SUPERTHREAD: 2020 United States Elections

[Jub]

I also just noticed that fivethirtyeight is fudging their statistics a bit to make Bernie look weaker, and a contested convention look more likely.

On their main page, they have a graphic showing the odds of different primary outcomes, with "no one" getting a majority (ie contested convention) at 2 in 5, and Bernie next at 1 in 3.

If you click for more information, though, you'll see that they are rounded the odds for "no one" up from 37% to 2 in 5 (40%), while rounding Sanders' odds down from 35% to 1 in 3 (33.3%).

Umm, I think you're looking for reasons to be paranoid at this point...

[The Romulan Republic]

So, rumours are going around that Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as his VP pick.

https://businessinsider.com/clinton-wan ... ion-2020-2

The campaign of the billionaire Michael Bloomberg has attempted to halt talk that he is considering the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, for his running mate in the 2020 election.

"We are focused on the primary and the debate, not VP speculation," Bloomberg's communications director, Jason Schechter, said in a statement.

Citing "sources close to Bloomberg's campaign," Matt Drudge of the popular right-wing news aggregator Drudge Report tweeted that the former New York City mayor was "considering Hillary as running mate, after their polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force." Drudge also said Bloomberg was considering moving his permanent residence to one of his homes in Colorado or Florida "since the electoral college makes it hard for a POTUS and VPOTUS from the same state."

Clinton did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Fox News cited an unidentified source close to Clinton saying she "wants back in" following her loss to Trump during the 2016 election.

While Clinton has not yet commented on the report, she has not been quiet about the 2020 election. She made headlines recently for her comments disparaging Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her main 2016 primary rival who is now a leading contender for this year's Democratic presidential nomination. Earlier this month in an appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," however, Clinton had suggested she wasn't likely to accept an offer to be vice president.

Clinton told DeGeneres she had turned down two offers to be Barack Obama's vice president but added that "many, many, many people" were putting her "under enormous pressure" to get involved in the 2020 race.

"I never say never because I believe in serving my country, but it's never going to happen," the former first lady told DeGeneres.

Despite her 2016 loss, Clinton has remained active in politics, publishing "What Happened," a memoir about her failed presidential bid, and throughout the past four years having openly criticized her formal rival and his administration.

In December, Clinton spoke out against Sanders' treatment of her candidacy in 2016, arguing during an appearance on Howard Stern's radio show that the Vermont senator, who endorsed her in the general election, did not do enough to bring Democrats together following her winning of the party's primary.

"And I hope he doesn't do it again to whoever gets the nomination," Clinton told Stern. "Once is enough."

Read more:
Michael Bloomberg's employees created a book purportedly full of his offensive quotes. Here it is.
Former employee says he heard Bloomberg ask a female co-worker if she was going to 'kill it' after announcing her pregnancy
Memes parodying Mike Bloomberg's paid Instagram meme campaign are flooding the internet
Popular meme accounts on Instagram are suddenly posting for Mike Bloomberg's 2020 campaig

I'm 95% sure its horse shit, because a) it sounds too much like Bernie-or-Bust conspiracy theorism/Kremlin disinformation to be real, b) the original sources all seem to be Reich-wing outlets like Drudge Report and Fox, who have an obvious interest in dividing the Democratic Party, and c) its been obvious for months that every opponent of the Democratic Party (Trump, Fox Tulsi Gabbard, etc.) desperately wants to pretend that 2020 is another race against Hillary Clinton, and has been spreading hysterical rumours about Hillary Clinton running, Clinton plots, etc.

If it did happen, particularly in a contested convention... well, at that point, I'd be less worried about a big Bernie or Bust walkout, and more about several hundred enraged Sanders delegates literally storming the convention stage and ejecting Bloomberg and the DNC by force.

Admittedly, it doesn't help that Hillary keeps going out and trashing Bernie Sanders, refused to commit to supporting him if he's the nominee, and keeps qualifying her denials that she'll try to run again. I don't think she will, but its looking like she's driven more by pettiness and ego at this point than by any interest in the good of the country or the party.

[Ralin]

A. The call to endorse Bloomberg if he is the nominee is a statement that says we should "opt into" and "pick" the policies aligned above. The arg is that this is unacceptable on many levels and that we should delineate that Bloomberg is an unacceptable person to lead the country and/or the Democratic party.

That’s sophistry. No one here has called to ‘endorse’ Bloomberg other than in the sense of calling for voting for the Democratic nominee no matter what and recognizing that Bloomberg is currently a Democrat and could theoretically be that nominee.

"if the logic is simply 'anybody but the GOP' then why does it matter that you're a democrat? You've already defined yourself as 'not them' and if that's all that matters then identifying 'with' someone is a pretty hollow act."

At least bother reading the post you're responding to.

I did read it, and that’s not an accurate representation of what either of us have said. Democrat President Adolf Hitler is better than Republican President Adolf Hitler because the Democratic Party has large chunks of its membership who are against racism, sexism, homophobia and other Hitler policies and the Republican Party doesn’t. Those parts of the party would take a hit under Democrat Hitler, yeah, but still better than the Hitler who has a full party behind him instead of one that’s half behind him.

Completely unresponsive to the section you've quoted.

No it isn’t you stupid cat.

[The Romulan Republic]

Okay, Ralin, if you're going to suggest that a Democratic Hitler would be supportable, then I'd rather you weren't on my side on this one.

I think there's an implied Hitler exemption to "Vote Blue No Matter Who".

[Ralin]

Okay, Ralin, if you're going to suggest that a Democratic Hitler would be supportable, then I'd rather you weren't on my side on this one.

