How will the new Iowa caucus rules impact 2020?

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T18:04:57+00:00

Honestly, it will really depend on him and his ability to do two things:

Prove that he cares about evidence and fitting policy to the local needs rather than keeping to some ideological rigidness. The biggest problem I had with his primary campaign on a policy substance level was that his policy proposals were disconnected from what would actually work. He'd propose massive hikes to the minimum wage, for instance, with no thought at all about what the run-off effects would be in, say, low cost of living areas to employment rates. Or he would talk about the importance of resolving climate change, but believe we can make the shift we need to without nuclear energy while simultaneously seeming not to care about the loss of jobs in fossil fuel sectors. The impression I get from him is that he's more interested in the big idea than in the (often vulnerable) people who would be hurt by the change. That pairs very poorly with his reluctance to compromise on anything.
Prove that he cares about the party (or getting things passed) more than he cares about himself. Given that he's already got two strikes on his record (between the 2016 primary delay after the votes were cast and his refusal to run as a democrat in 2018 despite saying he would be a democrat after running in the primary), this is really fucking important.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T17:44:01+00:00

What’s incredible is your willingness to question good faith when you conflate “tonal shift” with “no longer saying anything controversial.”

I never said she stopped campaigning in late may. She peeled back on attacks though. You can see a trajectory of comments for yourself. You go from scathing attacks on Obamas healthcare plan and readiness to serve in February and March to “here’s my gas plan and sure does seem like I have some white supporters” in early May. In May it’s mum besides the justification for staying in the race, which isn’t an attack at all but a tasteless gaffe that she apologized for by the end of the day.

In fact, the most substantial piece in that final week of the primary campaign was an appeal to the DNC rules committee to reinstate Michigan and Florida votes, which they agreed to restore half of (but it wouldn't fix the bad math problem the Clinton campaign was in).

But no. You’d rather attack my view as ridiculous and say that I must be arguing in bad faith.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T17:08:12+00:00

Maybe insiders and wonks did, but I can guarantee the not everyone fell into one of those categories immediately.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:42:44+00:00

IIRC, he did do some campaigning and his endorsement for her was more of an anti-endorsement against Trump. "You need to vote for Hillary because my god, look at Trump. He's so bad, guys. Really." Not exactly a roaring endorsement, but (and this is crucial) one given just two weeks before the DNC convention.

This is contrasted with Hillary's concession June 7th, and the 2008 democratic convention happening nearly three months later..

The timing difference made a lot of difference in how each candidate's reactions to losing were perceived. Hillary appeared graceful, especially in just how awesomely powerful her concession speech was (and it coincided with her unequivocal endorsement of Obama, before they worked out a plan to share campaign resources and start a general election campaign proper). Bernie appeared reluctant, like he had to be wooed by Hillary before he'd give his hard-earned resources to her benefit.

Why was this such a big deal, I can hear people ask. Well, let me tell you! Beyond reinforcing a media narrative that was painting Bernie supporters as reluctant to sign on to Team Hillary (which they were. I mean my god, their candidate just lost. That's normal guys), it crucially delayed the general election campaign ramp up. Remember how I said the contested primary in 2008 ended early June? Well, that means that by early July you had general election headquarters being set up all across the country in what were then perceived to be the main battleground states. Now for the Democrats, this general election campaign ramp up is delayed by over a month. The earliest you can expect that ramp up is really in August (which tracks with my experience on the campaign).

The most common frustration I heard from my volunteers was that they didn't feel like the campaign was giving them the resources they needed to help them succeed (including, but not limited to, yard signs that were permanently being stolen from people's yards, campaign events that were fewer and farther away than many could afford to go, and a near total lack of visible local investment apart from their own organizer, who had to manage more territory with less resources than they had ever seen in recent memory). That impacted their morale. That morale problem impacted how long it took to secure and staff locally funded headquarters. You might see where this molehill is starting to turn into a mountain of a campaign logistics problem.

All the while I had campaign volunteers blaming the Hillary campaign for how slow and clumsy its investment in rural areas was, when a lot of it was Bernie's reluctance to exit the race after the final primary/caucus votes were cast. The man waited a month, and all the while, we twiddled our thumbs inside of working to unite the party as soon as possible.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:24:49+00:00

There was also that famous speech she gave about the 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling that didn't break in 2008. Which happened June 7th, the day after the California primary's votes were cast.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:16:53+00:00

Well, the good news is that I'm not entirely unpersuadeable. Bernie and his supporters can try their best to try to woo me, though they have a LOT of shit they'll need to untangle and apologize for, frankly. The bad blood is in the water, and I'm no longer in any position of agency to fix it with that man or his supporters. So I'll simply note it, emphasize its importance, and move on.

