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Five Hot Takes on Sanders’ Victory in the New Hampshire Primary

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Here is a hasty post on the NH primary results; I’m racing to get this under the wire before putting up a temporary Water Cooler, because I’m sure this is what you want to talk about. As readers know, I’m really fascinated by institutional factors, and so this post will have virtually no focus on the horse race at all (leading to a new version of “hot,” in “hot take” I suppose). In consequence, I’ll focus mostly on the Sanders campaign, because his campaign is the most — the only? — interesting campaign institutionally (except for Bloomberg’s, of course). So to the hot takes:

(1) State Polls Are Useful As Narrative Constructs

Here is a table comparing the final polls for Iowa and New Hampshire (left column) with the actual results (right column):

Poll Result

(Please forgive the ugly screen dumps; I write in haste. I like dk’s poll aggregation because it doesn’t have any secret sauce; I don’t care which Nate is right about what). As you can see, in IA the pollsters got neither the order, nor the percentages correct. OK, OK, IA is notoriously tricky. In NH, the pollsters got the order right, but the percentages wrong; they missed Klobuchar’s late surge (based on her debate performance?), and they missed Warren’s collapse. It’s possible that the campaigns have, as it were, the commercial versions, more accurate than those available to the great unwashed. It’s also possible that voters make up their minds at the last minute, particularly in an election year with a large number of candidates and enormous stakes. From the Washington Post:

Preliminary exit polls suggested that nearly half of voters made their decisions in the past few days. That is considerably higher than the 36 percent of Iowa Democrats who made their decisions in the days before last week’s caucuses.

It’s also roughly double the percentage of New Hampshire voters who decided in the days before the 2016 primary, a contest that had been effectively narrowed to Sanders and Hillary Clinton.

The exit poll, conducted by Edison Media Research for the National Election Pool, The Washington Post and other media organizations, only underscored how undefined and unpredictable the Democratic race has been.

What goes on out there in the biomass is still mysterious. Thank heavens.

(2) Sanders’ Supporters Should Avoid Triumphalism

(Apologies for the fingerwagging!) Sanders thanks his volunteers:

This is true, as long as we admit that the “work” was carefully structured by what looks like a calm and collected campaign staff. And it’s important to avoid triumphalism in the sense of “coasting” for any given primary, when the field seems to be won:

I mean triumphalism in this sense:

Yes, “another world is possible” (thank heavens). But “we are unstoppable”? One likes to see esprit de corps in the troops, certainly, as well as confidence in one’s own capabilities; but if (as Napoleon did not quite say) every Sanders volunteer carries a Marshall’s baton in their knapsack, then thinking like a Marshall will be important. Elan is not enough when facing machine gun fire. How will an army that believes itself to be “unstoppable” cope with a loss? Say, in South Carolina? Or a horrid war of attrition on the way to the convention? (This is an extremely high level version of “mean Bernie Bros”; I think a lot of the extremely online Sanders supporters are, perhaps, over-confident.)

(3) The Party Establishment Has Defense in Depth

As readers know, I consider the unique institutional characteristic of the Democrat Party to be its control over the ballot supply chain: who gets on it; how it is counted. It’s noteworthy that the Iowa caucus showed how ballot control could be used to the detriment of one candidate; New Hampshire, with paper ballots, did not have similar problems (if you consider that Iowa had problems). If we look ahead on the calender, NV is a caucus state, with a history of convention issues, and votes to be reported with another app of unknown provenance, still under development (!). Of course, every state is different, and so different approaches to ballot control are to be expected; Jon Ralson, of the infamous fake chair-throwing story in 2016, is to be a moderator for the pre-caucus Nevada debate. California, among other defenses, has an extremely complicated balloting process, whose evident effect is to disenfranchise voters. Alert reader SB send in the following image:

SB writes:

Thought this might be of interest.

I will be 60 years old this year and I don’t know how to fill out the [family blog] Vote By Mail envelope.

Attached photo of the instructions and the envelope. (I covered anything that might be identifying information)

1. The internal instructions say to “Sign, date and seal the return envelope” but in the signature box on the envelope, there is an additional line that says “Address as registered in Los Angeles County (Mailing/P.O. Box not acceptable)” It’s a very small space.

There is no mention of including an address in the instructions.

2. Date – it is unclear where to write the date – a. write the date over the black letters M M D D Y Y Y Y or b. write the date above where the area is clear?

I first contacted the State Registrar who sent me to the County which appears to be an automated system so I couldn’t figure out how to get through to anyone by phone. Their website has an email address, so I’ve sent an email to the LA County Registrar.

This is so stupid….but the last thing I want to do is void my ballot because I didn’t put the date in the correct place or did or did not include an address…

Or not stupid, eh? (The California Democrat process for allowing independent voters to vote in their primary is also famously convoluted, such as to make a putatively open primary closed. There is also the new California VSAP digital voting system in Los Angeles, which is an open invitation to election fraud.

It’s not an accident that insitutional factors in the Democrat Party are coming to the fore, now that millions of newly involved voters are experiencing them for the first time. Stoller has an interesting thread on this:

I greatly admire Stoller’s deep knowledge of the Democrat Party at a granular level; but I’m not sure about his model of what a party is; I think “cartel” may not be quite as big a hammer as he thinks. Reader comments on this point welcome!

(4) Sanders’ Theory of Change Is Not Disproven

The Sanders fundraising operation is doing brilliantly, the Sanders media operation is holding its own, and the Sanders canvassing operation is holding its own as well. How about the Sanders theory of change? The Times gives two key results:

The Democrat’s house is “a house divided” by class; taking income as a proxy for class, Sanders clearly gets the working class, and Buttigieg (and surely Warren) get the PMC (who, see Thomas Frank, currently dominate the Party). “I do expect it will cease to be divided,” but how? That remains to be seen. Sanders must bring in new voters; his theory of change is to expand (and organize) the electorate (which the liberal Democrats, by their actions, vociferously oppose). Has he done so? In principle, yes, since the working class greatly outnumbers the PMC. We are seeing hints of a working class, well, “wave” from IA (the Ottumwa meatpackers, etc.) and hints here in NH, but I don’t think we’re seeing enough to make a judgment. Perhaps in CA.

(5) Consider a Brokered Convention in Milwaukee

Those who want Sanders to win on the first ballot must expect Sanders to start winning outright majorities. He’s not doing that. I doubt very much he will do that in Nevada (hat tip, Harry Reid), or South Carolina. If Sanders wins California, that will be an amazing achievement, but the California Democrat Establishment is as nasty as they come. I don’t believe that the Democrat Party establishment will ever roll over, and allow Sanders to be nominated even if he leads in the delegate count. Too many little Madisons need too many ballet lessons for the Democratic strategists, consultants, lobbyists, media assets, and party elites to simple concede power, even to the future of their party. So, I assume that the Sanders campaign is gaming this out. A point to consider is that the Milwaukee convention is currently an omnishambles (and perhaps, like IA seems to have, been, a chaos ladder?) If we end up with the Milwaukee equivalent of Grant Park in Chicago 1968, that would probably hand the election to Trump (something most Democrat elites, deep down, would be quite happy with), but more important, could destroy the “army” that the Sanders campaign so carefully put together, rendering it incapable of independent operation following the convention after a collapse in discipline and subsequent backbiting and recrimination. For some, that might not be a bad thing.

Conclusion

Many are now giving Sanders the dreaded “front-runner” status. This is often equivalent to the dreaded “vote of confidence” for a baseball manager, as the media prepares itself to leisurely pull the wings off the front-runner fly. We’ll see if that happens this year.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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363 comments

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Taibbi points out many suggestive parallels, but this:

      For Sanders supporters, the calculation has always been simpler: Are you bought off, or not? Just by keeping to the right side of that one principle, Sanders will hold his 20-to-30 percent and keep grinding toward victory, “narrow” wins or not. It’s a classic tortoise-and-hare story. When you know where you’re going, you tend to get there.

      That’s (a) not Sanders’ theory of change* and (b) a recipe for a brokered convention. If Sanders does not win according to his own theory of change, he does not get to be “organizer in chief” and bring outside pressure to bear. The Blobs will then proceed to engulf him, at their leisure, an ugly prospect.

      Maybe Bloomberg could simply buy off all the other candidates (except, I grant, Steyer, but come on). Then Sanders would have a clean shot.

      * It may also be that the small states are too small to give results that are anything more than suggestive. CA is different. But note the comments on CA balloting.

      1. Enrico Malatesta

        All mail-in ballots are complicated & deceptive – if the Bernie campaign doesn’t put out a video on how to complete the CA ballot then shame on him!

        2. Wellstone's Ghost

          I find the mail-in ballot in Washington State to be extremely easy and now they pay the postage so no poll tax. Vote, sign, date, mail & done.

          The wording of the initiatives seem to be the most confusing to the voters.

          Move to Washington and end your pain(not really, our Governor is a Corporate Democratic Party Sellout)

          2. paintedjaguar

            Uh huh. And even assuming an honest chain-of-custody (big assumption), how are those mail-in ballots counted? Probably by proprietary optical scanners and tabulators which are known to be hackable and unreliable.

      2. Monty

        I believe “Younger voters preferred Sanders overwhelmingly, while older voters favored Buttigieg and Klobuchar, because they know the Blobs will then proceed to engulf Sanders, at their leisure, an ugly prospect.”

        If you’re young, its easier to spin the wheel on Sanders because you’ve got nothing to lose. However, if you spent the last 25 years going along to get along, paying into a 401k and a mortgage, it’s harder. I think we all know deep down that, if Sanders wins, “The Blobs” will stop at nothing to make sure his tenure is a complete failure. I think that will impact the finances of many who are well outside the 1-10%.

        1. Geo

          As someone in the “middle” of the age spectrum I wonder how much of the divide is from decades of messaging. Until 2016 every candidate that had a remotely progressive slant was tarnished as unelectable. Our best options were Kucinich, Nader, and Jackson – not exactly top contenders. Also, our definition of “the left” has been warped to include Pelosi/Obama types to the point where Warren is branded a radical progressive fighter for merely questioning the infallibility of the bankers.

          The big divide seems to be how much the crash of 2008 impacted ones life. If you’re doing dandy today then the “Dems saved America” and Trump/Russia is the only real villain. If you’re still struggling then the Dems failed during the Obama years (and 2016 election) and drastic systemic change is needed.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > The big divide seems to be how much the crash of 2008 impacted ones life. If you’re doing dandy today then the “Dems saved America” and Trump/Russia is the only real villain. If you’re still struggling then the Dems failed during the Obama years (and 2016 election) and drastic systemic change is needed.

            I once saw — and have never been able to find again — a chart of income before, during, and after the crash. What has nice about the chart was that it used only three percentiles (?): 1% and up, 10%, and 90%. The 10% — taking income as a proxy for PMC voters — sailed right through, no problem at all. the 1% took a hit on stocks and recovered fast, and the 90% never recovered, not even to this day, in today’s “good economy.” (This is especially true for blacks, whose intergenerational wealth was vaporized in the foreclosure crisis.)

            In theory, expanding the electorate should work for Sanders. In practice, both parties vociferously oppose it. We shall see!

            1. Phemfrog

              something like this:

              https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/01/how-wealth-inequality-has-changed-in-the-u-s-since-the-great-recession-by-race-ethnicity-and-income/

              very interesting, and holds true for us. we are white, middle income and “credentialed” and the hit to our household wealth was only temporary. we got pretty lucky (and made good choices) with real estate during all this, and that is the only wealth we have. we did not live in a big coastal bubble town though.

            2. eg

              The plutocrats and oligarchs, to the extent to which they tolerate democracy at all, are always busy trying to shrink the electorate.

              Voter suppression is business as usual for them …

        2. EMtz

          At 73, I support Sanders because he clearly stands for and works for the same principles that I do. How a person votes is not always based on accrued assets which, in my case, are quite modest.

        3. Titus.Xfx.Andronicus@gmail.com

          Actually, Sanders naturally did well with almost all those holding “leftists” views, which do include those over 65 even some billionaires. Leftist isn’t Lenin here, it is healthcare for all, living wage, sanity based tuition (if there must be tuition) for college, decent ability to retire, green new deal, etc.. The media keeps making Sanders ideas seem nuts, but not exactly why, or ridiculous so. If you is going to call it socialism them we should call it ’socialism for the many not the few’ – as in the .001%

          1. Samuel Conner

            > ideas seem nuts

            Or per AK, echoing HRC, politically impossible, which is to say that the evil Rs and (and many Ds) in the Senate won’t let it happen.

            It doesn’t occur to AK, seemingly, that those people hold elective offices and could be replaced if their constituents got mad enough.

          2. Wellstone's Ghost

            Hands down, my favorite take on the current Presidential electoral cycle. It is succinct, inclusive of ALL People & takes our MSM to task in a practical way I have rarely read, seen or heard. Nicely done Fellow Roman(like the email)

            Where do I begin? “…those holding “Leftist” views which do include those over 65 even some billionaires. Leftist isn’t Lenin here…”.

            I believe Chris Matthews claiming he could/would/should(?) be executed under a Bernie Administration would be the perfect clip to follow up these lines.

            Thank you for pointing out the powerful and distractive role the Corporate MSM has played up to this point in this election cycle. To see the Orwellian propaganda at play in this 2020 Presidential Race so far makes me wonder(fear?) what is to come.

            This election cycle could kick off some serious s*#@! if the DNC goes all in on Never Bernie.

            There are deeper politics at play here that we could only hope to be
            privy to(or not).

            Your breakdown of what the essential planks are to the Sanders Platform are great.
            Nicely done.

          3. Lambert Strether Post author

            > If you is going to call it socialism them we should call it ’socialism for the many not the few’

            From Axios:

            {SANDERS:] In many respects, we are a socialist society today. … Donald Trump, before he was president, as a private businessperson, he received $800 million in tax breaks and subsidies to build luxury housing in New York. … The difference between my socialism and Trump’s socialism is I believe the government should help working families, not billionaires.

            Same point would work with Bloomberg. I mean, it’s not even an “attack.”

        4. inode_buddha

          I am older, and its easy to spin the wheel on Sanders because paying my way and going along has equalled getting screwed for the last 25 years at least. I already didn’t have anything to lose, *because* of the system Sanders rails against.

          1. Amfortas the hippie

            i’m 50, and i’ve never had much to lose…except for this tiny hermit kingdom, and it’s paid for.
            i’m just sick of having no one and nothing to vote FOR.
            i read about, and remember my grandparents talking about, the Boom Times when the New Deal was still a thing, and marvel.
            i feel cheated and betrayed that my folks and so many others let that get gutted in broad daylight.
            and it’s even worse when they assume that it wasn’t gutted, and is still rolling right along(the joke with my brother and i is that when we were in college, late 80’s early 90’s, our dad still thought it was 1965…he’d send $10 bucks for “mad money” for the week)…which total delusion leads directly to blaming us little fish for the poisoned water.
            i’d also appreciate a little schadenfreude, too…blankfien crying over his tax return, neera begging on street corners, hillary faded and forgotten, just another crazy cat lady in a muumuu on the porch.
            I’ve grown more cynical and bitter the more i learn about what was done, and how, to screw us all….and have planned my life around the assumption of Worse.
            it would be way cool to have a little hope for a change.

            2. Titus

              I do enjoy you sharing your thoughts. Given what you said, sure it seems bad, but sad to say it really wasn’t until WW2 that the country started to do better as opposed to survive. Now we got the unhinged climate. Reality has this way of believing in you whether you believe in it. You know such things. Things gonna change. I don’t think most, at first, are going to call it , “better”, might even call it worse, but it sure as hell is going to be different. An anything different (trumps not different, just another version of satan) is good.

            4. Toshiro_Mifune

              hillary faded and forgotten, just another crazy cat lady in a muumuu on the porch.
              Hey, hang on a minute there. Let’s give cats some credit. The appreciate warmth and affection. Hillary would be the first Crazy Iguana Lady.

            5. inode_buddha

              Yup, what little I have is paid for, but I am looking at working in spite of disabilities till the day I die (no SSD for me, no 401k, nada)

              I lost it all in the fight for SSD, then 2008 happened. That was when I quit the GOP. Forever.

              1. RMO

                My experience with millennial and the generation that came after them is that far more than even my Gen-X peers they recognize just how stacked the system is against the majority of the population and how much of a disaster neoliberal capitalism has been.

                I also find it darkly amusing that after years of hearing about how the “Coalition of the Ascendant” – younger people and visible minorities – were going to make the Dem party inevitably dominant in the near future that when these same groups enthusiastically support a candidate like Bernie all of a sudden the pundits and Dem powermakers can’t stop going on about how they absolutely, positively can’t have a candidate like him because they need to appeal to older, white suburban Republicans in order to win.

                My thanks again to all of you out there trying to get Sanders elected. it may be a long shot trying to get past all the dirty tricks that will be played to stop it happening but it’s worth it. If I wasn’t Canadian I would be doing whatever I could to make it happen too.

                1. Lambert Strether Post author

                  > I also find it darkly amusing that after years of hearing about how the “Coalition of the Ascendant” – younger people and visible minorities – were going to make the Dem party inevitably dominant in the near future that when these same groups enthusiastically support a candidate like Bernie all of a sudden the pundits and Dem powermakers can’t stop going on about how they absolutely, positively can’t have a candidate like him because they need to appeal to older, white suburban Republicans in order to win.

                  I’ve been skewering Teixeira’s sloppy concept for years (“Is ‘The Obama Coalition’ Even a Thing? Was It Ever?”) So it’s hilarious to see that Sanders has hijacked it.

                  One contradiction is that the “coalition of the ascendant” was hijacked by Sanders on Obama’s watch (due to his miserably inadequate performance in the Crash and after), and yet liberal Democrats cannot admit this to themselves, because [genuflects] Obama.

                  A second contradiction is that as liberal Democrats pivot to openly becoming the party of wealthy professionals, they retain the vacuous rhetoric of “wokeness.” Of course, you can’t heave the working class over the side and profess to be “woke,” because the working class, as Sanders and his surrogates relentlessly point out, is multi-racial.

                  A third contradiction is that as professionals, liberal Democrats are just not that good. The ObamaCare debacle is a perfect example, both for the site rollout and the system/policy architecture. (The same is true in little with the Iowa app debacle; Tara McGowan is a fool who conned rich people into giving her money. Bloomberg is buying an empty shell, although he may not yet know this.)

                  A fourth contradiction is that the PMC is ruled by fear (as Interfluidity points out in “Predatory Precarity“). On the one hand, a functioning public sector such as Sanders proposes would take away much of their fear (of medical bankruptcy, failure to send the kids to college, etc.). Yet on the other, their current income and status derives from exactly the sort of gatekeeping that neoliberalism used to destroy the public sector.

                  A final contradiction is that the PMC believes it is entitled to rule by virtue of its “merit,” but they are collectively too small and weak to rule on their own. They can get in the way of others ruling, but cannot themselves rule. That is what the Clinton campaign proved. The lanyards and letterheads don’t have the power they think they have; and the, er, “smarter” among them probably know that.

        6. Kurtismayfield

          I have a mortgage, I have investments, and I am still voting for Sanders. I know that any system other than our current Health Care system has to be cheaper. This system is such a CF that I cannot support it anymore, and I would rather have my families 30k a year paid into the system go towards something better for my kids and grandkids.

          I also am tired of the American Empire. We have done little to improve the lives of anyone but dictators around the world, and I don’t need that on my conscience. I also have perspective.. Car fatalities and opiod deaths are a bigger threat to the American people than any terrorist.

        7. aletheia33

          yes, and see yves’s piece of today on elderly people suffering terrible deprivation when they become dependent. many who are over 65 are looking ahead to it with horror and dread. what a way for people’s lives to end.

          unfortunately too many elderly people do not know of/understand how the situation has come to pass, and many, including the most victimized, do not have the will or the ability to vote.

        8. jrs

          Yea but with all due respect we have bigger problems than how well our 401ks have performed, there are real problems to deal with like mitigating climate collapse, we ALL in some sense have nothing to lose. Yes I’m that Gen X age like the example too, so what? We all live on edge regardless.

          1. bob

            Monty is using divide and conquer as the ONLY reason to NOT vote for Bernie.

            “They might try to divide and conquer us!”

            They are trying and they have already been doing it for years. Who anyone votes for will not change any of that. They will keep trying.

            Sanders is the only chance in my lifetime we’ve had to fight it.

          2. Monty

            I agree with you, but I don’t think that’s a widely held belief across the nation. If it’s only you and I voting, it’s a Sanders landslide.

        9. Edward

          Do you honestly think your 401k and mortgage have a future under the current system? How much time do we have left before the dollar loses its reserve currency status and the government cannot create money out of thin air? How long can negative interest rates be maintained? Is the national debt payable? Many elderly get financially wiped out by a medical crisis. Can we continue to ignore global warming? When will the wars end and we have a peace dividend?

          The wars are more then a financial issue; should we oppose imperialism irregardless of financial considerations?

      3. ChrisAtRU

        #PlotTwist

        ${Plot} == “Maybe Bloomberg could simply buy off all the other candidates (except, I grant, Steyer, but come on). Then Sanders would have a clean shot.”

        ${Twist} == “Maybe Steyer could simply buy off all the other candidates (except, I grant, Bloomberg, but come on). Then Sanders would have a clean shot.”

        We all know that Steyer wants desperately to be Bernie’s bro … ;-) He’d do it. He’d really do it.

        Would be fun to make a whole bunch of popcorn and watch #MSNBC & #CNN the night after that happened … LOL

        #CentristTearsForTheSoul

      4. sierra7

        The structure of the CA balloting for non-partisan voters is deceptive and exclusive. If the non-p voter wants to vote for president they have to request a different ballot either Dem or Repub.
        That is counter intuitive. All non-partisan voters should have without special request both dem and repub candidates included in their ballots.
        I think this could be challenged in court. And the major parties wonder why so many voters are pissed off!

    2. Deschain

      The difference of course is RNC makes primaries winner-take-all. So 30% against a divided field nets you a ton of delegates. Not so for the Dems, and there’s a lot of reasons to doubt that a plurality of delegates for Bernie will be sufficient.

  2. mrsyk

    IMHO Sander’s success or failure is going to come down to his ability to turn out young and first time voters vs the machine’s various methods of suppression.

    1. grayslady

      the machine’s various methods of suppression

      Several machines, it would seem. One of the things not widely reported yesterday is that New Hampshire’s newish, Repub governor made it much harder for out-of-state students to vote.

    3. mpalomar

      “Sander’s success or failure is going to come down to his ability to turn out young and first time voters”
      – I think that’s right in the primaries, it’s hard to see Biden, Klobuchar or Pete B’s voters turning to Sanders if their candidate fades and drops out so Sanders must turn out new and non participating voters of which there is a considerable supply.

      Sander’s strong organisational ground game is supposed to be his strength, while Biden looks to be gone soon and Klobuchar’s not supposed to have the organisation or the ground work prep going forward though her campaign is going to be the repository of massive elite funding.

      Pete B’s weakness is supposed to be in more diverse states; Iowa and New Hampshire were made for him so there is cause for optimism. On the other hand there is the corrupt Democratic Party apparatus which seems willing to destroy the last remnants of democracy within the party to stop Sanders.

      1. curlydan

        I agree with this. If you look at the Times’ income or age charts, Bernie should be winning by larger margins, but the older and richer just vote more. Here’s a brutal chart of voter participation by income levels from 2016…it’s a totally linear trend. Buttigieg voters simply come out in much greater percentages, blunting the advantages Bernie has among the young and less wealthy.

        https://econofact.org/voting-and-income

        It’s weird that Bernie got mauled in the Southern states in 2016, but (hoping!) it could be an advantage for him in 2020.

      1. Swamp Yankee

        Yeah, Warren’s not particularly well-liked here (MA), at least outside of blue metro ZIP codes of Boston-Cambridge and the suburbs inside Rt. 128. She’s — I think rightly — viewed as a johnny-come-lately arriviste who used us a stepping-stone for larger ambitions and doesn’t care for Massachusetts as a place worthwhile in and of itself. In other words, she’s not one of us and doesn’t even try to fake caring about that — monumental lack of self-awareness, one of the distinguishing sins of the professional managerial class.

        Given that, at best, the denizens of the Granite State barely tolerate Bay Staters headed north for their cheap liquor, lakes, and mountains, and at worst view us as unbearable Massholes whose cars are to be keyed at every opportunity (not joking here), what must they think of Warren, who’s not even a real Masshole?

        A lot of this, and you may think this is crazy but I think it has weight, comes down to vowels. Warren’s vowels and highly rhotic speech read as “foreign” to eastern New Englanders who speak our native dialect. Midwestern and kinda’ Southern, which makes sense given her Oklahoman provenance. Martha Coakley had this same problem, which lies below the level of conscious thought: being from North Adams, in the Berkshires, she spoke, like all of MA west of the Connecticut River, a version of Inland Northern, i.e., the Great Lakes accent. People from N. Adams or Springfield sound positively Chicagoan in Cape Ann or Cape Cod or the White Mountains or Bethel, Maine. (i.e., mop pronounced “mahp”). Coakley tried to hide this by faking the non-rhoticism (no “r”s) of eastern New England, but her accent read as a sort of Frankenstein, vaguely-New York seeming, but weird and inauthentic above all.

        And while Bernie’s accent is that of the hated Yorkers, with is heavy influence of Dutch and Yiddish, it is, crucially, a non-rhotic accent like ours that is familiar to eastern New Englanders, and he also gets street cred, as it were, for refusing to lose his accent, as so many of us are pressured to lose our local dialect as we go through places like HS, college, grad school, the work world, etc., esp. in places like the Senate.

        Anyway, my twenty linguistic cents.

        1. Late Introvert

          Thanks Swamp Yankee, great stuff. I was a transplant to Boston from the Midwest for 2+ years in the late 80s and I can confirm all of this and more. Outsiders are tolerated at best and it comes down to accent and other language clues. To this day I say soda instead of pop, and pronounce root and roof the Boston way, as the reactions were so negative.

          And if you ever had to speak with the police, whoa. It was educational.

        2. JCC

          Exactly like HRC when she was Senator in NY. Everyone I knew when I lived there that had more than two brain cells to rub together knew she couldn’t care less about the people there (except those inhabiting lower Manhattan, of course)

        3. Lambert Strether Post author

          > while Bernie’s accent is that of the hated Yorkers, with is heavy influence of Dutch and Yiddish, it is, crucially, a non-rhotic accent like ours

          “In non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments—that is, when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel.”

          As in, e.g., “billionaire.”

          Linguistics experts, how would this play in CA? An East Coast thing?

          1. Phemfrog

            I’m not a linguist, but something I have noticed. There is hardly any ‘accent’ at all to the country west of the Mississippi (and outside of Texas). I know people from Washington, Oregon, Montana, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada…my family is from New Mexico…none of these people have an accent that you can use to identify their geographic origin.

            So this is probably an east coast thing, IMNSHO.

            Funny anecdote, I now substitute teach in Texas, and students often ask me where I am from and say i have an accent. They guess Canadian. LOL. Born and raised in NM by a family of Chicago and SoCal origins. I sound just like all the other non-chicano residents of NM.

  4. Sichelgaita

    Is there any breakdown of the vote by party affiliation? There was a lot of talk before the primary about independent voters, now I can’t find anything.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      I haven’t seen one, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. All the media are quoting from the Edison exit poll, but the poll itself had not appeared at the time of this writing. Good question.

      1. anonymous

        I have been wondering about this in IA as well. Here in IA, our presidential preference cards had our names, addresses and signatures on them, as well as the name of our preferred candidates. When we entered the caucuses, we were checked off on voter registration rolls, and new voters and voters who wanted to change to be Democrats in order to participate could register for the first time or change registration right there at the entrance to the room. So, how one was registered (or changed registration) and how one voted could be examined on an individual level. The spokesperson for the Buttigieg group at my precinct said that she was a Republican who just switched to vote for Buttigieg, and I have read a number of articles about the caucuses quoting Republicans who changed registration and supported Buttigieg. The Democratic and Republican caucuses are held simultaneously, and there was no serious competition on the Republican side; if someone like Kasich were running against Trump, would those Buttigieg supporters have gone to the Repubican caucuses instead? Of course, that isn’t real data, and maybe the reporters chose to quote those individuals because they would be more interesting to readers.

  5. maria gostrey

    “Too many little Madisons need too many ballet lessons….”

    surely the trendy new name for PMC kids is “Hamilton”.

      3. notabanktoadie

        Remember Joe Sandwich (“I have a bright, upstanding member for congress …”) who wanted to name his son Hamilton?

      4. ewmayer

        Madison probably most commonly gets shorted to “Maddie” … and once he gets out of diapers, little Hammie (cf. the comic strip Baby Blues) could get upgraded to “Milton”. On the old Perry Mason series, whenever talking face-to-face with the perennially-losing DA, Perry would use his full name, Hamilton. (Perhaps because “Ham” would have yielded the truly unfortunate combination “Ham Burger” in that particular instance.)

    2. Potted Frog

      Ballet for the little Madisons is a concern of the minions.At stake are trillions of dollars and an empire.

      The ruling class has been fighting to the death (of others) to maintain the status quo.

      Thankfully, the planet will destroy us all, indifferent to PMC serving the RC in satisfaction of its vanity.

      One can only laugh and point. And support Sanders/Us as chair through the window of the asylum..

    1. chuckster

      ummmm, “Banana bender” might well be the most homophobic comment I have ever seen here on NC. Just thought you might be interested to know that.

      1. Bill Carson

        I have seen that term used recently, but I didn’t know who it was referring to. I have never used it, but I’m glad you pointed this out because it never would have occurred to me that it was homophobic slang. According to the interwebs, it was originally coined in Australia to refer to people from Queensland. The term apparently acquired a homophobic connotation more recently.

      2. deplorado

        I was handed a business card once by a self employed consultant (Israeli-American, not Queenslander) whose title on the card was indeed ‘chief banana bender’. He was a jocular type and maybe this helped break the ice with some, I couldnt tell – not with me.

      3. ambrit

        You must lead a sheltered life.
        And, you haven’t worked on too many commercial construction sites. They would make you positively blush. That is why I laughed so hard when I saw the Simpsons show with the “Gay” steel mill. The irony was adamantine.

      4. John A

        One of Boris Johnson’s many humorous ‘sic’ lie-packed columns for the fanboy gazette when he was brussels correspondent of said newspaper, the daily telegraph, was that the EU was going to ban curved bananas. Many voters in the referendum based their Brexit vote on this lie, as a brexiteer clearly stated on a BBC electoral debate programme. So for the Brexiteers, a banana bender could well be slang for an EU supporter rather than any homophobia.

        I prefer the Lt Butterbar comment a couple of weeks ago, which was nothing to do with sexual orientation but a description of a know it all, newly arrived lieutenant, whose rank is depicted with a bar that looks like butter, apparently, that Buttigieg is very reminiscent of.

        1. Mark Gisleson

          I’ve been afraid that we’d suddenly learn that butterbar is homophobic, but then realized that for them to push that meme, they’d have to draw attention to Buttigieg’s status as a direct commission officer (in effect, a super duper butterbar).

          But I suspect I’ve been homophobic of late in a very infantile way. After MayoPete became popular, I couldn’t resist using MayoButt for which I have definitely gotten some likes on Twitter. The truth is I can’t respect him. Butterbar is a big part of that, but so is almost everything else about this fast-talking PMC-vote hustler.

            1. flora

              The term ‘butterbar’ can be used as a derogatory term for a ’90-day-wonder officer’ or a ‘green, self-important idiot ‘, etc.

              That doesn’t mean is IS being used that way… of course… ;)

            2. flora

              The term butterbar can be used as a derogatory word for a ’90-day wonder officer’ or ‘green, self-important, newly minted idiot’, etc.

              That doesn’t mean is IS being used that way… of course… ;)

              1. Lost in OR

                Good Lord. I didn’t know that. As an army veteran, I have to wonder… (and this is non-sexist or genderist or whatever)

                Given his experience and/or training and/or time in service, what did he have to do to climb to O3 so fast?

          2. Amfortas the hippie

            i didn’t hear his name spoken until pretty recently(i read news)…so just went with my first mangled reading: “butt-gig”.
            it had become habit before i learned that he was gay(mcKinsey immediately disqualified him for any position of power, for me, so i paid him no mind)
            now, his name is pronounced that way in my house…and i don’t care if somebody, somewhere thinks it’s a slur.
            the same thing happened with the Koch Brothers(pronounced, “cock”.)
            i reserve the right to mangle the language…including pronouns.

            and, hell…everybody’s always misspelled and mispronounced all my names for as long as i can remember(even challenged me on how i spell Josef!), so folks with weird names should grow a pair any way.
            “bent banana” on the other hand…lol. prolly not.

            1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

              For the annals of How_Fake_Can_You_Be:

              Apparently Buttgig focused grouped how people were most comfortable pronouncing his last name…and then switched to pronouncing it that way himself.

              I’m sure his ancestors from Albania or Macedonia or wherever the hell his clan was spawned would be proud.

              1. Mark Gisleson

                I’ll cut him a tiny sliver of slack on that one. My family name is Gis-leh-sun but we gave up long ago and just say Gis-sell-sun now like our neighbors do. Any names that require unAmerican cadence to say are going to get Americanized. I can’t brag about not paying a focus group to decide for me because I just gave up and started pronouncing my name like others do. In truth, it did cut down a lot on the Swedish Chef jokes I used to endure which cut doubly deep when you’re Norwegian American.

                1. David J.

                  So, I’m guessing that you might have had an extra reason for not wanting Robert Bork on the Supreme Court.

              2. Lambert Strether Post author

                > Apparently Buttgig focused grouped how people were most comfortable pronouncing his last name…and then switched to pronouncing it that way himself.

                Link, please.

