All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[shooshoomanjoe]

Well the Iowa Republicans have a different system for the caucus than the Iowa Democrats do, a much simpler system and their results were in last night...fun watching all of the chaos...

Did anyone really expect trump would lose to the 3 tokens plopped up against him?

[numberthirty]

Until you start talking about Sanders' "flubs" as much as you do every other candidate, your criticism will always be both inaccurate and suspect by default.

You never mention how he "dropped the ball" last election after tying in Iowa -- for obvious reasons.

Let the process play out: it's not a "mistake" to back the candidate who wins the primaries because that's how democracy works.

It's not perfect and your chosen candidate doesn't always win -- just don't use that as an excuse not to vote this time around.

Since the flub was clearly "Party" and not candidate?

How the process plays out is kind of the point.

"Candidate" is a non-issue in an instance where it was the Party completely dropping the ball.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Because every step that you flub is one you ain't getting back.

There were plenty of things in the Primary/General last time out that folks shrugged off that wound up costing a pretty penny in the end.

Avoiding those same sort of missteps this time is pretty crucial. Even with a solid Democratic Nominee and a pretty solid run, Trump(barring things falling apart or him shooting himself in the foot...) probably has a hand just good enough that he could win with it.

There's going to be enough things that will be tough not to flub when it comes to that. Never mind "Basics 101" flubs like this(never mind that it was a gold medal version of how badly one could have dropped this particular ball...)

Look, shit happens, plain and simple. Could things have ran smoother in Iowa? Absolutely, I won't deny that, but what happened last night won't have an effect on the overall process. It's a stumbling block, albeit an embarrassing one to be sure, but not something to wring one's hands and wail like a banshee over. This is a marathon, not a sprint and the race is only just starting. Besides, what do you care? At least Dems are having primaries, the GOP cut seven (or is it eight) states off at the knees at the onset, not allowing challengers to your buddy Trump because party bosses were afraid of hurting his precious feelings. Not exactly democracy at work.

[aja_christopher]

Since the flub was clearly "Party" and not candidate?

How the process plays out is kind of the point.

Didn't you complain about the "process" last time around as well and then failed to vote for the eventual nominee?

The point is that this election is too important for you -- and others like you -- to start attacking "Democrats" and not voting this time around just because things didn't work out exactly as planned, or as you wanted.

Mistakes happens, but at the end of the day, Iowa is just one state and it won't help things to start dwelling on the negative so early in the election.

[numberthirty]

Look, shit happens, plain and simple. Could things have ran smoother in Iowa? Absolutely, I won't deny that, but what happened last night won't have an effect on the overall process. It's a stumbling block, albeit an embarrassing one to be sure, but not something to wring one's hands and wail like a banshee over. This is a marathon, not a sprint and the race is only just starting. Besides, what do you care? At least Dems are having primaries, the GOP cut seven (or is it eight) states off at the knees at the onset, not allowing challengers to your buddy Trump because party bosses were afraid of hurting his precious feelings. Not exactly democracy at work.

If you already have Biden's campaign lawyer trying to dictate terms about what conditions should be met before results are released?

I'm less certain of that.

It's just a really bad stumble coming off of the starting line.

Hopefully, you will be right about it just being a wrinkle that happened at kick off.

[numberthirty]

Didn't you complain about the "process" last time around as well and then failed to vote for the eventual nominee?

The point is that this election is too important for you -- and others like you -- to start attacking "Democrats" and not voting this time around just because things didn't work out exactly as planned, or as you wanted.

Mistakes happens, but at the end of the day, Iowa is just one state and it won't help things to start dwelling on the negative so early in the election.

Since just about everyone and their ex-wife can see this for what it was?

Non-issue.

[aja_christopher]

Since just about everyone and their ex-wife can see this for what it was?

Non-issue.

I notice you didn't highlight the fact that you didn't vote for the nominee (Clinton) last time around in the general election.

Which is only a "non-issue" if you're more interested in complaining about the "process" than getting Trump out of office.

It's just a really bad stumble coming off of the starting line.

I'd say it's a really bad stumble starting the Democratic primary off in two of the whitest states in America.

But it is what it is.

[numberthirty]

I'd say it's a really bad stumble starting the Democratic primary off in two of the whitest states in America.

But it is what it is.