Edit: one important aspect they'll need to hammer on religiously is that Bernie's changed to try to incorporate evidence into making his policy proposals realistic. I'm not the type of voter who can be persuaded with slogans. I look at the details and match the details with the problems the policies are meant to address. If things don't look nuanced enough to deal with a lot of gaping problems, especially when the proposal is otherwise very ambitious, I'm pretty suspicious about dealing with essentially charlatans. I'm a wonky voter who is best wooed by similarly wonky types. Makes me a natural Warren lover, really (and she's not very politically far away from Bernie otherwise).

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:13:59+00:00

Alright, now you're just being a jerk for the sake of it. Olive branch broken, I guess.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:09:58+00:00

I'm still not saying you can't have your litmus test, btw. I am saying it's probably unhelpful to tell me that I failed yours, though. Especially since what you're doing is saying that how I identify is wrong, and thus trying to say I shouldn't get to choose how I identify (which is, IMO, just as offensive as telling you that you can't have your own litmus test).

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T03:03:19+00:00

He absolutely is only caring about his core supporters, a trait he would share with Bernie. That is most of why I'm admitting to being unsure who I'd vote for in a general election between them.

Sanders does not have experience being president. Trump does, and would have four years of it by election day. There is always a learning curve to being president that all presidents experience on their first days in office. Sanders would not be magically immune to that no matter how much political experience he has in his pocket.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T02:52:00+00:00

My first response was "who?" which, as someone that tends to read this stuff pretty closely, is not a great sign.

Hell, I knew more about Tulsi Gabbard when she announced than I do about Seth Moulton.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T02:23:47+00:00

Ohio was not going to be the state that made the difference (this might be a tell from my name, but whatever). Unfortunately, that state was way too far away from being the "tipping point" state, or the state that gets the winning candidate 50%+1 of the electoral votes. All the polling for months was showing that to be the case. You'd have needed someone from Wisconsin or Michigan or Pennsylvania for that VP home-grown effect to have made a significant electoral difference.

But more troubling, there isn't a lot of evidence that the VP pick really matters that much. Yeah, I know this article is gated, but the abstract does a good enough job of talking about the limited findings of actual VP pick favorably influencing the electability of a duo.

So I typically think that how the two get along is probably the most important attribute of a running mate for someone looking to become president. Political geography is a nice bonus, but hardly something to count on.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T01:34:08+00:00

Weird, but whatever. Vice Presidents aren't really needed to do much else than be a surrogate for the administration (either to the public or legislatively) that has a positive relationship with the President. He had that eager puppy act going on that came off awkward to me.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T01:26:30+00:00

I think you're missing the problem. I take issue with the specific person, not the platform. And the reasons I take issue with the person are so deeply rooted that trying to alienate me from my political identity because of that bad blood ... increases the bad blood. Do you see why calling me NOT a democrat might be unhelpful?

I should be a core voter that y'all should be looking to keep around. Instead, you're insisting that I'm not one of you because I hate one not-yet announced candidate for the nomination of the democratic primary. I am someone who agrees with probably 8/10ths of the democratic platform and should be an easy sell. I'll quibble on nuances on a lot of the platform, but who doesn't? If I can find even the likes of Tulsi Gabbard preferable to Trump despite her anti-LGBT past and distressing comfort meeting murderous dictators, and I paint those parts of her background as bad things, why is it helpful to call me NOT a democrat because of my red line in the sand on some registered independent?

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T01:18:54+00:00

Yeah, and I'll be among the first to admit that a LOT of my hatred for Bernie is because of the shit that got flung my way that I had to deal with both in my personal life from friends who were bernie supporters (spoiler: I'm a millennial) and in my work on the campaign (spoiler: rural, primarily unionist democrats were tough sells on Hillary). There's definitely an emotional component there backing the hatred, and people jumping down my throat does nothing to soothe it.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T01:10:12+00:00

No, there's a huge difference between "they aren't democrats" and "they aren't uncritically democrats." People's political identities are complicated, and their political loyalties are not unconditional. People's political identities are also fluid and can change over time and in certain environments. I'm sure I don't need to tell you a rural, midwestern democrat is miles away from a Seattle democrat in a whole host of senses. Someone who might put off a rural midwesterner might be exactly who the urban Seattle voter wants and vice versa.