              1. Phemfrog

                we call him (spelled how we pronounce it) Poot Be-da-judge

                rolls off the tongue and is not offensive.

          3. ObjectiveFunction

            If Buttigieg happens to do well on Super Tuesday, look out for the New York Post headline

            BUTTZKRIEG!!!

      5. Darius

        How about manic pixie dream boy? Or Pinocchio? If he’s brave honest and compassionate, he could be a real boy one day.

        1. JTMcPhee

          “Manic” offends people with psychological issues. “PIxie” offends from my experience, gay people of on sort. “Dream boy?” Oh my goodness, the
          Thought Police would have a field day with that one…

        2. Yves Smith

          Resilc suggested Wall Street Pete, obviously for his backers but you can see his allies whining that this misrepresents his career (to the extent he has one in the normal sense).

      6. flora

        Banana bender is the old joke about the job duties of someone who has a well paid, do-nothing job – often given to cronies. It might be even said about the job duties of a low level McKinsey consultant, for example, depending on what they were being paid to actually do.

        Suddenly we’re all language police? jeez.

        I should read more Butler. /s

        “The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

        Professor Judith Butler

          1. Carey

            >Written to make learning almost impossible.

            I’d say it was written to make sure Nothing Changes (see also Doctor Professor Henry A. Giroux, for some other fine examples of that rot).

        3. Lambert Strether Post author

          > “The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

          Translation: “You gotta know the territory.”

      7. skippy

        Here in Brisbane, Queensland prostitution is legal on licensed premises, one of which was named Banana Bender.

        Otherwise I would caution on knee jerks to terms d’art. Firstly you have to be 100% sure on context, secondly and most importantly, such conditions are easily manipulated against you.

        In the old unpacking it suggests the ability of others to find a sore spot in your emotional psych and then attach a string to it – which they can pull you around with.

        Here in Australia its a high art form which transcends class, albeit semantics do follow class proforma.

        Lastly as an old NC reader, commenter, and supporter I have to say I’ve see toads hop out of some mouths which make the umbrage at this pale in comparison. Not to mention this is the no sacred cow blog, let alone not conformist to Idpol sort of grand sweeping pigeonholing of humanity.

          1. skippy

            My thrust goes against platonic individualism as a “Natural” anything.

            Grammar can also be like wine on palate, which defines the consumers tastes, of which are largely informed by environmental conditioning and not astute refection.

            I always thought this para from an old NC post encapsulated this:

            The point is that much of cultural organisation is arbitrary. It often serves no real purpose. Evolutionary psychologists might tell you otherwise, but they are just modern day myth-makers telling stories that try to give us meaning and, ultimately, justify certain cultural patterns that we hold dear by appealing to the narrative structure of evolutionary biology and imposing it on cultural development metaphorically much in the same way as marginalist economics transferred metaphors from physics to the social sciences. Levi-Strauss introduced the idea of the ‘bricoleur’ as the person who engages in such constructions.

            Emphasis on the baseline economic paradigm which is in line with the Robinson link IMO.

        2. eg

          The eternal importance of context. As my (now retired) teacher wife discovered to her embarrassment when she wore her very Canadian “Roots” sweatshirt in Australia on a teacher exchange in the early 90’s …

    2. Angie Neer

      Hi inode. “Banana bender” is no less juvenile, and no cleverer, than the other slurs you could have chosen.

      1. inode_buddha

        It amazes me that anyone took it as a slur because it certainly wasn’t intended as such, nor have I ever seen it used that way. — it is simply the fact that I find his surname impossible to deal with either verbally or in writing.

        The fact that people see more than this says more about them than it does about me IMHO.

        However, now that everyone mentions it, I do get absolutely creeped out when gays “hit” on me.

        1. ALAN BUDDE

          Well now so you know bender is a very common slur for gays. As in bend over. So please dont use it to refer to a gay man. I’m sure there are plenty of women who are absolutely creeped out when you talk to them. In general we should all try not to creep anyone out.

        2. Massinissa

          If its too hard to type Buttigieg just type Pete or, my preference, Mayo Pete.

          “However, now that everyone mentions it, I do get absolutely creeped out when gays “hit” on me.”

          I don’t think I’ve known anyone who isn’t a homophobe to bring that up in conversation.

          1. JBird4049

            >> don’t think I’ve known anyone who isn’t a homophobe to bring that up in conversation.

            Isn’t that a bit harsh? People can be emotionally uncomfortable about all kind of things without being deliberately hateful. I’m uncomfortable with most of humanity, but does that make me a misanthrope?

            I am not talking about using the term “banana bender,” which is a bit childish to me, but the emotional physical response; human sexuality with its all kinds of hot buttons of uncomfortableness.

          2. JTMcPhee

            So in my experience, personal experience, a gay person offered to stick his ____ down my _____. A fellow tenor in the choir of the Episcopal Church I attended, long ago, where I was a member of that choir for about 8 years. That approach is not supposed to “creep me out?” His partner was also in the choir, hear the “hitting on,” and HE found that offensive, and told the offender to knock it off, and apologized.

            Somewhat related to how so many of us have been acculturated not to dare criticize or even use terms that might be interpreted as criticism of the actions of some of the population of a certain elastic-boundaried “State” on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, or their fellow persons here in the US of A who have such interesting effects on the “foreign policy “ and war-making and foreign aid disbursements of the Empire, for fear of being labeled “anti-hermitic.”

            Tread softly, and carry the fear of a big linguistic meme stick…

            There’s all kinds of ways to accumulate power over others.

        3. JTMcPhee

          Beware the seductions of Idpol. It’s like becoming an employee of a large bureaucracy. There’s a “correct-think” and lexicon that you have to adopt, however idiotic and inapposite it seemed to the disinterested observer, to survive.

          We are all trained up by decades of this kind of stuff, whether it’s Rush Limbaugh (speaking of indeterminate preference matters) or Rachel Mad, or all the new owners of formerly commonplace, widely understood and accepted words. Who express hurt and high dudgeon and over-the-top self-righteousness at any transgressions (except by acceptable members of the group claiming ownership — and I am not sure that I, as a WASP, can tell WASP jokes, or as a Scotch-Irish-English son of a Daughter of the American Revolution can tell jokes on my fellow peeps .)

          And churches are losing membership, but the ones that grow are, it seems, the ones that are most vigorously enforcing their own special identity language, “and the people say ‘AMEN’.”

          I am old enough to remember when “gay’ meant something else all together, like happy, carefree enjoyment (which I guess it still does, but with a very different slant and with ownership claimed by a subgroup, https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Desire-Paradox-Perversity-Lives/dp/0679750304) and I became monogamous long before the “Is it ok if I touch you here? Is it ok if I touch you there?” enforcement police started patrolling the landscape.

          I grew up in the Chicago area when, in the hurly-burly of all the various groups that had settled there (after the Indians, sorry, Native Americans, is that right? got kicked out, ethnic humor was pandemic and people of Polish or Lithuanian or Scotch-Irish or German extraction were pretty free to make humor based on stereotyping of other “eths,” and little offense was taken.
          So ownership of language is now used offensively (several meanings) to enforce an increasingly channeled and narrowed notion of permissible social interactions.

          No doubt there still are ‘reactionary” folks who make private jokes out of all parts of his name, together and separately. Shaaaame, shaaaaaame on them! “We don’t do things like that any more. It simply ISNT’T DONE!” It would be too bad if Peter Buttigieg eked out victory in part on the back of Librul Guilt, reinforced by overprotective reaction to any “slights” or “dissing” based on a personal preference he has chosen to make a big deal of and ride for all it’s worth. Especially if that shaming and guilt obscured his so very obvious and dangerous flaws and allegiances.

          2. Lambert Strether Post author

            > Beware the seductions of Idpol.

            I was inclined to throw a flag on this one, but I can’t find any usage examples; in fact, the majority of hits show that “banana bender” is Australian slang for a “Queenslander.” Then again, I wonder if there is a subtext, perhaps from an earlier, more closeted time:

            3. PlutoniumKun

              I don’t think there are any homophobic implications at all – if anything, its the opposite, the Aussies tend to use it as a term of abuse for a fairly stupid ‘typical male’ Australian type.

              The confusion I think comes from ‘bender’ – when I was a kid that was a mildly homophobic term, referring to having a bent wrist. They are two separate terms, banana bender is entirely different.

              But then again, when I was growing up, a ‘faggot’ was something entirely different from the US usage, we used them camping (for making fires). Mind you, back in the 1990’s, everyone I knew used the term ‘bender’ to mean a temporary self made shelter used during anti-roads protests – it had no homophobic implications at all for the people using it. In fact using it tended to mark you out as a hard core anarchist protestor.

              People are just too sensitive these days.

          3. PlutoniumKun

            Re: IdPol. The amusing thing about IdPol is that it eventually eats the advocates. It reminds me of the Khymer Rouge, who became so obsessed with purity that they ended up executing their own executioners for not being enthusiastic enough about their work.

    3. Potted Frog

      Buttigieg as the butt of jokes presents endless opportunities. ;-)

      Trump will take full advantage, should the Buttigieg threaten..

  7. Mark K

    The New Hampshire exit poll data on income aren’t worth a whole lot. The income results are based on 882 respondents. Most of the results are based on over 2900 respondents. It looks like two thirds of the respondents to the exit poll didn’t reply to the income question. It’s hard to tell how biased the subsample who did answer is.

    https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/state/new-hampshire Click on the “exit poll” tab.

    1. chuckster

      It’s very difficult to get voters excited about a “revolution” when the Tesla still needs to be serviced.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > It looks like two thirds of the respondents to the exit poll didn’t reply to the income question. It’s hard to tell how biased the subsample who did answer is.

      That’s true for a lot of the responses (also religion, gender, etc.). I wonder why?

      1. JTMcPhee

        Lots of people are sick of polls and pollsters, all part of the manipulation machinery that aspires to supplant actual “paper ballots, hand marked in private and hand counted in public” with poll-surfing “results.” I haven’t been accosted by pollsters since I ended my landline connection due to zooming costs and fees, but I was happy to lie through my teeth to them, encouraged by others with the same jaundiced view of the practice. Just to do a tiny bit of monkey-wrenching against the Nate Silvers and politicos who seek influence and power through their supposed gifts of numeristical prophecy.

        The social implication is that I have some duty to answer honestly the often dishonestly worded or slanted or “push” or inartful or ambiguous questions. That is just BS. I don’t think I am alone in the “screw you” sentiment toward polling and pollsters — maybe there are skilled and honest ones, but polling seems to me like observing subatomic particles. The act of observing and measuring changes the result, often by clear and corrupt intent.

        1. eg

          Rest assured that your position is not idiosyncratic where polling is concerned. I assiduously avoid surveys, and will ruthlessly dissemble if trapped into responding. My two brothers likewise enjoy yanking the chain of unwanted inquiry

  8. Tim

    Answers to SB:
    1. Yes the box is small but do fill in your LA County address
    2. Yes write legibly the date in the boxes in the format given, right over the letters that are already there.

    Separately, I don’t find the above that big of an issue, it isn’t any worse than any other official form people have to deal with in California.

    I’m more worried about how most young people register as independents, and will register late in the process and therefore won’t even be able to vote in the primary. Similar could be said for the Hispanic vote.

    Lastly, why do my comments end up in moderation every time? Am I on a naughty list?

    2. pretzelattack

      i don’t mind them going to moderation, at least i know they got through. some of them just disappear into the ether.

  9. anon y'mouse

    i wouldn’t be optimistic. i think Bloomberg has turned a lot of people’s heads. nobody was really inspiring to the people i talk to. they were going to settle for Warren or somebody.

    Bloomie is charging in like a white knight, and hitting the airwaves. i don’t deny that Sanders’ on-the-ground game has its appeal. just that most people don’t go to those things.

    Sanders had better do something to make himself look a stronger contender. I think people will vote Bloomie just because of this “strong man” appearance. sadly, people still want to be saved, and even the educated don’t want to think much past how they “feel” about a candidate. especially if it isn’t hitting them in the pocketbook.

    1. nycTerrierist

      Bloomberg has huuge baggage: will never get p.o.c vote and ‘buying his way into office’
      is another turn-off.

      1. Deschain

        Bloomberg has bought off a lot of poc mayors. He shouldn’t get a look there because of his institutionally racist policies (among other reasons) but unfortunately clientilism is still well and alive in the dem party.

        Bernie can win if he gets escapees from the Wreck of the Biden in the south. Otherwise, no chance of avoiding a contested convention, which means no chance of the nomination. IMO.

        2. Potted Frog

          The Establishment (broadly) has made it all about Trump because they have nothing and no one to offer. I’ve good friends who’ve swallowed the line, hook and sinker. It’s a disease – on both sides.

    2. Grant

      Turned heads? He was a divisive mayor, with a highly controversial record that few people know about. You say this a day after the story broke about his horribly racist comments. He is an oligarch buying tons of ads, paying lots of staffers and journalists are cautious in critiquing him because he could be a future employer. Oligarchs in Latin America do similar things, and if that doesn’t work they crack heads. Lets be clear too, all his money wasn’t buying him much support until other options failed. I feel better about Bernie beating him than Biden. Clinton outspending Trump didn’t help her tons too, now did it?

      1. ALAN BUDDE

        Ive seen tremendous efforts to defend him online. They boil down to: he is a billionaire so he can fund the campaign, he said he was sowwy, he’s “better” than trump. Its BS but he is like to be Bernie’s biggest competitor next month.

          1. The Rev Kev

            He should save his money and just pay people $100 each to vote for him. He can afford it and it would be more honest. That would work out to be what – 1$ billion for every ten million votes? But then the DNC would go out to destroy him because their own rice bowls (and those of all their ‘consultants) would be going empty.

    3. Kurtismayfield

      i wouldn’t be optimistic. i think Bloomberg has turned a lot of people’s heads. nobody was really inspiring to the people i talk to. they were going to settle for Warren or somebody.

      I am very happy that the establishment Dems are very comfy with voting for a Republican in the Democratic primaries. It’s quite illuminating.

  10. Jeremy Grimm

    Whether the DNC allows Bernie to be the ‘democratic’ candidate or not Bernie has my vote. I can write his name into the ballot in my state and I will.

  11. inode_buddha

    Institutionally, I worry about what will happen in the event of a Sanders loss. He has one hell of a movement rolling, and I believe it’s something that needed to be done yesterday. But without clear leadership and continuity plans, what then? What sort of continuity plans are there, to keep this ball rolling for the next 20 years? Because power is never given up without a struggle. Grant was right about this the other day in the Links comments.

    1. David Carl Grimes

      Maybe AOC will step into the picture? But Sanders “eked out” a victory in both Iowa and NH. And Bloomberg is not even in the picture yet. The combined showing of Mayo Pete and Amy shows the hunger for a moderate candidate. That hunger will be sated by Bloomberg, who has proven executive ability and unlimited funds. This is not looking good.

      Maybe Sanders is good at exciting his base but has not been very successful at making them show up and qualify at the polls.

      1. inode_buddha

        I think that is the case, if Sanders doesn’t win then AOC should take over the parallel apparatus that Sanders has created. We should set in for the long haul, 20 years or more of keeping up the pressure. If nothing else, attrition by sheer aging of the current Establishment will get it there in the end. Remember what JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable”.

        1. Monty

          Better hurry! In 2019, A.O.C. told us we only have 12 years to prevent an unstoppable climate catastrophe. If Trump wins, that will run the clock down to 7!

          1. pretzelattack

            not sure the scientists have quite said this, but since nobody really knows when all the tipping points are reached, it makes sense to err on the side of doing what we can to save civilization. the scientific projections have been too conservative, not too “alarmist”.

              1. Massinissa

                I don’t think you understand what Pretzel is saying. He is saying that the tipping points could actually occur earlier than predicted.

                1. Monty

                  Yes, I think 12 years is optimistic, minus 12 is more like it. Either way, I don’t think we have 20 years.

        2. Michael Fiorillo

          You’re absolutely correct, inode_buddha: the Left must play the long game, as the Right does. Without that, the next Trump(s) is going to make this one look like an amateur.

          There are so many reasons to hate the #McResistance TM, not least is that, by venally holding on to power despite a complete loss of legitimacy, they help insure the continued ascendance of Trumpismo. That they continue to be enriched while pretending to oppose him reinforces the pathology.

          1. JTMcPhee

            And look how well it worked for the recipients of the Powell Memorandum.

            They, of course, started out with a pretty simple ethic: MORE FOR ME. While the Left got stuck in that bit about “getting and spending, we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours…”

        3. Carolinian

          There’s this thing called a Third Party. Is it really so impossible to consider that option–particularly if, as Lambert seems to be suggesting, the Dem aspiration has been hopeless from the getgo?

          And it’s also possible that the party poobahs are not necessarily wrong that Sanders would be shellacked by Trump. He really is an improbable champion no matter how good he is on the issues. His age would be a big objection among other things.

          1. inode_buddha

            These are the same people who are pushing Biden. Do you think his age will be a problem? How come Clinton’s age wasn’t a problem? Or anyone else’s?