I think there's an implied Hitler exemption to "Vote Blue No Matter Who".

That's a silly extreme example to make the point. And that point is that its better than the alternative of the same politician with a unified party and machine behind him.

[Straha]

A. The call to endorse Bloomberg if he is the nominee is a statement that says we should "opt into" and "pick" the policies aligned above. The arg is that this is unacceptable on many levels and that we should delineate that Bloomberg is an unacceptable person to lead the country and/or the Democratic party.

That’s sophistry. No one here has called to ‘endorse’ Bloomberg other than in the sense of calling for voting for the Democratic nominee no matter what and recognizing that Bloomberg is currently a Democrat and could theoretically be that nominee.

When you say that people ought vote for him in the general election you are, in fact, endorsing him as a potential candidate. This is democracy 101.

"
I did read it, and that’s not an accurate representation of what either of us have said. Democrat President Adolf Hitler is better than Republican President Adolf Hitler because the Democratic Party has large chunks of its membership who are against racism, sexism, homophobia and other Hitler policies and the Republican Party doesn’t. Those parts of the party would take a hit under Democrat Hitler, yeah, but still better than the Hitler who has a full party behind him instead of one that’s half behind him.

1. Yikes.

2. If your arg is simply 'Democrats are better than Republicans' that has multiple direct answers to it in the post both above and below what you quoted. Have the decency to respond.

3. The Democratic party cannot be against 'racism, sexism' and 'Hitler policies' when it elects a man who is an avowed racist, sexist, and put children in cages in contravention of the law. You are not against racism and sexism if you say that you will support such a man. That's a simple line to understand.

Completely unresponsive to the section you've quoted.

No it isn’t you stupid cat.
[/quote]

Me: Bloomberg undermines the supposed values that Democrats claim to uphold, voting for him hurts the party and the attempts to protect those values in the long run, and supporting people simply for the sake of not being a Republican means you've eroded party identity to the point of meaninglessness.

You: "Because other people in said party are/will be working for the things we want associated with the Democrats. Which is more than you can say about the Republicans, and is at least something to work with."

Not responsive. Try again.

[Ralin]

When you say that people ought vote for him in the general election you are, in fact, endorsing him as a potential candidate. This is democracy 101.

Again, sophistry. Saying that people should vote for Bloomberg over Trump if there’s no other choice in the end is only ‘endorsing’ him in the barest technical sense. Which you are deliberately exaggerating.

2. If your arg is simply 'Democrats are better than Republicans' that has multiple direct answers to it in the post both above and below what you quoted. Have the decency to respond.

No, it does not.

3. The Democratic party cannot be against 'racism, sexism' and 'Hitler policies' when it elects a man who is an avowed racist, sexist, and put children in cages in contravention of the law. You are not against racism and sexism if you say that you will support such a man. That's a simple line to understand.

Yes it can you smug little twat, because party members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the people who voted for her won’t vanish in a puff of smoke if Bloomberg is elected. That would be a hit to those values, sure, but a shitty Democratic president is better and more manageable than just shrugging and letting Trump and 2024 NuTrump win while hoping leftists can form a new party to replace the Democrats.

Me: Bloomberg undermines the supposed values that Democrats claim to uphold, voting for him hurts the party and the attempts to protect those values in the long run, and supporting people simply for the sake of not being a Republican means you've eroded party identity to the point of meaninglessness.

You: "Because other people in said party are/will be working for the things we want associated with the Democrats. Which is more than you can say about the Republicans, and is at least something to work with."

Not responsive. Try again.

Totally responsive, you lying idiot. You said that electing Bloomberg would undermine things like anti-racism as values held by the Democratic Party and that voting for him over Trump in that case would mean that it wouldn’t matter if someone was a Democrat or Republican. I said that in that scenario parts of the Democratic Party would still hold those values. It’s better to have a bad president with a fractured and inconsistent Democratic Party behind him than a bad president with a unified Republican Party behind him.

[The Romulan Republic]

The growing consensus seems to be that Nevada is locked up by Sanders, and its a fight for second place:

https://politico.com/news/2020/02/17/be ... ack-115450

LAS VEGAS — Bernie Sanders is becoming harder to stop. Nevada is where his opponents are starting to realize it.

Advisers to three rival campaigns privately conceded over the weekend that the best anyone else could hope for here is second or third. Some of them gape at the crowd sizes at Sanders' events — like the swarm of supporters who accompanied Sanders, his fist raised, to an early caucus site in Las Vegas on Saturday, the first day of early voting in the state.

While few expect that Sanders can carry more than a third of the vote in Nevada, nearly everyone believes that will be enough to win in a field where the moderate vote remains splintered. It is becoming a source of celebration for Sanders' supporters and an urgent problem for those who want to prevent him from claiming the nomination.

“He’s going to win with 28 percent of the vote. We’re not talking about him getting 50 percent of the vote,” said Andres Ramirez, a Nevada-based Democratic strategist and former vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee’s Hispanic Caucus. “But the rest of the field is so fragmented, and he has his base locked, that he can continue winning just by holding onto his base.”

There are signs the field may become even more fragmented in Nevada this week.

"The rest of the field is so fragmented, and he has his base locked, that he can continue winning just by holding onto his base.”

- Andres Ramirez, a Nevada-based Democratic strategist

Pete Buttigieg, who topped the field with Sanders in Iowa and finished less than 2 percentage points behind him in New Hampshire, is not polling well in Nevada or in the next voting state, South Carolina. Amy Klobuchar surged in New Hampshire but is starting from behind in Nevada. Biden is the opposite — humiliated in Iowa and New Hampshire but with better prospects here.