There is an argument "For" and "Against" that assertion.

There's no argument to support the idea that last night was anything except a mess.

[aja_christopher]

There is an argument "For" and "Against" that assertion.

Explain why the Democratic primaries -- a party which depends increasingly on "minority" votes -- should be started off in two of the whitest states in America.

[numberthirty]

I notice you didn't highlight the fact that you didn't vote for the nominee (Clinton) last time around in the general election.

Which is only a "non-issue" if you're more interested in complaining about the "process" than getting Trump out of office.

If you are so busy with non-issues that you can't see that the way the process is currently unfolding is putting you in a position where beating Trump in this fall's General Election is "Less Likely"?

[aja_christopher]

If you are so busy with non-issues that you can't see that the way the process is currently unfolding is putting you in a position where beating Trump in this fall's General Election is "Less Likely"?

Mistakes happen -- I've already explained why I think starting the primaries off in Iowa and New Hampshire is a "mistake" as well.

Just don't use it as an excuse not to vote this time around if your chosen candidate doesn't win the nomination.

[Superbat]

LMAO can the Democrats do anything without screwing it up?

This whole thing comes across as shady. It isn't because it's actually the Democrats being incompetent but this is going to hurt the nominee no matter who it is.

[Mister Mets]

Well the Iowa Republicans have a different system for the caucus than the Iowa Democrats do, a much simpler system and their results were in last night...fun watching all of the chaos...

Interestingly enough, it can be partly attributed to transparency demands by Sanders supporters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/04/u...s-changes.html

Mr. Sanders’s 2016 campaign fought for an audit in Iowa — comparing the reported results with the papers on which caucus leaders had recorded voters’ preferences — and accused the state Democratic Party of a lack of transparency.

Largely because of Mr. Sanders’s objections, the party decided to release additional numbers in 2020 that it had always logged but never made public: the number of supporters each candidate had in the first round of voting and the number he or she had in the second round, after nonviable candidates were eliminated and caucusgoers realigned.

The idea was that all this data would provide a fuller picture of each candidate’s strength.

Under the old reporting system, for instance, a candidate who received 14 percent support — just below the threshold for earning delegates — would be indistinguishable from a candidate who received 1 percent support. But in the raw vote totals, they could get credit for the support they had in the first round — and in a state where perceptions of strength and political momentum matter much more than delegates, that sort of credit can be crucial.

So the caucuses go: They have always been more about creating momentum (or the perception of it) for candidates than about the number of delegates they award. Iowa’s contribution to a candidate’s total number of delegates is trivial. But the state’s contribution to popular conceptions of political viability is immense.

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What matters most is how voters across the country view the outcome in Iowa. Having four sets of results from the 2020 caucuses, as opposed to one set of results in 2016, was widely seen as possibly providing more opportunities for candidates to cite the most favorable set of data as evidence of political momentum.

Another consideration for Mr. Sanders in 2016 was that, because of the realignment process and the arcane rules by which delegates are allocated, it was possible that he might have actually received more support than Mrs. Clinton in the first round’s raw vote. But because only the delegate count was released, there was no way to know.

Once the results from Monday night are confirmed and released, we will indeed have a more complete map of how the candidates did than we have in any previous election cycle. But the need to report four sets of results instead of just one was a major factor in the debacle, as the state party struggled with what it called “inconsistencies” in all that data.

Trump couldn't have hoped for a better Iowa Caucus.

He and Bloomberg were the winners. Maybe Biden, if there's less attention to what appears to be his collapse.

[Tami]

Noticed the reporting on how the Transparency asked for by Sanders led to a system that created more chaos in Iowa. I wouldn't entirely hold Sanders group tot he fire for this, mostly it is Iowa trying out a new system at the worst possible time. Also, this is a warning to other Caucus states of what could go wrong.

As far as results go, I'm not 'counting' on anyone winning until all the counts are in and official. Plus, you can't say that any candidate will be affected by this enough to matter. Whomever turns out to be the winner might lose the 'Iowa Bump' effect, but in the end Iowa only has a small contribution tot he total nationwide results. Maybe it's for the best that teh Iowa system broke down.

I'm also not placing too much importance on NH either. The first states I'm looking at are South Carolina and Nevada.

[KOSLOX]

They invented an app years ago to handle this. It's called Excel.