go well for her.

 
Also, Hillary has already started the anti-Socialism stuff. Are the Republicans really going to roll out something entirely new?

Trump: You are a socialist, you pinko socialist!

Bernie: Yep. A democratic socialist.

 
timschochet said:
The argument is that it doesn't work for Hillary because she's making it to Democrats. The Republicans will be making the argument to the general public.
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Is that argument based on the premise that only Democrats will vote for Bernie? Or that some Democrats will move over to Trump in the general?

 
timschochet said:
The strong  consensus among political experts, Republican operatives, and most Democrats is that Hillary Clinton is far more electable than Bernie Sanders. 

The strong consensus in this forum seems to be that Bernie Sanders is far more electable than Hillary Clinton. 

Im not going to offer an opinion on which thesis is correct as I am no longer certain. But I do want to note that one of the key arguments made by the pundits is that Bernie has not yet been subjected to any "anti-socialism" criticism of the sort that Republicans will throw at him and Hillary will not. 
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How many of the political experts, Republican operatives and the Democratic Establishment thought Hillary would be in this dog fight with Bernie Sanders 6-9 months ago?  Did any of them think Bernie would be raising more money than her in 2016?

 
JerseyToughGuys said:
Is that argument based on the premise that only Democrats will vote for Bernie? Or that some Democrats will move over to Trump in the general?
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Neither. It's based on the notion that right now the Denocrats that support Bernie are more progressive than the general public is, and that said general public is not really aware of what Bernie is all about. 

 
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Link to what? It's an argument I've heard several times. You want me to prove the general public is not aware of what Bernie is all about? I can't do that. Time will tell whether this argument is right or not. I wo t commit to it myself. All I'll say is that it's very common among the pundits. You're free to agree with it or not. 

 
timschochet said:
Neither. It's based on the notion that right now the Denocrats that support Bernie are more progressive than the general public is, and that said general public is not really aware of what Bernie is all about. 
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and how do they discern the number of "independents" or "general public" that have gone to the democratic primaries specifically to vote for Bernie already?  Topics like this are exactly why the labels are dangerous in the "either/or" because there's always other options.  

 
Tim, I posted it in one of the threads but apparently there's now a Republican SuperPAC running ads against Bernie and his scary socialism.  So the tide may be shifting a little.

 
timschochet said:
Link to what? It's an argument I've heard several times. You want me to prove the general public is not aware of what Bernie is all about? I can't do that. Time will tell whether this argument is right or not. I wo t commit to it myself. All I'll say is that it's very common among the pundits. You're free to agree with it or not.
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gotcha...

 
The Commish said:
and how do they discern the number of "independents" or "general public" that have gone to the democratic primaries specifically to vote for Bernie already?  Topics like this are exactly why the labels are dangerous in the "either/or" because there's always other options.  
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I don't know how they discern it. I presume they believe that the independents who are motivated to vote in primaries are very different from the majority of independents who aren't paying attention right now and won't until late this summer. And that there is historical evidence to bear this out. But we'll see. 

 
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timschochet said:
I don't know how they discern it. I presume they believe that the independents who are motivated to vote in primaries are very different from the majority of independents who aren't paying attention right now and won't until late this summer. And that there is historical evidence timber this out. But we'll see.
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who is the "they"? I really am trying to follow you here.

 
Tim loves to group people with labels and then over generalize about them.  It is what he does. 

 
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I think the political pundits are using a calculus that is not applicable to this election.

Many of them, having covered elections for years, look at this election through that prism.  This is the same prism that says Clinton should be unchallenged right now.  By historic measures, the two most determinative stats for winning a presidential election are "insider" endorsements, and big money donors.  Clinton has both of those areas locked down - and its not close, indeed its embarrassingly lopsided.  Another area where the pundits look is to the debates - who "sounds/looks" more presidential - again, Clinton is the polished debater, and comes out of every single debate with the pundits singing her praises.

So, Clinton has all the Dems in congress endorsing, she has most of the Media endorsements, she has the support of most union leadership, she has virtually all the big money donors.  Why wouldn't the pundits look at that and see a strong candidate?

Of, course, despite all of the advantages, she is not running away with the nomination.   The reasons are fairly straightforward.  First, she is not, as it turns out, likable enough.  She has the lowest favorability ratings of any candidate in recent history - and that is a more significant stat than any of the endorsements/money.  Second, this is not a typical election - the majority of the electorate want a change candidate.  They do not want business as usual.  Its a more visceral issue to most voters than pure political ideology - there is a strong sense that Washington is broken and that the establishment is looking to line their own pockets, rather than looking out for most Americans.  That is going to be the overriding theme we see play out over the next 9 months.  And, Clinton is on the wrong side of that argument...

