The "Douglass Plan" amazed me when I heard about it. You don't go around claiming endorsements from people without actually getting them. Sleazy and hollow. Unfortunately he's going to have every media outlet trying to ensure he has a dream run. Hoping South Carolina will really hurt his campaign.

Bernie should be happy coming out of New Hampshire. All the talk is still about Pete (who ruthlessly and unethically claimed victory in Iowa) and Klobuchar (who spiked). The Bernie narrative is that he flopped because he got less than his 2016 totals, but the main newscasters miss that he didn't have all these men and another left-leaning candidate to contend with that year.

I think the next 2 are critical. It would be good for Bernie if Biden performs well in Nevada and South Carolina because that will encourage him to stay in the race. Then they can into Super Tuesday with a crowded 'moderate' field of Biden, Buttigieg, Klobuchar and Mayor Bloomberg. Maybe even by then Warren has given up the ghost. That Super Tuesday scenario is the perfect outcome for Sanders. He has a lot of testosterone to contend with but the whole of the left-leaning lane would be wide open for him to win on 35% totals per state.

That's basically the Trump formula (minus winning entire state delegate totals off minority votes). After Super Tuesday, then he can face a winnowed field with a pretty big delegate lead and the 'favourite' tag. Would pretty much leave only Bernie and no winner as the only outcomes at this point.

Or the rumoured "brokered convention" …

Claudius wrote:

Would pretty much leave only Bernie and no winner as the only outcomes at this point.

The website that's regularly linked for PL predictions is also covering the primaries. Haven't bothered to read into how they do their calculations or if it's even possible to do so but here you go. 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

Still on Sanders...
... one thing I find weird about his supporters is this idea that the Democratic Party has a conspiracy against him and will cheat at every opportunity. While I sympathise with their frustrations, I think that they often have misplaced angst, and should focus on building the candidate rather than tearing down the party.

To clarify the situation, Bernie is not a member of the Democratic Party. He is competing in the Party because the two party system is hard to beat. Democratic socialists have not stood independently for almost a century.

The party is being quite accommodating in this regard. Remember that a party has an identity and sets a strategy for how it wants to contribute to the nation and thus compete in elections. This includes the types of positions it wants to takes. If politicians stand contrary to those positions, then it has a right to focus on the politicians it finds most closely identify with its values.

This is not unique to the Democrats in rallying around Clinton in 2016 and seemingly gravitating towards Biden in 2020. The Republicans desperately tried to prop up Rubio and Bush in 2016. In both those instances, however, a large enough number of supporters was attracted to the fringe candidate. I've just been looking at Trump's primaries. In his case, before they were 2/3 through the primaries, he never got more than 47% of the vote in any state, typically getting 35% and taking some or all delegates. And this forced the Republican hand. Sanders can do more or less the same.

On the Democractic Party, while it has a prerogative to set strategy, that strategy appears to be a conservative one, in more ways than one. They are trying to manage the risk of a) losing swing voters, and b) being labeled socialists. I think those are the wrong focal points. Swing voters are probably being reduced by polarisation (e.g., evangelicals either opting out or leaning right), and Republicans will find a catchy label regardless. What Democrats should rather focus on is just letting a good candidate win and then focus on maximising turnout for them

Quincy Abeyie wrote:
Claudius wrote:

Would pretty much leave only Bernie and no winner as the only outcomes at this point.

The website that's regularly linked for PL predictions is also covering the primaries. Haven't bothered to read into how they do their calculations or if it's even possible to do so but here you go. 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

Thanks, mate. I follow their projections. They're the only people I listen to because they don't have misguided analyses (that typically reinforce the biases that lead to the debate stage you saw on Friday night) 

The one problem with their model is that what you see is the static picture now for all candidates. They admit it doesn't capture all the probabilities of major events happening. E.g., a likely occurrence is that based on this week's performance Klobuchar picks up endorsements. That can affect the numbers. Major dropouts too. 

Burnwinter wrote:

Or the rumoured "brokered convention" …

By the time they get to Florida/Illinois/Ohio, I think they need to coalesce around Bernie if they see him in the lead, and signal same to supporters. A brokered convention would be the biggest disaster. Just think how vicious the convention was in 2016 with a clear winner

Claudius wrote:

Still on Sanders...
... one thing I find weird about his supporters is this idea that the Democratic Party has a conspiracy against him and will cheat at every opportunity. While I sympathise with their frustrations, I think that they often have misplaced angst, and should focus on building the candidate rather than tearing down the party.

I think the institutional grind against Sanders is real (cf. the absurd decision not to correct the wrongly counted caucuses in Iowa, leading to +2 delegates for Buttegieg). However, I think that spending a lot of time thinking about it is what you'd call a "losing mentality" in sport. So long as Sanders' people are pointing at it, laughing about it and moving on to more success, it helps them. The trick with populism is to appear both outside the establishment and unstoppable.

It is odd that someone who isn't really a card-carrying Democrat could secure the party's nomination. More of a feature than a bug in US politics. Although the system in the US is blatantly corrupt and broken in many ways, it is still relatively open and free of overbearing party discipline compared to the sclerosis we have in Australia.

Claudius wrote:
Quincy Abeyie wrote:

The website that's regularly linked for PL predictions is also covering the primaries. Haven't bothered to read into how they do their calculations or if it's even possible to do so but here you go. 

