do leadership classes usually endorse acts, threats or thoughts of violence against those that you may disagree with?

JFLNYC wrote:

JUburton wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:

JFLNYC wrote:Because rather than giving a positive, hopeful view of what a Democratic administration might look like, the candidates spent most of the night in a sophomoric food fight launching gotchas and tearing each other apart, revealing the intractable divisions in the Party and bringing down the Party as a whole.

Did you watch the Republican primary debates?

:praisehands 2016 GOP debates almost literally turned into a dick measuring contest

This shit will not matter one bit come the general. Let them fight.

It will matter a great deal.

It will matter a great deal because the party won't unite behind the Dem Primary winner? Or that Trump will reference disagreement in an ad or debate? I agree with Calvinball's point that the sophomoric and acrimonious Republican debate arguments had no effect on the general.

Had the debate on last night, and my wife, who does not really follow politics closely at all, was watching with me and said at one point "That one woman (Klobuchar) really seems like she wants to beat the shit out of Pete"

Pete's argument, that expertise matters more than experience, is not one that resonates with many people in today's world. It's not an emotional argument that people intuit, but a rhetorical point of someone without experience. This is not a world where expertise is treasured or valued, especially among low-information voters.

Wouldn't overreact to any single debate. Very likely nothing said last night is going to have a material effect on the general election.

That said, I wouldn't glibly say 'hey, look at the Republicans in 2016! this stuff doesn't have an impact.' Donald Trump was elected president of the United States by the narrowest of margins while losing the popular vote by more than 2%. Gary Johnson and Evan McMullin got almost a combined 4% of the vote, where Johnson got 1% in 2012. Trump won, but he got less of the vote share than Romney did in 2012. Though it did not cost Trump the election due to the vagaries of the electoral college and the unpopularity of Hillary Clinton, and it's easy to envision an acrimonious primary battle leading to spill off in the general in a way that does cost the Democrats in November. I think the logic of 'the Republicans did X, and the Republicans won, therefore X didn't hurt the Republicans (or maybe even helped them!)' is very lacking and in this case wrong. The GOP primary in 2016 probably cost the GOP nominee votes in November, just not enough to make him lose.

Thanks, JH. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

jerseyhoya wrote:Wouldn't overreact to any single debate. Very likely nothing said last night is going to have a material effect on the general election.

That said, I wouldn't glibly say 'hey, look at the Republicans in 2016! this stuff doesn't have an impact.' Donald Trump was elected president of the United States by the narrowest of margins while losing the popular vote by more than 2%. Gary Johnson and Evan McMullin got almost a combined 4% of the vote, where Johnson got 1% in 2012. Trump won, but he got less of the vote share than Romney did in 2012. Though it did not cost Trump the election due to the vagaries of the electoral college and the unpopularity of Hillary Clinton, and it's easy to envision an acrimonious primary battle leading to spill off in the general in a way that does cost the Democrats in November. I think the logic of 'the Republicans did X, and the Republicans won, therefore X didn't hurt the Republicans (or maybe even helped them!)' is very lacking and in this case wrong. The GOP primary in 2016 probably cost the GOP nominee votes in November, just not enough to make him lose.

There's no way to parse how much of this is due to the primary vs just Donald Trump being uniquely disgusting.

'Easy to envision an acrimonious primary battle leading to spill off' is not nearly the same as 'last night's events will have an effect in November'. Debates are adversarial. You can't present a harmonious picture of the democratic party when you personally are trying to beat everyone on stage. Hillary suggested Obama might die and there was the whole PUMA 'movement' against him and Obama trounced McCain. Could these things have had some effect? I guess? And when you're playing with margins as small as the general election will be decided be, that effect is amplified. But if the exact result happens in November as did 2016, a rough February 19th debate is going to be reason like 83 as to why.

Victoria Coates, the National Security Council's top Middle East adviser, is leaving the NSC because she has been rumored to be the anonymous author. Brain drain be damned, no replacement has been named. read here

Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

jerseyhoya wrote:The GOP primary in 2016 probably cost the GOP nominee votes in November, just not enough to make him lose.

I think I partially disagree with this conclusion. My thoughts, however, depend on a counterfactual: would another Republican nominee have won?

Marco Rubio - Yes
Ted Cruz - No
John Kasich - Yes
Jeb Bush - No

The rest weren't as serious.

I think it's hard to isolate the effect to a particular cause in this case.

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

slugsrbad wrote:

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/Q6JRY

The true nightmare scenario.

JUburton wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/Q6JRY

The true nightmare scenario.

House elects the POTUS in that case so it is actually a dream scenario for Dems.

JUburton wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/Q6JRY

The true nightmare scenario.

Not really, the Dems control the House.

06hawkalum wrote:

JUburton wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/Q6JRY

The true nightmare scenario.

House elects the POTUS in that case so it is actually a dream scenario for Dems.

It's by state delegation (each state gets one vote) which I would have to assume would be Republican. Though if some states are ties and its like 24-22-4, then it goes to the senate to pick the VP who will be pres while the house figures it out!

Obviously this is super rare not going to happen territory and I'm just having fun.

JUburton wrote:

06hawkalum wrote:

JUburton wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

I don’t know, picking up PA and Wisconsin while swinging Arizona would be enough. But yea, the electoral college is not our friend right now.

https://www.270towin.com/maps/Q6JRY

The true nightmare scenario.

House elects the POTUS in that case so it is actually a dream scenario for Dems.

It's by state delegation (each state gets one vote) which I would have to assume would be Republican. Though if some states are ties and its like 24-22-4, then it goes to the senate to pick the VP who will be pres while the house figures it out!

Obviously this is super rare not going to happen territory and I'm just having fun.

Damn, the Founding Fathers went out of their way to dick over urbanites. Yet another reason that it is time for a new Constitution.

JUburton wrote:Anyway we're all boned regardless

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status ... 3086439425

Dude is going to lose by 4 points nationally and still win, what a time to be alive.

That poll seems like a bit of an outlier:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... html#polls

Stone only sentenced to 40 months.

Gross.

It's been awhile since I had as good of a laugh as I had reading this Onion article:

'I'll Rule You Peasants with an Iron Fist,' Says Bloomberg to Standing Ovation During DNC Debate