            1. Carolinian

              And how is Biden doing? It’s all well and good to say Bernie polls well against Trump in a survey but that’s different from an actual campaign and especially one where the press won’t be friendly.

              Don’t get me wrong–I hope Sanders goes all the way. But surely there needs to be a plan b if that doesn’t happen.

          2. Amfortas the hippie

            ballot access.
            the duopoly has that locked up tight.
            how that happened…and what workarounds or loopholes there might be…and even the legality of it(if i was rich!)…i have no idea.
            every state is different, too.
            add control of the debates, and of the voting apparatus in most places, and there’s a whole lot of agitation and groundwork(and lawsuits) before we can even think about doing that for real.
            all that said, i think that if anyone could do it, it’s bernie…not in 2016…but in july. I think the time might be right, whenever the establishment finally jumps the shark on the bridge too far.

            and here’s the write in rules for texas:
            https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2020/president.shtml
            https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/candidates/guide/2018/writein2018.shtml

            you can’t just write in micky mouse any more.

      2. Grant

        “The combined showing of Mayo Pete and Amy shows the hunger for a moderate candidate.”

        I find this to be highly suspect, sorry. For one, this was a primary in a conservative state, overwhelmingly white, for a party where turnout (while up) is still a very small percentage of the party, even less the state, even less the country. To just generalize your claim there based on what we have seen is crazy. On policy, there is no hunger for those people. I mean, in NH, 60% of those polled want single payer. Did 60% vote for the single payer candidate? What people are hungry for is for Trump to lose, and they have been told by everyone on TV (and many of these, especially older, voters do in fact get lots of their information from places like CNN and MSNBC) says that in order to beat Trump, you gotta run someone like Biden or Amy. In South Carolina, the support from single payer is even higher among Democrats polled, and everyone cares about that issue more than many others. But, again, are they overwhelmingly supporting the candidate running on that issue? Many are, but many are supporting other candidates, because again, many people voting prioritize who can beat Trump. And there is a viral video too (just to give you an idea of how absurd the though process of many is) of a woman picking a candidate by doing eenie meenie miney mo.

        “Maybe Sanders is good at exciting his base but has not been very successful at making them show up and qualify at the polls.”

        Huh? The young did show up in large numbers in both states, and he killed it. He did have massive support among those that he targeted. In NH, they did in fact make it harder for the young to vote. Fact. But even in white, conservative NH, he got more support from the young voters than everyone else combined, got more support from women of color, people of color and women too. How can anyone, seeing what he is up against, not be impressed? No candidate on the left like him has ever done this well. This is unprecedented in US history. Debs got 6% of the presidential vote, which is the high water mark for leftists. Bernie’s biggest challenges remain the media, that party and the large donors. It isn’t going to be easy to win, but if the race comes down to Bloomberg versus Bernie, I like his chances. Bloomberg is already reeling from the small bits that have come out, and we haven’t even started yet. Let’s see how he does on the debate stage too. Bernie has been talking for years now about inequality, and how the rich have corrupted the system. Well, here is one of those people as his prime enemy, an oligarch, trying to buy an election. If the Democrats go with Bloomberg, then it says far more about where that party now is than Bernie. Cause FDR was not a socialist, but he tried to save the capitalist system by adopting some elements of socialism. We not only need something similar, but given the environmental crisis, the socialization has to be far more comprehensive. The “center” is not at all realistic if we want to get serious about the environmental crisis alone, forget the other issues. What is facing us is not some three decade long alliance, but instead a pretty quick collapse that then brings un very authoritarian economic planning.

        2. Jeff W

          Thanks, Grant—I was thinking many of the same points but you made them far better than I could.

          The only race that matters from now on, I think, when Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, with no support among young voters or non-white voters—and with Klobuchar, somewhat fortuitously, hating Buttigieg so it will be rather like the battle of the neoliberal scorpions—when they inevitably collapse, is that between Bernie Sanders and billionaire plutocrat Mike Bloomberg. It will be, as near as possible, a real-life experiment in what wins: a deluge of money and institutional influence (aka cheating) vs. actual real grassroots support. Actual real grassroots support could win but even what constitutes a “win” is skewed—Sanders ideally has to win an outright majority in a multi-candidate race that makes a plurality more likely; Bloomberg only has to stop that. It’ll be interesting.

    2. Titus

      As I said to Grant, as long the “we the people” reduce our role to simply one of voters it is hopeless. We are citizens and must act like it. Power never, ever was given up without a fight. We need to do what it takes. I’m all for non-violent as a policy statement. People’s pain is real, this isn’t about Sanders, AOC, it is about us. The Jews after WW2 said never again. We been doing this neocon thing since at least 1960 and neolib since 1976. We ‘the people’ need to decide, have we had enough? If yes it obvious what needs to be done.

      1. Dan

        The Jews after WW2 said never again.

        Given what they’ve done to Palestine, they should probably keep their mouths shut.

  12. dcrane

    “Little Madisons”…”omnishambles”…”chaos ladder”.

    I love Water Cooler (edit: and its related features)

      1. Massinissa

        I’ve been on NC since the early 2010s around the time of OWS, and I don’t remember at all how I found this site. I wonder what good fortune I had to have found this website.

  13. JohnnyGL

    There’s a very overly dynamic situation going on here. I had some thoughts this morning, but I’ll add more, below. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/02/links-2-12-2020.html#comment-3291200

    I was somewhat disappointed with the margin of victory for Sanders, especially since he came in under his polls. But then, as the picture shaped up, I realized the task given to him was a lot harder than people realize.

    1) Biden’s rapid descent into Jebbie-territory has scrambled the race. Sanders appears to be emerging from the chaos (perhaps it’s Bernie’s ladder, for now?) It seems like a lot of voters had to find somewhere to go, and fast, in record numbers (not just his supporters, his opponents, too). Bernie managed to hang on to a win in the face of that.

    2) The mess in Iowa hasn’t given a ton of people time to digest headlines that say, “Bernie Sanders tops the polling” and “Bernie wins” because media have refused to run them (in the case of Iowa) or there was a gap in polling. Those results are now coming in and may have an effect on people’s thinking.

    3) Media builds candidates up and tears them down….the sharks are circling for Warren and Biden and will get them soon, possibly after NV and/or SC. They’ve propped up Pete and Amy for now, but can either or both last? A sign of strength is that media shreddings have NOT worked on Sanders. In any case, where do those voters end up? MorningConsult has long had Sanders as 2nd choice for both candidates. Will that bear out?

    4) Will people vote for Steyer? What does a win in either NV or SC do for him? I have no idea. No one has ever run a two state campaign before. It’s very weird.

    5) voter bases want to unify, they did it in 2000, 2004 (on dem side) and on repub side in 2012 and 2016. Sometimes they unify quickly, sometimes slowly. Once a collective sense of “Bernie’s going to win” sets into people’s brains, it’s hard to stop a snowball effect. This is why the smarter analysis is suggesting that the window to stop Bernie might have already been missed.

    6) Lambert says they’ll NEVER let Bernie be the nominee….unless the see an opportunity to teach the electorate a lesson by letting him have his shot….and helping Trump beat him so they can say, “We tried going left, it failed. Now bend the knee.”

    7) I think we’re going to witness an even more poisonous media environment as bloomberg looms ever larger on the race. He buys off EVERYONE with a voice.

    2. chuckster

      Bloomberg is a once-in-a-lifetime wet dream for the Democrats. The media commissions alone if Bloomberg spends $2 billion on advertising come out to almost $300 million. He’s like the guy at a poker game who goes al- in with his pair of deuces every hand. He’s a mark and rich one. There is no way the Democrats will ever let him go. Biden and Warren are done. All they have to do is keep Bernie from getting 1991 delegates before they open the doors in Milwaukee. Bloomberg will buy the remaining super-delegates and viola we have a Bloomberg-Klobuchar ticket heading for mass extinction in November. Pete -being the rat-faced little ass-kisser that he is sees the writing on the wall. He’s looking at 2024. He will take Perez’s place as the head of the DNC, gain access to the few millionaires he doesn’t have on speed dial and plot and plan for winning the nomination as the American Macron.

      The Democratic Party is a joke. It just isn’t funny.

      2. CBBB

        If Bloomberg is the nominee, I want Trump to be re-elected. Both are authoritarians but Bloomberg is a fascist who gets things done.
        Bloomberg has all kinds of nasty things in store if he gets to be President – complete domination of US society by silicon valley for one thing, big changes to labor laws to entrench the gig-economy, all kinds of nastiness.

        Trump is terrible of course but at least his dumbness and erratic flailing around keeps him for fulfilling his full potential for evil. Not so with Mike Bloomberg.

          1. CBBB

            And once a “Dem” does it, it will be truly entrenched. Just like when Obama continued the War on Terror and most of the people who criticized it under Bush just sort of clammed up.
            Defeating Trump is not worth the cost of bowing to Bloomberg and also legitimizing his outright buying of the election.

        2. Michael Fiorillo

          As a NYC public school teacher and UFT school rep during Bloomberg’s reign, I can corroborate what you say with endless stories of his awfulness. He’s a nasty piece of work, with unlimited resources and a huge media/philanthropic (read, patronage) infrastructure already in place.

          I would never, ever vote for the man, under any circumstances, and I think many/most Sanders supporters would feel likewise. Should he become the nominee, I think Trump would crush him, and it will hasten the demise of the Democratic Party.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > a huge media/philanthropic (read, patronage) infrastructure

            IOW, the PMC. But the PMC, institutionally, is a tear-down; Bloomberg has just sold himself on a poor real estate deal.

        3. Norm de plume

          What hope for Palestine under Bloomberg?

          I envisage he and Netanyahoo, each standing on tippytoes behind a very low lectern, shaking hands vigorously as the West Bank is handed to settlers in ‘an historic peace plan’.., all the Adelsons and Sabans sitting near the front (on fairly high chairs) applauding.

          What hope for detente under Bloomberg?

          Russiagate as a permanent feature rather than an awful blip?

          What hope for the already abandoned flyover country inhabitants?

          At what point do ploughshares turn into swords, or lampposts?

      3. deplorado

        This is the prediction that,although dark, rings true to me for the near term.

        But long term, yeah, after Bernie, someone else has to pick up the leadership of the movement. Right now AOC seems the right person. She has decades ahead of her – no one said that turning around a whole society can happen over 1-2 election cycles. Even if Bernie today sweeps everything – like AOC says, this is only the beginning. From that perspective, no one should despair – Bernie finally set the wheel in motion, the rest will go beyond him.

        Bernie is like Jesus. Set your sights long, people. He may be nailed now (and he won’t, just may not be able to crush TPTB as some among us wish) – what he started will still change the (US) world.

        1. Samuel Conner

          Your analogy resonates with me. I’ve been thinking similar, in terms of the possibility that TPTB decide to “deal with” Sanders in some way.

          Yes, I think what he has started will carry on for a long time.

          1. Norm de plume

            I worry about the implications of ‘deal with’ a lot. Post Epstein nothing can be ruled out. The heart is the most obvious opening, but I am more concerned about vehicles with computerised controls. One of the few upsides of Iowa is the greater number of eyeballs now trained on the race, looking for any signs of skulduggery.

            I think it more likely that cooler heads will understand that if Bernie gets the nom, they can again smell, if not like roses exactly, then at least not like ordure. ‘Hey, how corrupt can we be – the socialist won’

            Then all guns will be trained on assisting Trump while appearing to support Bernie. NC could run a reader contest to write the election editorials for WaPo and NYT ahead of time and see who gets closest to the inevitable hand-wringingly reluctant endorsement of Sanders as the lesser of two great evils. And they can say in truth that at least the Donald is the devil we know…

      4. Lambert Strether Post author

        > He’s a mark and rich one. There is no way the Democrats will ever let him go. Biden and Warren are done. All they have to do is keep Bernie from getting 1991 delegates before they open the doors in Milwaukee.

        I think if Sanders gets a clean shot at Bloomberg, people might be very surprised.

        > a Bloomberg-Klobuchar ticket heading for mass extinction

        You say that like it’s a bad thing.

    3. Left in Wisconsin

      I liked your comment this a.m. In the same spirit, contra Stoller, the Dems can be defined as much by what they aren’t as by what they are:
      1. They have no core political principles (except bashing the left). This makes them vulnerable to a persuasive political/ideological/policy (vs. political/tactical) argument.
      2. They have no get-out-the-vote mechanism to increase turnout, of supporters or potential supporters, which makes them vulnerable to a well-organized get-out-the-vote effort.
      3. They, literally, do not speak to most of the country. [The insularity is unbelievable (OK, not) – even among the in-crowd/gate-keepers, there is no serious effort made to debate ideas, only tactics. At best, they shout diversionary messages (look over here! Russia! Ukraine!) at us. It is said that real power is the power to keep ideas that challenge power out of the conversation. But that only works if you can keep those ideas out of the conversation. Refusing to discuss/consider those ideas when they are already in the conversation is not a show of power but of weakness. MSNBC is only silencing Bernie and M4A among their tiny audience.] This makes them vulnerable to someone with the organization and message to speak to us.

      I agree with Lambert that all stops will be pulled out to defeat Bernie. If all goes well, that will mean a need to resort to extreme levels of nefariousness (as opposed to the relatively routine levels exhibited so far) and if all goes really well, core Dem incompetence will allow Bernie to beat them anyway. But even if Bernie somehow becomes our next president, that will be but Chapter 1 of the story of how we got to where we need to get.

      Lots of sadness on Links this a.m., which I found very strange. As if one small-state primary election, in which our candidate won no less, was indicative of the impossibility of our task or indeed anything more than the tiniest marker in what can only be a long, vicious struggle.

      1. chuckster

        As if one small-state primary election, in which our candidate won no less, was indicative of the impossibility of our task

        When your entire argument is that you can bring a whole new crowd to the polls and defeat the other side and they don’t show up in two contests in a row, then yes, there is reason to be sad. It’s kind of like when a former VP based his whole campaign on electability but can’t get any votes.

        1. Left in Wisconsin

          Agreed. If your theory of change is about flipping a switch, and you feel like you have enough info from two small states to convince yourself that that switch can never be flipped, then you should be sad. But if your theory of change has a longer time horizon and involves building a completely new movement based on politically motivating people who have never been politically motivated before, then it makes sense to see each signpost as a useful bit of information helpful moving forward but no more.

        2. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          Chris Matthews (%&*!) makes a valid point: Bernie comes off as an “indictment”.

          So very good at pointing out the richly-deserved negatives of our current systems.

          He’s very good at the “Change” part but very weak on the “Hope” part.

          I wish he would add in more rays of sunshine. “We are going to change so America is a country that works for all of us, not just the 1%. We will usher in an era of prosperity and opportunity in our country that will make us the envy of the world!”

          Nobody likes a scold. Americans want to aspire, not just tear down.

          1. deplorado

            yeah, true.
            I watched a little of the Trump NH rally on Fox – he is all about bluster and optimism and triumph. May be all hot air and cruel demagogy, but it works. People want to feel empowered. Trump does that to many. Bernie, or a surrogate, needs to throw in more of that.

          2. Grant

            Americans hate the media (apparently you don’t) and the political system collectively. Trump is more popular than the media. They are just as angry at the system as Bernie is. And how much more positive can you be than trying to put in place a healthcare system that saves as many as 45,000 a year, save half a million from bankruptcy, eliminates job lock, saves most individuals thousands and society trillions. And I am an American. I never asked you to speak for me. Speak for yourself, these are your opinions.

            1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

              Grant please stop putting words and opinions in my mouth. I am offering *my opinions* about the emotions that affect people once they are in the privacy of the voting booth.

              And you have a keen grasp of the obvious (as I hope I do as well). Yes most people probably would say they “hate the media”. I happen to think the MSM is the most vile and pernicious unelected fifth branch of government. Yes most people would like a completely different form of health care. It is *my opinion* that most people would like not just another angry listing of what is wrong but also a hopeful and positive vision about how a candidates policies will result in a better future. It is *my opinion* that Bernie spends all his time on the former but tends to neglect the latter. You have a *different opinion*, and I respect that.

          3. Yves Smith

            Huh? Trump won. Did you miss that? Selling American demise, which happens to be accurate. The fact that he was willing to say that and was a break the china outsider was a very successful formula.

            I don’t buy this “Americans like optimism” business, particularly when employers are using fake optimism as a cudgel in the workplace. People look around and know if they aren’t at the top of food chain, they are being shafted.

        3. Big River Bandido

          Except that they did turn out. Youth turnout in Iowa jumped by 5 or 6 points. That’s huge. And it was enough for him to claim victory. This in an older, whiter, more conservative state.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > Youth turnout in Iowa jumped by 5 or 6 points.

            Yes, there are good signs. What is needed is a working class wave. I am extremely worried that Sandberg’s “relational organizing” is not taking account of class barriers. Nevada will, I think, be a good test of that; unions, the Latin vote.

        4. Lambert Strether Post author

          > When your entire argument is that you can bring a whole new crowd to the polls and defeat the other side and they don’t show up in two contests in a row….

          I worded by heading artfully: “Sanders’ Theory of Change Is Not Disproven”

          I think both IA and NH are both very small. I think CA is a far better test. We shall see!

          (Also, the Sanders campaign may have been counting on momentum from IA, which the Democrat establishment + media deprived him of). The momentum may still come, but with no media tailwind.)

      2. flora

        From The Onion, channeling the MSM ;) , reporting on the New Hampshire primary results:

        Bernie Sanders loses to Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg in key battle for second and third place.

        https://politics.theonion.com/takeaways-from-the-new-hampshire-primaries-1841642729

        ha!
        —
        Think how enormous it is that a grassroots funded campaign wins the first 2 contests against campaigns funded by billionaires and run by established , ruthless political machines.

        No sadness here, only the realization of the hard work ahead. If there’s sadness, it’s losing the faint hope that the political machines and the MSM still had a tiny sense of fair play, if only to protect their reputations.

      3. Lambert Strether Post author

        > But even if Bernie somehow becomes our next president, that will be but Chapter 1 of the story of how we got to where we need to get.

        That’s why I’m suspicious of “passion” as a motivator for what I conceive of as an army (“Bernie’s Army”). Now, a burning sense of injustice is quite another thing; see Mike Duncan.

        Whatever structures the Sanders campaign is building, assuming Sanders to be elected, will have to deal with both a professional services strike (like Jon Gruber either not helping or, more likely, sabotaging #MedicareForAll), and a capital strike. So those structures will need to be pretty robust, and made even more robust (“organizer-in-chief”).

    4. Amfortas the hippie

      “6) Lambert says they’ll NEVER let Bernie be the nominee….unless the see an opportunity to teach the electorate a lesson by letting him have his shot….and helping Trump beat him so they can say, “We tried going left, it failed. Now bend the knee.””

      at the uttermost end, when all else has failed, this is what i fear and expect.
      it will, of course…also per lambert…be clarifying…which is something.

    5. Lambert Strether Post author

      > 6) Lambert says they’ll NEVER let Bernie be the nominee

      What I said: “I don’t believe that the Democrat Party establishment will ever roll over, and allow Sanders to be nominated even if he leads in the delegate count. ”

      They will not “roll over.” But they may be beaten*. That, to me, depends entirely on the force that #NotMeUs is able to bring to bear, outside party structures if need be.

      * Temporarily, at least.

  14. mle detroit

    Didn’t I see last night that New Hampshire, between 2016 and now, changed its rules to disallow voting by out-of-state college students? Young Sanders supporters will have to take the fall semester off.

    1. XXYY

      I greatly admire Stoller’s deep knowledge of the Democrat Party at a granular level; but I’m not sure about his model of what a party is; I think “cartel” may not be quite as big a hammer as he thinks. Reader comments on this point welcome!

      I think Stoller is over-applying his “cartel” theory here. All we need to understand current events in the Dem primary is a rudimentary class analysis. Most (but not all!) of the existing political elements and components of the information system are owned and controlled by elites; Sanders is openly challenging and “welcoming the hatred” of these interests, and elites are using what they have available to try to crush him. No third-order effects or free-market mechanisms or eleven-dimensional chess are needed to explain anything.

      It’s certainly true that individual journalists and Democratic Party officials are hostile to Sanders as well; I think this just has to do with the biases and organizational interests of their employers and meal tickets. Journos and Dem flacks who liked Bernie would mostly have been purged long ago; some may also recognize their importance and prospects will be better under, say, a Bloomberg presidency.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > All we need to understand current events in the Dem primary is a rudimentary class analysis.

        At the strategic level, yes. Of course, wars are, ultimately, won on the terrain of actual battlefields….

    2. Samuel Conner

      Or else the Sanders campaign, if it wins the nomination, will have to make a massive investment in ensuring that young Sanders supporters know how to request and fill out their home-state mail-in ballots.

      In line with other “do not despair” remarks above, I think it is way too soon to suppose that either the Ds or the Rs will be able to neutralize Sanders.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > In line with other “do not despair” remarks above

        I am most definitely not “in despair. ” But I am the kind of person who, if I had to seek medical help, would want the doctor to give me the diagnosis straight, so I could know what actions to take. As readers must know by know, I am not by disposition a cheerleader.

  15. dk

    Yes, “another world is possible” (thank heavens). But “we are unstoppable”?

    Exactly so. The phrase is “We will not stop!”

    1. frijoles

      I prefer the Beastie Boys’ “Because we can’t, we won’t, and we don’t stop!”

      No sleep ’til Brooklyn!

  16. Circei

    It’s so retrogade to talk about “Democratic Party Kingmakers” while ignoring the Queenmaker (initials OW if you need the reminder) readying herself to her the foot down on all of them.

    1. Yves Smith

      She’s a spent force. MSM attention now way out of proportion to her power. Don’t buy her deluded nattering.

      Clinton Foundation fundraising collapsed after she lost her Prez bid.

      She and Bill went on a grifting $ tour. Couldn’t begin to fill halls even with severely discounted tickets.

  17. Fiery Hunt

    Just a random note…
    My girl tried to register on her phone here in CA. Multiple bugs, was not sure if it took. Went online on the PC and got thru the process. So far, so good.
    Got proof of registration postcard in 2 days. Wow, great!

    Then got 2, count ’em 2, mail-in ballots in the mail.

    Course she’ll only send one in but how many others got the double ballots? And how many will actually send them both in? And is there some back-end alarm that will invalidate her one vote cause they sent her 2 ballots?

    I have deep doubts about the vote in CA…

    2. inode_buddha

      Cross-posting from Links:

      Up here in the People’s Democratically Elected Republic of New York, you have until tomorrow to change your voter registration for the Primaries. Note that you must be in a major party to vote in the primaries, and you will need your NYS Driver’s License or non-driver ID to do this.

      You can do so online at the motor vehicles dept:
      dmv.ny.gov

      The online forms are quite simple, no more than half a dozen blanks or checkboxes per page, its basically a duplicate of the old paper forms.

      They will email you a recipt a few moments after it is processed.

    3. divadab

      We get two ballots here in WA also – one for the Republican primary and one for the Democrat primary. You can only vote one and a good way to get your vote invalidated and perhaps be charged with voter fraud is to return both.

        1. Goyo Marquez

          The Democratic primary in California is not closed, but independent voters are required to request a Democratic ballot.

          Re: Triumphalism
          My wife and I have been working canvassing for Bernie in our little town of El Centro, California. The Field Director for California showed up at our Barnstorming. Odd in a nice way. Coming 120 miles east of San Diego to one of the poorest areas of our state, for a county population of approx 150,000 mostly Hispanics. Cynical me thought, “They’re being too idealistic. They’re caring about the poor when they should be focusing their energies on an area with more votes.” They do say things like, “We’re going to win,” but in a more encouraging than triumphalist fashion.

          A deputy field director came down from Orange County, a four hour drive, to help us with our first canvas. As the deputy director left our house to go to his canvas area he told my wife, “These are our people.” I hope so because I’m pretty sure nobody else cares about them. Maybe Bernie is the real thing.

          My experience. Hispanics are excited to vote for Bernie, but a lot of them need help figuring out how to do the voting thing, what papers they need. I wouldn’t have imagined that before canvassing. I thought it was going to be about convincing conservatives to vote for Bernie, turns out it’s about helping people who are already disposed to vote for Bernie to actually be able to vote.

          In the opinion of two ex-Republican, socially conservative Christians, Bernie could easily be the last chance to save America, to save your town, your neighborhood, your neighbors. The patient has been bleeding out for 40 years, the physicians assuring us that nothing is wrong. Absent immediate, heroic intervention the end of America is upon us.

          If two ex-Republican, socially conservative Christians care enough about it to go out and canvass for Bernie, then you bunch of correct thinking leftists should be out doing your part, not letting us put you to shame.

          We’re canvassing the next two Saturday’s in El Centro, CA come join us, or find a canvass closer to home.

          1. Shonde

            Wish I could canvass with you since it is cold up here in Minnesota. So good luck and thank you so much.

          2. Amfortas the hippie

            regarding hispanics being inexperienced with the voting thing:
            here, too, in central texas backwater.
            but here, it’s because of a Walking Tall Sheriff. left office 20 years ago, but his 24 year term in office left a mark on the Mexican American population.
            baseball bats, stop’n’frisk…or stop’n’beat up…he’d go into the barrio the weeks before an election and just walk in to someone’s house(presumably because he learned that they were agitating), sit down at the kitchen table, and tell them that he’d better not see them or any of their friends anywhere near the polls.
            this ended just over 20 years ago….and, to be fair, someone like him would never get away with that crap now….
            but the effect lingers…i know all this from being an honorary Mexican(married into large local familia), and from attempting to register the Barrio to vote a few years ago.
            couldn’t believe the stories when i first heard them…but i just kept on hearing them.

          3. Eureka Springs

            Democratic ballot

            I read recently you have to specify “crossover ballot” in CA or the ballot they give you at the polling station will not include the Dem presidential race.

          4. HotFlash

            Goyo Marquez, many, many thanks to you two ex-Republican, socially conservative Christians for your canvassing. I, too, think that Bernie could be our last chance. From a long-time lefty agnostic, bless you. As for the rest of us, we should go forth, as the Good Book says, and do likewise.

            Also agree with Shonde, it’s cold up here, but phonebanking is warmer. Also, too, the Bernie campaign has found that people talking to people they know (in person, on phone, FrpBook or whatever) is more convincing than strangers talking to strangers.

          6. Stillfeelinthebern

            Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope others out canvassing/informing voters will tell your experiences with the campaign (that is great news) and remind us of what we need to do.

            It’s also true in Wisconsin that the “how to vote” is a barrier and there is an ongoing confusion machine working overtime. People just give up.

  18. WhoaMolly

    I still predict a brokered convention with Clinton/Harris ticket.

    Followed by the nastiest, and most racist, sexist, campaign in history. Something that makes the political dialog of 2016 – 2019 look like Mr. Rogers friendship hour.

    I also predict a Trump victory.

    The losing Clinton machine then blames the loss on Bernie followers who sit out the election after Bernie is cheated out of the nomination, again.

    I hope I am wrong.

    1. polecat

      Honestly, I don’t see many .. well, except the clinton peoples temple cultists, voting a C n H ticket. That’s one Yuuuuuuge radioactive dumpster fire, right there.

      1. WhoaMolly

        That’s my take, too, polecat.

        I base my prediction on mind reading. So maybe (probably) I am totally bonkers.

        But I believe HRC ambition and entitlement is of Shakespearean proportions.

    2. ObjectiveFunction

      If Bernie can’t win, then that’s my dream scenario.

      Let all the p-p-poisons that lie in the earth h-h-hatch out.

  19. Jason Boxman

    PMC – professional managerial class? At work our style guide has us spelling acronymous out the first time; never know when someone is new to the material. I’ve spent enough time here, my guess is probably correct, but who knows?

    2. Donald

      Yes, professional managerial class = PMC. It has become a popular acronym because it describes the upper middle class Democrats who vote non- Sanders.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        For “PMC,” I had been using the term 10% in parallel to 1% (actually 0.1%) and 99%.

        However, on reflection I can live with the lack of parallelism, because I think the PMC is different in kind from both 1% and 99%. See comment above, and add a pinch of Thomas Frank. (I originally wrote Robert Frank. Him too).

  20. skippy

    “but if (as Napoleon did not quite say) every Sanders volunteer carries a Marshall’s baton in their knapsack, then thinking like a Marshall will be important.”

    Apropos … Napoleons entire dream came undone in half an hour, at the very moment success was so tantalizingly close. Had he not been cautious and held his troops back Wellington would have not been able to stitch up his center, with their backs to the wall they fought manically and when Napoleons best wavered it sent a shock wave through the rest of his troops – disorderly rout …..

    Were a long way from any such battle, but it should be in the back of everyone’s mind when and if it occurs.

    Wet marsupial …

    1. Amfortas the hippie

      way off topic, but i have to know.
      the phrase “disheveled marsupial” showed up in a google return page some years ago, and is what first brought me to NC.
      it was so random,lol.
      still don’t know what it means.

        1. skippy

          Yes it is me, difficult to discuss economics anymore as everything is devolving into vulgar politics, which strangely or not, seems dictated by the former orthodox economic camp. I mean Krugman saying Social Security is a ponzi …. just wow …. they will worship their IS-LM w/ Talyor rule bolt on and “***Natural*** rate of interest” [Milton’s quasi gold standard] or burn the house down.

          Actually I picked Skippy because of this episode: Fast Foward – Skippy and the White Slave-Traders

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgMRIqIh2J4

      3. skippy

        Yes I started putting the disheveled in when things were just getting ludicrous in the economic debate and not just on NC. I spent numerous hours on other blogs and econ sites, world wide, dealing with the zealots and doctrinaires – AET, AnCap, Marxists, and a whole cornucopia of wing nut polisci labels with the libertarian bolt on trying to bring on the “revolution”.

        So it was a reflection of my aghast at the state of things from an intellectual perspective, because of the irretrievable stakes some put in the ground and then present themselves as intellectual. My personal favorite was Milton’s son David the AnCap – talk about bad maths and physics used to burnish some wonky ideology …. ugh …

        Worst part about it was when Trump came along and some fellow compatriots completely lost the plot and supported Hillary, no matter what about her or her husband was brought to bare.

        In ending this is where I’m at and was on featured links:

        “Economics itself…. has always been partly a vehicle for the ruling ideology of each period as well as partly a method of scientific investigation.” – Joan Robinson

        https://braveneweurope.com/john-weeks-joan-robinson-and-the-theory-of-capital

        Followed up by Lars Syll’s blog, especially what constitutes theory and how its applied in economics aka political theory with a side of natural history from a post Keynesian methodology.

        Wet marsupial is a reference to the currant climatic environment post heat wave – never ending rain and its effect at work and with out poor dogs.

      4. skippy

        Long form below but would add that in my other political – economic travels outside a few blogs that I went with wayward septic – condition to being a Yank in Oz.

  21. WhoaMollly

    Last year I changed registration from Democrat to Independent in California.

    I too got a complicated card in the mail. I couldn’t figure out how to fill it out so I put it aside.

    By the time I sat down to fill out the card, the due date–buried at the very bottom of the card–had passed.

    1. Debra D.

      Well, you cut off your nose to spite your face. Your decisions would seem to indicate your interest is not very high. Don’t know if you are complaining or just making an observation to share with us.

      1. dcrane

        More detail describing how the card was “complicated” would have been good. But neglect isn’t “spite” unless it’s deliberate.

    2. Goyo Marquez

      You can still fill out the form and turn it in. That’s one of the main things we do when we’re canvassing. Go to your registrar of voters and ask for a Democratic presidential ballot.

    3. jrs

      Just REGISTER DEMOCRATIC. You have until February 18, 2020 to do so. The deadline for independents IS confusing, so yes if one was on the ball staying independent and getting a Dem ballot works (but whether they count those votes as corrupt as the Dem party is, is another matter) But if late it’s easy to just register Dem and you’ll get a Dem ballot.

      Change it back after the election. Hey I didn’t say marry the party till death do you part … but if you want to vote for Sanders, then get it done.

    4. Jeff W

      By the time I sat down to fill out the card, the due date–buried at the very bottom of the card–had passed.

      The due date is not the end of the game. From the California Secretary of State site here:

      No Party Preference voters who do not respond to this postcard will be mailed a non-partisan ballot without any presidential candidates listed. If after receiving a non-partisan ballot a No Party Preference voters prefers to receive a crossover ballot, they can still request one from their county elections official by:

      Phone
      Email
      Fax

      Voters also have the option of taking their non-partisan vote-by-mail ballot to their polling place (or any vote center in a Voters’ Choice Act County) and exchange it for a ballot with presidential candidates from the American Independent, Democratic, or Libertarian Party.

      But, it might be easier, as jrs says, just to register with the Democratic party by (and including) 18 February and get a Democratic primary ballot.

  22. Jeff W

    California, among other defenses, has an extremely complicated balloting process, whose evident effect is to disenfranchise voters.

    My mail-in ballot [San Mateo county] looked nothing like that—each county has its own ballot envelope design?—and was actually a lot easier. The space to write your address was “big enough” and you simply signed and dated the envelope in the box provided—there was no confusing MMDDYYYY “field.”

    1. PewPew

      This was my experience in San Diego county as well. It seems all the over-complicated crap is coming along with LA’s “improved” voting system. I read the LA times pretty regularly, and even with their credulous, fawning coverage it seems awful.

      1. Jeff W

        Turns out the California Secretary of State is “encouraging” counties within the state to adopt “best practices” for vote-by-mail envelope design which, I guess, is a good thing. The return envelope I had was even easier than the “best practices” design—my name was printed on the envelope so I didn’t have to print it myself (there was no line to do so) and, apparently, San Mateo voter registrar officials can somehow recognize dates (e.g., 2/12/20, Feb 12, 2020, etc.) that are not in the MM/DD/YYYY format, since that wasn’t specified.