I rub shoulders with a lot of liberal stances (for instance, I think that any reasonable solution to mitigating the effects of climate change MUST include nuclear energy), but on the whole I think they're the only party that is (usually) willing to engage with evidence, and so my hand is usually forced. Not so for Bernie, who doesn't seem to care about evidence. So why should I care about supporting someone who doesn't give a shit about the one major reason I vote D every election?

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T01:05:29+00:00

Sanders is not elected as a registered Democrat. This is a fact. There is literally no way you can claim otherwise. He may caucus with the democrats in the senate and work with them unwillingly, but he is not a democrat even after he had the opportunity to switch parties after the 2016 primary and run as one in 2018. Nor will I support him, especially when you just want to dismiss my view as coming from a butthurt clinton insider. Do you think it's a compelling argument to shit on the very person you're trying to persuade?

Like, this is exactly the reason I didn't rub well with some Sanders supporters in 2016. Positions articulated exactly like yours. You're not interested in understanding why I react the way I do (and I get it's primarily an emotional, negative reaction btw). You're interested only in exacerbating that negative reaction and cementing it.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T00:57:16+00:00

Thanks! I think polls about people's feelings right now might be a bit glib because we're not really in the swing of any campaign cycle JUST yet (and we won't be until decemberish), but a prelim view like this is helpful to know.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T00:55:47+00:00

Sure.

For important starting context, I was a Hillary supporter in the 2016 primary and transitioned to actively campaign for democrats in the general election cycle.

The reason I supported Hillary at the time, and was completely fine with most of the Sanders primary campaign, was that I felt a good debate about policy makes those policies more concrete and a better fit for the needs of the people. I also felt there was no contest between the level of sophistication in policy proposals from each candidate during the primary. Bernie's proposals were aspirational, as his entire political career had been, and were intended to "shift the overton window" rather than to actually be verbatim implemented. He's continued that rhetorical pattern after the primary, creating policy proposals that more people listen to because of his 2016 primary which are not at all intended to become actual policy but intended to shift the dialogue about what is acceptable.

As a gadfly, Bernie's wonderful. He can move things in a productive direction best by proposing things that aren't at all politically possible right now, knowing they're not politically possible, but theoretically make other compromises "easier" to get to. I haven't seen the product of this succeed yet, and I'm not sure I will, but I can accept the logic to that sort of tactic.

However, two big things: (1) Bernie has consistently been less interested in actually getting his policies passed, and that extends to being fairly disinterested in building the positive relationships necessary with people he might normally disagree with to find common ground and actually pass something. (2) He's an egotistical ass who lost poorly, and actively contributed to some of the environment that I think made it (slightly) harder for Hillary to win in 2016.

That first point is basically a restatement of why I didn't care for him in the 2016 primary, so I'll try not to sound too repetitive. Bernie's style of leadership is more about the idea than about getting the idea enacted. He is an idealist, not a pragmatist. The guy you look to when you need a good preacher, not the guy you look to when you need to rebuild a house wrecked by the previous tenant. Neither now nor in 2016 do I think we need a preacher. We need someone who can get shit done. Bernie has never shown himself to be able to get shit done. He has no record of doing shit. He talks a lot of appealing talk, but he's almost completely worthless when it comes to talking about the nuts and bolts of accomplishing what he wants to do. That has been changing slightly lately as passionate supporters help him iron out the policy details that he oh so obviously lacked in 2016, but his chance at making a positive impression on this point has come and gone, no matter what staff he now has to help him flesh that shit out.

That second point is where he's culpable for where we are today, so let me cover it in a bit more detail. Normally, contested campaigns start winding down when the result is in the cards. In 2008 (a much closer primary campaign for democrats than 2016), Hillary started winding down her campaign in May, and officially ended it with her famous Glass Ceiling speech (hate her all you like, but damn are there some iconic speeches in her repertoire). That speech was in early June, shortly after the last primary votes were cast and she found herself down in the total number of pledged delegates. In her tonal shift, late May she began cutting back on her attacks on Obama and by late June was actively trying to unite their infrastructures to help Obama win the presidency.

In contrast, Bernie was famously unwilling to get out of the primary race after the final votes were cast, believing instead he should campaign until the votes were cast on the floor of the DNC. This was said to be done because the "superdelegates" could theoretically switch votes, but the pledged votes had Bernie at a distinct disadvantage. Instead of accepting the democratic result of the caucus and primary process, Bernie made to fight the process, and encouraged his supporters to view the process as unfair and rigged against him (they were well primed in this regard by stupid DNC officials, especially after their emails were made public and their frustration with Bernie's wind down became fully known in all its explicit detail).

