Sunday Funnies

Bernie Sanders for President

I'm all in.

In some senses, Sanders is the unlikeliest of prospects: an independent who caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate but has never joined the party, a democratic socialist in a country where many politicians fear the label “liberal,” an outspoken critic of the economic, environmental and social status quo who rips “the ruling class” and calls out the Koch brothers by name. Yet, he has served as the mayor of his state’s largest city, beaten a Republican incumbent for the US House, won and held a historically Republican Senate seat and served longer as an independent member of Congress than anyone else. And he says his political instincts tell him America is ready for a “political revolution.”

In his first extended conversation about presidential politics, Sanders discussed with The Nation the economic and environmental concerns that have led him to consider a 2016 run; the difficult question of whether to run as a Democrat or an independent; his frustration with the narrow messaging of prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton; and his sense that political and media elites are missing the signs that America is headed toward a critical juncture where electoral expectations could be exploded.

Keep reading that piece or watch this interview with Bill Moyers.



I don't care which party he runs in -- Dem, Green, or as an indy -- he's got everything I can give him in terms of money, time, shoe leather, and unlimited cell phone minutes. As for where he shows up on the ballot, these tea leaves suggest that, while still undecided, he's leaning blue.

If and when you do start a full-fledged campaign, and if you want to run against conventional politics, how far do you go? Do you go to the point of running as an independent? That’s a great challenge to conventional politics, but it is also one where we have seen some honorable, some capable people stumble.

That’s an excellent question, and I haven’t reached a conclusion on that yet. Clearly, there are things to be said on both sides of that important question. Number one: there is today more and more alienation from the Republican and Democratic parties than we have seen in the modern history of this country. In fact, most people now consider themselves to be “independent,” whatever that may mean. And the number of people who identify as Democrats or Republicans is at a historically low point. In that sense, running outside the two-party system can be a positive politically.

On the other hand, given the nature of the political system, given the nature of media in America, it would be much more difficult to get adequate coverage from the mainstream media running outside of the two-party system. It would certainly be very hard if not impossible to get into debates. It would require building an entire political infrastructure outside of the two-party system: to get on the ballot, to do all the things that would be required for a serious campaign.

The question that you asked is extremely important, it requires a whole lot of discussion. It’s one that I have not answered yet.

Hand to heart, I'd like to see him run as a Green.  That's where he fits best, and he could really help build the GPUS into the kind of player it is in Western Europe (particularly Germany).  A thriving democracy needs more options, but it just won't happen until we get the money out of our system, and there is simply too much entrenched opposition -- from the media, consultants, and even the electeds who profit from it -- for that to happen in my lifetime.  In a craft beer world, it's a shame that Americans only have Bud and Bud Lite from which to choose politically.

But if Sanders ran as a Democrat, he would disrupt the stale conventional wisdom and quake the so-called liberal party to its foundation.  And that also needs to badly happen.

Let's be clear: after yet another long, loud, somewhat divisive Democratic presidential primary season in 2016 -- as in 2008 -- Hillary Clinton would emerge as the nominee.  Not wounded either, but battle-hardened.  And Sanders will have accomplished as much of his task as is possible: pulling the establishment away from the right and back to the left.  And perhaps a few other beneficial things as well.

Good thing, because we're in for a couple of miserable years, as I take reckoning today.  Greg Abbott is more likely than not to be the next governor of the Great State, with Dan Patrick running the state Senate as lieutenant governor.  The Texas Legislature will be 2/3 majority in both houses, which gives the worst conservatives in the country carte blanche to do whatever they like.  The United States Senate stands a better than 50% chance of flipping red after November 2014, leaving Barack Obama without a working phone but with a pen he will have to use to veto every bill he gets from Congress.

We ain't had no gridlock until you see what that looks like, folks.  No SCOTUS justices confirmed (to say nothing of appellate courts and Cabinet nominees), debt ceilings fail to get raised... just your basic governmental apocalypse, that's all.  Thanks, Tea Party!

But in 2016, another Democrat will get elected to the White House and the US Senate will flip back to blue.  Hell, the moderate Republicans may have even iced Ted Cruz by that time, after he loses to Hillary in an electoral landslide.  He returns to being a loud-mouthed backbencher in the upper chamber, though, so not exactly the most fortuitous outcome.  You can't have everything.

Bernie Sanders running for president shakes up the Etch-A-Sketch a little.  Not enough, but it's as close to a revolution as America is capable of.

A couple of post mortem thoughts

-- Wendy Davis' perceived weakness in South Texas (it's only perceived by those who use the hashtag #tcot and read Breitbart) isn't.

As for South Texas,  there’s no contest. In the big three South Texas counties – Cameron, Hidalgo and Webb – Davis got 35,954 votes to Abbott’s 8,853. Or more than four times as many votes as the Republican attorney general. As we reported today, both candidates are already in general election mode, already making a pitch for Hispanic voters and suburban women – two important voter groups. There were few contested statewide races on the Democratic side Tuesday, but several on the GOP side to motivate Republican votes to go the polls Tuesday. Still, results in seven top South Texas counties in Tuesday’s primary finds that Davis got nearly five times more votes than Abbott.

-- Turnout was lame, but turnout is always lame in non-presidential primaries.  BGTX is playing a long game, and it's working.  More in similar vein from Ed Sills at QR.

Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal got 20.94 percent of the vote. Also, they suggest an “excitement deficit” for Democrats, as Davis got only 432,000 votes, compared to 517,487 for gubernatorial candidate Bill White in the 2010 Democratic primary.

Turnout was light, in part because of bad weather, a lost day of early voting on Presidents Day and voter procrastination. But in larger part, turnout was light because the statewide Democratic matchups were so low on the marquee that they had to be squeezed in with tweezers. Republicans were on TV, it seemed, more than erectile dysfunction ads. Even Democrats’ attention was distracted in the fashion of spectators witnessing a car wreck.

The Democratic Party in Texas still has a mountain to climb, but neither the primary numbers nor the expectations game adds much insight in reading the November crystal ball.

Sills provides more rationale behind the paywall, but I'll leave it at this.

For Democrats looking for any evidence of “excitement,” there is this nugget: Davis’s vote total of 432,000 was just 19,000 short of the vote total for Leticia Van de Putte, who received the nomination for Lieutenant Governor with no opposition. Nearly 100,000 Democrats appear to have stopped voting after the governor’s race. Even the U.S. Senate race, above Davis on the ballot, had 40,000 fewer votes. 

In March, the Davis machine turned them out for her.  In November, they had best be turning them out for everybody on the ticket.

-- Kuff joins the chorus of critics of the Texas Tribune's pre-election poll.  He came in behind RG Ratcliffe, posting again at James Moore's Don't Grow Texas.  Bashing the TexTrib has gotten awfully popular lately, and it's approaching pile-on status.  So... since I led the way on this criticism almost five years ago, I'm going to take the initiative and back off them a little.

Yes, they did get a couple of things correct.

In their defense, they hit the fairway on several races, as well. They hit the Abbott win for governor down to the percentage, and came only a few points of hitting Cornyn-Stockman on the screws (they had it 62-16). They had a bit of a miss on the Davis primary win, forecasting a much bigger win over Ray Madrigal. But blowouts are tough to hit on the percentage to begin with, and the outsized polling margin might've hinted at an undercount of Latino voters, which was Madrigal's best demographic last night.

[...]

So, what happened? Two things can be cited as causes for the errant numbers. Neither of those factors necessarily acquit UT entirely, but do offer valuable context.

First off, the poll is actually a little bit older than one might think. It was released early last week, but it was already a week old when it was released: It was in the field from Feb. 7-17. This means that the respondents missed the late campaign efforts of the candidates, which certainly played a role in the Democratic Senate primary (where Alameel did run ads late) and may have done so in the other downballot affairs, as well.

Second, turnout sucked. Both the Republican and Democratic primaries saw turnout that, at last check, was 150,000 voters fewer than came to the polls in 2010.

As for the other pollsters being held to account: The short answer is that there weren't many others to assess. Perhaps due to the genuine lack of competitive races of interest (with due respect to Alameel or Rogers, the Democratic Senate primary is all but assumed to be a battle for who will lose by 20+ to John Cornyn in November), only two other primary polls were released. One, a December poll by a GOP pollster interested in the Senate race, was too early to "judge," but was pretty close to correct, anyway (they had Cornyn leading Stockman 50-6). The other, a Gravis poll from last month, was an air ball. They had Stockman at 28 percent, and they had Cornyn well under the runoff threshold (43 percent). Not. Even. Close.

There was no other polling conducted except the two dubious ones mentioned above, and neither of them fared any better.  Let's put the blame for that squarely on the corporate media in Texas -- the newspapers, the broadcast outlets -- which have completely relinquished this responsibility.  They are content to rake in the assloads of campaign cash spent on advertising, but not deliver any news on the races in exchange for the windfall.  Hearst, with its slew of papers large and small across Texas, and Belo, all but a monopoly in the Dallas market, are due for significant shaming in this regard.

So yes, the TexTrib should be conducting better polling.  But the media giants that used to do it, even in conjunction with one another to share the cost, have abandoned it altogether.  That's the real disgrace.

Update: Now if you want to see another bullshit poll, look at this one.  And Kuff also has some advice for the TT on how to improve their polling.