        And you can track the status of your mail-in ballot in 25 California counties* through “Where’s My Ballot?” (but not San Diego and San Mateo counties yet).

        *Amador, El Dorado, Fresno, Glenn, Kern, Los Angeles, Marin, Mariposa, Merced, Monterey, Orange, Placer, Riverside, Sacramento, San Benito, San Joaquin, San Luis Obispo, Santa Clara, Shasta, Sutter, Tehama, Tuolumne, Ventura, Yolo, Yuba.

  23. pretzelattack

    idle thought–steyer was eager to shake bernie’s hand after the debate post backstab; i wonder how he feels about bloomberg?

      1. HotFlash

        Hah! I read the seniors aging alone post, and have been getting ads that wonder if I have made my funeral arrangements yet? What a hoot!

  25. meadows

    As I was watching the NH primary race on MSNBC (always w/the sound off) I noticed the guy w/the giant touchscreen pointing to Manchester, NH, which had all it’s votes sent in…. a very large percentage of that area went to Bernie.

    I am from NH, now residing in the People’s Republic of Cascadia. Manchester is a notoriously Republican neighborhood for generations.

    My take is that disappointed Trumpsters are turning to the real populist, and giving the faux populist the finger.

    1. dcrane

      Fwiw, an alternative theory is that Trump-friendly independent voters were boosting Bernie in the belief that Trump will find the “communist” easier to beat. I personally think Sanders will be a big challenge for Trump, but anyone who buys the conventional wisdom will think otherwise.

  26. Grant

    “I think a lot of the extremely online Sanders supporters are, perhaps, over-confident.”

    I don’t agree that this denotes being overconfident at all. The media, that party, they want to crush any hope the supporters of Bernie have. Anyone that has done organizing work knows that you need hope to keep going just in general, but doubly when they are up against powerful forces. If you internalize that propaganda, you’re toast. You will burn out and feel that your hard work is not worth it. I would see them not thinking those things as a bad sign. Hell, do you see any underdog basketball team announce they have no chance against their favored opponent? Of course not, if you think that, you’re toast. You believe you can win and fight as though you can win. What should they chant. “We have a 35% chance if the stars align!”?

    “If we end up with the Milwaukee equivalent of Grant Park in Chicago 1968, that would probably hand the election to Trump (something most Democrat elites, deep down, would be quite happy with), but more important, could destroy the “army” that the Sanders campaign so carefully put together, rendering it incapable of independent operation following the convention after a collapse in discipline and subsequent backbiting and recrimination. For some, that might not be a bad thing.”

    I don’t agree with this, personally. I see Bernie as a microcosm for the left. His challenges aren’t personal, they are what everyone on the left is up against in this rotten system, with this rotten media, in that rotten party. He is not an end, he is the best means we have had in a long time for long-overdue changes. The left is involved in countless campaigns, and if we don’t quickly change in response to the environmental crisis, we should put off ANY long-term analysis. Things are set to collapse with the path we are on because of the environmental crisis. What I think will happen is that the awakening that people have long predicted with the Democrats may come about, that the party is irreversibly right wing, corrupt and cannot be reformed. I am of that opinion. The question really is whether or not we have enough time to build something else, and I can’t say for sure. But, what I can say, is that anyone on the left (not just Bernie) will face the same challenges. We have a one sided class war and plenty of powerful people in the system are set to lose a lot if he wins. And we have a lot of voters that do like him and would vote for him, but have a very short-term aim, which is to defeat Trump, and some of them have been convinced that Bernie can’t do that. They overwhelmingly refuse to think about how to change the context that produced Trump or the trajectory we have been on since at least Reagan. So, they seem to want to beat Trump, but have no answer on how to be Trumpism. Cause that would mean that everyone but Bernie (they’re all empty media creations, every one of them) are non-viable candidates. What I think is lacking among most Democrats is a systems analysis about how we got here and where we are going. Again, if people did this, there would be no debate on who to support. Given, however, that young people are very much aligned with Bernie, continuing to rig that dying party for the losers in charge of it now is going to be even more untenable.

    Having said all of that, what did people expect? That those in power were going to roll over and let him take power? These fights are always very difficult and the left in other countries doesn’t just face massive obstacles, the organizing is often far more overtly violent and deadly. Come on now, get out and fight, organize. If you know something about an issue, do a workshop in your community and share your intellectual capital. Realizing another world is possible isn’t an empty slogan, people have had that beaten out of their heads and they have to believe it is possible. It is, but people have to be willing to leap into the future. If we have alternative ideas and institutions, we can offer them something that the worthless rats running the Democratic Party cannot.

    1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

      “the left in other countries”

      Can you point to such “left” anywhere? Corbyn perhaps? Morales? Lula? Hamon in France? Kipping in Germany?

      1. Grant

        I am confused, new poster. Who do you think created the Nordic social democratic states? The NHS systems in the UK? Medicare in Canada? Relevant since we are now fighting for things they long ago won. The Pink Tide governments in South America, AMLO in Mexico, the left in Colombia. How exactly do you think we got the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act? Sure as hell wasn’t because of politicians, far more about groups like the SNCC. How did we get the 40 hour work week, the weekend, overtime pay, child labor laws? How are, often right wing, states voting to expand Medicaid and pushing to raise the minimum wage now? By organizing, getting active, often by bypassing corrupt political systems and through citizen ballot initiatives. I have been active in campaigns aimed at increasing public sector support for worker owned cooperatives and public banking. Here in California, municipalities are now supporting cooperatives in a number of ways and because of a new state level program, municipalities will now be owning and operating their own banks. Some activists nationally are pushing their governments to own and operate their own ISPs. Not a single policy that benefits the poor and working people were just given to them. They were all fought for, and as I said, in many countries around the world, leftist activists face far more than what supporters of Bernie and the left face here in the US. Sociopath Pete and the rest are empty and worthless media creations. Those we have to challenge are the large donors propping them up.

        1. inode_buddha

          Interestin…. I have long fantasized about creating a workers co-op encircling the great lakes, to run in parallel with the “real” economy and basically replace what Sears, Roebuck used to be… and even the grocery store.

          No idea where to begin with that though, all I have to go on is an old copy of the Whole Earth catalog.

        2. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          Not a new poster, been around NC for years. Yes of course I know what “the left” has accomplished over decades of blood and struggle, just noting the parlous state of “the left” around the world today

          1. Grant

            I get you. Sorry about the new poster thing. There are lots of posters that haven’t posted before trying to spell doom and gloom for Bernie. I agree that the left has been in retreat for some time now in the developed countries, but it is growing again. In enough time to fend off climate change? Who knows, but I would prefer to stop ecofascism from emerging. Now is the time, not in ten years.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > What I think is lacking among most Democrats is a systems analysis about how we got here and where we are going.

      Cross out “systems,” write in “class.” Sanders says “the billionaire class” over and over, but there are times when I think the billionaires are the only ones who take him seriously.

      I am temperamentally opposed to cheerleading. If there’s no serious correlation of forces being done*, then feeding people false hope is not only ineffective but wrong. That said, I think the Sanders campaign is doing that work. I would thank Sanders supporters would be very encouraged by the steadiness and discipline shown by the organizers Goya M describes here.

      NOTE * This is why Warren’s two-bill approach was either a bait-and-switch or not thought through; she was asking the troops to die first on a hill they didn’t want to take.

  27. giantsquid

    The demographics of Nevada look much better for the Sanders campaign as compared to New Hampshire’s.
    Nevada is less white, less rural, younger, less well-off, and has a larger percent of people lacking health care insurance.
    Nevada is slightly less than 40% white; NH is 90% white.
    Nevada is 95% urban; NH is 40% rural.
    Nevada is 32nd in median age; NH is 2nd.
    Nevada is 30th in median household income; NH is 8th.
    In Nevada,14% lack health insurance; in NH 7.5% lack health care.

    1. thoughtful person

      True those are good demographics for Sanders.

      But head of voting security in NV is former(?) Buttigieg operative, and, while the NV Democrat Party said no Shadow app, they have said they will be using an electronic “tool” to help caucuses count…

      Sounds to me like it will be another Iowa

      1. chuckster

        The Culinary Workers Union has already fired a shot across the bow of Sanders and Warren for their “identical” M4A stances. While the union is heavily Latino, this is a caucus state. You vote out in the open. I wonder how many rank-and-file workers will cross their union steward to vote for Bernie when the leadership is anti-Bernie. Add in the Harry Reid rat-love fest contest. My guess is he doesn’t openly endorse Amy but works behind-the-scenes to ensure that Klomentum engulfs the Silver State. They don’t really care if Bernie wins, they NEED to keep from getting to 50% and Amy is a useful tool in that endeavor.

      1. giantsquid

        Yes, New Hampshire has the 2nd oldest median age (43.1) in the US. Nevada’s median age (37.9) is the 32nd oldest (or 19th youngest).

  28. Rosairo

    Seems like media/DemEstablishment gas-lighting white voters did come to benefit the likes of Pete and Amy. I don’t think it will tip the scales in their favor for the rest of the primary, but the damage has already been done WRT a Bernie sweep.

    Remember when the Dem party wanted us to unify behind a coherent and strong (see Bernie) candidate to beat Trump? So much for that.

    A brokered convention is in the works with Bernie being the candidate with the most votes/delegates. Question is, are they willing to nuke the party to destroy a Bernie nomination?

    I would buy a gas mask and yellow vest for the convention. It will get ugly.

    1. Rosario

      I must add. I’m mostly mentally preparing myself for this outcome, but I want to be clear for all Bernie supporters, continue going hard for his campaign and don’t despair.

      1. John Beech

        Rosario, I am not despairing. If anything I am somewhat amused by it all. Then again, I don’t think Bernie can damage the country any more than Trump with upside being he’ll at least scold Congress about health care from the bully pulpit. Plus, if either of them win there’s the prospect of Maddow on MSNBC blowing a gasket, which would be most entertaining.

        1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          My hot take is that after the convention we will be allowed a choice between two Republican billionaires. Rachel, Ellen et alia will tell us how Mini Mike really is progressive, really, no, really. All the gals in the #MeToo brigade will forget to ask Mike about the 17 women he paid to drop their sexual harassment suits. We’ll be told “stop and frisk” was actually good for communities of color. That “Israel First” is actually the most sensible foreign policy.

          Behind the scenes dueling billionaire camps will fight over the carcass of our nation like junkyard dogs. This will provide some entertaining hi-jinks: will Bezos throw his support to Bloomberg The First in return for ending anti-trust actions? Will Baron Adelson pay to amend Dodd-Frank to get the Dimon/Blankfein clan’s support?

          MSNBC will keep us all enthralled with the debate over what the ruler’s new coat of arms should look like: should the massive dollar sign be crushing down the huddled masses or simply standing alongside them?

          1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

            Before anyone gets angry at my dystopian imagining of how things could play out I will state for the record: I think the candidacy of Senator Bernard Sanders is the *only* sure path to ensuring that my completely depressing hot take does not become de facto or actual reality.

            Signed, Mr. O.T.P.B.D. HAL.

            (I am Open HAL and I approve of this message)

            1. hoki haya

              Sometimes an urgency to proselytize impairs one’s ability to comprehend even the most unsubtle of farcical, appreciable remarks, it appears. Been reading and enjoying your take loud and clear in recent weeks, HAL, thanks.

        2. Samuel Conner

          I suspect that in a Sanders presidency, the bully pulpit would be employed not so much to scold Congress as to actively campaign to replace it with Progressives in the mid-term election. No need to scold them into submission, which will not work, when you can frighten them into compliance with the threat of being “primaried” from the left. And even that might not work, until it does. But I think that it eventually will.

          1. Grant

            +1

            Scolding someone without a soul ain’t gonna work. They care about power. Threaten that and they will respond, or at least are more likely to respond.

  29. junkelly

    I checked google news this morning. Of the top 5 headlines about New Hampshire, Buttigieg’s and Klobuchar’s names were each mentioned once. Sanders’ name wasn’t in any of the headlines.

    1. meadows

      In Asia Times, an article was all about Bernie Sanders winning NH Primary. In the US news it was “Bernie Barely Wins” but “Klobuchar Surges!” Geez ya gotta go to Asia Times and Russia Times for American news!

      1. John Beech

        Personally I loved the NH lady who said she was voting for Sanders because of the lopsided coverage by MSNBC. I snorted my drink through my nose when she said it ‘and’ gauwfed so loud my lovely bride came to check on me!

        1. Dalepues

          I saw that too. Also, Tucker Carlson has done a very good, fair that is, job of analyzing the race thus far. He has very pointedly called the Dem leadership scum, losers, morons, cheats, liars, etc. He has also had on his show Jimmy Dore and Krystal Ball and allowed them to speak freely.

    2. antidlc

      NH was called around 10:15 central time. Is that past the deadline for US morning newspapers?

      The reason I ask is my local rag this morning just said Bernie was “leading”.

  30. Mikerw0

    I see a fundamental flow in many of these arguments. I have a mixed and quite unconvinced view on Bernie and speaking to friends I am not alone. We agree with him on many issues, are generally progressive (certainly on social issues), anti the war establishment, etc.

    That said for us this comes down to one thing and one thing only. Who can build the coalition to beat both Trump and McConnell. As we see it there are two viable options right now and both have a lot of baggage — Bloomberg and Sanders, for very different reasons. And yes, Trump has the most baggage but will do anything to win, abetted by AG Barr. We ain’t playing by Queensbury rules this cycle.

    We see Bloomberg as pro business, right of center on economics, socially liberal, likely to pull in what we used to call Rockefeller Republicans (he won’t scare them to Trump, and a competent manager who will bring talent to the executive branch. In our view he will really get under Trump’s skin. But will african americans support him and we are all concerned that this country will not elect a Jew; much less one from NY (we are all Jewish).

    Sanders in many ways may be ahead of his times. Historically it takes true catastrophe to sweep in the type of changes he talks to (FDR had to downplay what he planned on doing to win). Too many he comes across as another angry old white guy and we are tired of watching angry people. We wouldn’t discount the value of how politicians are perceived as acts on TV. He too is a Jew (sorry, to many centuries of anti-semitism for us to not say it).

    We think both can stand up to Trump and not get bullied. Sanders support may be, we don’t know yet, narrower but highly passionate. We suspect we will se Bloomberg’s as being wider and less passionate.

    All this said, no one knows what will happen and we are all making up stories about what might happen — after all its what humans do.

    1. Samuel Conner

      I don’t think that the Progressive movement is strong enough to defeat the D-establishment, and DJT, and the R Senate, and the D Senate, in a single election cycle.

      It will take multiple cycles, but a Sanders presidency would be a massive start in the right direction.

    2. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

      I love NC because I learn something every time, for example, I did not know that blatant racism, sexual harassment, and suppression of poor people and religious minorities (Bloomberg) are “socially liberal” as you say.

      I must be behind the times, in my day Bloomberg’s repeated actions on these fronts out in the real world over many years would have anyone to the left of Richard Nixon throwing a rock at him, not licking his boots.

      1. flora

        imo, Bloomberg is worse than T, much worse. Can’t believe the Dem estab let him buy his way onto the debate stage and the rules committee. So much for those “rules”. sigh…

        1. RMO

          The situation with this primary can be expressed as a (bizarre) restaurant analogy. You go in and see the menu gives you a choice of six options: the chef’s special and menu items A B C D and E. The Chef’s special sounds good… but it turns out that the restaurant was bought out some time ago by a PE firm that hates the chef because she stands in the way of their plan to suck all the money out of the restaurant via crapification so the management and pretty much all the rest of the staff will do their utmost to persuade you to choose options A through E and will likely do all they can to sabotage things if you order the chef’s special – if you choose it you may never get it or they may drop it on the floor or spit in it. The thing is though that, despite what the menu says the other meal options are actually: A – the management sends an assassin who shoots you in the head with a .45ACP and then they sell your organs on the black market, B – the management sends an assassin who decapitates you with a sword and then they sell your organs on the black market, C – the management sends an assassin who splits your head open with an axe and they sell your organs on the black market, D – the management sends an assassin who slits your throat and then they sell your organs on the black market or E – the management sends an assassin who garrottes you and then they sell your organs on the black market. There are also no grocery stores and only one other restaurant that you can go to as an alternative and if you go to that restaurant the manager will give you a hearty rant against the PE firm that is ruining the other restaurant and offer you the best steak you’ve ever had – but that restaurant is also owned by that PE firm and no matter what you order there the management will actually send a couple of goons who drag you off to the kitchen, drown you in the sink and sell your organs on the black market.

          So, no matter what anyone says against that chef’s special at the first restaurant it is really the only viable choice.

          2. HotFlash

            I would recommend that

            1.) You get the hell out of that restaurant *STAT*! Jeez, buddy, pack a lunch!

            2.) The chef should quit and open her own restaurant.

          4. Late Introvert

            Unsure why this post is getting criticized. Is the laziest response what are you smoking? Weed, since you asked.

    4. Big River Bandido

      Electability arguments are vacuous, useless, and purely speculative. Few Americans possess access to the necessary information for making such estimates or the procedural and political knowledge to correctly interpret that data.

      It wouldn’t occur to most Democrat expounders of this “electability shibboleth” that if defeating the incumbent is the only goal, perhaps the most important consideration in a candidate is “who can ride to victory in MI, WI, IA, OH and PA?”. Because a Democrat who can’t win those states hasn’t got a chance in November against the candidate who last did. The looks I get from people with this line suggest they haven’t thought through their electability argument at all. They’re just automatically taking the 1990s DLC propaganda to heart and assuming that only “moderates” can get elected. It’s lazy and completely wrong.

      “Electability” is nothing but a placeholder for “who you think other people will vote for”. And most people, including me, are incompetent to make such a call.

  31. PKMKII

    Thing I’ve been pondering about a brokered convention scenario is that clearly the establishment would love to break out the superdelegates and assign Anyone Other Than Bernie the nominee. The question is, which one? If none of the 2nd place and lower moderates have enough pledged delegates to combine with the superdelegates to get over the 50% mark, one of the moderates is going to have to sacrifice themselves as it were. And I don’t think any of them are going to be particularly keen on doing so. I know from a Berniecrat perspective it’s easy to see them all as conspirators against Bernie, but I really think they all want that job and think they themselves are the one who can beat Trump. So a brokered convention could easily descend into a chaos of not just the Bernie delegates revolting but the centrists engaged in some ugly infighting.

  32. Otis B Driftwood

    A few comments on California.

    As for the mail in ballot. Yes, it is a bit confusing, but I was able to fit my address and the date on the form. I would encourage everyone to post to social media about making sure they complete this important step before dropping it in the box.

    Second, I have been canvassing for Sanders in my NorCal environs. The organization is well-organized and we have not only volunteers working directly with the Sanders campaign, but the DSA has also been very active in canvassing. I have not seen any other campaigns knocking on doors.

    I have found direct 1-on-1 contact the best at moving undecided voters over to Sanders. And this is why I am hopeful we have a strong turnout for Sanders. Here in Bay Area, I have seen support for Yang and Warren. I suspect Warren, especially, may do ok here. But Sanders has definitely has the edge.

    Warren support tends to be found in the higher end neighborhoods. And in my interactions I find they are more HRC/NeverBernie types. Warren is more foe than friend, as if last night’s awful speech on her disastrous NH showing did not already remove any remaining doubt.

    The key to a decisive victory in California is getting out the latino vote. This cannot be overemphasized.

    Finally, I have signed up as a poll worker and will be receiving training next week. If anyone else is interested, contact lawyersforbernie-at-gmail.com.

  33. laughingsong

    “1. Why is Bernie popular among Dem voters but not Dem elites?”

    I usually love Stoller but he just broke my heart:

    “7. I have contempt for Democratic voters”

    After pretty much lining up why and how most voters are manipulated and kept in the dark, this is how he feels?

    1. Left in Wisconsin

      I think Stoller has contempt for how lazy and easily swayed they are, not for their character or humanity. But they are only easily swayed until they aren’t.

      The Dem elites have two big problems now:
      1. Most Dem voters don’t hate Bernie. Some do but not very many. If he is perceived as the winner, most will have no problem aligning with that. Dem voters are used to aligning with pols who don’t share their politics. That is where character comes in and most Dems perceive Bernie to be of high character.
      2. Their concerted anti-Bernie-ness now will be seen as much more transparently unprincipled compared to if they had been able to get their sh1t together 12 months ago. But that is Dem elite incompetence for you.

  34. John Beech

    I’m voting for Trump unless Sanders is the nominee so I don’t really care what machinations the Democrats get up to. But anybody who believes Sanders gets it without a FIGHT from the machine is a fool. Anyway, I’ve done my part and have switched registration from Republican to Democrat so I can lend a hand. And if he somehow becomes the Democrat’s candidate, then I’ll follow through and deliver my vote to the old Socialist in November. even my wife is listening with interest and she’s more conservative than me!

      1. John Beech

        I’m for Medicare For All despite the fact Ill be on it before Senator Sanders could enact it to my benefit. Our health ‘care’ system is a disgrace. The point being, if President Trump co-opts the plan, I’ll vote for the boor again because I like more of what he wants than what the Dems in general want.

        1. sleepy

          M4A is a different plan than present medicare. It does away with premiums, deductibles, copays–which are 20%–and the subsequent need for a supplemental policy, and adds dental, vision, and long term care.

          My wife and I pay a total of $600 for comprehensive medicare, including the supplement. It is our largest single household expense. M4A would benefit any medicare beneficiary greatly.

          1. Felix_47

            We pay even more!!!! Medicare as it now stands is not very good coverage. What Sanders is proposing is a national health Care system like in England. Only by squeezing the rent seekers out of medical care can we begin to control costs.

        2. Amfortas the hippie

          i put just that hypothetical to my wife the other day: when the demparty screws bernie out of it(we both expect this), and then trump hijacks MFA and runs with it, will you(wife) vote trump?
          she had just delivered an impassioned soliloquy(we were driving) about how her main…if not sole…issue in this election is healthcare.

          i allowed that it’s not like we can trust trump to follow through or anything,lol…just him running on it…which would make the demparty actually run against it?(like they’re not already)
          she didn’t answer, but her look said, “oh, sh*t!…i might have to contemplate this at some point!”)

          i loathe the guy. wouldn’t pee on him if he was afire.
          and i’m pretty frothingly angry that it’s come to this, where that kind of consideration must be taken into account.
          at the very least, he’d continue to break things…and perhaps hasten the collapse.

    2. inode_buddha

      Ditto. And likewise. My vote is basically one of whichever completely discombobulates the System. Because the System hasn’t been anyone’s friend. Well, maybe except for those at the very top.

  35. aint no

    All good points. The bigger point is that Sanders has gotten to the pole position before he has peaked. The concentrated opposition and even hatred of the Party and media elites taken along with the millions infected with Trump derangement syndrome may be enough to cripple his candidacy before he does peak . . .Or it could make him the sympathetic underdog, even though the frontrunner.

    All the while we watch as the markets try and discount the Corona virus which may cripple the world economy, or may just be a distraction to some other black swan event that actually does the job. And maybe this year . . . or maybe the next.

    In the meantime, for Bernie-ites, you gotta believe.
    For everybody else, just be aware that in the actually immortal words of William Goldman, nobody knows nothing.

  36. Keith Newman

    Re the ”unstoppable” slogan: in Quebec groups pushing for progressive change used to chant ”Ce n’est qu’un début, continuons le combat!” which translates approximately as ” It’s just the beginning, keep up the fight!” A good slogan (at least in french, with french cadence) which is militant, not overconfident, and foresees future battles.

  37. Michael

    I have to wonder if part of Bloomberg’s tactics is to pump so much money into advertising, he can distort local media markets, making it difficult for less “endowed” candidates to compete on television in Super Tuesday Primary states.

    Where was that Bernie link?

  38. MichaelSF

    FWIW, I’ve been registered as “no party affiliation” for some years now here in San Francisco and I’ve never had a problem getting a Democratic crossover primary ballot when I go to the local polling station. Maybe I’m lucky, maybe it is only the mail-in ballots that have issues, but I’ve not personally had any issues. Note: that is “no party affiliation” not “American Independent Party” which does appear to cause problems.

  40. GooGooGaJoob

    I’ve been operating under the assumption that we’ll see a brokered convention. Sanders will likely have the most delegates but below the 50% threshold.

    Where I refuse to put my money down is if the Democratic party is really willing to perform ritual suicide to prevent Sanders from taking it. Iron Law of Institutions and such but you have a fervent base backing him and there’s indicators that a significant portion of them will stay home and practically guarantee that Trump if not his eventual successor keep the Whitehouse.

    The Dems have been scorning the left wing contingent of the party for as long as I’ve lived and the hostages aren’t putting up with it anymore

    1. Samuel Conner

      The D establishment, if it is wise, will also look beyond the risk of a second DJT term to the question of what alienating a growing young progressive movement would mean for the Party in future years and decades. It might lead to a viable third party, which would be the end of D establishment ability to win national elections.

      2. Amfortas the hippie

        and if they no longer had a base, why would the Donors continue to fund/hire/support them?
        in the medium term…past this election…it would seem like a bad business move to kill their own party in that way.

  41. anon

    Buttigieg is the establishment favorite with Klobuchar quickly catching steam.

    I’m assuming that any progressive support that Warren has left will go to Sanders by Super Tuesday. The rest of Warren’s supporters will be mostly middle-aged white neoliberal women who were HRC supporters and will be very adamant about voting for Bernie in the Democratic primary. My guess is that the remainder of Warren’s holdout supporters will move over to Klobuchar. A Buttigieg/Klobuchar ticket will be every neoliberal Democrat’s wet dream, non?

    Sanders winning Iowa and New Hampshire by such a narrow margin is unsettling to be sure. Sanders supporters must continue to donate and work harder than ever. I’m not sure how much supporters Sanders will be able to peel off of every candidate that continues to drop out. His best hope are Yang, Gabbard, and progressive Warren supporters. Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Biden, and Warren’s HRC supporters will create a strong coalition against Bernie. If Sanders manages to win this nomination, it won’t be without a serious fight with the neoliberal wing that dominates the DNC elite. I’m hoping he succeeds, but now it is too close to call.

  42. bmeisen

    Dems a cartel? Does the Democratic party consist ultimately of competitors who collude to defend prices, standards and probably profits? I don’t think so. The Dems as well as the GOP may be more usefully described as brands. A brand generates demand, i.e. willingness to pay a price to acquire and consume. The brand does this by communicating a set of tangible and/or intangible benefits. The brand packages its set of benefits in such a way as to facilitate recognition by the target group and initiate demand. The set of benefits may or may not be associated with products and/or services that can carry the brand.

    The US Constitution doesn’t establish parties as the vehicles by which public opinion shall be transformed into public policy. More advanced democracies tend to do so. They give parties institutional status within the governing process by defining thresholds for legislative participation which when met can trigger public funding. These are systems of proportional representation usually under which direct democracy appropriately suffers, systems which for example would have handled Trump’s crimes with confidence votes, thereby avoiding the whole faux-crisis of the last few months. A remarkable thing about both the impeachment as well as the election is that there is so little public discussion of the US Constitution, warts and all, discussion that includes reflections and information on how other democracies function. American exceptionalism: a case of terminal uniqueness.

    1. Samuel Conner

      The duopoly control ballot access through State law, which is written and enforced by the duopoly.

      It’s a cartel with respect to ballot access.

  43. ptb

    “Those who want Sanders to win on the first ballot must expect Sanders to start winning outright majorities.”

    Yes, that’s the brutal reality of it. However the picture is changing fast. I don’t think a 3-way or 4-way race can be maintained [would be a plausible way to create a brokered convention for the anti-sanders donors] , no matter how much the anti-Sanders parts of Dem. media try to spin that as the story.

    If Biden and Warren fall flat in the next two races, they’re toast. This upends the expected situation a lot. It hasn’t happened yet but it sure seems to be going that way.

    A Klobuchar or Buttigieg ticket is a likely 2nd term for Trump, and while the 2016 DNC group may prefer that to even the possibility of Sanders, I don’t think those priorities are in line with Dem. voters.

    Turnout hasn’t been as great as hoped so far. That is a big deal. States with black and hispanic populations haven’t voted yet. Where do they go if the products sold to them are Sanders / Klobuchar / Mayorpete / Bloomberg? I also dont think the Dem. media has digested what a huge political disaster the impeachment has been. We just spotted Trump something like 2-3 extra points. That means “mickey mouse”, i.e. generic-centrist, no longer beats Trump as was perhaps the case a year ago.

    The age/income breakdowns are really stark too. With a non-sanders candidate, older and relatively poor people – numerous and likely to turn out – will be available for Trump to win over once again. Trump being his own worst enemy, this may or may not happen – but Dems might want to ask, why place your fate entirely in your opponent’s hands?

    1. a different chris

      >A Klobuchar

      Actually Klobucher would very likely wipe the floor with Trump. Look at the states he took (barely) from Hillary. Midwestern ones. Ms. Klobucher seems really popular with, as the joke goes, everybody that doesn’t actually work for her. She gets like 70% of the vote in her state. Which is in the, you know, Midwest.

      Realize that most states are not in play. Klobucher gets all the Dem ones, whether she really appeals much to say Californians or not. Trump gets the entire South, even if he (somehow, not sure how that works with a guy) masturbates with the cross on stage.

      Anyway it’s a referendum on the incumbent, so even greasy Pete could win, for what good that would do us.

      1. Yves Smith

        1. An incumbent has a huge advantage.

        2. Trump has been fundraising virtually since he got into office and has a massive war chest. He has over $100 million already and won’t have to dissipate that spending on primaries.

        3. Minnesota is not the Rust Belt. It was never a heavily industrialized state, and it’s held up way better than Michigan and Ohio.

      2. Carey

        >Actually Klobucher would very likely wipe the floor with Trump.

        >Anyway it’s a referendum on the incumbent, so even greasy Pete could win, for what good that would do us.

        I firmly disagree with both of these assertions. Trump would, or will, have a *field
        day* with any Dem candidate but Sanders, and Team Dem are fine with that.

  44. Mark Gisleson

    Good stuff from Lambert and good comments. However….

    I’m always optimistic going into an election. I usually suspect I’m being cheated while it’s in progress and after the votes are counted I can be counted on to wish they’d used paper ballots hand counted in public view.

    Bernie’s on track to win on the first ballot because of what we have not seen.

    We have not seen a credible nominee arise to stop Bernie. When the Des Moines Register was stovepiping Not Bernies they always got a predictable uptick in the next Iowa Poll, then cratered as Iowans looked harder. All the Not Bernies are seriously flawed:

    Buttigieg is a fake.
    Klobuchar has a very ugly murder case to answer for.
    Biden is already toast.
    Warren is cratering and can’t reverse that without firing all her Clinton advisers (at a great distance you can smell their input: they truly are the worst campaign strategists ever).

    Who else can they elevate? At this late date: no one. You can’t keep adding names to the ballot, they’d have to go with a write-in strategy which is a non-starter.

    Bernie is inevitable. He’s not teflon, too real for that label. They’ve exhumed everything from every closet and found nothing.

    The Not Bernies keep adding up their numbers but I don’t think they’re transferable. Not when the only reason for not liking Bernie is either financial self-interest (small % of voters) or liking the other candidate more. I would argue that all the Not Bernie candidates have shown us their best, and that as they drop out, Bernie will pick up a surprising number of those votes for good reason.

    We’re used to the Clinton model of unrelenting spite but that’s not a majority of voters. However loud the PUMAs have been, the average voter tends to root for the candidate who beat their candidate if they did so fairly. You don’t defect to the [unacceptable names for Buttigieg] who screwed you over. Bernie ain’t screwin’ no one over: it’s easy for folks to climb onto his bandwagon.

    Just my take, but I like the long-tail on this one.

    1. Samuel Conner

      > Just my take, but I like the long-tail on this one.

      Interpreting “long tail” to be “fat tail” in the probability sense, I agree.

      Bernie (and, more importantly, the movement that is mobilizing behind and around him) is the political “black swan” event that the D establishment is not capable of anticipating because it has not happened before and their model of the world does not include the possibility that it might happen.

  45. Bill Carson

    Nate Silver’s 2020 Primary Projection Model is doing weird things.

    Yesterday, they declared there was a 46% chance that Bernie would win a majority of delegates prior to the convention, and this afternoon, after he won the New Hampshire Primary, Bernie’s chances have fallen to 36%. (Yes, I know that some claim Bernie under-performed the polls.)

    Meanwhile, the odds for NOBODY winning a majority of delegates have risen from around 16% (IIRC) to now 36%.

    I hate to sound like a pessimist, but think we’re going to learn that the system is designed so that there is now and always was a 100% chance that NOBODY gets a majority of the delegates. In other words, it may be a statistical impossibility for Sanders or anyone else to win a majority of the delegates on the first vote.

    Which means that the system hasn’t really changed at all from four years ago.

  46. Michael K

    I’m fortunate to live in Santa Clara County, which doesn’t have confusing mail-in ballot instructions like LA County. It’s relatively straightforward, given the often complex and way-too-long ballots we have to contend with. Three months prior to a Presidential primary, the county registrar sends all NPP voters (like me) a postage-paid postcard asking which ballot they would like to receive for the primary election. It’s quite clear, actually.

    Our mail-in ballots are likewise postage-paid, so no fumbling around for enough stamps to return it. You can also drop the ballot into one of the many ballot collection boxes around the county, right on the street. If you prefer voting in person, you can vote early at a number of sites or at any polling place in the county over a more limited period. I’m a permanent mail-in voter, as I want to mark a physical ballot. Santa Clara County is trying to get everyone to vote by mail.

    Unfortunately, many counties in this state are not making it easy for voters, as the steps that Santa Clara County has taken are mostly not required by state law.

