Tag: Voters

Picking A Nominee

College of Political Knowledge

2020 and we are off to the races as they say in picking our next president….personally I think it is a silly operation from the start…..but we continue to do the same thing over and over (and you know what that means)……we, as voters, need to take stock in the nomination process and other political theatrics……..

There is always criticism but it seldom leads to any reform or change….2020 is no different….

Want evidence that our process for selecting presidential nominees is a joke? Look at the last Democratic debate: “Three candidates in their 70s—and no African-American or Latino,” writes David Leonhardt in the New York Times. “There are two people who have never won an election—and zero who have ever run a state.” Want more evidence? Look at the “reality-television star” who hijacked the GOP nomination process in 2016 and now sits in the White House, he adds. People say this is merely democracy in action, but it’s not, writes Leonhardt. “It’s one version of democracy,” and the US is pretty much the only nation that relies on this weird mix of polls, donor numbers, and “distorted” primaries. Other countries give political parties more say in picking nominees, and Leonhardt thinks a middle ground can be found here.

“I’m not suggesting we return to the smoke-filled rooms of the past,” he writes. “But the current process puts a higher priority on the appearance of democracy than the reality of it.” Some suggestions: On the debates, it’s fine to give poll leaders guaranteed spots, but the party could also reserve spots for a governor and perhaps a swing-state senator. In the primaries themselves, more states should embrace ranked-choice voting, rather than the winner-takes-all approach. And the primary calendar should rotate every four years to end the ridiculous prominence given to Iowa, New Hampshire, etc. The first to vote would always include “a mix of states: big and small, young and old, urban and rural, coastal and heartland.” Change is long overdue, writes Leonhardt. Read his full column.

Primaries and such are nothing more than beauty contests and a gold mine for the media….beyond that they are worthless in picking the nominee.  Real issues are seldom on the agenda…..the voter gets one liners and slogans….and in the end NOTHING ever changes.

Can we please change this silliness?

Can we please get back to that lost art of democracy?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

The Take On Super Tuesday

By now everyone is aware that the media campaign of put Biden in the lead has done its job…..but what are the takeaways from the voting….

Bernie Sanders won the biggest prize on Super Tuesday—but the wider result was a stunning victory for Joe Biden, who scored wins in at least 9 of the 14 states that voted, including Texas, analysts say. “They don’t call it Super Tuesday for nothing,” the former vice president told supporters in Los Angeles on Tuesday night. The candidate, whose campaign appeared to be on the ropes before his big win in South Carolina Saturday, “cleaned up across the board,” writes Sarah Frostenson at FiveThirtyEight. “He performed well in states where he wasn’t even really competing, and he proved he’s more than a regional candidate.” Some takeaways:

  • Momentum is with Biden. Ryan Lizza at Politico calls the result “one of the most monumental political comebacks in the history of party primaries.” He notes that Biden, now seen as a frontrunner with momentum, was helped by strong support from black voters and the Democratic establishment—as well as the exit of centrist rivals Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar—but may have gotten the biggest boost from the “jackpot” of his landslide win on Saturday. According to one estimate, “the amount of positive coverage he received after the polls closed in South Carolina was worth over $100 million.”
  • A “bitter blow” for Sanders. The senator is still very much in the race—and could regain his delegate lead when the full California results are released—”but he faces some serious questions,” writes Niall Stanage at the Hill. “He lost at least two states on Tuesday night—Minnesota and Oklahoma—that he had won against Hillary Clinton four years ago,” Stanage writes. “The loss of Texas was a bitter blow. He also appears to have lost the black vote again by dramatic margins, a crucial factor in his losses across the South.” The surge of younger voters that Sanders had predicted also largely failed to materialize.
  • This could be it for Bloomberg. This was a terrible result for Bloomberg, who failed to meet his target of hitting at least 15% in most Super Tuesday states and is rumored to be considering dropping out of the race in the days to come. The former New York City mayor “staked his entire campaign strategy on dominating the Super Tuesday states,” writes Daniel Strauss at the Guardian. “He poured almost $500 million into advertising and field staff in these states,” but the only victory the big spend secured was in American Samoa, which only has six delegates.
  • Warren, too. Warren will also face some serious questions after a fourth-place finish in California and most southern states, Aaron Blake writes at the Washington Post. In her home state, Massachusetts, she was behind both Biden and Sanders. “Warren has been picking up some key endorsements in recent days, but without a win and with that Massachusetts rebuke, what’s the argument for her candidacy?” he asks.
  • A two-person race. The results show that the contest has “effectively narrowed to a two-man race,” and made it certain that the Democrats will “nominate one of two septuagenarian white men with conspicuous political baggage,” Matt Flegenheimer writes at the New York Times. “If nothing else, a Biden-Sanders matchup is the logical venue for the party’s foremost ideological debate about the proper scope and ambition of government—about whether Mr. Trump is a symptom of longstanding national ills or an ‘anomaly’ … whose removal should be the party’s chief animating priority,” he writes.

