Worried for our children Loc: Massachusetts

Bernie Sanders’ win in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night came with some pretty impressive footnotes:

1. His margin of victory was the highest for a non-incumbent candidate in any state since JFK.

2. He won almost every demographic group—male, female, young, old, moderate, liberal, college educated, high school-educated—with the exception of v**ers making more than $200,000 per year.

3. He became the first Jewish candidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

4. He became the first non-Christiancandidate to win a state primary in U.S. history.

Sanders isn’t one to emphasize his religious affiliation—his political beliefs make him enough of an outsider as it is—so you won’t read much coverage about the historic nature of his win. What you will read about is how it’s going to change his primary battle against Hillary Clinton. The path to the nomination is still difficult for Sanders, and Clinton should still be considered the favorite, but winning New Hampshire in a blowout will give his candidacy a new kind of credibility and momentum. Sanders was polling below five percent nationally when he joined the race, and to come this far in such a short time, against an overwhelming favorite, is a bit staggering—so staggering that a frustrated Clinton “might “shake up her entire campaign.

The narrative has changed, which means that establishment figures are duty-bound to change it back. If you’re an avid follower of politics, you may have seen tweets like these in the aftermath of the win: (see below)

Oh no, you might be thinking, look at those delegate totals! He’s getting k**led! The New Hampshire primary is meaningless! He didn’t even really win! On the Sanders Reddit page this morning, users were asking whether the whole primary process was a Sisyphean task, and if victory was impossible.


Make no mistake: That’s the point of this kind of messaging. To discourage, dismay, and dishearten, in the wake of something that should feel really positive for Sanders supporters. Reality check: The system is bigger than you, and you can’t change it, so go home.

I have no clue if Timothy McBride has any affiliation or even affection for Hillary Clinton, and he was certainly not alone in advancing this talking point. What I do know is that he tweeted these statistics out last night and again this morning, and wh**ever his intentions—and those like him—Clinton herself could not have written a better media script.

So what’s happening here? Are those delegate counts right?

Well, no—McBride’s math is wrong, but I’m assuming that wasn’t a malicious mistake. The actual count is 394-42.

So technically, yes, the count is close to accurate. He’s not overtly lying. But are they illustrative of some critical, insurmountable problem for Sanders? Not at all. Are they even relevant to the primary race? Barely. Certainly not now, and probably not ever. Are these messages deceptive, even subtly? Yes. Absolutely. And they’re propagated by people who are withholding the full story in the hopes that people like you and me are too stupid and complacent to find out on our own.

McBride’s sneaky tactic is to count “Superdelegates,” which is how he arrives at his imbalanced total. Accept the numbers blindly, and you might feel an impulse toward panic. My message to you: Chill. It’s a clever trick, but a silly one, and it won’t affect anything. To counter this narrative, let’s examine the political reality behind Superdelegates, and explain how they really work, Q&A style.

Q: You say Superdelegates don’t matter, but I don’t even know what they are. How does Hillary have 300+ already?

A: Let’s start simple: The Democratic nominee for president is decided based on which candidate wins the most delegates. You will find conflicting information about how many there are in 2016, but according to the AP, the delegate total is 4,763. It takes 2,382 of those to secure the nomination. And of the 4,763, 712 are “Superdelegates”—about 15 percent of the overall total.

Q: Okay, but what’s the difference?

A: The 4,051 “normal” delegates are allocated based on the v**es in each state. That’s why we have primaries and caucuses in all of them, eventually—the will of the people decides where each of these delegates goes. In New Hampshire last night, Sanders won 13 delegates to Clinton’s nine, with two left to award when the last precincts report (in all likelihood, based on current percentages, it will finish 15-9 for Sanders). In Iowa, where Clinton won a narrow victory, the current delegate count is 23-21 in her favor. This process will repeat in every state until all 4,051 “normal” delegates have been alloted.

On the Democratic side, these delegates are rewarded proportionally in each state, rather than on the winner-take-all basis most states use in the e*******l college. Those delegates are “pledged” to the appropriate candidate, and will not change affiliation at the national convention.

Q: That makes sense, but what are Superdelegates?

A: The remaining 712 delegates are not decided by each state’s popular v**e, but rather by individuals who are given a v**e by the Democratic party. They are free to choose whoever they want at the national convention, regardless of how the v**e went in their home state.

Q: Who gets to be a Superdelegate?

A: Every Democratic member of Congress, House and Senate, is a Superdelegate (240 total). Every Democratic governor is a Superdelegate (20 total). Certain “distinguished party leaders,” 20 in all, are given Superdelegate status. And finally, the Democratic National Committee names an additional 432 Superdelegates—an honor that typically goes to mayors, chairs and vice-chairs of the state party, and other dignitaries.

Q: So they have way more importance than an ordinary v**er?

A: Oh yeah. In 2008, each Superdelegate had about as much clout as 10,000 v**ers. It will be roughly the same in 2016.

Q: How did this system come to exist?

A: I’ll make this history lesson brief: In 1968, after the r**ts at the Democratic national convention in Chicago, party leaders knew they needed to change the nomination process to give ordinary people more of a say in how the potential president was chosen. Thus, the state-by-state primary/caucus system was born. By the 1980s, the party elites felt left out of the process, bereft of all influence, and they thought their absence had hurt the party with weaker candidates like George McGovern and Jimmy Carter. Jim Hunt, Governor of North Carolina, was commissioned to come up with a new system, and by 1984 the Superdelegate system was implemented. Democrats thought that by giving more power to party leaders, it would prevent “unelectable” candidates, beloved by the populace, from costing them the general e******n.

Q: Why does Hillary Clinton have so many more Superdelegates this time around?

A: Because Superdelegates are the establishment, and Clinton is the establishment candidate. Period.

A quick look at the chart below, courtesy of Wikipedia, shows how insanely imbalanced the Superdelegate race is at this point in time.

Sanders wins, but still loses the delegate count? How? Why?

It’s enough to provoke despair, if you don’t understand the system, and none of these outlets are bothering to explain. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions, and it can seem overwhelming. I don’t know if the explicit goal is to have a chilling effect on participation, and to discourage passionate people from participating in our democracy, but it certainly feels that way.

So, do yourself a favor and ignore the Superdelegates. If Hillary Clinton wins the most popular delegates, she will be the party nominee. If Bernie Sanders wins the most popular delegates, he will be the party nominee. And anyone who tells you otherwise—even by implication, and even armed with misleading statistics—is selling you a bill of goods. Don’t buy it.

http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2016/02/after-sanders-big-win-in-new-hampshire-establishme.html

From politico

Elwood Loc: Florida

I also read that in another article http://thehornnews.com/10982-2/

Talk about a r****d game. :hunf: :XD: :XD: :evil:

markinny

a real joke. does you,re v**e really count?

Elwood Loc: Florida

Makes one wonder, doesn't it? :hunf: