Voting

While technically no one wins until the convention in Philly, at this point with the wins on Tuesday, she's past the halfway +1 mark among only pledged delegates, so it's somewhat acceptable that the media calls her the "presumptive" nominee, although she does not have enough delegates to clinch the nomination outright without the superdelegates votes, and she won't, because only DC's 20 delegates are left. However, what the media did on Monday before the primary, anonymously calling superdelegates until they got enough to put her past the halfway +1 mark for both pledged and unpledged, and announcing her the winner based on that was absolute fucking bullshit and irresponsible journalism. The fact that the media used the superdelegates in their counts from the beginning, when their endorsements weren't binding and could be changed at any time, in my opinion, did a lot of harm. People like voting for the winner. When they saw that Hillary had a 400+ lead before any states had even voted, I think it definitely kept people away from backing Bernie, since they figured he had no chance. You don't award state delegates based on a poll before the election, and superdelegates shouldn't have been shown on TV and counted, either. 'Course, when you have a bitch like Debbie Wasserman Shultz running the party, and not even pretending that she's unbiased, you get shit like this.

If I were registered independent, I'd be tempted. I know I'm just one vote, but I don't want the narrative to be that democrats are going too heavily for Trump, because I don't want the DNC to think it's okay to move even further to the right. As it is, they're already practically republicans. And the dems moving right are pushing the republicans further to the right, and then we end up with nutcases like the tea partiers.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about where he stands on that, either, and the green party is a little more left on the issues. But I don't really care very much about this part of anyone's platform. I care about health care, affordable education, income inequality, and campaign finance/election reform the most, and other stuff I'm more flexible about.

Can't reason with stupid. Sometimes I just like the arguing, though.

That was in Massachusetts. I think this lawsuit is focusing on the discrepancies between exit polls and the finalized results. This organization is who is behind the filing, I believe. I doubt anything will come of Bill electioneering that day, though personally I think they should have shoved him in the back of a cop car and drove him out of the damn state.

Related aside: does anyone else think Bill looks just fucking terrible? I wouldn't be surprised to find out he has AIDS or something. Or else Hillary drained his soul. I know presidents tend to age horribly from all the stress, but lately, he just looks really bad.

 

They're equal to thousands of regular voters. A super delegate vote is weighted the same as a national pledged delegate's vote, so if you say there were 3.8 million democratic voters in California (as of this date according to Source, but they are still counting ballots last I heard, so there may be more voters) that are equivalent to 475 pledged delegates, then each delegate is worth 8000 votes if my math is right. So a CA pledged delegate represents 8000 voters, while a super delegate has the same amount of power behind their vote but represents no one but themselves. It should be relatively similar across that states, because states with smaller populations have smaller amounts of delegates. But in the small states, a super delegate vote can more easily overrule the will of the people. If you have a small state with 20 delegates, but with 5 supers, the supers are more easily able to sway the win of the state. Like, let's say Bernie won the state 60-40, so the pledged delegates are split Bernie 12-8, but if all of the supers endorse Hillary, it ends up more like Hillary 13-12. Technically Bernie still won the state, but the points don't add up that way. We saw a lot of that this primary.

No, I think the GOP's system is different. But I bet they're sure wishing they had copied the dems, so they could put a stop to Trump. They're still capable of coming up with rule changes and shit at the convention to push forward their own candidates, though. I think that's what happened to Ron Paul- they pushed through some bullshit about having to win a certain number of states to be considered the nominee, because he was picking up delegates who were switching to him at county and state conventions, but hadn't actually won many states at the first vote. Or so I read somewhere. And since the parties are private parties, I don't think they even have to do primaries. Both sides could probably just say "fuck these elections" and put forward whoever they wanted.

Perhaps it's just the more vocal members who are off.

I think it's probably rampant on both the GOP and Dem sides, but perpetrators have probably gotten good at keeping the elections close, so you can't tell quite as much, plus whenever someone speaks up with suspicions, people are quick to call them out as conspiracy theorists. And I think people just don't care about elections. I think people probably figure on them being corrupt in some way or another, just like we all assume a politician will lie to us, and don't feel like there's anything we can do about it, so we just let them keep on with it.

Ugh. I don't even want to think about that yet.

Well, I think Bernie has made some comments about not approving of the use of violence at protests, but I don't know how specific they were. How I feel about the protests: I think people are stupid to go to a place where they're not wanted and cause trouble. I understand that people have the right to protest, but I don't think they should be shocked when they piss Trump fans off at a rally they're excited to be attending and end up getting punched. And if the protestors start the punching, that's even more disgusting. I'm so cynical these days that I half expect these protestors to be hired hands designed to make people like Bernie supporters look bad, but even if that's not the case, I don't think it would hurt for Bernie (or Hillary) to make a statement saying directly that he disapproves of such behavior and that he doesn't want his supporters to behave in that way the next time it comes up, if he hasn't yet. But it's not really something I care about. Like, I don't think less of him for not speaking up about it.

 

Here's a Bernie video I found from June 4 addressing this issue:
Link

I don't think the average citizen does. I'm still half expecting the republicans to try it at their convention, even though Trump actually has the delegates to clinch the nomination already. They'll piss off a lot of voters, but I don't think either party establishment gives a damn about the voters anyway, so I could see them trying to push someone else forward to replace Trump.

I agree. But what's even more ridiculous is that some of them are lobbyists, and some are pretty loosely tied to the democratic party. I understand the idea of giving party leaders- governors, senators, people who have worked to promote the party- the honor, even though as a whole I think the institution is undemocratic, but some of these people are clearly only there because of who they're friends with, or how much money they can get their hands on. The DNC is a mess.

 

I think it should be the people's choice, even if the people are morons. But I'd be happy if the GOP gave the nomination to someone else, if it pushed Trump to run independent. I'd still like to see that Bernie/Hillary/Trump/GOP Candidate four-way race. Bernie has said in the past that he wouldn't want to hand the election to the republicans by splitting the democratic vote, but if the republicans were splitting their votes too, maybe he'd consider it. I think a race like that would draw a lot of interest and, dare I hope, get people off their asses and into the voting booths.

He may have addressed it before now, I don't know, but you'd think any candidate would want to distance themselves and their supporters from that sort of behavior.

 

No. He has not conceded! Hillary does NOT have enough delegates to win outright until the convention in Philly, July 25. Super delegates must decide the race.

I don't think he's thinking about winning now, but I do think he wants to try and influence the platform as much as possible. Personally, I wish he'd go to the convention and give Hillary and the DNC a big fuck you for all their shittiness, although I know that will never happen. I love Bernie, but he seems to be stuck in the same shitty lesser of two evils mindset that people really need to break away from.

What I am hoping for: The RNC dumps Trump at their convention. Whether Trump runs independent or not, I don't care. But all Hillary has going for her is "We have to stop Trump." She's running on a fear platform against him, rather than on the issues or any of her merits (probably because her stance on the issues is whatever her bankrollers tell her it is, and she has no merits), and I would laugh so fucking hard to see her fall on her face because she has nothing to campaign with once he's gone. She's been courting republicans who dislike Trump and catering to the right instead of embracing Bernie supporters and working with the left like a democrat should be doing, and I would get so much satisfaction from seeing those republicans drop her for an establishment republican-type. Since she's pissed off so many Bernie supporters, with her own and her surrogates' negative attitudes ("Bernie Bros", "Special place in hell for women who don't support women", "Girls are just supporting Bernie because that's where the boys are", "Bernie supporters need to do their research", etc, etc), not to mention her record which a lot of people don't like much, and the Bernie-or-Bust group that is hopefully bigger and more stubborn than people expect, she'll be so screwed.

At this point, I don't give much of a shit who is president as long as it isn't Hillary, who can't be trusted with security clearance, or a religious fanatic like Cruz.