  47. Pat

    Just another factor in figuring out the shift to Pete then Amy then possibly Bloomberg, is that our media has been pretty consistent about Sanders not being to win it. We know it is BS. They know it is BS. But it does have a huge influence on voters who don’t have an overriding issue such as health care. If their one major goal is to get rid of Trump, they are going to go to the people that the media indicate would have the best chance. That has pretty much been Biden’s only claim and was always going to be toast after Iowa and NH. (I had faith that the people who had seen he was a buffoon in two previous campaigns were going to see it again. They did.)
    Sanders can slowly erode that idea, and that will help. I truly feel as it does, the drops of the wannabes will be faster and steeper.

  48. Eureka Springs

    lambert,

    I agree with you about waiting for mass ‘demonstrations’ in the street at convention. Delegates, supers and the owners can eat shrimp, pass out checks, give jobs, look out the suite window as deplorable voters eat tear gas, and never lose their NPR tone.

    Delegate votes matter most, if not exclusively. That’s the greasy chart which is missing in your post. We all know regular delegates and supers will tip the scale again, as needed. It’s the ultimate ballot control.

    Also I noticed a tweet thread claiming some places in NH did have machines and Pete won significantly:

    Swing.ElectionBook
    ‏ @SwingElectionB1
    8h8 hours ago

    Where the New Hampshire primary votes were paper ballots, the results match the exit polls. In counties where the AccuVote machines were used, Buttigieg received 27495 votes or 34.99%. 12 points higher than his exit polls! Bernie won NH, but #mayorcheat did it again.

    1. petal

      https://sos.nh.gov/EBCD.aspx
      It’s the old school scantron machine I’ve mentioned here before. They are not connected to the internet or anything. The ballots exist if someone wants to go back and count them by hand. I put my hand marked ballot into one last night. My ward went to MP, the other 2 wards went to Sanders. All 3 wards have those machines. I am not concerned, nor do I believe in the least that funny business occurred, nor did my coworkers who I discussed the primary results with today. The area towns, and wards of my town, really broke by income level. I figured that out last night as I watched the results come in. The local paper wrote the same thing this morning. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Am I surprised at how MP did? Nope, not at all. Tons of signs around here for him. Many popped up in the last month or two, which I had commented on. He’d been gaining major momentum recently.

    2. Oregoncharles

      ” as deplorable voters eat tear gas”

      The trick is to get the tear gas into the convention center. That means you have to be close – or delegates.

      Is Milwaukee actually prepared for this?

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > The trick is to get the tear gas into the convention center. That means you have to be close – or delegates.

        There is, apparently, a hotel room shortage:

        It turns out the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee is going to be very good for the Illinois hotel industry.

        Twenty-six of the delegations attending the convention will be housed in hotels in northern Illinois, while 31 delegations will be staying in the Milwaukee area, according to a list obtained Thursday by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

        The breakdown reveals the regional nature of the convention, which will be centered at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.

        Delegates will be housed in seven clusters of hotels.

        In all, 2,926 hotel rooms will be used for delegates in Wisconsin while 2,841 hotel rooms will be used in Illinois, according to the list.

        Democratic National Committee Chair Tom Perez said local organizers secured 17,000 hotel rooms for the convention. The delegations account for about a third of that total.

        The placing of delegates is the first move on a complicated chessboard to house up to 50,000 people — including media, donors, activists and volunteers — who are expected to attend the convention.

        Somehow, I don’t think the activists and volunteers will be housed anywhere close. I wonder if anyone is organizing the locals? I would also not be surprised to learn that Sanders delegates are scattered, while others are concentrated.

        1. Stillfeelinthebern

          Metro Milwaukee is one of the most segregated metro areas in the country. And Wisconsin has one of the highest incarceration rates for black men in the country and most of them are in the city of Milwaukee. Scott Walker was Milwaukee County Executive before he became governor. The current Milwaukee County Executive (Chris Abele) is a wealthy trust fund kid who has done many awful things to workers and the poor people of Milwaukee.

          Oh, and check into that Fiserv forum deal to Al Lasry (D-money), massively subsidized by Wisconsin Taxpayers and backed by Repubs (and Milwaukee area Dems only) also resulting in a big payout to the owner (former Sen Herb Kohl) who sold the team to Lasry’s group. Granted they did just form a union for the workers there.

          Want more? Rep David Bowen, in the Wisconsin Assembly who represents the area, was the only 2016 super delegate who actively came out and supported Bernie in 2016. The party chair who said she would back whoever won the primary, flipped and backed HRC. Bowen ran for party chair in 2019 and was defeated by Ben Wikler, former head of Moveon.org.

          Our Wisconsin Revolution isn’t that strong and just hired as their Ex Director former gubinatorial candidate Mike McCabe and I can tell you, power Wisconsin Dems HATE him. He previously ran a good government organization and he is critical of both sides. His main thing is the money in politics. Everyone was angry with his being an Independent running as a Dem in the Governor’s race. Sound familiar? But I don’t think McCabe is the protesting type. He’s much like Bernie. So it will be interesting to see what he does. The organization has already endorsed Bernie. Did that last year with a vote of the members.

          AND, everyone knew there was limited within 30 minutes housing. MKE just isn’t that big. But there also is no traffic and it is easy and fast to get from Northern Illinois to downtown MKE. I regularly go to Houston and DC and spend way too much time in traffic. That kind of congestion just doesn’t exist in Milwaukee. So it really is no big deal as long as they have parking in the outer ring with shuttle buses going into the city, which is a 15 minute ride at most.

          If you are coming, the MKE lakefront is beautiful and open to the public. The Art Center is one impressive modern art building (and I hate modern architecture.) Milwaukee is a great “small town” city in many ways.

  49. Darthbobber

    Is there any data on how many of those “Republican leaning independents” that Buttigieg started openly appealing to for support in Iowa, and that the never-trumpers were encouraging to vote in the Democratic primaries did so in NH?

    I suspect this is a key component of establishment strategy in the open primaries. After all, there is nothing going on on the Republican side.

  50. John Mc

    Agree about the hard work and avoiding overconfidence piece.

    One big issue which gets less coverage than most (and I do not mean Steyer burping it up in a debate type mention) is how would Bernie handle another financial crisis.

    This has got to be the endgame of ruining Sanders publicly by the right (a victory of capitalism so to speak).
    We saw Obama go with Geithner and the bank execs but not really have a plan for people.

    Just got done watching the wire for the umptieth time, and what strikes me is what Lambert has written — just when you think you have won (rancid choices emerge from the blob) locking the change agent into horrible, unforeseen choices.

    For me, allowing the kleptocracy bursting at the seems to implode (stocks diving, fear and panic) – could create enough animus for everyone to acknowledge poor timing or poor planning on the part of whomever wins the Presidency — poison pill left for Bernie et al.

    So, in my estimation, he better have something in place to handle the ravages of climate change, healthcare, and education, but also his blind spots of which he nor anyone he really knows has that much control.
    Coronovirus supply chain weakness, 10 years since the last major financial crisis, and a stock market propped up artificially by the very corporations he wants to tax. The people who are most to blame in his political world view, could really screw his project up in unfathomable ways.

    This is not to say we need to bend to the deterministic notion, there is little that can be done. Instead, we need an entire department of people who are working on responses that have not/but could happen any day. I like former leader Kucinich’s —> department of Peace idea. With a special area for what happens if we wake up in the morning and the oligarchy has decided to purposefully shit the bed or if they ‘accidentally’ do it on his watch.

    1. HotFlash

      You see, coping with the unforeseen is *exactly* why I trust Bernie. He has good advisors, takes their good advice, and above all, his heart is with us people. I trust him to make the best-informed and best-motivated choices, and I trust him to implement them with all his energy.

      Bernie is wicked smart, he is nobody’s fool, he is a sure-footed navigator of political treachery, and there is not a mean bone in his body. But most importantly, he is on our side and wil never, ever, ever sell out.

  51. Potted Frog

    Speaking of black swans, 2019-nCoV could disrupt everyone’s plans.

    People follow trade and with the evolution of trade toward China, that’s a lot of people moving around.

    https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-u-s-worlds-trading-partner/

    How have they been moving? Well. 25,000 flights a day is a lot of people to and from a lot of places.

    https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-02-04/world-health-leaders-oppose-coronavirus-related-travel-restriction-airlines-cut-25-000-flights-anyway

    One example of the consequence: cancellation of the Mobile World Conference in Europe.

    https://www.ft.com/content/249fb998-4da6-11ea-95a0-43d18ec715f5

    Gotta wonder.

    1. Samuel Conner

      My jaw fell when I checked the JHU “pandemic tracker dashboard” this evening:

      https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

      The “confirmed cases” count was 20% higher than one would have expected on a linear extrapolation of the last few days.

      I think this must simply be “diagnosis starting to catch up with case load” in Wuhan city, or less charitably, the custodians of public information gradually unveiling the true extent of the calamity. It reinforces the impression one gets from the little news that is getting out that the medical facilities there are completely overwhelmed, and the point made earlier in a comment that we have no idea what is actually happening.

  52. chuck roast

    I have been waiting 50 years for this guy to show up. Now that he has shown up and has proved viable I’m sending him money. I sent $100 to Dean in the early days, but otherwise I have never sent cash to any pol. I sent Bernard cash before Iowa, after Iowa and now after NH.

    Contrary to the all the “woe is us” and “I’m gnashing my teeth” this morning on LINKS…I ain’t givin’ up, and I ain’t coppin’ a bad attitude. My New England Calvinist milieu has been telling me since day-one that I am not amongst the elect. So what! Neither were the Red Sox until they finally ascended to heaven and took all of us low-class schlubs along with them.

    Be of good heart o’ fellow travelers. Send Bernard a bit of your hard won cash and count on the New England (by way of Brooklyn) boy and his band of youthful acolytes to do the rest. Onward!

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Neither were the Red Sox until they finally ascended to heaven and took all of us low-class schlubs along with them.

      I’ve been looking for a metaphor for a really solid team built over time by a front office that knew what it was doing and a supportive fan base (as opposed to a lot of highly paid mercenaries sold off for parts as soon as a championship is won). My thought was the Celtics of the Bird-McHale-Parish era — remember how they’d go into the locker room at half-time, and then come out and dismantle the other team in the third quarter? — but the Red Sox will do.

      1. Dan

        …the Celtics of the Bird-McHale-Parish era — remember how they’d go into the locker room at half-time, and then come out and dismantle the other team in the third quarter?

        You mean after the visiting team got the Red Auerbach treatment:

        Back in the glory days of the Celtics, Red Auerbach squeezed every bit of home-court advantage he could out of Boston Garden. Visiting teams would be assigned a different locker room every time they came to town, a subtle tactic that increased their sense of alienation and discomfort.

        A more obvious, and odious, annoyance for the visitors was the discovery that, no matter which locker room they occupied, at least one of the toilets would be jammed up and overflowing. Also, since all of the locker rooms were heated by radiator pipes, Auerbach employed a traditional hockey strategy — arranging for the boiler to be stoked at just the right time so that the radiators in the visitors’ quarters would be clanging and banging just as they arrived. The same process would be repeated to coincide with the halftime intermission.

        Perhaps “behind every great fortune lies a crime” applies just as well to sports dynasties.

        https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/has-ghost-of-red-auerbach-come-to-td-garden-to-mess-with-bulls/

      2. John Mc

        World Football – Liverpool FC (owned by the Red Sox people) — they took a club near bankruptcy and crappy ownership (Gillett and Hicks) and have turned into a juggernaut of commercial, communal, structural and actual performance excellence…

        Jurgen Klopp has been critical as well. Best story in all of sports the rise of the reds (especially when you consider their obstacles for justice for 96)!

        You’ll Never Walk Alone Lambert!

  53. Joe Well

    I spent the last 4 days, and the last 4 weekends before that, volunteering in almost 13-hour shifts. I helped hundreds of people go out and knock on doors for Bernie, which is absolutely, positively, the most important thing you can do right now.

    If just 10% of online Bernie supporters who post about him volunteered for even one shift of canvassing (knocking on doors), I bet we could get him over 50% of pledged delegates. If you don’t volunteer in some capacity for this campaign, IMHO you lose the moral right to post about it online. At least, I don’t really want to read it much more than I want to hear what CNN or MSNBC have to say.

    Our volunteers are all ages from high school students to quite a few people in their 70s and a few in their 80s, all races and ethnic backgrounds, and even non-Americans who are just here as students or temporary workers. It is by far the most inclusive thing I have ever come across in my life. You are welcome, whoever you are.

    Please, please, please sign up to volunteer here. If you can’t volunteer in person, volunteer to make calls or send text messages.

  54. chuck roast

    A point to consider is that the Milwaukee convention is currently an omnishambles (and perhaps, like IA seems to have, been, a chaos ladder?) If we end up with the Milwaukee equivalent of Grant Park in Chicago 1968, that would probably hand the election to Trump (something most Democrat elites, deep down, would be quite happy with), but more important, could destroy the “army” that the Sanders campaign so carefully put together, rendering it incapable of independent operation following the convention after a collapse in discipline and subsequent backbiting and recrimination.

    Lambert, I disagree with your history here. The anti-war movement did not die with the Grant Park debacle. Mobilization and the Chicago 8 Trial happened. After a couple of years of chaos and huge anti-war rallies, McGovern became the candidate in ’72. Resistance certainly did not collapse. Resistance collapsed with the winding down of the war and the Draft Lottery. The threats that young people are faced with today are not going to go away so easily and neither is their resistance.

  55. Oregoncharles

    ” the Milwaukee equivalent of Grant Park in Chicago 1968″

    Shivery. At least it isn’t in Chicago. As I’ve written before, those events in 1968 were a formative experience for me, even though I wasn’t actually there. I’m convinced Daley’s thugs cost Humphrey the election, with a lot of help from him. So that’s Lambert’s first point.

    OTOH, the only reason another Chicago ’68 would destroy Sanders’ “army” is because he abandoned it and supported whichever corporatist is nominated instead. (I still consider that the likeliest outcome.) I don’t quite understand why he’s committed to doing that. The Green Party picked up some good organizers from the debacle in 2016; we’d appreciate and welcome even more. If there really are mass riots at the convention, as in ’68, the scepter will be rolling in the gutter. We’ll see who picks it up.

    It would be ironic if Sanders’ effort to save the Democratic Party destroyed it, instead.

    1. a different chris

      >I don’t quite understand why he’s committed to doing that.

      Factor in his age and it makes sense. If he can push a not-him Dem into the office he would hope (but probably not, we know the Dems) he would have some chits to cash right away.

      If he doesn’t make it this year, well his career is honestly near its end. So somebody (AOC and crew?) will have to take over. He will be too old to be a real part of things when the rebuild/restructure is fully up and running.

      So this is his last chance to (personally) have any effect.

    2. Michael Fiorillo

      “The police are not there to create disorder; they’re there to preserve disorder.”
      – Mayor Richard Daley, 1968

  56. aaccckkk

    Just a note that the California vote by mail envelopes are designed by the CA SOS (true – a Dem) not the CA Democratic party. The vote by mail envelopes sent to voters of any of the parties are identical.

    The Sanders campaign is pretty proactive in providing help and instructions to supporters, so that they request the correct vote by mail ballots, and fill them out correctly through their canvassing / calling / texting programs, but since lots of Sanders’ support is from No Party Preference voters, the complexity extracts a heavy cost from the campaign, that other candidates do not have to pay.

  57. Henry Moon Pie

    “a house divided”

    The Sanders campaign reminds me of one of the more enigmatic sayings attributed to Jesus:

    Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.

    Luke 12:51

    Bernie’s campaign brings conflict between the small/local/lowly and the large/global/powerful at all levels. Locals rebel against union internationals. Rank-and-file rises up against management in NGOs. County party organizations criticize state and national levels. Workers chafe at being told how to vote by bosses.

    Every institution that stands against Bernie risks internal strife and maybe even dissolution. Witness the Iowa Democratic Party, whose rank-and-file and county organizations pushed back against the IDP’s cronyism. While I’m sure Price will land on his feet for now, he was at least personally embarrassed and discomfited. Even in the media business, now that Bernie’s movement cannot be ignored, there will be some media personalities who will dissent from the Bernie bashing and maybe even end up leaving their employment.

    It makes sense for Bernie’s supporters to assist in this process, which is essentially a wave of democratization, to further both the strengthening of democratic tendencies and the weakening of the oppressive institutions. At the same time, it would be worthwhile to consider how the democratization wave can be nurtured and accommodated even as a Sanders administration creates national programs administered by a central government.

  58. Adam Eran

    The best objection to Sanders’ campaign I’ve heard came from a guy who told me he thought Sanders would adversely impact his 401K. I reminded him that Wall Street had already done that in spades in 2007-8, but I doubt it had much impact. He reminded me of someone aspiring to keep the tapeworm, but throw out the host. The best response, though, came from Chris Rock: “Wealth is not about having a lot of money; it’s about having lots of options.” Society provides those options, and sabotaging society ensures poverty is widespread, no matter how big your 401K.

    Also worth a look: Today’s Caitlin Johnstone: The Belief That Everything Will Be Fine Once Trump’s Gone Is More Dangerous Than Trump

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