Well, I'm suggesting another statistical conclusion is precarious and I have reason to be skeptical over that continued narrative. The anecdote is hardly the entirety of what I'm polling my skepticism on as well. I'm surprised others don't see the same quandary with claims like the one I responded to.
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Democratic Primary Debate VI: Raid Time 2/11 9PM EST
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Well, I'm suggesting another statistical conclusion is precarious and I have reason to be skeptical over that continued narrative. The anecdote is hardly the entirety of what I'm polling my skepticism on as well. I'm surprised others don't see the same quandary with claims like the one I responded to.
That's not how statistical conclusions work. "Some people I know" is not a rigorous sample.
I could be wrong I believe that was based on polls of who was voting for Sanders at the time which did indeed seem to favor young White males. I think what did prove to be wrong is that he was never going to reach beyond a very specific demographic, widely.
Yeah. That's exactly what they said?
balladofwindfishes
Member
An enthused voter base still wouldn't have won congress. There's only so much you can do against gerrymandering.
And anyway, what would be the point of moving Obama left, if he can't decide any major policy due to a hostile congress?
I read his post as saying that they were acting with a very low sample size.
That is true, and also bad, but it's actually fundamentally distinct from not having a randomized sample at all. One of them is bad statistics. The other just isn't statistics.
Yeah, I wasn't invoking statistics myself. I was questioning poor statistics and poor conclusions relating to the early constituent demographics.
that's the point though, to keep the base enthused and engaged. 2008 Obama brought in a lot of new people who for one reason or another didn't stay engaged.
gutter_trash
Banned
a Left Leaning President is handicapped if Congress has a Republican majority
excelsiorlef
Member
He won the fucking election. Primarying a president doesn't enthuse the base or the people undecided.
Ahh I see your distinction. That's true. That's why anecdotal evidence is so easy to dismiss on a scientific level. But to the point, I don't think anything scientific was trying to be proved by the poster. But yeah, actual polling evidence contradicts the anecdotal evidence of the time. Probably because things like voting preferences can be similar in specific regions and the same kind of social circles.
balladofwindfishes
Member
I don't agree with the assertion that moving to the left is the way to keep the base enthused.
But I can think of a good way to get the base disappointed and embarrassed, and it involves primarying a standing president. You don't build enthusiasm for a candidate by saying they aren't really all that great and should be challenged for a position that is implied to be their's by default.
don't democrats always complain about low turnout during midterm elections?
I just think Obama is a strong enough candidate to where he really wouldn't come off as weak at all. maybe to republicans but they wouldn't vote for him anyway.
balladofwindfishes
Member
You still haven't explained how Obama moving slightly to the left, at the huge cost of primarying him helps Democrat turnout.
If anything, it would cause turnout to be even lower.
Trojita
Rapid Response Threadmaker
Primaries aren't Midterms.
excelsiorlef
Member
Bwhahaha. The Democrats primarying Obama would not have brought out people in a midterm. What the hell does 2012 have to do with an election 2 years later or prior.
Obama would have likely lost to Romney if he got primaried. "Look at this guy, he's such a terrible president even his own party wants to get rid of him"
Well, you'd expect that. Almost no president does better running for reelection than they did running for election.
Here's a simple dumb model of politics: people have a list of policies they want enacted, and they give each policy some number of points based on their level of passion. Then they assign those policies (and the points) to the candidates they think are most likely to enact those policies and just vote for whoever got the most points.
If you actually elect somebody, and you have a reasonable guess as to what policies they will enact (which is easy because generally it's what they campaigned on), then during that period they will probably enact some of the policies you wanted. So those will go away as priorities for you.
Now, when the next election rolls around, you're going to do the same calculation, except some of the stuff you wanted is gone because it already happened. So no surprise, the sitting president gets less points than they did last time, and you're comparatively more likely to vote for the other guy.
voter apathy is a problem, is it not?
the drop-off was pretty substantial though, wasn't it?
balladofwindfishes
Member
Yes, but how is sending a standing president to a primary a solution for that?
gutter_trash
Banned
Primaring a sitting President = a weak President, bottom line
the media, the opposing party would be running for months the narrative of weakness.
it is a HUGE negative to have such an aweful narrative repeated over and over and over by the media and the opposing party; that the sitting President is weak
Ideologues don't understand winning
the media, the opposing party would be running for months the narrative of weakness.
it is a HUGE negative to have such an aweful narrative repeated over and over and over by the media and the opposing party; that the sitting President is weak
Ideologues don't understand winning
of course
yes? something like 10 million people, right? not sure if that constitutes as substantial or not, I was asking in earnest with that one
excelsiorlef
Member
And primarying Obama and thus saying we don't fully believe in you motivates people how?
If he wins he just looks like the Dems settling not empowering
boiled goose
good with gravy
Central america is in part fucked up because of the war on drugs in the usa.
She could be a lot more direct. She can start off by saying that the government has lied and failed every black person in America. We install a government to protect and guarantee basic human rights (bill of rights) to all citizens of the united states. But lo and behold certain people of color don't have those right. They arnt guaranteed education, the right to vote or even life, they have to beg "the white man" (government) for it. To be a part of the "American Dream" they are asked to abandon their culture and tradition, take a handout from their superiors and assimilate into white america.
Of course she could also start talking about racism being inherent to capitalism but she'll never do that. And neither will anyone who benefits from these structures in our society, they never do because they have everything to lose.
In reality this is a human rights issue but we keep acting like it's a civil rights issue. Our inherent evil runs just as deep as our ability to mean well.
SenorArdilla
Member
Why would you primary the president if he's in your party? That's basically saying, "Oops, we messed up. Can we have this person instead?"
The only reason I can think of is if the standing president was really bad, in which case their party is already set to lose.
The only reason I can think of is if the standing president was really bad, in which case their party is already set to lose.
balladofwindfishes
Member
No it doesn't. It's a huge political mistake and both sides in the history of our country have done it.
excelsiorlef
Member
No it doesn't. Obama was doing fine and primarying kills a President and the party
To the president?
Tell me, how many times in American history has that gone well? The answer may surprise you.
It's none, it never goes well. Doing so just undermines the president and makes them look bad in the process.
I mean i guess i should have added randomized but that's what I meant. I originally wrote something like "it's just bad understanding of statistics" but i edited it quickly because I didn't want to come off too aggressive.
UltimaPooh
Member
But largely... saying you think the President should be primaried and actually doing it are two different things.
Tranqueris
Banned
Speaking of Obama and the primary, I found Bernie's final comeback to that whole thing a bit bizarre. I think it was "one of us ran against Barack Obama, I was not that candidate." Well, yeah of course she did, she probably figured she had a shot. It's not like she ran for president because she wanted to spite the hell out of Obama or something.
gutter_trash
Banned
that was Sanders' dumbest answer of the night; questioning Hillary running in 2008 when her name was in the hat among Biden, Edwards, Richardson and Obama
yeah that line missed the mark
the only thing I could come up with is that maybe he was trying to subtly draw attention to the nasty shit hillary's campaign did against obama back in 2008. that's the only logical conclusion I could come to and it's a yuuuge stretch.
The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
I mean, fair enough if he's going to use a line of attack against her the shit they did pull against Obama is game, I think. That campaign was nasty. But he didn't go there hard enough
I thought his point was that she ran against him because she disagreed with him and thought she could do better. Which is sort of what she was attacking Bernie for saying.
But is it, though?
Seriously. You're making the assertion, can you provide evidence? We know turnout is low. Are there reasons other than apathy that turnout might be low? I feel like this enthusiasm-based model of politics gets thrown around a lot, but, you know, following literally decades of effort to disenfranchise the poor and people of color, maybe there are other causes of low turnout. Assuming it's because people just don't care seems facile.
The dropoff was about 2.5 million. Is that significant? It's hard to say. In 2004 the turnout was actually 20 million higher than in 2000. In 1996 there was about an 8 million dropoff. None of this is adjusting for population growth.
I don't think there's much evidence that there was a significant dropoff in 2012. I know that was the narrative! But it doesn't make it accurate.
excelsiorlef
Member
He wanted it but the Party, which he was not a part of at the time, wisely didn't.
If it was up to him it'd have happened
UltimaPooh
Member
He suggested it.
and it never happened. And he never pursued it anymore outside of that comment.
It's really a non issue.
But we gotta make it one.
our turnout is typically around 50-55% for presidential elections correct? and even lower for midterms correct? that's pretty bad. lags behind other democracies pretty significantly if I'm recalling that correctly. I'm not dismissing the other factors of low voter turnout, I think what you detailed are big factors as well, but I also believe voter apathy plays a role. when looking at the current political climate a lot of people seem to think their vote doesn't matter. I admit I'm having trouble finding any hard evidence as opposed to just opinion pieces online but I think the response to trump's and bernie's campaigns make it hard to deny there is a large segment of the population that feels the current political system doesn't represent them well enough. Obama in 2008 as well. whether they were apathetic before and how large of a population they are is the question I guess and I honestly can't answer that nor could I find anything concrete.
so I'll concede that point because I can't really back it up with anything other than my gut feeling and anecdotal evidence. I also could just be projecting my own feelings about the political process on the larger population, even though I participate.