 

The Dem convention is a fucking joke. I watched the first night and part of the second, but after the roll call vote, I gave up. I'm proud of my fellow Berners who said "fuck this shit" and walked out. The speakers were full of shit and the speeches were just constant pandering and identity politics. And "Trump", constantly- I think they said his name more than Hillary's (maybe because people kept booing when her name came up?). I am so tired of the fear mongering. Trump sucks, but at least he isn't a corrupt, incompetent ("extremely careless" according to the FBI), cheating sack of shit like Hillary and the rest of her cronies in the DNC. Wish WikiLeaks would release some new dirt on them already. There's more house cleaning that needs to be done in the dem party.

The DNC made a huge fucking mistake backing Hillary instead of Bernie, and I can't wait to see their election rigging and favoritism blow up in their faces even more than it already is. It's a sad day when you're polling worse than Trump, even during your own convention.

I didn't watch the Republican convention, but from what people have said, it seems like it was more democratic than the Dem one. It's pretty fucking sad when Trump will allow Cruz to speak and not endorse him, whereas Hillary (or her people), actually booted speakers because they refused to bend the knee to her (see: Nina Turner, or Bernie's endorsement before the convention (after apparently being told Hillary's people would vote down everything he got into the platform if he didn't, and would refuse to let him speak otherwise)). Shameful behavior.

I like some of the things that made it into the dem platform, but I don't trust Hillary to do any of it, unless her corporate backers give her the okay. Just pointless words.

Anyhow, there's no way I'm voting for either of these scumbags. Jill Stein and Gary Johnson ftw.

 

This was the stupidest fucking thing for people to be up in arms about; I swear Americans (or American "journalists" pandering to the lowest of the low) are dumb as hell. For people to even complain about this, when all these speeches are written by someone else anyhow, and when there were so much more important things the media should have been focusing on like, I dunno, the DNC's blatant rigging of the primary against Sanders, is absurd. I've never been more ashamed of our media than I am since this election cycle starting. Journalists actually used to investigate corruption, dig deep to find and corroborate stories. Now apparently they just take their marching orders from their corporate owners.

I forgot about that. I don't think there would have been a chance to unseat Trump whether the roll call went through or not. Trump had way more delegates than any of the rest of the candidates. Even if they all pooled them together, I'm not sure if they would have beaten Trump. I don't think enough Trump delegates, if any, would have switched to someone else. But, for the hell of it, they probably should have just done the roll call. That's kind of why delegates were there- to vote. Sanders supporters would have totally lost their shit if the DNC cut out the roll call.

I can't stand Ted Cruz, both his policies and the persona he presents to the public, but I admire him for sticking to his convictions and not endorsing someone who he felt was unqualified just because the party bigwigs wanted him to. I wish Bernie had taken the same path. I think it's unfair to hold someone to something they agreed to after the situation changes. For Cruz, hell, Trump called his father a killer and insulted his wife, did he not? Why would any reasonable person heap praises on the person who said those things?

I'm hoping we see a record number of people voting third party, since so many people find the major party nominees so distasteful. If we can get at least one of them up on the debate stage, I think we could see them getting even more votes. People just need to realize that it is an option.

I think Trump said later he was being sarcastic, or something? In any case, this whole Russia thing is a crock of shit. Is this the '50s? The red scaring is ridiculous. Plus, the idiot media are focusing on the hacking, and completely ignoring all of the corruption the hacking uncovered. Russia didn't make DNC officials email each other a plan to ask Sanders about his religion to try and turn voters against him before the Bible thumpers in West Virginia and KY voted. Russians didn't make the DNC collude with the media to run negative stories about Sanders, or pull negative ones about Hillary. And so on. This is just smoke and mirrors to turn our attention away from the real problems. Also, I love how they're pointing the finger at Russia for hacking the DNC servers, but when Hillary's defenseless server was under fire, it was all "Oh, the Russians couldn't have gotten into that."

I don't have any doubt that foreign govt.s try to get intel on us in various ways, just like I'm sure our govt is doing to them. I doubt the DNC servers were a high priority, though.

I just got home, so I haven't had time to catch up on the latest from the Dem convention, but I'm hoping like hell that when Hillary takes/took the stage that she gets/got booed like crazy. Please tell me this happened.