 
SameSongNDance said:
So you're saying that the Quinnapiac poll, which shows that Sanders fares better than Hillary vs. the entire GOP field, means nothing? I mean, their polling is fairly accurate.
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Polls this far ahead of the general election, before the party nominees have been chosen, traditionally have poor predictive value. The average person/voter normally doesn't pay that close of attention to the election until after Labor Day. If Bernie gets the nominee we will be bombarded with the Sanders is a socialist/communist meme (Trump has already said it a couple times) and the socialist label will be death in the general election.

 
jon_mx said:
It is only 'almost unanimously' because all your sources are like-minded thinking liberal/progressive establishment types.  
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They are establishment types for sure, but I wouldn't call them liberal/progressive. Among those I've heard state that Bernie would have a far less chance than Hillary of being elected are Steve Schmidt, Karl Rove, George Will, Michael Barone, a couple of guys from National Review, etc. 

 
squistion said:
Polls this far ahead of the general election, before the party nominees have been chosen, traditionally have poor predictive value. The average person/voter normally doesn't pay that close of attention to the election until after Labor Day. If Bernie gets the nominee we will be bombarded with the Sanders is a socialist/communist meme (Trump has already said it a couple times) and the socialist label will be death in the general election.
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:blackdot:

 
Sinn Fein said:
I think the political pundits are using a calculus that is not applicable to this election.

Many of them, having covered elections for years, look at this election through that prism.  This is the same prism that says Clinton should be unchallenged right now.  By historic measures, the two most determinative stats for winning a presidential election are "insider" endorsements, and big money donors.  Clinton has both of those areas locked down - and its not close, indeed its embarrassingly lopsided.  Another area where the pundits look is to the debates - who "sounds/looks" more presidential - again, Clinton is the polished debater, and comes out of every single debate with the pundits singing her praises.

So, Clinton has all the Dems in congress endorsing, she has most of the Media endorsements, she has the support of most union leadership, she has virtually all the big money donors.  Why wouldn't the pundits look at that and see a strong candidate?

Of, course, despite all of the advantages, she is not running away with the nomination.   The reasons are fairly straightforward.  First, she is not, as it turns out, likable enough.  She has the lowest favorability ratings of any candidate in recent history - and that is a more significant stat than any of the endorsements/money.  Second, this is not a typical election - the majority of the electorate want a change candidate.  They do not want business as usual.  Its a more visceral issue to most voters than pure political ideology - there is a strong sense that Washington is broken and that the establishment is looking to line their own pockets, rather than looking out for most Americans.  That is going to be the overriding theme we see play out over the next 9 months.  And, Clinton is on the wrong side of that argument...
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These are interesting arguments. And given your track record so far, which has been pretty accurate, I'm not going to challenge you. 

But I will point out that you're operating on some unproven assumptions here, especially about the "majority of the electorate". At this point we just don't know if the anti-establishment fervor that is evident in the base of both political parties extends to the public at large. It's an open question. We'll find out soon enough. 

 
Tim making more sweeping statements and then refusing to back them up with any data, actual quotes or even references. It never gets old. Or it was old the first time he did it. Either way, it sucks.

 
timschochet said:
These are interesting arguments. And given your track record so far, which has been pretty accurate, I'm not going to challenge you.

But I will point out that you're operating on some unproven assumptions here, especially about the "majority of the electorate". At this point we just don't know if the anti-establishment fervor that is evident in the base of both political parties extends to the public at large. It's an open question. We'll find out soon enough.
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there it is again.

What does this mean?

 
JerseyToughGuys said:
there it is again.

What does this mean?
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maxresdefault.jpg


 
Henry Ford said:
1. How is it nine months before the election? (last poll was Feb. 10-15, 2016)

2. So in 2012 it was 1.0% twelve months before the election?
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1. Nate Silver probably has this information, but I don't. I'd be surprised it it was too much better, though. So far only four states have really seen much campaigning.

2. Yes. Although looking at the overall distribution, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that early head-to-head polling has been getting more accurate over time.

 
CBusAlex said:
If you look at polls that tested the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees in the last two months of the year before the election, the average absolute error of the polling average is 10.6 percentage points.
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I think that misses a couple of key points

First, any data that goes back to 1948 is going to be irrelevant to an electorate that lives in the information age in 2016 - the best informed voters of 1948 are probably on par with the least informed voters today.

Second, if you look at the last 5 election years of results - 1996 - 2012 - you see that the margin may have shifted but in 4 out of 5, the direction did not shift.  I.e. if the GOP was favored a year out, they won, and if the Dem was favored a year out - they won.  In the 5th year, 2000, the GOP was favored a year out, and in fact won, but not the popular vote.  SO, its not as though these polls are not without probative value - they can see generally what will happen, if not specifically.

 
Gr00vus said:
Tim making more sweeping statements and then refusing to back them up with any data, actual quotes or even references. It never gets old. Or it was old the first time he did it. Either way, it sucks.
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What sweeping statements have I made? I've repeated some arguments here I've heard elsewhere. They're not exactly secret. 

 
timschochet said:
Seriously? It means the public voting in November.

Is is this really that difficult? Is there anyone else reading this who didn't understand me?
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Sorry, just sifting through your generalities and trying to make some sense of them. Humor me, I can be somewhat slow.

So you think traditional primary voters have more anti-establishment fervor that the rest of the traditional "voting public" that comes out only in November?

 
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