huckelberry wrote:Sorry, I was just in a grump because I thought the debate was turning into a train wreck so I stopped watching. If it improves someone could let us know.
No. It's a frickin food fight. We need to change the way these debates are handled. No question about it.
ETA: I just popped on here while they were on break to let off some steam. The candidates don't have enough time to speak, not enough time for rebuttal, they're constantly being cut off by the moderators or each other. They're forced to behave like toddlers all tugging on mom and dad's clothing for attention. We should be embarrassed by the way this is being handled.
The moderators are the primary problem. Almost every question was a “gotcha” question. The moderators are so busy trying to look tough on the candidates that the candidates have little time to talk about what they would do as president. Which is what I, as a voter, want to know. My ballot arrives tomorrow, I think. I’m not sure how much tonight helped me out.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Res Ipsa wrote:The moderators are the primary problem. Almost every question was a “gotcha” question. The moderators are so busy trying to look tough on the candidates that the candidates have little time to talk about what they would do as president. Which is what I, as a voter, want to know. My ballot arrives tomorrow, I think. I’m not sure how much tonight helped me out.
Exactly so. How am I supposed to know where they stand when they were consistently and repeatedly cut off mid-sentence either by each other or moderators? This was a free for all because it had to be under those conditions. I don't blame the candidates for the way they behaved, they had to shout each other down simply to be heard.
I missed the beginning so I'll have to watch replays tomorrow when they go up online.
Failure is not falling down but refusing to get up.
Chinese Proverb
Dr Exiled wrote:The corporate funded Democrat Party doesn't want Bernie and if they can create confusion in the caucus states while having the former Repo Bloomberg buy enough votes, pay off enough people, the superdelegates will come into play and deny Bernie the nomination, again. If it works, and it looks like it could, expect Bloomberg to return to his billionaire conservativism, assuming he is the nominee, and we will have one of the lowest turnout elections in history. Bernie could win as a third party candidate in the above scenario, but would probably be denied ballot access precisely because he could win.
Gawd save us from the insufferable whining of the Bernie Bros. If there’s a candidate that there establishment is out to defeat, it’s Warren. The press is ignoring her. The latest head to heads included Amy instead of Liz, even though Amy trails Liz in the polls.
So your guy didn’t fare as well as you’d hoped in a caucus. For years ago, you guys were all about caucuses because a good ground organization can game them. My wife came back from our caucus for years ago livid at how the Berners had treated those who favored Clinton. Now you’re finally discovering how undemocratic caucuses really are. I’m so glad we finally scrapped ours in Washington.
Your guy is killing it in the polls right now. But everything’s a conspiracy against Bernie.
That won’t stop me from voting for him. But it doesn’t endear me to his devotees.
He got screwed in 2016 and the same thing could happen this election. Why the Democrats still insist on 2nd ballot superdelegates in a supposed democracy is beyond reason unless one sees what's going on with the donors and what they want or what they want to prevent.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
Dr Exiled wrote:He got screwed in 2016 and the same thing could happen this election. Why the Democrats still insist on 2nd ballot superdelegates in a supposed democracy is beyond reason unless one sees what's going on with the donors and what they want or what they want to prevent.
It's so the Democratic party leaders can have a say in who the Democratic party chooses as a nominee to run on the Democratic party ticket. Our democracy worked much better when party elites had more say than they do now over this process.
It’s hilarious to argue that Bernie lost the primary because conspiracy but the Russians had nothing to do with Hillary losing in the general. Bernie lost because he failed to get enough votes in the South. He was dead in the water after Super Tuesday, which anyone who could do math figured out. But the Berners blamed everyone except Sanders.
What you guys have never understood is that the people who are the superdelegates would otherwise be a large percentage of the elected delegates. By creating the superdelegates as a separate category for elected and party officials, delegate spots are opened up for others. If you eliminate the supers, then the percentage of insiders who take delegate spots will rise.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Where is the proof of the Russia conspiracy? Sour grapes. Interview Assange already and see what his proof is. He claims he didn't get the clinton emails from a state actor but what does that matter, right? The silly narrative must be preserved, even if it helps Trump.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
Jersey Girl wrote:They're forced to behave like toddlers all tugging on mom and dad's clothing for attention. We should be embarrassed by the way this is being handled.
But isn't it highly entertaining?
"Finally, for your rather strange idea that miracles are somehow linked to the amount of gay sexual gratification that is taking place would require that primitive Christianity was launched by gay sex, would it not?"
Res Ipsa wrote:It’s hilarious to argue that Bernie lost the primary because conspiracy but the Russians had nothing to do with Hillary losing in the general. Bernie lost because he failed to get enough votes in the South. He was dead in the water after Super Tuesday, which anyone who could do math figured out. But the Berners blamed everyone except Sanders.
What you guys have never understood is that the people who are the superdelegates would otherwise be a large percentage of the elected delegates. By creating the superdelegates as a separate category for elected and party officials, delegate spots are opened up for others. If you eliminate the supers, then the percentage of insiders who take delegate spots will rise.
Are you serious that we need representatives of the voters who decide who the representatives should be? How about representatives of the representatives of the representatives? As long as the rich donors are satisfied I guess it all works out fine.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
Dr Exiled wrote: Are you serious that we need representatives of the voters who decide who the representatives should be? How about representatives of the representatives of the representatives? As long as the rich donors are satisfied I guess it all works out fine.
Parties serve a lot of important mediating functions in a representative democracy that are undermined in a direct election of candidates without the influence of party mechanisms.
It's a moot point in this case because the superdelegates aren't going to overturn a popular vote outcome unless it is razor's edge close enough to be arguable, but I'll tell you that it would be better if party elites had more power over who the eventual nominee was. If they did, Donald J. Trump sure as hell wouldn't be President right now.
Bernie lost in 2016 because a lot more people who vote in Democratic primaries preferred Hillary Clinton. For a two person race, it was a landslide. It wasn't a close election, and invoking the specter of Superdelegates is just a red herring.
EAllusion wrote: Bernie lost in 2016 because a lot more people who vote in Democratic primaries preferred Hillary Clinton. For a two person race, it was a landslide. It wasn't a close election, and invoking the specter of Superdelegates is just a red herring.
It's even worse than that, come to think of it, because the candidate who tried to appeal to the Superdelegates to overturn the result of the delegate pool allocated by elections was Bernie Sanders. His bid failed, but if you want the candidate who will respect the popular election process, Sanders ain't it, my man.