Now the media will continue its onslaught against Bernie…..pundits will make their opinions into news….and the news will be skewed.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2020 Nevada Caucuses Results

It is a Sunday and the FYI portion of IST today will be the vote in Nevada……

Saturday the campaign for the Dem candidates came to a head in Nevada….and the results are mostly in and the results are….

In Nevada, it was no contest. Bernie Sanders cruised to an easy win, with the AP and the major networks calling the race as soon as the very first precincts reported. Those early results, here via Politico, showed why:

  • Sanders, 54%
  • Joe Biden, 18%
  • Elizabeth Warren, 10%
  • Pete Buttigieg, 8%
  • Tom Steyer, 6%
  • Amy Klobuchar, 2%

The win for Sanders follows his victory in New Hampshire and his virtual tie in Iowa, thus giving him clear front-runner bragging rights. Biden, meanwhile, declared himself back in the 2020 race after disappointing results in the earlier states. “We’re alive and we’re coming back and we’re gonna win,” he told supporters. Michael Bloomberg was not on the ballot.

This should be a beacon for the media…..those people that do not do well in a diverse electorate will soon be history….

If they are not out now then South Carolina should be the end of a couple of campaigns…..

Questions!  I have questions.

Will there be any surprises on Super Tuesday, 03 March?

Will Biden’s firewall hold?

Will Bernie breeze through to the nomination?

Where the Hell is Bloomberg?

Not to worry there is yet another debate soon and South Carolina looms…..25 February ahead of the vote……

Onward!

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

2020 Vote–Iowa

The first official vote of the 2020 election……

Let us begin with the GOP vote for it will be the easiest to report…..

President Trump held a rally in Des Moines last week, though the outcome of Monday’s Republican caucus in Iowa was never in doubt. In contrast to the Democratic caucus, where results were delayed by “inconsistencies,” it took just seconds for Trump to become the projected winner, the Week reports. The president, who came second to Ted Cruz in the state last time around, won with around 97% of the vote, Politico reports. Former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, whose campaign manager complained that his supporters were being turned away from precincts, had 1.4%, and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld had 1.2%. “Big WIN for us in Iowa tonight. Thank you!” Trump tweeted.

Now for the long awaited Dem vote…..

Democrats were in disarray Monday night after the Iowa caucus results were delayed due to what officials said were “inconsistencies” in the results. Sources tell the Hill that results from the first-in-the-nation vote are not expected until Tuesday morning. Mandy McClure, communications director for the Iowa Democratic Party, said the delay was due to the fact that for the first time, the party is reporting three sets of results—the first round, the second round, and the overall delegate numbers, the Des Moines Register reports. She said inconsistencies were found in the three data sets. “This is simply a reporting issue, the app did not go down and this is not a hack or an intrusion,” McClure said.

The counting is on-going….but nothing official as of yet……

With angry candidates, a confused public, and a gloating Trump campaign, the Democratic Party’s effort to recapture the White House is not off to the most promising start. Hours after the Iowa caucuses ended Monday night, with candidates and the public eager for news, party officials said results were delayed due to “inconsistencies” in the results from precincts. At around 1am, Troy Price, the chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party, said the results would not be available until later Tuesday, the New York Times reports. Some of the candidates had already made their speeches and departed for New Hampshire. More:

  • Campaigns left in the dark. Campaigns complained they had been told “literally nothing” by party officials about the reasons for the delay, the Hill reports. A lawyer for Joe Biden’s campaign wrote to state party officials Monday night calling for the results to be withheld until they provide “explanations and relevant information regarding the methods of quality control.” Sources tell the Times that party officials hung up on campaign reps who wanted to know when the results would be available.
  • An app to blame? The problem appears to have been a mobile app for reporting results from Iowa’s 1,700 caucus meetings, the AP reports. Caucus organizers say there were multiple glitches with the app—which was apparently largely untested—and when they tried to phone in the results to party headquarters, there was nobody answering. In some cases, reporting results took hours. The Biden campaign lawyer said both the app and the reporting hotline experienced “acute failures.”

Big change, big problems. This was the first—and probably last—time the party tried to report data from the first and second “alignments” of caucusgoers as well as delegate totals. Party rep Mandy McClure said officials had to verify data after they “found inconsistencies in the reporting of three sets of results.” “In addition to the tech systems being used to tabulate results, we are also using photos of results and a paper trail to validate that all results match and ensure that we have confidence and accuracy in the numbers we report,” she said.

What can I say…..this drama is very telling about the confusion this election will breed.

I do enjoy political games…..

Winners to be announced soon…..

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Iowa–So It Begins–2020

The voting will begin for the Dem nominee in Iowa…..the first primary/caucus of the election cycle for 2020.

Since it is not a go to the polls and cast your vote…then what the Hell is a caucus?

The political world is waiting with bated breath to see who will win next week’s Iowa Democratic caucuses. But there’s another surprisingly murky question: How will we even decide who wins?

The problem is that there will be three results coming in after Iowa voters gather on the evening of Monday, February 3.

One will be for something called “state delegate equivalents” — this is the number previously used to determine the winner of the Iowa Democratic caucuses, something I’ll explain more in a bit. But the Iowa Democratic Party will also be tallying and reporting two other sets of numbers: how many actual people voted for each candidate in a given caucus — first an initial tally, then a final tally taken after lower-performing candidates are eliminated.

At the very least, this could be confusing. What if, for example, Sen. Bernie Sanders wins more votes but former Vice President Joe Biden wins more state delegate equivalents? It could make determining who “won” quite difficult.

https://www.vox.com/2020/1/30/21083701/iowa-caucuses-results-delegates-math

The only thing besides being the first in the nation is that the Iowa vote seldom picks the ultimate winner…..so why is it so damn important?

Iowa voters aren’t going to pick the country’s next president. But they will eliminate several possibilities.

The rap on the state, which begins the balloting with its Feb. 3 caucuses, is that it is too small and rural to speak for the rest of America.

However, the state’s impact is undeniable.

In the last seven contested races for the Democratic nomination, five candidates went on to become the Democratic nominee after winning Iowa. Three winners of the New Hampshire primary, which traditionally follows soon after, went on to claim the nomination.

That is because the main function of the early states is to cull the field of hopefuls, separating the also-rans from candidates with a real shot at success.

No two campaigns are alike. But the past could provide some clues to what happens next.

https://www.latimes.com/projects/will-2020-iowa-caucus-pick-the-next-president/

There is your answer….it is to cull the candidates before the rest of the country gets to hear their ideas and policies….another rigging of the system.

It is also a well of cash for the media and that is the most important thing….not who is the best candidate.

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

A Surprise For 2020?

I have several Trump-ites that visit and I would like to from time to time throw them a bone and say something positive abut their choice of people to support.

Recently I read a post by a loyal reader of IST….my friend Doug and his post…..https://findingpoliticalsanity.com/its-pretty-early-but-what-could-happen-the-day-after-trump-leaves-office/ he has an unique way of looking at the situation with Trump……

Is it possible that in 2020 Trump could win again and with the help of the Electoral College…again?

The Republican Party is set to win a large majority of all future close presidential elections, even contests in which they lose the popular vote, according to a recent study.

GOP candidates for president can expect to be victorious in 65 percent of future presidential elections and University of Texas at Austin researchers analyzed why “inversions” — where the popular vote winner loses the overall election — has happened twice since 2000.

The study authors found that the Electoral College’s winner-take-all approach favors Republicans and has pushed them to victories in 2000 and 2016.

The researchers concluded that inversions will occur more and more in 2020 and beyond unless a policy change completely dissolves, rather than reforms, the Electoral College.

https://www.newsweek.com/abolish-electoral-college-favors-republicans-over-democrats-future-presidential-elections-study-1464834

Many of us think that it is time to put the EC in the “Dust Bin Of History”….I have been calling for the end for many years…..

https://lobotero.com/2016/12/09/its-time-to-end-the-electoral-college/

https://lobotero.com/2019/03/05/electoral-college-must-go/

As depressing as that info can be…there is other info that could be more depressing if accurate….

President Donald Trump looks likely to cruise to reelection next year under three different economic models Moody’s Analytics employed to gauge the 2020 race.

Barring anything unusual happening, the president’s Electoral College victory could easily surpass his 2016 win over Democrat Hillary Clinton, which came by a 304-227 count.

Moody’s based its projections on how consumers feel about their own financial situation, the gains the stock market has achieved during Trump’s tenure and the prospects for unemployment, which has fallen to a 50-year low. Should those variables hold up, the president looks set to get another four-year term.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/15/moodys-trump-on-his-way-to-an-easy-2020-win-if-economy-holds-up.html

Like I said depressing on so many levels.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”

Dems Run To The Center

That is the lie from the MSM……that this country is a center left or center right country…..I disagree and I have written about this lie extensively….

https://lobotero.com/2011/06/27/centrist-vs-independent/

https://lobotero.com/2016/08/26/why-political-parties-are-unnecessary/

https://lobotero.com/2016/10/11/independents-the-lie-that-just-keeps-giving/

And then my favorite lie from the MSM….”electability”……

https://lobotero.com/2019/07/16/electability-the-lie-that-keeps-on-giving/

I bring all this up because we are in the throes of another election to pick a Dem nominee then the president and the media is doing all they can to elect Joe Biden….they give a whiff of not being biased by focusing on the front runners but with caveats…..

The media has its darling, Joe Biden, a ‘moderate’ that is in the same vane that lost twice and yet they are embracing and pushing a return to the past…..

Clinton lost in 2016 mainly because she ran a poor campaign. In retrospect, though, in view of all the nefarious things she stood for and all the political currents she embodied, it was bound to be tough going for her even with an opponent as preposterous as the one she had.

Democrats ought to take that lesson to heart. But Democrats will be Democrats and so many of them are hellbent instead on doing just the opposite.

Their moderation has become so extreme that Clinton, along with some of her unreconstructed supporters, have lately been floating feelers about her running again. Seriously!

Worse by far – not just because it is far more likely to happen — leading Democrats and their toadies on the cable news networks are still pushing the idea that only Joe Biden, the doddering dufus himself, can guarantee a Trump defeat.

First Lose All the Moderates

Personally I do not think that centrists/moderates/ whatever we want to call the spineless in the party will not win the White House in 2020……

I keep hearing that the Democratic primary is coming down to someone who’s “electable” versus someone who has “ideas.”

This is pure nonsense. Beating Donald Trump requires getting out the vote. And in order to get people to turn out and vote, a presidential candidate has to be inspiring. Which means big ideas, a vision of an America that could become a reality if we all got behind it, a sense of where we need to be heading.

Don’t be fooled. This primary is not a contest between someone who’s electable and someone who has big ideas. Big ideas are essential in order to be electable.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/10/09/please-note-2020-election-wont-be-won-democratic-centrists

The Mainstream media is picking the candidate for the public and so far they are winning the hearts and minds of the voter for Joe Biden…..

I refuse to let them do this to me….how about you?

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

VOTE!

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“Lego Ergo Scribo”