An aide to one of Sanders' opponents described the new "default state of the race" as one featuring Sanders in his own orbit and everyone else in theirs.

The carousel of rising and falling centrists is pushing Sanders ahead. Each of his competitors is now scrambling to emerge as the one credible alternative to him — and to do so convincingly before Super Tuesday, when the free-spending billionaire Michael Bloomberg begins to assert himself in that same centrist lane.

It may be too late. In Nevada this weekend — the first state with a sizable Latino vote — Democratic activists were still murmuring about the inability of Klobuchar and Tom Steyer to name Mexico’s president during interviews with Telemundo late last week. Polling suggests Buttigieg and Klobuchar are not exciting broad swaths of voters in Nevada and South Carolina. Elizabeth Warren finished a distant fourth in New Hampshire. Hoarse when she addressed a Clark County Democratic Party gala at the Tropicana on Saturday night, she said she’d caught a cold.

At the Clark County event that evening, Sanders ignored them all, framing the primary as a race only between him and Bloomberg, who is rising in national polls.

“Regardless of how much money a multi-billionaire candidate is willing to spend on his election,” Sanders told activists in Las Vegas, “we will not create the energy and excitement we need to defeat Donald Trump if that candidate pursued, advocated for and enacted racist policies like stop-and-frisk, which caused communities of color in his city to live in fear.”

The dim prospects of anyone beating Sanders in Nevada were laid bare last week, when the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union elected not to endorse in the presidential primary. Despite its criticism of Sanders’ signature policy proposal, Medicare for All, the union was not convinced that any other Democrat could defeat Sanders, even with the union’s endorsement, according to a source familiar with the union’s deliberations.

Nor will Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, get involved. After casting his caucus vote early on Saturday at the East Las Vegas Library, he said he marked “uncommitted.” While praising every candidate, he said he did not plan to consider endorsing until after Super Tuesday.

No Democrat, of course, views Nevada as a last stand. Multiple candidates are campaigning here with an eye on the primaries to come, airing advertisements in later-voting states or leaving Nevada in spurts to expand their footprints in the West.

Biden, following demoralizing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire, said he believes he has “a shot at winning” Nevada but that he does not have to. Other campaigns say an impressive debate performance on Wednesday could lift them, citing Klobuchar’s post-debate surge in New Hampshire as an example.

Buttigieg began organizing relatively late in Nevada but fielded a successful caucus operation in Iowa that his supporters believe he may be able to replicate here. Buttigieg said Sunday that the contest is a "jump ball."

Still, the imperative to draw some momentum from the Feb. 22 caucuses hangs heavily over every campaign — and Sanders is tilting the landscape.

Emerging from a long line outside a caucus site on Saturday, Clark County Democratic Party Chairwoman Donna West said the election remains “wide open,” citing Klobuchar as an example of a candidate who is “coming on strong.”

Yet, Sanders was impossible to ignore.

“I mean, they have 250 staffers, and I’m sure they brought more in from Iowa,” West said. “They are staffed up … The gentleman who was behind me in line said the only campaign he’d heard from was the Sanders campaign.”

The Nevada Poll released on Friday had Sanders running at 25 percent, followed by Biden at 18 percent and Warren at 13 percent. And as other campaigns arrived at the Tropicana for the Democratic gala on Saturday night, they opened their programs to find the Vermont senator — in a full-page ad on the inside cover — staring back at them.

Megan Jones, a Nevada-based Democratic consultant who advised Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, said it is possible that Biden or Warren could revive their candidacies in the caucuses.

Still, she said, “Any of these candidates are going to be hard pressed to get 30 percent of the vote.”

Even for Sanders, Jones said, “There’s no doubt that he has the best organization for the long haul. But if he doesn’t get above 25ish, 25 percent in any of these states, what does that mean? I think it might mean that we go to a brokered convention, or I think Bloomberg, while I think he definitely is in it to win it, I think he also is in it to make sure Bernie doesn’t.”

Norman Solomon, a co-founder of the pro-Sanders online activist group RootsAction.org, said Bloomberg does represent a “rising fear,” if only because of the money he can spend.

But he likened moderate Democrats’ inability to settle on a candidate in the early-voting states to an identity crisis — in part of Sanders' making.

“The establishment,” he said, “seems almost clueless about what they have to offer.”

Marc Caputo contributed to this report.

Sanders, meanwhile, is laying into Bloomberg, more aggressively than he has against probably anyone else so far:

“Regardless of how much money a multi-billionaire candidate is willing to spend on his election,” Sanders told activists in Las Vegas, “we will not create the energy and excitement we need to defeat Donald Trump if that candidate pursued, advocated for and enacted racist policies like stop-and-frisk, which caused communities of color in his city to live in fear.”

Bernie appears to basically be treating this as a two-person race between him and Bloomberg. I'm not sure that's wise- it could raise Bloomberg's credibility as the only alternative to Bernie.

I do think that the constant moaning about how Bernie can't get over 25% or whatever is much ado about nothing. He's getting more than anyone else, and no one is winning majorities yet because there are still half a dozen substantial candidates, give or take, in the race. Once a few of the heavyweights drop out, we'll start seeing Sanders wins of 40-60%, I expect.

[The Romulan Republic]

It gets even more striking when you look at fivethirtyeight's state by state projections of the likeliest winner of the vote in each upcoming primary contest.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/20 ... ast/texas/

They list the likeliest winners for each state, based on polling, as follows:

Klobuchar: Minnesota.

Biden: Alabama, Delaware.

Sanders: Nevada, South Carolina, California, Texas, North Carolina, Virginia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Utah, Maine, Vermont, American Samoa, Michigan, Washington, Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho, North Dakota, Democrats Abroad, Northern Marianas, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Arizona, Georgia, Puerto Rico, Louisiana, Hawaii, Alaska, Wyoming, Wisconsin, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Kansas, Guam, Indiana, Nebraska, West Virginia, Oregon, Kentucky, New Jersey, New Mexico, District of Columbia, Montana, South Dakota, Virgin Islands. In addition to his existing win in New Hampshire.

We can give Buttigieg Iowa if we're feeling generous.

So, yeah.

Now, fair disclaimer, this is based on current data, and is subject to change. Also, just because Sanders is the most likely person to win each of those contests doesn't actually mean he will win all of them. And he almost certainly won't get the majority of the vote in all of them (at least for now, he's likely going to have to be content with wins in the 20s or 30s, given the crowded field, which is why they only give him 35% odds of getting a majority of pledged delegates before the convention). And how the delegates are apportioned won't necessarily match who gets the most votes.

But, Damn.

[The Romulan Republic]

New poll just quoted on CNN has Bloomberg jumping into second place at 19%, but Bernie pulling away, rising to upwards of 30%.

[Gandalf]

I also just noticed that fivethirtyeight is fudging their statistics a bit to make Bernie look weaker, and a contested convention look more likely.

On their main page, they have a graphic showing the odds of different primary outcomes, with "no one" getting a majority (ie contested convention) at 2 in 5, and Bernie next at 1 in 3.

If you click for more information, though, you'll see that they are rounded the odds for "no one" up from 37% to 2 in 5 (40%), while rounding Sanders' odds down from 35% to 1 in 3 (33.3%).

Yeah, that's way more easily explained by them just trying to make the information more presentable for the average visitor than some sort of deliberate fudging, considering the more complete numbers are available.

[Darth Yan]

Steyer seems relatively decent as far as billionaires go. He doesn't have a chance but if he drops out I can see him endorsing Bernie.

[Tvpnbb]

I also just noticed that fivethirtyeight is fudging their statistics a bit to make Bernie look weaker, and a contested convention look more likely.

On their main page, they have a graphic showing the odds of different primary outcomes, with "no one" getting a majority (ie contested convention) at 2 in 5, and Bernie next at 1 in 3.

If you click for more information, though, you'll see that they are rounded the odds for "no one" up from 37% to 2 in 5 (40%), while rounding Sanders' odds down from 35% to 1 in 3 (33.3%).

Yeah, that's way more easily explained by them just trying to make the information more presentable for the average visitor than some sort of deliberate fudging, considering the more complete numbers are available.

Yeah, I've visited their site frequently and they have also rounded Bernie up and others down, indeed right now they're showing him at 2 in 5 chance to win despite being at 38%.

[The Romulan Republic]

I also just noticed that fivethirtyeight is fudging their statistics a bit to make Bernie look weaker, and a contested convention look more likely.

On their main page, they have a graphic showing the odds of different primary outcomes, with "no one" getting a majority (ie contested convention) at 2 in 5, and Bernie next at 1 in 3.

If you click for more information, though, you'll see that they are rounded the odds for "no one" up from 37% to 2 in 5 (40%), while rounding Sanders' odds down from 35% to 1 in 3 (33.3%).

Yeah, that's way more easily explained by them just trying to make the information more presentable for the average visitor than some sort of deliberate fudging, considering the more complete numbers are available.

Yeah, I've visited their site frequently and they have also rounded Bernie up and others down, indeed right now they're showing him at 2 in 5 chance to win despite being at 38%.

Fair enough, just seemed inconsistent in how they were rounding.

Huh, guess Bernie went up a bit over the night. New poll?

Steyer seems relatively decent as far as billionaires go. He doesn't have a chance but if he drops out I can see him endorsing Bernie.

Yeah, Steyer actually seems like a decent guy. He's really big on climate change, and he was also the one spearheading the Impeach Trump campaign long before it was popular in the Democratic leadership. The only real dings against him are that he's a billionaire, and that he's taking support that could otherwise be going to Bernie. If somehow Sanders and Warren had both been knocked out, Steyer would likely have been my third choice.

I fully expect Steyer will endorse Sanders once he drops out, and that at least some of any delegates he gains will go to Sanders at a contested convention. I count Steyer (like Warren) as an ally in this, not an enemy.

[The Romulan Republic]

Aaaand Bloomberg caught in photograph with alleged Epstein Madame Ghislaine Maxwell:

https://snopes.com/fact-check/bloomberg ... e-maxwell/

In November 2019, shortly after former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he was entering the 2020 U.S. presidential race, a photograph started to circulate on social media that supposedly showed him with Ghislaine Maxwell, a British socialite and close associate of deceased convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein:

This is a genuine photograph of Bloomberg with Maxwell (right). It was taken on Oct. 1, 2013, at Tamara Mellon’s “In My Shoes A Memoir” celebration at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City by photographer Leandro Justen.

This image was widely circulated in November 2019 along with the insinuation that Bloomberg was somehow involved with Epstein’s illicit activities. Maxwell has been accused of procuring young girls for Epstein. As of this writing, however, she has not been charged with any crimes in relation to the Epstein case.