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/

Thanks, mate. I follow their projections. They're the only people I listen to because they don't have misguided analyses (that typically reinforce the biases that lead to the debate stage you saw on Friday night) 

The one problem with their model is that what you see is the static picture now for all candidates. They admit it doesn't capture all the probabilities of major events happening. E.g., a likely occurrence is that based on this week's performance Klobuchar picks up endorsements. That can affect the numbers. Major dropouts too. 

538s model was flummoxed by trumps win in 2016. Didn't take into account unlikely voters that are basically ghosts in standard polling data

I get that bernie isn't a reflection of the democratic 'values' in the last 30 years, and the baked-in establishment will understandably be unhappy about that. But the big question is what are these vaunted values they're trying to protect, and why is a significant part of the electorate rejecting those ideas. Someone like sanders attacking from the left flank forces them to defend and justify their positions, and that alone shines a light on uncomfortable truths about the party. I mean they're bigging up bloomberg at this point for goodness sake

Burnwinter wrote:
Claudius wrote:

Still on Sanders...
... one thing I find weird about his supporters is this idea that the Democratic Party has a conspiracy against him and will cheat at every opportunity. While I sympathise with their frustrations, I think that they often have misplaced angst, and should focus on building the candidate rather than tearing down the party.

I think the institutional grind against Sanders is real (cf. the absurd decision not to correct the wrongly counted caucuses in Iowa, leading to +2 delegates for Buttegieg). However, I think that spending a lot of time thinking about it is what you'd call a "losing mentality" in sport. So long as Sanders' people are pointing at it, laughing about it and moving on to more success, it helps them. The trick with populism is to appear both outside the establishment and unstoppable.

It is odd that someone who isn't really a card-carrying Democrat could secure the party's nomination. More of a feature than a bug in US politics. Although the system in the US is blatantly corrupt and broken in many ways, it is still relatively open and free of overbearing party discipline compared to the sclerosis we have in Australia.

Yeah, just keep backing the guy. Build his surrogates. Build out his army on the ground in each state. The more nut jobs like Deval Patrick who come in and out of the race to save the party, the better for him. 
He has a platform. Nobody in the centre has any credible policies to speak of. So he just needs to outlast Warren and then pick them off. 

Gazza M wrote:

I get that Bernie isn't a reflection of the democratic 'values' in the last 30 years, and the baked-in establishment will understandably be unhappy about that. But the big question is what are these vaunted values they're trying to protect, and why is a significant part of the electorate rejecting those ideas. Someone like sanders attacking from the left flank forces them to defend and justify their positions, and that alone shines a light on uncomfortable truths about the party. I mean they're bigging up bloomberg at this point for goodness sake

The "political class" reaction to Sanders' statistical ascendancy in the forecasts is pretty dire, yeah. I don't know how all those fucker centrist pundits sleep at night trying to claim scrubs like Buttegieg who are practically setting out their stalls for corporate influence would be better for the nation.

Burnwinter wrote:
Gazza M wrote:

I get that Bernie isn't a reflection of the democratic 'values' in the last 30 years, and the baked-in establishment will understandably be unhappy about that. But the big question is what are these vaunted values they're trying to protect,  and why is a significant part of the electorate rejecting those ideas. Someone like sanders attacking from the left flank forces them to defend and justify their positions,  and that alone shines a light on uncomfortable truths about the party. I mean they're bigging up bloomberg at this point for goodness sake

The "political class" reaction to Sanders' statistical ascendancy in the forecasts is pretty dire, yeah. I don't know how all those fucker centrist pundits sleep at night trying to claim scrubs like Buttegieg who are practically setting out their stalls for corporate influence would be better for the nation.

Conservatism. Wall Street traders were talking in November about shorting the market in the event of a Warren win. This kind of talk makes politicians nervous. She was aggressively going after banks, big corporate, tech etc., but Bernie is quite close with his anti-corporate talk. America is beholden to Wall Street and uses it as a bell-weather for economic health. I don't know if it's the ubiquitousness and ease of interpretation of the Dow Jones Index, the funding from bankers, self-enrichment or something else. 

Probably just the fact every evening news bulletin tell you whether the Dow Jones is up or down. Australians all stare at it too.

I can tell you right now for free that the coronavirus has fucked the planned budget surplus over here. The whole tourism industry is in traction after fires and influenza.

It's sad because this fucking index doesn't capture the economy well. A lot of it just reflects the fortunes of big tech, where spoils have been shared by Jesus-complex funders, investment bankers, venture capitalists and other hangers on. Last week Tesla shot up to $1000 with no explanation and is now sitting at 770, basically behaving like Bitcoin. Amidst all this, the forgotten man remains forgotten. This is why the only candidates I listen to are Bernie and Warren. Everyone else might as well be drawing pictures with poo.

I guess the Tesloids think the Grimes-Musk baby is going to deliver the Singularity in stock form.

The thought alone of those two freaks having a baby

This bloomberg run is gross. Mainstream media starting to prop him up is unsurprising

This is the world we live in. Twitter and memes influencing elections. I guess throughout history a great cartoon can always prove damaging, if not terminal, to a campaign. I guess elections come down to the simplistic in many ways. It's Time, MAGA.

But still, it's nice to dream that a candidate with policy depth could actually lead and make a difference.