I meant that Obama specifically got about 10 million more votes in 2008 compared to 2012, not the total drop off
Hillary won the debate with the important demographics.
Bernie won't get the black vote as we become more aware that he wanted Obama to get primaried.
South Carolina will end Bernie.
Bernie Sanders still hasn't proposed to help the close the wealth gap between white and black folks with key policy issues besides tying everything back to Wall Street.
Bernie won't get the black vote as we become more aware that he wanted Obama to get primaried.
South Carolina will end Bernie.
Bernie Sanders still hasn't proposed to help the close the wealth gap between white and black folks with key policy issues besides tying everything back to Wall Street.
Are you Rasputin or something?
I feel if you payed attention to Obama presidency and was aware during the campaign season... his presidency makes you more realistic about the political climate. I like Bernie ideas but none of his policies will make it through Congress.
exmachina64
Banned
And sending children to the U.S. will not solve the problem because there is no one here to care for them and no support structure to help them.
But Frank Underwood survived a primary challenge.
We can use that line of thinking to justify any kind of Republican saber-rattling. I don't buy it.
Especially for a candidate that is supposed to be 100% principled, say what he means, and mean what he says.
Here is a link to a graph of the percentages of people who voted in midterms and presidential elections:
http://www.fairvote.org/voter_turnout#voter_turnout_101
It makes more sense to look at percentages than absolute numbers of voters because the U.S. population continues to increase.
I can't embed the graph directly, but it shows that turnout for Presidential elections bounces around between about 50% and 65% in the post-war period, with a low of 51.7% in 1996 and a high of 63.8% in 1960. In general, it appears that turnout in Presidential elections stayed relatively high during the 1950's and 1960's, and then fell after 1968. Turnout remained below 60% during the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's, until it rose to 60% in 2004 (from 54% in 2000) and then to 61.6% in 2008. After that, turnout dropped to 58.2% in 2012, and if I were a betting man, I would wager that turnout will drop further in 2016.
Turnout for midterms follows a similar pattern to turnout for Presidential elections, just reduced by around 20 percent.
Whether those changes over time are significant I guess is debatable. I would note, however, that periods of relatively high turnout in the post-war period seem to coincide with organization around and advancement of interests usually associated with the left. Periods of relatively lower turnout seem to coincide with periods of right wing dominance and left wing disorganization. For example, its easy to see where the New Deal coalition broke up in the aftermath of the disastrous Chicago 68 convention.
Edit: I don't think Democrats primarying Obama would have been a good idea of would have solved this problem. It is a problem, though. I don't recall primarying Obama ever being seriously discussed, though - just the usual griping,
http://www.fairvote.org/voter_turnout#voter_turnout_101
It makes more sense to look at percentages than absolute numbers of voters because the U.S. population continues to increase.
I can't embed the graph directly, but it shows that turnout for Presidential elections bounces around between about 50% and 65% in the post-war period, with a low of 51.7% in 1996 and a high of 63.8% in 1960. In general, it appears that turnout in Presidential elections stayed relatively high during the 1950's and 1960's, and then fell after 1968. Turnout remained below 60% during the 1970's, 1980's, and 1990's, until it rose to 60% in 2004 (from 54% in 2000) and then to 61.6% in 2008. After that, turnout dropped to 58.2% in 2012, and if I were a betting man, I would wager that turnout will drop further in 2016.
Turnout for midterms follows a similar pattern to turnout for Presidential elections, just reduced by around 20 percent.
Whether those changes over time are significant I guess is debatable. I would note, however, that periods of relatively high turnout in the post-war period seem to coincide with organization around and advancement of interests usually associated with the left. Periods of relatively lower turnout seem to coincide with periods of right wing dominance and left wing disorganization. For example, its easy to see where the New Deal coalition broke up in the aftermath of the disastrous Chicago 68 convention.
Edit: I don't think Democrats primarying Obama would have been a good idea of would have solved this problem. It is a problem, though. I don't recall primarying Obama ever being seriously discussed, though - just the usual griping,
John Dunbar
correct about everything
what is someone supposed to answer to a question like "how big will the government be under your presidency?". is there some metric to measure the size of a government, or is that strictly about spending? any reasonable answer would probably require an essay length answer.
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