I finally figured out my problem with the American presidential race! The Political Test:

@engineer,

Quote:

I never thought that the Democratic contest would devolve into scorched earth tactics, but we're getting there pretty fast.

Really Engineer? You have never been through a Democratic primary election before?

(I would have thought you were old enough to have at least been through the 2008 primary.)

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

I remember the 2008 primary pretty well but this seems much, much uglier, both on A2K and where the candidates are going after each other. Perhaps time has dimmed the details and I do remember Clinton saying that President Obama was "just" a first term senator. This time around the Democrats are fielding two superbly qualified candidates and they are actively destroying their ability to appeal to the other's constituency.

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@engineer,

Really?

You don't remember the nastiness of the #Hillaryis44 people? You don't remember the racial overtones?

Maybe you were a Hillary supporter in 2008 so the nastiness didn't impact you?

1 Reply

@engineer,

Quote:

This time around the Democrats are fielding two superbly qualified candidates and they are actively destroying their ability to appeal to the other's constituency.

I don't think this describes what is happening this year. It isn't about "two superbly qualified candidates". The term "superbly qualified" doesn't mean very much anyway since no one will agree what makes someone superbly qualified.

This primary election is between two sides of the Democratic party.

I don't like what the Clintons stand for. I don't like the political connections or the money. I don't like the carefully crafted positions that are based more on leverage than on principle. And most of all, I don't like the some of policies that resulted from this in the first Clinton administration that were wrapped in progressive values but undermined economic and social justice (again, I don't oppose all of Clinton's policy, but I feel several policy positions were disastrous).

Bernie Sanders represents a certain, apparently significant, part of the progressive base that wants to reduce the influence of big money in politics and to push for more progressive social policies.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

I was strongly in President Obama's camp in 2008 and I do remember the racial overtones as well as the Clinton supporters who said in the national press they would never vote for Obama, but no I don't remember either Clinton or Obama using scorched earth tactics and alienating whole swaths of the other person's followers and I never had a concern about voting for Clinton if she came in ahead of Obama. Nor do I remember the degree of rancor on A2K, but I might go back and skim the Obama 2008 thread.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

Bernie Sanders represents a certain, apparently significant, part of the progressive base that wants to reduce the influence of big money in politics and to push for more progressive social policies.

But Sanders needs those Clinton voters to succeed and he is really going out of his way to make sure that those who like and respect Clinton feel his disdain.

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@engineer,

Sanders is questioning Clinton's qualifications... something that has been done in every electoral race since ancient Greece.

And he is specifically questioning her ties to Wall Street and her support for US military action. Both of these are valid issues that are import to the role of President and important to a large proportion of the Democratic electorate.

I don't think it is realistic for Hillary, or any candidate, to expect to run for an office without anyone questioning her qualifications.

This is an election, not a coronation.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Actually, he was questioning her judgment, but went full flame mode on the qualification quote. To the more than 50% of Democratic primary voters who support Clinton as the best candidate to lead the Democratic party, this is both insulting and counterproductive.

Quote:

Bernie Sanders: ‘Of course’ Hillary Clinton’s qualified, let’s focus on issues

In an exclusive Town Hall on TODAY, Democratic White House hopeful Bernie Sanders says that on Hillary Clinton’s “worst day, she would an infinitely better president” than either of the GOP front-runners. He discusses women’s rights and pay, his health care plan, how he would break up big banks, and when he thinks sellers of guns should be sued. He vows to continue his political “revolution” among young people – and endorses pastrami over corned beef.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

Actually, he was questioning her judgment, but went full flame mode on the qualification quote. To the more than 50% of Democratic primary voters who support Clinton as the best candidate to lead the Democratic party, this is both insulting and counterproductive.

That whole "qualification" speech that he gave REALLY turned off. I have said that I'd gladly vote for Bernie if he were the nominee. Gladly. Now it's more of a hold-my-nose and vote for Bernie after that speech. I'd still vote for him of course because I'm a thinking adult and the alternative is almost unfathomable to me, but god that was alienating.

1 Reply

@engineer,

engineer wrote:

maxdancona wrote:

Bernie Sanders represents a certain, apparently significant, part of the progressive base that wants to reduce the influence of big money in politics and to push for more progressive social policies.

But Sanders needs those Clinton voters to succeed and he is really going out of his way to make sure that those who like and respect Clinton feel his disdain.