Maxwell is a British socialite who has been photographed with countless public figures, such as actors Julianna Margulies and Kyle Maclachlan, reporters Barbara Walters and Piers Morgan, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

Bloomberg, too, is a well-known public figure who frequents events with the rich and famous. It isn’t all that surprising that these two would meet at some point during an event in New York City, and certainly isn’t proof that these two were somehow in cahoots to aid Epstein’s criminal activities.

While conspiracy theorists may point to this picture and make vague claims attempting to connect Bloomberg to Epstein, the only thing we can really glean is that two public figures were once photographed together at a public event.

Does it prove he did anything illegal? No, of course not. But its sure not a good look, especially since the picture was taken after Epstein's initial conviction. And given Bloomberg's history of misogynist comments, allegations of sexual harassment in his administration/business, and his own admissions to being part of the rich playboy crowd... well, it does make you wonder.

[The Romulan Republic]

Iowa recanvas finished, with representatives of the Buttigieg, Sanders, and Warren campaigns present. Buttigieg retains a narrow lead in the delegate count, albeit one that has narrowed to virtual non-existence, and Sanders holds his popular vote lead:

https://cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/iow ... index.html

(CNN)The recanvass of more than 100 Iowa caucus precincts has ended, the state's Democratic Party said on Tuesday, resulting in former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg's lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders tightening to a fraction of a standard delegate equivalent.

Buttigieg now leads Sanders in Iowa by less than a hundredth of a percentage point -- 26.188% for Buttigieg and 26.184% for Sanders. Sanders continues to lead the final round of the popular vote count, with 45,831 votes to Buttigieg's 43,273.

The tightening does not, however, impact the national delegate count, which awarded Buttigieg 14 national delegates out of Iowa, compared to Sanders' 12 delegates, according to the state party.

The Iowa Democratic Party had to correct the counts for 26 precincts where "misapplication of the rules affected delegate allocation" and three precincts where "the reported final alignment did not match what was on the math worksheet," according to the state party. The party also announced that representative from Buttigieg, Sanders and Warren's campaign were on site during the recanvass.

With the recanvass complete, the campaigns have 24 hours to respond to those results with evidence that the outcome of the national delegate allocation could be impacted, according to state party rules.

Sanders' campaign responded to the new results by saying they will formally request a recount of several precincts. A Buttigieg spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the recanvass being completed.

The Iowa caucuses descended into chaos earlier this month, leaving the results of the caucus still in question weeks after Iowans gathered to express their presidential preference. A faulty app that was supposed to streamline the caucus process, an overwhelmed call-center meant to act as a backup to the app and poor communication between the party and the campaigns marred the caucus process and left Democrats with no results the night of voting.

The bedlam has led some Democrats to call for an end to the Iowa caucuses and Troy Price, the party chairman in the run up to caucus night, has resigned because of the flawed process.

After 100% of precincts were reported by the Iowa Democratic Party earlier this month, the Buttigieg, Sanders and Elizabeth Warren campaigns submitted evidence of what they saw as inconsistencies in counting. The complaints stemmed from 95 precincts -- 5% of the total 1,765 precincts in the state.

The Buttigieg and Sanders campaigns subsequently requested partial recounts on certain precincts.

Sanders' campaign asked for a recanvass of 25 precincts and three satellite caucuses in the state, arguing that if "errors" are corrected, the Vermont senator would pick up one national delegate.

Buttigieg's campaign, meanwhile, asked for a recanvass of 66 precincts and all satellite caucuses in the state, a total of 143 precincts.]

[The Romulan Republic]

Warren's ripping into Bloomberg on stop and frisk on social media.

Notable lack of attacks from team Warren against Bernie, as well. Despite recent tensions, it looks like the informal truce is more or less back in effect, and they're both going hard after Bloomberg.

[Mr Bean]

Warren's ripping into Bloomberg on stop and frisk on social media.

Notable lack of attacks from team Warren against Bernie, as well. Despite recent tensions, it looks like the informal truce is more or less back in effect, and they're both going hard after Bloomberg.

Well Warren learned her main attack against Sanders (Sanders is sexist) only hurt her base which went back to Sanders not gained her any supporters. Since the attack on Sanders is unlikely to suddenly get Klob voters or Mayor Pete voters to switch to your side. I think her people remembered oh right we are going after most of the same people. That's why she started her great uniter talk about five months to late.

[The Romulan Republic]

Warren's actions make sense. Whatever differences she and Sanders have had, its clear they have more in common with each other than with any other major candidates. Sanders will need Warren's people to win a contested convention, if it comes to that- which means that Warren has some leverage with him, but only if she is willing to work with him. Most of their supporters (disproportionately loud trolls and probable bots aside) didn't want them at odds with each other.

What's most interesting to me is that, with the race looking more and more like a two-person fight between Sanders and Bloomberg, you're starting to see other candidates, even ones who haven't officially dropped out and are still actively campaigning, starting to take sides. Sanders and Bloomberg are the rising stars, so any of the second tier are going to need to knock down one or both to have a shot- and who they focus on attacking, to me, says a lot about where they're likely to ultimately go after dropping out, and in a contested convention.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but it feels like the other candidates are starting to figure out, even if they haven't admitted it yet, that it isn't going to be them, and are picking their side in the Sanders vs Bloomberg fight.

[The Romulan Republic]

Might have spoken too soon: Warren's out blaming Sanders personally for a few thugs he has personally disavowed:

https://businessinsider.com/warren-call ... ers-2020-2

Tensions continued to grow between Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders Tuesday when the Massachusetts senator called on her Democratic presidential campaign rival to address alleged attacks from his supporters on the leadership of an influential Nevada union.

In an interview with NBC News at the Cardenas Market in Las Vegas, Warren said Sanders "has a lot of questions to answer" about his supporters allegedly releasing private information on women in the Culinary Workers Union Local 226.

Last week, after the Nevada Independent obtained a flyer from the union criticizing Sanders' health care plan over eliminating private insurance, Culinary 226 members began reporting threatening calls and messages.

"It's disappointing that Senator Sanders' supporters have viciously attacked the Culinary Union and working families in Nevada simply because our union has provided facts on what certain healthcare proposals might do to take away the system of care we have built over 8 decades," Geoconda Argüello-Kline, the union's secretary and treasurer, said in a statement last Wednesday.

The Sanders campaign responded with a statement saying the union workers would get coverage "as comprehensive or more so than the health care benefits union workers currently receive."

When asked by NBC's Ali Vitali whether Sanders has done enough to reign-in vitriol from his online supporters, Warren expressed concerns.

"I've said before that we are all responsible for what our supporters do and I think Bernie has a lot of questions to answer here, and I am particularly worried about what happened in the attacks on members of the culinary union, particularly on the women in leadership," Warren said.

"The whole notion of publishing their personal addresses, their phone numbers, and then making very agressive threats against their own safety and the safety of their families, that is not how we build an inclusive Democratic Party and it is now how we [beat] Donald Trump — we do not build on a foundation of hate," she added.

The Sanders campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sanders disavowed the attacks in an interview with PBS News Hour last Thursday and distanced himself from those involved.

"Obviously, that is not acceptable to me," Sanders said. "And I don't know who these so-called supporters are.

"You know, we are living in a strange world on the Internet," Sanders continued. "And, sometimes, people attack people in somebody else's name. But let me be very clear: anybody making personal attacks against anybody else in my name is not part of our movement.

"We don't want them."

The comments from the Union itself are even worse though. It is absolutely disgusting to me for them to accuse "Sanders supporters" of doxing and threatening women, as though we all collectively are guilty of it, especially since I regard politically-motivated doxing as an act of terrorism. Its also reminiscent of the Nevada DNC's campaign of defamation against Sanders and his supporters in 2016, accusing us of rioting and all but saying Sanders incited terrorism.

If certain Sanders supporters engaged in doxing and threats (and until proven otherwise, I'm leaving open the possibility that it was actually Russia/Trump trolls), they're scum and they should be in prison. And I'm sure it is unpleasant, to say the least, to be on the receiving end of constant trolling (believe me, I can speak to that one from experience). But at this point, its going to take a united party to stop America from becoming a fascist dicatorship, which means this kind of broad, disingenuous attack on an entire wing of the party is not only petty, its morally reprehensible.

Every candidate has supporters who are dicks. Bernie doesn't condone their behaviour. What more is he supposed to do, go door to door and personally confiscate the computer of every asshole on the internet who invokes his name?

Good news is that Sanders has now jumped back into the lead on FiveThirtyEight, with 40%, just beating out "No one" at 37%. Biden's dropped from 14 to 11 since last night. No one else is cracking double-digits, so 538, at least, clearly doesn't think too much of Bloomberg's chances when it comes to actually winning delegates.

[The Romulan Republic]

Just a reminder that we have another debate tonight, with Bloomberg making his first appearance on the stage.

[The Romulan Republic]

Interesting piece on the history between Bernie and Obama:

https://theatlantic.com/politics/archiv ... ge/606709/

Bernie sanders got so close to running a primary challenge to President Barack Obama that Senator Harry Reid had to intervene to stop him.

It took Reid two conversations over the summer of 2011 to get Sanders to scrap the idea, according to multiple people who remember the incident, which has not been previously reported.

That summer, Sanders privately discussed a potential primary challenge to Obama with several people, including Patrick Leahy, his fellow Vermont senator. Leahy, alarmed, warned Jim Messina, Obama’s presidential reelection-campaign manager. Obama’s campaign team was “absolutely panicked” by Leahy’s report, Messina told me, since “every president who has gotten a real primary has lost a general [election].”

David Plouffe, another Obama strategist, confirmed Messina’s account, as did another person familiar with what happened. (A spokesman for Leahy did not comment when asked several times about his role in the incident.)

Messina called Reid, then the Senate majority leader, who had built a strong relationship with Sanders but was also fiercely defensive of Obama. What could you be thinking? Reid asked Sanders, according to multiple people who remember the conversations. You need to stop.

Sanders didn’t end up running against Obama. But their relationship didn’t improve in the years that followed. In another incident, in 2013, Sanders laid into Obama in a private meeting he held with Democratic senators, saying that the president was selling out to Republicans over Social Security benefits. (More on that incident, which has also not been previously reported, below.)

Now Obama, the beloved former leader of the Democratic Party, and Sanders, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, are facing a new and especially fraught period in their relationship. To Obama, Sanders is a lot of what’s wrong with Democrats: unrelenting, unrealistic, so deep in his own fight that he doesn’t see how many people disagree with him or that he’s turning off people who should be his allies. To Sanders, it’s Obama who represents a lot of what’s wrong with Democrats: overly compromising, and so obsessed with what isn’t possible that he’s lost all sense of what is.

Obama has made clear in private conversations that he doesn’t like the idea of Sanders as the nominee (and has been only slightly more subtle in public comments), but he’s pushed back on some who have urged him to get involved, anxious that any move he makes could destroy the hope of him using his unique position to unite the party and defeat Trump during the general election. In a party this divided, Obama- and Sanders-style Democrats finding a connection may be the only way to win in November.

Obama is determined to make it work—if he has to.

“Obama has several friends and former colleagues in the race but believes that in order for the Democratic Party to be successful, voters will have to pick their candidate,” a person close to Obama told me. “Obama will campaign his heart out for whoever the nominee is, and that includes Senator Sanders.”

Obama and sanders’s political relationship dates back to 2006, when Sanders showed up in Obama’s Senate office asking for a favor: Would Obama come up to Vermont to campaign for him? Obama had barely been in Washington a year, hadn’t started running for president, and he was already being called a disappointment by some liberal Democrats. But he was a superstar, already the most in-demand Democrat in the country, and he was an important stamp of approval for a democratic socialist aiming to be the de facto Democratic nominee in his state’s Senate race.

Obama agreed, and arrived on an unseasonably warm day in March 2006 for a fundraiser and rally at the University of Vermont, before a crowd of cheering students. Sanders called Obama a great leader of the Senate. Obama called Sanders a force against cynicism and said the state should send him and soon-to-be-elected Representative Peter Welch to Washington to “keep on stirring up some trouble.”

Sanders didn’t endorse or campaign for Obama in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary, though Obama went on to beat Hillary Clinton in Vermont with 59 percent of the vote.

Sanders aides have long dismissed the idea that the senator was serious about a primary challenge to Obama in his re-election—“he was asked a question on a progressive radio show” is how Jeff Weaver, his closest aide, argued to me last week. Weaver was referring to an interview Sanders gave on Thom Hartman’s radio show in July 2011, when the senator said, “There are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president—who believe that, with regard to Social Security and a number of other issues, he said one thing as a candidate and is doing something very much else as a president; who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans; and there’s deep disappointment.” He continued: “It would be a good idea if President Obama faced some primary opposition.”

Read: Bernie Sanders tries to reclaim the insurgency

That was not the only time Sanders raised the idea publicly. Appearing on C-SPAN a few weeks later, he expanded on the point: “They want the president to stand up for the middle class, for the working class of this country, and they want him to take on big-money interests in a way that he has not done up to this point.” He’d been talking up a primary challenge since at least that spring, when he said in a radio interview with WNYC that he was already being asked whether he’d run against Obama, and although he insisted that he wasn’t going to, “in a democracy, it’s not a bad idea to have different voices out there.”

Criticism of Obama from the left, while not representative of the opinions of most Democrats, was not unusual at the time. Left-leaning activists pushed the president on issues such as foreclosure relief, judicial nominations, and drone strikes. In August 2011, just as Reid was being called in to to help stop Sanders’s primary plans, David Sirota—a former Sanders press secretary who remained plugged in to the senator’s thinking during the Obama years and would join Sanders’s 2020 campaign as a senior adviser and speechwriter—wrote that Obama was “eloquent, dissembling, conniving, intelligent and, above all, calm,” and was using those traits in service of being “a Bizarro FDR” with a “hideous and destructive” record.

Weaver did not respond to multiple requests to comment on Reid’s 2011 conversations with Sanders. After this story was published, Ari Rabin-Havt, Sanders’s deputy campaign manager, emailed with an additional statement: "It never crossed his mind to challenge Obama,” Rabin-Havt said. “Bernie was running for re-election in 2012 and that’s what he was focused on.”

Reid declined to speak about the episode on the record. Asked specifically about the Sanders campaign's insistence that the 2011 conversations never happened, a Reid spokesperson did not deny that the former majority leader talked Sanders down. Reid “won’t get into private conversations,” the spokesperson said. “Bottom line: there was never a serious or established primary challenge to Obama from anyone.” (Afterward, the spokesperson sent along an additional comment from Reid himself: “Bernie was running for reelection in 2012. He would’ve been a fool to run against Obama and Bernie’s no fool," he said.)

On the rare occasions Obama White House staff thought about Sanders, it was because he was needling or annoying them, several former Obama aides recalled. Before Sanders started running for president, he had never been to see Obama in the Oval Office. And even though most of them didn’t know how far Sanders’s primary plans had gone, Obama aides took notice of his public comments. Today, the bitterness lingers.

“It’s not to say they had a bad relationship when Obama got to the White House,” one person who worked for Obama in the West Wing told me. “It’s just that they didn’t have a relationship.”

Obama and his circle tend to see Sanders’s You’re with us or you’re wrong approach as unworkable and the criticism of his own record as president overrepresented on Twitter (Obama’s approval rating among Democrats is consistently in the 90s).

The low point between the two men was a 2013 meeting with other Democratic senators. Obama had just put a chained Consumer Price Index in his budget, a proposal that would cut Social Security benefits by tying them to the rate of inflation. Many Senate Democrats were angry about it. But when they arrived for the meeting, it was Sanders who bubbled up, ripping into Obama for giving in to Republicans and not understanding the impact of the cuts.

“I don’t need a lecture,” Obama told him, according to several senators who attended the meeting.

Sanders proceeded to give him one anyway. A number of the senators there were struck by what they told me seemed like a lack of respect.

“Obama fairly forcefully pushed back and said, ‘That’s just not right—that’s not a vision that’s enactable or possible,’” one senator in the room recalled, asking for anonymity to discuss the private meeting. “‘You’re acting like I’m the enemy.’ Obama was trying to say, ‘I hear you that you want this revolution, but explain to me, how’s this going to happen? Look at the current makeup of the Senate and the House. How am I supposed to lead?’” Obama said, in this senator’s memory. The conversation quickly got testy. “It seemed the match of someone who prided himself on his cool intellect and removed analysis versus someone who was convinced with absolute ferocity with the rightness of his worldview and is not given to accepting anything from those who don’t agree with it.”

Read: The kingmaker

“I just remember thinking, Whoa, Bernie’s got game,” a second senator who was in the room told me. “I also remember thinking, There’s no love lost between them.”

In the end, most of the caucus took the position that Sanders voiced, opposing the chained Consumer Price Index, and Obama relented and dropped the idea. That was Sanders and Obama’s last substantive discussion before Sanders started winning support in his 2016 presidential run. Alumni of the Obama West Wing whom I spoke with had trouble remembering any time when they were in touch with Sanders or his staff for anything significant, even around the 2014 passage of a bipartisan veterans’-health bill, which is generally regarded as the most significant legislation Sanders got through Congress.

Obama and Sanders have worked to improve their relationship since Obama left office, starting with a one-on-one meeting in 2018, when they discussed their ideas about what Democrats should be working on, what counted as practical, and what counted as idealistic.

Their views did not line up, people familiar with the conversation told me afterward. But the men share a respect for the political movement the other has built.

“Bernie has an admiration for how Obama ran his 2008 campaign and the way he built a strong grassroots movement behind him. He has an admiration and true and deep respect for the president,” Rabin-Havt told me.

In public, Obama has distanced himself from Sanders, warning in November that there’s a difference between “left-leaning Twitter feeds” and persuadable voters, and that “this is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement.” But in private, he’s expressed similar admiration for Sanders’s movement, in 2016 and now.

“They may have their differences, but one thing Obama admires about Sanders is his ability to galvanize his supporters, both online and offline. President Obama has been impressed by that,” the person close to Obama told me.

Sanders’s team is also trying to downplay past disagreements. “Barack Obama gets hit a little too hard,” Jeff Weaver told me. “Anybody who came into office facing the potential of a worldwide economic meltdown—it’s a very, very difficult situation to be in. And, you know, he helped avoid that. Bernie Sanders was not overly critical. They would have approached things a little bit differently, that’s all.”

I pressed Weaver, pointing out that some people who support Sanders and have worked on his campaign have a negative view of Obama, and feel that Obama gave in to Republicans and moderates too much. “That’s certainly not my view, and I don’t believe it’s Bernie Sanders’s view,” he said.

A few days later, I reached out again, first by phone and then by text. Initially, Weaver responded. But when I told him I'd found out about Reid's intervention to stop Sanders from mounting a primary challenge in 2011, he stopped responding.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

From this account, it doesn't sound like the Sanders campaign is being entirely straight about its past conflicts with Obama, but it probably makes sense to downplay any past rift now. As for Obama, I hope he is sincere in his commitment to letting the voters pick who they feel is best in the primary. Obama obviously wields enormous influence in the party, and if he's sincere in this commitment, could potentially help spike any attempt to rig the convention.

(As an aside, Bernie or Buster-types online are already seemingly insisting that even if Sanders wins the most delegates, the DNC will inevitably steal the nomination from him. Some of that may just be paranoia, but for many, I feel, its like they don't actually want to win. I personally suspect that most of the "Bernie or Bust" crowd aren't actually Sanders supporters and don't support his message or goals-they ignored him when he endorsed Clinton, for example. They don't want to fix the world, and they don't want to control the Democratic Party. They want to see the world burn, the Democratic Party in particular, and their political identity is defined by the persecuted True Believers forever fighting against a "rigged system" that all the lesser sheeple are too stupid to see through. Sanders is just a tool to spite the Democrats for them, nothing more. The moment he actually wins, and becomes the leading figure of the Democratic Party, he will no longer serve that purpose, and most of them will swiftly find excuses to say that Sanders has "sold out", is corrupt, is a pawn of the DNC, and jump straight to Jill Stein or perhaps a Tulsi Gabbard independent campaign. And frankly, us actual Sanders supporters will be well rid of them and their toxic influence.)

[The Romulan Republic]

New poll just up on the TV (MSNBC, I think) asking who people would vote for if it boiled down to just Bernie vs Bloomberg.

Results: Bernie 57%, Bloomberg 37.

Edit: Debate's on. Warren slamming Bloomberg, warning against "replacing one billionaire with another".

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, so much for the civil primary.

Buttigieg attacked both Sanders and Bloomberg as the most polarizing candidates, saying that most Americans wouldn't support either, and then (I think it was him, I was out of the room) tried to link Bernie to the people who engaged in doxing and threats in Nevada, saying he's "at war" with the culinary union. Buttigieg got booed on both counts. Bernie countered by saying he has more Union support than Buttigieg could dream of.

Warren then got handed a line by one of the mods about Bernie and his supporters being misogynist (they're really desperately trying to push the Bernie vs Warren fight). She reiterated her views that all candidates are responsible for their supporters, before appearing to try to back away from the issue.

Bernie just made a stirring speech against nastiness on the internet, while noting that his supporters have also been attacked, and suggesting that some of the ugliness is coming from bots/trolls.

Its a shit show. Telling, how quickly the talk of unity to stop Trump goes out the window when it looks like Bernie might win.

[The Romulan Republic]

Warren attacking Bernie again, got booed. She just kept right at it, saying "his campaign relentless attacks everyone", and bringing up Ocasio-Cortez suggesting that they might compromise on Medicare for All. She's really trying to burn every bridge with Sanders and his supporters, isn't she?

Looks like we need to break out the snake emojis again.