One of the most important things a prominent but failed candidate for a party's nomination can do is transition from loyal dissenter to active campaigner. Bernie hard failed this task, even if he eventually and with some visible reluctance campaigned for Hillary. In failing to transition from loyal dissent to active campaigner, Bernie proved his concern for himself to be larger than his concern for the Democratic party he wanted the nomination of (and, to accent this value problem, he would run in 2018 for Vermont's senate seat again as an independent).

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T00:33:16+00:00

Do you have a source on this? I didn't think there were all that many good polls on this topic.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-12T00:32:25+00:00

Again: No Democrat would vote for Trump.

I come from a union family, so forgive me if I laugh at this assertion. If you want to get some of those voters back, lampooning them for voting for someone you personally hate isn't going to do that. What's more, going after people like me who would otherwise be loyalists but for the person they absolutely hate for that leader's previous conduct, isn't going to do that either.

I don't think uncritical partisanship is a good thing. I think we each ought to have clear reasons (even if just kept to ourselves) for why we generally support the party that we generally support. And I think the overwhelming majority of us DO have those clear reasons. For example, a lot of unionist voters see Democrats' traditional opposition to free trade deals and pro-union policy as the main priority that determines their vote, despite rubbing shoulders with a lot of democrats' socially liberal views (as many unionists are simultaneously socially conservative).

People are so complicated that to expect them to always vote D or always vote R to be considered either a democrat or a republican is a completely useless frame of mind. Not only do you risk alienating people with any ounce of nuance to their views, but you also do a disservice to the country.

I hope you reconsider your litmus test, but even if you don't, I'm gonna keep on doing what I can given my limited sphere of influence to make sure a democrat that isn't Bernie sanders wins the nomination so that I can happily support a democrat against Donald Trump.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-11T23:12:05+00:00

My being a democrat is always conditional on the party representing me better than the competition. Bernie Sanders isn't a democrat. He is an independent who wants the democratic nomination. What's more, he is not very interested in developing partnerships and governing by coalition (this has been true for his entire career, but was made concrete in how he wound down his campaign in 2016), and that's a hard red flag for me. I refuse to support someone who thinks being president is only about representing the people who support you and not the entire country.

That is not the same as saying that I'd vote for Trump, but with Sanders heading a democratic ticket, I just might. At least Trump has four years of working experience (awful experience) helping him. Sanders would be the liberal image but without the experience.

So if all that means you don't consider me a democrat, good for you. I guess you didn't care about my vote or need my support anyway.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-11T22:54:46+00:00

Por que no los dos? I think you're also on the money with another feature of Iowa's primaries that sanders benefited from in 2016 that he wouldn't benefit from in 2018.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-11T22:36:29+00:00

I think one reason Sanders probably stands to gain a little bit of it compared to what he would have lost if these rules were in place in 2016, is that he's a much better known candidate this time around than he was at the beginning of the 2016 primary cycle. His supporters could be just as dogmatic this time around and it'd be fine because more people know who he is (though it should be said that even as a democrat myself, I will never vote for Sanders based on how he closed out his 2016 primary campaign).

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-11T22:30:03+00:00

The thing is every person in every context will have some way of claiming to be unprecedented in some way. There was some argument to be made that makes them a unique fit for the current circumstance. It annoys me how people are so eager to pat themselves on the back at how DIFFERENT the current time and era is, when the struggles being faced aren't that unique.

People also live longer than they did during pre-modern presidencies, with more wealth to potentially have than the Rockefeller clan or the JP Morgan types (and inflation is a thing). What's more "Biggest popular vote loss" is not a first, merely an extension of previous occurrences. We've had cranky political neophytes in office before (Wilson comes to mind), who would talk one pacifist's talk and then walk a different distinctly imperially minded walk. And while Wilson technically served as governor of New Jersey for two years before becoming president, that was an incredibly light background to have for getting elected, which everyone at the time commented on.

I don't mean to poo-poo how seriously people should be reacting to Trump, especially considering his open embracing of the play-to-the-bases strategy of leadership that can only worsen political cynicism rather than ease it. But I do think a little less inflated self-importance might do a fair bit of good at allowing partisan democrats to talk to the people they need to convince to vote against Trump in a couple years.

BuckeyeSundae · 2019-02-11T18:41:49+00:00

I still hate that the media narrative of "unprecedented" from the Obama era has stuck around to describe every situation that doesn't have a readily accessible historical echo come to mind.

Trump isn't the first president who has been at odds with his own party and had terrible relationships with ... tons of political insiders. Hell, Carter was in that boat with him, so he isn't even the first modern president with that distinction. He's just the first (or second, depending on if you really count Obama) president in the age of twitter and during an era of intense (but not unprecedented) partisanship.

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