Not only does he need Clinton's voters....he's going to need Clinton herself if he becomes president. Regardless of what someone thinks about her morals or judgement, there's no denying that she's much more connected and has much more experience in government than he does. He's going to need her help to succeed should he become president. There's not a single person in the democratic party with more experience going against the republicans than she has.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

I understood the point he was trying to make. If you look at the entire quote in context, you can see that he wasn't saying her qualifications were lacking, but he certainly showed poor judgment in how he phrased it and it really came across as a knee jerk reaction to something that Clinton did not say.

1 Reply

@engineer,

I see the qualification speech as a push back to the nastiness coming from the Clinton campaign. I suspect most Bernie supporters see it this way.

The Clintons have been firing some pretty harsh attacks on Bernie.

0 Replies

@engineer,

Really? Seems just the same to me, I still remember the Hillary folks from that election getting increasingly bent out of shape with her losses and the arguments that Hillary should pull out of the campaign earlier than she did etc.

On the Democrat side of the fence this seems like a perfectly typical primary to me, replete with the Democrat infighting on a2k and folks wed to their candidate like always.

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@Robert Gentel,

I agree. It seems less tense than 2008 even.

I think polls showed that 50% of Clinton voters wouldn't support Obama. Only 33% of Sanders voters won't support Clinton. Both of those numbers aren't even close to accurate.

1 Reply

@maporsche,

maporsche wrote:

I agree. It seems less tense than 2008 even.

Yeah, there was a big ugly racial component to the last one that is absent, and just like the last one it was framed as the establishment vs hopes and dreams too. It seemed like it has all of the conflct of this primary plus the added racial and "Barrack Hussein Obama" components to it.

Edit: also Hillary was seen as more of an annointed candidate and many thought it "was her time" etc.

0 Replies

@maporsche,

I think that Bernie thinks he dosent need Hillary or the Democrates in congress or the 50% of Clinton voters which is why the republicans are going to pound him into a pile of bleeding flesh if he gets the nomination. Can you say communist which is what you will hear from the second he gets the nomination.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

I still remember the Hillary folks from that election getting increasingly bent out of shape with her losses and the arguments that Hillary should pull out of the campaign earlier than she did etc.

You seem to remember the same primary I remember.

Back in the day the rule was Republicans were polite in the primary and Democrats used scorched earth in theirs.

Now the Republicans scorch and burn and burn. If anything Bernie and Hillary have been been personally restrained though their partisans are nastier than ever.

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@RABEL222,

Quote:

Can you say communist which is what you will hear from the second he gets the nomination.

I heard this in 2008 ... except in 2008 it was "Kenyan Muslim communist".

We still did OK.

0 Replies

@bobsal u1553115,

It was very interesting! Thank you for sharing this, I hope you don't mind I shared it with my friends on my fb page! I scored or I should say I was projected to be in the same area as yours. Un sure about how I personally feel about it but It is very eye opening on what some of the things I see as my beliefs associate me with lol....but non the less I do like the questions and the projected response ;-)

1 Reply

@engineer,

http://www.npr.org/2016/04/16/474224605/the-disappearing-middle-electorate-way-less-moderate-than-past-primaries

Quote:

One of the biggest stories of the election cycle is turnout (as we've reported a few times now): Republican turnout has spiked far beyond 2012 levels, and Democratic turnout has fallen off after the party's mammoth 2008.

The tone and the turnout are vastly different between Republicans and Democrats this year, but oddly enough, both sides have something crucial in common: their voters are far less moderate than they were in their last primaries

Quote:

And looking at the results so far, there are simple explanations to why this might be happening. The very-liberal Bernie Sanders is probably driving some of the turnout among very-liberal voters. It's likewise possible that the somewhat-conservative Trump is behind the bump in somewhat conservative voters in Republican primaries (while Ted Cruz does better among very conservative voters, and John Kasich gets more votes among moderates).

But then, it might not just be candidate-driven: it's possible that lots of people have simply become more conservative or liberal than they were four or eight years ago. This is also to some degree plausible, as there is evidence that Americans are getting more polarized.

In other words, there's a chicken-egg question here, with no clear answer — chances are, they're both right. To the degree that voters are more polarized, they're gravitating toward more extreme candidates. And Sanders and Trump also both happen to be very good at energizing people to turn out and vote for them.

0 Replies

I finally figured out my problem with the American presidential race! The Political Test:

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